Honey Grove, Texas, United States
July 18th | 6:42 PM | 29 degrees

Joey stood off to the side of the gathered crowd as Darren’s voice began to ramp up. 

The speech had started like all the others, with heavy emphasis on survival and working together to keep the lights on. But halfway through, the tone had shifted. Subtly at first, a comment here calling the people at the school greedy, another about the mayor’s total lack of morality. But it had an effect Joey could immediately feel around him. Something beyond anger rose up in the cavernous room, an air of hatred so strong Joey could feel it pressing against him like a rising change in air pressure.

He didn’t feel the same vitriol in his veins, at least not entirely. He had lived among the people at the school and gotten to know some of them, overheard their conversations and concerns, and he understood that they were just regular people. Most of them wanted nothing more than a warm place to sleep and the company of others. That didn’t make them greedy, it just made them human.

Howell, on the other hand, that was a different story. 

When Darren told him what had really happened, Joey hadn’t believed it. It was so illogical, so counter to everything Joey had come to know about Honey Grove’s mayor over the last few days, but the evidence was all there. A dozen people at the Valero had watched the van approach from the direction of the school, had seen the tangle of wires running from an explosive device to a button in the driver’s hand. They shot the driver out of self-preservation, not bloodthirsty anarchy as Howell had speculated. The worst of it all was Darren had told them of Howell’s shady political nature long before the explosion, of his desire for power and control, but Joey hadn’t believed him. He’d known Howell for less than a week and that had been almost enough for him to consider staying at the school for good. It was no wonder everyone here seemed suspicious of him.

Now, though, Joey understood where he belonged.

Darren was the one who went looking for him after the sky went dark, who brought him back to the warehouse and fed him and gave him somewhere warm to sleep, who always told the others to stop picking on him for his physical inadequacies and shy personality. Howell, on the other hand, had put him to work as soon as he showed up at the school without so much as a thank you. He had used him. 

It was hard to know the kind of man Howell truly was–he made his living as a politician, after all–but Joey now recognized the mayor’s manipulative theatrics from when the explosion happened, the mock surprise painted on his face, the immediate suggestion that Darren had shot some traveler from the interstate with no evidence to back it up. It had all been a trick, a way for Howell to plant the idea in his peoples’ minds that Darren was unpredictable, lawless, as well as hide the fact that he was the one pulling all the strings. 

Looking back it was all so obvious, but Joey had been gullible, fooled by a cheap smile and a few hopeful speeches. He’d always thought that a great leader spoke professionally and treated others with compassion, the way Howell did, but he hadn’t seriously considered how that air of kindness might be no more than a mask. But he knew that now. And he also knew Howell was far from a great leader. There could be no greatness in damning an entire group of people to freeze to death just because their leader posed a political threat. Howell wasn’t great. He was a monster.

“It’s not enough to be ready,” Darren continued, looking out over the railing. “Staying put and watching the road won’t help us when our generators run out in a few days. And now that Howell’s started arming up his people, we can’t afford to be stranded in the dark when they come for us. No. We have to strike first. We have to take their fuel just like they took ours and make it so they’re the ones left cold and in the dark, not us. You’ve all spent the last two days preparing for this moment, some of you have spent your whole lives. We’ve got enough guns here to steamroll a small country, enough vehicles to surround that gas station and stop anyone from getting through, and enough manpower to send each and every one of those bastards running back to their schoolhouse with their tails tucked between their legs!”

Shouts rose up in the room. Darren waited a few moments, nodding to the crowd as the sound crescendoed, then he silenced them with a hand.

“But we have to act fast, before they have the chance to get ready. Joey says they’re working on defenses at the gas station as we speak. That means the longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to push them out and get what we need.” He let the silence grow for a few seconds, everyone below him jittery with excitement as they awaited his next words. “That’s why now is the time to strike. Right now.”

The room stilled at this, but as Joey looked around he saw that the people around him seemed to have grown taller at what the words signified, their backs straight and chests puffed out like soldiers learning they’d been deployed to a war zone. It wasn’t fear, he noted, nor was it unwillingness to go through with what they’d been cheering for. It was confidence. Purpose. The knowledge that something monumental was about to happen and they would be the driving force behind it. 

“Snow’s starting to fall and the wind’s getting worse by the minute,” Darren said, his voice soft but still carrying easily through the large room. “No one in their right mind would go out in weather like this. Which is exactly why they’ll never see us coming.” He slammed his hands against the railing and raised his voice. “And why every drop of gas will be ours before Howell even knows what hit him!”

Now the people shouted. Their voices blurred into a battlecry so loud Joey had to fight the urge to cover his ears.

“Make him pay! Make him pay! Make him pay!” The chant took hold of the room and dissolved the wordless yelling into that one repeating message that spurred everyone into motion. Men moved for their guns, grabbed handfuls of ammunition, started for the doors. The battle was on and everyone was ready to play their part in securing a victory.

Everyone but Joey.

It wasn’t because he thought Howell deserved forgiveness for what he’d done. It wasn’t fear for his own safety, either. He’d been inside the school and had seen what few weapons they had. Howell wouldn’t stand a chance against Darren if it came to a conflict. Joey’s hesitancy to take up arms came more from uncertainty at the whole situation, which felt more and more like a bomb waiting to go off. What happened once they made it to the gas station? Maybe Howell’s people would see they were outnumbered and surrender, but what if they didn’t? They believed Howell, so if anything Darren’s attack on the Mobil would reinforce the idea that they were on the right side. Surrender would be out of the question simply because they’d never think Darren would accept it. Then it would turn into a bloodbath.

This was the part of the fantasy Joey’s imagination ground to a halt at. Everything else felt mostly justified, taking Howell’s fuel in response to the losing their own at the Valero, but the second he started narrowing in on the finer details that justification began to blur. Howell was the problem, not the hundreds of innocent people calling the school their home. Without fuel, they would be the ones freezing to death, not just Howell. Maybe there was a way to get him out of the picture without hurting anyone else, or sending all the people somewhere they would be safe. But how would that work? And how could Joey hope to convince Darren to consider a different plan now that people were marching out of the warehouse?

“This is for you.” Darren said. He approached Joey holding a pistol by the barrel, its grip extended toward him. “It’s not a rifle, but I figured you wouldn’t want one of those anyway.” He motioned for Joey to take it. “Don’t worry, it’s not got much kick. And it’s easy to use. Just point and shoot.”

Joey took the pistol and stood there awkwardly holding it, not sure what to do with it.

“I want you in the back,” Darren continued, “away from the frontline. That way if–God forbid–things go south you’ll be safe.” He paused, noticing the worry that crossed Joey’s face. “It’ll be fine. We aren’t going to start shooting people. This is just to scare them off, to show them we won’t let them walk over us. They need to know we can and will defend ourselves if need be.”

Joey looked uncertainly at the gun. His gun.

“Unless you’d rather stay here,” Darren said, a hint of disappointment dulling his tone. “A few of the younger kids are staying behind, too, so if you’d rather–“

“No,” Joey said. “I’ll go.”

Darren smiled. “Alright. You know how to work the safety?”

Joey flipped the little switch on the side of the gun to show that he did, then flipped it back in place.

“Good. You’ve got fifteen shots with that, but only if you need them. All you have to do is keep pulling the trigger, OK? Like in a game.”

“Like a game.” Joey said, looking down at the gun in his hands. Video games always made them seem so light, but the real thing had so much more weight than a controller.

Darren adjusted the black rifle slung over his shoulder and started for the door, turning to look when Joey didn’t follow.

“I–” Joey thought about suggesting they reconsider the plan, that they all sit down at a table and try to think up better ways to get a steady flow of gas to the warehouse, ways that didn’t involve holding people at gunpoint. A thousand voices screamed at him to find another way. This felt wrong. It felt too big, too confrontational. There was no way that sending so many people armed with so many guns toward the Mobil could end in anything but bloodshed. Either way things went people would die, if not by bullets then by the cold. There had to be a better way.

A truck engine started outside, followed by another, then another.

Darren glanced at the door and then back at Joey. “Time to go. You coming or not?”

There was no other way. The time for strategy was over. Even if the perfect solution presented itself right then and there, the wheels were already in motion and Joey knew there weren’t any words that could change the minds of the people piled into their vehicles outside. They had been wronged by Howell–Joey had been wronged–and the collective desire for justice was far too strong for them to come back inside now. The plan had been made and nothing would stop it. If he went against it now, not even Darren would be able to stop the others from kicking him out into the cold.

Joey put the handgun in his jacket pocket and nodded. “OK. Let’s go.”