Blast the Alarm

Vic rose with the sun. The first thing he had done when he woke up was walk over to the window and look outside. It already had the making for a beautiful day. Vic grimaces and shuts the curtains. The last thing he needed to do was be tempted to go outside. If anything he was going to follow what the insane man had said. Something about him . . . It just made Vic sure that he knew what to do. Vic moves to turn on the TV, it was already on some news station with a doe eyed newsanchor who talked like she had never read of a teleprompter in her life.

"L-last night an explosion in Great Falls rattled the state of Montana." The screen changes to film of the rubble and destruction left behind. Vic sees a man in the corner of the screen, but it quickly flashes to some interview with a woman with a blanket draped over her shoulders and. "Our filed - I mean field, sorry - reporter Jocelyn King traveled to Great Fall where she met Caty Jones, a woman who lost her house in the explosion. To you Joce."

"Thanks Angela," Jocelyn says, a finger pressed to the mic in her ear. "I'm here with Caty Jones. I understand you were working in the building of the explosion at the time of the event. Can you tell us anything about that?"

The woman hugs the blanket tighter to herd figure and shuffles her feet slightly. A look of contemplation fell on her face, as though she was unsure if she should share the information with her. "It sort of just happened," Caty decides, her look of contemplation quickly turning to one of nerves. "It was smoking, then bang." Her eyes fall to the ground and she shifts awkwardly. "I don't know how . . ." The screen cuts back to the at-desk anchor, Angela.

"The cause of the explosion is still unknown. Similar events have also been reported in all of the lower forty-eight and parts of Canada. Evacuation has been set in all effected area, and all those displaced are expected to be able to return to their homes sometime late today or tomorrow. Authorities also went on to say that is completely safe for the public to leave their homes." They go on to talk about another story, but Vic has zoned out by the point. He found himself thinking about the woman, Caty. She looked like she had something to hide. He wondered if she had been working at a government office . . .

"That's some freaky shit," Mike suddenly comments, causing Vic to practicially jump out of his skin. "When do you think we can head out brother dearest?"

"We need to give it some time. I honestly don't even think that we should even go outside right now," Vic answers, running his fingers through his long hair nervously.

"They just said it was fine though," Jaime pipes up. How long had they all been awake?

"I know, but their was this guy on TV last night, just ask Jeremy and Neil, and he was all panicked and talking about how everyone should stay inside." Vic shrugs and looks toward the ground. It was kind of embarrassing that he believed some insane guy who must have just hacked the TV line before he believed experts. Something just seemed right about believing that guy though.

"Who knows he wasn't some insane guy that was trying to poison everyone who stayed inside?" Mike interrogates with a raised brow.

"You would have had to seen him," Vic responds. "It was just something about the way he carried himself, it was hard not to trust him."

"What are we gonna eat then?" Tony joins in, his voice croaky and tired.

"There's a grocery store across the street . . ." Jaime says, suggestion ringing in his voice. He, however, doesn't continue to elaborate on the thought.

Vic sighs. He knew he had to take care of them. It was his unspoken responsibility as the oldest of the group. "Okay, I'll run across and grab us some stuff. Shit, just . . . Does one of you have a bandana I can use?"

Jaime nods and moves to rummage through his suitcase. "You aren't planning on robbing anyone, are you Vic?" Jaime jokes, earning a laugh from everyone.

"Nah, just a safety concern." Vic smiles at the group before going to his bag and grabbing his wellet. he had nearly eighty dollars in cash on him, that should be more than enough to buy some food for the evening. He jams his wallet in his pocket and waves a bye to his band before making the trek down the hall to ask the other bands if they wanted anything. Jeremy was still up and had met Vic at the door of his and Neil's room. He gave Vic some money and told him to grab some stuff for his band. He was boviously tired and Vic told him to get some sleep before going on to see what ATL needed. They also gave him some money and simply to him to grab "whatever."

Vic ties the bandana around his face and stands put at the door for a long while. He breathes in and out then pushes the door open and hurries across the street without taking in a breath of the chilly air. He opens the door of the store and waits until the door closes before he finally dares to exhale. The store is relatively quiet with the exception of a man who he assumes to be a butcher or something of the sort talking to a gal who was working the register. Vic pulls down the bandana and walks down the isle directly ahead of him. It looked like meat, and some other things. The people at the counter wave at him casually, he waves back.

Vic scopes the isle out, finding that it was the meats and breads section of the store. Vic bites his lip, he wasn't exactly sure what to get. Maybe he should grab a cart first. After all, he was shopping for twelve people. Vic finds the carts on the other side of the store easily. He pulls one from the line and goes back to his exploration of the store. Vic finds several varieties of canned fruits are on sale, and picks out at least forty cans, seeing as they were dirt cheap and would only cost him about fifteen dollars in total for the set. Vic continues to pick up a variety of other relatively non-perishable foods along with doughnuts for breakfast. He also picked up several gallons of water and those surgical mask things that people working with cleaning chemicals wore all the time.

"I haven't seen you around before," the girl working the counter said. She looked like she was no older than fifteen or sixteen. Vic wondered briefly why she wasn't in school right now, though it quickly faded realizing that school probably wasn't in session today. "What's your name?"

"Vic, yours?" They make idle small talk as she checks him out.

"Would you like some help taking that to your car?" She asks.

"No," Vic responds simply. He carefully works things around so the bags are strung on his arms and the gallons are in his arms. He moves his head until the bandana is back of his face. He hurries across the street as fast as he can, and barely manages to get in. He wishes he would have brought someone across with him, but he couldn't bear the thought of risking anyone but himself. It wasn't right.

Vic kicks the door of their room in a knocking gesture, Tony opens it and steps aside so Vic could get in. "Where'd everyone else go?" Vic asks, dropping the food on one of the beds.
"Alex came around looking for you and started crying," Tony says. "They ran off to comfort him and told me to wait for you."

Vic frowns. "Go get everyone so we can divide up food. Okay?" Tony nods and goes off to get them.

Soon everyone except Alex and Jeremy are crowded into the tiny room standing around the bed. "I got doughnuts for breakfast today," Vic explains, pointing to the three boxes sat behind him on a pillow. "But before breakfast I figured we should divvy up the food between everyone." There's a chorus of 'yes's as everyone waits to be given their cut. "Each pile should have twelve cans of fruit, except ADTR's because there's five of them, so they got fifteen cans. They should also have three bags of Malt-o-meal cereal, assorted kinds, one bag dehydrateddehydrated fruit, two gallons water (also a bottle of water for each member), three tins of Spam, and a bag of trail mix. Also, one of those surgical mask things for each of you."

"Jeez Vic, are you turning into a prepper or something?" Mike comments.

"You can never be too safe," Vic responds.

"So, I'm assuming, no change?" Jack asks.

Vic nods. He hands everyone bags to put the stuff in. "We can have breakfast now, just save some for Jeremy and Alex." As if on cue Alex walks through the door. There are tear tracks running down his face and his eyes are bloodshot from crying. "Hey Alex," he greets. "We were just about to sit down for breakfast . . ." The groups have their stuff cleared of the bed by this point and were settling down around the room to enjoy their breakfast. Vic spreads the doughtnut boxes out on the bed infront of him. Alex carefully steps around the various men and settles down next to Vic. They all eat their breakfasts, chattering happily as though it was nothing more than a normal morning on one of the occasions that they had eough money to rent a motel, and in a way it was.

Jeremy comes stumbling into the room, it wasn't that hard to figure out which room held all of his friends. "Breakfast?" He asks, rubbing his eyes. Alex S. nods and points toward the boxes of doughnuts on the bed.

Notes

Okay, so I had planned for action to start in this chapter, but it just turned out to be boring crap. But yeah, I already have half of the next chapter written and it's gonna be heck action-packed.

Comment!

EDIT: Sorry the mixed up names, I didn't go back and check until now. Cx

xoxo
Dewey