The Few Part 1: The Gathering of The Few

With a creak and a sigh, the sign above the building came an inch closer to crashing down on their heads. Below in the street, the men, women, and children of the society of The Few gathered together in what used to be the thriving downtown of Sidewood. John Echson studied the men around him. He and his family were strangers to these men, the former executives and managers of the recently abandoned refinery, yet he felt more at ease with these men than with the rough-and-tumble former laborers of the plant.
He had to keep a low profile to avoid being identified among the quiet mob as an outsider. In truth he was an outsider, not merely from another town, but from another world entirely. A world of peace and prosperity. A world where the "civilized" men were civil, not here, going on these escapades through the town to proclaim their supremacy over the former workers, to prove themselves with a few examples of their power, and to become hunters of men. John could not let them know why he was here or who he was with. The civilized men, it seemed, were less civilized than the very underclass over which they asserted their supremacy. In fact, when the Echsons had first come, they had found no trouble telling everything they knew to the ragged men and women who littered the streets in the decrepit inner city neighborhoods. It was these well dressed, slyly armed men who were now forming their silent mob outside of the Sidewood hunting club that they kept their secrets from. These, it seemed, were the men with whom they would develop their ties. The Few men huddled together in the front of the building, which, despite the mildewed "For Rent" sign hanging in the cracked plate glass window, still housed the headquarters of the Sidewood Hunting Society, a group which proudly called itself "The Few."

John carefully and slowly, so as to keep pace with the crowd and thereby avoid drawing attention, inched up to his wife, Wendy, and whispered in her ear, "Don't Get a Gun." Wendy looked at him skeptically, unsure if she could keep a low profile without arming herself along with the rest of the crowd. John flashed her a look of certainty and determination for a short instant before walking away. Wendy pondered for a moment the gravity of what John had said. She desperately did not want to get caught with John unarmed. If any one of the men here were to notice the suspicion of the two unarmed adults in a mob of gunmen, the results could be almost certain death. Even John would not be able to weasel his way out of that one.

To one side of the crowd of mingling adults stood a band of children, ranging in age from the youngest at two, teetering about on the ground with unsure footing, yet as sure of themselves as any of the adults, to the oldest at twelve, listening intently to the adults speak, and thinking of themselves joining them after just one more birthday. The children were perhaps the motive of the group of adults, who were quietly preparing to demonstrate that, although there was no longer a factory, the hierarchy of the factory's management still pertained, and the former managers were still the bosses of the former employees. There was, of course, no place to work in Sidewood since the plant closed, and even the most qualified could not find another business in the town. When the workers and managers (the distinction still had to be made, even though the true gravity of the titles was gone) stopped making money, they stopped spending, and the stores left. The only buildings on main street not vacated and boarded were the club and the old court building, which, although the county had long moved it's permanent district to Wardville, was still used occasionally to conduct official business.
Even in the daylight, Sidewood was gloomy and seemed to be covered perpetually by a thin cloud of dust, smoke, and an occasional burst of lost fumes from the abandoned plant, but now, at dusk, the town seemed downright eerie as those street lamps which had not burned out since the dissolution of the city government popped on and crackled as they cast their dull yellow, flickering light on the street, buildings, and people.

There were three children off to the edge of the group who were not participating in the ritual of admiring the guns in the hunting club window. Two of John's children, Mike and Sierra were standing off to the side of the group along with one other boy, and the three were staring, horrified, at the unfolding events, in the crowd of children as well as the crowd of adults. After a few moments, he realized that only one of his twin boys was there in that group on the sidelines. Mike’s twin brother Eddie had either disappeared or faded into the crowd, and was nowhere to be seen. He wandered over to the children. His sense of urgency told him to run, but the need to blend into the crowd overcame him, and he took his time reaching the edge of the group. He searched the band of children for the boy, but his eyes did not catch sight of the sandy hair or freckled face of his ten-year-old son. One of The Few leaders was eyeing him suspiciously, curious about his agitation, which manifested itself at this moment in the involuntary wrenching of his hands. He took a deep breath to calm himself and took a last look at the band of children, and then, not wanting to draw further attention to himself, and aware that associating with the boy would draw suspicion to all of them, he looked back towards the center of the group and began to slowly meander back towards the place where he stood before. His agitation still manifested itself both in the continued hand-wrenching and the sudden paleness of his skin as he contemplated the fate of the lost boy, somewhere in the cloud of inexplicably mindless bodies.

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