Silence Falls

In the second week, Hermanni voted that his next project was going to entail a form of camping. Now, not everyone would be comfortable with the idea of sleeping a night, or week outside in the wilderness, so Hermanni decided that it would be much safer and easier to have them camp indoors. One store slot in the mall had been cleared a long time ago due to a new clothing brand moving in before the mall had shut down. Hermanni chose that precise store to be their ‘campsite’. Scoring some phony logs and a million trees cardboard cutouts from a restaurant with a rainforest theme, some fake grass from a mini football field in the sports department, then some spacious tents, some sharp fireplace pokers for s’mores, stashed surround sounds speakers inserted behind a bush here or there, and the dimming of the store lights, their campsite was finally complete. Adding a few finishing touches with a fraud campfire for added realism and voila, he was done. Standing back, Hermanni listened in to the shrouded speakers whispering the sounds of a forest at night. It came off of a CD used for white noises and turned out to be a sublime inclusion to the experience. If he had to say so himself, his campsite was pretty convincing for being established in a mall. Within an hour, he had immobilized his family into the once barren store and were presently munching on the s'mores made by him as they all perched on the phony logs and listened to the sounds of night owls, and crickets.

“Oh my god Hermanni, these s'mores are amazing!” Cris gushed with a moan, melted chocolate clustering at the corners of his mouth.

“Not to mention all this incredible work! How the hell did you do all this?” Alexis inquired, canvassing their surroundings in praise.

“Simple knowledge of what every store occupied in storage...as well as some creativity.” Hermanni imparted while he enjoyed his own s'mores.

The group spent the night clowning, sharing stories and absurd memories from a long ago distant past. The camping experience was going remarkably well until what was thought as a clean quip turned into a sadistic one. Cris was professing an embarrassing story that Connor had been set on broadcasting to the group of an unpleasant scare he had in the woods with a drunken neighbor when he went camping with his family. He didn’t go into too much sordid detail, but he did wrap the story up with Cris’s pee being sprayed into the eyes of his neighbor.

And that was about the time Bam decided to voice a tasteless remark. “Yeah, maybe that’s what we men need to do to those soldiers when they break in here again, sneak in behind these fake trees to hide and let them sodomize you girls as a distraction before taking a piss on em.”

The room went hush and as everyone gaped at Bam with revulsion for having the gall to throw back his head and laugh at such an appalling statement. Becoming paranoid that a horrific experience like that could happen to her, Demitria leapt away from the trees behind her as if they were on fire. “I-I think I need some air.” Stumbling forward, she gasped when her foot connected with the fake campfire and kicked it over.

“Hey, watch it!” Bam snapped at her, stretching a hand out to restore it back to its original state. “You’re gonna fucking ruin our campsite!”

“How about you watch your goddamn fucking mouth, you good-for-nothing motherfucker!” Onika snapped at him, rising from her seat to assist an erratic Demitria. “Or someone will do it for you!”

“Like who? You!?” Bam scoffed, his blue eyes perusing her up and down. “Don’t make me fucking laugh!”

“Shut it, Bam!” Bert ordered him as he rose with Cris to haste after the frail girl. They found her huddled with her friends outside the dimly lit store on a bench trying to catch her breath. Crouching down before her feet, Bert placed a warming hand over hers and said. “Hey, don’t listen to that assbag in there, okay? He’s just fucked up in the head so he’s talking out of his ass.”

“It’s probably because of the medication they fed us in that place.” Cris theorized gingerly. “He clearly already had issues of his own when he got there, the medication probably made that even worse.”

“But we’ve been out of that place for weeks now.” Alexis reminded them, standing over Demitria’s seat at the bench. “If it was the medication how is he still an asshole even now?”

“He’s got to have permanent brain damage from all the medication.” Natasha submitted with a shake of her head. “If not that then…”

“Then he’s just Bam and that’s the way Bam has always been.” Onika groaned in dissatisfaction, rolling her eyes at the thought.

“Let’s not worry about him. I’m sure Otep will take care of him until I get back inside. For now, let's just relax.” Bert instructed them, earning a round of nods from his devoted girls.

Back inside the store, Bam’s laughter was finally cut off by a hand that slapped him across his cheek. Dumbfounded at first, he gaped at the culprit before he surged to his feet and bellowed. “What the fuck did you do that for!?”

“Someone had to! Do you even listen to the shit that comes out of that fucking mouth of yours!?” Otep roared in his face before she shoved him back, her face red with unruly outrage because his insult hit true to home for her, and it was nothing to joke about.

“Hey, it’s not my fucking fault you don’t have a sense of humor, bitch!” Bam snapped, unafraid of her and her intimidating presence.

“Sense of humor? Is that what you call it? Only a fucking psychopath could find that type of bullshit funny, you asshole!” Otep spat. She was trying to figure out what was seriously awry with this guy while at the same time unwanted memories began to resurface from the darkest recesses of her mind. Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears.

“Everyone, calm down right now!” Bert interjected, verbally and physically forcing himself between the two now that he had returned. He had never seen Otep this worked up before for as long as he'd known her. She’s always kept her cool no matter what went down. Seeing her so vulnerable scared him.

“What the fuck do they have to be scared of!?” Bam vented on. “Those men are gone!”

“They can always come back, you retard!” Otep reminded him, trying to remind him that this danger wasn’t over just because they were assembled around a phony campsite eating s’mores in the mall.

“After all this time? Why the fuck would they come back when they hadn’t found us the first time? You dykes need to calm the fuck down! Is it your time of the month, Otep?” Bam cruelly ridiculed her with an diverted smirk on his face. He watched his response get under Otep’s skin before she attempted to hurdle over Bert to choke him out for good. Connor joined Bert in holding her back as she tried to seize Bam who was surging forward to get his hands on her as well before Hermanni stepped in.

“Enough! Go to bed, Brandon.” Hermanni ordered in a stern voice, eyeing Bam’s face becoming deadpan as he obediently turned to head to the bedroom straightaway without any back talk. No one but Cris noticed this since the others were engrossed with trying to pacify Otep down. Hermanni was now becoming concerned that next week’s plan would also end up in shambles again by Bam’s conduct.