The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End by T. Anwar Clark

worst took place during that stretch, a terrorized sentiment no man, woman or child should have to live through. The truth is, these people did live through it, and they couldn’t be any more upset than they were. But they were thankful it was finally over.
       And the Six, gazed their sights upon the surviving residents of Valley’s End.

CHAPTER 14
     
     
      “We thank you.” Rebekah informed the one who saved their lives.
       Out of the other seven who did, the one who saved their lives was the last to start burning a candle. The outline of his face embossed a man in his prime, a mountaineer or high ranking biker gang member, maybe both. Full mustache and imperial beard, red and black flannel that failed to hide his beer belly, with dark colored denim jeans. His footwear was under investigation, hidden through the darkness below his knees, could have been hiking or working boots, or a solid pair of black Durango’s, imaginably with the cowboy spikes in the back. Could have even been a pair of running shoes. No telling through the dark. Maybe he sported a pair of Duckweeds or pink bunny slippers.
       Whatever the case may have been, the Six were grateful of his perfectly-timed kind gesture, and they all took that silent moment to respectfully acknowledge his deed as Rebekah did before them.
       “You’re all welcome to stay,” he said. “My home is yours.”
       He talked as if he hadn’t heard anything about their plan, like word didn’t spread through The End about the group formed to lead the remaining survivors to the docks. Maybe word hadn’t spread that far. At the break of dawn, Rebekah, Ann, Maria and Baker, and the rest of their group hidden away in the duplex up another street, accompanied by a larger group that should have been making its way to Maison Parkway, held a rally on top of a ten story building that was protected like the Carter from New Jack City. More than two hundred residents were gathered together by the head honcho, Billy Rain. Survivors, a cabbie that went by the name Mac, a delivery guy known as Conrad, along with Frank, Brea, Neshia and Chase, of the Wildes family, were supposed to spread the valuable news.
       For whatever reason the blood worm didn’t bait the big fish, Rebekah had a leave-no-man-behind attitude that complemented her authority qualities rather fondly. She expressed to the people of Valley’s End what they needed to know about their situation, the truth about Sworn, and what the original group envisioned on ensuring to stop Sworn and his terrorist organization. She informed them of the courageous citizens and the lives they saved, the lives that were lost during their trials. But she left out one main article, that Jim and Girder sided, maybe even participated, with the same group of pillagers that destroyed their homes. And she hoped that if they did recognize them by their all-black, baggy attire with hoods – which they did – then they would put their ailing differences aside until the bigger problem was abolished.  
       The lumberjack biker, all-hands-down, took to the crowd of people on the first floor and walked dead center, evaporated in the clutter that surrounded him, leaving the Six to wonder what they murmured. It resembled a systematized cult that had been concealed behind closed doors – like what secret organization isn’t – and decided to come out the closet with the storm. Only this cult wasn’t the traditional robes, blood and sacrifice.
       “What are they doing?” Ann slipped in, speaking to Rebekah in a hushed tone, eyes on the cluster.
       “Don’t know,” she answered.
       Maria, getting the jitters, looked to all the angered grills of the welcoming strangers that escalated up the stairs and across the balcony. Not feeling too comfortable knowing the devil whispered, not to be judgmental by their orchestration, but she clenched her sidearm, index finger pointing toward the missing floor, ready to tighten