Free The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers by Mike Evans

duty.”
                  Philip pointed to his nose indicating he was perfectly correct as he puffed sloppy smoke rings into the air. Tim knew that regardless of what was happening, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go out of his way to trust any of these guys who were usually responsible for at least one epic bar fight per month. They bickered like little bitches most of the time, but when it came down to it each of them would sit anothers throat for each other. This was the group in town that you weren’t to screw with and if someone did make such a mistake they were typically out of towners and had no idea what they were about to get themselves into. Tim pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911 and hit send waiting for it to connect but it never did. He looked at his phone and saw that yes it definitely was trying to make a call out but there was no connection. He tried it a second time and when it failed he looked at the holster that Charles was carrying his in and said, “Let me try and use your phone will ya? Mine isn’t working for some reason, I can’t get a call to go through at all.”
                  “Well it ain’t my fault your phone’s a piece of shit, I only got a thousand minutes a month on this thing.”
                  Cedric laughed hard, “You wouldn’t spend a thousand minutes on that damn cancer maker in a month if you had a year to do it.”
                  Tim didn’t point out he’d have twelve months to do it in that case knowng the end result would be confused looks with a long explanation that no one would listen to. “Charles I tell you what, you give me your phone, and i’ll buy you your next round? Otherwise, i’m gonna have to pull Eric off karakoe and lock up and drive down there myself.Civc duty and all you know.”
                  Cedric pulled it from Charles hip and tossed it over to Tim and smacked Charles on the arm. “Damn it i’m to damn sober to go home with the wife this damn early. If I go home like this, there’s all kind of work she’s going to make me do that I plan on putting off until…..never.”
                  Philip offered his phone out to, “Here if it don’t work try mine. The wife got us the best damn plan you can she said you gotta be reachable in case  need you do go run some errands.”
                  Thomas said, “Is that phone any good Philip?”
                  He shrugged, “Hell if I know, I keep the damn thing off.”
    Had he kept it on he’d have been getting the messages from his wife telling him of the hell that was going down at the school. Along with pleas from Cedric’s wife who was with her knowing her husband wouldn’t carry a cell phone if you paid him to. Tim said, “Enjoy the art of not speaking for a minute would ya?”
    He hit send again on the phone and waited looking seeing it ws trying to connect but getting nothing from it. “Something’s wrong, there ‘s no way this many different cell phone providers aren’t working. Go get Eric we are goin down there to see what’s going on.”             
    There plans changed drastically when the first of ten gun shots echoed startling all of the men. Cedric said, “It’s probably just the guys out at the gun club.”
    Charles said, “Yeah because they usually shoot cannons right? There’s no way in hell that those blasts would make it to town. You know damn well that it’s coming from the school which is where the fucking black smoke is coming to.”
    Tim went back into the bar grabbing his bar phone and called 911 getting a instant dial tone this time and a recorded message from a woman very kindle telling him that all lines were busy and that he was going to have to wait. He looked over at Eric who was giving ther performance of his life and at some point had moved off stage abandoning his beer bottle and stealing one of his friends glasses of beer. He was