It didn't make sense for them to follow. After witnessing a horrid murder scene that took place, it would have already clicked in their heads by now that John was no different from your average good guy. Afraid they should be, the bigger girl, Tahira, instead decided for them that they would follow the lead of John. It was then on a roadside that they walked, alone on their own, and they kept walking until they made it to a nearby town.
---------------
The sun had already risen.
In the parking lot is the remains of what used to be the head of a human being; but instead of it being unharmed head, the skull has become in no ways repl. The head smashed into little pieces of crumbs is nothing more than bloody pool of blood and meat lied to waste. The other human body also is dead - due to the poison that John stabbed him. Without alarming attend, the person affected by the poison is nowhere near alive. Rather, after he's last breaths when John was going to seem him, he had passed on. What happens after this is just unknown.
John was not in the slightest angry, afraid, or disgusted. Bluntly speaking, he's world, wherever he was has come to settle in relief.
John then looked over to the three girls who were still nearby, even though they could have ran away from him. It seemed awfully tireless for John to think why they stayed.
He moved his legs a step closer, and wanted to talk to them. When he took a few steps, he was stopped by one of the girls.
"Stop, right there!" The girl shouted.
Fully grasping her intentions, John stopped. He was confused. He thought that they would realize it immediately that their saviour is only there to check if they are hurt or not.
Trying to reassure that not anyone of them the three girls were hurt in any way possible - and yes, they did. Unfortunately, they were really hurt.
The most severe was Tahira: the girl who just warned John to stop he's advancement towards them. It was her that tried to handle the situation between the two gang members, and was inevitability plummeted to the ground with sheer force from one of the gang man. Looking at her severe state, she wasn't as bad as she could be if John had not intervened.
Her facial features bleeding directly from her nose, and her cheeks and forehead sore. She was luckily to have made it out alive.
But putting that aside, Tahira was more concerned about the girls, most importantly her siblings: Liney who got slapped hard on the spot and Sweetie watching from the side about to cry.
Holding them closer and closer to her chest, she relish the fear of losing them both, and leaning to her own failures. As a older sister, she stays by her siblings sight at all costs and comforts them.
"Liney, you should not have done that," Tahira advices Liney for her reckless behaviour.
"I did what I had too, okay. If not, then...," Liney defended her actions and wanted to elaborate further.
"JUST STOP, OKAY!" Tahira said loudly, insisting with her emotions, cutting her short, "IF YOU AND SWEETIE WERE GONE...I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'LL DO WITH MYSELF. I JUST WANT YOU TWO TO BE SAFE." She cried as tears flowed down her hurtful face. Tears significant with sympatric worry.
After Tahira reached her resolution, and let out her final tears, she let loose of the two girls from her tightening arms wrapped around their backs.
She then looked to now where John was.
She wanted to figure this out.
She wanted to know if she could trust this person. A person who she deemed unnecessary at her first encounter.
But unlike this moment in time, the outcome has changed. What he was prior was a man who looked innocent, but underneath that innocent look hid a monster waiting to be unleashed. And unleashed it did.
From Tahira's viewpoint, she saw just how brutal he became. Although, the gang goons weren't at a level where they were gonna kill, it seemed so unlikely for a that guy to come sweeping in and annihilated these guys like a bunch of worthless pieces of paper.
Tahira then stood on both legs where she was. Got in front of her siblings and approached him.
"You've saved my life, and my sisters," she said, "But I'm not too sure.... who are you really?"
Tahira wanted an answer; an answer that will determine fate. However, John didn't say a thing. Rather then talk, he walked away from her.
In a feat of rage, Tahira felt as though she was bring ignored. Was she really being ignored?
As it turned out, John couldn't talk that much. Any louder, and he might as well be in the hospital. To come up with a solution, just around the side, he stepped back, and got something out of a bag.
While John fumbled through the bag, Tahira wasn't having any of it. She felt an unnerving itch in her head. Right now, she stormed off and went straight to confront John in person. When she was at reach, John stood up which shocked Tahira to stop her advancement, and evade. She thought that he was about to attack.
Unknowingly, she put up both fists and was about to face him on. To her dismay it was a rather bold move, John's hand was a piece of paper. She dropped her fighting stance and accepted the paper.
It reads the following:
Sorry, if I have scare you and your sisters. I also deeply apologize that you had to experience what had transpired. It was not my intentions.
For one, I acted out because you guys were in trouble, and no way was my purpose to kill.
I am ashamed, really though.
And if your wandering why not talk about it to you directly is because I have a disability which has impaired my ability to talk in a higher volume. So we communicate with paper and pen.
If not, sign language is fine if you're up to it.
Like a true detective, Tahira sustained. After her analysis looking at all angles, she became somewhat contempt with John's apology. Although, she was not done there. She then asked.
"So I'm suppose to believe this?" Tahira argued.
Rather then being thankful to John she wanted to start a fit. Whether it be good or not John didn't mind, instead he replied with a calm but quite manner, "That's up to you," his voice lowered, and deep too.
He then walked away leaving Tahira behind which made Tahira herself confused. She was, in fact, flabbergasted.
~~~~~~
A couple of minutes later...
As Tahira was attending to her needs and her siblings as well, she was fixing up Liney's leg when she was slapped and scrapped her knee. While she did so, she realized that John was nowhere to be seen; As far as it is, he is nowhere to be seen in the parking lot.
'Who is he really?' Tahira contemplates.
'First, he seemed alright. But that was before.'
'Then....'
"Oooch!"
When Tahira glares below, she had inadvertently hurt Liney's sore.
"Sorry," Tahira apologies.
'Then again, I've never seen someone so brutal killing those jerks. But they had it coming.'
Left unchecked, the first bloody body have attracted the attention of flies to hover over the corpse, and surely enough land on the dismembered part of the body - the head - as other materialised organism, smaller for the naked eye to see were homing in to migrate inside. The other body whose head wasn't smashed but was poisoned to death seemed to take the same approach as the first body, although it would take much longer as opposed to a clear and open wound. All the more, both bodies were decaying at their own pace of speed.
It appeared that a heart wrench smell like an expired food as old as time had surfaced.
It didn't take time to act. For Tahira she found two spare canvas and put on top of each body allowing the smell to settle and to also minimise the pesticides from getting any where near. Satisfied that the covering at least stall time, she wonders what she'll do next.
She then hurriedly got back to where she left her bag and supplies. The necessary items and things she'll need for her and siblings to survive.
The truth is that Tahira and her siblings - Liney and Sweetie - had planned to escape to the next town if possible. Until that time came they had to refuel their car and get some supplies at a nearby service station just to make adjustments. Everything was going well until they were cornered by the gang member jerks.
One rapid turn of events to another, the girls have become weak - and obsolete. Hit on, almost being raped or even worse, killed, they survived.
It even got deeply frustrating from there onwards.
The car they were using to ease the burden of walking has become inoperable. The engine was okay it was just both four tires were all pouched. This was evident when Tahira closely inspected the car as the tires had a very large cut - on each four.
"Damn it," Tahira sighs in disbelief.
Thud!
Boom!
Dunkt!
The sound of metal clings.
Agitated by the clump of sounds, Tahira turned to where it came from. When she got a hold of her surroundings she was astonished to find that John was still around, on him, he had come along with some big black plastic wrappings and a shovel.
"Is he really going bury the bodies....." Tahira asked herself.
Moved sharply, she tries to digest the truth.
Tahira thought that John was done from where he finished. She thought that he left the bodies to rot without even doing anything to it. But she was wrong. As it turns out, John is doing he's best to give the jerks proper burial even they tried to kill him. He lines up the bodies and wrap them in the plastic wrappings, and while he's done, went on to dig the two burial holes.
Curious the little kid was Sweetie asked, "Big sis, what ta big man doin?"
"Oh, the big man is just doing big man things," Tahira carefully translated what John was doing into words that the girl can understand.
"Really, oh?" Sweetie's mouth opens with an extent of wonder.
"Basically, the guy there is burying two dead corpse which he brutally killed, that's it," Liney intervened with a more inappropriate setting.
[Note: Just wanted to point out that in Chapter: 5 part 2 there wasn't a clear indication when Sweetie's ears and eyes were blocked from the killing of one of the jerks; so I want to make it clear that Sweetie kept away from the disturbing noises and imagery and she is asking just out of pure curiosity, and no way did she have to watch it herself.]
"Liney!" Tahira shouts at her.
"What?" Liney responds with a clear posture, "I'm just being honest."
Back to the topic at hand, it wasn't the type of thing Tahira was ever to experience but aside from that she knew one thing for sure. And that was to at least help out. Although a mixture of emotions flowed through her piping cold nerves, anger, fear, untrustworthy, she gladly forced herself and walked.
As John was doing his business, he was surprised to be greeted by Tahira who was at the time suspicious of him. She grabbed the extra shovel and initiated a double-time workout.
"Don't ask," She said to John, "I'm here just to be off a helping hand."
No question asked, John accepted Tahira. Without any interruption, they worked to together.
Two hours later he last shovel was pierced into the ground, and they were done.
"Phewwww," Tahira exhaled from the hard labour she had to endure, "I've never felt so drained," she stretched her back.
John had also become weak. Weaker than a slot - muscles tensing as if like no other. It might because John never really was the type to train for a fit body, maybe that was why it hurt. Moreover John was finished. He had done what he came here to do. All that's left is to say goodbye.
As Tahira was relaxing, she saw that John was about to leave. So was she when she got back with her siblings.
Without hesitation John just walked passed them.
'What, not even a thank you,' She thought to herself.
As soon as John was almost away, Tahira called from behind.
"Wait!"
John slightly turned then.
She said, "If you don't mind, we'd like to follow you."
---------------------------
Back to present time...
"So my name's Tahira," she said, "What's yours?"