by Schow, Ryan
“Yes, I do. And the sooner the better,” she said. “How much longer until this guy turns to embers?”
“We’ll see. One of the workers up at the barn likes you, by the way,” she said. “He’s a total douchebag, but I thought you should know.”
“Why is he a douchebag?”
“Because I was practically throwing myself at him and he keeps asking about you. I was like, ‘So are you into girls who are fit and into honey games?’ and he says, ‘I guess, but does Harper like honey?’”
“He really said that?” Harper said.
“Yep.”
Harper started laughing, this time not out of nervousness, but out of delight. She was happy to have someone actually like her the way she was, but then again, she realized she didn’t know the guy Stephani was talking about.
“You’re not even going to ask who I’m talking about?” Stephani asked.
“No,” Harper said, still smiling. “It’s just nice to feel wanted.”
“I didn’t say he wanted you,” she teased. “I just said he wants to know if you’re into honey play.”
“Is that a real thing?”
“Um…any food thing is a real thing. If a guy eats whip cream off your tits or honey, what’s the difference?”
“It takes longer to lick up the honey?” Harper asked.
“Oh, God. I didn’t think of that. Great,” she said, glaring at Harper, “Now I’m horny all over again.”
“What’s that like?” Harper joked.
Sitting there on a dirty mound of grass, unconcerned with staying clean, Stephani broke into laughter. Harper joined her. Stephani then laid down and looked into the clear blue sky, splayed out like she was making dirt angels.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Stephani said.
“I am, too,” Harper replied, laying down beside her. “Speaking of hot guys, I think this one smells like its chilling out.”
The stink of the burning corpse was diminishing by the minute. They both sat up, looked into the pit and found the remains smoldering below.
“Shake a little more gas on him. He can’t just be a crispy critter. We need him be one with the earth.”
Harper did as she was told, the sprinkles of accelerant bursting into flame.
For the next hour they tended to the body, keeping the burn alive until it looked like the heat would eat through the bones sufficiently.
“I’m going to have nightmares about this,” Harper said.
“About this guy?”
“No, about hot dogs,” she said jokingly. “Of course, him. But speaking of hot guys, who was it that asked about me?”
“The foreman. The hot foreman. Vlad. And for the record,” Stephani said, “if you let him stick it to you, I want details.”
Chuckling, Harper said, “I doubt that will happen.”
“You need to promise me!” she teased. “If Vlad becomes Vlad the Impaler, I want details of the impaling.”
Holding up her hands, she said, “Alright, alright, if our apocalypse suddenly becomes a steamy, bodice ripping, virgin breaking romance, I’ll give up the details.”
“You’re a virgin?” she asked.
Suddenly her laughter stopped. Did she just say that? Crap. She did.
Oh, God…why did I say that?!
“It’s an expression,” Harper tried to say.
Stephani started laughing, like hard, and then she got up and said, “I’ll be right back.”
The woman headed up the hill toward the barn, causing Harper to jump to her feet. “Stephani, you’d better not do anything! What are you doing?”
“You can’t die a virgin!” she called out over her shoulder.
She suddenly stood completely still. If Stephani was going to set her up with Vlad, the guy she thought was cute but wouldn’t hardly give her the time of day, she’d be okay with it. She’d be scared out of her mind and uncertain, but she could deal.
When Stephani disappeared over the hill, Harper went back to the burning body, sprinkling a little more gas on the corpse, and warming her hands in the wash of heat.
“What a shit show,” she muttered to herself.
Then she caught herself smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harper logged onto the internet, accessed the dark web, then grabbed a backdoor program Tristan left for her. She also downloaded another file named incaseidie.txt which presumably allowed her to do what he needed done in the event he went off line permanently. There was a companion file named opennow.txt which was a single word document that said, “If I die and someone tries to put a whole banana on my casket, shoot them. And talk to Logan about the EMP. Imminent detonation.”
Instead of laughing at the absurdity of this guy, she saw the letters “EMP” sitting next to “Imminent detonation” and tried not to freak out. She looked away, had a moment.
She knew this time would come.
She knew it.
Whatever Logan knew, he’d contact her in the next day or so, or she’d reach out to him. She was tempted to do that now, but she didn’t know if he’d been compromised or not. She could not reveal her location by acting impulsively.
Instead, she opened the file Tristan sent her. It was the results of the most recent sex offender registry, the violent felons record and the retired vets and retired police files.
He’d compiled this list for her in short order.
It was no wonder.
The list of names was very small, for it only encompassed a twenty-five mile radius with Five Falls at the center. Like Orbey said, if they wanted to get ahead of things, they needed to know the good, the bad and the ugly. Realizing she’d only met one of these guys in person, she clicked on a link next to Ned’s name.
Ned Brown.
She followed the link provided and this gave her a police report and his criminal record. She saw the conviction: aggravated sexual assault of a minor.
Her skin crawled as a dozen unwanted visions sprung to mind. She tried to flush each and every one of them out of her head, but she couldn’t. She’d seen the man. She’d seen him and talked to him. Thinking back to the way he’d studied her, a pit formed in her stomach. In spite of her revulsion, she forced herself to dig into the police report.
Ned Brown was a violent felon who raped his colleague’s youngest daughter, a thirteen year old. She swallowed hard, tried to keep her stomach down. But no matter her resolve, the details of the case were just too much. She looked away, fought to gather her composure. Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, she returned to the report. After she finished reading it, she wiped her watery eyes, closed the file and thought about putting a bullet into his brain by day’s end.
All this happened a long time ago, she told herself.
He’d been released last year.
This caused her to think about rehabilitation. Could someone like Ned change? Perhaps they could control themselves, but could they quell their impulses? She didn’t think so. With the right circumstances and the proper stimulus, Harper was pretty sure he’d reoffend.
Stephani walked into the kitchen and said, “Where’d you go?”
“Obviously I’m right here.”
Grinning, she said, “I was thinking you’d get your nerve back up and join me at the barn.”
“Those guys need to work,” she said, turning back around to the computer.
“I was coming on to Vlad again,” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And?” she said. Her eyes were on the computer screen, but her focus was on what Stephani was about to say next.
“I’m telling you, the guy’s got a thing for you.”
Her lips curved into a smile. She quickly hid it, then she turned around and said, “How would you feel about maybe doing a preemptive strike?”
“On who?” Stephani asked.
“The town’s riff raff.”
“You want to just go and kill them?” she asks.
She nodded her head.<
br />
“Is this who you are?” she asked, her earlier mood shot. “Is this what the Resistance is?”
This was a fair question, one she didn’t answer.
“Well?” Stephani pressed. Still, Harper stared at her, waiting. When Stephani saw she was getting no answers, she asked, “Are you the leader of the Resistance?”
“There is no leader.”
“Are you like some sort of captain or something? Because…I mean, why are we harboring you then?”
“Things are about to happen, Stephani. We need to prepare.”
“What do you mean?”
“When everything goes south, and it will, not only will we be dealing with the Chicoms, the South American forces are going to roll into California looking to wipe out the Chicoms and claim the coastal states for themselves. If everything happens the way I’m afraid it will, we’re going to be smack dab in the middle of it all.”
“So I hear,” she said, solemn for the first time since Harper had known her.
“The last thing we need is someone like Ned Brown turning on us, or the girls in this town, when he gets the chance. Because guys like that, they don’t need a reason, they only need an opportunity.”
“Ned Brown?” she asked. “The creeper from Five Falls Feed & Seed?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
Nodded her head, seeing the wisdom, she said, “I get it. And I agree with you. Even though the thought of murdering someone outright sickens me.”
“It’s a horrifying feeling deep in my gut,” she admitted, touching her stomach. “But with guys like this—and I’m afraid to say this—I’m pretty sure their brains are broken.”
“You saying they’re not redeemable?”
“That’s right.”
“Then we need to do it,” she said.
“I know.”
“When?” Stephani asked.
“When the EMP hits, or if the Chicoms get overrun and the war spreads to our little corner of the world.”
“Can I switch subjects?” Stephani asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you think she’s dead?” she asked. “Skylar?”
She didn’t think she could feel any worse than reading about Ned, but then Stephani asked her this and proved her wrong. Should she lie to her new friend? She couldn’t. In that moment, she knew that would be the wrong thing to do.
“Maybe,” she said. “Yes, I think. I don’t really know.”
Stephani’s eyes began to water. She sat down in the chair and Cooper came trotting into the kitchen. Cooper moseyed up to Stephani, sensing something was wrong. He whined in the back of his throat, then laid his head on her thigh. She petted him with wet eyes.
“What are we going to do, Harper?” she finally asked. “I mean, what can we do?”
“Can you fight?” she asked.
“I can shoot.”
“Could you pull the trigger on Ned Brown?” she asked. “No questions, no conversation just walk up to him and put a bullet in his head. Can you do that?”
“I think I can. I mean, if what you say is happening actual comes to fruition, then probably.”
“Probably won’t get the job done,” Harper said, dead serious.
She thought about this for a long time, turning her attention to Cooper. She pet the dog for a few minutes, and then she said, “If push comes to shove, I’ll push.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said, looking up. “So what next?”
Harper frowned, for the truth was as ugly as it was necessary. “I put together a kill list,” she said. “And then maybe I go talk to Vlad the Impaler.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Skylar woke to a jarring sensation and someone else’s hands holding her tight. Her head was flopped over on the shoulder of what felt like a man next to her. She tried to sit up, somehow managed to do so, then looked at him with a woozy brain and bleary eyes. From what she could see, he had a decent build and average features. Groggy, slurring a bit, she said, “You the one holding me up?”
“Couple of perverts in here,” he said.
He didn’t look at her.
The bumping and jarring was the paddy wagon they were riding in.
“Where are we headed?” she asked.
“Hell.”
“Seriously,” she said, looking at him. He still wouldn’t look back at her. Finally she nudged him and said, “Hey, meat. Where are we going?”
He slid his head sideways and cocked an eyebrow. “You look different with that extra lump on your face. I think it’s impairing your judgment.”
She sagged against the back of the vehicle, cool eyes appraising him. She was grateful she wasn’t back in the Minister of Propaganda’s apartment, but she was terrified about where she was going. If she knew anything about the Chicoms, it was that they took torture seriously.
He stopped looking at her, which bothered her. At least her senses were returning.
“When a good looking woman is no longer a commodity,” she said, breathless, “then the world has truly lost its way.”
Turning, he said, “You used to be good looking?”
She frowned.
The wagon shuddered to a stop. There was a fair amount of commotion, and plenty of chain rattling coming from the restraints. Most of them looked miserable. Of the half dozen occupants, she was the only woman and no one was looking at her.
Then one of the men turned and smiled. He looked like an oily rat. He was fringe hair that was damp and messy, bad skin, beady eyes and chipped teeth that looked thrown into his mouth haphazardly. Even worse, he was on a skinny, Freddy Krueger frame.
“Didn’t realize this was a pedophile pickup, too,” she said.
He frowned and said, “I’m no pedo.”
“You’re giving off a very rapey vibe right now, which is super uncomfortable, so maybe you should stop.”
His eyes dipped to her bare legs, to the robe that was barely covering her privates, which she now realized were sheathed in some sort of material. In that moment, after thinking of how enraged the Minister was, she was grateful that he didn’t send her off without her underwear.
“Told you,” the guy next to her said, referring to perverts.
“What’s your name?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “I’m Skylar.”
“Ryker,” he said. “Ryker Sinclair.”
“Did you serve back in the day?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look like you did, like maybe you were—I don’t know—someone who’s been in the shit a time or two.”
“On that part, you’re right.”
Of the guys in the paddy wagon, only four of the six she saw were cuffed to the bar behind them, and that was only by one arm. Unlike the guys, Skylar wasn’t cuffed. Bringing her hands forward, she rolled her wrists, flexed her fingers. Looking down, she saw her legs weren’t chained up either.
Outside, there was gunfire, and the sound of something heavy being slammed into the side of the van. The big boom startled everyone.
Her eyes flicked over at the pedo. His eyes were back on her, a needy smirk on his face.
“What’s your problem?” she barked.
He lifted his chin, looked down his nose at her, those beady eyes becoming maddening slits. The ends of those thin, dry lips lifted from a smirk into a slow, menacing smile.
“He’s just messing with you,” Ryker grumbled.
“Yeah?” she said, staring him down. “This isn’t intimidation, this is revulsion.”
“People like you,” the pedo said, his hand at his side, twitching, “they do all the wrong things, then they end up with me. You’ll end up with me.”
“No I won’t.”
“We’re going to the same place,” he said. “And you will.”
“You’d better pray to God that doesn’t happen. Because if it does, it won’t be good for you.”
Sneering, he said, “We’re in the same place now—”
More gunfire o
utside the paddy wagon, some screaming in Chinese, demands of someone to do something, people being rounded up, then a short firing squad and silence.
“We’re not even cuffed,” the guy said, sliding down the bench until he was almost across from her.
“Watch it, scumbag,” the guy next to pedo man said. His closest hand was cuffed to the rail behind him, putting his free hand on the other side of his body.
“I’m not interested in you,” the creep told him, grinning, wet eyes locked on Skylar, “so you can keep your little homo fantasies to yourself.”
“Baby killer,” he grumbled.
“I enhanced life, gave life back, and sometimes, yes, I did what people wanted me to do, what they paid me to do, which is take a life.”
“He sold aborted babies on the black market,” Ryker said. “Among other things…”
“Why am I not in cuffs?” she asked. “Why isn’t he?”
“America never rounded people up to this degree. After most everything illegal became unpunishable in this state, California stopped buying handcuffs from Smith & Wesson. They had the prisoners making them. The low level prisoners, like this bag of smashed assholes sitting across from us.”
“You don’t know me,” the creeper snapped, sitting on his hands, licking his lips, glancing between Ryker and Skylar. His sneer turned to laughter, then quickly fell back to a frown.
“So then with prison reform, high level offenders were let out. That’s where the state went wrong. We got overpopulated. And we decriminalized everything.”
Rocking slightly, his eyes on Skylar’s privates, the oily menace said, “The fall was manufactured.”
She squeezed her legs together, aware of every exposed inch of her body.
“Finally he says something that makes sense,” the guy sitting next to pedo man said. He’s a big white guy, head so bald it practically shined in the low light, a full beard and a grizzly bear body to match. Looking over at him, in the hot, stuffy air, he said to the freak, “Scoot over. And stop touching me.”
“The prisons used what cuffs they had on hand,” the guy next to her continued, “but one of the inmates learned how to sabotage the new cuffs in manufacturing. By the time the prisons figured it out, it was too late. The recall was huge, but before production could get back up, the Chicoms rose up and…well, you know the rest.”