Dark Days of the After (Book 1): Dark Days of the After

by Schow, Ryan

  Dropping down by lockers, he splayed his feet out and pulled his hat as low on his face as he could while playing dead. The two extra pistols were just out of sight and barely out of reach. One was concealed behind his butt, the other next to his leg.

  The blood stains and bullet holes on the front of his stolen uniform made him look like he was shot to death. Hopefully the hat hid enough of his face to conceal his skin color.

  To be fair, this was stupid. No, not stupid…stupid and crazy. Insane! He had nothing else, though.

  These guys weren’t that smart, though, so he was mildly optimistic.

  By now even the dumbest of them knew there was an ambush in the showers. They knew men had been killed. The question was, were they stupid enough to storm the place, or would they do what he’d do, which was assume everyone was dead and lob a grenade in there?

  He hoped not. Surprisingly, they did a variation on his own tactics. The guards tossed in a pair of flash bangs, the canisters bouncing right by him on the way to the showers.

  Oh, boy…

  When the first one went off, he did not move in spite of the deafening blast. The second went right after, rattling his brain even further. With the flash bangs at his back, and a host of lockers between him, he did not suffer the concussive results he expected to, but his ears were still ringing.

  Men poured in, checking the dead bodies quickly as they looked down the barrels of their semi-automatic rifles. The point man may or may not have looked him over. Either way, he didn’t slow as he walked right by him. The others following didn’t double check what he’d first checked. They were on the lookout for an active shooter or shooters.

  When the entire group was in (he counted about ten of them, all loaded for bear), he worked up the nerve to do what was next. There was no other option but this one, he told himself. He could get up and leave, but the hallway was long and he’d be spotted and shot. He could stay, play dead, but eventually they’d start kicking the dead looking for anyone still alive, or for him. The only logical path at this point was the most dangerous one.

  He moved around the locker, shot two of the men in the back and a third in the head using four rounds. He quickly returned to played dead. The mayhem that followed was immediate. He tried to translate everything that was being said amongst the guards, but there was too much frenzied chatter to process.

  Two men crouching low moved up the hallway his way. They slowed near him, presumably checking each soldier, and then they headed down the row of lockers away from him. He shot one in the butthole and the other in the forehead.

  Two more rounds expended.

  Six all together.

  Grab another weapon or keep the one he had? he wondered. That was the question.

  He stayed the course.

  The guy who got shot in the poop chute was howling in pain, drawing the attention of the others. Two more guards appeared, crouching low and attending to the downed soldier. He shot them both, then reached for the next gun, except he didn’t have time.

  The three left were now creeping. One said something, and the other agreed, and from then on, it was silent.

  He’d been made.

  He could hear the soldiers checking the other bodies. As quietly as he could, he got the shiv in his right hand, tucked the sharp end under his right butt cheek and waited.

  He heard them coming long before they got there.

  The instant a pair of boots appeared on the floor next to him, he went into high alert, preparing himself. One of the boots stepped over his legs—one foot now on each side of his torso—then the guard bent down.

  He lifted Ryker’s chin with the barrel of his pistol and immediately Ryker stabbed him three quick times in the armpit. The man stumbled forward, almost fell on top of him. Ryker stuck him two times in the neck and pushed him away, doing his best to keep the fountain of blood from soaking him.

  Ryker managed to get his gun free before the other two charged in at the sound of grunting and noise. He couldn’t hesitate.

  Gun at the ready, he waited.

  The second he saw the two faces appear, he fired. He only hit one of them. The one he struck now had a third eye and a one way trip to hell.

  The guy who got away was shaking so badly Ryker could hear the pistol rattling against his hand on the other side of the locker.

  He screamed something in Chinese, his voice chock full of terror.

  As quietly as he could, Ryker slipped out from underneath the dead man, stood up on tippy-toes and peeked over the lockers, trying to get a bead on him.

  He couldn’t see well enough, so he stood on the head of one of the dead men, and only then could he see over the other side. That’s where he found the last guard cowering.

  He was shaking, wiping his face with a hanky, staying low and holding out for help.

  Slowly he eased the gun over the edge of the metal box, then aimed to where he thought he could hit the man without being able to look down the barrel. When he pulled the trigger, it was loud, but the bullet went true.

  Well, mostly true. The guy was still alive because he only clipped him. He hopped up on the top of the locker and fired again.

  That shot did the job.

  It should have been done, but he thought he heard more noise in the hallway. For a second, he wondered, How much longer can I keep this up?

  Chapter Thirty

  Ryker went back to playing dead. It was his best option. When no more men flooded into the showers, he quickly changed into a fresh uniform. This one he was able to fit over his jumpsuit, a uniform where a headshot to the soldier kept much of the blood from getting on the heavy fabric. The material wasn’t comfortable, and he felt stiff, like his movements were not only wooden, but severely limited. Putting on his hat, he realized it would have to work.

  He knew the hive would be buzzing, but with so many people out there, for now, it seemed he had a small window of opportunity.

  Taking a deep breath, loaded with a fresh mag and a second gun, he walked the hallway with his hat pulled low. It wouldn’t cover his chin though. He knew there were Gweilo guards, and Gweilo soldiers, but there weren’t that many of these American traitors on staff. In fact, he might have only seen one since he arrived. Still, there would be a lot of suspicion. Not to mention he didn’t speak Chinese, and the Gweilo soldiers would.

  The second he rounded the hallway’s first corner, he saw a group of soldiers huddling around a man who seemed to be in command. Ryker shot him first, then rapid fired on the remaining four with tactical precision. Meaning he didn’t miss. Then again, he needed four more rounds to dispense of the four he didn’t critically wound the first time.

  Up ahead he saw the exit.

  His heart was racing, pumping him full of adrenaline. Thank God for that. Quickly, he popped out both mags, passed an office window, then stopped. He thought he saw women in the office. On closer inspection, he did.

  The one he caught the best glimpse of looked terrified.

  He ducked inside the office, went desk to desk until he found a man on the floor. He was in uniform. Ryker ignored the women, none of them looking like an immediate threat.

  “Give me your gun,” he told the guard.

  He started to reach for it, his hands shaking, but his face stern. Ryker put a round into his head, then finished looking around. More men poured into the block, maybe twelve or fifteen of them. They ran past the office, not having heard the execution shot.

  The women were now whimpering. He shushed them, then he got up and walked out into the hallway. The exit was only twenty feet away.

  Twenty feet to freedom.

  He got there quickly, but when he reached for the handle, the door was pulled open by a second horde of men. Head ducked low, he stepped back as they rushed past him, heading down the hall to the scene of the massacre.

  This was the point where Ryker wished he’d had a grenade or two. A real grenade. One he could lob into the showers while the Chicom guards were counting their
dead.

  He stepped into the sunshine, snuck a quick glance around.

  Out in the yard, there were people packed everywhere. The conditions were sorry at best, and many of them were sick, or would certainly be sick. There was the feeling of concern in the air, but there was not the pandemonium he expected.

  He walked up to one of the guards who was alone, fired a round into his back where the bullet would shred his heart. He dropped down dead. Ryker stripped the man of his weapon, even as people started to scream.

  He moved through the now frantic crowds, pushing past refugees as he made a beeline to the other guards. They were looking confused, like they were trying to understand what was happening, like they were trying to maintain control.

  These men didn’t carry two-ways.

  They didn’t know.

  He moved to the next guard, was made within a few feet, then pumped a round into the man’s head. He dropped dead. Ryker pushed forward, found two more guards, dropped them both.

  By now, the guards were flooding out of the various blocks. He sunk to the ground with people all around him, stripped off the clothes down to his jumpsuit and shushed the people who were seeing what was happening.

  One man smiled wide, like he got it, but then he frowned because he knew what was next. Ryker couldn’t think of that right then.

  He had to keep moving.

  The weapon at his side, he stood and threaded his way through the crowds, blending in, except for his elevated heart rate, and the blood spatter on his face. When he was stopped, stuck for a second, an older woman scrunched in front of him looked up.

  He looked down at her, then away, and then back.

  She licked her hand, three long fingers down the tongue, and then she started wiping at his face, which he knew was spritzed with blood.

  “Thank you,” she said, when she was done. Looking down, there was still blood all over his jumpsuit. She gave him a look that said she couldn’t fix everything.

  That’s when the guards started firing on everyone.

  People all around him were dropping as the horn sounded overhead. It was like an air raid siren, but more obnoxious. Two men were shot beside him. He went down with them, moving the dead around him for insulation.

  When he saw the woman down, too, he took her hand and started them moving, but the woman pulled back. He stopped, looked back at her to tell her it was alright, but she was dead. The sight of her damaged head hit him in the heart like a sledgehammer.

  Letting go of her hand, he couldn’t allow himself to think about her. Not while the gunfire continued, and not while the screaming of the sirens raged on. Popping his head up, he could already see people being lined up and summarily executed.

  With each bullet, with each death of an innocent, he felt his heart plummet. All these people were dying because of him. He did this.

  Now he had to undo it.

  He picked up his own gun, grabbed another from the guard he’d shot minutes ago, and moved low through the terrified crowds. He stayed with them as best as he could while moving toward Cell Block North. Eventually he moved against the current because he was heading for the firing squads while everyone else was running away.

  There were five men shooting ten people at a time, and two more guards grabbing fresh bodies and hauling them up.

  Women, children, the elderly…it didn’t matter.

  He had two guns with Lord knew how many rounds left. But this was it. He wasn’t going to live, so he thought it best to take out as many of those bastards as he could.

  He fired five rounds, all five rounds hitting their marks. Meaning they struck a body. He fired on the two grabbers, who were now un-holstering their weapons. Nothing happened. He squeezed the trigger again but the mag was empty.

  Switching to the other weapon cost him time. People were now pushing and shoving each other out of the way. They were bumping into him, moving past him, around him, some trying to go through him.

  He fired the first round, caught one guard high on the chest, but the other guard had him dead to rights.

  The guard fired and a spray of red and bits of bone blasted Ryker right in his face. Startled, staggering back, he was shoulder checked by someone who accidentally knocked into him, then driven to the ground with a second, harder hit. Lying in the dirt, he got kicked and trampled.

  In the midst of all that, somehow he managed to get a hand to his face to see where he’d been shot. There were no fatal wounds, and the pain wasn’t sufficient enough to convince him he was dying. At best, he found a few nicks here and there, but no bullet holes.

  That’s when he realized what happened.

  Quickly crawling through the crowds of rushing people, getting hammered in the ribs, the arms, the legs and the head with shins, feet and knees, he found the man who’d been shot. This was the dead guy who took the round intended for him.

  Ryker saw the entry hole, then he turned his head over and sure enough, the back of his skull was blown out.

  The cuts on Ryker’s face were from the man’s skull fragments.

  He set the empty gun in the dead man’s hand, then managed to get to his feet and scramble away with the departing crowd. He knew the guard who fired the weapon would check on the body, and hopefully they would identify him as the shooter and be done with it.

  When the guards finally wrangled everyone together in the corner of the yard, including Skylar—who he saw, who hadn’t yet seen him—he breathed a sigh of relief.

  All over the grounds, there were dead people, and there were mortally wounded too, most of them crying out for help.

  He’d been hoping Skylar wasn’t one of them.

  With her safe, he looked around at the bloodshed, the senseless death and he told himself this was on him. He did this. The feeling rolled through him hard, twisting his guts, causing him to convulse. Like so many others, he fell to a knee and vomited, the tears a fact not of the upheaval, but of the horrible thing he’d just done.

  The shooting started from inside one of the blocks, maybe North Cell Block, maybe the Block behind it where Skylar heard the guards were stationed. Most of the guards in the yard remained in the mix of people, working through them with the confidence of tyrants.

  The more the short bursts of gunfire echoed into the yard, the more people grew quiet. They were listening, the air suddenly crackling with energy.

  This was not a good thing.

  That was what put the guards and everyone else on high alert. The guards from the observation towers began to leave their posts. What the hell was happening? The first thing she did was think about her back, her legs, her raw fingertips. She saw the guard who pissed on her, and started moving toward him.

  Keeping tabs on the Chicoms with eagle eye vantage points, as well as those in the yard, she started to let the beast in her unfold.

  Scared, beaten and locked away, she’d kept her emotions guarded. Now that they were unraveling, it was like the clutch was being let out on her anger. She had her eye firmly on Mr. Golden Showers.

  The guard who pissed on her.

  There was only one last man now on the tower, the chaos from inside the building was continuing, and she was but a few feet from the guard. His head was looking this way and that, concern in his eyes, his mind attuned to any eruption of violence, a rising mob, or an active shooter.

  He wasn’t looking at Skylar.

  He didn’t even see her coming until it was too late.

  When the active shooter moved into the crowd and started firing on other guards, Mr. Golden Showers headed in his direction.

  Then he stopped.

  One of the guards in the crowd was met by another guard, and then a shot was fired and the first guard collapsed.

  Golden Showers signaled to the man on the high tower, got his attention, then pointed like a crazy person at the shooter.

  By then, the man in the tower was radioing someone on his two-way.

  That’s when Golden Showers turned to return to the ed
ge of the crowd. He bumped right into her. She drove a flattened fist up into his throat, the hollow crunch being a slow delivery death sentence.

  “Works every time,” she said, staring at him.

  Wide eyed, he tried to bring his gun hand up, but she stepped in, grabbed his wrist to control him, then grabbed him by the grapes so hard, his legs went weak. She crushed his balls in her hand like she’d never crushed anything in her life.

  Choking, having his testes wrecked, barely standing on his own two legs, she stood with him, her eyes boring into his. He tried to push her face away, but she withstood the effort, never taking her eyes off him until his legs finally buckled and she let him drop to the ground.

  By then the crowd was moving away, a firing squad opened up on the masses and she was forced to take cover.

  As she stood there, huddled together with hundreds of scared prisoners, she realized that her work was done there. Maybe tomorrow someone would take Golden Shower’s place. Maybe he’d be better, or perhaps he’d be worse to her. But right then, how she’d exacted her revenge, she could live with that even if she was one of the survivors to take a bullet.

  About that time, people started to duck down because the gunfire was getting closer, as evidenced by the dropping bodies.

  Then it stopped, but only because one of the guards turned on the others, firing into the backs of those in the firing squad. This rogue Chicom soldier killed another, but then he was shot in the head.

  What in God’s good name was going on?

  When she saw Ryker making his way in the crowd with blood all over him, she was happy to see him on one hand, but concerned he’d been shot on the other hand.

  When it was clear she wasn’t in further danger, she moved toward him. He suddenly took a knee and vomited, and that’s when she started to wonder if there was something wrong with him, if he was dying.

  “Ryker,” she said, touching his shoulder. “It’s me, Skylar. Are you okay?”

  He looked up and nodded his head, then said, “Yeah, I mean, no. I’m not injured.”

  Thank God.