by Schow, Ryan
Chapter Thirty-One
The Chicom guards were going through the dying and the dead. Those who were dead, they laid on their backs and crossed their arms. Those who were still alive were shot in the head, laid on their backs and had their arms crossed.
The refugees were ordered to carry the corpses out behind the old Maintenance and Vocational building where the body stack that had been going before the massacre was enormous.
The sight of this ever expanding collection of the dead was heart breaking.
The body stack burned 24/7, the beast being fed constantly. Now it would gorge itself on those who might never have survived this war, this prison camp, the next thirty days.
He tried to tell himself that a lot more were going to die before this thing was over, but it wasn’t encouraging. Ryker’s mood was so black, he couldn’t even see straight.
When he was heading back to the yard, he heard a voice.
“Hey!” a woman called out. “Ryker!”
He turned and saw Skylar, who walked over to him, checking the guards, making sure she wasn’t going to be shot for talking to him.
“What the hell happened?” she said.
“My brother is dead.”
“What?”
“I had us a ride out of here, but my brother didn’t know. That’s what I was meeting him for earlier this morning, to tell him.”
“How did he die?”
“He thought the guard was there to kill him, and he welcomed it, but not before he shanked the guy. The guard was trying to tell him he had a way out.”
“Oh, my God.”
“So how did all this start?” she asked again, her voice low, conspiratorial.
“I saw an opportunity.”
“You did this?” she hissed low and surprised.
“Shhh,” he said.
Shaking her head, she looked around at all the dead. There must be two or three hundred of them.
“These deaths are on me,” he said. “I’m going to have to answer for this.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I shouldn’t have overreacted,” he said.
“How many?”
“Did I get?” he asked, glancing at her.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “A couple of dozen, maybe more? I lost count. Things were moving so fast, and I was on edge.”
“I bet.”
“My heart is still out of control,” he confessed.
“So, you had a way out?” she asked.
Drawing a deep breath though his nostrils, he knew what was coming next.
“I did,” he said.
“Were you just going to let me rot here?”
Her face was beaten pretty bad, but last night out in the cold seemed to take a lot of the swelling away. It had gone down even more, but the faint bluish marks all over her face would soon turn yellow and green and she’d look just as bad, but in a different way.
Still, behind those hurt eyes, and behind all the damage done to her face, he could see she was a reasonably attractive woman. Well, not ugly. But she could fight. From what he saw outside the paddy wagon when she knocked out the guard, the woman could fight every bit as viciously as he could.
“So now what?” he said, not answering the question.
“We wait,” she said.
“For?”
“The EMP. We wait and we be ready. Because when it hits, unless they bring in generators for backup power, this is all going down. We can break out of here then.”
“There’s also one other thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“The EMP will solve the problem of the Cyberlink in your head.”
“If it doesn’t, will you cut it out?”
With that he showed her the shank that he’d slipped into his pocket. It was the shank his brother made.
She smiled, then said, “Maybe we could clean it first.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asked as the two of them lifted a dead body, her taking the ankles, him sliding his forearms under the corpse’s armpits.
“Go,” she said, grunting as they penguin-walked the body across the yard.
“What do we do now?” he asked. When she didn’t say anything, he said, “I mean, I was only here to save Boyd, but he didn’t want to be saved. He only wanted to die on his own terms.”
“And you?” she asked, the strain in her face growing.
“I didn’t really think much further than that. But I have to tell you, when I started killing those guys, it felt horrible—me taking lives like that—but a part of me felt something big and beastly unfolding inside.”
“You liked it,” she said, making sure there weren’t any guards or people close enough to hear them.
“It felt…justified.”
“I move mission to mission,” she said, the admission important. “I infiltrated the Ministry of Propaganda, seduced the Minister, got into his cell phone and cloned it. From there we got intel on the upcoming battle plans.”
“You have their battle plans?”
“You can see most of them unfolding, but we didn’t know if they’d set off an EMP. There is a feeding frenzy happening east of here that’s honestly the most crushing thing an American can see. And it’s about to get worse.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The EU Army is about to clash with the African Union’s Army for east coast dominance. And the South American Army is either breaking through the southern wall, or they’ve already done that. We’ve got reason to believe they’ll either make a hard run at Texas or they’ll veer west and wage war against the Chicoms here in California.”
“We’re like a carcass and these armies,” he said, disgusted.
“We’re not dead, yet.”
“No, but how do you defeat something like that?” he asked. “We’re two people.”
“No, we’re not.”
“How many of you are there?”
“People or factions?” she asked. “Because there’s actually a hell of a lot of both.”
“So we wait on the EMP,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“And then we head up north, to a place called Five Falls, Oregon.”
“What’s there?”
“The staging ground for the west coast militia, hopefully.”
Nodding his head, he said, “Do you have anyone waiting for you?”
Now he could see her smile.
“You just starting to figure out I’m not half bad looking under all this abuse?” she teased.
He wasn’t in the mood for teasing, not while they were lobbing another body into the huge pit of flames. Still, he entertained her.
“Something like that,” he said.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said. “Or maybe you’re just average, but after what you did, maybe you’re a little larger than life, too.”
He laughed and said, “I’m sure that’s it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
That night, after walking the barn and seeing the progress made, Logan and Harper sat down to a nice meal with Orbey, Collin, Stephani and Cooper. He felt bad being there without Kim. But the company was good and everything was easy, comfortable.
After dinner, Harper told him he’d be sleeping in the room with her, even though he offered to sleep in the barn with the work crew.
By then he was feeling guilty for being with all these women. First he was with Skylar, then Kim, and now he could sense Harper might want to be with him, too.
None of this seemed real. He wasn’t that good looking or interesting.
Was it because he was getting stronger, more capable? The old stories where the handsome stud gets all the pretty ladies…Logan always figured that was just fantasy writers used to sell books to women in need of some romance.
Was that even realistic?
Actually, for a minut
e there, he was starting to feel like maybe it was. Except he wasn’t handsome and none of them were really that pretty.
Looks didn’t mean squat to him though. What he longed for was the connection. That’s what the Chicoms did that was so damaging—they cut everyone off from talking, from connecting.
Essentially, through a long, orchestrated effort, they turned Americans on each other.
Now, as he lay on the floor next to Harper’s bed, he wished he was back home in his own lumpy bed, with Kim there to cuddle up to him.
“The floor has to be rock hard,” Harper said.
He wasn’t aware she was still awake.
“It is.”
“Why don’t you come up here and sleep with me,” she offered. “You may be shy, or even modest, but trust me, come morning, you’ll wish you accepted my invitation.”
Halfway through the night, he dragged himself up off the floor, his back, hips and legs royally pissed off at him, and crawled into bed with Harper.
She stirred, then moved over. When he got in bed and pulled the blankets over him, she scooted close, snuggling up near him.
“Are you cold?” she asked, groggy.
“A little,” he confessed.
His blanket on the ground was thin, and too short. More like a decorative throw than an actual blanket. So yeah, he was cold.
“I sleep hot,” she said.
He was in his briefs; she was in her panties and bra. When his skin touched hers, he was surprised at how right she was.
“Good God,” he said, “you’re burning up.”
“And you’re freezing.”
She scooted even closer and he said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you feel good.”
“I was thinking the same of you.”
He laid there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth and comfort of her body snuggled against his. He’d slept with her once before, taking a nap out in the barn before it was renovated. It wasn’t a sex thing, or even a romance thing. At least not to him. She’d said she liked to cuddle, and that wasn’t lost on him. Now she was doing it again, only with less clothes on.
Far less clothes.
He only slept in bed once with Skylar and she slept at the edge of the bed, her back to him. Kim was different. She was just a bunch of limbs draped all over him, but not in a bad way. But Harper…he even liked the way she smelled.
He stored that in his mind for later. And then he closed his eyes, nestled into her a little more, and finally fell asleep.
Logan and Harper went up to the garden to seed new grow boxes for the upcoming season. Orbey, Connor and Stephani stayed behind to work on their own garden. About an hour into the day, they heard the dinner bell at the house ring and knew something was wrong.
The two of them hurried down the hill where they saw the Sheriff standing on the porch with Craig.
“Oh, great,” Logan said as they stalked through the woods, over pine needles, twigs and tufts of a twig/pine needle mixture.
“You did kick Craig’s ass,” Harper said.
“True.”
“And Orbey did kill his friend,” she added, keeping her voice down.
“Also true.”
“So just keep quiet and let someone else do the talking.”
He didn’t respond. Normally he’d relent, shrinking to the back of the room to let someone else handle it. But times had changed. Things were different.
He was now part of the Resistance.
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.”
“So stay quiet?”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. Then he added, “Sure.”
“That’s the guy who assaulted me,” Craig said, pointing at Logan. Now the Sheriff was looking at him, too. “I want him arrested.”
“I didn’t see anyone assault you,” Orbey said.
“Yeah, me neither,” Connor added. Looking down at Cooper, he said, “What about you, boy? You see Craig here get assaulted?”
Cooper sat up, looked at Craig, then laid his head back down in the negative.
“You saw it,” Craig growled. “Unless you’re gonna lie like these liars.”
Logan stepped up on the porch, Harper beside him. He’d seen Harper fight, watched her kill three guys back in San Francisco.
He liked their odds.
“We just asked him to leave, Sheriff,” Harper said. “He got belligerent, and I admit, I did threaten to have him escorted off our property. But asking someone to leave who shouldn’t be here in the first place—”
“He lost his friend,” the Sheriff pleaded.
“He’s dead, not lost!” Craig shouted.
“That doesn’t give you the right to go looking for him in the girl’s bathroom,” Harper said, her tone coarse.
“What the hell are you even saying?” Craig snapped.
“What she means to say is just because your friend is lost, doesn’t mean you can go around poking your head in places you don’t belong,” Logan said. “Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”
The Sheriff looked at Craig and said, “Yeah, unfortunately he’s right.”
Logan glance over at Orbey and said, “Do you want to file a complaint with the Sheriff right now? Craig admitted to being here after he was asked to leave.”
“No I didn’t,” Craig argued.
“Did we ask you to leave?” Logan said. “Because I’m pretty sure we did.”
“You physically assaulted me,” Craig snarled.
Logan rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, jeez. Here we go again with the theatrics.”
Right then, Craig launched himself at Logan, who saw it coming. In fact, he’d lightly baited the heathen just to see what he’d do. The second Craig grabbed him, Logan stepped back, hands up.
“Craig!” the Sheriff bellowed, reaching for him.
He reared up to take a swing at Logan, but Harper shoulder-bumped him hard. The porch was only a foot off the ground, and since it wasn’t very high, there was no need for a railing. Craig stumbled off the side, twisted an ankle and howled out the second he hit the dirt.
Logan walked over to the edge, looked down and said, “If you wanted the story to be more believable, you should have said Harper assaulted you, you sackless bitch.”
The Sheriff stepped off the porch, leaned over and picked him up. Craig hobbled on one leg, going on about his ankle being sprained, about wanting to press charges, about his buddy being dead, not lost.
“I’m so sorry, Orbey,” the Sheriff said.
“Why you apologizing to her?” Craig screeched. “I want that fat bitch in jail. You hear me? I want her in jail!”
“Shut up, Craig,” the Sheriff said as they started to walk away. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll have that warrant tomorrow, so don’t go anywhere.”
“We’ll put on some eggs for you, Sheriff.”
He nodded, not sure what to make of the hospitality. When Logan looked at them with concern, Harper said, “Me and Stephani burned the body to ash, mixed it with the dirt, then slaughtered a hen and buried her about a foot under the earth. There’s even a little cross with her name on it.”
“The dead hen?”
“Yes.”
“What was her name?” he asked.
“She didn’t have one, but if anyone asks, it was Lucy,” Connor said. “I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”
When he first dropped Harper off at the Madigan’s place (per Skylar’s instruction), Stephani admitted to having a poacher problem. She said it was ongoing and the Sheriff never acted like it was a big deal. Now that one guy was burnt to ash and another got his ass kicked, it was becoming a big deal. Pinned between a murder investigation and an EMP, one more certain than the other, Logan knew they just needed to last a week before the EMP went off. When that happened, there’d be too many things to deal with to mess around with people like Craig and search warrants. And maybe, if the time was right, and circumstances dictated it, they’d give Craig a much deserved dirt nap.
Sooner
than later, if that’s what was to be.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Several days passed by, long enough for Harper and Logan to successfully seed the gardens, build two new raised garden beds, help paint the walls in the barn and start moving Connor’s hardware up to the barn.
Vlad ended up insulting Stephani, saying bees were dumb and basically almost getting fired for just being a freaking knucklehead. The sad thing was, they needed Vlad more than Vlad needed them, so in the end no one was fired.
After that, at the house, Connor blew up and said that’s what ladies get for sniffing around a construction site. Orbey slapped him; he pretended to be hurt, but then he winked at Logan who turned to conceal a laugh.
The night before he was set to leave, Orbey and Stephani asked him to stay, to not go back.
“As much as I’d love to stay, I really have to go,” he said. “I need to warn Kim, but I have to make sure the EMP goes off, too. If it doesn’t, then we got bad intel and we may be compromised. If that’s the case, I’ll ride it out there and pop up here every other week, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” Orbey said.
After a wonderful meal, a nice evening on the porch and some stirring conversation, Logan said he was going to bed.
“I’m tired, too,” Harper said.
In the bedroom, with the light on low, Harper started to undress.
“I can go out if you want,” Logan said.
“It’s okay,” she replied. She removed her shirt and then her pants and socks. As he began to remove his shirt, he looked up and saw her looking at him. She removed her bra, causing him to draw a sharp breath, and then her underwear. He didn’t take his eyes off her.
“Your turn,” she said.
“Um, are we…”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, are you?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Good, I don’t want to face the apocalypse a virgin.”
“Makes sense,” he replied.
When he got into bed, she moved toward him, and then she moved on top of him. That night was nothing like his time with Skylar or Kim. They were both incredible women, and he wasn’t taking anything away from them—or even comparing them to each other—for that kind of thinking was beneath him. What he was acutely aware of was a compatibility he had with Harper that was easy, fun and energizing.