Holly Lin | Novella | First Kill

by Swartwood, Robert

  I turn the corner into another hallway, then push through into another doorway—and stop.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Bodies are stacked in the corner of the room. What looks to be six bodies lay in a heap, bullet holes in their heads.

  It’s the crew—of course it’s the crew—and my body is shaking now for the first time, fear starting to seize me.

  I shake it off, flip open the phone again, dial 911.

  Someone answers after two rings.

  “Emergency, where can I direct your call?”

  “I’ve been kidnapped and people are trying to kill me.”

  A slight pause. “Miss, can you say that again?”

  Before I get the chance, the wall beside me dings as another bullet slams into it.

  I scream, drop the phone, spin to see the gunman not too far away.

  I bend to pick up the phone but the gunman shoots again. Another bullet dings the floor right beside the phone.

  Screw this.

  I turn and run.

  Twenty minutes to go.

  Eighteen

  It’s another minute or two before Veronika’s voice comes over the ship’s speaker system.

  “We found the phone, Holly. We know you called the police. If you think this changes anything, you are wrong. The only thing that changes is that now we have a reason to hurt you. So do yourself a favor. Turn yourself in and we will make it as painless as possible.”

  I hold up both middle fingers, high in the air. I doubt she can see me—I don’t see any surveillance cameras anywhere—but it’s the principle of the thing.

  I’ve gone up another flight of stairs and wonder how many more I need to go up to find a way out of this place. But then I push through another door, and the cool night air and the smell of the ocean hit me at once. Bright lights shine all about the harbor, illuminating the dozens and dozens of containers stacked on the deck and the cranes hanging above.

  Okay, so this is a start. We’re still docked, which means now I just need to find a way off the boat.

  I use the cranes as a sort of guide. Their bases are no doubt connected to land, and land is very much where I want to be.

  I sprint across the deck, past the large containers, and once I spot the stairway that leads off the ship, I start running even faster.

  I’m halfway there when the ground in front of me sparks as a bullet strikes it.

  I stop at once, spin back around.

  I can’t see anybody at first—bright lights are shining in my eyes—but then I spot the shooter up at the top of the ship. He’s aiming right at me.

  Fuck it.

  I start running toward the stairway.

  The ground sparks again as another bullet strikes it. This time it’s even closer, and slivers of metal pepper my leg.

  I glance back up at the shooter. All right, so maybe playing chicken isn’t the best idea.

  I start running again. Not toward the stairway or toward the shooter, but deeper into the maze of shipping containers.

  There aren’t that many yet on deck—I’ve seen other ships that were stacked high and tight—so there’s enough room to maneuver through several. At least now the shooter can’t see me. That’s a plus. But it also means I can’t see the shooter. Or any of the others who are hunting me. But as long as I kill time, I should be okay. Assuming what these people say about my father is true, he has the means to save me. I just need time.

  I sprint between two shipping containers, the space so narrow I can barely extend my arms, and I’m almost to the end when a man appears, a gun held at his side.

  Without much thought, I turn and start running in the opposite direction.

  The man doesn’t shoot me in the back. Instead, there’s the crackle of radio static and he says something quickly in Russian—notifying the others, it sounds like—and then the heavy thumping of his boots as he gives chase.

  I exit the narrow shipping container alleyway seconds later, breathing heavy now, my bare feet sore, a cramp starting in my side.

  Two other men are headed my way.

  I turn and keep running, down the length of the deck, the stairway—my only form of escape—somewhere behind me.

  I expect the deck to spark with another bullet any second, but nothing comes. The shooter must have abandoned his spot. Either that or he’s lining up his shot to take me out for good.

  I can hear the others giving chase behind me, but I don’t bother looking back. Looking back will slow me down, even if it’s for a second, and right now I need all the seconds I can get.

  The harbor is spread out before me, the city beyond it. Down there people are going about their daily lives, even if it is now the middle of the night. Nobody has any idea I’m up here. Nobody could care less if a bullet takes out the back of my head.

  The deck seems like it will never end, and then, quite suddenly, I’ve reached the front of the ship.

  Well, not quite the front of the ship—there’s a sort of metal wall keeping me from advancing any farther. How I’m supposed to get around the metal wall, I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve got nowhere else to go.

  Taking a deep breath, I turn around.

  Three men approach. They’re not running anymore, now that they see there’s no reason. They keep their guns held down at their sides, walking almost casually, like they’ve got all the time in the world.

  I look left, toward the harbor. Then look right, toward the water.

  If I sprint fast enough and make it to the edge, will I even want to jump over the side? It’s probably more than one hundred feet straight down, if not more. I could survive that, right? As long as I keep my feet straight and my arms down, make myself as small as possible as I break the surface.

  I lick my lips, calculating the distance, but by that point the men have reached me.

  They don’t say anything. Two of them grab me by the arms and direct me back up the deck, the third one following closely behind.

  I don’t bother fighting them. I know it won’t change much. These three men are much too strong for me. Plus, they have weapons, which at the moment are a bit more dangerous than my sarcasm.

  Veronika and who I assume must be Dolph—no, wait, Grigory—meet us halfway up the deck.

  Veronika holds her left hand against her stomach right where her shirt is fresh with blood. She doesn’t say anything, just uses her free hand to slap me across the face.

  It stings, but I do my best not to show it. Looking back at her, I say, “Sorry about stabbing you. In my defense, I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

  She slaps me again.

  Grigory says, “Enough. We are leaving.”

  I say to him, “Oh yeah, sorry about hitting you with the chair. In my defense, I didn’t think I would ever see you again either.”

  Grigory doesn’t look amused. He starts to open his mouth, but before he can speak, half of his face disappears.

  Seven minutes to go.

  Nineteen

  For a solid second, I don’t react. I stand there and watch as the pieces of Grigory’s face slide off and his body slumps to the deck. At first none of it makes sense—like, holy shit, that’s one hardcore sneeze—but then I hear the thudding of helicopters.

  I look up and see two of them circling the container ship. Out of one hangs a man with a sniper rifle. Ropes are flung down from the helicopters, and men in black begin to descend to the deck.

  “Shoot them!” Veronika screams.

  The hands holding my arms fall away. The three men open fire. Veronika opens fire too, shooting at the nearest helicopter. Then she grabs my arm and begins dragging me up the deck.

  I pull away.

  Veronika snarls something in Russian, and the next thing I know one of the men grabs me and throws me up over his shoulder fireman-style. I kick and punch, but it doesn’t do much to slow him as he rushes forward, still firing up at the helicopters and the men sliding down the ropes.

&
nbsp; Then we’ve reached one of the doors and the man sets me down and my first instinct is to run, but Veronika grabs my arm and yanks me inside, and it looks like the man is going to follow when a bullet tears into the back of his head.

  Veronika tries to drag me down the corridor.

  I resist, kicking at her, which unsurprisingly isn’t something she enjoys.

  She punches me, then presses the barrel of the gun against my head.

  “Do you want me to kill you?”

  I’m guessing the question is rhetorical so I don’t bother answering.

  “Move,” she says, pushing me forward.

  I move. “Where are we going?”

  “Move,” she repeats.

  I walk ten paces before I stop.

  The barrel of the gun pokes me in the back of the head.

  I don’t move. I close my eyes. Hope that at any second my father or one of those men from the helicopters will bust through the door and kill Veronika. Because they’re here now—they’re so close—and the only thing I have to do is wait.

  “I will not tell you again,” Veronika says.

  I open my eyes. Slowly turn around.

  She’s aiming the gun at my face. The barrel is this tiny hole less than a foot from my nose. With a slight squeeze of the trigger, a bullet in the gun will exit that hole and kill me. At least, that’s the way I understand the mechanics of guns. I’ve never actually fired one before. Have never even touched one. All I know of guns is what I’ve seen in movies and on TV.

  Past Veronika, down the corridor, is the door we’ve just entered. Nobody opens it to save me.

  I turn around again, my back now to Veronika and that closed door, and start to walk.

  Behind me, Veronika takes a step forward.

  That’s when I spin back around and throw my body into hers. We hit the wall with a heavy thud. The impact is enough to cause her to drop the gun. It clatters to the floor. I bend to reach for it. Veronika kicks me in the stomach. I fall to my knees, reaching for the gun, but Veronika steps over me. She bends, reaching for the gun herself. I grab her ankle, yank back as hard as I can. She loses her balance, falls on her face. I crawl over her, digging my knee into her back, into her kidneys. Both of us are reaching for the gun that’s only inches away. I’m on top of Veronika, so I have a slight advantage, but not much. Because I don’t have the training that Veronika has. Because the world Veronika lives in is not the world I live in. I’m just seventeen years old. I attend high school. I like going to the mall with my friends and being sarcastic with boys. So I take a moment to think about what any seventeen-year-old girl would do in this situation, and like that, the answer becomes obvious.

  I grab Veronika’s hair, yank her head back, and smash her already messed up face into the floor.

  It doesn’t stop her, but it gives me the extra couple of seconds to scramble forward and grab the gun.

  It feels heavier than I thought it would, but I grip the handle tightly as I turn and stand up, pointing the gun at Veronika.

  She looks up at me, her nose now dripping with blood. Her ground hamburger face cracks into a smile.

  “Are you going to shoot me, Holly? Are you going to kill me?”

  I don’t answer. I keep the gun aimed at her face.

  Veronika grins, her mouth full of blood. “You are not going to shoot me. You are not the type.”

  I look past her up the corridor at the closed door.

  Come on, I think. Come on, come on, come on.

  Even though I don’t know it at that moment, there are twenty seconds to go.

  “I will make it easy for you,” Veronika says. She sits up, slowly, and leans back against the wall. “If you do not kill me in the next five seconds, I will kill you.”

  Ten seconds.

  I say, “Oh yeah? And how do you plan on doing that? I’m the one holding the gun, if you haven’t noticed.”

  Five seconds.

  Veronika grins again. She says, “There are others ways to kill than with just a gun,” and reaches for her pocket.

  I squeeze the trigger.

  Twenty

  The gun kicks in my hand. I almost drop it but manage to hold on tight. The report was louder than I expected. My ears ring. So at first I don’t hear Veronika crying out. She’s not screaming so much as crying out in pain. I watch her writhing on the floor, reaching for her foot. Or what’s left of her foot. The bullet took out several of her toes.

  The door at the end of the corridor opens.

  I jerk the gun in that direction.

  A man stands in the doorway, his rifle aimed at me.

  A tense couple of seconds pass before I realize the man is my father. At that same moment, my father seems to understand that the girl holding the gun is his daughter. He lowers the rifle a bit and sprints forward.

  I aim the gun back at Veronika.

  As he nears, my father quickly assesses the situation. He gives me an awestruck look.

  “Holly?”

  He says it like he doesn’t believe it’s really me. I want to say his name in the same tone because I don’t believe it’s really him at first. Despite what Veronika has said about my father, part of me refused to believe it. My father has always been in the military, yes, but he’s never actually looked like a badass soldier to me. Now he’s wearing tactical gear, carrying a rifle, and has a hardened look in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.

  He asks, “Are you okay?”

  I only nod. The gun in my hands now feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.

  My father reaches out, gently takes the gun from me. I’m happy to give it up. He looks down at Veronika again, studying her as if for the first time.

  “You’re the one I talked to.”

  He doesn’t bother making it a question.

  Veronika’s no longer crying out in pain. She glares up at my father.

  “My employer—”

  “I know who your employer is. I know what he wants. He’s not getting it.”

  Veronika laughs. It’s a strange sound coming from her ruined face. Blood drips down her chin, dotting the already unstained portions of her T-shirt crimson.

  “He tried to make this easy,” she says. “He told us not to hurt your daughter. Not unless we had no other choice.”

  “I appreciate that,” my father says. “Doesn’t change the fact you’re never going to see the light of day again.”

  Veronika’s bloody grin becomes a sneer. “Neither will you.”

  She holds up her hand, the one she’s been holding at her side. In the craziness of the past few minutes, I completely forgot she had been reaching for her pocket before I shot her. The only thing I’ve been focusing on is that I actually shot her.

  Veronika grips a small black device. It’s the size of a car fob. Maybe it is a car fob for all I know.

  “Boom,” Veronika says, and squeezes the device.

  And like that, the ship trembles. It’s as if there’s just been an earthquake. First one tremor, then a second tremor, then a third, all in quick succession.

  Veronika laughs again. “We placed charges all over the ship. You will not escape.”

  On the fourth tremor, I hear the explosion. It sounds like it’s coming from a nearby room. Maybe one of the engine rooms.

  The ship starts to tilt.

  My father grabs my arm, pulls me up the corridor.

  “Run,” he says. Then, as another charge detonates, this one even closer, he shouts, “Run!”

  I run. The ship continues to tilt, making it so that I’m running up an incline toward the door, and I don’t have much traction with my bare feet, but I run as fast as I can.

  My father’s directly behind me, his boots smacking the floor, another charge detonating somewhere behind us, this one sounding much too close, and suddenly I realize that this is how I’m going to die, on a container ship, either by being blown up or by drowning.

  Seconds later we’re at the door. The ship’s tilting even more now, and it’
s difficult for me to push the door open. My father steps past me, shoves as hard as he can, manages to hold the door open long enough for me to slip through.

  “Starboard side,” my father shouts, and at first I’m not sure who he’s talking to—is he shouting at me?—but then I realize he’s yelling into his transmitter, that right now one of the helicopters is above us, its rotor blades chopping the air as the ship keeps tilting and the loose shipping containers start sliding across the deck.

  My father grabs my arm, pulling me toward the side of the ship. We’re fighting up the incline that’s becoming steeper with every second, and somewhere above us is the helicopter—I can hear it but can’t see it—and my father shouts, “Hurry!” and we keep running and the thudding becomes even louder as one of the helicopters banks toward us and my father shouts at me, “Hold on tight,” and before I know it he grabs me around the waist and I throw myself into him, wrapping my arms around him, as one of those ropes comes down and he grabs it just as one final charge detonates, this one just inside the door we’ve escaped, and the whole world seems to explode as my feet leave the deck.

  I look over my father’s shoulder as the helicopter lifts us away.

  Half of the shipping containers on the deck are gone, now floating in the bay. The front half of the ship is already mostly under water. The top of the ship is roiling in a ball of flames.

  “You’re okay,” my father says to me, and somehow, despite the fact he’s holding a rope attached to a helicopter while his daughter hangs off him, he sounds too calm and collected, like this is something he does all the time. “You’re okay.”

  Twenty-One

  It’s late morning by the time we arrive back to the condo. We’re in a military car, a sedan, something my father drove off the base. We headed down the highway, my father driving, me in the passenger seat, neither one of us speaking.

  We haven’t talked much in the past couple hours.

  An Army nurse patched me up—checked me over for cuts and scraps and the whole deal—and then I was debriefed. At least, that’s what somebody called it—debriefing—where I told what had happened a couple times and then looked at some pictures and confirmed Veronika and Grigory from those pictures. Then finally my dad said it was time to go and so we left.