“You’re bluffing,” said the Sheriff.
“Try me,” Johnny said as he put his hands down to the pistols on each side of his hips.
All the hammers in the room were pulled. Every gun was ready to take a life. Johnny was the fastest in the room, and they all knew it. Even with their guns drawn and pointed at him, they knew Johnny had a game plan.
“Make your move, Sheriff,” Johnny was itching to pull his guns out.
“This is it for you, Johnny boy.”
Boom!
The lights cut out and the room went dark.
“Get on the ground!” came a blaring voice from the entryway.
Smoke grenades went off all around them. The sounds of boots racing buzzed from every direction. People started screaming. Guns started firing. Flashes from gun muzzles were everywhere.
“Sinda!”
“Jon!”
Soldiers came rushing to them, and one of them leveled a blow with the butt of their gun across Jon’s face. They took him down to the ground, tied him up and blindfolded him faster than he could even think about running. He remained conscious as they dragged him through the chaos of the dark warehouse and out into the cold night. Jon didn’t struggle. He couldn’t – and he was used to this by now. They dragged him into the alley.
“Garbage goes in the back,” a soldier joked and the rest laughed. Then they all took a turn swinging at Jon. After they were satisfied they hurled him into the back of a vehicle. It was back down the grid system - again. Except this time, it was a dead end. Game over. Jon decided to fight and he did, but he would lose this one. What was his fate going to be? Firing squad? Public execution? Maybe they would bury him in a hole and give him just enough nutrients to keep him alive, and watch him go mad from isolation for the rest of his life.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered now.
He was about to learn his fate.
Everything went black.
16
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS
It’s like being beaten to a blackout and then being submerged in ice cold water. Your body is fluid, but your brain is numb. You can’t open your eyes. They must remain shut. Everything is calm around you. Until somebody reaches into the water to pull you back up. The sound is muffled.
“Specialist.”
It sounded like a distant voice coming from a near sound-proof closet.
“Specialist.”
A little louder but still a distant muffle.
“Specialist!”
Maybe it was getting louder, but the sound fades back into nothing.
Then the burning begins. The nose hairs cringe and feel like they singe.
“Aaaaaaaa!” John came to while screaming. They used some sort of smelling salt on him.
“Ah, Specialist. Welcome to my office.”
It was Everett. Oh, no, it was Everett. John was tied to a stool. He could feel fresh blood dripping over the dry blood all over his face. His eyes must have been swollen. Everything hurt to look at. His entire body felt swollen. His joints hurt. His brain hurt. There was another male and female officer in the room. Jon had never seen them before.
“I told you that you would be mine, and now here you are. You’re mine.” Everett could not have been happier.
“What happens now?” Jon’s words were like gargled marbles.
“What happens now is you get to play my little game and then you die.”
“Sounds fun. But, I don’t want to play,” replied Jon.
“Fortunately, you don’t have a choice so you will play my little game. I call it the rats nest.”
“The rats nest?” Jon spit out the words.
“Yes. It’s where the guilty parties know there’s no way out so they’re willing to bargain. They confess. They give up names, numbers, known addresses and other information. They will give up anything to keep themselves out of these little prison cells.” Then he walked over to Jon’s left arm and exposed the band. “You have a lot of confessing to do it would seem.”
Gargled marbles, “I’m under direct order from General Greenwald to infiltrate the underground, and I have. That’s what this is. There’s nothing shocking here.” He pleaded.
“No, nothing shocking” Everett seemed to agree so far. “It’s just that we are in the presence of a man who put a gun to the head of Premiere Lawrence but didn’t pull the trigger.”
“Maybe I was supposed to and chickened out. Maybe I’m playing the underground like the way you think you’re playing me,” Jon started spouting off any way out of this that he could think of.
“Maybe you mistake me for a fool,” said Everett. “Maybe that will be your final mistake.”
Every muscle in Jon’s body seized up. It felt like his skeleton was prying its way out of his skin. Then it stopped, and Jon let out a sigh of relief and a gasp for air. The stool he was sitting on was wired. Jon was strapped down to an electric chair in disguise.
“I know the truth, Specialist. I only want to hear it from you, and any other missing information that could be useful.”
Jon was beyond sorrow. What was the point of fighting? It was over. This is where it all came to an end.
“What,” he struggled, “what do I have that you want?”
Everett shrugged, “You tell me what I want to hear, Specialist.”
“Where’s the General?” Jon asked.
“Oh, he’s out cleaning up the mess that you’ve created.”
Then it occurred to Jon. The level of precision used to capture him in that underground warehouse was executed perfectly. They knew where they were going, and what they were doing when they got there. Somebody told them where to go.
“Marcus?” Jon burped out.
“Marcus?” replied Everett with interest.
“Did he betray me? Did he tell you where to find me?” Jon’s heart couldn’t take any more defeat.
“Oh no, Specialist. Your friend and that traitor Marcus is still on the run. I’d be very interested to speak with him in person, as well.”
“Then who? Who else could have done this to me?”
Everett seemed to be enjoying Jon’s breakdown. He gave a nod to the female officer who cued up a video on the helevision in front of Jon.
Sinda.
She was sitting where Jon is now sitting. Only she wasn’t tied up. She was in her party uniform. She looked as if she was there on her own accord. Everett was interviewing her from behind the camera. He asked her what the urgency was, and, though in tears, she answered. She told him everything she knew, everything she had heard. She told him where the rendezvous point was taking place. There was a pain in her face, but she had just betrayed Jon – and everybody.
Then the video disappeared.
“She came to me, Specialist. After your little assassination attempt. Guilt got the best of her, and she told me everything,” said Everett. “It’s like a delicious poem. I had a well-positioned specialist of my own on the inside. I had everything I wanted and was ready to pounce. Sadly, his communications went dark. I thought I had lost all my leads, and then this sweet creature came wandering in to my lair. The only upsetting part is that there is only one of you. I want to kill you over-and-over again. I’d savor it each-and-every time. Fortunately for you, but unfortunately for me there is only one of you. I’m just going to have to make this count.”
Jon couldn’t cry if he wanted to. There was nothing left. He felt like he was going to die before he ever got in front of a firing squad. Whatever water was in his body was dripping onto the floor, but not as tears, as drips of blood. There was a million moments these last few days where Jon’s heart felt like it was going to jump out of his throat. This time it sank to his stomach and beyond. Heartbreak wasn’t relevant. This was an emotional death. Jon could feel his will breaking to pieces. It dripped out onto the floor with the pool of blood.
“You could have made an appeal to the board, Specialist. You two could have been paired together. You could have had little b
aby Jons. You could have lived in luxury. You could have had a normal life, but you chose treason. And your punishment will fit the crime.”
Jon didn’t respond. He couldn’t. What would he say if he did? Jon had found a reason to fight, and that reason betrayed him. Johnny had found his family and went to die for them. Jon’s family betrayed him and left him for dead. Instead of living in a box, he was going to die in a field, nameless, useless. Then those cold hands of Everett’s grabbed Jon by the collar and lifted his head.
“I would shoot you right here myself,” spoke Everett with an eerie pleasure.
Jon just stared while everything around him became a blur.
“But the General has personally requested you be brought to the Outland Cliffs,” his smile didn’t fade away.
The Outland Cliffs was a graveyard, a body dump. It’s where dissidents went to be sent into the next life. It’s where traitors met their end. It’s where trouble makers were shown the final door. It’s right where Jon was heading.
Then a group of soldiers entered the room, released Jon from his stool and began to drag him out of the room.
“Until we meet in hell, Specialist,” Everett said with a sick grin.
The soldiers released him from his restraints, dragged his bleeding body through the hall and to a maintenance elevator. Another elevator. Another crappy elevator. This ride was awful before it began. It was worse than the time the elevator fell down the shaft with him in it. Right now? Well, he wouldn’t mind for that to happen again - right now.
Silence seemed to be the unspoken code of this bleak party. Nobody ever said a word to each other. It was always deaf silence. As if speaking would put them all into the same situation Jon was in.
“Don’t I get a last meal, or something?” Jon tried to lighten the mood, or at least break the silence.
No response. Not even a glance.
The elevator slowed. The doors opened. Outside of the doors was another vehicle. It was a van - with tires. This meant they were going off the grid system, and probably off the road entirely. It was waiting for Jon to be thrown into the back of. At least this time he was guided into the bench seat along the side, instead of being beaten and hurled in.
Back down the labyrinth, one last time. The way must have been cleared as there was no stopping along the way. The massive barriers raised and lowered without the vehicle breaking its speed. The van continued through the city.
“I wonder what happened,” Jon’s voice cracked. He caught the attention of at least one of his executioners packed in the back with him. “With the book I was reading, I mean. At the end, Johnny finds his family, but now I’ll never know if he saved them or not.” The soldier offered no response. “I’d like to think he saved them. I like good endings.” Jon looked at the soldier whose attention he had caught. “Do you believe in God?”
No response.
“I never did but after this last week, I mean, there has to be. There has to be,” and Jon went back to his thoughts. It was the longest ride, but it felt like the shortest. They were well beyond the city. They were on a path Jon didn’t know even existed. It became very clear when they reached the dirt road, and soon after, just the dirt. Everybody in the back of that van was getting tossed up and bounced off their seat, a few of them even smacking their heads on the side of the van.
“I never thought I’d miss the grid system,” Jon’s voice cracked again.
Then the final fear came to be realized.
The van slowed down.
Then the van stopped.
Jon’s eyes welled up with what water was left in his body. He tried to be strong and show resilience. But he couldn’t. He didn’t make a sound, but tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t even offer up a struggle when the soldiers picked him up from his seat and pushed the van doors open. He knew this would be his fate from the moment he put the party uniform on his person. Jon stepped down out of the van to see another unit of soldiers already awaiting his arrival. They were in two single file lines leading a short distance to the edge of the cliff. They faced each other. It was the pathway to his final resting place. This was his end. As it was his beginning. He would be alone and left to rot. A fitting end for living in a system built by the party, and rebelling against the system the party built. It was just the sharper edge of a double-edged knife.
Jon walked down this makeshift isle of soldiers towards the cliff. He came to the edge overlooking the city. It was in chaos. Fires had erupted all over. A low hum of screaming and clashing with Enforcement could be heard, even from all the way out on the outskirts.
Nobody had spoken a word to Jon, so he assumed. He took a breath and one last look at the chaos he helped create. He closed his eyes and knelt-down to his knees. He didn’t know why, but for the first time in his life he said a quiet prayer in his mind. It helped to calm his heart and slow his anxieties. He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to open them until he was free from this world. Until the chamber cleared and his body hit the ground, Jon refused to look. Then he heard footsteps coming towards him.
His breathing intensified.
The tears rolled faster.
A few fledgling moans escaped his lips.
Then he took a deep breath.
He bit down on his teeth and then he relaxed.
He waited.
He waited.
He wondered.
Then he kept his eyes closed and waited some more.
“Did I not tell you, you were destined for great things?”
Jon opened his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It wasn’t the barrel of a gun. It was an outstretched hand. Jon followed the hand, up the arm and to the person.
It was General Greenwald.
Jon hesitantly reached out and took him by the hand. The General pulled him to his feet, and said nothing at first. They both stared out towards the burning city for a moment. Then Jon turned to look at the General in disbelief. The General turned to look at Jon.
“Come on, Johnny boy. Let’s take back our city.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bretton Ferraro became interested to start writing in college. He started a successful blog which focused on politics. After seeing the negatives and limits placed on the individual by politics and current events, he decided to reach further and start writing stories that reach beyond politics, stories that we can take meaning from. This is his first story.
[email protected]
mrferraro.com
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story please add a short review on Amazon and share this book with your friends and family!
BRETTON FERRARO
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[w1]Beyond fright ? Beyond the ragged edge ?
The Cowboy of Pinnacle City Page 22