Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads)

by Luis Samways

  Chapter Eight

  The Rebel Compound

  I must admit, when I first saw the console in the middle of the compound, I was rather impressed. Even now, recalling it makes me think of how lucky I was to be with such a prepared group, such an advanced rebel group, at that. When you think of rebels traditionally, you think of scroungers, humanitarian aid, and knock-off Russian weapons. These guys didn’t have knock-off anything. They had the computing power to do what they liked. I saw they had scanners for all sorts of threats: air, sea, bio, chemical, and nuclear. Every single possibility was covered. I felt safe.

  Looking at what trouble they’d gone to in securing such a base was mind-boggling. It never occurred to me what Jerry had said to me before. The fact that it wasn’t really their base at all didn’t even register with me. It should have. Hell, if they were smart, it should have registered with them. Looking back on it now, we all should have seen what was coming. But “what ifs” don’t really mean shit when it comes down to it. What really matters is how you deal with it.

  “So the console operates on what power source?” I asked, feeling pleased with myself; it wasn’t often that I got to be inquisitive, let alone be in the company of people with such expertise. I mean, down the road, I could need some of this information. Who’s to say that I could be on my own one day and need to know certain technological advantages that will keep me alive? It’s possible…I guess.

  “Electricity…what else would it run on?” the girl who had escorted me said with a laugh.

  I now knew her name. “Danni, I know this may come as a shock to you, but I didn’t have many electrical components in my trench.”

  “What exactly did you have in your trench?”

  I smiled and then felt a little empty. “Besides my brother, nothing of any importance,” I said, immediately feeling selfish for my having self-pity ruin something light-hearted.

  “I’m sorry, Abel,” Danni said.

  I immediately recalled my self-pity and shook myself out of my slump. “No, I’m sorry. It’s selfish of me to always be harping on about my dead brother,” I said, trying to sound tough in the face of the tears welling up in the corner of my eyes.

  Danni’s beautiful smile made me forget what a coward I had been all my life. It made me forget my troubles for that split second. It made me remember that being human isn’t always about the bad stuff. It could quite possibly be about the good stuff, if I let it.

  “Your brother was important to you. You have every right to be upset, Abel. Just know this — I, along with everyone here, am here for you. Don’t you forget that!”

  I must admit that having someone you just met no more than four hours ago tell you something along those lines — it might have clouded my judgment a little…just a little.

  Chapter Nine

  In the Meeting Room

  “You’re saying what I think you’re saying?” Jerry asked as he bit his lip nervously. Both he and the bearded man were alone in the meeting room away from all of the others.

  “Yeah, Jerry, we are pretty much screwed. How the hell am I going to tell the others?” Jonas asked while scratching his big beard.

  “We don’t. We just evacuate. Surely we can’t keep everyone in the dark? We don’t need to say anything, just that it’s unsafe and we need to get going!”

  “And then they will ask questions, questions I don’t feel comfortable answering.”

  Jerry got up from his seat in frustration. “Like what, exactly? That we shouldn’t have trusted the Germans? We come clean, Jonas. We come clean.”

  Jonas refrained himself from shouting. He knew that this situation needed a calm head. It could have done with two, but Jerry was nowhere near as calm as Jonas needed him to be.

  “And tell them what? We tried to make a deal with the Germans, and it came back and bit us in the ass?” said Jonas sarcastically.

  “They know that. I’m talking about the other thing…the Abel thing….”

  Jonas’s temper got the better of him. “Never! Don’t you fucking dare say anything about that! It will destroy the group. It will put us in danger.”

  Jerry shook his head and started to pace. “Don’t you think they have a right to know…to know what we were planning?”

  “No, they don’t. We stick to the plan. We get out of here in ten minutes. We take the Jeep and go back…home,” said Jonas.

  “This is our home. These are our people!”

  “No, Jerry. Our home is Section 8. Our home is with the Commander and the Major. We have them where we want them. We have the rebels in the palm of our hands. New-Germania will triumph once again.”

  “But…” said Jerry, at a loss for words.

  “Prepare your stuff. Our work here is done. Base has just told me they are sending some jets down our way and blowing this place up. We have to get out of here and debrief,” said Jonas.

  “What about the rebels?” asked Jerry.

  “You knew what you were getting yourself into when you became an agent of the Reich. You will have to live with yourself, or I’m leaving you with the rebels. I’m sure being blown up with the rest of them will help ease your conscience.”

  *

  I stood behind the door with Danni, dismayed and at a loss for words.

  “The Reich? Agents?” I said.

  She shook her head and put her finger to her lips. “We need to get out of here, and fast.”

  We started to run. I didn’t know why we were making our escape so obvious, but what we’d heard behind the door had shocked us both. I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay. Something inside me told me that running would be useless. I had run for too long. I had begun to feel as if running was all I did. The trenches. Jacob. The past twenty years had all been running and nothing much else. I had grown weary.

  “Come on, Abel, keep up,” Danni said as we ran down the same corridor we’d made our way through on the tour of the compound she’d given me before everything went south.

  “I am,” I said.

  As we got closer to the end of the corridor, a man entered through the archway we were about to go through. He had a surprised look on his face. An AK-47 was strapped to his chest, holstered freely without a care in the world. He had a dumb look on his face, half smile, half terror.

  “What’s going on, Danni?” he asked, looking at me with a close observational glare.

  “We need to get out of here!” she bellowed. The man shook his head in confusion, still keeping his eyes on me. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Jerry and Jonas are planning something. Something that could get us hurt.”

  “What?” he asked, now looking on edge, as if he were about to reach for his gun.

  I watched his hands tremble at his sides as Danni went on to explain.

  “You need to calm down, Danni. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding,” the guy said.

  “You need to get out of our way,” I said, deciding to make myself heard for the first time.

  “What did you say, Jew?” The guy reached for his gun.

  Before he could do anything, Danni had reached for hers and had it aimed at his head. I hadn’t even noticed she was carrying a pistol on her. I must have been taken away by her smile, among other things, to notice something as important as that.

  “I’m warning you. I will shoot you in the head,” she said.

  The guy with the AK-47 just nodded. He put his hands up, raising them high in the air, showing that he was giving up.

  Danni pressed her gun into his chest. I could see her grinding her teeth. “Now turn around. You’re coming with us. I need you as a shield if the rest of them decide to pop at us.”

  “A shield? We can’t do that, Danni,” I said.

  She just gave me an unsympathetic look. “We do if we want to survive,” she said.

  She prodded the pistol into the man’s back and escorted him forward. We made our way through the archway and out of the hallway. What was waiting for us was an empty room.
Before, it had been buzzing with activity. When Danni and I had gone through there not ten minutes prior, we had seen it full of folks; now it was completely empty. All that remained were a few bottles of water and an eeriness that nothing could shake off.

  “Where the hell is everyone?” said the man Danni had her gun pointed at.

  “Fuck knows,” she replied.

  Suddenly I heard footsteps behind us. Someone was walking down the hallway. I nudged Danni; she immediately knew what was going on. She had real good instincts about her. She knew when to play nice and when to play rough. She was a real hard woman.

  “Fucking move, and I’ll blow your brains out. Say a word, and I’ll shoot your face off. You get the picture?” she said.

  The man just nodded. I remember feeling peculiar. Why was I finding all of this exciting? I shouldn’t find danger exciting. I should be hiding in a corner. What was happening to me?

  “Good. I found you. We are evacuating the building. We are on the move,” a voice from behind us said.

  I turned around and saw Jerry standing there with a smile on his face. He didn’t notice the guy Danni had her gun trained on. He didn’t notice the look of sheer terror on my face. We had to act fast. We needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. So I took the lead.

  “Show us the way, boss,” I said in the most sincere way I could.

  Jerry just smiled. He then put his hands to the sides. “I forgot something in my office. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Just make your way up the stairs,” he said, turning around and running off back down the hallway.

  I quickly turned my head and looked at Danni. She didn’t look too great. She looked at a loss for words.

  “What are we going to do now?” I asked.

  “We kill him,” she said.

  The guy was just about to scream when Danni covered his mouth. His moaning was muffled under her hand. I just stood there in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I thought killing him would be a bit drastic. I also knew he could blow our cover. He could spill the beans and tell the rest of the group we knew about Jerry and Jonas. We could be the ones being killed. I was sure of that. That was when I decided to help. I had to. I just couldn’t let Danni do this by herself. Sure, I didn’t know her from anywhere, but I could see she had some good in her.

  I saw the locker near the control console. I rushed over there. I opened it. It was empty. It was big enough to fit a few computers and some extras. It was definitely big enough to hide a man inside it. I whistled to Danni, who was looking at me with awe. I could see that she was surprised at my fast thinking. I guess she thought I would just melt in a situation like this. She was right, but somehow I knew this had to be done.

  She came toward me, prodding the man along with her. He had a look of terror on his face. We had to do this quickly.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Before she could say anything, I punched the guy in the face. He hit the deck hard, cracking his head on the floor. I could see he was knocked out.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Knocking him out. I’d rather not kill him. If he dies, it was the Germans, not us,” I said.

  She nodded her head in agreement. We then grabbed him and stuffed him into the locker. We slammed it shut. I saw the clock on the wall. It had been at least three minutes since Jerry went into his office. I decided we needed to scram. I grabbed Danni by the hand. She smiled, a nervous smile at best.

  “Lets get out of here,” I said.

  We both ran for the stairs and went up them as fast as our legs would take us.

  With every step we took, the daylight bursting through the open door leading out of the barn came closer. The air became cleaner. The sounds became louder until we had run up two thousand steps. As we reached the top, my lungs felt as if they were going to collapse.

  And then I saw them.

  I saw them pointing their guns at us.

  I saw the Germans.

  Chapter Ten

  Thirty-six Hours Earlier.

  Jacob had just been thrown into his cell. He had suffered a beating at the hands of the Commander. The Commander was a big man, a man many people feared. Even the men he commanded had a constant fear of him. Jacob had the wounds to prove that the Commander was somebody you feared. A gash on his head was proof. The broken nose was proof. The fact that Jacob couldn’t walk was proof. And then a man entered his cell.

  This man was different from the Commander. He had different traits. He looked the part, but sounded different.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, Jacob. The Commander told me you had something to tell me. Something that could end all of this pain you are going through,” the man said.

  He had a thick American accent. It caught Jacob off guard.

  “I don’t have anything to say. I just want to die. I just want to get it over and done with,” he said, clasping his bloodied hands together, shivering in the cold that was surrounding his damp, dimly lit cell.

  “You will die. You will get your wish. All you need to do is tell me what I need to know. It will be painless that way. You won’t feel a thing. But if you don’t divulge what I am asking from you, then I’m afraid it won’t be painless at all. It will be the worst pain you have ever felt. We will feed you to the dogs. They will rip at your throat. They will thread your veins from your body and pull on them until every last bit of blood has escaped from them. And then we will leave your lifeless corpse to rot on the mound. The birds will come down from the heavens and wreak hell on your flesh. They will pluck your eyes from your skull. They will rip the flesh from your knuckles. They will have their way with you, Jacob, as will I if you don’t tell us what you know.”

  “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Jacob said, still shivering in the corner, trying to warm his hands up with his breath, but even that couldn’t warm him up.

  Jacob looked up at the American standing in the doorway to his cell. The man smiled at him. His thick, country-looking face plumped with excitement.

  “Guard, give us a few minutes. I’m sure I can rectify this situation,” the man said.

  An arm popped around the corner and grabbed at the door. It shut both of them in. A head poked through a bar on the cell door and smiled at Jacob.

  “Have fun,” the man said.

  With that the American man undid his belt and pulled his trousers down.

  “We will,” he replied.

  Both of them were left alone while the guard whistled to himself as he made his way up the corridor and out of sight.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Rebel Compound

  “Nicht! You may not pass!” one of the German solders said as we reached the top.

  He smiled to himself as he saw the look on our faces. I could hear the pleasure in his voice as he stood tall, rifle to his side, and a grin on his face. The saliva gripped at my vocal chords as I tried to speak.

  “But?” I managed to say.

  “But nothing. You have been caught, Jew. You are ours.”

  Suddenly an exhausted Jerry made his way up to the top where we were. Sweat was dripping down his face. He hadn’t noticed the German soldiers yet. He hadn’t noticed us, either. Following behind him was the bearded man, Jonas. He noticed the soldiers straight away. His reaction stifled Jerry from his tired gaze at the floor.

  “What the fuck?” he screamed, pointing his handgun at the soldier.

  The man just smiled. Behind him stood what seemed like the biggest army I had ever seen. In my desperation, I may have imagined such a presence. In reality, it was probably around thirty men. Thirty big German men, all pointing automatic machine guns at us. Jonas shook his head. He decided immediately to holster his gun and walked over to the soldier in front of me. He pushed me to the side, and I nearly lost my balance. I could see the anger in his eyes. He wasn’t impressed with the situation. I looked at Jerry; he couldn’t look me in the eye.

  “What the hell is going on?” scr
eamed Danni. Jerry tapped her on the shoulder, trying to comfort her.

  “It isn’t of your concern, woman!” screamed Jonas as he momentarily turned his head to look at her, and then faced the soldier once more.

  He leaned in and whispered something into the man’s ear. The soldiers behind him grunted as they overheard something. A few of them looked restless. A few more looked angry. All of them, on the other hand, were looking at me with a distinct hate in their eyes. A burning desire to have me killed. To do things to me not even the vilest could comprehend.

  “I’m sorry, Jonas, but we have our orders. We will be taking the Jew, and we will be taking him now,” the soldier said as he took aim at me with his rifle, eyeing me up through the iron sights.

  “I’m afraid you can’t. Not now, not now we know what you were planning,” said Jerry from afar. He was standing near me.

  I stood there, confused, as did Danni. It was only her, Jonas, Jerry, and me. None of the other rebels were to be seen. I felt uneasy. The only person in my midst who was a true rebel was Danni, and I wasn’t even sure if the rest of them knew that yet. If they did, wouldn’t they have killed her? I was starting to panic, and then my panic got stronger. Behind the thirty or so soldiers lay a pile of bodies. They were freshly killed. Bullet holes to the head, and they were all rebels. It was as if Danni had followed my gaze, and then she saw it, too, and let out a scream. She dropped to her knees. Not one of the soldiers blinked. Jonas was too busy playing Chinese whispers to take notice of Danni’s outcry. Jerry saw her drop to her knees and immediately knew their cover was blown. It was then he punched her in the face. She drooped to the side at the impact. He saw she was nearly out cold. He thumped her again, and she dropped to the ground.

  “Take the bitch instead. You can do what you want with her, but let the Jew be. He is mine!” Jerry screamed.

  Jonas turned around and looked down at the now floored Danni. “Why on earth did you go and do that?” he said in shock.

  “She is dangerous. Better keep her subdued. I trained her. I know what she is capable of.”