Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads)

by Luis Samways

  Her face was still hurting after being knocked out by Jerry. She hadn’t seen the punch coming, but she’d felt it.

  She continued to look through the fish-eye sights of the binoculars, scanning the horizon for any sign of movement. It was useless, really, seeing how it was nighttime and she couldn’t see a damn thing. Now that Jerry had gone AWOL and killed Sammy, she was the one left in charge. There were other much stronger, more experienced men in the rebel unit who could probably do a better job, but for some reason, the rebels had always looked at her as the second-in-command. So there she was, being second-in-command.

  “Sorry to bother you, Danni, but we haven’t picked up a radio check from Wayne in a while. We did the roundup, and he was the only one who didn’t answer his roll call,” a voice from behind her said.

  She let the binoculars slip out of her grip and hang around her neck. She turned around and smiled at the man standing before her.

  “What was Wayne packing?” she asked.

  The man looked afraid to say anything. It was as if his tongue wouldn’t move under the pressure of such a question.

  Danni found it strange.

  She immediately realized something was wrong.

  “Don’t tell me he was carrying the sniper rifle?” she said in a mild panic.

  “I’m afraid so, Danni,” the man confessed as he looked at the ground beneath his feet.

  “Shit,” she said.

  She gave a firm shake of her head at the man and dashed over to the Jeep, where a few men were sitting down, looking at maps.

  They were busy scouting the area. They were assigned to RECON, and they were the only men, aside from Wayne, who had RECON gear.

  “Guys, did Wayne take the thermal sniper rifle with him?” Danni asked as she reached the Jeep, trying to sustain her escaping breath.

  “Yeah. He insisted. He said it would make sense for him to take it up the ridge and do some scouting,” one of the men said.

  The other man just appeared confused as he looked Danni up and down.

  “Why?” he asked.

  She didn’t say anything for a while. All three of them remained silent for a long moment, until the silence was broken by a crack in the wind.

  “Get down!” Danni screamed as the man next to her took a bullet to the neck, spraying the other RECON man with a face full of blood.

  ***

  “You took the shot?” I asked as Jerry snapped the bolt on the left side of the rifle, popping out a spent shell as a small sliver of smoke bellowed from the barrel.

  “Shit,” he said, popping in another magazine.

  “Fucking bullets are half baked or something. Should have known, fucking rebels with their subpar ammunition.”

  “Did you hit anybody?” I asked .

  “Yeah. I got a guy in the neck. I nearly hit a woman. I think it was Danni, actually,” he said.

  I immediately felt anger in my core. I leaped forward and tackled Jerry to the floor. He was propped against the mound with the rifle placed on the dirt before I took him off his feet. The sheer impact of my tackle made him shoot another bullet in reflex before I managed to disarm him. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled his face closer to mine.

  “Now, listen here, you fucking Yank. Don’t you go killing any more of those rebels. You were one of them before all this happened, and now you’re taking shots at them? Are you fucking crazy? We could work something out. We could work with them. We can’t run from everyone, Jerry. We just won’t survive,” I said.

  Jerry immediately shoved me off him. His strength was far greater than mine. He was well built and well fed after all, and I was just barely a sewer rat experiencing fresh air for the first time in my life.

  “Listen here. We can’t just hand ourselves in. We can’t do that. They will kill us. Not to mention, they want you as a bargaining chip. They’ll use you to gain weapons off the Germans. I’ve seen it before. How do you think the Germans managed to kill off all your people? It was help from those so-called rebels. They aren’t freedom fighters. They are mercenaries. This whole goddamn world is one big fucking hit list, and we’re at the top of it. And believe you me, we will be on the very top until we’re either killed or captured. Me killing these fuckers isn’t going to stop either of those realities. It will just prolong them.”

  “What about the Reich? You didn’t think I knew? Danni and I heard you and Jonas speaking back at the base. You’re one of the Germans. You fight for them. You’re no better than any of them,” I said.

  “Yeah, you got me. Big bad man from the Reich. You better believe me when I tell you, the Reich don’t want me anymore. I can guarantee you that my position there was compromised when I decided to not hand you over to them. It was damn near cemented when I decided to fire upon the German army. The truth is, Abel, you and I are the same. We are both enemies of the Reich. And we are both on the rebels’ hit list. We only have each other. That’s our reality now. But be my guest. Walk down the damn embankment and hand yourself in. We’ll see how long it takes before you end up just like your brother Jacob.”

  Jerry pushed me out of the way and went back to his rifle. By now the sounds of returning gunfire had echoed off my eardrums, and the sounds of the rebels retaliating had snapped me back to reality. Jerry began to open fire down the ridge.

  “I suppose fighting could work,” I said. “It’s all that ever does work, my friend. It’s all that ever works.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Crime Scene, Germany

  The crime scene lead officer walked into the hallway in which the body of an officer of the Germania army was lying on his back. He looked at the idle corpse and reminisced about the times when he had read about the victim in the papers. He knew that this person was of importance to the German empire. He knew that such news leaking out could spark mass hysteria on the streets of Berlin. He also knew that any officer who attended the crime scene who spoke out about what he found was going to be hung for causing such hysteria. That was the reason he found himself in the sticks. That was why he left his bed in the early hours of the morning and drove a hundred miles to make sure that the crime scene was being given the attention and care it required.

  “I take it the press are not aware of the news,” he said aloud, startling the two policemen slumped over the body, looking for clues.

  Both men stood to attention and saluted the highly decorated police sergeant.

  “Of course not, sir. No press have been informed. I don’t think they even know,” said one of the officers.

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. If the press find out, it could cause a public panic. They will automatically think that the Allies have regrouped and are taking action against the empire,” the sergeant said as he lit up a cigar.

  “That’s the thing, sir. It wasn’t the Allies, or the Rebels.”

  “I know. I’m not stupid. I can see the signs. I can see the emptiness of the house. I know exactly what happened. The officer was murdered by his wife,” the sergeant said, pulling hard on his cigar, tapping the ash off it as he did so. The slim-rimmed spectacles he was wearing glistened in the low light of the breaking dawn coming through the window.

  “So you do know, then? Has she been captured?” the timid officer asked.

  “No, not yet. That’s why we can’t let the public know. The Reich has informed me that this is a matter of national security. If it leaks, then it’s our heads.”

  “National security? For a domestic murder?” the man said in utter disbelief.

  “Yep. If the people find out that one of the officers of the New-Germania army was murdered by his wife, then maybe they will grow wise and attempt some sort of mass demonstration. They might try to overrun the capital. They could hold the Reich to rights,” the sergeant said as he pulled on his cigar once more.

  “Isn’t that a bit over the top? Surely a murder won’t spark a revolution?” the officer said, looking at his bemused partner as they took in the presence of
the formidable sergeant.

  “Nothing is over the top when it comes to keeping the people in line. One false move, and the public could end the Reich. Gentleman, the Reich is what the empire is built on. It is our duty, along with every man who wears the flag of Germania on his shoulder, to make sure the Reich lasts for eternity, for better or for worse.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  On a Train, New Germania

  The man sat behind the pretty woman on the train. He could feel the rattling of the tracks beneath him as the carriage swayed from left to right. He could hear the voice in his head telling him to do it.

  He was your friend…. Are you going to let her get away with it?

  “No,” he said, more loudly than he would have liked.

  The woman in front of him turned around in curiosity. She smiled a forced smile at the nosiness of her snoopy stare. He had to do something, so he just smiled back. He hated himself for that.

  Why on earth was he smiling at his best friend’s killer?

  “Ma’am,” he found himself saying.

  She nodded and turned back.

  FUCK. WHY DID I SAY THAT? HAVE A NICE DAY? GOOD TO SEE YOU? WHAT?MY HEAD! GET OUT! GET OUT! DAMN YOU, YOU WILL PAY, YOU WILL PAY DEARLY!

  The voice in his head was wearing ever thin.

  He couldn’t handle the inner voices anymore. It wasn’t something he was used to. It was barely something he believed in before it happened to him. He never understood the idea behind mental illness, and there he was, succumbing to it.

  Letting it destroy him.

  Letting it tell him what to do.

  He decided to loosen the grip on his gun. It was too early to get an itchy trigger finger. It was premature to be thinking such thoughts. He didn’t need the gun until later on. Until they disembarked.

  All he needed was for her to make the right move.

  All he needed her to do was leave the train, and then he would get her.

  He would make her pay for what she’d done. After all, he did see the whole thing. He heard the shouts. He heard the screaming. He heard the pain. He was staring out his window by the time she came rushing out with her daughter. He waited until she left, and then he went to investigate the cries from his best friend’s house.

  She hadn’t counted on the fact that he and his friend had been going to work together for fifteen years. It was as if she had forgotten what he looked like, which made him even more irate. The fact that she had just turned around moments ago and saw his face, yet didn’t recognize him, was insult enough. It was reason enough to put her out of her misery.

  He had made his way into the house whose door he had come knocking on every morning for years. He opened the door and saw his friend lying in a pool of his own blood. He saw the knife sticking into his chest. That was when he decided to follow her. She was only at the park by the time he reached her. He stayed a good few yards away from her just in case she got spooked. That was when she went to the train station, and that was when both of them got on. She was totally unaware of the danger she was in. But he knew that she would pay. She had to pay.

  ***

  Cindy sat on her seat with the fear of God running through her. The man she had just seen sparked a distant memory in her head. Did she know this man? Where did she see him before? There was something about the man that scared her. She didn’t know what it was, but she wasn’t sticking around to find out. She knew what she had to do. The next stop would be her last stop on that particular train. It was a few hundred miles away from where she needed to be, but she’d find a way to get there. All that mattered was the burning desire that lay in the pit of her stomach to get out of there. Something was telling her to go. Who was she to ignore such a strong desire?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  On Top of the Mountainside, New Germania

  The farmer was standing outside his rickety barn, smoking the last of his cigar. He was looking up at the sky in awe of its beauty, contemplating the day’s events. He was awash with terror and excitement. It always got his blood pumping when he was commissioned to go on a hunt. He loved the rush of hunting. It made him who he was. It also paid the bills.

  Believe it or not, there wasn’t much money in crop dusting and cultivating. The once profitable business of land and crops was now tarnished with imported food and canned goods. Synthetic food companies were on the rise, and the humble farmer was on the slope of economic depression.

  It made him angry. He hadn’t envisioned his life as a bounty hunter. He envisioned it as a hardworking man of the fields, just like his daddy before him and his grandpa before him.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t enjoy the highly lucrative hunting business he’d started, but he had morals, and sometimes he questioned himself at the lengths he would go for a paycheck.

  “No used thinking about what ifs,” he said to himself as he stubbed out his cigar and turned around to face the big barn door.

  He grasped the big iron bars that held the door firmly shut and maneuvered them with his big burly arms. He didn’t even break a sweat. The man was used to such hard labor. After a few minutes, he was inside the dimly lit barn. He could smell the copper in the air. He grabbed a flashlight that was propped up on the wall next to some farming equipment. He fumbled around with it and finally found the “on” switch. He clicked it, and the gloomy barn came to life under the beam from the flashlight.

  He could see some of the beasts in the cage, asleep. Most of them were purring as the night ticked away. All of them but one. One of the beasts was wide awake. The farmer spotted the beast’s eyes shining in the dark. He could see the killer instinct in its glare as it spotted its owner. It, too, was purring, not with glee or sleepy delight, but in anticipation, for it knew what was going to happen. The farmer smiled.

  “Hello, Lazo, my baby! How are you today?” the farmer said as he moved closer to the tame-seeming cougar that rested in its cage.

  “We have an assignment today. Not a big one, but something I’m sure you can handle,” he said, reaching the cage.

  The farmer stopped in his tracks as he saw what lay in the cage next to his big-cat pet.

  “Oh, somebody didn’t like the head, did they?” he said, smiling down at what remained of the army man who met the fate of his cougars’ teeth an hour ago.

  “Never mind. You’ll have plenty of time to digest, my furry friend. Plenty of time.”

  The farmer reached down to his side and grabbed the briefcase. He opened it and took out its contents. He gave it a sniff.

  “Oh, pungent,” he said, chucking it into the cage with his mountain lion.

  The lion snarled as the rags hit it on the nose. The lion’s ears perked up as it sniffed the clothes. The farmer waited for a minute. He knew the particular sign to follow that stated whether the cougar was ready for the hunt or not.

  “YA, YA, YA!” the farmer screamed.

  The lion roared a little and sat on its hind legs. It was ready, and the farmer knew what to do. He undid the bolt on the cage door and swung it open. He took a few steps back and waited for the beast to get out of its cage. Seconds followed, and the cougar was free. It came out of its cage like a bullet from a gun. It stopped next to the farmer and rubbed its head against his leg, much like a cat would to its owner when showing affection. The pleasantness didn’t last long; it was gone before the farmer could repay the gesture.

  “Wait up, jeez,” he said as he ran after the beast, getting on his ATV, ready to go wherever the lion took him.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Somewhere Below the Mountainside, New-Germania

  “Everybody get down. Snipers on the ridge!” Danni Mendez shouted as she clung hard to the dirt. The loose soil was finding its way into her mouth as she barked her orders.

  An array of gunfire was peppering all sorts of debris up at her face. She shielded her eyes with her hand, holding it over her face. She could see the dim light in the night sky pierce through the trees following the falling leave
s as they made their way to the ground. She could smell the fear in the air; she could taste the death on the tip of her tongue.

  The blood from the RECON man trickled through the dirt. It braced its warm self against her leg. Her gaze darted down to her feet, and she saw the pooling blood from the man’s head. The second RECON man was firing his gun blindly. Seconds later he, too, was on the floor, blood escaping holes in his body.

  “Take cover,” she said, to no avail. It was too late.

  Both men lay motionless on the floor next to her. She decided she needed to get a move on. She waited for a few seconds. She thought that maybe the gunman would most likely think she was dead, too. It seemed to work; the gunfire stopped, and she quickly got to her feet and sprinted behind the truck. She braced herself against the cold metal of the bodywork. She could hear the engine hiss.

  The radiator must have taken a few bullets.

  She could feel the steam bellowing off its hood; it was winding its way around the truck. She tilted her head up a little and spotted her reflection in the side mirror. She looked exhausted. She felt it, too. She then looked down at the ground, trying to piece her thoughts together.

  After a few seconds of thinking, she heard some more gunfire. This time it seemed like it was emanating from multiple locations.

  “More of them?” she said aloud. “The Germans?”

  She remained idle behind the stationary army truck. A few bullets ricocheted off its paintwork on the other side of the exposed vehicle. She could feel the brunt of the gunfire hitting the exposed solitary truck. She knew she couldn’t stay behind it forever. She needed to figure out a plan. It was then that she decided to be brave and check out the mountain ridge. She popped her head up and focused her eyesight a little. She could now see where the gunfire was coming from.

  Up the hill, she could see flashes of gunfire. They were firing in the direction of the sniper. It was the rebels who were fighting back. That was where all the gunfire was coming from. She must have been shot at by the sniper, which then drew the attention of the rebels searching for Jerry and Abel.