by Schow, Ryan
“Damn right I do,” he said about the short, hooked blade.
“Good,” he replied, stepping into the shed and pushing the bike through the foliage and into the street. He flipped the kickstand, brushed the dust off the seat and handed Logan his work gloves. “They’re not insulated, but they’ll keep the wind off your knuckles.”
He put them on, shook Connor’s hand, thanked Stephani and looked at Harper who looked sad, lost and very much on her own with strangers. She drew a deep breath and quietly looked back at him. He went to her, pulled her into a deep hug and said, “I’m sorry for everything.”
“It was inevitable,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, long and hard. “You got me here which means you know where I am when it gets bad.”
He nodded and said, “Okay,” and then felt a sudden, unexpected swoop of nervousness and emotion. He told himself to be the lion, but he felt like the house cat again.
She wasn’t an unattractive woman in this light, and she wasn’t looking away from him. For all the hours that he stared into her eyes on the other side of a monitor, he couldn’t look away now. Even in the darkness of night, he saw a shine in her eyes he swore he’d never seen before. He stepped in, took her face and kissed her on the mouth.
After that, without a word, he got on his bike, turned the key and kicked it to life. Turning one last time, he nodded his head, looked at Harper and smiled.
Lion, not a house cat, he thought.
He put the bike in gear, worked the gas and clutch perfectly, then moved through the gears as he disappeared into the night.
For the first time in a long time, he was scared. No, terrified. There was so much ahead. He was bound to run into the Commies, a war was brewing and Skylar…what the hell was he going to do about her?
The first outpost surprised him. He didn’t realize how fast he was going. He was so juiced thinking this thing through—the city that felt more like hell, Skylar, the people he killed, Harper’s kiss—that he nearly blew right past the Chicom policemen holding their hands out for him to stop.
When they saw him moving too fast, they drew their guns and started screaming. He couldn’t hear them, but their eyes and moving mouths, along with their guns, had him braking fast. He came to a wobbly stop in front of them, set down the kickstand, and was promptly yanked off the bike and thrown to the ground.
The two men started kicking him about the same time he thought Lion. Three unanswered kicks to the face had them thinking he was a punching bag. But he wasn’t. Rolling over slowly, playing possum even though he was genuinely hurt, he slid his gun out of the front of his jacket, then slowly rolled back over, groaning.
When he came around, he put a round in the first man’s crotch, turning his peen into a vajeen. The second round punched a hole in the second man’s face.
“Assholes!” he roared, his face on fire.
Getting up, spitting out blood and checking his teeth, he tried to shake off the beating. He shot the man whose genders he changed, then dragged the two of them to the side of the road and confiscated their weapons. He checked the mags, then set them down and rolled the men into a small, grassy culvert.
He grabbed the guns, stored them in the compartment under the motorcycle’s seat, then ransacked the small guard shack. Much to his delight, he found a hot cup of coffee and a biscuit on the desk. On further inspection, he netted two more full mags and a fifty round box of ammo.
Victorious, he took a sip of the coffee. He didn’t care that Commie lips had touched the rim. He was beyond that crybaby crap.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said, his eyes all but rolling back in his head. The coffee was amazing. The hot liquid draining into his belly was something else. Still, he was cold, his body shaking. It would get worse when the adrenaline wore off.
He finished the coffee, stowed what ammo he could, then got back on his bike and rode.
Heading down the hill, he rode until the sun rose in the east. It was coldest before sunrise, his fingers numb, his face stinging from the bitter chill and the wind shear. He felt the swelling tightening his eye where he was kicked, but the cold was helping. He could still see. He was in pain, but he was grateful for it. This was what was keeping him awake and alert.
When he saw several cars stopped ahead with three soldiers searching each vehicle, he pulled up to a stop behind the last one and gave a cordial nod when they saw him. He flexed his fingers, but they were stiff, the feeling gone. He quickly and discreetly tried working some blood into the appendages. He finally took off the gloves, sat on them, then blew heat into his fingers, flexing them faster and deeper in an attempt to work the sluggishness from his knuckles.
When the car in front of him pulled forward and the men were watching it go for that split second, Logan tore out his pistol and started shooting. He got two of them, but the third was already shooting back.
Logan rolled off the bike, dropped prone and fired three quick rounds at the man. He was on the ground, too—flat. A puff of black hair jumped off the Chicom’s skull, stopping him. The bullet had cut a trail through the top of his skull, but it didn’t punch through the bone. The blood took a second to come, but when it did, it drained in large quantities, scaring the man.
Logan put the next round right into his forehead.
He got back up, beat his cold fingers on his pants, then went to the side of the road and hurled. Chili and cornbread. God, it looked so much better going in.
When he pulled the dead men out of road, he lined all three of them up on their bellies, face-to-ass in a crude display of disrespect.
He then put a round in the back of each of their heads.
These fools brought the war to them, but if he’d learned anything in this last forty-eight hours, it was that the war was bound to find him sooner or later. It was best to get the upper hand now, even if it was just nine men.
“Nine down, two hundred thousand to go,” he muttered as he picked up his bike.
He kick started the engine, but it was flooded and needed a minute or two. He waited a good five minutes, the sun a little higher in the sky, the air a degree or two warmer. When he tried to start it next, the engine sputtered to life. He gave it a little gas, let off, then waited for the engine to purr. When it did, he put the bike in first gear, then second, third and forth as he headed back into the city.
It took him the better part of the day to get home. He had weapons on his person and in the storage box under the seat. If he was stopped, they’d kill him on sight for being armed, let alone armed to the hilt with the weapons of dead Chicoms.
Fortunately, in the two checkpoints he went through, the men waved him through with a visual inspection only. Then one of them looked back at him as he rode off. He saw this in the side view mirror.
Please, God…
The Chicom policeman went back to work and he found he could breathe again.
When he got into the city, Logan got home and found the crappy apartment empty. His phone was looped though. It was in his bedroom and it was playing him asleep. Like he was sick and unable to get out of bed.
Taking a big chance, he stopped the loop, hustled into bed, then slowly got out. By the time the six o’clock hour hit, he was torn. Did he want to see Skylar or was there a part of him hoping she wouldn’t come home? He decided he never wanted to see her again.
That was about the time she walked in the front door.
She saw him and her face let go.
“Oh thank God, Logan,” she said, hurrying to him and pulling him into the most genuine hug he’d ever gotten from her. “Is Harper okay? Is everything okay?”
“I think so, but I’ve been in bed sick,” he said, letting her know he wasn’t looped.
She looked at his face, how it was all beat up, and he could see the pain it caused her. If he hadn’t known better, he almost thought she cared.
When it came time for their Krav class, she said, “Are you up for a walk before curfew?”
Housecat or Lion?
&
nbsp; “I am,” he said, thinking lion. They got dressed, walked to the night’s new location, then trained their asses off for the next two hours before hydrating.
“Who are you and what did you do with Logan Cahill?” his instructor asked.
“That guy’s dead,” Logan said with conviction.
“Good to know,” he replied, giving Logan the next address on a slip of paper—an abandoned church this time.
When they got home, they changed, turned on the TV to fake Chairman Mao then screamed out their hatred, their rage, all their mounting emotions. But Logan wasn’t angry anymore. Instead, he was focused.
He had purpose.
If Harper or Skylar were part of the Resistance, if this city was going to burn, or worse—the country—he wasn’t going to stand on the sidelines and hope it didn’t touch him. He had nothing left to live for but vengeance and freedom and he’d be damned to hell as a coward if he didn’t get in and fight.
“How’s Harper?” Skylar asked after looping their cell phones. He was eating a warm burrito, barely getting it down. He didn’t answer her. “She made it, yes?”
“Yeah,” he finally said.
He could barely stand that she was in the same room with him, acting like she hadn’t crushed his heart days ago. She was sleeping with the enemy. She gave up her body to get an edge up on the road ahead. But wasn’t that what he was planning on doing? It was.
He looked at her and said, “I just think you should know, I slept with Harper.”
Her eyes flashed a little, but she contained any emotions knowing she brought this on herself. He studied her expression for a moment, saw the slightest hint of remorse.
“How was she?” she asked, her voice a bit unsteady.
“I killed nine men and buried a poacher your aunt killed. I pissed on his grave and didn’t feel bad about it. How she was is secondary to how I am.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Wow, you’re…you’re different.”
“You killed Logan Cahill.”
She sat there for a moment, stricken, then she said, “You really killed that many men?”
“I had no choice,” he said, talking with food in his mouth.
“And you really slept with Harper?”
Technically he was telling the truth. Swallowing the lump of pressed flour and beans, chasing it down with a big gulp of water, he looked right into her eyes and said, “Not only did we sleep together, I liked it.”
He just looked at her, his eyes venomous, unblinking.
She stood, crossed the distance between them, then bent down and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him like she’d never kissed him before. She pulled his chair out, undressed herself like it was a race, then did for him what he’d wanted from her ever since he laid eyes on her.
When she was done, when her hair was laying over his head, and their faces were near each other in a post-coital hug, she leaned close to his ear and said, “Tell me how many again.”
“Nine,” he replied.
“Describe each of them in detail.”
He did, and by the time he told her he had laid the last three soldiers ass-to-mouth and pumped a round into the backs of their skulls, she was ready to go again. So was he. When they ended up in bed that night, they left the cameras on loop, falling asleep in each other’s arms.
He woke early the next morning and she was still there, still in his bed, still asleep. He shook her awake. She rolled over, yawned, then pulled the sheets up over her breasts.
“Did that really happen?” she asked, looking at him with bright eyes.
He nodded with a hesitant grin.
“God you look good with bruises on your face,” she said. “But it’s time for work.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Logan asked.
“I covered for you. So for now, just do what the ugly bitch wants you to do like a good little minion, but be ready for war.”
“I can do that,” he said.
“If I’m not mistaken, I think you just became one of us,” she said. “Am I reading this situation right?”
“You are,” he said, confident.
“Good,” she said, kissing him on the mouth. “Because their ships are already in the water, meaning the war is about to begin.”
The story continues in Dark Days of the After…
Chapter Twelve
When you have something to hide, it feels like everyone is looking at you. When your face is proof positive that you’ve been up to no good, your chances of getting dragged into a dark room and beaten until you spill your guts go through the roof.
Logan Cahill kept his head down and his eyes low as he walked through downtown San Francisco. The air was brisk, smelly, like the sweet and sour scents of Chinatown mixed with death. Pollute the air with a few ribbons of smoke from more than a few nearby fires and you get the picture.
As much as he loathed the cold, the pressure of it felt good against the swelling all over his face. He wasn’t one to lament the pain, certainly not when pain was all anyone really had left these days, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t pissed off for feeling like this.
It was the old feeling of helplessness mixed with disdain.
In the old days, before the occupation, the bruising on his face and knuckles would have stood out. Not now. When you live in a city overrun by hostile forces looking to secure their foothold in America, no one would ever give a guy like Logan a second glance. He looked too much like everyone else: scared, forlorn, compliant. If he couldn’t hide his face, at least he had his hat, which he’d pulled low over his eyes.
As he walked to work, he marched over the uneven sidewalks with the hordes of foot traffic all around him. He tried to shake off the abuse that sat like dull pain in his body. A frown formed. The wake of violence sat fresh in his mind reminding him to stay vigilant, to hide in plain sight, to be the ghost who walks between raindrops. He made the frown disappear. He had enough dead friends, enough dead family. No sense in joining them because he could not keep his feelings in check.
With the Communist Chinese regime running not only San Francisco, but much of the west coast of the former United States of America, someone like Logan Cahill knew that a smile, or a frown, would show up on the face-scanning and emotion-reading cameras that dotted each and every street.
Emotion meant freedom. Freedom was not the Communist way. Nor was happiness. Get caught showing too much emotion and the new Chinese government would club the truth out of you in the streets, or just kill you for what they would call “keeping secrets.”
The morning fog was lifting, elevating his mood, and the familiar scents both soothed and assaulted him. What you smelled depended much on the block you were walking. The one he was walking on now smelled like garlic and saffron, which—in the morning—did not bode well for the stomach.
Walking block by block with his fellow pedestrians, the gobs of foot traffic moved in unison, each to the cadence of the other, all of them robotic, all of them seemingly lost in the misery of their lives. All he cared about was blending in. He just wanted to get to work and make it through the day.
With the difficulties of his life often lost in the day to day activities—boring as they may be—he could not expel the number nine from his mind. It continued to roll around unbidden. Soon he found he was obsessive about it. Nine stood for the number of lives he’d taken. Nine represented the brutal deaths he now kept hidden.
A loud crash across the street startled him, breaking his trance and causing him to glance up. Sensing no immediate danger from the disturbance, he lowered his head again, pulled his hat even lower over his face. For good measure, and maybe because everyone had become paranoid over the years, he snuck a quick look around.
With all the surveillance cameras mounted not just on lamp posts but on traffic signals, the sides of buildings and in and around businesses, there was no such thing as privacy. That was a thing that mattered back when America was America. Back when there was such a thing as freedom.
Drawing a deep breath, feeling a tightness in his chest, he thought, My how the times have changed!
Everything you did now, if you didn’t do it right, you were dead. You live with that fear long enough, your world starts to shrink. You think of emotion as enemy, of a misstep as betrayal, of honesty as treason.
Even now, Logan feared the mistakes made by the facial recognition technology, especially the latest models. There was emotional assessment software on board, a sort of threat detection feature, that wasn’t functioning quite right. The Chicoms (what everyone called the Communist Chinese party, not only in mainland China, but in California, too) sold this new technology to the public like it would stop crime. No one believed anything the Chicoms said, and all the new tech ever did was scare people.
It started to make you wonder, Can you even trust your face not to betray your brain?
The point was, you never knew when you were having a bad day and Chicom police would pick you up thinking you might be on your way to shoot up a school, a church, a restaurant. Or worse, inflict retaliation on the Chicoms themselves. That was the true threat. Americans.
Someone at work told Logan they never really got the emotional assessment software calibrated properly. On some level, he knew this. The second he’d confirmed this, however, Logan made it a habit to hide his features, giving his oppressors nothing, even though—up until a few days ago—he truly had nothing to hide.
With this new secret burning deep in his heart and tangling his mind, the secret of these nine deaths, he was grateful to have established these cautionary habits long before now.
Someone bumped him from behind, causing him to stumble forward a bit. Logan turned and cast the offending woman a glance, unaware that he’d slowed his pace. She almost said, “Excuse me,” but was then bumped by someone else behind her.
Foot traffic could sometimes be a contact sport.
With a skyrocketing population, massive unemployment and a steady influx of violence, San Francisco was no longer the City by the Bay as much as it was a fallen city marked more by its expanding slave labor and its slums than its once historic beauty.