Dark Days of the After Special Edition | Prequel & Book 1

by Schow, Ryan

  When you change the fundamentals of history, then try to sell everyone on the new being better than the old, most people give up. They won’t say the old name—even though they think it—and they won’t say the new name, because they don’t want to think it. That in between place, that state of limbo, that was where depression began to foster.

  So now it was just turn right by this building, and left by the pharmacy that’s next to that Vietnamese deli, and then left again by the old church, the grey one that was once so nice.

  That night, he did just that. That’s how he made sure he didn’t miss class.

  The way Krav Maga classes work is you have to show up. Come hell or high water, you must not miss class. He was beaten, nearly blown up, tired as hell and his stand-in pseudo girlfriend was missing. There were two dead guys in his apartment, and a body count now crowding his short term memory, so much so that they kept showing up in his dreams.

  He stopped at the back door, paused for a second before knocking.

  Did he really need to go tonight?

  With so much pain radiating all over and through him, the last thing he wanted was to sweat it out for two hours in some underground whatever, fighting with people who didn’t like him and would—in all likelihood—tell him to leave because he didn’t locate Skylar.

  He’d shown up anyway. Reaching up, he gave the secret knock for that day, then waited. The back door opened up and a head popped out, looking first at him, then around.

  “Where’s Skylar?” he asked.

  “I got word from her today,” Logan answered.

  The door opened and he slipped inside, unnoticed by anyone in the alley or nearby buildings, so far as he could tell.

  “Where is she?” Yoav asked. “And what happened to you?”

  “I think she’s been compromised,” he said, handing the man his burner phone. “There’s only one number in there and only one message. This is our emergency phone. As for the state I’m in, my place was mobbed by Chicoms.”

  The man took the phone, listened to the message, showed a sliver of concern the minute he heard Skylar’s voice. He listened again, then handed the phone back.

  “What happened to the Chicoms in your place?” he asked.

  “Dead.”

  “It’s time you come clean with us,” Kim said.

  “I have been clean with you,” Logan snapped. “I never knew what you guys were, what you are. I’m still not entirely clear what any of you do beyond this, but it doesn’t concern me. I have bigger problems than this.”

  “Such as?” Yoav asked.

  “Look at my face, Instructor Yoav. It’s not like I’m out bar fighting or running a one man fight club.”

  “Yeah, it looks like maybe your training isn’t working,” Kim said, “or perhaps you’re too confident.”

  “On the contrary,” he said, “it’s working out great.”

  “Have you checked the mirror?” Yoav asked.

  “Class was two days ago,” he told Yoav. “I told you about my Chicom kill count. What’s yours, Kim? What’s any of yours?”

  “We work in a different capacity,” Kim told him. “It’s above your pay grade.”

  “Oh, I get paid for this?” he said, his sarcasm thick and dark.

  “No,” Yoav said.

  “Skylar worked in a different capacity, too,” he said. “She was sleeping with the Minister of Propaganda, getting me intel. That intel was beneath the 9s. Beneath all these little 9s she drew as tiny numbers on our wallpaper was a server number and a tray number and a password. I don’t know what it means, but I’ll tell you this. If she was compromised while being undercover, the two Chicom thugs who are now lying dead in my apartment arrived under different circumstances.”

  “You really killed them?” Yoav asked.

  “I wasn’t offering them tea then asking them to hang out while I went to take karate.”

  “This isn’t karate,” Kim said.

  “I know it isn’t!” he roared at her. Then, calming himself significantly, he said, “We’re wasting precious training hours here.”

  So he didn’t get kicked out of class after all. In fact, they paired him up with Kim again, who worked the hell out of him, making him sweat for every move, and then they free sparred. After loosening up, they worked the same drill they always did at this point in time during training rotation: the five-on-one drill.

  For weeks he’d been on the outside of the drill, not really trusted to be in the center. Now Instructor Yoav handed him the big padded gloves and head gear and said, “Don’t go down.”

  With butterflies in his stomach, he slid on his head gear, then popped his rubber mouthpiece in and pulled on his gloves.

  “No wild shots,” Yoav warned.

  He nodded.

  Five of the most tenured fighters surrounded him, including Kim. The thing about Krav Maga while under Chicom rule was that partner safety was important, but pain was important, too. It was something to not only get used to but to invite in. If you try to protect all your delicate sensibilities, you’re going to end up hurting with every shot.

  This was as much true in practice as it was in training.

  That meant these five people knew more pain than he’d ever know, so if he put it on them, if he didn’t worry about hurting them, he would be fine. Likewise, the people in the middle took a beating. It was always this way. That’s why he had headgear, a mouthpiece, the gloves.

  Guys like him tended to get tired, swing wide, hard and eventually really loose. That’s how you break wrists, pinkies, ring fingers.

  Yoav started the four minute clock.

  The good news was, Logan was already tenderized. Punched face, punched ribs, burning trail from a hot bullet making his side sting. And he wasn’t pretty. The pretty guys never want to get hit in the face. Their looks defined them. It was their stock in trade.

  Logan had a decent face, but he was no Saturday night sensation with the ladies, so he didn’t care. As long as he had all his teeth, could see through both eyes and breathe through both nostrils, he was good.

  Contrary to his own gear, none of the five wore head gear or feet and hand gear. The first shot was a kidney shot. He was on the receiving end, not the giving end.

  Yeah, it hurt.

  It would get worse, though.

  The circle was wide, with one person coming in. The fight wasn’t slow, but it wasn’t so fast it overwhelmed him. By the time he’d defended against one person, he’d been pulped a little more. So not only was he exhausted, he was hurting and getting weak in his resolve.

  That’s when the next person came in.

  He didn’t know who of the five would come when they did, but when he suddenly felt his foot being swept, when he felt himself going airborne for a moment, he knew the fight never paused. He landed hard on his back, the impact knocking the wind from him. He told himself not to breathe, but the body wanted that big gulp of air. It wasn’t there. Panicking, he merely turtled up as the kicks came in.

  “You’re DEAD!” Yoav screamed. “Stabbed to death, beaten with batons, shot half a dozen times. GET UP!”

  Through all this instruction, the fight never stopped, and the punches continued to rain in. When his chest loosened and he could breathe again, he rolled out of it, scrambled to his feet (more like climbed awkwardly), and put up his guard.

  Someone kicked him from behind, sending him sprawling into the center of the makeshift ring. He looked back and saw Kim glaring at him.

  When he turned back to his opponent, he took a side kick to the head, which rocked him sideways into a brutal rib punch. He was now fighting two opponents at once. He didn’t want to be between them, so he worked to always keep one in front of the other.

  When he managed to stay on his feet, land a few decent blows and get his wind, a third person came in. Kim. For some perverse reason, she loved to beat on him. Where the others pulled their shots, this woman drove them in.

  “Rule number one in a street figh
t,” Yoav said. “It’s okay to hit women and children. If they’re after you, it’s because they intend to kill you.”

  And with that, he played possum for two shots, barely managed to get off the hard edge of them, and then drove in an uppercut he felt was waiting for him.

  The shot put Kim on her ass. Even as two more men attacked, he kicked her in the face, knocking her out. He expected someone to call the fight, but one of the remaining two came in and now it was a triangle. Yoav grabbed Kim, dragged her out of the way.

  “Rule number two in a street fight,” Yoav said, “is that nothing is off limits.”

  The first guy to come in, Logan snapped a kick off his nuts, drove an elbow into his face, which he blocked against arms Logan knew he’d hurt. He quickly got around the arms, took several shots to the ribs and kidneys, then drove a knee into the man’s side while shins hammered the outsides of his thighs.

  He told himself to keep going in spite of the pain.

  The last person came in and now there were four. The beating was like a mob scene; he was trying to push himself out the back door of it. But there was no way out. The pain kept getting brighter and sharper with each rallied blow.

  Still, all he could see was four opponents.

  Someone hooked his arm, but he got it back, lowered his head and got up under his dazed opponent. He took him to the ground, began beating on him.

  “You’re ALREADY DEAD!” Yoav screamed. “The second you went to the ground to take out one guy, these three KILLED you!”

  Logan kept whaling on the downed man until Yoav pulled him off and tossed him aside like garbage. Something in him had snapped and all he could see was red. He scrambled to his feet and went after the guy again, one of his many opponents standing in his way.

  He faked with a high left punch, which was easily checked, but drove a kick into the side of his shin with the ball of his foot, offsetting the man. The second he took a ginger step back, Logan shoved him sideways and he was back on the downed man, whaling on him again.

  Yoav started screaming, but he didn’t hear it.

  Hands grabbed at him, roughly; voices rose into the air, all warnings to stop. He couldn’t hear past that rush of white noise, all that cotton in his head. He was torn off the man again, mounted by Yoav this time and punched twice on the chin.

  The room went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Logan awakened to the muffled sound of voices. He did not open his eyes. He didn’t move. Instead, he listened, unable to understand what was being said at first. Mental clarity returned quickly though, and he began to understand.

  “….loose cannon,” one of the guys was saying. “He knocked out Kim, put Chuck on his ass and went after him like a dog—”

  “Do you think any of those Chicom bastards will be any less ruthless?” another man asked. This was his instructor speaking. Yoav.

  Logan laid there perfectly still, his chin smarting, his ribs on fire. He almost opened his eyes, but he was afraid of interrupting the conversation. Afraid he’d never hear their uncensored thoughts about him again.

  “No, but we don’t hurt each other here,” one of the guys said. Logan couldn’t tell who this was. He thought maybe it was Chuck.

  “I hurt him every time I train with him,” he heard Kim say, shaking off a knockout of her own. “And you know what he does? He fights harder. Doesn’t complain.”

  “I think he likes the pain,” Yoav admitted. “Look at his face.”

  For a moment, he knew everyone’s eyes were on him, looking at him, studying the abuse. He remained perfectly relaxed, even though his heart was beating a touch harder under the perceived scrutiny.

  “What did you do to him?” Kim asked, presumably to Yoav.

  “He hit the nighty-night button,” one of the other guys said. Logan recognized the voice as Paul’s voice. “I honestly didn’t think he had that button. I’ve been trying to knock him out since he got here.”

  “He’s got spunk,” Kim said. “I say we keep him.”

  A big, contemplative drawing of air into the instructor’s nostrils let Logan know his fate was being decided right then and there.

  Did he want to be in the Resistance? I do. But did he want to be in the Resistance with them? For a moment, he wasn’t sure. Then he was.

  “Alright Logan,” Instructor Yoav said. “You can open your eyes now.”

  Logan drew a breath, calmly opened his eyes. Three of the five veteran fighters looked at him like they were shocked he was even awake, let alone alert enough to take them all in with clear eyes.

  Yoav walked over to him, helped him up and said, “Do you really think Skylar has been compromised?”

  “Yes,” he said, his brain feeling slightly overheated.

  Yoav asked, “Do you want in on this?”

  “The Resistance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course I do,” he said.

  “Good,” Yoav said, pleased. Then to Kim, he said, “You’re going home with him tonight.”

  “With me?” Logan asked, astounded.

  “She’s off the grid,” Paul said. “De-personed last year and moving in the shadows ever since. We’ve got her fresh papers though.”

  “De-personed?” Logan asked, not understanding.

  “I don’t exist,” Kim answered. “It’s for my own safety.”

  “What if Skylar comes home?” he asked.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” Yoav replied. “Until then, it will be nice to have my bed back.”

  No one chose their quarters in the Chicom occupation. You were assigned housing, or you were sent to the refugee camps, or put in a cage, or simply shot for being an inconvenience. The fact that Kim could get papers and be reassigned housing unnerved him.

  “Where do you work?” Logan asked Yoav. “Because what you’re talking about isn’t possible unless—”

  “Don’t ask anyone questions,” Kim interrupted. “Not yet.”

  “Housing and Urban Affairs,” Instructor Yoav said, surprising Kim and the others. “I work inside Selection and Assignment.”

  Smiling through the pain, certain body parts hurting more than others—like his chin and his right floating rib—he said, “And you’re assigning Kim to me?”

  “Yes,” he said with a nod.

  “How can you do that?” Logan asked.

  “You know Tristan, I assume,” he said. Tristan the whole banana man. Before Logan could answer, Yoav said, “Yes, you do. I can see by the look in your face that you do.”

  “What’s that guy’s deal?” he asked.

  “He’s got a general disdain for the public, a serious loathing for the Chicoms and a wicked, if not wildly inappropriate, sense of humor.”

  “Yes,” Logan said, “but do you know him personally?”

  “No one really knows him,” Yoav said. “But I know enough. And to know something about a man or woman, specifically their passion, is to understand their potential value.”

  “He hates the Chicoms,” Logan said.

  “His hatred for them started fifteen years ago. He’s how we all knew what was coming, what’s on tap for America.”

  “So what about me?” Logan said. “I don’t exert the same kind of hostility toward these people that you do. I mean, I didn’t before I met Skylar. Now I do. But I didn’t then.”

  “It was your smile,” Kim said.

  “C’mon,” he said with a frown. “I’m being serious.”

  “It’s true,” Yoav told him. “You first saw Skylar in a deli not far from here. You looked twice at her, then three times. You smiled, and then she smiled.”

  “People look at each other all the time,” Logan said, waving it off.

  “A girl can tell,” Kim said. “Besides, people don’t smile anymore. It’s dangerous. Yet you risked smiling at her, even holding her eye.”

  “That wasn’t when we got together,” he said. “That’s just the first time I saw her.”

  “She fol
lowed you,” Jeremy added, letting Logan know that everyone knew. “She found out where you lived. Tristan needed about ten minutes to tell us all we needed to know.”

  “So this was a set up?” he asked, somewhat sickened by the revelation.

  “She likes you,” Kim said. “Just not the way you want her to.”

  “I know that now.”

  “That’s only because this world won’t allow for romance,” Kim explained. “It’s cute that you want that, but we’re moved by a bigger cause. That’s what fuels us.”

  “I get that,” he relented.

  “You despise this tyranny as much as we do. On a carnal level, after watching our world cascading into ruin under these Communist sacks of shit, how can you not hate everything about this occupation? How can you not hate everything about them?”

  “I do hate it,” he said.

  “Skylar said you weren’t ready to admit this to yourself because there was nothing you could do about it.”

  “She was right.”

  “Because to admit that meant you were weak, victimized and hopeless,” Jeremy said.

  Logan was rendered speechless. They were recounting his exact thoughts as if they were their own.

  Perhaps they were.

  Kim added, “So it doesn’t matter if Skylar liked you or not. You’re with us now. And we’re out there killing Commies because we’re not weak, and we’re not scared. And that’s how you go from victim to vigilante. From vigilante to freedom fighter. From freedom fighter to liberated. After that, I promise, the first thing women like Skylar will want is a guy like you to love them, and protect them.”

  “So you’re going to start a physical revolution,” Logan said, breathless.

  “When the time is right,” Kim replied. “We’re networked here, in L.A. and in Portland. Pretty soon we’ll have Seattle, too. But if one of our factions fails, we all fail.”

  “How’s that?” Logan asked.

  Yoav said, “Because when you’re caught, when you’ve been outed as a traitor, the things they do to you…you can’t begin to understand the depravity of a true Communist regime, let alone this one.”