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

by Schow, Ryan

  A moment ago, to the guard whose family he was holding hostage, he’d almost demanded passage for a third person, but Skylar was too much of a risk. Maybe even too high profile. If her Cyberlink was reactivated, she’d be easily tracked, which would put him on the map along with her. If she hadn’t had all that hardware in her head, he would’ve considered it. As it was, there was no way he could take her anywhere with him.

  When he got to the showers, several of the guards were finishing up and drying off. He did not look at them for two reasons. One, he wasn’t a meat gazer, even inadvertently, and two, he didn’t want any of these men as witnesses against him if things went to shit.

  He went around the other side of the lockers, paused there, found his brother. He was scrubbing the shower floors, looking tired, run down. Just as he was about to approach him, give him the good news he could not provide him earlier, the guard—Ryker’s contact—came early. He approached his brother.

  “Move,” a guard told Ryker.

  Startled, he stood back and said, “I’m sorry.”

  By the time he’d returned his attention to Boyd, he saw the guard leaning forward to tell him something. Apparently they were a go, but sooner than he thought.

  Good.

  Before the guard could even get a word out, his brother drove a shiv right in the man’s neck.

  “No, no, no!” Ryker said.

  The guard fell to the floor as his brother tossed the shiv away. Several guards rushed in to the room, firing on his brother, killing him in spectacular display.

  Ryker backed up, horrified.

  When the guards went to check the man on the floor, gasping for breath, Ryker said, “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Get back!” the guard screamed at him, turning and pointing the weapon on him. The two were chattering in their language as his contact bled out on the small white tiles.

  “Now!” he said, seeing Ryker still hadn’t moved.

  Hands up, he stepped back toward the shiv. While his brother lay there dead, blood leaking out of a dozen holes, one of the guards was on his knees trying to staunch the dying guard’s bleeding. He was wide eyed, gulping for air, almost scared looking.

  If his contact died, Ryker had no way out. He had to at least know who to contact to get a bus out of there.

  Taking one last look at his brother, wiping his eyes, he told himself it was time. There was nothing left to live for but vengeance.

  Knowing more guards would arrive soon, Ryker moved in quick, punched the shiv through the standing guard’s neck, then shoved him aside and stuck the one keeling over. He grabbed both of their pistols, hustled to the spot behind the entrance to the shower room.

  More guards moved in, heading to the reported scene of the incident. Ryker snuck a peek down the hallway, saw no guards coming—although there were surely more on the way—and popped all three with shots to the back of the head.

  The barking sound of gunfire in the showers was deafening. He snuck a look down the hallway. It was still clear. He rushed to the downed men, grabbed their weapons too, hid at another location.

  He popped the mags, set them down beside him.

  Four more guards rushed in, squawking too fast for him to understand. He put those four down, too, but only when they cleared the line of sight from the hallway.

  By now his heart was kicking about a hundred miles an hour, his chest rattling with the punching sensation of a man doing very bad things. The way he felt, all this adrenaline, this was where guys whooped and hollered, or shot off guns, or danced around. This is also where guys threw up, froze up or lost their edge entirely. Wiping sweat from his brow, he looked back at his dead brother. This was all he cared about.

  Now he was dead.

  Dammit, Boyd, he thought to himself. He wiped his eyes again, eyes that wouldn’t stop pooling with tears, and he thought, Why’d you leave me hanging like this?

  Two more guards rushed into the showers, both armed, both cautious. When they got in the entryway to the showers, they slowed their approach. They ducked low, the five foot tall lockers obscuring Ryker’s view.

  Cursing to himself, he tracked them by their voices. Then they stopped moving. They were in the line of sight of the hallway. He couldn’t kill them there without alerting others coming into the gauntlet.

  He heard more voices.

  A new group of men piled in, pushing the others forward. Then it was a flurry of noise. With a pistol in each hand, he stood and fired on the men, catching three of them with multiple rounds.

  When the weapon dry fired, he switched hands, changed position, stood and fired, taking the top of one guy’s head off and missing the other two.

  He needed to move fast, keep them on their heels.

  He heard one of them whispering in a two-way, his words strung together so fast there was hardly a space between each one.

  Dropping down, he bobbed his head out, saw three more men, all crouched down. One was on the two-way, another was trying to see if his friend who lost the top of his head would live, and the third was peeking around the corner at the other end of the hallway.

  Ryker checked the other side, looking down a long hallway and saw nothing. Keeping as low as possible, he slipped out and fired three rounds taking out all three men.

  As quickly as he could, he grabbed their weapons, pulled them aside, although there was now a massive blood slick in the walkway.

  He was just getting the last man aside when the thunder of footsteps shook the hallway. Before the army of men rounded the corner, he ducked aside, moved into the only position he could—behind the doorway.

  So far, these men were not smart and they were not trained tactically. Perhaps their occupation made them lazy. Or maybe they were third-string soldiers. The benchwarmers. The guys who did paperwork, monitored communications, ran the secretary pool.

  Either way, when they moved in, Ryker waited as long as he could to get them all in range and then he fired on the farthest one from him, moving quickly through the line of six. All six fell, and even though some got shots off, he was spared any damage.

  Rather than finishing off the six that were dead or dying, he dropped down and fired on three more men running back down the hallway. He got two in the back, but he missed the third.

  “Dammit!” he barked.

  Wasting no time, he took the closest man to him, ripped off his hat and clothes, and did a quick change. His heart threatened to tear itself apart it was beating so hard, but he kept cool under pressure. He’d been in high-stress situations like this before.

  This one just had more enemies.

  By the time he squeezed himself in an ill-fitting jacket and pants, changed out his mags and confiscated two more pistols, he heard the sounds of more men coming.

  His pulse was roaring in his neck, the pounding so loud it thumped his head with every ferocious beat. He wiped the sweat from his brow, steadied himself.

  Dropping down by lockers, he splayed his feet out and pulled his hat as low on his face as he could while playing dead. The two extra pistols were just out of sight and barely out of reach. One was concealed behind his butt, the other next to his leg.

  The blood stains and bullet holes on the front of his stolen uniform made him look like he was shot to death. Hopefully the hat hid enough of his face to conceal his skin color.

  To be fair, this was stupid. No, not stupid…stupid and crazy. Insane! He had nothing else, though.

  These guys weren’t that smart, though, so he was mildly optimistic.

  By now even the dumbest of them knew there was an ambush in the showers. They knew men had been killed. The question was, were they stupid enough to storm the place, or would they do what he’d do, which was assume everyone was dead and lob a grenade in there?

  He hoped not. Surprisingly, they did a variation on his own tactics. The guards tossed in a pair of flash bangs, the canisters bouncing right by him on the way to the showers.

  Oh, boy…

  When the f
irst one went off, he did not move in spite of the deafening blast. The second went right after, rattling his brain even further. With the flash bangs at his back, and a host of lockers between him, he did not suffer the concussive results he expected to, but his ears were still ringing.

  Men poured in, checking the dead bodies quickly as they looked down the barrels of their semi-automatic rifles. The point man may or may not have looked him over. Either way, he didn’t slow as he walked right by him. The others following didn’t double check what he’d first checked. They were on the lookout for an active shooter or shooters.

  When the entire group was in (he counted about ten of them, all loaded for bear), he worked up the nerve to do what was next. There was no other option but this one, he told himself. He could get up and leave, but the hallway was long and he’d be spotted and shot. He could stay, play dead, but eventually they’d start kicking the dead looking for anyone still alive, or for him. The only logical path at this point was the most dangerous one.

  He moved around the locker, shot two of the men in the back and a third in the head using four rounds. He quickly went back to playing dead. The mayhem that followed was immediate. He tried to translate everything that was being said among the guards, but there was too much frenzied chatter to process.

  Two men crouching low moved up the hallway his way. They slowed near him, presumably checking each soldier, and then they headed down the row of lockers away from him. He shot one in the butthole and the other in the forehead.

  Two more rounds expended.

  Six all together.

  Grab another weapon or keep the one he had? he wondered. That was the question.

  He stayed the course.

  The guy who got shot in the poop chute was howling in pain, drawing the attention of the others. Two more guards appeared, crouching low and attending to the downed soldier. He shot them both, then reached for the next gun, except he didn’t have time.

  The three left were now creeping. One said something, and the other agreed, and from then on, it was silent.

  He’d been made.

  He could hear the soldiers checking the other bodies. As quietly as he could, he got the shiv in his right hand, tucked the sharp end under his right butt cheek and waited.

  He heard them coming long before they got there.

  The instant a pair of boots appeared on the floor next to him, he went into high alert, preparing himself. One of the boots stepped over his legs—one foot now on each side of his torso—then the guard bent down.

  He lifted Ryker’s chin with the barrel of his pistol and immediately Ryker stabbed him three quick times in the armpit. The man stumbled forward, almost fell on top of him. Ryker stuck him two times in the neck and pushed him away, doing his best to keep the fountain of blood from soaking him.

  Ryker managed to get his gun free before the other two charged in at the sound of grunting and noise. He couldn’t hesitate.

  Gun at the ready, he waited.

  The second he saw the two faces appear, he fired. He only hit one of them. The one he struck now had a third eye and a one way trip to hell.

  The guy who got away was shaking so badly Ryker could hear the pistol rattling against his hand on the other side of the locker.

  He screamed something in Chinese, his voice chock full of terror.

  As quietly as he could, Ryker slipped out from underneath the dead man, stood up on tippy-toes and peeked over the lockers, trying to get a bead on him.

  He couldn’t see well enough, so he stood on the head of one of the dead men, and only then could he see over the other side. That’s where he found the last guard cowering.

  He was shaking, wiping his face with a hanky, staying low and holding out for help.

  Slowly he eased the gun over the edge of the metal box, then aimed to where he thought he could hit the man without being able to look down the barrel. When he pulled the trigger, it was loud, but the bullet went true.

  Well, mostly true. The guy was still alive because he only clipped him. He hopped up on the top of the locker and fired again.

  That shot did the job.

  It should have been done, but he thought he heard more noise in the hallway. For a second, he wondered, How much longer can I keep this up?

  Chapter Forty-One

  Ryker went back to playing dead. It was his best option. When no more men flooded into the showers, he quickly changed into a fresh uniform. This one he was able to fit over his jumpsuit, a uniform where a headshot to the soldier kept much of the blood from getting on the heavy fabric. The material wasn’t comfortable, and he felt stiff, like his movements were not only wooden, but severely limited. Putting on his hat, he realized it would have to work.

  He knew the hive would be buzzing, but with so many people out there, for now, it seemed he had a small window of opportunity.

  Taking a deep breath, loaded with a fresh mag and a second gun, he walked the hallway with his hat pulled low. It wouldn’t cover his chin though. He knew there were Gweilo guards, and Gweilo soldiers, but there weren’t that many of these American traitors on staff. In fact, he might have only seen one since he arrived. Still, there would be a lot of suspicion. Not to mention he didn’t speak Chinese, and the Gweilo soldiers would.

  The second he rounded the hallway’s first corner, he saw a group of soldiers huddling around a man who seemed to be in command. Ryker shot him first, then rapid fired on the remaining four with tactical precision. Meaning he didn’t miss. Then again, he needed four more rounds to dispense of the four he didn’t critically wound the first time.

  Up ahead he saw the exit.

  His heart was racing, pumping him full of adrenaline. Thank God for that. Quickly, he popped out both mags, passed an office window, then stopped. He thought he saw women in the office. On closer inspection, he did.

  The one he caught the best glimpse of looked terrified.

  He ducked inside the office, went desk to desk until he found a man on the floor. He was in uniform. Ryker ignored the women, none of them looking like an immediate threat.

  “Give me your gun,” he told the guard.

  He started to reach for it, his hands shaking, but his face stern. Ryker put a round into his head, then finished looking around. More men poured into the block, maybe twelve or fifteen of them. They ran past the office, not having heard the execution shot.

  The women were now whimpering. He shushed them, then he got up and walked out into the hallway. The exit was only twenty feet away.

  Twenty feet to freedom.

  He got there quickly, but when he reached for the handle, the door was pulled open by a second horde of men. Head ducked low, he stepped back as they rushed past him, heading down the hall to the scene of the massacre.

  This was the point where Ryker wished he’d had a grenade or two. A real grenade. One he could lob into the showers while the Chicom guards were counting their dead.

  He stepped into the sunshine, snuck a quick glance around.

  Out in the yard, there were people packed everywhere. The conditions were sorry at best, and many of them were sick, or would certainly be sick. There was the feeling of concern in the air, but there was not the pandemonium he expected.

  He walked up to one of the guards who was alone, fired a round into his back where the bullet would shred his heart. He dropped down dead. Ryker stripped the man of his weapon, even as people started to scream.

  He moved through the now frantic crowds, pushing past refugees as he made a beeline to the other guards. They were looking confused, like they were trying to understand what was happening, like they were trying to maintain control.

  These men didn’t carry two-ways.

  They didn’t know.

  He moved to the next guard, was made within a few feet, then pumped a round into the man’s head. He dropped dead. Ryker pushed forward, found two more guards, dropped them both.

  By now, the guards were flooding out of the various blocks. He sunk to the gr
ound with people all around him, stripped off the clothes down to his jumpsuit and shushed the people who were seeing what was happening.

  One man smiled wide, like he got it, but then he frowned because he knew what was next. Ryker couldn’t think of that right then.

  He had to keep moving.

  The weapon at his side, he stood and threaded his way through the crowds, blending in, except for his elevated heart rate, and the blood spatter on his face. When he was stopped, stuck for a second, an older woman scrunched in front of him looked up.

  He looked down at her, then away, and then back.

  She licked her hand, three long fingers down the tongue, and then she started wiping at his face, which he knew was spritzed with blood.

  “Thank you,” she said, when she was done. Looking down, there was still blood all over his jumpsuit. She gave him a look that said she couldn’t fix everything.

  That’s when the guards started firing on everyone.

  People all around him were dropping as the horn sounded overhead. It was like an air raid siren, but more obnoxious. Two men were shot beside him. He went down with them, moving the dead around him for insulation.

  When he saw the woman down, too, he took her hand and started them moving, but the woman pulled back. He stopped, looked back at her to tell her it was alright, but she was dead. The sight of her damaged head hit him in the heart like a sledgehammer.

  Letting go of her hand, he couldn’t allow himself to think about her. Not while the gunfire continued, and not while the screaming of the sirens raged on. Popping his head up, he could already see people being lined up and summarily executed.

  With each bullet, with each death of an innocent, he felt his heart plummet. All these people were dying because of him. He did this.

  Now he had to undo it.

  He picked up his own gun, grabbed another from the guard he’d shot minutes ago, and moved low through the terrified crowds. He stayed with them as best as he could while moving toward Cell Block North. Eventually he moved against the current because he was heading for the firing squads while everyone else was running away.