Grayson Ryder: A Thief's Thrill

by M. L. Giles

  When Mr Ford was moved, I leaned down and grabbed my sister’s head, turning it fully towards me. The left half of her face had been ripped off.

  That was the last image of my sister I have, for as soon as I saw her face, I ran away.

  I must’ve spent a good two or three hours running around the streets of my neighbourhood looking for— You know, I don’t quite know what I was looking for… Life, maybe? A reason to why everyone had suddenly turned on each other?

  All I found were more corpses, rivers of blood, the odd fire, and houses with smashed windows or doors broken down.

  No matter how far I walked, or how much I called out, there was no response. Everyone was dead. It honestly felt like I was the only person left alive. In fact, for a couple of days, that is exactly how it seemed.

  Never before have I been so glad to be so wrong.

  Chapter 1

  Signal.

  Following the Smoke.

  “Good god, Grayson…” I thought to myself as I stared at my reflection in a broken mirror shard. “How have you made it this long without going insane?”

  About a year had passed since most of the world’s population had been killed off. In that time, my light brown hair had grown shoulder length and now required tying back. My hair wasn’t quite long enough to tie back completely yet, so strands of it often came loose and swept over my face. I’d have cut it shorter ages ago, but a part of me was starting to like the new style.

  Funny how I still retain a certain amount of vanity in a world with barely anyone in it.

  “Please have running water,” I uttered quietly, almost like a prayer.

  I turned the knobs of the taps in the kitchen sink one at a time, hoping that this random house was one of the very few still with running water. As the pipes sputtered to life, I bit my lip in hopeful anticipation, but only a few spurts of wet air shot out.

  “Ugh, bloody typical.”

  With no other option, I put down my mirror shard, removed my black, single-shouldered backpack, and pulled out a bottle of water from it. Reluctantly, I put the plug in the sink, then poured half of the bottle’s contents into it.

  Normally I would never dream of wasting such a precious resource as drinkable water, but this was an emergency! My stubble had grown out to become a full-fledged beard, and I do not look good with a beard.

  Using the water in the sink, and a crappy razor I’d plucked from a supermarket ages ago, I shaved that nasty thing off my face, leaving behind only the lightest of stubble.

  If only cleaning my clothes was as simple. For the past two weeks, I’d been wearing the same navy sweatpants, gray shirt, black hoodie, and black trainers. I realize it’s pretty nasty, but let’s just say I had good reason to want to stick to a certain set of clothing.

  After cleaning up and looking deadly handsome once again, I did a quick check of this random house I was in, looking for supplies.

  Sadly, the place had already been raided of anything useful by other survivors.

  “Find anything, Grayson?” Wendy asked me as I exited the house.

  I sat down next to her on the waist-high wall at the bottom of the driveway. “Nope. The place was already looted of the more useful stuff.”

  “Did you check for meds in the bathroom cabinets?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  “All the drawers in the kitchen?”

  “Yeeees…”

  “What about—ˮ

  “There’s a penis pump in the bedroom,” I blurted out to shut her up. “I can get it for your boyfriend if you want.”

  Wendy rubbed her freckly face in frustration. “Grow up, Grayson.”

  That wasn’t the only telling off I got from her; she REALLY gave me a bollocking for using some of our drinking water to shave my beard off.

  Women will never understand the burdens of the beard, much like men will never understand the burdens of child birth – thank God.

  Wendy Brent: the first survivor I had met after all hell had broken loose last year.

  Around two or three days after running away from my sister’s body, I started searching for a more permanent place of residence, one that didn’t reek of death. That’s when I saw Wendy wandering around in the street. Or should I say, I saw a blob of red hair walking around. The girl had the biggest, frizziest, reddest hair I’d ever seen! It was the first thing I saw before actually seeing any face.

  She looked to be in her mid-twenties, average height with a slim build. Her tight, green coat and jeans were covered in dry blood stains, as was her freckly face.

  Ah, I still remember that magical moment we both first met… The first gentle words spoken to me after spending so long seeing nothing but death.

  “Don’t you dare touch me, you fucking psycho!” she cried out with a long meat cleaver pointed right at me.

  “Whoa! You’re alive?!” I had shouted excitedly, putting this already terrified woman on edge by running up to her.

  After getting over my astonishment that I wasn’t alone in the world, I managed to convince Wendy that I wasn’t going to froth at the mouth and turn feral, like most of the other decaying bodies around us had done mere days before.

  We shared our sad stories that evening while sitting in a very scenic park practically untouched by the madness. She told me that, before everyone had died, she was a single mom working to support her child and herself. On the night people went mad, her daughter had killed their cat, then gone after her. After wrestling with her child, much like I had done with Gloria, Wendy managed to lock her daughter outside.

  Big mistake.

  By the time Wendy had realized the entire neighbourhood was also going berserk, her child had already been torn to bits right on her doorstep.

  Her kid meant a lot to her, you can tell that much by the way she endlessly sobbed away while telling me the sad story… Not that I was any better when it came my turn to talk about my sister.

  Ever since then, Wendy and I survived together. Occasionally, we met others. Some had gone mad from what they had seen that night, or from all the death that now surrounded us, while others were already in groups of their own and didn’t want anyone else joining their party for one reason or another. Moving in a small group makes it easier to avoid detection, which is smart given the unsavoury types you wanted to avoid – even if they are few and far between.

  A woman who pushed a buggy with the bones of a child in; a naked man with self-inflicted cuts all over his body, wearing only a tool belt with sharp objects hanging off it; two elderly people that pretended everything was fine, and chased us away when I tried to pop their delusional bubble.

  Those are only a few examples of the people we came across.

  Life was tough, dangerous, and kind of exciting! It sounds bizarre but, as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, I realized that my thrill-seeking itch was being scratched on a daily basis, giving me the fuel to carry on in this broken world. Wendy, however, didn’t like it. She wanted to settle down somewhere safe and have kids again. I think she was desperate to regain what she had lost.

  Can’t blame her, really.

  We eventually stumbled upon the only other survivor that appeared sane enough to join our two-man band; a fairly unremarkable middle-aged man called Thomas.

  Thomas Adamson was a substitute teacher who looked (and still looks) the part. Thick glasses, a mustache that makes him look far older than he truly is, short black hair and, to complete the look, a suit.

  I shit you not… He’s probably the only “survivor” who wears suits. Complete with a stripy tie, buttoned white shirt, and black trousers.

  This is a guy who is so dense he actually slept through the night people tore each other up, woke up, got ready for work, and didn’t realize anything was wrong until after tripping up on a corpse outside his door.

  Lucky bastard.

  Wendy seemed to like his dry, dull personality and clumsy ways, since they ended up becoming an item.

  I guess
when your choices are a gay guy you have zero chances with, or a nervous and boring man with no survival skills, you take what you can get.

  “I’m starting to get worried,” Wendy said, as we sat waiting for Thomas to complete his sweep of the house next to the one I had already searched.

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Most of these houses have been looted already.”

  “Your point being?”

  “Think about it, Grayson.” I already knew what she was about to say, because I had thought the same thing much earlier that day. “There could be a gang in this town.”

  “Or a large group passed through, snagging everything as they went.” The last thing I wanted was for Wendy to panic and start acting irrationally – you wouldn’t believe the amount of times that’s happened!

  Wendy pulled out an already opened bar of chocolate from her pocket, popping a piece of it into her mouth. “I really hope you’re right about that.”

  “PSST! Guys!” A loud yet whispered voice came from behind us.

  When I turned around, I saw Thomas leaning out of the upstairs window of the house he was searching.

  “Found something?” I yelled up to him.

  “Shush!” he quickly responded in a panic. “N-Not so loud! Come up here. Quickly.”

  Wendy and I both jumped off the wall and hurried into the house, heading straight upstairs to where Thomas was.

  He had moved into a room at the rear of the house. The room itself appeared to be a small, mostly-untouched study, with books lined up on a bookshelf and a computer sitting on a wooden desk. Sitting on the desk was also a very expensive looking watch, one that made the thief in me cry out to grab it to sell later! …Until I remembered money was now more useful as toilet paper than actual currency.

  That’s not a joke, by the way.

  “What’s wrong?” Wendy whispered to her boyfriend.

  Thomas moved to one side, pointing at the window behind him. “See for yourself,” he said quietly.

  I stepped forward alongside Wendy to take a look out of the window.

  “That’s smoke!” Wendy stated.

  In the distance, not too far from us, we could see black smoke rising from behind some trees.

  “Could just be a random fire,” I said, knowing it probably wasn’t.

  “Don’t be stupid. It looks like it’s coming from a park,” Wendy pointed out.

  “W-What should we do?” Thomas asked us both nervously. I hated it when he got nervous because it always meant endless stuttering.

  “We should go and have a look,” Wendy suggested. “It could be a survivor or—ˮ

  “—Or another crazy asshole wanting to kill us and do kinky things to our bodies,” I interrupted.

  Wendy gave me a firm glare before heading to the door. “Even more reason to check it out. I won’t feel comfortable spending a single night in a small town like this without knowing what’s out there first.”

  I waved at Wendy as she waltzed out the door of the study. “Have fun, Dee! Don’t stay out past your bedtime! …Oh, Thomas. Our baby girl is growing up.”

  She immediately came back into the study. “You’re coming too. BOTH of you.”

  “Ha! Why should I? Let’s just grab what we can and move on, like always,” I explained. “There’s no reason to stay here. It’s not like we haven’t played hide-and-seek with people before.”

  “I’m with G-Grayson,” Thomas, the suit, chimed in. “We can go to the other side of town and wait it out, t-then head off in the morning.”

  “Please, guys! I won’t be able to rest here tonight without knowing what’s out there.” Wendy fluttered her eyes at Thomas. “Please, Tom? I need you.”

  “…A-All right,” he replied, immediately making his way over to her.

  I made the sound of a whip crack, indicating that Wendy had Thomas well and truly trained.

  Neither of them saw the funny side to it – they never do.

  The three of us walked out of town, constantly going in a straight line towards the smoke rising up into the darkening sky. We ended up in some woodland park, with vast clearings of grass and equally big patches of trees surrounding each one. You could tell this would have been a nice place to have walks in the past, before it became all overgrown from lack of maintenance.

  As we got closer to the smoke, I suggested staying in the trees to avoid being spotted by the potential nutters ahead. It’s always better to see what you’re dealing with before it sees you.

  Thankfully, Wendy and Thomas had come to trust my methods when it came to this sort of thing. In the time we had spent together, I had used my well-trained instincts and knowhow from my previous life as a devilishly handsome pickpocket to get us out of trouble, or avoid it completely.

  With the source of the smoke almost in sight, I clung to the trees, making my way quietly forward. When I saw that we were coming to a clearing and the trees were coming to an end, I instructed Wendy and Thomas to hang back, allowing me go ahead alone without worrying for their safety (or more my own safety, considering Thomas was a walking catastrophe when it came to this sort of thing).

  They both complied, Thomas more happily so than Wendy.

  I moved on alone, until I reached the end of the line of trees. Using one for cover, I knelt down and peered around it to get sight on the source of the smoke.

  In front of me was a huge, open section of grass, with various cement paths winding around. In its centre was a child’s playground, and it was within that playground that I saw a large metal barrel with smoke billowing out of it.

  The culprits of the barrel fire appeared to be four men and one woman, all dressed in yellow or orange clothing and all with shaved heads. They each had unique weapons in hand, ranging from baseball bats and crowbars, to a homemade bola. There were two other men dressed differently from the main five, but I guessed they weren’t the fire starters given that they were tied up to the poles of a swing set.

  As I observed a bit longer, I saw one of the yellow men walk up to one of the bound men and kick him straight in the face.

  That was all I needed to see. I scurried on back to Wendy and Thomas.

  “Two captives? We should help them,” whispered Wendy.

  “Why? Let’s just keep moving,” I suggested. “If we go to help, we become targets too. Besides, five clearly violent people with a variety of weapons, versus a girl, a suit, and me? That doesn’t sound like favourable odds. Not to mention the two that are tied up could also be dangerous, for all we know.”

  “Then think of something! Those two guys are clearly prisoners, not dangerous people. Come on, Grayson. You’re good at this sort of thing.”

  “At what?” I asked Wendy.

  “Getting people out of trouble!”

  I nodded in agreement with her. “That is exactly why I am saying no to this.”

  Wendy tried another tactic on me.

  “What if one of those men turned out to be gay? Maybe you could finally find someone like you too. Someone you can grow close with.”

  I rolled my eyes, saying sarcastically, “Yeah, I bet in that playground is my wonderful prince charming, just waiting for me to save him from his fate so we can ride off into the sunset on a glorious stallion together! Now who needs to grow up, Dee?”

  Then she said something that swung the argument in her favour.

  “There’s been so much death already, Grayson. Please don’t let those men die.”

  Death – our new world was full of it. From the bones of those who went savage lying scattered everywhere, to those who couldn’t deal with this life and simply offed themselves. I still remember seeing a woman jump from the top of a block of flats, and a freshly decomposing man who was hanging from a noose in a house.

  The world stank of death and decay… I didn’t want to add to it by turning a blind eye.

  Plus, if I am being totally honest here, the thought of playing the hero did tickle the old thrill-seeker gland just right.

 
“Ugh! Fine!” I gave in.

  Wendy smiled at me. “Thank you!”

  “But if we get some kind of reward, I call first dibs. Deal?”

  Wendy nodded.

  “S-So, what’s the plan?” Thomas asked reluctantly. “We aren’t seriously going to fight those guys, are w-we?”

  In all my years of sneaking around and stealing stuff for a living, I’d learned that direct confrontation was never a good idea. You always have the upper hand when people don’t know where, or who, you are.

  “Give me a minute to think of something,” I asked them.

  Chapter 2

  Showtime.

  One Grumpy American.

  After giving instructions to Thomas and Wendy, then sending them on their way, I had snuck slightly closer to the playground, waiting for my opportunity to run in and be the hero. I sat behind a tree not far from where the group of men were. The once darkening blue skies now had hues of pink from the setting sun.

  All my two comrades had to do was sneak to the other side of the playground, reveal themselves, lure the people in yellow to them, then run like hell. The plan would give me a chance to swoop in with my trusty pocket knife, cut the bindings around the two men, then run like hell myself.

  However, something unexpected happened.

  While I sat watching the group, one of the bound men was surrounded by three of the yellow men and questioned. Although I couldn’t hear exactly what was being asked, the one bound man’s screams I heard very clearly.

  They were interrogating him, painfully.

  “Come on you two… Hurry up,” I thought.

  The park was large, and I’d instructed Wendy and Thomas to move slowly amongst the trees, but time was now against us.

  I watched on as the three men in yellow continued asking whatever it was they wanted to know. Each time their bound captive refused to answer was followed by an echoing scream from him.