Grayson Ryder: A Thief's Thrill

by M. L. Giles

  I looked at the empty passenger seat beside me, feeling forlorn as I drove. Gloria used to sit beside me, trying to teach me how to drive. It just wasn’t the same without her barking commands. I remembered how proud she was when I’d successfully managed to drive on the roads for the first time, and how mad she got when she found out I’d used her car for meeting men three days later.

  Gloria banned me from driving her car after she found two used condoms on the backseat.

  Whoops.

  After a few miles of driving, the headlights of the car shined on a sign by the side of the motorway, one of which had a spray-painted skull on.

  The sight disturbed me as I passed by it.

  Another few miles down the road, I caught the faintest glimpse of light in the rear-view mirror – a car was fast approaching.

  My heart started racing, triggering my instincts. I pulled over to the side of the motorway, cut the engine, and dived out of the car, rolling into the overgrown grassy hill beside me.

  “It will pass… I’ll wait a bit before setting off again. No sweat.” I thought to myself, trying to remain calm.

  The car didn’t pass. Instead, a red estate, visible only thanks to the almost full moon above, pulled up behind my small green car. Two doors opened. I placed my head firmly against the ground, shuffling backwards through the grass like a worm, wondering what psychos I had attracted on my drive down here.

  “Grayson?!”

  I froze. The voice was Carl’s.

  “He ain’t in the car. Must’ve saw us comin’. Doubt he’s far.”

  The second voice was Colton’s.

  Relieved, I jumped up and walked back onto the road. “Awww, I’m touched you two came all this way just for me. You really do love me!”

  They both spun around to look at me. Colton looked happy to see me. Carl, on the other hand, looked like someone about to shit a concrete slab.

  “YOU!” Carl screamed, running right for me.

  He tried to grab my hoodie, but I weaved out of his way.

  “Hey! Knock it off!” Colton yelled.

  Carl made another attempt to grab me, aiming for my arm. This time he managed to grip my entire wrist but, with a simple twisting motion, I was able to easily free myself.

  Colton ran up to Carl, grabbing him from behind. With almost no effort at all, Colton threw him away from me and stood between us.

  “Get back in the car,” Colton told him.

  Carl moved around Colton to be able to see me. “Fucking typical! You would take his side after last—ˮ

  Colton slammed his large boot down onto the road, creating a loud bang that echoed around us. “NOW!”

  Taken aback by the noise, Carl reluctantly made his way back to the red estate, scowling at me with every step he took.

  I gave him a friendly wave and a cute smile.

  Once Carl was safely back in his cage— Oh, sorry, in the car, Colton turned his attention to me.

  He was wearing the same green military trousers I’d first seen him in, only with a white tank top this time. There was, however, a nifty addition to his wardrobe. Strapped to his chest was a black tactical vest with all manner of pouches and accessories hung on it, including a large, sheathed machete with a red handle.

  “Y’know, you’re real lucky Tyrone went down to the car park in time to see you leavin’ the place.” He spoke slowly, clearly irritated by the situation. “Now start talkin’, Gray.”

  “What’s there to say? I’m going to get you what you wanted.”

  Colton walked right up to me. His posture was threatening, the towering frame of his body adding to the intimidation factor. “Thought I told you to go with my group.”

  “And I told you I don’t play well with others.”

  “Kid, you got no idea what’s in that place, or who you’re dealin’ with.” He placed his heavy hand on the side of my arm. “Come on back to the hotel. We’ll get that group sorted an’ go for it tomorrow.”

  I shrugged his hand off by walking away, heading over to the green car to lean against its door. “Or you can go back to the hotel and wait for me while I go do this. How does that sound?”

  There were a few seconds of silence. Colton and I stared at each other, both of us wanting different outcomes, yet both of us too stubborn to budge.

  Eventually, Colton waved his hand towards Carl to signal for him.

  Carl opened the door, shouting out to Colton from his seat. “What?”

  “Get the car back to the hotel. I’m gonna take Gray to the hospital.” Colton threw the car keys towards Carl, who caught them with one hand.

  “You can’t be serious…” Carl grumbled in disbelief.

  “Do it. Make sure everythin’ runs smoothly while I’m gone.”

  Without saying anything further, Carl slammed the car door shut, shuffled over to the driver’s seat, and did an angry U-turn before speeding away down the motorway.

  “Shall we?” I asked Colton, after waving a hearty goodbye to my dear friend Carl, of course.

  Colton walked over, surprising me by quickly grabbing the keys from my hand. “Yeah. But I’m drivin’ us there. I know a safer route.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We both got into the car. It was amusing to see such a big guy behind the wheel of this small green vehicle. Colton turned the key and started to drive down the motorway, continuing in the direction I had been going.

  A feeling came over me as we pulled away, one that I rarely, if ever, felt: a genuine feeling of gratitude to another human being.

  “…Thanks,” I said quietly.

  “For what?”

  I looked out of my passenger side window, slightly embarrassed from saying that word. “For taking my side back there.”

  “I trust you an’ your expertise, Gray. If goin’ in there solo is what you think is best, then the least I can do is drive.”

  It was amazing that he trusted me this soon after meeting me. Even I wouldn’t have trusted me at this point!

  For the remainder of the trip, Colton filled me in on some minor details about what I was getting myself into. He informed me about how dangerous these people could be, insisting I should take a weapon in there. I declined. Not only did I not intend to get caught, but using a weapon to take a life, even in self-defence, wasn’t me; the thought alone made me feel sick.

  Periodically, he would give me the option to head back to the hotel to re-group. I tried to explain that a group would not only give me more to worry about, but it would also make it easier to be spotted.

  He didn’t seem to understand my reasoning. His philosophy was that the more people you had, the more obstacles you could overcome.

  “Teams get the job done better than any single person can,” he stated.

  It didn’t matter to me what he believed, because I intended to show him that my methods could produce the results he wanted.

  Colton had driven us to the town of the hospital using quiet backroads and then turned off the roads, cutting across a large field of grass.

  “There it is. See it?” He pointed slightly to our left.

  “Kill the lights,” I said quickly.

  Colton complied by immediately turning off the car’s headlights, leaving us in total darkness within the field.

  In the distance I could see two tall, box-shaped buildings, connected in the middle by a glass walkway. The structure appeared more modern than most hospitals I had seen, suggesting it had been built for a growing town. I couldn’t see the lower half of the hospitals over the trees near the building, but the top half of one of the buildings appeared to be lit in a very small number of rooms.

  “You said the hospital was on the edge of town with nothing behind it,” I said while trying to formulate a plan in my head.

  “Yeah. Rear of the buildin’ is just a car park. Behind that are some trees, which reach the field we’re in now.”

  “Why does only one of the buildings have lights in it?”

  “Hospital�
�s divided into west an’ east. They only use one side.” Colton unbuckled his seat belt, leaning forward to examine the building with me. “You sure ‘bout this? Ain’t too late to turn around.”

  “Sure. Let’s head back. Re-grouping is our best option,” I joked. Colton gave a deep, relieved sigh and started to do his seat belt back up. “That was a joke, big guy.”

  “Oh, right.” He let the seat belt go. “Done anythin’ like this before?”

  “A few times,” I lied, it was way more than that. “Bigger buildings tend to have more ways in. Plus they made great spots to hide when the police were giving chase.”

  “Ha. You’re a real piece of work, Gray.”

  I turned to him, taking a bow. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  We both smiled at each other before examining the hospital again. There was barely any information I could garner from my current position, so I decided it was best to just go for it.

  “Well, no time like the present.” I pulled the door handle of the car, preparing to leave.

  “Wait a sec.” Colton’s voice was a little shaky. “Can we talk first?”

  I turned to look at him. “About what?”

  “…Y’know… Last night.”

  I cringed a bit as I remembered waking up next to him naked behind me, mostly out of embarrassment that it happened in the first place rather than regret for what we did.

  “Is now really the best time for this?” I asked.

  Colton sat back in his seat, looking disappointed. “Yeah, guess not.”

  “…Hey, if I’m not back by the time the sun comes up, assume the worst. My dying wish is that you put Carl in the prettiest dress you can find, then make him perform ballet for everyone back at the hotel. Will you do that for me?”

  Colton let out a weak laugh, clearly still feeling down. “That right there is an impossible dyin’ wish.”

  As I opened the door and stepped out into the darkness, Colton gave me another look of concern.

  “Cheer up, Colton! You’ll spoil my fun if I go in there with your frowning face on my mind,” I said while looking at him with the door open. He didn’t look any happier. It was bothering me to see him this way. “How about this: if I make it back with those notes, I’ll give you a big, sloppy kiss,” I joked – kind of.

  It made the big guy laugh, finally giving me a genuine smile. “Y’know I’ll hold you to that one too, right?”

  “Oh I bet you will,” I teased.

  I closed the door slowly, giving a thumbs up to Colton through its window. He gave one back, just before I dashed off towards the hospital.

  As I cut through the trees in almost complete darkness, making my way closer to the hospital, I mentally prepared myself for various outcomes.

  Success. Failure. Fuck, even for death!

  That’s when a strange thought popped up in the back of mind, causing me to stop dead in my tracks and look back towards where the car was. For the first time in ages, I felt sort of happy inside. Not the kind of happy that comes from putting myself in a dangerous situation, no, this was brought on by something else.

  Colton was enjoying my terrible jokes! Hell, he was even reciprocating them, just like Gloria would have done. He was the first person since the outbreak that hadn’t put me down, yelled at me for being myself, or looked down on me for being a thief in the past.

  Colton was giving me a chance to do things my way. But he was also giving me something else that no one, apart from my sister, had ever given me before: his trust.

  My parents didn’t trust me to not steal from them. My fellow school students didn’t trust me around their stuff. People who sent me on errands for them sometimes thought I would run off with their goods. Even my ex, Roman, didn’t trust me enough to let me go places alone, just in case I ended up sleeping around.

  Only Gloria had ever trusted me. And now Colton too.

  I wasn’t going to let him down. I was going to make it back. Fuck, I might even give the big, bald bastard that kiss I promised – hopefully.

  Chapter 7

  Infiltration.

  I’m Sorry, Colton.

  It was time to begin the first step of any break in: scouting the place out. Normally, in the past, my method was to snoop around for a night or two before actually getting in there. This time, however, I was in a rush. Yet even with time against me, I had to make sure my haste didn’t come back to bite me in my superior posterior.

  “Three… Four… Five guards.” I counted the number of people at the back of the hospital from my hiding spot, behind a bush on the edge of the car park. “Well, shit. Maybe the front is less guarded?”

  I made my way through the trees that grew parallel to the side of hospital, all without any problems, naturally. The trouble began when I tried to get around to the main entrance.

  What I found was a massive wall that covered most of the front of the hospital. But this was no ordinary wall, it had been cobbled together using benches, tables, beds, dinner trays, empty vending machines, scrapped buses, ambulances, and other assorted bits. Almost all of the wall was covered with barbwire, with metal spikes mixed in and made to stick outwards in random spots.

  The most horrifying part of the wall, though, were the bones. Human remains had gone into the fortification process, giving the wall a diabolic look. It was hard to understand why they had done this. Perhaps they hoped to dissuade potential invaders with an intimidating sight?

  Their tactic may have caused me to run for the hills in the past, but I had two strong sources of motivation now: Colton’s trust, and the promise of finding out what happened to my sister last year.

  Using the thinnest of gaps, I peeked through their wall, looking in to the small courtyard that was lit by various sources of fire. At the entrance to the building were two men wearing yellow, both wielding a wooden baseball bat each. Parading around their created space were two more people, a man and women, again wearing yellow and orange, but the woman carried a long metal pole with a large kitchen knife duct-taped to the end of it.

  Having decided the front entrance would be too difficult in comparison to the rear (the self-made wall of doom was fairly off-putting), I merged back into the hedges beside the hospital, once again making my way to the rear car park.

  This time around, I examined the rear more closely than I had on first arrival.

  The ground floor windows were boarded up completely, with only the faintest of light shining through some corners. There was a small alcove where a fire exit door sat half-open, which would’ve been the perfect entry point if not for the sexy, shirtless, athletic guard blocking it! Distractions aside, the only other point of interest was a set of fire escape stairs… Or what used to be stairs, that is; someone had gone to the trouble of removing almost all the steps, leaving only the metal handrail.

  “Didn’t Colton mention earlier that the other building was also part of this hospital? Could be worth a peek,” I thought.

  Just to cover all the options, I went to check it out. The glass walkway, which appeared to be the only thing connecting these two buildings together, was packed full of random hospital equipment, making the connecting bridge inaccessible.

  I had spent a long time already moving around the buildings, cautiously examining every possible option open to me. Nothing stood out. Everywhere was either secured by weapon wielding guards or blocked off entirely.

  “What are you doing, Grayson?” I thought. “This is not possible! Just go back to Colton. Explain to him that you can’t do this!”

  That’s when a memory started to run through my mind. I took a moment to sit down on a tree trunk at a safe distance away from the hospital, remembering the past. With my thumb and forefinger, I played around with a sapphire earring in my right earlobe – the only keepsake of my sister I still had.

  “You want me to do what?!” I was in sheer disbelief at my sister’s request.

  Gloria sat on our sofa. Tears streamed down her face, causing her mascara to run over both chee
ks.

  “I need it back…” she sniffed. “Please, Grayson. I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

  She wanted me to break into the home of her cheating ex-boyfriend, Daniel, to recover a pair of sapphire earrings that he was refusing to return because she, stupidly, smashed his phone.

  Never before had she asked me to steal something and now she was asking me, her fifteen-year-old brother, to commit burglary!

  “Can’t you just ask mom to get them back?” I asked.

  “Those were Nana’s earrings, the ones I wasn’t supposed to take off when out of the house. If mom finds out Daniel has them and won’t give them back, I will be in so much trouble!”

  “Over earrings? Aren’t you overreacting a bit, sis?” I sat down next to her on the sofa, handing her a tissue from a pack I’d pinched earlier that day for fun.

  “How would you feel if I went missing and all you had to remember me by was a piece of jewellery?!” she snapped, throwing the tissue back at me.

  “Come on, that’s not fair!” I knew Gloria used to be close to our grandmother, but I couldn’t understand what was so important about jewellery. I was too young to understand that our grandmother had gifted those earrings as a memento because she was dying.

  Gloria fell to her knees in front of me from off the sofa, literally begging. “Please! If mom finds out about this, I will be in so much trouble! You can have one of them if you do this for me.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “How about I do your homework for tomorrow?” she begged again.

  “I don’t know…”

  Gloria placed her head in her hands, sobbing loudly.

  “…Two weeks.” My words caused her makeup smeared face to look up at me. “Two weeks’ worth of homework – no matter what I get given.”

  “Three days’ worth,” she replied.

  “A week and a half,” I counter offered.

  “One week!”

  “Hmm, okay. One week, one of the earrings, and you back me up if I’m caught. I don’t want mom or dad giving me crap for this one since it’s your idea.” I didn’t want to do it for the rewards, I wanted to do it for her. The rewards were just a juicy bonus.