Grayson Ryder: A Thief's Thrill

by M. L. Giles

  I told them politely I wasn’t in a talky mood. Most of them were understanding enough to leave me alone.

  One ginger-haired boy, who couldn’t have been any older than ten, came up to me and asked if I had seen his mother while at the hospital. When I questioned the boy on what she looked like, he gave me a vague description that could’ve been any woman I saw.

  I didn’t know what to tell the him.

  After the boy had asked for a third time about his mother, an elderly man with a missing left ear, came to take him away. The one-eared man apologized to me for his grandson’s questions.

  Time went by, definitely longer than fifteen minutes. Most people were done eating by now and starting to make their way back to the lobby or their rooms.

  After what felt more like an hour, Pearl walked in with Evan. Thankfully, they were both fully dressed this time. Evan wore a half-zipped up leather jacket with no shirt on underneath, blue jogging bottoms, and the smile of a Cheshire cat. Pearl had a long, stylish, silver dress on. She was trying to look fancy, but her messy hair blatantly gave away her recent doings.

  “Sorry we’re late, Grayson,” Evan said as they both approached me. “Seems age hasn’t dampened the stamina of this old bull after all! You eaten?”

  “No. I just want—ˮ

  “Fantastic!” Evan playfully slapped Pearl on the rump. “Go grab us a table, you little minx. I’ll get the food.”

  With that, Evan left us. He went through a door in the bar which led to the hotel’s kitchen.

  “You heard the man,” Pearl said. “Let’s get a table.”

  There was no denying I was hungry, but all I wanted was to speak with Pearl privately so I could make that all-important decision – stay or go.

  Pearl walked over to a table beside a boarded-up window in the room’s corner. It looked cleaner than most of the others, and still had a lit candle upon it. We sat down opposite each other.

  “Evan said you needed to speak to me. What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

  “Mostly about your ex, Aiden,” I said bluntly, giving her an intense look to show I meant business.

  Pearl shuffled around uncomfortably, gently fiddling with a lengthy silver thread coming off her dress. “What about him?”

  “He told me Colton killed your previous group leader. When I asked Colton about this, he confirmed it. Is it true?”

  “Sounds about right, yes. It was Aiden who came up with the idea, with Colton and me agreeing it was for the best.”

  I slammed my palm on the table in anger, almost grabbing the attention of a few stragglers leaving the place. “How is murder ‘for the best’?!”

  Pearl was startled by my outburst. She put a finger up to her lips. “Shhh! Calm down. Didn’t Colton explain what happened?”

  “No, he stormed off in a mood.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I— I said he wasn’t any different to Aiden.”

  “Oh my god! That’s, like, the worst thing you could say to him!” Pearl gasped. “I’m surprised he didn’t throw you out immediately.”

  “If they both kill people, then how is he any different to Aiden?”

  “It’s a long story… Our original group was led by a man called Ricky.” Pearl leaned back in her seat, looking despondent. “At first, Ricky was wonderful. But, over time, he became worse.”

  “How worse?”

  Evan answered that for her. Somehow the guy had managed to sneak up on me. “That asshole worked us like slaves!” I turned to see him carrying a tray of food. “Rick-the-Prick forced us to work all day. The bastard nearly starved us to death, just so he could sit upstairs getting fat while fucking anyone he fancied – usually by force. Why do you want to know about that slob?”

  “Grayson told Colton he wasn’t much different to Aiden because they’ve both killed people, specifically Ricky,” Pearl explained for me.

  Evan put the tray down in the centre of the table, handing out a bowl of meat stew to each of us before taking a seat next to Pearl. “No shit? That was ballsy of you.”

  “Yeah, I compared them. That’s only because taking a life is wrong, no matter the reason,” I explained. “If they have both killed in cold blood, how does that make them any different?”

  Evan snorted at my comment. “Fucking hell, Grayson… That really what you think? Without the police or military to enforce the law, who else is going to keep you safe? No one! We have to do it ourselves! And what about killing in self-defence, eh?”

  “That didn’t answer my question,” I muttered.

  Riled up by my quiet words, Evan raised his voice in anger at me. “Aiden kills to prove a point. Colton only does it out of necessity, as any good soldier would. My boy has many faults, but being a cold-blooded killer isn’t one of them. So stop acting like such a child about this!”

  Pearl nodded in agreement with him, and I have to admit, I felt somewhat put in my place.

  We ate our food in silence for a minute (Evan’s loud and vulgar slurping not included) before I decided to ask another question.

  “What was Aiden’s part in all this?”

  Pearl was the one who answered. “He was in charge of using his golden tongue to convince those fiercely guarding Ricky to step down. Thanks to that, Colton was able to walk in and deliver the killing blow to Ricky.”

  “Prick got off easy,” Evan mumbled.

  “Then why didn’t Aiden take over? Why Colton?” I asked.

  “Aiden wasn’t exactly well liked,” Pearl explained. “He never did much around St Michael’s hospital. Colton, on the other hand, was a hard worker and well respected for his efforts. He agreed to run the place with Aiden advising him. Everyone agreed, so long as Colton made finding the answers to what happened the previous year an equal priority to survival.”

  “Those two working together? Bet that went well,” I remarked.

  “Actually, it did. Everything was fine for a time, until—ˮ

  “—Aiden wanted more.” Evan interrupted Pearl. She didn’t seem to mind. “My son believed in leading by example and hard work. Aiden wanted to control people using fear, by creating a symbol.”

  I knew exactly what that symbol was. “Fire…” I whispered.

  “Yes. Fire,” Pearl confirmed. “People see fire as a source of warmth and light, but they also see it as something to be feared. Aiden wanted to capitalize on that.”

  All the pieces were starting to fall into place, but only one question remained.

  “Why did the group split?” I asked.

  Evan seemed too busy taking in big, messy spoonful’s of stew to answer, leaving only Pearl to continue the story.

  “Aiden wanted to secure the loyalty of everyone. He came up with a plan: use his charms to rally people against Colton and threaten to burn the rest as an example.”

  “Did it work?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “Some were radicalized by Aiden out of fear of being burnt alive, others were charmed by his promises of living with less rules. Fearing for his life, Colton escaped, taking anyone who was still on his side. This angered Aiden. He gave chase after us, but we managed to get away, barely.”

  I let it all sink in. So much information, all of it pointed to Colton wanting to do what was best for those around him… I started to feel bad for my comparison earlier.

  We continued eating quietly, until Pearl excused herself to use the toilets. This left Evan and me alone.

  “You fucked up by comparing my son to Aiden.” He started on me almost immediately after Pearl had left the table. “You know that, right?”

  I humbly nodded. “I know. But I still stand by my word: killing someone else isn’t right. We are survivors in a broken world, not murderers.”

  “That’s your problem,” he snapped. “In case you have been living under a rock for the past year, the world is pretty fucked up right now. We need to protect ourselves, and those we care about, from all the assholes out there. Should Colton spare some insane fucker if
it means putting his group in danger?”

  “…I can’t answer that.”

  Evan stopped shoveling food into his mouth, staring intently at me. “After people died last year, but before Colton found me, I watched my wife get butchered and eaten by a small group of cannibals. They hunted us like fucking animals. You think those ‘survivors’ deserved to live?”

  His question stunned me. Even if people who do something like that shouldn’t be allowed to live, I could never see myself pulling the trigger of a gun or stabbing someone brutally. Taking a life just wasn’t in me.

  I was starting to wonder if by hiding from these kinds of people, I was blinding myself to what needed to be done.

  “No,” I answered eventually. “They didn’t deserve to live.”

  “Good answer. They didn’t live. Colton and I killed the bastards.” I wanted to give Evan a look of disgust, but I just couldn’t after what he’d told me. “Now I suggest you go give my son a fucking apology. Go make him howl like you did the other night, or whatever.”

  “That was a one-night thing. We were both drunk. Besides, isn’t Colton straight? He mentioned he had a wife before this.”

  Evan laughed so hard a small piece of chewed-up meat flew out his mouth, landing in the middle of the table. “Straight my ass! Before meeting Sophie, he used to fuck around with the other lads in the army. Little shit kept getting caught balls-deep in different soldiers.”

  “Seriously? Then why’d he end up with a woman?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” Evan shrugged. “The first time Colt introduced me to Sophie, I damn near had a heart attack because I’d always thought my son was gay! Turned out he was bisexual all along.”

  Talking with Evan made me smile. It was rare I spoke with anyone so outspoken. He was worse than me – which is saying something.

  I smirked at him. “You really are one crude guy, aren’t you?”

  “I’m old, I’ve fought for my country, and I somehow survived through all the shit last year. I’d say I’ve earned the right to be whatever the fuck I want to be.”

  We both had a good laugh. I’d liked to have hung around more with him, if I didn’t have a mountain of muscle to find and say sorry to.

  At the advice of Evan, I took my leave, thanking him on the way out.

  I’d searched for an hour, looking all over for Colton. Some people said he was in his room, others told me he and Bethany were on the third floor in some makeshift gym they had. All of them were wrong.

  My last stop was the parking lot under the hotel. It was there I saw Tyrone, or rather his legs sticking out from under a white car. I could tell it was him by the usual filthy overalls he wore.

  “Busy, Tyrone?” I asked when I got close to his legs.

  “Huh?” He slid out from under the car. When he saw me, he stood up, wiping his hands clean with a rag. “Oh, Grayson. What’s up?”

  “I wanted… to ask you…” I got distracted by Tyrone’s head scarf. It showed a lady riding a rocket, but it was pristine, just like all the others I’d seen him wear. “How the hell do you keep getting so dirty, yet your head wear is always clean?”

  He pulled out a small, hand-held mirror from one pocket, followed by a handful of head scarves from his other pocket. “If the bandana I’m wearing gets dirty, I swap it with a clean one.”

  “How many of those things do you have?”

  Tyrone cleared his throat, then said with such pride, “Just over a thousand currently! No duplicates either.”

  “Christmas shopping for this guy must’ve been easy,” I thought.

  “What did you need then, bud?” Tyrone asked, reminding me of why I had come here in the first place.

  “Hmmm? Oh, yeah. I can’t find Colton. You would think a guy his size would be easy to spot. Any ideas?”

  “He and Bethany took the blue van to this secluded supermarket a few miles from here,” he explained. “We found it a couple of months ago. It’s a great place to grab supplies from if we ever run low.”

  “Thanks, Tyrone. Can you give me directions?” I asked. “Also, can I borrow old greenie? I like that car.”

  He nodded. “At least you’re asking to borrow it instead of stealing it like last time.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Just as Tyrone was proud of his bandana collecting, I was equally (if not more so) proud of my handiwork.

  Tyrone’s written directions had been perfect. I’d made it around the back of the supermarket at nightfall and driven through a large, metal gate that was already swung open. Parked up in the centre of this loading area was a blue van, the same one Tyrone had mentioned.

  The first thing I did upon exiting the car was look at the rear of the van. The back doors were open. Inside were several boxes stacked on top of each other, four packs of bottled water, and some medical supplies.

  “Guess they’re still grabbing stuff,” I thought.

  The back of the supermarket had three large trucks, all parked up neatly side by side. Their backs were facing numbered metal shutters that led in to the supermarket.

  To the left of the shutters was a door. It was open already, with a box placed on the floor to keep it from closing.

  I walked inside, only to find I couldn’t see a thing. I pulled out the slim black torch from my hoodie pocket, shining its light down a hallway, illuminating the white and green walls.

  “Colton? Bethany?” I called out. There was no response.

  Everything seemed so quiet, giving me chills down my spine.

  “Hellooo?” Once more I called out, continuing my walk down the hallway.

  I came to a door with a small window in it. There were no signs of light from within. When I shone the flashlight through the window, I could see a bunch of shelves with various cans on them. With one hand, I pushed open the door, stepping through into the main shopping area.

  “Colton? B—ˮ

  Something large slammed against my side, sending me tumbling to the ground. My flashlight slid across the floor, aiming its beam in just the right spot to see what had rammed me.

  It was too dark to see a face, but there was a man, with blue and yellow striped overalls on, firmly gripping a sledgehammer in both hands. By his side, a light brown German Shepherd snarled at me.

  “Fuck my life…” I wanted to think those words, but they ended up coming out of my mouth instead.

  Chapter 12

  Uncertainty.

  The Hard Truth.

  “Nice dog you have there. Does he know any tricks?” I asked the unknown man in the blue and yellow overalls. He had restrained my hands behind my back using handcuffs and was now walking us deeper into the dark, windowless supermarket.

  We walked down one of the aisles, with the man using my own flashlight to guide my steps in the direction he wanted me to go. Up ahead, I could see the checkouts of the supermarket coming in to range of the flashlight’s glow. Once we reached them, he flicked the torch to the right. I changed my direction, walking the way he indicated.

  I’d thought about trying to make a break for it, but the well-trained German Shepherd that followed at its master’s heel was a problem.

  A single man wielding a sledgehammer I could easily outrun. A dog, however, not possible.

  The light of the torch began to show a set of automatic glass doors ahead, with a metal shutter blocking the other side. He was taking me to the entrance of the supermarket. Right in front of those doors were the two people I was looking for.

  Colton was sitting on a large welcome mat, knees up against his chest, hands behind his back, legs held tightly together by duct tape around the ankles. Bethany was lying on the floor beside him, unconscious, yet still bound in a similar manner.

  As the light shone on Colton, he looked our way, keeping his brow lowered to avoid getting blinded by the light.

  “Gonna let me go now? Or just kill me?” Colton asked. His voice was stern, but I could hear some uneasiness behind it.

  Even under these less-than-i
deal circumstances, it felt good to hear his voice.

  The man with the sledgehammer pushed me forward. I fell beside Colton, landing on my knees.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said, shuffling around to face him. “Hi!”

  Needless to say, Colton looked astonished to see me. “Gray? The hell are you doin’ here?”

  “I rushed over when I heard they had scented candles for sale. Scented candles, Colton! Fucking lavender!” The man shining the torch on us had a small laugh at my joke. I took note that he seemed to like humour, just in case I could use that to my advantage later.

  Colton leaned in close to me with his eyes shut, resting his forehead against mine. Our noses gently touched. His relieved breath swept over my face. “Damn, Gray… It’s good to see you. I’m real sorry ‘bout earlier.”

  It was so unexpected to hear him say that. I came here looking to apologize to Colton, but he had beaten me to it.

  The bastard had stolen my thunder, in the nicest way possible.

  “After the way you screamed in my face, you’re lucky I came here at all!” Colton opened his eyes wide in worry, only to see me grinning at him. “I’m sorry too, big guy.”

  “Cute. You two know each other,” the man holding my flashlight spoke in a flat tone. Both Colton and I turned to face him. We couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “Now that that’s sorted, let’s get back to business. I’ll ask again: where are the keys to that van?”

  “Screw you,” Colton spat out. “Go find ‘em yourself.”

  “Stop being stubborn,” the man replied, clearly annoyed. “Just tell me where you threw them and I’ll be on my way. No one has to die today.”

  “You will?” Colton asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That case, I hid the keys—” Colton paused, taking in a deep breath, “—up your arse. Need any help gettin’ ‘em out? Just gotta untie me an’ I’ll get my fist so far up there it’ll be comin’ out your mouth.”

  I admit, even though we were in danger, I sniggered a bit.

  “Hmm. Your friend is funnier than you. Ah well, have it your way.” The man with my torch did something out of view. I could hear duct tape being stretched. “I’ll just tape your friend’s legs up and leave you all here.”