Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads)

by Luis Samways

  ‘Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention please?’ Asks Sammy

  Someone in the crowd heckles Sammy, the rest of the crowd laugh at the man on the crate.

  ‘I wouldn’t shout obscenities at me if you want to walk out of here alive,’ Sammy says calmly while balancing on the wooden beer crate.

  The dark surroundings of the area in which they find themselves in adds to the hostility of the atmosphere. A flickering of industrial lights echo off the walls as a distant sound of electrical buzzing is heard as the crowd of survivors quieten down. The heckling man steps forward.

  ‘Was that a threat?’ The irate man asks as he looks up at Sammy

  Sammy doesn’t say anything; he just quickly extends his right leg out in a kicking motion and lands a stiff kick onto the man’s face. The man hits the ground hard, landing in a puddle, splashing dirty water on some of the survivors behind him. The man looks back up at Sammy while holding his nose in pain. Some of the onlookers smirk at the sight of the heckling man in the puddle.

  ‘Now we have that out of the way, we need to figure out what we are going to do,’ says Sammy as he scans the crowd for answers.

  One woman steps forward.

  ‘Why don’t we get on a boat and get out of the country?’ She asks

  ‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question. You saw what happened above ground. Those flashing lights practically killed thirty odd thousand people in front of us all. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were on the East exits, it could be us up there lying on the ground in a pile of our own ashes’

  The woman shakes her head in disagreement.

  ‘You weren’t with us in the stands, you were on the field’

  Sammy Banes looks down at his jersey. It has a big red number nine on it. Next to his shoulder lies the insignia of the New York Jets.

  ‘Well, I was one of the lucky ones I supposed. The rest of my teammates found themselves in a pile of ashes too, just like a quarter of the stadium’

  ‘How the hell did you get underground so fast?’ One of the men in the crowd asks

  ‘I don’t know, but when I saw what was happening, I thought it was best to hit the road. When I got up to the stairwell leading out of the stadium, it was full of people trying to escape, so I took the elevator and found a bunch of you guys running, so I followed the group and here I am’

  ‘You left your teammates to die!’ Another one of the crowd members shouts.

  Sammy shakes his head

  ‘No, I left my teammates to live’

  Seven

  New York City

  ‘Come on Dwayne, don’t fucking blow up on me now!’ says Tyrell as he rushes through the empty streets of New York on 46th.

  Dwayne’s trying to keep pace with the faster and leaner Tyrell.

  ‘I won’t man, trust me, I aint looking to die today!’ shouts Dwayne while out of breath from the constant running he and Tyrell have been doing since seeing a man self-combust in front of them.

  They continue to run some more until they come across a sewer grate that’s uncovered. They both stop dead in front of the grate and stare down the endless black hole. The sweat on Tyrell’s hands drip down his fingers as he nervously looks around the desolate street. A few cars remain parked on the side street but nothing else is present but fear and loneliness as they both contemplate their next moves.

  ‘I say we carry on running. We find a shop or something and hunker down in there,’ suggests Dwayne, still reeling for air.

  ‘Nah man, let’s go underground, above ground is dangerous. You ever saw those wacko shows on National Geographic?’

  Dwayne shakes his head

  ‘What shows?’

  ‘You know, the ones with those white people who fear the end of the world is near so they build or buy an underground shelter for when it does end so they can keep safe’

  Dwayne laughs while whipping the sweat off his brow.

  ‘Well it seems as if those white folks were onto something then!’

  ‘I hear you! I’ll go first, the ladder looks a bit unsteady, if it breaks and I fall, just go on without me,’ says Tyrell as he mounts the ladder on the manhole.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me twice!’ says Dwayne

  Tyrell disappears from sight as he clunks his way down the ladder. The sound of his feet hitting every run is a sigh of relief for Dwayne as he continues to stare at his wrist in anxiety. The flashing hasn’t slowed down, as a matter of fact its speeding up. Dwayne sighs impatiently as he starts to worry about exploding into thin air. Finally Tyrell’s voice can be heard from the bottom of the ladder. It seems as if everything went well as Dwayne himself mounts the ladder. Before Dwayne can stabilize himself, he loses his footing on the first run of the dirty ladder. He slips and free falls down the manhole. Its a few seconds before he hits the water but when he does he immediately recognises the pain he is in.

  Eight

  ‘What do you mean the Mayor is missing?’ asks Deshaun

  The Commissioner squints his eyes in confusion.

  ‘It’s quite simple really, he’s gone! What else do you want me to say? Oh I’m sorry a grown ass man went and vanished like a fart in the wind,’ the commissioner snarls as he grabs at his caseload on the desk in front of him.

  Deshaun looks shocked at the outspoken Commissioner.

  ‘You better watch your tone with me, I work for the Whitehouse, remember that!’

  The commissioner slams his fist on the desk.

  ‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck who you work for! Now get the fuck out of my office before I call security,’ shouts the commissioner.

  ‘Are you mad? You have forgotten your role in this. You answer to the US government. I am the US government. A bit of common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss,’ reasons Deshaun.

  ‘I think you’re the one who’s mad. All you’ve been doing since you’ve gotten here is bust balls. You may work for the Whitehouse, but you’re a long way away from those green lawns and presidential pricks you hang around with. This here is my building, and if you are going to act like a power hungry dictator then I am going to throw you out of my building!’

  DeShaun’s mouth hangs open in shock.

  ‘Presidential pricks?’ he says in awe

  ‘Well…you know what I mean,’ laughs the commissioner

  ‘Well, I’ll be dammed; you sure have some big balls sir, but that being said we still need to find the mayor. If we don’t, then it could spell mayhem for the city. New York needs its leader,’ says Deshaun

  ‘Don’t worry. We will find him’

  Deshaun extends his hand out to the commissioner. They both shake hands firmly.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you later commissioner. I’m sure you can get the job done’

  Deshaun walks out of the office leaving the commissioner alone with his thoughts.

  Nine

  ‘This is it; this is our camp you wanted to see so badly. I told you it wasn’t much to look at,’ laughs Ray as Donner and he approach the sectioned off sewer system in which Ray and the others have been sleeping in for the past day.

  The light from the blazed oil drum is much dimmer than it was when Ray left a few hours ago. He figures that maybe they are running out of fuel. The two little girls are still asleep, which surprises Ray, but made sense, seeing the events that they must have been through would make anyone sleepy. Mitch and David were up and talking amongst each other when Mitch’s vision had swayed from David onto the approaching pair, Ray and Donner.

  David smiles as he gets up and looks pleased to see Ray. Mitch stays seated and continues to stare wildly at Ray and his companion.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to come back!’ says David as he embraces Ray’s hand in a firm handshake.

  ‘And who do we have here?’ He asks

  Ray looks at Donner with a reassuring smile.

  ‘I’m Donner. I came across Ray when I was walking down the train tacks a few miles away from here,’ she says

&nbs
p; David shakes her hand too. His suit is no longer looking dashing and dapper as the dim light shows off the tattered appearance of his attire. Everyone looks as if the clothes on their backs would fall off with a strong gust of wind. It’s safe to say some new clothes wouldn’t go a miss.

  ‘I’m Mitch,’ a voice from the floor says as Ray and Donner look down at the sketchiness of his stance while seated on the floor as if he doesn’t need to get up for new guests. Ray feels like smacking the smirk off Mitch’s face, but he doesn’t want Donner to run off scared. They need someone like her to keep the proverbial ship afloat so to speak.

  ‘So how did you find your way down here?’ asks David

  Donner looks down at her bloodied blouse and puts on a face of uncertainty. Her eyes flicker in her head as she tries to remember how she got to where she is now. She remembers the hospital room in which Mr Adams had penetrated her with a beacon. She remembers the hospital halls in which a dozen people had combusted in front of her. She remembers her boss Tim being flung in the air by an explosion and hitting the industrial ceiling fan and getting cut up pretty good. She remembers the shot up police man. She remembers the burning train making its way down the metro. She knows some things are better left to just remembering than saying.

  ‘It was a struggle, but I got here in the end,’ she says calmly, a slight tear running down her face.

  David turns his attentions to Ray.

  ‘You okay then buddy?’

  Ray nods his head, still feeling uneasy about being in the same area with Mitch.

  Mitch looks up at Ray and licks his lips. David catches a glimpse of the two men eyeing each other up. Donner too starts to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘So you’re a doctor?’ asks Mitch as he looks the slender woman up and down, still licking his lips as he does so.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. She can’t be bothered to explain the difference between her being an intern and not a doctor.

  David looks at Ray and then at her bag.

  ‘Doctors supplies?’ he asks

  Mitch is too busy looking at Ray to notice David eying the doctor and shifting his eyes at Mitch. It’s not long until Donner realises that David is trying to tell her something.

  ‘Can I see the supplies?’ He asks, still trying to tell her something through his facial expression. Mitch still has no idea what is going on. He’s too busy eying up the petite doctor now.

  She hands him the bag of supplies. David immediately see’s what he is looking for. He slowly moves his hand into the bag and grips the object.

  ‘There better be some drugs in there, I wouldn’t mind getting high before I die,’ laughs Mitch

  David smiles and moves closer to Mitch.

  ‘Yeah, look what I found,’ says David

  Mitch looks up at David with an excitement on his face, a kin to a kid at a candy store. The excitement grows ever more evident in every step David takes until he’s finally standing over Mitch.

  ‘So what have you got for me then?’ Smiles Mitch

  ‘This,’ David shouts and swings a syringe out of the bag and into Mitch’s neck. He hits the plunger and watches as the see through syringe excretes the liquid into his neck. Mitch’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he immediately hits the ground, landing firmly on his back.

  Ten

  Mrs Novik sees the guards coming from behind the bars in her cell. She can see their shadows cascade off the dim light fixtures on the wall. The two guards heading her way are carrying a tray of food for her; the guard with his hands free is escorting the other for security reasons. It’s not that Mrs Novik is a dangerous women, its just prison had made her that way.

  A few seconds pass by as the two men approach. Mrs Novik’s pervious screaming and bellowing has stopped and subsided into an incoherent need to be left alone. She doesn’t want to see anyone. She feels as if her time is best served wallowing in her own misery. The guard taps on her cell door bars with his baton. He gives her a sadistic smile, as if he enjoys seeing the woman in this condition.

  ‘Your food is here, eat up bitch,’ the tubby guard says as he opens the flap on her cell door used to transfer food stuffs to the prisoners.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she says quietly as she backs up into the shadows of her cell, leaning against the wall as she does so.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re hungry or not, you’re going to eat this fucking food,’ screams the other guard impatiently as he cranes his head around the door, trying to see her in the shadows.

  ‘I’m..Not…Hungry,’ she says

  The two guards look at each other in contemplation.

  ‘Fuck the bitch, just leave her food on the floor,’ the other guard says as he slaps the tin tray out of his colleague’s hand. The tray wobbles a little before leaving the open palm of the guard as it teeters into the cell through the open gap in one of the bars. The tray lands with a TING as it rattles on the floor for a few seconds. Mash potatoes and peas scramble across the concrete floor as a bit of gravy splashes on Mrs Novik’s bare foot.

  She stands in the shadows for a few moments, surveying the food on the floor. Her blood boils over as she witnesses the two men behind her cell door laugh at the mess on the ground. In a split second she had made her decision to make them pay. She grabs the sharp object on her toiletry table next to her latrine and extends her arm forward. Within a few more seconds she’s made it to the cell door before either guard can react. She grabs one of the guard’s arms with her free hand and strikes with the other. The sharp object breaks through his skin with ease and pierces one of his veins. A small fountain of blood ejects out of his wound and hits his face in a spray of violence. The guards stop laughing as the scene unfolds in front of them. Everything hisses in Mrs Novik’s ear as the sound in her ear drums escapes as the blood boils in her head. Then she snaps back to reality.

  ‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,’ the wounded guard screams.

  She continues to hold onto his arm tightly as she corkscrews the sharp object in his arm. Each time she does so he lets out another scream.

  ‘Fuck, let him go!’ shouts the guard who now has his radio in hand, ready to call for back up.

  With every second passing, the man is losing even more blood. His face is now covered in the sprayed blood from his artery that she had torn with her sharp instrument.

  ‘Call for back up!’ screams the wounded officer, still holding onto the bars of the cell door as if his life depended on it.

  Just as the other guard is about to call for backup on his radio his attentions are divided.

  ‘Your arm man! Your god damn arm!’ he says as he points to the other mans unwounded arm.

  A flashing light has made its presence known as it ripples violently in his wrist.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Mrs Novik says as she lets the man go.

  Before she can back away from her cell door a flat lining beeping sound is heard followed by an explosion in which the man with the wound to his arm self-combusts in front of her. Chunks of body parts cake the air as the blast hits her and the guard’s partner. The burning explosion strikes at the other guard’s face and melts his skin. He hits the floor hard as his head snaps off the metal door and cracks open. A pool of blood forms under his head as Mrs Novik watches on in disbelief. Suddenly she hears the beeping again. She sees the dismembered body parts of the guard she had attacked on the floor. It can’t be him; she quickly turns her head left to see the guard who had been knocked to the floor by the blast. His right wrist is flashing just like the other man’s did before him. She quickly dives onto her bed as the high pitched beeping stops and is followed by another ear rattling explosion. Her cell door fly’s off its hinges and misses her by an inch as it hits her bunk with a tremendous clang. The dust settles slowly as she opens her eyes and is met with the sight of yet another pile of body parts and ashes.

  Eleven

  The bodies of around a hundred and fifty marines lay scattered on the marsh land of Henderson Hall, Virginia. A man in fatigues lies on t
he floor with fresh bullet wounds to his chest. The smoke in the air is clearing up as he sees the covert army march past him, their guns oozing hot smoke from their barrels; The heat from the shells on the ground burn at his neck. He closes his eyes and acts dead as a few men walk by his prone body. One of the Covert army men stops near the downed man’s body and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a lighter and a box of twenty. He lights up a cigarette and blows blissfully into the wind. The man on the floor can smell the charred nicotine leave the army man’s lungs. He tries not to cough, trying to remain as silent as possible. After a few more seconds the idle smoker moves on, chatting with his colleague about the efforts that were needed in taking this US Marine Core base.

  The man’s eyes remain closed for another few minutes. His mind is racing as the thoughts in his head run at mile a minute as he tries to figure the situation out. finally, the sound of footstep’s around the marsh quieten down as he opens his eyes and realises all the covert army men have gone inside the base. All that’s left is him and his murdered comrades on the floor. The pool of blood he finds himself in is extraordinarily warm. He can feel his chest giving out. He knows his time on earth is limited. The sense of duty in his actions is overwhelming. A lot of young men had died on the marsh he finds himself on. A lot of good men had died protecting the name of the Marine Core against these homebrew soldiers. The bleeding man feels it would be treason to let his men die in vain, he knows he has to do something.

  He shuffles onto his front, dragging his bloodied body through the overgrown brush of the marsh. With every inch he gains, he can feel the dirt enter his open chest wounds. Its agonizing torture, every second, and every inch feels like his own personal battlefront. With his head in the mud, he tries to lift it up, to see if the coast is clear. He manages to look up into the horizon and sees that the covert army men have gone from his vicinity. He sees his drill sergeant on the floor around a hundred meters in front of him. Where his drill sergeant lies is near the supplies bunker. If he can get in there, he will be able to find the satellite phone and ring Washington and tell them of the Militia attack.