Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads)

by Luis Samways

  ‘Your nothing boy, you hear me? Nothing but a pussy!’ laughs Mitch

  Donner reaches the three men with a worried look on her face. She looks across the camp and see’s the two little girls looking on at the commotion.

  ‘Not in front of the girls…I’m pretty sure they don’t want to see their daddy get beaten up,’ she says.

  Ray laughs a cynical howl. It catches Donner of guard as she looks on in dismay.

  ‘What?’ she asks

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about the girls being frightened for their “daddy”,’ he says sarcastically

  ‘Leave it Ray, she doesn’t need to know; not until we find out what is really going on,’ says David with a pitiful look in his eyes.

  ‘Man, fuck that! She has the right to know, as do the little girls,’ says Ray

  ‘To know what?’ asks Donner, who’s starting to sound impatient as she looks down at the still smiling Mitch who’s sporting a few cuts and bruises to his face.

  ‘That Mitch is a paedophile,’ says Ray

  ‘What?’ asks Donner, not quite believing what she is hearing

  ‘You heard! He’s a fucking kid snatcher. He snatched those two little girls and was planning on…You know…Raping them,’ he says

  Donner looks down at Mitch once again, who is nodding in agreement unapologetically.

  ‘Yep…You got me,’ he says

  ‘Why would you admit to such a thing?’ asks Donner

  ‘Because I’m tired of hiding who I am’

  Ray swings a heavy fist at Mitch’s face.

  ‘Hiding who you are? You’re a sick fucking asshole who deserves to be gutted from bowl to sternum,’ says Ray

  David pushes Ray back a few feet to try and keep some distance between both men.

  ‘No one is gutting anyone, okay?’ he says, still holding Ray back

  Donner can’t believe what she is hearing; it’s all washing over her much like the warm water from a shower that she craves so badly. She looks around and see’s the two little girls still staring on in curiosity. She decides to leave Ray and David with Mitch, and go and comfort the girls. She takes her time; each step towards the two little angelic girls is painful. Just thinking about the intentions of Mitch is making her skin crawl. She knows she’s a medical professional, but she wouldn’t mind being the one to gut Mitch like Ray suggested. She finally reaches the two wide eyed girls and goes in for a hug. She embraces both of them and squeezes them tightly into her chest. She can hear Abigail sobbing into her right shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay. He won’t hurt you now,’ she says

  Abigail continues to cry some more. Her sister Tristan joins in.

  ‘Is the bad man going to die?’ asks Abigail

  Donner feels a little uneasy with the question and tries to act normal.

  ‘Why would he die?’ she asks

  ‘Because he said that my Mommy and Daddy died,’ she says

  ‘How did they die?’ asks Donner

  ‘I don’t know. The man said he helped them go to sleep,’ says Tristan

  ‘Oh,’ says Donner, not quite sure how to respond, still embracing both little girls.

  ‘Will the bad man go to sleep too?’ she asks

  ‘Everyone goes to sleep one day Tristan,’ says Donner

  Three

  London, England

  The man in the suit is walking down Trafalgar Square. He’s keeping an eye on things. He’s a people watcher after all. Day and night he watches people. It’s his job. He’s a private investigator. People pay him big money to follow cheating spouses from A to B, and then he records what he sees and reports back to the client. It’s quite an easy job really. He just likes the danger of it all. When people find out that someone is tailing them, they can get a bit confrontational. It’s a good job that he can handle himself, or things would be different altogether. There’s nothing like a stiff kicking in the British weather to make you realise that maybe it’s time you take self-defence classes. And that’s what happened. He took the classes and now he can literally kill someone with his stare, much like that famous scruffy looking fellow from all those eighties’ movies. Okay, maybe he can’t kill someone with his stare, but he can disarm people quite quickly.

  The man finds himself feeding the pigeons on a bench. It’s slow work today. He has to follow this business man that is accused of laundering money by some of his executives. What the business man doesn’t know is that he is being followed by the best in the business, Steven Grimshaw.

  Steven isn’t the type of man to stick out in a crowded place. In his work clothes, he looks like any other toffee nosed banker on the streets of London. All seeing and all-knowing is what Steven prides himself on. If it isn’t fact, he doesn’t know about it. He’s reading the Daily Mirror, which is a newspaper in England. He doesn’t much care for its trivial way of telling the news. He likes to entertain himself on the job by looking at the funnies. Today’s funny isn’t very…well funny. He’s been waiting for the business man to come out of the barber shop now for at least an hour. He isn’t one to sit on his ass much, but he decides that to keep his cover, maybe it’s best if he does just that.

  Twenty minutes goes by and he decides that enough is enough. Maybe his cover would be blown, but he has to be sure that the man didn’t slip out of his sights undetected. He gets up and stretches out, more because he feels crooked and not just to blend in to his surroundings. He leaves the newspaper on the metal grated bench he was sitting on and looks up at the sky. The British clouds are forming a blanket of white over the horizon, and the small alleyway in Trafalgar square is sprayed with a dank shadow over its cobblestone floor. He looks up at the sign above the shop in front of him and sighs. He decides to walk over the narrow one way street and approaches the dark pinewood door of the barber shop. He looks up at the barber shop sign once more, and smiles as it resembles a Candy Cane, like most do. He presses his face against the window to see if he can spot the business man he’s been waiting on. He sees the gentleman in question take a seat in a big black cutters chair, and wonders what the hell took him so long to be seated, then he sees a couple approach the door with a little boy who seems to be donning a fresh cut. He realises that kids can take their damn time and puts two and two together. All suspicions of the business man doing one and running for the exits have been cleared up. Just as he is about to walk back to his bench across the road and wait for his mark, he hears a loud ringing sound. He quickly turns around and see’s the barber look on in shock. Before Steven can move an inch, the business man in the barber chair seems to explode, shattering the glass pane of the shop front. Steven hits the ground as the force of the explosion rocks the ancient streets of Trafalgar Square.

  Four

  New York City, NY, USA

  Jesse and Ricky are walking down 9th on 10th; they are accompanied by Gianna, the pretty blonde girl Jesse Manteo rescued from the trunk of her car.

  ‘So you’re Italian?’ asks Jesse as they walk down the residential street, a few miles from the police precinct.

  ‘Nope, my mom just liked Italians I supposed,’ she says

  Ricky smiles as he tags along from behind.

  ‘So I guess your mom liked The Sopranos?’ asks Ricky

  ‘Nope, she don’t like violent TV shows, heck she doesn’t like violent anything,’ she says

  ‘Good to know,’ says Ricky, sarcastically.

  ‘Is your partner always this inquisitive?’ she asks, looking at Jesse as they continue to stroll down the street.

  ‘Yep, that’s what makes him a good detective,’ says Jesse, turning around and giving his partner a wink.

  They continue to walk in silence for a few minutes. They make their way down the deserted street. The more they walk, the more carnage they end up coming across. It looks as if the city is really going downhill with every passing second.

  ‘Man what the hell is happening around here?’ asks Ricky, pretty much saying what’s on everyone’s minds.

 
‘Beats me,’ says Jesse, unsure whether to give an opinion, or come up with one for everyone else.

  ‘I think it must be some sort of bio war or something. I mean, look at how many cases we are seeing now. A few hours ago the city was near normal, not much going on in the way of people self-combusting,’ says Gianna

  ‘Yeah, if you count normal as three hundred people being mowed down by automatic gunfire on 49th street,’ laughs Ricky.

  ‘Well, I suppose. I forgot about that,’ she says defensively

  ‘How the hell could you forget about something like that?’ asks Ricky as they continue to stroll down the street in the late afternoon sun.

  ‘Easy, try being punched in the face and locked in the trunk of your car, then witness a police man assault two teenagers and then those said teenagers go and blow up, destroying a parking lot in the process,’ she says

  Jesse stops

  ‘I didn’t assault anyone,’ he says

  Ricky bursts out laughing.

  ‘Sure, and I don’t want to fuck Gianna,’ Ricky says

  Gianna’s face goes red as she washes over with embarrassment.

  ‘Me neither!’ says Jesse sarcastically

  ‘Jesus Christ guys, haven’t you ever seen a woman before?’ she says, half annoyed, half trying to shift the conversation.

  Suddenly an explosion is heard and shards of glass fall on to the floor in front of them. All three of them look up at the sky and see it peppered with debris. The building next to them is engulfed in flames.

  ‘What the fuck just happened?’ asks Ricky

  ‘Looks like someone left the gas on and decided to explode on us,’ says Jesse.

  Five

  Deshaun is staring at his reflection in the mirror on the craggy wall of a rest stop toilet. The dingy setting of the gentleman’s toilets are grating on him. The distant smell of urine and other bodily by-products make Deshaun feel uneasy. A stranger walks into the restroom and up to the urinal. He unzips his fly and starts pissing, as you do. The sound of the man relieving himself snaps Deshaun back to reality. He catches a glimpse of the man’s face and then sharply looks away.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ asks the man, who catches Deshaun looking at him

  ‘No, just about to leave,’ he says

  ‘Good, I feel uneasy when men just stare at me like that, especially when I’m taking a whizz,’ says the man

  ‘Well so would I,’ admits Deshaun

  ‘I’m Peter Foster,’ says the man, extending his free hand for a handshake, while holding his business with the other.

  Deshaun just looks on blankly at the man, not quite sure what to make of the situation.

  ‘Um, should I know you?’ asks Deshaun

  ‘Well I hope so. I’m part of the security detail assigned to protect you,’ says the man

  ‘Security detail?’ says Deshaun, then realising what the guy means.

  ‘So you’re my bodyguard?’ asks Deshaun

  ‘Well, not really, but I do have a gun, so if anything goes down, I can protect you,’ says Peter, while zipping himself back up. He walks on over to the basin and turns the muggy tap on. The sound of trickling water is replaced by the sloshing sound of gushing water. He washes his hands and then turns back around to face his boss.

  ‘You’re quite a big fellow,’ says Deshaun, looking the security guard up and down.

  ‘Well, I thought you said you weren’t looking!’ laughs the man, who dries his hands on a paper flannel and throws it into the bin much like a basketball into a hoop.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, you know what I meant,’ says Deshaun, who’s still looking on at the big man.

  ‘Well, since the Mayor went missing and the Whitehouse staff went covert, the Pentagon has decided to provide all Washington agents with security, hence why I’m here. So we can talk about how big my cock is all day long, or we can leave this suspicious looing rest stop and make our way to the safe house in which we suspect the Mayor to be hiding in,’ says Peter.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ says Deshaun as both men walk out of the rest stop and into their cars. The security man is in a nonchalant BMW, which is supposed to tail DeShaun’s car from afar as to protect him if anything goes down. Deshaun looks up at his rear view mirror and spots the man giving him a thumbs up. He then remembers that he forgot to ask Peter for ID and starts to feel worried. He decides to call his superior and inquire about whether Peter really is who he says he is. He gets out his cell phone and punches in some numbers. He gets through within five seconds.

  ‘Hey there, just calling up to check on a Peter Foster. He claims to be part of my detail….Okay….Thanks,’ says Deshaun as he puts the phone back into his pocket.

  He sticks his arm out of the window and gives Peter a thumbs up. Turns out the man was telling the truth about being part of the detail. Better be safe than dead.

  Six

  Miss Harriet is sitting down opposite to her boss once more. She isn’t distracted nor is she in the mood for small talk. She just wants to update her boss on the progress of the mission. She does bare good news, but her face resembles less than fortunate news. She isn’t as excited as she should be considering the milestones they have reached, but something else is on her mind. She brushes her hand through her course long hair. Months of pressure and a huge workload have made her hair feel her age. Usually she would pamper herself, but ever since the countdown to the mission began a few months ago, she has had no time to sort out her appearance. Split ends are the least of her worries though as she sits down twiddling her thumbs in front of her preoccupied boss who is reading the incident reports. Mr Conway looks up at her over the rim of the file and smiles.

  ‘Wow, well done Miss Harriet. Well done indeed. I couldn’t have done it any better. We are far ahead of schedule now. This is a cause for celebration I think,’ says Mr Conway, sporting his first smile in just as long of a time as Miss Harriet’s last spa visit.

  ‘It is rather good news,’ she says softly

  Mr Conway’s smile has grown a thousand fold as he marvels at the writing in front of him.

  ‘Europe?’ he says

  ‘Yep, the UK and France have all been fertilised,’ she says

  ‘How about Germany?’ he asks, still smiling, almost crying with joy.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had any conformation of such as of yet, but I will keep you in the loop,’ she says

  ‘And to think I was ready to pull the plug on this operation,’ says Mr Conway, still sporting a massive grin.

  ‘To think,’ says Miss Harriet calmly.

  Mr Conway puts down the folder and smiles at her again, bear faced with joy. He then realises that Miss Harriet isn’t sharing in the occasion as much as he is. His smiling soon turns into half a scowl.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ asks Mr Conway

  ‘Nope,’ she says

  ‘Well you could have fooled me! I’m sitting here, holding some of the most positive news we could have and you’re still sulking about the deal we had in place’

  ‘Had?’ asks Miss Harriet in shock

  ‘Yes…Had….Past tense. It isn’t what we have now. What we have now is more than a measly seat at the Whitehouse. What we have now is a seat on top of the world. The world leaders are far and few, but tonight, when the big hand and little hand its twelve, we will be the world leaders, me and you, ruling the States, and Europe. Surly that is a deal worth having?’ asks Mr Conway

  ‘The world?’ asks Miss Harriet

  ‘The world,’ confirms Mr Conway

  Seven

  ‘Let’s kill him. We can’t just risk the others coming back for him. They tried to kill us after all!’ says Ray

  ‘What if the others come back and ask for him, and say they will leave us alone?’ asks Donner

  ‘These guys are responsible for shooting the police officer we tried rescuing, remember him? They didn’t let him live, so why would they let us live?’ says Ray

  David Seal remains quiet whil
e staring at the captured militia man from across the underground sewer camp.

  ‘I say we press him for more answers,’ says Ray, looking on at David for some backup. David doesn’t even batter an eyelid as he continues to look at the captured man who is tied up to one of the wall grates.

  ‘Take his finger nails out. He’ll talk then,’ says Ray

  ‘We can’t just torture him. That’s not the civil thing to do,’ says Donner

  ‘I don’t know about you, but civilisation doesn’t sound like it’s doing too well up there. Can’t you hear the constant gunfire and explosion above ground? I bet New York is a complete warzone by now,’ says David.

  ‘Fuck it, let’s kill him,’ says Donner

  Ray starts to laugh out loud as he looks on at Donner’s facial expression.

  ‘Not two seconds ago you were saying how we should keep him alive. What’s changed?’ asks Ray

  ‘I just think that two dangerous men around the girls is not the ideal situation,’ she says

  ‘We will deal with him later,’ says David as he finally turns to face Donner and Ray

  ‘How?’ asks Ray

  ‘Never mind that. In the meantime we need to figure out what we are going to do with the army guy,’ says David

  ‘We kill him,’ says Donner once again

  Ray shakes his head in disbelief. Of all people to be crying for blood, Donner seems like the last one that should be doing so.

  ‘No, we don’t. We find out who the hell these guys are and why they are down here,’ says David

  ‘The guy said that there were five or so men, including him. How do we know he’s not lying?’

  David scratches his beard. It makes a rather loud sound that makes Ray feel itchy all over.

  ‘We just don’t. That’s the problem. We don’t know anything. All we know is he is down here and we have a chance to extract some information out of him. Whatever we get from this guy, could save us in the future,’ says David