Dark Days of the After Special Edition | Prequel & Book 1

by Schow, Ryan

  “I think I should just leave you alive, but take your tongue,” Kwon said. “See how you like your life without such a smart mouth.”

  “Small fingers means a really small penis,” he said, knowing he wasn’t going to leave this life like a coward.

  “Kwon, his clearance is legitimate.”

  He shoved the man away and said, “He can go missing, or die tragically in a fire.” Looking past the barrel of the gun, he met his aggressor’s eyes. There was a seething animosity burning behind them. People like Kwon hated the Americans just as much as the Americans hated them.

  As he laid there waiting to be killed, someone tapped Kwon’s shoulder and said, “He’s helping round up state dissidents.”

  “I don’t care.”

  The standoff between them lasted too long. Finally he holstered his weapon then said, “Get up.”

  Logan got to his feet, brushing little black pebbles from his cheek. The glare he wore wouldn’t leave his face. He was outrage. He was hostility.

  “What?” Kwon barked.

  “You’re a bitch,” Logan snarled.

  If this man wasn’t killing him, it’s because he couldn’t.

  Kwon turned and swung at him. Logan saw it coming. He stepped under the shot, moved into the triangle of death—the space behind Kwon where he couldn’t see Logan without having to turn around.

  He drove his elbow backwards. Logan wasn’t there anymore. He was on the other side of him, hands still behind his back. Kwon switched elbows, but when he drove it back, he off-balanced himself. That’s when Logan checked his heel just enough to send him on his ass.

  To Logan’s surprise, A) he was still alive and B) no one was doing anything to stop him. That was reassuring

  “I did that with my hands behind my back,” he said over the top of him.

  Kwon shot to his feet, squaring up. A gun fired behind them, but neither man jumped. They didn’t even blink. The soldier put up his hands, but Logan knew the drill. He remained in the submissive position.

  The gun fired again as someone outranking this putz approached them. He shoved Logan aside, causing him to stumble. But this man wasn’t interested in Logan. He was nose-to-nose with Kwon, screaming at him in words Logan couldn’t understand.

  “Go,” one of the Chicom soldiers said. He was the one who saved Logan after verifying that he indeed had the clearance he claimed.

  Logan had solid tremors in his hand, the violent impulses of a man willing to risk everything important for something as trivial as a pissing contest.

  He almost welcomed the bullet.

  Instead, he got on his motorcycle, fired it up and looked over where Kwon was being dressed down by his supervisor. When Kwon’s eyes flicked his way, Logan flipped him off, then took off, weaving in and out of the convoy until he broke through to the open road.

  The adrenaline felt good coursing through his veins. He’d spent the last decade in fear. But even tech nerds reach a point. They reach that point where the rubber meets the road and they aren’t going to take anyone’s crap anymore.

  He didn’t know he was at that point until he met Skylar. She insisted he take Krav Maga classes, and though he didn’t want to at first, he went anyway because that’s where she was.

  In these last few days, he realized what training every other day for two months could do. He also realized the changes mentally were just as valuable. He didn’t have to feel like a victim. He willingly offered up his life the second he smarted off to that Chicom clown who’d stood on his face. That was his decision. He wasn’t intimidated as much as he was infuriated.

  Shaking it off, he raced through the early afternoon air, the bike nearing a hundred miles per hour. At the top of his lungs, he screamed f-bombs and obscenities until he exhausted his hatred. Later, as the afternoon wore on, he crossed into Oregon.

  Five Falls wasn’t that far off the border, nowhere near Dillard, the miniscule town Ming Yeung thought he was going to.

  He pulled to a stop in the cul-de-sac where the mouth of Connor and Orbey Madigan’s property was concealed with decoy brush. He moved through the fake foliage and stowed his motorcycle in a nearby shed. He then trekked up the tire tracked hillside.

  On top of the hill, he saw Harper and Cooper. She smiled; the German Shepherd pup barked. What a nice surprise! He wasn’t sure what kind of reception he would get, but that…that was worth the trip there.

  Cooper raced down the hill and met him with jumping and barking and a rapidly wagging tail. Harper followed Cooper. By the time she reached him, he was scratching the pup’s side, making mush out of the dog.

  “I’m not used to you having so much expression,” he said to Harper as she smiled enthusiastically.

  “Now that I’m out of the surveillance grid,” she admitted, “it’s okay to let my hair down, have a good laugh, a good cry, a good tantrum.”

  She hugged him and he hugged her back. God, it felt good in her arms.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. She pulled back and looked at him, concerned. “Why are you here?”

  “With everything coming up, and with the news I’ve got,” he said, “I couldn’t risk a transmission.”

  “Well spill it, Logan,” she said.

  “They’re going to hit the southwestern half of the United States with an EMP.”

  “I know,” she said. “The Chicoms, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, the wind taken from his sails.

  “Tristan told me,” she admitted. “The South American Army breached the wall in Arizona. They’re pouring through. Most of them, and most of their artillery, are headed for California.”

  “Wow,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d get that kind of intel up here.”

  “I have internet access,” she said.

  “Do you know about the doomsday clock?” Logan asked her.

  “No,” she said, concerned.

  “Yeah.”

  “How long until detonation?” she asked.

  Running his hand over his head, the stubble coming in a dark shadow, he flicked his hand off his scalp and said, “Seven days.”

  “Exactly?”

  “Down to the minute,” he replied. “Eight nineteen a.m., Pacific Standard Time. That’s the minute America falls. That’s when the hot war begins.”

  Standing there, a shine to her eyes, a stillness to her soul, he watched her change before his very eyes. Slowly, he moved into her arms where he held her. She seemed to appreciate the proximity. Then, resting her head against his neck, she said, “I was always afraid of this day.”

  “I didn’t even know it was coming,” he admitted.

  “I’m scared,” she said. Then, standing back, she said, “You’ve come to stay, right? You’re not going back?”

  “I’ve come to stay a few days, see what we need to do to survive this.”

  “And then?” she asked. He looked at her, unblinking, no promises falling from his mouth. “I don’t understand.”

  “I have someone back there,” he said.

  “Skylar?” she asked. He shook his head, a forlorn look on his face. “Did she…come back home?”

  “No.”

  She pulled away from him, put a hand to her mouth like someone getting bad news does. He had no idea where Skylar was. Part of him didn’t care. She was now just another cog in the Resistance wheel. He wanted to be with her, but she was already taken by the cause. It was a tough lesson. Now he was with Kim, even though he wasn’t.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  When he stopped to think about it, Kim was no different than Skylar. To them, Logan was just a dick and a place to stay. That was okay, though. He wasn’t bothered anymore.

  In the distance, he heard hammering, sawing, general carpentry. “How’s it going up there?” he asked.

  “Good, I guess.”

  “This person you have…” she prompted.

  “It’s a roommate from the Resistance. A training partner from Kra
v.”

  “Can’t he just get here on his own?” she asked.

  “I didn’t give her directions.”

  “Oh,” she said, responding to the word her and all its implications.

  “It’s not like that,” he replied.

  Frowning, like his response was stupid, she said, “You can do what you want, Logan. I tried to get laid last night. It’s not like the things we used to hold dear to us even matter.”

  “You tried to get laid?” he asked.

  She waved him off and said, “Orbey and Connor will be happy to see you.”

  “What happened?” he asked, smiling.

  “Same thing as always,” she teased. “The Princess found another frog.”

  “There’s a Princess here?” he joked.

  Turning she slapped his arm, then smiled and then she said, “Having you back here really is the best surprise.”

  Orbey was absolutely tickled to see him. She hugged him the way his mother would have hugged him if she were alive. And Connor? Logan reached out to shake his hand and the big man pulled him into a hug and said, “None of that formal crap here, son.”

  When the stew was in the last fifteen minutes of simmering, and the table was set, there was a knock on the door.

  Stephani said, “I’ll get it.”

  “You expecting company?” Logan asked.

  Orbey shook her head. He looked down and she had a small pistol in her hand. He got his pistol off the side table and joined Stephani at the door. There was a scrub on the other side. Some redneck clown. He was twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, really self-important.

  “I want to talk to the gunman!” he barked.

  “There are five gunmen here, Craig,” Stephani warned. “You need to go back home before things go bad here.”

  Logan joined Stephani in the doorway and said, “What do you want?”

  “You the resident muscle?” Craig asked.

  “Friend or foe?”

  “What do you think, tough guy?” he sneered.

  “Well then, foe, what do you want?” Logan asked. He felt Harper behind him. He also knew Orbey was there, packing heat and not afraid to use it.

  “You killed my friend right over that hill and I want to know where his body is,” he said, the sneer gone, his voice amplifying.

  “Nobody killed your friend,” Stephani said.

  “I saw him get shot,” Craig snarled, each outburst putting him closer to the edge. “Right in the gut. He couldn’t have survived that.”

  “You shouldn’t have been trespassing,” Orbey warned, a gun in one hand, Cooper by the collar in the other.

  “Oh, there’s the sweetheart,” he hissed.

  His eyes were looking over Logan’s shoulder, past him and past Connor.

  “Your friend’s not here,” Connor said.

  The scruffy, knuckle dragger named Craig opened his mouth to speak. Logan threw a punch, catching the chin just right. His head rocked back, his feet loose for a second.

  Logan burst through the door, grabbed him by the front of his pants and his throat and ran him off the porch, launching him off the edge where he landed on his ass. Logan chased him down, started kicking him relentlessly.

  For a second, he didn’t see this white punk; he saw the Chicom who harassed him earlier. He felt the sting in his face and somehow, in that moment, it was Craig’s fault. In his mind, Craig was now the enemy, every bit as bad as the Chicoms.

  “Get up!” he roared.

  Craig scrambled to his feet and Logan went after him. He ran, but not fast enough. Logan hurled a fist-sized rock at him, nailed him square in the back.

  The redneck staggered forward, obviously in pain.

  Logan took chase, catching up to him at the edge of the slope that would take him down to the cul-de-sac. At the crest of the hill, he gave Craig a solid shove, putting his shoulders over his feet too quickly.

  The redneck went down on the palms of his hands, skidding down the hillside where he landed in a heap. Plumes of dust rose into the air, marking his body’s path.

  “Come back here again and I’ll kill you,” Logan yelled.

  When he got back to the house, Harper was waiting for him on the porch. “Who are you and what did you do with the Logan Cahill I knew?” she asked.

  “I hate guys like that,” he said.

  “Yeah, he’s going to be a problem,” she said. “I made a list.”

  “What kind of a list?” he asked.

  “A kill list.”

  “A what?” he asked.

  “You heard me,” she replied. “A kill list.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “After dinner, you and I are going to talk about this list.” Then: “Are you losing weight?”

  “Gaining muscle,” she said. “Don’t get cheeky.”

  Holding his hands up in mock surrender, he said, “Yes, ma’am. This cracker’s on his best behavior.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Riding the paddy wagon into what she would later learn was San Quentin State Prison, Skylar woke and found the pedo dead at her feet and Ryker watching over her protectively.

  “What happened to him?” she asked.

  “Someone hit back.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Hope so,” Ryker mumbled. “You want to see if he’s breathing?”

  “Not particularly.”

  When the truck came to a stop, Ryker said, “Home, sweet home.”

  “Why are we here?” she asked.

  “Refugee camp.”

  Guards hustled them out of the paddy wagon, marched them inside, then separated the women from the men. A female guard ran Skylar through the showers, put her in new clothes and read her the rules.

  “No sex with the other detainees, no fighting, you do exactly what the guards say, and if you steal anyone’s blanket, pillow, shoes or clothes, you will be shot on sight. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good,” she said. “Now walk the line.”

  That line eventually took her to the cafeteria. There they watched the other prisoners being fed slop before being told to report to the main yard for cot assignments.

  Looking around, there were so many people, she could hardly move. The air was hot with the stink of sweating, stinky bodies.

  Then, somehow, she managed to see Ryker. He was taking in the scene like a guy wanting to know which way the war was coming from. Was he looking for people like him, or was he trying to find her?

  Probably the former. This was prison after all. That meant cliques. In the joint, race ruled everything. But if there were gangs among these somewhat self-segregating men and women, she couldn’t find them.

  She caught up with Ryker who said, “You look better now that you’re clean.”

  “I’m happy to see you, too.”

  At a small window, they were assigned a cot in the yard and given a blanket and a small pillow. After moseying around the yard uselessly, the last of the daylight burned out and they were told through the PA system to go to their respective cots.

  Because Ryker was in line with Skylar, they were assigned cots next to each other. “Why are you here?” Ryker asked as he got settled in.

  “Same as you.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “Be honest.”

  “Why else would I be here?” she asked. “I got caught.”

  “You’re Resistance,” he said.

  “There you go.”

  “Really?” he asked, surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  “They should have killed you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t they?”

  She took a deep breath, then leaned sideways on her cot and whispered, “I infiltrated the Ministry of Propaganda. Got info on a transmission.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  She nodded her head, proud, then said, “I hope my contact understood it.”

  “You don’t know what intel you got?”

  She shook her
head.

  “So it could be a grocery list?” he replied, all his enthusiasm shrinking. “Or a love letter from fake Mao to the missing President?”

  “The President is dead,” she said. “He’s hanging for all the world but America to see. And when the time is right, we’ll see it, too.”

  Ryker went really still, laid back in his cot. “Are you sure? About the President, I mean?”

  “Saw him myself.”

  Just as she was drifting off, as the sounds of snoring began to create a soft white noise among the prisoners, he said, “How did you infiltrate the Ministry?”

  “Seduced the Minster himself.”

  “Wow,” he said.

  “He spared me so that I can feel the pain of a Chicom torture camp,” she said. “At least that’s what he told me.”

  “This is a refugee camp,” he said.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “My brother is in here,” he said. “I came here willingly.”

  “What? Are you insane?”

  “We all have our purposes,” he said. “Mine is just less…sexual than yours.”

  “Family is a good reason,” she said, ignoring the jab.

  “Where’s your family?” he asked.

  “Gone.”

  A few minutes later, when he didn’t say anything and she didn’t say anything, she closed her eyes to the night sky, shuddered against the cold night, then drifted off to sleep.

  The peace ended way too soon.

  Skylar woke the next day after a cold night and a string of nightmares. She was in an incredible amount of pain, she was scared, and had she not been there with Ryker, she might’ve lost her mind.

  Breakfast was the same slop as dinner, and she was quickly pulled aside with several other women and a young man.

  “Pick up gravel,” the Chicom guard said to them, giving them a medium sized cup. Everyone looked at the guard, unsure of what they were supposed to do. “Come now, I show you.”

  The guard walked them through the crush of people, out into the yard where other refugees were breaking down the cots, taking them to the sides of the huge yard and washing them.

  “Pick up gravel!” he said. He bent over, picked up a booger sized pebble, then put it in one of one woman’s plastic cups and said, “You see?”