After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  “Rude,” the woman commented, her voice dripping with sarcasm, but Nathan thought he could detect a smile in the stretched fabric of the ski mask.

  Stryker’s eyes burned into Nathan. “They’re parasites, Nate, pure and simple. If we give in to them now, then they’ll keep coming back for more.”

  “Give in? What are you talking about?”

  The woman raised her hand. “If I might contribute?”

  Stryker near boiled over, but Nathan nodded even as he realized how stupid he looked, giving her permission to speak while his hands were raised and there was a shotgun pointing at his chest.

  “You can put your hands down.”

  Nathan and Stryker complied.

  “That’s better,” the woman said. “Now, shall we all go inside? There’s no fire, but it is out of the wind.”

  The man covered them and the woman led the way towards the tenement, up the steps, through warped green wooden doors, and into a grimly damp entrance hall. The building had been built in the early 20th century, and in that time, it might have looked opulent and stately, with checkerboard tiled floor, well-carved moldings, and an intricate plaster rose surrounding the central, dead light in the ceiling.

  The place now stank of damp, though, and the tiles were cracked, the paint peeling, with indecipherable graffiti covering the walls. If the tenement hadn’t been abandoned, Nathan was sure the residents it would have held now wouldn’t have been from the same social group as those it had been built for. It had the feel now of a sunken luxury liner that lay broken at the bottom of the Atlantic.

  It was good, however, to be out of the wind. The woman continued down the hall and on through to an apartment door. Nathan, Stryker, and Shotgun followed. Although the rooms therein, like the hall, had seen better days, there was a coziness about the design that made Nathan think of old-time movies on black-and-white TV.

  The furniture was old and rotting, the fireplace dark and cold. The windows had long ago been smashed, and ragged curtains wafted in them, but the worst of the wind was outside the building and kept at bay.

  The woman took off her mask. She was perhaps in her mid-thirties, blonde, with a strikingly angular face and green eyes. She looked fit and able, and unlike most people Nathan knew in the city, she also appeared to be well-fed.

  “I’m Natasha Roker. My friends call me Tasha.”

  “We’re not your friends,” Stryker said.

  Nathan flashed another look at Stryker. This was not the time to play the hero. If they got out of this mess alive, then they could work out a way to deal with it, but right now it was best to play along until an opportunity arose for them to get away.

  “No, but you could be our friends. In fact, we’d prefer you to be our friends,” Tasha said, perching on the side of an ancient couch from which upholstery springs emerged like snakes.

  Nathan could see Stryker was about to smart-mouth again, and so he placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me deal with this, yeah?”

  Stryker opened his mouth, but Nathan squeezed the shoulder hard. “I’m not making Cyndi a widow today, and neither are you. Is that understood?”

  Stryker’s lips pursed, but he nodded his acquiescence. Nathan turned back to Tasha. Behind her, her two friends had kept their ski masks on and stood poised for any eventuality. The three of them together, standing almost to attention with ski masks and weapons on show, looked like a tableaux formed to shoot a terrorist martyrdom video rather than a grubby bit of gangstering in a derelict Detroit street.

  “So, you, Mr. Other Stry. Who are you?”

  “Nathan Tolley. Been here coming on for three months. Came here from Glens Falls, New York with my wife, kids, and some friends.”

  “Friends, eh?” Tasha signaled to the guy with the semi-automatic. “Go outside, Frank, and make sure their friends haven’t started looking for them. They may have agreed to a route they might take from Trash Town. We don’t want any unexpected visitors.”

  Frank nodded and stalked from the room, his dark eyes looking on suspiciously in a just you try it, pal fashion as he brushed past Nathan.

  “What do you do?” Tasha asked Nathan.

  “Survive, mostly.”

  “Don’t we all, Nathan, don’t we all? I mean, of course, by what means do you survive? What are your skills?”

  Nathan saw no need to not cooperate yet, so told her. “Mechanical. I can fix just about anything if I turn my mind to it.”

  “Well, that is useful to know.”

  “If you have something for me to fix, and then that gets us out of here, then lead me to it.”

  “Your willingness, Mr. Tolley, to oblige does you credit, and I’m sure at some point in our respective futures we’ll have reason to call on your services, but let us not forget the matter in hand.”

  Her eyes became steely. “Open the crate.”

  Tasha’s voice was calm and well-modulated, assertive, and definitely educated. She wasn’t some street kid who’d grown up with the gangs of Detroit. Her voice was accentless, too, as if she was from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Exhibiting eyes that were quick and intelligent, she was a force to be reckoned with, for sure.

  Nathan bent down and took the lid off the crate.

  “Billy,” Tasha said, and without needing to be told twice, Shotgun bent and rifled through the packs of seeds and seed potatoes. He ripped open a packet of beetroot seeds and poured them into his palm.

  “Hey!” Stryker took a step forward and Tasha pointed her pistol at his head.

  “I’d simmer down if I were you, Mr. Wilson, before either one of us does something we regret.”

  “Those are just seeds, but they’re important. You know how scarce food is,” Nathan said, trying to placate the situation. It was not an easy job being the peacemaker around Stryker. “Please let us just leave with our seeds and we’ll leave you in peace. You know where we are, so you can contact us if you need any machinery worked on. I’ve said I’ll help.”

  Nathan reached out to Billy for the half-emptied packet and cupped his other hand for the ski-masked gangster to pour the seeds from his hand into his own.

  Billy looked up at Tasha and she nodded her assent. He passed the packet to Nathan and then dribbled the seeds he’d held into the mechanic’s upturned palm. Nathan poured the seeds back into the open packet, spilling only a couple. Stryker bent and picked them up, all the while glaring at Billy.

  “So, are you going to tell us what you want?” Nathan asked as he put the packet back into the crate and put the lid back in place.

  “Detroit is a dangerous place these days,” Tasha said. Stryker snorted, but said nothing. “There are gangs and there are individuals who pose a threat to the survival of the citizen who just wishes to go about his business.”

  Nathan could see now what Stryker had said about Tasha and her crew being parasites. “Go on.”

  “Well, I represent a group who don’t have what you might call practical skills. We’re not farmers, growers, menders, or mechanics. We have different skills. They’re more… defense oriented… if you get my drift?”

  “Defense from who? You?”

  “Let’s keep this civil, Mr. Tolley. You’ve been doing so well.”

  “You want a cut of our produce, our skills, our technology, and in return, we won’t meet with an unfortunate accident. Is that what you mean?”

  “I’m glad to see we’re on the same page.”

  “I don’t think we are.”

  “Perhaps not,” Tasha smiled, “but, Mr. Tolley, I’m sure you’ve already recognized the cover of the book.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, Billy, Frank and I will accompany you back to the Masonic Temple, and we’ll have a very good look at your setup, meet your… family… and perhaps break bread together. We’ll work out terms and draw up an agreement. How does that sound?”

  “Like you’re running a protection racket.”

  “I prefer to call it a symbiotic relationship. Shall we g
o?”

  They left the tenement in full darkness.

  The lid of cold night had been closed across the city with a finality that chilled Nathan more than the effects of the surrounding winter. He could smell smoke on the air, coming from the various burning areas of the city and its blackened twin, Windsor, set across the frozen river. As they moved from the derelict area of town, they began to pass open areas where huge plastic cloches had been set up, these being warmed by wind-powered generators and used to grow food. Other vacant city lots had been covered with plastic enclosures where pigs and chickens could be raised undercover, out of the worst of the winter. The smell of pig manure on the cold air told Nathan they were nearing the vast Masonic Temple, where Stryker’s apartment and hydroponic center rested. It was also where the assembly of what Stryker had laughably called the City Government met. What Stryker had neglected to tell them was that it was the City Government for those outside of the Greenhouse to the south of the city. It was a toothless government that had no real power, other than that of implementing the orders from the Greenhousers. That’s why gangs like Tasha’s were allowed to roam freely and terrorize and racketeer—there was no police force worthy of the name out here. They were too busy protecting the Greenhousers.

  Stryker and Nathan walked ahead, still carrying the crate between them with Tasha, Billy, and Frank following along behind, weapons drawn. Although Nathan had been willing to at least discuss what Tasha wanted while they’d been back in the tenement, he was getting severely antsy now about letting this trio up into Stryker’s apartment to see what stores and stocks they had, not to mention bringing them around his wife and children. It was a meeting he absolutely didn’t want to see happen, but right now he could see zero ways of getting out of it.

  The Masonic Temple was a huge sixteen-story art deco monster that punched up from the sidewalk like the fist of a giant. With turrets for fingers and hefty stonework for knuckles, it was both horrifically beautiful and impenetrably solid. It was a good place to live if you couldn’t get into the Greenhouse, and it had provided more than adequate shelter and warmth for Nathan and his family.

  The roof was a porcupine of wind turbines and the windows glowing with yellow light across the top floors were fed by cables lashed over the roof and down the stone fascia. Nathan didn’t like to think of it as home in a permanent sense, but it was certainly not somewhere he wanted invaded by these three slimeballs.

  “Well, look at that, pretty as a picture,” Tasha said, pointing up at the temple. “You know, boys, we might just go the whole hog and move in.”

  Nathan’s spine stiffened at the words, and it made him tell his first lie. “Everyone’s welcome, but we have a no guns policy within the building; as long as you don’t mind that, you’re welcome to one of the unused apartments.”

  Tasha laughed. “Unused apartments? Mr. Tolley, why would we go through the rigmarole of setting up a new apartment, connecting it to a turbine, drying it out, and sourcing furniture and the like when we can just have your apartment, and you can put in the hard yards. I’m a fighter, not a lover, as I think they used to say.”

  Billy and Frank’s laughter rattled harshly on the air. Billy especially sounded like one of the pigs in one of the farm cloches. There was snot and phlegm in the sound of his laugh, and it disgusted Nathan, but still there was no way he could see out of this situation.

  Until Stryker fell over.

  At first, Nathan thought his friend had been pistol-whipped from behind, or worse still, been hit by some sniper’s bullet. Snipers were an occasional problem in the city. They usually shot, killed, and then came down to street-level to see what they could salvage from the body. Thankfully, last month Brant had ordered his police out of the Greenhouse to see if they could round a few of the miscreants up. It had been a rare positive step from the Greenhousers to help those on the outside, though Nathan felt sure that getting rid of the snipers would have had even more of a positive effect on the Greenhousers anyway. People could still be shot through glass.

  Whether Brant’s forces caught or eradicated any snipers had never been reported, but the incidents of sniper fire across this part of the city had at least seemed to stop until now.

  But, now, Stryker lay face down in the snow, groaning.

  “Get up!” Billy shouted at Stryker’s prostrate body. There was no reply, other than Stryker starting to shake. His boots kicked against the icy crust on the sidewalk, his knees jiggered, his hips shook, and his shoulders bunched. His forehead began pounding into the snow and his spine arched. A low keening wail escaped his lips and, as his face smooshed down into the snow, Stryker’s breathing became ragged and painful to listen to.

  “He’s having a seizure,” Nathan hissed, taking a step towards the stricken figure.

  “Don’t move!” barked Tasha. “Billy, take a look at him.”

  Billy knelt beside Stryker and put a hand on his shoulder, the savage shaking of his body immediately being transmitted along his arm.

  “Turn him over,” Tasha said, covering Nathan with her pistol.

  Billy pulled at Stryker, but such was the force of his shaking that it was difficult to get a purchase with one hand, so he put down his shotgun so that he could use both hands to turn his body.

  It was Billy’s biggest and last mistake.

  As he rolled Stryker’s body over, the hand beneath his body came up and fired one shot from a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 36 revolver. The bullet punctured Billy’s forehead and blew the back of his head out like an egg in a microwave. Before anyone else could move, Stryker fired again, hitting Frank in the fleshy side of his thigh, sending him spinning into the snow.

  Unfortunately, Stryker wasn’t fast enough to stop Tasha. She fired two rounds directly at Nathan. Before he sailed through the air on the force of the double impact in his chest, and crashed to the snow in a haze of pain and horror, all he could hear were the frantic footsteps of Tasha as she ran back down the street, with the sound of Stryker’s bullets thudding off walls, metal, and snow.

  Nathan had two cracked ribs and a starkly red bruise the size of three fists on the right side of his chest, but the Kevlar vest had saved his life.

  Not content with making Nathan go out armed, Cyndi had insisted on the extra protection beneath his coat, and her survival instincts had now been proven correct. Although it made some movement difficult, for general use, the vest had been worth its weight in gold.

  Literally.

  Twenty-four hours after the run-in with Tasha and her boys, Cyndi was plumping the pillows behind Nathan’s head and offering him a cup of coffee. Nathan had been laying on his back, trying to get the ache out of his bones and not breathe so hard it caused a stabbing pain through his cracked ribcage. Cyndi had strapped him up and given him painkillers, but everything hurt like hell still and his mouth tasted like a sewer.

  After assuring him that Tony was concerned, but okay health-wise, and that Brandon was feeding a little better, Cyndi moved the conversation around to putting Nathan’s mind to rest about security at the Masonic. “I’ve spoken to some of the other residents about posting guards on the landings in case this woman comes back.”

  “It could have just been the three of them, or it could be a whole pack; I guess we’ll know when we know,” Nathan croaked. But no matter how lousy he felt, the bedroom was at least warm, and the food Cyndi had prepared last night had been welcome. “Where’s Stryker?”

  Cyndi gave an exasperated shake of her head. “He’s planting the seeds and telling everyone what a hero he is.”

  “I guess he was in way. He certainly convinced me he was having a seizure.”

  “Yes, but you realize we’re both going to be ninety before he stops talking about it?”

  Nathan grinned, not daring to laugh because he knew it would hurt too much. “And the others?”

  “Free was all for going out with Stryker to hunt them down. Dave and Donie took the body of the one Stryker killed to the mortuary building,
and Lucy is… well, Lucy is Lucy, I guess. I think she’d be more perturbed if we ran out of liquor. That would be a dizz-arss-ter, dahling.”

  This time Nathan did laugh, and it hurt like hell.

  Cyndi’s impression and satire of the mega-rich and awfully stuck-up Lucy was spot-on. Lucy had been found with her dead chauffer on the highway, and had formed an uneasy bond with Nathan and his family, but a stronger, physical one with Freeson, Nathan’s employee from back east.

  They hadn’t yet been able to work out whether Lucy’s attachment to Freeson Mack was one with truly emotional depth, rather than one of convenience, but the cynically mordant guy was happy with the situation as it was. A longtime widower with a quick temper, Freeson had definitely mellowed in attitude since Lucy Arneston had arrived on the scene. They were an unlikely couple but, so far, a strong one.

  Cyndi kissed Nathan on the forehead and ruffled his hair, “Get some rest.”

  Nathan knew better than to argue, however much he wanted to get up from the bed in the apartment and go help secure the doors. Or help Stryker with the hydroponics, or even spend time with Tony. He’d gotten into the habit of reading to Tony at night in the Masonic. They were halfway through Treasure Island, and the boy was loving the high adventure and ripe characters. It seemed to help Nathan settle as much as it excited the boy. There wasn’t a lot of time for recreation in this new situation, and spending quality downtime with his son had become a priority. But Nathan knew he had taken a hard knock, and he’d be no good to anyone if he didn’t at least rest up for another day, Treasure Island or no Treasure Island.

  The ache in his ribs offered a bitterly hot stab every time he moved, and he felt as if his insides had shifted around and possibly turned upside down. But he was alive, and he would live to see at least one more day. He turned gingerly onto his side and rested his arm over his head to stop his elbow from resting on his injured side.

  Through the floor to ceiling window, the day was just getting started, its light was gray and steely. Flurries of fat flakes fell onto the panorama of black buildings he could see through the glass. Detroit seemed to shiver and waver beneath the fresh blizzard. There was no one moving in the streets, and even though it was morning, lights burned in many of the windows nearby and smoke was shafting up against the snow like becalmed but still running steam trains.