by Schow, Ryan
In the distance, he saw two people running, one of them looking Asian and rather feminine, the other with a bald head. Skylar?
It had to be.
His heart leapt, bringing him to his feet.
From the direction she and May were headed, it looked like they were escaping the building. He wanted to take off after them, but he couldn’t.
He’d be seen for sure.
Finding another way, he slipped back out of view, crossed the street in the dying light of day, then took the long way around. He moved through alleys and dirt parking lots and he capitalized on the cover all the dead cars were providing. He tried to be cautious, but the constant wear on his body was taxing. When he’d finally been reduced to a pimp-step trot, the name Five Falls rushed into his mind.
Five Falls, Oregon.
He smiled.
Halfway up the street, an engine started up, lights flicked on and a Jeep took chase. He was tired AF, and he couldn’t run. He tried anyway.
That didn’t last long.
He felt his ribs grinding, his organs waving white flags, his legs hating the absolute hell out of him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he was panting, sweating, the fabric of his shirt grating against the burned and healing skin on his back. He saw a nearby fence, instantly saw himself trying to hop it but not having the energy. His resolve waned with the imagined defeat, but he kept running for it, trying desperately to rally himself.
The Jeep was gaining ground, the engine really working.
He went from a trot to a run, not sure he could make the leap, but resolute on trying anyway. In the end, the Jeep proved to move faster than his two weary legs. In that split second, in that moment when he was ready to make that brave leap, the Jeep slammed into him, pitching his body into the fence so hard he broke through the wood and just laid there. The Jeep rolled over the top of him, its tires smashing wood slats on either side of his body.
He heard the transmission engage, then he let out a big sigh as the Jeep backed off the wooden fence. Laying his face flat on the fence’s scratchy surface, he knew he was done for. His legs had failed him, and so he decided to live his last minutes like a man. Meaning he was going to call these pukes a bunch of names, then spit on them, and then die.
The next thing he felt was his body being hauled off the fence and across the asphalt. Two men lifted him, then stuffed him into the back of the open air Jeep. He pretended to be unconscious, unsure of where this was going, but then he grew concerned when he heard the sounds of the men laughing. He wondered for a second if he soiled himself. Or let go of his bladder.
Tossed in the back of the Jeep like a bag of trash, he wasn’t sure why they didn’t tie him up. But the way his body felt, it was like he’d been hit with the world’s biggest wrecking ball. What energy he had depleted was slowly coming back. He wasn’t dead!
The Chicom soldiers backed up, turned around and then took off, the driver saying something to his partner in the front seat. While they were talking, Ryker gathered all his strength, then forced himself to get up and roll out of the back of the Jeep. The second he hit the asphalt, he realized how fast they were going.
The impact knocked the wind out of him and sent him rolling, limbs flailing, the gritty asphalt chewing up his skin. By the time he slid to a sad, dramatic stop, he didn’t even want to move, let alone be alive. Now that he survived this, how long would it take him to dig all the gravel out of his arms and face?
The Jeep’s taillights flashed red, then it began to back up fast.
“Son of a—”
They were going to run him over!
Ryker barely managed to roll out of the way in time for the Jeep to brake hard and slide to a stop. He knew they’d get out of the Jeep pissed, maybe shoot him right there. Instead, he found the men were still laughing, whatever joke they shared between them still funny. Or perhaps they fancied themselves cats, and he was the wounded mouse. The big Caucasian play toy.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t.
One of the guys leaned down, his face alight with hilarity from what Ryker could see, and then he started taunting him, laughing, his breath and pores reeking of alcohol.
It figures, he thought.
When Ryker stopped listening, the Chicom started kicking him. His friend joined in a moment later. He tried to shield himself from them, but then both men were drunk and having the time of their lives at his expense. One of them stopped kicking. The other stopped, too. Both men fell down beside Ryker, their bodies hitting the ground like sacks of rocks.
Ryker saw a length of rebar sticking out of one man’s throat. Whoever jammed it in there jerked it out, the violent withdrawal making a wet sucking sound.
“You alright?” the older masculine voice asked.
Ryker couldn’t take his eyes off the dead men. Finally, looking up, he said, “Thank you.”
“Best thanks you can give me, kid, is get out of here and don’t come back. Don’t want my good deed coming ‘round to bite me in the keister.”
Ryker tried to lift himself, but he was really hurting.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the man grumbled. He reached down, hooked a strong hand under Ryker’s armpit, hauled him up and said, “C’mon already, son. Show some life to you, ya still got it!”
Ryker stood on unsteady legs, his shirt twisted around him, blood drizzling from his mouth in a couple of places. Or maybe that was his nose. He thanked the man again and started to walk away.
“Where you going, dummy?” the old man called out. Ryker stopped, not sure what was happening. “Get that hunka shit outta here!”
He looked at the Chicom Jeep thinking the old man would have wanted to keep it.
“Go on!” he said, shooing him along.
Ryker switched directions (a feat in and of itself right then) and started for the Jeep. He stopped when the old man said, “Hey!”
Ryker turned and the man tossed him a sidearm. It hit him in the arm and landed on the ground near his feet.
He bent over slowly, picked it up.
“I got plenty a guns now,” the old man said. He had the two men’s weapons, along with spare ammo.
Gun in hand, a wave serving as an unspoken thank you, Ryker climbed gingerly into the Jeep, put it in gear, then drove away as the good Samaritan dragged the two bodies off the road.
He wasn’t sure if he should drive around looking for Skylar or not. It might just get him in trouble with the real Chicoms, or the SAA.
He couldn’t take that chance, though.
If he knew anything in that moment, it was that he shouldn’t be out that night. He needed to find somewhere to crash and quick.
Chapter Fourteen
Skylar saw the Chicom Jeep go by and thought, If there’s one out here, there’s bound to be more. She and May set out to find a Jeep of their own. They didn’t have to walk far before they located several of them.
“What do we do?” May asked.
“We wait for a driver to appear,” Skylar said, “then we take him out and snag the keys to his Jeep. After that, we’ll need to move quickly and quietly.”
“There are six Jeeps here,” May said. “If there are two men to a Jeep, then there are as many as twelve or more Chicoms in there.”
“Patience, my friend.”
They waited through the better part of the night, and then May said, “I’m exhausted, I can barely keep my eyes open and my patience has run out.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” Skylar said. She got up, said, “Stay here,” then went searching for something she could use as a weapon. All she found was a fist-sized rock.
She knocked the rock on the street hard enough to see it wouldn’t come apart in a fight, then she started trying doors, hoping one of them was open. She found a garage door she could lift. She pulled it up just enough for her to roll under. Inside the garage—after a lot of feeling around in the dark—she located a stash of tools. The tools she found were long and wouldn’t allow her to move in close
combat. She kept looking. That’s when her determined little fingers walked their way over a claw hammer, proving that persistence in the face of resistance, or even failure, eventually leads to success. Smiling in the dark, she picked up the hammer, liked the heft of it, then gave it a hearty twist.
The hammer’s face would do some damage, and the claw end would be lethal. Of course, she could also punch someone with the head of it, or crack them with the gently sloped cheek.
This is perfect.
When she returned, she asked May, “How are you feeling?”
“Freaking fantastic,” she scowled.
“When we get the hell out of this place,” Skylar said, reassuring her, “life will improve significantly, trust me.”
“What are you doing with that?” she asked, referring to the hammer and the rock.
“This is my Chicom bludgeoning starter kit.”
She set the rock and the hammer down, unbuttoned her blouse and unclasped her bra.
“What are you doing?” May asked.
“Kryptonite.”
She struggled to reach her bra straps, but when she got them, she gently wiggled her arms through the straps, and then she pulled the entire bra out of her left sleeve.
“Hold this for me, please,” she said, wincing against the pain.
She then unbuttoned her shirt to her belly button. And then she tried to cry. Skylar thought about her shoulders, and then she thought about Logan—how much she missed him—and after that she thought about everything they’d lost, all the hell she’d been through. And finally, she thought of Ryker. That’s when her tears became genuine. Not fake tears she could use to distract the Chicoms, but real tears from real pain stored in that well deep inside of her. She didn’t want to feel like this, not right before a potential battle, but letting that well open—even just a little bit—was necessary if she wanted an advantage.
When her face was tear streaked and red, she took the hammer, tucked it into her armpit and slapped herself across the face hard, once then twice, closing that door on emotion. Her shoulders were fiery hot and enraged, the skin pissed off, the muscles screaming at her. The pain made her fresh inside, angry and ready to do some damage.
Finally she picked up her weapons, then went to the home where the men they’d waited on all night were staying. Looking down, making sure the inside curves of her breasts were showing, she took a deep breath. She looked at May, who was hidden, but ready. After a long moment, not sure what she was going to walk into, she knocked lightly on the door.
No one answered, so she knocked a little louder.
She hooked the claw hammer on the back pocket of her jeans, which tugged at her pants, but not so much that they were going to fall down. On second thought, she leaned over, set the rock down and stood back up.
Someone inside the house threw the deadbolt and eased open the front door. Before she could see a face, a brilliant light shined in her eyes, temporarily blinding her. A man said something to her in Chinese. She put one hand up to shield her eyes, but not so low that he couldn’t see her wet eyes, and the tracks of her tears.
“I need help,” she said.
The door opened wider now, realizing she was harmless. Her other arm was at her side, out of the light, but not out of the man’s sight. The man stepped forward, a pistol out, the barrel moving to slide open her shirt and expose her full breast. She turned sideways, giving him a little easier access. This move, however, allowed her to slide her hand just behind her back and grab the hammer by the handle.
It was a slick move that failed to rouse this creep’s suspicions.
When the cold air touched her nipple, the flesh tightened, causing a little shake of the man’s light. If there was one thing a woman could count on in both good times and bad, it was man’s love of breasts. The creep took a long look—one she let him have—but when the gun went down, she swung the hammer where his face would be, the circular face crushing a half-moon circle in his forehead.
He staggered backwards, the flashlight illuminating the ground before him. She spun the handle one hundred and eighty degrees, then buried the claw into his head, controlling him. His legs went soft, rubbery. The very thought of what she did sickened her, but it was a necessary evil.
Using the hammer for leverage, she dragged him out of the house, his knees knocking and buckling, his mouth slack, his eyes showing shock. May was suddenly there, grabbing the gun and flashlight from him.
Skylar let go of the hammer, stepped forward and hugged him under his arms. Carefully, trying not to make any noise, she tried settling him down on the sidewalk. It was an awkward affair, however, because she didn’t have the strength she once had. She fell forward on him, her shoulder hitting the end of the hammer’s handle and sending a shockwave of pain through her that had her feeling as dazed and as dizzy as he was.
She rolled off the man, landing on her back on the sidewalk next to him. May was standing over them both.
“Finish him,” Skylar said, unwilling to do it herself. Whatever move she made, she knew it would require the use of her shoulders and that wasn’t happening.
May was slow to respond.
Suck it up, pussy, she thought, not sure if she was talking more to herself or to May.
As it happened, she was speaking to herself. She heard Yoav’s voice in her head telling her that weakness was a state of mind, that most quitters embrace their default state, which is helplessness.
“Helplessness always leads to failure,” he’d said.
Her mind went back to that moment, as it often did. He was standing over her as she was laid out on the ground, sweating, blood filling her mouth. This occurred on a particularly hard day of sparring. She’d just been kicked in the mouth, the inside of her lip busted open and bleeding freely.
When she was slow to get up, he’d said, “This is your brain seducing you with all the sweet reasons to lay your weapons down, to put up your hands and step back from the fight. Is that you right now? Are you the quitter we all fear and hate?”
She’d nodded her head, no, steeling her resolve.
He continued: “It’s the warriors of the world who look forward to pain because in war, the pain lets you know you’re in the shit, and that’s where you’ll outwork and outlast the quitters. So I ask you again, Skylar, are you a quitter?”
“No, sir,” she said.
“Then get up,” he said.
She stood, straightening her back, her lips pressed tight and firm. He slapped her across the face so hard her brain seemed to shift inside her skull. She opened her eyes, eyes that were filling fast with tears.
“Quitters shy away from the pain. Winners eat that shit like candy. How do you feel, Skylar? Do you love the pain?”
“I do, sir,” she relented.
He slapped her again, same place, rocking her head again.
“How do you feel now?”
“Alive, sir!” she said, the tears rolling down her face. He roughly swiped them away, palm open, smearing them across her face. “You look like a baby.”
She said nothing.
“Pain is a feeling. SO FEEL IT!”
She did.
She felt the weight of it, the texture of it, the instinctual feeling that if she showed it, she would garner sympathy. That was not true in class. Yoav was not a sympathetic warrior. Neither were the Chicoms. If she could feel the pain, then she could call it something else and ignore it.
“How do you feel now?” he’d asked.
Looking up at him, her eyes narrowed, her jaw flicking, she said, “I want more.”
So he punched her in the mouth, opening the wounds inside her mouth even deeper. She smiled at him, blood in her smile, in her teeth.
That’s when she put up her hands and got back in the fight.
Looking up at May, she held the rock at her side, contemplating the task. Skylar logged the woman’s hesitation, fought back the urge to treat her the same way Yoav treated her. If Skylar had that rock, she’d have alr
eady beaten this guy to death.
Skyler forced herself up, yanked the hammer out of the man’s skull, then smashed the rock down on his face three times until the skull caved in.
It was a bit overkill, but Skylar was pissed off at May’s hesitation. She wanted to make a point. So instead of letting it go, she swung the hammer sideways, burying the claw into his neck. She quickly planted a foot on his face, then ripped the hammer out sideways. The blood sprayed at first, then it spilled everywhere.
May was in shock. Skylar didn’t care. “You’d better get your act together if you want to hang with me.”
May’s eyes filled with tears, her face making that look, the one she knew well.
“You’re pathetic,” Skylar hissed. “Even worse, you’re going to get us killed.”
“I’m sorry,” May whispered, her voice shaky. “I’ve just never…I just…”
She handed May the bloody rock, buttoned up her shirt, then said, “The whole reason for distraction, for throwing away your dignity for these pigs, is so you can get that one precious second. You need that one second advantage, May. The instant you hesitate, we die.”
May looked down at her hand. Skylar picked up the discarded flashlight, shined the light on her hand. Her palm was slick with the man’s blood. She seemed to squirm.
“Is he dead?” May asked.
“Does the blood bother you?” Skylar whispered.
“Not normally,” she answered.
“So why now?”
“Because he was alive a second ago,” she said, quiet and somber, “and now he’s dead.”
“You’ve been seeing people get killed for years, right? These assholes and their firing squads?”
“Yes,” she conceded.
Skylar snatched the rock from her, wiped her hand in the blood, then smeared it across May’s face and said, “Until you bathe in it, you won’t learn to let it go. Let it go.”
May started to wipe her face; Skylar caught her hand, stopped her.
“Feel it,” she hissed.
May started to moan, the tears building. “It’s. So. Gross.”
