Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads) (10 page)

Fifteen

‘Why the hell did you stab him?’ asks Ray in disbelief

‘I didn’t stab him! I injected him with some damn Ketamine!’

‘The horse tranquiliser?’ Asks Donner

‘Yes, god damn. Chill out guys. The guy’s dangerous, I had to do something!’

Ray looks down at Mitch who’s sprawled out on the floor.

‘I don’t know if knocking him out with drugs was the best thing you could have done David,’ says Ray

‘Well I just did, so sue me!’ says David with a hint of irony in his voice.

Suddenly one of the little girls, Tristan wakes up and spots Mitch on the floor

‘What happened to that man?’ she asks

David looks at Ray in shock

‘Oh your daddy went to sleep, he’s tiered you see. Too much time on his feet, it will do a lot to a man you know. So he needs his rest,’ says Ray calmly

‘Daddy?’ says the girl in confusion.

‘Yeah…Daddy,’ says Ray

David looks at Mitch on the floor as a thousand thoughts run through his mind.  He then looks up at Tristan who is sitting up next to her sleeping sister, whipping the night’s sleep away from her eyes.

‘He is your daddy right?’  Asks David

Suddenly a distant popping sound is heard.

‘Is that gunshots?’ asks Donner in fear of her life

The popping sounds draw nearer as the group stand around in shock of what they are hearing. It seems as if time has stood still and all that’s left is the nearing sound of gunfire. Suddenly a man runs into the area in which the group is standing in. He came from around the corner in a hurry. He seems surprised to see the group of survivors standing in front of him. Blood is gushing out of his mouth as he looks up at the staring group.

‘Run….Their coming!’ the man says before he hits the floor face first. His body hits the sewage with a splash. The sight of the man collapsing scares Tristan as she screams in fear. Her sister wakes up immediately and looks around to see what is going on.

‘Shit what are we going to do?’ Asks Ray

‘I don’t know,’ says Donner

David rushes towards his bag and pulls out a shotgun. He loads two shells into it. The sound of the gun cocking alerts the group.

‘What the hell?’ Says Donner

‘You’ve had a gun all this time?’ Asks Ray

‘Of course I have. I didn’t come unarmed, first thing I did was grab a gun from the gun store. It was being ransacked when I ran out of the restaurant I was in when all this shit went down. You surly didn’t think I would come here empty handed?’

‘First you’re stabbing people in the neck with syringes and now you have a shotgun! What next? You secretly have a fuck load of food in the bag as well?’ asks Ray

Before anyone can continue to argue, a figure of a person approaching the entrance is seen. Before the figure can be seen properly, David runs closer to the entrance through the sewage and lets out two shotgun blasts. The group hit the floor as the sound of defensive gunfire is heard from the figure at the entrance.

‘Keep down!’ screams Donner as the two little girls start to cry in terror.

Sixteen

‘Just tell me what the hell is going on! I have people in New York blowing up and you’re telling me this isn’t a terrorist attack?’ Asks the President.

The men in the oval office look at each other while trying to collect their thoughts.

‘Well, I don’t know if it is a terrorist attack or not. We just can’t be too sure Sir,’ says one of the official looking men in the room. The other three men just look at the president with apologetic eyes.

‘How can this not be a terrorist attack? What about the phone call from Henderson Hall?’

‘We have the National Guard forming a perimeter around the Marine Core training base, we should have a clearer idea of what we are dealing with when we get satellite images back of the base,’ says one of the men.

The President starts to pace the width of his desk. His anger is evident on his face; the bulge in his neck alerts the room to his state of being. Everyone in the Whitehouse knows when the president is in a bad mood, he is notoriously known for being hot headed but the president’s next words surprise everyone.

‘Well done. I’m pleased at how fast everyone has reacted to this situation but the National Guard will not b
e
necessary. We shouldn’t waste our time with Henderson Hall,’ says the president

The room hushes into a deafening silence.

‘What?’ asks one of the men abruptly

‘You heard me, call off the Apache’s,’ says the President.

‘I’m sorry sir, but that’s not your call. This is a matter for the department of defence to deal with,’ says the outspoken man.

‘I don’t care, I’m the president, and you will do as I say’

The four men opposite to the President look at each other in dismay.

‘I’m sorry sir, it’s done. The Apaches are on their way’

The president’s eyes burn a hole into the men in front of him.

‘I said fucking call the mission off!’ screams the President

Suddenly a heavy set man walks into the room. It’s the Secretary of Defence Howard.

‘We can’t call the Apache’s off. It’s confirmed from the satellite images that they have two Stinger missile launch pads that are fully functional and it seems as if they are going to fire,’ says Howard

The President doesn’t seem to want to listen to any of his men.

‘So why bother risking two Apache helicopters? If the Stingers get launched then we are screwed. Those two birds will go down and we will be two gunner helicopters short!’ says the President

The Secretary of Defence just smiles a candid grin, one that throws off everyone in the room.

‘Fuck the helicopters, I’m talking about nuking the base!’ says Howard.

Seventeen

‘Get behind cover!’ Shouts David as he finishes loading some more shells into the shotgun.

He fires two more bursts into the tight opening of the sewage outflow entrance. The shadowy figure can be seen to reload a heavy looking SMG of some sorts. The click of the magazine going into place sends a shiver down David’s spine. He looks back at the group on the floor, all with a terrorized look on their faces, except Mitch, who is still knocked out from the tranquilizer shot to his neck.  Ray watches on as David fires another two shots in the vicinity of the figure with the machine gun, then like a well-rehearsed play, the shadowy figure returns fire. The bullets from the small machine gun pepper the walls around them. Bits of dust fall from the onslaught of gun fire and hit the floor. The crackling sound of bullets whizzing by the group’s head’s puts much of the struggle into perspective.

Ray still has his head buried into the floor. Every gunshot sends a resounding feeling of doom down to the depths of his heart. He made it to safety down to the sewers just to be shot by a mad man. He starts to laugh. Donner, who is next to him looks at him in a surprised manner. She can’t quite believe that Ray is laughing his ass off at a time like this.

‘What the hell is wrong with you, stop laughing!’ she says impatiently.

‘It’s just, too damn funny,’ he says, still laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’ she asks

‘That we are going to die by gunshot wounds, and all this time we were worried about the lights in our wrists blowing us to hell!’

Donner smiles at the analogy.

‘Well at least we won’t leave too much of a mess,’ she says, laughing a little herself.

David continues to shoot back at the figure. He’s certain there is only one man with a gun. He can’t be one hundred per cent sure, but judging from the shadowing on the walls from the light reflecting off the blazed oil drum, he’s quite certain that there is only one shooter. He sees the man’s face for the first time. Its balaclava’d. The way the shooter is leaning in and out of cover suggests he is well trained.

‘Are we going to die?’ asks Tristan whose lying on her front behind Donner.

Donner turns her head around and smiles at the little girl. She looks at the girl’s sister, Abigail who is on the verge of tears.

‘No, we won’t die. Don’t you worry, we will get out of this,’ she says

David loads his last two shells into his pump handle shotgun. He’s just about to shoot when he notices a sewage pipe parallel to the balaclava’d man who is shooting at them. He takes aim at the pipe and shoots two rounds into it. The pipe bursts and a huge pressure filled spray of sewage blows out of it. It ejects fast and hits the wall the man is behind, throwing him off his feet and into the open. The blast of sewage had knocked the man’s machine gun out of his hands and somewhere in to the sludgy water. The man remains on the floor in front of David, trying to get up but unable to. David walks a few steps towards the man and lands a running kick to the man’s head, snapping it back violently.

Eighteen

New Jersey,
East Rutherford, Met Life Stadium

A covert militia man lies on his back gasping for air. Sammy Banes stands over him, looking into his eyes. A constant wheezing of the man’s chest makes Sammy feel uncomfortable. He’s never killed a man before. It takes some getting used to. But it’s something he realises he has to do. Sammy catches himself looking at the devastation around him. Bodies lie scattered around the underground area of Met Life stadium. More than half of his group are dead. When the covert militia men hit them a few hours ago, they came in fast and furious, taking out over a hundred people with rapid machine gun fire. Sammy had to take cover. He was lucky that over fifty armed police man had made their way underground when the world went to shit. If they didn’t have any armed men or women with them, maybe it would have been a different story. Maybe it would be Sammy lying on the floor, bleeding out from a chest wound. Maybe it would be a militia man pointing a gun at Sammy’s head much like Sammy is doing at this current moment in time.

Sammy’s hand is shaking slightly as he holds the weight of the gun in his grip. He can feel the sweat coming off his hands, making the gun feel uneasy. He continues to look the army man in his eyes. An acute realisation of fear is present in both Sammy and the man on the floor. Even though Sammy has a gun, he doesn’t know whether he can shoot him or not.

‘Shoot the prick,’ a voice says from behind him.

Sammy turns around and see’s the remaining group of survivors look on at the incident unfolding in front of them. Sammy turns back around and kneels down, pressing the gun against the man’s neck.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sammy says as he pulls the trigger.

The gunshot pings off the walls and rings in Sammy’s ears.

‘They fucking killed two hundred of us man, two hundred! You should have shot him sooner,’ says the man’s voice once again.

Sammy doesn’t move, he just watches as the blood escapes the dead militia man’s neck.

‘You hear me Mr Big shot?’ asks the man

Sammy slowly gets up and turns around to face the group member. It’s the man he ended up kicking in the face not too long ago. He walks up to the heckling man and shoves the handgun into the man’s hand.

‘Next time you use the gun and see what it feels like,’ says Sammy

The man stands there in shock, not quite knowing how to react.

Sammy walks off and leaves the group to themselves.

Nineteen

Jesse Manteo is sitting down at his desk looking through case files. It’s been a long shift. It seems like forever since the city of New York was normal. The continuous cases of people blowing up and militia men shooting up the streets is causing the life of a law enforcement officer to be nothing but visiting crime scenes and working with the FBI. Word has gotten out to the public that the streets of New York are not safe. A state of emergency has been put into effect and the National Guard now patrols the city in droves. The government are hell bent on figuring this thing out before it destroys America.

Jesse’s partner, Ricky Pastori is kneeling over Jesse’s desk reading the case file he’s on. The both of them have been silent since attending the crime scene on 48
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street. Most of the cop’s downtown have family in the city. A lot of them couldn’t do anything before the so called virus that’s causing people to explode took their lives. It’s the same for both Ricky and Jesse. The whereabouts of their families are unknown. The department have reassured them that they will do everything in their powers to find everyone who is missing, including family members of working NYPD officers.

Most people would take a day off in circumstances like this, but on this day of all days, it’s highly unlikely any police man or woman would take any time off. The city of New York is under a constant terrorist attack and it’s going to take the whole damn county to put a stop to it.

Ricky looks at Jesse with sympathetic eyes.

‘I’m sure it’s going to be okay,’ he says patting his partner on the shoulder.

‘I hope so. I just didn’t think anything like this could ever happen. I mean how the hell can people be self-combusting? And why is it that only certain people are self-combusting? Why aren’t we dead yet?’

‘God must have a plan for us Jesse,’ says Ricky

Throughout the years, Jesse has always respected his partner’s religious beliefs but today his patience for such comments is wearing thin.

‘So he has a plan for us but not for the thousands of New Yorkers who have died today?’ asks Jesse

‘You know what I mean man, we just need to be grateful that we are alive and we have a chance to put an end to this’

Jesse shakes his head

‘What if this isn’t a terrorist attack? What if it’s something else? What if it’s aliens or something?’

Ricky laughs

‘Aliens? There’s no such thing!’

‘Well it may seem absurd to you, but how else do you explain a weapon that can make people explode? Doesn’t really sound like anything in our capability, let alone any of our enemies’

‘So if it is aliens Jesse, how do you explain the mass shooting down 48
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?’

Jesse nods his head.

‘Good question. Why do you think I’m reading case files? I’m trying to figure this shit out!’

Ricky stretches his arms out, looking as if he hasn’t slept in over four days. The bags under his eyes are big enough to put a week’s grocery shopping in them.

‘You want some coffee?’ asks Ricky, who’s still stretching

‘Nah, I’m going to see what I can get on the day’s events through the FBI database’

‘Good luck, I’m pretty sure you need to be in the FBI to access that information,’ says Ricky walking off to get a coffee.

‘I have my ways,’ says Jesse to himself.