Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads) (26 page)

Chapter Six

I
got up from my bed and stretched. It had been three and a half hours since I’d talked to Jerry and the bearded man. I figured it had been that long because of the chiming clock located outside my cell. It had gone off every quarter of an hour without fail. It was a buzzing clock. Like an alarm.

The first time it went off, I thought someone in the compound was sounding it off, warning the others of an attack, but then it continued without hindrance for a few more times. I counted each time it went off. Every time it did, someone shouted something. It was as if they lived by time. Everything was done in accordance to time. A man had shouted, “Chow-down in an hour.” The clock went off another four times. And then someone entered my cell. The door was still left open, so they had no problem coming in with a tray of food. The person smiled and placed the tray down on the bed. He nodded and walked off. I examined the tray for a while. Two bits of hard bread and some sloshy shit in a bowl. Hell, it might have been icky-looking, but I was used to eating stuff from trash cans. I smelled the bowl of slush. It smelled of canned meat and potato starch. I decided it must be safe, and if it wasn’t, as least I’d have a full stomach when I died.

Ten minutes went by, and I had finished the last bit of food. It tasted surprisingly good. I felt warm and rested. It was a feeling that I wasn’t exactly used to. Eating shit all your life will make you accustomed to an upset stomach. What I was feeling was as alien as compassion from my fellow human beings.

I heard a rattle at my door. Someone was at the doorway; it was the woman who had been here before. She was beautiful, as I probably mentioned earlier. She came in and sat next to me on my bed. She started playing with her hair a little and then gave me a look I had never seen anyone give me before.

“Last Jew on the planet,” she said.

I just nodded. This whole “last Jew” shit was beginning to annoy me. I was more than a race of people — I was a goddamn human! Didn’t they know that?

“You ever heard the saying ‘If you were the last man on the earth’?” 

“Can’t say I have,” I said.

“Well, if you shut that door, I can show you the definition,” she said.

I shook my head. “But I thought you guys were in charge of shutting the door. Aren’t I a prisoner here?”

The woman smiled. I could see her brown hair bounce off her shoulders as she grinned, showing pearly white teeth.

“No, you can go about your business as you choose. You are our guest.”

“Jerry told me I was your hostage,” I said.

She smiled again. Her Latino heritage really shone through when she was acting coy. I knew what her game was, and I wasn’t like that. Sure, I felt attracted to her, but I was not in the business of getting friendly with my captors.

“So I’m free to walk around the compound?”

“Yes, do whatever you like, Abel.”

I got up from my bed again and stretched once more. The feeling of curiosity had overrun my core. I was excited to see what was beyond these walls I had been encased in for the better part of the day. “And no one is going to punish me for stepping out of my cell?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’ll show you around if you want.”

I nodded. She took me by the hand. She had a caring way about her. A compassion I had never seen before. She generally looked like she cared about me in some way. I immediately felt that I could trust her.

Chapter Seven

New-Germania

C
ommander Klaus entered the Major’s office in the middle of the square. Its big bay windows overlooked the marvelous splendor of New-Germania’s capital city in the United States, known before as Washington D.C., now simply known as Section 8. A jet flew by the window as Klaus timidly made his way over to the big arching desk the Major operated from.

“So you made it, Klaus.”

Klaus nodded, sitting down, folding one long leg over his knee.

“The situation is being handled, Major. I don’t see why we need to go through with anything rash.”

The Major smiled. His black leather garments shone in the dim dusk escaping into the room.

“Rash would be to blow the rebels to hell — now, that would be rash. What I am suggesting, as are the rest of the army commission, is a solution to a problem that has plagued our people for the past seventy years. We need to exterminate every single Jew to fulfill our promise. Our legacy depends on it. Out of the millions of Germans who have died at war for this day to come, don’t you think we owe it to them? To their families?”

Klaus nodded his head in understanding. For too long he had dreamed of the day that was this day. For too long he had dreamed of finding the last Jew, and accomplishing what Hitler had set out to do all those years ago. 

“For Germania, Major.” Klaus saluted as he stood up.

“For Germania,” the Major repeated, and smiled.

Klaus walked out of that meeting feeling renewed. Maybe down the line he had lost sight of what really mattered. But now he knew what really mattered. And the German army was prepared to do what it needed to do to accomplish it. For it did not end with the last Jew, Abel Brewer. It just began with him, and ended with them. It ended when they said it ended. And the Major was far from the end. He sat alone at his desk, pondering his next move. A small smile wrapped around his lips as he pushed a button on a receiver that sat neatly at an angle on his pinewood desk.  

“Call in the air strike on the compound. Coordinates are as follows: 84.523.345, DELTA, EAST,” the Major bellowed into his two-way.

A man’s voice echoed out of the speaker. “Target destruction ETA, fifteen minutes.”

Chapter Eight

The Rebel Compound

I
must admit, when I first saw the console in the middle of the compound, I was rather impressed. Even now, recalling it makes me think of how lucky I was to be with such a prepared group, such an advanced rebel group, at that. When you think of rebels traditionally, you think of scroungers, humanitarian aid, and knock-off Russian weapons. These guys didn’t have knock-off anything. They had the computing power to do what they liked. I saw they had scanners for all sorts of threats: air, sea, bio, chemical, and nuclear. Every single possibility was covered. I felt safe.

Looking at what trouble they’d gone to in securing such a base was mind-boggling. It never occurred to me what Jerry had said to me before. The fact that it wasn’t really their base at all didn’t even register with me. It should have. Hell, if they were smart, it should have registered with them. Looking back on it now, we all should have seen what was coming. But “what ifs” don’t really mean shit when it comes down to it. What really matters is how you deal with it.

“So the console operates on what power source?” I asked, feeling pleased with myself; it wasn’t often that I got to be inquisitive, let alone be in the company of people with such expertise. I mean, down the road, I could need some of this information.
Who’s to say that I could be on my own one day and need to know certain technological advantages that will keep me alive? It’s possible…I guess
.

“Electricity…what else would it run on?” the girl who had escorted me said with a laugh.

I now knew her name. “Danni, I know this may come as a shock to you, but I didn’t have many electrical components in my trench.” 

“What exactly did you have in your trench?”

I smiled and then felt a little empty. “Besides my brother, nothing of any importance,” I said, immediately feeling selfish for my having self-pity ruin something light-hearted.

“I’m sorry, Abel,” Danni said.

I immediately recalled my self-pity and shook myself out of my slump. “No, I’m sorry. It’s selfish of me to always be harping on about my dead brother,” I said, trying to sound tough in the face of the tears welling up in the corner of my eyes.

Danni’s beautiful smile made me forget what a coward I had been all my life. It made me forget my troubles for that split second. It made me remember that being human isn’t always about the bad stuff. It could quite possibly be about the good stuff, if I let it.

“Your brother was important to you. You have every right to be upset, Abel. Just know this — I, along with everyone here, am here for you. Don’t you forget that!”

I must admit that having someone you just met no more than four hours ago tell you something along those lines — it might have clouded my judgment a little…just a little.

Chapter Nine

In the Meeting Room

“Y
ou’re saying what I think you’re saying?” Jerry asked as he bit his lip nervously. Both he and the bearded man were alone in the meeting room away from all of the others.

“Yeah, Jerry, we are pretty much screwed. How the hell am I going to tell the others?” Jonas asked while scratching his big beard.

“We don’t. We just evacuate. Surely we can’t keep everyone in the dark? We don’t need to say anything, just that it’s unsafe and we need to get going!” 

“And then they will ask questions, questions I don’t feel comfortable answering.”

Jerry got up from his seat in frustration. “Like what, exactly? That we shouldn’t have trusted the Germans? We come clean, Jonas. We come clean.”

Jonas refrained himself from shouting. He knew that this situation needed a calm head. It could have done with two, but Jerry was nowhere near as calm as Jonas needed him to be.

“And tell them what? We tried to make a deal with the Germans, and it came back and bit us in the ass?” said Jonas sarcastically.

“They know that. I’m talking about the other thing…the Abel thing….”

Jonas’s temper got the better of him. “Never! Don’t you fucking dare say anything about that! It will destroy the group. It will put us in danger.”

Jerry shook his head and started to pace. “Don’t you think they have a right to know…to know what we were planning?”

“No, they don’t. We stick to the plan. We get out of here in ten minutes. We take the Jeep and go back…home,” said Jonas.

“This is our home. These are our people!”

“No, Jerry. Our home is Section 8. Our home is with the Commander and the Major. We have them where we want them. We have the rebels in the palm of our hands. New-Germania will triumph once again.”

“But…” said Jerry, at a loss for words.

“Prepare your stuff. Our work here is done. Base has just told me they are sending some jets down our way and blowing this place up. We have to get out of here and debrief,” said Jonas.

“What about the rebels?” asked Jerry.

“You knew what you were getting yourself into when you became an agent of the Reich. You will have to live with yourself, or I’m leaving you with the rebels. I’m sure being blown up with the rest of them will help ease your conscience.”

*

I stood behind the door with Danni, dismayed and at a loss for words.

“
The Reich? Agents?
” I said.

She shook her head and put her finger to her lips. “We need to get out of here, and fast.”

We started to run. I didn’t know why we were making our escape so obvious, but what we’d heard behind the door had shocked us both. I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay. Something inside me told me that running would be useless. I had run for too long. I had begun to feel as if running was all I did. The trenches. Jacob. The past twenty years had all been running and nothing much else. I had grown weary.

“Come on, Abel, keep up,” Danni said as we ran down the same corridor we’d made our way through on the tour of the compound she’d given me before everything went south.

“I am,” I said.

As we got closer to the end of the corridor, a man entered through the archway we were about to go through. He had a surprised look on his face. An AK-47 was strapped to his chest, holstered freely without a care in the world. He had a dumb look on his face, half smile, half terror.

“What’s going on, Danni?” he asked, looking at me with a close observational glare.

“We need to get out of here!” she bellowed. The man shook his head in confusion, still keeping his eyes on me. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Jerry and Jonas are planning something. Something that could get us hurt.”

“What?” he asked, now looking on edge, as if he were about to reach for his gun.

I watched his hands tremble at his sides as Danni went on to explain.

“You need to calm down, Danni. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding,” the guy said.

“You need to get out of our way,” I said, deciding to make myself heard for the first time.

“What did you say, Jew?” The guy reached for his gun.

Before he could do anything, Danni had reached for hers and had it aimed at his head. I hadn’t even noticed she was carrying a pistol on her. I must have been taken away by her smile, among other things, to notice something as important as that.

“I’m warning you. I will shoot you in the head,” she said.

The guy with the AK-47 just nodded. He put his hands up, raising them high in the air, showing that he was giving up.

Danni pressed her gun into his chest. I could see her grinding her teeth. “Now turn around. You’re coming with us. I need you as a shield if the rest of them decide to pop at us.”

“A shield? We can’t do that, Danni,” I said.

She just gave me an unsympathetic look. “We do if we want to survive,” she said.

She prodded the pistol into the man’s back and escorted him forward. We made our way through the archway and out of the hallway. What was waiting for us was an empty room. Before, it had been buzzing with activity. When Danni and I had gone through there not ten minutes prior, we had seen it full of folks; now it was completely empty. All that remained were a few bottles of water and an eeriness that nothing could shake off.

“Where the hell is everyone?” said the man Danni had her gun pointed at.

“Fuck knows,” she replied.

Suddenly I heard footsteps behind us. Someone was walking down the hallway. I nudged Danni; she immediately knew what was going on. She had real good instincts about her. She knew when to play nice and when to play rough. She was a real hard woman.

“Fucking move, and I’ll blow your brains out. Say a word, and I’ll shoot your face off. You get the picture?” she said.

The man just nodded. I remember feeling peculiar. Why was I finding all of this exciting? I shouldn’t find danger exciting. I should be hiding in a corner. What was happening to me?

“Good. I found you. We are evacuating the building. We are on the move,” a voice from behind us said.

I turned around and saw Jerry standing there with a smile on his face. He didn’t notice the guy Danni had her gun trained on. He didn’t notice the look of sheer terror on my face. We had to act fast. We needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. So I took the lead.

“Show us the way, boss,” I said in the most sincere way I could.

Jerry just smiled. He then put his hands to the sides. “I forgot something in my office. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Just make your way up the stairs,” he said, turning around and running off back down the hallway.

I quickly turned my head and looked at Danni. She didn’t look too great. She looked at a loss for words.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked.

“We kill him,” she said.

The guy was just about to scream when Danni covered his mouth. His moaning was muffled under her hand. I just stood there in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I thought killing him would be a bit drastic. I also knew he could blow our cover. He could spill the beans and tell the rest of the group we knew about Jerry and Jonas. We could be the ones being killed. I was sure of that. That was when I decided to help. I had to. I just couldn’t let Danni do this by herself. Sure, I didn’t know her from anywhere, but I could see she had
some
good in her.

I saw the locker near the control console. I rushed over there. I opened it. It was empty. It was big enough to fit a few computers and some extras. It was definitely big enough to hide a man inside it. I whistled to Danni, who was looking at me with awe. I could see that she was surprised at my fast
thinking. I guess she thought I would just melt in a situation like this. She was right, but somehow I knew this had to be done.

She came toward me, prodding the man along with her. He had a look of terror on his face. We had to do this quickly.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Before she could say anything, I punched the guy in the face. He hit the deck hard, cracking his head on the floor. I could see he was knocked out.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Knocking him out. I’d rather not kill him. If he dies, it was the Germans, not us,” I said.

She nodded her head in agreement. We then grabbed him and stuffed him into the locker. We slammed it shut. I saw the clock on the wall. It had been at least three minutes since Jerry went into his office. I decided we needed to scram. I grabbed Danni by the hand. She smiled, a nervous smile at best.

“Lets get out of here,” I said.

We both ran for the stairs and went up them as fast as our legs would take us.

With every step we took, the daylight bursting through the open door leading out of the barn came closer. The air became cleaner. The sounds became louder until we had run up two thousand steps. As we reached the top, my lungs felt as if they were going to collapse.

And then I saw them.

I saw them pointing their guns at us.

I saw the Germans.