All the usual copyright stuff applies to this novella.
Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html Email: kavrik@hotmail.com Twitter: @MichaelOffutt
Author's Note: Please visit my website above. There is a picture of Jordan that I drew myself in the gif image (let me know if you think he's cute). You will also find a link to a blog post I wrote on Kolin and killsuits (with a pic of him I drew myself). I'd also like a little feedback on whether or not you like my vision of Kolin.
Kolin is an assassin that has been alive almost 100 years, but he remains young-looking (in the mid-twenties) because he is addicted to Liquid Life (a drug common on Avalon--the world in which this story takes place.
I have not explained Liquid Life in this novella, but it is explained in the short story "The Insanity of Zero" also on the Nifty Archive. "Wraith" uses the main characters featured in the science-fiction novel "SLIPSTREAM", but is its own story which will be featured entirely on Nifty. Both of these stories are based off of the events established in the short story, "The Insanity of Zero" (4500 words). If you haven't read it, please check it out because it explains SO much.
Chapter Seven
"This one can go," a female voice declared.
With relief, Jordan heard the grinding of gears, and the vehicle lurched forward.
After a minute, he pulled the tarp back and peered out from the rear of the truck as it moved through the street. Kathy pressed down on his head to remind him to stay low.
"Your blond hair is going to be easy to spot," she whispered to him. Unlike Jordan, she played it safe and lay prone on the bed of the truck.
After a minute, the truck stopped on a dirt pad next to a building with a burnt-out street lamp. Jordan emerged from the tarp and jumped out of the truckbed, landing deftly on the balls of his feet. Kathy stepped down beside him and stretched her legs.
They clung to the shadows and bolted from the rear of the vehicle to the side of a warehouse. Jordan kept the truck between them and the driver, who exited the vehicle and lit a cigarette. From there, they walked out onto the street and started looking through windows and open garage doors for anyplace their bikes might be stored.
A few streets over, Jordan spotted the three black Kawasaki Ninjas they rode into town a day earlier. Each stood parked inside a chop shop where two women labored over on an old Ford Mustang lifted up on cinder blocks. On each of the seats, Jordan identified their motorcycle suits and helmets. He gnashed his teeth together and turned to his anxious sibling. "Follow my lead, okay?"
She nodded, "Aye," and then managed a brief salute.
Jordan stood up and strode directly into the shop and pulled out the Colt .44.
One woman wore her hair straight and black. Small white flecks that could have been lice clung to dirty, natural dreadlocks. She turned to face him and didn't flinch one bit even though he had a gun pointed directly at her head. She dropped an air filter and raised her hands above her shoulders.
"You got no trouble from me, kid," she said. "Can I help you?"
Jordan nervously threw his gaze to the other woman who had emerged from under the hood. Her face had black oil spots on both cheeks and in her hand she held a wrench, gripped tight, showing white knuckles. A blue and red bandana covered her hair. A cold sweat broke out along Jordan's face and neck, quickly soaking through his filthy shirt. A bead of sweat dripped off the tip of his narrow nose.
"Let's not do anything we'll regret, kid," the other woman cautioned. "Do we have some business with you?"
"No," he said, his voice choking. "I-I mean yes." To emphasize that he wasn't afraid to fire his gun, he cocked the hammer back with his thumb. "We're taking two of these bikes here. You can have the other."
The greasy-haired mechanic looked at her companion, as if recognition had suddenly set in. "Ah I get it. These are the two that were supposedly executed this morning out by the old mine. Ashley is such a lying cunt--who would've thought?" She paused, thinking of what she was going to say next. Arching one eyebrow, the woman continued, "You goin' after your friend, 'cause I hear that he's going to be eaten alive." She swallowed and in that silence, Jordan knew she was sizing him up, giving him time to let the words that she'd just relayed sink in. "You plan on being there when he starts screaming?"
"Shut up," Jordan cut her off. "That's enough talk. Now, where are the keys?"
Both of the women refused to answer him. He walked up to the black- haired mechanic and pressed the tip of the gun into her forehead with enough pressure that the end of the dirty barrel left a black ring on her skin.
"I'm only going to say this one more time. Where are the keys?"
She clenched her draw and motioned with her brown eyes to a workbench against the west wall. Above that, hung a pegboard where a pair of keys dangled from a nail.
"Right there, sunshine. But you better watch your back."
Without a word, Kathy walked over and retrieved them and then moved to one of the bullet bikes to start it. Next she slipped on one of the helmets and then popped the seat up, stuffing the cycle outfit into the compartment under the seat. She did the same for Jordan's, placing his key into the ignition for him so that he wouldn't have to do it himself. Jordan backed off, gun trembling in his hand, not willing to take his eyes off the mechanic for even a second.
When he'd backpedalled to Kathy's bike, she took the Colt .44 from him and kept it aimed while he got his bike started and donned the other helmet which she'd left out for him.
"Jordan," Kathy said, "Go ahead and go out first. I've got this under control."
He did as she instructed and turned his bike on the shop floor, and moved slowly out of the garage. When he got to the street, Kathy guided hers back slowly with her feet, managing to keep the gun pointed at the first woman's chest.
From outside, Jordan watched both women drop their hands and start cursing. The one wearing the bandana threw the wrench on the ground with a loud clang. He turned his head sideways and gave the throttle a strong twist. His bullet bike leapt down the dirt street and Kathy followed him. After two blocks, they turned west and steered for the gate. As yet, no alarm had been raised, so when they arrived the guards just waved them through.
They passed swiftly into the night.
Once well beyond the oil refinery, Jordan turned his high beams on and turned east along the I-70 corridor, hoping that they headed in the general direction of St. Louis. He knew that the geography of Avalon was essentially identical to Earth; it was his only advantage. It infuriated Jordan that Kolin was being sold for money. For all he knew, Kolin's buyers would throw in a pack of cigs. He could not think of anything more fucked up.
Jordan knew he needed a plan. So, he thought carefully on it despite being dead-tired, and the analytical approach seemed best.
He figured on taking the road toward Denver which would go through the Colorado Rockies. Beyond that, he reasoned, I-70 should continue on to Kansas City and then that would in turn, lead them to St. Louis. He hoped that they'd be able to come upon the truck that held Kolin long before reaching the Mississippi River, but Kolin's captors had, by his estimates, more than a 12-hour lead on them. There was no choice but to keep going and test the limit of human fatigue.
The two of them pushed themselves onward through the night despite the urge to fall asleep at the wheel. Jordan stopped at least once an hour to check up on his sister who, for the most part, rode either on his right or slightly behind him on the interstate. Because she wore her helmet visor down, he couldn't be sure if she was drifting off to sleep, so it was more of a personal precaution than anything else.
To his surprise, a few tunnels that they drove through were well lit, probably powered by lines running from Denver to Grand Junction and kept operational for traffic carrying fuel from the refineries in the oil fields. He remembered hearing something about that from Ashley, so at least a small part of what she said remained true. It was an eerie and exhausting ride to Denver-made eerie because they never saw another vehicle on the road the entire time. It looked like the whole world of humans had become extinct.
Sometime in the early morning, working on almost 24-hours without rest, the two of them drove past the ruins of Denver. Not a single light shone forth in the darkness, but Jordan knew that there were people here somewhere. Jordan's eyes dropped down to the gas gauge, and the tanks approached the quarter mark. Soon they'd need to refuel. He signaled back at Kathy with a raised fist and began to slow, directing her with his right hand to follow him down an exit ramp into a deserted street choked with the rusted shells of 70-year-old cars.
The beam from the front of his cycle reflected off white patches. He looked again and saw thousands of bones littering the cracked tar surface of the streets. He lifted the visor to his helmet and heard only the noise made by the high-performance engine between his legs. Then the sun emerged from its hiding place behind the horizon and spread golden light over the rumpled landscape. The field of bones seemed to continue on in both directions for miles. As morbid as the scene seemed, it puzzled him.
What had happened here?
Jordan angled his head west and looked out over the distant skyline. He saw the ruins of the Qwest skyscraper along with other tall buildings, some of them leaning as if knocked off of their foundations by a powerful blast. The concrete sidewalks to either side of him had cracked and shattered. Street lamps hung from old wires, bent haplessly to the ground. And broken signal lights lay amidst what once must've been a busy intersection.
Everywhere he looked lay fields of broken glass.
He raised his visor and blinked blearily at the sunlight. On the street corner a thousand feet away stood a service station that might possibly contain fuel at the bottom of their tanks.
"Let's stop there," he indicated. "We need to find gas, or we aren't going any further."
I'll post chapter eight this weekend.