The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (reading women .TXT) 📕

Inhale. Exhale. I was like an apocalyptic version of a Lamaze coach. Inhale. Exhale.

With each breath, more of my faculties were coming online. Even so, a large segment of time was missing from my collective memory, or sure as hell seemed to be missing. And for whatever reason, I was angry. I was pretty sure head trauma could cause that, but I didn’t think that’s what it was. Enough cluttered artifacts were passing through my synapses that a mosaic of the events leading up to that point had slowly begun to form.

Jesus, I thought. Had Duane attacked me?

I craned my neck towards the snoring in the back. Avery was nestled on one side of the bench seat, while Quill sat on the other side, her hands tied and her face was covered with a Balaclava. After the night of the dead, where Quill tried to eat me, everyone agreed, even Quill, to that concession. She was to be restrained at night. At least there was that, I thought. I wondered what had happened to the ball cap she had been wearing.

I panned my head back and settled on the captain’s chair next to me. A familiar but somehow still unfamiliar woman sat in the chair, her features hard. The edge of her lip seemed, even in the shadows, to twist upward into a smirk. “Fuck,” I hissed. She was why I was mad.

A shuffling from the front could be heard. “Son, now just calm down--”

“Where are we… and where are we going?”

“Fairbanks,” Sam said. “Were we was always goin.”

“Not with her, though. Not fucking with her.”

Duane cleared his throat like he hadn’t spoken in a while. “She can help us--”

“You’re a gullible son of a bitch, Duane. She isn’t going to help us.” The events that had happened back at Toolik were coming back in waves. “She might know a scientist in the Order, but she isn’t going to help us. You can bet your ass on that.”

“It’s done, son. We here. She the only hope we have,” Sam said, his voice completely missing its usual assertiveness – the same swagger.

“She isn’t the answer--”

“You don’t know that,” Duane interrupted. “Your impulse is to just kill everyone. You’re crazy. Maybe you were normal before, but you’re off your rocker now.”

“You’ve not seen what we’ve seen, Duane. You don’t know shit about anything. I might be crazy, but I’m not completely fucking naïve, either.” I sighed. “Sam, you should know better. Did Duane tell you about the tracking device.”

“I done know I gotta a little hope right now. ‘At’s better ‘an I could say just a little while ago.”

“The tracking device. Did he tell you?”

“Yeah, and she did too. Said she didn’t do it. She even took it out.”

I should’ve killed her when I had the chance. At that point, it wasn’t an option. If I had tried to do something to her, I’m not sure what would’ve happened, but it wouldn’t have been good. At the very least, it would’ve only hurt my relationship with my friends – friends who had obviously pinned their hopes on this woman to save them. I didn’t bother trying to talk after that. Why would I? We were going into a hornet’s nest. I needed to keep my shit as calm as possible.

***

Curt voices startled me awake, and I felt a draft of freezing air blowing in from the open door adjacent to me. Janna was not in her seat. “Where’s the bitch?”

More shouts outside. First, in English, but changing quickly to Korean. Several men and women dressed in white fatigues trained weapons at the Ripsaw – more specifically, at us. It was hard to hear anything over the automatic gunfire in the background, not at us.

Part of me wanted to rub in what was happening. Call the ignorant bastards out for their incredibly gullible move… but I loved my friends. “Stay calm,” I whispered.

The soldiers rushed by Janna and pulled us roughly out of the Ripsaw. Duane wept as a soldier was extra rough with him. I got a punch to the gut for doing absolutely nothing, but we were all pretty much-punching bags to them.

Over the gunshots, I swore I heard the howls of Grays. Another round of gunfire subdued my ability to hear anything after that. It didn’t let up. We were in a war zone. A warzone that, for us, seemed to be separated by double razor wire fences and double gates. We were in the open area between those two fences, on our knees, and waiting to see what fate befell us, as we watched Janna give an emotional oratory to a gathered crowd inside.

A man came from somewhere to our left, maybe from one of the buildings, several armed gunmen surrounding him. He stopped just feet away from her and began to yell in Korean. She didn’t back down at all. In fact, she moved towards him, getting mere inches from him. He smacked her in the face, nearly causing her to fall to the ground. That’s when things went crazy.

In one quick movement, she nailed the guy in the balls with an open palm punch that, well, had to have hurt more than all the wounds on my body combined. As he fell, she smashed an elbow into the side of his face. He was out. One of his soldiers charged her but was taken down immediately by someone in the crowd Janna had been talking to. The others dropped their weapons, but that didn’t stop Janna’s lackies from beating them to death. Apparently, there was a new leader in town.

Janna then screeched some orders, and we, along with the Ripsaw, were brought inside the interior gate. We were strip-searched right there. Our possessions were taken, including our coats, shoes, weapons, and anything else we might’ve had, but mainly our dignity.

We were then made to run towards a small structure that would become our new home. Two quick gunshots caused all of us to flinch. I saw Janna