Kody Boye - Sunrise

A bead of sweat ran down Dakota’s face, jumping his cheek and the sharp curve of his jaw, and the young man had one brief moment to sigh before it hit his hand.

He jumped; his knee collided with the dash.

Steve burst from sleep, sat up quickly, and hit his head on the bar connecting the overhead mirror. “Fuck,” he groaned.

“My bad,” Dakota said, looking down at his hand.

“What happened?”

“Woke up.”

“Bad dream?”

“No. I thought something touched my hand.”

“Did something?”

“It was just sweat.”

“Ah,” Steve chuckled, leaning back and rubbing his forehead. “I see.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok. I’ll just have a bruise in the morning.”

“You’re an asshole,” Dakota laughed, punching his friend’s arm.

“But you love me anyway.”

Smiling and unable to control himself, Dakota wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulder and leaned into his side. Ahead of them, nearly hidden by a storage shelf and the contents within it, a window offered a faint glimpse of the buildings across from them. Illuminated by moonlight and sharpened by reflection, their images cut a hole in Dakota’s mind and sent shivers down his spine.

“You ok?” Steve asked.

“Just a little nervous, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Leaving.”

“Me too,” Steve said, setting an arm across Dakota’s back. “Trust me, buddy, I am too.”

Not sure what else to say, Dakota simply sat there, reveling in the closeness they shared. It took him less than a minute to turn his head, lean forward, and plant a brief kiss on his friend’s cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?” Steve asked.

“For coming back for me.”

Neither of them spoke.

They simply listened to the birds.

Morning came with a crisp lining of rain. Drizzle running down the window and a chill creeping into the garage, Steve and Dakota rose from their place in the bus and continued work on their modifications. Dakota hammered down the nails protruding into the bus and capped them with a protective lining, while Steve crawled onto the hood of the vehicle and strung rubber mesh across the windshield. Throughout this process, the weather continued to worsen. Rain sprinkled the street in five-minute bouts and fog threatened to overwhelm the city with its lingering presence, though whenever the weather seemed to get worse, it always cleared, offering a brief glimmer of hope in the form of sunshine. In a way, the sporadic work of Mother Nature reflected upon their current situation, almost to the point where it made Dakota uncomfortable.

You’re just being paranoid. His wandering mind nearly made him smash the hammer down on his fingers. Concentrate!

“Hey, Dakota?”

“What?” he called back.

“How close are you to being done with the nails?”

“Almost done with this side.”

“This weather’s starting to make me nervous.”

“You’re not worried about floods, are you?”

“How can you not be? We’ve had problems with flooding for the past four years.”

You’ve got a point, he thought, then sighed. He hammered down the last nail, then turned to work on the other side. “How soon can you be finished with the windows?” he asked.

“I can do a quick and dirty and just string one line of mesh across all the windows on both sides, but I guess it depends on what you think is safest.”

“Do you think it’s safer?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, we could hammer nails in above and below each window, like we did with the barbed wire.”

“Can we use the nails that we used on the barbed wire to secure the mesh?”

“We’d have to take the barbwire down.”

“That’s not going to happen. Do whatever you think is best. I’ll keep hammering these nails down.”

“But I…” Steve trailed off. Dakota leaned out into the aisle to look at his friend, offering a quizzical look out to the front of the bus. “Nevermind. I just realized we could hammer nails in on the sides of the windows, since they’re separated a few inches apart.”

“Whatever works best!” Dakota called out.

He slammed a nail down on the second nail on the left side.

An explosion sounded throughout the garage.

Frowning, Dakota looked down at his hammer, then offered the third nail a blunt slam to the side of the head. The sound it produced was nothing compared to the explosion that happened just a moment before.

“Dakota?” Steve’s asked, his voice’s strength wavering. “That wasn’t you, was it?”

Dakota gulped. He leaned into the aisle and shook his head. “No. It wasn’t me.”

Both men turned to look at the window.

A red truck sat across from the street, four living men and a dead body in front of it.

“Shit,” Steve breathed. “Get down, Dakota. Get down!”

Dakota fell to the floor and waited for the sound of Steve’s footsteps to echo across the garage floor. When they didn’t, his first reaction was to peek over the top of the seats and look for him, but instinct took hold. Instead, he bit his lower lip and closed his eyes, tension rocketing through his veins like harsh drugs in an addict.

Tell me you didn’t just flatten yourself against the hood, he thought. By God, Steve, don’t tell me you did that.

Something dropped onto the garage floor.

Dakota sighed.

Someone cried out and a gunshot ripped into the garage.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Steve screamed, throwing himself into the vehicle just as another shot rang out. “FUCK!”

“ ARE YOU OK?” Dakota screamed.

“No I’m not fucking ok! They’re shooting at me!”

“ARE YOU SHOT?”

“I’M NOT FUCKING SHOT!”

A second, then a third shot came, followed by what sounded to be a thousand hammers echoing against the side of a mountain. A spray of debris went up along the far wall and the chain-link fence crashed open outside, its gargantuan screech slicing through Dakota’s ears and into the base of his skull.

“Steve?” Dakota whispered.

“What?”

“We didn’t lock the door, did we?”

The garage door slammed open.

The sound of footsteps followed.

“Kitty kitty kitty,” a voice said, gun cocking in the dead silence of the room. “Come out come out and playyyyyyy.”

Steve reached for the gun lying on the front seat.

“We won’t hurrrrttttt you…”

These guys are fucking psycho. Dakota reached for his gun, but Steve shook his head and pushed a finger to his lips. Frowning, Dakota mouthed, What the hell are you doing?

Steve mouthed back, Wait.

The second lump in his throat now swallowed, Dakota prepared for the worst to happen.

Someone in the garage knocked something over.

“You fuckin’ idiot!” someone cried.

Steve shot upright and fired a bullet out the window.

Someone screamed.

“ WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” a second voice cried.

A dirty grin lighting his face in a hellfire expression, Steve gestured Dakota toward his gun and eased toward the front door of the bus just as a returning shot came firing into it. Dakota, unsure of his place in the current situation, grabbed his gun, then reached for what appeared to be a box of papers.

Steve nodded.

Dakota raised a manila folder up in front of a window. A bullet tore through the top edge of the paper just as Steve rolled into view and fired three shots. Dakota jumped up and took a blind shot of his own before falling to the floor.

No return gunfire followed.

“Did you get everyone?” Dakota whispered.

“Just wait a minute and let me check.”