The Conways

Author’s Note: This is not a game review. Do not expect it to be such. I wrote a short story base off of a prompt out of Stephen King’s On Writing book and didn’t know what to do with it so I thought I’d post it here (God knows I’m not using this site for anything else).

Also, if you don’t like cussing or violence then I suggest you don’t read this. For those who do, however, enjoy!

Nick Conway sighed as he sank into the couch.

            He wasn’t sitting on the couch. He sprawled across the length of the thing while his body sank deeper into the fabric. Lying there, sinking further in, he was content for the first time in at least a year.

            It’s about time, he thought when his body finally ceased its trip to the bottom of the couch.

            He considered taking a nap but dismissed it. His parents had taken his daughter to a friend’s birthday party and he was alone. He didn’t want to be that parent who slept whenever his kid was out of the house. No self-respecting person should waste their time that way.

            He did pick up the remote and turn on the TV like a true American, however.

            Nick flipped through the channels without looking at any of them. He savored the unthinking simplicity of the moment. He would do anything, and he did mean anything, for his daughter but you could never truly beat laying on the couch with no responsibility.

            He clicked the down arrow on the controller one more time and The Price is Right theme song filled the living room. Nick had discovered the Game Show Network. Within moments, he was transported back in time to his grandparents’ kitchen table. The TV would always be on while his grandmother hummed along to the theme song and prepared lunch for a much younger Nick. We won’t say how much younger, thank you very much.

            Back in the present, Nick thought, The only way this could get better if…wait a minute, there he is! It’s Bob Barker! And so it was, a smiling white-haired Bob Barker strode out onto the stage while the crowd went wild. Unbidden, a smile came to Nick’s lips. This day couldn’t get any better, he thought as he, against all the laws of physics, sank even further into the couch.

            His phone chimed and he woke with a start. He had forgotten to lower the volume. It was a news alert by the sound of it. Nothing important thought Nick even as he instinctively reached for his phone. His eyes got larger as he realized that the alert was a local news story, not a national one. His eyes somehow got even larger when his sleep-addled brain became aware that the story had something to do with him.

            This can’t be true he thought as he clicked on the article link. There wasn’t much info, or at least any info of note in the three or four paragraphs within. I’ll have to check Local 12 News. They’ve never let me down.

            He fumbled for the remote on the coffee table next to him. It took him a couple of tries as he both continued to come up and out of sleep and tried to remain calm. He flipped the TV to channel 12. Just as he thought, a special news bulletin was on.

            BREAKING NEWS ALERT scrawled across the bottom of the screen in the loudest font you could ever hope to see. A woman’s head filled the top two thirds of the screen. Oh, it’s Charlotte Russo, thought Nick. Good, she always knows what’s going on.

            “And now we go live to the scene with Candace Smith,” Charlotte said from the screen, “Candace, what can you tell us and are you staying safe?”

            “Yes Charlotte, I’m coming to you live from…” Candace started to say but Nick wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to be told about where Candace was standing (both because of the news alert and because he recognized the location all too well). A chill, which he had been able to suppress up until now, swept through him and banished all feelings of tiredness from his body. Despite that, he forced himself to listen to the bad news Candace had to relay.

            “…where we’re told that four prisoners conspired to make their escape. Three of them are now back in custody but a fourth remains at large.” Candace did not seem too perturbed by the news coming out of her mouth. Nick, however, knew that she should. Oh yes, she should be.

            Ok, keep calm, Nickie boy, Nick thought. They haven’t said whether the prisoners escaped from the minimum-security part of the prison or the maxi…

            “And are these prisoners from minimum or maximum security?” Charlotte Russo said in a perfect anchorwoman’s cadence.

            “That’s the bad news, Charlotte, they’re from the maximum…,” Candace said as Nick’s world grew darker. Shit, shit, shit, shit! In that moment, his mind knew only that one word.

            “Officials are urging the public to remain both calm and indoors if possible as they race to find out where Yumi Ya….,” Candace said as Nick heard a creak behind him.

            Before he knew it, his body was in motion. He flew up out of the soft embrace of the couch, sailed right over the coffee table, landed in front of the TV, and spun while crouching in a defensive position. The TV wobbled from Nick’s landing, the clock on the wall continued to tick off the march of time, and Nick waited.

            A second creak sounded and then a third and still a fourth as Nick continued waiting. The steps groaned as someone put more and more emphasis on their footfalls as they descended from the second floor. Two small feet emerged from above followed by knees, followed by a torso, shoulders, neck, and finally a head. A head with a smile plastered on it. A head Nick knew only too well.

            “Oh hello, Nick. It’s so good to see you,” the head said.

            “Yumi,” Nick said as his eyes swept over her.

            Yumi Yarunosuke stopped on the bottom step. Her head, which once sported shoulder-length black hair, was bald. Her fingernails, always painted in the past, were plain and clipped back as far as they could go. She was as slim and as fit as she had been before going to the big house. Oh goodie, she must have kept up her routine, Nick thought.

            She wore what Nick assumed to be a guard’s uniform. Black pants and shoes with a blue shirt with the name Martinez sewn on the left breast. Explains how she got out, I suppose, Nick thought as his mind took it all in.

            The scariest part about her appearance, even more so than her appearing at all, was what she held in her hands. It wasn’t a gun. Yumi Yarunosuke wouldn’t be caught dead with a gun. No, she held a katana. A katana sheathed in a black scabbard with a beautiful pink and white floral pattern etched into its side. A katana which had supposedly been passed down through her family for over a thousand years.

            “You’re awfully quiet, my love. Aren’t you happy to see me?” Yumi said as she started walking around the couch.

            “Oh, I am,” Nick said as he matched her pace around the opposite end of the couch. “I’m so happy I’m speechless.”

“Where are your guns?” Yumi asked as they continued their slow walk. It looked like they were dancers sizing each other up before a waltz except they were in a living room with a couch between them.

“I seem to have misplaced them. Let me go find them so I can show them to y…” Nick said as he started backing out into the front hall. He froze as a soft hissing sound filled the air. Yumi had drawn her sword.

“That won’t be necessary, I remember what they look like.”

Nick stopped in the entryway. His mind was working furiously. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I think we were safe? Why, why, WHY?!

“Honey, I think we sh…” Nick began but he was cut off as Yumi whipped the sword’s point in his direction.

“Don’t you dare call me honey, Nick,” Yumi said. “You don’t get to do that after what you did to me. You do remember, right? What you did to me?!”

“Yumi, please. Let’s talk ab…” There was a vase with tulips of all colors in it on the other side of the room next to Yumi. The tops of the flowers flew off as Yumi swept the sword through their stems. The buds fell to the floor.

“Say it,” Yumi said.

“Say what?” Nick said though he already what the “what” was.

“Say out loud what you did to me four years ago which led me right to that nice little cell,” Yumi said. It didn’t seem possible but she was clutching the sword hilt even tighter now.

Nick didn’t speak right away. He knew he was testing the limits of Yumi’s patience by pausing but he figured she would have attacked already if she didn’t at least want to hear him say what they both already knew. Nick Conway had framed his wife. That was the long and the short of it.

The truth was that they were both assassins. They were very good at it in fact. The best of the best. They had met doing a job which, as it turned out, the client had hired them both to do just to make sure that it was done properly. The client had taken no chances. The target had died as planned which was quite the feat given the fight which had broken out between Nick and Yumi.

They had both arrived at the Fairmont Hotel and, following a series of coincidences, they had discovered that they both had the same target. Two assassins with the same target is a bit of a taboo in case you didn’t know. The client had wanted the target to die in a very public fashion with multiple witnesses. It’s doubtful, however, they wanted them to die in the destroyed lobby of the Fairmont Hotel following a fight involving two maniacs. One, a man, armed with two silver pistols and the other, a woman, sporting what one witness called “a big fucking butcher’s knife.”

Both Nick and Yumi were injured in the fight and both had left blood at the scene. A problem Nick solved by burning the hotel to the ground on his way out. It was sloppy work when it came down to it but “A dead target is a dead target which means a pot of gold for us” as Nick’s handler always said.

Despite the massive fight, both of them were back in the field within six weeks because, again, they were the best in the field. They both knew they were back at work because, once again, they were hired to kill the same target. The target was one popular person since this time two different people had hired them to kill the same person.

Instead of fighting each other and destroying everything around them in the process, they decided to work together. They got the job done and bing, bang, boom, wouldn’t you know it they ended up sleeping together that very night. No, sleeping together isn’t the right phrase. They ending up fucking like there was no tomorrow. Turns out there was a tomorrow though because they kept right on fucking through the night well into the morning and back into the night again. Nick had never had better sex in his entire life. He could admit that much about Yumi. The girl could fuck, that’s for sure.

After their two night fuckfest, they had both discovered that neither client wanted to pay up since they had discovered that there were two assassins on the job. That didn’t sit well with neither Yumi or Nick. They decided right then and there to get their revenge. Two weeks and a bunch of bodies later, Nick and Yumi had both their revenge and their money.

With their revenge sated, they found themselves in bed together for several nights in a row yet again. The sex was still fantastic and Nick only wanted more. He had asked Yumi if she felt the same way and she had replied, “You bet your ass, cowboy.” They then proceeded to do it once again.

They then became what Nick assumed to be the first husband-and- wife assassin team. At least, he had never heard of any other team like it in the world. For three years, they traveled the world, murdered the people they found there, and then fucked like nobodies’ business once the job was done. Then the pregnancy had come.

“I’m pregnant,” Yumi whispered into his ear one night while they lay on a deserted stretch of beach in the Cayman Islands.

Nick, certain he had misheard, sat up suddenly and said, “What?”

Yumi smiled. “I’m pregnant,” she murmured again. She pulled him back down to the sand as she kissed his neck. Nick, who had never given much thought to fatherhood, suddenly felt protective of the life growing inside Yumi. He was struck by a sudden fear.

“Wait, are we going to keep it? Since you’ve brought it up, I assume you want to discuss it. If that’s true, I say we keep it,” Nick said all in a rush. Nick, despite his job, was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian household. It was hard to shake those beliefs even after all these years.

Yumi laughed softly. “I’m glad you agree,” she said as she snuggled up to his elbow.

Nick didn’t settle back down beside her immediately. He continued thinking for a few minutes before he said, “We should get married.” Again, Nick grew up in an old-fashioned household. Hard to shed the skin you grew up with.

This took Yumi by surprise. She sat upright and stared into Nick’s eyes. She didn’t say a word for several minutes. She just kept on staring. She probably wanted to know if Nick was serious or not. Lying on his back with Yumi staring into his eyes, Nick wished he had his guns with him. That’s how scary she was. He had never forgotten that fight at the Fairmont Hotel. He had seen what she could do. Not to mention all the jobs they had done together since then. Yes, Nick Conway was scared of Yumi. That fear didn’t stop him from loving her, however.

After an eternity Yumi said, “Yes.” She kissed him on the lips and then sank back down to his side. They were married at a roadside chapel in Nevada a week later.

Despite the marriage, Nick still worried. Although he was happy, a new worry had sunk its teeth into him while they lay on that beach in the Caymans. It was a thought so loud that he was surprised Yumi hadn’t heard it while lying next to him. His worry had increased tenfold because he knew that Yumi would never agree to such a thing. That didn’t stop him from trying though. Much to both his and her chagrin.

“Yumi?” he whispered the night of their wedding.

“Hmmm?” she said.

“We can’t keep our current jobs when our child is born,” he said. There, he’d said it. No way to take it back now.

Yumi’s reaction was one he never forgot nor expected. She laughed. Not a gentle chuckle but a full-throated hearty guffaw. Once she had calmed down, she patted Nick on the chest and said, “Sure, Nick, sure.”

Nick’s heart sank. He had been right. Yumi would never give up their work, her work. She loved that more than him and more, he suspected, than the life growing inside of her at that very moment. He would be proven wrong on that last point back in the present but we’ll get to that in a bit.

That didn’t mean he stopped trying to get Yumi to agree to quit their day jobs. Both Yumi and him kept working right up until their daughter popped out. Yumi loved the work that much. One memorable job in Naples involved Yumi pretending to go into labor in order to lure the target to her. She then plunged a tanto into the target’s skull and then waddled her pregnant ass to the car Nick sped up in.

Nothing Nick said could deter her. He pleaded with her that, with increasing desperation, he should hang up his pistols and her her sword. It all fell on deaf ears. Then, with Charlotte, his beautiful baby daughter, sleeping in his arms that first night in the hospital, Nick made a decision. A decision that would irrevocably alter both of their lives. Well, all three of their lives. Nick had done the unthinkable, the unforgivable. Yumi knew as well as he did what he had done but now the moment had come to finally speak it aloud. Nick opened his mouth as he came up out of the depths of his reverie.

“I framed you, Yumi,” he said. The truth had finally made its way out into the universe.

At first, Yumi didn’t speak. Didn’t even move. Nick would have believed she had fallen asleep with her eyes open if not for the sword she still held in her hand. And then she exhaled as if she had been holding in all the breaths she had ever taken. To Nick’s surprise, a single tear slid from her right eye. Nick had never, ever seen Yumi cry.

“Thank you,” Yumi said and Nick’s astonishment only grew. Surely he had misheard. This couldn’t be Yumi saying these things to him of all people. He put his guard up as he suspected that she wasn’t thanking him for any reason he could understand.

“Thank you,” Yumi said again as her eyes turned to the sword in her hand. She studied it for a long moment and then she, raising her eyes as she did so, said, “Now, you must tell Charlotte what you did.” Her gaze hardened as she locked eyes with Nick.

Nick stiffened. “You know I can’t do that, Yumi. You know why I did what I did. Don’t tell me you were surprised by what happened.”

Yumi was silent for a moment as they stared into each other’s eyes. “You know what, Nick?” she asked. “I was surprised. Surprised that the man I loved not only stabbed me in the back but also took my daughter away from me. Not only that but he filled her ears with lies and said that I was a psychotic murderer.”

“Yumi…” Nick began but she kept talking.

“No, Nick, what’s done is done. Now, you will tell Charlotte the truth about me, her mother. The truth that her own father hid from her and perpetuated. She will know the truth even if I have to cut your hamstrings and drag you to her.”

Yumi stopped talking and yet another silence fell between them. Neither one took their eyes off the other.

Nick was finally over the shock of Yumi’s sudden appearance. “We could not keep doing what we had been doing, Yumi,” Nick said. “I wouldn’t allow Charlotte to grow up in an environment like that then and I sure as shit won’t let her now.” His eyes blazed almost as hot as Yumi’s. He shifted his feet, one foot slightly in front of the other, and cracked his neck.

Nick still remembered the night when he realized that the only way he was going to get Yumi to quit being an assassin was to frame her. That was the only way that ensured that their daughter would grow up in a normal household and would never know what sins her parents had committed. There was clarity in that decision. A clarity similar to what he was feeling now. He knew what he had to do. He felt that Yumi also knew what he had to do. What they both now had to do. The only thing left to do was to do it.

Nick bent his knees a little bit and put his hands up in front of him in a defensive stance. “Come on, Yumi. Enough talk. Let’s finish this.”

He had thought that Yumi would take a moment before launching her attack. He was wrong. Wordlessly, she raised her katana, launched herself up onto the coffee table, and began running towards him.

Although surprised, Nick was ready. He had planted his foot near a Longaberger basket. These baskets were all around his parents’ house. His mom loved them. She had even been a sales consultant for them for almost a decade when Nick was growing up.

The basket besides which Nick’s foot now rested was vintage Longaberger. It was made at the height of the Longaberger Company before it went bankrupt and its name and likeness was sold to the highest bidder. The baskets made after this period were, in his mother’s words, “Just not the same.” Which made what Nick was about to do all the more difficult. Forgive me, Mom.

Nick kicked the basket.

The basket flew straight at Yumi. Nick didn’t wait to see what would happen. If he did, he would have seen the basket explode as Yumi first swiped it with her sword and then barreled through the remains. No, Nick didn’t watch the basket turned missile for one simple reason. He needed to slow Yumi down and the basket did just that even if it was for just one second.

And what a second it was. If Nick had stayed still, watching the basket all the while, Yumi would have cut him down where he stood. Instead, Nick had just enough time to escape out into the entry hall as Yumi’s sword sank into the trim around the door. Again, Nick didn’t stick around to see what she was up to. Instead, he sped towards the kitchen at the end of the hall.

The kitchen had a swinging door which was good for Nick. He flew into the kitchen and kicked the door closed behind him. He got clear of the door in a hurry. He was just in time as Yumi’s sword burst through its center as she was trying to skewer Nick before he had gotten into the kitchen proper.

Nick didn’t have much time to look around the whole kitchen for something to defend himself with. Luckily for him, he could process information he saw quickly. A row of knives were in their holders above the counter. He dismissed those immediately because everyone knows a sword is better than butcher knives in a fight. He saw the spice rack and briefly considered flinging garlic salt in Yumi’s eyes but he moved on since the spices were on the other side of the island.

Also, he heard Yumi remove the katana from the door. She would be in the kitchen in less than a second. I need something now, goddamnit! Nick thought. And then he saw it.

What he saw was his Dad’s cast iron skillet sitting on the counter nearest him. His Dad loved that thing and cooked as often as he could with it. Nick also loved the skillet in that moment but for a very different reason. He grabbed it by the handle and swung it in a long arc.

He was just in time.

Yumi charged through the kitchen door without slowing down and came right at him. There, between the door and the kitchen island, Yumi and Nick joined together in battle. Yumi with her katana and Nick with the skillet. Japanese craftmanship met the American frontier spirit with a loud metallic bang.

A well-kept samurai sword (which Yumi’s surely was) is the sharpest thing in the world. It can cut through flesh and bone without so much as slowing down. It had been used for over a thousand years to do just that by hundreds of Yarunosuke’s. Despite its history, it was no match for the solid mass of Nick’s Dad’s cast iron skillet.

In hindsight, Nick knew he had gotten lucky. He had no time to think nor plan his attack. He had acted out of instinct. He had swung the skillet around with all of his might because, even if he missed, he would never get another chance so he might as well go for broke.

As the sword and skillet met, the point of the sword was forced in the direction of Nick’s swing. The sword flew out of Yumi’s hands and impaled the wall through a cloth sign which read “Gigi’s Kitchen.” Yumi screamed as it happened. She screamed for two reasons. One, because she had let go of the sword and she had never done that before. And two, because her wrist had broken when sword met skillet.

Nick didn’t waste any time. He couldn’t afford to after all. He didn’t know the extent of Yumi’s injury. He just knew had to finish this fight as quickly as possible. He still remembered the fight in the Fairmont Hotel’s lobby. Oh yes indeed, Yumi could be a dangerous opponent even when injured.

Nick had let go of the skillet at the end of his swing. He figured that he had swung too hard and wouldn’t be able to get another hit in with the thing anyways. He was correct. The skillet flew in an upward arc and slammed into the glass on the microwave’s door. The glass shattered as the skillet went right through it and impaled itself in the back of the microwave.

Nick swung his right fist up hoping to hit Yumi in the neck and end it right there. For those of you who are wondering, yes, despite everything they were still married and had loved each other once upon a time. Nick remembered that as he went for the kill but he also knew that they were both playing for keeps. This was no time to second guess himself. To be fair to him, Yumi also knew that this was it and was going to fight like it as we’ll see in a moment.

As we’ve said, Nick was aiming for Yumi’s throat. Yumi had jerked up and back, however. Nick’s fist caught her in the chest and the force of it took her off her feet and back through the kitchen door out into the hall. Nick followed her.

Yumi landed on her back. As Nick came through the door, she kicked the wall with her right foot and kept it extended as she rotated on the floor. Nick’s Mom always kept the wood floor of the front hall cleaned and waxed. Yumi didn’t have any trouble at all as she rotated like a turtle on its back. Her right foot swept Nick’s feet out from under him and he crashed into the wall. He began struggling to his feet immediately. He wasn’t fast enough.

For, you see, Yumi had yet another weapon that had been passed down through the generations. This weapon wasn’t as old as her sword but it was prized just the same. When she was swiveling on the floor (she may have even did it while she was falling backwards, who can say?), Yumi had pulled her tanto from its sheath on her back. With her left, unbroken hand, she plunged the tanto into Nick’s right ankle. He screamed as he went down for the second time.

Nick wasn’t done though. As he screamed and fell, he planned his next move. He had seen that Yumi’s right hand was flopping about in a strange way and deduced that it was broken. Using his left foot, he was able to flip onto his side right on top of Yumi’s broken wrist. Nick was just trying to slow her down again but the results were better than he expected. Yumi screamed and, most importantly, let go of the tanto which was still stuck in his leg just above his ankle.

Nick raised his hand up and, for lack of a better word, karate chopped Yumi right in the throat. Not waiting, Nick rolled away from Yumi back towards the kitchen door. After a few rolls, he stopped, reached down, and pulled the tanto from his ankle. It hurt like a motherfucker and he bit his lip to stop from screaming again but he needed a weapon. Who knew what Yumi’s next move would be, after all?

As it turns out, Yumi’s next move was to lie there on the floor clutching her neck. Nick’s chop had done what his punch had not. He had destroyed her larynx. Yumi couldn’t breathe. She had minutes if not moments to live.

Nick didn’t relax nor did he get closer to his wife. He lay there on the floor by the kitchen breathing heavily. He did not trust Yumi. She could be faking her injury in order to get him to move closer. He wasn’t going to take that chance.

Tears began falling from his eyes. Reflecting upon this later, Nick knew there were two reasons why he had started crying. The first was that his left ankle hurt like a bitch. The second was that the realization of what he had done had hit him.

His wife and the mother of his child lay dying in front of him. Not only was she dying but he had been the one to kill her. As Yumi’s attempted breaths became more erratic, memories both good and bad flashed through Nick’s mind. The tears came hotter and faster then. They wouldn’t stop for a long time.

THE END