Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

The engine was roaring too hard for me to hear the shouted command, but I saw the man respond. The gun dipped away, and the man just watched in futile fury as we drove past.

I couldn’t decide why the man had been denied his shot unless the tattooed leader wanted our deaths to be more personal — or permanent.

I gave the minivan throttle and raced it along the drive, twin fans of seashells marking its progress like spume on waves. Then we’d got as far as the gate on to the mountain road.

‘Holy God,’ Don muttered under his breath. ‘I think we’re going to make it!’

‘Not yet.’ I swung the wheel to the left, away from the relative safety of Bedford Well or the city of Hertford.

On the road, I accelerated away.

Still the minivan wasn’t moving fast enough to avoid the Ford Focus rear-ending it.

The collision forced the minivan to fishtail and I had to fight the wheel to keep us going straight. I won the battle, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

Fuck, I thought, as I recognised the pompadour of the Ford’s driver, the spiky hair of his passenger. I also recalled my dark humour when first I’d noticed the oddball couple outside Don’s house. Maybe I should have killed you after all.

Having had a good idea where Millie was headed, Vince had thought it best to fall back and allow plenty of distance between them. On the mountain roads, there was very little traffic and the car would stand out, anonymous as it was. No hurry, he’d told Sonya. But there was. He knew that Gant and the others were already in place around Adrian Reynolds’ house, and it was imperative he got there before things kicked off.

Sonya had suggested pulling over, having a little fun before joining the others. Chances were that once things got underway they’d be too busy for fooling around. Except Vince wasn’t up for it. To keep her happy he’d reached across to her but she’d slapped his hands away.

‘Offer’s gone, lover boy. We don’t want to, like, miss anything, do we?’ she said.

‘Suppose not,’ Vince replied gloomily. He sighed dramatically to cover his relief, and caught a pout from Sonya.

Thinking to appease him, she laid a hand in his crotch as he drove.

‘As much as I like that, babe, maybe you’d better fill your hand with something else.’

‘I’ve small hands, isn’t it full enough?’ she asked with a gleam in her eye.

‘I hear you, babe, but I’m serious…’ He nodded towards the back seat and Sonya twisted round so she could haul the knapsack on to her lap. She unzipped it and tugged out the first of two Glock 19s. Inside the bag were extra magazines and she expertly inserted one into the butt of the gun, racked the slide to arm it, then flicked on the safety. She repeated the process and dropped a gun between Vince’s thighs. He whistled.

‘Easy, babe, you could have shot off my dick.’

‘I’d have to be a better shot than I am to hit that teeny-weeny thing,’ she smiled.

‘Think you could hit a car?’ he asked.

Sonya followed his gaze, watching open-mouthed as a pale blue minivan roared out of a driveway ahead. It was like the vehicles that soccer moms drive, loads of seats in the back to cart around a horde of children. She recognised Don Griffiths in the front passenger seat before the minivan spun away from them.

‘Shee-it,’ Vince yelled. ‘Looks like Gant’s blown it, big time.’

He pressed the gas pedal, and raced after the minivan. With momentum on his side, he caught up with it in seconds, rear-ending the heavier vehicle. Coloured glass bounced up the windscreen of the Ford as the van’s rear lights shattered, but the van absorbed the collision, then powered away.

Sonya looked left, saw the flames and the smoke around the Reynolds household. ‘Can’t believe they started without us…’

‘You know Gant,’ Vince snorted. ‘Never was the patient type.’

‘Do you think he’d want us to stop them?’

Vince raised his eyebrows, puffed out air.

He rammed the pedal to the floor, pushing the Ford on. ‘That’s why we’re here, babe.’

Sonya bounced up and down in her seat in her eagerness to get started. She pressed buttons, lowering her window and leaning out. Wind battered her making her spiky hair dance like Medusa’s snakes. She squinted, but that only helped her aim the Glock. She’d been joking a moment ago: she was actually a damn fine shot.

Twice she fired at the back of the minivan. Both bullets struck metal. She heard corresponding screams even over the roaring engines.

‘Easy, gal, we just want to stop them.’

Sonya glanced inside the Ford. Stop them? She wanted to kill them all.

‘Not much fun if they’re all chewed up in a wreck,’ Vince explained.

‘Dead’s dead, whatever way you look at it,’ Sonya said, firing again. This time she aimed so that she blasted a mirror off the side of the car. Basically she was showing off.

‘Yeah, and Gant will kill us if he doesn’t get a chance to-’

Vince stepped on the brakes.

From a side track, concealed until the very last moment by the trees, came a black van. It roared out of hiding, bouncing up on to the road directly in front of the minivan. At this speed the two vehicles would be smashed to pieces, and then the Ford would join them. Vince spun the wheel. Better that they hit side-on than plough right into the wreckage. Sonya was caught by the centrifugal force and almost plucked out of the window, but Vince grabbed at her with one hand, snaring an ankle. With his other hand he wrestled with the steering. If they hit, Sonya would be squashed like a bug. If he let go, she’d tumble out of the Ford, go under the wheels and be squashed all the same. It was way too soon in the proceedings for that.

It was almost a blessing when he saw the minivan swerve off the road and on to the verge. Its tyres dug into the rain-drenched earth, throwing up clumps of dirt and grass. Branches from the overhanging trees scored new lines in the paintwork. Then it was past the front of the black van and had swerved back on to the road. Vince kept his hand down on the wheel and the Ford pirouetted in the road, forces almost beyond his control trying to yank Sonya to her death. Finally, a full one-eighty from where he’d been headed, the Ford screeched to a halt. Its back bumper nudged the idling van.

Sonya clambered back inside, her eyes like twin moons. She was shivering with the excitement of the last few seconds. ‘Like, Holy Jesus, Vince! What a ride that was!’

‘You OK, babe?’ Vince was trembling almost as hard as the girl.

‘Freakin’-A, baby! Let’s do it again.’

Vince leaned out of his window, craning round to see. A face at the passenger side of the black van blinked back at him in surprise. Goddamn skinhead assholes, Vince thought. The idiots that Gant had brought in were even stupider than Rooster. Repeatedly he slapped a hand on the door of the car. ‘Move that goddamn piece of shit, you moron. They’re getting away!’

The passenger conveyed the message to the driver — another of Gant’s boot boys. When he looked back, he repeated the driver’s reply: ‘Who ya calling morons, Vince?’

‘Just get the fuck outa my way,’ Vince snapped. He jammed the car into gear, spinning it in the road and on to the verge that the minivan had churned up. As he powered past the front of the black van Sonya leaned out the window, giving the two skinheads the middle finger.

When she slipped back inside, she bounced a few times on the seat. ‘Why are we working with these clowns anyway?’

‘ ’Cause Gant said we should.’

Sonya frowned. ‘Gant can barely lick his lips without drooling, let alone say anything sensible.’