Kent Kelly - And the Ashes

It was going to be quick.

And so on they came. The two motorcycles on the left were coming up fast, almost certainly to cry out or flash light in Sophie’s face or something, a distraction so that those on the right could secure the kill. Their kill plan was transparent, simple, but that was only because they had the ultimate advantage now and there was no way for Sophie to coordinate an elaborate ruse with which to counter them. Their allies to the right were simply going to accelerate by, and kill her.

At the last seconds ticked off, one of the riders back to the left caught sight of Sophie’s mirror-reflected submachine gun. Sophie, gauging the sound of the shouting voices, seeing a rider in her mirror waving two fingers in a signal off to the right, estimated that she had another three seconds to live.

She was not going to make it easy for them. With nothing to lose, she floored the gas, swerving the H4 into the clear half of the debris-spattered right lane. She left only a four-foot gap to the H4’s right side, and sure enough, the motorcycles on the left side backed away. They were certain she was going to fire on them. But instead, Sophie dropped the SMG back into her passenger’s suit and steered perfectly with both hands, a little to the left, opening up a highly vulnerable yet wider aisle of space to the H4’s right-hand side.

The men on the left shouted a warning to their companions, but it was too late. Sophie powered the passenger window down so she could see. Rain flew in, pieces of greasy trash. Some helmeted fool, steering his crimson Kawasaki up on the right, was steering with only his left hand, bringing up a huge revolver in his right. He took aim at Sophie’s head.

She screamed, slammed the brakes, swerved hard to the right, even closed her eyes. She heard the young gunman’s wild scream through his helmet, “Oh shit —”

Crunch . Pinned between the H4 and the guard rail, the man on the Kawasaki almost tumbled out of his seat. Screams, sparks flying, the horrible screech of metal as the H4’s right side was ruined. Pinned, his ribs crushed and left leg broken, the man took that crucial kill shot at Sophie’s face, and even managed another a second after.

The paired detonations from the gun were almost deafening. The first slug burned its way through the H4’s roof, the other was level and aimed almost perfectly at Sophie’s forehead. She had opened her eyes again and smashed her body back in the seat as the pinned cycle’s second ruining impact shook the Hummer and threatened to overturn it, when the shot went inches wide and out the driver’s window.

There was an angry droning buzz as the unseen second bullet went past Sophie’s nose. The spiraling of the rifled round created a streamer of misted water, burning the air in front of Sophie’s face. She swore that she could see it, smell it. She didn’t even have time to scream and the bullet was already gone.

She hit the brakes harder, swerved left. Somehow, the ruined Kawasaki’s leather-clad rider had dropped his gun and was reaching down, was still above the seat, he was standing over it on his one un-ruined leg. As Sophie pulled away, his ravaged cycle was released to go wobbling out in front of the H4. Sophie hit the gas again, the transmission groaned. As the Kawasaki tilted down to the right, disintegrating, the rider screamed, flailed, almost knocked his own helmet off. He was bleeding and falling, hovering for a fraction of an instant nine inches above the pavement, when Sophie ran him over at forty-five miles an hour.

The body rebounded low to the H4’s right, twisting under the axle. There was a horrible squelch and shattering pop as the rider’s head and helmet went under the tire and turned into splintered mush. Wet blood-and-bone chunks flew up over the H4’s windshield, and the wipers gurgled some of it away. Far more liquefied remains flew up through the open passenger window and spattered up against the headrest.

Silas groaned behind Sophie’s seat, trying to scream his way out of unconsciousness.

The H4 lost more speed, lurched and almost crashed when the dead man’s legs tangled with the back axle, but the weight of the Hummer sucked the almost-naked man and his shredded leathers under the back right wheel, spun the mutilated body out under the back and kept on moving.

Oh, God. Sophie laughed in abject, horrified relief. She could not believe that she was still alive.

Screams of fury, some far behind. It sounded as if most of the pursuers had finally given up. But at least two more motorcycles were gaining distance and joining the others, veering around the gore-smear and smoking wreckage along the road, and the clear straightaway was disappearing as rain-driven mist and darkness closed in once again. A huge maze of wrecked cars and trucks loomed up from the H4’s high beams at Sophie’s edge of sight.

She bit her lip, shook sweaty locks of hair out from her eyes. She was shivering uncontrollably. A wild, unnoticed thrill of adrenaline had stabbed through her like a rack of razor-sharp icicles and now it had left her hollowed. She eyed the wrecks and noted two more gaps in all the ruin, aimed for the widest. She tapped the gas again to gain some distance. There were wild shots now from behind her, there would not be another calculated assault but only rage. The boom of shotgun shells, the crack of pistols. Two rounds hit the carryall atop the H4 and sparks reflected in the side mirror. Water bottles shattered, plastic-wrapped boxes full of them went tumbling off the back. There was a clang, a rebound, a scatter that sounded like hailstones as more supplies fell off and bounced off the H4’s rear bumper. Sophie caught a glimpse of the stretcher she had once used to lift Silas out of the shelter, and off went all of the supplies bundled atop it, the camping stove, a crate of canned food and then another and another.

Some of the cycles slowed. A station wagon was pulling up. She saw for an instant the rain-misted silhouettes of crouching men, over what must have been the motorcyclist’s mangled body. Still other men had left their own cycles tilted upon the road, were running and picking…

What?

She couldn’t believe it. Most of the riders, even the men from one of the just-arrived pickup trucks, had all stopped to squabble and yell and scurry after the cans of food spilled out over the highway. Someone on one of the still-running motorcycles was raging at them as he flew by.

There were four motorcycles then, swerving around the chaos. They kept on coming, and Sophie saw with certainty who was in the lead. Those broad shoulders, the shotgun slung to his back, the long-barreled pistol balanced in his hand.

Zachary.

She had seen enough. She had a good distancing lead for the first time in the chase, and she intended to make the most of it before any more of her attackers regained their courage. She swerved around a pair of wrecked subcompacts, around the spliced-open front end of a delivery truck, and aimed the H4 at the farther gap. She only barely made it through, scraping the right side of the Hummer again, at forty miles an hour just as the four motorcycles approached in a single-file line, Zachary’s black Harley to the front.

Beyond that last gap in the wrecks, the shattered surface of I-25 was filled with tilted wrecks and pools of standing water. Seeing an opportunity that would never come again, Sophie quickly hit the brakes and slowed, maneuvering the H4 to a halt to face back the way she’d come, facing the gap where the first of the oncoming motorcycles would soon appear. She opened the driver’s door as she unbuckled herself.

Come on! She was biting her lip, trying not to scream at herself. She had practiced moving almost as quickly as this in the shelter when she’d been training with all of the different guns, the hazmat suit. Almost. Move faster. Faster!