LeRoy Clary - Humanaty's Blight

She planted her feet, bent her knees and pointed the shotgun at a small decorative tree at the edge of the driveway. I could see she was scared. And determined. After a quick glance at me for a reassuring nod, she pulled the shotgun tight to her shoulder and then added a little more pressure. A moment later, the small tree in front of her exploded. She worked the pump and fired again.

“Damn,” she muttered as she handed me the shotgun and reached for the nine-millimeter. The mailbox ten steps away was her next target, and she put all three slugs into it as if she had used the pistol a dozen times before.

A few seconds later, the gunshots still ringing in our ears, we rode off. I had never twisted the throttle fully, but the bike was heavy, huge, and intended for the open road. It had power to spare. We went a few miles before pulling off down a dirt road into the trees and around a slight curve where we were out of sight from the main road.

Sue reloaded. I turned us around and went out on the blacktop. We rode for ten minutes or more. Ahead were houses, crossroads, and even smoke rising from a few chimneys or outdoor fires at the edge of the suburbs. The first fire we passed was the remains of a Toyota, the tires still smoking a greasy black. There was the main state highway that went in the direction we wanted to travel, but I avoided it. If I was one of them, that’s where I’d set up an ambush. The smaller, residential streets were safer in that regard. At least that was my theory.

The problem was, those same people I was worried about may have known what I’d think and set their traps on the secondary roads. Or, they were hiding there and protecting their turf and I was about to ride into it as if I was the king of Marysville. I only had one life to give to a wrong decision—but making no decision would cost me my life for sure. I couldn’t sit still.

At a vacant field that may have been a small cattle pasture, we flashed by at least twenty tents and what looked like fifty startled, men and women who were camped in a field that had been a pasture. I didn’t see any children. Nobody pursued us. Evidence of destruction was everywhere as we got closer to the center of the town. Burned out cars, the smoking ruins of a few houses, one still with a few flames licking the roof. The few people we saw were dirty, tired, and fearful. More than one scurried away when they saw us.

We went south, along secondary roads. A shot rang out. At first, I ignored it, thinking it was aimed at someone else, but then I spotted a man on the side of the road ahead taking aim at us with a rifle intending to shoot again—from a closer distance.

I hit the brakes, front and rear, slid along the pavement to the next cross street and turned the bike so fast we almost tipped over. Sue gripped my waist so tight I couldn’t breathe. I went two more blocks before turning south again. Another shot rang out, a flatter sound and off to our right. It may have been fired at us—or not.

I didn’t think it was meant for us. Then, as we approached a larger intersection, five people rose up from behind an overturned car. All held guns or bats. All wore determined, evil expressions as they watched us approach the last few yards. I tried to turn the bike, but it was too late. We were almost abreast of them when they surprised us.

I twisted the accelerator and barreled ahead at full throttle. The bike responded like never before and I feared dumping Sue off the back, despite the tall chrome riser. The shotgun behind me blasted once, then again. Sue fired at them from less than fifty feet. More than one fell. Two more stood up from behind a burned-out hulk on the other side of the street, right in front of where I’d turned. They had expected me to go past the first group. I hunched down and kept to the middle of the road.

Sue fired the shotgun again, and again. Then one last time. Five shots. That was all she had in the gun. But one of them standing behind a burned-out car was aiming a shotgun of his own.

Sue was quicker. I saw where her first two shots from the new semi-automatic struck, low and to his left. She corrected and the next two shots were higher and right next to him. He dived for cover as she fired again. Then again.

We rode on. Sue twisted and turned herself in the seat behind me, upsetting the bike’s balance. I glanced back and found herself inserting more red shotgun shells. I didn’t dare stop and was not a good enough bike rider to go faster than we were. Someone took a shot at us from the roof of a house. The bullet struck the pavement in front of me. Ahead, the road was blocked with a tangle of cars, an obvious roadblock. Five or six people up there waited for us to get closer, five or six. All held weapons.

I turned left and went between two houses, turned away from the ambush at the next street, accelerated to over fifty miles an hour within two blocks despite my lack of skill with the bike, and then locked up the brakes to slow enough to turn right. I bent low behind the windscreen to make my body smaller as I twisted the throttle more. A backhoe came into view next to the road. It sat beside the curb on a residential street with a pile of dirt the size of a truck in front of it. As we neared the backhoe, I wondered what was happening there. Had a construction project been interrupted? The dirt looked freshly dug, slabs of blacktop from the road had been piled along with the dirt.

I locked up the brakes in sudden comprehension and spun the bike around to face the rear, barely managing to avoid the wheels jumping the curb. We turned raced ahead and turned again, more watchful of traps. The backhoe had dug a trench across the street, I didn’t know how deep. What I did know was that if we’d rode on ahead another hundred yards, the bike couldn’t have jumped the space.

A group of people, mostly men, were huddled together, cheering on two people in the center of the crowd who were fighting in the parking lot of a convenience store. Most held fifths of booze they waved in the air like trophies they’d won. One of the fighters used a shovel for a weapon, the other a short chain. At our appearance, they turned to look. All of them.

“Go,” Sue shouted in my ear.

I went. The bike leaped ahead with a roar as I gave the accelerator a hard twist. One man pulled a handgun and was raising it to point at us when Sue fired her shotgun in his general direction. The men fled or dove to the ground. We raced past.

I judged we had managed to worm our way most of the way through the residential area and the street we wanted that cut through Marysville to take us to Priest Point should be directly ahead, but we couldn’t consult the map to be sure. Getting lost in a violent suburb we were in sounded worse. If it came down to it, I’d head for any open space and reconsider. Maybe we could sneak through the city after dark.

Sue pounded on my shoulder. I glanced at the rearview mirror and saw two motorcycles following behind us. They were at least three blocks back, so I added a little speed and watched for the turnoff.

I saw it. There was a streetlight at the intersection, not that it was working. I slowed and turned right, peering down the road to make sure there were no blockades ahead. When I was satisfied and glanced in the rearview mirrors, the two bikes had gained on us and were only half a block behind. One waved a pistol and fired at us. The other struggled with trying to aim a rifle, an impossible task on a motorcycle. I ignored them and accelerated away as they slowed to make the turn.

Neither had counted on Sue. Behind me, she turned and used her new nine-millimeter. She took several measured shots, one every ten seconds or so. She didn’t hit either biker, but they dropped back to nearly a block in distance. They saw the flashes and heard the retorts. She shifted her weight and reached around me to draw my gun from the holster. If they thought she was out of shells, they were wrong.