Tim Waggoner: The Last Mile

Very observant, she congratulated herself. Now what about the fact that he doesn’t have any legs?

Alice had left that little detail for last because she hadn’t wanted to deal with it. But it was true: the biker had no legs. At first she thought he was a double amputee who’d somehow rigged the bike’s controls so he could do everything he needed with his hands. But if that was true, then how could he stay seated on the bike without slipping off? The answer turned out to be quite simple. He didn’t have to worry about falling off the bike because he was part of it. His waist had somehow been merged with the bike’s leather seat, making him some sort of mechanical centaur.

The biker rolled to a stop and the kickstand deployed by itself, keeping the motorcycle from toppling over. Mr. Goatee let go of the handlebars and crossed his arms over his chest, covering the spot where Alice’s captor trained his gun.

“You don’t see too many folks walking out here these days,” Mr. Goatee said.

Alice expected the biker’s voice to be husky from too much booze and too many cigarettes. But he spoke in a clear, smooth voice. Deep, but not menacing. He’d be perfect for radio, Alice thought. If there still was radio.

“I’m on a run,” her captor said. “Had a little accident a ways back. Hit a deer, or something that had been a deer once. Damn thing was so strong it wrecked my car.” He sounded friendly enough as he talked, but Alice noticed he didn’t lower his gun.

Mr. Goatee nodded. “They’re nasty, all right. Lucky I can outrun them.”

He made no move that Alice could see, but the bike engine revved once to underscore his point.

“You ought to ask your Master to set you up with a sweet ride like I got,” Mr. Goatee went on. “Beats holy hell out of the busted-up Olds you’ve been driving.”

Alice could only see her captor’s back, but she heard the sudden tension in his voice as he said, “You’ve been watching me.”

“I’ve seen you drive down the Way a time or two, yeah,” he confirmed. “That billboard makes a great hiding place. No wonder cops used to use them, huh? I know where your Master’s lair is, too. Great choice, by the way. Between you and me, your Master’s got a great sense of humor—more than mine, that’s for sure . Mine lairs out in the boonies, in the basement of an old farmhouse. I mean, shit, how clichéd is that?”

Alice’s captor paused a few seconds before saying, “Nice shotgun.”

Alice expected Mr. Goatee to reach for his weapon, but he kept his arms folded across his chest. “Sure is. Got it off some fat schmuck I found wandering around out here last week. Can you believe my luck? Asshole took a shot at me, but he missed by a country mile. Guess he was nervous. That, or he never actually fired a gun before. Idiot. Easiest prey I ever took down. One punch and he folded like an old lawn chair. Must’ve had a glass jaw or something. He came to just before we reached my Master’s lair and did the usual begging-for-his-life routine.” The biker’s mouth formed a sly half-smile. “He had an original spin, though. He claimed that another thrall had been bringing him to his Master, but for some reason the thrall—who’d been driving a piece-of-shit Oldsmobile—had pulled over and let him go. The thrall even gave him a shotgun to protect himself and then he asked the feeb to crack him on the head with the gun butt. The guy didn’t know why the thrall asked this, but he did it—hit him a good one, or so he said—then took off running. I figure the thrall wanted to make it look like the guy escaped so he wouldn’t get in trouble with his Master. What do you think?”

The entire time Mr. Goatee had been talking, Alice had been slowly edging out from behind her captor. She had a bad feeling that the two men were going to start shooting at each other soon, and she wanted to make sure she was out of the crossfire. She had a better view of her captor now, and she saw him slowly begin to squeeze his gun trigger.

“I think you must have a pretty strong death wish to be telling me this without a gun in your hand.”

The shotgun holstered on the biker’s back swiftly spun around until it was pointing barrel up, and then it rolled forward over his shoulder and clicked into place, now pointed directly at her captor. It was double-barreled—over and under, Alice thought it was called. Each barrel could be fired separately if the shooter wished.

The biker grinned. “Who needs hands?”

The shotgun was held by a chrome mount that protruded from the man-machine’s shoulder. Small metal rods, almost like fingers, were attached to both sides of the shoulder mount and reached to the gun’s trigger.

“Nice,” her captor said with grudging admiration. “But what makes you think you can kill me before I can get a shot off?”

“I don’t,” Mr. Goatee admitted. “You wouldn’t have survived out here this long if you weren’t handy with a gun. But if I wanted to shoot you, I’d have done it when I first rolled up. I’m here, like the old game show, to make a deal.”

“I’m listening.”

“The Masters are powerful, but they’re not all -powerful. If they were, they’d know what their thralls were thinking all the time. But they don’t.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Are you kidding? You know how many times I cussed out my Master in my mind? Not once has she ever made a move to punish me.” The biker chuckled. “Believe me, if she knew the things I’ve thought about her, I’d be dead right now.”

“Let’s say you’re right. What’s your point?”

“My point is that I know where your Master’s lair is, remember? I’ll ride straight there and tell him that you set your last offering free… unless you agree to help me out from time to time.”

Alice saw her captor’s jaw muscles bunch, and for an instant she thought he was going to start firing on Mr. Goatee. But he said, “What kind of help are we talking about?”

“I don’t know why you wussed out on your last run, and I don’t care. I see you brought a tasty little morsel this time. You let me have her for my Master, and from now on you bring two offerings whenever you come through. One for your Master, and one for mine. You do that, and I’ll keep my mouth shut. Believe it or not, I’m not doing this because I’m a bastard. Well, not only . It’s getting harder to find unmarked people out here, and while I love my wheels, it’s hard to sneak up on folks when I roll into a town.”

Alice spoke without thinking. “I bet it’s a bitch to get inside a building too. Not to mention chasing people up stairs.”

Mr. Goatee glared at her. “Who asked you, shit-for-br—” He didn’t get the rest out, for as soon as he turned to face Alice, her captor hit the ground and fired his gun.

The biker jerked back as blood exploded from his right shoulder, just beneath the shotgun mount. The finger rods twitched and the shotgun roared as it let loose with one of its barrels. Alice screamed and threw herself to the ground. She lay flat to make herself the smallest target possible, but she didn’t cover her head. She had to watch what was happening.

Mr. Goatee’s first blast must’ve missed her captor, because the man showed no signs of injury. He crouched on one knee, gun pointed at the biker. He braced his wrist with his other hand to steady his aim and control the recoil, and then fired again.

This time it was her captor’s turn to fire wide. Mr. Goatee didn’t wait for the other thrall to get off another shot, though. His engine roared, his kickstand flipped up, and his wheels spun out gray dust. His bike jumped forward and Alice knew the man intended to run her captor down. She experienced a strange urge to leap to her feet, rush forward, and try to knock the biker down. But she remained lying where she was. She had no connection to the man in the brown leather jacket, knew that he’d captured her with the intention of offering her as a sacrifice to his Master. The best outcome for her would be if the two thralls ended up killing each other, leaving her free to make her way back to town. There was a good chance—excellent, really—that she wouldn’t survive the journey, but at least it would be some chance, however small.