“You do know you could have just turned around while inside the car and have seen them, right?” Deneaux asked cynically.
“What do you think?” BT asked Gary, ignoring Deneaux’s remark.
“Any chance this thing can go faster?” Gary asked, finally heeding Deneaux’s advice and looking through the rear windshield.
“I could probably push the pedal through the rusted-out floorboard, but I don’t know if that would make it go any faster. Plus, if the CV joints in the front end are gone and I go any faster, we hit a bump and we’ll catch air…then we’ll be screwed,” BT said.
“I think we already are,” Gary said, sitting back in his seat making sure that his rifle was fully loaded. “There’s seven of them.”
“I don’t remember seeing zombies in any of the Mad Max movies,” BT said grimly.
Gary looked over at his friend; Deneaux for once was silent not able to think up a retort.
“Mad Max.” BT said again as if that short statement would explain everything.
Gary shrugged his shoulders.
“Come on, man, it was a classic. A post-apocalyptic world? Had a shitload of car chase scenes with motorcycles?”
“Okay,” Gary said. “So?”
“There were no zombies in those movies is all I’m saying. How many dangers should we have to face on any given day? We’ve got zombies, vampires, rednecks and now a biker gang. Enough is enough already!” BT yelled as he slammed his fist down on the steering wheel.
The car pitched hard to the left.
“How about not breaking our ride,” Mrs. Deneaux snapped. “Our friends are getting closer.”
“You don’t say?” BT said sarcastically. “I figured at fifty miles per hour I’d be able to lose them.
“Really?” Gary asked. “How fast do motorcycles go?”
Deneaux rolled down her window. “It came down to you or Shortie, I wonder if I chose correctly.” She answered.
“We’re not entirely sure if they’re the bad guys,” Gary said hopefully. The timing was impeccable as his side view mirror blew apart into fragments.
“I guess that solves that dilemma,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she stuck her head out the window.
BT hoped a particularly large breeze would catch her and carry her out of the car. At least that was what he was thinking up until her first shot caught one of the rapidly approaching motorcyclists. The motorcycle’s front wheel violently cut back and forth until the bike flipped over itself, the rider skidded along the ground and was still. The remaining six, instead of backing off, came up even faster. Gunfire peppered the back of the small car.
Deneaux pulled her head in, a look of smug satisfaction across her features as she along with the other occupants in the car ducked down. Glass shattered, and the sound of metal being punctured dominated above all else.
“Isn’t the Pinto the car that used to catch on fire!” Gary yelled.
“They have automatic weapons!” Deneaux yelled. She had tried to poke her head up to get some shots off, but the suppressive fire from their pursuers was too intense. They drove a few more miles like that. The rear end of the car had become so riddled with holes as to become nearly non-existent.
BT knew it was only a matter of time before bullets made their way into the car, then they’d go out much like the infamous Bonnie and Clyde—in a hail of bullets. He began searching for something, anything to help them out of their predicament. The gang was keeping a respectable distance of around twenty-five yards, but it would be sooner rather than later when they became emboldened enough to come alongside and finish them off.
“Hold on!” BT yelled, not really giving anyone enough time to prepare as he took a hard left, never slowing. The car screeched like a white trash woman who’d realized her man had just gotten another woman pregnant. If BT had not been fighting for their lives to hold the car onto the dirt roadway, he would have found great mirth in Deneaux’s futile efforts to pull herself away from her door. The car bounced and jostled, a loud twanging signaling the death throes of one or more of the rusted out leaf springs. The wheel whipped back and forth in BT’s hands; trees came dangerously close to ending the group’s forward momentum.
A large leafy branch struck Gary against the side of the face as he tried to pull back further into the car. Gunfire was still erupting from the bikers, but it had become more sporadic as they fell back, the choking dust of the dirt road having the desired effect. BT did not think the old Ford would be able to take much more of the pounding the surface offered, but his choices were limited at the moment.
“Take the next right!” Mrs. Deneaux shouted.
BT didn’t know how she could see anything from her vantage point but he did as she said.
“Now stop!” she practically shrieked.
BT thought she might have seen a tree up ahead, he laid on the brakes which, of all the mechanical things on the car, seemed the least likely to fail. The car came to an abrupt stop just as the roar of motorcycle engines was almost on top of them.
“What now?” Gary asked.
“Quiet,” Mrs. Deneaux said through clenched teeth as dust settled all around them. “Take your damned foot off of the brake you’re going to give us away.” She extracted herself from the car quickly.
“Nice we’ll just let them race on by, then we’ll get out of here,” Gary said enthusiastically.
The first motorcycle raced past the Pinto’s detour before Mrs. Deneaux started firing. Gary threw his hands up to his ears, unprepared for the noise of the reports.
“What are you doing, you crazy old fuck?” BT shouted. “They would have driven right past!”
“For what…another hundred yards before they figured we weren’t up ahead?” she answered between shots.
After Gary recovered from the initial shock, he opened his door and grabbed his rifle. At least one motorcyclist had met his demise, and the rest still didn’t know what was happening through the kicked up dust. Gary fired three shots—the last of which caught the front of the motorcycle or possibly the driver, either way the driver planted his bike into the nearest tree. The gang banger behind him had been following too closely and crashed also. He was not dead, but his cries of pain most likely put him out of this battle.
Then it was quiet as the rest of the gang discovered the ruse. The bikes throttled down from their surge to an idle. The bike that had gone past was now slowly coming back. The roadway was settling and the carnage was visible to all. The man who hit the tree was twisted with his legs bent backwards and up over his head; the world’s most flexible gymnast could not have struck that pose.
“Ah fuck, Teets and Dogger are dead,” one of the men said.
“Come and get me.” The one that had wrecked yelled. “My arm and my leg are busted.”
One of the trailing men got off his bike.
“Don’t!” the man up ahead yelled. “It’s a trap.”
“Fuck man it’s Deuce. I’ve got to get him,” The first man replied.
“Give me your rifle,” Mrs. Deneaux said softly to Gary. The words were barely out of her mouth when she grabbed it from him.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he handed it the rest of the way over.
“I’m giving Deuce’s friend a little incentive,” she said as she fired a round off that caught the fallen man in his broken arm.
“Oh fuck!” he screamed. He was writhing in agony, the intense pain from his shattered elbow all he could think about. “Help me!” he screamed again. “Get me out of here!”
“Q-ball, I’ve got to get him, we go way back,” the man on the left said.
“Come on, come on,” Mrs. Deneaux whispered as she kept her eye to the rifle’s aperture.