‘Do you have a bloody death wish?’
‘I got the bikes, didn’t I?’
‘Yeah, and nearly — rolled them, to our deaths.’
Judd looks at him. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It sounded better when I was thinking it —’
Judd hears a noise over the crackle and pop of the burning SUV. It’s a high-pitched whir. It is distant but grows louder. Judd turns and scans the freeway, then sees it through the flames. A car swerves through the wrecks and races towards them. It whirs because it’s a hybrid. A Prius.
A silver Prius hybrid.
‘Ponytail.’
Corey’s not happy to see it. ‘Oh, come on!’
The car will arrive in twenty seconds.
Spike barks.
‘Yes, he really is a mofo.’
Judd glances at the mountain bike he holds. ‘See? Aren’t you happy I got these things now?’ He pushes the bike, skips once, throws his leg over the seat, finds the pedals and rides away. ‘Follow me.’
Corey push-runs his bike behind him.
Judd glances back. ‘What are you doing? Get on.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What’s wrong? Is it broken?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then what?’
‘I can’t.’
‘That’s not an answer —’
‘Ride a bike! I can’t ride a bike.’
Judd is dumbfounded. ‘You’re thirty years old. Didn’t you learn when you were a kid?’
‘You don’t ride a bike if you have your own helicopter!’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I was hoping you’d teach me.’
The Prius whirs.
They turn.
It’s just ten seconds away.
Judd looks back at Corey. ‘First lesson! Throw your leg over the seat, sit down and put your feet on the pedals.’
Corey doesn’t need to be told twice. He pushes off, throws his leg over the seat, sits and finds the pedals with his feet — then topples over. ‘Christ!’
Spike barks.
‘I’d like to see you do it.’ Corey pushes off again — and stays upright this time. ‘Yes!’ Cocky, he looks over at Judd, then realises the astronaut is riding beside him and holding his bike’s seat to keep him upright. ‘Oh.’
‘Second lesson! When you pedal, push down hard to stay balanced.’ Corey does it and they pick up speed. Judd turns them towards the wreck of a semitrailer twenty metres away. If they can reach it, it might offer them some cover. If. Spike gallops ahead.
Tyres screech. Judd looks back, sees the Prius swerve around the burning SUV and head straight towards them.
Kilroy watches the two men on bikes. Interestingly, one doesn’t seem to know how to ride and is held steady by the other — not something you see very often. They furiously pedal towards a wrecked semitrailer because, Kilroy guesses, they think it will offer them some cover.
It won’t. He mashes the pedal and the Prius surges forward. With the car running on battery power its acceleration is swift, much better than with the petrol engine.
The wreck is close, but is it close enough? Corey hears the thrum of the hybrid engine behind him. He glances back.
The car is three metres away! Jeez! Fear twists in his chest. Who’d have thought a Prius could be so menacing?
Judd yanks him right, pulls him behind the wreck as the Prius whips past. Its bumper grazes Corey’s back tyre and the bike wobbles violently, but he pushes hard on the pedals and keeps balance.
‘The gap in the wall!’ Judd nods at the right side of the freeway. There’s a narrow service gap in the cement retaining wall three lanes away, wide enough for a bike but too small for a car.
Corey ups his pace. ‘Okay. I got this.’
‘You sure?’
‘Bloody oath.’
‘I have no idea what that means.’
‘It means you can let go now.’
Judd lets go and aims for the gap, the Australian follows and Spike bounds ahead of them both.
The Prius’s tyres screech on the bitumen, but Corey has no idea where the car is. He’s too focused on getting to that gap—
Wham. ‘Jeez!’ Corey looks back. The Prius’s nose has slammed into his rear wheel. The bike shudders, wobbles violently, but he hangs on and keeps it upright.
The gap in the wall is close. The dog bounds through it, then Judd follows. They disappear from view.
Wham. The Prius hits Corey’s rear wheel again, but this time it propels the bike forward and he spears through the gap to safety.
Or not.
‘Sweet Jesus!’
The ground drops away like it’s the Grand Canyon and suddenly Corey’s airborne, ten metres above a steep, grassy hill, his bike’s gears clicking as it freewheels through space.
He has time to turn and watch the Prius slam into the cement retaining wall. Then he looks forward to see where he’s headed. The hill is thirty metres long and ends abruptly at a steep drop-off to another road three metres below.
Spike slides down the hill and reaches the drop off. Hard as he tries he can’t stop himself from sliding over the edge, so he jumps and lands nimbly on the road below. Next, Judd lands his bike just before the drop-off, then, like one of those Red Bull stunt rider guys, jumps again and lands safely on the road too.
As Corey’s bike arcs through the air he realises he’s not travelling fast enough to land beyond the drop-off and not slow enough to land before it. That big nudge from the Prius has increased his pace just enough so the bike comes down right on top of the dropoff, after which it will flip or snap or do God knows what.
He pulls back on the handlebars and tries to alter the bike’s trajectory.
It doesn’t work.
He then pedals hard, thinks that might increase his speed.
It just looks silly.
Now what?
He lets go of the bike and watches it fly away as he falls to earth.
The bike lands right on the drop-off and violently flips onto the road as expected. A split second later Corey slams into the hill, back first.
Crunch. His head thumps the ground and rattles his teeth. Jeez-it-hurts! He slides towards the edge, snatches at the ground to stop himself going over—
Slam. He catches hold of a clump of grass and jerks to a halt, right at the edge. He takes a deep breath. His head vibrates like a tuning fork and his back aches from the impact but he’s in one piece. Groggy, he looks over the edge at Judd and Spike on the road below. ‘I really didn’t enjoy that —’
‘Move!’ Judd frantically points back up the hill.
‘Huh?’ Corey turns to see the slab of cement retaining wall the Prius hit slide down the slope — directly towards him. ‘Oh, man!’ He pulls himself up, but he’s slow. His back screams and his head feels light and he slumps back down to the grass.
Spike barks.
‘I’m trying!’
The cement slab picks up speed. It’s the size of a single bed and must weigh a tonne.
Judd watches it. ‘Get up, man!’
‘I said I’m trying!’ Corey wobbles to his feet and the slab’s right there. He jumps awkwardly and it thunders under him, flips off the edge and shatters on the road below.
Corey crumples to the grass. ‘Jesuschweppes.’
‘Come on. We gotta go!’ Judd’s voice is low but firm, his eyes pinned to the Prius at the top of the hill.
Corey raises his head, concerned. ‘Is Ponytail coming?’
‘Not yet, but I don’t want to be here when he does.’
‘Can you see him?’
‘No, that’s why I want to get going! Hurry up.’