by Lee Brait
Oil To Ashes 3, "Warehouse"
Linc's son watched as the man stood against the grim night, his arms outstretched as if to give his life on a cross. The red halo from the fires trembled behind and softly outlined the tops of his arms, the slight kink in his elbows and the fabric that sagged below. Light tangled with thick strands of long and unkempt hair and then vanished behind his unlit, featureless face. He stood a silhouette in the cool air, almost motionless and completely silent. The only movement came from dark orbs clasped below each hand, twisting and swaying gently from fragments of momentum, transferred to them by some past movement of the fingers or wrist.
The overpowering blue tinge of the Silverado's headlights plunged the figure into a bleak pool and the soft silhouette blazed into stark detail. Black hair, matted and grimy. A stout nose, bent at an unnatural angle from some old injury. A beat up olive army jacket, stained dark shiny red. Contorted expressions on the faces evidenced the brutal passing of the decapitated wretches who swung in each hand.
Angie let out something between a choke and a gasp. Linc threw cupped hands over Ryan's stare. Too late. Gruesome detail, etched into his vulnerable mind in a millisecond, cannot be unseen. Cannot be unremembered.
The man passed out of the headlights and back to the night as the driver in the black jacket pushed on, to wherever Linc and his family were being taken.
Linc let go of the boys eyes and checked his face. Confusion. Had it registered? Ryan's chin began to shake. The innocent eyes stared into Linc's, filled with dread and fear. Why could he not protect him from this? Damned bikers with their leather jackets and shotguns. Abduction. Terror. It was his job to keep them safe and he'd failed them again.
He buried the boy's face into his chest and muffled the sobs. The sky wailed with him. A high pitched screech. Urgent and angry. The pitch descended rapidly and the mortar struck, a blinding white flash on the road ahead. The fireball raged and lit the riot in a snapshot of violence and misfortune. Machetes and baseball bats striking and cutting and threatening. Dozens of participants, flickering orange and red and frantic. Dozens of bodies, strewn, their part played out.
Thick smoke blocked the view of the road and the driver swerved right to avoid the crater left by the bomb. He clipped the edge and the Silverado's left rear wheel hit the lip as it exited, spitting the vehicle and all of its occupants into the air. Linc pulled Ryan closer and grabbed the door handle with his free hand.
"HOLD ON!" he yelled to Angie, then realized how close he was to her ear.
The SUV rolled in the air, clockwise, slowly. Angie wrapped her arms around the door handles. It came down hard on two right tires and bounced again, anticlockwise. Angie cracked her shoulder on the door frame. Linc bashed his head against the window and Ryan bumped into his chest. The vehicle landed back on four wheels and rocked back and forth until the driver with the red bandana brought it under control again.
The back end of the vehicle spun out to the right and thumped into a brute with a raised ax. Glass from the rear quarter window sprayed the man with the shotgun in the back as the ax smashed through and its wielder was flattened on the road. The man in the back cleared the glass from his face and the shotgun barrel lost its focus from Ryan for a moment.
An opportunity to escape.
But the rioters, senseless violence in every direction. Where would they go?
For now they were safer with the kidnappers.
Keep your head down. Keep them off their guard. Hold your surprises for when you can make them count. Screw it up and it will be Ryan or Angie who pay.
The rioters blocked the road ahead. Not a solid mass, there were gaps. The driver pumped the gas and bowled them one at a time. Linc checked Angie. Tears streamed down her checks. She was a survivor, she never quit. But he could see that she thought this was it.
The Suburban bumped and slowed with each strike, accelerated and hit the next. It was losing speed.
KADONK
KADONK
Five to go but the vehicle was moving not much faster than a walk now. Each one bounced off slower than the last. Three left. The crowd swarmed the back of the vehicle. The glass in the lift-gate exploded. Another hit the hood and hung on to the bull bars. Screaming and bashing came from the lift-gate, one was half way inside now, a machete in one hand, the man with the shotgun still working on the glass in his eyes. The last two thumped into the front bull bars and clung on. The Suburban was moving at a crawl, overrun.
They would be inside in seconds. He scanned the vehicle for makeshift weapons to defend his wife and his boy but all he had was his fists.
The sky screeched again, a feverish pitch, long and high and dropping fast. They say if you hear this one you're likely to survive it but Linc found that no comfort. The ground exploded forty yards behind the vehicle. Body parts spewed in all directions. Fragments of metal and stone clanked into the rear of the car. A stray hand slapped the driver on the back and left a dark shiny patch and small chunks of flesh on his black leather jacket, then fell into Angie's lap. She shrieked and tossed it toward the short stocky man with the brown beard in the back, now bashing the intruder's face with the butt of the shotgun. A symphony of clinks on the roof. The intruder slumped and fell from the lift-gate and landed with half of the swarm, also fallen. The driver kept his foot to the floor and the vehicle responded now, it accelerated. Each of the three now clinging desperately to the front bull bars fell, one at a time, and the vehicle bumped and surged over them.
The SUV pulled away and the riot was left behind except for the whump of mortar shells.
They passed Railroad Ave and Linc wondered where they were taking his family, if not to the clubhouse. They pulled up behind a queue at some traffic lights. No sign of unrest here. It can't be far away.
Another screech. This time a short and low, almost not heard this time. Linc dived on Ryan and shoved Angie to the floor-well as the car rocked from a shock-wave a few yards in front and shrapnel spattered into the car. The front passenger grunted and slumped forward.
Linc looked over the dash in time to see a mangled red car crash down on its side and block the road. Moments ago it had been a Honda. Third in the queue, two ahead of them.
The front car sped away, safe from another round. The SUV and sedan behind it stayed. Linc could not tell if the drivers were injured, dead or paralyzed with fear.
Another screech, another bang and a fireball. This time in front of the wreck and beside the sedan. The driver had to be dead now. The next round could hit them; hit Ryan and Angie. They were sitting ducks.
The driver hit the gas and shunted the sedan forward. It bumped the SUV and the convoy labored to a halt. He kept the power on and the wheels spun. Burnt rubber stunk out the car, it rocked and heaved but did not move.
Linc shoved Ryan into Angies arms, "Hold him tight. Don't let go!"
He kicked open the door and climbed half out.
The shotgun in the back aimed at Ryan again, "Stay where you are!"
"Don't hurt him!" Linc yelled back. "I'll unblock it."
He slammed the door and ran to the idling Ford Escape. The driver was slumped over the wheel, half a bloody wing mirror protruding from her jaw. He jerked the door open and heaved her to the ground.
"Sorry, you deserve more."
He leaped in and hit the gas. The motor of the Suburban behind him revved hard too and the three cars lurched forward.
A short low screech and an explosion. The red wreck flipped up and slammed into the side of the Ford, rocking him sideways and scraping the length of the vehicle. The momentum held and the three vehicles cleared the wreck. He kept the power on until the sedan spun off and hit a bus stop.
He kept driving until the banging mortar rounds faded to whumps. He pulled over, let the Suburban pull alongside and waited while both windows whirred.
"I'll follow you. We can clear the road again if we need to," he said.
The driver raised his pistol in Angie's face. "You'll get in th
e back now," he called across his passenger's corpse. "If you want your wife to live another minute."
Linc paused. He felt his pulse thumping through his chest as the muscles tightened and stifled his breath. He was almost sure he would not pull the trigger. But Ryan was still all leverage they needed.
He shut off the engine and climbed in next to Ryan again.
"I won't let them hurt either of you," he said as confidently as he could to Angie's drained face.
They followed Delta Highway and the black sky behind the burning horizon became a little less black. They took the 242 turnoff. It was some kind of long way round to Clayton Road. He didn't recognize any of the bikers from his visit to their HQ but they must know their own way home. Concord Ave passed by and then Willow Pass Road. Was there even another turnoff?
They passed Monument Boulevard and took a right into Geary Road and followed it through to Pleasant Hill Road. The gray behind the horizon was spreading. Did they have a second club house? What bike gang did that?
They turned up a valley Linc had never been to, up Springhill Road. Then right onto Blackhawk Road and they wound their way up a steep hill and into Eagle Point Road. The approaching light of dawn sneaked between the horizon and the smoke and gave a hint of the mottled brown that covered the tree trunks and the bright greens that saturated their leaves.
It was a new perspective on the city. It was frightening at sea level,