Some of the younger men were unhappy because the more attractive members of the Dragon Slayers had been flirting with local girls and even stealing kisses. I suspect that part of their anger came from the fact that some of the local girls were enjoying this attention. If one of these men had stepped forward and taken a lead, I think the others would have backed him and collectively the town could have worked to see the bikers off. But nobody did. I could lie at this point and say that I gave serious thought to standing up and rallying them into taking a stand. But my thoughts at that moment were centred on whether or not to have a piece of lemon meringue pie with my coffee.
“A couple of ‘em are climbing up the outside of the council house now,” a voice said. The old man, I think he was the one called Benjamin, had pulled the window blind sideways about an inch and had his nose pressed to the glass.
“With any luck, they’ll fall and crack their stupid heads,” the hotdog seller said. His name was Alf and he looked very different without his red and white striped outfit, but he still smelled of smoked meat and onions. He went to peer out of the window as well.
“What’s that young ‘un trying to do to the clock face? Is he trying to change the time? Don’t he know you move the hands from inside the clocktower?”
“He’s trying to pull the hands off it.”
“Now why would someone do a fool thing like that?”
“That clock’s been up there more’n fifty years and has stood wind and rain and dust storms – there’s no way he’ll prise them hands off it.”
“Reckon you’re right there, Ben. Looks like he’s giving up on it.”
“Nope, he’s just fishing in his pocket for something. Whoops, his grip slipped then and he almost fell. What is that thing he’s got there?”
“He’s trying to set fire to the clock!”
The old woman I’d met earlier slapped the hotdog seller on the arm. “Are you two fools going to stand there all day and give a running commentary?”
“Just what do you propose we should do, Hilda May?” The hotdog man asked.
“I think one of you men should grow a pair and go out there and stop their shenanigans.”
“Keep quiet, old woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Benjamin snapped. “It ain’t worth getting a beating just to save an old clock. Darn thing’s been five minutes slow this past year anyway.”
“Scrack it,” the old woman said. “I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.”
I don’t think she meant grow a pair. She had them already.
“You can’t go out there,” I said, catching hold of her arm.
“Someone’s got to,” she said, pulling free of my grip. “Is that gun of yours loaded?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I don’t always wear my gun-belt, but after our encounter with the biker at the hotdog stall I’d decided to strap it on. If nothing else, it might make someone think twice before trying to pick a fight.
“You quick on the draw?” the old woman asked.
“I like to think so,” I said.
“Bet you’re not this quick,” she said. She had my gun and was pointing it at me.
“How did you...?”
“I used to be a gunslinger,” she said, “back in the day.”
I didn’t say anything to that. She was pointing a gun at me. It looked very big in her hands. She was looking at it critically.
“BeauTech 370 with 12mm explosive rounds,” she said. “What do you do, hunt dragons?”
“Mostly I fire at cars that are chasing me,” I said.
She smiled at that and lowered the gun. “I prefer the old 340 myself, it has more finesse. But this’ll get the job done.”
“I’m Quincy Randall,” I said.
“Hilda May Crouton.” She held out a tiny liver-spotted hand and I shook it gently. “And I’m single,” she said. “In case you were wondering.”
“Oh, I was,” I said, “I was.”
She winked at me then turned and opened the door. What else could I do except follow her? She had my gun.
When we got out there the two monkey-men were climbing back down the tower, having discovered that the wrought-iron hands of the clock weren’t going to burn. Other members of the gang were riding up and down the main street, whooping and hollering and engaging in various types of clichéd macho posturing and over-the-top rebelliousness. They rode with the front wheel of their bike up in the air. They did a headstand on the seat while still steering with their hands. And one stood up on the seat and rode the bike like a surfboard – until he collided with an overturned bike and went flying through the air.
“Wipeout!” a voice shouted.
One of the bikers was sitting in the little fountain in the town square and appeared to be taking a bath.
“Bunch of scracking hooligans,” Hilda May muttered. “Don’t they know horses have to drink from that?” She raised my gun and cocked the trigger.
“Careful, it’s got quite a kick,” I said.
“I know that.” She aimed and squeezed the trigger gently. The slug exploded in the ground in front of one of the bikes. The rider swerved but managed to stay upright. “That was just a warning shot to get their attention,” she said.
She’d succeeded in that. The bikes all came to a halt and everyone looked at her.
“You boys turn around and head out of town,” she said. “I don’t want to have to hurt anyone.”
A biker directly across the street from us grinned at her. This had to be Mother – if that’s what they really called him. The hotel barman had been right about the motorcycle. Everything that wasn’t chrome was painted a pale milky colour that reflected light like pearls. It made me think of freshly-butchered bones. He put down the kickstand, got off the bike and drew himself up to his full height. He was almost as wide as he was tall. He was a head taller than me and must have weighed three times as much. Some of it was muscle but most of it was beer gut. Stretched over his belly was a black tee-shirt carrying the logo of some punk-metal band I’d never heard of. His jeans were stained and greasy-looking and his leather jacket was cracked and scarred. He was giving us what he thought was a menacing stare, but his eyes were like two currants that someone had poked deep into uncooked dough. Topping it all off was hair that looked like it had been cut by two people who were fighting over the scissors.
Mother swaggered towards us. Hilda May let him get about halfway across the street before she fired. The bone-coloured motorcycle exploded behind him and the flames expanded outwards in a bright orange cloud.
“I was aiming for the bike,” she said to me over her shoulder, “in case you thought I’d missed him.”
Mother’s face twisted into a snarl but it quickly became a howl as he realised that the back of his jacket and the seat of his pants were on fire. He dropped to the ground and rolled in the dirt to put out the flames.
“Don’t just stand there,” he shouted, “kill them!”
Two of the bikers moved in our direction but stopped when Hilda May turned the gun towards them.
“Here, hold this.” She passed me her purse. I almost dropped it, it was heavier than my kitbag. “There’s a gun in there if you feel like joining in,” she said.
Normally I would never even think about putting my hand in a woman’s purse, but when more of the bikers started closing in I snapped open the clasp. I expected to find a dainty little chrome-plated revolver. Instead, my fingers closed on a semi-automatic machine pistol with a twenty-round magazine. There was an extra clip in the bottom of the bag.
“It’s modified for full-automatic, but don’t tell the sheriff,” she said.
I thumbed the safety but kept the short barrel pointed at the ground.
“You going to fire that thing or let them attack a poor defenceless old woman?” she asked. She turned and shot at another of the parked motorbikes. There was a whoomp! as it caught fire.
I sprayed 9mm bullets into the dirt in front of the advancing bikers and they stopped and mo
ved back a step.
“Pass me the shotgun,” their leader snarled. He was back on his feet but his jacket was still smoking. When he turned I caught a glimpse of scorched buttocks. One of his cronies tossed him a pump-action shotgun. It had a pistol grip and looked well-used.
“Dammit,” Hilda May said. “I told you I didn’t want to hurt any of you. Give me that thing.”
She took the machine pistol from my hand, giving me mine back in exchange. She muttered something about explosive rounds being ridiculous for tackling rats.
“You want to shoot them not splatter them all over the street.” She put the switch to the single-shot position and aimed the machine pistol at Mother. She lowered the barrel slightly and shot him in the foot. I saw the leather blossom and blood spurted. He dropped the shotgun and started hopping and hollering. She was right: if she’d used my gun, he’d have lost a leg.
“Who’s next?” the old woman asked, raising her gun.
Like me, the other bikers were too stunned to move. They looked around for someone to give them direction, but their leader was now on one knee, clutching his foot and wailing about having lost a toe or maybe two.
“Shoot another one of them bikes,” Hilda May said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
I targeted a bike that was furthest from its rider and the shot caused a nice little explosion and then a nice big fire.
“Let’s get out of here!” one of the bikers shouted.
Needing no further encouragement, the other leather-clad rebels scurried towards their bikes and rode out without a backward glance. One of those whose bike was now a charred lump duck-walked to his leader’s side and helped him to his feet. The two of them slunk away on foot.
The old woman watched them until they were out of sight. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she was smiling.
“You know they’ll be back, right?” I said, looking at the smouldering wreckage of the bikes we’d shot.
“I’ll be ready for them,” she said. “I’ve got some bigger hardware under my bed. This is the year our town takes a stand.”
“You’re an amazing lady,” I said, passing back her purse.
“I ain’t no lady,” she said. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”
Chapter Five
I hadn’t seen Floyd since the previous evening. He was avoiding me and I thought I knew why. He was loitering on the hotel’s second-floor landing when I found him. His face was metal, immobile, so he had no expression to give him away. But I still knew.
“You took the job, didn’t you?” I asked.
“You knew I would.”
He was right, I didn’t need to see a guilty look on his face. I knew he’d take it.
“Mister Flint wouldn’t budge on the deadline, the fourteen days is set in stone. But I did get him to up our fee to fifteen thousand dollars,” Floyd said. “And I got five thousand upfront for expenses because I told him we’d have to keep our foot to the floor and burn a lot of juice to make good time.”
Floyd was doing that thing I usually do – talking to fill the silence. Taking the job was the right thing to do. For him. For both of us, probably. But I couldn’t make myself feel happy about it. At that moment I wasn’t even sure if I would make the trip with him. I think he guessed this.
“Take some time to think about it,” Floyd said. “We don’t have to leave until dawn on the first.” He walked away, leaving me with my thoughts. The first of the month was a couple of days away. Maybe I’d be in a better mood by then.
I went outside to walk around. I was too confused to come to any sensible decision. Right now I felt the need to do something reckless. Or at the very least illegal.
Floyd was right, we needed money. I’d lied to him when I said I had a plan – I had nothing. I had looked around the town of Gizzard Creek and I couldn’t see anywhere big enough or anyone rich enough to be worth robbing. I’m not big on rules but there are two that I live by. I never kill people and I never steal from someone who can’t afford it or doesn’t deserve it. The closest to a legitimate target I could think of was Jacob Flint but I felt he was probably off-limits since Floyd had taken him on as a client.
There was always the nearest bank, of course, but the local branch was too small to be worthwhile. They’d have mostly local currency and you need a truckload of that stuff to break even on a score.
What use is being a thief if there’s no one to rob? It’s like being a portrait artist with no one to paint. A chef with an empty restaurant. A politician with no people to lie to. I felt marooned.
“Hey, mister, could you please tie my balloon for me?”
I looked down. The boy was maybe five or six. His front teeth were missing at the top and there was a scattering of freckles across his nose. The front of his dungarees was soaking wet. The balloon he was holding was filled to bursting point with water.
“You’re not going to throw that at anyone, are you?” I asked – and instantly hated myself for sounding like a grown-up.
“Oh, no, sir,” he said. His expression was so angelically innocent that for a moment I thought I saw a halo glimmering above his head.
I took the balloon, squeezed out a small amount of the water and tied a knot in the neck.
“Thanks, mister.” He gave me a wave and walked away.
“Don’t get caught,” I called after him.
“I never do,” he said over his shoulder.
I watched him disappear down the street, clutching the balloon in both hands, and wondered who the intended target was. Had I ever been that young?
“You know what’s better than water balloons,” I said to myself. “Slime balloons.”
I felt that little tickle at the back of my brain – that feeling that tells you that you’ve just got to do something. That feeling got me into heaps of trouble when I was a kid.
An old man was standing outside the general store. His hands were resting on top of his walking stick and he looked like he was trying to catch his breath. As I got closer I realised I knew him.
“Hello, Mother,” I said.
“Only my friends call me Mother,” he growled. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes focused. It was probably the painkillers.
“Mister Scracker it is then,” I said. “How’s your foot?”
It was covered in bandages and stretched over them was an old tartan carpet slipper that looked like it had been made for a giant. I wondered if he really had lost any toes. It would be a shame if he couldn’t count to twenty anymore.
“Where’s the old witch that ruinated my foot?” he asked.
“She’s gone over to Clearwater for a sharp-shooting contest. I reckon she’ll bring back the trophy, don’t you?”
“You’re lying,” he said.
I nodded. “Usually.”
“Where is she?”
“She said something about fetching a bigger gun to shoot the vermin,” I said.
“The only hardware she’ll need is a shovel for digging two graves,” he said. “We’re coming for the both of you. Tonight.”
“I’ll tell her you said hello,” I said. “She’ll be sorry she missed you.”
He looked down at the tartan slipper and from his expression, I’m sure he was thinking about how she hadn’t missed him yesterday.
“Midnight tonight you die,” he said. He turned and limped away. He was wearing a pair of loose jogging pants. I bet his ass cheeks were still sore.
There are dozens of ways of making slime using household ingredients. The stuff you make with flour, water, and food colouring is probably the easiest – and least toxic. But I always found the texture a bit disappointing. My favourite kind is made using dish soap or shampoo – which are pretty much the same thing – thickened with salt. You can add shaving foam to it if you want to make the fluffy kind of slime, but I prefer mine clear.
I went into the general store and bought a bucket, a wooden spoon, a funnel, six bottles of the cheapest liquid dish soap, and a little tu
b of salt. And a packet of balloons. Condoms work well too, but if you buy a dozen of those people think you’re bragging.
I didn’t want to delay starting, so I ducked into the alley behind the store. Getting the quantities right takes a bit of experimentation, so I started small. It wasn’t long before I had green slime in the bottom of the bucket. It felt good to get my hands in it.
“Whoa! It looks just like snot!” I said grinning. I held a stringy bit of slime up to my nose and wished I had a friend there to see it.
Pleased that I hadn’t lost the knack of making it, I set to work on the balloons. I used the funnel to get the dish soap into the first balloon until it was the size of a grapefruit. I sprinkled salt into the funnel and began massaging the balloon to mix the ingredients.
“It feels like a boobie,” I said, grinning like an idiot. Then the slime started to thicken and it began to feel more like a fake boobie. I threw the balloon against the back wall of the store – it burst and the slime splattered nicely, but the goo was definitely too thick. I put less salt in the next one. By the time I’d done, I had five good-sized slime bombs sitting in the bottom of the bucket.
I looked down at the balloons and again found myself faced with the same problem. Who or what was I going to target? I had five shots and I didn’t want to waste them.
“What’s that in your hair?” Floyd asked when I got back to the hotel.
“Snot,” I said.
“It smells like dish soap.”
“I volunteered to wash dishes at a soup kitchen,” I said.
Floyd made an electronic snorting sound. I think it meant he didn’t believe me. “I saw that hotdog thief again this afternoon,” he said. “He was riding pillion on another bike – and he had green slime all down his back.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked innocently.
“He smelled of dish soap too.”
“Must be something in the air,” I said.
“You seem in a better mood now,” Floyd said.
Road Rage Page 3