The Road Sharks

by Clint Hollingsworth

  Darwin Shell, once again looking over the street to the river, smiled. He turned toward his beaming lieutenant. “Fortune favors the fortunate in this case, Axyl. She evidently wasn’t paying attention and stepped right out in front of Porter and his boys as they were going up to get ready at New Hope. Under the circumstances, I could easily forgive them for postponing that to bring our savage little canary here to sing for me.”

  Axyl’s face darkened. “I’m telling you, boss, when you get the location for Eli and his hidden little village, kill her quick. For my sake, for your sake, for everyone’s sake, blow her away all business-like, ‘cause she is trouble slash death in a curvy package.”

  “Really, Axyl. Man-up. She’s just a woman. She may bare her teeth and kick of few of our more stupid employees in the crotch, but she’s not some primal force as you seem to fear.” Shell sighed. “She’s just a tool at the moment, one that will give us the means to find the biggest thorn in our side, AKA Eli. We have her, and if she doesn’t want some extreme unpleasantness laid upon her, she will do what I tell her.”

  “Yeah?” the Axe Man replied, stung by the accusation against his masculinity. “Let’s see how you feel when she gets loose and runs a sharp knife across your throat late some night.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure. Now how has our deployment to New Hope gone?”

  “We’re trickling our guys into the area, so as to not get ‘em suspicious with a lot of activity. By tomorrow evening, we’ll have all our soldiers and the C4 in place.”

  “I love it when a plan comes together.”

  ****

  “Too bad we don’t get to have the bitch first!”

  Four men came into the cell, growling at the other women, telling them to shut up, then concentrated on Ghost Wind. They came with a strange device she had never seen before and there was no preamble, one of them simply put the device to her shoulder and thumbed a button on the thing.

  “GAHHHH!!!”

  Ghost Wind thought for a moment that she’d been hit by a lightning bolt, then she stopped thinking other than wanting the pain to stop. When the device was pulled back, she shuddered and trembled so badly that she couldn’t control her limbs and a part of her was immensely glad she had used the provided bucket next to her before the men had come. Soiling herself in front of these vermin would have been a terrible humiliation.

  They didn’t even bother to unwire her wrists, instead simply cutting her bonds with a pair of wire cutters, then re-tying them with what looked like mountain climbing rope from the Beforetime.

  “Suck it up, Buttercup,” the one called Porter said as they yanked her to her feet. She saw her own heavy homemade blade stuffed into the front of his belt, but she couldn’t make her arms work to try for it.

  “She ain’t such a pistol now, is she?” It was the terrible smelling one hanging on to her arm on the other side. He slapped her hard and she saw stars. “Little payback for that kick to my face earlier, bitch!”

  “Time to go see the boss man, girly-girl. And I sincerely hope you try that hard-ass attitude with him. The results will be funnier than hell!” Porter said, “Mr. Shell don’t take no shit off no one.”

  Ghost Wind was not a small woman, but the men simply lifted her so her feet only touched the ground every few steps. They fast-marched her up a flight of stairs to the third floor to a spotless carpeted hallway. Coming to a heavy wooden door, they knocked tentatively, and Porter stuck his head in.

  “Uh, hey, boss,” he said uncertainly, “we brung the chica, like ya asked.”

  A rich voice, almost theatrical in its tone, called out, “By all means Porter, bring our guest in! We’ve all been dying of anticipation to meet her.”

  They half-dragged her into a luxurious office, with several men standing against the various walls, watching her. She was taken to the center of the room, to a chain with a tow-hook on the end that hung down where once a fancy lighting fixture had been. Her tied hands were looped over the hook. The balls of her feet barely touched the floor, and Porter looked at the set-up disapprovingly.

  “She’s just a tad too tall, boss. Her tip-toes is touchin’ the floor.”

  “We’ll just have to make do, Porter. I’d like to get this show on the road. You and Grogan just stick close to her, and discourage any acrobatics she might want to try out.”

  Ghost Wind had recovered enough to look around the very cold room, but it was all she could do to remain calm. Anything, anything could happen to her here, and no one would intervene, no one would help her. She was entirely on her own in a room full of the worst sort of men.

  Calm your mind warrior. Jannelle’s voice again sounded in her head. The calm mind prevails. Gather the information you need to escape.

  She didn’t know if her teacher’s voice was from the spirit world or from her own psyche desperately trying to hold it together, but Ghost Wind began to observe her surroundings in depth. They had let the fire go out in the makeshift wood stove and the room was very cold on her exposed skin. It was obviously to put her even farther out of her comfort zone, if such a thing were possible.

  “Now, Miss Ghost Wind… what a wonderful nom de guerre, so… romantic.” An older man dressed in a heavy gray wool military trench coat, smiled at her benignly. “I’m Darwin Shell, perhaps you’ve heard of me? I know you’ve heard of my associate, Axyl, the ‘Axe Man.’ In fact, I believe you have a history?”

  “Axyyyyll.” The growl came from her throat, as her eyes finally came to rest on the man who had killed her beloved teacher. The sound caused some of the men in the room to look nervously at her, but Axyl literally took a step back, bumping into the wall. He saw a hate in her eyes that warned of painful death if she were ever to get him alone.

  “Ah! I see my lieutenant’s description of your affection for him was not exaggerated!” Shell grinned. “I guess we’ll have to take this slowly, so I can get past the deep feelings you have for him. You may be wondering why you’re still alive, when Axyl has been advocating a ‘shoot on sight’ policy where you are concerned. It’s really quite simple, I need information.”

  To her horror, Ghost Wind felt a scaly hand starting to reach up under her top, to cup her left breast. She turned her head and saw the smelly one, Grogan staring at her chest, his face blank and a thin trickle of drool coming from his mouth as he worked his way towards her nipple. She tried to jerk away.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Shell yelled, “Grogan! Stop! How can she concentrate when…”

  Grogan wasn’t hearing his employer’s irritation, his eyes looking glazed and hypnotized.

  “Axyl, discipline that dog.” Shell’s pique grew even more when he realized his second-in-command had no intention of going near the woman. “Someone?”

  Cord stepped from a shadowy spot by the wall and with some malice hit Grogan in the back of the head. “Your boss is trying to talk, ass-wipe. Quit molesting her so she can fucking concentrate on what he’s fucking saying!”

  Grogan, raised both arms to protect his head, giving Cord a look of pure hate, which Cord returned. For a second, the dark-haired man’s eyes met Ghost Wind’s, and his look was one of deep shame. He looked away quickly, and returned to his spot by the wall.

  “Thank you, Cord. Grogan, don’t interrupt me again,” Shell said. “As I was saying, miss, we can work things out amicably here. I need something from you, and you very seriously need my good will at this point.”

  The assault on her person should have left her frazzled, but instead, it focused her warrior self. As she listened to Shell, it crystalized in her that her main intent needed to be escape from this situation, not defiance or revenge on Axyl. With that, as she listened, she watched the room, looking for options.

  “What do you need from me, other than the usual things men like you want from a woman?”

  “Ah. No pleading, no crying. How refreshing!” Shell said amicably, “What I want from you is very simple, young lady. I want Eli. I want his little hidden town amongst the pin
es. I know you know them both, so let’s make this easy on everybody, especially you, and just give me what I need.”

  For just a second, she was tempted. She still remembered Kita’s nasty reaction to her truthful words and the humiliation of walking out of the village, knowing she wasn’t wanted there. But then she remembered Eli, his kindness and Kenji and all the other innocents of Yama No Matsu. But even more than that, she remembered that this was the man who had sent Axyl to murder her teacher and ruin her life.

  If she died killing him, she could live with that.

  No. You must escape. See the way out before you. Remember the wrist dislocation techniques you were taught. Jannelle’s voice sounded so close she looked to the side, expecting her teacher to be standing there. The path to freedom is right in front of you.

  “I barely know Eli, I only met him two days ago,” she said. “He mentioned something about a village, but I thought that was the farm village.” She noted that the leader, Shell had her engraved pistol stuck in his belt, barely visible under the heavy military wool coat he wore.

  “Oh, I am afraid that is not the answer I want to hear. Let me be honest with you, telling me the truth I want to hear is what is going to keep this from being a very long, painful and humiliating night for you. These randy young bucks are more than happy, in fact eager to come at you one, or maybe two at a time while you hang there helpless. After each one has enjoyed himself, I will ask you my questions again. I would guess after a short time, your attitude will be much more… pliable.”

  She noted the desk Shell stood behind, right in front of a floor to ceiling plate glass window.

  “I’ll tell you everything I know! Please, just give me a moment to think of everything he said!”

  “Why, of course, my dear, I in no way wish to rush…”

  Ghost Wind felt the hoary hand on her bare ribs, moving up towards her top and looked to her left. Once again, the idiot Grogan, face blank and drooling was starting to grope her.

  Perfect.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  What Just Happened?

  ****

  “Why, of course, my dear, I in no way wish to rush…”

  Shell stopped his urbane and gentlemanly reply to his captive when he realized that he, once again, had lost her attention to Grogan’s Neanderthal pawing. Fury boiled up as he realized the idiot was directly disobeying his orders yet again. Perhaps some soldiers were simply too stupid to be worth keeping around and feeding.

  Shell gestured at the cretin. “Cord, if you please, would you mind kicking the living shit out of this imbecile, please?”

  As the dark haired man stepped from the wall again, things went strange.

  He saw her flex her feet for a moment then Shell heard a popping sound, like one might hear when ligaments were over-stretched, come from her hands. Immediately afterward, the woman fell to the floor. She landed on all fours, her head lower than her butt, which was aimed towards Grogan. The man’s face changed from a blank hypnotized stare to the look of a man who had died and gone to heaven.

  Heaven however, was not what he received, quite the opposite.

  Looking over her left shoulder, the black haired woman’s foot lashed up and straight out into some kind of karate mule kick and her heel impacted Grogan’s crotch so hard that Shell was sure he heard the man’s testicles squish from ten feet away. The imbecile went up and over backwards, making the sound a pig makes when it knows it’s about to have its throat cut and he landed hard. Grogan went into the fetal position instantly, rocking and screaming.

  As everyone else in the room, men normally accustomed to violence from other men, stood and gaped, she grabbed the knife from Porter’s belt with her one still bound hand and ran the edge along the inside of his thigh. The blade was very sharp and it bit deep. Blood spewed from the inner arteries of his leg and Porter screamed, and went down.

  Hands dropped to gun belts as she leapt from the floor onto Shell’s desk into a coiled crouch, and Shell vaguely noted that neither of her hands were now tied. She cocked back the arm holding the huge knife, and Shell realized she was about to throw it right between his eyes from a distance of a few feet.

  “Wait!” he screamed as the shining flash of steel spun towards him. “No!”

  The wind next to his ear as he involuntarily jerked his head away gave him the realization she hadn’t thrown her knife at him. She sent it spinning into the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window he’d spent so many hours looking out of. The glass exploded out over the street and dead cars below.

  Shell turned back to his desk to see the woman launch herself at him, much like a mountain lion would. Her strong hands grabbed his collar and a half second later her feet jammed into his stomach. He tried to keep his balance, but the momentum carried them both backwards. His arms windmilling, he heard a shot ring out and something hot burned the side of his neck.

  “Shit! Don’t shoot! You’ll hit the boss!” Axyl’s voice rang out.

  “Help!” Shell screamed as he fell back, trying to keep his feet under him.

  And then he realized he was walking on nothing.

  ****

  Ghost Wind knew that the chance of dying in this stunt was quite good.

  As she drove Shell through the broken window, trying to put his body between her and any broken glass, she knew the landing was not going to be fun. She shifted her weight when she started to roll forward so that her adversary’s body once again rotated under her. The fall seemed to take forever, with the terrible anticipation of its ending looming in her mind. Shell’s horror-filled face looked up at her, whites of his eyes showing all the way around and he screamed, realizing his predicament.

  “Damn you, you fucking b—”

  The impact was harsh to say the least, as both of them landed on a 2027 Toyota Seeker, smashing in the roof. Ghost Wind’s powerful legs drove down into Shell and she catapulted out into the dusty street into a shoulder roll, trying to absorb some of the force in counter momentum. She came up hard against a derelict van and saw stars as well as feeling a shooting pain in one wrist, the one she had purposely dislocated earlier.

  “Oh. Great Spirit!” She gasped. “That was…” She stood, swaying for a moment. There was no time to be lost. Feeling a shooting pain in one ankle, she staggered over to Shell. Ghost Wind grabbed one of the sleeves of his wool coat and began shaking him out of it.

  “Augh!” His pained scream told her he had regained consciousness. “Stop! Please! My back, I think it might be broken!”

  “How awful for you,” she replied, pulling him out of the first sleeve and flipping him face down onto the hood of the car. “That must be really painful!”

  “NGHH!” Shell sobbed. “You bitch, my legs just went numb! I can’t feel my legs now!”

  “Karma’s a bitch, and now, so am I.” She knew she had to work fast. She pulled the coat the rest of the way off, stripped the man’s sneakers off his feet, grabbed her pistol and knife and did what the Scouts of the Clan of the Hawk did best.

  She disappeared into the twilight.

  ****

  They all stood frozen for a moment as the woman and their leader backed out into thin air through the broken window. They all heard the impressive crash sound seconds later. Axyl, usually pretty fast to adapt to new situations, took several moments before he recovered enough to run to the now open-air window to look down at the carnage below.

  Shell lay face down on a derelict car. Axe could see the dent in the roof where he had obviously impacted and he heard the man groan in pain. He saw no sign of Ghost Wind but he knew she was out there, waiting to cut his throat.

  “Listen up!” he shouted, “The boss is in a bad way. I want two of you to get Doc Mullins and a stretcher and get him back indoors where he can be tended to. I want everyone else to get out there and find that bitch from hell, and I want her SHOT ON SIGHT! Is everyone clear on that? Kill her if you have any opportunity. If she’s alive I… we all… are in danger. She’s sneaky as hel
l, and can cut your throat before you know you’re dead. Understand me. Kill her on sight!”

  They all stood dazed, no one moving except Porter whimpering as his blood ran out.

  “Move! NOW, damn you!” They broke for the door like a wave. Cord was the only one who didn’t hurry.

  “Cord! You get a tourniquet on Porter’s leg. Let’s see if we can keep him alive.”

  “What about Grogan?” Cord gestured towards the smelly Road Shark now up and leaning heavily on Shell’s desk.

  “Let me take care of our Mr. Grogan, Mr. Couldn’t Keep from Fucking Up.” Axyl walked up behind Grogan, reaching between his legs from behind, grabbing him by the crotch in his right and the man’s neck in his left. Grogan screamed that pig scream again as Axyl calmly walked him to the edge of the broken window and kept walking him through it.

  Axyl had made sure to hang onto the man’s crotch a half second longer than his neck to ensure Grogan went head first and was not disappointed. He calmly watched as his former comrade went sailing down, screaming all the way and winced slightly at the sound of a muffled impact.

  “Oh dear,” he said, looking back at Cord who was affixing his belt to Porter’s upper thigh.

  “What?”

  “I think we’re going to have to change poor Grogan’s name!”

  Cord had no love for the smelly biker, and a good idea where this was going, “Oh?” he asked.

  “Yep. Let’s remember him by his new name…”

  “Which is?” Cord waited, eyebrow raised.

  “Lawn Dart!” Axyl began to go into uncontrolled fits of laughter.

  Hysterical laughter, Cord thought to himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Little help here?

  ****

  Eli was being excruciatingly careful. Riding past the old city was always tricky and he had no intention of giving himself away. Passing the belly of the beast the Road Sharks had made of this area, with all its traps and ambush points, made him not want to make any stupid mistakes. Eli had seen what happened to people when they let the Sharks get the upper hand.