Desperate Times

by Nicholas Antinozzi

  “Wait, Lonnie!” shouted the shorter biker from the back of the truck. “They can take this piece of shit with them,” he said, referring to Bill.

  Jimmy turned; Bill was being ushered toward the Tahoe by the hydrant-shaped biker. He pushed Bill in the back, lashing out with a battered boot when Bill didn’t move fast enough.

  The tall biker called Lonnie laughed, giving Bill a vicious kick as he stumbled toward Ken’s idling vehicle. Jimmy caught Bill just before he fell. “It’ll be okay, man,” Jimmy said. “Just go.”

  “What about… you know?” asked Bill, looking absolutely terrified.

  “Just go,” repeated Jimmy between gritted teeth.

  “You heard the man,” said the shorter biker, holding the gun in his hand. “You’ve got three seconds before I blow your head off.”

  Bill lunged for the back door of the Tahoe and clamored inside. Ken glared at the bikers with hatred and loathing.

  “Move it!” ordered Lonnie. “My friend here doesn’t have much patience.”

  Ken dropped the Tahoe into gear, and the truck lurched away, Jimmy swallowed hard as it did so. He was frightened, not only for himself, but for Julie and Cindy. He prayed that they wouldn’t give themselves away.

  “Now, ass-wipe, let’s see what you’ve got in the back,” said Lonnie with a satisfied sneer. “Open it!”

  Jimmy fumbled in his pockets for the key to the padlock, feeling the gun pressed to his back by the shorter man.

  “No funny business,” the biker hissed into his ear.

  Jimmy shook his head. He could see the crowd back at the bikes had begun walking toward them to watch the show. The approaching boots clapped across the asphalt. Jimmy fished out the key and inserted it into the lock, snapping it open. He flipped open the latch and hefted up the door, the rollers clacking in the door tracks.

  The sun had disappeared from sight, but there was still plenty of light to see that the bikers had made quite a haul. A few whistled as they gathered at the back of the truck. The cargo area of the Mack was packed with groceries, camping gear and tools of all shapes and sizes. Nine cans of gas were strapped to the driver’s side wall. A canoe rode on top of the pile, perched on top of duffel bags and tied safely at both ends to the opposite wall.

  “What do you think, Grease?” asked Lonnie to the big barrel-chested man, who looked to be the leader of the gang.

  “Nice work,” he said in a baritone voice. “We can use all that shit.”

  “Good score,” said a voice from behind Jimmy.

  “Right on, man,” replied another.

  Jimmy stood with his head down, feeling as if he’d failed his group. He pondered his situation, hoping the group would want to get moving soon. He was sure that Ken and the others hadn’t gone far. They’d wait until the bikers had left and return to pick up Julie and Cindy. He’d slip away, somehow, and walk to Ken’s if he had to—provided the bikers didn’t kill him first.

  He lit up a smoke and took a deep drag on the Camel. Grease was rummaging in the back of the truck, holding up little trophies here and there, much to the delight of his subjects. Jimmy felt the anger growing in his gut as the big man closed the door and snapped the latch shut.

  “What the hell do we need him for?” he asked, gesturing to Jimmy.

  “I ain’t driving that damn truck. What about my bike?” asked Lonnie.

  “Shit,” a raspy-voiced woman said, drawing the word out contemptuously. “I can drive it. I can drive anything. We sure as hell don’t need him.”

  “No,” said Grease. “No, we don’t,” his bushy beard hiding the lower half of his face. “We all know you can handle a truck, Wanda. Makes me wonder why Lonnie decided to keep this boy around. What’s up, man? Are you sweet on this punk?”

  That remark brought on enormous guffaws from the biker gang. Jimmy’s face felt as if it’d catch fire. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and he had to fight to remain calm. He stole a glance at Lonnie and could see that the comment had struck a nerve with him as well.

  “Real funny, Grease,” he said as the laughter died away.

  “Well, what’d you keep him for?” asked Grease, crossing his beefy arms which were covered with fading tattoo ink spreading like a fungus from his upper shoulders to the bottoms of his wrists. “I didn’t ask you to do that. Wanda’s driving the truck. I can’t think of a single reason you’d want to keep him around, unless you got eyes for him? He is a looker, ain’t he girls?”

  There was more laughter, and Wanda approached Jimmy and held her chubby hand on his cheek. “He sure is,” she agreed. “I’ll take him when you’re done with him, Lonnie. He looks fun.”

  “Eat shit,” said Lonnie, baring his teeth.

  The group howled with laughter as if this were the funniest thing Lonnie that had ever said.

  Grease held up his hands and spat, wiping his beard with a dirty hand. “Maybe I’m wrong, though,” he said. “Maybe you got other ideas? You ain’t made your bones with the Club, yet. Maybe you kept this little runt so you could take care of that unfinished business? How about it, Lonnie? Is that what you were thinking? Some of the boys here have been wondering about you. They’re wondering if you’re a cop. To tell you the truth, I’ve wondered it myself.”

  “I ain’t no cop!”

  “Well, prove it!” spat Grease. “That is, if you’re man enough…”

  “Right on, Lonnie,” shouted a voice from the back of the crowd.

  “Tear him up, man,” another voice said. “Kill the little shit.”

  “That must’ve been what you were thinking, huh, Lonnie?” asked Grease, his eyes as cold as ice. “You’re the only one riding with us that hasn’t got a patch. You know you’ve got to make your bones before I can patch you in as a Devil. Here’s your chance, dude. Prove you ain’t no cop.”

  Jimmy tried backing up, but there was no where to go. He was surrounded by a sea of black leather so close he could smell it. The group had suddenly gone silent; all eyes were now on Lonnie.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? You chicken shit? Or, maybe you are sweet on him?” taunted Grease.

  Jimmy felt strong hands grab him by the biceps. He looked hard at Lonnie, and that one look told him all he needed to know. Lonnie was going to kill him. He’d seen the look many times across the ring, and there was no mistaking it. The difference was that this time his attacker wasn’t wearing boxing gloves.

  “Give me your gun, Chuck,” said Lonnie. “I’ll show you who’s chicken.”

  “Oh, no,” grunted Grease. “Not so fast. I want you to do it with a blade. That way it’s personal. Any asshole can fire a gun,” he said with a chuckle. “No, Lonnie, I want you to cut his throat. I want you to look into his eyes when you do it, brother. I want you to remember it. This is a big moment for you.”

  Jimmy felt as if his heart would explode. Instinctively, he began to pull at the hands that held his arms. They held him like iron, and he flailed in their grasp, kicking out with his legs but connecting with nothing but air. He watched Lonnie’s hand dig into a jacket pocket and come out with a large folding knife. Lonnie’s hands were shaking, not much, but enough for Jimmy to notice. He opened it and hefted it in his right hand.

  “Do it,” urged a voice from behind Jimmy.

  “Come on, Lonnie, stick him like a pig. Let’s see some blood,” said another voice.

  Jimmy was suddenly grabbed by someone from behind. Whoever it was wrapped a huge arm around Jimmy’s forehead, pulling it back and stretching his neck. Grease and Lonnie stood before him, while most of the others had gathered into a semicircle, trying to get a good view of the killing. Grease stood with his arms crossed over his fat belly as if he were going to judge Lonnie on technique. His dark eyes were full of amusement. He looked at Jimmy without pity; this was nothing but a game to him.

  Jimmy stared into Lonnie’s face in the fading light and saw nothing but cold determination. Lonnie reached out with his knife as if deciding which way to cut. Jimmy st
rained at his captors, finding their hold had only grown stronger. He was going to die; he was sure of it. Lonnie raised the knife. Crickets chirped in the distance.

  “Sorry, man,” he said, as he lifted the knife.

  There was a loud crack, and suddenly Lonnie was violently thrown backward in an explosion of blood. Before anyone could react, another shot took Grease square in the forehead, the reports echoing together as if they’d been fired simultaneously. A woman screamed, followed by another. Boots sounding like stampeding cattle trampled on the asphalt, heading away from Jimmy.

  Jimmy was suddenly free, and he began to run as fast as his trembling legs would carry him. He ran away from the motorcycles, away from the truck, heading straight down the exit road toward the highway. Behind him were more shots, a few pinging off the blacktop very close to him. Jimmy ducked and dived into a small grove of trees. He’d covered about fifty yards in a very short amount of time.

  Twilight had turned the scene into something that resembled a black and white movie. He peered out from behind a fat birch tree and caught his breath. Someone waved to him from behind a wooden sign at the north entrance to the rest stop. He didn’t know the man personally but recognized him as belonging to his group. The man held a deer rifle. The man quickly took aim and shot toward the bus. More shots rang out, the reports deafening in the quiet evening air. A man was screaming in pain from up by the bus. #whoever it was wailed for his mother. Another shot popped, and the wailing stopped. Jimmy winced.

  A motorcycle engine roared to life followed by another. Two bikers were fleeing the scene, heading out of the rest area the same way they’d arrived. For one glorious moment Jimmy thought they were going to continue south and run. He was wrong. He listened as the bikes quickly accelerated on Highway 53, heading north behind the narrow barrier of trees. As they approached the north exit, they went suddenly silent. Jimmy realized that they’d just been flanked.

  From the bus, someone began to unleash an automatic weapon. The chattering bursts exploding like a long string of firecrackers. Limbs fell from the trees as hot lead thudded into the birch around him. Jimmy crouched as bullets whizzed by his head, and he flattened out to find refuge from the gunfire. He looked back to the man behind the sign, but he was gone. The shooting seemed to be all around him now, and Jimmy felt naked and helpless. How he wished he’d had a gun to protect himself. He was pinned down with nothing but open field, asphalt, and the tamarack swamp beyond in which to flee. Jimmy peered out toward the bus, watching as dark figures scrambled about, firing as they advanced on the brick building.

  There was a moment of silence, a few seconds of calm in the storm. Jimmy’s ears were ringing, yet they managed to catch the unmistakable sound of boots. He turned just in time to see one of the bikers jog up behind him. He held a revolver in his right hand; his long hair was tangled and bloody. He raised the gun and pointed it at Jimmy. Jimmy closed his eyes.

  The biker’s gun barked, and his shot was quickly followed by two others from a different gun. Jimmy felt a burning pain in his shoulder, high up, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground. He opened his eyes to see the biker sprawled out before him, inches away, blood pooling from gunshot wounds. The body twitched, and a gurgle escaped from the man’s open mouth. Then there was nothing. Jimmy wrestled the gun out of the biker’s dead hand and quickly examined it. It was a revolver; he knew that much. He hoped that there were still a few bullets left in it. He didn’t move, keeping his head down as the battle raged on. He quickly examined his wound. Impossible as it seemed, the bullet had barely grazed his shoulder blade. Blood trickled down his back, but the pain was already beginning to subside.

  The automatic began to fire again, spraying bullets indiscriminately in two spattering bursts. Jimmy clutched the gun tightly and tried to collect his thoughts. Daylight was nearly gone, and no overhead lights had come on in the gathering gloom. Jimmy thought that any moment he’d hear sirens, that the police had been notified about the war raging at the little rest stop. He stole another glance in the direction of the sign, and there was just enough light for him to make out the man with the rifle. He was waving Jimmy back toward the highway. Jimmy shook his head. He couldn’t leave Julie and Cindy. Hopefully, they’d kept their heads down and hadn’t been discovered. The shooting seemed to have stopped. A haze of spent gunpowder hung thickly in the air. A woman moaned in the distance.

  Jimmy had to move; he had to get to where he could cover Julie and Cindy. He had a gun now, and the feel of its molded grip in his hand, foreign as it was to him, gave him courage. He stood in a crouch and slowly made his way to the narrow strip of grass on the other side of the trees. From there he could just make out the mound where he hoped they were still hiding. He wasn’t going to leave them behind. Jimmy took a deep breath and sprinted toward the dark shape of the truck, fifty long yards away. He waited for gunfire, expecting to be torn in half by a hail of bullets. His feet felt heavy as he ran, as if he were in a dream, and the few seconds it had taken him to reach the truck had seemed like minutes. He stopped at the front tire on the passenger side of the Mack breathing hard, his body quivering with adrenaline.

  He looked underneath the engine. Nothing seemed to be leaking, which was good news. The tires still held air. He knew that the keys were still in the ignition where he’d left them. He crept to the back of the Mack where Grease and Lonnie lay still on the asphalt in a mingled pool of blood. He shuddered and gave Bill’s Honda a quick once over. It also looked to have survived the battle, no worse for wear. Jimmy crawled on his hands and knees to the back of Bill’s car, getting a clear view of the bus.

  “Hold your fire!” shouted a voice from behind the bus. “We want to gather our wounded and leave! We’ve got women here. This is over, dude, let us ride out of here!”

  “As long as you head south!” answered the unmistakable voice of Ken Dahlgren.

  “But, we’re not going south!” replied the biker, sounding irritated.

  “You are now,” shouted Ken. “You’ve got five minutes to hit the road. Do you hear me? Five minutes. We’ll cut you in half if you turn north. That’s a promise!”

  There was silence for at least ten seconds before the biker responded: “Deal! We’re leaving. No bullshit! We’re coming out!”

  Jimmy watched as the bikers slowly emerged from the darkness, their heads darting back and forth like rats as they made their way to their motorcycles. The girls ran from the bathrooms down to the bus, their shadowy figures gliding across the parking lot. An engine started, followed by another, and soon the rest area was filled with the sound of revving motorcycle engines. Jimmy swallowed hard as he waited for the group to get moving. The lights of the bus illuminated the lot, and it slowly began to make a three-point turn. Jimmy felt a chill, feeling the cool night air for the first time since this whole battle had begun. The chill persisted, and Jimmy felt something like a feather being run up his spine. He spun around.

  Standing nearly on top of him was Lonnie. Jimmy’s eyes bulged in disbelief, and he could see that Lonnie still held the knife in his right hand. His left hand clutched his bloody stomach in a futile attempt to keep his insides from falling out. Jimmy could see that he was only barely able to do so. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, and Lonnie’s eyes blazed with an intensity that bordered on the insane. The message was unmistakable: if he was going to die, he was going to take Jimmy with him. Lonnie raised the knife, growling like a mad dog as he did so.

  Jimmy sprung out of the way, rolling on his injured shoulder and ending up three feet away on his back just half a second before the blade arced down to where he’d been crouching. Lonnie screamed silently in frustration as the motorcycles roared fifty yards away. Lonnie’s eyes were boiling with hatred. He took two quick steps and raised the knife again, this time with both hands. He suddenly lunged at Jimmy who lay prone on the grass frozen with fear.

  The gun bucked in his hand, followed by a muffled thud, and Lonnie was on top of him. Jimmy fe
lt the warm blood as it covered him and wondered if the blood was his own. He didn’t remember pulling the trigger; it had all happened so fast. He lay still for a moment before pushing hard on Lonnie’s shoulder with his free left hand, rolling him over onto his back. He could see in the pale moonlight that Lonnie’s eyes were open and his face had grown slack, even peaceful, in death. Jimmy sat up, his shirt was soaked with blood and examined himself. Besides the bullet crease in his shoulder he seemed to be fine. Lonnie must’ve struck out on his third swing, he thought to himself ruefully.

  The motorcycles roared away, leaving nothing behind but their dead. There would be no leaving the dead men’s Harleys as they held value. The bus followed, and true to their word, they left in the direction they had come. They were heading south, and Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.

  A long minute passed, and figures began to emerge from the shadows. The first to emerge was Jon, the hairdresser. He held a rifle and wore a camouflage jacket. He kicked at Lonnie with the toe of his boot. His jaw was set, and his eyes were cold.

  “Are you hit?” he asked, eyeing the blood on Jimmy’s shirt.

  “I’ll be okay,” said Jimmy. “Most of the blood’s from this guy. I just got winged. No big deal.” Jimmy was lying. He’d just killed a man, and it was a very big deal. He even knew the man’s name. It was Lonnie, and somehow that made it much worse. He felt empty and afraid that he’d crossed over a line from which there was no return. He’d taken a life. How could this have happened? How had he gotten here? Where was he headed?

  “What about the others?” Jon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I had them hide over there,” Jimmy pointed to the little hill which was just barely visible in the blackness. The growling motorcycles faded in the distance like a passing thunderstorm.

  “Okay,” said Jon. “Stay down. I don’t trust those assholes. They might’ve left a few behind. Cover me; I’ll go retrieve the others.”

  Jimmy looked at the gun in his hands. Cover you? Jimmy thought to himself, watching Jon zigzag his way to the hill before disappearing into the blackness. Footsteps approached from behind, Jimmy turned to face Ken. His face was pale and sweat glistened on his forehead.