by Richard Bard
The lot was full of abandoned vehicles and fleeing people. With the exit to the highway logjammed, people were leaving their cars to flee on foot. A few teens jumped over the perimeter fence and raced up the rising field behind the motel. A herd of others, mostly parents and children, scrambled between cars toward the front exit.
Tony raced in the opposite direction, deeper into the lot, scanning for signs of his friends. Gunshots behind him sent him diving for cover behind a sedan. He readied his pistol and glanced over the hood, expecting to see bikers spurting out the walkway. Instead he saw Doc’s guard, Sanders, kneeling at the walkway’s entrance, his weapon aimed toward the interior. The man risked a glance toward Tony and signaled him toward the far end of the back lot. Tony swiveled to see Marshall waving at him from beside a red Dodge Ram dually pickup truck that was pulling out of its parking spot. Tony hated leaving Sanders on his own, but he had no choice. He ran toward the truck.
He was halfway there when the windows of a car beside him exploded from a burst of bullets. He dove left, rolling on his shoulder to break the fall, and then scrambled to get behind a van two rows over. More gunfire sounded. He peered around the bumper.
A trio of bikers ran into the lot from the front of the building, assault rifles pressed to their shoulders. Bursts from the rifles pounded the cars around Tony’s previous position. Screaming families took flight, and a tourist spun to the ground from a stray round. Closer by, there was an exchange of fire between Sanders and the attackers from the courtyard. The advancing trio changed course toward Sanders’s hidden position, about to flank him.
Tony stayed out of sight as he crouch-ran behind the row of abandoned cars in the exit line. One pistol against three assault rifles—he needed to close the distance. He counted down the seconds as he moved, his mind’s eye measuring the time it would take the bikers to be in a position to spot Sanders. Six cars later Tony popped into the open, just as a startled elderly couple staggered across his sight line.
“Move!” Tony shouted, dodging left.
The woman screamed, her husband jerked her onward, and the three bikers swiveled their weapons toward Tony. He squeezed off two rounds as he dove to the ground, blasting the closest biker off his feet. The second biker ducked behind a car, but the third charged with wild eyes and a shriek of rage, triggering his weapon on full auto.
Tony rolled as a torrent of lead bit into the pavement beside him. His scalp stung. He rotated his body faster across the pavement, firing the Eagle. The first two shots went wide, but the third blasted through the biker’s knee and severed his leg in an explosion of bone and flesh. The man toppled over, dropping the assault rifle, before his brain realized what had happened. When he saw the arterial blood gushing from his stump, his face went white and his hands squeezed his thigh in a vain attempt to stop the flow.
Tony pushed to a crouch and crabbed behind the next car, ejecting the Eagle’s spent magazine as he moved. He reached for a spare from under his belt.
“Not so fast, asshole,” a voice said behind him.
He froze.
“Drop the artillery and show me your hands.” The man’s voice was angry but steady.
Tony let the Eagle clatter to the pavement. He raised his hands and rose to his full height, turning around slowly.
“Whoa,” the biker said. He wore a sleeveless denim vest adorned with patches, and the sinewy arms holding the AK-47 sported matching skull-and-crossbone tattoos. His eyes twitched like he was high. “You’re a big sucker now, ain’t you?” He spat a brown stream of chewing tobacco saliva on the asphalt as he sized Tony up.
Tony relaxed his face but coiled his muscles. No way was he going down without a fight.
The biker frowned, took a step backward, and steadied the assault rifle. “I’ll have five rounds in you before your first step.”
“Only five?”
The biker arched an eyebrow. “Big and feisty? Screw that. I’ll settle for half the reward.” He raised the muzzle. “Time to meet your maker, you terrorist son of a—”
A single shot sounded from behind a car on Tony’s right. The biker’s head snapped to one side, and he timbered to the ground like a felled tree. A trickle of blood leaked from a small hole in his temple.
Ahmed stepped from behind the car. He was out of breath and his hands were covered in blood, but his grip on the smoking revolver was steady.
“Hoorah, brother,” Tony said. He retrieved his Eagle and jammed home a fresh magazine. “I owe you one.”
Ahmed stood tall, but Tony saw the pain behind his stoic expression. He’d trained Ahmed in the use of weapons two years ago when the prospect of Armageddon had hung in the balance, and since then the teen had killed twice to protect his family—first to save his adopted father from a knife-wielding torturer, and more recently to protect his brother and sister from kidnappers in Redondo Beach. But he was still a kid.
Tony glanced at Ahmed’s hands. “Whose blood is that?”
Ahmed waved toward the back of the building. “Doc’s. He was wounded over there.” Ahmed slipped the revolver under his belt, bent over the dead body, grabbed the assault rifle, and took off running in the opposite direction. Tony followed, and Ahmed explained as they ran. “Doc got the guy that shot him, but he heard on his radio there are more circling around the far side. He gave me his pistol and sent me to get you.””
***
Francesca clutched her throat as Ahmed and Tony raced toward her. She and Sarafina sat in the backseat of the idling truck, their bodies twisted so they could watch through the open rear window of the cab. Sarafina had her earphones on while her fingers danced against the back of the seat as if playing a keyboard. Francesca knew her gifted daughter had retreated into music in an attempt to cope with their situation.
“They’ll be here in thirty seconds,” Marshall said from the front passenger seat. “You ready?”
Lacey sat behind the wheel. She revved the big engine. “Damn straight, I’m ready,” she said.
Francesca was anything but. She gripped the door handle with one hand, and if Sarafina hadn’t been hanging on to her in a trembling embrace, Francesca would have bolted into the parking lot in search of Alex. Her panic rose with each rapid breath.
Ahmed and Tony dodged and weaved between cars, and her heart sank even further at the ease with which Ahmed carried the assault rifle. Earlier she’d tried preventing him from dashing off to help Doc, but there’d been no stopping the boy, any more than there had been with Jake on so many occasions. And now Alex. How had this become her life? Her husband dead, her family threatened, and her children forced to take up arms?
She counted the seconds as Tony and Ahmed neared, praying for their safety. When they were only a few paces away, a burst of gunfire sounded from her right. Ahmed swiveled his rifle toward the threat. He was too late. A round caught him and he was blown backward out of view. Tony dove, Sarafina screamed, and Francesca shoved open the door.
“No!” Marshall shouted, reaching over the console to grab her arm.
She twisted free, burst out of the truck, and scrambled on all fours toward her son. Bullets shattered car windows around her. Tony was nowhere to be seen, but Ahmed lay on his back, arms splayed, mouth wide, staring at the sky. The rifle was next to him, the wooden stock shredded in half. When she arrived at his side, he blinked. “Oh, Dio, my boy.” She patted his body, searching for a wound. But there was no blood, and Ahmed’s expression was more confused than pained.
He groaned. “What hap—?”
“Your weapon took a bullet meant for you,” Tony said as he crawled beside them, ducking as a bullet whizzed past them. He popped up and fired three rounds at their attacker. The return fire ceased. “Now get your asses into the truck, both of you.”
He fired twice more. Francesca flinched with each thunderous shot, but she didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Ahmed’s wrists and yanked him to his feet. Ahmed shook his head as if to clear it, his teeth bared in determination. He slung his arm ove
r his mom’s shoulder and the two stumbled toward the open door of the truck.
“Hurry,” Lacey said. She stared into the rearview mirror. “There are more behind us.”
Francesca pushed Ahmed into the backseat, jumped in beside him, and slammed the door closed. Her ears still rang from the shots, but that didn’t stop her from hearing the roars of motorcycles. She glanced back to see Tony clambering over the tailgate—and four motorcyclists weaving in their direction.
“Go!” Tony shouted.
Lacey stomped on the gas.
“Watch out!” Marshall said, pointing ahead to a gunman bracing his weapon on the hood of a car.
“Shit,” Lacey said. She slalomed the truck with hard jerks of the wheel. “Heads down!” Francesca and Ahmed pressed lower in their seat. Sarafina curled into a ball beside them, her lips murmuring a silent tune.
A bullet shattered the windshield, leaving a gaping hole before it blasted out the rear window in a shower of pebble-sized pieces of glass. Marshall slapped his hand against his cheek. Blood trickled from between his fingers.
“Bastard!” Lacey shouted. Suddenly the truck straightened on its track. Francesca couldn’t see over the seat, but it seemed Lacey had turned toward the attacker.
“Oh, crap,” Marshall said. “Tony, hang on!”
The truck accelerated, and Lacey let out a long snarl that grew louder with each racing heartbeat. Bullets hammered into the pickup. A round zipped past Francesca’s face and plowed into the seatback an inch from her nose, the black hole leaking a waft of smoke. The truck lurched to one side, still moving fast. An impact tossed Francesca and Ahmed into the back of the driver’s seat. Sarafina yelped and tumbled halfway into the footwell. There was a screech of metal against metal along Francesca’s side of the vehicle, and then the left tires rolled over something.
The shooting stopped. “You got him,” Marshall said, swiveling around as the truck sped away from the scene. Francesca rose enough to see the gunman’s flattened body on the pavement. Sirens wailed in the distance, but the motorcycles behind them were still closing fast.
“We ain’t out of the woods yet,” Tony said through the shattered rear window. His legs were braced against either side of the bed wall. One hand gripped the rail, the other the pistol. “Do your thing, Lace,” he said, referring to the tactical driving Lacey had learned to do for one of her films.
“I’m on it,” she said, aiming the truck toward the back of the lot.
Francesca buckled her seat belt. Sarafina was about to follow, but Ahmed stopped her.
“Switch places with me,” he said. She crawled over him to sit in the middle and fastened her seat belt. Francesca pulled her close but her eyes were on her son. Ahmed had regained his senses, but when he sat back to buckle his belt, his face was filled with anger. As he turned to take in the scene behind them, his right hand gripped the butt of the revolver tucked in his belt. She was grateful he wasn’t shot, but the hatred she sensed in him sent a pang of fear through her.
“The highway is blocked,” Lacey said. “Only one option.” The truck continued to pick up speed as she steered toward a gap between two cars parked along the chain-link fence separating the lot from the sloping fields beyond.
“You got this, babe,” Marshall said through clenched teeth. He braced his free hand against the dashboard.
***
When the wheels jumped the curb, Tony went airborne. The truck bounced, he slammed back into the bed, and the Desert Eagle went flying over the edge. He cursed, scrambling to wedge himself in place as the nose of the heavy vehicle slammed into the perimeter fence. There was a shriek of shearing metal, yelps inside the cab, and Tony ducked just in time to avoid getting thrashed by a whipping tail of chain link that shredded the paint from the bed rail before disappearing behind him.
The truck fishtailed twice before it gained purchase on the loose slope. As it raced up toward the forested hills, he checked their six. Beyond the cloud of dust in their trail, the bikers had cleared the breach in the fence. They spread out four abreast.
“They’re coming hard,” he said through the window opening. The few webs of fractured glass still clinging to the edge of the frame lost bits and pieces with each bounce of the axles. He pulled out the Glock 19 he’d taken from Butler’s body. Its 9mm rounds had half the stopping power of the Eagle’s .50 caliber, but the Glock was a dependable weapon. He checked the magazine. It was full.
“I’ve got a pistol. They’ve got assault rifles. Don’t slow down!”
Ahmed pulled out Doc’s revolver. He rolled down his window and checked the scene behind them. Tony saw Francesca cringe at the sight, but she didn’t say anything.
The kid’s got guts, Tony thought, and his mom was forcing herself to embrace his courage, all while her youngest child was missing. He swore to himself he’d protect them and find a way out of this mess.
Or die trying.
A flicker in the distant trees drew his attention, and he spotted the silhouette of a moving car. “There’s a road at our two o’clock,” he yelled into the cab.
“Got it,” Lacey said as she adjusted their tack on the slope.
The tree line was still a ways off, and the first of the bikers had broken ahead of the pack. The white-bearded driver wore dark goggles and a black half helmet reminiscent of those worn by Nazis. The man’s teeth were bared and his long hair whipped in the wind. He was less than fifty yards back, and drove his vintage Harley Davidson rat rod like he’d been riding it off road all his life, kicking up rooster tails of dirt as he weaved around brush and bumps. Tony would’ve thought the high handlebars, low seat, and rakish construct of the old bike were built for show, not maneuverability. But the rider was closing fast.
Tony glanced ahead through the rear window and saw the pickup was still a hundred yards from the tree line. The biker would be on them long before that.
Tony spun back and extended the Glock, growling in frustration as his sight line bounced on the uneven terrain. He fired three quick shots, but all he got for his efforts was a snarl from the old crusher on the lead bike, who couldn’t yet free up a hand to pull out a weapon. Tony waited for the biker to get closer, but the guy angled to the right and held back as the three bikes behind him picked up speed. That’s when Tony realized two of the choppers carried passengers with assault rifles. He shifted his aim in their direction and loosed another five rounds. It was no use. The bouncing truck bed made it an impossible shot.
“Faster!” Tony shouted through the window. The final stretch of terrain between the truck and the tree line rolled and steepened, and the truck lurched back and forth as Lacey fought the wheel.
“And flip this sucker over?” she said, her gaze darting between the tree line and her side mirror, where she gauged the bikers’ advance. Tony swiveled back around and saw they were less than thirty yards back. “We ain’t gonna make it,” he said, just as the first muzzle flashes erupted from the assault rifles.
He ducked as a bullet thunked into the roof of the cab.
Lacey yelled, “Screw this!”
She whipped the truck around so hard, Tony was tossed to one side and nearly rolled over the rail. As the truck spun out, he was flopped onto his back and saw dirt and gravel spray overhead. He heard the staccato cracks of assault rifles on full auto. He wedged his legs against the sides and flattened himself as three slugs punched through the double-walled side panel to embed themselves in the opposite wall, inches from his boots.
Before he could catch his breath, the rear of the truck whipped in the opposite direction. There was a crunch of metal and a helmet flew past the tailgate. The truck spun hard again and there was another impact. The Ram’s engine roared and the truck bucked like a kicking bronco. Tony bounced into the air as the vehicle rolled over what had to be one of the bikes. He landed hard on his knees with one hand on the rail and the other with a death grip on the Glock. The truck made a final turn back up the hill, leaving carnage behind it. Three bikes were down,
two of them mangled and the third smoking. Two bodies lay still, while another two struggled to their feet.
Damn, girl.
But the white-bearded biker with the Nazi helmet still sat astride his idling rat rod, and Tony felt the heat of the man’s glare as the truck continued up the hill. The man yanked a machete from his sidesaddle, dragged it across the front of his throat, then punctuated his message by pointing it at Tony. He motioned to one of his remaining comrades, who jammed a fresh magazine into his assault rifle and staggered toward the Nazi’s bike.
“Two left,” Tony said into the cab. Francesca and Sarafina were pressed low in their seat, but not so far down that Tony couldn’t see the expression behind Francesca’s teary eyes. She’d been forced to leave her son behind and it was ripping her apart.
Sarafina held her mom close. “Alex is okay,” she said, patting Francesca’s back, trying to mask her own fear. “I just know it. And we’re going to find him.” The teen cast a hopeful glance at Tony that squeezed the air from his lungs.
Ahmed twisted around to look at the scene behind them. He held the revolver in a white-knuckled grip.
Lacey focused on maneuvering the vehicle up the slope as Marshall turned around to face Tony. He had one hand on the dash and the other on the handrail over the door. His mouth twisted into a half grin. “My wife is a bad ass.”
“Don’t you forget it,” Lacey said as she steered the truck around a boulder and into the tree line. “That’ll teach those asses not to bring bikes to a truck fight.” She slowed the Ram and weaved a path through the thick forest.
Tony ducked to avoid getting swiped by a low-hanging pine limb that scraped the top of the cab. “Unfortunately,” he said after looking down the hill, “the sucker still on our tail didn’t get the memo.” The biker and his rider were moving fast. Tony checked the distance to the road ahead. They wouldn’t make it in time.
He raised the Glock but the truck was still jostling, and the bullet-ridden side panel reminded him the biker wielding a fully automatic assault rifle didn’t share the same problem. He turned back toward the cab. “Pull around that dense brush and slow down. I’m jumping out and then you hightail it to the road.”