Night Trip

by Peter Ackers

  "…GUESS THE DIRECTION OF A PENALTY KICK…"

  The untended field beyond was as unruly as the hair of Lady Godiva after a sleepless night. Clumps and knots of grass like rugby players in a scrum snatched and hugged at my feet as I thudded through the night. The phut phut noise of each long stride that cut through the grass sounded almost like the fast swish of a knife through flesh and skin. Raindrops clinging to the grass soon soaked my jeans, and again my mind ran riot. Suddenly the sound of slicing flesh was exactly that: the blades of grass were sharp blades of glass and the wetness on my legs was not rain but blood. I was cutting my legs to ribbons with each kick onward through the field.

  A glance back confirmed that the village was falling behind. It seemed to shrink - a trick of light and night? I almost thought I could reach back and pick up the village in my hands like a model some kid had put together. Had that been so, I would have grabbed it hard by the fencing that encircled it, and I would have upended it, watching as cars and garden furniture and loose roof tiles and people tumbled out like toys. I would have shaken it hard, hoping to dislodge my four enemies here and then stamp them into the earth. Especially that fat fuck Axe-wielder, who had so tried to be a friend and helper some ten minutes before. I would have shaken that model town until he came flying through a window or until his screams, as he bounced between interior walls like a pinball, ended. I would have shaken the village until the Shepherds' shit-stinking bath of potassium chlorate blew the roof off the pub and I could reach in and yank Axe-wielder away from whatever he clung to. I'd lay him in my palm and clap him flat.

  A thick knot of grass snared my foot. I stumbled and fell. Grass whipped my cheeks and my hands slapped into the hard wet ground. I held my breath; suddenly the world had never been so silent or dark. This was the world Neolithic man had inhabited when the ball of light in the sky had hidden itself. Full of fear and wonder, he must have sat as I sat now, curled in a ball, not knowing what to do. Perhaps he had slept; perhaps this was where the human habit of sleeping at night had been birthed. The very thought of this suddenly made my eyelids heavy.

  They snapped wide open as I heard a growing sound. There was no speculation: immediately I knew this was the sound of an engine, a bike engine. Axe-wielder's Goldwing - it could be no other. He was coming for me, obviously having found a hole or gate in the fence.

  I stood. Blood or water slipped down my cheeks. I saw a light, certainly the Goldwing's headlamp. It was close to the village, some way to the right of the area where I figured I had exited - must have been a gate there. The headlamp swept back and forth like a searchlight in some P.O.W. camp, but didn't swing its beam anywhere near me. I could barely hear the engine now, nothing but a purr.

  Then I could. A low roar. The beam of light wavered as if the bike were moving slowly, and I understood what was happening. Since the handlebars could only turn so far to the left and right, Axe-wielder could only cover a section of the field at one time; he was repositioning the bike so he could sweep the beam over the next portion of land. It was a process of elimination. Even as I was thinking this, the engine's roar mellowed to a purr again and the beam ambled over and past me. It did a double-take like some living thing and rushed back at me, too quickly for me to duck out of sight. I did duck, but the sudden growl of that 1800cc engine might as well have been Axe-wielder roaring I SEE YOU, ASSHOLE!

  So I stood, holding my ground, and prepared to jump aside when he tried to ram me.

  Too many times in films we've seen the pursued run away from a vehicle, but running along the very path the pursuer is traveling. It's a case of simple physics - anything traveling faster than the thing in its way will eventually catch up to it.

  I was not stupid, and I didn't panic in fear, as you might have expected - did people in the path of falling trees really stand there shocked until crushed, as the old theory goes? I had no intention of letting Axe-wielder pinpoint my back with his headlamp before stomping the gas and riding up and over my body, squashing me into the mud with the weight of his bike.

  So I stood and faced him, ready to dive aside at the last moment. If he came straight at me and didn't suspect I had a plan - this tree was coming at me hard and loud, and maybe he thought I was frozen in place - - he'd never turn in time once I'd moved. And even if he knew what I was intending to do, at that speed he'd have to guess which way I would dive, like a goalkeeper in a soccer match trying to guess the direction of a penalty kick.

  With thirty feet to go, the bike's headlamp suddenly flicked off. I hadn't realized just how much illumination that lamp had shed. Now assailed by darkness, I saw bright dots flash across my vision, and I felt nothing but the ground under my feet, and a light wind on my face and in my hair - heard nothing but that bike's tremendous, angry growl.

  I dove left, rolled, stopped and curled up into a ball, just in case. I heard the bike thunder past, even felt the ground vibrate; felt a patter of water as the sodden grass sprayed its collected rainwater on me as heavy wheels crushed it.

  I got to my knees. Now I could see the bike, because the headlamp was on again. The bike curved a wide arc and came back at me. I knew Axe-wielder's game here. He'd lose the light when he was close enough so I would lose track of his bike as it came for me. But at all other times he'd need it to see where he was going.

  I searched the ground for a rock, but didn't find one. I drew up a handful of mud instead, hoping I might get a lucky shot as the bike came at me again. Axe-wielder wore no helmet, after all.

  Now some forty metres distant, the headlamp flicked off again. I heard a shout that sailed past me on the wind: “Fate’s coming for you.” I took a step backwards, as if that accomplished anything. I waited only a second, figuring his speed would put him pretty close now, and tossed the mud where I thought he might be. Even as the mud was flying, my eyes adjusted enough to the darkness to see the vague black shape of the bike coming at me. I backed off some more, not sure yet which way to dive; not sure if Axe-wielder could see me.

  Pain in my back as I rushed into a fence: three widely spaced lengths of wire running horizontally between wooden posts. Very basic.

  I grunted in shock and pain, turned, threw my hands around the top wire, and froze. I was smack between two posts, with nothing to hold onto to climb the fence - the wire was taut and thin and thus too sharp for my hands to put weight on. I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped hard to the ground, planning to roll under the bottom wire. But that wire was too low to permit me, only five inches off the ground.

  A rumble as the bike blew past me about eight feet away. I heard a twang, then a strange sound like a wet slap, then a cough from the bike. I watched as the black shape slipped onto its side, slid a way, caught something, and flipped. Axe-wielder, who'd still been holding onto the bike, was sent flying, to land and tumble loudly.

  I had felt a rush of air across my chest immediately after the twanging sound. My hand crept up, crept because all had gone still and silent, except for the ticking of the bike's now-docile engine. What I felt there at first puzzled, then terrified me. My shirt was gashed right across the chest, creating a giant mouth. I quickly felt my chest for blood, not knowing what was going on. Even as I registered no blood, I realized that the wires of the fence were gone. I flapped a hand around me to make sure. The bike had torn them free from a post, sending three steel whips right across me as the wires relaxed their tension. I'd narrowly missed being cut across the chest, or worse.

  I got up and, shaking, approached the crashed bike slowly. I could see Axe-wielder's shape lying further afield. He wasn't moving. But I suspected he was feigning injury, drawing me in.

  I gasped and froze as my foot kicked something, something that rolled a few feet and stopped. It looked like some spherical object wrapped in wet seaweed.

  I looked away, knowing what this thing was - the pipe still stuck in its mouth was a damn giveaway. Axe-wielder's head, oh so neatly sliced from its neck like a chunk of Edam removed from the block. But
instead of feeling revulsion or fear, I put a hand to my ruined shirt and felt a wave of luck.

  My vision was drawn to the body, then further. I could see that the land rose slightly in the next twenty metres, peaking at about my eyeline. But through a cleft in that sub-horizon, I saw a sliver of liquid light that I knew was a rain-slicked, one-lane road. It looked to be no more than a hundred metres away. There was no traffic rushing back and forth, but that didn't bother me. It was almost midnight and I was out in the middle of nowhere. But roads lead somewhere, if not to a destination then from one. And that was good enough for me.

  I detoured widely round Axe-wielder's corpse, not fully trusting that dead for him meant the same inability to grab a passing ankle as it did for normal people. When I was past, I didn't look back. But as I was stepping over the crest of the hill, seeing that lovely piece of macadam all illuminated by moonlight just for me, I did raise one hand behind me and flip that fucking village the bird.