by Nye, Laine
That made Brad feel very guilty. “Dad, I didn't tell you guys that last night I put Jeff, Dan and some of their friends in the hospital. They were chasing us with guns, and I threw them through some glass doors at the college. I didn't want to tell you because I wanted to go on this trip so badly. I just wanted to be able to relax and clear my head. It could not have turned out any worse. I promise I will keep you guys up to date on what is happening from now on.”
“Okay son. That explains why they were so motivated to go after you in the canyon. Someday I would like to hear the whole story of what happened, but yesterday's story is low priority right now. Let's just get you on your way. Wait for five minutes after we leave, then you can go too. But watch for the police, will you?”
“Yes. I'll be careful. We never finished our talk about Milo Weathers," Brad said to his father.”
"I know son. I know," Steve said sadly. "There is no more time. We will not be having that discussion now. I hope you are going to be able to live with what happened to him and with Mack's death. I don't want these things to destroy you.” "Brad shrugged his shoulders. "What choice do I have?" He observed. His father nodded as tears dropped from his chin, understanding what his son was saying. There was no escaping it. He had no choice but to live with it. He hoped that Brad would do the best that he could.
Brad's mom came up and hugged him crying into his chest. “Just because you are bigger than me now, doesn't mean I wanted to send you out in the world alone,” she sobbed.
“I know Mom,” Brad said. Tears were rolling down his face.
She let go of him and held his hand briefly, then let go and stepped back for her husband. Steve took Brad in his arms and tried to say something about seeing him soon. His voice cracked, and he could not speak. Finally, he stepped back and looked into his son's eyes. “Never forget us. We'll come see you as soon as we can.”
“Okay Dad. Goodbye. Goodbye Mom.”
They all got in their cars. Brad's parents waved to him one last time then drove off.
Brad waited for five minutes while he brought his tears under control. He started up his car and slowly pulled out not wanting to leave. Then he built up his determination to do what had to be done and drove towards Ogden on his way to Salt Lake City so, he could take the desert highway out to Nevada.
Upon arriving at his home, Albert laid down on his bed and knew that he should send Brad one more dose of energy. It would be the strongest, most potent dose he had sent him yet. He sensed Brad's injuries. He sent enough extra energy to accelerate Brad's healing processes. Brad was going to need it.
Brad's strength was returning quicker than he thought was possible. Not only was he feeling better, but the energy he recognized was in him to use his gravity altering capability was also rapidly rebuilding. He wondered if his self-preservation instinct, so strong in him since he discovered the g-force ability, was also somehow making it possible for his body to rejuvenate faster than normal. Just a little over an hour ago, he felt like he could hardly move. The effects of a second concussion in the last two weeks had made him nauseous. His head banging on the corrugated ribs in the culvert had re-injured his head. But now, he felt energized and strong. It has to be the energy that has flowed into me from the second time at the hole, He thought. Its healing me faster now.
He was so relieved to find out from his father that his friends had been picked up by an ambulance. He also was hoping that Sherman Greene was no longer able to act in his role as a police officer but was a fugitive instead.
He wondered when he might be able to see his friends again. He hoped they would have no trouble with the police after all that they had been involved in.
He had just crossed through an area known as five points, where five streets converged on one intersection, when he saw a four-wheel-drive truck in his rear-view mirror coming up on him fast. Almost before he was aware of the truck, it moved so close that he could only see its grill in his mirror. The driver began to honk at him like he was in the way. The boulevard had just grown from two lanes each way to three, so Brad moved over from the left lane to the middle to let the truck pass by him. Instead, the truck swung in behind him in the middle lane and got as close as possible again.
Then a car sped up to him on his left. It slowed rapidly when it got beside him. The car was deliberately keeping pace with him. Brad looked over and recognized two of the guys from Weber High that Sherry Rowley had been hanging with. They were both glaring at him with hostility.
The truck behind him then bumped his rear end. It crumpled the trunk slightly. He looked at his side mirror at the driver of the four-wheeler and saw another of Sherry's friends driving the truck.
He heard yelling from his right side and looked that way to see three more of her friends in a car that was also pacing him. They had him boxed in except for the front. Brad soon realized he was following a slow driver in front of him who was busy talking on a cell phone. He was totally boxed in thanks to the inattentive driver.
The three vehicles started swerving toward him, speeding up and slowing back down. They were yelling at him to pull over. There was no way he was going to do that. He gunned his engine to get a little farther ahead of the truck behind him. He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Sherry sitting there in the passenger seat with a malevolent look on her face. “Will it never end?” Brad yelled in anger and frustration.
The truck she was in sped up and bumped him for the second time, throwing his head back into the headrest. The cars on each side moved in so that they were only inches from his car. On the left side, the passenger, whose name he did not know, presented a shotgun out the window and aimed at Brad. Brad rammed on the brakes taking another collision from behind. The shotgun was fired. The pellets missed him by a couple feet as they went by just in front of the windshield.
The driver of a car that was behind them saw the shotgun blast and immediately called 911 to report the incident. Before long, the alert to the police was given. Out in North Ogden, not far from where this drama was taking place, Sherman Greene who was hunting Brad picked up the transmission. Cold reasoning and expectation caused him to believe it was Brad Shaw somehow mixed up in this new situation. He had been hunting him in his police car since Brad had got away from him. He had gone by Shaw's place and found no one there and had been searching ever since. Putting on his lights and siren, he bullied his way through the light traffic of a Saturday afternoon. Soon he was out of his jurisdiction and headed into Ogden. He didn't care. He knew his career as a police officer was over in spite of his brother. He knew he may even be charged with crimes. All because of the Shaw family! He would get his revenge before everything came down on him. First, he would nail Brad, and then he would go back to Shaw’s and wait for Steve to show up. He had no qualms about trying to set up his second ambush of the day. But first, he had to get Brad.
The car that had been slowing Brad from the front put on its signal and moved into the right-hand lane which slowed the car that was on his right side. Brad gunned the engine as now he could force the enemies on his left to fall behind. They sped up to catch him. So did the truck Sherry was in. Then the cell phone user made a right turn and that lane was open. The car on his right sped up and came alongside again. He saw a handgun produced by the driver of the car.
He spun his head to the left and saw the shotgun being pointed at him again. Spine tingling, he concentrated for a half a second. The front end of the car was suddenly repelled off the ground and then came crashing back down. The driver was barely able to maintain control when his front wheels slammed down. He swerved back and forth nearly rolling the car.
Brad looked over at the driver with the pistol. He was not wearing a seat belt. Brad used very precise gravity control just like he had done with Sherman Greene's patrol car. He concentrated on the driver with the pistol and lifted him off his seat just as two shots rang out from the revolver. Both bullets passed through Brad's car just in front of him. In and out through open windows. H
e heard the instantaneous whine of the bullets as they whizzed past his head. Then he lifted that car off the road completely. The car dropped back down and swerved trying to correct the steering. The tires went up on the sidewalk and then came crashing back down on the road. The driver had to brake hard and swerve left to avoid a car that was parked on the side of the road.
While this was going on, the car on the left sped and up passed Brad to swerve over in front of him as the guy with the shotgun was crawling into the back seat. The four-wheeler, with Sherry inside, took the place of the car on Brad's left. No one was behind him now. The car on the right that had hit the sidewalk had caught back up to him.
Brad looked to his left at Sherry's hateful face and saw her lift a semi-automatic to window level and point down at Brad's car. Then he saw the guy with the shotgun in front of his car lean out the window and aim at him as well. He knew the same would be happening to his right. Brad's anger and consternation boiled over.
He had been shot at several times in the past couple of days. His friends had been shot, and people were still gunning for him. Rage overtook him, and he felt careless abandonment taking over his reasoning. People were going to start paying for what they were doing to him. More than Mack had to pay and more than Dan and Jeff had to pay. He was going to destroy many more lives if that was what it would take to stop all this. No more discretion with his power. No more control! He was going on the offensive!
All through this ordeal he had been using defensive moves only. He was only defending himself when Milo had attacked him; When the guys at the beach chased his mother and him; when he had thrown Dan and Jeff's group through the library windows: When he had run from Greene and Mack in the canyon and when he had escaped Greene into the canal. He was always on the defensive, just like he had been all of his life when bullies had cornered him, intimidated him and beat him up. He would no longer take a defensive posture. He was going on the attack.
He lifted his own car in the air suddenly. All four wheels were completely off the ground and up about 6 feet. Guns were fired from three directions just as he did this. The bullets missed him, but the driver on the right took a shoulder wound from Sherry's gun. Brad dropped back to the ground and maintained control better than the other two had done.
Immediately upon landing, he lifted the entire four-wheeler in the air and dropped it hard. The back end which was lighter than the front bounced upward violently and almost put the truck on its nose. Sherry's driver barely recovered the truck steering but not before he scraped down the side of a van going the opposite way on the road tearing off his mirror and door handle.
All around the chase scene people were witnessing the strange movements of the cars. They were pulling over to watch on the opposite side of the road jamming the traffic. People on sidewalks stared in dumb disbelief at cars that had been airborne or bouncing violently as they sped by.
At the 22nd Street intersection, the road went from three lanes wide per side down to two. This put Brad in the right lane. The car that had been harassing him on the right was forced to drive partially in a bike lane and partially in the parallel parking lane to maintain his attempt to outflank Brad. All it would take was one car not parked as close to the curb as it should be and Brad figured he could swerve over and force the vehicle into the parked car.
He sped up bumping the car in front of him to stay away from Sherry's weapon as she was the closest and most likely to hit him with a bullet. By ramming the car in front of him, he also threw off the aim of the guy with the shotgun in the front. The shotgun wielder was thrown against the rear seat losing his aim. But he recovered quickly so Brad used his surgical strike gravity again and lifted the shotgun user out of his seat against the roof of the car where he was left floating. His arms flailed out and he paddled the air like he was in a car filled with water.
At 24th Street, the light turned red. A car in front of the gunman's car stopped at the red light forcing the one in front of Brad to stop. In an instant, Brad knew that if he stopped, he could be trapped on three sides by his gun wielding enemies. If that happened, their aim would improve dramatically as their target would then be stationary.
Brad lifted his car off the ground without braking, flew over the two cars below him passing first the enemy car and then the innocent bystander driver in front of that. He stayed in the air to clear any of the cars in the cross traffic of the intersection and then dropped back down on the other side of the intersection. As he went over the cars, the drivers of the two cars below him felt themselves lifted out of their seats. Only their seat belts kept them from ending up against the ceiling of their cars. The shotgun wielder was already at the top of the car roof. The four-wheel driver with Sherry refused to stop at the light and weaved through the intersection with cars honking and dodging him. The guy on the right did the same.
Brad's rage hit a dangerous level as he saw them endanger so many innocent people with their shooting and driving. The car on his right sped up, and was able to pass Brad and then slide in front of him. The driver slammed on his brakes forcing Brad to do the same. With no time to lift his car again he was being forced to stop. The truck moved over behind him just as Brad noticed a police car in the left lane a few hundred feet back with its lights flashing. He recognized the type of police car that it was. It was from North Ogden, out of its jurisdiction. It had to be Sherman Greene! He could hear sirens coming from several directions in the distance. He jumped out of his car just as Sherry and the guy she was with did the same. His determination to rid himself of all his enemies knew no bounds! He was not defending any longer. He was attacking!
They were stopped in front of an old movie house known as the Egyptian Theater. Brad looked at Sherry who was raising her gun. “Hate high places, huh Sherry?” He yelled at her. Then he threw gravity into the side of the theater with all his strength. His car, the four-wheel drive truck and two other cars were suddenly scraping sideways along the ground towards the theater. Sherry and the guy she was with-Bill Sorenson, were picked up at the same moment and thrown twenty feet up and over the marquee slamming into the Egyptian motifs on the theater. The truck and Brad's car hit the curb and were tripped, rolling into the building. Brad stood his ground because he had thrown enough gravity underneath himself to stay where he was. Inside the theater, objects large and small were crashing into the front smashing the glass and tearing the doors from their frame.
Now he lifted Sherry and her cohort up to the top of the two-story building and kept them dangling there. Sherry was screaming in blind panic much to Brad's satisfaction. Brad looked to where the one who had been threatening him on the right was at. Spotting that car, he also rolled it into the theater front. It stopped on its side. The roof was crushed up against the wall.
That was when the shotgun wielder arrived with his driver. They jumped out of their car and ran toward Brad. The shotgun wielder looked up at Sherry and the guy she had been with as they dangled precariously from the building. He looked at the cars that were smashed up against the theater all on their sides and his murderous intent lost its confidence. The shotgun lowered in his arms as he stared at Brad in disbelief.
Brad suddenly bounded up into the air about ten feet and came back down right in front of the shotgun wielder. As he was coming down he straightened his hands out, fingers extended and karate chopped his foe on both sides of his neck with his downward momentum. His foe crumbled to the ground like a sack of potatoes falling off an out of control truck. Brad stepped away from the unconscious body and turned toward the one who had been driving the car. He had a semi-auto pointed at Brad as he walked swiftly up to Brad. He was almost within arm’s length with the gun. He stated, “You're dead boy.”
“Yeah I've heard that one before.” Brad retorted. The guy with the pistol was intent on shooting him in the head at point blank range so that nothing Brad could do would stop the bullet from hitting him and Brad knew instinctively.
Brad had not forgotten the valuable lesson h
e had learned from his father when he had shown the young new recruit how to disable someone with a firearm. As soon as the gun was close enough to him he grabbed the gun and deflected it away from himself. The guy holding the gun struggled, trying to bring the gun back to bear on his target but Brad would not allow it. He was no longer the little boy who was dwarfed by ninety percent of his classmates. He was large and strong. The gun had not fired yet. Brad needed it to fire so that the gun would jam.
He leaned away from the guy and jerked the gun forward still holding the barrel away from himself. When the gun was jerked forward the guy’s finger in the trigger guard pulled the trigger involuntarily. The gun fired. The shell casing was ejected right against Brads fingers and the hot shell burned him. He pulled his hand off the gun reacting to the burn before he had time to think about it.
It did not matter however. The gun was effectively jammed. The guy tried to pull the sleeve back to kick out the shell to no avail. Brad just stood there waiting for him to realize that his gun was inoperable. Useless until the jammed shell could be removed from the gun. All the while, Brad kept Sherry and Sorenson pinned to the front of the building. The others involved in the chase had run off.
Brad threw the heel of his hand into the guys face with considerable force. His last foe staggered back and then fear was overtaking him. Brad had defeated all of his enemies and two of them were still floating up by the theater front while Brad calmly disabled the gun. The guy who had brandished the gun turned to run away from Brad finally capitulating. He ran out into the street. Brad saw a manhole cover just ahead of where the guy was at. He lifted the manhole cover into the air about ten feet and then the guy was being pulled against his will to the hole that had been opened. His feet went into the hole and he grabbed the side in panic while his feet fought for purchase on the steel ladder inside the shaft.