by Dick Wybrow
He laughed. "I got spear-chucking training for my show. In fact, I killed the dragon prince with one shot of a pointy stick from atop my castle."
My eyes back on the door, I said, "You live in a very weird world, man."
The Actor took a half step back then counted down, cocking his arm each time. "Three… two…"
Next door, we heard someone cry out, "Don't take my kidney!"
"Three!"
The Actor put all his strength into the throw, and he missed the dish entirely.
* * *
Colin, a short man with a trim mustache, shouted from a room on the bottom floor, "They ain't in here!"
The man in the oil-black hat glanced around at his crew searching the rooms. One came out with a handful of paperbacks under his arm.
"Check with the others upstairs," he barked. "The bike's here, they're here."
A tall man sidled up next to him and shook his head, then shrugged.
Someone above shouted about kidneys. A moment later, there was a crash of glass.
* * *
I had flattened myself against the bathroom door, armed with a plastic back scrubber with sad little bristles that had seen far better days. Looking at the door across the room, I raised the scrubber above my head, waiting to strike—or scrub the small of some attacker's back.
"I thought you were a good shot," I said as the Actor simply stared across the side lot at the tiny home, now with a broken window.
"It… the wind. It got away from me."
"For fuc—"
"Look!" The Actor stepped closer to the window. Down below, leather-clad bikers were streaming into the sprawling home with the thatched roof.
We stared for a second longer, and I saw our chance.
"Let's go."
"What?" The Actor asked, slinking into the darkness again. "Go out there?"
I ran for the door and flung it open with the Actor close behind me. We glanced into the room next door, where our neighbor was cowering under a pile of blankets on the floor.
The Actor whispered, "He's fine. Go, if we're going to go!"
We raced down the stairs, catching sight of the three doors on bottom floor. They'd each been kicked in and were hanging off their hinges. In the lot, a dozen black-and-silver motorcycles waited for their riders to return.
The Actor beelined for Sally's motorcycle.
I began to follow but then looked at the front door of the store and made a quick turn, my mouth as dry as the dust under my feet. Looking inside, I saw no trace of the old woman who I'd last seen smoking her rolled-up cigarette. "No," I whispered. "Jesus." Walking toward the counter, I heard the Actor call for me but ignored him. "Hello?"
There was no answer.
I couldn't see blood anywhere and, for a moment, held out hope that she hadn't been hurt. "Are you okay? It's… um… room three. I just want—"
"Si, si," a voice came from under the counter. Slowly the woman peeked above the register. "Men are looking for you!"
"I know," I said and nearly cried with joy. "I just wanted to be sure, you know, you were all right."
"Loco," she said then held up the receiver of a telephone and pointed to it. "Go, go. Policía, they are coming."
"Okay!" I shouted, and just as I turned to run, I saw the package with clown Ha! Ha! Ha! and succumbed to a sudden urge to punch it. It tumbled to the floor. I hesitated for a moment then grabbed it and stuffed it in my coat and ran back out. "I'm sorry about the trouble!"
I tore across the lot, then out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. He was straight out of a spaghetti western—black leather boots, long leather duster, black hat with, weirdly, one side folded up to the center, which made it look like he'd slept in it, and when he'd woken up, it had stayed that way. His pants were black, too, but I was unsure if those were also leather. Black leather pants, at least in my mind, were more rock star than cowboy. What was very cowboy, albeit not in a very nice way, was how he'd chambered a shell and was now leveling a shotgun at me. I ducked, running toward the bike.
Boom!
The sound was unearthly, loud and roaring, and it echoed across the lot as my vision filled with dust and sand from the burst of earth near my feet.
The motorcycle cowboy—the second I'd met in just the past twenty-four hours—cocked the shotgun again and tracked me as I sprinted. When I was just feet away from the bike, I saw him readying to fire.
Fear overtook me, and I stopped and sank to my knees in a ball. It was a terrible move since I was such an easy target, but panic had robbed me of reason. I could run no farther. Again, I heard the Boom! of the shotgun blast and braced for the pain, but it didn't come. I looked up through the smoke and dust, not quite believing what I was looking at.
Standing between me and the cowboy in black was the Actor, still wearing the flimsy motel robe, except now it was slightly tattered and burnt.
"Motherfucker!" my friend shouted. "That hurt!"
The cowboy cracked open his rifle, dumped out the old shells, and began loading new ones, casually, like he was picking dirt from under his nails.
The Actor grabbed my elbow and pushed me toward the bike. "Let's get the hell out of here."
My feet found their will again, and I jumped on, firing up the engine as the Actor climbed up behind me. As I dropped it into gear, I could see black-clad bikers pour out of the small home with the thatched roof. One was eating a huge, cold burrito, picking glass pieces out of it.
"Move!" the Actor yelled, and the shotgun erupted again. The Actor flinched and punched me on the shoulder. "Go, go, go!"
I turned onto the blacktop, raced to the T in the road, and hung left. If we were going to run, we might as well run in the direction we needed to go. As I banked, I could see the gang fire up their own bikes. The gunman in the black cowboy hat just watched as we peeled away.
We were back on the 180, and it would be a good half day of riding until we got to Cozumel. As long as we could keep our distance from the bikers, we would outrun them because we would never have to stop for gas. However, I wasn't sure if that would be enough to shake them.
We needed a detour.
I looked into the mirror just above my left hand, and there they were, a huddled mass of black and chrome. "Let's find a route to head west!" I shouted as we both struggled to get our helmets on.
"What?"
I hadn’t flicked on the helmet mic, so I slowed for a moment to cut down on the wind noise and shouted again. He tapped my right shoulder. I took that as a "yes" for the moment.
In my mirror, I could see the Actor fiddling with his phone. When I looked at the other mirror, I saw the sea of black behind us moving closer. Dammit!
He tapped again and pointed ahead to a side road swept with dust and grit. I'd ridden motorcycles for years and was pretty good but had never owned anything quite so big. If there were a lot of turns and twists on a shaky surface, I could easily dump us both.
I felt a pounding on my shoulder then saw a stubby finger again pointing at a single-lane road off to our right.
Fiddling under the helmet, I keyed the mic. "Not sure if I can keep this thing upright going this fast on a road like that!"
My stomach twisted as I looked into the mirror. They were close enough I could see their expressions. While some had full dark face masks, a few others had those metal skull caps that looked like kaiser helmets from World War I that left their faces exposed. Their eyes were covered with goggles.
At the very back was the man in the black hat, who was riding as casually as if he were some dentist taking his expensive motorcycle out for a weekend ride.
I could see Goatee yelling, pushing them to go faster. He had a wild, horrible smile on his face and drove with one hand. The other held a shotgun tucked under his arm. I could only watch in the mirror, trading glances between the road and the scene behind us.
The wordless yelling briefly stopped, and I saw him make a strange face, then he began to chew. The wide smile was back. Apparently,
he'd gotten a bug.
Blechy.
The Actor pointed to another route. Ahead, the 1500 highway. He told me to bank right onto that then pick up the 1450 and hang a left there.
"How long?"
"About ten minutes!"
We were coming up on a more populated area, which meant I was weaving between cars and trucks as we went. I was getting a better feel for Sally's motorcycle but had to anticipate my turns farther ahead than I was used to. If any car or truck quickly pulled into a lane in front of us, I would end up in the back of it.
We took the curving on-ramp to highway 1500, and a quick look in my mirror told me another turn like that would put those guys right on top of us. Then our luck got worse. Traffic was slowing ahead, and I could see the yellow flashing of construction vehicles. In about a mile, it was a sea of red brake lights. Our pursuers were no more than a hundred yards behind us. Within the next minute, we would be at a full stop in the traffic.
"Fuck it," I said and leaned to the right. Instantly, the bike began to rattle and jerk as we hit the gravel of the shoulder. "Hold on!"
I knew I should have slowed, but that just wasn't an option anymore. So, I twisted the accelerator, and the bike bucked slightly but held. Cars whipped past us with a shoom-shoom-shoom sound that made my stomach twist. All it would take was someone to toss out a cigarette or coffee cup or massive cold burrito, and we would crash, no question.
It was almost impossible to see in the mirror with the bike shaking so violently, but I could actually hear their bikes over mine. Like a swarm of angry bees the size of compact cars, they buzzed behind us, getting closer and closer.
"Go faster!" The Actor's voice fried the speaker in my helmet.
"I'm trying!"
Ahead I saw the turnoff for the 1450. I was unsure what we would find there but knew whatever was behind us was death, so I pushed the bike a little more. I had to grip the handlebars tight because they were fighting me at every moment, trying to rip from my grasp.
Taking the exit ramp, I saw a sharp left curve. At that speed, we would never make it.
Behind us, a shotgun blast rang out, and again the Actor flinched. Then another, and he jerked again.
"Can… you… go… faster?"
I'd hoped we would hit a straightaway soon, but first I would have to slow to get around the curve. I eased off the accelerator. However, the bike did not slow. The growling of motorcycles reflected off the concrete barriers on either side of us as we barreled faster and faster toward the sharp curve.
"Slow down!" the Actor yelled, but it was too late. We were going to smash into the concrete side and go over the edge.
Desperate, I leaned hard to the left, but the bike was already moving, and it was just me going with it.
"Hold on tight!"
At the turn, we banked so hard my knee briefly hit the concrete, and the bike actually went up onto the curved siding as we slingshotted around the turn. Then back on a brief straightaway, we leveled out.
A peek in the mirror told me that we'd gained another fifty yards on them as they slowed slightly for the turn.
"Jesus fucking Christ, who are you, Evil Knievel?" the Actor shouted and laughed at the same time.
The 1450 would be just after the next curve, but I didn't feel I had any skill to pull the turn off twice. Then I realized I hadn't made that turn. We barreled again faster and faster to the curve, and all I could do was hold on and pray.
I muttered to the bike, "Come on, baby. Let's see you do that again."
The machine trilled in the strangest way, and I leaned. We hit the curve, nearly horizontal, went up on the barrier, and we were riding the fucking wall.
A moment later, blue sky returned ahead of me, and we were staring down the highway.
"You did it!" the Actor shouted and pounded my shoulder.
On the straightway, I looked back and could see the gang once again gaining speed. No question, those guys were flooring it, so I threw whatever caution I had left to the wind and did the same. I opened our throttle, maxing the accelerator, and we screamed down the motorway. The whistling wind sounded like the flat line of a dead man in the hospital.
Looking down at the speedometer, I realized we'd pegged the bike at one hundred and twenty miles an hour.
A quick check of the mirror, and my heart sank. It still wasn't fast enough. Despite the ground we'd made up in the turn, they were closing the gap, getting closer by the second.
The roadway ahead had a few trucks and cars, which I found easy to weave through. I was getting a much better feel for the bike, but it was almost turning on instinct.
"Faster, Raz!"
But the bike couldn't go any faster. I had the throttle all the way open, and still the mass of black and chrome behind us was gaining. Once again, I could hear the buzzing of their motorcycles. They were too close.
Moments later, the tall, skinny guy had caught up and was leveling his shotgun low. This time, he would go for the tire, and we would spin out. At that speed, it’d be all over.
I crouched down, getting closer to the bike, trying to cut the wind resistance, but it didn't help. We weren't going faster.
Weaving and dodging, I felt like I had to do so little to keep the bike from crashing. It was almost as if the machine had a mind of its own.
I whispered to it, "Come on, now. Give us a bit more. Let's go, baby."
Nothing. The bike was at top speed, whirring and vibrating, doing its best, but it wasn't going any faster.
I chanced a look back over my shoulder and could see Goatee with his big stupid grin coming up on our left side. Within a minute, he would be right on top of us, and a shotgun blast would take off my head.
Again, I pleaded with the bike, "Go, go. Faster, faster."
We dodged another truck then a minivan and another truck but didn't accelerate.
I tried once more. "Go, bike! Fast, bike!" Then I remembered how earlier it had trilled like the whinny of a horse. I thought, What the hell?
I shouted, "Giddyap!"
Below us, an unholy roar rose from the bike, and its front wheel lifted off the ground. The force of a thunder crack rattled my chest, and it was like I'd been dropped into a fighter jet. The motorcycle moved at an impossible speed, weaving and dodging between cars.
The speedometer below us spun like a clock that had busted its springs.
Ahead, I only saw a blur of cars and trucks, and soon after, I couldn't even see that anymore.
Above, clouds shot past like they were being sucked away by some giant vacuum in the sky. The sound around me should have been terrifying, but instead it felt exhilarating, a howl of wind that seemed to rise into a symphony.
Through the blur, I caught sight of two trucks side by side up ahead, and before I could even scream, the bike had lifted its front wheel and gone up the back of a VW, lifting us in the air, and we leapt over the truck blockage, landing twenty yards in front of it.
I reached back to get ahold of the Actor, who was gripping onto my shirt so hard I thought his fingers would go through.
I shouted, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"
The bike slowed back to a still-suicidal speed of one hundred twenty miles an hour. Behind us, the gang was nowhere to be seen. My heart sang, and I patted the gas tank of the metal beast beneath us.
"Good girl," I said, and it trilled beneath my fingers.
The Actor popped his visor, leaned close to my ear, and shouted over the wind, "Where the hell did you learn to ride like that?"
I laughed, and it was the first real joy I'd felt in such a long, long time. I looked at the road ahead. It would be another ten or twelve hours to Cozumel. Or maybe not.
Looking down, I shouted, "This is the greatest bike of all time!"
Beneath me, I felt the machine roar, its front wheel briefly lifting off the pavement. Drunk with happiness, I held my hand above its gas tank.
Laughing, I said, "I dub thee Bucephalus, the greatest horse that ever lived!"
"What
did you just call me?" the Actor shouted, his curly hair nearly going straight in the wind.
Turning my head slightly, I pushed up my own visor and called back, "You wanna do that again?"
"Hell yeah," he said then gripped his thighs tighter on the seat. He flipped his visor back down and wrapped his fingers into the seat strap. "Do it!"
Leaning in close to the bike, I looked ahead. I held the bars tight and said, "All right, Boo, let's go find Anza."
The bike beneath me gunned for a moment, readying itself.
"Giddyap."
And we shot off like we'd been launched from a rocket pad, destined for the outer solar system.
Chapter Thirteen
The waitress stood at the rail, looked up at the cartoon frog adorning the wall behind the bar—empty beer glass in hand, stupid sombrero half on its head, eyes googly—and she frowned. "Is stupid frog."
The bartender laughed and looked at the waitress's drink chit, which had popped up once she'd slid her white card in the register's slot. "Bucket of beers and seven shots?"
The waitress nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
He looked at the small rectangle of paper as he stuffed it behind the saturated rubber mat. Three other chits poked up from there as well, but he liked the waitress, so he went to make her drinks first. He frowned at the ticket. "What kind of shots?"
"They didn't say which shots they are wanting. Just shots."
"Uh-huh," he said in a particular way that she thought sounded Californian. It wasn't unusual to hear American accents in Cozumel. They just usually came from tourists.
The bartender lined up seven tiny cups on a serving tray, grabbed a bottle from the rail without a label, and poured the brown liquid from its spout.
She found the mirror and looked at the table that had just ordered. Laughing, joking. She was fine with that. That was what places like this were for. What they weren't for was the one local man with the mullet and handlebar mustache.
She grabbed the bucket and reached for her serving tray. "This is not my tray."
"Come on, if—"