Jo shrank back to take shelter against the fence they just climbed, but Nate yanked her forward. “Up! Get up there!”
They rushed the wire, but at that moment, the machine gunner hanging off the chopper opened fire. Jo had a fraction of an instant of clarity. The gunner held off until the pair got out in the open. He waited until he could mow them down without risking hitting anything else. That was the only reason he didn’t shoot them in the neighborhood.
Gravel fragments erupted around Jo’s ankles. Particles stabbed her cheeks, but Nate didn’t give her a chance to retreat. He gave her one more brutal shove and she hit the fence.
“Up!” he thundered. “Get up!”
Without waiting, he bent down and grabbed her legs. He strapped both arms around her knees and hoisted her off the ground. She seized the wire and started climbing. She kicked him in the face more than once, but he didn’t complain. He pawed her thighs and hips pushing her up.
She kicked again and her foot wedged against his shoulder. He grappled her foot into place and launched her into the air. She dove straight into the razor wire, but she was too out of her mind with fear and adrenaline to care.
Gunfire exploded all over the place. She heard Nate scream once. Her palm closed around the razor wire and pain jolted through her arm. She pulled herself clear and flung her body over the wire, but she didn’t drop to the other side.
She thrust her bloody hand down. “Come on! Come on!”
He attacked the wire flailing all four limbs. He floundered as far as her hand and his fingers clamped around her wrist. She slapped her other hand against the mesh and anchored herself. His grip slipped in her blood, but she didn’t quit until she dragged him upward.
He flopped over and pivoted. He slammed down on the jagged gravel and his eyes closed. The chopper whizzed overhead. She couldn’t wait. She cartwheeled head over heel and landed straddling him.
She snatched two fistfuls of his jacket and bellowed in his face. “Get up, Nate! Get up, damn it!”
She hauled him two feet before he skidded to his feet. The chopper pirouetted in mid-air and came buzzing down the tracks for another pass. She bolted twenty feet before the gunner opened fire. Stone and sticks impaled her eyes and she lost track of where she was going. She tilted toward the opposite fence, but there was no way she could get over without the chopper blowing her away. Nate would never make it, either.
She cast one desperate glance around and spotted a signal box not far away. In her last act of hopeless despair, she skated around it and dropped Nate to the ground. She crouched behind it as though this pathetic steel closet could give her a few more seconds of life.
The chopper wavered in the sky not far away. Why didn’t it come closer? She inched her eye to the edge of the box and almost burst into tears. All those foot soldiers from the neighbor advanced down the tracks heading for her hiding place.
Nate gasped and scooted back. He propped his shoulders against the box. Blood stained his hair and discolored his pants from his thigh all the way down to his ankle.
“Do me a favor, will you, babe?” he whispered.
“Save your last words for the priest,” she fired back. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Just listen to me for a second, okay?” He gulped once. “Don’t ever sell the Mustang, okay? Park it in the backyard and turn it into a damn flower planter if you have to, but don’t sell it. Do it for me. Keep it as a monument to your undying love for me. Okay?”
A mischievous grin twitched his lips and his eyes twinkled the way they always did when he joked around, especially about the Mustang.
Jo compressed her lips. “I have a better idea. When you’re dead and gone, after the fucking Police dress funeral and the brass band playing Taps and all that shit, I’ll pack the back seat with explosives and we’ll blow the fucking thing to kingdom come as a memorial to my undying love for you and your stupid fucking car. How about that?”
The color drained from his cheeks and he blinked at her in horror. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I wouldn’t because you’re gonna be there to plague my life with your damn car for the next fifty years. Now stop talking like we’re dead ‘cuz we’re getting out of here.”
He fell silent. He didn’t look out. He didn’t have to. He could see in her face exactly how hopeless the situation was. Each fleeting glance out of their hiding place showed the gunmen coming closer. In a second, they would surround the signal box and that would be that. She wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with the Mustang because neither she nor Nate would be around to fool with it.
She snuck another peek, but she held even tighter to Nate’s hand. She needed to feel him with her. She couldn’t even think of any last words, humorous or otherwise, to say at this moment.
When she looked out this time, she stiffened at what she saw. The gunmen weren’t walking. They just stood there pointing their weapons down the tracks. What was wrong with them?
A hint of motion made her look over her shoulder. She blinked, but she didn’t believe it. A tall man in a tight-fitting black suit stood right there between the rails. He looked so tiny and out of place there.
He faced down all those armed men. He didn’t flinch once. Too slowly, he bent over and picked something up from the ties between his feet. He lifted it to his shoulder and aimed it.
For an eternity, he and the enemy and the chopper wavered, suspended in time. The seconds stood still. The Earth stopped turning on its axis. Jo didn’t breathe. She didn’t need to.
The next second, the world exploded. Smoke shot out of the tube and a rocket screamed straight up. It pounded into the chopper and the craft detonated in a flaming ball of licking fire. Spirals of combusting gas snaked out of the blast and debris rained onto the gunmen.
They cowered from the impact. They took a moment to recover from their surprise. When they turned around to face their foe, they discovered him confronting them with a monstrous machine gun slung in his muscled arms. Before they could even think to grip their own weapons, he opened fire.
Hundreds of explosions ripped across the tracks. The Dark Avenger sprayed bullets in wild sweeps. He carved back and forth across the enemy cutting them down without mercy.
A few managed to shoulder their guns. They squeezed off several rounds. Jo’s heart stood still as bullets deflected off the Dark Avenger. They glanced off his chest, arms, and stomach striking sparks. They dinged and pinged away without harming him in the slightest. He didn’t even flinch.
He kept up a constant barrage of fire and his bullets definitely harmed the enemy. Men toppled screaming. They clawed and groveled in a desperate race to get off the tracks before he destroyed them all.
A moment later, the noise died. He hefted the huge gun in his hands. He aimed it at his enemies, but he held his fire. He watched impassive and unmoving as the last stragglers hobbled, crawled, slithered, and bolted. In a second, their fading cries dwindled to silence.
A low moan of wind whispered down the tracks. Jo gaped at the sight too stunned to move. The whole scene seemed too surreal and outlandish to believe.
And yet, there in plain view stood the Dark Avenger, tall, terrible, impervious even to the sunlight. His impenetrable black outline resembled a void ripped in space itself. Only two flinty blue eyes squinted through his mask. He didn’t look human. He didn’t look real, but he was.
So slowly, too slowly, he turned and looked directly at Jo. If he looked at Nate, she didn’t notice. In the mysterious unreality of that moment, she imagined he was looking only at her. He almost looked right through her. The next instant, he turned on his heel, bolted into a run, and vanished.
A slight rasping noise woke her from her trance. She blinked. There was nothing to see. Did she imagine the whole thing? She didn’t imagine that blood on Nate’s leg.
She burst into action. She grabbed the sleeve of her shirt, stabbed her finger into the seam, and ripped it off. She tied it around his leg so tight he yelled in pain
, but she paid no attention. She wedged her shoulder under his arm and forced him to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The story continues...
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Uncaped Crusader
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About the Author
Willow Morgan, born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. A city so alive, with its many cultures, cafes and bars. Enjoys spending time with family, taking road trips, knitting and reading.
From young, Willow would constantly scribble story scenarios but it wasn’t until year 9 in secondary college that she became hooked on the combination of romance, suspense and mystery stories after her english teacher, in an attempt to get his students to read more, dropped a massive box of Mills & Boons and Harlequin books on the desk that he had acquired from his wife.
From there ,Willow has been writing for many years and has only recently been inspired by family to publish her books.
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Mystery Ghost Page 7