Desolation Boulevard
Page 37
Chapter 37
Marauders
Dylan pushed the car on blindly, despite the wall of flames that engulfed it. He couldn’t risk stopping and being ambushed by marauders, but continuing to drive was fanning the flames and making the heat inside the car unbearable while increasing the chance of the car exploding. He yelled at Sally and Bonnie to grab their guns as he wound down his window to search for an escape route. Through the flames, he saw a side street about twenty metres on his right. He decided to take a chance. He stomped on the brake pedal and swerved into the street.
As the car screeched to a stop, he yelled at Sally and Bonnie, “Get out! Get out!”
He yanked open his door and scrambled out and behind a parked car, with Sally not far behind him.
“Where’s Bonnie?” shouted Sally, looking around.
“There! Look!” Dylan said, pointing at the Landcruiser.
They could both see her through the flames, still in the car, reaching across the back seat, searching for something in the cargo space.
“What’s she doing?” asked Sally.
“I don’t know,” answered Dylan, “But she’d better get out soon before the whole car goes up.”
“Look!” whispered Dylan, looking down the street.
Four marauders, dressed like Los Angeles gangstas, came around the corner carrying automatic weapons.
“Shit! This is really bad,” spat Dylan, as he watched nervously over the hood of the parked car.
He was trying to think of a way out of their dire situation, when Sally grabbed his arm and pointed towards their burning car, “Look!”
Bonnie had climbed from the car and, in one motion, armed a fire extinguisher and was directing the jet of chemicals at the flames.
“What the fuck is she doing?” asked Dylan frantically, as the marauders advanced towards her.
“Hey! Bitch!” the leader yelled, now only ten metres from Bonnie, who was ignoring him as she continued to put out the fire that had engulfed their car.
“Yo! Forget the car, bitch. We got something hotter for you!”
As the flames flickered and died, Bonnie gradually seemed to realise the mess she was in. She dropped the fire extinguisher to the ground with a hollow clunk, and turned to face her aggressors with a face that gave away nothing. The leader of the gang, who was wearing a red bandanna as a headband, spoke again. “Ooh, you’re something! I’m definitely going first with you sweetheart.”
He turned and looked at his three offsiders, “You motherfuckers can wait your turn.”
Behind the parked car, Dylan checked his gun and flicked the safety off, and then quickly did the same on Sally’s gun. He whispered in her ear, “I need you to do this with me. No doubts, no hesitation. We’ll only get one chance. When I go, come with me. Watch out for the recoil like I taught you. Okay? And don’t hit Bonnie.”
Sally nodded, eyes wide with fear. Then Dylan moved in front of her in a crouch position and nodded his head in a 'let’s go' motion. He stood up silently and began running toward the gangstas, and Sally realised that all four had their backs turned. All of their attention was on Bonnie. As Sally got closer to the pack, she could tell that Bonnie had seen her and Dylan coming out from behind the parked car, yet her face remained passive, giving nothing away. The leader of the gang grabbed her and ripped her top off as his three henchmen looked on salaciously.
Dylan stopped five paces short of the bandits and nodded at Sally. It was time to act. But as he raised his gun to shoot, “red bandanna” turned to grin at his gang and saw Dylan and Sally preparing to fire.
“The fuck?” he yelled, realising that he’d been outflanked.
The three other marauders, who had been spectators up to this point, turned as Dylan and Sally let loose.
Sally hadn’t been prepared for the recoil after all, and sprayed her first couple of rounds wide, but Dylan’s experience shone through and his first volley of bullets struck all three in the chest showering the air around them with a fine red mist.
Now 'red bandanna' realised he was outnumbered, and he threw Bonnie to the ground and reached for his weapon, as his partners fell in an undignified, bloody heap. As Dylan and the last gangsta levelled their weapons at each other, Sally thought, somewhat absurdly, that they looked like mirror images of the other, almost choreographed. To complete the illusion, both men squeezed the triggers of their weapons simultaneously and waited for the deadly impact. What saved Dylan was Bonnie’s spilt-second decision to throw herself at the legs of 'red bandanna' as he pulled the trigger. So, as Dylan’s salvo of fire blew the top off the gangsta’s head, sending shards of bone and bits of brain into the air, the gangsta’s shot sailed away into the sky harmlessly, leaving Dylan untouched.
The toxic stink of the car’s blistered paint burned the nostrils of Dylan as he swung around to check on Sally. She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say “not a problem.” He put his gun down and went over to help Bonnie, who was struggling to get out from under the dead gangsta. “Shit!” she said, “He’s heavier than he looks!”
“Yeah, and he’ll have to wear a hat from now on,” Dylan added.
He helped Bonnie to her feet and surveyed the scene. The four marauders lay dead on the ground as foam from the extinguisher dripped from the car and mingled with their blood.
“Is anyone injured?” he asked.
“No.”
“No.”
“Then let’s get out of here. It’s not a nice place.”
After they had cleaned the soot from the windscreen and the windows of the car, Dylan checked under the hood to make sure that the fire hadn’t damaged the engine or the car’s electronics. When he was satisfied that there was no harm done, they climbed back in, Sally and Bonnie getting into the back seat together. Dylan was the first to speak once the car was moving again. “Jesus Bonnie! What were you doing back there, saving the car? That could have gotten you killed. We can get a new car anytime! There are millions of them all over the place.”
“I don’t know," she exclaimed. "I just remembered packing that fire extinguisher on top of the other stuff. I wasn’t really thinking I guess. I didn’t want to be slowed down by losing our car. I was stupid, wasn’t I?”
“Maybe, but we made it, so let’s just try to be more careful. From now we have to be prepared for anything. I want you both to make sure your weapons are always loaded, but always keep the safety on while we’re in the car.”
He looked at Sally in the rear-view mirror. “Are you okay?”
She nodded but he could tell that she was close to tears. He guessed that Bonnie was probably holding her hand.
“You were great back there,” he said to her, smiling. “That’s exactly how we have to become – ruthless. Once we make a decision we need to act on it without hesitation. I don’t want to think about what those scumbags would have done to Bonnie if they’d killed us first.”
“Why do there have to be people like that? Isn’t it horrible enough just with the zombies?” asked Sally.
There was no answer.