The gang was fifty members strong and every engine roared as the Iron Eagles cycled through their gears gaining speed and gaining ground on the Dodge ahead. Hawk fell in behind the convoy and screamed with delight. “We are unstoppable, Falcor!”
He hit fifth gear and the hawk’s taxidermy wing came unpegged. It flapped in the wind as if Falcor was trying to take flight and join in the pursuit. Then it shifted and the wing began to beat against Hawk’s face.
“Dammit, Falcor!” Hawk screamed as he tried to stop the wing’s relentless slapping. His bike swerved and took him perilously close to the road’s crumbling shoulder. He finally managed to knock the bird free of its perch. It took flight for moment before spiraling to the ground with a wooden thunk.
Hawk turned back to the pursuit and watched as the Iron Eagles closed in on their prey.
Dr. Pullman pulled up along the passenger side of the vehicle and drew his gun.
The Dodge jerked to the right, engulfing Dr. Pullman’s arm in the open window. When the truck drifted back to the left, Dr. Pullman’s gun was gone and his arm was bleeding. He pulled away to the side of the road.
Dr. Rensch had pulled up to the driver’s window. The Dodge pulled hard left and knocked the former dentist from his bike and onto his face. The bike tumbled after him into a mess of limbs and chrome that sparked and bled as it ground itself into the asphalt.
Several Eagles surrounded the truck. Two rode close behind and drew their weapons to fire. The truck’s rear end bounced. Its brake lights disabled, the sudden bucking was the only indication the vehicle was slowing. Payne and Spits collided with the truck, flew over the handlebars and struck the D and the G painted across the rear gate.
The Ram sped up and began targeting the riders with its grill and fenders. Two more Eagles fell before the rest of the gang decided to give the truck space.
Hawk passed the fallen Dr. Rensch and decided that the man wouldn’t be getting up. And if he did, no one would ever be able to hold a face-to-face conversation with him again.
The gunfire began and the Iron Eagles aimed for the tires. Dead or alive didn’t matter, but the body had to be identifiable. That’s what the two hillbillies had said, “Just make sure you don’t kill him in the face.”
The driver began to fire back, and Hawk had to admit that whoever was behind the wheel was a much better shot than his own men. Hawk swerved around another downed Eagle. He’d lost track of who’d fallen at this point. He was more focused on how his men were pulling back.
Hawk zoomed to the front of the pack and motioned for the lead rider to attack again. The man named Drewel shook his head. Hawk insisted and the former dentist replied with the finger. Hawk smiled, drew his revolver, and put a bullet through the man’s front teeth.
He signaled again for the others to take the truck, and this time there was no hesitation. Ten bikers accelerated and started gaining on the Dodge as it approached an underpass.
Hawk holstered his revolver and was about to join them when an explosion drowned out the sound of his motorcycle gang.
Everything happened in seconds, but his eagle eye saw it all play out in detail. The sound drew his eye up. Concrete turned to dust at the ends of the overpass as it blew out in all directions. The Ram passed under the bridge as the structure fell toward the road. The Iron Eagles passed under the bridge as the structure hit the road. Only two of the ten men avoided being crushed by the rubble. They, instead, were impaled on the jagged concrete and rebar.
Hawk slid to a stop in front of the debris and dismounted his Harley.
One man hung still in the air suspended by the iron bars piercing his body. The other twitched.
Hawk didn’t care if the man was alive or dying. He rushed to the rubble of the bridge screaming, “What the hell was that?!”
EIGHT
“What the hell was that?!” Willie screamed over the ringing in his ears. The blast had gone off before he could cover them, and they hadn’t rung this bad since the last time he and Coy got to see Nickelback.
Coy stood up and dusted himself off. The explosion had knocked him off his feet and several feet back. The detonator was still locked in his hand. “What?”
“He got away!” Willie pointed toward the Dodge truck as it continued down the road without a single piece of bridge on it. “I told you to do it sooner.”
“You told me to do it not at all!” Coy shot back.
Willie nodded and shook his head at the same time turning the gesture into more of a circular motion that hopefully conveyed disbelief and how stupid he thought Coy was. “And when you didn’t listen I told you to do it sooner. Now the library guy got away and our guys are stuck on the other side of the damn bridge.”
“Sure, you act like this is so easy, Willie. You can’t just light the fuse and hope it works. I’ll have you know that explosives is a science.”
“And you suck at science, Coy. Which is why I didn’t want you to do it.”
“I was good at science. I only barely failed it.”
“Do you remember we had to dissect that frog?” Willie asked.
“Yeah.”
“You ate the frog, moron! You suck at science.”
“Oh and you don’t, Willie? You watched like half an episode of Cosmos once and that makes you some kind of expert?”
“It makes me fifteen minutes smarter than you, Coy.” Willie walked up and pulled the detonator from his friend’s hand. “You should have let me do it.”
“It was my turn! You did it last time!”
He watched the Dodge disappear in the distance. “And last time it worked, now, didn’t it?”
“You really do think you’re better than me, don’t you, Willie?”
“Better. Smarter. Better looking. People like me more. And, people say, I generally smell better.”
“You know I have a condition!”
“Well that condition stinks.”
“That’s the condition!”
Willie threw the detonator on the ground and walked over to the western side of the overpass and looked down below. “No, your condition is called stupid.”
“Shut up, Willie.”
Hawk pointed up from the road below and shouted, “You!”
“Oh,” Willie shouted back down. “Hey, Hawk! Um ... how’s it going?”
The biker screamed, “You two morons are dead!”
Coy rushed to Willie’s side. “Oh, man. He looks pissed.”
“Of course he’s pissed. You promised them a cut and their cut just drove away.”
“Shut up, Willie.”
“You were trying to sound all businesslike, throwing out percentages and stuff. You got them all excited and then you took that excitement and dropped a bridge on it.”
Coy was pleading now. “Shut up, Willie.”
“You two aren’t going to get away with this. We’re going to catch you. Prepare yourselves because you will face my talons of justice.” Hawk held up his hand in the shape of some deformed claw and screeched.
“Oh, God,” Coy found it hard to keep his voice steady. “Not his talons. They say he uses them to rip out people’s eyes.”
“They’re just fingers, stupid.”
“But he uses them like talons.”
Willie shouted back to the gang leader, “Uh, hey, Hawk. It’s too bad he got away, huh? He’s a, uh, slippery one,” Willie stammered. “But don’t worry, we’ll get him. And then we’ll all get rich.”
Hawk paced back and forth before randomly punching one of the Iron Eagles in the side of the head. He grabbed another by his coat and shook the man back and forth until he fell to the ground.
“Why is he so pissed?” Coy asked. “We can still catch the guy. I mean, we were just trying to help.”
“Yeah,” Coy agreed. “We can still catch him.” He turned back to Hawk and shouted. “We were just trying to help. We can still catch him.”
“You assholes just killed ten of my men.”
“What?” Willie asked.
“How?”
“How?” Hawk punched another dentist in the face. “You dropped a fucking bridge on them!”
The color ran out of Coy’s face. “Oh, shit.”
“We did what?” Willie asked.
“Oh, shit,” Coy ran his hands through his hair, removing several clumps as he did. “Why did we have to hire this guy? This guy is bad news.”
This time Hawk didn’t yell, but his threats carried on the wind and whispered like gravel in the two men’s ears. “You just dropped a damn overpass on ten of my damn men. Now I’m going to need you to come down here and apologize.”
“What did he say?” Coy asked.
“He wants us to apologize,” Willie said. “Down there.”
“No, no. That’s not what he wants. He wants to tear out our eyes with his talons. They say he keeps the eyes in a pouch.”
“Why would ... that’s so dumb.” Willie turned to face Coy. “Why would he keep a pouch full of eyes?”
“They say he’s looking for one to replace his own. Beneath that patch.”
“That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever believed, Coy.”
“It is not!”
“Oh really. So tell me why, if he was really looking to replace his missing eye with another eye, which is not how eyes work by the way, if they didn’t fit why wouldn’t he just throw them away? Why would he keep them in a pouch? That’s just gross.”
“Yeah, but it’s scary.”
Willie looked down the hill at the biker gang. The Iron Eagles were still more than twenty strong. He looked from face to face and saw nothing but angry men bent on causing pain. He felt the would-be pain in his teeth for a reason he couldn’t explain. “I ... I don’t want to go down there and apologize.”
“Well, I’m not going to do it,” Coy said.
“You dropped the bridge on them.”
“It was an accident, Willie. And you know it.”
“Apologize!” Like a second explosion, Hawk’s shout shook the world around them.
Coy and Willie looked at one another and then to their bikes.
“You know, Coy, I do feel like we owe him an apology, but I’d much rather apologize when we have money to say I’m sorry with.”
“Me, too, Willie. I think that would be a much better apology.” Coy slowly backed toward his bike.
Willie looked down the hill. Several of the Iron Eagles were beginning to climb toward them. He shouted to Hawk. “It’s okay, Hawk. We’ll go ahead and catch him for you. He won’t get away.”
“Don’t you cowards run!” Hawk screamed and ushered more men up the hill.
“It’s not a problem. Really.” Willie ran to his bike and jumped on. “We’ll get him and bring him back.”
Coy triggered his engine and was gone down the eastern face of the hill before Willie even got his kickstand up. He switched the key and pushed the electric start as the Iron Eagles made the top of the hill. He screamed as he gunned his engine and soared down the hill after Coy.
NINE
The town was always easy to find because of all the damned flags, and Mr. Christopher noted that they had added quite a few since he was last forced to stop in the former college town.
The flags began in the abandoned parts of town and were posted on either side of the street forming a colorful corridor on the decaying roadways. Several of the flags and banners were from a time before the world blew itself up. Peace signs, trees, and more than a few whales stood against colorful fields that flapped in the breeze. Many of the flags, however, had been born out of the apocalypse itself.
The first strike in the war to end the world had occurred with such suddenness that every news anchor was wiped out with the exception of Brian Williams as he had been doing nothing of note at the time. So, with no reliable new source available, it was never really clear who or what had caused the conflict that ended the world. But, the citizens of the town did not let the mystery stand in their way. They knew exactly who was to blame, and every flag was a condemnation against them.
One flag showed a burning cigarette morphed into a lit fuse that ran down an illustrated trachea before branching off into lungs comprised of sticks of dynamite.
The one next to it depicted the golden arches held aloft the head of an obese clown with a wicked smile. The clown itself was plugged into a dialysis machine that took in blood and spit out piles of money.
A golden field of grain flapped in the wind and appeared normal at first glance, but if one cared to stare at it long enough they would see that the golden field was composed of broken DNA strands instead of wheat.
A blue flag bore the words “Everyday Low Wages” beneath a yellow smiley face that was winking at the viewer.
Multiple shades of green depicted a booming oil derrick on top of an emaciated world covered with blood from the well.
A white apple silhouette stood in front of crossed bones against a black field.
A red banner with white script spelled out the words Cancer-Cola.
A cartoon mouse was curb-stomping a toddler.
A string of dollar signs depicted a jail cell.
And, one just said, “Fuck Sea World.”
At first glance the people of the town didn’t seem to be for much of anything. The flags and banners had a definitive “anti” slant, but if one looked close enough, it did seem they were “pro” a thing or two. But, according to the flags, it was mostly weed, unicorns, and hugs.
Mr. Christopher grimaced as he turned the Jeep’s steering wheel. The bullet had passed through his waist and he had done what he could to clean the wound and stop the bleeding, but he didn’t have the dexterity to stitch himself up. Every turn of the wheel caused it to bleed more. He could find the help he needed here. But, he would have to be careful.
Alasis was on friendly terms with the town’s leadership, but only because it bought the town’s allegiance. Its location wasn’t of any strategic importance, and the town itself produced nothing worth having. Mr. Christopher wasn’t sure they produced anything at all, actually. But, by sending regular shipments of supplies, Alasis bought peace and their citizens were welcomed legally, if not warmly, and granted no special privileges.
The small town fell away as he approached the former college campus. The flags directed him to the main avenue and he brought the Jeep to a stop in front of a gate. Red and white bars taken from a railroad crossing blocked the road between a pair of guardhouses. They weren’t large, there were just enough to keep a guard out of the rain or sun. A man emerged from each guardhouse with a combat rifle across his chest.
They wore no uniforms but each guard examined his car from behind the oversized smile, upturned mustache, and squinty eyes of a pale Guy Fawke’s mask. One circled the SUV while the other approached his door and tapped on the window with the barrel of his weapon.
Christopher rolled the window down and looked into the eyes of the man behind the mask.
“What do you want?” Guy Fawkes asked.
“My name is Mr. Christopher. I am on official business from Alasis and I require medical assistance.” He leaned back and moved his hand to reveal the bleeding wound, hoping its severity would speed things up.
Guy Fawkes looked away and repeated, “Alasis?”
“That’s right.”
He looked back. “Can’t say that I’m a fan.”
Mr. Christopher shrugged but held the gaze behind the mask. He wasn’t too concerned with what a man in a Halloween mask thought. He was only concerned that he was in pain.
“I don’t like the way you treat people up that way.”
Mr. Christopher took a deep breath while deciding just how rude he could be. “But you do like the food we send you.”
It was the guard’s turn to shrug. “I don’t like your attitude either.”
“Then I take great confidence in knowing that it doesn’t matter what you think,” Mr. Christopher said.
A chuckle escaped from the behind the mask. The guard stood up from the window
as the second Guy Fawkes finished his circle of the vehicle. Guy One asked Guy Two, “Did you see anything?”
“There’s a woman tied up in the back. But, nothing suspicious.”
The first guard opened the Jeep’s door. “Please step out of the vehicle.”
“I am in great discomfort from an inconvenient gunshot wound, so may I ask why you need me to step out of the car?”
“I’m going to search you and your car for weapons. You see, unlike Alasis, we are a peaceful town. And we don’t want anyone disrupting that peace. So step out of the car before I drag your ass out and beat you to death.”
Mr. Christopher sighed and stepped gingerly from the car driver’s seat. Once he had swung his legs out, the guard grabbed him by his lapels and yanked him to his feet.
Guy One spun him around, pushed him against the Jeep and started frisking him with violent handfuls, squeezing the soft areas until they bruised and paying special attention to Christopher’s wound.
Mr. Christopher bit back a scream and fought the murderous reflex the pain activated.
“What’s with the girl?” Guy One asked as he patted down Christopher’s thighs.
“I told you, it’s official business.”
The guard found Christopher’s weapon beneath his arm and pulled it out of the shoulder holster. He tossed it to Guy Two. “Any more in the car, Mr. Official Business?”
“There’s a rifle in the passenger seat and another pistol under the driver’s seat.”
Guy Two moved into the car to inspect the rest of the vehicle. He located the two weapons and continued to search. A moment later he emerged with a tire iron. He handed it to Guy Fawkes number one and returned to the car.
“I thought you said there was nothing else, Mr. Alasis.”
“What?” Mr. Christopher asked. “It’s a tire iron.”
“It’s a weapon.”
“It’s just a tire iron.”
“Do you have any idea how many people tire irons kill each year?”
“Do you have any idea how many tires they change?”
Pursuit of the Apocalypse Page 6
