"Chain Reaction" Power Failure Book I

by Andrew Draper

Jenny watched Aaron steal hurried glances in the rear-view mirror as they burst into the thick traffic of Boston’s narrow surface streets. She felt a sharp jolt shoot through her as he jumped the truck over the curb, barreling down the sidewalk and scattering frightened pedestrians in all directions.

  Heart pounding, she checked the mirror outside her window as Aaron worked the truck between two lanes of cars slowing for the yellow light at the next block. Sliding around a corner with tires spinning, she watched in horror as Majors’ convertible bounced off a parked car in a cloud of broken glass. Metal shrieking, the assassin’s car tore its way free, dropping the front bumper on the street before resuming the chase.

  He closed the distance and Jenny gasped in fear as she saw the barrel of a gun appear, a sleek black form protruding from the driver’s window. With a startled scream, she ducked below the seatback as the bullet shattered the glass above her head before passing through the truck’s roof.

  “Stay down!” Aaron yelled as he yanked the wheel back and forth, continuing to dodge the other cars while trying to keep out of Majors’ line of fire.

  Peeking over the seat, she watched the convertible angle closer for another shot, pushing a green sedan off the road, its unsuspecting driver unable to avoid smashing through the plate glass doors of a store-front café.

  She screamed again as another round holed the rear window to pass between their heads, the near-miss sending spider cracks through the windshield while glass fragments filled the air.

  She bounced back and forth across the seat as Aaron swerved between lanes, drawing angry shouts and obscene gestures from the other drivers as he cut them off, sending them spinning out of control.

  Seeming to come from nowhere, Majors suddenly appeared next to her door. She drew a breath to scream as the assassin’s gun rose up to take aim. Before she could utter a sound, the window in front of her exploded. She felt a flash of hot pain as a piece of glass struck her face, slicing her chin in a thin red line. The bullet passed through the door post, narrowly missing Aaron’s head as he fought to control the speeding pickup.

  Getting closer to the broken window, Majors lined up for another shot. Aaron yelled a warning, pulling the magnum from his belt. “Get down!”

  She threw herself flat on the seat, giving him a clear shot through the now-disintegrated window. She flinched as the gun in Aaron’s hand roared, causing Majors to swerve away, smashing into a group of mailboxes stationed at the corner. She saw a plume of smoke billow out behind the convertible as it pushed the shattered hulks out of the way.

  Pop-Pop, she heard two more rounds bury themselves in the steel behind her head.

  “That bastard just won’t give up!” Aaron yelled as he scanned the road ahead, franticly searching for a way to evade the persistent killer before he could close the distance again. Majors’ car roared onto the passing lane, this time coming up to Aaron’s door already firing. Bullets pinged off the cab and passed through the already-shattered windshield.

  Aaron slammed on the brakes, throwing Jenny to the passenger-side floor in an undignified heap. She couldn’t see the assassin’s car from her prone position, but as she struggled to regain her seat, she saw Aaron push the barrel of the magnum out his window and the pistol roared again.

  The bullet smashed into the convertible’s windshield directly in front of Majors face, blasting a hole in the glass the size of a grapefruit and obliterating a chunk of the assassin’s ear. The distraction was all Aaron needed.

  He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. Rocking the speeding convertible with a horrific jolt and a screech of tearing metal, he pushed Majors off the road into the deep snow of the median.

  The truck spun violently as Aaron’s arms flashed back and forth, trying to regain control the sliding pick-up before it rolled over.

  Jenny felt the truck lurch forward again as Aaron stomped on the accelerator, pinning her to the seat and leaving their attacker behind, the front of the convertible buried to the windshield in frozen white powder. After a few seconds, Jenny peeked over the back of the seat, checking the road behind them again and finding no sign of their attacker.

  Adrenaline still running wild, she sat trembling as the heater whined, struggling against the icy air coming in through the missing windows. “I think we lost him.” She said.

  A heavy silence suddenly permeated the interior of the truck’s cab, nearly suffocating both occupants, as they sped away.

  “Are you all right?” Aaron asked, his deep voice breaking the unnatural quiet.

  She turned toward him; her face tinged a pale green. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

  She groaned, twisting in her seat as the bile climbed in her throat. She pushed open the door of the moving truck while the knots in her stomach burst into spasmodic convulsions. Hanging her head out into a blast of freezing air, she gagged as her stomach turned itself inside-out, releasing what little it contained onto the street flashing beneath her feet. She felt his strong arm grab her coat by the collar, preventing her from tumbling out the open door as she wretched miserably.

  Reduced now to dry heaves, the spasms finally relaxed. Pulling her back to sit upright, she felt the cable-like tension of her coat around her chest ease as he released her collar.

  “Feel better?”

  “Pull over!” she yelled.

  He continued to stare at the traffic ahead in silence.

  “Let me out!”

  “This is not a good time to go sight-seeing. Haven’t you noticed that someone’s trying to kill us?” he said incredulously. “We have to keep moving.”

  “What I noticed was that you were prepared to give those monsters my project!” she snapped angrily. “Are you insane?”

  “I don’t think you understand the gravity of what was about to happen back there. I was just trying to get us out in one piece.”

  “You said you would give them my project if they let us go,” her face began to regain some color and she continued. “How could you even consider doing that?”

  “I couldn’t watch you die.”

  The admission stung like a sharp slap to the face, the resignation in his voice cutting her to the bone. She folded her arms across her chest in blunt defiance. “I’d rather die than see my project in their hands.”

  He locked his gaze to hers. “You say that. Have you ever seen death before today?”

  “My father died in a car accident when I was twelve.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but what I meant was sudden, violent death…up-close and personal.”

  She glared at him in silence.

  He went on unimpeded. “The kind of death where you’re engulfed in cordite fumes and you realize that metallic smell in the air is your buddy’s blood.”

  The color once again drained from her face and her hand flew to cover her mouth.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Aaron turned back to stare at the road through the cracked windshield, wincing as the truck lurched into the air, bouncing through potholes that shook him in his seat. He reached his hand into his jacket and she heard him suck in a sharp breath.

  “You’re hurt!” she exclaimed.

  “It’s nothing.”

  She pulled his hand from under his jacket and caught a fleeting glimpse of the red stain on his fingers before he could hide it.

  “Let me see it.” She demanded.

  She reached forward, pulling his coat away from his body. Searching under the layers of leather and lining, her hands encountered his shirt, the sticky cloth wet with blood.

  She gasped. “Oh, my God! You’ve been shot!”

  “I’ll live.”

  “You’ll bleed to death!”

  “Relax. I won’t bleed to death. It’s not that bad.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been shot before.”

  The revelation stunned her into silence. She felt her stomach lurch again and swallowed repeatedly, fighting the uncontrollable imp
ulse to puke a second time.

  The conversation stopped and a strained, tentative calm settled over them as the truck darted in and out of the traffic on Commercial Street.

  Turning onto Atlantic Avenue, the pair blended into the growing throng fleeing the urban sights and sounds of the city. Spotting the on-ramp for I-93 south, Aaron gunned the old pick-up’s motor, heading toward the I-95 interchange and the open road. The long minutes of strained quiet turned into almost an hour as each percolated their individual thoughts, keeping them to themselves and listening to the ever-present whine of the studded snow tires on the wet asphalt.

  After what seemed to her like days, Aaron broke the pall that had grown with each passing mile.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Where is that?” she asked.

  “A friend of mine has a safe place we can stay for the night.”

  “You need a hospital.”

  “I’m not going to a hospital.”

  “You need medical attention for that wound.”

  “I’ll get it…later,” he said. “Right now, we need to get you off the street and out of sight.”

  Part four - The Better Part of Valor