Things were moving quickly now.
With Traveller back inside, waiting by the garage door’s switch, Rose knelt down to the tires of the tow trucks, slicing methodically small cuts into black rubber with Traveller’s switchblade. With each slice, there was a small, sharp hiss of air. Having done this to every last tire, she stood to her feet and gave him a thumbs up, running back across the street, to the cover of the bushes.
The garage door didn’t lift quietly. The entire building creaked along with its rusted hinges.
Traveller slid into the driver’s seat right as the back room’s door swung open. All eleven of the tow truck drivers watched as the white Cadillac sped out of the garage, slipping under the tight space of the still-opening door.
Jamie immediately recognized the face of the driver. “That’s him!” he exclaimed with an aggressive point of the finger that followed Traveller as he sped out of view.
One of them let out an animalistically excited roar and led the pack to their truck. They all followed, except for Jamie, who managed to stop himself and grip Jon by the shoulder for a quick aside.
“What?” Jon asked.
“The kid.” His hands remained on Jon’s shoulders.
“What about him?”
“We don’t need him anymore.”
“Oh…”
Jamie gave Jon’s shoulder a jovial pat, then rushed to catch up with the others. The five trucks all sped after Traveller.
Left alone now, Jon reached into his toolbox and returned to the back room.
Rose left the cover of the bushes and entered through the still-open garage door. Jon had also left the door to the back room open, which gave Rose a clear view inside. Ash remained seated with his arms tied behind his back. Jon stood between them, with his back obliviously turned to Rose. He was holding a hammer.
Rose gripped Traveller’s switchblade.
“Well?” Ash called out, mockingly impatient. “What now?”
She noticed now that the hand gripping the hammer was trembling. “Please… You seem like an okay kid. Convince me that if I let you go you won’t cause any trouble.”
Rose’s grip on the blade loosened. She closed the blade and put it back into her pocket.
“Screw you, man,” Ash yelled up through an annoyed smile. His hands were busy at work trying to untangle the knots around his wrists; although they were almost free, they’d still require some more work. “If you want to become a kid-killer, that’s all on you. Make your own damn decision.”
Jon didn’t want anything to do with this. He had enjoyed the benefits of being connected to a gang like Hook’s Tows, but he had never been told to get his hands dirty before today.
The garage door suddenly squealed shut. Jon turned back, only to find that there was no one in sight.
He held the hammer up, defensively near his face, like a startled child. With slow steps, he made his way out of the back room. The door’s screech ended with a loud bang as it finally slammed shut. Once this sound finished bouncing off the walls, the room fell completely silent.
Two small arms reached up to his face from behind. A wet rag pressed itself into his face, assaulting his nose with the strong stench of gasoline and oil. He tried to swing his hammer back at his attacker, but he could already feel the headrush of the chemicals; his grip on the hammer had loosened enough that the attempted swing sent it flying out of his grasp, across the room.
It was only another short moment before his world went black.
Rose stood over him. His loud snore shook the ground.
“Holy shit,” Ash let out. Rose dropped the rag and entered the back room. “For a second there I thought the sick fuck was actually gonna do it.”
Reaching into her back pocket, Rose pulled out the switchblade and swung it open.
“Woah! Chill! Chill! I didn’t say nothin’!” If his hands hadn’t been tied behind his back, they would’ve been up in the air.
She circled around to his back and began cutting at the thick knots around his wrists. Ash relaxed in his seat, letting out a deep sigh.
“Thanks,” Ash said, standing and feeling at his wrists when the rope finally tore. The pattern of the rope had ingrained itself into his soft, hairless skin.
“Thank the driver.” Rose noticed a large, paper map of the local area. She folded it into her pocket and led the way out of the back room, over Jon.
Sprinting towards the exit, Ash reached down and picked up the tool box on the ground by the handle without losing any momentum.
Traveller watched through his rear-view mirror (which still felt uncomfortable thanks to Ash’s meddling with the alignment). The fleet of tow trucks were still following behind him.
Just as Traveller was about to focus away from the mirror’s view, he noticed the first victim of Rose’s handywork; one of the truck’s tires popped. The truck leaned heavily to the right, so the driver decreased his speed and pulled over to the side of the road, leaving the chase to the rest of them.
The next victim of Rose’s trap hadn’t been as smart. When the second truck’s tire popped, its driver continued forward at full speed. It didn’t take long for his car to spin out, ramming another tow truck off the road with it.
There were still two tow trucks following when he finally returned to the garage. Rose and Ash had just arrived outside. The white Cadillac screech to a halt directly in front of them. The two of them slid into the car in an instant—Rose in the front seat, and Ash in the back, on his knees, watching the rapidly approaching tow trucks through the rear window.
Traveller had already been slamming on the gas before the doors even fully shut.
Rose unfolded the large paper map and began scanning through the lines to discern their location.
“C’mon!” Ash yelled out, still looking back. “Lose ‘em!”
“Easier said than done, kid!” Traveller snapped back.
“Aha!” Rose exclaimed, keeping her finger pressed against their location on the map.
“See something?” Traveller asked.
Rose’s confidence changed to uncertainty. “Uhh…”
“What?”
“How confident are you in your driving?”
“Why?”
“It’s a very windy road. And it’s small. All dirt like this.”
Traveller’s grip on the wheel tightened. “I can do that.”
“Also…”
“There’s more?”
Rose sank into her seat, speaking shyly. “This road goes on for a few kilometers and then hits a dead-end with no other roads to turn off of from here.”
“So, even if I lose them, I’m going to have to turn back eventually? Is that what you’re saying?”
Rose nodded.
The first curve to the left was already quickly approaching. The ultimate choice: maintain speed and risk spinning out, or slow down and risk closing the distance from their pursuers.
Traveller maintained.
Rose gripped at the handle. “Slow down!” she warned.
Ash remained glued to the rear window. “What are you, stupid? Don’t slow down!”
The car turned sharply, following the curving edge of the road like scissors cutting through dotted lines on a paper. Rose and Ash were both thrown against the side window, although Ash had to travel more distance to reach it from the middle seat.
This turn was immediately followed by another sharp turn in the opposite direction. Traveller wasn’t going to let up now. He spun the wheel to the right, tightly following the curve. Rose was flung in the opposite direction, against Traveller’s arm. Ash fell onto the floor.
Rose hesitated to lift herself from his arm, looking up at him with blushing cheeks.
“Easy on the turns!” Ash called from the floor.
“You ever consider a seatbelt?” Traveller snapped back. He passively shrugged Rose off his arm. “I need to focus.”
Another right turn approached. Judging by the lack of view beyond the trees, this upcoming curve would turn more than ninety degrees.
“They’re both still there!” Ash announced, back to his knees.
“Why aren’t they popping?” Traveller asked Rose.
“I couldn’t make the cuts too big or they might’ve seen it before driving. They’ll pop. Just wait.”
Traveller maintained his speed, unsure how much longer he would even be able to wait.
The sweat of his palms stuck to the steering wheel.
Traveller let up on the gas, lightly pressing the brakes.
The car made the turn perfectly, but the lack of passengers flying to the left had been an indicator that he might have made the turn too slow.
One of the truck’s tires finally popped. The truck clearly tried to maintain the direction of the curve, but all it could manage to do was continue straight, driving directly into a tree.
Only Jamie’s truck remained. He sternly adjusted his red glasses. The truck not only maintained control around the curve, but the distance was closing as well.
“Uh, guys?” Ash called out from the backseat. “I don’t want to worry anyone, but—”
—BANG! A cloud of dirt shot up beside the car. That definitely wasn’t the truck’s tire popping…
Jamie aimed a revolver through his side window. He clearly wasn’t left handed; this, on top of the fact both cars were moving meant his aim would be greatly impaired, but that didn’t mean they were safe.
One road. One direction. Traveller’s options were extremely limited. To slow down and hit the truck off the road with his car (which would be extremely ineffective anyways due to their size difference) would give Jamie a closer target to hit, and speeding up more would only increase the danger of the coming turns.
Ash fished around through the tool box by his feet. With a smirk, he pulled out a large, red wrench and stuck his head out the right window. Jamie had already been struggling to aim at the car in general, to aim across the truck’s hood from the left window to Ash on the right would be next-to-impossible.
One eye shut, Ash aimed towards the truck’s windshield and reeled his arm back.
Not only did it hit with intense, shattering power thanks to Jamie literally driving towards it, but the wrench managed to hit Jamie directly in the chest.
Whether or not that had been enough to kill Jamie was irrelevant; he spun out immediately after, disappearing into the trees with a roll.
The white Cadillac drifted to a stop.
They were all quietly panting.
“Thanks for the lift, old-timer,” Ash said between breaths.
Traveller squinted. “Old-timer?”
Comments (0)
See all