“Shit!”, Daecon said aloud as he entered the curve. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

He punched the clutch, yanked the shifter from fourth into third gear, released the clutch again, and nailed the throttle, the rear end of his little red Boxster wagging a bit as the tires fought for traction. As he rocketed out of the turn he glanced in the rearview mirror and felt momentary relief when he saw nobody there. 

That relief was short lived though, as the large Dodge pickup came flying around the turn behind him, its body leaning dangerously on its solid axles. As soon as the truck was through the turn a large cloud of black smoke came billowing out of its box-mounted smokestack and it started accelerating toward him at an almost unbelievable rate. The Porsche’s engine was singing at near redline, so Daecon stabbed the clutch again and grabbed fourth gear. He felt a surge of acceleration, but it was no use. The pickup behind him was gaining fast. 

‘I’m never gonna outrun that thing on this road’, Daecon thought to himself. ‘I’ve got to out-manoeuvre it. But how? This highway is too damned straight. I need to get off it, and quick’. 

That thought was driven home when he glanced in the rearview mirror again and saw the big Dodge only a few car lengths behind him. He could hear its turbocharged Cummins engine howling with rage. He was looking for anything – a side road, a sharp exit ramp, even a tight turn that might buy him a little more distance on the truck, but nothing came. The truck was getting closer and closer, and impact was going to happen at any moment. 

Sure enough, Daecon heard a crunching sound from behind as he also felt a sudden surge of acceleration. The powerful truck was actually pushing him down the road faster than he could accelerate on his own. He felt the acceleration decrease suddenly, then heard another crunch and felt the push again. The maniac in the truck was toying with him, ramming the little roadster, then backing off, then ramming it again. 

On the third impact the rear end of the Boxster started sliding back and forth wildly, then the car went fully sideways. Daecon looked in terror as he saw the push bar on the big Dodge's front end bearing down on the driver’s door of his car. He braced for the impact, but it never came: The Boxster had continued to spin around so that it was facing back up the hill, and just as it had done so the driver of the Dodge had tried to ram him broadside and missed. Daecon was now facing up the hill, and he could hear the tires squealing on the big truck as it was coming to a rapid halt behind him. Quickly, Daecon found first gear, redlined the engine, dumped the clutch, and was flying back up the hill, back toward the mountaintop hillbilly village where this mess had all started. 

As he picked up speed he reflected on the events that had led up to this death race in the backwoods.

He had been visiting friends at a nearby campground and had gotten bored, so he decided to visit the village watering hole for a drink and a bit of local colour. While there he saw a young blond man who he had noticed earlier at the campground and started chatting him up. 

This young man was 100% country, speaking with a rural drawl and showing what seemed to be an excessive, almost suspicious friendliness, and under the dirty overalls and scruff on his face he had an attractive, boyish charm about him. Daecon was a very persuasive flirt, and his charm seemed to be working on this young country bumpkin until the fellow got up and asked him to meet around the back of the bar. Normally Daecon would have found such an arrangement to be distasteful, but what the hell, he was on holiday, and a blowjob was a blowjob. 

When he went around to the back parking lot of the bar, he found that he was alone among a bunch of jacked up 4x4 trucks. The young blond guy was nowhere to be found. ‘Probably just got cold feet’, Daecon thought to himself as he turned around to head back into the bar. 

“Hey, faggot!” he heard behind him, and when he turned around to see who had said it he found himself faced by a crowd of a half dozen of the biggest hillbillies he had ever seen. Among them was the young fellow from the bar, who said “You’ve come to the wrong place, Faggot. We don’t like your kind around here” 

“Right then, I’ll be on my way”, Daecon said, and turned to leave. 

As soon as he did he felt a strong shove on his back that almost knocked him off of his feet. He stumbled forward but regained his footing, and he whirled around to face his attackers. Daecon was an accomplished fighter and was a lot stronger than could have been guessed from his size. All his life he had been getting into fights with would-be bullies who would pick on him for being different, but they would quickly learn the error of their ways when he beat the living daylights out of them almost effortlessly. People at home learned to leave him alone, but these hillbillies still clearly needed to learn this lesson. 

He planted his feet firmly in a defensive stance and said “So, it’s a fight you want, is it? Bring it on, bitches! If there’s one thing I like more than sucking cock, it’s fighting!” 

A few of the guys in the crowd started to laugh. Even Daecon had his doubts: He was not a fighter by nature. However, years of being bullied had caused him to learn how to defend himself, as these assholes were about to find out.

“Oh, you think yer a fighter, do you, twinkletoes?” one asked, and started coming toward him. 

Daecon didn’t say a word: As his attacker took a swing he ducked under it and punched the guy in the throat. Down he went, rolling around on the ground and gasping for air, and the laughter died out immediately. 

“Who’s next?”, Daecon asked as he took on his stance again. 

“You lucky son-of-a...” a large one said as he came charging in. 

Daecon dodged the charging man like a matador dodging a bull. The man stopped and came back in, so Daecon squatted, spun around on one foot with the other extended, and took the guy’s legs out from under him. He heard the crack as the guy’s leg broke, and his attacker crashed to the ground, rolling around and screaming in pain next to his buddy. 

“Not so tough as you look, are you guys?” Daecon taunted as he stood back up. “All it takes is one hit and down you go!” 

The blond reached into the back of a big white Dodge truck done up in full “Brodozer” style (big lift kit, huge tires, enormous chrome rims, big steel push bars, a smokestack sticking out of the bed) and retrieved a six-foot length of heavy chain. He gave Daecon such a filthy look of hate that Daecon was taken aback. Had this guy actually seemed attractive back in the bar a few minutes ago? 

Blondie started swinging the chain around, and Daecon could hear the whooshing as it cut through the air. If this chain were to make contact it would easily break an arm or a leg. 

“Enough of this fooling around, you little fairy. You might think you’re slick, but you’re never going to knock all of us down. Now, C’MERE!” Blondie shouted as he started coming forward. 

Daecon looked around at the other men, keeping a confident look on his face while trying to figure out a way out of this. He was strong, he knew that, and he could fight, but he wasn’t invincible. One whack with that chain and he’d be down, and once he was down it would be game over. He had only one hope, and that hope rested on the stupidity of these hillbillies. 

He mustered a sudden surprised look on his face, pointed at something behind the crowd, and shouted “Look at that! A distraction!” 

Every one of them, including Blondie with the swinging chain, turned to see what he was pointing at. As soon as their backs were turned Daecon shouted “Byeeee” and took off running toward the front parking lot, where his beloved red Boxster was parked. The guys started chasing him, but he was just as fast as he was strong. Before they had even had a chance to react he was already halfway to the car, and he was rapidly putting distance on them. 

As he approached the car he had his key in his left hand, and he didn’t even bother opening the door: He jumped over it instead, landed in the driver’s seat, started the car, and peeled out of the parking lot in a cloud of smoke and dust. He was smiling as he adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see the bar fading into the distance, but the smile quickly faded from his face as he saw the big Dodge come flying out of the parking lot, sliding sideways with black smoke belching from the smokestack. That was the start of the chase.

A loud honking horn that sounded exactly like a freight train snapped Daecon back Into the present. He looked in the mirror and saw that the big Dodge had managed to turn around and was now pursuing him again, black smoke belching from the stack. It was still quite a way back but the distance was closing quickly. 

Daecon could not believe how fast that truck was! His Boxster was a GTS 4.0 model, and its 400 horsepower and light weight meant that it could usually out accelerate nearly anything he wanted it to, but this big pickup truck was catching up to him like he was parked. There was nothing for it: He absolutely had to get off this straight, flat highway so that he could lose the truck in the turns. 

He flew past the bar where the trouble had started, and he could see a police car and ambulance in the parking lot with lights flashing, likely tending to the two that he had taken down. He briefly considered pulling into the lot and asking the cops for help but decided against it. Something told him that in this small town the police wouldn’t be any friendlier than his attackers. He also thought about the campground, but it was too far away. He’d never make it there before that truck caught up to him. A glance in the mirror showed that the Dodge was now only about 200 metres behind him and still catching up. 

Panic was starting to set in when he saw a flashing yellow light over the road ahead, and a sign that said “Scenic lookoff next right”. He remembered the lookoff – he had been there with his relatives from the campground the day before. It was quite boring, really, just a paved area at the top of the mountain looking out over the valley and the lake below, with a waist high guard rail placed to prevent people from driving off the cliff. There was a large hole in this guard rail where somebody had apparently gone off before, and a wooden buck made from a few pieces of 2x4 lumber were placed to block off the broken section until it could be repaired properly by the parks deparment.

The lookoff had a long, curvy, two-lane road leading in to it, roughly 5 kilometres long. He remembered thinking yesterday how fun it would be to open up the Porsche on this road, and it looked like today he was going to find out. 

A quick glance back – the truck was now only about 25 metres back and still gaining – and, just as he was getting to the turn-off he nailed the brake pedal as hard as he could and hooked the steering wheel hard to the right. The car started sliding sideways and the big Dodge flew past him, all four tires locked up as its driver was trying to stop, missing him by a hair. Before the car came to a stop it was lined up perfectly with the turn off, so he nailed the gas and took off down the road toward the lookoff. 

Here the Boxster was in its element. Daecon had no doubt that the 5,000 kilogram Dodge would never be able to take these turns at the speed he was, especially jacked up and with those big mud tires on it. He was almost enjoying himself now, driving the car like it was meant to be driven, gaining altitude but more importantly gaining distance on his pursuers, and getting more confident in exploring the car’s capabilities. The speed limit on this road was 60 kilometres per hour but he was easily taking it at 120, 140, 150 km/hr. 

Suddenly he saw a sign that said, “Dead end ahead, 100 metres” and he panicked. Yesterday the road seemed to go on forever, but yesterday he was travelling at less than half the speed that he was today. He stomped on the brake pedal and the car came screeching to a halt, spinning around 180 degrees just as the woods opened up into the parking lot for the lookoff. There was nobody here but him. 

Daecon looked around and discovered that he was trapped. There was no other road – the only way back out was by the road he had just came in, and if he drove down that road he was almost certainly going to encounter that Dodge truck again.

He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. All of his efforts to lose his attackers was wasted on the fact that he had let them lead him into a trap. They wouldn’t have to keep up with him on those turns, because they would know that he couldn’t get away. They could climb the hill though the long, twisty road at their leisure. 

‘Maybe they just gave up’, Daecon thought with doubt, and he shut the car’s engine off to listen. 

At first he was relieved to hear sweet silence, and almost started to think he was safe, but this thought was short lived as he heard the faint sound of a diesel engine approaching. It wasn’t screaming or howling with rage anymore, it was just idling along, clattering almost with leisure, and it was gradually getting louder. Daecon started the Porsche's engine again and looked around in a panic, thinking that maybe he might hide somewhere, but it was useless. The lookoff site had been chosen for its lack of large trees or obstacles, giving it a commanding and unfettered view of the lake and valley floor a thousand metres below. 

He contemplated just ditching the car and running into the woods to hide, and even undid his seat belt and had his hand on the door handle, when the big Dodge slowly emerged from the forest road. There were two people in the cab – the blond and another guy, and there were two more standing in the box. One of the guys in the back started swinging a chain, the other was brandishing what looked like a tire iron. 

Daecon heard a loud voice talking – Blondie was talking to him through some kind of PA speaker installed in the truck. 

“There you are, fruit boy! We’ve got you now! There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to run!”