Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [87]
And then in a flash their situation changed. Whooping like wild Indians on a raiding party, two orange-clad cyclists passed them, one on either side, flashing down the hill at almost twice the speed of the Land Rover.
They’d come so close to their windows and had startled Scooter so badly he momentarily lost control of the vehicle. Perry smashed his head against the roof and yelled, “Shit!” It came out thit.
“Jesus! What was that? Bastards!”
“Don’t chase them,” said Perry. “They’re going too fast.”
Scooter sped up anyway. It was reckless, and Perry was about to tell him to slow down when Scooter thrust the rifle at him with one hand. “Pump some lead into those assholes.” Incredibly, without losing control of the vehicle, Scooter had snatched the rifle from the floor in the back. They hit another bump and Perry’s head made contact with the roof again, causing him to see stars. The rifle smacked him in the face and then flew into the backseat, where it bounced into the cargo area in the far rear.
“Shoot those fuckers.”
“Are you kidding? It’s all I can do to keep from going through the roof.”
“Ass wipe.”
They passed a small waterfall, the water rushing under the roadway through a culvert. Then the road flattened and turned left, gigantic rocks on either side. It swung right and began descending along the edge of the mountain again. Somewhere between the time Ryan lost his grip on the rifle and the waterfall, they lost sight of the cyclists. When they came back into view there was only one rider, and he’d lost most of his speed. “Where’s the other fucker?” Scooter asked.
“I don’t know. Slow down and quit swearing. Maybe the other guy went off a cliff.”
“We can only hope.”
“We’re going to go off a cliff if you don’t slow down.”
“Quit being such a pansy. We almost have him.”
Perry’s tongue was swelling where he’d bitten it, and he could taste iron as his mouth filled with blood. Twice in the last hundred yards the suspension had bottomed out with a horrible metallic clunking, and twice they’d hit so hard Perry thought he’d sprained his neck. He was being jostled so that his voice came out in a warble. Whatever else was going on, they must have been making the cyclist nervous, because the remaining rider kept turning his head half a notch so he could chart their progress in his peripheral vision. Perry could see no obvious reason for the cyclist’s sudden decrease in speed. Whatever prompted it, the cyclist looked to be in complete control, while Scooter was barely able to keep the Land Rover on the narrow, snaking track.
Gradually they drew close enough that Perry could see it was the retarded guy. As soon as he realized who it was, Scooter began driving even more recklessly, edging closer to the rear wheel of the bike. “Stay still, motherfucker! I’m going to run you down.”
“Quit cursing,” said Ryan.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“You’re going to get us killed!” Just as he spoke, they slid partially off the road and sideswiped a sheer wall. Perry was surprised he’d yelled, and even more surprised at how high-pitched his voice sounded. He hadn’t flung such anger at anyone in years. The noise the Land Rover made when it contacted the rocks merged into the excruciating staccato cacophony coming from Perry’s mouth when he realized they were both about to die.
“Look. We can tag this bastard. Watch me tag him.”
“Can’t you see he’s toying with you?”
“No way. All I have to do is put on a little pressure and he’ll go off into the trees. If we catch him, I bet I can make him tell me where the others went.”
The cyclist slowed on a piece of road about twenty feet long, a section less steep than the rest.