• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The driver looked at the paperweight. He quit chewing, his eyebrows up, then turned to the other guy.

I thought the gun went off then, that he’d fired at us without even looking, and I shouted for the sound, jumped, felt Tabitha do the same.

But it wasn’t a gunshot at all, only the sound of his truck hit from behind, and in that moment his arm, there inside my cab, jolted forward, caught against the blown-out window frame, twisted back and upside down, and I heard a hard pop: his shoulder torn from the socket, just like that.

The gun flipped up, fell to the seat.

The scabby green Plymouth cruised past us fast, pushing the truck along from behind, behind the wheel somebody with his sleeves rolled up, a cowboy hat and a pair of heavy sunglasses on.

They were out in front of us now, the truck and Plymouth in my headlights and flying away. The Ford driver’s arm just hung there out his window, flapping and turning, and then the Plymouth cut sharp to the left, pulled up alongside the truck, and turned into it, just like the truck had done to us, slammed it hard to the right.

The truck held its own for a second, then slipped to the right, slipped again, and all I could think of was that dead arm, pinned between the truck and the Plymouth, and then the Plymouth finished the job, edged the truck over onto the shoulder, where it disappeared down the embankment.

The Plymouth stopped, maybe a hundred yards ahead of us, his brake lights flaring up, him there on the shoulder.

Then the Luv shuddered all over, and I knew we only had a few yards left before we’d be stopped dead, and I turned to the right, edged over to the shoulder.

Tabitha held my arm, held it hard, her fingernails biting into my skin through the jacket. Her eyes were on the Plymouth, just sitting there, us moving closer to it and closer, until, finally, the engine died, and we stopped, my right wheels just off the pavement.

I could see the Ford from here, down at the bottom of the embankment. That single headlight was still on, and the taillights. But it was on its back. That’s all I could tell for the dark: it’d rolled, and it still had lights on. Nothing else, no movement.

Then the Plymouth’s reverse lights came on, and he started backing up, fast. My headlights were on still, and I tried to read his plate, but he’d caked mud over it. All I could see was the driver with his arm up over the seat, head turned back and looking at us, big dark sunglasses.

Here came the sound from Tabitha again, and I looked at her, felt my own breath going fast now. My heart’d slowed for a few seconds inside all this, the Plymouth taking care of the truck and that gun and all, but here was that adrenaline again, my arms heavy and light at once for it, my face hot and wet. Who was this guy, and what did he want with us? And the fact I couldn’t even come close to answering any of it made that sound she gave out seem about the best thing anybody could do. Here we were, shit out of gas.

I turned to Tabitha. There, on the seat beside her, lay the gun. Thick and shiny.

He came straight at us. I jammed the paperweight in my jacket pocket, quick reached across Tabitha for the gun, put it inside my jacket. She hadn’t even let go my arm.

Then he swerved, passed me on my side, just driving along backward, his arm still up, his head still turned, and he was gone, behind us now.

I looked in the rearview. He pulled right in behind us, edged up to my tail, just like the truck had done, and I turned to Tabitha, shook her with my arm. She looked at me, blinked.

I said, “He pushes us off the embankment, we jump out and roll.” I pulled out the gun, patted it. It was a .45 Smith & Wesson, I only now saw. I’d never fired one. But I figured I was ready as I’d ever be. I said, “Get ready.”

She nodded, and then he hit us.

Only a tap, contact.

I looked in the rearview. He rolled down his window, then leaned his head out, hollered, “Put it in neutral.” He paused, put his bare arm out the window, made the helicopter sign with his finger and hand: Let’s go. “I’ll push you on in,” he hollered.