the shotgun one-handed. Hell, she must have had some toned muscle in that left arm of hers.
“Greg, they’re here!”
I heard her shouting the words over the roar of the engine as I opened up. In the rearview I saw the one- eyed man begin to run toward us. His ripped face filled the mirror. At any second I thought he’d grab Michaela and tear her from the back of the bike. G-force dragged at my body as the bike accelerated. I followed the concrete path, not trusting a shortcut across what might be slippery plastic grass. Then I swung onto the driveway. The bike leapt like a wild animal under me, carrying us away from the bunker and into the forest. I glanced left and right, expecting hornets to lunge at us from the trees. I even cradled the rifle across the gas tank, expecting to have to shoot our way out.
But all I could see in the forest were those tree trunks that lost themselves in dark swirling shadow. I sensed the bad guys were there, though. They were watching us pass for sure.
“Any sign of Ben?” Michaela called.
I shook my head. “The speed he was hitting, he’s probably in Manhattan by now.”
It was a damn poor joke. Even poorer when I saw Ben next.
The forest hemmed the road in until it seemed as if I rode the bike through a deep gully. Above me burned a strip of blue sky. And all the time the cold shadow beneath trees oozed out onto the road, as if threatening to engulf us. I sensed eyes watching as we passed. I eased off the gas, allowing the bike to slow to around forty-five. Crows glided from the trees, nearly keeping pace with me.
I heard Michaela’s voice close to me. “See those damn things?” She must have been referring to the crows. “They seem to know when there’ll be fresh carrion.”
Yeah. I looked at them, calling to their brothers and sisters. They could have been singing out, Supper’s up. Go for the girl with the dark eyes. Those will be sweetest…
If I didn’t get us out of here then we really would be crow meat.
She suddenly shouted, “Greg, look out! There’s Ben… oh, dear God in heaven.”
I braked just in time. There in the center of the road was Ben. Grouped in a tight bunch perhaps fifty yards beyond him were hornets. Anything from eighty to a hundred would be my guess. They stood glaring. Cunning bastards. They’d laid an ambush for us all along. Those guys back at the phony house were only the beaters to flush out the prey.
I eased the bike alongside Ben. He stood astride the dirt bike, the motor knocking out balls of blue smoke from the muffler. He’d been staring at the hornets blocking his way with such intensity, he never even noticed me draw alongside him.
After a pause I said, “They’ve got us penned, haven’t they?”
Startled, he turned his head to me. “Hell, Greg. I was beginning to think the pair of you hadn’t made it.”
Michaela shifted on the pillion behind me to get a better look. “We could try shooting our way through.”
“You think we could drop enough of them?”
“There’s a chance.”
I shook my head. “We’ll run at them. See if we can make them scatter.”
“You think they will?” Ben asked. “
We’ve got to try. You ready, Ben?”
He nodded, his facial muscles so tight they formed a mask. A death mask at that.
Sticking side by side, we opened up the throttles, sending the two bikes screaming toward the men and women standing in the road. They fixed their eyes on us, the stare so cold, so fucking brutal it was like trying to break through a force field. But hell…
I signaled to Ben to stop. “They’re not going to move,” I shouted. “We’d need a truck to break through there.”
Shoot our way through? Bust our way through? What now, Valdiva? Damn, those options were running out fast. I glanced to my right. In the wood more hornets on the move. They were going to try to get behind us. Then we’d be trapped between two walls of human flesh. Then the walls would roll in on us.
Michaela called to Ben, “Leave the road. We’ll cut back through the forest.”
“Hell.” He looked like someone had told him to jump out of a plane without a parachute. “In there?” Uneasily, he looked into the pool of creeping shadow.
“There’s no other way. Don’t worry. You’ve got the dirt bike; you’ll make it.”
Ben could really ride a dirt bike. He’d gotten plenty of practice on Sullivan. The big Harley wasn’t in the same category. A great road bike, but off-road?
Ben didn’t wait. He swung the front wheel of the bike ’round, opened up the throttle and coasted into the woods. The rubber teeth of the tread coped easily with the woodland floor. I followed. Then it all went to shit.
The second I touched the throttle the rear wheel fishtailed on that neverending rug of moss. I slowed a little, then accelerated as gently as I could. Damn… the rear end of the heavyweight bike flicked left and right so savagely I had to lower both feet to steady her. Then bad got worse.
To prevent the bike from skidding out from beneath us I had to stop. The second I did so the heavy bike, bearing the weight of two people, sank through the moss into the mantle of mush and rotting leaves beneath. Michaela slid off the seat; together we pulled the bike clear. Without us riding the machine we could push it forward. However, the second we climbed on it would sink again.
Ben rode back, the rear tire shredding moss into a psychedelic green fountain behind.
“No good,” I called to him. “We’ll never make it on the bike.”
“You have to.” He nodded behind us.
Michaela groaned. “Oh, God, Greg. They’re here.”
Hornets moved like wolves through the woods toward us. Ben drew a pistol, steadied the shaking hand by gripping his wrist with the other, then let fly a couple of rounds. One guy clutched his face and stumbled sideways to lean against a tree. He didn’t fall, but I figured he wasn’t coming any closer either. Blood streamed through his fingers down into the rags he wore. Michaela let fly with the shotgun, dropping a woman carrying an ax.
“There are too many.” I pushed the bike forward. “We can’t shoot our way out.”
“Drop the bike, Greg.” Ben’s voice rose to something close to a screech. “It’s no good to you.”
“We can’t outrun them on foot, buddy.”
“Greg-”
“Ben, get back to the others. Tell them what happened.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“Do it, Ben! I’m going to find another way out!”
Ben looked torn. Not wanting to leave, but not wanting to stay to confront the hornets closing in. At last he shouted, “OK. I’ll meet you back at the garage.” Then he was gone, the bike’s rear wheel spinning like a circular saw, hurling up leaf mold and shit into the faces of the people now closing in.
With Michaela guarding my back I shoved the bike back through the woods to the roadway. I’d hoped the hornets that had blocked the way would have followed us, giving me a free run out of there. But they were smart enough to leave around fifty or so blocking the road.
What now?
Come on, Valdiva, think. Think!
But there was no time for thinking through any rational or even any sane plan. All Michaela and I could do was scramble on that bike, then ride the hell away from immediate danger. But what’s that saying, out of the frying pan, into the fire? There was only one way open now. Back to the phony house, where we’d no doubt encounter the one-eyed man and his clan.
So, that’s what I did. With Michaela hanging on tight, I roared the bike along the road, leaving the bunch of hornets behind. I didn’t feel it, but I tried to sound optimistic as I called back over my shoulder, “There’s got to be a second access to the defense site… The military wouldn’t restrict themselves to one road in and out.”
Oh boy, oh boy, but they had. Maybe they’d spent so many IRS dollars on building the thing with its painted windows, make-believe swimming pool and cutto-measure astroturf that they couldn’t afford the second vehicle access.
Twice, three times, I roared along the path that skirted the house.
Michaela’s arm gripped so tight around my waist that it felt like a steel band. The girl was frightened. She’d seen for herself there was no way out. She’d also seen that one-eyed Joe and his buddies were back. They walked
