"What happened?" he shouted. "You guy's okay?"
"Got Bill," Delbert shouted back, "it don't look good, Joe."
"Shit," Joe muttered, as he tried to press the gas pedal further into the floorboard. "Shit."
The intersection, where the road block had been, appeared in front of them a few seconds later. Whatever had gone by them on the highway had not been the second patrol car. It still sat across the road, blocking the right hand lane. The left hand lane was blocked by four men, who were not armed with shotguns, Joe noticed as they neared, but some sort of machine pistols similar to the ones they themselves carried. He was just about to slam on the brakes and try to turn around once more, when a quick glance in the mirror showed the other patrol car coming up behind them. Its blue bubble light pulsing as it came. What the hell, Joe thought these guy's must think they're playing some sort of fucking game with us. Aloud he said. "We're screwed they're in front of us and behind us... To hell with it, we're going through. Hold on."
Peggy pushed Bill aside, and took his place at the rear passenger side window. She leaned out facing back, and began firing at the closing patrol car, as Becky leaned out and began to fire at the four men blocking the left hand side of the road. Delbert was aiming at the four men as well from his side of the truck. Two of the four dropped immediately, but the other two were returning fire even as they ran for the cover of the patrol car, and Joe could feel, as well as hear, the bullets slamming into the Suburban, both front and rear.
The patrol car behind them suddenly swerved and then flipped, and Peggy let out a scream of triumph as she turned back to the front, knelt on the rear seat, and began to fire over Becky's head at the other patrol car. The side of the car began to take on a chewed-appearance within seconds, as all three machine pistols were trained on it. Still, the men behind it returned fire.
They were now less than a hundred feet from the car, Joe saw.
"Sit down!" he suddenly yelled into the truck, "Now!" As he yelled he swung the Suburban toward the cruiser, just close enough so that he could clip the front end of it as they went past. The two men behind the cruiser realized what he intended to do too late.
The Suburban hit the front of the cruiser harder than Joe expected, so hard in fact that it sent it spinning into the ditch like a toy. The collision ripped the front fender from the truck, along with most of the passenger door. The heavy bumper of the truck, torn half off in the collision, let go with a shower of sparks and the Suburban bounced over it leaving it behind in the road. Joe kept the gas pedal jammed to the floor boards, even though steam was beginning to pour from the front of the truck, and the motor was starting to wheeze ominously. A heavy vibration ran through the truck, and as the Suburban gained more speed the vibration became a heavy shuddering, that threatened to shake the truck to pieces. Two miles down the road he spotted a Dodge dealership and slid the dying truck to a stop in the wide asphalt parking lot.
"OUT!" he shouted, as he quickly jumped from the truck. The others piled out behind him, and Joe dropped back to help Delbert who was struggling to drag Bill along. Becky and Peggy reached the glass doors of the showroom, and quickly held them open to allow them to hurry inside with Bill.
Joe stared back out at the wide parking lot expecting to see the remaining patrol car come screaming in, he did not know that Peggy had taken care of that problem.
"The ammo," Joe said turning toward the doors, "no way should we leave it in the truck, that other car will be along any minute."
"I don't think so," Peggy replied icily, "it flipped. I blew out the front tires, and I'm pretty damn sure the driver was dead at that point."
"Okay," Joe said, he didn't question what she said at all, "Dell, let’s go get the ammo. Becky, can you and Peggy see what you can do for Bill?" Becky nodded her head, as Joe turned and ran back out of the showroom toward the Suburban, with Delbert right behind him.
The truck was totaled Joe saw.
The plastic grill-work was gone along with the bumper, and he could see now why Becky had jumped through the window when they stopped, instead of opening the door. The door was crushed shut. Along with that both of the front tires were rapidly going flat. Probably from running over the bumper, he thought, a bullet would have blown them out immediately. A huge puddle of oil was spreading from under the truck, and green anti-freeze dripped from what was left of the radiator.
Joe
