“Hold on!” yelled Shelly.
The guy’s crazy, Shelly thought as he realized that the biker wasn’t going to move! He hit the brakes. The car stopped inches away from the motionless biker. He leaned in close to their windshield, giving them an evil grin. And then he snarled and smashed the chain right through their windshield.
Shelly and Vera ducked, throwing their arms up to protect themselves from the flying glass. The biker wound the chain around his fist and came around the side. He hauled off and smashed the driver’s side window, shattering the glass. As he pulled his fist back for another blow, this one aimed right at Shelly’s face, Shelly quickly let out the cluth and the car pulled quickly away.
The biker ran over to his fallen motorcycle and bent down to pick it up, intent on giving chase.
Suddenly, Shelly made a screeching U-turn.
“What’re you doing?” Vera said, incredulous that he had stopped and turned around when their escape was clear.
“He went too far this time!” said Shelly, closing his hands around the wheel with a grim determination.
He sat hunched over, an intense expression on his face, his lips pressed tightly together, his forhead creased, his eyebrows knitted, and as the biker started to pick up his cycle, Shelly let out the cluch and floored it.
The biker couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the VW bearing down upon him. He barely managed to leap out of the way in time before Shelly ran right over his bike, purposely finishing the job he’d accidentally started. The other two bikers came running out of the store in time to see the VW pull another U-turn and slide around in a spray of dust, heading toward the road.
“I did it! I did it! I did it!” Shelly crowed jubilantly. “Did I do it?”
“You did it!” Vera said, with disbelief. “You were great!”
“I was great!” said Shelly, riding on the adrenaline high. It was the first time in his life he had ever stood up to anybody. It felt terrific. He glanced up into the rearview mirror.
“You son of a bitch!” the black biker yelled after him, throwing the chain after the departing car. “Come back here, you bastard! You’re not gettin’ away with this! I’m gonna get you! You’re dead, you mother! You hear me? Dead!”
Chapter Four
They all came running when Shelly and Vera pulled up with the battered VW. The little car looked as if it had been through a war. The windshield was completely smashed, as well as the window on the driver’s side, and there were large dents both in the front and back where Shelly had backed into the motorcycles, then run over them full-steam. As Shelly pulled up in front of the porch, Chuck reached them first. He put his hand through where the windshield used to be.
“What happened to your windshield, man?” he said.
Shelly and Vera got out of the car. “We had a slight misunderstanding with a motorcycle gang,” said Shelly, trying to sound nonchalant, as if misunderstandings with motorcycle gangs were something that happened to him every day.
“Yeah, but Shelly made them see the error of their ways,” said Vera, putting her arm around him. “Didn’t you Shel?”
Flustered, yet beaming with pride, Shelly managed to stammer. “It was nothing.”
Rick came out and his jaw dropped when he saw what had become of his VW. “My poor car!” he said with disbelief. “What did you do to it?”
Vera handed him the keys as she passed him, carrying the groceries up into the house. “Yeah, well, we’re really sorry, but it wasn’t our fault,” she said.
“A few minor repairs and it’ll be as good as new,” said Shelly, with a shrug, as if it were no big deal.
Rick ran up to his car and stood staring at it, shaking his head with amazement. Chris came up behind him.
“That’s it!” said Rick, turning on her furiously. “I’ve had it! I thought it would be good for us to spend some time together, but this is a little more than I bargained for!”
He threw open the door and got into the car.
“Where are you going?” Chris said.
“Away from here,” Rick said, with disgust. He didn’t now what the hell he was wasting his time for. Chris didn’t seem as is she wanted to pick up where they left off and he had no use whatsoever for her friends. Especially after this! He started the car.
“Stay with me,” Chris said.
“Why should I?”
“Because I want you to,” she said softly.
Rick looked up at her. She had that lost-little-girl expression stuck on her face that he was always such a sucker for. He shook his head. “You don’t play fair, do you?” he said. He took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. Then he reached across to the passenger door and opened it. “Get in.”
Chris ran around to the other side and jumped into the car. Rick shifted into gear and slowly drove back down the driveway, across the wooden bridge, and out onto the road.
As they passed the dried-out streambed, a large figure dressed in grubby work clothes stepped out of the shelter of the trees. He breathed heavily as he watched the VW disappear around a bend. It was happening again. Just like the last time. These people were exactly like the others, the ones who had hurt his mother. A raging fever began to burn within him; a white-hot fire of hate threatened to consume him. And there was only one way to quench the flames.
“Hey, let’s go for a swim,” said Debbie, pulling on Andy’s arm. All afternoon, he’d wanted to do nothing except lie around in the sun.
“I don’t know . . .” he said lazily, as if it would be too much of a bother to walk all the way
