The first finger of lightning sizzled from a near black sky. The explosion of thunder, when it came, resonated along the canyon and ricocheted across the scrubland.
The lights of the Lincoln cruising the Interstate were the only bright spots in a stormy landscape until, far behind, other lights began to twinkle in the twilight. These lights merged and separated, indicating a group of fast moving vehicles.
The driver of the Lincoln was unaware of the distant lights behind. Thomas Startz leaned back with one finger on the wheel and glanced across quickly at Holly.
‘Alone and together,’ he said softly, ‘perfection.’
His sister smiled back. A soft sonata was playing as the wipers came on, swishing with a regular rhythm and somehow in keeping with the music.
‘You were bored, I could tell,’ she commented.
‘Did it show that much?’
‘Maybe you should call the whole thing a day. The franchise idea sounds good. You could sit back and watch the dollars roll in and let others do the nips and tucks.’
‘We, darling, not I. Don’t you want to be part of it?’
‘Forever, is that what you mean?’ Her amusement made him look at her, suddenly uncertain.
‘Isn’t that what you want, alone but together? And what’s wrong with forever?’
‘Don’t you ever want to get married, brother dear, and have kids?’
‘The very thought sends a chill through me. You know all I want is you.’
‘But we can never…I mean...it’s a game if you know what I mean?’
‘I know exactly what you mean. You know I only have eyes for you. And you know I’m not gay. And you know I take my pleasures seriously. But yes, of course I know it’s a game we play.’
Startz adjusted his driving mirror, then stared ahead where the lights of the city cast a starship-like glow over the horizon. They were approaching a cluster of hills and small valleys. The rain was beating steadily now although the storm was moving across the land. Lightning forks still burst like firebombs.
Startz winced as a sheet of light suddenly reflected from his mirror.
‘What’s up?’ Holly asked him.
‘Someone’s behind us. Come on, pass shit head.’
The car was very suddenly bathed in light as though it was being carried in the beam of a spot. Startz glanced over his shoulder and screwed up his eyes. Holly looked nervous as a wall of light separated into a group of individual beams accompanied by a roaring sound that, at first, had blended with the noise of the storm. It now took on a menacing, thunderous scream. Startz and his sister began to panic. The noise now enveloped them. Startz stared out the side window and his jaw set firm.
‘Bikers,’ he snapped.
Holly was just about to turn and say something when her side window shattered in an explosion of glass and rain. Startz yelled in sudden fear and turned his head; still gripping the wheel till his knuckles almost burst through his skin.Holly stared at him, unable to speak or utter a sound. Startz opened his mouth to scream but his voice was swept out into the pulsating night, lost in a cacophony of thunder and roaring engines.
A muddy axe was projecting from the side of Holly’s head. There was very little blood. Even in a state of mounting terror, Startz’s professional eye noted that the axe blade had not penetrated too far into Holly’s skull. His sister just stared at him wide eyed, instantly traumatised, her mind paralysed and locked away in the vault of her consciousness for self-protection.
Shards of glass lay all over the front of the car as Startz struggled to keep control. Now he could hear the voices. They were wailing like banshees, screaming obscenities, roaring their defiance.
Startz rammed his foot on the accelerator then realised this was no use. The small canyon was approaching. He could never outrun the bikes and the city was too far away. He could only hope they would tire of the game and roar off ahead. He was panic stricken about Holly’s condition. She still made no sound. She didn’t even shriek or scream.
They began to buffet the car, ramming into it from all directions. Startz had to concentrate with everything he had just to hold the car on the road. Ahead was a blaze of light as the biker’s headlights merged with those of the Lincoln. Startz didn’t know what to do. The interior of the car was a mess; rain and stones were being sucked in by the venturi effect of the smashed window. Holly was motionless, still breathing, still alive but out of it.
The Lincoln swerved. Startz yanked at the wheel but it was too late. He lost it as they hit the canyon and before he could blink he was stamping on the brake to prevent the car from going over the side.
He failed.
Suddenly Startz was in darkness as the car plunged down the side of the canyon. All he could hear was the screaming of the engine and the swish of the branches and the howling of the wind. Behind, the wailing voices converged. The car bounced off rocks and trees before finally coming to rest at the bottom of the small desert canyon in a clearing. Sparks and steam issued from the engine as the car turned in a slow circle, partly on its side.
As the wheels finally stopped spinning a brilliant flash punctuated the sky above. Behind, racing down into the canyon came a squadron of angels on wheels, yelling into the storm above the scream of their engines, laughing at the spray and mud, stones and smoke.
The bikers, known as Deadheads, slowly began to circle the wrecked Lincoln. Any connection with the angelic hordes was simply a poetic reference. These were devils, part of the huge disenfranchised mass of humanity segregated from the world of money and glamour. Immortality was the last thing on their minds. Death, and the rituals surrounding it, was their lifeblood. Now they were weaving an almost balletic pattern of light and sound around their victims.
At a signal from a large biker with a tangled beard and large gut, the circling stopped and, as one, they trained their headlights on the crashed car. The passenger door rattled on its hinges as Startz tried to force a way out. Inside, Holly was leaning against him. His first thoughts had been for her. Apart from bruising they had both survived the death drive down the slope. The headlights outside, streaming their powerful beams through the slanting rain, helped Startz to take a closer look at Holly’s injuries.
She had been lucky. The axe blade had penetrated about a quarter of an inch into the skull but had damaged the side of her face, cracking her cheekbone and fracturing her jaw. One part of Startz remained almost surgically cool as he scrutinised Holly’s face professionally. Gently, with infinite care, he began to ease the blade out from the wound. He knew it would bleed. He found a clean duster in the back that would soak up the majority of the blood. Hopefully it would clot soon.
The axe blade finally emerged and Startz threw it to one side in disgust. He was worried about the car exploding and he knew he had to get Holly to hospital. She was starting to come round. She made a small cry and stared at everything around her as if seeing for the first time.
‘Okay, honey,’ Startz consoled her. ‘You’re going to be all right. Just as soon as I can get you to Heaven’s Gate I’ll make you just like new, I swear.’
He began to weep then as Holly moved her head. They had to get out into the storm. Then there were the bikers. Startz wondered what they had in mind. He didn’t have long to wait to find out.
Startz grabbed the damaged door handle and twisted and pushed with all his strength. He felt the handle being grabbed outside. With a ripping sound the door was yanked back off its hinges and left half hanging off.
There was rain and wind and blinding light. Startz could see the silhouette of a massive head staring down. Holly looked up in fear and awe.
‘Well now,’ said a rough, deep, voice, ‘what have we here?’
Holly felt herself being pulled bodily out of the car. A rough, muscular arm reached in and fastened a stained hand on her wrist. A second arm reached in and Holly felt herself being lifted up and out through the door hatch into the circle of blazing light.
‘Be careful, she’s hurt,’ screamed Startz, struggling to get out the same way. Another set of powerful arms grabbed him and dragged him out, throwing him on to the muddy ground. Startz took a kick to the ribs and a cuff around the ear. He fell backwards and shaded his eyes with his hand.
There were about a dozen of them, posed like twenty-first century apocalyptic horsemen on their steeds of metal and rubber. They were all heavily decorated with symbols, mostly tattoos and luminous stripes. They wore leather and rubber. Some wore animal fur. Their faces were burnt from the sun and their eyes shaded by reflective sunglasses, which appeared to give them glowing eyes in dark sockets.
Holly had sunk to her knees, prevented from collapsing completely by the Neanderthal leader. He was a man used to getting his own way. He had hold of Holly’s hair. She was staring wildly into space, blood mixing with rain from the gash in her head, clothes clinging to her body. The leader held her like he was claiming a prize. He gazed around at his troops then he looked down with disdain at the figure of Thomas Startz who was struggling to get to his feet.
‘Well, well,’ croaked the leader, ‘we’re gonna have some fun with this rich bitch,’ he bellowed an order at two of the bikers. ‘Tie him up to the car. He can have a grandstand view.’
Before he knew what was happening, two of the bikers had dismounted and grabbed him roughly by the arms. They dragged him to the car, found some greasy rope and tied him to the dangling doorframe. One cuffed him across the ear then laughed.
‘I could really hurt you, asshole. I’d like that. Keep your eyes open ‘cos if you don’t I’ll take ‘em out, one by one.’
Startz stared, fearful suddenly. The leader leered down at Holly, who was barely conscious.
‘Well, rich bitch,’ he growled, ‘this is payoff time.’
Startz screamed. ‘No, no, keep your filthy hands off her.’ The nearest biker cuffed him again. He felt his nose bleeding and the salt taste dripping onto his tongue.
The leader laid Holly on the ground. The storm had returned with a vengeance and the clearing took the brunt of the ragged lightning and tympanic rolls of thunder. The giant biker kneeled over Holly and grabbed her face.
‘You capitalist bitches on heat think you can rule the world, dontcha? Well, sometimes good old fate steps in and plays a trick on you. And you can’t figure out why. You scream to heaven, why, Lord why?’ He looked over at Startz and grinned, an expression that caused his scarred face to assume a demonic appearance.
‘One minute she’s yours, buddy, and the next minute, she’s mine. Ain’t life a whole mountain of dogshit!’
The Deadhead leader ripped Holly’s sodden clothing from her pale body, casting it into the storm. The other bikers began to clap rhythmically and chant.
‘Go Rainbow go; go Rainbow go...’
‘Never fuck out of your class, bitch,’ Rainbow screamed at Holly, ‘unless it’s with an angel.’ Rainbow pulled down his leathers. His hairy butt gleamed wetly in the glare of the headlights. In seconds he had entered Holly and was riding her to a climax. She gave no sound or made no move to stop him. If was as though she was partly comatose or in deep shock. Startz screamed as Rainbow pumped harder and harder. The other bikers appeared to have forgotten him as they clapped and chanted harder and harder, urging Rainbow to go, go, go.
With a roar, Rainbow climaxed. A minute later he was standing triumphantly above the hapless Holly to the cheers of his troops. Noticing a tree nearby, he instructed two of them to tie Holly to the trunk.
It didn’t take them long. Rainbow looked up at the hanging Holly, tied to a branch with her arms extended.
‘Hey, look,’ he bellowed, ‘the crucified Madonna. Life is art.’
There was a pause then all the bikers moved as one, like ants following unheard instructions. One of them threw petrol on to the Lincoln. Some of it splashed over Startz. Rainbow looked over at him as he mounted up and revved his five hundred cc power unit.‘Count yourself lucky, sweet prince,’ he called, ‘it could have been you. You’re fortunate we have an appointment and we can’t be late. So long, asshole.’
One by one they roared off up the incline in a cloud of spray and dust. The last biker paused, bent and flicked a match alight with his nail, tossing it onto the car. He was gone with a snigger. All that was left was a small fire defying the rain to extinguish it. Startz’s limbs unfroze. Panic set in and with it more strength than he knew he possessed. The fire was catching hold. Soon there would come the explosion. He yanked at his shackles, pulling the half ripped doorframe from its welding spots. He leapt forward, with the doorframe and half the door still attached. It was this that saved him. There was a whoosh and a ball of flame consumed the Lincoln and sent Startz flying to the ground. The twisted metal on his back took the brunt of the heat pulse enabling Startz to crawl over to Holly, eventually up on one knee and then into a half crouching run.
As he reached the tree and wept at the sight of his sister hanging like a female saviour, defiled and maimed, he managed to wriggle and force his way out of his bonds.
That was when the car exploded. Startz fell to his knees but then, with his hair and back singed, he hauled himself up to hold Holly in his arms and released her. She fell into his arms. She was unconscious. Her hair was matted with blood and grime and there was blood on her legs.
Startz screamed at the night. He raged at the elements and at the bikers who had visited such painful humiliation upon them.
We could be dead, he told himself, as his reason returned. Help. They needed help. He had to get to the highway. He had to get Holly to hospital. As it was she might not survive this ordeal. He listened to her heartbeat. It was faint but it was there. This gave him renewed hope. He removed his stained and soaked jacket and placed it around Holly’s thin shoulders. Then he picked her up and began to trudge painfully through the mud, the direction illuminated by the glowing embers of the car. The rain eased as he reached the slope and began to climb. He could only pray that help would come.