Page 7 of Outlaw

“We’ll get to that later,” Thump says with a smile. He hands me a glass with a lime wedge on the edge. “Vodka-tonic. Drink up. Have some fun!”

“I—I’m not old enough to drink,” I tell him. He leans in so close that I can smell smoke on his breath, the booze seeping out of his skin, and at least three days of unwashed sweat on his body.

“Shhhh.” He smiles. “We won’t tell.”

My body goes stiff. I’m paralyzed with fear. My heart feels like a fist beating against the inside of my chest and my arms are burning up. Gently, like a parent trying to get their child to take their cough medicine, Thump guides the glass to my lips. I don’t know what to do.

“Drink up,” someone tells me.

“Yeah. Enjoy yourself.” Thump smiles.

5

Claire

My mouth opens on its own. I know what I should do; I should slap the glass away and run for my life. But I can’t. My legs aren’t listening. Nothing is listening. I’m like a glitched character in Grand Theft Auto 3.

I should have never come.

An explosion rings out, deafening me. No, not an explosion. A gunshot. To my left, the sky lights up and I hear the shouts of men as they scramble to their feet. Someone shouts and another shot bursts through the night. Thump jumps back away from me and my glass falls to the ground, splashing my feet with its contents.

“Nobody fucking move!” a man’s voice shouts. “Any of you fucks move and you’re dead!”

Another hand on my wrist. I spin as I’m pulled and look up to see a man in a mask holding a shotgun. He pulls me away from the bonfire – away from the men, toward an open gate in the fence. He says something to me, but my ears are throbbing and I can’t make it out. He lifts me gently over a fallen man and the next thing I know, I’m being hoisted onto the back of a motorcycle.

I hear the Red Lions shouting as the ringing in my ears starts to fade, and out of pure instinct, wrap my arms around the man as he hops onto the bike in front of me and guns the engine.

I’m almost thrown off the bike as it accelerates, leaping forward like a racehorse out of the gate.

“Hang on to me!” the man roars, loud enough that I can make out something in his voice – something familiar.

I do as I’m told and clutch his body for dear life. He’s strong and broad. I can barely get my arms around him as the tires squeal and we hit the main road. For some reason, I expect him to head for my house, but of course that’s not what he does. He floors it and heads out of town. The bike shakes as we hit Coldstream Bridge. As we do, I see a police car parked on the side of the road. As we streak by, the wind ripping at my hair, he hits his lights and pulls out behind us.

“Shit!” I am starting to be able to hear again as he curses and throws the bike into a hard turn. I hang on for dear life as the tires skid and we drift like something out of the Fast and the Furious movies. The cop’s siren blares behind us as we speed through a wooded trail.

He whips hard to the left and my heart leaps into my throat. I’m sure we’re about to hit a tree, but we slam right through a wall of branches that almost takes me off the bike. A hard bump almost sends me flying as the blue and red lights flash off the trees around us. But wherever it is we’re headed, the cop can’t chase us. I glance over my shoulder to see him skid to a halt on the gravel road.

“Where—where are we going!?” I shout.

“Shut up,” he roars back. He flicks the headlight off and we speed through the darkness. Every time we hit a bump I’m sure we’re going to die. How can he even see well enough to drive? And on top of that – who is he!?

I see a break in the trees ahead of us and we burst out of the trees onto some back road of town I’ve never even been on. He guns the bike up a hill and pulls into a dirt parking lot and climbs off.

“Come on!” he shouts at me. I’m stunned. I can barely move. “Come on!”

Again, I’m frozen. He growls and grabs me by the waist, lifts me off the bike, and sets me down. I look out and realize we’re at the old quarry, and my heart starts racing. When I was a kid, there were always rumors about bodies being dumped here. But…those were just kids making stuff up, right?

“Step back,” he tells me as he grabs the bike by the handlebars and pushes it over the edge of the cliff. Before I hear the splash, my hand is in his and we’re running.

In the distance, I can hear the sirens as we run across the street and into the woods. I stumble, but he helps me back to my feet in an instant and we keep running. I should probably be running the other way, but I’m on autopilot. I don’t know what else to do.

Finally, we reach a small clearing in the woods and what looks like an old World War 2 bunker or something built into the side of the hill. Its walls are concrete and covered with veins and moss, and it looks like something out of a horror movie. The man, whoever he is, pulls me right up to the door and pulls a key out of his pocket.

“No…” I mutter. I turn to run, but he pulls me back.

“Stop!” he hisses. “And don’t make a sound!”

With the key, he unlocks the door. He pulls on the handle and it swings open like a wide, gaping mouth, revealing nothing but blackness within. Before I can think, he’s shoving me inside. I stumble and land on something soft, then spin around just in time to watch him close the door behind me, the soft sliver of moonlight shrinking until there’s nothing but black.

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