23
THEY REACHED THE STRAIGHTAWAY SECTION of the road a hundred feet before the zebras caught up. The engines roared in defiance as Riot and Morgie gave them all the gas they could devour. The machines shot forward, and soon the gap was two hundred feet. Three hundred…
Morgie’s speedometer told him he was going a little above forty miles per hour, near the quad’s top speed. Riot had an identical machine. The zebras were losing ground very slowly, which suggested they were running at better than thirty-five miles per hour—as fast as a racehorse, and these creatures could not tire. But the quads could run out of gas.
They whipped past ancient
billboards advertising things that no longer had meaning. Bail bondsmen. Politicians running for office. Internet providers. And a dozen different kinds of fast food. One of them was a hamburger chain that promised to “Feed You on the Go!” That kind of irony he did not need. After all, Morgie and Riot were the fast food on today’s menu.
Then Morgie saw a different sign:
KLEBERG COUNTY AIRPORT
TWO MILES
There was art on the billboard that showed a single runway and a cluster of small buildings. Morgie whooped and waved his arm at the sign. Riot glanced at him and then at the billboard, and she nodded.
Three of the zebras were outrunning the others, closing the distance with every step.
Morgie and Riot raced for their lives. The quads burned along the road, and the monsters followed. But the road was becoming harder to navigate. Hulks of dead cars and broken sections of asphalt made them zig and zag, wasting speed. Morgie risked a look back. The main herd was nearly half a mile back now, but three of the zebras were no more than thirty yards behind him. How they were able to run so fast was beyond Morgie’s understanding.
The airport was so close now. They could see a big chain-link fence—the heavy kind, with stout pole frames and a wide gate on wheels. It stood open, and beyond that they could see planes and buildings.
As they rushed toward it, Morgie had an idea. Wild, crazy, possibly suicidal, but he knew he had to try.
With the fast zebras closing in, Morgie and Riot shot through the open fence and onto the airfield. Morgie slowed a little, letting Riot zoom ahead. As soon as she was well ahead, he jerked his handlebars to one side and throttled hard, sending the quad into a tight right-hand turn. The tires skidded, creating massive dust clouds as they fought the forward momentum and tried to grab the road in a new direction. The animals tried to turn with Morgie, going for the closest prey. They stumbled and collided. Their confusion gave Morgie time to correct his angle and regain speed, and soon he was racing along the inside of the fence. The zebras regained their balance and chased him, ignoring Riot. The rest of the herd was coming, but there was time. How much? Ten seconds? Fifteen?
Morgie circled, glancing back to make sure the three fast zebras were still following only him. One of them was lagging behind, stumbling a bit, and he figured it must have injured itself during the collision.
“Come on,” growled Morgie as he shot out into the open field again with the animals in thundering pursuit, and turned in another wide circle, praying that the creatures couldn’t learn from their mistakes. He cut the wheel again, fought for balance, and shot forward, bisecting his own arc. The sudden turn caused another collision, and he grinned as they tumbled over one another while he drove back into the parking lot.
Morgie hit the brakes, sending the quad into a skidding, sliding, screaming sideways turn just inside the opening in the fence. He leaped from the quad, tore his bokken free, and grabbed the sun-heated metal of the gate’s upright pole. The dead zebras screamed at him and charged as Morgie threw his bulk against the wheeled gate. The old metal, pitted with rust and disuse, also shrieked. The single wheel on which the gate rested creaked like door hinges on a haunted house. But it began to move. He nearly had it closed when he ran out of time.
Morgie whirled and brought his bokken up in a two-handed grip. It was a sturdy piece of polished oak. Twenty-eight inches long, heavy and powerful. As the first zebra jumped at him, trying to smash him down with cracked hooves, Morgie threw himself sideways, twisted as he fell, rolled, and was back on his feet in a second, pivoting, raising his wooden sword, stepping in to put mass behind the blow. And he struck.
The bokken hit the zebra just below the knee of its left foreleg, and the cannon bone exploded inside the dead flesh, sending a reciprocal shock through the weapon and into Morgie’s hands. He gritted his teeth as he ducked the biting mouth and swung again, aiming for the other leg. The movement changed the angle of his swing, and the sword instead crunched into the long pastern bone. Again there was a big, wet crack, and, as Morgie backpedaled, the zebra’s legs buckled and the thing went down.
Morgie had no time for a killing blow, though, because there were still two other zebras approaching. He ran around the quad, making the first zebra turn sharply to follow, and then put a foot onto the saddle of the machine and leaped over it, slashing down with all his force. The bokken hit the zebra behind the ear, high near the spine, and the animal staggered. As Morgie landed, he instantly pivoted and struck above the knee of the left foreleg. The animal fell.
Now there were two crippled zoms on the ground, screaming with hate and hunger. The third limped forward with increasing fury. A sound of thunder made Morgie wheel, and he saw that the rest of the herd was rushing toward the small gap left between gate and fence. If they hit it, their weight would slide the gate open again.
He ran for it, dropping his sword, grabbing the gate pole, and shoving. The thing did not want to close—as if it enjoyed taunting him with only a lie of safety—but Morgie Mitchell was very strong and very scared. He forced the gate to clang shut, and then he dropped the security cuff in place a split second before the herd hit the chain-link wall.
The whole length of the fence bowed inward, and every scrap of metal it was made of screeched in protest.
But then the animals rebounded, falling, collapsing, howling in frustrated fury.
Morgie dove for his bokken and came up with it just as the limping zebra lunged forward to bite him. He bashed the thing’s head to one side, kicked the closest leg, and then brought the weapon up and down in a series of crashing, crushing, splintering blows.
It collapsed and lay silent.
Morgie staggered over to the others and silenced them.
Then he stumbled backward and sat down hard on the ground by his quad, his bokken falling with a clatter to the asphalt. He dragged a forearm across his face to wipe sweat from his eyes, and when he looked at his hand he was not surprised to see that it shook badly.
He was vaguely aware of the roar of Riot’s machine getting closer. She slowed to a stop five feet away but didn’t dismount. Instead she looked from Morgie to the dead creatures to the frustrated herd outside. And back again.
“Well,” she said very softly, “glory be. Ain’t you something?”