CHAPTER 38

As Priest rode back toward the shit storm, he thought about how the odds of achieving the desired result was very slim. He thought to himself, “I will have to hit this thing hard and fast. Creating even more confusion than the infected are creating will give me my best chance.

The infected are unpredictable, which is more of a problem for the local yokels than it would be for me.” He saw the chaos in front of him and decided the best way to go about it was head first.

He dropped the throttle and the Ninja 1000 launched forward like a rocket. A bright red pickup, with two men in the back, was driving in the circle they had created trying to get the infected bunched up together.

Priest plucked a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin with his teeth. He released the spoon, held it for a second, and then threw the grenade into the truck bed.

The men in the truck were still focused on the infected, so Priest put some distance between him and the truck by letting off the throttle. In front of him, the grenade exploded in the truck bed and instantly killed the two men in the bed.

The explosion sent glass and shrapnel into the cab of the truck, killing both the driver and passenger. The truck went careening into the middle of the circle, slamming through throngs of the infected.

Priest looked ahead and was selecting his next target when a bullet whizzed by his head. He looked back to see a black truck with a guy pointing a rifle at him hanging out the back of the bed.

Priest punched the bike and caught up with the next truck in line in the circle. He had a grenade out and was closing in on his next target as bullets continued to fly by him. He glanced back again, and the truck was trying to gain ground, but with the uneven terrain, it was having a hard time increasing speed. This also kept the man in the back from getting a good bead on him.

The Ninja wasn’t the best at handling this terrain, but he was managing. He increased speed, popped the spoon and tossed the grenade into the bed of the truck to his right. This time he sped by the truck before the grenade went off. He heard the explosion and watched out of the corner of his right eye, but saw nothing.

He looked back to his left and saw the truck coming to a stop on the outside of the circle. “Damn,” Priest thought to himself. It would be better if they wrecked to the right and killed a bunch of these damn infected. As Priest looked around at the state of things and noticed the circle’s formation was deteriorating.

“I need to break this thing apart quicker,” Priest said to himself. “Time to get stupid.” Priest slowed down and dropped his left foot, lowered the bike and let the momentum bring it around in a 180-degree turn and propelled himself in the opposite direction. Facing the oncoming trucks, he shot right by the truck that was shooting at him earlier.

Priest rode by the next truck, which was brown, and Priest pulled out the Glock and started firing into the windshield. The driver turned the wheel to their right, which angled the truck into the infected in the middle. This also gave Priest an accurate sight picture of the driver’s temple, which he did not waste the opportunity of, and put two rounds into the side of the driver’s head. He has time to see what happened afterward.

Priest was garnering some attention now and more people were taking shots at him. He knew he couldn’t keep this up, but he just wanted to disrupt this operation enough to make sure the infected weren’t led to the compound.

He spied a smaller truck, which was a little slower than the rest and took off for that truck. It was light blue and rusted out all to hell. He pulled out a grenade and extracted the pin, but he lost his grip on it and it dropped from his hand.

The grenade went off near the front of another truck and blew the tires and part of the engine. The truck came to a halt immediately.

With the reduced speed and visibility, along with the focus on the infected, another truck came from behind and didn’t see the truck stopped right in its path before it was too late. The rear truck, which had six men in the bed, slammed into the disabled truck, launching the men onto the ground. Infected swarmed the men, ripping and devouring flesh.

Priest took this time to call it quits and let the rest play out. He performed another 180-degree power slide turn and headed off to this right.

While riding west toward the compound, multiple things happened at once. The repeat of a loud high caliber machine gun reached his ears as the back wheel of his bike and sprocket disintegrated.

The bike shot out from underneath him and because of high rate of speed; it hurled him 50 feet onto the pavement. It forced all the air out of his lungs and he felt a few cracks form throughout his rib cage. He slid and then rolled a few times before coming to a stop on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes. He was dazed and in some pretty decent pain, and he had trouble getting up. His body just wasn’t working like it was supposed to.

He heard a vehicle approach quickly, and he continued to get up. He got to his knees before a blow to the back of his helmet brought complete darkness and he fell back to the ground unconscious.

CHAPTER 39

Priest woke up still lying on the ground. He felt like shit, but at least he was feeling something. He looked around and noticed that his helmet, riding jacket and riding pants were all gone. He glanced over to his left and saw the Ninja 1000 laying on its side. Not expecting the bike to be in any working order, Priest got up painfully and walked over to it. Everything still looked intact, but he thought back to before and was sure the rear of the bike was toast. Maybe it was just asphalt broken up from the rounds that got caught in the rear tire. He inspected it, and surprisingly everything seemed fine. Regardless of the condition of the bike, he needed to get the hell out of there and make it back to the compound.

Apprehensively, Priest started the bike, and it roared to life. He took off, expecting the worst, but it seemed to roll fine. Priest raced back to his new home on the compound. He quickly sped up, but it would not move any faster than 40 mph.

“Must have taken some damage on the throttle when I laid it down,” Priest thought to himself. “Just keep it moving and get back to everyone. We’ll check it later,” was the only thing on his mind.

There was a faint sound of engines in the distance. He craned his neck to see if he could pinpoint where they were coming from and realized the sound was coming from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see three trucks approaching from his rear and heading straight for him.

Priest dropped the throttle to race out of there, but the bike wouldn’t respond. It stayed right around 40 mph. He didn’t have to look back this time to know the trucks were getting closer. The revving engines were getting much closer. He was on the highway so there were no alleys, no buildings where he could hide. Nowhere he could hope to lose them. They were bearing down on him and he could sense it, he could hear it, he could feel it.

“Why don’t they just shoot me? Why not just kill me and be done with it already?” he thou

ght to himself.

Yelling and screaming along with the roar of the truck engines now reached his ears? Screaming and hooting like wild animals. The anticipation of them reaching him was overwhelming, and the tension was physically debilitating. Every muscle in his body was tight, like steel cables being twisted and stretched. His head was pounding, and he could feel the blood surging in his ears.

Tags: Gary Hickman Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net