Last Ranger by Craig Sargent Page B

back on sparsely bushed flat terrain with a few rolling hills to the east. He got up a good head of steam and headed south,
     keeping a close eye on the compass he’d super-glued to the top of the bike while in the bunker. The rain at last seemed to
     die out, though a constant irritating mist continued to fill the air, making him have to wipe his face every twenty or so
     seconds as the stuff felt sticky, uncomfortable. He could see a little better now and got up to a respectable forty on the
     soaked flats.
    He couldn’t have been off the highway more than twenty minutes when he heard a sound. Very dim at first—like a far-off airplane
     propeller—then louder as he cruised on. It was more than one thing creating the noise, not airplanes but cars, he realized.
     It was rare to hear a whole bunch at a time, as cars were an oddity in the new America. Most motor vehicles were no longer
     functioning, and those that were didn’t have gasoline to run them. Gas was nonexistent. Stone had only the bunker’s supply
     and one other hidden hundred gallon tank that his father had set up. After all that was used up he’d be in the same boat as
     the rest of the sinking world. Yet here someone apparently obtained enough octane to get a whole little fleet of them going.
    Stone suddenly heard shooting and debated whether to go on straight ahead or check out the sounds that were coming from the
     low hills to the west a mile or two. His decision was to keep going—he had his own problems—and he did, even giving it extra
     gas to get out of there. But as the firing continued he could hear it sounded like one gun was returning the fire of a dozen.
     Now that wasn’t right whichever way you looked at it. Against his better judgement, Stone whipped the bars to the right and
     pulled back on the accelerator so that the bike shot forward as though it wanted in on the action too.
    It took only a minute to get to the top of a row of hills a few hundred feet high, and he came to a stop as he reached the
     peak and looked down over the far side. It was a vast canvas of beauty and death. Stone could see for miles, the rolling hills
     far to the east, a lightning storm sending down flickers of yellow. But it was the battle unfolding right below him that caught
     his eye. A single rider was on a motorcycle as big as Stone’s and was tearing ass almost parallel to the row of hills Stone
     gazed down from. The biker was being pursued by four vehicles, just about the most ramshackle things Stone had ever seen,
     hardly more than mini log cabins built atop rusting frames. One of the “cars” had no frame at all, just some branches lashed
     down onto the axles. On them, four men were sending out a storm of death—bullets, arrows, and even a slingshot that one of
     them used to fling steel balls as fast as the eye could see.
    Stone could see the biker clearly thought he had it made to safety as the figure sat up a little straighter and looked around
     as if to give a Bronx cheer as he pulled slowly ahead of the pursuing masses. However, the biker couldn’t see what Stone could:
     two more cars were coming in the opposite direction right over the next slope several hundred yards off. With down-sloping
     walls on both sides of the escape route, the biker was being led into a trap. Stone made another split-second decision: he
     hunched down into the seat and pushed off with both feet, turning the Harley to max.
    The bike shot forward along the top of the hill. Stone didn’t think he’d been spotted by any of the parties concerned—yet.
     He kept low, pulling back so he could keep an eye on the whole scene unraveling. He’d have to time it all perfectly or it
     was a wrap before he even began. He saw the biker reach the top of the slope and suddenly catch sight of the two other attack
     cars, these as sloppily made as the main force, just branches and pieces of jagged steel all roped together around the wheels
     and the chugging engines.