The morning’s overcast haze had returned with the sun’s retreat, leaving a murky twilight. The glittering gold band on the horizon outlined everything in fire. Unmoving, they waited, watching silently.
The sound had first appeared as a hum deep in their ears, then growing in the pit of their stomachs. It sliced through the crisp air, unmistakeable; the rumble of an internal combustion engine.
Several of them.
Struggling angrily up the hills.
Carrying lanterns, the Mennites gathered like willowisps on the highway. The hot, phlegmatic day was gone, and in its wake a ritualistic, feverish pattern took shape. A dark figure guided them as they laid their offerings in the center of the road; Jenkins, shepherding his flock.
A set of lights burst over the distant berm, seconds later the scream of a three cylinder reached the silent watchers. Two vehicles followed it, each with their own octane howl, then three singular lights appeared, gliding across the road like oil. Great arcs were lit up, harsh and white against the darkening, red-washed background. As they reached the settlement the red overtones were torn away. The villagers stood, gaunt and brittle under the electric glare.
Screeching and whining, the first three vehicles came to a halt, fifty meters from nearest structure. Their engines moaned, their brakes screeched, and the lights swung across the buildings and they drifted to a halt on the dirt road. The motorcycles overtook them, racing into the crowd. People screamed and lamps fell, exploding in puddles of fire. One of the Mennites was lifted up, shouting, only to be dropped in the dust moments later.
“Enough!”
An electronically enhanced voice echoed across the hills. The riders ended their game, turning back towards the other vehicles, while the farmers remustered, huddling. The engines were killed and the area was left in a harsh, bright silence.
A figure jumped out of the central vehicle — the glint off its fenders suggested a dune buggy, the floodlights along its top casting long shadows. He walked towards them like an obelisk, back straight, his head tilted down. He stopped just short of the tribute, crossed his arms, and regarded the gathered villagers. Jenkins, standing in front of his people, had disappeared into the giant’s shadow.
As the sun finished its journey, the land faded to black. The cold headlights and the Mennite lanterns measured out the silence of the man known as Slayer.
He spoke. But even with the still night air, no words reached the hilltop. The bass of his voice rumbled. Twitches of his frame accented his speech. Only the remnants of his speech reached them. Submit… Dominion… Machines… Penalty… Progeny…
An old woman fainted. Her lantern rolled in a crescent before going out.
Slayer grew silent. Jenkins, standing straight, proclaimed loud enough to reach the hilltop.
“This tribe submits to the Lord. And to the Beast that he did send down to us. It is the path.”
Nothing more was said. Slayer stood silently, his posture betraying no emotion. With a sharp nod of his head he turned and walked back to his vehicle. A swarm of his men descended on the tribute with raucous roars.
Within seconds they’d loaded it, remounted, and were starting their engines.
Wentworth hissed, “Go!”
Raxx was already vaulting down. They raced to the pickup, shattering the night as they slammed the doors. The starter screamed, scenting the air with burning oil, and the engine roared into life. “Let’s hit this shit!” said Raxx, switching into reverse and accelerating backwards. He shifted while moving, and skipped the tires as he gunned it in first, manoeuvring around the rotting house, to the track behind it.
Only the thinnest shafts of light escaped through the taped-over headlights, the terrain ahead was shaded in grey. Despite it all Raxx drove aggressively, quickly shifting to second, then leaving it in third to brake against the hill’s slope. A bead of sweat trickled down from his armpit. He squeezed the steering wheel with both hands.
The truck bounced back and forth, its shocks protesting, before settling into the groove of the ancient tracks. Raxx’s feet were perched above the brake and clutch, gravity adding to the vehicle’s momentum making the speedometer climb steadily. With slight adjustments to the steering column he guided her, more by feel than by sight, to the distant blue line of the road ahead. Tall grasses disappeared under the grill, flashing in the thin beams of light, while the truck bounced back and forth in the tracks. A sudden dip surprised him, rocks and dirt scraped loudly against the undercarriage, then the front shot upwards — he slammed down on the clutch and downshifted as the wheels left the ground.
The bed landed with a shudder. His rear wheels tugging to the left — his fronts had come out of the rut. Raxx turned the wheel — too much — but before he could correct a sudden bump tossed the vehicle’s front-right into the air. The rear wheels shuddered against the walls of the rut, before hitting their own ramp.
The vehicle was in the air again, rotating to the left.
The sudden steepness of the hill became apparent to him, as another part of his brain noted the lights of Slayer’s convoy disappearing into the distance. He was blind, with no sense of the road.
He turned the steering wheel a hair to the left and squeezed.
The ground hit hard, all four wheels shuddered, and he tasted blood in his mouth. Debris flew around the cab. Accelerator pedal — match the revs to the velocity — release the clutch — the engine gripped the earth and he eased off, letting the tires burn off the momentum.
A few more quick adjustments and the truck was hugging the track again. The shaking subsided and the vehicle slid forward smoothly, the engine tugging against the slope. Raxx’s face was a mask of focused calm. His grip on the steering wheel relaxed slightly. His eyes flickered back and forth rapidly gathering data on the situation, but his mind was elsewhere, feeling the truck through the wheel, the sounds of the engines, and the bouncing from the shock absorbers. The engine roared under the hood while rocks kicked up against the undercarriage.
The terrain was clearing out, becoming flatter and smoother, easier to drive on — when the secondary road suddenly materialized directly in their path. Wentworth reached up, gripping the roof-handle, as Raxx gunned the gas, aiming for the center.
They hit gravel, and the truck lost traction, moving too fast towards the ditch. One hand spun the wheel while the other reached down for the parking brake lever, kicking the vehicle into a spin. He dropped the clutch and gunned the engine, for a moment all four wheels were loose as she glided sideways — then the back tires caught, and he played with steering wheel, easing them back onto the road. In his side view mirror a thin line of blue showed against the black of the ditch. Churning up gravel, he started towards the highway.
Using the foot brake this time, he slowed and turned west. The Mennite settlement was now several hundred meters behind them. He began accelerating towards the red lights off in the distance.
With the hard-pack beneath him the tension began to ease, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Soon he was in fourth gear, bouncing over the loose gravel and potholes. The road was a blurred line against a darker background of the hills, straight and easy to follow. Slayer’s lights were a beacon, blinking as they came in and out of sight. Beside him Wentworth undid his seat belt and slid his seat back, taking up a relaxed firing position after he rolled down the window. The sudden inrush of wind was bracing.
Bit by bit, the tension returned as he realized how fast they were going, hardpack or not. The darkness was maddening, and each shudder from under the vehicle made his heart jump in alarm. The tail lights in the distance were beckoning, telling him to speed up when he wanted to slow down. Beside him, Wentworth remained silent, unmoving.
The tremble of the steering wheel was numbing his hands. The stress of the drive was numbing his mind. The red lights would disappear, ticking away the seconds, before reappearing. His jaw was clenched in concentration. He had to downshift to make it up a hill. Upon reaching its peak the lights blinked once more, before disappearing again.
He frowned. He drove. The wheels ate away at the road ahead. Seconds stretched into minutes.
A shadowy ghost — a herd of them — darted across the highway.
He jerked the steering wheel, and the truck began fishtailing — a flash of the deer past the passenger window — the road spun around him, while his foot slammed down against the clutch. He was vaguely aware that his other foot still pressed against the accelerator, making the disengaged engine roar. His hands were trying to adjust the steering before he’d had a chance to think about it. The vehicle lurched left, then right.
His mind lost all sense of the road.
He was completely blind now — the blues and blacks racing across his vision were meaningless. Subroutines in his mind guided the wheel while his consciousness grappled with the darkness. They were spinning now — where was the ditch? Tapping the brake jerked the vehicle, and something slammed into him — it was Wentworth, thrown from his seat. The jarring knocked his clutch leg loose, and the vehicle jerked, the engine dead now, the truck spinning silently.
All at once the seatbelt grabbed his chest, the ditch flew towards him, and Wentworth’s mass disappeared.
The crunch of metal and plastic.
Everything was still. The dashboard lights glowed patiently.
“Uh…” groaned the figure next to him.
“Shit. You okay man?”
Holding the dashboard for support, Wentworth turned himself around and fell backwards into his seat. “Fuck me. I’m going to be feeling that in about half-an-hour’s time.” He reached up and unbuckled his helmet, letting it fall down towards his feet, and dropping his head back. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“I think so. I had the seat belt.”
“What about your truck?”
Raxx was silent a moment, then unbuckled and stepped outside. The door beeped as if in sympathy.
The ground was sloped, and he stumbled a bit. Underneath the tape the headlights were still glowing — he ought to turn them off. He circled around, and there didn’t seem to be any damage. He leaned in, feeling the body panels, shaking the wheel hubs to see if there was any give. Nothing — until he got back to the front and saw the driver’s side tire.
He knelt. He reached his hands towards it — ouch! — wire burst out of the tire belt. He reached again, tentatively. Leaning forward he rested his chest against the rim, and felt around behind… strut, rocker arm, linkage… all of it hard and smooth. No bending. He stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.
Wentworth came and stood beside him.
“It’s just the tire.”
The man nodded. “You got a spare?”
Raxx nodded, “Yeah,” he said, but didn’t move.
“New tires expensive?”
“Ain’t cheap. I’d have to order a new one from Steeltown.” Wentworth grunted. After staring at it a bit longer, Raxx looked over and asked, “You wanna help me get her off that rock?”
Wentworth put his rifle down on the grass, and the two of them moved onto the front end. “Wait, I gotta put her in neutral.” When Raxx returned they lifted up the front end and started slowly pushing her back. The softness of the shoulder resisted them, but at least they weren’t on the slope.
Once the truck was back far enough, Raxx braced himself against the front grill, “You wanna get the parking brake?” Wentworth moved quickly towards the door, and disappeared inside the cab. “Got ‘er!” his voice rang out, and Raxx stood up, watching the vehicle lurch forward and stop. He let out his breath in a grunt.
Wentworth was panting too. “Anything else I can do?”
“No. I’ll handle this.”
Wentworth picked up his rifle, and stared off into the distance. “I’m going to scout out the area, then. I’ll be close.”
Raxx got to work. It calmed him. Once, while retrieving the jack from the back seat, his heart fluttered as he thought about how close they’d come to disaster. Over all, a new tire was a small price to pay — he could have destroyed the frame, here in the middle of nowhere. He tooled away — being careful to put the lug nuts in his pocket, then struggling to mate the holes on the spare with the pattern of bolts on the axle. Because of the darkness, it took him several tries before he succeeded.
Wentworth was slowly patrolling the area — he’d reclaimed his helmet, and was walking with his head tilted, listening. Occasionally he’d stretch out his left arm, rotating it, squeaking the leather of his jacket.
Raxx was feeling around on the ground for the tire iron when Wentworth spoke up. “Hey — you hear that?”
He paused in his labour — all around them Crickets were chirping silently. He hadn’t heard them earlier — probably scared off by the noise. He paused for a bit longer, trying to figure out what Wentworth was getting at, when it reached him.
In the distance was the unmistakeable sound of a petroleum engine. It chugged away on a single cylinder — a generator of some sort.
Wentworth tilted his head left and right, mouth open to aid the resonance in his ears. After a moment he reached out and pointed; south and just a little east, behind them. “It’s in that direction.” He slid down into the culvert of the ditch, laying down and pulling out a cigarette. He lit it carefully, tucking the glowing ember into the palm of his hand. Raxx could see the tip betraying the tremble of his arms.
“Not too far off, either. You were pretty focussed on the road earlier, but there was an offshoot we passed not too far back, a while after their lights disappeared. I’ll bet that’s where they went.”
“So what are you thinking?”
He puffed his cigarette, the smoke billowing slowly in the still air. “Once you get the truck running, let’s stash her just off the road somewhere — then we’ll go have ourselves a little sneak and peek.”