Glancing behind, Krysty saw the crumbling forest was steadily gaining on the bikes. “It’s gaining on us!” she yelled, tears flowing down her cheeks. It felt as if her hair were on fire, the pain almost beyond endurance. She had a hard time thinking clearly, and more than once the bike nearly toppled over from her clumsy driving. Silently, she prayed to Gaia for the strength to live.
Their bikes riding side by side, the companions crashed through a wall of thorny rosebushes, the safety cages holding most of the stems at bay, but still their clothes snagged and trickles of blood flowed from a dozen small cuts.
Ryan glanced into his rearview mirror. “We’re not going to get away!” he shouted grimly.
“We have to!” Mildred answered, then shrugged and dropped her heavy med kit. “Heave the baggage! Lose everything!”
Stunned for a moment by the incredible act, Ryan resolutely reached behind himself, grabbed a backpack and stuffed it through the warm bars of his safety cage. When there was only one left, his speed noticeably increased. The man hesitated for a heartbeat, then also threw away that pack. Mildred knew her stuff, and whatever it was that was after them, he didn’t want it to reach them for the sake of a few pounds.
Dropping the subgun, J.B. watched the weapon fireball as the crackling wave reached the blaster. The man hesitated for a tick, then tossed away his precious accumulation of explosives and primers.
“Brace yourselves!” he shouted just as the bag thunderously detonated, the blast toppling over the dying trees, bushes flying, shrapnel zinging through the air in every direction.
Struggling with one arm at a time, Krysty got out of her heavy bearskin coat and stuffed it through the cage. Dean dropped his canteen, then the newly acquired Kalashnikov and the ammo clips. The coat burst into flames, and the ammo exploded as the grass turned brown underneath the items.
The brown line in the soil streaked after them, coming closer by the second. Frantically, the companions emptied the pockets of MRE packs, spare knives, extra ammo and everything else they could find.
“Radios!” Jak shouted, ripping the transmitter free and casting it away.
With the motorcycles moving at top speed, the companions raced through the forest in a nightmare of dodging trees and crashing through bushes. Unstoppable, the death wave from the Kite swept onward, getting closer and closer with each passing moment.
Chapter Twenty-One
Their load lightened, the companions began to pull away from the wave of death, the crackling of the leaves slowly fading into the distance. Soon it was gone from sight, and living green plants surrounded them once more. The itching eased, and the metal of their blasters started to cool. But the riders didn’t slow their frantic pace through the Tennessee woods. Soon, the trees began to thin, and the companions broke out of the woods and onto smooth rolling grasslands again. An hour passed in silent speed, clouds forming overhead to mask the eternal stars and moon. Thankfully, there was no sign of the pools and streams that had surrounded the redoubt before. The waters must have receded over time and the land was alive again. But not for long.
“We should be safe now,” Dean said hopefully. The boy held his Browning Hi-Power and a single clip in sweaty hands, ready to lose both should it prove necessary. He had tried unlacing his combat boots, but it was plainly impossible to do that on a moving bike.
Shaking her head, Krysty released her hair from its confines, and the fiery cascade flexed freely once more. “Thank Gaia that’s over,” she exhaled. “My hair was in agony!”
“Nobody stop until we reach the redoubt!” Mildred countered, still hunched over the handlebars. “And watch the clouds! The Kite might be skipping ahead of us, so we race straight into its beams.”
Maneuvering his bike closer, Ryan shouted, “What was that?”
The open spaces allowing her to relax a notch, Mildred bit a lip and tried to figure a way to explain what they had just faced. “In the kitchens of the redoubts,” she replied, “you’ve used the microwave oven to boil water, and once we baked a potato. Same thing.”
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