James Axler – Road Wars

To Abe’s great relief he heard the flat crack of Trader’s rifle.

It was almost impossible to be sure, above the leaden roar of the river, but he thought he heard a high-pitched scream from across the valley.

Abe’s main preoccupation was with readying himself to tackle the rusted bridge.

For a moment he hesitated.

“Move, you shit-for-brains little fucker!”

The familiar rasping bark of Trader’s voice, from behind the ruins of a small stone hut on the far side, prompted him to start moving.

Immediately he felt sick, the bitterness of yellow bite rising into his throat, into his mouth. Abe spit out, blinking to try to clear his vision. He didn’t think he’d ever been so frightened in his entire life.

He gripped the two narrow ropes of plaited wire on either side, realizing that the actual walkway of the bridge was a number of rotted planks, set crosswise, and that more than half of them had vanished, leaving gaps of varying width where the river frothed and raged just below.

A bullet pinged off the cable, scant inches from his left hand, sending up a shower of red dust. His weight was making the bridge buck and sway, the middle section already dipping below the surface of the icy water.

Through the paralyzing terror, the knowledge came faintly to Abe that he was going to die. If he moved forward, then the whole structure would collapse and tumble him into the nameless river. And if he stayed where he was, then he would inevitably be shot, his body falling into the rapids.

He saw another burst of fire from the Armalite and a frantic wave of the hand from Trader.

Abe knew that his old leader was quite capable of shooting him if he didn’t do like he’d been told, and it was that chilling certainty, more than any other gut-rending fear, that made him begin the crossing.

The swaying redoubled, until he feared the bridge was going to swing completely upside down. Gray stone, white water and pewter sky all rolled and merged. But he gritted his teeth and battled onward, a careful step at a time, his knuckles white with the strain.

A freezing sensation around the ankles made Abe yelp in fear, until he realized be was nearing the center, where the water boiled over the missing slats. If the enemy were still shooting at him, then he was no longer aware of it.

Did he hear the cry of “Blood for blood” that had been haunting them since the killing in the hamlet in the hills? Was it still the posse?

Time had ceased to exist for Abe.

He remembered that one of the slats had parted like a whisper and he’d dropped through the gap, one hand slipping, skin tearing from his fingers, blood dripping, watery, down his wrist. He hauled himself up by the other hand, soaked above the waist, trembling with shock.

He reached the middle, where the tug of the river was like a fierce embrace, trying to suck him down into the gray-green pools. It reached to his groin, chilling Abe to the heart, while he hauled himself along the cutting wires, feeling for a footing below him.

He glimpsed Trader, crouched behind the tumbled walls of the hut, keeping up covering fire, pinning down their attackers if any of them showed themselves.

Abe didn’t even realize that he was crying, and the soaking from the tumbling meltwater concealed the fact that he’d pissed himself.

Then he was across.

“RECKON THEY’LL TAKE their time coming down after us,” Trader said.

Abe was flat on his back, cold and wet, fumbling with his clawed and frozen fingers as he tried to reload the Colt Python, dropping shells in the dirt.

“Can’t we wreck the bridge?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Checked it as I came over.”

“And?”

Trader straightened and the Armalite snapped again. “Missed the son of a bitch! This fucking spray makes it bastard difficult to shoot well.”

“The bridge?” Abe prompted.

“What the Oh, yeah. Middle part’s rotted to shitland and back again. But the main stays are better than they look. If we had some plas-ex, we could blow it.”