CHAPTER 5
Demon Eye
Fagan pulled to the side of the road and kicked out the stand. His tires rested in weeds. Only the kickstand touched asphalt. He got off his bike and turned to face the oncoming biker, arms folded, Sam Browne belt, official in his white, blue and gold helmet and mirrored sunglasses. The red headlight dipped beneath the horizon as the biker descended the roller coaster road.
Sound reverberated through the tunnel of trees like thunder, only louder. Straight pipes. Dude was in violation of the noise ordinance. Fagan flicked on the light bar on the rear box. Red and blue strobed the sides and ceiling of a tunnel of rain-slick leaves. At least the rain had let up for the moment. The sound of the unmuffled engine grew, shaking tree limbs, causing leaves to fall and sending pebbles skittering. What the hell was he riding? A freight train?
Fagan stood with his hand out like a traffic cop fully expecting the biker to comply. The biker had to know what was waiting over the next rise from the red and blue flashing off the trees. With a thunderous crescendo a monstrous mechanical centaur erupted out of the depression. Fagan registered danger. The rider wore a shiny black carapace surmounted by a black, beetle-like helmet; his right arm extended up, back, and in that instant Fagan threw himself backward over the seat of his ride, bending so far his body formed a horseshoe. The blade snicked overhead with a whistling sound.
The shriek of engine peaked and passed with a Doppler effect carrying the demon around a curve and out of sight. Fagan stood gasping and leaning on the bike. What just happened?
Some creep with a samurai sword nearly took off his head. Now Fagan knew what had happened to the Road Dog. There’d been no mention of this freak. How did the killer control his ride with his left hand? All motorcycle throttles were on the right. He could have used a throttle stop but that was insanely risky on twisty little roads like this. Unless he’d modified the bike so the throttle was controlled with the left hand. Who does that? Why? Fagan knew why. But still, the effort and for what? Effect? The vics were dead—they didn’t have much time to admire the effect.
Fagan knew he was dealing with a real sicko.
Lightning flashed through the trees. Fagan tried the radio. White noise. He listened. Wind and thunder—and something else. Those shrieking cylinders. Fagan caught a glimpse of red light recrudescent through the trees.
The black biker was coming back.
Fagan withdrew his S&W, jacked one into the chamber and thumbed off the safety. He didn’t think about his record or how this would look to the Firearms Discharge Review Board. The black biker had already tried to kill him. Well now he was going to get perforated.
Fagan crossed the road and braced his forearms on a branch, all but invisible in leaf and shadow.
Bring it on freak.
Red light splayed across wet branches followed by the demon eye, bike bent like a storm cellar door, right arm held high. He came right at Fagan. Fagan began pulling the trigger when it was twenty feet away and didn’t stop until it was almost upon him. At the last instant he ducked and rolled and swish!
The blade cut through the four-inch elm like string cheese.
The giant motored over the crest and disappeared. The sound barreled away in a diminishing howl until it was almost gone.
Fagan got up, his uniform soaked. He listened. The engine—how many cylinders? It almost faded away. Almost. There. It was gone.
Thank God.
Fagan held his breath, heart pumping like a tweaker. Raw terror beat coffee every time. Fagan bent over with his hands on his knees searching for breath. No one would believe him. If he got an All Points out within the next couple hours they might stand a chance. Unless the demon biker went to ground.
Fagan headed diagonally across the road to his bike. On the other side of the road he paused.
He listened.
A tiny buzz.
It waxed louder.
Fagan saw four slugs penetrate the giant’s black leather jacket. Why wasn’t he dead? If he were wearing body armor why hadn’t the 160-grain slugs at least knocked him off the bike? Was he jacked up on PCP?
What was keeping him up?
Lightning flashed. Rolling thunder joined the ascending howl of the killer’s bike. Fagan sprinted to the Harley, thumbed the starter and took off, kicking up the stand in motion.
The motherfucker was returning for another pass, like it was a bullfight. No use trying to divine the motive of a homicidal maniac. Fagan had been a biker long before he’d been a cop. Riding a bike wasn’t like driving a car—your sensory awareness was heightened ten-fold. You couldn’t be bothered with chitchat, text messages or music. You needed total concentration to stay on the road. In the rain, chased by a killer.
Fagan held it just this side of panic as he goosed the big Harley up to fifty on roads that weren’t designed for anything over thirty-five. He felt the rear tire slip in the corner and catch as his heart stopped and restarted, floorboard banging against the pavement sending a shockwave to his knee. Somehow he kept the 800 lb. bike upright. He headed southwest, certain the road would connect with either 123 or 38.
This can’t be happening to me.
He almost laughed. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so insane. Out of the frying pan into the fire. As he topped the next rise he saw the red demon eye pop over the crest eighty yards behind him. Fagan willed himself not to tense up and start shivering, consciously keeping from crushing the handgrips as he guided the heavy road bike faster than it was meant to go. He kept scraping the floorboards.
Where was 123? Where was 38? Come on, come on. The freak gained on him. Fagan looked down. He hit sixty. The giant had to be going eighty or better. By the laws of physics he should have planted himself in the trees by now.
Ahead through the trees Fagan caught a glimpse of desultory traffic—a pick-up truck, a bus. Had to be 123. Had to be.
Please God don’t let this freak follow me out onto the highway.
He could see motorists switching on their wiper blades. Rain smacked and went away like a harlot flicking a handkerchief.
He was close to panic, like a small animal with a giant predator breathing down its neck. He glanced in the mirror. The demon’s eye almost blinded him, a mere quarter of a football field behind. They’d taught him never to ride in a panic but no one had envisioned these circumstances.
Fagan held the throttle flat out as the big bike accelerated to ninety, crested the top of a hill and went briefly airborne, landing with a clank. The red demon eye was right behind him. Fagan heard its strange engine thrashing and humming like something at war with itself.
Fagan rushed the highway—a T-intersection—the road didn’t go through. There would be no time to stop. He prayed that the relatively light-used state highway would be deserted.
A faint demented scream penetrated his consciousness. Fagan realized it was the creature itself, turned his head and the fucker was right there on the backswing. Fagan slammed his head down to the right of the tank and felt a jarring shock as something struck his fiberglass helmet. He felt wind in his hair.
Gripping the bars Fagan looked up to see the black biker hit the highway and grab two feet of air off a discarded sheet of plywood resting on a log.
Good! Maybe he broke his neck!
Then Fagan was out in the open sliding sideways like on a dirt track, struggling to keep the Harley on its tires. The sky was a mottled, shifting gray/purple with flashbulbs erupting behind screens and constant crosscurrents of thunder. The scabbed black highway was little wider than the country trunk he’d just left, wet as an otter. He crossed both lanes and the Harley’s rear tire slipped onto the beat-down highway grass and Fagan put a foot down to keep it upright, twisting his ankle and juddering to a stop in sixty feet. He quickly pulled to the side of the westbound lane and straddled the bike on the shoulder.
He leaned on the bars, breath a jackhammer. He looked up and down the highway.
The freak was gone.
An insensate mechanical bellow erupted from a fire trail beyond the eastbound lane. Fagan stared in disbelief, spine shaking like a flag in a hurricane as the red eye reappeared, blinking in the brush waiting for a farm truck to lumber by.
Fagan gassed his bike feeling a high-pitched animal whine in his throat.
***