"This is surely a creation of Ock," said Brian in distaste as Old Sooty expertly maneuvered the Harley down the highway, around shell-holes, cracks, abandoned cars and general rubble. Much of the rubble had been pushed to the side, but some was just too big, like the half melted tractor trailer they had had to circle a couple miles back. It had fused into the asphalt, and there was a well-worn path off the road and into the ditch. "Are you sure this thing doesn't have eight cylinders?"
Sooty pretended not to hear. Instead she revved up the engine to get up the next hill. She wasn't used to driving passengers, and it was too cramped to start a fight.
Maybe she shouldn't have had that meeting, she thought. But two people had already disappeared, and without food, they would starve. It had been Brian who had suggested that the person who should go should be the person who had the fastest transportation, and hence the fastest method of retreat. Ok. No problem. She'd had a full life. It was also Brian who suggested that they take along someone who could handle unexpected situations, like if the town had been overrun by ghouls and zombies. Yeah, sure. Ok. Brian had protested, however, when Kerry volunteered as well.
"You are important to this community," Brian had said. "We should not risk losing you."
"It always worked on Star Trek," Kerry countered, leaving Brian somewhat confused. "If there is a medical emergency there, they are going to need all the help they can get." The consensus had been that there was probably a plague, and they had quarantined themselves. Brian had been dubious.
"Its probably a vampire," he said. "They are becoming very popular lately."
Then John had volunteered. Well, insisted, actually. If Brian had saved his son, he owed him, he said. They all tried to dissuade him, but to no avail.
"Well," said Kerry cheerfully, "if this is going to be like a Star Trek episode, then you'd better change out of that red shirt."
"I *like* my red shirt," John had protested.
So now they were driving toward Rathaham, or rather, Sooty was driving, Brian was sitting behind her, looking nonchalant, though dubious, but clutching her around the waist very, very firmly. John squoze in back of Brian, obstinately red shirted. Kerry, stylishly goggled, and the medical supplies occupied the sidecar.
Brian had been loudly expounding the glories and the attributes ("which are intersecting but not identical sets," Brian confided) of Cheom for the first hour of the trip, interjecting occasional comments about the motorcycle, until his voice started to go a little raspy. Then he quieted down.
A while later, Sooty yelled "Hey!" and put on the breaks. They had come around a sharp bend in the road, and directly ahead was an oddly constructed roadblock, with a large bulbous creature lounging under a chair. The creature jumped up in alarm and pointed what looked suspiciously like a gun toward the bike. Sooty began to swerve and Brian started shouting in some strange tongue. The projectile struck the ground in front of the harley, blowing a huge hole in the road.
"Shit," said Sooty as the bike started to tumble into the hole. Brian finished chanting while they were in the air, and there was a flash of light and the smell of burnt flesh. Then the front wheel of the bike hit the other side of the ditch, about two feet too low, and it felt like film, like freeze-frame photography, as the bike tipped up, and over, and they were all flying, and rolling, and rolling.
the end.