Wrong End Forward

Wrong End Forward.

A short story by David Hood.


He accelerated again. The bike changed its tone, no longer a growl, but now a shriek. He was both tense and loose. His arms and upper body were hard when I bumped him slightly as he shifted down - then throttled up again - but his head was relaxed, bobbing, darting to see everything. I was quite horrified by how seldom he concentrated forward, tending to check the mirrors and rotate his head so that the strange helmet allowed him to see beside and behind us, and probably my grimacing face through the clear visor.

The traffic was dense, as ever, but there was nothing on this road, in this city, to match the bike. Each car set a doppler effect swish, and as our speed increased, so did the sound, until it gave rythm to our incredible hurtle. Wing mirrors slipped either side. The close packed cars soon became a blur as we raced between them, the motorcycle still not even hinting at its maximum speed.

Ahead, suddenly, we came upon a hog, some copy-Harley dithering its obese way down the white line. My stomach lurched and I gave a hint of a cry as he slammed us to the right, through the narrow gap between two bumpers, and onto the other white line. And then back again, for the left route was clearer; ahead of the lumbering plastic Fatboy now, and off again, we roared, faster, faster.

I kept my head directly behind his because the drag was becoming tough and the position kept the doppler effects equal, not so disorienting. He had told me oft enough about low friction profiles, the effects of high speed riding, and not vomiting down his back.

The front wheel, I could feel, tried to fly, but he was in total control and he kept the tyre on the concrete. I leaned closer into him, shifting more weight forwards. I could feel just a hint of a tremble in the powerful bike now as it fully exerted itself, came truly to life (he would say) as he slotted it through the narrowest of gaps at well over a hundred miles per hour. Truly, the traffic had become a tunnel with scant inches either side us.

I sensed rather than saw as a mirror on our right disintergated, caught by its reinforced, unsmashable counterpart on the bike. He slewed left, close enough to a lumbering city bus that I had to draw my knee in cosely to his side. The stress was becoming uncomfortable - my feet pushing hard against the rear pegs, my elbows locked out behind me against the pillion bar, twinkles of mirror glass on my flapping shirt slipping, catching, slipping again to fly free behind us as we went faster, ever faster.

I was thrown forward when we hit a bridge, a sharp incline humpback, so common here. I felt the front end stress, saw him gently tap the front brake with his unusually muscular ring finger. He was increasing the friction on the front wheel, I knew, so we could slow enough as the traffic thinned out due to the three lane bridge. The deceleration prevented us from leaving the ground as the bridge became a table top, which in Europe would be a motocross hazard rather than a regular road feature, and there was only the ever-insistent front wheel, trying to claw itself off this earth and into the sky, as if the bike, and we too, could wax phoenixlike and soar. But no. Trapped to the ground, burrowing through this thinning tunnel, now shifting to the right again on open road, faster, faster, like some drugged-up, crazy-wheeled, insane metal monster.

It came as a shock to realise we had found them already. Of course, we had overshot them, and the first bullet slashed my shirt at the shoulder, despite my surety: surely we could outrun any other man-made projectile. It was not so, as the hysterical flapping of the slashed material and the faint sting of a lucky hit proved when it slowly reached my senses. He knew, obviously.

We slammed to the right again, but not stopping at the white line. He slipped us between a chunky SUV and the hard concrete of the lane divider. Leaves tickled me, annoying but not deadly like the dum dum which had not taken my shoulder off. Lucky. Lucky.
"Awake," despite the click in my ears as the comms activated, his dull, calm voice still surprised me. We raced along the line of the concrete, my knee slider only a touch above it, hanging trees slapping us both, matching speed with big vehicles, what he would call road-cover.

Road-cover is not road-kill.

There was a slight sting on my shoulder. I wanted to glance to check how much blood was seeping from the wound, but my attention could focus only on the road ahead. We had slowed, but not through fear, just so he could speak, terse, abrupt. No "Are you okay?" I didn't even hear a question, so maybe it was a command. Bastard.

I found it hard to speak so I simply tapped his helmet with mine. Sexual, except nothing is when you've been shot.

The bike screamed, literally screamed, like a mortally wounded animal, and I was nearly thrown off the back. But this was not a scream of distress. If a sceam could be one of pure happiness, ecstatic, orgasm, then this was it. The front end lifted as we left the cover of the central reservation, and this time he didn't care, only touching it to the road so we could weave back toward the middle and then up into the air again, the engine finally reaching a tortured but joyful crescendo. Before we had been fast, but now it was just stupid. How can I write about such velocity without peppering my prose with the adjective fucking? And that's how it was.

Honks sounded behind us as we upset the pattern of the traffic, now a manic machine bobbing and skimming metal. He kept the throttle full open, his other strong ring finger slipping the clutch in some insane non-semblance of control over our speed. I felt my lunch, noodles, push into the back of my throat. My bowels tensed.

"Find them." The communicator was one way only. I slipped my gloved hands as tightly under the bar behind me as I could, stomach muscles aching, and turned my body as he slowed again, now rolling back and forth across the lanes, the highway become a canvas for him to draw our presence, and draw them to us. Fear was a pregnant lump in my belly. I did as I was told.

Did the motorcycle seem angry at its sudden leashing? The reduced speed certainly made it sound full of rage, and after today I was no longer confident about thinking of it just as a machine. It growled as he down-shifted. Both wheels left long sinuous blackies on the road as we bled velocity. I could see because my attention was focussed behind, my neck straining. He weaved across the highway, giving me glimpses of the white-line gaps so we could see our new pursuer, hunter, no, target, prey.


As told, I found them. The glimpse of green and a sunlight sparkle off expensive rims, a flaring fender dipping toward the surface when the vehicle's direction changed and its soft suspension submitted. And then another flash of the passenger's face: the pick-up was rapidly drifting across lanes, in and out of space. I imagined Elen Ripley's Alien hopping through large air-conditioning tunnels, duct to duct, hunting us. Something of the driver's anger could be discerned from the reckless way they were moving through the traffic to reach us, drawing near as we lost our own speed, flicking much more easily as we were though the growing walls of traffic. And of course the tables had been turned.
"Tool," he said. We slewed right. The motorcycle howled again and I saw we were beside a rusting van, crumbling along and laden with the workings of the simple road man. Tool meant music to me, and so the order took a moment to register. The next gunshot bolted the door as it flew off somewhere unknown.
The target was drawing closer to us, had one man now standing in the back as a look-out. Any sensible biker would be gone by now, a stitch through the slashes of the traffic, but no, here we were, with rounds being slotted at us like a fucking deer back in the real world.
"Weapon, anushead." There was a faint fizzle in the connection. I leaned over the rumbling work-truck and grabbed a short heavy length of chain, with steel a couple of inches thick. Here was the new driftwood, washed up not on the golden sand but instead on this infinite spiral of bludgeoned roadway. He gunned the bike, I grabbed the pillion bar with my free hand, the other clutching the heavy, heavy chain. We were gone before the industrial-age beachcomber could even yell.
Then came another insane demonstration of the possible acceleration, and within a few moments we were way beyond their slow little guns and big ponderous pick-up. More mirrors were smashed as we ripped our way onward, a tinkling of glass like the sprinkled tail, glinting as a comet in the late afternoon sunshine.
I was growing tired now, from the constant stress in my body, the tightness of my grip on the bar behind me, the heavy steel links dangling around my fist. I was buffeted and pulled as the bike slipped across and up, and then faster and then slower.
He drifted us to the right, and onto the hard shoulder, a broken blanket of potholes and dry puddles, he slid the back end around, tap a-atapping the controls; losing speed and tyres howling, we made a quick about face, and he gave it a handful again.

I was unable to look forwards once we re-entered the traffic flow. The best I could manage was hiding my head in his back and listening for his signal, the metal in both hands so unyielding. The chain was smashing more wing mirrors, stitching a line of dents; I could do little more than hang onto it, one end locked beneath my arm, the other having its steel fun with the oncoming cars.
"Here." I peeked out, saw the distinctive silhouette of the target. It was a relief to release the heavy links.
The windshield exploded inward. The car slewed to the left, rolled. And that was all I could see, as the traffic took us into its bosom again, and away we roared, 'wrong end forward' as the saying goes, and gone.