Border, KS

BEGIN CHAPTER 9.0: MOVEMENT

Walter had a brief second in which he was convinced that he was dead before Morgan turned both of their bodies and took the impact on hers. They moved smoothly in to a roll, followed by a less smooth second roll, and a third roll that would not have pleased either a gymnastics teacher or sushi chef. It didn’t kill him, but it didn’t feel exactly good either as he pulled himself up to his feet and remembered to check his gun. There were good instincts, and then there was having to remember where anything was when he was being battered around like this.

“Your bike.” Morgan ordered, and they both began to bolt toward the motorcycle. Despite seriously aching joints Walter threw himself on to it and revved the engine. He started off before he even knew Morgan was on, trusting her to be there. As he peeled out of the parking lot he felt her wrap an arm around him, although he wasn’t sure which one of them it was there to steady at this point.

“He can’t have that much of a lead, we didn’t hear a car!” Walter shouted. He took the right turn out of the high school parking lot toward one of the main drags in town. As he brought the motorcycle around he saw a man on foot running impossibly fast, but not faster than a Harley engine.

Or he wouldn’t have been if, at the sound of the engine and a confirming look over his shoulder, thee man hadn’t all of a sudden been astride a mighty horse and charging away even faster than the actual vehicle. And worst of all he did it with a smug, superior look back to them, as if inviting them to look upon his horse and despair.

“A freaking horse?” Walter shouted angrily as he poured on speed as well. The light ahead of them turned red but Walter never stopped. The air whipping around him carried a blare of horns and the sounds of cursing men, employing words proper Midwesterners only did when truly pissed off. “How the hell does that work?” Walter whipped the motorcycle through a left turn. Since the light behind him had been red for this direction he was free from traffic for a moment, but he could see cars they would be on in seconds.

“Remember the hounds? Hit the median!” She pointed. In this stretch of town the street was divided, with a low and flat concrete median between them only occasionally sprouting benches, statues, or trees. Walter spared the upcoming traffic only the briefest glance before he pulled the speeding cycle over and up on to the median with a bump and a whoop.

“Is it an evil horse? You got a plan to turn it in to glue?” Walter managed to shout back. His pull up on to the median had caused him to over-correct to the left, and almost sent them in to oncoming traffic. He yanked them back to the center, and then quickly back to the left as a scenic park bench threatened to turn into a deadly obstacle.

“Will you shut up and drive? Yes, I have a plan! But I can’t be hamburger to do it, and it won’t feel good even to me if we—SHIT!—crash!” She interrupted herself mid-curse as they corrected around a statue with the slightest possible movement before coming back on their original course. If it took paint off the bike it only took a fleck, and Walter let out another whoop.

“Lights!” Walter called out as they kept racing. Pedestrians threw themselves out of the way and Walter dodged around those who were unsure of his coming somehow. “In the saddlebag!” He veered around an elderly couple out for a walk that he only identified a moment later as having been the hat happy couple he met months ago. They never even blinked, but walked right where they needed to be to let him avoid hitting them.

Morgan grunted, but a moment later produced a light that she reached around Walter to slap down on the front of the car and activate. With the whirling and screaming, accompanied by the roar of the engine, they finally made enough of an impression that no one seemed to miss their coming. She fumbled for a moment with something else in her hands, but Walter had no idea what it was.

They were gaining on the horse, and at the end of the long thoroughfare and another near miss they had managed to catch up to their quarry. Walter looked up only quickly enough to find that it was a green light and gunned it, blasting in to the intersection.

“Walte-” Morgan began as Walter plunged headlong into the stream of turning cars. He flicked the bike left a much as he could with a grunt of effort and momentum before ripping it to the right. This time more than a little paint came off as a Honda did some interesting detail work to the back of the bike. They almost spun out but they both threw themselves into the turn and regained control, only to find themselves spinning around the other way.

For one shocking moment Walter could see the surprised look on the Earl’s face as they spun, and he fancied that he could see at least a curious look on the horse’s face too. But then he was spinning away and the back of the bike zipped around as the tires squealed and smoked. Now Morgan looked the Earl in the eye and produced her plan.

In the space between seconds, when the whole world seemed to be still and calm despite the high speed dervish they had become that seemed likely to kill them both any second, Dr. Morgan Winters almost lazily reached out and fired her taser to send 50,000 volts of blue lightning directly into the apparently magical horse.