GunBarrel Gauntlet: The Last Bronze II

25. Driving Outside the Box.

Throwing his weight through the door frame with a leading kick into the driver's face, Shamrock was halfway into the cabin, legs lying across the two men within as he fought to remain.

Securing the Irishman's legs by the ankles, the second occupant had a knife in an icepick grip at the ready, arcing it at Shamrock's writhing torso before the length of a tire iron smacked him over the bridge of the nose.

Hanging on outside the passenger door, Carrion's tattooed arm swung the metal bar repeatedly into the co-pilot's head as he relinquished the knife to cover himself from the blows with his forearms. With broken fingers he unlocked the door with a push from his boot to try and peel the trucker off the side of the cabin, clipping her chin when she drew back to avoid the force of the opening panel.

She was momentarily gone from the co-pilot's sight, then the hooked end of the tire iron scooped at his neck and caught the buckle of a shoulder pad, dragging him down from his seat to rapidly disappear into the speeding traverse of road and dust.

Shamrock stretched his arm to take hold of the wheel and lift himself closer to the interior cabin, wresting it back and forth against the resistance of the driver as the truck weaved over the Gauntlet in the conflict of two minds.

From the height of the cage the Nomad and the remaining three Scabeaters continued to thin out the number of bikers gathering at the flanks, reloading the crank rifles after each round with a twist that aligned the next rotary chamber into place.

Closing an eye to take aim through the chain link barriers, the Nomad lost his shot and final bullet as the deck swayed again. Flashing hints of the struggle between Shamrock and the Driver played out in the side mirrors, moving the Nomad to take immediate action before the vehicle could leave the surface of the superhighway and take them all down with it into crashing annihilation.

Throwing the rifle javelin fashion over the side to bowl over an approaching rider, he removed the poncho disguise of scrap layers to carry itself away in the wind so he could climb unrestricted over the cage fence, lowering himself into the gap between the tanker and cabin.

On the other side, Carrion's head swivelled from the teasing proximity of the passenger door toward the Skin Pirate that was working its way across the carriage wall to reach her, having leapt from its bike to engage her before she could aid Shamrock in the cabin. She still had the tire iron in her hand, but it was the wrong hand, unable to strike the intervening figure due to her precarious position near the exhaust stack.

Feeble kicking attempts could not repel the marauder from reaching at her hanging arm, squeezing into the inked flesh like fruit pulp to try and tear her away from the truck surface as the road streaked underneath them.

Within the cabin itself, Shamrock and the driver were twisted into a mutual choke hold, snarling as they strangled each other with flushed wine faces, the veins of their eyeballs burning red with pressure as they willed the other to relent their desperate life. The driver kept his foot on the gas pedal, but neither had control of the wheel which rolled in whichever direction their bodies pressed against it.

Adrift on the concrete lanes, the Volvo tanker veered ominously from the course, turning toward the avenue of high mast lighting between the dual carriageways. Shaking on the grit as the tyres began to leave contact with the road, Carrion and the Pirate brushed against the towering poles, rebounding against the narrowing gap of the steel edifices that threatened to wipe them away until the tanker snaked back suddenly onto the Gauntlet.

Taking hold of the steering wheel through the opposite window, the Nomad had reached the cabin in time, grappling the rim under the crush of wrestling bodies to keep the truck steady on the highway. With serpentine movement it drifted from one side to the other, the Nomad compensating as best he could as he braced against the pull of the dragging air.

The tail shadow of the water tanker crept over the Volvo cab and the Nomad whom steered it from the outside, a lone profile haloed by the sun on its deck lifting a sagging mass over its head.

"You die today, Scab! Styx Triple-Six!"

Rent in half by the marauder's strength, the contents of the sack in which he had raised overhead exploded in a cloud of fine irritant dust, bentonite clay that had been originally intended for the skin lesions of the radioactive sick in Gaswells.

Engulfing the Nomad and half the windshield in white powder, his vision melted into a stinging glare, unable to distinguish the path of the road as he choked on the airborne distraction.

He was now driving blind.

With an unexpected sway from the vehicle, Carrion's opponent scrambled to hold onto her arm as their feet slipped from the fairing, breathing up against her ear.

"Nnyah! Get your hands off me!" The bald trucker shrieked, hammering the fist of her free hand back over a shoulder to deliver the straight edge of the tire iron into their skull.

The right angle of the tool was left protruding out from an eye as the impulse signals of the Skin Pirate's brain went out like a light, their weight falling aside to paint a red blemish on the Gauntlet's hardtop that was chewed over by the passing tread of the off-road bike tyres belonging to the squadron of two-wheeled machines that were still in earnest pursuit.

Carrion's expression dropped to see the rear end of the Ford pickup descending toward them, drawing back in a parallel motion aside the water tanker that had been blocking the progress of the Volvo truck they were fighting over. The Nipplebiter stood in its tray with a swivel mounted flamethrower, squeezing out rapid jets of flame with impatient glee as he sighted her impending proximity to its reach.

Entering through the passenger side to seek immediate shelter from the tongue of blistering heat, Carrion knocked the driver out with a punch that released Shamrock from the asphyxiated embrace, sucking at the air like a fish to replenish his lungs.

The loss of consciousness had also weakened the boot on the accelerator, pulling the truck back out of the way from the blackening touch of the flamethrower on the left passenger side.

"Move over, and put him against the window!" Carrion ordered Shamrock to give up the driver's seat and use the sleeping Skin Pirate as a shield to replace the broken glass on the door she had just entered through.

Swapping positions within seconds, the trucker woman took control of the wheel, sending the vehicle out wide to escape both the Ford pickup and Kenworth tanker ahead of them. With the distance now re-established, Carrion reached out and secured the Nomad's leather collar in her fist, aiding his crawl into the open window on the right side as he wriggled over her lap to rest in the console cavity between the seats.

"Can yew get us outta 'ere, woman?" Shamrock forced the words through his compressed throat.

"I'm working on it!." Carrion answered through closed teeth, swinging the wheel to out manoeuvre the swarm of vehicles gathering at the perimeter.

Still blind from the clay powder, the Nomad felt for a sloshing sound he had heard bouncing inside the cabin, patting the footwells to try and catch its movement. Carrion's boot caught his fingers as she depressed the clutch, knocking his forehead with the gear selector as she spoke with the Irishman over his crouched form.

Finally he caught the plastic bottle as it rolled into his hand, unaware of the crude label that read 'Piss Jug: Recycle your H2O!'. Unscrewing the lid rapidly, he upended the acrid contents over the white dust on his face and eyes until he was blinking in shock at the putrid taste.