Desert Chase

In the image there are police, in the story they’re sheriffs. I don’t have the clothes and the cars to make it make sense right now. You’ll have to imagine or mentally bleep over it. Sorry!

“Shitshitshitshit.”

“Ronnie get back in the damn car.”

“Shitshitshitshitsh..”

“Ronnie, now!”

Deputy Veronica Sanchez’s eyes were the size of saucers. This could not be happening. In front of her was the Brickson Gas Station, about five miles out of New Pleasance, and the last gas until you hit the interstate in thirty miles. A dusty blue semi was screeching out of the forecourt, and barrelling along the narrow single lane highway towards her. A vehicle like that is powerful, but it takes some time to get up to speed, especially when it’s pulling a full cistern behind it. It was hauling ass for its life and its engines were screaming. It was fleeing from a woman. This is what Ronnie was having trouble with. It was fleeing from Mary-Lynne Carhill. This would be strange behaviour but it looked like Mary-Lynne might be over five hundred feet tall. She was on her skinny knees straddling the highway with ease. She had a one of the patrol cars slipped into the front of her cut off jeans shorts. Somehow Ronnie could see the sirens still going even as it rubbed up against Mary-Lynne’s bristly bush. Mary-lynne’s beer was sitting by the side of the road where she’d set it, towering over the telegraph poles. Looking further up and Mary-Lynne was reaching for the semi and there was no way it was going to escape. She had too much reach and it wasn’t accelerating fast enough. She was teasing it.

“Oh look at this big truck, tryin to get away from little ol me. Don’t worry, you look about the right size to be useful for summint.” Something like that.

Then Mary-Lynne’s eyes flicked up and Ronnie felt caught directly under the gigantic woman’s gaze. That smile chilled Ronnie’s heart. She’d seen them, of course she had, they had the lights and sirens on and a stream of patrol cars. Mary-Lynne shifted her attention and began to rise. Ronnie snapped back to the real world, diving into the car and slamming the door shut just as Clara put her foot on the gas and whipped the car off the road as the semi thundered past, inches from where Ronnie had been standing slack-jawed.

“God dammit Ronnie!” screamed Clara as she spun the patrol car around and took off after the semi. Within moments there was a sickening crunch and the screeching whirr of tires spinning. The windows went dark as the patrol car rose into the air.