The Night of the Dead Boys (#12) - paperback

Chapter 1

Tremaine Brown slammed on the brakes, and the tires of his Monte Carlo squealed in protest. The traffic light had been red for too long, and the opportunity to blast through the intersection was gone. The Chevy’s rear end shimmied as the car struggled to stop on wet asphalt. Tremaine’s sweaty hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, and his body stiffened in preparation for a collision.

Even though it was shortly before midnight, the traffic at the Hamilton Street and Mission Avenue intersection remained heavy. It was often like that because it lay in the shadow of Gonzaga University. Growing up, Tremaine spent a lot of time working outside the bars in this area—college kids had a lot of disposable cash and wanted what he had sold.

Heavy rain fell at an angular trajectory through the radiance cast by streetlights. Neon signs reflected off standing puddles in nearby parking lots as the raindrops peppered the ground.

Tremaine rode low in the driver’s seat with his eyes barely above the dashboard. It was an uncomfortable position for a man of his size. He didn’t glance left or right but instead took the whole picture in at once as a camera does—a snapshot of a moment. That was all the time he had.

His goal was on the other side of this intersection. Roughly a mile ahead—through another traffic light and over the bridge—was the entrance to the freeway. There was also an off-ramp to Second Avenue, which could lead him back to his South Hill apartment, but he couldn’t go there—not while he was being followed.

The night sounded alive inside Tremaine’s Chevy courtesy of the recently exploded rear window. An aroma of exhaust invaded the compartment, as did the smell of the night’s storm. The car’s wiper blades hastily flicked away the rain—fwip, fwip, fwip.

A motor roared a moment before Tremaine’s world erupted. His head snapped back and hit the seat. Someone had collided with the rear of the Monte Carlo. The dashboard lit up in protest, but the engine didn’t stop. The Chevy slid through the crosswalk, the tires failing to hold their grip on the slick asphalt.

Tremaine was on his way into the intersection against the red light. He had only a fraction of a second to act. He stomped the gas pedal, and the heavy car leaped forward. Horns honked, and vehicles jerked out of the way. A pickup collided with the Chevy’s rear and forced Tremaine off course. He yanked the steering wheel in the opposite direction and fought to straighten his path.

The Monte Carlo cleared the intersection and raced ahead.

Tremaine made the second light as it turned green. Soon he was barreling up the Hamilton Street bridge. The howl of the night came through the missing back window.

He pulled himself upright in the driver’s seat to brave a look into the rearview mirror. His pursuers were still there—two cars. One with its headlights busted out now. They had made it through the previous intersections. He had to find a way to ditch them.

The steering wheel jiggled in his hands, and he clutched it tighter as if to stop its motion. The alignment was off, or perhaps the car now had a bent frame. The dashboard warning lights remained on, and the engine sounded like an old man in the last throes of a smoker’s cough. Maybe a piston was misfiring, but that didn’t stop the motor from chugging.

Rain dropped in large sheets, and the wiper blades sounded panicked now—thwick, twhick, thwick.

Tremaine became aware that something was dragging on the car. He checked the driver’s side mirror—nothing. In the passenger’s side mirror, he saw it. The bumper had ripped off but hadn’t detached. It slid left and right like a wayward skier.

Thunk.

Tremaine slid down in the seat.

Thunk thunk thunk.

They were shooting at him again. He had no idea who they were, and now wasn’t the time to figure that out. He needed to get to safety. Once he did, he could work on the question of his pursuers’ identities. Maybe he could plan some retribution, too, but that was getting ahead of himself.

Right now, he had to survive.

Tremaine raced over the bridge. He swerved past a slow-moving Subaru and accelerated. The Chevy’s engine sputtered and backfired, which caused the car to slow briefly as if taking a deep breath.

“C’mon!” Tremaine yelled, slapping the steering wheel.

The Monte Carlo lurched forward in a burst of renewed confidence.

Tremaine’s eyes snapped toward the floorboard of the passenger compartment. In the furthest corner was his gun. It had tumbled there earlier when the Chevy bounced out of the shopping mall’s parking lot.

This whole time his gun was less than a foot out of his reach. He’d been a man running instead of a man fighting. It pissed him off, but he couldn’t entirely lose his temper. Doing so would cause him the ultimate failure. He’d seen too many associates go out that way, and he wasn’t making that mistake tonight.

At least he still had his cell phone tucked between his legs. He’d made three calls since the chase started, but none of his crew had answered. Had something happened to them? Was someone hitting them all at once? Those were questions for later, but for now—

Thunk. Thunk.

Tremaine’s shoulders rose to his ears. He jerked the wheel and took the eastbound I-90 off-ramp. It looped down past the Office Depot toward Liberty Park. When he reached the interstate, Tremaine didn’t merge with traffic. Instead, he remained in the far-right lane and soon exited onto Third Avenue and into the East Central neighborhood.

The engine whined unexpectedly.

“The fuck?”

A horrendous chunking sound came from under the hood. Tremaine had never heard such a noise but imagined the motor had seized. The dashboard lights mocked him, and the wiper blades quit throwing rain away from the windshield. The car coasted as it approached the traffic signal at the Altamont intersection.

Tremaine grabbed his cell phone and crawled into the passenger seat, where he collected his Smith and Wesson. He heard more gunshots and felt some of them hitting the trunk. He yanked the passenger door handle and dropped out of the car just as the Monte Carlo was rear-ended.

The car wasn’t rolling fast when he fell out. However, slamming into the asphalt startled him. Tremaine expelled all his breath upon impact, but he didn’t lose his senses. He rolled away and clambered to his feet just in time to see a Dodge Durango pushing his Chevy beyond the intersection.

Tremaine lifted his gun to fire at the SUV, but he heard the approaching roar of a second engine. He spun and fired at an oncoming Chrysler 300. Tremaine kept shooting until the car veered off to the left and into the tunnel of the Altamont underpass. It ran full speed into the concrete wall. When it hit, the hood buckled, and the car’s horn blared.

The tires of the Durango spun on the wet ground as it backed up. Tremaine quickly aimed at the rear window and where he thought the driver was. He fired once, and the slide of his gun locked back. The Durango continued in reverse for several more feet before the brakes were applied, and it slid to a stop.

Tremaine sprinted south into the neighborhood. He didn’t bother looking back as he ran. He knew the Durango was following him because its engine growled. An occasional pop-pop-pop of a gun fired, too.

He sprinted until his lungs hurt. Tremaine zig-zagged through yards and cut between homes. He heard the rumble of the Durango’s engine above the blood pounding in his ears and the thundering storm above. Tremaine sucked for air as he ran and fought against the searing pain in his side.

Stopping now was certain death.

A new sound entered his consciousness—one he’d heard many times before. He couldn’t determine how many there were, but more than one police siren had entered the neighborhood. Tremaine didn’t take comfort at the arrival of the cops, though.

A fox doesn’t quit running when more dogs enter the hunt.

It runs harder.