Outrun Stories #4

‘Call of the night’, she thought and shook her head as she stepped away from her motorcycle and pulled off her helmet. There’d been a city here once. It wasn’t much but it worked, somehow it worked. Held together by something. Hope, maybe?

Gritting her teeth, the cold night air of the city hit her face and closing her eyes for a moment, she let memories of the past wash over her. They hurt, they all hurt, she’d seen it in their eyes even then, they weren’t doing well but something held them together. They still tried, they still held on, to each other, to an idea, to the thought of a brighter day. Not now.

Nothing now.

All it took was one man to split them all, divide everyone and everything and now there were walls everywhere, and where there weren’t, it was open season. Either join a clan and do their will or face their kind of justice for wanting to remain. For holding onto that old idea, hope.

Not her, not ever. She’d not face their justice; they’d face her punishment.

She heard a bottle smash behind her and the cracked laughter of some clan’s night patrol. How many this time? Five? Ten? It didn’t matter.

Slow footsteps leapt into a run and she turned. She swung around with her helmet and smashed one of them in the jaw, following with a roundhouse kick to the throat, driving the man into the concrete with a silent choked scream and a flash of blood in the neon light.

“What’s it to be, boys?” She took a step back to the motorcycle eyeing up the party, four of them now. Two with bats, one with a knife, the other bare fisted and moving forward.

“If you don’t belong, then you’re out. Justice will be delivered!” He screamed with wild eyes.

She smiled a wry smile, pulled a thick chain from the motorcycle’s seat box and thrashed it once around her head. No justice here, only punishment for what they’ve done. Punishment for giving up.