Arena One: Slaverunners (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy)

F O U R-2

He’s obviously telling the truth. He’s not a slaverunner. He’s a survivor. Like me.

“My name is Ben!” he yells out.

Slowly, I lower the pistol, relaxing just a bit, but still feeling on edge, annoyed that he stopped me, and feeling an urgency to continue on. Ben has lost me valuable time, and almost made me wipe out.

“You almost killed me!” I scream back. “What were you doing standing in the road like that?”

I turn the ignition and kickstart the bike, ready to leave.

But Ben takes several steps towards me, waving his hands frantically.

“Wait!” he screams. “Don’t go! Please! Take me with you! They have my brother! I need to get him back. I heard your engine and I thought you were one of them, so I blocked the road. I didn’t realize you were a survivor. Please! Let me come with you!”

For a moment, I feel sympathy for him, but my survival instinct kicks in, and I am unsure. On the one hand, having him might be helpful, given there is strength in numbers; on the other hand, I don’t know this person at all, and I don’t know his personality. Will he fold in a fight? Does he even know how to fight? And if I let him ride in the sidecar, it will waste more fuel, and slow me down. I pause, deliberating, then finally decide against it.

“Sorry,” I say, closing my visor, and preparing to pull out. “You’ll only slow me down.”

I begin to rev the bike, when he screams out again.

“You owe me!”

I stop for a second, confused by his words. Owe him? For what?

“That day, when you first arrived,” he continues. “With your little sister. I left you a deer. That was a week’s worth of food. I gave it to you. And I never asked for a thing back.”

His words hit me hard. I remember that day like it was yesterday, and how much that meant to us. I’d never imagined I’d run into the person who left it. He must have been here, all this time, so close—hiding in the mountains, just like us. Surviving. Keeping to himself. With his little brother.

I do feel indebted to him. And I reconsider. I don’t like owing people. Maybe, after all, it is better to have strength in numbers. And I know how he feels: his brother was taken, just like my sister. Maybe he is motivated. Maybe, together, we can do more damage.

“Please,” he pleads. “I need to save my brother.”

“Get in,” I say, gesturing to the sidecar.

He jumps in without hesitating.

“There’s a spare helmet inside.”

A second later, he is sitting and fumbling with my old helmet. I don’t wait a moment longer. I tear out of their fast.

The bike feels heavier than it did, but it also feels more balanced. Within moments, I’m back up to 60 again, straight down the steep mountain road. This time, I won’t stop for anything.

*

I race down the winding country roads, twisting and turning, and as I turn a corner, a panoramic view of the valley opens up before me. I can see all the roads from here, and I see the two slaverunner cars in the distance. They are at least two miles ahead of us. They must have hit Route 23 to be gaining that kind of speed, which means they are off the mountain and on a wide, straight road. It burns me to think that Bree is in the back of one of those cars. I think of how frightened she must be. I wonder if they’re restraining her, if she’s in pain. The poor girl must be in hysterics. I pray she didn’t see Sasha die.

I crank the throttle with newfound energy, twisting and turning way too sharply, and I look over and notice that Ben is gripping the edge of the sidecar, looking terrified, hanging on for his life. After several more hairpin turns, we get off the country road and go flying onto 23. Finally, we are on a normal highway, on flat land. Now, I can g*n the bike for all it has.

And I do. I shift, and turn the grip, giving it as much gas as it can handle. I’ve never driven this bike—or anything—this fast in my life. I watch it pass 100, then 110, then 120…. There is still snow on the road, and it comes flying up into my face, bouncing off the visor; I feel the flakes brushing against the skin on my throat. I know I should slow down, but I don’t. I have to catch these guys.

130…140…. I can barely breathe we are going so fast, and I know that if for some reason I need to brake, I won’t be able. We would spin and tumble so fast, there’s no way we would make it. But I have no choice. 150...160….

“SLOW DOWN!” Ben screams. “WE ARE GOING TO DIE!”

I’m feeling the same exact thing: we are going to die. In fact, I feel certain of it. But I no longer care. All these years of being cautious, of hiding from everyone, have finally gotten to me. Hiding is not in my nature; I prefer to confront things head on. I guess I’m like Dad in that way: I’d rather stand and fight. Now, finally, after all these years, I have a chance to fight. And knowing that Bree is up there, just ahead of us, so close, has done something to me: it’s made me mad. I just can’t bring myself to slow down. I see the vehicles now, and I’m encouraged. I’m definitely gaining ground. They’re less than a mile away, and for the first time, I really feel I’m going to catch them.

The highway curves, and I lose sight of them. As I follow the curve around, they are no longer on the highway; they seem to have disappeared. I am confused, until I look ahead and see what has happened. And it makes me hit the brakes hard.

In the distance, a huge tree has been felled and lies across the highway, blocking it. Luckily, I still have time to brake. I see the slaverunners’ tracks veering off the main road and around the tree. As we come to a near-stop before the tree, veering off the road, following the slaverunners’ tracks, I notice the bark is freshly cut. And I realize what happened: someone must have just felled it. A survivor, I am guessing, one of us. He must have seen what happened, seen the slaverunners, and he felled a tree to stop them. To help us.

The gesture surprises me, and warms my heart. I’d always suspected there was a silent network of us hiding out here in the mountains, watching each other’s backs. Now I know for sure. Nobody likes a slaverunner. And nobody wants to see it happen to them.

The slaverunners’ tracks are distinct, and I follow them as they turn along the shoulder and make a sharp turn back onto the highway. Soon I am back on 23, and I can see them clearly now, about half a mile up ahead. I have gained some distance. I g*n it again, as fast as the bike can handle, but they are flooring it now, too. They must see me. An old, rusted sign reads “Cairo: 2.” We are close to the bridge. Just a few miles.

It is more built-up here, and as we fly by I see the crumbling structures along the side of the road. Abandoned factories. Warehouses. Strip malls. Even houses. Everything is the same: burnt-out, looted, destroyed. There are even abandoned vehicles, just shells. It’s as if there is nothing left in the world that’s working.

On the horizon, I see their destination: the Rip Van Winkle bridge. A small bridge, just two lanes wide, encased by steel beams, it spans the Hudson River, connecting the small town of Catskill on the west with the larger town of Hudson on the east. A little-known bridge, once used by locals, now only slaverunners use it. It suits their purposes perfectly, leading them right to Route 9, which takes them to the Taconic Parkway and then, after 90 miles or so, right into the heart of the city. It is their artery.

But I’ve lost too much time, and no matter how much gas I give it, I just can’t catch up. I won’t be able to beat them to the bridge. I am closing the gap, though, and if I gain enough speed, maybe I can overtake them before they cross the Hudson.

A former toll-keeper’s building sits at the base of the bridge, forcing vehicles to line up in a single lane and pass a toll booth. At one time there was a barricade that prevented cars from passing, but that has long since been rammed. The slaverunners fly through the narrow passageway, a sign hanging over them, rusted and dangling, reads “E-Z PASS.”

I follow them through and race onto the bridge, now lined with rusted streetlamps that haven’t worked in years, their metal twisted and crooked. As I gain speed, I notice one of the vehicles, in the distance, screech to a stop. I’m puzzled by this—I can’t understand what they’re doing. I suddenly see one of the slaverunners jump out of the car, plant something on the road, then jump back in his car and take off. This gains me precious time. I’m closing in on their car, a quarter mile away, and feel like I’m going to catch them. I still can’t understand why they stopped—or what they planted.

Suddenly, I realize—and I slam on the brakes.

“What are you doing?” Ben yells. “Why are you stopping!?”

But I ignore him as I slam harder on the brakes. I brake too hard, too fast. Our bike can’t gain traction in the snow, and we begin to spin and slide, around and around in big circles. Luckily, there are metal railings, and we slam hard into these instead of plunging into the icy river below.

We spin back towards the middle of the bridge. Slowly, we are braking, our speed reducing, and I only hope we can stop in time. Because now I realize—too late—what they’ve dropped on the road.

There is a huge explosion. Fire shoots into the sky as their bomb detonates.

A wave of heat comes right at us, and shrapnel goes flying. The explosion is intense, flames shooting everywhere, and the force of it hits us like a tornado, blowing us back. I can feel the heat, scorching my skin, even through the clothing, engulfing us. Hundreds of bits of shrapnel bounce off my helmet, the loud sound echoing in my head.

The bomb blew such a big hole that it cut the bridge in two, creating a ten yard gap between the sides. Now there is no way to cross it. And worse, we are sliding right to a hole that will send us plunging hundreds of feet below. It was lucky I slammed on the brakes when I did, when the explosion was still fifty yards ahead. But our bike won’t stop sliding, bringing us right towards it.

Finally, our speed drops to thirty, then down to twenty, then ten…. But the bike won’t fully stop on this ice, and I can’t stop the sliding, right towards the center of the bridge—now just a gaping chasm.

I pull on the brakes as hard as I possibly can, trying everything. But I realize that none of that will do any good now, as we keep sliding, uncontrollably, to our deaths.

And the last thing I think, before we plunge, is that I hope Bree has a better death than I do.

P A R T I I