Judgment Day -03 by Arthur Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

hundred yards away, Samantha watched the situation unfold. Tanner was impossibly outnumbered. Even he couldn’t possibly hope to fight all of the bikers. When he finally fell to the ground, shaking and twitching, she knew that it was over. She was alone, now and forever. Until she got eaten by the dogs, anyway.
    To her surprise, the men didn’t immediately shoot him. Instead, they danced around, laughing, and repeatedly poking him with some kind of red stick. Each time they jabbed him, his body jerked and flopped on the asphalt. When they finally tired of their sadistic fun, they tied thick white cords around his wrists and ankles, and attached the other ends to the back of four motorcycles. Samantha watched, horrified, as they climbed on the bikes and slowly stretched him out straight, like a prisoner being put to the rack. When he was finally spread-eagled, the crowd of bikers cheered, raising their weapons into the air.
    “No, no, no,” Samantha muttered, lifting her rifle and resting on top of the boulder. It was up to her now. She knew that.
    She looked down the gun sight, lining up the rear peep hole with the front reticle before sweeping the crosshairs over the crowd. The men on the motorcycles began to pull harder, slowly lifting Tanner’s body off the ground as the cords drew taut. He struggled to pull free, but the lack of slack in the restraints made it impossible for him to get any sort of leverage.
    Samantha took a deep breath and let the sights settle on one of the bikers who was stretching out Tanner. The man was revving his motorcycle, looking back over his shoulder, laughing. She heard Tanner’s voice in her head.
    Any day now, darlin’.
    She let out half of the breath and squeezed the trigger. The gun emitted a sharp pop , but neither the report nor the slight slap against her shoulder even registered. The man brought his hands to his chest and toppled sideways off his bike.
    She cycled the bolt, swung left, and sighted on the second biker. Squeeze. A second pop . A second man down, this time clutching his stomach as he dropped to his knees.
    Bikers began diving behind cars. Others started their engines and raced away. Most stood dumbfounded, unable to hear the rifle pops over the roar of the motorcycles. The two remaining bikers who had been pulling Tanner began to drag him across the asphalt, like horses pulling a runaway stagecoach.
    Samantha cycled the bolt and shifted her aim to the third man. He was moving, but she used the rock as a pivot point, never letting the reticle drift behind her target. Squeeze. Another pop . The man jerked, then lost his balance and fell back off the bike, slapping his head against the pavement. More bikers dove for cover, finally understanding that they were taking fire.
    Nearly free, Tanner sat up and began tugging on the final remaining tether, pitting his might against that of the motorcycle.
    Samantha cycled the bolt and squeezed again. The final bullet caught the last biker in the middle of his back about the same time that the cord snapped. Instead of falling off the motorcycle, the rider leaned forward and gunned the engine, racing down the interstate.
    Shouts rang out, panicked bikers pointing off in seemingly random directions. Tanner scrambled to his feet, hopped the side railing, and ran for the edge of the forest that paralleled the interstate. Still unsure of how many people were shooting at them, no one dared to try and stop him.
    As Samantha ducked back behind the boulder, two things occurred to her. The first was that she had just four shot people. And the second was that she no longer had to pee.
    CHAPTER
    6
    Mason’s mind was racing as he swerved around cars and the occasional dead body lying on Highway 17. He now had both a name and a destination. Nakai was apparently to blame for the murders, and Lexington was where they planned to drop their cargo. If Mason had anything to say about it, they were never going to make that delivery.
    The plan was