Sound and Fury
10 Jul 2019Today’s prompt: “Write a scene full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr.
Come on, not now!
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr.
Stupid car.
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-voooommm!
The engine roars to life. You throw it into reverse. Scwrwaaaaaaahhhhhhh! The car peels out as you leave the compound.
You hear the shouts of a group of cultists in the distance. What’s the collective of cultists? A coven? A shadiness? An eldritch? Probably that one. The eldritch of cultists sounds kind of like when stage actors are doing a crowd scene and you know most of them are saying things like “rutabaga rutabaga,” but these guys are definitely saying things like, “Kill ‘em!” and “Don’t let ‘em get away!” and “After them, for the glory of Cthulhu!”
Vroom! Vroom! Vroom! Scwrwaaaaaaaaahhhh! Of course their cars start up with no problem.
You look in the mirror and you see a Hummer flanked by two motorcycles. Shit. They’re gaining.
Rrrrrrrrrrrr! You floor the gas, but you barely notice the difference. This thing’s probably only four cylinders. I guess that explains why someone might not bother to lock the doors or take the keys out of the ignition. But you’re pretty lucky to have gotten out of those ropes at all, and when you’ve been kidnapped by cultists and taken to a bloodstained room in their compound, you’ll take any transportation out of there you can get.
Still, they’re definitely gaining on you. The motorcycles are holding back for the moment, but the Hummer is approaching ramming speed. There’s no turnoffs on this road. All you can do is brace for it.
CRRAASSSHHH! Your car jolts forward with the impact. You hear a Ka-Spaaannnnnnggg! as your rear bumper falls to the road, and a Cr-Crump as the Hummer drives over it.
You’re surprised that your car is still functioning. You gun the engines as best you can, but he’s coming for you again.
CRRAASSSHHH! You swerve a bit, but recover nicely.
He seems to have decided to change tactics. You notice him creeping over the line and speeding up as if to pass you, but you’re pretty sure he’s going to try to run you off the road. What does he think this is, frickin’ Spy Hunter? What you wouldn’t give for some oil slick right now.
Crunch. He nudges you from the left. Screeeee! You skid out of your lane for a second, but just recover in time. He’s still right there to your left.
Voom! You hit the gas. Vooooomm! He’s right there with you again.
You watch as closely as you can out of the corner of your eye. You can see the driver. You can see his hands on the steering wheel. And you can see him ready to pull to the right, hard.
You slam your foot on the brake with a loud SCREEEEEEEEEEEECHHH. The Hummer passes right through the thin air where you would have been and drives straight into a ditch.
You drive past the Hummer. The motorcycles fall in behind you.
This whole night has been crazy. You remember you were sitting down to dinner at a restaurant when two hands reached around from behind you. You barely managed to get out an mmmph-mmmph as one clamped closed around your mouth. You could only see his hands and his right arm as it clamped around your chest and he dragged you off. They were big, beefy hands. Hands with something tattooed on the knuckles in big, Gothic script. What did it say? FAT HOG? Something like that. He dragged you to the parking lot and then he knocked you out. Then you woke up in the compound, and now you’re driving for your life.
BLAM!
And now the motorcyclists are shooting at you.
There! A freeway entrance! You swerve on, hoping you might be able to outpace them or lose them. And at first it seems to be working. You never quite lose them, but you’re out of firing range, and putting a little more distance between you and them.
Until a construction zone narrows the highway to one lane and you find yourself stuck behind a semi.
VvvvvvvvvVMMvvvvvvVMMM VMMM VVMMMMM! One of the motorcyclists pulls up besides you. He aims.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You shove into him, and he hits a pylon. His motorcycle goes down, with his leg under it. It looks like he’s down for the count.
The other motorcyclist is more cautious. He stays behind you and to the side. You see his arm raise a pistol.
BLAM! Kkk-krsssh! There goes the rear window.
You have to do something. You look around the car, but there’s nothing, no weapons, just one of those windshield scrapers.
Hell, it’s worth a shot. You pick up the windshield scraper, roll down your window and chuck it at the motorcycle. In a million-to-one shot, it bounces off the pavement and lodges in the rear wheel’s spokes. The motorcycle jolts up and to the left, and the driver is launched forward.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He shoots at you, but his aim is wild. You watch as the motorcycle tumbles down the bank. You did it! You’ve gotten away from them!
SCRAAAA-BAAMMM! You were so busy glancing over your shoulder you didn’t even see that one of the tires on the semi truck had just blown out, probably shot by a stray bullet, and that the trailer was jackknifing. You plow right into it.
You’re blinking in and out of consciousness. You can hear a wooo-wooo-wooo of sirens in the distance. There’s a thunk that kind of sounds like the door of the semi truck closing as the driver hops out. You struggle to keep your head upright as the semi truck driver approaches your car. He plants his hands on the window frame. Big, beefy hands, with FHT in Gothic script on his right ring, middle and index finger knuckles, and AGN on his left index, middle and ring.