ran 0.6 milesChapter 16
The last thing Jonas could remember was the sound of a helicopter and the voice of Danny’s MVAS. The chopper sounded like a weed-eater at full throttle trimming the hairs off his earlobe. Before it had drowned every other sound into a silence that could only have been described as pure noise, Woodard’s electronic girlfriend demanded that he ceased acceleration. She insisted that she would yield to inertia if he did not change his momentum and direction. Her tone of voice was that of a woman having an orgasm.The last moment Jonas remembered exactly was the look on Danny’s face when he realized his femme car was capable of something he had not foreseen. His pride was diminished to nothing as he slowed his speed. Just as a man would do, he refused to touch his brake. Instead he put the transmission in neutral and let it idle down toward nothing like watching an ice cube melt.
Danny looked at Jonas exchanging a lost glance. He could not find one single word. For Danny, it was like America looking into a mirror and realizing what it had done.
“I’m sorry, Jonas. I don’t know how this happened.”
“Come on, Woodard. You sound like a career politician that just did something right and lost his seat for it. Take your dignity and jump out of this car. They’re not after you.”
Then came the hum. It was unbearable. Like a murder of crows flapping their wings and picking for food inside Jonas’ brain, his mind rattled with torture and suspense of what would happen next. Jonas craned his neck to the back seat and looked at Erica, Thomas, and Mason. Ben laughed with his hands tied behind his back, sputtering blood through his gag. Danny Woodard was gone.
For the last few moments of consciousness Jonas had within him he saw a black sack fly over Erica’s face. A blunt object immediately attacked his direction. As Jonas’ eyes closed and Carmen’s soul screamed, there was a gunshot. Ben’s blood spackled across the windshield was the last thing Jonas saw as his eyes staggered to close completely.
Erica and Jonas were brutally escorted away with black sacks over their heads, bound and gagged, sputtering blood like Ben only moments before. Thomas and Mason were executed on the shoulder of an Americanadexican Interstate running north through what was once Texas.
“Take them to New Carolina. We need the woman to be coherent for torture. Jonas…make sure you keep him alive.”
1,097.0 miles to go.
