“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Grayson screamed as bullets pinged off the sedan. Chunks of metal and fiberglass sprayed his face and eyes. He screamed again and this time it was a wordless howl of unmitigated fury. He leaned the machine gun around the front bumper and fired blind. Dome took a position next to Grayson.
“My gun jammed!” he howled. Grayson ignored him.
“Oh God. Oh God, my guts. My fucking guts!” Gremlin moaned.
Ike leaned back in the doorway as another burst from the third man’s gun ripped through the air. Ike returned fire until he heard the dry click of an empty magazine. Moving on pure instinct he reached in the dead man’s pockets and found another clip. It had been years since he’d handled a gun, but his hands didn’t seem to notice. They popped out the clip and replaced it with ferocious alacrity. He fired off a quick burst just as Grayson peeped around the front bumper of the sedan.
“Go for the truck!” Ike shouted. He tossed Buddy Lee the keys. Buddy Lee snatched the keys out of the air with his free hand. He dragged a howling and crying Tangerine through the kitchen and out the back door. Ike fired off another burst at the sedan.
“Fuck this!” Grayson spat out. He stood up and leaned across the hood of the sedan. He swept the barrel back and forth across the porch laying down a line of fire that plucked at the house like the claws of a demon. The expelled shells danced across the hood and rolled off the edge onto the ground.
Ike scooted under the window, stood, and fired out of the fractured lower pane. Grayson disappeared behind the trunk of the sedan. Ike kept firing in the general vicinity of the sedan, the van, and the bikes until he heard the engine of Buddy Lee’s truck fire up and roar like a tornado.
Grayson replaced his clip, moved to the rear of the van, and fired at the house again. He didn’t hear the truck start up, but saw it back up, then spin around so that the back window was facing him. He aimed at the truck and fired. The back window shattered, but then he received a rain of bullets from the house that forced him to hit the deck.
One of his other brothers, Gage, was crawling toward him holding his thigh. He didn’t see the last member of their hit squad, Kelso. He and Gremlin and Cheddar had ridden their bikes. Dome, Gage, and Kelso had taken the van. He’d figured six Rare Breed with guns was more than enough for a nigger, a shitkicker, and a slut.
He was getting real sick of being wrong.
Buddy Lee pulled Tangerine down as he floored the truck. Shards rained over the nape of his neck and down his back.
“Shit, goddammit!” Buddy Lee said as he wheeled the truck in a wide arc, then backed up to the front of the house at an angle. He heard a scream like a horse being gelded as he ran over the legs of the man in the yard, crushing them beneath the weight of his Chevy.
Ike came running out of the house firing the machine gun as he leapt in the truck bed. Buddy Lee hit the gas as Ike fired at the two men who had scuttled behind the blue minivan. Buddy Lee slammed into the sedan, sending it crashing into the first two bikes. The conservation of momentum sent the second bike plowing into the third. Buddy Lee kept the hammer down, turned left, and headed down the lane.
Ike let off one last blast from the submachine gun, spraying the rear of the van. The glass in the rear door exploded along with the rear driver’s side tire. Grayson and Dome had kept moving around the van as the truck shot by like a cannonball until they ended up crouched down like a pair of turtles near the front bumper.
Grayson jumped up in time to see the truck turn left and take off down the highway. Grayson wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Sweat, blood, and bits of metal stuck to the hairs on his forearm. His ears rang with a high-pitched metallic whine. Dome rose and stood beside Grayson. Kelso crawled from under the sedan.
Grayson stopped staring down the lane and took in the scene swirling around him. Three of his brothers were down. Cheddar was dead. Gremlin was right on his heels. Gage was bleeding out all over the red clay that covered the yard.
“Dome, they got me in my leg, Dome. I’m bleeding a lot. God it hurts, I’m bleeding a lot, Dome,” Gage rasped.
“My guts, man. I can see my guts,” Gremlin said. His words were so light the wind nearly snatched them away. Dome and Grayson walked over to their mortally injured brother. Most of the lower half of his stomach was gone or slipping through his hands like a greased eel. He was lying in a pool of blood and shit large enough to soak in like a hot tub.
His legs looked like breadsticks made by a blind baker. If Gremlin made it, which judging by all the blood he was currently swimming in was highly unlikely, he’d probably have to use one of those shit bags for the rest of his life. He’d never ride again. Grayson knew he wouldn’t want to live that way.