MANY WINTERS PAST

Lander turned his truck onto the parking lot.  Keeping to the right of the other vehicles, he approached the windows and slammed his truck through an explosion of spraying glass.  Inside the bar, tires screamed on a glass-strewn floor.  An acrid stench of burning rubber mixed with exhaust fumes while people bolted for cover.  The truck stopped at the side of a long bar.

Lowering his window, Lander shouted at a baldhead behind the counter, “We’ll have two beers!”

The head ascended slowly until eyes appeared followed by a bulbous nose above a mustache.  The bartender’s face was ashen.  His eyes stared at the barrel of the rifle poking toward him.  His shaky hands extended two bottles of beer toward Lander who placed them on the seat.  Someone yelled from the far side of the room just before the truck turned sharply away from the bar.  The motor roared, belching more fumes into the room.  Spinning tires screamed while the vehicle wheeled around to face a gaping hole in the windowed wall.  The old truck lurched forward, bounced through the broken wall and slammed onto the parking lot.  With tires cutting paths on the gravel, the vehicle reached the highway then swerved westward.

“The trucks are following us,” said Sandor as he looked through the back window.  Accelerating to a speed that made the truck shake, Lander used both sides of the road to make turns.  Wipers jumped in their efforts to clear drizzle from the windshield.