Chapter 2: Carjacked?

Esther left the roadhouse half an hour after the arrival of a group of weird, noisy young men, her head ringing with drink and the memory of a voice like a truck horn. She knew she shouldn't have had those four beers so early in the day--heavy drinking always gave her a headache--but getting sloshed was the only alternative that she could think of to devouring her food, returning to Los Angeles, marching into the World Films main studio, and strangling her blasted director. Louis Stevenson! Esther was certain that, right now, there was no screenwriter on Earth who hated the director of their film, their baby, as much as she hated Stevenson. And that was really saying something.

It wasn't that he was a jerk--personally, he was affable enough, but, well, he was a director, and one who'd cut his teeth on big, explosive action movies at that. With the producers onside, he'd taken her screenplay, a subtle, intellectual thriller about a man who has to choose between his own overwhelming patriotism and his love for his mentor, and edited it into some sort of Michael Bay-esque monstrosity with car chases and buildings collapsing. And not a day didn't go by where Stevenson wasn't knocking on her door with his cheerful "I-know-you'll-do-this-'cause-I'm-the-director-and-therefore-God" smiles, telling her about this or that new chase scene that he wanted her to write in...with his input, of course.

This morning, however, Esther had finally snapped, specifically on hearing Stevenson's announcement that a certain talentless society girl cum starlet was being tapped for a cameo roll in the movie, and would Esther mind writing her a cute line or two? This particular travesty had caused Esther to exit the building at speed, jump into her battered brown Toyota, and drive out of Los Angeles, following the freeway in the certain knowledge that a nervous breakdown would occur if she stayed with this tinseltown garbage any longer. A tiny part of her mind, about an hour out, reminded her that she loved screenwriting even with the dick directors, and a larger part of her stomach reminded her that she hadn't had anything except coffee all day. Hence the truck stop, and the beers to drown her misery. She supposed she'd better be grateful to the gang of sweaty, sunburnt, raucous idiots who'd wandered in a little while ago: without their noise, and their extremely strange conversation, not to mention the consumption of more caffeine, grease, and calories than one would see outside Harga's House of Ribs, Esther would probably have stayed in that truck stop all day, staring at a stone-cold plate of scrambled eggs, drinking herself into a stupor. What her mother would say if she could see her now...

Esther plunked herself down in the driver's seat of her smelly Toyota, legs dangling over the pavement still, and put her head between her knees, staring at her canvas sneakers. Only then did realization begin to dawn on her that driving back to L.A. was not an option in the state she was in, and there was unlikely to be a cab service all the way out here. Shit. At least she had one consolation out of this miserable, lousy day: a number of the car chases that Stevenson had plotted out called for stunts of a calibre so extreme that every stunt driver in Hollywood had hung up on Stevenson as soon as he'd outlined them, much to his frustration. Esther allowed herself a small, bitter smile: it was good, sometimes, to spread the suffering around a bit.

Suddenly she became aware of a large grey boot-toe invading her vision, which currently included the pavement and her own shoes. She stared at the toe. The toe stared back. Then a truck-horn loud voice some six feet above her head addressed her.

"Hey you, is this your car?"

"Hey you, and yes it is," Esther muttered, before looking up-way up-at her unwanted visitor. He looked vaguely like the gigantic unholy spawn of Hulk Hogan and Billy Idol, domineering in a grey khaki jacket, grey coveralls, dull grey work boots, and a grey trucker's cap that had once upon a time been brown. His face was red and wet with strange violent violet eyes, with features a mixture of brutality and animalistic cunning that leant themselves to instant dislike of their owner. Esther found herself looking surreptiously for the chainsaw or the 12-gauge shotgun bound to be about his person.

"It's an ugly car," announced the redneck nightmare.

"Ugly, but potentially useful," said someone from behind him, and Esther, glancing around Redneck's considerable girth, groaned inwardly. The psychos from the truck stop were all coming out for a little chat. The guy who had spoken looked East Indian--or West African, or maybe a combination of the two--and wore pale khaki pants, black motorcycle boots, and a black-and-white hooded sweatshirt (in this heat?). He was eyeing the car with a calculating expression, but when he caught Esther eyeing him, he hissed and arched up like a cat confronted with an ugly dog. "What are you staring at?"

"Your clothes," Esther said frankly. "You guys aren't from around here, are you? You sure didn't dress for the daytime weather."

"You're wearing the same sort of thing," said Paranoid accusingly.

"I'm always freezing no matter how hot it is. You guys, on the other hand, are sweating like hoofed porcine mammals."

"We have hooves?" said the blond white guy in the yellow logo jacket, looking momentarily bewildered.

The Asian-looking guy the with the yellow work goggles and the turtleneck pulled over his nose cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. "Do shut up," he drawled with a surprisingly English accent, before Logo Jacket hauled off and punched him, hard, in the stomach. Esther, drunk as she was, jumped with shock, but the blow didn't seem to faze English Turtleneck, who simply winced, punched Logo Jacket back in the arm, then turned back to Redneck and Paranoid. "So are we going to ask her or not?"

"Why ask?" rumbled Redneck. "We take, remember?"

"Not here," advised Paranoid, "we're too vulnerable now. Even if we have split with him, we still have to stay secret, and that means obeying their laws as much as is possible."

"But that's no fun," whined the last guy, who looked to have a combination of South Asian and native American heritage, had a thick Western accent, wore headphones with spikes sticking out of them, and had a grin that ranged anywhere from "drunk, stoned soccer lout" to "serial killer", in Esther's view. Bleary as she was, their commentary was beginning to unnerve her.

"Look, guys, I don't have any money, I'm not much of a lay, and my ride's a piece of crap, so what do you want?"

The five weirdos were silent for a moment, just looking at her, before Paranoid exchanged a glance with Redneck and spoke up. "We, uh, we need a ride to the nearest big human settlement, but we haven't got a car."

"That's Los Angeles," said Esther, aware that something here was not exactly kosher, "and you guys won't fit in my car."

"We'll manage," said Redneck in a tone of voice that indicated that someone would get hurt if they didn't.

"I can't drive; I'm drunk."

"I can, and I'm not."

If Esther hadn't been four sheets to the wind, she would have argued strenuously with the idea of driving five strange men back into town with her. Then again, if she hadn't been pasted, she would perhaps have missed the brief, dangerous look in Redneck's purple eyes. Either way, she figured later on that it had all balanced out. That karma thing, perhaps. She threw up her arms.

"Okay, okay, if you like. But you're paying for the gas."

"Sure we are," Redneck said nastily. "Alright, you pack of idiots, get in the car NO Drag Strip not the front seat, this hu-woman has to navigate for us."

Esther slowly scooted over to the passenger seat as the rest of her doors twitched open and the five men piled in. Redneck somehow managed to cram himself into the driver's side; hunched over with his knees very nearly around his ears, he grunted and adjusted the seat sharply, so hard that one of his cohorts in the back seat, the psycho with the headphones, cried out in pain. To Esther's horror, Redneck just sneered. "Suck it up, slagger."

"Go sit on a drive shaft and rotate," spat Headphones, before apparently obeying Redneck's command and scrambling over the back seat onto Turtleneck's lap. "Slag, this is weird, isn't it?"

"Mm," said Turtleneck, looking out the window. Esther noticed with a start that the four in the backseat, while they were pushing, shoving, and occasionally punching one another, seemed very comfortable with their sprawled arrangements when they finally settled. Headphones relaxed across Turtleneck with his feet tucked up on Paranoid's lap, twitching occasionally, and Logo Jacket was resting much of his back against Paranoid's chest and stomach. Esther had never seen a group of men, especially young men, that physically comfortable with each other before, not when there wasn't some family relationship involved, and even then the frantic emanations of "I'm Not Gay" would be present; they weren't here. She wondered why...

As Redneck started up the car and manouvred them back onto the freeway, Esther remembered what had been bothering her. "Uh, what did you guys say your names were?"

Turtleneck, Logo Jacket, and Paranoid froze, while Redneck sharply cut another, large car off, causing the other driver to honk angrily at them. Redneck responded with a complicated series of hits to the Toyota's horn and a curse word that seemed to be entirely clicks. Headphones paid the matter no attention at all.

Surprisingly, Paranoid recovered first. "Uhh-uh, we didn't."

"Only I thought your buddy up here called you with the jacket "Drag Strip"."

"Darryl S. Tripp," Paranoid corrected grimly. Esther got the odd idea that he had been preparing for this. "His name is Darryl S. Tripp. I'm Brian Downey, this is Daigan Endo," (indicating Turtleneck) "this twit here is Will Ryder, and the creep in the driver's seat is Moe Masterson."

"Charmed, I'm sure. I'm Esther Goldberg."

"I don't really care, thanks," growled Masterson. "Slag...these idiots are doing 85 mph maximum, too slow."

"That's well over the speed limit," Esther warned him muzzily.

All five men turned and looked at her as if she'd just said a particularly foul word. Then Ryder, with the "serial killer" variation on his usual grin, abruptly threw himself forwards and reached over Masterson's shoulders, grabbing the steering wheel.

"HEY! What do you think you're doing!"

"Taking over, slowpoke," Ryder sniggered, doing something complicated with his hands. Before Esther realized what was happening, she was screaming as her ancient car went into a 360 controlled directional spin across four lanes of medium-to-heavy traffic, coming to rest in exactly the same direction as it started out with. Esther promptly leaned forward and threw up on her own feet, looking up just in time to see Masterson bite one of Ryder's outstretched arms hard enough to break skin and maybe muscle, causing the smaller man to yelp and withdraw the offending limbs. Masterson, maintaining the old car's new speed of 118 mph, hissed invective at Ryder involving new and creative methods of dismemberment as he wove between cars with frightening ease, manouevreing the Toyota into a tiny gap between two muscle cars in the fast lane, then waiting until the lead driver was distracted and dekeing in front of him.

He's good, thought the tiny, annoying part of Esther's subconscious that was always sober and always alert. He's very good. And I bet he could do some pretty scary shit if he wasn't driving a vehicle that handles like a brick.

Esther looked behind herself carefully to see Brian Downey staring at her in astonishment. "Uh, why did you do that just now?"

"Huna?"

"You know, um, expel your food onto the floor."

"After that little dance you guys did with my damn car? I'm surprised none of you barfed, you ate enough back at the truck stop!"

Downey looked puzzled. "Why would we? It's just gravitational variations is all."

"Oh yes, I'm sure for you gravity is optional," Esther muttered angrily. She felt terrible, but not drunk-terrible, and now she was beginning to realize how odd her situation was.

Tripp, strangely, was poking with interest at the bite-wound on Ryder's arm, while Ryder himself wore a very strange little smile. Masterson had apparently discovered the car radio and switched the station from Esther's usual classical to a country station, and was playing it loud. "Are we going the right way?" The huge man asked her suddenly.

"Yes, um, just keep going west and we should get to the exit in about an hour and a half...what?" Ryder was staring at her intently; he pulled his arm away from Tripp and poked his head into the front seat right next to Esther's, grinning fiendishly.

"Y'got any more of that coffee? Because I really like coffee. It's good."

"A temporary stimulant to distract from the overall futility of life," drawled Endo quietly, "a life made exponentially shorter by mortal flesh I might add."

Ryder stared at Endo for a moment, then picked up Esther's plastic travel mug and moved to hit his compatriot over the head with it: he paused, though, sniffed it, then licked the inside tentatively and shot an accusing look at Esther. "There was coffee in here!"

Esther slowly and carefully took the mug from Ryder and set it down, then stared around the back seat and driver's seat at the pack of nutcases currently inhabiting her car, and responsible for her not hitting concrete or moving metal at nigh on 120 miles an hour. She felt her face begin to set.

"What, exactly, do you guys do for a living?"

"Uh?" Downey fumbled, a bemused expression on his face, so it was Masterson who answered, sharply, "we're stunt drivers. Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Esther weakly, feeling her world collapse around her. Stevenson, she thought, it's your fault. You practically deserve these guys, and I think I'm mean enough and in enough pain that I'll actually give them to you. "Are you gentlemen, uh, employed at the moment?"

"Can't this thing go any faster?" snapped Masterson.

TBC...