SCREECH! Jack commandeered our Aston Martin, and I use that term very loosely, into sharp swerves across the single lane road, avoiding the onslaught of rifle far that buffeted our tail, but not escaping the smattering of holes layering our back end like Swiss cheese.

  “What do we do!?” I yelped. “What do we do!?”

  “You can ease up on the yelling in my ear part!” Jack hollered back. “I'm trying,” he continued, crossing over his hands on the wheel and whirling us back around, while the blue sedan squiggled back behind, and seemed to be reloading, as I checked the side mirror.

  Jack popped open the center console and slammed a side button that was hidden from sight, slipping open a concealing panel that unveiled a pistol. Reaching in, he retrieved it, and swung it around to face me, handle first. “Know how to use one of these things?”

  “You point and shoot?” I trembled at the site of it.

  “Good,” Jack said, still holding it out, “you're training's done then.”

  Hesitating to reach for it, I took it tentatively. It felt cold and unforgiving in my palms. “I...I...don't think I can,” I mustered up, my hands shaking.

  Jack's eyes darted back to me, as he snatched the weapon away from my sweaty palms. “Wasn't my best idea anyway. Hold the wheel.” He relinquished and twisted to stretch out of the driver's side window.

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  “Wait,” I pronounced, flustered, lurching forward and grabbing a hold of the wheel. “This isn't much better!”

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Jack fired the gun back at the trailing vehicle. “Let me know when you come up with something better!” Huddling back inside for a moment of cover, Jack turned to me and smiled. “We're gonna be okay,” he winked.

  It warmed my heart with a brief sense of security, while my hands slipped sweaty on the wheel, holding the line as I teetered between a steep embankment off into the wheat fields and the narrow road itself.

  “Keep us steady and stay down,” Jack affirmed, turning back through the window.

  “You're gonna have to pick just one!”

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Jack rattled off more shots, before sliding back into the car, as I spotted the sedan veering wildly behind us in the rear-view. The gunman flung from side to side like an inflatable at a used car dealership, but firing continuously along the way.

  “I got a tire,” Jack yelled gleefully.”

  CLANG!

  A unique sound hit us as our own car swerved out of control.

  “Seems like you weren't' the only one!”

  As the wheel yanked from my hands, we whipped down a steep embankment and into a tall thicket of wheat, slapping our windshield without refrain in an unrelentingly viscous manner.

  “AHHH!” I screamed as we thrashed through, unable to see anything ahead of us.

  Finally, Jack slowed the car, as I took a huge sigh of relief, breathing in the momentary silence. Then it hit me. “What happened to the other car?”

  Suddenly, a rumbling quaked behind us, as a billowing cloud of smoke appeared and a the sedan barreled rolling down at us from behind, end over end.

  “AHHH!” I yelled again, as Jack floored the pedal.

  “Someone always has to ask!”

  Speeding ahead, and turning out of the way, the car flew past us in a mangle flame of wrenched metal.

  Jack pushed me to duck and followed suit. “Keep down is my answer!”

  BOOM! An inferno shot heaven-bound scorching through the skies and torching the lines of wheat surrounding it, a cloud of blackened dust and heat racing towards us!

  “Hold on!”