Asphalt

The motorcycle rattled underneath gloved palms. Another patch of gravel. The road that had been perfectly paved asphalt was now closer to the elegance of a towpath than a modern street. Alex’s front wheel jerked to the left as he narrowly drove past a pothole deep enough to swallow the front wheel of the sleek black Yamaha and leave a corpse for dawn to handle. Some poor sap would uncover what was left, he thought. Some poor dumbass who was out for a stroll would stumble across a crushed body full of rocks and branches and mud and he would be the cause of a heart attack.

Alex swallowed uncomfortably.

He shouldn’t have been here anyway. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near here but Ash had called. And Alex always responded when Ash called. For all he cared, Ash could have called at four a.m. when the world hadn’t even properly woken up. He would be there. One dash away. One wreck away.

The Yamaha trembled.

Alex held on.

Of all the roads he wanted to keep away from, there was no worse one to travel on under the blanket of rural darkness than Runnar Road. The lore that surrounded Runnar Road was sour as sour came. The death, lost persons, and tales of close calls were an ever-present stench. Runnar Road could have been excellent. Curved, elegant, and full of allure, the asphalt had been a dream once but those days were so long gone they were as good as forgotten.

Just another chunk of lore to throw out on trash day.

The motorcycle growled as Alex ducked around a curve and began the dark descent toward the valley. All the purple LEDs on the bottom of the motorcycle shuddered as he swung back the other way.

Runnar Road was a snake.

Alex took the next handful of curves effortlessly though a sheen of sweat began to gather.

Too many others had met an unfortunate end here. He could nearly smell the tang of blood. But Ash had called. Hell would have to tear through the mantle before Alex abandoned Ash.

The motorcycle wobbled and a sharp breath escaped Alex.

A pebble slapped the temple of Alex’s sleek, black helmet. Then another. And another. The road unfurled beneath Alex. Shadows of the poor luck of others floated out of the black road below and clustered around the edges of the road as though they were ghosts, stuck to the Earth by the horrendous heaps of unsettled rage thrust upon them. Full of sorrowful ends. Deaths that made no sense.

Deaths that happened too fast.

The temperature dropped sharply as Alex descended. Cold drafts blew from the forest on the hunched back of the fog that drenched the black leather jacket. Water beaded on Alex’s narrow shoulders and slunk toward the belt looped around black jeans and skeletal haunches.

Ash never called for help.

He was cocky. Tall and pretty and full of loose curls that always flopped across grey eyes. Storm-cloud eyes that enraptured all the women. He was a hero on a motorcycle. When they rode together, Ash stood up on the pedals, arms out as though he could defeat even Luck. And he could. But what would happen when Luck grew bored of the game?

Alex pushed harder and rode faster.

Ash was strong. Muscular. Clothes always hung perfectly on Ash and there was a casualness to the way he spoke that enchanted and trapped anyone who dared to eavesdrop. He was a star. But stars burnt out.

Alex leaned forward and urged the motorcycle through a rough patch.

The texts were short. Remarkably short by Ash’s standards. He tended to prattle on and on about useless garbage.

“Hey. Dad’s mad. Real mad.

Come by?

Please.”

The words froze Alex.

Ash’s father was a real bastard. He was a nasty drunk and even worse sober. Blue marks bloomed on Ash’s back too often. Alex was halfway gone from the rage of what he saw but Ash wasn’t as arrogant as he seemed. He was soft. To a fault. That text meant that trouble had found Ash.

That text meant danger.

Three other one a.m. dashes had happened before where Alex had to drag Ash out of the house to escape death. Ash wore the scars.

So too was Alex marked.

Ash’s father knew how to handle combat. He was comfortable. Ash remarked that was a natural state for the man. Alex gave a good effort, enough to save Ash but not enough to escape two long slashes.

Alex swore suddenly, nearly ejected from the seat. There was a spot of glass on the road and the front wheel had caught the outer edge of the spot. Grey rays from the moon shone across the frozen water and sparked ungodly fast across the black helmet. A comet streaked through Alex.

He swore.

And then the motorcycle was gone.

Yanked from Alex’s hands.

The world went dark. The gentle fade of purple LEDs fell down the bank, or maybe up, and Alex flew, arms and legs splayed, as he was lofted through the black sky.

Runnar Road opened a large mouth below.

Alex fell.

Hundreds of moments flashed green and purple through the sky then stopped. Brown eyes clung to the fantasy photo of Ash's LEDs that danced down the downtown streets. Broken glass caught the red of Ash’s accentuated motorcycle. The red helmet spun toward Alex and he could nearly hear Ash’s laughter. What a sound that was. Effortless, easy, and gentle.

He looked so good on a motorcycle. The hard metal angles melted underneath Ash’s body. Man and metal became one. Alex only got one to play on because he had backpacked on Ash who was unable to stop the laughter the whole journey. Ash was never happy. But he should be. So Alex raced. He yanked Ash out of danger. Put the boy on the motorcycle. And gave Ash a helmet.

But under the full moon now, he would fall short.

Runnar Road’s mouth snapped shut around Alex.

He would let Ash down.

Prey swallowed by predator.

Alex felt the crush of doom. The tug of fear above the belt as the teeth sank deeper. The sky began to pull away. The purple LEDs on the black Yamaha faded to a dull glow.

“No,” Alex murmured.

A gloved hand reached toward the moon as he freefalled.

He dreamt of metal.

The brown eyes narrowed and all of the world began to slow.

He dreamt of the sleek metal of the motorcycles he loved, the Yamaha tossed up the bank, and Ash’s black and red baby. He dreamt of the cool metal on warm flesh. He dreamt of flesh on flesh. Alex breathed out and slammed onto the wet asphalt three layers below where he started.

Runnar Road swallowed.

Alex lost.

But the brown eyes were not dead yet. Somewhere off ahead of Alex, he could see the hazy form of Ash as he crashed through the forest. Comfort swelled and settled. Ash was safe anyway.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Blood oozed across Alex’s mouth and fell to the asphalt. “Sorry, Ash. Can’t come over after all.”

“No! Alex. Alex! NO!”

The world faded to black.