The Rider 2: Electric Boogaloo

The bridge is silent. Not even the dark waters crashing upon the steel beams made a noise, the strong winds and stormy waves silent as mice. It’s as if someone pressed mute on the world. I lay on my motorcycle, my head at the back of my bike and my feet kicked up over the handlebar. I stare at the sky above, wondering about what the world was like before. I wondered how many people crossed this same bridge, where they were going, what feelings they had. I imagine a movie-like world, where everyone is full of joy and drives to do something great. I wonder if anyone ever faced the same fate I face now. In the end, the world is no longer our own. This once bustling bridge is empty, and there is no hope for any human who is damned to wander this forsaken planet.

I can feel a rumble approach. Sound re-enters my ears as my focus shifts away from my daydreams. He is approaching once more. The battle of attrition continues, and to see an end to this infinite hell is all I wish. I flip up into a battle stance on my steel steed, grabbing my backpack with practiced ease and swinging it onto my back. The gas-canister strapped to it jiggles around, the fuel inside sloshing around in tandem with the waves smacking the bridge. I flick off the kill-switch and press in the clutch, start the bike, and shift into first, ready to sprint. He comes closer, and through a gathering thick fog, I can hear the rumble of his junker approach even closer, the sound of his devious cackling fading in.

Yet another battle of attrition was about to commence. I wasn’t sure how many more I could handle. The infinite road ahead only grew longer with each war we waged, and each war, I had to push my bike even further past its limits. The redline meant nothing, and without proper maintenance, pushing my motorcycle this far every time would spell the end for me. My horse would soon collapse. In a godless world, I can only hope for a miracle.

I pull back on the throttle, the jerk pulling my body upright again, and the sudden thrust of speed causes my back wheel to wiggle just a little. The starting point on the road was marked by a tire scratch, and I launch forward into the fog ahead. The ominous bellows from his bowels grow closer, and in my side mirror I can make him out. His silhouette suited his circus games like the last piece of a puzzle. Tall, scrawny, his arms like broken branches hanging on for dear life, and his outfit ominously jolly. The jester fades into my radius from the wall of ever-thickening fog. No longer a shadow cast on the background, I can make out every detail. Once again, I scan his figure looking for anything that could give me a clue on how to escape his grasp. His Chaplin ‘stache rustled in the intense wind pushing against our forward motions. With one arm from his army of appendages, he holds a child's bicycle helmet to his skull, one of those “cool” ones with the silicone mohawks on the crest.

Behind him his long, forest green corduroy trench coat flies like Superman’s cape. Underneath was a shirt made of his many arms, curling around him like a python killing its prey. His legs are too long for the mini-moto he rides, making his knees touch his shoulders. His pants are ripped jeans, paired perfectly with his mismatched outfit. One of his thousands of free arms begins to reach for me as he grins like the Grinch plotting how to steal Christmas.

After an incalculable amount of days, hours, minutes, and seconds of running, I no longer look at him with fear, but with anger, and an ambition to conquer. My brow furrows and I lean into a battle position once more, making it so the wind will not hinder my push forward. In my mirror, I witness him doing the same. He too wants this to be our last encounter, and another win on his belt. Clearly, my bike is superior, as I speed ahead and lose him in the fog behind again. A frustrated yell followed by devious cackling echoes on the crashing canyon wall like waves. Through the wind whistling through my helmet, I can barely make out an odd cracking sound, like twigs and thicker sticks snapping under the hooves of deer. From the fog his dozens of appendages reach. My brow clears and my eyes widen, realizing he saved his last trick for the finale. I thought maybe this time the game was in my hands, but once again I am proven wrong, this is his domain, and I am just the unfortunate prey to fly into the web.

Each arm is disproportionate and uncanny, bending at multiple points where they shouldn’t, not as if they are broken, but rather with extra elbows and shoulder joints. The fabric of his jacket rips and flakes off his thin skin, his fingers stretching outward like fresh mochi. Even some of his skin rips, exposing disgustingly gangrenous muscle and bone. Clearly, his form is weaker than I had imagined, yet something otherworldly keeps him together. The average man would crumble and perish under the weight of his malnourishment and decay. I had never noticed it before, and my anger and ambition turn to fear once more. I am going to lose this time, and for the last time ever.

I avoid looking at the eldritch monstrosity that chases and just close my eyes. I only have one direction to go, forward, so holding the balance of my bike is all I need to do. There is a bliss that washes over me. Maybe dying isn’t all so bad. The silence I experience before the war returns, but this time it is an empty message upon my soul, rather than a simple thoughtless moment. A touch from a lover, a sensual whisper. A heaven away from this accursed life I was born into. Maybe in another life, I will be born into a utopia, rather than this overgrown wasteland I have come to know so dear.

I can feel his oddly soft hands and arms wrap around me before I am whipped off the seat of my steed. I can hear it collapse and neigh in panic and groan in pain. My body becomes deadweight as I am brought towards the monster. I can feel the motion of his bike perform a smooth power slide into a stop. He uses that stopping force to fling me backwards. My clothes rip and scatter across the pavement beneath me. My skin goes next, tearing the tattoos beneath my jacket free from my skin, leaving them whole from my body on the path that I slide across. The force must have been more than a rocket launching to space, as my bloodied body leaves a long consistent skid to my stopping point.

I can’t feel it, the adrenaline pumping through every inch of my veins numbing all feelings. I'm sure I have broken bones too, but I manage to stand strong, although with a struggle as if I am lifting hundreds of pounds of metal upon my head and shoulders. I turn to face my aggressor, watching him drop the kickstand and stand up. There is no step over, as his height would make an elephant look like a dwarf. His head disappears into the stormy sky above before returning back down hanging from his thin neck like a chandelier. From heaven above and hell below, immense roller chains connect with one another, pierced upon them victims from the past, machine and man alike. Most are just ripped pieces, wheels and legs, a head mounted from its mouth or eyes through the hole in the bottom that once was the neck. Above me sits an empty spot on the chains.

Next to that empty spot a chain drops downward. A heavy, intact mush of a strange bike and what I can barely make out to be a young boy, maybe only early twenties, pierced perfectly, undamaged, or at least the motorcycle is. Clearly, the weight is too much for the chain, and if the stars align, just maybe I will be able to take the mounted steed to escape once again. I sit and watch my captor approach slowly, tormenting me with my inevitable fate. Although, if god wills it so, my fate could change. The shaking downward pull from the heavy mush of death sitting on the chain becomes more agitated. The muscled ocean winds make it so that when exposed to the elements, the chain can no longer hold the trophy. The bike and the boy slip free like a magic trick, and crash onto the pavement next to me.

I recognize the bike, an NM4, a strange Batman-looking whip only the most eccentric would dare to ride. A bike I once had dreams of keeping in my collection, when I was young and naive. I quickly shift to aid the injured horse. Underneath the side of the vehicle, the 500 plus pounds of weight squishes down the guts and crunches the bones of the previous jockey. The creature realizes the upset and unfortunate fate shifting circumstances, and begins to charge at a full sprint. I have no time to be respectful of the dead, and the only way I am going to get this bike up before my captor reaches me is to shove my hands under the side of the bike, within the decaying mess.

I could hear his arms crack thunderously as they began to pierce the clouds above and approach me. My hesitation is going to kill me, and the thought of disrupting the peace of this poor man’s body disturbs me, but this is no time for formalities. Through the decaying slop I shove my hands, until I can feel a nice spot to grab onto the bike and lift. The weight is exacerbated by the slippery, gooey, mess of a once-was, as it hinders my grip just enough for the strain to course through my skin.

Just a millisecond soon enough, I manage to push it up. It seemingly balances for me, as if someone is holding it up for me, waiting for me to get on. I don’t hesitate as I flip on, shoving off any left over man that is left on my borrowed steed. The bike turns on by itself, and I immediately pull back the throttle, sending myself flying away from the creature. In the mirror, I see his hands crash down onto the road where I stood only seconds ago. An ear shattering roar passes down the wind in my direction, the man, monster, creature, huffing and puffing, fatigued and defeated yet again. His lanky frame shrinks back down into the form I am used to seeing. That feeling again, of silence and bliss, passes over me. I notice the fog is clearing, and I can see an end to the road.

As I exit the bridge, I come to a halt. Stepping off, I turn to look my aggressor in the eyes. It is the first time I have seen a frown on his face. His happy anger and devious joker cackling is no longer dancing along with the crash of waves and hefty blowing winds; his frown touches the ground. I just stare him in the eyes.

His labored breathing slows and he slouches like a sloth. Our eyes meet perfectly. Although no words are spoken, we talk. It seems we have reached an agreement of sorts. An agreement upon my victory. His exaggerated sighs and leviathan frown make it seem like he may have planned for my victory, and wants to play it off. Like a significant other or parent letting their loved one win. Although it is clear, from the chained thousands of victims, riders just like me fated to die by his hand, he is a monster created only for evil. Why now, and why me, would he change his heart?

His old-school moto rolls up next to him, as if patting him on the back for a good deed like two bros at the end of a heartfelt coming of age movie, ready to disappear into the sunset. I could swear he winks and grins through his facade, to let me know we'll meet again, although on different terms.

My response is a nod, as I watch him hop onto his bike, and slowly ride off into the fog, before all reckless waves and hazy walls disappear along with the creature. The bridge is no longer an infinite trial, but a simple, short road crossing over a tranquil river, the same one I remember journeying across all those months ago. Relaxed winds and birds sing in tandem. The beautiful wasteland of nature I get to see once more, morning dew making every stem of grass and every leaf on a branch glisten in the sun like a diamond. I had forgotten what the world looks like. It is a nice warm hug of reunion.

I, too, hop onto my new found companion and savior, and drive off opposite. Knowing this will not be the last time I meet him, but maybe next time, I’ll be buying him a drink…