The problem now is that the window escape has left the hitchhiker and the driver at the rear of the motel. They need to get to the pickup, still sitting at a pump in the front. If Nado and his henchmen haven’t already torn through every room upstairs looking for them, then they were sure to be waiting out front. All the driver can do is hope. The hitchhiker curses the bikers, crew opposite included, not so quietly as he catches a breath, and lets it go in one steady puff.

The driver sticks his head around a corner while motioning for the hitchhiker to stay back. The latter has so far failed to follow even the hint of an instruction, so it seems unlikely that he will start now. In fact, the hitchhiker bolts ahead. The driver barely catches, “ain’t hidin from these sons of bitches”; again, expressed in an angry gush of air.

“Wait…” It’s too late. The coast is clear, but the old man attendant has the hood up and his head stuck completely aside. It doesn’t take long for the driver to push him aside.

“Thanks pop, but we gotta run.” He slams the hood and jumps into the truck in an interrupted motion, without failing to notice that not so much as a square inch of it has been touched with a damp rag.

“As long as there’s juice in it, I’m happy.” The driver is wise to set his hopes low.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmm.Clink-clink-clink-clink.

“Ah hell pops. Wadja do?!” It sounds like there’s a tin can loose, rattling under the hood.

They don’t wait for a response from the absent-minded attendant, even a dismissive one, before they peel out of the parking lot and head down what appears to be the main drag into the city’s center. The bikers must have run out shortly after them, because they can hear the low growls and throat-clearing revs of bike engines, one more angrier than the other.

The driver has to weave between cars and lanes because the traffic is rather slow going. The pickup obeys dutifully, but not without a screech of the tires or a disconcerting rattle every now and then as protest.