Cold Christmas Lane Read online

  Part of moving out to the sticks was meant to be freedom from this sort of thing, traffic jams and the like, yet here he was being hunted down by bloody cyclists.

  Again he tried to find a way round the two riding parallel at the front of this passive aggressive peloton but the cyclists again drifted out to block him at each attempt, seemingly following intuition, refusing to allow him transit and he slammed hard on his horn, blaring out frustration in gloom now settling to such an extent he'd began to rely upon his headlights for visibility.

  As he rounded into the straight section, the beams of his headlights brought more cyclists into view, all in the same gear, and the two became four, seven including those riding the slipstream behind his car, leaning so far forwards they could have almost touched his rear window.

  He tried to drift round the pack but again they blocked him, again he sounded his horn and screamed at them in frustration, as they left the straight and were back into the tight, twisting road.

  I don't need this, he thought, realising he could hear his heart pounding in his chest, blood screaming in his ears. His breath came out in an icy fog and thinking for a moment the air con must be malfunctioning, he fiddled with the controls before remembering he'd turned it off.

  There was something about them, something dangerous, which made him desperate to escape. Crazy, just men riding bikes, but for a moment he saw what he was a beast cornered by the mob. He could crush them, he was the beast, his car looked like a fist, whilst they were flimsy; breakable, but there is danger in numbers.

  Again he tried to pass, but as he did, two of the front drivers dropped back to sit either side of him, surrounded his car like a presidential guard around a limousine.

  To move either way would be to kill them.

  And why not Roger thought, shivering from the cold, bloody messing about like this, bloody cyclists, thinking they own the road, it would serve them right if I just punched through them. Yet he knew he wouldn't dare.

  Instead, he tried to edge this way, then that, tentative chess moves, Knights pawn; he tried bully them into submission, but they seemed fearless and banged gloved fists on his roof at each attempted manoeuvre.

  The cyclists began to rotate in orbit about him, taking turns to mock him with the sharp raps on his car, calling unheard words, refusing to allow him space to escape as the road weaved and wound sharply downhill, riders now racing in absolute darkness. Roger thinks he can hear them through the glass and steel, laughing at him, mocking him through the frame of his car.

  Roger presses his face against his door window, cursing incoherently at the rider on his right, whilst spraying spit across the frosty glass, screaming at a man who turns to stare at him out of eyes which seem strangely empty, even monstrous.

  Those eyes were black pits of darkness, his stomach lurched as he looked into them, because who knows what hides in the darkness.

  He told his youngest son Kieran, don't be afraid of the dark son, there's nothing there, but part of him wondered sometimes if the boy wasn't right to be afraid. Monsters lurk in the darkness, cruelty waits for you in the darkness; his father's eyes used to loom out of there darkness, angry and disappointed.

  The cyclist looks through the glass and taps with a rap, taps and peers more closely, before his lips break open into a bloody, broken toothed grin, a blackened tongue licking a speck of blood from his top lip.

  Roger tried again to escape, to find that gap.

  These riders had no fear of death, dipping in and out of visibility into the night.

  Gazing at the rider his blood slowed, ice cold, and he placed a hand over the air conditioning vents, wondering if the system had broken somehow, but no air leaked out.

  He looked frantically back at the road, aware of the man's cold eyes boring into him, desperately seeking a gap which didn't appear - but then...

  Then it was there, his chance; an opening, to the front right, on a sharp hairpin.

  Forcing his foot down on the accelerator he barely cared if he hit a cyclist, it was time to break free of their malicious game; firing his vehicle in through the space, hurtling around the bend, but, no...

  For one moment he found himself through, clear, but then turning the corner he is greeted by the blare of oncoming headlights, a big Green, mud splattered Land Rover and a strangers horn raging at him to give way,but there is no time, no space.

  A swerve, then he’s battling with the steering wheel, fighting a skid, as his SUV spins uncontrollably into bushes, the rolls into the forest, the world tumbling and coming apart; a world now turning.

  Then an explosion of bright orange pain lighting Roger up, as the world turned red then black, the last thing he would think of: black eyes and a broken smile.