Visions (Hell Portals, Book One)

Chapter Two: Oh Shit!

THERE'S A MOMENT WHEN YOU'RE RIDING DOWN A LONG STRETCH OF HIGHWAY, when the sun is golden and beginning to lower, the grass looks a little greener, the decaying barns and huge oaks look a little more vivid, and you feel like you're part of the now subtly darkened pavement.

You take the natural curves of the road just right, so that gravity is seeming to gently push you straight down in your saddle even though you're leaning through fairly sharp curves. In these moments everything feels right. All is perfect.

The closest possible thing that this feeling can be compared to is the sensation of hitting a golf ball just right. The feel is right. The "crack" your club makes as it hits the ball is just right. All is good with the world on that fairway at that moment.

This is the experience both Jack and Nate were having. Riding. Leaning. Taking in the golden-hour scenery and living the dream as they rolled down Highway 89 toward the Oregon border. Freedom was their comfort. The warm wind their embrace. The road their guide.

They rode as one unit, in formation both in the way their bikes were oriented to one another on the pavement, and in the way their minds were on the exact same wavelength. A mind of peace and joy and freedom. This is the biker's moment of eternity.

In this moment, Jack looked back at his friend, who returned the glance and nodded. Jack could see Nate was taking in this experience in a kind of ecstasy. This made Jack feel good inside—it was exactly what he had planned, and it was coming off perfectly. The weather was perfect, the road was perfect, the countryside—perfect.

However as Jack turned back in the direction they were heading, toward their future, down the road of life, a semi driven by Bill Maxwell of Amelia, Ohio, came hauling ass from a side-road on the right, crossed the highway out of control, and crashed violently into the left-side embankment.

The semi rocked forward and backward one time as it came to a noisy rest, completely blocking the road Jack and Nate were so thoroughly enjoying.

The semi, being painted the most beautiful orangy-red, and being freshly washed and waxed, looked striking in the golden sunshine. But the unfortunate bit was the way in which it spanned the entire highway and was stopped just ahead of Jack and Nate.

Jack, as so many people do in their last moments of life, let out a thunderous, "Oh shit!" as he instinctively bore down on his rear brake with his right boot, throwing his bike into a skid in order to lay it down on its side and slide under the semi, perchance avoiding decapitation by the crisp metal edge that spanned the underside of the semi's trailer. Nate chose the word "Fuck!" as his final verbal offering to the world, and he similarly slammed his right boot on his rear brake pedal to lay down his bike and slide under.

The boys did the right thing, of course. They'd both had years of riding experience and this is just what you do in helter skelter situations like this.

However, the beautiful, gleaming semi was just too close to the boys to give them time to get setup properly for survival. As their bikes began laying down, the proximity of the trailer rushing toward them allowed for them to dip only a couple inches before impact.

Jack and Nate could hear the concussive sound the semi's impact made on the rocky embankment, and could smell burnt rubber mixed with various engine fluids that were sloshing out of the crumpled semi's powerplant.

This is not perfect, Jack thought. Not perfect at all.

All went black for Jack as he was decapitated. His bike was sliding uncontrollably, and as the side of his face hit the metal undercarriage of the trailer it felt a little like he'd gotten a bloody nose from being sucker-punched. Hard. He of course didn't know his head was being separated from his body.