Trooper Gary England stood his ground as each person in front of him pled their case. His stature was imposing to most, and people usually listened to what he had to say. Today the people he was trying to reason with were attempting to flee the unknown carnage unfolding twenty miles to the west in Portland, Oregon. Bottom line, he was holding court with anxiety, panic and pandemonium.
An attractive young woman in denim shorts and a tank top shrilly dressed him down.
“You are not listening to me. My daughter is four years old and she is sitting in that car in the hot sun,” she said while wildly stabbing her manicured nail at a black Mercedes.
“And you, lady, are not hearing me. I repeat, no one is getting through. The city is under forty-eight hour quarantine.”
A balding middle-aged man and his wife started whining about the idiots in the city looting and rioting.
“I want your badge number!” the half-drunk wife bellowed. She obviously wasn’t used to being told “no.”
The trooper did his best to try and turn around the fifteen or so people who got out of their cars to “help” with the lobbying process.
Like a clap of thunder, the sound of approaching V-twin engines drowned out all conversation. Scores of bikes pulled up on both sides of the group of people trying to gain passage into the gorge.
Most of the outlaw bikers were flying their colors. Greasy leather jackets were emblazoned with the “Nomad Jester” patch. It had a devious looking jester wearing a floppy hat with round tassels on the end. Instead of a silly smile on its face it wore a devilish sneer; across its chest was an AK-47 held at port arms.
Trooper England, his hand on his Beretta, stared down the lead element of the pack.
One of the biggest bikers he had ever seen dismounted a black Harley. The behemoth extended the kickstand with his scuffed black leather boot. The red-bearded outlaw squared up with the trooper. He didn’t offer his hand to the law let alone a modicum of respect.
“Just as I have been telling these fine citizens, the City of Portland is under quarantine for the next forty-eight hours.” Hitching up his gun belt the trooper added, “You all need to turn around and go ho....”
Before Trooper Gary England could finish his sentence, a fifty caliber bullet traveling at 2800 feet per second entered just below his left eye socket. His head became a pink mist that covered the travelers around him with tiny pieces of vaporized brain, blood and pebble sized flecks of bone. Time seemed to stand still for the people clustered around the man. Then people gathered their wits and chaos broke out. The shrieking started with the drunk lady first. Most everyone made for their cars in an attempt to escape the menacing gang.
Three hundred yards away the former-Marine scout sniper turned outlaw biker put down his Barrett sniper rifle and high fived his buddy.
As if on cue, the rest of the gang attacked the innocent people with fists, knives and guns. Men were not spared. One biker decapitated the whiny middle-aged man with a machete. While his lifeblood pumped from the stump of his neck the assailants dragged his drunken wife away kicking and screaming. She was flex cuffed and thrown into a civilian Hummer2 driven by one of the biker’s old ladies.
The massacre was swift and complete. They spared the mom that had been in the trooper’s face, two teenage girls who had just witnessed their parent’s murder and a twenty-something redhead hitchhiking with an elderly man. They were all trying to flee the madness in Portland and this is what they received in return.
Had he arrived two minutes sooner the man would have found himself in the middle of a massacre. While he watched helplessly two of the bikers held up the little girl. Even as she struggled valiantly the big red-bearded animal gutted her with his machete. Duncan hadn’t witnessed anything like this since his first tour in Vietnam. The mom wailed on her hands and knees, cradling the remains of her little girl as the bikers laughed.
It took a three-point turn for him get the wide, long bed pickup pointing in the other direction on the narrow two lane road. Trying to literally put the scene in his rear view mirror, he raced east on the old scenic highway.