Free Back to the Future by George Gipe Page A

that could help his friend. Then, even as he looked, a new barrage of machine-gun fire and a scream told him there was no use. He turned back in time to see Doc Brown clutch his chest, bend over sharply and pitch forward on his face.
    “You bastards!” Marty heard himself yell. The voice almost seemed to come from behind him, sweeping past like a cold wind and echoing across the vast empty lot.
    The black van made a U-turn, heading back toward Marty. Doc lay still, his left ankle turned at a strange angle. There was no doubt in Marty’s mind that the man was dead.
    He would be, too, if he didn’t do something. For a moment, he thought of heading for the step-van. It was big and slow and cumbersome, but at least he knew how to drive it. His mind, working quickly now, rejected that as a suicidal recourse. He would never get to the edge of the mall in that pokey truck. Better to die, if such was his fate, in a burst of glory, or at least in an unmoving vehicle that had a great deal of class.
    Grabbing the video camera—in case he needed evidence concerning Doc’s death—Marty tossed it into the DeLorean, then leaped inside and lowered the gull-wing door. He looked around, dazed. Lights blinked on all around him, but the starting mechanism was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, as he hesitated, the black van roared up, passing to his right from a distance of no more than ten feet. Framed in the doorway was the dark Libyan with the machine gun. Marty thought he saw the ghost of a smile as he aimed the weapon at him and pulled the trigger.
    No sound came. Marty, curled into the fetal position, blinked and looked out the window. The van was already twenty feet past and slowing down, the Libyan cursing and slamming his fist against the machine gun, which had obviously failed to fire. A tirade of angry gibberish, no doubt Libyan swear words, cascaded into the night.
    “Start!” Marty yelled.
    He looked at the array of switches and dials on the console with frightening bewilderment. What was the secret? A button? Something in the nature of a digital code? His eyes flew back and forth, trying to locate the solution to the mystery.
    When he finally solved the problem, it was so simple he almost laughed. There on the steering column, just like any other ordinary unsophisticated car, was an ignition switch and a key.
    “I’ll be damned!” Marty muttered.
    As he spoke and reached for the key, he heard the squeal of tires that told him the black van was on its way back to him. Starting the DeLorean, Marty threw it into gear and floored it. The vehicle’s response was even more than he’d hoped for. It seemed to surge forward as if it had been kicked from the rear. For a moment, he could see the Libyan van as a black mass in the left side of his vision, then it receded so rapidly he wondered if its presence had not been a mirage generated by his own fear.
    In fact, had the Libyan driver not turned the wrong way in making his U-turn, Marty would have been an easy target for the machine gunner. But rather than turn right, the driver had swerved left, causing them to come nearly abreast of the DeLorean with the open door facing away from Marty. By the time the mistake had been rectified, the DeLorean was already in high gear and on the verge of rapidly outdistancing its pursuer.
    Marty glanced out the rear-view mirror just as the machine gunner took aim. Swerving wildly, Marty saw the bullets churn up holes in the asphalt to his left and rear, but he had no time to congratulate himself. Ahead was the end of the mall lot, which he was approaching at seventy-five miles an hour. His lights struck the metal guard rail, warning him that in less than two or three seconds he would plunge through the barrier and over a steep abutment. Behind him, the bouncing lights of the black van dogged his every movement.
    Marty grabbed the wheel tighter, faked a left turn and, downshifting quickly, spun the car hard to the right. The tires shrieked, kicked