Free Back to the Future by George Gipe Page B

gravel into the guard rail and onto the windshield, but held, completing the turn and allowing Marty to roar away from the skidding van. As he did so, he floored the car again, saw the speedometer rise from 50 to 75 in one swift, almost spastic motion. But the Libyan driver was no slouch, either. Despite having less power and maneuverability, he managed to turn around quickly and accelerate to the point where he was barely twenty yards behind the sleek DeLorean.
    “O.K.,” Marty whispered. “From here on out, it’s nothing but speed.”
    He glanced down at the speedometer as the DeLorean roared past Doc Brown’s immobile body. It read 80. As he passed the step-van, it read 85 and the Libyans showed no sign of quitting.
    “All right, you bastards,” Marty hissed. “Let’s see if you can do ninety!”
    Behind him, machine-gun fire crackled, several bullets landing ahead of him, causing the road to ignite and bits of asphalt to clatter against the hood. Distracted, Marty looked to his right too late. For a split second, he had the ability to turn right, race through the entrance portals and perhaps outrun the van on the highway. That split second was now past. Ahead was the opposite end of the parking lot, another guard rail, and, he now noted, less area in which to turn.
    Should he make his move now? That would give the Libyans a better angle on him, but it would also allow him to make a run for the entrance.
    As he puzzled his dilemma, Marty looked at the speedometer.
    It read: 88.
    Behind his head, gauges and indicators began to light up, lines of digits formed and disappeared on the dashboard, and something like a siren sounded. What had he done? Blown a fuse? Driven the engine past its limits? Touched something he should have left alone?
    His eyes quickly scanned the dashboard for some clue to the mystery. As he did so, he was suddenly conscious of a large object rising ahead of him, an object that had not been in his line of sight a moment before. Jerking his head up, he saw not the guard rail and arc lamps of the Twin Pines shopping mall—but the face of a scarecrow!
    “What the hell—”
    As abruptly as it appeared, the scarecrow disappeared, its crude head smashing against the windshield and falling away in a spray of straw. Then another object loomed—a large square building. Simultaneously, the car began to rock and pitch as if it had abruptly turned off smooth roadway onto cobblestones or a plowed field.
    Thrown nearly into the passenger’s seat, his head once striking the roof, Marty could do little but hold the wheel as tightly as possible. Meanwhile, the building ahead crowded out the lighter sky behind it until everything in front was variants of black and grey. Having an instant to maneuver, Marty aimed the DeLorean at the lighter square ahead, bracing himself for the crash which didn’t come. Instead, as if falling down a well, he was enveloped by blackness on all sides. Jamming on the brakes, he felt the car decelerate until it smashed into something, causing Marty to fly against the dashboard. At the same time, something landed on the roof with a loud thump.
    The air surrounding the immobile DeLorean was filled with floating saffron dust. Marty blinked, trying to orient himself with a new environment which seemed to have snapped him out of the air of the mall parking lot. Gradually objects began to take shape—vertical boards, bales of straw, a pitchfork. Everything was blinking on and off, which puzzled Marty until he realized that the hazard lights of the DeLorean had been knocked out. In the background, he heard a dog barking.
    “Damn,” Marty said slowly. “I’m in a barn. How did I end up in a barn?”
     
    The evening had not been a pleasant one for Otis Peabody. At forty-five, he usually came in after a day’s work on the farm dead tired and not at all ready for criticism and pleas from his wife and children. Mostly he just wanted to sit and relax after a good meal, read the morning