Sneak Peek of Chrome Mountain (Chapter 1)

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Trey and Sonya couldn’t be more different–yet their divergent lives are about to converge, with a bang. As Sonya evades the biker gang she was once involved with, she befriends Trey, a scientist, and helps him evade the Chromes, the most successful terrorist organization in the world. Trey and Sonya have more than their own lives to consider; the free world will change for the worse if the Chromes gain Trey’s priceless knowledge.

In the thriller Chrome Mountain, Ben Schneider explores one possible future our real world could be racing toward. Readers will find this story, driven by the female protagonist, a page-turner but without the darker tactics of similar sci-fi thrillers. The characters of Chrome Mountain tell their stories with clean humor, no profanity, a lot of advice from God, and action–lots and lots of action.



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Ben Schneider was born in Oklahoma. In 2003, he earned a B.A. in Graphic Design at Oklahoma University, married his fiancée, and joined the Air Force. Ben and his wife, Suzy,
have been stationed in Italy, Okinawa, and Alaska. Aside from writing fiction, Ben’s other interests include drawing cartoons–primarily his Airman Artless comic strips. Chrome Mountain is his debut novel.

To learn more, go to his website HERE.

Ready for a preview of the book? Ben Schneider has provided me with the first chapter to share with all of you. Enjoy! 1

1

CALIFORNIA: PRESENT DAY

Astride her rumbling Harley-Davidson, Sonya McCall waited impatiently for the green light. She’d traveled northeast along I-80, turned south on River Road and, for a few miles, followed another road edging the north side of Lake Tahoe. She gazed over emerald treetops to feast her eyes on the expanse of azure water that sparkled beneath the high noon sun. While enjoying the vista, she hoped to reach her destination before dark. To her, it would be bliss to see Becky Lugo again. They could talk and laugh about the lawless life in Sacramento she was leaving behind. So far, Sonya’s favorite moment of the year had been when she’d phoned her distant friend, explained her plight, and was sincerely invited to come live with her.

Out of utter boredom, Sonya studied the eighteen-wheeler in front of her. The forty-foot trailer had a faded paint job with vertical red and yellow stripes backgrounding the words FUN ZONE CIRCUS on both sides. She guessed the circus had been officially shut down and the trailer was sold to some company prepared to repaint it once it arrived. To the right of the bold rococo text was a laughing clown’s disembodied head, large enough to swallow her two-wheeler. It seemed as if the cartoon clown found hilarity at her misfortune––being stuck at a red light that seemed to have no intention of turning green.

She glared at the portable, trailer-style traffic light, barely visible with the semi in front of her. Boulders had fallen from the pine-cloaked mountainside, limiting the road to one lane. She counted five cars going the other way and hoped the light would not stay red much longer.

Songs from jays in the nearest trees competed with the distant growl of another motorcycle. Beneath her German half-helmet with a maroon paisley pattern, Sonya’s raven-black curls flew in the wind as her head spun to see behind her. Beyond two SUVs, the road curved behind a cliff. Then the second Harley appeared.

Even from two hundred yards away, she recognized the rider, Brock Laxdal––third-in-command of the malicious biker gang she’d once been a part of. With pearl-white hair flying from his chin and helmetless balding pate, Brock quickly closed the gap between them, passing the innocent motorists. Sonya realized that even if Brock had never seen her before, he could still confirm her identity by reading LVISCHK on her license plate. Brock parked his Fat Bob left of her Low Rider. Sonya remembered the skewered skull tattooed on his muscular arm bared by his denim vest. While struggling to hide her tension from being caught in the act of desertion, she lowered her sunglasses. Frown lines, wrought from years of stress, were flanked by almond-shaped eyes of deep blue––one ringed by purpled skin that had recently met her ex-boyfriend’s fist.

“What do you want, Brock?” she asked in her typically forceful but weary voice.

“Levi has every last one of the Screamon Demons looking for you, Sonya!” he bristled, keeping his shades on. “You have some explaining to do, girl! You left our leader confused and heartbroken last night. He also said that thousands of our hard-stolen cash went missing from his safe. I’ll bet my left eye that bread is in your backpack. And you won’t answer your phone!”

Sonya remembered the hell she’d gone through during a lunch stop in Colfax. After reading a few of Levi’s threatening texts and hearing one of his nasty voicemails, she’d made herself unreachable via phone. It had been a hassle, blocking some of the gang-related numbers in her list of contacts while dealing with interruptions from other numbers before she could get to them. She’d almost been incited enough to let the costly smartphone follow her burrito wrapper and empty soda cup in the waste bin.

“And…I see you’re not wearing your vest with our gang’s emblem,” Brock added. He would have mentioned one more thing had he known about it––she’d stolen Levi’s license plate and put it in her saddlebag as a keepsake while giving the cops an excuse to pull over the revolting ringleader sometime in the near future.

As he chewed on a wad of smokeless tobacco, his eyes examined her shapely figure. Over a tie-dye T-shirt with six shades of blue, she wore a multi-pocketed jacket of washed black leather. Her faded blue jeans were mildly tattered and tucked down black biker boots adorned with studded straps. Fingerless gloves of goatskin leather protected her palms from blistering as a camouflage bag with four tones of gray was slung across her back.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he asked scornfully.

“Yeah. You might get run over if you don’t move,” she sneered. The next westbound motorist honked his horn and swerved to avoid Brock; his wheels were a foot left of the road’s centerlines.

“You always did have a smart mouth and too much spirit. I guess that’s why Levi liked you so much. So, tell me something, girl. Why’d you leave town…and where you headed?”

“Sydney.”

Her true destination in the Silver State was the last thing she wanted anyone in the gang to know; if they found out, it would put Becky in jeopardy.

“Sydney…what? Is that some town in Utah? Idaho?”

“Australia, you geographically challenged halfwit! I’m going to Sydney, Australia.”

“Very funny! I’ll tell you where you’re going.”

“Where?” He can’t know where…can he? she thought nervously, certain she’d never left any clues behind.

“Back to Sacramento.”

He doesn’t know. Thank God. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Yes! You! Are!” He spat dark brown gunk on the blacktop, stressing his demand. “Don’t tell me ‘no,’ stupid girl! Turn that bike around. I’ll follow you. Levi wants you back. He may even forgive you for what you did.”

“What I did? What about what he did to my eye?”

“I’m sure you said something to deserve it.”

“No, I didn’t!” She wasn’t about to explain how Levi had come home drunk after a very bad day and started the altercation by pestering her for sex, even though he’d forgotten to buy more rubbers. Then he’d ended the fight by assaulting her for not making an exception. After punching out her will to resist and having his way with her, he’d added insult to injury by boastfully admitting she wasn’t his first victim and probably wouldn’t be his last. With his massive limbs, mixed martial arts training, and years of street-fighting experience––three things she didn’t have––the “gentle” giant had shown her what a monster he truly was.

Weeks ago, the odious gang had unknowingly revealed to Sonya that robbery was no longer the most severe of their felons. She’d been planning to leave the Screamon Demons after observing the murdering and torturing. Her last night with Levi had expedited that plan. There was no doubt in her mind if she stayed with these sordid lawbreakers much longer, she’d end up rotting in a ditch somewhere.

“Where’s the cash, Sonya?” Brock scowled. “I need to know before we go back.”

“What cash?” she shot back.

“Don’t play games with me. The dough is in that backpack, isn’t it?”

“See for yourself!”

While pushing her wraparound shades back up her aquiline nose to hide the direction of her eyes, she could feel her heart thumping; it knew exactly what she was steeling herself to do. She set her kickstand and dismounted her ride, reminding Brock of her seventy-one-inch stature. The straps of her backpack were shrugged off her leather-clad shoulders as her veiled eyes noted the lower tip of his gun’s holster exposed by the hem of his vest.

“Here, Brock, have a look.” Her right hand dangled the bag over his bike’s handlebars.

Brock reached for it, not seeing her left hand filch his Smith & Wesson.

With an adrenaline-fueled shove, she put the crook and his ride on their left side––a move she’d never thought herself bold enough to do.

Knowing the attack would fan the flames of his temper so hot that he might rashly pull another gun and start shooting, Sonya acted quickly. Her right hand shot under a flap of her open jacket and came out gripping a shimmering Beretta; she didn’t know if Brock’s revolver was loaded. With a leg pinned under his motorcycle, he stared down the barrels of her gun and his. Then she moved her pistol to his front tire, thumbed down the safety, and turned her face away while squeezing the trigger.

BOOM!

With a shrill hiss, the wheel deflated, tossing her black mane with foul air. An empty shell plinked across the asphalt as acrid smoke escaped the muzzle, now trained between Brock’s eyes again. His brawny arms raised in surrender as onlookers in the SUVs froze. His soot-black vest hung open, and she briefly scanned the front and other side of his waist. No weapons.

Sonya casually tossed Brock’s revolver behind her. Dismayed, he watched the gun––a gift from his mistress––vanish over a cliff. Straps securing a Mossberg shotgun to the Fat Bob’s rear fender captured Sonya’s attention. Velcro ripped as she undid the straps and chucked the twelve-gauge firearm off the same ledge.

“Lose the rest of your weapons!” she ordered her superior, glaring down at him while re-donning the knapsack––a bag filled with cash adding up to seventy thousand dollars.

“What weapons?” he bit back.

“Last chance!” She held the firearm closer to his face.

“I don’t have any, crazy broad!”

I think he’s telling the truth, she thought as he continued ranting. I really don’t feel like frisking this pathetic pig; he’d like it too much.

“I hope you know what you just volunteered for: weeks of more pain than you can imagine…times ten!” he carried on. “Levi will––”

“Levi will do nothing to me again! Now, do yourself a favor, lowlife! Go tell that sad pile of excrement that you couldn’t find me. I’m done with him, I’m done with Sactown, and I’m done with the Screamon Demons. He can lead all you unholy scum to the bottom of the Pacific for all I care!”

The Beretta was returned to the holster harness under her jacket as she mounted her ride.

✞

Brock wriggled out from under his fallen Harley. The woman’s long hair flew as her Low Rider roared away, passing the semi and the now-green light. The trucker had been too mesmerized by the scene to notice the light change.

“Stupid whore!” Brock snarled, glancing at the punctured front tire of his beloved Fat Bob. Now, I need a different ride. Oh, I forgot, I do have one more weapon. He got to his feet, pulled a snub-nose revolver concealed at his right ankle, and sprinted for the Kenworth tractor. Seeing the criminal hold the small firearm high, the scared driver raised both hands out his window. “Get out!”

The trucker didn’t hesitate to open his door and vacate the driver’s seat. Once he was standing on pavement, the revolver’s short barrel was pressed under his chin and the trigger squeezed, producing a resonating POW! Taking no time to watch the driver crumple, Brock climbed in, recalling experience he’d had in such vehicles. While growing up with his truck-driving mother, she’d trained him to operate semis to put in more hours while sleeping.

He disengaged the air brakes, put the Kenworth in gear, and stepped on the gas, spewing a noxious cloud from the exhaust stack. The rearview mirror showed him the adults coming out of their now-distant

SUVs. They raced over to see if the dead trucker could be saved. Brock decided once he’d made his leader’s double-crossing lover just as lifeless as the tractor’s previous driver, he’d be done killing for today.

“I told you, boss!” he grumbled to himself, imagining Levi sitting next to him. “I told you last year that spirited whore looked like too much trouble! Why wouldn’t you listen to me? What were you thinking, letting her become one of us?”

Brock remembered he’d not yet texted the leader of the pack, letting him know he’d found Sonya. It can wait, he decided.