Fast (52 page)

            In theory, anyway. She could already predict a few problems.

            She didn’t have long to think. The wrecking ball would pass her in the next five seconds.

            Can I do this? Only one way to find out.

            Vanessa ploughed into the furniture debris field. The lushly-furnished communal lounge was now a battlefield of gutted couches, decapitated planter pots, and piles of wooden furniture with a thousand compound fractures. She swerved around two couches blocking her path, but then a large overturned marble planter box loomed directly in front. She swerved right, hitting one couch and clipping the marble planter box. A soil plume erupted over the tray-back’s hood.

            Forest’s voice came over the CB radio. ‘Vanessa – lookout! You’re driving right into our path!’

            She didn’t dare move her hands from the steering wheel to answer. She veered left, then right, crunching twisted shrubbery, smashing broken chair legs, dodging chunks of fountain the size of shopping carts. She snaked through obstacles like a rally-car driver on the wildest racetrack on earth.

            But she couldn’t avoid everything. A hump of cane chairs and tables loomed suddenly in front.

            Go through them.

            The cane furniture busted apart over the tray-back’s hood. As her view cleared, she thought she must have been in a 3-D movie.

            The ball careening into her path couldn’t be real!

            But it was. It hit the ground, gouging furrows in the floor, shaking the tray-back like an earthquake. She checked her speed against the incoming chunk of reinforced concrete.
Too fast, and I’ll get creamed by the ball. Too slow, and Bora will have me.

            As the huge ball bounced at a forty-five degree angle across her path, Vanessa veered the truck to the right and followed.

            Suddenly she was doing it. She was following the bouncing, sliding path of the wrecking ball as it made its second destructive lap across the pedestrian loop.

            Perfect.

            And then, with an impact that made the tray-back shudder, a piece of the cement the size of a cinder block
smacked
into her windshield. It lodged there. She cried out and jerked back as the piece of concrete stopped halfway-in, halfway-out of her windshield.

           
Damn – I didn’t think of that.
The ball is shedding pieces of cement like a comet’s tail.
I can’t stop now. Just hold it together.

            She couldn’t back off; she needed to follow the wrecking ball as closely as possible.

            And she had bigger problems on the horizon.

            On her left, furniture tumbled ahead of the cable in a tumultuous, rolling pile. Choked up with twisted debris, the cable was acting like a giant broom, sweeping everything into an avalanche of tumbling furniture.

            Centrifugal force pushed the crashing, splintering avalanche down the cable.

            Towards the tray-back.

            As the avalanche reached the wrecking ball, like dynamite in a dollhouse, pieces of furniture started raining down around the tray-back. A large magazine stand tumbled into view. Vanessa held her driving line as the stand bounced noisily off the cab’s roof. As the stand flipped away, something heavy smacked down into the tray. She couldn’t check what it was, because a large three-seater couch was falling across her path.

            So much for quiet in the eye of the storm. Now the obstacles are raining from the sky.

            The air filled with a haze of cushion stuffing and cement fragments. The debris stuttered like hail across her hood.

            This was a very bad idea. Oh, no!

            A rubbish pallet pancake-flipped into the air, spinning towards her windshield. She snaked the tray-back left, out from under the spinning pallet, tracking the missile in her peripheral vision. The pallet smashed down outside her right window, spewing rubbish and sending metal shards tearing down the side of the truck.

            Almost there. Ride it out. Just a bit further.

            And then the ball swung off to her left. She cleared the debris field and rocketed out the other side in one piece.

            She caught a flash of movement in the mirror. The mirror had been knocked out of alignment and now showed a very unpleasant sight.

            The terrorist! He’s still back there. He’s got the pick again!

            Vanessa had completely forgotten about the terrorist in the back who had been fighting Alex. If the man was lying low or knocked unconscious during the wild ride, she didn’t know, but he was certainly back there now.

            Thwaak!

            The pick head suddenly punched back through the roof, grazing her scalp and tearing into the top of her ear. The pain was instant and searing.

            ‘Arrrghhh!’ Vanessa jerked her hand over her ear. She hunkered down lower into the seat. She could only hunker down so far, and there was nothing stopping the man from swinging the pick in through the window. Sooner or later, that pick was going to penetrate her skull.

            The pick head twisted into the cab roof.
He’s cutting his way in here.
The terrorist was opening a larger hole with the pick.

            The pick disappeared, and Vanessa imagined the weapon arcing up, pausing to aim, then plunging down….

            Thwaak – wrench.

            On cue, the pick struck home again, this time in the middle of the cab, further from her head, but closer to the templates.

            She was so focused on avoiding the terrorist’s attack that she didn’t see the creature.

            She didn’t veer. She didn’t turn. She didn’t dodge.

            She just ploughed straight into it.

            The first she knew, the truck’s suspension cantered forward under the impact. Then the creature hauled itself up her hood.

            She looked through the windshield at the hellish apparition climbing up the hood.

            Well, that’s me buggered.

#

Coleman hung desperately from the pinch bar.

            The pinch bar had saved his life.

            As the pick swung at his head, he had no choice but to drop away from the tray. Unhooking the pinch bar, he let himself fall backwards, still grasping the webbing, but now only holding on one-handed.

            Even then, the pick just missed. The maneuver left Coleman dragging beside the tray-back by one hand.

            Then Bora arrived. The A-frame was still operational, even after King’s attack. Bora slammed the A-frame into the tray-back. The instant before the trucks collided above him, just before the sheering A-frame platform would have severed his wrist, Coleman dropped from the orange webbing. Falling between the vehicles, he swung the pinch bar up under the incoming A-frame.

            A midair gamble, roulette with a pinch bar, but he had absolutely no choice.

            With a satisfying
clack
of steel on steel, the pinch bar snagged a reinforcing rod on the A-frame’s undercarriage. The trucks crunched together above him, swinging Coleman’s legs alarmingly close to the tray-back’s rear wheels.

            As the tray-back careened away, Coleman hung under the A-frame from the pinch bar.

            He let himself get dragged for a second.

            What now, wonder boy? You’re not helping anyone down here. Get moving.

            He hooked his right boot up and over the side of the platform. He followed with his right hand, searching for purchase with his fingertips. After a few seconds of blind groping, he finally found some leverage. His hand trembled as he awkwardly lifted his body weight with one arm. He hauled himself onto the platform. Exhausted from the awkward climb, he dropped to his belly on the platform. His arms were spent, but he needed to keep moving.

            Without warning, the A-frame shuddered like it had collided with a big animal. No, a heard of big animals. Several impacts followed. Without even seeing the threat, Coleman knew what was happening.

            It was only a matter of time. The vibration of all these vehicles must be driving the creatures crazy.
On the positive side, if the creatures were all heading here, then they weren’t trying to break into the Evac Center to reach David.

            Thorny tentacles screeched down both sides of the platform as Bora ploughed through a pack of creatures.

            Coleman rolled further onto the platform, away from the thorn-studded tentacles that came scraping along the edge.

            As he found his feet, three creatures pulled themselves up onto the A-frame. The platform measured at least fifteen meters long. The steel A-frame structure itself stood four meters tall and covered three-quarters of the platform. Leaves and tree branches stuck through the top where Bora had cut through the rec-reserve.

            Reaching out, Coleman steadied himself on the frame with one hand. He didn’t move his feet. The vibrations coming through the truck might dull his vibration signature from the creatures, but he couldn’t risk it. Jumping off the moving platform promised a bone-breaking landing. He searched the pedestrian loop for Third Unit. Ahead, King and Forest were still causing mayhem, dragging the wrecking ball behind the scorpion truck.

            King was driving in large circles. The ball decimated the entire area. Terrorists scattered everywhere. Some were on foot, but several harried the scorpion truck on quad bikes. Coleman spotted Vanessa in the tray-back risking a crazy maneuver. She was trailing the path of the wrecking ball through the lounge wreckage. It offered the only possible route across the bedlam of terrorists and creatures and debris.

            A creature suddenly blocked Coleman’s view. It rose between him and the A-frame’s front steering cab. Beyond the creature, Bora watched over his shoulder.

            Coleman checked the other end of the platform.
Two more creatures in that direction.
Two of the hostiles occupied Coleman’s side of the frame. The third creature was on the opposite side of the framework. Their locations on the platform made a rough triangle around him.

            The creatures tore into the platform, breaking off anything transmitting vibrations. Coleman watched them for a moment, gauging his personal safety. It felt like standing within a triangle of landmines. One step in any direction could set them off. The steel frame must have been humming like a harp to the creatures. That seemed to be the focus of their attack.

            Coleman didn’t move. The truck was the creatures’ target. So long as he didn’t cause any additional vibrations, he would be temporarily safe from the creatures.

            Temporarily?

            Even as he thought it, he realized how absurd the situation was.

            Not move? Impossible.
By chance alone, the creatures’ erratic attacks would stumble into him. How long could he remain motionless when pieces of his flesh were
accidentally
getting torn away?