Tourists of the Apocalypse (36 page)

“Oh, Oh, Oh man that was close.”

“Close?” I complain. “I’d say it was a direct hit.”

Dickey shrugs and cranks over the engine, which doesn’t seem to want to start. In front of me large .50 caliber rounds are imprisoned in the thick windshield. The prism effect makes them look bent, and they could actually be. I’m livid that Lance will now and forever be out of my grasp, but I should probably be more worried about how we’re going to get back home. No doubt Fitz and Violet will need our help.
We need to get back so I can bury our friends.
The visual my mind displays when this thought pops into my head turns my stomach. I picture Izzy wrapped in a sheet being lowered into the ground. I climb desperately, as if I were struck by claustrophobia, out of the Vette. Rolling down the side I vomit into the wet grass.

“We have to go back,” I choke out between wrenching.

Eventually my stomach stops fighting me and I lean back on the side of the car exhausted. Running a hand behind my head I feel the holes from either bullets or buckshot. There are holes of every size
.
I have to fight my way back through all this mess just so I can dig graves
.

A motorcycle hums down the road in the same direction we came from. It slows and turns in several slow circles watching us. I wave, but it spins the tires and rockets back the way it came.

“Well that’s great,” I shout so Dickey can hear me. “The road pirates know where we are. I’m sure they will be here before too long.”

Dickey doesn’t reply. The car turns over slower and slower as the battery dies.
I might not get the chance to do any digging after all.

…

I am startled by the engine starting and hit the back of my head on the side panel. Technically this is very good news.
We would have a hard time getting away from the Pirates on foot
. No matter how long the Vette runs it’s a good thing. It sputters at first, and then evens out. I doubt it was overheated, just wet from the radiator exploding. Struggling to my feet, I wipe my lips on my shirt to dry them off. Dickey rocks his head from side to side to encourage me to get in the car. I climb in and Dickey turns slowly, moving up onto the road, now on the opposite side as we came on.

The hood is slipping left and will surely fall off when we get up to speed. The front fender on my side is missing completely, while Dickey’s side remains. Both rear tires are exposed but missing fiberglass. The back deck lid shows only minor damage. The front tire on my side is now solid, but the rest seem fine.
It could be worse
. When the car starts rolling, I notice we are going the wrong way. Maybe Dickey hit his head or something.

“Wrong way,” I point out, waving a hand behind us. “Home is south.”

“Wuh, wuh, what do you mean,” he sputters pushing the gas pedal down and shifting as the tires spin.

“We came from back there,” I mumble confused, pointing over my shoulder.

“Ruh, ruh, right, but Lance went this way,” he contends, shifting hard as we break 60 MPH.

“How far do you think this car is going to go without a radiator?”

“Nuh, nuh, not sure, but it only has to get to Lance’s bumper,” he argues, pointing to the headlight switch that’s labeled
BOOM
on a piece of tape.

“Ughhhhh, and if we get there, the Goliath will cut us to ribbons.”

“An, an, and the windshield will hold up just long enough to get him,” he grins, making his last shift reaching 117 MPH in the blue read out. “I can let you out, but I would lose a lot of time. We are getting close to the Hive exit.”

“You’re crazy,” I shout into the stiff wind.

“An, an, and your point is?”

I try and decide on a reply, but nothing comes. Do I want to fight my way through an army of road pirates or take a shot at Lance? I only have to think of this a moment as my seething hate for the King answers the query for me.

“Go for Lance.”

“Puh, puh, perfect,” he nods, tapping his index finger on the dash. “Giddy up.”

We stay on the wrong side of the road, weaving around only a few dead cars. We surmise that our best chance will be to catch them over here where it will be hard for the Goliath to hit us. Then pick a spot to cross over, hit them and slam on the brakes, thus putting us under fire for the least amount of time. We catch sight of them after ten minutes. The steam that pours from the radiator has dwindled down to nothing now, although the hood flew off almost immediately.
Thank god for graphite oil, whatever that is.

There are two men in the back now. Obviously they stopped to position them in back after our Goliath killed the first three. None of them seems to be Lance, but one could be T-Buck. At this distance it’s hard to be sure. They begin firing with rifles once we get even with them. Nothing gets close and Dickey drives past the parallel point.

“You’re going too far,” I advise.

“Wuh, wuh, we are gonna lose a bunch of speed in the median,” he stutters, pounding his palm on the wheel. “This way we come at them sideways.”

“And it’s hard for the Goliath to hit us over the side of the big ass truck.”

“Yuh, yuh, yup,” he coughs, pointing over at them. “Pick a spot.”

We are a dozen car lengths past the nose of the truck. I stand up and use the binoculars to pick out a crossing point. There are cars here and there, but without the grass being mowed in a long time I can’t be sure what’s hidden beneath. A shot hits the passenger window with a thud and I drop back into my seat.

“Cuh, cuh, close one,” he smirks. “Say when?”

“There, a red car a half mile up. After that you can go, but don’t wait cause the next overpass comes up quick after that.”

He nods and winds up the motor, downshifting. I take a last look at the truck plowing along and imagine Lance screaming and yelling at his guys. The memory of he and Izzy fighting in the turnaround in front of their house, his hand wrapped around her neck flashes across my mind. The next image is Jarrod hitting my mother. I shake my head to clear this thought, then Dickey turns right and we skid into the grass. Green debris and weeds are sucked past me as we mow across the median.

He’s right about the loss of speed, but sadly this means we come out well behind the truck. The Goliath cuts loose as he downshifts and puts the pedal to the floor. The window is pelted by fire. Dickey is driving by looking at the small screen on the dash as the windshield is a wash of impacted rounds and milky white burnt Lexan.

I reach down to flip the headlights up, but he puts his hand over the switch. The driver side front tire blows and is replaced by the solid filling. This slows us and I doubt by the hail of gunfire hitting us that we will reach the back bumper of the truck.
Nice try boys, but evil triumphs yet again
. A bullet rips through the deformed windshield and hits Dickey in the left shoulder. Before I can scream for him to stop the car, Lance does a stupid thing. He doesn’t know it’s stupid, but trust me when I say it is.

Whoever is driving the truck decides to slam on the brakes and cause us to rear end them. Who among us hasn’t been honked at on the road and tapped the brakes to scare the car behind them? No doubt they assume the Goliath can pour bullets in the open top and paint the road with our blood. This outcome does seem likely to me as well, but when he sees this coming, Dickey pops up the headlights.

“Got, got gotcha,” crackles into my ears from the headset.

We hit the truck at whatever the difference in speed between the two vehicles is. I’d guess maybe 30 MPH tops. The nose of the Corvette goes under the bumper of the truck putting us practically under the Goliath as it hangs off the back. It cannot however point straight down and when it fires, the rear deck lid erupts, showering the road with fiberglass. Dickey’s right arm doesn’t seem to be working, but he shifts into what looks like reverse and nods at me.

“Not reverse,” I shout, but he isn’t listening.

When he guns the motor and drops the clutch, we tear what’s left of the nose off, leaving it dragging under the truck. We drop back so quickly that the Goliath doesn’t have time to fire. The car spins out of control, but falls back far enough that the wire must have snapped. We come to a rest on the inside shoulder, my side slightly tilted backend out into the road. The front clip of the Vette, which in this case includes what’s left of the radiator and supports, pops out from under the truck then the rear is lifted off the ground in the explosion.

The truck comes down on its side, skidding in a wall of sparks until it contacts the cement post holding up the overpass and slams to an abrupt stop. A plume of cement dust follows the impact. For the first time in hours there is silence. I pull the headphones off and toss them out on the road. The overheated engine creaks and whistles a bit, but otherwise it’s quiet. I get hit with Dickeys head set that he has pulled off with his good hand and tried to toss out.

“You okay?”

“Wuh, wuh, we got-em so heck yeah,” he stammers, trembling a bit from the shock of being hit with a rather large bullet.

I reach over and put my hand behind his shoulder and feel the spot where it went through the seat. The hole is huge, but the round went clean through. Fitz won’t have to dig it out of his body, but I have to figure out a way to get him home first. I bring my hand back covered in blood and decide I need to get pressure on it now.

“Yuh, yuh, you gotta be kidding me man,” he cries out, staring past me at Lance and two other guys walking down the highway. “Good God Almighty will this freaking guy die already.”

A cold chill runs down my arms as I realize the jig is up.
How many lives does Lance have?
I would say we have beaten unbelievable odds to get here and yet, Lance is still going to kill me. Undeterred by what seems inevitable, I don’t want Dickey to lose hope. Lance might take him with him after a driving display like that. I tear off the seat cover from my seat and shove it against the back of his shoulder as hard as I can. I tell him to lean back and press into it. By the time I look up, Lance is standing twenty yards away with his large handgun dangling from one hand. To his right is T-Buck, looking unfazed.
He’s just another Storm Trooper then.

“We should talk,” Lance shouts.

I grab the shotgun and start to climb out, but Dickey puts a hand on my pant leg. He shakes his head and puts a hand out for the gun. T-Buck and the other guy are armed with rifles so there is little chance I will get out and plant my feet before they cut me down. I lay the shotgun on the seat and come out with my hands up.

“Where did you get this car?”

“It’s Dickey’s.”

“Put your hands down,” he sighs, waving at the ground. “You two look worn out. Dylan, you are having one epic bad day.”

Lance’s coat is torn, his cheek cut and bleeding, but he’s clearly fine. I’ll assume he was wearing a seatbelt. He’s trying to rile me up, but I don’t have any endorphins left. I shrug and roll my eyes without speaking.
Screw you Lance, I’m too tired for this junk
.

“Do you know how hard it was to get my hands on that chopper?” he complains then spits on the pavement. “For that alone I should tie you to the back of the truck and drag you for miles.”

“You don’t have a truck to drag me behind,” I point out, picking dried blood out of the corner of my eye.

“I’ll find one just for you,” he threatens, revealing his true anger.

“Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

“Dylan you just don’t get it,” he fires back angrily. “You have really missed the point on this entire day. This isn’t about you and me, it’s about her. She cheated on me. That was on her and she paid for that. You, on the other hand, are only guilty of poor judgment. I left you alive which I thought was a just punishment for your misdeed, but you just couldn’t stay put and leave well enough alone.”

“Sorry, but when you gunned down my mother, I mistakenly assumed it was about me.”

“Right, sorry, that’s on me,” he agrees and pauses, a hand on his chin. “Probably a low blow on my part. Please accept my apology.”

Dickey tosses the shotgun out onto the road where it clatters to a stop.

“Aye, aye, I can’t listen to this crap anymore,” he screams. “Kuh, kuh, kill the bastard Dylan.”

I look at the gun, but Lance shakes his head slowly. Clearly a confused and bleeding out Dickey has heard enough of Lance’s pompous ranting.
It’s actually kinda funny given the situation
. T-Buck walks forward and kicks the shotgun to the side of the road. Lance strides past me to the passenger door of the Vette and looks down on Dickey.

“You’re a fantastic driver Dickey,” he praises him, nodding. “I want to thank you for the years of service you provided.”

“Puh, puh, piss off,” he chokes out. “Do, do, douchebag.”

“Right, well,” he sighs, leaning in and pressing the gun into Dickey’s denim covered chest. You’re fired.”

The gun goes off sucking the air from my lungs. I’m unsure why this event hits me as hard as it does. Maybe it’s the cumulative amount of death or possibly a bond formed in the heat of battle, but when Lance pulls the trigger I drop to my knees. I glance over at T-Buck and see no emotion in his face.
Dickey was his friend wasn’t he?

Lance leans up on his tiptoes to look inside, then fires again just for spite. The second shot is the last straw and I drop onto all fours.

I watch Lance’s boots as he approaches. I am waiting for him to put a bullet in my head, but he just walks past. When I don’t turn around he mutters something I can’t make out. The wind of chopper blades suddenly blows my shirt around. The thump, thump, thump of them beating the air echoes all around me. Still crawling, I turn and watch a new helicopter float out of the sky and land on the road between us and the flipped over truck. T-Buck and one other surviving Stormtrooper file into the chopper. Lance sees me and points back down the road. He’s looking behind me, but I can’t hear him.

“You can’t hide from me,” I whisper, unsure why this feeling is so strong. “In this life or the next.”