04:08
Episode 4: Milk Run Mechanix
Part 8
There was a rumbling and the entire truck shook.
“Holy fuck!” shouted Laurel. “Was that an earthquake?”
“It can’t be,” said Crabbe. “This is the most stable spot in North America.”
“When was the last quake?” asked Violet.
Crabbe looked at Buster, then back at Violet.
“‘Bout six hundred million years ago.”
“Watch out!” Shouted Laurel.
Max turned the wheel and the Expedition skidded sideways across the pavement. In front of them boulders the size of kitchen appliances rolled down the steep hill and across the street.
“Turn!” shouted Violet. “Turn down here!”
Max obeyed and swung the truck down a steep hill. Buster looked out the rear window.
“Floor it, Max. We got company.”
Behind them two black Suburbans skidded and slid down the street with armed cross-heads hanging out of the windows. Gunfire erupted from the trucks.
“Faster, man!” said Crabbe.
“Violet! That’s your queue,” said Laurel.
Violet reached behind her and withdrew an RPG.
“Ah shit,” she yelled.
“You can’t fire that in here,” Crabbe told her.
Violet glared at him.
“No fuck.” She turned to Laurel. “Your bracelet must be screwing up hammer-space.”
“Your powers just suck,” Laurel shouted back.
Violet threw the RPG at the Broncos and missed. There was more gunfire and the back window of the Expedition shattered.
“God damn it, drive faster!” Buster and Crabbe shouted together. The pair squatted on the floor determinedly not clinging to each other. Laurel ducked down behind the seat.
The Expedition bombed down the steep hill as fast as Max could drive it while swerving across both lanes, trying to avoid becoming too easy of a target for the cross-heads. There was a bang like a cannon going off and smoke fountained from the street to the left. The bang was followed by a clang and the lead Suburban suddenly spun around and then turned over and rolled down the street.
“What the hell was that?”
The was another bang and this time the clang came just to the right.
“No way!” said Laurel in awe. “The damned sewers are blowing up.”
Another explosion happened a little in front and Max swerved to miss the man hole cover as it returned to earth.
“That thing’s getting serious,” Violet said. “Are you sure we can get it off?”
“Yeah,” said Crabbe. “If we can get back.”
The ground shook again but this time it would not stop.
“Now what?” screamed Laurel.
She looked back in time to see the remaining Suburban spin off the road like a matchbox car only to be replaced by a boulder nearly the same size and bouncing faster.
“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled.
The boulder gained on the Expedition while sewers exploded and man hole covers rained down. Max swerved back and forth across the road keeping just ahead of the boulder. Then the SUV hit a patch of ice. The boulder clipped the back end sending the big truck spinning out of all control down the hilly street where it caromed off vehicles. First it struck a moving van and then bounced into a light pole and from there into, or rather over, a Volkswagen Beetle. From every mouth in the car a wail of terror sounded like the screams from the roller-coaster or Hell. Max looked green when Violet caught a glimpse of the reall problem.
“We’re running out of road!” she shouted. “Turn!”
Max could no more turn the wheel than he could get out of the truck. Violet reached over to latch on to the steering, turning the wheel. When the tires finally caught the SUV spun once more and roared left out of the way of the crashing boulder. A house at the bottom of the hill caught the big rock full on the face, swallowing it whole.
The earth continued the shake. Laurel stared down at the centipede for a second and tried again to pry it from her arm. Max drove as if her were possessed, dodging quake-stalled traffic and bewildered pedestrians.
“She’s got like fifteen minutes, Max,” Violet shouted. “Slow down.”
“If we don’t get that thing off her arm,” Max said without looking at her, “None of us are gonna make it.”
The SUV dodged traffic, but as Max entered downtown the shower of man hole covers increased, and so did the traffic. A steel disk slammed down on the roof of the vehicle, followed immediately after by another. Both covers punched dents down to head height.
“Monkey fuckin’ Mohamed!” shouted Crabbe.
Another cover slammed down with a loud metallic thunk. There was no additional dent in the roof.
“Ah Max,” said Crabbe. “We gotta go.”
“Laurel won’t last a minute out there,” Max shouted. “Besides, there can’t be many more man holes.”
“Max. Look out your window,” announced Buster. “We gotta go now.”
Everyone turned to look out the driver-side windows. There sat a flat-bed truck loaded up with steel drain pipes large enough to crawl through. One of the chains securing the pipes had suffered a direct hit from a cover and now slid from the pile as the pipes began to shift. There was one final bang announcing the lift-off of a last man hole cover. The occupants of the SUV got out and ran for the sidewalk. The disk sailed through the air and, with uncanny accuracy, impacted the final chain holding down the pipes. The entire load of steel rolled off the truck crushing the SUV and an unfortunate Toyota a little too close to the rear end. Laurel started towards the unfortunate driver. Violet grabbed her shoulder, spinning Laurel around.
“I have to help that guy,” said Laurel
“Sweetie, you can’t help anyone right now,” Violet told her. “Just get away from these people.”
Laurel glared at Violet and the slumped. “Yeah. You’re right.”
She turned to Buster. “Which way?”
“We’ll never get there on foot,” Buster complained. “We need a car.”
“Allow me,” said Violet.
She reached into hammer space and pulled out a sword, glared at Laurel and repeated the process. After four tries she held a twenty-two pistol in her hand. Max, Laurel and the boys followed her as she walked down the street looking for a free car. When she found a minivan parked by the curb she rapped o the driver’s window with the gun.
“We need your van,” she told him and waved the gun. “Get. Out.”
The man cowered for a moment and then opened the door. Violet reached in and dragged him out, dumping the terrified man on the ground.
“Get in,” she shouted to the group and they all obeyed. As soon as everyone was in Violet stepped on the gas and sped away.
“Where to?” she demanded.
“Down here,” Max shouted.
Violet followed Max’s directions down to Zenith avenue.
“That’s weird,” Laurel said. “No attacks.”
“Maybe it gave up,” Violet said. They were about a quarter mile from the warehouse. The street was empty and the ground had stopped shaking.
Buster and Crabbe buckled their seat belts. Max witness this and hurriedly buckled his own.
“What?” asked Laurel. “What happens now?”
“Just drive really fast,” Crabbe said. “Really, really fast.”
Overhead there was a boom and then a whistling sound as if something very large was falling from the sky towards them.
“The first time this thing shows up in clay tablets,” said Crab, “was the king of Tum. Killed by meteors – we think.”
“Where’s Tum?” asked Max.
“Buried under a couple hundred feet of meteors,” answered Buster.
“We think,” added Crabbe.
Glowing rocks rained down on the wide, empty field on either side of the road or landed in the river beyond with a wisp of steam. The windshield of the minivan chipped and spiderweb.
“Faster!” Laurel shouted.
Violet floored the gas pedal. The rocks fell. The top of the minivan buckled and the windshield imploded. Up ahead a meteor as large as a kitchen chair impacted the field. More rocks just like it fell around them. Violet swerved around larger rocks until, sixty feet from the warehouse, a meteor buckled the top of the minivan and another hit the hood, crushing the engine.
“We are never gonna make it, are we?” asked Violet.
No one answered. More meteors dented the top of the unmoving van while steam and smoke rose from the ruined engine. Outside, all around the van and the warehouse, the field was awash in meteors. A little ways off smoking balls of fire rocketed down from the afternoon sky. Sirens wailed and car horns honked. Somewhere there was an explosion.
“We don’t have a choice,” Laurel shouted. “This will just get worse and worse until I’m dead and that will take forever. I gotta stop this or everyone dies.”
“Don’t be a….”
Laurel opened the van door on her side, finishing by ripping the door from its hinges.
“Shut up, Violet.” she yelled. “Just shut up. If I don’t stop this….” She turned to the two men next to her. “Crabbe, Buster. You two are with me.”
Laurel held the door above her like a normal person would hold a newspaper up to ward off rain. The two men got out, ducked under the door and the three of them ran off to the warehouse with Laurel dropping to her knees to absorb the impacts of the especially large meteors.
“Can we make it?” asked Max.
Violet watched Laurel run.
“She’s just doing it to save herself, right?” she asked Max.
Max looked at the heroic robot and then at Violet. In Violet Max suddenly recognized something desperate.
“Yes, ” he lied. “Absolutely.”
Violet nodded. She climbed out of the van, not seeming to care if she were struck.
“I can’t save you,” she told Max, “But if you stay in here you might survive.”
Max watched Violet cross the field at a dead run. Meteors struck her and she collapsed. To Max’s astonishment she picked herself up, bleeding and injured, and continued on. She arrived at the arched door of the warehouse just after Laurel, Buster and Crabbe entered.
