Of Superior Design

by Matt Rogers

  Chapter 32

  “Uncle Johnny?”

  “Yes, Daemon?”

  “Why do cars have fiberglass bumpers?”

  Johnny was seriously thinking the same thing. He and Daemon were both pondering the question for they’d been witness to an event which, if not earth-shattering to the world was indeed of profound importance to one individual on the planet. It had happened in a gas station.

  They’d arrived by charter plane after wishing the Delmars and Santiagos all their best and landed at a private field where Melissa had asked for and been given loyalty. From there they traveled by sedan down country highways until they stopped for refueling. While they waited for the Zombie to fill their tank they saw what to Johnny was a slight indication he might be wrong on Humanity’s right to exist. The event involved two vehicles and two separate drivers of varying ages and economic stature. One was a teenage boy and the other a middle-aged man. The boy had arrived first in an older version pick-up truck, parked next to a pump and began pouring his money down the gas tank. The middle-aged man arrived second, pulled in behind the boy and began doing the same. The problem which would come next involved the make, model and years of the two respective vehicles because the man’s was a new, shiny, blatant show of prosperity. The boy finished fueling, started the truck and did what all teenage motorists do when they first began driving; he made a mistake. He put the truck in reverse, stepped on the accelerator and immediately braked as he realized his mistake. It didn’t matter, the damage was done. The boy’s truck was an older version so it came with older version sensibilities and its back bumper was made of metal. The man’s shiny toy proclaiming his economic success was not. It had a molded, glossy, gorgeous bumper which was completely demolished when metal of old hit material of new moving the fiberglass-exploding speed of two.

  Johnny knew what would happen next. The man would demand the boy produce his insurance papers for there was no way a child in high school could possibly afford the bumper of arrogance. Sure enough, his vision came true for the man responded in self-righteous glory at the marring of his trophy to himself. He screamed, he hollered, he did everything he could to show he was not at fault and then proceeded to ask everyone who witnessed the event to write down what they’d seen. It didn’t matter the boy admitted his mistake the man wanted words on paper to prove his point. When he got to Johnny he found an unwilling participant.

  “Sir, did you see what that teenager did to my car?”

  “Yep.”

  “Would you please act as my witness when the police arrive?”

  “Nope.”

  The man looked at Johnny as though he’d heard incorrectly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said ‘no’.”

  The man seemed to have a hard time with the meaning of the word so he tried again.

  “Look, I just need you to write down what you saw and then tell it to the cops when they arrive.”

  Johnny looked at him with scorn.

  “I told you ‘no’,”

  “Why?” the man asked and Johnny explained his reasoning.

  “Because you’re the problem, not the boy. You bought that high-powered horse with a paper-mache covering so you should pick up your own tab. The boy made a mistake. A slow-moving, completely innocent mistake which would’ve done absolutely no harm if that substitute for man-hood of yours had a proper bumper. You’re driving on a road with other motorists you self-centered, conceded moron so you should expect a few mishaps along the way. Don’t you remember when you were a teenager? We all had metal bumpers and we all got into fender benders! But we kept on driving and do you know why? Because we didn’t have to cover the expenses of arrogant nitwits who buy vehicles designed to incinerate when hit by flying insects!”

  Johnny later thought his rant was right on target. It had another desired benefit at the gas station also.

  “Sir, do you want to press charges?”

  The man had lost his temper. It happened a lot with Johnny for he really was quite weak-looking but carried a big mouth.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  The man had thrown a punch. He would later regret the decision but at the time he couldn’t help himself. Johnny was terribly annoying when he wished to be.

  “He called me a nitwit!” the man screamed in explanation for his actions.

  “Yes, sir, and I’m beginning to see why” the officer standing in front of the man replied.

  The teenage boy was unsure what to do. He’d hung around because he wasn’t one to run from his mistakes but was really worried about what was going to happen next. He knew the rules. If the man insisted on full payment to replace the bumper the teenager would need to use his insurance. He didn’t make enough money at the hamburger joint to cover the cost of an egg-shell bumper. If the man wouldn’t take partial payments over time, something he was pretty sure the pompous fool would decline then his insurance would be used, his deductible would be raised and his payments would skyrocket. He’d lose his driving privileges because he wouldn’t be able to afford the rates due to a bumper in a gas-station parking lot which failed to do even the most minimal function of its name.

  “Is he still asking for the boy’s insurance?” Johnny asked.

  “Yes, sir, he said the boy backed into him” the officer replied.

  Johnny looked to the man and made a decision.

  “Officer, may I speak to him for a second?” Johnny asked and the officer agreed because he had a pretty good idea what was going to transpire and he thought the outcome showed a lot of promise.

  “All right, buddy, here’s what I’m going to do. If you demand that boy has to pay for your bumper I’m going to press charges on you for assault. You’re going to get thrown in jail until someone bails you out then you’ll need to hire a lawyer to get the charges dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor. Just to let you know, I have a rather large amount of money myself and it would be a pleasure to see you spend a ton of yours defending your actions.”

  The man’s eyes widened with realization of what he’d gotten himself into.

  “Now, if you decide to bite the bullet and pay for your own bumper I believe in the end it’ll probably cost you… oh… one-tenth of what I’m prepared to do to you.”

  The man was visibly shaken.

  “But he ran into me!”

  Johnny was not swayed.

  “And your fist ran into my face. Look, take it or leave it; either buy your own bumper or hire a lawyer.”

  The choice was simple and a teenager was lent a new lease to drive, a man with serious testosterone issues drove off without a portion of his car and Johnny walked away feeling both proud of himself and a little sore where the man’s knuckles had struck flesh.

  “Uncle Johnny?”

  “Yes, Daemon?”

  “Why aren’t bumpers made of rubber?”

  They were heading to their last piece of trouble-brewing. They probably didn’t need to, the countries appeared to have gotten the point and were revving up for some good old mayhem but they’d had a plan from the start and felt they might as well follow through with it in case some strange quirk of fate appeared on the horizon and the peoples of the world decided to get along for a change.

  They were in the sedan, Zombie driver in front alongside an Alpha Wolf named Kevin. Johnny, Daemon, Melissa and the Matriarch of the local gang of Superiors, Heather Mayfield, sat in the back. The Mistresses had previously discarded their titles and were catching up on the current topics of the day.

  “Have you seen the new line of footwear from Sacre’ Bleu-Me-Mind’s?”

  “Yes! And I think they’re adorable!”

  Daemon was doing his questioning thing and Johnny was trying his best ignoring impersonation when they finally arrived at the destination. It was a clear summer day with birds in the blue sky, a gentle breeze whipping the treetops and the sweet smell of flowers wafting through the air.

  Kevin opened the passenger door and removed his mas
sive frame from the vehicle. The others in the back did the same while the Zombie sat still, awaiting orders.

  “Stay here and guard the car. Do not let anyone look inside the trunk.”

  The Zombie nodded and took sentry of the vehicle with fanatical, brain-dead servitude.

  They had a little time to kill so decided to do some sight-seeing while they waited. The place was serene. A park to rival all others in majesty. It had trails, cabins and the other places deemed necessary for tourist attractions; souvenir shops.

  “Ooh! Let’s go in there and look around.”

  “What a wonderful idea!”

  The two Vampires were in their element, everyone else was out. The boys decided interior shopping was not high on their list of things needing doing so they opted out of purchasing for public parkland’s sake and instead went about doing what boys did best.

  “Did you catch the game last night?”

  “Yep, they should have pulled the pitcher in the fifth.”

  Kevin turned out to be as big a baseball fan as Johnny which was good since they had absolutely no knowledge of the other and would’ve needed to do the slightly inconvenient thing of asking and giving information about themselves if not for the subject of sports. Daemon, on the other hand, was not yet into sports so had no problem probing the Wolf of Mayfield.

  “Can you lift a boulder over your head?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you jump over a one-story house?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you…?”

  Johnny was a little tired of hearing the endless questions with one-word answers so he walked a little further away from the two and took in the scenery which caused all the commotion. It really was an amazing feat of engineering he thought as he daydreamed the afternoon away.

  “Uncle Johnny?”

  “Yes, Daemon?”

  “Aunt Melissa says it’s time to go.”

  Johnny glanced at the sky and agreed. The sun was setting and the park emptying.

  “All right.”

  They made their way back to the car and told the Zombie he’d done a very good job at keeping people out of the trunk. The Zombie seemed pleased at the compliment but since Zombies didn’t retain emotion during un-death no one knew for certain if he even understood what a compliment was. It didn’t matter, though, because he wasn’t there for compliments. He was there for his explosive personality.

  The park was nearly empty as the ranger in the guard shack watched a man walk toward him.

  “I’m sorry, sir, the park is closed.”

  The man didn’t respond, just kept walking toward the ranger who thought maybe the gentleman was hard of hearing.

  “Sir, I’m sorry but the park is closed!” he yelled louder but again got no response as the individual approached. He was becoming somewhat nervous because there was something a little off in the way the man moved. He had his guard up when the guy finally stopped in front of him and stood still.

  “Can I help you, sir?” he asked curiously because up close he could see the man had the look of someone sick with pasty white skin and somewhat dead-shot eyes.

  The man didn’t answer him orally but instead lifted his left hand and held out a note. The ranger took, unfolded, read and fled.

  The Zombie of Mayfield blew to pieces five minutes later.

  “Good evening, folks, this is Nick Price with a Channel Five Award Winning News Special Report. We have an explosive event happening as we speak. Lucky for us we had one of our sister-station reporters at the scene so we go live to Wally Thornburg. Wally, are you there?”

  The scene changed and there stood the Canadian reporter with an eager expression on his face.

  “You betcha, Nick!”

  The control room decided to let the northern newsman get a little face time so the picture stayed on him.

  “Wally, can you tell us what is happening right now as we speak?”

  “Um, well, nothing’s happening right now, Nick.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope, but a little while ago someone blew up Teddy Roosevelt.”

  It took a few well-placed explosive charges and one diversion to pull it off. A Zombie with a bomb tied to his chest was considered an ideal misdirection play while the Wolf of Mayfield used physical superiority to scale a mountain made in the image of past presidents.

  “Someone blew up Teddy Roosevelt, Wally?”

  “Yep, sure did, Nick. His face is right now nothing more than a pile of rubble lying at the foot of Mount Rushmore.”

  The symbolism was easy for any who knew presidential history but just in case their memories were foggy or their education faulty a little bit of reinforcement was added to stir the pot.

  “Do the authorities have any suspects, Wally?”

  “Well, they had a really good one till he blew himself up.”

  The control room decided to go for a shift in scenery so Nick Price’s face appeared.

  “Someone blew themself up?”

  One scene was deemed enough so the pot-bellied reporter from maple-leaf country once again took center screen.

  “Uh-huh, blew himself into little pieces right in front of the park rangers who had him surrounded at the time. They think now he was some sort of diversionary tactic designed to keep them occupied while the real perpetrators committed the act.”

  “Do they know who the other perpetrators are, Wally?”

  “Yep, they’ve got a pretty good clue who it is, Nick.”

  The picture shifted back because Nick had a contract which stated the amount of time his visage could remain absent from the viewers.

  “What clue is that, Wally?”

  The contract upheld, they returned to the scene.

  “They left a note.”

  “A note?”

  “Yup! They guy who committed explosive suicide left a note.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Oh… hold on a sec, I wrote a copy of it and I’ve got it right… oh, here it is. All right, it says ‘I’ve got a bomb strapped to my body’ then the second line says ‘You have five minutes to evacuate’ then there’s a third line followed by the signature of the purported assailant.”

  The scene shifted back to the anchorman because someone in the control room saw Nick begin to lose his patience.

  “Are you going to tell us what the third line said, Wally?”

  The screen changed again after showing the anchorman gritting his teeth while asking the question.

  “Yep, you betcha I can, Nick! The third line says ‘Now we’re even’.”

  “Now we’re even?”

  “Yup, now we’re even.”

  “Now we’re even for what?”

  “I don’t know, Nick. I guess we’ll find out when and if they catch the San Juan Hill person.”

  “San Juan Hill?”

  “Uh-huh, that’s the signature on the note. It said ‘Now we’re even’ and then at the bottom the guy signed it ‘San Juan Hill’.”