by Mike Leon
“Keep talking? What do you want me to say?” the Player says.
“Anything,” Sid says. “Sing a song if you want.”
“I’m not singing a song...”
“Sing a song for God’s sake!” Father Nick shouts as he squeezes the oh shit grip above the passenger door.
“Uh, okay, uh… There is a flower Within my heart, Daisy, Daisy!” stretches the voice of Optimus Prime. “Planted one day By a glancing dart, Planted by Daisy Bell!”
“Is this good?” Nick says.
“Fine,” Sid grunts. It sounds hideous, but he needs the noise to gauge the signal strength while he drives. “Just keep it going.” He sees the brown corner of the hulking concrete structure he’s looking for coming up ahead of them. It’s a six story parking garage.
“Whether she loves me Or loves me not, Sometimes it’s hard to tell; Yet I am longing to share the lot - Of beautiful Daisy Bell!”
Sid cuts the wheel and power slides left in front of an oncoming pickup truck and into the entrance of the parking garage, a single lane between the rock hard wall and a glass booth displaying a wide mouthed parking attendant. The right corner of the bumper scrapes a bright red concrete stanchion and rattles the car as it smashes through a yellow and black striped mechanical arm marked CLEARANCE 9’ 10”. The signage plasters itself to the windshield and stays as he tears around the corner.
“Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do!” Optimus continues.
“God please don’t let this be the last thing I ever hear,” Nick screams.
“I’m half crazy, All for the love of you!”
Sid skids onto the first downward ramp he sees, over an arrow pointing toward him. He takes the car down to the next floor, a half level below the surface. The garage is packed with parked cars which fly past him on both sides. He turns to his right and sees the tires of speeding vehicles above through the steel rails that prevent cars from jumping off the split in levels. They’re following him.
“It won’t be a styl—” the phone cuts out. “—can’t afford—”
Sid takes a turn down another ramp as Nick makes a squealing appeal to his deity.
“Sweet upon the seat—”
It’s working. Sid gases it through the next level to the down ramp, this time taking the correct ramp to avoid hitting any cars on their way up. The car clips the corner of the ramp as he drifts into the next level. Driving down the lane toward the next ramp, there is no more singing from the phone at all. The only sound is the noise of the pack of vehicles making their way down the structure toward him.
“You’re gonna go up the other ramps and lose them!” Nick says. “Great idea!”
“Nope,” Sid says. He kicks the brakes and the car smears twenty feet of rubber down on the pavement as it screeches to a stop. He pushes the driver door open and steps out into the garage.
“What are you—? What?” Nick says.
“You should get out.”
“I’m not getting out!”
Sid shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says. “You should hold onto something at least.” He kicks the door closed and steps away, ducking between two of the cars parked along the side of the garage. He sees the pack, led by the white utility van, rocketing down the lane as he peeks through the lightly tinted glass of the Ford Taurus beside him. Nick screams from inside the Uber car as the lead vehicle zooms straight for him.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” Nick screams as the van smashes into the back of the Uber car. The crash comes like an enormous drum beat, and Sid half expects it to be followed by an explosion that brings oblivion, but that doesn’t happen. The Uber car’s back end crumples into a collapsed accordion against the front of the van and the car rolls forward even as the van comes to a stop, its grill smashed in and its driver protruding through a jagged hole in the windshield.
Sid wastes no time. He yanks open the van’s driver door and climbs inside. A passenger, spared the driver’s fate by the foresight to wear a seatbelt, ends up regretting that decision when Sid punches a Glock-grip-shaped hole in his skull and leaves him convulsing in his seat. Sid yanks a Ruger pistol from the thigh holster of the dead driver and steps back out of the van.
He racks the gun as a Honda Accord rams into the rear of the van. The smaller vehicle wedges its way underneath at a high speed and both its occupants catch the van’s bumper in their faces.
“Idiots,” Sid says, shaking his head. The Blazer and a small Toyota sit back, their crews not stupid enough to ram their way into his simple trap. He levels the Ruger and blows the Blazer driver’s brains out as they open fire on him with a heavy machine gun from the covered back of the vehicle. Glass explodes and steel bursts all around him as he dives behind the parked cars again. He fires over cars as he sneaks along the railing in the direction of his remaining enemies.
Emerging from behind a small leather covered Jeep, Sid kills the machine gunner with several bullets to the chest and stomps past the Blazer. He ejects the empty Ruger magazine as a screaming man leaps from the driver door of the little Toyota and charges wildly at him with a foot-long knife—a KA-BAR knife.
“Allahu akbar!” the Islamist screams.
“Yeeeeesssssssss!” Sid bellows. Finally one of these fucks has the balls to fight him for real. “Fight me!”
Sid intercepts the knife easily and traps his enemy’s hand in a figure four arm lock. He cranks the lock and breaks the man’s wrist. The knife clatters to the floor. Sid releases the damaged arm and claps his hands down on the poor bastard’s ears. He opens his jaws wide and roars as he unscrews the head from his Jihadi prey. The head does a full three sixty in his hands and the loud snap of vertebrae signals the end of any resistance, but Sid isn’t finished yet.
“Where is your god now?!!” he screams. Taking hold of the Islamist’s shirt, he leans back and then whips forward to bash the rock hard front of his skull against the man’s nose. With only a cracked spine to hold it up, the Islamist’s head flops backward between his shoulder blades. He drops the mutilated corpse and looks through the Toyota’s open driver’s side door to lock eyes with the passenger of that vehicle, and the only remaining enemy in the garage.
Sweat drips from the brim of a black headband into the passenger’s horrified eyes. He pinches a tiny disposable cell phone between his thumb and index finger, desperately mashing the call button as slobber begins to run from his gaping jaw.
“There’s a lot of concrete between you and any cell towers,” Sid says. He creeps toward the car grinning viciously.
“No! No!” the Islamist cries as Sid reaches into the car. The man tries to kick him away, but Sid grabs a boot and drags him over the center console and the driver’s seat, out onto the garage floor and toward the dead driver and his dropped knife.
Sid picks up the knife from the ground and gives it a good twirl in his right hand as his victim screams in horror. The knife feels good. The knife feels familiar. He slashes open the Islamist’s belly with one good slice and then punches his empty hand into the writhing mass of slimy tubes inside. He pulls out three feet of intestines while pressing his boot heel against the Islamist’s throat. He walks away, unreeling intestines from the man’s open chest cavity as he goes.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Sid grumbles back, hardly able to hear his own words over the screams. He drags his intestinal leash ten yards before the owner of the guts begins to crawl after him, desperately attempting to scoop what he can back into his split belly.
Ahead of them both, Father Nick stumbles from the demolished Uber car. The priest tries to stand, but wobbles and falls, catching the open car door to pull himself back up. He looks back at Sid and immediately doubles over and dry heaves.
“What are you doing?!!” he says, shielding his eyes from the disemboweled chump crawling at Sid’s feet.
“Fear is a weapon stronger than any bullets or bombs,” Sid says. He drops the rope of guts on the ground and uses his blood dripping left hand to paint the crude visage of a human skull on his
face, starting with the teeth on his upper lip.
“Oh God,” Nick gags. “It stinks.”
“And you thought they smelled bad on the outside,” Sid says, slyly raising an eyebrow.
“What?”
“I’m making a joke. Like from The Star Wars.”
“The Star Wars? No. No! It’s not funny! You’re holding a dead man’s guts in your hand!”
“He’s not dead.”
Sid tugs on the string of intestines and the Islamist emits a high-pitched groan from behind him.
“Come on. We’re taking that truck back there.” Sid turns and begins trekking back to the truck.
“The Blazer? Why that?”
Sid snaps up the Islamist from the ground with one hand and drags the shrieking man along behind him, trailing grizzly streamers on the pavement.
“Most of the other cars are wrecked,” Sid says.
He reaches the Blazer and yanks open the driver’s side door. A warm corpse and country music escape from inside the cab. He is more disgusted by the music. His captive wails in pain and horror. Sid then drags him to the rear of the Blazer and opens the back hatch to another bullet riddled body, two AK-47s, an FN MAG heavy machine gun, a thousand 7.62x51mm cartridges and a hand grenade.
“Besides,” he says. “This one has all the goodies.”
INT. WALK-IN FREEZER – ?????
It isn’t too hot anymore. It isn't too cold either. It feels just fine in the freezer. Melissa isn’t moving. She feels so cool underneath him. So still. She’s probably asleep. That’s all Stephen wants too. Sleep. He just wants to sleep. He closes his eyes to drift away and the world fades into serene darkness.
INT. PARKING GARAGE - DAY
The Blazer charges up the ramp to the ground level of the parking garage as Sid pounds down on the gas, pushing the engine hard. The priest stabilizes himself by pressing his hands against the ceiling and dashboard. Across Sid’s lap lies the mutilated Islamist, still attempting to scoop his guts back into his gaping abdominal cavity. A hand radio, clipped to a sun visor above Sid’s head, sounds off at them with harsh chatter in the coarse language of his enemies.
Sid looks to his sides and sees all he needs to see: cars flooding into the parking structure, more cars waiting outside the parking structure. They’re surrounded. He figured they would be. The only thing left to do is keep going up.
“We’re probably high enough to get a signal now,” Sid yells to his right. “Hit redial.”
Nick removes his hand from the ceiling and pulls the big Android from its place tucked between his knees. The second he attempts to dial, Sid cuts a sharp right up the next ramp and the priest loses balance, tipping headfirst into the bloody coil of loose intestines. He squawks and shuffles in a panic back to the other side of the car as soon as gravity returns to normal.
“Do we really need him in the car with us?” Nick says.
“Not much longer,” Sid says.
The Blazer roars up the next ramp and the color of sky fills the view through the windshield.
“Oh God,” Nick says, watching the man tumble along the ground behind them. “Where are we going? We’re trapped!”
“No we’re not,” Sid says, pushing the car onward, toward the tan cement barrier that separates the rooftop from a three storey drop to the street below.
“We’re not? They’re coming up after us! There’s no way off the roof unless you can fly!”
“Then it’s time to fly,” Sid says.
“Uh...What?” Nick says. His eyes widen with fear and uncertainty.
Sid cuts the wheel and pulls up the brake. The Blazer whips around and stops, facing the opposite direction, with the whole open rooftop and all its parked cars spread out before them. Nick starts to speak, but Sid quiets him by smashing down on the gas. The tires screech like harpies. The Blazer lunges forward, barreling down the pavement to the other side of the lot and picking up speed along the way.
“You should grab som—” Sid starts, but then sees that Nick doesn’t need to be told to hold on to anything.
The Blazer smashes into the barrier as the needle nudges the red line. Bits of concrete and rebar batter the windshield, cracking it in more than ten different places. One jagged shard zips past Sid’s head and thumps against the back seats. After that, the floor beneath the truck is a thing of the past. The vehicle slaloms through open air over dozens of cars below.
Nick closes his eyes and screams as they sail over the street, sinking at an ever increasing rate as they travel forward. Sid takes the time to align the wheels properly to avoid flipping when they land. The truck touches down exactly where he wants it, on the wide rooftop of the building across the street from the parking garage. The shocks crunch down all the way and seats sting like a lead pipe against the ass.
The Blazer comes to a stop in the center of the rooftop and Nick continues his scream. He opens his eyes and looks out both sides of the car. Then he finally stops.
“We’re not dead,” Nick says.
“Nope,” Sid says. “But you may want to cover your ears.”
“Wh—”
BOOM! An epic explosion interrupts him, followed by three more in rapid succession. Dirt and puffy black smoke flood the view behind the Blazer as the parking garage collapses onto itself, its levels each dropping to those beneath them. An avalanche of debris spreads out into the surrounding streets.
“They blew up the whole parking garage!” Nick shouts.
“I knew they would,” Sid says. He swipes the radio from above and pushes it down against the Islamist’s mouth. “If your friends get you to a doctor fast you might live. Tell them where you are. Tell them what I’ve done to you. Tell them.”
Sid pushes down the talk button and the Islamist squeals into the radio in babbling, bubbling, choking speech that Sid suspects is not coherent. It will do.
Sid places the radio in the Islamist’s hands and flings the driver door open. He shoves the man out onto the gravel rooftop using his belt as a convenient carrying handle. Sloppy entrails follow him from the truck’s cab.
“Hold on,” Sid says.
He mashes down the gas pedal and the Blazer trundles forward, heading for the edge of the rooftop.
“Oh no,” Nick shrieks. He presses a foot against the dashboard. “Not again!”
He screams as the truck hops the stumpy little parapet at the lip of the roof and begins another dive toward the street below.
It all happens again. The truck is like a boulder hitting the asphalt. The shocks don’t help at all this time. Pieces of the already damaged windshield shake loose and fall into the cab. Something rattles away from the engine and clanks down in the street beneath. All the guns in the back rain down from the ceiling where they were temporarily suspended in the fall.
A testament to tough-built Detroit craftsmanship, the Blazer keeps moving.
“Oh, Jesus,” Nick says. He crosses himself and begins to pray quietly. The phone rings in his left hand. He lets it go on ringing without moving to answer.
“You gonna get that?” Sid says.
“Get what?” Nick says. He glances down at the phone in his hand and looks surprised to see it flashing with an incoming call. “Sorry. I can’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears.”
Nick taps the answer key and then the speaker option, but the voice emitted from the big phone is not the one Sid expected.
“What the hell, Sid? You’re blowing up half of downtown!” Lily shouts.
“It was two buildings,” Sid grunts back, annoyed at this interruption.
“How many cars?” she dryly sizzles back at him.
“A few.”
“It’s like a thousand cars!”
“It’s not a thousand cars.”
“You blow up every car you drive. You blew up my last car.”
“That wasn’t all me.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I’m gonna blow up the car’ and then you blew up my car. Remember?”
“I
t sounds like you blew up her car,” Nick says.
“We don’t need your opinion,” Sid says.
“Who is that?” Lily says. “You have somebody with you?”
“He’s a priest I met.”
“Why do you have a priest?”
“I need him for this thing. It’s complicated.”
“I certainly don’t understand it,” Nick says.
“That’s pretty much how it goes. You never really find out what’s going on. You meet him. Then bad guys. Then explosions. And that stupid suitcase. What was in that suitcase?”
“Oh Lord, the explosions,” Nick laments. “How is he not completely deaf?”
“Fuck if I know! It might be part of his plot armor.”
“I don’t have plot armor,” Sid rolls his eyes. Lily’s fascination with his incredible ability to avoid bullets has developed into a full-blown psychotic delusion since the events of their last adventure.
“Yeah you do.”
“What’s plot armor?” Nick says.
Lily explains. “You know when you’re watching Supernatural, or better example, Arrow—holy shit Stephen Amell is so hot—and Arrow has like a hundred bank robbers shooting guns at him, but you know he won’t get killed because he’s the main guy and without him there won’t be a show next week?”
“Eh, yeah… I think.”
“That’s plot armor.”
“She’s a little crazy,” Sid says.
“I am not crazy!” Lily shouts. “How else do you explain not ever getting hit by any of the zillions of bullets people shoot at you?”
“Skill.”
“Bullshit. You’re the main guy. I’ve seen way too many action movies not to recognize this trope. Oh my God! That priest guy is totally your sidekick!”
“He’s not my sidekick. He just ended up in a car with me.”
“So? Samuel L. Jackson just ended up in a car with Bruce Willis in Die Hard 3. And you’re driving around the city with a guy you don’t like and there are bombs! This is totally Die Hard 3!”