World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2)

by Harold Bloemer

  Boom Boom whips out one of the grenades she brought along and says, “Giving our friends down in the lobby a little parting gift.”

  Boom Boom activates the timer on the grenade and sets it to go off in ten seconds. She then rolls the ticking time bomb into the rear of the elevator just as the doors firmly slide shut.

  Without wasting another precious second, the five of us haul ass to the end of the hallway, where a giant plate glass window is overlooking the city street below. Our brand new Stratosphere XV is already hovering outside, waiting for us to climb inside.

  Boom Boom slams the butt of her machine gun against the glass, creating a monstrous crack that runs all the way up to the ceiling. She hits the glass twice more, causing the entire sheet to shatter.

  “Third time’s the charm,” I say with a smirk as I leap onto the windowsill. I proceed to walk across the car’s left wing like a pirate walking the plank. Once I’m in the back of the car, I reach out my arm and help Blade and Harpoon walk across the wing. Krystal hustles across and hops into the driver’s seat while Boom Boom jumps into the front passenger side.

  We just barely get into the car when a deafening explosion rips through the lobby of the skyscraper. I glance down and watch as five Ku Klux Klansmen dash out of the building, their robes on fire. I take it they don’t appreciate our ‘parting gift’.

  I look up to find two Nazi’s emerging from another elevator. The Nazi’s raise their tranquilizer guns and aim them directly at us.

  Before they get a chance to take a shot, I unfurl a crackling ball of electricity back inside the building. The ball bounces a couple times before slamming into one of the Nazi’s. The Nazi flies high into the air and slams into the ceiling before collapsing back to the ground in a smoldering heap. I fire off another bolt of lightning at the other Nazi, but he leaps back inside the elevator. Then three more Nazi’s hop out of another elevator, followed by five Nazi’s that emerge from the stairwell.

  I grip the back of Krystal’s chair and shout, “Floor it!”

  “You ain’t gotta tell me twice!” Krystal hollers as she slams her foot onto the accelerator. We take off at close to 200 miles per hour, causing all of us to fly back into our seats. The gusting wind slams into our faces, making our eyes water like crazy. Boom Boom is the only one with any sort of protection on her face, what with her wearing her computerized visor. The rest of us are forced to bear the elements in our flying convertible. The wind is whipping around so fiercely that my hair flaps around in a frenzy. The wind is so strong, in fact, that it nearly rips Krystal’s wig off of her head. It’s a good thing she invests in high-quality glue.

  Blade glances behind us, then spins around and thrusts his fists into the air.

  “Woo! We made it, guys!”

  “Don’t get cocky yet, kid,” I say as Boom Boom hands me a gun. “Those Nazi bastards aren’t gonna let us go without a fight.”

  “You’re right, look!”

  My eyes follow Harpoon’s outstretched finger. Sure enough, five flying cars are riding our ass. The open-convertible vehicles are cram-packed with heavily-armed Klansmen.

  Two more cars zoom off of the roofs of nearby skyscrapers and fly alongside us.

  “This is great, just great,” Krystal growls. She wildly jerks from left to right, causing the cars flying beside us to back away.

  The Nazi’s behind us begin firing off a volley of tranquilizer darts. Several of the darts narrowly whiz past my head and imbed into the back of Boom Boom and Krystal’s chairs. A bunch more clatter against the dashboard and the back of the front windshield.

  I grab Harpoon and Blade and shove them to the floorboard before falling on top of them. Out of my peripheral vision I notice Boom Boom ducking as well. Krystal takes us into a dive, causing me and the kids to slam into the back of Krystal’s chair. I turn around and watch as seven cars dive after us.

  Krystal pulls the car up out of her death-defying dive at the last possible nano-second, just barely avoiding crashing into the street. She immediately shoots back up into the sky, sending me and the kids crashing back into our seats (and quite possibly giving me whiplash in the process). A deafening BOOM implies that at least one of the cars following us didn’t pull up in time.

  Harpoon peers at our pursuers over the top of the backseat and hysterically cries, “What the hell are we gonna do?! There too many of them!”

  Krystal bursts out laughing and says, “Child, please! This ain’t nothing! We’ve had shoot-outs with way more assholes than this before!”

  Almost on cue, three more cars zoom up behind us. Now there are nine carloads of mass-murdering Nazi’s chasing after us.

  Krystal gulps and says, “Okay, now’s the time to panic.”

  “We’re not panicking,” Boom Boom growls, cocking her machine gun and aiming it overtop my head. I duck back down to the ground as she unloads a steady stream of ammunition at our attackers. Hot bullet casings cascade down over my head, burning my skin. Blade and Harpoon scoot all the way to the other side of the car.

  Boom Boom crouches back down behind her seat when another bombardment of tranquilizer darts whiz into our car. Krystal curses as one of the darts imbeds into her shoulder. Thankfully she’s wearing her Kevlar vest. (She never takes that damn thing off, even when we’re chilling at home.) But maybe Krystal is on to something, constantly wearing her armor. At least she’s always protected.

  The kids and I are wearing sweaters and sweatpants.

  And Boom Boom is wearing a freaking nightgown!

  Once the last of the tranquilizer darts harmlessly clatters against our seats and dashboard (they’re starting to pile up on the bottom of the car), Boom Boom jumps back up and fires off several more shots.

  “Don’t just sit there and look pretty!” Boom Boom snaps at me, her face glowing orange from the steady flashes emanating from her smoking gun. “Sit up and shoot!”

  I glance down at the gun in my left hand and the electric glove encasing my right one. Unable to decide which weapon I should utilize first, I decide to use both.

  I jump up on the backseat and unfurl a blinding ball of electricity into the front windshield of the nearest car. The Nazi’s in the front seat scream as the electricity crackles all over their flailing bodies. I then fire off several shots with my handgun, hitting the driver right in the center of his forehead. If he wasn’t dead from my lightning strike, he’s sure as hell dead now. The car instantly goes into a tail-spin, disappearing into the darkness.

  Boom Boom riddles another car with bullets, causing that one to drop like a rock. I thrust out my glowing hand and fire multiple lightning strikes, taking out three cars in a row. They drop out of sight as well, leaving only four.

  Blade peeks overtop the backseat and exclaims, “Holy crap, you guys are kicking their asses! This is almost too easy!”

  “It’s not easy,” I say, unfurling yet another ball of electricity that just narrowly misses one of the last remaining cars. “It’s… oh, who am I kidding, it is easy!”

  “Lance, don’t glorify the violence we’re perpetrating!” Boom Boom chastises, emptying an entire cartridge of ammunition into the front of the car I happened to miss. Once that car spirals toward its untimely demise, Boom Boom pops in another ammunition cartridge and starts firing at the remaining three vehicles. Those cars wisely back away and disappear behind nearby skyscrapers.

  Boom Boom finally stops firing her machine gun (giving my throbbing eardrums a momentary respite from the thundering gunshots) and lifts her glowing visor up onto her head. Her shimmering blue eyes sparkle in the moonlight, and a rare smile spreads across her normally dour lips.

  “Maybe that was easy,” she quips.

  Krystal turns her head and hollers, “I think y’all spoke a little too soon. Look!”

  We all turn our necks and curse at the sight of six flying cars appearing out of seemingly nowhere. These cars appear to be way more heavily armored than the other ones. They almost look like giant flying tanks. And i
nside the cars are an army of Nazi’s garbed in gleaming, ruby-red exoskeletons. The exoskeletons are going to make our firearms useless. Thankfully we have one ace up our sleeves… or rather, on my hand; my electric glove.

  “Eat lightning and die, assholes!” I holler, hurling a blinding ball of electricity toward the nearest flying tank. The electricity explodes across the tank’s front windshield. Unfortunately most of the electricity appears to be deflected, leaving the tank’s unsavory occupants unharmed.

  The armored Nazi asshole in the front passenger seat thrusts his upper body out of his open window and aims what appears to be a flamethrower directly at us. I curse and duck down as a raging fireball whooshes over top my head. Boom Boom ducks down as well, literally at the last possible second. If she had been a split-second slower, she would have been a goner. The stream of fire is so hot and intense that it feels like my face is about to melt off. Krystal takes us into another death-defying dive, allowing us to just narrowly avoid being burnt to a crisp.

  “I thought they weren’t trying to kill us!” Boom Boom cries as we continue our downward plummet. The kids and I slam into the back of the front seats, groaning from the unnatural G-forces battering our bodies.

  “It would appear their plans have changed!” I scream over the roaring wind whipping past my distraught ears.

  Krystal jerks us back into the air. The kids and I curse and holler as we fly into the back of our seats. Harpoon nearly topples out of the car, but Blade and I are able to grab ahold of her ankles.

  “Damn it, Krystal, can you not fly so recklessly?!” I holler.

  Krystal glares at me in her cracked rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, am I going too fast for you?! Why don’t I slow down so you can enjoy being barbequed alive??”

  “Will you both shut up?!” Boom Boom roars, popping her head back up and aiming her machine gun out of the back of the car. Boom Boom proceeds to fire another steady stream of bullets, nicking the front windshield of the same armored tank that tried incinerating us with a flamethrower.

  One of the armored tanks suddenly zooms alongside us, nearly ripping off our left wing in the process. An armored Nazi thug hops out of the car and somehow miraculously lands on our wing. The gusting wind nearly topples him over, but the thug swings his arms around, maintaining his balance. If I had to guess, I’d say his armored boots have suction cups on the soles, which would prevent him from being blown away. The thug proceeds to run along the entire length of our wing. The son of a bitch then leaps inside our car, nearly crushing Harpoon with his metallic suit.

  “Guys, get back!” I shout, grabbing my cousins by the back of their shirts and shoving them behind me. I raise my glowing hand, but before I can unfurl a bolt of lightning, the Nazi kicks me in the face with his metallic boot. An excruciating wave of pain washes over my body. Stars flash across my eyes, and I topple backwards like a tree being felled by a lumberjack.

  “Lance!!” Boom Boom screams. I struggle to lift my head and open my eyes, but the sharp stabbing pains permeating my skull are almost too excruciating to bear.

  I hear a bunch of gunshots and screaming, and hot bullet casings once again rain down on top of my face. I force my eyes open just in time to see the armored Nazi thug smacking Boom Boom in the face with the back of his hand. He then raises his monstrous foot and begins lowering it ontop of me. I roll out of the way just before his foot slams into the floorboard. I spin back around and fire off a bolt of electricity directly into the Nazi’s face. There’s a blinding flash of blue light, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. The Nazi staggers back to the left side of the car, forcing Blade and Harpoon to once again jump out of the way. The car is cramped enough as it is. With a nearly seven-foot tall, 300-pound cyborg Nazi thrown into the mix, there’s hardly any room to maneuver. But we make do with what little space we have.

  Blade and Harpoon whip out their bloodied knives and start hacking at the Nazi’s armored legs. Unsurprisingly, their feeble blades have no effect on the Nazi’s impenetrable metallic exoskeleton. The Nazi thankfully ignores my cousins and instead focuses his wrath, not so thankfully, on Boom Boom.

  The Nazi thug swats away Boom Boom’s machine gun, sending it clattering to the floorboard. He then thrusts out his gleaming, metallic arm and grabs Boom Boom by her slender neck. Boom Boom gags and flails her arms and legs as the Nazi lifts her a good two feet into the air.

  “Boom Boom!” Krystal screams, glancing back at the ginormous Nazi. She points a gun at the Nazi, but one of the flying armored tanks slams into the back of our car, causing us to all lurch forward and Krystal to drop her weapon into the back. Blade quickly snatches it up, unbeknownst to the Nazi, who has just turned his freaky robotic head toward me.

  The Nazi cocks his head and snarls, in a robotic-sounding voice, “Surrender now or the red-headed bitch dies. The Fuhrer will understand if only a few of you are brought back to Bavaria alive.”

  Before I can respond, Blade raises his gun and shouts, “No, you die, asshole!”

  He then fires off several shots. One of the bullets ricochets off of the Nazi’s armor and narrowly whizzes past Blade’s left ear. The Nazi turns around, still choking Boom Boom with his right hand, and swats Blade in the face with his left one. Blade cries out and flies into the back seat, nearly toppling over the edge. Harpoon screams and lunges toward the Nazi, ferociously stabbing at his abdomen with her blade. Krystal curses as she weaves our car in and out of oncoming traffic, while simultaneously avoiding tranquilizer darts coming at us from all sides. Several of the darts bounce off the Nazi’s exoskeleton. Another one of the Nazi’s armored tanks slams into the back of our car, nearly flipping it upside down. I and grab ahold of the front seat so I don’t flip out onto the front windshield.

  Krystal stabilizes our car long enough to spin around in her seat and fire several shots at the Nazi’s head. The Nazi’s head snaps back from the force of the gunshots, but other than that the bullets seem to have no effect. I glance up and notice the Nazi’s entire body is encased in armor except for a small patch of exposed skin where his helmet and armored chest plate meet. I think I just found the proverbial chink in the Nazi’s armor.

  I whip out a blade strapped to my own leg and thrust that bad-boy into the Nazi’s exposed neck. The Nazi releases Boom Boom, causing her to collapse onto the front floorboard. The Nazi clutches his throat as blood gushes out of the gaping wound. I run toward the Nazi bastard and shove him as hard as I can. The Nazi staggers back, nearly toppling over the side. Blade and Harpoon quickly join me and the three of us push the 300-plus pound armored douchebag as hard as we can. Krystal helps us out by tilting the car to the left. Finally, after what feels like forever, the Nazi asshole flips out of the car and plummets over a thousand feet to his death, screaming the entire way. His screams grow fainter and fainter until he disappears into the darkness. The kids are covered in the Nazi’s blood, but thankfully they’re not freaking out about it. Then again, it’s kind of hard to be freaked out about something like that when dozens of people are still trying to blast you out of the sky.

  I just barely get a chance to catch my breath when another armored Nazi douchebag leaps out of his flying tank and lands on our left wing. The jackass is so heavy that our car starts to tilt onto its side. The Nazi thug methodically marches his way across the wing, erratically swinging an electric sword. Spirals of blue electricity crackle all over the gleaming saber. It would be quite an intimidating sight for most people. I, however, have encountered far worse.

  I whip out a small blade strapped to my other leg and press one of the buttons on the handle. A 3-foot long saber slides out of the handle, shining luminously under the moonlight. I press another button, causing my sword to become electrified. The Nazi’s aren’t the only ones with aces up their sleeves (or in this case, strapped to their legs).

  I hold the crackling sword in front of my face and growl, “You want to tango, asshole? Then let’s tango!”

  I run up onto the left wing and jab
my electric sword toward the Nazi. The Nazi deflects my attack with his armored left arm and swings his sword directly toward me neck. I crouch down as the sizzling blade narrowly whooshes past the top of my head. I nearly lose my balance, but I swing my arms and stand back up. Once I regain my footing, I swing my sword yet again. This time the blade connects with the Nazi’s helmet. There’s a flash of blue light, followed by the sizzle of electricity, but the Nazi keeps his balance and takes another swing at me.

  “Lance, get back in the damn car!” Boom Boom screams from the front passenger seat. Her screams are quickly drowned out by the sound of her machine gun emptying a full cartridge of bullets into a nearby tank.

  The Nazi and I proceed to have an old-fashioned electric sword fight. Our swords clang together and emit electric sparks, creating what I imagine to be an entertaining light show to anyone watching from afar. It’s kind of hard for me to enjoy it, however, since I am fighting for my freaking life.

  Even over the howling wind and the zapping sound caused by our swords constantly colliding, I can hear Blade and Harpoon cheering me on. I just start to get the upper hand in my impromptu sword fight when one of the Nazi’s flying tanks slams into our back bumper for the umpteenth time. I nearly lose my footing, as does my armored opponent. We both flap our arms like crazy in a desperate attempt to defy gravity.