by Drew Stepek
“Help me,” I begged as the host skidded to a stop next to me and began hammering on my ribs with the metal stopper on the front of her skates. Accidentally, she kicked the thigh of the skater on top of me, giving me the opportunity to squirm my way out on the other side. I rolled toward the door to the staircase and eventually pulled myself to my feet using the doorknob. As I caught my breath, the two girls who attacked me split up and started skating in different directions. They crossed each other and started coming for me again. Feeling a burst of energy, I ran away from them down the ramp.
I took the corner going down to level five. One of them was closing in on me. When I heard the bearings of her skates on my heels, I ducked down to her mid-section and disrupted her momentum by lifting her over my head. She flew over me and skidded to a stop on the cement with her face.
The other girl, the parasite, blazed around the corner to join us on level five. This time I was ready for her. She threw the car mirror at me but I sidestepped and it landed in the face of her host.
“You dumb bitch,” the host yelped as she tried to stretch loose flesh back onto her face. “Look at my face.”
Once again, the parasite tried to jump on me but I was too quick for her. I locked onto her arm with both my hands, spun my body and heaved her into one of the many pylons near me. Her spine snapped in two as soon as she made contact and her rubbery dilapidated body bounced to the ground.
The host started crying as she tried desperately to pick up all the pieces of her face. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
“We’ve gotta get outta here!” Linnwood and two more Perrys had rounded the corner to also join me on level five. His face was beat red and drenched in sweat and blood. He took the lead and ran toward mangled face and unloaded four more bullets into her. She slumped over as the thin strips of her face slipped through her hands into her lap. The other two Perrys surrounded the parasite that I catapulted into the pylon. She wasn’t moving but they decided to fire several bullets into her head anyway.
Linn grabbed the host by the strap of her helmet and lifted her dead face. “Jesus, RJ. What did you do to this bitch?” he hollered. “You guys. Come look at this. RJ ripped her face off.”
The other two walked over. “Get down by her,” one of them said as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket. The other bent down by her corpse and the three of them took pictures.
Linnwood pulled his pants down and put his bare ass up to her skinned face. “Open her mouth, if you can find it.”
The other two picked up her face and ripped her chin off. Then, Linnwood farted in her mouth. They all broke into a frenzied laughter.
“This is classic,” Linnwood said as he tried to contain his laughter. “RJ, you need to get in on this.”
I looked back up the ramp to see two more Perrys round the corner. One had a couple of cuts on his face and the other was nursing a pretty bloody wound on his hand.
“Holy shit. Look at the bitch.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Hilarious.”
They two newcomers ran past me to join their pals at the bottom of the ramp.
“RJ, you gotta get over here and get some pics before we have to split.”
I smoothed my hand all over my face. “What the fuck was that?”
“What was what?” Linnwood pulled his pants back up.
I pointed at the host. “What is all this shit?” I pointed at the parasite. “What the fuck?”
“The RTL?” he began as he rolled a cigarette on the dead host’s face. He left it there to suck up some more blood and turned to me. “They are—I mean, they were some Austin gang called Ride the Lightning.” He grabbed the cigarette from the exposed face and flipped it into his mouth. He reached into his pocket but before he lit the butt he said, “Yeah, until tonight, they ran the coke in this town.”
“I guess they don’t anymore,” one of the other Perry’s injected.
I started to walk back up to level six.
“You pussy, RJ,” Linnwood called after me.
I stopped and turned around. “Pussy? Fuck you. I have been attacked by more of these weird ass gangs over the course of this week than I can even count.”
He walked toward me but first turned back to the photo opportunity at the host. “Wrap it up, guys. We gotta get out of here.” He ran and caught up to me. “What’s your problem?” he put his arm over my shoulder. His gun dangled near my ear.
I didn’t turn to him. “Just get that Rodderick dude to meet with me.”
“Rodderick? You’re kidding, right? I told you that he’s in the shadows, dude.”
I stopped again and shrugged the gun off of my shoulder. “No. I’m not kidding. I came here to meet you so I could get in touch with him.”
“You dumb junkie.” He waved his gun at the parasite, whose body was nearly detached into two pieces. “He doesn’t want to meet with you.”
“Would you just text the guy, please?”
He came in close and pressed his gun sideways against my chest. “Don’t you see what we’ve done? L.A. is gone. This is our new city. I told you that these gangs are soft.”
I pushed him away. “Who are you kidding? These gangs aren’t soft. They’re psychopaths. Have you seen this drug that they are using down here? Sunshine? It’s totally nuts.” We turned the corner. Pieces of RTL were scattered all around the sixth floor.
“Yeah, look at these bitches. It took us five minutes to dismantle this whole gang. This,” he picked up a severed head still inside a helmet. “This is an Austin gang. And, this…” he flapped his hand between our arms, “This is an L.A. gang. Hollywood has already taken control of SXSW. We should follow suit and take the streets.” He chucked the head up by the limousine.
“Look, Linn, I don’t care how you preface the conversation. You can say that you want to talk about an arrangement, but you need to let him know that I need to speak to him.”
We reached the car and he moved what was left of Watts to the side. “That prick doesn’t know who the fuck you are.” He then used his gun to hammer out any leftover glass that was still in the window. He pointed to the back seats of the Benz. “Get in.” He yelled down to the rest of the Perrys, who were just turning the corner from level five. “Do any of you losers have the keys to this car?”
One of them fumbled around in his pocket, pulled out some keys and jingled them in front of him. “Got ‘em.”
As I sat down, I looked at my phone. Eldritch finally responded again.
Sorry I could not meet you.
I typed.
Where are you?
The rest of the Perrys got into the back of the limo and Linnwood got into the driver’s seat. “Where do you need to go?”
The Perry who had the keys sat next to him in front.
Eldritch sent through an address.
Before the suicide doors were closed on either side, I heard the humming engines of several pickups below us.
“Now what?” I grunted.
Linnwood slammed his door closed. “Minutemen. Rodderick must know that the BBP is in town.”
I slumped against the window and watched a massive pickup truck trying to veer the Perry mobile off the road. “Why are they always on the scene?”
Linnwood leaned forward, keeping his eyes glued on the road. “I told you. They clean up the vampire mess.”
I scrunched myself up in the back quarters of the limo and squinted a little bit. In the pickup truck there were two roughnecks, both with cowboy hats. I looked behind us to see three more flatbeds competing for pole position on the other side of our car.
One of the Perrys, who was sitting directly across from me because the backseats faced each other, smashed the window closest to him with his gun.
I swept a few shards of glass off my thigh. As my head continued to swim around in the drug pool, I tried to get a closer look. No vestments. No priest shit. Just cowboys. I looked at Linnwood via the rearview mirror.
Before I ope
ned my mouth, he said, “No. Not Minutemen like the Revolution. Minutemen like border militia.”
I leaned forward so he could see my reflection in the mirror. “I was going to say the Minutemen like Mike Watt.”
“Nobody in this car knows what the fuck that means.” He pounded his foot on to the gas and swerved in front of the pickup next to us. “They capture the vamps who step out of line and drag us across the border. I’ve heard that they leave us out in the Mexican desert to be killed by the sun.”
“Hey.” I waved my hand in front of the Perry across from me. “You know Mike Watt, right?”
He turned away from the broken window and glared at me.
I lifted an imaginary microphone in front of my mouth. “D. Boon?”
“Idiot,” he hissed and turned back to the window.
Rather than continue yapping on and on about a band they clearly didn’t know, I fell back into my seat and crossed my arms. “Idiot,” I repeated in my best asshole voice.
The truck on the left pulled slightly in front of us. There were three more Minutemen in the bed with their shotguns raised.
I uncrossed my arms and leapt forward. “Jesus!”
As one of the hunters got a shot off, Linnwood stomped the breaks and twirled the wheel. The two trucks on either side darted in front of us. Instead of ramming into the back of our limousine, the two trucks behind us pivoted around the Benz and spun into the gravel shoulders on either side. One compensated for the jolt but the other toppled over, tossing two passengers into the middle of the street.
Linn threw the car into reverse, trying to run them over. He mashed one of them into the pavement. His amigo held onto his leg and started firing a Colt 45 at our car. Linn curved back and forth trying to hit the injured assassin but quickly gave up, pulled alongside him and blew his brains all over the Texas asphalt. Knowing that time wasn’t on our side, he twirled the wheel and hopped over the median in the road to start heading back the other way.
“Give me a fucking gun!” I shouted.
“Bennington,” Linnwood barked. “Give him your gun.”
Bennington Perry tossed me his gun. Under normal circumstances I would had made fun of his name, but since we were being chased by a lynch mob of unsavory vampire killers, I focused on getting out of another shitty situation by the seat of my pants. Getting left in the Mexican desert didn’t sound like a wonderful vacation.
The backseat Perrys and I looked behind us. The three remaining trucks had managed to flip to the other side of the road as well.
“I don’t think they are going to let us go,” said one of the Perrys.
“Shut up, Lukas,” the rest said in unison.
Lukas, I thought. Lukas. Luke. Oh, shit. Luke Perry. “You’re named after the guy on 90210?”
He cocked his gun in my face but didn’t say anything.
I put my hands up. “I mean… awesome! You’re named after the guy from 90210! I suppose it makes sense considering you guys worked out of Beverly Hills.”
“You’re goddamn right, it makes sense,” he said as he re-focused his attention to the rear of the car.
I looked at the other three Perrys in the car. The dude riding shotgun happened to have curly blond hair. I pointed to him. “Is he Ian Ziering?”
Before anyone could respond, one of the trucks banged into the back of our car, sending Bennington into my lap. Linnwood cut the wheel, but instead of turning around again, he pulled into a gas station. He tugged on the emergency brake and then threw the car into park. He opened his door and charmingly stepped out of the car. “Get out. We fight better on the ground.”
As everyone evacuated, the truck that was ramming us quickly pulled into the gas station. Linn took steady aim on their windshield and unloaded a few rounds, taking out the driver. The truck swung to the side of the gas station and all the Perrys fired into the window of the passenger, killing him and two cowboys in the jump seat.
Linnwood rounded the Mercedes, flung open the unlatched trunk and saved the coke-filled duffle bag. Luke split off from him and headed to the truck. He jumped onto the running boards, opened the door and pulled the driver out, throwing him into the door of the women’s bathroom on the side of the building. “Bennington, take the station owner!” he said as he put the truck in park.
Bennington flipped Luke a thumbs up and rushed inside the gas station. I sped over to the carjacking scene and heard two gunshots ring out from inside the building. The other Perrys followed me and Linnwood grabbed the dead passenger by what was left of his head and yanked him out of the truck.
“Jump in the back,” Linnwood said as he dropped a clip out of his handgun and reloaded with one he had tucked away in the pocket of his shirt under his sweater. “And hold on to this.” He handed me the duffle bag.
I looked into the bed and remembered the fate of the two Minutemen out on the street. “I’m not getting in there,” I yelled back as Ian Ziering grabbed the bag from me and he and the yet unnamed guest star Perry hopped in.
Bennington ran passed me and smacked me on the back. “Then, stay and die, Knuckler.” Ian and the other dude helped him into the truck.
“Get in the back,” Linnwood insisted as he fired his gun in the direction of the headlights of the two other trucks that were rapidly approaching.
I hesitated.
“Get in!”
I stepped into the lifted wheel well and onto the tire. Right before Luke Perry punched it and sped out, Ian Ziering grabbed onto my forearm and pulled me onboard.
It was as if we were sitting on the receiving end of a firing line. The passengers in the back of the two remaining Minutemen trucks stood up behind the blazing flood lights and started discharging bullets into our truck bed. One such shot destroyed the back window of our truck. Thankfully, the shrapnel narrowly missed Linnwood. Even more thankfully, it also missed my new best friend Luke Perry. The would-be heartthrob sped back onto the road as we all fired back at the Vamp Rangers. He was a much better driver than Linnwood, but skills didn’t really mean anything in a huge truck that was being chased by vampire cleaners.
Somehow, the four of us in the back managed to take out the flood lights. The Minutemen in the backs of both trucks took cover from our barrage. Bennington, who gave me his gun, curled up close to the tailgate and clutched onto the handle from the inside.
“Back the fuck off,” Linnwood screamed. “We’ve already killed half of you twats!”
I emptied my gun and then turned to the cabin and saw him yelling into a CB radio microphone. “Linn, give me a clip.”
He didn’t hear me so I crawled closer to the cab.
“That’s a negative, demon. Y’all are dyin’ tonight,” one of the Minutemen broadcasted over the radio.
“Linn, give me a clip,” I repeated through the broken back window.
Just then, Ian Ziering got to his feet and started shooting into the windshield of one of the trucks. Before he could sit back down and fight from the limited cover of the bed, a rifle shot nailed him in the chest and then another slipped into his forehead and out through the back of his curly head. He crumbled on top of me.
“I don’t have any more,” Linnwood yelled back through the window. He nudged his head at Ian. “Throw him.”
Ian’s hand shook to a stop in my lap. “I’m not gonna throw him,” I said.
Linnwood handed me his gun. “Use him as a shield. He’s fucking dead, you junkie scum.”
Listening to Linn, I placed what was left of Ziering’s head under my chin and then used the rest of him to cover my body like a blanket.
“That’s one,” the southern drawl called out again over the receiver. “Why not pull on over and let us send you to hell with a little bit of dignity, boy.”
I squinted into the truck on the left after I was sure that I had my Ian Ziering body armor fully sheltering me. I saw the passenger in the truck with the microphone to his mouth and shot from Linnwood’s gun.
“You hear me, mother—”
“Got him,” I crowed.
The headlights from the left truck turned off to the side of the road. “They just got Donny,” the driver added. “We’re done.”
“Roger that. We’ll get ’em,” right truck driver called back. In an attempt to wiggle us off the road, the driver did several elusive maneuvers by faking left, then right, then ramming our bumper.
“You should probably turn around with your friends, motherfucker,” Linn yelled into the microphone. “Oh, shit, I forgot to press this button—”
“You pressed the button, idiot,” the driver said.
“Fuck you,” Linnwood started again. “We’ve taken out seven of your boys and you’ve take out one of ours.”
In an attempt to brake and disrupt again, Luke Perry slammed on the brakes. The hunters’ truck smacked into the tailgate. Bennington was shot into the air but since his hand was entangled between their front bumper and our tailgate, he started to flip over onto their hood. He took a bombardment of bullets that popped him in the air like he was a plastic bag being targeted by an assault rifle from the three gunmen lined up behind the flood lights. Finally, he landed on their hood and both vehicles came to a stop.
Luke and Linn jumped out of our truck as Bennington fell from their hood and onto the ground after his completely severed hand was freed. The snipers in the back of their truck took aim at me and started shooting. Rather than take my chances that none of them would shoot me in the face, I ducked under Ziering. When I heard one of them stop firing and start reloading, I launched the lifeless shell at the Minutemen in back, fully knocking the flood lights off the cab and causing them to take cover. For all they knew, the body could jump back to life at the drop of a dime and consume all of them. I started to exit on the opposite of the vehicle as the random Perry jumped onto the sand below.
The driver clicked the ignition, furiously trying to turn over his truck and retreat. To his chagrin, the passenger in his cab and the gunman in back jumped off the truck.