Highway To Armageddon

by Bloemer, Harold

  Arrow approaches us with his hands up. Even in the darkness I can see he doesn’t look too hot. He has bruises and cuts all along his arms and face, and his quiver only has a few arrows in it. It looks like he’s been through a bloody war. Unfortunately for him, I’m not feeling too compassionate.

  I begin applying pressure on my trigger when Arrow reaches for an arrow.

  “We’re not fooling around,” I warn him. “Stay back and drop your bow.”

  “How about we all remain calm?” he says, notching an arrow on his bow.

  “Arrow, for God’s sake, stand down!” Boom Boom shouts.

  “I will if you guys do,” Arrow says, still walking toward us. “Let’s all drop our weapons and…”

  BLAM!

  Arrow ducks to the ground as my bullet whizzes over his head.

  “Lance!” Boom Boom shrieks.

  “I’m sorry, my finger slipped!” I cry.

  That’s partially true. I didn’t mean to pull the trigger just yet. I got a little trigger happy because Arrow kept coming toward us.

  Boom Boom kicks my gun out of my hand. I yelp and clutch my throbbing wrist.

  “What are you doing?” I holler. “Arrow’s the bad guy here!”

  “I’m making sure you don’t shoot him again!” Boom Boom shouts.

  I’m about to give Boom Boom a piece of my mind when one of Arrow’s poisoned missiles shoots past my right ear, nearly grazing it.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  I charge toward Arrow as he tries to reload his bow. I tackle him before he can fire and toss him to the ground. We roll back and forth in the mud, trading blows. I pop him good in the nose and mouth while he slugs me in my right eye. Before I know it, though, Arrow is on top of me with a blade nestled against my neck. I stop struggling as the cold blade digs into my jugular. Not enough to penetrate my skin, but enough to let me know I’m one false move from soaking the countryside with my blood.

  “Get off of him!” Boom Boom screams.

  I see some movement out of my peripheral vision, then Arrow falls off of me. I scramble to my feet and watch as Boom Boom straddles Arrow’s body and nestles a dagger against his neck. How the tables have turned.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your miserable existence right now,” Boom Boom growls. She presses the dagger so deep into Arrow’s throat that a small trickle of blood leaks over the edge.

  “I’m sorry, Red,” Arrow groans. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Don’t!” Boom Boom snaps. “Don’t you ever call me that again!”

  I snatch my gun off the ground and point it at Arrow’s head. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here after what you pulled.”

  “I’m sorry,” Arrow says again, gritting his teeth as Boom Boom presses the blade even deeper. Hell hath no fury like a betrayed woman clutching a knife. Arrow is suffering the worst nightmare of any man who’s ever wronged a woman.

  “Machete and I left you guys for your own good!”

  “For our own good?” Boom Boom cries.

  “Yes, we were protecting you from what’s bound to be a dangerous mission. But first I needed to gain access to your database, so we could narrow down Mikhail’s hiding places. And you guys kept getting tracked down by Pitbull and those ninja freaks, which kept setting us back.”

  “So far you haven’t said anything that’s made me reconsider slitting your throat,” Boom Boom snarls.

  Arrow’s eyes widen when Boom Boom digs in even deeper. “After we caught Mikhail we were going to give you some of the money! I promise!”

  I scoff. “You expect us to believe that?”

  “I’m sorry, guys, I really am! But we don’t have time for this! My mom was kidnapped!”

  Boom Boom removes her blade from Arrow’s throat. “Wait, what?”

  Arrow scoots away from Boom Boom and wipes his bleeding neck with his sleeve. The cut isn’t too deep; it should heal pretty quickly (unfortunately).

  I shrug. “So Machete got kidnapped. How is that our problem?”

  “Lance,” Boom Boom snaps. She turns back to Arrow and cautiously asks, “What happened?”

  Still nursing his neck wound, Arrow says, “We were flying toward Alaska, but we must have gotten a little too close to Dresden because a bunch of Neo-Nazis blasted us out of the sky with energy blasters. The blasters fried our car engine and we crashed into the ground. Mom and I jumped out and exchanged fire with the Neo-Nazis, but there were too many of them. They zapped my mom with a stun gun and nearly got me as well. I was going to stay and help her, but she shouted for me to get out of there, to go get help. Some of the Neo-Nazis chased after me, but I was way too fast. I eventually lost them in the woods.

  “I kept running until I found some other white supremacists camping out a few miles away. I stole their car while they weren’t paying attention and flew back to find you guys. I had to stop for a while and hide in a cave while a bad storm passed through. Then I kept flying until I found you all here.”

  “You still have the car?” I ask, since that’s what we really need.

  “Yeah, I parked behind the cave,” Arrow says, pointing off into the distance.

  “Wait a minute,” Boom Boom says, shaking her head so ferociously that her hair swings back and forth, giving the illusion of lapping flames. “How did you find us in the first place?”

  Arrow looks down at the ground and says, “Well, a while back I stuck a GPS chip into the floor of your boot. I put it there so it would never fall out. That’s how my mom and I have been tracking you guys.”

  “You’ve been tracking me with a GPS device?” Boom Boom screams at the top of her lungs. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her so angry. She takes off both of her boots and peers inside.

  “You won’t find the chip unless you cut your shoe up,” Arrow says sheepishly. He’s probably hoping Boom Boom doesn’t hurl a dagger at his head.

  “When did you do this?” Boom Boom growls.

  “Remember when we went to lunch a few months ago, after you broke up with Lance for like the 100th time? I bought you a new pair of boots and put the GPS chip in the heel when you weren’t paying attention.”

  “You actually went on a date with this loser?” I shout, jabbing my thumb in Arrow’s face.

  Boom Boom’s cheeks turn red. “It was just lunch. You and I had broken up and I was upset, so I went to the market by myself. I ran into Arrow, we had lunch, and he… he bought me new boots because I told him I needed a new pair.”

  Boom Boom puts her head in her hands and groans. “I’m so stupid! Why do I keep letting him manipulate me?”

  “For the 1,000th time, Red, I’m sorry,” Arrow says impatiently. “I’ll make it up to you someday. I swear. But we have to save my mom! Time is of the essence!”

  “How do you know she’s not already dead?” I ask bluntly.

  “Lance,” Boom Boom snaps.

  “Hey, I didn’t kidnap her,” I snap back. “I’m simply asking an honest question. Machete was captured by freaking Neo-Nazis. How do we know they haven’t killed her already?”

  “She’s not dead,” Arrow says. “They don’t usually kill their captures right away.”

  I can tell from his shaky voice that he’s starting to have doubts.

  “Arrow’s right,” Boom Boom says, rushing to his defense like usual. “The Dresden hunters are like savage animals that play with their food before eating it. After the hunters capture their prey in the woods, they put them to work in their concentration camps for a few weeks before lynching them. Their ‘lynching parties’ are usually a day-long celebration that takes place on Saturdays. The celebrations culminate with several non-Aryans being hung in front of a cheering crowd.”

  “That’s sick,” I say in disgust. It then dawns on me what day it is. “Wait a minute, today’s Saturday!”

  Boom Boom glances at the time on her goggles. “It’s 10:00, too. They’re going to start the lynching in two hours.”

 
Arrow’s face becomes enveloped in a mask of anguish. “Please, guys, help me save her. I can’t do it on my own.”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t kill her right away. However…” Boom Boom pauses to shoot me a discreet glance. She always does that when she’s about to say something I won’t like.

  “No, Boom Boom, don’t even say it,” I warn. “Don’t…”

  “We should probably go rescue her tonight,” Boom Boom says over my shouts of protest.

  Arrow breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Red. Thank you so much. I swear I’ll pay you back someday.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I holler at Boom Boom. “You’re going to help this scumbag after all the crap he’s pulled? We need to go after Rasputin, not go on some suicidal rescue mission for some crazy lady who hates us!”

  “I’m not going to leave Machete to be brutally lynched,” Boom Boom says defiantly. “I would never be able to live with myself. You can stay here if you want, but I’m going with Arrow.”

  I throw my hands into the air and curse, but Boom Boom has me by my throat. She knows I won’t let her go to Dresden without me.

  Whether I like it or not, we’re about to go to war with a bunch of Nazis.

  Chapter Twelve: Boom Boom

  Arrow sits perched on a tree branch about 20 feet off the ground. I’m dismayed to find him aiming his poisoned arrow at one of the five Klansmen sitting around their raging bonfire. The flickering flames make their white robes look red and orange. They resemble demons from the depths of Hell. And in a way that’s precisely what they are. Still, Arrow promised he wouldn’t use lethal force. The compulsive liar.

  Lance is no better. He promised the same thing, and yet he’s perched in another tree, his pistol aimed at another Klansman. I hate the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis just as much as the next person, but I don’t like killing people without provocation. It’s unethical, immoral, and cowardly. At least, that’s what I believe.

  I glance at Krystal, who’s hiding in the bushes with me. She has her goggles on and is smiling. I don’t think she’s even paying attention to what’s going on. She’s watching one of her TV shows. Un-freaking-believable.

  I turn to find Dorothy peeking out from some bushes about 100 yards behind us. She looks both excited and scared. I wanted her to stay in the car, but she begged to tag along. I reluctantly gave in, under one condition; she had to stay out of the way. So far she’s the only one who listened to me.

  I’m actually a bit shocked we got here as quickly as we did. Since it was so close to midnight, we flew to Dresden at break-neck speed. (First we had to convince Krystal not to kill Arrow when we brought him inside the cave. She wanted payback for having to hike a ‘million miles’. An agreement was reached when Arrow offered to rub the corns on Krystal’s feet at least once a day.)

  Actually, we never officially reached Dresden. About one mile from the city gates we came across this very bonfire. We decided to check it out. After all, we still needed disguises. Arrow and Krystal are the type of people the Neo-Nazis like to lynch, and Lance and I are on wanted posters all across the country.

  We parked about a quarter mile from the campsite (Arrow’s car is currently hidden behind some bushes) and hiked to this very spot. I’m glad we decided to stop. The Klansmen’s white robes and hoods should conceal us quite nicely. The trick, of course, is getting the robes off of the Klansmen. If I left it up to Arrow and Lance, they’d riddle the robes with bullets and arrows, soaking them in blood. Like that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

  I loudly whisper, “What are you guys doing?”

  Steading his bow, Arrow replies, “I’m about to blast one of these douchebags right in the eye. A quick and clean death, more than he deserves.”

  “And I’m about to shoot this other dude in the throat,” Lance says.

  “I said no lethal force!” I say in a borderline shout.

  “Fine, I’ll hit him in the kneecap.” Arrow lowers his bow ever so slightly.

  “It doesn’t matter where you shoot him, all of your arrows are poisoned.”

  “Oh, right. I should just get him in the eye then.” Arrow readjusts his bow.

  I sigh and march toward the campsite.

  “What are you doing?” Lance shouts. “Get back here!”

  I wave him off. “I got this. Watch and learn, fellas.”

  Lance and Arrow continue shouting at me, but I ignore them. We’ve spilt enough blood over the past several days. This is a situation I can resolve without engaging in a bloody massacre.

  The five Klansmen are so tipsy from their giant mugs of beer that they don’t notice me until I’m right in front of them.

  Sounding like the world’s biggest redneck, the guy in the center slurs, “Hey, what are you doing out here?” He then burps, hiccups, and farts all at the same time. (I wish I was kidding.)

  A Klansmen to his left drunkenly raises a gun. “We don’t like trespassers.”

  Another Klansmen smacks the gun down. “Don’t shoot her, Barry. She’s smoking hot.”

  Barry gawks at me through the eyeholes of his hood. “Gee, you’re right, Larry. She’s gorgeous.”

  The others mumble their agreement.

  I shake my hips and seductively say, “At ease, boys. I’m just out for a little late night stroll. I sure could use a drink, though.’

  The Klansmen stumble all over themselves in an attempt to offer me their drinks. I grab one of the mugs and raise it in the air. “To racial purity!”

  The Klansmen raise their mugs as well and shout, “To racial purity!”

  They then bring the mugs to the slits in their hoods where their mouths are. I pretend to take a sip, but I don’t open my lips. Booze tastes like crap to me.

  I wait a few seconds for the Klansmen to get even drunker than they already are. Then I attack. I smash my mug over the head of the Klansmen to my direct left. He yelps and stumbles out of his chair. I follow up with a stiff kick to his head. The Klansman slumps over in a groaning heap.

  It takes the other Klansmen a few seconds to register what’s going on. That’s all the time I need. In rapid-fire succession I kick all the Klansmen in the head. Within seconds the white supremacists are sprawled out on the ground, moaning in agony.

  Lance, Arrow, Dorothy, and Krystal all run over to me with huge grins.

  “That was awesome, Red,” Arrow gushes, wrapping me up in his muscular arms. “You are so hardcore.”

  A giggle escapes my lips. “Thanks. Now put me down, you’re making me dizzy.”

  Arrow releases me and I stagger back. He grabs my arm so I don’t topple over. “Sorry, Red. I got a little over-excited.”

  I’m about to say something when I remember I’m supposed to be pissed at Arrow, not giggling at his cheesy come-ons. I frown and pull away.

  Krystal slaps me on the back. “Girl, you are crazy. That’s why I love you.”

  Dorothy claps excitedly. “You have got to show me how to do that.”

  I actually do plan on showing Dorothy some self-defense maneuvers after we get back to Sanctuary 7. I’ll make sure no man ever abuses her again.

  Lance flashes me a discreet grin. He doesn’t have to tell me he thinks I’m badass. I already know he does.

  We tear off the Klansmen’s robes and hoods and put them on. The outfits are a bit loose, but at least they cover us up.

  I stare at the groaning Klansmen in disgust. They’re all white, balding, middle-aged Neo-Nazis with swastika tattoos on their arms and chests.

  “I feel like a ghost,” Krystal cracks, flapping her arms. “Ohhhhhh….”

  Adjusting my lopsided hood, I say, “You know, guys, this is supposed to be a stealth mission. We’re going in to find Machete and sneaking her out. We really don’t need five people. In fact, we might arouse suspicion if we all go in clumped together.”

  “Good point, Boom Boom,” Lance says. “Arrow and Dorothy should stay out here.”

  “What?” Arrow hollers.

  “Why me?
” Dorothy pouts, her voice muffled under her hood.

  “Well, Arrow should stay out here because he’s a stupid idiot,” Lance explains. “And Dorothy, you should stay out here because I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  Dorothy and Arrow start shouting. I raise my arms and say, “Everyone shut up! We don’t have time for this. It’s almost midnight. I agree that Dorothy should stay out here, but Arrow is coming with us. We are saving his mother, after all.”

  “Thank you, Red,” Arrow says.

  “I told you not to call me that!” I snap.

  I turn to Krystal. “Take Dorothy back to the car and wait for us. Keep your goggles on in case we run into trouble. We may need you to fly in after us.”

  Krystal shrugs. “Whatever gets me out of wearing this silly robe. My ancestors must be rolling over in their graves.”

  Krystal takes off her white supremacist attire and tosses it into the bonfire. Dorothy does the same. I can’t wait until I can take mine off. I hate everything these robes stand for.

  Lance wags his finger in Krystal’s face. “Pay attention this time. If we send a distress signal, come get us!”

  Krystal puts her hands on her hips and sticks out her bottom lip. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m five, Lance. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  A smirk creeps across Lance’s lips. I clamp my hand over his mouth before he says something to get Krystal all riled up.

  Krystal gives Lance the ‘evil eye’ before flapping her wrist and proclaiming, “Y’all ain’t got nothing to worry about. There ain’t any good shows on tonight anyway.”

  Surprisingly that does assuage my fears.

  “We need to make sure these guys don’t go get help after we leave,” I say, unlatching a grenade from my belt.

  Krystal peers at me over the top of her shades. “Girl, what’s your crazy ass about to do?”

  I twirl the grenade around in my hands. “I’m taking out their RV. I suggest you back up.”

  Everyone runs to the edge of the clearing. I pop open the hood and yank the pin out of the grenade before dropping it into the engine. I slam the hood back down and run toward the woods. I just reach the bushes when an explosion rattles my eardrums. I turn to find the front of the RV on fire. Thick, black smoke billows into the night sky.