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<<Chapter 11 Chapter 13 >>
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Brian and Andy sat in Andy’s room. Andy was sitting on the edge of his bed, digging through a pile of duffle bags at his feet. “I know it’s in here somewhere, dude. I used it what, two weeks ago?”
“Why don’t you just keep it on your keychain,” asked Brian in his thick southern drawl.
“I dunno, man. I guess ‘cause it used to be illegal. Old habits or some shit,” replied Andy.
Andy continued digging. He set an old bong and a tin on the bed and then tossed a couple of old tee shirts towards the foot of the bed.
Brian laughed. “Dude! Is that a One Direction tee shirt? Seriously? What the hell man. I thought you were cool.”
“Fuck you. I took a chick. Look at the size of the shirt.” Andy grabbed the shirt and held it up by the tag. “Size small.”
“Hope you banged her. Chick better put out after making you suffer through that shit.”
“Nope,” replied Andy. “Not even a kiss.”
“Oh dude, that’s fucked. That’s just fuckin’ wrong. You’re gonna put out what, a buck fifty on a pair of tickets, plus another half-spot on dinner and a fuckin’ tee shirt.. So, what, two bills on the night and you didn’t even get a peck on the cheek? At least she wasn’t a fatty.”
Andy stopped digging through the bag and looked at his best friend. “Fuck you, dude. She didn’t owe me anything. We had a good time. It was my choice to take her.”
Brian looked suitably ashamed. “Sorry, dude. Didn’t really think of it that way. I was just pickin on you.”
“It’s alright. Just can’t stand that shit. Like a chick owes us something.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I didn’t know you were in loooooooooooooooove with her.”
“Fucking finally,” Andy replied, holding up the item he was looking for. A small set of strange looking keys. Each had perfectly even rows of saw-teeth, and a rubber grommet around the base. “And fuck you. I wasn’t in love, we went on two dates. She was a nice girl.”
Brian stood up. “Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
“Dude, it’s night.”
“You know what I mean, fucker. Let’s move.”
The two men crossed the warehouse to a row of trucks. “This totally qualifies as life-or-death, right?”
“I think so,” replied Andy, grinning. “We taking the runner?”
“Fuck yeah, bitch! Catch-a-Riiiiide!” replied Brian hopping into the driver’s seat of a menacing looking tube-framed dune buggy. The front section was lined with plate aluminum, taken from the rail-house a couple miles up the tracks. The rear had a steel cage draped with welded chain. Neither would stop high caliber bullets, but for regular pistol rounds, it would stop most anything.
The rear deck cage surrounded an M134 minigun that Brian brought from his National Guard armory when he joined up with Nyko days after the apocalypse. Mounted on a swivel post, the gun could fire in any direction. An M249 Squad Automatic Weapon topped each front strut, locked in a forward position. Each fired remotely from paddles behind the steering wheel, fed from ammo boxes under the hood.
The buggy was Andy and Brian’s baby, something they built from scratch out of scavenged parts. It was the primary recon vehicle for Nyko’s train. The pair hoped it was their ticket out of New Vegas. For now, it was their ticket to a little payback, and hopefully some antibiotics for Nyko.
Andy jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the buggy, the huge v8 engine roared to life. He idled over to the door, hit a button on the dash and watched the door start to roll up. “Fuck yeah, bitches, get some!” he called. The red button on the dash really just pushed the controller to an automatic garage door opener mounted behind it. But it felt cool.
“Dude, we gotta get some flames on this motherfucker. Wonder who we can find that can paint.”
“I dunno. Get your eyes on!.”
Both men pulled goggles from the tray in front of the shifter and strapped them to their heads. Andy put the shifter in first, revved the engine, and left black skid marks halfway across the parking lot. Brian hit the button to lower the rollup door as Andy slammed it into second and spun the tires again. The speedometer read seventy miles per hour when they hit the sand headed for the marauder camp.
“How are we gonna do this?” shouted Brian over the noise of the engine.
“Jonas killed their leader. He said there was maybe twenty of em left. I say we go in, sweep the place with the minigun and haul ass, drive-by style. Then we go get the stuff, and sweep ‘em again on our way back.”
“Sounds like a plan, brother-man! Let’s fuck those suns-a-bitches up!” Brian unbuckled his harness and crawled between the seats to the back deck, where he strapped into a harness there.
Andy topped a sand dune and launched the dune buggy a dozen feet into the air. They both felt a thunk as the shocks bottomed out. Brian felt his feet come up off the platform and scrambled to hold on, despite knowing the harness would keep him in the vehicle. A hundred and fifty feet later they landed softly headed down the far side.
“Yeeeeeeeeee Hawwwww,” screamed Brian at the top of his lungs. “That shit was awesome!”
The engine roared, a deep, throaty rumble as they crossed the desert. Andy slowed, bouncing up over the tracks at the back of the maintenance garage, around the side of the building out into the open area in the front. Brian opened fire with the minigun, spewing thousands of rounds in seconds. He strafed the gun, white-hot tracer fire streaking back and forth. Men ran out of the barn and were cut down.
As Andy gunned the engine to pull away, Brian focused on the engine-bays of their vehicles, punching massive holes in the grills and fenders of all their vehicles. And then they were gone, rocketing off down the street as fast as the powerful buggy would take them.
“Whoo! That’ll teach them fuckin’ sons of bitches to fuck with us!” Yelled Andy when they were a couple blocks away.
“Dude!” Screamed Brian, sliding back into the passenger seat. “Did you fucking see that one motherfucker? Tracer round right to the face, his whole head glowed like a motherfucking jack’o’lantern!”
What Zombies Fear 