I have the great pleasure of hosting Melanie Karsak on the Summer of Zombie Blog Tour. Her book “The Harvesting” is Available for Purchase Here. She has offered us the first three chapters, which is a huge sample of the book.
Continue reading Guest Post: Melanie Karsak’s The Harvesting
The train came to a shuddering, violent halt. The three men in train car rolled to their hands and knees. The floor was sloped at a steep angle, which made it almost impossible to stand. They crawled to the door and rolled to the ground.
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Brian and Andy shared the contents of Brian’s flask, grimacing at the rot-gut moonshine with every sip. Just after midnight, Brian locked the doors of the train and crawled into a hammock strung up in the caboose.
Less than an hour later, long enough to fall completely asleep, the first thunk sounded against the train car. A few minutes later, there was another. It was another half an hour before Brian’s consciousness returned enough, hastened by the need to pee, to hear the constant thump, thump, thump from all four sides of the caboose.
“Fuckin shit, Andy. Wake the fuck up man.”
“What?” Andy said sleepily. Then sat up in his hammock so quickly, the entire thing spun around dumping him on his head. His gun skittered across the metal floor. The noise seemed to have an effect on the banging on the outside of the car; it increased in tempo and fervor.
“Sounds like infected,” whispered Brian. His voice low and raspy.
Andy crawled slowly towards his rifle. “Get up the ladder. Open the hatch. We gotta get eyes on.”
“Wish I had me some fuckin’ night vision goggles.”
“Just take a flashlight. I don’t think we’re getting out of this without some killing. If a cure hasn’t come by now, I don’t think it’s going to, buddy.”
“I know all that. I still hate killing them. I wouldn’t want someone killin’ my Mama. My Daddy’s been dead, thankfully. He ain’t have to live through this shit. But I’m sure Momma’s been infected. She couldn’t get ‘round too good.” Brian uttered his entire monolog in a hushed whisper as he climbed the ladder to the roof hatch.
Andy gathered his rifle, and still in his socks and green plaid boxer shorts, climbed the ladder behind his friend.
“Hooooleeeeeeeey fuck.” Brian whistled.
“What?”
Brian spun around as Andy climbed out onto the roof. Surrounding them, as far as the beam of his flashlight would go, the infected were packed shoulder to shoulder. They swayed back and forth in a synchronized movement, like the crowd during a ballad at a concert only they could hear.
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, man. The fuck they come from? I ain’t never seen so god damn many. We ain’t got enough bullets, and it’s too many to do hand to hand.”
Andy started back down the ladder. “Nothing to do now. Maybe they’ll be gone in the morning.”
“You think we’re gonna be okay? That many; might be able to push over the car.”
“Nah. Come on. Can’t do shit. Get some sleep brother. It’ll look better in the morning.”
Brian pulled the hatch closed behind him, and flipped the lever to lock it. “Everything looks worse at two in the morning,” he said.
The pair of men slept fitfully for the next few hours. “What do we have in the cabinets in here,” Andy said finally.
“I dunno man. Some shit. Food n shit, I guess. It’s gonna get powerful hot in this metal box today.”
“Where’s the reloading kit?”
Brian stopped for a minute. “Might be in here. But I think it’s up in the storage that went with the boss.” He resumed his pacing, timing his foot-falls with the rhythmic thumping on the sides of the train. “Fuck!” He yelled. “I can’t fucking hear my goddamn self think! Shut the fuck up out there!” He banged on the doors with his fist.
“Stay chill, man. The cavalry will be back any time. We just gotta hold out in here. We got plenty of water, it’s gonna get hot, but at least we can open the roof hatch.”
“What if they’re gonna be a week? How are they gonna save us? They can’t spend that many bullets either. Can’t fucking push us cause the tracks are blocked and the locomotive ain’t got no hookup on the front to pull us back.”
They sat in the train car for most of the morning, until the temperature inside was too much to bear. Brian climbed the ladder and unlatched the hatch. “Andy. You gotta come see this man.”
Andy climbed out onto the roof of the train, and sat down. Surrounding their two cars for three hundred yards in every direction, the infected swayed back and forth. Hands outstretched towards the men.
“You think we could jump to the buggy?”
“Then what? They’d be on us before we could get it started.”
Brian’s voice cracked as he spoke. Andy could tell he was nearing panic. “What if we blew our ammo clearing around it; then jumped for it? We might be able to buy some time. Then I could clear the path with the gun.”
Andy put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “We’re fine, Brian. They can’t get in. We have enough food and water to get us through the next bunch of days. Let’s get out of sight, be as quiet as possible, and hope that the noise of the locomotive coming back draws them off. For now, we just need to keep calm. You got that, soldier? We just keep our heads down, maintain absolute silence and they’ll go away on their own.
Both men laid in their hammocks and tried to be as still as possible. For two days. On the morning of the third day of sitting in the sweltering metal box, Andy couldn’t take the smell anymore. He rummaged through the cabinets on the train, looking for anything to help. Finally he pulled out a tub of bleach soaked kitchen wipes and started scrubbing himself down.
When he was finished, he tossed the can to Brian. “Feels pretty good man, cooled me off a little bit. Just don’t get it in your eyes or mouth.”
Brian did the same, then the pair sat back and prepared to spend another day being quiet. They napped for a while in the morning, and woke to nothingness. It took Andy a moment to figure out what was gone.
“Brian,” he whispered.
“Shut up. This is the first decent sleep I’ve had in three days.”
“Brian. I think they’re gone, man.”
Brian sat up in his hammock and waved dismissively at the ladder up the rear wall. “Guess you better go check then.”
Andy snuck up the ladder and poked his head out of the hatch. “Holy shit! They’re gone! And the train’s coming back!”
“Whoo hoo! All of em?”
“Every one. What the fuck?”
Brian unlatched the back door of the caboose and stepped out onto the platform. The locomotive was several miles away and chugging towards them. Andy swung down over the edge and flipped down onto the platform with Brian.
The train stopped twenty five or so feet from the caboose. Nyko and Jonas climbed down out of the cab.
“You boys been on fucking vacation? I left you here to clear that shit off the god damned tracks. What the fuck have you been doing?” Nyko looked furious. “One god damn thing to do.”
“It ain’t like that at all,” said Brian
“So, what the fuck is it like?”
Brian relayed the story. Andy added in a few missed details, and some color commentary, specifically in the area of how bad Brian smelled.
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Jonas. “We haven’t seen that many infected in more than a year. And why would they spend two days banging on your train car and then just leave you alone?”
“No idea. Look around. Follow the tracks. They were here,” said Andy. “And then something drew them off. That’s all there is. The question is where did they go. I’d like permission to follow the tracks. They can’t be more than half an hour away by buggy.”
“So you can draw them back? They’re gone. Let them stay gone. Get that fucking track cleared. I have rails and ties. Jonas has the welding equipment. I want to cross the patch before sunrise,” Nyko said.
The blockage on the track was made up of several junked cars buried under a pile of concrete, rocks, and dirt. It took the men four hours to clear the wrecks, before Brian and Andy dragged them away with the buggy.
The rest of the day, they worked at filling in the hole behind the blockage and setting the ties. The sun was setting as the men heaved the rails into place and checked the levels. Three of the ties were out of alignment.
Brian complained loudly as he heaved the rail off into the sand. “I fuckin told you that shit was slaunchwise man. You wouldn’t fuckin’ listen.”
“Just shut up and lift this fucking thing,” grunted Terrel.
“Someone’s coming.” Shouted Jonas as the last of the light faded.
“What is it,” yelled Nyko.
“On foot.”
“They’re coming back,” yelled Andy. “Get to the train.”
All the men ran for the train, except Nyko, who walked backwards, looking at the oncoming herd of infected. The moon was not yet up, and the sun had passed the horizon. In the fading light, all he could see was the dust trail they were leaving. It had to be thousands.
An hour later, the train was surrounded, and the rhythmic thumping began. This time, there were windows. The infected stared at the men in the train through the window. When one of them would move, their hands would stretch for a few minutes, reaching towards the movement inside.
After a while, they would lower again, and the swaying would continue. Over the next five days, the men sat in the train. Every hour, Nyko got up, checked the train and then sat back down. Andy and Brian passed their time playing cards and drinking.
At the evening meal on day six, Nyko asked again, “They just fucking left? Six days we’ve been sitting here. Delayed ten days by a bunch of fucking infected. If they aren’t gone by tomorrow, I’m gonna shoot ‘em all just to get moving. Can’t stand the fucking stink of you sons of bitches.”
“Holy shit! That’s it. Boss, Me and Andy wiped down with them bleach rags and went to sleep. When we woke up, they were gone.”
Nyko slammed his hands down on the table. “Six fucking days and you just now mentioned this shit?”
“Well man, ain’t really think about it. Ain’t no one would have thought a few bleach towels would run off a whole herd of ‘em.”
Everyone on the train wiped themselves down with a can of bleach wipes and waited. By midnight, the infected had all gone, continuing their direction of travel. Nyko dismissed the crew to get some sleep.
The repairs started at dawn. They reset the ties, making sure they were level, plumb, and straight. Jonas was like a kid with a new comic book reading the manual that came with the welding rig, and bounced with joy as he lit the thermite. Within seconds, molten steel ran through the form, welding the replacement rail.
At ten minutes after six, they hooked the caboose and boxcar to the buggy, and slowly Andy dragged it back up the track to the siding, so they could get the locomotive back in front of it. The sun was fully down by the time the exhausted crew finished reconnecting the train. Nyko didn’t want to show up in Phoenix in the middle of the night, so he sent everyone to bed after making sure they wiped down with bleach once again.
On the fifteenth morning of the trip, a trip Nyko had expected to take a couple days, they started on the final leg. In three hours, they covered the last twenty eight miles.
The train topped a small rise, heading between two massive sandstone buttes, the gleaming white-walled city of Phoenix came into view.
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Nyko watched the scenery unfold in front of him. In the course of half a day, the landscape went from rocky canyons to tall mesas, then to scrubby desert. The first saguaro cactus appeared, standing nearly ten feet tall; it hadn’t sprouted any arms yet.
He was admiring the cactus, a plant that thrived in the harshest conditions when he was thrown forward in his seat. He stood up and moved hand-to-seat up the aisle. The train was moving slow in an attempt to conserve fuel as well as check out the integrity of the tracks. By the time Nyko made it to the end of the car, they were at a dead stop.
The boss stepped out to the platform between cars and looked towards the front of the train. In the distance through the low, scrubby brush he could see something the tracks. Jonas was waving frantically. Nyko stepped down to the ground and walked up towards the locomotive.
Nyko heard the sound of roar of Andy’s buggy flying across the desert, coming towards them, but he was on the other side of the train, out of sight.
He finally got close enough to hear Jonas over the roar of the diesel engines. “Boss! Marauders!”
“Fuck,” Nyko said to himself and broke into a trot up towards the locomotive. He reached the steps and heard the first shots ring out from the crow’s nest on top of the tanker. It wasn’t the machine gun, but a steady staccato of rifle shots, half a second apart. He bounded up into the engine and winced at the pain in his side. “How many?”
“Lots. Fifty maybe?”
Nyko stuck his head out the window. Andy was heading for the train, followed by six trucks about three hundred yards away. Behind them, men were running. Another shot from the crow’s nest sent a dark shape tumbling out of the bed of one of the trucks.
“Is that Terrell in the Crow’s nest? Damn that fucker can shoot.” He bent over the bench in the locomotive, opened the seat and pulled out two rifles. Jonas’ rifle started off as a police issue Sig-Saur MPX, a small pistol-like sub machine gun. Brian added a modified, shortened folding stock, a red-dot scope, and a flashlight under the short, six and a half inch barrel. Brian called it the T-Rex gun; It was so short even a Tyrannosaurus Rex could shoot it. It fit Jonas perfectly. A curved thirty round magazine arced out of the receiver.
The second was a stock version of the same gun. Inside the bench were half a dozen magazines, and ten boxes of .40 caliber Smith and Wesson ammunition. They had enough bullets in the locomotive to kill a small army, if they made them count.
Andy pulled up beside the locomotive and stopped. “More than a hundred. Coming this way. Four trucks and two big armored trucks in the rear.”
Brian vaulted over the back of the rail buggy into the gunner’s position. “Let’s go wreck them motherfucker brother!” He shouted, strapping in.
“Be careful. Let them come to us. Swing wide and come at them from the back. If you can, take out the two armored trucks first. That’s probably the leader. This is what we built this train for. Heat this son of a bitch up.”
Jonas idled the engines up to the eighty percent mark. “Generators at one hundred percent, captain.”
“Dude. Was that supposed to be a Scottish accent?”
“Aye Captain. I don’t know how much more she can take. Dilithium crystals are almost at maximum capacity.”
“Damnit, Jonas! I need more power!”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I’m already givin’ ya all she’s got. Maybe if I could adjust the fuel injection I could give you another twenty percent.”
“Do it!”
Jonas grinned as he turned the dial the rest of the way up. The engines hummed, vibrating the entire train. “Captain, I don’t know how much more she can…” Jonas quote was cut off by the sound of bullets pinging off the metal exterior.
“Sound the horn,” Nyko ordered, stepping up onto the wooden platform inside the locomotive.
Jonas sounded four blasts, long, short, long, short. “Now we wait.”
The marauders in the trucks stopped, and seconds behind them the running group passed, swarming the train. Nyko flicked up a little red switch cover, revealing two plastic toggles underneath.
“You ready?”
“Ready.”
Nyko flipped the first switch. “Charging.”
Jonas looked out the window. “Wait for it. Ten more seconds.”
Nyko counted down to three in his head, then said “Three. Two. One. Now!” He flipped the second switch, sending five hundred thousand watts of power generated by the train’s diesel electric generators along massive cables to the external plating of the train.
Small arcs of lightning lept from the train to anything nearby electrocuting the attacking marauders instantly.
Nyko flipped both switches off and stepped down off the train and walked back to the first passenger car. When he stepped up, a marauder lept through the doorway at him. Nyko fired two shots from his sub machine gun and kept moving forward, stepping on the corpse in the aisle. He crouched and moved his way back through the cars, killing two more marauders as he went.
Both the crow’s nest and one of the two rear miniguns spun up, the sound of ten thousand angry hornets amplified a hundred times. The sound was the sort that rumbled in the chest and reverberated throughout the entire train.
Nyko cringed at the amount of ammunition being used. Each minigun fired four thousand rounds per minute from its six rotating barrels. Every thirtieth round was a bright phosphorus streak, a tracer round that helped the gunner aim the storm of lead.
Nyko stopped between the last sleeper car and the caboose to watch. This wasn’t a fair fight, it was carnage. Dead marauders carpeted the ground beside the train, three of the four trucks were burning, ignited by the two thousand degree trader rounds. From the top of the train, Derrick was pouring rounds into the second armored truck. Nyko watched him walk the bullets from the rear tire to the front, and then concentrate several thousand rounds in the engine compartment before the truck started smoking and stopped. Brian and Andy spun sideways beside the truck, coming to a rest facing the driver’s side door.
Brian held something to his mouth, then tossed a small bundle under the truck. Andy reversed the buggy quickly, and seconds later a huge explosion lifted the truck off the ground, flipping it onto its side. Andy deftly brought the buggy around facing the back doors, and parked.
Both miniguns stopped firing. Nothing moved on the field. Jonas sounded a quick wah wah on the massive locomotive’s air horns, indicating the all clear. On that signal, Andy and Brian returned to the train. Nyko could hear Brian as he made his way through the caboose.
“Shit man, you see that motherfucker! Whoom! BLAM! Blew that motherfucking truck right on its god damn side! I swear to god I thought that shit was going to knock me off the buggy! Shit!”
Nyko hopped off the end of the train.
“Boss, you see that? Holy shit!” The word holy came out as four or five syllables.
“Yeah. What the fuck was that?”
“Me an’ Andy made up a whole rack of pipe bombs outta some old plumbing shit we had layin’ around. Them sumbitches got some serious power!”
Nyko shook his head. “You two are gonna get yourselves killed. What’s that on the tracks?”
“The tracks are done, Boss. They’re going to have to be replaced. Looks like they blew them up, then piled a couple old train cars and trash on them. The whole thing’s a setup to try and derail anyone coming down the track.”
“How far ahead is Phoenix?”
“I think I saw it in the distance from a bluff about five miles up. Wait until you get a glimpse of it. If that was Phoenix, it looks a lot different than it used to.”
“How so?”
“The whole place is surrounded by a huge white wall. Practically glows in the sunlight. I’d guess I can see about fifteen miles out here, so maybe twenty miles away?”
“Any chance of repairing the tracks?”
“We’ll have to dig up and replace the ties, weld the new rails in place, and grind the track smooth.”
Jonas reached the end of the train as Andy was answering. “We found all the stuff to do that in the barn, but I don’t have any experience welding like that. We’ll have to creep across the welds the first few times, to make sure they can support the load.”
“I don’t suppose you found a manual?”
“Well, yeah. Everything had its documentation, but welding is an art,” Jonas replied. “We can do ‘er, but it’s going to take some time, and we’re sitting ducks out here.
“Here’s what we’ll do. There was siding about an hour back. We’ll run back there, and drop the last two cars in the siding, then pull behind them and push them back here. Two men stay here and get to work on clearing the damaged sections.”
The look on the men’s faces was one of dread. They had to have known they were going to come up on stretches of damaged track.
Nyko continued, “The rest of us will run back to a pile of ties and load a dozen or so. I haven’t seen any since the bridge, but I haven’t been looking. There’s got to be a stack somewhere between here and there. We’ll pull up a siding if we have to and use that rail. Who wants to stay?”
Brian and Andy looked at each other. “We’ll stay. We can use the buggy to pull most of that shit off the tracks.”
“Good men. Let’s get to work. I want to be on the other side of this mess in three days.”
Dropping and repositioning the two cars took less than half a day. It was late evening by the time Andy and Brian parked the buggy beside the caboose and freight car and watched the rest of the train disappear back the way they’d come.
“Wonder how long until them sons of bitches get back.”
“Which?” asked Andy
“Which what,” said Brian, pulling a flask out of his thigh pocket.
“Which sons of bitches?”
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Lacey showed up at the saloon at noon the next day, looking disgusting again. Charlotte let her in and got her some basic supplies.
“We all put together a few outfits for you. Taylor wants to give you a haircut, and Ashley wants to see how you can dance, and give you some general pointers on handling the marks that come in here.”
“I got thirty minutes of sleep last night. I can barely function. I was hoping that I could get a shower and a few hours of sleep, like we talked about.”
“Sure, honey. I didn’t mean you have to do all that now. I was just letting you know how excited we all are that you’re joining us. Do you remember where the shower is?”
“Yep, top of the stairs, on the left.”
“Good. Knock yourself out. Try to keep it under three minutes. Then you can sleep in my room, until we can find another for you. The only empty rooms we have right now are the boys. Brian’s room smells like a high school locker room, and Andy’s smells like a gun store. The rest of them are worse. Normally I’d put you on the couch, but I think you’ll sleep better in a real bed.”
“Thank you, Charlie.”
“Any time, hun. If you’re ever looking for someone to wash your back, you know where to find me.”
“Uhh, thanks.” Lacy turned red and ran up the stairs.
Charlie spent the afternoon deep in inventory, setting the night’s specials based on what they had the most of, and of course, putting up the bounty of the week. This week it was sheets and towels. Anyone who brought in sheets, towels and other linens that were not worn out got double credits on everything they brought in.
One of the shop’s best suppliers, Jacob Weis had been receiving double credit for months. He never talked about where he found anything, but he was definitely her best finder. Every Friday, he came in with four or five hard looking men. They drank all they could, tipped well, and were generally well behaved. She didn’t expect tonight to be much different.
At five, she went upstairs to wake Lacy. Charlie heard something odd, and listened at the door for a moment. A faint buzzing and heavy breathing came from her room. She’d left her toy basket out that morning, and Lacy was apparently enjoying herself.
Charlotte waited until he was finished, gave her a minute to catch her breath, and then opened the door. “Hey Lacy.”
The girl pulled the sheets up quickly. “Good morning.”
Charlie sat on the edge of the bed. “No reason to be shy. We all do it. In a few hours you’re going to be naked on stage. Get up, we have work to do!”
Lacy sat up, just as Taylor and Ashley walked in.
“Damn, lazy! Get out of bed. We’re going to make you beautiful, little girl!” Ashley called every girl little girl. Probably because she was six feet tall with a wingspan to match, and always wore platform heels that made her tower over anyone.
Taylor tossed Lacy a towel. “Go get your hair wet, be fast, we only have an hour.” Lacy ran across the hall, and less than a minute later was back, shivering and wet.
She quickly put on a pair of sweatpants and a thin white tee shirt that were sitting in the chair and then Taylor got to work. Lacy’s hair had almost four inches of dead ends, which Taylor removed before she added layers and shaped it up. When she finished with her hair, she started with makeup.
“Remember you’re on stage. Stage lights do terrible things.”
On the small table in front of her was the most makeup Lacy had seen in a very long time. Before everyone got sick, she would occasionally shop in the makeup store close to USC when she was in college. She had learned a few tricks and picked up an expensive foundation one time, but that was nothing in comparison to the sheer volume of products that sat in front of her.
As Taylor worked, she explained to Lacy what the different products would do and why they were important. Concealer to hide the dark circles under her eyes, foundation to even her tone, blush to give her face some color, contouring to shape her face and highlighter to accentuate her cheek bones and the bridge of her nose. Taylor had clearly done this before and worked the products with ease. Lacy was simply overwhelmed.
“Darlin’, we gotta make those honey eyes of yours pop!” Taylor winked at her and swirled her small makeup brush in pan of cobalt blue shadow.
“Uh…are you sure?”
Taylor grinned at her. “Absolutely.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lacy’s eyes looked to be five times larger than they were before. The bright blue she was worried about blended seamlessly into a dark brown. Her eyeliner went out into a wing and her lashes looked enormous. As she blinked, she couldn’t even tell they were fake.
“Kinda like a modern Marilyn Monroe. Whatcha think?” Taylor asked, jutting her hip out to one side. She looked pleased with herself.
Lacy stood up and leaned into the mirror. “Wow. I never… I haven’t… I’m speechless,” she said. Lacy spun around and hugged Taylor. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Get dressed,” said Taylor. “You can thank me later with a lap dance. I’m claiming the first one.”
“Oh, I.. I mean, you’re really beautiful, and all. But I just.”
Taylor leaned in close to her ear and whispered softly, “You’re just what?” Her breath was hot in Lacy’s ears.
“Oh shit,” Lacy said.
“See,” said Taylor. “It’s not so hard. No one knows how to show you a good time like another woman.”
“I just can’t.” Lacy was firm this time.
“I’m sorry, darlin’. You just get dressed and go on down to Ashley. She’s going to show you some moves.”
“Thank you. Really. I’m so sorry.”
Lacy pulled on a black g-string, and a tiny pair of black shorts, then put on a floor-length black coat. The entire front of the coat was made up by a three inch zipper between her ample breasts.
“Damn girl, you look hot,” said Taylor, slapping her on the butt. “Go on down to Ashley.”
Lacy went down stairs, and Taylor and Charlotte sat down on Charlie’s bed.
“How long do you think she’ll last?”
“I give her three days,” said Taylor. “If she comes back tomorrow.”
The pair heard the music start up.
“I don’t think she’s going to come back tomorrow,” said Charlotte.
“You know, we have a few minutes,” Taylor said softly. She leaned in towards Charlie and kissed her softly.
Forty five minutes later, the pair looked up. “I’ll go see what’s going on,” Charlotte said, pulling her pants back on.
She made it to the door when she heard gunfire, and then screams.
“Shit. Fuck, shit,” She whispered. “In the headboard, grab the pistol, Tay.” She pulled a short barreled scatter gun out of her closet, and put a handful of shells in her pocket.
“I have to get to my room.”
There was shouting from the room below. “No time, we have to go. Stay close behind me.”
Charlotte opened the door to the hall and walked halfway down the stairs. She stopped, and shouted, “Who the fuck is shooting up my god damned bar?”
“I apologize for the gunplay, Ma’am,” called Jim Ratton. “It was a misunderstanding at the door.”
Charlie strode down the stairs. “And why exactly are you in my bar? We don’t open for another forty five minutes.”
“I hold, here in my hand, a writ. You are hereby ordered closed, and all assets to be seized by order of the New Vegas council.”
She strode up to Ratton and pressed the barrel of her shotgun into his chest. “We’re not in New Vegas. You have no authority here. I’ll appreciate if you would leave the writ here though. We’re running a little low on toilet paper.”
Ratton puffed his chest. “We will cut off all citizens of New Vegas from visiting this establishment. We’ll see how well you do without any patrons.”
“You aren’t going to do shit, Ratton. Except, you’re going to turn your fucking ass around and walk out of this bar.” She pulled the shotgun back and punched him in the chest with it, knocking him a step back.
Two of Ratton’s men pointed their guns at Charlotte. Taylor stepped forward and put her gun in the face of one. Lacy pulled a small derringer from between her tits and put it to the temple of the other. “This gun ain’t big,” she said, “But it’ll splatter your brains all over the governor there. You put that gun down.”
“This isn’t the last you’ll see of me. You hear me?” Ratton was practically screaming. “This place is shut down! No one is allowed here. Anyone caught coming or going will be staked to the wall overnight.”
“You’ll have riots in less than three days and a new council by the end of the week. Enjoy your time there, Governor. Get the fuck out of my bar.”
“Next time, I’ll bring an army,” Ratton said, turning to walk out.
“Next time, you better.” Charlotte stood her ground until Ratton was gone. Then she went to the bar and poured herself a whiskey.
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Charlotte opened the bar at six, just like every night. She had a skeleton crew, with Nyko taking her best four employees. She had to put a couple of the girls in other spots. Teagan was working the front door, Taylor was with her behind the bar, and Ashley was working the DJ booth in Derrick’s place.
Continue reading The New Girl
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I walk around my house talking like Brian all the time. I thought you should probably hear what he sounds like, because it makes reading his dialogue that much better. I recorded a short sample of Brian talking. (Warning, some salty language.)
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<< Chapter 14 Chapter 16 >>
The train hummed on the track. Supplies were loaded. Jonas was in the locomotive, in front of a heavily armored fuel tank car. Next, the passenger car, armored on the sides, with a crow’s nest on top. That’s where Brian was. Two more of Nyko’s men, Terrell and Derrick were on the rear deck of the last car.
Andy was already out scouting in the dune buggy, and for now, the maintenance truck was parked in the warehouse. This was an exploratory trip, and Jonas had verified the tracks were operational with the sand-plow.
Nyko climbed the short ladder to the bar car, and took a seat. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen.
The train pulled away from the warehouse, and Nyko poured himself a drink. All alone in the bar car, he hoisted the shot. “The maiden voyage. It’s about time,” he said, tossing the whiskey down his throat.
Jonas sped the train up, making time while he was familiar with the tracks. Nyko was surprised by how loud it was. Even owning a bar with generators and people and music, life was much quieter these days. The sound of a train, the first he’d heard since the outbreak both excited and frightened him. Some people would hear the train and be excited.
As they passed the south western corner of the wall, Jonas laid on the air horn. People all over New Vegas heard it.
For just over an hour, Nyko sat in the bar. It had the most comfortable seats. He imagined the next trips, where the bar would be full of people drinking and carrying on. Somehow he liked it better this way.
Eventually, he made his way to the front of the car, slid the door open and stood out on the platform between the bar and the tanker, watching the desert roll by. He winced as he climbed the ladder to the catwalk across the top of the tanker; the wound in his side was just starting to knit together. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to die of a horrible infection, Charlotte had taken the drain out just the night before and stitched up the last quarter inch of the wound. Stretching his arm up to grab the ladder pulled, and then using his abdominal muscles to lift his leg to the rung drove the ache deeper into his midsection.
He winced, but climbed. He stopped in the middle of the tanker to check on Brian. Originally, the middle of the tank was a wide spot in the catwalk that allowed access to an eighteen inch wide fill-hatch. Jonas beefed up the wide spot, adding layers of chain welded to the top and bottom rail. Jonas swore it would stop handgun bullets. It wasn’t something Nyko wanted to test.
“Hey boss! How you feelin’ man? Shit’s gotta be itchin’ like a motherfucker by now. One time I cut my leg with a chainsaw, took a hunnert and forth seven stitches across my thigh. That sum bitch itched like a kid sittin’ on a fire ant bed.”
“Not bad. It’s just a scratch,” Nyko said. “Have you seen anything?”
“Nah man, me an’ Brian been out a little farther than this, an’ Jonas went all the way to the bridge in the plow. If there was anything out here we’d know about it.”
“Excellent. When we get to the bridge, I’d like to stop and check it out. I want to make sure it’s safe for this monster.”
“Sure thing, Boss. We’ll check her out good. Can’t have no accidental train track locomotive cliff diving or somethin’”
“Yeah. That.”
Nyko walked the rest of the way, climbed down the ladder and stepped into the cab of the locomotive.
“How we doin,” Nyko said.
“She’s purring like a kitten. Can’t even tell we’re pulling anything,” Jonas yelled over the noise of the diesel generator.
“How long until the bridge?”
“bout an hour, give or take.”
“Think you can make it in half an hour? Let’s open her up a little.”
“You sure? Gonna double our fuel use.”
“Yeah, let’s get a feel for her.” Nyko grinned.
Jonas sounded the horn in two short blasts and eased the stick forward, directing more electricity to the drive motors. The pair watched the speedometer climb past thirty to forty, then up to fifty. Jonas pulled the stick back a little when it hit sixty.
Nyko took a seat on the engineer’s bench. His side was killing him, but it didn’t dull the thrill of the inaugural run. After two years of preparation, they were finally getting somewhere.
The feeling of power was amazing. Nyko could see why Jonas liked operating the huge locomotive. It felt unstoppable. On the long straight tracks of the desert, there wasn’t much to do in the cab, so the two of them passed the next hour talking about what they might encounter on the other side of the gorge.
Jonas checked his watch, jumped up and tugged on the horn chain, sounding one quick blast. Then he pulled the drive stick back, idled the engine down, and coasted the train to within a hundred feet of the bridge.
Andy was parked just a few feet away from the trestle. He jumped out of the buggy and met Nyko, Jonas and Brian.
“I rode out on it about fifty feet. Everything looks good. I’ve been here about thirty minutes, and I gotta tell you I could hear you coming the whole time. We ain’t gonna sneak up on anyone with this setup.”
“That’s why we built her as strong as we did. Get across on the buggy. Brian, Jonas, you two inspect as much as you can before we go across. I want to make a decision in thirty minutes. I’ll be in the bar.”
Andy jumped back in the buggy and bounced the wheels up over the track rails. The bridge didn’t have a bottom, just railroad ties spaced a foot apart. Each time, the tires dipped into the void between them, and then bounced up over the next rail.
The pair had built the buggy with over eighteen inches of suspension travel, but Andy still felt like his kidneys were going to rattle out of his gut. The bridge itself was long, nearly a mile, and curved as it crossed Dead Man’s Gorge.
Local lore said that back in the old west days, a scientist named Jason Brown and his cohort Caroline Matheson were ambushed while prospecting in the gorge. The two of them killed two hundred men that day. Stories told of Brown using some sort of weird device that called lightning from the sky, and Caroline wading through bodies with a grim reaper style scythe.
Andy didn’t believe a word of it, but the legend was pervasive. He had plenty of time to think about it in the hour it took to cross the bridge. He also had time to devise a way to use a small crane to lift the buggy up onto a flatbed car. By the time he’d finished the crossing, he knew exactly where to place the lugs to attach the rigging.
Andy reached down and picked up a small walkie-talkie radio. “Redneck, this is Eagle, you copy? Over.”
“God damnit Eagle, My name is Budweiser!”
“Fuck you, Redneck. Over.” Andy grinned, imagining Brian fuming.
“If you don’t call me Budweiser, I’m going to start calling you malt-o-meal. Over.”
“Fine, Budweiser. I’m across the gorge. How does the bridge look? Over.”
“Steady as she goes, Eagle. We’re fired up and ready.”
“Come on across…” Andy’s transmission was cut off by gunfire. Suddenly his whole demeanor changed. He was no longer joking with his buddy. “Taking fire, Taking fire, Contact multiple hostiles, One, two, three o’clock. Request immediate backup. Do you copy, Bravo Uniform Delta?”
“Copy. Heavy is inbound, tee oh tee three minutes.” Brian leapt out of the crow’s nest, slid down the ladder and screamed into the locomotive. “Gotta go, Andy’s in trouble on the far side. Make speed!”
Brian climbed back up into the crow’s nest and strapped on his Kevlar vest. He’d been sitting on it, using it as a cushion on the hard metal. Next he slid his rifle sling over his shoulder and watched through the scope.
His rifle was designed for close quarters combat, not long range shooting. His scope offered very little magnification, but he fired three shots anyway.
At the back of the train, Terrell and Derrick charged the fifty-caliber machine guns and removed the pins so the guns could rotate on their mounts.
The train leapt forward, onto the bridge. Brian heard the guns on the buggy firing in the distance. Andy was putting up a hell of a fight.
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<< Chapter 13 Chapter 15 >>
The next morning at daybreak, Jonas, Brain, and Andy loaded up in the Marauder’s truck to head out to the barn. They spent the day loading and hauling, and by nightfall were completely exhausted.
The maintenance shop was fully outfitted to repair any type of railroad car. Spare parts, specialty tools, and best of all, a massive tank of diesel fuel. The tank was, by Jonas’ estimation nearly full. The marauders were sitting on a gold mine, somewhere in the neighborhood of eight thousand gallons of fuel.
Jonas and Nyko had only gone a few miles on the train, but their initial estimations were that it would take about two gallons of fuel to move a mile. Jonas knew about two hidden diesel reserves he and Nyko had sourced, which totaled enough fuel to make the two-thousand mile circuit they had planned three times. This reserve would help them make it four more times.
That gave them enough fuel for a year of operation, Nyko would be thrilled.
The three men worked on the track-plow for the better part of two hours figuring out how it worked, how each of the mechanisms operated, and making sure it was all in good working order. In operation, it was a very simple machine.
A front plow, not unlike a snowplow, cleared the sand down to the tops of the rails. Just behind the sand-plow, a large broom-wheel spun very quickly to dig the sand out from between the rails, ejecting it out the side.
A secondary plow on either side at the mid-point of the locomotive pushed the sand eight feet on either side of the rails. As a test run, Jonas ran the plow up to the warehouse.
It functioned beautifully, leaving gleaming sand-polished rails in its wake. Jonas was giddy. He screwed a wooden crate inside the cab of the plow locomotive, lifting him high enough to see out the window at the flying waves of sand he pushed. The feeling of power was amazing, if felt like nothing could stop this massive machine.
Over the next several days, Jonas cleared the tracks all the way to the northern edge of the Canyon bridge. He liked the work. He learned that the faster he went the farther it pushed the sand, buying them more time between cleanings. On his last run, he had the stick forward running about forty-five miles per hour. Sand flew off the blades nearly twenty feet in either direction.
By the time the tracks were clear, Nyko was up on his feet. He was still only allowed light duty according to Dr. Charlotte as everyone had taken to calling her. No lifting or getting up and down, but he was able to supervise loading provisions on the train. If everything went well, this first trip would only be a couple of days down to Phoenix, then a couple of days back.
Nyko wanted to go meet with the Phoenix leadership before he started making official runs. Mostly, he wanted to know what supplies he could sell for the most profit. This was an expensive endeavor. Carrying passengers was one small revenue stream. Their drinking and eating in the bar car was another, but the real money was to be made hauling goods between the two cities. If he could establish and run the only trade routes between several cities, he’d be set.
As the departure date neared, Nyko felt Charlotte growing more and more distant. Finally, after she walked past him in the hallway without even looking at him, he put his hand on her shoulder and asked her to step into the office.
When they were alone in the office, Nyko crossed his arms and leaned against the door, holding it closed. “Spit it out, girl.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have work to do,” Charlie replied, making a slight move towards the door Nyko was blocking.
“Not until you tell me what your problem is.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it.”
“We’ve been partners for a long time. I count on you more than anyone in the family. If something’s bothering you, I need to know about it.”
Charlie’s internal debate raged. Finally her stubbornness won out. “Nyko, I don’t want to talk about it.”
He had years of experience managing people in the shop, and was a naturally shrewd judge of character. “Okay. So, it’s me you’re upset with?”
She was always surprised by how easily Nyko could dig the truth out of her. The debate raged again. He’d get it out of her. She might as well tell him. “When you were injured, I stepped up and ran this place. I made the hard decisions. I sewed you up. I’m not a fucking nurse. I’m not a fucking manager. I don’t know all the things you know. I have no idea what I’m fucking doing here, I’m just making this shit up as I go, and what happens when I make the wrong call? What happens when I make the wrong decision, Nyko? When you leave, all these people will be counting on me. Depending on me for their lives and safety and security.”
Nyko nodded. “What could I possibly say to make you feel better, when I have all those same fears? I live in fear every day that one of you is going to get killed doing something for me. That marauders are going to show up at our door and overrun the place.”
“How do you handle it? How do you deal with all the pressure?”
“I don’t know,” said Nyko. “I guess because there is no other choice. This is life now. I try to make the best decisions I can with what I have. That’s the only way I can sleep at night.”
“And how can you leave all that on me?”
“Because you’re the only one that can do it. Because it has to be done. New Vegas is doomed, Charlie. There aren’t enough resources. They’re running out of canned food. There isn’t enough water to grow crops. There isn’t enough fertile dirt. Vegas was always a city ruled by technology. Without it, humans can’t survive here. But, do you know where we can survive? Southern Colorado. Kansas. The mid-west.”
“So you’re moving all of us east?”
“We can’t stay here. And I can’t move everyone and start an entirely new city with the resources I have. My only choice is to use what I have to earn what we’ll all need to survive.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t start a community with fifteen people, only four of whom are women. We can’t start a community without teachers and doctors and a hundred other vocations. We’re just a bunch of mechanics. I value the skills of every one of you. But we don’t have enough.”
Charlotte nodded as Nyko continued. “Also, I can’t take fifty or a hundred people out into the waste to make a place to live without the means to build a wall to protect us. We can’t go without the means to grow food, without the means to defend ourselves, and certainly without enough food to survive the first winter.”
Charlotte wondered when he’d made all these plans, and what else he hadn’t told her. “When were you planning on telling me all this?”
“When it was a real possibility. People need hope, Charlie. I need hope, a goal to strive towards.”
“So, what now,” she replied.
Nyko grinned. “Now you tell no one about this conversation. The goal is to get to Phoenix to prove that travel across the wasteland is possible, and to make it less frightening. If things work out in Phoenix, we’ll start offering pleasure cruises. We’ll get people used to the idea, and then we’ll take it a step further. All the while, buying and selling what we can, hauling freight between destinations, and stockpiling materials we’ll need when the time comes.”
“Do you ever not have a plan?”
Nyko smiled at her as she left the office, and then walked back into the warehouse. As he supervised the loading of the train, Nyko wondered if the pressure might be too much for her. She was only twenty four years old. She’d never managed anything until The Saloon.
The first trip was only scheduled to run three days out, and three days back. Jonas was bringing enough for three weeks. The rail truck, the scout buggy, and two dirt-bikes would get the whole crew back to The Saloon in the event of a breakdown. Nyko and Jonas had figured on triple-redundancy, and it was all coming together.
Tomorrow, the train departed. Nyko held his side as he limped back to his room, confident that everything was in good hands.
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<< Chapter 13 Chapter 15 >>
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The trip to Henderson Veterinary was uneventful. Andy pulled up in front of the vet’s office and killed the engine on the buggy.
“Aww, baby, tell me they didn’t hurt you,” Brian said as lept out to inspect their buggy for any damage.
Andy knelt at the front door and put his flashlight in his mouth. He slid the key he found before they left into the lock and applied a slight pressure, trying to turn it. Then he tapped the back of the key with his flashlight. In less than a minute he had the bolt unlocked, and the door open.
“How’s she lookin’?” Andy called back to Brian.
“Ain’t a scratch on her. I don’t think they fired a shot, dumb sons of bitches never even knew what hit ‘em.”
Brian grabbed an empty backpack out of the back of the dune buggy, pulled a small flashlight out of a pouch on his belt, and he and Brian entered the office. “Don’t look like nobody’s been in here. Let’s grab some shit and go. I wanna get back and finish them fuckers off.”
The pair loaded up the bag, plus everything they could carry and headed out. Andy reached the door open as Brian was coming up the hall. Tiny specks of light lit up the floor through the holes in the shuttered blinds. Brian split them with his fingers to see the headlights of a pair of trucks shining in the front of the building.
“Andy, no!” shouted Brian
Andy moved with incredible speed, diving behind a couch that was backed up to the outside wall. Brian dove behind the reception desk and hoped none of them had high caliber rifles.
The second after the door moved, bullets flew. The front windows shattered, spewing glass and debris all over the inside of the office. The shades were torn down, allowing moonlight to filter into the room. Andy and Brian lay curled up in the fetal position, butt and feet towards the incoming bullets, protecting their heads and core. Both were well trained.
“Wait for them to come in,” Brian shout-whispered. The hail of led stopped and Brian, quieter this time whispered, “You shot?” Andy shook his head.
Brian un-holstered the pistol at his waist, and saw Andy do the same. “Wait as long as you can,” said Andy.
Seconds later, the door screeched open, grinding glass shards into the linoleum floor. Four men poured in the door. Andy and Brian lay perfectly still.
“We got ‘em, boys!” yelled the first man. The two friends heard a cheer from outside.
The four marauders split into pairs, one heading for Andy and the other for Brian. Almost simultaneously, the marauders poked Brian and Andy with the barrels of their rifles. Both men quickly rolled over and fired twice, killing all four marauders.
Andy stood up and looked at Brian before yelling in a perfect impression of the marauder, “Double tapped those motherfuckers. Come on in boys, let’s clear this place out.”
Brian and Andy backed down the hall and waited. The remaining men poured through the door into the moonlit lobby and were cut down where they stood.
Less than a minute later, the entire office was full of gun smoke. The smell of blood and burned powder filled their noses. Brian let out a low, “Fucccccccck you, bitches!”
Andy ran up and kicked one of the dead men. “You don’t fuck with us! We’ll lay you motherfucking sons of bitches dick in the motherfucking dirt!”
Outside, one remaining marauder ran off, jumped over a concrete wall into the back yard of one of the vacant houses and kept running.
Brian and Andy loaded the supplies into the buggy, along with everything valuable they could scavenge from the dead marauders. One of them had a decent pair of boots, another had a leather jacket. Andy started it up, while Brian headed towards the best looking of the two marauder trucks.
“Let’s go finish ‘em off. Wonder if they left anyone back there?”
“Probably not. But we gotta be careful anyway. They surprised us once,” replied Brian.
“Grab the keys outta that other truck. We’ll come back for it later,” called Andy.
The marauder barn was, in fact, empty. The two parked their vehicles and cleared the building before loading up a few useful items . The marauders had food, water, a massive supply of ammunition, and the barn was a treasure trove of tools.
“We ain’t never gonna get all this shit back to Nykos. It’s gonna take us a dozen trips.”
“Nyko came here for that track plow, right? To get all the sand off the tracks? What if we use that to pull one of these boxcars?”
“We gotta get these meds to Nyko though. We should drive home, then we can come back with some help to load it all up,” said Andy.
I like the way you think, brother-man,” replied Brain.
When they pulled into the garage it was nearly seven o’clock. Charlotte came striding through the warehouse to meet them. “Where have you been? Andy, you were supposed to be on the door an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” said Andy. “We went to get Nyko some antibiotics, and ran into a little trouble.”
“We got a bunch of medicine though,” said Brian cheerfully.
“You should have let me know where you were going. Not only were we short staffed, which I could have covered if I’d known, I was worried about you.”
“We’re sorry,” the pair intoned together.
“What did you get?”
“Andy found a book in the vet’s office. It said gut wounds need some C –E – F antibiotics.” Brian spelled out the letters. “We grabbed everything that started with C-E-F and everything that ended with ‘cillin.”
“Good job, boys. Let’s go check on our patient.”
When they got up to Nyko’s room, he was awake. Sweat beads dotted his forehead. “Hey, Charlie, boys.” He said weakly. “What happened?”
“Your intestine was ruptured. I sewed you up. You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours.” She laid her hand on his forehead, he was burning up.
“You have a fever, which tells me you have an infection. The boys just raided a vet’s office and brought you a bunch of medicine. I’m going to change out your IV now,” she said. Brian and Andy were impressed by her authority.
“Thanks, Charlie,” Nyko said. He smiled up at her.
“How’s the pain?” she asked.
“Feels like someone stabbed me in the gut.”
“Boss, me an’ Andy here wiped all them fuckers out. We checked out that barn, it’s got everything we need. We just needed to get these meds to you before we loaded it all up and cleared our way back here.”
“Nice work, fellas. Thanks for getting me all fixed up. I need to chat with Charlie now. Can you go cover the saloon for a few minutes?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Andy and Brian grinned from ear to ear as they left.
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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!”
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