Tentacle Death Trip Page 10

  Drac was trying to figure it out when Mama Hell rammed into his car.

  III.

  “Fuck you!” screamed Mama Hell as she slammed into that glass-skulled freak, sending him onto the sidewalk where a group of Zoners was watching a television that had been placed on a pile of dead Yuggs.

  Mama had never been one to watch television and she wondered why these people would bother to use the limited electricity still being produced by the dwindling number of Silver-owned hydroelectric plants. Didn’t they have anything better to do with that power? But no, they used it instead to rot their brains with secular nonsense.

  She was delighted to see Drac’s car run into the Zoners, spraying the air with blood and body parts. His car also ran over the television and Yugg corpses which covered his car with sparks and yellow flesh.

  Drac’s car didn’t crash, though, and that pissed Mama off. She grabbed her gun, stuck her hand out the window, and fired several shots. The back of Drac’s car was riddled with bullet holes but no substantial damage.

  Mama stayed even with Drac’s car as it drove off the sidewalk and back onto the road. Her minivan crashed into Drac’s car again but this time he was ready for it. A tentacle shot up from underneath the car and punctured the side of the van. Mama tried to steer away but found herself stuck.

  “You fucking asshole!” she screamed, interpreting the penetration as some form of automotive rape. That glass-skulled freak was a typical man using his car to compensate for his lack of manhood.

  Underneath her ass, she could feel the tentacle molesting the bottom of her van, tearing pieces off her car while also sucking up gasoline. One of her tires was punctured and then another. Mama tried steering away from Drac but it didn’t work. The car was out of her control.

  Another of Drac’s tentacles entered Mama’s car but this time straight through the back window. It rooted around, tearing up the seats and upholstery. Mama screamed, cursing that ugly freak to hell, wanting to get her hands on him so she could cut him up with her turtle shell, break open the top of his skull, and piss into it like a champagne glass.

  She looked over and saw Drac smiling while waving his fingers at her, taunting her, wanting her to make a move. Mama Hell screamed in fury, cleared her throat, and then hocked a gob of phlegm out the window towards Drac’s car. It splattered to the asphalt only to be scraped up and eaten by one of the Zoners.

  The two racers had just driven ten blocks into the Zone of Dead Roads and they were approaching a building that used to be a high school but was now converted into a processing plant for the Yugg hallucinogen. It was also the home of Lord Bing Bong.

  Drac’s car and Mama’s minivan sped through the front lawn of the high school and just as they were approaching the building, Drac retracted his tentacles and made a quick 180-degree turn. Mama, on the other hand, crashed directly into the front of the school.

  IV.

  Samson decided he wouldn’t kill Lord Bing Bong.

  He had wasted enough time visiting Cobra and it just wasn’t worth risking his life and Paulo’s for some unknown prize. Samson had heard stories about Bing Bong and it wasn’t as if the man hadn’t done things to deserve a death warrant. Still, who knew what traps Silver laid while hoping the drivers would take the bait?

  What he had to be careful about, though, was making it through the Zone of Dead Roads. If Lord Bing Bong knew Silver had put a price on his head, he might be all ready to send out his own bizarre assassins to eliminate the racers.

  When they were a mile away from the “official” start of the Zone, Paulo turned to Samson and said, “Why do they call it the Zone of Dead Roads?”

  “I think it has something to do with how dangerous it is. People tend to drive through there and they don’t come out unless Lord Bing Bong lets them,” Samson said, not sure if he sounded convincing enough. It wasn’t a total lie. The Zone was truly one of the most dangerous places. But that wasn’t why it got its name.

  “Really?” The kid was a shrewd one. His eyes told Samson he knew the whole truth hadn’t been told.

  “Well…..”

  Their car approached a burnt down train car with the words LEROUX RAILWAY COMPANY painted on the side. Dozens of plastic masks hung from the train car, worn out faces of werewolves, spacemen, vampires, robots, pre-war presidents, and fish-faced monsters.

  Samson took the opportunity to change the subject. “Wow, pretty cool masks, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  That’s when Samson saw the sentries standing around the boundary of the Zone. They were holding their weapons up, itching to blow an outsider’s car to bits. But from what Samson had heard, they weren’t indiscriminate slaughterers. There was a specific method to Lord Bing Bong’s bloodthirsty madness. It was all a hallucinatory game to him and to his Zoners.

  “Hang on, kid,” Samson said, making a hard right into an alleyway, immediately realizing that it could be a trap. He grabbed a shotgun from the backseat and activated the blow gun on top of the car.

  They sped down a street and found themselves sandwiched between storefronts decorated with entrails and others covered with spikes painted deep red. Chain-link fences covered the sidewalk, twisted into spirals. Mutilated children’s toys hung from quivering wires.

  “Are you going to kill that man?” Paulo said.

  “Lord Bing Bong? No, we’re not going to kill him.”

  “Why not?”

  Samson took his eyes off the road and looked at the boy. “What do you mean, ‘why not’? You want me to kill him?”

  Paulo shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “If someone tries to hurt us, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us safe but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to hunt someone down just because Silver wants me to.”

  Paulo started to say something but was interrupted by Samson. “Shhhh.”

  Someone was following them.

  Three women on motorcycles were coming up fast. They were topless, the pale skin on their heavy breasts vibrating with the rumbling of their engines. Black boots covered their legs up to the knees and were met with dirty, denim shorts. Each of the three women had the same hair style: a multicolored bird’s nest that spread out in all directions like a sombrero. One of them had a vacuum strapped to her back, the hose extending out like a third arm in front of her.

  This was bad news. Samson knew there a multitude of motorcycle gangs roaming the country but from the look of their hair, these three women had come all the way from Canada. Were they taking orders from Silver or were they following Lord Bing Bong?

  That wasn’t the only thing to worry about. Samson could see now that there were people occupying the broken down tenement buildings and collapsed stores he was driving past. Mostly he saw the yellow eyes, unblinking and bright. He had no doubt they had weapons pointed towards the street.

  As the roar of the motorcycles grew louder, the topless women got closer, holding crossbows.

  “Stay down, kid,” Samson said. That’s when shots were fired out of one of the buildings. A rusted mailbox exploded ten feet in front of their car but Samson managed to avoid damage. The motorcycle women surrounded the car and Samson then realized he had taken the wrong road. Up ahead there was a gigantic stone wall covered in neon lights.

  They were driving into a trap.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Yowzah! This is crazy!

  Sorry, race fans but we had to say adios to that sweetheart Gabby Peppermint. I’d like to say she went out peacefully but… as you saw, she went out in a blaze of entrails! But, hey, no one said it was going to be easy.

  And our other lady racer, Mama Hell, just crashed into a building in the Zone of Dead Roads. Little does she know that building is also the headquarters of Lord Bing Bong himself and I imagine he won’t be too pleased.

  *

  I.

  Six Months Ago

  Mama walked into the abandoned mega-church and had a seat in front of the stage. She stared at the banner th
at hung from the ceiling: God Wants You to Be Rich.

  “Dear Lord,” she said. “Please allow me to prosper and be rich just like all of your flock….”

  The door behind her opened and in walked an older man who resembled many of the preachers Mama had used to watch on television. He wore a white suit and had hair that looked too styled to be on a man of his age.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you the one they call Mama Hell?”

  Mama glared at him, aggravated that he had interrupted her private time with her savior. “Who are you?”

  “I’m sorry but….are you Mama Hell?”

  “Yes I am,” she said. “Now what do you want?”

  “My name is Enzo and I represent Mr. Silver. You are familiar with him, right?”

  Mama nodded.

  “Well, he’s organizing a major race and he needs all the….god-fearing people he can get,” Enzo said and the proceeded to explain the details of the race. Mama listened to him while also trying to decide whether God would have wanted her to be doing so.

  After Enzo was finished, Mama said, “I’ll have to pray about it.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “As long as it has to!” Mama slammed her first done on the chair next to her. She stared into the man’s eyes, forcing him to turn around and walk to the door. Before he opened it, he spoke.

  “I’ll await your answer.”

  As she sat alone in what she thought was the presence of the Lord, Mama Hell contemplated entering the race. There was something strange about it, no doubt, but maybe it was her chance to prosper just as God had wanted her to.

  She walked outside to see if she could catch up with the man named Enzo and was shocked to see him defecating in the parking lot. “Pagan,” she said, knowing a Christian wouldn’t dare do a thing like that.

  When Enzo saw her, he didn’t stop shitting. He just said, “Make a decision?”

  Mama Hell nodded. “I’m in.”

  Enzo wiped his ass with his handkerchief. “Excellent! Mr. Silver will be pleased.”

  She watched as he got into his white car and drove away, leaving her to catch a whiff of his shit along with the dusty, wasteland wind.

  II.

  That bastard.

  Mama Hell would have given anything to get her hands on Drac. She would have given up any chance on winning the race if she could just get one good shot at him. But she knew that was unlikely. Her minivan was lodged inside the front of the school and was completely totaled. She wasn’t going to be able to drive out of there.

  It was over.

  But what the hell was she going to do? She knew the stories about Lord Bing Bong and the Zoners. She knew they were murderous drug fiends, a gang of homicidal black magicians who sacrificed the Yuggs for their infernal purposes. Mama Hell hated those pagan assholes. Even after a world war, they had betrayed God whereas she had never lost her faith. God was simply testing humanity and those Zoners had failed miserably.

  The driver’s side door was heavily damaged but after a few kicks, Mama Hell got it open and stepped into the foyer of the school. It brought back memories not of her own school days but of the time she had spent protesting the local school system because of their insisting on teaching the theory of evolution.

  She grabbed her gun and got out of the car. She was surprised to see the foyer was empty. She had assumed there were Zoners all over the place, ready to pounce on outsiders. Regardless, she needed to find a safe way out of there. The whole place was giving her satanic vibes.

  Hanging from the ceiling were flickering fluorescent lights and on the walls were detailed portraits drawn in brown, yellow, and red ink. Mama Hell glanced at the names under the pictures but didn’t recognize any of them: Sir Josef Polver, Xnoybis IV, Simon Revair.

  Several vending machines had been tipped over and gutted. Flowers were now growing from inside them. A glass case that used to house athletic trophies was now filled with statues in the shape of obese women. They were made of wax, leaves, granite, and bone. Mama Hell resisted the urge to smash those examples of pornographic idolatry.

  Mama Hell walked a few feet down a long hallway filled with lockers, debris, and shoes. The door at the other end of the hall opened slowly with a creak. Out walked a tall, bearded man with a scythe.

  There were two ways she could deal with this. She knew she should try to run back outside but Zoners were probably coming around to check out the crash. Another option was facing the bearded man.

  She closed her eyes and said, “Dear God, if you cannot deliver me out of the presence of the ungodly, please grant me the power to die a righteous death. Amen.”

  Then she raised her gun and fired down the hallway.

  III.

  Drac knew where Lord Bing Bong lived. Much of his day was spent in the former high school watching Under Siege 2 and experimenting with ancient texts. Bing Bong would do this all while defecating into a copper bowl for he was an accomplished spatilomancer. He had told Drac he never made any sort of decision before consulting his “bowl of brown dreams” and writing down the results in his journal.

  Drac was thirsty. The gasoline at the station didn’t satisfy him or his car. He needed more. His body craved it. His soul craved it.

  Mama Hell’s car hadn’t satisfied him. He knew Lord Bing Bong kept a gas reserve in his building and luckily he was close. Mama Hell had crashed into it and all he had to do was find a way inside and drain the reserves. Then he’d kill Bing Bong.

  He figured the easiest way was getting in the same way Mama Hell did. He’d crash right into one of the entrances and drive through the hallways like a runaway train. He’d been in there before and was slightly familiar with the layout. The element of surprise was cliché, yes, but still to his advantage.

  An explosion in front of his car sent Drac swerving to the left. He nearly crashed into the brick wall of the school as something else exploded right behind him. From the corner of his eye he saw figures on the roof of the school. Zoners.

  He stepped on the gas and sped toward the side entrance of the school, his tentacles reaching out to puncture the building before the car did. In an explosion of brick and glass, Drac drove into the school. A few Zoners had been standing in front of the entrance but were quickly crushed by the car.

  “Serves you right!” Drac said, watching as the arm of one Zoner flew up into the air and fall into a broken water fountain.

  It took Drac all of ten seconds to stumble upon the tall, bearded man who was holding a scythe and running wildly away from him. What the hell was going on?

  That’s when he saw Mama Hell down the hall shooting her gun with her mouth opened wide, her clothes torn and burnt. The man with the scythe was getting close to her and Drac was slightly tempted to take the man down simply so he could finish off Mama himself.

  Instead, he just watched.

  IV.

  “You godless piece of shit!” Mama Hell screamed. She started shooting until the act itself became as naturally as breathing. But the Zoner with the scythe was still coming towards her. She didn’t hear the roar of Drac’s engine until she saw the car swinging around the corner down the hall.

  She wasn’t too happy about that. Now she had two assholes to deal with.

  Then she was out of bullets. The scythe-Zoner grunted as her approached. A hellish burp escaped from his mouth. He licked his lips and spoke, “Lord doesn’t wish to speak to you, bitch.”

  Mama Hell’s eyes turned into hateful slits. Though her gun was now useless, she did have other weapons in the car. If she could only run back and get one…..

  She started to run, cursing the bearded bastard while doing so. But he followed her, waving his weapon in front of him, slashing at Mama Hell. She had reached her car and was grabbing for the door when she felt a sharp pain in her back.

  The scythe had caught her, ripping skin off. But luckily for Mama Hell, it wasn’t her skin.

  The tattooed vest of flesh she wore saved her life. Th
e Zoner thought he had her, thought she was wounded when he saw that pancake of skin fall off. It gave Mama Hell just enough time to jump into the driver’s side of the car and grab her razor-sharp turtle shell which she quickly whirled at the Zoner.

  It hit him in the neck.

  He dropped the scythe, his hands reaching up to try to plug the hole that was gushing copious amounts of blood onto his chest and feet. For a second, it looked as if he was draped in a red robe.

  Mama Hell laughed loudly. She walked over to the bleeding man and kicked him in the crotch and took his scythe.

  The man died holding his neck and groin.

  Mama Hell picked up her skin vest and wrapped it around herself. She laughed as she walked away with the dead man’s weapon. That’s when she heard the roar of Drac Dunwich’s car. He was coming right towards her.

  V.

  Drac didn’t expect Mama Hell to survive the fight with the Zoner. Yes, she had a gun but those Zoners were impervious to pain when they were high on their Yugg drug. He revved his engine to get ready to speed down the hall to run over the Zoner but then he saw Mama Hell turn the corner holding the scythe. Shit, the bitch survived.

  Oh well. He had no qualms about running her down. She was a thorn in his side and a despicable example of a human being. He was going to take great pleasure in making her road kill.

  He put the car in gear and sped down the hallway. There was no way that woman was going to be able to move out of the way that fast. He stared her down as he went straight for her.

  Mama Hell must have just given up. There was no other explanation for her not even attempting to move out of the way as the car pummeled her into the cinderblock. Drac stepped on the brake fast enough not to total his car. Mama Hell, on the other hand, was totaled. She was cut in half by the car, the bottom part of her dropping down to the ground.

  The top half of her was on the hood of Drac’s car. She was still conscious and still holding the scythe. Her mouth was foaming.

  “Godless freak!” she said. The red tattoos on her skin-vest were moving now, swirling into shapes: a devil, a dwarf, a deck of cards, a sun, a question mark, a bungalow, an obelisk, a spiral, a winged creature.