Demonic, page 15
What was happening to those demons? Were they screaming in pain as their flesh burned? Were they gaping in horror at their mutilated bodies, watching their gushing blood boil in the flames? Were they having a good laugh?
Didn’t matter right now.
Quinn floored the gas pedal. Not too far ahead I could see some non-burning automobiles.
“Don’t go too fast,” I said. “We don’t want to catch up to those cars.”
Quinn nodded. Then she looked in the rearview mirror. “Aw, fuck.”
“What?”
She tapped the mirror. I turned around instead. “Aw, fuck,” I said. Actually, that wasn’t strong enough, but I couldn’t think of a harsher profanity right then.
A garbage truck was barreling down on us, completely engulfed in flames.
“It’ll be okay,” said Quinn, in the least reassuring and soothing tone of voice I’d ever heard.
I’d never driven a garbage truck, or even ridden in one, but I didn’t think they could maintain “highway car chase” speeds. Yet this one seemed to be going really fast. Satan-powered?
We were good. We were fine. Everything was fine. If that thing ran into us, both Quinn and I would be dead for sure, so of course it wouldn’t run into us. That would be ridiculous.
“How did they get a garbage truck?” asked Quinn, usurping my role as the asker of needless questions.
I didn’t answer.
The obvious course of action would be for Quinn to continue flooring the gas pedal and drive away from this nightmare truck as fast as we possibly could. Maybe we could outrun it. It was much faster than a garbage truck driven by mortals, but perhaps not as fast as our car. Although I could envision that thing destroying a hell of a lot of cars as it pursued us.
I could, I suppose, argue that the other drivers on the highway also had the option of driving really, really fast, and that their inability to out-maneuver the truck wasn’t our fault. I could also put my hands over my ears, go “La la la la la la!” and pretend that no innocent people would die.
But, no. It was my fault that this death truck was on the highway, and drivers with spouses, children, and pets were going to perish if our plan was to simply try to outrun it.
That said...what were we supposed to do? I had an empty gun.
“How can we make it crash?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’re not asking me,” said Quinn. “If we ram it, I’m going to say that we’ll lose.”
“There has to be a way. What about...I don’t know...what about...what about God?”
“God?”
“Why not? God doesn’t approve of that thing. Maybe prayer has been the answer all along.”
“Be my guest.”
“How do you start? I know you end with ‘Amen’ but I’m not sure how you start. Am I supposed to close my eyes?”
“I’d rather you keep your eyes open and watch for danger.”
I put my hands together in a praying position. “Dear God. I’m sorry I haven’t come to you before. I don’t think my prayer requires a lot of explanation. If you could see fit to use your divine influence to make that garbage truck go away—and also the other demons, but I’d be happy with just the garbage truck right now—I’ll be in the front row of church every Sunday for the rest of my life. Thank you. Amen.”
Nothing happened.
“Also, charity,” I continued. “So much charity. Every evening. Every weekend. I’ll make you proud, God. And I’ll stop fornicating, unless you give me a sign that you’re okay with it. I don’t know all the rules. Anyway, that’s it. Amen.”
Still nothing happened. The garbage truck was still engulfed in flames and was getting closer and closer. Before too much longer, it would be upon us.
“It was worth a shot,” I told Quinn. “If we’re up against agents of Satan, it made sense to try to get the opposite guy on board.”
“Vic put years of effort into his subservience to the dark lord. All you did was a super quick last-minute prayer.”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
The garbage truck was very close. If I crawled into the back of the car and out onto the trunk, I could almost leap onto it.
Not that I would ever consider such a...
It was a terrible idea. Perhaps the worst idea I’d had over the past few days, and I think we can agree there were some humdingers in there. Jumping from a fast-moving car onto a fast-moving garbage truck was a poor idea on its own, but this was a flaming garbage truck, so the idea was spectacularly bad.
Which meant that I had to get moving before I changed my mind.
“Is there anything really heavy in here?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Something like a tire iron. But not locked in the trunk.”
“I just bought this car. I didn’t put anything in here but my bug-out bag, and that’s just clothes and emergency supplies.”
I unfastened my seatbelt. “Okay.”
“What are you doing?”
“It’ll be fine,” I lied. I turned around and began to crawl into the back seat. “I’m going to jump onto the truck.”
“You’re what?”
“You heard me. If I say it out loud again I’ll chicken out.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you fucking serious?”
I made it into the back seat and hurriedly opened my suitcase. There was nothing particularly heavy in there that could be used to smash the front windshield of a garbage truck, but I grabbed a couple of shirts and wrapped them around my hands.
“The truck is on fire!” Quinn said.
“That’s what the shirts are for.” Though these cotton/polyester T-shirts were not going to put up a major line of defense against the flames, I figured they might give me a couple of extra seconds. There was no time to tie them properly, and they’d come off if I flapped my arms too vigorously, but this was the best I could do right now.
I started to climb out the shattered rear windshield.
“Cody!” Quinn shouted.
“Who’s Cody?”
“I mean Casey! Corey! Shit! Get back in the car!”
That did seem like the much smarter thing to do. But no. This might end in my splattery death, but I was—unless I changed my mind in the next few seconds, which was a distinct possibility—ready to take that risk. Not only would it be nice to no longer have the garbage truck right behind us, but using it against the other devil-powered cars would be sweet.
“Stay right in front of it,” I said.
I climbed out onto the trunk of the car. I suddenly felt a lot less steady than I had when I was inside the vehicle. I’d been very comfy inside that car. I missed being in there.
I steeled my resolve. Yes, I was going to leap onto the front of this flaming garbage truck, whose front hood was much higher than I expected. But at least it had a hood. It wasn’t one of those garbage trucks where the front is flat and there’s nothing for a person to jump onto if they’re leaping from the car directly in front of it.
This was going to have to be quite a jump.
This is where I sort of hoped that the voice of God would speak up, assuring me that He was going to take care of everything, and that there was no need for me to do something so silly, but He remained silent.
I leaned back inside the car. “Slow down a bit,” I told Quinn. “Don’t let it actually bump us, but get close enough that it almost does. Know what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. I assume she’d given up on me at this point. She’d allow me to leap to my death, then formulate her own plan for getting out of this scrape.
I returned my full attention to the garbage truck. I couldn’t see the driver through the flames, and if I could see him through the flames I wouldn’t be able to see his face through the devil mask, but if I could see his face, I’m guessing that his expression was “What the hell is this suicidal idiot doing?”
The suicidal idiot stood up and jumped.
Chapter Nineteen
I did not leap onto a burning garbage truck.
Oh, I leapt onto a garbage truck, and what a leap it was! The fact that I’m telling you this story myself implies that I survived the experience, although, considering the subject matter, there’s no reason I couldn’t have perished and am narrating this while crimson pitchforks jab my ass.
Quinn did an excellent job with her driving duties, and the jump itself wasn’t that far. It wasn’t like jumping up onto a stationary garbage truck, but we were going the same speed, and the truck was close enough that a quick tap of the brakes by Quinn could be enough for a collision. I’m not trying to downplay my accomplishment, which did indeed involve leaping off one moving vehicle onto another moving vehicle, but in the interest of “suspension of disbelief” I’m trying to make sure you understand that this wasn’t a superhuman feat of agility, though still impressive as hell.
So...the fire.
My plan was to leap on the front of the truck and smash through the windshield as quickly as I could. During which time, yes, I’d receive serious burns. The hope was that I could move efficiently enough to get into the truck before I was consumed by flames. Jump. Cry out in pain. Kick the windshield open. Get into the truck. Beat the shit out of the driver. Use the flaming garbage truck to knock the other demons off the road.
I knew it might not work like that, which is why I was determined to do this before I took the time for a full risk/benefit analysis.
I jumped.
An instant later, a fragment of time so small that it cannot be measured by any human standards, I wished I hadn’t jumped.
Then the flames dissipated.
They vanished as if somebody had turned off a gas grill. Or as if somebody said, “This moron is going to immolate himself—cancel the flames!”
I successfully landed on the hood of the garbage truck. The driver was no longer blocked by flames, and it genuinely pissed me off that I couldn’t see his expression under the devil mask, because I’m sure it was priceless.
Now, the flames had disappeared, but not without a trace. The front of the truck was still extremely hot, as if I’d jumped on a gas grill that had just been turned off. I yelped as pain shot through my hands and knees. Fortunately, my pants and the cloth covering my hands kept me from leaving sizzling flesh behind as I crawled up to the windshield.
My plan had been to kick the windshield, but the lack of flames gave me the luxury of taking a few extra seconds to get the job done, which meant I didn’t have to stand up and risk flying off the truck onto the pavement. Though I didn’t have a brick or a club, I did have my gun. I took it out of my pocket and slammed it against the windshield as hard as I could. The glass spiderwebbed but didn’t break.
The driver gestured at me as if to say, “Dude, what the hell?”
I slammed the gun against the windshield again. It still didn’t break.
Nor did it break on the third or fourth hits, although the spiderweb was getting bigger.
This was my first time trying to break a windshield. Apparently I’d misjudged how difficult it was. If the flames hadn’t vanished, I would’ve been a charred corpse by now.
Shit, what if the flames came back?
I bashed the gun against the glass a couple more times. Then I braced myself against the roof of the truck, hoping I wouldn’t burn my hands too badly in the process, stood up, and kicked the windshield in the center of the spiderweb.
It shattered.
The truck swerved so sharply that I nearly flew off. But I didn’t, and in a move that wasn’t quite up to the standards of a Hollywood action hero but was pretty damn good for an accountant, I leapt into the truck.
I immediately elbowed the demon in the face. He was wearing a thick rubber mask, so it didn’t seem to have much effect. I grabbed his mask by one of the horns and tore it off, revealing another blurred melty-faced guy. I elbowed him in the face again. I would’ve expected this sensation to be really weird and off-putting, but it felt like elbowing a normal person’s face. I guess the blur was an illusion.
“You’re gonna get us both killed!” he said, keeping his hands tightly on the wheel and doing his best to watch the road.
Oh, so they could be killed? That was interesting information, unless he simply hadn’t mentally adjusted to being immortal.
I reached behind him and tickled his side, saying “Coochie coochie coo!” as I did so.
I was not trying to tickle him to death. I was trying to get him to look at me like I’d gone mad, which is exactly what he did. This meant that he was distracted from my true intention: opening his door.
He turned toward the door as it flew open. This meant that he was distracted from my other intention, which was to press the button on his seat belt.
Sadly, he didn’t just fly out of the truck like somebody sucked out of an airplane. I spun around on the seat and kicked him with both feet, so hard that I thought I might have pulled a muscle. But he kept a tight grip on the steering wheel and refused to cooperate.
I kicked him over and over and over, but the son of a bitch wouldn’t fall out of the truck. I switched to trying to push him out with my legs, which also didn’t work.
Then, because he was paying more attention to not getting kicked out of the garbage truck than driving it, we smashed into another vehicle. It careened into the median. I had a moment of horror, but the car we’d struck was completely engulfed in flames, so it was a demon and not a civilian, and it was totally okay.
The highway had been conveniently straight for quite a while. That was no longer the case, and we were hurtling toward a great big concrete barrier as the road curved to the right. The driver, trying to keep us from crashing, violently jerked the steering wheel. I, in what I’ll freely concede was a dick move, took advantage of this to kick him again. His hands popped free of the steering wheel, and he almost fell out of the truck.
“It’s a stick shift!” he said, in what I assume was a last-ditch effort to keep me from kicking him out of the truck. It wasn’t a bad tactic—I didn’t know how to drive a stick—but it didn’t work. I kicked him in the face, finally knocking him out of the vehicle. He screamed as he grabbed some part of the truck that I couldn’t see, and then lost his grip and fell. The truck jolted as if it went over a demon-sized bump.
I immediately scooted into the driver’s seat, then pulled the door closed.
Was he dead? Or was he alive and totally aware that he’d been smushed?
Didn’t matter.
Nor did it matter that I didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. For now, all I needed to do was bash this truck into the flaming cars on the highway. Even if I wasn’t killing the demons, I’d be destroying their means of transportation, at least temporarily.
I buckled my seat belt. Safety first.
I wasn’t sure where Quinn was, but I could see several flaming vehicles. I was glad that this feature had only been turned off for the garbage truck, because, again, it would allow me to ensure that I was only purposely smashing into demon cars.
Then the truck burst into flames again. Had I done that by thinking about it?
Not gonna lie—I felt like a badass driving a truck that was on fire. I wasn’t going to be reckless about it, at least not more reckless than necessary, but you can’t be behind the wheel of a vehicle that’s completely consumed by flames and not get some kind of thrill out of the experience.
Now my plan was pretty straightforward: break the other cars.
I swerved into the right lane, crashing into the green truck. It went out of control, crashing into another flaming car, and both of them stopped. Two for the price of one!
I accelerated, trying to catch up to another flaming car that was just ahead. It switched lanes, trying to get away from me, but I switched lanes to stay right behind it. It switched lanes again, and its advantage in maneuverability became clear when I was unable to match it. It slowed down in an apparent attempt to get away from me, and I shifted lanes again. The truck jolted as I clipped the front of the car. I couldn’t see what happened, but I heard a loud crash that I assume was the car smashing into the concrete barrier. Good.
My cell phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket and checked the display. It was Quinn, so I took the call and put her on speaker.
“Slam on your brakes,” she told me.
I slammed on the brakes. Something smashed into the rear of the garbage truck.
“Thank you,” said Quinn.
“How many are left?” I asked.
“At least two of them are ahead of us, but I have no idea how far. One is trying to sneak up on you to the left. Don’t do anything until I tell you.”
“I won’t.”
“One of them is leaning out the passenger window with a crossbow. Okay, so it’s that asshole. I think as soon as they can get a good angle, they’re going to try to shoot you, but don’t swerve yet. Just wait. Keep waiting. And...now.”
I swerved to the left. The car successfully swerved to avoid me.
An arrow slammed into the driver’s side window, shattering it. I let out a less than masculine sound and ducked out of the way. Of course, I couldn’t drive with my head ducked down, so instead I slid back, trying to keep my head out of arrow range while still watching the road. I couldn’t really keep my head completely hidden, but at least I hoped I was giving the archer a smaller target.
The truck jolted again. For a moment, I happily thought that I’d run over a demon, but then it kept jolting, over and over, and I realized that the archer had shot out my front tire.
“He shot an arrow into your tire,” said Quinn, over the phone.
I drove back into the left lane, missing the car again.
“I can’t see that well because I’m trying to keep my head down,” I said.
“He’s right next to you.”
“Should I swerve?”
“Yes.”
I swerved. There was no crash.
“Stay down,” said Quinn. “Looks like he’s going to shoot again. Wait, he’s not aiming for your window. I think he’s trying to shoot out the back tire. When I say to—”
