Diller yelled “Thank you” and then ran around to the front slot. He clambered up to shout inside.
“Alright, Smithy, you’re in position.” He couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Through the armour, he felt the engine rev … and then die.
Diller looked over at Muroe, who blanched.
Oh no.
Diller hopped down and listened as Smithy tried the engine again.
It coughed, whined and died once more.
Diller could see people on the walls laughing and pointing. Maybe he could plead their case. Appeal to the Emperor for mercy –, for just a few minutes to get it working. Anything was better than leaving Smithy sitting there like that staked cow, waiting to be ripped apart. He saw Chaz and Lousy Louis Reed, clapping and jeering with the rest of the spectators, and knew with a sickening certainty that any appeal would fall on deaf ears.
Junkyard Elvis stood above the main gate, microphone in hand. Someone must have turned him up because Diller was able to pick out his words more clearly now.
“… starting in one minute.”
Smithy gave it another try.
The Bug coughed, spluttered, whined, and then … burst into glorious roaring life. Diller punched the air and looked across at Muroe. She looked relieved, and then collapsed to the ground.
Diller ran over.
She had passed out.
“Oh my God, wake up. Ms Muroe. Ms Muroe!” He shook her shoulder to no visible response. He looked around at the revving cars. “Please, we need to get out of here.”
“Thirty seconds …”
Diller stood up and tried to get Junkyard Elvis’s attention. He pointed urgently at Muroe. All he got back was a wide smile.
“… twenty-five seconds.”
Diller tried to pick up Muroe, but then Zero was there, snatching her out of his hands. Diller ran after him as he headed for the main gates, which had started to close. Diller ran ahead, trying to find a way to slow down the process. Big chains ran down into the earth from the stone pillars. The mechanism was buried underground.
“C’mon. Stop!”
He stood in the gap between the gates, watching Zero run towards him. The big man put his head down and charged. Diller stepped through the gate and out of the way. After a couple of moments, Zero squeezed through, Muroe still thrown over his shoulder. He collapsed to the ground, panting hard.
When Zero looked up he was shocked to see the seemingly unconscious Muroe now standing above him and looking fine.
“I’m not going to lie, big boy. As pick-ups go, that was one of the more impressive I’ve experienced.” She looked at Diller. “How was my performance?”
“Next time, faint nearer the gate.”
“Everybody’s a critic. C’mon,” she said, looking around, “let’s get out of here. It worked. We need to go while they’re distracted by all the loud noises. You boys and your toys.” She looked down at Zero. “And if he needs to be carried, you’re up.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Smithy was already sweating profusely, his hands slick on the wheel. It could have been the fact that he was in a large metal coffin, under a sweltering midday sun, in the middle of the desert, with an engine three feet behind him.
However, you could also argue that it was partly because, through the slot in front of him, he could see five heavily armoured and armed vehicles, all of which had the clear intention of ripping him to shreds. His chances of winning this thing were zero. Luckily, he wasn’t intending to win. All he needed to do was to drag it out as long as possible in the hope that he could give the others enough time to get away. Smithy had never been one of life’s great winners, but he was a master at being awkward.
He’d watched through the slit as his opponents had driven by the garage earlier. It had been a sobering little parade. Hearing Diller describe the vehicles had been one thing, but seeing them in the metal-grinding armoured flesh was something else. They all looked infinitely capable of tearing him and the Bug to pieces, but the one that worried him the most was the Unmentionable, as Diller had taken to calling it. It had the lifting rig off a forklift amongst its array of tricks. If that thing got under the Bug’s armoured skirt, he’d be flipped over and left as helpless as an upturned turtle. If he was going to die, he’d rather it be with his wheels on the ground.
It dawned on Smithy that he had no idea how this thing was supposed to start. If someone waved a flag or made an announcement, he was never going to see or hear it. In the absence of any better ideas, he sat there and waited.
ANY LAST WORDS?
“Ah, come on,” said Smithy out loud. “Do we need to do this now?”
THERE MIGHT NOT BE A LATER.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. By the way, if I hadn’t saved Lousy Louis Reed back in that apartment, at your behest, none of this would have happened. So, you kind of owe me on this one.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT? A MIRACLE?
“Honestly?” Smithy slammed the car into reverse as all of the other cars suddenly surged forward. As he threw it into a one-eighty he screamed, “YEAH!”
Chapter Forty-Three
Merv and Slappy sat outside the garage in the shade and listened to the distant roar of engines coming from the arena.
“Man,” said Merv, “I bet it’s really good.”
“Shut up about it.”
“Don’t you tell me to shut up about it. It’s thanks to your dumbass cousin ordering us to stay here and guard some stupid old man while he sleeps that I’m missing out.”
Slappy slammed his hand against the metal shutter. “For the last damn time, he ain’t my cousin. My uncle was banging his mom – that don’t make us blood.”
“Nah. It makes you some patsy he thinks he can order about.”
Slappy stood up. “Do you want to go, homeboy?”
Merv mirrored him. “Maybe I do. Why don’t—”
They were interrupted by the metal shutter starting to roll up.
“Cool,” said Merv. “Maybe he changed his mind. We can catch the end.”
Slappy bent down to look under the rising shutter. “Hey, old man, you ready to go see the show?”
The shutter completed its rise. Slappy and Merv stared into the darkness, their eyes slow to adjust from the bright daylight outside.
Somewhere in the darkness an engine roared to life.
“What is—” started Slappy, which is why Merv got out of the way in time and he didn’t.
The skeleton of a station wagon surged out of the darkness, catching Slappy’s knee as he tried to dive for safety. He hollered in pain as the car rocketed past and pulled a sharp left turn, sending up a cloud of dust as it tore off towards the arena.
Chapter Forty-Four
Not that he had the time to think about such things, but if Smithy had been asked to sum up the first sixty seconds of his demolition-derby career, begrudgingly he would have to quote Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
It had been a chaos of collision and desperation. The one thing Smithy had in his favour was that everyone was so desperate to be the one to destroy him that they were falling over each other – or rather crashing into each other – to do so. Smithy had just been veering around wildly, trying not to give anyone the clean shot they were looking for.