I caught up in no time. A roar unfurled from Phoenix as she slammed into the back of one buggy. Our bumpers caught hold of one another and it was a wrestle of pure physical power. Phoenix won easily and the buggy flipped clear over us, crashing into the desert behind a veil of stirred dust.
Phoenix’s back end was drifting to the side, so I jerked the wheel straight holding it tight as my car adjusted itself, lining us up behind the Zombies. I rear-ended one of the Bikers who slipped from his seat. Comically, Phoenix ate and digested him with two adrenaline-pumping bumps, rolling him out the other end like a turd. The other Zombies finally turned their blasters on me. They fired at Phoenix’s hood and windshield, barely missing me by inches and melting holes into her shiny new coat.
“Fuck!” I rolled the spinning handle beneath the driver side window to lower it as fast as possible, swerved into the middle of their triangle formation, and pulled out my Bren 10, the blasters silver metal gleamed in the burning sunlight. without the difficulty of aiming, a pale blue laser fired from my blaster and hit the Zombie driving one of the buggies head-on. The buggy slide and crashed into another Buggy behind it, they toppled over each other with an ear-wracking boom. Four vehicles down, eight to go.
Without warning, my back window shattered into a million pieces. A droid slithered out of my blind spot and clambered through the empty frame, tearing his sand-colored camo uniform on shards of glass and letting its bike crash into the desert. It raised it’s blaster. “Stop the vehicle and surrender to the National Salvationists, Outlier!”
The Zombie’s voice was dead even, the programmers hadn’t even tried to mimic a human’s vocal cords. My chest gripped against my heart again, i could hear the hammering in my ears. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump…..
“If that’s what you want,” I slammed on the brake for a split second. the breaks cut the tires and the droid lurched forward and his head crashed through my front windshield. Pressing the gas a split second later, he flew back through the empty windshield.
That problem was solved and a new one began. The other Zombie’s in the remaining two dune-buggies were climbing onto the Jeep. Daisy swerved wildly from side to side, but they didn’t budge. Their robot grip dented the roof of the jeep as their limbs flailed around. The pink doors suddenly flew off their hinges and I barely managed to swerve around them last second.
The pair of Zombies, humanoid-looking robots with synthetic flesh stretched over to mimic a real person, dragged a girl with pink hair (who I recognized as Bubblegum) into one of the dune buggies. my fingers inched towards the bright red button on my dashboard as I watched her flail against the droids’ strength. This was my last chance, there would be no turning back afterwards.
‘Coward,’ I berated myself, digging my nails into my palms. How could I have even thought of running away? I’m Falcon dammit! I’m supposed to be brave-a leader, but deep down, I couldn’t deny that a scared little girl still existed. Trapped at the bottom of a hole so deep she should of never seen the light of day again, yet, she had almost managed to claw her way out-I had let her get so close to escaping. I pushed myself to close the opening, burying the coward under miles of stone and gravel.
“Fuck it,” I slapped the button, the bold letters; WARNING, flashed in my face.
Phoenix groaned as the gasoline reserve kicked in, shooting us into hyper-speed for half a second. Once phoenix met the bumper of Bubblegum’s jeep, I flicked the switch beside the gear shift. A square portion of my Front bumper lifted up and the silver chain fired out of the engine, anchoring us in place behind the jeep.
Quickly, I flicked on my headlights and unclasped my second blaster. Crawling through my shattered front windshield, I clambered onto Phoenix’s hood, both blasters in hand. The wind whipped around me, my short, sun-bleached hair flying wildly in every direction, hindering my vision. Every bump made my knees wobble, as any second I could’ve lost my footing and at that speed, it would’ve meant a slow, agonizing death. The sunset made everything harder to make sense of as the last remnants of daylight was milked from the sky. The world was moving so fast my eyes could hardly process what was happening around me. My headlights barely cast enough light that the back of the jeep was only just visible.
Pale blue lasers whizzed towards me from all sides, narrowly missing their mark. Instinctively, I fired back. I missed, twice. But the third time, my laser must have hit one of the drivers because a buggy swerved, grazing Phoenix’s side, and crashed with an explosion as we raced onward. My teeth ground together as i bit back a string of profane insults. I just had Phoenix painted the day before and she was already messed up again. What a wasteful trade of a perfectly good carbonizer. I pushed up onto Daisy’s roof with help from the tire on the trunk, my heavy, metal toed platforms were perfect for keeping me weighted to the vehicle.
Two Zombies were already on the roof, trying to grab Daisy through the Skylight. They froze when my shadow stretched over them.
They reacted fast, one swung at me with ferocious speed. I ducked, stepping into his reach and kicked him off the car. The second Zombie rushed into action a second later, violently swinging his metal arms. He had no pattern, no method of attack. His metal fist collided with my ribs and my shoulder. The air flew out of my lungs when I lost my footing, tumbling into empty air both of my blasters slipped from my grasp, left behind in smoke.
Crack!
My arm twisted underneath my body as I landed on the windshield of the last buggy. The stabbing ache came first, followed by a white hot, gut-wrenching, burning sensation. My arm was broken, I knew that the second i caught sight of the limb. The bone was twisted at an odd angle. I only felt the pain for a split second, but it was the longest second i had ever lived. I welcomed the relief as my arm numbed itself. Using my good arm to flip myself over, a zombie stared at me with soulless black eyes, an evil grin splashed across his fake facial features.
He raised his blaster and fired.
In an instant, I rolled off the hood onto the side of the Buggy. My good hand gripped the crevice where wipers might have once been. My abs burned from the effort of scrunching my body so my feet didn’t hit the ground. A beam of deadly light shot through the door, centimeters from my face, burning into the rim on Phoenix’s front tire. My options were dwindling with every second, that passed. Night was my only ally, the droid couldn’t see me in the shadows, that was the only thing keeping me alive.
Think Trinity, my fingers were sweaty. I could feel my skin slipping from the metal, one tiny centimeter at a time.
With a deep huff, I used the last of my strength to hook my broken arm around the door handle. Gritting my teeth to fight back the agonizing scream rising in my chest, I broke off the side mirror and threw it into the air. The zombie immediately fired at the shadow, glass exploding everywhere as I pulled the door open and slipped into the seat.
His second beam blasted my stomach head-on. With a groan I lunged for the wheel. As we swerved, we rammed into the jeep and the Zombie’s door opened. He toppled out of the buggy. Which was great, considering i didn’t have to do anything. I slipped into the drivers seat and replaced his foot with mine.
My shirt was soaked with blood from the oozing wound. Tenderly, I used my knees to steer and pressed my hand around the general area before slapping pressure onto it. A cry escaped my lips. Every muscle in my body wanted to give up, but my good arm lifted to steer the buggy beside the Jeep. I couldn’t stop now, I had to get that last Zombie away from Daisy.
The familiar feeling of a blaster pressed against my head dragged me from the abyss of pain swirling around me.
“Freeze!” A bland voice ordered. In the review mirror, A Zombie’s cold eyes stared at me from the backseat, Bubblegum motionless beside him.
Bubblegum was only a year or two younger than me. Her bright pink hair was stained red where she had obviously been struck. Blood stained her clothes beyond recognition. She was dead, not unconscious. Her pale, lifeless face was twisted in permanent agony, her brown eyes nearly closed and staring into the horizon.
My cheeks burned, casting a heavy rain of inferno over myself. I glanced at Daisy; more specifically: her seat belt. It was fastened. Good. In an instant, i twisted the wheel and we veered straight into the jeep’s front tires. Flipping both vehicles.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
