Chapter VIII – The Obligatory Car Chase
Jim and Jack pulled out of the parking lot in an AMC Gremlin that had been issued to them after the destruction of their last government issued Ford. It was a manual transmission and Jim had spent a few days under the hood to make it run at least reasonably well. But it was still a Gremlin, right down to the 8-Track player with the old Village People cartridge loaded.
"Do we have to listen to this crap every time you drive?" Jim asked, "Disco is dead, Jack. Has been for years."
"Of course you do," Jack grinned, revving the engine up as they got on the highway, "You let the gay Jewish black dude drive. What else am I gonna listen to? Eminem?"
"Could you at least put in some Elton John once in a while?" Jim lamented, "I mean, have some variety man."
"Find me some Elton on 8-Track and I’ll consider it," Jack shrugged, "So where is this Dress Dinner with the artifact man?"
"Damned if I know," Jim said, "Ray sent us on our way without telling us. I figure we will find out sometime after the car chase ends. Right?"
"True," Jack agreed, "You know, I’m gonna miss this old Gremlin."
They drove a few miles aimlessly, waiting for the bad guys to catch up with them. It shouldn’t have been hard to do, but Adam Dirtpassion was running behind in the DC area traffic. Reizvolle knew that there would be no call for her ultra-sexy body to be involved in such a chase, so she left it all to Adam and a group of newly recruited mooks.
"There’s the Gremlin our mole told us about!" Adam grumbled, "Let’s get our artifact back from those pains in the ass."
Catching up to the Gremlin was not a problem, considering both sets of bad guys were driving late model Chevy sedans. Adam was not taking any chances with this either. He stopped the mooks from carrying explosive weapons, but they were carrying sub-machine guns and enough ammunition to take over a small African nation. All this to take care of two men in an underpowered Gremlin.
"You get the feeling we’re screwed?" one of the mooks asked Adam, "Despite the advantage of numbers and bullets?"
"Of course we are," Adam said, nodding his head, "They are the heroes and all I have are you mooks."
Despite that sorry fact, Adam ordered the attack. The cars pulled up on both sides of the gremlin and the mooks glared evilly at the occupants. Jim and Jack looked at both sides and saw the grinning mooks. They looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Come on!" Jack yelled, "Give us your best shot!"
"Do you have to encourage them?" Jim asked wearily, "Why did you do that?"
"Watch and duck," Jack grinned and turned to the mooks, "Your momma had a name and even less brains than you!"
This angered the mooks on both sides so much that they both started shooting at Jack. Of course, Jack and Jim both had the sense to drop down in their seats, so the bullets flying from both sets of guns flew straight through the Gremlin’s body and killed the mooks firing on either side. Since the mook on the right side was also driving the car that car was out of the chase until someone could push the body out.
"Good move," Jim agreed, "Two mooks down. Six to go."
"What about their master?" Jack wondered, "Don’t we get to smack him too?"
"Too early in the book," Jim told him, "We’ve only got two of the three villains left and we still have 34,832 words left to go. Better to let him get away for now."
"Well what do you think about the maneuver at least?" Jack asked him, "Anything?"
"Good job," Jim told Jack, "Now we just have a pile of mooks and one angry bad guy to go!"
"We’ve also got a good ways to travel on this," Jack said, "I’m just getting started!"
"So are they," Jim said, "I think they’re about to shoot at us again. Might want to duck."
Jack followed his advice and got down low enough so that he wouldn’t be an easy target. Several of the remaining mooks started firing dozens of shots at the Gremlin as they traveled down the highway. They got bored looks from most of the other people on the highway, as they had seen better chases on Fox Television the night before. The gunplay was semi-exciting, however, so the children watched as the two Chevys tried to take apart the Gremlin piece by piece.
After being hit with nearly a thousand rounds, none of which managed to hit the occupants of the ancient car, the Gremlin kept going. Jim thought it odd that the mooks had aim bad enough that they did not manage to even hit a tire, let alone the sputtering engine in the dilapidated Gremlin.
"We’re still alive," Jim grinned, "And the Gremlin is running."
"Amazing, isn’t it?" Jack said, "So what do we do now? We’re in a damaged car some thirty years old, one that should be either dying or running out of gas at any point. We’re being chased by two cars full of people who want to kill us."
"Yeah," Jim said, a proud smile forming, "Sucks to be them, doesn’t it?"
"I’m sure," Jack laughed, "So what do we do next?"
"I’m thinking some Matrix style moves," Jim said, "Since this is only a Gremlin we aren’t going that fast. Maybe I can jump over to the Mook car and have some fun."
"Sounds idiotic," Jack said, "But they aren’t going to kill you, so you might as well do something idiotic. I’ll use the Gremlin to try to keep the other car off your ass."
"Ok," Jim said, unclipping his seatbelt, "Ramming speed!"
Jim didn’t even have to get out of the seat to make his jump. The glass had long since been shot out, so when the mook’s car got in front of them to try to slow the Gremlin down (as if it could go much slower) Jack just hit the gas and rammed it. Jim flew out of the window and did a perfect forward roll onto the Chevy car still being driven by a mook. It was a marvelous piece of implausibility that was so artistic in its execution that nobody seemed to notice that it was completely impossible.
Jim stood up and grabbed on to the top of the Chevy. The mooks inside, instead of using their weapons to perforate the idiotic hero, decided that one of them should climb out the window and fight him hand to hand because a fight on top of a moving car is always much cooler than dispatching the hero intelligently.
Jack used the ailing Gremlin as a block to keep Adam’s Chevy from getting to the one where Jim was waiting for the mook to come out and meet him. Jack was watching with a bit of humor, as he knew this was probably the single stupidest thing Jim Stalin had ever done in his presence. In his private life, however, Jack was sure Jim had done far stupider things when he wasn’t around.
The mook climbed out onto the roof and tried to shoot Jim, but of course the wind made the shot go wild and the gun went clattering onto the hood of the Gremlin. Jim grinned and got into fighting stance, despite the fact that they were going seventy miles an hour down the highway.
"I’m gonna get you!" the mook exclaimed, "You’re going down!"
"I’m getting bored," Jim said, "You going to attack, or what?"
The mook went at Jim and missed. Several additional punches went wild, not even coming close to Jim’s body or face. Jim had a little fun with it, dancing around the moving fight arena and letting off a few jabs. The mook was annoyed by this and jumped full force at Jim, knocking the surprised hero backwards onto the hood of the Chevy.
"Like that, don’t you?" The mook growled as he jumped onto Jim, "There’s more where that came from!"
The mook managed a few good shots (again, are there ever any bad ones in a book like this?) on Jim Stalin, until our hero managed to get his knee free and slammed it into the mook’s nether regions. Jack had to admire the look on the mook’s face, especially the picture perfect O his lips formed. Jim punched the mook in the stomach and pushed him backwards, letting the wind catch him and toss him into the windshield, shattering into the face of the mook that was driving.
"Suck that," Jim told the mook, "Now to give you something to really remember…"
Jim kicked the downed mook a few times and looked up triumphantly to give thumbs up to Jack. Jack, however, w
as not impressed and pointed forward. Jim looked at his friend for a moment and turned to face the front. He saw that the mook behind the wheel, who had been effectively blinded when the other mook went through the windshield, was driving straight for an oncoming truck.
Jim’s eyes went wide and he looked around for his options. The best of them, and this wasn’t by much, was to make a leap of faith over to the dying Gremlin, which was the only other vehicle involved in the chase that was managing to keep up. Seconds before the crash Jim made a jump towards the Gremlin, doing a very artistic flip in the air as the truck missed his head by inches.
Jack sighed and was glad this was taking enough words to be in slow motion. He pushed the Gremlin as hard as he could and managed to just get the hood under where Jim was going to land. The landing, which was hard by any standards, was enough to dislodge what was left of the hood. This, combined with the wind pushing him back, sent Jim flying backwards onto the roof. Of course, after sustaining hundreds of bullet hits, this dislodged as well, flying off into space and allowing Jim to fall flat on the passenger seat next to Jack.
"Not bad," Jack Wack said, "I give you an eight for style, but a ten for stupidity."
"It worked," Jim grinned, "Didn’t it?"
"We still have another car of mooks," Jack reminded him, "And this damned Gremlin isn’t going to last much longer."
"It will be fine," Jim said, picking up the gun that the mook had lost, "I’m armed now. That’s the gun the mook lost when he fought me outside the car."
"Well stop pussyfooting around and shoot them!" Jack exclaimed, "Before they hit us again!"
"Ram them!" Adam shouted, "Pound that damned Gremlin into submission!"
Jim checked the weapon for jams and got it ready to fire. He knew he had no additional clips, so he would have to make the ones he had count. Adam was still driving the car, so the mooks got ready to start firing again. Jim knew he couldn’t hit Adam with the weapon he was carrying so he did the one smart thing he could think of. He aimed straight for him.
Adam Dirtpassion exclaimed something unprintable as the bullets came flying at the windshield. Jim was right, however, as none of them hit the bad guy that they were aimed for. They riddled the Chevy sedan all around him, finishing off the few mooks who were still remaining in Adam’s car. Jim fired off the last of the rounds at the engine and watched the newer vehicle begin belching steam and dying.
"Gotta love old tech," Jack said, watching as the Chevy started to die, "These Gremlins suck, but they are a bitch to kill!"
Adam crashed the Chevy into a rather insanely ordinary looking Volvo. Once the vehicles came to a stop all four tires simultaneously flattened and both axles broke, just to make sure that they were no longer going to be abused in this idiotic chase. Adam cursed a little but breathed a sigh of relief. The car chase was over and he had survived. He would live to attack Jim Stalin again another day.
Jack and Jim cheered a bit as they drove the injured Gremlin far away from the site of the fight. Jim grinned as he sat back in the demolished seat and pulled the clip out of the weapon. He chuckled as he held it up for Jack to view what was left inside it.
"One bullet," Jack said, "Man, you are the luckiest…"
"I’m the hero, remember?" Jim asked, "Of course I’m lucky. I’d have died long ago if I wasn’t."
"True that one," Jack said as he turned the 8-track player on to reveal more village people music, "So what are you going to do with the last bullet, lucky?"
"This," Jack said as he reloaded the weapon, "Something that I should have done long ago."
Jim Stalin aimed the weapon, a non-descript assault rifle long since illegal but easily obtained by mooks everywhere, straight at the old 8-track player and pulled the trigger. A lot of sparks flew out of the unit followed by an ejection of the cartridge and several miles of tape.
"Man," Jack said, "I need my Indian guy!"
"Yes," Jim said, almost soothingly, "But look at the people along side us. They’re cheering."
"Because of your idiot heroics?" Jack wondered.
"No!" the driver next to him yelled, "Because he shot your 8-track player!"
"Figures," Jack said, "No respect for the gay Jewish black dude."
"Onward," Jim told him, "We have a party to get to."
"Where?" Jack asked, "We never did find that out."
"Doesn’t matter," Jim shrugged, "Just drive out of this chapter and we’ll get there by the next one."
Jack nodded and did so. The chapter mercifully ended.