Critical Failures III (Caverns and Creatures Book 3), page 8
“We’re just having some fun with this one,” said War. “He’s the last of a family of four. We already threw his older brother and parents into the fire.”
“This is the baby of the family?” said Dave. “What level are you guys up to?”
“Two levels higher than we were when we woke up this morning,” said War. “We’ve been getting a lot of random encounters today.” He used air-quotes when he said ‘random’. “Mordred’s kind of paranoid about you guys catching up to him, so he’s toughening us up.”
“Two levels in one day?” said Dave.
“It’s just past noon here,” said War. “No telling how many more levels we can squeeze in before we turn in for the day.”
Dave felt like something was kicking him in the ass. The dream started to fade.
“Dave! Dave!” Cooper’s voice, faint but getting louder. “Dude, wake up!”
“So long, Dave,” said War. “I’m looking forward to meeting you face to face again. Can’t wait to see what kind of surprises you have in store for us.” Again with the air-quotes.
“Come on, man! Wake up!”
Dave woke up in the van. Cooper was kicking him in the ass. “All right. I’m awake.”
“The van stopped,” said Cooper. “Give me the keys.”
“What about him?” Dave nodded at Dennis.
“He’s not going anywhere,” said Cooper. “Not while we’re awake.”
“Fair enough.” Dave removed the key from inside his pants and tossed it to Cooper. “Listen, man. I think we might be in some deep shit.”
Cooper feigned amazement. “You don’t fucking say!”
“No, I mean worse than we thought. One of the Horsemen came to me in a dream.”
“I had a threesome with Jessica Alba and Don Rickles in a dream once. Dreams are fucked up. But it’s just a dream.”
“No, Cooper,” said Dave. “He said Mordred wants to know how we came back here.”
“What did you tell him?”
Dave buried his hands in his face. “I told him to sit on it.”
Cooper grinned and stuck up both thumbs. “Heeeeeeeeey!”
Dave wondered if Fonzie’s breath smelled like assholes and Funyuns.”
The van door opened. Dave shielded his eyes from the blast of sunshine. It was easy for him to forget just how dark it was inside this windowless van when his Darkvision allowed him to see perfectly well.
“Everybody okay back here?” asked Randy.
“Make them let me go, Randy,” pleaded Dennis. “I swear I won’t say nothin’.”
“I’m a hostage, same as you,” said Randy. “We best just do as they say until they get what they want.”
Dennis looked at Cooper. “What is it y’all want? You already took my nuts. I got nothin’ more to give.”
“For the record,” said Cooper. “I never wanted those.”
“Where are we?” asked Dave.
“Walmart,” said Randy. “Just off the I-10.”
“Sweet,” said Cooper. “We’re out of snacks.”
“You stay where you are,” said Dave.
“Oh come on, man,” groaned Cooper. “I’m starving. And besides, it’s Walmart. No one will even give me a second glance.”
“That’s not true,” said Dave. “Probably.” He stroked his beard. “I’m hungry too, but we can’t live on Funyuns.”
“I saw an Arby’s not too far from here,” said Chaz.
Cooper licked his big lips. “Arby’s.”
“What is this Ar-bees?” asked Professor Goosewaddle.
“You’ll love it,” said Cooper. He made sad eyes at Randy. “Take us to Arby’s. Pleeeease.”
“Like I was tellin’ Dennis,” said Randy. “I ain’t in charge here. If y’all wanna go to Arby’s, I’ll take you to Arby’s.”
“Tim said to wait here,” said Dave. The dream was still bothering him, and he wanted nothing more than to unburden himself of it to someone who’d understand its significance more than Cooper evidently did. Besides, “If he shows up and we’re gone –”
“Tim can eat my ass,” said Cooper. “He’s bound to be hungry, too.”
“I don’t know if he’s that hungry.”
“We won’t be gone more than five minutes. Come on, Dave… roast beef… curly fries…”
“Fine,” said Dave. Maybe the dream wouldn’t bother him as much on a less-empty stomach. “Let’s just make it quick. No special orders. Just two dozen roast beef sandwiches. Agreed?”
“Curly fries?”
“Okay. And a dozen orders of curly fries.”
Cooper’s stomach grumbled like a butter churner full of gravel. “Let’s go!” He farted as he closed the van doors. Dave would never be able to look at a bag of Funyuns again without gagging.
*
Thirty minutes later, the van doors opened once more, allowing Cooper’s fart to roam free and destroy some ozone.
Randy held up two giant Arby’s bags, which Cooper and Dave greedily accepted.
Dave dumped out his bag of individually wrapped sandwiches. Packets of ketchup, Arby’s sauce, and Horsey sauce were plentiful, but Dave didn’t have that kind of time. He barely had the wrapper off before shoving half of the first sandwich into his mouth. No food had ever tasted so good.
Cooper, whose mouth was much larger, didn’t even need to bite his sandwich. He put the whole thing in his mouth, chewed briefly, and washed it down with an entire carton of curly fries.
“Merciful gods!” said Professor Goosewaddle, having taken a more delicate bite of his own sandwich. “Absolutely delectable! I must know the spell by which it was conjured up so quickly!”
Stacy’s car pulled up to the van, and Tim hopped out like a coiled cobra. “How hard were my instructions? Go to Walmart. Wait in the parking lot. Where the hell have you idiots been?”
Cooper held up his bag of sandwiches. “Arby’s,” he said spitting out bits of bread, beef, and potato.
“We’ve been driving around this goddamn parking lot for twenty minutes!”
“There was a line,” said Randy. “Sorry.”
Tim’s face was livid as he looked up at Cooper and Dave. “You guys think this is a fucking picnic? We’ve got some serious –”
“Cur-ly fries,” Cooper sang, waving a carton in Tim’s face.
Tim snatched the carton out of Cooper’s hand and put a curly fry in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in his head as he chewed and swallowed. “Give me some ketchup.”
While everyone ate their fill of roast beef sandwiches, Dave told everyone about the dream he’d had, and Tim explained how he had planted Julian’s cell phone in the back of Mordred’s car, and that they should be able to track him back to where he lives using Stacy’s tablet.
“Nice work,” said Dave. “So where is he now?”
“I don’t know,” said Tim, licking ketchup off of his little fingers. “Stacy’s tablet is running low on battery life and she doesn’t have a car charger. I turned it off until we all met up.”
“Well let’s fire that shit back up,” said Cooper. “He might be home by now.”
“Okay,” said Tim. “Just once though. And then we all head back to the Chicken Hut, lay low, and let the tablet charge.”
Tim retrieved the tablet from Stacy’s car and turned it on. “If Dave’s dream means anything – and I’m certainly not ruling that out – then our best bet is to hit Mordred’s house tonight, before he has the chance to level up those four shitheads. I’ll sneak into his place while everyone’s asleep, grab the dice, and – Oh shit.”
“What is it?” said Chaz.
“He passed right by us,” said Tim, looking up from the tablet to the interstate.
“That’s cool,” said Dave. “Maybe he lives around here.”
“No,” said Tim. “He’s not going home. He’s halfway to Mobile.”
“What’s he doing?” asked Julian.
“Dave,” said Tim. “The guy in your dream. He told you that Mordred was paranoid about us catching up to him, right?”
“Yeah,” said Dave.
“Well that’s it, then. He’s making a break for it.”
“So what do we do?” asked Chaz.
Tim took another long look at the interstate. “If we don’t catch up to him before Julian’s cell battery dies, we’ll lose him for good.” He turned back to the group. “We’ve got to grab him right now!”
Chapter 9
Julian grabbed what was left of a bag of sandwiches and two cartons of curly fries, and got into the back seat of Stacy’s car.
“Stay behind us,” Tim told Randy. “Stick to the speed limit and don’t lag too far behind.” He got into the front seat of Stacy’s car and buckled his seat belt. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Just a second,” said Stacy through a mouthful of roast beef sandwich.
“Are you kidding me?” said Tim. “Come on!”
“Listen, you little troll,” said Stacy. “I’d like to remind you that you’re riding in my car and using my tablet right after torpedoing my job. I don’t want to get Arby’s sauce all over the car, so I’m going to finish my sandwich before we go.” She shoved the last quarter of the sandwich into her mouth and gave Tim the finger.
“I’m sorry,” said Tim. He was as humbled as Julian had ever seen him, and he’d seen him piss himself a number of times. “I was rude and I apologize.”
Stacy grinned at him, her cheeks still stuffed with sandwich. She started up the car.
They weren’t on the road for fifteen minutes when Randy’s van veered into the passing lane and pulled up alongside them.
“Are they fucking retarded?” said Tim. “How difficult are the instructions I gave them?”
Chaz stretched his brightly-sleeved arm out of the window, pointing to something on the right of the highway. It was a sign for the upcoming exit, advertising gas stations, restaurants and hotels.
“Jesus Christ,” said Tim. “Cooper probably wants them to stop at Taco Bell or something.” He leaned forward so that he could see Chaz past Stacy and vigorously shook his head.
Chaz turned to face Randy, and shortly after, the van pulled ahead of them and then in front of them.
“Can you believe this shit?” said Tim.
When the exit came, the van pulled off onto the exit lane.
“What should I do?” asked Stacy.
“Follow them,” said Tim. “Whatever this is had better be pretty goddamn important, or Ravenus is going to have a lot more balls to nibble on.”
The van pulled into a Texaco.
“They must be low on gas,” said Julian. “Can’t fault anyone for that.”
“I guess not,” said Tim. “Stacy, you should probably take off your top.”
Stacy looked down at Tim over the frame of her sunglasses. “Excuse me?”
“I mean top off your tank!” cried Tim. His face was redder than it had been when he was shouting at Cooper. “You know… as long as we’re here already.”
“Yeah,” said Stacy. “I’ll get right on it.” She pulled her car up to the pump across from the one the van was parked in front of.
“Sorry, fellers,” said Randy. “I weren’t expectin’ to go on no road trip today.”
“It’s okay,” said Tim. “Let’s just try to hurry it up, huh?”
Stacy’s car was already two thirds full, so her gas was already paid for by the time Randy’s pump shut off.
Randy swiped his credit card. Nothing happened. He swiped it again. A red message lit up. Julian couldn’t read it from where he was, but he had a pretty good idea of what it said.
Randy frowned at Tim. “It says I’ve got to go see the cashier.”
Tim sighed. “Fine. Chaz, you go with him. Make it snappy!”
Julian leaned forward between the two front seats, where Tim was checking Mordred’s progress. “Where is he?”
“Shit,” said Tim. “He’s gone through Mobile. He’s northbound on I-65.”
Five minutes later, Randy and Chaz returned.
“Finally,” said Tim. “Let’s get moving!”
“There was a problem with my card,” Randy said sheepishly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s a check card,” Randy explained. “I must have drained out most of my account at Arby’s.”
“Un-fucking-believable.”
“You can use my card, sweetie,” said Stacy. She reached her arm across Tim, handing her credit card to Randy. Her right breast was right in Tim’s face. He placed the tablet strategically over his crotch.
Randy humbly accepted the card. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll pay you back, I swear.”
“We can settle up debts when this is all finished,” said Tim. “Mordred’s getting further away as we speak!”
Randy and Chaz hurried back to the convenience store attached to the gas station.
Tim breathed slow, deliberate breaths, as if to try to calm himself down. “We can still catch up to him,” he said. It was unclear as to whether he was addressing anyone else in the car, or just talking to himself. “He doesn’t have that big a lead on us, and we’ve got a full tank of gas. We just can’t afford any more delays.”
Randy and Chaz approached the car again.
“Um…” said Randy. “There’s just one more little snag.”
“BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” said Tim. “How fucking hard can this be!”
“The lady at the register said I needed a photo I.D., on account of this card havin’ a different name than the one I showed her before.”
Tim’s little fists were shaking in front of his face.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Stacy. She got out of the car and escorted Randy back to the shop.
Someone, or something, banged on the back doors of the van from the inside.
“What is it now?” said Tim. He got out of the car and walked over to the van. “What?”
“That Arby’s went right through me,” said Cooper. “I gotta take a shit.”
“Absolutely not,” said Tim. “We’re in a public place in broad daylight.”
“Come on, man,” pleaded Cooper. “I’ll put a tarp over my head.”
“And you think that’s going to make you look less conspicuous?”
“Please, Tim!” cried Dave. “You don’t have to ride with him.”
“No fucking way!” shouted Tim. A passing elderly couple looked at him. “What?”
An explosion of flatulence erupted from within the van. Tim lowered his head.
“Merciful gods!” cried Professor Goosewaddle.
“Sweet baby Jesus!” cried Dennis.
“Funyuns!” cried Dave. There followed a loud retching noise, and a splatter of liquid on liquid.
The old couple’s eyes widened, and they hurried into the shop faster than they’d probably moved in three decades.
“Um…” said Cooper. “The situation has been resolved.”
“All set!” said Randy as he, Chaz, and Stacy emerged from the convenience store. He held up a plastic shopping bag. “Stacy even bought y’all some Slim Jims.”
Tim’s eyes widened. He looked at Randy, then at the van, then at Randy again. “No!”
Randy paused, looking bewilderedly at Tim. “What’s wrong?”
Tim jumped up and grabbed the shopping bag out of Randy’s hand. “They’re for me,” he said. “I want all the Slim Jims.”
“That’s a little selfish, don’t you think?”
“Fuck you. Drive the van.”
Randy’s lower lip quivered, but he walked around to the driver’s side and got into the van. “It wouldn’t hurt you none to be a little more polite.” He sniffed the air, and his face squished all together. “Y’all smell somethin’?”
“Let’s go!” said Tim, banging his hand against the car door.
Without a word, Stacy put the car into gear and pulled out of the gas station. She accelerated back onto the interstate. She looked pissed.
Tim held up one of his recently acquired beef jerky snacks. “You want a Slim Jim?”
Stacy ripped the Slim Jim out of Tim’s hand and whacked him over the head with it. “What –” whack “the hell –” whack “is wrong with you?” whack whack whack.
“Ow! I’m sorry! Knock it off!”
“You don’t –” whack “treat people –” whack “like that!” She chucked the Slim Jim down into Tim’s foot well.
“I’d like a Slim Jim,” said Julian.
Tim tossed the whole bag into the back seat. “Knock yourself out. I hate these things.”
Stacy let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “You are a piece of work, my friend. A piece of work.”
“I’m sorry,” Tim repeated. “I had to keep him from opening the van doors.”
“And why’s that?”
Julian bit off a large chunk of salty, beefy deliciousness. It had been ages since he’d had one of these.
“You’re probably better off not knowing,” said Tim.
“I’ve got to side with Tim on this one,” said Julian. “Once you know, it’s something you’ll wish you could un-know.”
They continued eastward in relative silence until they hit Mobile. From there, they traveled up I-65. Tim took the risk of letting Stacy drive five miles per hour over the speed limit. Periodically checking Mordred’s progress, he soon discovered that they were slowly but surely closing the gap between them and him. Wherever Mordred was going, he wasn’t in any great hurry.
They hoped Mordred might stop in Montgomery, but the red dot moved right past it. They were about halfway between Montgomery and Birmingham when Tim shrieked, “It stopped!”
“Where?” asked Julian, leaning forward between the seats to see the tablet.
Tim zoomed in on the location. “He’s at a rest area, about fifteen minutes from here. He must have to go to the bathroom.”
Julian’s heart quickened. “If it’s a number two, we might be able catch him!”
Stacy held out an open palm to Tim. He high-fived her. She smiled, and the atmosphere in the car transformed from silent tension to giddy anticipation.
Julian stuck his arm out the window and made a thumbs-up gesture. Randy honked the horn in response. Ten minutes later, both vehicles pulled into the rest area, and the red dot still hadn’t moved.
