Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
Part TWENTY-TWO
"Man I'm glad we didn't run into claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time. What a Chinese firedrill that woulda been!" Zinc said, as he stood on the edge of Amaurosis and pissed as hard as he could into it.
This part of Phobiopolis was called Polycoria, as was later explained to Toby. It had the peculiar property of always being covered in snow, yet always being warm as midsummer. The landscape was clearly tundra, but green leaves showed through the white snow blanket. A furson could be standing around with their feet freezing, yet also feel sweat pouring down their face. This was all made even more confusing by the fact that, while it was constant nighttime here as well, the moon was so huge, the sky was bright as an overcast afternoon.
Toby didn't actually mind the June-like heat, since he was currently drenched head to toe in icewater. He almost had to thank the Cold Coven. The aftereffects of battling them were as close to a shower as he was likely to find out here. Toby knew there was no chance he could distract himself from his blood-drenched pajamas long enough for them to clean themselves.
Junella was still doing some literal saber-rattling to scare off the last of the fleeing angels. Everyone else was standing around in the snow, washing themselves with the rapidly-melting body parts of their foes. It seemed the Coven could only carry their own coldness with them if they were still in one piece. George breathed warmly on Doll and Piffle to dry them off.
Toby looked at the little light in his palm where he'd put his hammer away. He remembered his face being tightened up into a clenched grimace, breathing hard through his teeth as he brought down his hammer again and again and again. And Dorster was right, the tool was deceptively dangerous. The nightmare-born steel shattered ice with ease. Toby had swung far more than he hit, but when he did, the shudder running up his arm as his hammer connected and smashed through like a wrecking ball... it was disturbingly euphoric.
"I feel kind of weird about what we just did."
Zinc had anticipated this. He trudged through the slush to his friend and patted him on the back. "You're a lover not a fighter; I get it. But remember what I said before about the Coven. Nightmares 'n forced converts, the lot of 'em. You didn't do anything that won't self-repair 'ventually. And hell, we probly freed some folks."
Toby nodded. "Still... when I was fighting them... It felt good. I'm not that kind of furson normally."
The canine shrugged. "We just went through something that rattled all our heads like shakin' an ant farm. No one could blame you for getting' your axles a bit out of alignment."
That was true enough. The mental meat grinder of Amaurosis Fugax had been as emotionally draining as anything Toby could ever remember. Worse than his bouts of nerve pain. Worse than that test at the hospital where they'd shaved his head and rubbed on cream that felt like fiberglass. Worse than his bout with fifteen-hour dry-heaving. When the relief of making it through the fear-clouds had been rudely interrupted by a new nuisance popping up before they could even fully catch their breath, his frustration had found a target just like lightning finds metal.
Not a single Coven member had so much as laid a finger on Toby. The ice-beings had stumbled onto six individuals who could not get revenge on Fugax itself, but could sure as shit transfer that desire onto a bunch of holy sno-cones.
Junella returned with a grin on her lips and a spring in her step. She saw Toby's expression and rolled her eyes. "They're just ice! Get over it!" She strode past towards the Fearsleigher.
"Basically what I said," Zinc had to admit. "Just shorter and with less tact."
"Allright. I know. I just hope I don't have to hit anyone else anytime soon," Toby said.
"Depends. Lotta nightmare critters in this neck of the woods. I 'magine George can probably handle any that get too close. Still, Bonky's just got its first taste of blood. It might yearn for more," he teased.
"Please stop calling my hammer that."
Zinc snickered. "Oh, hey, are you afraid of ladybugs?"
Now that was a grand champion non sequitur if ever there was one. Toby was a bit stunned. "...No?"
"Great. Juney's just about to wash the car. Let's go look." And he dashed off.
Toby was thoroughly befuddled.
Over by the car, Piffle was petting George all over and telling him in babytalk what a good horsie he was. He ate it up. His aura was crimson from blushing. Meanwhile Junella took a wooden cigar box from out of the trunk. As Zinc and Toby arrived to watch, she opened it and inside were eight little partitioned compartments. Three were empty, while the others contained little plastic sandwich baggies full of... gold dust?
"What, um, is that?" Toby asked.
"It ain't Tinkerbell's dandruff," the skunk replied. "This might freak ya out a bit if you're not into bugs, but if there's no car wash for miles, it's the next best thing." She chose one of the bags and set the cigar box carefully back down. She bit open the plastic, widened the hole, then threw the whole thing up into the air.
Immediately, the buzz of six thousand wings drowned out all other sound. The gold powder had apparently been in hibernation, as it suddenly came alive in a swarm of sparkling golden insects. They flew around in a disc-like formation for a few seconds, getting their bearings, then they all dove into the Fearsleigher's backseat.
Toby took a step closer. They really were ladybugs! A whole writhing golden carpet of them! He'd never seen any that weren't red before, but these were the right shape, the right size, the right spots. They were concentrated mostly around the bloodstains. "Are they mechanical?"
"Nope, just colored that way," Zinc said. "They're nightmare constructs, like George. People used to have to deal with these swarms of carnivorous ladybugs. You think piranhas are bad? Holy cow! But then someone got the idea to capture a bunch, breed 'em, and now we got these. Perfectly trained to eat anything that used to be alive."
"Thank god the seats are faux-leather," Junella commented.
"Are you SURE they're perfectly trained?" Toby asked.
"Never had one bite me." And to show it, Zinc dipped a wrench towards the largest mass of bugs. They stampeded up his arm and all over him, nibbling away any last trace of dried bodily fluids. "Hee hee! Tickly li'l cooties!"
As soon as she heard laughter, Piffle wanted to join in. She dipped a paw in the ladybugs and soon their little legs were all over her too. Junella and Doll got their turns as well, but neither of them made a sound so Toby didn't know if they were also ticklish.
He looked down at the still-considerable amounts of mouseblood on himself. Icewater can only do so much. The thought of being covered in bugs did not fill him with gusto, but it was either that or walk around in nauseating-smelling brown-over-blue pajamas. He approached the ladybugs.
Toby was unprepared for how tickly they were and spent the next few minutes giggling insensibly.
It was quite an enjoyable release, actually. He was dizzy and out of breath when it was over, but he felt loads better. A good laugh can drive the blues away.
When his vision stopped blurring, he noticed everyone was nice and clean. The car's interior was almost done too. Several of the ladybugs were flying away, dipping and weaving from their full bellies.
Junella watched them go. "Now if only I could afford the ones that'd come back to the box after they finish..."
***
Soon enough the group was back on the road. George would have preferred to rest a bit longer, but he spied a cluster of nearby nightmares that looked like a cross between a haystack and a pile of pig snouts. Whatever they were, they acted hungry. One fight was enough. So they all quickly stowed the chains, piled in, and took off.
A few pigstacks chased after them, but Junella pulled the lever that deployed the Fearsleigher's spiked surprise. Like the heavy tail of an ankylosaurus, it was a chunk of metal on a chain with all sorts of unpleasant pointy bits welded on. Junella asked George to shake his ass. That was plenty wobble enough to send the tail-ball swinging back and forth across the road, scaring the shit out of the pigstacks and sending one unfortunate fellow flying over the treeline.
Toby had to admit, this part of Phobiopolis was a lot easier on the eyes than the usual sickly-looking locations. Polycoria appeared as a grand snowy forest high in the mountains. Some of the pine trees were weirdly-shaped, and of course the temperature was bafflingly high, but aside from that it was almost nice. They were on an unpaved path that had been somewhat-unintentionally created, since it was the shortest, flattest route to Ectopia Cordis, and many passing travelers had worn the flora down smooth.
Toby saw a few more beasts. There was a rather large herd of animals that resembled cattle or bison, but their faces were like steam shovels made of flesh. Toby cringed at their appearance, but they didn't seem to take any interest in the horse and sleigh passing by. A few small cat-shaped four-legged barracudas ran along beside the skate blades, jaws snapping, but they couldn't do much but get themselves run over.
So, Toby decided it might be safe enough to get back to his book. He felt around under Zinc's seat for it, and his hand came across something that was no longer book-shaped. After all the chaos in the backseat, it'd gotten shredded into something like a cheerleader's pompon. He groaned.
"Oh, I can fix that!" Piffle said. She snatched it out of his hand and, without hesitation, twirled it into the air. She juggled it between her paws a few times, and when she handed it back, it was restored to exactly the condition he'd bought it in.
He accepted it with a hanging-open mouth and much gratitude. "Wow! Thank you, Piffle! How'd you do that?"
To answer him, she snatched an ace of spades out of the air. Then winked.
"Don't tell Junella," Toby stage-whispered. "She'll have you dumbfounding up treasure till your hands fall off." They shared a conspiratorial giggle.
From the front seat, Zinc snickered and Junella rolled her eyes some more.
"Just promise me you'll let me read it when you're through," Piffle said.
"Oh, definitely. In fact..." That reminded him of the hotel pamphlets he'd borrowed from her. He found them in his pocket, somehow unharmed after all they'd been through. 'Probably because I didn't stop to think they wouldn't be.' Maybe he was getting the hang of this dumbfounding thing.
Piffle and Toby settled into happy reading. They were only jostled out of their concentration briefly when a nearby shovel-cow decided they were trespassing and charged at the car. Thankfully, Zinc and Junella had put enough spikes around the perimeter that all it accomplished was a skullful of pain and embarrassment.
An hour or so passed this way. The majority of Polycoria's native fauna was either too small to pose a threat, or had the barest bit of sense to turn tail when George snorted fire at them. There were a few bumps as the skate-car was either rammed or ran over something, but for the most part the ride was smooth enough that Toby could get absorbed in his book.
Toby was happy to see that reading was becoming exponentially easier the more he practiced. It helped that he knew this book cover to cover. On the pages ahead, the words and letters all seemed to be having a wild orgy. But as his eyes passed over them, they snapped to attention. They fell into orderly sentences as if a zipper was pulling them together.
Piffle read through her pamphlets and would occasionally poke Toby about places in Coryza she wished they'd visited.
Zinc was hungry and searched around in the supplies for some of that extra Piffle-meat he'd saved. To his annoyance, the ladybugs had gotten it all. 'Can ask for more later,' he thought, and opened a bag of pork rinds instead.
Junella had her feet up on the dash, clipping her toenails. Each one made a guitar-plunk sound as it came off.
Doll, out of sight of the others, was sitting in the dim light under the seats and reading all the pamphlets Piffle had finished.
George was just happy to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. He wouldn't have minded pulling the Fearsleigher for a thousand miles in such a pleasant setting. It wasn't just his long underground incarceration that gave him such steady patience. Nightmare constructs are 'born' with simple minds. This was not to say George was stupid. But he'd lived for centuries as a literal creature of habit. Seek souls, chase souls, kill souls, repeat unto infinity. He was more than comfortable with repetitive tasks. Though the last few days had offered such variety he wondered if he'd died and gone to Heaven. Surely, his long night of the soul (and the soil) had been observed by someone and recompensed.
Zinc had shared around the stash of snacks. Junella was halfway through a bag of peanut brittle when her ears perked up.
The far-off hum of motors.
She wasn't entirely sure of the sound. It could have been some snorting animal nearby. She leaned out the side window as far as she dared and tilted her head back and forth.
Another fragment of audio on the wind. Definitely internal combustion. And laughter too.
"Twelve kinds of shit..." she swore as she pulled herself back inside. "It's the Hell's Bozos."
Zinc looked up over his hot rod magazine. His own ears swiveled around until they caught the sound. "Think you're right, Junebug. Christ," he snarled in frustration. "First the coven, now them. Think maybe we can slip around without catching their attention?"
Toby marked his place in his book with a finger. "Something new we have to worry about?"
"Maybe not," Junella said, though she didn't sound convinced. "Like Zinc said, we might be outside their radar. And all we really gotta do is outrun them." She tapped the buzzer. "George! We might need some speed again soon! You allright with that?"
"Always, Madam Brox!" he shouted back. "A brisk jog would be rather delightful at this time."
"Good. But keep your voice down. We don't wanna advertise our location."
"Oh, you mean to the large group of motorcycle-riding individuals approximately five hundred yards to our port side?"
"You got it."
"Well, that shouldn't be a problem then."
"How so?"
"They are already well aware of us and are drawing nearer as we speak."
"BUCKETS OF PISS!!!" she exploded.
From behind the trees, everyone could now clearly hear the approaching sounds of two-stroke engines, honks, and guffaws.
"Agitate the pavement, Georgie!!" Zinc shouted out the window.
Toby was once again knocked back in his seat by the force of their equine engine's acceleration. The mouse bookmarked his page with a candy wrapper and wisely put the paperback in his pocket, just in case they were heading into another nasty patch. "Who are we running from?"
Zinc actually looked visibly nervous; a rarity. "Same deal as the Cold Coven. Nightmares that trap and convert you. Only these ones are a lot uglier 'n louder!"
"Clowns," Junella spat, like she had a bad taste in her mouth. "Even worse, biker clowns. They're pussies compared to some of the other stuff you encounter out here, but bad news nonetheless. If one of them gets you and touches you with their red nose, bam! You're in permanent greasepaint 'n polka dots."
Piffle became intrigued.
"Someone physically restrain her!!" Junella barked. She looked up at the hamsterfly from the rear view mirror. "I can already see it in your eyes, you weirdo!"
"Shucks," Piffle said. "What if I want to get turned into a chopper-ridin' clown? That sounds fun! You could throw me to them as bait!"
Toby reached out to pat her paw, concealing a laugh at how adorably odd she was. "I guess you can let them catch you on the return trip. But if you left now, I'd miss you."
"Aww!" She pounced on him in a hug. "That's super-duper sweet. I won't leave ya, Toby. Maybe we can be clowns together sometime? We can dress up real silly and rub our noses together in eskimo kisses and dance the charleston in our big red shoes and-"
VVVVRRREEOWWWWWWWWW!!!
A scout from the Bozos had ramped off a dead log, backflipped through the air, and landed on the path just a few feet behind the Fearsleigher. They could hear her bobble-headed chortling over the whine of her rice-burner.
Piffle and Toby both looked out the back window. The hamsterfly began to reconsider getting caught by these guys.
This was not, after all, a regular furson dressed up in a funny costume for the amusement of children. This was a literal nightmare of a clown. Her bright purple lips were as fat as sausages, dripping with drool. Her cartoonish white gloves were veiny and wrinkled. Not gloves at all, but hands. She had on a scorching pink leather jacket with motoring goggles and an explosion of orange hair. Her furless skin was the patchy, sick blue of a drowning victim. Her neck stretched out like a turkey's.
Zinc plunged his face back into his magazine. "I ain't lookin'!"
"Keep it steady, George!" Junella yelled out the window. Once again she leaned out as far as she could, the wind making her scarf flow like a cape. She dumbfounded her trusty revolver into her palm. It was far easier to conjure up objects that one intimately knows the feel and weight of.
The giggling banshee behind them was weaving back and forth on the road, but Junella knew these things were too stupid for self-preservation. She fired off four misses and the Bozo didn't even flinch. That is, until Junella's fifth round made her head explode into literal confetti.
Toby watched the clown's body and bike go careening off the road into an old stump. The fact that her laughter hadn't stopped was rather disturbing.
Rather than reload, Junella simply tossed the revolver away and conjured up a new one. "That's just the first. There'll be more."
This was not a prediction she needed psychic powers for. The surrounding forest was already ringing with rumbles and hooting. Toby could see flashes of neon-colored hair amongst the trees.
They seemed to be taking their time, toying with their prey. Then one of them blew on a slide whistle: that was the signal.
They came in from both sides like a flood. Their wheels kicked up divots of dirt and grass as they exploded through the forest onto the path.
Toby had honestly never understood the fear of clowns until now. When he'd seen them on TV, they just seemed colorful and friendly. But if this was what other people saw when they looked at one, terror was a perfectly sensible response.
Rolling, bulging, veiny yellow eyes. Blood-red dots on cheeks. Feet as long as floorboards. Some of them were as repulsively obese as a plastic sack of cottage cheese, others as thin as a crowbar. Some were tall, some were short, but all of them had grotesquely extreme proportions. Carnival mirror bodies.
Either they'd all shaved themselves or the clownification process had rotted their fur away. They were bare except for headfur and bushy eyebrows, which were every color not found in nature. Their outfits were too. Gruesomely bright motorcycle gear: jackets and fingerless gloves and chaps and bandanas. Toby saw a chrome-plated, smoke-belching oversized bowtie. Their skin was wrinkled, splotched, festering with boils and sores. They were all covered in bleeding tattoos of hearts or balloon animals or other festive imagery. The only thing each and every one of them shared was a bright, shiny, unnaturally-red nose.
That, and the fact that they were all violently laughing as loud as possible.
The cacophony was like dropping a truck full of parrots off a cliff. Toby curled his ears up to block out the awful din. The clowns revved their engines constantly too. Toby's nose was soon full of the smell of exhaust.
Their bikes were every bit as grotesquely contorted as the riders themselves. Caricatures of bikes. Choppers with tiny back wheels and ridiculously large fronts. Or the reverse. Handlebars seven feet long. Seats like high chairs. Tricycles or quadcycles or septupcycles. Some of them had sidecars, out of which the bulbous heads of half-formed monster clowns rose. They looked like melted octopi, their expressions looking somehow stupider yet far more dangerous than the rest.
The riders couldn't seem to manage enough speed to catch up to George. Or maybe they could and they were just playing with their food for now.
Junella's gun cracked like lightning as she blew away four Bozos in a row. There were so many of them packed in so close, it was hard to miss. Each time, their heads would explode like a party balloon. The other clowns seemed to think this was hilarious and would laugh all the harder as they maneuvered their bikes around fallen chums.
The first pie hit the Fearsleigher. Dozens followed. Toby didn't have to wonder what flavor they were: the slight sizzle and chemical smoke that resulted wherever any of them hit was a good enough clue they were acid meringue.
Some of the more brazen Bozos dared to zoom closer and bump against the side of the skate car. That just made them easier targets. One fat specimen in a Kaiser helmet, round glasses, and a muumuu came charging in on his Harley. Junella put an expertly-aimed bullet in his back wheel and sent him crashing into a half-dozen of his amigos.
"Clown bowling!" she shouted triumphantly. She looked beside her and snatched the magazine out of her partner's wrenches. "Zinc, goddammit! Get your nose outta that thing and come help me splat these motherfuckers!"
He whined and cringed. "They give me the howlin' creeps, Juniepoo!"
"Don't Juniepoo me, mister." She elbowed a panel in the ceiling that dropped down a shotgun into his lap. "The more they give you the heebie-jeebies, the more satisfyin' it'll be killing 'em. Am I right?"
He sighed heavily and fished a box of shells out of the glove compartment. "As always..." he grumbled.
The shotgun was one of Red Velvet's special jobs. Custom-designed for Zinc so he could fire it with his lack of hands. The canine opened the side door, took one look at the sea of white-painted lunatic faces, and nearly fell out onto the road. He steadied himself. He held one wrench open just a crack to peek through. He aimed for a harlequin doing a handstand on her seat and blew her ass to sprinkles.
"See? What were you complaining about?" Junella encouraged.
Zinc whimpered and reloaded. "Just as long as I don't gotta look at 'em."
There was a leader-type one coming close now, with a big blue greasy pompadour and a toothpick set in his mold-green teeth. He chuckled low as he revved his engine; his arms were so over-muscled they looked like hams shoved into pantyhose. Feeling a particular hatred for this asshole, Zinc actually did keep his eyes open enough to turn the greaser-clown's face inside out.
Junella noticed Toby in the backseat looking anxious. "Hey mouse! You wanna be useful?"
He was startled and swiveled around. "Huh? I thought I was supposed to keep an eye on Piffle."
She grunted. "You haven't figured out yet when I'm not serious!?"
"No," he said bluntly.
Junella had to give him a 'fair enough' look. "Fold down the back seat and get in the trunk. Rustle around 'til you find a burlap sack that feels like it's fulla cats' claws. Caltrops. Zinc said you got a pretty good arm. Prove it by throwin' 'em under some tires."
Toby gulped but nodded. This was the first time he'd actually been asked to do something somewhat combat-like. He hoped like hell he wouldn't screw it up.
Piffle helped him find the latch for the back seat, and she actually spotted the caltrops first. "Can I throw some too?" she asked Junella.
"The more the merrier."
"Yaaay! I can help!"
The mouse and hamster poured the bag of four-pronged metal nasties out onto the back seat. Toby grabbed a handful and stood at the window, leaning out as far as he dared and clinging to the window frame for dear life. George was not up to his fastest velocity at the moment, but he'd still pass most cars on the freeway at this speed.
'Holy heck there's a lot of them!' Toby thought. The Bozos completely clogged the road behind them. It looked like the entire population of Sturgess had been clownified. And the noise! The motorcycle sounds weren't so bad, but the endless psychotic laughter made it really hard to aim.
Toby tried his best nevertheless. He targeted a green-skinned beanpole with a black mullet and rainbow tattoos who looked particularly dangerous. Toby threw his deadly jacks and watched as they tumbled through the air in slow motion.
To his amazement, not only did they hit, but the green guy skidded out and took at least ten other cycles down with him.
"Yeah!!" Toby shouted.
"Way to go!" Piffle cheered. She tossed her caltrops too and caused a similar pileup. One yellow-tufted unfortunate was decapitated and had his still-laughing face impaled on a low-hanging tree branch.
Doll ran back and forth on the backseat, handing Piffle and Toby more caltrops whenever they ran out.
The problem was, there were simply more enemies than ammunition. No matter how many clowns went down, dozens more simply bulldozed the crashed bikes out of the way and kept on hounding the Fearsleigher. Toby and Piffle both had to duck incoming pies. Toby got a dab of meringue on his ear and it felt like someone had pressed a hot iron to it. He shrieked and whipped his head around. This caused him to let go of his entire handful of caltrops all at once. Happily, this caused a forty-cycle pileup. Unhappily, there were hundreds more.
Junella popped a balloon-headed buffoon with her current revolver, then chucked the gun at another with hair shaped like traffic cones, wiping the smile off his face. She'd reached the point where she was simply dumbfounding up a new gun after every shot, leaving a trail of disposable snub-nosed revolvers in her wake. (She often wondered if they disappeared after she stopped thinking about them, or if someone would later come along and find a ridiculous amount of identical guns laying around. Typically she didn't return to places where this trick was necessary to check such things.) "Zinc, I know I can't run out of bullets, but I'm running out of patience! This isn't working!"
"Waddaya want me to do about it!?" he yelped back.
She thought a bit, then pulled herself back into the car long enough to deploy the tail-weapon again. It clunked onto the road and tried to sink its metal fangs into tires. But unfortunately, it did no good. The clowns were quick enough to stay just outside its range.
Junella realized this quickly and pulled the lever to retract it. 'Wish we had a bigger one,' she thought to herself.
Then, slowly, she grinned.
Zinc did NOT like her plan when she told it to him. What finally convinced him was the chance to give his new toys from Dorster and Alfonzo a field test. He was annoyed as heck at having forgotten to put them on against the Coven.
And if nothing else, at least he could keep his eyes closed the whole time.
Soon enough he found himself up on the roof again. Piffle and Toby were being extra-careful to trip up any of the clowns that looked like they were aiming to pie him. (Toby finally noticed that they were producing an endless supply by vomiting them up, pan and all. 'Bleahh!') Junella scrambled up top as well. She readied the turret while Zinc readied himself. He ejected the flails from his backflesh and crowed with pleasure. Even in the midst of his own personal nightmare, that felt damn good. He spun his shoulder-fezzes up to maximum but didn't engage the flails just yet.
Junella got the hookspear loaded and aimed the turret into the densest patch of Bozos. "Allright. Get in front of the barrel!"
"I want a cheeseburger after this, Juney!" Zinc yelled back as he got himself into position. "A triple-decker! With bacon, fries, and a chocolate shake! And you're payin' for it!!"
"Perfectly acceptable, partner!" And with that she pulled the trigger.
Zinc clenched himself up into a ball as he felt the harpoon plunge through his guts. The force of it sent him flying off the Fearsleigher and into the heart of sheer terror. Right smack dab in the middle of all those cackling, leering, grinning demonic fucking clowns! He clamped his metal eyelids shut.
In the instant before impact, he clicked the gears into place inside his shoulder devices.
What happened next is difficult to describe.
Imagine a fireworks show. But instead of colored sparks: clowns. Shit-tons of clowns. Zinc had wrapped his wrenches around himself, clamping down tight on the harpoon line in back, making himself an armored wrecking ball of unlimited destruction. His spiked flails did their jobs to perfection. They were a part of his body now, and reacted as reflexively as his own limbs. They swam gracefully through the air at a pound and a half, then at the slightest microtouch of impact, a subconscious command sent their mass skyrocketing, cleaving through literally anything. Metal was like toilet paper to them. Flesh was like water.
George swerved back and forth on the path, sending Zinc pinballing from one side of the road to the other. He was a lawnmower, and any clown's ass in his path was grass. Zinc's flesh had quickly become so covered in bruises, dents and lacerations, the pain plateaued in a brain-blanking buzz. Zinc sent his mind elsewhere. He thought about tits and cheeseburgers.
It was an absolute slaughter. Zinc's balls tore through motorcycles like bullets through balloons. The moonlight above was nearly blotted out by sprays of clown-blood-confetti. Through it all, the Bozos never stopped laughing.
What the caltrops had done to a few bikes at a time, Zinc did to dozens each second. Clownflesh hung from trees like deflated balloons. Bent wheels were everywhere. Junella fired potshots into the remaining zanies purely for fun.
Of course, the Hell's Bozos could not be killed for long. And since their bikes were essentially extensions of their bodies, they too would regenerate. But for now there was so much twisted metal and rubbery flesh clogging the road, nobody could have hoped to drive through it. The last few multicolored and mirthful survivors got themselves stuck in the debris and their hyena cackles faded as George sped onward. Junella and the others would have a comfortable head start long before the Bozos could begin to regroup for revenge.
The Fearsleigher was a mess. The caltrops had been depleted by two-thirds. Zinc was extraordinarily dead by the time Junella reeled him in. But it was nonetheless a decisive victory.
Junella sliced her partner's corpse off the retrieved hookspear and gave him a kiss on the nose. He shimmered back to life just in time to appreciate it.
And of course, when he slid back down off the roof into the passenger seat, Piffle and Toby were all over him. They kissed his cheeks and gave him hero's hugs. He tried to play it off like this was just the kind of thing he did every afternoon for kicks, but Junella knew he'd gone above and beyond on this one. She promised as soon as they got to Ectopia Cordis, she would buy him a junkfood banquet that'd have him peeing pure grease.
Zinc tail-waggingly accepted the praise. It helped to drive the image of all those red-nosed atrocities out of his mind.
When George was informed that the crisis was behind them, he let his speed drop to that of a leisurely Sunday drive. This was serendipitous, as the road through the forest soon curved around a cliff. They followed the curve for a mile or so. On their left was the same pine trees and snow as always. To their right, the ground sloped away into a sheer drop. They could see hills and valleys at the bottom. Acres more trees. It was a rather beautiful sight.
And because of this, coupled with their flush of triumph over the Bozos, none of them were braced for the sudden earsplitting attack that knocked the skate-car over like a giant sonic fist.
*****