Sick Day: Chapter 16 – Buster Move

Go to Chapter 15 – Redneck Rampage.

-CHAPTER 16-

BUSTER MOVE

 

Val pulls her motorcycle up to the intersection, Taye sitting on the seat behind her, so close that she can feel his breath on the back of her neck.  A crowd lines both sides of the road to watch a passing parade, making it impossible for them to go any further until the spectacle has passed.

“Look at all them midgets!” Taye shouts, pointing at a group of little people who are dressed in elf suits and passing out fruit cake to the kids in the crowd.

Val hears a disturbance to her left, and she turns to see what’s going on.

A child throws up.  His mother stands over him, asking, “What’s wrong, honey?”

Another kid vomits to Val’s right.  She sees another across the street gagging.  Each child is holding a half-eaten loaf of the elves’ gift.

“It’s the fruitcake,” Val says suddenly.  And then she is shouting.  “It’s the fruitcake!  It’s making the children sick!”

“Shoot,” Taye says.  “I really hate fruitcake.”

Val says, “Hold on.”  She stomps her motorcycle to life and shouts for the crowd to part.  Not waiting for long, she pulls through and fishhooks to a stop in the middle of the street.  “Throw away the fruitcake!  Don’t let the kids eat it!”

The crowd stares at her in bewilderment for a moment before looking around at the evidence supporting her words.  Fathers snatch the uneaten Christmas cakes out of their children’s hands.  Mothers try to induce their tots to vomit.

Driving up and down the crowd, Val repeats her warning.  For a moment, she tries to set aside her worry for her missing lover and puts all of her attention into this one thing.  When the car speeds past, sirens blaring and lights rolling, and the parade picks up speed, making a break for it, she turns a donut and squares her front tire toward the chase.

The last float in the parade is made to look like an appetizing gingerbread house.  Two men push open the liquorish shutters and open fire through the windows at the front of the unmarked car.

Swerving away from the gunfire, Buddy tells Ken to take the wheel.  His partner looks at him as though he were insane but reaches over and grabs the steering wheel.

“Get your foot on the gas,” Buddy says, drawing his firearm.

As Ken stretches his leg and pushes the pedal, Buddy puts his hands outside of the window.  “When I say ‘go,’” he says, “get as close to that float as you can.”

“What are you going to do?”

Buddy puts on his glasses, says, “I’m going to rain on their parade,” and then climbs out the side of the speeding vehicle.

Val reaches to her ankle and frees the knife she keeps as a back-up for when she runs out of bullets.  Having already lost her gun in her chase with Taye earlier, it’s the only weapon she has that might be useful in this situation.

At the same moment that Buddy Cop fires and kills the man in the first window, Val’s knife zips through the air and takes out the second gunman.  Bang!  Thwack!

Buddy looks at the two people on the motorcycle in surprise.  Not sure where they came from, he’s just happy that they seem to be on the same side.

“Go!” Buddy shouts, and Ken guns the engine, closing the gap between the hood of the unmarked car and the back of the float.  Buddy climbs onto the roof and slides down onto the hood, readying himself to make a leap of faith.

“Take control,” Val says.

“What the heck you fixin’ to do?” Taye asks.

Val puts one foot under herself and the other on the handlebars.  With one acrobatic move, she stands and catches her balance.

Another surprised expression crosses Buddy’s face just before he jumps onto the side of the gingerbread house.

“I’ll meet you at the front,” Val says to Taye just before she follows Buddy.

“No you won’t,” Taye says under his breath.  Having never driven a motorcycle before, he is terrified of crashing, and with police cars pulling in on all sides, Taye tries to keep the bike on the road as he plans his escape.

Once the rip through the walls of the gingerbread house, Val and Buddy are met by several people dressed as rag dolls, who attack the two with butcher knives.  Buddy unleashes an impressive array of moves.  His special training during ‘Nam, combined with the techniques he picked up as law enforcement has left him capable of handling himself.  Even so, he is impressed with the moves that he sees Val display when he’s able to catch a glimpse of her in action.  Several times, he stops and openly congratulates her with a thumbs up or a respectful head nod.

Once they’ve rid themselves of the ragdoll menace, they look to the next float in line, only the next float has pulled up beside the one that had been in front of it.  There are two options to progress.  Without exchanging a word, they each leap onto a different float, thus dividing their assault onto two different fronts.

 

Harlan wasn’t expecting Lou to come back, so when he is caught with his index finger playfully flicking Buster’s lower lip, he roars in annoyance.  “Wetta yer doin’ back’ere?”

“What are you doing?” The Pastor fires back.

“Aye’m doin’ d’jahb yer got mah fer.”

“Had I known this was your idea of fun, I would have gotten someone else.”  Lou’s face turns as red as Harlan’s beard.  “The job I got you to do was to stop two hearts, but I find that they are still beating.”

Lola notices that Buster’s restraints have started to come loose around his wrists.  She tries to nonverbally get his attention and then indicate her nose toward his hands.  Lou looks at her, and she stops with Buster staring back at her in confusion.

Harlan pulls up his overalls.  “Ahm jus’a’hevin’ lil fun.”

With the attention off of her, Lola tries again.  Buster mouths “what?”  She tilts her head, making the gesture larger.  Buster wiggles his hands at her and mouths “Yeah, I know.”

Staring up at the large man, Lou waves his hand before his nose.  “You’re drunk, so I will put a stop to this abortion.”  Lou pulls his pistol.

 

“Holy Mary and Joseph!”

Ken slams on the brakes as two large ceramic figures slide out of the crashing manger float and smash on his car, spider webbing the windshield.

With a line of cop cars behind him, the only way Taye sees as an escape is get in front of the parade and turn off from there.  He speeds up and works hard to keep from getting hit by the sliding, shifting floats.

Meanwhile, Val finds herself in a fight with a half a dozen people in snowman suits on a speeding flatbed designed to resemble a winter wonderland.  She keeps her balance by throwing some gymnastics between her throws and parries.

On the neighboring float, Buddy grapples with a mob of guys dressed as reindeer.  He quickly figures out that he doesn’t have to work as hard if he just started tossing some of his opponents over the edge, letting them roll away on the blurry pavement below.

Val and Buddy land on the flatbed of the front float at about the same time.  In order to make progress, they will have to climb up and across the cars of a polar railroad.  As they make their way further to the front, a lone man meets them at the center.  He looks at his opponents like he’s hungry and they look delicious.  His forearm bears a tattoo, Japanese characters spelling out the word Ākēdo, which ripples on his wiry muscles as he brandishes his nunchacku.

Buddy pulls his pistol and fires.  Bang!

Ākēdo sidesteps, and with the motion and the difficulty of the shot, Buddy misses.

Buddy fires again.  Bang!

Ākēdo drops, ducking the bullet.

Buddy pulls the trigger again.  Click.

Ākēdo looks up at them with an evil grin.

When Taye gets beside the truck pulling the front float, the driver takes a sideways glance at the motorcycle and then jerks the wheel.  He watches as the bike falls beneath his back tires, gleefully laughing at his murderous act.

Ken kicks out the windshield and returns fire at the Grinch, who crouches on the rocking chair float with an AR15.  With his attention on his target, he doesn’t see the mangled motorcycle until after his car has hit the squad car beside him.

Ākēdo runs toward Val and Buddy, who ready themselves for the attack.  As he arrives, they both make moves to strike, but Ākēdo repels their blows, jumps into the air, kicks Buddy, and punches Val.  Staggering backward, The Androgynous Woman and Buddy Cop move in at the same time, and again they are sent away with fresh bruises.

The driver of the front float speaks into his CB radio.  “Father Christmas, this is Rudolph.  We are nearing the rooftop.”

He sees movement out of the corner of his eye.  When he turns his head, he is struck by a fist that comes through the open window.  Taye, who was thrown onto the side of the truck when the motorcycle fell under him, grabs the driver and throttles him.

The float starts to slide sideways.  The procession begins to scatter, trying to avoid the inevitable collision.  A rooftop façade slides off of one of the floats, narrowly missing Ken’s limping car and smashing into the front of the line of police cars at his back.  With the road now blocked with debris, his is the only car left in pursuit.

With the ground beneath their feet becoming even more unsteady, Val and Buddy turn their attention away from Ākēdo and toward any possible escape route they can find.

The truck leaps the curb and slides down a steep incline into the parking lot of The Downtown Center.  The driver slips out of Taye’s grip, unbuckles his seatbelt, and slides into the passenger side of the cab.  He throws open the door and leaps out.

 

Go to Chapter 17 – Arcade Hit.