The Subatomic Kid (22 page)

Glancing in his rearview mirror, John was instantly blinded by the insistent flashing headlights that seemed to absorb the car like an energy beam scorching out of a UFO. The intermittent super glare of the headlamps was accompanied by the blast of a horn so excruciatingly loud it sent shivers down to the soles of his shoes. The evil truck crept so close to the back of the car he could feel the heat of the engine like hot breath on his neck.

The column of cars on his right was a solid wall of metal that stretched for miles down the highway, but as is often the case in the strange realm of traffic patterns, the four oncoming lanes to his left were virtually empty. The four kids were hurtling through space at enormous speed, encased in a hunk of metal about to be swallowed by the whale of a truck behind them. John had no time to ask questions or even think, so he took the path of least resistance. A narrow strip of grass was all that separated the eight lanes of the highway, and he swerved across it into the empty fast lane of oncoming traffic to let the truck pass.

In response to his brazen maneuver, Tex, Cal, and Kate yelled frantically, and it was a moment before John realized he was doing the same. Almost immediately he regretted his decision to give up the safety of the correct lane for the danger of the incorrect, and he wanted to go back, but the truck had already pulled up beside them. Instantly, a row of headlights came into view that stretched clear across all four lanes, and he was headed straight at them.

***

As if being given the finger by every other driver on the highway weren’t enough, the traffic gods decided to give the most cruel and ironic finger they could think of. In a twist of fate that could have been plucked from the imagination of the most sadistic Greek muse, Miss Amelia Moon sat behind the steering wheel of the limousine that sped toward them in the fast lane of oncoming traffic.

She noted the headlights that veered into her lane up ahead, and with her immaculately manicured fingernail she clawed the lever that blasted her high beams and focused her cat-like eyes on the poor, lost, little mouse.

In the back of this luxurious limousine, Doctor Kurt Angstrom sat in his specially constructed, electrically-powered armchair that allowed him mobility, and stared at the monitor that displayed the road ahead. Because of his debilitating paralysis, he enjoyed the comfort of darkness, and within that comfort he found solace in the flickering images displayed on a television screen. It was a voyeuristic pleasure he had become addicted to, and now he preferred the anonymity it afforded him.

He fished a peanut out of a strategically placed silver tray, cracked it with his long fingernails, and fed the delicious kernel into his thin-lipped, rapacious mouth. It was a habit he had adopted; for him television and peanuts went together like milk and cookies—they couldn’t be separated.

He too saw the headlights of the oncoming car veer into their lane, and he smiled sadistically. “Do not give an inch, Miss Moon,” he intoned, “not even an inch. Let’s see who folds first.”

Amelia Moon made a guttural sound full of animal ferocity. “It won’t be me,” she replied, pushing her foot further to the floor.

***

John was trapped; the big rig on his right had locked him out, and because of his speed he imagined the oncoming headlights were approaching at about 150 miles an hour. Beside him he saw Kate double over, tuck her head between her knees, and clamp her hands over her ears. It was time for a calculated risk; he stabbed the brake with his foot and yanked the steering wheel back to the right, sending the limousine on a sidelong collision course with the big rig.

Cal and Tex stared in disbelief as the limousine sped sideways back across the grass median and toward the huge rumbling wheels of the truck that was behind them just moments ago. Not wishing to witness their untimely demise, they covered their eyes with their hands and prayed that the end would be quick and painless. With the miraculous luck of the lost and innocent, John’s insanely incalculable odds of success worked to an infinite number of decimal places, and the truck moved forward just far enough, allowing him to slide in right behind it.

***

As his limousine hurtled by, missing the interloper by what he calculated to be millionths of an inch, Kurt Angstrom couldn’t contain both his pride and his jubilation. “Chicken!” he roared, going against character as he punched his fist in the air. Miss Moon had never flinched; in fact she had even increased her speed in the hope of forcing the errant vehicle into a superb collision they could view behind them as they swept away.

Miss Amelia Moon grinned to herself; she loved it when Kurt Angstrom was happy, and what made him happiest was the abject misfortune of others. She wasn’t even sorry; she felt the same way herself.
The occupant of the other car was lucky this time
, she thought,
and so were all the other idiots who had the common sense to stay out of my way
. She was a one-woman wrecking crew, and she loved it.

***

As the oncoming limousine thundered past, missing them by an infinitesimal margin, the shock wave of its wake was so great that the body of John’s limousine actually wobbled on its suspension.

“Boy! There are some really bad drivers out tonight,” John said through gritted teeth as he tucked the limo in safely behind the big rig.

The silence in the car was deafening. Cal and Tex dropped their hands from their eyes. They couldn’t believe they were still in one piece, and neither could Kate as she uncurled herself from her defensive position.

Tex quickly leaned over the seat that separated them, and whispered in her ear confidentially, “I just want to remind you of our conversation at the school. I said regardless of what happens. And you said…?”

She whipped her head around and locked eyes with him; she was full of fire and fury, but the hurricane was dying down, “I said I’m not a flake.”

Tex nodded in recognition of the truth. “And are you about to prove yourself wrong so quickly?”

“No,” she said with a hint of a smile creeping into her face. “But remember, I’m a girl, my mood swings are way worse than yours.”

John didn’t want to split hairs, but he was still on a date, an extremely long and peculiar date, but a date nevertheless, and if there were some secret language older boys used to communicate with girls, he wanted to know it.

“Lookout!” Tex yelled frantically.

John’s concentration snapped back like a rubber band, and he turned to see the huge big rig had pulled up sharply in front of them. He stamped his foot down on the brake as hard as he could and Tex, who had neglected to re-buckle his seat belt, sailed through the air again, hitting the back of the driver’s seat with the force of a linebacker sacking a quarterback.

The wheels locked and the rubber squealed in protest as the tires skidded over the tarmac. John could do nothing but watch the speedometer fall as they slid like an ice skater straight at the back of the big rig.

Sixty-five, fifty-five, forty-five miles per hour, the speed dropped like a stone, but the back of the rig was still hurtling toward them. John grabbed the handbrake and yanked it up as hard as he could. He wasn’t sure it would actually do anything, but he was fast running out of options.

Thirty-five, twenty-five, fifteen miles per hour—it was too late. They could make out the rivets in the rusted steel as the hood of the limousine disappeared beneath the back of the big rig. There was nothing left to do; it was all over. Not wishing to become acquainted with the steel cross brace that was about to cut his head off, John took the only course of action that was left to him; he closed his eyes.

Kate was transfixed. She was utterly lost in a slow motion ballet of squealing rubber, steel, and glass. She was so numbed by the previous incidents she didn’t think this one was all that bad. She was waiting for her short life to flash through her mind, and when it didn’t happen, she felt disappointed.

Cal gazed in horror as he prepared himself for impending doom, and he wondered what it would have been like to hit a game-winning home run for the Mets in the bottom of the ninth at Shea Stadium. Someone had once told him that the Beatles had played there, and he’d always thought it was a strange name for a baseball team. Tex was still down on the floor behind John, completely unable to move because the force of the locked brakes held him pinned against the back of the seat.

Fate is fickle. Sometimes cruel and sometimes kind, she is often known to protect drunks and innocent children. Maybe she has mood swings, too. Perhaps it was the moon, or maybe the stars; it certainly was a night tailor-made for lovers. Or perhaps the quota for damage and destruction had been met, and it was time for good deeds. Whatever it was, the end result was nothing short of a miracle. Just before the top of the limousine was about to be opened like a sardine can, the big rig suddenly moved forward ten feet, which was just enough room for friction and gravity to do what they do best and bring the car to a halt.

John opened his eyes. The windshield was hardly an inch away from the back of the truck, and the hood was completely tucked underneath it. He sucked in a huge gulp of air and exhaled like a tornado. His nerves jangled like a roomful of ringing alarm clocks, and his head buzzed from the adrenaline rush. But he was still in one piece, at least physically.

Kate was in a trance. She stared silently through the window; inwardly she felt more alive than at any time in her life. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins, her heart was racing, and her brain was swimming in a shark-infested ocean of thoughts.

John looked into the backseat. “Is everyone okay?” he croaked.

Cal had retreated to a desert island deep within himself that he had never known was there. He was half lying, half sitting on the seat. As he stared up at the roof of the car, he listened to steel drums playing in his head and pictured himself on the beach tossing baseballs in the air and cracking them out into the surf.

Tex raised himself up from behind the seat and stared into John’s eyes, his hair was tousled and hanging over his forehead. He had seen nothing. “What happened?” he asked dazedly.

***

Hunter had given up any pretense of being able to bring Doctor Leitz down from whatever delusional universe he was lost in. Even though he had wanted to be there when Doctor Angstrom and Miss Moon arrived, he felt it was his duty to go after the kids.

Each of the company limos was outfitted with tracking devices that took advantage of the latest global positioning technology, and Hunter carried a tiny, palm-size computer that could access a visual display of their moment-by-moment locations.

He and Steve had dashed out of the school in-between Leitz’ spasmodic gunfire. Hunter hadn’t even wanted to think about the havoc the Doc was wreaking inside the lab. Judging from the number of times the MOLECULAR ACCELERATOR was fired and the waves of laughter that accompanied each blast, he imagined the surprise would be quite breathtaking.

Once inside the limousine, Hunter had fired up his computer, accessed the geographical database, and zoomed in on the upstate New York grid in which they were located. He had then run a search for the x and y coordinates of the tracking device for his car, and once that was cross-referenced and pinpointed, the computer came up with a map of the local area and an exact location of the limo.

“I’ve got ‘em!” he said triumphantly.

Steve had already gotten going in the limo and taken off, and just as they were about to exit the school gates, he realized a second limo was waiting to enter.

“Mr. Hunter, we have company,” he called out. As the old iron gates opened, and the second limo pulled forward, Hunter powered down his window and found himself face-to-face with Miss Moon.

“Mr. Hunter! Where are you going?” she inquired rather suspiciously.

Hunter shifted forward and leaned an arm on the door, the veins in his forehead pulsed, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. “Leitz has gone cuckoo. He’s in the lab, and somehow the kids have gotten away in my car. I’m going after them.”

Her normally stoic demeanor vanished; she couldn’t have looked worse if he’d slapped her in the face with a wet fish. She stared at him long and hard, trying frantically to absorb the horror story. Collecting herself, she continued, “We need those children, Mr. Hunter, and we need them alive.”

He nodded, “Yes, I understand.”

She pushed the limo into drive with a flourish. “I’ll deal with Leitz,” she said, and the limousine pulled away with just a hint of squealing rubber.