Kill All Angels

by Robert Brockway

  “Let’s play chicken, pussy!” I hollered.

  I didn’t have time to explain what I wanted him to do, but I’ve known Randall most of my life. He will always play chicken, he will never swerve, and he really, really hates being called a pussy.

  At the last wide straight just before the double back, I heel-toed the gas and brake, then wrenched the wheel hard to full lock. The centrifugal force threw the Empty One wide like a yo-yo, but his grip didn’t weaken. The extra pressure digging into my flesh nearly made me black out. I hit the gas again and went squealing back the way I’d come—in a head-on collision course with Randall, just coming around the S curves behind me. I could see it on his face—teeth gritted, eyes down, hands planted on the wheel—he was all in. I aimed my kart straight for his and evened out.

  Foot planted. Searing pokers digging into the meat of my shoulder. Biting my cheek to keep from screaming. Seconds from impact.

  And then I slammed on the brakes.

  Three things happened simultaneously:

  The Empty One was thrown up and forward over the pivot point where he gripped the roll bar, doing a sort of one-armed handstand directly above my head. Second, the nose of my kart took a steep dive, scraping against the asphalt. Third, I was thrown forward in my seat and laid flat against the tiny dashboard.

  Randall, true to his nature, didn’t swerve or slow in the slightest. The wheels of his kart hit the downward-angled nose of my own, sending him airborne right above my cockpit. His kart caught the inverted Empty One straight in the nose, evenly dispersing most of his face across the track.

  My kart slid to a sideways stop. There was a pained screech and the crash of metal on rubber somewhere behind me. Then the patter of bloody rain and the thump of a limp body on asphalt. I looked at my shoulder. Four long jagged tears in the leather where his fingers had been. Blood was already flowing down my elbow, tracking along the bottom of my hand, and running in a solid rivulet from the tip of my pinky. I considered signing my name on the bastard’s mangled body. But there was no time.

  I shimmied out of the go-kart and jogged over to check on Randall. His wheels had left long black snake tracks straight into the dividing wall, which was thankfully made of stacks of old tires. He’d caught one to the face, but he was up and moving. I mean, not very well, but movement is a good sign. He was staggering around the track like a cruise-ship drunk in a rough storm. I caught up to him and snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. They focused, but only after about ten seconds.

  “Hey, shake it off, man,” I said, pulling his arm over my shoulder and carry-walking him toward the exit gate. “That’ll put the Empty One down for a few minutes, but not out, and the others won’t be far behind.”

  “I didn’t swerve,” he said, his voice thick and warbling like Stallone at the end of Rocky. “Pussy.”

  I laughed.

  “You did not,” I agreed, and pushed through the turnstile first. I pulled him after me, and went to hook his arm again, but he shook me off.

  Randall took a few uneasy steps, but his balance held. He poked at his face.

  “Is it bad?”

  He had a discernible tire track running sideways across one cheek and his nose was bent hard to the right.

  I smiled at him.

  “Massive improvement,” I said.

  Who’s the pretty one now, buddy?

  “If you can walk, you can run. Let’s get out of here before—”

  “I pull your tongues from your heads and stick them up each other’s assholes?” a female voice interjected.

  A short Chinese girl with a bright silver bob was sitting on a park bench in between rides at the far end of the courtyard. She had her legs crossed at the knee. She was wearing black leggings and half of a torn yellow T-shirt with the word HULKAMANIA zigzagging across the front. Big bangle earrings, heavy makeup, black lipstick, glitter on the cheeks. She jiggled one of her bright red, six-inch heels absentmindedly. Behind her, a spattering of punk rockers and new-wave kids. I tried to make out their faces and came away with a headache for my troubles.

  Unnoticeables.

  Which made her another Empty One.

  “Listen, baby,” I said, stepping out in front of Randall so he could see the hand I held behind my back. “If you wanna throw me some quick head behind the merry-go-round, that’s cool, but I go first. Your friends have to wait their turn. I don’t do sloppy seconds.”

  Behind my back, I extended my index and middle fingers, scissoring them back and forth in the universal “running” motion. Then I pointed to my left, toward the gate of the nearest ride: one of those roller coasters where your feet hang out the bottom. Then I held up five fingers.

  “Aw, hell,” I said. “Who am I kidding? Of course I do sloppy seconds!”

  “Ugh.” The Chinese girl scowled down at her own long pink nails. “You people are always so crass.”

  Four fingers.

  “Me?” I laughed. “You said hello by threatening to make us toss each other’s salads.”

  Three fingers.

  “That’s a fair point.” She quirked her head sideways, and her bitchy valley-girl accent dropped away. Her voice was flat and toneless. “I have to work on those inconsistencies. Thank you.”

  Two fingers.

  She turned her head toward the faceless kids idling behind her.

  “Gut them,” she said. “Rape them first. Or after. Or during. Your call.”

  One finger.

  I bolted.

  From behind me I heard Randall yell: “What? God damn it!”

  I checked to see if he was following. He was, but he’d started late and wasn’t exactly in peak condition. The Unnoticeables would close ground on him fast.

  “Some warning would be nice!” he yelled, staggering into and knocking over a trash can.

  “I gave you a countdown!” I said. “I made the running motion, pointed toward the roller coaster, then counted out five seconds!”

  “I didn’t see any of that! I have, like, half of a concussion, asshole!”

  I made the entrance to the ride first, slid to a stop, and grabbed the security gate. I rattled it most of the way shut, then waited for Randall to sprint through. I slammed it closed as he lunged past me and ate shit on the concrete just beyond the threshold. The Unnoticeables came running full force into the security fence, not even trying to slow before body checking it. I was thrown back on my ass beside Randall. I helped him up and dragged him unsteadily through the turnstiles. I shoved him into the nearest seat of the coaster, ran back to the kiosk and hit the start button—thank god for big red buttons labeled START; I would literally be dead dozens of times over if this world wasn’t idiot proofed just for folks like me—and booked it back as the cart lurched into motion. I jogged up alongside it and hopped into the last seat right before it left the station. I looked back at the station—at the Unnoticeables standing dumbfounded on the edges of the tracks—and laughed.

  “Haha, eat shit!” I hollered, flipping them the hardest bird I could manage with one hand, while securing my harness with the other.

  “Uh, Carey?” Randall called out from five rows in front of me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Isn’t this thing just going to go around the track and wind up right back there at the same station in, like, two minutes?”

  FUCK.

  “Yeah,” I said, as casually as possible, “but this gives us two minutes to think, right?”

  Dead silence.

  Randall wasn’t buying it.

  “Hey man, we’re coming up to the first drop, get your seat belt on!” I shouted.

  “My what?” Randall started to say, but we were already dropping, and it turned into an unintelligible scream.

  Randall was lifted halfway out of the cart, his right arm hooked through the unbuckled harness, holding onto the underside of the seat in front of him with just his toes. He was making frightened walrus sounds and slapping about uselessly with his other arm, trying to find purchas
e. The coaster went into a sharp banking left, sending Randall flying wide and to the right. He hung on to the harness, but his feet slipped out and he flapped alongside the cart like a wind sock.

  “Hold on!” I shouted.

  Well, that was a stupid thing to say.

  He responded with a series of terrified yelps. The cart banked back right and Randall’s legs were thrown into the seat behind him. He wrapped around it as best he could and held on in the fetal position.

  “Hang in there, man! There’s only one more curve and a loop before it hits another climb and slows down!”

  “One more curve and a WHAT?”

  Oh, right.

  The curve was no problem. The loop didn’t go as smoothly. Randall’s legs came loose at the peak, when we went fully inverted, and he hung there for a split second—dangling from nothing but one arm hooked into a loose harness—before momentum caught up with him and he slammed crotch-first into the divider between the seats.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  Randall was alternating between “Jesus” and “fuck” so rapidly they became one word: Jesusfuck. But he managed to crawl back into his seat and buckle the harness as the cart began its next ascent.

  This was the big drop. The flagship moment of the ride. The cart climbed slowly, probably more slowly than it needed to. A few agonizing extra moments to appreciate the tension before the big release. The track was angled to the side, to let riders really appreciate the scale of what they were about to go through: Beyond the peak the track dropped straight off for what looked like hundreds of feet, then bottomed out quickly and shot back up a small rise—likely to maximize G-forces and trick the rider into feeling like they were going airborne.

  It looked intense. If we even made it that far.

  Standing on the ground below the lowest point of the dip, when it was no more than six or seven feet off the ground, were three Unnoticeables, staring patiently up at us. I was suddenly acutely aware that my feet were dangling, unprotected, in the open air where the cart’s floor should have been. I struggled with my harness, but my body weight was shifted backward from the climb, and there was too much pressure on the buckle to let it release.

  “Randall…”

  “Jesusfuck Jesus fuck fuckJesus—” came his mantra.

  “There’s a bunch of Unnoticeables waiting for us at the bottom of the next drop. I think they’re going to try to grab our legs.”

  “And what do you want me to do about that?!” He turned as far around as his harness would let him and stared at me from the corners of his eyes.

  I gave him a big, exaggerated shrug.

  And then we fell.

  Quicksilver backflips in my stomach. Blood to my head. My vision faintly red at the edges. Wind roaring in my ears like the ocean in a storm. I tried to pull my legs up, but the velocity had them pinned back beneath my seat. We were approaching the bottom. The Unnoticeables jockeyed for position. You can’t make out their facial features—not really. It doesn’t seem unusual to you at the time. Each one just seems like an entirely forgettable person. A face in the crowd. But you can tell expressions. And the ones at the bottom were grinning like a bunch of hyenas watching a zebra stumble. I braced myself as far back in my chair as I could, and I noticed Randall … doing the exact opposite. He was leaning forward in his seat, wriggling his hips so he could get his legs as low as possible.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, but I could feel the wind rip the words from my mouth and fling them backward. No way he heard me.

  Randall dropped his leg low and back. The cart rocketed into the dip. One Unnoticeable shoved another out of the way and jumped up, arms open to catch Randall’s leg. At the absolute limit of our velocity—with all the mass of the free-falling cart behind it—Randall swung his foot forward in a huge football punt, and caught the airborne Unnoticeable right beneath the chin.

  His fucking head came clean off and went spinning through the air, pinwheeling blood.

  I’ve forgotten my first kiss. I remember losing my virginity, but I couldn’t tell you her name. I know my dad left me and Mom at some point, and she said I was inconsolable—I cried for hours. I don’t recall a minute of it. But I swear to god, until my dying day, I will remember every millisecond of that beautiful bastard of a kick, and I will weep tears of glory.

  “WA-HOOOO!” Randall screamed, understandably. “DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT?!”

  “YOU ARE A MAJESTIC BEAST!” I yelled back.

  “HOLY SHIT I THINK I BROKE MY LEG!” he responded, then pulled his knee up to his chest and huddled in pain.

  Whatever happened to us from here on out, it was worth it. All of it. All of our past mistakes had only served to make us the people we were today—the people that just roller-punted a monster punk’s head clean off his shoulders.

  I was almost at peace with what was waiting for us when the cart pulled back into the station—when the remaining Unnoticeables would tear us apart with their bare hands. Then the cart came to a jarring halt, whiplashing me with my own harness. My chin hit my chest and I bit the tip of my tongue. I tasted blood.

  We were only halfway through the roller coaster’s run, just cresting the small peak that came after the big dip.

  Was there an emergency stop on this thing?

  Haha, did those stupid assholes pull it?!

  I mean, I knew the Empty Ones generally pulled their Unnoticeables from the dregs of humanity: junkies, hobos, punks, drifters, vagrants—people that wouldn’t be missed. But I guess I never stopped to appreciate that it meant they couldn’t exactly recruit the best and brightest. The Unnoticeables could’ve just waited for us at the station and had us literally delivered to them in a nice tidy package, but instead they pulled the e-brake with our cart on a hill. They’d have to climb up here to get us.

  “Randall, unbuckle!” I said, loosing my own harness and clambering over the seats toward him.

  He struggled with his harness, adrenaline making his hands shaky and disconnected. I reached over his shoulder and pulled the clip free, then jumped over the next two rows to the front of the cart. I heard the slip of rubber on plastic, and a scream. I looked back and found Randall crumpled between rows of seats, head down and legs in the air. I monkeyed back over to help him get upright, but he screamed again when I pulled on his leg.

  “I wasn’t kidding, it’s fucking broken!” he yelled.

  “Well, how was I supposed to know?” I said, yanking on his arms.

  “Because I shouted it at the top of my lungs like five seconds ago?”

  “Well yeah, but I figured you were just being a little wimp,” I said. “You know, like usual.”

  That should do it.

  Randall slapped my hands and pulled himself up the rest of the way. It was a cool night, but thick drops of sweat were beading on his forehead. His cheeks were flushed, but the rest of his skin was pale. Sheer spite for me would only get him so far. I hoped it was far enough.

  “Come on,” I said, making my way back to the front of the cart and slipping down onto the tracks. “We’ve got a good lead, but they’re probably climbing up already.”

  Randall eased himself gently down from the nose of the cart onto the single thick beam that made up the track. It was a few feet wide at its thickest, with two thinner slats running down the bottom of each side. We couldn’t walk on it, but we could straddle the thicker rise and push off the slats with our hands and feet, sort of crotch-gliding like a stair railing. Downhill would be easy enough, uphill would be a bitch. Especially for Randall with his bum leg.

  “If those dipshits on the ground actually are climbing up already, we can slide down this next dip and climb off. We might be able to get out of here before they even realize we’re gone.”

  It was a weak plan, but the alternative was either waiting for them to get a clue and turn the cart back on, crushing us or knocking us off to our deaths, or slowly groin-mounting an entire roller coaster and—I don’t know, starting a
new life up there at the top? There wasn’t much of an alternative, was the point.

  “Okay,” Randall said, barely a noise.

  I could practically hear his teeth grinding from here.

  The problem wasn’t getting momentum—the track was greased with some sort of industrial lubricant—it was controlling it so I didn’t go veering off to one side, or slowing it so I didn’t friction-burn my own testicles off. If it was hard for me, it must’ve been unbearable for Randall. But I’d called him a wimp earlier; he’d die before complaining now. We crotch-slid as low as the track went before it hit the next rise. But it was still about fifteen feet off the ground.

  “All right,” I said, swinging my legs over and lowering myself onto the metal support beams. “Here’s the easy part.”

  Randall’s barely constrained yelps of pain did not agree with me. I made the climb fine, and jumped the last few feet so I could assist Randall. He tried to kick me away, but only twice, so I knew he really wanted my help. I eased him down to the ground, and tried to offer him my arm. He shook his head silently, and started to walk. He took tiny little paces, shuffling forward a few inches at a time.

  “Listen, man—” I blocked his way. “I’m sorry I called you a wimp. I was just trying to piss you off so you’d get moving quicker. But we are not going to make it with you waddling around like a sick penguin. You have to take my hand.”

  “Say it,” Randall said. He clenched his jaw, crossed his arms, and glared at me.

  “C’mon man, we do not have time for—”

  “Bullshit. It’s a few seconds. Say it.”

  I sighed.

  “You’re the baddest motherfucker since Shaft.”

  Randall nodded once, curtly, and threw his arm around my shoulder. I took the weight off his bad leg, and together we did an impromptu three-man race for the perimeter fence.

  The good news was: We made it way before the Unnoticeables!

  The bad news was: It was a fence.