by Jordan Krall
“I work for Mr. Sabbath. What do you want?”
The man tapped on the gate. “Can I come in?” Junko nodded and walked over to let him in but still had the sword at his side.
Junko said, “What’s this about?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk directly to Sabbath about it. No offense to you, miss,” he said, eying Junko’s legs.
“Well, how about you tell me and I’ll put in a good word for you.” Junko winked at the man knowing his sex appeal was going to win the conversation. He rubbed the back of his hand on Enzo’s crotch. “So how about it?”
“Yowzah….”
And that’s how Junko entered the race in lieu of Sabbath.
CHAPTER FIVE
Yowzah! What an exciting race so far with Junko getting caught in a teeth storm and Mama Hell trying to navigate through the sloppy seconds. While they’re trying to get through Mouthville, the rest of the racers are entering the Gears and you know what that means! The gear bugs will be out in droves ready to put a glitch in our dear racers’ plans. It looks like Drac Dunwich and Samson are head to head but young hotshot Gabby Peppermint is not far behind.
*
I.
Gabby Peppermint was already sick of the race.
In particular she was sick of the other drivers. To her, they were just nobodies going after the prize she wanted. It was the story of her life: people trying to take what was rightfully hers, stealing the spotlight from her, trying to make their pathetic lives important.
She kept her Camaro at a constant speed because she wanted to let the two dumb-asses in front of her fight it out. She’d study their driving and figure a way to exploit their weaknesses. People always thought she was stupid on account of her being blonde but Gabby knew she had brains behind the beauty.
She was going to use those brains to kill those assholes and win the race.
Gabby had never driven through the Gears before. Her first impression was that it looked like a shit-hole, like a giant junkyard. Houses were covered in metal, car parts, faded porcelain signs, and unidentifiable jetsam. It reminded Gabby of the pathetic garage sales her mom always dragged her to as a child.
While she kept her eyes on Drac and Samson, something jumped out in front of her car. Gabby swerved but hit it anyway.
“Oh my god, what the hell?” Why did everything have to be so difficult? She was sick of things getting in the way of her happiness.
Whatever she had hit was now on top of her car. A face dropped down in front of the windshield. Gabby screamed but it was more out of frustration than out of fear.
It was a gear bug, a victim of radioactivity with limbs missing only to have been replaced by machine parts. This one in particular had a sprocket instead of a left eye and a head full of wire instead of hair. His fingers were rusty copper talons.
“Get off my car, asshole!” Gabby swerved across the road several times to get the gear bug off the roof but it held on and was slowly making its way to the passenger side window.
Gabby slammed on the brakes and the thing on the roof flew off onto the road in front of her. She put her car into park and screamed.
That freak on the road was going to die. She wasn’t going to let some asshole make a fool of her in front of everybody. People were watching her, expecting her to be the winner, the princess, the only one who deserved any attention.
She was the only Sweet Sixteen.
Gabby pulled her something out of her backseat and stepped out of the car. In her hands was a pink sledgehammer. “Hey asshole!” She ran up to the gear bug that was doing his best to stand up despite his injuries.
Heaving the hammer over her shoulder, Gabby sent it flying into the bug’s face. His head exploded. Blood, skull, oil, and wire decorated onto the asphalt. From behind her, Gabby heard metallic footsteps. More gear bugs were approaching.
“Come on, fuckers!”
They ran out like hungry roaches, scurrying around her. Gabby’s face was red, her hands trembling with fury. There was no way those assholes were leaving alive. If they took one step near her, they were all going to be crushed.
One ran forward, a woman this time, one with a ribcage made of steering wheel parts. She whistled through plastic teeth. Her metallic face flattened as the sledgehammer hit.
Another ran up behind Gabby and cut her with a rusty piece of metal that was shaped like a fish. Gabby elbowed him and gave a quick jab with the hammer that exposed flesh stitched together with fine wire. She jabbed again but this time with more power. His chest caved in. One more hit and he was squealing towards death.
The three remaining gear bugs were reluctant now. Gabby taunted them, daring them to come get a taste of what their comrades had. She knew they had given up and were just saving face by sticking around. With a scowl she walked back to her car and sped away.
“Better luck next time, assholes!” she screamed out the window. She almost wished they had attacked her. It would have been sweet to kill a few more worthless pieces of shit. She just hoped the audience liked her performance. There better had been some cameras around catching that action. If there weren’t, someone would have to pay with their lives. After all, she hadn’t exerted herself for nothing. She deserved to be a star.
II.
Ten Years Ago
It was on the eve of her Sweet Sixteen Party when the news hit: all the major nations in the world were preparing for war.
Nuclear war.
The United States. China. North Korea. Pakistan. India. Great Britain. Hell, even Japan was throwing its hat in the ring despite its tragic history with nukes.
Gabby couldn’t care less. War or no war, it didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that it was taking attention away from her big day. She was turning sixteen. Sweet Sixteen! But now everyone was talking about the war and how it could be the end of the world.
Who fucking cared, right?
Her parents had planned a huge party for her. They had rented a hall and everything. A limo was going to pick Gabby up and take her to the party while her friends watched in awe as she showed off her eight-hundred dollar dress her father had bought her.
She knew some of her friends talked behind her back, calling her a spoiled brat and “daddy’s little princess” but what good was her father if he wasn’t going to buy her things? After all, she’d given her parents the gift of having such a beautiful daughter so the least they could do was give her what she wanted, even if that meant accruing monstrous debt. But Gabby wasn’t concerned. It was their debt and they shouldn’t have had kids if they didn’t want to max out their credit cards.
Gabby had woken up that morning, smiling at the thought that it was her sixteenth birthday and the whole day would be all about her. It wouldn’t be about her friends, her little sister, her grandparents, her parents, or anyone else in the whole world. It would be her day and hers alone. No one was going to change that but if they tried, she’d throw a fit.
“Mom! I want a cappuccino!” she yelled from her bed. There was no answer. “Mom!”
She wanted to sleep in, have breakfast in bed, and relax before having to get ready for her party. But where was her mother? She should be standing at the foot of the bed awaiting Gabby’s orders.
“Mom!” she yelled louder. “MOM!”
There was still no answer but this time Gabby heard muffled voices. Now she knew what was happening. Her family was planning to surprise her. Gabby quickly fixed her hair and sat up in bed, waiting for them to come in with a full gourmet breakfast and the first round of gifts.
She waited for ten minutes but no one came.
“MOM!”
Fuck, she’d just have to go downstairs to see what the hell was keeping them from giving her the attention she deserved. She stepped out of bed angrily, making sure to stomp on the floor loud enough so her family could get ready for the shit storm she was going to unleash.
When she got to the living room, she saw her parents and sister huddled by the televisio
n watching a news report.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gabby said. “You people don’t even come up to wish me a happy birthday? It’s my Sweet Sixteen!”
Her mother turned around and put her finger to her mouth. “Shhhhh! Look.”
On the television there were images of mushroom clouds, rubble, bodies in wheel barrels, people crying, politicians shaking their heads, solemn newscasters, protests, planes dropping bombs, and other short clips of destruction.
“What’s going on?” Gabby said, walking up behind her family. “You’re watching the news? On my birthday? It’s my Sweet Sixteen!”
Her dad turned around, “Gabriella, quiet!”
Gabby grunted. “Losers.” She went into the kitchen but instead of the elaborate breakfast she expected to find, she found half-eaten toast. She stomped her foot and started rummaging through the kitchen.
The volume on the television got louder. “North Korea retaliated, dropping a yet unidentified biological weapon over Manhattan….”
Gabby’s mother gasped. She turned to her husband and saw his eyes widen in horror. But his it wasn’t the horror on the television he was reacting to. It was the knife severing his throat.
The birthday girl stood behind him, using a kitchen knife to saw her father’s head off. Her mother and sister screamed, falling backward in shock. Gabby pulled the blade away and stabbed it down into her mother’s face.
Her parents were bleeding out on the floor while her little sister cried hysterically, scooting away backwards on the floor. “Gabby, Gabby! What are you doing?”
“Shut up, Tara!” She jumped on her little sister and sat on her chest. “Mom and Dad were losers. Can’t you see? It’s my Sweet Sixteen and what were they doing? They were watching the fucking news!”
As she straddled Tara, she felt something in her pocket. “What’s this?” Gabby pulled something out. “You used my iPod? Again? I told you to keep your fucking hands off it!”
Gabby pulled the headphones off the iPod and wrapped them around her sister’s throat, squeezing and squeezing until the girl was turning blue. She let go of the wire and let her sister catch a breath.
“Thank you,” Tara whispered. Tears gathered in her eyes.
“For what?” Gabby said, grabbing the headphone wires again and started to squeeze again. Gabby’s face grew deep red as she killed her little sister. “It’s my Sweet Sixteen!”
After disposing of her family in the cellar, she called her friends but no one picked up. Was everyone abandoning her on her special day?
She prepared her own breakfast, something she had never done before. It was strange but she did the best she could and sat down in front of the television.
“Shit!” she said as she realized there was nothing on except news reports. In frustrated rage, Gabby put in a DVD of Sex and the City.
She thought of her dead family downstairs and mumbled, “It’s my Sweet Sixteen.”
CHAPTER SIX
Well, I said it once but I’ll say it again: Yowzah!
The young and beautiful Gabby Peppermint really went bat-shit crazy and now she’s on her way through the Gears. I’m fairly sure the gear bugs won’t be messing with her again, don’t ya agree?
And Mama Hell, well, she’s trying to get through Mouthville in one piece after being left in Junko’s dust. I’m eager to see how she does it. Will the sweet lil’ Mama make it or will she crash and burn?
Let’s find out!
*
I.
“Stupid yellow slut,” Mama Hell said, watching Junko speed forward, leaving her in the midst of the teeth tornado.
She didn’t have anything personal against the other drivers except for that Jap. In fact, that other driver, that Samson guy, he was cute. If she was ten years younger, Mama thought she’d make a move on him.
Maybe not.
Men were dogs, plain and simple. They couldn’t be trusted. Sure, they could provide a home, put food on the table, and do small home repairs but when it came down to it, they were good for little else. They sure didn’t satisfy any emotional needs and rarely did any men satisfy her sexual needs. If you found one man who could fuck well, he’d only keep it up until he was bored with you or got too old to put forth the energy.
Yep, men weren’t worth the trouble.
But that was okay with Mama Hell. She had been content to race. In her spare time she liked to help out the young people she encountered on her travels through the Wastelands. She usually just assisted the young women she found. The young men could fend for themselves. Back when her husband Nate was alive they had helped dozens of young women move to safe havens.
Mama Hell felt like she deserved something for herself, something that at least resembled retirement in the post-war era. Living in that city with Mr. Silver seemed like something she could deal with as long as Silver kept his distance.
She stepped on the gas, turned the wheel, and skidded out of the tornado, navigating the van around the grotesque tree branches that were scattered along the road. She realized they weren’t branches but the bones of some nuclear wildlife.
As soon as she was close enough, Mama Hell pulled out another flare gun and shot it at Junko who sped off even faster, getting out of the line of fire.
“Yellow freak!” Mama Hell said. She thought about how Junko was a man dressed as a woman. She considered herself a pretty tolerant and loving person but transvestites, homosexuals, and other sexual deviants were beyond her range of tolerance. They were sick abominations, blasphemous examples of what happens when society abandons God.
After the war, Mama had thought the devastation might bring about change she could believe in. She hoped the riffraff, the outsiders, and the foreigners would die out, leaving the country to those who deserved it. She knew her ancestors came from Europe and weren’t exactly native to the country but the Indians were as close to savages as you could get. They were worse than the Japs. They were Satan’s spawn!
But things didn’t turn out like she had wanted. The Wastelands were practically overrun with non-whites and she had a difficult time finding a good place to stay that didn’t have some percentage of blacks, Latinos, Indians, or some other variety of undesirables. Mama Hell hated how they roamed the land looking for handouts or robbing people…just like they did before the war. Whenever she got the chance, Mama ran some of them over or, if she felt creative, sent a flare at their heads to set those deadbeats on fire. She figured they needed to get used to fire being they’d be spending an eternity in it.
“Jap bastard.”
Mama Hell was on Junko’s tail. His little fag car was coughing exhaust in her face until there was a dust cloud in between them. “Son of a bitch,” she said. It must have been intentional. That little Honda shouldn’t be spitting out so much smoke.
Mama Hell couldn’t see anything in front of her so she slowed down and crept up to Junko’s right, only to have the bastard skid across to the side. The minivan hit a clump of road kill and almost went off the road. Mama got control and swung over to the other side of Junko, squeezing by fast enough to prevent him from blocking her. His little Honda tried to push her over but the minivan held its ground, refusing to budge.
Mama Hell opened up a compartment on her dashboard and pulled on a handle. A metal bar extended from the side of her car and attached to the bar was a giant buzz saw. As soon as she pressed a button on the handle, the blade started to rotate.
She laughed. “Let’s cut up a homo.”
The bar extended far enough that it was almost touching Junko’s car. The blade spun and as soon as Mama swung the minivan over to the left, it started cutting into the side of the Honda.
She wanted to bore that saw deep within that pansy car and cut that freak in half. Mama smiled at the thought of seeing blood and entrails spilling out from that ugly dress Junko wore. Then Mama would teach him another lesson with her steel-toed boots. Stomp, stomp, stomp. She’d crush his fruity little head like a melon.
The Honda tried to pull away but the buzz saw was embedded in the passenger side door. Mama’s minivan wasn’t going to let go that easily. Junko sped up and veered right, pulling the saw hard, bending the metal bar.
“Fucker,” Mama Hell said, getting closer to Junko so her weapon wouldn’t break. The saw was still boring into the Honda and finally made it inside. If she could stay close to him, she could cut that Jap in half.
But Junko had other plans. He braked and made an abrupt left turn, breaking the metal bar off the minivan.
Mama Hell lost control for a few seconds, missing a huge chunk of glowing road kill by inches. “Shit!” she yelled, mourning the loss of her buzz saw. In her rearview mirror, she saw Junko spin like a top, sparks and small metal shards flying through the air. She was tempted to go back and gut that stupid piece of shit right there in Mouthville but she knew that was too much of a risk. Who knows if that teeth tornado was coming back? It would be better just to move on.
II.
One Year Ago
Mama and her husband Nate drove through the North Dakota wasteland, having an animated discussion about the merits of drinking one’s own urine.
“I just think it’s gross, Nate,” Mama said.
“Soon it’ll be the only way to survive, hon. You drink what water you can and then let it go through you system and then you drink it again. I know it sounds unappetizing but sooner or later, you’ll have to do it.”
His wife shook her head. “No way, not me.”
Nate laughed. “We’ll see.” He slowed down the minivan. “Hey, look.”
On the side of the road a young, topless woman was walking. Her hair was bright pink and she carried a bag full of bottle caps.
“Let’s pull over,” Nate said.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you liked helping these girls out.”
“She looks like a road whore to me. I don’t trust the looks of her.”
