“Pretty much. You in?”
“LOL! There’s a better chance of Cooper Trooper waking up tomorrow morning looking like David Hasselhoff than me joining your seriously suicidal escapade into the nether regions of insanity!”
“That’s hurtful, cuz,” Coop mumbled under his breath.
“Okay, Owen. I guess we’re done here,” I muttered, willing the cloak into being and heading toward the door as I winked at Doc. “Real frigg’n shame. We really could’ve used a man of your unconventional talents.”
“And superior intellect,” she added, picking up on where I was going. “Not to mention the legendary fighting skills — And hair.”
“Oh, okay. I see what y’all rascals are doing,” Double OT smirked, “But, it ain’t working. Now, if you’d be so kind as to get the flipping frak out of my lair, I have very important stuff to tend to.”
“Absolutely,” I replied. “Sorry for wasting your time and, ah, beating the shit out of your amp. Now, if you wouldn’t mind letting Rooster go, we’ll be on our way. It’s time for Plan C.”
“Plan C,” he scoffed.
“Was hoping it wasn’t going to come to this, but we’re out of options.”
“And what’s Plan C?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. We’ll take it from here.”
“Hmmmm. Call me curious.”
“Well, if the greatest time phantom in all of history is too busy to help us get back to 1975 and quite literally save the world, we’re going to use Rooster’s time machine to do it.”
“Hashtag — What the shit biscuit? Did I hear that right? You’re gonna put the fate of mankind in the hands of a flipping time machine? And one made by Roosterballs for that matter? Serious sauce? I mean, hellfire and Dalmatians, he probably slapped that piece of funk together with spare parts from his dang PlayStation and a broke ass Rubik’s cube. And, not to mention, you don’t even know where Ronk is in 1975.”
“Don’t have much choice at this point. It’s our only play. So, if you’ll please remove your ninja sword from Rooster’s throat — we need to get going. Clock’s ticking. Bad guys to smite. World to save. You know the drill.”
“Alright,” he muttered. “I’ll help you.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“This ain’t amateur hour, son. This is the big show. And nobody does the big show like NecroLord. You need my skillz, dig? I’m the droid you’re looking for, monkey man. And by droid, I mean badass mofo with great hair. Just so we’re clear. Feel me?”
“What about all the stuff you have to do?”
“It can wait until after I save the world.”
“So, you’re in.”
“Ha! I’m so in! Can I kill Johnny now?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t.”
“Pretty please with orange jello on top?”
“No. And, Hell No.”
“Fine,” he sheepishly mumbled, sheathing the sword on his back in a blur of motion as Rooster stepped free and instantly turned harrowing red from head to toe.
With his eyes literally glowing like fiery orbs, he then smiled at Double OT and broke out of the hex cuffs like they were made of paper.
“Wha? Wha? Whataboutwha?” Owen gasped. “But, you said those cuffs were—”
“I lied,” Rooster grunted.
“So, you could turn all red and fugly bugly the whole time?”
“Yeppers.”
“Twisted! You counter snookered my snookery. That is so badass! It’s almost like you meticulously manipulated this whole series of events to amazingly culminate in this diabolical, suspense filled plot twist.”
“Epic, right?”
“Bum bum bummmm. So, John Boy, I gotta know — Did you seriously build a time machine?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Shut your mouth! I got double dog counter-snookered to boot? Dude! Loved it!”
“Welcome to the team.”
“LOL! Hey, guys, so now that I’m pretty much your de facto leader, I’m gonna need a cool uniform.”
“You’re not our leader,” we all muttered in perfect unison.
Completely ignoring us, he said, “I’d like to suggest a nice blue spandex jumpsuit with an obnoxious, yet super sweet, yellow stripe down the middle. And I’ll need a badge. Preferably a large, shiny one. Do we have a catchy slogan? Mascot? Secret hand shake? How about a Facebook page? Speaking of, I totally need to update my status to ‘In a relationship with Heavenly Fugitives.’ Epic!”
“Does part of the plan involve putting duct tape over Owen’s mouth?” Erin asked.
“It does now,” I grumbled.
“Kool and the Gang! I love duct tape!”
And so began the next phase of the mission.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter we realized that we didn’t have any duct tape.
Bum bum bummmm.
Chapter 26
“What’s the plan, hoss?” Coop asked me, as we all watched Double OT diligently sift through a heaping pile of guitar cases and other random shit scattered across the floor of his peculiar lair.
“Simple,” I muttered. “Soon as NecroDork is done whatever the hell he’s doing at the moment — Me, Doc, and Rooster will blast to the past, find Ronkowski, and snatch the Ark from his sorry ass.”
“And then?”
“And then — it gets complicated.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Stay here. If we pull this off, I’m guessing we’ll be back before you know it.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Get to Abernethy. Tell him what’s going on.”
“Then what?”
“Then I have the sneaking suspicion you’re gonna need a lot more arrows, my friend.”
Breaking into the conversation, Erin said, “So, Owen, how do we do this exactly?”
“Do what?” He replied, still fully engrossed in his search for God knows what. “Take a jello bath?”
“No, jackass. Travel backward in time. How the hell do we travel backward in time and find Ronkowski?”
“Oh, that. Bummer!”
“So, how do we do it?”
“Ain’t nothing to it but to do it, tootse.”
Rapidly losing all semblance of patience, I grumbled, “What’s your plan to find him?”
“Plan?”
“Yes, Owen. Your frigg’n plan.”
“Well, Deano, firstly I need to locate my tools. Then I will reveal my plan.”
“You totally don’t have a plan, do you?”
“Ha! This situation calls for action, not plans. And, lucky for you, action happens to be my middle name. Comprende?”
“I thought Octavius was your middle name.”
“Okay, you got me there. But seriously, I need to find my tools. Can’t possibly do any precision time hopping without them. You know how it is. Or not. Anyway, I keep them in a trunk around here somewhere. Or at least I did. Hey, you don’t mind if I call you Deano do you, monkey man?”
When I offered him nothing in response besides an icy stare, he just smiled and continued rooting through the mound of junk while happily humming a Steely Dan song I couldn’t quite place.
Jumping into the conversation before I got whiny—er, Rooster said, “The last time you saw Ronkowski — you said he was at a tournament. A tennis tournament?”
“Pretty sure.”
“And he was in a city.”
“Perhaps.”
“What city?”
“A big one. Might’ve been a small one actually. Or a mediumish one.”
“How about the country? You remember that?”
“Yes! Actually, not so much.”
“Your uncanny attention to detail is truly astonishing.”
“Word!”
“Anywho, you also said something about him pushing a cart around, right?”
Continuing to comb through his junk pile, Owen muttered, “The Sausage Rocket.”
“Come again?”
&n
bsp; “Ronk’s cart. He calls it the Sausage Rocket.”
“Are you saying that the guy sells sausage, cuz?” Coop asked. “You mean like actual sausage? Or, you talking about—”
“LOL! Get your flipping mind out of the gutter, Cooper Trooper. We happen to be in mixed company.”
“So he’s like a street vendor,” Doc thankfully chimed in before another very unfortunate double entendre presented me with a mental image that I really didn’t have the stomach for.
“Exactruly, Erin Bo-Berin. Ronk and his fabled Sausage Rocket are the premier street dispensary of smoked kielbasa wrapped in toasty warm sour-dough buns and drizzled with sautéed sauerkraut. It’s so flipping good that folks instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano to wrap their watering mouths around Ronk’s meats. It’s a Polish thing. He says I wouldn’t understand. But I do! LOL!”
And it happened anyway.
“Can we redirect this conversation,” Rooster grunted, “Freaking please?”
“Sure thing, John Boy. Whatcha wanna talk about, doucheball?”
“Look, we have it on good authority that Ronkowski’s somewhere on October 21st, 1975. So, in theory, we already know when he is. All we need to figure out is where he is. And, you think you saw him pushing a cart—”
“The Sausage Rocket.”
“Yes, okay, the freaking Sausage Rocket. You think you saw him pushing the freaking Sausage Rocket at some tennis tournament in some random freaking city. So, on the off chance that you’re actually right, and not having a hallucinatory episode, we need to figure out what tournament he might’ve been peddling his wares at so we can figure out where he is — or, at least, was.”
Shaking his head, Coop muttered, “This is making my brain hurt, y’all.”
“Where the hell do they play tennis in October?” I asked.
“Hell if I know, monkey man. I always preferred baseball myself. All those girlies wearing miniskirts and grunting at each other when they smack the ball over the net. Epic!”
“That ain’t baseball, cuz,” Coop chuckled. “That’s tennis.”
“Ha! I always get those two confused. What’s baseball then?”
“Wait a frigg’n minute,” I muttered, as Double OT’s anti logic made some semblance of sense. “He not talking about a tennis tournament. He’s talking about a frigg’n baseball tournament.”
Nodding, Erin added, “And there’s only one baseball tournament played in late October. The World Series.”
“Don’t remember nothing about no World Series,” Owen muttered. “But I do remember a certain lack of girlies in miniskirts whacking balls at each other. Which was super unfortunate. For reals.”
“Holy shit,” I barked, suddenly feeling more than vindicated for being a lifelong Red Sox junkie. “Game 6!”
Somewhat startled by my apparent revelation, Coop asked, “What are you talking about, hoss?”
“October 21st, 1975 — Perhaps the greatest — most epic — most awe inspiring — most frigg’n amazing moment in baseball history — ever. Red Sox versus the Cincinnati Reds. Game 6 of the World frigg’n Series!”
“Wait, what?” Rooster said, as a lightbulb went off. “I remember that game. It was at Fenway Park.”
“You bet your ginger ass it was. Bottom of the twelfth inning. Carlton Fisk hit a walk off homer to win the game and tie the goddamn series! Actually, what the hell am I talking about — It wasn’t a mere walk off homer — It was a towering shot of majestic awesomeness that Fisk waved fair, with both frigg’n arms, as he ran down the first base line and—”
“And, unfortunately, the Red Sox were summarily defeated the very next day in Game 7 by a heart breaking score of 4-3. You’re missing the point. This means that Owen was in Boston.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I grumbled. “Got caught up in the moment.”
Turning to Double OT, Erin said, “So, it was Boston. You saw Ronkowski in Boston.”
“I did? I mean, I did.”
“You sure?”
“About what? I mean, absolutely.”
“Do you think he’s still there?”
“Hope so. I could really go for a kielbasa dog and some onion rings. You hear what I’m screaming? Starving!”
“Hiding the Ark in Boston actually makes a lot of sense,” Rooster said, thinking out loud.
“Why’s that?” Doc asked.
“Well, the city itself was built on a literal nexus point of the seven primary lay lines that run through the Earth. That’s exactly why the Quartermaster is able to exist there.”
“Lay lines?”
“Yeppers. The vectors of primal energy that literally bind the Earth together. They also link this realm with the various and assorted other realms that exist beyond the mortal veil.”
“I see,” Erin muttered, clearly regretting she asked.
“My point is that even if stashed on a single day in history, the amount of raw power generated by the Ark would make it impossible to truly hide. But, if it was sitting on the intersection of a lay line or two — its energy signature would be virtually undetectable. I mean, shit, the more I think about it, Boston is the perfect place for Ronkowski to be.”
“And what if he’s not?”
“Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” I muttered, shifting focus to Owen. “Hey, Doctor Who, it’s time to go. You ready to fire up the flux capacitor and get the show on the road?”
“Found it!” Double OT yelled, holding up a modest antique wooden trunk bound together with dilapidated leather straps.
“You don’t seriously have a flux capacitor in there do you?”
“A what? Oh, wait, was that another cleverly placed pop culture reference that MacGhil slid into our ever so witty dialogue? That sly dog! Loved it.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Who’s this MacGhil jackass anyway?”
“Huh? Oh, he’s no one of consequence, monkey man. Über fourth wall break! Boomsauce!”
Making the mental note to revisit that particular topic at a later time, I grumbled, “What’s in the frigg’n box, Owen?”
“Just a few things I’ll need for the most epic of journeys we’re about to embark on. Behold!”
Carefully placing the chest on the floor, he then removed the straps from the rusted buckles and proudly opened it for all of us to see.
And unfortunately, the smell emanating from the carcass of the thirty pound, grey cat sprawled out inside made my nostrils about fall off.
“Aw, for Christ’s sake, Owen — Is that a dead cat? What the hell, man?”
“Cat?” He scoffed, looking in the box. “Ha! There he is. Thought I’d lost him in Singapore. Had to leave in a bit of a hurry, after all. He must’ve got all liquor’d up and crawled in the trunk before I blew town. Probably been sleeping this whole time. Hey, buddy, time to wakie wakie.”
“Dude,” Rooster winced, holding his nose. “I don’t know when you left Singapore, but that cat’s been dead for like a year.”
“Nah, he ain’t dead. Probably just hung over as usual. Flipping lush.”
“He smells like a rotting corpse,” Erin forced out, pulling her shirt up over her mouth and nose.
“Shush your mouth! Asshole’s a sensitive son of a bitch. You may offend his smooth jazz sensibilities. And, besides, he always smells like that.”
“You named your cat Asshole?”
“What? Hell, no. I named him Rooster. Ha!”
Poking the fat ass feline a few times, he said, “Wake up, Asshole. Rise and shine, you flipping fuzz bucket. Daddy’s got work to do.”
And much to our astonishment, the oversized furball snapped to life and let out a prolonged yawn. Promptly leaping out of the trunk and lazily meowing a few times as it dismissively glanced at the group of us with some really creepy yellow eyes, it then proceeded to waltz toward Rooster.
“Damn, cuz,” Coop said, “That thing looks like a bowling ball with teeth. What the hell you been feeding it?”
“Chihuahuas ma
inly.”
Squatting on Rooster’s boot, Asshole then took an impressive piss before casually sauntering off into the darkness of the amplifier forest, and disappearing.
“Think he likes you,” Doc chuckled, as Rooster muttered something of a snide nature under his breath.
Turning my attention back on Owen, I said, “Was there anything else besides your undead cat you needed out of the box?”
“Right! My tools.”
Reaching into his trunk and pulling out a series of peculiar objects, he then carefully laid them out on the floor and stared at them for a long couple seconds.
Studying the obscure accoutrements, Erin muttered, “An old ass compass, a piece of string, a tin of mints, and a man purse. Those are your tools?”
“Man purse? It’s a satchel, whistlebritches. A very manly one at that.”
“And what about the other crap?”
“Crap?” he scoffed, evidently highly offended. “This crap, my dear sassy pants, happens to be the highly sophisticated implements of temporal navigation that will undoubtedly lead us directly to Ronk.”
When it was pretty clear Doc wasn’t buying it, Owen said, “Understanding that you lesser dimensional beings couldn’t possibly wrap your noggins around the intricate intricacies of this kind of stuff — for people like me it’s pretty flipping simple.”
“Then, by all means, please enlighten my lower intellect with your uncanny prowess of such relativistic concepts and associated complexities.”
“Big words!”
“Just freaking tell me how it works.”
“Ha! Right! Well, to get back to a place that I’ve been before, I only need two things. A bearing and a memory. Dig?”
“So, now that we have narrowed down the location to Boston on October 21st, 1975, you’re saying that you can use your compass to guide us there?”
“Exactly!” Owen replied, tying the string around the index finger on his left hand.
“And the string?”
“And, my trusty string will drop us off in the exact moment that I last saw Ronk.”
“Because it helps you remember?”
“Much more better. It’s a foci that actually stores all my memories. Right here. In this eencie weencie piece of string. Killa, right? Harlan and Willa made it special for me with some coolio vexen mojo. Mainly because I could never remember how to get back to the MidKnight Jayde. And once when I did — I sorta ended up naked in the women’s bathroom in 1942. Long story.”
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 24
