Without their leader, the wolf girls panic. If any of them were to call a retreat it would be Slayer, but she is far ahead of the rest of the group, fighting the Outlanders all by herself.
I load another clip into my gun and continue firing. I realize that most of the Fry Guys have retreated. Many of the mutants are dead, but they are now the dominant force on the battlefield.
From behind, I notice the Warrior truck is no longer moving. It must have tried to retreat, because it is facing away from the battle. They didn’t seem to make it far before the driver died.
Guy and Hyena are standing back to back in the bed of the truck, firing their guns into the mutants coming at them. The other three wolf girls in the back are either wounded or dead. As Apple curves toward the gate of McDonaldland, I lose sight of the truck, not sure of the fate of my brother or Hyena.
I suddenly realize our vehicle is the only one left moving. The Fry Guy vehicles were destroyed by the mutants, the mutant vehicles were torn apart by the wolves, and all the rest of the Warrior vehicles are either crashed or out of sight. Mutants surround us on all sides. They are all on foot and do not fight with guns, but they outnumber us ten to one.
We head toward a group of yellow Fry Guys who are backed against the gate, hoping to join forces with them. But before we make it, a pair of massive legs land in our path. The vehicle crashes into the boulder-sized paw and Apple’s face slams into the windshield, knocking her unconscious. Nova flies over the hood and lands inches away from the mammoth’s toes.
I get out of the vehicle and run toward Nova. I pull her away as the feet continue to move onward. Another foot kicks the vehicle, flipping it into the air, as Kroger walks toward the gate. I see Casper leaping off of the vehicle as it rolls. The car tumbles, with Apple’s unconscious body flopping around inside.
The mutants close in. I stand my ground, protecting my Novey. The Outlanders glare at me, yelling with anger, like I’m a traitor. They threaten to rip me limb from limb. Then I open fire on them, taking a line of them down.
Casper doesn’t come to us. Instead, she stays by the vehicle, guarding Apple. The mutants quickly surround her. The weapon she fights with is large enough that she probably needs to use two hands, but with her missing arm this is impossible. She is strong enough to use this large weapon with only one hand, but her strength is wearing thin. Her swings are sluggish as she strikes the mutants. She cuts one in half as she falls to her knees, breathing heavily. Then she leaps up and slashes one through the neck, his head falling backwards like a removed hood.
I fire on mutants and accidentally hit Kroger in the leg. The beast roars and lifts its limb like a thorn is in its paw. I slap gently on Nova’s cheek, trying to wake her up. Her crossbow is broken next to her, so she only has her sword left to protect herself.
When I run out of bullets, I switch to the last clip and continue to fire. But this clip must not have been full, because it runs out after I take down only two more mutants.
I look at Casper. She drives her sword deep into a mutant’s stomach. So deep that it hits the ground behind him. As she tries to pull the long saw-toothed sword out of the man’s gut, another mutant stabs a stake into her back. She catches him with her armpit and breaks his neck with only her stump. After pulling the stake out of her back ribs, she retrieves her sword from the hunk of dead flesh and then falls over. The mutants bear down on her. She slashes her enormous sword at their legs, cutting through all five ankles of the two closest mutants. They go down, screaming in her face.
I don’t have any bullets left to back her up, so I just watch as they stab spears and axes down into her. They stab repeatedly, just to make sure she is dead. Then they come for me.
Standing beneath the legs of the massive Kroger, hiding in its shadow, I try to calm myself as the mutants surround us. The only weapon left nearby is Nova’s sickle-shaped sword. I pull it from the belt on her waist, and point it at the Outlanders as they approach me. There are seven of them, and only one of me. My only hope is that they will move on after they kill me and assume Nova is already dead.
Before they get to me, someone hollers behind them. The group of mutants stop their pursuit and look back.
“He’s mine,” says the gurgling cartoonish voice.
The mutants separate and I see who is speaking. It is the Hamburglar. He steps forward with his black cape and black mask, two katana swords (one short and one long) are sheathed at his waist. With most of his enemies dead on the battlefield, he needs an opponent to play with. He has chosen me.
I run at him with the sickle-sword. In an instant, he draws his short katana, blocks my attack, slices my ass as I pass him, then re-sheaths the sword. Just like a master samurai would do. The Hamburglar bows at me, and then giggles like a cartoon bunny. His bulbous face pulses as he licks his teeth. His mouth in a permanent, creepy smile.
This time I wait for him to attack. He inches sideways toward me, and then whips out the long-bladed katana for just an instant. I try to hook my sickle-sword onto his blade to flick it out of his hand, but I miss. He spins around, his cape flashing into my face, and cuts me across the bridge of my nose. Then he re-sheathes his sword.
“You fucking freak,” I say to him, blood trickling down my cheeks.
His large head wobbles at me.
I strike again, using all my weight in this attack. He draws a katana, catches the hook of my sword, and it flies out of my hand. He spins and trips me into the dirt. Then he re-sheathes his sword.
“You’re no fun,” the Hamburglar says, peering down at me with his cartoon eyes.
As he drives the sword down toward my body, a black form flies across my vision, hitting him in the side of the face, throwing him back. It’s Nova.
When the other mutants see Nova, they come at her. Unarmed, she kicks one of them in the face, breaking his neck backwards, and punches another so hard in the chest that blood explodes from the sides of his ribs. Claiming this mutant’s spear, she turns to three more mutants coming at her. Using the spear like a pool cue, she pierces through the defenses of three mutants. It happens so fast that it looks as if she fired crossbow arrows at them from a machinegun. She swings the spear over her head, cutting another mutant’s throat on the way up, and then slashes down on the final mutant through the skull. Only the Hamburglar remains.
The Hamburglar seems impressed with Nova’s fighting skills. He bows at her. She gets between him and I, guarding me from the cartoonish mutant. Hamburglar whips out both of his katana and poses in a ninja-like stance, his black cape and red tie blowing in the wind.
Then she charges him with the spear. He twirls his long katana, knocking the blade of her spear back, but she only flips it around and slices at his jugular. He bends back, dodging the tip of the spearhead by centimeters, then he swings the short katana at her. She thrusts her chest outward to block it with a long spike from her metal bikini.
When they separate, Hamburglar rushes her, spinning his katana at her one at a time. She does backflips to avoid him, blocking his attacks with the spear as she flips. He continues rushing forward to slice at her, as she continues backflipping. Then she twists to the side and lunges the spear toward his crotch.
Hamburglar cuts the spear in half with his short katana, then swings the other at her face. Instead of blocking, Nova throws the bottom of the spear shaft. It whacks him across the face and he stumbles back.
Nova goes for the saw-toothed sword by Casper’s body. The Hamburglar charges her. The enormous saw-toothed sword looks twice the size of Nova’s body as she picks it up and swings it at the big-headed freak. He jumps five feet into the air to dodge the attack, giggling with excitement.
As Kroger shifts above us, he blocks out the light, encasing the Hamburglar in shadow. He backs away. Nova swings the sword around her head like a slow deadly windmill and steps toward him. The Hamburglar runs to the side, ducking behind a crushed mutant truck as the sword swoops toward him. The saw-toothed sword cuts the truck’s bumper
clear in half. Then Nova leaps over the vehicle, flipping through the air with long sword coming down at the Hamburglar’s big head like a guillotine.
The Hamburglar blocks with his long katana, but the saw-toothed sword just breaks through it. The sword cuts off the top of his nose and then lands in his shoulder. The Hamburglar does not cry out. He does not even react as if something painful has just happened to him. He just stands there, glaring at Nova with his crooked grin.
With the sword stuck inside of the Hamburglar’s shoulder, Nova is defenseless. The Hamburglar throws his short katana at her. She lets go of the sword and jumps back to dodge the blade. It still slices across her stomach as it whizzes by. She cries out and falls to her knees. I run toward her, but she holds her hand out to keep me back.
Hamburglar attempts to free the saw-toothed sword from his shoulder, but it won’t budge. He tries walking toward Nova, to finish her off, but the weight of the dragging sword keeps him from moving fast.
Nova stares him in his googley cartoon eyes. He stares back in her yellow wolf eyes. Then he curls his fingers into a fist, roars, then punches the blade in half. With the top of the sword still stuck inside of him, he retrieves the lower half of the sword. He staggers over to Nova and looms down on her.
A bullet hits Hamburglar in the face. Blood leaks down the curves of his globular head and then he collapses next to November.
I turn and see Pippi, driving her motorcycle up to me, lowering her machinegun down to her handlebar. She gives me a smile.
“I told you that you should have rode with me,” Pippi says.
Then she sticks out her tongue and rides away.
I retrieve the sickle-sword and go to Nova. I kneel, holding her wound to stop the bleeding.
“We’re still alive,” she says, and smiles.
Then I kiss her. We gaze into each other’s eyes.
When I let go of her, she looks over my shoulder at something coming toward us. Her face becomes panicked. The next thing I know I’m being lifted into the air, Nova still on the ground looking up at me, stretching her arms out to grab me.
I don’t know what is happening until I feel the wet tongue under my hands and the teeth closing around me. I’m inside of Kroger’s mouth. When the teeth close, I feel a contraction of wet flesh around me and then I slide down the creature’s throat.
I’m surprised to see light within the beast’s belly. The light appears to be coming from a Fry Guy flashlight. There is movement everywhere. Some of the movement comes from the flesh walls rippling around me. Other movement comes from the people who are trapped inside of this stomach with me. There is a moaning sound coming from the other side of the cavity.
Kroger is the size of an apartment building, and so his stomach is about the size of an apartment. I’m sitting on something meaty and don’t realize what it is until a splash of light fills my area. Below me is a pile of half-digested Fry Guys. Most of them are in pieces. I crawl across the bodies toward the light.
I’m bounced and thrown about as I travel, probably from Kroger running and jumping through the battlefield outside. Limbs move around me as I inch forward. Even though it looks as if these people are still alive, it is actually the stomach muscles shifting them around that are making them appear that way. But I do hear the moaning of at least one person, a male, so I head in his direction.
When I arrive, I see a Fry Guy in a blue uniform with red stripes on his arm. It is the Chief, Duncan Charles, Nova’s father. He must have been swallowed by Kroger a while ago, before the Warriors arrived. Beyond him, I hear a whacking sound, coming from the other side of the light. When I crawl closer, I see that it is Talon. She is still alive, attempting to chop her way out of the beast’s belly.
“Talon?” I say.
She looks back at me. Then gets back to work. I notice the flashlight is stuck inside of the guts of a dead Fry Guy near her, pointed upwards to illuminate the cavity. Before I can crawl past the Chief to get to Talon, he grabs me by the arm.
“Help me,” he says.
I try to jerk his hand off of me, but he holds onto it like a death grip.
“You’re that Togg boy,” he says to me. “November’s boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“You have to get me out of here,” he says. “The Mayor betrayed me. McDonaldland must be saved.”
“There’s no way I would help you,” I say.
“Why not? I am the Chief of the Fry Guys. McDonaldland needs me.”
“I know what you did,” I tell him. “You were the one who raped Nova, you sick son of a bitch. You had sex with your own daughter and got her thrown out into the wasteland.”
He shakes his head at me.
“You don’t understand,” he says.
“What’s there to understand, you fucking pervert?”
“I did it to keep order.”
He goes on to explain how the citizens of McDonaldland were angry that their daughters were being sent into the wild after they were being raped. They didn’t think it was fair. The Chief promised it was for the good of the community, but they didn’t believe him. So he raped his own daughter, claimed it was an unknown assailant, and had her removed from the city. He did all of this to prove that he was willing to make the sacrifice himself, so the citizens should, too.
“That’s why you did it?” I yell. “You think that justifies what you did?”
“It had to be done,” he says. “Keeping order in McDonaldland is more important than my daughter, and I was right. After she was removed from the city, none of the people ever complained about the policy ever again.”
“Why didn’t you just change the fucking policy?” I ask. “You should have made exceptions for the girls who were raped.”
“But if we made exceptions then people would have sex illegally all the time. All they would have to do was claim they had been raped. I made the best choice available to me.”
I rip his hand away from me and back up.
“I loved my daughter,” he says. “Raping her for the sake of the people was the hardest choice I have ever made. It haunts me to this day.”
An axe lands in his chest. He wheezes and gags before he dies. I look up at Talon.
“You’re wasting oxygen,” she says. “Help me get us out of here.”
I crawl to the hole she has created. She has already cut her way down through the stomach and much of the muscle. We just need to get through the hide.
She hacks with her axes, one at a time. I use the sickle sword to slice at the hole above where Talon hacks. I notice her skin is bright red, like a sunburn. But it is the stomach acid that has caused the redness.
When a slit of light shines through, I know we’re home free. I take the sickle and hook it on the outside of the cut, then saw upwards. Talon hacks downwards. Once the wound is open wide enough, Talon tells me to grab onto her back, then she crawls out of the stomach into the open air.
Talon hangs on to the beast’s fur as we dangle in midair. I have all four of my arms locked around her. Then she begins climbing up the wolf’s coat, toward the top of its back.
When I look around, I see that Kroger has made it past the wall and is now inside of McDonaldland. Below, the battle has also moved into McDonaldland. Fry Guys and citizens of the city take up arms against the mutants. There are also some wolf girls in the fight. Slayer is still on top of her bike, shooting at mutants with a rifle she must have gotten from one of her dead enemies. I also see my brother, Guy, leading a group of Fry Guys against mutant soldiers led by Captain Kongun.
Kroger rampages through the city. Buildings collapse under its eight mighty legs. Talon holds on tight as the structures explode below us, but I nearly lose my grip. If I had only two arms I probably would have fallen to my death just now.
When she reaches the top, we see Mayor McCheese at the head of the hermaphrodite wolf. He is standing near a control platform. A section of the top of Kroger’s skull has been removed. Part of its brain is showing, wit
h a large computer board imbedded into the neural tissue.
Talon removes my hands from her torso, then charges across the wolf’s back. I follow her, my sword raised high. As we get to the Mayor, he turns around and points one of his shotguns at us. Before he can fire a blast, Talon kicks him in his hamburger face and he goes flying off of the wolf’s back to the street below.
Looking down, I see the body of Mayor McCheese on the ground. He jumps instantly to his feet; his enormous head must be cushy enough to protect his brain within. Although he moves with a severe limp, he’s able to go right back to fighting, firing his shotgun into the yellow dresses and red suits of the McDonaldland citizens.
Then I see Captain Kongun looking up at me. He sees the Mayor on the ground and sees Talon trying to take over Kroger’s controls. He drops his pistols and runs toward one of the beast’s legs, leaping at its foot, and then climbing the hair toward us.
I look back at Talon. She can’t figure out the controls. She puts her hand down on the wolf’s neck and tries to communicate with it in the way that she can communicate with the female wolves. But Kroger remains out of control.
Kongun crawls up the beast like a spider. When he gets up onto the back of the creature, I yell at Talon that we have company. She steps away from the controls.
As she passes me, her axes swinging by her legs, she says, “Figure out a way to stop this thing. I’ll take care of this Meat.”
While I step carefully to the wolf’s head, I look back, watching Talon as she raises her axes to fight.
Captain Kongun pulls the holster from his back containing the row of chainsaws. He shoves each of his hands into the backs of each of the chainsaws, until I can no longer see a single one of his six hands. I only see six chainsaws attached to his wrists.
He lifts his six arms up and when he bends them at the elbow, all six of the saws turn on. They buzz loudly at Talon as she circles him.
Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland Page 22
