by Borne Wilder
“Shut up and keep your eyes on the road, Cupcake, you’re liable to kill us all.” Nolte warned, taking a sudden interest in everyone’s safety. “You never know when a varmint might run out in front of you. I’d damn sure hate to see you two crash test dummies, wind up dead.” Nolte unclipped the giant sunglasses from the waistband of his diaper and slipped them on, he used his middle finger to push them up the last inch of his nose. Jack Nicholson had done this once in a TV interview, and Nolte had seen fit to adopt this maneuver of coolness for his ownself, it too, was mighty cool beans.
“Answer me this. If we gave you back your nest egg, what would happen tomorrow?” Charlie wanted to look into Nolte’s eyes, in case the shithead accidently told him the truth, but the ridiculous sunglasses took up a third of Nolte’s face, a look of what might have been real sadness washed over the rest of it and then he vanished, poof, no smoke, no sound, just poof. Charlie had never seen Nolte express a true emotion before, but sadness seemed like a good place for the old man to start. He turned in his seat to face forward and smiled. “Now we know how to get rid of Uncle Perv.”
“There is no way in hell; we are giving him that coin.”
“Yeah, I just wanted to know what’s going to happen. Is the witch going to finish him off? Does he turn into a pumpkin at midnight? Is the midget with the vibrating palm going to show up again?”
"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I’ll tell ya’, I can do without the midget again, but I really don't give a rat’s ass what happens to the old man."
The headlights flashed on something in the road ahead. Nolte’s diaper reflected surprisingly white between the high beams, a maniacal grin spread beneath the huge women’s sunglasses.
In less than a second, they were bearing down on the insanely white, naked monkey. Ron stomped on the brakes and swerved across the center line, into the oncoming lane.
Nolte held his arms out to his sides like a goalie and side-stepped into the same lane.
Swerving harder, Ron put the car half way into the ditch, just missing Nolte with the right headlight. The tires squalled as the rear end of the car slid into the ditch, pulling the rest of the car down with it. Ron steered into the slide until the front end caught up with the rear and the car came to a rest and stalled, hissing and complaining over the sudden and unexpected abuse.
Charlie flung his door open and flew out of the vehicle, bolting blindly into the darkness, in the direction of Nolte’s peals of laughter. Ron gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled as the sound of Charlie’s boots pounding the asphalt, chased Nolte’s squeals into the distance.
“We have got to get rid of that fucking idiot,” Ron said quietly to himself. Soon there was no sound other than the muffler, ticking as it cooled. For several minutes he sat and watched the mosquitos and seed husks float in the dusty fog of the headlights, waiting, numbly puzzled by the events, until he heard Charlie puffing and wheezing his way back to the car.
“Man, that little fucker is fast.” He spat on the road before he walked down into the ditch and sat in the car.
“He was actually toying with me. I’m going to shoot him again the next time he pops up.”
Ron grabbed the derringer from the dash and handed it to Charlie. “Be my guest.”
“Think you need a shove, or do you think you can drive out of here?” Charlie puffed. He was hoping for the latter. Nolte had run like a twelve-year-old, Kenyan track star and Charlie really needed a cigarette, he didn’t want to push.
“Close your door,” Ron said flatly. Putting the car in reverse, he looked over the back of the seat. The passenger door slammed shut and he backed the car up a few feet. “How am I on that side?”
Charlie rolled down the window and looked behind the car. “C’mon back, I can’t see shit.” He hoped they might back over Nolte.
Ron put the car in drive and the two men turned around to find Nolte sitting on the hood like a giant ivory, emaciated Buddha hood ornament. Charlie quickly raised the gun and pointed it at him through the windshield.
A sharp scream came out of Ron. “Not through the fucking windshield! Put the fucking gun away!” Flooring the accelerator, the sound of shredding weeds erupted in the fender wells. Nolte put his hands down on the hood to either brace himself, or to relax and enjoy the ride, one of the two, he appeared to not have a care in the world. The car shot forward down the center of the ditch, sucking the tall grass beneath it in gulps. At twenty miles an hour Ron stomped on the brakes, sending Nolte tumbling, asshole over appetite, through the ditch.
Amazingly he came up on his feet, running. He bounded up the incline of the ditch like a gazelle and took off down the road, the white of his diaper disappearing into the darkness.
Once again Ron stomped the gas and once again the sound of shredding weeds erupted from the front wheel wells. At twenty miles per hour, Ron cranked the wheels hard to the right and the car leaped from the ditch. Sand and rocks peppered the side of the car before the tires finally chirped and grabbed hold of the road.
Nolte’s diaper seemed to flash on and off as the headlights bounced wildly around in the dark, finally coming to rest with Nolte centered between them. Again Ron stomped the accelerator, the look of shock he had from the encounter with the ditch was gone and replaced with a disturbed, maniacal grin. With laser point focus he aimed his makeshift weapon at the naked idiot. "All things must end," he told himself.
“I’ve got the old coot now.” He said, as the car bore down on Nolte, who was running surprisingly fast for a seventy-seven-year-old dead man.
“Just like a Kenyan marathoner.” Charlie marveled, and just as Nolte was about to be sucked beneath the front bumper, he vanished.
“Fuck!” Ron yelled in disappointment. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! I almost had him.”
“Had who?” Nolte asked from the back seat, with exaggerated curiosity.
Charlie turned quickly and fired the gun wildly over the top of the seat back. The rear window exploded in a spray of glass, raining out over the trunk. The ringing silence had returned.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Ron felt himself scream into the ringing air.
Charlie was halfway over the back of the seat when Nolte vanished again.
“Really?” Ron yelled in disbelief. “Really? You really thought I’d be okay with that?” He pulled to the side of the road and looked over his shoulder at the damage. The entire rear glass was crisscrossed, with a bajillion cracks, a perfect spider web, except for a hole the size of a human head, where the glass was entirely missing.
Almost robotically, Ron turned to face the front. Again he found himself staring at mosquitos and dust motes floating in the headlights. Again he was numbly puzzled by the events. This is coming out of Charlie’s share, he told himself, as he waited for the ringing in his ears to subside. Charlie was looking back and forth, between the gun and the hole in the rear glass; he looked to be confused by what had just transpired and was contemplating, somehow, blaming the gun for the damaged window.
“Don’t even try! Tell me you at least hit him!”
“Nope, as soon as he saw the gun, he was bobbing and weaving like Sugar Ray Shitstain.”
“I didn’t see any bobbing and weaving in the mirror. I think I’m lucky the gun got past my head, before you squeezed one off, Deputy Fife.”
“Nope, he was bobbing and weaving.”
“Let’s not shoot at Nolte anymore.”
“You gave me the gun.”
“Yeah, it’s my fault my car is shot to shit.”
Ron pulled the car back onto the road and headed south, the sounds of tinkling glass dancing on the trunk made him grit his teeth and cringe. If he absolutely had to shoot someone, absolutely had to, he would choose to shoot Charlie.
“We need some more shells,” Charlie said as he cracked the small pistol open and removed the two empty cartridges. “This would come in handy in case that Tom Thumb character shows up again.”
“You just put one center mass in the Mad Hatter and
it didn’t do any good. What makes you think you’d do any better putting down a Canaanite god, who broker’s soul deals for Satan?”
“Hey, it’s better to have a gun and not need it, than need a---”
“Shut the fuck up, redneck. You owe me a window.” Ron turned the radio up and pressed on the gas. A chunk of glass from the rear window fell and shattered on the trunk, it sounded like sand. The car shot away down the empty highway with a naked man in a diaper sitting crossed legged on the roof.
The wind whistled in Nolte’s ears and blew the short wisp of hair he had, straight back. The sunglasses kept his eyes from watering but made it damn near impossible to read the road signs in the dark. He knew they were in Texas, but he had been too busy trying to stir up shit with the cupcakes to pay attention to exactly where. Only steers and queers come from Texas, Nolte chuckled into the wind, he had always liked that joke; he would keep an eye out for an opportunity to use it while they were in the great state.
Tomorrow was his big day; he would be completely alive again. Tomorrow they would plant his ass in the ground and the spell would be complete. The condition he was in wasn’t bad; it would do in a pinch if push came to shove. He really liked zipping from place to place, just by thinking about it, but until the spell was complete and he had truly cheated death, he would forever be looking over his shoulder for some evil cocksucker to pop up and drag his ass off to Hell. Another drawback was not being able to fuck. Only three humans could see his sorry ass and two of them were men. He could kick himself in the ass for not putting more thought into this shit. He really should have come up with a plan B before he died.
It really didn’t matter, he was going to get his hands on his nest egg tomorrow and he was going to live forever. Fuck the demons, once he was fully alive again, they couldn’t touch him. The first thing he was going to do was get the fuck out of his diaper.
Up ahead a sign came into view. Nolte pulled down his shades to get a better read. It had a light shining on it, so it was probably a Holiday Inn sign.
You Are Now Leaving Texas, Y’all Come Back.
Welcome to Louisiana.
Motherfucker! The idiots were taking the fucking coin back to the witch! Why would the twinks be taking the coin back to that coon assed cunt? A thought filled his mind with a dread, which was almost as shitty as his experience in Hell. The bitch was probably going to use the coin to make him into some kind of a zombie love slave.
***
“What will you do, Messenger?” Isaiah asked, trying to get a feel for the mood of the archangel. Michael had stood at the wall for three days without moving. The camp of Sennacherib stretched away from the wall as far as Isaiah could see. He offered Michael wine and a small piece of bread, which he took. Michael knew that no one else had bread, yet he also knew he was supposed to eat it.
The smell from either side of the wall mingled at the top in the breeze, the smell of cooking meat from the side of the Assyrians and death and starvation on the side of the Hebrews.
No one on the wall knew who or what the angel was, but all thought he was insane and more than likely dangerous, so they stayed away from him. He didn’t sleep and drank only what water the prophet brought him.
A pile of seventy or maybe a hundred arrows lay at Michael’s feet. The arrows were the original source of suspicion concerning the man’s sanity. The archers along the wall would watch him draw the Assyrians’ fire throughout the day; he stood without flinching as Assyrian soldiers loosed the arrows at him. The arrows that soared near to him, he would snatch out of the air and drop them at his feet. The soldiers fumed and wasted arrows. Each night Isaiah sent a boy up to collect them, the number increased on every collection, most likely due to wagers among the Assyrian archers.
About one hundred cubits behind and below Michael, someone had scattered chalk on the ground, in the neighborhood where most of the arrows that were out of Michael’s reach would land. The lighter dust created a warning for those who had to travel through the area.
Several arrows hissed past the two. Though Isaiah fought off the urge to duck, the angel paid them no mind. Michael chewed his bread and smiled at the prophet. “I saw you flinch.”
“Perhaps it was you who flinched.” Isaiah smiled. Michael had told him that until God was finished with him on earth, he had nothing to fear. The problem Isaiah had with that was, God had never given him an exact day when he would be finished with him. Despite the fact that all his trust was with God, the arrows still unnerved him. He was always reassured that Michael stopped paying attention to the arrows, whenever Isaiah was near.
On a small rise, several hundred cubits into the camp, one of Sennacherib’s generals shouted. “Do not wager your lives on Hezekiah’s stupid God. He cannot save you.”
Michael took another bite of bread and chewed hard. Three times a day the goat would climb his little hill and spew the same goatshit.
Isaiah saw the tension in the angel. He knew what the angel could do and that he had the authority to do as he wished. Isaiah admired his restraint.
Michael coughed as he tried to wash down the bread with the soured wine in the cup. Isaiah handed him some water to wash down the wine. Michael also choked on the water. “Thank you for putting some water in the mud, this time.”
Isaiah smiled. “You want to know a secret, Messenger?” He asked.
“I love secrets.” Michael stared out at the general with a look of pure hatred. An emotion he rarely experienced. “But I must warn you. I’m not very good with secrets.”
“Gabriel is coming tonight.” Isaiah watched a smile spread across Michael’s face. In the distance, the goat was once again calling God’s abilities into question.
“I’ve been told that you no longer have to listen to that foul dog,” Isaiah said.
The angel stepped over his collection of arrows and picked up a bow left by the soldier that held this part of the wall before him. The soldier hadn’t had much luck catching arrows. He had only caught one, using his neck. Michael tested the tension with a pluck.
The archangel smoothed the fletching on one of the longer arrows and nocked it. He winked at the prophet. “Would you care to make a wager?”
“You ate your bread; you have nothing to wager.”
The goat had fallen silent but was still standing atop his hill. The angel loosed the arrow in a high arch. A moment later, the goat grabbed at his crotch with both hands and dropped to his knees. The howl he let loose was far louder than all of his previous boasting combined.
Isaiah bent and took another arrow from the pile. “He still lives; I should have wagered.” He said, handing it to Michael.
The angel waved the arrow away. “I didn’t miss; I’ve been thinking about that target for three days. Now I want to listen to the music.” In the distance, the goat yipped like a scalded dog.
***
Several hours before sunrise, quiet footsteps approached Michael on the wall. The goat was in the midst of one of his howls that had punctuated the night.
“Is that your, doing?” Gabriel asked. Michael recognized the voice.
“You should have heard him when they removed the arrow.”
Gabriel chuckled. “I’ll wager you can’t hit the other one in the dark.”
“I’ll go one better. I’ll pin his root to his thigh.” Michael boasted. He looked down; he had forgotten the boy had come for the arrows earlier.
“Here, take mine.” Gabriel held a single arrow in his hand. “Isaiah gave it to me; he doesn’t think you can do it twice.”
Taking the arrow, Michael held it out before him. Before he could pray, Gabriel nudged him. “In the dark, was my wager. No outside assistance.”
Nocking the arrow and drawing on the rise, Michael loosed it the moment the bowstring brushed his ear. A moment later a piercing scream came from the camp, followed by shouting and the clatter of shields.
“You hit something,” Gabriel smiled. “Did you eat the bread and the wine?” he asked.
“It’s for blood not yet shed.”
Without speaking, the angels leaped from the wall, landing on their feet on the Assyrian side. Silently, they strode into the camp. Gabriel stopped and leaned in close to Michael. “Let’s go take a look at your goat, before we start. He might be hit in battle and I don’t want you taking credit for a coincidence.”
Michael smiled in the dark. He figured Isaiah had probably told Gabe about more than the arrow in the testicle. Gabriel’s curiosity probably had more to do with the general’s ritualistic speeches against the Almighty, than to check on the accuracy of, what Michael believed to be, a magnificent shot.
Despite the wails of the goat, and other than a few soldiers on watch, most of the men in camp were sound asleep. As they moved through the tents, here and there, a soldier would notice them, much too late to sound any kind of alarm. One of the angels would quickly and silently dispatch the soldier them with a sword thrust under the chin.
“Wait here,” Gabriel said as they approached the goat’s tent. The archangel circled it at a blistering speed, silently killing every man, in every tent within fifty-cubit swath of the general’s. He slowed and walked toward Michael, his expression changed from serious to sadness.
“None of this would be necessary. The prayers of these men would be heard, also.”
“How many are we to kill?” Michael asked.
“One-seventh, but that task is mine. You watch for Azazel; she has Sennacherib’s ear. She wants the Watchers back. She says men are incapable of making the correct choices without them and she doesn't feel she had a fair chance at proving it.” Gabriel’s expression was once again serious. “If I didn’t know, what I know, I would say she has a point. It seems all men have turned their faces away. Even the Jews have killed every prophet they have ever been given. One isn’t supposed to shit in his own storehouse. I wonder what Isaiah’s fate is?”
Gabriel turned and walked to the front of the general’s tent. Jerking back the flap, he peeked in. The goat groaned. A large grin flooded Gabriel’s face, “Good shot. You pinned it right to his leg. I think you cheated somehow.” He said, looking to Michael. “Watch for Azazel, hurt her as much as you desire, just don’t kill her. Now, the dog and I are going to wake the camp, it wouldn’t be sporting to kill them all in their sleep.” A moment later the wails and screams of the general became almost inhuman. The camp came to life.
