Critical Failures III (Caverns and Creatures Book 3) (7 page)

Chapter 7

“Okay,” said Julian. “Get ready to make a left up here. You should see a Korean restaurant.”

“Y’all ain’t gonna kill me when this is all done,” said Randy. “Is you?”

“I don’t think so,” said Julian. “We haven’t discussed it. Slow down. Okay, there’s the Korean restaurant, and there’s the comic shop.” And there was the Holy Grail. Crappy silver hatchback with a busted rear windshield. “Jackpot.”

“Huh?”

“Change of plans,” said Julian. “Pull in here.”

Randy pulled into the parking lot across the street from the comic book store. Julian checked the side mirror. Stacy was pulling in right behind them. Perfect.

“Nice job, Randy. Wait here.” Julian opened the door and stepped out of the van. He walked around to the back and was smacked in the face by a rear door. “Ow!”

“Sorry!” said Dennis, running from the van like a bat out of hell.

“No, it’s okay,” said Julian. “I should have… Hey, wait!” He looked at Stacy’s car. She was shaking Tim. He must have fallen asleep. He looked in the back of the van. Everyone had fallen asleep.

“Shit.” Options were popping like soap bubbles as he considered his next move. “Ravenus!”

Ravenus hopped from the dashboard to the window. “Sir?”

“Follow Dennis. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

Ravenus flew off after the fleeing cop. There was only one thing to do. Only Cooper would be fast enough to catch him.

Julian climbed into the van and shook Cooper’s arm. “Wake up!”

“Huh? Wha?” said Cooper, clenching his fist and cocking back his arm. He elbowed Dave in the face. “Oh, it’s just you. What’s –”

“Cooper!” cried Julian, trying hard to maintain an inside voice. “Dennis is getting away!”

“Who the fuck is Dennis?”

“The cop!”

“Oh,” said Cooper. “Shit.”

“What are you waiting for?” asked Julian. “Go get him!”

“But I –”

“Hurry!”

Dennis had a two block lead on Cooper when he made a hard right around the side of a post office, but Cooper had a nice gap in traffic and a set of eyes in the sky. He would be on top of Dennis in a matter of seconds. And by some miracle, there was no one around quite close enough to see him for what he really was.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Tim, groggily.

“Dennis made a break for it,” said Julian. “I sent Cooper after him.”

Tim was suddenly wide awake. “You did
what
?”

“Also, you were right about Mordred. His car’s right there in the parking lot.” Julian pointed across the street.

Tim glanced in the direction Cooper and Dennis had run off in, but quickly turned his attention to Mordred’s car. “I need to borrow your phone.”

“Sure thing,” said Julian, handing Tim his phone.

Tim bolted across the street toward the comic shop parking lot. He stealthily made his way from one parked car to another. If Julian hadn’t been keeping a close eye on his movements, he probably would have lost him. He paused briefly behind an SUV parked next to Mordred’s car, looked this way and that, and then made his move. He tossed Julian’s phone through the busted rear windshield.
That was rude.

Julian turned around. Cooper was running back with a protesting Dennis slung over his shoulder. He wasn’t so lucky crossing the street this time. A black Dodge pick-up screeched to a halt not soon enough to avoid him. It’s hard to say which would have taken more damage – probably Dennis – but Cooper jumped straight up in the air, coming down hard on the truck’s hood.

“Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re going?” said the driver as he opened the door. He was a large man with a goatee and mirrored sunglasses. The top of his head was covered with a bald eagle bandana, and a luxurious golden mullet spilled out the back. He wore jean shorts and a black, sleeveless T-shirt. “You dented my truck. I oughtta bust your –” He got a good look at Cooper. “Holy fucking shit!” He scrambled back into his truck, and Cooper continued on his way.

Julian looked for Tim. He was nowhere to be seen. Probably sneaking around parked cars on his way back. Why did he even bother? Must be a rogue thing.

“No, I didn’t hit him exactly. He just jumped on the hood of my truck.”

Shit. The redneck was on the phone with the police. Far away as he was, Julian’s ears were sensitive enough to pick up his end of the conversation. “Cooper!” Julian yelled. “Hurry up!”

“I don’t know,” the man in the truck continued. “He was at least eight foot tall. Biggest, scariest looking nigger you never set eyes on… Well, I apologize, ma’am. I did not know that… Well how was I supposed to tell that over the phone? You don’t sound like one… Look, I said I was sorry… No, bigger than that. In fact, he almost looked like a gorilla… What? Oh, come on now… I didn’t say you
all
look like gorillas. I… But that’s not… You can’t… Hey, I’m the
victim
here!... Well then fuck you, lady!” He jabbed a sausagy finger into his phone. “Fucking liberals.”

Cooper shoved Dennis into the back of the van and climbed in after him. Julian closed the doors and ran around to the driver’s window.

“Get out of here,” Julian said to Randy. “Drive up the 110 and pull into the Walmart just across the interstate. We’ll meet you there.”

The van drove off. Tim was still nowhere to be seen. Julian looked for the truck. Thankfully, it was gone.

Julian was about to breathe a small sigh of relief when he spotted the truck again, right in front of him. It pulled up behind Stacy’s car, blocking her in. The driver got out.

“Hey Eggroll,” said the truck owner.

Julian looked around for anything which might be appropriately addressed as ‘Eggroll’. Coming up empty, he looked at the truck driver. “Are you talking to me?”

“You’re goddamned right I am, Sashimi.”

“I don’t understand your ref—”

“You tell that nigger friend of yours that he’s gonna pay to have my truck repaired. You got that?”

Stacy got out of the car. “Sir, he had nothing to do with –”

“This don’t concern you, bitch.” He addressed Julian. “I got that van’s plate number.”

“Oh yeah?” said Stacy. “What is it?” She was having too much fun for Julian’s comfort. This man almost certainly had an extensive gun collection.

“I believe I was talking to Wingding. Why don’t you get your skinny, chink-loving cunt back in the car.”

“Hey!” said Julian. It was time for an Intimidation check. He stepped forward, getting right in the truck driver’s face. He spoke softly, but firmly. “Get in your truck, go back to your trailer, turn on some NASCAR, and fuck your sister.”

The man jabbed Julian’s chest with his finger. “You’ve got some nerve, you know that? Coming into this country and talking to me that way. I don’t care how many black belts you got. I’ll kick your railroad-building, soy sauce-sucking, chopsti—” A giant glob of white ran down from his bandana over his right eye and down his cheek.  "What the fuck?” He wiped it out of his eye and flung it away.

Well done, Ravenus. Well done.
“You were saying?”

The man was beet-red and shaking, but it’s hard to be taken seriously with a face full of bird shit. He got in his truck and slammed the door. The tires squealed as he sped off.

“What was all that about?” asked Tim, who appeared out of nowhere.

“Do I look Asian?” asked Julian, looking in Stacy’s side mirror.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” said Stacy. “But I can see it. Your eyes have a little upward slant at the ends.”

“Hey, where’s the van?” said Tim.

“I sent them to Walmart.”

“What the fuck for?” cried Tim. “Did you run out of Funyuns?”

“I had to make a split-second decision. We were drawing too much attention.”

“Why Walmart?” asked Tim. “That’s miles away.”

“It’s the first place that came to mind. They could hang out anonymously in the parking lot, and still be easy for us to find.”

“Shit.”

“We could call them and tell them to turn around if some asshole hadn’t chucked my phone into – Hey, where’s Mordred’s car?” The parking space where Mordred’s car had been was now vacant.

“He’s on the move!” said Tim. He folded his arms across his chest and looked up smugly at Julian. “But now we can track him back to his house and grab him at night.”

“It was still a dick move,” said Julian. “You should've asked first.”

“Come on,” said Tim, hopping into the back seat. “Let’s go to Walmart.”

Chapter 8

Dave didn’t know where the van was headed this time, and he didn’t care. The fifteen or twenty minutes of sleep he had gotten on the way to Biloxi had not been nearly enough. The Dennis problem had been temporarily resolved by Cooper promising to eat Dennis’s legs if he tried to run again. Dennis agreed to behave, and Dave believed him. But as a precautionary measure, and to make his sleep that much sounder, he handcuffed Dennis’s leg to Cooper’s wrist and tucked the key safely beside his own balls.

When he got as cozy as was possible against the side of the van, sleep washed over him like a dark tidal wave.

When he awoke in a foggy green pasture, he knew he was dreaming. Nothing about the pasture was unusual. He just knew, because dreams are weird that way. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. He felt compelled to walk forward, so he did.

There was a scent in the air that was neither grass nor fog. Dave sniffed.
Smoke
. The scent grew stronger as Dave continued on his course.
Burning pinewood.
Not long after he identified the smell, he heard the crackle of the fire. It was just ahead of him. He’d see it soon. There were other sounds too. Laughter. Someone was laughing so hard they were scarcely able to breathe. Several people were laughing. What could be so funny? One of the voices suddenly stopped laughing. There was a THUNK and a cry of pain.

Another voice stopped laughing. “Ah, there you are, Dave.” The fog evaporated. Dave was standing face to face with one of the Horsemen. The one who called himself ‘War’. Beyond him, the other three Horsemen were in a triangular formation around a disfigured troll.

“It
is
Dave, isn’t it?” said War. “You’re the cleric, right?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Mordred told us about you. He asked me to tell you to leave him alone. And he said to add ‘Or else’.”

“This isn’t real,” said Dave. “This is a dream. You’re not really here.”

“You’re partly correct,” said War. “This is a dream. But it’s also very real. And I hate to nitpick, but it’s
you
who isn’t really
here
.”

“Scott!” shouted the half-orc who called himself ‘Pestilence’. “Who are you talking to?”

“Call me
War
,” War shouted back to him. “It’s the dwarf. I’m in his dream.”

“Cool,” said Pestilence. “Tell him to take a look at this.” He raised a huge maul – the head was a block of steel the size of a small carry-on bag – and ran up to the troll. He took a wide swing and connected with the troll’s face, leaving its lower jaw hanging by a couple of tendons on one side. He danced from side to side in front of the wounded troll, taunting it and waving it toward him, but the troll only watched, white-hot hatred burning in its eyes.

“Why doesn’t it fight?” asked Dave.

“Keep watching,” said War.

Dave observed the troll more closely as its jaw melded back into place, and the nature of its disfigurement became clear. They had chopped off its right arm at the shoulder and its left leg at the hip, and used the creature’s own regenerative powers against it, reattaching each limb where the other was supposed to go. Cooper had thought up the same idea a while back. It was hilarious when they were all drunk, and just imagining it at the gaming table. But to actually see it happening here, it was nauseating.

“You guys are sick assholes.”

“Shut up,” said War. “You’re about to miss the best part.”

“Come and get it!” said Pestilence, waving his ass mere feet away from the giant angry monster.

The troll swiped a clawed hand out at Pestilence, who swerved his ass out of the way just in time. Unable to keep its balance, the troll fell down hard on its face. The three Horsemen surrounding it were crippled with laughter.

War laughed a little less heartily and quickly brought it under control. “Mordred wants to know how you came back.”

“You can tell Mordred…” Dave wished Cooper was here. Cooper would have the perfect line ready to deliver. “… to sit on it.”
Oh my god that was so lame.

“Sit on what?” asked War. “You mean you want to
sleep
on it? Like, you need a day to think it over?”

Dave felt so old. This kid had never seen
Happy Days
. “Just tell him ‘No’. We’re not telling him anything.”

War smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “He said you might say that. And personally, I hope you keep holding out. I’m looking forward to beating the information out of you myself.”

“We might surprise you with what we can do as a team,” said Dave. He felt like an after school special, so much lameness was spouting out of his mouth. “We took down a troll too, you know.” It had been a forest troll, significantly weaker than a standard troll, but War didn’t need to know that.

“We’re just having some fun with this one,” said War. “He’s the last of a family of four. We already threw his older brother and parents into the fire.”

“
This
is the baby of the family?” said Dave. “What level are you guys up to?”

“Two levels higher than we were when we woke up this morning,” said War. “We’ve been getting a lot of
random
encounters today.” He used air-quotes when he said ‘
random
’. “Mordred’s kind of paranoid about you guys catching up to him, so he’s toughening us up.”

“Two levels in one day?” said Dave.

“It’s just past noon here,” said War. “No telling how many more levels we can squeeze in before we turn in for the day.”

Dave felt like something was kicking him in the ass. The dream started to fade.

“Dave! Dave!” Cooper’s voice, faint but getting louder. “Dude, wake up!”

“So long, Dave,” said War. “I’m looking forward to meeting you face to face again. Can’t wait to see what kind of
surprises
you have in store for us.” Again with the air-quotes.

“Come on, man! Wake up!”

Dave woke up in the van. Cooper was kicking him in the ass. “All right. I’m awake.”

“The van stopped,” said Cooper. “Give me the keys.”

“What about him?” Dave nodded at Dennis.

“He’s not going anywhere,” said Cooper. “Not while we’re awake.”

“Fair enough.” Dave removed the key from inside his pants and tossed it to Cooper. “Listen, man. I think we might be in some deep shit.”

Cooper feigned amazement. “You don’t fucking say!”

“No, I mean worse than we thought. One of the Horsemen came to me in a dream.”

“I had a threesome with Jessica Alba and Don Rickles in a dream once. Dreams are fucked up. But it’s just a dream.”

“No, Cooper,” said Dave. “He said Mordred wants to know how we came back here.”

“What did you tell him?”

Dave buried his hands in his face. “I told him to sit on it.”

Cooper grinned and stuck up both thumbs. “Heeeeeeeeey!”

Dave wondered if Fonzie’s breath smelled like assholes and Funyuns.”

The van door opened. Dave shielded his eyes from the blast of sunshine.  It was easy for him to forget just how dark it was inside this windowless van when his Darkvision allowed him to see perfectly well.

“Everybody okay back here?” asked Randy.

“Make them let me go, Randy,” pleaded Dennis. “I swear I won’t say nothin’.”

“I’m a hostage, same as you,” said Randy. “We best just do as they say until they get what they want.”

Dennis looked at Cooper. “What is it y’all want? You already took my nuts. I got nothin’ more to give.”

“For the record,” said Cooper. “I never wanted those.”

“Where are we?” asked Dave.

“Walmart,” said Randy. “Just off the I-10.”

“Sweet,” said Cooper. “We’re out of snacks.”

“You stay where you are,” said Dave.

“Oh come on, man,” groaned Cooper. “I’m starving. And besides, it’s Walmart. No one will even give me a second glance.”

“That’s not true,” said Dave. “Probably.” He stroked his beard. “I’m hungry too, but we can’t live on Funyuns.”

“I saw an Arby’s not too far from here,” said Chaz.

Cooper licked his big lips. “Arby’s.”

“What is this Ar-bees?” asked Professor Goosewaddle.

“You’ll love it,” said Cooper. He made sad eyes at Randy. “Take us to Arby’s. Pleeeease.”

“Like I was tellin’ Dennis,” said Randy. “I ain’t in charge here. If y’all wanna go to Arby’s, I’ll take you to Arby’s.”

“Tim said to wait here,” said Dave. The dream was still bothering him, and he wanted nothing more than to unburden himself of it to someone who’d understand its significance more than Cooper evidently did. Besides, “If he shows up and we’re gone –”

“Tim can eat my ass,” said Cooper. “He’s bound to be hungry, too.”

“I don’t know if he’s
that
hungry.”

“We won’t be gone more than five minutes. Come on, Dave… roast beef… curly fries…”

“Fine,” said Dave. Maybe the dream wouldn’t bother him as much on a less-empty stomach. “Let’s just make it quick. No special orders. Just two dozen roast beef sandwiches. Agreed?”

“Curly fries?”

“Okay. And a dozen orders of curly fries.”

Cooper’s stomach grumbled like a butter churner full of gravel. “Let’s go!” He farted as he closed the van doors. Dave would never be able to look at a bag of Funyuns again without gagging.

*

Thirty minutes later, the van doors opened once more, allowing Cooper’s fart to roam free and destroy some ozone.

Randy held up two giant Arby’s bags, which Cooper and Dave greedily accepted.

Dave dumped out his bag of individually wrapped sandwiches. Packets of ketchup, Arby’s sauce, and Horsey sauce were plentiful, but Dave didn’t have that kind of time. He barely had the wrapper off before shoving half of the first sandwich into his mouth. No food had ever tasted so good.

Cooper, whose mouth was much larger, didn’t even need to bite his sandwich. He put the whole thing in his mouth, chewed briefly, and washed it down with an entire carton of curly fries.

“Merciful gods!” said Professor Goosewaddle, having taken a more delicate bite of his own sandwich. “Absolutely delectable! I
must
know the spell by which it was conjured up so quickly!”

Stacy’s car pulled up to the van, and Tim hopped out like a coiled cobra. “How hard were my instructions? Go to Walmart. Wait in the parking lot. Where the hell have you idiots been?”

Cooper held up his bag of sandwiches. “Arby’s,” he said spitting out bits of bread, beef, and potato.

“We’ve been driving around this goddamn parking lot for twenty minutes!”

“There was a line,” said Randy. “Sorry.”

Tim’s face was livid as he looked up at Cooper and Dave. “You guys think this is a fucking picnic? We’ve got some serious –”

“Cur-ly fries,” Cooper sang, waving a carton in Tim’s face.

Tim snatched the carton out of Cooper’s hand and put a curly fry in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in his head as he chewed and swallowed. “Give me some ketchup.”

While everyone ate their fill of roast beef sandwiches, Dave told everyone about the dream he’d had, and Tim explained how he had planted Julian’s cell phone in the back of Mordred’s car, and that they should be able to track him back to where he lives using Stacy’s tablet.

“Nice work,” said Dave. “So where is he now?”

“I don’t know,” said Tim, licking ketchup off of his little fingers. “Stacy’s tablet is running low on battery life and she doesn’t have a car charger. I turned it off until we all met up.”

“Well let’s fire that shit back up,” said Cooper. “He might be home by now.”

“Okay,” said Tim. “Just once though. And then we all head back to the Chicken Hut, lay low, and let the tablet charge.”

Tim retrieved the tablet from Stacy’s car and turned it on. “If Dave’s dream means anything – and I’m certainly not ruling that out – then our best bet is to hit Mordred’s house tonight, before he has the chance to level up those four shitheads. I’ll sneak into his place while everyone’s asleep, grab the dice, and – Oh shit.”

“What is it?” said Chaz.

“He passed right by us,” said Tim, looking up from the tablet to the interstate.

“That’s cool,” said Dave. “Maybe he lives around here.”

“No,” said Tim. “He’s not going home. He’s halfway to Mobile.”

“What’s he doing?” asked Julian.

“Dave,” said Tim. “The guy in your dream. He told you that Mordred was paranoid about us catching up to him, right?”

“Yeah,” said Dave.

“Well that’s it, then. He’s making a break for it.”

“So what do we do?” asked Chaz.

Tim took another long look at the interstate. “If we don’t catch up to him before Julian’s cell battery dies, we’ll lose him for good.” He turned back to the group. “We’ve got to grab him right now!”