The Rabid Brigadier (4 page)

There was nothing to do except hang on, and keep the Harley going. He prayed the bike wouldn’t take a direct hit, or it would
be all over. But though the bolts of white seemed to hit everywhere around the Electraglide, they didn’t make contact with
the machine. The rain continued unabated, growing in intensity as Stone headed the bike across the flatlands like a waterlogged
turtle. And as the falling rain collected in dips and gulleys in the ground, the bike seemed to sink down every few seconds
as if it were fording rivers rather than crossing the usually parched terrain. The thick wheels of the bike sent out a spray
of mud behind them and sometimes up onto them. A low howl emitted from Excaliber’s wet throat and wouldn’t stop. Long and
drawn and quite unhappy. And mixed in with the thunder, the lightning, the whistling roar of the rain, it all made for quite
a cacophonous chorus.

“Fuck!” Stone screamed into the wind, deciding to join in with his own contribution. This was ridiculous. But as there was
no turning back and he didn’t feel like lying in the dirt
and drowning at that moment, he just kept on, hunched over the front of the bike, his thick jacket pulled up around his shoulders
and neck as high as it would go. The image of the warmth and comfort of the bunker that his father had built, where Martin
and his family had spent the last five years, suddenly filled his mind like a vision of paradise. The idea of sleeping on
a warm dry bed felt akin to entering heaven, and he kept it in the forefront of his consciousness like a kind of carrot to
lure him on.

Suddenly they hit something, he didn’t know what, and he didn’t have much time to think about it, for the Harley lurched violently
and shot into the air, turning sideways. Stone felt himself flying right off the seat and into the air like some kind of wingless
bird. The only thing he could think was not to let the bike fall on him, or it would all be over. He somehow managed to twist
his body so he took off away from the bike, which was going all the way over just to his left, upside down. He hit the ground
hard, but the water cover and his instinctive reactions helped him hit on a roll. He felt himself somersaulting over and over
through the rain and then skidded another few yards, almost hydroplaning along the surface. He stopped and lay there for a
second, not moving, to make sure nothing was broken. But aside from feeling bruised as hell, he felt more or less intact.
He slowly rose, dripping mud and water like a swamp creature, and looked around, suddenly alarmed that the dog might have
been crushed.

“Excaliber? Hey dog, where the fuck are you?” Stone screamed through the rain, cupping his hands over his grime-coated mouth.
An angry bark came from beneath the swirls of rain and Stone walked a few yards to the dog,
which was standing in a puddle that came up to its shoulders glaring at him.

It stomped out of the mini-lake, walked over to him until it stood at his feet and shook itself violently, sending out a spray
of mist into the air. Stone let out a watery laugh. The two of them looked about as pitiful as two living creatures could
get. The pitbull didn’t seem to see the humor of the situation and squinted its almond-shaped eyes. If looks could kill Stone
was dead.

“Come on, dog, you needed a bath anyway,” he said and walked over to the bike. It lay on its side, lodged halfway through
a small brown cactus that it had nearly severed. He got down on his knees and peered anxiously at the wheels. But they were
unbent. Thank God the engine was totally enclosed, virtually watertight. His father had foreseen that the going might be a
little rough in the new America and had had the Harley especially designed to withstand just about everything except a direct
artillery hit. Heaving with all his strength, Stone pulled the Electraglide up out of the slime. It seemed to be stuck at
first, but as he reached down inside him and pulled with everything in him, it came free of the mud with a loud sucking sound.
It had turned off automatically—part of its design—but when he sat back in the driver’s seat and hit the instant start button,
the rhino-sized motorcycle started up again as if nothing had happened.

“Come on, pal,” Stone shouted at the bull terrier, which stood to the side of the bike looking up at him as if getting back
on the black machine was about the last thing in the world it had in mind. “Suit yourself,” Stone said, starting slowly ahead.
“But don’t forget to write, okay.” He turned his head forward and shifted into gear but had gone only a few yards when he
felt the weight of the animal land squarely
on the seat behind him. This time it sat up, rested its paws on the back of his shoulders and peered over his shoulder, keeping
an intent eye on his driving maneuvers. Every now and then it would let out with a bark when they came to a puddle or got
too close to a rock or cactus. For better or worse, Stone had created the world’s first canine backseat driver.

CHAPTER
Four

S
TONE HAD no idea how long they drove. In the midst of the black curtains of cold rain, he felt almost as if he were in a dream.
It just seemed to go on forever and he fell into a kind of trance where all there was was keeping the bike upright and concentrating
on the next few yards. But at last the rains seemed to diminish, and then, as if the heavenly water supply had run dry, stopped
completely.

It was wet! As if the entire world had taken a bath. But the prairie had been through these things a million times before,
and the members of the ecosystem that depended on water to give them life came out of their watery holes to gather the pickings.
It was like the day after an immense and debauched party. Everything was wet, groundhogs were slicked back, their fur flat
against their bodies so they looked like they’d just gotten some kind of punk hair styling, the bisons’ thick hanging hides
all matted together. But they
started munching away at the droplet-covered vegetation as if nothing had happened.

Then he heard it. A low rumbling sound almost like a kettle drum far off, but seeming to come from every direction. Stone
built up speed a little and when he felt comfortable that the bike wasn’t going to take another tumble, increased until they
were moving at about forty mph. But the dog was nervous, more so than when they had been in the thick of it. And by now Stone
knew enough to trust the animal’s instincts. It let out a high-pitched growl and half bit at his neck as if trying to tell
him something. Stone stopped the bike and stood up on the seat.

With the engine turned off, he could hear the rumbling growing louder now and as he scanned the horizon and the base of the
mountains about ten miles ahead of them, he saw what was causing it. And his face turned white as a sheet. For there was a
wall coming at them from all sides. A tidal wave would be a better word. It was hard to judge just how far off it was, but
even from some distance the wall had size, and that meant—he knew—that it was huge.

“Jesus Christ,” he spat out angrily, looking up at the sky for a moment as if to say it was all a little too much. What the
hell did God or nature or whoever ran things in this fucked up wet tub called earth have in store for him anyway. But nothing
answered his curse, except the rising sound of the waterfall that coursed across the plain like a blob of living matter. The
runoff from the rain, millions of gallons of it, cascading down the mountains. It had all melted together—drop joining drop,
rivulet joining rivulet—until a monster had been created, a death-dealing tsunami.

He turned on the seat, almost slipping, and looked behind. But it was the same. The flood seemed to be coming from everywhere
as if they were in the middle of the Red
Sea and Moses had already split the scene. Excaliber whined even louder and stared up at Stone, his oriental-shaped eyes growing
wide as silver dollars on that pushed-in white face, as if to ask, you do know what to do, right?

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Stone blurted out and dropped back down hard onto the black leather. It hardly seemed possible
that they could escape. There was nothing higher than a few rises that came up a yard or so above the flat prairie. But perhaps
the greatest ability—and madness—of man is that he never gives up no matter how bad things look. They could hardly have looked
worse than this.

Stone opened the Harley up, tearing across the wet plains straight for the mountain range ahead. He didn’t even care if they
fell over now; it hardly mattered. But the plan had a certain flaw because the faster they went, the closer the tidal wave
came toward them. And it was growing in height now so that Stone could see the extent of the flood about to inundate them.
The wall must have reached up a good twenty-five feet and seemed of even height across his entire line of view. The thunderous
roar it let out as it rushed forward was quite disconcerting. There wasn’t a chance in a million that they could ride through
that.

He searched his brain frantically for options but came up with nothing. What would the major have done, Stone wondered, the
pit of his stomach tight as a vise grip. The old man had seemed to have had an answer for everything. How the hell would he
have gotten out of this one? He visualized his dead father’s face, as if seeing his features clearly would somehow give him
an answer. He remembered the major describing all the hardware of the Harley.

Wait! The old man had said something about a raft, a built-in job at the bottom of the bike. Stone had never gone
through the machine’s entire inventory, other than the weaponry. There hadn’t been a need. But now…

He screeched to a halt, nearly throwing Excaliber from the seat and scanned the digital dashboard. There—
EMERGENCY RAFT
—a small lever. But was he supposed to set the bike in a certain position? How could… Fuck it, Stone decided suddenly as the
tidal wave came to within a mile of them, bearing down like something out of a biblical prophecy. There was no time for heavy
theoretical analysis. He took a deep breath and flipped the lever to the
RELEASE
position.

There was a loud clicking sound from the bottom of the Harley and a steel panel slid sideways. A bright orange raft shot out
below his feet and instantly began inflating from a carbon dioxide canister built into it with a loud whooshing sound. The
raft spread out like a mound of Jello and filled with the gas at a rapid rate. The sound seemed to frighten Excaliber, who
set to walling again, deciding in his canine brain that all things considered, this had been just about the worst day of his
life. As it filled, the edges of the raft spread out in all directions so it quickly contained the entire Harley, raising
it up slightly. Within sixty seconds, they and the bike were sitting in the center of the fully inflated flotation device
that spread out for about eight feet around them.

“I’ll be damned,” Stone muttered to himself, the traces of a smile arching his face. The damned thing worked. He’d have to
check out
all
the features that the Harley possessed—if he lived that long. For the wall of dark brown water was almost upon them. It was
impossibly large, foaming at the top, cresting toward them as if reaching to suck the bike and its occupants down to a watery
grave. At the forefront of the turning waves were trees, animals, cacti, all pulled along like twigs as the flash flood ripped
everything it encountered
into its dark guts. The pitbull sank back onto the seat and closed its eyes. Stone stared dead on into the rushing flood.
If he was going to die he wanted to see it all. He said a silent prayer to unknown gods and waited. There was nothing to do
but let it happen.

The tidal wave slammed into them with a deafening roar. Stone felt the impact of the water like a kick to the guts and then
as if every cell in his body was being torn apart. His eyes shut involuntarily, not wanting to see the end even if he did.
Then everything was spinning, the world flashing by around them like a top, and a tornado of liquid seemed to engulf them,
taking them down. All Stone could see was water and then they went under. He took a deep breath and waited to die.

But he didn’t. After a few seconds Stone opened his drenched lids and to his amazement they were floating along on the surface
of the river of dark water, the lead waves already past them and heading on to see what else they could claim. The raft continued
to turn at a dizzying rate and Stone wondered if he was going to puke. But after another minute, the raft slowed to a near
crawl. It bobbed up and down like a cork on the now vast lake that filled the plains. Stone could see the unfortunate victims
of the flood floating all around him. Carcasses of buffalo and deer, lizards and snakes, all twisting in the currents as if
a burial ground of nature’s creatures had been opened up. The bodies were already bloated, the tongues of the animals hanging
out of their mouths, swollen and dark. Far overhead vultures began circling patiently. There was going to be some feasting
done when the waters receded.

Stone sat back on the seat of the Harley, dead center of the thick plastic raft, which rode over the swells, drifting aimlessly
about like a leaf in the ocean. Now that it was fully
sure it was actually going to survive the latest installment of life with Martin Stone, the pitbull seemed to relax a little.
It jumped down from the seat and made a full circumference of the raft, which extended several feet in each direction and
then rose at the edges like an immense rubber doughnut. The Harley weighed half a ton plus with all its military hardware,
but though the center of the float was pushed in several feet it didn’t seem in any imminent danger of sinking. Excaliber
headed to the front of the thing and put both its paws up on the raised round edge and stared forward like some sort of living
figurehead.

Something moved in the black rushing foam just ahead of them and the pitbull barked loud and snapped at it. But it was just
a snake, a long black one, swimming frantically by. It glanced at the raft with glowing red eyes, thinking for a split second
that it might be safety, but when it saw the snapping jaws of the pitbull thought better of it and headed past them, whipping
through the water like an eel.