Highway To Armageddon (30 page)

           
Boom Boom points off into the distance. “Look, a grizzly bear!”

           
Sure enough, there’s a momma grizzly near some bushes, with her two cubs behind
her. My blood runs cold as she locks eyes on us and bares her teeth.

           
“Crap, what do we do?” I whisper.

           
“Remain calm,” Boom Boom says. “No sudden moves.”

           
Dorothy peeks out from behind my back. “Aren’t we supposed to play dead?”

           
“I think that only works with black and brown bears,” Boom Boom replies.
“Grizzles are more aggressive… I think. Hang on, lemme check online.”

           
“Yeah, like the ferocious momma grizzly is going to give us a chance to look up
her temperament,” I say sarcastically.

           
Krystal suddenly barges up the hill, huffing and puffing.

           
“My heart can’t take much more of this,” Krystal hollers for the whole world to
hear. “Y’all know I have high blood pressure.”

           
The momma grizzly’s growling grows louder. She must find Krystal annoying, too.
I fear Momma Bear won’t be as diplomatic in getting her to shut up as we are.

           
Boom Boom clamps her hand over Krystal’s big mouth. “Shh, be quiet!”

           
Krystal pries Boom Boom’s hand off her face. “Why I gotta be quiet? We’re in
the middle of the damn forest. I… oh look! Some bears!”

           
“Yeah, bears,” I say. “So shush!”

           
Krystal ignores me and continues walking toward them. “Aww, look at the babies!
They’re so cute! They look like little teddy bears.”

           
“Except teddy bears won’t bite your head off,” Boom Boom points out.

           
“What are you talking about, Boom Boom?” Krystal says, continuing to get
dangerously close to the bears. “They’re not going to…”

           
The momma bear lets loose a ferocious roar that sends birds in the surrounding
treetops fluttering to safety. Krystal stumbles backwards and utters, “Oh
crap.”

           
The bear charges toward Krystal, snarling and gnashing her teeth.

           
Krystal spins around and hustles toward us. Her face is as white as a sheet.

           
“Help! Don’t let that crazy bitch eat me! Help!!”

           
Krystal barges past us and dashes down the hill.

           
“Smooth, Krystal,” I grumble, grabbing my gun.

           
I really don’t want to shoot the bear, but I also don’t want my guts gnawed on
while I’m semi-conscious. I aim my gun at the momma’s head and begin applying
pressure on the trigger when Boom Boom shouts, “Wait, I got this!”

           
Boom Boom steps forward and hurls a flash grenade. The grenade hits the ground
right in front of the bear and releases a blinding burst of brilliant white
light. Boom Boom’s desperate move catches me off guard; I end up looking right
at the blast. Even with my shades on I’m temporarily blinded. Everything turns
white and fuzzy.

           
Boom Boom follows up by heaving a tear-gas grenade. The tear gas explodes all
over the bear. She gags and coughs before running off in the opposite
direction. The cubs sprint after her.

           
I fall to my knees and rub my eyes. I’m going to be seeing spots for hours.

           
Boom Boom kneels down to check on me. “Sorry about that, Lance.”

           
“It’s okay,” I say, standing back up. “I really didn’t want to kill the bear.
I’m glad you scared her off.”

           
Krystal peeks her head over the top of the hill. “Is the bear gone?”

           
“Yes, Krystal,” Boom Boom says with a sigh. “Thanks for having our backs.”

           
Krystal saunters over and says, “Hey, if y’all ever need help taking down an
army of gangbangers, I’ll be right behind you. But man-eating bears are a
different story. So are spiders. I hate spiders.”

           
A flash of light streaks across the sky, followed by a crackling, thunderous
BOOM. A few birds fly overheard, spooked by the thunder. Giant drops of rain
splatter on my head. I look up at the rapidly darkening sky. The storm is now
upon us. Fantastic.

           
“Aw man, this rain is gonna mess up my wig,” Krystal groans, covering her hair
with her hands.

           
“We better get a move on,” Boom Boom says. “According to the radar, this storm
is going to get way worse before it gets better.”

           
Boom Boom turns out to be a modern-day Nostradamus. Barely a few minutes later
we get drenched by freezing, gusting sheets of rain. We become completely
soaked within a matter of seconds. Boom Boom and Krystal still have their
cowboy jackets, but Dorothy and I are only wearing our regular clothes. Dorothy
has it way worse than me, though; she’s still wearing her skimpy outfit from
the Wild West. I give her my blanket, which she gratefully drapes over her head
and shoulders. It doesn’t do her much good, though. The water soaks through the
fabric as if it were a flimsy rag.

           
We trudge through the muddy forest in silence. There’s not really much to say.
What are we supposed to do, complain about the weather? At times the rain comes
down so hard that it feels like we’re drowning. I keep my head down so I can
breathe without inhaling water.

           
Boom Boom spends the rest of our miserable hike trying to hack back into our
database. She tries every password combination she can think of. Arrow, Arrow1,
Arrow2, Arrow3, all the way up to Arrow1,000. She also tries different
variations of Machete, Boom Boom, Red, bow, names of criminals Arrow helped
take down, names of authors he apparently likes, but nothing seems to work.

           
After spending a few hours listening to

Boom Boom curse under her breath, I
finally say, “Give it up, Firecracker. Arrow must have picked some crazy
password with a bunch of numbers and symbols, like dollar signs, asterisks, and
ampersands.”

           
Boom Boom growls and swats at a low-lying branch. “I just can’t believe I fell
for his tricks! I’m so stupid!”

           
“Hey now,” I say, struggling to be heard over a lengthy rumble of thunder. I
have to wipe my goggles with my sleeve every few seconds just so I can see. “We
all make mistakes. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

           
I’m trying to keep Boom Boom calm because I need her at her best if we’re going
to get our mission back on track. Krystal doesn’t help matters when she says,
“You sure have been making a lot of mistakes lately, Boom Boom. First you lost
our car in Cincinnati, and now you lost our database. You used to be ‘Little
Ms. Perfect’. What happened?”

           
“Krystal, please shut up,” I say.

           
A gust of wind sweeps through the valley. It’s the strongest one yet. My
goggles say it’s blowing over 60 miles an hour.

           
“We really need to find some shelter!” I shout over the howling wind.

           
“But we’re still 23 miles from Brigham Young,” Boom Boom shouts back. “At this
pace it will take us days to reach the settlement.”

           
“I know, Boom Boom, but have you checked out the radar?” I holler. I have to
spit out a mouthful of water every time I talk. “This is a monster storm, with
tornadic activity. We need to…”

           
I stop when a terrifying sound rings across the valley, sending shivers down my
spine.

           
“What is that?” Dorothy asks as the rumbling sound gets louder and louder.

           
“It almost sounds like… a train,” Krystal says.

           
Boom Boom gasps. “Holy crap, it just popped up on the radar. There’s a freaking
tornado headed straight toward us!”

           
“A tornado!” Dorothy cries. She’s on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I
think I am, too.

           
“Everyone remain calm,” I say, even though my trembling voice gives me away as
a hypocrite.

           
I go on the internet and pull up a geographical map of the surrounding area. I
immediately spot a cave a few hundred yards away. The radar indicates a tornado
will sweep through this very area in less than a minute. We need to haul ass.

           
“C’mon, guys, follow me!” I grab Dorothy’s arm and pull her toward the cave.
Boom Boom and Krystal hustle after us. The wind blasts us in the back, nearly
lifting us off the ground. My goggles say the wind gusts are now over 80 miles
an hour. The outer edges of the tornado have already arrived.

           
Even with all the rain and debris flying around, I catch a glimpse of the cave
off in the distance. I glance behind me and nearly piss myself at the sight of
a monstrous, dark-gray funnel cloud barreling down on top us. The rotating
winds snap trees like toothpicks and send them hurtling through the air. It
sounds like there’s a locomotive driving through my skull. The intense shift in
air pressure causes my ears to pop, which only increases the deafening noise.

           
“Hurry guys!” I scream, running as fast as I possibly can. I’m impressed and
thankful everyone seems to be keeping pace, even Krystal. Nothing like a life
or death situation to transform you into an Olympic sprinter.

           
My goggles now say the gusts blowing at our backs are in excess of 100 miles
per hour. Dorothy actually starts to lift off the ground. I yank her back down
and keep running.

           
The four of us dive into the cave just as a tree falls over the entrance. We
all slam onto the damp ground and roll into the center of the cave. I groggily
sit up and check on my friends. No one seems seriously injured.

           
I peek out the front of the cave and watch in horror at the deadly force of
nature we just barely avoided.  The massive tree that fell over the
entrance has already blown away, giving us an unobstructed view of the tornado.
All I see is a dark, swirling mass full of debris. The ‘train’ sound shakes the
walls of the cave, inciting fears of a cave-in.

           
Entire trees fly past the entrance, showing just how powerful the tornado is.
My goggles tell me the winds at the center of the tornado are in excess of
200
mph
! It’s a freaking 4F tornado! The government really needs to stop with
all their geo-engineering. Ever since they started creating artificial storms
to end the drought, powerful tornados have erupted all across the planet,
killing thousands.

           
A branch flies through the cave like a missile, missing Boom Boom’s head by
mere inches. We all flatten against the wall and crouch down, shielding our
heads with our hands.

           
It seems to take forever for Mother Nature’s freight train to pass through. The
tornado must have swerved to the left at the last second; otherwise I’m sure
more debris would have blown into the cave, ripping us to shreds.

           
Dorothy spends the duration of the tornado with her fingers in her ears and her
eyes clenched shut. I rub her back in an attempt to keep her calm.

           
Krystal clasps her hands together and mumbles something. At first I don’t know
what she’s doing (I can’t hear over the wind), but I eventually figure out
she’s praying. It’s something she doesn’t do very often. While I wouldn’t
consider any of us overly-religious, Krystal is a bit more spiritual than me
and Boom Boom. It’s probably because of her deeply religious grandmother.

           
The winds finally die down a bit, and the train sound gets quieter and quieter.
I stand up and stretch.

           
“I think the worst is over, guys.”

           
I make my way toward the mouth of the cave. Boom Boom shouts, “Lance, get back
here! There might be another twister on the way!”

           
I wave her off. “The radar shows the storm is moving south.”

           
The rain is still coming down pretty hard so I don’t step all the way outside.
I do peer out, however, and I’m shocked at what I find: complete devastation
for as far as the eye can see. If the U.S. and China were ever foolish enough
to launch a nuclear war, this would be the result.

           
The tornado carved a half-mile wide path of destruction through the forest.
Giant, 100-foot tall trees were uprooted and tossed aside as if they were
popsicle sticks. Everywhere the twister touched down looks completely
flattered. Off in the distance the tornado continues its unrelenting rampage,
plucking trees from the soil and tossing them hundreds of yards away. The dark
gray twister spirals way up into the sky, connected to the black clouds that
control it like some sinister puppeteer. Even moving away from us the twister
looks frightening.

           
Boom Boom appears by my side. “My God. The destruction…”
            She looks
out at the retreating twister and gasps. “Wow.”

           
“Wow indeed.”

           
“It would almost be beautiful if it wasn’t so annihilative,” Boom Boom says.
“We stand there for another minute or so, watching Mother Nature’s equivalent
of a nuclear bomb snaking through the forest like an out-of-control top.