they approach, its wheels move faster, as if it’s trying to get away from the device within the lawn gnome.
Junko breaks a window with the side of her chainsaw and unlocks the door. They jump inside. Her mouth drops open as she notices there is no dashboard in the vehicle, no steering wheel, no controls. There are just two long seats along the sides of the interior. This one wasn’t meant to be driven by anyone but the car itself.
“What do we do?” Rainbow asks. “How are we supposed to drive this thing without a steering wheel?”
“Just get in,” Junko says.
After they enter, Mr. T works his way along the side until he gets to the door. Then he hops in. The smart-car speeds away, driving in the opposite direction. They hold onto their seats as it drives up onto a street and flies down the road, weaving between rotten husks of old automobiles.
“It’s out of control!” Rainbow cries. “We’re going to crash!”
Scavy looks at the direction they’re going in, then looks at the lawn gnome.
“It’s trying to get away from this,” he says, pointing at the gnome.
“Well, we just can’t get rid of it,” Rainbow says.
Scavy grabs the gnome from Junko’s hands.
“No,” he says, “but we can use it to direct this thing and shit.”
He aims the gnome at an angle, and the vehicle turns, heading in the correct direction. Then he hands it back to Junko.
“Just hold it in the opposite direction you want to go,” Scavy says.
Junko moves the gnome to the left side of the car and the vehicle turns right, then she brings it to the other side of vehicle and it turns left. When she holds it in the middle, it goes straight.
“See?” Scavy says. “If the thing is trying to get away from the gnome we can control where we want it to go.”
Junko gets the hang of how it works.
“Good job,” she says, smiling at him. “I’ll take it from here.”
Scavy smiles back through his blackened teeth, then pulls out the map to act as navigator.
“Ahhh,” Mr. T says, leaning back in the comfortable luxurious seats. “It’s about time the T-2000 got a little rest.”
He sits back to enjoy the ride.
Rainbow Cat is too on edge to enjoy the ride. She stares anxiously through the window. At the speed they are moving, they are all likely to be killed if they crash. She tries out the seatbelts, but the buckles fall apart in her hand.
Outside of the window, Rainbow sees something flying in the air. It is a man in a small flying machine, peddling it like a bicycle, gliding through the air.
Oro looks down on the smart-car from his glider-cycle, peddling casually, in no real rush.
“You will not get there faster than I,” Oro says to the vehicle. “I am a genius. You don’t stand a chance against an intellect as grand as mine.”
Gogo and Popcorn arrive at the field littered with broken smart-cars and mangled zombies. They had been watching from the overpass, but didn’t get there in time to join their friends. They go to one of the vehicles that still runs, lying on its side.
“Help me push this over,” Popcorn asks her friend.
“Brains!” Gogo says.
“We’re going to try to help them, not eat their brains,” Popcorn says, as they push the vehicles onto its wheels.
When they get into the car, they aren’t sure how to drive the thing. Gogo leans toward the dashboard of the car.
“Brains,” she says to the zombie car.
The car starts its engines and begins to drive.
“Did you just talk to the car?” Popcorn asks.
“Yeah,” Gogo says. “If we lead it toward brains it will go wherever we want.”
Gogo pukes up green slime on the floor of the vehicle.
“That’s sick, Gogo!”
“I really fucking need some brains,” Gogo says, wiping the gunk from her face with her arm.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Junko says, while directing the zombie car with the lawn gnome. “Be ready for those merc punks. They are going to be a lot tougher to deal with then the zombies.”
Scavy nods and loads his sniper rifle.
“So who gets to go on the helicopter?” Scavy says. “If we all do make it there in one piece.”
Junko pauses. It’s a conversation she was hoping to avoid.
“We draw straws,” says Mr. T. “It’s the only way.”
Junko thinks about it for a minute, then sighs.
“I’ll agree to it only if everyone else agrees,” Junko says. “But everyone has to agree to the outcome no matter what happens. The three losers will have to give their life to protect the person who gets the longest straw.”
“Well, the T-2000 agrees to those terms,” says Mr. T. “It’s the only way that’s fair.”
Scavy puts his rifle in his lap.
“Fuck, why not,” Scavy says. “I’m in. If I don’t pull the long straw I’ll still support the winner. You got my word.” He looks down at his hands, then looks up with a smile on the side of his mouth. “The three of you deserve to get out of here more than I do, anyway.”
There is a long pause before Rainbow Cat speaks up. All of them look at her, wondering what she’s thinking.
“Okay,” she says. “I agree, too.”
“You sure?” Junko says.
“Yes.”
“You promise you won’t disregard who pulls the long straw the second you see the helicopter?”
“I Promise!”
Junko takes a deep breath. “Okay. Well, let’s do it.” Then she turns to Rainbow. “Let me see your knife.”
Rainbow pulls the dagger out of her bag and gives it to her. Junko grabs one of Rainbow’s dreadlocks and cuts it off.
“Ow!” Rainbow cries, holding her head.
Junko tosses Scavy the dagger and the dreadlock.
“Cut that into four pieces,” she says. “Each one bigger than the last. We are going to create a hierarchy. If the person with the longest piece of hair gets killed or infected, the person with the next longest piece of hair takes their place. If something happens to that person then the next one in line gets to go. And so on.”
Everyone understands. Scavy begins cutting up the dreadlock.
“That way, there’s still hope for all of us,” she says. “We can still work as a team.”
Rainbow draws the shortest dreadlock.
“What the fuck?” Rainbow cries. “I can’t be the last in line! I need to get back to the island. I
“Fair is fair,” says Mr. T.
“But you don’t understand,” Rainbow says. “This isn’t about me. It’s about my husband’s work. He’s the greatest novelist of our time. If I’m not the one who makes it back to the island his masterpiece will never be published!”
“You agreed to the rules,” Junko says. “There’s no backing out now.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Mr. T says. “It was a fair draw. Mr. T is third in line, and you don’t hear him whining about it, do
