The Forty First Wink Page 13

  Whirling round to discover the source of this new sound, Marty's eyes widened as a glittering array of steel and chrome squealed out from amongst a row of parked cars. Swerving violently, it gunned forward, a blur of bright red and silver. Time slowed again, to such a degree that Marty had time to ponder on the fact that he really should be getting used to this time slowing down lark by now, before the screeching tornado of metal tore past him, Kate, and the pirates. Wheeling to track its progress, he watched open-mouthed as the jolting, tilting behemoth clattered into the four gibbering clowns, sending them looping into the air like brightly colored crash test dummies.

  Performing a delicate, yet ear-shattering hand brake turn, the silver and red dervish came to a smoking, hissing stop in front of Marty and his friends.

  With time now back to normal again, they stood in awe of their shining savior. Towering over them, glittering in the neon overhead lights, engine still grumbling heavily, was a polished red and silver ice cream van. Sitting proudly on its roof was a huge ice cream cone that spouted flowing plastic ice cream scoops. From its open side window, a beaming pirate leaned out, holding a smaller version in his cloth hand. "Any of you land lubbers want one with sprinkles?"

  "Timbers!" they cried as one, all taking several steps towards the now stationary van.

  "Steady on now, one at a time. Correct change only please," Timbers mocked, before glancing over at the recently felled clowns. Spying movement, his tone darkened. "Second thought, everybody in and let's get our ices out of here." The stern tone had, as always, not lasted long. "Do you see what I did there? Ices, because of the van and, you know…" He chuckled.

  Marty clambered into the back of the van. "Timbers, it's fantastic to see you, but can we please just get out of here?" he requested as calmly as he was able. Timbers suppressed further chuckles and rapped sharply on the divider between them and the cabin. The van lurched into life, sending Marty and his companions into an impromptu seated position on the floor of the now speeding vehicle.

  There was more that Marty wanted to ask, like where Timbers had been, and how he had escaped, but Kate was already making a more pressing enquiry. "Erm, if we're all in here, who's driving?"

  Sliding the partition to the cabin to one side, Timbers gestured for them to take a look. "My friends, allow me to introduce you to the Locust." He dragged a sweeping arm in a pointing motion to the front of the van. Sitting, jaw firmly set in an expression of concentration, and peering owlishly over the steering wheel, was a lycra-clad, little old man. Glancing up from his seat, the Locust smiled amiably and nodded in acknowledgement.

  Marty frowned, aiming a question at the old timer behind the wheel. "Where did you get the keys to this thing? And why an ice cream van?"

  Even as the query left his lips, Timbers was raising a hand to his face. "No! Don't ask him anything," he cried, but it was too late.

  "Well, young man, I hotwired the vehicle you see? It's simply a case of connecting the two wires, which complete the circuit, turning on the fuel pump and all necessary components. That is of course, unless the vehicle is an older model and has a single ignition coil and distributor, in which case…"

  Pushing them all back into the rear of the van, Timbers cut the Locust off mid-sentence, although he continued to ramble on to himself as the little captain closed the partition again. "He's a bit of a talker. Best not to ask him anything because you'll get the full, unabridged answer." Timbers sighed, before moving on to Marty's second question. "And why an ice cream van? Why not?" He exclaimed, clapping his hands delightedly. "You can't tell me you've never wanted to make a daring high speed escape from a gang of clowns in an ice cream van. I think we all have, right?"

  Marty was about to reply when he realized that, when you look at it like that, it really was hard to disagree.

  From the cabin, a muffled elderly voice butted in. "Pardon me, there seems to be an obstruction up ahead. Thoughts, anyone?"

  Marty hauled the partition open again, peering out of the windscreen as he sat down next to the Locust. The van was speeding past lines of stationary vehicles towards what appeared to be the car park's exit. Spanning the exit, and blocking their path, was a long wooden tollgate complete with blinking red lights and an imposing looking 'Stop' sign. From the connecting booth, two leering clown faces lit up as the van's headlights flashed in through its window. Even from this distance, Marty could see them skitter out to the gate in front of them, growing bigger and more threatening as the van roared ever forward.

  Snapping Marty back from the hypnotic impending collision ahead, the Locust reiterated his enquiry. "Are we continuing forward or should we seek an alternative escape route?"

  Marty had seen this hundreds of times in movies. How hard could it be? Quickly buckling his seatbelt, he shot a glance at the rallying pensioner beside him. "Floor it!" he barked, bracing himself against the dashboard. "We're going through."

  The van compliantly lurched forward, appearing to bellow a mechanical war cry as the pedal was introduced firmly to the metal. The exit, with its two freakish car park clowns, was barely fifty feet away as Marty squinted out through the windscreen. The van seemed to be going at light speed as they reached the tollgate, main beams glaring and engine screaming. Both red nosed guards dove aside as the gate shattered like kindling, spewing splinters of wood and glass out into the street beyond. The van jolted and slewed crazily through the wreckage, snaking out into the road and lurching heavily to the right. Marty fought to hold his composure, and his lunch, as he shot the Locust a disbelieving look. Whoever this old geezer was, he sure could drive. Several thudding impacts shook the side of the van, and Marty craned to look behind him just as Timbers leapt into the cabin.

  "We're out. I think it's time to punch it," he crowed triumphantly, reaching over to the dashboard and flicking a switch next to the radio. Immediately, a jolly, electronic melody sprang from the giant cone above them, as the van's tires caught purchase on the tarmac and sent them zooming away.

  Marty unbuckled his belt and made his way shakily into the back as they continued their escape. Whipstaff was peering out the side window, back the way they had come. "Something hit us?" Marty enquired, asking about the thumps as the little first mate pulled his head back in through the window.

  Grimacing, Whipstaff nodded. "Aye. Pies. They were throwing custard pies at us, the scurvy dogs."

  Oaf, who had been staring out of the back windows, turned his head expectantly towards his crewmate. "Pies?" he asked hopefully, shaking his head as Whipstaff pointed out of the window.

  As if sensing his oversized comrade's disappointment, he reached over and opened the nearest compartment. "Don't worry though, big fella, there's plenty of ice cream in here." Immediately, a contented smile returned to Oaf's face, as he clapped his hands in approval and trotted over to the treasure chest of frozen treats.

  Returning his attention back to the cabin, Marty tried to get a view of the rapidly approaching intersection. "Do we know where we're going? I mean, can we get out of town?"

  "But of course," the Locust replied without hesitation. "In order to facilitate the fastest exit to the edge of town, we simply take a right here, then continue on for precisely one point four miles before taking a left, followed by another left, and then—"

  Marty raised his hands in an attempt to stem the verbal torrent that he had called forth. "Okay, excellent. Let's step on it, then."

  Timbers, who had his head out of the passenger side window, returned to his seat, patting Marty's arm urgently. "Never mind stepping on it, we may need to jump up and down on it. We've got company. Look." He pointed at the passenger side wing mirror, from which Marty could see two dark, bounding shapes gaining on them.

  Three pogo stick mounted sedans, identical to the one that had literally crashed their party at Stellar Island, jolted and bounced up the road behind them. His mind already whirling, Marty turned sharply to the Locust who seemed oblivious to the pursuit and might ju
st as well have been on a Sunday afternoon boat ride, sitting at the wheel with a jovial grin on his face.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Locust. Can we go any faster? They're right behind us."

  The wizened old crime fighter gazed up at Marty over his spectacles. "I'm afraid not, young man, taking into consideration the various turns and deviations we will be making, this is the vehicle's maximum safe velocity."

  Shaking his head, while at least particularly relieved at getting the short answer for once, Marty met Timbers' stare and took a deep, defiant breath.

  "Looks like we're going to have to repel boarders." The little pirate growled, clearly wishing he still had his cutlass.

  Marty nodded, moving into the back of the van as he did so. "It looks that way. All hands to battle stations?"

  Timbers chuckled into his hand. "I can't believe you just said that. Talk about cheesy."

  Marty flushed slightly. "Really? It seemed like a piratey thing to say."

  "It'll do just fine," agreed the little pirate, still smirking, but adding an encouraging thumbs up. "Lads! Oh, and…erm…girly," he hollered into the back of the van, tipping his hat as he mentioned Kate. "We've got incoming. What have we got by way of artillery?"

  Almost in answer to the question, Oaf turned from the ice cream cabinet, his arms laden with iced lollies, choc ices, and snow cones. Timbers turned back to Marty, meeting his broad grin with an even wider, more mischievous one of his own as the same thought crystalized in both their minds.

  "Open the back doors."

  #

  The street was still oppressively gloomy and filled with tattered transients as the ice cream van of escapees roared around the corner, blasting a combination of screeching tires and “Greensleeves” in a tumultuous symphony of noise and velocity. Catching a pile of boxes and sending them toppling like garbage filled dominoes, it carried the wave of carnage with it up the street. All too close behind them, their bounding pursuers lurched through the scattered debris and between cowering vagrants, sending a group of wooden cages shattering to the floor in their wake. Freed from their cells, the canaries swooped upwards into the bruised evening sky amid squawking cries for worms and a single tweeting plea for cheese.

  Back at street level, the bouncing sedans were gaining on their prey. Through the rear windows of the van, Marty could see the occupants of the chasing vehicles, gibbering and grinning as they closed.

  Turning towards his companions, he placed a hand on the door. "Is everybody ready?"

  Kate, Whipstaff and Oaf stood in a line, clutching various frozen confectionary and nodding an affirmative.

  Beside them, Timbers stood shoulders deep in the freezer cabinet. He tossed out a choc ice to Marty, signaling that he, too, was ready. Marty caught it in one hand and turned the handle with the other, pushing the doors open and bracing himself against the frame as the van drifted erratically around another corner.

  Even as they straightened into the next street, the cars behind were upon them, and Marty instinctively ducked, bellowing back into the van as he did so. "Let ‘em have it!"

  Thirty feet behind them, a freakish clown face poked out of the passenger side window of the lead sedan. Giggling balefully, it glared first at the open doors of the van, then at the figures within the fleeing vehicle, and finally at an arcing, sailing, approaching object. Realizing too late the latter was in fact a Strawberry Screamer, painted face and fruity missile collided with a wet thud that sent the demented joker toppling from the car and rolling to a distant, disheveled heap on the roadside.

  Kate wound in her pitching arm as the others looked on in awe, before laughter and cheering signified it had indeed been a hell of a shot. The sedans, however, continued to bear down on them, and Marty found a moment to catch Kate's eye, offering his own smiling nod of admiration before turning to open fire. Launching his choc ice at the onrushing freaks, he flinched as a Citrus Monster and a Chocolate Spanker flew past his head, hitting the windscreen of one of the sedans and causing it to swerve and fishtail wildly. Glancing over his shoulder, Marty watched as each of his companions was reloaded by Timbers, who still sat in the freezer to deliver fresh, frozen ammunition as quickly as it was dispatched through the back doors.

  "How much more do we have, Timbers?" Marty shouted over the growl of the van's engine.

  The little captain glanced down into the freezer in which he sat, rummaging and rustling as he did so. "Plenty. Do you want a Banana Surprise?"

  Marty raised an eyebrow, quickly following it up with a cheeky grin. It was a grin that would not have been present that very morning, but one he had quickly learned from Timbers. One that was never out of place no matter the situation. Even in the face of dire peril, there was always time for a sly chuckle at something that sounded a bit naughty.

  A heavy crunch just behind him forced the smile from Marty's face. Turning back to the doors, his eyes widened as a clown sedan clattered into the back of the ice cream van a second time, causing it to sway and swerve dangerously. Marty found himself clutching at thin air, but more specifically, the thin air between the back of the ice cream van and the front of the lead sedan. Looping in one fluid movement out of the van, Marty hovered suspended in the air, watching the approaching windscreen and the giggling lunatics behind it. Finally, he came to rest in a sprawling heap on the bonnet of the leaping sedan, grasping for purchase as it lurched skywards once more.

  Marty sailed upwards through the air, an unwilling passenger on the vaulting clown car, dimly aware of the hoots and cackles only inches from his face on the other side of the windscreen. As they descended once more, a second demonic sedan drew up alongside, matching both the velocity and trajectory of the lead car.

  Marty rose shakily to his feet as a Blueberry Blitz and a Vanilla Disaster exploded deliciously on the bonnet beside him. The passenger door of the second car opened and a forest of grasping, white gloved hands snaked their way to where Marty stood. With nowhere to run, he glanced back up at the van, spying Timbers as the little pirate leaned out of the side window.

  Hefting a large plastic tub, he caught his hat as it threatened to shoot off in the whipping wind. "Typical!" he barked as he dumped the contents of the tub over the side of the van. "All set up for an awesome pun, and I've got nothing."

  Neapolitan ice cream cascaded from the side window of the van and flew in huge, lumpy torrents underneath the second sedan. As it dropped into the creamy goop that coated the road, it skewed wildly sideways, the probing hands falling away from where Marty stood exposed. The car spun and skittered across the road, toppling end over end until it was just a smoldering array of twisted metal in the retreating distance of the now triumphant and cheering Timbers.

  The Locust shifted gears sharply, and the van dove into a side street, causing the car on which Marty was balanced to pitch in midair and bounce alongside.

  Spying his chance, Marty dropped to his haunches. In no conceivable reality did he ever imagine he would be riding a pogo stick propelled gangster wagon full of psychotic clowns, anticipating a possible death defying leap into an ice cream van piloted by a geriatric and a bunch of pirates. And yet here he was, attempting that very feat. Drawing level with the van, his heart leapt as a hand reached out from the side window. It was Kate's, and even before he knew what was happening, Marty was holding out his own hand, reaching to grasp hers. He let himself believe adrenaline had caused his heart to skip a beat, but in truth, it was her hand that he had hoped for, and her hand he now reached for.

  Swinging past at a speed that would have made a certain red caped superhero pull on the parking brake, their hands connected, and Kate hauled Marty back into the van. Sprawling inwards to safety, Marty's mind spun through several thousand words to convey his thanks, his smile ultimately giving voice to those words. Kate's eyes managed a bashful 'You're welcome' as a barrage of Cherry Tsunamis blazed past them and peppered the chasing car. It snaked wildly, blinded by the mass of pink mulch, which a pair of in
effective wipers spread thickly across the windscreen.

  In the front of the van, the Locust again wrenched the wheel to the left as another intersection split the road ahead. Marty shielded Kate as a box of cones dropped from a shelf above them, breaking open and sending its contents skittering out and into the street behind them. Flying blind in their cherry-coated sedan, the clowns in the lead car sped on. Oblivious to the fact the van they were pursuing had made a sharp left turn, they launched at full speed through the boarded windows of what used to be a large department store.

  Peering out of the side window, Timbers let out another whooping cheer as the car disappeared into the building. "That's two down." He declared excitedly. "Where did the other one go?"

  Almost in reply to the question, the third sedan appeared menacingly behind him, springing from a side street and screeching up alongside them. It slammed into the side of the van, sending Timbers pitching out of the freezer cabinet and the others staggering to regain their balance. From where he had landed, Timbers peered up at the side window just as a brightly bewigged head poked through, leering crazily in at them. Its horrifically crooked teeth chattered as it cackled. White gloved hands with black, pointed fingernails poking from their ends gripped the sides of the window as the deathly harlequin attempted to slither into the van. Again, time seemed to slow, as it maddeningly tends to when something needs to be done quickly and decisively.

  Marty glanced at his companions. Kate seemed rooted to the spot, a look of surprise and terror across her face. Whipstaff was holding up his hands, shaking his head and backing away, and in the cabin, the Locust nodded his head absently, whistling something jolly and carefree. Marty turned to Oaf just as the pint sized giant drifted past him. Gliding through the air with all the grace and poise of a beach ball in a tumble dryer, Oaf had taken the large wooden mallet off his back and angled towards the freak in the window in slow motion. With time to assess his actions, Oaf's expression turned from intrepid determination to dawning panic as he floated closer to his horrifying target. Clearly he had not thought this far ahead, and the slowing of time had given him the opportunity to take stock of what a reckless and foolhardy idea this had been.