Bombshell by Max Collins (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📕

The automobile was hurtling along at a great speed, or so it seemed, lurching at every turn along a cartoon countryside. Nikita could make out part of a bright yellow haystack, coming up ahead, and a big barn, its red doors shut tight.

“Look out, Nikkie!” Marilyn yelled, and buried her face in his chest. He threw his arms around her and fought the urge to close his eyes; but he believed he understood this ride now, and— he was no frightened child, after all—he bravely kept his eyes open wide, comforting the scared girl in his arms.

Once again, at the last moment, the red doors burst open, and the two passengers in the Model T sailed through the barn amidst flying, clucking chickens and frightened, mooing cows.

Nikita frowned—the lighting was dim, but … were the animals real?

As the pair in the auto emerged from the barn, Nikita turned to look at Marilyn, who had tears in her eyes from laughing, which proved infectious: he joined her with his own loud, raucous laughter, until his sides ached.

Unlike the foolish spinning teacups, this ride had such wonderful tricks!

What would happen next? he wondered.

A faint whistle seemed to answer his question.

In Marilyn’s nearest ear, he shouted, “What is that?”

Her response was to raise her eyebrows and shrug; but her smile was knowing…

The whistle came again, this time louder. This whistle, it was familiar … it reminded him of the whistle of … a train!

Suddenly, the car veered off the road—he wasn’t sure how this was accomplished; it had happened so fast!—and then they were careening and rumbling down train tracks. Nikita stared ahead in astonishment at the unmistakable bright white light of a locomotive, coming straight at them, the chugging of its engine growing louder and louder, its whistle blowing a warning, “WHOO-WHOO!”

As before, the automobile continued onward into the mouth of danger itself—my, this Mr. Toad was a brave fellow!—bumping along the tracks, ignoring a crossing guard where red lights flashed blindingly, and loud bells sounded a warning of the approaching train.

Marilyn covered her eyes with her hands as the train—the noise now deafening—continued to bear down on them, its headlight growing huge, the train mere yards away. But this time Nikita would not be a child fooled by tricks… The automobile would surely swerve off the tracks at the very last moment.

Only, it didn’t—he was startled to see the car hold its ground, the big bright light of the train now only a few feet away, and he gasped as they seemed to pass right through the train, as if it were only a ghost … or were they the ghosts?

In his seat, Nikita craned around quickly and saw that the “train” was only a big light running on its own track above them, accompanied by the recorded sound of a real locomotive.

So that was how they pulled off this trick! How clever, these Americans! What a smart man, this Disney was. The premier threw back his head and hollered with glee.

But his laughter echoed ominously as he filled his eyes with new surroundings: the world about them had turned red as blood, and smoke hissed with sinister contempt from out of rock walls. Here and there small black creatures with horns on their heads, and pitchforks for tails, danced mockingly.

Nikita understood at once that this meant they had been “killed” by the train, and gone straight to hell. He laughed all the harder, tears streaming down his cheeks.

But Marilyn was no longer laughing.

She was sitting up straight, and tugged at his shoulder, pointing out a figure that had stepped from the darkness of hell. While the dancing demons were clever puppets, this latest “trick” was a disappointment to Nikita.

Was the figure in their path supposed to be the devil himself? If so, he wasn’t very frightening. Where was his costume? Black clothing? This was a devil? Where was his pitchfork, his horns, his red flesh?

“Of this I am not scared,” Nikita grumbled, looking at Marilyn …

… but she appeared to be. “He’s not supposed to be here!”

Nikita looked again at the figure, clearly a real man with jet black hair and now, out of the smoke, emerged an Oriental cast to cold features.

The devil in black was holding a handgun, an automatic with noise suppresser, pointing it at them, taking aim…

With a lurch, Nikita threw his massive body over Marilyn just as the weapon fired.

Unlike the other illusions on this ride, the automatic sounded real, its muffled report echoing in the chamber—real, too, was the searing pain Nikita felt in his left shoulder, and the spreading dampness that followed.

Nikita stood in the seat of the trembling Model T, at least as far as the metal bar would allow, and as the auto glided by the assassin—who was taking aim again, about to fire a second time— Nikita used his good arm, his right one, to backhand the bastard.

The blow was powerful, tremendous, worthy of a provoked Siberian bear, and the assassin tumbled backward into the smoky darkness, as if swallowed up by hell itself.

The Model T burst through the double doors into the cool outside world, the automobile slowing, ending Mr. Toad’s wild ride … and theirs.

Not waiting for the auto to stop, Nikita and Marilyn scrambled out, running from the miniature castle, only to head in different directions, each pausing in mid-stride to look back at the other.

“We go to Buick!” Nikita said.

Marilyn rushed to him, and with two hands took him by the good arm, tugging him. “No! That’s what he’ll expect,” she said in a rush. “He followed us here, right? So we go the opposite direction.”

She took him by the right hand, and led the way. They fled down the midway, away from the revealing lights of the Toad attraction. He slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew the straight razor, keeping it hidden in his closed hand, not wanting to further alarm the young woman. He kept up with her,