True Grit -- A Serialized Novel: Chapter Two: Strange Medicine on the Desert

           

             Punto glanced at the fuel gauge as the Firebird continued its prowl down the desert highway.  He glanced over his shoulder at the body-shaped figure, concealed by a blanket, in the back seat. "Still no movement," Nick thought, "I'm no doctor, but that ain't good.  Oh well, fuck it."  Nick propped his knees up against the wheel to keep the car straight as he began to roll a blunt.

            "Hey, Bartlett," he asked, licking the rolling paper, "you got a light?"

            "Sure." Bartlett tossed Punto his bic.  Punto finished rolling the joint, ignited the end and took a long hit.  He accelerated gradually as he slumped back in his seat.  Everything really was going relatively well, he realized. As long as they just kept going steady through into Vegas, with no more setbacks or stops for infield practice, no one who was chasing them would be able to catch up in time.

            Suddenly Punto's eyes twitched.  The road ahead convulsed, and Punto leaned forward as the car hugged the curvature of the earth.  Fuck.  When that shifty Venezuelan behind the 7-Eleven in San Bernadino said this chronic would blow his brains out, he didn't think... oh shit...

            Suddenly a gruesome black mass rose up in the rearview mirror, and there was a terrible roar.  Punto knew that they were back. He looked back into the mirror, the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car.

            Punto unholstered his pistol and leaned out the window.  "Get out of here you bastards!" he screamed, waiving the gun in their vicinity.  He hadn't planned to shoot, but these creatures looked particularly menacing.  He perched himself on the window ledge to take a good look at his gun, trying to remember which damn part of it made the thing fire.  He got the mechanics sorted out.  He targeted one of the fiendish creatures and squeezed off two shots.  He saw the bullet trajectories trail off into the distance like Statcast visualizations.  Then a voice boomed down from the skies.  It was Tom Verducci.  "You see, Matt, he fired it good, a good velocity, a good trajectory.  But he fired where the hallucinogenic bat was, not where it was going to be.  Also, the bat took a great angle on the bullet.  Statcast gives a 96% route efficiency on the hallucinogenic bat's route."  Goddam Tom Verducci was right, Punto realized in disgust.  He had missed.  Suddenly, one of the beasts swooped in and tried to grab him, but he ducked in time.  He fired off two more shots, but wasn't able to see if they connected because suddenly he was pulled back into the car.  It was Bartlett.  What could he want?

            "Nick! Nick! What the hell are you doing? Holy shit drive the goddam car!" Bartlett's voice seemed a long way away, and also seemed be very concerned.  Punto couldn't see what was wrong, particularly.  The car was going pretty fast even without his assistance.  "Here, get outta the way!"  Nick was rudely shunted into the passenger seat as Bartlett groped his way to the wheel and began wrestling with it like Steve Irwin trying to tackle an alligator.  Punto rested on his head in the passenger's seat.  No point mentioning those bats, he thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

            After a while, Punto's eyes focused on a shiny object just below his plane of vision. It was his pistol, now sitting on the carpeting below the passenger seat.  He picked it up, and it unexpectedly turned into a plantain.  "Uh oh," Punto thought.

            "Bartlett?"  "Bartlett?" ....... "Hey, Bartlett?"

            "What?"

            "We need to find Fernando Rodney, like right now."

            "What?"

            "We've got something of his.  He's gonna want it back immediately!"

            "What?"

            "Christ, he many never save a game again!  It's where he gets all his powers from!"

            "What the hell are you talking about Nick?"

            "Here, see for yourself." Punto held the plantain up near Bartlett's face for him to get a good look at.

            "Fuck! Get that outta my face!" Bartlett swatted at the plantain, which suddenly turned back into a pistol and went off with a bang.  Both their heads snapped towards the back of the car, looking straight in the direction the gun was pointing when it discharged.  The rear window was now spattered in blood.  A circle of red was slowly expanding on the blanket covering the body in the back seat.  Bartlett and Nick looked at the body, then back at each other, then back at the body. 

            "Holy shit Nick! You shot Doug Mientkiewicz!"