Contributing Author: Zeusified
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George lit up with a big smile when he saw the tall smokestacks of the manufacturing district come into view. So far, the Road Rocket of Death had ridden like a dream. Now, with the roads opening up, it was time to truly test it.
“Alright, bruvs! We’re here. I know this district like it’s the back of my hand, and there’s never any traffic at this time of night. We are going to BLOW through these streets, sync up with the highway, and then speed on back toward the Nexus. Let’s press the big red button, yeah?”
Grinning like an idiot, George tucked his body in and braced himself for the shock of instant acceleration. He slammed the ‘TURBO’ button, squeezed the handlebars–
BOOM.
George was nearly thrown off the bike as it exploded with force, but he held on tight. The Road Rocket of Death’s rear engine blasted out heat and anger, and George hooted with delight into the night.
“Hell yeah! HELL YEAH!”
George was going so fast that it felt like he was blasting through time and space. He screamed past warehouses and steel powerplants, past chain-link fences and shantytowns, all the while thinking, This is what it’s like! This is what real speed is like!
He sped in and out of splotches of darkness. Most of the streetlamps in the manufacturing district were dead. Those that weren’t flickered on and off—but none of it really mattered. The Road Rocket of Death’s fierce LED headlamp pierced it all, lit up every crack and pothole in the asphalt, illuminated a path through the void that George clung to and maneuvered through.
Yellow and orange road signs loomed ahead like tombstones in a graveyard. George was forced to pull himself out of his riding trance as the road signs turned into a blockade. His preferred route, the winding road that led past the docks, was cut off.
Change of plans, then, George thought.
He made a split-second decision and leaned into a sharp turn. Sparks kicked up off the asphalt as his plastic kneepads scraped against the road. The bike’s tires gripped the pavement and held on tight as its rocket continued to burn with a terrible fury.
George’s muscles protested as he came out of the turn, but he hung on. He guided the bike onto the highway’s on ramp, then risked a quick look over his shoulder.
In the distance, he saw the docks. They were burning, and the fires showed a harrowing scene: fallen buildings, the marina a mess of shattered ships. Chaos and destruction everywhere.
Motherfudger, George thought. I guess there really is something going on down there.
“Hey, bike bruvs! The dock is closed. We’re hopping on the highway a little early.”
George tried to focus on the road, but it was harder this time. It was one thing to see a tragedy on the news. It was whole different beast to see it in person.
Still stuck in his thoughts, George nearly missed the first crushed car. He barely managed to swerve around its rusted out frame. He got a better look at the second and the third. It was as if they’d sat in the ocean for the last five years and were plucked out by a crane.
It wasn’t normal.
“You seeing this?” he whispered into his phone.
George found himself wishing he was back home, found himself wanting to stop—but the Road Rocket of Death pushed him forward, forced him to dodge and weave through more and more rusted out trucks, SUVs, and sedans.
“Bruvs, I’m getting scared. This is weird. I’m trying to deactivate the ‘TURBO’, but the bike isn’t listening.”
The highway curved around New City Stadium. Four lanes opened up to five. George tried again to slow down the Road Rocket of Death, but it refused to decelerate.
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In a moment of panic, he tried the brakes. They squealed and sparked, but the bike didn’t slow down.
“Seriously, bruvs. I don’t know what to do.”
George searched for an off-ramp. He spotted the massive billboard advertising the grand opening of New City’s Casino. But there, underneath it, was something else. Something big.
“No way…”
It was a massive pirate ship with three red, billowing sails. It crawled across a sea of rusted cars at a lumbering pace. Monster truck wheels were jammed into its hull. There had to be a demon or some kind of terrible creature pulling it along the highway, because George couldn’t think of anything else capable of pulling a ship that big on land.
George realized he was gaining on the ship, and he had a feeling that it was bad news. He was running out of time, running out of options.
He had tried, again and again, to cancel the Road Rocket of Death’s ‘TURBO’ mode. What he hadn’t tried was the bike’s Limited Edition ‘HELLSTREAM’ mode. It was a Hail Mary, but George needed a miracle. It would kick up his speed from roughly 90mph to 180mph, and he’d completely lose control. But it would also blow through his fuel reserves and, if he could hold on long enough, might be what he needed to get to safety.
“Fudge it,” George said. He smashed the red button, three times in quick succession: the secret activation code.
Sirens and speakers popped out from every inch of the bike’s frame. The sirens called out into the night, and the speakers blasted heavy metal music. A recording of a singer, some guy from a famous band in the 80s, screeched out, “HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLFIRE BABY!!! Iiiiiiiit’s HEEEEEELLLLLLLLSTREAAAAAAAAM TIME!”
Sixteen rockets shot out of the bike. Sixteen. George felt his heart nearly stop in terror. He’d thought ‘HELLSTREAM’ mode doubled the speed of ‘TURBO’ mode–but that was, after all, just conjecture. Now, George was beginning to think that he’d severely underestimated the secret mode’s lethality.
Why did they even design it like this?!
All sixteen rockets lit on fire simultaneously, and this time, George couldn’t keep the bike down. His stomach shot into his toenails with how fast the bike accelerated, and the whole thing launched into the sky like it was operated by E.T.
Heavy metal continued to blare from the speakers built into the bike’s frame, but George figured that, at this point, they were going so fast that the sound of music had no hope of keeping up.
Still, the cars littering the highway weren’t obstacles anymore. For one crazy and wild second, as his body flooded with adrenaline and he squinted into the rushing wind, George had a passing, fleeting thought that things might actually work out.
That was until he flew directly over the pirate ship.
He saw them then. The pirate crew. A motley mix of men and women in yellow cloaks, covered in heavy, rusted chains.
And he saw the man who must’ve been the captain. He looked like he’d walked along the bottom of the ocean. He pointed a finger at George, at the Road Rocket of Death, and it all went wrong.
The rockets puttered out.
The bike swerved in the air, dipped, and fell. George screamed as he felt the handlebars rust out beneath him, felt the pedals he was clipped into fly free from the bike. He watched the rest of the sleek carbon-fiber and titanium beauty transform into a pitted mess or orange and red and brown. Then he hit the ship’s forward sail, felt the air rush out of his lungs, and struggled to hold onto the thick canvas so he wouldn’t fall to his death.
He looked down, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He looked down and saw his MyPhone fall to the deck, break apart into a thousand little rusted pieces. He saw the captain, covered in spikes, wearing a yellow tricorne, looking back up at him and grinning with a smile full of algae and barnacles.
George gulped.
“Yarr, would ye look at that? We’ve got ourselves a stowaway, lads.”
The hundred or so men and women in yellow cloaks clattered their chains, like a mockery of an applause.
“Why don’t ye join us, kiddo? We be about to crash a party.”
He pointed at the billboard just ahead. The one advertising the grand opening of New City’s Casino. Just three miles away, off of Exit 105.
“How about it? There be many important folk there. The Mayor, them politicians. Yarr, I think we’ll make quite the entrance. Like a whale crashing through a school of minnows.”
The captain held out a bucket full of water. George saw his reflection in its depths, even from so high up off the deck.
His reflection had this vacant, lost, dead look in its eyes. It terrified him.
That’s not really my reflection, is it? There’s so much I still want to do. So much of the city I still want to ride through.
“All ye have to do is take a drink of the sea. You’ll be part of us after that. Right lads?”
George’s hand slipped and he dropped from the sail.
He thought that was it, that that was how he was going to die.
But the captain caught him. Caught him in his spiny arms. The spines dug into George’s skin, and he cried out in pain.
The captain pounced on the opportunity. He dropped George down to the deck with a thud, then poured the salt water down his still-open mouth.
George tried not to swallow, but the captain held a hand over his lips and chin, keeping them closed shut, until he did.
“Alright lads, say ahoy to the newest member of our crew!”
The last thing George heard was the sound of those rusted chains clacking together. Then, he was gone. Rusted away into his broken reflection, as the Red Scare sailed across land toward New City’s Casino.