Scarecrow Returns

THE MEGATRAIN thundered across the barren north-eastern plain of Dragon Island, picking up speed.

The tiny figures of Big Jesus and his two comrades could be seen advancing along the roof of the second carriage, the cargo car, firing on the lead locomotive, while the muzzle flashes of a lone figure could be seen firing back at them through the open rear window of the locomotive’s driver’s compartment.

There was, however, no longer any sign of a gun battle at the rear of the train.

On the roof of the train, Big Jesus and his men leapfrogged forward in perfect formation. They weren’t amateurs and they knew they had the edge on Mother both in numbers and firepower. Soon they were up near the locomotive, firing at her at close range, and suddenly Mother recoiled, hit in the right shoulder.

She was flung backward and they rushed the driver’s compartment, covering her.

Big Jesus reached for the control lever and had gripped it when out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a figure thump down onto the flat snout-like nose of the locomotive right in front of him.

Big Jesus looked up and that figure took form, the form of a big bearded Frenchman lying on his belly on the locomotive’s nose, taking aim at Big Jesus’s face with a pistol.

Baba fired once through the glass.

The bullet came slamming through the windshield and into Big Jesus’s left eye before it exploded out the back of his head. He collapsed where he stood, dropping the Kord.

Two more shots and the other two Thieves also went down.

Baba swung in through the shattered windshield and crouched by Mother’s side.

“Nice entrance,” Mother groaned, pressing a hand to the wound on her shoulder.

“I am French,” Baba said simply. “I was born with a certain je ne sais quoi.” Mother smiled despite herself. “You’re one bad-ass dude, I know that. You didn’t stay at the back of the train like I told you to, did you?”

“I couldn’t.” Baba nodded at the rest of the train. “They sent reinforcements.”

Mother followed his gaze.

Another two dozen Army of Thieves men were now boarding the megatrain, clambering onto it from two troop trucks, one on either side of the train.

“I had to come here,” he said. “So I came the same way you did, running underneath the train.”

A bullet slammed into the roof above them. Then another. Then a wave of them.

Mother and Baba ducked. Mother hefted her AK-47. Baba grabbed his beloved Kord from the floor.

“Come!” Baba called as he dragged her out through the shattered forward windshield. “Out onto the nose! If we are to make a last stand, it is the best place!”

“Our own private Alamo . . .” Mother said as she arrived on the forward section of locomotive beside Baba.

Then, facing back down the length of the rumbling train, they opened fire together on the advancing horde of Thieves.

The exchange of gunfire that followed was vicious in the extreme: Thieves swarmed all over the megatrain like ants at a picnic, while Mother and Baba held them off from the nose section of the lead locomotive, picking them off left and right.

The Thieves kept coming.

Mother and Baba kept firing.

A round sizzled past Mother’s ear, slicing through her earpiece’s filament microphone on the way by, nicking skin, drawing blood. Close.

Then, abruptly, in between shots, Baba called, “Mother! You are a fine warrior and a magnificent woman. Are you spoken for? If we should survive this, I should very much like to wine you, dine you and make mad, passionate love to you for many hours. But smitten as I may be, I am a man of honor and do not court other men’s wives. Are you spoken for?”

Mother paused in between shots, thinking for a moment.

She thought of Ralph, her Ralphy, and of their life together which only a week ago she had described as banal and boring—and then she looked at the Frenchman, this larger-than-life warrior called the Barbarian, Baba. He was her mirror, her male equivalent.

But he wasn’t Ralphy.

“Sorry, you sexy beast!” she shouted, punching off a shot. “But I am spoken for! I’m married!”

Baba loosed another shot from the Kord. “He is a lucky man, your husband! And he must be a fine fellow to capture and hold a heart as big as yours!”

“He is!” Mother called. “He certainly is!”

The larger force of Thieves was now leaping onto the back of the lead locomotive, their takeover of the megatrain now certain and all but complete, when Baba leaned suddenly forward and kissed Mother hard on the mouth and said, “Live for both of us then, my friend, Mother! I shall go to my grave with the taste of your lips on my mouth!”

And with those words, he leapt up onto the roof of the locomotive—totally out in the open, totally exposed—planted his feet wide and raised his mighty Kord.

Then he opened fire.

The massive machine gun blazed to life, razing the advancing horde of Thieves with an absolute torrent of sizzling bullets.

They dropped everywhere—shot to pieces or simply hurled off the moving train—but there were just too many of them for Baba to take out alone and a few managed to get off some shots that found their target: first a glancing blow to Baba’s left arm, then more substantial hits to the torso and shoulders.

One, two, then three shots hit his body, but still he kept firing.

Mother watched in admiration, wonder and despair.

The train kept rushing across the plain.

It was the fourth shot that felled Baba.

He dropped to his knees, yet still managed to get off some more shots from the Kord.

Then a bullet struck him square in the chest and he dropped to the roof of the locomotive and Mother, still on the nose section, wounded and unable to go to his aid, shouted, “No!” just as the train shot into darkness, into the tunnel that led to the submarine dock.

Baba had done what he’d set out to do.

He’d bought them enough time to get to the dock.

Now it was too late to stop the train.

The megatrain thundered through the short tunnel, picking up speed as it shot down the slope, still with a dozen Thieves on its back.

It emerged with a roar inside the wide hall that was the submarine dock where—now speeding totally out of control—it exploded straight through the guardrail separating the end of the track from the water in the dock. The lead locomotive’s pointed snowplow smashed through the wooden guardrail, blasting it into a thousand matchsticks, before the whole train just poured off the end of the track, diving—driving—into the water, one carriage after the other disappearing into the sea like a huge slithering snake. Its missile car vanished under the surface, having never been able to fire its deadly cargo.

As the locomotive had shot off the end of the tracks, Mother—still on the nose—had seen, of all things, the Okhotsk, half-sunk in the water, right next to her, a final bizarre sight for a truly bizarre day. Shot, exhausted and despairing at Baba’s heroic sacrifice, Mother felt the locomotive around her drop through the air.

A second later, it hit the water.

Her battle with the Army of Thieves had been fought and although she wouldn’t come out of it alive, she would at least die knowing that she had beaten the motherfuckers.

The megatrain dived into the water and sank into the darkness, never to be seen again.