Page 101 of Tiger Queen

“Yes, I’d like to report… Um. A robbery, I guess?” David said on the phone. “My father, Carl Haines, is alive. He’s currently driving down state road forty-three toward Fayetteville. I don’t know the model. It’s a big-ass monster truck that’s taking up both lanes. It’s impossible to miss.”

“He threatened to kill Rachel,” Anthony said. “He held her down in front of the band saw.”

“He did what?” Jake rolled down the window and screamed, “SLOW DOWN YOU PIECE OF SHIT! Your sons want to talk to you!”

“Shut up!” David hissed, hand covering the receiver.

We flew through the tiny town of Blue Lake. When we came within fifty feet of Carl’s monster truck, a cloud of black smoke puffed out of the exhaust and Carl accelerated away from us.

“He knows we’re on him, now,” Anthony said.

“Good.” Jake swerved our truck around a corner, narrowly remaining on the road without flipping over. I quickly put on my seatbelt and then held onto the door handle.

“We just drove through Blue Lake,” David said on the phone. “Mile markers? I don’t know. Look it up on a map! Just send some guys out here!”

We pursued Carl down the small, winding road. The trees on either side leaned over the road, making it feel like we were driving through a tunnel. I glanced at the truck clock. It was a good thing that it was four in the morning or other cars might have been on the road.

“Hold on,” Jake said.

“What are you going to do?” I demanded.

He swerved the truck into the oncoming lane and accelerated. He was trying to pull up alongside Carl’s monster truck, but the vehicle was so big it was taking up most of the other lane. Jake blared on his horn and flashed his high beams on and off.

“PULL OVER!” he shouted out the window. “YOU OWE US A GODDAMN EXPLANATION YOU DEADBEAT ASSHOLE!”

“Be careful,” Anthony insisted. He sounded afraid. “If we crash trying to catch him…”

Jake snarled like an angry tiger. “Fuck safety. He’s not getting away with—”

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

We rounded a turn and the headlights of an oncoming truck swept across the trees and blinded us. I screamed. Jake swerved back into our lane and slammed on the brakes. David’s phone flew through the air and clattered onto the dashboard. The seatbelt dug into my waist and chest painfully, but it kept me in the truck. Anthony hit the back of my seat and groaned.

The vehicle coming in the opposite direction was a large box truck, and it tried to swerve off the road. Carl spun his huge truck but it was too late, and he was going too fast. The monster truck smashed into the back side of the box truck, sending its contents flying in all directions as the box truck crashed. The collision sent Carl’s monster truck into a roll, and it tumbled end over end three times before coming to a stop upside-down.

The contents of the box truck began falling around us. Huge red carcasses exploded on the road and smashed into the hood of Jake’s truck. Smaller, slimier objects rained down on the road and our windshield like long pieces of hail.

Still gripping the steering wheel, Jake peered forward. “What the fuck is that?”

I let out a delirious laugh. “That’s a chicken neck. And those are cow carcasses in the road.”

The box truck had come to rest on its side, smoke drifting out of the hood. The driver-side door opened and Bobby John climbed out. He stumbled a bit when he hit the ground, but managed to walk toward us without any apparent injury.

“What the fucking shit! Jakey?” he said in his thick accent.

“Bobby John! Are you okay?”

He touched his mullet, his gut, and then his groin. “All the important parts seem to be intact. I ain’t no cat, but I think I just used up one of my lives.” He peered into the truck. “Damn, Jake. You takin’ the whole family for a drive?”

“We were chasing our father. He’s alive.”

Bobby John poked a finger in his ear and twisted it. “Yeah, I must have brain damage or some such. It sounded like you said your dad’s alive.”

“He was driving the monster truck…” Anthony began.

“Look!” David pointed. Carl was climbing out of the smashed windshield of the upside-down monster truck. “He’s alive!”

Carl marched toward us. Our headlights reflected off of something shiny in his hand.

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