The Death of a Giant

Chapter 15: Bad Guys Never Die

“Ben!  Ben, wake up!”  It was Maureen’s voice. 

            “What do you want?” I asked, my eyes still shut.

            “You’re going to be late!” she shouted.

            “What are you talking about…?” I was very confused.

I opened my right eye and realized I’d been dreaming.  I was on the hood of Ripburger’s truck.  I couldn’t open my left eye, broken glass was in it.  I tried to raise my head but the burning sensation in my neck said it would have to stay down.

            “Maureen I’m sorry I failed you…” I mumbled weakly.  I opened my eyes and looked down the hood into the gorge.  That’s a helluva long way down…

            “I hear you, Ben.  I’m okay.”

            I was shocked.  “Maureen?” I painfully turned my body to the side to see her waiving a burned and bloody hand at me.

            “Are you ok Ben?  Can you stand?”

            “I dunno…”  I knew it was pretty much all over for me.  My body was broken worse than I’d ever experienced.  Nearly every part of my body was numb.  I must have hit my spine on the way out through the cockpit window.  Occasionally I’d feel warm and then cool and then warm again and I knew my body was going into shock.  “Maureen, I’m pretty bad off…” I coughed.

I accepted my fate and waited for the dangling truck to slide through the end of the plane into the gorge and kill me.  I had previously watched as Ripburger exploded through the windshield of the truck and bounced over the hood.  It wasn’t as satisfying to know that I wasn’t the one who had killed him, but it was still a good thing to know he was dead, finally.  My task was done.  Maureen was alive and safe, my gang would get Antone to lead them and the Vultures were… well, the Vultures proved they really were insane.  A plane without wings?  I mean, come on… That just defies any sort of rational thought.

            “Ben, I can see Ripburger.  He’s alive, but unconscious.  He’s caught on something on the front of the truck.” Maureen said just the right words to give me a second wind.

            He can’t still be alive.  I can’t be finished until I watch him die.

            I picked my head up, ignoring the pain in my neck.  My shoulder was out of socket and I popped it back in with a grunt.  Something in my mid-section was leaking blood and I could smell my own piss.  I figured that since I could barely breathe, I’d punctured a lung as well.  I slowly gathered myself together and put as much weight on my broken ankle as I could until the pain was unbearable.

I carefully stood on the hood of the truck, feeling triumphant.  I would kill Ripburger… but how?  I bent down and looked over the edge of the truck’s hood with my good eye.  He was caught on one of the truck’s machine gun turrets dangling over the gorge.

            “Maureen, do you know how to work the turrets of the truck’s auto-defense system?” I shouted.

            “No, but I know there’s a main control panel in the dashboard of the truck.  Try looking there,” she replied.

            I got down on my hands and knees and began slowly crawling across the truck’s battered hood toward the broken windshield when suddenly I heard another grinding noise and the truck began to slide again slowly before coming to a halt again.  My weight was shifting the truck.  That sudden jolt was enough to wake Ripburger.  Only few feet of truck’s freight portion was keeping it inside the Vultures’ broken plane.