Wasteland Taxi part 2

Post apocalyptic taxi service

    As twilight descended upon the city the next night, Olivia and I stood near the garage that Reesh had agreed to meet us at. I nervously shifted my gaze up and down the street, watching people disappear into their residences one by one as the city itself began to fall asleep. I didn't relish the idea of standing out in the open like this, but I couldn't risk Reesh thinking we had backed out when he got there.
    "Where's this guy at?" Asked Olivia.
    "Not sure." I said, still focusing my attention on looking for Reesh or anyone else who might take an unhealthy interest in us.
    "When did he say he'd meet us?"
    "He was sort of non specific about the time." I replied.
    "Doesn't he know it's dangerous to be out here after dark?"
    "Dusters don't think of cities as being dangerous at all, really. I'm sure he'll be here soon."
    A half hour crawled by as we waited. Just as I was beginning to think that we might be better off heading in the complete opposite direction and forgetting this whole stupid trip I heard a latch behind us. I spun around to see a door on the garage creak it's way open. From behind it I saw Reesh's head poke out. His eyes seemed to light up when they met mine.
    "Yesh! Yesh! One and one come inshide! Come inshide!" He seemed almost gleeful. "Sheesh dis in here!" He waved us inside the garage.
    Walking into the garage, I was genuinely shocked at what I saw. The room was clean and neatly appointed. There were a bunch of some sort of tools hanging on a pegboard on the walls. All immaculately clean and shiny. It seemed like everything had a place it was meant to be. I'd never been in a room so clean and neatly appointed before. It stood in stark contrast to Reesh himself. In the center of the room the vehicle that would ferry us across the wasteland sat covered by an unstained white sheet. I'd never seen anything that white before. Reesh exhuberantly herded us over to the vehicle. "Come! Sheesh dis motor! Fasht!"
    Reesh grabbed the edge of the white sheet and grinned at me. He seemed like he was trying to be theatrical about presenting the vehicle. Unnecessary, really, as I'd never seen one in working condition before. As long as the vehicle actually ran, I was going to be impressed.
    Reesh jerked the sheet off the vehicle and proudly proclaimed "Tadaaa!" If he really was trying to impress me, he surely had.
    Under the sheet was the most beautiful combination of metal, glass, and paint I'd ever laid eyes on. The vehicle's bright green paint gleamed in the low light of the lanterns in the room. The metal shined, catching the light gorgeously. Rubber tires proudly proclaimed the words 'Eagle GT+4' in flawless white writing. A black stripe wrapped itself around the back end of the vehicle with a picture of a winged insect wearing a helmet. The words 'Super Bee' wrapped themselves around the picture. My jaw hit the floor and I didn't even mind that Reesh knew I was beside myself. It was purely bewitching.
    "Dish a nineteen shishty nine Shuper bees motor. Sheesh dish!"
    "1969? What's that number mean?"
    "Meansh fasht motor! Go head, looksh!"
    I walked around the vehicle taking in the grand nature of the beast. It sure was pretty. A shiny metal emblem announced the word 'Dodge' on the back.
    "What's Dodge?" Asked Olivia.
    "Hopefully it's what it does when something bad comes for it." I answered.
    Reesh seemed to be exitedly anticipating me walking all the way around to the front of the vehicle. When I did he looked me in the eye and grinned even wider.
    "Looksh dish." He said and opened a metal hatch on the front of the vehicle. Inside was... well... something I'd never seen before.
    "What is all that?" I asked, wishing I wasn't so ignorant about things like this.
    "Dish dere heart. Makesh fasht. Sheesh dish!" Reesh moved around the vehicle and opened the door. His tiny frame crawled inside and looked at me through the piece of glass on the door. His tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth as he inserted a key into the vehicle's steering column and turned it. The whole garage shook as the beast roared awake. My eyes widened as I looked under the metal hatch to see everything under it start to violently vibrate as the noise became almost deafening. Reesh seemed very satisfied with my reaction to it all.
    "Getsh in over dere." Reesh pointed to the vehicle's other door. I looked at Olivia, who was standing there mouth agape, even more flabbergasted than I was. I took her hand and led her over to the door. She nervously looked at me as I opened it for her. "Go ahead, honey. This is what we're here for." I said as I gently nudged her reluctant little frame into the vehicle. Reesh got out and opened a door big enough for the vehicle to leave the garage through. As he did I looked around the cab. The seats were made of a shiny black leather. Everything inside gleamed with a spit-shined polish. It smelled terrific. Reesh got back into the vehicle and smiled at me. "Shaid it be's worth sheven, right?"
    "It certainly seems worth the price," I replied, trying to sound like the rich man this duster thought me to be. Reesh grabbed a metal stick that said 'Hurst' on it situated halfway between the front seats and moved it. The vehicle lurched forward and then slowly crept out to the street outside. After closing the garage door and locking it, he reentered the vehicle.
    "Now dish getsh go." He said as he adjusted the thick glasses resting on his nose. "Holdsh to shtuff." I watched closely as his foot pushed a lever on the floor down and a terrible but haunting screeching noise shot out from the back of the vehicle into the inky dark of the night. Then the vehicle shot forward like a bullet from a gun and Olivia and I held on for dear life. We sped past the city limits and I briefly read the sign I saw that said "Wasteland limits. Abandon all hope ye who enter here." The ominous message was entirely lost on me as we accelerated to a speed I would never have thought possible. Damn the danger, the feeling of the world passing me by at a blur made this trip start to seem worth it. There was no way any raiders would be able to catch us in this amazing machine. We would be to our destination before anyone knew we were there.
    I glanced over to Reesh to see the grin that seemed to wrap itself around his whole head it was so big. I began to understand. This man must be feeling the power of a god to control a machine like this. The city became a dot in the distance after a brief moment. I began to feel much safer. No way would danger catch us now. Hell, this might even be fun. I wish I hadn't been so wrong. I guess I should have assumed the raiders would have similar vehicles.  Even if I had, I probably would have thought that they could still never catch us. This beautiful machine just seemed so god damned fast.
    After driving down what was left of the ruined roads in silence for a few hours, Reesh turned to me and spoke for the first time since we left the city.
    "No fretsh, but deresh a raider wall shoon. Be'sh jusht over dere." He pointed to the dark horizon.
    "Raider wall?" I inquired nervously.
    "Big big wallsh dat can't drivesh troo. Can go'sh round, doh. No fretsh. Doesh dish many timesh."
    Moments later I saw what Reesh had been talking about. At first it just looked like a big black wall on the horizon, but as we got closer, I could see it was made up of stacks of burned out husks of vehicles. Blacked skeletons of 'motors' that used to be as alive as the one we were riding in. There were nests surrounded by what seemed like miles of tangled barbed wire on either side, lit by torches on long pikes stuck into the ground. In the firelight I caught my first glimps of them. Raiders. Deranged wasteland pirates that cut out thier living in the world by killing and looting anyone unlucky enough to cross thier path. Everyone in the cities feared them, though most of us had never actually seen one in person. The safe, secure feeling of the steel cab of this vehicle began to shrink away when I saw the crazed look in thier eyes. As soon as they saw us they became a flurry of activity, running back and forth, shouting and pointing at our oncoming vehicle. As impressively fast as this machine had been so far, I began to hope that heart in the front of the vehicle could generate even more speed.
    Reesh headed straight for the wall. I nervously glanced back and forth between his face, now devoid of the grin, and the wall. "Holy s**t," I thought, "He's going to ram it. He really is insane!" I saw one of the raiders on top of the wall man a mounted turret of some kind. Olivia screamed. I put my arms around her to provide some comfort. We were about to die. At least she could die in my arms. Just as I was resigning myself to our grisly fate, Reesh jerked the vehicle to the left. The raider fired the turret propelling several 6 inch metal spikes that all narrowly missed us. The vehicle slid sideways for several feet before shooting off the paved road into the dirt. The tires screamed in protest. Clusters of spikes shot through the air all around us. Olivia held on to me as tight as she could. I was so beside myself with fear I couldn't even muster any words to calm her. I just wanted to be back at the motel.
    Reesh suddenly began to howl with psychotic laughter as we rocketed past a dozen or so raiders standing in front of the wall. For fifty yards we flew past them as Reesh fought the steering wheel for control of his motor. The spikes flew around the car so thick we could have driven on them. It was then that I realized that our only defense against these murderous scabs was speed. If we slowed down even a fraction we were dead. We rocketed past the edge of the wall and the vehicle jerked right, sliding through the dirt and around the barbed wire nest that housed two more manned spike turrets. For a brief moment I was staring straight ahead at the business end of a turret less than ten feet in front of me. Time seemed to stand still for the express purpose of allowing me and the raider shooting at us to lock eyes. I saw no humanity in them, just a deranged need to murder us all. Time went back into full motion as three spikes imbedded themselves into the glass I was looking through. Reesh's laughter turned into a maddened scream of rage.
    "Dont ouch me motor, shcumhole!"
    The vehicle deftly skirted around the nest and headed straight back to the pavement on the other side of the wall. Reesh's rage cries continued as one of the raiders moved directly into our path and pointed a gun at us. Reesh gritted his teeth, but did not alter the motor's course. Just before the raider fired, the front of the vehicle made contact with his body, throwing him up onto the metal hatch that hid the vehicle's beating heart. His face smashed up against the glass, splitting in two and splattering blood all over. Reesh jerked the car onto the road causing the raider's body to roll off and land in a wad in the dust. Reesh howled with laughter.
    "Shmokesh dat, shcumholesh! Haha!"
    I turned around to see with horror that the raiders also had a vehicle roaring to life. And it was bigger than ours. Much bigger. The word 'Peterbuilt' adorned the front of thier vehicle. A sense of dread filled me as I thought, "S**t, as big as that thing is, it's gotta be twice as fast as ours."
    The monsterous machine caused me to shudder as I saw it spit black smoke straight up into the air from two pipes behind the cab. But it didn't seem to be getting up to speed very quickly. Not like our vehicle had. I figured it must take time to get it's bulk going, but once it did we were going to be finished. Reesh just continued cackling with his mad laughter as he watched the wall dissappear from his mirrors.
    "They have a vehicle! They're coming after us!" I shouted at Reesh, thinking he hadn't seen the gigantic machine.
    "Neh, dey'sh not fasht. Can't getsh ush." Reesh replied. I wasn't so confident, but Reesh seemed to think the immediate danger was over.