Chaos Descending

Rebel Yell

Spotlights swinging to and fro in the darkness, the souped up trucks were all lined up -- engines running at the starting line. A hypnotic beat provided by the band pounded from the stadium's speakers. The familiar tune brought to life by Skylar's sometimes raspy, sometimes screaming vocals did justice to the song Rebel Yell, by Billy Idol.

For a moment there was this strange, stunned silence. And then, abruptly, the music stopped and a curtain of ringing silence fell over the audience.

All the lights went out, save for a single spotlight that focused directly on Chief Madden as he stood in the path of the trucks.

The audience gasped.

Holding up a green flag, the crowd roared in anticipation as he counted off the seconds until the race began. "Ten...nine...eight..."

Stage smoke erupted from beneath his boots, and then was just a swiftly blown away by the powerful crowd as he continued with the countdown. The spotlight went out when he reached number five and then he seemed to disappear into thin air.

The crowd doubled their screams of delight.

When the music started up again, the sound was almost drowned out entirely when the spotlight landed on Chief Madden again. This time he stood safely on the sidelines as the crowd joined in and collectively finished the countdown. "Three...two...one..."

A wicked concoction of down-home hilarity, twenty drivers punched their accelerators to the floor at the same time, creating a deafening roar as the trucks barreled toward the first turn towing mattresses behind with riders white knuckling it to hold on.

Carmen, along with Thomas, Vycandor, and myself stood on the sidelines cheering on the drivers when I felt a tug on my flannel shirt and looked down to find the cutest little girl staring up at me innocently. No more than three or four years old at the most, she had a head full of blonde ringlets and smiled ever so sweetly as she handed me a rainbow colored stuffed Unicorn. I recognized it immediately as one of my mom's many marketing gimmicks engineered to draw families out to the farm in droves. Uh, that is, before the world went bat-shit crazy and fell into complete chaos and mayhem at the hands of Serenity. The ones left were lucky to be alive. If this was how they wanted to celebrate, who was I to question it?

"Sniff my Unicorn's tail," the little girl insisted, bringing me back to reality. Blue eyes pleading with mine, the youthful look of exuberance on her adorable heart shaped face, mixed with no small amount of hope told me I wasn't getting out of this even if I wanted to.

"You heard the girl," Carmen said, trying not to laugh. "Smell her Unicorn."

"Yeah," Thomas and Vycandor chimed in at the same time. "Tell us what it smells like."

I was inclined to tell them exactly where they could stuff that stuffed animal. Instead, what did I do? Lift the animal's butt up to my nose and inhale deeply. The smell was so not what I was expecting. Handing it back to the little girl, I replied with a wink, "Ya know what? Unicorn farts smell exactly like cotton candy."

She hugged the toy tightly against her chest. "Told you so."

Carmen and the guys dissolved into laughter. I couldn't help watching the little girl skip happily away, blonde ringlets bouncing as she climbed up to the tenth row of an elevated pair of aluminum bleachers, which was as high as they went. Packed with onlookers the crowd roared as they cheered on their favorite trucks, while others yelled and booed when their favorites got stuck in the mud.

Directly across from the racecourse was a scene straight out of medieval times. Rednecks may have earned a reputation as ignorant farm boys, but their ingenuity was the stuff of legend. Or, at least, that's  what happens when you combine a spirit of, 'Shit, I can do that!' with actual engineers to create the art of catapulting huge-ass pumpkins across a mile-plus-long open field. Some of the self-built machines used torsion -- a technique of tight-winding rope to collect energy, then releasing it in a violent flash to launch the pumpkins. Some used giant slingshots as catapults, while others preferred to blast the squash out of bus-length compressed air cannons. If the force of the cannon alone didn't shatter the pumpkin into a bright orange spray, it had enough power to blast it upwards of 3,000 feet. In other words, the person who created a contraption capable of shooting a pumpkin the farthest wins. Thus was the challenge known as Pumpkin Chunkin'.

Featuring over 100 individual teams that worked tirelessly for hours side by side with the sole purpose of firing off a single pumpkin only once, my mom saved this challenge for last. Not only because it was the biggest crowd pleaser, but also because it was by far the most dangerous and took the most preparation to make sure it was safe. Heck, a single catapult alone had the power of a thunderbolt that could cause several hundred casualties alone if not precisely executed.

Carmen turned to whisper in my ear. "Have you ever stopped and compared catapults to sex?" She must have seen the look of shock on my face and paused to put her arms loosely around my neck saying, "I mean, think about it. A guy you're with...you know...intimately...holding back until the very last moment before letting go because he thinks it will be more exciting."

"Euw, gross!" I pulled out of her hold. "I can honestly say I've never thought about that." 

She wriggled her eyebrows dramatically. "Don't tell me you don't vo-dee-o-dodo."

My hands were suddenly on my hips defensively. "I don't vo-dee-o-dodo."

Carmen shot Thomas and Vycandor a quick, accusing look before returning her attention to me. You do so vo-dee-o-dodo."

I took a step forward to close the distance between us threateningly. "I don't vo-dee-o-dodo."

She stopped to consider the two drop dead gorgeous guys at my side again. "You vo-dee-o."

My hands fell off my hips in a rare show of surrender. "You have to vo-dee-o before you can dodo. And, trust me, mine was only in a dream. So it doesn't count."

"It most certainly does," Carmen countered.

Vycandor stepped in between us. "Break it up, Laverne and Shirley. The race is almost over."

I turned to look. He was right. Of the twenty or so trucks that had started the race, only two were remaining. The others, stuck in the mud with tires spinning hopelessly to gain traction, became crude obstacles to avoid, along with the mattresses they towed behind as the trucks rounded a final turn and headed for the finish line right in front of us. Gunning the engines as they approached, both drivers decided to drive over the mattresses instead of going around them. With the riders belonging to the stalled trucks safely out of harms way, the remaining riders held on tight as the mattresses they were on swung and bucked violently from side to side, before one of the ropes snapped in half -- sending them mattress and all -- slamming into one of the catapults and causing a massive chain reaction.  

A surge of adrenaline rocketed through my bloodstream as too many enormous pumpkins to count were launched into the air, only to rain down like hell from above on the crowd of innocent spectators. Everyone started screaming and running to get out of the way.

A single spotlight swung halfway down the stadium seating to a spot on the highest point of the bleachers. The little girl with the stuffed Unicorn stood on the top row crying and all alone, with her gaze locked tight on a pumpkin barreling straight toward her. 

There was no time to think. No time to save everyone. No time to carry out a plan even if had one.