Chapter 42
“The man is mad!” Tex cried. “Stark raving mad!”
He and Bill Marvel had closely watched the stunning events unfold right in front of their eyes.
Ever since they had started following Vesta through town, they had been curious to see where she would lead them.
The BearCat was an easy target to follow, as it was so big and lumbering you could see it a mile away.
And if you didn’t see it, you could definitely hear it.
“We need to save them, Tex,” said Bill.
“Yeah, and we will, Bill,” Tex assured his new friend. He looked up at the sky, and so did Bill.
For a few moments, they waited. And waited some more. But when it became clear to both of them that the Germinator wasn’t going to appear, they decided to take matters into their own—merely mortal—hands and pull the plug on this bonfire.
While Bill called for backup, Tex looked around for a hose of some kind.
Backyards always had hoses. At least his had.
The problem, as he saw it, was that this madman who had set fire to the garden house with his mother-in-law inside would stick around to watch the fire, as a lot of these arsonists invariably did.
Fortunately for him, Bill had his back. And since Bill was a cop, he would know hand-to-hand combat if it came to that.
And so he focused on finding a hose—or at the very least a bucket and some water.
He hadn’t counted on the fact that Bill had decided to make the call a safe distance from the house, so he wouldn’t be overheard by the madman in question.
And so when Tex had finally discovered the hose, suddenly a loud roar seemed to sound at his immediate rear, and the next moment he was being shunted to the ground, the madman seated on top of him and holding him down, his fists moving like pistons as they pummeled Tex’s sides.
Too bad he hadn’t seen the attack coming, or he would have been able to protect himself. He had taken a class in self-defense many moons ago, and as he tried to remember some of the lessons, he found his hand groping around and finding the hose in question.
As he turned it on his attacker and opened the spout, the water flowed freely and hit the man directly in the face.
“Hey!” the guy yelled as he tried to ward off the sudden deluge. “Stop that!”
“You don’t like that, do you, huh?” said Tex as he increased the pressure on the hose by giving the spout a vicious twist.
“Stop it!” said the guy as he tumbled back.
Clearly he didn’t like to get wet, which was something most arsonists probably had in common.
And as Tex quickly trained the hose on the garden shed, dousing it with a steady stream of water, the man decided he wasn’t about to let his work be thwarted so easily and went on the attack once more.
And so Tex was forced to halt the proceedings and point the spout at his attacker again.
“Hey, Tex! Stop messing around!” his mother-in-law yelled from inside the burning edifice. “Put out this fire, will you?”
“In a minute,” he said as he sprayed the man who seemed determined to end the life of Vesta and her friends once and for all.
Where the heck was Bill? And where was the Germinator? Superheroes were supposed to show up when people needed them the most. Wasn’t that the whole idea behind being a superhero?
But of the winged bumblebee there still wasn’t a single trace.
“Where is the Germinator?” he asked therefore.
“Who?” asked Vesta from inside the garden house, which was starting to resemble a funeral pyre.
“The Germinator. Isn’t he supposed to be your friend and ally? Why isn’t he here to save you?”
“Because he’s not omniscient,” Scarlett suggested.
“Doctor Poole, can you please stop fooling around with that hose and put out this fire?” asked Mercedes, who seemed to have become a fixture in her work for the Watch.
The guy he had been spraying seemed to have accepted defeat and had run back to the house, and so Tex could focus on putting out those flames.
At that moment, Bill finally returned. He held up his phone. “Backup is on the way,” he announced.
He studied the fire. “If I were you, I’d spray the roof, Tex. You always spray the roof. Something I once heard a fireman say.”
And so Tex did as he was told. Bill was a cop, after all, so he probably knew what he was doing. Or good at telling other people to do.
At that moment, a loud roar sounded from the direction of the house, and as they both looked over, they saw that it was the BearCat. And it was bearing down on them!
“Vesta!” he yelled. “Did you leave the keys in the ignition?”
“I may have done,” said Vesta. “Why?”
“Because the maniac is here and he’s trying to run us over!”
“Oh, dear,” said Vesta. “Maybe you should run, Tex.”
He didn’t need the encouragement, and he was already running, and so was Bill.
As they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, the BearCat was quickly gaining on them, crashing through the neighbors’ hedges, then driving right across a nice collection of garden gnomes.
It made Tex’s garden-gnome-loving heart bleed to hear the sound of those plaster creatures being crushed by that huge military-grade vehicle.
“Vesta shouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition,” Bill said. “That was not a good idea!”
“Run, Bill, run!” said Tex in response.
Fortunately for them, this was a neighborhood with plenty of houses, and since the BearCat couldn’t drive right through them, the moment they found a door that was unlocked and entered the place, they would be safe.
Problem was that no house they passed was unlocked!
And so they kept running, through backyard after backyard, with the huge vehicle on a demolition course behind them.
Hedge after hedge and fence after fence was being demolished, and Tex wondered when this jog from hell would finally be over.
“Over there!” Bill yelled when they caught sight of what looked like a pool. It was one of those attractive, softly lit backyard pools that had become increasingly popular as summers grew hotter and longer and people looked for a pleasant way to cool off.
And so they both jumped into the pool, with Tex holding his nose.
As they went down and before long touched the bottom of the pool, Tex pushed himself off, and as he reached the surface, he saw to his horror that the BearCat had paused, its lights blinding him, the engine roaring menacingly.
And then… it drove forward and dove straight into the same pool!
“This man really is nuts,” said Bill, who had also surfaced right next to Tex.
And since the last thing they needed was to get crushed by this huge machine, they crawled out of the pool while the BearCat crashed into it, water splashing as the heavy tank-like vehicle hit the water.
“We’d better get back to Vesta and the others,” said Tex. “Before they burn alive.”
It was ironic, he thought as they made their way back to the original garden they had escaped from, that Vesta would be on fire while they were soaking wet.
As they arrived, they saw that not only had backup arrived, but also that the Watch members had managed to extricate themselves from their harrowing position and had managed to leave the burning structure.
Fortunately for them, the work that Tex had done had borne fruit, and the flames had been extinguished sufficiently for the garden house to still be standing.
“Bill!” said one of the officer’s colleagues. “You’re wet!”
“Yeah, I fell into a pool,” said the police officer. Then he grimaced. “But you should see the other guy.”
Tex hurried over to his mother-in-law. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Vesta. She studied him for a moment. “What happened to you? You’re soaking wet.”
“Bill and I jumped into a pool to get rid of that maniac,” he said. Then he remembered that he had some more bad news to share. “Remember that BearCat of yours?”
Vesta gave him a look of concern. “Something happened to my BearCat?”
“I’m afraid so. The bad guy took it.”
“Yeah, I saw that. He didn’t crash it, did he?”
“No, but he managed to drive it into a pool; the same pool Bill and I jumped into.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Gran. “I’m sure a BearCat is an amphibious vehicle.” But when Tex shook his head, that look of intense concern was back. “It isn’t? You mean…”
“I’m afraid it’s probably a total loss, Ma,” said Tex, not happy that he was the one who had to break the bad news to her. He knew how much she loved that car of hers.
“Oh, no!” said Vesta, holding on to the sides of her face.
She turned to Scarlett. “Looks like we’re out of a vehicle for the Watch again, honey.
Zeke has managed to destroy it.” She then shouted to some of the firemen who were busy dousing the last of the flames.
“Be careful. That garden house is full of explosives: grenades, TNT, and plenty of ammo.”
“My God,” said Tex. “If that thing had exploded?—”
“It would have been the end of the Watch.”
“—it would have been the end of the neighborhood.”
“That, too,” Vesta admitted. Then she clapped him on the back and smiled. “But good news, Tex.”
“Good news? What good news?”
“Your daughter will probably fall out of love with this maniac pretty quickly now that he’s just tried to blow up his entire neighborhood.”
“Odelia was in love with that guy?”
“Sure she was. But now she isn’t. Not anymore. By the way, how did you manage to get here so fast?”
“That is a long story,” he said as they started to walk away. “And it’s connected with the Germinator.”