I tumbled backwards, breaking my fall with my elbows. I'd never ridden in a semi truck before, so I didn't know for sure, but I assumed they'd be able to feel a limousine ramming into their back.

I glanced back at Helen. She looked apologetic.

The semi didn't seem to be slowing down or swerving or anything, so I got back into my jumping position. If they knew we were back here, it was more crucial than ever that I get Roger and Samantha to safety as quickly as possible.

Helen brought me closer to the rear of the semi again. I took a deep breath, imagined myself as Indiana Jones or James Bond or even a Buster Keaton instead of the Stan Laurel that I really was, and made the leap.

Chapter Twenty-Three

MAKING THE JUMP onto the semi was surprisingly easy. Almost too eas y, making me think that perhaps the back half of the semi was going to topple over and crush me.

Now, the big question was, if I were a hostage in this semi truck, where would I be? If Roger and Samantha were up front, that was going to force me to climb up onto the semi's roof, crawl to the front, and do some sort of daring maneuver to get into the front seat, after which I'd probably get shot. Hopefully they weren't up front.

I'd check the back first. It was closer.

We sped past a faded wooden sign reading " Wreitzer Park." Though I only got a glance, I had to admit the place looked pretty nice. Savage killers notwithstanding, Samantha had made a good choice.

I crouched down, not having much room to crouch, and grabbed the handle that unlatched the sliding rear door.

It wouldn't budge. I pulled as hard as I could, but the handle held firm. I noticed a keyhole in the lower corner of the door. Damn.

Helen had fallen back, so I waved for her to drive closer again, and then motioned for her to roll down her window. "I need the keys!" I shouted.

Helen stuck her head out the window. "What?"

"Keys!" I made a key-turning-in-a-lock motion. "I need Medusa's keys!"

I wasn't sure if Helen knew who Medusa was, but she nodded her understanding and went to work, presumably detaching the limo key from the rest of the keys on the ring.

She held up the key ring. "Throw it!" I shouted, reaching out with one hand while holding on to the semi with the other.

Helen got as close to the semi as she could without ramming it again, and then tossed me the keys.

I caught them.

And they bounced out of my hand.

I lunged for them, momentarily losing sight of the fact that I was hanging off the back of a speeding semi truck, and fell forward. I caught the keys as I fell and both of my hands slammed onto the front hood of the limousine.

Now I was stuck between the two vehicles in a push-up position. Nice.

We hit a bump, and my feet slipped off the back of the semi. My shoes scraped the ground, and for a second I was terrified I was going to be pulled underneath the limo.

Helen slowed down.

My shoes scraped against the dirt road a few more times as I frantically struggled to climb onto the hood of the limo. With the keys in my right hand I couldn't get a solid grip, and my hand slid down the front hood, scraping the paint job along the way.

I let go of the keys and got a better grip. As the keys slid toward me, I slammed my face against the hood and caught them in my teeth.

I got my feet back safely on the hood and gave Helen a thumbs-up sign. She gave me an incredulous look.

She picked up speed again, and I did another leap onto the back of the semi. I bent down, took the key ring out of my mouth, and tested the first key of about fifteen.

Nope.

I tested the second key.

Nope.

I noticed she had a keychain depicting Medusa from Clash of the Titans. Cool.

The third key didn't work, either.

The semi took a sharp turn that forced me to grab hold with both hands, but I didn't drop the keys. The woods were thinning to my left, and I realized we were about to enter the freeway.

The semi picked up speed. I regained my balance and tried the fourth key. Nope.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh keys didn't work, either.

The eighth key slid in perfectly.

And broke off in the lock when I turned it.

The semi merged onto the freeway and picked up speed.

I tried to turn what was left of the key, but there was no way that was going to work with just my fingers. I needed pliers or tweezers or nail clippers.

Helen probably had nail clippers.

I motioned for her to drive up close again. I leapt back onto the front hood, ignoring the horrified expression of the elderly woman in a red Saturn next to us, and crawled up to the windshield.

"Fingernail clippers!" I shouted.

She picked up a red purse from the seat and tossed it into the back, saying something to Kyle I couldn't hear. I waited less-than-patiently for a few moments, and then Kyle passed something up to Helen. She reached out the window and handed the fingernail clippers to me.

I jumped back onto the semi, feeling like a professional at this point.

We had to be doing about seventy by now. If I lost my balance and fell off, I'd be a nice long smear across the pavement.

I opened the fingernail clippers, managed to get them around the broken key, and turned. The key began to turn… slowly… slowly…

Success!

I stuffed the fingernail clippers into my pocket in case I needed to clip somebody with them, and then pulled on the handle to release the sliding door latch. This time it moved.

I grabbed the handle on the door, strained for a few seconds, and then raised the door a couple of feet, hoping all of this hadn't been for nothing.

I pushed it up all the way and was met with a blast of freezing cold air. I looked inside.

Corpses galore.

There were dozens of them. Some were strapped to the walls of the semi, while others dangled from a huge contraption running along the center of the semi like clothing at a dry cleaners.

All of them were cyborgs. There were corpses with guns for hands, corpses with body armor, corpses with flashing lights on their bodies, corpses with robot heads, two corpses welded together like Siamese twins… a huge horrific variety.

Some of them seemed relatively fresh. Others were mostly rotted away.

Troll was running toward me.

I moved out of the way just in time, grabbing onto a cold and clammy dead arm to keep from falling out of the semi.

I ran past the dangling corpses toward the front of the vehicle, which was lit from above. At the far end, my heart leapt as I saw Roger and Samantha, seated side-by-side, strapped to their chairs, both of them alive!

Samantha's face looked unharmed, but her clothing was marked with spots of blood. Lots of them.

"How stupid are you?" Troll demanded from behind me. I spun around and saw him coming toward me with his trusty knife. "You could've been home free. Let me tell you, buddy, I spent some quality time with that bitch, and she's not worth saving."

I clenched my fists.

Troll rushed at me again. I pushed through a pair of dangling corpses into the aisle on the other side then looked around for something to use as a weapon.

Well, hell, there were plenty of possibilities.

But Troll found one first. He grabbed the wrist of one of the cyborgs and pointed it at me. I ducked back into the row of dangling corpses as a gunshot went off.

These corpses were loaded!

He fired again, hitting the arm of a corpse next to me and sending a squirt of what I assumed was formaldehyde into the air. I grabbed the closest corpse arm, but it was outfitted with a calculator that didn't look especially helpful.

I ran toward the rear of the vehicle. The limousine was no longer behind us.

I looked at a corpse strapped to the wall. Half of its face had been hollowed out and replaced with an abnormally large steel-toothed grin. Its eye sockets were empty. Its hand was a small cannon.