“Be advised, Blowfish,” Ted yelled into the radio mike. “Zone is hot. Repeat, zone is hot.”

“We see your smoke,” came the voice of Blowfish through the static. “We’re inbound now. Be prepared to board.”

A helicopter, thought Mortimer. Holy crap, the old wizard arranged a chopper. Mortimer could hear something coming, the high-pitched buzz of some engine. It was coming.

“Time to go,” Mortimer shouted.

Sheila coughed, wiped her red eyes. “You think?”

“I’m ready,” Bill said.

The flames licked higher, but the doorway was still clear. Mortimer emptied the machine pistols to clear the way, then slapped in the last two magazines.

“Now!”

They climbed over the counter, shrinking from the flames, snot running, eyes watering. They hit the door, out into the open. The cool air hit Mortimer, clean and fresh. He filled his lungs but didn’t have time to enjoy it. Crossbow bolts flew past his head. He blasted back at the Goats with the machine pistols, sent them scurrying for cover. They popped their heads up again, yelled obscenities, and Mortimer emptied the MAC-10s. He dropped the spent weapons clattering on the stone ground.

“There it is!” cried Ted. He pointed into the sky behind them. “Blowfish! Blowfish!”

Mortimer turned to look at the helicopter.

It wasn’t a helicopter.

The blimp floated through the smoke of the burning snack bar. Filling the sky suddenly, the hornet buzz of its tiny motor and rear propeller was a bizarre contrast to its silent, looming mass. One would almost be tempted to call it majestic.

And one would be mistaken.

The aircraft had probably been used for advertising, providing aerial coverage for golf tournaments and college football games. It was a ragged affair now, patched with mismatched material, netting thrown over the whole thing to help attach the thick ropes that held the open-air gondola underneath, sandbags hanging over the sides.

As crossbow bolts bounced off the stone around his ankles, Mortimer’s disappointment at seeing the inflated monstrosity instead of a rescue chopper was the most profound of his life.

“You must be fucking kidding me.”

The blimp lumbered and bobbed, its descent excruciatingly slow. Figures appeared in the gondola. A top hat and a very long white scarf caught Mortimer’s attention. More lunatics. The blimp passed over them.

And kept going.

Ted jumped into the air, waved his arms. “Where you going? You’re overshooting. Dumb sons of bitches, you’re overshooting!”

The blimp listed, nose dipping as it sailed past, disappearing over the other side of the mountain, down into the tourist area of the park.

Mortimer grabbed Ted by the elbow. “Is it coming back for us?”

Ted jerked his arm away. “It ain’t a goddamn sports car. Blowfish is awkward. A steamship could turn around faster.”

“Decide fast,” Bill said. “We got company.”

The remaining Stone Mountain Goats had worked themselves into a frenzy, jumping up and down, brandishing weapons, grunting like apes. Probably just snorted a few more lines of courage. The Goats must have used up the crossbow bolts, because no more flew. The Goat leader howled bloody murder, and the mob charged.

“Follow me if you want to get off this rock alive.” Ted ran across the stone surface of the mountain toward some kind of small installation two hundred yards away.

Mortimer, Sheila and Bill followed immediately. Mortimer pulled the.45 from his shoulder holster, racked it and thumbed off the safety. Soon Ted had pulled ahead of them, and Mortimer’s breath came short again. The Goats were gaining.

“Drop the backpacks,” Mortimer shouted.

They dropped the gear and picked up speed. Mortimer turned slightly, fired behind him with the.45 without aiming.

Thirty yards out, Mortimer saw they were heading for a Swiss cable car system, a tourist ride, similar to the sky buckets back at Lookout Mountain but with a much larger enclosed gondola. The cable ran down to the tourist area at a steep angle. Ted flung open the door to the cable car and climbed in, turned and waved them on. “Hurry!”

They rushed into the cable car. Mortimer was the last in, turned and emptied the.45 at the oncoming Goats. Two clutched their guts and pitched forward. The rest kept charging, bellowing their rage.

“Does this thing even have power?”

“Nope,” Ted said. “But gravity still works.”

Ted grabbed a sledgehammer from a hook on the interior of the cable car, swung it sideways at a pin in the floor keeping a loop of cable in place. He knocked the pin out, and the cable flew out through the floor like a kid sucking up a strand of spaghetti. The car shook, slid down the cable, picking up speed.

Mortimer looked back through the open door. The Goats stood on the edge of the mountain, shaking fists and screeching incomprehensible curses. They dwindled rapidly behind as the cable car flew faster.

And faster.

“Brace yourself, kids,” Ted said. “This E-ticket ride is gonna go splat.”

Nobody enjoyed the crash.

XLII

When Mortimer had been in the insurance business, he hadn’t sold anything too glamorous. Residential, auto, the occasional policy on a bass boat. As he pushed himself up from the pile of bodies in the forward section of the cable car, he wondered how amusement parks and tourist attractions had ever been able to afford liability coverage. The premiums must have been murder.

In the last sixty feet of their lightning descent, Ted had thrown the hydraulic brake, had leaned his entire body weight into the lever. A clamp grabbed the cable above, sparks flew against the hideous screech of metal on metal. They slowed, but not enough. The cable car crashed into the station, pitching them all forward into one another. They stood up now, stretched and rubbed bruises.

“Everyone okay?” Mortimer asked.

Bill groaned, picked up his Union officer’s hat and snugged it on his head. “Nothing broken.”

“I’m fine,” Sheila said, but she rubbed her shoulder, winced.

“Old Ted has the hide of an armadillo, the bones of-”

“Don’t start,” snapped Mortimer.

They climbed out of the cable car and looked around. Mortimer reloaded the.45, ready to fend off another band of savages.

“There.” Sheila pointed.

Just past a budget motel, in the middle of the street, the Blowfish bobbed six feet over the asphalt, straining against a thick line tethered to a mailbox. A figure awkwardly lowered himself down a rope ladder, the man with the ridiculous scarf and top hat. He saw Mortimer and the rest, waved them on, frantic, harried.

“That’s Reverend Jake,” Ted said. “Come on.”

They ran to the blimp, and the man in the top hat-Reverend Jake-clapped Ted on the shoulder. “Thank Jehovah you’ve made it. Sorry to overshoot the landing zone.”

“Dumbass.” But Ted grabbed the reverend in a tight hug.

Jake looked past Ted at the others. “These are the ones Armageddon sent?”

“I’m Mortimer.” He introduced Bill and Sheila.

“Let’s get better acquainted in the air,” Jake advised. “We saw more Stone Mountain Goats and they have one of those big arrow shooters. Probably only a half-mile away by now, maybe closer, and coming fast.”

They all climbed the rope ladder, threw legs over the side of the heavy wicker gondola and dropped inside.

Another old man waited for them, wiry and short, barely over five feet. A full white Santa Claus beard and more white hair leaking from under a blue US Navy cap. He wore a leather bomber jacket and jeans and dirty deck shoes.

“This is Chief Larry,” Ted said. “Our intrepid pilot, sky master, he smells the ebb and flow of the air currents, knows the mind of the hummingbird-”

“We’re sinking.” Sheila had her hands on the rail, was looking over the side at the ground slowly coming up to get them.