Re-Deanimator, Part 6: They Shoot GMC's, Don't They?? By David N. Brown Mesa Arizona

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/6/Meg-And-Greg

Carlos strode into the garage. George walked alongside him, while Laramie and Phil followed at a few paces. The professor stooped to pick up the .45 handgun and a loose clip that had belonged to the flattened former police officer, stowing it in a loop in his belt, and inspected the vehicle on the lift. A quick appraisal confirmed that it was a Dodge one-ton 4WD Power Wagon, with the oversized wheels and beefed-up suspension of a custom off-road rig and a crew cab that was not standard for the model. The grill marked it as a '61, having an iconic early-sixties shape vaguely like the face of a longhorn bull and a mesh pattern throughout that was retired after a single year. The stakebed rear and a railroad tie bumper added a touch of redneck engineering. "It's one of a kind, far as we can tell," Phil said. "The engine under the hood is a diesel. The guy gave it to us to have an electric transmission installed, like yours. I heard he was a regular customer back in old Pete's days, maybe a friend. Except, I got the feeling old Pete didn't like him... maybe got scared of him, by the end."

"One of a kind," Carlos said. "...We'll take it anyway."
He strode out the back, into the rear lot. There were a dozen cars in view. The lot ended at a line of outbuildings and a wooden fence that clearly enclosed a much larger junk yard. At least a score of trailers and motor homes poked above the fence right at the front, in addition to the edge of a gabled roof that was presumably Pete's place. Ranks and files of many more tall trailers and vehicles receded into the distance, and who knew what entirely out of view.

Carlos looked over the cars first, twirling his hammer thoughtfully. His eyes lit on a VW Bus crewcab pickup, which had the V-shaped front and split windshield of the original line. "We want that," he said. His eyes turned next to a van of similar vintage which was fairly generic except for the grill that marked it as a Jeep. "Damn. The FC passenger van variant. We spent years lookin' for one of these."

"Ah... we got it running well enough, but the engine's a bit off," Phil said. "Rattles, squeals, you know..."
Carlos ignored him, sizing up a tiny Subaru that looked more like a golf cart. "We'll take that one, too."
"But, ah, that's the 360, ah, sir. It received one of the worst ratings ever for safety in a collision..." Carlos gave him a cool glance, and he fell silent. Carlos went down the line, and stopped at a GMC pickup, slapping the hammer against the palm of his hands. "Well, sit, now that is a fine vehicle. I notice you already have a GMC van, so I'm sure you already know, they're among the best..." Only then did he see the coldness ell, the engines can be a bit labor intensive. And they can get rusty, though it's not a problem in this climate. But rest assured, nothing on the road is more durable than a GMC, especially the..."

Carlos took several long paces back and drew the .45 from his belt. Four out of seven shots perforated the hood, with the others hitting the windshield, an unsuspecting trailer and the sky. He loaded the other clip and and an extra cartridge, pointed the gun sideways at a headlamp and fired eight shots in rabid succession before the gun clicked empty. The bullets fell in a wide but level grouping that took out the right blinker, the left headlamp, and the "M" in GMC. He put the pistol back, took a few more paces, and drew the 20-gauge. The first two blasts sprang the latch of the hood and made a geyser out of the radiator. He unfolded the stock and blew out the front tires, and then shot off the driver's side mirror for good measure. Then he stowed his weapon and closed in with the hammer.

The first swing put the blunt end of the head straight through the windshield. Carlos yanked it back out and struck again with the point, gouging sideways through the fractured safety glass. After three more blows, the windshield was as broken and crumpled as a peeled egg shell. He smashed the remaining windows, and turned his attention to the remaining headlamp. One phenomenal blow drove the point of the hammer all the way through the reflector. A wrenching, crunching twist and a hard tug wrenched the entire headlamp out like a gouged eyeball, complete with wires that held it dangling at the level of the bumper. Two more blows did not so much knock the headlamp loose as completely pulverize it. Finally, Carlos wrenched a hubcap off one of the front wheels and heaved it skyward. At the peak of its trajectory, he drew his 12-gauge and let fly with both barrels, missing completely.

"Looks like you're losing your touch," Laramie said.
"Start runnin', and we'll test the hypothesis," Carlos answered with a grin. He turned to Phil. "For the record... I love a good Jeep, and I'd stake my life on a four-by-four Dodge. VW's pretty good, and Ford isn't bad. I'll even give a Chevy a chance. But I hate GMC's."

Sure enough, there were two Dodge Travco motor homes just inside the gate, both definitely late-'60s vintage. Though it was Winnebago that had put the RV on the map of commerce and popular consciousness in the late 1960s, mass-produced Travco motorhomes had hit the market about five years earlier, and the line had remained successful until higher powers at Chrysler shut the division down. Early in the history of the enterprise, Travco had introduced a major innovation that set their product apart from the motley and costly one-off truck conversions that had been available before that time, and still made them instantly recognizable: The resources of the automotive giant had been put to work to produce purpose-built, ovoid fiberglass bodies, in lengths ranging from 21 to a tremendous 32 feet, almost always white and usually with a broad, straight stripe from the headlamps to the tail lights. Many compared it to a "Silly Putty" container; Carlos would have compared it to a submarine. The red-striped 32-footer before him, however, called to mind a beached whale. "Ah, bloody 'ell," he said, his shoulders sagging, "even a GMC deserves better'n that..."

"And we thought Flipper was bad," Carradine added. Though the rear of the body extended well past the rear wheels, the front sagged so low that, if the bumper was not touching the ground, then the distance was indiscernible to the naked eye. The hull listed visibly to starboard as well. Clearly, the suspension was not simply overloaded, but in a state of collapse. The rest did not look much better. Despite the dry climate, rust was rampant on the exposed metal parts, and even the plasticized body had conspicuous yellow and orange stains. The tires were bald, the windshield broken, but Carlos took an especially hard look at the fine cracks in the rubber lining of the window. He also sniffed at a distinctly foul smell.

"This is what I've been telling you about," he said to Carradine. "Check the window gaskets first. If they're in bad shape, chances are the hoses inside will be worse. You know what happens if they go bad: Water damage at least, maybe sewage contamination, and worst case scenario, propane or even petrol spills. I don't like that smell, neither. Normally, I could put it down to an overfull black water tank, but these things are supposed to burn fecal matter. Best guess, either the Destroilet backed up, or else there've been animals nesting in there... This thing's not just a wreck, we're lookin' at fire an' flat-out biohazard. We don't even go in there if we don't have to."

The other specimen certainly looked more promising. It was only 21 feet, but in every other respect it would have presented itself as a superior specimen even if both had been like new. The wheels and suspension were not only in good condition but better than factory standard. The body was all but Teutonic in its straight and level pose, with just enough wear and weathering to confirm that the vehicle had spent the better part of its years in regular use rather than taking up space with other trophies of someone's midlife crisis. Carlos took an especially long look at the wheels. "I wouldn't swear to it," he said, "but this sure looks like a four-wheel-drive rig."

A quick examination of the cab, with assistance from Phil, confirmed it. Laramie came forward from the rear with a smile. "Doc, you wouldn't believe how sweet this is," he said. "They got a full-size fridge, heating and AC, and what we're pretty sure is a filtration system."
"Perfect," said Carlos. "The only thing left to check is the propane tank..." He hurried outside, leaving the others to continue admiring the interior. After a few minutes, Dr. Carradine came out to investigate the long silence.
Carlos had opened an access panel that covered a propane tank. He was still standing, staring as if in horror that battled sheer incredulity. Carradine looked over his shoulder with definite concern. Laramie and Phil followed to see what was the matter. They saw a propane tank, in good condition, hooked in to the RV's systems with a hose... a garden hose. Not to mention generous applications of duct tape, some of which had been applied to the middle of the hose. "Well," Laramie said, "at least they patched the hose."

"Twice," Phil added. "Ah... at least."
They turned aside, grimly. "All right, we have a great rig, with one flaw," Carradine said. "We can fix it. Put in a new hose, hell, a whole new tank. We've done it with worse."

"Sure we've done it," Carlos said. "Enough to know it's never `just one thing'. By now, we might as well do a chart, like the kids did for the stupid things the stupid people do in those stupid old monster movies. We find a rig that looks great, except one thing that somebody let by with a subpar patch. So we fix it, and drive off. Only after a few weeks, or days, or hours on the road, something else turns up, the kind of thing even a good crew could miss it. So we fix that, only it's more work, we have to tear things up a bit, and while we're at it we find something else and fix that. And then, if it didn't happen already, the first fix we did goes wrong, and when we redo it we figure out it was worse than we thought, and like as not we actually made it worse. And we can repeat with variations until something finally gets bad enough that we have to tear down to the chassis just to get at it, which is right about the time we find the big problem that makes everything else look like termites on a sinking ship. O' course, then there was the time we actually had termites..."

Even as he spoke, he was clearly trying to convince himself as much as the others. "C'mon, we've seen the same thing with rigs that looked better'n this! For cryin' out loud, the last owner thought it was a good idea to replace a propane line with a garden hose and duck tape!"
"All right, what's the alternative?" Carradine asked, not quite rhetorically. "Nothing's perfect. What else can we do, besides leaving it here to rust?"

"Easy," said Laramie. "We tear it apart. We put those shocks in Flipper, and the water filter wherever we can fit it, use anything else we can, and if there's any left over we're sure will work, we take it for later."
Carlos shook his head. "We've tried that, too. Swapped-out parts never work as well. And putting those shocks in Flipper is like headlining Richard Kiley in the Podunk Community Theater production o' Oklahoma. The real problem with Flipper is that we put it together without a clue what we were doing, and we got too invested in it to admit it was time to give up. Sure, the suspension was junk, but we all know, even shocks as good as those would go just as bad, an' sooner than later. No matter what we do, assumin' nothing else goes first, it's gonna end up..." He jerked a thumb at the 32-foot write-off.

"Yeah, but as long as we keep it going, we save on gas," Laramie said. "Or we would if we didn't keep Monstro around."
"If we could get that running," Carradine said, pointing to the four-wheel RV, "it wouldn't use any more gas than Monstro."

"A bonfire wouldn't use up gas much faster'n Monstro," Carlos snapped back. He pondered. "All right... We give this thing a shot, after we take out this whole atrocity and patch a new tank in proper. An' if this rig even starts to give us trouble, then we take it apart and use whatever we can for Flipper."
"Okay," Laramie said indifferently. Carlos couldn't hide a flinch at the sound as his student lit another cigarette.

Re-Deanimator Part 5: Davey the Goliath by David N. Brown Mesa Arizona

Previously published at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8899597/5/Meg-And-Greg

“Roighta,” Carlos said as the new arrivals fanned out, “time to get you what you need. Laramie, get me a first aid kit!” The shirtless young man strode over, while Carlos sat Meg down on the hood of the police car. Laramie stood by, looking non-chalantly masculine as he lit up a cigarette. Meg noticed that the brand was “Laramie”.

Phil looked over his shoulder. “Hey... Hey, she's bit! She's gonna turn into one of them!”

“Don't be stupid,” Carlos said, firmly enough for the mechanic to fall silent. “I won't pretend it ain't bad, but we can take care of it, an' it's not too late...”

“You mean they found a cure?” Phil said anxiously. “What is it?”

“Penicillin! What'd'ya think?” He pulled out a bottle from the kit and poured it on, then a little more after further cleansing. Soon, he had Meg bandaged up. “George, this place is secure as it gets. Send the signal for the others to come forward. Give 'er a spare bottle.” The bald man handed over one of two refillable water bottles at his waist before returning to the van.

“Drink up, and come with me, long as you can,” Carlos told Meg. “You too, Phil. What'd you do here, anyway?”

“I was junior assistant, pretty much,” Phil said as they walked back to the garage. “Pete was in charge, but he left most of it to Art, and he left most of the real work to Dwayne, so he took it out on Dwayne and Jonny took it out on me. Right before, they were all riding me about was busy about this crazy back order... Somebody wanted a part for this completely obscure European thing...”

“Cry me a river,” said Carlos. “I had an order that was supposed to be in. Think you'd know if it's in?”

Phil shrugged. “Shipping and receiving's Art's job, mostly,” he said. “That's what I kept telling Jonny, he's the one who should be looking for that part...”

“Screw it,” Carlos growled. “Where's the records?”

Meg's memory was jogged. “There was a clipboard... Over there!” She pointed where it had fallen off the wall.

“So anyway, let me tell you about this order,” Phil said to Meg. “It's a transmission part, basically, 'cept it was kinda part of the steering too, 'cause the vehicle had front wheel drive. I didn't completely understand it myself, and they told me don't worry about it, just find the part. Only, the vehicle's, like, 30 years old, an' it turns out, the whole company went under more than 20 years ago. Obviously, whatever this piece o' crap is, it should have been junked years ago, but Jonny tells me, it's not our job to tell the customers what to do. So anyway, what we finally find out is that the only place in a thousand miles that has this part is in...”

“Moab??” Carlos roared explosively. He advanced on Phil, thrusting the clipboard in his face. “The part's in Moab??!!”

“Oh my god,” Phil said. “That's- it's- you're the guy with the Goliath?”

“Borgward Goliath Express 1100,” Carlos said. “And you're gonna get real familiar with it!”

The front parking lot was filling up. The strange van had pulled up behind the Beetle, and the police car was being driven off to one side to make room for more. A VW Thing pulled in, drawing a distinctly ghoulish trailer made from the front of a Beetle, followed by a Bus, a Rabbit pickup and a gray GMC van. Styling indicated that the Bus was at least five years older than the GMC, but the former was clearly in better shape by far. Pulling up the rear were a yellow Jeep Wagoneer with a geometric Indian-blanket pattern for trim and a vaguely whale-like white camper van.

Meg paused for a closer look at the van's smiley face, which bore the name “GOLIATH” in metal letters between the headlights and a semicircular plate with the legend “Express 1100” in a forlornly exciting lightning-bolt font. The lower body bulged outward, while the upper part tapered rather precipitously beneath the overhanging shell. The upper body was painted a peachy hue like desert sand, a middle section between the windshield and a line of trim over the headlights and grill was an earthy shade of yellow, and the lower part was a deep mustard gold.

“That's one weird roof extension,” Phil said, examining the orange shell that protruded over the upper body. “It almost looks like an upside-down boat.”

“Yeah, that is weird,” Carlos said. “It's a boat. Ah, and it's backwards, too.” Meg took a closer look, openly incredulous, but there could be no mistake. Even the oddities of its shape made sudden sense. It was a tub-like affair, with a scalloped bow and boxy stern that were not unlike a popsicle. The stepped sides that handily held tools and gear were gunwales and oarlocks, and a shelf-like projection that shaded the windshield was just right for a place to mount an engine.

“So what, somebody built a boat to fit on the roof?” Meg asked.

“Nay, the boat was probably built first, leastways the shell,” Carlos said as he stepped inside. “And it's not on the roof. F'r all intents and purposes, it is the roof.” It was easy to see what he meant. The inside had been reconfigured like a camper, with a counter and cabinets behind the cab and a three-seat dinette and couch set against the walls to the rear. The arrangement left an open passage where most of the original ceiling had been turned into an oversized sunroof. Benches on either side of the inverted boat were being used for overhead shelving and a bunk. Carlos opened a cabinet in the right rear corner and took out a well-worn and moderately stuffed binder. He sat down at a dinette seat whose back abutted the cabinet, and Phil sat across from him in a wider seat which faced sideways directly across from the left passenger door. Meg sat down at the far end of the couch, which was shaped to fill the space between the side doors and the left corner.

“I'm going to tell you a bit about myself, and the people with me,” Carlos said. “Then I'm going to tell you a story. As you might guess, I'm a geologist, and I'm from Australia. I also served two tours in your last war, an' you know how that turned out. After that, I got my doctorate, came over here, and got a job as a professor. When all this started, Dr. Carradine- that's George- and I were taking twenty-some students out on a field trip. I heard about it sooner than most, an' I knew quite a bit already. So, we rounded up some extra people and a bit more gear, quiet-like, an' made it a long trip.”

Meg curled up on the couch, idly listening as Carlos continued, “Our school's middlin', size-ways, but we make up for it a bit in reputation. We do mining and engineering, an' we do good work in applied research. Enough of the right people know it that sometimes, we get funding for a project that normally would be corporate or gov'ment. About ten years ago, we got one that was bigger than most. Not my department, literally, but the way I hear, it was major money, at least for a uni grant, and nobody really knew where it was coming from. The assignment was to test new automotive technologies in existing vehicles... technologies that could reduce the need for petroleum.

“However much money there was, wherever it came from, it sure didn't go into quality vehicles. Some were donated by students and faculty. The rest were all straight from the junkyards. There were four vehicles, that I know about, that succeeded and survived. There's Moby Ralph out there: It's an Ultra Van, a line of campers based on the Corvair. Good for 20 mpg, most fuel-efficient motorhome on the road till the bloody hippies killed it. The designers tried using the rear engine to heat the cabin, and the tech boys did one better and set it up for thermoelectric power generation. That pickup, we call it Thumper, came later, but it has the same modifications the team performed to make a 3-door diesel hatchback run off biofuel, which is kitchen grease. The original was Peter Rabbit; you'll see it, and others later.

“And, of course, we have this: Davey the Goliath. The mark was pretty big in Australia when it was a going concern; I buy one, and take it over here, right hand drive an' all. It's good for walkabouts, and I take it on field trips now an' then, till the engine gives out. Right about then the call goes out, and when I talk to the tech boys about my troubles, they get real interested. Something about troubles fitting their engine in vehicles of the right power an' weight class, whereas the Goliath's built for an engine that's wider than most. Problem solved. I give them my van, and they agree that if it takes, they'll give it back to me. 'Bout a year and a half goes by, suddenly there's a big uproar over the project, something to do with where the money came from, or the results, or both. Everything's shut down, sudden, an' more'n a few people get canned. I get a call from one of them, sayin' to come and pick up my van, an' bring a few friends.

“I come, with Dr. Carradine, my grad student named Becky, a pipsqueak freshman who goes by Laramie, an' a friend of mine named Ted, who brings his lady friend Dianna. She's got 'is ring, but they don't really talk about where they're at, and quite a few people are keeping an eye on her waistline. We come out to a spot in the boonies that turns out to be a wrecking yard. There's at least fifty cars there, done out all kinds of ways. A lot of them look wrecked for real, but at least a dozen look more'n fit to run. The guy's waiting beside the Goliath, done up like this, and gives me the keys. Then he tells everyone else that they can take any car they like, and he will sign the title.

“Long story short, Dianna and Ted take Moby for a honeymoon lodge, Becky takes Peter, George picks a giant home-built motor home we call Monstro, and Laramie makes off with an old bus some crazy 'ippie turned into an RV. The next day, the guy's gone for good, completely drops off the map, and within a week, every vehicle in that yard is so much scrap. Within a year, more'n half the faculty involved aren't just out of the university, but no longer doing any significant work in their fields. We know that a few ended up dead. But there's a few left who give us help later.”

“Most of the stuff the guys did was conceptually advanced, but off-the-shelf as far as technology and materials. That's probably how they got away with handing so much of their stuff over to us; nothing the sponsors could claim as proprietary. It also allowed us to replicate a lot of their work with other vehicles, like Thumper. In fact, we built ourselves a little fleet of Rabbits, and customized a couple RVs. We couldn't always do it as well, though. Peter, for example, can burn propane. We junked a Rabbit trying to replicate it, but we did it with the diesel on a Dodge Travco we call Flipper. We put in an hybrid electric transmission, copy of something the tech boys put in Monstro. Only there were some problems we couldn't fix in the suspension, there when we got it from what we know now, but our hot rod job prob'ly made things worse. So, long story short, when it's rollin', the 'ole bloody thing goes up an' down like Flipper... But this, this is a whole other can o' worms.” He led Phil outside to the cab. Meg stretched out on the couch. At a firm push, an arm rest swung down, giving her room to stretch her legs.

The driver and passenger seats were a single piece, though the seat cushion was divided in two unequal parts. Carlos yanked back the larger cushion that covered the passenger seat and a central hump that split the cab. Beneath it was a cover for the engine compartment, clearly newer than the rest, with a hinge for convenient raising. Carlos opened it. Where the various parts of the engine would have been, there was something like an oversized film can, completely sealed against tampering or inspection.

Phil nodded. “I think I heard about something like this... It was supposed to be strictly theoretical. A rotary engine without moving parts, able to run on a range of fuels...”

Carlos nodded and chuckled. “Try anything remotely resemblin' fuel. Most of that binder is a record of testing what crazy crap this thing couldn't burn. Which wasn't much. Mileage isn't great, horsepower's downright weak... but it will run on most anything. Petrol. Diesel. Propane. Ethanol. Bloody alcoholic beverages.”

He slammed the hatch and jammed the cushion into place. “You call this thing a piecea crap, I won't argue. It means something to me, but I'd junk it in a second. But this engine is priceless. As long as it keeps running, I can make it anywhere. As long as the bloody transmission don't tear itself apart before we replace the one gear that's wearing out. And you're gonna do your bloody best to keep it from happenin'. Not because I'm gonna bust your arse if ya don't, but because there's things behind us that aren't gonna stay where we been. An' you don't wanna be there when it all catches up.”

“Hey doc!” Laramie called. “We searched the station, and we're ready to check out back. It looks like some nice stuff. I saw a couple Travcos...”

“We want 'em,” Carlos said. “At least one. We want it if we have to tow it away.”

Laramie smiled. “Can't resist two of something...”

Carlos grinned back. “If it's up to me, I get two of everything. Go check out the back. Take this guy with you. Stay business-like. Anyone who isn't part of the search is on duty for pumping gas. Check out that Dodge, too. If it can roll, it goes with us. And if people start running out of things to do, it's time to get ready to move on.”

Laramie turned aside, swung open the doors, and paused. The extended couch was blocking half the doorway. It was filled quite comfortably by Meg, who was sound asleep.

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