You Win Some, You Lose Some

A tale of Psychobilly Rumble

Tuesday at the Cosmic Burger found Billy Rumble taking a break from his work to hang out and look for chicks.  He has just struck up a conversation with a particularly peachy doll that lived in Mockingbird Heights when his plans for the evening abruptly changed.

“What was that noise?” the doll said looking around the car park.

Billy pretended not to notice that his watch was buzzing.  “What noise?” he asked innocently.

“That buzzing noise,” she replied.  “It sounds like it’s coming from your watch.”

Billy whipped his left arm behind his back but the buzzing was only getting louder.  He laughed a nervous laugh and decided that this chick was too sharp to buy into his innocent bit, which meant that she probably wouldn’t buy his James Dean routine either.  Shame, he thought, she’s a looker and she has class.

“Look, Mary…”

“Marilyn,” she cut him off sharply.

“Marilyn.  Sorry, too soon to give you a pet name,” Billy laughed his nervous laugh again.  The glint in Marilyn’s eyes told him that she wasn’t buying any of this.  He had already stuck out.  Maybe the persistent buzzing of his watch was actually a blessing this time.  “As I was saying, Marilyn, I have to go.  It’s extremely important.  It’s my uncle.  I was supposed to help him move some, ah, furniture.  So, uhm, see ya later alligator.”

Billy crossed the parking lot and jumped into the front seat of his hot rod hearse.  He knew the buzzing of his watch meant that the Atomic Powered Hot Rod’s designer and his own mentor, Dr. J. Rikenstein was trying to contact him.  Billy opened the glove box and pressed a button hidden inside causing a portion of the dashboard to rotate exposing a complicated looking series of switches and lights, as well as a small view screen.  By flipping another series of switches the view screen was brought to life and Billy saw the face of his mentor staring at him in glorious black and white.

“I’m here, Doc, what’s buzzin’?”

“William,” Dr. Rikenstein spoke from the speaker next to the screen, “I have information of a grave nature.  I presume you are safely out of earshot of passersby.”

“I keep forgetting that you can’t see me,” Billy replied.  “We’re safe, this place is deadsville today.”

“Good.  William, we have reason to believe that a group of elite Nazi agents, left over form the war obviously, have a secret hide-out in the vicinity of the warehouse district.  I need for you to get down there and investigate.  Be careful; be vigilant.  It’s bad enough having to fight off the Commie Menace, but leftover Nazis as well, this is simply too much.  I’m sending the coordinates to you through the Radio-Telecom-Receiver/Transmitter.”

“Fear not, Big Daddy Frankenstein, I’m all over this.”

Billy flipped the switch to close the communication circuit and waited for the coordinates to print out.  Task accomplished, he flipped the dash configuration for drive, fired up the engine and tore ass out of the parking lot heading directly toward the warehouse district.

Billy drove madly through the city following the directions on his ticker sheet, finally pulling up in front of a building with windows boarded up and a painted sign declaring Fox Furs.  Odd, he thought, never seen the likes of this place before.  With no options presenting themselves save the obvious, Billy Rumble pulled the rod around the warehouse and into an alley.  He slipped out of the care and headed around the wall looking for a back door into the building.

A locked back door presented a new challenge, but Billy remedied the situation with the tire iron from his rod.  He slipped inside the darkened building and stumbled into something unseen.  “Psychobilly time,” he said quietly and focused his mental energies.  His eyes began to glow and the darkness gave way bringing the room into sharp focus in stark black and white.  He could feel his energies building up from inside himself, raising his core temperature in the process.

Billy threaded his way between crates and boxes, inspecting the warehouse.  No alarms, guard or Nazis in sight.  This whole situation was trouble, but not the kind that brings kicks. 

Eventually he found a door that looked suspiciously new; it simply did not belong in this dusty old warehouse.  He tried the doorknob and was not surprised to find it locked.  He considered breaking the door down or calling the whole thing a wash.  While he stood pondering his predicament, Billy heard a noise from behind.  He spun quickly and was immediately blinded by a flashlight’s glare.  He threw his hands up to shield his eyes from the light but it was unnecessary as a blow to the back of his skull sent him headlong into enveloping darkness a second later.

Billy awoke to find himself bound to a chair by ropes.  It was a good job; excellent knot work. 

“Thrills, I’ve been captured by the Boy Scouts,” Billy said aloud.

He was sitting in a pool of light cast by a single lamp hanging above him. 

“Nein, Herr Rumble,” a woman’s voice said from the darkness, “not der Boy Scouts, but captured just as vell.”

Billy strained to try and see the owner of the German accent hiding in the darkness.

“Who are you? Show yourself.”

A cloaked and hooded figure walked forward into the perimeter of the lamp’s light.

“Welkommen, Herr Rumble, to our lair,” the hooded figure said.

“Our?” Billy replied.  “Sister, I don’t see anybody but you.  If you know who I am then you know you are outclassed and effectively out numbered, so unless you are cruising for a knuckle sandwich you should just give up now.”  Billy began to focus his internal energies, building toward full power.  Already his skeleton was beginning to glow with atomic might.  The hooded figure barked an order in German and Billy saw five more hooded, cloaked figures appear in the light.  With another word of command all six figures threw off their cloaks to reveal female forms.  Voluptuous female forms clad in leather bustier and thigh high leather boots.  Each wore a choker about her neck clasped with a swastika.  Billy took a quick inventory of the lascivious buffet before him and forgot about what he had been doing only moments before.

The first woman, taller than the rest with raven colored hair and dark eyes, strode forward and straddled Billy’s lap.  She brandished a rider’s crop in her left hand used it to poke his chest fiercely. 

“Ve are Der Fuhrer’s Nympho Nazi Vixen Sqvad,” she said, the words falling out of her red lips, “und ju are our prisoner.”

“No shit?” Billy replied.

Two days later Billy Rumble sat in the office of Dr. Rikenstein, exhausted and made his report. 

“So,” Dr, Rikenstein said after hearing the tale, “you found the enemy and engaged them.”  He puffed on his pipe thoughtfully.

“Yep,” Billy pulled a Lucky from his pack and lit it from the doctor’s desktop lighter.

“And you let them escape?”

“Eventually.”

“How?” the doctor nearly bellowed, his face growing red in the process.

“Cool out, Big Daddy, don’t flip on me.”

“But you had them, William and they got away…to threaten our precious freedom!”

Billy just smiled and took a drag on his smoke.  “Hey, Doc, you win some, you lose some, dig?”

The End.