Season 1, Episode 9:
Wreckage in a Winter Wonderland
Part 4 of 6
Some twenty miles away, Nick and
For a few minutes, they walked in silence, cutting
through the trees. Then the forest
thinned, and they emerged in a clearing that looked out on a valley. Nick gazed down, scanning the area. Several steep hills and mountains with turns
and curves were laid out before them. He
could also see the tracks already set for the bobsled and skiing portions of
the tournament. Shelter was sparse, with
nowhere to really hide if the wind picked up.
What he wouldn’t give to be somewhere warm right now.
Sighing heavily, Nick turned a bit, looking further
out across the expanse, trying to look deeper into the woods on the other side,
which turned out to be impossible. If
anyone were to get lost out there, they would be really hard to find, Nick
realized. Even though there were
patches of open spots, the woods were thick.
If this went into the night, it’d be even harder to find Dr. Rough.
“Hey, hurry up, let’s keep going!”
Nick hurried to catch up with him, when suddenly
he saw something out the corner of his eye.
“Hey, did you see that?”
“See what?”
“That... something…”
Nick glared at him. “Never mind.
Keep going.”
As they walked, Nick looked around
cautiously. No way some weird thing was
gonna jump out and attack him. No animal
cared if the Olympics were going on; international cooperation did not extend
to wild animals.
Nick sighed heavily and was just starting to let
his guard down, when he saw it again. He
turned his head quickly and watched a blur of something huge and brown streak
by.
“There it is!
It’s Bigfoot! I just saw a fuckin’
Bigfoot man! Go tell someone!” Nick
exclaimed.
“I know what I just saw, and that was a Bigfoot!”
“Yeah, that’s what they said about aliens and
HimTak, and those are both real!”
Nick huffed and stomped after him, refusing to
speak until they made it to the top of the peak, at which point he was so
winded, he didn’t have the breath to, anyway.
As they stepped into an expansive clearing, the
“Finally,” grumbled
“I hear ya,” Nick muttered in agreement, panting.
As they trudged up to the building, Nick noticed
the first sign of life: a door opening
at the far side of the building’s façade.
His already fast-pumping heart began to race as he recognized the short
figure that emerged. He pointed wildly,
as Dr. Rough made his way out of the lodge.
“Look!
It’s him! Hurry, move!” Nick
yelled.
They started to run towards him, as, suddenly,
out of the same door came what looked like a huge Sasquatch.
Nick came wheeling to a stop, sending a shower of
snow flying up from the terrain. “Holy
shit, Dr. Rough is in cahoots with Bigfoot!
See, I told you they exist!”
“I don’t believe it… I just do not believe it,”
The two gained ground, making their way closer to
Dr. Rough, when, suddenly, Nick’s phone rang.
Nick blindly reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone and flipping
it open without looking at the ID.
“Not now!”
“Aww, is dat any way to greet your old friend,
Nick?” Drums chuckled.
“Drums, you bastard!”
“So quick wit da insults, and just when I gots a
special gift for you and your friends, too.”
Nick blinked.
“Gift?”
“Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s a bomb on a Zamboni. Once da Zamboni goes five miles an hour, the
bomb is armed. If da Zamboni drops below
five, it blows up. What do you do… What
do you do?”
Nick stared ahead blankly for a moment, looking
over at
“You…”
“Ah-ah-ah!
Careful wit da insults, Carter; I may start to take offense. If I were you, I’d be worried about dat bomb
going off. Dat little skater’s gotta be
done right about now – done or blown up, I should say – and da ice gonna need
cleanin’, eitha way. Tell dat wildcat
behind the wheel not to slow down, though, or there won’t be an ice rink left
to resurface! And Nick… don’t slip.”
The line went dead.
Nick flipped the phone closed. “Shitballs!”
“What?
What is it?”
“A bomb.
There’s a fuckin’ bomb on the Zamboni back at the Coliseum. It’s gonna explode if it goes below five
miles an hour!”
“Shit!”
Nick flipped the phone back open, pressing a
couple of buttons.
“Nick?”
Diamond sounded breathless. “She
did it, Nick; it’s okay! She did her
routine, and we got her off the ice safely.
We’re-”
“Diamond – Di, listen,” Nick said sharply,
stopping her in mid-sentence.
“What’s…?”
“A bomb – there’s a bomb on the Zamboni.”
“What?!
But… the Zamboni just drove onto the ice!”
“Shit. You
have to tell the driver: Five. Stay above five miles per hour, or it’ll
explode.”
“Fuck!”
“Be careful, Di,” Nick stated.
“No kidding.”
Diamond cursed and quickly hung up.
Nick shoved the phone back into his pocket as he
wound through the trees after
Nick squinted, his eyes widening when he realized
what he was looking at wasn’t really Bigfoot, but Drums – Drums, in a Sasquatch
costume, the head gone now. It was one
of the Olympic mascot suits, he realized – Quatchi, the Sasquatch one Lancy had
mentioned the other day. Nick frowned in
disgust. He couldn’t believe he’d
mistaken that thing for the real Bigfoot; it was too cutesy. Sure, it was brown and all, but that was where
the similarities ended. No Bigfoot would
be caught dead in blue earmuffs, and that smile – Bigfoot would’ve been
insulted.
“Hurry up; we’ve got to catch them!” Nick yelled.
“But how?
They’re on a damn bobsled,”
Nick scanned the area, his gaze stopping on a
lone bobsled. A grin spread over his
lips.
“Looks like we have our own ride. C’mon!” Nick called, and they both headed
over to the bobsled.
They pushed the sled a little ways before it
picked up speed. Then they both clamored
to get in, as it sped down the hill.
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“Fuck!”
Lancy looked over at Diamond, alarmed. His heart was still pitter-pattering
feverishly from the adrenaline rush Kim Yu-Na’s dynamite – yes, pun intended –
performance had given him. He didn’t
think he could take any more excitement, yet as she clutched her phone to her
ear, Diamond looked positively aghast.
“No kidding,” she muttered and snapped her phone
shut. “Fuck!” she hissed again.
“Darling, language! What now?”
She lowered her voice to a low murmur and said,
very rapidly, “That was Nick. The
Zamboni’s been rigged with a bomb. If it
drops below five, it’ll blow!”
“But… the Zamboni’s already on the ice!” cried
Lancy, pointing. The ice resurfacer was
currently rounding the far side of the rink.
“We’ve got to stop it – well, not stop it, but –
you know – disarm it!”
“Well, here it comes…” Lancy watched the Zamboni crawling along the
opposite wall, gaining speed as it navigated the long stretch of ice.
Diamond took a deep breath. “I’m on it.”
Lancy stared, startled, as she suddenly hurtled
over the wall of the rink and took off running across the ice. “Ohh girrrl, you should’ve worn flats!” he
gasped, cringing as he watched her high-heeled boots slipping and sliding
beneath her. He clamped his hands over
his face, peeking out through his fingers as he waited for the inevitable
wipeout.
He heard the crowd gasp along with him as, sure
enough, Diamond’s right food skidded out from under her. She twisted on her left heel with so much force,
it, too, slid off the ice, and for a moment, Diamond was spinning in
midair. “Oh no!” whimpered Lancy,
clawing at his face, but to his astonishment, she managed to land on her right
foot, her left leg flying out behind her.
“Wow,” came Yu-Na’s voice from behind him. “That was perfect double axel!”
“I know, right?!” squealed Lancy, clapping his
hands to his mouth in shock. “I never
knew she had it in her!” Suddenly, he
had an idea. “Give me your skates!”
Yu-Na’s porcelain face creased in confusion. “What?
My…?”
“Your skates, yes!” Lancy hissed
impatiently. “Give them to me!”
“O-okay…”
Yu-Na bent over to unlace her right skate. Lancy sank down and grabbed her left foot,
jerking it onto his knee while he tugged at the laces.
A minute later, he was flying across the ice
himself, the skates swinging dangerously from his hands. “Diamond!
Diiiii! Here! Take these!”
Diamond was still skidding across the ice, making
little ground as she struggled to catch up to the Zamboni. At the sound of Lancy’s shouts, she looked
back over her shoulder – and lost her balance completely. This time, there was no catching herself, as
her legs twisted around each other, and she fell hard on the ice.
“Ow!” she moaned, massaging her hip, as Lancy
slid down beside her.
“Put these on!” he cried breathlessly, thrusting
the skates toward her. Grunting in
discomfort, Diamond wrenched the boots off her feet and replaced them with
Yu-Na’s skates.
“What are these, kid sizes?” she protested, as
she forced her heels down into the narrow skates. “Why do Asians have such damned dainty
feet?!”
Lancy giggled.
“You’re no Cinderella, sweetie,” he quipped, “but they’ll do. Hurry and lace them up; we’ve got a Zamboni
to intercept!”
He helped Diamond tie the laces and then pulled
her to her feet, sliding a little himself.
“Much better,” said Diamond as she straightened up, sinking her blades
into the ice. “Hold on to my hips.”
“Nicky’ll be jealous,” tittered Lancy, as he
secured his hands around Diamond’s waist.
She skated forwards, quickly picking up speed, and Lancy slid along
behind her on the slick soles of his shiny, new Gucci shoes, holding on for
dear life.
As the Zamboni made its turn, rounding the curved
edge of the rink, Diamond shot across the ice to meet it. “Stop!” she cried to the driver, slapping the
side of the ice resurfacing machine.
“Stop this Zamboni! Stop!”
“Get off the ice; you ain’t no figure skater,”
scoffed the driver, speeding up.
“No!” shouted Diamond. Lancy took a faceful of ice shavings as she
ground her skates into the ice in her haste to catch up to him. He clung to her waist, towed helplessly
behind her as she skated after the Zamboni.
Finally, she reached out and found a place to grab on to the back, and
their two-link chain became three, as the Zamboni pulled them both. “Hey!” Diamond cried, as the driver looked
back, scowling. “There’s a bomb on your
Zamboni!”
“What?!” yelled the driver, over the roar of the
Zamboni’s engine.
“There’s a BOMB on your ZamBONI!”
When the driver still shook his head, pointing to
his ears, Diamond looked back at Lancy.
“Grab my phone, will you, out of my back pocket? I want you to text on it, ‘Bomb on Zamboni.’ Text it!
Text it! Text it!” she cried, as
Lancy fumbled for her phone, his other arm tightening around her waist.
If only I were straight, he couldn’t help but think, as his hand groped her firm
derriere. I’d enjoy this a whole lot
more, and Nicky’d really be jealous!
He slid the phone out of her snug back pocket and
started a new text message at once, his thumb moving furiously over the
keypad. Diamond let go of the back of
the Zamboni and skated furiously, whipping Lancy around the Zamboni and up
alongside it. With Diamond skating
parallel to the massive ice resurfacer, Lancy held Diamond’s phone out to the
driver. He took it, squinting down at
the text on the screen, and Lancy saw his eyes bug out of their sockets as he
read the words. His foot came off the
gas pedal, and Diamond shot past him as the Zamboni started to slow.
“No!” she screamed, whirling around, and Lancy
nearly went flying, just barely managing to cling to her waist. “No, don’t slow down! Speed up!” she cried, starting to skate ahead
of him again, motioning for him to follow.
She slowed down to allow the Zamboni to catch up to her and Lancy and
held up her hand, all five fingers extended.
“Five!” she called to the driver.
“Stay above five!”
This time, he understood. Nodding, he pushed down on the gas
pedal. The Zamboni continued at its
five-miles-per-hour crawl.
Diamond looked over her shoulder at Lancy. “I gotta get on that Zamboni…”
Lancy arched his perfectly-plucked brows. “You gotta get…? Yeah, yeah, you get on the Zamboni!”
Diamond glanced back at the Zamboni
operator. “Drive straight!” To Lancy, she said, “Let go.”
“What?!
Wait a minute… what are you-?”
“Let go!”
She reached back, took hold of both Lancy’s hands, and pried them off
her hips in one swift motion.
“Whoa! Whoooooa,
shit!” screamed Lancy, as his feet slid wildly under him on the ice. He tried to watch as Diamond skated closer to
the Zamboni. “Whoa, shit!” Diamond made a flying leap and landed half on
the Zamboni, her legs dragging on the ice, but watching this had cost Lancy
what little control he had left. “WHOOOA
SHIIIIIT!” he cried, as he skidded head-on into the wall of the rink.
Diamond pulled herself up onto the Zamboni,
perching next to the driver on top of the water tank. “Hi, I’m Desiree,” she smiled. “Don’t mind me; just keep driving and stay
above five, whatever it takes.” With
that, she whipped out her phone again and pushed a button. Almost instantly, she was connected with
“Hi Pearly, it’s me again. Sorry about being short with your
earlier. Listen, dunno if you’ve heard,
but that flipping sociopath midget rigged a bomb to the Zamboni here at the
figure skating arena. It’ll blow if it
goes under five miles an hour. I managed
to get on the Zamboni-”
“I know; I’m watching NBC.”
“-so I’m hoping you can help me diffuse it. Where do we start?”
“Check the speedometer,”
Diamond put her hand on the driver’s thigh,
nudging it aside. “Watch out, big
boy.” She ducked under his legs to
look. “No, it’s clean.”
The driver glanced down. “Huh?”
“Alright, then it’s gonna be under the
Zamboni. Probably was rigged to one of
the axles,”
Diamond clucked her tongue impatiently. “I can’t get under the Zamboni right now,
“Alright…”
Across the rink, Lancy pulled himself up
painfully from the ice, rubbing his tender backside. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” he lamented
pitifully. “My poor tush…”
“Lancy!”
He turned around; Diamond was on board the
Zamboni and circling towards him.
“What’s up, babe?” he shouted, as she grew near.
“I need you to find me a luge!”
“Find a what now?”
“A luge!
You know, like, one of those sled things that go down a track? I need something low to the ground, almost
flat – something that will sit right on the ice. Pretty please?” begged Diamond, batting her
eyelashes.
“You know that face would work much better if I
were straight,” huffed Lancy, half-limping, half-shuffling after the Zamboni to
keep up with her. “But I can never say
no to you, darling. I’ll see what I can
find, but you’re sooo gonna pay my chiropractor bills for this.”
“Eh, make K cover it – workman’s comp and
all. I’ll do better – a day at the spa,
just you and me!” trilled Diamond, as Lancy hobbled and skidded off the ice,
still massaging his tailbone.
“It’s a date!” Lancy called over his shoulder, as
he stepped gingerly out of the rink.
In the kiss and cry area, he looked around and
suddenly realized the bench he’d left Yu-Na sitting on was empty. “Ohmygod, Kimmy?” he gasped, fearing the
worst. “Oh pretty please, not
again… Kimmy?! KIMMY?!
NOOOOO!!!” He let out an
agonizing howl, dropping to his knees once more. “How could I let her out of my sight?! He’s taken her again! Come back, Kimmy, come back!!!”
His eyes flitted frantically in every direction,
until suddenly, he spotted movement in the tunnel at the end of the rink, where
the resurfacing machines came on and off the ice. This was not another Zamboni, though; it was
a mere shadow, disappearing into the hidden depths of the tunnel.
“KIMMY!
Don’t worry, Kimmy, I’ll save you!” cried Lancy, and he took off at a
trot, his hands flapping fretfully.
Around the perimeter of the rink, he pranced, and into the tunnel. He could hear footsteps pounding against the
concrete ahead of him, and he tried to pick up his pace, wishing he hadn’t
eaten the soft pretzel and snow cone that were now sloshing around in his
stomach. “Ugh! This is my cardio for the day!” he complained
to himself, feeling the perspiration clogging his pores.
As he rounded a curve, he caught sight of the
shadow turning the corner up ahead.
“FREEZE!” he ejaculated in the toughest badass voice he could muster,
plucking the pink silk carnation from his jacket. It looked like any other boutonniere, but it
was a trick flower, a secret weapon modified by
“Pop quiz, assface,” Lancy lisped saucily. “You’ve got a flower full of mace aimed at your
head. What do you do? What do you do?” He stepped around the corner, flower
first. In the eerie, fluorescent
lighting of the otherwise dark service corridor, he saw only a large-headed
silhouette at first. “Turn around!” he
demanded. “TURN AROUND!”
The shadowy figure turned slowly… and as Lancy’s
eyes adjusted to the light that fell upon it, his jaw dropped open.
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