Juggernaut Shreds Humans (p265-p268)

(Setting:  The Head Honcho, on board his campaign train called "The Juggernaut", rams through a crowd of protesters on the railroad tracks, killing hundreds). 

Suddenly, the caboose door swung open. But Sir! thrust his uninvited face into the Honcho's lair. Buxomus screamed as her delicate hands inadequately covered her corpulent breasts. The Honcho spun around angrily. He noticed Buxomus for the first time, tossed an afghan over her, and then confronted his intrusive aide. "What the fuck do you want? Can't you see that I'm busy?"

"But Sir!" squealed But Sir!. "Look outside! The tracks are lined with thousands of people who're preparing to lynch somebody. You're the guest of honor, judging from their banners."

The Honcho slammed his empty bottle down, rushed to a window, pulled aside the drapes, and saw the mob. The Juggernaut was moving too fast for him to read their signs, and he couldn’t hear their shouts. But he could see the contorted anger in the faces whizzing by his window, and the intent of their clenched fists was unmistakable. "It's a goddamn insurrection!" he cursed. He grabbed But Sir! by the shirtsleeve and rushed through crowded cars toward the lead engine of the Juggernaut to better assess his predicament. They brushed past astonished secret service agents. They flew by stunned spin doctors and policy wonks. They clambered over politically correct token minorities. When they finally arrived at the lead engine, they found Freeman and the Safari Golfer already there.

The Honcho forced his way closer to the cab’s windshield, where he could now read the signs being held aloft by the insurrectionists. The crowd's political and emotional disposition was ominous. "The time for action is now!" blared one sign. "We're reclaiming our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", asserted another sign. "Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed", contended a third banner. "Whenever government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to abolish it", threatened a fourth. "No taxation without representation", demanded a fifth. "No more Vhaicams", pleaded a sixth. "It’s time for a new Declaration of Independence!" declared a seventh. "The Juggernaut stops here", said an eighth placard, which elicited a self-assured chuckle from the Honcho. "Idealistic fools! They can’t possibly stop my Juggernaut!"

"They’re going to try anyway", said Freeman, pointing toward the horizon. The sinuous crowd lining the tracks curved up and over the steep embankment. Barely visible from the cab of the onrushing Juggernaut was a phalanx of insurrectionists who had mounted the rails and formed a dense human barrier directly in the locomotive’s path. The Honcho stopped smiling, and everyone else fell stonily silent as three massive diesel engines hurled them toward the human blockade. All eyes turned to the engineer, expecting him to engage the rampaging train’s emergency brakes. Unfortunately, he was paralyzed by confusion. He looked helplessly toward the Head Honcho for direction. The people on the tracks were now in immediate danger of being vivisected by the slicing wheels of the projectile hurtling toward them.

The Honcho's face was alive with beads of nervous sweat. He was locked into a sophomoric game of chicken, pitting his stubborn ego against the dogged determination of the insurrectionists. To make matters worse, his judgment was severely impaired by whiskey. A few more seconds slipped away. The crowd on the tracks didn’t yield. The Juggernaut reached the point where it had to brake or certain catastrophe would ensue.

Just then, a bullet smashed through the windshield and ricocheted eerily within the cab. Everyone scrambled for cover as several more shots rang out. Shards of glass rained over their cowering heads. More shots peppered the train. One of them struck the engineer in the head, killing him instantly. The train hurtled uncontrolled toward the insurrectionists barricading the tracks.

The insurrectionists now recognized that the runaway locomotive wasn’t going to stop. Shouts went up to abandon the blockade. The shouts turned to screams as terror spread like wildfire through the crowd. People leapt off both sides of the railway, but the embankments were soon clogged with frightened rebels tumbling over each other. The crowd was too compressed for everyone on the tracks to escape in such little time. The screaming doubled in intensity. They reverted to primitive barbarism to save themselves, kicking and clawing to move the mass of humanity blocking them. The tracks vibrated as the Juggernaut charged to within 100 yards of the crowd. The roar of the three powerful engines dwarfed the screaming of those scrambling toward safety. At fifty yards, the smell of fear intermingled with the smell of diesel fuel. At twenty yards, the looming profile of the locomotive blocked out the late afternoon sun, suddenly casting a foreboding shadow over the crowd. At ten yards, the cacophony of screaming subsided, partly because throats were choked by paroxysms of fear, and partly because the only hope remaining was silent prayer. But if any deities were listening, they chose not to intervene, so the Head Honcho's unstoppable Juggernaut, weighing 900 tons and traveling 65 miles per hour, slammed into a horde of helpless victims.

The coupler shroud crushed the first wave of humanity, plowing mangled bodies into the next rows of victims, as a macabre bow wave of broken corpses rose up and sluiced around the locomotive. Other bodies slid beneath the train and were carved into clumps of dead flesh by the scything wheels. The truly unlucky were dragged alongside the engine, their appendages mutilated into grotesque anatomical vestiges by the pumping connecting rods. Like a meteor ripping through the virtual emptiness of space, the Juggernaut sliced through the crowd with unaltered momentum and direction. The only evidence of a collision with living creatures was red viscera splattered on the cab’s housing, as if it had just plowed through a patch of giant strawberries.