Chapter 14

Hep was mildly disappointed that they weren't able to stop in Griggsville to see the Purple Martins. Saving the world, and themselves, had to come first, though.

They stopped in Atlanta on their way to Chicago, so the UTMCers could gas up. On their way out of town again, they passed a muffler man statue that was holding a giant hot dog.

Scroat glanced at it, then looked again. "Shit in my hand!" he yelled! "Hep! It's Jeb!"

Hep just had time to look and see the muffler man throwing a giant fiberglass hotdog at them. Luckily for them, it missed them completely, instead smashing a Ford Excursion parked across the street. The trucks alarm started going off.

They sped up to get away. Hep looked back when he could, and saw the muffler man statue retrieving its hot dog. That was awfully close.

***
Rather than ride all the way to Chicago, they stopped in Joliet. From there they went east to Gary, Indiana. From Gary they rode to Goshen.

When they saw the sign announcing they were in Goshen, Scroat yelled to Hep "Let my people go, you ugly son of a bitch!"

In Goshen, they found the Eby's Pines Campground. They decided to spend the night there.
***
That night, Hep woke up when he heard a weird buzzing. It sounded like a swarm of insects, only metal. He sat up, wondering what the hell it could be. He woke up Charlie and Scroat, and they sat listening and trying to figure out what would make such an awful racket. As the sound got closer, they started to see lights weaving and bobbing, and soon they realized that it was a large group of 2-stroke motors that were making all that noise.

"Guys! Wake up!" Hep called to the bikers sprawled around the campsite. They groggily sat up, asking what was going on, and what all the racket was.

Soon enough the motors came into view. It was a group of at least 30 guys on old Vespas, all of them wearing red shirts. They had the campsite surrounded.

One of them stepped forward. "Are you Hop?" he asked. He had horn-rimmed glasses, and multiple piercings.

"Hep."

"Whatever. You've got something we want. Hand it over."

"I don't think so. You're going to have to come get it." Hep said.

"I was hoping you'd say that." The scooterists dismounted, and all of them started walking towards Hep and the others. All except for one, who ran off to one side and started snapping photographs.

One scooterist charged at Dave, who saw him coming and drove his fist into the red shirt's gut. After that, the rest ran in, and the brawl began.

The red shirts didn't stand a chance.

Hep and Scroat fought back to back. Hep grabbed two of the scooter gang, and slammed their heads together. They dropped like bags of sand. Scroat grabbed on to one of them by the collar and punched him hard in the jaw. He fell down unconscious. Scroat looked down at him and said "Sucker, you got knocked the fuck out."

Charlie, meanwhile, was clubbing the hell out of anyone who got close to him with a shillelagh. Red shirts fell to his left and right. "Damn, I love the Irish!" he called to Hep.

The UTMCers pounded the red shirts foolish enough to approach them into the ground. In a matter of minutes, the only red shirted person still standing was the one furiously taking photos, muttering "this is great!"

Hep limped over to him, picked him up with one hand, took the camera away with the other and said "Now get the hell out of here before we have to mess you up too, buddy." Then he set him down.

"Uh, can I have my camera back?" the photographer asked. Hep looked at him, then at the camera. He opened the back, pulled out the film, and tossed the camera to the red shirt.

"Take a hike." Hep said. He went back to where the others were standing, surveying the mess.
"I guess we'd better clear out of here before these guys wake up." Hep said.

They rode from the campground to Aubrun, and started looking for a place to sleep. There they found a Best Western with some vacancies. Hep, Scroat and Charlie were mildly annoyed that the room they got smelled like a wet dog, but by that point they was too tired to go to the desk and complain, so they just went to sleep.