Hey, guys. Sorry this one took so long.
Chapter 3
A tall, beautiful girl with shoulder length brunette hair clad in a black floral-print bikini sashayed out in front of the starting grid carrying a checkered flag. She positioned herself between the two rows of cars and held the checkered flag high above her head. The racers' eyes were locked on her as they waited anxiously for her to start the race.
Every racer prepares for the exhilaration, the adrenaline that comes with speed, and the intense focus and concentration needed to react quickly during a race. Johnny, for instance, was holding the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip, arms straight and rigid, tensing all the muscles in his body, and gritting his teeth…and briefly thinking in the back of his mind that the girl with the checkered flag might be more worth going after than Vanessa in between trying to focus only on the dirt trail ahead of him leading out the side of the drive-in lot toward the road.
Vanessa's preparation was the polar opposite. She was very relaxed, comfortable in the carbon-fiber racing seat, her helmeted head leaning back against the headrest. She held the steering wheel as if she were merely going for a Sunday cruise, her mind clear of all distractions.
At the back of the starting grid beside a silver Audi, Ferb was in a state between the two. He gripped the wheel tightly, but not urgently. The rest of his body was relaxed, but his sharpened mind was focused, clear of all thoughts and emotion, focused solely on racing.
When the bikini-clad girl brought the flag down with a flourish of her hand, six of the racers, including Johnny, slammed their respective gas pedals down hard, tires spinning on the hard-packed dirt. Ferb and Vanessa, however, accelerated with a more experienced, controlled foot on the throttle. There was no wheel slip from either of their cars, and they shot around the competition. Vanessa was already even with Johnny's Porsche when they passed the girl with the starting flag and Ferb passed half of the cars head of him.
They tore down the short dirt path through the thicket of trees leading back to the main road. Johnny's Porsche slid on some loose dirt as he turned back to the road, but Vanessa kept her Camaro under her control, easily passing him.
"See ya!" Vanessa called as she shifted up to third gear and tore away.
Johnny gritted his teeth and upshifted his own car, giving chase. He could accelerate just a little faster than Vanessa and gained on her down a straight road. But when the road ended and the race course took them to the left, Vanessa threw her car into a controlled drift, easily extending her ground on Johnny as his traction control forced him to slow to make the turn.
On the next turn, Vanessa turned early, leaving the road and sliding through the wide, grassy shoulder to pass a heavily modified Honda Civic for second place. Johnny was about to her rear bumper at that point, and he copied her move, though not nearly as gracefully, to take third.
"One to go," Vanessa whispered to herself, setting her sights on the Pontiac Firebird in the lead just ahead.
The driver of the Firebird saw Vanessa's Camaro in his rearview mirror and immediately tried to step it up. He grabbed the parking brake handle as he slid through the next corner, trying to make a sharp drift. While the drift was clean, he lost a lot of speed coming out of it, and by the time he down shifted to accelerate, Vanessa was pulling alongside and waving as she edged ahead.
Johnny watched Vanessa take the lead, his aggravation growing. He barreled into the next turn, braking hard as he tried to turn down under the Firebird, but not soon enough. The right front fender of his Porsche hit the Pontiac's rear bumper, sending it spinning as Johnny passed. Ignoring the wrinkle in his fender, Johnny set his sights on Vanessa's Camaro.
"Alright, girl. Just you and me now."
The next turn, a hard left, took the racers down route 86, a long stretch of empty road on the outskirts of Danville that would take them back to within a mile of the drive-in theater. This road had several long straightaways as well as some curves that meandered through small wooded patches.
Johnny chuckled to himself as he chased Vanessa down a straight chute, watching the back bumper of her Camaro grow larger in his windshield. Vanessa, on the other hand, just smiled to herself as they neared a sharp left bend. She tapped the brake and floored the gas, throwing the steering wheel hard as she drifted expertly through the turn. Johnny attempted a drift, but only managed to fully stop the momentum of his car, losing ground again to Vanessa as he downshifted and accelerated again.
"Grrrrrr!"
It took a good minute for Johnny to close the gap again, and when he did, Vanessa easily evaded his offence again on a series of sharp corners. He resumed his chase, and eventually came to the longest stretch of straight asphalt on the road. He pulled right up to her back bumper, the next turn still half a mile ahead.
"Now I've got you," he chuckled to himself as he listed over to the oncoming lane to make the pass.
Biffany Van Stomm hated driving on route 86, especially at night. It was so long and empty that the ribbon of asphalt was almost hypnotizing. Once, she'd actually fallen asleep completely and only avoided a serious crash because of the rumble strip on the shoulder.
Tonight, she was having trouble keeping her eyes open again. She'd turned up the radio quite loud to help stave off sleep, but it wasn't helping much.
Suddenly, Biffany heard something over the blasting music. She wasn't sure what it was so she turned down the radio to take a listen. It was very obviously the sound of car engines, but extremely loud, and they sounded like they were moving quite fast.
And then, almost without warning, they appeared, coming toward her. They were only about fifty yards away when one of them suddenly pulled into the opposite lane, heading straight for Biffany.
"AAHH!" she cried out, and twisted the steering wheel of her station wagon to the right, turning off the road into a shallow ditch. The racers screamed past as Biffany caught her breath. "Oh, my stars."
Quickly coming to her senses, Biffany reached over to the passenger seat for her purse and extracted her cell phone, dialing 911. "Hello, police? I was just run off the road by some street racers…I'm on route 86, they were heading south toward the drive-in…"
Vanessa could do nothing. Her car just didn't accelerate fast enough to outrun Johnny. She watched helplessly as his Porsche pulled ahead, his car blocking her view of the innocent bystander that was run off the road.
"Ha ha ha!" Johnny laughed as he took the lead. "Now what are you gonna do? Ha ha-"
Johnny's laughter was cut short as a dark purple car rocketed past him…literally.
"What the-?!"
Ferb had activated the rocket boosters on the Nedlington Nymph, catching and passing both Vanessa and Johnny on the long straightaway with ease.
"Whoo hoo!" Vanessa called out as she watched him take the lead away from Johnny. "Go, Ferb!"
Ferb remained stoic as he switched off the rockets, which folded back into the side panels of the Nymph. This is rather fun, he thought.
"Perry the Platypus, how did you escape?!"
Perry ignored Doofenshmirtz's question and leapt up, landing a stiff right hook to his nemesis's face. Doof fell to the ground.
"Oh, it's on, now!" Grabbing a nearby wrench, Doof jumped back to his feet. The evil scientist swung it at Perry, but the platypus easily evaded the strike. He repeated his earlier move, springing up and punching Doofenshmirtz in the face.
"Gah!" Heinz gasped as he stumbled backwards, trying to remain on his feet. He back-stepped into his inator, which fired out the open window. "Whoops! I hope that doesn't hit anything."
He didn't get a chance to say anything else, as Perry quickly crossed the room and hit the self-destruct button. The inator exploded with a bang, and Perry leapt out the window, his hang glider deploying and carrying him away.
"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!"
The ray from Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Topple-inator struck a large oak tree alongside route 86. The old, sturdy wood suddenly cracked seemingly without reason, and the fifty-foot tree came crashing down onto the road, blocking one lane just around a blind corner.
The long straight stretch of road on this section of route 86 coming to an end, Ferb let off the gas and downshifted as he neared the sharp turn ahead. Trees surrounded the road on both sides, leaving little room for error should he slip up.
Ferb tapped the brakes and threw the Nymph into a perfect drift around the outside of the curve as he floored the gas again. He started to pull the car back straight as he came out of the turn…but was not expecting the large tree laying in the oncoming lane.
The only thing Ferb had time to do was take his foot off the gas pedal before the Nedlington Nymph smashed head-on into the tree.
