Bad Luck Ben, Episode VIII
By Littlesilverstar, silverstar222b@yahoo.com
Two ultra-lethal female assassins chase Ben and Haley


AUTHOR'S NOTE: To enjoy this story fully, please read volumes 5 through 7 of
the Bad Luck Ben saga ("Good Luck Ben? Not", "Tazhi", and "Episode VII")
first.

* * *

I drove the black Cadillac Escalade along the deserted highway as fast as I
thought I could go without risking an accident. Haley was almost literally
riding shotgun, sitting in the front passenger seat, submachine gun at the
ready, constantly checking the road behind us.

"Any sign of them?" I asked. 'Them' being Carmen and Faith, the two female
prison guards who beat inmates to death for an underground cage fight video
company, and also doubled as assassins outside the bars.

Haley shook her blonde head. "No, but they won't be far behind us. Now here's
what we're going to do next. We have to ditch this car and acquire one that's
less recognizable. When we come to a town, take the second exit - the first
would be too obvious - and park somewhere out of sight of the highway. We'll
bail out and go from there."

I looked over at my (sadly, platonic - she had made that very clear) female
companion. Haley was much younger than me, barely out of her teens, and yet
she was far stronger, physically and mentally, than I could ever hope to be. I
was so glad she was here with me, words couldn't even describe it. With her, I
actually had a chance of survival. A chance.

* * *

After bailing out of the SUV in town, I was pacing nervously back and forth on
the sidewlak. Haley looked impatiently at her watch, a large-faced man's
model, dangling loose on her elegant wrist. "Dammit, the cab should have been
here already. I called

them fifteen minutes ago from the car. I thought I timed it just right."

"Do you think it's panic time yet?" I asked.

"No. Unless they get incredibly lucky, Faith and Carmen shouldn't be able to
find us even if the cab takes another ten minutes to get here. By the way, you
should grab that rifle from the back se..."

I stood frozen with my mouth open. Haley, puzzled, asked, "Ben, what are you
staring at?"

She turned around and her mouth dropped open as wide as mine. A black Escalade
had just turned the corner. Faith was at the wheel, and Carmen sat beside her.

"How did they ever...They're not human," I moaned, beginning to resign myself
to death.

Haley shook me hard. "Snap out of it! Maybe they haven't seen us yet. Now
quick, into that diner."

But it was too late. As we were running up the steps to the diner's entrance,
Haley suddenly shoved me down. A split second later, shots rang out and
bullets flew through the space my body would have been occupying had she not
pushed me. I saw Carmen, smoke coming from the barrel of her Thompson
submachine gun, smirking through the open car window.

Haley fired back with her own submachine gun, hitting Carmen in the chest. The
evil female assassin let out a cry of pain, but otherwise seemed unaffected,
and began firing her Tommy gun again. She must be wearing body armor.

Haley raised her weapon, trying to aim for Carmen's head, but before she could
pull the trigger again, she suddenly shrieked and dropped the gun. Blood
flowed from her arm as the weapon clattered down the steps. Carmen laughed
with diabolical glee at her hit and prepared to fire again. Meanwhile, Faith
had jumped out of the driver's seat, ready to add her firepower with her
AK-47. Haley pushed me into the restaurant and dashed in after me. I was
quivering with fear. How were we going to get out of this one?

"Haley, your arm..." I said.

"Forget it, it's just a graze." She turned to the diners. "THEY'RE COMING!
THEY'RE WILLING TO KILL US ALL!" she shouted. "PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE HAS A
WEAPON!"

The people inside simply stared at her as if she was crazy. They had heard the
shots, and seemed to think that SHE was involved in the shooting, even though
she was no longer armed. Most of the patrons were just hiding under the
tables.

"THAT WON'T HELP! THEY'RE COMING IN HERE! RUN!" Haley yanked me towards the
kitchen. We dove through the swinging doors. I peeked back through the
opening.

The front door shattered into a hundred pieces as Carmen's big black leather
boot destroyed it with a single kick. She and Faith stormed in.

Three big, muscular men jumped up, confronting the armed women. Several others
began to run towards the rear exit, while still others remained hiding under
the tables.

None of them stood a chance. Carmen opened up with her Thompson, pumping the
three big men full of holes with a single long burst, laughing as she dropped
them dead as they made a suicidal charge towards her. Meanwhile, Faith fired
short, quick bursts of two or three bullets at a time from her AK-47,
slaughtering the people trying to run away one by one, her markswomanship
perfect, every round finding its mark.

I was frozen with shock at the carnage. It wasn't until Haley slapped me
across the face that I was able to get moving again. We ran for our lives,
cooks and busboys running with us.

Haley, in the lead, reached the back door, then suddenly froze. Faith was
outside, having circled around the restaurant. The distinctive typewriter-like
sound behind us informed us that Carmen was finishing off the customers and
waitresses still hiding under the tables with her Thompson. We were trapped!

Faith opened up with her AK, dropping two cooks dead. We tried to find cover.
A busboy was too slow and Faith nailed him with a single shot to the head. Two
more busboys, another cook, Haley, and I were left. I heard the heavy steps of
Faith's boots as she approached the back door.

There was an explosion of wood as the door was kicked down. Haley made her
move, hurling a kitchen knife at Faith. But the blonde female assassin was
just too good. She made an unbelievable catch of the knife in midair and threw
it back at Haley. Haley ducked, saving her life. One of the busboys wasn't so
lucky. The knife flew straight into his heart.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHH!" The cook tossed a pot of boiling water at Faith. Once again,
her superhumanly fast reflexes kicked into action and she ducked safely under
it. The cook, now bare-handed and helpless, was facing her in pure terror.

"Please, beautful maiden, don't shoot me," he begged.

"Okay," said Faith in an emotionless voice. She drew her sword and cut off his
head.

The last busboy was running back towards the dining room. He suddenly froze
when the doors swung open and Carmen appeared. Her submachine gun was slung
over her shoulder and her crossbow was in her hands.

"Going somewhere, boy?"

He raised his hands, begging for his life.

"Tough shit," said Carmen. She fired. The steel bolt from her crossbow went
into his skull. Blood and brain matter erupted from the point of impact as his
corpse slumped down.

"All clear in the dining room?" Faith asked.

"Yep, finished them all." Carmen laughed sadistically as she unslung her
Thompson and reloaded it. Faith waited for her to finish, then slapped a fresh
magazine into her assault rifle.

"Just two little piggies left," Carmen chuckled. "Two little piggies who have
a date with the slaughterhouse."

From our hiding place, Haley and I were quivering with fear. I had never seen
Haley afraid like this before. Of course, I was a lot worse.

"Fools," said Faith, pointing to the footprints leading to the big walk-in
refrigerator. She and Carmen looked at each other and nodded.

Then they opened fire, pumping the fridge full of holes. The powerful bullets
passed easily through the refrigerator's doors. They kept up continuous fire,
showing excellent control of their guns. Finally, their weapons clicked empty.
Swiftly and expertly, each girl reloaded her machine gun once again.

Carmen laughed at the sight of the massive amount of red liquid dripping out
from the fridge. The two female assassins looked at each other and nodded
again.

"Two loose ends tied up," said Faith.

Sirens sounded in the distance. The evil bitches quickly but calmly exited
through the back door.

Haley and I climbed out from our hiding place inside a cabinet. She opened the
refrigerator. "Well, this restaurant is going to need a new delivery of
ketchup."

That relieved the tension, as much as it could in a situation like that. I
broke down, sobbing like a baby, while Haley, acting in the stereotypical
traditional masculine role, held me comfortingly.

* * *

"Are you out of your fucking MINDS?!" the warden exploded. He looked at the
assistant warden, then back at Carmen and Faith. "Can you believe these girls?
Massacring an entire restaurant full of people? Do you think we need every
reporter in the fucking country drawn to this shit, looking for explanations,
poking and probing, eventually finding US? I swear, I oughtta..."

"Oughtta what?" asked Faith, quietly and coldly. Her sword was in her hand.
She and Carmen looked at each other and nodded.

With lightning speed, Faith stabbed the warden in the chest. She withdrew the
blade with a squishing sound as the dying man slumped down.

"We were getting tired of taking orders from a male who was our physical
inferior anyway," Carmen breathed into the warden's face as he expired. The
Latina beauty then turned to the assistant warden, who was quivering with
terror.

"Here's the deal," said Carmen. "Officially, you're going to be the new
warden. But you'll be taking orders from us and not the other way around."

"Is that an acceptable agreement, or do you think you're being treated
unfairly?" Faith asked. Her sword was red with the late warden's blood.

"N...no! Not at all! It's a very fair and generous deal, Mistresses,"
stammered the assistant warden submissively.

"Excellent," said Faith. She and Carmen smirked and high-fived each other.

* * *

"So what now?" I asked.

We were hiding out in an abandoned barn. We had considered trying to get
protection from the police that would surely converge on the diner after the
massacre, but ultimately decided against it. "Faith and Carmen think we're
dead now," Haley had said. "If we go to the cops, it'll be known right away
that we're alive, and those bitches will know right where to find us. No way
ordinary cops will be able to outfight those girls."

Haley ran a finger through her dirty blonde hair. "They'll find out eventually
that we're not dead. So we have to make sure that we're far away by then." She
stood up. "Let's go. We're going straight to the airport."

* * *

I drove the gray Toyota Camry towards the airport as fast as we could go
without attacting attention. From the cars in the parking lot at the diner, we
had chosen the most ordinary looking, easiest to blend in with vehicle to make
our getaway. I shook my head at the thought of all those poor, innocent people
slaughtered at the restaurant. Someone had to, somehow, be able to take down
those two lethal female assassins.

Haley was riding shotgun, constantly checking the road behind us as well as
the sides of the road for any potential ambushes, clenching and unclenching
her fists, her defined forearm muscles rippling, clearly wishing she was
riding shotgun literally with a weapon in her hands. After Carmen and Faith
had left, we had gone out to the front of the diner to try to reclaim our
weapons, but the killer women had taken care of that loose end. Both the
submachine gun that had been on the front steps and the rifle in the Cadillac
had been gone.

"I know we would have had to ditch them before we went into the airport, but
damn, I wish I had a gun in my hands right now," said Haley. "If they ambush
us on the road we won't stand a chance."

"How could they get us this soon?" I asked. "You saw them at the diner. They
think we're dead."

"After they found us so quickly the first time, I'm never going to
underestimate them again." Haley shook her head. "Goddamnit, how did they get
to be THAT fucking good?"

I wish I had an answer for that one.

A few minutes later, we reached the main highway and turned onto it. I
breathed a slight sigh of relief, but Haley was still as tense as ever. "If
they could hit us at the restaurant, they can damn well hit us here." It
wasn't until we were inside the airport terminal, surrounded by hundreds of
people, that Haley finally relaxed, at least a little.

I looked up at the screens showing arrivals and departures. The thought
entered my mind for the first time - the whole business of just trying to
survive for the past several hours had kept that particular thought out until
now. "Um...where are we going?"

A few minutes later, we had two tickets to Kalispell, Montana, paid for with
Haley's credit card. "My grandfather lives there. It'll be a nice, quiet,
out-of-the-way place to hide out for a while."

There was a minor scare and irritation as we went through security, as we were
flagged for extra screening because we had bought last-minute, one-way tickets
and had no bags. Haley was able to get us through it pretty quickly, however,
with her all-American girl charm. I gave thanks for that, as well as for the
fact that I had been released from prison legitimately.

* * *

35,000 feet over the Rockies, I looked over at Haley and gazed into her deep
blue eyes. "I know I've said this before and I know I'm probably going to say
it again, but thank you for saving my life. You truly are my guardian angel."

She smiled. "Oh, I'm no hero. It's my ass on the line too." She squeezed my
hand comfortingly.

"So what next?" I asked.

"Well, unfortunately, as long as they're perceived to be on the side of law
and order, Faith and Carmen will keep chasing us with no one to stop them. We
have to somehow expose them as criminals and murderers. I'm sure the prison
authorities have shut down the cage fights, at least until the heat dies down,
so I don't think we'll be able to get them for that. It'll be too easy to hide
the evidence. Our best bet is to nail them for the massacre at the diner. The
problem is that we're the only witnesses, and they're so good that they could
likely take us out before we could get into deep enough cover like the Witness
Protection Program. We need to get them arrested first before we come out of
hiding. I'll talk to Grandpa when we get to his place. He's got to know
someone with enough credibility to get those two arrested on his word."

* * *

Haley had called ahead, and her grandfather met us at the airport. She greeted
him with a tight hug, then introduced me.

I shook hands with the white-haired man with kind-looking eyes. "Thank you,
sir, for letting us hide out here."

"Oh, it's nothing," he replied. "Anything for my favorite granddaughter, and
any friend of Haley's is a friend of mine."

Haley explained the whole story to her grandfather on the way to his house.
"Yes," he said when she was finished. "One of my friends is a U.S. Marshal in
Chicago. He should be able to get arrest warrants for Carmen and Faith
tomorrow morning."

"Oh, thank God," Haley and I said at exactly the same time.

After dinner at a local restaurant, we all decided to turn in early. I sat on
the bed in one of the guest bedrooms, trying to make sense of all that had
happened. Haley had her own room there from her frequent visits. Through the
walls, I could already hear her grandfather snoring.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," I said.

Haley entered. I couldn't help staring, as she was wearing only black panties
and a tight white T-shirt with no bra underneath, showing off the outline of
her firm B-cup breasts and their pointy nipples. At 5'6" and 128 pounds, she
had an athletic, muscular, tanned, feminine body. Her muscular legs and toned
arms were on full display, and a bit of her hard six-pack abs was showing in
the gap between her shirt and underwear. Her face was elegant and
high-cheekboned, and she could have easily been a model if she was a little
taller. I had spent the past couple of days in so much fear that I had
forgotten how sexy Haley was. If only she wanted to be more than friends...

She sat on the bed next to me. "How are you doing, Ben?"

"About as well as can be expected, under the circumstances. After witnessing
that massacre at the diner, I fully expect to have nightmares tonight."

She took my hand. "I know how that is. I'm used to violence, and even I felt
like throwing up after seeing all those corpses."

"At least it'll all be over soon," I said. "I hope whoever comes to arrest
Carmen and Faith tomorrow brings an army. They'll need it."

"I can imagine," Haley agreed. She looked directly into my eyes. "Look, Ben. I
need to tell you something. You know I've told you a couple of times that I
couldn't get past your fetishes about women who can do back flips, and throw
far, and have big wrists and forearms, and shoot guns well. But after all
we've been through together, I think that's changed. It's part of who you are,
and I'm starting to see you in a different light now."

My heart started beating incredibly fast. "Oh my God," I whispered, hardly
daring to hope. "Does this mean..."

Haley gave me a long, aggressive kiss. "Does that answer your question?" she
asked when she finished.

"Oh...God...thank you," I squeaked. Was this really happening? Was Bad Luck
Ben about to lose the "Bad Luck" part of his name forever?

Haley smiled seductively and took off her shirt, revealing her round, small,
perky, perfect breasts, tanned the same golden brown as the rest of her skin.
Her nipples looked like they could cut glass. She giggled. "That's one of the
things I like about you. Your shyness and your awe towards a beautiful woman's
body. A beta male like you will pair well with an alpha female like me."

She pointed at my crotch. Eagerly, I took off my pants and underwear,
revealing my raging hard-on. She pushed me down onto the bed on my back, then
began reaching for her panties.

I was filled with pure joy. Although I was no longer a virgin - I had lost it
after I had won the lottery and become temporarily rich - this would be the
first time I would be having sex with a woman who actually loved me, rather
than a gold-digger. Faith and Carmen would be arrested, and Haley and I could
start a new life togeth...

WHOOSH.

"What was that?" Haley whispered, a sudden look of alarm appearing in her blue
eyes at the strange sound.

"I don't know," I whispered back, fear overtaking my desire for sex.

"Listen," she said in a low voice filled with something I didn't hear very
often from her - fear.

"I don't hear a thing."

"That's just it. Grandpa. He's not snoring anymore."

Haley pulled her underwear up, but didn't stop to put on her shirt. Topless,
she hurried out of the room, into her own room, and came out with a shotgun in
her right hand. Pumping it in the one-handed Linda Hamilton style, she
advanced towards her grandfather's room cautiously. I tiptoed right behind
her, pulling up my underwear and pants on the way. She paused at the door,
then suddenly shoved it open, shotgun at the ready.

Sure enough, her grandfather was lying on the bed - with a steel crossbow bolt
right in his skull!

"NOOOOOOOO!" screamed Haley. "Grandpa!"

Carmen! Faith! How had they done it?! How had they tracked us here so fast?!

Regaining her composure, Haley grabbed my arm. "Come on, we have to get out
of..."

A dark figure suddenly flew in through the window, executing a front tuck
somersault in midair and landing heavily but neatly. Haley began aiming her
shotgun. At that moment, however, another figure appeared in the doorway. The
distraction was enough. There was another WHOOSH followed by a scream. Haley
dropped the shotgun, a crossbow bolt driven straight into her right hand.

I tried to deal with the figure in the doorway, which was Faith, of course,
but I was no match for her. She backflip kicked me in the face with her big
black boot, knocking me to the floor, then drew her trademark sword. I lay
there, semi-conscious, stunned by the devastating impact of her powerful
gymnastic kick.

Haley suddenly snatched up the shotgun with her left hand and fired it
one-handed at the other dark figure, which was Carmen, of course. But Carmen,
despite her size and bulk, had incredible speed and reflexes. Seeing the
danger just in time, she executed a perfect aerial cartwheel. The slug flew
safely between her legs as she was upside down. Haley pumped the shotgun
one-handed, but before she could fire again, Carmen landed on her and punched
her in the face with a big, leather-gloved fist. Blood bubbled from Haley's
broken nose as she was knocked to the carpet.

The two female assassins stood over us dominantly. I was close to tears. Why?
How?

"How?" This time I said it out loud.

Carmen laughed. "Remember back at the diner?" the brutal but sexy Latina said.
"Did you really think we were dumb enough to believe that you guys were hiding
in the refrigerator? Did you really think we're so dumb that we don't know the
difference between blood and ketchup? We knew you were hiding somewhere else,
we just didn't know in which cabinet. We were going to wait just outside the
door, then gun you down when you came out thinking you were safe. Faster than
searching every cabinet. But when we heard those sirens, we had to get out of
there. You got lucky then, but your luck's run out now. We never leave a job
unfinished."

"How did you track us here so fast?" Haley asked, grimacing in pain from the
steel bolt through her hand.

"Oh, we have connections," said Faith. "Being a prison guard has its perks. We
traced your credit card and saw that you'd bought tickets to Kalispell. Then
we chartered a plane to take us here. After we landed it was a simple matter
of looking up the address of the only person in town who had the same last
name as you."

"Fuck," said Haley.

"You're both going to die very slowly," Faith hissed in an icy voice. "I held
back on that backflip kick, only used part of my strength. A full-strength
backflip kick from me has always killed its target. But I want to take my time
this time. No one's going to save you n..."

BANG!

Faith dropped dead to the floor, a bullet hole in her head.

"Oh, really?" came a female voice from the doorway.

Carmen tried to aim her crossbow, but a second shot rang out and she too was
dropped, a red hole in the center of her forehead.

Haley and I both stared at the figure that entered the bedroom. "Thank you..."
Haley began.

"Oh, don't thank me yet," said the figure. She removed the hoodie she was
wearing, revealing herself to be...

"TAZHI?!" Haley and I shouted at exactly the same time.

"That's right, fuckers, it's me," the heavily muscled, darkly tanned beauty
sneered.

"Jesus fucking Christ, how..." I groaned.

Tazhi laughed. "I got out on bail pretty quick. Of course I came out for
revenge. Tracked your credit card just like they did, only instead of
connections I got a nerd to hack your card with a promise of sex. I killed him
afterward instead to make sure there would be no trail. Looks like I got here
just in time, too. I wasn't going to let those two take the revenge that is
rightfully mine."

Haley made a move for Carmen's crossbow, but Tazhi shot her in the shoulder.
"Naughty naughty," she taunted, as Haley cried out in pain, bleeding.

I glared hatefully at Tazhi. Earlier, I had still felt sexual attraction to
her despite the horrible things she had done to me, but abusing Haley was just
too much. "Haven't you done enough, Tazhi?" I demanded. "You framed me for
rape! You got me sentenced to 15 years! And with those fucking cage fights I
probably would have been killed by one of those two before I ever got out! We
should be the ones getting revenge on you!"

Tazhi stomped on my face with her big black boot. "You two got me arrested. I
don't give a fuck if I was actually guilty of crimes. Once I kill both of you,
the case against me will collapse, and the charges will be dropped. And no one
will ever suspect that I was the one who finished you fuckers off. Everyone
will blame those two." She pointed at the corpses of Faith and Carmen and
grinned wickedly. "This is just too perfect. Everything's clicked into place.
As soon as I made bail I knew exactly what I had to do and where I had to go,
and I executed it all perfectly to a T. I'm too good for jail, and I'm never
going back."

WHOOSH.

Tazhi screamed. Looking down, she saw Faith's sword impaled in her chest,
right between her large breasts. Haley had thrown it with her good hand while
Tazhi had been distracted talking to me.

"You've got that right, bitch. You're going to the morgue," growled Haley.

With the last of her strength, Tazhi took aim, firing at Haley as she
collapsed. She got two shots off. One missed, but the other struck Haley in
the middle of her chest.

"NOOOOOO!!!" I screamed, crawling over to her. Haley looked down at her bullet
hole, then up at me. She shook her blonde head, tears forming in her blue
eyes. The wound was fatal, and she knew it.

"Thank you," I sobbed. "Thank you for saving my life again." I had said those
words to her so many times. I would never be able to do it again.

Haley tried to smile. "Go on," she whispered, her voice starting to fail. "Go
on and..."

"And what?"

"Live. Just live."

Her eyes closed, and she did not speak again.

I looked straight up. "NOOOOOOO!!!! Why, God, why? Haven't you tormented me
enough?!"

I lay on the carpet, crying, for a long time next to the body of my guardian
angel. An angel that was no longer on earth.

Finally, I sat up and wiped the tears away. I thought of two quotes, the first
from Alfred Tennyson: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have
loved at all."

The second was from Haley: "Live. Just live."

THE END