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Facing Their Fears

From the back of the van Ted shouted.  "Bill!  Check it out!"

Bill craned around for a quick look.  The two Good Robot Bill and Teds were far from finished - they were still a rough patchwork, a loosely constructed pair of beings of wire, metal and cloth, as well as some small household appliances, like a blender and a DustBuster - but they had sat up, jerkily, like a pair of marionettes.  They were performing their first attempts at air guitar, which sounded terrible - just like Bill and Ted's attempts on the real thing.  The best thing about the two robots was that, like their human prototypes, they had that forever optimistic and friendly look in their eyes, the mark of the real Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted "Theodore" Logan.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Bill.  "Not bad!"

"Excellent!" said Ted.

"Booo-gusss!" said the robots.

"What?"

The look on the robots' faces had changed dramatically.  They were staring fixedly through the windshield of the van.  Their bodies jerked spasmodically, and their still unfocused eyes were filled with what appeared to be fear.

"Booo-gusss!"  One of them managed to get his arm up, and he pointed out at the highway before them.

"What's goin' on, guys?" asked Ted.

All of them stared at the highway.  In the middle of the road three figures stood facing them, and behind them was Evil Bill and Evil Ted's Porsche parked across the road, blocking it completely.  Bill and Ted couldn't make out the three figures, just their outlines.  One was tall, very tall, and shaped like a pear.  He had very long, slightly floppy ears.  The figure in the middle was small, withered and hunched over and, strangely enough, given that this was the middle of the street, seated in a wheelchair.  The last figure was stout, powerfully built and stood hands on hips.  There was something very familiar - and scary - about these guys, something that Bill and Ted couldn't quite pinpoint.

Whatever it was, the robots, with their superior brains, had sensed it immediately.  They were still in the backseat, trembling with fear.

Bill hit the brakes.  "Looks like a roadblock."

"But . . . but that's not the police . . . it's . . .  Turn on the brights, dude."

Bill flicked on the high beams, flooding the street with the white light.  Bill and Ted screamed the scream of the damned - for their path was blocked by their worst nightmares: Granny S. Preston, Colonel Oats and a seven- foot-high pink Easter Bunny.

"No waaaaay!" shrieked Bill and Ted, totally unable to believe their eyes.

When it came to scaring people, De Nomolos certainly knew what he was doing.  He was a master.  In the underworld, Oats, Granny Preston and the Easter Bunny had been horrible enough, but here and now in quiet little old San Dimas they were worse, far worse.  Bill and Ted's worst fears, as conjured up by De Nomolos and delivered by his evil robots, were terrifying, and they looked unbeatable, invincible.

Bill and Ted could only stare, horrified, at the terrible apparitions blocking their path.  Oats, Granny Preston and the Easter Bunny were no longer just their worst fears; they had been magnified a thousand times over, intensified to the point that they had ceased to be normal human fears and become instead King Kong-sized horrors, terrible monsters that paralyzed them with fear.  The three figures before them were Bill and Ted's worst fears on steroids.

Colonel Oats's muscles bulged in his combat fatigues, his face red and frenzied and a mask of fury.  He carried a bazooka the size of a length of sewer pipe.  Granny S. Preston was scarier-looking than Bill had ever seen her (and he had once caught a glimpse of her early one morning, before she had her face on - the sight had made him shudder for weeks).  The stark white hair on her head stood up straight, sort of like the bride of Frankenstein, but not as neat, and the bristly hair on her upper lip and on her chin was as thick and as rough as barbed wire.  The Easter Bunny was as tall as Minut Bol but a lot more menacing, mainly because of his teeth, which were big and stainless steel.  It looked as if he had a mouth full of garden shears, which was not a feature you normally associated with an Easter Bunny.

"No!" screamed Bill, "it can't be!  We left them behind in the underworld."

This was true.  Even the Grim Reaper looked puzzled - when he wasn't looking terrified, that is.  Scaring Death was something that didn't happen every day.

"No way!" yelped Ted.

Oats stepped forward and pointed the bazooka at them.  "Yes way, you pitiful sissies," he snarled.  "Now get out of that van.  And I mean now.  That's an order!  And when I give an order, then little worms like you obey it."

Now, Bill and Ted could not be certain of much in their crazy lives, but right then they were absolutely, positively sure of one thing: There was no way on earth they were getting out of that van.

Bill didn't have to think about it; he reacted instinctively.  He threw the van into reverse and stood on the accelerator, flooring it.  As if the tired old van itself were terrified, a bolt of power surged into the clapped-out engine and the vehicle shot backward.  Then Bill cranked the wheel, throwing the van into a perfect 180-degree turn.  The bald old tires screamed and smoked as the car whipped in a circle, and inside the van the Grim Reaper, Station and the good robots were thrown around until they were a tangle of arms and legs.

"They're getting away!" stormed Oats.  "Let's get ‘em."

The Easter Bunny hopped over to the Porsche and bit into the roof, puncturing it as if it were a tin can; then he took his giant, powerful pink paws and tore the whole sheet of metal off.  In a matter of seconds the Porsche was a convertible, and it had a seven-foot Easter Bunny in the backseat.  Colonel Oats dove into the driver's seat and gunned the engine.

"Throw the old lady a rope," he ordered the Easter Bunny.  "Now!  You hopping pink stuffed toy."

The Easter Bunny whipped out a rope and tossed it to Granny S. Preston, who caught it neatly.  "Hit it!" she yelled.

"Rolling, you four-and-a-half-foot gray-haired little shriv!" Oats snarled at Granny Preston.

"Drop dead, Oats," Granny Preston snarled right back.

Oats fired up the engine, gave it all the gas he had, all at once, and the powerful car lurched forward, rocketing down the street as if it had been fired from a piece of heavy artillery.  Granny Preston, still sitting in her chair, was yanked along behind.

This was certainly not the Granny S. Preston Bill had known his whole life.  He was watching their pursuers in the rearview mirror.  He gripped the wheel, white-knuckled and more scared than he had ever been before in his life.  This just could not be happening to them.  No way.

Ted, at the rear of the van, watching through the back window, gulped.  "Go faster, dude!" he yelled to Bill.

No matter how scared you might be, no matter how much you might want to get away, it's a simple fact that a twenty-year-old van that has never really run right cannot outrun a new seventy-five-thousand-dollar Porsche.  In a matter of seconds, the supercharged black sports car was right on the tail of the van.  Ted watched as Colonel Oats yanked the wheel to the right, causing the car to veer and whipping Granny S. Preston to the left.  She swung like a tetherball, catching up with the van.  She rolled along next to the driver-side window.  She leaned in close, her lips all puckered up.

"Hello, Bill," she screeched.  "How about that kiss for your little old Granny?"  She made these really disgusting little kiss-kiss sounds.

"Yaaaarghgh!" Bill screamed, and he cranked the wheel to the right.  The van careened into the other lane, then up onto the shoulder, and totalled a road sign: SAN DIMAS CIVIC AUDITORIUM - ONE MILE.  PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY.

Back in the Porsche, Colonel Oats was busy with phase two of his plan.  "Get out there," he screamed over the rushing wind and the roar of the engine.  "Get out there, you great bouncing, furry egg-delivering behemoth."

The Easter Bunny stood in the backseat and hopped through the torn-up roof, landing on the hood of the car.  He paused a moment to get his balance and then hopped again and thumped down hard on the roof of the van, the thin metal buckling under his weight.

The force of the Easter Bunny hitting the roof threw Station and the robots and the Grim Reaper flat on the floor of the van.  Robot Ted smacked his head on the wheel well and his eyes spun crazily.

"Howwwws it dooooooinnnnn'?" Robot Ted croaked.  He did not look well, what with being only half-finished, rocked and rolled and terrified into the bargain.

"No so good, Robot me," said Ted frankly.  "But thanks a lot for asking."

"Boooogusssss," said Robot Ted.

"Station, are they okay?"

"Station," said Station with a shrug.  Now Ted really was worried, mainly because he had never seen Station looking worried.  Station had that look on his face, like a doctor who thinks he might be about to lose a patient.

"Bill, what are we gonna do?  Our robots are getting totally thrashed!"

"I dunno!" yelled Bill.

"Kissy-kissy, Billy," yowled Granny S. Preston, still right there outside the window.

But things were, if you can believe it, about to get worse.  Suddenly, two great yellow steel fangs slammed through the roof of the van, slicing through the metal as if it were nothing stronger than aluminum foil.  The flashing blades missed the Grim Reaper's head by inches.

The Easter Bunny clawed at the roof and then peeled back the sheet of steel, as if opening a sardine can.  He leaned down into the van and glowered at Ted, his hideous face close, as if he were about to bite his head off in a single snap of those murderous teeth.

Spittle dripped from his lips and he leered menacingly, staring into Ted's frightened eyes with fury.  "You stole little Deacon's Easter basket."

The words, delivered by an Easter Bunny with murder in his heart, were enough to make any man, Martian, underworld ghoul or robot quail.

Ted and the Grim Reaper screamed.  Screaming wasn't yet in Good Robot Bill and Ted's vocabulary, but they expressed themselves the best they could.

"Nooo waaaay!  Noooo waaaaay!  Noooo waaay!" they yelled, flailing around on the floor of the careening van.

The amphitheater loomed up ahead of them, so Bill raced the van into the parking lot and slammed on the brakes, laying down yards of smoking rubber.  The van came skidding across the lot, shooting like a large, black torpedo straight for a pristine, picture-perfect BMW.  The owner of the BMW stared at the van hurtling toward him, and Bill stared back, wondering if his meager insurance would cover the total he was about to inflict on the expensive car.  He decided it wouldn't, and at the last possible split second he cranked the wheel, throwing the van into a sideswipe, stopping just short of the BMW.

"Close," said Bill.

Granny S. Preston whirled around the van, roping the doors shut, slamming to a halt right where she had started - just outside Bill's window.

"Hello, Bill," she cooed.  "Kissy-kissy for your Granny S. Preston?"

Bill quickly rolled the window shut.

Now things were pretty serious - even Bill and Ted, who, by nature, were inclined to look on the bright side of things, could see that.  Their future wives had been kidnapped by evil robots, the Battle of the Bands was about to begin, a homicidal Easter Bunny was trying to claw his way through the roof of their mortally wounded van, and Granny S. Preston had them trapped and was waiting for her kiss - it was hard to see the silver lining in this particular bank of clouds.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Ted in a panicky voice.  "We can't shake ‘em."

Bill saw that there was only one thing they could do.  The very thought filled him with horror.  He put a hand on Ted's shoulder.  "Ted, there's only one thing we can do . . . "  He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to say.  "We gotta face ‘em."

Ted gulped.  "Bill, you're right.  We gotta do it."  He looked at the Easter Bunny.  "I'll be with you in a moment, dude."  He leaned out of the passenger side window and tapped on the glass of the BMW.  "Excuse me, dude - I gotta use your car phone. Don't worry - local call."

The BMW driver was still staring, bug-eyed, at the van, and he could be forgiven for not quite believing his eyes.  After all, it wasn't every day you came across a van besieged by an elderly woman in a wheelchair, not to mention saw a giant Easter Bunny attempting to devour any kind of vehicle.

Stunned, he passed the phone through the window.  "Sure," he said in a faraway sort of voice.  "Help yourself.  Take your time.  No hurry."

"‘Preciate it," said Ted.

Bill was ready to face the music.  He took one last look at Granny S. Preston and slowly rolled down the window.  He looked like a man headed inexorably for the gallows . . .

Ted dialed his home number, and when his little brother, Deacon, answered, he spoke in a rush, a great torrent of words.

"Hello, Deacon, it's Ted.  Listen, dude, ten years ago at Nana and Pop-pop's house, I totally stole your Easter basket and ate all your candy."

Deacon knew his brother Ted to be a slightly, well, unusual person, so this sudden confession of a petty theft committed some ten years before didn't startle him all that much.

"You did, huh?" said Deacon.

"Yes, me," said Ted, his voice full of contrition.  "I did it.  I did it and I'm sorry."

"Fine," said Deacon.  "Now we know who pulled off the crime of the century."  He hung up, wondering how it was that he and Ted were related.  It just didn't seem possible sometimes.

The instant Ted confessed his crime, the Easter Bunny stopped moving, stopped clawing at the roof of the van.

Bill had placed his lips against Granny S. Preston's leathery, hairy skin and, with super-human effort, managed to give her a little smack on the cheek.  Then his grandmother got a very sweet look on her face - she wasn't really a heinous old lady, just a little scary if you had to kiss her regularly - and patted Bill on the knee.

"Now," she said in that old lady voice of hers, "that wasn't so bad, was it, Billy?"

"No, Granny S. Preston," said Bill dutifully, as a good grandson should.

The Easter Bunny was gone, replaced by the evil-looking tube from whence he came.  It rolled off the roof and fell to the asphalt of the parking lot, shattering into a million pieces.  A split second later, Granny S. Preston turned into her own cylinder and dropped, it too shattering the minute it hit the ground.

Bill and Ted heaved huge, deep sighs of relief.  The Grim Reaper, Station and the Good Robots couldn't be quite so restrained.

"Station!" screamed Station.

"EEEEEXXXCCCEEELLLEEENNNTTT!" yelled Good Robot Bill and Ted.

But they weren't out of the woods yet. In their euphoria, they had forgotten that there remained one powerful, determined enemy, meaner and tougher than the Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston combined - Colonel Oats.  Bill's spirits plunged and fear coursed through him when he saw, in the rearview mirror, the Porsche screech to a halt and Colonel Oats emerge toting that big bazooka of his.  He walked slowly toward the van like a bad guy in a western.  The guy was definitely trouble.

"Uh . . . Ted," said Bill.

Ted followed the line of Bill's worried gaze.  "Uh-oh . . . "

Colonel Oats did not look happy.  He hated being let down by an Easter Bunny and an old lady - they would not have been his first choice of allies.  "Useless hippity-hoppin' pain in the neck," he muttered, loading his artillery piece.  "Stinkin' no-good rolling little shriv.  I'm gonna have to do this all by myself."  He slammed a shell into the chamber and cocked the weapon.

Bill and Ted looked at each other and gulped.  The Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston were pussycats compared to an angry creature from the underworld carrying a large-caliber weapon.

"How are we gonna get rid of him?" yelled Ted.

"Dude," said Bill, "there is only one way to get rid of a guy like this."

"There is?"

"Yah.  We gotta use the one weapon that we have that he has no defense against."

"We do?  What?"

"We gotta kill him . . . "

"Totally," agreed Ted.

"Kill him with kindness, dude."

"Oh.  Yah.  Right.  Kindness."

"Okay," said Bill authoritatively.  "Everybody - Death, Station, Robot Us's - we gotta be totally nice to this dude, got it?"

"But," protested the Grim Reaper, "he has a gun.  A very large gun."

"Ignore it," advised Ted.

"Okay," said Bill.  "Everyone look friendly."

Bill pushed open the sliding door of the van, while the rest of them organized themselves into a nice little conversational group and did their best to smile at the man pointing a bazooka at them.

Colonel Oats looked down the long barrel, sighting the weapon squarely on Ted.  "Decided to give up, huh?" he barked.  "Better this way.  Puts you outta your misery."

Ted smiled pleasantly.  "Colonel Oats, this is a pleasant surprise.  Great to see you.  Come in, dude."

"Huh?" said Colonel Oats.  "Why aren't you scared?  I like to see the fear in their eyes before I waste my victims."

"Scared?" said Ted with a laugh.  "Why would we be scared of you, Colonel Oats?"  Bill and the rest tittered politely, as if they were well-mannered guests at a sedate little tea party, astonished that anyone would think that they would be scared of a gentle soul like Colonel Oats.

"Yah," said Bill.  "We couldn't be scared of an old teddy bear like you, Colonel."

"It's like you're a member of the family," added Ted.  He was rooting around in the glove compartment of the van and had come up with a small, rather worn selection of junk food.  He held out a cake wrapped in cellophane as if trying to feed a skittish animal.  "Twinkie?" he asked.

"Family . . . ?" said Colonel Oats, his voice quavering.  "And a Twinkie?"

"Or perhaps our guest would prefer a Ding Dong," said Bill "or a Snow Ball."

The Colonel Oats from Hell felt a strange, warm and not altogether unpleasant sensation creep over him.  It was the uncommon feeling of having someone like him, of having someone be kind to him.  He let go of his heavy weapon, and the bazooka clattered to the ground.

"There," said Ted soothingly, "that's better, isn't it?"

"Come on in, pal," said Bill, "have a seat, have a Ding Dong and unburden your soul to us."

"Your friends," added Ted.

"Friends?" said Colonel Oats, his jaw quivering.  He allowed himself to be drawn into the van and settled on one of the seats.

"Eat, Colonel Oats," said Bill. "You must be terribly hungry.  It's been a long day."

"Yes . . . ," said Oats wearily.  He heaved a tremendous sigh and brushed a hand through his sweaty, matted hair.  "I'm so tired."

"There, there," said Ted.

"Yah.  Relax.  You're among friends, dude."

"Friends," said Colonel Oats, dreamily, as if the word were part of a magic incantation.

"Friends," reiterated Ted.

Colonel Oats looked from one friendly face to the next and felt a lump rise in his throat.  He took a large bite from the Ding Dong, spilling crumbs down his chin and onto his battle fatigues.  It tasted wonderful.

"I . . . I . . . I wasn't always like this . . . ," he said sadly.  He looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  "I wasn't always a bad person."

"You," said Bill, "bad?"

"Pshaw," said Ted.

Suddenly, Colonel Oats found that he was seized by an overwhelming desire to confess, to unburden his soul as Bill had suggested he do.

"You see, when I was a teenager - scarcely more than a little boy, really - my father used to spank me . . . he used to spank me with an ammo clip.  He . . . he frightened me."  Suddenly the hurt and fear of those days, feelings so long suppressed, came flooding back into Colonel Oats's tortured psyche.  His eyes filled with tears and his voice shook.  "Now I realize that what I have been doing for the past twenty years was just an attempt to be the kind of boy Daddy wanted me to be . . . "

"Sadistic," suggested Bill helpfully.

"Twisted," said Ted.

Colonel Oats nodded sadly.  Robot Bill stroked his hair and Robot Ted patted him gently on the shoulder.  Even the Grim Reaper looked touched.  He, of all people, knew what it was like not to be liked.

Colonel Oats didn't realize it, but, like the Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston, he was losing his effectiveness, under the influence of the unrelenting kindness of Bill and Ted and his other newfound friends.

"What I've been doing for the past twenty years is terrorizing young people - all to please my daddy."

Ted nodded.  "That's an important epiphany, Colonel Oats."

"Yah," said Bill.  "But you don't have to do that anymore now do you?"

"No," said Colonel Oats in a very small voice.

"Promise?" said Ted.

"Yes," said Colonel Oats.

"Good," said Bill.  "Catch you later, dude."

And, in that instant, Colonel Oats transformed back into one of the evil tubes and shattered.

"Well," said the Grim Reaper.  "I'm sure glad that's over."