"Ok, Bish." Tom nodded. "What're we going to do?"

I took one more look at the Ruhar, noting the disposition of their troops without even thinking about it, seeing where they were patrolling through the town, and where they had defensive positions around their ship. "We’re going to the dentist."

"You have got to be kidding me." I blurted out.

"Bish," Stan said defensively, "this is the best we could find. It's either this, or an old Dodge Neon."

"Most people got in their cars and left in a hurry, it looks like, there aren't a lot of cars left on this side of the river." Debbie added.

"Yeah, but-"

Tom shook his head. "There is no fucking way we can drive this. We're fighting an alien invasion. We can not drive this, this, thing."

I had to agree. Except for one thing, it was a perfect truck. They'd found a delivery van, like a FedEx truck, it was in pretty good mechanical condition; the tires weren't bald, there was some rusted-out spots around the wheel wells but nothing serious, it had big back doors so several people could get in or out fast, and they reported that it ran and shifted well, with no squeaky belts or squealing brakes. They'd found it behind the Davis Brothers garage, where it must have been getting the interior rebuilt, because the inside was stripped other than the driver seat. It was a good truck, except for that one thing.

Barney.

Barney, the big purple cartoon dinosaur with the perpetual stupid grin. Barney, and Smurfs, Mickey Mouse, unicorns, and a lot of other fictional characters were painted on the truck. Whoever decided which characters to paint on the truck had made interesting choices, like, why was Iron Man waving to the Smurfs? And, was that Darth Vader down near the right front fender, or had someone started painting black primer to cover up a rust spot, and decided to get creative? Most of the characters were poorly painted, it took me a minute to realize that what I thought was a sitting Buddha, was supposed to be Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Buddha? It was an ice cream truck, in case you hadn't guessed yet. A ridiculous ice cream truck, that I was fairly certain didn't have permission to use any of the trademarked characters painted on the side. Also, instead of the familiar 'Mister Softee' logo, this one had a poorly stenciled 'Super Softie' logo. How could ice cream be super soft? Was it melted?

This was clearly a bandit ice cream truck, the kind that I pictured furtively roaming suburban neighborhoods of a big city, selling expired ice cream and trying to avoid local authorities. The giant purple Barney plastered across both sides, and the stuffed Barney strapped to the hood, were impossible to avoid. Whoever owned this truck must really, really, like Barney.

"We could throw a quick coat of paint on it." Stan suggested.