by JG Faherty
“Or maybe,” he added in a sly voice, “Hank pushed him out that window, and the cops just aren’t telling anyone the real truth ’cause they couldn’t stop it.”
The handful of wannabes standing by the bar nodded in agreement. Most of them hadn’t been around when Ned ran the gang, but they’d all seen Hank’s temper, had heard about the crazy shit he’d done lately. It didn’t seem all that strange that he’d kill his own brother over a piece of tail. Or to take over the club. Jethro’s suicide made more sense. He’d crossed Hank, and he knew he was dead meat the moment he left the hospital.
Eddie waited until Mouse stopped speaking and then slid into his body, which twitched once, spilling some beer onto the floor and everyone’s boots. No one said anything. Any one of them, including some of the girls, could have broken Mouse in two with one hand, but he wore the colors, which meant he could piss on their feet all night long and they couldn’t do a thing.
Not if they wanted to wake up with all their teeth.
That rule was something Eddie intended to take advantage of before he sent Rat-boy to the big mouse trap in the sky.
He raised Mouse’s beer. “With everyone else dead or in the hospital, that leaves me in charge. So whattya say we have ourselves a party?”
The group raised their beers and cheered.
“Party!”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Let’s do it!”
“All right. You.” Eddie pointed at Moshpit Elardo, a burly kid who was only fifteen, but already had the Hell Riders’ emblem – a flaming skull with red eyes, devil horns, and a Nazi-style biker helmet – tattooed on his arm, meaning he stood one step away from getting his colors. “Go get some food. Gimme two orders of gator nuggets from Rosie’s and a bunch of pizzas. You.” This time he selected the biggest, meanest-looking prospect of the bunch, Vinny June. All the June offspring – four boys and three girls – were a little wacked, and Vinny, the youngest, was following in his siblings’ footsteps. He had a lazy eye that always drifted to the left and hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed in a month. He also stunk like a wet coon dog, but then bathing had never been important to any of the Junes. Including the women.
“What, Mouse? You want me to get some booze? Or some babes?” Vinny’s eagerness to please was almost pathetic, coming from someone who could wrestle an alligator and probably win.
“Naw, I want you to put on some better music. Charred Walls of the Damned. Demon Dogs. Powerwolf. Some good hard shit.”
Eddie poured himself another beer and chugged it down, letting the foam spill over his chin and down his shirt.
“Let’s get this motherfuckin’ party started!”
* * *
Two hours later, Eddie’s head was buzzing, his stomach felt like it might erupt at any second, and things were starting to get blurry. He’d never realized Mouse had such a low tolerance for booze.
Time to get down to business, before I puke. Or pass out.
Eddie moved around to the back of the bar, where there was always some kind of gun stashed away, just in case of trouble. Hopefully, the cops hadn’t confiscated it after the last shooting. Sure enough, a sawed-off shotgun rested under a loose floorboard. His intention was to put a scare into everyone, send them scurrying back to town with a message that Mouse had flipped out and shot up the place. Whoever came back would find a very dead Rat-boy.
Except the minute he raised the gun, his whole plan fell apart.
“Yo, motherfuckers!” he yelled, bringing the shotgun up to his shoulder and pointing at the center of the room. “Who wants to die first?”
Something hard and heavy smashed into his shoulder at the same time an explosion of noise filled his ears. The force of the blow slammed him into the bar and then he bounced off and fell to the floor, his whole body racked with pain.
What the…? Someone shot me!
Instinctively, Eddie left Mouse’s body and rose into the air. From his new vantage point, he saw Moshpit in the hallway that led to the bathroom, a long-barreled revolver in his hand.
Mouse Bates lay on the floor, blood pouring from a fist-sized hole in his shoulder. Moshpit stood statue-still, his eyes comically wide. Eddie knew why. He had to be thinking he’d just signed his own death warrant by shooting someone who wore the colors.
Life’s a bitch and then you die. Shoulda stayed in school, asshole.
Eddie aimed himself at Moshpit and dove forward. The minute he had control, he pointed the pistol at Mouse and pulled the trigger three more times, blasting Mouse’s head into pieces. The other prospects backed away as Eddie dropped the pistol and picked up the shotgun.
The room spun around him, shapes and colors distorted and melting together. Eddie dimly understood that Moshpit was wacked out of his mind on something a lot stronger than pot or booze.
“Fucking messed things up!” The words seemed to come in slow motion. Something moved and he pulled both triggers. Vinny June fell over, hands clutching a gaping wound in his stomach. Another distorted shape approached him and Eddie swung the shotgun like a baseball bat, catching his attacker right in the face. The other two recruits tackled him. His head hit a table as he went down and a burst of white filled his vision.
“Fucking bastards!” he shouted. “You can’t hurt Eddie Ryder! I’m the fucking devil!”
He grabbed blindly at his attackers and channeled all his rage and pain into neon-red bolts of lightning that exploded into thunderous fireworks where his flesh touched theirs.
The bikers flew through the air like two comets, their shirts aflame, their screams lost in the twin detonations from Eddie’s burning hands. One of them crashed through the bar, wood and alcohol igniting into a giant fireball. The other one hit the ground and skidded across the floor, flames trailing behind him, until he came to rest against a wall. His frantic cries grew louder as the fire spread across his body and he rolled around on the floor in a desperate attempt to put himself out.
Holy shit! Eddie looked at his hands and gasped. They were nothing but charred sticks, all the skin and muscle burned away. He tried making a fist and the blackened bones crumbled into charcoal nuggets.
Then the pain hit, the reaction delayed by shock and the drugs Moshpit had taken. Eddie cried out and dropped to his knees, so overwhelmed by his agony that all rational thought disappeared. His other hand disintegrated and he fell to one side, unable to balance himself on his two stumps. His senses overloaded, he didn’t notice the heat on his back until it morphed into something else, a suffering so sharp and intense that it surpassed the white-hot torture in his arms. For a moment he was back in his garage, the walls aflame and laughter filling the air.
It’s happening again!
He tried to leave but his mind was paralyzed by the pain, just like the last time. The fire engulfed him, even worse than his first death, because he knew the worst was yet to come.
And then there was only the crimson supernova of insanity.
* * *
Eddie woke up to a blessed absence of pain. The sky was dark around him, the ground a hundred feet below. Diablo growled happily between his legs, motor thrumming. He looked down, saw the Hell Riders’ clubhouse engulfed in flames. Two fire trucks were at the scene, pumping swamp water onto the building, although it was far too late to save anything. Then he noticed a second set of flames, in the grassy area next to the parking lot. Flames that spelled out words.
EDDIE WAS HERE
Did I do that? He didn’t remember. Everything after catching fire was gone, leaving nothing behind but a haze of red. Somehow, though, it seemed right. Time to let everyone know he was back. Fuck them all. Why should he hide? What the hell could they do to him anyhow?
Maybe he couldn’t leave Hell Creek – not yet, anyway – but he sure as shit could make the town his own.
PART THREE
Reckonings
Feeding and flowing through rivers of red
Clouding my vision and the thoughts in my head
Seeds of misery planted inside me
My demons are guiding me
From below they are spawning
They’re tearing and clawing
Waiting to be set free
Destroying my body and leaving me torn
Not willing to die, every day I’m reborn
‘Guiding Me,’ by Charred Walls of the Damned
* * *
A demon escaped from bowels of Hell
To see his face it is Death’s knell
Hearts stop from his slightest gaze
Entire towns his fury will raze
Hell Rider!
Burning through the night
Hell Rider!
Coming for you
‘Hellrider,’ by Demon Dogs
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kellie jerked awake at her desk, her sleep broken by the haunting wail of police sirens somewhere in town. She’d been lost in a nightmare world where prehistoric beasts surrounded her house, howling their blood lust, while she and Carson pushed furniture against the doors to keep the monsters outside.
Just a dream, she told herself, although that didn’t stop lingering shivers from creeping up and down her back. She glanced at the time on her computer screen. Only nine-thirty. It seemed later, in part because the dream had felt so long, but she’d only been asleep for a few minutes. Piled next to her were pages of information on how to safely perform a séance. She hadn’t realized there were so many rules for contacting spirits, and even more for keeping evil entities from hurting you when you called them.
Maybe I should watch more scary movies.
She’d also been trying to find information on how to control or banish an evil spirit or ghost or demon. That hadn’t gone as well. There were so many different kinds of demons and spirits, and so many different spells and precautions, it was impossible to figure out which ones they needed. Especially considering they had no idea what Eddie was. In the end, she’d tried to simplify the list down to a handful of things they all had in common. Even then, the list ended up being almost a page long, and many of the items were completely useless, because they were either illegal to obtain – where was she supposed to get the eye of a corpse or a candle made of human fat? – or totally impractical. As in, who had blood from the spirit’s firstborn just lying around? Eddie didn’t even have a firstborn, at least not that she knew of. And where in town would she find someone to sell her a goat to slaughter?
Which left only a few items they had a chance of actually obtaining without getting arrested. Holy water. Candles of various colors. A lock of hair from the dead person. A picture of the person. Sea salt. The blood of a virgin.
Well, that last one will be easy enough. Kellie pictured herself running a knife across her wrist and cringed.
Hopefully we don’t need too much. Like maybe I can just stick a pin in my finger.
She wondered what Carson was doing. Was he still up? Waiting for her to text him about her research? Fragments of her dream came back, and she had a sudden urge to make sure he was okay. As she was sending the text message, more sirens loosed their undulating cries through the quiet of the night.
What’s going on?
And does it have anything to do with Eddie Ryder?
* * *
“Screaming thunder faster faster! Ride the highway I’m Hell’s master!”
Sonic explosions followed Eddie as he bellowed the words to the Demon Dogs’ ‘Hellrider’ and aimed Diablo straight up into the sky, the moon his unattainable target. He knew he’d only get a mile or two up before the invisible tether tying him to Hell Creek halted his progress, but the exhilaration of rocketing through the atmosphere gave him a thrill he never grew tired of. It made doing a hundred miles an hour on the highway seem like coasting through a parking lot.
After leaving the scene of the clubhouse fire he’d traveled to the other side of town and lit a second blazing message, torched it into the highway in letters ten feet long with a single thought, right in front of the sign that read ‘Entering Hell Creek, population 4,340’.
EDDIE LIVES!
After reading it, he’d thought maybe it sounded too much like the title of an Iron Maiden CD, but then he’d decided he didn’t give a flying fuck. People would figure out the truth soon enough. He’d make sure of that.
Why should he settle for only Hank Bowman being frightened to death, when he could have an entire town trembling before him?
What did they ever do for me? Used my garage? Big fuckin’ deal. Not like they had a lot of choices. And how many people would bother to give me the time of day when they saw me around town, even after I went straight? The cops still gave me the stink eye, like I was gonna screw their wives and rob the bank. The same goddamn bank that wouldn’t let me refinance my loans when business got slow.
It wasn’t just the Hell Riders who needed to be taught a lesson. All those people who never helped him or his family, who treated him like a second-class citizen? It was time to show them they messed with the wrong person.
Fuck yeah.
But first he had to check in on Hank Bowman.
* * *
Handcuffed to his hospital bed, Hank didn’t resemble in any way the nasty, don’t-fuck-with-me badass he’d worked so hard to become. His face was pale, his eyes sunken, and his body oddly misshapen under his hospital gown, which didn’t hide his pot belly and skinny legs the way jeans and oversized t-shirts did.
He looks like a big fat spider waiting to be squashed.
Eddie stood in the back corner of the room while the Hell Riders’ vice president – now president, although not for much longer, cocksucker – languished in a drug-assisted slumber. Despite the sedatives, it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. His limbs twitched constantly and he kept moaning and tossing his head from side to side. Eddie pointed a finger at one of the tiny lights built into the base of the wall and it popped with a miniature burst of sparks. Hank’s moans grew louder and then subsided. Eddie popped another light, and was rewarded with the same response. He was about to move on to one of the ceiling lights when the door opened and a nurse wheeled a tiny cart into the room.
The nurse proceeded to check Hank’s blood pressure, take his temperature, and get an oxygen reading from his finger. Through it all, Hank slept on. Eddie waited until she’d marked the numbers on Eddie’s chart before entering her body. Then he shut the door to Hank’s room and approached the bed.
“Wakey wakey, Hank,” he said, patting Hank’s cheeks. At first there was no response other than an increase in his movements and his eyelids fluttering a few times. Eddie prodded him with a finger, with zero effect.
“What the hell did they give him?” He didn’t have all day; someone was bound to come in to see why the nurse hadn’t continued her rounds.
Time for a jump start.
He pulled off the sheet and tugged down the top of Hank’s gown, exposing a forest of sweaty, matted hair. Touching the nurse’s finger to Hank’s chest, he channeled a burst of energy. Hank’s body convulsed and his eyes flew open. The stink of burnt hair filled the room and Eddie laughed at the sight of a blister forming above Hank’s heart. A similar burn decorated the nurse’s fingertip.
“Wha—?” Hank struggled to focus, his eyes still glazed and his pupils dilated from the drugs.
“Hello, Hank. Hope you had a nice sleep.” Eddie slammed his hand over Hank’s mouth, pressing down with all his weight. With his other hand, Eddie traced a fingernail down Hank’s arm, the one handcuffed to the bedrail. Energy crackled and a long, red welt rose up. By the time he reached Hank’s wrist, the nurse’s fingernail had melted and the tip of her finger was black and smoking.
Hank’s screamed but the muffled sounds carried no weight. He beat weakly at Edd
ie with his free arm, still more sedated than awake.
Eyeing the blistered flesh on Hank’s forearm, Eddie laughed as an idea came to him.
“You killed me,” he said, pointing the nurse’s ruined finger at Hank. With no more effort than thinking of it, the finger burst into flames. “You know what it feels like to burn to death, Hank? You’re gonna find out.”
“MMMmmm unnnnh!” Hank jerked from side to side and he kicked his legs.
“Oh, yes, you’re going to burn. But not today. This is just a little taste.”
Skin hissed and hair sizzled as Eddie traced letters across Hank’s chest. The edge of the gown smoldered, adding to the stink filling the air. Hank bit into the nurse’s palm and screamed through his clenched teeth. Blood ran down his face and into his mouth and his cries turned into choking coughs. His unchained hand clawed at Eddie’s arm, fingernails gouging deep scratches.
When he was done, Eddie leaned back to admire his handiwork. Blistered flesh spelled out the message.
EDDIE LIVES.
“Tell everyone, Hank. Tell them who did this to you. I want them to believe. You hear me? I’m gonna destroy this whole fucking town! Tell them! Tell them Eddie Ryder was here!”
The ceiling lights exploded and sparks flew from the monitor on the nurse’s cart. Hank screamed again, and this time his voice carried as Eddie left the nurse and her unconscious form fell to the floor.
Eddie shot through the hospital wall and sent Diablo racing across town, his laughter filling the sky with thunder. Far below, people craned their necks at the sudden din. Seeing them made Eddie laugh even harder.
“Just wait! You’re all gonna wish you never fucked with Eddie Ryder!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Carson was halfway through his math homework when his phone chirped, signaling an incoming text from Kellie. It caught him by surprise; he hadn’t expected to hear from her until morning. For a split second, until he started reading the message, he thought maybe she just wanted to say hi.