Is This The End?

by Craig Sargent

  “Hang on,” Stone shouted, wheeling the bike around in a 180 so they could just get the hell out of there in case there were more of the slime.

  “I’m hanging,” a voice shouted back from inside the mask. And Stone knew instantly it was a woman. In spite of himself, even as he accelerated and tore away from the flaming scene, he turned his head for a second to look. Holding onto him with her left hand the right hand shot up and pulled the visor up on the helmeted head.

  “That’s right, I’m a woman—any problems?” a beautiful but tough-as-nails face sneered back from within.

  “No, no problems at all,” Stone said softly, and turned forward, not daring to say a word to his backseat passenger, like the most henpecked of husbands on a Sunday outing.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  “STOP, I have to take a leak,” the biker woman without a bike said suddenly after they’d gone about five miles and it was clear that the cars weren’t about to follow. “Fighting always makes me have to pee,” she added by way of explanation. Stone stopped and she jumped off. He could see the back of the black leather jacket she wore had the words “THE BALLBUSTERS” written in bright red on it. She walked twenty feet behind a scrub brush. Not that it gave much cover. She squatted down and let out with a contented sound, then walked back to the bike zipping up her tight jeans. She came up to the bike and gave Stone the once-over real slow up and down.

  “Raspberry Thorn,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her and tilting her head slightly. What with her jacket and studs on her wrists and long scar that ran across one cheek she looked just a little bit tough. Stone sighed.

  “Martin Stone,” he replied, taking his hands off the bars as he saw they were going to have a little conversation. Now that he thought of it, it seemed like a good idea.

  “Why the hell did a tough guy like you go and do an asshole thing and save someone you don’t even know?” she asked looking at him suspiciously.

  “Oh sorry,” Stone replied, “hop on—I’ll take you back there or to wherever there are more of your ‘friends.’”

  “Slow down pardner,” Raspberry replied, looking at him through squinted eyes. “Just want to know why. You know what kind of world we all live in.”

  “I helped you because my father—as stupid as it sounds —taught me to live like a man,” Stone replied a little angrily. “And that includes helping people when you can. You know, all that kind of bullshit.” He glared at her deep blues. Stone wasn’t used to seeing such natural beauty under such a hard shell. If she smiled he’d be in trouble. She smiled.

  “Well thanks then,” Raspberry said, her teeth glistening like pearls. She suddenly seemed incredibly seductive. All her features softening. And Stone did a double take wondering where this new woman came from. She even looked different. “That was very brave—and since I’d rather be alive than dead—I’m glad you showed up. Now if you’d be so kind as to take me to my camp—then that would be very, very civilized of you.”

  “How far?” Stone asked skeptically. He had wanted to reach Amarillo tonight. The sooner he got to April, the more possibility she’d still be alive. God knew what the Dwarf and his sadistic crew were doing to her. They would take out their anger at Stone on a girl who had never hurt anyone in her life. But they know how to hurt. Stone had already felt the sting of their sadism.

  “Only about an hour to the west. Pleeeassse,” she said, tilting her head even more, pouting her lips. Stone could see she’d trained in the art of man manipulation.

  “Sorry, sister,” he replied slowly as he would have liked nothing more on this earth than to have taken her up on it and spent the night tight around those luscious curves, his face pressed into her falling mane of blond hair, which spilled out from beneath the helmet. “I’ve got to go save someone else—my sister. She’s more important to me than you are, to be brutally honest. But you can make it back from here in a day. You seem to know your way around. If you travel at night you—”

  Suddenly she moved in a flash faster than Stone could react to and was on the backseat behind him, a blade held around his throat pressed hard against his neck. The knife was sharp, razor sharp, and Stone could feel it digging in already.

  “Move, Stone,” she said without anger but firmly, and he knew she would use the blade if she had to. And she knew how to.

  “Hey, slow down,” Stone laughed falsely. “I was just about to say—but—I’d be glad to take you anyway.” He reached slowly forward, gripping the bars as he thought for a moment about trying something. But the angle was bad, the blade was already digging in so that if he moved it at all it might slice real deep. He’d have to wait.

  “Which way?” he asked, easing the bike slowly forward.

  “That way,” she said, pointing with her other hand so her fingers were right by his eyes. “Along the hills the way I was heading when the Jalopios took me down.”

  “Jalopios?” Stone asked. “You mean those slugs riding those fucked up trucks and cars back there?”

  “Yeah, the Jalopios. They run this whole part of the territory for about fifty miles to the east. Until you get within twenty or thirty miles of Amarillo. Then the Tribunal takes over. Me and my gang had our run-ins with these Jalopios before. Usually they don’t come this far west. They’re dumb as shit but somehow they got themselves a whole damned fleet of junk. Though you managed to give ‘em a nice hurting. Got to congratulate you on that again,” she said, patting Stone on the shoulder. That’s great, he thought—getting stroked on one side, knifed on the other. When they said women had two faces, they sure as hell knew what they were talking about.

  “You mind if I ask you a few questions, nothing personal?” Stone asked as they drove through the mid-afternoon light of a gray day.

  “Sure, you’re cute, ask away,” she said cheerfully enough, keeping the blade right up against his flesh so that when he went over bumps in the prairie the edge actually sawed back and forth and dug in even more. He could feel a thin trickle of blood already oozing down his neck and onto the top of his sweatshirt.

  “Who are the Tribunal who rule Amarillo you mentioned?”

  “The freaks. You never heard of them? Everyone in Texas fears those bastards. They’re—ruthless. Make the toughest of the gangs out here in the badlands look like kids fucking around. The Greenshirts—the Tribunal’s enforcement squads—come out sweeping up people. You never see them again. Just gone. Some say they’re used for terrible experiments, that they cut them up and sew them together again. Others say they eat them. Who knows.”

  “Where are they located?” Stone asked, finding it hard to speak as his throat was a little constricted from being nearly cut into sandwich makings.

  “Well, they don’t want no one to know. But I know, ‘cause me and my sisters we had our own run-ins with these Greenshirts before. So we spied ‘em out. Found out they got this whole operation underground about ten miles south of Amarillo. An old missile complex or something. It’s underground. Completely impregnable. Why, we dropped a few petrols down on top of the entrance grates, which were closed—and we couldn’t even get a decent fire started. Then these automatic machine guns rose up right out of the ground and started firing at us. There wasn’t even no one manning them, just spraying out a whole shit-load of slugs and turning back and forth real fast. We got the hell out of there. Always meant to go back and do some real damage.”

  “Well I see we’re on the same side,” Stone said with artificial cheerfulness.

  “I never said we weren’t on the same side,” she laughed. “Of course we’re on the same side.” Stone didn’t like the sound of the laugh. There was a mocking quality to it like she knew something he didn’t—and it was pretty damned funny.

  “You ever .hear of a young woman named April? April Stone, eighteen years old, no—God—she’s nineteen now,” Stone said, realizing her birthday had been just weeks before. “Blond hair, blue eyes.”

  “Stone, you know how many missing girls th
ere are in this state? More is missing than ain’t missing. Why I was missing when I was younger. Kidnapped by half a dozen different groups of slimebags until I finally managed to kill the last ol’ bastard who kept me tied up under his bed and came out here and joined the Ballbusters. We don’t let no one mess with us or we—”

  “Yeah, I get the picture,” Stone said quickly, not wanting to get into graphic detail of just what they did to their enemies. He wondered even harder if he should try something but the woman seemed too good, too strong. He knew somehow she’d killed before and wouldn’t hesitate, even though she seemed to get along with him in a way. Stone wouldn’t have a chance. It took about two hours to get to her encampment and the sun was just setting as they arrived at the edge. Stone didn’t see much at first other than about two dozen cycles parked in a circle, but as they drew closer up to several fires that others of the gang were standing around, he saw with amazement that they had dug their homes in the earth itself and topped the holes with windshields from cars, trucks, whatever. He could see the lights of candles and lanterns sending up jaggedly dancing illuminations from within some of them. They were spread out over the dark field past the two main fires, with car doors well-built right into the earth that could be swung open and closed. Talk about functional architecture, Stone thought, impressed with the cleverness of the operation. Just a hole in the ground—some automobile wreckage of which there was plenty around—and presto: instant all-weather home.

  But if the earth homes were unique, Stone’s eyes opened wide when he sighted the bizarre shape that stood between the twin bonfires. A mound of mud and earth stood nearly fifteen feet high. But more than a mound, a phallus, carved into the shape of a male organ at full extension. And two more mini-mounds below that stretched out for yards. Around it women were venting their spleens, slashing at it with knives, spearing it with long staffs, shooting at the head of the thing, which, with its many holes and pockmarked craters, had obviously been attacked many times like this. What in God’s name had he stumbled into here? Suddenly Stone’s groin area tightened up like it was going into deep freeze. The whole kit and caboodle knew something was up. You couldn’t hide a thing from Martin Stone’s body parts, no siree. That was one of the things he really liked about himself. He was so sensitive.

  The mix of hate and desire sent by the flashing eyes of the other women nearly sent Stone toppling off the bike as he brought it, under Raspberry’s command, to a full stop about twenty feet from the main fire. Seated around the blaze on various car seats half fallen apart were the leaders of the band. Stone could see that immediately by the garishly painted antennae the leaders held in their hands like royal scepters, and the fact that all the other women were standing while the three of them reclined. The trappings of power were obvious in the strangest of places.

  “Well look what Ms. Thorn done gone and snagged herself,” one of the seated women spoke up with a nasty laugh. “A man.”

  “That’s right a man,” Raspberry snapped back as she stepped off the bike keeping the knife carefully around Stone’s throat so he had to step slowly off too. “And he’s mine. He saved my ass. The Jalopios were about to get my sweet tail but good, when this dude showed up on the scene and kicked butt. I mean he sent them into ketchup city, girls. So I want him.”

  “You know it ain’t that easy sugarlips,” one of them said, rising up and swaggering around waving her antenna. “We all gets to share. This here sisterhood is a de-moc-ra-cy. I say it would be more fun to roast the son-of-a-bitch. We ain’t roasted no man for a long time now.”

  “Roast your clit, Rose Spike,” Raspberry snarled as she kicked out a leg and tripped Stone down on the ground like one might trip a calf in a rodeo. So unexpected was the move that Stone went down, though he was able to stop himself before he hit hard with his arm and thigh. The camp filled with laughter and his face turned bright as a baboon’s rear end, though none could see it in the waves of light and shadow from the fires.

  “Don’t you just wish you could,” Rose Spike said, reaching down to the seat she left and grabbing a bottle which she broke against a rock. Holding the antenna in one hand and the ancient jagged-edged Ballantine bottle in the other, she came forward in a crouch.

  “You stay down there, man,” Raspberry commanded Stone, and she kicked him in the side to let him know who was boss. Stone pulled back a few feet and looked around but the number of them with pistols drawn and knives out just waiting for him to try something quickly dissuaded him from the idea. Raspberry reached inside her jacket and pulled out a pair of nunchakus and began whipping them around in a blur.

  “You bin’ asking for this for a long time,” Raspberry said, circling around her adversary. “I bin’ lettin you get away with a lot of shit ‘cause you and me used to be tight. But lately—you a superbitch. So let’s get it on, woman. Do your best.”

  “Sugarlips, you’re about to lose your sweetness,” Rose Spike laughed and slashed out suddenly with the antenna. The thing zapped out like a fencing épée so fast Stone could hardly see it, but Raspberry’s nunchakus moved just as swiftly and slammed the antenna away. Rose Spike slashed out with the broken bottle from the other side and the swinging wooden sticks ripped into the bottle. It exploded in Rose Spike’s hand, making it turn bright red as the glass dug in.

  “Oh, hurt your widdle hand,” Raspberry mocked the bigger but older and slower woman.

  “Not as much as I’m going to poke holes in that pretty little body of yours, bitch,” Rose screamed out. She flicked out with the antenna again and again, jumping all around. She was good—and a few of the slashes hit into Rasp-berry, making her wince with pain though she didn’t emit a sound. Each spot the antenna struck a red welt appeared and blood oozed out. But she was able to shield her face until Rose Spike faltered for just a second and stepped back to regain her balance.

  It was Raspberry’s turn. She came in swinging the nun-chakus like a propeller blade and drove her adversary straight back about ten feet. Then she flipped one end of a stick up and the tip slammed right into Rose Spike’s left eye. It ripped the whole orb right from its socket and sent it flying through the air in a spray of red that gushed out from the hole. Rose let out a scream that everyone in camp heard, heads rising out from beneath the car window homes to see what the hell was up.

  Rose Spike clamped both hands over her face, letting the antenna fall, as if trying to stop the stream of red that was pouring down her face, neck, and black leather clothes. “My eye, my fucking eye,” she screamed. Suddenly she turned and ran right through them, stumbling over things, screaming every inch of the way before she disappeared into the shadows at the edge of the bonfire’s light.

  “I told her not to eye my men,” Raspberry said to the onlookers. “So she lost one of her eyes to even do it with. Now she’s a cyclops. Once more—she’ll be a noclops.” She laughed loud at that one. And about half the others joined in. And Martin Stone, lying on the ground, wondered just what he had had in mind when he had rescued her. He should have tied her up and handed her over to the Jalopios. They obviously knew how to deal with women such as these.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  “COME on man,” Raspberry said, lifting Stone up by the hand until he was standing. Before he could move an inch she had slapped some cuffs around his wrists and pulled him off like a bound calf heading for the slaughter. Other Ballbusters went over to the great mud phallus and began shooting away at it to relieve frustration. She led him about a hundred feet into the shadows until she came to her own little bit of heaven dug into the earth. She reached down and pulled on the handle of the door entrance and lifted it up and back.

  “Down man,” she said, apparently in no mood for bullshit. Stone leaned over and found the top rung of a ladder that led down and climbed in. It was amazingly warm inside considering the chilly temperature outside as night fell. Raspberry followed right behind, closing the door of the place as she came down the ladder. She walked around him and lit a wa
x candle in the center of the dirt room, sending out a shifting curtain of yellow light. It was cozy down here, just the opposite of what Stone would have expected Raspberry to own. Frilly bedspreads and lacy curtains were draped all around the circular dugout home about twenty feet in diameter. It looked more like a New Orleans brothel than the dirt home of a biker queen.

  “Like it?” she asked as she undid her jacket and threw it to one side.

  “Lovely, lovely,” Stone answered sarcastically, though he did admire the placing of two car windshields side by side to form a huge skylight overhead through which one could see the stars coming out as the high thin clouds melted away. “Place like this with a view and all must go for at least $100,000, ten percent down, right?”

  “Built it for two dollars—that was to pay Big Tits for some of these satiny things she had found a box of. I like it to be soft and cuddly when I’m in-ti-mate.” She looked deeply at Stone and he sighed as she ripped off her sweatshirt underneath the jacket and two melon-sized breasts swung out into view, stiff nipples pointing right in Stone’s direction. He gulped hard.

  “Listen Raspberry, my dog, he’s on the back in one of the steel boxes. You didn’t see him—he’s covered up. But I’m worried about him. And if some of the others—not your friends of course—found out there was a male dog around—you know what I mean?”

  “And you’re right about that. Males of any species are never allowed in camp except for breeding or eating purposes. They’d make dog food out of him fast.” She tore back up the ladder, opened the door at the top and yelled something out. One of her lackeys went running off into the darkness.

  “It’s okay now,” she said, sliding down the ladder. “The bike will be put next to my other war bike. She will guard it. None will dare touch it.”