“Hey, are you okay?” Leo asked.
When I could see again, the biker was reaching out to steady me. I waved him off and blinked a few times, but the light was gone and so was the dizziness.
“It’s alright,” I said. “I’m fine… I think.”
What the hell was that? Did I just get electrocuted or something? Maybe I should check over the Packmaster’s electrical system, too.
“Want me to bring it inside?” Leo asked.
“Um… yeah,” I answered. “Thanks. But be careful. I think it zapped me.”
Leo frowned at his motorcycle before cautiously touching the back of his hand against the handlebars. Nothing happened, though, so he kicked up the stand, then followed me through one of the big roll-up doors into the garage. I pointed to a lift table, a much smaller and portable version than the lift with the Corolla still waiting for its new transmission fluid. Leo maneuvered his motorcycle into place while I pulled on a pair of worn leather gloves. I didn’t want to touch the Packmaster without protection again.
Once my hands were safely covered, I strapped the motorcycle onto the lift table and raised it a few feet. I cracked my knuckles and nodded to Leo.
“You can wait up front, if you like,” I offered. “I think there’s still some coffee. It doesn’t taste great, but the lobby air conditioning is better, at least.”
Most customers opted for the uncomfortable chairs to either stare at their cell phones or page through old car magazines, but Leo shrugged.
“If I’m allowed back here, I’d rather stay,” he said.
I didn’t really like an audience, but I had been working with the other GTA mechanics while they taunted me for two years now. So I nodded and got to work.
I started out by sighting down the Packmaster’s swingarm. That’s the part of a motorcycle behind the exhaust muffler that holds the rear wheel in place. There were tick marks etched into the metal and the wheel alignment looked good. But those calibration marks were placed by the manufacturer and if their machinery was off, then so were the marks. Better to check the alignment myself just to be sure. I grabbed a tape measure from the tool bench.
“Have you bumped up over any curbs recently?” I asked. “Hit anything?”
Leo shifted his weight a little back and forth between his feet. Not shuffling, really – it looked far too deliberate for that – but like he was ready to move. Maybe to run.
“No curbs or meridians or anything,” Leo said. “I take care of my bike, but… I ride hard.”
“Yeah, I bet you do,” I murmured to myself.
Luckily, Leo didn’t seem to hear me. I unspooled the tape measure and checked the distance between the left swingarm pivot and the rear axle. I slipped my hand between the exhaust pipes to get the measurement on the other side. That usually required removing some of the body casing, but my hands were small enough to just maneuver around it.
Screw you, Craig.
But I shook my head. The measurements were identical on either side, which meant the alignment was dead on. No clues there why Leo’s steering was off. Maybe I could at least solve the zapping problem.
I lowered the lift table and checked the Packmaster’s headlight, but didn’t see any sign of frayed or sheared wires. So what had shocked me? I dug through a toolbox until I found a big multimeter, one with a current clamp on the end. I hooked it around some of the exposed chrome of the Packmaster’s handlebars, but the meter needle didn’t budge. If there was any electrical current running through the metal, then it was too little for the multimeter to detect. Which probably meant it was too little to zap me.
I scowled at the meter and put it away, but I didn’t take off my gloves.
“So far, everything looks fine,” I reported. “If your steering is pulling to the side, it might be… maybe a bearing problem? That will take a bit longer to check, though. What about the engine issues? What’s going on there?”
“It runs fine most of the time,” Leo told me. “But every once in a while, the engine surges and the RPMs shoot through the roof. I jump up about ten or twenty miles per hour until I can throttle back down.”
“Hmm…” I said.
The engine seemed fine from the outside – no signs of leaks or cracks or anything like that. I raised the lift table again to inspect the drive belt. I pinched the edge of the belt and gave it a gentle twist. It turned forty-five degrees without trouble, but not much further than that. The belt was at the correct tension and looked recently replaced.
“Put anything weird into the tank?” I asked. “Engine cleaner or the wrong gas?”
Leo shook his head. “Nope.”
I frowned at his motorcycle. Alright, maybe fluid levels? But when I checked, the oil wasn’t low. Even if it were, it wouldn’t have made the engine surge. I lowered the lift again and finally pulled off my gloves, tucking them into the waist of my coveralls.
“Look, I know my bikes,” I said. “But I’m not the motorcycle whisperer. I’ll need to crack open the bodywork and primary case to figure out what’s going on here. And that will take a little time.”
“How long?” Leo asked.
“You should probably get a motel room. Crayhill isn’t exactly a big tourist destination, but Highway 44 runs a few miles south of here, so there are a couple of motels for stopovers.”
Leo nodded. “I was out on the highway when my bike started having trouble today.”
“And you stopped in Crayhill…?” I asked, cocking my head curiously. “There are garages in pretty much every truck-stop town along the highway. Why did you come here?”
Leo shrugged and I shook my head.
“Get a room and come back in the morning,” I suggested. “I should have some answers for you then.”
At least, I hoped that I would. So far, all of the usual suspects were unusually absent. I just had to pray that once I opened up the Packmaster’s engine, the problem would present itself. Leo crossed his thick, tattooed arms.
“Is my bike rideable?” he asked.
“Well… yeah,” I answered reluctantly. “You rode it into town. But you don’t want a major engine seize or steering pull at highway speeds.”
“I can’t stay here. I need to catch up with my friends,” Leo said. “There’s somewhere we have to be.”
I sighed. “I can’t recommend you riding very far on this beast until you find out what’s wrong and fix it. I guess you could leave the Packmaster here and maybe buy another motorcycle from someone in town. There used to be a factory, so there are plenty of them around.”
It seemed a little ridiculous to buy a whole new bike just to keep some appointment, but even I was surprised at the heat in Leo’s answer.
“No,” he growled. “I’m not leaving my steed behind.”
Alright, I loved my motorcycle as much as the next girl, but steed was a bit excessive. Leo winced at his own intensity and he looked down at the oil-stained concrete floor for a moment. He let out a long, hissing breath.
“Another bike isn’t really an option for me,” Leo answered at last. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave me a rueful smile. “Sorry.”
“I get it,” I said. “I wouldn’t give up my Bonnie, either. It’s my only ticket out of Crayhill.”
Leo glanced briefly at me, but then returned his attention to his motorcycle on the lift table. He shifted his weight again, as though his body had to play out the options running through his head. Leo pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at it, then finally back down at me.
“I can’t stay here… but my bike needs work,” he said slowly. “So come with me. Do whatever repairs need to be done on the road. Keep me up and running, Jaz, and I promise I’ll make it worth your time.”
Maybe there was something wrong with my heart, too, because the RPMs shot through the roof. Look, I know that human hearts don’t have RPMs, but the hottest biker guy I had ever seen just asked me to run away with him. Getting out of this shit town was all I ever wanted, but I fought to ge
t my pulse down below heart attack levels.
“I… I have a job here,” I stammered. “And I’m supporting both my parents with it. Trust me, I would love to go, but I can’t just… leave.”
“I can make it worth your time,” Leo said again. “I’ll pay you. Cash.”
I blew out a long breath and shook my head. “I can’t. Really. Not unless you happen to have thirty thousand dollars in your back pocket.”
That was what my mom and dad still owed on their house, more or less. The social security checks just weren’t enough to cover bills and food, not while they were paying the mortgage, too. Leo didn’t laugh or roll his eyes, though.
“Not in my back pocket,” he said. “But… thirty thousand? Is that your price to get me where I need to go?”
“Um… yeah?” I said. More like gasped.
Leo looked at his Packmaster again, deliberating, but only for a moment. Then he met my gaze with dark, intense eyes.
“Deal,” Leo said.
Holy shit, I thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Thirty thousand dollars just for a mechanic? Leo must have really wanted to make this meeting. I wished that I could ask for a night to sleep on it, but Leo was already offering me thirty grand to avoid staying in Crayhill overnight. That was more than I made in an entire year working at Golden Touch Auto.
Was this actually happening? How could it be real? I had no idea, but I couldn’t pass up this chance to get out of Crayhill.
“Deal,” I echoed breathlessly. “Wait, what about some kind of deposit?”
I didn’t want to ruin things by haggling, but if I was really about to skip town, I couldn’t just leave my parents in the lurch. One of Leo’s eyebrows rose a little, but he nodded.
“How about… ten thousand up front?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, okay.”
It was way better than okay – this was a dream come true. Leo went to his motorcycle and opened up one of the bulging leather saddlebags. His broad shoulders blocked my view of the contents, but when he turned back, Leo was holding a stack of hundred-dollar bills. They were still wrapped in a bank-branded paper band.
“Ten thousand dollars,” Leo said.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Leo held out the money. Benjamin Franklin stared up at me from the crisp new bills with a faintly accusatory look on his round face, as if to say You know he stole me, right?
I didn’t know if it was a crime to accept stolen money, but what choice did I have? Stay in Crayhill and watch my mystery biker ride away with the only chance I might ever have to see the world tucked away into his saddlebags?
Screw you, Ben, I told the money.
Carefully, I took the cash in shaking hands. Leo snapped his fingers and grinned at me.
“Great,” he said. “Do you need to put some stuff together?”
I nodded. “Umm, yeah. Give me… about an hour?”
“Quicker if you can. I want to get back on the road.”
I collected my tools, locked up the garage and drove back home as fast as I could without getting a speeding ticket. We had exactly four cops in Crayhill and I knew them all by name, but my hometown was so tiny that they could easily keep an eye on the whole thing. I didn’t want to slow down for a single stop sign, but I couldn’t risk being pulled over with Leo’s stolen cash crammed into my pocket.
Apparently, I was still going fast enough to kick up gravel along my driveway and I came to a stop surrounded by a cloud of dust. I opened the garage, but Mom’s car was gone. When I parked and went inside, the little modular house was quiet. Dad was already out fishing with some of the other guys from the old motorcycle factory.
There was a note on the refrigerator from Mom saying that she was over at Judy’s house. Probably watching soap operas and gossiping… But I couldn’t exactly blame either of my parents. There wasn’t much else for them to do around Crayhill.
But that was about to change. I fumbled the thick stack of money from my pocket and counted out five hundred dollars. With sweating hands, I stuffed the bills into my wallet, then left the other nine and a half thousand on the kitchen table. I pulled my mom’s note down off the fridge, flipped it over and scrawled a quick message on the other side.
Ran into some luck. I just got a paying job on the road, so I’m going to be out of town for a while. Maybe for good! More money coming soon.
I’m taking the Bonnie, so Dad’s car is parked over at GTA. Sorry I couldn’t leave it at the house. I’ll call when I can.
It wasn’t Shakespeare, but I didn’t have time for poetry and my parents didn’t need to know where I got all the money. They would only worry.
I added one last thing, though.
Love you both.
– Jaz
I ran to my room and changed out of my GTA jumpsuit, into jeans and a clean t-shirt. Then I stuffed some more clothes in a backpack, followed by my toothbrush, a box of tampons, and a jar of shea butter for my hair. Finally, I grabbed my leather jacket, motorcycle helmet and toolbox. Of course I had my own kit, and if I was going to be Leo’s personal mechanic, I would need it.
I replaced all my tools in the case. I would never have to steal them back from Craig again. The metal box was too big for my backpack, so I tucked it under my arm and hurried toward the door that led out into the garage. But I stopped with my hand wrapped around the dented knob.
Was I really doing this? I had lived in this house since I was born. The close, warm air was thick with smells of dust and my dad’s roses blooming on the back porch. Could I actually just ride away from my whole life? Alright, it wasn’t much of a life, but it was safe and predictable. Normal.
I didn’t know anything about Leo. Well, except that he had a suspiciously large wad of even more suspicious cash. Not exactly promising when it came to my safety. My strange new customer could be an axe murderer, for all I knew. Something inside me shouted wordlessly not to do this, not to go with Leo. That it was suicidally dangerous.
But I knew one thing about Leo Valdis – he was my ticket out of Crayhill. I had no idea where I might end up if I rode with him, and I didn’t care – as long as it wasn’t here. I would be alright… If I could just leave Crayhill before its gravity sucked me into a decaying orbit of acceptance, I could do anything.
It was time to go.
I opened the door and ran into the garage, then dropped my backpack and toolkit in the passenger seat of my dad’s station wagon. Barely resisting the urge to slide across the hood Dukes-of-Hazzard-style, I jumped into the driver’s side and started the engine. I backed out and then drove away without looking back.
I made it across Crayhill to Golden Touch Auto again with twenty minutes to spare. My heart pounded as I pulled into the GTA parking lot, but Leo was still there, lounging against the side of his big black motorcycle and checking something on his cell phone. He looked up as I parked and then climbed out of the car.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come back,” Leo said.
“Yeah, so was I,” I admitted.
Leo laughed. I locked up the car doors from the driver’s side control and dropped the keys into the drink holder. I grabbed my backpack and tools, then kicked the door shut and jogged around behind the garage. There, I yanked the tarp off my Bonneville, stashed my toolkit in the tailpack – that’s a case mounted on the motorcycle pillion behind the rider, rather than draped on either side like Leo’s saddlebags – and then pulled my backpack on over my leather riding jacket.
I was actually doing it, finally leaving Crayhill. Just like I had always dreamed of since… ever. Since I was a kid, since before I could even remember. I was running away at last.
When everything felt secure, I walked my motorcycle out around Golden Touch Auto, but Leo was no longer alone in the parking lot. There was a beat-up truck parked next to the front door and I could already smell the familiar mix of beer and WD-40.
Craig and the other GTA mechanics had gathered around the closed door and
were staring suspiciously at Leo. The big biker stood next to his Packmaster with tattooed arms crossed over his chest. I pushed my salvaged little Bonnie to a stop beside his motorcycle and tried not to feel self-conscious about it. I dropped the kickstand.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
Leo nodded. “Yeah, sure. But make it quick? We need to get moving.”
“This will just take a second,” I promised.
I hurried over to Craig and his thick brows drew down. He gestured toward Leo and then the front door of GTA.
“Who the hell is that guy?” Craig asked, scowling. “And why is the garage closed?”
“I quit,” I said.
Craig blinked and his face turned bright red. He looked like a tomato being squeezed and about to burst.
“Jaz, what the–?” Craig began.
I didn’t wait for him to finish. “Screw you and screw this job. Try treating the next girl better, asshole.”
I turned and walked away, showing Craig my middle finger over my shoulder. Leo grinned at me as I strode back across the parking lot to him.
“Now I’m ready to go,” I said.
Leo unslung his jacket from the seat of his Packmaster and pulled it on. There were a pair of patches on the black leather, one on each shoulder. The right was an embroidered image of an old-fashioned helmet – not a motorcycle helmet, but the kind you see on Game of Thrones – with a flaming plume on top. The name Knights of Hell was stitched in silver thread underneath. I had never heard of them, but it sounded like a biker gang or club. Were those the friends Leo was so eager to catch up to?
But the patch on his left arm wasn’t another helmet. It was a coiled rattlesnake emblazoned there in black and bronze, scales arranged in a hatched diamond pattern. Shit, I knew that patch, though I had never seen one in person. Most snakes were harmless, but some were truly poisonous and those dangerous few – like the diamondback rattler – gave the rest a bad name.
And that was precisely why criminal biker gangs wore the rattlesnake patch. Ninety-nine out of a hundred biker groups were completely legal and harmless, but one percent of them… Well, they were the dangerous ones.
400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse Page 2