American Hellhound

by Lauren Gilley

  “You can come down now,” he said, voice gentle, at odds with the energy he projected. When she didn’t move, his brows pinched together. “Mags?”

  “Yeah, coming.”

  Her legs felt stronger with each step, her chest a little freer the closer she got to him. When she reached his side, and he put his arm around her shoulders, she stopped shaking altogether.

  Damn it, she was still pissed at him, but she felt so right standing next to him. Safe, and loved, and stupidly strong.

  “Here.” She shoved his gun toward him. “Please take this away.”

  “You should keep it.”

  A stare-down ensued. Finally, with a sigh, he took it back and tucked it in his waistband. “I’m teaching you to shoot. Soon. Tomorrow.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it. And.” His scowl darkened, arm tightening around her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing here tonight?”

  “I told you I was coming. I invited you.”

  “You came without me, though.”

  “You’ve been an ass. Don’t try to turn this back on me,” she said, scowling back. He might look scary, sure, but he didn’t scare her; she wasn’t going to let him think it.

  “Guys,” Collier said, appearing in front of them. “We should get a move on. We’ve only got–”

  There was a crash back toward the kitchen. A sound like a door being kicked in.

  Ghost’s arm dropped to her waist and he grabbed her, spun her around behind him so fast and so forcefully her feet left the ground for a moment. He put her at his back – she grabbed onto the back of his cut with both hands to steady herself, breath caught in her throat – and drew a big, shiny handgun from his shoulder holster. Collier drew too, she noticed, both their weapons trained on the mouth of the rear hallway.

  More crashing, a few grunts, curses, scuff of boots over floorboards. And then Three men emerged: two rough-cut boys in coveralls holding guns on Roman, who they held by the arms. His right eye was swollen shut, angry red and already starting to bruise.

  “Shit,” Ghost breathed.

  A fourth man, gray and grizzled, stepped around the tableau, grinning. “Ha!” he shouted. “Look what we found out back. Two hours, my ass.” He hawked and spat a tobacco-colored glob on the floor.

  “Guess he didn’t run as far as I thought,” Ghost said.

  The man laughed. “Guess not. Fuck you, Ghost. Be glad I don’t shoot you.”

  And then they were gone, dragging Roman with them, shuffling and cursing their way back down the hall.

  “Ghost!” Roman called – Maggie recognized his voice.

  Ghost shuddered, the movement rippling through her hands, up her arms. But he didn’t go after them.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “We can’t,” Collier said. “There’s just the two of us.”

  “I know that. Shit. Fuck.”

  In the silence that followed, Maggie could hear her heartbeat inside her ears, the rough scrape of both boys breathing.

  “We have to go after him,” Ghost said.

  “Yeah,” Collier said.

  “That crew still have that big old house off Chancellor Street?”

  “Yeah. Think so.”

  “That’s where they’ll take him, then.”

  “Yeah. Jesus.”

  “Ghost,” Maggie said, finally finding her voice.

  “Come on.” He took her hand in his – the one not holding the gun – and headed for the front door, towing her along. Collier fell in behind them and they hurried out, almost jogging, out the door, across the porch, down the steps.

  Maggie glanced back over her shoulder once, toward the glowing, decorated, terrifying face of the house. Its generator hummed. Someone would come back and shut it all off. Probably. Maybe. Who cared.

  They hustled up the dark street to the driveway where she’d left the Monte Carlo. Three bikes were lined up beside her car.

  “Ghost,” Collier said, “we can’t take her.”

  “I know.”

  He turned, then, hand releasing hers so he could cup her face. The moon was almost full and it caught his eyes, a cool, animal shine in the dark. She could smell sweat and fear on him. He breathed hard, chest heaving.

  “Hey,” he said, voice low and rough, “I need you to go home, okay? Go home and stay there. I’d take you myself, but–”

  “No, I know.” She touched his face in turn, the hard, bristly plane of his cheek. “You have to go. I’ll be fine.”

  “Please take the gun, Mags, please.” He stressed the word. Reached back to pull it out of his waistband.

  It was warm when he put it in her hands, carrying the heat of his skin. “Yeah, okay.”

  He kissed her once, fast, and then bundled her into her car. “It’ll be okay,” he told her. “I promise.”

  ~*~

  It would have been so much easier, Ghost reflected on the ride, if he’d just let Roman get shot all those weeks ago out in the woods. Or if, you know, Duane had bothered to tell him anything.

  But his life wasn’t that simple.

  They had to stick to the speed limit going through town, but once they crossed the bridge, they opened up the throttle. He kept replaying Roman’s pitiful cry of “Ghost!” over and over in his head, his chest tight. He’d been truly frightened, his voice thin and high, his eyes white-rimmed. Ghost was riding to the rescue now for the club, yes, but also because that scream was going to haunt his nightmares for months if he didn’t.

  The Ryders lived ten minutes outside the city proper, up a long snaking driveway, a jumble of cabins and farmhouses on a hill that all shared a single address and mailbox. Everyone around town joked about the Leatherface chainsaw antics and inbreeding that went on up there, and those stories ran through Ghost’s head now, as they left behind streetlights and well-paved roads and entered a twisty maze of backstreets that would eventually take them to Chancellor Street, and their destination.

  When his headlamp caught the right mailbox – a big black cast-iron number – he pulled off onto the shoulder and killed the engine.

  Collier pulled in behind him. “Sometimes,” he said, when the engines were pinging and hissing, “I wish we had quieter rides.”

  “Wanna trade in for a Japanese bike?”

  “Not on your life.”

  Ghost fished a flashlight and a few spare magazines out of his saddlebag and stowed them in his cut. “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  The driveway was crushed gravel, and it was steep. It was a long walk, punctuated by the chirp of nighttime insects and the crunch of gravel underfoot.

  Collier asked, “You’re serious about Duane needing to go, aren’t you?”

  He was. “You think he ought to stay?” he challenged. “After this shit tonight? After all the shit he’s put us through? The guy’s a shitty leader. Always has been.”

  “He is, yeah. And tonight…yeah. I just…I guess I didn’t expect it.”

  “Why not?”

  Collier sounded hesitant. “You haven’t seemed to care what goes on lately. With the club,” he amended. “Understandable. Your plate’s been full.”

  Ghost snorted. “I’ve been stuck up my own ass, you mean?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  “I have been. I admit it.”

  “Liv–” Collier started.

  “Nah. It wasn’t about her.”

  He could feel Collier’s skeptical look.

  “Okay, so it was a little bit about her.”

  “You loved her.”

  “Past tense,” Ghost stressed. “And I don’t even like to admit that.”

  “Dude, I wouldn’t either.”

  It felt good to laugh, a moment of tension relief before shit hit the fan again.

  “No,” Ghost said, “I was messed up. Part of that was her, but part of it was…” He shrugged. “I dunno. Coming back from deployment. Being a single dad. The club situation.” It had been instability on top of insta
bility.

  “You know how people always talk about being in the Army? About how it shakes ‘em up. Makes ‘em start questioning everything? It traumatizes ‘em. I guess for some people, yeah, it does that. But for me? It was easy. Straightforward, you know.”

  “You don’t ever talk about the Army,” Collier said, quietly.

  “It wasn’t ‘cause it was bad. It actually made sense. You have your orders, and you have your brothers, and you shoot at who they tell you to shoot at – and it works. There’s none of this dysfunctional shit like we’ve got here, where no one knows what anyone else is doing. No communication, no vision. No leadership.” The last he said with a heavy heart. “I came back, and I expected Duane to be like my CO. He wasn’t. He was just like my worthless old man.”

  Something – it had to be a bat – swooped low over their heads, stirring their hair. Ghost smoothed a hand along the crown of his head out of instinct.

  “I think he does love you,” Collier ventured. “That’s why he’s so hard on you.”

  “Duane loves Duane. He likes to pretend he cares about other people when he wants to manipulate them. I’m done being manipulated,” he said, sending his friend a meaningful look.

  It was dark, but there was enough moon to tell that Collier could read his seriousness. “Fair enough,” he said. “I just want to make sure you’ve thought out all the options. And that this isn’t…”

  “Isn’t what?”

  Collier winced. “Someone else doing the thinking for you.”

  “Shit, man.”

  “Maggie’s a nice girl–”

  “Watch what you say.”

  “Hey.” He put both hands up. No offense. “I like her. I get why she’s important to you, okay? I’m just saying–”

  “Saying what?”

  “You’ve never been ambitious before. Not like this. Come on. You know you didn’t put together that business plan by yourself. And then her dad cosigned the loan? You’re in deep, Ghost. Deep and fast. And love can–”

  Ghost hit him in the arm. Hard. “Shut up about Mags. You don’t know shit about her. Do you hear me shit-talking your old lady? Huh? Maggie’s got my back. I don’t have to wonder where her loyalties lie. You, though, I’m starting to wonder about.”

  Collier halted. “That’s not fair.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ve been best friends all our lives, and suddenly some chick you’ve known a few months has got you thinking I don’t have your back? What the fuck, Ghost?” He sounded genuinely hurt.

  “I think you’ve gotten comfortable,” Ghost fired back. “You’ve got a job outside the club, you’ve got an old lady, a nice house, a new bike. You’re not worried, and you don’t want me to shake things up because it’s risky.”

  “What’s wrong with comfortable?”

  “Nothing, if you’ve got it. Which I don’t.”

  They stared at one another, breathing hard.

  “Do you think Duane’s a good president?” Ghost asked.

  Collier looked away, up the drive. Swallowed hard, throat jumping. “We should get moving.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No.” Just a whisper. “He’s terrible. But what am I supposed to do about it?” What he didn’t say was: without ruining the good thing I’ve got.

  Ghost took a step closer, forcing his gaze to return. “Collier, I promise, I’m not taking risks for fun. I’m doing this because I have to, to save this club…while there’s still a club to save. I’m not saying it’ll be pretty – but that’s club life for you.”

  Collier nodded, eyes wet and afraid.

  “I don’t want the club to be this scary, ugly thing hanging over our heads. I want it to be a sanctuary. I want it to be strong. And by God, I don’t want any more redneck nobodies thinking they can just take one of us. If I’m gonna inherit this thing, I want it to be worth it.”

  Collier took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Offered a thin smile. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

  ~*~

  Maggie didn’t realize she was still shaking until she parked in the driveway and shut off the engine. Then she saw that her hands were quivering on the wheel – her whole body vibrated.

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  It didn’t make any sense, what with Ghost being the armed, trained, ex-soldier outlaw who no doubt could handle himself in a rough situation, but she felt guilty for leaving him behind. He had Collier, and multiple guns, and unlike her, he actually knew how to use them. She would have been nothing but a bother and a security risk if she’d gone along, but she had this overwhelming sense that she’d abandoned him nonetheless.

  She had no idea who those men had been, only that they had bad things planned for Roman – and Ghost too, if he got in the way.

  Stupid club. Stupid outlaws. Stupid Ghost, making her care.

  She popped the door and hefted her purse – it was heavier than normal with Ghost’s gun weighing it down. Jesus. What had her life become lately?

  Inside, she was greeted by a rare scene: her parents watching TV together on the couch. They weren’t exactly snuggling – Denise would never stoop to such a thing – but they sat close together, shoulders almost touching. There were two wine glasses on the coffee table. On coasters, of course.

  “Margaret?” Denise called as she passed through to the stairs.

  Maggie paused, hand on the bannister. “Yes?”

  “Is the party over?”

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh. “The party’s over.”

  Later, she would reflect that if she’d stayed in the living room a moment longer, she would have seen the headlights shining through the window.

  ~*~

  At the top of the hill, they found a shantytown of cabins, outbuildings, and single-wides, some clearly unoccupied, some with lights burning in the windows. The main attraction was a white clapboard farmhouse that bore an eerie resemblance to the one Ghost had inherited from his father, down to the ivy crawling up the walls and the sagging porch. The windows blazed with light. A pack of pickup trucks was parked at odd angles along the porch.

  “They’ll have him in there,” Ghost said.

  “If he’s still alive,” Collier said.

  “He is.” He wasn’t confident, but he had to say it. “Otherwise, why take him instead of spilling his brains right there?”

  Collier took a shaky breath. “So what’s the plan, boss?” It was said mockingly, but Ghost didn’t comment on it.

  “If this is like my old man’s place, then there’s a cellar. And a cellar door.”

  “Lock-pick kit?”

  “Always.”

  They made one long, careful lap around the house. Silhouettes behind the gauzy curtains in the windows. Mildew in dark patches on the siding. Muffled voices, laughing, shouting. Stacks of gas cans. Stacks of firewood. Stacks of garbage, bottles and cans, and plastic food wrappers.

  A low, mournful cry from the tree branches above: a peacock; a sound like a woman dying – or coming.

  “Jesus,” Collier whispered.

  They found the cellar doors at the rear of the house, under a lucky stretch of windowless wall, held fast with a padlock. A padlock Ghost knew he could pick, thank God.

  “Hold this.” He passed his flashlight to his friend. “Steady, like that.”

  The lock was old, and rusty, but it finally opened. Ghost chucked it away into the trees where it hit the leaf litter with a muffled rattle.

  “Careful,” Collier admonished.

  “I don’t want them finding it and putting it back on while we’re inside.”

  “Shit, yeah.”

  The doors opened with an awful creak that had Ghost cursing under his breath. Once they were flopped back on their hinges, a sour, musty smell rushing up to them from the darkness below, they waited, poised for attack. But none came. Someone inside the house fired up a radio, twangy country loud enough to rattle the floorboards.

  Ghost took the flashlight back. “Le
t’s see what we’ve got.”

  No one had been down the steep wooden staircase in a while, if the layers of undisturbed dust were anything to go by. Ghost led with the flashlight, the beam tracking over mouse droppings and untriggered mouse traps with shriveled bits of what he hoped was cheese in them. The smell intensified the farther they went, mold and rot and a touch of decay, not death, but post-death. Death turned to dust. Spiderwebs trailed against his face and neck.

  The stairs led them into a dank, dirt-floored cellar with brick walls, exposed floor joists overhead, and several shelves cluttered with dusty jars whose contents he didn’t want to examine. His mother had stocked their own cellar with strawberry jam back in the day; he suspected he might find human teeth and guts in these; it was some real Hills Have Eyes shit out here.

  Boots thumped across the floor overhead. The music blared, loud enough to cover any noise they might make.

  They stood for a long moment, listening.

  “I count four,” Collier said.

  “Five,” Ghost said. “I expected more, really.”

  “Might be more on the way.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Go up there. Get Roman. Get out.”

  Collier’s swallow was audible. “If we do that, we’ll have to kill some people.” It went without saying: someone might kill them.

  “Gotta be honest, man, that doesn’t bother me.” And it didn’t. There were things in life that ate at him: guilt over his bad parenting, the horrifying idea of anything happening to Maggie, the dark memories of seeing the bodies of Mama and Cal at the morgue. But shooting a few of these goons wasn’t one of them.

  He glanced over at his friend – tried to, anyway; it was too dark.

  But Collier could read the gesture. “Sure,” he sighed. “What the hell.”

  They fumbled around a few more minutes, finally locating the staircase that would lead up to the first floor of the house. The door fit badly, strips of light visible around the seam.