Black Jacks Folly: MC Club Romance (Undercover Sins Book 1)

by Tia Wilson

  “Anybody home?” Grant shouted into the opening of the pipe.

  “Are there any toothless meth heads down there?”

  “See nothing to be afraid of” Grant said mockingly.

  As soon as the words left his mouth his jaw dropped agape and his face went pale. One knee slightly buckled under him and he half stumbled and half fell away from the pipe. He landed hard on his ass in the dirt as he tried to scramble away backwards.

  Clive surprised himself and instead of running back into the woods he ran towards his friend to try and help him.

  “What is it, what is it?”

  “I heard a voice coming from below,” he stammered the words barely escaping his lips. “It said help me.”

  Clive approached the pipe slowly and peered into the dark maw sticking out of the earth. A sickly sweet smell filled his nostrils as he tried to see as far down into the gleaming metal pipe as possible. He angled his head back and forth to allow as much sunlight in. Something moved at the bottom, a slight shift in the darkness was the only thing he could make out.

  Clive felt kind of stupid and was hoping that Grant wasn't setting him up to look like a fool, he whispered into the pipe “Hello is anyone there?”.

  Very faintly came a voice sounding like the burnt pages of a book rustling in the wind.

  “Help me. Dig me out” came the voice from the bowels of hell.

  The two boys began to dig.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Deranged - Six Months Earlier

  The air was filled with the metallic twinge of freshly spilled blood, a smell that Darian Pickard dreamt about in his sleep. He sat on the edge of a stained and yellowing mattress with his legs sticking stiffly ahead of him. His head was down as he scribbled in a small leather bound notebook, lank greasy strands of black hair hung across his face as he concentrated deeply on the contents of his book. A small bald patch was on the side of his head were minutes ago a man had ripped out a handful of his hair, the sound of it coming away from his skull sounding like grass being pulled from fresh damp earth. The skin was red and raw but the pain didn't seem to bother him.

  He flipped through his notebook and smiled at the memories that the pages contained. Each page contained a list of ten names in neat square writing and each name had a line drawn through it in bright red ink. Darian added three more red lines to his notebook. Every name in the neat rows had been crossed out, page upon page of bright red lines. A record of all he had achieved since the day ten years ago that Darian called his rebirth. The day that changed the course of his life and through his voyage to hell and back formed him into the man he is today. He flicked to the last page in the notebook which only contained one name that was carefully written in large block letters. The name filled his vision almost flickering and bending in his view as he ran his finger back and forth across it imagining he could feel a texture to the letters under his skin. As with every name on the list Darian said this name out loud believing that uttering what had once broken him would now allow him to take away any power it held over him. He stood up stiffly and in his thin and reedy voice said, “Blackjack. Blackjack. You’re next.”

  As if on cue sparks of pain shot through his knee and his thigh throbbed painfully. The pins holding both legs together seemed to have a life of their own, if he began to think about Blackjack his legs would begin to cramp and his skin would feel too tight over his injured limbs. In the days following his rebirth while he lay in the hospital bed hooked up to a machine that beeped and whirred and administered pain meds at the press of a button, he whispered the name Blackjack incessantly. Every time he uttered the name his broken legs would spasm as shards of white hot pain dug into his wrecked flesh. Through the searing torture he kept on mumbling the name, only stopping when he noticed a nurse staring at him. For weeks on end the name shone inside his mind like a neon sign blinking in the dead of night. Each spasm of pain made him stronger and in the hospital bed as he lay broken he plotted his revenge. Blackjack and all involved would pay.

  With a snap he closed his notebook and placed it in his inside pocket, the notebook felt lighter to him as if crossing off the names somehow affected its weight. He wondered to himself if the notebook might float away as if it was nothing more than a dust mote once he crossed the last name off the list. He relished the day when he would get to draw his red line through the name, the scarlet ink soaking into the page like blood blossoms on a crisp linen sheet.

  Darian Pickard continued repeating the mantra of Blackjack over and over in his head, the huge neon sign building in brightness and intensity with each mental utterance of the final name. While he repeated the last name over and over Darian surveyed the room around him. Crumpled in the corner was a large man wearing the worn and weather beaten leathers of a motorcycle gang member. “Not so scary now,” said Darian his voice echoing off the damp and mouldy walls of the room. He couldn't help himself and chuckled aloud as he stood over the body, making sure not to stand in the pool of blood. The bikers throat had been slit from ear to ear with the curved thai blades Darian liked to use. He wore two of the blades in a sheath pressed into the base of his spine. The blades had curved handles and Durian had perfected a fluid and almost balletic move where he reached back, withdrew the blades and then drew both quickly across a victims neck as he spun to the side to avoid the spray of arterial blood. Most of the time his intended target didn't realise what had happened to him until the blood shot from his throat in a warm red gush. Durian always savoured the panicked look in their eyes as they clutched at the open wound, foolishly trying to stem the flow.

  The dead man on the floor held a clump of Darians hair in his stiffening fist. His hand had shoot out as the blades opened his windpipe and clutched with a vice like grip onto Durians hair. Darian had spun away from the man and his hair came out with a wrench as the dying man slid to the floor gurgling.

  Darian kicked the dead mans foot and it flopped to the side loosely. Everything about the man was meant to invoke fear in the squares, the normal everyday folk that most bikers saw as nothing but sheep to the system. The leather jacket with a large swastika on the back, the shaved head with tattoos creeping up from the neck and the big bushy beard. Most people walked the other way when they saw somebody like this dead man walking about, his whole look was nothing but cultural shorthand for trouble Durian thought to himself.

  Well, look at you now Durian thought, you've gotten taken down by a cripple. People like Mr dead biker always underestimated people like Darian, they where all alpha male swagger while he was seen as nothing but a weakling and a non threat. Oh how wrong he had shown the names on his list, each and every red line in his notebook was another man who had underestimated him. He would make sure that the last thought running through Blackjacks head was one of utter confusion about how such an insignificant man as Darian could best a swaggering alpha male fool like the mighty Blackjack. He would make him pay. Slowly and for a long time.

  Darian barely glanced at the body slumped on the stairs as he passed its lumpen form. He had slashed his throat from behind while he stood at the bottom step and the man had fallen forward and pulled himself halfway up the stairs as his life force drained from his body. Darian had stood at the bottom marvelling at the mans determination to move forward as if he was somehow going to get to safety. Darian always marvelled at the drive for self preservation even when there was no escape. He had seen it all but ultimately it didn't matter. If you were in his book then he was going to come a calling sometime and then his blade would reduce your life down to the last futile minute of struggle as he stood victorious above you.

  The front door to the house stood open and a weak yellow light fringed into the hall. The house was derelict with parts of the walls crumbling and all fixtures and anything of value stripped from it a long time ago. It was a flophouse that some of the Tri-Staff gang members used when they wanted to check out and get fucked up for a few days. A fitting final resting place for these men Darian thought to himse
lf. As he left the house he barely glanced at the man lying on his back with his dead eyes pointed towards the heavens.

  It had almost been too easy to take him out. By chance or universal alignment of the entries on the list, something Darian believed that was akin to some giant insidious clockwork mechanism positioning each of his marked men in a predetermined arch of death, the next name on his list was standing at the front door of the house smoking a joint. Darian had hobbled across the trash strewn lawn towards the smoking man.

  The house was surrounded by other houses of similar disrepair, some had begun to collapse in on themselves because of rot and decay. Darian did not need to be afraid of witnesses, the kinds of people who hung around here did not want the police snooping around. He limped stiffly towards the smoking man on the porch who lifted his head and looked in his direction with a slight smile on his face as he limped slowly towards him. He had seen this look before, a smile playing across someones lips as they witnessed this pathetic creature shamble towards them. They will always underestimate you.

  “Hey, fuck off this is private…” the smoking man said, never getting to finish his sentence.

  The curved blades sliced through the air and with a slice and a deft spin away the victims throat was cut and Darian stood over him as he died. That was his first kill and as the cosmic clockwork machine tightened the second kill was the next name on the list until finally he killed the last man. Darian knew that this could not be some sort of coincidence, it could only mean that everything was aligning perfectly for him and that Blackjack would feel the full effect of his wraith.

  Darian limped down the street, as each step brought him further away from the three corpses he had left behind, he could feel the pain in his knee and thighs ease up. When he reached the intersection where he had parked his bike his limping had lessened and the usual pain subsided. Durian always felt better when he struck a name off his list. He began to imagine how he would feel once the last name was removed, maybe his limp would disappear completely he thought to himself.

  He started his bike and sped down the empty and cracked street. His drove through the winding streets of this decrepit part of the city as he methodically went over and over his plan to destroy Blackjack. He always did his best thinking while on the bike, cruising along with the wind in his hair. To the squares in the cars he would pass by he must have looked just as bad ass as the hardened biker scum he exterminated. No one could tell he limped while he rode. He let his mind wander as he zoomed along, he always liked to just drive after an execution, so he took the roads at random and headed in the direction of one of the smaller beat down towns outside of the cities grey and foreboding industrial area.

  The bike bellowed and roared as it sped along the highway. Darian skilfully weaved in and out of the thick rush hour traffic. He scowled at the passengers as he sailed by on his chrome beast. Why people would choose to drive around in those metal cages he would never understand. That’s the difference between them and me he thought to himself. The pasty and weak looking fools driving the cars are the sheep, happy to do as each other. Eating up what is spoon feed to them since birth. Not him. He takes what he wants and needs, when he pleases. Fuck those sheep.

  Stuttering images of people flashed by as he gunned the engine. An overweight whale of a man stuffing a greasy burger into his maw. A thin birdlike woman applying lipstick to a pinched face. Two red-faced children pulling faces at the motorcycle rider as he sped by. Theses people made him sick, the complacent and the weak. They make it all the easier to be a wolf.

  The engine of the bike went up an octave as he turned into a wide sloping bend. The bike is twenty years old and in immaculate condition. Darian believed that if you rode a bike you needed to know it intimately, even more so than any woman he has been with. He is no poser, no weekend warrior. The bike was his life before he meet Blackjack and it would be after he is wiped off the face of the earth.

  As the bend flattened out a small town was visible on the horizon. Its nothing special he thinks, another shit town in a decaying and rotting part of the country. His mind returns to the notebook close to his heart, he can feel the edge of it pressing against his chest, a familiar weight in his inside pocket. A talisman that has never been out of his sight in the ten years since his rebirth. Now that he was reaching the end of it he could feel a weight lifting off of him. He thought that everything would be better once Blackjack was no more. A thought flashed into his mind that at first he dismissed but then it started to dig its talon like claws into the soft flesh of his mind. His rebirth had begun with a bank robbery, why not close the circle by robbing one now. He could do it solo as another way to scream fuck you into the void, he needed no man to help him to accomplish his deeds. The idea gained traction and his heart sped up with excitement at the thought of it. He looked at the town in the distance and decided with steely determination that he would do it. It was as if the omen from today, getting to kill each man in the order he had written their names on the list was some sort of sign which demanded a bold display of bravado. The list was testing him before his final confrontation with Blackjack. Darian knew he should not ignore the notebook and decided to scope out the local small town bank.

  He had two things on his mind as he rapidly approached the town. First he should scout out the roads and side streets around the bank. A quick circle of the area and he should be done. After that he would be on the prowl for a woman. He liked to follow his chosen woman from a distance, sometimes following them for blocks as they went about their day, unawares of his gaze. He didn't like to approach them as he had seen the look on their faces too many times when they saw him limping towards them. It was usually a look of disgust or even worse sometimes it was one of pity.

  He turned off the main road leading into town and wound his way along the quiet side streets. It was best to vary his approach into town if he intended to do a sweep of the streets. Low wooden bungalows with peeling paint and overgrown gardens crowded close to the one way street he was on. He dropped down a gear to avoid the potholes in the badly rutted asphalt.

  At the intersection up ahead the corner house looked freshly painted and the garden was well tended. Large white sheets hung from a line and billowed in the gentle breeze. A corner of a sheet flipped back in the breeze and behind it stood a thin young woman with auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders. She had her back to Darian as she hung another sheet. Even from this distance he could see her legs through the thin gauzy material of her dress.

  His cock twitched in his tight jeans as he slowed his bike a couple of houses away. He turned off the engine and the bike clicked and popped as it began to cool down. He reflexively touched his chest and was reassured by the presence of the notebook. If the woman had heard his approach on the bike she never turned to look. Instead she was busying herself with the task at hand. He leaned back on his bike and watched her.

  She looked to be no more then twenty and her skin was pale and freckled. Her movements were graceful and fluid, as she moved about completing her task. It was almost as if she was dancing with an unseen partner.

  Darian tried to recall the last time he was with a woman he didn’t have to pay for, and it had been too long. Before his rebirth he had been a hit with the ladies, after it he could see nothing but mockery and scorn on every woman’s face because of his broken form. Blondes where usually his thing, he liked a woman who had been through the shit, who had a bit of mileage on the clock. A woman as beautiful as the one he was looking at would never pay him any attention.

  She continued to move fluidly back and forth hanging the sheets. He leaned up against his bike taking it all in, his cock as hard as steel in his pants. With a flourish she pinned the last peg and pirouetted. For the first time she realised she was being watched and he could see the creep of red along her shoulders and neck.

  She turned away and was lost among the flapping sheets. Darian felt a pull in his chest and sauntered towards her. He walked among the sheets and as th
ey billowed and flapped he could see her outline twist and turn as he moved closer to her. He would pull back a sheet and she would spin gracefully away, catching only a glimpse of her pale shoulder as another sheet obscured his view. His head spun at his proximity to her and he felt like he was floating above his body observing himself limping badly as he spun about trying to catch sight of her again.

  The air hung heavy with her perfume.

  “Do you want to talk?” he said.

  She giggled and spun from his view once again.

  This game was making him feel woozy. He felt like he was spinning around an undulating world with nothing to guide him but tiny glances of this woman. His head swam as he turned back and forth. His ears filled with the snapping of the sheets and her occasional soft laugh. It was not a mean laugh; it was something filled with kindness and light. Exactly what he needed before his bank heist.