by Ryder Dane
If he allowed the kid to live, it was going to be a long fucking road to hoe. David would be a bloody mess by the time he was detoxed off the fuckin poison in his body. The boy needed food and sleep. Not more shit frying his damn brain. Bruin knew what he was talking about when it came to addiction. He’d gotten his speed on in Nam, graduated to heroin and LSD, it took two stints in the cage to clean him up. Now he smoked a little weed to wind down, and stuck to beer for his buzz.
He was one of the original Lucifer’s Breed. There had been ten of them. Now there was three left above ground. He was a lucky son-of-a-bitch to have such a legacy to leave behind and he felt pride everytime he saw their logo. Maybe he would give the kid some instruction for a while, see if he would straighten his shit out. If not, there was always the other option. He heard the rumble of several bikes, and sat his ass on a log, hands visible, clasped together between his spread thighs. He wasn’t going to defend this pack of jackals, except for David, for him, he would negotiate.
Chapter Ten
Baron rode in front of the pack. He didn’t ever show weakness to anyone. If this Bruin was a threat, he would take care of him. His brain wanted to see Amy, but he had to access the situation first. It looked like they’d made themselves at home, but why were they outside? Something wasn’t right here. He pulled into the carport. It was his fucking place. The fatboy was flat black and a painted capitol O with #1 under it was on the top of the gas tank.
The men who followed him from the club were already surrounding the pack of starved looking walking skeletons that were scared shitless, but were trying to act tough. One of them was on the ground out cold. He walked toward the man sitting by the fire and noticed Leech rolling a body over with his foot. Baron looked back to the greybeard and wondered what the old boy was playing at.
Bruin liked the way this new Prez held himself, the man’s eyes gave nothing away. Even when he saw the John Doe lying on the ground, there was no emotion. He was a big motherfucker for sure, his posse knew what their role was, and it looked like they trusted him to do his.
“Thanks for taking out the trash, but I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.” Baron held out his hand to the man. He wasn’t surprised when Bruin stood and clasped his hand. The old guy had dignity, he could respect that, but if he’d come here for something more than what could be seen on the surface, now would be a good time to say so. “We good here? Or do we have business to discuss?”
Right to the point, he was beginning to wish this guy was his kid instead of the rack of drugged out bones still laid out on the grass. “Tags Bruin, out of the mother chapter. I didn’t come here to bust your balls, I’m here because I got a message from the mother of my son telling me the boy was having problems. I show up and he’s with John Doe who’s feeding him street drugs and talking shit. That’s him over there where I made him take a nap. As soon as he wakes up, I’ll be taking him off your hands. A boy should have a man to influence him, and so far I have been pretty busy, I plan to take some time to remedy his lack of education.
“By the way, I had an accident with your window, and I might have wandered around looking for someone to talk to.”
Baron nodded his head acknowledging the man’s admitted home invasion. He wondered how Amy took that. She was probably scared to death. “How did my house guest take your tour?” He was getting real tired of seeing that confused look on peoples’ faces when Amy was mentioned. “Is she hiding in a closet?”
The reply was not what he expected. Bruin’s denial of meeting Amy was the truth, he could see it, so where did she go?
“I didn’t see anyone here, and I think she might have made enough noise to let me know if she was in a closet. The doors I opened did sound like someone was behind them, but it turned out that your mice are noisy. Might want to get a cat.”
What the hell? She didn’t even have a set of clothes other than what she’d walked in the place with last night, and, fuck. What the hell was she up to. “Come on inside, I need a beer, and I guess I need to look around some myself.”
As the two men walked toward the house, they could hear Burger telling their prisoners they needed to shut the fuck up or something bad was going to happen. “You little bitch boys should have stayed home living in your grandma’s basement. Give us any trouble and we’ll make sure your grandparents won’t have to worry about you ever again.” Baron smiled.
“That’s Burger, he can be a mean son-of-a-bitch.”
Leech had Gator cleaning up the glass on the kitchen floor when they walked into the carport. While they waited for him to finish, they discussed the merits of the comfortable road bike that Bruin drove. “I just acquired her about a year ago, gotta say she’s a nice smooth ride. My old bones don’t creak nearly as bad as they used to after a long haul, and if I’m in a hurry, the extra fuel in the tanks keep me going a few more miles down the road before I have to stop.”
Baron nodded and kept up his side of the conversation, but his concern for Amy was growing. She should have come out of hiding when Leech and Preacher went through the house. He handed Bruin a beer, took one for himself, and excused himself for a few minutes. Leech sat with the greybeard and began to talk. He would guarantee that by the time he was finished with the conversation, the two men would be friendly. Leech was the people person in the group, and he had no problem when it came to talking to perfect strangers.
He searched the entire house, including the attic and under the beds for Amy, she wasn’t there. It started raining and he could hear thunder in the distance, so he closed the windows in each room he searched. He’d shut the window in his room thinking it was strange the screen had fallen out, that's when he realized he was a dumbass.
She must have climbed out of the window when company arrived. He hurried back through the house and out the sliding door leading onto the deck. There was a man hiding under the deck looking scared and when Baron saw him, he yelled to Burger. “Got a rabbit here, under the deck.” He kept heading around the side of the house. Preacher and Barney followed to see what was happening.
The screen was lying under the window. That was all they found to show where she’d exited the house. Baron looked around, and the only cover on this side of the house was the woods. They headed for the trees, and he told them he thought Amy was hiding there somewhere. The rain was coming down harder, and it was cold. Fall was beginning early this year, so he hoped they would find her before too much longer. After dark the temps dropped pretty low, even in this part of the country. The wind was picking up and lightning began to slice through the early evening sky. They’d gone a good five hundred feet into the woods and waded through brush to their knees, when he spotted something white about twenty yards ahead.
When he drew nearer, he was happy to have found her. He shouted to the others over the howling wind, and hurried to see if she was hurt. She was covered in scrapes and it appeared she was allergic to some vegetation, if the red rash he saw on her arms was any indication of her condition. She was shivering so bad her teeth were chattering, as she huddled in his denim jacket, with her arms wrapped around her bare legs. She was bare footed, but she was alive and he gathered her into his arms making shushing noises for her benefit.
“Come on, Stretch, let’s get you to the house, and warm you up. I’ll call Doc and get him over here to check you out. That was smart of you to slip out of the window like you did. I almost didn’t notice the screen was missing.” He pulled her upright, but knew she wouldn’t be able to walk back through the woods and briars. Her legs were a mass of scratches, some of them looked pretty deep, and her feet were caked with blood soaked mud on the toes and soles. He pulled her into his arms and told her to wrap her legs around his waist. “I’m going to carry you out of here, but you need to hold on to me, and don’t strangle me or we’ll never get you warm and dry.”
She told him what happened on the walk back. He’d had to put her down twice to climb over a couple of downed trees, and he’d stumbled once when his boo
t slid in the mud, but they finally made it to the edge of the woods, near the house. Gunner and Zippy were headed their way. When they reached the spot that Baron stopped and stood Amy on her feet to rest his back and neck, Gunner took over carrying her to the house. The rain was relentless, and he slid through the soaked grass, but held her as close as he could. Baron followed them inside.
Baron changed clothes quickly, leaving Amy with Gunner, knowing she would be taken care of. The storm wasn’t letting up, but he still had to see to the rest of the people at the house. He was happy to see Gunner, Zippy, and Chaucer had brought a few bags of eats. They were going to have to do until someone could go out for more.
Bruin dragged his boy into the carport and tossed a silver blanket over his shivering body after he pulled a roll of duct tape from his saddlebags and taped the kid’s ankles and hands together. When a gentle tap in the mouth didn’t faze his son, he added a strip of the tape over his mouth. “Boy, I’m debating if you’re worth the trouble it’s gonna take to deal with you. Your best bet is to shut the fuck up, and sit your ass where I put you. You don’t talk to an elder like that, and you damn sure better not talk to me that way again. You ain’t pretty now, but you’re gonna look kinda funny with no fuckin' teeth, you feel me?” David took his time, but he nodded his head.
He helped secure the rest of the troublemakers by using his roll of tape to keep them from roaming around. He found that Burger was a mean son-of-a-bitch when the dumbasses started to feel their high leaving and begged for a hit of anything to keep them from facing reality. He laughed at them, taunted them, and even shared a joint with Bruin, while they watched with hungry eyes.
Burger grinned when he announced he was going to request the Prez let him keep the men as pets. “I can leash them and chain them to a fuckin’ post. They should be happy I’m thinking about keeping them, these little fuckers are givin’ legitimate riders a bad name. All this random shit isn’t what we do. If you’re gonna fight, fight like a man, not some hidey-hole cocksucker. Men don’t terrorize women, we fuck them. If they don’t like it, we move on to the next one that will.”
He looked at Bruin. “Wha’dya say, you wanna help me start a school to teach these sons-a-bitches manners and manhood?” From the horrified looks in the eyes of the captives that were coming down from their highs, both men laughed. “Or we can just kill them and put everyone out of their misery.” Each time the thunder boomed overhead, a few of the captives would jump, and the men watching found it hilarious.
Zippy brought out two cardboard pizzas, and the men devoured them in front of the hollow eyed zombies. Only one of them looked at the food with any interest, but he finally turned his head to stare at the rain pouring off the roof.
Bruin crouched by his son and asked him, “Are you gonna eat the food and keep your words behind your teeth? Or should I let you go hungry for the night until you can learn to talk like a goddamned man instead of a pussy boy?” He ripped the tape from the kid’s mouth and waited for David to speak. The pizza went to his mouth, but no words came out. Bruin nodded, “You’re learning.”
They left Barney and Zippy to watch the men and headed into the house to warm up and grab a beer.
*****
Gunner stripped Amy down to her bare skin and ignored the old sayings about staying out of a bath when it was storming. She was still shivering and the only way to get her warm fast was a tub of steaming water. He stripped his clothes off too and sat behind her in the tub. He washed her bloody legs and arms and even got her hair washed. “Hey, you did good, you know? Thing is, you worried the shit out of us. I got here and seen everyone, but you, I thought something bad happened. You were gone, Baron was out looking for you, and all these fuckers were sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. Reeker, well, no one has to worry about him anymore, he is out of the picture. The old guy with the fatboy, he seemed to think you would know him, he says he is your brother’s father.”
She turned around in Gunner’s arms and looked at him to see if he was joking. “Are you serious? I never knew him, or if I met him, I must have been very young. I just found out about his dad being a biker a month ago. I wonder where he’s been all this time. David could have used a man’s influence around. Our mother is not what you could call a fine example of parenting. I hate to say this, because she is my mom, but I’ve seen more devotion from a dog for her pups than our mother to her children. Some women should never have kids, she’s one of them. It looks like neither one of us was lucky in the father department either. Mine was a deadbeat asshole, and his is an absent biker. To borrow your words, it’s a fucked up situation.”
When the tremors stopped wracking her body, Gunner stood her up and used the shower to rinse the soap from their bodies. “Let’s go, I’ll get you tucked into bed, and find something for that growling stomach of yours.”
Amy gave him a drowsy smile. “It’s a good thing there’s plenty of hot water. This is the second time I needed it, remember, last night? Baron helped then and now, thank you for helping me, I might have stayed in the tub and slept if you hadn't joined me.” She got a kiss for her words, and he pulled the blanket up under her chin.
The red rash was gone after the bath, so whatever caused it must have been washed away with the bath water. Gunner set the bowl of canned soup that he’d heated in the microwave next to the bed on the nightstand. She was asleep, and her mouth was barely open, but she was snoring a little, and he found that adorable. He laid another blanket over the bed because it was chilly in the room, and he didn’t want her to catch a cold. He shucked his clothes and joined her under the covers. When he pulled her into his arms, her head fit perfectly on his shoulder. He smiled as he drifted to sleep.
*****
Baron went out to check on the prisoners. He didn’t plan to keep them around for long. They were men who had never matured past middle school brainpower. Now that they’d lost their drug daddy, they would be hanging on the streets looking for a fix. He decided to put the problem to the brothers tomorrow at Church. They couldn’t let them go until they knew if that fucker Reeker had shared club business. David and the other kid whose name he couldn’t remember, had been prospecting with the club for a few months, and who knew what they had picked up. He hesitated to kill them all, disposal wasn’t the problem, he’d bet most of these assholes had families that cared about them, even in the shape they were in. Too many unknowns for his comfort, so they’d sit on them until a viable plan came up.
Currently, Barney and Chaucer were playing a game to keep them all entertained. He’d seen it before, actually instigated the game at times himself. Tonight, he sat it out and watched. The prisoners were sat in a circle and Chaucer explained the rules to them.
“Me and Barney here, we’re bored, so you shitasses get to be the entertainment. You boys see this here revolver?” He spun the cylinder. “It’s my personal protection. All I gotta do is point and shoot, no messing with an enemy, just shoot him and get it over with. So I’m gonna put a bullet in this ol’ .38 special, and we’re gonna play a game of Russian roulette. Only you boys get to be the targets.” He grinned at the freckle faced kid with a red Mohawk. He looked at Barney and laughed.
Barney had a beat up semi-auto in his hand. “Now that’s some funny shit there, do you boys see what Barney wants to use? That’s cheating, man. You need a revolver for this game.” The red Mohawk had tears leaking down his face. He taunted each man in the circle by staring at him and grinning real slow. “If you’re gonna play the game, you need to follow the rules.” He kept spinning the cylinder.
Barney came back from the row of bikes with a .45 ACP hammerless. He made a production of breaking the gun down and inserting a moon clip. He had the loads made especially for noise instead of damage for those times an aggressive dog came after his scooter. He didn’t want to admit that he hated to kill dumb animals. Men, he had no issue with killing. Dogs were just trying to guard their territory, same as he’d do for his if he had any. He was gonn
a catch shit for having them, but fuck it.
Chapter Eleven
Chaucer stood in front of a skinny guy with no front teeth and a black eye. The kid closed his eyes and started begging for his life. He’d already pissed himself, and his tormentor found his tears funny. “Ain’t you the one that told Barney to go fuck himself? I think I’ll save you for him.” He stepped to the next man and pointed his gun farther down. He pressed the trigger and nothing but the snap of the hammer was heard. The guy looked at him, and Chaucer laughed. “You thought I was gonna kill you? Hell no, you can live a nice long life without a dick, it ain’t like any woman’s gonna want to fuck your scrawny ass anyway.” He made his way around the circle taunting each of his victims and shaking his head when the gun dry fired.
Barney stepped into the circle and saw the relief on four of the seven men’s faces. “Well fuck, man, do you even have a damn bullet in that thing?” Chaucer laughed and pulled the trigger. A loud boom sounded and his victim screamed, clutching his crotch with both hands. There was a collective sigh of relief from the group and Barney pointed his gun and fired off three shots, three other men cried out and screamed in pain, grabbing their dicks through the denim.
The two grinning men laughed their asses off. Baron commented, “Those fucking loads would have taken their scalps off if I’d have shot them in the head.” The wads in the blanks had enough velocity to cause pain, even through the thick material. It was all good. No one died, and even the ones that pissed themselves cried tears of relief. The rabbit that Baron saw under the deck was screaming at Barney.