The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

  “Ava, what the hell are you doing?” Carl asked.

  “We’ve got to get everyone inside Buddy’s right now with the children and the others, come on! We’re about to get overrun!”

  “What are you talking about?” Barb said.

  “What’s happening down there?” Lovina asked over the radio. “Why is everyone coming off the barricade?”

  “Agnes?” Ava called into the radio. “Agnes, I’m coming to get you! We have to get inside!”

  Barb grabbed Ava by the shoulders. “Ava, please, what is it?”

  Ava held the mike button open on the radio so Lovina and Agnes could hear, too. “They fell back to the other side of town … the other side of the two-lane! What happens when you go far enough down the two-lane on either side?” She pointed east down the two-lane, behind them. “You end up on the other side of town!”

  There was the sound of engines, many engines, down the road, behind the barricade, coming closer.

  “Aw, shit!” Carl said. “Okay, everybody inside the roadhouse, now! Go, go, go!”

  Ava handed the radio back to Barb and began to sprint across the road and up the hill toward the old mansion. “Agnes! Agnes!” she shouted as she struggled up the hill.

  “Over here, dear!” A hand came up out of the tall grass. “I seem to be having a spot of trouble standing up.” A bullet whined near them both and knocked up a clump of dirt. One of Wald’s men in the ditches had taken a shot when he saw Ava running up the hill. Ava drew the heavy old revolver and returned fire as she reached Agnes’s sniper nest. The kick of the gun nearly dropped her on her ass, but Ava managed to stay upright. She doubted that she’d hit the guy, but all of Wald’s men ducked after the shot. She offered a hand to Agnes, and the former OSS agent took it and pulled herself to her feet.

  “Very embarrassing,” Agnes said, hefting her rifle, sack, and radio. “Old Wild Bill Donovan would be very disappointed in his girl.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Ava said. “Screw Wild Bill, whoever he is. We’ve got to go, Agnes!”

  “Too late, I fear, dear,” Agnes said. “Look.”

  Coming into view down the eastern side of the two-lane was a caravan of vehicles, roaring toward Buddy’s and the blockade. There was an old eighties Ford pickup with a nasty-looking snowplow attached to the front of it. A half-dozen armed men were crouched in the truck bed of the Ford. Running slightly behind the Ford was a seventies-model Chevy truck with another complement of men in the bed. Bringing up the rear was the Scodes’ ancient tow truck, with more men huddled in the back on either side of the tow winch.

  “Damn it!” Ava looked around frantically. The ruins of the house behind them called to her again. Agnes looked at her and then nodded. “Tell Barb and Lovina we’re going to hole up in here,” Ava said as they headed for the house’s entrance. Bullets again began to hiss past their heads.

  Below, Wald’s men in the ditch opened fire while the group that had been waiting to try to flank the barricade made their move. Some of the volunteers sent over to counter the killers died as they retreated before the advance.

  “Damn it!” Lovina shouted, and flipped the selector on her AR-15 over to full auto. She stood at the edge of Buddy’s roof and sprayed death down on those of Wald’s men who had broken through the lines. Several of them screamed, fell, and died, but others fired up at Lovina and forced her to fall back. She climbed off the roof on the other side of Buddy’s and tried to provide covering fire for the stragglers out front. Many volunteers fell to shots from the advancing trucks. Wald’s men in the trenches moved past the barricades, overrunning them.

  Lovina was the last one into Buddy’s as the men from the trucks disembarked right in front of the roadhouse, guns barking as their feet hit the ground. Lovina rolled one of her few precious flash-bang grenades into their midst. The grenade exploded in a blast of blinding light and deafening sound, giving her time to fall back and for Barb and Carl to secure the main door to Buddy’s behind her.

  “That went south fast,” Lovina said, checking her magazine and then slapping it back into the rifle. “How many we lose out there?”

  “Eight, ten?” Carl said. “Too damn many. Would have been more if not for Ava.”

  Lovina looked around the roadhouse. Every window was boarded up, with at least one citizen with some kind of firearm manning it. The children, the elderly, and all the other noncombatants were on the stage side of the roadhouse, huddled at the picnic tables, looking frightened and confused. There were over fifty of them, who had been saved in advance of the purge. There was the low murmur of tense conversation punctuated by the squalls of children and infants. Jesus, infants!

  Lovina laid the rifle on the bar, walked over to one of the walls, and leaned against it. She rubbed her face and tried to think of a way out of this. “Agnes and Ava?” Lovina asked Barb without turning from the wall.

  “Holed up at the old mansion up on the hill,” Barb said. “I just radioed them and they’re okay.”

  “You guys carry Dixie Beer?” Lovina asked, her face still to the wall.

  “What?” Carl said. “Um, no.”

  “It’s okay,” Lovina said. “Just wishful thinking.”

  There was a squawk of static on the walkies, and then Wald’s voice. “Hello in there? You hearing me?”

  Lovina sighed and turned; she picked up her walkie and keyed the mike. “Yes, we hear you,” she said.

  “Who the fuck is this?” Wald asked. She could almost see him holding the CB mike, standing at the door of his tow truck.

  “I’m the person on the roof who should have blown your big old potato head clean off the minute I saw you,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “You must be that bitch that followed the Master in,” Wald said. “He said you might be trouble. I think he gave you too much credit. I want you to bring everyone outside, right now. No weapons, hands on heads.”

  “Why?” Lovina asked. “So you can execute us, like those other poor souls you killed this morning?”

  “Yes,” Wald said. “But we’ll kill you all clean—a bullet in the skull. You wait a few more hours and then the shadows will creep in, and the packs of Black-Eyed Children. They’ll kill you all much more painfully, with much more terror for all those stupid cattle in there. Those babies you have in there, those children … every single one of them will be bitten, infected, and turned—their sweet little souls eaten like cotton candy and made to become shells for the Horned Man. You want that?”

  “Why?” Lovina said, resting her head on the wall now, closing her eyes. Her voice was low but strong. “Why children, you sick fucker? Why do the adults who get bitten die?”

  There was a pause for a moment, then Wald’s voice replied, “I asked the Master once,” he said. “He told me that only youth still had souls pure and intact enough for the shadows to suckle, to feed on, and grow strong—to incubate. By the time you’re our age, your soul is shot—tattered, torn—but you already knew that—I can tell by the sound of your voice, by the way you killed those men.” There was another pause on the radio, and then Wald’s voice returned. “So what do you say, whore? Come on out and everyone gets a quick death, even the kiddies.”

  Lovina opened her eyes and stood. “How about if I walk through that door and kill as many of you as I can, taking extra-special care to shoot your ugly ass first, bitch.”

  “I don’t think so,” Wald replied. “I guess we do this the hard way. I set fire to the old gin joint and then you and the lot burn to death in there, or you run out and we cut you down. Either one is fine by me.”

  Barb and Carl looked at each other. Barb ran to the bar sink and grabbed a wash bucket. She turned the faucet and only a thin trickle of water came out “They shut off the water,” she said. Carl looked at Lovina, and she looked down at the radio in her hand.

  “What do we do?” Carl asked.

  Lovina switched the channel selector on the radio to Channel 23. “Break, break, 2-3,” she said. “This is L
ovina Marcou, I’m a Louisiana State Police officer, and if anyone can hear me, I need assistance, repeat, 10-78—officer requesting assistance.” She closed her eyes as she spoke. She had been here so many times in her life. Outside, she could hear Wald’s killers busying themselves with jerricans of gasoline. How many times do you get to sidestep death in a single lifetime? She thought of the children, the babies laughing, playing, shouting, crying, cooing on the other side of the room, unaware of what was happening, what was about to happen, and she did something she seldom did anymore: she prayed. To what or to whom she was praying, she had no idea. “Please, if anyone can hear me, please respond,” Lovina continued. “We have civilians, about seventy-five, including children and infants, in a roadhouse in Four Houses. We are surrounded by armed hostiles. Please 10-78, 10-78. If anyone can hear me, we need help.” Lovina opened her eyes. She looked over at Carl and Barb; the couple were holding hands and looking at each other. Lovina could smell the gas now; soon the enemy would begin splashing it on everything. She had one last prayer in her. “The wheel turns,” she said into the walkie. “The wheel turns.” She set the radio down and took up her rifle. She would open the door and charge and take as many of the bastards with her as she could. Suddenly, Barb and Carl were beside her. Carl had an old 12-gauge shotgun, Barb a .357 pistol.

  “What…? What are you—” Lovina asked.

  “The wheel turns,” Barb said.

  Carl nodded, and jacked a shell into the chamber. “The wheel turns,” he said. “We’re with you.”

  The walkie crackled on the bar counter. “Break 2-3, break 2-3,” a booming voice said. “You hang in there, Lovina. You’ve got help coming. The wheel turns, darlin’!” Outside, there was the bellicose blast of a semi’s air horn, coming from down the two-lane. There were shouts of confusion and orders barked, then a horrendous crash. There were screams of evil men dying, the ugly burp of automatic weapons fire.

  “Jimmie?” Lovina said, grinning from ear to ear. “Everyone stay low!” she shouted. “Barb, Carl, cover me and protect the civilians. Get on the horn to Agnes and Ava! See if they can lay down a little cover fire, too.”

  The door to Buddy’s slammed open, and Lovina came out firing. What she saw made her heart leap in her chest. Jimmie Aussapile’s rig had rammed the lead truck, flipped it, and demolished it. The mangled bodies of Wald’s killers were scattered everywhere. Heck Sinclair, his face hidden by his Oni demon mask and helmet, was outside the truck, standing on the step used to climb up into the cab; one hand was holding on to the large grab handle, and with the other hand he was spraying bullets into Wald’s people with his MP9. Jimmie backed the rig up, freeing it from the tangled mess that had been the Ford, and, with another blast of the horn, rammed the old Chevy, sending it flipping over and crushing several of the gunmen in the process. Heck laughed maniacally and blasted another group of the fleeing killers. Several of them fell and were still.

  Lovina sprinted out and opened fire on a group of Wald’s men who were using the mangled Ford’s hulk for cover. They screamed and fell. A few dived for cover and ran. She saw Wald’s tow truck driving away down the eastbound side of the two-lane, the way it had come not too long ago. She had raised her rifle and sighted the fleeing truck in her scope when she heard the heavy click of a shotgun chambering just behind her ear. She froze. There was the distant crack of a rifle, and she heard a thud behind her. She turned to see one of Wald’s assassins, dead, with a neat hole in his forehead. She looked up the hill toward the old mansion and saw Agnes lowering her rifle and giving her the “V for victory” sign. She looked back up the two-lane, but Wald’s truck was out of sight.

  Jimmie had backed up the rig and was shutting it down. Once the semi’s engine was still, it was very quiet on the road. Heck hopped down off the stoop and ran over to Lovina. They both laughed and fist-bumped. “What took you so damn long,” she said, with a smile, and hugged the biker.

  “We literally just got here,” Heck said. “Heard your SOS and hauled ass.”

  Barb and Carl walked out the door of the roadhouse, followed by the citizens inside Buddy’s, who began to stream out, shouting and cheering, as they realized the fight was won. Jimmie and Max made their way through the crowd of thankful citizens toward Lovina and Heck.

  “Well,” Jimmie said with a smile, “going to need a little paint and body work, I reckon.”

  Lovina hugged him tight. “Thank you,” she said. “I knew you’d come.”

  “Hey,” Jimmie said, “out on the road we look out for each other, look out for our own.”

  Lovina hugged him again and then turned and hugged Max. The professor stiffened at the contact for a second and then melted into it, almost collapsing in Lovina’s arms.

  “You got Max to thank for getting us here,” Heck said.

  Lovina pulled away from Max enough to look into her big, dark eyes, hidden behind the glasses. She had very beautiful eyes—almost innocent, actually. “You keep saving my life,” Lovina said. “Thank you.”

  Max looked down, “Uh, you don’t have to, um—that is, uh … Thanks … you’re welcome,” she said. Lovina looked past Max and saw Ava helping Agnes down the drive of the old mansion, back toward the roadhouse. Both women were smiling and talking.

  “First round’s on the house,” Carl called out to much renewed cheering.

  It was well after three in the afternoon, and Buddy’s hadn’t been so rowdy, so alive, in decades, perhaps longer. The joint was filled with the sounds of laughter, toasts, and cheers. Those who had fallen had been gathered, their bodies safe and at rest; their families, if they had any, were enveloped in love and care by the whole town. A few noble souls volunteered to man the barricades, armed with a duffel-bag cache of weapons Heck had obtained from the Blue Jocks’ Kansas City chapter on the way up from Georgia. However, the general consensus was that the majority of the Master of the Hunt’s servants had been killed, and the few surviving stragglers posed little threat.

  For most townsfolk, today was a huge victory, a change in the way things had been in the town for centuries. But for the occupants of one of the picnic tables near the back of the stage area, the mood was slightly muted.

  Jimmie, Lovina, Heck, Max, and Ava devoured all the food brought out from the kitchen to their table by Barb and Carl, with very little talking and lots of eating. Enough time was afforded between gulps, chomps, and furious chewing to make introductions and for everyone to compare notes on how they had come to Four Houses. Lovina and Jimmie, especially, were happy to learn that Ava was one of the missing children they had been looking for.

  Agnes joined them after feeding Dennis, who was bundled up on a cot with the other civilians, and making sure that he was resting comfortably. “Oh, very nice to see I was afforded a few scraps,” she said, smiling and plucking a chicken leg out of Heck’s hand before he could take his first bite.

  “Don’t get between me and my chow, old lady,” Heck said. “We’ll tussle.”

  “You’ll lose,” Agnes said, taking a bite. “Food’s always better after a battle. Sex, too.”

  Jimmie’s horrified face came up out of his plate. Max, Ava, and Lovina laughed, and Heck hugged Agnes and leaned in close to take a bite of her chicken leg.

  “Aw, a lassie after my own heart,” Heck said. “Care for a quick snog, you fiery vixen?”

  “Away with you, child,” Agnes said, taking a bite of the leg now herself. “I am a married woman, you crass highway brigand. Now, if I’d met you in, say, 1942, you might have stood a chance. I always had a thing for Scots. Don’t tell Dennis.”

  “Nae a whisper,” Heck said, affecting his best Scottish brogue.

  Having cleared the meager remains of the platters of fried chicken, biscuits, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and collard greens from the table, the Kesners joined them.

  “That was as good a meal as I can recall ever having at a roadhouse, folks,” Jimmie said, burping slightly. “Thank you.”

  “Aw, thanks,” Bar
b said. “You guys deserve it.”

  “Everyone is celebrating,” Carl said. “I don’t have the heart to tell them that in about four hours we have another fight on our hands when the monsters come out after dark.”

  “I think we can help with that, somewhat,” Max said. “A little secret weapon in the truck.”

  “Chasseur is up to something,” Agnes said, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “He picked today, after all this time, to finally wipe out everyone in the town. No, something’s about to happen—an endgame, I’d wager. And I believe that it’s predicated on Ava’s, and now Lovina’s, arrival in Four Houses.”

  “What’s so special about me?” Lovina asked.

  “You both threaten his superiority here,” she said. “The house with the chain-link fence called to you. It needs you to heal it, the same way the house on the hill needs Ava. The houses have been waiting for someone to come to undo what the Master of the Hunt did so long ago.”

  “The wells,” Ava said. “The wells in the basements. Chasseur sealed them in some kind of ritual sacrifice when he burned the houses and murdered the old occupants.”

  “Yes, dear,” Agnes said. “Correct.”

  “Are there CliffsNotes for this?” Heck said. “Because I’m lost here.”

  Max gasped and jumped to her feet. “Yes, yes, of course, yes!”

  “Oh, that explains it,” Heck said. “Thanks for clearing that up for me, Doc.”

  Max shook her head, and her great mane of dark hair flew back and forth. “Four Houses! Of course, Four Houses … One, two, three, and then the fourth, three plus one … in opposition—the many versus singular … Yes! The tetragrammaton—the four-letter name of God! Don’t you see?”

  Jimmie frowned. Heck grinned and looked to Lovina, who seemed confused as well.

  “Um, Dr. Leher,” Carl said. “I’m afraid I don’t…”