Chapter 17
Cooper spent a few days at the shack and then went into town to see Ashley. He did what he always had done and left Skeeter and Samson in the shack while he went to see her.
It was almost noon when a couple of adventurous dirt bikers that were camped deep in the desert, made their way to the shack. They were camped several miles away, just riding their bikes all through the desert.
When they first came upon the shack they were curious about it so they made a couple of slow circles around it until they spotted the well. They figured they could get a drink of water so they pulled their bikes over and jumped off. They took off their helmets and yelled hello a few times to see if anyone was around. Not getting a response, one of them said, "Can you believe this old place way out here in nowhere?" The other one laughed, "It's crazy, I guess someone just like us must've liked the desert about a hundred years ago." The bikers were in their mid twenties to early thirties and in good physical shape.
While one of the bikers was pumping water from the well the other one said, "I'm going to go check out this old place and also the hole in the ground we saw out back." The other one said, "You go ahead, I'm staying right here. Old places like that freak me out."
When the biker got around behind the house he walked over to the hole in the ground and saw the snakes at the bottom of the pit. He momentarily jumped back as he yelled back to his friend, "Damn! That's freaky! There must be fifty snakes in this hole." He then saw the cut out that Cooper had made in the back of the house that he used for a door. By then his curiosity was getting the best of him so he decided he wanted to take a peek inside the old shack just to see what it looked like. He pulled the make-shift door off and laid it to the side. When he did that he heard the deep low and terrifying growls from both Skeeter and Samson.
As soon as he heard that sound he panicked and started to run for his bike instead of putting the door back over the hole. He was yelling to his friend when the dogs came running out of the Shack after him and they hit him from behind. They knocked him to the ground, but he had on biker boots and gear and flipped over on his back and started kicking and fighting them off as they attacked him. The entire time he was being attacked he was yelling for help from his friend.
His friend saw what was happening so he quickly put his helmet back on and started up his bike. He then raced the engine up to full throttle and took off straight for the dogs. The dogs were so intent on getting the biker on the ground that they weren't paying attention to anything else. He hit Skeeter in the middle of the back with the front tire at about fifty miles per hour. It instantly broke Skeeter's back and he began yelping and crawling with his front feet toward the shack.
Samson temporarily let go of the biker he was attacking and started chasing the other biker that had hit Skeeter. That gave the one being attacked a chance to make it to his feet and start to run for his bike again. Seeing that he couldn't catch the other guy on the bike, Samson gave up his chase for him and went back on his attack of the guy running for his bike. He was biting at his legs and arms and trying to jump up and grab him by the throat as he chased after him.
By then the other biker that had hit Skeeter had gone down about fifty yards and turned around. Seeing that his friend was still in serious trouble and under attack, he took off again at full speed toward Samson. He hit Samson in the middle of his chest. He hit him so hard it was like hitting a huge rock and the biker went flying off his bike into the air and landed several feet away on the ground. Samson went tumbling across the ground several times and was badly injured.
That gave the biker that was first being attacked just enough time to get to his bike. Seeing that Samson was injured he started up his bike and quickly revved up the engine and took off at full speed toward him. Samson was still struggling to get to his feet as the biker hit him hard and ran over him with both tires. Angry and bleeding from being attacked by the dogs, he circled around and ran over him a few more times just to make sure he wouldn't get up and try to attack them again. While he was at it he then ran over Skeeter a few times while he was pulling himself to the shack. He was yelling and cussing the dogs the entire time he was running over them.
Once he thought both dogs were dead he pulled up on his bike next to his friend and said, "Are you okay?" His friend replied, "Yeah, I'm fine just a little shaken up and bruised, that all." He went over and picked up his bike and it had a bent front wheel from the impact of hitting Samson at the fast speed. He pushed it and said, "I think I can still ride it back to camp like that if we go real slow." He looked around and said, "We better get out of here before the guy that lives there comes after us with a gun for killing his dogs. You need to get some bandages for your wounds once we get back to camp."
On the way back to their camp they were talking about the size of the dogs and how lucky they were to get away without one of them being killed. The one biker that had been attacked thanked his friend a few times for saving his life.
Cooper didn't get back until later that afternoon from seeing Ashley. When he first pulled up to where he always parked his truck he immediately saw the door off the back of the shack and both dogs lying outside on the ground. Cooper yelled out, "Oh, God, what happened here!" Samson was still breathing, but it was labored and he was just barely alive. Skeeter had died from his injuries before Cooper had gotten back. He went over and picked Samson up in his arms and he was limp and lifeless. Cooper could tell that his body was broken in several places and knew it was just a matter of time until he would die. He instantly started yelling and crying out. The dogs had been his constant companions since he and Dalton first got them as puppies. He was now feeling the same gut wrenching emptiness he felt when Dalton died.
It was only a few hours later that Samson took his last breath while Cooper was holding him in his arms. He couldn't believe that both the dogs were now dead. They had been with him on so many attacks and they seemed invincible to him. He wondered how anyone could've been able to do that to both dogs. Finding one of them mortally injured and the other one dead was something he never expected and it devastated him.
Once he was able to stop crying, he started looking around to see what he believed had happened. As he looked around he saw the dirt bike tracks and believed he had a pretty good idea. Now he was even in more rage that bikers had killed his dogs. He got in his truck and went from one direction to another for a few hours, just looking for them.
Not finding any sign of them, he went back to the shack and dug a large hole and carefully placed the dogs in it. He then said a few words over them before he buried them. It was hard for him as he sat there for the longest time just thinking about how much he was going to miss them. Now, for the first time in his life, he truly was all alone.
Not being able to rest, he decided to take a drive deeper into the desert once it got dark and see if he could spot any campfires. He had driven for miles in different directions when he finally spotted a fire off in the distance. When he made it to their camp he drove up and there were the two young men that he believed had killed his dogs. They had a pick-up with a trailer to pull their dirt bikes and a tent they had set up to sleep in. They had their music blaring loud and they were drinking heavily from a Jack Daniels whiskey bottle.
When he first pulled up, he was smiling and acting friendly as he got out of his truck and asked them how things were going. They could tell he was a young guy so they were friendly with him and said things were good. After talking for a while Cooper went over to where they had their bikes leaned up against the trailer and saw the bent wheel on one of them. He said, "What happened to your wheel? Looks like you had a little problem?" One of the guys laughed and said, "Yeah, we had a little, big dog problem, but we took care of it." Both of them just laughed.
They didn't offer up the information about what happened and Cooper didn't ask. He already knew what they had done. One of the guys
offered Cooper some weed to smoke and he told him he didn't smoke, but thanked him for the offer. He told them to be careful because of all the snakes out there in the desert. They laughed and one of them said, "Yeah, We know we've already killed a couple of them." He told them to have fun as he got back in his truck and left.
He went about a half mile away and turned out his lights. The rage over the loss of his dogs was starting to eat him up inside and he could hardly contain his anger. He turned his pick-up around and then slowly drove down close to their camp with his lights off. They had their music going so loud they didn't hear his truck as he parked it not too far away. He then waited until they were both drunk and had gone to bed.
When he believed they were both asleep, he then started up his truck and hit the throttle at full speed. He ran through the middle of the tent and over one of the boys. He had caught one of the bikers in his sleeping bags and run over him before he knew what happened. Cooper felt the tires hit him as the truck bounced twice in the air as he ran over him with both tires. He quickly made a full circle turn and went for the tent again. By then the other biker had made it up and out of the tent and was starting to run. Cooper chased him through the desert for a while before he was able to finally hit him at full throttle from behind and knock him to the ground. He quickly turned the truck around and ran over him while he was trying to get to his feet. He was so angry that he ran over each of them a few times just to make sure they were dead. After running over them he got out of his truck and threw their bikes on the ground and ran over them a few times as well.
He was still pumped up and angry as he headed back to the Shack, but he was feeling happy that he'd found the guys that killed Skeeter and Samson. He was glad that he was able to do the same thing to them that they had done to his devoted friends.
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Nightcrawlers: Reign of Terror Page 18