Cannibal Corpse, M/C

the streets, some bones scattered in yards but not much else. He didn’t see so much as a scavenging dog or a single rat. Either Freemont had been devastated by the Outbreak or its citizens pulled up stakes and retreated to the east. Probably both.

As he approached the outer boundaries of the town he came upon block after block of burnt, razed houses. The streets were torn apart by bomb craters. There were literally dozens of skeletons in the rubble or wound up in yellow grasses in vacant lots.

Apparently there had been some kind of battle fought there.

Back out on the highway, he headed west, rolling out on 94, throttling up, listening to the constant calming bellow of the hog’s straight pipes. Traffic was light, nonexistent in fact, not like the old days when you hit the road. Now the only cages out there were wrecked cars and buses, semis in the ditch.

But the road…it owned him.

There was a special feeling when you were on your scoot, aiming her down the ribbon of pavement, you and the bike joined at the hip, the wind in your face, the road coming up to meet you. It was freedom and it was exhilaration, it was electricity in your veins, every sense heightened and purified. Things made sense.

Slaughter rode for miles like that, feeling clean and unpolluted: real.

Soon enough, the memories came back, filling his brain with shadows and ghosts, road runs and field events and rallies, riding out front of the pack. All gone now, all gone. Think about something else, he told himself. Think about where you’re going and what you’re going to do when you get there.

Sure, I’d do that but I just don’t know. I’m going on a hunch, a gut instinct, listening to voices telling me what to do and where to go same as I have my whole life and that’s all I know about it.

Well, you must have some sort of plan. You’ve always had some sort of plan, Slaughter. Something hazy in the back of your mind…or what there is of it.

True. Only this time I’m flying by the seat of my pants more than ever before. I have to do this. I have to go out here. There’s something waiting for me and I don’t know what but I got this crazy ass feeling that it might be the most important thing of my life.

You could always turn tail, head back to Milwaukee or Chi, hide out there. You got lots of friends and you know it.

Sure and I got lots of enemies, too. My friends are all with other clubs and how long before they want me to flip patches and join up? And I ain’t doing that. I might be the last free living Devil’s Disciple, but I’ll be 100% Disciple Nation until the day I die. Besides, if I go back I’ll have to live like the wanted man I am. Only a matter of time before somebody dimes me and I end up back in prison.

Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed those two cops. Maybe for the first time in your life you should have asked a few questions before you started shooting.

Questions, shit. Those cops gunned down Neb in cold blood. Maybe they had him in their sights for trafficking, but they were supposed to be the law. Neb wasn’t even packing. He didn’t even have a blade on him. They asked him his name and when he told them, they blew his ass away. What was I supposed to do? He was a brother, he was a Disciple. It was my oath to avenge him. It was murder. It was nothing but fucking murder.

And it was.

They’d been hanging low in New Castle, Neb and Slaughter, the last two Disciples, keeping under the radar because there were still a few minor warrants floating on them—probation violation in Neb’s case, assault in Slaughter’s. Chickenshit stuff from before the Outbreak that the John Laws decided still needed to be enforced. And this, Jesus, with half the country in ruins and zombies walking the streets and mad dog militias clashing with the Army and nukes dropping out west. When the cops kicked their way into Neb’s old lady’s apartment, Slaughter had been in the can but he heard what came down, how Neb had run some cover for him so he could get away and then the cops put him down.

And as a brother, as a Disciple, there was only one thing Slaughter could do. While the cops were celebrating their kill, he came out of the bathroom with a MAC-10 that Neb had stashed behind the toilet. The cops saw him. Their shit-eating grins evaporated. They reached for their weapons and Slaughter gave it to them full auto, emptying the clip into them, blowing them apart like party pinatas, their stuffing scattered about in red, runny pools.

Didn’t take long for word to get around that Neb’s old lady—Indiana, she was called—had dimed them, brought the heat down on their asses. Didn’t take long either for Slaughter to hunt her down and do her up proper with a knife. And it took even less time for the State of Pennsylvania to put out a warrant for John Slaughter…three counts of capital murder.

Of course, he tipped that one in the law’s favor by leaving the spent MAC-10 with his prints all over it next to the perforated bodies of the cops. Same went for the knife they found sticking out of Indiana’s belly. But it hadn’t been carelessness on his part. Slaughter had been in and out of county lock-ups, had pulled time in state and federal joints for everything from aggravated assault to armed robbery to battery of a police officer.

He knew the system.

He knew they’d match his prints.

And he wanted them to. Because that was part of the 1% lifestyle, that was part of the blood oath and the brotherhood—you’re good to us, we’re better to you; you fuck with us, we bring hell down upon your ass. The cops had murdered Neb in cold blood just because they wanted to and because they thought they were above the law. So Slaughter had returned the favor and took out them and their rat. It was a way for the world of police and criminals to know one thing: you hurt a Disciple, you get it in kind and no badge or court system or witness protection program will save your ass.

It was a statement. Because in the outlaw biker world, respect and fear were the primary tools of enforcement.

So Slaughter ran west.

And he was still running.

Running into a deep dark pocket of desolation where they wouldn’t find him.

And if they did, well, out in the Deadlands it would be war to the knife.

Chapter Six

Around noon when those sweetgrass Minnesota hills were so close he could smell them and feel their freedom chugging in his veins along with his blood, he came across a compound that was secured with a chainlink fence and had guard towers set at its perimeter.

Right away, it intrigued him.

Funny a place like this, out here.

The idea of that reached out, gripped him, held him, made him downshift and circle back around. He figured he was in no hurry, though once he was across the big river and into the Deadlands he was going to breathe easier.

Slaughter pulled to a stop on the hill, dug in his saddlebags and brought out a pair of compact Minox binoculars. They came in handy when you needed to see what was down the road a piece. He scanned the compound. No sign of life. Lots of weathered gray blockhouses lined up like ranks of tombstones. Nobody in the guard towers. No movement anywhere. It looked deserted.

He decided he needed to have a look see.

He pulled up to the gates cautiously. They were locked with chains and rusty padlocks. The gate was the only spot along the high fence that didn’t have barbwire spooled atop it. It was here or nowhere. Strapping on his web belt with the Combat Mag in its olive-drab holster and the Kukri in its leather sheath, he climbed up and over, dropping into the dirt drive on the other side. He followed it up to the first row of buildings, his motorcycle boots kicking up clouds of dust. Most of the windows were either boarded over by unfinished planks or broken out completely. He tried one door, then another, both were locked. Both shook in their frames and he figured he could have kicked his way through had the need struck him.