sergeant-at-arms for the Warlocks motorcycle gang out of New Jersey, which meant he was an enforcer that knocked heads together and killed people when the club ordered it. On the back of his vest there was a flaming skull. Above it, a rocker read: WARLOCKS MC. Below it, BAYONNE, NJ.
“You’re a long way from Bayonne,” I said.
“Yeah, I am, brother. Came here to straighten out some shit. It’s what I do,” he told me. “See…just before they dropped them fucking bombs, I was sent here to straighten out some business. It was club business. Private. But since there ain’t no more law, no more feds, and no more clubs, I’ll tell you. Here in Cleveland, there was a Hell’s Angels charter, a clubhouse. One of their people-Ray Coombs, called him ‘Ratbait’-got hisself killed. A couple hitters from the Blood Brothers did him in Newark. Blood Brothers were a bunch of kill-happy maggots that were trying hard to impress the Outlaws out of Detroit, so they started offing Angels. Hell’s Angels and Outlaws were the big two in bike gangs then, you see, and they hated each other. Lots of killing on both sides, lots of retiliation and turf wars. I rode with the Warlocks. We were tight with the Angels. Word came out of Oakland, C-A, that they wanted these Blood Brothers done. They were hiding out in Cleveland, over in Stockyards. I got the job.”
Specs was wide-eyed. “You mean you’re a hit man? You mean you came to kill those bikers?”
“No, I came to fucking dance with ‘em,” Sean said. He looked over at me. “Something wrong with this guy?”
“No, he’s just been through a lot.”
Sean shrugged. “I got one of those dirt bags, then the bombs fell and I been here since. I was shacked up with an Angel called Dirty Sanchez and his old lady, Long Tall Sally. A couple weeks ago the Trogs got ‘em. I been hunting Trogs since.” He told us the Trogs lived underground, were real bad news, barely human. “When I’m not killing Trogs, I waste Scabs. But they’re like shooting ducks. Easy. Trogs takes skill. There’s sport involved.”
Out in the streets, the rain had dried up, leaving a world that was stained red. Night was coming on fast. We needed a place to crash for the night where we didn’t have to worry about getting our throats slit.
I heard a squeaking sound and saw a rat. I made to shoot it and Sean stayed my hand. Pretty soon there were seven or eight of them, big, ugly things with red eyes and those weird growths popping through their threadbare hides. They paid no attention to us. They went after the bones and within minutes there were no bones left. The rats were gone.
“You know where there’s any good rides?” I asked.
Sean nodded. “Sure. I can get you anything you want. But not tonight. Heard a rumor from a ragbag this morning that the Hatchet Clans are pushing in from the north. You don’t want to be out in the streets tonight.”
“Hell are the Hatchet Clans?” I asked.
He laughed. “Brother, you don’t wanna know.”
6
“I puked out my last year of high school and stole a couple cars,” Sean told us later in his heavily-fortified basement apartment while we ate pork and beans and drank warm beer. “They sent me to Juvie. I got out and stole another car, led the State Police on a merry chase. Judge said join the Army or do time. I joined the Army. I was a scout with the 4^th Cavalry. I did my bit over in Iraq during Desert Storm, first one. Soon as I got out, I hooked up with my old friends and we started a bike club called the Dirty Dozen. Problem was, man, there were only four of us. Then we got six and the other clubs called us the Dirty Half-Dozen. They gave us lots of shit. By the time there were thirty of us and we backed down from no one, they stopped giving us shit. The Pagans and the Warlocks wanted to charter us, bring us in with them. Even the Outlaws and Angels were looking at us. We liked the Warlocks because they were fucking crazy like the Mongols out in California. That’s how I got where I am. I’m leaving out the time I did and the drugs I pushed, the mothers I beat and all the bodies I got out there, but what’s it matter now?”
“We’re going west,” Specs told him. “You should go with us.”
“Fuck I wanna go west for?”
“Because that’s where it’s at. That’s where it’s gonna happen.”
I caught Specs eye and let him know that we weren’t going to be discussing The Shape. Not at this time. And maybe not ever again and sure as hell not with this thug. Sean seemed okay, but he was a very bad boy and I wasn’t exactly comfortable with turning my back on him.
Sean stretched out on the couch. We were on the floor in sleeping bags. There was a locked green metal gun cabinet that I wanted badly to loot. There were all kinds of Army surplus around: food, clothing, tools, medical equipment, you name it. I figured Sean had been real busy at the local Army base or National Guard Armory. I stared at the flickering flame of a Primus stove, listening to him talk.
“Yeah, I got me some good prospects for tomorrow, my brothers,” he said, staring up into the darkness. “There’s a nest of Trogs not two blocks from here, over near where I found you boys. There’s gotta be a sewer grating or manhole cover around there that I haven’t found. They’re down there somewhere, brothers. I’ll get ‘em. Fuck yes, I’ll get ‘em. Nothing finer than Trog-hunting. You boys oughta pitch in with me. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“We need a car,” Specs said.
“Maybe I can help you with that tomorrow. First you gotta help me kill some Trogs.” He laughed. “We better get some sleep. Trog-hunting is hard work. Nash, kill that stove. Let’s rack out.”
7
The next morning we ate good. Better than I had in many, many weeks. Sean’s larder was far superior to our usual fair of cold Spaghettios and tins of deviled ham. He had lots of Army MREs and we ate scrambled eggs and bacon, crackers and jelly, and had some peach cobbler for dessert.
“Fill yourselves, my brothers,” Sean told us. “You’ll need your strength.”
As it turned out, he was right. And that was something I learned to remember later: Sean was very often right.
Well, he armed us and led us out on a Trog hunt. He gave me a Beretta 9mm handgun and a 30.06 Savage. He gave Specs a bluesteel. 357 Smith and told him not to blow his fucking foot off with it. He also made us wear yellow miner’s hardhats with lights on them. Batteries being scarce, we weren’t allowed to turn them on without his say so.
He showed me two white phosphorus grenades he had.
“For Trogs?” I said.
“If you get a pack of ‘em, these’ll sort ‘em out. Hope I get to use them.”
Christ.
Why did we go along with him? I don’t know. There was no threat intended or implied. We could have walked-sans the guns-anytime we wanted, but we really didn’t want to. I was amazed by Sean. He was a cool head that never lost his temper. Deadly as they came, but honest and loyal in his own way. And resourceful. Jesus, he was resourceful. Wasn’t much he didn’t know about guns and ammunition and fighting. He knew how to stay alive, that was for sure.
A few hours after breakfast-which was served at the crack of noon-we were back in the same vicinity where Sean had found us. He led us into a collapsing building down near the river. Most of the windows were boarded up and there was graffiti all over it. I figured it had been derelict long before Doomsday. Inside, it was dusty and dirty, cobwebs hanging down like party streamers. There were offices, storage rooms, and a big garage in the back. It looked kind of like an old fire hall. Light came in through missing boards in the windows and holes in the walls, but not a lot of it.
We moved through the dimness, past rotting cardboard boxes of ancient ledgers and file folders, water- damaged crates of rusting machine parts.
“What was this place?” Specs asked.
