Cannibal Corpse, M/C

farmhouse collapsed like a house of cards, sending up plumes of fire and rolling clouds of black smoke that blew through the farm yard.

Still clutching the spent .30-30, he used the smoke as cover as the armored vehicles moved in, pounding away with their big fifties, lighting up the remains of the farmhouse with their flamethrowers and cremating anything that still had the will to walk.

A zombie came at him out of the smoke and Slaughter smashed the stock of the .30-30 into its face. He broke open the head of a little boy, jumped through a ring of naked women with burning hairdos and drop-kicked a man chewing on his own entrails.

The barn.

He threw the door open and was glad his saddlebags were packed. He had to move. Those guns would be trained on the barn and silo next and he had to be out of there. He fired up the hog and with all the noise from outside, her roaring straight pipes sounded like the purr of a kitten. A zombie that was on fire stepped through the doorway, but by then Slaughter had popped his scoot into gear and throttled up. The hog jumped forward, knocking the zombie aside.

Already Slaughter could taste the freedom of the road.

Outside, not only the razed structure of the farmhouse was burning, but so were the trees and outbuildings, and even the meadows and fields, smoke tangling in the air that was acrid with the stink of smoldering human flesh. It was a crazy ride, zigzagging through the flames and debris and heaped bodies, trying to avoid the notice of the gunners on the armored vehicles. He worked the clutch and throttle all the way, using every trick he knew, carving his path hard and fast, taking sharp corners with the bike nearly horizontal to the ground and then he was flying down the drive and out onto the rutted road.

Not that he escaped unnoticed, for a few mortar rounds exploded in his path far behind him, nearly throwing him off the bike, but then he was on the road and there were no citizens ahead and he figured he had it and he owned it.

Go west, my brother.

Chapter Nine

Fifteen minutes later he sighted the big slab, that beautiful winding snake of pavement known as the I and he squealed onto it, taking the humps and bumps standing straight up with his boots on the footpegs. The exhilaration was such that he felt like opening the old hog up and doing a little trick riding like squatting no hands on the seat or steering with his feet…but no, that was crazy old bullshit from the crazy old days of bullshit that no longer existed.

And he had to get his ass far and away.

The bike roared under him as he took the I mile by mile, the wind blowing his hair back and parting his shaggy beard, making his face sting and his eyes water. Shit, yes. A few bugs slapped his cheeks and forehead and that was all part of it.

He had not felt so free in years.

He thought about Rice for a moment. He was a good guy for a citizen. He could have been a good biker. Too bad. At least he’d been burned up back there and wouldn’t have to wander around with a worm sliding around in his brain making him go cannibal. It wasn’t much, but it was something. At least the old man had been spared that.

Slaughter thought no more about it.

He was feeling really good, really charged, still buzzing from the action. He had that feel-good sort of soul rapture, that pure euphoria he only got after a good conflict. It was like coming down from tripping your brains out on the good stuff. It reminded him of that field event back in the good old days in Harrisburg. The Disciples were there, along with members of the Outlaws and Pagans, the Warlocks and the Dirty Dozen, countless other clubs big and small. Slaughter and Jumbo, Neb and Apache Dan were barrel riding on their bikes, getting low down and crazy, their minds blown clean on tabs of Red Dragon.

That’s exactly how he felt now: free without a care. The way a patched-in outlaw biker was supposed to feel: high and proud and randy in the saddle. That was the tribal lifestyle—who rode the best, who fucked more women, who kicked more ass. Absolutely primal, the barbarian life.

The only thing that brought him down was that he could not share it with any of his brothers of the Disciples Nation.

On the good side, the I was clean; there were very few wrecks and absolutely no citizens. That was one good thing that had come out of the Outbreak, it kept the citizens off the road with their cages, cleared away the rice rockets and weekenders.

The sun was getting warm, burning off the morning mist, and he could feel it warming up his arms and all that intricate inking—the snakes and skulls, dragons and tombstones, the bright red swastikas on each bicep overlaying the serpents and gargoyles beneath, the black SS deathshead on the back of his left hand.

He was feeling good about things, starting to think that—

Wait a minute now.

Wait a fucking minute.

In the distance he could see something. And not just one thing but many. Vehicles. They weren’t wrecks. They were heading in his direction at full steam. He popped the clutch and decelerated, slowing until he came to a stop. He dug in his saddlebag and pulled out the Minox binoculars, held them to his eyes and tightened the field… shit and shit. Those were Hummers. Military Humvees.

He had a sudden bad feeling about things, which became even worse when he heard the thunk- thunk-thunk of the chopper as it came over the tree line in the distance, sweeping through the sky above him.

He had to get off the I.

He throttled up, cutting across fields of yellow grass and stunted corn, over humps and down into little vales, pushing along, giving the hog some speed but not so much that he’d lose her on the uneven terrain. Any thought he’d had that it was all purely coincidental vanished when the chopper passed overhead again, and behind him the Hummers entered the field as well, pushing forward in a solid line, chewing through the corn like harvesters.

Fuck.

They had his number.

He gunned up a hill, came out on a gravel road and opened the bike up, wary of a skid, but knowing he had to get some real estate between him and the Hummers. That chopper kept circling overhead. It was eyeing him and unless he could get to some cover, some trees, it was all over with. He kept riding, throwing a contrail of dust behind him.

The gravel road wound out through open country and that was bad. In the distance it entered a pine thicket. If he could just make it into the trees he might have a chance. He throttled up a bit, gaining speed and momentum. In the rearview he could see that the Hummers were on the road, too, coming fast.

He cut onto a side road that circled through some heavier brush and then onto a footpath. Up a hill, down another, over a footbridge and then off the path into the grass again, finding what looked like a dry ravine bedded by flat sandstone. He followed it, nearing the pine thicket and knowing he just wasn’t going to make it. Overhead, the helicopter came veering down in a strafing run. He heard the crack! crack! of a high- powered rifle. Bullets thudded into the stones around him, splitting some in two with little puffs of rock dust. The rifle kept firing and the rounds landed in front of him, behind him, to either side.

They could have pegged you if they wanted, Slaughter thought as he pulled up out of the ravine and cut onto the gravel road again. They’re herding you. They want you alive.

He decided he would not make it easy on them, whoever in the hell they were. His scoot could go places they couldn’t and once he got into the trees the helicopter would be useless. First, he had to get into the trees, though. And once he was there, if it came down to it…he would fight to the end.

Okay. Not far now.