CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
And last is Harry, the one who got shot in the shoulder by Steel.
The amount of blood covering his entire left side and pooling under his feet would be a bit concerning if he cared that he lived or not, but we obviously don’t.
His head is down, chin tucked to his chest, and he doesn’t seem to be moving.
“Doc, check his pulse, will ya?”
Doc lifts his nitrile glove covered hand to Harry’s neck. He shakes his head as he steps back. “He’s gone.”
“God damn mother fuckin’ pieces of shit!
” I guess the vow of silence is done. Once Drake starts cussing up a storm, he doesn’t seem to know when to stop talking.
“You not only shot my brother, you let my homie hang and bleed out. Fuck you, guys. Imma get down from here and kill all you motherfuckers. Every damn last one of you.”
I walk over and stop about five feet in front of him. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Loosen these chains and I will.”
“I thought you said you were gonna get yourself down. Why would I help you?”
Drake tries to spit at me, but his attempt is weak at best. I have no doubt that he is severely dehydrated and could pass out at any moment. This sudden burst of anger is probably the last bit of energy in his body.
“Let’s get down to why we’re all really here.” Wrecker grabs a large rubber mallet from the tool bench that runs a good portion of the back wall. He walks the long way around the now four still alive men and hits each of them once in the stomach with it. “Why were you in our town?”
“We were gonna start a club,” Jason’s words are grounded around his pain.
“Shut up, you idiot,” Drake snaps and tries to kick him, but only manages to make his chains move enough so he starts swinging like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.
“We’re not getting’ out of here,” Josh seems to be the first to see reason. “Just tell them the truth so they can kill us already.”
“We were scouting areas to take over.” Jason starts coughing and doesn’t stop until he spits out a bunch of blood. “Plan was to see what we could damage and maybe cause enough chaos to run ya out of town.”
“So you thought you could scare forty some bikers out of the town they run so you could do what? Just walk in and take over everything we own?” Smoke hustles forward, pulls back his right arm, and sends his fist flying into Drake’s face. “How are you all so fuckin’ stupid?”
“We still blew up your shit.” And Quinn finally joins the conversation.
“And see how that worked for you, ya twatwaffle.” Tiny grabs the mallet from Wrecker and bashes Quinn’s other knee in. “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt anyone. Especially our women and kids.”
“I set the stuff to blow when we knew kids wouldn’t be nearby,” Josh says as he hangs his head.
“So what?” I question as I reach up and wrap my hand around his neck, forcing him to lift his head. “Do you want a fuckin’ medal for not killin’ our kids? Do you think that makes up for the danger you put everyone else in from your bombs?”
He starts to mumble, but I’m just plain and simple sick of the shit I’m hearing from these useless bags of bones. We now know why they were in our town. We know what they wanted. We know they will never get it.
I see no more use for them.
Grabbing hold of the hair on both sides of his head, I twist sharply to the right and snap his neck.
“Three down, three to go.” Butch, Hammer’s dad, takes a few steps forward and points at Jason. “Mind if I take care of this one?”
“Be my guest.”
“This is for blowin’ up our shit.” He unholsters his Sig, flips off the safety, racks a bullet in the chamber, and shoots him right between the eyes.
“Tiny,” I look to my right and wave toward Quinn. “You wanna finish him?”
“Would be my honor.” Tiny walks over to the tool bench and grabs a pair of safety glasses.
Once he is behind Quinn, he lifts the mallet up over his head with both hands, and with his entire body, swings it down and forward, smashing Quinn in the back of his skull.
Quinn’s face explodes. Blood sprays out of his nose, eyes, and mouth, and anyone anywhere near him jumps back to avoid as much of the mess as possible.
“The last one is ours,” Haze moseys his way up into the fray, slow and steady like he’s got all day and nowhere to go. Smoke is not a second behind him.
“How you wanna end him?” I ask.
“While I’d love to beat the fuck outta him for even lookin’ at our woman, he’s not worth the effort.”
“Damn right,” Smoke adds his two cents.
They both unholster their sidearms, point, and shoot. Two bullets straight to the heart. We watch Drake blink one last time, then the life is gone from his eyes. His head drops to his chest and he’s done.
“Good job, Brothers,” I congratulate the room for a job well done . . . as always. “Now lets get this mess cleaned up so we can get back home. I’ve got a kid I’d like to tuck in before I take his momma to bed and fuck her ‘til the sun comes up.”
“Here, here!” Hammer cheers.
“I plan on doin’ the same,” Tiny comments.
“Me three,” as does Steel.
“No kids yet, but we can practice making one.” Smoke smacks Haze’s ass.
“I bet I knock Raven up first,” Haze laughs as he slingshots one of his gloves at Smoke’s chest.
“That’s a bet I’ll take,” Smoke replies.
“Can we get in on this bet?” Wrecker pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “I got a hundred bucks on Haze.”
“I’ll put a hundred on Smoke,” Tiny calls out as he unloops the first chain from the hook on the wall and the first body falls to the plastic with a thud. He then goes down the line and the other four fall. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
“I call two hundred on Haze,” Ring yells from over by the incinerator.
“Two hundred on Smoke,” Doc lays his bet.
“Whadaya say, Prez?” Smoke slaps me on the shoulder as I scoot back with Quinn’s boots in my hands and I drag him to lay out flat.
Standing tall to my full six foot three, I look back and forth between the two and pretend like I’m thinking about it. I rip my gloves off, toss them toward the row of bodies, then pull my wallet out of my back pocket.
I pull three brand new one hundred dollar bills out and hold them high up in the air. “I gotta go with my cousin. Three hundred on Haze.”
Half the group goes wild, the other boos.
This is what Brothers are. This is what being part of a motorcycle club should be like.
It should be friendship. It should be about family. It should be about loving and supporting the ones who love and support you too.
I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that every man in this room would take a bullet for me.
I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that every man back at the clubhouse would do the same.
I know, without a shadow of a fucking doubt, that I would take a bullet for every single one of them.
And their Old Ladies. Or their kids. Or their families.
Trust. Honor. Loyalty. Love.
That is the Rebel Vipers MC way.
As we all work together, we get each body rolled up in a plastic sheet, lift them one at a time onto a metal table on wheels, and roll them over toward the incinerator. Only two bodies can be burned at the same time, so this will be a multi-step process.
Ring and Haze decide to take charge of the load schedule since each burn cycle takes five hours start to finish. From full body to ash is three hours, then you have to let the ashes cool down before you can sweep the oven out and start again.
Once the ashes are collected in a bucket, they are taken straight to the drain in the floor and poured down followed by water from a garden hose.
After helping get the first round started, Hammer and I head back to the clubhouse. With a schedule set for who will come back to move what around when, I have no doubt everything will be done, cleaned up, and the barn will be back to spic and span by this time tomorrow.