Zephyr Chapter 1 #2
Going outside, I looked around. Even after being here for so long, I still stopped to soak it in. Our clubhouse and the property we claimed weren’t like most MC compounds. And we liked it that way. It still made me study it in awe.
Surrounding us were numerous houses in a variety of styles and sizes. And there was space for more behind the existing ones. That wasn’t the odd part. The eerie part started at the front of our property.
The club ran a main business like every chapter of the Grave Prowlers did.
It was the cover for our other, less legal activities.
The history of how we ended up doing it was a little wild.
In 1987, a group of bikers in Virginia started a mortuary business.
They started taking payoffs to cremate people for those who paid the club to keep their mouths shut and do the job.
Along with operating a mortuary, the Virginia group built custom coffins and began running guns in them, shipping them in and out.
It was so successful that, after ten years, the founding members split to expand the business across the US, creating territories.
Today, all the main chapters, such as Florida, have a mortuary and either maintain a cemetery nearby or are near one.
This setup came in damn handy when covering up various illegal activities such as gun running, drug running, and even cremating the bodies of our enemies.
Back in 1987, those in this chapter of cursed men were still breaking apart and spending time, usually years, separated from each other.
We always seemed to find our way back to each other eventually.
Misery loves company, I guess. During that period, Raider, our president, was part of the original Virginia chapter for a few years.
When he split off, he decided to establish a Grave Prowler presence in the Florida and Alabama territories.
After receiving permission from the Virginia president, Cannon, Raider came to Florida.
While looking for the best place to settle, he stumbled across Asgard, Florida.
It was too aptly named for it not to be the home of his club.
As soon as he had a place and purchased the land, he put out calls to those of us he knew and trusted from the original bunch, asking if we’d come in on it with him.
We were tired of traveling alone or in pairs, so we said yes. Some settled here in Florida, while others settled in Alabama a few years later. Asgard was located outside of Pensacola along the panhandle, not far from the Alabama line.
The first to be built on the land was the mortuary, crematorium, and the coffin-making shop. After that, the clubhouse came next, only it wasn’t something outsiders could see. Then came the houses when we wanted to live in the sunshine and have personal space.
There was a serious creep factor to our compound.
The mortuary was open to the public and was located at the front of the property.
Behind it was a cemetery. It had been there for a few hundred years, so it wasn’t open to new residents.
But when Raider bought the property, he had to agree to leave the bodies there undisturbed. That arrangement worked for us.
Behind the cemetery stood the coffin-building shop and the crematorium. Then there was the inner sanctum, enclosed by another fence covered in a thorny hedge and featuring a large Gothic metal gate. The kind you expected a haunted house to be enclosed in.
The first row of houses was within the gate, and behind them stood a huge mausoleum in the center.
To an outsider, it appeared to be one of those mausoleums rich people had centuries ago, where they’d bury the remains of all their family members together.
Ours contained not bodies but the secret entrance to our underground clubhouse.
We even had torture rooms for those deserving of them down there.
Behind the mausoleum was a large outdoor barbecue area for parties and celebrations.
It included an outdoor kitchen large enough to serve a large group.
Then came two more rows of houses. Our compound was eerie, but we weren’t afraid of spirits or the dead, and it sure kept most people from snooping.
My house was behind and to the side of the mausoleum, or the crypt as we called it.
Fenrir’s was next door to mine. We had a short walk to the mausoleum.
Entering the black granite building, with its etchings and engravings on the exterior, we passed through bronze double doors into the inner crypt, made of red marble.
The window frames, niches, and other accessories made it appear to be a real mausoleum.
An inner compartment, covered by a stone tomb door with bronze hardware, served as the access to the stairs, leading us into the underground clubhouse.
A lot of work had been done at night, and we did all the labor, including bringing in electricity and water and setting up adequate ventilation. We descended the stairs. Being underground would freak a lot of people out, but we’d all lived in way worse places.
Once inside, it felt very homey and comfortable.
To make up for the lack of windows, we’d added specialized virtual windows and a few LED video walls so we could change the images to depict whatever outdoor scene we wanted.
They worked to trick our brains into believing we were above ground as long as we didn’t try to open the windows.
At the bottom of the stairs, Fenrir and I spilled out into the clubhouse, which we’d built to reflect our heritage by resembling a Viking longhouse.
It was built with timber. It was rectangular, measuring one hundred feet long and forty feet wide, for a total of four thousand square feet of livable space.
The long hall was the main living area. Regular biker clubs called this space their common room.
The long hall had a designated cooking area in the middle of an open kitchen equipped with a hearth.
The area that would’ve been used for livestock in a real longhouse was where we stored tools, food stores, and other essentials, including weapons.
Instead of sleeping quarters separated only by simple fabric or wood partitions, actual rooms surrounded the main living area.
We’d lived in those before building houses.
The prospects and guests continued to use them. Or members did when partying.
Four of our brothers sat at one of the tables.
Pirate, our VP, sat with our enforcer, Invader.
On the other side of the table sat our road captain, Icelander, and our chaplain, Norse.
When they saw us, they hailed us over. We took empty seats.
In the middle of the table sat a large pot, and around it were mugs.
I poured cups of coffee for Fenrir and myself.
I held up the pot to see if anyone needed a refill. They all shook their heads.
“What brings you two in here this early?” Pirate asked.
“Probably the same thing that brought the four of you. Couldn’t sleep. Did we miss anything?” Fenrir asked.
“Nah, just talking about the next run. It’s in two weeks. We’re thinking of a new route. We can’t be too careful. It’s time to change it up and add another to our options,” Icelander said.
As road captain, he was responsible for organizing, planning, and safely leading us on group rides.
He selected the route, where we’d fuel up, how we’d manage traffic, and how we’d handle emergencies.
Since it was exactly what he did on rides, it was logical that Icelander be the one to do the same when we had runs to drop off guns or whatever else we happened to be transporting.
“Have you figured it out, or do you need input?” I asked.
“I always take input, but here’s what we’ve got so far,” Icelander said.
Over the next couple of minutes, he ran us through the route and the stops. Studying his map, I saw nothing overlooked. Perfect as usual.
“By the gods, you left us nothing to do. Damn, do you always have to be perfect?” I grumbled jokingly.
Icelander’s upper lip lifted, but he didn’t fully smile.
He did on occasion. On a rare occasion, he might laugh, but it took a lot to make it happen.
The past haunted all of us. We just displayed it differently.
Icelander’s arm flexed, drawing my eyes to his tattoos.
He was covered in them. It made sense, since he was our resident tattoo artist.
I had one on my left temple where the scar from a seax started and ran almost to the outer corner of my mouth. The rest of my tats and scars were on my arms, back, chest, and legs. I still had plenty of room for more of both. Icelander, I was convinced, was running out of space for tats.