Cannibal Corpse, M/C

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.