Cannibal Corpse, M/C

You’re going to lose these boys and you know it, Slaughter thought to himself as the wind blew into his face and his mirrored sunglasses showed him a world that was plucked and pitted like an old rack of bones. Either all of them or most of them. You’ll lose them or they’ll lose you. No way you’re getting out of this pissing contest intact. It’s gonna be dark. It’s gonna be ugly.

“And it’s gonna be the best time these machineheads have had in many years,” he said under his breath.

So like a knife drawn from gut to sternum, they cut north through the desolation of Minnesota, jumping off the I and onto 10 which would take them northwest across the state line and to Fargo, and into the darkest bowels of the Dakotas where the shit would get deep and dangerous. In St. Cloud, which looked to Slaughter like the set from some post-apocalyptic movie with its shattered buildings, burned-out neighborhoods, and skeletons sitting in cars, they crossed the Mississippi and it looked pretty much the same on the other bank, not a single WELCOME TO THE DEADLANDS sign to be had. Though, interestingly, someone had taken some articulated skeletons and withered brown cadavers that were almost skeletons and rigged them up on crossbars like scarecrows. There were several dozen of them. Along with a few crudely-painted skull-and-crossbone signs, this was the warning to the curious.

The only warning there would be.

As they passed out of St. Cloud they saw the dead wandering about through the ruins. Some of them stood around as the pack went by, more curious than anything.

About ten miles outside of the city they came upon a roadhouse with the amusing title of ‘The Royal Head’. Parked outside were about a dozen bikes, most of them rusty and spattered with mud. Slaughter got on the box and told Fish to pull over at the bend in the road.

“Could be Cannibal Corpse,” he told Moondog, who agreed. “Let’s go kick ass or get our asses kicked. A good dust-up will get the boys feeling like men again.”

“Sure as shit.”

There weren’t too many questions as Moondog passed out the pistol-gripped sawed-off 12-gauge pumps. They took the weapons happily.

“We go in quiet,” Moondog informed them, clipping a pair of white phosphorus grenades to his leather club vest. “Then we kill anything we find.”

The Disciples grinned.

“I’m smelling me some shiteaters,” Fish said, which was one of the many derogatory names the Disciples had for members of Cannibal Corpse.

“Let’s light this shit up then,” Apache Dan said.

Slaughter led the way through the stunted trees and across the gravel lot, his boys spread out behind him like commandos. There was absolutely no activity in or around the joint, just that hazy blue sky with the sun burning down like a hot yellow coin.

Slaughter motioned for the others to hang back as he went up to the door and tried it. It was open. He gave the Disciples the signal and they crept forward, tensing with anticipation to a man.

“We come across Coffin or Reptile, remember: those pricks are mine and mine alone,” he whispered to the others and they understood perfectly. It would have been a boon if any of them bagged Reptile or Coffin, but Slaughter wanted those two just a little bit more. The way he looked at it, the three Disciples they wasted had been done so on his watch.

He opened the door a crack and listened for activity.

There was nothing.

Either the place was empty, there was an ambush waiting, or the Disciples had caught the owners of those bikes with their pants down. He opened it a bit more and a gassy stink of putrefaction came out. Nothing new there, but it gave him ideas.

“All right,” he told Moondog. “Follow me in.”

Moondog gave him a look that plainly said he didn’t like it, that they didn’t know what they were stepping in here. That he, as warlord and sergeant-at-arms, advised a little reconnoitering first—there could be fifty wormboys out back for all they knew.

But Slaughter shook his head. The look in his eyes said all the warlord needed to know: These boys have been in-stir too long, man, they need to learn how to fight as one again, as a club.

“Let’s go,” Slaughter told him.

* * *

Even with their boots on they were quiet as they moved through the barroom, stepping quietly on the plank floors. Inside, it was a mess…wreckage and trash scattered everywhere. And bones. They were strewn about, heaped in the corners. Human bones that were gnawed and scraped, smashed and broken open for their marrow. The stink of death was strong, but it didn’t come from the remains. Instead, it emanated from the forms lying about like it was siesta time: six dead ones sprawled on the bar top, on the floor, under tables.