Cannibal Corpse, M/C

“Snake,” the kid said. “They call him Snake.”

Slaughter considered it. “How many?”

“Five.”

“Six with you.”

“Sure.”

Slaughter already had the kid figured for a screamer, but he decided out of the goodness of his black little heart that he was going to be compassionate today.

“Okay, kid. I’m going to let you live. When I take the knife away, you run. You run out into the field. You run up that hillside. You keep running and running and you never come back. That sound fair?”

“Sure.”

Slaughter sighed, pulled the knife away and right away the kid scrambled towards the door, calling, “Mike! Rich! He—”

But by then Slaughter had him and he slit his throat with one quick slash. The kid hit the dirt, gagging out blood and trembling in the grass. He didn’t tremble long.

Slaughter took his rifle and moved along the side of the house, he ducked under windows until he began to hear voices. They were in the living room and Dirty Mary was really giving it to them. Slaughter peeked through the corner of the window. She was in a chair. There was blood on her face like she’d been hit. The Ratbags were gathered around her, but not too close. Mary’s shirt was torn and one of her breasts was hanging out. Not that such a thing would bother her, he knew. She liked to flash them like a cop flashed his tin. She had a lot of stories about getting thrown out of bars for showing them around so people could appreciate the inking she had on them.

Yeah, she was some kind of girl.

The Ratbags were probably thinking on raping her, but they didn’t know Dirty Mary. She liked to hand it out like candy at Halloween, you didn’t have to take it by force. But if they did, if those sorry shits put the moves on her…man, were they in for something. In close, Dirty Mary was a real animal with her nails and teeth. And that wasn’t even counting the razor she kept in her belt.

Slaughter decided he’d let it play out a bit, see what happened.

He figured it would be good.

Chapter Three

He’d met Dirty Mary at a roadhouse outside Milwaukee called Angelz, a hardcore biker bar where the juke played renegade country and hard rock and the clientele were all patched members of various clubs who wore their colors proudly. Most of the clubs had been decimated by the Outbreak and the resultant blood wars, but there were still some pretty mean cliques in there—the Outlaws and Highwaymen, Grim Reapers and Blood Brothers, even a few Vagos from California that had headed east to avoid the trouble west of the Mississippi.

The beauty of Angelz was that it was solid road warriors and street-eaters, no RUBs—Rich Urban Bikers—or weekenders on their Honda or Yamaha rice rockets. No wannabes or pretenders, only the real thing: blood members of various clubs along with their prospects, supporters, and hang-arounds. Lots of tough biker bitches and plenty of sheep making the scene, flashing their titties and shaking their asses. Nothing else. The police didn’t bother going there because these days they had enough trouble without trying to roust seventy or eighty juiced-up bikers.

Slaughter had gone in there, picking his way west, needing to get away from the citizens and the John Laws which had his number and wanted to put him away. He wore his Devil’s Disciples colors and he knew a lot of people from the other clubs. The booze was flowing and the boys were snorting coke and meth right off the bar and challenging anyone to mention the fact. Slaughter chatted with some old friends, got his beak wet, and watched the shit hit the fan because the moment he walked in there, he knew it would…and it did.

Hard to say whose buttons got pushed first, but a Vago and a Reaper got into a punch-up and pretty soon a dozen others were drawn into it, and it became increasingly brutal as knives and shanks, chains and broken bottles found their way into hands. Pretty soon you had blood and broken faces, stab wounds and fractured limbs, bleeding skulls and boys spitting out their teeth.

Slaughter stayed out of it for the most part.

That was until some 300 pound maniac from the Blood Brothers—eyes like white diamonds from all the meth he’d been spiking—came at him with a bloodied chair leg. Slaughter stepped under his swing and kneed him in rapid succession in the balls and belly and then gouged his knuckles into the Brother’s eyes, burying them in there and twisting them with a violent motion while the man went down screaming. A boot to the head finished the job and as Slaughter did that, turning to see if any more action was coming his way, the woman he’d come to know as Dirty Mary came at him with a hunting knife. She went at him like a panther out of a cage, smelling blood. He got the knife away from her, slapped her down…then another big boy from the Reapers slammed into them and knocked them both under a table which took them out of the fight.

But Dirty Mary wasn’t done.