Cannibal Corpse, M/C

Slaughter slashed him across the throat, took one hand off at the wrist, then brought the Gurkha blade to bear, slitting off the top of the vice-prez’s head. He tottered weakly, barely staying up, screaming out in rage and pure hate, then he began to come apart as if the damage done to him was the catalyst that broke him apart from the inside out. He went to his knees, face hanging by threads of gore, and Slaughter smelled one violent odor after another—flesh-rot, formaldehyde, dry hay, hot bacterial decay—and the zombie crashed into a heap of dusty, moth-eaten, dank-smelling debris. Then goo spurted out…black blood and creamy white marrow, yellow globs of liquid fat, and lastly, a fountaining eruption of maggots that steamed and sizzled and went to chalky grave-paste.

The skull had broken apart with the rest…but the jaws were still intact and the teeth chattered like they were cold.

Slaughter kicked them away.

The dead were all over the highway. None had escaped. Several of the corpses were still burning, letting off greasy plumes of black smoke that carried a sharp, nauseating stink of burnt hair. The bikes of the Disciples were scattered about. Several of the Cannibal Corpse bikes were burning along with their riders. The remains of the zombies were splashed over the road.

Jumbo and Moondog were squatted over Irish who was torn up and glistening with blood. He wasn’t moving. Shanks was standing there, just staring down at him. Fish was walking around with a dazed look on his blood-streaked face, stomping the worms that crawled out of the dead zombies with his motorcycle boots. Apache Dan saw Slaughter coming, the gore-dripping Kukri still in his fist. He looked over at him, the left side of his face discolored by a livid bruise, blood on his mouth, a smear of grease over his face like warpaint. When Slaughter met his eyes, he just shook his head.

Slaughter wiped his blade off on the colors of a Cannibal Corpse and sheathed it.

He stooped down by Irish who had gotten mangled in the slide he took. He put his hand in Irish’s hair, brushed a few strands from his face, said something silently and stood up.

“Let’s plant him proper,” he said.

They buried Irish in the field, in a hole set there amongst the waving yellow switchgrass. When they had filled it in, they stood around somberly and stared down at the grave. No one spoke. There were things that could have been said for their fallen comrade but no one had the heart to speak. They just stared down and remembered the hard rides and fast times and how it all came rushing to an end out here when he stacked his bike. He would have been happy knowing he’d gone out on his scoot. It was all he could have asked for.

Wiping moisture from his eyes, Fish bent down, scooped up some grave-dirt in his palm and let it fall through his fingers. “See you on the other side, my brother.”

The others followed him back to the road, silently.

Chapter Sixteen

Freak weather pattern.

That’s what Slaughter thought as they entered another valley and the fog swept up to meet them. One of those freak weather patterns that happened from time to time and it really meant nothing. Warm southern air sweeping up and meeting cold air coming down from Canada. That’s all it was. Yet…the way it seemed to shimmer, lighting from slate-gray to a dull and luminous yellow…it was unnerving. Unnatural. He couldn’t stop thinking about the last foggy valley they’d gone through and he wasn’t about to put himself or his brothers through that again. They’d been through enough.

“Nobody’s blaming you, man,” Apache Dan said. “Irish went out the way he would have wanted.”

Slaughter just stared into the fog. He was at the wheel of the War Wagon and when he was driving a cage like this—or any cage—he started thinking too much and feeling too much until his insides seemed to twist up and get sucked down into a black hole inside of him. And Apache Dan always seemed to know. Always.

“Yeah, but I can’t help feeling like shit about it. Irish knew what he was getting into, but if he was still in-stir—”

“If he was still in-stir, man, he’d be rotting away in a fucking cell. This way he got to be with his brothers. He was a Disciple again. Wearing the colors meant the world to him. Same as it does to you and me and the rest of these animals,” Apache Dan told him. “He got to ride again. He got to fight again. He died in the saddle with his fucking boots on and that’s all any Disciple wants.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I’m always right, bro. Just like when I tell you I don’t like how this is shaking—another valley, more fog. It gives me bad thoughts.”

“Me, too.”

“The boys are getting nervous back there.”