by Keri Hudson
Bad Boy Bear
Keri Hudson
Copyright 2019 by Keri Hudson - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
Boneyard Barns was running for his life. The events of the previous two hours swirled in his memory, though they still defied understanding or even belief. He’d woken up that morning the head of the Phoenix chapter of the Fallen Devils, one of several loosely organized clubs in the area. They’d come across every gang from the Angels on down, and they’d stepped on more than a few toes along the way.
But this time, there didn’t seem to be any toes to step on at all.
He ran through the crags outside Flagstaff, heart pounding in his chest, blood rushing in his veins. The bike had been rendered useless, in ways he still could hardly fathom—a gorgeous, customized Superflow with an 883cc air-cooled Evolution engine and a low bucket seat. It wound up a twisted hunk of metal, jagged and frayed and charred by immolation.
Boneyard could still see the thing as it fell to the ground and exploded into flames, from a height of no less than a hundred feet or even more.
Impossible, he’d told himself even then, it’s just… shit like that just don’t happen! But of course it had happened, and it hadn’t been the only unbelievable thing to put Boneyard in that mountain ridge, on his feet, cold sweat dripping down his face. His memory was flooded by visions of his friends and brothers, hardened faces with thick whiskers and scars turned to wide-eyed masks of terrified children, screaming and running scared in every direction.
Boneyard could still see Spokes Diggins’ head flying off his shoulders, spinning through the air like a soccer ball, his headless body standing in shock, slow to fall to the desert floor. He could still hear the begging of Bitch-Killer Clark as the great thing chased him down, falling on top of his back and digging through the skin and muscle to pull his organs out from behind, Bitch-Killer’s body twisting and twitching as he endured the worst death any biker had ever planned for another. And in Boneyard’s long experience, that meant a lot.
But it had seemed to come to nothing, and even as the moments of his life seemed to wind down all around him, Boneyard Barns could not figure out why and how.
The day had been simplistic enough, a late morning followed by a ride into town to meet Chalky for the meth, then bring it back to divvy up and package for sale. And there’d been no reason not to stop at Sammy’s for a few beers on the way back to cut the Nevada heat and dust. Sammy’s had the best damned jukebox in the state, and the coldest beer for a hundred miles.
Sammy’s wasn’t a place for loners, and that pretty-boy bastard should have known that. Boneyard was right to press the point, to teach that mongrel a lesson he could take back to the other loners.
The guy had an attitude, one too big for his loner boots, and at a certain point there really was no other option than to beat the man to a bloody pulp and send whatever was left of him to ride on, if that was still physically possible. With six of his best men behind him, Boneyard had even been looking forward to the exercise.
But things went wrong fast, the man showing more grit and skill than Boneyard had expected. Three of the seven had gone down before Boneyard and the others finally managed to get the better of the man, holding his arms and legs, pulling his head back from behind.
Boneyard knew then that he could take his time, getting a bottle of bourbon and pouring it all over the loner, who thrashed and struggled but could not free himself from those overwhelming numbers.
“You got a bad attitude, hombre,” Boneyard had said, lighting a match. But the bartender had begged them not to burn Sammy’s down along with the loner, and Boneyard saw the logic of preserving their favorite roadside haunt. “Drag him outside, boys.”
The loner struggled but said nothing as they dragged him through the bar and out to the back where they could murder him with some sense of privacy, sit back, and really enjoy the fire. They threw his battered body a few feet into the parking lot and then encircled him, standing in a ring to block any direction of escape.
But the loner didn’t try to run. Instead, he’d stood there with a strange kind of smile growing on his face. It seemed too amused, too ready for what was to come, too anxious to die. He tore off his colors, letting the hardened leather fall to the ground. Boneyard felt sure he meant to fight his way into the grave.
So be it, Boneyard thought.
Boneyard had said, “You brought this on yourself, you dumb, dim bastard.” The man offered no response, other than a low, quiet chuckle that sent a chill up Boneyard’s spine. “Nothing to say?”
And it seemed true—the brown-haired loner had no reply other than his roiling chuckle, growing into a full-throated roar. Boneyard stepped back and lit his cigar, puffing a big, red cherry to glow on the tip.
“Just say goodbye, then, loner.”
But he said nothing. Instead, he roared again, a sound so chilling and morbid that it seemed to come from beyond the grave, a cry more animal than human. Boneyard stood with his fellows, knowing them to be as shocked as he was, to see their loner prey bend forward into a ball, then lean back and stretch his arms out as if calling upon some other force to save him.
And it seemed to come.
His body changed, quick and hideous, his pants and shirt tearing away as his legs, arms, and chest grew thicker, longer, his torso widening and stretching, his head changing shape. His very face seemed to change, a thing Boneyard would never have thought possible.
He still didn’t think it was, even after having watched it happen, even as the results of that change hounded him, getting closer by the second.
The loner’s face had grown wide and dark, a snout pushing out from his human nose, mouth contorting to a wider, longer set of jaws, long, white fangs sprouting from his pink gums.
Boneyard shook himself free of the numbing shock of the vision. He threw the lit cigar at the thing that had been the loner, but it only bounced off the thick hide of brown fur, landing harmlessly on the ground.
Boneyard and the others stared at the loner, who seemed to have been replaced entirely by a different creature, one instantly recognizable as a grizzly bear. Its hide was thick and tangled, mouth a gaping, toothy chasm as it roared out its fury.
But it hadn’t stopped there.
The bear leapt out at the nearest men in the circle. One, Ace, had been too close and too slow, and the bear threw out a single swipe. Ace had spun with the power of the blow, his guts falling out with the force before his body fell lifeless to the parking lot.
The bear charged the next man nearest to him. He screamed and ran, but made it only a few feet before the bear jumped him, massive front paws landing on his upper back and forcing him to the ground. His scream was silenced into a grunt as the bear pushed down, raising its tremendous body just a bit before pushing down hard,
its grunt even louder than the man’s, whose mouth spat out a wad of thick blood before going limp.
The others ran, Boneyard among them, around the side of the bar and toward their motorcycles, lined up out front. But the ground seemed to tremble with the weight and power of the creature as it chased them, never far behind and getting closer by the second.
It roared unseen behind Boneyard, another of his men screaming and then falling suddenly silent. The metallic clang and tear of one bike was a sound Boneyard had never heard before but instantly recognized—the crashing of a bike meeting the asphalt louder and more violently than any of his previous experiences.
Boneyard had just made it to his own bike, but the bear’s scream caught his attention. A twisted ball of metal flew at him, and Boneyard had to duck and roll off his bike to avoid the flying hunk of Harley Davidson flying directly at his head.
Once on the ground, Boneyard had known there was no time to remount the bike. And there was certainly nothing to be gained by attacking the damned thing head on. There was time for one thing only—to run like hell.
One foot passed the other as Boneyard ran past Sammy’s and off the side of the road to a rise of low hills on the outcrops of the nearby mountains at their nearest point to the highway.
The crags awaited, his only hope that the creature had lost track of him, or had tired during the attacks on the other men. But Boneyard could feel the bear closing in, and he glanced around to find some place to run, to hide, to pray for his life.
But he didn’t find it soon enough. The bear stepped out from a rock in front of Boneyard, and his scrambling legs stopped short. The animal stood calm, huffing again as its yellow eyes fixed on Boneyard as it approached.
Boneyard held out his hands, stepping back slowly as the bear approached. “Okay now, um… Ben… that you, Ben? Gentle Ben?”
But the bear roared out a terrible scream, and Boneyard knew his last, pitiful ploy had failed. He screamed and turned, but when the bear’s horrific weight fell upon him, forcing the air out of his lungs, Boneyard could hear his own scream turn to a fractured wheeze. Air poured out of his mouth and nose, and he knew that breath had been his last.
CHAPTER TWO
Devon Caine woke up with a splitting headache, his heart seeming to be beating between the walls of his skull. A red-tailed hawk cried as it flew overhead, sirens leaking in from the distance.
It happened, Devon had to admit to himself. It happened again. But there was no need to review the events or how they fell together; it was crystal clear in his memory. Even his actions in his alternate state were not blotted out. He could still feel the metal tearing in his paws, thousands of pounds like nothing in his terrific grip. He remembered the glee his tirade had brought his animal self, the reward of ridding the world of men not worthy to tread her face. They hadn’t been the first and, despite Devon’s most fervent hope, they wouldn’t be the last.
Devon picked up his colors, lying discarded among the dead bodies of his fallen attackers. He walked slowly around the side of the bar to his own Harley, left unmangled from the fracas. He kicked the engine to life, and it growled beneath him as he peeled out from the front of the spared roadhouse, still standing thanks only to Devon’s animal mercy and his diverted attention. The bar had done nothing to him, after all, and there were men to catch and kill and they had remained in the forefront of his killing brain.
The Harley pushed forward, away from Sammy’s and onto the 40 heading west. By the sound of the sirens, they were coming up from the east, and Devon knew they wouldn’t be ready to chase after anybody for a good, long while. He’d be long gone by the time their investigations came to anything, and whatever description the bartender might give would be of little use to the cops.
Devon knew how they’d handle it, the same way they handled every such case—with total disinterest. The cops hated the clubs, always had and always would. And it wasn’t just the clubs, but anybody on a motorcycle, as if riding on only two wheels was somehow an act of depravity all on its own.
They wouldn’t care any more for seven dead bikers than they would seven dead gangbangers in East L.A. or seven dead junkies in Baltimore. They were likely to be taken aback by the motorcycle, twisted and bent into a mangled mess, but a lone wipeout could create such a result. And they were likely to come to that assumption because it was the easiest supposition to come to and would require the least amount of paperwork.
The fools, he thought as that bike carried him westward, jackrabbits and roadrunners appearing and disappearing between the cacti and bougainvillea strewn across the desert floor. They have no idea what they’re facing, or refusing to face. They live their lives in complete ignorance, thinking themselves authorities, masters of the planet and all they survey. But the cops know the bikers are too numerous and dangerous to contain. They know themselves to be hobbled by their own bureaucracy, largely powerless even where they are the only law.
But even the bikers cannot imagine the scope of what they’re now facing. Even one of us, and there are so very precious few left, could be enough to drive them from the state, push them into new territories and conflicts with other bikers, hopefully to simply kill each other off.
No, Devon had to tell himself, as he did so often. The biker culture will never be eradicated, nor should it be. In many ways, Devon knew, their shared outlaw society was the last one in which Devon and his kind could survive—left alone by mainstream society, dealing with others on the basis of strength and courage and cunning, not some antiquated concept of right and wrong prescribed by liars and hypocrites and mistakenly called peace and order. It was just a form of contained anarchy. And modern society’s attempts at that containment were as pitiful as they were obvious to see. Children shot children on schoolyards, men killed by maniacs for no reason, women and little girls imprisoned and turned to sexual slavery; their attempts at civility and society were only driving them all over the abyss, into a world of chaos and rage and fear and little else.
Those were the things of Devon Caine’s life; he lived by them, and others died by them.
The Harley’s engine was in fine form, loud and strong, growling with mechanical menace. It carried Devon, fast and smooth, the lines of the highway shooting past him to guide his way.
But, Devon wondered then as he often did, to where?
It was a question for which Devon had never found an answer. He was isolated in his species, alone among those who did not know him, did not understand him, and never would. He could find no love to join him, knowing that his inner demon would drive away any woman he would want or could love. There might be others who would accept him, but Devon had been used before by those who felt they could control him. It had always been a mistake, one which carried a terrible price.
So much death, Devon thought as he rode toward the horizon, and so little life. The desert around him seemed like his own life come to brilliant illustration. It was vast and ancient, like his kind, inhospitable to all but the most rugged and resourceful, and resented by those as a horrible necessity. The plants and animals and even people who inhabited the area lived there because they had to, and they were designed for life in such a place. The people in Devon Caine’s increasingly small world were similar—desperate and dangerous and isolated because nature seemed to intend it, and God seemed to demand it.
Devon’s kind were scattered throughout the nation, though he had no way of knowing if the population was increasing, decreasing, or was static. No two of his kind could share a territory or a mate, and that was a commodity which was in lethally short supply. Devon had no illusions of finding one in the Nevada desert, or of finding anything. His fate was simply to keep living until some merciful force ended his ancient suffering, either with the reprieve of love or the calming security of the grave.
Until then, Devon Caine would keep riding, keep killing, a lonely survivor in a world that did not see him until it was too late.
CHAPTER THREE
Sasha Nichols pulled hard on a Marlboro Red, the paper crackling as the cherry crawled slowly toward the filter. White smoke wafted up from the butt and poured out of her nostrils, a thin veil between her and the crumbling ghost town around her. It had once been a thriving gold town, a hundred or so years before the Crushers took it over.
Sasha surveyed those empty dirt streets, the buildings so rotted that they threatened to collapse not with the next winter storm but with the next slight breeze. She could almost imagine the people of that bygone era, in their fancy, old-fashioned clothes and hats, stately as they stepped carefully over the pocks and mud pits of the main thoroughfare.
The same battered structures had stood back then, no doubt sporting fine goods and freshly painted signs, dry goods and sundries, cobbler’s services, cafes and specialty shops. Must’a been nice, Sasha had to imagine, taking another hard pull on her smoke. Easy, pleasant, everyone friendly and civil. Yeah, that must’a been real nice.
But in her heart, Sasha knew their lives hadn’t been nearly so idyllic, much like her own. Those folks faced savages, just like we do; but instead of Indians or Mexicans, we have the Angels, various other clubs always coming around to take the property. Idyllic? It might even have been tougher than it is today. No bikes, only horses, no good smokes or liquor.
Sasha snuffed out her cigarette, grinding it into the dirt with the ball of her boot. Her eyes couldn’t help but trace her own leg, thick and tan, leading up to wider hips, a round middle, fatty breasts and arms.
No wonder, she thought with a sad sigh. Where else does a girl like me wind up? Sasha turned to step back into the room which had once been a saloon and hotel and was now the main central headquarters of the Skull Crushers, a band of rebels without a cause and without a charter.
Like me, she thought, so I guess I’m just where I belong. Stepping into the room that used to be the main floor, where whores had entertained their tricks before taking them into smaller rooms for raping and rutting. An old mirror behind the bar was exposed by the empty shelves, no liquor bottles to obstruct Sasha’s reflection from her view. She looked hard to recognize the girl she used to be, the girl she felt still lurked somewhere beneath all that extra woman. Her blonde hair and blue eyes were already fading with time, with sorrow, with the cruelty of the summer sun and the winter winds and the mean streak running down the back of every man, woman, and child she’d ever met.
