by Kara Hart
I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to ruin everything he had. But there was nothing I could take away from him. He had already lost everything. He wasn’t the one to blame. For once, I felt helpless. “I don’t blame you.” I finally said. “But you’re wrong when you say we’re the same. We’re not. Once I figure out how to kill Don and end the Darkhorse gang once and for all, I’m getting out of this game. Forever. I made a promise to my woman, and I plan on keeping that promise.”
“Rust. It’s already too late for that.” he suddenly said, looking downward within himself.
“What do you mean by that?” I slowly asked him.
“I’m…” he stopped short, choking on his tears. “I’m sorry son.”
“What are you sorry about? What are you saying?” I whispered, feeling my heart start to race.
At that moment, a pack of wild bikers burst through all the windows and doors in the house. They wielded semi-automatic machine guns, bearing a manic look in their eyes. “They made me do it. Forgive me son.” he said. One of the men put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
“No!” I screamed. But it was too late. They had their guns set on me. A Darkhorse member walked over to me and hit me over the head with his weapon. All went black.
There was nothing left for me. Nothing but Jackie. And soon, they would do to her what they did to my mother. As for me, I was already dead inside. What didn’t kill me would only make me stronger. At least, I sure hoped so.
Jackie
I never thought a man could have this big of an impact on me. Honestly, I really didn’t. My father raised me to respect men, but to never give in to their tricks. I guess that explains why I resisted him so much in the first place. But, after knowing Rust for some time, I taught myself a bigger lesson. It was that men have an exterior and an interior. The exterior is like the shiny chrome on your bike, or the tattoos on your skin, those words that claim Courage, Loyalty and Pride.
The interior is kind of what counts the most. At least, that’s what I’m learning. It’s sort of like the smooth leather in the inside of your brand new truck, or the bones that keep you up in a fight. It’s the soul to the body. And now that I know Rust and what he really stands for, I know that his interior is something I want to keep seeing, for the rest of my life.
We had gotten married more as a plan than as a reality. But now that plan had somehow bled into our lives in a real and meaningful way. I don’t like to get all sappy, but we had gone through so much together so far. And after losing all that we hold and dear, so much was now at stake. Life was tough like that. But if you kept holding onto the light at the end of that tunnel, you’ll come out on top.
At least, that’s what I had to believe. Now that Rust was gone, it felt like my whole life was crumbling right before my very eyes. He closed that door and walked out without looking behind him. Not because he was callous and cold. That’s what he wanted people to think of him. That’s the exterior I was talking about. No, he didn’t look behind him because he didn’t want to have to face the pain. He had seen too much already. His own parents had been slaughtered right in front of him. Imagine what that could do to a man. Hell, I couldn’t blame him for not looking back.
Still, this plan was absurd. To face Don or any Darkhorse leader was absolute insanity. It was fucking suicide. And though I let him walk out those doors, I wasn’t going to let him die like that. I had to do something.
So I called Bruce. I didn’t know what else to do. Since he was the one who approved of this crazy plan, I thought he might be the one who knew what to do. Turns out, he was pretty confident in the plan.
“It’ll be fine, doll. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about any of this. It’ll all end up fine. Just fine.” he said.
“Fine? How will this end up fine, Bruce? This is suicide! I’m not some little girl, so don’t shrug me off. I’m Lane’s daughter, boss of the Hell’s Wheels. I demand my respect.”
There was a short pause and I heard the flick of his lighter. “Fine. You’re right. You’re family has been in this game for a long time. But I gotta say, I’m not used to discussing these matters with women. I guess this is a new world, right? All modernized and shit. I’m willing to talk, but what do you suggest we do?”
“We should meet.” I said. “Over at the River’s edge. Three miles south from me. You know where I’m talking about?”
“I know it alright. The old meeting spot from ’92. Your father used to brag about finding such an isolated spot.”
“Meet me in 20.” I hung up the phone and got on my bike. It was time to be decisive. Rust had saved me before, back when his club got bombed and shot up. Now it was time for me to try and save him. Of course, I would have help.
I shot out on the open road and headed south. Three miles was a short duration, but it was a spot that no one seemed to know about. When I got there, Bruce was already there, leaning against his bike and smoking a cigarette. I got off and shook his hand.
“Have you heard from him yet?” I asked.
“No, but I’m not jumping to any conclusions.” he said, looking slightly worried, but not worried enough.
“If they got him, we wouldn’t know it. His silence is our only clue.” I said.
“That’s how it is for all of us, right?” The moon hung low and the stars shined down against our faces. Bruce, for once in his life, looked like a king ready to solve a major diplomatic issue. War among the kingdoms was a serious business. Losing an operative could mean bad implications.
“Guess so.” I said. “When we’re gone, does it all fade to black? Is that the fate for all of us? Is that why we fight and live the life we do? There’s gotta be more of a point to this, Bruce.”
“You’re gettin’ too philosophical for me, honey. You don’t get to think about fate and the point of all this when you’re born into the life we live. There ain’t no choice for us. We inherited this rotten, shit of a life. And the best we can do is try and die with a little dignity and extra cash.”
I shook my head. Sure, it sounded nice. Very heroic and all. But the reality wasn’t so simple. Sometimes you had to think deeper and go outside of the box. Sometimes you had to think outside the status quo. “The Darkhorse gang seems to think differently than you on that. They seem to be takin’ this life somewhere new. Somewhere sinister. They’re turning their gang into an outright cult, Bruce. We have to act.”
“Fine. I’ll take your bait. What do we do?” he asked me, tossing his cigarette in the river.
“When my father brought me here for the first time, I was pretty young. Maybe 4 or 5. To me, this place was like the Amazon jungle. It was a huge landscape that represented the real world, wild and free. The river was like the bloodstream of this place, flowing and feeding the plants. If the river is gone, so are the plants.”
“What are you sayin’?” he asked me. “Is this some kind of moral type story of some bullshit?”
I ignored his ignorance and continued. “There are certain values we need to keep if we want our world to stay stable and clear. Right now, our world is in absolute chaos because certain people have decided not to stay true to their values. You talk about Courage and Loyalty, and so do the Darkhorse. But they’re using those words and skewing the meaning to recruit some very bad people. Now I’m not saying we’re good people. We’ve got our problems, right? But we never encroached on others’ business as long as they didn’t encroach on ours. That’s how it’s always worked. We work together because there’s more money if we do. They’ve broken that unspoken promise and dried up our river, Bruce. It’s time to give them hell. It’s time we fight back. No more of this.”
“So you’re back to fighting?” he asked me with a sly smile on his face.
“It’s our only choice.”
“Good. Let’s go save our man.” he winked.
Rust
I woke up inside another house. Guards all around me. Guerilla warriors hell bent on gai
ning power and followers, followers of a new dogma. They wore black bandanas over their face. Goggles covered their eyes. They looked like a gang of post apocalyptic warriors. I wasn’t scared of them.
I felt the rope tightly binding my wrists together. My ankles were bound too. I was on a table in the center of the room. The “soldiers” around me were smoking and drinking. It was as if I wasn’t even there. Finally, after some time, a man walked into the room. It was Don. The men around me stopped dead and saluted him. “General D is in the building!” one of them said. The air was tense.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Over here, sir.” A man led him into the main room.
“Well, well, well.” he laughed. “There’s our little warrior. How was your meeting with your father? I suspect it went well?”
I spat at him. “Fuck you. I came to be diplomatic, Don. I came to cut a deal. Instead you violated the rules of war. You’re a coward.”
His smile quickly disappeared from his face and anger fueled him. He grabbed my face and scowled, “There are no rules anymore, you pathetic little ant. I do whatever I want to do. And these people behind me, my soldiers, do whatever I tell them to do. Those are the new rules in this land.”
“You can’t play God.” I retorted. “If you try, you’ll end up losing everything. Plenty of men before you have tried your way of ruling the world. Where did that get them? A nice funeral plot, more or less. The memory that if you break the code, you will be destroyed by the forces you betrayed around you.”
“Should I shoot him, boss?” one of the bikers asked him. He waved him away.
“No. I have my own plans for this one.” he said. Then he turned back to me, standing tall and proud of his evil. “Your words mean nothing to me. The days of the past are over. This is a new era. Me and my men are on the cusp of greatness. You choose to stand against the current? Fine. But be willing to pay the price of your sins.”
“Do your worst, asshole. I yield to no tyrants.” I angrily said.
“Fine. Have it your way.” He reached out his hand to a man standing next to him. He was dressed in plain clothes, and looked as if he was forced to be there. The whole thing felt weird. “Hand me the syringe.” he said.
“The what?” I asked him, trying to break free from my rope.
The man handed him a syringe full of a clear liquid. He pressed it down ever so slightly, and a small stream shot out. “Inside this syringe is a powerful drug. I’m sure you’ve already figured that out. You see, we don’t want to kill you. We want to train you.”
“Train me?” I muttered back. This didn’t sound too fun.
“Yes, we want you to see reason and logic for once. Maybe once you do, you’ll understand why our cause is so great.”
“No.” I whispered, choking on my saliva. Truth was, I was practically shitting myself.
“Actually, yes. It’s time you Courage folk listen to our demands. Lucky for us, we have you on our side now. We have you to fight our battles with us. Don’t we, doctor?” He turned to the man next to him, who looked nauseous and frightened.
“Yes, sir.” he squeamishly spit out.
“Well there it is! There’s our answer, straight from the doctor himself! There, there, Rust. It’ll all be over soon enough. Time for your medicine.”
The doctor leaned over me with the syringe, moving closer to my arm. “NO!” I screamed, jerking my body as much as I could. I was tied down tightly though, and I couldn’t move more than a centimeter. I was trapped. “Fuck!!!”
“There’s no use in fighting it, little Rust. Don’t you worry. It’s all quite painless.” he smiled, revealing a set of yellowing and broken teeth. His eyes were red and his pupils were incredibly large. Everyone in the house had soon broke out into menacing laughter. I was truly in a house of madmen.
The needle hit my skin, piercing directly through my tough flesh, until it finally reached my vein. The liquid shot through my bloodstream and I almost passed out from sheer anxiety and rage. And then I felt it. The pleasure. The pain. The horror. I felt enraged.
Jackie
We had made our way to the Darkhorse house. It was no secret where there headquarters lay, but in the past it was an unspoken rule not to invade on anyone’s sacred spaces like that. Just like foreign entities didn’t bomb the White House, you sure as hell didn’t plan an attack around the place of leaders. Well, all that was broken when they had decided to bomb and assault Rust’s club. That was a clear violation in everyone’s eyes.
But when we got there, no one seemed to be around. “Where is everyone?” I asked aloud. “Where’s Rust?”
Bruce sniffed at the air and squinted his eyes as if he was trying to find some invisible clue inside of the air. “No clue, but someone was here. Many of them it seems. Not long ago.”
“What makes you say that?” I began walking up to the door, taking my gun out of the holster and preparing myself for a sudden attack.
“I can smell the burnt rubber in the air. And I can smell the gunpowder as well. Someone fired a gun around these parts.”
“You’re certain of that?” I asked him, feeling my stomach sink.
“Pretty damn certain. Although I could be wrong, it’s been in my best interests to know when someone around me has been shot.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong.” I said, gripping the door handle. I slowly turned it and pushed myself through to the living room, gun drawn and all.
“Oh my god.” I whispered. In front of us was a murder scene. An elderly man with his head shot clean in. Blood splattered the wall. I’ll spare the details, but it wasn’t pretty. I instantly shielded my eyes and Bruce came running up behind me to protect me.
“Ah, shit!” he screamed.
“Who is that, Bruce? What the hell happened in here?”
He leaned over the body, covering his nose, and quickly turned away. “He was a member of the Darkhorse.” he said, solemnly. “Long time ago. This was back when I was just a captain. Back when everything was good between us two crews. Tragic story. He met a woman and fell in love. She ended up gettin’ killed, and he disappeared. I had heard some rumors about him being alive, but I always thought it was just people sayin’ stuff. But it’s him alright. God damn, I wish I knew what happened here.”
I pointed my gun towards the staircase. “There. Upstairs. Let’s make sure it’s clear.”
Bruce walked carefully upstairs and announced to me that, “It’s all clear. Just some candle and a…” his voice fell short.
“What is it?” I asked, running upstairs.
“It’s a note.” he said, holding a piece of paper in his shaking hands. “It says, ‘When you find this parchment, you will know that I have been killed. Know that I have done everything in my power to inform Rust of his origins. They set me up. They set us all up. The Darkhorse gang will have him by now. Be warned: they will try to turn him. They will be successful. The end is inevitable. I am sorry for all I have done.”
He crumpled the note in this hand and tossed it on the ground. “Sons of bitches!” He punched the wall, causing the wood to dent in a bit.
“Save your energy, Bruce.” I warned him. Things were at a tipping point now. We would need all the rest we could get.
“I guess you’re right. I’ll calm down.” He grabbed a cigarette and lit it. I frowned at him.
“What did the note mean when he said that he tried to inform him of his origins? What origins?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. Probably talkin’ about his parents gettin’ shot in front of him.”
“But he knew about that already. There was nothing to inform him about. I don’t get it. Why would this random old man tell him about that?”
Bruce turned angry and annoyed. “I don’t know, God dammit! He was a crazy old man. It’s like I told ya, he left a long time ago after the love of his life died. Ain’t nothin’ more to say. He went crazy. Probably became a bum.”
His answer only made a little bit of sense. But I still c
ouldn’t figure out what he meant about where Rust came from. Bruce was up to something. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Alright.” I said, dropping the subject altogether. “Let’s just find him.”
We walked downstairs and exited the building. Outside, Bruce was bending down against the cold desert floor and inspecting something. “Gotta look for their bike’s tracks. If they got to him, they’d be bringin’ him somewhere secret. Some place we have never been to before.” He ran his hands across the dirt, until he finally came across something. “Aha! Found it!”
Sure enough, he had come across some tracks. They led deeper into the unknown, into the heart of the desert. I looked into the distance, where the moon had lit up the ground. “Let’s follow them. But we have to be careful about this. We can’t let them see us or hear us. How far do you think they took him?”
Bruce squinted his eyes and thought for a second. “I can’t be too sure. But there is a place not too far from here. It used to be an old ranch, but the owner was killed years ago. It ain’t but a few miles from here.”
“We’ll walk then.” I said. Bruce looked at me like he was going to kill me. “Sorry old man. Anyway, you could use some exercise.”
“I resent that.” he said, smiling at me.
We headed into the desert. Our only light and compass was the stars above us. The only thing holding us together was the hope that Rust was still alive. The note said that they would turn him. But how? All I could do was pray that he was still alive. If he was, I knew that his interior was too strong to be turned by the likes of the Darkhorse gang.
