Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1)

by Z. Rider

  A sign flew past, too fast to read.

  His shoulders ached. Breaths huffed from his nostrils.

  He gritted his teeth and drove, hard as he could, knowing this was going to end with his car upside down, vampires feasting on whatever was left of him. He saw himself glassy-eyed—dead—hanging half out his window.

  His teeth chattered as the car shook under the power of its engine.

  A curve came up fast. He remembered going through it from the other direction, when it hadn’t seemed like much of anything. A choke jumped from his throat as he turned the wheel.

  The bikes roared forward, jumping toward him like horses that had been held back.

  He pushed the pedal to the floor, trying to hold to the car as he eased the wheel toward the curve’s apex.

  His rear tires slipped like they were on ice. He lifted his foot off the pedal, jerked the wheel. Overcorrected, and the world spun in the windshield. He yelled, his voice pushing against the interior of the car, trapped in with him.

  His tires hit dirt, and the whole thing kept spinning.

  His front corner slammed a signpost, jarring him to his bones. His shoulder knocked against his door. A cloud of dirt sifted into the air.

  His heart pounded.

  With a shaking hand, he reached for the keys. Turned them. The engine was already running. His brain was short-circuited.

  He couldn’t see a thing through his own dust.

  But he could hear—

  Nothing. Silence. The emptiness beyond his own engine.

  He waited with his hand on the keys, his toe ready to make the move from brake to gas. Waited for the dust to finish falling in the air and let him see for sure the dead-empty road.

  He was afraid to get out of the car. He was pretty sure they were gone. If they were still around, they’d have smashed his window open and dragged him out.

  He was pretty sure they were gone—but he was still afraid to get out.

  His heart banged so hard it thudded against his back. A muscle in his leg twitched. He had his foot jammed against the front of the floorboards like he was still trying to stop the car—his whole leg stiff.

  He was shaking all over, he realized. Trembling.

  He needed to piss like he’d never needed to piss in his life. He was surprised he wasn’t sitting in a puddle already. Or a pile of shit.

  The car’s cigarette lighter had disappeared during the spin. So had his pack of smokes. He found the pack on the passenger floor, stuck a bent cigarette in his mouth. Felt around under his seat until he got hold of the lighter. It took three tries to push it into the hole. He sucked on the dead cigarette, his eyes on the empty road. Waiting for the lighter to pop out.

  He leaned back as he breathed the cigarette to life. He needed that. It was his last fucking one, and it was the best cigarette he’d ever had in his life.

  He smoked it slow, enjoying it to the last drag.

  He pulled on the door handle. Shouldered it open. Put a foot on the dirt and rose from the car, wincing as he pulled his other leg from under the dash. He set his other foot down, gingerly, his ankle sore. Limped along the hood of his car, holding onto it with one hand.

  Crunched-in metal along the side, but nothing that would keep the car from driving.

  He dragged a hand through his hair, fingers shaking. His headlights picked out the shape of a disfigured bush crouching along the opposite side of the road, leaves whipping with the wind. The sleeves of his tee shirt flapped. Goose pimples prickled on his arms.

  Jesus. He needed to figure out which direction was which.

  3.

  * * *

  Dean sat stiff-backed on the side of his bunk, hands on knees, staring at a point low on the bunks across from his.

  Chatter came quick and fast through the open door, Wayne the center of it, him and his sore throat. All of them speculating what the fuck the bikers had wanted on their bus. Nothing was missing. Nothing was even out of place, as far as they all knew. The bikers had just shown up…and left.

  Except something was missing, all right.

  Dean’s cheeks were cold with the implication of it. His skin crawled.

  He’d checked three times. He’d torn the blanket and pillow off the bunk mattress.

  A corner of his blanket lapped the toe of his sneaker.

  He ran the heel of his hand up his forehead, nerves prickling. The dread wasn’t going away, and it should have if they’d left the vampire hunter behind.

  Assuming they’d left him behind.

  “There’s some crazy shit on the tour, isn’t there?” Jessie was saying. “Crazy fucking shit.”

  “I don’t get what they wanted.” Shawn’s voice was closer. The seals on the mini fridge in the galley gave as he finished speaking.

  They wanted the knife. At the very least, they’d wanted the biker’s fucking knife.

  He bent forward dragging through his bedding one more time. Tell me the knife is still fucking here.

  Because if they had the knife, they knew the biker’d been on this bus. If they knew he’d been on the bus…

  “You all right?” Shawn said from the doorway, a beer can in his hand.

  “Just a little freaked out,” Dean said. He moved off the bunk to stuff the bedding back inside. Then he leaned over it one more time to shove his hand behind the mattress.

  FUCK.

  He swayed as the bus picked up speed. He pulled his head out from the bunk, and Shawn was still standing in the doorway, but his head was cranked the other way.

  “I wonder what that’s about,” Shawn said.

  Gravity pulled them the other way, the bus’s speed dropping off. Shawn held onto the doorframe.

  Dean caught the edge of his bunk as their speed picked up again.

  “What the hell?” Shawn pushed away from the door, beer spilling down his hand. He strode up the aisle. The others were looking around, some of them getting to their feet.

  “You guys might want to sit down and hold on,” the driver called back.

  Shawn caught hold of the back of the driver’s seat. “What’s going on?” The others crowded behind him.

  “Holy shit—seriously?” Nick said. Over his shoulder, Dean saw headlights, then taillights zip in front of the bus. The bus leaned forward again, the driver pressing the brakes. The taillights zipped back out, leaving the road dark.

  But they could hear the engines buzzing, pulling forward and back, pestering the bus like mosquitos.

  “Should we pull over?” Teddy asked.

  Wayne said, “No!” as Mike was saying, “How far until we hit a town?” He had a hold of the pole at the front, watching out the windshield.

  Dean stepped back from the crowd. The engines outside grew louder. Through the hole in the blinds Nick had opened, he saw a headlight surge and drop away.

  Jessie’s head ducked in, his hand gripping the back of the couch. “They’re trying to pull over a bus with bikes? This is crazy!” The engine racket surged again. Jessie said, “It’s a fucking bus for Christ’s sake. How many are out there? Three?”

  “That’s what I count,” Teddy said.

  “They have a lot more to fucking lose than us,” Jessie said. “I mean—fucking bikes! I’m gonna have a look in the back.”

  Dean stayed where he was.

  Wayne rubbed his hands on his jeans, pacing. “Do you think they can do anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Nick said.

  Teddy crowded in with him, mashing the blinds against the window. He widened the space between another set of slats.

  Nick said, “More headlights.”

  “What?” Janx fought with the blinds on the next window, trying to get them pulled up.

  Dean took another two steps back.

  “Shit,” Jessie said. “That’s five.”

  “That’s how many were at the club,” Wayne said. “Fuck!”

  Dean walked up the aisle, his hand against his head. All his fault. All his fucking fault. That he hadn
’t thought someone would come looking…

  Someone banged into his shoulder on the way to the back of the bus.

  The bus swerved.

  Drinks on the table and counter toppled, cans rolling to the floor.

  “They can’t force us over, can they?” Wayne’s voice edged toward panic.

  “Do not pull over,” Shawn was saying to the bus driver.

  “I got no plan of that!”

  Mike came back up the aisle, his arms swinging out. “Everyone sit down. Grab hold of something. We’ve got another show tonight. We don’t need anyone injured.”

  The bus jerked and swerved again.

  “Jesus they’ve got some balls,” Teddy said, watching through the window.

  “Sit down.”

  Dean dug his fingers into his hair. He should have them stop, let him walk off the bus. Give the bikers what they were after, and the rest of them could take off.

  Fucking Christ—would they?

  He dropped his hands, started striding toward the front—Shawn’s eyes on him.

  Maybe they could just slow down. He could jump out the door. The tumble might hurt, and what would come after was almost definitely going to, but the bikers would have what they wanted—and maybe it’d keep them distracted long enough for his guys to get away.

  Shawn’s eyes were on him, his mouth opening. Dean shoved past him.

  As he put his hand out to grab the pole seat, the bus braked hard. He stumbled toward the driver, reaching for the back of his seat.

  The driver cranked the wheel.

  The back end of the bus slid.

  The whole thing jerked as the driver tried to right it, tapping the gas. It was like being inside a fish on a hook.

  Tires hit shoulder. The bus bounced. Shouts rose.

  Dean was knocked into the front lounge couch.

  The bus started to tip.

  4.

  * * *

  He crushed out his last cigarette, kissed the St. Michael medal dangling from his rearview mirror, and pulled slowly back onto the black road.

  No cars passed from the other direction, no headlights rose up from behind. His dash clock ticked to four thirty. His speedometer stayed around forty. Every now and then, he forced his toes down to move it back up to forty.

  He dreaded catching up—they weren’t fucking around. He knew at this rate, he wasn’t about to.

  That was okay too.

  He was only going this direction because he couldn’t talk himself into going back. And he was having a hard time talking his foot into going in this direction with any hurry.

  The needle slipped under forty again.

  He wished he had another cigarette.

  And a drink. Not one of those sweet frozen ones he’d had in the Quarter either.

  If he did go back, the bars would still be open, maybe.

  His stuff would still be there. He could get a newspaper, find a job. Just stay in fucking New Orleans and forget all this shit.

  Throw the folder into the dirt and put miles and miles between himself and the motorcycle riders.

  He could, but at the same time…he couldn’t. Because he hadn’t been able to save Soph—and he hadn’t even had the chance to try. This time, he at least had the chance. However much it made him want to piss his pants.

  5.

  * * *

  Wayne and Teddy screamed—two completely different sounds, Wayne’s the apex of his fear; Teddy’s a high howl of pain.

  Dean struggled to get himself up from the side of the bus that had become the floor. The couch, now on its back with Dean sprawled over it, was in his way. The driver, on the other side of the seat, was groaning. Dean tried to untangle his legs from the pile of jackets that had landed with him.

  Shawn clambered over him, going to see to Teddy, who was on the floor—or what passed for the floor now—wailing.

  “Mike?” someone yelled.

  “Is everyone okay?” called someone else.

  A thud hit the bus, over their heads.

  Teddy cried, “My fucking leg!” and Shawn said, “Is it broken? Can you walk on it?”—shoving a guitar aside so he could crouch next to him.

  Dean got his feet under him, using what used to be the ceiling of the bus to keep his balance while he rose.

  More thuds from above.

  The sound of metal.

  A wrenching noise.

  Nick rammed his shoulder against a bus hatch, halfway up the lounge, his teeth gritted. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a gash at his hairline.

  Wayne stumbled through the bunkroom doorway, landing with a clatter of limbs among the bunks.

  Nick caught Janx’s shirt as Janx stumbled into him. “Help me get this open.”

  The bus door made another creaking, wrenched sound.

  “We’ve gotta get him out,” Shawn said, clutching the leg of Dean’s jeans as he came near.

  Teddy had hold of his leg, his knee bent, his face shining with sweat. His lips were pulled back from clenched teeth as he rolled with the pain.

  A window smashed. Glass cascaded over them. Dean ducked, bringing his arm over his head reflexively. He looked over the edge of it.

  Black boots vaulted into the mess.

  Teddy yelled as one landed on his ribs.

  Shawn back-pedaled away, hunkering down. His sneaker hit a rolling beer can, and his arms flew out before he landed on his ass.

  The hatch Nick and Janx were working on popped. Fresh air raced in.

  Janx hauled himself through, Nick crowding him, ready to go, whites showing all around his dark eyes.

  Dean didn’t see Jessie or Mike.

  He saw Wayne, his throat caught in a biker’s grip as another biker leapt down through the broken window. Saliva shone on Wayne’s lips. He was croaking, “Please. Please.”

  Another dropped in, hauling Shawn up from where he was trying to lift Teddy by the armpit.

  Janx was out. Nick was squirming through.

  The biker who’d lifted Shawn threw him into what used to be the bus’s floor, Shawn’s head thunking against the leg of a chair.

  Dean watched him slide to a heap and reach out, trying to pull himself forward.

  Dean stepped toward him.

  An arm came across his chest, sending him tripping over Teddy.

  Teddy screamed, and even through that scream, he heard Shawn’s neck snap in the biker’s hands.

  The toes of Nick’s sneakers were scrabbling against the bus ceiling. Dean grabbed his hips and shoved them forward.

  “One loose!” came a yell from above, and they could only mean Janx.

  Fucking run your ass off.

  He pushed Nick’s feet through the hatch and followed with his head and shoulders, finding there wasn’t a lot to grab onto on the other side, nothing to help you pull yourself through.

  Nick ran straight into the darkness, heels kicking up dirt and clumps of weeds in a field. Dean didn’t see Janx.

  A thump came from the road ahead of the bus, followed by a whoop. Reaching for the ground with one hand, Dean tried to see what had happened.

  From inside the bus came yells, thuds, a rushed pleading that was cut off mid-word.

  His heart broke. His throat locked up at the sound of Teddy’s voice silenced mid-scream.

  A hard grip closed around his ankle.

  He dug his fingers into the dirt, kicking back with his other foot, connecting with a body. That ankle got caught up too.

  He kicked the first free, staring toward the field.

  Nick stumbled in the tall grass. Got back up. Started going again, favoring a leg.

  Keep going keep going keep going. At least one of them might get the fuck out of there.

  He kicked back again, leaning all his weight on his hands as whoever had him tried to drag him back in. The lip of the hatch scraped his hips.

  Another yell inside started and cut off—another voice silenced. It fueled Dean: he kicked hard, using the biker’s body to launch himsel
f forward. He tumbled from the bus hatch onto the ground. Rolling to his feet and took off, following Nick into the field.

  6.

  * * *

  Carl cranked the window halfway, letting a rush of air whip the side of his face. Cooling the sweat on his skin.

  He drove another mile, telling himself that at the next crossroad, the next turn-in, he was calling it quits. He had no business chasing bikers. No business chasing girl-killers. No business being a fucking brother.

  He wasn’t cut out for anything.

  But he didn’t have anything left, either. He was, he thought as his tires whisked over the road, the most expendable person in the world. So why not him?

  Yeah? And what are you going to use against them when you find them? Your good looks?

  He heard them, the engines. Distant.

  His foot jumped off the gas.

  A crowd of revs cut across the night, high and far off, but near enough to make his bowels cramp.

  Then the sound was gone. Just wind against metal, tires over blacktop. The race of rushing air at his ear.

  The speedometer hovered at twenty before he got it climbing again. It didn’t have to climb for long. Red lights started as distant insects and grew into bus taillights as he came down the road. He made out the shape of it in the dark, the bus on its side, its nose canted into a ditch, just its rear corner touching the road’s shoulder.

  He slowed to a stop, his turn signal ticking.

  Nothing moved.

  He popped his glove box and found the little flashlight Soph had given him when he’d bought the car. He turned it on, its bulb dim even after he shook it. He stared through the window, uncertain whether he should get out. Waiting to see if anything moved at all out there, if anyone came crawling out, waving their arms, relieved that someone had arrived.

  His engine ticked.

  His heart beat his ribs.

  He caught his breath, swallowed, and caught it again.

  He grasped the door handle, his skin prickling.

  The door weighed a ton, and he swung it on its hinges, cringing at the creak against the quiet night. He scanned the ragged field alongside the bus, the tops of weeds swaying with the wind that was threatening to bring rain.