The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy)

by Weaver, Scott

  As luck would have it, he made it through the field, still on his bike and even more amazingly, with the can still in his teeth. He grabbed the can out of his mouth, scraping his tongue across his teeth, which came across a jagged chip on one of his front teeth. He didn't know for sure, but his guess was the rim of the can had got jammed into that new nick which helped keep it from flying out of his mouth.

  Finishing the last sip of the fourth can, he let it fall to the ground and shot into third gear, about to catch the gang. He popped the fifth beer, taking a big chug, and feeling good, thinking he was in good shape. "Must have brought home some of that luck that kept me alive in Nam."

  That's when he saw them pull into the road that lead to a small pond. They had reached their destination, and here he was just starting his fifth beer.

  "Shit!" he thought, crushing the beer, letting it pour down his neck as he drank as much as he could.

  He let the fifth empty can fall to the ground as he grabbed the handlebars with both hands, sliding into the final destination of the beer run.

  Letting his bike fall to the ground like a dead lover he popped the last beer and downed it as he walked toward Spider. "This do the trick?" Frank asked, letting the last can fall to the ground between them, now empty.

  Spider pointed at Frank's chest with his beer can. "You were supposed to drink the beer, not spill it all over your shirt."

  Frank looked down. "It's just like what they used to say in the war," he replied, grabbing his shirt and shaking it, causing beer to rain to the ground for a moment. "Collateral damage, sometimes shit just happens. So long as the mission gets done, it's nothing but a sad fact."

  Spider smiled at him. "I do like the way you think, Franky. Let's wait until Beans gets here to verify you drank whatever beer that didn't get on your shirt."

  After a few minutes, Beans rolled in, shutting off his bike.

  "What's the count?" Spider asked.

  "Found five," Beans replied, pulling a beer from his saddlebag and cracking it open.

  "He rolled in with the last one, so all cans are accounted for. What's the word on if they were all empty?"

  Beans shrugged. "There was some wetness around one, but the rest had nuthin' but backsplash left in them at the most."

  "Alright," Spider looked back at Frank. "That's good enough. You're one of us now." He said, throwing a new beer Frank's way.

  "Cool," Frank replied, catching the beer.

  Spider opened a new beer for himself as well, holding it up. "Let's all drink up and welcome our new brother to the club." Spider chugged his beer and all the others followed.

  For those few moments of silence as they all drank, Frank felt almost numb over his quick graduation into the club. The vibe that seemed to creep over him was that of deep morose, not wild elation. It seemed more like he was at a night funeral than a biker party.

  Spider crunched his beer as he finished first. "Alright, boys," he pitched the empty can behind him. "Let the wilding begin!"

  And with that, the funeral tone was gone and the drinking began. The party really picked up when a car load of girls showed up.

  As the women climbed out, Frank recognized one of them, walking up to her. "Margie?"

  "Frank?" she asked. "When the hell did you get home?" she grabbed him, giving him a big hug. They had gone to high school together. Messed around a couple times, but never anything serious. For their last date, they were supposed to meet out at his parent's place when he got off work, but his co-worker's car wouldn't start, so he had to walk home that night, which took over three hours. She never talked to him again. His excuse didn't seem to matter in the least, she wanted nothing to do with him after that. It appeared time had finally healed that wound.

  "Just got off the bus today," he replied. "Where the hell did you guys come from? How did you know anybody would be out here."

  "We work at the Chevy plant and this is a pretty common party spot."

  "Really?" he asked. "I don't remember this spot at all."

  She giggled. "That's because it wasn't here then. Since you been gone, they built the interstate through here, so they had to build a bridge for this little road to go over." She pointed at the water. "The pond came along with the bridge, which makes this a great place to party." She flashed a sexy smile at him. "Out in the middle of nowhere and plenty of water to skinny-dip in."

  Frank smiled back. "That so?"

  Spider came up on them like a panther. "Who is this lovely young thing, Franky?"

  Her smiled wavered for a moment as she took in the tall, lanky man with the dark smile.

  "Margie," Frank answered quietly.

  "Good to meet ya," she said, holding out her hand.

  He grabbed her hand, turning it over and raising it up to his lips. "The pleasure is all mine, my sweet," he said like he was a dapper gentleman, not some dirty biker.

  So with a kiss, the beginnings of a very dark time started for all of them, except for Spider.

  Within a few days The Dead Bikers were on the road, on their way to Chicago, where there was a lot more action as well as a lot more money to be made. Two of the girls from the Chevy plant had decided to go along. One of them was Margie, who took the trip on the back of Frank's bike.

  Spider seemed to have everything already set up, cause he led them straight to their new home: an old warehouse not too far from some smelly damn river.

  "This is it boys," he said, unlocking the huge padlock and pulling the chain off the sliding door, pulling it up so they could ride in.

  It was relatively small for a warehouse, but it was more than big enough for them. They rode the bikes in, parked, and started looking around.

  "This place is going to be an oven come summer," Fizz said, looking around. "But we definitely got plenty of room to do whatever we wanna do."

  "Once we get that going again, it'll cool things down," Spider said, pointing up to the ceiling forty feet above them. There was a huge ceiling fan with blades close to fifteen feet long. "Over there," Spider pointed to the west side of the building where there was a normal sized door for human traffic. "We'll put up some walls and a lower ceiling, pipe in some AC for the summer and heat for the winter, and that will be the clubhouse. All the serious partying will take place in there."

  Howls of excited agreement came from the others.

  "We'll build a door that leads from the clubhouse to back here. DB members only go through that door, cause this is where all the work gets done, and when I say work, you all know what I'm talking about."

  The men nodded their heads, chuckling.

  "Up there, is the mezzanine" Spider pointed to a small room up above that could only be reached by a metal staircase. "That's where the board room will be where we have our meetings at," he started walking up the stairs. "We'll be having our first meeting right now. Ladies, you start cleaning up the place."

  "Is that why you brought us along?" Margie asked. "To be your maids?"

  Spider stopped on the sixth step, slowly turning around and looking Margie in the eye, saying nothing.

  The other girl who had came along, whose name was Ann, immediately started cleaning, making crude piles of trash with her bare hands.

  Margie kept eye contact with Spider for nearly four seconds before she started doing the same as Ann.

  Spider watched her clean for a few moments, all the other bikers were standing on the steps below him, waiting.

  Finally, their leader started walking back up the stairs.

  "What the hell is a mezzanine?" Pogo whispered to Paint as they climbed.

  "It's what they call a floor inside a building that doesn't cover the entire area, just a small spot. So it's not really an entire floor."

  "Oh," Pogo replied, still somewhat confused.

  "Hey boss," Paint called up to Spider. "I'll make a sign for this room. I'll call it the 'Bizz Mezz Room', get it? Instead of business room."

  Spider let out a laugh. "I love it, Paint. You are one creative son
of a bitch."

  They followed their leader into the room, closing the door behind them. The air was stuffy and it was damn near pitch black in the small area since the sun was nearly down.

  Spider lit up a cigarette, making his face glow a spooky orange for a moment. "Alright boys, we have arrived at our destination. We came here for two reasons: to party and to make some money, cause you can't party unless you got cash."

  The boys agreed.

  "Paint and Pogo are both from here and they got contacts in the drug business, which is going to end up being our cash cow, but it'll take a while before the cash starts rolling in, I'm sure the local drug trade will make us jump through all kinds of hoops before they trust us. Fizz has got a background in stealing rides and chopping them up for cash, which is something we can start making money on immediately. We'll concentrate on motorcycles but if the opportunity for thieving a high end auto presents itself, we definitely don't want to pass that up. Franky's got experience working on rides, so he'll be able to help Fizz chop them up."

  Everybody was nodding their heads. Franky a little slower than the rest.

  "So, starting tomorrow, Paint and Pogo will start working their contacts to get the drugs rolling. Fizz, Beans and Franky start bringing in some hot bikes and cars until this building is full of them, then start tearing them apart. I'll start working on finding buyers for the parts so by the time you guys got 'em torn apart I got 'em sold. Sound like a plan?"

  Everyone agreed it was a hell of a plan.

  "Alright then, let's go celebrate our arrival to the windy city!"

  And with that the party began, and it didn't seem to stop because things just kept rolling in for The Dead Bikers MC. Within a few days, they had the small warehouse packed with a dozen motorcycles, as well as a corvette and a Mercedes. Spider was good on his word, having people come in to buy the parts almost as soon as they had the machines torn apart. Within a couple of weeks they had all of the tools and equipment to tear apart any vehicle they pulled into the building. It was at about this same time that the drugs started coming in as well.

  "Things are rockin' and rollin' on all fronts boys," Spider told them one night in the Bizz Mezz Room. It was already midsummer and an A/C unit cooled the room to near arctic temperatures. "The only thing we are lacking in is manpower, which means it's time to expand."

  The clubhouse had been built for close to a month now, and although they missed the extra space for storing stolen vehicles, it was more than worth it for the great party room it had become. It had also become quite the magnet for those who liked to party, so they already had all the women they wanted as well as quite a few guys who were looking to join the club, cause only members and loose women partied at the Zombie House for free.

  "Any potential members need to be screened by each of you," he pointed to the other five in the room. "If you all agree he's worth a try, then he has a private meeting with just me, up here in the Mezz. If he gets past me, then he is a junior member until he proves himself. If he does, then he's full fledge DB."

  "What's he got to do?" Pogo asked.

  Spider waved his hand at him. "Hell if I know, we'll figure that shit out as we go along." He tapped his finger on the table. "Right now, we need some guys to do the shit-work!"

  They all agreed with that, and so the recruiting started that night at the Zombie House. Several guys that came to party on a regular basis to the club house immediately came to mind: they all knew how to handle themselves in a fight and they all had rap sheets with the cops.

  "Guys that are good at busting heads and breaking the law are good candidates," Spider explained. "But the ones we really want are the ones with some extra skills as well. Look around boys, everybody in this room knows how to kick some ass, but everyone of you also brings a skill set to this club. He pointed to the two airborne. "Drug contacts and drug trafficking experience." He moved his finger to Franky and Fizz. "Chop shop experience as well as mechanic skills." He then looked at the tunnel rat. "And the most surprising of skills: bookkeeping. Who the hell would have thought a cold blooded killer like the rat here would know how to do accounting shit? At least now we know where your nickname came from, you're a fucking bean counter!"

  Everybody got a laugh from that comment. Beans nodded his head. "I'm full of surprises, boys."

  "Anyways," Spider continued. "Guys with extra skills are probably going to be a rare find, but keep an eye out for them. If they ain't that great in a fight, but they bring something to the club that we are lacking, they might be worth a second look."

  The others all nodded their heads in agreement.

  "That brings me to my final topic and then we can get the hell outta here and go party." He tapped his finger on the table again. "Everybody in this room is an original member of the DBMC, whoever comes next is after us. We are the original six." He looked at Paint. "I want you to come up with a patch for our jackets that symbolizes that for just us. No other member will ever get one."

  "You got it," Paint said with a nod.

  "Alright then," Spider said. "Let's go get shit-faced."

  From there the expansion began. Over the next few weeks the other five found a couple dozen candidates and sent them on to Spider. Their leader took each of them up to the Bizz Mezz room for solo interviews. Only a handful of them made it to the next step but several others were given a small piece of hope.

  "You're not ready to wear the colors yet," Spider would tell them. "But there is a chance you might be someday, so if you stick around and help out, maybe you can come back up here someday and we can talk about this again," he'd say with a friendly smile, which you would think would crack his face. His smile was a lot of things, but usually not friendly.

  So, The Dead Bikers Motorcycle Club ended up with five new members, which were referred to as Props, because until they proved themselves, that's all they were: DBMC props, not the real thing.

  The larger group that was given the 'maybe next time," line had an even lesser title. They were officially known as The Buried, cause they were still corpses in the ground. They had yet to raise from the grave to become true Dead Bikers, at least that was the bullshit mythology they had come up with. Since The Buried sounded as if they were respected they were given the nickname of Berry or Deadberry, after all, it had to sound worse than Prop.

  The Deadberries were given the true shit jobs: cleaning up the clubhouse and the shop, acting as lookouts for the cops or other rivals, going and getting whatever the club members needed them to get. Only two of them got to see any of the more serious illegal activity, and that was because both of them were very good at selling drugs on the streets, which is what allowed them to be Deadberries in the first place. When it came to anything other than selling, both were as useless as can be.

  There was one constant when it came to the solo interviews with Spider, they all looked the same coming down the stairs, whether they were a Prop, a Deadberry or were told to get the fuck out and never come back. They all looked like their nuts had been twisted with a pair of pliers. The ones that were told to get out, stumbled down the stairs and did what they were told, saying a word to no one as they scurried out like a wounded mouse. The Props and Deadberries did the same stair stumble, but once they got on solid ground they would tell the other five what their new title was in either a whisper or a stutter.

  The others would cheer and give the new guy a beer and a joint, after an hour of drinking and smoking weed they would start to relax and get back to being themselves again.

  "What the hell does Spider say to those guys?" Pogo asked Paint and Frank one night.

  "We don't wanna know, bro," Paint replied, taking a long drink of beer.

  There were a few that stumbled down, saying that Spider said they weren't a good fit for the club, but they were still welcomed to come around and party whenever they wanted to, so long as they understood, they would never be a member. Of those few, only one shambled back to the clubhouse, the others took the exit, never
to be seen again at the Zombie House.

  Things went pretty well from there for the next two years. The club slowly expanded to the point where there was always around a dozen Props as well as Berries and the full fledge member quota was at twenty.

  Things were going real good for Frank. So far he hadn't been asked to kill anyone, and with his mechanic skills, his work was one of the few things the club could do legally as well as wash the dirty money through. It was almost like he had an honest job but still got all the perks of being in the club. The only bad thing to happen was Margie slowly but surely went from being his old lady to being Spider's. He was still pissed about that, and there was now distance between him and Spider and everybody knew it. Frank kept his cool though, the situation he was in was too sweet to let some woman fuck it up.

  Things started to change when the heroin came in. The money from selling it was unbelievable, but everything else about it was bad, like hell on earth bad.

  Things with the club and the heroin selling was getting shaky so quickly that a meeting was called just three weeks after the pushing of the brown horse began.

  "I don't see any problems," Spider started the meeting. "We're making more in one day selling H than we ever did selling weed in a week!"

  "The clubhouse is full of fucking junkies now!" Fizz replied, almost directing his anger at Spider, but not quite "It's fucking disgusting!"

  "Christ, Fizz," Pogo said. "When did you get all judgmental about how other people look?"

  "Gimme a fucking break, Pog," Frank replied. "It looks like we have real zombies in there, those people look so damn bad!"

  "Those are our customers, boys," Spider said, causing Frank and Fizz to both curse. "But I agree, we do need to clean the clientele base up some, we don't want to scare off new buyers with a freak show. Besides, it will get the cops attention quicker if the clubhouse looks like a needle zone. So from here on out, nobody shoots up at the Zombie House," he then looked over at Paint and Pogo. "And nobody sells there either."

  "Shit, Spider," Paint replied. "If we have to go out and find buyers instead of them coming to us, then we won't sell as much smack. We'll spend half our time trying to find the junkies to sell the brown horse to."