by Wayne Mee
The two couples set out early on the morning of August 17th. They took Josh’s old camper, the dog Princess, and headed up to the Adirondack Park. By noon they were in the little town of Keene, where they stopped at a self-serve. It was while siphoning gas from the station’s underground tanks that the two bikers went by.
The bikes, both big Harley’s, roared through the town, vanished round a bend, then came back slowly and stopped at the station’s entrance. The larger of the two seemed to be speaking into a microphone.
Flame, standing beside the van, looked over quickly at Josh.
“Stay loose, Lover. I know how to handle them.” She then moved several paces in front of the van.
Josh, watching the two men approach, hoped she was right. He unsnapped the strap over his Beretta just to be sure. Eddy and Trina came out of the station. Seeing the two bikers, Eddy put the bag he’d been carrying down and walked towards Josh.
“Friends?”
Josh frowned. “We’ll soon see. Go to the back and wait for my signal.”
“’I don’t give a shit’, right?”
“You got it.”
Eddy smiled, walked to the rear of the van and opened the door. While pretending to repack the camping gear, he slipped a sawed-off shotgun out of a hidden case. Trina had put her bag in the van and came back out with Earl’s old rifle cradled in her arm. Princess growled quietly beside her.
“Hey there, sister! What’s happening?!” The first biker, balding, overweight and with long graying hair and beard, directed his question to Flame. The second one, younger and much thinner, sat silently drinking in Flame’s beauty.
Josh inwardly cursed that he hadn’t insisted she wear something a little less revealing. The cut-off jeans and red tank-top she had squeezed into left very little to the imagination.
“Not much, Curly,” Flame casually remarked. “Things have been a bit slow of late.”
The fat man seemed to find her wit amazing. “’A bit slow of late’!”, he cackled. “That’s rich! Hear that, Pick? ‘A bit slow of late’!” His deep laughter made his belly shake. Pick’s cold eyes stayed glued to the red tank-top.
The fat man’s gaze shifted to take in the others. They widened slightly when he saw Trina. Josh wondered if it was her long legs or the long gun that did it. Probably both.
“This here is Toothpick,” the balding biker smiled, jerking a gloved thumb in the skinny man’s direction. ‘Pick’ for short. Me, I’m called Gut.” He slapped his ample stomach. “Easy to see why. I like ‘Curly’ better, but you can call me anything ‘cept late for dinner.”
Another burst of laughter shook him. Pick continued to stare at Flame’s chest.
Still looking at Gut, she nodded towards Pick. “You better tell your friend to close his mouth, the drool’s going to rust up his carb.”
Gut frowned for a moment as her sarcasm sank in, then his piggish eyes brightened and another belch of laughter erupted. Slapping his meaty thigh, he weased. “’The drool’s gunna rust his carb!’ Soften his hard-on more likely! You’re okay, sister. Who’s your friends?” Gut was suddenly all business.
Flame swayed over to Josh and leaned against him. “My old man, Josh. That’s Fast Eddy back there. The one holdin’ the cannon is Trina, his old lady. I’m called Flame.” Her smile was dazzling.
Gut nodded. “I just bet you are.” He glanced at Pick, who nodded. “We ride with a dude called Sloan,” Gut continued. “Over a dozen of us now. More joining up all the time. You interested?”
Flame turned to Josh, winked, then turned back. “Maybe. Where’s your base?”
“Up the road a piece. Nice little town called Lake Placid. Got boats and shit. Sloan even got the movie house working. What say you come along and have a look? Pick and me’ll be your escort.”
Flame moved seductively against Josh. Her smile was still dazzling. “Maybe later. Right now we’re on a kind of honeymoon.”
Pick started to laugh, until Gut cut him off. “True love, eh? Well, that’s fine by me, but the problem is that Sloan aint gunna like it none. He told us to bring in anyone we see, especially females.”
“So,” Flame beamed. “Don’t tell him.”
Gut’s piggish eyes widened. Something close to fear shown forth. “Sister, you don’t know Sloan. We aint the only scouts he’s got out.” He patted the portable CB strapped to his bike. “Besides, I already called it in. Sloan himself is on his way here right now.”
Josh decided to end the dance there and then. “Do what you think best, friend. I don’t really give a shit. As for us, we’re going our own way.”
Pick stiffened, his hard eyes shifting from Flame to Josh for the first time. Gut leaned forward, his easy smile transformed into a sneer.
“What have we got here? A Hard Ass? Sloan just loves Hard Asses.”
Josh countered with a smile of his own. “Like I said, friend, I really don’t give a shit. Your man Sloan isn’t here --- but my man Eddy is.”
On cue, Eddy stepped out from the far side of the van, the shotgun pointing directly at the two bikers. At the same time Trina swung her rifle at Gut’s ample namesake.
“What’s this shit?”, Gut demanded.
Josh walked forward, casually drawing his Beretta. “Call it life insurance. Step off the bike.”
Before Gut had swung his meaty thigh over the seat, Josh fired point-blank into the CB.
“Christ, man!”, Gut exclaimed, half falling off the big Harley. “You nearly took my bloody leg off!”
The dark barrel of the Beretta found its way into Gut’s left ear. Josh smiled. “I’d worry about my brains if I were you.”
Suddenly a heart-stopping roar split the silence and Pick flopped backwards off his bike. Half his shoulder and all his face was blown away. The chopper followed him, crushing his already dead body. His hand still clutched the pistol he had drawn. Eddy, face pale, eyes wide, stood holding the smoking shotgun.
Gut was sweating now. The sardonic twinkle was long gone from his piggish eyes. “What do you want, man?”
Josh shrugged. “World peace. An end to hunger. Right now, though, I want you to haul your fat ass out of here!”
Gut glanced to where Pick lay beneath his bike, then nodded. As he moved towards his own bike, the Beretta found his ear once again.
“On foot,” Josh said. With his free hand he relieved Gut of the automatic he had thrust in his belt. “You won’t be needing this either.”
Gut seemed about to reply, but obviously thought now was not the time for a snappy retort. He settled for, ‘Later, man!’, then left at a belly bouncing trot.
Josh watched him till he was around the bend, then turned to the others. Trina was beside Eddy, who had developed a bad case of the shakes.
“He was going for his gun, Josh. I had to...”
“You did right, Eddy.”
“Ya, sure.” Eddy looked down at the sawed-off weapon. “But I blew his whole face away!”
Josh moved over to his friend. “You had no choice. It was them or us. And it still is, so let’s get the Hell out of here.”
They took the 73 south out of Keene, away from Lake Placid, where Gut had said Sloan had his base. The fact that this Sloan himself was supposedly on his way played on their minds. What bothered Josh, however, was the mention of other scouts. They could be anywhere.
Six miles south of Keene, they passed through the sister town of Keene Valley. On the outskirts of the tiny hamlet a tractor trailer had jackknifed, its serpentine bulk all but blocking the road. While slowly making their way around the overturned truck, they saw two more bikers heading straight for them.
“Shit!”, Josh swore, slamming on the breaks and shoving the van into reverse. As the camper picked up speed, racing back the way it had come, the bikers swerved around the wrecked truck. The roar of their bikes reached them over the steady chugging of the smaller Volkswagon’s motor.
“They’re gaining, Lover. Want me to slow them down a bit?” Flame was already le
aning out the passenger window.
“A couple of rounds over their heads,” Josh replied.
Flame smiled and emptied her Smith & Wesson directly at the trailing bikers. Of the six shots, three missed, one shattered a headlight and two drew blood, though nothing serious. The bikers swiftly dropped back. Flame popped back inside, beaming. “That should hold them!”
“But their still following,” Trina added, clutching her old rifle. Eddy was reloading the shotgun. Princess lay on the floor, clearly disturbed by both the shots and the mood of her human masters.
“Once back in Keene,” Josh said, “we can take 9N east back to the Interstate.”
“If this Sloan guy isn’t already there waiting for us,” Trina put in.
No one had any response to that.
Sloan wasn’t waiting for him, but two of his men were. A green 4 by 4 was parked across the 9N exit, blocking it completely. A bearded man holding a rifle in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other stood beside the truck. Another man was across the street at the gas station bending over Pick’s body. Both started shooting as soon as they saw the van. Bullets wined and pinged into the camper. The side right window shattered, spraying the inside with glass. Eddy, a jagged cut on his cheek, shoved the shotgun out the hole and fired both barrels. The man in the gas station went down. On the right, Flame emptied her heavy revolver at the man by the 4 by 4. The front windshield exploded and the man dove behind the truck. Seconds later they were past, now having no choice but to continue westward towards Lake Placid --- the one place they did not want to go.
Chapter 30: ‘PUSSY POWER’
The Adirondacks
New York August 17
Sloan thumbed the mike again, got another blast of static, then tossed the thing at the Pathfinder’s dash. He hadn’t heard from Gut or Pick since they’d first spotted the white van and now he couldn’t raise any of his other teams.
“It’s these fucking mountains!”, Sloan growled. “Screws up the goddamned CB!”
Tiny the only other survivor besides Sloan of that seemingly long ago drug buy in Toronto, clenched both the wheel and his jaw and kept on driving. He’d learned the hard way that Sloan was like a junkyard dog, and when he got pissed off, it certainly didn’t pay to yank his chain.
Sloan looked over at Tiny. The big Chink was hunched over the wheel like a Sumo wrestler with a bad case of piles. Sloan’s angry gaze swept forward to his point man, Hicks, then out the rear window to the two trucks and three bikes following behind. At least something was going right.
Tiny dropped the Pathfinder into a lower gear. As the road steepened, they passed the twin towers of two concrete ski jumps. Sloan was totally unaware that the sleepy little town of Lake Placid had once been the sight of the Winter Olympics. Even if he had known, he wouldn’t have given a shit. Right now, Sloan had more pressing matters to deal with; like who the Hell were these strangers in a white van and where the fuck were his scouts?!
Since waking up in Toronto almost two months ago, Sloan had been trying his damnedest to stay alive. Not an easy task in a world suddenly gone mad. Of the two groups at the drug buy, only Tiny and himself had been alive to greet the dawn, and they had been on opposite sides.
Sloan had been there as the Brotherhood’s enforcer, head man for the New York Chapter. Tiny had been No-Lip Sing’s personal body guard. After the deal went down, No-Lip had invited them to a party. Broads, booze and blow. All you could take for as long as you could take it. Sloan could take a lot.
In the morning only he and Tiny had been left. They’d taken a good look around, seen the shriveled bodies lying helter-skelter about the penthouse, eyed each other suspiciously, and got the Hell out fast. They’d been together ever since.
They’d stayed in Toronto for a few days, but the place had turned into a madhouse. Bags of grey ash that had once been people littered the street. A storm off Lake Ontario had scattered the ash, turning the air into thick soup that clogged the lungs. One in a hundred might have survived whatever the fuck it was that had happened. By the end of a week, Sloan thought that number had changed to one in a thousand. Those that had outlived the Death, were quickly killing each other.
Sloan and Tiny had decided to get out. Weapons and wheels were there for the taking, along with anything else they wanted. Picking up all the young, healthy survivors they found, Sloan’s little group had grown rapidly. Of course, he’d left behind far more that he took with him. Oldies and Crazies he had no use for, and there was a shitload of those! He’d already had to kill a few of the younger ones he did bring along. Bleeding fucking hearts every one.
Traveling itself had also proved to be a problem. The main highways from Toronto to New York were hopelessly blocked, forcing them to take lesser roads. One detour had led them through the Adirondacks. Both Sloan and Tiny were city-boys. The only trees they’d ever seen were pathetic, half-dead things anchored in cement. The concept of wilderness for Sloan was Central Park. The towering High Peaks Region left him feeling small and lost, emotions he covered up by acting meaner than usual, which for Sloan was plenty mean. When they’d reached the relatively large town of Lake Placid, Sloan, feeling like a depraved Moses coming out of the wastelands, had called a halt.
They’d been in Lake Placid now for almost two weeks. Though he himself rarely ventured out of town --- those damned mountains again! --- he sent his scouts out regularly. ‘People Hunting’ he called it, though everyone knew it was really ‘Pussy Hunting’. What with drugs gone and booze fast running out, females were worth their weight in gold. Twice that if they were young. Sloan had been the first to appreciate the potential of a female slave trade. Given enough long, lonely nights, most men would sell their souls for a piece of ass.
‘He who controls the pussy, has true power!’
When Gut had mentioned seeing two healthy, young females in a white van just several miles down the road, Sloan had decided to investigate himself. Flanked by eight of his trusted followers, he was now on his way to ‘sample the wares’.
But now that asshole Gut didn’t answer his calls. The fat fuck had mentioned the name of the shit-horse town, but was it Keen or Keen Valley? The torn road-map he had showed a couple of them! It was beyond Sloan how these shit-for-brain yokels couldn’t even come up with a new name for each town! East Keen. South Keene. West Keene. Saint Keene of the Rotted Twawt! Which fucking one WAS it?!
Suddenly the CB belched out static. Scrambling for the mike, Sloan heard a distant voice shouting through the white noise.
“... see them! ...Pick’s down... shit!”
Gunfire crackled. More static. Sloan swore.
“... bastard’s got... dead! ... your way!”
Sloan screamed into the mike, but a dip in the road brought only more ear-piercing static. He switched channels and told Hicks up ahead on point to move his ass. The leading bike leaned into the corners and picked up speed. Sloan growled at Tiny to do the same.
Seven minutes later Tiny grunted and pointed up ahead. They’d just come through another stomach-heaving curve and onto a relatively flat, open stretch. Mountains rose up all around them like angry giants. Hicks dropped back beside them, a sly grin on his sallow face.
Half a mile ahead a white van was coming straight for them.
“Trouble ahead, Lover!”
Josh had already seen them. Two, no, three trucks and a bike out front. All coming fast! Beside him Flame clutched her handgun like a rosary. From behind he heard Eddy swear, Princess growl and Trina working the bolt on Earl’s old rifle.
Frantically, Josh looked for the side-road he knew was just up ahead. He’d taken the bloody thing a dozen times in the past, so where the Hell was it?!
The distance had shrunk to less than a quarter of a mile when he spotted it. Leading off the #73, a crumbling blacktop followed a winding river up into the mountains. After eight or ten miles it ended at Heart Lake, headquarters for the Adirondack Hiking Club. A two storied lodge was nestled along its pine-covered ba
nks. From the parking lot, footpaths lead into the vast wilderness of the High Peaks Region.
Nearly rolling the Westfalia, Josh dropped into second and floored it. The aging motor wined as the camper raced up the narrow road. Suddenly the rear window shattered and a rifle slug buried itself in the back of the driver’s seat. Another thudded into the side door.
“Bastards!”, Eddy swore, casting the shotgun aside and reaching for Josh’s Winchester. He fired three shots out the back window before the van screeched around a curve. The river raced by them a stone’s throw away. The wheels bounced over cracked pavement.
Flame looked over at Josh, her green eyes bright with a mixture of fear and excitement. “Know where you’re going, Lover?”
Josh kept his eyes on the road. “Ya. There’s an old fire-road up ahead. I’ll swing in there and hope they go by.”
“Biker on our tail!”, Eddy yelled.
Behind them, Hicks had pulled ahead of the others and was now swiftly closing on the van.
“Can you take him?”, Flame asked.
Trina looked at Eddy, then nodded. “We can try!”
Both knelt on the back seat and raised their rifles. Hicks, two hundred feet away and closing, chose that moment to fire his own weapon. The 9 mm. machine-pistol let out a continuous burst, spraying hot led all across the roadway. Several slugs stitched their way up the rear of the van, one of which passed through the blown window and out through the front. A web of tiny cracks worked their way outwards from the hole.
Grinning, Hicks moved in for the kill. He was about to raise his weapon again when Trina’s .306 slug hit him in the chest. Punched back off his bike, Hicks rolled like a rag doll for thirty feet before flopping over the bank. The Harley continued on its own for another fifty feet or so before hitting a pot-hole. The heavy machine jackknifed end over end into the river.
