Death and Biker Gangs (12 page)

It hurt to nod, so I gave him the finger.

Graybeard chuckled. “You guys are funny…you could start your own comedy troupe.”

“I hear most of Hollywood is gone,” Tony said. “We could probably corner the market.”

Dax scowled at him, but had his hands full controlling the prancing Evie.

A low, menacing rumble split the air, and all of us looked at the doors in alarm. Graybeard seized Tony’s upper arm and gave him a harsh shove toward the back of the store. “You guys better split. Blair’s gang has been fighting with Rattler’s, and God help us all if they’ve decided to pick on us.”

Blair? Rattler? The bikers yesterday had been afraid of someone named Root Canal. How many biker gangs were we dealing with?

I managed to get to my knees. Dax extended a hand and helped me wobble to my feet. My rifle found its way back over my shoulder, and Dax pressed my backpack into my hands. “Who are Blair and Rattler?” he asked.

“They’re sort of local warlords,” the younger one said, taking my other arm and hauling me firmly toward the back of the store.

Local warlords? 
“I didn’t know we had those in the Midlands Cluster,” I said.

Graybeard quickened his pace. “Yeah, well, Blair’s been trying to induct us into his little gang. Wants our store. He and Rattler both want Plum Street, and of the two…I’d rather deal with Rattler. Seems like people Blair is displeased with get reduced to component parts, if you catch my drift.”

“More biker gangs,” I groaned.

Graybeard turned to narrow his eyes at me. “
We
were a biker gang,” he said, gesturing to his companions. “Those bastards out there are just assholes with bikes.”

Well, I was glad we could make that distinction.

The rumbling sound grew louder. I would’ve assumed my poor, damaged brain was creating auditory hallucinations, had Graybeard’s eyes not gotten wider. “Look, you can take what you found. I ain’t about to come between a lady and her sanitary napkins, but you gotta scram.”

Tony and Dax both looked at me the way a woman looks at a cockroach. “What?” I snapped, trying to follow the younger biker without tripping. “It’s just in case. And you’re grown men. You’ve probably bought them for girlfriends.”

“I’m going with the 
South Park 
gospel on this one,” Tony said. “Bleeding for five days and not dying is just unnatural.”

“Do you think the revenants can smell it?” Dax asked.

This is what happens when you spend the apocalypse with two guys.

“They aren’t bloodhounds,” I said.

Tony peered at me suspiciously. “How do you know? Did the good doctors test that theory?”

The rumbling reverberated throughout the entire store, rattling the shelves and bouncing off my already-fragile eardrums. I almost doubled over, but Graybeard’s buddy kept me moving. “They’re still a ways off,” he said, “but they’re coming.”

We followed them through the vitamin aisle. On impulse, I reached out and grabbed a couple bottles of vitamin D, something we were all sorely lacking in this sunless void. The approaching vehicle backfired again, sharp as a gunshot, and underneath it I could hear even more vehicles—motorcycles, maybe, or smaller cars.

Is this how it’s always going to be? Running away from loud noises? What are we, mice?

“So the biker gangs…fight?” I asked the younger guy escorting me. He was probably in his mid-thirties, and he shook his head as we hurried. His spiderweb tattoo climbed up past his ear, and I couldn’t help staring at it; getting it drawn on must have hurt like hell.

“Everyone’s been fighting over territory since the military retreated to Elderwood.”

“Why the hell did you 
stay?
” I asked.

“A lot of us stayed behind,” Graybeard had to shout over the engines. “Didn’t feel like living under a tyrant.”

“And this is better…how?” Tony asked.

Graybeard shrugged. “I love a little irony in the morning.”

“It’s afternoon,” Tony said.

“How can you even tell?”

“Circadian rhythms.”

Graybeard pushed open two doors, leading us into a vast stockroom. I actually stopped to take it all in, which should probably go on the list of things to 
not 
do after the zombie apocalypse.

Something moaned quietly from the left, and the three Elderwood refugees spun around, guns at the ready.

Well, I had my backpack at the ready. The rifle was still over my shoulder, dangling uselessly behind me. Dax tightened his grip on Evie's leash, keeping her from rushing the thing in the corner.

A lone revenant clawed at the collar around its neck and stretched for us, sounding a hell of a lot like the dog. “That’s Fredrick,” Graybeard said. “He’s the loudest. He’s a pretty good alarm if someone breaks in the back way.”

Frederick whined again, jerking at the makeshift harness they’d fitted him with. Several lengths of rope held him to one of the giant shelving units bolted to the wall. It seemed secure enough, although it wasn’t the most eye-catching restraint in the world.

Dax had to hold Evie’s leash with both hands as she snarled and snapped. “So…do you feed him?”

“He doesn’t really need to eat,” the youngest companion said.

Graybeard snapped his fingers, pushing us further into the stockroom. One set of the overhead lights still worked—without them, navigating this place would be a nightmare—and we passed giant units of toilet paper, bottled water, and what looked like basic cooking equipment.

“Please let us stay,” I said. “I promise I won’t brain Frederick.”

“We’ve got enough trouble to deal with now that Blair’s dicking around.” Graybeard glanced back long enough to meet my perplexed stare. “Do yourself a favor, kiddo. When a dude on a bike shows up claiming he can make your life better if you’ll keep his gang stocked, just run.”

I added that to my growing list of mental notes.

“And don’t ever let his sidekick draw your blood in some creepy binding ritual,” the companion nearest me added.

I’m sorry to say I barely even blinked at that comment. Once the dead started walking, creepy blood rituals just didn’t pack the punch they used to.

We reached the end of the warehouse, and Graybeard pulled open a narrow door set into the wall. “Get moving. Where are you headed?”

“Hastings.” Tony stepped outside and gestured to us to follow. Dax had to shove Evie through; she still wanted to go after Frederick. “Any recommendations?”

“Stick close to shelter. Avoid the open road. Most of the living out there doesn’t seem friendly. And try to stay quiet. Some of these fuckers…they 
hear 
things, I swear. Maybe even your thoughts.”

A biker gang with superpowers? Damn, some guys get all the luck.

The door shut behind us, and we began our long, exhausting trip from one part of the empty world to another. Tony pulled out his map and studied it as we walked, making disappointed noises every now and then.

“We’re going to have to cut over this way,” he finally said, pointing at a random street. “Maybe spend the night over there, especially if this Blair is going to be looking for trouble.

“So we have the pharmacy biker gang, and then two guys named Blair and Rattler who are fighting,” I said. “So that’s three so far.”

“Four,” Tony said. “The old guy told me Root Canal’s gang wasn’t affiliated with them. He also mentioned an Arthur, but did not elaborate.”

My temple throbbed where the revolver had struck it, and I was pretty sure no amount of ibuprofen was going to take the edge off tonight. “And these guys are afraid of Blair and his gang,” I said. “I thought bikers were tough.”

Dax tapped my shoulder. “These guys keep dead things as pets. If 
they’re 
scared of someone, we probably should be, too.”

EIGHT

After several hours of hard walking and harder thinking, I could sort of understand Graybeard’s reasoning in using revenants as guard dogs, but I still couldn’t entirely support it.

“The only way to control them is to tie them up,” I said, following the boys up to what had once been the skeeziest massage parlor this side of Vegas. A faded eviction notice was posted on the front door, and the building seemed to have escaped any sort of looting or general pillaging. “I mean, they’re basically giant assholes.”

“Are they assholes, or just hungry?” Dax asked.

“A lot of guys turn into assholes when they’re hungry. The blood sugar plummets,” Tony said. He jiggled the front door, then made an aggravated sound. “I can try to shoot it…”

Dax shoved Evie’s leash at me. “Here, hold this.” He crouched down in front of the lock and started fiddling with it.

I passed Evie’s leash between my hands, trying to ignore my nausea. “And what happens when they really start decomposing?” I asked. “It’ll reek in there. And what if they start dropping off bits, maybe leave a trail of ooze…”

“Like a zombie snail,” Tony said. “You okay? You usually don’t…fixate…like this.”

“It means my brain is working.” At least, I thought it meant my brain was working. My ears were still kind of ringing, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could keep from retching. But I figured if I was going to succumb to pistol whip-induced trauma, I would’ve keeled over already. “You can’t teach them anything. They don’t really do any tricks.”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve tried to make friends with any,” Dax said. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. Dax tucked something back into his jacket pocket as he straightened up. I forgot about the undead and my hurting skull long enough to stare at him, which prompted a thin smile. “Yes, I can pick locks.”

Tony pried my rifle out of my hands and poked his head through the open door. “I didn’t realize that was a merit badge,” he said over his shoulder. “Is there a 
reason 
you didn’t share this talent with us earlier?”

“You always start shooting before I can say anything.” 

Dax and I stood outside together, shivering slightly in the cold. Dax peered at my face, where I warranted I was developing a nice-sized bruise. “So what the hell happened in there?” he asked.

“The old guy pistol-whipped me. My molars hurt.” I probed the side of my head cautiously, but it wasn’t like I’d be able to detect a fracture, anyway. “Do me a favor. Don’t let me sleep for a few hours.”

He frowned. “What if you have a brain bleed?”

“Then I’m fucked.” I stretched a hand down to the dog, and her tongue rasped against my palm. “Unless you can prep for surgery.”

He snickered, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Damn, I was working toward that badge when I dropped out.”

I ruffled the dog’s fur. The faint sounds of Tony stomping around looking for trouble reached us, but it didn’t seem like anything exciting was going on. “So where’d you learn to pick locks?” I asked.

“My bandmates.”

Of course. You couldn’t be in a band called the Blood Nuts and 
not 
learn some sort of deviant behavior. 

The dog stuck her snout under my hand, and I played with the purple collar around her neck. She was the only one of our group who couldn’t really tell her story. Where had she come from? Did her owners set her loose, or did something get them? She didn’t seem mentally scarred by all that had happened.

At least that made one of us.

Tony reappeared in the doorway. “I think we’re in the clear for tonight. Vibeke, come inside and sit down. Dax, bring the dog.”

Sit down? Am I supposed to sit down when I have a head injury? 
But it was easier to follow directions than ruminate over whether they were correct or not, so I took his flashlight and felt my way into the Happy Back Massage n’Go, which had probably hosted more than its fair share of happy endings.

I kid. I’m sure it was a perfectly legitimate establishment.

I swung the flashlight around, picking out several rickety-looking massage tables covered in dusty white sheets. The air smelled heavy and stale, like the carpeting in my grandmother’s attic. There were a couple of repurposed pedicure chairs leaned up against one wall, and I dropped into one without even trying to dust it off first. Evie bustled around, sniffing everything within reach.

Dax went further inside, pausing in front of a pitch black hallway. “Tony, did you check back there?”

“Two bathrooms, an office, and a store room. All clear. Couple bottles of water that I stuck on the front desk,” Tony said. He dropped his stuff in the center of the room, then walked back to shut the front door. “And even better…hang on a sec.”

He disappeared down the hallway.

Dax crouched down next to me. “You want some water or something?”

“Yeah. Toss me the ibuprofen.”

I shook three pills into my hand, thought better of it, and added a fourth. I washed them all down with a gulp of water, trying not to snort it out my nose when Dax’s eyes bugged out. “It’s just eight hundred milligrams. It’ll take the edge off when I try to sleep.” I held the water bottle out, and he reluctantly accepted it. “You don’t need to look so horrified. I know this stuff.”