Dragula // Rob Zombie

Guy

To no surprise, I slept like shit. I hadn't thought about that night I shot Axe since forever. Now I'm fucking worried someone will pull his body out of the river, or wherever the hell he got washed to. But if he hasn't been found by now...

Besides, I'm in a position to keep it that way, keep his name buried from the world. Keep that night from getting out into the open, confessing what actually happened instead of the story I gave Boulder and his crew. By taking on the Black Death and basically indenturing myself as their servant, I sold my soul to set hers free. I knew my options were few. Fuck, they were nill. I had no options but to keep Mari safe, get her out of there without them hunting her down. Not after the story I told. The Black Death didn't want Axe's stain on their name. Which was a damn joke compared to the shit they pull on the regular, but does it matter? No. Not anymore.

I drag myself off the storage room couch after pulling on my boots and jacket. It's going to be a long month sleeping on the dusty piece of shit–my back is already feeling it–but the timeline is beyond my control now. In for an ounce, in for a pound, as my mom used to say before the drugs took her mind.

Heading out the back door, I can still feel Mari's heat as she toed up to me, in my face demanding the answers she was desperate to have. I scoff at the lame crumbs I offered. She still has no idea what went down and as far as I'm concerned it's staying that way. The less she knows, the safer she is.

I can't let my brain take me there so I clomp down the back steps and throw my leg over my hog. After revving her up–not concerned about waking up any neighbors at this early hour because I'm in the business hood of this godforsaken town–I pull out of the back lot and down the alley. I know where I'm going, but I don't have a good reason to go there.

In fact, I have more damn reasons to never set foot there ever again, but my overthinking, paranoid brain has me in a choke hold. It should be the bitterest of memories and yet I can't stop myself from making the turns and hitting the road that takes me directly to my doom.

An hour later, after ignoring every warning sign in my brain, I pull up to the lake. The lake that serves as the conduit to the river that became Axe's final resting place. Taking my bike as close to the water as I dare, I look out over the ripples, shimmering ominously under the predawn sky. And I remember.

Mari climbed out the window in my hoodie. I gave it to her to ward off the cold night air. But in wearing it, she also took some of the key evidence with her. I hadn't meant it for that purpose but it served me in my deception. There was no gun powder residue on the clothes I was wearing. If Boulder had been at all suspicious, he would have done some testing. He's done it before when one of his soldiers betrayed him.

It was only luck that I had Axe's gun in my pocket that night. He'd shoved it at me without thinking when he slunk into Mari's room to do God only knows what to her. He'd trusted me. I used it to my advantage, following him inside and using his distraction, and his gun, against him. Wrapping my hands in the sleeves of my hoodie, I aimed straight and squeezed the trigger, never taking my eyes off the target. I knew it was risky with Mari so close. If he'd moved... If I'd slipped or my aim had been even slightly off...

She would have taken the hit.

But I hadn't spent hundreds of hours at target practice with Boulder to miss when it counted.

He went down like a brick house, right on top of her.

Once I got her free and thinking clearly, I sent her away. I wouldn't let myself question her safety or if she'd been taken care of. I wiped thoughts of her from my mind. My entire focus became what to do about Axe. How to keep Boulder off Mari's trail. She hadn't been much of his concern from the beginning. Her capture was all on Axe. Part of me wonders to this day if Boulder was relieved both of them disappeared that night.

Once she was gone, tainted hoodie and all, I had to act. Fast.

Using the wheelbarrow one of the guys brought in to haul around some of the shit we kept in the backyard, I was somehow able to drag Axe's body into it. Our headquarters were situated off the grid on a dozen acres of untamed brushland. The previous owner, Boulder's dead uncle, was a fucking horder. Every square foot of flat land surrounding the squalid house was covered with rusted out machinery and old appliances. A dead body could easily hide out there. But I wasn't about to chance the wrong person finding him and asking questions. So I pushed his heavy, perverted ass through the brush and trees, ten feet off the trail that led to the river a mile away, and dumped him in the deepest, fastest moving spot I saw.

I dragged the wheelbarrow through the mud and water to wash it clean of his blood. Then I dragged it back through the brush to the house all before I could pull up a story that would satisfy Boulder enough to let it go.

The only way to do that was to tell him I watched Axe force himself on Mari then kill her with his bare hands. That he took off with her body when I threatened to shoot him with his own gun before Boulder found out what he'd done. His number one rule was no murder in the house. We had bunkers for that. Boulder didn't want to dirty his hands with Mari's disappearance. The club didn't have a habit of kidnapping kids or sheltering pedos. He wasn't about to start that up with what Axe had pulled this time around.

And that was that. He dropped it. So did I. Axe's name was banned from the club with plans to take him out if he ever tried to slink back in.

A problem I'd already handled but kept to myself. The only other person who knew even a sliver of the truth had disappeared as well.

Until now.

And I can't wrap my head around it.

I watch as first light crests the horizon, sparkling against the water with something like hope. The sensation niggles, like an itch or a tender spot. I haven't felt anything close in years. I push at it, shoving it off. I don't trust the feeling and I can't afford to give it legs.

Not this time.

***

Mari

I could blame lack of sleep or Oscar's incessant talking. But I'm not nearly tired enough to blame muscle memory and Oscar stayed unusually silent on the drive. So the only excuse I have is that my subconscious made me do it.

We make it to the lake an hour after leaving the house. The vibe in the car is off, tainted from bad dream residue and whatever the hell had Oscar up at the ass crack of dawn. I pull to the west side of the lake, a day trip spot for most of Fallbrook Hills during the summers, and watch the sun slowly rise to welcome another day. The two of us stare at nothing in more stilted silence. That is, until I get too twitchy and break the silence by putting Oscar on the spot.

"What's up with you?" I ask, hoping he'll be more forthcoming than he was in the confines of our house. The confines of the car seem more secure somehow, even for me. Which is dangerous in my current situation. I bite my tongue, literally, as a reminder not to spill every dark secret I'm keeping.

"Nothing. Wrapping up the season since we didn't make playoffs. Deciding where to go for college." The slump of his shoulders tells a bigger story than his basic plan.

"Didn't Fallbrook University offer you a scholarship and a spot on the team?" That's huge for a kid with his background, coming from the system into a foster family. He'd be nuts not to take it. Unless he got a better offer elsewhere.

"They did. But I don't think I want to stay in town for school. It's time I spread my wings. You've been trying to knock me out of the nest since I hit my growth spurt and towered over you." With that, he reaches across the car to give me a nuggie.

"Watch the hair!" I say, batting away his knuckle.

"This rat's nest? You didn't even bother brushing it today."

"Give me a break. I'm fully showered and brushed it after you neanderthal. Besides, you deflected the question. Where are you going if not Fallbrook?"

Oscar doesn't answer immediately. He stares over the water, taking a deep breath that wreaks of sadness if my sister-spidey-senses are functioning with practically zero sleep.

"Still a work in progress, but not Fallbrook U. So drop that one from the list, would ya?"

I nod, slowly, wondering what has a chokehold on the guy, but not asking more. Not yet. He'll talk eventually, of that I'm positive. It might take a few years, but someday he'll come to me, or to our older brother Javier, and tell us what had him so somber his senior year.

"Good enough, baby bro."

"How about you? What's new in my sister's life?"

If that isn't the question of the century, and one I don't want to dig into much more than my nightmares already have. But I have to give him something if I want him to do the same.

"Still working through the break up. Trying to remember what life was life before the douche canoe disturbed it."

"Aw, come on," he drawls as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. "Don't tell me Douche bag Danny broke your heart. He's the dictionary definition of a wet blanket. You're the spice in everyone's life."

I shrug. "He wasn't that bad."

"Not that bad?" Oscar screeches.

I wince at his volume, squeezing my eyes shut. "Well?" I pop one eye open, looking as guilty as I feel no doubt.

"Well, what? He puts out your fire, and Mari, that's a tragedy. Wait," he says as he leans back. "He's not a blanket. He's plain old milk. He neutralizes spice. Your spice." Oscar slaps his leg. "Damn it! I should have kicked his ass the first time I heard him tell you to quiet down."

"He did do that, didn't he?"

"All the damn time. Please tell me you tore him to shreds when you broke up."

I sigh. "I can't say that I did. It wasn't too dramatic."

"Wasted opportunity, if you ask me." He sucks in a breath. "But hey, I'm kind of in the mood to do some damage, so if you need me to step in and take care of business, say the word."

"L-O-L, which word? 'Sick 'em?'"

"Nah, that's two words. How about, 'attack?'"

"That works."

"Shake on it." He shoves a hand at me.

"What, no spit?" I laugh, gripping his offered hand with mine.

He pulls his back out and spits on it.

"I was kidding! No way I'm shaking on that." I cross my arms as tightly as possible.

Oscar tries to pull my hand out but I squeal when he touches me.

"Cooties! NOOOOOO!"

The battle rages for a minute before we dissolve into fits of laughter. Feels a hell of a lot better than the sulking we'd both been doing.

"I think we cured our blues," I say.

"Speak for yourself, I'm still a shade of blue."

"Which one? Cerulean?"

"I don't even know what that is. I was thinking sky blue."

"Not baby blue?"

At my words, Oscar turns green. "No. Not baby blue."

But before I can ask him about that disturbing reaction, the loud rev of a motor grabs my attention.

I look out the back window to the road in time to catch the eyes of a guy on a motorcycle speed by. And he's not just any guy.

He's the Guy.

Like a figment of my imagination come to life. Only, this particular figment was much too real.

And much too dangerous now that I know he really did kill the monster and dump the body.

Which makes me an accessory to a crime. Even if the victim was a criminal, too.

I'm not willing to put myself, or my family, at risk to find out if I'm a criminal, too.

So, new inspiration for Guy...if you haven't heard about the Hershey Park Dark Nights sliders, the Decayed Brigade, where've you been, Loca? Fryboy and Archer (pics below) are the perfect inspo for this chapter! This includes the song from one of the edits I've watched this week: Dragula.

And this chapter hit a new level of criminal underground for me. The Black Death isn't like the Reapers, let me just say that now. None of them married soccer moms. Keep that in mind.

https://youtu.be/vLPo8lHVAQg

Fryboy

Archer