“How do you do that?” Sonny asked. “I reached into that chest and tried to grab a bottle, but my hand just passed right through the bottle. I couldn’t pick it up.”
“It takes concentration. You’ll get it after a while.”
A prospect opened the ice chest a few seconds later. His eyes widened. “Damn. We’re going through a lot of beer. We might have to make a run.”
Sonny and I laughed.
***
The following Saturday, the Road Dogs held a party in Sonny’s honor at the clubhouse. They started at noon, tapping a few kegs of beer. The booze flowed, the music cranked and the bros were ready to party. Regina showed up about two PM, in time for a ceremony inside the bar where they retired Sonny’s colors, put them in a display case with a few other vests from fallen brothers and put his picture in the book of the dead. The Book of the Dead was a photo album where the Road Dogs put pictures of brothers that have passed on. Regina only stayed for a couple of hours and then went home.
The old ladies got loose, took off their tops and danced on the bar. Prospects worked the bar handing out drinks. As the party continued, a few of the bros who couldn’t hold their liquor held a puke fest in the parking lot. A few more passed out, one laying on the floor next to the bar and another on the pool table.
“Watch this?” I said to Sonny, nodding at the prospect’s back tending the bar. “Hey prospect! Give me a Jack and Coke and bring my bro here a beer!” I yelled above the noise.
“Keep your shirt on!” The prospect said. When he turned around and placed the drinks on the bar a strange look crossed his face. “Okay who’s the wise ass? Who ordered these drinks?” No one responded so he headed down the bar to take another order. I grabbed my Jack and Coke and handed Sonny his beer. When my hands touched the glass tumbler, it disappeared. I handed Sonny his beer and it disappeared when the bottle touched his hand.
“How did you do that?” Sonny asked.
“What?”
“Make him hear you like that.”
“You just have to concentrate and project your voice.”
The women not dancing on the bar headed over to the stage and put on a wet tee shirt contest. The bros gathered around watching the show. Finished with my Jack and Coke I ordered another and ordered Sonny another beer while the prospect’s back was turned. When he turned around and set the drinks on the bar, he looked as if he’s just swallowed a prune.
“Who ever ordered these drinks better quit fucking with me,” he said. I waited until he turned back around and we took our drinks.
Sonny laughed. “Why are you messin’ with that kid?”
“Because it’s fun,” I said. I glanced down the bar and noticed a beer setting at the end of the bar that no one was drinking. “You know, they put that beer down there on the bar for you, in your honor. Why don’t you go down there and drink it?”
A grin crossed Sonny’s face. He climbed out of his chair, ambled down the bar and downed the drink. “How long do you think it’ll take themto realize it’s gone?” I just shrugged.
“Okay, who’s the clown that drank Sonny’s beer?” Chico yelled a few minutes later. The bar dropped into silence for a few minutes, but no one copped to the deed.
“Maybe Sonny drank it,” a prospect said.
Chico gave him a scowl and then said, “Yeah, maybe he did.” The party resumed.
About six PM I noticed Chico head outside with a couple of the chapter officers. I slapped Sonny on the back and said, “This has been fun, but we need to get on the road. We got another party up in Biker Heaven waitin’ on us.”
Sonny nodded, gave the bar one last look and we headed for the door. Outside Sonny and I climbed on our spirit bikes and pulled out into the street. A band of the greasy little bastards in the black robes attacked us. I spent a few minutes slashing with my knife and shooting the little SOBs with my 45. One tried to climb on Sonny’s back, but I grabbed him by the back of his hood, threw him to the ground and stomped him with my boot. The rest took off down the street.
“I won’t miss those little guys,” Sonny said catching his breath.
“They won’t bother us once we hit the road. We’ll do about fifty miles on the highway before we head on home. Whenever I get the chance to come back, I always like to do a little ridin’. There’s nothing like feeling the wind in your face when you’re in solid form.”
“Yeah, I could go for that,” Sonny said.
“There’s something we need to do first.”
“What’s that?” Sonny asked.
“We need to let Chico and those two officers see us.”
“How do I do that?” Sonny asked.
“Close your eyes and concentrate. Then open your eyes and let it happen.”
We solidified in the middle of the street. Sonny and I glanced over at Chico and the two chapter officers. Chico’s eyes widened and the two officers’ jaws dropped. A smile spread across Chico’s face. Sonny and I waved; Chico and the two bros standing next to him waved back, and I dropped the transmission into first gear. Sonny and I headed down the highway and put our face in the wind.
***
###
If you enjoyed this story watch for more adventures with Cave Man and his bros.
AUTHOR BIO
David H. Donaghe lives in the high desert of Southern California with his wife and family. He has three passions in life, Reading, writing and riding his motorcycle. When not working for one of the nation’s major rail carriers, delving into a good book or putting his face in the wind on his motorcycle, David writes short stories and novels. He has had several short stories published in anthologies by The Living Dead Press and other short stories published on line. David has two books published so far. Otherworld Publications released his science fiction novel, Tale Spinner, in April 2011 and The Living Dead Press released his short story collection, Monroe's Paranormal Investigations, in February. Both books are for sale on Amazon.com and the Barns and Noble’s webpage. The first two books in David’s Cave Man Action Adventure series, Biker Heaven and The Devil’s Punch Bowl are also available for download. David has experience in horsemanship karate, hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities. He rides with a family orientated motorcycle club, which is involved with charity work at a local veteran’s home, and he does Toys for Tots runs at Charismas. David uses all of these and other life experiences in his writing.
David is currently enjoying life and working on his next novel.
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Excerpt from Biker Heaven.
The year was 1968, LBJ was president and the world was in turmoil. War raged in Southeast Asia, civil unrest raged in the streets of America and the entire planet seemed to be holding its breath. When the one-two punch came, the world went down for the count and the dead rose from their graves. I was three years back from Vietnam, but all I cared about was drinking, hanging with my bros and riding my scooter.
My name is John Brown, but my bros call me Cave Man. I grew up in the biker culture with my dad being one of the founding members of the Road Dogs, a local bike club here in Harlem Springs Arizona that started in the early fifties. My pops bought me my first bike, a Triumph Bonneville 650, when I was sixteen, but I scrimped, and saved, and a year later, I bought an old Pan Head. When I turned eighteen, I prospected into the club and I haven’t looked back since. Oh, I took a short detour to Vie
tnam in 1965 to do my patriotic bit, but when I came home, old Bud Hodgkin offered me my job back at the Glen Co station and I fell back into the life style, riding with the club and hanging with my bros.
I had just finished putting a new set of tires on Mr. Peterson’s Dodge and was sitting in the office eating my lunch when the newscast came on the radio.
“We interrupt this broadcast for a special news bulletin. We are getting reports from a small town in Iowa. As strange as it may seem, they are saying that the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the population. They have a lust for human flesh. Several people are dead, but after they pass, they rise up and join the ranks of the undead. There are reports of survivors hiding in a farmhouse on the outskirts of town. There are reports of similar incidents occurring across the county. One unconfirmed report states that a Venus probe falling back into Earth’s atmosphere may have brought back some type of contamination from outer space. The authorities caution not to panic. They are stressing that the population stay in their homes. The military and police are on high alert and will respond to any zombie outbreak.”
“Zombies. Yeah right.” A chill shot through me when I remembered the graveyard across the street. The front window to the office shattered showering me with minute pieces of broken glass. Looking up, I stared into the cold dead eyes of a walking corpse. Reaching into the bottom desk drawer where I kept my Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum, with my heart beating the shit out of my ribcage, I almost dropped a load in my pants when I realized the gun wasn’t there. “Damn. I left my piece in my locker in the back,” I said jumping to my feet.
Looking past the flesh-eating zombie trying to come through the window, I saw them coming out of the graveyard in droves. Their wild feral growls echoed down the street and they dispersed heading toward different parts of the city. A large group crossed the road and milled about in the station’s parking lot. I stepped into the mechanic’s bay only to find, it filled with slow moving zombies. They moved toward me with their arms raised looking like shit warmed over. Several had maggots crawling underneath their skin and the smell was almost enough to gag a skunk. They had my way blocked both to the roll up door to the outside and to the back room at the rear of the station where my locker was.
Slamming my fist into the face of the nearest zombie, I charged through the undead crowd to a workbench, and grabbed a tire iron. Pulling a knife, I slashed with the knife and swung the tire iron fighting my way toward the back room. Stabbing one zombie in the eye with my knife, I pulled the eye out of its socket on the tip of my blade, and drove the tire iron into the skull of another. Blood splattered over my clothes and I let out a few curses fighting my way toward the back of the station.
I hand just reached the door to the back room when one of the bastards bit me on my right arm. Searing hot pain shot through my arm making me feel like it was on fire. I let out a scream, droved my blade though the undead thing’s face and watched it fall to the ground. Fumbling with my keys, I dropped them to the ground and let out another curse. After scooping up my keys, I unlocked the door, ran into the back room feeling the sharp nails of a zombie on my back, slammed the door and then locked it.
With shaky hands, I unlocked my locker, grabbed my 357, tucked it into the waistband of my jeans and then grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels I kept sitting on the top shelf. Taking a pull on the whiskey bottle, I let out a sputter and then poured half the bottle onto the zombie bite.
“Damn that hurts!” I yelled. Looking down at my arm, I noticed that the zombie had bitten me where my tattoo of a skeletal biker on a chopper was on my arm. The bite took a chunk of meat from my arm taking away the biker’s skull. Blood flowed from my arm and pooled up on the floor. Taking off my outer shirt, I wrapped it around my bloody arm binding it up as best I could. “Oh God! Oh, shit! I’m fucked!” I yelled. Then the thought hit me, I’m trapped in here, but then I remembered the back window. Stacking up some boxes of auto parts, I climbed onto them, busted out the back window and looked out into the alleyway. The alley looked clear, so I climbed out the window, jumped to the ground and ran to the front of the station.
Zombies filled the area around the gas pumps, but they were slow movers and I made it to the Pan Head before they noticed me. Jumping up into the air, I came down on the kick-starter, but the bike wouldn’t start.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. I gave the kicker another try, the old Harley rumbled to life, I put it in gear and goosed the throttle heading straight through the pack of hungry flesh eaters.
Excerpt From The Devil’s Punch Bowl
Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and I materialized on a lonely desert highway, along with six of my bros. Our scooters faded from their majestic dazzling colors and chrome, to ordinary, older looking Harley Davidson motorcycles as we touched down on the highway. My name is John Brown, but my bros call me Cave Man. Back in sixty-eight, I rode with the Old Dogs, but the world went through a change and I wound up hitting an oak tree at one-hundred and ten miles per hour; that sent me to Biker Heaven, along with my bro, Old School. Now we ride with a band of troubleshooters and wear the halo patch. Whenever there’s trouble in the biker world and the bros need a little help from the other side, they send us. Some people might call us angels, but don’t get confused. We’re not Hell’s Angels; we ride for the other side.
It felt good to be mortal once more and feel the wind in my face, even though it was only temporary. We rolled down the highway with Little Danny Boy, our road captain, leading the pack. Hector, Hondo, Iron Man, Thumper and Old School formed up behind Little Danny Boy riding in staggered formation with me riding Tail Gunner at the rear. We rolled around a bend, one-hundred-fifty miles out of Harlem Springs Arizona under a full moon on a warm summer night when Little Danny Boy pulled over to the side of the road next to a battered old oak tree. He parked his scooter, swaggered over to the tree and the rest of us pulled over behind him. Old School and I sauntered up next to Little Danny Boy and I felt a cold chill run down my spine.
“You remember this place?” Little Danny Boy asked, but I just shrugged, pulling a bottle of Old Number Seven from my vest pocket and downed a shot. A cold wind caused a chill to run down my spine so I zipped up my leather jacket.
“How could I forget? This is where I died,” I said and then Old School and I knelt down to examine the tree.
“Look you can still see the scars. There’s a dent where my head smashed against the trunk,” Old School said.
“Are we going to stop at the cabin?” I asked, but Little Danny boy shook his head.
“No. They’re back in town now. It’s been thirty-two years. The worlds moved on. Things are back to normal now. The government finally got a handle on the flesh eaters in the late eighties. The one’s we’ll be fighting now will be much harder to kill than those zombie sons of bitches.”
“What about Teddy, Bear and Chops? I thought maybe they’d want in on this deal,” I asked.
“They’ll come if we need them. Even your pops said something about joining us if things get hairy,” Little Danny Boy replied and that brought a smile to my face.
“It’ll feel good to ride with the old man again,” I said. “I only see him at church. The rest of the time he’s busy going hog wild in Biker Heaven.”
Little Danny Boy swaggered over to his old Pan Head and said, “Let’s ride. There’s a storm coming, and it’s coming straight from hell. If we don’t do something, the Road Dogs won’t stand a chance.” We fired up the scooters, pulled onto the highway and rolled on through the night toward Harlem Springs.
***
Follow the further adventures of Cave Man and his bros in Lead Belly.
Excerpt from Lead Belly book four of the Cave Man Action Adventure Series
Chico hit the breaks, backed off the throttle and, pulled his Fat Boy off the main road and onto a gravel dirt driveway on the outskirts of Harlem Springs Arizona. Tiny and Dirty Dan
followed. They slowed down, not wanting their tires to slide out from under them on the gravel, and pulled up to an old travel trailer at the end of the driveway.
Lead Belly took a pull from a bottle of Jack while he sat on the front porch of his trailer watching them approach. His 1984 Harley Davison Shovel Head set parked next to a beat up 1968 Ford pickup truck. A halfway grin crossed Lead Belly’s face when he saw his bros from the Road Dogs motorcycle club pull up to his trailer and park their scooters.
“I figured you all would show up this morning. You guys want a drink?” he said standing to his feet. Chico climbed the steps onto the porch; Tiny, and Dirty Dan followed.
“You knew we weren’t going to let you go through this alone. We wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Chico said.
They did some backslapping and a tear tracked down Lead Belly’s face. “I’m fine bro.”
“You know we’re here for you,” Dirty Dan said.
“I know man. Here, you guys have a shot while I go inside and get a few more chairs,” Lead Belly said, handing them the bottle of Jack. He stepped inside the trailer.
“Do you think he knew?” Tiny asked, after Lead Belly went inside.
“What? That Cheri was on the shit? Of course, he knew, with all those trips she was making to Phoenix, he had to know. You can’t get that shit here. There will be no Crystal Meth in Harlem Springs as long as I’m the president of the Road Dogs.”
“The walls of this trailer are paper thin,” Lead Belly said, when he stepped out onto the front porch with three more chairs.
“I’m sorry bro,” Tiny, a massive biker, built like a refrigerator with a long scruffy beard, said. “We didn’t mean nothing by it.”
Lead Belly waved them off. “No problem bro. Have a seat.”
They sat down and passed the bottle back and forth. “Yeah, I knew. We fought about it all the time. You know my history. I don’t know how I had the strength to resist. She used to do lines right in front of me on the kitchen table. It was everything I could do, to say no.”