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  Midnight Rider

  Midnight Rider Series, Book One

  D.V. Wolfe

  Lightning Strike Press

  Copyright © 2020 D.V. Wolfe

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Lightning Strike Press

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jimbo and Glenn, who rode shotgun on this crazy train.

  "Each of us bears his own hell."

  - Virgil

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Join the HUNT!

  The Midnight Rider Series

  About The Author

  Acknowledgment

  1

  I was going to kill Byron Tucci. No, kill was too nice of a word. I was going to rip his arm off and shove it up his ass. Or down his throat. I might give him a choice. My arm was on fire, blood soaking through the cotton dressing and dripping onto my jeans and the seat. The muscles in my bicep had started the involuntary spasming that I knew too well. Shock was starting to set in.

  Definitely not good.

  My right arm was basically useless, the half-chewed muscle and nerves spasming and sending white-hot pokers of pain up into my shoulder. I was driving one-handed and Lucy, my old ‘49 Ford pickup, was two years shy of power steering, forcing me to put every ounce of strength I had behind the wheel. Luckily, the two-lane highway was deserted except for the scraggly pine trees that lined its bare and cracked shoulders. A possum wandered onto the scarred pavement ahead and I braced for impact. It stared down Lucy’s dull headlights from a distance before deciding the pickup wasn’t worth the risk of crossing. I said a silent prayer to the roadkill gods, thanking them for not requiring a sacrifice tonight. I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head, resisting the urge to look back down at the raw injury.

  To add horror to the injury I could feel my pills wearing off. My stomach twisted as the now familiar feeling of being dropped into a horse tank full of cold water washed over me. They were coming. I blinked and I felt my eyes start to burn as I saw them flicker into existence in front of me. Burning, screaming, and crying figures of the people I’d grown up around, all the townsfolk of Ashley, Kansas. They lined the sides of the road, filled the ditches, and kept pace with Lucy and me as we barrelled down the cracked pavement.

  I gritted my teeth against the pain and fumbled feebly with my right hand, searching the seat beside me for the pill bottle. I knocked a half-empty box of Peeps to the floor and I shoved a bottle of Stitch’s whiskey out of the way to check the crack in the seat. No dice. I’d taken a corner on two wheels when I left Sister Smile’s compound. That had probably knocked the pill bottle onto the passenger side floorboards.

  Sister Smile. The poor, burning apparitions of the six hundred and seventy-nine citizens of Ashley were a kindergarten Halloween party compared to Sister Smile and her crew. A shiver slid down my spine as I realized that at least now, I knew why they called her Sister Smile. As if in response to my thoughts, the throbbing in my bicep sped up and I could hear the blood start pounding in my ears. I hadn’t looked too closely at the wound. I didn’t really want to see the damage. Screw her and screw Byron for sending me to see her. At least I had a heading now. The fact still remained: I had almost two hours of road between me and Jessup and no way to take down a Rawhead on my own.

  Shit. If I had more time, I could plan something, but time for me was finite now, down to the number of days, hours, and minutes. Currently, I had exactly five months and eight days before I punched out permanently. I looked down at my weak arm. Tonight, I was going to have to improvise. Now, this was definitely a two-person job and what I needed was bait.

  I let off the gas to take a curve and checked my rearview mirror to see if Sister Smile’s Town Cars were still in pursuit. The road behind me was dark. When I glanced up at the road ahead, a splash of color caught my eye coming up on the shoulder. I let off the gas and squinted at the sight in my headlights. I did my best to see through and around the shadowy images of the townsfolk burning alive, to try to focus on what was actually there.

  A kid wearing a backpack stood on the side of the road. Well, I assumed it was a kid. Maybe it was the blood loss but he looked like a scarecrow wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and an orange, frizzy mop on his head. For a moment we just stared at each other. I didn’t need a second job on top of the first. But if he really was just a kid, I couldn’t leave him out here, especially not with Sister Smile’s tribe of cannibals coming along behind me. I still felt somewhere in the ninety-six percent positive range that they would be coming around the bend in the road any minute. Sister Smile wasn’t known for letting a meal escape.

  I leaned across the seat and my head swam as I released the door handle with my left arm and shoved the passenger side door open. Then I reached down by my door and pulled my pump-action, sawed-off out, and laid it across my lap.

  “Hey!” The kid said, bounding up to the truck, “Thanks for stopping. I thought I’d hit a town before it got dark but I think I took a wrong turn somewhere because I’ve been out here for hours.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, after Mt. Cobb, there’s nothing until Scranton and that’s what, seventy miles from here?”

  The kid shrugged, “I don’t know. I was never very good at geography.”

  The glint of headlights in my rearview mirror drew my gaze. A car was coming up behind us, fast.

  “Would you mind giving me a lift into the next town?” The kid asked.

  “Wha? Oh sure, get in,” I said, my attention on the headlights behind us.

  The kid started to feel around the dark cab for the seat.

  “It’s a truck, not a prom date,” I said, watching the car draw closer in my rearview. “Your ass better make contact with that seat in the next two seconds or we’re leaving it behind.”

  I couldn’t wait any longer. Having a second man for the job was going to be the least of my problems if Sister Smile’s crew caught up to me.

  I floored the gas and the truck bucked. The kid threw himself into the seat and I heard the faint sound of glass shattering on the pavement as we shot forward. It was either my pills or the whiskey bottle. I felt the seat between us gingerly with my right hand. The whiskey bottle was still there, so it had been the pills. The kid must have kicked them out the door as he scrambled to hold on to the seat.

  “Uh, maybe I should…get out,” he said quietly. I looked over at him and saw his gaze dropping to my lap. The sawed-off was still across my legs, the barrel pointed in his general direction.

  “Too late,” I muttered, steering Lucy into another sharp curve, “you bought the ticket, now you get to see the show.”

  The approaching car changed lanes and moved up beside us, driving through the smoky vision of my old neighbor, Mr. Davis, and his burning herd of cattle. I tr
ied to hold the wheel but my right arm was so weak the torque of the wheel almost pulled it out of its socket.

  “Take the wheel for a minute,” I said to the kid. I let go of the steering wheel and the truck’s tires hummed as they hit the sleeper lines on the shoulder.

  “Jesus!” The kid screeched. He flung himself toward me, knocking against my injured right arm as he grabbed for the wheel.

  “Keep it In the road, if you please,” I said. He let out a string of curses while he put his scrawny ninety-something pounds behind the wheel.

  With my left hand I cranked the window down and raised the sawed-off. The car drew even with Lucy, and I looked into the terrified faces of an old couple in a station wagon. I saw the old man swallow hard and then gun the engine, quickly speeding up and passing us.

  “Sorry!” I shouted at them. I dropped the shotgun back onto my lap and eased off the gas while I rolled the window up.

  “Shit, I hate when that happens,” I said. I looked over at the kid, “I’ll take it from here, Kato.” I took the wheel with my left hand and he slumped back against the passenger side door. He was silent, except for a slight whimper that escaped when I turned to look at him.

  I sighed, “Sorry, some bad people are looking for me.”

  “So you’re not a...bad…” He dropped his gaze to my lap.

  “Perspective, I guess,” I said. I gave him my best attempt at a smile, “You’re not accidentally shitting into a badgers' den or spooning a raccoon carrying rabies tonight, because of me. So that kind of makes me a nice lady.”

  He sat up and smoothed his shirt, then he raised a hand to his face. “What the…. What’s this? It’s all over my shirt. It’s sticky. Oh god…it’s not...is that blood!?”

  “Damn, I forgot.” I looked down at my arm. “There’s a couple of socks in the glove box. Grab me one, will you?”

  He fumbled for the glove box and I heard it click open. “I can’t see. Do you have a light?”

  “There’s a penlight in there too.” More rummaging and then he clicked the penlight on. I saw the beam glint across the silver chain that I kept my ma’s gold wedding ring on, the hex bags Rosetta had forced on me and Gary’s first stake he’d carved which was short and pointy and had been the butt of many ‘stakes are like dicks’ jokes. The kid reached into the glove box and grabbed a sock. He paused as the flashlight beam spilled across his hand which was now smeared in blood.

  “Oh god...it is blood.”

  “The sock, please,” I said.

  He held it up, “It’s just the top part of the sock.”

  “That’s the only part I need.” He held it out to me. “Ok, so I’m going to need a little more help,” I said, “I need to get this one, off,” I nodded down at my arm, “before I can put the new one on.”

  In the dim glow of the penlight, the kid seemed to go even paler under his freckles as he looked down at the makeshift sock and duct tape tourniquet I’d put on my arm.

  “But it’s all…bloody….”

  “Hence the clean sock.”

  He cautiously reached a finger forward and tried to tug on the dressing.

  “You’re going to have to cut it off.” I said, “I duct-taped it in place.”

  The kid didn’t move.

  “Glove box… knife…you…cut,” I said, glancing back at the road in time to see the sign for Jessup in seventy-eight miles.

  The kid still didn’t move.

  “Hey!” I barked, “What’s your name?” I asked, raising my voice to get his attention.

  “Uh, Noah, Noah Zeppelin.”

  “Really?” I said, “Badass last name.”

  “Uh, thanks, I think it’s German or some-“

  “That’s great, Noah, and I want to hear all about it, but right now, I just need you to cut the duct tape off my arm, with the knife from my glove box. Can you do that?”

  “Oh, uh-huh,” he said slowly.

  “Some time today,” I said.

  He turned the penlight back to the glove box. “This one?” He pushed aside Gary’s stake and pulled from behind it, the short silver dagger I kept in a leather sheath. It badly needed sharpening and there was probably still some Lamia, snake-woman blood on it. The blessing on the knife alone would make the wound worse if the kid’s hand slipped.

  “Nope, keep digging,” I said. He knocked the silver chain and a hex bag to the floor and reached down to pick them up. “Leave them,” I said, looking over at the glove box. I could see the red, plastic handle of the retractable utility knife. “Grab that box cutter.”

  He picked up the box cutter and turned to me. “Ok, so, um hold still.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. Noah slid the blade out an inch and leaned toward me with the penlight in one hand and the box cutter in the other. I hit a pothole and the truck bounced. The blade stabbed into my arm just above the bandaging.

  I sucked in air through my teeth. “I will pay you, so much money, Noah, not to cut my arm off.”

  “Sorry, geez, I only have two hands. What am I supposed to do with the light?”

  I let go of the wheel for a second and snatched the penlight from him and stuck it in my teeth. I tipped my head to the side to aim the light down at my arm and kept driving.

  “Oh. Okay.” He started hacking at the tape and I could feel the dressing beginning to loosen. “Aww man, this looks pretty bad.” Noah said, “What did you do?” He glanced up at me. “Sorry, forgot.” He pulled the sock away from my arm and I bit down on the penlight as he pulled the fabric out of the wound.

  I spit the penlight onto the seat. “Thanks, Noah, now the clean sock if you please.”

  “This isn’t a very good dressing,” Noah said, “it’s just going to bleed through again.”

  “Well, my suture needle is jammed in the left butt cheek of some jerk in Tennessee, and as far as I know the drive-through ER isn’t really a ‘thing’ yet. What do you suggest?” There was a low-grade buzz in my head and the road was beginning to blur in front of me, turning all the smoky images into one burning mass.

  “I can fix it for you,” Noah said quietly.

  I glanced over at him. “Boy scout?”

  Noah shook his head.

  “Pentecostal?”

  “No, I just...I can fix it. You probably want to pull over though. I don’t think you’re gonna want to drive while I do it.”

  I didn’t want to admit it but without my pills, I wasn’t doing too well. The injury was making the visions worse and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as the faces lining the road loomed larger in front of me, blood and soot pouring from the corners of their eyes and mouths as they cried.

  “Alright,” I said, letting off the gas and easing Lucy to the shoulder. The road behind us was dark for now. I left her in idle and cut the headlights, momentarily making the visions disappear.

  “Leave them on,” Noah said. “I’ll need some light.” I flicked them back on and stared at three of my third-grade classmates, their heads on fire, inches from Lucy’s grille. “We need to get out.” Noah said, “I have a bad track record with doing this inside of cars.”

  I was confused and I wasn’t sure I trusted this kid, but I also thought I was going to puke, so I didn’t argue. I kicked my door open and stumbled around to the front of the truck. I tried not to look down at the chunk missing from my arm. At the moment, the shock setting in was my friend and I felt disconnected from the wound except for the aching sting of raw flesh exposed to air. I leaned my back against Lucy’s grille and stared up at the stars, trying my best to ignore the crying and screaming coming from the visions surrounding us. The stars were starting to spin. Noah’s orange frizz mop came into view. His pimply teenage face was staring down at me, a mixture of horror and disgust.

  “God is that… it looks like teeth marks. What the hell happened?”