Chrome & Leather: Liars Tomb (Motorcycle Club Romance) (3 page)

Pike began to babble "I made a mistake, please Blackjack please let me explain."

Blackjack nodded to go on.

"The Man approached me himself, gave me a deal. If I could tell him a place and time were you would be he would erase you. He would make sure I would be leader of this gang." Pike lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone and continued. "The Man didn't know I was playing him. We met at his secret clubhouse. I was doing it for you. We can stop him and his gang now. I know how he operates, I know where he hangs out, we can get him. It was all for you Blackjack, all for our gang. We can finally stop The Man and his band of degenerates. Please Blackjack, I was playing him, please I ..."

Blackjack was all too familiar with The Man as he liked to be called, his real name was Diaz Jones. He was a punk ass beaner from across town with delusions of grandeur. His gang was nothing more than a loose group of wannabes and burnt out junkies. They would have never registered as any kind of serious threat to him. Blackjack had some low level dealings with him over the years, but nothing that would of predicted an all out assault on him. Something big was going down he thought, there was no way that Diaz could of organised something like this with his gang of low level fools. There was someone else behind it.

Blackjack stood up and turned to Red "Is the liars tomb ready?".

"Everything is set up outside" replied Red.

Pike started to thrash in the chair his breath coming out in ragged gasps as tears and snot streamed down his broken face.

"Blackjack look at me, I did it for us, for us."

His voice trailed off and he gently rocked against his constraints repeating again and again "Believe me".

Blackjack nodded towards the brothers and said "Hang back for a minute and then bring him out".

The backdoor groaned loudly as Blackjack opened it, the rusty hinges sounding like the wailing lament of a broken hearted woman. Red followed him outside.

Blackjack looked over the setup for the liars tomb and nodded grimly. It was something his gang had used for a long time against anyone found to be doing anything detrimental to the gang. When money and power was involved Blackjack had found that even the most trustworthy of men could sometimes falter. The liars tomb was the great boogie man of his gang, often whispered about by the lower down members. 

Blackjack had to employ its use only twice in the ten years of the gang. The first time was to his trusted right hand man Drake "The beast" Cray. Blackjack had started to notice little by little how Drake would slightly undermine him in front of other gang members. At first it came across as a nothing but some gentle ribbing. Drake would joke about Blackjacks penchant for only sleeping with African American woman, jokingly calling him a traitor to his race. Then Drake would start to second guess Blackjacks plans or instructions in front of the other men. Little by little chipping away at Blackjack. He could handle the insults to his choice in women, but second guessing him in front of others could not stand.

Blackjack confronted him about it in a knock down drag out drunken fistfight. Drake swore that it was nothing more then brotherly rivalry to keep Blackjack on his toes. He didn't believe him. He knew what was really going on. Drake was planning a coup.

Blackjack had only one course of action. He needed to show his strength to the rest of the gang. Show that he was a strong and decisive leader who would not take any disrespect. He needed to show that nobody was above reproach even someone like Drake who he had grown up with and at one time was his most trusted brother.

The truth came out when Drake was introduced to the liars tomb. It always did. After that Blackjacks legend grew as  a ruthless and cold leader. He only had to use the tomb once more after that. That time he had been wrong about the man and he pulled back from using it again. He had promised himself not to use it another time, until now.

The rat fuck Pike deserved it and it was the only way to find out the full truth. 

Red walked over to the pit and kicked a sod of dirt in. He had supervised the setup of the liars tomb that afternoon. Grim work for him and the brothers. They had dug the pit in a frenzied two hour session of digging, hopped up on a potent mix of corn whiskey and speedballs. 

The soil was soft from heavy rains the night before and the digging went easy. Once the brothers finished they surveyed their handy work. The coffin and the modified lid lay off to the side. A dark duffel bag sat beside the coffin awaiting the time when its contents would be used like a demon spectre haunched over a struggling man ominous in its existence.

Blackjack walked around the open grave and nodded to himself, "Bring out Pike" he said to the two bald and gargantuan brothers standing like stone implacable gargoyles at the backdoor to the cabin. They went inside to grab the whimpering Pike.

Red spat into the dirt and turned to Blackjack "Whats her story?" he said.

"She rides with us now. Things got a little dicey back in the bar. She came through for me."

"Can she be trusted?"

Blackjack turned and glared at Red "She can be trusted".

Red knew he had stepped over the line, he also knew Blackjacks weakness for dark skinned tail. Sometimes it would blind him to a woman's more craven nature. Red had seen it time and again, women who threw themselves at Blackjack, excited by his power. Sometimes they where regular folk who wanted a bit of bad to shake up the humdrum. Others times it was some batshit crazy woman who was nothing but trouble. Red had seen it all and he knew Blackjacks weakness for damaged women. He attracted them like a coyote to a rotting carcass. Red was usually the one left to handle the fallout when Blackjack became either bored with them or the crazy became too much. He would need to keep his eye on this one. Something about her didn't sit well with him. Red always trusted his gut.

The two brothers walked out with Pike between them. As soon as he saw the open grave and what was awaiting him his legs gave out from under him and he voided his bladder again.

"Please please no, not this, not this" he babbled as the brothers picked him up and dragged him forward. 

All rigidity had left his body and he flopped around loosely in the brothers iron grip. He looked like a rag doll his head lolling back and forward as he mumbled. His eyes wide and white as he looked to the sky and then back to the pit.

"Don't do this Blackjack, I will do anything for you. I can infiltrate the other gang and kill the leader for you. Bring you back his fucking head to show you my allegiance. Please anything, ask anything of me. I will prove my worth to you" Pike said as tears streamed from his eyes.

"Enough" said Blackjack.

"You know how this goes Pike. You have to go in the ground. If you tell me the truth I will let you out."

Pike looked from man to man as cold waves of panic spread through his body. His face glistened in a cold sweat. His shirt clung to him in damp patches. He looked around wildly hoping vainly for help, hoping for anything to stop him having to enter the liars tomb. His wild gaze only returned steely looks of determination from the other men.

The brothers dragged him towards the open coffin. Pikes body suddenly went rigid as his legs began to pinwheel like a cartoon roadrunner. Nothing he could do delayed his slow inevitable march towards the open coffin.

As he drew ever closer to the coffin he stopped crying and wailing seemingly resigned to his fate. Blackjack had seen this before, sometimes a calm quiet would befall the marked man once he knew all options were gone.

When his shins hit the edge of the coffin all resistance left his body and he slumped forward as the brothers lowered him into the coffin. The lid was quickly placed on top and secured with heavy metal clamps. The lid of the coffin had a circular hole cut in it, large enough to see the occupants face. 

Pike looked up at the small patch of greying sky above him, his face pale and ashen and streaked with tears. The reality of his situation rammed home with the loud metallic click of the securing clasps. He began to trash his legs, kicking with all his might against the coffin walls. He slammed his fists against the coffin lid bloodying his knuckles. 

His mind folded in on itself trying to come up with a way to free himself. To walk tall and free. This was not how it would end for him. 

The coffin shook as the brothers lowered it into the grave. Pike felt a deep coldness in his bones, was this how it would feel to be dead he thought. Clods of dirt fell into the grave and pattered across the lid. Inside the coffin the sound was thunderous.

A sound like a thunderclap assailed Pikes ears and the coffin shook as one of the brothers jumped into the pit and stood atop the coffin lid. The lid bowed slightly under his weight. His boots scratched on the lid and sounded like a plague of rats skittering along the coffin. 

Pikes view of the grey sky was blocked out by the the big meaty head of a brother looking down at him through his porthole to the world. A thin smile played across the brothers face. His eyes were cold and hard and dead. No regret, no hesitation, no emotion was evident. The brother was a man merely doing his job. Pike knew he would not help him in any way.

The brother atop the coffin took a metal pipe that was resting beside the grave and began to screw it into the hole on the coffin lid. Once it was secured the pipe stuck up higher than the sides of the grave.

The brother climbed out of the grave and picked up a shovel. He looked to Blackjack, who nodded to go ahead. The two brothers began to shovel the dirt back into the grave.

A raven flew over Pikes slim view of the world, its wings extended as it soared. Pike let out a long guttural moan as the first clod of dirt hit the coffin roof. Bang! The sound reverberated around the coffin. Bang! Another clod hit the roof. With the last of his strength Pike lashed out against the wall and the ceiling, kicking and punching as hard as he could. All rational thought leaving him as he trashed and fought against his confines. Pike was reduced to the level of a flailing animal.

Bang after bang rocked throughout the coffin as the dirt was shovelled in. The sound then changed as the coffin became covered in a layer of soil. No longer did Pikes ears ring with the cadence of each explosive crash of dirt. Each shovelful of dirt made a soft TWUMP! sound as it was thrown into the grave.

Pike stopped trashing and ran his fingers back and forth over the lid of the coffin, searching for any tiny seam that he could wedge his fingers under. Everything felt smooth to the touch. Ridiculous escape plans flitted through his mind, scenes from B movies he had seen as a child where the hero had punched his way out of a grave and then pulled himself up through the sodden earth like a monster from a fairytale. His mind clung to the one fact of the situation, they wanted him alive. Why else would they leave a sizeable pipe sticking up, if not to let him continue to breathe.

Pike tried to steady his breathing in an attempt to calm himself. His chest felt like it was bound in steel and lifting his hand to the coffin lid took a mammoth amount of effort. His whole body shivered as it was drenched in a cold acidic sweat. He focused on the small circle of sky above him and tried his best to calm himself.

The last clod of earth was thrown into the grave and the brothers tamped down the soil with the back of their shovels. The grey metal pipe stuck up from the ground to around waist height of the men standing around.

Blackjack walked over to the pipe and peered down into the coffin. Pike looked so very distant to him, he was not a man anymore and had been reduced to a rat trapped in a box.

"Why did you do it" Blackjack asked, "The time for bullshit is over".

Pike tried to modulate his voice to try and sound as calm as possible. It didn't work and his voice calm out cracked and broken.

"I did it for us. I did it for the gang. Please Blackjack get me out of here. Let me make it up to you. Ill bring you The Mans head on a stick. Please let me out of here," he said as he began to cry again.

"That's not good enough. Remember this face, it's the last thing you are ever going to see," Blackjack said as he walked away.

Pikes worst fears were confirmed. They were going to leave him here to die a slow painful death. All thoughts of escape left him and he trashed around kicking and screaming until his lungs burned.

"A sandstorm is coming for you Blackjack. It is going to swallow you whole" Pike roared at the top of his lungs.

Pike scratched at the roof of his wooden prison, two of his finger nails sheared off from the force of his efforts. He left trails of blood as he continued to slam his fists uselessly against the lid.

Pike froze and his body went as rigid as tempered steel when the first few drops of liquid poured from the pipe and dripped onto his forehead. It ran down the side of his head and some beads gathered in his ears. His nose burnt with the smell as the brother standing atop the grave tipped the large canister forward. 

The gasoline poured out of the pipe onto Pikes face, burning the lining of his nose and he coughed and spluttered as he swallowed some. He turned away as it continued to flow. It drenched him, soaking into his clothes and pooling at the end of the coffin due to a slight tilt.

Pike coughed and choked and his mind would still not let him grasp his situation. It would still not face the grim finality of what awaited him. He still believed he could some how escape like some sort of muscled super hero. 

Click! The noise filled the coffin. It was the noise of a thousand demons beating on the door, the sound of the grim reaper sharpening his scythe. It was the noise of a lighter being lit.

Pike looked at his tiny porthole to the outside world his eyes wide in shock. A hand crossed over his field of view and dropped a burning lighter into the hole. It spun and the last thing Pike saw was an image of a skull engraved on the back of the lighter. The lighter twirled and spun as it fell, its yellow flickering flame holding steady. The lighter landed on pikes head with a clunk and slid off.