CHAPTER 6
The Kongo Klub
He thought he heard a tornado siren but he was seventeen miles out of town. It could have been the wind through the trees or the shriek in his throat. He looked ahead to where the road disappeared in mist. It was as deserted as after a nuclear disaster. What happens when lightning strikes a biker? Would the rubber tires insulate him from grounding? Not in the wet.
That was the least of his worries.
The trees on either side of the two-lane highway flickered red and blue from his light bars and red from the demon eye, engine roaring like an avalanche nipping at the Harley’s rear tire. Fagan hunkered low on the bike with the throttle flat out and watched the Speedo creep past a hundred. The blazing red eye remained steady in his rearview, thirty feet back.
Some kind of intersection coming up fast—123 and 38. Fagan made the mistake of looking in the mirror and saw the upraised sword, the maniac’s front wheel adjacent with the Harley’s rear.
The maniac swung.
Fagan threw the bike down on its side and skidded next to it down the highway at ninety mph, his ballistic jacket, boots and helmet shredding leather and carbon fiber like cheese on a grater, the big bike kicking up sparks as it rotated and skidded. Fagan felt heat building through the carbon fiber. Slower and slower he scraped and spun until he came to a halt in the middle of the westbound lane, his bike skidding off the road to the right and striking the base of a utility pole like an eight hundred pound wrecking ball.
The utility pole, one in a series carrying power and phones to the hinterlands, cracked like a breadstick and trembled, momentarily held up by the power lines stretching in three directions. The third direction was to the one-story log cabin roadhouse with the neon signs advertising Schlitz and Dixie. “Kongo Klub” flickered in neon orange above the door.
Fagan lay on his back for a moment, staring at the roiling sky. He recognized the signs of shock. Carefully he tested his limbs and concluded nothing had broken although he’d look like an eggplant for several days. Ever so slowly he raised his head and looked around. He sat up.
His arm buckled. Still no traffic.
The maniac was gone. Fagan tried to listen but his ears rang like a school fire alarm. He had to get out of the middle of the road. A crack of pure white light struck the top of the utility pole. The thunderclap was instantaneous. Momentarily blinded, unable to hear, Fagan realized he was sitting in a pool of cold water and the utility pole was coming down.
Every joint a roundabout of pain, Fagan scurried backwards on his ass like a spider until he was out of the pool. He struggled to his feet and hobbled out of the middle of the road seconds before the pole touched down with a horrendous crackle and a cloud of angel fire that followed the downed line to the next pole. Fagan stopped at the parking lot, put his hands on his knees and searched for breath. He fell on his ass. He slapped around. He still had his pistol and radio.
He thumbed it. Of course it was dead. He went through his little rituals, feeling his arms and legs. The back of his head felt cool. He unstrapped his helmet. The sword had cut a perfect circle at an angle on the side of the crown, a monk’s helmet. It looked like half a jawbreaker. He scratched his scalp.
The Harley was down but it weighed a ton and had highway bars so it still might be rideable. Not that Fagan had any intention of trying. He could barely walk. He had to talk to HQ and was pretty certain the KK had a landline, if it hadn’t just been knocked down by the storm.
Fagan looked up. The clouds seemed darker and angrier like a mob working itself up to a confrontation. He scanned the road east/west once more but there wasn’t a sign of traffic. They must have warnings out on all broadcast media.
On hands and knees Fagan turned toward the roadhouse. A series of faces regarded him through the steam-misted window, in and around the neon beer signs. He staggered to his feet. Five rat choppers out front, three with apes. One had a Stihl chainsaw bungeed to a cargo rack. The bikes dripped with skulls, grim reapers, Grateful Dead symbols, tiny bells, packets and ephemera. Bikers were more superstitious than gypsy wives. Three of the bikes appeared to be Harley-based. The other two were of unknown provenance.
He looked up. Smoke curled from the old brick chimney as from the College of Cardinals. As he watched the lights went out. Shouts and curses from inside.
The Kongo Klub was made of brown logs, possibly telephone poles, held together with white mortar. A railed porch ran the length of the club, about forty feet. There were a half dozen white plastic chairs and two round white plastic tables, the kind you buy at Wal-Mart. Fagan went up two steps to the stout brown door with a scratched square window smack in the center. Seconds later the sound of a generator starting up reached him and seconds after that the lights flickered back on.
Fagan heard scuffling and scraping furniture as he approached the door. He pulled it open and stepped inside. Pain radiated like a high red whine from his arms and legs. Five hairy bikers—three at a circular table decorated with empty bottles and two more at a square table in the back flipping cards. The card players were old. They would be Doc and Curtis. What was that like, to be an old biker with no health insurance, three teeth in your jaw and a stinking trailer somewhere?
The room smelled of beer, tobacco, marijuana and testosterone.
Two behind the bar—a grizzled homunculus and a fresh-faced blond who looked as out of place as a chrysanthemum in a coal bin. Eyelashes like crow’s wings. Had to be fake. She wore a man’s white shirt tied around her taut midriff and hip-hugger jeans. There was a tat of Gaiman’s Death on her bicep. They all looked up. It would have been unnatural if they hadn’t. But there was nothing natural about the forced bonhomie of the bikers doing their best to appear nonchalant.
That lasted three seconds.
The biggest biker, a slab of beef with a full beard, gold earrings and a gold tooth slammed a Bowie knife the size of a PT Cruiser into the scarred wood table causing the bottles to dance.
“MACY! WHERE THE FUCK’S MY BURGER!”
With a frightened expression the blond angel disappeared behind the bar.
All for Fagan’s benefit.
The youngest, a wiry hillbilly with a Dennis the Menace cowlick and a wide grin, said in an adolescent twang, “Well look what the cat dragged in.”
***