Page 59 of Crucified By the Dark
“Oh my god, I’d blocked that from my memory.” Morry blushed and rubbed her forehead.
“I wish I could wipe that memory. Seeing TK pretend to be a stripper in nothing more than his boxers is a nightmare I’ll never be free of,” Trev said, and even though he smiled, it still felt reserved, like he never let his guard down.
“He did a pretty good job, too. I didn’t know you could point your toes that well in shitkickers,” Kes finished, and Jeremy snickered at the image as the rest of them roared at the memory.
He sat back and relaxed into the chair as he watched the small group continue to laugh and talk about times that he wasn’t a part of, and for the first time in a long time, he felt out of place. Morry hadn’t excluded him and had even introduced him to the group as her boyfriend, which was a massive step in his mind. They were all very welcoming. Well, Kestrel, not so much. Kes had squeezed his hand tight but hadn’t said anything as he looked Jeremy up and down. Arek had hugged him, and Trev was extremely polite.
No one had asked him to leave, but he couldn’t contribute to the conversation. They talked about people he didn’t know and experiences that hurt to hear as he sipped his drink. On the one hand, he was happy to learn so many new things about Morry’s past. On the other hand, it confirmed how little he knew about her life before this place and what shaped Morry.
He scanned the newcomers, and his quick assessment screamed that Trev was the leader. Morry hadn’t said anything, but the way he carried himself, how everyone spoke to Trev, and how Morry’s mannerisms changed ever so slightly, told him it was the truth. Trev’s twin, Arek, was the clown. Any other time, he would’ve been pissed if someone picked Morry up and swung her around, but their dynamic was family, even if they weren’t related by blood. Kes was the hardest to read. He was broody and quieter than everyone else. His eyes continuously scanned the dark to the point that Jeremy kept looking over his shoulder for the boogeyman.
Yet, this was the most relaxed he’d seen Morry in forever. She was smiling and joking around, and he wished he made her feel that at ease. Then again, he couldn’t compete with surviving what they had.
“I’ll be back,” he whispered to Morry, and her face sobered.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go check on Butch and the guys on cleanup,” he said.
He kissed her before standing and walking toward the gate. He did want to check on the progress, but he also wanted to give them time together. Once upon a time, he had friends he thought he was close to like that. Maybe they had been, and it was his fault for falling prey to addiction. They were all doing the same party drugs, but he was the only one who went off the rails. No one wanted to hang out with him after that. Then again, if they’d been friends, maybe they would’ve tried to help instead of pretending he no longer existed.
Jeremy jogged up the stairs that led to the lookout tower. “Hey, man,” he said to Butch, who was on oversight duty.
“Hey. What, no fuckin’ beer?” Butch grumbled.
“Sorry, man, but I have a half-eaten candy bar.” Jeremy laughed at the disgusted look on the burly biker’s face.
Butch was a good man. His old lady was part of the club, and unlike many other guys here, Butch never stepped out on her. If he did, Jeremy never saw it or heard about it. Tanya was missing an eye from an accident and wore a patch, so some of the new guys liked to make pirate jokes, which was never a good idea. The last new guy found himself sailing through the bar window, just like in an old western movie. They had two daughters who didn’t live on the compound, and sometimes he wondered if they managed to keep what Butch did for a living away from them. That would be extremely difficult, but Butch couldn’t be the only one who had made it work.
“How is cleanup going?”
“Fuck, I’ve never seen anything like this. They will be at it all day tomorrow, but this area will draw in the buzzards and coyotes by morning. Man, is it gonna stink for days,” Butch said as one of the guys drove up to the gate with a trailer full of bikes. Butch hit the release, and the large metal gates rattled as the two sides separated. “You know, normally, we would make them yield and offer those left a chance to join. This was…I never want to see anything like this again, and I’ve seen some pretty terrible shit.”
“You think killing them all was bad?”
Butch shrugged. “Who am I to say? Not my job to make those decisions, but what’s done is done. Only fifty-two of them survived, and they’ve agreed to join after they do their initiation and punishment.”
The two of them stood quietly and watched the lights move in the distance. The soft rumble of the backhoe could just be heard when the breeze picked up. A mass grave for hundreds of men and women. He could barely wrap his head around it or what it meant that he’d seen this and had been part of it. Being part of the motorcycle club, he had been forced to kill a few people in self-defense, but hundreds seemed unfathomable. What the three of those Hummers had done was unbelievable.
He turned and looked down from the tower at the small group around the bonfire. Jeremy couldn’t even fathom what it must have been like to live and breathe experiences like that all the time. How did they even function? How could someone’s brain compartmentalize what they’d seen? What they’d been ordered to do?
Movement caught his eye, and his gaze flicked to a person slinking around the shadows of the buildings. To see someone moving around wasn’t unusual, but to see someone sneaking was.
“Hey, Butch, do you see someone over there?” He nodded in the direction he meant.
“Naw, sorry, man, that’s too far, and it’s too dark for these old eyes,” Butch grumbled.
“You need me to stick around for a while?”
“Naw, the old lady is already asleep, and I’m too wired to rest. Just if you come again….”
“Beer. I got it.” Jeremy smirked as he climbed back down the stairs. Flicking open the button on his knife, he started down the long wall of the sleeping quarters.
Morry suddenly shot to her feet.
Without thinking or wondering what was wrong, he sprinted toward her, then realized that she was on the phone.
“We’ll be right there.” Morry smiled as she hung up. “Wolf is waking up. Apparently, you boys brought the good mojo with you.”
