HAPPY NEW YEAR, HELLIONS! Here’s to another 365 days of kicking ass and taking names, and here’s a little slice of ol’ Nic “Speedfreak” Ridgefield to help celebrate. May God Bless You & This Force — Jake C.

Vinyl. LPs. Tracks on wax. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Nasty motherfuckers that’ll warp on your ass if given the chance, but when you treat ‘em nice and you got your Hi-Fi jimmied just right, wheeeew boy do they sound nice.

Some of y’all might remember a few years ago when we here at Metröpolis actually served up a run on one of our prized little records: Devil’s Maze. I’ll spare ya the full HSN sales-pitch, but the bitch sold out and we still dig playing cuts from it. Heavy little sonofabitch she was; damn near blew Brett “The Brave” Tsé’s throat on that doom ballad “Take It Beyond The Grave.” But when we was having a fan-signing at Doc’s Oasis on the big day, we kept getting the same question:

“How the hell were you guys able to press vinyl in this economy?”

Or rather in this part of the country. After all, with tapes and discs way quicker and cleaner to mint, there weren’t exactly printing presses lined up to make our lathes and pound our PVC into 40 minutes of good ol’ rock-n-roll. And synth-stations ain’t rigged for the kind of intricacies needed to make a proper record from scratch.

Some of the guys figured it’d be fun to take the piss and tell all sorts of stories. Rory said alchemy, Harry said he hand-carved it, and Brett–bless him–hadn’t the heart to fib to anyone so he just said “ask these idiots.” I told the abridged truth there, but I figure now’s as good a time to give you the uncut tale.

It starts with a chase. And I mean a chase.

Commish has us sicced on a radium gang. Not a pack of scavengers and/or raiders hooked on the stuff, but five-alarm dope-peddlers who were trafficking it all over the place. It’d be one thing if they were just finding stray caches we hadn’t buttoned up with our civilian service program, but this group killed some of the volunteer security guarding the storage site. They wanted the stuff, they wanted it bad, and now here we are chasing their asses over hill and dale to both: A) turn ‘em the color of Christmas on the desert floor, and B) dispose of the junk with a little more finality.

In other words, blow that shit up in a nice empty patch of land.

So there the usual cadre was: one indestructible pickup, one handsome rat rod, and a white-furred maniac on a big black bike. We elected to spare Brett from this one just because it wasn’t really a finesse-heavy gig, but that would pay dividends when the day’s real discovery came.

Now, typical of our usual plan-making skills, we wound up enacting all of Part B first instead of all of Part A. And as usual, thank Rory. This brilliant white bastard was damn-near feral chasing after the old Econoline carrying that good green kush. They were spraying him with every shred of lead they had–electric or otherwise–but Rory’s hand cannons were popping those heads like champagne bottles. And of course, the real big corker’s always the driver. And when Rory’s Colt caps the stocky bastard at the van’s wheel, that’s when all hell breaks loose within the van. That boxy faded yellow Ford went tearing off, hard to the left, and just kept going and going until it found the nearest ledge and sailed right off.

And then, for a solid five minutes: nothing. We were so busy hightailing after the rest of the entourage, we didn’t even have time to realize that the van was taking its sweet time diving down one of the few real canyons we got in this part of the desert. By the time our drug lords were cutting through an old abandoned factory and we were hot on their six, that’s when the almighty thunderclap came and our pint-sized mushroom cloud plumed up in the distance.

When I looked back at Rory, all our white-furred drummer did was shrug. “Well, at least it was remote.”

And fair enough, he wasn’t wrong. That left all our attention to the rest of the goon squad as they filed into the old rusty silver structure. Now I knew where they were trying to cut across; you could see one end of the building clear to the other. Fortunately, one kick of my boot and a kiss from my baby’s bumper, and I knocked those fuckers right into a steel pillar. With Harry and his roadster covering the exit, and Rory popping tires, it wasn’t long before we had the last of the gang boxed in. With my guys having leapt out the front windshield of their busted Chevy pickup to greet the pillar with open skulls, I leapt out and decided to see what we could do for the rest of these bastards.

Now, if they’d been a little tighter with their fancy driving, they might not have made the same mistake and crashed their nice rusty white Impala into the wall. Lucky for them, they didn’t go to pieces so out they scrambled and into the warehouse they bolted. The three of us gave chase on foot and that’s when a good old-fashioned gunfight started shaping up.

This warehouse had enough crisscrossing catwalks and staircases to pass for an MC Escher installation. It was less about hiding and more about vantage points and man, these fellas were getting first pick while Harry, Rory, and myself were bolting for the first staircase up. When they started firing back, we all went for cover and started picking off whatever we could.

One of the drug-lords–white wolf with some black speckling around his head–kept trying to whittle the steel cable above my head. I didn’t know what for until I saw the 10-ton lead weight shoot its way for me and I took another mighty tuck-and-roll away to safety. Dumb move on my part, but I got him on the rebound when he turned to nail Rory only to get his back blown out by the finest Schofield money can buy.

Then came Drugstore Cowboy #2: a fella you could tell wasn’t on the stuff but was on...something with those sunk-in red eyes and that matted brown fur. He was giving poor Harry the throttling of his life, making our wundermutt dance them steel-cap boots of his to keep out the line of fire. Our leather-clad hellfighter was first up on the catwalks with these clowns, though he almost took a nice leg-breaking dive when a few shots sent him swinging over the rail, dangling some 20 feet off the warehouse floor.

Now, Mr. Drugstore starts sauntering up and fixes to do an old Hollywoodland classic. You know the kind. Some evil hound walks up to the hero, takes it nice and slow putting his boot down on the hero’s knuckles, hammering them until the bastard falls. You could see it in those bloodshot eyes too, he musta seen this on the boob-tube last night and thought it was a mighty fine idea. So here this scuzzy brown wolf in ratty denim is, slowly moving his way down the catwalk, ready to savor the moment and have himself a real good time.

Then Harry swings up, blasts him point black in the head, and he drops like a sack of ground beef. Best part: with one flick of his shoulders, our wundermutt didn’t even wind up with a splotch of blood on him.

Now the last guy was clearly the hired hound, the wheel man. Gray fella, much better kept, just a nice simple greaser set of white shirt, black leather, and blue jeans. But he was evidently “for the cause” because there was no mercy-begging from this cat. No pleas for surrender, no plea deals, no pleading of any kind. That or his wrap sheet was enough to let us put him away for everything that wasn’t raiding an official waste disposal site.

By now all three of us were up on the catwalks and closing in from all sides. Now when you put any crook’s ass against the wall, you find out just how crazy they can go. And now you have three lawmen putting the squeeze on a hound with a rifle 20-something feet up in the air. We just kept making our steps and waited for the big blow-up. Whatever it was, whatever crazy gunslinger way this fella wanted to go out, we were ready.

He draws the rifle, sweeps for me, and down that finger goes on the trigger.

And nothing comes out the rifle’s end.

Nothing on this Earth will ever compare to the “oh shit” face we wiped off that bastard’s muzzle as we turned him into Swiss cheese and sent him tumbling down over the rail. He hit some machinery on the way down with a helluva crunch, and that was when we knew we had licked the whole gang. The junk was destroyed, the thugs properly punished, all’s well that end’s well.

And then it gets a little bit better.

Because after I get the report fed to the Commish, I get met with the biggest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen on Rory Armstrong’s white muzzle. “Check out what the dude landed on.”

I saunter over and to my surprise, it’s a whole-ass record press. Like a proper stamper. Obviously there’s a big chunk of the process missing–no way to cut a lathe, no vinyl to be found–but by gum, there it was.

Now when I phoned back to Brett about this little development, that brave came up with the best damn news I’d heard all day.

“I think I found a guy.”

While we were out running assholes off the road and blowing limbs off, Brett had managed to hook up with this clever cat named Ray Boone. Dark gray wolf, about my size, dressed like an average Joe. Nothing special, just T-shirts, jeans, and sneaks. He’d been collecting vintage record-making gear from lathes to plating baths to all sorts of parts of the process. And lo and behold, guess who was looking for a proper press?

Without a second to lose, the three of us rip the damn thing right out the floor, load it up into the bed of my Hilux and we go hightailing back to Doc’s to meet this fella. Of course we look like we just came back from the front lines of the war, but he was a good egg about the day job. He liked the look of our find and when we explained what we wanted to do, Boone was game.

“Shit, would be fun if the first record I cut was a metal one,” he grinned as we all started shaking his hand furiously. It was a bit funny having this mild-mannered fellow surrounded by all us loud, raucous bandmates (and handing him a slightly bloodstained record press as a welcome present), but we started appreciating that downtempo energy more and more as we kept trudging through the Hell Patrol work.

It took the poor guy a month or two to get everything up and running, and every day he’d say something like “thank God for the bottomless PVC the synth-station can make for me” due to test issues, but in the end, he got us our record. This fine little one-of-a-kind album on a one-of-a-kind format. And all it took was a badass with the know-how like Mister Boone (who you can still get with for all your record-pressing needs), and maybe the body of a well-placed thug in a convenient warehouse.

At least we took care of that bit for ya.

CATCH UP ON LAST ISSUE!

Welcome back ladies and germs to your favorite hang left of the dial, The Speed Shack. You friendly neighborhood host and retired-everything Nic Ridgefield here just where you left me on 98.5 FM WHOL, here with another howling good time from days of yore.

Now I keep gettin’ calls about this left-n-right so I figured it was about time I popped everyone’s cherry on the subject: how’d I get this gig? Between working technical for our armed forces to shredding with my hot-rodding pals in Metröpolis, how’d I squeeze time for some radio-anything?

The truth is I’ve always wanted a show. Always wanted one since I was a 20-something cutting metal records for all y’all out in Radioland. But believe it or not, my black ass couldn’t get an interview back in the day thanks to all my happy Hell Patrol horseshit. With all the crooks to catch and the evenings only free for shredding on stage for some extra credits, what’s a wolf with the bug for disk-jockeying to do?

Easy: I saved the station’s ass. Well me and the usual bunch did.

Now I’m gonna have to cut straight to the chase on this one because this shit was weird as all get-out.

There’d been a rash of killings out here in ye olde desert (what’s new), but these weren’t your five-n-dime stickups or the melon-crushing fun of idiots in hot rods minting Rockatanskys one dead wife at a time. These poor critters went out ears-first. A buncha hounds (around seven total) within the Central Region were found dead in their homes. Eyes dilated, eardrums busted, with two solid streaks of blood down their cheeks.

The common denominator: each one of them had their radio on. Each radio was tuned to 98.5 FM, but Hell Patrol’s much-cherished coroners clocked their deaths at 2:05 AM which is well after WHOL’s midnight sign-off. You don’t gotta be a rocket scientist to figure some lunatic found himself a sweet killing sound and was doing one of two things with it: hacking the tower’s signal, or sneaking in after hours to fuck with folks.

Of course, leave it to the dear Commissioner to sic the heavy metal band on the case. Not even Brett was left outta the picture thanks to his unique sensitivity to sound. Not that our fine tan friend was some uberwölf weirdo with built-in quadraphonic, but he’d been the fella doing atmospheric sounds on our first album as a foursome. I figured he’d have some ideas of the kinds of sounds that could shred a hound’s ears for six. And boy did he.

“Either he hit a dog-whistle frequency with the gain at full blast,” he explained on the drive over to the station, “or he pulled off a lil’ something I read about called ‘machine-gunning.’ White noise at full volume with a bitch’s death cry mixed in, chopped up at the same intervals of emptying a full magazine.”

“Wouldn’t ya think they’d keep military grade shit like this underwraps?” I asked over the radio.

“In the Old World, yeah!” Harry chimed in from his rat rod. “But Pop told me after the bombs got most of the old military bunkers, you could just find all sorts of psyop shit lying around in the rubble. He once found a paper on the kinda shit they dumped into the water to mellow hounds out. Worked for all of five seconds, but they realized they’d gotten the doses wrong. So now you had a heapa hepcats running around just stoned off their ass.”

Leave it to our rockabilly wundermutt in the good pinstriped shirt to bring the Cold War context, but I welcomed it. It was kinda freaky knowing all the clandestine shit in the world was just floating around for assholes like this killer to play with, but hey, that’s what our stakeout was for.

Oh yeah, and Rory was in the mix there too, just not in the conversation. He’d gotten a new set of custom headphones from one of our techies, the fellas who kept our amps from evaporating at the volumes we played. Above the collective roar of four engines–two V8s across a Ford pickup and a roadster, a straight-four in my Hilux, and the Harley’s jackrabbit V-twin for those playing at home–was the pounding drums and banshee shrieks of a black metal album. On top of that, our bare-chested white biker screaming along like a cat getting railed in an alleyway. As appetizing as that all sounds, I could never get into the stuff myself so I left it to him and his industrial-strength headphones.

All that is to say it was a usual commute from Doc’s Oasis to our stakeout for the day, the WHOL studio. Home to a half-dozen music shows, four gold standard radio dramas and the best record collection in a 100-mile radius. We got there mid-afternoon on a Thursday, during DJ Don “Danger” Blackman’s rock block and were met outside by one of the studio engineers. She was a sweet dish alright, a lithe gray who looked more country girl than techie with her plaid crop-top and cutoffs.

Unfortunately, Harry, Rory, and I all had our chicks and I honestly couldn’t do the sleeping around thing anymore after Lita came to town a few months ago. Not that it went bad, but because she was so damn good. Either way, that left her to Brett if he wanted her, which of course he didn’t. The chivalrous bastard’s too damn professional for his own good.

“Name’s Mariah Spain,” she said, shaking our hands. “Thanks for coming. I get that the real action’ll happen tonight, but I’m happy to give you lay of the land.”

“Just don’t introduce us as Patrol alright?” I whispered. “You’re too cute to do shit like what we’re investigating,” (which got a chuckle out of her) “but I know it isn’t exactly rocket science to load up the right audio file into the system, probably through the local emergency backup for a software crash. Just treat us like Metröpolis, whatever cachet that brings.”

It only just dawned on me that, even though we’d had shows broadcast over WHOL, we’d never actually scored a radio interview as a band. Yet here we were, keeping eyes on potential suspects implicated in some late night aural terrorism.

She walked us through the glass door of the one-story building, an old-world bank retooled for broadcast. What knocked all four of us out was how clean it was. I mean you gotta understand folks, we grew up out in the sticks in trailer parks and all our favorite bars got old-ass wood held together with wax, varnish and prayers. So the carpet floor, the big glass windows, the slick desks, it was like stepping inside a future we ain’t ever known. Not even the fucking record labels we’d signed with looked this good.

Our marveling at modernity notwithstanding, we saw there were two booths where the magic happened. Don was in Booth 1, your standard rig with a nice table, the mix board, turntable, room for five around the desk (DJ included), and all the computer gear at his back. The monitor displaying the programming block, the servers where all the cool shit was, and yes, that disc tray where you put the “please hold” music on.

Don was a black wolf alright, just a shade lighter than yours truly. He was shorter though and cut the profile of a classic newsman rather than a DJ. Pinstripe button-up, sleeves rolled up and ready for action and a slick pair of gold-tinted, see-thru Aviators.

Other colorful characters included the office of Arthur “Art” Walker, a rather plump gray who was head of drama. Knowing that was the fella who signed Stan Winshaw and wound up with a Friday night hit like Alan Firedale meant he was easy to rule out on-site. Besides, his office where he was flying in and out didn’t come packed with nothing more than an intercom. There were also some other techies like Mariah, but they were gray fellas in jeans, kicks, and T-shirts working from monitors behind the front desk.

The second studio was empty and much larger, a proper performance space for bands to pull up and play live gigs on-air. If he brought any gear to help him out, he’d have shacked up in that room for sure.

It was about halfway through “the band’s tour” of the station that Danger himself rocked up and gave us the usual rigmarole. “Hey, one of our hot bands, how ya doing, you free to do a surprise sesh on the air?” He spoke with that crisp clean broadcaster voice. Kind of like Received Pronunciation, just swap the Brits for Old World Michiganders. And honestly, he was a charming enough dude that we said “sure thing.”

What followed had to be one of the funniest half-hours in broadcast history because us unkempt assholes would swear like sailors on shore leave and this wasn’t after safe harbor like our lovely ol’ Shack here at 10 PM. So we’d be rapping along, chatting about the fun of playing gigs, where we got our ideas from, all the happy horseshit they usually ask us for blogs or promo spots, but we’d be mag-dumping so many pisses and shits, it was like Don was having a Mexican standoff with his swear-jar button that censors everything. On one hand, he thought it was the funniest shit, him slapping the big red button around like a game show. On the other, he just wanted to cover his black-ass since he knew “customer complaints” out here could be served by soccer moms with .357s instead of mean ol’ letters like the old days.

It was during the quarter-hour of tunes that followed that something dawned on me; the sound of the bleep censor. That kind of full sine wave sound, when played with in pitch or fattened the way Brett mentioned, could be a built-in mechanism our killer could play with.

Now did we suspect dear ol’ Danger Man Dan as our killer? For all of five seconds, yeah. But the fella was chill, and more importantly, didn’t show any of the tics we usually caught with our killers. Twitch of the eyes, the ears. A half-chub when you mentioned some of the more violent goings-on in the world around ya. Nah, our black-furred disc jockey didn’t have anything but the hits on his mind.

All told, it made the daytime half of this dull as dishwater, but we knew that when night fell, that was when the real stakeout would take shape. The radio tower itself, the stuff beaming all that good electric kush, was within sight from the parking lot. It was all in the open, but we had a bunch of old bushes on the back side of the lot to tuck our rides behind. We shed Brett’s pickup and Rory’s bike and went in twos: Brett rode with me, Rory with Harry. Our homegrown mutt and the Aryan basket case kept eyes on the tower a hundred yards down the petrified hedgerow while me and Navajo Joe kept eyes on the station, waiting and watching everyone leave.

DJ Dan left in a cheap-n-cheerful Peugeot, the two gray engineers in a basic-bitch work van, Art in a sweet Dodge pickup, and Mariah in a slender green Charger. Lucky bitch. By 12:33, the whole lot was cleaned out.

At least from where I sat.

“There’s a Cosmo still here,” Brett chimed in, pulling his fringed jacket tight to him. He pointed down to the lot’s furthest edge and sure enough, there was the Mazda in question. A second-gen as boxy and beige and mid-70s as ever.

The slam of those lead-heavy car doors jolted Harry and Rory awake, but when they turned to me, I shook my head. With two fingers like a first-time typist, I tapped out a message on my screen as quietly as I could and sent it to Harry’s module.

“Stay on the tower. We got this guy.”

Harry nodded and sent his stock reply.

“Got it, Speed.”

In the time it took me to get the message out, Brett caught the silver glimpses of a tuning fork from out of the slick Mazda’s trunk. A rather long tuning fork matched by a shotgun mic three-quarters its size. The hound himself was built like a mobster, from his leather jacket to his polished loafers. But between his broad-brimmed hat, the gloves, the parking lot’s low light, we couldn’t make out the breed, countenance, the works. Again, thoughts of Don’s wardrobe flashed across my mind, but I’d literally seen the hound leave not 20 minutes earlier.

This fella took his sweet time with the kit too. By 1:12, he’d got his mic, his tuning fork, a box of tiny oscillators, and a little plastic brick with a button on it. It was soft, but even with all the shit we’d done to ‘em, our ears still worked as well as any other wolf and Brett and I cocked ours towards the device.

Our mystery hound in question was cycling through sounds. Godawful sounds at that. A mother’s cry, a harrowed shriek, a child’s nightmare. Not gross sounds but a grotesque collection of wolven misery all wrapped in a hunk of plastic. It was only when he popped the top off that we realized it also doubled as a thumb drive.

So here was our hound, and when I looked back to the boys, they shook their heads about anything being there by the radio tower. Now we had to plan our move. We could’ve done it guns blazing, but frankly, a fella who makes plans like these deserves something a little more intricate.

First we let him get in around 1:30. He was a sharp hand with a lock pick which meant he either didn’t work there or wanted to make it seem like a break-in. We knew he’d want to hit his signal on the button and he was allowing himself 35 minutes of prep time. He also didn’t lock the door behind him.

By 1:35, Brett and Rory were covering the door while Harry and I loaded our revolvers and slowly made our way across the lot. Gentle as a lamb, I pulled the door open. Not a squeak between the hinges or our cowboy boots as we strolled through.

Sure enough, I was right about Studio 2 and its live setup being the boss for the kinds of weird science this bastard was pulling off. The mic was pointed at the tuning fork, but he ran the thumb-drive sounds off the board.

He wasn’t paying any of us mind, though whenever he swung our way, Harry and I ducked our heads down and flattened our ears to lower the profile even further. We crouched our way towards the door and put ourselves flush against the wall’s lower half. We couldn’t do our usual full-body lean because of the obvious; the windows would give us away dead.

By 1:50, Harry and I were getting antsy as the shadow of a hound hadn’t done shit for a while. No ringing the fork, no adjustments, no testing. He just sat there. Again, we didn’t want to just blow his head off, but it might have to come to that if we couldn’t get him where we needed him. So we did an old favorite: we threw something across the room.

Or rather Rory came tearing in through the front door screaming like a sonofabitch with a scorpion stuck in on his back.

Good a distraction as any as that fucker came flying through the door, gun in hand, only for me to grab his legs and for Harry to cold-cock him with the butt of his Remington revolver. He dropped right on the spot and was out cold. When he was, I got all the lights on, bellowed at Brett outside to “GET THAT FUCKING THING OFF THE MAN’S BACK!” (which miracle of miracles, didn’t undo Harry’s handiwork) and took a look at the maniac’s rig in full.

The fader where the thumb-drive was plugged in was up to the max, as was the hijacked mic signal. Both get sent out over the airwaves, and so floweth the raspberry jam out everyone’s ears. When I got a chance to look at the thumb-drive, it turned out there were only a few sounds total, numbered via an old LCD display on the front with some looping text cycling through.

It was tiny as shit, but when I made out “3. Atom B.,” I realized he went for something explosive tonight. I figured the rig would all make for a nice poetic closer, but the truth was I knew it couldn’t work. I’d kill the fucker sure, but if I wanted to use what he had setup, I’d still risk some asshole having left his radio on at this hour and I was on a strict no-collateral diet going forward.

Let’s just say rookie mistakes were once made.

So I had all the gear to give the perp a send-off, but no way of doing it without hurting someone in the process.

Until I remembered our walkies. Specifically tuned to a single channel unique to the set. The interference might mess with getting the sonic warfare right, and we’d need something to boost the bass, but since one fella spent his evening’s experimenting on poor wolves’ eardrums, he can donate his to science for compensation.

Oh yeah, we never did find out who he was in all of this. He left only a card in his coat that said “MK” with a little picture of this wonky Old World fruit. Art-arti...shit, artichoke, that was it. Weird, green, scaly S.O.B. by the looks of it. Make of all that what you will.

So what followed (after getting some anti-venom from my first-aid kit for Rory) was getting the bastard tied up inside his Mazda. We taped a walkie-talkie to the dashboard and plugged the devil into his stereo system. I cranked the bass up the max. The car was on so we could use the electrics, but I made sure the keys were out the ignition and the stereo was set to that retro-fitted auxiliary cable.

Now, the problem we had was that the tuning fork was easy to get rigged in front of the walkie, but that sample feature on the thumb-drive just didn’t have the gain to go. And I sure as shit didn’t want to hear this crap for myself.

So then Harry gets a nasty idea. He carries his guitar and amp everywhere he goes.

We’re in the live room of a radio studio. When you crank that amp up to our volume, on top of the synergy of that tuning fork hum, the sound would be immense.

This exciting new execution has been brought to you by the maniac motherfucker who turned one of his old guitar bodies into a laser-gun. And of course from listeners like you.

That said, he didn’t want to play the solo. He handed the gear off to Brett.

I can only guess our guitar-god-in-residence wanted to have a sorta proper initiation ritual for Brett. He was on the assignment, he joined the stakeout, he should have his first kill. Our tan-furred blueshound wasn’t shy about capping asses, but he ain’t ever done an execution before. It felt weird at first, but I got him a stool, Harry and Rory got the rig setup and everything cranked to 11, and then he just sat there and looked at the rig.

“Who wants to tap the tuning fork?” he asked plainly.

“Let Rory do it,” Harry chuckled, “He’s the bastard with the best triangle game.”

Sure enough, that white-furred biker stood straight as an arrow on end before bowing down, opening the channel on the walkie and tapping the fork. He held himself there for a moment before Brett asked the obvious question.

“You wanna get out of the way?”

Rory smiled like a sweetheart and simply said, “I’ve played with my ears glued to stacks bigger than that tag-along amp of Harry’s. Just play the fucker to death.”

And so Brett obliged.

Between the fork and the power chord, the inside of that Mazda was painted like a Pollock. It took an awful lotta cleaning to get my walkie back in order, but it got there in the end.

Needless to say, heading a serial killer off at the pass like this got us in good sway with the Commissioner, but full-on hero status at the station. We got plenty of interviews from them and others for a while, and played some sessions there on the air. Kinda odd how it all came together, but it finally got our asses on the airwaves. And one day, when I knew I could make the time for it and I wanted to tell y’all some of these whack-ass stories, well I was given the best blank check of my life. And so here we are. And here we’re gonna be as long as I got air in my lungs, lead in my boots, and a bottomless supply of whiskey to help keep this shit straight.

We’ll be back after these messages on 98.5 WHOL. Now don’t you touch that fucking dial on me now.

If you ain’t supposed to meet your heroes, how the hell are you supposed to help ‘em when they’re down? That’s something me and the boys have always kicked around with each other whenever we want to get existential. Of course we all got bitches who’ll back us to hell and back (even our straight-laced injun Brett started catching some strange after shows), but what about the fella on real hard times? We Wasteland acts still got our stories of great artists gone too soon, hot-rocking hounds fading out thanks to one dumb move or a bad crash.

And there’s the fuckers who just fade off into the dark.

Enter The Duke.

Now here’s a cat we all love, right? Old time rocker with that kinda artsy edge. Deep, bluesy voice that can go from zero to shriek in the blink of an eye. Has a half-dozen phases folks’ll argue about ‘til the cows come home.

Well, welcome to the Duke’s latest era: the wash-up. Least that’s the way it seemed when we found him, and by accident too.

The Metröpolis gang were setting up shop in a proper dive-bar, De La Palma, off one of the old highways from way back whenever. Harry was working his brown mitts to the bone and back shuffling the Marshalls around the way he wanted them. Brett and Rory were getting the kit in place, and I was tying off some last minute negotiations with the venue.

Now, the De La Palma ain’t a big juke-joint. Shit, we could only fit half our stacks in the building to begin with, but we were still packing one mighty crowd in that night. You could always see someone from across the room because there wasn’t much room to see across. And when my haggard ass caught the sight of that thick gray muzzle from beneath a broad-brim cowboy hat, a cigarette in the steady hand that rocked a Les Paul hotter than Saint Helens, I went dead silent.

“That who I think it is?” I asked the manager.

“Who you thinkin’?” he shot back.

“That’s the Duke, ain’it?” I bit back through clenched teeth. Didn’t want to spook the fella off. “Shit, you oughta got half his records in that bubbling Wurlitzer down the hall.”

“If he is, that ain’t the name he gave us.”

I finished fixing our rates before strolling over. Play it cool, play it cool was all I had room for in my head. I didn’t want to do the starstruck-stammerin, the “YOU’RE MY HERO” happy-horseshit. I just wanted to know if the dude was, y’know, THE Dude. Fella leapt off the face of the Earth after dropping a killer album, Shockwave Sinner. Real, old-school, pre-atomic rock. Me and the boys always bump it before gigs. Some said he had a nasty accident in his truck, some said he was too bored to make anymore. No one knew! But if my hunch was correct, at least it was good to know he was alive.

“Heya, mind if I sit in, pops?” I asked, cool as I could.

He looked up from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, a patch of scruff tipping his chin. “Saw you and the crew roll in.” he nodded. “Betcha that back of yours could use the break.”

Yup. It was him. Smoky baritone, big strong drawl. I just got myself a seat in the court of the king himself. Again, didn’t want to spook him, so I kept playing it chill.

“Thanks.” I nodded. “How ya been?”

“Ramblin’ around,” he replied. “Been taste-testing these little shit-kickers from town-to-town.”

“What’s your special for here?”

“House bourbon ain’t bad.” The haggard old gray took another swig to make sure. “I don’t get shit-faced like I did when I was your age. Fucks your voice up something fierce.”

“Besides,” I chuckled, “music does it plenty for me as-is.”

“Oh, you’re one of them heavy acts, ain’cha?” he grinned wryly. I couldn’t tell if he was gonna tear me a new asshole over it or give me that nod of approval he gave the bourbon. Instead, he just looked at the rest of the band.

“Healthy young fucks, the lotta ya.” he chuckled. “How fast you play?”

“Don’t think we clocked anything above 180 BPM. Yet.”

“How loud you get?”

At first, all I could do was bust up chuckling again, but when I answered “when I’m finally deaf, I’ll let you know,” The Duke almost shot his drink through his snout. I went to pat his back, but he waved me off.

“Ever played a tune called ‘Twist of Cain’ before?”

I nodded.

“How you feel about playing backup for one song?”

I remember nodding as well, but I also remembered hitting my head on the way down. Because yes, yours truly. All six-foot whatever of my black-ass fainted like a preteen when I was offered a chance to have The Duke sing with us. Luckily, I was only out for about ten minutes, and the weather-beaten cowboy hadn’t vanished into a hallucinogenic dream.

“Didn’t know you were a fan,” he scoffed. “Used to keep smelling salts on me for fuckers like you.”

When I came to, Brett, Rory, and Harry were all standing there as well.

“You’re lucky they’re built of sterner stuff.” he teased. “Nice axes too. Let’s hear ‘em. Unless we gotta carry your ass to the stage, son.”

I straightened myself up and practically bolted for my black-and-white bass. I was in a full-on kid-in-candy store mood with the news, and the fellas could all tell.

“You boys do know who I am, right?” the Duke asked the others.

Harry was the first to answer. “Permission to speak–”

“Fucking hell, I ain’t a general, son. The fuck you want to say?”

“I–we...damn, we thought you were dead.”

The old gray, clad in his black rodeo shirt, jeans, and silver-tipped boots, straightened up before our multicolored quartet and belted out a howling-mad laugh.

“Shit, this is what I get for not having one of them fan sites, now ain’t it?”

The Duke’s sharp tongue mellowed to that of almost a grandfather as he hurried us on stage. “Let me show you just how not dead I am.”

We got to our places, Rory counted us off on his kit, and once we started into the track, we waited. The opening took a little time, the pounding midtempo groove building to that first verse. But when it came, that sweet, badass baritone we’d all grown up on started right in and didn’t miss a note. And when that chorus came in...FUCK, was he on fire. Like the bastard hadn’t left the world, the airwaves, the whole lot. We played the whole song for the folks who were there in the bar, and when they realized WHO it was at the mic, the whole joint erupted. When we hit the end, we took our bows, and etched into my mind for the rest of my days will be what the bastard said next:

“Play it dead-on like that tonight.”

We had gotten the master’s approval, even after my fan-girl bullshit. But he still hadn’t answered the question our mutt of a guitar hero hadn’t finished asking.

“Where the hell have ya been?” I asked as we all shared the first decent lunch we’d had in ages.

“Truth be told,” the Duke began between swigs of soda, “wasn’t exactly for the love of the art I left. Had some serious business to tend to. I know why y’all thought I was dead. Some stupid sumbitch ran around with a picture of a crashed pickup and said it was mine. What that feral fuck didn’t tell ya was it wasn’t. That was one of my daughters. Spent those years hunting the fucker who ran her off the road.”

“You get him?” Rory asked. Our white-furred compadre leaned over the table with anticipation.

“Yeah.” the Duke sighed. “The fucker’s dead alright, but he got me one right...here.”

He parted the scruff of his neck to reveal scarred skin. They got him right in the vocal cords.

“Singer can’t come back if can’t sing, now can he?”

The four of us fell back in dead silence.

“Thank God you got better though,” Brett chimed. Funny thing about our tan friend was that he sat there with the same fry in his hands for the past five minutes, just listening to the whole ordeal.

“Yeah, but it was still a good few years of healing. Time me and my bitch needed to move on from it all. Also nice to raise the rest of my nippers to adulthood. But without all the usual press junkets and shit to send out, I just kinda enjoyed fading out.”

“You are coming back, aincha?” I asked. “You got a fucking belter on you for having gone through that.”

At first, silence. The old gray knocked back another swig of his root beer. What followed though was probably the reason why he wanted us to bring him on stage tonight.

“It all depends. I want to go back-to-basics. None of the showpiece bullshit, just rock-n-roll. All killer, no filler. Been playing pick-n-choose with dive-bar bands like you guys. Nice to catch a heavy act like yours to boot. They’re killing me with all this folk shit. I can do it and I dig it, but if I gotta sing ‘Guinneveeeeeeere’ one more time, they’re the next fuckhead on my list.”

Now it was our turn to snort our drinks through our snouts. Four cannons going off like a 21-gun salute as we all broke up in hysterics. Luckily, not a drop got on the Duke.

“Good to know I still got it.” the old gray goat chuckled. “The art of the raconteur’s going outta style.”

We spent the rest of the day sitting and chatting like mad, waiting for that fateful evening to fall, and for us to welcome to the stage one of the few fellas left in this desert we can call a rock god. And fateful was indeed the word.

Gig started at six, we got the crowd jumping with a few of our old bluesier favorites. Something to give the hound a good tee-up. We had a lot of them flannel-wearing country-bumpkin types, but that was the kinda bar we knew we were getting in. We just had to make sure none of us started talking in one of them faked “YEE-HAW” drawls.

Christ was Rory trying his hardest.

But when we’d gotten five songs into the set (just as he’d asked), I got to say those magic words:

“Ladies and gents, it is with our greatest pleasure to bring you one of the great rock gods of our fair desert. God knows I loved him growing up. Please welcome to the stage: THE DUKE.”

He strutted out onto that stage like a pro, black leather jacket and all, and before he got to the mic.

BANG!

Someone started firing like a fucking lunatic in the bar. I dove for the old man and shielded him like a Secret Service agent. With my Smith & Wesson in hand, I tried to get a good line of sight on the creep. The crowds were going ape-shit, but they’d parted long enough for me to spy the fucker through one guy’s legs. Once he got out of the way, I lined my shot and got our assassin-maniac-mystery-box-ass fucker right between the eyes.

He was a mangy little shit; a light gray with that fresh-outta Hinzert body, his own camouflage denim two sizes too big.

When we all got up, and I made sure I hadn’t squeezed the king too tight, I popped Duke the obvious question. “You know the guy?”

When he knelt down over the dead body, thumbing the scruff of his chin, he noticed something in the flannel’s shirt pocket. He slipped a finger in, pulled it out, and read it for me.

“This is for Jeb.”

“I don’t know this guy,” he began solemnly, “but I know what he’s writing about. This is the guy. One I killed for killing my girl. One who almost took my voice away.”

“Hey, he belongs to a gang?” I could hear Harry slowly making his way into Officer Richter mode, double checking the cylinders of his own long-barreled peacemakers.

“Couple of bikers,” he nodded. “No big-time thugs though. Just petty shit.”

“They gotta name?” Rory chimed in through gritted teeth. I could tell just by looking at the quivering white devil he was itching to get even.

“The Quags I think.” Duke replied. “Weird name like that.”

“Come with me,” says I. “We’re gonna run things through my truck. Harry and Rory, you make sure no one else–”

BANG BANG they went AGAIN! Two fuckers aiming right for the Duke, spraying from the doorway. This time, however, the man himself did the honors.

Like all good rock gods, he knows how to kick with the legs. He swung a table down while Rory and I took cover behind one of the brick thresholds. Harry stood by his side, the mutt readying his revolver. What he hadn’t readied himself for was the sight of Duke’s.

This guy had himself this gorgeous old 18-inch monster of a revolver, polished to a shine.

“Knock ‘em dead on three.” the old rocker winked. “One, two, THREE!”

Him and Harry leapt up, and in two shots each, split the thugs’ heads open like cantaloupes.

“As you were son,” Duke nodded. “Good shooting, Harry.”

Our favorite brown-furred mutt bowed graciously as I carried on.

“Right.” I hollered. “Harry and Rory, you help make sure everyone’s alright. Duke, come with me. And Brett–”

“Lemme guess, I’ll keep everyone entertained while y’all are off?” Brett quipped.

“No, my tan-furred friend. Depending on how many of these bastards there are, two more guns is better than two less.”

I don’t think he ever expected to hear that until then, but what I saw whip across his face was equal parts surprise, relief, worry, and at last acceptance.

“Thank. FUCK.” he sighed at last.

Duke and I strolled out and I ran things through the module in the Hilux. Sure enough, The Quags was on our radar. Records made mention of the hit-and-run against Duke’s daughter, but was just for starters. These creeps knew how to rack up a whole host of old favorites. An arson charge here, a couple of homicides there. Most of their bikes were grand theft moto on top of the homicide.

“Shit, we can wipe these bastards out no problem.” I scoffed. “Just gotta figure out where the hell they–”

BANG! BANG!

Again! Outta fucking nowhere, these maniacs were coming our way, torches in hand. Fuckers all rode those trike-bikes too, with the three wheels and shit. It was the strangest crew I ever seen, but I didn’t think twice about blasting that torch out of their hand and into the fella’s screaming face riding at nine-o-clock on his left.

But just like the surprise ambush in the bar, out came Duke’s majestic old Colt, and away he went blasting them watermelon-heads open again. We’d gotten a good chain reaction going, but some of these cats were the kinda guy who would run over your head if you weren’t using it. And one of them kept another torch handy.

“You keep it up, I’ll keep nailing ‘em.” Duke hollered. “You still got too many folks in there in the crush, plus that’s some nice equipment I’d hate to see you lose.”

When the Duke tells you to play chauffeur, you play chauffeur, and I got us right up and running in my pickup. And coming up behind was...Brett.

Harry and Rory were still sorting the mess out in the bar, but ol’ Navajo Joe managed to get his keys in his ol’ Ford and join in the chase. Good thing too because apparently the Quags weren’t the only weirdos coming down the mountain. Backing them up was this land armada of folks. Bikers on normal bikes, with billy-clubs wrapped in barbed wire and plenty more guns to play with.

“Pull up that Jeb fella on the display.” I asked, burying my boot in the floor.

When he did so, he said something I never thought my hero would say since I was a wee one. “Oh shit.”

“Oh shit, what?”

When he read it off, I couldn’t believe my ears. Jeb Polaski was something of a negotiator. With all these terrible criminal organizations we in Hell Patrol spent so many years fighting, some folks find alliances a smart way to gang up on us lawmen. Jeb was one of those, and was in the middle of what was easily one of the biggest gang treaties in Wasteland history when the Duke took him to the River Styx.

Now, this isn’t a “oh no, I killed a loving husband and father,” oh shit moment. Jeb was a stone-cold piece of shit, and we’re all glad he’s dead and buried with a pitchfork through his cataract-coated eye. No, this was a “he sealed the deal before his death” oh shit, meaning a mini-gangland alliance domino effect was upon us. It was like a lopsided World War I, but with the Duke playing the part of...well the Duke. All we needed was one Serb with a steady hand to seal the deal.

Instead, Harry and Rory joined the fray, and now I got a big beautiful pack of two trucks, a rat rod and a bike to help us mop the floor with these maniacs.

Brett came up alongside me, flashed me the okay sign, and flattened his throttle in time with mine. We were gonna be the battering ram to help clear the way for our more vulnerable (and twice as deadly) cohorts to make some mince meat.

And literally, as flanking me on my left was Rory, the white-furred madman rocking a machete he snagged from the paste we made running the Quags over. Frankly, the fact he was the one running around bare-chested yodeling war cries, and our Navajo rhythm man was politely glowering from behind the wheel of his F100 made me question who was the real warrior of the bunch.

Until I heard a tape click into place, followed by a whole heap of drums and a whole bunch of “HAYAAAAA-HAYAAAAAA.”

Kid had a fucking war tape!

I bet you he was saving for this exact rainy day. When you add mutt Harry, the short brown maniac driving with his sunglasses at night and already firing before we even hit a single biker, I caught the kind of bemused glower I ALSO never thought my favorite Wasteland rock-n-roller would ever shoot me.

“Y’all aren’t quite right in the head are ya?” Duke quizzed, checking his magazine.

“Least we’re on the right side of the law.” I replied, snapping my revolver’s cylinder back with a flick of the wrist.

“Shit, I’ll take it.” the elder gray sighed. He went to roll down the window, but when he felt the force of ten Harleys scrunching up against my bumper, hopping us around like a Japanese pogo-stick, he switched his safety on and waited for the road to smooth out. It eventually did when the rest of the gang realized I was driving a Hilux, and then he got to shooting. And not gonna lie: he was kinda sloppy on the road. Not careless, but he wasn’t as crack a shot as I’d hoped. That said, I was doing 125, he was in his 70s, and not-for-nothing, he was still doming these bastards something fierce.

He was also doing it one handed. In his other hand was a rosary, one he thumbed feverishly between shots. He was smart to pray, especially when they finally got a few shots on the truck.

“Shit!” Duke growled.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Singed the cheek, but that’s pretty damn close.”

I saw the blood on the pads of his hands and handed him a handkerchief from my pocket.

“Put that shit away, I ain’t gonna look like Van Gogh with these fuckers lighting into me!”

I left it on the seat and left the king to his bloody court. Not gonna lie, it was pretty badass of him, but he’s fucking lucky he’s got God on his side. They managed to whittle my sealant down and crack the windshield. Sure wasn’t helped by the way I was driving, barreling over bikes and bodies alike.

What the Duke didn’t dome, Brett smeared across the highway. What Brett didn’t smear, Harry blasted to kibbles-n-bits with his Remingtons. The bikers who managed to avoid all this got met with the business end of Rory and the machete. Let’s just say the mad bastard didn’t stay nice and pearly white for long the way he was swinging it.

It took us about an hour to do these fellas in. I wound up getting a kick across the knuckle when I started joining the shooting gallery. Brett’s bull-bars were pure white with scuffs, and his hood red with biker blood. Harry, in classic fashion, didn’t let a drop get on that speckled fur of his.

And again, Rory was coming out looking like an Apache after a Comanche field day.

The Duke, however...he still wasn’t looking too hot. He did wind up dabbing the blood off his cheek, but that wasn’t it. Poor fella was damn-near shell-shocked by the amount of shit he saw. Not that he wasn’t a tough wolf in his youth, but that old gray goat clearly wasn’t used to Hell Patrol numbers.

By the time we got back, there weren’t many folks left in the gig. Most of the folks were scared off by then, but the house staff didn’t close until three in the morning. The clock read us for 11:16.

“Want to finish the gig?” I asked.

At first, nothing doing. He was just stone-cold silent. I didn’t have to do a mirror breath test on him, but he was still not quite there. When the rest of the band strolled up to the battered, blood-caked Hilux, he looked down and saw three of the most earnestly worried faces I think he ever saw.

“You alright?” Brett began.

“Shit man, that was wild.” Harry chimed in.

“He ain’t hurt, is he Speed?” was the cap-off from Rory, and I think he was the one who convinced him. I joke about our resident lunatic, but Rory was just as big a fan as I was growing up, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look more like a pup than he did, looking up to make sure the fella who got him singing came out alright.

He looked down to those three faces, all rolled right back to 10 years old, and again smiled that gentle smile he hit us with.

“Well, they won’t pay you for just five songs. Let’s see who’s left in the mess hall.”

Our audience was halved, the locals had dumped the bodies out back, but we had plenty of time to kill before Hell Patrol’s cleanup crew rolled up. I got my bass slung on, and cocked my head to the band.

“As I was fucking saying” got a good laugh from the remaining (noticeably sloshed) patrons before I at long last reintroduced The Duke as “the only fucker who can take on a standing army of assholes and live to tell the tale.”

Then we tore right into it. The “crimson highway” line hit extra-special that night, but instead of fading back to that lonely ol’ booth, he matches us song-for-song for two hours straight. We kept playing as our fellow officers scraped the gangland massacre off the tarmac, and we kept playing after most of the audience passed out. We would’ve closed the joint had Duke not gotten a call from the Missus, during which he again had to make something crystal-clear.

“No babe, I ain’t dead. In fact, I think I’m ready to cut that new album.”

Now we woulda kept playing, but the knowledge that we had just gotten the bastard back in the saddle sent me spinning to the floor, followed by Harry, then Rory, then Brett.

When I found out about his double life, I wasn’t shocked by the idea so much as the image he made for himself. For you see, when dear old Harry Garret, alias Richter, isn’t touring with his favorite three metal machines, he is apparently one of the most prolific stunt guitarists in the music video biz. That is to say, when a solo singer or a band is short an axe-man in their video, they ring up Richter. And no matter the genre, style, or concept, the brown bastard always rolls up dressed like Amadeus in a leather jacket. Frilly shirts, jet-black harness boots, the works. The mutt looks mad as hell wherever he plays. Pop metal records, country guest shots. For God’s sake, the devil himself couldn’t hoodwink me into playing the hook on a rap album, and there his jewelry-clad digits were, laying down a heavy riff.

In a closeup on his guitar so tight, I could tell the costume jewels from the real sterling silver, but I digress.

Above all else, it gets him credits the likes of which we hadn’t seen in ages. Thusly, we decided it was about high-time we break from the live tours, once-in-a-blue moon CDs, and ceaseless spamming of what’s left of the World Wide Web, and make ourselves a goddamned music video.

And what a video we were going to make!

The blessing of our dear friend “cheating” on Metröpolis was that he could get us connections like there was no tomorrow. Guys with the cameras, guys with a sync system, a warehouse we could putz around in, all the amenities. The director, a gray fella going by the edge-tastic name “Lek Trik” was actually a pretty chill fella with a neat eye. Shorter than all of us, but rocking the leather slacks and Chuck Taylors well and absolutely full of ideas.

“Music gets busy as is,” the slim gray nodded, banging out storyboards live in front of our eyes. “I think a black-n-white, lots-of-midnight-type thing works for you guys. Full moons, weathered castles, wrought iron everything.”

It sounded good to me. Richter was absolutely mad for it, but the white knight himself wasn’t too sure.

“Old fantasy shit?” Rory quizzed. “What gotcha that idea?”

“The way Harry comes dressed to shoots, and the way you guys play.” Trik nodded. “Sounds like a cavalry stampede coming down over the hill. Y’all coulda been knights o’ the round table way-back-whenever.”

Our secondary show-off Brett chuckled before adding, “nah, I betcha Comanche blood runs through these cats’ veins. That or Apache. They’s as vicious as you can get.” The tan hound noodled off a couple lines while we were all busting up in hysterics.

What we didn’t realize was that we just gave ol’ Mr. Trik a helluva new direction.

“Hey, how bout that!?” he hollered, the gray launching a furious sketching session. “I know we run around with plenty of the Old West out here in the desert, but I can’t recall any videos lately that really leaned into that.”

When we were told the whole picture, we were hooked! It was still set at night and all that Gothic jazz, but with this funny little storyline about a rambling cowboy wasting vampires and bedding broads. He got his second unit up and filming at all sorts of crazy hours, but got us in the studio as fast as he could. Day One was all about lip-syncing the song up.

And boy howdy was that a draaaaaag.

The song we settled on was an old favorite, “Fair Weather for the Devil.” Nice, four-on-the-floor fuck-you anthem. Good bassline, a patent-pending Richter solo full of freewheeling fretwork. We had to get ol’ Navajo Joe himself in the recording booth because it was one of the tunes we wrote back when the band was still in power trio mode.

Little did we suspect the three-course meal of kickass we were gonna be treated to when he took up the second verse and bit into the chorus lead-in “you ain’t eva gonna stop quitchin’ your bitchin’” and let out a scream that flattened our ears and almost took out the vocal booth glass. The poor boy looked like a pup when he saw us on our backs with our boots in the air, but three thumbs up told him it was the take to beat.

Anyhow, we now had ourselves some perfect video single material. But man, was that sync system a Stone Age marvel. We gave the fella the file, and at first it was playing fine, we were getting into the instrumental fine, but then it started going on the fritz. Take after take and we hadn’t even “sung” a line.

Then it started playing a whole step down. Now for me, Richter and I knew the tuning by heart, so I wasn’t budging. Unfortunately for Brett, his tan digits tried to play catch-up with the impromptu key shift. So now our new recruit’s getting pissed with himself, and we’re wondering what the hell’s going on with the system.

We found out on the suitably numbered Take 13 when a shot of sparks ripped out from the black box, and the last thing we heard was a tone of signal feedback that could wake the dead and behead them the second they shot outta the grave. We left it to Rory to clear the air as he hulked out on his crash cymbal and damn near threw the whole fucking kit around in an ape-shit fit

“FUCK THIS SHIT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE! I AIN’T GONNA FUCKING DO 15 MORE TAKES OF THIS GODDAMN, MOTHERSUCKING HORSESHIT!”

I could see the fear in Lek Trik’s eyes and I pulled him aside after slapping the white-hot hurricane back into sanity.

“Look, we can do it just fine without all the tech.” I sighed. “We’ll be more animated, more into it, and we can get this day locked in.”

Our gray-furred movie magician steepled his fingers, buried his snout in ‘em and came back up with the answer. “Let’s go for it. If it doesn’t perfectly sync, we’ll cut back to the storyline or save it with some abstracts.”

Live it was, and live we played. And I mean LIVE. Our white-furred drummer worked himself up to such a rolling boil he was beating the batshit out of his snares. The only time I ever heard his foot that heavy was one of two times I ever let him drive my pickup. I was feeling like a million dollars, belting the song out bar-for-bar, right on the metronome.

Then it came to Brett, and off-the-rails things went. Again.

The poor bastard’s voice was cracking like a preteen with his first Playboy, he didn’t know what the fuck was going on and it slipped us all up. Rory was about to be the first white wolf to turn beet-red at the speed of sound, but I steadied him as I sauntered over to our new recruit. He was getting pissed with himself.

“Yo, Brave, take it easy on yourself.” I nodded. “We can roll it back to the downbeat.”

Our tan guitarist sighed, gave himself a slap on the muzzle like a car dealer on a hood, and gave the thumbs up. We gave him plenty of runaway with the count-off, took it from the downbeat, and off he soared at last.

And when I mean soar, I mean you shoulda SEEN the faces we were getting from the crew. Whole packa hounds, black, white, red, cyan, all jaws on the floor and damn-near wall-eyed at the sight and sound of our soulful rhythm man. Got even better when we came out of the chorus and into the solo section where Mr. Harrison “Richter” Garret—and I’m still not over how he does this—nailed the solo from the record NOTE FOR NOTE. Brown bastard mutt managed every accent, every arpeggio. He made that Strat scream for mercy and beg for seconds, and I just remember me and Brett moving in close to him, grooving on our axes, and just milking the moment for all the rock-n-roll drama we could.

When we finished the song, we got a standing ovation from the whole crew.

“Great, now for the closeups.”

And just like that, we all collapsed on the floor, simultaneously. None of us passed OUT mind you, but after giving that raw and hard of a performance, and knowing we got to go in and do all that lip-biting “bedroom eyes” B.S., we begged to take five, and by the grace of Trik’s line producer, we got it.

We drank our beers (or gin in Rory’s case), milled about, and got to chopping it up with the crew. The camera operators who knew Harry from other gigs were cracking each other up with their favorite cock-rock poses.

“We got the nice wide leg sweep,” Harry leaned down. “We got Elvis the Pelvis, grinding all over the butt of his guitar. Bite your lip a lil’ more and it looks like she’s taking it in the jack.” He went on like that for ages.

I was fixing to give Brett a pep-talk, but Trik had that covered.

“Remember when Art Blaine was really big?” the gray director nodded, leg kicked up against the warehouse wall. “He was like the crown jewel of the airwaves for a solid year? Yeah, I directed one of his later clips. That schmaltz-fest ‘Like The Leaves.’ Swell guy, meh song, but during that he was getting some real stage-fright. Big black hound, built like Nic but lean, voice smooth as butter, and he was getting jitters on the set. I think it was just so big. The huge plaster fountain piece, the running water, the colored sky. It was like a real PRODUCTION, and I don’t think he’d done many clips like that.”

“How’d he get over it?”

“Well first it was my coaxing.” Trik grinned. “Weird beatnik dude like me just telling a pop star like him to chill was enough in some cases. But the real trick was—”

SKREEEEEEEEEEE!!!

In a split-second, a new set of doors was opened in the steel walls of the warehouse. We lost about two halogen lamps, and one key grip was sent flying into Rory’s kit.

Luckily, neither was hurt.

But when a second asshole came screaming through those freshly made thresholds, me and the boys realized we had a chase on our hands.

“RICHTER! MADSKINS! ON YOUR RIDES!” I bellowed, and my brothers-in-arms were bolting right behind me.

“NEED ME, NIC?” Brett hollered back.

I stopped on a dime and looked dead at him. “If anyone comes driving through like that, open another mouth in the back of his neck.”

Brett drew his pistol, checked his magazine, and gave me the nod.

“Besides,” Trik added, eyes wide and reeling from the shock, “extra set of hands can’t hurt getting this cleaned up.”

I was in my blue Hilux, Harry in his red-and-white hot-rod, and Rory back on his beast of a bike as we all wisely sped around the warehouse and towards the two cars.

They were faded white sedans, hailing from those halcyon 1980s. A Corolla and a Starion, a match-made in import heaven.

My Hilux joined the Japanese rendezvous and sidled up alongside the Corolla.

“THIS IS OFFICER RIDGEFIELD OF HELL PATROL.” I roared over the pickup’s speakers. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF.”

They identified as a round of .357 Magnum from the business end of a Ruger, which drilled against my bulletproof glass. Harry came up on the opposite side and split the bastard’s skull with his credentials. We left that first sedan to its fate of rolling over as we bolted up to the Starion. I was ready to give this creep a second riot for blitzing through and spoiling a good chunk of our film shoot. Come plowing through in your fat-ass sedan, taking out a heap of gear.

Then I saw her face.

Her face told a story all her own. A young red wolf, nothing but a tank-top and jeans, running her ride flat-out, cradling her husband with a hole in his gut. She looked over to me with the kinds of eyes I hadn’t seen in ages. The sorriest damn eyes. I gave a gentle nod, flashed my badge and spoke over the speaker.

“Medhub is just ten miles south of our current path. Keep ‘er on the floor, we’ll follow suit.”

She gave me a catatonic nod, but she understood. We steered her like tugs along an ocean-liner to the MedHub where the nurses and on-site doctor got right to work.

Gal’s name was Melanie Lake, her husband Tom, and the bastard who we polished off for them was a sordid little creep named Kasdan Clash. White wolf, 5’ 5”, wasn’t as mangy as our other crooks, but when I gave Harry the deets, he came back with a profile from HQ that spelled it all.

“Good old-fashioned highwayman.” the brown mutt sneered. “Never takes no for an answer. Though he actually had a warrant out on him for arson.”

“Long may he rest in piss.” Rory spat.

Our red stranger began to apologize for the commotion in the warehouse, but to all our surprise, it was the white, half-gloved hand of Rory that patted her shoulder and quelled her nerves. “Hey, I’d be lucky enough to have a woman drive the way you do in a situation like that. Technically I DO, she’s just a little on the wilder side.”

When the word was out that Tom was gonna kick out alright, we bid our adieus, informed the chief, and hightailed it back to the shoot.

It was around 4 PM we got there, and while there was still plenty of sun, we saw that most of the crew had hightailed it, save for our intrepid director and our second guitarist

“I take it this was a union job?” I hollered through the still-fresh hole in the wall.

“Nah, sent them out to do some second unit. But you ain’t ever gonna believe this.”

Turns out Mr. Trik had a portable editing suite and was cooking like a crack addict on this video with what he had shot so far. Most of it was just us playing, but every time we built up the chorus, he cut in some crazy-ass shots that brought the energy up to 11. He got shots of Rory’s freak-outs, one time Harry slammed his guitar down after a lip-sync louse-up, and when our favorite Injun belted out “bitchin’,” we were all treated to a heart attack as we saw Mrs. Lake plow almost dead on into the camera before crashing back into our own performance.

“Watcha think?”

A solid half-minute of silence from our hapless asses was broken by a shit-eating grin on Rory’s face and the loudest laugh I ever heard rip from his lungs.

“Never a frame wasted then?” he guffawed before bringing him in for a mean bear-hug. “That’s good shit man.”

Shit good enough keep us there filming all the closeups he could ever want. When we finally got the finished video, man was it a trip. Sure the “stampede” was a buncha funky model puppets, but the guy and gal he got in this were a helluva couple. And there we were, singing ‘bout ol’ Beelzebub and his thankless ass. It was fast, it was loud, it was fun. It was a damn fine piece of art, and we made sure to keep Mr. Trik on speed-dial for all future video engagements.

Only problem: the bastard didn’t chart. C’est la vie.

Friend of the Force KIT SUN CHEAH is back at it again with the epic conclusion to his BABYLON cyberpunk horror saga! The finale BABYLON WHITE brings the war of the New Gods and the remnants of the Special Tasks Section to an apocalyptic pitch, and we’re here to send them off right!

Digital perks from 365 INFANTRY are featured as add-ons, including revamped PDF editions of the 2022 & 2023 Annuals, and a special compilation of ALAN FIREDALE episodes & music! Also included is an original music single “NOVA BABYLONIA” by yours truly to celebrate the quartet’s closure!

Even if you don’t need any of our wares, Cheah is an incredible talent worth supporting, and so are the electrifying cosmic horrors of BABYLON!

BACK BABYLON WHITE TODAY!

For your old buddy-n-pal-n-evening-entertainment Nic Ridgefield, there’s a sort of blues-off me and the boys always do to get a jam session going. Not just playing your bog-standard, 12-bar boot-scooter, but hitting the grooves with thicker and thicker guitar tones until it’s all fuzz screaming out the amps. Normally Harry Garret always won, his big-bad Fender howling its scalloped heart out. Normally. It was only after roping in our new recruit Brett Tsé that the winning streak was broken. Our tan-furred brave managed to blow both our asses clear out, landing heavy blows with guitars riffs a half-step from hell itself.

“Guess we’re doom now,” chuckled Rory Armstrong. “Makes my job easier.” The white-furred devil was still kicking out of a wipe-out he had on-assignment, so spacing out on his ride cymbal was about the best he could do in rehearsals. What’s funny is that he wasn’t that far off. I, for one, started fingering my bass that night.

There, even gave ya the chance to laugh that one out your system.

But not only am I playing my bass like bass instead of an overpowered guitar, Harry starts playing with a helluva lot more vibrato than any of us was used to. And man, shit sounded heavier than all the bombs in the world, dropped at once.

Didn’t hurt that’s what Brett kept singing about.

“Anything else on your peace pipe’s mind?” Harry would always quip.

His tan-furred compadre always had the same answer. “Well SOOORRY it ain’t all kibbles and bitches, sunshine.”

Shit like that’s why we nicknamed him “The Brave.” Well that, and to keep the Navajo jokes going. Brett was always quick on the draw like that when he wanted to be.

Only thing faster than his comebacks was my hand on the ham-radio when the ol’ Commish rang up. When I slid that little black box from my hip to my cocked-back ears, the words I heard were ones I ain’t ever heard since certification.

“We got an untouchable.”

Now of course, some y’all got a fedora-clad fella with a Tommy gun in mind, but that ain’t the way we play out here in Hell Patrol. For us, an “untouchable” is what it says on the tin: a job no one wants to do. Our P.D.0. cases tend to be the ones that get those designations the most, but “untouchable” also means jobs where no one CAN do anything. That is, we’re always the ones running around on orders. Orders with names, numbers, facts, figures, the whole nine. You can hand us the culprit’s name on a silver platter, but we can’t do shit without the bastard’s business card. These file-o-facts are always whipped up by whip-smart detectives and a few private investigators, but they’re just as wolven as the rest of us, i.e. fallible.

Therefore, if laymen like us are getting served an untouchable, it means we gotta be real detectives for once. And the funny thing about Hell Patrol is that our answer to any problem is to dump more men on it until it gets solved.

The murders I was served involved decapitations the long way round. A rash of homicides in a nearby settlement, Danesville. No eyewitnesses, just some poor critter opening a door, and finding that crimson highway pouring out onto the shag floor. That, and a sort of marking drawn on the floors of each, with melted candle-wax found nearby. Same M.O. for all four mentioned.

My only options were saying “yes” or “yes, sir” to the task, and so I said, “yeah.”

Before heading out to dig through my module, we decided to kicked things around for a bit, just to see what fresh angles we could come up with. The candle wax was the odd item out, and so that’s where we started.

“Maybe they snagged something from the scene.” Harry said, brown digits noodling away, even after unplugging his Fender from his amps. “Brought a candle or nicked one from the home, stuffed the thing they stole in an envelope, and did a wax seal on-site.”

“Didn’t sound like they stole anything though.” Rory pondered. “We know for sure they didn’t snag a finger or ear. Maybe the wax was just collateral. Someone lights something for the evening, killer barges in, candle goes flying.”

“‘Not ‘round midnight though,” I fired back. “Not unless he managed four night owls in a row.”

Then from outta nowhere, in comes Brett with one word: “rites.” The three of us turned to him, and I gave him the “go ahead” nod of approval.

“Well obviously we ain’t talking ‘bout scalping,” he continued, still playing along to Harry’s neoclassical nonsense. “You’re supposed to go across the skull-top, not crack it like an egg. But markings and candle wax sound like ancient shit in modern times. Can’t find a goat’s skull? What the hell, crack Kenny-down-the-street’s open, his brains are good as anyone else’s. All sorts of crazy pagan killings like that, around the time of Samhain and shit. Though it ain’t quite October, is it?”

“Summer solstice has already been and gone.” I nodded, plucking a final note off my bass. “Guess that’s our cue to actually look at these things on the ol’ CRT. All four of us.”

Brett’s eyes shot open like a cuckoo clock at high noon. “Four?”

“Did my black-ass stutter?” I shot back. “If your hypothesis comes out king, I’m gonna need that knowledge on deck.”

“I-uh—sure thing.”

I suppose it was the shock of actually being asked on, having missed at least 20 assignments, 10 chases, five shootouts and a partridge in a pear tree. Brett, bless ‘im, never was a Hell Patrolman. It worked out swell for his chances of living, but made jam sessions like ours bitter affairs when we got our daily, undodgeable draft. Those early months were miserable at times, mainly because we all just wanted to play, and I kept leaving our latest recruit in the lurch. Fortunately, today was not that day.

We gathered round my pickup’s monitor, shotgun-side door open so everyone didn’t look like a five-year-old reaching up a toy-shop window, and went over the photos. The less said about what the inside of the wolven skull looks like, the better, especially after getting served a late-night Lizzie Borden special. What was important was the sanguinary symbols drawn. Against all logic, they weren’t pentagrams or backwards swastikas, but dots inside circles. Rather, a swatch of floor always cut through the red pool. And if it was hardwood, or some darker shade, the dude always plopped a cotton ball or something white to make the image out.

“Are them eyes or tits?” Harry pondered, stroking his chin.

“Which side of the coin?” Rory replied, balancing a classic American quarter on his thumb.

“Let Brett peep ‘em.” I said, col-cocking both upside the head. When the Navajo dynamo muscled in, he didn’t say anything at first, just kept swiping his tan hand across the clicker to survey the whole lot. When he stopped on a wide shot of Victim One, a fella about my height and color named Ted Baxter, he did about the funniest thing we’d seen all day.

“Computer, enhance 24 to—” was all poor Brett got out before we broke up in hysterics. He looked ready to blind us with a good left hook until I explained our eternal struggle to get voice-activated anything. The bitch about pirating Haven’s wares was that they almost always made it to the Force or third-party thugs, and never us. The Force was too busy tinkering with them and the thugs always wanted more credits than any of them was worth. We’d used to talk all that coordinate gobbledygook, pretend we had a full, 3D mapped image, and fell down laughing like toddlers for having done so.

“Buddy, you’re lucky you ain’t looking at an Etch-A-Sketch!” I hollered. “Pinch-er-spread your claws across the screen, that’ll zoom ya in and out.”

He did just that, after a surly scowl to silence our peanut gallery, and brought us right into a chunk of ol’ Ted’s skull. That finally got us ALL to pipe down because we realized the blood pools meant little compared to the black marks etched on the skull.

“That’s the ol’ glyph for Flying Head...but what the devil is a myth from the Northeast doing around here?”

When I pressed him on this, Brett gave me one of the tallest tales I ever heard in life. Big, disembodied heads, long locks of twisting hair, floating round the tribe they used to call Iroquois up in the joint they used to call New York. Vengeful spirits and all that jazz, coming back to haunt those who wronged ‘em.

And here it was, in damn near the furthest place it could be. None of us believed the mumbo-jumbo. Hell, Brett himself said he hadn’t even seen the Rolling Heads he was “promised,” them’s being the Old West equivalent of these Flying Heads.

However, both tales implied some pretty grisly shit regardless, and the mixed martial magic on display meant it was anyone’s guess whose denomination was the main motivating factor. All ambiguities that kept our asses on guard for the rest of the case.

And so, off we rock, barreling over to Danesville to hook up with the local sheriff, who then punts us over to a guided tour of the crimes. Danesville is a bit of a weird setup where the town has a pretty solid-built center, with a sub-suburb rack of houses outside of it. None of the houses in town had been hit yet, it was all just the outskirters we were inspecting. Wasn’t exactly a Sunday stroll either, especially when one of the joints hadn’t been fumigated. I’ll paint the picture as politely as I can so...imagine your garbage can after it rains, but before you empty it.

Yeah. That.

Fragrances aside, I ain’t ever seen a scene quite like these. I made a few outta the perps I was sic’d on way back when, but not like this, not in a room this small or a way this gruesome.

It’s funny too, the way you gotta look at it from both sides of the law. “We’re not so different, you and I,” at its best is a cheap platitude you get hit with before you rip a rapist’s arms off or torch an arsonist. But then again, you don’t have to go looking back after the job’s been done. You take ‘em out by the Maypole, you do ‘em in, you move on to the next.

But this. Strolling into a home once owned, sifting through a hound once alive, reading out observations on a little pocket-mic, saying shit like “The bodies show traces of ritualist violence. A kind of electric ceremony where the blood split isn't just for sport or play; he basks in this shit. He wears it. And I don't think he'll ever stop.”

Well Brett said that one, anyhow. I just dictated it into the recorder, but the point remains. This is why getting pulled into active investigations is a trip-and-a-half for any hound stuck running the rat race. You finally gotta look the gore in the face, and I’d seen plenty in my day. Justified, of course. It was seeing it unjustified that turned any good wolf’s stomach inside out.

That or the stench reeking from that one-story shack like stink lines on a Sunday strip. That got us all doubled over the second we opened that damn door.

Things got freaky once we started inspecting the bodies, and the rooms they were found in. There was only one fresh soul to go over, who bore the same strange etching on his brain-box, and just about every wall bore a “sparse beauty that’d make Pollock weep.”

Doth quote Harrison “Richter” Garret anyway. Kid always was cooking up the weirdest lyrics for us.

Anywhosamawhats, all throughout our investigation that day, Brett was looking more and more worried.

“Heya,” he asked the local sheriff, rubbing the scruff of that slim tan neck of his. “Do you know if any shamans are still living ‘round here?”

“Yeah,” the gray sheriff nodded. “Twofeathers a few houses back.”

“Are you cool with him cleansing the place?”

The good old boy fixed his ten-gallon hat before answering with that incredible Texan drawl...”yeah, sure thing.”

The “Twofeathers” in question was really just a nickname, for he had two quail feathers slid under his hat-band. That said, he was the real spiritual McCoy Brett wanted. He could’ve been Brett’s great-great-great grandfather the way he looked, shambling in with smudging sticks and a full pack of cigarettes. He ground the smokes out and sprinkled the tobacco on every site we were latecomers to, but kept him off the latest of the bunch. It was only after we had made our final inspections, got our little trick-or-treat bags full of evidence, that we waved the shaman on and let him hoya his last hoya all over the joint.

“You seem to have a good head on you for this kinda stuff,” Rory pondered, white hands drumming on his knee. “What kinda paperback hell you crawl outta?”

Brett smiled that sheepish smile before answering. “Well ya see, it’s just familiar that’s all. No cute sob stories, just seen plenty of Wasteland wackos killing like this. If they happen to sprinkle in something fresh like Native myth from halfway across the continent, then you got me thinking.”

“Why all the salt-sowing?” Harry added, the brown-mutt surveying the last room like a health inspector.

“Well, if someone’s able to brand a hound’s skull with a pretty intricate glyph.” Brett replied. “He believes this shit and I don’t see no reason to not play along. That, or the bastard just ain’t real. And it’s the ‘just ain’t real’ bit that gets me.”

Now, as I’m sure y’all can attest, we’re not easily spooked on Hell Patrol. And we weren’t by Brett’s little quip either. There’s always a rational explanation for these things. Some jamoke’s born with a few screws loose and no one to tighten ‘em, hauls off and kills some folks, and we get called in to put him down. And even if we weren’t the most inveterate sleuths in the game, we’d surely be able to find something.

We didn’t find shit for the next week.

The killings had stopped, full-stop. Nothing, nada, ádin. There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of “DNA evidence,” thanks to our analyzers were running on coffee grounds and orthodox prayer. Besides there being a consistent M.O. (ax to head, native graffiti on skull fragments), the suspect list in Danesville was downright impoverished. A lot of the residents were up in years, and half of ‘em couldn’t even pick up an ax, let alone bring it down on someone’s head.

Now, the one thing I always abide by was the polygraph. I’d been tinkering with a new model of one that goes right to the brain instead of just vitals. Like I said earlier, Hell Patrol was running on pocket lint at that particular juncture, so I had to cook up prototypes in private and on my own dime. Either way, we ran both a regular polygraph and my little device on damn near everyone in the town. Beyond a few folks confessing to two robberies, three batteries, and starting a bush fire two weeks before a controlled burn on accident, the folks of Danesville were just fine wolves with their own little foibles. We put in words with sheriffs of nearby towns to keep an eye on any killings with the M.O. mentioned, but still, nothing came up.

And then, one night, it all came into view.

We had gotten done with a set at Doc’s, and we were all plum-beat. Everyone’s throats all screamed out, blisters on the pads of our fingers, whole nine. We get done, pack up our gear, bid adieu to the Oasis crew and all run off to our separate abodes. ‘Cuz Brett’s bunking with me, we have a little drag-race back to my shack before hitting the hay. The Brave won (sonofabitch) and after shooting the shit over one last beer, we’re both out like a light.

I get about two-three hours of sleep before I hear a shot fired. A full-on pulse of five-alarm laser power. I’m up and at ‘em like the Alamo’s back on and book it for Brett’s room, only to stumble my ass over my own bare paws and take one in the schnoz on the hardwood floor. I pick me and my delirium back up, spin round while pulling my pants up, and find myself standing over the body.

He was a red wolf, about my height again, small fists curled around the handle of an ax. Blood pooled from his skull onto Brett’s floor, and up on the bed was the little big man himself with an automatic in hand.

“Hey Nic.” Brett asked me, his tone low.

“Yeah?”

“Check those profiles again.”

We got the body hauled away, and sure enough, the answer was right there all along: all victims were of some native extraction. Some distant tribe or a cocktail therein, didn’t matter. None of them bore it outwardly, not like Brett did with his chokers and fringed suede, and none of them were full-blood either.

To all outward appearances, so read our final debrief, it looked like it was all some strange spiritual crusade in the end. Maybe he hated “half-breeds,” maybe it was internalized what-have-you, that all went to his grave. We worked to get an ID on him, but didn’t have so much as a license on his person, or a car ten miles from my shack. When we went back to Danesville with a police sketch in hand (seeing as the crime scene photos of my house woulda cut their population in half through heart attacks alone), no one knew him. Not even the shaman.

And that was it. Who he was, where he came from, none of us knew. How that primeval mind knew who to pick and where to pick ‘em, none of us knew, not even Brett. That quartet of killings, even after we got our guy, stayed with us for ages.

So naturally, we wrote a song about. And man, was it heavy.

Alright, so normally I don’t do requests, but we got some super-special circumstances on this one. Good ol’ Harry Garret, “Richter” to those in the know, sent something from his cozy little security man alcove in Infantry HQ. Now, seeing as the brown-furred sonofabitch couldn’t be fucked to join us, that means yours truly is doing the honors.

That said, I love the dog like a brother (plus I work with him to keep y’all safe out there in Radioland), so I ain’t too broke up about relaying this little number. But dig this: 50% of what you’re about to hear was Richter’s little rock-n-roll fantasy, and the other 50 was genuine fact. Pick your favorite bits, and that’s the story to believe. Tall tales are fun that way. And it all starts with a girl and a gun.

Enter one desert-brown mutt, having a lovely time with the fair-furred Scarlet in bed. And no, I ain’t gonna read the paragraph of smut he threw down. You’re lucky the FCC ain’t around to cave your teeth in, and that the Missus still has a wedding band on her finger.

So after the two get done doing the atomic dog, he gets up, gets in his western wares, and leaves his sleeping beauty to rest. He has to put the finishing touches on a specially-rigged Strat he’s been toying with since he joined me and our pearl-white pal Rory Armstrong in Metröpolis.

Now you’ve seen rock stars with all sorts of wacky guitar setups, right? 12-strings, double-necked, guitar-bass combos, bodies made from car parts, flamethrower lookalikes, the works. Well tonight, our wunderkind was making a ghetto-ass laser-gun on the Strat’s back. And not some chintzy laser-light show you see at a rock festival out here or up on stages in Haven. I mean a laser RIFLE. Pluck a string, fires a round. Play “Miserlou” and you waste an army.

To answer the burning question of why, may I remind you all that your story for the evening was penned by a redneck mutt who could play at 11, shred at 15, and nail hour-long sets at 18 with a voice that could level a settlement. A young hound for whom the height of class is bombing around in a ‘34 rat rod with license plates all over the floorboards and a pedal assembly made up of a silver paw for a gas pedal and a stop-sign brake that reads “Oh Shit.”

The boy ain’t right, but the boy’s ain’t dumb either.

Now of course, when he tries it out, he shatters the metal target outside his house on the first pluck. And when he decides to play one of our favorite tunes, “In The Bottom of the Bomb” (available in your local discount dollar bin), he makes enough noise to wake up his girl.

And half the neighborhood.

And half his humbuckers when the guitar went up like Dresden.

Needless to say the collective holler of “QUIET” and some singed claws put an end to late-night testing. And while Scarlet, ever the lass, tried to get him back in bed, the male urge to keep tinkering with shit was overwhelming, and Harry spent the next few hours getting his broken dreams back together. Which is all kosher, ‘cause I got the whole crew the weekend off.

Unfortunately, I forgot to unplug everyone’s radios.

Cut to my black ass and the rest of the band. Doc has graciously allowed us do some “live” rehearsals, which is his friendly way of saying “you’re paying off your tab by playing or else.” And so we obliged.

At least 3/4ths of us.

Rory was there, giving his drum kit the works, I couldn’t not be there with my wall of four-stringed noise, and good ol’ Brett “The Brave” Tsé had been with us for about a month or so by then, and knew the set inside out.

But where, pray-tell, was ye olden Harrison Garret?

Out joy-riding with his pretty white bitch and his two-toned, eight-cylinder speed demon. He let her take the wheel this time, and lemme say for the record that Scarlet Garret (née Jones), is a damn good driver. She got a keen mind when it comes to drifting, and a mean mind when it comes to dragstrippin’. I’ve talked about her Camaro “Sheba” on the show before, but get her and that blood-red ‘78 on a strip, and whoever the hell is on the other side of that Christmas tree is a doomed hound. Dead, donezo, eating seven shades of desert dust.

So naturally, she clips a wall in the first 20 feet. And then a derelict foundation. And almost goes over the…Christ, did she really Harry? Good grief.

Anywhosamawhat, in a merciful display of decorum, Harry wasn’t flaming mad about any of this. In fact, he’s too busy making merry (and other extracurriculars) to notice. I’d go as far to say that extracurriculars may have been part of the problem.

Regardless, it is between his extraordinary bouts of lechery that he tinkers with the guitar. Every time they hit a bump, a round fires. And while he’s smart about not pointing it at the floor, last thing he needs is getting wasted from the back seat by his own gun. It’s midway through their bombing around and our one-day “Pay the Piper” residency that the call comes in.

“EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY. CALLING ALL PATROLMEN, CALLING ALL PATROLMEN.”

I got the ears of a hawk, even after all the torture I put them through, so when I hear a bulletin like that, I know my ass is grass if I don’t answer it, even in the middle of a “gig.” I pass the buck to Brett, he starts his bluesy noodling, and I hop offstage, booking it for my pickup. “Officer Ridgefield,” I hollered, “What’s happening?”

“We got ourselves a J.G.Z. on the lamb in a blue-and-white ‘82 AMC Eagle. Name’s Elwood Perkins, 5-foot 9-inches, white wolf, maybe strung out on radium. Firebombed Northern settlement Clantonville, seen heading south to Central. Killed at least six in the attack.”

“He coming by Doc’s Oasis?”

“No clue. It’s why she’s called a dragnet.”

Fair enough.

I was fortunate to catch Rory and Brett at the end of the song when I broke the bad news. My white drummer took it easy, but the long face on Brett made me feel like shit. Like we’re all grown-ass men, but I could tell he was really getting into it, and him being the only civvy in the band was still a growing pain when it came to getting called into action.

“Hold down the fort, and show ‘em what you got,” was all I could say, but that was plenty. There was a moment of silence, a counting off with the tap of his boot, and with a gnarly snarl of his Les Paul, he fired up an old favorite, “Mistreated.” That was the last thing we heard before high-tailing it after our pyromaniac.

Meanwhile on Lover’s Lane, Richter and Scarlet had a choice; drop the gal off home where she would be safe, and let her man take care of business, or take her along for the ride. After all, the last time any of us had seen her in action, it was as a hostage of a proper creep. The fact she came out the other end as well adjusted as she did is something I keep thanking God for everyday.

That said, our fair-furred gal had a penchant for being just as nutty as her boy-toy, and Harry would just as soon take a bullet for her as she would dish ‘em out for whoever tried their hand. Not to mention he now had a highly volatile, but incredibly power prototype he could shred away on.

Naturally, they chose the fun option.

“I’ll let you take the wheel” were the first words out of her lips before he bumped her back behind the wheel.

“Nah, babe,” he smiled. “You’re gonna have the real fun.”

She ripped the rod into gear, slapped that sandaled paw down, and off they went. Richter jimmied his killer riff machine, praying the bastard didn’t blow his face off, and called into the Commish to let him know he’d be joining the chase.

Now, I don’t know how bad a six-hound body-count registers up north. Like one’s too many regardless, but when I got told we had a dragnet on, I wasn’t prepared for Rory and I to be joined by a standing army to hunt the bastard down. Like if General Godred had spotted our asses at the wrong angle, at the wrong time, we’d look like an invading force. And swerving into view was the lovely Miss Scarlet, rocking the red-and-white ‘34 Ford, with Officer Garret riding shotgun, with his six-string shotgun.

As you can imagine, my response was that of a cool, calm and collected professional. A hound of utmost grace and class while in the field.

“THE HELL IS A CIVILIAN DOING ON THE DAMN JOB, RICHTER!?”

His answer was about as nonchalant as I ever heard in my life.

“We’re taking ‘em out with the big three, Speed. Sex, drugs & rock-n-roll.”

I don’t know what world this young fella was in, but it felt like I missed the first few reels of this action movie he was cooking up.

"Run that by me again Richter.” says I. “You're gonna kill 'em with WHAT!?"

"You heard me you black sonofabitch!” he shot back over the radio, steel-capped boots kicked up on the dash. “Sex, drugs & rock-n-roll! The bullets are laced, the Fender Bender's locked and loaded. And as for the sex...let's just say Scarlet and I got that base covered.”

To be honest, I didn’t know what to say. First off, it’s a laser rifle, how the fuck do you lace a laser? There’s no “poison dart” selection on these cartridges, you can’t go to the Gun Emporium and ask for an Agent Orange. If there was, we’d all leave ‘em on for the hell of it. To be honest, dude sounded like he was off his own face on something, but knowing his temperament, it could’ve easily been good ol’ high-T ego. Fortunately for my flabbergasted ass, Rory knew just what to say.

“That’s cute, kid.” he sighed from the comfort of his mighty bike. “Now how about you put in practice.”

And I shit you not, on command, out came our rust-bucket AMC. There’s our hound of the hour; off his face, cackling mad, all the usual criminal shit. And just like that, our dog got his silver screen moment.

“Your wish, our command. Floor ‘er Scarlet!”

That rat rod starts screaming, his bad little bitch starts cackling, and Richter snaps to attention. He strikes a mighty power chord and…nothing. Dumbass forgot to plug it in.

So he plugs it in, flips the switch, resumes his imposing pose, and, at last, lives up to his call sign. He rattled off a power chord and sent a stream of blood-red laser fire right into the cat’s bumper.

NOW it was picture-perfect. That malaise-era machine was rocking and rolling alright, the devil-driver Perkins going fucking ballistic (as most our favorite radium junkies do), and it looked like he could’ve blasted the run-flats right out from under him too.

Until the Northern boys took my guitar god’s cannon fire as their cue, and the dragnet went to absolute pieces.

I imagine Northern Hell Patrol was extra-over-served that morning, because like a slurring war machine they came on. Revolvers, peashooters, rifles, sawed-offs, firing a wall of electric lead, one after another, into each others’ bumpers, and like five shots managed to make their mark on the AMC. Every other recruit scattered, Rory and I dodging the chaos of a dozen muscle cars and motorbikes zig-zagging, kicking up dust. One of the dumbasses even nicked my Hilux’s rear window. The schmuck payed for it with a right hook to the jaw afterwards.

We rocked up alongside Richter and Scarlet when our thug played himself a real nasty trick: he pulled out a Les Paul and started firing back.

Let that sink in.

Here we have an arsonist, chased by a gaggle of shit-faced patrolman, us three and a few stragglers trying to stabilize the situation, and my young buck managed to bring a guitar-gun to a guitar-gun fight.

And best of all, Richter was fucking PISSED when he saw that. I mean I saw steam comin’ out of those desert-brown ears, he threw out every swear in the book, and he just started shredding away. I’m talking a wall of noise that’d make a Norseman proud. Dog’s quoting Bach, noodles himself into a real Blitzkrieg, and in reply, dear ol’ Elwood replies with nothing but 12-bar blues played at Mach speed.

If it wasn’t for the arson, I’d have brought him on stage for a set. But such is life.

Funnier still, Scarlet’s still there in all this commotion. At first, she got skittish, as most civvies do in these chases. She ducked, kept her paw down, but now she couldn’t see. Now you have this comedy of errors happening where Harry starts steering with his boot, accidentally stomps his chick’s hand, she brakes from shock, and he almost launches himself at the AMC!

It was one of Elwood’s misses that sent Harry stumbling back, away from the indignity of a death befitting a North Hell Patrolman. He takes a quick seat and looks to his lover. She’s well past embarrassed, but he takes a deep breath, gives her a kiss and says “DON’T WORRY, KEEP GOING!” in the manner of a drill sergeant on a triple shot of piss and vinegar.

You could see, even from where I was, a million things running thru her mind:

1. He’s even hotter when he’s angry.

2. Holy fuck, I almost killed him.

3. Just relax, dumbass.

The last one you could tell because she popped herself one in the cheek and shook the nerves off like fleas. That’s that’s a lesson for all y’all duellists and drag-racers to remember: kill your nerves, pump yourself up!

Now that our FCC mandated edutainment is over, back to the action, where there roared Elwood Perkins and Harry Garret, in a battle of one-hound bands. Shredding, screaming, going absolutely ballistic on each other. My hound was quick on the duck, but Elwood was shit with his aim, which made dodging just as much a gamble. And not to mention the chaos reigning behind me and the white-furred biker next to me.

“Don’t something always come to fix this?” I hear Rory holler over the radio.

“Watcha mean?” I reply.

“Someone’s dumb luck oughta kick in by now, y’know?”

And again, bang on time, straight from God, Elwood hit a rock, midshot. Up his white-furred head goes, and OFF his neck it went. Harry cleaved it with an open A and six shots, right through the neck.

Now that’s it, right? We got our hound, and the killing blow came from our friendly neighborhood guitar hero and his very own battle-axe. Them six up in Clantonville are avenged, all’s well that ends well. Worst that’ll happen is that I have to hear about the noise complaints from the Arch Commissioner, and then the next 48 hours will be devoted to everyone chewing each other’s ass out.

First the local mayors chew his (we blew past three towns after all), then the Arch Commissioner chews the regional Commissioners’. My boss (head of Central) chews mine, and then I get to chew the gaggle of idiots who shouldn’t be allowed within ten miles of an alcoholic beverage. And after all that ass-chewing…maybe North Patrol gets an actual commissioner instead of the drunk who was in-charge back then.

Maybe.

The politics of Hell Patrol, unfortunately, weren’t our biggest problem. Not when we have an unmanned 1982 AMC Eagle with a headless driver who died with his boot on the floor. Not when a sea of completely shitfaced hounds at our back, bobbing and weaving like a boxer on the edge of a knockout. And not when that Strat’s humbuckers finally gave out.

The blue-and-white hatchback veered out of Scarlet and Harry’s way, into the oncoming, beer-soaked storm. Harry not only sees the guitar sparking, but can hear that terrifying buzz of a transformer about to detonate. So with nothing left for it, he chucked the guitar over the hood and at the Eagle. It blows to pieces beneath the machine, but it doesn’t stop it from getting right in the sights of the North Patrol.

All that effort into their missed potshots doubled, even with the VISIBLY HEADLESS CRIMINAL sticking his neck out like a store-window dummy, gushing the good red stuff like a bad horror movie. Though at that point, I think it was just target practice, and boy could they have used some.

I got Rory to stick tight by me as we made our way to Harry’s rat-rod, and once the three amigos (plus one) were reunited, we fucked off to watch the chaos unfold. I radioed all units (and the Commissioners) that Perkins was dead, but only the stragglers bugged out to other work.

The Northern Patrolmen, however, were playing Mayan rules with the arsonist’s head, and still trying to waste the rest of him left to autopilot the car. And seeing as they were still failing (though pretty good at knocking his severed noggin around with the butts of their guns), I decided to put the whole situation out of its misery. Out came my revolver, I knocked the passenger side tires out (as we were all sat there like spectators), and the blasts finally sent the damn thing cab over wheels, and the largest pileup I’ve ever beheld in life was set in motion.

Bikers into the beds of pickups, pickups into sedans, wolves of all shapes, colors, and beer guts getting their hands slammed on steering wheels, and crammed up against one another. Don’t bother looking for the head, I’m sure that was pulverized after the first five tires, but that Eagle got COOKED in the carnage. First thing that hit it send the hatchback spinning like a top, the cars that tried to go around dinged its hood, which kept her spinning, and sure enough, Harry got himself a line of sight on the upturned AMC, and rattled off an old Schubert tune to keep his tin-can top in play.

Rory, in a lapse of irresponsibility, radioed the nearest MedHub, Harry tattled to North Patrol’s commissioner, and I called out our Big Cheese to let him know what happened. Medicine men and women were there in a flash, the North Patrol’s chief was boiling mad, and our bossman was howling with laughter.

In the end, it was 72 hours of ass-chewing, rather than the standard 48.

The only thing left was to smack the brown-furred bastard upside the head for bringing Scarlet, asked the fair lady how she was doing, and then asked him how the fuck you lace a laser bullet.

He took the smack in stride, Scarlet was no worse for wear, and I later found out that “laced” simply meant juicing the charge-pack on a cartridge. To spare the non-mechanically-inclined among us, you lose half your battery life in exchange for twice as much heat per round.

Now, you might think, “gee, shouldn’t everyone do this?” Y’all hear the stories on the news about coked-up thugs tanking bullets like vitamins after all, but the reason we don’t is because “roiding up” laser cartridges increases the chances of the unit exploding. It’ll kill you, your gun, and for those of us rocking carguns & ammo crates in the Infantry, your entire fucking ride. It’s no goddamn wonder his guitar went up in smoke the way it had been.

I slapped the dumbass another for the stunt, but to give him credit, he didn’t take out anyone other than the cat we had to. And he did promise to never use them in the field ever again. He could blow himself up on his own time.

We all came back to Doc’s just in time to find the joint cleared for the team’s lunch-break, and Brett had just saved me a few hundred credits with his playing. Went over like a cancer cure and a winning lottery ticket all rolled into one. And we had all managed this before one in the afternoon, giving us 11 hours of sweet, sweet relief.

Relief found by racking up the tab again.

“Would ya quit dancing like the goddamn Peanuts and get off the fucking stage already!?”

It had been like this for HOURS. Hours that felt like days that felt like the crush of eternity. And all because my dumb ass couldn’t stop writing twin-guitar harmonies.

Harry Garret, alias “Richter” to both Hell Patrolman and rock-n-roller alike, has a natural gift for arrangement, a savant mutt if ever there was one. And when him and I get together on guitar and start writing songs like this, we sound like a twin ax attack. All killer until you realize ol’ Nic’s the bassist. The bassist who plays his bass like a guitar, but the bassist nonetheless. And so we wonder how we can play all this cool shit, and in comes Rory Armstrong, alias “Madskins” to Hell Patrolman and rock-n-roller alike, with the obvious answer: get a second guitarist.

I should have wrung the fucker’s white neck off his spine if I knew what auditions were gonna be like.

I had met Rory and Harry on the job. Crushing skulls, taking names, slaughtering the decidedly not-innocent, and just so happened to find myself in the company of heavy rock studs who could shred and slam with the best of ‘em. We all dug the same music, caught the same vibe, and thus your friendly-neighborhood heavy metal dispensary was born.

Little did I realize just what the Metröpolis name meant to cats in the Central Region when I got Doc’s Oasis booked for an entire day, guitarists lined up around the nonexistent block, and they all sucked sticky green.

One guy would have a killer guitar tone, but played like a methadone slug. One hound would have metronomic timing, but his guitar style is more fit for the corpse-paint crowd. One guy shows up in fucking leg warmers and Rory goes feral on his ass and chucks him back out the door on-site. On and on the carousel goes until everyone’s been gone through. And since we closed up Doc’s for the day, we didn’t have anywhere to drink that night. At least anywhere that doesn’t involve sad-sacking it to Bette Garret’s house, my one-story shack, or wherever the hell Rory lives.

Smart money says he’s the troll under the bridge.

We decided to swing by another solar joint we’d played at on one of our “tours.” I say in air quotes because a tour out here is like saying you’re going for a cross-country drive. This is all the country you got unless you wanna get eaten up by atomic goblins out east or Haven’s digital bitch out west.

Our hole-in-the-wall for the night was Melville’s. Whether for Herman or Jean-Pierre was anyone’s guess. And we got lucky too; it was a REAL night. No synthetic anything, just genuine spirits older than half your family tree. And man did we pound those shots down so fast you’d think we had just auditioned the Dover Boys. When we looked up from our alcohol-fueled haze, it was by our stars and/or garters (whatever the hell those may be) that we had finally found him, Compadre Numero Quatro.

He was an Indian wolf, and not just in breed. Brother wore some Navajo heritage on ‘em while playing down-and-dirty blues on a wood-paneled Strat, patterned with bear paws between the pickups. Had a head of hair halfway down to where a tail oughta be, a big brown suede jacket with fringes longer than mine, and a flat-top cowboy hat.

Best of all, this beige bastard could fucking SHRED. He was whipping through blues standards so fast you thought they stuck a time bomb to ‘em. Get done riffing on one, and then bam into the next. I don’t know how the hell he managed to go from “St. James Infirmary” to the Alan Firedale theme tune, but that was the bastard’s segueing prowess. And when he got to singing, he won the soul power lottery with a voice that flowed like honey.

Though the boys had to prop me up, we shook hands at the end of the set and introduced ourselves. He was much obliged and shared his name.

“Brett Tsé,” he smiled. “Last name means ‘rock.’”

“Ain’thatta–”

“Bit on the nose,” he chuckled. “You ain’t the first, and doubtless the last. But that’s what I was born with, so that’s what I was born for.”

“Feel like joining three crazies on stage every Saturday night?” Rory asked for me. Found out later that I was apparently in the blackout phase of the evening by then, humming old New Wave songs like a sloven British punk.

“I ain’t got too much going on tomorrow,” he nodded. “Just make sure your friend there has enough black coffee in him.”

Ever the diplomat, he shook the boy’s hands and mine, and I was carried to my truck, and left to rot. Or at least that’s what the fellas joked about afterwards. They knew I couldn’t have driven myself two feet when I get that plastered. And it was when I finally woke up with a splitting headache that I found our prospective recruit in a jam.

“That’s all my fucking tips asshole.” Brett snarled. “You think I like living out of my fucking pickup?”

“I thought you were good for the rest of the loan.” the shadowed figure sniped back.

“But I paid the whole fucking thing!”

“Nuh-uh.” came the smooth sing-song voice. “You forgot about interest.”

When I heard the fist hit his snout, I was wide awake. By the time my gun was in hand, the snap of a switchblade rang out across the desert. When I slapped the hand-crank to roll the window down, that bastard wrote his death warrant in seven sweet words.

“That pound of flesh looks awful tasty.”

When he heard me bellow “HELL PATROL ASSHOLE,” the thug spun round and I blew a hole clean through his head. I could see the moon on the other side before he dropped. Behind him was Brett, all shook up but no worse for wear.

“Thanks,” he sighed as I bolted for him. “That was the handyman though. And there’s more where he came from.”

“Whatcha borrow?” I asked.

“Couple hundred credits to get the truck running. Took a few month’s work gigging to pay ‘em back, but I did. Then they send this shit-bag to lean on me.”

“Cat gotta name?”

Brett went silent, slapping his cowboy hat back on.

“Man, I’m on the side of the law here, and we’s working to nail thugs that do this kinda shit.”

“Joan Bartholomew Wessing.” he sighed.

Well, been a hot second since I had to kill a bitch, let alone anyone walking around with a long-legged name like that, but I woulda slaughtered a zombie whorehouse if it meant keeping a talent like his safe.

“Make a report with me and Commish and we’ll get on it.”

He followed me to my one-story shack, and I got him laid up on a cot. “You got a rent-free room here, pal.” was my way of saying goodnight before I sauntered over to my bed and planted face-first into the mattress. 40 winks and a sore schnozz later, I was up and at it with Brett following me to Doc’s. Knowing the old goat and his long-standing status as a crack shot, he was the best witness protection we could ask for, and he had our fella hole-up in one of the spare motel rooms.

When I got the brief back from the Commissioner, and met up with Rory and Harry, turns out loans ain’t the only thing she’s a shark about.

“Dark tan wolf, 35, Joan Wessing has been known to EAT those who do not pay off their interest.” read Rory aloud. “Suspect in the deaths of at least five hounds found …well then. Sounds like Feral Fay’s got herself some competition.”

“Heaven help this bitch then,” Harry chuckled.

“And heaven help us if we don’t do the damn job right,” I barked. “Roll out gents! Time for a good old-fashioned hunt.”

Off went one truck, one rat rod, and one chopped hog, all hunting down dear Miss Wessing and her carnivorous loan scheme. She had the fluidity of a snake oil saleswoman, for there was no home address or business short of the far-off country of Winnebago. Fortunately, it wasn’t a Minnie Winnie she was palling around in.

The Brave this bitch drove you’d have to be blind to miss. It’s twice the size of a short bus (leave that joke on the table, folks; she’s an antique), the trademark W beneath the cab was painted red for the cheek of it, and everywhere it went, it always left the stench of scorched fur according to reports. If you’re wondering why we ain’t ever caught her before (besides the fact she does business in the north, and most them boys up north ain’t too right), two words, kids:

Flat. SIXTEEN.

Bitch cruised with an engine that shouldn’t even be in that S.O.B., and boy does it make the bastard boogie. Fortunately, a chase wasn’t the way things would have to go down. Something much more…bureaucratic.

Now you see, when we say “credits” out here in the desert, we ain’t talking Haven’s credit system. Haven don’t need money, so the apartment module spits out your daily allowance and you’re allowed to grab a few trivialities. You get to participate in the old rituals of buying shit without ever actually going into debt. Heard they used to do bonuses for folks who snitched on freedom fighters.

“Credits” out here is just bartering with a tab. You do something nice for a proprietor; supply utilities, fix up their truck, bust out some frankincense and myrrh for the baby Jesus, they give you credits. Means food, drinks, trinkets, what have you. 

“Loaning” only makes sense if you’ve done someone a favor for no immediate pay and you come and collect. Wessing did the favor of hooking Bret up with the scrap needed to fix his pickup. Wessing takes care of the scavenger and Brett pays ‘er back in “tips.” And by tips I mean precious metals. Ol’ Man Godred did a lecture on this once, about how the coins of the Old World are worth more melting down than they are as a currency system. Started screaming about “Fiat” a lot afterwards, but I think he was just taking the piss out of someone’s Italian import.

Sure enough, after a few things of silver and gold come through in his gigging, he fulfills the arbitrary terms she set, but Wessing gets the hankering for more. And with no written agreements, no notaries, she starts leaning on the kid, expecting him to get showered in a king’s ransom every night.

The time it took me to explain all this was about the time it took for us to find her. We decided to drive north, seeing as the North Patrol were dumber than a box of pet rocks, and there we found her in a lawn-chair, sitting in front of the RV, getting her ring kissed like a mafia don. Middle of desert, no homes in sight, buncha cats bringing her offerings like a warrior queen, praying she doesn’t bed and breakfast them. And not gonna lie, she was a looker.

She had long legs to match the long name, and showed them well-off with a one piece black bathing suit, not that she had a lake to dive into. Musta been jonesing for those bronze coats you see surfers rock at the local wave pool. Thin strappy sandals and a good chunk of jewelry on her ankles and wrists showed where a lot of those coins were going.

I knew going in guns blazing would be the dumb move, so I had the boys hang back while I got in line. A nice, long line too, took me a quarter-hour before I could even see the bitch in my line of sight, and another quarter after that to finally stand before her. It was a miracle that the wire hadn’t melted, but I later found out that Harry was hearing every word of our conversation.

“I don’t recognize you on the list,” the tan wolf smiled with that oh-so office-girl chic voice. And we’re not talking Little Miss Penelope the secretary, we’re talking Monica the copyist-turned-mistress who the CEO is bending over the love seat and making spell “run” after hours.

“Friend of Brett’s, here to take care of the ‘interest,’” I said coolly.

She looked me all over. “I don’t see a nugget of gold on you, unless you keep spurs with those boots.”

“I was thinking less that,” I shrugged nonchalantly, “And more along the lines of something to please your…appetite.”

I was in my denim vest, so she got a good look at the black-furred beast before you. I was a little flabby in the six-pack because of all the twelve-packs I’d been crushing, but if she was smart, she’d know what I meant.

“He really mean that much to you?” she asked, puzzled.

“You can have me now or never.” I pressed.

She brought her sunglasses down to reveal something I kinda wish she hadn’t. Red eyes. Like Lita’s. Made the case a little more awkward than it was already gonna be. Felt like my back turned into a honeycomb with a dozen bees shredding the exits. The rush subsided once she dismissed everyone and escorted me into her mobile home, declaring “y’all get to live another day. Check the PDAs for the next rendezvous.”

What I was greeted by was a platinum silver abode, the bed and driver’s seat cushioned in crush velvet, and the cabinet doors and drawers given an obsidian gloss. There was no passenger seat, just a staircase down to the passenger-side door. Would be a helluva bus had it not been used for what it was used for. She took a seat behind the wheel and smiled. “Is it your thing too?”

“Honestly,” I chuckled nonchalantly, “I just couldn’t think of a better way to go.” A brilliant line coming from my dumb ass. I was about to rail a cannibal, and if I botched the basic instinct, I’d wind up lunch. And of course, doing it to her with those eyes wasn’t putting me on my game.

“Mind if I drive while we…seal the deal?” she asked, “I’ll make room for you.”

I’d done it with Lita before that way, so I nodded and swung the denim vest off my back. Wessing slid the driver’s seat back quite a ways, but still had enough tanned gam on her to slam the pedal to the floor.

The RV lurched forward and flung me back into the rear. Rory and Harry knew well-enough now was the time to tail ‘er, and tail they did, keeping a good quarter-mile distance between themselves and our perp.

“Not many like you come around,” the bronzed bitch smiled. “Brave blood always tastes the best.” She savored the flick of the switch that brought out her special assistant for the sordid affair. Turned out that she gored her prey on a four-pronged spinning blade that popped out the center-shaft of the steering wheel.

“Subtle.” I teased, burning alive in terror at the thought of getting skewered. 

Yeah, didn’t think I could feel fear, did ya? Well shit man, when you’re taking down any thug, it could be your last. Won’t even be your own fault or theirs, something stupid will happen that gums the whole plan up. But here I was caged with the cougar who wants nothing more than my entrails lightly salted.

“Oh, the ladies I’ve tasted too on this,” she teased back, taking special care to shift up and flatten that throttle. “How you wanna go?”

“Well,” I sighed, strolling up to her with my vest off. “That depends how fast this thing can go.”

“Oooh, you really do know how to make a show of it.” Wessing smiled that peachy little smile. The spire spun round faster and faster as the RV gained speed. And all the while, she couldn’t take her eyes off me. Those goddamned red eyes were looking right at me. No care for what was on the road, no care for what was under her wheels, just my body and her eyes were all that mattered.

This was how we had her. Every time Harry and Rory bumped into the Winnebago, she couldn’t have given two shits. Whenever I said “Keep going,” they knew I was talking to them just as well as her. And man was she good about “keep going.” Each bump and bash set her further and further off the little straight line she made with her right hand at 2 O’Clock. The left hand was, shall we say, strumming her chords.

“You better look out, honey.” I growled playfully.

“Why?” she whispered in those strange, sultry tones, “What’s so good about out there when the best sight in the whole world’s right—”

CRASH!

The RV slammed face first into a rock formation. I was flung against the glove box while her head fell square on that spinning spire. She wouldn’t have felt a thing, just died with her claws out and whatever chicks call a hard-on. And of course, now I had the wonderful task of peeling her paw off the gas, climbing over her bronze back and kicking out the driver’s side window, the door to the minibus RV crushed against the corner we had boxed it into.

When I exited the RV, I looked like the belle of the bloodbath, though the denim vest went unstained.

“Jesus Christ.” muttered Rory. “That just you Speed!?”

“No, had a little help from a fine hot-rodder and a hog-rider.” came my bleary-eyed reply.

“What shall we do about this hunk?” Harry asked, idly popping shots along the side with his revolver.

I pointed at the mess of oil and gas bleeding from behind the caravan’s wheels. “Light a crack pipe, Richter, and watch ‘er burn.”

He did just that.

Still don’t know where he got the crack pipe, but the thing was dead the second the flames hit the fluid. Either way, it all made the nightly phone call with the old battle-axe a little less awkward. Turned out Lita had finally gotten her hound too, and it went about the same way I had gotten mine, just with a few extra steps. “Whatever it takes,” we chimed in unison, but man, that call went on for a lot longer than either of us planned, right till three in the damn morning. I think we needed it more than anything, so all’s well that ends well.

Before all that though, news of the racket’s end reached Commish, and more importantly, freed up Brett. Doc gave us the graveyard hour to jam with our new sideman and give him a good trial run, provided we closed up. We all got up on that polished wooden stage, got our amps rigged up, and then came that first round of awkward silence; what to choose. What to break this bastard in with?

“Whatchu thinking?” Rory asked Brett from behind his double-bass-drum behemoth. His white-furred hands twiddled the drum sticks while Harry’s brown digits noodled over his fret-board.

“You play metal, right?” the Navajo joe asked, slinging his Strat on.

“No flies on him,” Harry teased. “We play just about anything short of polka, black, and death.”

“He’s not a thrash fan.” Rory snickered.

The exchange got our beige blues-hound loosened up, and sure enough he gave us an answer. “If I drop a riff, will you pick it up? No matter what it is?”

I gave him a nod and struck a blow to my B string. “Ready when you are, Chief.”

“How many injun puns are you guys gonna play on me?” he chuckled.

“If you join this band,” I said, patting his back, “You’re gonna hear us call each other a helluva lot worse with a helluva lot more love.”

When he rewarded the gesture by making us work our asses off playing a marathon rendition of “Stargazer,” I knew he was Metröpolis material, a deal sweetened by his signal to throttle up for some speed metal, and the ringing thunder of priestly twin guitars echoing into the night.

BRING HOME YOUR FAVORITE GEARHEAD HOUNDS IN TRUE PULP STYLE! 6 SENSATIONAL SLICES OF CYBERPULP READY TO ROCK YOUR SHELVES!

Support the Force and Grab The 365 Infantry Quarterly Today!

Heya, I don’t know how to break this to ya, but we got a problem.

Oh yeah, Rory here, beat machine for Metröpolis, howyado? Anyway, I know you usually get these from Nic. Speed talking a big game, telling ya about our time on the Patrol together and all that, but we got a serious problem right here: dude is DONE.

Capital D. Capital U. Capital N. DONE.

I rode in with my current croppa cats from Hell Patrol, and Nic invited us over from his favorite booth. Turns out he got Harry Garret and Scarlet there too, but the dude is shit-faced beyond belief. I don’t think anything happened to Lita, otherwise he’d be a helluva lot more sober and helluva lot more pissed. And I know he probably told you I was the psycho of the group.

And he’s right.

So my yardstick for loco ain’t your average bear’s, but I ain’t ever seen the bastard this turnt in a while. ‘Cept maybe 2460 when all of Doc’s good-time gals came out to play. Chicks crawling all over us while we were playing. I think one of them even blew Nic on stage. Sure wasn’t me, poor bitch woulda kept getting kneed in the head during “Overkill.”

Alright, I’m gonna try and get him cleaned up as best I can, but brace yourself, he might be a raw one tonight…

Am I on? I’m on, killer.

Alright kids, Speedfreak here, you ever gone tornada hunting?

Yeah, didn’t think we had real weather in the Wastes, did ya!?

Well this is what happened when the three of us did…kinda-sorta-it’s-a-long story (what’s new). And it starts with your favorite, my favorite, every junkie in a nine-block radius’ favorite: radium.

We were patrolling the area just a coupla clicks north of the Oasis. A J.T.R. was being called out across the whole Central Region Patrol network. Randy Way, black wolf, my height, driving a Plymouth Duster. No arson or creeping, just good-old fashioned murder, like Grandma used to make. There’d been a recent rash with a clear-as-day motive; the victims were all junkies and their glowing green crack rocks were all abducted. We were expecting to see either a hound glowing green or his trunk glowing green all Repo Man-like. 

What we wasn’t expecting was the dearth of action.

Not even a coupla quarter-mile runs to keep us frosty kept that boredom from smothering us, though the heat was certainly trying its hand.

“Had to be fucking patrol,” Harry groaned, boots kicked up on the bike-chain steering wheel of his rat rod. “Couldn’t be lead investigator, couldn’t be assistant investigator. Had to be on patrol; waiting for Junk O’Clock to strike.”

“I don’t think our drag times’ll get any better.” Rory quipped, laid out on his hog like a white cat on a winda sill.

My black ass couldn’t be fucked to say anything because I was coasting on nothing but two hours of sleep. No bennies or uppers, just a few weak-ass cups of coffee, sat in my deep blue pickup, ready to let my boot slip and my hands fall off the wheel just to get a thrill or a jolt or anything to get my eyes opened.

Harry at least brought his Fender with him, an amp in the backseat and started riffing away like there was no tomorrow. Good steady hard rock shit, the kind that’d put my ass to sleep, and I mean that in the nice way, not in the cunty way lotta folks’ll mean when they say it. I sleep to speed metal man, it’s a true grown hound’s lullaby, scouts honor. As that sweet guitar tone of his worked its way across my mind, I felt my eyes almost close up shop for good.

Then it came in on the wind.

First small gusts, then some real whipping. Came in fits and starts, but boy did it flip those eyelids right up.

“The forecast didn’t call for these.” I hollered.

At first the dynamic duo simply shrugged, but then…then the day blessed us with a true sight to behold; dust devils.

Big beautiful sandy tornadoes, all the shades of beige imaginable, crossing the desert like great majestic beasts of yore. Of course getting pelted by the odd stone wasn’t pleasant, but it didn’t draw blood and all our shades and windshields were built to last. Looked like this troop went shopping in the local mines because there were gems in dem der devils. Nothing pricey, no diamonds-r-shit, just a few neat odds and ends. And it was on that day I learned dear old Harry was a collector.

Sorta.

“Ayo Speed! Betcha you can’t nail a stone from here.”

I looked at my long-and-lovely Model 3 and laughed my ass off. “Get ‘er up Harry, shooting gallery sounds good to me.”

My Hilux pulls up alongside the red-and-white rat rod and we both get ready to take aim. I got eyes on this pretty lil’ pebble some sorta shade of green, and he has eyes on somethin’ purple. Kinda amethyst-like.

So here this brown-furred sonofabitch takes his revolver and pops his shot. Doesn’t get it on the first try, not with these damn things spinning like our rides’ wheels, but manages on the second. Respectable. Then comes my turn.

I look at that strange lil’ green blur and plink like the dickens for it. Shot One, miss. Shot Two, miss. Shot Three, BOOM!

But not any old boom. That rock flashed when I nailed it and the sucker shot a blast wave rips the damn devil apart.

“You think that’s” was all Rory got out before we saw what followed behind: the bright-red Duster sat profiled on our modules. And though we couldn’t see him from that distance, Mr. Way sure as hell made one neat racket screaming, smoking, shaking like a Friday night.

“Speedfreak to HQ,” I called over the radio, foot on the floor. “Car matching J.T.R. description spotted chasing dust devils. We believe there’s some radium swirling in them.”

I get the “keep us posted” note from over-the-air and soon the threes of us are hustling and bustling our way to…well Way. What we didn’t count on was what we were gonna find when we started riding that Duster’s tail.

Randy was a thin dude, suffering all the usual effects, but the hooting and hollering also came not from some hound raving mad that some twisters stole his hash, but he seemed rather pleased about the whole thing. He had that Plymouth screaming for mercy as she went hurtling for Nature’s go-to slice of desert phenomena, and the closer the car got, the more the steady beige of the dust devils grew green.

Swear to fuggin’ God, yes! Green. Green goddamn tornadoes. These fellas will attest to it. And what’s more, motherfucker actually made it! This fucking nut job, throttle jammed through the footwell, his on-board Geiger counter screaming gimme shelter, gets that car into the cyclone, just as we make it to him. The thing goes whipping right up and into the body of it. So here we are, looking at what has got to be a suicide of some kind. A helluva suicide, but one nonetheless. Knowing how radium works on these cats now, we figured the G-forces up there would make pureed bat guano outta the man before it spat his mid-size sedan out for us to see.

And yet, dude wasn’t. In fact, in the quick flashes we caught of him through the windows, he wasn’t even rotting away. Whatever the cat was up to, he wasn’t high on the supply. High on the adrenaline, sure, but not the supply.

I lay on the loudspeakers. “RANDALL WAY. I…I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO WITH YOU. HAVING FUN AT LEAST?”

The gleeful whoops were the best I could get out of him before he gave us the closest we’d get to a giveaway. In his husky voice, we could faintly make out this:

“RUBEN, IT WORKS! THIS SHIT FUCKING WORKS! TRY STEERING!”

And just like that, a trio of dust devils, whose powers combined would probably get you up to F3 on the old scales, swung to the left. Whoever was moving the damn thing shoved the joystick over too hard though, because every car picked up by it was launched out of the cyclone.

Me and the boys were all scrambling to make sure we came out on our wheels, but the Plymouth was first to land, and land she did.

Like a well-chucked Matchbox, made of tin foil, and packed with plutonium.

There was also some kind of receiver inside the car because the great green crack rocks that were still spinning around in the dust devils all went off simultaneously in a great big fireball, blowing the tornadoes apart in a flash. Thank fuck for the reflexes because we coulda been dead of fifty different things from the way that sucker landed and the way they all went off.

I radioed in the perp’s death, got us all to a detox station just to be safe, but that left us with a helluva lot more to the case than just “a randy goes killing people for atomic uppers.” Someone, namely a Reuben (though I could go for a pack of pastrami myself right about now), was working on some certifiable bullshit if “controlling weather” was anything to go by.

We had started by checking in with all the indie science stations out in Central. Lots of folks doing stray experiments with whatever they could get their hands on. Some of it was for the Force, some were ex-residents of Paradise West (Haven for those not in the know). One croppa cats knew the name Ruben, but it turned out to be the name of a prototype bot built for expedited welding. A couple had been theorizing about artificially generating cyclones like the ones we saw, but said it wouldn’t even need any sort of nuclear power. We got a pretty cool lab demo where they whipped one up using this little solar-powered rover doohickey that moved slow as molasses, so it couldn’t have spat Way out the way it did. In fact the way Way went was weally unweal and–HMPH! Shit!

Thanks for that, coulda been talking like a toddler for the resta night.

Anywhonow, so most of our interrogations had been more like a Coronet film festival than a perp walk. Until we made it to one lab. The name “Dr. Ruben Wells, PhD, MD, EngD, Esq” was a pretty good tip-off, though the white coat wasn’t tipping his hand any when we swung by.

Was a nice normal gray, well-dressed, working with a small crew. Never got hot under the collar when we explained the whole sitch, until we got to talking about radium. He put on a pretty good floor show about not digging the stuff. Not a very subtle one though. When we asked if he had any on-site, he did all that good old harrumphing at the very thought. “I wouldn’t dare harbor such materials on these premises, not unless commissioned by the Patrol or the Force for any analysis.”

And like a goober, in walks one of his aids with a box of the stuff, glowing green as emeralds on an Irish down.

I’ll explain Ireland later, after this story and a good black beer.

Anyway, so Ruben goes RUNNING. And while we go after him in our hot rods and token hog, he hops in his own contraption; one of these artificial dust devils. Starts it up and is cloaked by whatever tech he’s standing on. One mean force-field too because our laser rounds aren’t doing shit. So off he goes in this armored tornado, and obviously the three of us goons are trying to put an idea together. We know what’ll happen if we throw any of our rides into it, he can make the starts and stops necessary to chuck us off the proverbial hood and under the proverbial wheels.

Then it hits us. The tornado. And all of us go whipping and whirling up into the cyclone, pelted by dust and stone and all sorts of fun stuff. I get a fossil to the face, Harry is firing at everything that ain’t Rory or me, and that crazy white cocksucker Rory is having the time of his life. I think he even started singing a few bars of “Free Fallin,” showing how serious he saw it all.

Now when I looked down, I could just barely make out the distortions the shield made. And then I catch sight of something gray and I shoot. I blow the guy’s hand clean off. Even with all the wind and wailing, we can hear him screaming black, blue, and bloody murder all at once. What it tells me though is that there is a limited range on that force-field. When he steps out of the cloak, he’s outta the cloak. So while we’re all getting motion sickness, trying to survive the great ride in the sky we’re all taking, I got my sights on the next move he makes out of that field. And sure enough, a control or something got jammed, or maybe he was trynna throw us out, but I see his back jump out of the field and I blast him where I saw. Ruben drops dead on the spot and his private dust devil evaporates in a second, all threes of us dropping down Wile E. style. Richter’s rat rod got his head, Madskin’s bike broke the dude’s legs, and I landed on the stump of an arm.

Suspension was a little funky for a while, we all had some spinal realignment, but hey, we’s still here, alive and scoliosis-free, ain’t we?

I swear by God and gentle Jesus, that is the whole cotton-pickin’ story, and if it ain’t, may the Lord drop me before I finish this beer…

I’d wager he made it about three-quarters of the way there. Don’t worry, he ain’t dead though. His liver might be after tonight, but old Ridgefield’ll pull through. Dumbass hasn’t failed to yet.

As for the accuracy of that one…nah, pretty much how it happened, give or take a few lines. ‘Til next time!

I said, “Til. Next. Time.”

Ah shit, I dunno how to turn this thing off…hey Doc, mind lending a hand?

And just like that, there she was. Me and the boys had hauled in the last of our gear for the night’s show, and like a regular 007, she had slipped onto that bar-stool between bringing the Marshall stacks and the guitars. And before Harry could finish saying, “and here we go,” I was all over her.

No “how are yous,” no “it’s been so long,” no “God you look beautiful,” just the pair of us macking like the dickens, and why the hell not, she was my Lita-babe, I was her big ol’ hunk of cowboy, and it’d been a helluva long while since we last seen each other. And I’ll say, we coulda railed each other right then and there if it wasn’t for Rory cutting in with a “is this your bitch?”

At first I thought her temper was gonna show with a line like that, but she just chuckled and said “his one and only.” The boys finally got to meet her, Mohawk and all, and I must say they rubbed her all the right ways. Rory dug her wild side while Harry was all over her independent can-do attitude.

“Mind helping us?” I asked her. “You set up a coupla shows underground in the City, right?”

“Yeah, one or two gigs.” she said. “Ash knew the bands better, but the gear was a cinch. Lemme scrub in.”

Between the four of us, the gig was all set in half the time, and once night had fallen over Doc’s for the umpteenth time, and show time rolled up, we were back in business. Lighting up that stage like the Fourth of July with some ten-ton rock-n-roll. I had already warned the boys I’d want to take the tempo up tonight, and what wound up happening was like a heavy metal express. Every track coming down the pike would get faster and faster until we were all clocking hardcore speeds. Could’ve snuck a performance of “Sailin’ On” in if we had felt it. I remember Rory coming up afterwards with the pads of his hands sweating like mad.

“Two minutes.”

“The hell you mean?” I asked.

Rory cocked his head. “Check the clock.”

Set started at 8:00 and we had just ended at 9 on the nose; we really had just knocked two off the set-list.

“Didn’t realize you wanted her that bad, Speed.” Harry teased, packing his guitar away.

Well, when Lita came up and wrapped all fours around me, I knew my punk princess had gotten her show’s worth. Didn’t take long to clean up the stage and get everyone heading their separate ways. Had her follow me home in the Bug and, well, we did what we do best; each other.

It was after the night to remember that we got to really talking. Gabbing about Haven, lawbreaking, records we were digging. She made getting outta there to visit sound like one mutha of a jailbreak, even with all her tough talk and drive.

“I’m just glad that Graham cat is off the streets,” she sighed. “Hope it got Varrick some peace of mind now.”

We carried on like that, Never forgot what she said though. “That’s the funny thing about the gig: wouldn’t have it any other way. Makes it more fun! Makes it feel good when you get it right.”

Of course she played by Hell Patrol rules, the more danger the merrier! When I told her that, she plopped the cowboy hat I gave her on her head and gave me the old finger gun routine, right down to a good old-fashioned “I’m the sheriff in this town! POW POW POW!” And boy what a sheriff she was.

Lita was only in for a few days though. It was a miracle she had gotten away at all, but she also had her obligations. City wasn’t gonna clean itself. Even though that’s kinda how it’s supposed to work!

Unfortunately, those first few were spent under cover of night. Work was riding my ass, and we had a full week engagement at Doc’s. She didn’t mind, especially since she got all the booze and metal she could ask for on my tab. She also liked bombing around in that blood-red Bug of hers during the day, so she never got bored. Always had something to go explore, and somewhere to just slap her paw down and let the Little Man’s horses run free.

It was getting to me though. It was nice having her there at my house. Sure as hell nice bedding her, but spending the days apart just didn’t feel right. And so, with 48 hours to go, I finally got that most coveted prize every lawmen seeks: a single, full day off.

That morning, after I had made her breakfast, coffee, and we had our 32nd session of doing like we do, I finally sprung the good news. “Darling, I got the whole day! And I want to take you swimming. Can’t expect you to stay panting out all day with this heat.”

Well boy howdy was she all over the idea. Ain’t ever been in water, short of a shower in Château de Punk. Still couldn’t believe it, but hey, at least she wasn’t scared of swimming or anything like that. Hell, come to think of it, there wasn’t a lot she was scared of, short of that whole dome episode when we were hooking up in Haven.

Anywhosit, after we roll off each other and get dressed, there’s one last thing I ask. “Let’s take the truck. Let the little guy save his energy.” And for a second, those red eyes give me that kind of crazed, cock-eyed, “whatchu talkin’ bout Willis” look. But then she snaps back to reality like “alright, not a prob.” Always liked keeping me on the ball I guess!

Now getting on the road is a cinch. We were boogieing right for Beach Babe Bette’s swim hole, she was digging the Hilux’s vibes, and everything seemed set for a nice quiet day…and then that sweet Hell Patrol luck started to strike.

Lita taps me on the shoulder, and blurts out “Hey, Nicky.” I ask “what?” and she gives me something I’m none-too-pleased to hear about.

“He ain’t one of yours is he?”

I look out the shotgun-side window to see a biker holding up a man-and-wife driving an old Lincoln. The couple was black and the biker was an extra-mangy red wolf, the action all parked by one of the bombed-out houses from ye olden times.

“No. No he ain’t.” I braked to get a good look at the situation. Was quite a ways back, so I don’t think he heard too much over his rant-n-rave routine. Had quite the peashooter on him too, so I didn’t want to spook him and make a hostage situation worse.

Of course, the first thought Lita has is “want me to blow him away?” And while normally I’d say yes, at a distance like this, even a crack shot could veer off course and make mince meat of the missus unloading her belongings. Then I had the idea. “Let’s peg him.”

She snickered at first until she realized what I meant; I drop the hammer just as he backs away, pin him to the wall, and we make light work of the whole shebang. Didn’t take long for our mutt of the hour to start moving towards his black-and-white Electra Glide, making ballerina-sly moves in his harness boots.

Just in time for mine to drop.

The Hilux’s zero-to-60 saved my ass on that one. It all happened too fast for the bastard to do anything, and I braked just right so I didn’t pulverize him. Yet.

“Good to hold her in place?” I asked Lita.

Well, my be-Mohawked doll just smiled and said “anything for you Honey.” Wheeeeew-weeee did that feel good. She plopped her paws down, took hold of the wheel, and I popped out to look the fucker over.

“The hell you want from me?” he groaned.

I smile all gentleman-like. “Hell’s what I’m gonna put you through if you don’t cough up those stolen goods.”

“What makes it your business?”

Ah yes, one of the oldest lines in the book. One put to bed with a badge and a simple “you’re talking to Hell Patrol.”

Crook’s eyes went wide. It’s a hound with a license to kill, not that you needed one to do much of anything out here in the Wastelands. I lay the whole thing out for him so he gets the pretty picture.

“So. Appears I got free reign to put a .45-shaped slice of electric lead in your head, or have my babe pound you to pulp with my truck. And mind you, she’s a killer and a half behind the wheel.”

I shot Lita a wink and a nod. She played her part to feral perfection, hammering out some nasty revs and working those sweet crimson eyes of hers to perfection.

“Or,” I continued. “Seeing as it's my day off, and the last thing I need to do is paperwork, you hand over the shit you nicked and I let you live another day or two. Deal?”

His face said no dice, so I waved Lita forward a smidge. Just a little gas went a long way to get the bastard squealing. “ALRIGHT! Alright. Here it is.”

Out came the sack, nice and easy. I walked it back over to the couple, careful to keep my Smith & Wesson trained on his dome. When I came back, I plucked the peashooter, swung the cylinder open and when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but six genuine bullets.

“You a Scofield man too, eh?” I chuckled, “Good.”

Pocketed the bullets and waved Lita off. She backed the truck up, I gave him his gutted revolver and socked him one in the snout. “Now get the fuck outta here before I change my mind.”

Sure enough, he did. And boy did he! Limped like hell, flung himself on the bike and bolted. I checked back in with the couple. They were all pretty cool about everything.

“Thank you,” the wife sighed, “By God, thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” I nodded, tipping my hat.

Hubby chimed in with “Tell your dame she’s a hell of a cat too.” Fortunately Lita could hear ‘em.

“Happy to help.” she grinned.

And just like that, the day is saved! We enjoyed a handy victory over the forces of evil and carried on like we…shit, almost said that with a straight face.

Yeah, things don’t go right for me anymore like that. No, what happened the very second we loving couples parted ways and I’m back behind the wheel, is that I got a radio-in. Not a calling-all-officers or anything I could ignore, a straight-ahead “Calling Speedfreak, Calling Speedfreak.”

I started growling like a ten-ton migraine sprouted behind my skull, but before I could go off the deep end, Lita turns my head towards her and just gives me the squarest damn read of it all I ever heard. “If you’re any good at whatever it is they’re asking, you’ll be done before you know it.”

“But Babe we—”

She shut me up with a kiss and a “we together right now, right? That’s all that matters.”

After being thoroughly convinced, I picked up the CB. “Speedfreak to HQ, what’s cooking?”

“Mind doing a quick May-Pole job?”

Those weren’t the words I was expecting. “Finding ‘em or killing ‘em?”

“Just an execution. Ax murder dropped off. Officers called into a chase.”

“So I just roll up, kill ‘em, and leave?”

“…uh, yeah.”

“Well shit, I should’ve brought the gore poncho. Heading over now.” I hang up and catch Lita looking me dead in the eyes. She didn’t know what to do with me with the way I just handled that, but I knew what to say to her. “You’ve killed worse hounds in weirder ways than drawing-and-quartering, and you know it.”

And of course, the two of us bust up laughing. You gotta be just sick enough in our line of work to survive it. And fortunately, we were at that Goldilocks level of fucked-in-the-head by then.

So cut to me pulling up to our favorite lightning rod wedged in the middle of the desert, where the sands are always red with the blood of sinners and other such apocalyptic baloney. The killer’s all chained up and ready to go. I hop out, hoping to offer any last rites. “Need a prayer or something?” I asked coolly.

Dude looks up to me. Now he’s this battered to hell-and-back gray in nothing but jeans and boots, and with a pound of gravel packed into that baritone voice of his, says to me, “there’s no God for me now.”

All he got from me was a dead-blank stare before I hooked the chains up to the truck. If killers were knives, that homicidal dirt-bag has enough edge to go round for the next dozen convicts.

Once I was back in the cab and ready to get it over with, outta of literally nowhere comes laser fire. Bolts of red and green whipping around the truck, and doming the killer I got my chains hooked up to. I look over and see who the raiding party is and it’s an absolutely shit-hammered Oldsmobile. A rusted-out 442, classic muscle car countenance, barreling along at probably 100. Guns still blazing, making Swiss cheese out of the killer behind us, rattling my truck like a Tommy Gun symphony. And I finally floor it.

“See that shotgun behind you?” I says to Lita.

“You want me too—”

I shoot her one look and she gets it. With that kid-on-Christmas-morning gleam in her red eyes, she rolls down the window, swings her head out, and starts pumping that thing like there’s no tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this asshole has decent aim, so as soon as she’s got her head out, he’s trying to dome her. And while she’s getting the car, she ain’t getting him. I whip her back into the cab, drift the truck out of the line of fire, and try to get some kind of plan for this nutjob, whoever he is.

“Hey, hol’ up now!” she growled. “Let me back at him dammit!”

At first I growl back at her, but then I realize I sure as hell ain’t shooting shit with two mitts on the wheel. “Alright, just don’t get your head taken off.”

She gives me a little salute before swinging back out and going the full John Wayne. And after enough volleys, she finally gets him in the head. Just in time for the Olds to swerve DIRECTLY FOR US!

I skid the truck outta the way as the thing goes right into the pole with a big ol’ BOOM! Needless to say, the other half of the killer was being roasted as we caught our breath.

Once I had grabbed mine and stuffed it back in my lungs, I hopped out, took the chains off, and swung the…parts I had been dragging around like a pair of truck nuts into the bonfire.

Back in the cab, Lita and I sorta just stared off into space for a second. She broke the silence with, “that always happen when you kill ‘em?”

“Nope.”

She nods. “Sorry for snapping.”

“I’m sorry the day keeps getting away from us, dammit.” Boy was I ready to lose it. It was like God had come down to personally throw the book at me for the crime of He-only-knows what. Just as I go to put the Hilux in gear, she cozies up to me, puts a hand on mine, and a sandalled paw on my boot.

“So, how bout that swim?” she asked all sweetly. “Just point me in the direction and I’ll drive. You look like you could do with a break.”

Couldn’t say no to watching her work her magic, so we swapped seats. Sent her the right way with the wave of my hand, and she was on it like her and the Bug on an all-you-can-smoke buffet. If I ever sensed we were off course, I’d have her swing right or left, but for the most part, she was driving the Wastelands like the back of her hand. And boy was she driving them. Could watch her all day long shifting and steering and stomping and—ah shit, sorry! Fell into a trance there.

The trance I was in then got broke up when the last of our bad luck decided to show. It was a white biker beating the shit outta driver in a pickup. Lita gunned the truck and started swinging for the road warriors when I realized who was on the bike. “Easy Babe. That’s Rory.”

It was the blood-splotch on the back of the leather vest; kinda shocked he was in one, but the old blood-mark was the sign of the Patrol.

“Aye Rory! Need an extra set of claws?”

When that crazed hound looked at me, he just winked and smiled. “Nah Speed, I got this.”

And boy did he. Rory decked the driver hard, sent his head slumped over the wheel, and in seconds the crook’s pickup veered out of control and down an embankment. Thing went up like a Roman candle.

“Alright, that’s that.” I smiled.

Then came that wonderful radio of mine. “Calling all officers, calling all officers, we’ve got—”

ZAP!

I pulled that fucking plug so damn fast, the receiver spun. I just couldn’t anymore. When Lita looked over to me with those red eyes, I figured she was about to come on with a righteous “wait a minute, someone’s in trouble,” but nope. She just pulled my hat down over my head and chuckled. “Get some sleep, Mountain Man. I’ll let you know when we get there. We in the home stretch anyhow, right?”

I looked up one last time to check; yup, Bette was gonna be somewhere off on the roadside. “All yours Beautiful, keep her floored.”

Musta been out no more than fifteen minutes when she finally woke me up.

“We there yet?” I asked.

“Yes and no.”

My eyes went dinner-plate sized. We were in fact at the swim hole, but it was also the sight of a five-alarm Mexican standoff. At one end, a fellow lawman. A tough older gray dressed to the nines in Western ware. Never caught the cat’s name. On the other, a full-on radium addict suffering all the side effects. Molting tan fur, sunk-in eyes, all ghoulified.

“It’s over Deere!” the lawman shouted. “Cop to the stash or you get it between the eyes.”

The deteriorating hound named Deere simply did what all these dummies did, start busting up a storm. Cackling, howling, all the maniacal stuff, and then he gets to shooting. Wildly, no aim, just pot-shotting everywhere. One comes towards the windshield and she drops me to the seat. Glad she did too; fucker finally cracked my goddamn windshield.

With our heads down and her snout next to mine, she looks to me and asks, “what do we do here?”

On one hand, I knew if we took the easy way, the Hilux would reek like hell from the bastard’s guts. On the other, I wasn’t gonna let a Patrolman die just to keep my truck clean, even if it meant having to turn around and head for a detox station. With a heavy sigh, I look right back at her and said. “Go fuck him up.”

We snapped up from the seat, she slammed on the gas, and I got my revolver out. We go right for the putrid SOB, but the cat’s still got some coordination left in him and he starts leaping around like he’s in a knife fight with this pickup. And well, Lita obliged. Curving and swerving, she circled this maniac like a vulture. He got a shot through the shotgun side window that sent the pair of us ducking again. And just when we couldn’t see where we’re going…SPLAT!

Dude went right under in a pile of minced, irradiated meat. The patrolman came up to us with a tip of his hat. “Thanks strangers. Wish he’d just talked, but I guess when your brain’s that far gone, there ain’t much to work with.”

Lita nodded, a little grossed out by the smell. The Patrolman was good to clean up the mess, so I had her back off and sit tight for a second. That was when I broke it to her about some of the side effects of radium on these junkies, and what it means when you smite ‘em, and all she could do is laugh. “It really never ends for you, does it? Whole world’s a mutha of a time for you guys.”

“Just wish it didn’t happen on your last damn day!” Now I was pissed. Hell, I was fucking furious. Felt like the whole damn day had gone to hell. And I don’t know where it came from, but I thought I let her down because of it. Not even that big of an ask. I wanted to take my bitch swimming and everything goes fucking pear-shaped because of it. She didn’t let me feel that way though.

“Let’s get her cleaned.” she smiled, rubbing my back. “Ain’t your fault about the loonies. If you weren’t killing ‘em with a badge, you’d just have to kill ‘em anyhow. That’s the way the streets work.”

She nipped my cheek, but she could see I was still bummed. “I know it ain’t the best way to spend a week the way we have, but we did spend it together. Even all this.” She finally broke through, and I nuzzled her right back. Whipped out the truck’s module, ran a map, and found the nearest detox station.

When I saw the distance, I took a deep breath, pulled her close, and kissed her square on the cheek. “Alright. Let’s get ‘er cleaned, get something to eat, fuck on the way back, and see if we can get you floating. God-willing she won’t be closed when we get here.”

“You want to drive?” she asked.

Shook my head. “Baby, you make better time than I ever could.” The way she made my tires scream proved me right. Even if it was our last day for now, I guess we coulda spent in worse ways. Trapped in a magic lab, dealing with her friends in the fuzz. The more I thought about, kicking ass and raining blood with my favorite punk wasn’t that bad a closer.

At least we had fun.

“Crack-rock-cocaine. But it’s green, it turns you into a ghoul, and it gives you the kind of adrenaline rush we get for free by being on stage. To the power of pi.”

I wasn’t exactly police commissioner material, but briefing a bunch of drug-busters-to-be wasn’t that tough a gig. We had a ton of Hell Patrolman on one side of the room, a bunch of civvies on the other, and I was there giving the seminar on our wonderful new Wasteland resource: radium. It was an all-regions affair, and fortunately, I wasn’t the only one, as none other than old Hound in Black’s princess May was there to help give pointers. Apparently the shit had found its way into the Eastern region, but the Force’s outer third sector was a bulwark against it going any further…setting aside the fact there weren’t too many folks living on the backside of the Ambiorixians.

I let May take the stand after my jaw got sore from gabbing, and she came on with that classic Godred family charm.

“I’d say General for the sake of professionalism, but to hell with that, let’s keep speaking plain: Pop had the boys in the Lab do chemical tests, and what we got are some weird results. Radium the drug, the way it is NATURALLY formed, has an encrusted shell that contains the radiation, only broken when smoked, cooked, or split apart. The key word is NATURALLY. You can cook it, hop it up, tune her like a Ferrari, but she’s appearing like this au naturel in the wild. That means we’ve got to deal with the cats who mine this stuff. We got teams scoping out the Ivory Coast, but we can’t rule out any of the old mines, or any of the regional military bases from the Old World.”

She whipped out a big ol’ map and the yard stick to match, and slapped it all over that sucker, laying out every single possible location. When she finished, and was sure that everyone had taken their notes, she let me wrap up the spiel.

“Thanks Queen Bee” (she hated her call sign, but we had to use ‘em on duty) “Now, we only got all y’all regular folks for three days, and we don’t want to waste any of your time in that span. Once you guys hit the areas, everyone clocks out at 5 PM on the button and we start all over again bright and early at 5 AM like we are here-n-now. After the three days, y’all can go home and the resta Hell Patrol will take over. Since everyone’s already teamed up, all I got left to say is good luck, Godspeed, and if you find any of the crackheads, catch ‘em and quiz ‘em. And if they get mean, get as mean as you have to, even if it means a slug between the eyes. If it comes down to the dregs or your life, always choose your life. Let’s get out there.”

Now, while we were a three-piece on stage and in the field, I had lobbied to get us at least one civilian to work with. Most of the folks were lone wolves or duos, so everyone wound up a trio. Mick Maelstrom was yucking it up with a cute cowgirl and a MedHub hound on their off-day, May (lotta fucking Ms around here, huh?) was hanging with her field partner Jock “Wichita” Campbell and a retired Hell Patrolman who was running his mouth about all of the drug busts he had been on. And they were many.

Many.

Including that one time he got a contact high ‘cause the guy was burning his meth stash and forgot the shit could explode.

Anyhow, I really gunned for us having a civvy because chatting it up with fresh blood while doing “Trash Picking: Drug Edition” was always a blast when you had the right person. And while he didn’t seem it at first, we found the goddamn diamond of the pack.

His name was Buck Sterling. Gray father of three, drove a beach-sun yellow Jeep Cherokee, dressed like a day at Bette Garret’s swimhole from his sandals to his muscle shirt, and had been a road-paver for Old Man Grant back in the day. All that mundane bullshit, but he had an action-hero name, and was built like a tank. When you talked with him at first, he was just a cool, calm, and collected dude. Rory gave him the “mission” code name of BFD: Big Fucking Dad, though the boys took to calling him Pops.

“So, we’re up on that canyon ridge between Matheson and Beaumont, right?” he asked.

“Yessir.” I smiled.

Buck nodded. “Wanna go up separate or should we carpool? I cleaned my ride so there ain’t no trace of the kids, not that they’re too messy.”

I turned to Rory and he gave me a look that said “I couldn’t care less if I had to walk there.” Fair enough.

“Y’know,” I added, “There’s also four seats in Richter’s rat rod.”

I knew exactly the look I was going to get before I turned around. I looked to my brown-furred compatriot and the first line that came to mind was “Nobody’s gonna take my car,” with thunderous organs and guitars screaming the big N.O. He wasn’t gonna play nice today.

“Guess we’ll pool with you Buck.”

So there we are, a buncha tough SOBs with bullet belts and guns galore, climbing into the sleek, sporty equivalent of a school bus, chauffeured by a brick-shithouse in Tevas, shorts and a tank-top. The only wolf I’ve ever seen drive safe in these deserts, swear to God, like he was taking his kids to daycare. If all we had was our mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet, I woulda leapt out of the car and ran screaming back to the truck out of sheer boredom.

But it didn’t take long for Superman to hit the scene.

First off, the dude was fun to chat with. Loved his kids, loved his babe, but he had other shit he dug too. He painted, he was a gym rat on the days when could get out of the house, and he was a metalhead with a sizeable array of eight-track awesomeness. And most importantly, when he realized we weren’t Fabergé eggs, boy could that hound race!

When Buck dropped the hammer, man, that Jeep went tearing off like a bat outta hell. And it was just then that started to lay on the war stories. Not about battles and shit, but about racing the wrong kinda cats. Scaling canyon walls, leaping broken bridges in a single bound, that kind of cool shit.

He punched the brakes and swung his rod around when we finally reached our Ground Zero for the day. When I saw Rory and Harry hop out the back, they were stumbling over themselves, just barely surviving the sudden shift in G-forces.

“Yo Pops, can we do that again?” teased a winded Rory. I woulda smacked him for it, but Buck was cool. “When we’re finished, sport.” With dad answers like those, one thing was on my mind: I’d need an insulin shot before the day was up.

I handed out the pocket Geigers and we all started scanning every inch of sand for traces of radium. It was slim pickings at first, but one by one, we all found ourselves congealed over this one little patch of land. I marked it, made a note, and woulda said “bring on the shovels” if Buck hadn’t started already hucking ‘em out from the back of the Jeep.

We each took our spade, got to digging, and lo and behold, there was our Loc-Nar deposit. All sat nice and pretty, encrusted just as May had said.

“Yo Pops,” Harry asked, “We got the trunk too?”

Buck nodded and walked back to the Jeep. I cocked my head to get the guys to help him. After all, the thing was four-foot long, made of lead and concrete with steel hinges and locks, and was our lone repository for all things radioactive. Last thing I needed was the civvy dropping it on his paws like a slapstick routine gone wrong.

But out comes the BFD, fireman-carrying this motherfucker like it’s one of his tots. He swings it out, drops it down, and then we all get to loading it up. Bastard even had a pair of leather gloves on him. “I know it’s safe to handle, but you can’t ever be too sure.”

Sure enough, all of us whip out our driving gloves, and we get to loading the thing up. We get halfway full, and surely, he is not gonna be able to carry an industrial grade box of rocks. “Hey, BFD, need a hand?” I ask.

Shakes his head. “Nah, Speed. I got this.” And sure enough, he does! This beast loads that up in the back, no sweat at all. And when we pile back into the car, he turns the key, revs ‘er up, and the time was 8:30.

We had arrived at 8, and we still had at least three-and-a-half ‘til high noon. Dude kept us moving like that all morning. We wound up having to go back to the base of operations just to empty the sucker every two stops.

Now, y’know how most of the time, shit goes wrong right about now? Somewhere along the way some crazy crack-addled asshole comes careening outta nowhere? Not for Buck they didn’t.

I swear to Christ, this hound was God’s golden boy. I didn’t see a stray crook, a doped-up fiend, or even one of them weird Wasteland critters roll up. Hell, no little miseries either. Not a bug on the windshield, he didn’t pop a sandal strap, nothing. He was just taking us all over our route, hitting the jackpot, was such a sickly sweet son-of-a-bitch just by being himself. By the end of it, we were not sure if we were the assholes or if he was some kinda bot. I’m pretty sure Harry or Rory were willing to find out, if the dude’s luck hadn’t run out.

Out on the horizon, screaming from outta nowhere, was a red wolf dressed in his Dachau best. Like this fucker was thin, his fur haggard, and his voice raspy with rage. “YOU SONOFAFUCK! I KNEW I’D FIND YOU OUT HERE YOU BITCH! IMMA KILL YOUR ASS” et cetera, et cetera, blah blah blah.

Now, we all had enough enemies by this point that we couldn’t tell who this dude was. One of our doped-up wolves, a killer, rapist, a JGZ. No one knew.

Until Buck piped up. “Heya, you guys remember that call a few months ago? The one about the scavengers and the attempted, watcha call it? S.V.G? That’s the guy who got away.”

We all turned in perfect sync to look at him. “You got beef with these kindsa cats?” I blurted out.

Buck shrugged. “Not really, but he was part the reason I had to drive up that canyon. I woulda downed him, but Junior figured we’d scared him good. Guess not.”

The time was 11:45. “Mind if I finish this up?” he asked. I looked to the boys, and the boys looked back. And from out of nowhere, Harry gets this vicious gleam in his eye. “I got a favor to ask Pops.”

Buck turned his head to the back seat. “What’s up Richter?”

“Have fun with it.”

The gray tipped his shades. His gaze was blank at first, until the kinda smile I never thought I’d see on this hound’s face came on from out of nowhere. One paw down on the brake, the other on the throttle, and that Jeep began to rock and roar like an XKE at Make-Out Point. He rips ‘er into Drive, drops that hammer, and the Cherokee leaps onto her back wheels and starts charging.

“Speed, Richter, Mads?” Buck asked, polite as could be. “Mind shooting at him for me? Don’t kill ‘im, just keep him from shooting my baby’s underside.”

We couldn’t argue with such a lovely proposition and we whipped out all five guns for the old man to make this bastard dance. Only problem was: he was a crack shot too. Sure enough, my dual-wielding cohorts had to keep it to a one-gun salute. When Buck saw this, he tapped the brakes, dropped us down, and kept plowing towards him. That needle hit the little 85, but I heard the engine going harder than that.

My guess is that we hit that hound at 100 even, but somehow, he didn’t combust on impact. No, he twirled right over us, too fast for any of us to hit him with a slug at point-blank range (though it was probably best we didn’t for Buck’s sake), and just like that, Buck whips his girl around and keeps hightailing it for this guy.

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” Rory shouts.

Buck looks back to him, winks, and just keeps his lead foot on the floor. Sure enough, that red scavenger starts losing. They get closer and closer and closer until the red trips on a rock and Buck picks this guy up by his scruff mid-fall. Now this hound’s just screaming incoherently and tries to aim his gun, only to get it slapped out of his hand!

This mofo’s stone-cold was the only thought in my mind as I’m watching all this play out. In the pandemonium, the red doing his whole “oh please SPARE ME!” trip, something catches Buck’s eye. I see the shades tip down his snout as he dug into the scavenger’s pocket. Cat wasn’t bad at driving with his left knee too. What he pulls out is paper; a note.

He opens it, and slams the brakes. Both paws, flat-down, drops the scavenger right onto a rock. He is D.O.A., caved right the fuck in. And when he hands me the note, I get why.

“if you want to see your bitch and kid, we got them at [insert never-ending coordinates here] bring cash and ride”

I pulled out my hand-radio. “Commissioner, this is Speedfreak. Request to break detail. We got a hostage situation. Hostage taker dead after pursuit, and we got coordinates for the hostages.”

Of course Chief wouldn’t say no, so I had Richter run the numbers and we make it to this shack, middle of butt-fuck-nowhere. We case the joint, kick the door in and find the gal and her daughter. Two white wolves, mother’s passed out and that poor kid. Jesus. She was bawling, absolutely out of it. When we undo the gags, she gave us the biggest heads up. “HE’S GONNA BLOW US UP!”

We see a big, square brick of radium, with plugs going into a unit, wired to a ticking time-bomb. 10 minutes. We don’t even try to diffuse it because we didn’t want to be anywhere near it with our own box of atomic TNT. We asked for a bomb squad from the nearest H.P. junction, but that was all. Buck tore right off with everyone in tow. We were well outta range when the shack went up, mushroom cloud and all. Thank Christ we were upwind of the sucker too, because even if the levels weren’t up there, shit still looked like Trinity to me.

When we came to a stop to get our bearings, I hopped out to stretch my legs, and the boys joined me. They had the mother propped up between them, gave her some water, and were just waiting on her. The pup was up with Buck and I and was still inconsolable.

Until she wasn’t.

Buck took that girl in his arms and held her tight. “She ain’t gone sweetheart. Everyone’s gonna be alright.” Now, none of us were great with kids. In fact, we all kinda just suck with ‘em. Pups in the crowd are cool, but none of us were up for any adventures in babysitting or bullshit. But Buck man...cat was a natural.

“Wanna tell me where y’all live?” he asked sweetly. “That way I can get ya home safe-n-sound.”

“102 Clayton” she sniffled. “Up north.”

“We neighbors then, huh?” Buck smiled. “I’m just down the road.”

The kid perked up a little, and Pops ran with it. “Once we get y’all home and rested, maybe you can come over sometime. I betcha Junior and Laci’d love playing with you. And we can go out for a nice drive through the hill’s in the family Bug.”

“You gotta Bug?” she asked, all wide-eyed.

“She’s a real cutie.” he chuckled, nuzzling her a little and—Christ, who the hell’s cutting onions in here? Get the fans on Doc, that shit can blind a guy!

Point is, dude talked all about this cute-as-a-button VW the family owns, and just like magic, the lady came through with a delirious, hushed mumbling of “Devlin.” Buck reached out and held her hand. “No ma’am, but we’re gonna get y’all home to see him.”

We stopped by Base to get rid of our crack-stash, where at least a half-dozen other war-chests of the shit were waiting. and seeing as the boys were fixing to eat anything in sight, I let them stay for lunch. I joined Buck in sending the family home. The hubby, Devlin was there at the house, everyone falling over themselves, hugging, crying, kissing. Buck hopped out, shook hands, and knelt down to the kiddo’s eye-level.

“Alright Lili, don’t forget Mr. Sterling’s right over the hill when you need me—” GODDAMNIT DOC, WHO’S CUTTING THOSE FUCKING ONIONS!? I’M TRYING TO TELL A GODDAMN STORY OVER HERE, JESUS!

No shit, I’m allergic to the suckers! Cut enough of ‘em and it’s like a pack of stinger missiles to the eyes.

Anyhow, point is the kid gave her hero neighbor a big old bear-hug, he offered the family a chance to come over and hangout with his old lady and their kids, they couldn’t say no, yada-yada. I give the family a quick salute, and wait on Buck to get back behind the wheel. “Ready for Round 2?” I ask.

“Mind if I check on my folks, first?” he asks in kind.

“You ain’t the Big Fucking Dad for nothing chief.” I chuckled. He got a kick outta that one, and we hightailed it up to his place. A cute one-story joint with a little Super Beetle in the driveway. He walks in, gives all the kids a big squeeze, practically makes love to his lady on the spot (really put the F in there on that one), and tells ‘em “I’ll be home for dinner.” Hops out, gets back behind the wheel, and we book it for Base to get another chest.

Rest of the day went to plan, with another crate or two of the stuff exorcised from the earth, and then Buck asks the big question on everyone’s minds. “Whaddya plan on doing with this stuff?”

I remember May sitting us all down and showing us these giant multi-layered barrel drums. “This is how they used to take care of the waste. We’re gonna do the same, but with an all-purpose compound lining the barrels.”

“Any chance this goes WMD-mode?” someone asked.

Actually, wasn’t that you Harry?

Thought so.

Anyway, May shook her head. “Dad don’t play that way. Neither does Haven. Ace glassed the Marshalls, but not with nukes. Let’s all count ourselves lucky everyone made that mistake once a good long time ago. We ain’t doing it again.”

With those sobering words of wisdom, the day was over, one of three. I met Buck by his Jeep to gab for a bit.

“On the end of the third day,” I says, “We got a special gig at Doc’s, free everything on the house for the folks involved here. Needless to say, you and the Sterling crew are more than welcome.”

“Thanks a million Speed.” he grinned.

“Nah, it’s after hours Buck, call me Nic.” We shook on that, just in time for him to pass me another note. “What’s this, my next impossible mission?”

“No,” he said frankly. “List of everyone I got on my back.” It was longer than I anticipated, and he could tell. “I do a lot to keep my family safe. I don’t let any crooks screw with ‘em. But I don’t always get ‘em, and begging pardon, the North division ain’t as cracking as you folks down here in Central.”

I tipped my hat. “Buck, you do what you gotta do. I’ll catch ya around.”

He nodded and rolled out. And just as he was rolling. A certain lick hit me in my head. A nice, six-note hook on bass. I whipped a pad out, jotted it down, and spent all night jamming it out. The next night I got Harry and Rory working with me, and by night three, when we hit the stage, we had a little something to embarrass our new friend with. A special tune on the set-list: “Sterling’s Siege.”

Boy did we get the big guy blushing.

“Evening gang, it’s your friendly neighborhood AA sponsor here! Ol’ Doc has a good reason to personally introduce these youngsters; crazy SOBs bought a round for the whole house. While me and the crew get all y’all good and loaded, they’ll hit ya right between the eyes with some hard-n-heavy rock-n-roll. Ladies, gentlemen, and bastards of all ages; please give a bitching welcome to ‘Maelstrom and the Rockets!’”

While it felt like a betrayal at first, the beer helped it go down easier. But then I heard that cat scream, and it went right back to knife-twisting territory.

Did we blame Doc at the time? Hell naw, our man had to keep himself and his family fed, and the whole point of the Oasis Stage was to give up-and-comers a leg up. And it just so happened after one-two-three-four-five…anyhow, after having that stage for longer than any other act in the area, he finally had to give someone a chance to shine.

They just so happened to be the new hotness from out West.

The frontman was Maelstrom; Mick Maelstrom. Always dressed in black, with belts all over, and a bluesy shriek that’d strip paint off a house ten miles out. And that’s a compliment. Helluva mane too, all brushed to one side.

He was the color of sand, backed by a group of swinging grays. Bassist kept it rock steady, the drummer was a beast, keyboardist had plenty of soul in those ivory-ticklers of his, and could hop on rhythm guitar when needed. And the guitarist…well, let’s just say I had Harry and his lady Scarlet get a room so he could enjoy the rest of his night without listening to the hound play. He couldn’t best him, but he was good enough to press the savant’s buttons.

I could already see Rory steaming, but he wasn’t gonna do anything with me around. As for myself…fuck, I was pretty pissed with ‘em too. Like black-fur-bristling-on-end bad. They were fucking great, but it was just that quality that was driving my young ass up the wall, around the block, and back to my seat. We kept it cool for the rest of the night, and in the end, it was just us three plus Scarlet that closed the joint down.

“Play it smooth,” I says to Rory before getting up to meet the band.

As The Rockets were gathering their things, I sauntered up to Mick, and in an instant, that sonofabitch turned the whole sitch around on us.

“Holy shit,” he shouted, eyes wide as the desert. “Y-y-y-you-yo-you…fucking hell…you’re from Metröpolis! The pairs of ya!”

“And our axeman is having a little fun next door,” Rory said dryly.

The tan-furred frontman couldn’t stop beaming as he shook my hand furiously, shook Rory’s in kind, and went for the dotted outline where Harry would stand. The rest of the Rockets didn’t take any notice, just kept packing their stuff away.

Mick brushed it off. “Don’t mind the boys, they’re a little matter-of-fact these days…Say, I heard you guys are working on an album?”

“Well, noodling around on a couple of ideas anyhow.” I grinned, “You cats cooking up a few 45s anytime soon?”

“With any luck, and enough time, right fellas?”

The half-hearted “yeah” was reassuring.

I broke the ice. “Just wanted to say I dug the set. You got talent, peanut gallery and all. Didn’t know you could take all that Old World New Wave stuff and spin it around into something heavy like that.”

He bowed as if he stood at the feet of an emperor. “Thank you!”

“Wanna jam for a bit? I got my bass in the back of the truck.” Out of the frying pan and into the fire was my day-job, so I figured “what the hell, why not” to offering the dude a chance to play with me. Mick beamed as he went for his own rhythm guitar, a sharp black-and-red axe if ever there was one.

“You can stay if you want Mads,” I offered, “But maybe it’s best we let the egos file out, eh?”

He huffed, but agreed, and walked out the door. The Rockets followed suit, and when Harry and Scarlet finally came out, the lovers pawing each other every step of the way, I waved them on. “Get outta here before something crazy happens like marriage.” They got a kick out of that one.

Doc grinned as he saw me and Mick sit down on the stage, having gotten our rigs hooked up.

“Just keep it at 11,” he winked before putting on that dumb old prospector voice of his. “‘I’s just an ol’ fart losing his hearin’ by the day!’”

We got a laugh out of it before he hightailed it to his quarters, shooing the rest of the wait-staff out the door.

And I shit you not, the very second we sit down and finally start laying down a groove that could blow a bus in half…you guessed it…

“CALLING ALL PATROLMEN, CALLING ALL PATROLMEN!”

We both hit a sour chord and looked down at our CBs.

Yes, our.

“You ain’t?” Mick started.

“Boy, you bet that Flying V I am.”

His eyes lit up for a spell before answering the call. “Mick Maelstrom, reporting.”

“Nic Ridgefield reporting,” says I.

“Didn’t realize you were in from the West, Maelstrom.” Commissioner comes on, all aglow. “Anyhow, we’ve got a chase in progress. Jasper Koenig, 5’ 5”, black fur. Scavenger filed under K.I.C. Took out a family of five for an Austin-Healey, gunning it for God knows where. Light blue, 1960 model. You’ll know it by its Arizona plates.”

“Is there a number on that plate, sir?” I ask.

“Damned if I know.” Commissioner replied, “How many rods come wearing plates anymore, especially Old World?”

“Point taken.” I nodded. “Ridgefield out.”

When Mick signed off, he looked to me with a puzzled kinda gaze. “Aren’t your bandmates Patrolmen too?”

I looked around all cool before whispering into the young buck’s ear something that never made it to the Commissioner in all my years on Patrol. Something that dog woulda killed me for.

“I had Rory and Harry take the batteries out of their CBs. They couldn’t catch a signal if it came in on a baseball.”

Mick snickered. He had a feeling I was one of the better senior officers on the force and he musta thought it pretty cool of me making sure my boys had a night off. We packed up our gear and headed out for our rides.

Now that tan lawman had an Impala so white, you could see it from space. He took care of that doll like she was the love of his life. He had a girl back West, but when she wasn’t around to collect on those heavy pets, you got a good idea who was taking in the surplus affection.

And no, that didn’t include screwing, you freaks. He probably got off on the adrenaline though, because when he turned her over, WHEW LORD, I was dry-heaving with damn envy. Sounded like the best eight pistons in the New West.

“She’s Saxon!” he shouted over the engine.

“She oughta be if she’s that lily-white.” I teased.

“No!” he shot back, “That’s her name.”

“How’s that?”

Mick switched on his radio, and I shit you not, every station on the dial would be playing a song from the band. One station was rolling on wheels of steel, the other would be serenading about crusaders, and then the station he liked most would be spinning the glam stuff. When “Ride Like the Wind” came on, he was in the zone quicker than you could say “It is the night.”

With nothing to go off of, the first part of the patrol was a good old-fashioned waiting game. We positioned ourselves out in the open. No towns in sight, no homesteads. Just a good old sandbox. At one point, we’d gotten so bored, we’d busted out the acoustic guitars and started noodling away, seeing as we had been so rudely interrupted.

And sure enough, just when those 12-bar blues was hitting sweet as wine, here comes our man, careening like a bat out of hell. He looked like he just left too. Skeezy little bastard had “those” eyes. You know the kind. The kind that you aren’t sure if they’re Halloween contacts or if Mama was hitting the sauce too hard after the best night of Papa’s life.

Our escaped villager of the damned kept driving his beady-eyed heart out until he reached us, after which I pulled out the P.A. system, the four bullhorns folding out of the cab roof.

“COMMANDER KOENIG, WE’RE SENDING YOU OUT OF ORBIT!”

Mustn’t have seen the reruns because he just kept on coming at us. And coming, and coming, and insert innuendo here, until he had just clipped the both of us, nudging our ten-ton machines ever so gently out of his way.

Clearly that wasn’t his intention, since he hit the brakes and whipped around to ram Mick. Ever the crack bullfighter (if you count wasted hounds as bulls), he gunned the Impala in reverse, the sports car missing him once more. Saxon started circling the Healey like the cars were gonna sprout switchblades, only to wind up in a cockfight when our scavenger chickened out. That was our cue to give chase.

The two of us were neck and neck with each other and closing in on our target. The only thing wrong with the picture was that we were chasing a Britannic beast, and like all scavengers worth their scrap, Koenig knew how to drive her.

He also knew a thing or two about shooting, because sure enough, out came a Smith & Wesson Centennial of all things. A genuine Model 40 .38 Special, giving us round after round of white-hot electric lead. And while I was safe in my cab, Mick having his top down got me a little jittery.

I gave my Toyota Hilux a good kick in the tank and whipped out my Model 3. I get the windows down, and lean out to start shooting. And this cunt gets me right in my goddamn hand!

Out the revolver goes, tumbling into the sands and I’m just losing it. He didn’t shoot my hand off, hell he only graced me, but that’s the kind of shit that shakes you up. And like an idiot on autopilot, I slam the brakes and dart out with my back turned to the maniac, who keeps on plinking his penny-packing peacemaker. Now I’m out here dodging the shots left and right, and when I finally get the gun in my hand, he gets bored and starts lighting into Saxon and Mick, who is firing back with the biggest goddamned shotgun I’ve beheld in life.

Imagine if you will a Howitzer but with fine wood furnishings, and that’s the kind of gear Mick was packing. With Koenig’s eyes off the prize, I finally get a chance to light into him and boy do I…hit everything but our man in black.

You see…to keep my BP from hitting the ceiling at Doc’s, I had the old codger make me a couple of the cocktails one of the resident love-makers dug. This cute Latin honey named Sabina swore by vodka martinis, and while she had a special bottle of genuine stuff, I had Doc make mine with the synth on tap. I probably knocked back five, and took my freebie from the Rockets as the sixth.

To coin an old phrase, I was over-served.

I had managed to get: the rear-left tire, the gas cap cover, both brake lights, the right side mirror, the rearview, bingo, and then landed a shot on his neck. And as if God himself came down and revealed unto me, “kid, you couldn’t execute this man if I tied the noose for you and hung him from the pearly gates,” onward came the cavalry! And by cavalry, I mean Harry, behind the wheel of his gal’s Camaro, Sheba. Built tough as her lady Scarlet, the Chevy bowled over the Healey in a good clean shove that sent it spinning out of control. I can give you the play-by-play like it was yesterday.

He was dead on the first rollover.

Like the windshield flattened clean against the ground and that car wasn’t built with roll-bars. His neck snapped like a Pixy-Stik.

Second rollover, his head was almost coming off.

We never found out what happened to the rest of him because, by the third rollover, that car went up in a fireball, against a cliff-face, with an avalanche of loose stone burying the sucker.

All four of us kinda just double-took each other before convening.

“K.I.C. is toast,” I said on radio, winded. “Dead and buried.”

“Good work Ridgefield.” Commissioner commended. “Over and out.”

That was the fastest that bastard ever hung up on me, but I wasn’t complaining. Mick was pleased to finally have the asshole off his tail, and at first, I looked to Harry worried.

“Tell me you didn’t put the batteries back in, Richter?” I pleaded.

He looked to Scarlet, who grinned, and shared the smile with me.

“Speed,” he said (and I’ll never forget this), “The only time I see you driving that fast is when you’re on duty or you’re having a drag. And seeing as you two weren’t exactly in the race of your lives, I figured ‘what the hell, while I’m in the neighborhood.’ See ya Monday.”

Cool as a cucumber, that bastard drove off into the dust of the desert, leaving me with Mick, who could only chuckle.

“Good to have men like that at your back.”

And like any happy drunk, I agreed. “I love that son-of-a-fuck.”

I was stable enough to drive, but when I got back to my pad, Mick was cool enough to sit down on the porch and finally have that jam session we were after. In fact, we really did rock ourselves to sleep that night. When we woke up, my bass still in hand and his Gibson still on his lap, I hit one note and the pair of us finished whatever the hell we had started.

As I made the cat some coffee, I’ll never forget what I heard him say.

“This is why you always keep the good rivals riding shotgun. Makes the competition not so bad. Makes catching crooks pretty easy too.”

I handed him his mug and tipped my hat. “It’ll be a while, but I think we can get our Capulets and Montagues to gel. Especially when we get grooving.”

We clinked our mugs and sobered up at the thought. It would take a while for sure, but with a cool kid like Mick Maelstrom to work with, it wouldn’t take long.

At least it seemed that way at first.

Hell Patrol is the only job where Garbage Day is the bloodiest day of the week. For some cotton-picking reason, Commissioner let every Central Region patrolman dump their crooks at the Maypole and gave the job to my unit to dispose of all of them. My boys and I get there and we’ve got at least 25 of these some bitches tied up, all wrapped in tissue paper with little pink bailing twine for our usual drawing-and-quartering. And all were still alive.

These were the lowest of the low. The arsonists who wrecked homes, the sadists whose perversions ran riot. Less said about the P.D.0.s, the better. And so on. These were the cats we had to dispose of for the Patrol.

Procedure went something like this: Rory has a ball slitting throats to hurry it along, and Harry tenderizes the legs so there was no chance of escape. After everyone has their turn on the sadist’s merry-go-round, I have them chained to the back of the truck in threes, with Harry and Rory hooking one each to their own rides. And we start ripping ‘em apart, five at a time. Like a full house at a Mayan temple being taught hara-kiri for the first time. The sand around the Maypole (which, for the record, is just a giant ass metal rod in the desert) had been stained permanently by the blood of the damned, and now with 25 of the suckers being relieved of their limbs and lives, looked like Martian soil.

Both the boys had black gloves on them, so after we shredded the last five, they started stacking ‘em higher and higher. Limbs, torsos, heads they didn’t gleefully crush. Whole kit-and-caboodle in a single pile. Both struck a match off the toe of their boots, and I heard something that sounded awfully promising to my musical ears.

A duet.

“ALL I HEEEEEAR!”

Drops match.

“IS BUUUUUUUURRRRRN!”

Perfect pitch, perfect volume, in total unison. It was fucking weird too because it was two totally different voices compared to the record, and yet they pulled off the exact same effect. Rory had this banshee-biker thing happening with this voice, full of rasp and venom, compared to the strong and smooth pipes of Harry. Was also a bit of a psychotic sight to see them singing heavy rock over a pyre of bodies, but then again, we’d all seen weirder.

“That’ll do Scream Queens.” I had pulled them aside to let the fire work its magic, when, right on time, when we all think we’re done for the day.

“Nic, Harrison, Rory!”

Our most darling Commissioner was back on the mic.

“Yessir,” I reply, life-force draining in real-time.

“Latest batch of refuse should be on your data modules. No legitimate name, just goes by ‘Pie Ro.’”

“Subtle fella ain’he?” Harry chimes in.

“Black wolf, 6’ 2”, code J.G.Z. Of particular interest as he has been hitting warehouses across the Central Region, including some of the Am…ambi…ambor…fucking hell.”

Leave it to him of all guys to botch the name.

“Ambiorixian Sir.”

“We were getting there, thanks. Point is the sonofabitch is torching supply lines that directly impact the war effort. Find him, beat him, burn him, do whatever the hell it takes to get the bastard off General Godred’s case. Last thing we need to give him is another heart attack.”

“Sir Yes Sir,” we saluted. Once we were sure he hung up, I looked to Rory instantly.

“Well Madskins, got your anarchist kit on you?”

I took the maniacal laugh as a hearty “you betcha” before sending us out to our rides. Once we were saddled up, I flipped my mod open once more and…gyah.

He was a nasty looking sonofabitch. Remember the old clay cartoons we used to watch as kids? The ones where they sculpted everything and moved ‘em around shot by shot, and they were all made at the speed of a methadone snail? Yeah, imagine that in real life. Like this wolf’s dimples were sculpted. His fur refused to look real. I’m still surprised he hadn’t melted like a Popsicle yet.

Re-goddamn-gardless, after getting the lowdown on our flaming Noid, the time had come for us to leave the bonfire to finish the job. First warehouse up on the docket was Red Sector C. She was quite the sight based on the data mods, but her being the latest victim meant trace elements of anything left would be worth a peep.

“You ever think about what goes through these roaches’ minds?” Harry started in over the radio.

“That’s for when I’m old and gray and someone’s therapist.” I chuckled, throwing on a dry British voice. “‘Sir, it appears you have torched five houses, killed 20 wolves, defiled at least thirteen of them, and ate two babies…how does that make you feel?’”

“Like I’m fucking serious man!”  he cuts in, “I’m not even 20 and I’ve already killed druggies, robbers, rapists, freaks, creeps, and my first P.D.0 was what? Last week?”

“True, but you weren’t the one who killed him.” The girl’s old man made a pretty good mess of that particular shit-stain. Never saw someone burnout on a head like that before.

“Point is, what keeps these fuckers going man?”

In came Rory with the most bafflingly sober thing I’ve ever heard the man say, to this day, bar none.

“It’s the freedom.” he said bluntly. “Ain’t no one to answer to. No feds, no states, no neighbors. Most of the time no folks to speak of. That’s why we’re here. No judge, no jury, just executioners. Only way we even got a record of the crimes is eye witnesses and good neighbors.”

“Or a little revenge for the victims.” I add. “Lotta folks out here wanna do right by one another. We take out the trash who don’t.”

It was all a lovely bunch of philosophizing that clearly struck a chord with young Harry.

So did the crate from out of left field.

My brown-furred delinquent pounced on those brakes quick as he could, but he tore right into that sucker like it owed him money. Rory and I made tracks to rally up alongside the rat rod.

“Yo, Richter, all good Brother?” Rory asked, swinging in shotgun side. Harry’s head made quite the rendezvous with his bike-chain steering wheel, but he was no worse for wear. Only blood Rory had got on his white fur all day was checking the kid over.

“Quit pawing me Mads, I’m fine!” Harry barked. He shook the shock off before noticing something. “Shit’s green!”

Sure enough, that crate was glowing like half a Christmas tree. And when we got out to inspect it, Rory went apeshit.

“Nope, nope, nope. Not happening, not touching, that shit’s Pandora waiting to happen. Don’t want no green gumballs of doom flying ‘round on my watch! No sir!”

Harry smirked. “Last time I’m showing you a movie at my pad.”

“Richter and Mads, pipe it, and dig the smell.” I had a good hunch about what it was, but I wanted the suspicion confirmed. And when Harry and Rory took a whiff, I got just that.

“Shit, Speed, it’s radium!” Rory gasped.

Harry wafted the scent away like smoke. “Betcha this shit was fixing to be fixed. Where’s that crowbar?”

Rory gladly chucked it his way and Harry popped the top.

“I’m no druggie,” he said, “But ain’t no way anybody can smoke THAT just the way it is.”

It was like staring at a pile of green boulders.

“Anyone got a Geiger counter on ‘em?” I asked. Turns out Rory kept one in the kit too, and this time he took to the crate. And once he fired up the counter…nothing.

“She’s flaccid!”

Harry and I exchange amused glances before letting him finish.

“I’m serious, I ain’t getting no reading. The thing works just fine and she ain’t stirring it.”

“So we have a box of irradiated rocks that are anything but irradiated.” I get to thinking about it. Still sounds absolutely nutty when I think about it, but those were the facts. There was one thing nagging at me about the whole thing though; we didn’t have time.

“Nail ‘er back together and toss it in my truck. We’ll deliver it to the Evidence Depot when we can. Maybe get us some kinda lead on that can of worms. But that shit ain’t our problem for the day.”

The two did just that and held it down in the Hilux’s bed with ratchet straps. With our present secured, we hightailed it right for the warehouse.

Now that right there was a five-alarm mess. Some of the General’s boys were there on-site. Was nice for us to have someone to chat with about the mission. I shook hands with the gray who was in charge of the big rig that hauled the salvageables back to Base.

“Nice of ya to take it up,” the trucker said.

“Think nothing of it.” I smiled, “Sorry it happened at all. How’s the Principal, anyway?”

The trucker cracked a hell of a grin. “Godred’s a spring chicken compared to this latest round of recruits. Old man outdid everyone in a one-armed push-up contest.”

Sounded like the Hound in Black alright.

“Talk to us about what could’ve been of value here.” I continued, “We’ll take espionage off the table, but won’t rule it out.”

The trucker had to think for a second, but when he told us what was there that might be worth something to somebody, it told the nuttiest story I’d heard all damn day.

“Lead plating, rail detonators, 200-Proof Synth Vodka, and a genuine ‘34 Ford Coupe, ran like a dream.”

He got a solitary blink from the three of us before explaining.

“The lead plating was for gamma-ray testing, the rail detonators were antiques to be disassembled and repurposed for any number of things, although the General wanted one diffused for preservation. The vodka…wasn’t for public consumption, let’s just say that, and the Ford was just a helluva barn-find the boys in the shop wanted to tinker with. But she was fully functional.”

“Was everything you rattled off here taken?” Harry asked.

The trucker nodded. “The lead was broken off in chunks, two drums of the vodka were gone, a case of the detonators, and the whole car was taken. None of that catalytic converter shit.”

“When?” my white biker added.

“Before itinerary and salvage this afternoon.” came the reply. “Staff were too busy putting out the fire best they could, and it’d be hard to sneak a car past the fire tenders once HQ got involved.”

“So, if I was to understand this correctly,” says I, “Someone got himself a little deuce coupe, ‘your finest spirits,’ blaster caps, and something that could be used as a layer of protection.”

Once again, the gray fellow nodded.

“And assuming it’s Mr. Ro behind it all,” Harry starts in innocently.

“Methinks we’ve got ourselves a mad bomber on wheels, wouldn’t you say?” Rory asked no one in particular.

And, as if God himself descended to answer from on high.

BOOOOOM!

Imagine your favorite volcano times 28, and that’s how the ground felt, grumbling and ripping beneath us all.

“MIND IF WE TAKE THIS ONE!?” I roared over the quaking Earth.

Our stunned big-rigger didn’t mind one bit as we saddled up and booked it for the explosion. And Lord almighty, what a blast it was. Less a mushroom cloud and more of a shrub. A fat fucking shrub of white you could probably see from the ocean.

In my mind’s eye, I was seeing the firefight of the ages, man. Us cats hanging behind burned-out walls, ducking beneath flames trying to nail this guy. Make a real show of things, as ya do on Patrol.

But what we found there wasn’t another torching of a warehouse. In the claymated flesh and fur was Pie…actually, if I have to say that fucker’s name one more time, I’ll open fire my goddamn self, so let’s call him Firestorm. Something rad like that.

So we see our puppet pal Firestorm with what looked like a rocket launcher in hand, but was in truth, what else, but a flame thrower. And boy could he throw flames. It was the throwing of said flames that landed him the grand prize of seeing that Ford go up like the Hindenburg, the bombed-out shell blazing away as he sees us coming up to him. I decide to put my truck’s new PA to the test and declare, as politely as I can from my four neat new little bull-horns on the cab:

“PIE—”

Ah shit.

“FIRESTORM. WE ARE HELL PATROL. YOU GOT TWO OPTIONS. TORCH YOUR-FUCKING-SELF. OR LET US TORCH YOU FOR THE CRIMES YOU’VE COMMITTED. REGARDLESS, YOU MUST DIE AND WILL—”

And before I could fucking finish, the dude just self-immolated himself. Like a Buddhist monk with too many wars to protest and so little time, he turns the thing in on himself and pulls the trigger. And while his fur was not of clay, I think his bones did melt through sheer exposure. Although we couldn’t get the best look because he had pocketed at least a dozen of the rail torpedoes, and when these detonator caps went off all at once, his body just blew to pieces. The fire consumed him, the caps, the flamethrower, and everything near it. Our arsonist perished probably as he would’ve wanted to.

And there we sat, in our rides, not even a shot fired.

“That Richter,” I says over the PA, “Is why I don’t ask ‘why.’”

The wide side-eye he gave me said it all; he got it.

“Fun’s not over yet!” Rory barked over radio.

As we look into our rear-view mirrors, we see perhaps the most genuinely frightening sight I think any of us had up to that point. Like an army of the dead they rode, sunk-in eyes and greening fur, all matted to hell and back. All driving these rust bucket cars and trucks, whose make and model were long gone to the kit-bashing it took to make them run at all. And all with one set of words spewing from their putrid muzzles.

“GIVE US OUR FUCKING HASH BACK!”

“JUNKIES AT SIX O’CLOCK!” I roar over the PA. And when we whip around to face them, they are just going to town on those throttles and I swear to God, half of them were stark naked. I couldn’t tell as they came careening towards us, but you got that vibe about them. These fuckers weren’t here to play. Neither were we.

I looked back at our hunk of burning crook and chose the easiest trick. After sitting tight, baiting them for a good long while, I cry out “MOVE” and the three of us tear off and out of the way.

The first band of these bitches is gone. Black Cadillac went right over the body and she musta been bleeding gas because that thing went up in an instant.

Then came the rest. Harry and Rory were putting holes in heads left and right, and like any good zombie, that was the trick to them, but the guys whose brains were still behind the wall of the skull knew that I was the cat with the bag. The Bag.

I let them chase me around for a bit before I get them good and hooked. Literally. I slam both boots down on the brakes and get this beaten to hell-and-back Dodge Ram on my hitch before giving the gas a good kick and dragging these nuts along for the ride. I start going right for the flaming Ford and figure a well-placed drift would shake them off into the real Hell. I cut the wheel and work her a little too well. The Dodge went flying into the fire, but my Hilux followed through, capsizing near the flames. And with a hellish blast, she gets righted alright, but not without the caveat of a FLAMING CRATE OF DRUGS.

I floor her into the fifth goddamned dimension, hoping for the crate to lurch back and roll right out of the pickup bed. Which it did…only to detonate on impact and send yours truly tumbling cab over wheels in a front flip that’d make any road warrior proud.

Rory gave me an even 8 on it.

I was still conscious and my truck was still running, but she was as good as out as we lay there upside down. Meanwhile, Rory and Harry were having the time of their life.

“SHOULDA BROUGHT MY LIGHT GUN!” I heard one of the two bark. My money’s on Harry, kid was loaded with game consoles growing up.

But these guys just kept wasting dog after meth-addled dog. And it wasn’t until the last rod came barreling into the towering inferno that either realized what had happened to me. Sure enough, Rory and Harry hustle their ass my way and, without missing the damnedest beat, push the noses of their rides up on the passenger side and get me up and over in a second.

“Heya…thanks.” I says, shaking the rush of blood back down my body. “Started seeing colors and shapes I hadn’t since I was a kid.”

“But what about the—oh shit!” It was at that moment that Rory realized what had happened to the evidence.

Harry looked pretty miffed on my behalf. “Shit, sorry it went down Speed. We’ll back you on the eyewitness report at least.”

“Thanks Chief,” I chuckled. “Besides, a big fucking crate of post-nuclear crack ain’t exactly cracking the Enigma code.”

“Tells me one thing though.” he said. “They do drops. Whoever cooks the shit or the people supplying the chef plants it in designated drops.”

“Figure coordinate based?” I ask, the blood making its way down to my torso.

“Only way I could see it making sense.” he nodded. “Shit was legit in the middle of nowhere.”

I stew on it for a bit. “Well, let’s call it progress and call it a day…ring up the Commish and close the case for me. I want to get my head on straight before tonight. Still got a set to play.”

After Commissioner had digested the confusion of not hearing me call in, Harry did a pretty good job of the usual write-up. Back at Doc’s, it took a while for the thing to screw on good and tight, but after a few good beers from the bar’s namesake, my noggin was back in action. I started strumming some chords before the gig, the Rickenbacker rocking the stage even with the gentlest hand.

Rory swung by after getting his kit tuned.

“You guys take ‘Burn,’” I says, “I don’t feel it tonight.”

“Hey, no sweat Nic,” he grinned. “I think we got it. What are you feeling then?”

“If it’s got ‘Fire’ in the title, I ain’t having it for starters.”

Harry strode by, chuckling as he noodled on his Fender. And like a carefully planted instigator, whips out a riff that sends my digits soaring across the fret-board. It’s got funk, it’s got groove, and it moves like a freight train.

“Where the hell you learned that?” I says to ‘em.

“Same record you bummed ‘Lost Johnny’ off of.” he replies. “The first version of it.”

When I realized the album he’d gotten into, I was cracking up like a true drunk.

“Alright my psychedelic warlords, let’s give it too ‘em good tonight.”

The second we hit the stage, the set we served up was heavy, spacey, bluesy and all out mad. Frantic drumming, white-knuckled runs, and some of the nuttiest solos the three of us ever made. And at the end of it all, I saw a group fixing to take on the whole damn world. Or what was left of it anyhow.

And just when it all seemed possible…the competition rolled into town.

When I saw that tough ol’ Bug soldier on out of view, back into those cobalt mists, I knew it’d be a good long minute before the pair of us got together again. She’s a good lover, just a tough one to hold down, always has been.

I clambered into Harry’s rat-rod, my steel-toed compatriot gussied up for a rockabilly square dance. Fine jeans, nice striped button-up, and the niftiest boots in the New West.

“Mighty nice of ya to do the honors Harry,” I says to him.

“Figure it’s as good a way to tell you I’m back on,” he shot back, “Not looking too bad in the new jack.”

I tipped my hat as he revved up his rat rod. Once she was good and warm, he opened her up real wide, his throttle hitting the license-plated floor with a tinny crunch. We stayed silent for a spell, the ghost of the Settlements still swimming around us. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I went the blunt route.

“Girl’s alright?”

He looked to me with a distant gaze, like I wasn’t there at all. He drew breath, held it for an eon, and coughed up the answer.

“Scarlet’s doing fine. Sheba too. Ma and Eric been helping her stay well, and Ma and I are keeping up on the car. Pop even made a flying trip out from the School to check on ‘em both. I’ll be checking on Scarlet every morning. Commish is cool with it...with all that plus the bastard paying for it, it’s everything wrapped up.”

“Any big news from Rod on the war,” I ask, trying to take his mind off of things.

“Same fights, different day,” he sighed, “Him and his rod Susie are always front of the platoon. Shit scares me half to death, but guess someone’s gotta fight ‘em.”

“Hell, Rod’s too big for ‘em bullets to go through anyway,” I chuckled, Harry snickering in kind. Was back to thawing my white line warrior.

“By the way, good thing I grabbed ya when I did, Chief’s got us on a manhunt. Brief’s on my data mod.”

I flip open his module and...well well well.

“Maggie E., gray fur, a mighty 6’ even, wanted for theft of cash from the Rio Noche Bank, and...aw shit, another D.P.R.”

“That’s what I said,” came the plain reply, “She likes whipping her dick around. Just so happens to come in .32 ACP.”

“Where Rory at right now?”

“Back at Doc’s,” Harry replied, shifting up, “He’s currently chumming it up with an old family friend.”

“Which of Rod’s duelling buddies is it, this time?” I asked with a sigh.

“Fay.”

Ah yes, the Bloodsucking Queen of the Duellists. Only gal who doesn’t kill her losers, just takes a little Red Cross donation for her center console. I wasn’t exactly crazy about her. I preferred her gal-pal Lori, but the pair of ‘em were too hot for each other for any of us guys to come knocking at the back door. Feral Fay was just nuts really. Not mean, sweet in her own way, but the blood thing was too damned weird for me.

It was then that Harry took a handful of words and knocked me clean out of the seat.

“She’s our main lead on nabbing E. Eyewitness testimony to the theft. She even tried running our 4-inch wonder off the road. Her Caddy put up a helluva fight, let me tell you.”

When you put it like “our live-in Wasteland vampire is our only shot at this broad,” it sounds crazy. And it wasn’t half as crazy as what we were about to go through.

We had just gotten back to the Spot when I caught her, Rory, and Lori out front. There she was, sat on the trunk of her cherry-red Series 62, just as I remembered her. Same stampede hat, same cutoffs, same red tied-off crop top. She was rocking sandals this time, which was new, and she had an 007 knife dangling from her belt.

Lori was about the same too. Just another denim-dressed gray, nothing special, which I think was why Fay dug her so. The straight man to her routine if you will.

Then there was dear old Rory, who really was getting along swimmingly. If I remember right, I think we caught them talking about the taste of it. Blood I mean. And it was then that I learned Rory had his own ideas about flavor.

“I swear to God, type B tastes the best, you can’t tell me it doesn’t with all that meat coursing through ‘em!”

“Slow down Slick,” Fay grinned, “You ever drank Type O Negative before? That shit’s like the Sauternes of blood. I got a couple vials of it tucked in Caddy’s console if you want to taste.”

“Who the hell goes driving around with Type O in ‘em?” Rory guffawed.

“Baby,” Fay teased, pulling the white bastard close to her, “Blame it on the Bomb.”

You could see Rory’s look of utter confusion from as far as where Harry and I were. You could hear Lori’s laugh from about there too. In time, we drove up and finally met the gaggle of bloodsucking freaks. And I’ll never forget the look she had on her face when she saw Harry.

Whatever I thought of that crazy bitch, she was a loving woman when she wanted to be. She held that young buck tight as a newborn babe in her arms. Nothing could tear her away from those precious few moments between the two of ‘em.

“How the folks?” she asked sweetly.

“Ma and Pa are doing alright,” he sheepishly grinned, “Scarlet too.”

“Nothing quite like a Duelling family, is there,” she chuckled, tasseling the scruff of his head.

When the reunion wound down, I cut straight to the chase.

“We’ve got a D.P.R. on the loose with a sack of quarters and a piece. And I’ve been told Little Miss Dracula’s got the scoop. Lay it on us Fay.”

Fay smirked as she straightened up into her full Amazonian form.

“Alright, since we’re the headline Nicky,” she came on, “We’re dealing with a bona fide bitch. Rocks a Pocket Hammerless, black garb head-to-toe, no Clyde to her Bonnie. When I was chasing her, she was driving a dirty white ‘60 Beetle heading North, back towards the Burnouts. Should look pretty bent outta shape after what I did.”

“Whatcha do?”

“Simple,” she grinned, “Dug my claws in at 120 and had lil’ ol’ Caddy take a bite out her back bumper.”

She leaned back to kiss her car’s ass, never once taking her eyes off me.

“Also squeezed off a couple shots with the Winchester. Lori tailed me with her ‘Stang, but we couldn’t catch up. She tossed her latest dish out the shotgun side. Neither of us hit him, but he was already busted up bad. Was D.O.A. by the time he could make it to a Medhub.”

All of a sudden, something vulnerable crept into her eyes.

“Never gon’ forget that fella’s face.”

Lori embraced Fay gently, her quiet way of pulling the Missus back together. Both shot me a look, not of scorn, but of “lay off.”

I bit my tongue for the time being.

“Alright, let’s load up and head north. Richter and Madskins, keep your revolvers locked and loaded. And Fay...”

She looked at me like I called on her in the middle of class.

“Still looking bad as ever,” I warmly smiled.

I winked to her, and she to me, with a kiss blown my way to boot.

“Lori’s riding with me,” she said, straightening her hat, “Tuned up Caddy and cleaned my piece. We’re good to go.”

I tipped my hat, “Ain’t been burying your snout too hard these days, have ya?”

Lori shot me a dirty look, but Fay chuckled. She knew what I meant.

“Bitch smells like burnt coffee grounds. Can’t miss her ‘less we’re driving by a roastery.”

We shook on the knowledge and slid behind the wheels of our rides. In no time at all, the caravan had hit the road to El Quemado.

Night in the desert was always kinda sensual for me. The air was cooler, yet warmer. Never hot. The sky wasn’t ever black; always topaz with flecks of white and red dotting it. Even my Hilux felt different. She felt soothed by the midnight air. I could pin her gas to the ground and she’d never roar. She’d hum every step of the way up the speedometer.

I kept eyes on the band as they drove behind us. Rory and Harry were cruising right along, but it was Fay that worried me. She was twice as mad as any of us behind the wheel, and I could feel the ground shake as she pushed her dear ol’ Caddy to his limits. Good Lord could she make her country girl timbre cut clean through the midnight air when she wanted to.

“HE STILL GOT IT AFTER, WHAT, 400-SOME’IN YEARS NOW?”

“SURE DOES KIDDO” (20-something me says to 30-something her) “DON’T TOUCH THAT POWER BRAKE ANYTIME SOON NOW, Y’HEAR?”

She chuckled as she gave me the bird, a salute with it, and a tip of her hat before falling back behind me as I led the way. It was in the gleam of my truck’s headlights that I saw something that brought the whole caravan to stop.

Maggie left us a body.

He was a white fella, about 40 to 42 or so. He was, shall we say, debauched, and bloodied. Fresh too. Looked like Ms. E was a live one, rocking at full tilt.

The gang surrounded the body. Harry said “shit,” Rory said shit, and Lori and Fay clung to one another.

“Get down here Richter. You too Fay.”

Fay gently crouched next to me, Harry dropping on sight alongside.

“Pheromones still in check?” I ask her.

She looked confused for five whole seconds before realizing I wasn’t asking ‘bout hers.

“Got the dark roast all over ‘im.”

I turned to Harry, “Where do you think she coulda picked him up?”

“Only town we passed up on the way was Tallada,” he starts in, “If I was you Speed, my money’s on this fella being a hitcher. Picked him up, had her fun, dropped him. And musta been a while, cause we ain’t got tracks.”

“NOT SO FAST,” Rory came careening, “Get a load of what we got here.”

The gang bolts over to find more than just tracks. Chick left a whole tire behind. Flat fifth of a one if there ever was.

“Good eye Madskins,” I says, “Fay, hit her with the radar.”

She flicks her nose once and catches the drift.

“Bitch’s mitts all over this change job. I say we hit the trail and see what we can do from there.”

In seconds, everyone was back in their rides and booking it for the North. There wasn’t much we could do about the body at the moment, so we left our I.O.U., took the tire, and rolled alongside that dusty little trail of Bug tracks. The impressions deepened as we went on, so we knew we were getting to the fresher stuff. The tracks started to bob and weave round ‘bout the three-mile mark. Joy ride was the obvious answer. Chick wanted to catch some of that breeze in her mange.

It was when we found the cul-de-sac I knew we’d been had.

We stopped at the outer edge of the circle and just...looked a sight for sore eyes.

“Someone’s gotta’ve tipped her or something, this shit’s nuts.”

“Maybe she just knows,” Lori chimed in quietly, “Knows we got, or someone’s got, eyes on her.”

“Could just be expecting too Speed,” Harry chimed in.

I look at the circle once more, miffed. Lord knows I didn’t want to spend the night jumping at shadows like the cutouts we were being handed. But then, something hit me real hard in the old noggin. She couldn’t have erased the tracks completely. There musta been a little tail to point us the right way.

“Go over it with a fine tooth comb,” I barked, “Look for tracks that point out of the circle.”

So a bunch of us go looking over these lines in the sand. Every grain we looked over, making sure no pebble sat stray, or if one did, it’d get us somewhere. Anywhere.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for my pride, a little discovery made by Vlad put everything into perspective.

“She backed out.”

The trail went back into the ruts and out. The sturdy ground was why the wheels weren’t leaving anything for us, little more than a faint wisp anyhow. But that meant a whole new angle: Maggie wasn’t heading North no more. This bitch was making a run for the East.

“Everybody up and at it dammit!”

We turned into a ten-ton hurricane of steel the way we tore off. I was piss-boiling mad but I didn’t let it get in my way. When my hammer dropped, everyone else’s did, and I was gonna make damn sure we didn’t lose this one to the wastes. It was full Holy Land Roller mode for the troop. Between the chopper, the truck, the rod, and the Caddy, we were damn-near rocking the ground loose beneath us, all of us making some real tracks on that rock-hard ground.

If only we hadn’t made too much noise.

I felt the shot hit the cab with a fat crash, like a cymbal being slammed at full force. If she was still rocking a .32, she was either close or somebody changed the size of the .32 on me. Only thing was: she was packing lead. None of the laser shit; good old American know-how hot out the oven. If we couldn’t get eyes on the muzzle flash, we might as well have been ducks in a barrel. I hop on the intercom with Harry.

“Richter Buddy, show me E fast, Bitch packing it old-school.”

“Copy that Speedfreak, going recon.”

His rat rod roared out ahead of me, module screen aglow in the heat of analysis. Suddenly

BANG!

Bullet rocketed right through the door of the rod. I could hear Harry cursing up a storm.

“KILL THE LIGHT MAN, NOW!”

I could hear my voice echo on his CB when he kicked the mod up, doused the light, and swung the rat rod in the direction of the gunfire. By then, the whole convoy was in hot pursuit in a blackout. We figured the angle on the hag.

We thought we did anyways.

Clean out of nowhere, I hear a scream I never want to hear in my life again.

It was Fay.

Got it in the back.

Folks would call ‘er a banshee, and by God was she when she screamed. Only thing they didn’t count on with either of our targets for the evening was the fire in their eyes. The last I saw of Lori before that bad ol’ Caddy went screaming for vengeance was a look of pure fear. The last I saw of Fay was a look of undying determination. She knocked back a vial of blood and went on her own campaign.

I let her as we soldiered on ahead. ‘Cause if we weren’t dealing with just one bitch, spreading ourselves out to take down the others wasn’t a half-bad idea.

On and on we roared until we finally caught sight of that muzzle flash.

Motherfucker socked Rory one in the chest. When he went tumbling down off that bike, growling like hell, I leapt on the radio quicker than a jackrabbit on a tin of Bennies.

“RICHTER, GET MADSKINS IN WITH YA, FAST! I’LL GET HER!”

He seethed and swung that rod back to Rory. Stopped on a dime and grabbed for him. I put the Hilux and myself between them and E. If she wanted ‘em, it’d have to be with a hole in my head.

Can’t say she didn’t try that.

Shots peppered the living hell out of that windshield. She was bulletproof, but that didn’t stop the dents, the smudges, and in time, the cracks. I drew my Smith & Wesson and cocked her back. She wasn’t gonna get away with shit.

When I swung my head out, shots were flying thick and fast. In fact, they were rocking a little too hard out the barrel. Her Colt was semi-auto, but this thing was hitting machine speed. All the same, I started letting her have every drop of laser in my chamber.

The last drops in fact.

Forgot to reload after the escapade, and here I was, caught with my pants down with this dame. She started rattling my cage as I dove back in, deep into my glove box. And in no time at all, I found something I hadn’t touched in years.

Genuine .45 Scofield.

I was ready to load the revolver when

BAM!

Bullets, gun, and yours truly went flying goddamn everywhere. My head took one on the windshield, but my Hilux never let me go, God bless her.

When I looked up to see what I had hit, I made the mother of all discoveries.

It was the Bug. Her Bug.

White thing was a sardine can after my killer knocked him down.

I picked up the bullets and loaded my cylinder, staggering out from behind the wheel, my leg a little game from the hit-and-run. I was ready to read that bitch the best damn screed. The kind of shit you quote with your hard-ass friends when you want to talk tough with ‘em. It was the executioner’s song to end all executioner songs.

Turns out the truck did the job for me.

Blood and brains caked the desert floor, the Bug’s shredded tire dragged clean across the body. Ain’t no one was coming back from that mess.

I hopped back in and fired the Toyota up. For a second, I thought I’d finally done her in. Her mean V8 was chugging on the key for a good second before I gave her a kick in the tank. Hiluxes don’t die though. Lord knows they ain’t built to.

I bolted back for Harry and Rory, my JD meeting me halfway.

“Mads is pretty roughed up,” Harry started.

“Bitch paid for it,” my mad dog coughed, “Right Speed?”

“You bet your ass she did.”

Never saw the man that bloodied in my life, least with his own blood anyhow. When she got him, Lord did she get him. Went for a kit in the truck, only to realize it got jumbled by the kamikaze finish. Took some digging, and some prying, but I got it out and worked my magic on the spot.

“The hell you know this?” Harry seethed, digging out his own lead.

“First Aid’s a little something you learn on the road. Ought to make it part of the welcome package ‘ere on Patrol.”

I got Rory nice and stable, and did the trick on Harry too. Both boys needed real care, but this’d get ‘em there.

“Where’s...where’s Fay?” Rory asked.

“Heard a scuffle going on down the way,” Harry came in, “Shit sounded rough, so did the gunshots.”

I gave pause for a moment before talking.

“If the Winchester didn’t do him in, the Caddy would. And if the Caddy didn’t, then Fay herself would. And if Fay couldn’t, count your blessings Mads, Lori’s done her avenging by now.”

“But what if—”

“—None of that Mads, don’t get yourself tied in knots.”

“God I hope she made it out,” Harry coldly intoned, “If she didn’t, I will rip the asshole’s spine out!”

Harry gnashed his gritted teeth, the pain only pissing him off more.

“You two don’t get yourselves wound up over a goddamn Duellist now, you here—”

“—SHE’S FAMILY NIC!”

Harry leapt at me and sunk all eight pins of his on my neck and pulled me down to his level.

“This fucking job damn near cost me my girl, and I didn’t have time to stop it ‘til it was almost too late. If you think I’m gonna let a woman I known since I was a boy go just like that, I’ll gut your ass right here and now you black sonofabitch.”

He threw me out of his grip with a single sentence.

“Get in yer truck and follow Fuckstick.”

I coulda put a bullet in his head right then, but I didn’t. I knew where he was coming from. We were all shook up bad that night, and I just made a real ass of myself.

We both got our rides in gear just in time for two white lights to greet our rear-views, careening towards us at Mach 9. I looked to Harry and he to me. We turned our rides around to greet whoever it was roaring up. In time, the lights revealed the smiling face of that beautiful ol’ Series 62, and when we could see past the glow, we saw the best damn sight for our sore eyes.

“Miss us Boys?”

Fay stepped out of the Caddy, Lori following suit. The red wolf’s back was still bloody from the wound, but she shooed me away for a moment.

“I got ya some’in special.”

Fay dove into the backseat, emerging with a small burlap sack. She shed the brown bag and showed us

“How the?”

She had brought us the head of Maggie E. Her neck was a clotted mess, her eyes laced with all the charm of Medusa herself, fur twice as manged as the mugshot.

“She’s type B Rory. Care for a sip?”

Rory perked up and guffawed heartily. A little too heartily for his wound, but he took the offer wholesale.

I was left holding the last question of the night.

“Then who the hell’s brains are all over the sand?”

Fay gave me that confused look of hers, even as I explained the whole thing.

She never asked her. Never had the chance though, more like.

It could’ve been a lover, it could’ve been a friend. It could’ve been an enemy. Every now and then, when we’re playing a gig, going on a hunt, or hell, sometimes when we swing by and have a pint with Feral Fay and her gal, we’ll say “Here’s to Maggie’s Boy.”

Lori told me they still got the head too. Fay had ‘er stuffed and mounted. She’s got her own little phrase for the affair etched on the mount:

“Playing with the Boys, Bagging on the Bitches.”

Now there’s something I’d drink blood to.

I don’t know where the hell the kid kept that in him, but two hundred pounds worth of megawatts was about what it sounded like.

Music will bring out crazy things in people, and it was in the middle of a little jam session at Doc’s Spot when I had something of a breakthrough with young buck Harry. I was playing with a favorite riff of mine. Song was a real screamer from a kicking band, one of my all-timers. It was a tempo thing, the kind of heavy speed-driven stuff I lived for.

Rory was getting his double kick into gear while I was letting the chords rip right through my bass and amps, and when what to my pointed ears should I hear...but Harrison Garret himself started to sing along. He was very soft, but on key. I stopped and looked at him with a little gleam in my eye. Just a way to smooth him over.

“Wanna try it at full volume?” I asked.

“Oh, hell man, I can’t,” he starts, “Can’t carry a tune to save my life.”

“Oh c’mon,” I chuckled, “You only got us two to embarrass yourself in front of. Think about me going out there every night and digging the mic in my throat for a couple hundred of guys and gals.”

He pondered the thought and shook his head at me, muttering to himself all the while. He stood up and made his way to the mic stand, bringing it down from my preferred height. Once in place, he gave it a tap and, boy was the thing alive. Before he took a crack at it, I thought I’d give him a hand.

“I’ll even let you play with the band first,” I says, rummaging through my compact discs. I slid the demo album of the group into the player on the side of the stage. I skipped around a bit and finally landed on the song. I gave him the thumbs up and hit play.

After the kickoff, Rory and I lost our jaws to the stage. Harry took off like a bottle rocket and didn’t come down to earth for the next five minutes. He clung to that mic and let that iron-clad melody fire out of his throat with all the fury of his bullets. He sang like he drove, full throttle, and without a shred of mercy. Maybe digging out the LP would’ve been the way to go, if only to hear him double-track the whole tune with those titanium-plated pipes of his. After pulling ourselves together, Rory and I joined in on the fun, and now I had the whole band putting our twist on the tune. It might’ve been worth slipping into the set the more I think of it. Either way, at the track’s end, I turned off the player and came right up to him.

“Son, if that’s what you call shit, then I’ll take all the shit you can give me ol’ Iron Lungs.”

That marked the first time I finally got an honest-to-goodness smile out of our live-in J.D. Took me a month, but here we are. Just in time for our beloved commissioner to bring us only the best news there was to disseminate, hot off the radio on my hip.

“Nic, Rory, Harrison,” he starts in, “Wish I could say ‘good day’ but you know me by now.”

“Cold day in Hell when you can Sir,” I reply, “Fortunately for you it’s at least 80 outside.”

“Pipe down Ridgefield,” he barked back, “Today we’ve got something of a sordid case for you.”

When I heard a whisper of “so a day ending in Y” behind my back, I swung my hand to get everyone to shut up. The Commissioner had the ears of a hawk, so I was just praying he didn’t pay them any mind.

“Name’s Davy Flynn. Middle-aged, 6’ 2”, white fur. Wanted for sex crimes chiefly. You’ll find the rap sheet on your data modules. He might have some ties to a couple of rings that have developed over the past few years. He’s a D.P.R. with an asterisk; really grill him before you do anything serious. You know what to do with those types, Nic. Last seen in the Western region, heading deeper within. That’s all for now. Godspeed gentlemen.”

When he hung up, I sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“Well,” I start, “Boss being tight lipped about the bastard on call is never a good sign. Guess I’ll find out how deep we in with him. Saddle up boys!”

“Sir yes sir.”

It was only when I clambered into my dark blue baby and turned the key did I learn how twisted this man was. I poured over my mod and Flynn’s mile-long rap sheet. Goddamn was he an absolute pile.

How could you do that to five chicks in a night? Why would you? Then you had to clean up all that blood and fur. Then you go do that shit five times over the course of a week. I don’t know what to be more wigged out by, the libido or the aftermath. God, what an absolute pile.

No sooner did I come to the end of the laundry list than I heard Rory spilling his guts out on the sand beside his bike.

“Yo, Madskins, you alright?” I asked.

Through the gagging, he managed to say, “just looking over the case file.”

“Whadda fucking pig,” Harry spat, loading up his long-barreled revolvers, “Chief said he’s heading West. How deep you figure Speedfreak?”

“My dear Richter,” I says, tipping my shades to the edge of my snout, “We’re going to the Ivory Coast. A tender little strip between the Marshall ruins and the border of the Western region. I figure No Man’s Land is his preferred residence.”

“Lemme finish the job when you’re done with him.”

I gave it some thought. Harry was capable alright, but execution work demanded something of a discipline that I sensed wasn’t on his mind. On the other hand, knowing who we were hunting, maybe some fireworks were in order.

“He’s yours when I’m through. Let’s ride Boys, can’t keep our beasts waiting.”

With that, we turned ‘em loose and bombed away into the desert. It was a longer ride than most, especially since Doc’s Spot was in the heart of Central. All our rides were filled up, but we weren’t worried about that. My Hilux would run bone dry for me if we had to.

It was making sure we could get there in time.

We didn’t know if he had a ride, if he was on foot, or if he decided to get creative and sprout a pair of wings. Knowing how much of a freak he was, he probably made ‘em out of the pelts. The passing minutes (and inevitably hours) were killed with some CB small talk. I mused about Lita and what she might be up to in Haven, Rory rambled on about some of his more daring moments in the field, and Harry started to talk of home, and of his folks, Rod and Bette. Wasn’t homesick, but he seemed like his childhood was one big joy ride from the way he told it. Knowing those two, I’d believe it.

It took us about another hour or so of conversation until we reached it; that corner of the world caught between a bona fide rock and the sharpest edge of a hard place. The Ivory Coast had all the color of centuries-old terracotta, and a vista view that’d make most folks wilt on site. We never knew if it was a creation of the Party, A.C.E.S, or some other agency, but a cloud of dark gray haunted the land beyond the craggy cliffs of the Coast in perpetuity. Perhaps it was some kinda psyop to keep the civilians from resettling. I wasn’t sure how Godred would take on that task, but Lord knows it didn’t keep Hell Patrol away.

I could tell it was the Boys’ first time. The two sat, staring. You didn’t need to look past the shades to know their eyes were the widest they’ve ever been, shock all over their face.

“What you see there...that’s what the Base is fending off.”

I let the words sink in. With our respects paid to the scorched earth, we turned our attention to looking for Flynn. We chose to split up, myself turning left and the Boys turning right. A.C.E.S. had made a mighty fine crater out of old J.B.’s land, making the cliff of the Ivory Coast a jagged border for the remains of the Marshall settlements. The Hilux’s tires pounded the fine sand of the deserted plains as we made our way across it. She was running good and hot that day and thank God for that. What came next would be...hell, it would be something alright.

On the horizon sat a red-hot Camaro, late 70s. A real Old World beauty. Before it was our man. Dear old Davy was just as pretty in person as he was in picture. He had that sickly smile from the photo on record. And he had plenty to smile about. He had a pretty girl at the business end of his 007 knife, and his getaway ride looking on at it all.

The dame was white-furred and in a crimson one-piece and tan sandals; nothing but fear in those beautiful brown eyes of hers. I called in the Boys before jumping into action. I gunned my truck on ahead. There wasn’t gonna be no skinning on my watch.

Now Davy Flynn, for all his depravity, wasn’t stupid. When he saw a truck, whose front wheels weighed more than his entire body count, he knew to get the hell outta Dodge. He was even smart enough to take the girl with him.

He wasn’t smart enough on guessing his odds on starting the car up.

I slammed into that tail end, and I could hear his head slam against the wheel over the hostage’s scream. I dropped my truck in park and leapt out to nab him.

He was bleeding from the forehead pretty bad, but he still had spirit in him. He took plenty of swipes at me with the knife. Just for the hell of it, I played him at his own game. I threw him out of the car and drew my own switchblade. I’d cut a bastard or two myself, so I knew enough. If he wanted the blade, he’d get every inch of it.

My bare chest was an appetizing target for him, so he was always on the offensive. Each swing of his arm, each lunge of his 007 trimmed my fur closer and closer to the skin. It was a good way to give him a sense of security in the fight. That way, he wouldn’t see what was coming.

Two things came down on the menace: my boot and my knife. He got one in the chest, and two in the hand. I stabbed once to get the knife out of his grasp, and twice to pin him down. There he lay, crucified on the ground. The Boys were just in time for the interrogation.

“Davy, Davy, Davy,” I taunted, “You’re lucky to be alive right about now. Use that time to your advantage. Where you find ‘em?”

“Where I fine what?” he snarled.

“The girls, the pelts, the pairs of ‘em?”

“Cruising Dumbass,” he chuckled, “I just drive up, ask ‘em for a good time, and I show ‘em one!”

He cackled with a venomous zeal. I popped him one in the mouth.

“Any places you frequent?”

“Oh, just little dives here and there, nothing special.”

“Don’t lie to me Man, you got ties. I hit you with names, you hit me with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ got it?”

He shrugs, a pang of pain running through him from his impaled hands. Sonofabitch still ain’t squealing for shit.

“Tossci?”

Nothing.

“Vanderburton?”

Nothing.

“Jockwell?”

Nothing.

“You sack of shit.”

I wrap my hands around the beast’s neck and start to squeeze. It’s not long before he changes his tune.

“My maACK...man’s...VanderACK...burton.”

I release my grip. He draws every ounce of breath he can get.

“Where’s he now?”

“The East,” he coughs.

“Eastern region?”

“No, you dickhead, the EAST. Gone, out of here, heading for the Atlantic.”

The East? He was going right out of the desert entirely. This creep...this creep was his decoy! That was it. Have us chase him while that smut-lord rolls away scot-free.

“Enjoy the air while you still can.”

I give him one good kick where it hurt him the most. Bet it felt a whole lot worse knowing he couldn’t cup ‘em.

Rory and Harry walk over, Rory goes to the body and Harry to the girl. We can hear the dame cry into his shoulder as Rory surveys my handy work.

“I give it an even 8,” he says, “Coulda cut him a bit more.”

I knew where this was going, so I let it happen.

“How so?” I cheekily inquire.

“Oh...like this!”

In a second, Rory slashes along the killer’s torso, the dirty white fur running red with the cuts. I’d bought him a switchblade a couple of Christmases ago and he’d been in love with that sucker ever since. I got him to ease off as I had promised Harry the final blow.

“You ready Richter?”

I look over to see him sitting passenger side with the girl behind the wheel.

“I want her to do it,” he says plainly.

“What? You sure about that? What made you change your mi—”

“DAMN IT MAN!”

The girl winced for a moment before Harry softly apologized. He soothed her before jumping out of the Camaro and walking right up to me.

“Come closer.”

I obliged. What he whispered into my ear just about had me throwing up in my mouth. I looked at the demented creature writhing on the ground.

“Right then...her kill to make. Keep her on the straight-and-narrow, alright?”

“Yes...sir.”

Harry jumped right back into the Camaro. From my end, all I knew was that we had to rig up another makeshift Maypole setup. Rory got to pilot Harry’s hot rod (lucky S.O.B.), and I got my Hilux into position. Flynn was strung up good and tight. I read him my usual decree.

“This one’s for all those beautiful bodies you desecrated with that demented brain of yours.”

Harry was giving the gal a talk through about the whole thing. He had just finished when Flynn blew the lady a kiss from his gallows. That was enough of a cue for her to punch it and grab the killer with her ride. She ran him so hot I was worried for a sec that she’d go over the cliff with him, but she knew just when to slam those brakes of hers.

Down and down Flynn fell. It was a good twenty-foot drop, so we all knew he wasn’t coming back from it. It was just how hard he hit the ground that we were surprised by. Right on a formation he went, right through the stomach too. I’d figured his guts were as rotten as his crimes, so when the stench came rising from his resting place, that checked out. Another dope fiend.

The only courtesy we afforded him was returning the arms to their rightful owner. Now he was A.C.E.S’s problem, not ours.

The ride back was a solemn one. We formed something of a mobile fortress around the girl and her ride. The fact she wasn’t catatonic by the end of the whole affair was a miracle in and of itself, but Harry’s preoccupation with the girl had me puzzled. Kept looking over to her repeatedly, even while he was on his phone. She occasionally glanced back to him but did nothing more. No smiles, no frowns, just a vacant acknowledgment. She was still there, that much was certain. It wouldn’t be until we returned to The Spot that it all came together with crystal clarity.

Standing outside the joint was none other than Mrs. Garret, a trailer hooked up behind that bright yellow truck of hers, Avalon. At first, I kinda couldn’t believe it, but the wardrobe was undeniable. The bandanna cap, tied crop top, cutoffs, those black-and-rainbow sandals of hers; it was Beach Babe alright, the great keeper of the Central waterhole herself.

When we came to a stop, the girl brought her car around and onto the truck’s trailer. When she set foot outside, the girl caught the fender and just about went head over heels into the ground. Bette was there to catch her in an instant, and my God was this little lady melting down. Harry darted over to help her back on her feet.

It was then that he said it all in one go.

“Ma will take you home, get you laid up. I’ll be over tonight. Sheba won’t be too hard a fix. Just...just take it easy. I love you Scarlet, don’t you ever forget that.”

She fell right into his arms, kissing him ferociously. He held her for a good long while before letting his old lady do the rest.

“I’ve sent for Eric,” she soothed in her soft ebony tones, “He’ll look you over and help you through. Let’s head home now.”

Bette gunned Avalon right for the horizon, and in a flash, the women were gone. I looked over to Harry, and he cut right through me with that teenaged edge of his. He’d gone right back to his brooding old self, no sooner than I had just opened him up.

I let him calm his nerves while I radioed the Commissioner about the whole affair. He was naturally displeased about one of our live-in pimps evading his recommended dose of frontier justice, but he knew enough about hostages to lay off. If Vanderburton managed to survive the march to the sea, we’d find him. Not that there were too many hiding places out there.

When I got off the line with the Commissioner, I looked over to Harry.

He had gotten back in his ride, ready to head for the waterhole to be with his girl. He said something before firing up the engine.

“Small fucking world, ain’t it?”

Damn right Son. Damn right.

Nothing is more thrilling to me than letting loose. On anything really. I mean really sinking your claws into it. A good riff, a good song. A worthwhile victim. Something that you can just get your fangs deep in and say, “goddamn does that feel good.” Suppose that’s why I joined Hell Patrol, and why I spent my younger years as a lawman. Capping crooks and slaying sinners. Not to say I’m any cleaner than most.

Hell, my body count beforehand wasn’t anything to sneeze at, but at least I got some good tail in. More importantly, my shit was all above board. The kind of files that come across that damned digital desk of mine would make the sternest man’s stomach turn inside out. I learned my limits early on, Rory ralphed his first day, but strangely enough, I think Harrison was the first to not be phased by it at all, not by a long shot.

That’s why I kept him around.

We were hammering out a set in the morning at Doc’s when we got a call in over the radio. The three of us were rocking so damn loud we missed the first call-in. Rory was getting his double-kick-drum thing honed, and between my Rickenbacker and Harry’s Stratocaster, it’s a miracle we hadn’t rocked our solar joint of choice, The Spot, off its foundation.

Doc was always a good sport about letting heavy acts like ours play there, God bless him. Plus, that kind of fast-and-loose playing was how we got our codenames. Back in those days, I was “Speedfreak,” Rory was “Madskins,” and Harry was “Richter.” What a trio we made for.

Back then, Harry wasn’t bad for his young age, though I wasn’t much older. I wanted to find some way of getting him out of the hardened shell he came to me in, but I was sure enough time in the band would make Harry come alive for sure. It had worked well so far, so I was just praying it’d keep.

The moment we finished the song, all we heard was the white noise of the joint and a loud, static-muffled “HEY ASSHOLES” shooting from my hip. I got a “Yessir” out before busting my gut. Rory got a kick out of it too, and I swear that was the first time Harry must’ve laughed in millennia.

Once we pulled ourselves together, I let the Commissioner spin us the order.

“Nic, Rory, and Harrison,” he went, “We got a real rotter for you. Name’s Marion Lansing. 5’ 7”, brown fur. Wanted for, among other things: theft, arson, the slaying of at least ten civilians, and two families. Last known photo should appear on your data module in your rides. Code’s J.T.R. If you don’t nail him on sight, take him to the Maypole to fix him.”

“Thank you Chief,” I answered, “Over and out.”

I turned to my troop.

“Well Metröpolis,” I says, “Ready to mince this bastard?”

“You want him done or well done,” Rory asked, twirling his sticks.

“I hope you realize we aren’t eating him,” Harry quipped.

“I’ll have him burnt to a crisp after a good tenderizing,” I shot back, “Madskins can do whatever he wants with him after. Beat him, burn him, eat him, fuck him, or if he’s feeling extra depraved, season him with a little coriander. Point is, we’ve got a killer to put down. Let’s nail him good.”

“Yes Nic sir” was their unanimous response.

Now that right there, that simple little phrase...whew LORD! That was the kind of stuff that hits the spot. Makes a man feel good to be in command.

I tipped my hat in kind and we all locked up our gear for the evening. If we were good about it, the whole affair could be fixed up in a day. I was sure it would, but I was never sure about the how’s. Not worth worrying about in my book.

If it’s mortal, that means you can end him with a shot or two or a swift stomp on the gas. If you felt like really fucking him up, you’d do both. The hard part was finding him.

We all dove into (and in Rory’s case, onto) our rides as we left Doc’s. My truck, God bless her, turned over on the dime. I got a good look at the character on my mod in the glove box.

“Just as I thought” were the first words out of my mouth. Dude looked demented. Like out of his head, coked-up and meth-fueled bad. Scars on his snout, sunken-in eyes, scraggy fur coat. Like a dead man walking.

“Handsome.”

I waited on my crew to get their engines running good and hot. Rory got his black beauty of a chopper up to snuff in a cinch. The bike was a real hellion, good enough for the Ambiorixians, but Rory’s minimal discipline made him more suited for my kind of work. Either way, that bike wouldn’t be serving time in ol’ Principal Godred’s Force. Still don’t know how the hell he could ride around bare-chested, white-as-a-cloud, on a beast that could clock 300 in the blink of an eye, but then again, Rory was always this anomaly of nature, so questioning shit like that always got futile after a point.

Harry revved up that honey of a rat rod the Old Man and Lady worked with him on. Whew Lord would I kill to work her to the frame. I always kicked those thoughts to the curb early on as I knew we wouldn’t let me touch her ‘til he was good and comfortable with me as a commander.

By the time we all had our shades on, I knew it was time to get shit done.

“Let’s hit it, Boys!”

Bike, rod, truck and all tore away into the desert, with a good idea of what their prey for the day would be. The file on module stated the last place he was seen was somewhere between the central region where we lived and the North country. He was miles away from the Force’s base, so he mustn’t have been that doped-up. Good for him too. Godred’s a good man, but he suffers no fools on his turf.

I figure he’d probably be around the Ruins, where a lot of the scavengers prey on unsuspecting rides. I knew a couple of old burned-down houses that would be right up his cold, crooked alley.

“Speedfreak to Richter,” I says over the radio.

“Coming in chief,” came his slick voice, “What’s the scoop?”

“Smart money’s on the ass being up by the Ruins. Burnout City, USA. Big Rod ever tell you about that one?”

“Not much that I can remember.”

“Oh c’mon, sure ol’ Duellin’ Rod had a war story or two to tell.”

“Well...Pop said something about Haven and A.C.E.S’s men doing a number on a settlement,” he replied, “I remember him and Ma going over it on his off-time after they fought off the worst of the forces. Too late to salvage anything if you couldn’t guess.”

“Beach Babe Bette got any relations from there?”

“Friends of the family,” he said dryly, “Used to come to the waterhole before I was born. The parents would collect some of the water, purify it, and the kids would go swimming. Apparently loved Ma’s truck, would pet the damn thing like he was her prized pony or something. But I mean, hell, I remember being six myself and it really is hard to beat that lemon-colored party barge...None of ‘em made it though. That’s why Dad had to break the news.”

“Well keep your eyes peeled behind those shades, population might’ve grown by one. Over and out.”

I hung up the talkie and turned over to Rory who was bucketing along on driver's side. I put on the biggest voice I had to cut clean through all three of our machines.

“WE’RE HEADING NORTH MADS! TO THE RUINS! BURNOUT CITY, YA DIG?”

Rory’s right thumb shot out of those fingerless gloves of his.

“RIGHT ON MAN! KEEP THE BLACK BEAUTY ROLLING!”

He revved her up just for me and started pulling ahead. I went for the radio to hail Harry one last time.

“One last thing Richter.”

“Yes sir?”

“Put those Size 10 steel-caps of yours to good use and try to keep up.”

I let him hear my white boot kick the throttle down to the floor over the radio. Finally got another smile out of him. Came with a shake of his brown head, but at least the kid had loosened up. Even better, he got that rat rod running good and mean for me.

The three of us were neck-and-neck all the way to those badlands, wind whipping around us. Kept everyone clear-minded for what was to come with some sly banter on the radio. Talking songs, chicks, and the like. Harry could talk for ages about his girlfriend alright, that was for sure.

We were just ten minutes shy of high noon as we made it to our scenic destination. Luscious desert plains, homely burned-out shacks, those wholesome black mountains in the distance. Y’know, the postcard kind of stuff.

The entourage came to a halt outside of one particular building. Two-stories. Okay, maybe it was more like one-and-a-half. Was red once, you could see it underneath the charred siding and wood. When we got out of our saddles, I remember Harry coming up to me with a soft grimace, only words he had on him were “I think this was theirs.”

If he was still here, he at least would have heard us rolling in, so I knew stealth wasn’t quite a cut-and-dry option. Wouldn’t hurt to keep our approach on the downlow regardless.

“Look at it this way Gang,” I says in a hushed tone, “We’re strapped, we’ve got our wits about us. Let’s each start walking through, checking building by building. A lot of these are single-story, so there isn’t much to worry about as far as nooks and crannies he can squeeze into.”

With a nod from my men, the search was on. I had us split up to cover more ground. We fortunately wouldn’t be too far from each other, but we would still have a short jog between any one of us. Call it a give-and-take type of deal.

I started on the house before us, Rory was one door down, and Harry two. I swear to God, we tore the whole town up, down, and back again.

Nothing.

Not even a strand of fur.

And given his state on the file, dude could probably make a blanket out of the shit he’d be leaving behind. I would have given up, but the hunch still hadn’t left me. He might not be tucked away nice and neat in any of these holes, but he had to be in the area.

“Well, where the hell could he be hiding?” came the obvious question, Harry’s patience wearing thin.

“Simple,” I says, “He’s not. He’s also in scavenging land. Scavenging land means rides, rides means a getaway. People dump their old rods here all the time, lots of times they don’t even drain the tanks.”

Harry looked skeptical, Rory too. Can’t blame them, the only problem of living in an open-air blast furnace like ours is the fact you have so much space between everyone and everything. Would take a lot of convincing, and even all my wandering before joining the Patrol wasn’t cutting it for them.

That’s when things took a turn my way.

We looked over to the horizon, and here came a real clap-trap type of machine. She had the shell of a muscle car, but was lacking that crucial detail; the muscle. Frankly, it sounded like a Model T tripping balls. And I damn well knew it was him because the moment all three of us locked eyes on that beat-up Nova, he did a 180 on a dime and started bolting back for the East. That was our cue to give chase.

My Hilux came alive and shot right after him. Rory and Harry followed, and soon our armada was in full pursuit. Catching up to him wasn’t all that bad; we all knocked our gals up three gears to get there, but we got there.

Harry and I came alongside Lansing, and with Rory at his back, he was boxed in, the only way being forward. I turned to him. About as pretty as his picture. Those beady eyes were certainly a sight, and I wasn’t wrong about that nasty coat of his. The denim gave him some Starkweather charm though.

When he looked my way, I let him have it verbally.

“YOU’VE GOT THREE OPTIONS. THE EASY WAY. THE HARD WAY. AND THE BATSHIT WAY. EASY IS GETTING CAPPED HERE AND NOW. THE HARD IS LETTING US RUN YOU RAGGED ACROSS THE DESERT. THE BATSHIT IS WHEN YOU GET US GOOD AND PISSED.”

No sooner do I finish than this guy starts knocking the Nova up against the rat rod and my truck. Back-and-forth back-and-forth like he’s going to somehow shake us off. I see his leg go for the brake and I give Rory the signal to clear the man’s way. Lansing was quick on the draw; fortunately so were we. Harry and I slid back in unison, rubber screaming across the sand, brake pads clamped down tight on the discs. In the heat of our gliding, I drew my revolver and squeezed off two shots right at the wheels. That Nova went spiraling out of control, rolling over and over and kicking up a mighty dust storm. With the ride busted to hell and back, we finally got our man of the hour out into the desert sun. He crawled out from the wreck. Hurt, but unphased.

I would have gone and knocked the guy over myself, but Harry beat me to the punch. I saw his wheels lock up just before hitting Lansing, the bastard having only made it about two yards out from his wreck. Within seconds, Harry had him wedged under his front wheels, holding him down good and firm.

Kid was a real natural.

“A little something my Old Lady taught me,” he winked behind those shades of his.

Now our freak was relatively defenseless. Relatively in that he still had the peashooter in his greasy mitts. Rory came over with his bike to fix that and looked Lansing over like he was the most succulent slab of meat this side of Haven.

“Good job Richter, my man!”

At first, the young buck gave Rory the cold shoulder. What for was anyone’s guess, but the spirit of the catch had some allure, and our biker got that fist-bump out of him.

“Hold him steady for me.”

Rory put every ounce of weight his bike had on Lansing’s wrist and burned out something fierce. That Harley was spitting out the kind of smoke only a Newport factory could dish up. He got the killer’s peashooter off of him, that Lady Colt was long gone to the sands of the Wasteland, but something well and truly puzzled him.

“He ain’t screaming,” he said.

“A bit morbid of you Man,” Harry mused, “That part of your whole thing?”

“I mean, yeah, but you’d expect that kind of pressure to get, I dunno, something out of him.”

Rory rolled off to survey the number he did on his wrist. I mean, the bone was still there, and only the bone at that. I could see that from the cab of my truck. I didn’t quite relish in the job the same way Rory did, but I got what he was saying. I brought my gal over and got out, crouching down over our target.

I took another good look at Lansing. He wasn’t dead, that much was certain. The way he spat at me was proof enough. I gave him a sweet pat on the cheek before popping him a question.

“What is it that got you killing Man?”

I tipped my shades down to the edge of my snout. I figure eye contact wouldn’t hurt.

“The best fix of my life,” he coughed, his voice hoarse as all hell, “Best got-damned fix of my life.”

“So good you party ‘til you pop one off on a guy or ten? Just for kicks?”

“Better believe it.”

He slammed his hand around my throat. Dude lost every ounce of fur and flesh on that wrist of his, and he had the grip of an iron vice. I could hear his torso crunching up against Harry’s wheels as he leaned forward.

“Shit feels good going through you, so good I ain’t even feeling what your friend tried on me. I ain’t even feeling a thing when I do it. I ain’t feeling my hands on that bad little throat of yours. And it feels GOOD!”

I had a pretty thick neck but I didn’t want his nails putting that to the test. I took both hands and threw his arm off of me. That finally got his hand to come off. The bone snapped as the limb hit the desert floor. Still no scream. The three of us were taken aback, and it didn’t take much for Harry to get testy.

“Look, let me just put the hammer down on him, will ya?”

Harry revved his rat rod up. I could hear those Size 10s loud and clear now.

“Nuh-uh,” I says, “Gotta press him on something.”

I turned my attention back to Lansing; creep could only cackle at the sight of his putrid stump.

“What you running on,” I pressed, “The usual; meth, coke, speed?”

“Radium you black sonofabitch,” he snarled, “Ever touch the stuff? Looks like you could do for a rock or two.”

Well it was rich coming from someone the color of shit, from his rotten eyes to his rotten fur, but when I set that aside, it all came together.

Cats from the Old World had a thing for the stuff way, way back. Watches, meds, cosmetics. He must be a true believer who picked up an ad or two about it. I don’t know how he’s ingesting it, or how they’re cooking the stuff to give him this high, but Lord have mercy, he really was running on irradiated fumes.

So, first order of business: kick him in the head for the insult.

Damn did that one feel good.

Second order of business: take advantage of his decomposing body, for it was clear as day that this fellow was well on his way to becoming a total ghoul.

In a flash, I had my men take my Maypole chains and jury-rig a setup. Harry hooked the chain on his left arm to his hitch, Rory got his right arm hooked to his rear fender, and made sure his Harley was dug in good for what was about to happen. With his two legs pegged to the ground and Lansing pulled taught in all directions, I got my truck in line, and revved the Old Gal up. I got one more good look at him, his chest with the tire’s impression etched into it, and his stump still bleeding his rancid blood.

“Marion Lansing,” I announced, “This one’s for the lives you claimed in your little hopped-up tear. The least I can assure you: you’re the first man who ain’t gonna feel a thing when it happens. Whether I like it or not.”

All he did was cackle with his horrific voice.

All I could do was drop her hammer.

Took a while to clean my truck, the Old Gal hadn’t seen a mess that bad in ages. I also had it fixed so the three of us could go through rapid decontamination, the rides included. Seemed like the toxins were all internalized, but when his innards went a-flying, I didn’t want to take the chance. The way he was just crumbling like that and all. At least Rory was thrilled by the display, Harry less so. When I told the Commissioner about the whole sordid affair, he seemed quite content.

“Another good job Ridgefield,” he said, his grand old voice booming over the radio, “Any leads on this radium racket?”

“Not that we can figure,” I says, “For all I know we just took out the radium kingpin of the region. I’m sure he could find the metals for the shit somewhere in the Central. We’ve got radioactive deposits of all sorts of stuff lying around. Besides, y’know Vice ain’t my specialty. I dig it on tape though.”

“Suppose we’ll save it for another day then,” he concluded.

“The Boys and I have a set to play tonight, so let’s make it a mutual rain check then. Speedfreak signing off.”

We got back to Doc’s, and by the time we were on, the place was packed, the booze were making their rounds, and the good stench of cigs was in the air. I was jacking up my mic to the height I liked as Harry tuned and Rory got his kit in order. Once ready, I gave a good smack to the mic and slung my bass on.

“Good EVENING!”

Crowd does their thing, going wild and shit.

“Back from taking care of business, and thought we’d give y’all a headache or twenty. We are...we are Metröpolis! And we’d like to kick the evening off with word to the wise: ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales!’”

And like that, we were off to the races. And that thrill rocketed down my back with each note and every word. No radium rackets or doped-up crooks in my head, just a couple-hundred doses of metallic dopamine.

The same thrill that came at practice, the same thrill that came during the chase, and the same thrill that came when me and my Old Gal dished up a little thing called frontier justice. Bad, bloody, and brutal as a bitch. But above all: thrilling.