The Death of a Giant

Chapter 3: The Murder

After a short time of driving on the road of death leading from Melonweed, seeing a few too many five-foot-tall mutated lizards and cacti taller than a house, I rose over a hill and saw in the dimly lit distance a rest stop and a few familiar bikes with a few familiar bikers milling around a concrete fallout shelter otherwise used as a roadside piss-stop.

            I immediately recognized a darker-skinned man leaning on one of the larger bikes.

            “Hey Ben, how’d you get behind us?” Antone’s voice sounded over the humming of the many mufflers on my bike.

            “Nevermind that.  Where are the suits?”  My eyes narrowed in the dim light of the streetlamp above the rest stop.  I couldn’t see Corley’s limo.  That was a bad sign.

            “We’ve been stopping in nearly every town on the interstate.  Old man Corley’s got a bladder the size of a thimble, man.  Christ…  We shoulda been there about… well… yesterday.  It’s almost like somethin’s makin’ him pee this much.  This ain’t normal.”

            “Where’s Ripburger?”  I killed the motor and began walking to the shack when Antone’s hand grabbed my shoulder.

            “Haven't seen him in a while.  Ben, man, what's the deal?  Did you find something up the road?  Are we headed for trouble?” Antone quizzed me.

            “No, we’re in it.  We’re being set up to fall for someone else.  Move, Antone,” I said, pushing him aside.

He stood in my way.  “Wait, a setup?  What the hell are you talking about, Ben?  Who’s bein’ set up?  The Polecats?  What do you know, Ben?  Why would someone want to ambush the Polecats?”

            I was annoyed I had to explain myself.  I needed to find Ripburger.  “I’m not sure.  I think the welt on the back of my head tells me that Rip isn’t all he says he is.  Gather the boys and get them out of here.  Now.  I’ll find Corley.”

            Antone’s eyes went wide as he scrambled to the other men to rally them to their bikes.

            “Put my head in a basket 'cause I'd had a tank full!  When she blew my gasket I surely was thankful!  Till I head for the skies up above, it's a woman with wheels that I love! ...aw, damn it!”  Malcolm Corley had just exited the bathroom of the rest stop and was singing something way out of tune.  It seemed as though he had forgotten pretty much all the words to whatever song he was attempting to sing and to top it off, his zipper was stuck.

            Though she could see him quite clearly, he could not even catch a glimpse of her if he had been staring directly at her.  Miranda Rose Wood was lying in the bushes in her classic “paparazzi” pose.  The distinct pose that catches celebrities at their worst and also gets her editor really pissed off.  He said she’s too sexy to be paparazzi.  Then he got a knee to the groin.

            “Come on old man, do something incriminating like ambush somebody,” Miranda said.

            She was snapping photo after photo of this nearly-hairless old man struggling to zip up his pants.  Unless someone was planning on ambushing Corley’s dick, she’d been following a bum lead.  She was about to give up hope of getting the story of a lifetime when suddenly, a man in a dark suit approached from behind a cluster of dense bushes.  Corley didn’t even see him coming. 

The man was walking with a cane, Miranda assumed it was made of metal because when it connected with the back of Corley’s skull, it had that distinct ping that metal normally does.