James Hunt - Broken Roads

“Scream and your family dies, understand?”

She slowly nodded her head.

“Good.”

He turned her around against the trunk of the tree, keeping his hand over her mouth. She saw the yellow in his teeth, the bits of old food in his beard. The point of his blade dug into her chin.

“Kalen, I’m done,” Freddy shouted.

The man put his finger to his lips. She watched his eyes move in the direction of Freddy’s voice. She could feel her heart beating out of her chest, thumping faster.

“Kalen?” Freddy asked.

She could hear Freddy’s feet shuffling through the pine needles and twigs on the ground. The man’s face turned into a smile. He moved the blade from her chin and kept it poised in front of him. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. She saw the side of his ribs exposed. Freddy’s footsteps were just beyond the tree beside them.

“Kalen, whe-”

Before Freddy turned the corner Kalen shoved her foot into the man’s rib cage knocking him down.

“Freddy, run!” Kalen screamed.

Her feet fell from under her, slipping on dead leaves. Her belly slapped against the ground, hard. Freddy stood frozen in shock. She got to her knees and before she was able to stand up she felt the grip of a hand around her ankle pulling her backwards.

“ Help! ” Kalen said.

Kalen’s fingers clawed in the dirt as her assailant pulled her deeper into the forest. She felt his arms wrap around her stomach and lift her off the ground, carrying her. She trashed her arms and legs in defiance, but he managed to subdue her. He wrapped his large hands around throat and squeezed.

“Shut up!” the man said.

Kalen could see her mother and grandfather through the trees, rushing toward her from the distance.

“Kalen!”

She tried to call out, but the man’s grip was too tight. She could barely breathe. The airflow was cut off and she gasped, coughing and choking for air. Then she felt her whole body being thrown to the ground.

The back of her head smacked against a tree root. Her body went limp, disoriented from the blow. She felt foreign hands grabbing her, ripping her shirt off, tugging at her jeans. When she started to regain her ability to fight back a fist came barreling into the side of her cheek. A numbing, ringing sound went through her skull. She couldn’t feel anything anymore. The forest around her spun in circles and faded in and out of her consciousness until everything went black.

Kalen’s head throbbed. Her face was sore and she felt the scratch of the blanket covering her skin. She glanced down and saw that her shirt was gone and she was wearing only her jeans and bra. The cracks in the Jeep’s seat scraped her bare back. She tried to get up, but felt dizzy and fell back down.

“Kalen?” Freddy asked.

She hadn’t noticed him sitting on the floorboard next to her. She turned her head and saw his eyes blinking up at her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Grandpa and Ray pulled you out of the forest with some other man. You weren’t moving, so grandpa brought you to the Jeep. You didn’t have your clothes on,” he said looking down at his knees.

“A man?” she asked to herself.

“He was scary looking. After Grandpa brought you back to the Jeep he went with Ray who took the man back into the woods.”

A breeze lifted Kalen’s hair. She shivered, but not from the wind. She couldn’t remember what happened and she was afraid to learn what did.

The man lay sprawled out on the ground. Blood dripped from Ulysses and Ray’s knuckles. Each of them had their turns beating him. The man’s face was swollen, blood poured from his broken nose.

Ulysses sent the toe of his boot into the man’s side repeatedly, each blow causing the man to double over in pain. He cried out for mercy. He begged, but the punishment was relentless.

Ray picked up the same knife the man held to Kalen’s throat. His fingers wrapped tightly around the handle. Ray knelt down and pressed the blade flat against the swollen bruises and cuts along his face.

“Hold him down, Ulysses.”

Ulysses pinned the man to the ground. Ray unbuckled the man’s pants and pulled them down around his ankles.

“Please. P-please, don’t do this,” the man said.

Ray brought the blade below the man’s waist. The blood curding screams that followed were the tortured sounds of an animal.

The ray of light coming in through the crack of the curtains hit the Diablos patch on Jake’s cut hanging from the corner of the chair. Jake lay sprawled across the bed, his arm hanging over the side with his fingertip next to an empty bottle of tequila. Someone pounded on his room’s door.

“Jake!” Frankie said.

Jake slowly rolled over, bumping into the naked girl lying next to him.

“Jake! We got a problem!” Frankie shouted.

Jake threw the door open, the president’s patch flipping forward as he adjusted his cut.

“You better come see this, boss.”

Jake followed Frankie down the hall and into the bar lounge. Pictures of motorcycles, girls, bands, and alcohol lined the walls.

A few of the motorcycle club members sat at the bar drinking beers. The crack of pool balls on the table and a few mumbles from the bikers where the only signs of life in the lounge.

Frankie opened the door from the bar to the garage. Candles were lit casting light on two huddled masses on the floor with bags over their heads. Frankie ripped the paper bags off, their eyes blinking adjusting to the dim light in the garage.

“Meet Jimmy Fance and Bobby Turnt,” Frankie said.

“Where’d you find them?” Jake asked.

“Sneaking around the back, looking for any supplies they could take. Isn’t that right?”

Frankie kicked Jimmy in the leg, sending him collapsing to the floor.

“What do you wanna do with them?” Frankie asked.

Jake scanned the garage. His eyes rested on the tools and equipment he’d used for building and maintaining the bikes that came through. He grabbed a bolt wrench off the table.

“Stand them up,” Jake said.

Frankie pulled Bobby up by the collar of his shirt. Bobby’s hands were tied behind his back and he kept his face pointing toward the grease stained floor.

“Look at me,” Jake said.

Bobby’s face rose slowly. Jake’s face was calm. His pronounced jaw was relaxed, the wrench gripped firmly in his hand.

“You think you can steal from me? From my brothers?”

“We didn’t steal anything,” Bobby said.

The force of the wrench hitting Bobby’s kneecap crippled him, sending him to the floor in agony. Bobby cursed every name under the sun.

When the screams died down Jake smashed the wrench into Bobby’s other knee. Jimmy tried to make a run for it, but Frankie caught him before he got out.

“Wait your turn, asshole,” Frankie said.

“C’mon, man, we didn’t steal anything. You made your point, just let us go, man,” Jimmy said.

“Not yet,” Jake replied.

Jake swung the wrench high and sent it crashing down into Bobby’s head. The skull caved from the force of the blow. Bobby lay motionless in a crippled mess on the floor.

Jake dropped the wrench to the ground. He walked over to Jimmy who was crying and shaking in Frankie’s grip.

“You see this? You tell everyone you know that this is what happens to anyone who robs the Diablos. Got it?” Jake asked.

Jimmy nodded sharply.

“Get this piece of shit out of here,” Jake said.

Frankie tossed him out of the back door of the garage and the man took off running. Jake wiped the specks of blood from his hands on a rag.

“Why didn’t we kill him?” Frankie asked.