Deathbed Ch. 1

Adults only warning: This story contains scenes of violence and explicit sexuality, and is not meant for children or the sensitive. If such things offend you, don’t read this story.

This story is very loosely inspired by the plot of the opera “The Flying Dutchman” and by an old Twilight Zone episode whose title I have forgotten. Nearly all of the roles are played by professional wrestling characters such as the Undertaker, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Paul Bearer, but that is not essential to the point of the story. It is a tale of violence, damnation, and lust, but it ends in a kind of hope. If that sounds like a queer juxtaposition...well, that's the story of my life as a writer. It’s got a lot of story to go with the sex, but there is plenty of sex! I wrote this one in the summer of 2001, and I still enjoy re-reading it.

Summary: The Hellrider roams the lonely roads, a terrible task hanging over his head for eternity. Can he find salvation in the arms of a woman as damned as he?

Feedback is welcome and appreciated. I will return the favor with gratitude.

Deathbed
by Madame Manga

Part One

“Oh, hell,” I said, and kicked my shredded tire. The compartment for the spare was empty. I had forgotten that Roy had had a flat the previous week, and this was his BMW--I’d taken it instead of my car for no particular reason that I could remember. Earlier that morning, three hundred miles east of here, I hadn’t been thinking very clearly about such things, of course. I’d never thought to check whether he’d replaced the spare.

I sat down in the driver’s seat of the BMW and closed my eyes both in exasperation and against the glare of the afternoon sun. A hundred and fifty miles to go to Papa’s house, and it might as well have been the dark side of the moon without a working car. But it was a miracle that the blown tire hadn’t sent the car completely out of control; I had been driving too fast for my ability since I was in such a hurry, and the abrupt left-hand curve had taken me by surprise. Someone else had been taken by surprise as well, since he had spilled some of his load of used lumber, complete with big bent nails sticking straight up like police roadblock spikes.

The thought of police did nothing to ease my mind--if they were after me by now, I had no way to run. My right front tire had instantly exploded and sent me veering off onto the right shoulder. The ditch beside the road could have flipped the car on its roof if I’d gone in; it was sheer chance that I had stopped in time, though I had panicked and stomped on the brakes so hard that they had locked in a terrifying screech. There had been a rough jolt and a flash of light and an impression of tearing apart, but when I’d come to my senses I had been sitting on the shoulder, my skid marks still smoking. I looked at the four white wooden crosses set against the bank of the ditch to mark where a fatal accident had taken place. Someone had been watching over me, because by all rights, I should have been dead.

Dead. The realization sent a thrill through my body, centering between my legs, hot and fluid like blood or sex; such thoughts always affected me that way.

Perhaps it would have been best if I *had* died…a quick shock and all my troubles would have been over, out of my hands, forgotten. Death could have meant peace; I liked the idea of traveling an unknown road with death my only companion. Though where I might have ended up after taking the easy way out might have made the most troublesome life look like paradise. “Speaking of hell…” I muttered to myself. I’d once been a devout Catholic, but I told myself I didn’t believe in such things any more.

Well, as long as I wasn’t dead, I realized I had better call Papa to tell him I’d be late. Leaning into the car and reaching for my purse, I felt for my cell phone. My fingers first encountered the stock of the .32, since the revolver crowded the other contents aside as if to make itself manifest with a mind of its own. I pulled the gun out and put it on the passenger seat, removed a Snickers bar to get it out of the way as well, then found my phone and turned it on, pulling up the antenna. It beeped for a moment as it attempted to find a signal and failed. This was a country road that ran between hills, far from any town, and of course there wasn’t a cell tower in transmission range.

I jammed the phone back in my purse and swore. Papa wasn’t expecting me for another three hours or so, I hadn’t seen another vehicle on this road in thirty minutes at least, and since I’d taken this detour for the express purpose of avoiding the well-traveled freeways that crossed the state line, no one knew where I was. Even if Papa backtracked to find me, he wouldn’t realize I had wandered fifty miles north of my usual route, since I hadn’t told him my exact plans when I had called him that morning; I had been frantic to get on the road and had told him nothing but the bare facts. I was well and truly stuck unless someone stopped to help.

Where was the next house or ranch? I’d never driven this way before, so I had no idea, but probably the nearest people were miles away--I’d last passed a driveway and mailbox three quarters of an hour before doing seventy, and there were no fences or cows in sight. Nothing but rolling brown hills slashed with an occasional ravine, the black strip of road winding along a dry creekbed before ascending one of the lower hills some distance to the west, my direction of travel. It might have been the Sahara Desert for all the signs of life or settlement I could see.

Getting a map out of the glove compartment, I studied the route. No towns were marked along the road for twenty miles to the east and fifty miles to the west. I had two choices. I could stay with the car and hope someone came along before dark, or I could start hiking in the hot sun under the cloudless sky with no water and not much idea of my destination. I decided to stay with the car.

More than five hours later I was beginning to regret that decision. Not a single car had come along the road in all that time. The sun had declined to a point almost directly level with my eyes as I stood on the shady side of the baking-hot black BMW; it would set in less than thirty minutes. I would not only be stuck; I would be stuck after dark with no food or water on a lonely road without even the option of hiking out. I might have been a little scatterbrained that day, but I wasn’t stupid enough to walk a road I didn’t know in the dark of the moon without a flashlight. I could stumble straight into one of the ravines and never be heard from again. But I was hungry, having eaten the candy bar from my purse three hours before, and I was very thirsty, not having had a drink since I had left home. Was I going to have to stay here all night? It certainly looked like it.

A few Canada geese flew overhead, honking. I checked my watch for the fourteenth or fifteenth time: 7:30 P.M. and only a little bit of daylight left. The sun kept declining and touched the crest of the western hill, just where the road came over the ridge, my spirits sinking with it.

At that moment, at long last, I heard an engine. A faint sound approaching from the west, though still a long way off on the other side of the hill. “Thank you, God!” I said to the sky. It was probably a ranch pickup with a dog or two in the back and a guy with a cowboy hat driving--he could give me a ride to the nearest phone and maybe even something to drink. I was so thirsty my mouth had gone nearly dry. The sound of the engine suddenly increased in volume and something topped the ridge, centered in the disk of the dying sun.

Squinting against the light, I tried to make out what the vehicle was, but as it started down the slope towards me, it fell into the shadows on the eastern side of the hill. All I could see was a moving blotch wheeling with the sunspots in my vision, the engine growing louder and louder. Deep, throaty hammer of pistons; I blinked into the twilight at the blotch. It wasn’t growing larger at a quick enough rate--too small for a truck. A compact car, or…a motorcycle. Yes, it was definitely a bike, since now I could see the blotch had only one headlight, and my ears could make out the distinctive throb of a Harley. I hadn’t had entirely good experiences with guys who rode Harleys, so the sound sent a wave of prickles over my skin.

I got into the still-hot car and glanced at the revolver on the passenger seat. It was unlikely that a man who rode on remote routes at dusk was a predator--how many unaccompanied women was he likely to encounter? Probably just a farm kid on his way home for dinner; I wouldn’t want to frighten him when he pulled up.

The sun slipped behind the hill and twilight spread over the valley just ahead of the approaching bike. I had a strange idea that the rider was bringing the shadows with him. I closed the car door and put the gun under the floor mat where it would be accessible just in case, and straightened up to look out the windshield at the rider, turning on my headlights to show him that there was someone in the car. He was about a quarter of a mile away now, rapidly approaching, and he had grown larger with proximity at a rate faster than that of his bike. It was a big bike, but he was a bigger man. No helmet; just a black bandanna tied over his forehead.

I flashed the brights a couple of times as a distress signal and the rider slowed, his head cocking at an angle as if he were sizing me up. I could see he had long hair under the bandanna and wore a black leather coat and jeans. As he braked to a stop on the gravel shoulder ten yards in front of the car, spotlighted in my headlights, I bit my lip with the beginnings of apprehension.

Part Two

He wasn’t merely a big man; he was huge. Shoulders like an eight-lane highway, enormous hands in black fingerless gloves, muscular legs that went on for miles. As he sat upright in the saddle of the big pearl-white Harley, his feet planted flat on the ground, his knees bent at enough of an angle that his thighs pushed up the folded flaps of the coat. How tall was he? He cut his engine and left the keys in the ignition, then flipped down the kickstand and dismounted with a deliberate swing of one of those endless legs.

I realized my heart was beating like a sledgehammer; I swallowed hard with a dry throat and nudged the revolver with my foot. A trickle of sweat ran down my cheek because the car was hotter than hell inside after sitting in the sun all afternoon, and I wiped it away. If I was going to get the gun out again I had better do it now, because the rider had tucked his sunglasses into his coat and was walking towards my car, his boots crunching on the gravel. He stood well over six feet--no, he stood well over six and a half feet. Close to seven feet tall, and the long leather coat lent him the air of a caped highwayman, the flaps swinging with his lengthy strides.

I wondered if I should open the door at all--I tried to remember articles I had read on what women should do if they had car trouble. What kind of man was he: honorable or otherwise? Could I even tell from his outward appearance? His face was large-featured and fair-skinned, marked with a reddish goatee and mustache a little darker than his collarbone-length hair, the edges of which glowed flame-colored against the sunset sky. Something about that face frightened me aside from its owner’s size, though its expression wasn’t overtly cruel or degenerate. It was set and grim and…indifferent. Indifferent to what? I couldn’t quantify that face, and I had little time to think it over. The rider had reached my car.

He tapped my hood with the fingers of one hand and glanced at the engine badging and the ruined tire, then came around to the driver’s window and put a hand on the roof. He had to bend a long way down to look through the window at me, nearly squatting on his haunches, and I met his eyes.

Narrow and penetrating under light brows, they looked strangely acid green, but that was probably a trick of the fading light, I thought. Their gaze held mine through the glass for a long moment, then moved over the interior of the car and my body, the rider finally meeting my eyes again as I examined him. He might have been in his late thirties, about eight or nine years older than I. An open denim shirt showed the upper contours of his pectorals and he wore a gold chain around his neck. His face was either too heavy-boned and Irish slope-nosed for beauty, or its virile irregularities fell together into a strangely compelling mix--I couldn’t decide on that aspect of it either. It wasn’t a clean-cut face, or a simple face. The mind and personality and experiences behind it had been shaping and battering it for a lifetime. The rider raised his brows slightly as if to inquire whether I was planning to roll the window down any time soon, and I flushed and rolled it down.

The outside air was growing chilly and somewhat damp, moving the evening’s scent past my face; I caught road dust and engine smell and something even warmer from the rider’s body: sharp saltiness with a musky undertone. It was like worn leather or dried meat, something neither alive nor dead: in arrested decay. All the muscles of my thighs and pelvis tensed for a moment. I’d always noticed that if you liked a man’s smell, the rest might not matter much. He could be a pipsqueak or a gun control advocate and still he could do just fine in bed if you liked his smell. And the rider wasn’t a pipsqueak by a long, long shot.

“Evenin’,” he said.

“Uh…hello,” I replied.

“You’ve been sitting here a long time, girl.”

My eyebrows went up--how did he know? “Your engine’s cold,” he said by way of explanation. Looking at me very carefully, he took a deep breath through his nose; I had the impression he was evaluating my scent the same way I had his.

“Oh. I got a flat about two this afternoon. See that lumber there, with the nails? I almost ran off the road and I’m not sure how I--” The rider silently asked a question again and I said, “There’s no spare and I don’t know this road, so I thought it was better to stay in the car. I might have tried to walk out if I’d realized how little traffic there is along here. You’re the first person I’ve seen since I...”

Again my muscles tensed, the flutter in my stomach probably visible through my jeans, because admitting how alone I was seemed dangerous. I wished I had put the gun in my pocket, though a dinky .32 might not have made much impression on a near-seven-foot monster like the rider unless I hit dead center. I knew how to use a gun, of course, but I wasn’t a hand-to-hand fighter, and even if I had been, my potential opponent’s size advantage alone would have defeated me before I ever got started. A gun was an equalizer, the only one available to a small woman like me.

“Blew a tire on the curve and almost ran off the road.” His voice was low and measured with a strong taste of Texas in it. I saw his brows crease and his tongue ruminatively push out his cheek, and he looked up and down the road and at the skid marks and the car and me as if he were visualizing what had happened. Glancing at the four white crosses, he seemed to come to a conclusion and nodded slightly to himself.

“Yes, that’s what I said. So I guess that I’ve--”

“Been waiting just for me?” he said, straightening up without even the ghost of a smile. “Come on, get out.”

“W-what?”

“Get out of the car, girl.” He rapped on the roof with a note of mild impatience. “Fancy set of wheels, but it’s not going anywhere right now. I’ll take you where you need to be.” Pointing his chin at his bike, he looked down at me. I didn’t move. How could I put myself into the hands of a man like him, a formidable stranger whose trustworthiness was entirely unknown? He smiled slightly, the first time he had done so. The expression improved his looks considerably--all the angles of his face realigned, and my heart jumped. “Now, this is assuming you don’t want to sit here until someone else happens to come this way, tomorrow or the next day. I could be wrong.” When I didn’t immediately reply he shrugged slightly and turned, heading back to his bike.

I made a quick decision and scooped up the .32 from under the mat, inserting it into my purse out of his line of sight, then unlocked the door and rolled the window up again before getting out. I turned off the headlights and put on my jacket. The rider had already started his Harley and rode it slowly up to the side of the BMW as if he’d known all along that I would agree. I locked the door and looked around.

The rider’s eyes were directed at my rear end, but again I had the impression of indifference. “’Least you’re dressed all right for a bike. Get on.” I slung my purse over my shoulder and pulled it around to my back to avoid banging the gun against him and betraying its presence, then stood up against the bike and put a tentative hand on the saddle. The rider looked around at me. “You ever ridden before?”

I blushed a little; I knew I didn’t look much like a biker babe, though I wore (designer) jeans and an (expensive) leather jacket. “Uh, yes. A while ago. With a helmet.”

“Sorry; don’t have one.” He cocked a brow at me. “You could just say a prayer and trust that I’m the one to keep you safe.”

I didn’t feel the least bit safe with him, not in any respect, but I didn’t have a lot of choice, so I put a foot up on a piece of chrome and struggled to mount the high back of the saddle; I was only five foot four in three-inch heels and obviously this bike hadn’t been chopped low, not with a rider nearly seven feet tall. He turned and picked me up, lifting me effortlessly into place and flipping out the passenger foot pegs. I gasped a little, both in in awe at his strength and in disturbance at his touch. Those hands were so large they completely spanned my admittedly small waist.

“Hang on,” he said, pivoted the bike and took off in the direction from which he had come.

I grabbed him around the waist and hung on as he told me. Into the reddening sunset he rode, his hair whipping in the wind far over my head and the leather coat bellying like a spinnaker. “Where were you aiming to go, girl?” he asked over his shoulder, raising his voice to be heard above the roar of the bike.

“My Papa’s house. I was supposed to be there by four, so I’m hours late. He’s probably tracking me with bloodhounds by now.”

He grunted, which I felt more than heard, as I was pressed against his back and embracing his body with both arms. “Yeah? Where?”

“He lives more than a hundred and fifty miles southwest of here, so I’m not asking you to give me a ride there. All I need is to get to a phone.” This sounded ungrateful. “Um, thank you.”

The rider grunted again. “No, you don’t need to get to a phone; you need to get to someplace to spend the night. No one’s sending a tow all the way out here until morning, girl.”

At the age of thirty, I thought I had outgrown being called ‘girl’, no matter how small I was. “My name’s Irene.” It wasn’t, but I felt the need to introduce myself although he hadn’t asked me to. I wanted to know his name in any case, though I wasn’t willing to tell him mine for a number of reasons. “What’s yours?”

“You can call me Deadman,” he said after a moment’s consideration. He pronounced it like two words run together, not like a surname. I laughed a little; a name like that must be a biker handle. He seemed to feel the laugh the way I had felt his grunt. “No, it ain’t my given name. But that isn’t yours either.”

“Huh? How’d you know?” I felt my hands tense around him.

“I knew.”

“Oh.” This was not a guy who let anyone put anything over on him, obviously, not even minor details of fact. “Well, ‘Irene’ is going to have to do.”