Carter
Carter's motorcycle roared like a hungry demon as he rode down Route 385, crossing the border from Oklahoma into Texas with Hazmat and Oiler right behind him. Their saddlebags were heavy with the bundles of cash they'd stolen from the First Farmer's Bank and Trust in Boise City, Oklahoma, just a couple of hours before, and Carter's blood was still up from the heist, his skin crawling with excitement like it was covered with busy ants.
The bank's elderly security guard hadn't put up a fight. There hadn't been any exploding dye packs stashed in the money bags.
And best of all, there were no state police vehicles on their heels.
The Metal Monsters MC—of which Carter was currently president, with Oiler and Hazmat as his vice president and sergeant-at-arms, respectively—had gotten away clean with nineteen thousand dollars, and no one had been hurt in the process.
Carter felt the cool night air on his face as the dusty corn fields on either side of the highway slowly gave way to dry mesas and desert blooms. He saw a bullet-pocked sign by the side of the road that read, “Welcome to Cactus Hollow – Spiky Name, Flowery People! Enjoy Your Stay!”
His face broke into a wide grin and he let out a triumphant yell, popping a wheelie. He heard the other two laugh wildly, revving their engines and racing him to the sign ahead.
Until about a month ago, Carter had been the club secretary for the Hobgoblins, a biker gang based in Pensacola. They'd gotten into an ugly turf war with the Naggia family, a Miami crime syndicate determined to stomp out all of their competition in Florida's drug trade. The Hobgoblins were proud and tough, but their club of roughly three dozen brawlers and gearheads was easily outmanned and outgunned by the Naggias, who also controlled most of the state's cops and judges.
Within two weeks of fighting with the Naggias, almost every member of the Hobgoblins was either dead or in prison—and Carter, Hazmat, and Oiler were laying low in Mobile, burning their old patches and wondering what to do next as the little money they had quickly run out.
Carter had always dreamed of starting his own MC, and the other two quickly agreed to join him. Oiler came up with the name “Metal Monsters,” and he even designed their new patch, a menacing robot face he remembered from an old sci-fi flick he'd loved as a kid.
But establishing a club with any balls behind it would also take money, and Hazmat came up with the idea to go on a bank robbing spree across the south. The plan was to travel in a wide and unpredictable arc, hitting local banks in remote towns across five states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and finally Texas. The takes would be relatively small compared to more prestigious banks in bigger cities, but the security would be minimal, making them far more low-risk.
Then they'd find a safe place to hole up in southern Texas, waiting for the heat to die down before they relocated and set up their new club. The law wouldn't have any proof that they were the ones who committed the crimes—the masks they wore would make sure of that—but word of their robberies would ring out among outlaws, securing their reputations and attracting new prospects to their MC.
They'd carried out the first two heists without much trouble, since surprise was still on their side. They took twenty-five thousand from the bank in Mississippi, and another ten thousand from the one in Louisiana.
But by the time they attempted their third score, the news of their previous robberies had reached the Arkansas State Police, who were on high alert along with a handful of feds from the FBI's field office in Little Rock. Carter and the boys managed to grab a little over seven thousand dollars before a shoot-out with the cops forced them to flee, sirens wailing behind them for miles until they were able to evade the squad cars via the side roads.
“Okay, time to pack it in,” Oiler said as they made camp in the Ouachita Forest that night, cooking pork and beans over a small fire. He was a small, wiry man in his late twenties, with prematurely-receding blonde hair and beady brown eyes that always seemed to be blinking. His voice was generally soft and hesitant, like a shy child who was called to the blackboard to explain a difficult math problem.
“Knockin' over three banks without gettin' shot or arrested ain't a bad tally overall,” he continued, stirring the pot. “An' forty-two thou might not be as much as we wanted, but it's still not a bad haul for sixteen days. If we don't wanna end up behind bars, I say we call it good an' find a place to hole up.”
Hazmat glared at him over the fire. His scarred and weathered face resembled a pirate's, and his copper-colored hair was shaved into a short mohawk. His pale green eyes perpetually seemed to flicker between confusion and anger.
“First of all, when it comes to makin' a rep for ourselves, three banks ain't five,” Hazmat counted off on his stubby, freckled fingers. “Second, if we wanna get the Monsters properly set up, we're gonna need a lot more than forty-two thou to establish a steady stream of guns an' product to run. An' third, if you're pissin' your pants about bein' behind bars, maybe you oughtta work at a fuckin' Starbucks 'stead of tryin' to be a biker.”
“Hey, don't be mean, okay?” Oiler said plaintively. “You've seen me in enough scrapes to know I'm not yellow, so don't act like we're on a playground. Havin' balls and havin' brains ain't no either/or scenario, and I happen to think riskin' serious prison time after what we just escaped in Pensacola is pretty stupid. Maybe if you'd done a six-year stretch like I have, you'd understand why I ain't so eager to go back.”
Hazmat waved him off impatiently. “Shit, there you go again. You're always bringin' that up. Where I come from, guys brag about the time they spend outside the joint, not in it.”
“I ain't braggin' about the time I did,” Oiler said, spooning some beans onto his plate. “I reckon it's the most horrible and degrading thing a man can go through, and I don't ever plan on seein' those bars around me again no matter what. Besides, one of my biggest reasons for goin' along with this whole cockeyed plan is I got a wife an' kid over in Jacksonville who count on the money I send 'em. But I ain't gonna be able to send 'em much if I'm makin' two cents an hour stampin' license plates in the pen.”
“No one's stampin' nothin',” Hazmat insisted. “Carter's got inside info on the bank in Texas, so we can't lose. Won't even have to case the joint or nothin'. Ain't that right, Carter?”
“Not only that,” Carter said, “but if we do it right, it'll triple our cash.”
Also, Carter had made a promise to someone important that he'd rip off this particular bank, though he chose to keep that to himself.
“Fine,” Oiler sighed, “so let's pretend this last bank down in Texas is some kind of miracle job like Carter says it is, where somehow there's no cops or security guards anywhere in the state and we'll all fly away on the backs of unicorns with big bottomless bags of money. Why don't we just make that our next and last score, then? We've been lucky so far. Why risk some bank in Oklahoma on the way?”
“Because it's there,” Carter said decisively. “And because luck's not good for anything unless you push it.”
So they had, and oh, the First Farmer's Bank and Trust had been the sweetest little honey of a job Carter had ever pulled in his life. No chase, no shots fired, no hassle of any kind.
And by this time tomorrow, their spree would be at an end and they'd all be richer than they'd ever been before.
Carter saw a roadhouse called The Boot Hill Saloon and motioned for the others to follow him to it. He needed something to wash the taste of adrenaline from his tongue and calm the jitters on his skin before turning in for the night.
They pulled into the parking lot, cut their engines, and slung their saddlebags over their shoulders before heading inside.