Carter
Carter opened his eyes slowly, squinting against the harsh sunlight. He pulled himself into a sitting position, his back aching from the hard ground he'd been sleeping on. Once he and the other Metal Monsters left the saloon the previous night, they'd made camp next to a cornfield near the northern edge of town, bundling into their sleeping bags and staring up at the night sky until their eyelids became heavy and they started to snore.
As got up, he heard a frantic rustling sound and looked over at its source, rubbing his eyes. Oiler was pawing through their belongings with a frightened expression on his face as Hazmat watched him impatiently.
When Hazmat saw that Carter was awake, he bent down and cuffed Oiler upside the head, jerking a thumb at their president. “See? I told you not to make so much fuckin' noise, or you'd wake 'im up.”
Oiler scowled up at Hazmat. “Well, someone's gotta find the thing, since you were stupid enough to lose it!”
“I didn't lose it, I probably just threw it away,” Hazmat countered hotly. “I swear, I dunno what you're so bent out of shape about. It's not like anyone told me I was supposed to keep it. What, was I in the john or somethin' when we suddenly decided we had to hold onto every little thing? We never did that before.”
“Because we never had something like that before, you nimrod!” Oiler yelled.
“Easy, easy,” Carter said, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “What's all this about?”
“It ain't about nothin',” Hazmat grunted. “Oiler's just gettin' his tampon in a twist 'cause he can't find that dumb napkin from last night. You know, the one you drew the map on?”
Carter shrugged. “So what? I mean, I can draw another one in the dirt here if you need me to, but the plan's basically the same as the last few places, so...”
“It's evidence!” Oiler moaned. “Jesus, I wouldn't expect Hazmat to understand this, but you're supposed to be the smart one. It was a diagram of our whole plan for the robbery, and I was sure you or Haz would take it with us when we left the bar. Instead we left it God-knows-where for God-knows-who to find, and now we have to call the whole thing off or we'll end up in handcuffs for sure.”
“Whoa, no one's calling anything off,” Carter said. “Get a grip on yourself. It was just a wadded-up napkin with some X's and O's sketched out on it. We didn't even draw anything to show that it was supposed to be a bank, and you're acting like we all wrote our full names on it and signed it 'Your Bank-Robbing Pals' or something.”
“Besides, it probably got swept up with the rest of the trash last night,” Hazmat added.
“Yeah, unless someone picked it up, looked at it, and figured out what we were planning,” Oiler insisted.
“Do you go around picking used napkins up off the ground, Oiler?” Hazmat chortled. “You must end up touching a lot of dried come and boogers that way.”
“Oh, everything's a friggin' joke to you, isn't it?” Oiler exploded. “It's all a big laugh, right? Well, let's see you keep crackin' your funnies when we're in a federal pen surrounded by rapers and killers, an' no one there to watch our backs after lights-out. Not gonna be such a big comedian then, are you?”
“Jesus,” Hazmat said, rolling his eyes. “Everything's a goddamn soap opera with you. What a whining, mincing little bitch you are sometimes.”
“Oiler, there's no way anyone found that napkin,” said Carter. “And even if someone did, they wouldn't know what was on it. Now, I know you're nervous and I'm trying to respect that, but we've already decided that we're doing this. There may only be three people in this MC, but only one of them is the president, and that's me. And I say we go forward with it, period. You want in? Awesome. You don't? Fine, take your share from what we've already gotten and best of luck to you. But this thing is happening today at noon, and that's all there is to it.”
Oiler squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose as he considered his options. Finally, he sighed, opening his eyes again.
“Okay, fine. I'm still in. But before we go through with it, you have to promise me that we'll at least have a quick look around the bank to make sure that sheriff isn't there waiting for us. Deal?”
“Deal,” Carter agreed. He was willing to say whatever it took to shut Oiler up and make sure they'd do this. Unbeknownst to Hazmat and Oiler, Carter had still made a promise to someone to rob this particular bank—and it was one of the few promises he'd ever made in his life that he intended to keep, no matter what.
So they hopped on their bikes and rode toward the center of town, their ski masks pushed up under their helmets. Since it was midday on a Wednesday, the majority of the people in town were at work, and the streets were mostly empty. Bikers rode through border shitholes like this one fairly regularly, so the sound of their engines didn't even attract much attention.
As they got close to the block that the bank was on, Carter reached up and pulled his mask down over his face, motioning for the others to do likewise.
Every time he and the other two Monsters descended on their targeted banks like the wrath of the devil, Carter couldn't help but hear “The Ride of the Valkyries” crashing triumphantly in his ears. This moment right before the onslaught was always his favorite part of being a biker. In this moment, they were barbarians, they were unstoppable, they were harbingers of armageddon, and anyone foolish enough to stand in their way would be swiftly cut down.
The three bikes did a quick loop around the bank, making sure there weren't any sheriff's department vehicles on the streets surrounding the block. There were plenty of empty parked cars, but none of them seemed to belong to law enforcement.
“Looks like we're all clear,” Carter said as they pulled up in front of the bank. His heart started to thump in his chest as he dismounted from his bike. Just a few more minutes, and their robbery spree would be completed successfully.
“What about the side streets?” Oiler asked.
“Are you fuckin' retarded?” Hazmat snapped at him. “We've already got our masks on an' you wanna go putzin' around the side streets lookin' for hidden cops? We're clear, let's just do this an' get the hell outta here!”
Oiler looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he just nodded.
As Oiler took up his familiar position just outside the main entrance, Hazmat and Carter drew their handguns from the backs of their jeans and burst into the bank.
The tellers and customers all froze in the middle of their conversations and transactions, their faces freezing into expressions of terror that were almost comical. Carter only had a half-second to register this before Hazmat fired his gun in the air twice, the sound booming and echoing off the marble walls and floors.
Even though Hazmat could be a stubborn, quick-tempered bull of a man, Carter still had to admire how his shots carefully avoided any surfaces where they could ricochet and accidentally hurt or kill someone. He could be exasperating to work with, but he was still a pro.
“Everyone put your hands up now!” Carter demanded in the harsh, authoritative voice he'd practiced. He'd committed enough armed robberies as a member of the Hobgoblins to know that the trick was to immediately establish ownership of the room and everyone in it, taking it over before anyone could even internalize what was happening or think of resisting.
Sure enough, everyone's hands jerked upward instantly. Carter saw that the information he'd been given was correct—none of the tellers looked a day over twenty, and the security guard was so old he looked like he might have been Methuselah's babysitter once upon a time. His cloudy blue eyes bulged and his mouth worked soundlessly as spittle gathered at the corners of his thin, papery lips.
“That's good,” Carter said, stepping forward and snatching the guard's gun from his holster. As he did, he smelled something like ammonia and looked down at the crotch of the guard's uniform. A large urine stain was spreading across it.
“Everyone stay calm, and this will be over in less than ninety seconds,” Carter said. “We are here for the bank's money, not yours. The bank is insured, so no matter how much we take, I promise you folks aren't going to lose a dime from your accounts. Now we're all just going to relax and keep breathing while my associate over there collects the money from the tellers. We do not want to hurt anyone, but if any of you lower your arms or make any movements at all without our permission, we will assume you're reaching for a gun or an alarm and we will not hesitate to drop you lower than snake shit. So just be cool, and let's all get through this quickly and painlessly.”
It was a good speech, and Carter felt like more of a badass every time he got to deliver it. As Hazmat ordered each teller to empty their cash into the bag, Carter wondered if he'd ever have a chance to make that speech again. He doubted it. Robbing banks was exciting, but MCs tended to prosper more from drugs, guns, and small-time scores.
Once Hazmat had collected all of the money, he and Carter started for the door. “Thanks for your cooperation, guys,” Hazmat cackled. “Have fun tellin' this story to yer grandkids someday!”
As they emerged from the bank, Oiler eyed them nervously. “Cripes, what took you guys so long?” he demanded. “Let's get out of here fast!”
Suddenly, Carter heard a woman's voice gleefully call out, “Yeeeeeeee-haw, Yorick! I knew you boys were outlaws! I knew it, I knew it!”
Carter turned in the direction of the voice and saw Billie, the barmaid from the saloon, sitting in a small red car parked next to the bank. She was leaning out her driver's side window and pounding on her car door with a big grin on her face, as though she were cheering for a parade.
“What the fuck...?” Hazmat muttered under her breath.
“She's seen us,” Oiler hissed. “She's seen us, Carter, she knows what we look like, oh no, no, no, no...”
Before Carter's mind could fully process Billie's presence or what that meant, he heard a gunshot. For a bizarre moment, he thought it must have come from one of their own guns going off by accident—until he looked across the street and saw the sheriff running toward them, red-faced, with his pistol drawn.
“Stop in the name of the law!” the sheriff yelled, leveling his gun at them.
Carter, Hazmat, and Oiler exchanged glances, looking down at the guns in their own hands. Counting the weapon Carter had taken from the guard, their firearms outnumbered his four to one.
Stop in the name of the law? Carter thought. Jesus, what kind of movies has this douchebag been watching?
“What a stupid cop,” Carter mused, bewildered.
“What a dead cop!” Hazmat yowled, raising his gun and firing at the sheriff. “Eat lead, you khaki-wearing asshole!”
Despite Hazmat's words, Carter could see that he was still aiming for the pavement around the sheriff's shoes. Good. They didn't want to get caught, but they didn't want a cop kill on their hands if they could help it either. And in Carter's experience, when it came right down to it, most small-town lawmen preferred to play it safe instead of risking their lives.
Oiler lifted his own gun and squeezed the trigger, still mumbling litanies of “she's seen us” and “no, no, no” like a repentant Catholic reciting Hail Marys.
The sheriff's eyes widened as he realized his mistake. He ducked behind a nearby car, firing back at them.
Carter stole a glance at Billie again. She'd pulled herself back into the car and hunched down, rolling up the window quickly as though it could somehow stop a bullet.
Dread lurched in Carter's stomach as he realized Oiler was right. In fact, it looked like he'd been right about everything. Even if they still managed to escape—which was likely, since the sheriff seemed to have come alone for some idiotic reason—the feds would get their descriptions from Billie, who'd spent most of the previous night close enough to them to provide accurate descriptions to sketch artists.
Unless they didn't leave Billie here to talk to the cops.
“That sheriff's wasting all his ammo,” Carter said to Hazmat. “When he runs out and reloads, you and Oiler get on your bikes and ride. I'll be right behind you.”
“What the fuck are you talkin' about?” Hazmat hollered over the thunder of the guns.
“Trust me,” Carter insisted. “Just get the fuck out of here. I know what I'm doing.”
Sure enough, the sheriff's gunshots gave way to a series of clicks and he slid the magazine out of the pistol's handle, preparing to ram a fresh one in.
Hazmat and Oiler got on their bikes, revved them, and sped away.
The next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion. Carter grabbed his saddlebag from his bike and slung it over his shoulder, then ran toward the red car with Billie inside it. When he'd covered half the distance, the sheriff started firing at him again.
Instead of returning fire, Carter turned and aimed his gun at the gas tank of his own bike, pulling the trigger twice. The bullets ripped through the tank and the bike erupted into flames.
Good luck getting any fingerprints from that now, piggies, Carter thought smugly.
He turned back to the red car and ran for it as fast as he could, bullets zinging off the sidewalk around his feet. He reached the door on the passenger's side and used the butt of his gun to smash the window in.
“No!” the sheriff screamed, his voice rising to a shrill pitch. “You get away from her! Stay back!” He aimed his gun, but it was too late—if he fired, he might hit Billie, and based on his obvious poor aim, Carter was willing to bet that wasn't a risk the sheriff could afford to take.
Billie stared at Carter wide-eyed as he reached in to unlock the door and opened it. He slid into the passenger's seat, slamming the door behind him and pointing his gun at her.
“Drive,” Carter commanded. He expected her to cry, scream, or otherwise react with fear. But he was surprised to see a big smile on her face and a crazy gleam in her eye as she looked at him.
“You got it, babe,” she said, stepping on the gas pedal.
Her tires screeched as she pulled out of the parking space, zooming up the street in the direction Hazmat and Oiler had headed. Carter kept the gun trained on her as his eyes flickered over to the rearview mirror.
The sheriff was running after them on foot, huffing and puffing and firing his gun in the air. As the car accelerated sharply, he disappeared into the distance along with the rest of Cactus Hollow.