Snake Preview
“He still alive?” The pissed-off voice cut through Snake’s hazy confusion.
“Yeah, bastard makes a wheezy, gurgling noise every so often. I’m surprised he survived the long trip. The big man worked him over good. His face is unrecognizable,” a second voice, as well-known as the first, yet not identifiable, said.
“That was Jester,” the first man said. The high pitch, almost whiny quality of his voice was familiar, but just on the edges of recognition. In fact, both voices seemed close yet not quite in Snake’s reality. Like they were coming from a television. There, but not real.
Pain was there in real time, however. That was for damn sure. But even the hurt was difficult to place. It seemed to come from every pore in his body. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
“What’s the plan here, Casper?” A third man, also a familiar voice, spoke up.
How did he know these men? Maybe he should say something. Ask for help. With the level of pain, he was experiencing, something was obviously wrong. Snake moved his mouth to speak, but the only noise that came out was a garbled mess of unintelligible sounds.
And then the pain localized.
Holy shit, his face throbbed like it had been pounded repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Inside his mouth, his tongue filled the entire cavity like an air-filled balloon, making speaking near impossible. He drew in a breath, but the air met resistance before it ever reached his lungs, stopped by a throat that felt swollen shut.
Snake’s brain registered these things like a laundry list of items, and it recognized that he should probably be in panic mode, but that was as far as it went. Everything else was fuzzy and he couldn’t get himself together enough to make sense of his reality.
“Toss him down the ravine. I’ll fire a couple slugs in him. See how overgrown it is down there? No way in hell anyone will ever find the body.”
It was the higher voice that spoke. Casper, another had called him. God, that name…it was dancing on the edges of Snake’s diminishing consciousness. So memorable…
“You got it, boss.”
Strong, rough hands landed on his body, jerking him forward and then he was airborne. The weightless flight couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds, then came a crushing jolt and the insane sensation of the world spinning out of control.
Laughter sounded from a distance. “Shit, brother. Look at him roll down that ditch like a fuckin’ sack of potatoes. You probably don’t need to waste any bullets, Casper. No way he survived that. It’s what? Thirty feet. And with all those rocks and branches. Something musta smashed in his skull.”
“Yeah, well, Snake’s a slimy bastard. I want to be one hundred percent sure. Can’t have him slithering back into our lives six months down the road,” Casper replied.
After what seemed like an eternity, Snake’s broken body slammed against something hard and the rolling stopped. His head was still spinning out of control, but at least the physical movement stopped.
He tried to move, but there was a disconnect between his body and his brain. None of his muscles obeyed commands and all he could do was lie there, a giant, unmoving target.
A pinpointed, hot, burning pain bloomed in his thigh, followed by another in his shoulder. Had to be bullets.
Odd.
He’d been shot before and it had hurt a lot more than it did now. His brain must be pretty fucked up not to be registering the pain of two bullets. Of course, the rest of his body was one giant ball of agony. Maybe there was a limit to how much pain the flesh could experience. Maybe after the body hit the pain ceiling, it no longer registered.
He thought he’d known pain before, but it was nothing compared to this full body excruciating sensation. Bullets, a knife wound or two, betrayal. A man didn’t live his kind of life without pain.
His kind of life…
Casper.
It was right there. If he could just reach out and grab the fuzzy memories.
“Nice fucking knowing you, Pres.”
The words were called out about three seconds before a final hot flash of pain entered his side. Gut shot. The fatal blow.
Pres…
Casper…
As the darkness behind his closed eyes grew even blacker, realization dawned.
President. Of the Grimm Brothers Motorcycle Club. In Sandy Springs, Arizona.
Casper. His long time right-hand man. Close and trusted friend.
Reality faded into the distance, taking some of the pain with it. Would there be peace in death? Not for him. Not going out this way. There were men who had to pay whether now or in the afterlife.
Men like Casper.
His loyal vice president.
A murderous traitor.