The Woolly Boys Read online

The Woolly Boys

  By

  David Donaghe

  Copyright The Woolly Boys David Donaghe 2012

  Lightning flashed across the desert and thunder rolled across the land. Thunder Paw looked over at Wolf Boy and howled. Wolf Boy grinned and let go with a wild feral howl himself that echoed across the desert. Behind them, White Fang gunned the throttle, pulled his custom chopper over the centerline and pulled up next to Thunder Paw.

  “I’m hungry!” White Fang yelled, trying to make his voice heard over the rushing wind.

  Thunder Paw glanced in his rear view mirror, taking in the pack, and noticed the course hair sporting up on his neck.

  “I know! We all need to feed! There’s a town up ahead! I think the locals call it Harlem Springs! We’ll stop there!” Thunder Paw yelled.

  White Fang backed off on the throttle, letting Thunder Paw roll by on his flashy blue chopper and took his place in the pack. The clouds parted and a full moon rose into the sky as the Woolly Boys rolled through the night toward Harlem Springs Arizona. Five miles outside of town, they pulled into the gravel parking lot of The High Noon Saloon.

  ***

  Chico, Tiny, Dirty Dan and Lead Belly sat at the bar inside the High Noon Saloon when they heard motorcycles pull up out front. The smell of tobacco smoke and stale beer filled the air and loud rock and roll music emanated from the building. Thinking that some more of the bros had pulled up out front, they glanced at the front door wondering who they were. Chico’s eyes widened when a group of bikers sauntered into the bar. They obviously weren’t Road Dogs.

  “Damn. Those are some hairy sons-of-bitches,” Dirty Dan said. “They’re even hairier than you are, Tiny.”

  Lead Belly laughed. “That’s pretty damned hairy.”

  “I ain’t never seen that patch before. The Woolly Boys? You heard of them Chico?” Tiny asked.

  Chico shook his head and the said, “What the hell?” when they began to remove their clothing.

  “I hate to waist a good pair of jeans and my club vest,” Thunder Paw said and then grinned.

  The Road Dogs inside the bar stood to their feet and turned to face the new arrivals. The Woolly Boys, now fully nude, began to sprout course hair and their bodies changed morphing into wolves. Collectively, the Road Dogs stepped back. Thunder Paw, now fully changed into a wolf extended his claws and let out a howl. Chico pulled his 45 and shot him in the chest. The loud bang of gunfire filled the room. The bullet knocked Thunder Paw on his ass, but he just rose to his feet and swaggered forward. “That one hurt a bit. What kind of loads are you shooting in that thing?”

  “Hand loaded,” Chico said and shot him again.

  Thunder Paw flew backward once more, but climbed back to his feet. Blood soaked his fur. The wounds in his chest were already healing. “You’re gonna pay for that,” Thunder Paw said. The werewolves charged forward launching themselves at the Road Dogs. Thunder Paw, grabbed the nearest Road Dog by his head, ripped it from his shoulders and tossed it across the room. The head bounced off the wall and rolled across the floor. The rest of the Woolly Boys attacked slashing with their claws and snapping with their teeth. Blood and body parts flew into the air.

  Chico, standing next to Tiny, Dirty Dan and Lead Belly, opened up on the hairy beasts. The bullets seemed to have little effect; they would just knock the werewolves down, but the hairy beasts would just get back up again with a bad attitude. The Woolly Boys, filled with blood lust, slaughtered the Road Dogs nearest to the front door and ripped them asunder.

  “This ain’t working! Let’s get out of here!” Chico yelled. Chico, Dirty Dan, Tiny and Lead Belly ran out the back door. Behind the bar, Chico flipped open his cell phone and sent out a text message to all of the bros on his contact list. The text simply said, “911-Meet at the cabin. Bring all your gear.”

  “I need to get hold of Janet,” Lead Belly said.

  “Tell her to take the truck! Tell her to bring all your guns and camping gear, but tell her to hurry!”

  The back door of the High Noon Saloon burst open. Thunder Paw and White Fang came storming out the door, with blood covering their jowls.

  “Oh fuck! Let’s get out of here!” Chico yelled and ran to his bike with Dirty Dan, Tiny and Lead Belly hot on his heels. They jumped onto their scooters, fired them up and gunned the throttles. Their rear tires sent rooster tails of dirt and gravel flying up into the air. Once they hit the highway, they headed west at a high rate of speed and disappeared into the Arizona night.

  “Should we go after them?” Wolf Boy asked.

  “No not with all that fresh meat inside. We’ll finish up, and then lay up here during the daytime. Tomorrow night, we’ll take the town. After that, we’ll hunt down them red neck peckerwoods. My chest still hurts where that bastard shot me,” Thunder Paw said.

  “It’s a good thing for us that they weren’t using silver.”

  Thunder Paw nodded glanced up at the full moon and let out a blood-curdling howl.

  ***

  Our tires chirped and our spirit bikes changed from dazzling steeds of light to older Harley Davidson motorcycles. We rolled down a lonely desert highway heading in the direction of Harlem Springs Arizona. An evil foreboding cloud loomed in the east, only this wasn’t a normal cloud. This cloud blew in from the pits of hell and the devil’s own imps came with it. I could almost smell the embers floating on the breeze. My name is Cave Man and I’ve been dead since sixty-eight. Up in Biker Heaven, after I kissed a tree at over one hundred miles an hour, I decided to join the Halo Riders. The Halos, a division of the Road Dogs motorcycle club, is a group of troubleshooters from the other side. Whenever there is trouble in the biker world, they send us.

  Riding up front was Little Danny Boy, next to him was Fat Bob, and behind them rode Teddy Bear and Chops. Sonny, Old School, My Pops and I rolled along at the rear. We headed down a lonely stretch of desert highway about one hundred and fifty miles west of Harlem Springs Arizona, when Little Danny Boy pulled over to the side of the road next to an old Oak tree. We parked next to the road, to give ourselves a butt break and climbed off our scooters. One thing about being mortal again was that we were subject to the same aces and pains, along with the same bodily functions and needs as when we were alive.

  “Do you remember this place?” Little Danny Boy asked.

  I chuckled. “How could I forget? That old Oak tree smashed my head like a ripe honey dew melon when I hit it back in sixty-eight,” I said and pulled a bottle of Jack from my coat pocket.

  “Piss on this old Oak tree,” Old School said stepping up next to me. He unzipped his pants, pulled out his pecker and let fly. I chuckled and stepped up next to him. Soon we were all watering the Oak tree and laughing like a pack of schoolboys. Old School was right behind me when I hit the tree. He flew over his handlebars, hit his noggin against that tree and the old tree smashed his head like you or I might squish a grape.

  “I’m surprised this old tree is still here,” I said after we emptied our bladders.

  “It’s a tough old tree, all right,” Little Danny boy said. We headed back to the bikes.

  “Are we headin’ to the clubhouse?” Teddy Bear asked.

  “No, we’re too late to help anyone there. The remnant is at the cabin.”

  My pops stepped up next to me and took a swig from his bottle of Jack. “Good. My butt’s sore. It’ll feel good to sit by a warm fire and drink some brews with the bros,” Pops replied.

  “Yeah, but we’ve got our work cut out for us on this one. There won’t be a lot of time to party,” Little Danny Boy said.

  “We’ll party after we slaughter all these woolly sons-of-bitches,” I said.

  “It�
��s not so much the werewolves that I’m worried about,” Little Danny Boy replied. “It’s their demonic friends.”

  “From what I hear, these aren’t your average werewolves,” Chops said and then climbed onto his bike.

  “No, they’re a real bad bunch that’s come up from Mexico. They were friendly with the Hell Raisers before we took those old boys out. They’ve formed an alliance with the Devil himself,” Little Danny Boy said.

  “It don’t matter. There’s no demon in hell that can stand up to a bro with a pure heart,” I said and climbed onto the old Pan Head.

  A few miles up the road, we pulled off onto a dirt trail leading into the hills. We passed through a small stand of pine trees and the weather turned chill. A dark menacing cloud hung over the land and out in the woods, I heard a wild feral growl. I saw red beady eyes peering at us from the tree line. A howl resonated across the land as the full moon rose into the sky.

  “They’ve got scouts in the woods! Probably a couple of wolves and some of the Devil’s imps!” Little Danny Boy yelled, projecting his voice over the rumble of our loud pipes. I saw an evil looking demon wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, standing in the middle of the road. He looked up as we approached and his skeletal feature changed into a demonic grin. Evil reddish green light illuminated the darkness, coming from the empty sockets where his eyes should be.

  “Be gone you vile creature!” Little Danny Boy yelled and gunned the throttle. We plowed right into the evil creature and he disappeared into a cloud of smoke and ash. His evil laughter resonated through the forest. A few minutes later, we saw a light in the distance. Breaking through a clearing, we saw the cabin. Several motorcycles, a couple of pickup trucks and a few cars set parked out front. Five prospects stood out on the front porch with rifles standing guard duty.

  One of them hollered into the cabin and said, “You guys better come out here! We’ve got company!”

  A group of bikers stepped out onto the front porch and all of them were armed. We pulled up to the cabin and killed the motors on our scooters. Our spirit bikes now resembled older Harley Davidson motorcycles.

  “This shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Dirty Dan said. “There’s a picture of every one of those guys in the Book of the Dead.”

  The book of the dead was an old leather bound photo album with picture of brothers that had passed on. You had to be dead to get your picture in the book.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was half way expecting those guys to show up,” Chico said.

  “Yeah, remember when we had that trouble with the Hell Raisers? Some of them showed up that time,” Tiny replied.

  “There’s old Cave Man. He saved my bacon a while back,” Lead Belly said.

  We climbed off our scooters. “Aren’t you gonna offer a bro a drink? Make mine a Jack,” I said.

  A grin spread across Chico’s face. “Come on up here bro. Bring in your crew. We’ll toss back a couple and then have a sit down about this little problem we’re having,” Chico replied.

  I stepped up onto the porch and the Halo Riders followed. When Chico saw Sonny, he grabbed him up in a big bear hug and said, “I missed you bro.”

  “I missed you too, Son,” Sonny replied.

  We did some backslapping with our brothers. A few of them felt a little tense at first. It ain’t everyday that a group of bikers from the other side of the graveyard shows up at your door. Chico led us inside, a couple of prospects handed out the beer and we did some more backslapping. I pulled a bottle of Jack from my coat pocket, tossed back a shot and sat down on a threadbare couch setting in the living room. The Halo Riders sat down beside me. Chico, Tiny and Dirty Dan pulled up some folding chairs and sat facing us.

  “You know, I was hoping you guys would show up. We were at the clubhouse when these hairy bikers showed up. They had patches on their vest that said, The Woolly Boys. They took off their clothes,” Chico said. “Like if that wasn’t weird enough, they changed, man. You’re not gonna believe this, but they turned into werewolves. They attacked us and ripped several of the bros to pieces. They were almost superhuman. Werewolves, can you believe this shit? I thought that was only on the movie and shit.”

  I shrugged, took a pull from a bottle of Jack and said, “Yeah bro, I can believe it, considering a damned flesh eating zombie bit me back in sixty eight. Don’t be so quick to brush something off because it’s weird.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Chico asked. “We’ve got to take back the clubhouse.”

  “There’s more than the clubhouse at stake. They’re after the town and they’ve got scouts out in the woods,” Little Danny Boy said.

  “Isn’t there someone we could call, bro?” Dirty Dan replied.

  “Yeah, there’s this dude out in California named Monroe, but it will take him a while to get here. These Woolly Boys brought some friends. We’ll take care of this shit ourselves. There’s a dark cloud hovering over the land and it’s chuck full of the Devil’s imps. This is going to be a hard fight,” I said.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Chico asked.

  “You know all those silver coins and silver bars stored down in the basement with the survival gear?” I replied.

  “Yeah. They’re still there.”

  “We need to melt that shit down and make some bullets,” I said.

  “Silver bullets? You’ve got to be kidding?” Tiny said.

  I looked him dead in the eyes. “Afraid not bro. It’s all about belief. You boys will take care of the werewolves, and we’ll deal with their friends.”

  “I think we’d best get started. Them hairy bastards have a good sense of smell. Once they take Harlem Springs, they’ll come here,” Little Danny Boy said.

  Chico nodded at a couple of prospects. “Let’s get the silver. I think we’ve got some bullet molds with the reloading equipment.”

  “You’d best keep half the crew on guard duty. I heard something prowling the woods when we rolled up,” I said as the full moon hung over the cabin lighting up the Arizona night.

  ***

  Chico stood to his feet, instructed half his crew to guard the windows and doors and then led us Halo Riders and several prospects down into the basement. He instructed one of the prospects to fire up an old woodstove and then found the bullet molds. He took a green Army crate from underneath a shelf and opened up. It was filled with silver coins and silver bars. Rummaging around on a shelf, he found an old cast iron pot, filled it with silver coins and set it on top of the woodstove.

  “Once this silver melts, we’ll start making bullets,” Chico said.

  The cold damp basement began to warm up, due to the fire in the wood stove. The pot on top of the stove got hot and the silver began to melt. Sweat beaded up on my forehead.

  “Hey prospect. Why don’t you bring us some beer?” Tiny said to a short dark haired prospect. He wiped sweat from his brow.

  “And bring a bottle of Jack,” Dirty Dan replied.

  “I brought my own,” I said, patting my vest.

  “Yeah you brought the good stuff from the other side,” Chico said and then grinned.

  I nodded. “It sure beats this stuff you drink here on Earth.”

  The silver melted, turning into liquid, and Chico passed out the bullet molds. We spent the next few hours making bullets and loading ammunition. Around midnight someone called down from upstairs and said, “Hey you guys! You better get up here! There’s something creeping around outside and I just heard it scratching on the front door!”

  We grabbed the guns and stuffed our pockets with silver bullets.

  “Something’s prowling around outside. I just heard a deep howl out in the woods and then something scratched the door,” a prospect said. A loud crash made everyone inside the cabin jump. I pulled the curtain aside and looked out the front window. A set of red beady eyes looked back at me. The hairy bastard leapt through the window, showering me with broken glass and
knocked me on my ass. The stinky SOB growled, slashing at me with his claws, and I grabbed onto his furry cheeks with my left hand and punched him in the forehead with my right. My club ring, a large ninety-nine percent silver ring with the initials RD, for Road Dogs, engraved into the front of the ring, burned into his forehead singing its fur. The evil creature let out a blood-curdling howl and jumped back. The smell of burning hair filled the air.

  Chico stepped to the side and jacked a round into a thirty-thirty leaver action rifle. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bullet hit the woolly beast in the chest and it let out another screech, jumped back through the window, and disappeared into the night.

  “That was intense,” I said and pulled my bottle of Jack from my vest. I took a shot.

  Chico’s nostrils flared. “Damn that was a stinky son of a bitch.”

  Behind the cabin, we heard something clawing at the back door. Another werewolf howled in the night. We heard more of them coming out of the woods.

  I nodded at Chico. “We’d best cover all the windows and doors.”

  The werewolves converged on the cabin and we opened up on them. Our muzzle flashes lit up the night. Overhead, the full moon looked down on it all. An ugly looking wolf with crooked teeth stuck his head in the broken window; I pulled my forty-five and put a silver bullet through his brainpan. The hairy bastard flew back off the porch, landing on its back. It withered in agony. The rest of the pack closed in.

  “Get the women and little ones to the basement!” Chico yelled. Several prospects jumped to their feet and hustled the old ladies and the youngsters to safety.

  “We need to deal with their friends!” I yelled to Little Danny Boy.

  Little Danny Boy nodded and after the attack broke off, he said. “Let’s step out onto the front porch.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Dirty Dan said. He crouched down by one of the windows.

  “You can’t go out there. Those SOBs will rip you to shreds,” Chico replied.

  I grinned. “You all stay inside and watch the show.”

  Little Danny Boy, Old School and myself, along with the rest of the Halo Riders filed out the front door and stood on the front porch. A pack of werewolves moved towards us on all fours. As one man, we drew are arms back and flung them forward as if pitching a soft ball underhanded. Balls of blue light shot out of our hands and hit the wolves. What looked like electorally charged bolts of lighting crackled, scorching their fur. The werewolves leapt back in fear. Overhead, a host of evil demons swooped down on us. We pulled our weapons and fired.