Page 150 of Patching Over

“Fuck ‘em,” I grumble. “That badge they wear won’t save them. I’ll take their asses out too.”

I’ll burn the world down to save my woman, fucking law be damned. Even if I spend the rest of my life behind bars, knowing she was safe would be enough for me.

“Selah, don’t talk anymore, darlin’. Keep your fantasies to yourself from here on out, all it seems to do is antagonize, spur on, and feed him,” Banshee advises. “Your ideas and imagery have merit, and if it were feasible, I’d be the first one in linebuying one for you, but we can’t give any of the other factions a heads up that we’re coming for them if we can’t hit them at the same time.”

Lah cackles like a villain on a horror show, before singing in an odious, bone-chilling tone, “These lips are sealed for now, butna-au-aughtforever. I will not be, never will be silenced. Nuh-uh. I will be coming for you.”

“What the holy hell was that?” Scythe asks.

“That was some creepy ass shit, right there. I think your girl’s been possessed or some shit, Butcher,” Phantom claims.

“Maybe, instead of hitting an electronic store, as planned, we should be hitting a church and finding ourselves a priest to have your girl exorcized,” Jingles surmises.

“I’m not a religious man, but somebody better be pulling out some rosary beads. Like right the fuck now!” Scythe simpers. “Maybe even some sage, for fuck’s sake.”

“Bahahaha,” Lah giggles. “Y’all are too easy to freak out.”

“Baby. Let’s not freak out the big, bad bikers,” Butcher suggests, laughing.

“But I’m bored, and it was fun,” she whines. “Ooh, maybe we could tell ghost stories to pass the time.”

“Nope. Nada. Ain’t. Fuckin’. Happening,” Scythe answers. “If this is your form of foreplay, I want no part of it.”

“Okay, I’ll start,” Lah says, ignoring the men’s blatant objection. “Have y’all ever heard the story of the chop-chop China doll?”

“No, I haven’t. But the better question is, how did you?” Butcher questions.

“The internet,” she responds.

“Someone needs to censor her search engine and make sure she’s not on the path of becoming a serial killer,” Banshee utters.

Then Selah busts out, singing to some country song using the wrong words but using the right tune, “How do you like me now?Now that I’m on my way? You may think I’m crazy, standing over you as you lay. You may think I’m creepy, but I’m trying to find my way.”

Scythe loses his shit and screams, “Oh, hell to the no!”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “I wanna hear about this China doll.”

“Fuck that shit, Kracken,” Scythe bellows. “Does your woman know you’re creepy like this?”

I chuckle, enjoying getting a rise out of my brother. He’s too easy when it comes to this shit. For someone who lives the biker lifestyle, he’s got some weird hang-ups. Hates scary movies, hates clowns, hates anything creepy crawly.

“No, I want her to tell us this story,” I insist.

Selah’s voice drops to a whisper, and she starts talking. “There was a town rumored to have someone called The Puppetmaster who created toys that he then put evil souls into. A young teenage girl, who was bullied at school, received a package that was from a beloved aunt one day, and when she opened it, she found a beautiful China doll inside. However, the aunt cautioned her niece about the doll, saying that she had to remember to put the doll up every night inside the case it came in, otherwise, it would turn evil and start killing people. But the girl forgot and woke up from a dream to hear screams and an eerie voice saying, ‘Chop chop China doll’. She snuck down the hall to her parents’ room to find her parents both dead, blood everywhere.”

“Jesus Christ and all the saints,” Scythe shrieked, causing laughter to come through the mics.

“How the hell you became a biker is beyond me,” Banshee murmurs through his laughter. “You grew up with us, Brother, and we told scary stories all the time up in the treehouse!”

“Yeah, and how many times did I volunteer to go into the clubhouse to get us more snacks and drinks? Hmm? I always left before the terrifying parts,” Scythe retorts.

“Come on, Scythe, I wanna hear what happened next,” I say. “Go on, Selah, tell us more.”

She stops giggling, and says, “So, the girl gets her younger brother, her baby sister, and her grandfather, who’s the only one still alive, and they head down to the basement to hide. Except… the doll follows, and soon, she’s fleeing the basement with her baby sister in her arms. She’s going to get help, hopefully from her best friend. When she gets to her best friend’s house, thankfully with no doll trailing behind her, she quickly fills in all of her friends. They look at her in disbelief until she realizes her phone was videotaping. So, she shows them the video and the decision is made to call the police. Only… by the time the police arrive, the doll has added to her miniature maniacal killing army, and several of her friends, as well as the police, are now dead. The remaining friends flee from the house of horrors and decide to find where The Puppetmaster lives. They find the house and go inside, only when they get in there…”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Scythe screams into the mic. “Why are you torturing me like this?”

Laughter rings through all of us once again, and when Scythe lifts both arms and flips all of us off, it gets even louder.

---