Page 1 of Total Carnage
Vin
Ijolted awake, gasping for air like a drowning man breaking the surface. My lungs burned, every breath bringing a cloud of gritty dust that clung to my throat. What the fuck?
“Raven,” I said, but heavy and unnatural silence surrounded me. No birds, no wind, just the faint sound of someone working nearby as I shifted on my ass. My eyes struggled to focus in the dim light. Rows of weathered headstones came into view. A fucking cemetery. I woke up in a fucking cemetery surrounded by the dead.
"The hell am I doing here?" I said, my voice a hoarse rasp. My muscles screamed in protest as I tried to sit up like they'd forgotten how to work. It felt like a semi had hit me. Twice.
"Fuck me," I hissed, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Raven?” I said again, but no reply came. Why would there be a reply in a cemetery? I knew she wasn’t there. I knew she was dead.
I managed to get to my knees, my leather cut creaking like old bones. It was covered in a thick layer of grayish dust that seemed to have worked its way into every crack and crevice. The same shit coated my hands, caked under my fingernails. My head spun as I fought to stand, legs trembling like a newborn colt's. I stumbled, catching myself on a nearby headstone. The rough granite scraped my palm, anchoring me to reality. I read the inscription: Wallace Murphy. January 1, 1932 - January 1, 2019. Devoted husband, father, and grandfather. Forever missed. I read the dates again. Damn.
"Get it together, Reed," I muttered. "You've been through worse." But had I? Something about this felt wrong, beyond the obvious weirdness of waking up in a graveyard. An icy finger of dread trailed down my spine as I took in my surroundings. The stillness was oppressive, unnatural. It was like the world was holding its breath, waiting for me to either scream or drop dead. “Fuck you, world.”
I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Think, dammit. How'd you end up here? Fuck that, where’s Raven?” I yelled her name again, getting no reply. Because she was dead.
I closed my eyes and tried to think backward. How did I get here? The last thing I remembered was looking up in the sky and…And what? Nothing. My mind was blank, offering nothing but a dull ache behind my eyes. Whatever had happened, it couldn't be good. In my line of work, waking up confused in strange places usually meant serious trouble. It meant that I had probably killed a man.
I stumbled forward, each step feeling like I was wading through molasses. My boots left clear prints in the dust coating the ground. How long had I been here?
"Alright, Vin," I said to myself, voice hoarse—from…disuse? "One foot in front of the other, asshole. Find a way out of this creepy-ass place and figure out what the hell is going on."
But deep in my gut, a nagging feeling told me I might not like the answers waiting for me beyond the cemetery gates. Just because we looked for answers didn’t mean we needed to find them. If I was looking for answers, it was because something was seriously fucked up.
The quiet shattered like glass as memories exploded behind my eyes: chaos, fire, the roar of bikes and the staccato of gunfire, planes overhead—military planes.
"Fuck!" I growled, doubling over as the images came at me. The Hell's Justice clubhouse engulfed in flames, the acrid stench of burning rubber and gasoline. My brothers scattered, some firing back, others lying too still on the ground. The thunderous boom of explosions rocking my chest.
I tasted blood, real or remembered, I couldn't tell. My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape. "This ain't right," I muttered, struggling to breathe. "We were... I was..."
Dead. The word hung unspoken, heavy as lead. I didn’t want to speak it—one of those answers I shouldn’t find.
I ran a trembling hand over my face, feeling the familiar scars, the rough stubble. All too real. Too alive.
"If this is the afterlife," I said with a bitter laugh, "then I seriously got screwed on the deal."
My mind raced, grasping for an explanation. A coma? Some elaborate setup? But the weight of time settled on me like a shroud of darkness. This wasn't just waking up after a bender gone wrong.
"Alright, Reed," I told myself. "You've seen some crazy shit, but this takes the cake. Figure it out. What's the last thing you remember?"
The firefight. Smoke thick enough to choke on. A final stand with my brothers. Dead brothers all around me. Raven. Raven was dead, I remembered. Killed before me and killed because ofme. I glanced back at the ground and wanted hell to take me back. Take what rightfully belonged to it.
"No way I walked away from that," I muttered, my fists clenching. "So, how the hell am I standing here?"
The silence offered no answers, just the creeping certainty that whatever brought me back, it wasn't natural. And sure as shit, it wasn't free.
I steadied myself against an elaborate headstone, the cold granite grounding me as I scanned the cemetery. Row after row of weathered markers stretched out, a sea of endings etched in stone. The air felt heavy, like time had thickened and settled over this place. My gaze caught on a familiar name. Then another. My breath hitched as I read them aloud, my voice rough.
"Ace. Hammer. Skull."
My brothers. My family. The men I'd died alongside or thought I had. Their names stared back at me, a punch to the gut that nearly doubled me over. I swung a fist, connecting with only air.
"What the fuck is going on?" I growled, anger rising to combat the growing unease.
A flicker of movement caught my eye as a man in overalls approached hesitantly as if he were seeing a ghost. Hell, maybe he was.
The cemetery worker—a lanky guy with more hair than muscle—stopped a good ten feet away. His eyes were wide as saucers, darting between me and the graves I stood among.
"You... you're..." he stammered, voice barely above a whisper.
