Biker Horror!

[glampunk]

Tried this before but not much came of it. At least there are a few more entries this time!

Kevin A. Lyons - Billy Wolfe's Riding Spirit: Years Best Horror Stories VIII, (DAW, 1980: Karl E. Wagner resurrected it from Easyriders for Sept. 1979). He's been dead a year but still the Police can't take black leather outlaw biker Billy into custody for his multitude of petty offences. Every full moon he makes the run toward Delaware and no roadblock on earth will stop a corpse on a Harley. Narrated by the big hairy guy from the Fish & Game department who earns his crust scraping roadkill deer into his truck.

Robert Bloch - Spawn of the Dark One: (Fantastic, May 1958: Aka Sweet Sixteen). Packs of Hells Angels descend on remote Kettle Moraine County each weekend, building fires on the hill and drinking the bars dry, much to the consternation of aged anthropologist Kerry, who is studying their nihilistic, often brutal behavior for a paper he intends to write. He comes to the conclusion that these "psychopaths" are fiends, "the spawn of a union between a demon and a mortal woman ... during the war ... the women had nightmares - the kind of nightmares women have had through the ages. The nightmare of the incubus, the carnal demon who visits them in sleep. It happened before in the history of our culture, during the Crusades. And then followed the rise of the witch cults all over Europe." His young friend Hibbard wonders what this batty old timer on about. I'm sure we can rely on Mr. Bloch to set him straight ....

Michael Newton - Reunion: (Shock Rock, Pocket, 1992). Twenty years ago, Star Child were on the verge of joining contemporaries The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs in the pantheon of counter-culture greats, but then the Paradise Festival happened, the band hired outlaw bikers the Mongols as security, a stoned stage-diver named Axel Grubb was beaten to death after foolishly pulling a gun ... Heavy bummer, maaaan.

Boone 'Freebie' Franklin was present at the terrible event - Grubb bled all over him - and he's eager to catch the anniversary reunion gig in the same field. He thumbs a lift from four stoned hippies in a psychedelic van, even cops off with one of the girls, but he's uneasy about the three motorcycles parked by the stage, owners as yet unseen. Then the Mongols show up - and there's Axel Grubb lurching out of the washroom! If Franklin can somehow prevent the hippie drawing his pistol this time and the event passes peacefully, will the post-Woodstock optimism be reborn?

Marianne LeConte - Femme Fatale: New Terrors 2, (Pan 1980). "Beware of Ira, frenzied motorbike demon, hounding the dark Parisian streets in search of innocent young girls ...."

Woman and bike are literally as one and the vampire cycle first ravages, then drains the blood from its terrified victims.

David Morrell - Dead Image: Aspiring young actor Wes Crane is the double of deceased movie legend 'James Deacon', killed in a car crash before the three films he'd completed were even released and catapulted him to global fame. Screenwriter David Sloane, sick of no-mark directors dumbing down his work, decides to go it alone on Mercenaries after recruiting Wes to play lead. Wes makes a terrific fist of it, but his identification with Deacon is such that he knows he must die in a bike smash on his hero's anniversary, or things will get .... hideous. Sloane manages to get him on set but Wes is on a downward spiral from that day forth ....

Gracie the Go-Go girl rescues former movie-star Creighton from a beating at the meaty fists and steel-toed boots of Dogmeat and the One-Eyed Skulls at the Grinderswitch Bar in Robert R. McCammon's delightful Night Calls The Green Falcon.

[coral]

Most edifying, but did you really have to illustrate the post with a photo of me?
Seriously though, I'll be looking out for these, what fun!

[dem bones]

Oh, that's you, is it? In that case, I'd like to take this opportunity to say I'm a big fan of your work!

And here's you as depicted in Jack Oleck's novelisation of Tales From The Crypt (Bantam, April 1972):

"Only - the motorcyclist had no eyes. Where there should have been eyes there were twin dark holes in a white, fleshless skull. There were teeth that hung jaggedly from bone where there should have been a mouth. There was nothing where there should have been a nose ..."

I'm sure there are more biker horror shorts, but some notable cameo appearances in nasty NEL novels worth a mention are:

Mule Skinner and his motley crew of would-be desperadoes are transformed into something nearer the part after staring into the sucking pit in Guy N. Smith's The Walking Dead (NEL, 1984). Possessed by the dead gypsies, they visit bloody mayhem on a social club while Carl Wickers is wowing the locals with his C & W standards.

And:

" ... they were all dressed alike in the uniform of the young. Denims in various stages of disintegration. Leather jackets. Sweat shirts. Leather boots. Male and female alike sported long, unkempt hair. They were, Amberly decided instantly, a bunch of useless layabouts"

That's Talon and his crew who come to a stingy end in Micheal R. Linaker's ace Scorpion: Second Generation (Nel, Feb. 1982)!

Plus:

There's also a brief but highly effective cameo from a nasty outlaw biker gang who've so far survived the terror plants from outer space in David Conyers' delightful Subtle Invasion from .... The Black Book Of Horror!

[dem bones]

Chrissie Demant

Just read this in Stephen Jones's Mammoth Best New Horror #21, but as it will doubtless be ages before i get around to the rest - no slight to editor/ contributors intended, it's just my 'too read' pile is intimidating enough the way things stand - thought i'd post it here.

Joe Hill & Stephen King - Throttle: Ten-strong ageing biker gang The Tribe - every one an army vet - race across the desert after a business meeting with spaced out entrepreneur Dean Clarke ended in double homicide. The Tribe had invested in his crystal meth lab, only for it to burn down on the first day of production, and now they want their $60,000 back. Trouble is, Dean's girlfriend has been sampling the wares, and, convinced she's about to be gang-raped, pulls a gun. Roy Klowes, the Tribe's resident psychopath, hacks her to pieces with a machete while arrogant youngster Race Adamson splits Clarke's head in two with a shovel. Leader Vince Adamson (Race's dad) and the elder gang members, notable his loyal lieutenant Lemmy Chapman, are appalled at this development, and it's clear that Vince will have some sorting out to do once they get home to Vegas. To make matters worse, when they stop off at a diner, Race shoots his idiot mouth off about the murders in the earshot of a truck-driver. When he insists they set off for Show Low on some fool errand to obtain the sixty grand from Clarke's hooker sister, the 18-Wheeler follows ....

Even without the introductory notes, you know exactly which Richard Matheson story/ early Spielberg movie provided the inspiration, but whereas arguably Duel's greatest strength lies in fact that Mann has done nothing to provoke the trucker, Throttle's suicidally reckless Laughlin has good reason to drive down every last member of the Tribe. How many will he splatter beneath his wheels?

[humgoo]

Steve Duffy - The First Time (Tragic Life Stories, 2010): "You see, my parents believed that sending me to Manchester Grammar would be the engine of my release from Baguley. For my part, I believed punk rock would do the trick." 1976. Manchester. The favourite haunt of 15-year-old Christopher is Electric Circus, Collyhurst Road. However, due to some unfortunate misunderstanding, Chris has become a persona non grata there, and can only listen to the live music at the fire escape. He doesn't feel too comfortable hanging around with other liggers there, but finds one bright spot in the form of Lesley, a twenty-something, gamine girl who, with the foulest mouth and the kindest heart, acts as the "den mother" of that small community of hangers-on.

Chris has a big crush on Les but only dares to talk to her when she's alone, that is, when her boyfriend, gaunt, gloomy and leather jacket-wearing Dennis is not around. Dennis is not only a small-time drug dealer, but also a dabbler in magick, borrowing books frequently from some bikers who share the same interest in the black art.

Then comes the fatal night, 8th December, when the Third Sex Pistols Gig is to be held and just a few days after the Bill Grundy incident. At the fire escape Chris finds a nonplussed Les and learns that Dennis has nicked a super rare and powerful grimoire from said bikers and run away, hence the panic.

The bikers are pissed off, but what Les fears most is the "guardian" of said ancient tome. Seeing that Chris is still a virgin, Les has a plan and lets Chris escort her back to her council flat. Will her sex-magick prevail?

Moral: Don't steal books from bikers.