Part One: The Tavern

The road that led through the bayou was bathed in the glow of a magnificent sunset. Along the sides of the narrow back road the dense foliage of the swamps pressed inwards, seemingly trying to reclaim the land that had been stolen from it by the forces of man. Off in the distance a steady rumbling stilled the sounds of the night creatures, just beginning to emerge from the days sleep. The sound grew to a loud roar as a midnight black Harley swept around a curve in the road. It was a beautiful machine, the engine set in a low cut frame, extended springers and apehangers, gleaming in the last rays of the sun. The rider leaned back with comfort in a padded cobra seat, his long wavy hair blown backwards by the air he passed quickly through.

The sun made a last attempt then sank below the swampland, and the rider switched to high beam and slowed a little, no point in sacrificing safety for speed. Shortly after, the Harley coasted over a crest in the road and the rider made out the glittering lights of a small town ahead. He switched back to low beam and began downshifting through the gears, the engine growling, as though discontented by the idea of stopping. Almost immediately after crossing over the invisible line that separated the bayou from the township, the rider saw a well-lit tavern off to his right. He braked quickly and moved from solid tarmac to loose gravel, the stones crunching beneath the wide rear wheel. Pulling to a complete halt outside of the large window, the rider stepped off his machine and stretched his tired arms and twisted from side to side to ease stiff back muscles. Taking the key from the ignition and flicking a hidden alarm switch, he ambled up to the old wooden door and pushed his way inside.

It was an ancient bar he saw, no doubt built more than a hundred years ago, the interior kept as close to original as was possible to savour that “bygone days” style.

As he walked across to the long bar he noticed the head of a huge ‘gator hung above the shelves of bottles. The bartender walked over from a nearby table where he had been talking with an old couple.

“Howdy mister, what can I get you?”

“One long, cold beer, and a short, sharp whiskey thanks.”

“Sure son, take a seat at a table and I’ll bring it over.”

“Fine,” said the rider.

There were only a few people in the tavern and they had all given him the once over when he arrived, strangers being few and far between in this part of the swamp.

They saw a young man with dark hair tousled by the wind, and a growth of beard showed where he hadn’t shaved for a few days. His skin was dark, burned that way from desert suns and northern winters. His jeans were like his western boots, faded but well cared for, and his once expensive brown leather jacket was stained with oil and scuffed by wear to a lighter colour than it had originally been. The rider’s name was Travis Morgan, a man of no fixed address, a traveller on the roads of America. Once upon a time he’d had a family and a trade and a future he looked forward to. Now he was alone and lived day to day, mile by mile.

Occasionally he rode with clubs and there were many fellow riders he could call brother, but the time always came when he would bid his friends farewell and move on to distant horizons. Perhaps it would seem mere chance that he had been on that bayou road and stopped in the small town, but this was not so.

The President of Iron and Steel M/C had asked a favour of Travis before he had left their clubhouse two days ago. He took Travis aside as he was leaving.

“Ah, listen Trav, on your way down south you might ask after a couple of the brothers, they were ‘goin the same way you’re headed, said they wouldn’t be gone more than a couple of days and it’s been two weeks now with no word from them. Some of us are starting to get a little worried, you know.”

Travis looked at the man. “You checked the bars and the brothels and jails down that way?”

The Prez nodded. “One of our guys has some relatives a day south of here, told me over the phone that Billy and Digger spent a night at their place. Left again the next morning. No one’s heard from them since.” Travis began to suspect that Iron and Steel suspected foul play. He said as much to the Prez.

The man shrugged. “Yeah man, I think something bad happened to them, but I figure one biker asking questions in small hick towns will get a better response than if half the club showed up, and, well, since you said you were headed that way………….” His voice trailed off. Travis smiled and slapped him on the shoulder.

“No sweat man, I’ll ask around when I’m on the road. I find anything out, I’ll grab a phone and let you know soonest.”

The Prez grunted, obviously relived. “Thanks Trav, I owe you one.”

Two drinks appeared in front of Travis as he sat at the small table, and a hand was thrust in from behind them as the bartender spoke.

“My names Sam Daniels son, you passing by or visiting down here?”

Travis took the offered hand and shook it. “Travis Morgan, just riding by, couldn’t last much longer without a drink though.” Sam sat down opposite the biker and the others in the tavern went back to whatever it was they were doing before Travis got there.

“Just about everybody who comes here,” Sam laughed, “and that ain’t a sight too many, just carry on through. Cain’t say as I blame them, ain’t much here but snakes and ‘gators.”

Travis smiled. “You sound as though you have an urge to be elsewhere?”

Sam sighed. “Born here, lived here all my life Travis, had a chance to go to New Orleans and work once, but like a damned fool I turned it down.”

He chuckled. “But it ain’t so bad, folks all around know one another and we make out by fishing and hunting and selling timber.”

Travis sat forward a little. “Don’t get many travellers here then?”

“Nope, you’re the first new face to come by in a couple of ………..! Sam stopped short and a wary look came into his eyes as he added a little belatedly ………weeks.”

“The last strangers you saw, they wouldn’t have been a pair of bike riders like me would they?” Travis looked coolly into Sam’s eyes as he asked. Sam pushed his chair back form the table and when he answered, his manner had changed. He seemed almost hesitant.

“Maybe, those guys friends of yours mister?”

“Yeah,” said Travis. “Friends of a friend. How long did they stay here?”

“Same as you, had a few drinks, talked to me and a local couple, then left again.”

“On their bikes?”

“Huh?”

“Their bikes.”

“Oh, well yeah, course they left on their bikes, how else would they go anywhere.”

An old man from a corner table came over and spoke to Travis. “Couldn’t help but overhear you youngster, those other guys, you really close?”

“Maybe,” answered Travis. “Why ask a question like that. You know what happened to them when they left here?”

The old man cackled. “I can guess kid, I can guess.” Sam jumped to his feet and pushed the old man aside.

“Keep your mouth shut Jake,” he hissed. “This is none of your business.”

Travis was on his feet as well now. He grabbed Sam’s shoulder and spun him around; all other movement in the tavern had stopped.

“What the hell is going on here? What happened to Billy and Digger?” Sam avoided the icy eyes of the biker and muttered something. “What, speak up man!”

“I said you should not mess around with things you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Leah,” cackled the old man again. “Don’t fuck around with Leah.” Laughing, he turned his back on Travis and Sam and walked out of the tavern.

Travis spoke to Sam Daniels for half an hour. The other people in the tavern had left as soon as the old man mentioned Leah. After the conversation between the two of them was over Travis wondered if everyone in the small town were out of their minds. As far as he could understand it, after listening to Sam, this “Leah” was a local witch. The night the two Iron and Steel riders were in town Leah had been at the bar. Travis got the impression everyone was scared shitless of this girl, who, according to Sam was beautiful.

“Like a Rattlesnake is beautiful.” He had said.

Billy and Digger came in out of a raging storm, they’d struck up a conversation with the girl and she had suggested they spend the night at her house, set deep back in the swamp, well away from town. Naturally the two bikers had gone for that like they would if someone yelled out “free beer and pussy, walk this way.” Sam told him they had left their choppers out in front of the tavern and went off with Leah.

“So where are the bikes now?”

Sam shuddered. “Mead came and took them away in his truck.” Seeing Travis’s quizzical look he told him that Mead was Leah’s “servant.”

“Christ,” Travis exploded. “You people have been watching too many late night fuckin’ movies man, you’re crazy!”

Sam was about to say something else when the door of the tavern crashed open and a huge figure blocked out the night air.

“Oh Jesus,” whispered Sam. “It’s him, it’s Mead.”

The giant lumbered forward and Travis got a good look at him. Lank black hair hung over his forehead and small eyes gleamed in his dirty face. He was dressed in equally dirty jeans and work shirt. He moved towards Sam, who paled and backed away from the giant.

“Damn,” thought Travis. “He looks like the fuckin’ Swamp Thing!”

“Miss Leah say you been talking about her,” the giant growled. Travis stepped forward, in front of Sam.

“That’s right friend, I’ve lost track of a couple of buddies. Seems Miss Leah might know where they are.”

The giant smiled. “They’re out at her place now, having a good time.”

Travis was all business now. “I want to see them.”

The giant, Mead, shook his head. “No, no one goes out to Miss Leah’s place except me,” again that smile, “and her guests.”

Travis smiled easily. “I am not asking you to take me there friend, I’m telling you!”

Sam Daniels had found his voice again. “Get out while you can Travis, he’s mean and don’t feel no pain. He’ll kill you if he wants to!”

Mead pointed a huge hand at Sam. “Miss Leah says to tell you, you ain’t gonna last the night out Daniels. You should’a known better than to talk about her to a stranger.” Sam Daniels gulped and opened his mouth to speak, but in that instant Mead’s hand had moved and wrapped itself around Travis Morgan’s neck.

Part Two: Mead

Travis’s 74 thundered down the bayou road. His eyes searching for a dirt track that Sam Daniels had told him he would find on the left, two miles out of town. As he went onwards his mind replayed over again the scene he had left behind him. It was so incredible he still had trouble believing it even now!

Mead’s hand was fastened ‘round his throat like a vice; he towered over Travis by a good foot and a half. His hand was gradually squeezing the life out of Morgan. Travis brought his left kneecap up into the giants groin but the man just grunted, didn’t even blink for Chrissake. Travis Morgan knew that if he didn’t come up with a winning ploy, real quick, he was out of the game. He stuck his left hand down beneath his jacket and snapped open the clasp on the sheath of a large, Bowie style knife. His right hand was still pounding away on Mead’s wrist, to absolutely no effect. With a surge of his huge muscles Mead actually lifted Travis off the ground by his neck!

Black dots began to cloud Travis’s vision. “It’s now or never,” he thought, and with a motion too fast for the eye to follow, he thrust the razor sharp knife up to the hilt in the giant’s stomach! Mead’s eyes bulged and his hand loosened it’s death grip on Morgan’s throat; that was enough for the biker, he wrenched his neck free and watched as Mead clasped both hands around the knife’s hilt and bent forward in a bowing motion. As the giant’s head came level with Travis’s shoulder he launched a savage front kick into Mead’s face. The giant was tottering now, agonised groans coming from his split lips. Any normal man would have been dead by now, but Mead seemed to have inhuman vitality. To the biker’s disbelief the giant made another grab at him and barely missed as he dodged backwards. Travis looked around for another weapon and saw a pool cue lying on a nearby table. He reached out quickly and grabbed it up, broke it over his knee into a sharp point, and, with all his might, stabbed it past Mead’s grasping hands, deep into the giant’s chest.

Dark blood from the heart gushed past the wooden stake. With a final gasp the giant sank to the floor.

Travis was panting, blood pounded in his head, he knew he had come as close to death here as ever he had in the past. Sam Daniels was wide eyed in a corner, hardly breathing. Travis walked over to him and slapped the man across the face.

“Where’s Leah’s house Sam? Tell me now or you’ll end up next to Mead on the floor there!”

Daniels was almost crying. “It don’t matter what I tell you now son. You heard what he said. Leah’s put a hex on me; I’m as good as dead boy.” Travis was withdrawing his knife from the dead Mead’s stomach. He had seen too many good men in pieces to let the sight of blood and intestines bother him now.

“Bullshit Daniels, you people have been alone here too long. There ain’t no witches or curse’s or hexes or any of that crap.” Sam Daniels looked silently back at him for long moments.

“Your wrong son, I wish you weren’t but you are.”

“How do I get to Leah’s place?”

Daniels sighed, he seemed to have accepted the fact that he was supposed to be dead soon with fatalism.

“Come outside, I’ll show you.”

They walked outside and Daniels leaned on Mead’s pick-up truck, while Travis turned off the hidden alarm on his bike, and found a rag to wipe the blood off his blade.

“Down the road about two miles,” Sam pointed. “You’ll come to a dirt road on the left. Nuthin’ but a track really. Go down that for about a quarter mile and you’ll come to a jetty. You’ll have to take the boat Mead used to go out to the old mansion. It’s on a large island up the river a-ways.”

He paused, watching Travis remove the seat on his bike and produce a large, ugly looking revolver. The biker snapped open the cylinder and began to feed bullets into the chambers until all six were loaded.

“Anyone ever been inside this mansion?” Travis asked.

Sam Daniels shook his head. “I heard old Jake went out to the island one night. Came back half crazy. He was babblin’ and droolin’ some. Folks who listened to him said that he saw Leah downstairs naked and that she was……………”

The rest of the sentence was cut off by a terrible scream. Travis whirled around, his loaded pistol at the ready and what he saw made his blood freeze!

Daniels was hanging on the side of the pick-up, mouth open, making a primal noise of pure horror. Wrapped around his right leg was coiled the biggest Swamp Adder Travis had ever seen. It had sunk its fangs into Daniels crutch and even as Travis watched, the head reared back and it descended again, this time into the man’s lower stomach!

Daniels lost his hold on the truck and fell writhing onto the gravel. The snake loosened itself and started to slither off towards some marsh grass. Travis grabbed his knife and without thinking brought the blade down behind the reptile’s head, severing it from the body. The head twisted and hissed at him while the body continued to wriggle on the ground at his feet. With a savage curse his booted foot crushed the head to pulp and he kicked the still moving body away into the bushes.

He turned to Daniels, but a quick glance showed that he was as dead as Mead and the snake. White froth rolled from his lips and his face had turned a ghastly blue colour. Travis Morgan stood there, his heart beating like a drum inside his chest. Without another look behind him, he stowed away his knife and pistol, kicked the Harley into life and steered the machine down the road away from the town, towards a dirt track that would lead deep into the bayou.

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