Prologue - Just The Beginning
The sign read Lucky’s.
Barely.
It used to be a diner.
Connected to an old bus station on the edge of nowhere.
A final stop for truckers, runaways, and girls with no one left to call.
Now it sat hollow, windows dark, glass long gone, door rotted off the hinges.
The station beside it was worse.
Roof caved in.
Ticket booth gutted.
Spray paint curling on cinder block walls.
The lot around it was cracked and forgotten.
Weeds climbed through the concrete.
Old gum wrappers and broken bottles littered the edges like offerings to the past.
A rusted soda machine leaned sideways against a wall, half-buried in vines.
A dented ‘No Parking’ sign flapped quietly in the breeze, its bolts rusted to nothing.
An abandoned bench sat crooked beneath a dead lamppost, its slats broken and splintered.
And in the center of it all—
A circle of motorcycles.
Black chrome.
Matte steel.
Silent engines ticking in the desert night.
No one spoke from the shadows behind them, but he felt them there.
Eyes on him.
Watching.
Waiting.
The gravel tore at his palms as he crawled.
Dust clung to his sweat.
Blood smeared down his chin, thick and slow, every breath scraping like glass.
His stained T-shirt clung to his back, soaked with sweat and dirt.
Cheap jeans ripped at the knees, belt barely holding.
One leg dragged useless behind him, scraped raw from gravel as he pulled himself toward the flickering red neon that hadn’t worked right in years.
He coughed.
Cried.
Choked.
“Please,” he rasped. “Just tell me what you want.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
No one answered.
But a boot stepped forward.
And the lesson began.
The smallest shadow stepped forward, dragging a crowbar across the gravel with a sound like metal breathing death.
The scrape echoed through the empty lot—slow, deliberate.
The man tried to look up, eyes wild.
Too late.
The crowbar came up fast and hard—cracking across his jaw with a sickening crunch.
He screamed, blood and teeth flying from his mouth as he rolled onto his side, clutching his face.
He moaned through bloodied fingers. “Please—please—”
The largest shadow emerged next.
Boots heavier. Slower.
Voice calm. Controlled.
“Where’s the camera?”
The man whimpered.
“Who told you to take the picture?”
The man shook his head, eyes wide with panic, mouth leaking blood between his fingers.
The smallest shadow stepped forward again.
“Please… no,” he mumbled, barely audible.
The crowbar swung again—lower this time, catching ribs.
He screamed.
The largest shadow snarled, voice slicing through the sound. “Answer me.”
The man coughed hard, blood dripping from his chin.
“I—I can’t,” he stammered. “If I tell you… they’ll kill me.”
Around him, the shadows stirred.
Dark, humorless chuckles echoed low through the night.
The largest shadow crouched beside him, grabbing his broken jaw with one gloved hand.
The man cried out, twisting, but couldn’t pull away.
The voice came again, calm but cruel.
“Frank.”
The name was said softly at first.
Then again.
And again.
“Frank,” the figure repeated. “Your friends might kill you. Quick, clean, maybe even quiet.”
He leaned in close, so close the man flinched at the breath on his skin.
“But me?”
A pause.
“My men?”
Another.
“We don’t just kill. We make you beg for death. We make you suffer first.”
The largest shadow stood slowly and nodded once.
The smallest moved without hesitation.
Light from the motorcycles caught the edge of their face as they stepped forward—glinting off a cracked porcelain mask.
Frank whimpered.
“Please—don’t—”
The voice of the largest came again, low and cold.
“You’re going to help us teach a new lesson tonight, Frank.”
He circled behind him, slow.
Measured.
“You’re going to be a message. Every bruise, every break, every drop of blood—they’ll read it like scripture.”
He stopped, just behind Frank’s ear.
“How long it takes… how painful it gets… depends on how fast you stop lying.”
The crowbar swung again.
Frank screamed, his voice breaking through the still night.
His body twisted, legs kicking weakly against gravel as the iron caught him across the shoulder and spine.
The largest shadow didn’t move at first.
Then he stepped forward, voice colder now.
“Looks like you want it the hard way, Frank.”
Another scream split the dark.
And then another.
Each one followed by the dull, sickening thud of steel meeting bone.
Frank’s screams echoed through the forgotten lot.
Then faded.
And when silence returned—it stayed.
The neon above Lucky’s flickered once.
Then held steady.
Like it was watching.
