The Brotherhood of the Wheel: A Novel by R. S. Belcher

Author:R. S. Belcher [R. S. Belcher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466872530
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2016-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

“10-68”

Walking the streets of downtown Atlanta, so full of life and energy, was like a dream to Mark Stolar after the past week. So many people, moving like guided missiles, to jobs or lunch, dentist appointments, or to meet friends and lovers. It was normal, petty, human, and after his time in Four Houses it was like gulping air after being beneath dark waters. It was April 27th, a Wednesday, around eleven-fifteen in the morning. If he were home, he’d be in his shorts watching Jerry Springer and eating Froot Loops. But all that changed yesterday, yesterday with Dewey, poor fucking Dewey. The small sliver of a flash drive in his pocket felt like a stone.

He hated doing this, doing the bidding of the creepy bastard that had murdered his best friend. He wanted to get him back, to kill that motherfucker. But life had already explained to Mark that that was all just movie bullshit. He wasn’t a hero, he never had been. He was the sidekick, the occasional comedy relief. God’s gofer.

Mark had met Dewey Rears in fifth grade while he was getting the shit beat out of him by two eighth graders who had called him “fag.” Mark had made the mistake of flipping them off, instead of just taking it. He ran and reached the edge of the school’s nature trails—the thick brush line that all the stoners hid in to have a smoke of one kind or another. His lungs burning, his legs rubbery with fear, he had fallen when the first one caught up and shoved him. They started kicking him, hard. His whole body felt like a bag of broken glass. He was crying, and that made them kick harder. He pissed himself, and that made them laugh and hoot and kick even harder. Then the kicking stopped, and there was a sound like a slab of hamburger meat hitting the floor. Mark forced open one of his swollen eyes, and there was Dewey, already towering a good foot over the other boys, driving his huge fist into another of Mark’s attackers. He kicked the third one, and they scattered like cockroaches.

“You fuckin’ fat-ass!” one of the attackers shouted as he ran away.

“Yeah, you come on back, shitheads!” Dewey whooped. “We’ll do it again!” This big guy with a curly mullet, a “System of a Down” T-shirt, and kind eyes, reached down to help him up. “Won’t we, man?” he said, grinning.

They had stayed best friends ever since. All through the bullshit of high school, all through Dewey’s parents splitting up and Mark’s mom passing away; through the nametag, hairnet jobs and the college promises and failures, through Dewey’s weird-ass career as a writer, a Bigfoot chaser. They had stuck through all of it together. Dewey Rears was the closest thing Mark had to a brother. Had. Now Emile Chasseur, this psychopath who called himself the Pagan, the Master of the Hunt—whatever the fuck that was—had ripped Dewey’s heart out, murdered him for

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