When Darkness Falls

Allison was on Marty's right, and Rob, who was now making a run at Debbie, was sitting on his left. Around the campfire they sat, reclining in lawn chairs, listening to Buffett, and drinking cans of beer. Allison was the first to hear the rumble of motorcycles. At first Marty thought it was thunder, and turned to look again at the southern sky. The clouds were on the march, but the winds that they were riding were not yet perceptible at Rolling Hills Campground. Marty figured they had an hour before the storm hit, maybe less.

"I think the Hell's Angels have arrived," Allison said.

Marty pried his gaze from the sky and looked down the lane. Headlights threw a ghostly glow on the trees at the bend. Buffett was in mid-verse about being a middle-aged pirate when someone shut the music off. The conversations around the campfire ceased. The only sound came from the insect orchestra, the crackle of the fire, and the growl of the bikes. Everyone around him seemed transfixed by the five individual headlights that were growing larger as the bikes bounced their way up the trail, all the way to the edge of the circle of lawn chairs, close enough that the individual lights became one. They went out, one by one, as the engines were cut; their deafening rumble was replaced by a woman's shriek, then booming laughter.

It took Marty's eyes a moment to adjust from the glare of the headlights to the soft glow of the campfire. That's when he realized that there were two people on all but one of the bikes. The passenger on the back of one of them had fallen off. The shriek he'd heard had come from the woman who was picking herself up off the ground while laughing hysterically.

A hulk of a man came over and put his arm around her waist to steady her.

"You alright honey? At least you waited 'til we were done movin' to fall off." The biker's voice was gruff, but his laugh was good-natured.

The man's hairy beer gut bulged from his black leather vest and hung over his belt. The beautiful woman leaned back against him laughing, and pulling twigs and dead leaves from her hair. He helped her to an empty lawn chair where she sat down. Her laughter gave way to a smile. It wasn't the embarrassed grin of someone who had just fallen down in the company of strangers, or the far away incoherent gaze of someone who was high, but rather the toothy knowing smile of the Cheshire Cat. It made Marty's skin crawl.