Title: It’s a Trap
Fandom: Ghost Rider (comics)
Characters: Robbie Reyes (Ghost Rider 2015), Eli Morrow (The ghost from Ghost Rider 2015), Noble Kale (The ghost from Ghost Rider 1990, who got his own body at the end of his series), Black Rose (Roxanne Simpson-Blaze, who was resurrected as a demon at the end of Ghost Rider 1990)
Rating: PG-15
Length: 4k
Content notes: Canon-typical violence (means: a lot). Bomb. Whump.
Author notes: For the fan-flashworks prompt Cave and my Birthday Bingo prompt Whistle.
Summary: Robbie, Noble, and Black Rose lure a white nationalist biker gang into a trap at the leader’s cattle ranch. Noble puts the Penance Stare on them. Robbie discovers that flaming skulls and improvised explosives don't mix.
 

A rumbling chorus of Harley engines crescendoed from the distance, the sound carrying through the night over fields and pastures, drawing closer, closer. Inside the Charger, Robbie licked his lips, wrapped human hands around his steering wheel, counted his breaths. In-two-three, out-two-three, the valves of his blower flicking open and shut. He tasted engine fumes as he exhaled. The key wasn't even in the ignition, but the car was still warming. His arms shook, and he pressed his spine hard into his driver's seat. In-two-three, out-two-three.

His tires settled into the compacted loam of the pasture as he waited, concealed from the road by a livestock trailer that sat near the gate of the ranch. A cattle-grate, a tubular-steel gate, and a mile or so of barbed wire made up the perimeter. A low house squatted in the center, inside its own, smaller fence that kept the cows off the front porch. Storage sheds and an open-air barn behind the house.

Inside the house was a stuporous wreck of a human being. Noble had done something to him, looked him in the eye with the penance stare and made him sorry for everything in his life he should have been sorry for, and his mind had shattered under the strain. Robbie had searched the house while they waited for his buddies to come to the rescue. Nazi propaganda all over his browser history. Hand-drawn maps. Weapons. File folders stuffed with paperwork about divorce proceedings. According to Black Rose, these guys were the real deal. Not satisfied with fantasy, they wanted to cause terror.

Come on, kid, fire it up, I wanna feel their skulls pop under our wheels!

Robbie breathed, shivered, swallowed down soot. Noble has a plan. Just wait two more minutes. He could see headlamps now, far down the road. The engines grew closer, closer: loud mufflers, bass rumbles, and the higher-pitched buzz of a dirt bike. They drew up to the gate and the engines slowed, chugged. Robbie heard the rattle of a chain, the creak of steel. His foot almost brushed the gas pedal. In-two-three, out-two-three, he stretched back again, digging his head hard into the headrest, scraped his drying tongue against his teeth, swallowed black bitter saliva. There were footsteps on gravel. The gate swung open with a long soft creak, the chain dragged over the ground, brushed against tall weeds.

Something wet and raspy brushed against his rear quarter panel and he gasped, checked the mirrors. There was a hairy black cow standing behind him, almost on top of him. It lowered its head to his wheel well and licked him again, scraping away the salty grime of Illinois' roads.

Curiosity killed the cow. Robbie shook his head hard. As the cow lowered its head for another swipe, he let the car spark up just enough to give it a good scare. He couldn't be worrying about a cow when the fight was on. The cow bellowed, a startling foghorn sound, and bolted off into the darkness.

The footsteps beyond the stock trailer paused, crept forward carefully. Then they retreated back through the gate. Robbie tensed. Plan B: burst through the fence and run down the bikers on the road. But he waited still; whoever opened the gate, had to get back on his bike now. And sure enough, a moment later, Robbie heard the Harley engines rumbling down the gravel driveway into the ranch. The dirt bike buzzed, stationary, just outside the gate.

Robbie stared at the roof of the house, in-two-three, out-two-three, faster and faster, his palms hot in his gloves, engine fumes and oil-smoke filling his nostrils. He saw the Harleys come around the stock trailer, sank lower in his seat. Saw four tail-lights pass. Come on. Come on.

On the roof, Noble burst into flame, his skull and the wheels of his bike flaring out into the night.

Yes. Robbie started the engine and the car exploded the moment it turned over, burning his body out of his way in a welcome blast of heat, tires blazing, blower screaming. He cranked the wheel, poured on the gas, and melted straight through the stock trailer, toward the gate. Aluminum peeled and curled behind him and he saw a figure waiting at the side of the road, a guy in a helmet leaning on a dirt bike. The helmet turned, the guy struggled to hop on his bike, peeled away in a spray of gravel. Oh no you don't. Mud and gravel spun out under the Charger's wheels, but he picked up speed, climbed up onto the driveway, made it to the road and shot forward, thirty, fifty, ninety, one-fifty, two-hundred, the fleeing dirt bike was going flat-out and the Rider was gaining on him. He melted out through the hood, fire streaming out through his vents and teeth, a comet in the night. The biker looked back over his shoulder, once, twice, pouring on the throttle, but the little machine was giving all it had. The Rider whipped a chain at him, coiled it around his waist, snatched him up into the air. Crushed the dirt-bike under his wheels.

He slammed the brakes, locked his wheels up into a hundred-and-eighty-degree power-slide, came to rest facing back the way he came. Headlamps and fire chased each-other around in the distance: Noble and the bikers on Harleys. Gunfire crackled: fast at first, then slower and slower.

He stuffed the screaming biker into his trunk, revved his engine, streaming fire high into the night, and then launched forward, clinging hands and feet to his roof, the road streaking away under his wheels faster and faster. Slid into another hard stop just before the gate. Roared back into the ranch.

Noble chased the Harleys around and around the ranch, his wheels leaving streaks of fire in the weeds. He was herding them away from the exit, keeping them moving—they could hop the fence to escape, but not if they were too frightened to dismount their bikes, and Noble Kale was frightening. Spectral fire, unnatural speed, a motorcycle that never slid out, never lost traction in the muddy pasture, a grim grinning skull.

The Rider saw three Harleys. Four had entered the ranch. The biker in the trunk, pounding and kicking at the steel, made five.

“Hey, Ghost!” Black Rose whistled from the front door of the house, hefted a half-conscious man by the throat and flung him to the dirt. He didn't move. “Caught this one coming in the back door.”

Everyone accounted for. Let's clean house, kid.

He revved his engine and roared to catch Noble's attention. Noble nodded, pointed him to the left, leaned his bike right, peeled aside in a blazing arc. Two bikers tried to thread the needle between them, spraying mud as they fled for the exit, and Noble flung out the steel chain he carried around his shoulders. It stretched out impossibly. Across the gap, the Rider caught it. Braced it at neck level. Howled in triumph as the chain jerked in his hands, knocked the bikers over. The bikes raced on without them halfway across the pasture before falling in the mud.

He released Noble's chain.

Noble coiled it back over his chest. Dismounted the bike, stalked over the mud to one of the fallen men. He was tall, heavyset, wearing a tin-pot military-styled helmet with an open face that revealed his drawn, white lips, his wide terrified eyes. Noble gripped him by the collar of his leather jacket and lifted him high overhead. “You have inflicted pain and fear upon the innocent and aspire to do more,” he rumbled. “Now suffer as you have caused others to suffer.” And he stared the man in the eyes, and the man began to scream, and scream.

It went on. The Rider stared, transfixed, his fists clenching and relaxing. The other man on the ground got up and began to run; the Rider stepped off the car and ran him over with it, parked on his leg, never turning his gaze away from Noble and the man whose mind he was breaking. At last Noble looked away, dropped the man to the ground. He was still screaming, wailing, his eyes wide and vacant. He began to form words, half-formed: sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry, why, why did I do—

He's not dead.

He's better than dead.

The Rider dropped through the darkness back into the car. Reversed off the other man's foot, melted out, grabbed him and threw him at Noble's feet. Noble snatched up this one, too, looked him in the eyes, and new screams split the night.

Black Rose whistled again. “Kid!”

The Rider tore his gaze away from Noble and the second man.

Black Rose pointed sharply behind him. The last biker was sneaking away. The Rider snarled, melted back into the car, launched into the night after him in a spray of fire and gravel. Lashed out with his chain, and tore off through the ranch, dragging him over the ground, rumbling laughter, watching him bounce and cry, dirt and melted rubber from the tires spattering his body. Heh-ha-ha, you like that? Tarred and feathered, boy, tarred and feathered! Eat cowshit, Nazi!

Eat shit, Nazi!

Which one do you think he is? Roy the right hand man? Private Ryan? The club's accountant?

He's a Nazi! The Rider gave the chain a jerk, slamming the man into a water-trough. He hangs with them, he condones them, I don't give a shit who he is!

Back up and crush his head! Squash him like a bug!

They circled around the back of an outbuilding. The Rider shook the chain a little, thinking. The man screamed. In the distance, cows crowded against the back fence. Abruptly they felt a tug on the chain, another scream from the man they were dragging. Saw a wire twang free behind them, from where it had snagged on the man’s body. There was a gap in the fence.

The Charger slowed, reversed. The Rider melted out of the car to scoop the man up, popped the trunk and dumped him on top of the other one. I want Noble to do it.

Fuck you, fuck, you're cheating, they all deserve DEATH, that's not our deal, kill one! Kill all of 'em! You selfish lazy bitch, you never do the hard work, you never make the hard choices—

Killing people is not. Fucking. Difficult. The Rider growled, fire spitting between his teeth. Noble does it better! I want them to feel what Noble makes them feel! I want them to suffer! Pay!

Eli sputtered in his head. It's a cop-out! It's—it's cruel, and impractical! Cruel and impractical punishment!

The Rider backed up next to the gap in the fence. It looked crudely flattened, the steel posts bent and the top wire cut. Tire tracks lead into the ranch, through the neighboring property. Crushed plants. If there was a way to tell how recent they were, he didn't know it.

Someone broke in.

Kill one!

In the distance, the screaming faded. We'll check it out later. The Rider took off, back to the house. Back to where Noble Kale had just administered the penance stare to the man Black Rose had dumped on the front lawn. The Rider popped the trunk and hauled out the two men within. Ripped their helmets off and held them up to Noble by the backs of their necks, crying and struggling, like a child holding up two dolls to repair. Noble seized the man from the dirt bike. A young man, unshaven but with little worth shaving, watery blue eyes. Robbie's age. The Rider watched, spellbound, as Noble made contact, and this young man, hardly older than twenty, seized up in his grip and went silent, twitching, his jaw slack.

Burning oil from the Rider's breath spattered the man he still held waiting. The Rider ignored his struggles, watched Noble Kale work, his own flames rising hot and fast.

When Noble dropped the young man, he was silent and lay as if dead, glassy eyes staring. “He has murdered,” Noble informed him, shoving the man away with the toe of his boot. “His penance was severe.”

The Rider snarled, blower shrieking. He held out the last man, a yelling and struggling offering. Do him. Do this one now.

And Noble took him, hefted him overhead as though weighing him, looked him in the eyes, in his burned and spattered face, and the man stopped kicking and shoving and began to cry and weep, no, no-no-no, I didn't—I didn't mean—

He released him and the man crabwalked backward until he pressed against the wall of the house, his boots skidding in the dirt, palms slipping on the siding, eyes wide and horrified. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—”

The Rider snarled, stormed up to him, and stomped on his knee until it broke. Fuck you.

Black Rose stared silently at him, blank shining eyes and black mask-face, leaning against the porch. “Are you done?”

The Rider spun on her, flames streaking up from his vents.

“You know that's one of the worst things that can happen to a person,” Black Rose said. “What Noble does. Seeing your sin and paying for it. It breaks you, mentally.”

“It's perfect.”

She tilted her head at the man whose leg he'd just broken.

“Insurance.”

“Why not kill him.”

“Too selfish.” He jerked his head behind him, brought the car near. “Someone came in. They broke the fence.”

“You sure the cows didn't do it? This place is a disaster,” Black Rose said.

“Tire tracks.”

“Let's check it out,” she said, and stalked over to the car. Got in the passenger seat, fearless of the flames from the lights and blower and tires and the interior air-vents. He felt the thorny tendrils of her hair probing and scratching at the headrest.

Noble joined them as they rumbled over to the tire tracks. There was a pattern in the grass: stop, park and sink ruts in the pasture, and then turn in a circle and back over the flattened section of wire fence. Big tracks, probably a truck. With the fence’s top wire cut, a high-clearance vehicle could have passed over. The metal posts that supported the wire were bent and flattened for yards in each direction, the ground disturbed around their bases. The weeds around where the truck had stopped were burnt and flattened from where the Rider had been dragging the man whose leg he'd just broken; if there were foot-tracks, he couldn't recognize them. Black Rose got out and searched the barn, about twenty yards away. But if the intruder had come for the barn, why not drive all the way over to it. Could snipe us from the second floor. No one had shot at them after the gang used up all their ammo on Noble. It doesn't make sense. The Rider hauled himself up out of his roof and stared down at the mud and dirt, circling the area the truck had parked. It was just a featureless patch of ground—no, there was a concrete ring sticking out of the ground, three feet wide—septic system—the Charger nosed close to it, and abruptly sank down, earth caving in under the right front tire. The Rider revved the engine irritably and backed out. Peered down into the hole by the light of his flames.

Don't smell like a septic system.

We can't smell.

Oh right.

He saw a cramped space, about the width of the Charger and eight feet deep, crammed with fifty-gallon drums and heavy-looking plastic sacks. Cinderblock walls, rotting strips of plywood collapsing down from the ceiling, earth and manure everywhere from where the roof had caved in. He let himself down into the hole, his boots sinking immediately into slippery mud.

The little space led through the darkness toward the supposed septic tank access. A crude rack made from spikes of re-bar stuck out from one wall, empty. Two of the barrels were overturned, and a pile of empty plastic sacks stuck out of the mud. He couldn't move anywhere without tripping on something. The cinderblock wall bulged on one side, about to give way from the pressure of mud and cattle and years of changing seasons. His boot struck a box, and he felt down through the mud for it: pulled up a hefty bundle of plastic tape shrink-wrapped around a long rope of tan, doughy material. Like bad gas-station sausage stick, made by the yard. He wiped mud off it, looking for the label.

Tovex. What's Tovex? The mud looked strange on his fingers. Gray and gritty, not black, like the soil of the ranch. Slick. Fast-drying.

Good shit! I could make twenty car bombs outta this!

Rage flared, hot oil crackling between the Rider's teeth, fire streaming from his vents. He flung the Tovex away. They're making a fucking bomb?

And then the world vanished. Punched the fire out of him, ripped him open. Metal squealed, the car flipped through the air onto its back, glass shattered, the front quarter warped. He hit the ground, plowed into the wet earth, mud in his teeth, cowshit in his eyesockets, flames spilling out of his shredded skin, wheels spinning on air, engine screaming. His hands and face felt cold, his ribs loose in his chest, little chunks of charcoal. He was cooling too fast, about to snuff out, and if his flesh poured over his bones right now...his throttle was wide open, but he couldn't even raise his hand to feel how injured he was. He dropped through his shadow and merged with the battered car, called all his steel and glass back into place, shifted to neutral, collected himself.

Ow.

I don't think that stuff on the floor was mud.

No shit.

The engine rumbled steadily, the blower hissed. The roof pressed into the soil, the wheels streamed fire up into the night.

Behind him, through his mirrors, he watched Black Rose jog toward the place his body had fallen, calling out, “Kid? Kid, you okay?” Noble blazed over on his bike. They searched the mud and rubble by the light of Noble’s flames, paced back and forth.

He revved the Charger’s engine, beeped the horn twice. They turned and made their way to the car. He felt their hands on his door panels, saw Noble’s skull, Black Rose’s expressionless mask peering in at his empty driver seat. He revved his engine again. He was fine. Just…tired.

Noble dismounted, put his hands to the door and rear quarter panel, and started to roll the car upright. The Rider heaved himself out of the steel reluctantly, put his shoulders under the front of the car, and joined him.

When the wheels crashed down to the ground again, and he'd healed up the dents in the roof and the snapped-off side mirror, the Rider leaned heavily against the passenger side door and snuffed out. Robbie bent over, braced his hands on his knees. The rumble of the engine made his vision dance. His stomach heaved and he collapsed to the dirt, knee sinking into a cow-patty, and puked up chicken wings and burnt motor oil.

“Cheez-its,” Black Rose said.

Robbie gave her a weak thumbs-up, breathed carefully, keeping his head down as he waited for his stomach to settle. Nothing worse than inhaling motor oil.

“Smells like super-glue all over here,” she continued.

Robbie took a cautious whiff. She was right. Aside from burnt oil and habañero sauce, the smoky air smelled like a nice hot mix of “for God's sake wear a respirator” and “turn on the big fan when you're using that shit.” Nitro solvent.

Timmy!

Who?

Oklahoma City car-bomb! Couple years back. Shit, these copycats got taste!

You mean...in the nineties?

Yeah, yeah, '95. Truck fulla fertilizer and nitro fuel, talk about bang for your buck!

“I think they wanted to make a fertilizer bomb,” Robbie croaked. Pushed himself up. Wiped fruitlessly at the cowshit on his jeans.

“I see that,” Black Rose said. She was standing at his front bumper, hands on her hips, eyeing the massive crater strewn with cinder-blocks and shreds of plastic that had appeared in the pasture next to them. Robbie braced himself on his roof and stared, too. There was nothing left of the walls of the pit, just a black hole. Forty feet away, caught in the Charger's headlights, lay shattered fragments of the supposed septic tank access hatch. “There's downsides to running around on fire all the time.”

Noble, beside him, snuffed out. He looked fresh and healthy and not at all like he was about to bend over and puke up a quart of oil. “How mortal are you?” he asked, brow furrowed.

Eli offered no explanation. Robbie shrugged at Noble.

“I have endured blasts like that before,” Noble said, “entirely unharmed. I think my spirit body is more durable than yours. In the future, I should investigate explosives.”

Smug fucker. “Oh I have the Penance Stare, stand aside.” “Oh I have more experience” says Mr. What Is A Social Security Number. “Oh I am indestructible.” Fuck off.

“I didn't know it was explosive until I got in there,” Robbie said. “There was this gray mud all over the floor. I think whoever came here mixed it up before he left as, like, a booby trap.”

They all stared down into the hole. The shreds of plastic.

Black Rose spoke. “That's not a great way to get rid of evidence.”

If it was me, I'd take everything I could carry. Leave the fifty gallon drums, but any smaller containers, and definitely the Tovex, stuff it in a bag, make a run for it, take out the target. I like this guy's style, kid. We should tell him. While we're dragging him up and down I-72!

“We gotta find him,” Robbie said. “Them. Black Rose, you said they had some kind of plan? Well, we lured them here and pissed them off and one of them came and left while we were busy punishing the rest.”

“Hey!” she snapped. “We got seven of them tonight. Made seven ex-Nazis. Blew up most of their stash. Stamped this cell out for good; nobody's gonna rally around a buncha broken, babbling mental wrecks. Whoever's loose, he's got less than a quarter the power of whatever they had stashed down there. We did good.”

Except nobody's fucking dead!

“You are both right,” Noble interrupted, raising his hand. “We have avenged the innocent and disrupted their plans, but our hunt is not finished. We must find the last man. Tonight. Before he murders more.”

“Do you think the guys you penance-stared know where he'd be?” Robbie asked. “Since they're. You know. Penitent?”

“Maybe the guy with the broken leg, he's sort-of coherent,” said Black Rose. “Come on. Let's move your race-car before it sinks in the mud. Get to the house, get you an Alka-Seltzer and some crackers. Quick, before the Sheriff comes to check out that explosion.” She braced her hands on the Charger's back bumper. “Noble, give me a hand. You know how to rock the clutch, kid? You want me to do it?”

Rock the clutch? Robbie climbed into the driver's seat, started up.

You never been stuck in the mud before. Let me.

Robbie looked back in the rear-view mirror, Black Rose's mask-face and coiling-uncoiling hair, Noble's stern, earnest expression, both of them bent against his trunk, bracing him. Keeping him from slipping backward. Okay. Show me what to do.

And Eli took hold of Robbie’s body, worked the clutch and the throttle to roll the car backward and forward while Rose and Noble shoved him from behind, until the Charger rose up out of the ruts it had pressed in the pasture and rolled away toward firmer ground. They parked on the gravel driveway. The moment Noble cruised over on his motorcycle, Eli ducked back under. Spooked. Robbie smiled to himself.