The Road Rippers

The town of White Rock was a sleepy little community where nothing eventful seemed to happen. It was a town built by farmers in the 1800's with strong Christian values and a dark past as people they didn't like tended to disappear. In the Summer of '66, a gang of bikers rode into town where they had leased an abandoned warehouse creating a hangout for recreation and fixing their bikes. For the most part, the gang were law abiding and if they were doing anything illegal, it wasn't in White Rock. The only thing they did wrong in the town was make noise and scare a lot of people unaccustomed to this type of outlaw element in their community. The bikers were beginning to attract people from within the community leading many of the god fearing townsfolk to begin worrying about the influence the bikers were having upon their children who were now becoming disobedient.

Even worse was the music the bikers played as they brought with them various musical instruments to play what some in White Rock called "the devils music." The towns people were rather isolated from the changing styles of music in America and didn't know that this music was part of a pioneering trend that would one day be called heavy metal... they only knew it sounded evil and they were not going to allow it to continue. Fearing for their way of life, members of the town met in secret to discuss what needed to be done and it was decided that local traditions would be upheld... and the oldest tradition was that people they didn't like just simply disappeared. As the changing of the seasons gave way to Autumn, the gangs activity increased and the money they brought to White Rock began to turn even local merchants into friends.

Then one night as the gang partied inside their hangout, one of the local youth rushed in warning them of danger and that the townspeople were coming with firearms to perform a "cleansing". Getting to their bikes preparing to leave, the sound of engines roaring to life would be drowned out by the sound of gunfire. In the resulting chaos, a gas tank exploded setting the warehouse on fire and as the screams of the dying rang out, those gathered stood in shock realizing that some of their loved ones were inside with the bikers. The following day, townspeople arrived at the scene finding only smoking ruins as police cordoned off the area and bulldozers moved in to bury what remained. No one asked questions and those who filed missing persons reports already knew what had happened to their loved ones... they were simply doing what they were told to do. Over the following weeks, strangers came to White Rock looking for missing husbands, sons and brothers.

The people of White Rock began to realize what had happened because these strangers weren't looking for outlaw bikers, they were looking for men who belonged to a biker club for fun and to play music with none having broken any laws in their entire lives. But the people of White Rock had always known how to bury their secrets and while many shed tears for their own dead, they knew to be silent as everyone had blood on their hands.

On October 13th 1991, the 25th anniversary of the bikers disappearance, people in White Rock were becoming uneasy as stories of missing loved ones appearing to the relatives who betrayed them were beginning to circulate. There were also stories by some of hearing the sound of motorcycles and seeing the long dead moving about in the shadows. Sheriff Bo Whitfield was only a young man when his sister and girlfriend had become friends with the bikers. He remembered the night when townsfolk gathered around the bikers warehouse not knowing that some of their loved ones were inside... or that his sister was the one who came to warn the bikers about what was about to happen. His girlfriend was there with Bo when the shooting started as she had tried to stop Bo from being involved and when he later learned his sister was among the victims, he swore to make things right leading him into law enforcement.

The night of horror was never far from Bo's mind leading him to become a hard man burdened by guilt and regret leading him to become abusive, an alcoholic and an extremely violent man feared by everyone in White Rock. No more killings took place in White Rock after Whitfield became sheriff as he warned people that the past would remain buried, but that there would be no more secrets in his town as long as he was sheriff! He was a haunted man as his sisters memory was always in the forefront of his thoughts and when he was drinking, he could see her spirit knowing she was worried for him.

But on this night, the 25th anniversary of his sisters death, he smashed all his liquor bottles having become overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he had done. There was a sense of dread upon him and others who had lost loved ones on that night and who had taken part in the shooting, an ominous foreboding that something wasn't right with the world. As day became night, a full moon came out which grew into a blood moon shining like an evil midnight sun reaching out to awaken the towns secrets. It was as if everyone knew what was coming and were in denial even as they looked at one another with fear in their eyes because they knew the dead had unfinished business. Then came what seemed to be an earthquake shaking the foundations of every building causing windows to shatter and inexplicably breaking off all communications with the outside world telephones and their electricity went dead. Then, they heard it... the roar of engines sounding the coming vengeance as Hell had unleashed it's fury and death gave up on it's embrace on the wrongfully slain long held within it's icy embrace.

When the next morning came, those who had survived the night watched as the ghosts of their past faded back into the nothingness. Stories about the dead returning from the grave were everywhere as the survivors stumbled about picking through the rubble of houses and businesses trying to find their way. Sheriff Bo Whitfield and his surviving deputy, Allison Moore, found themselves the only survivors of the towns authority figures and they could not believe the destruction that lay before their horrified eyes. As the day progressed, stories of the dead coming back to wreak vengeance began to be collected by the local newspaper reporter as the towns secrets now began to become known. People long dead and forgotten came from all directions as wives killed by their husbands, Civil War soldiers, the mentally ill, strangers and those killed during the tragic events of 1966.

Even as the towns people collected themselves, the final dead were yet departing as death and Hells fury would not be so easily forgotten. The Road Rippers were the last to depart as their engines roared into life one final time as they drove through town headed for Route 66 with Sheriff Whitfield watching his baby sister on the back of the gang leaders bike holding him closely. In the following years, the people of White Rock would be compelled to find the remains of the wrongfully slain and to rebury them knowing their true identities because the spirits themselves would give their names. After burying them, reporter Susan Wald began hunting down surviving family and records of the dead to set things right letting loved ones know the final resting place of those they loved in White Rock Cemetery. But when the place where the Road Rippers had been buried in a mass grave, only a few bodies were found... and none of them were bikers or Sheriff Whitfields sister.

What became of the Road Rippers may never be known but it is thought that they could not rest as long as there were souls in the world which had been denied justice... and the Road Rippers would become their avengers!