by Brian Keene
So, we all piled into my van and I got beers out of the cooler for everybody. Amber handed them out, chatting excitedly the whole time. Steve was instantly annoying, but I ignored him, as he was giving me gas money. The girls got drunk quickly, providing more fuel for their constant chatter. Steve sat quietly, looking as if he were waiting for an intelligent thought to hit him. Chrissy crawled up front to sit on the floor between my seat and Amber’s. Her breasts filled out her Mudvayne shirt very nicely. I sighed; lamenting that she was only seventeen. That old Winger song ran through my head, making me
cringe.
The concert was at the local sprint car track. A neighboring cornfield had been turned into a substitute parking lot, and I drove through an endless sea of cars, searching for a space. Finally, I found one.
As we piled out of the van, the cold wind slapped us in the face. A thin fog clung to everything, wafting through the field. The temperature had dropped into the fifties, but that didn’t stop the crowd from coming. People swarmed through the gates as dusk gathered around us.
I made Steve carry the cooler, and we joined the procession of concertgoers. Amber and Chrissy each took one of my arms, skipping and singing. Katie followed behind, dressed in black. She greeted the many familiar faces of guys she knew from listening to The Smiths in the graveyard. Jen and Steve brought up the rear. Jen flirted with a passerby as Steve shot her jealous looks and mumbled about having to lug the beer.
A makeshift stage had been built at one end of the track and people were starting to crowd around it. We found places right at the front and I glanced behind us, surveying the crowd. About five hundred people had shown up, braving the cold and the drizzle to sell their souls for rock and roll.
The last of the sun disappeared below the horizon and darkness fell like a trap.
Night was upon us.
As if on cue, colored spotlights sliced through the darkness and the first chords of AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock” blasted through a wall of Marshall speakers. Flash-pots exploded in a burst of light and noise as the first band hit the stage. A thunderous cheer rose from the audience, and the show officially started—in a flurry of thick smoke, scorching fire, pounding drums, and screaming guitars.
Halfway through the second band’s set, Amber and I went backstage. The scene was chaotic. I grabbed her hand, leading her through a sea of groupies, roadies, security guards, and musicians. Eventually, we found Kris and his drummer, Joey, splitting a bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Hey, dude!” Kris happily clasped my hand. “Hi Amber. I’m glad you could make it.”
Amber grinned, and Kris gave me a wink. She was having the time of her life, which made me feel pretty good.
“You nervous?” I asked Kris.
“Hell, no! I’m ready. I’m glad you came. I’ve got a surprise for you tonight.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
“Come on,” Amber pleaded. “Give us a hint.”
He agreed, after a moment’s hesitation. “You remember that spell book you gave me?”
For a minute, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I understood, and had a feeling of vague apprehension.
“Yeah,” I said, “I remember.”
“Well, I used some lines from it in the lyrics of a new song we wrote.”
“Which part?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see!” He flashed a mischievous grin.
Amber and I returned out front, fighting our way through the mosh pit to our places beside Chrissy, Katie, Jen, and Steve. The current band was doing a Nine-Inch Nails cover that sounded like shit, but the crowd was into it. Smoke from a hundred joints blended with the rapidly increasing fog, forming a swirling haze above our heads.
Suicide Run was the last act of the night. There was a twenty-minute wait between bands, while the roadies changed the equipment. Just as the crowd got restless, the stage began to glow with a red light. Eerie, pre-recorded organ music drifted through the speakers. A dry ice machine belched clouds of manmade fog. It mixed with the hazy night air and blanketed everything in our midst. I could feel Amber and Chrissy on each side of me, but couldn’t see them through the white shroud.
Suddenly, the mist lifted and Suicide Run appeared on stage. Their movements seeming unreal in the flickering strobe light. The crowd started to cheer, enthusiastic whistles almost drowned out by the haunting organ.
Then Kris hit the stage wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a live chainsaw.
“HAPPY HALLOWEEN MOTHERFUCKERS!”
He revved the chainsaw high over his head. Explosions rocked the stage and the band ripped into a Rob Zombie cover. A thunderous roar escaped from the masses; a frantic screaming and clapping that had no peak. Everyone was dancing along, and again, a huge mosh pit started up front.
Kris flung the hockey mask into the crowd. Jen managed to catch it, earning looks of envy from the other girls down front. She also got a jealous glare from Steve, until he was bowled over and swept away into the center of the pit. Jen pulled up her shirt, flashing Kris her breasts.
Suicide Run roared on, with Kris doing his best Rob Zombie gargle. I watched in awe as my best friend whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Like a buzz-saw through wood, the band launched right into Alice In Chain’s “Man In The Box,” then tore through various songs by Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Megadeth, Body Count, Biohazard, Tool, and Faith No More. They even threw in some classics by Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Then Kris slowed things down a bit for a cover of Ozzy’s “Goodbye To Romance.” Lighters dotted the ebony sky as people held them aloft and swayed along. Steve had escaped the mosh pit with minimal bruising and he drew Jen tight. They kissed hungrily.
When the song ended, Kris paused and surveyed the crowd. I knew that it was time for him to make a speech about anti-violence, something that had been required of each band during their set. He shook his flowing mane of black curls and addressed the sea of faces before him. But instead of delivering the expected platitudes, he took me by surprise.
“This next song is one of our own. It’s something new we’ve been working on. I’d like to dedicate it to a friend of mine who’s here with the posse tonight. Where are you, dude?”
Spotlights swiveled around, and the beams landed on us. The crowd applauded and I waved, embarrassed as hell. Kris blew the girls a kiss. Amber, Chrissy, and Katie shrieked with delight. Jen smiled and waved. Even Steve saluted, looking sheepish with his sudden fame.
“These are some of the best friends a guy could ever ask for,” Kris told the crowd. “But some folks aren’t lucky enough to have friends like this. Some folks feel left out and don’t know how to deal with that anger. But listen, man, we’ve all felt that way at one time or another. Don’t take that frustration with you. You can let it all out right here. Like Kid Rock says, ‘Get in the pit and try to love someone.’ This song is for my friends. It’s called ‘The Lord of the Dance.’ We’re gonna raise some serious mother-fucking Hell out here tonight!”
The band erupted with the most killer, hypnotic guitar riff that I have ever heard. Wave after wave of sound crashed over us, and the crowd went ballistic.
“Let’s fucking mosh!” Kris screamed.
The pit started up again with a renewed frenzy. Within seconds, the entire crowd was moshing. Heads banged furiously and people slammed into each other in time with the music.
I really wasn’t paying much attention to the lyrics. I was too busy trying to give myself whiplash. Then Kris’s voice thundered amidst the chaos.
“OB... MEEBLE... ISHTARI...”
A frigid claw ran up my spine as I heard the familiar summoning spell. Before, on that rainy night back in September, we had drunkenly slurred the words. Now, Kris was singing them with crisp clarity. Combined with the crunching guitars and thunderous drums, they weaved a mesmerizing trance.
“KANDARA... KAT...”
My vision started to tilt and my heart raced furiously in my chest. I fel
t like I was on speed. The stench of sulfur grew thick. The fog machines had ceased their labor.
Holes, ripped from the very fabric of space and time, suddenly appeared in the thin air, hanging amongst the crowd. A noxious, oily smoke seeped from them, followed by flickering tongues of scarlet flame. The crowd moshed on, their eyes glazed over hypnotically. They cheered, mystified at the holes, thinking they were special effects.
“PURTURABO!”
Kris finished, and my trance was broken.
This time he’d succeeded.
The inky smoke congealed into one rolling cloud that remained motionless between the crowd and the stage. Suicide Run played on, but Kris has stopped singing. He crouched, his eyes afire with anticipation. The smoke solidified and a form stepped out of it.
Purturabo, Lord of the Dance.
He was a combination of every rock god who had ever lived. Eyes that blazed like Jim Morrison’s. A body as chiseled as Henry Rollins. Hair like David Lee Roth’s. A smile identical to John Lennon’s. A face that glowed like a young Robert Plant’s. He was tall, towering over the dancers moshing around him. His hair flowed to his perfect ass and seemed to take on a Medusa-like life of its own as he whipped his head back and forth. The demon raised his head and howled into the night sky.
And then, Purturabo began to dance.
I looked up at Kris and found him staring back at me, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. The rest of the band continued to play, providing the soundtrack to which the demon moshed.
Purturabo flung himself violently into the tempest, smashing and colliding with the participants. He knocked a girl near us to the ground, bouncing off her boyfriend and slamming into a group of skinheads.
The frenzy increased with rapid intensity, and the scene replayed throughout the field. What had once been spirited and aggressive fun in a stance against violence was now resulting in bloody noses and broken bones. Fights erupted. Then, a gunshot echoed, followed by two more in rapid succession from different parts of the field.
The crowd began chanting the demon’s name over and over as they fought. I grabbed Amber by the shoulders, shaking her hard. She responded by screaming the demon’s name and gleefully kicking me in the balls.
Purturabo’s gyrations grew faster. He whirled like a tornado through the crowd, seeming to be everywhere at once. A guy jumped to slam him and was caught by the demon in mid air. One muscular arm wrapped around the kid’s waist, and the other encircled his throat. He held the victim above him, muscles rippling in the moonlight. Then, in one quick movement, Purturabo ripped out his throat and flung the ragged piece of flesh into the crowd. Blood sprayed from the gaping hole, howering the demons body in crimson gore. He tossed the limp form into a group of bikers who had been busy beating each other to a pulp, smashing them all to the ground.
Terror seized me as I watched Katie prance by him, her black scarves twirling behind her undulating body. Her eyes shone with lust as she writhed to the music.
Purturabo grinned, revealing rows of razor sharp fangs that gleamed in the moonlight. He offered Katie his outstretched hand.
“Dance with me, my child.”
As I screamed out a warning, she took his hand in hers and smiled. With a powerful jerk, he ripped her arm out of its socket. Roaring with laughter, he used his bloody prize to club another bystander over the head. Katie sank to the muddy ground, a look of rapture on her face. Her blood pooled around her as she orgasmed in death.
Thunder crashed overhead, accompanying the music.
The thunder snapped Kris out of his shock. A look of horror flooded over his face as he surveyed the chaos below.
“No,” he screamed at the demon. “You bastard, this isn’t what you promised! This isn’t what I wanted! Look at what you’re doing to my fans!”
Purturabo chuckled. There was a legion of different voices in that guttural laugh. He leaped onto the stage, looming over my best friend. The band kept playing, either oblivious or spellbound—or maybe both.. Kris tried to run, but Purturabo grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked him backward. As I watched, he grasped Kris by both feet and started swinging him like a top. Faster and faster they spun. Kris gave a long, blood-curdling shriek—cut off as the demon suddenly let go.
His limp form flew like a rag doll over the heads of the crowd. He landed among them with a bone-crunching thud, his ribs bursting through his flesh. The possessed concertgoers fell upon him like flies on rancid meat.
Suicide Run never missed a beat.
The thunder boomed in the skies once more, bringing red lightening in its wake.
“Now,” the demon roared, “let’s really mosh!”
He leapt from the stage, doing a somersault and landing on a stupefied deadhead—breaking the poor bastard’s back. Purturabo then ripped his head from his neck and tossed it into the sky like a beach ball. Blue tie-dye quickly turned red.
Suicide Run began another riff, their guitars screeching and the drums pounding out a steady THOOM THOOM.
Death and destruction held sway over all. An industrial rocker next to me pulled a knife from his trench-coat and disemboweled a teen in a Megadeth shirt. The dying youth seized the knife from his grasp and plunged it into his attacker’s eye, while his own intestines hung in ropy strands.
Someone pushed me down. I screamed as they kicked me in the ribs. It hurt to breathe. My mouth filled with mud and the blood from a dead girl next to me.
THOOM THOOM.
Retching, I rolled onto my back. I saw that my attacker was Steve. He aimed another kick at my ribs. I grabbed his foot and with a thrust, knocked him off balance. He disappeared under a writhing pile of bodies. The crowd moshed on around us.
A mountain of flesh in a Fear Factory shirt loomed over me. As I scrambled in the mud, Amber appeared. Screeching, she slashed a bloody trench in his stomach with a broken beer bottle. I started to stammer out my thanks, but then she turned on me without hesitation. There was no recognition in her hollow eyes.
Purturabo blazed through the crowd, leaving carnage and dismemberment in his wake. His unholy laughter echoed over the screams of pain and ecstasy.
THOOM THOOM.
I cowered in the mud as acts of evil played out before my eyes. No comic book or horror movie could have prepared me for what was happening. No Sepultura or Cannibal Corpse album cover could have depicted the depravity of the scene before me.
I was operating on primal instinct. Laughter bubbled up from inside me, spewing forth like bile. I began to hum a song from my childhood; something from long ago in Sunday school. It had calmed me back then, on those nights when my father had come home drunk and fought with my mother.
“Rock of ages, cleft for me...”
I wasn’t singing the Def Leppard version.
Jen was being savagely gang raped by three scraggly vampire wannabes—and worse, she was enjoying it. I tried to get to her, but then Amber returned and I had to ward off another attack. Then Amber got swept away in the tide of moshers, and I turned back to Jen.
Out of the crowd, a bloody and beaten Steve crawled over, cradling Jen’s face in his grimy hands. As one attacker thrashed on top of her, Steve kissed her. Their tongues entwined like those of gentle lovers. Steve suddenly jerked back, his mouth gushing red. His tongue hung clenched in her teeth. Jen tilted her head back, spitting out the limp piece of meat, and laughed. Her laughter turned into a shriek as an orgasm tore through her body. Her cry was cut off abruptly as a black boot connected with her face.
THOOM THOOM.
“Let me hide myself in thee,” I sang softly.
Lightning flashed across the sky again, revealing Amber stalking towards me once more. Madness shone on her face. Fat raindrops began to pelt our skin.
My whisper grew louder and recognition flickered in Amber’s eyes. I was shouting now. Weakly, Amber began to sing as well.
The demon halted. His head whipped toward me and I saw fear reflected in his eyes. The ground rolled beneath our feet.
I couldn’t remember the second verse, so I started again with what I knew. The air crackled with electricity, sizzling the hair on my arms. The demon roared and began to wade through the carnage towards us. The thunder now repeated the same monotonous beat as the drums, drowning them out.
THOOM THOOM.
“Keep playing,” the demon commanded the band. He flung the crowd out of his way, cutting a bloody path toward me.
The shower turned into a torrent. Blinding sheets of cold rain sliced through the chaos. I could hear others joining Amber and I in the song. A bedraggled security guard aimed a kick at my bruised ribs, connecting with a loud crack. I sank to my knees as Purturabo closed in on me.
Thunder roared overhead and the ground trembled once more. The singing continued, overpowering the music. Purturabo screeched with rage, lunging for my throat with his talon-tipped fingers.
A bolt of blue electricity crashed into the stage and the remaining members of Suicide Run lit up like Christmas trees. An ear splitting whine of feedback shrieked from the speakers, followed by an explosion as they blew apart.
The earth shook again, knocking both the demon and myself to the ground. A crack opened before him, its gaping maw yawning wide. Purturabo clutched at me and I dodged his grasp. He teetered on the edge, his arms wind-milling helplessly.
“Damn you, Nazarene,” he roared.
I grinned. “Let’s dance, you son of a bitch.”
Jumping into the air, I slammed into him with all of my strength. Purturabo toppled into the chasm. It slammed shut behind him, kicking up a cloud of dust and trailing wisps of smoke.
Silence descended. The remaining crowd milled around the field like stunned soldiers in a war zone. Amber was hysterical. Dazed and confused, she clung to me as we picked our way across the battlefield. Bodies and pieces of human butchery lay strewn everywhere. The air stank of ozone, brimstone, and burnt flesh. Sirens wailed in the distance.