by Goforth, Jim
He joined the chaotic bursts of black metal instigated by Tempest and Dax, with Scarlett’s voice once again chiming in. He realised, despite the abrasive bent of her vocals that the lyrics were of her own creation, words conjured up on the spur of the moment, hurling them like barbed weapons at the fading five piece of Undead Fleshcrave over on the distant stage. They weren’t all decipherable to him, but he caught the gist of it loud and clear, and it was a chilling warning-no, an earnest promise-of the impending deaths of all members of the DM group.
The window of opportunity presented to Undead Fleshcrave by the Plaguewielder/Subversion collaboration ceasing their music temporarily was one the feral fivesome immediately jumped upon, trying to knot the fabric of the fraying Zombie Trigger back into the hideous composition that would drive further folk into realms of undead, but it was fleeting. With Black ruthlessly spitting out what he needed to say in record time, conserving his words with efficiency, a vast amount of time wasn’t afforded for Undead to find their groove again without restarting the track.
By that stage, Tempest was rolling out peals of drumming thunder again, sparking aural assaults and with Dax opening up thick malevolence via the Blizzard Beast, then Scarlett’s vicious screams and eventually the buzzsaw riffery created by Seth with Mother North, the abrasive black metal opposition came roaring back, nullifying the threat of the Trigger in the atmosphere.
Again, positioning himself so he was standing, turned where his eye line pointed towards Scarlett standing in the centre, Seth saw Black and Blizzard with the cases open, hauling out the weaponry deposited in them back in Kathaarian.
In one smooth fluid motion that didn’t detract from her caustic vocal tirades in the slightest, Scarlett backed towards the open instrument cases, stooped and scooped up her handgun, the weapon appropriated from the not so dearly departed police chief Boss, and parked it in the waistband of her leather pants. Observing that, Seth wondered whether he should make tracks to hoist the shotgun Black told him was his to tote, but such a manoeuvre would kill the lethal tremolo assaults he had going on right now. He supposed Black might hang onto it until such time as he made the call to leave the frail sanctuary of the stage and land themselves in hell.
The Renegade Masters were nodding with approval as the two Subversionites brought out the case with knives and sharp bladed implements, though Seth could see that a couple of those boys had their own firearms; one of them was currently checking the rounds in a Glock pistol held up in his tattooed hands.
Black was issuing directives and commands to the ensemble of folk gathered around the stage, but over the pummelling thunder of Tempests drums and the screaming fury of his own riffs snarling from Mother North, Seth couldn’t hear them. He presumed it related to all those people arming themselves from the weapons cache as several of them hastened forward to do exactly that.
He turned his attention back to Undead Fleshcrave and saw their efforts to proceed with the Zombie Trigger were failing to the point, they were abandoning it. His heart thumped with painful erratic palpitations as he acknowledged just what that would indicate.
The nerves gnawed on him some more, with nasty sharp little teeth. The Fleshcravers giving up the ghost meant they were getting prepared to abscond, just as they’d done in Armada, Noumena, anywhere else along the way. Meaning those who needed to assassinate them had a handful of split seconds before go time.
Seth dreaded that moment. Feared it. Knew it was inevitable. It was coming.
Then Black slapped him on the shoulder with a firm solid motion, swiftly moving along the line doing likewise with the other active musicians.
“Time for action,” Black announced gravely as the music died away.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX-PREPARING FOR WAR
With the dreaded moment upon them all, Seth was suddenly drenched in a sheen of cold sweat, desperately fearful of what was entailed. Whilst entrenched in the mission of tearing sonic savagery from Mother North, he’d studiously been keeping his attention riveted primarily on two things, firstly Scarlett and anything else occurring on Stage Four, and secondly, how events were playing out over on the distant raised stage where Undead Fleshcrave were being dealt body blows by the black metal storm.
Looking back and forth from one scene to the other, he’d caught snatches and glimpses of what was unfolding in the greater area of Blackwater Park, but not exactly anything that gave him a full concept of what to expect once Black flicked the switch for action. Which, he guessed, was either incredibly smart or immensely stupid. He preferred to go with the former. He already had an inkling of what to expect, so seeing it would have just ramped up the terror of having to go into the undead mire, filled his churning stomach with a squirming pit of worms and his head with horrible possibilities.
Electing not to fill his mind with prior horrors when it was already loaded up on fearful imagination, was the way he’d run with it, but now it didn’t matter. It was time.
He unplugged Mother North from the amplifier as the deafening sound of Plaguewielder’s music was supplanted by the conglomeration of panic and confusion on Stage Four, emanating from those who either still weren’t clear on the agenda, or were hoping to prolong their stay on this most feeble of respite places.
Seth was painfully clear on what needed to happen, he was just terrified of what it was.
Black drifted back up his end of the stage, administering instructions to those who were on the knife edge of flipping out and losing their minds completely. Seth caught his attention and the Subversion boss tipped an eyebrow of query.
“Do you want Mother North now?”
“You know what,” Black replied. “You hang onto her for now. She has definitely taken a shine to you.”
A strange euphoria rippled through Seth in a surge like an electrical current. The sensation temporarily erased the other hideous thoughts crowding him as he mentally flashed back to that moment earlier in the day when he was envisioning making use of the lethal beauty as the weapon she truly was.
It looked like Black just bestowed that blessing on him.
Then there was no time to reflect on anything, nor contemplate or exult at the joy of brandishing the most awesome piece of weaponry he’d ever clapped eyes on; Black was marshalling the lot of them off Stage Four, to enter the undead arena of mayhem, otherwise known as Blackwater Park.
Going out and down the steps, or leaping off the front of the stage, even attempting a suicide mission like that undertaken by Tempest and Black and crowd surfing, were not viable options now, not with the swarming masses at the very foot of the stage. The only likely way to get down to the ground was off the back of the platform, which, though backing onto the towering fences surrounding the park, still had a handful of metres of ground before the barrier began.
As yet it was free of lurking meatseekers, but it wouldn’t be too long before their scattered meat smorgasbord, out in the more open areas of Blackwater Park, would lead them into every single nook and cranny of the place before ultimately spilling outside into the city.
There were roughly thirty individuals crammed on Stage Four, and on the ominous instruction to move from Black, they did so, or at least the majority of them, in staggered movements. Some of those more concerned or plainly terrified of what they were getting into, baulked on the platform.
“If you’re sticking around here,” Black barked at the laggers, “Be warned, you don’t stand the same chances as you do staying with the rest of us. Your survival opportunities here are not maximum.”
The quartet of bikers had no qualms about leaving this paltry sanctuary, its status as a safe haven becoming increasingly more questionable by the second, with alarming thumps and bangs against it from below as the ravening undead clustered down there. The Renegade Masters were the first to vault off, dropping to the ground almost as one cohesive unit, and Tempest went down next. The shotgun the Subversion sticksman appropriated from the service station was in the hands of Lizette; Tempest was wielding his
Moons, clearly intending to make more use of them than a firearm.
Black remained up top along with Blizzard, ensuring everybody who was going got down to the ground in one piece, with a couple of the bikers and Tempest waiting at the bottom to assist anybody not comfortable with merely jumping off.
Seth saw Mark, Miranda and Dax join the flood of Stage escapees, Dax with the handgun he’d scored at the cop massacre. Obviously Blizzard hadn’t been as generous with allowing his weapon instrument to remain with Dax as Black had done with Seth.
Glancing along the stage at who still remained up here, Seth noticed Scarlett. She wasn’t still here because she was fearful of making the descent to the ground, and inevitably into an undead hell, but because she was down the far end speaking urgently, but reassuringly to SternBitch and the other reluctant women who’d joined the congregation. Evidently she was doing her best to convince them their greater chances of survival lay in staying with the rest of the group.
He loitered, uncertain of what to do. He didn’t want to have Scarlett too far from him at all, wherever they happened to be. In no way did he want her out of his sight.
“What are you waiting for, Seth?” Black snapped at him as he dallied there on the stage, lingering, Mother North slung over his back. “Get down there, man, time’s a-wasting here. If these people can’t decide in the next handful of split seconds, they stay behind.”
Reluctant to be down there while Scarlett wasn’t yet with him, Seth hesitated, then launched himself. His aches and pains from the brutal thumping dished out by the Biblebashers might have temporarily slipped from thought as he immersed himself in the sheer power of black metal magic onstage with his makeshift bandmates, but as he jumped off and landed jarringly on the earth, he felt them all still there, protesting furiously as his boots connected with terra firma.
The big Renegade Master with the impressive black beard reached out a huge hand to steady him, before he face-planted in the grass.
Gunshots abruptly sliced through the night’s soundtrack of screams, panic, and horrible grunting, groaning undead vocalisations. There were a host of them, cracking in a series of reports, somewhere back in the bulk of the Park grounds.
Immediately, his attention shot up towards those still present on Stage Four, his instantaneous concern for Scarlett foremost, and then any of his other friends still there, namely Black, Blizzard, and Roxana. They were all still up there, albeit, heads turned towards what must have been a hideous scene out there in the Park, obviously seeking the source of the gunfire too.
“Jesus, maybe that’s the cops?” Seth thought aloud, to which his burly biker steadier issued a gruff chuckle.
“I doubt that, fella. The cops will be last on scene here. Blackwater Park tends to police itself, most folks know how to deal with various situations. Mind you, possibly not one of this magnitude, with fucking people turning into zombies and whatnot, but, rest assured, there’s other folk out there who can adapt at the drop of a hat and fight back.”
Seth just nodded, put in mind of what Jazmyn at Kathaarian stated to them, words to that effect. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. After the terrible incident at the service station, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be putting any faith in police and authority figures in this instance anyway, so perhaps it was better that they apparently weren’t rushing in, flooding the scene immediately, though that seemed a little bizarre.
If the police came with the same mindset as those lunkheaded would-be rapists had done, already determined that all metalheads or those of metal fan appearance were to be considered latent zombies, then once again his friends, and pretty much everyone else in the Park not already dead or undead, would be in the firing line. Though, of course, this was Blackwater Park, the city where almost any resident in the place could be considered a suspect, just on appearances sake.
“You’re a hell of a six-string slinger,” the biker said, a grin displaying nicotine stained pegs of teeth among that stygian forest of beard. “I’m sure as shit planning to keep my ass long enough in this zombiefest shitfight to make sure I get the chance to hear you and your buddies rip out some more of that killer metal. That gal you got screaming sure has a set of lungs on her.”
Coming from the likes of Tre or Ralph, or the apparently long departed Eric Barron, that remark could have been construed as suggestive or deliberately lascivious, but the big man’s earnest tone indicated he was referring to Scarlett’s vocal prowess, rather than her abundant chest attributes.
“Cheers,” Seth replied. “I’m hoping for that outcome as well.”
“Name’s Nate,” the Renegade Master said, then gestured with a large index finger bristling with tufts of wiry black hair that matched his beard at his fellow bikers. “That’s Burt, Rusty, and Drill. We were digging your tunes and performance until those knucklehead sumbitches turned up. And for one, I won’t tolerate any so called man hittin’ a woman, let alone interrupting a show I’m enjoying.”
“I’m Seth. That’s Scarlett,” Seth proceeded to put names to the faces of his compatriots for the guy, as Scarlett, eventually successful at cracking the defences of the stubborn last few on stage, led them down to ground level. Last to leave were Black and Blizzard, and the pair of security guards, both looking so incredibly alike, right down to slightly variant moustaches, that Seth had already taken to calling them Thompson and Thomson in his head.
Over where the stage ended and the temporary shield it offered them, Tempest and two of the Renegades, those Nate identified as Burt and Drill, stood ready to roll, poised for violent action. Some of the members of the collective may have been shitting themselves in abject terror at the horrifying proposition of what was beyond in the Park, but quite obviously none of the bikers were in that category.
Drill, a lean, lanky man towering easily to the same height as Black, if not an inch or so beyond that, carried a pistol by his side and a laconic grin on his face. His stocky bearded partner, Burt, looked equally at ease to be going into some sort of battle, and Tempest, just looked like Tempest. Which was always dangerous, volatile, and primed to explode at the drop of a hat.
The black-haired demon drummer allowed himself a recon look out around the edge of the stage to take in what might lie in wait for them, though it was a fair bet most of them already acknowledged that it wasn’t going to be a picnic or a happy, blissful wander in Blackwater Park.
“Let’s get mobile,” Tempest directed back to the main body still clustered behind the furthest end of Stage Four. “Window’s closing.”
Seth could see Black was becoming almost as impatient as Tempest with the group he was having to coddle and cajole, the edges of his temper fraying and shredding. He clearly would have preferred leaving them all to their own devices and striking out for that distant stage where, undoubtedly, Undead Fleshcrave were in the process of having the elevated platform lowered as quickly as possible in order to get themselves together and out of there.
He herded the lot of them into a pack, insistently moving them out, surrounding the likes of SternBitch and other newcomers with his own armed people on the outside, like roaming mercenaries, or guards of a sort.
Seth wasn’t thrilled with this whole scenario, since it meant Scarlett was one of those outside the larger group, but he sure as hell knew she would be the first to slap him silly if he insisted she remain in the protection of the bunch in the middle, like a flock of sheep shepherded by the working dogs of Black, Roxana, and so forth. Though he fervently wanted to mention to Scarlett that he’d prefer her there and not out in the frontline, first to come into contact with any marauding meatseekers launching at them as soon as they became visible, he didn’t. He knew it would be to no avail in any case. It wouldn’t change the outcome, or her mind.
He saw that Mark and Dax were also drifting around the outskirts of the group, possibly because they were armed with guns too; Mark seemed to have been gifted one from somewhere since Seth couldn’t recall him having one in hi
s possession before. Miranda ended up in the general flock guarded by the roving sentries, though she stayed close to the side where Mark was. She must have completely lost the garment she’d removed in the heady midst of the short-lived Plaguewielder concert, for she was still clad only in her bra, a couple of red scuff marks on her bare skin where the Biblebasher thugs must have delivered some blows to her. Unlike Mark, who was sporting a black eye, her face seemed reasonably unscathed, so perhaps she’d escaped the brunt of the brutish assault. Casting his mind back to how they’d assailed Scarlett without a second thought, Seth was hopeful they’d been somehow trampled under a mass of feet or perhaps hadn’t even been susceptible to the Trigger.
He suspected otherwise though. If anything, those numbskulls were the epitome of the lowest common denomination in terms of those calling themselves death metal fans. Naturally, all ‘true death heads’ weren’t like Ralph and Tre and their thuggish cohorts, a vast number of them would be ashamed to associate themselves with people like that, but ultimately it wouldn’t matter.
The Zombie Trigger was specifically and painstakingly formulated to apply to all those who worshipped death metal above all else, and they were the ones now running riot in Blackwater Park, along with however many others they’d managed to turn in the period since the horrific music began to invade brains and destroy them.
Ralph, Tre, and all their Biblebasher buddies were out there somewhere, probably very nearby, and if they managed to retain any of their own thoughts prior to being zombified, then Seth knew exactly who they’d be looking for to make meals of.
“Let’s do this,” Tempest commanded curtly. “We’re on it. Catch up if you’re going to fuck around and dawdle here, nobody has time for that.”
Then he was gone, swiftly followed by Burt and Drill, both of the Renegades looking as if they were relishing this bizarre impending encounter, viewing it as some kind of opportunity they’d never have otherwise been presented with.