“Wex. If you think I’m cleaning this up by myself, you’re wrong,” he tried again.
Wex still didn’t answer.
Michael knew Wex’s house. His friend had lived here for a dozen years and it wasn’t until half those years ago they’d drifted apart.
He took the stairs two at a time and started checking rooms. He didn’t bother with the closed door because he knew where it led. The crazy thing about the deal and Wex was that Wex had taken to it like a duck to water. He lived for the Satanic shit and even had a full altar in there. No one was allowed in that room. Wex had shown Michael what was inside but had prevented his friend from entering.
Horned goat skulls, knives, parchments he’d collected from (as Wex had claimed) biblical times, that showed a book of the bible that had never released by the church. The book of Lucifer had been long laughed at by scholars. Michael could teach those mouth breathers a thing or two about what had been omitted from modern day religion.
He strolled past the bedroom but Wex wasn’t in there. The blanket was pulled to the floor and white satin sheet, with blood stains, were revealed. Michael shook his head because he didn’t want to know.
He found Wex in his office, lumped over, head on his arm. His laptop was closed but an open bottle of prescription drugs lay on it’s side.
Michael picked up the bottle.
“Really, dude?” He asked a comatose Wex.
He leaned over and poked Wex. Then he pushed his shoulder.
“Fuckface,” Wex muttered.
He sat up and his head lolled to the side, then he settled back into his chair. His eyes opened but he stared right through Michael.
“Wake up, man! I ain’t cleaning up your mess by myself,” Michael said.
Wex smiled and his eye lids drooped until they closed.
Michael kicked the chair so hard Wex fell out of it. He landed on his side and heaved himself to his feet. He came at Michael, hands raised, and aimed at Michael’s neck.
Michael smacked them aside with little effort and Wex stumbled past him.
“Get your ass down here and help me deal with the body,” Michael said.
“The hell you do that for?”
“How long have you been taking that shit?”
“What shit? My anxiety meds? None of your business, that’s how long.”
“This is stupid, Wex. You’re barely able to stand.”
“Fuck off,” Wex said and stumbled out of the room.
Michael followed. It was going to be a long night.
Wex managed to stay lucid while they did the deed even though he muttered to himself most of the time. Michael ignored him and did most of the work.
She couldn’t have weighed more than one oh five but it was a lot for one man and a partial invalid. Her legs had to be pushed together and arms crossed her chest. The bin that Wex had dragged out of the garage had been filled with old merchandise. Damaged T-shirts from decades ago that were probably worth a small fortune on eBay.
Michael tossed them in a dusty corner.
They dumped her body in the bin. Even though she was tiny, one leg and an arm hung out.
“The only way she’s going to fit if if we break and some bones,” Wex said.
“You fucking break her. I’m getting the hell out of here,” Michael said. “What do you plan to do with her body?”
“In my secret room. You know the one. Take care of her later,” Wex said.
“In there?” He asked Wex. “That’s not too bright, Wex. What if the cops come looking for her?”
“She already knew about the room. Might as well store her there until we come up with a different plan to get rid of her,” Wex said. “I got a friend who can take her down to Mexico. He’ll leave her somewhere. He doesn’t ask questions, just does what I say.”
“Glad you thought this out.” Michael said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Michael fought down his revulsion. There was no way he wanted anything else to do with this cover up.
He spun again, sure someone was watching them. While Wex had been passed out, he had taken the opportunity to close every drape, window blind, and curtain located downstairs. All they needed was for paparazzi or obsessed fan catching them in the act. Maybe that was the source of his unease. That and the fact that he was helping someone cover up a murder, for fuck’s sake.
The sides of the bin bulged and she threated to spill out as they dragged her across the hardwood floor. The sound of debris on the underside grated on Michael’s nerves. Wex kept babbling.
Michael pushed while Wex pulled. They got halfway to the stairs before taking a break. Wex dug out a pack of smokes and lit one up.
“Thought you quit?” Michael said.
“I did. Then I started again.” Wex shrugged. “It’s better for my voice. I get that gnarly rasp.”
“Could try chocolate milk.”
“Nothing says un-metal like drinking chocolate milk before a show,” Wex said.
“Are you even going to thank me for helping you?”
“Sure. Thanks a lot for coming out and fulfilling your part of our band’s bargain.” Wex smirked.
Michael wanted to to go back to the kitchen, find a knife, and cut that smile off Wex’s face, then stab him in the heart.
“Hiding dead bodies isn’t what we signed up for,” Michael spat.
“No, man. We signed up for fame and fortune. All the other stuff is a side effect,” Wex said.
“So killing this girl was a side effect?”
“Fuck her. She was a groupie. There are plenty more where she came from.”
“Do it yourself. I’m going to go take care of some stuff,” Michael said.
He stormed toward the front door, digging his car keys out, and contemplating stomping his lead singer’s face into swiss steak.
Then he realized his hands and arms were covered in blood. He headed back to the kitchen and ran the water so hot it scalded his skin. He scrubbed the blood off, and then Washed them again. He dug around under the sink.
“What are you looking for?” Wex stood in the kitchen’s entryway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“Bleach. Can’t have blood all over the damn place.”
“I said I’ll take care of it. Just do run off to your wife or whatever the fuck,” Wex said.
“Damn you Wex,” Michael shook his head.
“You can’t turn me in, dude. You’re part of this now,” Wex shouted.
“I’ve been part of it since the first day,” Michael muttered as he left Wex’s house.
Michael was in his car for all of thirty seconds before his phone rang. He looked at the display and quickly answered.
“Everything okay, babe?” he asked Giselle.
“No, Michael. It’s terrible,” she said.
Michael’s heart pounded in his chest because Giselle was crying. What in the hell was it now?
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Bruno. They found him last night at his shop. He’s been killed.” Giselle sobbed.
“What the hell? What do you mean killed?”
“He was stabbed and mutilated.”
“He was what?” Michael nearly dropped the phone.
“It’s all over the news. Some kind of Satanic thing. He’s gone, Michael.”
“Jesus fucking wept,” Michael said and sat back in his car seat.
He could have sworn he heard a deep and malevolent chuckle in the background.
21
Possessed - 92
Interlude - Fall of 1992
Seth stared at the band as they paced before the altar, casting shadowy bruises across the pristine cross set as a centerpiece. The air was cool and damp and their every breath filled the air with wisps of steam, tendrils spiraling toward the dilapidated roof and the gray roil of clouds above.
“Are we really doing this?” Michael asked, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets as he stomped back and forth in a tight circle of pent up energy.
“Fuck yeah we are.” Wex chuckled and pointed at the priest who lay unconscious on the steps before the altar. “Little late to back down now, brother, don’t you think?”
“No,” Sunny whispered, shaking her head.
“The answer is actually yes,” Wex countered. “We’re in this cocksucker-deep already. Ain’t no one walking away from this now.”
Seth sighed and slumped into the pew, his gaze drifting to the priest. Wex was right. They’d already tasted the forbidden fruit. There was no walking away now that things were starting to rot.
The old priest was doped out of his skull, thanks to Seth sticking the needle in and Sunny providing the smack. At least her experience told them how much heroin they needed to keep the old man from dying. They needed him fucked up, not dead. Still, laying there all fetal, pale as new sheets, he looked as if he was about an inch from saying his last sermon. He wouldn’t know his Bible from his ass for a week.
Not that he really oversaw many sermons these days, anyway. At least not to anyone besides himself.
Wex had found the old boy one day by luck. He’d driven past the abandoned church—at least that’s what it looked like—and spotted the priest outside, talking to himself and puttering about the jungle that had once been the church’s yard. It’d been pure chance that Wex had noticed the guy at all, picking out the man’s collar through the swell of green and black, the white standing out about his throat.
That same collar gleamed in the dim candlelight now, a contradiction of perfection compared to the ragged robes the man wore and his leathern appearance, caterpillars of white hair running rampant over his eyes, a mop of matted hair slicked over his pink and mottled skull. He didn’t look so much like as priest as he did a homeless man who’d lucked out and managed to keep a tiny square of his outfit clean.
“Man, this shit ain’t right.” Sunny shuddered, her arms clasped across her chest as if she could hide behind them.
Seth glanced up from the priest to examine her cleavage as she pushed her breasts higher, damn near spilling them from her tank top in her nervousness. They were a way better sight than the whacked out priest on the stairs. Seth sighed at his high school crush bullshit but he didn’t look away. He couldn’t help himself.
Even with all the pussy he was pulling as a member of Damaged—and it was a fucking lot—he couldn’t stop pining after Sunny. He’d wanted her from the first day she’d shown up to replace Drax. She pounded her kit with abandon, eyes closed and her tongue peeking out the corner of her mouth, her upper lip peeled back as if she was getting off on the vibrations. He had no doubt she’d make that same face when she came, and Seth wanted to see it up close and personal.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Michael said, interrupting Seth’s lascivious thoughts, which was probably a good thing. Given what they had to do, the last thing Seth needed was to hop up with his hard on poking through his jeans.
The priest muttered something and groaned, rolling over onto his side to a symphony of bony pops.
“You like your house?” Wex asked. “You like never running out of Jack and bitches and blow?”
Michael glared at Wex, but he didn’t say a word.
“Exactly, man. This,” he pointed at the old man again, “is the price of all that. This is what pays the bills.”
“But this is—”
“It’s fucking sick shit, you’re right. Absolute fucking shit. But I gotta tell you, brother, we’d all be eating shit right now if we hadn’t made this deal. Shit and motherfucking Ramen. We were nothing, were always gonna be nothing without this. And as much as all this bullshit sucks, I’m okay with a little suffering now and again in order to keep going home to that million dollar house I live in rather than some fucking shack because the only job I could get was at McDonalds.”
“Do you want fries with that?” Seth asked, barely holding back a chuckle.
“Right?” Wex agreed. “Fuck that. Freaky as all this is, I can go home and shower and drown myself in booze and pills, forgetting all this bullshit before morning even rolls around. I get to wake up in silk sheets, dripping pussy from head to toe, and have some skank cook me breakfast because she wants to stick around a little longer. This? This ain’t nothing compared to what we get out of it.”
Michael growled but, again, he didn’t argue or walk away. He knew what Wex said was true. None of them had a real future before the Devil came to call. Even with all their talent, Seth knew they’d have been just one more garage band in a sea of millions. Nothing stood out about them from the rest of the heap. Metallica and Megadeth had stormed the scene, Slayer too, but a lot of the bands that were around when Damaged started had already fallen off the radar thanks to that Seattle Grunge bullshit that was all the rage. Metal had been driven underground and bands like early Damaged had been flushed down the crapper within months of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and all those other fuckers popping up.
But Lucifer had lived up to his end of the bargain.
While Metallica’s Black Album turned Hetfield and the others into verifiable rock stars, selling millions of copies with their streamlined sound brought on by the dickhead Bob Rock, Damaged had weathered the storm and stayed true to the mantra of heavy fucking metal. Psalms for Satan had just hit and obliterated the Billboard album charts, landing them at #3, just below fucking Boyz II Men and Sir Mix-a-lot. Damaged was on the cover of Rolling Stone and Metal Maniacs and pretty much everywhere else, their tattooed tributes to the Devil out where everyone could see, in full fucking color.
And as shitty as days like these were, the band hunkered down in a rundown hulk of a church, looming over a high-ass priest, waiting for him to wake up, the rest of the time was a miracle of untold proportions. Seth didn’t have to question why they were there. He complained, of course—mostly because he complained about everything; he kinda liked it—but he’d do anything to keep the band in the spotlight and his status secure.
The priest groaned again and raised himself up, barely able to hold his weight up on trembling arms.
“Better get a bucket,” Wex said, laughing as he spit out the Monty Python line, doing his best to sound British.
Michael and Sunny stood their ground, so Seth jumped up and ran over to the old man, snatching up the metal bucket that had been tossed by the altar. The priest, too blitzed to have any clue as to what was going on, didn’t even notice him. He coughed and gasped and choked, drool shining at his lips as Seth set the bucket under his face. Not a moment later, the old man hurked, disgorging a waterfall of bloody vomit into the bucket. The smell hit Seth full on and he blanched, leaning away from the old man as he continued to spew.
Sunny gagged and fell onto the nearest pew, her face as white as the old man’s collar. Michael held his ground, but he didn’t look much better than the drummer. Wex, on the other hand, was laughing his ass off.
“That she blows!” He grinned and grabbed a small cardboard box off the pew nearest him and carried it over to Seth.
The old man vomited once more and his head toppled into the bucket, unconscious once again. Seth grabbed him by his shirt and rolled him aside so the old man wouldn’t drown. Seth stared at the priest’s weathered face, covered in streaks of crimson and pale yellow, chunks of some unknown food substance dotting his worn features.
“You ready for this?” Wex asked, holding the open box toward Seth.
“Not really,” he answered, but that didn’t stop him from reaching into the box. He pulled out two goblets, crafted in silver and gold and decorated in precious gems. Each of the cups were worth enough to rebuild the church they sat in, making it shiny and new, but that wasn’t what they were for.
Seth and Wex sank the goblets into the bucket at the same time, digging out cupfuls of the bloody vomit. They raised the cups into the air, Wex winking at Seth.
“To Satan!” they said in unison, lifting the goblets to their mouth and emptying their contents in a single swig.
Seth gagged as the puke hit his ton
gue but he closed his eyes and swallowed, the warm oatmeal of vomit scraping his throat as it burned its way down.
He heard Sunny choke and the splatter of her own spew hitting the floor just a few feet away, steaming dots peppering his cheeks as he swallowed down the last of his cup.
“Fuck yeah!” Wex shouted, licking his lips. “Vintage fucking priest vomit. Delicious. Tastes like sin and pederasty.” He scooped another cupful from the bucket and held it out to Michael as Sunny heaved, hunkered on her hands and knees. “Your turn, my brother. We’re all in this together, remember?”
22
Master of Puppets
Roy Slater
“If I have to come down there and explain the difference between a tween singing into a fucking auto tune, and enough reverb to sound like the kid is at the bottom of the fucking Grand Canyon, I am not going to be a happy man. Do you know what happens when I’m not a happy man? Do you? Because I’ll fucking tell you what happens. I come down there, I rip the headphones off your head, and then I shit in your ear. You got that? I will literally shit in your ear, and then I’ll rub it into your mouth and nose like you’re a bad puppy. Got that, Fido? A bad fucking puppy. Now repeat after me. I will turn down the reverb to acceptable levels or I will eat a shit sandwich!”
Roy Slater waited for the man on the other end of the line to either man up to his mistake or break down in tears because one of those was coming.
Roy paced his office, phone in hand, little white earbud jammed into one ear. The other hung and swung freely over his huge gut which, ironically, featured a Gold’s Gym sweat shirt plastered to his sweaty skin. He clenched his eyes tightly and ground his teeth together.
“I get the message, Roy.” Allan Harball said.
Damaged Page 16