Rock On (58 page)

Behind the singer, several roadies hauled out a large wooden cross and placed it directly in front of the drum riser. Clad in the flowing white wedding dress, Ann Marie appeared to be securely strapped to the heavy wooden cross.

Ruin stood up and placed his drumsticks together to form an inverted cross. Then he took the horizontal stick and ran it across his own neck in a throat slicing gesture before pointing at Ann Marie. The crowd loved it.

Rhain stalked back over to the microphone and pointed his dagger at Ann Marie.

“This one’s called ‘BLOODLETTING’!”

Blast beats starting off the song, red trigger lights went in time with the drum hits to create a strobing effect. A large gust of dry ice “smoke” bellowed out from the rear of the stage. A crushing riff pummeled the audience.

The singer produced the second dagger.

As the smoke dwindled to unveil the frontman, Rhain held both daggers overhead as he sang the first verse. The cut on his hand continued bleeding.

Ann Marie played the role of a frightened damsel in distress to perfection. With all of the diabolical imagery onstage, it wasn’t too hard to appear frightened.

About halfway through “Bloodletting,” the song broke down to only bass and drums. Wrath ambled over to his amp but kept a watchful eye on Rhain in case the motherfucker tried to take onstage liberties with his sister.

Rhain knew Wrath was watching him as he placed one of the two daggers back in the sheath.

Facing the audience, the crazed singer pressed the point of the dagger against his bloody palm.

The blade did not retract.

“SATAN, ACCEPT MY OFFER!”

Thinking it was all part of the act, the crowd cheered Rhain on.

The singer dramatically raised the dagger over his head. Ann Marie screamed at the top of her lungs.

Rhain turned to face Ann Marie—only to see Wrath blocking his path, mouth filled with kerosene and holding a lit torch out.

SWOOOOSH!

A mixture of disbelief and terror spread across the singer’s face as Wrath blew a giant fireball. Like homemade napalm, the flammable liquid scorched Rhain’s face. His long black hair ignited immediately as his skin began to sizzle.

Arms out to his side, he threw back his flaming head and unleashed an unholy scream. As if banging his head to the music, Rhain thrashed back and forth. The flames went out and a thick waft of smoke rose from his charred skull.

Shrieking as if she too were on fire, Ann Marie tried to pull free from the large wooden cross and toppled over. Screaming for help from the stage floor, she lay trapped underneath the cross.

As the song came to a fumbling halt, Revile and Ruin could not believe their eyes. Painted face seared, most of Rhain’s hair was gone. A glob of flesh slid down his cheek like cheese dripping off a pizza.

Eyes beaming with rabid madness, Rhain slashed wildly through the air.

SLASH . . . SWIPE . . . SLASH.

Baring his teeth like a wild dog, the badly burned singer lumbered toward the girl under the cross.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”

Wrath cut off Rhain’s path to the terrified Ann Marie.

Ready to pounce, Wrath stood defiant, almost as if challenging Rhain to come a little closer. If he did, Wrath was going to bash him with his guitar.

Another shrill shriek came from under the cross. Concerned that she might be injured, Wrath turned to look.

Seizing the moment, Rhain rushed forward and buried the dagger deep in Wrath’s chest. Agony contorted Wrath’s face as his Flying V fell out of his hand.

“Mourningstar will always be MY band,” growled Rhain’s ruined mouth.

Summoning his last bit of strength, Wrath grabbed Rhain by the back of his still-smoking head and threw a vicious forearm jab into the singer’s throat. Long, sharp spikes from his armband punctured soft flesh.

“Then sing motherfucker!”

Eyes bulging out of his horrid face, Rhain’s mouth opened but no sound came. Like a sprinkler, blood sprayed out and drenched Wrath. A split second later, trembling hands covered the puncture wounds.

Dying, Rhain dropped to his knees.

Dagger protruding from his chest, Wrath coughed up another mouthful of crimson and then fell to his knees.

Consumed by animosity and covered in gore, Rhain and Wrath stared at one another and waited for the other to die. Neither could stand or move. They just projected their rage while the mesmerized crowd continued to scream.

For one brief moment, the detestation etched on Wrath’s painted face lessened just a little, almost as if wondering:
How did this happen?

Refusing to let go of his hatred, Rhain fell forward and died hoping Satan would welcome him with open arms.

Limp as a rag doll, Wrath also collapsed. As she watched her brother die, Ann Marie unleashed another bloodcurdling shriek.

Eight police officers stormed the club and began fighting their way through the terrified audience to get closer to the two men.

Revile dropped his bass and ran upstairs to the dressing room. With all hell breaking loose, the speed dealer knew better than to stick around.

Ruin saw Revile take off but he was not about to run. With a take-no-prisoners disposition, he reached into his stick bag and grabbed something wrapped up in a white towel.

From on top of the drum riser, Ruin cocked a sawed-off Remington 870 shotgun.

With one armed extended, the drummer took aim at the approaching officers.

BAMMMM!

Two police officers and several bystanders were hit by buckshot.

Before he could fire again, muzzle fire from police pistols lit up the dark venue.

A volley of bullets entered and exited the drummer’s body. Bullets that missed him hit the drum kit and sent sparks flying off cymbals and hardware.

Jerking and twitching, Ruin fought to stay upright before finally collapsing on top of the bullet-ridden drum kit.

Ann Marie’s screams never stopped, even as the police began releasing her from the cross. Miraculously, she hadn’t been hit.

Revile recoiled in terror when he heard the gunshots downstairs. Like a trapped animal, he searched for an escape route until his desperate eyes noticed a sink with doors under it.

With his knees up to his face, Revile contorted his thin body to fit into the small area under the sink. He heard footsteps approaching.

Guns drawn, two police officers quickly searched the dressing room.

In the cramped darkness, Revile thought he heard the footsteps leaving.

He thought wrong.

A determined police officer yanked him out from under the sink and threw him to the floor. Before the ghoulish bassist could fight back, the cop slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. His gun-toting partner warned, “Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off!”

Revile did as instructed.

As he was being read his rights, Revile turned his head to look at the cabinet again. He probably should have jumped out the window instead.

“ . . . right to have an attorney present during questioning and if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed. Do you understand?” the officer finished.

Revile grunted that he understood. Then he tucked his face down to hide behind his long black hair.

A smile he hoped no one else could see began to form because by the time this story hit the nightly news, the lone surviving member of Mourningstar would be famous.

Or, if not famous, then infamous.

Infamous enough so that when this all blew over he could probably sign a record deal as a solo artist.

Besides being a horror writer,
Del James
is the tour manager for Guns N’ Roses and has spent a good portion of his life on the road. James wrote the short story “Mourningstar” while on tour in Europe during the summer of 2012. James has also directed music videos for bands like Guns N’ Roses and Soul and co-written songs with groups such as Testament, The Almighty, Dragonlord, the Outpatience, Guns N’ Roses, and others. His collection of short stories,
The Language of Fear,
is available in mass market paperback from Random House and will soon be published in limited edition hardcover by Cemetery Dance.

Jeff Beck

Lewis Shiner

Felix was thirty-four. He worked four ten-hour days a week at Allied Sheet Metal, running an Amada CNC turret punch press. At night he made cassettes with his twin TEAC dbx machines. He’d recorded over a thousand of them so far, over 160 miles of tape, and he’d carefully hand lettered the labels for each one.

He’d taped everything Jeff Beck had ever done, from the Yardbirds’
For Your Love
through all the Jeff Beck Groups and the solo albums; he had the English singles of “Hi Ho Silver Lining” and “Tally Man”; he had all the session work, from Donovan to Stevie Wonder to Tina Turner.

In the shop he wore a Walkman and listened to his tapes. Nothing seemed to cut the sound of tortured metal like the diamond-edged perfection of Beck’s guitar. It kept him light on his feet, dancing in place at the machine, and sometimes the sheer beauty of it made tears come up in his eyes.

On Fridays he dropped Karen at her job at
Pipeline Digest
and drove around to thrift shops and used book stores looking for records. After he’d cleaned them up and put them on tape he didn’t care about them anymore; he sold them back to collectors and made enough profit to keep himself in blank XLIIs.

Occasionally he would stop at a pawnshop or music store and look at the guitars. Lightning Music on 183 had a Charvel/Jackson soloist, exactly like the one Beck played on
Flash,
except for the hideous lilac-purple finish. Felix yearned to pick it up but was afraid of making a fool out of himself. He had an old Sears Silvertone at home and two or three times a year he took it out and tried to play it, but he could never even manage to get it properly in tune.

Sometimes Felix spent his Friday afternoons in a dingy bar down the street from
Pipeline Digest,
alone in a back booth with a pitcher of Budweiser and an anonymous brown sack of records. On those afternoons Karen would find him in the office parking lot, already asleep in the passenger seat, and she would drive home. She worried a little, but it never happened more than once or twice a month. The rest of the time he hardly drank at all, and he never hit her or chased other women. Whatever it was that ate at him was so deeply buried it seemed easier to leave well enough alone.

One Thursday afternoon a friend at work took him aside.

“Listen,” Manuel said, “are you feeling okay? I mean you seem real down lately.”

“I don’t know,” Felix told him. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Everything okay with Karen?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Work is okay. I’m happy and everything. I just . . . I don’t know. Feel like something’s missing.”

Manuel took something out of his pocket. “A guy gave me this. You know I don’t do this kind of shit no more, but the guy said it was killer stuff.”

It looked like a Contac capsule, complete with the little foil blister pack. But when Felix looked closer the tiny colored spheres inside the gelatin seemed to sparkle in rainbow colors.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say exactly. When I asked him what it did all he said was, ‘Anything you want.’ ”

He dropped Karen at work the next morning and drove aimlessly down Lamar for a while. Even though he hadn’t hit Half Price Books in a couple of months, his heart wasn’t in it. He drove home and got the capsule off the top of his dresser where he’d left it.

Felix hadn’t done acid in years, hadn’t taken anything other than beer and an occasional joint in longer than he could remember. Maybe it was time for a change.

He swallowed the capsule, put Jeff Beck’s
Wired
on the stereo, and switched the speakers into the den. He stretched out on the couch and looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock.

He closed his eyes and thought about what Manuel had said. It would do anything he wanted. So what did he want?

This was a drug for Karen, Felix thought. She talked all the time about what she would do if she could have any one thing in the world. She called it the Magic Wish game, though it wasn’t really a game and nobody ever won.

What the guy meant, Felix told himself, was it would make me see anything I wanted to. Like a mild hit of psilocybin. A light show and a bit of rush.

But he couldn’t get away from the idea. What would he wish for if he could have anything? He had an answer ready; he supposed everybody did. He framed the words very carefully in his mind.

I want to play guitar like Jeff Beck, he thought.

He sat up. He had the feeling that he’d dropped off to sleep and lost a couple of hours, but when he looked at his watch it was only five after ten. The tape was still playing “Come Dancing.” His head was clear and he couldn’t feel any effects from the drug.

But then he’d only taken it five minutes ago. It wouldn’t have had a chance to do anything yet.

He felt different though, sort of sideways, and something was wrong with his hands. They ached and tingled at the same time, and felt like they could crush rocks.

And the music. Somehow he was hearing the notes differently than he’d ever heard them before, hearing them with a certain knowledge of how they’d been made, the way he could look at a piece of sheet metal and see how it had been sheared and ground and polished into shape.

Anything you want, Manuel had said.

His newly powerful hands began to shake.

He went into his studio, a converted storeroom off the den. One wall was lined with tapes; across from it were shelves for the stereo, a few albums, and a window with heavy black drapes. The ceiling and the end walls were covered with gray paper egg cartons, making it nearly soundproof.

He took out the old Silvertone and it felt different in his hands, smaller, lighter, infinitely malleable. He switched off the Beck tape, patched the guitar into the stereo and tried tuning it up.

He couldn’t understand why it had been so difficult before. When he hit harmonics he could hear the notes beat against each other with perfect clarity. He kept his left hand on the neck and reached across it with his right to turn the machines, a clean, precise gesture he’d never made before.