Welcome to the Show: 17 Horror Stories – One Legendary Venue Page 9

  Sure feels real, though.

  The apparent reality of it all was suddenly too much. He spun away from the stage and began to push his way through the tight press of bodies. The closeness of those bodies and thickness of the smoke was oppressive, made him feel like he was suffocating. He needed to get out of the club, out into the clean night air. The press of bodies became less oppressive, less dense, as he neared the bar at the back of the club. This allowed him to take a longer look at the people around him. They looked strange, not right for the audience at a punk show. There was a lot of long, greasy hair. A lot of hippie garb and regalia. Headbands, peace symbol buttons, and so forth. Then it hit him. The audience didn’t look right to him because this was the time before punk, when the Stooges were just the newest stage in the ongoing evolution of rock.

  There were a lot of people at the bar. And a lot of drinks on its crowded surface. At one end sat an unguarded beer that looked like it had just been opened, its contents untouched. He snagged it while no one was watching and hurried out of the club, heaving a breath as he emerged into the warm California evening. The parking lot that had been empty before was full now. Surveying the sea of vehicles, he felt like he’d stumbled upon a vintage car show. He saw Mustangs and VW vans, as well as numerous sedans and sports cars of various makes. There was nary a sign of a Prius or any other modern vehicle.

  All real, he thought. I’m really stuck in 1969.

  Laughing with tears in his eyes, he took a swig of beer and sat his ass down on the curb. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Accepting the reality of the situation presented a whole new host of problems. He had no connection to anyone in this time. His parents were out there somewhere on the other side of the country, but they were kids. There would be no point in seeking them out. He drank more of the beer as he sat there and thought about it. It all seemed so hopeless. He had no idea how to go about starting a new life in what essentially amounted to a foreign land, a place where he did not officially exist. Not on paper, anyway.

  Then he thought about what the thing that called itself The Traveler had said. He was sending Karla back to 1979, to the night Johnny Kilgore of the Sick Motherfuckers killed himself not far from where he now sat. A tiny spark of hope flared to life inside Jason.

  All he had to do was somehow survive the next ten years and return to this spot on that infamous date. He knew the details well. He could be right here at the appointed time when Karla arrived. He’d be a decade older than her at that point, but that wasn’t such an insurmountable age difference, was it? He didn’t think so, especially now that he knew about her private feelings for him. She would be thrilled to see him. He was sure of it.

  And who knew what might happen then?

  A voice spoke from somewhere right behind him spoke: “Hey, cutie.”

  He shifted about on the curb and craned his head around, frowning at the familiar face staring down at him. It was a girl. A not unattractive one. She was no Karla, but she wasn’t half bad, either. But he knew that face, was sure he’d seen it somewhere before.

  He frowned. “Do I know you?”

  She smiled. “I don’t think so. We’re just now meeting. My name’s Suzie.”

  Then it came to him. Where he’d seen her before. Mostly from black and white photos in the pages of a dogeared old paperback book that had belonged to his father. This was Susan Atkins.

  One of the Manson girls.

  Before he could say anything else to her, he felt another presence rushing at him from somewhere off to the side. He turned his head around just in time to see another familiar face. This time the name came to him faster. Charles “Tex” Watson, another member of Charlie’s family. He had something in his hands. A burlap sack.

  Jason dropped the beer and tried getting to his feet, but a kick from behind sent him tumbling back to the ground. Then Tex and Leslie were on him. The bag was pulled over his head and cinched tight. Others crowded around him then, and he felt multiple sets of hands lifting him off the ground. He tried thrashing his way out of their grip as they carried him across the parking lot, but to no avail. An attempt to cry out for help earned him a hard thump over the head. A short time later, his abductors came to a stop and dumped him inside the spacious trunk of a car.

  “Sit tight, cutie,” he heard the one called Suzie say. “We’re just going on a little adventure and wanted some company.”

  Jason squirmed around inside the trunk. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the desert. We’ve got this big thing we’re doing soon. Some real Helter Skelter shit. We’re sending out a message to the piggies of the world. One they won’t be able to ignore.”

  A man chuckled. Tex, probably. “That’s right, darlin’. But before the main event, we’re gonna practice on this poor son of a bitch.”

  The trunk lid slammed shut.

  Jason screamed with every bit of lung power he had as the Manson family members piled into the car. He screamed some more as the car’s engine started and kept screaming as the car was steered out of the parking lot and into the city streets.

  No one heard his screams or pleas for mercy.

  No one except Charlie’s chosen few, that is.

  And no one else ever would.

  Because all that remained of Jason Dobbs’s future—aside from his pending agonizing death—was a rendezvous with a lonely hole in the dusty desert soil. A forgotten, unmarked grave that would forever go undiscovered.

  A TONGUE LIKE FIRE

  Rachel Autumn Deering

  Harvey Matthews listened to the girl crying from the other side of the door for some time. He tightened the grip on his Bible, clenched his jaw, offered up a silent prayer, and placed his palm flat against the heavy black door. It was smooth and cold. The muscles in his neck and shoulders ached and he realized in that moment how tense he was. He shifted his weight forward but the weathered hinges resisted, as if to ask, are you sure you want to go in there? He was more than sure he didn’t, but he put his shoulder to the door and shoved inside, past the shadowy threshold, and into the gloom.

  He saw her there, at the far end of the room, on the floor, hugging her knees in the weird yellow light. She looked odd and twisted, bent into an uncomfortable configuration, and her clothes draped like Spanish moss on southern oaks, tattered to the point of barely concealing the more private parts of her thin frame. Her ashen skin was streaked in places with blood, though the heavy shadows falling over her made it difficult for Harvey to determine if she was wounded, or if the blood was even her own. He took a few reluctant steps into the room. The girl wasn’t a girl at all, but a woman, and she was chanting a strange, raspy, rhythmic sort of something into her closed fists.

  The muted scratching of her voice grew louder and began to form words, and the words adopted a kind of tortured melody, like a chorus of gargled glass.

  “Her hair was black as night

  her skin was white as bone

  Those blood-red lips were stained by sins

  for which she could not atone

  And the poison in her veins saw an end to a love

  that was real, and sapphic, and tragic

  She was borne to the grave by six blind shadows

  with two left hands full of magic”

  Her head snapped back and a raw scream rose up out of her throat. A flood of red light washed over the room, revealing a crowd of black-clad bodies amassed before the woman. They might have filled half the room, if they had allowed much space between them, but they pushed in close together and swayed to the rhythm of whatever spell was being cast over them. They were cult-like in their movements, a throbbing sea of leather and lace and white-painted faces. Harvey was hypnotized by it all. His mind was infected by visions of too-young people doing unspeakable things. Little misguided boys and girls—sons and daughters—degrading themselves in the booze-soaked back rooms of morally-bankrupt places like this. He felt things he did not want to feel.

  Harvey Matthews hated rock and roll.


  “Oh, hey! Hey, man!” A young guy in a button-up shirt moved toward Harvey from the bar, shouting to be heard above the music. He was clean-cut and his clothes were remarkably ordinary. He looked nearly as out of place as Harvey. “Are you the religious guy?”

  “Hmm?” Harvey’s brow furrowed. He looked down at the oversized tome in his hand.

  “You sorta stick out like a sore thumb on a hand full of polished pinkies.” He shifted a cocktail to his left hand and extended the right toward Harvey. “I’m Ben, Hexx’s manager. We talked on the phone last week.”

  “Good to meet you, Ben.” Harvey wiped a sweaty palm across his slacks before reaching out to take the offered hand. “Thanks for setting this whole thing up. I appreciate you.”

  “Hey, no problem. You wanna wait in the green room? It won’t be a whole lot quieter than out here, but at least you can have a seat while you wait for her to finish.”

  “I’d like that, thanks,” Harvey said.

  His eyes swept over the crowd again and he felt a sting in his heart. Any one of them could have been his daughter.

  The air in the green room was thick with the smell of stale smoke—cigarette and otherwise—and the coffee table situated in the middle of the room, sandwiched between two sofas, was littered with beer cans and liquor bottles. Lines of white powder were scratched out across the surface of a mirror, punctuated by a razorblade and a bright green straw. The sound on the television in the corner of the room was muted, but the screen flashed with colorful images of an animated dog and a hippie kid in bellbottoms as they ran from a green-faced ghoul with red hair.

  “You can have a seat over there. Anywhere you like, really,” Ben said. “Sorry about the mess.”

  “I’m a father, Ben. My eyes have gone blind to messes.” Harvey took a seat at the end of one of the sofas. He pushed a few beer cans aside and set his Bible on the table in front of him.

  “You got kids, huh? Be fruitful and multiply, right? Isn’t that what it says?”

  “Yeah, I suppose it does. I got one kid. Singular. Daughter.” Harvey fished a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open to a set of pictures. A family photo and a senior portrait of a young girl. He offered it to Ben.

  “Handsome family, my man. You’ve done well for yourself,” Ben said. He smiled at the static faces. The young girl was terribly pale with dark features and no sign of a smile. Ben handed the wallet back.

  “Thanks. They’re my whole world,” Harvey said.

  The door swung into the room and Hexx stepped through after it, dabbing at her forehead with a towel. Blood mixed with thick white makeup and smeared around her face as she mopped at the streaks of sweat that threatened to run into her eyes. She exhaled heavily and smiled at Harvey, a genuine smile. Ben closed the door behind her and leaned against it. Harvey tucked the wallet back into his pocket and stood to his feet.

  “Hi. Harvey Matthews,” he said, waving. “You can call me Harv, though. Please.”

  “Harv it is. I’m Hexx. Jessica, if we’re keeping things casual,” she said. She sat on the sofa opposite the Bible, taking note of it, and draped the soiled towel across her left leg. She mimed like she was taking a drink at Ben and gave him a wink. “Something to drink, Harv?”

  Harvey was terrified and his mouth was dry. He sat.

  “I’ll pass, thanks. I’m fine. I don’t want to be in your hair any longer than I have to.”

  “I can’t say I’ve ever been interviewed by a preacher before.” She laughed.

  “Oh, I don’t intend to give the impression that I’m a preacher. I’m not.”

  “Sorry to assume. You’re a Christian, though, right? That’s why you brought a Bible?” She eyed the weighty thing with its white leather cover and golden embossed cross.

  Holy Bible. She focused on the words, unblinking.

  Holy.

  “Ben, clean up your shit, please.” She motioned toward the empty cans and cocaine. Ben handed her a bottle of water and snatched up the mirror and a few of the cans. He tried to hide his annoyance, but it showed.

  “I do my best to be Christ-like, sure, but I fail as often as the next guy.” Harvey’s hands trembled. He laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles to stop the shakes. “I’m not here to judge y’all.” He looked to Ben and managed a half-smile. Ben faked a polite smirk and left the room, letting the door close a little too hard behind him.

  “That’s okay, judgment or not, Ben needs to learn to keep the stuff away from me. I’m working on three years being clean and I want to keep it that way.”

  “Three years? Wow. That’s . . . something. That’s great.” Harvey’s heart sank into his stomach. He felt the sudden urge to follow Ben out of the room. To get away from the venue, far and fast. He breathed deep. “Congratulations.”

  “I just couldn’t take it anymore, you know? It’s an occupational hazard when you’re in my line of work, I guess. Staying keyed up and crashed out lost its shine when the live show started to suffer and the crowds got smaller. I’m lucky I came around when I did and still had any fans left.”

  “Yeah. Gotta keep those . . . fans . . . ” Harvey pulled a small notepad and a pen from his jacket pocket. He flipped through a few pages until he found a blank sheet, then started to scratch out a few quick words. He finished writing and tore the page from the pad. He folded it into quarters and set it on top of the Bible.

  Jessica eyed the note, but she didn’t ask after it. She looked back to Harvey. He sat with the pen on a new sheet of paper, ready to write.

  “Hey, what’s this interview for, anyway? Church bulletin, local rag, or . . . ?”

  “It’s actually for a psychology class. I’m writing a paper on the effects of art on adolescent behavioral disorders.”

  “Huh. I didn’t take you for a college kid, Harv. No offense, but you’re a little older than the average student.”

  “It’s true. I never saw myself going back to school, especially at my age, but the wife left me earlier this year and I thought to myself, why the heck not? So here I am. Trying something new.”

  “Aw, shit, man. I’m sorry”

  “Hey, don’t mention it. Let’s move on, huh?” Harvey scrawled a few words into the notepad then looked up at Jessica. “First question: Where did the Hexx character come from? How did she come to you?”

  “I guess Hexx is just a product of everything I had to go through in my young life. All the family problems and the broken hearts and the self-doubt.” Jessica shifted uncomfortably. She moved the towel to the arm of the sofa and crossed her legs under her. She nodded her head and continued. “Hexx is like the wall I put up to protect Jessica from all that pain, right? She’s the guardian. The scary one. My stage persona really just grew out of that.”

  “So she’s your way of getting rid of the things that bring you down. Getting that all out of your system so it can’t eat at you.”

  “Yeah. Exactly, man. Exactly.”

  “And what do you think the kids who listen to your music do with all the pain you put off onto them?”

  “Shit. I don’t know. Relate to it, I guess? Maybe it helps them?”

  “Huh. Maybe.” Harvey’s pen zipped across the paper, marking down line after line of notes. He pressed with such force that Jessica thought he might tear through the paper. His hands were shaking again.

  “Why, Harv? What do you think?” Jessica watched with sad curiosity as Harvey wrote.

  “I think,” Harvey started, “that you should read . . . this.” He finished jotting down a line and tore the page from the notepad. He handed it over the table, toward Jessica.

  Jessica stared at the paper but didn’t reach for it. “What’s it say?”

  “Take it. Read it.” A tear slipped from the corner of his eye and slid down his cheek.

  “Jesus, are you okay, man? Do you need a tissue or something?”

  “Please. Just read it.” Harvey sniffed and shook the slip of paper.

  I listened to my lit
tle girl crying from the other side of the door for some time. I held my Bible tight and did what I could to prepare myself. I told myself I could do it. I had to. I put my hand to the door and it felt cold. The muscles in my neck and shoulders ached and I realized how tense I was. I tried to open the door, but I couldn’t. It was like something was warning me. Like it was asking me if I really wanted to see what was behind that door. I didn’t, but I opened it anyway.

  I saw her there, at the far end of the room, laying on the floor. My baby girl. She looked odd and twisted, bent into an uncomfortable configuration, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Her perfect skin was covered in blood. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from right off, but I knew it was hers. I heard the rasp in her throat when she took her last breath. Then she was gone.

  “She was one of those fans who never doubted you, Jessica,” Harvey said. “Even at your lowest, she loved you.”

  “Why are you telling me this, man? Why are you laying this shit on me?” Jessica stood up from the sofa and looked down at Harvey. “I’m just some dumb girl who cries about her bullshit and puts it on a record.”

  “Sit back down, please.”

  “Why, man? So you can shit on me some more? Listen, I didn’t make your daughter do what she did, okay? I don’t make anyone do anything.” She was crying now.

  Harvey reached for his Bible. He took the folded note and placed it on the table. He sat the Bible on his lap and opened the cover. The pages inside had been cut away in the middle, creating a hollowed out core. He reached into the book and removed a handgun. “Please, honey. Could you sit down for me? And let’s keep it quiet.”

  Jessica fell into a heap on the sofa. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. She couldn’t speak.

  “Do you know how many of your songs end with some kind of suicide, Hexx?”

  “I—”

  “It’s a rhetorical question. We both know the answer. Most of them. Most of your songs end with you killing yourself over some boy. Or some girl. Or something your parents said that made you cry.” Harvey closed his eyes. “Do you know what kind of message that sends? Any idea how people like my daughter process that sort of thing?”