“And when are you going to get me some reliable help?” Herman finally said. He almost regretted saying it, felt a little guilty about throwing Whitey and Heidi under the bus, but his wife was right: he had to stand up for himself.
Chip was silent for a moment. “Reliable help,” he said slowly. “What do you mean?”
“Where’s Whitey?” said Herman. “Where’s Heidi? Why is it that Herman’s the only WXKB employee here?”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” said Chip. Even over the phone he sounded like he was pulling on his hair. “Hey, look, I wanted to fire Heidi,” he said. “I was all set to, and you, buddy, were the one who convinced me, against my own better judgment to…”
But Herman had stopped listening. Someone was coming down the alley and as they got closer and stepped into the light, he realized who it was.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Heidi’s here after all. Got to go.”
He hung up the telephone with Chip still talking and pocketed it. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Heidi.
“Where the hell have you been?” asked Herman. “Where’s Whitey?”
“Whitey never showed so I walked,” said Heidi. She looked a little pale and dazed, maybe was on something, but he’d had it out with her once this week already. No point starting bad blood just before the show.
“Are you serious? Goddamn it, what is with that kid? I thought he said his car was fixed.” He looked at his watch. “Fuck, we should get inside. It’s almost showtime. Not that it matters since I can’t find anyone.”
“What are you so uptight about?” Heidi asked.
“I don’t know,” said Herman. “Something about this whole night is really getting under my skin. Something just isn’t right. Feels like a setup.”
“A setup for what?” asked Heidi.
Herman shook his head. “I wish I fucking knew.”
They made their way through the door and up the aisle, taking a seat toward the back of the venue where some of the chairs were still in pretty good shape. There was still no sign of the Lords. Most of the rest of the audience was up front, huddled together. And yeah, he’d been right. All women. Not a single man in the whole place except for him. If he told the warden that, she’d really give him hell.
He checked his watch again. “Looks like a whole lot of nothing is about to happen,” he said. Heidi next to him didn’t respond. She looked a little dazed, just stared straight ahead at the stage. “You okay?” he asked.
“Whitey never showed so I walked,” she said. She said it in a friendly but semi-pissed-off way, identical to the way she had said it outside, but this time her face remained motionless, expressionless.
“Yeah, you already told me,” he said. “I heard you the first time.”
“What are you so uptight about?” she replied. Again, same exact intonation as outside. But her face was still as dead and still as that of a corpse. God, she was freaking him out.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he asked. He was about to dress her down when the house lights suddenly went off. “Thank God,” he said. “I think the show might actually be starting.”
Chapter Fifty-four
Slowly, very slowly, the red velvet curtains began to draw apart in a grand and effortless sweeping motion, to reveal a stage empty except for a figure of a man made from sticks, a nearly life-size effigy. A small lantern burned within the figure’s belly. The lantern was the only thing lighting the stage.
The sound of a single drum began. A slow, regular pounding. A hush fell over the crowd as a robed figure entered the stage from somewhere out of the darkness behind. A mask covered the figure’s face: a rough burlap mask dyed black with a white death’s head painted on it. A primitive drum was slung around its neck and was being struck, over and over again, with what looked like a human thighbone.
“What the hell is this bullshit?” Herman whispered to Heidi. “Seems more like some weird religious ritual than a concert.”
“Whitey never showed so I walked,” mumbled Heidi.
What the fuck? wondered Herman. He grabbed her arm and shook her, but she didn’t look away from the stage.
The robed figure began to chant in rhythm with the beating on the drum, in some weird language that for all Herman knew might be nonsense. Lots of hard sounds, like German, but shitloads worse. Made his head ache even to listen to it. But next to him Heidi seemed totally transfixed.
A ring of fire erupted around the figure as the chant continued. The crowd began moving, swaying back and forth to the repetitive rhythm of the hypnotic drum, a few of them beginning to pick up the sounds of the chant as well, which gave it a weird watery emphasis as it shifted from a single voice to a voice with many other voices layered over it. The ring of fire grew taller, then taller still, until both the effigy and the hooded figure were nearly hidden within it. If you looked at it just right, you could almost believe they were on fire.
Beams of deep red smoke curled along and seeped through the stage as another figure appeared from the darkness behind. This one was similarly dressed, similarly masked, but the mask it wore had had holes burned through it, so bits of a pale white face were visible beneath. As it walked forward, the figure manipulated an instrument made of wood and animal skin. One hand cranked a small lever while the other pumped a rawhide bellows, creating a bizarre cluster of discordant notes. It was the sound, Herman thought, of someone screaming, but worse than that, too. It was much more disturbing than that.
The flames of the ring of fire dipped lower and the figure stepped through them and into the ring, continuing to play. The flames rose again, in one spurt and then another, until Herman couldn’t see anything through it. Shit, must be hot inside there, he thought. And how had they managed to do that? He would have sworn, when he walked the stage just a moment ago, that there was nothing there.
There was a screeching sound, the scrape of an out-of-tune violin being played deliberately off-key. Another robed figure appeared out of the darkness of the wings, wearing the same burlap mask as the others. Instead of a bow, it played with a bone that looked like a humerus. It made the strings shriek and quiver. The figure didn’t wait for the flames to die down, but calmly strode through them and was momentarily aflame.
“Holy shit,” said Herman.
The flames fell low enough that everyone could be seen clearly. The robe of the figure playing the violin was smoking but didn’t stay lit. The drum was playing louder and faster now, and so was that strange other instrument, whatever it was. With the violin added in, the noise was extremely loud and discordant, enough to make the hall shake and bring little bits of plaster down from the ceiling.
Herman looked up a little nervously, then turned to Heidi. “I have to admit,” he said, “this is pretty wild stuff.” Yeah, they were getting to him. They were definitely showmen. He had to give them that. But, he thought, looking up at the ceiling again, there was no fucking way this was going to end well.
They played, the music dipping and falling but always staying repetitive and ritualistic and discordant and very intense. They weren’t playing songs exactly, or rather it was like they were playing one single song that just kept going and going. It was fucked-up.
In front, down near the stage, several of the audience members began stripping off their clothes and walking toward the stage. They seemed like zombies, moving stiffly and awkwardly. Must be plants in the audience who work for the band, thought Herman. All part of the show. But then if that was the case, there wasn’t much of an audience at all. He watched them ascend a small set of stairs at the base of the stage, gathering around the edge of the ring of fire, bowing before the hooded figures.