I peeked over her shoulder as she worked on the lock with a small knife-like tool. “Hmm. Breaking and entering. Should I ask what other illegal activities we might undertake tonight? Maybe next time we can hit a bank? Rob a gas station? Knock over a senior citizens’ center?”
She let the flashlight drop into her hand. “Shut up, Ethel. Yes! Am I awesome, or what?”
The door creaked open.
Maxie stuck her head into the opening, then stepped inside, signaling me to follow. I pulled the door closed behind me.
We’d gone to hell. Or at least a visual representation. In the pitch-dark blackness, colorful, glow-in-the-dark paint-depicted demonic scenes, rivers of blood, and evildoers feasting on the bodies of the previously living. Formerly ghoulish displays had been destroyed, the remnants of their wood and glass littering the floor.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I noticed there was a path under my feet made of glowing sparkles. Remembering the last time I’d been in a fun house, when I’d slammed into an invisible glass on my quest for an exit door, I put my hands out in front of me.
“Hey! We don’t know each other well enough for you to touch me there, Doc.” Maxie chuckled softly. “Let’s go.” She clasped my hand. “The sounds are coming from this direction.”
She was right. The noise was definitely getting louder. A solid wall of chatter, punctuated by shrieks, screams, and laughter with a musical backdrop provided by Black Sabbath increased as we approached. We moved ahead slowly until we reached a set of floor-to-ceiling, padded, saloon-type doors—the kind that open in the center. Maxie pushed against one side of the door and a shaft of soft illumination appeared. We dropped to our hands and knees and crawled through, entering a mezzanine overlooking a wild party below. There were large gaps in the wooden barrier between where we were and thin air, so we stretched out on our stomachs, heads poking beyond the balcony just enough to explore the source of the noise. Maxie slipped a compact camera from her pocket and began clicking.
Light shone from freestanding torches spread throughout the room, and from flame-filled steel barrels in the center, providing soft respite from the prevailing darkness. The music burst from a large, industrial-looking CD player perched on top of some wooden crates.
The building had four sets of double doors at the entrance and all were gaping, either because they’d been propped open with rocks, or the doors themselves were missing. In spite of the ventilation, the air inside the building was thick with smoke from the various fires plus all the cigarettes and joints adding to the mix. Not to mention the sour stench of body odor, which floated like the bottom note of a nauseating perfume. My eyes stung and my lungs ached as I sucked in the acrid air. Maxie didn’t seem to be bothered by the toxic atmosphere.
There had to be at least a hundred people in the performance space. It resembled a rave, except most of the revelers were dressed as their favorite movie or television vampires. In some cases, they wore nothing but tattoos. Maxie was going to be disappointed. This event wouldn’t even present enough twisted behavior to provide her with material for a ridiculous article. Raves were pretty run-of-the-mill. Drugs, sex, alcohol. Not one mutated alien baby head to be found anywhere.
I’d just yawned, blinked my eyes to clear away the tears caused by the smoke, and thought about how great it would be to go home, when the crowd went berserk. The dancers slammed into each other, and the noise level exploded. Everyone started yelling at the tops of their voices and pounding on whatever was at hand. The noise was almost painful. Vicious fights broke out between couples who, moments before, had been extremely friendly.
“What the hell?” I said to Maxie, who paused in her picture taking long enough to shrug.
As if by some invisible signal, a circular opening formed in the middle of the frantic partiers and two robed figures pulled a struggling, scantily dressed female into the center. She fought to free herself, but was held fast. The spectators began chanting, “Kill her! Kill her!” as a third robed person pushed through the mob, heading straight for the woman, a long knife poised in the air. Without a second’s hesitation, he drove the blade into her chest, blood blossoming from the wound.
I gasped and rose to my knees, reaching into the pocket of the bulky parka to find my cell phone. My heart pounded and my hands shook. The amusement park was on the outskirts of town, so who knew how long it would take the police to arrive? As I watched, the woman fell and the robed guy continued stabbing her as she flailed on the floor. Her thin dress was saturated. I palmed my phone, ready to dial 9-1-1, when Maxie grabbed it out of my hand.
I jerked my head in her direction and was shocked to find her smiling. “You’re such a Girl Scout. Get down before they see you. Everything’s okay. I’ve seen this before. Just watch.” She pushed on my shoulder until I lay flat on the floor again, then returned my phone. “Put this back in your pocket. You won’t need it.”
The wannabes in the circle stopped chanting and began cheering. The knife wielder stood, raised his blood-covered blade into the air, and accepted the adulation of the onlookers. Then, he reached a hand down to the woman on the floor and she grasped it, letting herself be pulled into a standing position.
They took a bow and melted into the throng.
What the hell had just happened? Adrenaline flooded my body and my brain spun in stunned confusion.
Maxie shouted into my ear. “Adolescent party tricks. Fake knife. Packets of red paint taped to her body. Watch. There’ll be more. The children aren’t very original tonight.”
That had been a performance? I was so relieved I felt light-headed. Maxie could have warned me before I had an anxiety attack. But why hadn’t my intuition given me a heads-up about the pretense? I’d been really off since we arrived.
I’d just taken a long, deep breath to release any lingering tension in my body when a large, hairy thing crashed through the dancers, scattering them like paper dolls.
On closer inspection, the beastie looked like a big guy in a shaggy bear suit, the head replaced with a wolfish rubber mask. Sort of a low-rent, lupine Bigfoot.
“Oh, eek! It’s a werewolf,” Maxie deadpanned in a high voice.
The creature turned to a shirtless skinny guy, raked its claws down the young man’s chest, leaving dripping blood trails on the white skin.
Maxie leaned in. “Good luck getting rid of all that red stuff. There’s tattoo ink stored in the fake claws.”
I glanced at her and said, loud enough for her to hear, “You seem to know all about this insanity.”
She grinned, pointed at the hairy guy, and made the universal “crazy” gesture, twirling her finger next to her head.
The “werewolf growled, reached down, and grabbed his victim’s neck, tearing away the portion underneath his chin.
The attendees roared, thrusting their fists into the air in manic glee.
Were-foot stood over his victim, pounding his chest. The throat-less man remained prone for a few seconds, then jumped to his feet executing a graceful bow.
They wrapped their arms companionably around each other’s shoulders and were swallowed up by the wannabe herd.
A movement drew my attention and I noticed for the first time a tall man standing on a raised area in the midst of the crazed revelers. He wore dark, loose-fitting, genie-style pants, and his impressive bare chest was partially hidden by unusually long hair. Black, or very dark brown hair. It was impossible to tell in the firelight. He generated an air of authority—standing with legs spread, hands fisted on his hips—as if he were surveying his kingdom. After observing the dancers for a few moments, he raised his arms into the air and the crowd parted, making way for a cluster of black-robed figures to carry in the wooden box I’d seen earlier.
I nudged Maxie and whispered, “Who’s the genie guy with the long hair? Is he the leader of this cult? Have you seen him before?”
She lowered her camera and focused on the tall man. “I don’t know who he is. Never laid eyes on him.” She turned to me, grinning. “But I wouldn’t mind finding out. If he’s a genie, I’d be happy to rub his bottle anytime.”
I almost laughed out loud before catching myself. “That makes two of us.” I was too far away from the intriguing man to see if he really was as attractive as he appeared, but he did seem to have … something.
A couple of the robed participants moved to either side and lifted the top of the wooden box. “This must be the vampire staking portion of the evening’s entertainment,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s about time. If nothing interesting happens soon, we can head out. This has got to be the most boring pseudo-supernatural event I’ve ever attended. Sorry for dragging you out to such a feeble waste of time.”
The moment the top was off the box, the inhabitant started flailing his arms and legs, trying to sit up. The noise of the celebrants diminished a few decibels, as if they’d all quieted to listen to the prisoner scream obscenities. He didn’t disappoint.
Four collaborators lifted the struggling captive—who was a large, nude fellow—out of the box and, each holding an arm or leg, carried him up onto the platform where the long-haired guy waited. The noise level began to rise again as the partiers swarmed closer for a better view.
The victim’s limbs were stretched out to form an X, and the robed lackeys lowered him to the platform’s surface. They held the struggling man in place as the leader bent over, picked up what looked like four huge spikes and a fat hammer, and held them aloft. His dark hair streamed down the front of his body.
“My children! We have gathered here tonight to slay a traitorous vampire. A fiend who has been banished from his coven for disobedience and betrayal. A bloodsucker who will not follow the will of his master. I ask you now—shall he live or die?” The man had a deep, commanding voice that cut through the chaotic sounds in the room with an intimacy that made me squirm with discomfort. Something about his voice troubled me, but I couldn’t get a fix on why.
Then, like a scene from an old movie with the spectators at the Roman coliseum giving the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to determine a gladiator’s fate, the vampire wannabes in the fun house screamed their approval while gesturing downward.
Wow. Who knew role-players took their performances so seriously?
“So be it,” the leader proclaimed as he handed three of the thick spikes to a new helper who’d stepped onto the platform. He held up the remaining spike and the hammer, then leaned down and pounded the spike into the wrist of the man on the floor. The captive screamed and flailed, giving an amazingly authentic performance. Fake blood even spurted from the wound as the man in the genie pants pounded the spike in deeper. The group cheered.
I’ve never been much of a horror movie fan. Not being able to release the ghastly images from my brain after the end of the film definitely put a crimp in my enjoyment of cinematic carnage. So, why the hell was I forcing myself to watch this slasher parody?
The leader stretched out his hand, palm up, and his assistant placed another of the thick spikes there. Stepping over the victim’s head, the torturer thrust the spike into the man’s other wrist, and pounded until it appeared thoroughly wedged into his skin and bones.
More fake blood spewed from the new hole and spread out in a dark circle from the wound. The man’s screams sounded so legitimate that I had to put my hands over my ears at one point and remind myself I was watching theater. I couldn’t figure out how they made the wounds look so real. Maybe this production wasn’t as amateur as I’d assumed.
I leaned into Maxie, bumping her shoulder. She lowered her camera, turned her gaze in my direction, and shook her head. “These people need to get a life,” she shouted into my ear.
A high-pitched wail drew my attention back to the stage. Two more spikes were pounded into the victim’s ankles and his terrified shrieks echoed throughout the building. A familiar smell wafted into my nostrils and my head jerked up. I lifted my nose into the air, sniffing. Blood. My stomach tightened. I didn’t have any trouble recognizing the smell because I’d been up close and personal with it during the murder investigation I was involved in a while back. My office had been drenched with the red stuff.
Why was I smelling blood? The fake version shouldn’t have an odor. Were they using some kind of animal blood? One of my vampire wannabe clients had mentioned using pig blood from his grandfather’s butcher shop in some of his rituals. He said they actually drank it. Yuck.
It was hard to hear the man’s screams over the uproar of the audience, but he seemed to be suffering. In fact, his performance was terrifying. A miserable thought occurred to me and I felt sick. I’d recently worked with a client who enjoyed being physically abused. Experiencing pain was the only way he knew to feel alive. And the only way he could have an orgasm. I wondered if the man on the stage was like my client. Had he signed up for this torture? Or was he the best actor I’d ever seen? If he was mentally ill enough to allow himself to be tortured, shouldn’t I do something?
The observers were jumping up and down now, too excited to contain themselves. They’d cheered as each spike pierced the skin and more of the oozing liquid spread onto the platform. There was so much of the dark substance pooling around the man’s na**d body that it began to drip off the edges and slide down onto the floor. A few adventurous wannabes leaped over to the dripping fluid, slid their hands through it, and smeared it on their faces, licking the remains from their fingers.
The leader stood, planted his bare foot on the victim’s round stomach, and stared down at the bloodied man impaled on the platform. The man’s sobs and screams had diminished in volume. Had he passed out for real, or was he still acting?