CHAPTER 28: MAYHEM & THE BEAT
I drew my gun, and more for the fukk of it than anything else started popping caps at random. The anticipated jerk-off stampede never materialized, though. Maybe they thought it was an art piece I was firing.
Lucifers Crank took the stage in a hail of beer cans and bad vibrations. The whole crowd seemed amped for a Texas brawl, bodies flying through the air even before a note was sounded. The smell of hairspray and homicide hung thick in the night and something told me shoot first, ask questions never. I thought I saw Suzy disappearing backstage, but I couldn't be sure with the lights and the smoke from my gun. Big chords beat at my chest like the surf at a blood bank.
The song was called "Teenagers From Mars" and at least you knew that they meant it. The crowd became a mob with ticket stubs, having their way with the hall. No rules, no order, just mayhem and the beat as the living corpses swelled against the stage in a frenzy as dark as the lid of a country coffin.
Then the speed overtook me again. I saw myself -- a spirit of flesh, hot as an oven, burning away. The music turned light and transparent, the crowd a field of dandelions, each soul a head to be popped. I fired blindly; bodies fell, meaningful glances instantly death throes. The front of the stage and my Luger loomed large. I felt my mind snap, but my body forged on toward naked daylight and the land of free cocktails.
The wall of humanity was so thick I could barely move, but I was close enough to see Suzy-Q enter through the Members Only doorway with matrimonial warfare etched on her face. I gave a mighty heave forward and fell in not three feet from the action, just in time to see her double-take as she spotted Natasha and Faust at the center of their grimey tableau. She tried to escape, but her way was blocked by two writhing bodies, long enough for Faust to ask --
"Equalizer's daughter...artistic discipline...delicious...seize her..."
In a heartbeat Suzy was naked and covered in paint. I sprang to attention, so hard I almost split a seam. Her tiny frame called to mind afternoons spent in my sweltering adolescent crawlspace drooling over a dog-eared copy of The Diary of Anne Frank.
Natasha appraised her victim coldly, but not without hatred.
"Your father is a man whom I loathe beyond measure, whom I've sworn to destroy by any means necessary."
If this was meant to alarm Suzy, she didn't show it. On the contrary, she seemed glad that someone else shared her fatal vision of the old man.
"That was the last thing my mother said, before she joined the flea circus."
Natasha couldn't speak for one long moment; recognition, then confusion crossed her face, but didn't know where to land. Finally, she struck a harsh blow to Suzy's sternum, knocking her windless.
"Save your breath, darling. Elmo, you and the others tie her to the ceiling."
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CHAPTER 29: EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE
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