riffs, Necessary Evil’s music appealed to a wide cross spectrum, and they were out in force tonight. The Delft Theatre used to be a movie house, before the multi-screen complex opened up across town. It was nothing special, but bands, on their way up or their way down, played there from time to time. It could hold a thousand people, and Necessary Evil looked like it would fill that bill.
The blonde giggled again and backed up, pressing her ass right against his groin. She gasped, and turned around.
“Sorry,” Don said, grinning. His ears turned red. The blonde snapped her gum at him and resumed her conversation with her friend. He didn’t blame her. Don knew all-too well what an imposing figure he cut. He was built like a refrigerator and his shaved head made him look like a club bouncer or mob muscle. He dug the look. It worked for him. Especially in the pit…
Necessary Evil’s mosh pits were legendary, and Don had been waiting six months to try it out for himself, ever since the concert was first announced. He watched some of the younger concert-goers, cocky, arrogant little fuckers that would get in the pit and try to break noses, arms, head—stomp, punch, hit—and call it moshing. He couldn’t stand that shit, and if any of them pulled it on him, they’d be sorry. Stupid fucks. It was that kind of a mentality that led to what happened at that Suicide Run concert in Pennsylvania a few years back. Or even Dimebag Darrel’s death—no respect for the artists. Don wasn’t sure when, but sometime between Anthrax’s
Eventually, the doors opened, and the line rushed forward. Don was swept up with them, and managed to cop one more glance at the blonde’s ass before she vanished into the crowd.
He got his hand stamped so that he wouldn’t be sequestered with the under-21 crowd, and then made his way to the bar. He sipped a cold beer and watched the women. None of them had anything on his wife, Debbie. Don missed her. He wished she could have come along, but she wasn’t into Necessary Evil’s music, and had stayed home with the kids. He’d kissed her goodbye before he left. She’d been watching the evening news, something about an accident at a government research facility on the east coast.
A local disc jockey came out on stage and tried to warm up the crowd. He was met with boos and jeers. When he was done promoting the station’s lame, Howard Stern rip-off morning show, the opening band, Your Kid’s On Fire, took the stage. Don had never heard them, but it was clear that the younger kids in the club had. A mosh pit erupted in front of the stage as the band launched into their first song.
The music was typical Nordic black-metal; growly metal is what Don called it. He watched in amused disgust as one kid leaped into the air and landed on another’s back. The unlucky individual crashed to the floor and disappeared beneath a wave of swarming bodies.
Don spied the blonde from the line outside. She was standing at the edge of the circle, laughing with her friends and watching with excited interest. Suddenly, a guy with an eight ball tattooed on his forehead lunged forward, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into the pit. A fist crashed into her jaw, and the gum flew from her mouth.
“Hey,” Don shouted, rising from his seat at the bar. “That’s fucked up!”
He slammed his beer down on the bar and waded into the fray. Blood streamed from the girls head, and then she vanished from sight, bobbing helplessly in the frantic sea of moshers. When Don spied her again, her nose was a swollen, spurting, crimson bulb.
He shoved people out of the way and entered the eye of the storm.
The girl collapsed to the floor, and somebody landed a solid kick to her head with their steel-toed boot. Don slammed into the attacker and knocked him sprawling.
The band stopped playing in mid-song, and the lights came up. Groans of dismay and angry shouts gave way to silence, and a hush fell over the crowd Don knelt beside the girl, cradling her head in his lap. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled.
He checked for a pulse, and found none. Her skin was pale, and Don was shocked at the amount of blood. It was everywhere—on her clothes, her face, the floor. He put his ear to her mouth, but she wasn’t breathing.
“Yo,” a concert-goer behind him asked. “She okay, dog?”
“No,” Don said. “She—I think she’s dead.”
“That’s fucked up.”
Don checked her wrist again, but there was no pulse. The warmth was leaving the girl’s body. He laid her down on the mosh pit floor, just as two beefy security guards pushed their way through the crowd to him.
“Clear a hole,” one of them shouted, eyeing Don with suspicion. “What happened?”
“Somebody kicked her,” Don said. He looked around for the guy with the eight ball tattoo, but the attacker had melted into the crowd.
“Hey,” one of the bouncers suddenly shouted.
“She’s alive. She’s moving!”
The blonde sat up, her blood bright and garish against her alabaster skin. She grinned, and then sank her teeth into Don’s crotch.
Surprisingly, there was no pain, just a dull, cold sensation. He looked down and saw her burrowing into the streaming wound, like a dog burying a bone.
His last thought was one of quiet dismay. He’d never get to see Necessary Evil’s mosh pit for himself.
FAMILY REUNION
Terry Schue yawned and said, “Where are they?”
“Maybe they got delayed,” Chip suggested.
“Traffic could have been bad.”
“No.” Terry shook his head. “They would have called.”
“This is your family we’re talking about,” Chip grunted. “Do you really expect your mom or stepfather to pick up the phone and let you know they’re running late? That would indicate common courtesy on their parts.”
“What are you saying?”
“I mean your mom was mentally abusive to you all these years, and your stepfather used to beat the shit out of you both. Why would they feel the need to call and let us know they’re late?”
“Okay,” Terry replied. “But they’re still my family, and I do love them, despite everything. My step-dad has been trying to make up for all of that ever since he got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And Mom has mellowed with age.”
“They’ll have to prove it to me. We’ve been together eighteen years, Terry, and I’ve seen just what your family is capable of. I hate the way they treat you sometimes. Just because Bob has suddenly been humbled by his own mortality, doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s a bully.”
Terry watched the pier through the rain, looking for his mother and stepfather’s car, or his sister’s van. “Besides,” Chip continued, “if your mom is as psychic as she claims, wouldn’t she have seen whatever delayed them in advance?”
“Chantal would call at least. She’s got Dad with her.”Terry’s real father, Mike, had his leg amputated the year before, and now spent his time in a wheelchair, popping pain pills and drinking himself into oblivion. He was coming to the reunion with Terry’s sister, Chantal.
The raindrops whispered against the boat’s deck, and plunked into the waters of Lake Vermilion. In the distance, they could see the town of Virginia. Terry’s family was supposed to arrive around dawn, after driving all night, for the annual family reunion. The gathering was held each year at Terry and Chip’s place on Ghost Island. The lakeside dwelling was accessible from the mainland only by boat. Chip reached out and squeezed his hand. “The weather probably slowed them down. That’s all. Everything will be fine.”
Terry smiled at him, and tried to relax. That was easy to do with Chip at his side. They’d met when Terry was nineteen and Chip was thirty-two, and Terry still thanked God every day for putting Chip in his life.
The boat rocked slightly as Chip walked over to the radio and turned it on. Terry watched him as he moved
