Shrouded in darkness, the Lord of the Pit swirled his wooden
ladle in the bubbling red concoction before him. The thickness of the liquid
was like lava flowing in a volcano. The Lord, with his face painted as a
skeleton and his long hair grayer than a cantankerous witch, looked down at his
cauldron creation with a sadistic grin. His three cohorts, each of them donning
black robes and vicious-looking masks, held out their steel bowls while the
Lord of the Pit scooped and poured the demonic liquid into their dishes. “Drink
it in, minions,” he said in a gravelly, haunting voice.
The first to consume his bowl of unholy soup was Pig Man, who
as his name suggested wore the mask of a gray-skinned pig with tusks on either
side and a brass nose ring through his snout. He also drank like a pig: quickly
and sloppily, getting some of the brew on his robe. Pig Man let out an
obnoxious burp to signify his satisfaction with his “meal”.
The second to feast upon the bubbling red muck was Vulture
Man, whose mask bore a sinister scowl and a blade-like beak. Unlike his hoggish
cohort, Vulture Man took small sips at first. Any trace of good dinner manners
disappeared when he buried his face in his bowl and slobbered the liquid down.
Instead of a burp, he let out a prolonged “Ah!” in a relaxed voice.
G-Pac, who wore the mask of a rotten-toothed, black painted,
hollow-eyed clown, shook his head at his friends and chuckled with delight.
“I’d say that hit the spot, wouldn’t you agree, Master?” The sinister clown
drank his potion in one gulp and smashed the bowl over his head, shattering it
into pieces. The mouth hole in his mask showed traces of an evil grin while a
small trickle of blood ran down his forehead and into the cauldron.
“I truly am surrounded by pure gentlemen tonight,” said the
Lord of the Pit, who took a swig from his own bowl and splashed it all over his
gray trench coat and Demon Axe T-shirt. He threw his bowl off to the side and
rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “And now my minions, join
hands as I recite the Demon’s Prayer.”
With all four of these unholy clerics holding hands and
bowing their heads with closed eyes, the Lord of the Pit spoke in his ominous
voice. “Oh, Demon of Death, grant us your fire, your strength, and your
passion. Let the masses join together in the circle pit and release their
vicious energy. Don’t let our newest member, Pig Man, screw up tonight. And for
god’s sake, Demon of Death, don’t let me be an asshole on stage. Don’t let any
of my band mates say, ‘Too late!’”.
“Too late!” chimed in Vulture
Man.
“And punish those who do!” said the Lord of the Pit, which
earned a modicum of laughter from Pig Man, G-Pac, and even the smart-assed
Vulture Man. The Lord pointed to the ceiling with his index finger and said,
“That last one was for you, Master Carlin.” He ducked his head back down and
said, “Alone, we are warriors of the music industry. Together, we are…”
“Demon Axe!” said the band mates in unison.
“Who are we?!” shouted the Lord.
“Demon Axe!”
“Amen, motherfuckers. Now let’s go out there and fuck shit
up!”
The four members of the band released each other’s hands and
marched their way beyond the stage curtain. With the stage lights dim and the
audience chanting Demon Axe’s name, the band took their positions to the
loudest of cheers. G-Pac sat at his drum kit, with his drum sticks resembling
bloodied clubs. Vulture Man started strumming heavily on his electric guitar,
the neck of which looked like the blade of a broad sword. Pig Man took his spot
at the bass guitar, an instrument with strings that looked like pieces of
ground up sausage.
The last band mate to take his position was The Lord of the
Pit, who upon adjusting his battleaxe-shaped microphone received a thunderous
ovation from the wild and crazy outdoor crowd. “What the fuck is going on, Paulson City?!” he shouted in his throaty voice,
earning an even louder response from the audience. “You want to talk about some
crazy shit?! We’re kicking this motherfucker off with Zombie-Ogre! Get that
fucking circle pit going! One! Two! Three! Let’s go!”
The members of Demon Axe banged their heads and pumped out a
heavy metal tune with a grinding guitar, a funky bass, and rapid-fire drums.
The mosh pit in the audience intensified with every shove, resulting in
bruises, bumps, and bloody gashes. With pyrotechnics bursting in the
background, The Lord of the Pit began his lyrical assault on an already banged
up audience.
“Eat, sleep, shatter, repeat! / Ultra-violence for human
meat! / Winner, winner, chicken dinner! / The glutinous one is a true sinner! /
Blood on his fangs, flesh on his tongue! / Poison in his gut, disease in his
lungs! / Zombie-Ogre is coming to kill! / Cannibalism, a sadistic thrill!”
As Pig Man and Vulture Man screamed the chorus into their
bone and skull microphones, The Lord of the Pit stopped head banging for a
moment and had a faraway look in his eyes. He was probably accustomed to
looking at ghosts all the time with his dark fantasy gimmick, but this time, he
actually looked like he saw a ghost. His eyes were wide, his body was still
despite the heavy metal thrashing going on, and he frowned his worst frown.
“Stop the music! Stop the goddamn music! Do it, now!”
ordered the Lord of the Pit, to which the band mates reluctantly complied. The
antsy audience cheered at their wildest level, clearly suffering from heavy
metal withdrawal. The Lord pointed his finger out in the distance and said,
“Stagehands, I want you to shine a big red light on that guy in the back. The
one with the brown robe and the hood over his face. You’ll understand why in a
minute. Just fucking do it!”
The red light was shining down upon the robed figure in the
far back of the venue. Such an evil color seemed appropriate considering he was
carrying a lengthy machete in his hands with blood dripping down from the
blade. Audience members screamed and slowly backed away from him.
“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Security Detail! You guys are sure
earning your money tonight!” said a sarcastic Lord of the Pit with his arms
flailing about. “Seriously, where the fuck are you guys?! How is it that not
one bouncer has tackled this guy yet?! I guess he’s just a really good fighter,
right? A whole group of three hundred pound men and not one of them can take
down a jackass with a machete! It’s a simple matter of physics, people! A guy
with a blade cannot fight off that many fat-assed bouncers! I don’t care if
he’s the love child of Bruce Lee and a Xiaolin fucking monk! It’s damned near
impossible!”
The audience booed and flashed downwards thumbs and middle
fingers at the machete-wielding warrior, who didn’t flinch one bit. He just
stood there as still as a statue and as stoic as the heartless killer he was.
The Lord of the Pit continued his rant with, “I’ll tell you guys what. Since
security is too lazy to do their fucking jobs, I’ve got a better idea on how we
can handle this. Normally, I don’t encourage this kind of thing at my shows,
but this asshole is giving us no other choice. How about this: you, the
audience, form a circle pit around that guy and see how tough he really is when
he’s got a whole army going up against him!”
The crowd erupted into deafening cheers and leonine roars,
raising their fists to the skies and letting their mostly pierced tongues hang
down from their mouths. “Are you ready?!” shouted the Lord of the Pit, to which
the crowd cheered even more aggressively. “One! Two! Three! Get him!” The rowdy
and animalistic crowd descended upon the machete fighter ready to beat his ass
into powder.
Nobody counted on the mysterious warrior removing his hood
to reveal green flesh and elongated ears, to which the crowd backed off and the
Lord of the Pit shouted, “Holy shit!” The machete fighter threw one slash and
lopped off the heads of several audience members, their necks gushing like
volcanoes of blood and their bodies dropping to the ground almost instantly.
Audience members wailed and ran with their arms flailing in
the air while the elfish murderer stabbed them in the gut, hacked off their
arms and legs, and slashed their throats. In such quick and unrivaled
movements, the elf turned this outdoor concert venue into an ocean of thick
blood, splattered organs, shredded skin, and shattered bones.
Among the frightened people desperately trying to escape
were the members of Demon Axe themselves. They looked like anything but unholy
knights as they ran like Olympians behind the curtain, past the backstage area,
and through the cheaply-built door, which the Lord of the Pit battered down
with one shoulder tackle. With his mind scrambling in different directions, his
heart beating like G-Pac’s double bass drums, and sweat raining from his
painted skin, the Lord of the Pit shed his gray trench coat and bolted toward
the Demon Axe tour bus. He shot up the stairs and made a football tackle onto
the soft plushy couch.
The Lord’s breathing was heavy and raspy as he closed his
eyes and sprawled out on the couch. He heard the bus doors close and the driver
attempting to start the engine, which snapped him out of his exhausted state
and forced him to look around for his band mates, none of whom were on the bus.
“Hold on a second! Driver, where the hell is everyone?! We
can’t just leave them out there with this psychopath! Open the goddamn doors
and let them in!” demanded the Lord of the Pit. As he frantically looked
around, he saw something out of the window that made his bloodshot eyes shoot
up in horror and load up with tears. The elf warrior stood outside the tour bus
with a frightening smile on his face, audience members screaming and running in
the background, and the severed heads and spinal columns of Pig Man, Vulture
Man, and G=Pac in his fists.
While the elf was laughing evilly to himself, the Lord of
the Pit banged on the window and shouted “No!” repeatedly in prolonged
cinematic fashion. The bus’s engine finally started and the vehicle drove away
into the night, the elf never taking his burning orange eyes off of the
screaming and traumatized singer.
With the arena far behind him, the Lord of the Pit continued
to scream and cry in agony at the thought of his former band mates decapitated
by this monster of a human being, if he could be called that. He scrambled
toward his mini refrigerator and pulled out everything from its confines
whether it was lunch meat, ice cream, or what he was truly looking for, a
gigantic bottle of booze.
The Lord eyed the bottle with heavy tears and heavy
breathing. “This is just what I fucking need.” He quickly unscrewed the top and
chucked the entire bottle in only a matter of minimal gulps. Once the bottle
was empty, he smashed it against his head several times. The bottle finally
broke after the fifth strike. With a bloodied scalp and a drunken, traumatized
mind, the once mighty Lord of the Pit dropped down to his knees and fell flat
on his face. He intended to sleep that way for the rest of this god-forsaken
night.
“I’d get that wound wrapped up if I were you, Daniel,” said
the driver, which earned him a lazy middle finger from the Lord of the Pit.
Lord of the Pit? Who was he kidding? His band mates were dead. Most of his fans
were dead. The whole dark fantasy gimmick was just bullshit. And now the man
legally known as Daniel P. Mercer was just a sad drunk with paint and blood all
over his face.
