It didn’t matter how many times Daniel Mercer screamed for
help, because not even his heavy metal death cry could wake the dead bodies
left in the holding cell. As he sat in an even darker room with his hands and
legs bound, the brutalized corpses of his friends kept flashing across his face
like schizophrenic ghosts. He screamed for them to go away and stop haunting
him, but the louder his screams became, the less his tortured brain cared.
No matter how many times he tormented himself with these
images, it couldn’t compare to the actual strobe lights dancing and flickering
across the room, each of them blindingly bright to where closing his eyes
didn’t relieve the soreness. Obnoxiously loud music blared in the background
and pierced his eardrums like a poisonous dart. Not even Daniel’s shrieks for
help could drown out this familiar heavy metal beat. The same grinding guitars,
funky bass, and machinegun drums that he had grown to love were being used to
make his ears bleed. The vocalist’s death growls were indecipherable, though
something about a “Valentine’s Day Massacre” seemed vaguely familiar.
“Turn it off, Roger! Turn that shit off! I can’t take it
anymore!” shouted Daniel. Instead of getting what he demanded, the volume was
turned to its absolute maximum and the strobe lights were even faster and even
more grating on his eyes. The music could probably be heard from miles away,
but Daniel was right here feeling his brain turn to mush, either through
physical brain damage or going insane.
His eardrums went numb and his vision made him a candidate
for Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder jokes until the end of time. In what Daniel
thought was his temporary moment of freedom, the ghosts of his fallen comrades
paid him a visit once more. The original members of Demon Axe were the first to
show their floating heads and dangling spinal cords.
“You fucked up, Daniel. You fucked up badly, my friend,”
said Vulture Man.
“When is enough going to be enough? How many more of us need
to die so that you can keep making a living?” said Pig Man.
“We didn’t ask for our heads to be chopped off. We didn’t
sign up for war. We wanted to play music. How the hell can I bang the drums
with no arms and no legs?!” shouted G-Pac.
Tears rolled down Daniel’s eyes and added to the fiery sting
he felt from the quickly blinking lights. He couldn’t even hear himself say,
“I’m sorry, guys. I wish I could take it back.”
“Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up
first!” blared a familiar Arab accent. The image of Tarantula Man with a
mangled body and limbs hanging in odd places danced into view. “You promised us
paradise. You promised us heavy metal. Well, the only heavy metal I ever got
was the blade of a machete! That shit hurts like hell! But it doesn’t hurt
nearly as much as knowing my band mates will never see their guitarist again.”
“What about MY band mates, Daniel?” said Bear Man as he
crawled into view with the lower half of his body missing and the rest of his
body bloodied to a pulp. “Did you think I was going to forget about the boys
and girls of Juice? Did you think Tarantula Man was going to forget about I Am
Death? Just because you took our names and gave us these disgusting aliases,
doesn’t mean we’re your permanent bitches!”
“Lady Killer?! What kind of a goddamn name is Lady Killer?!”
The aforementioned drummer of Juice crawled across the floor leaving a pool of
blood in her wake. “Face it, Daniel: this is all your fault. Every one of us is
dead because of you! What did Roger Zee say about hastening the inevitable? Did
it have to start with us?!”
The members of Daniel’s various bands all shouted together
in a cacophony of swear words and vitriol that rivaled the heavy metal music
playing in his torture cell. The tears became hotter and more plentiful. The
rage inside him exploded like a gasoline fire. He could feel his limbs growing
stronger and his teeth grinding away. In a voice he could finally hear, Daniel
screamed, “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”
“Why should they, Daniel? Are they saying things that you
don’t want to hear? But isn’t that the purpose of heavy metal music: to bring
the truth to light?” asked Johnny Vega, who had gushes of blood pouring out of
him like a river of violence.
Sonia Marquez, who had no arms or legs, scooted over to
Daniel with a wicked glare on her face. She rasped, “If I had my limbs right
now, I would suplex your ass until the end of time. And to think, I actually
had a crush on you. I would have been a hell of a lot better of a lay than that
Raven chick you were running around with! What has she ever done for you
anyways?!”
“Don’t you ever talk about her like that again!” Daniel
roared, his fiery voice blowing away the spiritual essences of his former
friends. He kept breathing fire and poison until all that remained of his
traumatic insanity was the loveliest thing he had ever seen: Raven Triscloud in
a purple Celtic dress. Daniel’s tears felt chilly on his cheeks as they soothed
his burning pain. They were even more freezing when Raven blew him a whirlwind
kiss.
“Find me, Daniel. Help me. You’re my only hope. You are our
only hope. You must stop Roger Zee before he destroys everything we love,” said
Raven in a beautiful high-pitched voice.
“I’m sorry, Raven…I tried so hard…I tried…” sobbed Daniel.
“It’s not over yet, Daniel. Not by a long shot. Find me, my
love…find me…find me…” said Raven in a voice that got progressively softer
until her spiritual essence was blown away by a tornado of obnoxious sound.
Daniel screamed for her to come back, but she never did. All
that remained was a bright white light and the shadowy visage of a familiar
middle-aged man. The raging heavy metal music was gone, the strobe lights were
dim, but Daniel was so far down the rabbit hole that all he did was shake,
grunt, sob, and bleed. He could barely hear the shadow figure call his name.
There was no way this could be Raven or any of his friends. This man had a bald
head. And pointy ears. And green skin.
Daniel, with now free hands, wrapped his fingers around the
shadow man’s throat until he could feel the wind being sucked out of him. The
grip became tighter than a hangman’s noose and more violent than barbed wire.
Finally, the shadow man said, “Daniel, stop it! It’s me, Detective Shawn Henry!
I’m here to help!”
The Lord of the Pit’s grip weakened until his arms were
limper than spaghetti. That was all of the fight he could put up after being
tortured for so long. His body felt like it had been crushed in a trash
compactor. His skin felt raw and shredded like meat. His crotch felt wet and
smelled like rancid fruit. His mouth, ears, nose, and eyes felt like he was
drowning in a lake of blood and lava.
Despite the cataclysm of agony he was in, Daniel could
comprehend what Shawn was saying as the detective held out a familiar shape. “I
got your microphone out of the evidence locker and came here as fast as I
could. Mr. Mercer, this isn’t a police station. This is a black site. We had it
shut down for obvious reasons, but it seems Roger has brought it back to life.”
With a mouthful of biological sludge, Daniel struggled to
say, “Where is she? Where’s Raven? I need her…”
“Don’t worry, Daniel, we’ll find her, whoever she is. But
right now, the world needs you, buddy. I’m sorry for arresting you and bringing
you to this awful place. My family’s lives were on the line. But given Roger
Zee’s reckless ways, I doubt they’re even alive right now. Terrorists don’t
keep their end of the bargain, which is why we’re not supposed to negotiate
with them. I’d rather my wife and daughter be in a better place than spend another
minute with that…that…” Tears formed in Shawn’s eyes as he wiped them away with
his calloused fingertips.
Daniel spit out the venom brewing in his mouth and said,
“The word you’re looking for is asshole, Detective! Roger Zee is an asshole!
And if he lays one fucking finger on Raven, I’m going to kill him!” The burst
of anger caused him to cough up more bile and blood.
“You have your microphone now, Daniel. You can do this! We
can do this!” cheered Shawn.
The Lord of the Pit breathed heavily for a while and said,
“Fuck heavy metal. Fuck it! I don’t need it anymore. I can’t listen to it now.
If we’re going to kill this motherfucker…well, fuck, where are your goddamn
tanks and drones and shit?!”
“Daniel, I know you’ve been through a lot, but if you give
up on your music now, then…”
“Then what? I’ll actually have some peace for the first time
in my life?”
Shawn’s expression became solemn as he grabbed Daniel by his
back and legs and carried him baby style out of the black site. The Lord of the
Pit, whose magical microphone sat in his lap, glared at the instrument of
destruction with poisonous disdain and said, “I hate you, you stupid
microphone. I fucking hate you!”
