by AnonYMous
In time to see Julius finally make his move.
From his place at the back of the stage among the losers, the purple-suited singer charged forward towards Jacko and Powell. ‘STOP!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t sign it!’
He barged past Nina Forina, almost knocking her off her feet. Seeing him coming, Powell tried to hurry Jacko along.
‘Ignore him. Quick, sign it!’ he urged.
From somewhere high up in the auditorium there came the sound of more glass shattering. It was not as loud as the noise Sanchez had heard a minute earlier, but even so it startled him. He turned in the direction of the sound, in time to see the glass at the front of the deejay’s sound booth fragment and shower down on the audience below, like a river of ice crystals.
Down on the stage, Julius reached out and grabbed the collar of Jacko’s suit jacket, trying to pull him back before he signed the contract. He had the handful of black cloth in his grip for less than a second before a gunshot rang out.
BANG!
Sanchez watched on in paralysed horror as Julius’s head exploded. A neat hole appeared in his forehead. A fraction of a second later the back of his head opened up and a cloud of blood and brains sprayed out over a wide area of the stage. There was a particularly unpleasant sound as a huge chunk of soft, wet matter splattered on to the front of Nina Forina’s silver dress. Scarlet specks flew up into her face and she screamed out loud in shock and terror. The high-pitched scream served as the catalyst for a thousand others from horrified onlookers in the audience.
Sanchez looked first at Julius’s lifeless body as it fell to the floor of the stage. It made a loathsome thudding sound as it crashed to the floorboards. From the ruined head blood pumped out on to the stage and down over what was left of the singer’s face. His wig, dislodged by the shot, lay in a pool of it, gradually soaking it up. For a few seconds his dead eyes stared across the stage directly at Sanchez, before rolling up in his head, leaving only the whites exposed. That’s about the fifth fuckin’ time that’s happened today, thought Sanchez, inconsequentially. Sickened, and extremely scared, he looked up at the gunman in the deejay’s booth. Now that his head had cleared, he recognized him as the darkly dressed guy with the hood pulled up over his head, the shadow of it covering much of his face. Sanchez had passed him in a corridor earlier, and seen him up in the deejay’s booth just before the results were announced. That’s a guy I won’t forget in a hurry, he thought.
He tugged violently at Elvis’s gold jacket and pointed up at the sound booth. ‘That guy just shot Julius!’
‘Yeah? No shit, Sherlock.’
‘D’ya think he’s dead?’
‘With his brains all over the goddam stage, I guess I’d have say of course he’s fuckin’ dead. Dumbass.’
‘But he’s the thirteenth Apostle!’
Understandably, Janis Joplin still looked confused. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘He was the thirteenth Apostle,’ Sanchez gabbled, pointing at Julius’s corpse. ‘He was the only one coulda have saved us all, and now he’s dead. We’re all fucked!’
Janis frowned. ‘Don’t be an asshole. That’d make him more’n two thousand years old.’
‘I’m willin’ to believe it,’ said Sanchez.
‘Yeah? But he looks about thirty. Thirty-five at most.’
‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s an Apostle.’
Janis clearly wasn’t buying it. ‘So do Apostles get, like, free anti-ageing cream from the drugstore?’
‘They might.’ Sanchez wasn’t at all sure where all this was leading.
‘Kinda a shame, then, he didn’t think to pick up any hair restorer while he was there.’
Sanchez frowned. When she wasn’t swearing at him or anyone else, Janis could be pretty sarcastic. ‘Look,’ he tried again, ‘we were told by a guy who knows about these things. Weren’t we?’ he looked to Elvis for support.
‘Yeah. But, I dunno, man. Maybe it was all bullshit?’
‘But Gabriel believed it.’
‘Yeah, but he’da believed Joan Rivers was twenty-one if ya’d told him.’
Sanchez suddenly felt very worried. As well as scared. Had Gabriel been duped by Julius? ‘So is there a thirteenth Apostle or ain’t there?’ he thought aloud.
‘Doubt it,’ said Janis. ‘Though I did read about one once. I’m sure he’s buried in Africa, or something.’
‘Maybe it’s that guy?’ said Elvis, pointing at Jacko, who had now signed his name on the contract that Powell had held out to him.
By now it was hard to hear what anyone was saying. Most of the audience were screaming. In fact, pretty much everyone on the stage except Powell and Jacko was running around screaming at the sight of Julius’s body, as well as the thought that the gunman up in the booth might fire again. At them.
Then, as the audience members began fleeing the auditorium, they found that they had something new to scream about. There was no escape. Zombies swarmed in from all the exits. Blocking the way out.
The carnage was only just beginning.
Fifty-Eight
Nigel Powell looked at his wristwatch. 12:59 a.m. Now that was cutting it fine. The show had been a disaster. He promised himself he’d never allow it to run this late again. Better security was required for next year. And a tighter running schedule. Still, it was over now. Jacko had signed his name on the contract. Show over.
Next year, there would be no place for James Brown impersonators. Julius had come closer than anyone to fucking up the show. But who was he? And why had he been so desperate to win? As he considered possible answers, another question popped into Powell’s head. Who the fuck had shot Julius? Sure, he himself had ordered security to find him and take him on a one-way trip to the desert. But that had been earlier. He hadn’t given orders to anyone on the security detail to pull a firearm and shoot if Julius made a lunge for the contract. Well, he’d order a full review of proceedings later. For now he was just relieved to have another sucker sign his contract with the Devil.
He had to concede that Jacko’s calm demeanour was impressive. The young singer had been unfazed at seeing Julius gunned down. And even now, with the zombies beginning to rip the crowd in the auditorium to pieces, he seemed remarkably unconcerned. Both he and Powell had a few spots of blood from Julius’s shattered head on their clothes. The hotel owner’s white suit was ruined. Jacko’s black jacket hid the stains pretty well. Still, Powell could live with a ruined suit. It would be better than swapping places with Jacko. He knew what was coming next for the winning finalist, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, nodding at the bloodied corpse just behind them. His distaste was only too evident. ‘But congratulations on winning the show. Well deserved.’
‘Thanks,’ Jacko replied, smiling. ‘Been a strange kinda day, ain’t it?’
‘It certainly has.’ Powell turned his attention towards a couple of security guards who were loitering at the back. Like everyone else on the stage, they were staring in horrified disbelief at the zombies attacking the audience.
‘Hey you guys!’ he called to them. ‘Stay onstage, yeah? The zombies won’t come up here.’
He looked out at the auditorium. The zombies were sprawling in through every exit, clawing at screaming members of the audience, biting chunks of flesh out of them. It was a horrific sight, but one that Powell was used to. He’d seen it many times before. The zombies liked to attack in numbers and were singling out vulnerable fans who had been separated from the groups that had managed to stick together. Three or four of the loathsome, decaying creatures would gang up and attack each individual. There were terrified high-pitched screams from women who were having their arms and legs ripped off by gangs of the mutant flesh eaters. Young men too, shrieked like children as zombies gouged out their eyes, bit into their legs and ripped off their clothing.
Watching dispassionately, Powell breathed a sigh of relief as he thought about how the show had been cut so close to the
deadline of 1:00 a.m. He gazed on the massacre for a few seconds, allowing himself a thin smile, before turning back to Jacko.
‘Don’t mind the ghouls,’ he said. ‘Those – things – will be on their way once they see that you’ve signed the contract.’
‘I ain’t so sure,’ said Jacko coolly, peering out at the carnage in the auditorium.
As the originator, owner, promoter and chief judge of the show, Powell had always found that each year the winner would inevitably be a little shocked by the appearance of the undead and the bloody mayhem they brought with them. He remembered the previous year’s winner, a Dusty Springfield impersonator. She had screamed the place down, becoming really quite hysterical. He had been unable to calm her and had been greatly relieved when the Man in Red had stepped out of the audience. He had reached into her chest and ripped out her soul. Nasty business, really. But inevitable.
The arrival of Powell’s evil acquaintance from the mirror always signified an end to the evening’s proceedings. Once again he looked at his watch, then smiled at Jacko. Any second now the Man in Red would silently materialize from some dark corner, reach into Jacko’s chest with his ghostly hands and remove his soul. The fact that the singer wasn’t screaming in panic like most of the previous winners was making things much easier for Nigel Powell.
Eventually, right on cue as Powell’s wristwatch emitted a tiny chime to signify one o’clock and the end of the witching hour, the Man in Red appeared at the back of the stage, grinning like a kid let loose in a candy store. Jacko had his back to him, and so didn’t see him approaching. Powell did his best to keep the Blues Brother distracted as the big black man with the big white grin and the sharp red suit and hat sidled up to them.
‘You know,’ said Powell affably, placing a hand on Jacko’s shoulder, ‘I personally thought Judy Garland was going to win, but you really did the Blues Brothers proud with that cover of “Sweet Home Chicago”.’
‘Cover, my ass!’ Jacko scoffed.
‘Excuse me?’ said Powell. Jacko’s aloof, even arrogant, attitude since winning had him somewhat perplexed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Cover? Pah. That was no cover version. The Blues Brothers covered it. Not me.’ He shrugged his shoulder to dislodge the other man’s hand.
‘Huh?’ Powell was confused. ‘How do you mean? “Sweet Home Chicago” was a Blues Brothers song, wasn’t it? Sure it was – I saw them sing it in the movie.’
‘Yeah, you did. But they didn’t write it.’
‘Ah. Right. I see what you’re getting at. So who did?’
Jacko took off his hat and placed it on Powell’s head, pushing it down firmly. Then he winked at his new employer.
‘I wrote “Sweet Home Chicago”,’ he said.
The hotel owner stood rooted to the spot, trying to fathom what Jacko could possibly mean. Then an icy chill swept through him and his face dropped. He looked down at the bulky contract in his hand and quickly flicked through the pages to the end. When he got to the last page he fixed his eyes on the signature at the bottom. The name that Jacko had signed stood out. Each letter of it was like a knife thrust to Powell’s heart.
Robert Leroy Johnson
He looked back up at the young man standing before him. Only now Jacko was not alone. Elvis, Sanchez and Janis had all drifted over to see what was going on. Even more worryingly, the Man in Red had joined them and was now standing with his arm around Jacko’s shoulder.
‘Good to see you again, Mister Johnson,’ he said, grinning at Jacko.
Powell was stunned. He looked at Jacko, unable to mask his shock. ‘You’re Robert Johnson? The Blues Man?’
‘The very same.’
‘But… but, didn’t you sell your soul to the Devil about a hundred years ago?’
The Man in Red took his arm from around Jacko’s shoulders and placed one hand on Nigel Powell’s left shoulder. ‘Yes sir, he did. Back in 1931.’ Despite his broad grin, his words were as cold as steel.
Powell’s hands began to shake. ‘Then this contract is null and void. You can’t sell him something that he already owns!’
Jacko winked at him again. ‘Been nice knowin’ ya. Gotta be goin’ now, son.’
Fifty-Nine
Sanchez had seen some crazy shit in his time. The revelation that Jacko the Blues Brother was actually none other than Robert Johnson, the guy who had sold his soul to the Devil in the nineteen-thirties, was quite a story. But, taking into consideration that only minutes earlier he had believed that there was a surviving thirteenth Apostle who made a living impersonating James Brown, he was willing to accept that it was possible.
He’d encountered vampires and werewolves in his time running a bar in Santa Mondega, which had prepared him for just about anything. But this – this was all getting to be too much. Especially the introduction of zombies into his world. Right now he was only yards away from a whole bunch of them. These fuckers were savages. He watched as two of them played tug-of-war with some unfortunate guy in a polyester tracksuit, each with its teeth in a different part of their victim, growling as they pulled him this way and that. Being up on stage, viewing the pandemonium from a safe distance, was like watching a horror movie. Except that here it was the audience being slaughtered while the ‘actors’ – those up on the stage – looked on. The result, however, was that Sanchez felt safe, sort of. For the moment.
There was also a big, rather sinister-looking black man in a sleek red suit with a red derby on his head, standing with Nigel Powell and Jacko. Considering all that was going on, this guy seemed ridiculously happy. He had a huge grin across his face. Powell had quite the opposite. The achingly bright white smile had been wiped from his face, and his tan seemed to have faded from orange to a kind of dirty beige.
All of the surviving finalists were now standing centre stage, watching Powell. He appeared to be gasping for breath, as if suffering a heart attack.
‘I ain’t sure what the fuck is goin’ on here, man,’ Elvis said. ‘Who’s the big guy in red? An’ where in hell did he come from?’
Sanchez shrugged. ‘Looks like a black Santa to me.’
‘Yeah? Or maybe he’s the Devil?’ Elvis had a point. He could be. With all the other mayhem going on, and the rumours that the winning contract belonged to Satan, it was a possibility.
‘In that case, can we just get the fuck outta here?’ Sanchez pleaded.
‘Just hold on a while. See what happens. Seems safe enough up here for now.’
Sanchez wasn’t going anywhere without Elvis, and his buddy did seem to be right. The zombies were keeping clear of the stage. It was, he thought, the safest place to be in a hotel that really wasn’t safe to be in.
The Man in Red standing with Powell and Jacko turned round. He looked at Sanchez and Elvis and the other singers. Then he winked at Sanchez and walked away, back towards the rear of the stage from where he had come.
‘Who the hell was that?’ Sanchez asked aloud for anyone to answer.
Nigel Powell responded, quietly, almost to himself. ‘We’re all fucked,’ he said. ‘Doomed all to hell.’ Raising his voice, he almost shouted, ‘Hell, d’you hear me?’
‘Pardon me?’
Sanchez had been hoping that Powell might be able to show them a way out. After all, it could only be a matter of time before the zombies below stopped ripping limbs off the screaming audience members and started climbing their way up to the stage. There were already a few of them in the orchestra pit tearing the musicians to pieces. Instruments were squeaking and honking as band members tried in vain to fight back. The tuba player, in particular, was honking for all he was worth in the hope of keeping the creatures at bay with the deep bass blare from his giant instrument.
For once, everyone else looked more terrified than Sanchez, with two exceptions. Elvis remained the epitome of cool, as always, and Jacko too seemed completely unfazed by what was happening. While waiting for one of the two to offer a suggestion about how they should escape, Sanchez heard the caco
phony of zombies and their victims suddenly drowned out by music. And this time it wasn’t the tuba. Blaring out through the speakers around the auditorium was the Paul McCartney CD that the deejay had played earlier. The screaming audience below were being drowned out by McCartney and a chorus of burping frogs singing ‘We All Stand Together’. Fuckin’ run in terror together, more likely, thought Sanchez. If ever there was a sign indicating what he should do, this was it.
‘That’s it. I’m gettin’ the fuck outta here!’ he declared, hoping desperately that someone else would agree, and then take the lead.
‘Just hold on one second,’ Elvis snapped back. He walked up to Powell and stopped in front of him. ‘So, how do we get outta this shit, huh?’ he asked, prodding the other man in the chest.
‘I… I’m not sure,’ Powell stammered. ‘I think… I guess the safest place to be is up here on stage. Maybe they won’t come up here.’
Elvis looked unimpressed, his mouth twisting into a sneer the King himself would have admired. ‘Yeah? An’ what was it you said to me earlier?’ he asked.
‘What? I don’t know. Now’s hardly the time for this.’
‘You said I don’t deserve to be on this stage.’
‘Big deal. Get over it, already.’
‘I have. But you know what?’
‘What?’
‘Now you don’t deserve to be on this stage.’ He leaned back, and then with all his strength drove his right fist into the shocked face of Nigel Powell. It connected with full fury right on the end of its target’s nose. There was a sickening crunch and a spray of blood as the impact of the blow knocked the show’s deviser and chief judge off his feet. It sent him flying back off the edge of the stage into the orchestra pit below. He landed in the middle of a melee of zombies and half-eaten musicians, torn-off limbs and ripped-out entrails. The expression on his face was one of the purest terror. Never had an orange-skinned man looked so pale.
The zombies allowed him one agonized scream before he vanished beneath a pack of them, to be eagerly devoured. They seemed to know who he was. In the dim recesses of their rotting brains, they knew that this man had tricked many of them into selling their own souls to the Devil in exchange for what they had thought would be money and fame. The rest were hapless audience members from past shows who had become zombies through being killed by them. He was finally getting his comeuppance. From a horde of undead creatures who despised him.
