I shut the door behind me and the car took off. I did not know where we were going and did not care. I only wanted to leave my memories in the gutter in which I had laid.
The driver turned her head to face me, "This is Kelly and I'm Heather".
She held her gaze, waiting for my name but I sat in silence. Her puzzled face returned to the road before her where she struggled to stay within the lane. Heather continued to talk but I did not listen. Instead I watched the street lamps blur into a single beam and in it, surrendered my mind.
Thoughts were no longer of any use to me. They had left me crippled, unable to live freely and now I would abandon them. My conscience would become an abyss, so dark that nothing could grow. I would simply drift through the city much like a jellyfish does along the waves. Strangers would see my cold lifeless body lingering among the city streets and they would cry out loud that " the dead walk". I would become an emptiness, a pit of despair, and through unknown laws of physics and the perverse actions of magic I would swallow the hope of all those living and leave them with only misery.
"You look like you're in a band, are you in a band"?
I turned my attention to the side mirror where my eyes met with Kelly's. She immediately looked away, hoping that I did not catch her stare. I rubbed my calloused finger tips against my thumb and my lips slowly parted.
"Yeah, I was in a band." The words came out of mouth like the last breath of a dying man.
Heather's eyes grew to her forehead and her heart jumped just as high. "Oh my god, that's so cool! What were you called?"
Kelly's eyes met mine once more and despite her fear, she held her gaze long enough to witness my answer.
"We were called, "DAD"
Well, that was not entirely true. We were called Grave Evil, and we played music as dark as any other band north of the cemeteries. However, I had a vision of a darker passage, a form of music totally devoid of light. I shared with the other members my new ideas and told them of the black roads that we could walk together. Their excitement could not be contained and they wanted to get start immediately.
"Lets conjure up something. Get this shit going." One of my mates suggested.
I put my hand on his chest to calm him down. He wiped his hair away from his eyes so he could see me clearly and I replied, "Hold on. Not yet. First we need to make some changes. We need a new name."
They looked at each other and nodded their heads. "What were you thinking?" They asked
I paced before them and insisted that we needed a name that would capture all the mystery and and all of the darkness that is death. The only name that could fulfill my vision was "DAD".
They were reluctant towards my proposal. They called the name weird and did not understand how "DAD" was mysterious. I looked to them as an elder looks at the new youth and laid down my final argument. My words trickled through their ears, settling in their minds. A compromise was reached and "DAD" would be used as an acronym for the darkest music ever made by human flesh. Now what would that acronym be?
"Maybe, Diseased Anal Demon" my drummer suggested.
My blood boiled and my skin grew tight. They did not understand at all. My vision was too unearthly, too primordial for them to comprehend. It was like an ancient memory, forgotten by man but somehow it had awaken inside me. I pointed to the door and asked them to leave. "DAD" would live but I would have to do it alone.
I locked myself in my bedroom for 30 days and 30 nights. I did not eat and I did not sleep. I recorded and recorded until my body shut off completely. I laid on the floor of my room for days. Drowning in my own sweat and facial hair. My mother began to worry when she no longer heard unnatural notes being played from my my room and called for help. I spent 9 days in the hospital, 6 of which I was completely unconscious. There was no official explanation for what had happened but all the doctors agreed that I had suffered from some form of exhaustion. I walked out the hospital under my own strength but my spirit was broken. The record was not finished and would never be, for I was in no condition to continue. All the work, all the agony, and all the wicked beauty that I forged on that 8 track would simply waste away until all that was left was a faint note among a sea of noise.
I returned home with my head slumped low and walked up the stairs a broken man. I called my former band mates from Grave Evil and brought up the idea of a reunion but they showed no interest. They had moved on under the moniker "Wretched Remains" and were playing house parties every weekend. All I had was lost and I fell into a deep depression. I was like a soul trapped in purgatory unable to move forward in its existence. I spent most of my waking hours in the kitchen, gorging my body with unsavory foods trying to fill the emptiness. So empty I had become that I began to envy the lives of our house plants. I would stare at them for hours and ponder their existence. If I could only spend the rest of my life in a pot, growing to my full potential and then decay an accomplished vacant being.
I came home one afternoon in my usual state of despair. Upon entering the house I looked to the family den where I noticed my father. He sat like a beast of stone, cursed for all eternity to his decrepit throne. His mind spoiled from his wicked thoughts and then from his paper he lifted his eyes. We stared at each other for an eternity and I could feel the ages of hate that lived within him.
"How many weeds did you pull today?" My father asked.
His glasses sat on his nose like a tyrant looks over his city, but he was no tyrant. He was a tormentor!
"3 bags! I've done 3 bags!" I shouted, nearly bursting into flames.
I was furious at that monster. His thumb always pressed above my head cursing me forever to his shadows. He sought to torment me, to plague me with agony. Where such a poisonous creature could have been forged was unfathomable but there he sat with his troll like heart reveling in my bane.
I turned away from him for I felt like I had been staring into the sun and I clutched the stairs to keep from falling. Was this it? Was this all I would become? The thought ripped me apart, turning my innards to sludge. I gripped the rail tightly pulling my body up the stairs. My existence must be something more than a life of tortured solitude and forgotten despair.
Volts of electricity surged through my body as I fought the depression. I searched for strength to fend off the emptiness that plagued me and then, from some unknown power locked deep within me, I filled the void. I marched upstairs with a motivation that I have yet to experience again in my life. Only death could could deter me and I welcomed him to try. I shut the bedroom door, picked up my guitar and hit record. What I went through next could not be described with words nor images. I can only say that a great lunacy visited me that night and shared with me it's life.
I returned to reality with no permanent harm. I created 100 cassettes and distributed them to a select few around the world. Glen Benton, Kevin Sullivan, Whitley Strieber and others less known all received copies. After the last tape had been shipped I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "DAD" had been realized and my vision fulfilled.
"We're Here" Heather stated as we pulled into a fenced parking lot.
I exited the car and mindlessly followed them. I looked at my hands and noticed a finger nail missing and for some reason I started to laugh. I laughed until my stomach begged for mercy and I keeled over on the sidewalk. The two women stopped and looked at me. They watched with confusion as I slowly made my way back to my feet and with them entered two metal doors.
"That's Right, That's Right! This is D.J. T.H.Ceizure and I'm going roll up your mind and smoke it till dawn!"
Bodies bounced all around me as I entered the club. I continued to move forward through the sea of flesh when a pool of blue liquid flashed before me. The drink sailed through the air splashing across a young woman's face. Rage coursed through her veins and she lashed out at her attacker, grabbing her by the hair. The two women fell to the ground rolling through filth and liquor. They tore at each others clothes and ripped out bundles of hair. A group of men soon gathered around them. They jumped with excitement, cheering the women on as they pulled out their cell phones.
A fragile hand found its place upon my shoulder and lips approached my ear.
"This place is so Awesome, I always see celebs here and you can drink till 6 in the morning!"
I looked at Kelly whose smile seemed endless. She grabbed me by the hand and threw her other to the air.
"Whoo! lets' party!
She pulled me across the room yelling for her friend Heather to follow. My shoulders crashed against an ocean of stenciled shirts until we finally stopped at the center of the room. I stood there and watched the two girls as they rhythmically pressed their bodies together. Everything seemed to move slowly under the effects of the strobe light making time itself seem incoherent. Heather waved her arms and shouted towards me but I could not hear her. She shook her head and smiled as she place my hands on her hips.
"Dance with me" She shouted.
My body ceased to move and thoughts slowly crept back into my empty mind.
"I don't dance" I said, removing my hands from her hip.
Her smile vanished from her face as she watched me drift away from her like a child's toy being swallowed by the tide.
I turned around and began to make my way to the bar when an orc-ish wail ripped through the club. Coldness grew all around me and a layer of ice encased the floor. People retreated from my surroundings and I listened to what sounded like hoofs approaching. My heart raced and my hands began to shake. I whipped my head over my shoulder searching for the cause of the noise. Through the crowd I could see a shadowing figure heading in my direction. The Strobe light flashed as it came closer allowing only glimpses of its body to be seen. The crowd seemed unaffected by the invader's presence and continued to bounce and thrust their bodies against each other. I held my ground watching its cold diseased breath pollute the room. It came closer and closer, its dark body flickering through the atmosphere until finally a beam of light crossed it. I looked on as the unnatural silhouette disappeared and its face came into the light. We locked eyes and my breath was stolen. The face that stared back at me was that of a long forgotten ghost, it was Mortiis.
To be continued......
