DANCE WITH THE DEVIL
THURSDAY
The Redemption are lost. The band left the main highway hours ago and now they’re stuck in the middle of nowhere in a biblical downpour. The bus seizes a piston. The cell phones don’t work. They can’t even call the club in Ann Arbor to say they aren’t coming. Advance sales were for shit anyway.
Mark and Liddy Kramer write and sing the songs. Paul drums and Jasmine plays bass. Diedrich, their manager, is an insecure young man with a crush on Mark. Ogden, their driver/roadie/general gofer has a meth habit. Camp followers Shane and Betty, are making a documentary about the band. When the bus stops, they stop too, come aboard with their vid cam.
Mark’s a control freak who believes in nothing greater than himself. Liddy, a week out of rehab, resents Mark for not taking her music more seriously. Dietrich is a walking encyclopedia of rock. Roadie Ogden, one of Mark’s childhood pals, is a twitchy, tweaky pain in the ass fleeing a felony indictment. Shane and Betty just met and are hot for each other. They hole up for the night, Paul’s and Jasmine’s ardent lovemaking an added irritant to Mark and Liddy, who have been bickering. Liddy wants to drum but Mark just wants her to sing and shake her ass. Liddy tells Jasmine she thinks Mark’s been cheating on her with a groupie named Wolfie, which is the main reason he wanted to go on tour.
Shane and Betty drive further into the pasture where the bus stopped to have some privacy. Shane leaves the car to take a leak, stumbles over an ancient First Aid box and cuts his arm. The box contains a poster advertising Rock Fest ’74, a Celebration of Heavy Metal. Shane chuckles, takes it back to the car where Betty is wearing only a Tee shirt. As Shane opens the door a drop of blood falls to the ground.
Lightning strikes a nearby tree.
As Shane and Betty make furious love the ground seems to buckle. Betty’s cries of ecstasy turn to agony. Shane pulls back. Betty spasms, something fighting to get out. Five protrusions appear on her perfect belly. Bloody skeletal fingers thrust through the skin, followed by the whole hand which jerks upward and rips out Shane’s throat.
Thursday morning the Sun peeks through the fog illuminating their old school bus, covered with psychedelia. “THE REDEMPTION” is written on the sides and roof in wild cartoon lettering. It’s Paul’s birthday. Jasmine and Liddy present him with a hash brownie. Paul suffers from “lack of affect.” He’s drifting through life. He’s also is a fantastic drummer.
The band believes that Shane and Betty drove on to the next town.
Paul and Mark flip a Frisbee. Mark chases the disc through the trees and stops dead at the edge -- across the meadow lies the remains of an ancient stage framed against the dark woods. Crows fill the trees. Beneath the stage Mark finds a flyer: Rock Fest ’74, a Celebration of Heavy Metal, Aug. 22 – 24, Brush, Michigan. Mark runs back to the van, passing the burnt-out hulks of several vehicles hidden in the grass.
Dietrich’s jazzed. “It was called ‘Death Fest’ because so many people died. My mom was there! The headliner was Ravisher. They were into Satanism. No, I mean they were really into Satanism!” Over a dozen fatalities occurred including lead singer Orton “Bones” Thorpe, struck by lightning at the end of “Straight to Hell.” They called him “Bones” because the fingers of his right hand end in bone, accounting for his unique sound. He wrote a love song to Hitler. Dueling biker gangs killed four, a man stabbed his girlfriend to death, there were a couple of drug overdoses, and a pack of wild dogs tore a kid apart in the forest.
All members of Ravisher met bizarre deaths except the first drummer, Roland Turner, a recluse who occasionally releases his own music over the net. Orton kicked Roland out because “he didn’t fit in.” Roland was a devout Christian and a straight edger.
A number of children were conceived at Death Fest. In 1989 Rolling Stone did a follow-up on three of them who each died a violent death similar to their parents. Lo! Dietrich has that issue of RS in his stash at the back of the bus! One died of a drug overdose. One was stabbed to death by a john. One died in a high-speed collision.
Liddy tries her laptop. No go. The cell phones won’t work and the bus won’t start. But it’s a beautiful day and they have food. They decide to explore. Ogden stays behind to work on the engine. Mark, Liddy, Paul, Dietrich and Jasmine stay together as they skirt the edge of the meadow near the forest. Jasmine hears music faintly and heads into the forest.
Jasmine finds an old two-story wooden farmhouse. The music comes from an open window on the second floor. The first floor is boarded up with plywood, covered with threatening and satanic graffiti. A board has been peeled away from a window overlooking the broad front porch. As Jasmine walks up the steps she doesn’t see the dogs sleeping below.
From the stage Mark and Liddy look back at the natural amphitheater. A couple listing porta-potties. Liddy tries her laptop. It only accesses the Redemption’s Myspace page. E-mail from “Wolfowitz”—the goth girl whom Liddy suspects of having an affair with Mark. “I am soooo looking forward to your gig tonight! Mark is soooo yummy! I could eat him up.” Liddy turns on Mark. “It’s your girlfriend,” she says with withering contempt. Mark slams his hand against a timber, causing a deep gash from a nail. Blood drips beneath the stage as Mark wraps his hand in his bandanna.
Beneath the stage something stirs.
Jasmine follows the music up the creaky steps to the front room overlooking the yard. Gently, she pushes the door open. The room is a time capsule, with overlaying Persian rugs, burning incense, phone cable spool table, black light posters of Hendrix, the Dead et al on the walls, incense burning, lava light flowing, with a large brass bong. A framed poster of the lethal rock festival, and an old-fashioned hi-fi system with a Transcriptors turntable and KLH speakers.
The most convincing feature is the dude on the sofa, skinny as a pipe cleaner, poof of kinky gray hair, head tilted back, blank eyes staring, hand drooping. Jasmine gasps, then stumbles an apology. No answer. Is he dead? She spots a bag of grass on the table. She reaches for it. The cadaver grips her wrist.
Cedric Beryl used to be a music journalist: Melody Maker, NME, Rolling Stone, Creem. He had been following Ravisher for weeks prior to the festival. The event shattered his mind. He spent a week in a sanitarium. Upon release he began a slow downward spiral, writing pornography and drinking. Shows her a copy of Mama Liz Drinks Deep. A year ago Cedric had a revelation that Ravisher was coming back, the festival would be restaged and the dead would walk again. He is calmly manic, like Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Cedric turns the record over. “Have you listened to it backwards?”
A creepy voice croaks, “When the blood hits the stage we’ll return to sing our rage—and turn another page on evolution. And with each life we claim, we grow stronger in his name, until you wither or find the solution.” Giggling, Cedric pulls the needle from the record. “There’s more, but you get the idea.” He offers Jasmine a hit of thirty-five year old Owsley.
With his head in the engine bay Ogden hears the sound of straight pipes. “What’s the problem?” someone asks. Ogden bangs his head on the hood. The two bikers are grizzled, bearded, tattooed, wearing Gargoyles, reeking Levis and black leather vests with colors: “Lucifer’s Linemen.” Ogden hides his nervousness and explains the problem. “Ike” and “Bike” offer to fix the engine. Ike goes to work while Bike offers Ogden a line of crystal.
Ike and Bike are there for the concert. “We’re a band,” Ogden says. “Maybe we could play.” Ike sez he’ll talk to Bones about it. Bones hired Lucifer’s Linemen to handle security. Ike’s and Bike’s bikes are old. In fact, the two seem to have stepped out of a time warp. Their colors say Vietnam veterans. Ike turns grinning from the engine compartment holding a piston. “I think I found the problem.”
Jasmine opens her eyes to an empty, filthy, trash-ridden room. Dusk. As Jasmine makes her way outside she grabs an old newspaper to place over the sill. Outside, she opens the ancient issue of Melody Maker to the headline, “MM Mourns Loss of Journalist.” Cedric Beryl was stabbed to death at the concert by Lucifer’s Linemen.
Jasmine runs through the forest to the stage. But when she sees the expression on Liddy’s face she stops cold. Wolfie says, “enjoy the show.” There have been rumors on the net for months-- demonic forces gathering. Goths, Wiccans, and Satanists all agree. They just don’t know where. Wolfie knows. And now The Redemption know.
When Jasmine tells Mark, Liddy, and Dietrich about Cedric, Mark accuses her of tripping. She is tripping. Liddy says, “Show me!” Mark could care less. He watches them go. Dietrich stirs the pot. “Things aren’t getting any better between you two.” “Get the fuck out of my face,” Mark responds.
Alone onstage Mark imagines himself playing to thousands, air guitar with vocal accompaniment. Clapping. Shocked, Mark turns. A stunning red head in cut-offs and halter top, a peace symbol tattoo.
“Hi. I’m Mandy.” Mandy’s there for the show. She points off in the distance. “We’re camped over there!” Mark sees the tip of a tent poking up. Who are these people? Snippets of laughter and music in the tall grass.
Night falls as Mandy leads Mark to the rusting hulk of an old Cadillac. They’re ripping each other’s clothes off when the ancient radio blares to life playing Ravisher’s “Invitation to the Masque.” Strange lights flicker in the sky. For an instant Mandy’s lovely features morph into a corpse with multiple stab wounds. “Í sure hope my boyfriend doesn’t find out,” Mandy whispers. “He’s kind of jealous.” Mark freaks. For an instant the laughing corpse holds him tight. Mark lands on his ass outside the car and sees that the interior is empty. Is he tripping? Did that bitch (Liddy) slip him something? He’ll kill her if she did.
Mark runs through the forest to the strange house. Mark finds Jasmine and Liddy in Cedric’s incense-drenched bedroom listening to an old tube radio. “The governor has called out the National Guard to deal with riots at an outdoor music concert near Brush. The three day event has been billed as a celebration of Heavy Metal featuring British bad boys Ravisher…” The radio lapses into silence. It wasn’t even turned on.
Liddy lies on her back saying, “Oh wow…oh wow…” Jasmine’s in tears. “We’re all going to die!” Mark shakes her. What’s she talking about? Jasmine plays the Ravisher record backwards. “Drenched in blood from ancient days, the dancers spin, the Ravisher plays/They will not live to see sunrise, and as an encore, everybody dies!” Mark yanks the needle. Jasmine tells him about Cedric, repeats the first riddle. They smoke the grass. Inertia overcomes them and they bed down for the night.
FRIDAY
Morning. The bus lies in a thousand pieces, Ike and Bike going from piece to piece with a notepad, obsessively noting parts numbers. Ike reads the numbers, Bike makes a note and shouts, “CHECK!” The bus is spread out over a half acre. The bikers look up as the stunned trio emerges from the woods. “What the fuck you lookin’ at?” Ike asks. “Where’s Ogden?” Mark asks. “Fuck if I know,” Ike cackles, eyeing the girls. “Hellooo ladies.” Ike and Bike seize the women as if Mark wasn’t there. The girls fight back, gouging pale, bloodless furrows in the bikers’ flesh. Mark grabs a tire iron and wangs on Ike. Like hitting a tree trunk.
Mark picks up his Gibson and brings it down Who-style on Ike’s head. Ike turns with a crazed expression, morphs into a swarming cloud of flies and dissipates. Mark seizes a cymbal and hurls it like a Frisbee at Bike’s head. Poof! Bike disappears in an explosion of flies. Mark stares sadly at his ruined guitar. “The Les Paul model.”
Mark, Liddy, and Jasmine trek to the stage in search of Paul, Ogden and Dietrich. Paul’s unnatural hearing picks up the hum of a great number of flies. Asking the others to wait he goes by himself and discovers Ogden—cut into hundreds of pieces and laid out in a clearing much like the bus. “Bone’s Theme.” The others see, Jasmine hysterical.
“We may have to play this gig,” Paul says fatalistically.
Odd stirrings in the wind, snippets of a band tuning up…a drum roll, a guitar arpeggio, a few bluesy organ chords. They can hear people laughing, catch an occasional glimpse through the waving grass. Frisbees arc through the air. Dogs bark. Mark keeps scratching his nuts. Ghostly figures from thirty years ago appear in the grass but when you look straight at them they disappear. A ghost army of Ravisher fans ripples and murmurs in the field.
Disconsolate Dietrich stumbles across Betty and Shane’s camcorder. He turns it on. Bones glowers at him and launches into an anti-gay tirade. Dietrich shuts it off, looks up to see Mike and Ike heading toward him. Dietrich freaks, grabs one of the bikes and takes off. Crash.
As Mark tries to remove Dietrich’s shattered body from the tree a group of cadaverous hippies in coveralls, straw hats and granny glasses gently push Paul aside. “We’ll take care of him. We’re the Diggers.”
Through the waving grass they see a phalanx of one per centers kicking someone to death. Paul almost intervenes but Mark holds him back. Jasmine heads for a nearby porta-potty, opens the door and reels back screaming. Inside a skeleton propped up on the throne reads an old copy of Creem with Ravisher on the cover.
“Look, we’re going to have to walk out of here,” Mark says. They head south. An enormous black bull appears out of nowhere to confront them. They head through the forest. A pack of wild dogs begins to encircle them. Mark and Liddy have forgotten their troubles, for the moment.
Mark, Liddy, Jasmine and Paul spend the night in Cyril’s room. Paul wants to hear the message. Jasmine and Liddy plead with the boys not to play the fucking record backwards. An argument. The boyz win as they always do and Mark puts the needle to the record.
“Our father who art in hell, unhallowed be thy name. You ought to know if you dance with the devil, it’s the devil’s game. The devil takes his dues in pain, for your loss is the devil’s gain. If the devil you would race, dump the sheet music and pick up the pace.”
After meticulously unplugging every electrical device in the room, the band falls into a shallow sleep while a pack of wild dogs circles the house.
SATURDAY
Sounds of a festival drift through the open window. The field is filled with concert goers from thirty-five years ago; ancient VW buses, tie-dye, flying discs, barking dogs, strange, violent, insane street people stalking around gesticulating and arguing with invisible nemesis. Already past noon as Mark, Paul, Jasmine, and Liddy approach the festival grounds. Wild dogs feast on Ogden’s remains. A little girl shyly approaches, grabs a bloody bone and retreats.
Onstage a folkie accompanies himself on guitar singing songs of death. He lugubriously packs up and is replaced by a beret wearing black man who launches into a feverish rant. Time passes as in a dream, or an acid trip, various musicians appearing on stage, glimpses of Hendrix, Janis, Jim Morrison. Before they know it the sun is setting. The crowd becomes eerily silent.
Beneath the stage Ravisher rises from the muck, disintegration in reverse as flesh sheaths their blackened bones: the Bass Player, the Keyboard Guy, the Guitarist. The drummer reintegrates stiff and dead, sunken eyes open, tongue and spike protruding. The band files onstage to thunderous acclaim. Liddy pulls back. “I don’t want to hear this band!” Flees into the forest. Mark starts to go after her but Jasmine stops him. “You don’t want to miss this. Why do you keep scratching your crotch?”
From nowhere a spotlight seeks out the commanding figure of “Bones” Thorpe. “Anybody ‘ere know ‘ow to drum?” he booms through an invisible p.a. “Oar drummer kicked the bucket. Oi’m not joking, ladies and gentlemen. Drug overdose. Beware of the brown Mex. So. ‘Oo’s gwineter lend a ‘and?” A blue spot picks out Paul as he walks onstage. Suddenly the field is filled with thunderous abandon—a thousand ghostly Bics light the trees like an army of fireflies.
Bones speaks directly to Mark and Jasmine. “I know watcher thinkin’. Why me? Why us? Because, bunkies, you did every fockin’ thing to make this possible!” They dropped out of school, broke their parents’ hearts. They were drug addicts, self-absorbed, no talent, filled with self-delusion. They aren’t fit to carry Bones’ codpiece! Ghosts appear in the grass: Ike and Bike, Mandy, Cedric, a few random bogeymen close in on Mark and Jasmine snarling.
“’At’s roight! Bring those gits up ‘ere!”
M&J run through the forest pursued by ghosts. Ahead—the old house. They dive through the open window and run upstairs toward light and music. Liddy sits shivering in Cedric’s room while the record player spins soundlessly, the swing arm at the center. Mark sees the syringe at Liddy’s feet and the works nearby. Who gave her the dope? He’s ready to kill.
Jasmine plays the record backwards. Bones booms from the speakers. “If you’d live until the morning comes, you got to beat my man on drums. If you’d live to see the morning star, drop the sheet music and lay guitar.” Mark savagely yanks the needle. Jasmine gasps and points at Mark’s crotch. It’s pulsing, glowing, something struggling to emerge. Mark drops his pants. A Chthulhu-like mass of twisting, slithering purple organs is spreading from his groin. One tentacle snakes across the floor toward Jasmine who unthinkingly picks up a handy meat cleaver and cuts off a foot—the stump whirls and spurts green fluid like a firehose, covering Liddy, who hasn’t moved. Mark chokes it off and stuffs it back in his pants.
Music cascades from the stage. “There you are!” Mandy exclaims from the door, and God help him, Mark is attracted to her. Rough hands seize Mandy and pull her into the hall. Bike and Ike muscle into the room, eyes wide for Jasmine and Liddy. Mark head-butts one and kicks the other in the nuts. Unfortunately they’re already dead so they just keep coming. Mark picks up the amplifier and smashes it on Ike’s head. With a terrific squeal of feedback Ike turns into a cloud of flies and disappears. Mark picks it up again. Bike is terrified. They do a pas de deaux before Mark nails Bike with the amp. Squeealllll—poof!
Mark and Jasmine take Liddy outside. They try to flee through the forest but a monstrous werewolf stands in their way. “Hi,” it says in an unlikely kewpie pie voice. “I’m Wolfowitz. Come on. You can’t miss the show! They’re just getting started.” Wolfie herds them back to the field where, to their astonishment, their equipment has been set up onstage next to Ravisher. Zombies stare at them in horror.
“’Ow ‘bout it, moit?” Bones booms. “Are you up for a little cuttin’ contest?”
“If you’d live until the morning comes, you got to beat my man on drums. If you’d live to see the morning star, drop the sheet music and play guitar.”.
But how? They have no drummer. “I can drum,” Liddy declares. Clouds roll in. Lightning flashes, but no rain falls. The tinkle of an old-fashioned bicycle bell signals the arrival of a spry codger with a stick case strapped to his back. “Roland Turner. Now let’s show those bastards what a mistake they made when they kicked me out.”
“They took our drummer,” says Mark. “That’s because he’s Bones’ boy,” says Roland. “Didn’t you listen to the lyrics?” Of course! Paul was an orphan. Today is his birthday. Bones claims his own. Mark is going to have to reach deep inside himself and pull out something bigger than himself. But who will judge?
Cedric appears. “I’ll be the judge.” The groups take their places. Ravisher leads with “Invitation to the Masque.” Bones’ right hand ends in four digits of bone. He dipped his hand in acid once. Picking with his finger bones gives him an edge, and Paul drums as he has never drummed before.
Redemption play a metal version of “Hellhound on My Trail.” Roland Turner is brilliant. So brilliant that at the end of the song Bones throws his guitar down in disgust, walks across the stage and holds out his hand. As Roland reaches to shake his hand, Bones jams an enormous bowie knife into Roland’s gut, holds his hands up in victory and puts his guitar back on. Redemption are stunned. “That’s not fair!” Jasmine sobs.
Bones turns on her with a vengeance. “Life’s not fair!” he snarls.
Cedric turns to Liddy. “You said you wanted to play the drums.” e dipped hiHe diLiddy takes the drum chair. Bones stops, shocked. “Not fair!” But life isn’t fair and Mark picks up his guitar, prays to God for help and starts playing. The sky in the east begins to lighten as Liddy launches into a long, Ginger Baker-ish drum solo. Mark cuts in playing with a wild abandon he didn’t know he had. His notes stroke Bones like bullets and as the sun rises, the festival fades leaving only Mark, Liddy, and Jasmine to tell the tale. Mark’s problem clears up.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Mike’s Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.