THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story (4 page)

“As silly as this sounds, a
nursery rhyme.”

Instantly the kid went into auto
pilot, “Five members who could not be tamed, sold their souls for fortune and
fame. Formed their spell-circle in Satan’s name. In the pit of Hell, they burn
by flame.” When he finished, he held up his hand, the index and little finger
extended in the trademark rock and roll salute, “Mathaluh lives!” It echoed
throughout the night.

“That’s it.”

“Lizzy’ll be here in a bit.
Name’s Brent. Me and my friends can tell you all about that- for a case.”

Loveless sighed. He wasn’t
puritanical. In fact, in his own way, he was a rebel. He had a fake ID himself
when he was seventeen and had chased a case on a number of occasions. The
filmmaker was just worried about drunk teen hitchhikers getting hit by a mack
truck or something. Still, he reasoned with eight or nine teens already there
and more showing up, they wouldn’t get more than two beers apiece. Hardly
enough to make their judgment or attitude any worse than it was now.

“Awright. But you better not be
shittin’ me.”

On the drive to the store,
Loveless saw Brent’s face in his mind’s eye, heard him say ‘Mathaluh lives’
once more and throw out the universal rock salute. This accessed something deep
in the filmmaker’s memory banks. Something he had researched once. The rock
salute had an older, more sinister meaning, a different significance in ancient
times. In the occult world, it was known as the sign of the horns. The horns of
the Devil, said to have been used during Black Masses in pagan times. The sign
was the mainstay of hardcore rockers for decades until pop music fans started
recklessly throwing the symbol in the air at Britney Spears concerts. After
that, a number of rock icons began abandoning the symbol. Could you blame them?
In what context had Brent used the symbol? Was he giving Loveless the
rebellious music equivalent of a thumbs up? Or was he signifying his standing
in the
Knights In Satan’s Service.
The filmmaker remembered with a grin
how once upon a time religious zealots from America’s Bible-belt had believed
that was what the name of the rock band KISS actually stood for. That it was an
acronym that revealed their true intent and mission here on earth. That they
were emissaries for the dark side. What a load of crap.

Except for his uneasiness about
buying beer for minors, Loveless was positively giddy. He had that feeling
again. He was on to something, the filmmaker was sure of it.

Loveless stopped at a gas station
in Twin Peaks. Under his faded baseball hat, the attendant was old with hard
lines and a big pockmarked nose. His face had a dark hue as if he had worked in
mine shafts all his life and could no longer wash the black coal off his skin,
where it was permanently etched into the crevices of every age line. Still, the
man was all smiles, happy to have the sale on a slow night. As Loveless paid
for the case of beer, he decided to test the waters. “Ever hear of a band
called Mathaluh?”

The smile didn’t slide off the
man’s face so much as drop off of it. His hard mug got even harder. He didn’t
say a word as he gave the filmmaker his change, looking him in the eyes the
whole time. The attendant's eyes burned with fury. Behind this Loveless sensed
fear. The filmmaker took the case and left quickly.
So there was history
here. And bad blood.

When Loveless got back to the
Rock, he didn’t see the kids. He remembered that Lizzy had told him there was a
path around back where they couldn’t be seen from the road. Of course they
would want to drink back there. If local sheriff’s deputies showed up, the kids
could just run off into the woods, which they probably knew like the back of
their hands. Around back the filmmaker found the kids sitting around a campfire
that had been made in a dug out stone fire pit that looked like it had been
there for decades. Large flat rocks had long ago been laid out in a circle
around the fire pit for seating. The kids turned and looked at Loveless as he
approached with the case.

Lizzy was among them now, “See. I
told you he’d come back. Hey, J.D.”

The kids eagerly devoured the
case. Lizzy pointed to a flat rock next to her.

“I never told you my name,”
Loveless said as he sat down. The kids all giggled at this.

“Small mountain.”

“Don’t understand.”

“You told Carla.”

Carla, a petite girl with a
floppy hat and a hoop nose ring, held up a peace sign by way of identifying
herself.

“Carla works at Starbucks. You
told her your name when you were getting your venti red eye. She told Brooke.
Brooke told Katie. Katie told me. Small mountain.”

“Wow. So I guess that means
everybody knows about Mathaluh,” Loveless dove right in. He wanted information
while the alcohol was loosening their tongues.

A hush went through the group and
all eyes turned downward for a moment, the warm glow of the fire chasing
shadows across their faces.

“Everybody,” Brent echoed.
“Doesn’t mean anybody talks about it. ‘Cause they don’t.”

“But you do?”

“Sometimes,” Lizzy offered
timidly. “They were local mountain kids like us who grew up here in the
seventies. Formed a band. Named it Mathaluh. They were good. Really good. Tight
group too. Did everything together. When they turned eighteen, they even all
lived together in this big ole’ house out in Running Springs. Pressed a bootleg
record they released up here. Were gonna take it to Los Angeles and play for
some hotshot record people. Everybody on the mountain knew they were gonna be
big.”

“But they weren’t,” Brent said
roughly. “Some stupid kid on the mountain listened to their record, flipped out
and killed three other kids, then shot himself in the head.”

“You’re telling it all wrong,
man. After listening to one of their songs, he made a Ouija board. The Ouija
board told him to play the song backwards. After he played it backwards, that’s
when he flipped out. And he only killed two kids. Not three,” Lizzy corrected.

“How do you know, big mouth? Were
you there?”

“Shut the fuck up, Brent. Were
you?”

A chubby faced kid named Toby
piped in, “He called the Ouija board the Hell board.”

“You forgot about the fire,”
Lizzy said.

“I was getting to that. Cops were
getting reports that Mathaluh was like this Satanic cult.

That they were doing things. Out
in the woods.”

“What kind of things?” Loveless
asked.

The kids all looked at each
other, then to Brent. He answered for them, “Black Masses. Animal sacrifices to
the altar of Lord Satan.”

“Lord Satan?” the filmmaker
echoed before he could stop himself.

“Not just animal sacrifices,”
Lizzy spoke up.

“That’s bullshit. Don’t be a
gossipy little bitch, Lizzy,” Brent barked as he stood up, threw his beer can
and stomped off.

“Fuck you, Brent,” Lizzy struck
back, then turned to the filmmaker. “The drummer was his mom’s uncle.

“Cops suspected the band in the
disappearance of a local girl who had run away from home. When they went to the
band’s home to question them, it was on fire. The band members were inside.
They all died in the blaze. Just like that. No record deal. No fame. No
fortune. Never even left the dumb mountain,” the chubby Toby concluded
sympathetically.

“Supposedly the record was
back-masked,” Lizzy added.

“Back-masked?” Loveless wasn’t
familiar with the term.

“You know, Satanic lyrics you can
hear when you play certain record backwards. Like Zeppelin’s “Stairway to
Heaven.”

"Oh yeah. The whole rock is
devil music thing." Loveless once had a girlfriend who was into shit like
that. She had made him listen to the now infamous section of “Stairway,” while
holding a séance to talk to her recently deceased pet cat Mister Cuddles. The
filmmaker didn't understand how Mister Cuddles, who couldn't talk while he was
alive, was supposed to talk now that he was 'corpse-ified' and in the
hereafter. But he went along with it for one major reason: his girlfriend was
hot as hell. Still, Loveless had to admit that the lyrics did sound to him
like,
‘Oh here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose shallow path would make me
sad, whose power is Satan. He will give those with him 666. There was a little
tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.’
Then again, he was stoned
when he heard it. At the very least, freaky shit for sure.

“Most copies of the record burned
up in the blaze.”

“Most,” Toby chimed cryptically.

“Any of these band members have a
name?”

“Jeremy Jared. That’s the only
name you’ll need to know if you go digging,” Lizzy informed Loveless. “He was
the lead singer.”

“Front man eternal,” Toby
punctuated Lizzy’s sentence as if quoting scripture.

Before the filmmaker could formulate
his next question, he heard the all too familiar whoop of a police siren.
Jesus! Next came the flashing lights.
Johnny Law
was on the scene. The
kids had it down to a science. In a collective effort they threw dirt on the
fire, extinguishing it in seconds. Next came the mad scurry through darkness
into the woods. When two sheriff’s deputies came through, flashlights playing
over beer cans and litter, only Loveless was left standing there.

“What’s going on here?” one of
the deputies asked.

The filmmaker held up the small
digital camera he already had in his hand. “Just taking photos of the natural
wildlife.” He knew enough about the authorities to remain calm, pleasant, and
respectful.

“That so?”

“Yes, sir. I was about to snap a
silverback coyote when you drove up.” Loveless didn’t know if such a thing as a
silverback coyote existed, but he was improvising.

“What’s your name?”

“Loveless. J.D. Loveless.”

“That your real name?”

“Unless you know something my
father doesn’t know.”

 “You see anyone else out here?”

“No, sir,” the filmmaker lied.

“You been drinking tonight, Mr.
Loveless?”

“No, sir,” Loveless replied
truthfully. He bought the kids beer. He wasn’t prepared to drink
with
them.

One of the deputies crushed a
beer can with his foot, “Wildlife, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officers seemed to dismiss
the filmmaker. As they searched for signs of this wildlife, Loveless got the
hell out of there.

A few days later - not finding
much more on the Internet other than an obituary for Jeremy Jared and no
mention of the band - the filmmaker went down to the library in Arrowhead to
fill in the blanks. Loveless scanned through the archives of the local
newspapers. All he found were a few vague stories. One was about a missing
runaway girl named Annabelle Kersey, described by a friend of the family as a
little
lost girl.
Another was about a house that burned down, killing
all of the residents. The victim's names were listed. One was Jeremy Jared.
There was also an address for the house.

J.D. Loveless arrived at the
house in the woods of Running Springs, a hilly area with not much else around.
It took him awhile to find the two story structure since it wasn’t really a
structure anymore. None of the walls were still standing. This was the site of
something that had happened decades ago. The single frame beam that was still
standing served more as its tombstone. On the beam, however, hung a fresh
wreath. Loveless read the simple note pinned to the wreath, "We still love
you." After all this time, Mathaluh still lived, at least in the hearts
and minds of certain denizens of this mountain. The filmmaker found himself
wishing there was a name on the note, that there was someone living and
breathing he could track down. Someone who had been around back then and had
known, someone who knew if they were devil-worshippers or not.

The place was fire-gutted. The
remnants of the couch and the little furniture that did remain were massively
water-stained from the local fire departments efforts to put out the blaze. It
had obviously been too late to save the home and occupants by the time
authorities arrived. The entire fire fighting effort must have gone to keeping
the inferno from spreading to the woods. Shreds of yellow police caution tape
still flapped around here and there in the breeze. Only in a rural area like
this, with so much forest land for building homes, would an eye-sore like this
go undisturbed for over three decades. The filmmaker stood in the middle of the
debris field, taking it all in. He noticed something. At his feet was an old
water-stained photograph, the edges burnt. He stooped and peeled it off the
scorched wood floor it was stuck to. Loveless was amazed it had survived the
elements and time. It was a picture of five defiant looking young men.
Five
members who could not be tamed.
They were standing in front of a house.
This
house.

This is it? This is all that's
left? A lousy picture. Well, this was a total waste of time,
Loveless thought as he sat down
on the couch studying the photo. Physical contact with the couch seemed to
trigger something. A connection. The filmmaker looked closer at the picture.
The men in the picture were a typical expression of youth in the 1970's. Their
hair was long, but shorter than their predecessors, the drug loving hippies of
the sixties. It was chin length, rather than shoulder long. You could see that
the young men were full of bluster, bravado and arrogance. Their hands were on
their hips or folded across their chests. These were, by all local accounts,
talented musicians who, at that moment in time, had their whole lives ahead of
them. The members of Mathaluh fully expected to be stars, ruling the music
world.
Rock gods
. But there was one who stood out even among these large
personas. One who stood in the forefront. One who looked directly into the
camera as the photo had been snapped. He was the obvious leader of the group,
king of the would-be gods. He was a slim man with long brown hair, a gaze like
blue ice and a thin vacant smile. Instinctively, the filmmaker knew this was
Jeremy Jared, lead singer and the face of Mathaluh. What was it that the little
boy Toby had said at the Rock a few nights earlier?
Front man eternal.