The Devil's Graveyard (46 page)

Sanchez had no idea what to do.
Julius hadn’t won
. HAD. NOT. WON.

He had plenty of time to dwell on this serious complication because almost a full minute had passed since Nina had announced ‘The winner – yes,
winner
– of the
Back From the Dead
contest is… ’ A seemingly never-ending drum roll swelled under her announcement and kept on going in a continuous roar of sound. Sanchez half expected to see a giant Battery Bunny in the orchestra pit, tapping away at the snare drum, because the tattoo was showing no sign of coming to an end. It just kept going. He looked at his watch again. That contract had to be signed by 1:00 a.m.

It was now 12:55.

The entire audience was going crazy, shouting out encouragement to whichever of the two remaining acts they favoured, as well as abuse at the drummer. Then suddenly the drum roll crashed to an end. A hush descended upon the auditorium. Nina finished her announcement.

‘…
the Blues Brother!’

The audience roared its approval. Nina, who was holding the hands of both finalists, raised Jacko’s hand into the air to signify his victory. Standing on Nina’s right, he smiled and waved his right hand in acknowledgement, thanking the audience for their votes. On Nina’s left, Emily hung her head in disappointment. Then, graciously, she let go of Nina’s hand and walked across to Jacko. She gave him a congratulatory hug, then stepped back to join the crowd of losers at the back of the stage.

Sanchez shook his head and turned his thoughts to what might happen next. Julius was supposed to be the one signing the contract. But Julius hadn’t won, and he could hardly push Jacko out of the way and sign the contract himself. So what was he going to do? If the answer was nothing, did Elvis have a plan? Because Sanchez was ready to go home. Like, now.

He frantically waved a hand at Elvis again, trying to grab his attention. It was time to get the fuck out of the hotel. Elvis finally noticed his friend’s desperate wave and nodded back at him. With any luck he was thinking the same thing. Grabbing hold of Janis Joplin by the arm, he whispered something in her ear, and then the pair of them headed offstage to join Sanchez.

‘You ready to get the fuck outta here?’ Sanchez asked.

‘Dam’ right,’ said Elvis. ‘Let’s just hold on one minute, though. See what Julius does.’

Sanchez was anxious to get away from the place, the faster and farther the better. Now that he had Elvis with him, he reckoned his chances of getting out alive had improved considerably. Deciding that he no longer gave a fuck about events on the stage, he headed over to the flight of steps down to the corridor that led to the reception area. As he was making his way down the steps he heard the sound of glass breaking. It came from the lobby. A cold blast of air followed it.
A window must have broken somewhere near by
. When he reached the foot of the steps he heard the sound of footsteps, lots of them, heading his way. Moving fast.

He stopped and peered round the edge of the doorway, looking towards reception. His jaw dropped open and he felt his heart miss a beat. The zombie creatures from the desert had crashed through the glass double doors at the entrance and were swarming into the hotel in their hundreds. They darted off in all different directions, looking for human flesh to feast on. Sanchez turned and ran back up the steps to the stage area. He wasn’t happy about being an appetizer. And as appetizers went, he was big enough to share. At once his cowardly instincts came to the fore and he did what he did best – ran from trouble.

Elvis and Janis were standing at the top of the steps with their backs to him, watching the proceedings on the stage. Nigel Powell had left his seat on the panel and was holding what could only be the contract in both of his hands. The shock of seeing the zombies had rendered Sanchez temporarily speechless. He stood behind Elvis and took a few deep breaths. The King hadn’t noticed him. He was talking to Janis.

‘Soon as someone signs that contract, we gotta get the fuck outta here, babe,’ Sanchez heard him say.

‘Don’t you wanna see the encore?’ Janis asked.

‘Nah, we gotta go. That guy who’s won is about to sign a contract with the Devil. Gonna sell his soul. Be damned all to hell.’

‘What?’

‘I’m serious, babe. There’s a buncha fuckin’ zombies headin’ this way, too. They’ll kill us all, ’less we can get ol’ James Brown there to sign that goddam contract.’

‘But the Blues Brother won fair and square,’ Janis protested.

Sanchez finally got his voice back and blurted out what he’d seen. ‘Elvis! The zombies! They’re already here! They’re in the fuckin’ hotel!’

Elvis turned round and looked at Sanchez, then glanced down at his watch. ‘Shit! It’s twelve fifty-seven.’

Sanchez looked over at the stage. ‘If Jacko signs the contract, then the zombies’ll stay an’ kill us all, yeah?’

Elvis nodded. ‘That’s how Gabriel told it.’

‘But if he don’t sign it by one o’clock, then this fuckin’ hotel sinks into Hell, an’ we’re all dead, right?’

‘Again, correct.’

‘So why’re we still here?’

‘’Cause if Julius signs it, we might be okay.’

‘What happens if Julius signs it? I don’t recall Gabriel bein’ very clear about that part.’

‘Fuck, man, ya do ask some goddam questions,’ Elvis said exasperatedly. ‘Listen, I ain’t sure, but Julius is the only one can break the curse. Whatever the fuck the curse is.’

Janis looked at the pair of them as though they were certified lunatics. ‘What the –
shit, fuck, muthafucker
– are you two talkin’ about?’

‘Ain’t no time to explain,’ said Elvis. ‘We gotta stop that guy from signin’!’

‘Too late,’ said Janis quietly, pointing at the stage.

Nigel Powell was now standing centre stage with the Blues Brother, facing the audience. Powell was holding the deadly contract, Jacko a ballpoint pen.
Ready to sign an agreement with the Devil
.
Selling his soul.

Jacko took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his jacket. Then he reached out a hand and took hold of one end of the contract in Powell’s hands. He held the pen up, signalling that he was looking for the appropriate place to sign.

Elvis shook his head and looked away, unable to watch. ‘Poor bastard,’ He sighed. ‘He’ll be damned all to hell.’

‘Better him than me,’ mumbled Sanchez. They watched as Powell took a look at his own wristwatch. His eyes betrayed how eager he was to see some ink on paper. It was a beast of a contract, nearly two inches thick. There was no time for Jacko to read it.
Just sign it,
seemed to be the overwhelming message. As Jacko brought his pen up to paper ready to sign his life away, Sanchez and Elvis stood frozen, wondering what would happen. And what to do.

At that moment, Sanchez heard a noise behind him. He looked back and saw two zombies run past the foot of the stairs from the corridor below.
Those fuckers’re goin’ to be
everywhere in a minute
, he thought. He looked back at the stage.

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.