The Devil's Metal (25 page)

I looked back at Noelle. Her expression
hadn’t changed. She was stuck, a portrait of mind-numbing terror. A
silent scream that never ended.

My eyes volleyed back to the woman in
white.

She was no longer across the road.

She was standing on the curb that bordered
the parking lot. The parking lot that sloped toward the pool. Just
feet away.

Her eyes were bleeding black pools that
promised a wealth of revulsion.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t
breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

Then I heard Noelle, her voice bursting
through like a siren.

She started screaming and thrashing on the
lawn chair, her voice rising high into the air, a scream that
personified all that everyone feared.

I put my hands on her shoulders, trying to
calm her down and prevent her from hurting herself, and threw
another glance over my shoulder, expecting to have to fight off
Sonja as well.

But she wasn’t there. The road was empty.
The darkness was all consuming.

Within seconds, the clerk came running out
of the motel and the doors to various rooms opened. Suddenly
everyone from Jacob to Mickey to random motel guests were gathered
around, trying to figure out what was going on.

Mickey flew to Noelle and tried to get in
her face to calm her down but Noelle screamed like she had never
seen him before in her life. Sage went to her side and tried to
steady her but she thrashed violently against them both.

“What happened?” Mickey screamed at me.

Everyone looked at me but I couldn’t even
speak.

Jacob put his meaty hand on my shoulder and
gripped it hard, the rings digging into my bone.

“What happened, Dawn?” he asked with a glint
in his eye.

I shook my head, my tongue thick and stupid.
Next the tiny motel clerk with the hairy ears was at my side asking
the same thing.

I was finally able to say, “I don’t know.
She was sitting here alone and then she just started
screaming.”

I could tell Jacob knew I wasn’t telling the
whole truth but he let it go. I went on, “I was in my room earlier
and someone had broken in.”

“What?” someone in the crowd cried out over
Noelle’s wails.

Frenzied whispers erupted among the motel
patrons.

“It’s true,” I said to the hotel manager. “I
fell asleep, and when I woke up, the lights in my room were all out
and someone was in my bathroom. The light was on. I heard them in
there. Then they turned off the light and I ran out of the room. I
ran all the way here and saw Noelle and then she just started
screaming.”

The clerk looked extremely puzzled, shaking
his head in disbelief. I didn’t know how else to describe it. They
both seemed like two unrelated incidents but I saw Sonja just as
Noelle had. Could it have been her in my room?

My eyes made their way back to Noelle.
Mickey was trying to calm her but wasn’t having much luck. Sage had
a hand on her arm, holding her down, but he was looking at me. His
expression was entirely unreadable.

The manager sighed. “I better go call the
police and get an ambulance here too.”

He ran off into the office.

“Aw, Christ,” Jacob swore. “This is all we
need.”

I couldn’t help but glare at him. “I thought
you liked bad press.”

His eyes narrowed into venomous yellow
slits. They seemed to go from avian to reptilian in a single
blink.

“I think you’re going to need to tell me the
truth soon,” he whispered into my ear.

I moved my head out of the way. “I am
telling the truth. Take it or leave it.”

He chewed on his lip for a moment, searching
my face. “I’ll take it. For now.”

He left my side and went to go help Sage and
Mickey.

I felt Robbie sidle up to me.

“Was there really someone in your room?” he
asked. His shoulders were hunched and it looked like he couldn’t
take any more punches from life.

I nodded, my eyes automatically darting over
to the door. If it really had been a person in my room, they were
probably gone now thanks to Noelle’s distraction. But I was
starting to think it was just as likely that it had been Sonja, or
one of the other GTFOs. Someone who wanted to fuck with me.

“I think…” Robbie trailed off.

“What?”

He started laughing to himself, like he
remembered a funny joke. I watched and waited until the maniacal
laughter stopped and he composed himself. He was still a lesser
version of the rock god I used to know.

“Do you feel it?” he asked quietly, his eyes
darting around.

I leaned into him. “Feel what?”

“It,” he said. “Something. Like something
has a hold on us. Like….”

“Like?”

He shook his head and gave me a twisted
smile. “I bet you never expected any of this.”

I frowned at his change of subject. “Did
you?”

“Yes,” he answered plainly and didn’t
elaborate. I didn’t feel like pressing him. I didn’t think it would
do me any good.

We watched Noelle for a few minutes until
the police and ambulance arrived. The police immediately came to me
and barraged me with questions. I could tell Jacob was hoping they
wouldn’t bring up Emeritta’s death, but the Atlanta cops weren’t
stupid and they’d already heard all about it. Naturally they
believed that Noelle was on drugs until the paramedics seemed to
dismiss it.

Maybe it was because I was a female and a
journalist, but the cops were easier on me than they were with
Robbie and Mickey, and I wasn’t brought in for further
questioning.

They went to the motel room to investigate
my side of the story, and though they found the bulb in the bedroom
had burned out naturally, there was a razor in the sink that hadn’t
belonged to me or anyone else. There was no sign of a break-in, so
whoever had been there had come in when I wasn’t aware. That
freaked me out more than anything, knowing that someone had been in
my room and I was lying there asleep and totally helpless.

Noelle still wasn’t responding to anyone, so
she was strapped down into a stretcher and shoved in the ambulance.
Mickey and Jacob went in the ambulance with her, leaving me, Sage,
Robbie, Bob, Graham, and a load of frightened guests.

“So,” Robbie said, looking at us. “Who’s up
for sleeping on the bus?”

No one argued, not even Graham, and we
gladly locked ourselves in the vehicle and attempted once again to
get a good night’s sleep.

Once again, a good night’s sleep never
came.

****

The next morning Atlanta was under a deluge
of rain as the remnants of an early tropical storm came in from the
Gulf Coast. It was hot and sticky inside the bus, the windows all
closed to keep out the incoming water that flowed down the planes
of the bus like miniature waterfalls. No one had slept and with two
nights of sleep deprivation, emotions were running high. We munched
sugary confectionaries and strong coffee that Bob had snapped up
from a local café, happy just to have our mouths occupied.

I explained what had happened as many times
as I could and the guys kept asking me the same questions as if I’d
say something new next time. I left out the part about Sonja being
across the road knowing that would be dismissed as a trick of the
eye, but I mentioned the monsters.

I tried to not make it obvious that I was
watching Graham as I told them all. His expression didn’t change at
all, not even when I brought up Noelle saying “We’re owed to
them.”

“What does that mean?” Robbie asked.

I shrugged and looked at Sage. He was
sitting on the couch, staring at some blank spot on the wall. He
hadn’t said a word all morning and I had to wonder what on earth
was going on in that head of his. I hoped he wouldn’t shut down
too. The band needed him more now than ever. I
needed
him.

“It means Noelle is nuts,” Graham said,
rapping a drumstick against his leg.

I shot him a disgusted look. “How can you
say that?”

“How can you not say that?” he countered.
“Go and listen to what you’re saying and tell us those are not the
ramblings of a crazy loon. Fuck, we all know Noelle’s a weak chick.
She always was. Even, I don’t know, five years ago. We all thought
she’d grow out of it and get some balls or something but she never
did. And Mickey just let her do whatever she wanted. Drugs, other
men,” his eyes shot to Sage in a brief exchange, “booze, whatever
the fuck.”

I wasn’t stupid. I made the connection and
it immediately made sense. Sage and Noelle had slept together at
some point. That would explain their somewhat strained relationship
and the way she seemed to look at him at times with puppy dog
eyes.

Or the way she used to. Now there was no
knowing what was going on with her. And there was no way in knowing
what was going on with me. That last thought chilled me to the
bone. I had to wonder how long Noelle had thought she had monsters
coming after her. Had it started out for her the same way it
started out for me? Was that the path I was going down? I was
already hiding things from everyone: what Graham had said to me,
the demon faces, seeing Sonja in the darkness. I kept it to myself
because I couldn’t bring myself to believe it and I knew no one
else would. But maybe Noelle had been doing the exact same
thing.

If she had pulled me aside a week earlier
and told me what she’d seen, would I have believed her?

No. Of course not.

A few hours later, Jacob returned to the
bus. We all jumped in our seats at his knock and Bob reluctantly
opened the door, expecting monsters to follow him up the
stairs.

“Christ it’s raining as fuck out there,’”
Jacob said, shaking his jacket off, water flying onto the floor. He
threw it onto the bench in a wet sop and looked down at us like a
teacher inspecting his pupils. We sat there, watching him,
waiting.

He let out a despondent sigh and rubbed his
face. “Okay, folks. Here’s the new development….”

With grim lines across his face, he
proceeded to tell us that Noelle wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
The doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong with her. There had
been no sign of drugs in her system, at least nothing more than
residual amounts. She didn’t even test positive for alcohol so the
doctors could only say it was most likely a combination of stress
and lack of sleep that led to a nervous breakdown. Given that
Emeritta had just died, there was a very strong chance that Noelle
had been in a state of shock and this was how her body was dealing
with it. They were hopeful she would eventually snap out of it, but
they were going to keep her under observation for a few days, and
after that, she’d probably be sent back to Sacramento to be with
her parents. He said that he’d already spoken to them and they were
flying out to Atlanta as soon as possible.

Jacob went on to say that Mickey offered to
take care of Noelle, but seeing as they didn’t live together in
Sacramento and her parents pretty much thought Mickey was the
world’s worst influence, they weren’t having any of that. Which led
to the next part.

“Unfortunately,” Jacob said, looking at
Robbie and Graham with unease. “We’re going to have to cancel the
show tonight.”

“Obviously,” I said.

He looked at me sharply. “Obviously, yes.
Thank you, Rusty.”

“Just tonight?” Graham asked.

“Well…I don’t know. I’m afraid it’s time for
another band meeting.”

Everyone looked at me. I raised my brow.

“Is that my cue to leave?” I asked.

Jacob nodded at Bob. “Both you and Bob
should probably go and stretch your legs.”

I looked at the downpour outside and
exchanged a look with the stoic bus driver. Seriously?

“Hey, she can stay,” Sage said.

“Why, you’re not done sucking up to your
little buddy yet?” Graham spat out, smashing the drumstick against
the seat.

Sage glared at him. “She can stay. She’s
pretty much one of us now.”

I felt vaguely flattered.

Graham laughed viciously. “She will never be
one of us. She wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first
place.”

“Yes, yes,” Jacob chided him, “you wanted
the guy from Rolling Stone. We heard it a million times before.
Well, it’s Creem magazine, baby. What better place to record the
shitshow of the century.”

I pursed my lips, thinking that over.
Shitshow of the century. A tour that went down in history.

I was suddenly aware that everyone except
Sage was looking at me expectantly.

“Come on, Rusty,” Bob said, getting to his
feet and slipping on a jacket. He pulled out a golf umbrella from
underneath the couch then opened his arms for me, gesturing to the
door.

I let out an angry breath of air and went to
join him, not even bothering to give the band one last look before
we opened the bus doors and walked out into the rain like a pair of
rejects.

We were still in the motel parking lot, so
Bob and I walked through the mounting puddles and up a block until
we got to the café. Despite the coverage, we looked like a pair of
drowned rats and we plunked ourselves down on the pink vinyl
booths.

“Don’t take it personally,” Bob said in his
ragged voice, smoothing back his white hair. “If I never fit in
with another band, I’ll be one happy fucker. They can ruin you, ya
know?”

“I can see that,” I told him, smiling
tiredly at the telepathic waitress who plunked two mugs and a pot
of coffee on the table.

He took a sip of his coffee and smiled.
“Oooh, damn that’s good.” He then placed the mug down and folded
his hands in front of him. “You know, I’ve been on a lot of tours.
Hell, I’ve been doing this for most of my life. I couldn’t even
begin to tell you about half the shit I’ve seen. Not only because
I’ve been sworn to secrecy, because I have…The King had some strict
waivers. But because I’ve blocked it out. Or I’ve just refused to
believe it. But this band…this band, Rusty…something is not
right.”