Babies Kill the Unborn: A Rockumentary - Second Revison

Given my recent breakthrough, or more aptly said, my surrender last month, I’ve been tearing through my all stories and rewriting them – all of them! All my horror stories are being rewritten with a genuinely Active Voice. I know, you’re probably saying “You’ve said that before,” but this time I have. I’ve stopped trying to force that mood into a reader’s head. Don’t believe me? Check out Pazuzu Manifestation -it’s a free ebook. It’s the Ninth Revision.

The revisions are made to all my books. My Horrid Tales of Wister Town short story compilation is also complete. Readers can find all those stories online – also free – now I gotta get a professional publisher and get paid!

My Codex of Malevolence short story compilation is currently in an unpublished state and will stay that way until I finish rewriting all its tales. Although, I am feeling generous and I do want to tempt readers with the next reincarnation of the horror fiction I summon. Below is the first revised story in the compilation. It’s called Babies Kill the Unborn: A Rockumentary and it’s about the transmission of evil and the vehicles it uses.

I do confess, it’s been one of my most tangled stories, but I think that’s all ironed out. The Active Voice worked magic…

Babies Kill the Unborn: A Rockumentary

The Studio feels hot this afternoon, as studios typically are. The band called Venger of the Unborn – a music group internationally known by their heavy metal fans as the Venge, unofficially – they sweat and slip inside their leather clothes. This fact is despite the numerous holes torn deliberately in their stylish pants and jackets.

The band has come to a radio production and promote the launch of their new album and world tour. Both are called “Babies Kill the Unborn.” This past week in November, tickets have been for sale everywhere worldwide.

“Now, that’s quite a name for an album,” says Greg Hill, the host of Tomorrowday. The production is made by a Milwaukee-based, affiliated entertainment show. The thick, black man wears a nondescript brown suit, a white buttoned-up shirt and a pink tie. Standing next to his guests, the band, he speaks into a microphone while they sprawl over his desk and studio chairs. They’re all white guys, accept the new female vocalist; her family name sounds to have originated in the Middle East.

“Babies Kill the Unborn is actually the name of one of the songs on the album, too, but it sounds real good, so that’s what we call the album…” says Time-bomber, the vocal drummer for the Venge. His black, handle bar mustache sheds a gay from-the-seventies impression.

Razorwere, the lead singer of the band, interrupts the rambling drummer. He tells Greg “People still don’t get that this really happened.”

The skinny, young, blond guy looks gaunt yet well-muscled. Prepared for his narrative, he says “In nineteen-ten, there were babies who sweat poison, and they passed poison through their lips when they suckled their moms’ teats. The poison killed any fetus in their mother’s womb. It happened, man. Look it up on the Internet!”

“Siblicide, man, in the womb,” shouts Grant. He’s one of the bass guitarists in the band. Sheer noise mars this bit of the recording destined to be spliced out.

The young man is indistinguishable from the other bassist. The pair of female guitarists also looks alike. Greg thinks the Venger of the Unborn metal band must have some unpublicized gimmick – they have two sets of identical twins in the band. The radio show host doesn’t ask and misses his opportunity to reveal a mystery to the world.

“Well, your previous album…” Greg begins to say before Razorwere interrupts him again.

“Nah, man. They dug-up fetuses that had been killed by the poison, and they even found one of the kids who murdered their brothers and sisters – nobody can talk to any of the, uh, living – poisoners, because they’re all dead now.”

Greg waits until Razorwere apparently forgets the point he wants to make. After a moment and when he’s content with the dead air, Greg returns to his original topic.

“There was controversy with your previous record,” Greg states to the band in general. “The Unborn are the Unliving.”

Razorwere vigorously bounces his head and Time-bomber calmly nods his own. Greg shrugs his shoulders while the other five members of the band wipe sweat and makeup from their faces.

“There’s a song on that album called F, star, star, K You Christians,” Greg says as neutral and flat as possible.

“That can mean anything, like fork,” Time-bomber confuses.

“That doesn’t sound so good either,” one of the two female guitarists advises the drummer.

“All right, fudge or fuck. I don’t know what the stars are, dammit,” Time-bomber shouts.

“All right,” Greg says when attempts to salvage the production. He turns toward the latest female addition to the band. “Renti, you’re new to the Venger of the Unborn.”

“Yeah, they needed talent,” Renti says in regal smugness. The Middle Eastern girl looks exotic and psychotic, exactly like a suicidal terrorist as represented in newspaper cartoons. She gestures at the plain guitarists. “These girls don’t cut it for the Venge.”

The host repeats old news. “I have heard, you were a fan before you joined the band.”

“Yeah, big time,” Renti tells Greg. “Where did you hear that from, the wire coming out of your ear?”

Greg subconsciously checks the wire running over his shoulder and hanging against his neck. He clears his throat and whimpers a chuckle.

“Yes,” he replies and tries to laugh-away the comment. The interview is lost and Greg wants to, minimally, peacefully end his show. Life is again unfair – this band’s concert will sell-out tonight and tomorrow, but surely, Greg’s just lost permanent listeners to his modest regional radio program.

The members of the international rock band called Venger of the Unborn had come to the studio today hung over, stoned and amped on caffeine pills. And today’s show started late because of their lack of coordination. All eight of them had run through the studio, breaking into locked rooms. Now, most of them crash in the studio on the host’s furniture well within the half hour of recording.

Greg wraps the show early and wishes to God he worked at a commercial station. Before he’s done, the host reminds his listeners “Be sure to go to the concert tonight at the…”

He pauses and realizes he’s never gotten the location of the band’s concert. He asks Time-bomber. “Do you know where you’re playing tonight? You know it’s not on your fliers or posters, right?”

Time-bomber shouts “It’s Milwaukee’s southernmost forum. Go south until you’re not in Milwaukee anymore then turn around.”

“Chicago is too far,” adds Grant.

“Good,” Greg says. “And be sure to see the rockumentary after the tour. It’s called Babies Kill the Unborn.”

“Maybe before, if we quit early,” Grant clarifies.

Had enough, Greg signs off. “All right, good day from Tomorrowday.”

“I wish it was tomorrow today,” Renti complains before her mike switches off. She does not wait for the technicians to kill the feed. Strictly by coincidence, the recording quits the moment after she speaks.

“That way, we’d already be done with this cold-ass town,” she says for posterity.

Their host leaves the sound bite to the editor. Out of curiosity, Greg asks the female performer “Where are you going after this?”

The rest of the band stands, waving body odors from their jackets.

“Texas, man,” Razorwere injects. “Bye, bye cheeseheads.”

“Well, they got cows down in Texas,” Greg tells the lead singer. “They got that saying about the other down there, don’t cha know?”

“I don’t get you, man,” Razorwere tells Greg. “That’s why everything crashed and burned today. We’re not in sync.”

“Okay, fine then,” Greg says upset. “It was nice to meet you, but there’s the door.”

“Bummer?” Grant asks the air.

“Let’s get to the southern part of Milwaukee, so we can turn around,” Time-bomber rallies as he takes the band out the studio door.

After a second set of doors, the members of the Venge step outside the extra wide double-trailer and stand together on an icy parking lot. Everyone shivers simultaneous then race to their eight rented vehicles. Most of the band members drive SUVs.

Renti has leased a luxury sedan and a chauffeur for the weekend. Everyone spins their wheels in the ice, but eventually leave the parking lot in single file. Renti’s luxury sedan leads the convoy. The train of vehicles join traffic traveling southward on the 43.

Occasionally, an SUV driven by a band member races ahead of the convoy and shows-off then falls back behind the sedan. The gunning drivers remember they have no idea where they go. Renti’s chauffeur knows exactly where the band plays tonight.

He gets the Venger of the Unborn to their concert before sundown; a miracle in any other city besides one in the Midwest – that is, if a traveler was not on the road by the time the sun came up. Traffic isn’t a problem the natives suffer. Farming and hunting had been bred into them, everyone from Southern Wisconsin was usually awake before the rooster crows.

Campers already fill the concert parking lot. Clouds of warm vapor float from the exhausts of idling vehicles and from gluts of people moving between cold weather tents. Most concert goers wait for the show in the warmth of their vehicles. Many others pretend they’re Eskimos.

Everyone in the band is grateful their date in Milwaukee has booked the brand new amphitheater. The Venge collectively remembers hearing this one had been erected after some really old crap had fallen over.

A gate restricts entry into the parking lot reserved for the band and crews. A preacher blocks the entrance. Obviously a priest, the man wears a gold trimmed white frock over his padded winter jacket. The freezing fellow resembles draped furniture. His face is flushed red by the cold and a chilly wind inflates his hallowed raiment.

Renti’s driver honks his horn, but the preacher refuses to budge. The man then inexplicably approaches the band’s convoy along its side, allowing the sedan and its tail of SUVs to pass through the gate.

Before he passes the preacher, Time-bomber stops his car and talks to the man. Behind him, Razorwere immediately lays on his horn. The other three obstructed band members join the blare of the their singer. Responding to the message, Time-bomber leans his entire upper body out his driver’s side window and flips-off his colleagues.

“What are you doing here, monsignor?” Time-bomber asks the priest. He has no idea what the title means, but it sounds formally religious.

“You are devils,” the preacher says, as articulate as his thick numb lips allow. Father Mastic swears he’s become, literally, allergic to the cold. Unconcerned with himself, he tells the musician “Sin and promiscuity breed evil.”

“All right, man,” Razorwere shouts from his SUV. He pokes his head out of the vehicle. “That establishes sin and screwing are two different offenses to God. I’ve just heard something else about sex is bad, in a new category or something, so I’m still doing that.”

“You all need to confess,” Father Mastic tells Time-bomber. “Tell your real friends and your real Christian family, tell them your sins and secrets.”

Time-bomber yells his answer. “Fuck that, preacher. You’re taking the Act of Contrition a couple steps too far.”

“What are you talking about?” Razorwere shouts to the drummer. He’s not answered.

Time-bomber drops back into the cab of his vehicle and rolls up the window. He feels as cold as the preacher looks. Finished with the freak, he goes to work and drives into the reserved parking lot.

As the remaining band members drive past, the priest stays clear of their vehicles. Once everyone allowed inside the lot have parked, the guards, bundled in fat coats and winter gear, seal the portable chain link fence with a padlock. The preacher stays outside.

“Pazuzu is not the Living God,” Father Mastic shouts. No one lingers and asks what the crazy bible-thumper portends. The man shouts unheard “You will burn.”

Roadies have already prepared the stage and are ready for the show. The band only need pretend they play their instruments and lip sync their vocals. After the Venge had become famous, making hardcore music evolved a whole process. Their band had forged a new path.

Their work entails tours and recording everything in rehearsals, and presenting the edited studio riffs raw to adoring fans. “This way, audiences hear how the band truly sounds,” Razorwere repeats millions of times on DVD covers. The lead singer of the Venge especially likes the way live music is presented in this day and age.

The duplication of drummers and guitarists are all a part of the show. When the band isn’t touring, both people playing identical instruments, work only part-time. A single musician is all the band needs to lay tracks. Having such a large group on the road, with really nothing to do, makes their tours so less complicated.

The Binger Memorial Forum is huge and holds thousands of fan a – and a good chunk of the Midwest Venger of the Unborn fan base attends the show this evening. The other half will turn up tomorrow night. Shows in Milwaukee always constitute the largest tour returns.

The one thing the whole band hates is fans here only come and see their shows during the winter. Time-bomber once guessed their real fans come and see the band only when they’ve got nothing better to do.

No special props come along for this tour, just lights, top-of-the-line sound system and good old rock and roll music. The “Babies Kill the Unborn” world tour shapes up to be a yearlong vacation for the group.

Band members don’t even write their music anymore, because Venger of the Unborn has made-it into the Big Time. Finally on Easy Street, the band only buys their songs from now on. They buy and perform hit songs.

A little after eight o’clock, the forum’s announcer, an obese guy named Bill, introduces the band. Red stage lights then come on. Music actually starts to play before the entire band walks on stage – and that’s a glitch.

Luckily, everyone in the band is prepared for accidental miscues. Razorwere pretends he sings when the vocals begin, which lies on a separate tape and cued and ready to go at the exact moment. He wonders what-the-hell is up with their sound producer, a young guy named Kwon.

The kid talked the band into throwing away over a hundred thousand dollars for digital sound software; and more cash on computers and peripherals to run the application. Venger of the Unborn had agreed and paid to computerize all their performance to prevent stupid fuck-ups like tonight.

Kwon quickly gets his act together and cuts the vocals and the music, just before the beginning of the chorus. The song gets cut short, but the whole band is gathered on stage. All nine thousand concert attendants are oblivious to the glitch. They hoot, whistle and throw water bottles and never stop.

“Hey, it’s that preacher,” Time-bomber calls to Razorwere. He is quite inaudible. Time-bomber points at the red-face man whom still wears his white frock. Brown vomit drips from the preacher’s right shoulder. The drummer screams “He’s right there in the front row.”

“Whaddya say?” Razorwere asks. He doesn’t hear his band mate. The unanticipated minutes of grinding music had made his ears ring, despite the earplugs everybody on stage wears. Nobody in the band has heard the First Drummer.

“What?” Time-bomber shouts back at Razorwere. The drummer is as deaf as the rest of the band, and maybe most of this evening’s concert goers.

As the production team is trained to do in case of fuck-ups, Kwon starts the tape again on the second song. His small team is dedicated to the preservation of this rock icon. Venger of the Unborn looks good and the prerecorded songs make them sound even better, even if the music is strewn together with rehearsal tapes that are, in most cases, years old.

In the mosh pit on the forum floor below, Father Mastic hitches his frock up and under his armpits. He pins the white clothe beneath his elbows – the man wears a paisley red jacket underneath – and his biceps are held flat against his sides.

Despite his obstacle, the priest has no problem pulling a 190 proof bottle of liquor from his waist band. Time-bomber recognizes the brand. He shouts to one of the twin guitarists in front of his drums.

“Hey, Rudolf here looks like he’s getting wasted at our concert,” Time-bomber laughs beating on his unmic’d drum kit in rhythm with the song.

“Huh?” either Pam or Penny ask.

Time-bomber misses whoever’s question. While the music plays, hearing either woman is impossible. Meanwhile, Father Mastic retrieves a lighter and a wad of paper towels from his pants pocket. He then lets the hem of the frock drop to vinyl floor.

“Everyone here at the forum tonight is sick and full of sin,” Father Mastic mumbles. He tells no one who can hear him “I smell the damnation.”

He does – the foul stench comes from over his right, where the crowd is crammed together thickest. He tells his god “These sinners will burn with the devils they worship.”

The people this mad priest originally justifies as collateral damage is now the refuse he is honored to scour from God’s green earth. Father Mastic twist a wad of paper towels into the neck of the bottle. Tonight will end of these advocates of abortion, promoters of infanticide and slaves of the demon, Pazuzu.

Some hateful fiend pretends it is these lost boys’ muse. Father Mastic believes he knows which demon inspires Venger of the Unborn. Its name is in each of their songs and between the tracks.

Father Mastic hears the name, Pazuzu, echo throughout the cacophony. He wonders if he might hear the demon speak if the DVD is played backwards. Father Mastic vows never to find the demonic message and no more will come. “Never,” he sputters.

He fulfills his promise to the Lord tonight the moment he scratches his lighter to life and he lights the paper towel wick.

“Holy shit, shit, shit,” Time-bomber shouts as he scrambles from behind his drums. He sees the flaming Molotov cocktail right away, because he’s watched the priest since first spotting the man. The First Drummer jumps off the stage while the music plays. He shouts futile warnings at his band mates.

“Huh?” Pam asks. She lazily scrapes her hand across the fingerboard of her mute electric guitar.

The flaming bottle crashes in front of Razorwere, igniting him. The sound of his own voice, scowling through a repetitive ballad, drowns his screams. His audience watches enthralled.

The instruments play themselves as the few flame-retardant musicians toss guitars away and run from the stage. The four other band members cry and flail as fire swirls around them. The fire is a living entity, or many creatures in a fiery colony.

Flames chase suddenly awakened concert attendees from the forum and swat at security guards who comes to help the dying band members. Soon, all of Binger Memorial Forum burns. Father Mastic achieves his purpose and stops evil in the place. Now, while he still lives, he goes and he does a favor for God.

“See what dances in the flame?” he shouts uselessly to the crying and rolling victims of Venger of the Unborn’s world tour. This night, Babies Kill – The Unborn is aborted.

Father Mastic tells the suffering “Your music brings these demonic spirits to earth! They perish in flame, just as you. I will close the portal!”

Father Mastic pulls a bare, plastic baby doll from beneath his frock – The priest has apparently kept the doll tucked into his waistband, opposite the hip on which he had smuggled the incendiary bomb. His loose slacks slips below his thighs.

Father Mastic lets his pants fall to the ground, the crumpled pile barely noticeable beneath his white frock. The state of his pants makes no difference. In a moment, everyone and their clothes will be torn to pieces and burn.

Father Mastic shouts at no one. If Razorwere was still alive, he’d understand the raving man. “How do you like that. It’s not so funny now, is it? My baby will kill the unborn demons!”

The music finally stops playing and the awful screams of the hurt and dying sound just as loud. At the center of cacophony, Father Mastic lights the foot-long fuse on a bundle of dynamite he’s taped on the back of his baby doll.

The mad priest then throws the bomb into the living fire. Disappointed for a moment, Father Mastic watches Venger of the Unborn burn amidst the living tongues and teeth of evil living flame. A lick of fire then catches the dynamite and allows God to show His face early. The forum collapses in the explosion, killing any poor victim still fighting for his or her burning soul.

****

“Three weeks after the Binger Memorial Forum was blown-up, the attack is finally subject to a federal investigation. Homeland Security is now treating the explosion as a terrorist attack,” Greg Hill says on his entertainment program.

He tells his listeners “The band playing the forum that night, Venger of the Unborn, had just begun a world tour. And that has changed, isn’t that correct, Mister Daniel Stepensky?”

“Yeah, that’s obvious,” a clean-shaven Time-bomber replies. He tells the host “Half the band died that night. It’s dead, the band is dead’”

Instead his ripped leather, Mr. Stepensky dresses in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. He tells everyone who listens “So there is no world tour, or rockumentary, ever.”

“And you are the drummer named Time-bomber,” Greg awkwardly injects. “But, Daniel Stepensky is your real name.”

“Jesus, Greg,” Daniel shouts and stands. The camera follows him. “These lame interviews are what crashed the show with the band last month, and now half of ‘em are dead. Are you happy about that? Everybody knows my real name. Just search for me on the Internet. How about we don’t have to tell the retards watching your show. Send them to special classes for this kind of shit.”

“Well?” Greg mumbles. He admits his new show, “Already Yesterday,” is most popular with enfeebled nursing home residents who are unable to change the television channel.

“I’m only here to say one thing, besides say sorry to the families of the kids that got killed, of course,” claims Daniel. He tells the audience his news. “I’m done too. I’m done and goodbye and farewell.”

“So, as you’ve just heard,” Greg says directly into his microphone. “Time-bomber is leaving the music business entirely.”

“Shut the F, star, star, K up, Greg,” Daniel spits and walks off the set. He was done with promotions, that one thing was certain. He was curious about the demon Father Mastic mentioned. He imagines Pazuzu.

-  – END – -

Codex of Malevolence Second Revision is coming soon …