Eat the Night Read online

  Table of Contents

  EAT THE NIGHT

  Connect With Us

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  Other Books by Author

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  EAT THE NIGHT

  Tim Waggoner

  First Edition

  Eat the Night © 2016 by Tim Waggoner

  All Rights Reserved.

  A DarkFuse Release

  www.darkfuse.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR

  Broken Shadows

  The Last Mile

  The Men Upstairs

  The Winter Box

  This one’s for Jonathan Janz—a hell of a writer

  and an even better friend.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to Shane Staley, Dave Thomas,

  and my agent, Cherry Weiner.

  CHAPTER 1

  She can’t see anything at first, but she can feel, and what she feels is humidity so thick and heavy—so oppressive—that it’s like a wet woolen blanket draped over her naked body, its weight the palm of a giant hand pressing her toward the earth. Next, she hears something, a loud click followed by an electronic humming sound, and then noise blasts all around her. It’s so loud that it takes her a moment to recognize it as music. Dissonant, on the verge of being atonal, but with a driving beat that slices to the core of her being, a blade of sound that cuts more deeply and efficiently than one forged of metal ever could. Guitars, bass, drums, and then a voice. The words are sometimes growled, screamed, whispered, or shouted, but never simply spoken. Maegarr is too much of an artist for that.

  Gonna walk away from the light of day

  Roam among the darkest stars

  Find a place where Nothing is right

  When we get there, we’re gonna—Eat the Night!

  Eat the night, eat the night, eat the night, gonna—Eat the Night!

  Everything we thought we knew

  Meaningless, never true

  Feast is famine, dark is light

  Forever hungry

  Eat the Night!

  Eat the night, eat the night, eat the night, we’re gonna—Eat the Night!

  Her body sways to the beat, her hips gyrating, and the heat and humidity no longer feel so oppressive. They’re freeing, purifying, like she’s inside a furnace and the flames are burning away her imperfections, erasing all the meaningless, mundane parts of her—and there are so many of those, aren’t there? She’s being perfected. Made ready.

  It’s glorious.

  She realizes then that the reason she can’t see is that her eyes are closed. So she opens them.

  The light from the torches strikes her eyes first. Several dozen of them ring the Pavilion, sitting atop wooden poles driven into the ground. The light isn’t comprised of yellows, reds, and oranges, but rather greens, blues, and whites. These strange flames give off no heat. It’s coldfire, and it’s mesmerizing. Beyond the flames are dark silhouettes of Placidity’s buildings, simple one-story structures the Congregation assembled with the labor of their own hands and baptized with their sweat—and sometimes their blood. Past the buildings are the larger silhouettes of trees, and above it all the stars, pinpoints of light clear and sharp, like shards of sharp-edged glass.

  The Pavilion is located in the exact center of Placidity, and it consists of rows of plain wooden benches—they’re too simple to be called pews—and covered by a roof held up with vertical beams placed at periodic intervals. It reminds her of the picnic shelter near her house when she was growing up. Except this one is much larger. The Congregation numbers over three hundred strong, and as huge as the shelter is, a number of people have to stand or sit on the ground. At the front of the Pavilion is a platform upon which a pair of speakers rest. They’re big damn things, each nearly six feet tall, and the music thunders from them, making the entire platform vibrate. Off to the side is a table where Nathan sits before a reel-to-reel tape recorder and mixing board. Nathan always runs sound for Maegarr, and he’s very proud of his position in the Congregation. No one is jealous of him, though. Such emotions have no place in the Congregation’s hearts.

  Everyone is screaming along to the music now, fists raised in the air, heads nodding in time to the beat.

  Eat the night, eat the night…

  Everyone is naked. Men, women, children, young, old. Some are so excited that they’re masturbating, while others are clustered together in various configurations, fucking furiously. No one pays them any mind. Tonight’s a special night, the most special, and everyone is free to celebrate it however they wish. Many of the Congregation are drunk, high, or both, and some bleed from a multitude of wounds, many of which are self-inflicted. She has done nothing to interfere with her senses, though. She doesn’t begrudge her brothers’ and sisters’ choices, but she wishes to meet the Moment with a clear mind as much, if not more, than a joyous heart.

  The song—once a Top Ten hit for Maegarr—is two-thirds of the way over before he arrives. She knows that he simply steps forward from the darkness behind the platform, but it appears that he emerges from it, as if a line appears in the night to create an opening through which he slips. The Congregation goes wild when they see him, laughing, shouting, crying, calling out words of love and chanting, “The Moment has come, the Moment has come!”

  Maegarr raises his hands high above his head, and the Congregation falls immediately silent, with the exception of those so caught up in their sexual exertions that they’re unaware of anything going on around them. Maegarr doesn’t do or say anything, but those closest to the ones determined to finish their fucking fall upon them, pulling them apart, hitting and kicking them until their attention returns to the here and now. Those who aren’t unconscious, that is.

  Maegarr continues to hold his hands high for several more measures, then he lowers them slowly, and in response, Nathan decreases the music’s volume until it cuts out completely. There’s a soft ka-chunk as he presses the button to stop the tape. Maegarr shoots him a quick glare, but then he looks out upon the Congregation and smiles.

  Maegarr isn’t a particularly impressive-looking man. He’s not tall, and he has something of a potbelly. He’s in his forties, and although he has long ivory-white hair and a full salt-and-pepper beard, his head is bald and covered with sweat. The greenish blue light from the coldfire torches make his skin look like marble, as if he’s a statue come to life, or perhaps a cartoon spirit, painted in strange hues to suggest an unearthly appearance. Maegarr the Friendly Ghost. Even though it’s nighttime, he wears a p
air of aviator sunglasses, and although the Congregation stands before him naked, he wears an oversized Hawaiian shirt, cutoff jeans, and sandals. But despite his physical appearance—or perhaps in an odd way, partially because of it—he exudes a magnetism that draws every eye toward him. And it’s not because he’s standing before a group of devoted followers. It happens to anyone in his presence, even those who hate him. Especially them. She knows, because she’s been with Maegarr since the beginning, and she’s witnessed it happen time and again. That magnetism made him a star, and it made him a leader. And tonight it’s going to make him a god, or at least the next best thing.

  She stands in the front row, along with his other companions and their children. She’s close enough to smell the sharp tang of his sweat, combined with a sweet-sour stink like gangrenous flesh. She knows it’s a smell that would revolt most people, but it makes her wet, so much so that she can feel moisture running down the insides of her thighs.

  In the center of the platform is a podium with a microphone attached. On the front of the podium is a circle crudely rendered in black paint, and on top rests a large, open leather-bound book, its pages yellowed, edges warped and torn. The air is dead—no wind, not even a hint of a breeze—and yet the edges of the pages ripple gently, like the fronds of undersea plants stirred by invisible currents. Maegarr walks over to the podium, removes the mike from its holder, and then steps to the platform’s edge. He doesn’t like to address the Congregation from behind the podium, doesn’t want anything to come between him and his brothers and sisters when they talk.

  “Tonight is the night, my friends.“ A grin splits his beard. “At last.”

  A cheer goes up at his words, and he smiles tolerantly while waiting for it to subside. It takes several minutes for the Congregation to quiet, but when they do, he continues speaking in a relaxed, almost conversational tone. His voice echoes from the speakers, which add an electronic hum to his words and make them even more hypnotic.

  “It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? And I don’t mind telling you that I’m as nervous as I was when I played my first gig at Jenny Laure’s sweet-sixteen birthday party. It was just me and an old six-string back then, singing to a bunch of teenage girls. But I was so scared, I nearly pissed myself. Good thing I didn’t, or else Jenny might not have given me a blow job later down in her parents’ basement.”

  The Congregation laughs. A man in the back shouts, “I’ll give you one right now, Mark!” which prompts more laughter. And no one laughs harder than Maegarr.

  “If we had the time, I’d take you up on the offer, Jim!” He grows serious then. “But we’re not here to have fun tonight, are we? No, we have work to attend to. Important work. Sacred. Work that’s going to change everything.”

  Now that the music is off, she can hear an almost metallic clack-clack-clack coming from all around them, providing accompaniment to Maegarr’s words. And although she can’t see anything beyond the torchlight, she senses movement among the trees, as if things—a great many of them—are moving closer, eager to bear witness to whatever is to come.

  The men are all erect, even most of the boys, and the women’s pubic hair glistens with moisture in the coldfire light. Many of the Congregation touch themselves and moan with longing as Maegarr speaks.

  “It’s been a long, hard road, no denying that, and we’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices along the way, haven’t we? A lot of good people aren’t here with us tonight.” He pauses and his voice grows colder. “Some not-so-good people, too.”

  A few nervous chuckles at this, but most remain silent.

  His gaze slides across those standing in the front row, and for an instant his eyes seem to linger on her before moving on. A cold pit yawns wide inside her, and she tries to tell herself it’s just her imagination, that he wasn’t singling her out. But she knows he was.

  “There’s a lot more I can say, and so many people I should thank for helping us reach this moment, but we need to get on with the show, don’t we? I’ve played in front of enough audiences to know that it’s rude to keep people waiting. Or as my mother used to say, ‘Shit or get off the pot.’”

  Laughter, not so nervous this time. She doesn’t laugh, though. Her throat is too dry and tight, and she’s starting to tremble. She hopes no one will notice, hopes he won’t. But of course he will. He notices everything.

  The things from the trees sidle closer, as if drawn by the power in Maegarr’s voice. The strange clacking grows louder, and Nathan turns up the speakers’ volume so Maegarr can be heard over the sound.

  “There’s just one thing we have to do first,” he says.

  He smiles, but his eyes are cold as a glacier’s heart—and they’re focused directly on her, just as she feared.

  Two of her fellow consorts—the ones standing on either side of her—take hold of her arms and pull her forward. She realizes that this was prearranged, and even though this shouldn’t surprise her, it does. More than that, it hurts. Monica and Brian: these two are her lovers, her brother and sister, her family…

  Not anymore, she realizes. Maybe they never were.

  She doesn’t resist—she knows there’s no point—but she won’t do anything to help them. She lets herself fall limp, and Monica and Brian are forced to drag her to the platform’s edge. Maegarr crouches down before her so that they’re nearly face-to-face. He’s still holding the mike, of course. He was lying when he talked about getting the show going. For Mark Maegarr, the show truly began when his mother squeezed him out from between her legs, and it hasn’t stopped since.

  He reaches forward and brushes a lock of sweat-matted hair from her forehead. She knows the gesture is a calculated one, performed for the benefit of his audience, but her body still shivers at his touch.

  “Why did you do it, Debbie?” His voice is a sorrow-laden whisper, but thanks to the speakers, it echoes through the Pavilion like a shout.

  The things in the night draw closer, and she thinks she can make out their shapes now, darkness against darkness. The clack-clack-clack rises in pitch, as if the insects surrounding the Pavilion are becoming excited. She feels the force of Maegarr’s personality behind his words, feels pressure building inside her head. She wants to answer him, must answer him. But she draws her lower lip between her teeth and bites down hard. Pain flares, followed by the hot gush of blood. She spits into his face, and red droplets cling thick and heavy to his beard, stipple the lens of his sunglasses.

  Slowly, Maegarr’s own lips draw back from his teeth, the expression more snarl than smile.

  “If that’s the way you want it…” He looks at her one last time, and in the depths of his eyes, she sees twin circles of light spiraling slowly around great seas of darkness. Then he blinks, and the dual visions are gone. He stands and walks away from the platform’s edge and to the podium. He places the microphone back in its holder and lays a hand atop the open book. As if in response to his touch, the pages ripple even more.

  “How many nights have I stood here and read to you from this book, my loves?” He slides his fingers across a page, and the book seems to writhe with pleasure. “And with each page I read, another mask concealing the true nature of reality fell away, allowing us to see.”

  As if the word see is a cue, the Congregation begins chanting.

  “To see is to know. To know is to die. To die is to become nothing, and Nothing is Everything.”

  Without realizing it, Debbie mouths the words, along with the others, blood dripping from her wounded lips onto her breasts.

  Maegarr continues. “Tonight, we’ve reached the final page, and once I read it, the last mask will be removed. But before I start, we have our own final masks to remove, don’t we?”

  Debbie’s hands twitch as she tries to reach for her face, but Monica and Brian hold her arms down, preventing her. Nathan turns on the reel-to-reel and “Eat the Night” starts blasting once more at top volume.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong!” Debbie shouts, the blood f
illing her mouth and her swelling lower lip making her hard to understand. “You can’t do this to me!”

  She’s sure Maegarr hears her, even over the sound of his own recorded voice screaming from the speakers. But his only reply is to motion for her captors to turn her around to face the rest of the Congregation. All of them have reached up to touch their foreheads, fingernails digging into the thin layer of skin over bone. Fingers dig into flesh, and lines of blood begin to trickle down skin. Men, women, and children grimace as they pull and tug. More blood flows, and even though the pounding drumbeat and chain saw guitars of “Eat the Night” have drowned out all other sounds—such as the strange insectine clacking and the rustle of grass as dark shapes continue edging closer to the Pavilion—Debbie thinks she can hear the moist sucking sound of skin peeling away from muscle accompanied by nearly orgasmic moans of agony. The skin comes off far more easily than it should, but the Congregation has spent years preparing for this moment, and soon everyone clutches sagging scraps of flesh, their faces now red wet ruins. They’re supposed to cast their “masks” aside now, drop them to the ground as if they’re nothing more than trash. But they continue holding on to their once-faces, and Debbie knows something’s wrong.

  Nathan has removed his mask as well. He lays it on the soundboard table, then comes over to stand behind Debbie, Monica, and Brian. He takes hold of both her arms and pulls them back to prevent her being able to reach her own face. Brian and Monica are now free to remove their own false faces, which they now do. But they too hold on to their flesh-masks instead of discarding them.