~ ~ ~
Ten minutes later, Dragen and Finnell were busy hauling equipment through the house with Kate—Rafe’s guitar, Dragen’s bass, but mostly Finnell’s drumset—while Rafe went back to perusing the wall with Stacy. All the people on this wall had the same story; fame one minute, gone the next. Cautionary tales of the music industry.
Stacy was able to identify more of the faces than he could; her love for music was just as genuine as his. She was probably the coolest chick he’d met in a long time. He was thinking about her so intensely that he didn’t even notice Delacord roll up beside him.
“You’re as good as any of them,” the old man said, startling Rafe so bad, he almost knocked a picture off the wall of that foreign girl who did the song about the balloons.
He looked down at the man in the in wheelchair. “I don’t know about that.”
Delacord smiled up at him. “I’ve been doing this a long time, young man. I know talent when I see it.”
“You haven’t even heard me sing yet…”
“I don’t need to. You see, most people believe talent to be this intangible, immeasurable quality. Something that can be hidden, until it is used. That isn’t true at all. People with talent are a beacon in this world, a shining light that draws others to them.” He nodded his head further up the wall, where Stacy was watching them. “And, with a refined enough palate…talent is downright edible.”
“Maybe so,” Rafe said, “but I don’t know anybody who ever sat down to a meal of talent.” As soon as he said it, an image popped into his head: Delacord, hunched over and cradling his stomach, looking ready to puke up his dinner after hearing a few bad notes from Kate.
Next to him, Delacord’s smile looked downright devilish. “Oh, but I have. As you can see, I’ve dined on some of the greatest talents this world has to offer. Some of them I let age, like a fine wine…” He put a finger against the picture of Michael Jackson. “Others I gobbled up for a snack before they’d barely even made it out of the gate.” Here he touched a photo of four men that Rafe thought were the Vapors, who’d sung that annoying “Turning Japanese” song back in the 80’s. “And, even though I’m not in the industry anymore…I’m still so very hungry for talent.”
Now Rafe understood what Finnell meant; Delacord’s cheery demeanor was too much, too overbearing, like a dessert with too much sugar. That, coupled with his sudden outburst of anger at Kate’s singing, made Rafe think of those spiders that build trapdoors and then wait patiently for unsuspecting insects to wander by.
Them being the insects, in this scenario.
He went back to studying the pictures.
But Delacord wasn’t finished with him yet. “Do you like my wall, young Rafael?”
“It’s…kind of depressing, actually. All of these people…well, they’re either considered failures or tragedies.”
“Then you learn your next lesson: if talent isn’t guarded, it can be stolen. And people who once had it, who knew what it was to hold greatness in their hands…well, they handle its loss in various ways, but almost none of those ways are healthy.”
Something about the statement annoyed Rafe. “I don’t know. You could say that about some of these people, but not all of them. Those that died—you know, that didn’t kill themselves, or OD—it’s not really their fault. If they’d lived, who knows what they would’ve gone on to do?”
“Ah, but was it the death that caused the loss of talent, or the other way around?” Delacord backed up his wheelchair as he said, “Another thing I’ve learned in my day…nature abhors a vacuum.”
From the stage, Dragen called out, “Hey Rafe, we’re set up! Let’s get this show on the road!”
Rafe started in their direction, but Stacy grabbed him along the way.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know…this just doesn’t feel right. Let’s get outta here.”
He surprised himself by cupping her cheeks and leaning in to give her a kiss on the forehead. “One song. I’ll be right back.”
Delacord rolled after him, holding up a nice-sized digital camera. “If you wouldn’t mind, gentlemen, I always have my performers take a snapshot, just after they make their payment.”
He handed the camera to Stacy as the three members of Warp Face climbed on stage. Rafe’s eyes strayed back over to the wall of (payments)…of pictures, but then he dragged them back again.
“What’re we playin?” Dragen asked.
“Let’s do ‘Pusher.’ Melt this guy’s face off.” He turned around to look out over the museum of music artifacts. Delacord had positioned his wheelchair directly in the middle of the stage, just a few yards in front of Rafe. Stacy and Kate drifted up behind the old man, but kept their distance.
“We are Warp Face!” Rafe shouted into the microphone, then picked up his queue after Dragen’s mini-solo. This song required an incredible vocal range but he belted it out perfectly, as always. While he sang, he thought about that wall of musicians, all of whom seemed to have lost their talent right around the time they’d made their payment to Delacord.
And, as he hit the second chorus, Rafe noticed an amazing thing.
Delacord no longer looked so ancient sitting in his wheelchair. With every passing second, his hair seemed thicker, more color in his face, muscles growing on his bony frame so that he looked more and more like the man from the photos, the one that had never aged noticeably in five decades.
He grinned, smacked his lips, and swallowed, like a man enjoying a fine meal.
Up on stage, Rafe’s voice cracked on a high note.
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Russell C. Connor has been writing horror since the age of five, and is the author of two short story collections, four eNovellas, and ten novels. His book Good Neighbors won a silver medal in the Independent Publisher Awards and a bronze medal in the Readers’ Favorite Awards. He has been a member of the DFW Writers’ Workshop since 2006, and served as president for two years. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his rabid dogs, demented film collection, mistress of the dark, and demonspawn daughter.
His next novel—Between—will be available in the fall of 2017.
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