The Chilling Spree (2 page)

“Oh.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” I said.

“I haven’t given up.  What do I have to
do, dare you to step outside this box of what you see is
appropriate and inappropriate for a woman of your advanced
age?”

It tugged another grin over my lips. 
“You said that to provoke me, didn’t you?  Dare me?  My
advanced age?  All right, buddy.  You’re on.  But
only if I don’t hear from Johnny before the show.  When is
it?”

“New Year’s Eve.”

“Great,” I groaned.  “I’ll be
surrounded by drug addicts and alcoholics as we ring in the New
Year.”

He chuckled.  “Somehow, I get the
feeling that you could teach them a thing or two about holding
their liquor, Helen.”

Attaching conditions to the dare was my only
hope.  Sadly, the holiday crept forward without a peep from
Johnny Orion.  Devlin’s eager attitude distracted me somewhat,
but it could never obliterate the ache of regret festering in my
heart.

Only one thing could distract me that
well.  Unfortunately, we had no idea that a heavy metal
concert truly would be that vehicle, not until we arrived and the
badges became necessary.

Chapter 2

Booze flowed through the Darkwater Bay
Amphitheater as though it had been transformed into the proverbial
land of milk and honey.  Jaegermeister and Crown, maybe. 
Bud and Bud Light.  Something along those lines. 

Trepidation isn’t normally part of my daily
life.  Yet in a throng of men with long hair, dressed mostly
in black, demons inked onto biceps, chains hanging from belts and
more steel-toed boots than I cared to count, I felt suddenly
dwarfed by sizes and another river flowing – testosterone.

I clutched Devlin’s arm.  “You never
said I would be the
only
woman here.”

The grin was unabashed.  “You’re not
the only one, just the
hottest
one.”

Jujitsu tickled the periphery of
temptation. 

“Don’t give me that look.  I told you
you’d never catch me off guard again, Helen.  You want
something to drink, or would you rather go ahead and hit the floor
now?  I’ve got VIP access for this baby.  We’re gonna be
close enough to get hit by sweat.”

“Delightful.  I don’t suppose any of
these vendors are selling a nice Napa merlot.”

He threw his head back and laughed
maniacally.  “You weren’t kidding about not being a fan, were
you?”

“Devlin, I bought those albums when I was
fourteen years old.  Seriously, I have no clue what’s about to
happen here.  I’ve never been a concert goer in my life.”

“This is your first?” 

I sincerely hoped it wasn’t panic I saw in
his eyes.  “Devlin, you’re making me very nervous.  Why
does it matter if this is my first concert?”

Another concertgoer overheard me and held is
fist up for Dev to bump.  “Dude!  Awesome!” he
grinned.

“Why is this awesome?  What’s going to
happen to me?”

Devlin chuckled softly.  “Oh man. 
This is gonna be hard to explain.”

“Aren’t we a little old for this sort of
thing?”  Before the words fell from my lips, two men, more
salt than pepper with hair hanging almost to their waists stumbled
past us with two large cups filled with beer.  “Guess not,
huh?”

“Relax.  The band is a decade older
than you, a little older than me.  We’re not going to be
seeing a bunch of kids.  In fact, I think you have to be
accompanied by an adult if you’re under twenty-one for this one,
Helen.”

“God,” I groaned.

“So ... a couple of shots followed by a
couple of beers?”

“I don’t suppose they’ve got anything
imported,” ever ready to grumble, I allowed Devlin to steer me
toward a kiosk with Guinness prominently displayed.  Thank
God.  Domestic beer tastes like piss, or so I always
imagined.

He ordered two shots of Crown and two
Guinness, peeled off two twenties from a wad of cash stuffed into
one pocket.  I couldn’t help but grin when the aged vendor
requested to see our identification.  Two leather billfolds
flipped immediately, revealing our ages, along with the smaller
badges sported by law enforcement in Darkwater Bay.  The
vendor didn’t bat an eye, just checked the dates, took Dev’s cash
and returned the change.  Devlin stuffed a generous tip into a
plastic cup on the counter and pushed the cup of whiskey into my
hand.

“Cheers, virgin,” his eyes twinkled with
mischief.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m about to
seriously regret taking you up on this dare?”

“Aw, c’mon, Helen.  This beats being at
home for the stroke of midnight, wishing a certain someone had come
to his senses in time to kiss you, doesn’t it?”

I swallowed the pungent liquid and struggled
not to gag on it.  Like Dad always said, hard liquor makes for
hard women.  I still needed to toughen up.  More than a
little if every hint of Johnny’s existence brought on a bout of
heart-shredding pain.  At least I could blame my watering eyes
on the whiskey.

I slammed the plastic cup onto the
counter.  “Then by all means, set me up with another,” I
said.

Devlin shook his head.  “No way,
Eriksson.  I’d prefer you conscious for what you’re about to
experience.  Grab your beer and let’s head down to the
floor.”

Sweat, whiskey and beer seasoned the
air.  Devlin clasped my hand in his and half dragged me
through a wall of bodies closer and closer to front center of the
floor at the base of the stage.  Periodically, security
stopped our advance to examine the all access passes we wore
suspended by lanyards around our necks. 

My earlier perception of being the only
woman at the show slowly eroded, the closer we got to our
destination.  A wide array of bustiers grew thicker in the
crowd.  Lots of skin and fleshy mounds ranged from rolling
hills to massive mountains.  Tight denim encased legs without
an ounce of inhibition over displaying any and all assets.

I crowded closer to Devlin’s back.  It
drew his eyes over one shoulder.  “You all right?”

“It occurs to me suddenly that I am grossly
overdressed.”  I felt like a librarian in a strip club. 
My turtleneck sweater was most certainly out of place.  The
jeans were new, not a hole strategically ripped anywhere for a
tantalizing view for devouring eyes.

He paused in our trek and pressed his lips
close to my ear.  “Don’t kid yourself, Helen.  What you
don’t show is far more alluring than everything on display
combined.”

“Spoken like an outrageous flirt,” still,
his compliment made me feel a little bit better about the
conservative attire.  “If I’d known what this place would be
like, I could’ve dragged out the leather for the occasion.”

Dev tugged me to the most forward barricade,
past two more security staff.  “Leather?”  Dark ale
tipped to his lips.  “Do tell.”

“Don’t you remember the business with Uncle
Nasty’s Bar and ... oh, never mind.  You weren’t in Darkwater
Bay yet when that happened.”  I told an abbreviated story of
my attempt to infiltrate a biker gang on the east coast in another
life, back when I was still profiling criminals for the FBI.

His eyes danced in amusement.  “I’d
love to see that get-up, Helen.  But this wouldn’t be the
right place for you to show up dressed like one of Hell’s
Angels.  I don’t think there’s enough security in the place to
quell the riot it would no doubt cause.”

“All right, you’ve laid the compliments on
heavy enough for one night.” My eyes wandered to the crowd around
us.  The energy, combined with more alcohol than should ever
be consumed in a public venue mingled heavily.  It was enough
to spike my paranoid radar.  I started watching.  There
was no rational explanation for what I sensed.  You could
smell the fight brewing in the air.

“They’ll be moshing over there,” Dev’s eyes
followed mine.

“Ah, so that explains it.”

“You know what a mosh pit is?” his eyes
rounded in half-playful surprise.  “Helen, I’m shocked.”

“I’ve never actually seen one, but I’m not
ignorant to the phenomenon.  Have you ever gone into that mess
and… well, done whatever it is they do in there?”

“Hmm,” Devlin hummed from behind his
beer.  “When I was just a kid.  That was the majority of
the fun coming to these things.”

“I take it you’ve seen them before.” 
He wore an ancient long-sleeved t-shirt, emblazoned with the band’s
logo and some hellish character that was trying to claw its way out
of a grave.

“Fifteen times, not counting tonight.
 A bunch of my buddies from the corps and I would make sure we
got together whenever we could to see them.  Alas, they’ve all
got kids and mortgages and corporate jobs, wives who pitched a fit
at the mere idea that they’d be out partying with an old buddy from
the Marines instead of at a respectable New Year’s Eve party. 
I was ready to go stag.  In fact, I sold all the tickets
except for the one I gave you tonight,” he said.

“I’m not sure if I feel honored or
not.”  Two small, typical-for-Darkwater women behind us were
complaining about my ungodly height.  One of them continued to
jostle against me hard enough to slosh a mouthful of Guinness out
of my cup and onto the floor.  I turned enough to toss a
withering glare a foot below.

“When the opening act comes out, I want you
to move in front of me,” Devlin said.  “Don’t want you getting
inadvertently sucked into the pit.  God help them all if they
pissed you off and got treated to a display of jujitsu
tonight.”

My eyebrow lifted.  “You’re protecting
me or them?”

“I don’t want to deal with paperwork if I’ve
had a couple of drinks, and I can guarantee that nobody here would
be susceptible to your brand of placating should you resort to
self-defense.”

“Like you were?”

The lights dimmed.  Smoke machines
billowed something that smelled suspiciously cannabis-like into the
cavernous space.  Devlin’s arm snaked around my waist and
maneuvered me in front of him before blue lights shrouded the stage
behind an almost translucent curtain and magnified the shadows to
monstrous proportions.

“Is this the main event?”

Devlin’s chin nudged the side of my head
with the negative affirmation.  “Opening act,” the words
drifted into my ear over the low hum of bass guitar.  The
crowd surged behind us, and I felt gratitude for Devlin’s
insistence of using his body as the barrier between them and
me. 

The curtain fell, and sound waves blasted
through my body with crushing reverberation.  I had never
heard the band before in my life – didn’t even know the name, but
everyone around us seemed like they were born with the lyrics to
the songs on the tips of their tongues.  Arms flailed in the
air, shouts rose in unison and the bodies waved back and forth
drawn in by the magnetism of the music.

It wasn’t half bad.  Certainly wasn’t
my cuppa in my old age, but I didn’t despise it.  Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw the large crowd of mostly-male participants
in the mosh experience.  They thrashed about like spiders with
severed vertebrae.  I noticed the emergency medical treatment
stations around the venue before Devlin and I had taken our places,
of apparent exalted importance, front and center.  My initial
assumption was that they existed for acute alcohol poisoning. 
After seeing body-surfing up close, and the frenetic violence
exerted by those acting like maniacs, I suspected that alcohol
poisoning would be the least of treatment needs tonight.

My head tilted back and bumped Dev’s
chest.  “Feel free to act like an idiot if you want to,” I
shouted over the din.  “Don’t want you being restrained on
account of me.”

He downed the remainder of his beer and
tossed the cup on the concrete floor.  Devlin’s hands spanned
my hips and jerked me into a gyrating rhythm that matched the
pounding percussion from the stage.  I burst out laughing but
went with it.

Before long, rivulets of sweat were running
down my back.  Only one tiny hint of a Johnny-thought flashed
through my brain.  The guy I knew and loved would be having a
fit if he saw me burning senseless calories this way.  But
that Johnny didn’t exist anymore.  He wouldn’t know me at a
healthy weight any more than he recognized anything else about
me.

Devlin’s hand slid up underneath my
sweater.  “You got something on underneath this thing?”

“Yeah.  Why?” I shouted over my
shoulder.

“You’re like a furnace, sweetheart. 
Take off the sweater and tie it around your waist.”

My eyes widened.

“Or by something under the sweater, are we
talking lingerie only?”  He grinned wickedly.

“It’s a tank top.”

“And?”  Devilish twinkle in the
eyes.

“That’s it.”

He started peeling the sweater upward. 
I raised my arms and let him do it.  Devlin knotted the arms
around my hips and rested his hands on my mostly bare
shoulders.  The band was mid-segue between songs when the
singer shouted, “Stop, guys.  Hold on a sec.”

The guitars stuttered to a halt.

“Dude, yeah, the big guy with the babe down
front.”

My eyes drifted up and met the
singer’s.  He smirked knowingly. 

“All access?”

Dev threw up the horns.

“If you get her outta the jeans before we’re
done with the set, you’ve got free VIP access for the rest of my
career.”

The drunken revelers roared approval,
whether they could see who was being encouraged to engage in lewd
behavior or not.  My palms slapped over my face.  I felt
Devlin’s laughter ripple through me.  One arm wound around me
for a quick hug at the waist. 

“You’re a hit,” he murmured into my ear.

“Yeah, yeah,” New Yorker Helen made an
appearance, albeit brief.  I couldn’t help but notice that the
milieu around us shifted significantly after my sweater hugged my
hips.  Gone were the petite girls leaning over the metal
barricade between us and the stage.  Instead, sweaty,
bare-chested males grew in numbers.