Excerpt from Chelsea Avenue by Armand Rosamilia

CHELSEA AVENUE

 Armand Rosamilia

 PART ONE

One: July 8^th 1987

He ordered a beer but didn’t bother with it, entranced with the crowd. His long, black trench coat swished as he moved slowly, methodically. His black-gloved hands brushed ever so slightly against a shoulder here, the small of a back there. He wanted to touch everyone in the club tonight. Murphy’s Law was filling up slowly.

Water slipped in slow rivulets from his clothing, lost underfoot in the darkness. If anyone noticed his damp clothing or his oceanic smell, they didn’t bother to let him know. Since he was in the mood to kill tonight, for fun as well as for his goal, it was just as well.

Tonight is the night I will Ascend.

He estimated less than one hundred people shuffling around with their drinks and cigarettes in hand; the women were busy posing, the black-attired men pretending to ignore them. Everyone’s hair was long and piled to the rafters, both men and women wearing touches of makeup. He cared nothing about the music scene or any of these posers—wasn’t that a word they used?

A couple locked in a frenzied, alcohol-induced kiss brushed past him, and he stroked their arms. Stephanie Lehman. Nick Martin.

The headline act had a special meaning for him tonight: a group of young Satanists who spread their gospel through song lyrics about Hell, death, and suffering. As if they knew. As if anything they said was real.

I will show you Hell. Death. Suffering.

He didn’t want to wait another two or three hours for the night to really kick in. He was growing impatient already. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm down and focus. It would be of no use if he lost it now, especially after all the planning. What were another few hours when time would have no meaning after this?

Without thought, he reached out and stroked a young girl’s hair as she swept past him to the bar. Jennifer Jacoby.

When the band with the unwieldy name of Spawned Against the Acrid Nemesis took the stage tonight, the real Hell would begin. The band itself didn’t matter, but they were the focus of the power tonight. With their music as his conduit, he would be able to wield the noise and ascend to power.

A petite blonde, garbed in an Anthrax concert shirt and hair reeking of Aquanet, smiled at him when he touched her shoulder. Melissa Swaim. If this were any other night, he would most likely buy her a few drinks, watch the bands play, and then seduce her on the beach and enter her before ripping her entrails from her still-warm corpse.

Any other night.

He could hear the driving beat from the strip club next door and hoped that he had enough time to touch everyone there as well. The more he marked, the more he was assured of his Ascension.

Seventy-two, seventy-three… He counted each person as he touched them, walking slowly around the 21 and over bar area and into the main room, where a local heavy metal band was setting up their equipment. People passed him, and he instinctively knew which ones he still needed to feel. No one seemed to notice him. He was just another hair-bag metal dude in a stupid black coat with thick black boots stomping on the dirty floor. He didn’t feel a part of these sheep, but he knew he blended in with them, and he needed that for tonight.

“Great night for a show, huh?” Anthrax Girl asked him. “The band that just went off is my brother’s band; he’s the bass player. Did you like them?” She touched his coat and frowned. “Is it raining outside?”

This one was persistent. He looked into her eyes as he brushed his long, black hair back behind an ear and smiled. She shuddered but didn’t look away.

“Do you wanna die?” he whispered in her ear, his stubbly face against her soft cheek.

Her smile fell but only for a second. “That’s a Slayer lyric, right? They rule.”

After tonight, I rule.

He had two to three hours before he would need to do anything important, and there was something about this stupid little girl that made him want to kill now.

Without another word, he took her hand and led her through the crowd, rubbing against as many bodies as he could while he was moving. Eighty, eighty-one…

The band members were climbing off the stage and cut right in front of him. He bumped into the two lead guys: long-haired freaks that looked like him but had none of the power.

“Watch out, asshole,” one of them murmured. He smiled and made sure every one of them had been touched. He would save them for last tonight.

Craig Reynolds, Brian Philbin, John Regan, Will Anderson.

Hooking her hand in his, he made a zigzag pattern around the club, tapping at people with his free hand and savoring it as each person’s name came unbidden to his mind.

Karen Johns, Debbie Wright, Russ Meyer, Bob Dennison.

Satisfied that everyone in the vicinity had been marked, he moved toward the exit. He tapped the patrons huddled near the entrance; they didn’t feel his touch.

“Where are we going?” she yelled over the noise, but he ignored her. As a man of action, he was done talking.

At last, satisfied that everyone in the building was accounted for and primed for his Ascension, he relaxed slightly.

He pushed through the bouncers at the door and dragged her outside. There wasn’t time to take her far, but he didn’t care. He wanted one last time to sweat and rut like a mortal, one more weakling squirming under his thrusts before he gutted her and spilled her life into the ocean.

She looked up at the sky. “It didn’t rain. There’s not a cloud in the sky. All I see is stars.”

“Where are you parked?” he asked impatiently.

“The next block over. Are we leaving?” She hesitated.

“For a few minutes.” He pulled her close and squeezed her ass. “I’m going to take you in the backseat of your car and then go back into the club.”

“What?”

He slapped her across the mouth. “Lead me to your car. We’re running out of time.”

Her mouth gaped open in shock, but there was a hint of a smile.

She is enjoying this, stupid bitch.

Without another word, she led him a block away to her small Hyundai. As soon as the door was unlocked, he rushed her, pulling her Anthrax T-shirt over her head. “Be careful! It’s the only shirt I have with me.”

“You won’t need it, trust me,” he said and yanked her tight jeans down, ripping her pink panties as he did.

“I like it rough,” she exclaimed as if he didn’t know already.

I wonder if you want it this rough.

Rated 4 stars overall. Readers are calling this “a terrific horror story told in a unique way” – “Armand Rosamilia weaves a dark, and horrific tale.”

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