Danny the werewolf took off his headphones mid-Holy Diver as he walked into first period. The other students were playing the final air guitar notes of Heavy Metal High’s Alegiance to Death. He sat at a desk in the back of the classroom beside Barbetta, head cheerleader and girlfriend of Moose Elwood, star quarterback of the football team.
The honor roll metalheads sitting near the front of the class started up their usual banter.
“Werewolves suck,” said Richie Bratwurst, the fat smartass.
“Watch out, loser,” said somebody else, as a spitball zipped past Danny’s snout.
Laughter erupted throughout the classroom. Danny pulled his math book from his backpack and opened to a random page. He pretended to study a geometry graph.
Ever since Moose Elwood beat him out for the quarterback job during summer training camp three years ago, picking on Danny had become routine. It was the life of a backup, the life of a loser who bore his cross of failure because others enjoyed watching him suffer.
Mr. Ferrell snubbed a cigarette out on his desk and approached the blackboard. “Quiet up, class. Danny’s a shame to us all, but your final test is next week and we’ve still got to cover the mathematics of the hair metal solo.”
Danny shivered; his fur reddened. Math was his worst subject. He would be lucky to squeeze by with a D this semester. He couldn’t even find the square root of most Black Sabbath songs, something most students had mastered during the first week.
As Mr. Ferrell scribbled musical notes and a stick figure of Satan on the board, Barbetta slipped a note onto Danny’s desk.
His heart raced. Barbetta was the most beautiful girl in school. She had gotten run over by a train on two occasions.
Few metalheads mustered the courage to orchestrate one train accident. Surviving two of them made her a school legend. All Danny ever wanted was to be a legend.
Danny unfolded the note and read You better lose it.
Lose what, he replied.
Barbetta pressed a tissue to her eyes and passed the note back to him. Your virginity.
Everyone in school knew that Danny had never staged a single accident. Why bother, he wrote. I’m waiting for the right time.
You better do it quick. Moose got in an accident this morning. Of course he did. He’s team captain. It’s pre-game ritual.
Moose died this morning.
Danny began to sweat.
Barbetta broke into a crying fit and ran out of the classroom. All of the students faced Danny, glaring at him with their fiercest Danzig grimaces, which they had learned in Facial Education.
Mr. Ferrell broke his chalk and crushed it to dust between the fingers of one of his chain mail gloves. “Danny, this is the third time this week that you’ve upset a member of the fairer gender. Should I duct tape your mouth again, or can I trust that you’ll sit still and fail quietly?”
Danny wiped the sweat from his furry forehead and stared at the note lying on his desk. “Mr. Ferrell, I—”
“Give me that paper,” Mr. Ferrel marched down the rows of desks, “there’s no note-taking in math class.” He swiped the note from the desk and held it up to the fluorescent lights.
After he stared at it for over a minute, he crumpled the paper and shoved it in his mouth. He gulped it down and in a low voice said, “A dark day is upon us. Go to the dean’s office, Danny. Surely you’re responsible for this tragedy.”
The bell rang, announcing the start of second period.
Danny fidgeted in the chair across from Dean Hellfrost.
The dean clasped her icicle fingers and cracked her knuckles, releasing a cluster of damned souls that floated out of her translucent hands and popped on the stucco ceiling.
“I’m sure half the school heard about Moose during passing period, but I still must break the news officially. You realize what this means, don’t you?” she said.
Danny scratched at the fur beneath his jersey. He itched all over. His tongue felt like a wad of cotton.
Dean Hellfrost rapped her nails on her desk. “It means you’ll have to play in tonight’s conference game against Old Time. This has me in a fret, Danny. We’ve beat the Country Vampires for many consecutive years. Even if Moose Elwood is dead, losing this game would be a huge letdown to him. A real disservice to his memory. So keep him in mind while you’re on the field tonight, will you?
Which brings me to my next concern. As per league rules, all starters must have engaged in at least one legitimate accident at some point in their high school career prior to taking the field. To the best of my knowledge, you’re the only upper classman on the team with zero accidents on your record.” She narrowed her cold eyes at Danny.
“You’re not afraid of getting hurt, are you?”
“N-no mam,” Danny said.
“Good,” she said. “Life demands pain because pain gives us meaning.”
“Y-yes mam.”
“You’ve got until five o’clock to stage a horrific accident, something even Moose wouldn’t have dared. Can a werewolf like you accomplish that?”
Danny’s head bobbed up and down.
“Then get out of my office. We have a conference to win.”
Danny stood and left the dean’s office, his shoulders slumped. His eyes welled with tears.
Danny pulled a tissue from the box on the secretary’s counter and left the school office.
In the gymnasium, the school band was playing Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast. The noise was quiet in the office, but deathly loud once Danny stepped outside.
The October heat pelted him, but it was nothing compared to last month, when the temperature never fell below 115 degrees. The scorching weather actually relieved Danny now. He could pretend those weren’t tears in his eyes. Just sweat.
He saw no sign of the skelecops in the main hallway.
They’d probably gone off to smoke pot. Dabbing at his eyes with the tissue, Danny pushed through the door of the men’s bathroom. He walked to the far stall and locked himself inside, where he sobbed quietly until a gong sounded. Second period would end in five minutes. He had to collect himself.
His time to stage an accident had pounced upon him like a thunder cat that lashed out more fiercely with every passing minute. He needed to plan something brave and tragic, something splendid and totally metal… something greater than the benchwarmer he would always be.
He made it to history class on time. The other students refrained from their usual taunts. In fact, they completely ignored him as the metalbot, Mr. 666, took attendance and reminisced about the crucifixion of Alice Cooper, which was October’s central history lesson.
Ten minutes into third period, feedback reverberated from the intercom. Dean Hellfrost’s voice crackled over the wash of static. “Staff and students, I regret to inform you that Moose Elwood, our heroic quarterback, is dead.
He passed away this morning after his monster truck collided with two military carriers hauling napalm. This is a sad day for everyone at Heavy Metal High. Benchwarmer Danny has vowed to be ready for tonight’s game, so if you see him, give him a swift kick in the ass. Nobody will get in the way of our conference title. The Old Time Country Vampires are going down!”
Mr. 666 unleashed a string of profane beeps and whirrs.
Nerbert Neeb, the team kicker who always sat in the seat closest to the podium because he had an android fetish, slammed his forehead against his desk. “There goes our season,” Nerbert groaned.
Hushed banter filled the room until Mr. 666 punched a hole through the dry erase board. “Take this news as a history lesson, class. By the end of the period, I want you to turn in a two page paper on how Alice Cooper would have acted in the face of such adversity.” The metalbot kicked the clipboard to a corner of the room and wheeled to its desk.
Danny hung his head. He pinched his furry thigh to distract himself from all his worry. He feared he would start crying again.
He fished a notebook out of his backpack and opened to the first blank page. Pen in hand, he considered all the ways he could approach this paper. He doodled a caricature of himself in the margin and then scribbled a pack of redneck vampires preparing to suck his blood.
A spitball pelted Danny in the face. The class sniggered as he wiped it off. He lowered his head, choosing to put all his energy into writing so that he could ignore the teasing.
He wrote:
The accident comes in many forms. I have never been crucified, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced my share of mishaps. What Alice Cooper never told us is that some of us who are considered lazy or dumb or cowardly for abstaining from real accidents are actually none of those things. For the ones like us, life is just one big accident. Anyway, Alice Cooper’s real name was Vincent Damon Fournier. Fuck him, and fuck his crucifixion. Ronnie James Dio never died, so why did Alice? His real name was Ronnie James Padavona, but that is such a better name that Vincent Damon Fournier.
Ronnie James is immortal. He knows what it means to be the underdog. In the music video for Holy Diver, he teaches us more about life than Alice Cooper’s crappy crucifixion ever will. In Ronnie, I find strength. I know that someday I will also ride the tiger.
Overexcited and absorbed in his work, Danny raised both hands in classic devil horns and shouted, “Dio, motherfuckers!”
For this, he was promptly dismissed from the classroom. In the small-minded world of Heavy Metal High, everybody hated Dio. The history books brainwashed students. They claimed Dio’s entire career was a scourge to metal history, especially his time as Black Sabbath front man. Danny knew better. Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, and Dehumanizer were all classic albums. In fact, he hated most non-Dio Sabbath material. He thought Ozzy Osbourne was an ass goblin.
He stood outside the classroom, counting cigarette burns on the black door. Somebody had graffitied a poor rendition of Skeletor. After USA Network stopped airing He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 1990, Skeletor took a demotion from Evil Lord of Destruction to head honcho of Heavy Metal High’s security staff. He was a wrathful tactician, often tempting students to commit crimes that would have otherwise gone uncommitted.
Dean Hellfrost had already threatened to fire him three times this year for the brutal punishments he frequently dealt to innocent students. Rape and pillage may have been effective in his quest to conquer Eternia, but they provided a less than ideal backdrop for the academic environment.
Danny sniggered at the image on the door. The graffiti artist had stenciled two gargoyles jabbing their penises into Skeletor’s eye sockets. At the bottom, in crimson scrawl, one word: SKELEFUCKED.
Fortunately, Danny always managed to avoid encounters with Skeletor. He’d heard rumors about what the head security guard did to werewolves, and being turned into lycanthropic meatloaf by a megalomaniacal skeleton ranked very low on his list of things to do before he died.
The bell rang, startling Danny, forcing a hairball of worry out of his mouth. He scampered away, hiccupping and coughing up hairballs all the way to his next class.
Fourth period meant English, Danny’s favorite subject.
Seniors spent their final year of English studying the complete works of Marquis de Sade, but Danny’s teacher had fallen sick the week before and they’d had the same substitute since Monday. The substitute was a G.G. Allin impersonator. Whenever a student asked a question about their readings, the substitute pulled at his reverse Hitler mustache and said, “The Marquis can bite it.”
Today, Danny arrived before any of his peers. The Allin impersonator was naked and slumped over the teacher’s desk, a syringe in his arm, a dead roman candle dangling from his asshole.
Danny sat as far from the substitute as possible and read the words on the blackboard. Write a ballad to honor the memory of Moose Elwood. Don’t turn it in. Nobody wants to read your crap.
Considering the substitute probably couldn’t spell his own name, Danny figured another teacher must have slipped in and written this on the board.
Most of the kids showed up a few minutes after the late bell. Being on time hardly mattered when the only authority figure was a junky.
Barbetta took the seat beside Danny. He glanced over.
Streaks of mascara ran down to her chin. His heart thudded. A girl as beautiful as Barbetta would never fall for a werewolf like Danny. The only other werewolves at Heavy Metal High took up space in the special education pro-gram, and although he only resembled them in physical appearance, everyone made the same cruel jokes about him. No, they made crueler jokes about Danny.
As she did in first period, Barbetta passed a note to Danny. He undid the pentagram-folded paper and flattened it against his desk. Need help with your accident?
Danny gulped. He looked over at Barbetta. She winked at him. He took out his pen. He didn’t know what to say.
She hardly acknowledged that he existed. Why suddenly offer to help him now? It’s all planned out. Nobody will believe what I’m gonna do, he lied.
When Barbetta returned the note, he looked around the room. Most of the students appeared to be absorbed in completing the assignment. Apparently, Moose’s death shook them so badly that they would do anything, even schoolwork, to honor the fallen hero.
Sexy!
Danny rubbed his eyes to ensure that he wasn’t seeing wrong, that Barbetta had really written s-e-x-y in her girly scrawl. He slipped on his headphones. Rainbow’s Run with the Wolf, from the ’76 album Rising, filled his fuzzy ears. He stared at the note until the lunch gong sounded.
Sexy!
Danny was zipping up his backpack in the crowded hall, his brown lunch sack clenched between his teeth, when Barbetta approached.
He flung his backpack over his shoulders and squeezed the paper bag in his hands to prevent the nervous tremors running through him. He worried that his fur might look uncombed, but wasn’t it always uncombed? No one ever approached Danny with anything nice to say. He figured Barbetta wanted to tell him not to ruin the football season, at least for the sake of her dead boyfriend.
“Hi,” she said, flipping hair out of her face.
“How are you?” Danny said. “I mean, after Moose’s accident.”
Barbetta shrugged. “We all have to die sometime.”
“You seemed pretty upset earlier.”
“I never pass up an opportunity for a good cry. I like drama.”
“You mean you like acting?”
“You’re not very bright, are you?”
“I guess that’s what you wanted to tell me.”
“Not at all! I want to show you something. I’m sure the accident you’re planning is great, but I think this will help.”
Danny blushed. He wanted to confess that he had nothing planned, that he desperately needed Barbetta’s assistance. Alone, he was a hopeless cause. “Everything will work out fine without you. I have everything I need. It’s going to be awesome, thanks.”
He started to turn away, his stomach growling at the thought of the pork fries and sausage sandwich in his lunch sack.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Barbetta said. “If you fuck up tonight, the other kids will crucify you, and Skeletor will do something even worse. You need me.”
“Won’t the rest of the cheer squad miss you?”
Barbetta sighed and took him by the mane. She pulled him further from the yard where students ate lunch, away from the drone of a shitty black metal band.
She led him into an open classroom and locked the door behind them.
She pressed against Danny and puckered her lips for a kiss. Unfortunately for Danny, he reacted in the way all werewolves do when confronted with unexpected closeness: he bit.
He pulled away from her.
He spit Barbetta’s face onto the floor. She raised her hands to her bloody skull and moaned. Danny picked chunks of flesh and hair from between his fangs. He had never felt so humiliated in his life.
Something was lodged in the back of his throat. He coughed. Barbetta’s nose plopped to the ground. “I’m so sorry.” He reached for her but then withdrew, tucking his hands in his pockets, afraid to touch her. “Let me take you to the health center.”
“My face!”
Danny backed against the door. Surely the school would sentence him to death for mangling the lead cheerleader. “I’m sure they can put it back on.”
“I’ve always wanted to see my skull,” Barbetta said, still hiding her new face from Danny. “Reach into my purse and fetch my mirror. I want to know how I look.”
No girl had ever asked Danny to get something out of her purse. It seemed an intimate thing to do. Her purse lay beside her face flesh. He picked up the purse and pulled out a mirror studded with pink and black jewels. “Here you go,” he said.
Barbetta took the mirror. Danny grimaced as she removed her hands from her face to inspect herself. “I am finally beautiful,” she said.
“I always thought you were beautiful,” Danny said, although he liked her much better when flesh covered her skull. “What was it you wanted to show me?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter anymore,” she tilted her head to inspect herself from a different angle, “I’m sure your accident will be wonderful. I never dreamed a man, er—werewolf, would bite my face off. It’s so fucking sexy.”
Danny swallowed back vomit. Whatever ointments or makeup had covered Barbetta’s face were making him sick.
He wanted to run out of the classroom but realized what a lifetime opportunity he’d been thrown.
Barbetta took her purse from Danny and scooped her face off the floor. She stuck her face and mirror in the purse and grinned fiendishly. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“W-what kind of deal?”
She ran a finger down the center of his jersey. “If you beat Old Time tonight, I’ll give you the time of your life after the game.”
“T-that’s very kind of you—” but Barbetta pushed around him and left him alone in the classroom, where he stayed for the remainder of lunch, eating his sausage sandwich and pork fries, contemplating the terrible fortune life had suddenly thrown his way.
Biology and Facial Education passed without any notable disasters, except that he definitively failed a pop quiz on the tongue of Gene Simmons. Nobody spoke to Danny and he didn’t spot Barbetta in the hall between classes. He felt everyone watching him and whispering behind his back. Of course, they anticipated his accident. He considered visiting Doom McCray, his head coach, or an academic counselor for advice, but he knew they would tell him the same old thing… how conceiving a wreck is a personal matter and any advice from staff members made the school liable in the event of death. He needed to pull himself up by the bootstraps. He didn’t want to conjure any doubt about his ability to lead Heavy Metal High to victory.
After seventh period, Danny walked out to the bus lot and got on bus #34. He plopped down in an empty seat near the front. The faux leather scorched his back and thighs. Although the school bus had no air conditioning, Danny preferred the heat to the company of his peers and the brooding ferocity of his father. Along the ride, he listened to Elf, the gods of blues rock and Ronnie James’ first band.
Dan Sr. was a sullen man and a drunk. He wrote for the sports page of the local paper and occasionally picked up freelance work. When Danny’s mother died of breast cancer during his freshman year, Dan Sr. lost all interest in his son. He made arrangements with the paper to write his articles from home, which he did during the four or five hours he managed to stay sober each day. Since Danny typically arrived home around four, he had not seen his father sober on a school day in three years.
But when he walked through the door on this unusual Friday, his father greeted him with a big lycanthropic hug.
Danny detected no alcohol on his father’s clothes or breath.
“Dean Hellfrost called me this morning. Congratulations, son. I always knew you’d be a champ.” His fur smelled sour, his liver was probably too damaged to ever be repaired, but at least he was alive for this moment.
“But dad, I—”
“Take it to state,” the sallow, yellow-haired werewolf marched around the living room, “take it to state, my boy!”
Danny tried to recall the last time he saw his father so animated. It saddened him to think that he would shrink back into alcoholic despair if Heavy Metal lost the game.
“I need to come up with an accident,” he said.
Dan Sr. paused in mid-celebration. “An accident?
You’re seventeen years old and you haven’t staged an accident? Where have you wasted your time? This is the most important day of your life! If Violet saw what a dumbass I’d raised our son to be.”
Danny’s father started to shake all over. He ran out of the room. How the potbellied werewolf lost faith so fast total y crushed Danny. He took off his backpack and left the house as the cry of breaking glass yielded to the howls of his father.
Out on the sidewalk, he watched car after car pass him by. He could jump in front of an SUV, but half the players on his team had already done that. The role of quarterback demanded more flair.
He was so stupid. He’d been so close to regaining his father’s love, but within minutes of standing in the same room together, everything returned to disrepair. “I guess that’s the natural way of things,” Danny said.
The absurdity of hearing himself say such a pitiful thing struck a chord in his mind. If he was too much of a loser to perform an epic accident, then fuck football and Heavy Metal, fuck accidents and all other forms of life.
Wasn’t it the great fortune of every creature on the planet to be born inherently worthless? He resolved to give the metalheads a suicide nobody would ever forget.
He went inside the house again, heading straight for the garage. He thought about Barbetta. He doubted that snuffing himself out would make her give a rat’s ass, but he no longer cared.
He switched on the garage light and found a chainsaw and some rope. He climbed inside his father’s truck.
He slipped his walkman from the pocket of his cutoff jeans and plugged it into the stereo. He took the spare key from a plastic clip on the sun visor.
He chose Sunset Superman from Dio’s Dream Evil to kick off his farewell soundtrack. The rest of the mix consisted of songs from Rainbow’s Rising, Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, and the entirety of Holy Diver, the greatest album of all time.
He fashioned a noose and turned on the truck before slipping the rope over his head. To die by the dual means of choking and decapitation would require expert timing.
The chainsaw sat beside him on the bench-style seat.
He ran his fingers over the blade, fearless and without any regrets. He laughed a bit, thinking how everything in life worked out so strangely. He never viewed himself as the suicidal type, although maybe that was how others saw him. Danny never felt safe in his judgments of himself.
Petting the chainsaw, he lost himself in the scripture of Sunset Superman. “A shadow without a name, but when he wakes up in the morning, he just won’t know he was a hero… trying to hide his burning heart before somebody cuts it all away.”
Tightening the noose, he lost himself in the crunchy sweet guitar of Craig Goldy.
It felt like the truck was rising, levitating beyond the 88 roof of the garage to meet the black pixels of space.
The noose constricted his breathing.
He rasped for air. He struggled to lift the chainsaw. So heavy, oh so heavy. The blade spun round and round.
Sunset Superman!
The door leading to the garage opened. Danny’s father stood in the doorway. He shouted, but Danny heard nothing, for the music and the chainsaw were so loud. He knew he must prevent his father from foiling his suicide.
His father staggered toward the truck and pried at the driver’s side door. The drunken man balled his hands into fists and punched the window, first with a left and quickly following with a right, but the glass held strong under the drunk man’s blows. Danny balanced the whining chainsaw between his legs and shifted the truck into reverse.
He slammed on the gas pedal. The truck pummeled through the garage door. Danny loosened the rope around his neck. He breathed deeply, relief filling his lungs. He killed the chainsaw’s motor and sped out of the neighbor-hood to the cue of Sabbath’s Die Young, heading toward the highway. The bustle of rush hour could ensure him a glorious death.
He hit the highway going ninety and only pushed it harder from there. The tape player did a weird thing. It stopped playing Die Young and switched to Dio’s Holy Diver.
Some sort of ghostly transference. Real metal shit.
Danny couldn’t fuss with the tape right then. He only learned to drive recently and he had a chainsaw between his legs.
He merged into the middle lane and honked at a puttering Chevy. He sped up to within a foot of the truck’s bumper and swerved into the left lane, too late to avoid forcing a black VW bug into oncoming traffic. Danny overcorrected, briefly returning to the center lane before losing control and following the bug through a web of southbound vehicles.
Out of fear, he let the chainsaw slip from between his legs. Falling to the floorboard, it quickly spun out of control and severed his legs at the ankles.
Danny screamed. He realized he would have his accident now, but it was no longer a prize he wanted. Did he ever want it in the first place? He no longer knew.
He followed the bug as it bee-lined against traffic at nearly one-hundred miles per hour. Danny didn’t realize those little piece of shit cars got up so fast.
He was losing blood. He felt the blood puddle reach the bottoms of his pants. It soaked his shins and low-hanging knees. All to the nightmare hymn of Holy Diver.
When the blood filled the cab up to his neck, Danny undid his seatbelt. With his left hand, he fumbled around for the window knob-a-majig, then remembered it was broken. He returned his left hand to the wheel and racked his brain for ways to avoid drowning in his own blood.
The blood rose to his chin, his mouth, his eyes. He squinted through red now. The black VW looked like a real insect.
All Danny could think was, I must squash it. Squash that bug.
He slumped down in his chair until his right stump pressed against the gas pedal, accelerating his father’s truck above one-hundred miles per hour. He crept up on the bug and soon flattened the car into a dark pancake.
He let out a scream and lost the last of his breath. In a final desperate attempt to get free of the truck, Danny flailed his arms at the chainsaw on the floorboard. The chainsaw buzzed his arms from his torso and propelled his hands out the side windows in opposite directions. They stuck there, like the truck had arms.
Danny no longer had control of the truck and couldn’t reach the brake pedal. He glanced in the rearview mirror.
Holy diver!
The flattened Beetle had ballooned into a real six-legged insect and it followed him.
The chainsaw floated through the truck’s blood-filled cab. It sat in the passenger seat. The chainsaw leaned over and turned up the volume on the stereo. Holy Diver blared through the crimson flood. You’ve been down so long in the midnight sea….
The glass-and-tin insect scuttled down the highway on rubber legs. They were still heading into oncoming traffic and cars in the carpool lane had to swerve to avoid them.
Unable to steer, Danny stared at the chainsaw and said, in muffled underwater screams, “What do we do?”
A steel grin split open on the blade. The chainsaw stuck out a tongue that resembled a squid tentacle. “We crash,” the chainsaw said. The smile disappeared as the chainsaw leapt across the seat.
Danny ducked. The chainsaw narrowly missed giving him a fast lane lobotomy and sheared off his left ear. For a few photo-still seconds, the ear floated in front of Danny’s face like a hairy seahorse.
The chainsaw broke into a smile again. It flapped that awful tongue and laughed and foamed yellow bubbles from the steely mouth. The truck rolled end over end.
As the insect-car scuttled by, its driver—a private detective type in a tweed suit, true Eurotrash—flipped Danny off and yelled, “Volkswagens for life, motherfucker!”
Danny choked down gallons of his own blood, but the blood rushed out at an incredible rate, and soon he died.
“Wake up, kid.”
The chainsaw prodded Danny’s side as they pulled into Heavy Metal High’s parking lot.
The dead werewolf opened his eyes. Somehow he’d ended up in the passenger seat. The chainsaw must have driven from the scene of the accident all the way to the school.
Danny’s eyelids felt heavy. He wanted to sleep but knew it was a bad idea. Without arms, he couldn’t feel for a heart-beat or a pulse. How the hell did he survive his own death?
“What’s going on?” he asked the chainsaw.
The chainsaw killed the engine. It slammed its blade against the steering wheel again and again, setting off the horn. Danny leaned back and stared out the window at his severed right arm.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re dead, kid,” the chainsaw said.
“Can we turn the radio on?” Danny said, missing Ronnie Dio’s voice. He kept gazing out the window at his severed arm.
“You’ve got a game to play.”
“How can I open the door without my arms?”
“You’ll die if you open these doors.”
“I’m already dead.” Danny sulked in his seat. “How can I play in tonight’s game?”
The chainsaw sighed. “This is your new body, kid. Get used to it.”
“But there’s no way I can throw a football without any arms!”
“This is your body. You’re in control.”
“How do you know? Who are you?” Danny wasn’t sure if he should trust this chainsaw. After all, it had cut off all his limbs and caused him to wreck his dad’s truck. But isn’t that what he wanted?
“That’s not important now,” the chainsaw said, gesturing toward the cars parked around them. “Check it out.”
Barbetta and the rest of the cheer squad had approached the truck. They stood in a semicircle, clapping their hands and screaming while jumping up and down.
“Awesome accident, Danny!”
Danny gasped. It didn’t make any sense at all. Just this morning, Moose had died in an accident. How could a loser lycanthrope like himself possibly survive death? The last metalhead to pull off that stunt was Goyle Flex back in ‘68, after he threw the most legendary touchdown pass in Heavy Metal High’s history, the Batball, in which the football transformed into a bat and bit the heads off of five Old Time Country Vampires. It was still the greatest massacre in school history.
Since that game, Heavy Metal and Old Time competed in every league championship, but mass slaughters were now strictly forbidden before the fourth quarter.
Danny gulped. He might have died, but that didn’t mean the Country Vampires couldn’t massacre his ass with their bloodsucking hillbilly powers. At seventeen, sitting in his father’s wrecked truck, which was filled like a fish tank with his own blood, he wondered how his life could possibly get any worse. Then he saw the beautiful, skeleton-faced Barbetta. She made him feel even more like a furry slab of wasted meat.
“Let’s hit the locker room, kid,” the chainsaw said, turning on the truck and returning Ronnie James Dio’s arch-angelic yowls to the cab. “Game time’s in one hour and you’re still learning to control this new body. Now raise some horns for the girlies.”
Danny shrugged. “But I don’t know how,” he said, then watched, mystified, as his arms, attached to the sides of the car like extended, flesh-covered rearview mirrors, raised their hands into fists that balled up to form the classic devil horns. The cheerleaders returned the gesture.
Coach Doom McCray slapped Danny’s tailgate as the dead werewolf stalled outside the hall to the locker room, trying to figure out some way that he could fit his new truck body inside. “Looks like you had yourself a fine accident, Danny,” Doom McCray said. “You might never blossom into a Moose, but I’m glad to see it’s not all hopeless for a late-blooming fuckup like yourself. C’mon, go get suited up.”Upon entering the stadium grounds, the chainsaw had gone silent, leaving Danny to maneuver his auto body without assistance. Now he didn’t know what to do. He peered out the back window and grinned sheepishly at the head coach. “Coach Doom, I don’t know if I can fit through this hallway.”
Doom pulled at the corners of his handlebar mustache.
“It does appear that you’ve beefed up, put on some serious muscle. Not juicing, are you?”
“No, sir. My accident did this to me.”
“Good to hear. I always believed quarterbacks bred purely on accidents were the best leaders.”
“I-I hope I don’t let the team down, sir,” Danny stammered.
For a second time, Coach Doom slapped Danny’s tailgate. “Remember, if we lose, there’s no one to blame but you.”
The coach walked around Danny and vanished down the concrete hall, whistling the Heavy Metal Anthem as he entered the locker room.
Unable to conceive a better way to get inside, Danny clenched his hands into fists and swung with all his force, pummeling the concrete into dust. He threw punches all down the hallway until finally he squeezed into the locker room. About half the team was suiting up, including the all-state Siamese twin linebackers, Bert and Bartholomew Spielman. Everyone went silent as Danny drove to the last row of lockers and began turning his lock to the four dig-its of the combination.
He reached an arm into the locker and pulled out his helmet, jersey, and the rest of his uniform.
That he could no longer wear any of this gear quickly dawned on him. The helmet seemed unimportant. His limbless body was now protected by one ton of manly truck power. Nor did the pants or cleats matter, for he walked on wheels. However, he wanted—nay, needed—his jersey to play. The rules required it, for one. Also, he loved that number thirteen.
Danny went into reverse and headed for Coach Doom’s office. He kicked into four-wheel drive, wheeled up the steps, and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Coach Doom yelled.
Danny opened the door. It was impossible for him to actually fit inside the office, so he stood in the doorway, shifting his weight from wheel to wheel.
Doom glanced up from the playbook that sat on the table between the other coaches, the waterboy, and himself. “What is it, Danny?” he said.
“Sir, I can’t fit into my uniform.”
“Is that so?” The coach spat tobacco onto the floor.
“I suppose Dodge makes a sturdy frame. It’d tear a jersey to shreds. What do you think, fellas? I think it’s only the number that matters. What number do you wear, Danny? Thirteen?”
“Yes, thirteen,” Danny said.
“That’s right, all in the number,” said Krallick, the assistant coach.
Coach Doom turned back to the playbook. “Waterboy, fish up some of that crimson spray paint and slather a real menacing thirteen on Danny’s hood.”
The waterboy bowed his head, got up from his chair, and rummaged through the cabinets beneath the rows of coffee pots that gargled on the counter, fixing their single red eyes on Danny.
The waterboy pulled out the spray paint can and shut the cabinet. He approached Danny, shaking the can and keeping his face hidden beneath a cobwebbed tangle of greasy dreadlocks.
Danny closed his eyes when the first layer of paint hit him. It felt cold and slick on his hood, but he realized this meant that not only could he control his body, he was also gaining a sense of feeling. The paint job ended soon enough. Danny inched down the staircase backwards.
“Lookin’ good, wolf boy,” Krallick called from the office.
“Nice accident.”
Since he had no other preparations to make, Danny saw no reason to return to his locker. Instead, he revved his engine and started for the pig pit, where the team gathered before each game to ask the metal gods for a brutal victory. A few of his teammates already knelt in the pit.
They suckled on the pig’s feet protruding from the walls.
Above them, Goyle Flex’s skeleton hung upside-down on a cross made of Country Vampire tongues. Danny suddenly felt giddy. Tonight, he realized, he had a chance to fulfill his childhood dream of being a star player. If he somehow found a way to honor the legend of Goyle Flex in tonight’s game, his own reputation might be set for life.
Danny’s hood opened up and a huge furry tongue unraveled from the engine. It licked at the pig’s feet and they tasted good to Danny.
The Old Time Country Vampires won the coin toss and chose to receive the ball first. The special teams units took the field as Back in Black blared from the massive speakers lining the home side of the stadium. Cheerleaders on each side kicked up their legs and flashed the crowd, all part of their usual kickoff routines.
Despite the cheers he received from the girls out in the parking lot, none of Danny’s teammates had spoken to him. He figured they must be suspicious of his accident, maybe even jealous. Whatever the case, he hoped to prove them wrong soon enough.
Danny drowned out all the surrounding noise by adjusting the volume knob on his radio. He listened to Holy Diver on repeat. It soothed the machine heart that beat nervously beneath his hood.
Kickoff!
The ball sailed across the field. The kick returner waved for a fair catch and caught the ball just shy of the twenty yard line. A referee blew a whistle, beckoning Old Time’s offense and Heavy Metal’s defense onto the field as the special teams units rushed off.
Both teams huddled about ten yards away on opposite sides from where the referee placed the football. Danny stood on the sideline, trying to forget how much the next few hours would change his life.
In the commentary booth:
Biff Bifferson: Here we are at Goyle Stadium for the thirty-first consecutive conference championship between the Heavy Metal High Death Crusaders and the Old Time Country Vampires. It’s been a tragic day for the Death Crusaders. Just this morning, they lost star quarterback Moose Elwood in a fatal accident. Moose’s legend will live on, but all of us will miss him. Replacing Moose at quarterback is Danny the werewolf. Although Danny has only played in scrimmage games, it appears that he showed up prepared to throw down the horns tonight, fresh from a mighty fine accident. And speaking of tragic days, my wife of five years walked out on me this morning. She insists that I drink too much. I say what does she know. I’m a sportswriter with a bad back. My wife, she—
Beelzebub: Biff Bifferson, can we focus on the game?
Biff Bifferson: Oh, right. It’s just my wife. I can’t stop thinking about her, so of course I slipped a few nips of the grain before coming in, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean, don’t you?
Beelzebub: Old Time won the coin toss and called for a fair catch at their own eighteen yard line. The Country Vampires’ offense and Death Crusaders’ defense have taken to the field.
Biff Bifferson: By the way, did you catch Maiden’s tour dates? I swear, Bruce puts the DICK in Dickinson.
Beelzebub: The Vampires are set at the line of scrimmage.
It’s a quick snap. The handoff goes to running back Turbo Ginn. Ginn takes it for a short gain.
Biff Bifferson: Like that pro-STD metal band, Hell’s Crabs. Somebody should tell those cocksuckers that syphilis is never metal.
Beelzebub: Shutup, Biff Bifferson. Starting quarterback for Old Time is Whiskey Nash, who broke Goyle Flex’s state record for passing touchdowns this season. I’ll tell you, I’ve been watching Nash all season and this kid is the real deal. Other starters for the Vampires include running back Turbo, the twelve foot tall bruiser, and wide receiver Marcus Aurelius. Nobody else on the offense scores enough on or off the field for anyone listening in Radioland to care.
Biff Bifferson: What about that Heavy Metal defense, Bub? Tell ‘em about those whippersnappers.
Beelzebub: Leading the defense are the Siamese twin linebackers, Bert and Bartholomew Spielman. Let’s get back to the action on the field.
Biff Bifferson: If I hadn’t been wrong about these things before, I’d swear that duo’s going pro.
Beelzebub: What a pass! Whiskey Nash connects with Marcus Aurelius for a twenty yard gain.
Biff Bifferson: Fuck professionalism.
Beelzebub: Biff Bifferson, you can’t say that on the air.
First and ten on the thirty-eight yard line.
Biff Bifferson: There goes Turbo Ginn! Fuck some chickens, boy!
Beelzebub: The Spielman twins make the tackle. Old Time has first and ten on the fifty yard line.
Biff Bifferson: I swear, this year’s Country Vampires are going to give the Death Crusaders a serious run for their drug money.
Beelzebub: We can’t talk about drugs on the air either.
Biff Bifferson: Beer money, then.
Beelzebub: They’re minors. They can’t drink beer.
Biff Bifferson: Go fuck yourself, you old fly.
Beelzebub: The game, Biff Bifferson. Focus on the game.
Biff Bifferson: This one is bound to be a classic. Classically bad, maybe. We’ve yet to see what kind of chops this Danny Werewolf character is packing. Except on his face!
Beelzebub: Please, Biff Bifferson. Refrain from making fun of the werewolf’s sideburns.
Danny watched from the sideline as Turbo Ginn concluded the Country Vampires’ first drive with a long break-away touchdown run.
An orange number six lit up on the scoreboard for the visiting team. After they kicked the extra point, it changed to a seven.
The Death Crusaders didn’t gain much on the kickoff return, giving the offense a start around their own fifteen yard line.
The crowd went wild as Danny took the field for the first time in his high school career. He wondered what they thought of him. Most had probably placed bets that he’d fuck everything up. At the same time, he looked badass in the blood-filled truck.
He huddled with his teammates and called for a handoff up the middle to Byronius “Speed Goblin” Alexander.
Along with Moose Elwood, Byronius had been a major factor in Heavy Metal’s current undefeated season. He’d rushed for more yards and touchdowns than anyone in a decade.
Danny lined up behind the center, Biggy Pie, and prepared to take the snap. “Hut, hut, hike!”
The ball slapped against his hands, which had to stretch all the way around to the front grill. He pivoted and made the handoff to Byronius, who got stuffed at the line of scrimmage.
The next play was an outside pitch to Byronius. Again, the running back went nowhere.
On third down with ten yards to go, Coach Doom signaled in a curl pass. Danny gulped. This would be his first passing attempt ever.
Although Danny had several players he could throw to on this play, he already anticipated getting the ball to wide receiver Mickey Styx. Nobody could pull in a pass, no matter how wild or sloppy, like Styx.
Biggy Pie tapped Danny’s side mirror as they went up to the ball. “Don’t fuck this up,” Biggy said.
Danny sank down in his driver’s seat and took a deep breath. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up.
Suddenly, he felt nauseated. “Hut,” he said, followed by rapid-fire hiccups. He belched and had to swallow down some vomit. “Hike!”
He dropped back to pass. He knew he was telegraphing to the defense that he intended throwing the ball to Mickey Styx, but they would’ve expected as much anyway.
Danny waited for Styx to break away from the cornerback covering him. He squealed on his tires as two Vampires broke through the offensive line.
Clueless as to what he should do, Danny flung a high and wild pass far down the field. He held his breath as the ball soared toward the end zone. Just as he thought he’d overthrown it, Mickey Styx leaped into the air and made a miraculous one-handed catch, tagging down the toes of both feet before crashing into the goalpost.
The Heavy Metal fans roared.
Danny had thrown his first touchdown! He was going to be a hero!
But first he needed to vomit.
As the kicker nailed the extra point, Danny’s teammates congratulated him on the sideline. They patted his hood and tailgate and said things like “Awesome job!” and “Fuck yeah, were-bro!”
The cheerleaders turned his name into a chant and the crowd joined in. They loved him.
Everybody loved him!
The game had just begun; they were tied at seven, but Danny was already a hero. Even Coach Doom came over to personally congratulate him.
Within the blood-filled cab, Danny nodded his head and smiled as Coach Doom pumped his fists in the air and returned his attention to the game.
He hardly got a moment to recover from all the positive attention because on the very first play, the Country Vampires’ star quarterback, Whiskey Nash, fumbled the ball when the Siamese linebackers sacked him. The twins recovered the fumble.
“Offense, on the field!” Coach Doom shouted. “Fuckin’ kick their little bitch asses!”
Danny and the rest of the offense stormed the field.
In the huddle, all eyes fixed on Danny. It was up to him to call the play this time. “Alright, I want an end-around to Styx on three.” He clapped his hands to break the huddle, but everyone stared blank-eyed at him.
“Bullshit,” said Biggie Pie.
“Yeah man, their defense is too quick. Trick plays won’t work on them. They’ll see that shit from a mile away,” said Mickey Styx.
“Fine.” Danny cleared his throat. “Let Byronius smash it up the hole.”
“Send ‘er deep!” Coach Doom yelled from the sideline. Byronius shook his head. “Coach called for us to go deep. It worked the first time. You better listen to what he says.
Danny opened his mouth to call for a deep pass, but the referee blew a whistle and threw a yellow flag.
The referee ran to the center of the field and announced, “Delay of game on the offense.”
Another ref picked up the ball and moved it back five yards.
“Nice going, dipshit,” Biggie Pie told Danny as the team re-huddled.
Danny ignored him, intent on getting the ball snapped in time. “Alright, I want Styx lined up wide right. On set, you, Byronius, motion left. Both of you run five yard curls.”
Mickey Styx and Byronius looked at him doubtfully.
“They’ll be blitzing heavy because they know I’m in-experienced, and with you two lined up out in the flats, the secondary will fall back, playing it safe to prevent a big play.”
Mickey’s eyes flashed and he nodded. “Leaving the middle wide open.”
“Exactly,” Danny said. “Ready, break!”
The Death Crusaders broke their huddle and jogged to the line of scrimmage.
“Down,” Danny snarled. “Set.”
He revved his engine as Byronius motioned left. The defense adjusted accordingly.
Seconds before Byronius hit the line of scrimmage, Danny shouted, “Hike!”
Danny dropped back deeper in the pocket than he needed to, giving the defense the impression that he was looking long.
The offensive line was losing ground to the blitzing front seven, but Styx and Byronius had cut in harmoniously. They were wide open. Coverage had dropped back exactly how Danny expected.
He drilled Styx in the chest with the ball. Styx could have run for an easy additional ten yards, if the impact of the ball hadn’t knocked him off his feet. Regardless, the pass picked up ten yards.
Back in the huddle, Styx rubbed his chest. “Damn, Danny. You throw short passes harder than Moose.”
Danny flashed a toothsome grin before calling the same route again. “Only this time, it’s a fullback smash up the hole.”
The fullback, Steamboat Larry, was a rock-hard two-hundred-and-fifty pound Irish boy compacted into a five-seven frame. He lived in Old Time’s district, but Heavy Metal had recruited him for his brawn and his brains.
Steamboat Larry could recite the lyrics to every metal song ever written, even the unrecorded ones. The dude was a telepathic genius in the body of a ripped bulldog.
They lined up at the ball. On cue, Byronius went through his motions. The secondary crept up and the linebackers stepped back, anticipating a repeat of the previous play. Beating a defense was as easy as outsmarting them.
Even without his truck body, Danny could have done this all day long.
Steamboat Larry pounded the ball for a six yard gain, earning Heavy Metal a first down.
On the next play, Danny threw a shovel pass to Byronius, who juked and spun for a twelve yard gain. The crowd started up a chant of “Speed… Goblin! Speed…
Goblin!” They pounded their feet on the bleachers, sending up a cacophonous roar of thunder.
Heavy Metal had crossed the fifty yard line.
With another first and ten, Danny hit the tight end on a quick slant. Then they did it again, picking up four to five yards each pass.
On third down with a short yard to go, Coach Doom called in a Hail Mary. He wanted Byronius, Steamboat Larry, the tight end, and both wide receivers all running deep, which would leave only the front five to protect Danny from the defense. He took this as a sign that Coach Doom trusted him now.
The ball was snapped and Danny dropped back. They had double coverage on Mickey Styx and a lone corner on the second receiver. A linebacker picked up the tight end, leaving only one safety to cover Byronius and Steamboat Larry.
Byronius flew down the left side of the field while Steamboat Larry tromped down the right like a stampeding rhinoceros. The safety fell off Styx to cover Byronius with little success. Byronius blew by the safety.
Danny scanned the field. Steamboat Larry was open, but he didn’t have the best hands. He’d have to throw between coverage to hit Styx and the second receiver was more of a decoy than an actual target. But did he have the accuracy to hit Byronius from nearly half a field away? The offensive line crumbled and the defense barreled through.
Spinning on his wheels, Danny launched an off-kilter bullet toward the Speed Goblin’s anticipated trajectory. The pass hit him in perfect stride.
Touchdown!
The gong sounded, signifying the end of the first quarter. Heavy Metal was leading 14-7 and Danny had thrown two touchdown passes. He felt greatness in his blood.
For the first time since the game began, Danny paused and listened to the music that was playing. He couldn’t believe his ears. Holy Diver blared from the loudspeakers.
The Old Time Country Vampires scored a field goal on their first drive of the second quarter, and then surprised the Heavy Metal Death Crusaders with an onside kick.
The Vampires recovered the ball and ran it back for a touchdown, taking the lead and bringing the score to 14-17 before Heavy Metal’s offense took to the field.
Under Danny’s command, Heavy Metal controlled the ball and the clock on three long, pass-heavy drives that each led to scores. In addition to his three passing touchdowns in the second, the defense ran back an interception. With a halftime score of 42-17, the game was looking like a blowout. Even in the heydays of Goyle Flex, games against Old Time were always neck and neck, but today, Heavy Metal was untouchable.
While his teammates jogged to the locker room for halftime, Danny drove over to the bleachers to look for his father, but the old werewolf was nowhere to be seen.
Barbetta waved and blew him a kiss. He smiled and waved back, but returned his searching gaze to the bleachers. He couldn’t think about her until the game was over.
Maybe his father was getting a hotdog at the concession stand, or using the bathroom. There were a lot of reasons why he would not be in the bleachers during halftime.
Forget about him, he thought. He’s just a deadbeat anyway.
When his teammates emerged from the locker room, Danny sped over to meet them in the pig pit, trying to forget about his father and Barbetta. Heavy Metal had been untouchable in the first half, but the game was not over yet. There remained two full quarters of play. Danny had to stay focused. He could still fuck everything up.
Licking salty pig’s feet was just the thing he needed to get back into game mode.
The third quarter dragged on longer than the first two. Heavy Metal played conservatively on offense, scoring only once. The defense continued shutting down Old Time. The Vampires went three and out most possessions.
They racked up four turnovers in the third quarter alone.
Danny felt good to be on the winning side of a beat-down for once in his life.
In the commentary booth:
Beelzebub: Heading into the fourth quarter, the score is 49-17, Heavy Metal in the lead. The last thing anyone expected was for this championship to be a blowout in Heavy Metal’s favor. Led by a backup quarterback who had never played outside of scrimmages before tonight, who would have thought? But Danny is an outstanding field general.
He has played an impeccable game. Can you break down how our quarterbacks are doing, Biff Bifferson?
Biff Bifferson: I think I know what it is now. Several years ago, at the zoo, I tried to push my wife into the crocodile exhibit. She never forgave me for that. The bitch never forgave me.
Beelzebub: Going into the fourth quarter, Danny has completed 21 of 28 passes for a completion percentage of 75.0. He has thrown five touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a whopping 311 yards. By the pro formula, he holds an astronomical quarterback rating of 150.4. He’s playing the game of a lifetime, folks.
Biff Bifferson: It’s not like the crocodiles hurt her.
Beelzebub: (Clearing throat.) To the contrary, Old Time’s Whiskey Nash, who broke most of Goyle Flex’s league passing records this season, has all but blown his full-ride recruitment offers from some of the biggest football schools in the nation by playing the single worst game of his career, in the championship no less. Whiskey Nash is 15 for 36 with a completion percentage of 41.7, 178 yards, zero touchdowns, five interceptions, and a pro quarterback rating of 17.8. I wouldn’t be surprised if the college scouts watching him tonight end up talking to Danny after the game.
Biff Bifferson: Oh shit, we’s gonna cut you!
On the first play of their first possession of the fourth quarter, Coach Doom called in a quarterback sneak. It was an odd play choice, but would be unexpected to the defense. Danny figured Coach Doom really wanted to rub this blowout in Old Time’s face.
Before the snap, lined up behind Biggie Pie, Danny turned his head and looked at the crowd cheering him on.
He looked up just in time to see a drunken werewolf who looked a lot like his father being toted away by Skeletor and two other skelecops. Danny must have made a noise because Biggie Pie snapped the ball.
Unable to stop the game, Danny tucked the ball under one arm and hoped he wouldn’t fumble. His tires flung grass and mud. His engine growled and he roared ahead, plowing through the pursuing defensive players before running down more players, Vampires and Death Crusaders alike.
He drove all the way down the field and lurched to a halt after passing through the end zone. Fuck yes, he thought, I’ve always dreamed of running for a touchdown.
The referee threw a yellow flag down on the field. Several players, including some of Danny’s teammates, had not gotten up after he scored. Evidently, when he surged through the line and plowed across the field, he’d killed a few people.
The referee ran to the fifty yard line and signaled for the head coach of each team to congregate there. He spoke with Coach Doom and Old Time’s coach for a few minutes. The cheerleaders on each side attempted to ease the nervous crowd with little success. The midfield conference ended with Coach Doom exploding in a fit of fury, dropped to the grass, flailing his arms and kicking his legs.
He yelled profanities so loudly that Danny figured everyone within a mile of the stadium must have heard.
“Premature killing,” the referee said, “against Heavy Metal. Obligatory sacrifice of the offending player.”
About half of the fans, parents, and friends of the Death Crusaders booed. The other half cheered. Danny wondered if his imminent slaughter made them happy, or if it was the prospect of a bloody game that they cheered for.
In the cab of Danny’s truck-body, the chainsaw yowled like a cat that was just stepped on. It seized control of the truck and blasted Holy Diver, singing along with its grinding steel voice.
In the Commentary Booth:
Biff Bifferson: You’re married. Tell me, does your wife’s cunt stink? I think it was the fumes. The fumes wafting from my wife’s cunt made me what I am. Every night it was like sleeping beside a rotten sushi roll. No wonder I drank. Ever hear of a douche? That’s what I’d tell her. Ever hear of a douche?
Beelzebub: By divorcing you, Biff Bifferson, your wife left a very big douche. Indeed, the biggest douche of all.
Biff Bifferson: Hey, where do you get off calling me a douche? Just because my head is floppy doesn’t make me a douche.
Beelzebub: We’ve got bloodshed on the field!
Biff Bifferson: Who gives a shit about those steroid-addled, privileged adolescents anyway?
Beelzebub: On a long run that brings the score to 55-17, Danny the werewolf has gone insane! I bet the refs are calling this one back.
Biff Bifferson: You can go to Hell.
Beelzebub: Danny is rampaging across the field. Now he’s run over both refs and half of the Country Vampires.
He’s even killing his own teammates! Folks, withhold your urge to pray as we bear witness to the biggest massacre in Heavy Metal’s history. Surely God is not around to hear your sniveling last gasp.
Biff Bifferson: Don’t bring God into this.
Beelzebub: I’m trying to keep him out.
Biff Bifferson: (Muttered.) Fucking evangelist insect.
Beelzebub: I heard that.
Biff Bifferson: Cocksucker.
Beelzebub: Can’t you see what’s happening on the field? Call the skelecops! Call somebody! This is a gross violation of league rules!
Biff Bifferson: My wife took my cell phone.
Beelzebub: There’s a phone on the wall, over by the door.
Biff Bifferson: Not anymore. My wife took that one too.
She left me with nothin’ but a toothbrush. Not even a farewell note that said Fuck off and die, Biff Bifferson. I would’ve appreciated that.
Beelzebub: Biff Bifferson, I can see the phone from here.
Your wife did not steal the telephone. Now get up and call the police. Danny the Psycho’s already run over most of the cheerleaders. Oh, shit! He’s coming our way!
(The commentary booth fills with blood.)
Danny yelped each time the crunch of another run-over player or cheerleader jolted the truck. He racked his brain for some way to halt the insane chainsaw’s hit-and-run riot, but the voice of Ronnie Dio overpowered his thoughts.
“Time to hit the dirt, kid,” the chainsaw said. “Don’t worry, you’ll live through this.”
The shriek of a blade cutting through glass accompanied Ronnie for a brief demoniac harmony before a river of blood swept Danny out of his own truck-body.
Danny hit the grass. His arms scuttled over to him and reattached themselves. He remained legless.
Despite losing the gargantuan body he’d temporarily controlled, he felt thankful to be himself again, even if he was a cripple.
From where he sat on the fiftieth yard line, Danny scanned the field and sidelines. Without legs, there was no hope of running after Skeletor and his father, but at least his father escaped the massacre.
Having slaughtered virtually every Heavy Metal cheerleader, the chainsaw-driven truck zoomed straight at the fleeing Country Vampire cheer squad. Danny thought of nothing except Barbetta. The memory of her fleshless face was like a beautiful insect squirming between the teeth of his mind.
And then he saw her. She was not dead yet.
Barbetta’s belly gaped open. Even at a distance, Danny thought her coiled insides looked very surprised to see him.
He swore to the metal gods. Her intestines had smiled at him!
Let me suck your liver, he might have said, if he’d stood within hearing range. Instead, he raised his arms to the autumn sky and howled her name.
Barbetta somersaulted across the field, her beatific face curling into her long, slender legs. During each roll, Danny forgot that her ruined midsection existed. On the upturn, it reappeared, a brutal reminder of what he’d done. Her blood sprayed across the field like a powerful sprinkler, nourishing the corpses.
She somersaulted and collapsed on top of Danny, her belly-gore warming the stubs of his legs. He moved his hands over her face. He dug into her cheeks and ran his fingers over her white teeth.
“I love you, Barbetta!”
“I love you, Danny!”
All around, people screamed. An engine’s roar mocked them all. Sirens wailed in the distance. It felt good to be in love. Barbetta stroked his hair and cooed soft words into his ears. “I am roadkill like you, Danny. I have always been just roadkill.”
“What do you mean, Barbetta?”
“I have secretly always loved Dio.”
Danny opened his mouth to respond when a honking at midfield tore his attention away from her. The driver-side door of his father’s truck flung open and the chainsaw surfed out on a wave of blood.
The chainsaw grew larger.
It grew arms.
It grew legs.
It grew a head.
It grew fucking awesome jet-black heavy metal hair.
And it sang with the voice of the holy savior, Ronnie James Dio.
“Holy Diver!”
“What’s happening, Danny? How come that chainsaw looks like Dio? And sounds like Dio?”
Danny could tell Barbetta was nervous. Hell, he was nervous too.
“Stay cool. He’s a friend of mine,” he said, his calm voice and smooth choice of words a surprise even to himself.
Dio stopped in front of Danny and Barbetta.
“I’ve come to collect the hero,” Dio said.
“You mean me?” Danny asked.
“Yes, Danny, you’re a hero now. You’re the hero you’ve always dreamed of becoming. Congratulations. Do you want to claim your prize?”
“Do I win the girl of my dreams?”
“You already have me,” Barbetta said, kissing him on the cheek.
“No, Danny,” Dio said, ignoring Barbetta. “You get to spend eternity with me. In my dark, damp castle. I’ve got a library, a bar, a full recording studio. What do you say?”
“Just you and me, Ronnie?”
“Just you and me, champ.”
“Can I bring Barbetta along?”
“Sorry, I’m afraid heroes must walk the hero’s road alone.”
Danny turned to Barbetta. She had tears in her eyes. “I understand, Danny. It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. Go be as awesome as you are. Just remember that I love you.”
Before Danny could kiss Barbetta goodbye, Dio scooped him into his arms and walked away.
“Goodbye, Barbetta. I’ll always love you,” Danny cal ed, peering over Dio’s shoulder.
“Give it a rest, kid. The girl is dead.”
The sirens were close now. Dio strode faster across the bloody grass. Danny stared slack-jawed into the face of his hero. Dio loaded Danny into the passenger seat and hurried around to the driver’s side.
“Buckle up,” Dio said.
Danny buckled up.
The first cop cars pulled into Heavy Metal High’s parking lot as Dio started the engine, turned the stereo up real loud, and the truck floated up into the sky.
They sang Holy Diver all the way into the clouds.
Danny turns to Dio and says “I mean, what the hell is Holy Diver about anyway?”
They have just watched the Holy Diver music video for the 1,829th time. It used to be Danny’s favorite music video of all time. Now, it makes no fucking sense to Danny.
He feels very awkward sitting in the dungeon of this dark, damp castle, watching this music video on repeat.
He regrets becoming a hero and getting to spend eternity with the legend. Hanging out with Dio is not as cool as Danny thought it would be.
“Look Ronnie,” Danny says, “Holy Diver is awesome and all, but don’t you have anything else in this dark, damp castle? Like steampunk seahorses or ghosts that poop or… dragons?”
Dio flashes the horns. “Oh, I got dragons. But did you see this video?”
They watch Holy Diver.
Again.
And again.
And again.