The Venue Page 8

  The crowd recoiled a bit. No one wanted to outright boo, but definitely no one wanted to cheer on this display either.

  The whole time, though, Grandma Foley stood back and watched her competition. Then, judging the moment to be right, she jumped to the front and center of the stage and started performing the moves she evidently just learned by watching Yolanda and Uncle John.

  She rubbed her breasts and hips.

  Then she rode the pony.

  Then she slapped some ass.

  Amy, along with everyone else, began to applaud. As the cheers rose in intensity, so did Grandma’s moves. Before long, she was shimmying and twerking on the stage.

  The crowd ate it up. Everyone laughed.

  Caleb walked behind the contestants, pointing to each.

  “Vote for your favorite. Yolanda!”

  The crowd went quiet.

  “Uncle John.”

  Still quiet. Someone, perhaps even his own son or brother, let out a low, good-natured boo.

  “Grandma Foley!”

  Thunderous applause. Everyone rose from their seats.

  “And our winner is… Grandma Foley!”

  With that, to the side of the stage, a white door swung open. Four red-vested staff members carrying a throne on poles marched out and up to the stage. They set the throne behind Grandma as they stood at attention.

  Grandma blew kisses to the crowd as she took her place on the throne.

  “For her Grand Prize, Grandma Foley gets…” Caleb announced, letting the anticipation build. “TO LIVE!”

  The cheers faded into a confused murmur. Everyone looked to their neighbor, trying to understand what Caleb had just said.

  The staff members lifted the throne.

  Grandma Foley, sitting atop it, looked around, as confused as anyone. In the quiet, the staff members carried the throne and Grandma Foley through the white doors which swung closed and locked behind them with a noticeable and loud click.

  Everyone lowered themselves back into their seats.

  “And now, we have some very important announcements to make,” Caleb said with a smile.

  CHAPTER 11

  Amy heard a soft beep.

  A single vibration shook her wrist.

  She looked down at her arm. The hotel bracelet’s LED light had been intermittently flashing green since Amy had put it on. It now glowed a solid red.

  She tried to loosen the strap, but the clasping mechanism wouldn’t budge. It had locked shut.

  “Mariko…” she said quietly, holding up her bracelet for Mariko to see. But Mariko didn’t even look. She was too busy trying to pry open her own bracelet’s strap. Its light also glowed a steady red.

  Throughout the ballroom, other guests had noticed the same thing. At every table, people made futile attempts to remove their bracelet.

  A murmur rose among the crowd.

  “Please, please. Calm down everyone,” Caleb announced. “If you accidentally break your bracelet, it will only make things worse for you, I guarantee.”

  Everyone looked up at him.

  “A good wedding is never about the bride and groom,” Caleb said. “It’s about the people in their lives who made them who they are. It’s about bringing those family and friends together in celebration of what they, as a community and as a village, accomplished. It’s a time for reflection. A time to acknowledge the past so that the new couple can join together to create a brighter future.

  “In essence, this wedding is not about us. It’s about you. You are all very special people who had very special roles in our lives. Lilith and I want to pay each and every one of you back for all that you’ve given us.

  “Now, I know some of you out there are thinking, ‘Maybe I wasn’t so nice to Caleb and Lilith. Maybe I could have been a more supportive person, a better person, a more loving person. Maybe I should take this special opportunity and tell them how I really feel about them. Maybe I should apologize for the awful, hateful person that I was.

  “If anyone wants to come to the stage and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ in front of all our gathered friends and family, please come on up. We’ll give you time to think about it and prepare your thoughts. Two minutes, in fact. You have two minutes to come up here and apologize. If you do, it will be water under the bridge. We’re forgiving people, Lilith and I. We’re loving people. Two minutes.”

  He looked out at the crowd. Everyone sat silently.

  But then, the sound of sobbing drifted over the ballroom.

  Lilith had taken a seat on the edge of the stage and now her hands covered her face as she wept.

  “Sweetie? What’s wrong?” Caleb asked, walking over to stand behind her. He rested his hand on her shoulder.

  “I… I can’t go through with it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have what it takes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She lifted her head and motioned out at her gathered guests. “They all see me as weak. As cold and passionless.” Her voice seemed to enunciate in a strange, forced manner, as though she were performing in a play.

  “Sweetie…”

  “Just leave me alone. No one will ever love me.”

  With that, Caleb removed his hand from her shoulder, bowed his head, and walked off across the stage. He stood there on the far end, hands in his pockets and shoulders slouched.

  Lilith slowly rose to her feet, looking away from him. They wandered around the stage in a synchronized manner, avoiding eye contact, pretending to be alone in their own little worlds.

  The violin from the string quartet played out a few sad notes.

  Then the other instruments joined in.

  On their opposite ends of the stage, Caleb and Lilith swayed. Their arms motioned around, feeling the emptiness that surrounded them. Little by little, perfectly timed to the music, their flailing limbs and bodies approached each other until, seemingly by chance, their hands touched.

  They quickly jerked their hands away, as if burned by the sparks that flew between them. They danced around each other, stealing furtive glances at one another.

  The guests simply stared. No one had anything to say. Except Mariko.

  “This is the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered to Amy.

  Amy couldn’t argue with that assessment.

  They both kept their eyes glued to the bizarre spectacle on the stage.

  The music swelled.

  Caleb and Lilith, having fully explored the space between them with all their souls, suddenly came together in a firm embrace. The music seamlessly transitioned to a new tune. A familiar meter.

  “Is that a… a tango?” Candice asked.

  Amy nodded.

  Caleb and Lilith were now arm-in-arm, dancing a well-choreographed and rehearsed tango. She lifted her leg all the way to his shoulder as he dipped her low. Then, with their eyes locked on each other, their mouths inches apart, they broke apart to spin and twirl. An unbridled passion burned between them as they danced their way up the metal spiral staircase.

  “They’re much better than you two were at that talent show,” Mrs. Crawford said.

  Again, Amy could only nod.

  The waitstaff, who were busy topping off glasses and clearing dishes, ceased their work and raised their chins. Then, with beautiful choral voices, they sang out to the music. They didn’t sing words, just notes, adding an air of intensity and build.

  Caleb and Lilith reached the balcony at the top of the stairs. With the staff singing and the instruments straining, Caleb dipped her over the railing of the balcony, bent down and…

  They kissed!

  The singing waiters popped champagne bottles.

  The guests all sat, stone-faced, as the string quartet played its final notes.

  For a moment, the room sat in a dead silence, broken only by a few confused guests clapping a few sad claps.

  Caleb and Lilith didn’t seem to mind the muted reception, though. They held hands and smiled down from th
e balcony at the crowd.

  “Your two minutes are up!” Caleb said, tapping at his watch. “The opportunity to apologize has officially ended. You’re all locked in now.”

  “We’re playing a little game from now until midnight,” Lilith said. “Feel free to help yourself to any weapons on the wall. Anything at all, actually. Use your imagination. This place is your playground. You’re free to go anywhere inside The Venue. But if you go outside, you will face a penalty.”

  It was at that moment that a sound caught Amy’s ear.

  A quiet, humming motor.

  Beneath the balcony, at the cocktail bar that had been built into the wall, a glass partition rose up out of the counter and sealed the bartender off from the rest of the ballroom. The bartender barely seemed to notice. He went about his business wiping down his glassware.

  Another glass partition rose up through the stage area, isolating and protecting the DJ in the corner of the stage. The string quartet picked up their instruments and carried them out the door to the side of the stage.

  Elsewhere, the waitstaff quietly migrated toward the various exits.

  A weight developed in Amy’s stomach that seemed to grow and expand, cutting off her oxygen. She struggled to fill her lungs. Tendrils of bile snaked up into her throat and filled her mouth and nose.

  She had never experienced this before, but she knew the name of the sensation that had begun to burn through her. Dread.

  Her gaze swung from the balcony to the faces of all the other guests.

  The brief pause in Lilith’s speech, perhaps lasting only a second, allowed enough time for a million thoughts to swirl through Amy’s mind.

  All those feelings that had been building for several days now seemed to tug at her legs, prodding her muscles to jump up, to run to the door, to get out of there. Now. Part of her realized that those doubts, those nibbling terrors had been massaging her muscles this whole time, but her brain had successfully subdued those impulses.

  And yet, no one else seemed to be jumping up and running away.

  They all sat there, their faces holding looks of bewilderment rather than fear. They seemed to view it all as another bizarre twist in a bizarre night from an eccentrically bizarre couple.

  As everyone sat and waited for the punchline to play out, Amy did too.

  “This night is about you,” Lilith continued. “All of you. How you all demeaned Caleb and me. How you toyed with us, laughed at us. How you stomped on our faces, our hearts, and our souls. The worst part is that each of you accepted an invitation to the wedding of someone you’ve been horrible to.

  “You don’t even have the introspection to acknowledge your own cruelty. Because that’s what you are. Cruel. Deeply, deeply cruel.

  “But tonight, we are offering you a wedding favor. We are providing you the opportunity to see yourself the way that Caleb and I have always seen you. You have permission to uncage the darkness of your hearts. Let all of your repressed vileness go free. You will see who you really are.”

  An intense fire seemed to dance behind her eyes as she smiled down upon the group from the balcony.

  “The rule of the night is simple,” Lilith said. Despite not having a microphone, her voice came across loud and purposeful, like a ringmaster preparing to start the show. “By midnight, you must kill someone in this room.” She paused, seemingly waiting for a gasp to rise from the crowd. None came.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Kill someone by midnight. Do that and the staff will take you to a backroom. They will put you to sleep and remove this nightmare from your memories. You’ll wake up in town. The local police will tell you that the other people in your party died in a car crash on a slick, mountain road. You won’t remember anything, but you’ll take their word for it because they have all the paperwork and evidence. You’ll grieve, you’ll mourn, and you’ll return home.

  “You’ll be alive, but you’ll be changed. You may not remember the specifics of the act that saved your life, but somewhere, in the back of your mind — a place only accessed while you dream — you’ll remember the emotion. You’ll smell the deep decay that has always existed in your soul.”

  She glared down at the guests, letting those last words linger.

  Caleb seemed to sense that Lilith’s speech had, more than anything else, confused the crowd. He stepped toward the railing of the balcony, by his wife’s side.

  “That’s it. Kill someone and you will live. But anyone who doesn’t have blood on their hands by midnight will face a penalty,” he said. “Anyone who tries to leave The Venue or tries to remove their bracelet will also face the penalty. And that penalty? It’s the same penalty as losing a dance competition.”

  Amy heard a rapid beeping.

  She scanned the room, trying to zero in on where the sound came from.

  Yolanda and Uncle John — the dance contest losers — had both returned to their seats at some point, unnoticed and forgotten among the guests. They now stood in panic. Whereas the light on everyone else’s bracelet glowed a solid red, the light on Yolanda’s and Uncle John’s bracelets flashed quickly. The bracelets beeped a furious warning.

  Uncle John tried to undo his strap, but no matter how hard he tugged, it wouldn’t budge.

  Yolanda, meanwhile, stood petrified, merely holding her bracelet arm as far away from her body as she could. She took steps backwards, seemingly trying to put distance between herself and her own hand.

  Sensing what was about to happen, the people around them stumbled out of their own seats to clear space between themselves and the dance-off losers. Even Yolanda’s date and Uncle John’s wife refused to approach them.

  In that final fraction of a second, Amy met Yolanda’s gaze. Her wide, terrified eyes had stopped searching and locked onto Amy, pleading for help from the only person to make eye-contact with her. The edges of Yolanda’s mouth had frozen, twisted upward into a grimace.

  Amy wanted to mouth I’m sorry to her. Sorry that she joked to Mariko that Yolanda looked like a hooker. Sorry that, in her mind, she deemed Yolanda dumb. Slutty. Trashy.

  Sorry that she didn’t dare try to help.

  But before Amy’s mouth could form the words…

  BOOM!

  Yolanda’s bracelet exploded.

  The world seemed to move in slow motion as Amy watched the skin ripple away from Yolanda’s left wrist, exposing the muscles beneath. A millisecond later, the blast sliced through that too, sending shards of bone and flesh sailing outward in a gloppy cloud of red.

  It splattered over Yolanda’s face and dress. More remnants struck the white chair coverings, accenting them and matching the red of the centerpieces.

  As the blast knocked Yolanda backwards, Amy could see her face turn to look upon her fresh stump. The blast had sent slivers of the black bracelet into her cheek which had turned red from burns and blood.

  She watched the blood flow from Yolanda’s arm in gulps and bursts, like water from an old well-pump.

  Yolanda’s eyes rolled back into her head as her body completed the fall.

  She thumped down onto the floor, unmoving. Unconscious. Perhaps dead.

  It was then that a sound penetrated Amy’s ears which, after the explosion, had momentarily stopped registering noise. At first she thought someone was performing a seal impression. Loud bursts of wailing and honking.

  But as Amy’s vision widened from its myopic focus on where Yolanda had just stood, she realized that the sound came from Uncle John. He lay on the floor, his body twisting around in the pool of blood that formed from the stump where his own arm used to be. He was trying to scream but didn’t seem to have the capability. All he could produce were gargled yelps of pain and shock.

  Chaos overtook the room.

  Some of the guests dove beneath their tables. Others, like Amy, sat and stared, as though in a trance. Their brains seemed to want to make sense of what they had just witnessed.

  This can’t be real.

  What a weird joke.


  My arm didn’t blow off. I’ll be safe if I keep sitting.

  Other guests weren’t as numb.

  Amy saw Big O leap up from the table and run toward Yolanda’s body. He took his necktie off as he did and began to fasten it into a tourniquet.

  Likewise, Caleb’s cousin Rick, the one who was in the Army, rushed toward Uncle John.

  But still, Amy sat.

  She didn’t know how her parents or Mariko had reacted. Somehow, she couldn’t see them. Her peripheral vision had blacked out anything beyond where her eyes directly looked.

  “Let’s get this party started,” someone shouted. A woman. Lilith.

  “You heard the bride, ladies and gentlemen,” the DJ said, speaking through a microphone in his new glass booth. “Let’s get this dance floor rockin’!”

  He turned up music. Some Kanye song that Amy could have named if that part of her brain were still functioning. But she had shut down.

  It felt as though Amy’s eyes and ears had become unmoored and she now observed the world not through her own body, but by floating around it at some distance.

  “Give it up for the new Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Hunt, everybody,” the DJ said. “And now, they’re off to their bridal suite.”

  People screamed and shouted.

  Some even ran.

  Amy felt as though these panicking people were part of some other world, someone else’s reality. She made eye contact with a woman a few tables over. An older, elegant woman. The woman looked back at Amy. They smiled at each other. That woman’s mind also seemed to have shut down, unable to process the situation.

  “Caleb? What’s happening? Caleb, please. What have you done?”

  Amy turned toward the voice.

  Caleb’s mom ran up the spiral staircase, toward the balcony.

  But Caleb and Lilith ignored her.

  They blew their final kisses to the crowd. A door behind them opened and they stepped off the balcony and out of the ballroom. The door slammed shut right as Mrs. Hunt arrived at the top.

  She tried the knob. She pounded on the door. She wailed.

  “Caleb! Caleb, please!”

  Nothing. They were gone.

  “Amy? Amy? Amy, can you hear me?” The voice was close. It belonged to her mom.