DARK LIGHT:
A WORLD WITHOUT HEROES II
By Dale Sherman
Paul Stanley closed the front door to his home and began fiddling with the keys in his hand. It was not the easiest thing to do, especially as he tried to balance a mug of hot tea in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He was dressed in a gray business suit, with a white button-down shirt. If it had not been for a lack of a tie and a few buttons open at the top of his shirt, one would have assumed that he was heading to work in an office somewhere. Which was not entirely an incorrect presumption, as he certainly was getting ready to head to work, although leaving the house at three in the afternoon would hardly seem to be the time to head to the office.
The ponytail he had put his long hair into fell forward, and Paul jerked his head to throw it back into place as he shuffled through the many keys on his keychain. The action caused him to tip the mug too far in one direction and he spilled a tiny amount of the hot liquid from the mug on to his left hand, sending a brief flash of steam into the chilly April morning air. Frustration and annoyance covered his face as he felt the tea burn into his skin, but he was able to right the mug before anymore spilled. Finally locating the proper key, he pushed it into the lock on the door and turned it until he heard the click of the lock. Pulling the key out, he walked down the steps from the condo to his car parked nearby, sucking the back of his hand to reduce the pain.
Reaching the purple sportscar in the lot outside of the condos, Paul put his briefcase on the ground and cradled the mug in one hand as he unlocked the driver's door. He maneuvered himself into the driver's seat and closed the door, placing his mug into the cup-holder. With a turn of the car key, he revved the engine a couple of times and then pulled out of the parking space.
He then noticed the briefcase sitting on the ground where he had placed it mere moments ago. He threw the gear-shift into Park, scrambled out of the car, and just as quickly placed the briefcase on the passenger's seat in the car. With a final look around to make sure he was not forgetting anything else, he pulled away and went out on to the main country road away from the series of condos.
It angered him a bit, as he normally did not forget things; especially his briefcase, where he kept his notes and cellphone. Still, knowing what was ahead for him that day, he figured subconsciously he was willing to do anything to forget about his work. He also knew in the back of his mind that he would rather have left himself behind instead of the briefcase if he could have had that option.
He did not hate his job, in fact he really loved it. After things fizzled out for his recording career, Paul had taken an interest in working on the other side of the glass in the studio. When he had gotten the chance to do his one and only solo album in 1980 for Boardwalk, he had made it a point to not only write the material for the album, but also co-produce the album with another up-and-coming musician named Desmond Child. The two had been a bit giddy at the prospects of being set loose in the studio and they knew that their careers depended on what they did. However, they were still young and foolish enough to do what they thought would work instead of doing what others would like.
While there had been a Top Ten single with the song, "I Was Made for Lovin' You," the album had bombed upon release and no tour ever followed. To their surprise, however, the critics praised the album including a rather long write-up in Rolling Stone. The record companies picked up on the vibe and it was soon after that the pair began working together as co-producers on albums for other individuals. That went extremely well for a few years until 1985 when Paul and Desmond split to go in their own directions. After that, Paul had gotten some good production gigs, especially his work on a Cher album in 1989; who dropped his name to Elton John and lead to Paul producing Elton the following year.
That was a few years ago now. As Paul knew, even if it did sound like a stupid cliché to him, "you're only as good as your last album." The Elton John album was only a moderate success, and the three albums he had produced since then for such artists as George Michael, U2 and Celine Dion -- God, Paul thought to himself as he drove, what was he thinking when he took on Dion -- had met with lukewarm reactions as well. Paul hated the critical pans, certainly in light of the fact that he did not feel 100% responsible for the albums anyway.
"Everyone is reinventing themselves now," Paul had said to his date the night before over dinner. "They don't want to do what works, they just want to look unshaven or like a hooker and call it a career move. Forget the music. And who gets stuck with the bill when it doesn't work? The producer."
Ruined the evening bleating such a hard-luck story, Paul grimaced as he shift the gear of the car. The woman was bored to tears. As well as she should have been, he thought. He knew he was bored by it.
Now he had been reduced to signing on as a producer for a group of five teenagers from New Hampshire that wanted to do some type of combination heavy-metal-rap thing. He heard the demos and immediately hated the music and hated the brats as well. However, the label was sure that they could turn the group into some type of boy-band success and Paul's agent strongly suggested that taking the job would keep him in the good graces of the label.
Of course, he had already heard the howls of protest from the group itself through some of the people at the studio. They felt they were being mistreated by having some "candy-ass-Celine-Dion-ass-kissing" producer for their album. They wanted someone with "an attitude" and not someone who was "with the man."
So be it. Screw 'em, Paul thought. In fact, it was one of the reasons that he was wearing the business suit instead of something a bit more casual to the studio. He wanted to rub their noses in the fact that they had to take orders from someone who was what they considered to be part of the establishment. If they did not like it, Paul thought as he shift the gear once again, they can just hire someone else. Play or pay was his motto and he would still fulfill his contract and get a check when all was said and done . . . and he would avoid having to produce them. Might even get him a write-up in the papers and some exposure. If they did put up with it, then he would get to show them who was boss and put out an album that at least would not be embarrassing. A win-win situation.
Yet, a situation that was not something he looked forward to with any relish. The studio was a place to create, Paul told himself as he slowed to a stop at a crossroad and looked both ways. It was not the place for mindgames and he could tell already that it was not going to be a fun experience or a creative one.
A car had pulled up at the crossroad to Paul's left, and after it came to a complete stop Paul began pulling into the crossroad. When he did so, the car to his left suddenly veered into Paul's path. If not for Paul turning the wheel to his right he would have smashed into the side of the other car.
Wide-eyed, Paul slammed on the brakes, believing that he had given himself enough distance to avoid the other car. He jammed his palm into the horn of the steering wheel and was about to give the other driver a one-finger salute when he felt a rumble that shook the car. He looked to his left to see that the driver of the other car had purposefully driven his car into Paul's and was slowly lining up the two cars with the constant screeching sound of metal against metal.
Not knowing what to make of the situation, Paul released his foot from the brake and began moving his car over to the right a bit more so that the two cars would not be touching. In doing so, he had steered the car down the road that had originally been to his right when he had stopped at the stop sign mere moments ago.
"What the hell is wrong with you, buddy?" Paul mumbled, straightening out the steering wheel as the car crawled forward inch by inch.
Paul was about to look back over to his left, but hit his head against the driver's side window as the other car jerked again to the right and plowed into the side of Paul's car. Grunting in pain, Paul was able to see the man inside the other car. It was a man about twenty years older than Paul, with a bald scalp. Dressed in a dark blue suit and wearing sunglasses, the man noted Paul's observance with a smile and a wave with his left hand. He then put his left hand back on the steering wheel and casually lifted a gun in his right hand, aiming it at Paul.
Without thinking, Paul immediately slammed on the accelerator; flooding the car in the process and causing the car to jerk forward a foot before stopping. It was enough to throw off the aim of the other driver and a bullet passed through the back window of Paul's car, shattering glass all over the back seat. Frantic, Paul moved the gearshift forward and started the car again. He stepped on the accelerator as he looked to his left and saw that the man had pulled his car up to Paul's again and was lining up for another shot at Paul.
Pulling away, Paul tried to maneuver a free hand to his briefcase, which had fallen on to the floor of the passenger's side. He leaned down to reach for the briefcase and a bullet flew by his head so closely that he felt the breeze of it. He pulled the briefcase towards him and up on the passenger's seat, sitting up to find that a bullet-hole now existed in the front windshield, cracking the glass in every direction. Shaking it from his head for the moment, Paul continued down the country road as he used his right hand to open up the briefcase. Digging inside while keeping an eye on the road, his hand squeezed into a sandwich he had made and finally upon the cellphone. Pulling the phone out of the briefcase, Paul had flipped the cellphone open when the other car rammed into the side of Paul's car. The jolt sent the phone flying out of Paul's hand and back on to the floor of the passenger's side. Paul looked down briefly to see where it had landed.
When he looked up he saw no road whatsoever.
Paul's car went over the edge of the road and into a ditch, bouncing the car just enough to clear the ditch and into an empty cornfield. Paul turned the wheel to keep from going further into the field and was just about to head back towards the road when he saw the other car clear the ditch and ram into the side of his car, pushing it back into the cornfield.
Paul felt the car's engine sputter to a halt. As he tried to start it up, he saw the man emerge from the other car with the gun in his hand and casually begin walking over to Paul's side of his car. Giving up on starting the car again, Paul instead reached down to the passenger's side and desperately grabbed at the cellphone, hoping that it had not been damaged in the crash. As he was doing so, the man reached Paul's side of the car and smile as he flipped up the door handle. The door handle slipped out of the man's hand, and the smile left his face. He tried the door handle again, this time holding on to the handle instead of handling it loosely like he had the first time. The handle flipped up, but the door itself refused to budge as he had damaged the door earlier when he ran into the side of the car and now it would not open.
While the man attempted for a third time to open the door, Paul sat inside trying to remember what button to press to get the phone working. A thought flashed through his mind that he really needed to look at the manual sometime for just such emergencies, which made him laugh out loud and he knew he was just moments away from becoming hysterical. He even thought he had just seen a flash of light and a woman appear off in the distance in front of the car.
The man outside the car had given up on opening the door and instead backed up a couple feet and raised the gun at Paul's head inside the car. It was then that the aria began.
At first, Paul was not sure if he was just hearing things because of how his mind was racing, or if he really was hearing a voice off in the distance. Either way, he was more concerned about the man at the window. He looked to his left to see what the man was doing and was surprised that the man had dropped the gun to his side and was facing away from the car. Paul shifted his eyes to see what the man was looking at and was startled to see that the woman he has spotted seconds ago in his panic was not just his imagination.
She was a good twenty feet away form the car, but Paul could see that she was a rather attractive woman in her mid-thirties. She wore a long, white dress with long sleeves that seemed almost from another century, or perhaps bohemian in nature, as Paul guessed. Tan, knee-high boots could be seen below the skirtline of the dress. She had long brown hair that seemed to move in slow-motion in the breeze, which came as if it was a part of her essence rather than a natural force, and her dress lightly moved in small, rhythmic waves as she sang. Yet it was the face that was most intriguing to Paul. A psychedelic thunderbolt appeared on her face, from her forehead to her right cheek, covering her right eye.
She was singing, although Paul was unsure of what she was singing, and her voice seemed to have transfixed the man who had been so anxious to do away with Paul just moments before. As she continued, the man released the gun from his grip with little acknowledgement, an almost euphoric sense of tranquility appearing on his face. Paul did not know why, but he felt he could understand the man's reaction and almost felt jealous that he was unable to hear the music coming from the woman as clearly as the man did outside.
Grappling with the seatbelt, Paul scrambled over the passenger's seat and opened the passenger's side door, getting out just in time to see the woman walking forward towards the man. Her singing had stopped and there was a small, gentle smile on her face as she reached the car. Paul could only watch as the woman raised a hand over the man's face, bringing it down to reveal that the man's eyes were now closed. The man looked as if not only asleep, but also at peace with the world and again Paul wondered why it was not him the woman turned to instead of the man who tried to kill him.
"Abner," the woman said, the amusement leaving her face for a moment as she spoke to the man in a paternally disappointing manner, "it looks like you've learned so little over the years. After all that has occurred, so little has stayed with you."
With a push of her hand on to the man's shoulder, he toppled over hard on to the ground. Although it appeared quite painful to Paul, the man did not respond and instead seemed to be quite happy in his new position. Paul tried to get a better look over the top of the car at the man when he heard a voice right next to him.
"Mr. Stanley?" The voice asked in almost a whisper.
Paul faced forward and saw that the woman was now in front of him, standing only inches away and looking up at him. He had been right. She was attractive.
And that her eyes were brown. And mysterious. And deep. And invited one to dive into her soul. "Mr. Stanley?" The woman said in a voice more stern and with some concern as she looked up at his face.
It was enough to bring Paul back into the present. "Hmmmph? What? Er, yes?"
The woman giggled slightly at the perplexed Paul. She pulled a hand up to her mouth to hide the laughter, and then pointed at Paul.
"So, you are Mr. Stanley?" She said with a smile on her face and Paul suddenly realized that there was an accent to her voice, like that of someone from England. At least he thought so. He never was sure about accents.
"Uh," Paul stumbled for a second as he cleared other thoughts from his head. "Yeah. I'm Paul Stanley."
The woman held out her hand, as if waiting for Paul to take it. "I'm Kathy. Come along."
For some reason Paul took the woman's hand, but immediately pulled back and dug his heels into the dirt when he comprehended her words. "What? Come where? I mean, go where? What's going on?"
She had already turned to lead them away from the car, but turned back to Paul when she felt the tug of his hand. "There's no time to explain here. We have to meet the others."
Paul was not sure what to make of the woman, or anything that had just happened. Instead he turned to look at the man on the ground. "What about him?"
Paul saw the woman out of the corner of his eyes step over to glance at the man sleeping soundly on the ground. "Deveraux? He'll be all right. At least until Blackwell finds out about his failure." She turned back to Paul. "Come along."
"But where are you taking me? And how did you get here in the first place?"
He wanted to be insistent in getting an answer, but with another smile from her he felt his questions were suddenly unimportant. She stepped up to him and whispered into his ear.
"All your questions will be answered soon enough. Just hold on tight."
Still holding on to Paul's hand, Kathy stepped back and threw her right hand out as if hitchhiking for a ride.
Paul had one vision in his head before the bright light engulfed him. He saw the damaged, bullet-ridded car and thought about the producing job he would be missing because of what had occurred and the risk to his life.
In that moment he knew he was still far better off than producing a boy-band that day.
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Copyrighted (c) 2000-2001 Dale Sherman / KISS ASYLUM
Artwork by Larry Blake
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