Ben’s business model, such as it is, for his website is to do in West Virginia what he’d been doing in London for the “loony rags” – reporting on sightings of odd things, trying to get to the bottom of them. In this excerpt he’s returned to the home of a older, drug addicted, woman named Isabel who thinks UFOs are landing in the woods nearby. What he finds, well, isn’t quite that.

He grabbed a flashlight from the car. “You wait here,” he said, fairly sure Isabel didn’t need him to tell her what not to do. Flashlight on, Ben leaped across the creek and started walking toward the light show.

Ben was worried that he might get lost, lose the track of the creek as he headed toward the event, so he kept his eyes down, looking at the path he illuminated with his flashlight. It wasn’t a straight shot to the clearing, if that’s where he was headed. The sound was angry but hypnotic, on the one hand warning him to stay away, while on the other drawing him in. It was almost as if someone was mixing the heaviest of Metallica or Tool with the clang of Kraftwerk’s “Metal on Metal.”

Eventually, he was close enough that the lights were so bright that he could turn off the flashlight. The path had taken a turn so that the light show was directly ahead of him, in the clearing Isabel had described. Ben crouched down, moving slowly toward the scene. In among the din, he started hearing things that sounded familiar, almost like a squealing of distorted guitars and . . . vocals?

Ben could see that the trail ended at the top of a slight rise with a fairly steep grade. There was a thick branch blocking the way, so he crouched down behind it, leaning on it to keep from falling over. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, much less hearing.

There was a bonfire. Not a very big one, but enough to add an orange glow to the light show that was made up of red, white, and blue stage lights. The ground to one side of the bonfire was covered with some boards to turn it into a small makeshift stage. On stage there were four people dressed in what Ben assumed were costumes and masks, some with horns. In front of them, a small crowd of a dozen or so other people danced and writhed, most with their own masks on. One of the people on stage held a microphone and bellowed into it, croaking out those Cookie Monster–style vocals that some are so fond of.

This wasn’t a UFO. This was heavy metal.

Ben chuckled and got out his phone and recorded about thirty seconds of video. This would be a good story for the site, and the video should be enough proof to convince Isabel that she didn’t have to worry about visits from MIB anytime soon.

He was ready to head back, so he instinctually pushed on the branch, like it was the bar of a guardrail. It wasn’t, and it snapped when he put his weight on it, sending Ben sprawling down the side of the hill. He did his best to make a run of it with a sense of control, but he tripped over a root and went tumbling. His phone flew from his hand, and he let loose a stream of curses at the top of his voice until he hit the ground, hard.

His fall did not go unnoticed.

Most of the music stopped. There was a grating metallic sound that kept going, some kind of loop on a computer that hadn’t taken note of him.

One of the dancers ran over to him. At closer range, Ben could see that they were wearing a devil mask. “Y’all right, man?” said a woman with a twangy drawl.

“I think I’ll be all right,” he said, pushing himself to his knees. His left side hurt worse than when he’d broken a rib in an ill-fated attempt to impress Tara by playing rugby. His right hand was scraped and bloodied. Nothing else seemed to be wrong, but he knew he’d be sore in the morning.

As he got to his feet, the lead singer of the band arrived with a few others in tow. “Who are you that would disturb this ritual?” He was trying to sound tough and threatening, but it wasn’t quite working. The costume, a second-rate Gwar knockoff, wasn’t helping.

“Ritual?” Ben asked, steadying himself.

“We gather here, far from prying eyes, to praise our dark master,” the singer said, gesturing toward the fire. “Hail Satan!”

The others gathered around called out as well.

The Triplets of Tennerton – coming May 29