Sebastian took hold of the microphone and stepped over toward the front of the stage. The normally timid and soft-spoken groom was rightfully more fired up than usual. As he tapped on the mesh, a thudding sound could be heard over the PA system. “Hello? Hello? Can you guys hear me?” The crowd cheered, letting him know he was good to go.
“Can I please ask everyone to join us for a moment? I have an announcement I’d like to make. That includes the phenomenal staff who helped put this thing together. I’d like to get everyone all together at once, please. This really needs to happen with all of us together. So, everybody, just pause what you’re doing and gather round.”
Taylor was still smiling and seated a few feet behind Sebastian while he waited patiently as the staff filed in from the bar and kitchen prep area behind it.
“Yes, all of you, that’s it, every single one. Is anyone missing from the tables?” He looked around at the tables and, at first glance, there didn’t appear to be an empty seat.
“Okay, I think we’re good but before I get started, there’s one other person I want to join us… Jinx, can you hear me?” he asked, awaiting a response.
A tall figure stepped out from the curtain on the stage behind him. For some unknown reason, the individual was wearing a mask. The face of which portrayed an angry, bizarre, and deformed-looking jester.
A black and red ensemble covered the figure from head to toe. The upper garment was marked with a green vertically-placed evil eye sewn over the jester’s torso. Tight gloves—one black and one red—matched the limp horn-like hat that curled, slumping over on each side of the mask. For some reason, the person in the costume was juggling four metallic balls of chain. They moved from belt level to being tossed high up above the mask.
The crowd seemed a bit confused by what was happening, but overall, people saw the humor and seemed to enjoy the strange and unpredictable sight. Jinx traveled down the side of the long stage, impressively maintaining balance while continuing the juggling routine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Jinx the jester!” Sebastian yelled.
The guests applauded the creepy performer courteously, although some of the faces at the children’s table looked horrified. The adults around them tried to calm and reassure the kids that the strange person was nothing to be afraid of. The event seemed quite random and not something they figured they would be seeing at such a fancy wedding.
“In case you’re wondering, Jinx is here tonight for your entertainment. I’ve got a feeling we may need a couple of extra laughs as the evening goes on, so our jester will be helping out in that department.”
Jinx let the balls drop to the carpet near the first set of exit doors. The jester applied gloved hands on the weird mask in a silly manner, like the figure was ashamed of the drop before closing the doors.
“I assure you this is a top-performing talent, as far as jesters go anyway. That’s primarily because… well, being a jester really isn’t a thing anymore…”
The crowd let out a chuckle, and while Sebastian continued to explain, Jinx unraveled two of the four chain balls slyly. Solid lengths of metal wrapped around the door handles and a pair of silver locks secured them.
Sebastian took out his phone and pressed the play button and circus-like music began to emanate from the speakers in the ballroom. DJ Buttaz looked confused, like he wasn’t really sure how he was doing it.
“Jinx is a master motivator and also a magician of sorts. In fact, we’re going to start our evening off with a little trick for you all, how does that sound?”
The crowd applauded politely while Jinx finished barricading the second and final exit. Sebastian’s actions grew stranger by the minute as he began to dance by himself to the kooky music. He looked lost in his own world. One that no one else in the room seemed to have ever been privy to.
By that point, Taylor’s face was plainly faking amusement even more so than earlier. She felt shots of confusion and weirdness hit her like stiff punches in the midsection. A horrible sensation began to fizz in her guts and she had no idea why. A fearful impassiveness crept up suddenly without warning as she watched Jinx stroll back to the stage.
Jinx was now dancing right beside Sebastian. They wiggled their bodies about like there was nothing off about their actions. This dragged on further for what felt like an unnecessary allotment of time as the hundreds of people watched, unsure of what exactly was going on. When the music finally died, they both froze in unison and then straightened up.
“Wow! That was quite a workout!” Sebastian exclaimed, sweat glistening on his husky cheeks.
The crowd’s baffled applause still trickled in, more striving to tolerate the weirdness than actually portraying how entertained they felt. Jinx trotted over to a giant gift wrapped in jet black paper that was sitting on a dolly. The jester pushed it forward and out onto the main dancefloor until it rolled to a stop near the tables ahead of the massive chandelier. The tables that were occupied with friends and family had been arranged on the outskirts of the ballroom encompassing the dancefloor. All the focus in the room had now shifted solely to the secretive present.
“Honey?” Sebastian looked over to Taylor, who still sat radiating fakeness. “Honey, would you mind coming out to the dancefloor for a moment? I know we’re not supposed to open gifts until later, but Jinx has one that warrants an early look.”
Fucking idiot, what on earth is he doing? He’s turning the wedding into some kind of sideshow attraction, Taylor wondered in internal ire.
Sebastian looked out to the crowd, getting them to cheer Taylor on while she smirked and marched over toward the package.
“This isn’t just something for my wife either. This is actually something that is for all of us to share together on this special day. Because all of you, our friends, our family, those that have stuck by us through both the good and the bad, you ALL deserve to have a blast tonight!”
The crowd was eager for the reveal, watching Taylor closely as she carefully tore into the midnight wrapping. They were invested now because they were involved.
“Go ahead, give it a good tug, sweetie,” Sebastian instructed.
As the remainder of the paper pulled free, most of it came off intact and revealed that Sebastian had a dark sense of humor. A device the likes of something most of them had seen in any number of action movies over the years sat before them. The shiny metallic exterior, huge barrels of fluid, and an array of multi-colored wires drew the majority of the room to the same unmistakable conclusion—it was a bomb.
The attendees let out their gasps in harmony, scared mumblings mixed with hopeful but still nervous laughter echoed through the beautiful ballroom. Taylor’s face held firmly onto her smile. This was her special day. It had to be a prop or a gag, something like this just wasn’t conceivable.
While Sebastian had never mentioned this part of the wedding, it must have just been a surprise. An eccentric surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. To her, this was all part of the trick. It wasn’t possible that something like this could actually be happening to her on the day that she was supposed to get hitched.
Sebastian’s family looked on, horrified. They’d known him the longest, of course, and knew better than everyone else that he didn’t exactly have a rich sense of humor. His seriousness was always on short order. Everything that came out of his mouth since he’d picked up that microphone felt different. There had never been a shred of variance before, but now, somehow, his dry demeanor had evaporated. It all made the incredible circumstance that was just unveiled seem plausible to them.
How could he do this? Why? The questions raced through his father’s mind as his pulse accelerated violently.
It was so hard to swallow the disturbing facts that were facing them. Even his youngest cousin, Nina, could see something was terribly wrong.
“Daddy, Sebastian is joking, isn’t he?” she whispered, fearful of interrupting.
“Sure he is, let’s just let him finish the trick, okay? It should all be over soon.” Ivan was lying to himself but wanted to believe it so desperately. However, the performance as a whole that they’d witnessed was not the Sebastian they knew. It looked like him and sounded like him, but that was about all. It was like a disturbed mimic, as if a maniac had slipped under his skin and taken control. Either that or he’d been hiding his true colors for his entire existence.
Jinx headed back to the stage and tore the packaging off one of the other many gift boxes.
“Relax, everyone, relax, please!” Sebastian yelled over the grumblings of terror.
Sebastian extracted a small remote from his jacket and palmed it, “You see, I may have misled you all just a tad. I told you that Jinx was a magician, that’s not really true, I guess by the dictionary definition anyway. However, we have performed a trick for you, that part is true. But maybe what’s misleading is that the trick we’re presenting is really more philosophical than visual. We’ve tricked you into thinking this is just entertainment.” A maddening rush of laughter escaped him before he could find a way to push forward.
He straightened up again and refocused, slightly adjusting his bowtie with his fingers, then wiping his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his tux. “Getting hot in here, good thing it’s a rental.” It was not a time for comedy, he quickly moved on from the dead falling joke.
“Okay, sorry, we’ve tricked you into believing that you’ll leave this room. We’ve tricked you into believing that this is just another wedding. We’ve tricked you into believing that you’re in a safe space as this pathetic society would call it.”
He held up the remote and showed it to the crowd full of drooping facial features; frowns looked to be back in style.
Taylor stared at it as well. She was never usually at a loss for words, but for the first time, she thought it was better to just listen.
“This control that I hold in my sweaty hand today has the power to end our party in half of a second. Mainly because it triggers this bad boy,” he explained, pointing down toward the intimidating cluster of wires and technology.
“This sucker is comprised of enough C4 and accelerants to make this whole fuckin’ block look like the next 9/11. Like a crater on the fuckin’ moon, we’ll all be buried.”
Jinx returned to his side still appearing quite jolly and now brandishing an AK-47. The crowd was sick with fear but each onlooker was too paralyzed to speak out. They were beginning to comprehend the frightening reality; they were now at the mercy of Sebastian and his disturbed jester.
“I suggest you heed our warnings and listen very closely to my instructions. Jinx is going to take your phones now. If, for some strange reason, one of you finds a way to make a call, everybody dies. We’re pretty isolated here, and I’ve got the entire hotel to myself. We should be alright. But I promise, right when I hear the sirens, this thing is exploding. If one of you attempts to make an escape, everybody dies. If one of you tries to interrupt our upcoming activities, everybody dies. Individually, each one of you will be asked to hand over your phone. If you refuse, Jinx will shoot you in the head. If you do not have a phone, Jinx will shoot you in the head, and shame on you for not embracing technology.”
He rotated his head back and forth throughout the whole room, making eye contact with as many different individuals as he could. The nightmare was alive and well in their faces, but he still wanted to validate that his instruction was sinking in. From what he was gathering, it seemed to be effective.
“In addition to the obvious outcomes, there are a couple more things you should keep in mind. I’m not going to lie to you anymore,” he paused as a confused old woman apologized in the background.
“I’m sorry, my telephone… it’s… it’s at the house,” she said to Jinx who held the black sack in her direction. Her words seemed to have little effect on the jester’s long arms that presented the bag.
A younger woman beside her tried to explain, “She only has a landline, I swear, she’s too old for a cell phone.”
Jinx unloaded four rounds into her face, cutting both her life and unwanted explanation short. Two of the hot lead slugs passed through her right eyeball, one into her cheek, and the final round caught her in the throat. The kind woman’s liquid contents sprayed all over the table behind her as others screeched in horror.
Jinx dropped the bag and grabbed the old woman by the back of her fragile neck. She was still stunned with the shock of watching her daughter get murdered in front of her as Jinx threw her over the table. She cried and began to hyperventilate as the wicked figure dragged down her yellowed, skid-marked panties, exposing her ass.
The others at the table stood up and backed off, their faces looked helpless. While they wanted to defend the poor old lady, it seemed they would quickly be dealt with if they attempted to intervene. The jester took the still hot tip of the machine gun and pushed it into her raunchy and weathered rectum. As the barrel plowed in as far as it could, the elderly woman’s dreary sphincter skin sizzled.
“My telephone is at the house!” she shrieked as Jinx applied pressure to the trigger.
She shook and screamed like a toddler on fire. Large cherry holes wormed their way through her brittle figure, leaving her gray scalp blown clear off and her pulverized brains plastered across the room. Her innards oozed onto the tablecloth as the shots ceased. Her final act was the release of a flood of tan runny defecation that bled onto the tip of the AK-47.
Jinx then turned to a middle-aged man and put the shitty barrel into his torso. The man used his tie to wipe the vile watery feces from his phone and handed it over. Jinx snatched it and then returned to the bag.
“Okay, so one amendment, if you don’t have a phone, Jinx will shoot you in the head OR sodomize you with a machine gun. So, let me just ask now, is there anyone else who doesn’t have a phone? If you tell us now and save us some trouble, we’ll kill you quickly, no sodomy…”
The crowd was mostly on the younger side but there were a few outliers. After a few seconds of thought, a handful of reluctant but frightened elders seemed to just want to get it over with. He saw three more hands raise. Jinx didn’t wait another moment. They were all still relatively amongst the same two tables. The rest of the extended banana clip blasted off before those around them had a chance to avoid the conflict.
The sound of shattering glass and ceramic plates echoed throughout the ballroom. Slugs riddled their bodies as well as a dozen or so other people that got caught in the crossfire. Those who were still able-bodied cleared out, leaving a violent pile of dead and twitching humanity. Jinx robotically walked over and promptly put bullets in the foreheads of each tagged partygoer, then sniffed around the area for any other unintended casualties and secured their devices.
Sebastian looked on as Jinx returned to the sack and continued the morbid collection until a slender trembling hand entered into his line of sight.
“Sebastian?” the woman called out in a mouse-like manner.
Her face looked familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. “I’m sorry, miss, do I know you?”
“My name is Jamie, Jamie Martin. You invited me because you donated to the City Youth Fund in support of struggling minorities.”
Black tears of mascara were running down her cheeks, the thought of speaking to him was so petrifying that, while Sebastian couldn’t see, she was urinating all over herself. It made sense that she chose to sit at the kid’s table being that children were her profession and passion, but it also left her with a specific duty.
“Of course, Ms. Martin! How is that going by the way? Have we been seeing more opportunities so to speak?”
The strange interest in the program caught her off guard but she responded with what she believed he wanted to hear. “Yes, your generous donation has helped us achieve some wonderful things for children in the community.”
“Excellent! Well, I can assure you we’re going to achieve some wonderful things here today too, Ms. Martin.”
“Yes, sir, but these… these children are all too young to have phones. I beg you, please believe me and spare them. They’re all here at this same table with me, you can plainly see that they’re harmless. I can watch them all, and I promise you they will fall in line and stay out of your way.”
He stared at her momentarily before unleashing a smile, “Of course they are. Did you think they were included in this? That’s definitely not the case, I may be a monster but I have other plans for the children, rest assured…”
Sebastian redirected his gaze to Jinx, who was making serious progress. There were a few bumps in the road. A few other executions had occurred as background fodder during their exchange, but the phones were piling up finally.
“Now, where was I? Oh, of course. I’m not going to lie to you anymore. The majority of us will perish today, most likely myself included, but there is a slight hope still that you should all be aware of. I will potentially be allowing a handful of folks to walk away from this. A small exclusive group that will live to speak about my wedding day massacre. A massacre that will make the most horrific spree killers, serial slayers, mass shooters, and terrorists that you see so frequently glorified in the headlines pale in comparison. Make no mistake, that’s all just a drop in the bucket of blood we’re filling up today,” he said, pointing to the dead folks Jinx had just offed.
The crowd’s nerves caused the volume of chatter laced with fright to elevate even further.
“Hey, now calm down, calm down I fucking said! In fact, don’t say another goddamn word!”
Those seated quickly obeyed.
“Don’t you see? You’re all gonna be a part of history. Did you not hear me? And for those that didn’t aim to make history today, again, let me remind you, we need at the very least one person to tell the story of what’s about to transpire here today. Let that serve as your motivation. It’s not the best odds, but it’s far easier than winning the lottery…”
The overall shock stemming from the audience was powerful. Now that his speech had wrapped up, cries began to saturate the background chatter and petrified whispers flourished. The feeling in the air was like a death row inmate just before the last meal.
Zander could hold his tongue no longer, regardless of the risk communication posed. The family had been overwhelmed and frozen in dismay watching all the carnage that had already unfolded. They begged him to stay quiet and not draw attention to himself or any of them. The lunacy in their loved one was something that seemed far too unpredictable to call out about.
Sebastian’s father felt otherwise and found the courage inside himself to stand up from his seat. The person before him was not the man he’d raised. This was not the little boy he played baseball with at the park or taught to swim at the beach. He was a demon. A demon from the bowels of the inferno that had crawled its way out and found a host in his boy.
“Sebastian! What are you doing?! This isn’t you! You must stop this insanity!” Zander cried.
Sebastian shot a fuming glare toward his old man, “Shut up! You ain’t the one running the show anymore! No one is running this show except me now! So, you will listen and you will obey, or, just like everyone else, you will suffer the irrefutable consequences!”
“Please, Sebastian, I beg you. Think about this more before you do other things you regret.”
“Dad… you just don’t get it, do you? I’ve invited you here today as a favor, to bear witness to my greatest accomplishment. To witness history. Yet, instead of being grateful, you insult me?! This is all… this is all just some kind of joke to you?!” The disbelief in Sebastian’s words was genuine, anger forced his jaws to tighten.
“Have you gone mad?! This is not you, my son, please, this isn’t you, Sebastian!”
Sebastian immediately approached Jinx, who was still collecting electronics, and handed the control and microphone over in exchange for the AK.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Pop. I guess the truth of the matter is… you just never really knew me,” he replied, hoisting up the heavy firearm and taking aim.
Zander’s eyes widened in horror, but before he could make another plea, Sebastian opened fire. A slew of shells left the tip of the AK-47, hitting him in the nose and between the eyes. The nasal cavity collapsed into his skull’s interior, leaving the jaw flanking outward as the powerful shots catapulted him backwards. Blood and mind matter littered the wall behind his target and Zander landed atop the pile of mush that previously made up his cranium.
The screams and cries in the room quickly cranked to a deafening pitch. The repulsed looks on the face of his family blended with betrayal as Sebastian swapped weaponry with his partner once again. He held the controller up again, readying himself.
“If everyone doesn’t shut the fuck up now, this thing is over! I literally just killed the man whose balls I came out of! Let that serve as a powerful lesson to you, my mind is strong and unflappable. My capability is unending, we are entering into an environment with no boundaries.” His ramblings seemed to muffle the noise with ease. There was nothing they could do but listen and pray.
Taylor stood shaking a short distance away and realizing her worst nightmare had now become a sick hellish reality: HER WEDDING DAY WAS RUINED!
After digesting the difficult and hideous truth, she moved onto fearing for her life. Sebastian had clearly gone crackers, creating such an elaborate event. He’d mutated all of her friends and family into a school of helpless fish swimming aimlessly in his proverbial barrel.
As she pictured them all drowning in a whirlpool of violence, she watched Sebastian approach the stage. He eyed another massive gift box that towered over him so high that it looked out of place. The groom pulled away a clever paper veil and revealed another horror.
Underneath, fixed to the floor, sat a brand-new fear for the onlookers. A tall clear dunk tank like you might see at a carnival with a few steel steps and a locking metal cage. While the tank was nearly identical, the cage was unusual. Also, the fluid resting still inside the tank was not normal water. The fluid was a lighter shade of emerald green and had an ominous steam rising off the top of it.
Lugging the bag full of communication devices, Jinx approached Sebastian, who pressed and held down on the target to the right of the contraption. The seat suspended above it contorted, opening a path down to the threatening fluid contained in the tank. Jinx dropped the sack of phones through the hole and they both watched the liquid begin to fizz and bubble aggressively.
Sebastian looked at the crowd, “It’s nitric acid, which I was sadly surprised to find out is clear. So, we just put a shitload of green food coloring inside to make it look cool like this. Am I the only one that thinks acid should always be green?”
The room remained silent.
He made a shooting gesture toward the crowd and lifted up the AK-47, pointing it at anyone and everyone. “Well, am I?!” he wailed.
A range of fear-laced mumbles of agreement suddenly cropped up and the crying started again.
“I’m just fucking around,” he laughed yet still maintained his aim with a genuine beam on his face.
“I can see you all look worried, but don’t worry, not yet anyway. This sucker is for later,” he said, tapping the side of the creative murderous device affectionately.
Sebastian looked over to his far right at the videographer who remained a stone’s throw away. The man had continued filming the entire sequence in fear, unsure if pressing the stop button on his camera would make him a casualty.
“Shit, that’s right. Mr. Video Guy, while I sincerely appreciate your services, I’m afraid they’re no longer required.”
The videographer watched through the lens as Sebastian targeted the tip of the AK directly at him. He understood running made no difference and just did what he was born to do—film.
Sebastian’s first bullet could have won him a marksman competition. It traveled directly through the lens of the video camera and exited through the looking hole into the videographer’s head. His outdated ponytail whipped up in the air like a horse swatting flies from its ass as the contents of his skull migrated to the floor behind him.
More gasps of dread and muted tears gave way. Sebastian turned back to the crowd and tried to comfort them.
“You don’t understand, I did that for all of you. If this whole thing is being recorded, then we don’t need anyone to survive and tell the story, right? But I don’t want technology telling my tale. I want whoever makes it out of this to have to think about what’s happening here today. I want it to hurt when they rehash the hell I’m about to unleash.”
Taylor stood frozen and utterly chilled to the bone. For the duration of their association, Taylor had always believed she was the one reeling in the trophy catch, but her view was distorted. Sebastian didn’t look or act like a fisherman but he’d had his line in the water the entire time.
He was homicidal, he was suicidal, he was sick-minded, and maybe most concerning of all, he was unconditionally bloodthirsty. Maybe the scariest part of what was transpiring was that it didn’t seem to matter who got splattered judging from his most recent victims.
“Now that the camera guy is dead and Jinx has collected all of your phones for good measure, I’m going to remind you again, remember the rules. If you somehow make a call, the cops would be a waste. They can’t save you from today’s destiny, only you can save yourself. You made the choice when you accepted our wedding invitation… you chose your own fate.”
Sebastian let the weapon relax at his side for a moment and kept his gaze on the crowd.
“Also, I think it’s important to display my competence to you. I don’t want anyone to think I haven’t planned accordingly. I think that a short demonstration can help me build confidence in all of you and, that way, you’ll know just what the fuck we’re into right now.”
He stepped over past the bulky metal device still looking out at the crowd before removing the remote from his pocket. He pointed it square at an old lady he’d never met before.
“Something old…” he switched his aim of the remote to a crying toddler at the designated kid’s table, “something new…” Next, he switched his aim to the slack-jawed DJ Buttaz and his colorful equipment. “Something borrowed…” he paused for a moment, adding one final artful and overly-dramatic effect, “something… BLEW!”
Just as he pressed the button on his remote, he turned back to the whiney children’s area where Jamie Martin was still seated, ever-protective of the young. The audience soon realized that he wasn’t bluffing, his display proved him fully proficient in the construction of bombs.
The sick play on words came to life as the children’s table exploded and caught fire. The young had come undone; their tiny sizzling parts quickly blackened as they launched in a multitude of directions.
Their once internal juices had been freed to paint those around them with copious amounts of hot extract and an assortment of other meat and organs. The random limbs and still quivering stumps jiggled about as the audience watched in horror. The blast assured that the children would cry no more, Sebastian had seen to that.
Was it possible that, for Jamie’s self-sacrifice and general willingness to accommodate, Sebastian had given her a quick and easy way out of the event? Taylor couldn’t be sure as she stared at the ghastly stub shooting off blood like a fancy sprinkler system where the innocent woman’s legs previously sat. Jamie’s dress was tattered and she looked like a ragamuffin. Her once beautiful face was now sliding off her skull and one of her elbows had been left exposed down to the bone.
“You son-of-a-bitch! My baby! Ricky!” a woman screamed rising from her chair and rushing into the still smoldering chaos. Her husband tugged reluctantly on her arm before letting it go; she was far braver than he was.
While young Ricky had been blown into bits, his mother dove beside him trying to scoop what was left of his tiny body into a single unit.
“Jinx!” Sebastian yelled with a look of discontent.
The twisted jester raised the rifle and squeezed the trigger. The burst tore her body to pieces an until she lost movement and became an extension of the pile of gore.
“Now everyone be fucking quiet! You’re not bringing them back with your tears! But if you want to join them, well, feel free…” Sebastian’s stern yet dark tone commanded them.
He was playing the hard-ass, but inside, he was all Jell-O at the moment. A warm fuzzy feeling poked throughout his intestines and elevated his brain to a temporary high as he came to the realization that he’d finally broken them.
He didn’t believe it would happen so quickly but he was glad to be ahead of schedule. He’d shown his hand; they were all just meat to him. It didn’t matter if they were family, a stranger, or a child, they would all die just the same.
There were no limits anymore or emotions attached and no predictable outcome. He held the reins of his human horses and remained in complete control as the voices in the room settled with the smoke from the detonation.
The panic and chaos that Sebastian had created was unequivocally legitimate. It was now apparent to the guests that they’d be taking part in an event that was terrifyingly unique. A blasphemous, sadistic, and terminal celebration. A display of utter horror that was unavoidable and uncontrollable.
They’d all arrived physically hours ago but were just now arriving mentally. The initial pretense was false; today was no ordinary autumn wedding day. For most of them, today would be both their first and last… wedding day massacre.
