***
We didn’t see Blondella again that day or most of the day after. By then, we were getting worried that she was on to our plan, that she had figured out that Lola couldn’t sleep and couldn’t teach anyone else to, that she herself was being tricked and we were soon to be lambs for the slaughter. Worse still, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the longer we waited, the shorter our better halves remained cognizant.
And, yet, wait we did. The music, which was preset to play, was our only diversion. Then, when we couldn’t take much more, mainly because someone had programmed a Ke$ha medley, there she appeared, her ginormous wig cutting through the undead throng.
“You’re on,” I whispered to my cohort.
“Wish me well,” she whispered back.
“Well.”
And then Blondella was at the door of the DJ booth, motioning for Lola to follow.
I watched as the two left together and continued watching as Lola stopped Blondella in the aptly-named dead-center of the disco. This was the plan we’d hatched. I prayed that, in keeping with the theme, we hadn’t laid an egg.
“Cut the music!” Lola shouted, making everyone jump, me especially.
I went all automaton-like and followed her command, the music going from ten to zero in a split second, Ke$ha snuffed out after three hundred years. Better late than never, I figured.
Blondella looked my way and then Lola’s. “Why did you stop the music?” she barked, the disco suddenly filled with the sound of groans from all around now that the music was off. “Silence!” she added, her bloodshot eyes flaring, mouth in a snarl. After that, you could practically hear a pin drop, which was great for me because then I could hear the conversation as it continued. “Aren’t we headed outside?” she asked. “To practice?”
I feigned a smile. It seemed Blondella was still in on the game, even though she was now pawn instead of queen. Lola smiled as well. “Yes, practice,” she replied. “But not outside. The peripheral groans are a distraction, even the wind, but, more importantly, I believe the disco itself might hold a way for us to speed up the process.”
Blondella looked at her quizzically. “You mean help me to sleep?”
Lola’s grin widened. “Deeper, longer and harder,” she replied.
Which was just as Blondella always liked it, if rumors were true. “And how, pray tell, will the disco help? Because, truth to be told, I have been practicing, and, well, the results have been, shall we say, tepid at best.”
“Yes,” said Lola, sagely. “It certainly takes more than a day or two to master it.” She then pointed all around. “But the lights in here, they’re hypnotic, in a way. I believe they might let your mind go blank easier.”
I forced back a chuckle. “Not too far to go on that one,” I mumbled to myself, preparing for what was to come next. My nonexistent heartbeat was racing though a furlong right about then.
“Makes sense,” said Blondella. “I used to always fall into a trance while dancing.”
I covered my mouth. “Sure, we’ll go with that,” I muttered behind my rigid digits. “And not the six/seven cocktails and the occasional joint beforehand. Not to mention that too-tight wig cutting off the blood supply to your too-loose head.”
“Exactly,” said Lola. “Now, please lie down here and stare up at the lights as they swirl around you, concentrating on nothing but them, letting the rest of the world melt away, to fade into nothing.”
I grinned. “It and you both, bitch.” And then I watched with glee as her minions helped her descend to the disco floor, then cleared the area of the undead, until all that was left was Lola and Blondella and the silence and the swirling colors, the guards ringing it all, the lights now the only movement in the entire cavernous space.
“Okay,” said Lola. “I’m going to count backwards from ten to one.” Her voice was lower now, soothing. “Keep staring up. Let the lights cover you like a blanket. Let them warm you inside, cradle you. And with every number I utter, you’ll start to get sleepier and sleepier, until I reach the end, and then you and sleep will be as one.”
“In more ways than one,” I said, no longer staring at my friend, my eyes fixed elsewhere all of a sudden, the radiation growing and growing inside of me as Lola started her countdown and slowly began to move in reverse, away from the prone queen, a few inches with each number called out.
When she reached five, the atoms inside of me were at their maximum frenzy, slamming and jamming into one another as they waited for their inevitable release. I held them back, listening intently for the final number to be spoken, for my signal, my turn at stardom, for Blondella to (at last) exit the stage.
“Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”
The floodgates parted, the beam of radiation moving faster than lightning—and just as white-hot. It hit the metal chain, which glowed upon impact, a puff of smoke rising to the ceiling, seen only if you were off at a distance. Seen, that is to say, only by me. Of course, I was also the only one who saw it buckle and bubble and crack and quickly split into two.
And then the silence was shattered as that giant disco ball, the largest one I’d ever beheld, came crashing down.
It was the last thing she ever saw, not to mention the most beautiful thing I’d seen in decades.