Chapter 429

The inside of the venue was a small lobby that looked like it had originally been constructed in that red velvet-wrapped old-timey feeling of a theatre. Most of the crushed red velvet that was remaining had been worn down over the years, where it was even still clinging to life at all, and all of the remaining wood furnishing was worn pale and smooth as well.

It had the kind of character that could only be earned over decades and decades of hard use.

Just inside the front doors was a small, dimly lit lobby with a bar where an old snack bar would have been, a coat check on the opposite end, and two double doors leading into the venue proper. Through the door was a long, slowly-sloping room that had been stripped of all the theatre seating that would have been installed at one point, leaving a bare, heavily stained, worn and patched hardwood floor. It was a good thing that most of the lighting was coming from the stage at the far end, and from the bar built into one side of the main room, because I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see the actual colours of those rings of stains.

The walls and ceiling of the venue were studded with metal rails that held an eclectic collection of lights and speakers, and thick bundles of wires looked like they’d been fastened across the old wood panelling and faded, peeling wallpaper almost at random. The mixing booth sat between the two double doors, and a couple of grizzled, bearded sound techs were sitting behind it and waiting for the show to start as they sucked on vape pens and shot their sickly sweet mist up into the air.

We’d been maybe the fifteenth group through into the venue, and the outer bar had already been swarmed by the first groups, so we pushed through into the main room and made a beeline for the bar before it got too crowded as the line behind us continued to be let in. That was when I stopped up and had to shake my head and laugh.

“What is it?” Becca asked.