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'Til I Dance With The Dead	By : TheFairyWithBoots Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Iron Maiden Views: 280 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own any of the characters in this story. Story was written out of respect and admiration. This is based off of the song Dance of Death.

Chapter List
- 1-One
- 2-Two
- 1
- 2
It was well into the night as Steve drove down a road that never seemed to end. Janick was asleep in the passenger seat beside him, and Bruce was passed out in the back seat. He had called Steve earlier that night to come and pick him up from the pub; he had far too much to drink and was in no condition to drive back himself. But what Bruce was doing in a pub so far out in the middle of nowhere was beyond Steve. So Steve and Jan had left the hotel to pick Bruce up. As soon as Bruce got into the car, he immediately passed out in the back seat.
But ever since they had left the pub, Steve couldn’t seem to remember the way back to the hotel where the rest of the band were waiting for them. He was beginning to get frustrated. He had been driving for hours, and there wasn’t any sign of a gas station anywhere. He was beginning to feel tired himself. He felt tempted to poke Jan in his side to wake him up, just so that he would have someone to talk to keep himself awake. But he kept quiet and kept his eyes on the road, watching the everglades on either side of him seem to span on endlessly.
It had to have been well past midnight. He didn’t remember the road being this long on the way up here. He had not told Davey, Ade, or Nicko that he was leaving; he and Jan had planned to go and get Bruce and come straight back. Steve wanted to curse Bruce for wandering out so far in the first place but knew that he wouldn’t hear him. Now he didn’t know where the bloody hell they were.
The marsh on either side of him seemed to go on and on. He didn’t know how long he had been driving. It felt like hours. What if he was driving in the exact opposite direction of where he was supposed to be going? What if they didn’t even have enough gas to make it back? He thought about turning around and heading back to the pub to look for a map of some sort. But he had already driven so far out, he thought. There had to be an end to this road. He just…had…to keep…driving…
He couldn’t stop his heavy eyelids from closing, the hum of the car beckoning him into a doze. It couldn’t have been but a few seconds later that he was jolted awake by the movement of the car. His eyes snapped open and he was wide awake, his heart racing in his chest, thinking in his head that they were getting ready to crash. It was then that he realized that in the few brief moments that he had dozed off, he had driven off the road and right into the marsh. In a panic, he slammed on the brakes, causing the car to stop so abruptly that he thought he was going to be thrown through the windshield. The abrupt stop caused Janick to hit his head against the window, and he jolted awake suddenly. He looked around the car with a confused look on his face, his honey-blonde hair hanging in his face as he rubbed the side of his head. Steve looked in the backseat to make sure that Bruce wasn’t hurt. Bruce made a noise in his sleep but turned over so that he was lying on his face, his arse sticking up in the air.
Janick gave Steve an irked look.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, tiredness still in his voice.
Steve was breathing heavily, still trying to process the shock of nearly crashing. “S-Sorry,” he muttered, “I…dozed off.”
Janick unbuckled his seatbelt and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He made a motion with his hand. “Get out. I’ll drive us back.”
Steve stared at the younger man for a moment before deciding that he was right. Jan was less likely to fall asleep while driving and he had almost caused them to crash.
After switching seats and buckling back up, Janick turned the key and tried to start the car again. The engine sputtered but wouldn’t start. Steve frowned as Jan tried starting the engine again. It sputtered for a few moments before there was a loud POP! from the foot of the car. It was as loud as a gunshot and caused them both to jump in their seats. Of course, nothing could wake Bruce from his drunken slumber. When Jan tried turning the key again, the engine would not make a sound. The engine had just died on them.
Steve cursed, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car, his boots making a sloshing noise as he stepped into shallow water. He went around to the front of the car to pop open the hood only to be surrounded by the smoke coming out of the engine. Smoke seemed to fill his lungs and he coughed, moving away from the engine.
Janick had gotten out of the car as well and was trying to shake Bruce awake in the back seat.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Steve said, agitation in his voice. “The engine died and now we have no way of getting back to the hotel!”
“There’s nothing we can do except walk back to the pub and try to hitch a ride there,” Janick said while gently shaking Bruce by his shoulders. “Bruce, wake UP!”
Steve ran a hand through his long brown locks in frustration. They had to have been hundreds of miles away from the pub, he had driven for hours on end.
Janick eventually gave up on trying to wake up Bruce and got back in the front seat of the car. He yawned and leaned back in his seat. “Let’s wait until morning. We can’t see where we’re going in the dark anyway.”
“Jan, the engine is dead, we can’t just-”
But he was already asleep. Steve sighed. Maybe he was right. He felt the urge to fall back asleep. But they couldn’t just wait for someone to come and pick them up; they were in the middle of a marsh. But there was no use trying to convince either of them. Steve slipped back into the driver’s seat, resting his eyes for a few moments.
He had begun to doze for a few moments, and just when he felt the oncoming of sleep, he became aware of a figure standing in front of the car. At first, he thought it was Janick but then saw that he was still asleep beside him. This figure was tall, dark, and ominous, and appeared to be looming over them, unnaturally tall. Steve blinked and the figure was gone. He looked around, feeling confused.
‘It was just a dream,’ he told himself as he tried to convince himself to go back to sleep. But he couldn’t shake off this eerie feeling that he was being watched. He opened the car door to look outside across the everglades, the moon full and bright. The sky was clear tonight, giving Steve a clear view of the brilliant stars above. He gazed up for a moment as if mesmerized.
He caught a glimpse of the tall dark figure in the corner of his eye again, except this time it was standing farther away. He froze, fear gripping his chest. He was afraid to look too closely but at the same time, he couldn’t pull his gaze away. It was too far away for him to make out any distinct features but Steve could see it standing there. Dark. Ominous. Inhumanly tall. And it appeared to be facing him, staring straight at him.
And then it vanished.
With his heart racing in his chest, Steve turned around and got back into the driver’s seat, shutting his door so hard that Janick jumped awake.
“What…are you doing?”
“There’s someone out there,” he said, attempting to start the engine but to no avail. He smacked his hand against the steering wheel. “Blimey! We have no way of driving out of here. There’s something out there, I saw it, and I know damn well that it saw me too-”
“Where’s Bruce?” Jan asked suddenly.
Steve spun his head around to find the back seat empty, and his heart sank in his chest. “Fucking hell! Don’t tell me he went wandering off in a place like this!” He got out of the car and walked around it as if stubbornly believing that Bruce would be hiding underneath it.
When Steve caught a glimpse of the dark figure again, he felt an awful feeling in his gut. He had the same paralyzed sense of terror that prevented him from moving from the spot he was standing. The figure was standing a few feet closer and Steve was able to make out its features.
And he immediately wished that he hadn’t.
It was shrouded in a dark, hooded robe with a scythe by its side. Its skeletal face stared blankly and unmovingly at him. But what was the most terrifying was the eyes. They were bright red and piercing. Steve had never seen a gaze like that before. And those eyes were staring right at him - right into him. He stood there, paralyzed with fear, and it finally dawned on him where Bruce had vanished to.
No.
This couldn’t be real. He had to be having some sort of nightmare. The Grim Reaper didn’t exist. He didn’t believe in any of this mystical bullshit.
Janick had gotten out of the car and had an expression of pure horror on his face. Steve was hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see it too, that it was just his mind playing tricks on him. But the look of horror on Janick’s face told him that the deadly figure standing a few feet away from them was very much real.
“Jan…? Can you see it too…?”
Jan’s voice cracked as he whimpered out, “Yes…”
Steve couldn’t bring himself to ask the next question. He couldn’t bring himself to ask if this had something to do with Bruce. If it had Bruce. He wanted to believe that this was Bruce playing some insane prank on them, but the sinister feeling was too real, too strong.
The Reaper vanished again and Steve felt as if an invisible hand had released from around his heart. He looked over at Janick again and the man looked like he was about to cry.
“You…you don’t think it has Bruce, do you?” he asked in a shaky voice, his grayish-blue eyes shining with unshed tears.
Steve didn’t know how to answer him. All he knew was that they had to find Bruce, to make sure that he was alive. There’s no way Bruce could have wandered off far by himself. He wouldn’t have even been able to walk far without falling on his face.
Drinking so heavily was completely out of Bruce’s nature. Sure, he had had a few beers with the rest of the band before, but he had not gotten blackout drunk in years. Steve grimly remembered that time nearly two decades ago when Bruce was so drunk, he had to be escorted back to the hotel in a taxi with childproof locks. He had not drunk so heavily ever since.
Steve realized that he was going to have to swallow his fear and made his way toward where the Reaper had been standing. His heart was beating so fast, that he could feel it pounding in his ears and against his ribcage. It was so loud that he didn’t hear Janick call for him, asking what he was doing.
When Steve got to the place where The Reaper had been standing, it once again caught his eye and the same sinister feeling crept over him again. It was standing farther away this time. It didn’t move. It stood as still as a statue right at the edge of the woods, staring straight at him. He stared at it with wide eyes, fear causing him to be frozen in place. His heart pounded harder and louder. So loud that he could have sworn it would have echoed across the field. All that he could focus on was the piercing red gaze of the shrouded skull.
Steve felt as if his heart was going to explode in his chest when he felt a hand firmly grab his arm. He spun around suddenly, to find Janick standing behind him. His lips were moving but Steve couldn’t hear the words that were coming out, his rapid heartbeat was drowning out all sound. Janick’s blue eyes were wide with fear as he pointed toward the woods and was saying something - no, yelling something - but Steve couldn’t hear him, all he could do was stare at him with a blank, terrified expression.
Steve turned back around towards the woods to find The Reaper gone. With his heart still pounding in his chest, he began to walk quickly towards the woods.
Steve was not a religious man but at that moment, he prayed. Prayed that Bruce would be in there, alive and unharmed. He would not be able to live with himself if something happened to him.
Though his heart was still beating rapidly in his chest, Steve could finally hear what was going on around him and was soon made aware of Janick’s voice booming in his ear.
“STEVE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” he shouted, causing him to stumble over in shock.
Steve got to his feet, shaking nervously with fear. “Jan…we need to find Bruce and I think that…thing…is trying to lead us to him.”
Janick gave him a look as if Steve had just announced that he was going to drive off a cliff. “Are you insane!? You can’t possibly expect Bruce to be-”
He was cut off suddenly by the rustling of leaves in the trees around them. They both stood there, looking around with stupefied expressions, half-expecting something to jump down and grab them.
“L-Let’s get out of here…” Janick stammered, but shouted when Steve started running deeper into the woods, “Where are you going!? Steve! Wait!”
“We have to find Bruce!” Steve panted, more so out of fear than exertion, “He has to be in here somewhere. We can’t just leave him!”
Janick obviously wasn’t going to turn around and head back himself, and he certainly wasn’t going to leave without Bruce; Bruce was his best friend. He ran after Steve as they made their way further into the woods.
But the rustling of the leaves followed them everywhere. It didn’t occur to either of them that it could just be the wind. It sounded too much like something - or SOMEONE - was jumping from tree to tree in the branches to follow them wherever they went. And no matter how far they ran, they couldn’t seem to get away from it.
The eerie feeling that they were being followed never left them until they came upon a cave and ran inside without a second thought. They just wanted to get out of the woods and away from whatever was in the trees. They collapsed against the walls of the cave, both of them panting for breath. Steve kept his eye on the entrance to make sure that no one was following them.
Steve sat there for a moment, still catching his breath while Janick got up to inspect the cave. He hadn’t walked very far before he let out a startled cry that caused him to nearly jump out of his skin.
“BRUCE!”
Steve jumped to his feet when he heard Janick shout Bruce’s name. He saw Bruce lying on the ground a few feet away as Janick threw himself on his chest, crying. Steve stood there for a moment, staring in shock, thinking that Bruce was dead.
He made his way over to them, kneeling beside Bruce’s unconscious figure as Jan sobbed hysterically. He placed his hand on the side of his neck to check for his pulse as he spoke soothingly to Janick, assuring him that Bruce was going to be okay.
“Jan, he’s going to be okay. There’s a pulse. Let’s just get him back to the car so that we can get him to the hospital.”
“But the engine is DEAD!” Janick cried, staring down at Bruce as if expecting him to stop breathing at any moment, “And…and…how did he even get here…?” His voice trailed off in a whisper as he looked up above them, a look of pure horror on his face.
Steve didn’t even have to turn around to know what he had seen. The crushing, sinister feeling was coming back over him, and he could feel a piercing gaze in the back of his head. The fear in him was so strong, that his entire body went numb as he turned his head to find The Reaper looming over them, looking down at them. There was a foul, putrid scent that surrounded them, that smelled of decaying flesh, and Steve suddenly felt nauseous.
The Reaper slowly reached out its skeletal hand towards them, and Steve was too numb with fear to even think to move away from it. He had the feeling that even if he did, it would only harvest him with its scythe.
When the skeletal hand made contact with his forehead, Steve briefly felt as if he had been doused in ice-cold water before he felt as if he was being violently pulled back by an unseen force. The next moment he witnessed his own body drop to the ground next to Bruce and Janick went next.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out. He went completely mute and suddenly felt himself flying backward as if an invisible fishline was reeling him in by the back of his neck. He fell deeper and deeper into the cave, unable to call for Bruce or Janick, unable to cry or scream. He fell into the darkness as if he was falling endlessly into an abyss.
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'Til I Dance With The Dead