Day 27—Night Town 3 (Darkside)

Darlene walked confidently down the boulevard. The Old Town lights flooded trapezoidal prisms beneath, just like in the movies. Fog dominated this time of year, and she enjoyed it all the more for that spookiness. Occasionally a bum emerged from the darkness, wraith-like.

She knew that her nightclub was a potent realm. Many had vied for the night, but somehow the darksidewalkers had won out the bid. She felt safer signing the contract with them, anyway. Their main DJ and promoter was a woman, and that was another reason she preferred them. There were also some strong male DJs in the arsenal. Frankly, this group was much less violent than most of the people she normally contracted with.

Earlier that week, one of her friendly patrons had sent her a link to a scandal that had emerged regarding Satanic rituals in local nightclub. These people had nothing to do with the darksidewalkers, for she knew that those patrons had a direct line to the Dark Lord and didn’t need the publicity about it. It was all part of the system: people bound in chains of obligation and debt to each other. She tried to make the experience as palatable for everyone as possible.

The problem was that the Satan-worshippers and their unwashed friends were infiltrating the night of the darksidewalkers and waiting for their best moment to strike. She knew what their rituals looked like and she knew exactly the words of obligation that they cornered you into speaking, after which you would be in debt until you had realized what you’d done. Darlene herself did not enjoy this system of indefinite punishment. Strangely, it was also outlined in the business negotiation rules for nightclub owners that she had studied in school. She decided to use contracts in order to make those terms more bearable, but interestingly enough it was almost the exact same material. Soulsville was littered with practitioners trying to utter these speakeasy codewords to each other. Some didn’t calculate or play, but ended up getting swept up in the deception anyway.

The next week, some of the communities had actually come out with seminars on how not to get coerced into the Satan-worshipper code language, inadvertently binding oneself to the pursuit of obligation. Darlene decided that if the Satan-worshippers continued to be a problem at her club, she would surreptitiously plaster flyers for these seminars on the walls before her events. The darksidewalker promoters didn’t seem to be affected by it so far, so she figured leave them be for the time being.

She enjoyed her fairly brief walk home in her business suit. She usually took public transportation to the club, and the surrounding neighborhood was extremely safe, so she had no problem trusting the night. Today would be different.

“Stop, woman!” A figure in a half-mask suddenly blocked her path. He had on a long trenchcoat, a tri-corner hat and a tailored suit.

“What the fuck do you want?” She reached for her Mace quickly.

“Only to be in service to you, madam! For I am one of your darksidewalkers. And I have taken it upon myself to warn all the denizens of Night Town about the danger of the Satanic words.”