Kim went to the Metal on Metal Mayhem festival at the PNE Amphitheatre in Vancouver because she felt sorry for her goofy uncle, not because she wanted to get electrocuted. The electrocution came later, and, truly, was a surprise for her and the other four who were zapped. No, her intention was to have an open mind to music that was created by old, hairy apes who hadn’t seen a competent hairdresser since the 1980s. But Uncle Gord was balding, and clever, deceptively strong, and always kind to her. The coolest thing about him was the maple leaf on a shield tattoo on his right forearm. He got it in Croatia when he was on a peacekeeping mission after he had fallen on a grenade to protect his comrades. His armoured vest saved him. His brothers in arms had called him the Canadian Shield ever since.

  “I wish you’d seen the other acts,” he said. “Fist melted the stage. They even covered ‘Iron Man’.”

  “That’s a classic.” Kim had learned that if she said a song was a classic, then Uncle Gord wouldn’t continue talking about it. Most of these metal songs vanished from her brain moments after the final fuzzy chord had rung out.

  “And Kick Axe shook the stadium!” he continued. “‘Heavy Metal Shuffle’ blew my mind and my back. Yeah, I was in the mosh pit.” He laughed. She didn’t enjoy picturing her uncle or any middle-aged people dancing.

  “That’s another classic,” she said.

  “You’re learning!” He patted her shoulder. This festival was yet another attempt by her uncle to indoctrinate her into the world of metal. “You will love Anvil. They are like Canada’s Metallica and Iron Maiden combined. And you know how much I ‘Up The Irons’ for Iron Maiden.” She had listened attentively enough to her uncle to know that ‘Up The Irons’ was a positive thing, even though it sounded painful.

  Uncle Gord led her through the crowd, parting them like a smiling icebreaker as he worked his way to the front. She had an uncomfortable, icky experience of bumping into seniors wearing leather. She hadn’t been mentally prepared for that. Or the tight blue jeans on elderly flesh. Or the chains. These people had grandchildren! And false teeth. She should not be seeing their skin. Especially on a hot May evening.

  “It’s like costume-play,” her uncle said. He had obviously seen that she was gritting her teeth.

  “Cosplay, you mean,” she replied. “Ah, that helps.” And he was right. Though she never dressed up like Pikachu or any of the other trillion anime characters, some of her friends loved becoming someone or something else. So these oldsters were just pretending they were gods and goddesses of heavy metal. They obviously didn’t have long for this world, so they might as well enjoy their last few breaths. It was easier to think of this concert as a very loud aging-in-place Halloween party.

  Kim gawked when she spotted a family—grandpa, grandma, father, mother and two teen boys—all dressed in jeans and leather with the face of that weird Iron Maiden zombie mascot on their t-shirts. The creature’s name was Eddie. Her uncle had said it enough times; the name was branded into her brain. The youngest boy of the family, maybe thirteen, was wearing a shirt that said, “Eddie is my father.” That was disturbing on several levels. Who would want to have that creature as a father? The super disturbing part was that Grandpa and Grandma also had the same shirt, which led to some interesting genetic questions.

  She found it best not to think any further along those lines.

  When she and her uncle stopped, they were standing in the front row, with a line of bored security guards the only thing between them and the stage. She glanced to her left and was surprised to see someone who wasn’t wearing any leather. Or chains. Nor was he old—he had to be near her age—maybe nineteen. He was in a sleeved red flannel shirt that was buttoned up to his neck. His dark hair was short, and he might have vanished from a tech conference and appeared beside her. He reminded her slightly of the dark-haired actor who had been in the John Wick movies. Except younger and smaller and not as confident.

  The man nodded in her direction, smiled in a way that revealed he had one dimple in his cheek. She immediately named him One Dimple. Sometimes nature could be cruel—only handing out one dimple, so people were always looking for the second one. Kim decided it was attractive. The young man made an odd gesture with his index and little finger to form horns. With teeth still gritted, she nodded back, but didn’t imitate his hand signal.

  “That’s ‘Gates of Babylon’,” her uncle said. “It’s from Rainbow’s Dio era.”

  “Oh, thanks for that extra information!” She shouted this because Uncle Gord was nearly deaf in his left ear. He liked to joke that “a discharge of a gun next to my ear got me my discharge.” Then he’d laugh in that loud way that people who are hard-of-hearing laugh.

  “You have a great sense of humour, Kim.” He had a voice like a megaphone. “You got that from your dad. And it’s very daring of you to come along. He would be proud of your being here. He loved these tunes.”

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  “It’s a rock safari,” she shouted back at him, pleased that she didn’t project any spittle. “Except there should be a window between me and the animals.”

  This got another loud laugh. “See, that’s what I mean; you’re funny, Kim! That’s why you’re my favorite niece.”

  She took that as a compliment, even though she was his only niece. After all, she had agreed to go with him. After her dad had died from leukemia, her uncle had been a constant presence. They looked similar enough that she occasionally felt like she was with her dad. So, being here while experiencing music her father loved just added to that feeling.

  At one point, a miracle happened: the speakers thumped out a song that was familiar to her: “Run to the Hills.” Though she had heard Iron Maiden’s version—the version that came to her mind was one her class had studied during Indigenous Studies—the chorus was unmistakable.

  “I can’t wait to see Lips,” her uncle said.

  “Is that someone you know?” she asked, but he didn’t hear her.

  “No,” the guy beside Kim said. “Lips is Anvil’s singer. His real name is Steve Kudlow, but Lips is his stage name. Like Sting. And Lips plays lead guitar and sings. He’s a hero of mine. The drummer’s stage name is Robbo though his real name is Robb.”

  Kim wasn’t certain if the young man looked as cute as he had before. The fact that he had such depth of knowledge about this ancient band was worrying. And was this mansplaining or rocksplaining?

  She was about to say thanks when her uncle interrupted her.

  “It’s ‘March of The Crabs’!” he shouted. Kim couldn’t recognize an actual song change, only that the music was getting louder. He clutched his chest, and she thought he was having a heart attack from overexcitement. It was his eighteenth time seeing Anvil, clearly a sign of a compulsive disorder. He took his hand away from his chest and pressed an orange earplug into his good ear.

  “Cool,” Kim said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “That’s really cool!” Then she plugged her ears with her pink earplugs—the sound became muffled, as if she had just dived into a pool.

  The lights went black, and the crowd exploded with excitement. She did not know that so many old sets of lungs could make such a loud noise. The lights flashed on to reveal Anvil, banging at their instruments as if they were trying to punish them. Uncle Gord raised his arm, revealing a metal-studded leather band on his wrist. The young guy beside her had a similar band, now revealed because he’d rolled back his sleeves.

  Anvil seemed to have a hundred guitarists judging by the sound, but she only counted two of them: the main guitarist wielded a red Flying V guitar with the word October stamped on the head. Lips had impressive long curly hair for his age, the bass player hid his hair behind a bandana. The drummer wore glasses and a toque over white locks while he did his best to pound his kit into oblivion. It all somehow worked and became music. She couldn’t deny that.

  The song ended with cheers. Anvil next dove into a ditty about the devil and shouted out “666” about six hundred and sixty-six times, so she was pretty certain it was the title. The singer growled notes that threatened to split her earplugs. Her mom had forced her to take voice lessons, so she found herself impressed by his ability to blast his vocals over the cacophony of the instruments. Perhaps he had an air siren hidden in his chest.

  It was amazing. She hated the music, but the sight of the gyrating band, the doubly gyrating-fist-pumping crowd, and the pure adrenaline of it all took over, and she raised her arm.

  And shook a fist.

  And bumped into the guy standing up beside her. One Dimple gave her another charming smile and shook his ‘devil’ sign. Beside her uncle was another young guy, who had a mohawk and had painted his eyelids with a hazardous amount of black eyeshadow. He was shaking both fists and gargling at a very high volume—or at least, it sounded like gargling. He wore a t-shirt that said DeathFace Blitzkrieg above a picture of a tank—except the barrel was an electric guitar. She hoped it was a band name and not a sign that he thought blitzkriegs were T-shirt worthy. The guy next to him was smaller and maybe in his 30s and sported a Def Leppard bandana over short hair.

  By the end of the first five songs, Kim was nearly certain she had sweated more than she had on her morning jog. Each song that followed was faster and faster and pumped more and more adrenaline into the crowd. It surprised her she wasn’t tired, and she wasn’t even herself anymore. It was as if the thudding of the bass and the drums and those primal screams were actually changing her cell structure and the world around her.

  The band sang about being ‘Forged in Fire’ and she believed it. The guy two people over suddenly shouted, “I am forged in fire! I am!” and tore off his shirt to reveal he was forged in a gym. Maybe sacrificing shirts was a metal ritual.

  Then, in the encore, the band switched to a song that was heavier than all the other songs. Lips sang:

  “Metal on metal!”

  The crowd grew into an even deeper frenzy. She was caught up in the power of it all.

  The guitarist stepped closer to the stage, and that got her uncle to point. “It’s Lips! Lips! He’s right there.” Uncle Gord shouted these words loud enough to penetrate her earplugs. And it was almost as if the singer heard him, too, because he was pointing his guitar like a machine gun right at Uncle Gord.

  And at that very moment, as if inspired by his rock god, Uncle Gord jumped forward, lurching past the surprised security guard, who clearly did not expect any of these old people to move with such speed. Her uncle shoved out a hand towards Lips.

  Kim latched onto his shoulder to stop him but was pulled ahead by his momentum. One Dimple grabbed her hand to hold her back. She glanced to see that he looked worried, then she snapped her head forward, because her uncle had forced himself one step closer to the band. The Deathface Blitzkrieg guy was reaching out, too. Even the shirtless man had forged ahead.

  “Act your age!” Kim shouted.

  But Uncle Gord, undeterred by his age, reached towards the very tip of the Flying V guitar.

  He touched it.

  A big blue electric spark burst up from the ground. Before Uncle Gord could jitter or shake, that same blue electric blast arced through her hand into her whole body. Then it shot through her to One Dimple and the two others. All of them were glowing blue at the same time.

  Kim hadn’t even had time to blink. Then her heart stopped working.

  And she died.

  YouTube and (Spotify soon, too). Each song should set the mode for the chapters and is often referenced in the chapter itself.