Free Lords of Salem by Rob Zombie

pervert’s idea of lederhosen, was his only clothing. She couldn’t help wondering what the spikes were doing to the vinyl chair he was sitting on. Who was going to pay for that?
    “Which one of you is Count Gorgann?” she asked.
    The musician reading Highlights lifted one hand in a Satanic salute, pointer finger and pinky lifted, his two middle fingers bent to touch his palm. He waggled his tongue and tipped his wrist to point his salute at his own face.
    “All righty then,” said Cerina. She turned to the man next to him. “Which I guess makes you Dr. Butcher,” she said.
    This one had apparently painted his face black first and then applied white face paint over it. It made his face look like a broken skull with darkness seeping out from behind it. The more she looked at it the more unsettling it seemed. His mouth had been painted in blood in a drooping frown that reached the side of his jaw. What must their monthly face paint bill be? Cerina asked herself, which made her wonder if she should check her own makeup. His arms were covered from wrist to elbow with leather bracers, with rusty iron spikes on them. High tetanus risk , Cerina couldn’t help but think. He had more clothes on, a black T-shirt with the sleeves tornoff and black jeans, but over the jeans he’d affixed a kind of codpiece with dozens of screws jutting tip-first out of it. He lifted his head briefly. He opened his mouth wide to show black-stained teeth, then returned to his magazine.
    “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.
    You gotta be shittin’ me , she thought, carefully writing each name in Sharpie beneath the correct image. Damn, I really got to get a better job.
    “Are you serious?” asked Heidi. “I’m the problem?”
    “You know you’re the problem,” said Herman. “Don’t make me explain it to you.”
    He pulled into a parking spot behind the studio, turned the car off. He’d opened the door and was starting to step out when she put her hand on his arm and stopped him.
    “Excuse me,” said Heidi. “Just how am I the problem?”
    He turned back toward her. “Well,” he said. “For one, if you weren’t always all dolled up and striking some glamour pose, me and Whitey wouldn’t end up looking like ebony and ivory mutants.”
    “I’ve got news for you,” said Heidi. “You’d look like ebony and ivory mutants whether I was there or not.”
    “Thanks a whole lot,” said Herman.
    They got out. Herman opened the back door and began unloading the boxes of promo photos, stacking his arms full. Heidi grabbed the last one.
    “I’m the one all dolled up?” she said. “You dress like that pimp on TV Land, Teddy Bear.”
    Herman pretended to be offended. “I believe you mean Huggy Bear,” he said. Then shouted, “My man Antonio Fargas!”
    Laughing and shaking his head, he headed toward the station door, Heidi close behind him.
    Cerina had turned away from the two black-metal ghouls, ducking a little underneath the desk as she spoke in a low voice into the phone.
    “I swear to Jesus I got Satan times two sitting right across from me.” She curled the phone cord around her finger, listened. “I don’t know…,” she said. “Some kind of heavy metal bullshit.” She snuck a glance at the two band members. They were both still reading their magazines, waiting calmly. “Norwegian, I think. Norwegian Satanists.” She listened again. “I think it’s near Russia or something. Let me Google it.”
    She was tapping into her laptop, phone now held in a shrug between her shoulder and ear, when the stained-glass front doors rattled. Through them she saw Herman, arms stacked with boxes, trying to get in. She watched him, making no move to get up. A moment later, Heidi scooted around from behind him and held the door open.
    Herman nodded in a way that could be interpreted as a thank-you. That was Herman all over, Cerina thought, her lips tight. Always prickly, never going out of his way to make anybody feel good about