The drum corps had shown incredible rhythm and training, marching around and through each other while beating out an intricate tattoo on their snares without looking up once. Wide-brimmed hats kept them from seeing the audience or each other, and kept the audience from seeing them. The crowd roared with delight and awe. When they looked up, the audience saw vacant, black chasms where their faces should have been. Something about them bent vision — no matter where you were, what angle you had, if you could see a sliver of that gaping hole in space, you could see all the way down the tunnel. And you couldn't look away.

Roars of approval turned into screams of terror. It flowed across the audience like a grotesque wave, and it faded just as quickly. Everyone still tried to scream, but they had nothing left to scream with. The corps had stolen whatever it was. Realization flowed through the stands, and the voiceless fans stared at the show as the ripple of silence extinguished the last of the screams.

They drummed our screams down their yawning maws, and our voices with them. All the while, they marched in perfect formation and time.