Published in 1983, The Bargain is part of Bantam's Dark Forces series for teens, whose blazing ad copy reads, “THE TIME IS NOW...THE BATTLE IS BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL...AND THE PLACE? IT COULD BE YOUR HIGH SCHOOL...Books that blend supernatural suspense into the familiar high school world of romance, cars, and rock and roll!”
After reading The Bargain I'll give them the romance and the cars, but The Coastals are Lawrence Welk's idea of a rock band. They are:
▪ Roy Henderson, Guitar
▪ Penny Padgett, Guitar
▪ Sue Gallagher, Bass
▪ Kip Monroe, Mini-Moog
▪ Mike Levin, Drums
We meet our band playing covers of songs by Yes, Air Supply, and “Helter Skelter” by the Beatles. This inevitably attracts the attention of an older man who looks like George C. Scott wearing a black silk sports jacket, a red golf shirt, and smoking a cigarette in a gold holder. This is Chort Vozmee who runs Club Woodstock in Watertown, CT. After the Coastals get booted from Club Neptune for driving away the regulars with their rock, they turn to Chort and beg for his assistance, but they've barely been in his recording studio for 20 minutes when he opens the curtains in the sound booth to show them “...several men and women dressed in black. They were standing in a circle linked together holding hands. They began to move slowly, clockwise...Chort laughed loudly, 'My young friends, you are watching a coven of witches.' Penny and Sue gasped.”
Like all keyboard players, Kip is able to rationalize anything:
“The witch bit upset me at first,” Kip said. “But Chort explained that rituals are necessary to increase your mental powers and even call upon supernatural powers. If we want to become the nation’s top rock group, we’ve got to have those powers.”
Soon, even Roy is saying things like, “I read where the Beach Boys are into meditation real heavy.” But the deal is really clinched when Chort promises that the powers of Satan will clear up Mike's, acne. Chort teaches then a dance and if they perform it before playing their musical powers improve and they can not only tackle Yes’s really complex songs like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” but they can also perform original material:
“Through your success, we shall attract others to an understanding of the supernatural,” Chort chortled.
Sue's big nose gets thinner, Mike's acne clears up and he goes “from a seven to a nine,” while Penny, well, let's let Sue tell it. “‘Penny, you aren't...you're not flat anymore!’ ‘I've got a bust!’ Penny shrieked with delight.” But they each develop a large pimple on their cheeks when they play, so they adapt KISS-style stage make-up to cover it up and rename themselves Sabbat, which everyone would agree is an improvement from The Coastals. They also start wearing red robes onstage.
Also, at their first showcase, the band grow to enormous size onstage and spray blood out their mouths and fingertips. As for the audience? “They were being totally assaulted by Sabbat.”
As they become more and more famous on their way to becoming the “number-one rock band in America” some of them have reservations as Chort isolates them from their church-going parents, but whenever they argue with him he makes Sue's bust ache and offers them more fame and money, including an opening gig at Madison Square Garden, although being totally evil and occult he can’t help but make it seem a little ominous:
“I would suspect...that since it is Friday the 13th, it is quite possible that Sabbat will be both the opening and the closing act!”
Fortunately, their parents attend the concert and meet a priest who explains that “Chort” is Russian for “The Devil” and that when Sabbat gets their first platinum album it will seal their deal with Satan. Their parents are understandably confused:
“The Coastals played The Beatles, Air Supply, sure,” Mike's father said. “But never that hard stuff I heard on the radio.”
”Yes," Penny's mother added. “The Coastals played the music they call ‘adult contemporary.’ It had a real nice sound.”
Now the only sound they play…is the sound of Satan sucking souls into Hell!
At the Madison Square Garden concert, Sabbat does their normal grow to enormous size and spray blood out their fingertips act, while singing all their greatest numbers, including “Shiny Leather,” “Rollin' in the Grass,” “Souls on Fire,” “Porn Shop,” and my personal favorite, “Train Wreck”:
Whoo-ee! Whoo-ee!
Trains on a track, clickety-clack.
Trains headin' east — Whoo-ee!
Trains headin' west — Whoo-ee! Whoo-ee!
Clickety-clack, clicket-clack
Two trains movin' on the very same track.
Whoo-ee! Whoo-ee! Whoo-ee! WHAM!
Train wreck, train wreck, train wreck, train wreck, train wreck...
What kind of monsters would sing these sick lyrics? The kind of monsters who once played Air Supply! It drives the crowd wild, but fortunately, during their break between sets, their parents ambush them backstage and perform an exorcism to cast out Chort. The kids take off their make-up and return to the stage saying, “We were Sabbat but now we are what we are, no more and no less. We are proud of what we are. We are ourselves. We are The Coastals.” Then they cover “A Hard Day's Night” and the crowd goes bananas.
After returning to high school, the members of the Coastals change their name yet again, and become a jazz fusion act called Quintessence.
Satan always wins in the end.