The next venue on the Feral Eclipse tour route? A former church converted into a music hall in rural Missouri called The Rafter Room. The GPS nearly gave up halfway there, rerouting them past suspiciously watchful cows and a hand-painted sign that just read: “Y’all better turn back.”

The old chapel loomed like a relic of some long-forgotten saint of chaos. The steeple had a lightning rod bolted on crooked, and someone had spray-painted Rage is Holy on the side of the bell tower. Stained glass windows had been replaced with colored plexiglass. The front marquee read:

“TONIGHT: FERAL ECLIPSE
TOMORROW: BINGO & BRISKET”

Inside, pews had been cleared to make way for folding chairs and a tiny bar in what used to be the confessional booth. The “green room” was the old Sunday school office—still decorated with sun-faded Noah’s Ark posters and an unsettling number of googly eyes stuck to the ceiling.

Cassie walked in, took one look around, and deadpanned, “I feel like we’re gonna summon something just by soundchecking.”

Maya kicked over a plastic duck. “If the power goes out mid-set, I’m blaming Jesus.”

Thane was already pacing near the back wall, eyeing a breaker box that looked like it had been through at least two exorcisms. “This place has three-prong outlets but only two wires.”

Mark, perched high on a truss trying to mount a VariLite with duct tape and hope, muttered, “It’s fine. We’ve lit worse.”

Gabriel was grinning ear to ear. “This is going to be the most metal church revival ever.”

Rico wandered up holding two mic cables in either hand. “These both say ‘Lead Vocals’ in Sharpie… one’s sticky.”

“Great,” Thane groaned. “We’re gonna get electrocuted and sued.”

But when showtime hit? The crowd—mostly locals, a few confused youth group members, and one guy in a Slayer shirt holding a casserole—turned wild. The sound bounced off the vaulted ceiling in ways that made even Jonah say, “Okay, that was kinda beautiful.”

Gabriel shredded his bass so hard a section of the back wall started rattling. Maya lost a pick mid-song and improvised with a communion wafer someone had tossed on stage. Jonah launched into a solo that echoed like thunder through the old rafters.

Cassie, radiant under Mark’s chaotic lighting work, had the entire place clapping and screaming by the third song.

At one point, an elderly lady in the front row stood, held up her walker, and yelled, “THIS SLAPS!”

Backstage after the set, dripping with sweat and pure disbelief, Thane slumped into a folding chair next to the now-empty baptismal font.

“We just headlined a haunted chapel.”

Gabriel, drinking soda from a chalice he found in the back, nodded solemnly. “And brought salvation through distortion.”

Jonah blinked. “Is this sacrilegious?”

Mark walked by and slapped a clawed hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Nah. It’s rock and roll.”