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dethoratsAnd so we have come to the end of Act 1 of this little thing. I've decided to call it 'Come Together' in a fit of sheer unoriginality and failed creativity. Largely because that IS what this is all about and because I've had the Word document with all of the chapters called that on my desktop for months now. Anyway, here's the last installment of Act 1, ending full circle back where we started.
Title: Throwing Off The Chains
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1163
Monday night wasn’t exactly the best day of the week to play a gig. Hell, about the only worse possibility was Sunday. But struggling bands had to take what they could get and so Antietam would be playing on a Monday. For once Pickles had been awake when Murderface got up to leave for work, the redhead having braved the harsh light of the morning sun to walk down to the corner and pick up a newspaper. He had been scanning the classifieds when the bassist had lurched into the living room to pick up his keys and extract one last guarantee that Pickles would be there and ready to play. There had been a queer expression on the smaller man’s face at his words and Murderface was about to justify his comment with bravado and a threat when Pickles had finally shaken his head softly, quickly changing it to a nod.
“I’ll be there dood. Ya don’t gotta worry ‘bout that. ‘m not about to blow this chance.”
“Who’sh worried? That’sh for pushiesh. Jusht be here when I get back from my dildo job sho we can leave.”
And with that Murderface had snatched up his keys and stomped out the door, leaving Pickles alone in the dim, somewhat musty apartment with his newspaper and the duffle bag containing all his worldly possessions. The drummer stared blindly down at the Want Ads and sighed. His head was roiling, filled with too many memories and the seductively poisonous shadows of regrets, and his stomach felt both empty and also full of a writhing ball of snakes, nerves getting to him for the first time in a very long while. It took a stinging slap to his cheek to break him free from the pointless spiral into his past and a brief rummage through the biological experiment that was Murderface’s refrigerator partially cured the hollowness in his belly. What was done was done and he was, beneath the veneer of performance anxiety and nagging what-ifs, grateful to be free. Pickles resolutely settled back on the bassist’s couch, newspaper spread over his knees and phone in hand. No matter what happened that night, he still had to find a job so he could be free of the Lovecraftian nightmare that was the apartment’s sole bathroom.
\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/
Taking a quick peek from the stage wing out at the audience, Pickles had to hand it to the Colonel. The man was certainly gifted in the area of self-promotion. For being a Monday night and considering that Antietam was a death metal outfit, the crowd was pretty good. About one hundred fifty locals crowded into the historic warehouse cum converted concert hall if he had to guess, and, all things considered, that was nothing to sneeze at. He’d played before smaller audiences in the past. What it really meant was that they’d have to be good. These would be the die-hard metal fans, the ones who would be the word-of-mouth army on the street. If they failed to impress, these people would be the ones who would know and who would tell their friends. But if they rocked, in turn, this same crowd would bring their friends along next time. Old-school marketing at the lowest level, but that was how metal had always worked.
Pickles grinned at Shawn from beneath the brim of his Union/Rebel cap, privately amused as the guitarist flushed. Timmer was setting up several cassette recorders, getting ready for the live set in case it proved worthy of being spread through the metal underground via the healthy tape-trading network. He still hadn’t gotten over being star struck and the drummer wasn’t sure what it was going to take. After all, he’d nearly puked on the guy’s shoes last week and Shawn had actually looked like that would have been an honor. Still, the guitarist COULD handle it enough to play and that was all that really mattered. Murderface was down at the bar, busy performing his own pre-show ritual of tossing back a six-pack and talking trash with whoever would bother to listen, hyping them up. Normally Pickles would have been right there with him, drinking more and talking less, but something about that night had made him want to play sober. Well, relatively sober if he didn’t count the four beers and the bong hits he’d had shortly before they’d arrived at the venue. It was just a feeling, something tight and coiled low in his spine, but he remembered the last time he’d felt like that - at the Pussycat Club on the Strip the night Snakes ‘n’ Barrels had blown up – and he decided to go with his gut and wait until AFTER their set was finished to get wasted.
Twenty minutes after he’d snuck a look at the crowd, Antietam had stormed the stage. It had been his beats, the steady martial rolling of the snare drum, which had summoned first Murderface and then Shawn in from the wings, their instruments droning and low. And then his foot had stomped down on the new, well-oiled pedal, and the bass drum had resounded like a cannon. The Colonel had strutted out in all his gleaming white ante bellum glory and clutched the microphone before opening his mouth and letting out a wrenching, guttural yell; the very sound of a man in torment. With that opening salvo, the band had been off. Lightning and thunder, gunshots and fire, the very sturm und drang of war, raged through the old building and there wasn’t a single body not thrashing to the driving beats, wailing guitars, and snarling vocals by the time the set ended. The redhead played in a haze of adrenaline-fueled euphoria and closed the evening with a monumental crash of cymbals as Murderface destroyed yet another amp. All in all, Pickles decided as he leaned against the side of the bassist’s rig with the rest of the band and tossed back a cold one, the evening had been a definite success.
\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/
Two days later, nearly every rumor circulating about the earlier Antietam show was about the brutality and the awesomeness of the music. Nearly every tale but one that is. A lone story came from a couple that had been more interested in fucking than in the music. They’d snuck off to a closed-access room at the back of the club when the ghosts of two Civil War soldiers fighting had caught them in mid-coitus. Seeping phantasmal blood and oozing gore, the two ghastly men paid no attention to the terrified couple until the music stopped. And then they’d focused black, soulless eyes on them and opened mouths to reveal fiery maws. The couple had fled then, back out onto the rabid dance floor, and the spirits hadn’t followed. But that sounded more like a bad acid trip than an actual experience, and nobody paid any heed to that particular version of events.
Title: Throwing Off The Chains
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1163
Monday night wasn’t exactly the best day of the week to play a gig. Hell, about the only worse possibility was Sunday. But struggling bands had to take what they could get and so Antietam would be playing on a Monday. For once Pickles had been awake when Murderface got up to leave for work, the redhead having braved the harsh light of the morning sun to walk down to the corner and pick up a newspaper. He had been scanning the classifieds when the bassist had lurched into the living room to pick up his keys and extract one last guarantee that Pickles would be there and ready to play. There had been a queer expression on the smaller man’s face at his words and Murderface was about to justify his comment with bravado and a threat when Pickles had finally shaken his head softly, quickly changing it to a nod.
“I’ll be there dood. Ya don’t gotta worry ‘bout that. ‘m not about to blow this chance.”
“Who’sh worried? That’sh for pushiesh. Jusht be here when I get back from my dildo job sho we can leave.”
And with that Murderface had snatched up his keys and stomped out the door, leaving Pickles alone in the dim, somewhat musty apartment with his newspaper and the duffle bag containing all his worldly possessions. The drummer stared blindly down at the Want Ads and sighed. His head was roiling, filled with too many memories and the seductively poisonous shadows of regrets, and his stomach felt both empty and also full of a writhing ball of snakes, nerves getting to him for the first time in a very long while. It took a stinging slap to his cheek to break him free from the pointless spiral into his past and a brief rummage through the biological experiment that was Murderface’s refrigerator partially cured the hollowness in his belly. What was done was done and he was, beneath the veneer of performance anxiety and nagging what-ifs, grateful to be free. Pickles resolutely settled back on the bassist’s couch, newspaper spread over his knees and phone in hand. No matter what happened that night, he still had to find a job so he could be free of the Lovecraftian nightmare that was the apartment’s sole bathroom.
\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/
Taking a quick peek from the stage wing out at the audience, Pickles had to hand it to the Colonel. The man was certainly gifted in the area of self-promotion. For being a Monday night and considering that Antietam was a death metal outfit, the crowd was pretty good. About one hundred fifty locals crowded into the historic warehouse cum converted concert hall if he had to guess, and, all things considered, that was nothing to sneeze at. He’d played before smaller audiences in the past. What it really meant was that they’d have to be good. These would be the die-hard metal fans, the ones who would be the word-of-mouth army on the street. If they failed to impress, these people would be the ones who would know and who would tell their friends. But if they rocked, in turn, this same crowd would bring their friends along next time. Old-school marketing at the lowest level, but that was how metal had always worked.
Pickles grinned at Shawn from beneath the brim of his Union/Rebel cap, privately amused as the guitarist flushed. Timmer was setting up several cassette recorders, getting ready for the live set in case it proved worthy of being spread through the metal underground via the healthy tape-trading network. He still hadn’t gotten over being star struck and the drummer wasn’t sure what it was going to take. After all, he’d nearly puked on the guy’s shoes last week and Shawn had actually looked like that would have been an honor. Still, the guitarist COULD handle it enough to play and that was all that really mattered. Murderface was down at the bar, busy performing his own pre-show ritual of tossing back a six-pack and talking trash with whoever would bother to listen, hyping them up. Normally Pickles would have been right there with him, drinking more and talking less, but something about that night had made him want to play sober. Well, relatively sober if he didn’t count the four beers and the bong hits he’d had shortly before they’d arrived at the venue. It was just a feeling, something tight and coiled low in his spine, but he remembered the last time he’d felt like that - at the Pussycat Club on the Strip the night Snakes ‘n’ Barrels had blown up – and he decided to go with his gut and wait until AFTER their set was finished to get wasted.
Twenty minutes after he’d snuck a look at the crowd, Antietam had stormed the stage. It had been his beats, the steady martial rolling of the snare drum, which had summoned first Murderface and then Shawn in from the wings, their instruments droning and low. And then his foot had stomped down on the new, well-oiled pedal, and the bass drum had resounded like a cannon. The Colonel had strutted out in all his gleaming white ante bellum glory and clutched the microphone before opening his mouth and letting out a wrenching, guttural yell; the very sound of a man in torment. With that opening salvo, the band had been off. Lightning and thunder, gunshots and fire, the very sturm und drang of war, raged through the old building and there wasn’t a single body not thrashing to the driving beats, wailing guitars, and snarling vocals by the time the set ended. The redhead played in a haze of adrenaline-fueled euphoria and closed the evening with a monumental crash of cymbals as Murderface destroyed yet another amp. All in all, Pickles decided as he leaned against the side of the bassist’s rig with the rest of the band and tossed back a cold one, the evening had been a definite success.
\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/
Two days later, nearly every rumor circulating about the earlier Antietam show was about the brutality and the awesomeness of the music. Nearly every tale but one that is. A lone story came from a couple that had been more interested in fucking than in the music. They’d snuck off to a closed-access room at the back of the club when the ghosts of two Civil War soldiers fighting had caught them in mid-coitus. Seeping phantasmal blood and oozing gore, the two ghastly men paid no attention to the terrified couple until the music stopped. And then they’d focused black, soulless eyes on them and opened mouths to reveal fiery maws. The couple had fled then, back out onto the rabid dance floor, and the spirits hadn’t followed. But that sounded more like a bad acid trip than an actual experience, and nobody paid any heed to that particular version of events.
