A full moon spotlighted the old football field. It sat before us, stark gray and brittle. As its grass stirred, I heard the moan of worn floorboards and the creak of tired hinges.
"Creepy," said Ash.
Nip licked his blood-spattered lips. "You can say that again."
"Creepy."
"Come on." I rolled Bitchmaster forward, the amp heavy on my legs. "This thing weighs a ton."
Nip switched hands on the Gibson's case. "You can say that again."
But I didn't say anything. None of us did. We crossed the old football field in silence, the grass crunching beneath us like bones between teeth. Before entering the woods I looked back to Widow's Peak, but the mountain was gone.
The night had swallowed it whole, along with whatever darkness it held.
♫
The Bear Den roared.
Kory Yenders took a dramatic bow on the bandstand, arms stretched out on either side, hands falling limp. The basketball hoops had been retracted to the ceiling, and everything was dim but his spot on the stage. Five hundred mouths hollered from the shadows of the bleachers.
"He's going to win," said Nip. "He's definitely going to win."
"You said the same thing about that gay Katy Perry cover," Ash said.
"That was before."
I added, "And that juggling act. You were all about that."
"I never knew anybody could do six balls at once."
"Ash juggles that many all the time. With her mouth."
She gave me a looking-the-other-way punch to the ribs. We were huddled in a curtained area set up off to the side for upcoming performers. It had been crowded an hour ago, but now only the three of us were there, peeking out through the gap between the velvety cloth and the gymnasium wall. As the applause finally died down for Kory Yenders and his comedy act, the principal took the stage. She cleared her throat into the microphone and took a steadying breath. "Well, I never in all my time imagined laughing could hurt so bad, but whooh boy, does this stitch in my side prove me wrong!"
Kory leaned over to share the microphone, his voice mucked up with sheepishness. "Real sorry about that, Miss Werther—"
"Miss?" Ash snorted. "She's like 70 years old."
"—I hope this doesn't mean I have detention with you again."
Ballistic cheers from the crowd.
"Of course not, Kory," said the principal. "Of course not. You're detention will be with Mr. Richards."
"Mr. Richards?" Kory covered his mouth with his trademark two fingers. "But he's not nearly as nice as you are."
Ash fake-vomited into my lap. I scooped up the fake vomit in one big handful and chucked it at the stage as Kory strutted off to cat whistles and cries of more, more, more.
"He's definitely going to win," Nip said, his face stiff behind a mask of corpse paint. He was wearing a black shirt with the left sleeve scissored crudely off. From his throat dangled one of the three upside-down crosses Ash had bought for us. Hers rested in the cleavage of her black, studded corset. Mine hung down under my open leather jacket, cool on my bare chest. I could feel my heartbeat against the metal.
"For our final performance of the evening, we have Ash and Joel and . . . Nip?" The principal squinted at her sheet. "The three of them will be . . . upping the irons?" She glanced at our hiding place, then back to the audience. "All right then. Let's get it underway, shall we?"
Out we came, Nip and Ash clomping in their gigantic black boots and me rolling along in the rear. Two pairs of frantically clapping hands pinpointed my aunt and Nip's mother in the audience. They were dressed up nice, makeup and lipstick and all that. Like dikes on a date. "Go you three!" screamed Sandy, then her voice sucked back into her, a surprised mole returning to its burrow.
I was so caught up looking at the bleachers that I almost tried to ride Bitchmaster up the stairs after Nip and Ash. At the last second, I redirected myself around the front of the stage. As I pushed along out there in the open, a whisper hung itself under the dark ceiling of the gymnasium.
"Poor wheels forgot his meals."
Ash was helping Nip hook up the Gibson when I finally made it up the handicap ramp. Feedback screeched from the speakers. In the back right corner by the piano sat Mr. Brickley's drum kit, put together in advance for us. I squeezed Bitchmaster behind it, then transferred my butt from one seat to the next as gracefully as possible.
"Breathe," Ash said to Nip.
"You breathe."
She let out a big huuuuuuuh of air into his face before turning my way. Her cross glimmered in its cozy nook of skin. "You ready, Joel?"
I slipped the drum sticks out of the bag tied to Bitchmaster's armrest. "Readier than you."
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I whacked the cymbal right in front of her nose.
"Testing."
"Test this," she said, and showed me her leather-squeezed ass. Her pants squeaked as she moved, like she was sweating under them, dripping under them. She slowed to a stop. A few scattered laughs came from the audience. Leaning forward, she spoke into the microphone. "Hello, everyone." Her voice sounded big and small at the same time. "Our band doesn't have a name yet. This is our first song. It's called Hell's Radio. Okay . . . okay . . . okay."
Shit. My cue.
I twisted back to Bitchmaster, reached into the bag, and pulled out the drumbeater. The stick was twenty-some inches long and carved of willow, its banging end wrapped in faux fur. My own personal 'foot' pedal.
With a sweaty palm, I lowered the drumbeater between my legs. I could feel its weight, its explosive potential. The bass lusted for it.
Boom. I started us off slow. Boom.
"The sun bleeds down on the dying day," Ash whispered. "Over the house black smoke blows away."Boom. Faster. Boom. "Up in the attic where dust collects comes a hisssss of static." Boom. Boom. Boom. "Lights blink red across the radio's face and from its laughing mouth spits scarlet flames." Ash's voice dropped into a growl, "'I harbor the souls Satan hath forgot, and you will hear them . . .'"
Nip's Gibson let out a blazing riff.
"'. . . SCREAM.'"
I abandoned the drumbeater, grabbed the drumsticks, and lifted them high above my head. Then I brought them crashing down, and together we released the beast in Honaw High's gymnasium. Nip ran scorching fingers along the guitar, setting fire to the strings. With her gauntleted hand, Ash ripped the mic free. She marched to the front of the stage, where she propped a boot on one of the speakers and hurled her vocals down at the empty basketball court.
"'It hurtthhh, it hurtthhh,'
cries the man with the lisp,
alone in his dark nowhere."
I let go of everything but the sticks. I burned it all to the ground and did wheelies in the ashes.
"Doom stares down with a blind white eye
And children moan in their sleep
As the night peers into eternity."
My arms dripped napalm sweat. The blood boiled inside my veins.
"But nobody listens. Nobody sees.
The radio howls in its empty room
And poison seeps up beneath our feet."
Nip dropped to his knees, the Gibson draped across his thighs like a kid in need of a spanking. Ash turned sharply, the microphone cord twisting around her legs, and stomped over to me. Through a black-gold blur of leather sleeves and cymbals, I shouted into the mic and heard my own voice detonating off the walls of the Bear Den.
"Something is coming.
Something is coming.
Something is coming."
Then it was Nip's guitar solo. For a full minute he peeled higher and thinner notes out of the Gibson, until they all came shattering down into one final verse, Ash at the front of the stage, leaned way . . . way . . . back so the bottom of the mic pointed skyward.
"Hell is coming.
Hell is coming.
Hell is coming."
And silence, utter silence, the Bear Den one large coffin packed with dead bodies. Five seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen. Ash placed the microphone back on its stand, delicately, and started to turn.
A voice carried from the back row.
". . . freaks."
Ash froze. Her eyes flicked brightly from me to Nip, and in that wild glance I witnessed everything that was about to happen an instant before it took place. She spun back around, grabbed the stand, and unleashed the yowl to end all yowls into the microphone. I saw people clutching their ears. I saw people running for the exit. On and on the yowl stretched, a nuclear cat trapped in the speakers, a ten megaton lion exploding out its insides, and just when the volume was dying off, just when it seemed Ash had used up every last ounce of air in her lungs, she raised her spiked hand above her head and screamed between gasping breaths:
"WE . . . ARE . . . THE . . . FUCKING . . . FREAKS."
____ ____
Author's Note:
Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Poor Things, please consider hitting the vote button—it will help other readers find the story. Comments are always appreciated, too. Seriously, I love them.
Coming up, the trio get a big reward for their performance and Ash's house receives a surprise, hooded visitor . . .