by M. R. Holman
to see your I.D.," a grizzled looking yeti wearing a scuba mask and tank on its back demanded at the door, a jet of bubbles rising from its mask as it spoke. Nessie wondered, as she handed it her I.D., if it was the same yeti that was fired from Cryptophone Guitars. The yeti handed her I.D. back to her without comment and she entered the pub. It somehow seemed to be even darker inside the pub than it was outside, despite the humming neon signs hung from the walls.
Aside from the bartender, Nessie was the only person in the bar that was not a member of the band. Pete the dragon was on stage, tuning his guitar. She wondered where the other members of the band were, and then she noticed that there were not even any other instruments on the stage. No keyboard, no drums, no bass, just Pete the dragon, his guitar, and a tape deck plugged into a speaker. Pete, noticing Nessie lingering toward the doorway, gave her an expression of recognition and bade her to come sit at an empty table right in front of the stage that had a thirty five foot long bench in front of it.
Nessie sat, uncomfortably, at the table as Pete continued to tune his guitar. "Thanks for coming and sitting up front," Pete said, grinning at her with his sharp, yellow teeth.
"You're welcome," Nessie said apprehensively.
"So how is the guitar playing coming alo- ," Pete began to say, but was cut off by the bartender who had just approached Nessie's table to ask if she wanted anything to eat or drink.
"Just a beer, thanks," she said to the bartender, a frail old mermaid, pretending that she had not heard Pete's question. "Where is the rest of the band?" she asked, although she thought she already knew the answer.
"Oh, did I not mention? I'm a one-dragon band. I pre-record all the other parts and just play the guitar during the live performance."
"Ah... I see," Nessie said, her suspicions confirmed.
"Well, it's time for me to get started," Pete said, putting away his electric guitar tuner in his guitar case and walking to the microphone. The mermaid bartender swam over and placed a beer in front of Nessie. There was dust around the rim of the glass.
"Good evening everybody! Who's ready to rock with Peter and the Dragons?" Pete shouted enthusiastically into the microphone. The volume was far too high and the last part of his sentence was hardly audible above the feedback. Nessie glanced out of the corner of her grapefruit sized eyes and saw that the mermaid was knotting her long hair around her ears. Nessie clapped half-heartedly.
"This one is called "Fire Breathin' Love Demon". A one, a two, a one, two, three, four!" Pete yelled into the microphone as he jabbed the tape deck with his claw before quickly returning it to the neck of his guitar. The pub was soon awash with the echoes of a heavy metal song about the overt romantic conquests of a dragon that one must assume was Pete himself.
The song was loud and fast and filthy. It lasted only about a minute and a half, but as far as Nessie was concerned, it was far too long. Pete ended the song with a display of pyrotechnics from his own flaring nostrils. Normally, Nessie would be impressed by the sight of fire underwater, but under the circumstances, she was too mortified to be impressed by anything. When the noise and fire had dissipated, Nessie slowly released the beer mug she had been clutching but refusing to drink from, and gave a few lukewarm claps of her fins.
"Thank you, thank you very much. You're a great audience," Pete said, looking at no one in particular. "You know, when I started this band two hundred years ago, I told myself to just do it for the music. It wasn't about the money for me, and I've stayed true to that. To this day, I've never made a single dime from my music career, and to me, that is my real success. This next song is dedicated to a very special lady."
Nessie could feel her enormous heart pounding in her chest. "Please don't be me, please don't be me," she thought over and over.
"This one is called, "Dragons and Mermaids: A Forbidden Love," Pete growled into the microphone as he winked at the mermaid bartender. "A one, a two, a one, two, three, four!"
Nessie was both mortified and relieved simultaneously. At least it was not her that he was dedicating this absolutely appalling song to, but she still hated that she had to hear it at all. She glanced once more at the bartender, who looked so bored with her chin propped against her hands on the bar that Nessie wondered if she had even heard the dragon dedicate the song to her.
Nessie had to leave. She had to get out of there. She was far too uncomfortable. She would rather surface the loch in front of a boat full of reporters than stay in this pub another minute. Nessie sneakily slid a few Crypto units onto the table to pay for her untouched beer as Pete had his eyes closed during an absurd guitar solo.
Although Pete's music was ridiculous, and his onstage persona was horrendous, Nessie did not want to hurt his feelings. He had been working on his craft for six hundred years, after all, and this particular “band” for two hundred years. She tried to think of a way to leave that would make her departure seem as if she was leaving for a reason other than fearing brain damage from the music. She thought furiously, on the point of hyperventilating, before standing up abruptly, pulling out her cell phone, and holding it up to her ears as though she had just received a call. She walked to the door and exited the building.
"He's pretty good, isn't he?" The yeti grumbled through its scuba mask.
Nessie tilted her head to show that the yeti she was on the phone, or at least pretending that she was.
"Oh. Well you can't come back in if you leave," the yeti said toward her retreating back.
"Good deal!" Nessie shouted, putting away her cell phone and swimming toward her cave.
She reached her cave about twenty five minutes later, taking a brief detour to the surface to fill her lungs with fresh air. She sighed heavily as she approached her front door. What a night... She tossed Pinky a Salmon Scooper as she walked through the door, and it disappeared under the couch with its treat in its mouth. Nessie was exhausted, but determined to strum out a few chords on her new guitar at the very least. Some good had to come of the day.
The Loch Ness Monster picked up her electric guitar, plugged it in to her amplifier, and opened the page about chord progression in her book again. She placed her left fin on the fret board, and hovered her right fin over the strings and strummed. It did not sound great, but she knew that with some work it would sound good. This would be a fun summer. Hundreds of feet above, a lunatic with sonar equipment that was searching for the Loch Ness Monster heard the beginning of a popular rock song slowly being strummed out on the guitar.
Werewolf: Opening a Cafe
Night was falling and Steven Foster was speeding along a two lane country road on his motorcycle. He needed to be deep within the countryside before the sun went down so that he could transform in peace. Peace was a relative term when pertaining to werewolf transformation, as nothing was peaceful about it for him, but it could be made slightly more pleasant when made under his own terms.
Steven dreaded the full moon. He dreaded it not because of the transformation into a werewolf itself, but because of the way that other cryptids treated him and his kind. This particular full moon, however, was going to be different. He had been laboring for many full moons on a project that would finally be coming to fruition on this night.
He abruptly turned off the road, the knobby tires on his motorcycle digging into the dirt of a cleared trail as he sped on. This was going to be a close transformation. He had thought for sure that he had allotted enough time to make it to his spot in the forest, but the weekend traffic jams had been worse than he had ever seen as he had left the city. He prepared to ditch the bike if the transformation should start before he stopped. Only minutes remained.
Each twist and turn of the trail brought him closer to his goal. The forest became thicker with each rev of his engine and turn of his wheels. Just as the sun crested upon the distant hills, barely visible between the dense tree trunks, Steven reached a clearing in which a small cafe stood surrounded by trees.
The transformation began as he slowed to a stop. Fu
r erupted from beneath his skin all over his body. His scream became a howl as his bones fused and bended into the form of the wolfish cryptid known as a werewolf. He and his motorcycle toppled to the ground before he could put down the kickstand. He writhed in pain, not from the fall, but from his transformation as darkness fell around him and scattered moonlight pierced the negative space between the tree limbs and leaves above. The sensation soon became too much to bear and he passed out, closing his now bright yellow bloodshot eyes as his conscious mind faded away.
“What happened?” a low but feminine voice asked. Steven dimly registered the question over the sound of his own shallow breaths and the sensation of his boxy rib cage flexing against the dirt, but he was not yet aware enough to open his eyes or answer.
“Oh goodness! That’s a werewolf, honey. We need to go, we’re not safe here,” a deeply gruff, masculine voice answered, shaking with terror. This statement caused Steven’s furry eyelids to snap open. He saw two fully grown sasquatches, a male and a female, holding each other’s hand as though they had been enjoying a peaceful stroll through the forest the moment before they found him lying there.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” Steven snarled. The snarl was involuntary. He was glad it was only a