Brain Dead Blues

by Matt Hayward

  “Thank you, Elliot.” A smile touched Bill's lips. “That's a good boy. And look, our audience is here to witness the premier.”

  Faces of utter maniacs pressed against the cabin windows. Bulging eyes stared into the room. Some brought up their hands, their fists smacking against the glass, as if trying to grab at Bill and not understanding the obstacle in their way. Their sagging mouths bobbed open and closed like fish out of water gasping for oxygen.

  They're brain dead, Elliot thought. They're going to tear me limb from limb.

  “Bill!” One of them yelled. The voice sent shivers down Elliot's spine. It sounded dopey and slurred. “I love you, Bill!”

  “I love you, too!” Bill tapped the laptop, waking the monitor to show the recording program. “Love you a whole bunch.”

  Then a noise that made Elliot want to faint ripped through the night. A chainsaw.

  Wood flew across the room as the saw teeth chewed through the cabin door. The deafening noise made Elliot smack against the wall and he willed himself to fall through it. The blade hacked away, slipping in and out of the hole as easily as a heated spoon through lard. The opening grew larger by the second.

  Then the chainsaw stopped.

  Somebody was screaming. It took Elliot a moment to realize it was him.

  A bearded head popped through the hole in the door, crazy eyed and covered in sweat. Elliot realized it must be the man Bill had spoken of before. The one who'd been at the second show.

  “Coming in,” the man declared. His expression was that of an absolute lunatic. “We can't wait for this.”

  Before Elliot could stop himself, he shouted out. “Wait!”

  Silence. Bill arched an eyebrow and looked to Elliot, a smirk lifting his left cheek.

  “I… I haven't cleaned up in here. You can't come in. You'll be able to hear the song just fine from outside.”

  Ridiculous. No way in hell would a dozen crazies armed to the teeth stay outside because of an unclean cabin. Elliot knew that, but he also banked on the fact that they were fucking insane.

  Bill chucked softly, a look of admiration on his face. He nodded, clearly impressed with the improvisation. “You know what, guys? The kid's right. Ain't no reason to hear the new track in such a dirty environment. It's a beautiful night out there, perfect setting for this new song. And as he said, you'll hear it just fine from outside.”

  “Okay, Bill,” one of the women replied. “We don't want to do anything to upset you, don't worry. But please make sure it's up very loud!”

  “I will, darling.” Then Bill whispered, “Besides, this song isn't for them, Elliot. This one's for me. My reward.”

  Elliot kept his voice down, too. “You don't have to do this. Please, listen to me. Whatever is going to happen can't be worth ruining people's lives.”

  “The future of music has been ruined, don't you see that? There's no going back to a time when it had value. We've raped it for all it's worth, and now all we're left with is fake audible turds that don't deserve the title of a song. The real artists, the real musicians, they're left working in coffee shops and garages across the globe for next to nothing, and soon enough, they're all going to say, 'fuck it. What's the point?' And they're right to. They get no respect, why should we get theirs? This is the ultimate Rock 'n' Roll middle finger to the Universe for being so unkind to me and mine, kid. I'm going to tear a hole in its fuckin' ass.”

  “Don't do it, Bill, please. Don't punish the entire world for a mistake.”

  “Looks like we're all out of options, kid. We've gone too far. Do you propose an alternative? One in which artists are paid for their hard labour of putting words to the human condition and bottling the psyche? One in which songs about an ex-partner aren't saturating the airwaves and ass-shaking ain't a topic? Do you?”

  Elliot wasn't surprised to hear the pleading in his voice. His bottom lip quivered. “I don't know.”

  “No… And that's just the problem, isn't it? No one knows. But I do. We're finished with music, so turn out the lights. Remember that song? It's over. Rock 'n' Roll's dead. We've killed it. Now let's give the whole damn universe the greatest fuck you for doin' it.”

  With that, Bill clicked a button on the laptop. The speakers began hissing white noise as the milliseconds on the recording program sped along, heading towards the first bar of the track.

  Elliot groaned. Clutching his stomach, he fell to his knees. His eyes began to burn and his bladder tightened. His bones began to ache, as if they were made of glass. He hadn't even noticed that the song had begun to play. He tried paying attention to it to keep his mind off the pain, but the sound only made it worse.

  The tune, if it could even be called that, was incomprehensible. The chords weren't something Elliot had ever heard, perhaps because their purpose wasn't to sound musical, at all. He knew their real reason; to open a door. Listening to the song, Elliot thought it sounded like hearing a mathematical equation, if that could be at all possible. The guitar had been tuned erratically, octaves and half-notes spread across the sonic spectrum. Spaces between those notes were timed out to be very precise. The entire thing, to Elliot, came across as extremely complex. And yet, throughout all this chaotic dissonance, he did hear a melody.

  Snaking through the disorder like a lurking predator, the melody bent and twisted to find its way. Elliot's brain thrummed when he caught it, like a rusted needle prodding the soft and fleshy meat.

  Outside, Bill Jennings's faithful followers moaned in ecstasy. Their weapons dropped to the porch with dull thumps. Another bang came as one of them fell over and began to spasm on the ground. They screamed in pleasure, their voices shrill and hair-raising. And through it all, Bill Jennings stood motionless.

  Elliot watched him from the floor, unable to move with the pain. At the edge of his vision, the room throbbed and pulsed, but Bill appeared unaffected. If anything, he looked to be enjoying himself.

  Bill's mouth fell open and his eyes slid shut. He raised his hands, like a prophet receiving an order from a higher power, his head tilted back.

  “Can't you feel it?” He yelled above the noise coming from the speakers. “It's happening… The whole world is about to feel the power of my music.”

  With that, something very strange happened. No loud pop or bang accompanied his words like Elliot expected, but something materialized in the corner of the room.

  A rectangular section of shimmering air, not unlike a heatwave, bobbed and swayed, and through it, the cabin warped as though it'd gone underwater. The rectangle reached nearly to the roof and was as wide as a couch. Elliot didn't have to be told what it was.

  He looked at the gateway to the Otherworld. And began screaming.

  The mirage-like effect had stopped, replaced by a clear view into an alien landscape. It happened suddenly and without warning, like a television set popping to life.

  In the gateway, Elliot watched as dark clouds lulled along a rolling red sky. Something flew between those clouds, something too large to be a bird, and from this distance, the only thing Elliot could liken it to was a pterodactyl.

  “You see it, too?” Bill shouted. “There it is, Elliot! The Otherworld! Another reality, another existence! The other side…”

  Bill slowly crossed the room, cautiously inching closer and closer towards the hole in the world. He emitted a sound, fast and airy, like a child getting too close to his favorite movie-star. Then he began to cry.

  “It's so beautiful, isn't it?”

  Something deep inside Elliot knew this gateway wasn't meant for human eyes, a secret not to be understood by the average being.

  “I see a great land,” Bill said. “It's magnificent… Stretching for miles, kid. Not touched by mankind. The earth looks dry, cracked, but there's a lake beside it. And there's something in it.”

  Elliot wanted to slam his own face into the cabin floorboards, smash his skull in until everything disappeared and he got to slip into the big sleep. But he couldn't resist the pull of curiosit
y that tugged like a fish hook somewhere deep in his mind. He began to cry.

  “What's in the lake, Bill? For the love of God, what's in the lake?”

  “There's structures down there,” Bill said. “Tall things. They reach almost to the surface. If I had to guess, I'd say that this lake is drying up. They're… They're buildings, Elliot. I think I'm looking at a city. A city beneath the water.”

  Bill turned to face Elliot then, a bizarre cocktail of fear and hope on his face. “What do you suppose lives in a city beneath the water?” He asked.

  Elliot screamed as something long and thick, like an engorged snake, slithered through the gateway from the Otherworld.

  A tentacle! Dear god!

  The tentacle flung about the room, smashing into the far wall before whipping back in the opposite direction. It found Bill, grasping his midsection, curling fast. A gasp forced its way from the rocker's lips, the sound a deflating tire would make. Bill smashed his fists down hard, but under that thick, oily skin lay nothing but muscle, and lots of it.

  Bill's feet lifted from the ground, his legs thrashing while Elliot watched on in shock, shaking his head from side to side.

  No, he told to himself. No, no, no…

  Then the smell hit— a rotten, thick stench that forced him to breathe through his mouth. Elliot imagined a school of dead fish, baking in the sun. He wiped his watering eyes, just as what made the source of the smell appeared. A mass of black skin rose to blot out the red sky of the Otherworld. An eye filled the gateway, jet black and caked in mucus. It moved painfully slow, peering into the room, and when the eye landed on Elliot, he froze. He stared into the darkness. And that darkness stared back.

  It's a God, Elliot thought. I'm looking at a God.

  The cabin began to rumble. The head in the doorway slowly slipped away, back down to the unseen depths of the lake. The awful red sky reappeared, and the tentacle receded, pulling along the carcass of Bill Jennings. The rock star's head lulled from side to side, his long grey hair falling into his face. His mouth hung open, blood leaking and spattering the floorboards. Elliot winced as Bill's legs snapped, pressed beneath the weight of the tentacle. Then Bill disappeared, gone through the gateway of the Otherworld.

  The song played on.

  Summoning what little strength he could manage, Elliot stood. He stumbled towards the laptop, chancing a glimpse over his shoulder in case any of the brainsick had gotten inside. They hadn't, not yet. But Elliot knew they would soon. He could hear them clamoring as they scooped up their weapons from the porch. The chainsaw once again roared to life, making him yelp.

  Elliot reached the laptop just as the horde of crazies broke through the door, falling inside. Their attempts to stand were impeded by the bearded chainsaw-wielder who swung the blade in careless arcs, slicing into his companions. They didn't seem to mind. One man's arm severed at the elbow, spraying the rest with blood. The severed arm thumped to the ground, still clutching his weapon.

  Elliot reached for the Bill's guitar without thinking. He needed a weapon, anything, and swinging it over his head, he brought the instrument down as hard as he could on the laptop. A crash rang out as the computer shattered, the dreadful music abruptly cutting out. Elliot turned to face Bill Jennings' followers.

  The man with the chainsaw screamed. He dropped his weapon, grabbing at his head as his eyes began to bleed. One by one, the crazies fell to the floor. The woman with the rake slipped onto the still-running blade of the chainsaw. She howled as it ripped into her back with a sickening sound, jerking her body. Beneath her, smoke ebbed and curled, black and rotten. The chainsaw died with her, the noise slipping away and the body settling down. Silence followed.

  Elliot allowed the guitar to slip from his hands and clatter to the ground. He looked to the people on the floor, wiping a hand through his hair. He whimpered. A dozen bodies lay inside his cabin.

  He turned, stomach cartwheeling at what he might see, but the gateway had disappeared. Then he collapsed to his knees, cradling his face in his hands. He wept, something Bill Jennings had said earlier looping in his mind.

  “We've gone too far, and now there's no turning back.”

  Critter

  “What are you?”

  Angela stared at the tiny creature beneath her bed. It sat hunched in the corner, hugging itself. The little, piggish nose worked hard as it breathed, and the skin on its face had the look of aged leather. No bigger than her forearm, the thing’s body was covered in thick, dark hair. Its eyes glistened in the harsh light of Angela's torch. At nine years old, Angela had come to accept that there were no such things as monsters in the real world. Her father had told her so. And he had also told her that there were none, specifically, under her bed. Her father had been wrong.

  “I'm not going to hurt you,” Angela whispered. Stepping forward, she raised an eyebrow. “I swear. I'm nice. You can come out.”

  The creature looked back at her, shaking.

  “My name's Angela. What's yours?”

  No reply.

  “Are you hungry? Do you want some food?”

  The creature remained planted, eyes wide.

  Angela had always wanted a puppy, but her father said they were too messy, and too much of a hassle to keep. She said she'd walk it every day, and never forget to feed it, but her father had still said no. A cat was out of the question too. They were sneaky and strange, and they freaked him out. In the end, they'd gotten two goldfish. They'd named them Goldie and Locks.

  Angela hated Goldie and Locks. They were silly pets. Not even real pets, like David's dog Russ, or Mary's parrot, Jasper. Those were good animals. Proper pets. Goldie and Locks just swam about in their bowl, their mouths hanging open stupidly and sometimes with a trail of poop stringing out of their bottoms. Sometimes they'd even bang into the glass of their fishbowl. Still, she did enjoy feeding them. At least then, they did something.

  A smile spread across Angela's face.

  “Give me a second, hold on.”

  On her bedside table, there was a chocolate bar she'd stashed in her bag after school. She'd brushed her teeth by this time, so if her father knew about it, he'd put it in the cupboard until tomorrow. Angela had bought the chocolate bar as a comfort snack after Kathy Hogan from across the street had set her terrier on her again.

  The small dog had yapped and snapped and chased her all the way home. She hated Kathy Hogan. Kathy didn't deserve to have a pet, but somehow, she always had everything she wanted. Not like Angela. At the very least, she deserved a secret chocolate bar.

  Plucking the bar from the table, she unwrapped it carefully. The crinkle of the foil sounded very loud in the quiet house. Her father was still awake, talking softly on the phone in the next room. If he heard the wrapper, he'd be in like a shot. Angela held her breath and quickly wrestled the chocolate free of its confines. The sweet scent teased her and made her mouth water, but she wouldn't eat any of it. This bar was for the creature.

  Getting slowly to her knees, Angela snapped the chocolate bar in two and placed one half under the edge of the bed. She scooted back to the middle of the room and waited. Her heart beat heavily inside her chest.

  Angela gasped as the creature scurried from its hiding spot. It looked between her and the chocolate, its tiny bean-shaped nostrils twitching.

  “It's okay. You can eat it. Go on.”

  The creature picked up the bar using both of its tiny, leathery hands. It opened its mouth and Angela's stomach fluttered.

  Inside its mouth were small needle-like teeth poking from pale gums. It sank them into the chocolate then swallowed the piece whole. The creature's gaze fell upon the second half in Angela's sweaty hand. Then it started to move towards her.

  Angela screamed.

  Her father, panting and red-faced, burst into the room. His chest heaved beneath his white pajamas, the phone still clutched in his hand.

  “What is it, sweetheart? What's wrong, huh?”

  “There's a monster under my bed, Daddy!�
�

  Angela's father brought the phone to his ear. “I'll have to call you back, Rodger. There's a monster situation here that I need to solve, pronto... Yeah, sure. Talk soon.” He put the phone into his pocket and lowered himself to the floor beside her, his knees popping as he went. He rubbed her back and chuckled. “Angie, there are no such thing as monsters.”

  “You're lying! There are! He's under there—look!”

  Angela's father nodded to the chocolate in her hand. “And what's this, little lady?”

  “It's chocolate. I gave him a piece and he wanted the rest, but his teeth were so sharp, they made me scream...”

  “Sounds like you've had too much sugar, sugar. You know you're not supposed to have chocolate this late. Is that the only one?”

  Angela groaned. Parents always seemed to ask the dumbest questions. “Of course it is. You need to get the monster, Daddy!”

  Her father sighed. “Okay, okay. I'll get the monster but then you're brushing your teeth, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Angela's father crawled to the bed. He lowered his head and picked up Angela's torch, swiping it back and forth.

  “...Oh my god...”

  “What? What is it? Do you see it?”

  “My Beatles records, Angie. What are they doing under here?”

  “...I liked the pictures.”

  Angela's father sat back up with three vinyl records in his arms. Angela had taken them from the living room a week ago to read the liner notes and the lyrics. She liked The Beatles. She had just forgotten to put them back.

  “There's no monster besides a record snatcher in here. That's you, kid. Now come on, time to brush your teeth.”

  “It's still under there, Daddy. I can't sleep in here tonight. I can't, I won't.”

  Angela's father placed his hands on his hips. “Okay, look. You can sleep in my room, but only for tonight, got it? Can't make a habit out of it again. You're a big girl now.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”