Damaged

by Timothy W. Long

  28

  Victim of the Night

  Seth, Michael, Sunny, and Wex

  The flight to the studio was exactly what Seth imagined it to be. Shitty.

  They’d woken up early, packed their shit in the limo that came to pick them up at the ass crack of dawn, and Seth, Sunny, and Wex rode bleary-eyed to the airport, everyone ignoring each other. It wasn’t until Wex took a bathroom break right before they boarded the chartered jet that a word was said. He raced up the stairs screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “Damaged, motherfuckers!”

  He never shut up after that.

  He rambled on and on while Seth glared at Sunny, who went out of her way to ignore them both.

  An eternity later, they’d arrived, another limo chauffeuring them to the studio. His special carry on in his lap the entire way, Seth couldn’t wait to be alone.

  “Hail Hell. The gang’s all here,” Seth said as he slammed the door closed.

  Michael had been napping on the couch. He shot up and immediately thought of the evil little fucking raccoon. Bastard with the yellow eyes and sharp nails. He had spent thirty minutes hunting the thing but there was no sign of him. Michael had nothing to show for it except a bloody ankle and a headache. It had started throbbing between his eyes six hours ago.

  A portly man wearing a Gold’s Gym sweat shirt strolled in behind Seth and dropped his bag on the floor. He was sweating, and his eyes were wide open, wired, like he had just hit a combination of coke and meth.

  “Look what I found out front in a Mercedes. You’d like it, Michael. It smelled like money,” Seth said, pointing at the big guy. “Mostly.”

  “Roy Slater at your service,” the man said. “You guys Damaged?”

  “Since I was born,” Michael said in rote. He had used the same line for so long it was part of him.

  “Half the band, anyway.” Seth said and strolled into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and took out a loaf of cheese, then commenced to chopping it into bite-sized chunks.

  “I’m the guy who’s here to get this record done. Over. Fini. So let’s get everyone together and go over some ground rules,” Roy said.

  “Yeah, about that…” Michael started to say.

  “It’s like my dad used to say. Get to the business, or the business gonna get to you. Now I’m not sure I know what he meant, exactly, more or less, though, I think he meant that you just gotta get shit done. `Specially in this business, know what I mean? Of course you do. You’re pros. You’ve been around the block a few times. Sold some albums. Toured a few countries.”

  “Hundred and fifty-five million albums, padre.” Seth interrupted. He tossed a bag of cold, sliced ham on the counter, and then squirted spicy mustard on pieces as he devoured them.

  “Yeah, hundred and— Damn, that’s a fuckload of albums, not gonna argue, but you boys have been out of it for a few years…”

  The door slammed and in strolled Sunny looking like she wanted to kill someone. “Did you say boys? Do I look like a fucking boy to you?” She threw her suitcase down and grabbed her breasts.

  “What? Er. No. I meant to say that—”

  “I have a game in mind. Titty-twister. See, what we do is we duct tape you to the wall and take turns with your impressive rack,” Sunny said with a smile. “Shit’s bigger than mine.”

  “That’s Roy, our record producer,” Michael said.

  “Oh. Eh, sorry about the titty twister bit,” Sunny said as she wandered toward the hallway. “Sort of. Welcome to the fun palace. Don’t sit on anything that doesn’t have plastic.”

  “Where’s Wex?” Michael asked.

  Sunny’s bedroom door slammed shut as she left them with the producer.

  “He’s being a little bitch. We left him in the car to talk to himself, or whatever. I think Sunny locked him in. Can’t figure out the child locks,” Seth said between bites of ham and cheese.

  “Do you need a plate?” Michael asked.

  “Do I look like I need a fucking plate?” Seth sputtered, mustard flying off his lips.

  “As I was saying, er, the new album. Now I’ve reviewed some of your past work. Love it. Fucking love it. It’s like some old school thrash metal but fast forwarded into present day and given an update. I’m not here to change your sound. No siree-Bob. I’m not here to rewrite the rule book. I’m here to make this album another monster hit. Monster!” Roy said, slapping the back of his hand into his other hand to punctuate each point.

  “Dude,” Michael said in exasperation. “You’re about to have a coke crash. There’s an empty bedroom in the studio. Doors are unlocked. Feel free to go down there and sort your shit out. We’ll get to work in the morning, like we planned.”

  “I’m not done yet,” Roy said. His eyes were bloodshot and he practically glowed with drug-induced energy.

  “We are,” Seth said. “Run along now, Roy. We got shit to talk about. Private band shit.”

  “What? We haven’t even begun the day, gentlemen, but I guess we can start later. Right now, I have I do have some, um,” Roy wiped his nose and sniffed a couple of times, “things. Need to call the wife. Check in. Get some contracts in order. Wifi good here?”

  “Yeah, man. The password is ‘murderface666,’ all one word,” Seth said.

  “Spirited. Yes. Very spirited.” Roy found the back door and disappeared.

  “That dude just about wore me out.” Michael sighed after Roy left.

  “Drop your socks and grab your cocks,” Wex strolled in through the front door.

  “Speaking of cocks,” Seth said and jammed another hunk of cheese in his mouth.

  Wex tossed an overnight bag in the corner of the room. He pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up.

  “Where’s Sunny?” Wex asked.

  “Guess she called it a night. Man, she’s in a fucking mood,” Seth said.

  “What the fuck happened to my ass-tray?” Wex stared at the pile of broken ceramic in the corner of the room.

  Sunny stomped into her room at the studio and slammed the door behind her. It was bad enough she had to put up with the rest of the band, but now the label had foisted some fat, sweaty fuck off on them to top of it all. Fuck that. Damaged might not be able to spend more than ten minutes in a room without wanting to kill each other, but the last place they needed help was in the studio. If there was one area they shined, it was there. It might take them forever to settle in and write new music, everyone’s ego all out of whack, but the music came together like magic. All the bullshit faded into the background and the band just played, perfectly in sync from the very first note.

  That was the beauty of Damaged.

  The only bright spot left over from the days of old, when they huddled in Seth’s piece of shit car alongside their gear and fucked up every club that would let them in the doors. Those had been great times.

  Now they were shit, and she wanted nothing to do with it; any of it.

  Sunny pulled her dope from her suitcase and filled her pipe. Let the other motherfuckers fight it out with the fat ass producer. She’d be ready to jam when it was time. Until then, she was gonna smoke and sleep.

  Fuck `em all.

  Wex could spot a coke fiend from a block away, and that’s why he watched Roy stumble out of the room. They didn’t need a producer. He and Michael had cranked out Damaged’s albums for the last two decades and this new one should be no different. But the record company, probably in league with Satan (copy cats), had sent Roy to whip them into shape. Wex decided a chat was in order.

  Michael was vague about the loss of the coveted ass-tray but had promised to get it replaced. The damn thing was one of a kind, how was he going to get a new one?

  Instead of arguing, Wex excused himself and followed Roy to the studio.

  He popped a pair of Klonopin and lit up another smoke.

  The studio was in order, having been prepped by Michael’s personal assistant. Or Sunny’s. He actually wasn’t sure who did all of that mindless shit, jus
t that he was paying for it.

  He walked the long hallway, passing pictures and gold and platinum records on the walls.

  A room at the end had an open door. Wex approached it and peeked inside.

  “Bring enough to go around?” he asked.

  Roy Slater spun around and nearly knocked the little glass mirror off the bed. A pair of lines had already been cut and the producer was in the midst of jamming a tube up his nose.

  “Uh, this is for my allergies,” Roy said.

  “The fuck ever, man. Just let me hit that, too.”

  “Jumped up Jesus on a pogo stick. Are you sure? We have an album to make.”

  “Dude, if it weren’t for drugs, none of our albums would be done,” Wex said with a grin.

  If this guy didn’t want to share, Wex could always make some calls. But why go through all of that trouble when he could score some free nose candy right here? If Roy didn’t want to play ball, Wex could always beat the shit out of him. Hey, Roy. Are you innocent? I bet not. Too bad, pal. Could add you to my long list of sins.

  “Okay. Just a little,” Roy said and moved aside.

  Wex leaned over and did both lines in one long snort. Then he grabbed the little baggy and dumped a pile on the mirror.

  “Hey, that’s not…” Roy shut up when Wex hit him with one of his ‘I’m the lead fucking singer of Damaged and I’ll eat your heart’ looks.

  “That’s what I thought,” Wex said.

  “I’m here to do a job, Wex. You don’t play ball and the record company will be mad. Don’t make me get on the phone.”

  “Dude, you can shove the phone up your ass for all I care. And good luck making a call. Seth has this place locked down until he kills the box that blocks cell phone signals. We got rules out here, Roy. You play ball or you go back home.” Wex said as he chopped a line with Roy’s credit card.

  “I can’t make calls? My assistant is expecting to hear from me. I demand you turn that box off,” Roy protested.

  “Go talk to Seth. He’s real reasonable.” Wex leaned over and did another huge line. “Fuck me six ways from Sunday! This is some good shit, Roy.”

  “Fine. I’ll talk to Seth,” Roy said.

  Wex stood up, towering over the portly man. “Yeah. You do that.”

  Wex smirked and left the room.

  Roy fucking Slater wasn’t going to have anything to do with this album, not if Wex had anything to say about it. And he did.

  29

  Terrible Certainty

  Seth

  Seth growled as he shut the door to his room, located at the end of the hallway that connected all of the other members’ rooms to the main part of the cabin. He hadn’t been happy to see the producer, whatever the fuck his name was, sitting outside, waiting on them when they showed up. Besides not needing the bastard, he was just one more witness Seth would have to account for before he wrapped everything up. The guy was a loose end, but Seth could handle him.

  Just like he had the bouncer and bar owner, Afiya.

  A warmth spread from his stomach and rolled out from there, waves of pleasure tingling through him as he remembered the feel of the knife slicing through tender flesh. He’d taken more than just what he needed for the fake letter and had brought it all with him, the woman’s pretty face peeled off and packed in a leather bound book. My very own Facebook, he thought, giggling like a B-rate supervillain at his sad joke. He resisted the urge to take the face out and admire his handiwork. I’ve other things to do.

  He pulled out the plastic sheeting he’d packed for the trip and spread it across the table. The room was made up like a hotel, smaller than any the band were used to, but they were never there for long so it didn’t matter. He turned on the stereo for some background noise, and Carcass’s “Corporal Jigsore Quandary” rumbled from the speakers. Seth grinned. It was the perfect soundtrack to the butchery he was about.

  Once the plastic was in place, his little shrine to Dexter, he pulled a tiny blowtorch out of his bag. Then he grabbed the small fan beside his bed and set it on the table, aiming it toward the window, which he opened next. While none of the band would think twice about the smell of smoke, he imagined burning flesh had a distinct smell that wouldn’t be so easily covered up by him telling folks he was just smoking some gank shit.

  When he was all prepped, he pulled the slab of back skin from his bag and removed it from the Ziploc bag. He admired it for a moment before laying it flat across the table, smoothing it with gentle caresses. Seth smiled. He could get used to this.

  He gave himself a few minutes before picking up the torch and igniting it. The trip up had given him plenty of time to think, and he’d more than enough practice in manufacturing the letters, having bullshitted several of them. But there was something transcendental about using fresh skin to create this one. The fact that he intended it for Sunny only helped make it more special.

  The thought of her kicking him in the nuts welled up and he felt his cheeks start to burn. His anger fueling him, he put the torch to flesh and started in before he got too worked up and he couldn’t hold his hand steady. He wanted something special for that bitch, something that would drive her nuts, and he knew exactly what that was. He eased the torch along the skin, mimicking the Devil’s script with confident ease, having practiced it a thousand times before starting in on his first corpse letter.

  Just like the others he’d created, the one telling Wex to kill his fucking dog being the most recent, Seth knew Sunny, fucked up as she was, wouldn’t question the authenticity of it. She would lose her mind and smoke a metric fuck-ton of dope—which he had plans for, too—and then shit would go all sorts of out of whack.

  And Seth would be there to watch every minute of it.

  He laughed as Blood Feast’s “Chopping Block Blues” spooled up and roared from the stereo.

  Death was coming to the woods and soon Seth would be riding off into the proverbial sunset, doing his solo thing and laughing his ass off all the way to the bank.

  He couldn’t fucking wait.

  30

  For Your Life

  Roy

  “Warm up number, take one,” Roy Slater said.

  He sat behind a thick window with a pair of Sennheiser headphones glued to his ears. He fiddled with dials on a huge board until he found something that made him happy. This wasn’t his equipment but it was more than he required. He had spent most of the afternoon going over the mixing boards, testing the DAC, and making sure he would get everything from the little studio down on tape.

  Getting these assholes into the room in the first place had been a monumental effort. Seth was a dick and refused to turn off the cell phone blocker, claiming they always worked without outside access. Even the Wifi was down now that they had decided to stop moping around and get their asses in gear.

  Roy had managed to nap for an hour, then awoken, and shot another line straight toward the brain. Then he’d spent the next thirty minutes getting these idiots to the studio. Wex had been last and strolled in like he was above everyone else. Roy was pretty sure Wex had taken his time because he had been raiding Roy’s coke stash. He looked wired.

  “Hey, Roy. Why don’t you come over here and warm up my balls,” Sunny said. Then she smiled, and that send shivers down Roy’s spine.

  “The way you warmed up Seth’s balls earlier?” Wex said into the microphone.

  Wex had an old Ibanez destroyer over his shoulder and had been fiddling with the tuning for what seemed like forever. He cleared his throat a few times, hacking up phlegm, and spitting it in an empty PBR can.

  Michael sat on a stool, a bright red DMG guitar over his knee. The man stared into space and had to be asked questions several times. Seth, the bass player, and Sunny, the drummer, kept shooting each other ugly looks.

  Sunny launched into a drum blast that blew through the speakers. Roy turned the volume down. He was shocked that she’d turned the drum sticks over so she could beat the shit out of the skins.

  �
��Easy, Sunny. Fuck,” Wex shook his head.

  “Hey, Wex. What’s a sneeze and a drum solo got in common?”

  “Not again,” Wex muttered into his mic.

  “You know they’re coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it!” Sunny punctuated the joke with another furious blast that rattled Roy’s head. Jesus on a jumped up pogo stick but that girl could play.

  This whole band was a fucking mess but Roy loved it. What he didn’t love was how obstinate everyone was.

  Some of his best albums he had ever produced by were bands that hated each other. That was one of his gifts. To mold a bunch of idiots into a cohesive unit, but these guys were going to be a pain in the ass, he just knew it.

  “I said take one,” Roy said into the mic.

  Wex backed away from the microphone and checked a cable leading into an amp.

  “I said take fucking one!” Roy screamed. His head throbbed and a blood vessel, right in the center of his forehead, pounded like it was trying to escape.

  Sunny laughed and tapped off one, two three, four…

  On her queue, Damaged surged to life. Michael didn’t get off his stool but he launched into a whining guitar solo that blistered the speakers. Wex thrashed his head up and down as he chugged through a rhythm section. Seth, bass hung almost to his knees, thrummed away on the strings with his bare fingers.

  Sunny was on fire and kept standing up to the ever living hell out of her crash symbols.

  Then Wex growled into the microphone and suddenly Roy’s body broke out in goosebumps. This was the greatest band he had ever heard in a studio, and he was going to make them even better.

  31