Torn wd-2

by Stefan Petrucha

  “How did you…?” Devin started, but Cody cut him off.

  “Soon! Soon!” he said. Then he slapped Devin on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I forgot to mention, I fixed your song.”

  “Fixed?”

  “Here’s a preview!” he said to the group. Playing his best air guitar, he screeched:

  I’m lyin’ to the angels,

  Lyin’ to the angels…

  Devin shoved him. “Stop it! We’re in front of a funeral parlor!” When Cody didn’t respond immediately, Devin shoved him again, harder.

  “Oh yeah, right. He’s right, you know. Catch you later!”

  Smiling and nodding, the group wandered off.

  Devin glared at Cody.

  Cody made his face sheepish and sad. “You’re right. That was wrong. That was really wrong.”

  “The haunted song?”

  “I had nothing to do with that. Nothing. It’s a chat room thing. I don’t know where they got it,” Cody said, but he looked like he was lying. He tossed his cigarette down and stomped on it. “But why not take advantage of it? It’s like the Blair Witch.”

  Before Devin could quit Torn in disgust, One Word Ben and Cheryl emerged from the funeral parlor. Cody nodded at Ben. “You still in? You can pick up the bass.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah.”

  “All right!” Cody shouted, again too loud.

  “In? In with what?” Devin asked.

  Cody smiled. “We’ve been invited back to Tunnel Vision. A whole night’s ours if we want, for a tribute to Karston. We’re going to need at least twenty minutes to do a full set.”

  “And when were you going to mention that to me?” Devin asked.

  Cody shrugged. “I was like, trying to respect your grieving process. I’ve been waiting for you to bring up Torn, man. But you didn’t.”

  “It’s cold,” Cheryl said as she slid next to Devin and shivered. He opened his jacket and wrapped it half around her, but he kept staring at Cody.

  “What else has been going on without me, Cody? If you didn’t tell them about the song, how could they know about it? There isn’t even a recording.”

  He felt Cheryl stiffen. There was something strange about the way she and Cody looked at each other.

  “Yeah, there is,” she said quietly.

  Devin stared at her. “You started that rumor?”

  She shrugged. “All my friends heard the story and everyone kept nagging me. So I told them what you saw in the shadows and all. And I put the video on our site….”

  Devin’s brow furrowed. “The one you took of me singing the song.”

  For the second time, Devin was about to quit in frustration, when a creaking voice like a dying animal called to them from the door.

  “Get out of here!” it said. “How dare you stand around like a street gang in front of my son’s funeral! You don’t have any damn respect! Nothing!”

  Karston’s mother staggered toward them. As Devin had thought, she was drunk. She wore an ill-fitting black dress, and the edges of the shawl wrapped around her shoulders lifted in the breeze. Strange, but he’d never seen her standing before. Even in the funeral parlor, she never got up. Now he could clearly see how short she was, and that there was something wrong with her back that made her wrinkled face lean forward from a curved neck. As she walked, it looked like her angry, accusing face was coming closer all on its own, without her body.

  “You make me sick. Thieves and a slut! You’re all worthless!” she shouted. “That should be you in there, all of you, not him! He never hurt nobody in his life, nobody! And he idolized you! He was too stupid to see what you really were.”

  They were all silent, terrified, ashamed. Even Cody.

  We’re sorry! Devin was about to say, but the words never made it out.

  “You killed him!” she shouted. “Killed my boy.”

  She lurched forward and swatted Cody in the shoulder. Maybe it was because he happened to be closest, maybe because his white hair color made him easier to see. He moved his hands to block further blows, but none came. Instead, she sneered, spun, walked across the street, and entered a bar.

  The four of them watched her go, staying silent until the wooden, windowless door of the bar swung closed.

  Cody nudged Devin. “Hey, why don’t you go in there now and offer to buy the bass?”

  He started laughing. It was so stupid and ridiculous, Ben started laughing too. Even Cheryl snickered before she stopped herself.

  “I don’t believe you,” Devin said, shaking his head. “I don’t believe any of you.”

  He pulled back, swung, and punched Cody full in the mouth. Cody stopped laughing and staggered back.

  “Hey!” he snarled. He wiped his mouth and looked at the blood on his fingers. “Hey!” he said even louder. He tensed, pulled back, ready to swing.

  Devin just stood there, as if saying, Go ahead, do it.

  But he’d helped Cody against the Slits. And Cody needed him for the band.

  Cody dropped his fist, then wiped his mouth again.

  Cheryl leaped between them. “There was something weird on the videotape,” she said. “That’s what started the rumor.”

  “Something weird?” Devin said, exhaling to calm himself. Is she using bright and shiny objects to distract me now, too?

  “I’ve been wanting to show it to you, but you seemed so out of it, the timing didn’t feel right. I’ve got it here,” she said. She stepped a few cars down to her parents’ white Lexus, popped the trunk, and pulled out her camcorder. All four gathered around the tiny color LCD viewscreen. Devin and Cody sneered at each other when they accidentally touched.

  The picture was easy enough to see. There was Devin on his stool, picking at the strings of the Ovation. Karston was leaning against the wall behind him. At first it didn’t seem like anything was strange, but then he noticed some tiny, swirling spots, first near the guitar’s fretboard, then near his mouth, then around his head, and Karston’s, too. They were small. Unless you were looking for something, you’d never see them.

  “See?” Cheryl said.

  “Isn’t that cool?” Cody said, grinning again.

  But One Word Ben shook his head and said, “Dust.”

  Devin nodded. “Yeah, I saw it on one of those Ghost Hunters shows. Dust gets in the lens and a bunch of loser geeks think it’s spirit orbs or something.”

  Cody turned to him, annoyed. “Don’t ruin it! Don’t tell anyone that! This is great for us! We can play the song at Tunnel Vision!”

  Cheryl looked at Devin, waiting for his judgment.

  Devin shrugged. “But it’s dust.”

  Just dust. As in ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  Only this dust swirled, spun, and seemed to dance in tune to the music.

  8

  Big and brown, the featureless walls and huge windows covered with protective metal grids made Argus High School look more like a three-story factory than it did an educational institute. It had one of the lowest percentages of graduates who went on to college in the state, and an even lower percentage of students who graduated, period. It was shaped, appropriately enough, like a big L.

  The first thing Devin noticed upon his return to its hallowed halls were posters on the walls.

  Though Devin had never officially said he wanted back in the band, he’d never said no, either. A strange enthusiasm about the ghost song and the big club date had taken over his band-mates, even Cheryl, so he, as usual, had shut up and gone along for the ride. It wasn’t so bad, he realized now. The posters were pretty cool—respectful but edgy. The art he recognized as Cheryl’s, but it seemed like some of the phrasing had to be Cody’s. And maybe it would be for Karston, in a way.

  The second thing he noticed as he walked down the crowded halls toward homeroom was that people were stopping their conversations to gawk at him. They weren’t pitying looks, exactly. There was something else in their eyes: a respectful curiosity. The stares were familiar, but Devin couldn’t quite place t
hem until he realized they were the same kind of looks he’d gotten when he’d left the stage at Tunnel Vision. It felt…good, but he didn’t quite want it to.

  Fear of another attack from the Slits was a vague tingle at best. After the meth bust, Nick and Jake turned state witness, which led to ten more arrests. There were still no charges for the murder, though. Devin had been asked to look at a lineup, and while one short muscular hood had looked hauntingly familiar, he couldn’t quite square him with what he’d seen leaping about his kitchen. He gave the police a maybe, but in his own mind, Devin was now convinced the shadows had played tricks on him. A Slit had killed Karston. It had to be.

  In any case, the gang had been effectively gutted both by the police and a storm of publicity. Their colors hadn’t been seen on the streets in days. Devin knew that it wasn’t because Karston had been killed; it was because Karston had been killed in Meadowcrest Farms. Knowing that made him sick.

  Down the hall, by the entrance to the gym, he spotted Cheryl, wearing cute green shorts and a T-shirt. She was using an open stapler to put up more posters. Happy to see her, he sped up, about to call her name, when he suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He turned to see a few guys and some girls staring at him. One of the boys, a gangly sort with long hair, a faded jacket, and a noticeable slump, nodded at Devin, then toward one of the posters on the wall.

  “You’re in that band? You’re in Torn?” he said with a bit of a slur.

  Devin nodded. They all smiled slightly and nodded back in tandem, saying things like “Cool” and “All right.” The wave of approval from people he didn’t know at all was strong and strange. Devin started to feel really good about it in spite of his reservations. In fact, it was probably the first time he’d felt good since Karston died.

  What should he say to them? Cody was good at this kind of thing, but he was home these days. “So, you coming to the show?” he asked, hoping it didn’t sound too lame.

  The nodding became more enthusiastic.

  “Yeah.”

  “You bet.”

  “You guys rock.”

  Well, that was easy.

  He tried to keep cool, but a small smile curled his lips. Before he could say anything else though, another hand found his shoulder and gently pulled him around.

  “See?” Cheryl said. “You’re famous now.”

  “Right,” Devin said.

  “No. Enjoy it,” she said. She kissed him. “But don’t forget the rest of us mortals.”

  With that, she wandered off down the halls, the tops and bottoms of the posters in her hand rising and falling as she went, earning her own respectful stares.

  Devin turned back to his small group, his smile now full blown.

  “And did you write that song on the site? About the angels?”

  “Yeah, it’s mine.”

  Except for that chorus Cody added…

  “And you’re gonna sing it at the show?”

  “That’s the idea. Well, Cody will sing it.”

  “The guy who got kicked out. Yeah, that’s what I meant.” But then the gangly kid took a nervous step closer and whispered, “So are all the rumors true, man?”

  You mean about the ghosts on the video? I’ll have to be careful about that one—Cody wants our “legend” to build. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.

  “What rumors do you mean?” Devin said, trying to seem innocent.

  “You know,” the kid said with a knowing smirk. “That you killed that loser Karston just to get his bass.”

  That afternoon, Devin and Cheryl sat at “their” place, a huge rock just outside town, watching white clouds roll and billow in the blue sky. The rock was atop a low hill that sat at the edge of an abandoned development. Construction had stopped due to bankruptcy. The roads there were dirt, leading to various holes in the ground that had been dug out by backhoes for concrete foundations that were never poured, and then left to collapse or fill with rainwater. At their backs, new McMansion rooftops peeked through thinner woods that sat along the dirt road, but ahead of them, the forest began.

  Cheryl tried to comfort him, hugging him steadily. “It’s just a stupid rumor,” she said.

  “Yeah? Later in the day some other kids said they heard we’d sacrificed Karston to a demon in exchange for a killer song. It’s all just too weird.”

  “There’ve been so many hits on the site, the server crashed again,” she said, nudging him.

  “It’s not because the song’s any good—it’s because Karston died,” Devin answered. “Is this how you want to make it big?”

  “But the song is good. It’s great. The rest is just an accident. You’ve got to believe in it, Devin. I do.”

  He said nothing.

  Finally, she shrugged. “Maybe you should think about something else. At least the police unsealed the crime scene and let you back into your house.”

  Devin wanted to laugh at the irony. “We were better off at the hotel. Mom swears she can still see Karston’s blood on the kitchen tiles, and she’s got enough tranquilizers in her to stop a bull elephant. It’s like a freaking scene from Macbeth. I try to convince her it’s just the stains from the filet mignon that we…that I…” Devin paused. “Christ, Cheryl, it could’ve been you.”

  She pulled him close again. “No. You would have protected me.”

  Would he? Would he have done any better a job if it had been Cheryl?

  “How’s your dad?”

  “He’s been great, attentive, supportive. Even took time from work just to be with us. I didn’t know he had it in him. And then last night, he even told me I shouldn’t give up on the band because of…”

  Instead of finishing his sentence, Devin stared off. Nothing had been normal since the killing. His time with Cheryl now was supposed to be a normal thing, and it wasn’t turning out normal at all.

  “So what’d you tell him?” Cheryl asked. He’d nearly forgotten she was there.

  “About what?”

  “Torn. You’ve never actually said you want the group to go on. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even want to decide.”

  Nothing new about that, though, is there?

  He looked at her, her skin shining in the sun, face placid.

  “What about you?” he asked. “What do you want? Even with all these sick rumors, do you really think we should still have the band?”

  She looked at him a moment, as if the answer should be obvious. He’d always suspected, hoped really, that she’d just joined to be with him, but they’d never actually talked about it. If that was it, here was her chance to get out. And maybe his, too. Maybe they could go to law school together.

  “Well…isn’t that really the kind of thing you have to decide for yourself?” she said slowly.

  “Yeah, I guess, but…I just need to think about it,” he said. “How are your parents dealing?” he asked, changing the subject.

  She stood up on the uneven rock and stretched her lean form. Devin watched it against the white and blue. He wanted to grab her, but figured it wouldn’t be right, like they should still be in mourning or something.

  “They’re upset, but they’ll get over it. I’m there if you need me,” she said. “But we should probably start rehearsing soon if we’re going to do anything.”

  If you need me. Maybe she was only in Torn to be with him.

  Wouldn’t that be something?

  “Did you hear?” Cheryl asked.

  “Now what?”

  “Cody got Karston’s bass. He talked Allen Bates into being our manager and Mr. Bates bought it from Karston’s mom,” she explained.

  Sure, Devin thought. Why not? Another icon added to the growing local legend. Haunted song. Haunted bass. Haunted band.

  9

  When the time finally came, Tunnel Vision was packed. It wasn’t just full. It wasn’t just standing room only. It was packed. From his view behind the stage’s brand-new curtain, Devin could see all the way to the twin exits a
t the back of the tunnel. Even so, all he could make out of the mob was a sea of arms, torsos, and heads pushed together so tightly he couldn’t figure out which appendage belonged to which body. He did catch flashes of blue uniforms and caps.

  “The police are here, too,” Devin said. They’d seen three squad cars parked outside when they arrived. That was most, if not all, of the city’s small force.

  “Yeah.” He heard Cody chortle behind him. “We’ve got a police presence, because Torn is too freaking cool.”

  Devin shook his head. “It’s not because Torn is all that, Cody. It’s the murder. Remember, we’re only famous because Karston died.”

  “Now, maybe,” Cody said. “But soon it’s gonna be the music.”

  Cheryl sat behind her drum kit. She stretched up her long arms, folded them behind her head, and bent forward, getting her muscles ready for the gig. “Bates said we’re way over the safety limit, and they’re spilling out into the parking lot,” she said. “They’re afraid of a riot.”

  Devin’s mind went to a story his mother kept telling him about a fire in a rock club years ago where ninety-six people died.

  Cody eyed him. “Terrified or jazzed?”

  Devin thought about it a second. He was still furious at Cody for his behavior at the funeral parlor, but if they were going to play together, he might as well talk to the guy. “Both,” he said.

  Cody blew some air between his lips. “Fence hugger.” He twisted his head toward the others. “You guys?”

  Cheryl also said, “Both.” There seemed something strange in the way she looked at Cody.

  One Word Ben, strapping on Karston’s bass, nodded his agreement. “Both.”

  Cody chuckled. “Well, I guess we are really Torn, then.”

  Do you ever shut up, Cody?

  “Two minutes,” someone shouted.

  Devin moved back from the curtain and sat on the stool they’d brought from the garage. That was Cody’s idea, too. He figured people would recognize it from the video. Half the crowd out there had video cameras, hoping to catch the little orbs when they played. The other half had probably shown up to see the kids they thought were killers.

  The whole thing made Devin queasy: the fact that the show was advertised as a memorial, the fact that it would be the first time they played “Lying to the Angels” live. The question remained: Was this really how he wanted to become famous?