Voice

by Joseph Garraty

  The guy bugged Quentin. He had the sleazy manner of the kind of guy who’d sidle up to you in a crowded club and ask if you needed a gram, maybe half a gram, but his eyes were too slow, too attentive, and he wasn’t as jumpy as the dealers Quentin knew. The drug dealer vibe wasn’t quite right, but that’s all that Quentin could figure him for. That would explain John’s odd behavior lately, too.

  And the voice? How do you explain that?

  “Shit, I’m just tired,” Quentin said.

  Cesar nodded. “Go home, kid. It ain’t worth getting hurt out here for fifteen bucks an hour.”

  Quentin wound the gauze around his thumb. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  Chapter 10

  The stage was huge, almost the width of the whole building. It was just the kind of stage John would have loved to play on, he thought wistfully. One day. The place was packed, maybe a thousand people and standing room only, just like it would be for him one day. For now, though, he was only a spectator, jammed in next to a bunch of sweaty bodies and jostled this way and that by hard elbows and rude shoulders. Still, excitement crackled through his body. He was in the very front, pressed against the rail in front of the stage. Best seat in the house, so to speak. He couldn’t wait for the band to get started, even though he couldn’t precisely remember who he’d come to see. A heavy rock band, he was sure—the drum kit, Ampeg bass amp, and Marshall JCM800 guitar amp attested to that. The guitar amp was a little weird, though; he would have expected a big speaker cabinet in a venue this size, one big 4x12 at least if not two, but there was only a small cabinet on the floor.

  It looked familiar. So did the drum kit, now that he was looking, and his excitement soured with a sense of low dread, like a low bass note that was felt more than heard. He stared at the kick drum, stupidly trying to figure out where he’d seen it before.

  He was still staring at it when the crowd around him cheered and surged forward, smashing him against the metal rail. He pushed back, and the space around him, maybe three feet on every side, cleared instantly. None of the cheering, screaming fans touched him now; they avoided him, they wouldn’t look at him, even though they kept cheering and waving and pressing against each other. He dimly thought he’d have to hang on to that trick for future shows.

  The beat kicked in, and the first chords of the song started.

  That’s funny, he thought. That sounds like “Burn.” That humming sense of dread doubled, acquiring some evil harmonics, and he felt his head turning back to the stage.

  No, he thought, all excitement gone. I need to leave here. I don’t want to see this. I have to go! He couldn’t stop himself looking, though, his head turning and his eyes opening wide to take in the whole stage.

  His brother was sitting behind the drum kit. He looked good, too—happy, thrilled to be playing as he pummeled the floor tom and snare. Case was there, too, playing a Les Paul the color of blood (and why did that seem familiar? he was sure he’d never seen it before)—and fuck! Even Quentin was there, way on the right side of the stage, nodding his head and teasing deep, rumbling notes from his bass.

  This was bad, this felt wrong. This was the thirteenth floor, aces and eights, the black spot, every omen of dread and cursed luck he could think of. Where was the singer? He, John, should have been on that stage—but there was nothing he wanted less at that very moment. He wanted to run, to turn and plow through the crowd behind him, leave a trail of spilled beer and irate people all the way to the door, and his fucking legs wouldn’t move.

  The song moved to the chorus figure, and still nobody was singing. Nobody onstage, anyway—the crowd around John shouted the words (those shitty goddamn lyrics) at top volume, breaking into even louder cheering as Case turned and locked eyes with Danny across the stage. There was a kind of feral, bestial hunger in her eyes—and in Danny’s, too. She walked toward him without breaking eye contact, swaying her hips slightly as she went. The crowd went nuts.

  Do it! a woman just behind and to the left of Danny shrieked, her voice many times louder than the thousands of watts of amplification in front of him. Doooo iiiiiit!

  Case walked behind the drum set and reached out with her right hand, seizing the front of Danny’s shirt. She hauled him out of his seat and pressed her lips to his, mashing his lips against his teeth so hard that blood trickled down his chin. Her guitar was gone—John had no idea where it had gone—and her entire body was crushed against Danny’s. Danny kicked the drum set apart without breaking from her embrace, and then it, too, was gone.

  Only Quentin was still playing, grooving along to his bass line with a sadistic grin on his face. The crowd roared, shouted, and screamed, and John suddenly knew that this was a part of the act they all expected. This was what they’d come to see.

  Case backed up, pulling Danny with her to the front of the stage. Then she turned, spun, and threw him to the ground, tearing frenetically at his clothes. His T-shirt shredded away, his pants tore into strips that she ripped away and threw into the audience.

  God, please no, please I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to watch this.

  Then Danny was naked and Case was straddling him, still fully clothed. From John’s vantage point, so close to the stage, he could see everything—the blood on Case’s lip, her hard nipples, Danny’s erect penis crushed against his body and outraged.

  Come on, girl! somebody shouted behind John. John turned (I turned! I can turn! Maybe I won’t have to see any more!) to tell her to shut up, that was his brother for God’s sake, but he couldn’t tell who’d said it.

  His head turned back to the stage of its own accord (No! No no no!) and his face contorted into a cry of horror. Case’s skin had gone pale, all maggot-white and pulpy, and jagged, ragged teeth filled her mouth. She threw her head back and howled, and the crowd howled with her. Then she leaned down as though she was going to whisper something in Danny’s ear, but instead she took the ear in her mouth and pulled, tearing it slowly off Danny’s head. She teased it, worked it as John stared and the crowd yelled, pulling the ear away along with a ragged strip of flesh that went all the way down Danny’s neck to his collarbone before it tore free.

  Yes! Danny screamed as blood spurted from his wound. John could hear him as clearly as if they were the only two people in the room. Oh, God yes!

  Case tore the strip of flesh away and threw it into the crowd. John could see the ear, whole and intact, still hanging on the end of the strip as it sailed into the audience. Droplets of blood fell on John’s face, in his hair.

  Then Case bent down again and stopped with her mouth hanging open inches from Danny’s face. Saliva dripped onto Danny’s skin. Case looked up from below her eyebrows at the crowd, a wordless query.

  NO! John screamed, but the crowd screamed louder.

  Case sank her teeth into Danny’s cheek just below his eye—his eye, for God’s sake, his fucking eye—and pulled.

  ***

  John woke with a scream still dying on his lips. Darkness surrounded him, wrapped around him, thick and heavy like wet black felt. Stinking wet black felt. The smell had come like a fog in the night, caressing him, seeping into his pores—that awful smell, the smell of fish guts rotting in a Dumpster, of rotting logs half submerged in stagnant water, the murky, musky smell of semen and spoiled milk and mold—and now it was everywhere.

  There was a sound, a faint tap on the wall by the door, and then he knew: Something was in here with him. That was where the stench had come from—a man, or something like a man, clad in a black silk shirt and a cowboy hat, a patient, ironic grin on his face, mad eyes shrouded in darkness. He was standing there, maybe close enough that one step would bring him to Johnny’s very bedside.

  You can’t take me now, John thought. You can’t! It’s too soon! No sound escaped his lips, though—he didn’t dare make a noise. His chest burned from holding his breath, his shoulders shook from terror. He’d screamed just seconds ago, he knew he’d screamed, the sound had scoured his throat and was stil
l ringing in the air, and yet now he was terrified to make the smallest sound, not even daring to breathe. There was that thing there, that thing that was not a man, and though it must have heard him, John felt sure that it was waiting, silently laughing, for John to make one more sound. To call it to him. Then it would take that single long step, and it would reach out and touch John with one clammy hand, and John would die.

  Or worse.

  John’s chest burned and burned, and swatches of dark color, purple and noxious green, flashed in his vision. He had read that you couldn’t kill yourself by holding your breath—your body would force you to breathe eventually, and what would happen to him then, when he sucked in that unwanted, involuntary gasp of air?

  He would have to move before then. Run, though the room was small, and the laughing thing was standing in the hall. Where would he run? Where could he run? Where? It didn’t matter—he had to get up, had to run, had to do something now, before—

  There came a faint scratching sound from near the hall.

  Terror gripped him again, and he froze. His heart pounded like a maul in his chest, in his ears, in his head.

  John sprang up from the mattress, scratching and scrabbling at the wall for the light switch, suddenly convinced that light was the answer, light would dispel the thing, or light would reveal it and he would be stricken insane at the sight, but either way he’d no longer have to sit scared in the dark, waiting.

  He hit the light switch with his hand just as he hit the wall with his body. He felt the switch click, but the room stayed dark.

  Oh God, it got the lights! John thought, semi-coherently. He bounced off the wall, skidded back on the damp carpet, and huddled on the floor with his arms over his head, waiting for the inevitable touch, that cold clammy slick slimy touch that would kill him or drag his soul screaming from his body.

  A minute passed, then two. Nothing moved. Nothing could be heard above John’s own ragged breathing.

  There was a sudden sound, a mad fluttering that traversed the room, followed by a faint click. A tapping sound on the wall near the window.

  He knew that sound. It was a water bug, Texas’s answer to the cockroach. Bigger, of course, because this was Texas, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the damn things flew. Particularly at night—and they made a tap when they landed on a wall. His house was infested with them.

  He remembered, then, why the lights hadn’t come on. He hadn’t paid the electricity bill yet, and they’d cut him off yesterday. That’s why there was no tiny glow from his charging phone, no faint green light from his digital alarm clock.

  It was only then that he understood that he was alone in his house and had been all along. It was the smell, that awful fucking smell, that had fired up his overheated imagination.

  And the dream.

  Yeah, the dream had been a doozy, too. No wonder he’d woken up screaming.

  Fucking Danny. Fucking Case, too. It wasn’t hard to figure out where that goddamn dream had come from. The band had played another show last night, really kicked ass, and John had really gotten into it. He’d never performed so well in his life. Even Case had slapped him on the back afterward and told him he’d played a “great fucking set.” That had been so unanticipated he’d actually stood there for a few seconds trying to figure out if he’d heard her correctly.

  “Uh, you, too,” he’d said. And she had played well, but he’d been half afraid she was going to leap over the drum kit in the middle of the set and fuck Danny’s brains out right onstage. He wasn’t alone, either—the entire universe could see the two of them making googly-eyes at each other all night.

  It made for another layer of intensity in the show, but there was nothing good down that road. It wouldn’t be like Danny to get it on with Case, but greater men than Danny slipped up all the time. John worried constantly, to the point where he was afraid to leave the two of them alone. If Danny does fuck this up—no pun intended—he’ll feel so guilty I’ll be lucky to see him again, let alone Case.

  And then Ragman would go spiraling down the drain.

  John had reminded Danny of Rule Number One about five times, but all Danny ever said was “I got it under control.” John sure as hell hoped so.

  All of that aside, it had been a great show. Quentin’s buddies had come out again and brought a few friends, but what really did it was Case’s friend, Erin. She’d brought the same girls that she’d brought the time before, and they all brought a friend, and some of the friends brought friends, and it was just like a chain letter. The guy at the door counted thirty-one warm bodies that came to check out the band, and that was enough to nail down one of the vaunted weekend spots. John knew it wasn’t much, but it was something he’d been working at for almost a year, and there was a sense of triumph.

  At the end of the night, they’d all gotten good and drunk and hired Erin to manage the band’s publicity. John thought that might have been the only good decision ever made by a bunch of drunk people—he suspected that Erin could single-handedly pack Shea Stadium if given enough lead time.

  As long as Danny didn’t fuck up Rule Number One, it looked like they were on their way.

  ***

  At the next practice, the four of them were still stoked from the show. Danny and John got there first, as usual. Danny didn’t know how he looked himself, but John hadn’t been able to clear the grin off his face since Danny picked him up, and Danny felt much the same. Quentin came in, also fully equipped with a dumb smile, and hummed while he plugged in. Case was actually bopping her head to music only she could hear, but from the few bits of lyrics Danny could hear coming out of her mouth, he had a strong suspicion that she was jamming along with “Changing Gears,” the one song left in the set that she professed a mild dislike for. (To be specific, she had said, “This song draaaags. It moves like old people fuck.” Danny was afraid that he would never cleanse his mind of the image that had conjured.)

  “All right guys,” John said when they were all ready. “We rocked that last show. The one next month is more than twice as long, though, so we have to figure out what we want to add to the set.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Case said. “We’ve got, what? Fifteen songs?”

  “Yeah, but we’ve really only worked on five of them. We’ve got seven weeks to get another half a dozen or so in shape. Which ones do you want to start with?”

  “‘Fused’ and ‘Everybody’s Fault’ for sure,” Case said.

  “Yeah,” said Danny. “And ‘Circular Firing Squad.’”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Quentin said, surprising everyone. There was laughter all around, and then they got down to business.

  They rolled through all the new songs a few times each. There were a few snags—Case had thought it would be a good idea to change the tempo in the bridge section of “Fused,” and it still tripped them up a bit—but overall the songs were coming together quickly. The group was starting to operate like a unit, Danny thought. The four of them meshed well, knew how to move with each other’s energy. It went so well, in fact, that John wrapped up practice early.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with John?” Danny asked, getting another laugh.

  “Hey, that reminds me,” John said. “Why don’t you guys just call me Johnny? It’ll be less confusing, and to be honest, the name is growing on me.”

  “Cool,” Case said, without looking up from winding her cable. Quentin shrugged, which seemed to be assent.

  Danny frowned. He had a sudden bad feeling about that, about John taking his stage name full-time. It seemed creepy, like the precursor to a drifting away from reality. Alice Cooper could get away with that, but this was just . . . John.

  He didn’t know what to say about it, though—he’d saddled John with the damn name to begin with. He let Case’s affirmative speak for all of them and tried to squelch the unease that came with it.

  For Danny, packing up was as easy as getting out of his chair. He and John—Johnny, he reminded himself, and boy, t
hat was going to take some getting used to—went out to the car.

  “I’ll be home early,” Danny said. “You’re slipping.”

  “Nah,” Johnny said. “We’re really coming together, and we’ve played hard for the past few weeks. Knocking off a little early won’t end the world. We’ve earned it.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too.” Danny pulled out of the parking space and turned onto the access road. “I hope Gina’s not working too late tonight,” he said absently.

  “Hey! Speaking of Gina . . .” Johnny said. His voice was too casual—Danny had known him for twenty-two years, and this was unmistakably the “Don’t mind me—I’m not up to anything here!” voice.

  “Yeesss?” Danny dragged the word out. He was nervous already.

  “I think you should invite her to the next show.” The phony innocence was even thicker this time.

  It was too much. “Okay, John—Johnny. What the hell are you up to?”

  Johnny looked hurt. “I’m not up to anything.” I don’t know how that chocolate got all over my face. “We need a good turnout for the show is all, and I think we’re finally good enough that Gina might enjoy it.”

  “She’s got a standing invitation to all our shows—she knows that. And anyway, she’s not going to enjoy it. We go on late, for one thing, and for another she doesn’t like rock music. You know that. What are you really up to?”

  “I’m not up to anything. I just think it would be good if she came, that’s all.”

  That was so much bullshit Danny didn’t even know where to start. So he didn’t. Like so many other times, he just let it go. “I’ll remind her,” he said.

  ***

  The weeks rolled away. They got tighter and tighter in practice, but Danny started to have more and more misgivings about John’s new persona. There were only little things, he told himself—nothing extreme, nothing crazy. John had found himself a pair of boots that he wore everywhere now along with Case’s jacket, and he’d started slicking his black hair back with some kind of greasy glop he’d found God-knew-where. Danny wanted to tell him that his new hairstyle made his already-oversized forehead look big enough to land aircraft on, but he didn’t have the heart. It was cosmetic, no big deal. Of larger concern, particularly in public, everything was now a motherfucker. At practice, John never asked to play a song one more time—he always said “Let’s hit that motherfucker again.” Similarly, Case’s guitar and Quentin’s bass had both been declared motherfuckers, as in “Are you gonna tune that motherfucker or what?” John was never in the mood to get some chow anymore—but he was sometimes hungry as a motherfucker.