“I don’t think that Marvin just went insane,” Trinie said.
“Maybe the stress of the musical got to be too much for him.”
Trinie shook her head. “No, I’m not buying it.” She pulled away from him, following in the direction that Simon and Byron had gone.
Well, this sucked. Mark had looked forward to an evening of intimacy, not running around with Veronica Mars all night. Wasn’t it like scientifically proven that death made people horny? Mark bit his lip, then jogged after her.
Trinie smiled when he caught her hand. “Where do you think they’ll be?”
Even though he wasn’t a regular himself, Mark spent enough time at the Lovecraft Bar to know Simon and Byron were Lovecraftian bar flies. It was through hanging out there that Mark had heard about Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical in the first place. Byron even worked as the DJ for the monthly horrorcore night, spinning Gravediggaz and other horror-themed hip hop groups.
“Probably the Lovecraft.”
“The what?” Trinie asked.
“Nevermind,” he said. “It’s not too far.”
“Well then let’s go. I want to find out what the fuck is going on.” Trinie tossed him her keys and turned toward the parking lot across from the theatre.
Mark could feel blood rushing into his face and he grimaced. “I…don’t drive.” Shit. Why couldn’t he ever just play it cool? He probably would have had to tell her eventually, but now?
“What? Did you never learn?”
“My license was suspended.”
“Oh. DUI?”
“More like.... road rage.”
“They suspended your license for road rage? Jesus, Mark. What’d you do?”
More like what he didn’t do. When he developed anger issues after his father’s death, Mark progressed from a law-abiding driver whose sole infraction was a speeding ticket for going ten over, into Grand Theft Auto: The Man. He’d run people off the road, instigated roadside fights, tailgated teenagers, honked at cars in front of him at red lights, driven over his neighbors’ lawns until they ran muddy with tire tracks, bought a louder stereo system just to agitate people, and more. His pain and confusion over his father’s sudden passing manifested itself in several unexpected ways, but the road rage was the worst. He’d never officially gotten arrested for anything he did, but the infractions quickly stacked up and the state suspended his license indefinitely.
For the last incident, in which he decided to play bumper cars during rush hour, he only avoided jail time because he agreed to take weekly anger management courses for a year. That was six months ago and he’d done great ever since, but regardless, it wasn’t material for an early date. Mark stood there, flabbergasted, with nothing to say.
“Forget I asked,” Trinie said. “We’ll talk later.”
“I’ll text Lucas and let him know to meet us at the Lovecraft. Might be nice to have a little backup.” Mark smiled in a weak effort to change the mood, but Trinie marched past him to her car.
“Come on,” she said. “And tell me where to go.”
On the drive over, Mark texted Lucas.
Excepting directions to the Lovecraft, he and Trinie didn’t speak a word.
Marvin lay on the cot in his jail cell, his normal self. He’d transformed in the back of the squad car and had attempted an attack on one of the officers when they escorted him out at the station. They had tased him for that.
And he remembered it this time. Not like before when he’d blacked out and woken up with an ear in his mouth. This time he had wanted to murder that officer, wanted to rip him open and dance in the gore. The urge came over him and there was nothing Marvin could do to stop it.
What the hell is wrong with me?
It was the leprechaun, he knew. The bastard had bitten him. And if the rules of the films applied in real life…
I’m turning into a leprechaun. Holy shit…
Marvin was alone in the cell, and he was grateful that there was nobody else to sink his teeth into. Although he did wish he had a friend there with him, to tell him everything would be all right. Or Brian, his best friend in the world. But Brian was dead.
I murdered my best friend…I’m a monster.
Marvin was a stranger to himself. For the last few hours alone in the cell, Marvin had mulled over the events of the night. He didn’t know how long it took to fully transform into a leprechaun after being bitten by one, but he could feel himself, his true self, dissolving inside of him. He began feeling less and less bad about the things he had done that night, and more and more excited about what he would do once he got out of this cage.
But for now, there was enough Marvin left that he still felt pity, still felt afraid of losing himself entirely to this new identity. He didn’t think he could handle that, couldn’t live with himself as a murderer—knowing that unexpectedly at any point this dark thing within him might take control and kill again.
I’ll kill myself first, he thought, but then wondered if that was even possible anymore.
Marvin always figured that even though he’d lived a lonely life—except for Brian—that someday he’d meet a girl who loved him for who he was, and he’d treat her like gold, and never be alone from that day forward.
Gold.
His eyes flashed around the cell at the thought.
Is there any gold in here? Shiny, delicious gold?
The bastard police officers had taken his flute from him, and though Marvin couldn’t remember exactly where he’d gotten it or where it came from, he longed to have it back in his hands.
He recovered from the momentary, overwhelming desire for gold—gold—and realized he’d been crying.
“Pssst, Marvin.”
The whisper came from the barred window of the cell. Marvin rolled off the bottom bunk, wiping his eyes, and peered upward. It took him a second to recognize the face peering in at him, but once it registered, he nearly shrieked with joy.
“Byron!” he yelled in a whispery voice.
“Hey, buddy, how you holding up?” Byron smiled and arched his eyebrows, and Marvin couldn’t help but wonder where the hell his friend had been when all this happened, and why in the fuck he looked so cheery.
I’m a fucking murderous leprechaun who ate his best friend’s head and am now sitting in a fucking jail cell, asshole! How the fuck do you think I’m holding up?
But he didn’t say those words. If Byron was really here to help him, then he was the last friend Marvin had. He took a deep breath and returned whatever semblance of a smile he could muster.
Marvin glanced over his shoulder. No officers were around. He turned back to Byron. “I’m okay, I guess. Pretty confused.”
“I bet you are. Well listen, I’m gonna break you out, then you, me, and Simon are gonna end this Leprechaun shit once and for all. Can you reach the window?”
Break me out? You get super strength at some point during this fucked-up night?
Marvin could only hope his friend had some kind of plan. He estimated the window ledge to be about eight feet up, but if he scaled the end of the bunk, he might clear the gap and, if he was lucky, grab hold of the bars.
“How do I get past the bars?” Marvin asked.
Byron grinned mischievously and raised a handheld electric saw with a blade like a Cenobite dentist’s favorite tool. “I got this covered.” He revved the saw and cut through the bars near the top then at the bottom, leaving a wide enough gap for Marvin to crawl through. Byron had cut through the bars in record timing, the saw slicing through the metal as if they were made of clay. Marvin worried the noise might attract attention, but no policemen appeared and the holding cell across from his only held a handful of men passed out on drugs or alcohol.
“Hurry now,” Byron urged. Whispering seemed senseless after he’d used the saw, but he was whispering anyway.
Marvin climbed the side of the bunk, sliding around to the side closest to the window. He twisted his body so his back pressed up against the bunk, and on an
internal count of three, he jumped.
For a second, he was weightless in midair, his short arms flailing, grasping desperately for the ledge. His blood pounded in his ears as he anticipated the painful crash against the concrete floor. A fall like that would mess him up real good. And just when he thought he wouldn’t make it, he felt himself float up—as if by magic—and his hands held a firm grip on the ledge.
“You did it, lad,” Byron said, but up close, there was something wrong about his smile. Was that spinach stuck to all his teeth?
Marvin’s grip began to slip. “Pull me through,” he said, “I’m slipping.”
“Why of course,” Byron said, now with a hint of Irish accent. He reached his hand, which still held the saw, through the window. The fingernails were sharp, green, and mossy. Byron revved the handsaw and lowered the blade to Marvin’s wrists before the little man could let go.
The saw chewed through meat and bone, and hot pain shot through Marvin’s arms. He fell away as his hands were severed from his wrists, and slammed backward against the hard concrete of his cell. Green blood squirted from his wrist stumps in rhythmic bursts, and a shriek erupted from Marvin’s throat.
“Look, ma,” Byron said, the skin of his face falling off like melting candle wax. The leprechaun grinned out from within the liquefied gore. “No hands.”
The leprechaun snatched Marvin’s hands off the ledge and fell away into the night, his cackles fading as he grew further away.
Marvin didn’t know how long he lay there bleeding, screaming for help, but by the time the police found him in his cell, the world had long ago ceased spinning, and blackness was the color of his mind.
The Lovecraft was crowded. Mark and Trinie walked in, pressing against the tattooed and pierced crowd. Mark caught a glimpse of Lucas’s broad shoulders and called his name.
“Hey, what the hell is going on?” Lucas asked.
“We’ve got to find Simon, have you seen him yet?”
“Yeah, he went upstairs, Byron too,” Lucas said, sipping on a drink that looked way too tropical for a bar that sometimes hosted “Skullfucking Metal” dance nights.
Trinie took Mark’s hand, but there was no romance in it now. She was merely dragging him up the stairs. Lucas followed them, sucking on his drink.
“Yikes,” Lucas said as they ascended the stairs.
“What?” Trinie and Mark said in unison.
“Nothin’. Just a brainfreeze. Jesus, you guys are really shaken up.”
Upstairs, Simon and Byron were huddled around a high-top table in the corner of the room. Simon was pulling on his greasy hair, each clump staying where he left it until he ran his hands through it again. Byron’s behavior was more stoic: listening to Simon’s apparent mental breakdown and nodding.
The three of them closed the distance and were able to hear what the two were talking about.
“He can die! We know that,” Simon was saying, then caught sight of their group, or at least caught sight of Trinie’s tits. “Oh good, some familiar faces.”
“What the hell is happening, Simon?” Trinie asked.
“Hell on earth. That’s what.”
“She asked you a serious question, dipshit,” Mark said. Adding dipshit may have been a bit too much, but he was tired of playing nice with this asshole.
“And I gave a serious answer. The leprechaun is real, and he’s after us. All of us.”
They were silent for a moment, the thud of VNV Nation sounding around them, then Lucas laughed. It was a big-bellied locker room laugh of incredulity.
“He’s telling the truth,” Byron said.
“That’s why Marvin was acting that way?” Mark asked. “Why he killed that guy? Because he’d been Leprechaun 3’d?”
“That’s the one with the Vegas magician, right?” Lucas asked, interrupting. He was a step behind them in current events and a few steps ahead in terms of drinks and wasn’t properly grasping the direness of the situation.
“That’s the one where if he bites you then you intermittently turn into a leprechaun yourself,” Mark explained. “It’s what appears to have happened to Marvin. He bit the head off his own cat and then killed a guy.”
“Oh shit,” Lucas said, appearing to sober a bit.
“And he did it in our theater!” Simon added, seemingly disturbed by this fact above all. “Now they’ve roped it off.”
“So why don’t you take all this to the police?” Trinie said.
Byron coughed into his hand, sharing a look with Simon.
Simon nodded at him. If they were trying to keep a secret, they were certainly not hiding the fact that they had one.
“The police wouldn’t understand,” Byron said. “They’d probably think we’re involved if we told them there’s a tiny green C-list pop culture icon behind it all.”
So they’re covering their own asses, Mark thought, then thought back to what Simon had been saying about Genevieve right before Marvin had attacked that guy.
“What were you talking about when we came into the conversation?” Trinie asked, the three of them bellying up to the counter, closing the circle.
“We have to kill it,” Simon said. Letting it hang there. In the echo, Mark filled Lucas in, telling them that if it bleeds, they could kill it.
“The magical creature that none of us have seen to even know it exists?” Lucas said, slipping back from the edge of seriousness again.
“It does,” Byron said. “We have more evidence than just what happened to Marvin. But we can’t tell you what it is without hurting ourselves.”
“Did you find leprechaun droppings?” Lucas asked, reaching the bottom of his drink, the straw gurgling as he sucked at the ice. Mark had liked Lucas mere hours ago, but now he was acting like an asshole. An asshole who didn’t believe in leprechauns, so it was still hard to fault him.
“And how do we do that? How do we kill it?” Trinie was ignoring Lucas, doing her best to keep the group on task.
“Well. That depends,” Simon said.
“On what?”
“On what movie we’re in. His weaknesses are a variable plot contrivance,” Simon said.
While he was talking, Byron was counting on his fingers, whispering to himself.
“Okay listen, up,” Byron said, then counted off the fingers he was holding up. “So it’s either we poison him with four-leaf clovers, beat him and then impale him with wrought iron, melt down his gold, or eject him into the vacuum of space.”
“I’m not sure we can manage that last one,” Mark said, the eyes of everyone at the table turning to him, their heads giving him a slight ‘that’s not funny’ shake.
“There’s something else,” Simon said, rubbing the back of his head, only glancing at each of them before averting his eyes. “The flute.”
“Come on, man,” Byron said. “Not the fucking flute again. Forget about that thing.”
“Wait. The flute…as in the Leprechaun in the Hood flute?” Trinie furrowed her brow.
“Guys,” Lucas started, but was quickly shut up by Trinie’s hard stare.
“Remember that pot of heavy-ass gold in the theater? It wasn’t fake. I think that was the leprechaun’s real gold. Maybe since we stole his copyright, somehow we got his pot of gold too. And that flute…it was there. I had it.”
“Simon—”
“Byron, will you just listen?” Simon ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “I played it once, only once, and Byron responded to it. Just like in the movie. It’s like he was hypnotized, right? So I got to thinking…”
“Let me guess,” Mark interrupted. “You wanted to play that thing during the musical. Right? So everyone would love it no matter how fucking terrible it was.”
Simon didn’t have to answer the question. The look on his face said it all.
“You what?” Byron said, sitting up straighter and glaring at the side of Simon’s head. “That’s why you want that fucking thing back so bad? So that piece of shit play can be a success? Please tell m
e you’re kidding, Simon.”
“Okay, okay. That was the first thing that popped into my head. I admit it.”
They all shook their heads. Mark had to hold himself back from hitting the guy.
“Marvin took it from me right before he gave me this,” Simon said and held up his arm, which had blood-soaked napkins wrapped around it.
“Good,” Byron said. “Because you’re the last motherfucker that should be in control of anyone’s mind.”
“Maybe so. But now Marvin, a fucking were-leprechaun, has it. What happens when a leprechaun blows the flute?”
“Marvin was arrested,” Mark said. “We saw it happen. He was thrown into the back of the squad car and hauled off.”
“Right, and all you have to do is throw a leprechaun into a jail cell, and he’s defeated, right? You really think they’ll be able to hold him? Once he goes full blown lep, they’re fucked, man.”
Mark tried to pull Trinie in close to him, as if trying to protect her, but she pulled away, took another step toward Simon.
“So now we’ve got two leprechauns to worry about?”
“Yeah. And one of them might have the whole fucking police force hypnotized and on his side. You see where I’m going?”
Lucas snickered and sucked up the rest of his drink, making a loud slurping sound.
“All right. Either way, we need to figure out how to kill the little green fuckers,” Byron said.
“Maybe my original plan isn’t such a bad idea,” Simon said, and when he was met with more fiery stares, he held up both hands, his injured palm leaking blood onto the table. “Hear me out. We need a way to trap the leprechaun, to fight him in a place of our choosing, right?”
This was met with silence.
Simon rolled his eyes. “That’s why we’re going to put on the show. The leprechaun is trying to kill us because we’re infringing on his intellectual property. He won’t let the show go on and that’s where we can trap him.”
“And what about Marvin?” Mark said.
“I don’t know. Let’s just focus on the main villain here. Hell, maybe if we kill the leprechaun, Marvin will go back to normal. Like head vampire shit.”
Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical: A Novel Page 9