The Last Show (Sel & Am)

Adam craned for a look at the audience from the side of the stage. "They're there again."

Kyle followed his gaze. "They're just groupies."

"They get closer every show," said Adam.

"They've figured out how to get better tickets," Kyle said with a shrug. "Or they've saved their money or something."

Adam chewed the inside of his cheek. These two . . . He didn't even know if they were men or women, couldn't tell, but . . . They were like flip sides of a coin. One was fair, the other dark. Other than that, they were more or less identical. They had long hair and wore trench coats, which was weird, but fans wore all kinds of weird stuff.

"Maybe one of these days they'll get passes for a meet and greet," suggested Kyle. He laughed at Adam's stricken expression. "What? They don't look any more dangerous than anyone else."

"There's something . . ." But Adam had no way to articulate the feeling these two gave him. Dread? That was probably the most accurate word. He stepped back from the stage and turned to hole up until show time. Let security do their job.

_____________

"Tell me again why we keep doing this?" Seladion asked.

"Because it's fun?" Amaurodios answered.

"For whom?" Sel wondered. "We should get it over with. Should have gotten it over with the first time." He looked at Am from the corner of his eye. "You like them too much."

Am didn't answer. What would be the point? Sel was right. Instead he asked, "Why do you do this?"

"It's something to do."

"You like working for her."

"I like working against him," said Sel. "Anyway, I never asked you to follow me. Not to this wretched world, and not in this work either."

Am hung his head, and his long, dark hair fell around him. Every time it came into view, it reminded Am of his betrayal. He supposed that was why Durandios had singed him on the way down—a permanent rebuke. Sel, on the other hand, had retained his silver-white hair. He was as beautiful as ever, at least on the outside. Seladion's burnt pieces were all hidden from view.

"I suppose you want me to wait until the show is over," Sel said. "And don't think to ask for another abstention. I've already put it off too long."

Am wondered that Sel had ever granted his requests to wait in the first place. Could it be that Sel had a care for his feelings? Or maybe Sel simply enjoyed the music. "How does she choose?" he asked.

Sel gave him an odd look. "How should I know?"

But Amaurodios knew Seladion well enough to know it bothered him not to know the system. "You haven't tried to figure it out?"

Sel only shrugged. "You should buy a tee shirt if you're going to," was all he said.

____________

Was it the lights? The music? Am didn't know what continued to draw him. He couldn't relate it to Argyros, not exactly. Argyros was bright and full of music, true, but the emotion was different. Simple joy and pleasure filled Argyros. But the music in this world was dark and thick. Even when considered "happy" it was tainted by angst and fear and sorrow and loss.

It was the difference between vanilla and dark chocolate, Am decided. He liked both, but it surely depended on one's mood. And now he would never taste vanilla again.

"He's frightened." Sel's lips near his ear made Am jump. Am watched the lead singer—Adam his name was—do all the same kinds of dance moves he'd done the previous three times. But yes, there was something in the way Adam rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth that gave away an underlying anxiety.

"He's noticed us," Am realized as Adam's attention came to them time and again.

"We're just faces in a crowd," said Seladion.

"Yes, but we've been in the first few rows of the last three concerts," Am said. "And, you know, we don't look like most people."

Seladion glanced around. "So much the better."

"I'm only saying we're a bit conspicuous, even at one sighting," said Am.

"And whose fault is it we've made it four?" Sel asked. "Oh, don't give me that sad dog look. Come on, we need to do this." He began to move toward the aisle, never bothering to apologize to the mere mortals on whose feet he tread. Most people moved when they saw Seladion coming in any case.

"Before the encore?" Am called after him.

Sel's blue-silver eyes blazed and Am, apologizing profusely, obediently followed.

__________

Adam ducked backstage for a bottle of water and came face to face with the two tall, thin creatures from the second row. "You," he said dumbly.

"Me," said Seladion with a tight-lipped smile.

"Us, actually," Amaurodios amended and handed Adam a water from the ice chest.

"How did you . . .?" Adam glanced down the hall. Where was security?

"It's better not to ask," Am murmured.

"Okay, well, I—" Adam looked at the bottle he was holding, momentarily confused by how it had gotten there. He switched hands and shook the one that was wet with condensation. The roar of the crowd was becoming steadily louder, a thrum like a heartbeat picking up speed.

Seladion reached out one spindly hand toward Adam's forehead. Am could see Adam's desire to take a step backward, but he didn't. He couldn't. He was rooted to the spot. The most he could do was lean back slightly away from the oncoming palm.

"I'll make it quick," said Sel. "Consider it a small blessing."

He is incapable of blessing anyone or anything, Am thought. He is damned. We both are. He looked at Adam, his fear and confusion evident in his eyes.

"Stop," Am said.

Seladion did not lower his hand, but he did look at Am over his shoulder. "What is it?" he snapped.

"This will damn him."

"Look, it doesn't matter what she does with them."

"But maybe it does," said Amaurodios. "What does she do with them?"

"I don't know. I've never asked," Sel said through clenched teeth.

"Let him go," Am begged.

Seladion did drop his arm then, and Adam stumbled a couple paces back. "Really, Am, this is too much. Why would you risk her wrath for him?"

Am looked at the singer. "Go," he mouthed and flapped a hand. Adam needed no other prompting; he turned and hied back to the stage.

Sel sighed. "Now I'm going to have to go get him."

"Don't," said Am.

The music began anew, and Am silently admired Adam's ability to throw himself into it after everything that had just happened.

"You'll have to at least wait 'til they're done now," said Am. "But I'm hoping you'll reconsider."

"And what will I tell her?" Seladion asked. "'Oh, but Am really likes him'? Or were you planning to take his place?"

"I would," said Amaurodios softly. "I'd take all their places if I could."

"You should have stayed in Argyros," said Sel. "Anyway, she has no use for you."

"She has no use for him either!" Am cried.

"They can't live forever, Am."

Amaurodios looked up, surprised by the gentleness of Seladion's tone.

"Go on. You don't need to be here to see it," Sel said.

Tears filled Am's eyes. He turned to go. Stopped. "You'll make it painless?"

"It's never painless," Seladion told him. "But I'll make it as quick as I can."

I'm With the Band (or, What's In a Name?)

Submitted by Cate Morgan.

***


Wayne Zalewski—failed musician, pizza delivery boy, eternal optimist—shouldered a shovel slightly too long for him and stomped through the small cemetery with bright, determined purpose. Following along behind like a gaggle of geese rejected from their respective nests for lack of effort, were his band.

Well, most of his band. Bass, keyboards, and drums all present and accounted for.

Well, not his band, exactly. But the band he managed, certainly. It had taken the better part of three years, but they had finally booked their first paying gig.

There was just one problem.

"Dude," his drummer called from the end of the line. Buddy "Bag o' bones" Johnson called everyone "dude", regardless of class, creed, sexual orientation, or religion. He was an equal opportunity dudeist. "Is this cool?"

"Of course it's cool." Wayne flipped his hair, streaked purple to show willing, from his still vaguely acne-plagued face. The streak changed color about as often as the band changed names, which was, on average, every other week or so. "We're finally in at Zombie Bowl. We're getting paid. Chaz would want to be there. He has to be there. He's the best front man-slash-lead guitar we've got."

"He's the only front man-slash-lead guitar we've got." Lydia, lackluster keyboardist, lit a clove. Fragrant smoke billowed from behind him in romantic swirls, her voice going muffled. "And he's dead, Wayne." She sounded bored. She always sounded bored.

Wayne had been trying to impress Lydia since they were twelve and in music lessons together. He hadn't managed it yet, but he felt he was on the right track. "Not for long."

"What about 'Infectious Snakebite'?" Aaron "The Ooze" Peters was nose deep in the thesaurus he used to write song lyrics and bad poetry, often one and the same. Somehow he managed not to stumble.

They reached Chaz's grave, off in the bracken among the cheap plots. His headstone wasn't so much granite as it was chalk. It was already crumbling. Wayne stuck his shovel spade-first in Chaz's next-to-final resting place like a mountaineer sticking his flag of choice at the peak of the Mount Everest. "Right, let's get to it."

Lydia leaned against the headstone and checked her nails. Electric blue today. The others began digging.

All went well for some time. Three or so feet under the others, not accustomed to so much activity, began to grumble. Four feet, and Lydia lit another clove. Five, and Wayne was soaked in as much niggling self doubt as he was sweat. Six—thunk.

Wayne donned his face mask and used his shovel as a crowbar to wedge open the lid of the rather cheap coffin.

Chaz was right where they left him, clad in cheap dress shirt and an oversized, rented tux circa 1978 or so. They would definitely lose the deposit on it. Chaz's favorite guitar lay in his grip like a knight's sword, ruined hands clasping the neck of the instrument to his heart.

"It doesn't look like him, does it?" Lydia observed.

"Well, it's been a year." The face mask was thin and, unfortunately, not much help against the smell. "Get the candles."

Buddy rummaged in the black duffel he'd been carrying. "Dude. This isn't cool."

Wayne sighed wearily. "We've forgotten the candles, haven't we? Right. Get the Zippos, then."

It was sort of poetic: open flames flickering in the damp, misty breeze.

"How about 'Incoherent Slaughter'?" Aaron contributed.

"Tell me you're not going to play 'Free Bird'." Lydia's cigarette smoke joined the general haze.

"Okay, Buddy. Whenever you're ready."

Buddy showered Chaz with a variety of ingredients. One or two Wayne wasn't so sure about. Finger bones had been replaced with chicken bones, remnants of that night's bucket of KFC. Unable to locate some of the herbs on the list, Aaron had opted for his Gran's Allspice, figuring it would cover all bases.

Wayne girded his loins, his courage, and his doubts. And in a voice that barely shook at all, said the Words.

They all gazed down at Chaz, and waited.

Nothing.

Wayne consulted the folded and refolded paper in his hands. You really could find anything on the internet. "Give him a bit more grave dust, Buddy."

Buddy did, and lost his grip on the mason jar. It bonked Chaz in the head, knocking it to the side.

More waiting. More Nothing.

"We could always go back to being 'Muscular Junction'," Aaron offered.

Lydia lit her last clove. "Whatever."

"Wait. Something's happening." Wayne's heart pounded like Buddy's drums when he'd forgotten what song they were playing.

And it was.

Dirt and dust and fried chicken bones shifted. Chaz's head straightened on its putty gray neck to grin at them. One long-fingered hand unclenched from the guitar's neck and raised slowly as though asking for assistance after an all-night carouse. Wayne, not the most in-tune string on the guitar, took his front man's hand and helped him up.

Chaz lurched and, in gratitude for his new lease on life, or perhaps in return for the mason jar, chomped his manager on the arm clear to the bone. Wayne shrieked. He snatched the guitar in his free hand, and banged the axe over Chaz's head. Repeatedly.

"Dude," Buddy pronounced over the tortured sounds of a vintage guitar being inflicted as a blunt instrument. "Cool."

"I've got it," Aaron added, eyes gleaming over the top of the thesaurus. "'Biting Rigor'."

Lydia flicked her cherry lit stub into the screaming, growling, discordant fray six feet below her Doc Martens. "I knew I should have gone to college."

The Night Before the Morning After

I wrote, some long while ago, a stilted story of a female journalist traveling with a rock band. (And no, I never have seen the Cameron Crowe movie.) These couple of snippets I found lying around were taken from that story.

***

She rose from the chaise with a laugh and picked up her sandals by swooping them with two fingers from her right hand. They'd had a fun night—another fun night—hanging on the balcony of his suite, but it was later than late now, and they faced an early start tomorrow morning. She was already turned away from him, moving toward the sliders, saying, "I think I'd better . . ."

"Don't."

She stopped at the doors and did turn then, her honest smile falling into something more perplexed and maybe a little uneasy. He was still on his chair, hands still folded on the top of his head in that way he had, and his smile was pasted on perfectly, but his eyes were more wary.

"Don't what?"

"Don't go back to your room." He unfolded himself and stood.

Her smile was gone, and she shook her head just a little, the way a person might when ridding themselves of an unwanted thought.

"Stay. We'll sleep out here on the chairs—"

"That would be comfortable," she interjected, her spirits lifting because she thought now he must be kidding with her.

"Or we'll go find a ridiculous old movie on the tube and fall asleep watching it," he went on.

"Uh-huh," she said, because now she didn't know what to think and felt like she needed to fill the open air with something, some utterance, any utterance.

~*~

They found them in the late morning, asleep and fully clothed on the king-sized bed, holding one another like lost children from a fairy story. His arm was thrown around her waist, his head near her bosom; she had a hand on his arm, and they were folded in towards one another like human Origami.

Whatever late-night movie they had been watching in the hours before they'd dozed had been replaced by a morning news team that had long since abandoned the top stories and moved on to lighter fare, the human-interest and fluff topics designed to make housewives believe that the world was okay after all.

It wasn't of question of whether to wake them; there was a tight schedule involved. It was more who and how and would they be totally pissed off by it?

And, of course it was also, Why the hell are they in here, sleeping like this? Because if they'd been under the sheets, and if they'd had no clothes on, or even if they'd been just as they were but with their backs to one another . . . That might've made sense to the people who knew them. But this formation was bizarre to the witnesses of it.