The Empty Ones (20 page)

I knew we weren't really here to see a band, drink some beers, and fuck in the bathrooms. We were here to kill—or, more likely, to die. But I could still feel that giddy excitement dancing around in my guts.

The stage was low, narrow, and overflowing with instruments. The first band got on it, and cast out a wave of distortion and screaming. The crowd surged as one, bouncing and jostling. Not enough room to dance, not enough room to fight, so you gotta do a little of both. Tub was standing stock-still, surveying the room. Meryll wasn't dancing, but she was returning the shoves eagerly enough. But me and Randall had the same idea: We hopped and hollered like assholes. There's only so much fun you can have before you're erased from the face of this planet. What's the point of being scared and grim all the time? If I gotta die in twenty minutes, I'm sure as shit going to spend that time doing something fun.

The other bands passed in a blur of noise, like a series of violent car crashes set to a beat. I wasn't sure where my beers came from—maybe Randall was getting them for me, or maybe I was just reflexively stealing them from lesser punks when the opportunity presented itself—but I drank them all the same. I jumped and I wiggled and I punched and I groped an ass or two and it was fantastic.

And then it was time.

The Talentless took the stage and the room went crazy, but in an orderly fashion. The crowd's screams sounded like background chatter in a movie. Believable, but only if you didn't pay attention to it. There was a guy a few feet to my left—“a guy” is about as specific as I can be; his features slipped out of focus when you looked too hard at 'em—hollering himself hoarse. But it was all the same refrain: “Woo! Fuck yeah! All right! Woo! Fuck yeah! All right!” A girl in the front row was screeching wordlessly, but the tone of it looped. Low- to high-pitched, little warble in the middle, deep breath, start again. I saw the blonde with the umbrella from outside. She lifted up her shirt to flash her tits and dance around. She pulled her shirt back down, waited a moment, then repeated the movement exactly.

I'm not
complaining
about it—I'm just saying it ain't human.

A few of the normals in the crowd were cheering too—mostly younger girls—but the rest looked a little unsettled. They knew something was off about the vibe, but they couldn't place it. Probably thought the coke was turning on them, or chalked it up to déjà vu.

Then he was there: Gus.

Slavic cheekbones. Hooded eyes. Long, greasy blond hair and carefully nurtured stubble. Shirtless. Not exactly muscular, but so skinny he could pass for it. Faded black jeans pulled too low, so you could see his pubic bone. He stumbled on the stage, leaned heavily on the mic, pantomiming a dope high.

“What's the word, London?” he mumbled into the microphone and laughed to himself. The chick in front of me visibly swooned. Hand to the head, swaying on her feet.

What a dick.

“We're The Talentless,” the guitar player yelled into his mic, “and this song's called ‘Fuck Your TV.'”

Well, at least they're terrible. That's good. I won't have the early breakup of a decent band hanging over my head after I kill these sons of bitches.

I started pushing my way toward the stage, but Tub grabbed my arm with fingers like old wood and yanked me back. “The bloody hell d'you think you're doing?” he shout-whispered into my ear.

“I'm gonna go try to murder that band,” I said, confused. “Isn't that the plan?”

“Right now?” Meryll was leaning into the conversation too, all of us yelling over the distortion in the quietest way we could manage.

“Why, you wanna listen to the rest of their set?” I said. “What's the problem?”

“How were you planning on doing it?” Tub asked.

“I was gonna feed the guitar player his guitar, strangle the drummer, then shove the mic stand up Gus's ass and parade him around like a dipshit-on-a-stick.”

“What about the bass player?” Randall asked, all of us now huddled in a circle, scream-shouting in the most conspicuous way possible.

“I forgot about the bass player,” I said.

“Everybody does,” Randall said.

Meryll laughed.

“Look around, you bloody idiot.” Tub nodded at the crowd. “There's a dozen Unnoticeables, three or four Empty Ones, and that's
not
counting Gus and the band. The last time you tried to take out so much as one of the bastards, you got half your friends killed.”

Punch him in the neck. Bite his nose. Rockette-kick him in the dick.

I took a second to calm myself. “Don't fucking talk about that. You weren't there.”

“I'm sorry, boyo,” Tub said. “Truly, that was too far. But we can't take them here.”

“So what—”

The music stopped. Scattered applause. Randall clapped sarcastically. I'm not sure how he did that, or what exactly it was that differentiated it from a normal clap, but he pulled it off. The swooning chick in front of us turned to glare at him.

“This one's called ‘I'm a Punk and I'm OK,'” the guitar player announced, and the tuneless distortion resumed.

“These fuckers need to die based on their song titles alone,” Randall said.

We all nodded agreement.

“But not now,” Tub said. “We'll tail 'em after the show, find somewhere quiet where we can even the odds a bit. Then Meryll does her work.”

I wasn't sure about that.

Meryll didn't look like she was, either.

*   *   *

The Talentless played twenty songs in thirty-five minutes. They played “Spit On My Love” (the swooning chick practically fainted when Gus pointed at her while singing the chorus), “Don't Listen to Daddy,” and “I Drink Alcohol.” It was like somebody gave an alien a drunken synopsis of punk rock and really emphasized that musical talent was not necessary or even welcome. A couple of the normal girls in the crowd screamed themselves ragged when the set ended. The Unnoticeables repeated their scripted cheers, and the rest of the crowd left shaking their heads—unsure about what they just saw, but sure they didn't like it.

The Talentless headed backstage, and we ducked out of the club to meet them in the alley. Faceless roadies loaded gear into a filthy white van with busted headlights, the body panels so dented they looked like crumpled tin foil. We were hiding in a crowd of punks milling about on the street. That directionless haze after a show, coming down off the adrenaline high, nobody sure of what comes next. Everybody debating whether or not they have enough money to go get properly drunk in the pubs, or if they should just stand here on the street and share a bottle.

Most share the bottle.

I slyly inserted myself into the drinking circle with the lines “Helluva show, right?” “What are we doing next?” and “Give me that bottle, motherfucker.”

Tub and Meryll were keeping their eyes on Gus. Randall was keeping his eyes on Meryll's ass.

I hit the bottle so hard the guy next to me objected.

I practically threw it at him, and went to stand beside Randall.

I had a delicate subject in mind, and I wasn't sure about the best way to approach it.

I finally went with: “What's your fucking problem?”

“What?” He broke his hypno-gaze on Meryll's butt, and looked at me.

“You always do this shit. I like a chick, and you move in immediately.”

“You like her?”

“Well, yeah—I've been trying to fuck her ever since I met her.”

“You do that to literally every girl you see.”

“Yeah, but with this one, I mean it.”

“The hell was I supposed to know that?”

“I don't know, we're friends. You're supposed to pick up on my subtleties.”

“You don't have any.”

“Fine, but I'm into her. Now you know, so back off.”

He gave it a moment's thought, then said, “Nah.”

“Nah?”

“Nah, she doesn't seem into you. She seems into me.”

“Well, of course she's not into me right now, but I fucking grow on people, all right?”

“Like mold.”

I gave him a solid wanking motion.

“Listen,” Randall said, and fixed me with his “I'm serious now” expression. “The way I figure it, I
could
back off, but she's still probably not going to have sex with you. Agreed?”

“Well … yeah.”

I'm an optimist, but I'm not deluded. Besides, “probably” doesn't mean “definitely not.”

“Or I could
not
back off,” Randall continued, “and she will probably have sex with me. Agreed?”

“
Probably
,” I stressed.

“So we do it your way, and nobody is having sex. We do it my way, and at least I'm having sex. Probably her, too. That's a net positive.”

“I…”

Shit. The man's logic is flawless.

“But I really
want
to screw her,” I protested.

I knew it was useless.

“I know, man.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I want to win the lotto and buy a solid gold Buick, but that's just not the way the world works.”

“Fine. You don't have to back off, but I'm not backing off either,” I said.

“That's okay.” Randall laughed. “I don't think that matters.”

He sidled up alongside Meryll and Tub, who were parked at the far end of the punk circle. He touched her forearm to get her attention, and she smiled at him.

Randall's a pretty good guy. I mean, he's still a son of a bitch and I'm still not getting laid, but at least he puts forth the effort to make me feel better about it. That's what friends do.

Tub turned and motioned to me. I joined the huddle.

“There.” He pointed.

Gus and the rest of The Talentless filed out of the back door into the alley. They were backlit by a bare lightbulb putting out roughly the wattage of a potato, but I could still tell him by his silhouette. Long, lean, moving like thick fluid in that heroin drift. He looked around. Satisfied that nobody important was watching, he let the junkie fugue drop away. He stood up unnaturally straight, head held at an odd angle to his neck. His arms went slack by his sides. Gus pointed back at the van and said something. The gesture was spider-quick. I didn't actually see him move. One second his arm was by his side, then it was held out, then by his side again. Like frames skipping in a movie. The roadies nodded at him, then one broke off to get in the van. It turned over with a sound like a sick bird singing. The headlights flashed, dimmed, then went out. The driver turned it over again. The headlights were even dimmer this time. He tried it one more time, and they didn't come on at all.

Dead.

Gus's silhouette clenched, twisting up into an angry crouch, fists balled, head twitching. Then he went slack again. He turned and began walking down the alley, away from us. The other Talentless followed him, leaving the unnoticeable roadies between us and them.

“Shit,” I said.

“What?” Tub asked.

“The fucking van wouldn't start! Now we gotta get past the roadies, or we're gonna lose them.”

“Well, yeah.” Tub fixed me with a funny look. “I sabotaged the van during the show. How the hell were we going to follow a van? You don't look like you can run that fast.”

“Plus, that'd be pretty conspicuous,” Meryll agreed, “couple of skinny white Americans sprinting through traffic.”

“So how do we get past the roadies?” I asked.

Everybody looked at me like I'd just choked on my own shoe.

“We beat the shit out of them,” Randall finally answered.

Oh, right.

Plan A.

Tub had reclaimed his rebar cane after the show. He stumped up to the band, feigning frailty, then wailed on the first Unnoticeable that came to shoo him away. Me and Randall took that as our cue to charge, but Meryll was faster. She hit one with an uppercut so hard he did half a flip, then threw the other headfirst into a wall.

So goddamned hot.

Randall better appreciate boning her.

The whole fight took maybe thirty seconds, but Gus and The Talentless had already disappeared around the end of the block.

For the next twenty minutes we sprinted down blind alleyways and hid behind garbage cans. It didn't help that Gus and his bandmates weren't making a sound. Out of sight, they didn't bother feigning humanity. They all walked fast, at nearly a jog. Arms moving minimally, spines held stiff. At each corner they'd stop, all momentum ceasing abruptly. They would crane their heads—quick, neck-snapping motions—then pick a direction and lope away again.

By the time they stopped, me and Randall were exhausted. Tub was covered in the kind of sweat that doesn't come from just exertion. He was pale and shaking. With his limp, the pace had nearly killed him. Meryll wasn't even winded.

Gus had led us to some kind of industrial area—a zigzag of empty lanes and crumbling factories. The air tasted like rust. We were squatting behind a transformer at one end of a large courtyard between three buildings. A three-foot-high concrete ledge formed the perimeter. Big metal doors with flaking paint lined each side. It looked like trucks had loaded up here at some point, but the weeds growing through the asphalt told me that hadn't happened for a while. Gus and the Talentless were standing in a tight group at the far corner, staring at a closed loading bay. They hadn't moved for at least ten minutes.

What the hell were they doing? Is this where they slept? Did they sleep? Or did they just wander into an abandoned parking lot and stare at a wall until it was time to eat virgins and play lousy punk rock again?

“We're not gonna get a better shot than this,” Randall said.

Tub popped his head up and did a quick survey.