Authors: Hope Sullivan McMickle
An Axe to Grind (5 page)
That had been twenty-one months ago. Since that time John had made many trips back to Flint Hills Music. He’d also found some exceptionally high-quality music gear in the private residences he’d searched for food. The equipment now stood mute onstage in White Auditorium, presiding over an audience of corpses. John had added an Ampeg bass cabinet and amplifier, which provided him with eight 10” speakers, 450 watts, and thick low end. Next to the bass rig a DW drumset was set up on a small drum riser John had constructed. It’s black sparkle finish gleamed, and the Zildjian Custom A cymbals gleamed. They had never been struck, never been marred. John didn’t play the drums and had no desire to. His Fender Deville was set up on an amp stand next to a bulky Crate amplifier atop a stack of four 10” speaker cabinets. He’d never been a fan of Crate products, but it was as close to a Marshall stack as the music store had to offer. A single microphone stand was located at the front of the stage, flanked by two vocal monitors. The PA mains were stacked on top of large subwoofer cabinets on the left and right sides of the stage. A mess of cables snaked back to a large mixer and lighting board located to the left of John’s amp. He hated having to run his own lights and sound. Guitar stands lined the sides of the stage; he’d retrieved all the good guitars from the music store and left behind only the Epiphone knock-offs and some other cheap guitars. He’d even brought over the remaining decent amps and backlined them.
Instead of bringing Andy into the main auditorium, he wheeled him backstage. He left him there while he stepped onstage and powered up the lighting board. It had taken him a week and a half and an immense amount of patience to rig the stage lights. Some lights had already been in place, but were inadequate for a real rock show. He’d supplemented the eight par-64 cans on the lighting truss with a spotlight and two monster strobes, and added another eight LED cans which threw a rich wash of color onto the stage. On the lighting trusses to the left and right of the stage, he’d rigged four powerful blacklights and two additional effect lights, which faced the audience. He’d even installed two fog machines in the floor of the stage, connected with XLR cables so they could be remotely triggered with a footswitch.
John surveyed the area of stage directly in front of the Crate amplifier. He’d need to shift things a bit. His amp was set up between the Crate and the drumset; that wouldn’t do. He dragged the Crate amplifier as far to the left as he could and placed another four feet between it and his own amp. He then went backstage to the small storage room that had been home to the prop construction materials. He grabbed the toolbox he’d left there and returned to the stage. It was only then that he noticed the low hum of moaning and rattling of chains from the audience. The stage lights created a significant glare that was difficult to see past, but John had a pretty good idea of what he’d see. The audience was restless. He decided that a little music might help, and powered on the PA system. He’d left a CD in the last time he’d played; it was Styx. He hit the play button and the song Too Much Time On My Hands blasted out of the sound system. The cosmos was not without a wicked sense of humor, John thought. He used a stud finder to locate a sturdy crossbeam beneath the stage floor, and installed a heavy eyebolt in front of the Crate amplifier - now Andy’s amplifier. He attached a seven foot length of chain to the eyebolt, and gave it several quick, sharp jerks to make sure it was secure. It jarred his arm up to the shoulder, and satisfied that the eyebolt wouldn’t work loose, went back to retrieve his guitar player.
The Mexican Strat caught the stage lights and flashed in the darkened auditorium. Andy held it awkwardly and the strap was tangled on his shoulder, but John had been shocked to watch Andy grasp it correctly, and even more surprised that he hadn’t dropped or smashed it. He’d left the strings on, an oversight that would have to be corrected. It was inevitable that dead fingers would become entwined in the light gauge strings and snap them off, or vice versa. Andy held the guitar against his body, left hand on the neck, right hand dangling down below the pickguard. Although he’d made no effort to form a chord shape or even strum the strings, he’d still exceeded John’s expectations. Standing tethered in front of his amp, grasping the guitar in his black t-shirt and jeans, he was reminiscent of the guitar player he’d been. John had even screwed the whammy bar in for him. Andy’s role had now shifted, and even though John didn’t expect him to play and hadn’t bothered to connect the guitar to the amp, he did expect Andy to look the part.
John sat in the last row of seats, drinking Patron straight from the bottle, swallowed by the darkness. His eyes were drawn to the brightly lit stage. He’d lost track of how long he’d been sitting there, watching Andy and waiting to see what he would do with the guitar. Zombies didn’t use tools, John thought for the thousandth time, but he wondered if they remembered anything from their past lives. In the dark, drunk enough, sometimes he could forget about the death that surrounded him. Drunk or sober, onstage he always found some reprieve. Toward the end when he’d been playing five nights a week either solo or with his band, he’d lost sight of the beauty and magic that music created in the moment. Playing had become a chore, a way to make a living. But since then he’d rediscovered the joy of making music, playing for the experience, relishing the feel of the guitar in his hands and its weight on his shoulder. He slowly got to his feet, staggering a little but catching himself on the seat back in front of him. It was time to go on.
John squinted in the glare, soloing in E over Born on the Bayou. The backing track blared through the PA mains. It had been a simple matter to find a large collection of karaoke CD’s at the music store in the mall. The CD’s enabled him to play with a backing band but limited his ability to improvise. He would have liked to have extended the solo over at least another progression, but as it was the band played on and John followed, coming back in with the vocals and adding occasional flourishes on guitar. His audience was on their feet, straining forward, frenzied, just the way he liked it. He hit the stompbox and triggered the fog machine mounted on the ceiling truss, and a purple-red fog settled over the crowd. Immediately, a low roar of moans filled the room - the closest he’d ever get to crowd response now. He’d scavenged donor blood from Newman Hospital and refrigerated it to keep it fresh, and mixed it in with the solution used in the fog machine. It was amazing the extent of response that the scent of fresh blood elicited. At first he’d found the purple haze to be vaguely nauseating and cannibalistic, but what the hell; John always played for the crowd.
Born on the Bayou ended and John glanced over his shoulder to see what Andy was doing. He had advanced forward the full length of his chain and was staring at John. The guitar was still slung over his shoulder. Unlike the audience, he stood still, remarkably not agitated by the scent of blood and his proximity to John. Somehow, that stare bothered him. John turned to glare at Andy; sometimes you just had to show ‘em who was alpha dog. He swayed a little on his feet and had to step forward to regain his balance. Either too much or not enough Patron, he figured.
“Hey man, you’re replaceable. I can track down a guy who plays Fogerty a hundred times better than your sorry ass. I still have his number.” John laughed, thinking that was pretty funny since his cell phone had been dead along with the rest of the world for almost two years.
“Maybe now you’ll use that whammy bar less, buddy. Don’t think I didn’t notice it in every damn solo you played.” His words slurred and ran together a little, but John was done baiting Andy for the moment.
The next song up was Babe I’m Gonna Leave You. That tune alone had scored him plenty of ass over the years. He’d discovered that you didn’t necessarily have to look like Robert Plant to get some, you just had to sing like him. The women always loved that song, especially the drunk lonely ones, and he’d made it a point to sing it just for them. It never failed to fill the tip jar. He’d sing the song and gaze into their eyes with just enough earnest sincerity that he almost fooled himself into believing that he cared.
“You know, I did your old lady a few times too, and she couldn’t fuckin’ get enough,” John boasted to Andy while waiting to come in with the vocals. “We just never got around to telling you.” Playing with Led Zeppelin always put him in a good mood, he loved trading licks with Jimmy Page.
Andy’s chain rattled, and John barely heard it over the sound of his amp, which was cranked. He glanced over his shoulder again, continuing to play with an automaticity that only comes from decades of experience. Andy had taken his guitar off and was holding it with both hands by the neck, close to the headstock. The bottom of the guitar scraped the floor and even though it was a Mexican Stratocaster, John cringed.
“Hey, hey now, it ain’t time for a break,” he shouted back to Andy, who stared at him impassively. “Put that guitar back on.” John didn’t expect compliance, but was surprised when Andy tightened his grip on the guitar and leaned forward.
“The fuck are you doing, Andy?” asked John. The song was a wash – he stopped playing and turned to face Andy as the song played on.
Andy suddenly swung the guitar like a baseball bat, in a hard, fast arc. John had time to register a second of amazement - the dead didn’t use tools - before the body of the guitar connected viciously with his chin. The impact knocked him backwards several steps, and he lost his balance, helplessly pinwheeling his arms as he went over backwards. The base of his skull connected wickedly with the reinforced metal edge of the floor monitor. John was dead long before the Led Zeppelin song ended, and got up and walked as Sweet Home Alabama began.
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About the Author:
Hope Sullivan McMickle is a horror fiction writer and a musician with a penchant for the things that lurk in the darkness, and of course, for the shambling, insatiable undead. She resides in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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