Voice (32 page)

“Johnny” sang.

***

This is it,
Danny thought.
This is what it’s all about.
Case had started the damn song too fast, but it didn’t matter. The energy was good—smoking, in fact—and that’s what counted. The band was into it, and so was the crowd from what Danny could tell.

What a rush!

Case and Allen made their way back to the drum riser—it seemed to take forever, the stage was so wide—and jammed with him during the bridge, both of them grinning like happy drunks. The song was barely half over, and already sweat poured off Case’s face.

Up front, Johnny milked the crowd. Before the last verse, he whipped out that tired line again, screaming “Is it hot enough for you, motherfuckers?” at ungodly volume, and the audience went nuts.

He’s gotten really good at this,
Danny thought with a surge of pride for his little brother.

They finished the song, and applause rolled over them, crashing down like thunder. Case shook her head in disbelief and gave him a huge smile. Then it was on to the next song.

Case was hot tonight, there was no doubt about that, but Johnny was incredible. He growled and snarled and soared, drawing the audience in and inciting them to ever-greater frenzy. That ominous, paranoid sensation Danny sometimes felt during shows crept in, that weird sense that something malevolent watched him and laughed, but it was weak and buried beneath the adrenaline rush.

The last song was “Rust,” and Danny couldn’t believe the set was almost over. Hadn’t they just taken the stage?

Johnny held his hands high before the last chorus. “My children!” he said. “Sing with me!” That was weird, Danny thought—next he’d be announcing that he was the Lizard King—but the audience ate it up, and the chorus was simple enough that they could follow along. Amazingly, hundreds of them did. Danny stared in shock, muscle memory and hundreds of hours of rehearsal the only things carrying him through the song as he stared at the crowd.

Then the show was finished. The cheers and shouts of over fifteen hundred people followed them off the stage.

***

“Holy hell, guys,” Erin said. “We’re going to need to call up the duplication company and see if they can press a lot more CDs and ship them to us. At this rate, we’re going to run out before we get to Chicago.”

There were cheers all around. It had been a good night, no doubt about that. Kerry Buchanan himself had found the five of them after Crashyard had finished and given his congratulations—and that wasn’t all. He’d beckoned to Case, pulling her out of the knot of loudly chattering people.

“Great fucking show,” he said. “But you can’t gig without a backup axe.” He handed her a guitar case, one with a very distinctive shape and the words
Gibson USA
on the top.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“Open it.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She put the case on the floor and knelt in front of it. Her hands shook as she flipped the catches. Dimly, she was aware that a small crowd had gathered around her.

She opened the guitar case. Inside was a pristine Les Paul Standard guitar, wine red and utterly, completely gorgeous.

“Oh my God,” she said. Looking up, she met Kerry’s eyes. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

He smiled. “You did good, kid.” Once, not long ago, she would have assumed he wanted something—sexual favors, most likely—for such a gift, but today she didn’t feel quite so cynical. He seemed genuinely happy for her, and in any case his wife was standing next to him, also smiling.

Case looked at her bandmates, who grinned and clapped her on the back. Except Johnny. The blood had drained from his face, and he had the look of a man about to vomit. He grinned weakly at her. “Cool,” he said, and he put a hand to his mouth.

After the revelry, there was a quick conference to determine sleeping arrangements.

“We did pretty well tonight,” Erin said. “We could probably afford a motel. But we don’t know if every night will be like tonight, and I have a feeling we’re
really
going to want beds in a couple of weeks. I’d hate to be short on cash then.”

The vote to spend their first night in the van was unanimous.

***

Case couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t the van, either. She had drawn the luxurious front seat, passenger side, and that didn’t even rate on the list of uncomfortable places she’d slept. She thought her insomnia might be an ugly aftereffect of her post-show high, but the others were sleeping just fine. Danny had dropped off almost as soon as he’d put the van in park. She certainly felt exhausted. Her legs were sore from being cooped up all day and then the sudden, spastic exertion of performance, and her whole body felt drained and achy.

She turned on her side. It was awkward, even with the seat all the way back, but at least this way she was pointed away from the light. There were only a couple of lights in the parking lot, and Danny had made an effort to park away from them, both to help everyone sleep and to stay far away from the prying eyes of any of the cheap motel’s employees, who might take exception to their freeloading. There probably wouldn’t be any problems—with Crashyard’s bus in the lot, the staff was undoubtedly more worried about how trashed the rooms would be in the morning.

Having her back to the light was a definite improvement. The light glided over her shoulder, lighting up Danny’s arm and hand, but at least it wasn’t in her eyes anymore.

She lay still, listening to the night. Semis roared by on the freeway, and crickets and frogs chirped noisily nearby. There was a faint dank scent in the van. Perhaps it came from whatever marshy home the frogs made for themselves, but she thought it was that smell Johnny carried around with him. Nasty. Behind her, Allen breathed loudly. That was kind of obnoxious, but she tried to fall into the rhythm, and soon enough, her eyes fell shut. Images of the day spun in her head, and she sank down toward sleep.

There was a noise, and she sprang to full wakefulness, her body tensed from head to foot.

What was that?

It came again—a scraping noise that Case immediately identified as that of a shoe on pavement. Her heart thumped in her ears.

Calm down. This is a parking lot. People come to places like this to get in their cars.
The sarcasm didn’t put her mind at ease. She waited, listening. She didn’t hear the click of an opening car door, or the clunk of a closing one.

Another scrape, closer this time. There was somebody by the side of the van. She was almost sure of it.

Somebody’s fucking with us.
She thought of the equipment in back, adding numbers in her head. She guessed there was maybe twelve thousand dollars’ worth of gear back there. Had somebody got it in their head to liberate some of it?
If so, they’d goddamn well better be armed.
Anger welled up in her, but it seemed a small, feeble thing next to her fear. Something about this felt very bad, and there was a familiarity to the
badness
of it that she couldn’t place.

Another scrape, closer still, and this time a shadow fell across Danny’s arm. There was somebody right behind her. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh. Case could feel eyes tracing her body. The door was locked, right? Sure. That was basic Sleeping in the Car 101. They couldn’t get in without breaking the window, and when they did, Case would go for the eyes. Or maybe she’d turn around right now, pop the door open, and slam it into the psycho standing back there. Both options sounded bad—sounded terrible, in fact—not least because Case felt paralyzed with fear.

She could wake Danny.

Even as she thought of it, somebody looked in through Danny’s open window, appearing suddenly and leering at her.

She screamed.

Danny jolted upright, and there was movement from the back of the van, too. Erin screamed next, piercing and terrifying in the close confines of the van, and even Allen yelled.

Case turned, and—
Jesus Christ!
There was another person pressed to the window behind her, flattening the side of its face to the glass. The mouth was pulled back in a horrifying grimace, and one eye rolled madly. It settled on her, and the grimace stretched.

Case pushed back, almost landing in Danny’s lap. Then she remembered the other one on Danny’s side, and she froze. The person on her side started clawing at the glass.

“Johnny!” it said. “Johnny Johnny, we love you Johnny!”

And then from the other side: “We missed you Johnny! We missed you where it’s so coooold.” It opened its mouth, reared back, and tried to
bite
the window. Its top lip split open and one of its front teeth broke off. It didn’t seem to notice. It tried again, tearing its lip open wider and leaving a cloudy smear of blood on the window. “Johnnyyyyyy! We love you!” Erin screamed again.

“For fuck’s sake, Danny, get us the hell out of here!” Johnny said. “Drive, goddammit!”

Danny seemed to remember where he was, and he cranked the starter. Not bothering to check behind him, he backed up as fast as the van could go. The side mirror knocked one of the people down, and Case heard it laughing as it slammed into the pavement.

Once they’d backed up, Case could see all of the people who had crowded around the van while the others slept. There were five of them, staring stupidly after the departing van.

“Fucking
go
!” she told Danny. He didn’t need telling by that point—he peeled out of the parking lot without looking back.

In the backseat, Erin burst into tears.

“What the hell was that all about?” Case asked once they got on the road. Her voice shook slightly, and Johnny could see her checking the mirrors every few seconds, though it was impossible that anyone would be able to keep up with them. At least not on foot, he thought.

Perils of fame and glory, John my boy,
“Johnny” said.

“Perils of fame and glory,” Johnny said without much conviction. Case turned in her seat to look at him, and he suddenly got very interested in the view out the window.

“Bullshit,” she said. “Let’s ask the guys in Crashyard how often this happens to them—I bet the answer is never, and you know it.”

We don’t know that,
“Johnny” said. Johnny was too freaked out to argue. He just repeated the words as they came into his head.

“We don’t know that,” he said. Pause. “Besides, they have a tour bus and rented rooms. They probably haven’t slept in the van for ten years.”

“That’s crap, Johnny.” Everyone was looking at him now. Even Danny kept glancing in the rearview mirror. Case’s face was serious as death. “What did you do?”

He tried on an expression of surprise. It felt natural enough. “What do you mean, what did
I
do?”

“Johnny Johnny Johnny,” Case said in an ugly, high-pitched voice. “Those creepy bastards were all looking for you.”

Johnny was silent.
It’s not my fault
, the voice prompted. “It’s not my fault the local mental hospital went on a field trip today. And you know I didn’t arrange this—I was with you guys all night!”

Some of the fire seemed to go out of Case, but suspicion hung in the air like a particularly noxious perfume. She turned around and curled up in her seat, staring forward.

“I don’t know what any of that was about,” Allen said, “but it was some creepy shit.”

On that, everyone could agree.

***

They found another parking lot—a
much
more well-lit parking lot, which seemed both prudent and unfortunate as far as Case was concerned. She supposed it didn’t matter. The odds of her getting any sleep before dawn were vanishingly small by now. Sure enough, sleep didn’t come. It didn’t come for Danny, either, though incredibly the three in back didn’t seem to have any trouble. Even Erin had dropped off.

Danny talked about the show in a low voice. They’d talked about it at length earlier that evening, but he was still thinking about their thirty minutes of fame, rehashing the high points and talking about the things he needed to clean up at the next show. It was reassuring talk of mundane things, and it helped bury the events of the last hour.

The sun came up, and Danny started driving. It was six or seven hours to their next stop, Raleigh, so they had plenty of time, but since neither of them could sleep, it seemed reasonable to get a head start. Maybe they’d sleep when they got there. Johnny woke up when they started moving and asked if they could stop and get breakfast before leaving Atlanta. They got greasy breakfast sandwiches at a rest stop, and Johnny picked up a newspaper.

“Maybe we got a review,” he said defensively when Case eyed the paper. To her practiced ear, he sounded like he was full of shit, but she was too tired to argue about it. If Johnny wanted to keep up on current events, that was his business.

By 7 a.m., Atlanta was a smudge in the rearview mirror.

***

The show in Raleigh went much as the show in Atlanta had, except the band was less terrified. They all agreed afterward that they played much better than the previous night, though the rush of performing didn’t seem to have diminished any.