Yup. We're Fucked. (A Short Story)

A hundred piercing screams echoed out into nothingness, barely audible over the sound of metallic whirring and shredding as bodies flew out in all directions, smashing into each other with the blunt force impact of a motorcycle crash. The air was so thick with smoke and sweat breathing itself had become a near impossible feat, the stench was almost unbearable. Great flashes of white and red light intermittently lit up the room in a disorderly fashion from all directions, spinning out into the corroded brick walls and onto what was left of the laminate flooring. Pure sensory overload.

“I’ll have two double vodka red bulls, a gin and tonic, a pint of lager, and four shots of Sambuca.”

The barman raised an eyebrow and moved in closer.

Well this was pointless, Caroline thought.

She rolled her eyes and extended her finger to the large unmarked bottle of purple liquid near the corner of the top shelf, making a hand gesture to the short, stubbly man protected from the chaos by nothing but a wooden platform held up by a decaying brick structure. He gave her a look that seemed to suggest he knew exactly what she meant, but still somehow appeared confused. Caroline angrily raised a hand and furiously gestures him towards her. She held up four fingers, pointing to the disheveled mess of glasses piled up on the shelf behind him.

If I’m paying for this, you can keep your goddamn concern to yourself!

He returned with the bottle, and four glasses, filled with a few tiny shards of crushed ice, while she threw down a tattered banknote onto the bar and grabbed the tray.

Fucking asshole.

After all, it wasn’t every day that Caroline Tracy turned thirty.

In its short existence, Echo’s Cave had earned somewhat of a reputation. Formerly a hip, below ground eating establishment, widely respected by the Lupaian elite, it had fallen on hard times during a particularly nasty economic recession ten years prior, closing down unceremoniously and swiftly forgotten about. It was swiftly noticed however as a perfect shelter for Port Newton’s increasingly large criminal network, a perfectly secluded space serving as an easy hotspot for drug deals, prostitution and storing of stolen goods. Initially, the police force made attempts to shut all that down, claiming trespassing laws, though the crime lords were smart, and bought the property from the council under a shell corporation. Fearing more interrogation and interference from law enforcement, they quickly converted it into a bar, even securing a live music license from an obviously corrupt councilman to explain away any unseemly noises that might drift out onto unsuspecting ears. It soon became staggeringly popular, playing host to at least 6 bands a week, and drawing in enough money on its own to easily outclass the petty crime that it was being used as a front for. However, the cocaine fuelled violence was seen as a feature, rather than a bug, and an errant elbow in a mosh pit could just as easily turn into a large scale brawl if the wrong people were involved.

Caroline Tracy didn’t really care. This place had been good to her. When she had first moved in to the small flat above, she had tried to make a noise complaint about some construction work going on at 1 o’clock in the afternoon during a particularly apocalyptic hangover. To shut her up, the manager, Fred Marksen, offered her band their first paying gig as support for local metal hacks The Swamp Monsters. Surprised at how well the crowd took to their barely coherent mesh of punk rock and industrial noise, Caroline became a well liked regular. An outcast and a misfit since childhood, she had finally found her people. And her people drank. Though tonight was different. Tonight, she knew, may well be her last hurrah within these crumbling walls.

“The fuck is that?!”

“It’s alcohol, Tom.”

“It’s purple.”

“No shit. Drink up.”

The other members of Fridge Horror, the band Caroline had formed barely out of her teens after dropping out of a prestigious boarding school, were mismatched to each other by nature.

There was Tom, a skinny, blonde, virtuoso guitarist she’d met working in a record store she was trying to shoplift. He’d tried to stop her, but just ran away the second she’d even got close to him. He was so pathetic, Caroline thought, that she felt compelled to come back and return the stolen vinyl the next day and apologise. At which point he fell madly in love with her and followed her around like a lost puppy for the next twelve years. Still, she tolerated him, mostly because he’d offer to carry her gear offstage, but also because in his own confused, dim-witted way, he was kind of sweet, and it made her feel marginally better about herself that someone as fundamentally good natured as him would ever even consider being associated with someone like her.

Lauren, their bassist and resident tech geek, who was responsible for all of their sound engineering, production, and electronics, was a very different creature. All kohl rimmed eyes, black matted hair, and pointed features, Lauren spoke softly and occasionally, often in random short bursts of confusing aphorisms and bizarre non sequiturs. If it often seemed like she was on a totally different planet to the rest of the group, that’s because she was. Lauren was the groups resident expert in narcotics, the middle part of the old “sex, drugs and rock n roll” cliche. If there was a psychedelic substance known to man, Lauren had been there, done that. Caroline often wondered what she’d actually be like sober. Tom had put flyers out for a bassist not long after the band had formed, and Lauren had just turned up, not said a word, and stared hard into the distance. Caroline thought she was the coolest girl she’d ever met and instantly offered her the job. It wasn’t until three weeks later that they discovered she could actually play. Tom still remained utterly terrified of her, and Caroline often made a sport of watching him hesitantly try and fail to make eye contact whenever they were in the same room.

“Hang on, where’s Joey?!” Caroline exclaimed.

“He followed you to the bar.” Tom replied.

“Oh for fucks sake, we’re onstage in twenty minutes.”

Ah yes, Joey.

Joey was the drummer. He’d grown up poor in a rough neighbourhood twenty blocks from the city centre. He’d had a tough life, abusive parents, living below the breadline, trying to make ends meet wherever he could, you know the story. As he came into adulthood, he soon learned to cope with the trauma of his youth by shagging literally anything and everything that would have him. Which as it turned out, was quite a large portion of of Port Newton’s population, given his six foot muscular frame, perfectly coiffed hair, and crystal blue eyes. He met Caroline chatting her up a few years back in this very bar. Always eager to impress, he got behind the drum kit and belted out an impressive solo. She was almost tempted to go there, but quickly came to her senses, instead inviting him to rehearse. It didn’t stop him trying, repeatedly, though, and he swiftly made an enemy in Tom, who would always vote against him in every intra-band decision, a passive aggressive attempt to be seen as a knight in shining armour that was rarely appreciated.

Caroline turned around, pushing her wavy brown hair out of her line of vision just enough to see Joey, in all of his stature, leaning over a table in the far corner of the club, right by the entrance, with his arm around a short blonde girl, no older than twenty, sat with her three friends, all wearing the colours of Port Newton Institute of Science and Technology.

Oh god, he’s doing his ‘pretending to listen’ face.

As Caroline stormed over, Joey seemed to double in closer to the poor girl.

“So, what do you like to do for fun when you’re not lurking around this dump?”

The girl looked from side to side, clearly nervous. “Well, um, me and my friends get together every Thursday for role playing games. I’m normally the DM.”

“I like a bit of role play” Joey smirked.

Her eyes seemed to light up at this, “Oh, you play D&D?”

“The more D’s the better, I say. I’m an open minded guy!” Joey chuckled.

She furrowed her brow. “I mean Dungeons & Dragons, the game, why, what are you on about?”

Joey squeezed in closer so as to whisper in her ear. “Well, if you fancy coming down to my dungeon, I can show you my-“

“NOPE.” Caroline grabbed him by the ear and dragged him off the table, to the clear relief of the students. His ear was strangely wet, she noticed, but thought better than to ask. The less she knew about what Joey got up to when her back was turned, the better.

“Ow, gah, stop it, okay!” He whined. Caroline ignored him and continued to drag him back across to their table.

“We getting a bit jealous?”

“No, but your girlfriend might!”

“She’s not my- Y’know, we’re just having a bit of fun, lighten up Carrie!”

“Does she know that? She literally had a photo of you on her office desk yesterday when I called in!”

Joey stammered a little, taken aback by this revelation. “W-well, it’s not my fault if she’s happened to fall in love with me, I’m a loveable guy!”

Caroline dragged him up by the ear and slapped him round the face. ''How is his entire face wet? Ew!''

Standing up tall, Joey looked positively furious at this, a small purple vein bulging up above his temple. He could tell that every table away from the stage was staring at him now, and this was not a good look. He skulked back towards the table where Tom and Lauren sat in complete silence, avoiding eye contact.

“What’s up with you Carrie anyway? Since when did you give a shit about the sanctity of monogamy or any of that bollocks?!” Joey bleated.

“Well, when you start shagging our A&R rep the week after we finally manage to sign a deal, it becomes a vested interest of mine to make sure that you don’t fuck this up for us. And based on that appalling performance it’s a wonder she ever got within six feet of you anyway!” Caroline cleared her throat, the shouting had made her hoarse, not ideal considering she was about to go up onstage. “Get your shit together. We’re wanted backstage.”

***

The backstage area of Echo’s Cave was a rather unique space. Owing to its former functions as both a restaurant kitchen and a storage space for stolen and smuggled goods, it was one of the few places on Charos that contained both a broken, clogged up sink and a state of the art laser alarm system. It resembled less a holding space for bands to assemble their gear and more a high tech junkyard ruled over by some sort of hipster tramp. As Fridge Horror entered, the club’s manager, Fred Marken, greeted them one by one with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, stopping quickly before getting to Lauren. She tended to have that effect on people.

“Happy Birthday Caroline!” He bawled, in his unmistakeable southern drawl. “It’s all on me!” He pointed to four lines of Kanezuela’s finest cocaine spread out over a wooden chopping board. Tom uncomfortably backed away, as if he’d been presented instead with a live tarantula. As Caroline and Joey lowered their faces to the wood, Fred whispered in Caroline’s ear.

“I heard you’re a big shot now.”

Caroline looked up, confused.

“Don’t play coy with me, Carrie, I know about the deal. Four album option with Lash Recordings. I’m proud of you. I really am.”

“It’s only a tiny indie label.”

“Now you suddenly decide to get all modest.”

Caroline looked him straight in the eye. Fred’s nose was crooked, clearly the product of one too many drunken brawls. His skin was stretched thinly across his pale white face, what was left of his formerly silver hair now just the occasional wisp of brilliant white. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you”, she said, sheepishly.

“So exactly how much of a cut am I expecting?”

No beating around the bush, straight to the money. Caroline had expected nothing less. Fred had acted as their manager over the last few years. It had been a partially successful venture to begin with, securing them regular slots opening for much more well known bands at Echo’s Cave. But Caroline had grown more ambitious. Due to Fred’s tempestuous nature, not many of the other venue owners in Port Newton wanted anything to do with him, and those that did were soon put off upon learning of his extensive background in the criminal underworld. Wanting more gigs, Caroline had often had to book them herself, though that could also prove difficult for her with little industry name recognition.

“We decided to seek new representation. We never signed a formal contract, Fred.”

“Right.” Fred gritted his teeth. Caroline was hoping not to have this conversation until after they’d played. She had seen Fred when he was angry, and had no real desire to be on the receiving end.

“I’m sorry, Fred, and thank you for everything you’ve done for us. Really.” She grabbed his hand. A Hail Mary, really, a last ditch attempt to stop this from getting ugly. She turned her head away for a second. Joey was doing stretches, Lauren had proceeded to mop up all of the remaining lines of coke and was stood there facing the wall with her usual dead eyed stare, oblivious to the world around her. Her eyes darted around the room looking for Tom, but he was facing away, deep in conversation with the support bands guitarist. Ugh.

“Well I hope it works out for you.” Fred replied, gripping her hand tighter before letting it go.

“Thanks, Fred. Uh, means a lot.” Caroline breathed a sigh of relief as she backed away quickly, making a beeline straight for Tom.

“Just remember where you come from. Cos we won’t forget about you.”

Was that a threat? It was impossible to tell with Fred. Even his attempts to be polite normally sounded like a threat. She looked back over her shoulder, but he’d already walked off. Let’s just get through tonight.

Tom stood listening intently to the guitarist monologue endlessly about his various travels and conquests.

“The thing is, you can tell when you’re up there. You’re out there playing, just shredding this sick riff, and suddenly she’ll catch your eye, and you can see it in her eyes, you know she wants it. This thing here, see,” he points to his guitar “it’s like a magnet. Girls see it and instantly their underwear just falls off. It’s like magic!”

Tom nodded, stepping back a couple of paces, with his eyes fixed firmly to the floor.

“It’s like, even now, offstage, look!” The guitarist gestures towards Lauren, stood perfectly straight, her empty gaze pointed in his general direction. He walked a few paces closer, with Tom noting a certain swagger in his step. A wide, shit eating smile spread from one corner of his cheek to the other as he looked her up and down.

“Hey.”

“I can see the outline of your skull reflected in the whites of your eyes.” Lauren intoned, without thought or emotion.

The guitarist turned and walked away.

“Well, for all we know that could have been a chat up line coming from her!” Caroline laughed, sidling up to Tom.

Tom flashed her a smile. “How did it go with, y’know?” He gestured towards where Fred had been sat moments earlier.

“About as well as it could have done given the circumstances. We’re still playing the show and I have all of my limbs intact.”

“Well that’s a start!” Tom said enthusiastically.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable. Something tells me that this is far from the end of this bollocks.”

Tom weakly grabbed hold of her hand. Why do people keep insisting on holding my fucking hand?! He gave her a look the she was sure was supposed to be reassuring, but instead just resembled a kitten that had lost its toy. “It’s okay. I promise, I’ve got your back. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’re in this together!”

Caroline rolled her eyes and turned away, desperately trying not to laugh. She picked up a full glass of purple, downed it, and strode out onto the empty stage. ''Yup. We’re fucked''.