Scream

Scream

Started: November 12, 2008

Edited from Original: January 30, 2009

Finished: April 11, 2009

Of course, there always will be darkness but I realize now something inhabits it. Historical or not... things much more akin to a Voice, which though invisible to the eye, still continues to sweep through us all.

-Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Inhale all the air you could possibly fit in your lungs because this is your last gulp of life. Lock it all in you with your diaphragm and don’t let any of it come out. Feet firm on the floor, close your eyes and block out every sense in your body, you must treasure your last moment on Earth. It couldn’t get worse than this.

Then, in looking back, in observing the moments before the present, you realize the air you’ve inhaled is poisoned, something about the taste and also the weight of it in you. The air is contaminated, it’s killing every bit of you as time goes on, the filth in that air is now scattering inside your body, merging itself with your being. You let it all out of your system, but slowly and firmly because the air is heavy inside of you. The air scratches your throat, greater and greater pressure escapes you lungs, but it’s not flowing out fast enough, so you try to push more air out with your throat, you need to stay alive, you’ve got more to do on this earth, and so you scream. Scream, in order to live, you must scream, to let it all out.

Scream.

“Ants, we are living, and ants, we shall die,

Working for the dying queen.

Ants, we are living, and ants, we shall die,

Following the long line to the grave.”

Everything was a blur in this bar tonight as my band and I performed our original song, “Black-and-Red Traffic.” I viewed the earth as a shaking vertigo, never at stable, completely frizzy. Everyone was screaming as I screamed my lungs out to the world. My heart was pounding like a ticking time bomb, and the sweat crawled on my body with clawed hands. If I could smile, I would, but that wouldn’t fit the image of the vocalist of a black metal band.

I was a screamer, a singer who knew how to manipulate his voice to sound like a wolf. This was my life, my hobby, my passion. My band was my family, and every bit of my will worshiped the god of Music.

I had been an atheist since childbirth, my dad wasn’t present to guide me to a belief, and my mom was too busy ironing clothes to take me to church. All throughout my life, I had never even thought about the existence of a God; I just happened to have been born, a simple case of chance and probably luck, nothing else, no working of some divine and omniscient being. What would happen three hours from now would change all of my beliefs.

Because three hours from now, I would be playing with the devil.

The devil loves ironies; he takes pleasure at the sight of mute activists and masturbates at images of blind painters. I bet he was laughing when I had the life of Matthew McCarthy, my drummer, in my hands.

I was up the balcony overlooking the top floor. A long hour of running through the endless and mocking corridors of this run-downed building led me up here. Fatigue forced me to lean on the tilted ledge of this balcony, and this was when I felt something wrong about the place. It was as if the building led me in here. I could smell the same scent as before when I saw the horrific creatures she summoned from below the Earth. I could hear her every word as I recalled every faint detail about the beginning of this horror:

She said, in a voice that gnawed at our ears, “Run my friends, for tonight we’ll play a game, not with men nor with rats nor with cockroaches. Tonight we’ll play with the weavers of despair, the conjurers of terror, the bellmen of death – I do not guarantee that they’ll play fair, what is fair is for us to decide. Tonight, we think it fair to give you ten seconds to run ahead, gather together, spread apart, we don’t care, we just care if you’re dead.”

She murmured a chant that gradually increased as she said it. Given a different scenario, we would have thought it to be silly, gibberish pronounced by some drunk girl, but tonight was different. As we heard it, our instincts instantly tried to pull us away from her. We knew she was serious with what she said.

So we ran.

Hero, my bassist, ran near enough to me to be seen. I looked in his face and I saw a terror that was as memorable as a childhood rape. I couldn’t believe what had happened at first, but her loud chants reassured me.

Down a dark hallway, Hero and I ran for our lives. I wasn’t sure of what stuff were ahead of us, just darkness, pitch black, glaring. I looked back at her for a second, and I saw her creatures. I knew I wasn’t going out of here the same as I was before when I saw them.

They were mole-like creatures, with teeth as sharp as knives, ears like tower spires from the dark ages. They emitted a dark smoke as they slithered around. I couldn’t see their eyes so I assumed they depended on the sense of hearing. And worse of all, they let off a putrid smell of dried blood and cum. I could have vomited but I was afraid of ceasing to run.

Their smell was what terrified me as I saw Matt below me. I knew her demons were somewhere up in this floor. I could smell them.

Matt fell, stood up, stumbled again, stood up once again, and fell head first once more. He was like a child that was running from his greatest fears; heck, it was his greatest fears he was running from, but I could see something childish in his face: it was as if he longed for some parental comfort but could not find it. He uttered notes of despair and fright as he scouted the area.

“Hey Matt! HERE! I’M HERE!” I shouted. Not really – I would have shouted that, I wanted to, if weren’t for her demons around us, watching us, waiting for us to give them a hint on where we were. Then again, it was not only that, no, I hated Matt too. He brought us into this. By letting her enter his life, we fell into the grave as well.

She was a fox: hourglass curves, skin as white as human bone, a gigantic set of boobs; but she brought an air of mystique upon us that we could not trust her with anything.

We met her outside a recording studio one night. She was shivering like she was stranded on icy tundra; her sweater didn’t seem to provide enough heat for her. Matt, being a desperate but luckless lovebug, thought to give her his sweater in exchange to the opportunity to talk to her.

“Thanks,” she said, “The taxi I called seems to be running a bit late.”

Matt replied in a solid voice a bit alien to us, “Maybe there’s a fire somewhere in town, something must slow the taxi down ‘cause people here rarely ask for a cab at 3 am.”

“Maybe...”

There was a brisk silence in the scene after this, something I wanted to break up by laughing at how Matt was being such a gentleman and slightly veering to failure at it.

Matt tried his best to make a comeback, “So what kept you here until 3 am anyways?”

“Oh, I’m the cousin of Francis Marasigan,” she said. Frank owned the studio we recorded in.

“You’re Frank’s cousin?”

“Yeah.”

“Woah, you’re the last person I’d think of to be related to Frank.”

“Why?”

“Nothing... probably... probably... your eyes, they’re blue, Francis’s are just plain bland. And oh, don’t tell your cousin about this but he’s a bit overweight.”

She snickered; it was like any normal snicker would be, except that there was an undertone sounding below it that hinted who or what she really was. Second clue I missed that could have saved us from the mess we would soon meet. She replied, “Yeah, Frank’s got a large beer belly down there.”

The conversation continued on like a turbulent airplane, dropping off to lower humorous lines by Matt to compliment her and sometimes flying up towards her laughing and getting amused to him. It lasted for about ten minutes outside the studio until our bassist, Hero, retrieved his car from a far away parking lot and got us.

One part of the conversation struck me but fatigue let it slip. It was when Matt asked her why she was waiting outside if she was Frank’s cousin.

This met a reluctant change-of-mood in her face. Her blue eyes no longer sparkled but rather ignited. It was clue number three for me.

Matt was about to let it pass when she replied, “I arrived from New York a bit late, so I missed Frank by about an hour. Bad thing is I realized that when I got here and paid the taxi. I didn’t think you guys would be in it. I called for a taxi to come fetch me back but as you can see it still hasn’t come yet.”

It was a plausible excuse, corroborated with the fact that Frank trusted us enough to leave the studio for ourselves should we want to stay late in it.

Anyways, as we were about to get into the car, Matt, without even asking permission from Hero, asked her, “Hey, where are you staying? We could drop you off.”

“That would be great, but I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s too intrusive.”

“You’re afraid of getting mugged slash raped slash sacrificed for some sadistic ritual aren’t you? Well, not all metalheads are perverted kleptomaniacs who worship the devil you know.”

Which was the time when she laughed her regular-but-not-so-regular-laugh: Clue number four. She finally agreed to ride with us, telling Hero that she was staying at some run-down motel in Hawthorne.

The ride to there was tacit. Matt was in charge of introducing everyone to her at the start, but everyone fell silent on the sleepy road to her motel. Funny, after we introduced ourselves to her was the only time we knew her name. Matt was that desperate for romance.

Her name was Corinne. She came from the Big Apple where her work was costume designing for musicals and theatre plays. Her telling of her life was a bit brisk, touching only on the usual bio-data stuff like her address, family, etc. I didn’t realize how easy it was to make it all up.

After we met Corinne, it all went downhill with Matt. He would come late during band practice or if he did go, he would come unprepared. There was one incident I couldn’t forget about where Matt and I almost had a fight. I guess I couldn’t tolerate things that kept me waiting, especially ones that wasted what you’ve been practicing for. My other band mates, they were a bit lenient on Matt, always giving him a chance until next week. One night he ignited me so bad because he didn’t only come late, he also came half-drunk and a bit high on weed too. We could all tell by his beat, it wasn’t due to lack of practice, it was lack of sense of self. His beats were bombs on our ears. So I shouted at him, “Fuck, Matt, what the hell’s wrong with you? You come late to practice with half a conscious mind! You’ve been doing this to us for weeks now.”

He replied, groggily, his drunkenness high in tone on his voice, “I’m sorry man, I’ll try harder, I swear I’ll try harder.”

“No, you won’t. Not unless Corinne gets out of your life.”

“Now, why include this, why do you include this, her, to our argument?”

“Because it’s fucking obvious what she’s doing to you.”

“What she’s doing to me is my business, you shouldn’t mind us.”

“I have the right to mind you because you’re my band mate, what happens to you, affects the band. More than that, I have the right to mind you because you’re a friend.”

“You’re being a hippie, what you are. You just can’t accept that I have a girlfriend now too.”

“I don’t give a shit if you have a girlfriend, Matt. Goddamnit. It’s what she’s doing to you! Look at yourself! She’s a bad influence to your life. Snap out of it. She’s like a devil, you know? She doesn’t bring you anything but bad stuff.”

And this was when all hell broke loose. Matt grumbled, “SHE’S NOT A FUCKING DEVIL, YOU POWER-HUNGRY CONTROLLING TIGHT-ASS FAGGOT.” He then threw one of his drumsticks at me. Of course, this infuriated me as well.

The fight was a gruesome one, even though it lasted for less than a minute. I had scratched my left arm, and Matt got a bruise on his left cheek. Good thing it was only that and nothing more, thanks to my band mates.

Matt did not want me calling Corinne the devil because he knew it was true but was too desperate for love that he kept denying it. He was the self-centered asshole, and he should pay for getting us all in trouble. He deserved this paranoia he’s experiencing. Good luck with him in this pitch black hell, I would find my own way out.

Just as I turned my back away from the balcony, Matt spoke, a mere whisper not loud enough for the mole-demons to sense. “He-hey I know, I know, you’re out there, please, I’m sorry for doing this to you, I really am. If only I could turn back time... I shouldn’t have loved her, I shouldn’t have loved anyone.”

This reminded me that Matt was the only one in the band who did not have a girlfriend. He was the band clown, the sociable person but never the romantic person. It was not his fault that he was desperate; we all want someone to love.

To heck with my life, I needed to say sorry for blaming him.

“Matt... I’m here,” I whispered as I leaned over the balcony railing. My heartbeat was pounding like a death-metal bass line, and I knew he couldn’t hear my whisper. So I tried to make my call louder.

And louder, and louder, and louder...

Until Matt said, “Corgan?” loud enough that it echoed through the crevasses of this collapsing balcony. I twitched as the echo crawled into my ears. We were dead meat. I heard the mole-demons approaching.

A miraculous thing happened though: a gunshot boom pervaded through the floor, I knew someone shot a gun at something a floor below.

The mole-demons’ approach ceased and I heard their slither going towards the opposite direction. They’re going after whoever shot that bullet, giving me time to shout at Matt.

“Matt! I’m going ahead, think Vedder’s in trouble. Stay here, I’ll come back for you, just stay there, okay?”

I ran as fast as I could after through the velvet darkness of this room. I followed through hearing the slither of the demons and I could see a bit of their outline.

They led me to a round room lit by candles. It was ornate with portraits of dead people all around it. It was my first time to see real light in an hour so my eyesight was blurred, but I can see Corinne’s figure ahead of me.

“You think you can kill me with a bullet?” she says, more sounding like a man on steroids than ever. “That’s stupid, that’s dumb, that’s... blasphemy.”

I heard Vedder’s voice then. The strength and fullness of his voice told me he was not afraid. He was ready to fight Corinne with all his might. Vedder said, “Fuck you Corinne, by the name of God I swear, you’ll pay.”

Vedder shot again, flashing a great light upon the room and unto my eyes.

Corinne, infuriated, scream, “God? HAHAHAHA. We beat God in a poker game! We own your souls now.” Corinne walked leniently towards Vedder, laughing.

“What are you going to do to me?” Vedder asked, his voice wavering.

“I can’t do anything to you. Demon’s pact. All I can do, though, is fuck up your mind.”

“You... you can’t....”

Vedder screamed, a mixture of moaning and crying. Corinne was tinkering with his mind and bringing back awful memories. As she was doing so, the mole-demons joined in with the screaming as well.

The room shook as if there was an earthquake, trembling with cacophonous terror. I couldn’t take Vedder’s screams, I must stop Corinne. I started at her, running with all my might and hope.

But then, Matt bumped me away and ran after her.

Everything happened so brisk, one moment Vedder was screaming, then the next, Matt came in like a hostile tiger, strangling Corinne.

Corinne’s face as I watched her was relaxed as if she was only a very lifelike doll. Her eyes were focused onto Matt’s; I knew she was convincing Matt to stop what he was doing.

“No... No... NO... I won’t, you bitch! You’re the desperate one now, huh?”

I wondered how Matt could continue strangling her while Vedder’s bullets didn’t even hurt her one bit. I knew then that Matt had the power because it was his game. The devil does not have the power to kill us; he has the power to convince us to kill ourselves.

“You really going to kill me, Matt? Your only love, your passion, your key to being in with your friends, Matt? Why don’t you kill them instead? They alienated you, they didn’t want you to love.”

“No, shut up!” Matt screamed, a proper black metal scream of ululating bass and strong air push. I felt Matt’s courage as his scream resonated through the room. His voice bounced off the abandoned walls of the building to the roof where it crashed down the floor like the sound of cymbals. The echoes lasted for about five seconds, and after that, pure silence.

Corinne stared at Matt for a long time, breaking the silence the moment everything was still. She whispered, “Then, goodbye.”

A big flash of light covered the room. It had no sound, or nothing that could be audible amidst the mole-demons’ screams. I tried to see, but I only retrieved outlines of my band mates: Vedder was standing amazed at what Matt was doing, Hero was lying on the floor (Still breathing, thank God), and Matt was standing up with enormous power, affirming it as he held his first and probably last love’s throat. I covered my eyes; the room got too bright. The heat was so intense I felt that my skin was peeling off of me. I guessed this was it, my final moment on Earth.

After five seconds, it was all over. We were once again surrounded by darkness. Our sighs and breaths were the only audible sounds, but I could hear Corinne’s scream as she plummeted back down to hell. Or was it really hers and not our desperation? After all, when desperation hits us, we try to find the quickest way to assure ourselves. Maybe it was just our hope of her gone that was the scream.

-End-