Boring Girls(105)

I don’t really remember the show — it was one in a line of many — but I do remember feeling bad for the kids at this show because they’d had to line up outside the club and it was just such a shitty neighbourhood to have to be in. I don’t think Chris watched the show that night; I don’t remember — f*ck, I guess it’s all just eclipsed by what happened after.

I was sitting on the bus after midnight, Toad and Socks playing some video game, Edgar and Timmy watching a movie in the back lounge. Fern wasn’t on the bus — she’d stayed back in the venue to use the phone or wash up or something, and Roger wasn’t going to be there until around 4 a.m. because it was only a few hours’ drive to the next venue. He was at his hotel room.

So everything seemed pretty normal. I had changed into shorts and a black T-shirt and was watching Toad and Socks’s game, then I decided to go for a cigarette. Toad, hammering controller buttons, didn’t take his eyes off the screen as I put on my hoody. “Don’t leave the lighted areas of the parking lot,” he warned. “And go into the venue, tell Fern to get her ass on this bus. I don’t want to have to spend my night chasing after any of you.”

Yeah, you look real worried. “Whatever,” I said. I stepped off the bus, my eyes sweeping the dark parking lot. I noted with irritation that Ripsawdomy’s bus was already gone, and I’d had no interaction with Chris the whole day. Gurgol’s bus was parked next to ours, shades drawn. Light flickered from within — it looked like the band was watching TV or something.

I walked behind our bus, my eyes scanning the dark lot. We’d parked beneath the one light in the lot, which in my opinion sort of made us sitting ducks. I sat on a curb just beyond the light with my back to a brick wall and lit my cigarette.

To my left was the back of the venue and a short alley that led to a street. To my right about fifteen feet away was another dark building and a dark alley that I couldn’t see the end of — it loomed like a long dark mouth. I stared at that alley for a few moments, trying to see farther inside of it, but I couldn’t make anything out. My skin crawled, goosebumps rising on my arms despite the hot night air. I reassured myself that I would have plenty of time to run onto the bus if anyone came loping out of that alleyway towards me.

I resolved to smoke faster than I would normally, and as I puffed, I gazed at the back of the venue. I noticed that all the lights were dark — the back door was closed. Wasn’t Fern still in there? The finality of that closed door, the stillness of the lot, gave the impression that the venue had been closed for a while.

Where the f*ck was Fern?

Fear knotted my stomach. I actually felt it wrench and contort hideously as my mind tried to figure out where she could be. I felt my whole body break into a sweat, soaking my shirt, and my eyes darted around the shadows of the parking lot. My growing panic was only compounded by the noise that I heard next, the sound that floated gently from the dark chasm to my right.

“Hey.”

I was on my feet, frozen, my every sense attuned directly to that alleyway, my breath ragged, my eyes unblinking and straining into that dark gap, feeling like they could burst out of my skull.

“Rachel? Come here.”

I swallowed, my mouth dry. It was Fern. I had no idea what she was doing in that alley. She didn’t sound hurt, she sounded excited somehow, like she’d found something. I took a tentative step towards her voice.

“Hurry.”

My eyes adjusted as I got into the darkness, and I could make out a few overflowing trash cans and a figure that I guessed was Fern. She was standing over a pile of garbage. The whole alley smelled horrible, like old booze and rotten food, and I smelled sweat, probably mine.

“What’s going on?”

“Shhhhh.” She leaned in and continued in a low voice. “I need your help.”

“Okay.” I waited for her to continue, my eyes wide and dry, trying to absorb everything they could in the darkness. She was still wearing her show clothes, and she had an excited energy to her and seemed jumpy and fidgety.

“Look.” She gestured down to the pile of trash she was standing above.

Confused, I looked down and realized that it wasn’t a pile of garbage at all — Fern was standing above a guy. He was lying on his back and I noticed he was shaking slightly, his eyes bulging as wide as mine felt, glaring up at us.

“Whore,” he croaked, and Fern pulled back and kicked him — in the side of the head — hard. His head snapped to the side and he groaned.