The Beginning of the End

"Where's 2D!" Murdoc yelled, rather than asked the question. "He was supposed to be here an hour ago!" The Satanist jumped off his stool and paced around the jerry-rigged recording studio in the basement of their apartment. The Gorillaz, after being reunited at long last, were doing what they did best: making music. Or they would have if the singer would finally show up.

"I haven't seen 'D all day," Russel said, absentmindedly fiddling with a slider.

"He did not come down for breakfast," added Noodle. She was glad to be recording music with her family again, but she always forgot how dysfunctional they were.

"Well, I'll tear him a new hole! Making me wake up at noon." Murdoc stomped upstairs in the flat they all shared, too worked up to take the disabled lift. From upstairs, Noodle could hear yelling and banging noises, culminating in a series of thuds. 2D bounced down the stairs, landing in a disheveled heap at the bottom.

Something about how the body settled at the bottom made Noodle uneasy.

"Yo, 'D, you all right?" Russel reached out his massive paws and set 2D on his feet. But he simply flopped down again, like a puppet with cut strings.

"'D?"

Noodle had seen bodies that fell like that before. Back a long time ago, when many bad memories were made. With a sickening intuition, she bent down and held 2D's wrist between her fingers.

"Ohh, my knees-," Murdoc muttered as he appeared down the stairs, only to be roughly lifted up by Russel.

"Muds, did you go and break 2D's spine! He ain't moving an inch."

"He has no pulse." Noodle's verdict chilled the room.

"You can't be serious. Murdoc, you've gone too far-"

"He's stiff, and cold. He's been dead for a while."

"He's really ..." Russel dropped Murdoc, his white eyes wide.

They stared at 2D's corpse on the ground. That still, Noodle could see how thin his wrists were. Fragile. Like bird bones. Like an awkward crane stalking the rice fields. Think about the crane. Not the death-bruised shoulders, blood pooling when it no longer moved. Purple and soft like bruised plum. Yes. Think about the plum. Don't think about anything else.

Murdoc stood up business-like, jerking Noodle from her spasmodic thoughts. "Right then, I'll need five white candles, a piece of chalk, Russel, grab the TV will ya?"

"What kinda bullshit are you trying to pull?"

Murdoc smiled with all his teeth. It stretched across his face awkwardly, like putty, Noodle thought. "If there's anyone among us that's an expert in dead souls, it would be me, yeah?"

With haste, Murdoc made the preparations for his otherworldly ritual. They'd cleared away a space on the wood floor and placed a clunky old TV with a broken antenna against the wall. Around the curled-up corpse of 2D, he drew a pentagram on the floor and lighted a candle at each point. He lit a whole box of cigarettes, along with a few wisps of blue hair, and stuck it in a bowl by way of incense. The fumes were choking.

The air was becoming heavier, filled with a presence more than their smoke. Noodle could feel her hair prickle with electricity. Each breath felt like it was dragged through syrup.

Finally, Murdoc took off his inverted cross and hung it on the TV's antennas. His chanting voice picked up an unearthly resonance, as if thousands of muted spirits were chanting along.

"Azaz, agasp, agog, agape. Spirits of the dark realm, hear my voice and obey. I call upon thee to deliver me the voice of the dead. Sashka, mudrah, alacrity."

Despite being unplugged, the TV picked up static, and then coalesced upon the image of a red-skinned lady in a business suit. In a cool, professional voice, she said,

"This is your operator speaking. Who are you trying to reach?"

"Stuart Pot. Stu-pot. 2D."

"One moment please." The demonic operator closed her eyes.

"That will be one long distance call to Heaven. How would you like to pay?"

"Err, put it on my tab."

"Of course, Mr. Niccals."

The TV cut to what seemed to be a wide, sunny field, in which 2D was sitting vacantly. His eyes closed, he looked to be just soaking up the sun.

"Helloooo, Earth to Dents!"

The blue-haired man noticed the call and bounded over. When his face filled his screen, Noodle saw that his eyes were no longer black holes, but had normal pupils in normal whites.

"Hello Muds! What are you doing in this puddle?" His beaming smile revealed the presence of two undamaged front teeth.

"What are you doing, dying without my permission!"

"Huh? I'm dead?"

"Where do you think you are, denthead, Narnia?"

"Oh, so that's what happened. That does explain the angels."

"How could you not even realize you've died!"

"Well, all I remember is taking a load of pills, going to bed, and then waking up here. I thought it was a dream or something."

"Just come back here. We're missing you already." Murdoc said in his most cloying voice, the same one he used to try and convince girls into his Winnebago. "All you have to do is say the magic words, and we'll stick you back in your body, good as new. You'll be like one of those zombies you've always liked, huh?" Murdoc gave a winsome smile, if sharks could be winsome.

2D pouted. "No. I'm not going back."

Murdoc's expression switched abruptly as a record scratch.

"What! I own your soul! Some people would kill for just another day of life, and here I am, offering you eternity! You ungrateful little dolt."

"I like it up here. It's nice and nothing hurts anymore. And I don't have to worry about you pushing me around all day."

Murdoc hooked in Noodle and pushed her to the screen. "C'mon, don't be selfish. Think of all the people you're leaving behind. Don't you see how sad Noodle is?"

Noodle looked at the limp, curled up body in front of her, and the beatific spirit on the TV, and her heart gave a funny little twinge.

"No, no, don't cry Noods. I can come back. I'll be fine," 2D warbled.

"No," Noodle sniffed. "It's not right. You should be where you're happy."

"Noodle is right," Russel said. "Once the reaper gets you, your time is up."

"Fine, be a bunch of sentimental pansies. I'm coming up there to drag you back myself."

The operator's voice came back on line. "I apologize for breaking up this touching reunion, but it seems your account is out of order, Mr. Niccals. This call will be charged collect."

2D screamed and clutched his face. His high-pitched voice was the sound of a soul being ripped apart. His eyes exploded, a shock of red running through his fingers. The gelatinous viscera ran through his fingers, leaving black hollows behind.

"Stop the call!" Noodle tore the cross pendant from the antenna.

The screen went black.

Thousands of people attended 2D's funeral, including not a few illegitimate children. Murdoc hooked up the whole thing to webcam, so fans from Armenia to Australia could pay their respects. Always the opportunist, he came up with a scheme of selling blue hair dye to grieving fans "et memoriam."

The coroner had found evidence of a bruised rib cage, mysteriously scrambled organs, and permanent brain trauma in Stuart's system, along with a copious amount of various painkillers in his system. Noodle noticed Murdoc passing a large sum of money for the doctor not to suspect foul play.

To others, the body would have looked as peaceful as sleep. The mortician was talented. But Noodle knew the dead. It rankled at her, the things that were off. No breath, no blush. No movement, no sound. She knew better.

Perhaps the knowledge that 2D's soul was still preserved in some form should have comforted her. Yet it did not.

Without their singer, the band was like a Geep with three wheels, all pulling in separate directions. While Russel upped his prescription aripiprazole, and Noodle helped 2D's parents get his estate in order ("How many child support payments!?"), Murdoc scrounged through 2D's most prized possessions for things he could hawk to desperate fans. About two weeks after the funeral, Murdoc disappeared abruptly, then came back a week later with a large suitcase. ("You wouldn't believe the trouble I had getting this through customs.")

Murdoc had gone all the way to Japan to "forcibly invite" one of the Japanese vocaloids, the blue-haired one, to be the new lead singer. ("You dumbass, you're disrespecting the fans." "All we need is a pretty face to put on the packaging, and they'll eat it up.") Noodle disliked it immediately. It had all of the stupidity, and none of the charm or lyrical talent of the original. It's constant simpering affection towards its programmed "master" Murdoc and whining after ice cream made her want to kick it in the face. Which she did, on several occasions, but that never left a dent in its metallic skull.

When Murdoc announced a farewell concert for 2D's death, she'd had it with his money-grubbing attitude. She would have nothing to do with this scheme. Russel agreed, and literally kicked him out of the flat. ("We can still be the Gorillaz! We'll just put 2D's face on a screen, use some fancy CGI. It'll be just like he's still alive.")

The two were vindicated when the "2D Memorial World Tour" was a resounding failure. Since neither the guitarist, nor the drummer was coming along, it turned into Cyborg Noodle, Vocaloid Kaito, and a drum machine. A mechanical chorus of robots.

Between mechanical malfunctions, Murdoc's chronic lack of sobriety, and the surprise visit the rest of the Vocaloids paid the concert to rescue their brother, critics panned the show as "A gross abomination of emotional exploitation", "not worth the ticket price" and "derivative and played-out."

Noodle followed the growing catastrophe with masochistic fascination. On television, she could see Murdoc growing more and more haggard as he tried to play damage control. ("Look, everything I did was for the music.") He was indeed looking his age more and more.

In the end, it was too much for one man to hold together. After the last concert, Murdoc disappeared for parts unknown, not even sitting for a final interview. There was nothing left of him but debts.

As the dirigible of the Gorillaz machine went up in flames, Noodle felt vindicated, in a hollow way, but mostly angry. Her moods swung like an unbalanced metronome. One day, she was full of nervous energy, visiting the local Neo-Nazi rally to collect samples. The next day, she threw them all out, smashing the CD's. Exhausted, she lay on the couch and diffidently plucked her guitar. Upstairs, the neighbor's radio played a medley of pop hits of yesteryear.

"Windmill, windmill, for the land-"

Noodle pulled out a gun and shot right at the heart of the noise. The radio went silent.

"Don't do that, baby girl, you'll give me a heart attack."

Russel, never one on the right side of sanity, was having a hard time keeping it together. He was constantly mumbling under his breath, whether a rap, or a prayer, Noodle couldn't tell. One day, he went out, said he was going out for groceries. He never returned.

Noodle filed a missing person report with the police, but she didn't go searching for him. She didn't call out from the rooftops. She didn't pull all her connections. She didn't make a cry for help online, where people might have listened.

She was too tired.