So what's the song? The timer is ticking down and there's no other sound. Dr. Schmidt is frozen where he stands and the Garbage boy is pretending he's the bartender and it's a rush. He mumbles to himself, "I need to wash these glasses. We're running low." and pops open the dishwasher.
Schmidt fears that so much as speaking could interfere with Jo's game. Maybe this isn't a test for him per say but he's still the front man and he can't simply abandon her. What's the song?
Does she truly not remember?
Hot stuff. Oooh you like it rough.
When I put it on you you never get enough...
Her eyes droop as she looks down at the guitar in her hands. She remembers the feeling. What ever song it was it's not one she listened too when she was happy. He knows. The Garbage boy remembers what song. He was there and it's no cowboy shin dig. It's a jet black crusade on a ship where the needles find your veins and no she was never a junkie but she partied with them. She partied with him. They past the blunt back and forth in groups of about ten that by midnight were down to just them two. Needles pull you under faster than cannabis and by daylight at least one or two wouldn't wake up.
He blames her? No. He distrusts her? No. He loves her? Not possible. Not the right equipment down below. Then what?
If your looking for a fright and you want to do it right
come on turn off the lights.
come on turn off the lights.
He heaves a sigh, "Table 102 needs to be cleaned." and grabs an empty bottle from the clutches of a spider web as well as a dingy old rag that was white once upon a time. Schmidt looks down at the younger man at the table behind him. Air comes out of the bottle and the rag smears what appears to be blood on the table.
He's in shock. There's blood on his forearms. This young man survived a test too.
Schmidt feels like he too could slip into the haze at any moment. That line between sanity and ludicrous is thin. He furrows his brow and speaks softly, "Jo. Do you know this man?"
She raises her head to the light and her face is wet with tears. Arm rises to shield the light and she sees him moving on to 'clean' another table. Her eyes widen and she screams. The garbage boy looks up at her and suddenly the both of them are back in their spots a year before the pandemic. She's on the stage with Whisky Business singing what would turn a wholesome honky tonk into a savage mosh pit. The lead singer, himself, mouth on her neck as she whistles out a high note that sends pink daggers into the chest of a boy who can't hear the soundtrack to 'Home' in his earbuds over the power she holds.
Bottles smashed, he'd have to clean that up. Vomit at table 213, better get the mop bucket. Is that man at table 16 eyeing me? Would he fuck me in the bathroom? Prolly not, the breeders got to it first. Downstairs bridal shower. The damsel herself is being split open on the floor of the men's room by two gentleman she just met and the maid of honor has is it on video. That'll be a solid six grand easy on Onlyfans. 'I wouldn't want to fuck him anyway. He doesn't look like he knows when to stop.'
Kim Petras? At a honky tonk? Are you serious, these frat boys and jocks have so much drugs in their system the slightest synth feels like sex in the ass and that's a secret excitement for them. This garbage boy wants to burn this place to the ground tonight but the upstairs trash bins are overflowing and he needs the money.
The strobe busted. The scream filled his chest and he turns to look at the stage but it's him they're after. Shadows. A lot of them. He hasn't punched out yet but the third floor corridor is empty and one of these monsters figured out the passcode for the door at the end of the hall. It was going to be a long night for a garbage boy. He thought for sure they'd look away in disgust but his eyeliner smears and they devour him anyway and remind him of his repulsive archive through their words and demeanor.
Through the blur of the violence and the music and the throbbing, pulsating, slick shafts choking him he sees someone in the door way he recognizes. A woman in a mans business suit. Wide baby bump, ear piece, and perfect hair. She pulls the door shut and somewhere along the line he blacks out.
The flashback ends and he's got his eyes locked on her.
Was quarentine a reprieve from life? No. It felt like a cage. No way out. Repetitive nightmares of people vanishing and being completely alone. You'd think he'd love the solitude. Four walls and a roof is imprisonment in his mind. A break from the job was nice but there was no freedom. No where to run. So yeah. He's here.
With her.
"Yes." She says and a surge surfaces every blue vein in her neck as the styrups send a surplus through her skin.
"Hey!" Snaps fingers, "Dr. Torres."
Bailey walks up to the bone doctor she rehired while they look for the missing Dr. Kim.
"Good morning to you too Dr. Bailey." She smirks as she raked over some charts in her arms.
Dr. Bailey explained to her what she'd found in the envelopes was very, 'urgent'. Requested that Dr. Torres keep it between them and that they be the only two doctors 'on the case'.
Dr. Torres immediately picked up on this and nodded fervently. Her free arm outstretched in the direction of the elevator and they took it down to the morgue. Every floor was like the sudden dropping of your heart into your stomach as they descended deeper into the earth. Dr. Torres knows her way around a saw and is very confident in her skills as a surgeon but when Dr. Bailey handed her the tool and said, "let's get to work" her knowledge became very short.
"Dr. Bailey I'm not sure I understand." Calliope tried to reason with her chief in such a way that wouldn't cost her the job. Money was low right now in her field back in New York and this was what kept her family from crashing in the market.
Miranda Bailey clasped her hands together and shut her eyes, "I need you to help me with a puzzle." one eye opened as she examined the befuddled woman before her, "A puzzle that requires both general and bone surgery to be preformed on these cadavers."
"Dr. Bailey we don't have constent."
"I'm giving consent!" She snapped in a way that made Dr. Torres feel the need to back away from a woman holding a bone saw, "This is my hospital. I'm the chief. I say what happens in tight situations and I've been given a puzzle. Are you going to help me solve it or not? Dr. Torres? I can just as easily cut open each one of these- p-p-patien- people. Each one of these people- human beings- people myself."
Tears. She doesn't cry often but when she does it's serious.
She dropped the bone saw and brought her hands to her face to weep, "We went to med school together."
Dr. Torres knelt down to pick it up and placed her free hand on Dr. Baileys right shoulder, "Miranda. I'm here. You're not alone. I'll help you."
A sound came from the door. The sound of an older gentleman clearing his throat. The two of them turned to look at Dr. Richard Webber standing in the door way, "How can I help?"
Midnight
Under moonlight.
Chills down your spine
Fear in your eyes.
The Garbage boy climbed up onto the table closest to the stage with the words on his lips and she looked up at him in fear. What was he playing at? She remembered something. This something he would not remember. He couldn't. He was in a state that most repress from their minds after it's happened.
Yet here he is trying to help her and her fingers can't help but naturally pluck the strings. Schmidt stares in utter confusion as she's never once showed interest in any kind of hobby that wasn't surgery or knitting.
Feeling malicious
Heard you like it viscous.
All your dirty wishes
We were made to do it.
In unison she harmonized with him, Come on...
Only she stung the landing and her styrups sent another jolt through her body. It wasn't until now that she questioned her decision to join OB.
The timer had gone by so much quicker than it should seem and she felt like it was no use. Only the Garbage boy wouldn't give up. Why? Why would this young man go out of his way for her after what happened.
Flash back!
seven Am. Summer night 2019 Rod's couch. The last of their weed was in the single rolled joint these two were handing back and forth to soft music way off in the background and among friends who were unconcious and probably OD from much worse stuff.
"Why do you think such good people come from such dirty places?" She asked as she reached it back to him and looked out the window.
He snickered as he took it from her, "In the bottom of the pyramid and still facing trauma that is reserved for those in the middle and on the top humbles the spirit I suppose."
"In the trauma we learn." She said.
He nodded, "In the trauma we learn." and through his nose came the smoke that whisked away this memory to bring forth the one where she found him in the dumpsters out in the ally behind the restaurant on her walk to her car.
It was the jingle on his cell phone that got her attention which would usually make a person run and call the cops but when she heard Rhianna's, "I want to dance in the dark.' playing a sort of urgency consumed her and she was dragging his bloody beaten body out among the rotten lettuce and sludge that used to be bread.
He barely opened his eyes for a second to see her face and during this time she was going by the name, "Madeline Christine."
Even when she wasn't preforming he knew that was a fake name. He knew she had another life. That all of this was her true self trying to escape whatever reality she had come from because he too did that. Traveled under false aliases to try out new ways of life, "I'm going to help you."
He couldn't remember that could he?
Looking down at her from his position on the table he spat the phrase at her, "SING!"
She nodded.
Are you curious enough to taste it
to taste it.
He jumped on the stage and the hum of the electric base in his clutch signified he had plugged it in.
If you're looking for a fright!
And you wanna do it right!
Come on. Turn off the lights.
Come on. Turn off the lights!
If you wanna take a bite
Wanna see the dark side.
Come on. Turn off the lights.
Come on. Turn off the lights!
The stage blacks out and the curtains drop. Suddenly Schmidt's all alone and the sound of screams tells him he's got to move on alone...