Hey, in this chapter, the guys hop on the tour bus and discover Ranekaera outside. Mostly, I'm just giving you a feel for what the main characters are like.
"Hey Guppie, where you want this bass drum? The space near the driver's seat's already
taken!" shouted the tour coordinator, Todd. They were lugging all the cases for
everything outside into the parking lot and Todd was having some difficulty figuring out
where to put everything. The storage compartment could only hold so much and the
equipment trucks were already full with the electronics and stuff, plus the rest of the
sound crew. The Destroyers almost never took on roadies, because of their sluttish
reputations.
My name is Flounder Drake, or Guppie, as everyone calls me. Throughout this story, I
will be the narrator, like it or not. I am 27 years old, I have no children, no girlfriend, I
am the drummer in this band and I will be your host tonight.
I took his other bass drum from Todd and lashed a few tentacles around it. I stuffed it
into the back of the tour bus' compartment and dusted my hands off, smiling at Todd.
God, I wanted a beer. My throat was all parched and my gills felt all mucky with the
mucous my body naturally secreted when I was overheated. It smelled like chlorine and
is considered B.O. in the monster world.
"Hey Guppie! C'mon, leave it to the crew, huh? Ya' want a beer?" shouted Freddy. I
snapped my head at the mention of a cold one and immediately flopped towards the bus
doors. I stopped short, however, when I spotted something that shouldn't have been there.
It was all white and from where I was standing in the slowly fading twilight, it looked
like a big puddle of bodily fluid. (no guesses what kind)
"What the…" I muttered, peering closer at it. My thick, spiky dreadlocks got in my
face and I impatiently brushed them away.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a girl, her body a pale bluish-white.. She
wasn't moving.
"Holy shit! Hey, Freddy!" I exclaimed.
Freddy poked his head out the window, his long, straight-as-paper hair falling out around
his shoulders, and said
"What?"
"There's a woman out here, halfway under the doors to the bus." I told him, a little
panicked. What if the woman was dead? I asked myself.
"So? Tell'er to go away before we call for security." Said Freddy, undaunted. He'd
washed all his makeup off and was playing with one of his lip rings.
"I think she's unconscious, dude. I think we should bring'er inside before she freezes
to death, she looks like she could be a reptile." I told him.
"What? Ohh, bring her in, but I'm telling you now, she'd better not be cute." He said,
half jokingly. Freddy was 26 and had a two year old little girl, Heather.
I stepped right up to the girl and gently swept her hair off her face. She was sprawled
there, as if she'd just collapsed on two legs, and her head rested on one of her
outstretched arms. She felt cold, although I noticed her skin was impossibly soft.
"Up an' at'em." I sighed as I bent down and carefully picked her top half up behind the
neck. Her head lolled and I had a good look at her face. Her eyes were closed and there
was a darkening bruise over one eye. In fact, it looked as if she'd been beat all over.
Bruises of varying shades littered her entire body and a few thin, shallow scratches here
and there signified that she'd fought back, and viciously so.
I picked her lower half up behind the knees and let her tail drag behind me, mingling with my tentacles behind, almost tripping me up. I carried her onto the bus and the twins
hurried over when they saw what I was carrying.
"Holy shit, who the hell is that?" exclaimed Kou, Adrian's not-too-bright brother.
"Dunno. She was laying half under the doors. Feel her, she's ice cold." I replied. I gently
set her down on one of the seats we'd had custom extended. The whole bus was custom
designed. The seats were mostly removed and the ones that remained had been modified
to form little half seats or full beds bolted into the floor. Freddy hurried over as well and
took one look at her and sighed.
"Why am I so vulnerable to women?" He asked sarcastically.. I laughed and elbowed
him with my lower arms.
"Maybe it'd just you're fame, Freddy. Y'know, that little dollar sign?" I teased.
"Aw, shut up, man." He laughed. Just then, Xavyer, or Blacky, padded out from the
bathroom on all six and sniffed the bundle in my arms. He recoiled, wrinkling his nose.
"She smells drunk." He said disgustedly.
Freddy bent forward and opened one of her eyelids.
"Her pupils are normal and the whites of her eyes aren't bloodshot or yellow, she's
sober. Feel her pulse, too." He observed. He had a little problem with drinking and was
working to stop, for Heather's sake if not his own.
"Whatever, dude. I'll be in my little area." said Blacky. He was always a little
withdrawn, unless he was drunk, in which case he was hilariously funny. For a guy his
size, that was good.
"I'll set her down over here, huh? Unless of course you smartasses would rather I just
hold her 'till she wakes up?" I said sarcastically. Freddy was getting a few beers out of the little porta-freezer we kept on board as I talked.
"Hey, yeah, that's be great, Guppie. Then when she wakes up and sees your ugly face,
she can slap you and we'll all have a good laugh." said Adrian, teasing me. I took a swing
at him with a free tentacle and he ducked, pulling his conjoined twin with him. Freddy
tossed the twins a beer and Adrian chugged his. Freddy took a drink and sat back in a
reclining seat.
I set her down as carefully as I could on one of the extended bed-like seats and stepped
back as her head moved a little.
"Hey, I think she's coming around." I said optimistically.
Just then, Mike poked his head in to say we had to leave for the next town if we wanted
to make it on time.
"But we got a little problem here. We found another passenger on the ground outside,
that is, Guppie found her." said Freddy, walking towards him. Mike sort of resembles a
frog on two legs with bright yellow and neon green spots and a kickass mohawk in
different colors. Despite his appearance, he was a pretty wise guy, always making sure
we were on time. He was made for the managing business.
"Age?" he asked.
"Well, she's unconscious at the moment, so we don't know. I'd say she looks
abooouuuut… eighteen or nineteen at the least." said Freddy. Mike looked thoughtful a
moment, then sighed, giving Freddy a reminding glance that clearly said 'we don't need
this again'. Once, Freddy had wanted to bring a friend along, and it'd ended with said
friend stealing money out of our budgets and taking off with it.
"Fine, but never again, Freddy. We don't need another incident like last time. I can squeeze her into the budget and call ahead to the hotel to make room for an extra body, so
get ready, we leave in about two minutes, whether the girl wants to go or not." He said
professionally.
He left and Freddy's brother Damon came on board. Damon is deaf and doesn't talk
very well, but he's really quite intelligent. One time, he even managed to fix a technical
problem with the bus' engine, something I could never manage to do without frying it
and myself in the process. Unlike the twins, I can't handle too much of my own
electricity.
Freddy and he exchanged thumb up and Damon started the bus with a loud roar. The
thrum of the engine could be felt all over and the girl made some sort of whimpering
sound. Freddy, the twins and I all turned towards her as we felt the bus warming up. The
doors closed and the radio came on, softly, but loud enough to hear.
"So what should we do with her?" asked Freddy.
"I dunno, why don't you screw her?" sneered Blacky. He's usually a little bitter about us
having relationships because he's so protective of us all. We're the only family he has
because he grew up in an orphanage since the age of about four. When he's not being
cold and uncommunicative, he's either reading or listening to his walkman.
"Shut the up, Blacky." Freddy snapped. He'd done that before, too, with the
previous roadie that'd apparently been easy on the eyes.
"Why don't we let her audition?" suggested the always- optimistic Kou. Kou loves his
brother, loves life and hates seeing anyone alone and friendless. Adrian hates that and
basically just wants to be left alone, although he does enjoy the attention that being
conjoined twins gets them.
"Maybe, if she can play anything. We don't need another drummer, but we could use
an extra singer or guitarist." Said Freddy, carefully picking her tail up and placing it in
her own arms. The end of it fell open to reveal very spiky fins, like a mermaid's tail. I bet
they were sharp and could be whipped open with the speed of a switchblade, as the ones
lining my back could.
Suddenly, the girl moved, slowly at first, then she began moaning and clenching her
fists.
"Hey, she's waking up!"
Hope you liked this chapter, although it was sort of long. In the next one, we find out what Ran's story is and why she was where she was.