Chapter 7
One Step Forward...
"Ok, so I can probably get you all a venue two hours from here in a month." Jackie taps through options on her phone as she sits on the edge of a table in the band's usual diner. "There'll be enough time for two sets of five. Not very big, but a solid start, and I can probably pull a premiere headline spot for you if I pull a few strings. Recording there shouldn't be a problem, the place has great acoustics. Abandoned subway station that gets cleaned out consistently. They never completed constructing the route, and it got abandoned before the tunnel could even be opened on that end."
Gregg grins and slams the table. "It's perfect! I can already see the video!" He turns to Lori. "Think we can greenscreen the end to include us walking into what should be the tunnel and having it open up and light up for us?"
"O-Oh, um…" She hums and bites her lip. "Well… m-maybe? I'll have to s-see it for myself first."
Jackie stares for a moment, but sighs and sets her phone down. "Am I.. making you uncomfortable somehow? You've seemed really on edge whenever I talk."
Lori flinches, her ears falling as she stares down at the table. "I-I just… um… I've never m-met anyone like y-you before. I… d-didn't know…"
Jackie smiles softly. "Didn't know it was possible, right?" Lori nods shakily. "Well, I suppose I'm not too surprised, living out here. But yeah, I'm trans. It's not that uncommon. Just not talked about much in a lot of old-fashioned places. I mean, a lot of your friends here are unconventional from this town's perspective."
Gregg dramatically sprawls across Angus. "Gay as hell and just as hot!"
Mae shrugs. "I'm pan. Don't matter to me if you're guy, girl, neither, both, or whatever." She smirks over to Bea. "Though I guess I do lean a certain way."
Bea blushes and looks away, huffing. "Well, I suppose I've come to terms with being… well, not gay. I think demi? Both romantically and sexually, I think. Still figuring it out."
Jackie hums. "That actually would explain a lot."
Germ cuts in. "I'm neither. And aro-ace. No romance for me, thanks. I'm fine just being Germ."
Jackie raises a hand for a fistbump, and Germ gladly gives it.
Lori is a bit quieter than usual for a moment, eyes darting around, but not focusing on anyone, as most can tell. Jackie notices Lori's eyes settling on her a few times, though. "How did you… know?"
Jackie slowly smirks. "Good question. Everyone figures it out differently. But usually, the biggest thing is just circumstances you're uncomfortable with or were surprised or even scared you were ok with slowly planting the idea in your head until it becomes pretty obvious. Might not even realize when you figured it out until someone asks something relevant, and the answer just comes more naturally than you could have expected."
Bea slowly looks Lori over. After all the rides she's given the mouse, their budding sibling relationship, the long talks in the car, a lot of little things about them have started to click. Now, a big piece of the puzzle is falling into place. She reaches out to rub the mouse's back. "Something on your mind?"
"… I… I think I might be…" He gulps nervously. ".. a L-Lawrence..." He jumps as Mae places a hand on his shoulder, peeking up in shock to find their smiles. Every one of them, just grinning gently and genuinely.
Mae pats his shoulder and nods in approval. "Well it's great to finally meet you… Lawrence Myers."
He slowly tears up and almost sobs, but forces it into a laugh after a few moments. "T... T-Thank you! I… I-I never thought I… I-I could ever say that!"
Jackie shrugs it off. "A lot of us don't at first. And I'm proud of you for taking the leap. Now, do ya want us to just call you Lawrence, or Larry?"
"O-oh, um…" He clears his throat and tries wiping those tears away. "I-I guess… Law? It sounds kinda cooler and less… backwoods than Larry."
Gregg nods. "Way cooler. Might be the coolest name in our whole crew, actually. No offence, Germ."
"None taken, you're right."
Law laughs softly, still trying to fight off tears, and largely failing. "T-Thanks, guys. I-I just…" he bites his lip. "It's… gonna be tough telling my d-dad."
"I can give you a few pointers." Jackie passes him a card with her number on it. "Biggest thing is whether you trust him to support you whether he understands or not."
".. I…. I think he would." Law sighs in relief. "he's just been through a lot, and I'm worried about this being too much for him. Suddenly finding out his daughter is his son."
Angus shakes his head. "You were always his son, you just didn't know it yet. As for the rest of the town… Not sure what to expect. I mean, didn't all the most vocal homophobes and transphobes die in the mines?"
Mae shrugs. "Their ignorant kids didn't, but most of them have sorta gone silent since. I'd say it's mostly safe. People will be confused, but hey." She shrugs and grins. "You've got us backing you, and my aunt as the chief. You're in good hands."
Law stares wide-eyed for a moment. "… When you put it that way, I'm glad I didn't realize this before the cave-in."
Jackie snorts. "So, back on topic. You guys are shooting a music video. You can definitely shoot part of it as the end of your second set at the gig I'm booking. When we're done there, I can help you spread the video. It'd be best if you made a youtube account for the band ahead of time and handed out cards to it at the show, with a couple simple recordings of some of your other songs already on there."
Bea hums and sits back. "Well, I can think of a few we could do that with. Take us less than a week to do that."
"Easily." Law nods. "Recording quick practice sessions of each song and editing them for youtube would take minutes. But we should probably drag it out a bit and use different sets. Maybe do one of those songs at each other place in town we were already gonna record Die Anywhere Else at for the video?"
Mae grins. "Weird Autumn in the woods behind the Hartley's house."
Gregg scratches his chin. "How about Pumpkin Head Guy in the flooded tunnel?"
Angus nods. "What should we do in the old stage our equipment's still in, then?"
Law waves him off. "Got it covered, I recorded Hole at the Center of Everything."
Bea smirks. "Nice. Think that should do it, then?"
"Well, we still have a couple others." Gregg smirks. "If we really wanna get people's attention, you could sing Red Winder from the top of the apartments with our backs to the river. Putting a gay love song up on the channel should get a lot of attention."
Bea and Mae turn red, but Jackie slams her hand on the table with a wide grin. "That's the smartest thing I've heard in this entire town."
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Once again, Bea drives almost on autopilot on her way out to the tracks, with Law fidgeting in the passenger's seat. Tonight, that fidgeting is less pronounced, but nonetheless tense. She can certainly get why. It's not easy to address the sort of thing he's going to shortly. As the small, one-story house in the backwoods of town comes into view, Bea slows to a stop and puts on her brakes. "Ya know… I can come in with you this time. If that'd help."
Law bites his lip, weighing his options. "Um… M-Maybe? I mean… I know my dad likes you. He appreciates all you do for me. But… If this doesn't go well and you're part of it, he… h-he might change his mind about you really quickly."
Bea hums and drums her fingers on the steering wheel, unconsciously tapping out a song she's writing about her own father. "… Maybe… but I don't think your dad's the type to do that. He's desperate to reconnect with you, I can tell. He just doesn't know how, and… I think it might be easier if he knows about this. Helping you with it will give him new purpose." She turns the car off and pockets her keys. "And I'm with you the whole way too. So how about we get in there and introduce your dad to his son?"
Law stares in stunned silence for a moment, but soon wipes the tears from his eyes and nods shakily, but eagerly. "O-Ok. Thank you, Bea…"
Bea ruffles his fur a bit before climbing out. "No problem… little bro."
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Gregg kicks his apartment door open and immediately flops onto the couch. "Cap'n… we're really doing this, aren't we?"
Angus nods as he locks the door behind him and joins Gregg on the couch. "We are. It's… exciting, but kind of exhausting too." He scratches behind Gregg's ear and hands him the remote.
Gregg gladly takes it and puts on one of their favorite comedy series. "Yeah, but… it's so worth it. Finally getting away… Hell, we'll be able to move a lot of our plans up sooner if it goes well and we make some real money off this."
Angus smirks. "Bug, by plans, do you mean?.."
Gregg snorts. "Cap'n, you know the only reason I haven't already proposed is being too broke for a ring or a wedding. But this could fix that quick. Real quick."
Angus can't help but lean down to give him a tender kiss. "I know… and we're so close now." He grins. "Soon, Bright Harbor. A beautiful wedding… but tonight?"
Gregg grins and growls softly. "Mmm, tonight, I'm gettin' some angus beef…" He pulls Angus down for a more passionate kiss, and Angus certainly doesn't protest.
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Soon enough, Bea's back in her car and headed home. At first, she can't get the smile off her face. Law's got a wonderful life ahead, with an eagerly supportive father and a career already in the works. Coming out's not exactly easy, especially in a town like this, but he' got a lot of support now, and a bright future ahead. Affording transition and film school won't be easy, but maybe this band filmography gig will help out.
But the thought of the uncertainty of it all starts to get to her. Her smile fades as she hits a pothole on the way back into the suburbs of her collapsing old town. Her eyes keep drifting off the road to families sulking about. Ones who lost people in the caves that day. Who either found out the horrible truth or already knew. Scriggins sits beneath the memorial she recalls seeing the Borowski family on, smoking in silence. Even the most obnoxious person she knows has been cowed by the tainted ways of this backwoods town and it's damnable secret circle. Mr. Hartley stumbles into the bar uphill from the diner, sunken and tired eyes grazing her car for just a moment. Bea knows that he knows. She's still not sure if he really appreciates knowing or not. He seems to drink a lot more since.
Her apartment complex comes into view and she stops at the intercom panel. Five names are stricken from it recently, four apartments completely emptied as jobs dry up and Possum Springs empties. The last missing name is a blank space beside her own.
She stumbles up the stairs, having not trusted that elevator for some time, but every step is tiring. Her heavy footsteps echo through the stairwell and remind her of falling rocks.
She fumbles with her keys and manages to get into her apartment after nearly a full minute of struggling. Once again, an empty apartment greets her. The lack of the back of a familiar head on the couch leaves a pit in her stomach. She starts to realize it was always there, it's just been getting deeper. That hole at the center of her life that started with the loss of her mother and took shape down in those damned mines with her own father standing above that pit.
Her eyes drift towards the bedroom she hasn't touched since his death. So much of his stuff, sorted through by cops and strewn about haphazardly. When they found his backup robe and a talisman of an inverted pentagram detailed as a goat, they left without care for the damages.
Bea wasn't sure she cared either, not after what he'd done. But seeing it still hurt, and yet she couldn't bring herself to touch any of it.
Not alone.
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Mae settles into her room with a sigh, flopping into her futon to find it oddly more comfortable than usual after the day she's had. The exhaustion of that episode and the long jam session after was settling in, but excitement over the incredible days to come kept her wide awake.
She still manages to zone out enough to jump when her phone goes off. She picks it up right away when Bea comes up on her caller ID. "H-hey, babe! What's going on?"
Bea bites her lip as she sits across the couch from the sunken impression her father left behind. "I… I could really use your help tonight, Mae. I…" She peeks over to the closed door to his room. ".. it's… about time I clean his stuff out. B-But… I… I can't… I can't do it alone…"
Mae's heart sinks for her, but she hums and nods. "Ok… I'll be there right away. I just need a minute to pack a bag. I'm not leaving you alone after we're done tonight."
Bea blushes at the thought. The closest they've had to spending the night together was either that tense few hours on the couch at the boys' apartment or laying together when she checked on Mea after she didn't show up for work or call in. A very new experience for her to be sure, but her broken heart yearns for it. "A-Alright. I'll be waiting, s-so don't take too long."
"You know I won't, babe. See you soon." Mae hangs up and packs a bag at an almost feverish pace, barely taking ten seconds to explain to her dad before bolting off.
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Germ returns home after a leisurely stroll through the woods. Even knowing what they're passing over, what lies waiting below the earth, they feel at ease in this place.
They recall a story from their grandma when they was young.
Her great grandmother, when she settled into these woods, met a tall and mysterious man whom always seemed to be watching. He knew everything that happened in these woods, and this town. He seemed little more than a solemn groundskeeper, but to what property, she knew not. She fell for him so easily, and he for her.
Their affair was long and loving, but one day, a terrible storm blew into town, and he ran into it with just a few parting words. "The forest will always be with you, now and until the end of days. Let the whispering of the leaves guide you."
And he was gone. He knew not of his child, nor did he ever return to meet them. There were no photos of paintings of the man, but on her death bed, she swore she saw him watching from the woods, having not aged a day.
If one god waits beneath the earth, waiting and hungry, who's to say another can't be up here, watching, guarding his own blood?
Germ wanders in through their front door and through the central hall, waving to their uncle and mother as they speak over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. If they listen closely, they're sure they could hear their father's snoring upstairs.
But a pair of eyes watching from the livingroom stops them in their tracks. "Jeremy, dear. You're back quite late. I suppose the band kept you busy?"
"Yeah. They're on the road to greatness, Gramma." Germ tucks their hands into their jacket pockets. Even speaking to their own grandmother, fight or flight response is starting to kick in. There's always a dangerous air about her when she starts to see into the beyond.
"They're on the road to something, alright. How has dear Margaret been?"
"Uh…" Germ's eyes narrow. "Pretty well. Busy, but happy."
"I need to speak with her soon. Do bring her over for dinner again. I think your mother's making tortellini tomorrow. You know she always makes too much."
A chill runs down their spine. "Of course. I'll talk to her about it tomorrow." Germ turns to leave, pausing just before she's out of view. "Goodnight, Gramma."
"Goodnight, my little godling."
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Dark skies. Glowing buildings. The stars are so bright, but they're going out, one by one. She wanders beneath them bounding her way up to the rooftops as a familiar saxophone plays in the distance. A violin joins it soon after as Mae rises to the highest peak, her eyes sparkling as they reflect the fading stars.
She hears a rumbling below. She averts her eyes form the sky just in time to miss a familiar cat and a crane diving down from the stars.
The Cat speaks as it presses down on the cracking earth. "You are listening. You must not. All will end. Time runs out. Goat is angry. Goat hungers. It does not sing. It screams."
Mae stumbles as the world shakes, the rumbling accompanied by a guttural, gravely cry. It grows higher pitched and raspier, becoming the familiar screech of a distressed goat. The higher it gets, the more the world shakes, and the more Mae's head hurts.
The Crane turns and looks her in the eyes. "Wake up, Mae. Let us clean up this mess."
Mae bolts upright and gasps, hyperventilating as the room shakes and the earth rumbles in the distance. Bea pulls Mae in and looks about frantically, hearing screams erupt across town at random as people wake in the dead of night. "Mea, c-calm down! I-I don't think it's close to us, we're gonna be ok!"
Mae frantically shakes her head, almost wheezing as she struggles to steady her breath. "B… B-Black G-Goat."
Bea's eyes widen in horror. "I-It's singing to you again?"
"It's h-hungry, and we buried it." Mae trembles, but the shaking earth slows to a stop.
Both their phones are suddenly assaulted with a dozen texts, panicked friends and family, but one on Bea's phone manages to answer their questions. "O-Oh god… a s-sinkhole opened up near the cemetery."
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A.N.: Aaaahahaha, yeah, I went there. I went a lot of places in this one, and I'm proud of all of it. So, what's your favorite part? Warton family history? Lawrence Myers? The sinkhole? The appearance of Asshole Cat God and The Janitor/Crane God? And oooh, if only you knew what was coming yet...
