I

"’There are eyes watching us. Finish up your business.’"

A cold stare and the tap of a pen questioned from across the table. A middle-aged investigator in a worn-out tweed jacket sat across from a young man, mid-twenties with black hair and dark eyes. "’There are eyes watching us. Finish up your business’ What is the significance of that phrase to you, Mr. Grey?" inquired the investigator.

"What?" Peter asked sleepily, like he was waking from a dream.

"It says in the report that many witnesses, or as I should say, survivors, heard you repeatedly muttering that phrase. ‘Like to himself.’ as one woman put it. What is the significance of the phrase ‘There are eyes watching us. Finish up your business.’ to you, Mr. Grey?" When he reached the end of saying this, the short tempered cop was yelling and standing red-faced over the table.

"Where’s my lawyer?"

Aggravated, the investigator stormed out of the room, yelling "Fucking actors!" as he slammed the door behind himself.

......

"All rise the honorable judge H.M. MacMarr presiding." Commanded the sturdy bailiff.

"Be seated." replied the judge as he himself took a seat. "State your case." He continued.

"Your honor," began the prosecuting attorney, "I am here on behalf of my client, Philip Deacons, to prove that his brother, Brian Deacons, is not mentally competent and poses a danger to society if he remains at large. I have a large amount of evidence such as photographs of scenes of carnage and atrocities that Brian Deacons perpetrated. I would like that the court find that Mr. Brian Deacons should be admitted to a maximum security mental hospital for his own safety and for the safety of the state."

"Defense, would you like to say anything in reply to that?" asked the judge.

"Of course, Your Honor. We do not contend the charges and plead guilty, but before sentencing we would like to ask for bail." The defense attorney stood at his desk, next to his seated client, waiting for the judge’s decision.

"Denied." He answered sternly, "Counselor, you just plead guilty to being insane and a threat to society. Now you want to post bail!?!" Leaning forward on his desk slack-jawed and wide eyed, he stared at the young defense attorney.

Obviously infuriated, but calm in action and voice, Mr. Deacons rose to his feet and very matter-of-fact-ly, he stated to the judge: "Your Honor," a dramatic pause, "I may be a bit on the unbalanced side, but that does not deny me that right to post bail and finish up my business...my loose ends. Does it, Your Honor?"

"Be seated Mr. Deacons, and I will have no more outbursts or I will hold you in contempt of court. Counsel," addressing both the attorneys, "I would like to see you in my chambers."

......

A light haze filled the room. A teddy-bear lay on the floor. Mickey Mouse sheets cover the bed and bouncing on that bed in feet-pajamas was a lonely child of no more than five. "I wanna be in a movie! I wanna be in a movie!" over and over again, he shouted, "I wanna be in a movie! I wanna be in a movie!" It seemed like hours, he was still shouting, still bouncing. The haze thickened, the room slowly filled with light, and the voice started to fade.

Rhys Black awoke sweaty, in the clothes he was wearing the day before. Bottles of various liquors were strewn on the floor and cluttered the tables around him. "Musta had practice last night." He mused to himself. It was usual for him to black out and pass out after he practiced with the band. It was just another reason for all of them to get drunk and stoned whenever they wrote or mastered another new song.

"It’s amazing we can remember our names after all these practice nights." He said out-loud to a figure slumped in the corner of the fire escape. The figure slumped some more and a hypodermic needle fell from its hands, and through the grating.

"Shit!" Rhys mumbled, "John, man, we’re not supposed to become drug driven and wasted perverts until after we make it big." He said louder addressing the figure on the fire escape, and the rest of the room. "Dave, you fucking douche, get up, help me get him inside." Rhys rolled off his couch. "Get up!" He walked shakily across the room to a lump on the floor, and kicked it.

The Dave-lump rolled over and groaned weakly, so Rhys walked into the bedroom, and shook the shoulders of a young sleeping woman. "Kyra," he whispered softly mostly because his voice was hoarse, "honey, I need you to help me with John... again." Kyra Johns, bassist of their little band didn’t drink, so she had no hangover like Rhys and Dave. She rolled her head and looked into Rhys’ blood-shot eyes. "Get up, smack-boy is on the fire escape. I need to bring him in before someone sees him."

"Shit, don’t you guys keep an eye on him? Get Douche to help you."

"Douche is groaning on the floor with his pants on his head; Mary left him when he got good and drunk. So, I had to help get a lil more drunk... I guess he’s a bit worse off than me but at least he’s breathing... Anyway, you have to get John’s legs when I drag him inside."

"OK. OK. Grab my boxers?" My boxers, Rhys thought to himself, picking them off the floor at the foot of the bed. "Thanks." She partially dressed and walked with Rhys to the window. They climbed out together and stood over the sickly body of John, now curled up in a fetal position.

John had been smacking his arm for a while, and thinned out a good deal so it was easy for Rhys to drag him in by his armpits by himself, but his heals always got caught on the windowsill, which is why he needed Kyra to help him: he hated dropping his friend’s head on the floor to get his feet. Just dropping the poor child would fix the heal problem anyway, negating the need to do anything. How frustrating, Rhys told himself. He climbed through the window and began to hoist the limp drummer up to shoulder height, Kyra held his legs in the air so he they wouldn’t catch the sill.

"All right, buddy, end of the line." Rhys dropped him straight on the floor with a muffled thud as soon as John’s feet cleared the window. He had forgotten how much he hated doing that.

"You are so careful" said Kyra looking up, startled by the noise.

"Sarcasm abounds." Rhys replied "We’ll have to give T the tape of last night’s practice so he can go over that song...Which song was it, anyway? Wait, did we make a tape?? Oh, well. We have to record a demo tape so we can get some better gigs than western bars with free moonshine."

"I’m going to Dunkies after I get dressed. I need to get some coffee." Kyra mentioned over her shoulder, walking into the bedroom.

"Just wait for me to take a quick shower and I’ll join ya?"

"Sure. And you need it, you smell like booze and sex. Not that I don’t like that in a suitor."

Walking out through the studio, ten minutes later, the saw the body of Mary at the foot of the large metal skull that T had made. He called it "Sour Milk", now it was standing in a pool of blood.

Rhys said "Uh... hmmmm... Shit!" and Kyra echoed with a serious and worried "Fuck!"

"There’s a body by our front door."

"How observant" Kyra answered.

"Sarcasm abounds."

"You better clean up John’s paraphernalia..." Kyra suggested, turning around and looking at the mess in the living room.

Rhys just stared at the body, the blood, the face, the eyes. By God, the sorrowful eyes. So empty, so full of tears. He couldn’t get his eye away from the beautiful, the dead, the bloody Mary by his door. The sunken cheeks, rose lips, hair soaking up the blood, the ghastly tear across her once soft stomach. A hole that bore her guts to the world, not so beautiful anymore. "You better wake them up, but keep Dave out of here, don’t let him see." Don’t let him see how beautiful it is. Some things he couldn’t say, some things would sound excruciatingly strange even coming from him.

"How the fuck am I going to wake them up!?!! You saw them, they’re in fucking La-La Land in there."

"I don’t know, caffeine" he was finally broke from the trance of the dead. There was something too familiar about it.

"We don’t have any coffee."

"Fine then, Tea!"

"He’s not here, remember?"

"You know what I mean."

......

"It’s past two Rhys, they aren’t waking up for me. We’re talking comatose here."

"All right, I’ll call the bacon, but you have to take John home and this <ahem> stuff," holding up a veritable grab-bag of John’s crank equipment. "with you. It’s all I could find. Dave should stay here, where I can keep an eye on him."

"Help me take the heroin baby down the fire escape then?"

"Yeah..."

......

The Police arrived in their good ole inconspicuous blue and white cars with their lights flashing and their sirens blaring. Along with the county morgue van, and an ambulance. The circus gathered quickly outside.

A parade of middle aged uniformed men marched up Rhys’ stairs and gently tapped on his door with a night-stick. ("Sarcasm abounds") The knocking woke Douche out of his sleep. He was attempting to stand when Rhys was coming back through the window, hurrying because of the noise. Dave saw the body before Rhys could stop him and he fainted.

Rhys answered the door not bothering with the transplanted Douche lump now almost completely blocking the door between the studio and the living room. The uniforms paraded in and immediately saw the cause of the call.

They swarmed the still warm body of Mary and then came back to Rhys with a battery of questions.

"Were you the one to discover the body?"

"What time was that, approximately?"

"Does anyone else live with you here?"

"Was she a good lay?" The coroner’s idea of crime-scene comedy.

"Are they here now?"

"What did you do when you saw the body?"

"Did you call 911 right away?"

"What were you doing last night?"

"Did she bleed this much when you popped her cherry?" Again, the coroner’s very bad idea of a joke. No one liked him anyway, always so morbid.

"Did she have a lot to drink?"

Rhys hadn’t even answered a single question yet. The only thought that came to mind, that he could say the to Police anyway, was "Shouldn’t you be taking me ‘Downtown’ or something?"

"Of course not!" Cheerily replied the smaller officer.

Sarcasm abounds, Rhys said to himself.

"Rhys Black," How did they know my name? "We are taking you in for questioning." stated the larger, burlier, more aggravated officer. He had a bright red Irish face that just screamed "I have an ulcer that doesn’t like coffee, liquor, OR doughnuts!" He looked miserable, personal hell.

"Who is that friend of yours, over there?" asked the first cop.

"Dave Dountch"

"Well, he seems to be coming around so we’ll be taking him in, too."

"Isn’t he a bit too... too... too something for questioning?" Rhys asked.

"No one is too anything to get a good confession out of." the ulcerated pig said.

"That makes me feel so much better." he thought as he was led to a police cruiser.

As they were pulling away, he could see the flashes of the coroner’s cameras in his windows.

......

"Mr. Bell, your client is accused of being mentally unstable and a threat to society, and you have plead guilty, and, most importantly, it’s the wrong part of the trial to even request bail. Yet you are asking to post bail?" Judge MacMarr asked.

"Yes, Your Honor, I am." The defense attorney respectfully replied, "My client is stable now, heavily medicated. It is very safe to let him post bail and finish up his business."

"Ms. Gione, how do you and your client feel about this?"

"I think that this whole exercise is ridiculous so I think that there should be no bail. And I think my client would feel the same way, and probably he would feel threatened by his brother being on the streets again. I will definitely have to speak to my client. Is there any guarantee of his safety?" replied the prosecution.

......

"Fucking Pigs!" Rhys yelled through the phone at Kyra. "They gave me the fucking third degree while we were practically standing in Mary’s blood. Didn’t even take me in for questioning until I mentioned it."

"Did they take Douche in, too?" she asked.

"Yeah, but he woke up, saw the body and passed out again. He was half conscious when they put him in the cruiser to take him in. I hope they went easy on him. I think they are letting, or maybe making him, sleep it off in jail, because he isn’t home yet."

"Still sleeping it off!?! When did you drunkards stop drinking?"

"When we ran out of drinks."

"I meant what time, but forget it. Are you still he’s just not answering his phone?"

"Well his machine just keeps beeping and doesn’t let you talk so I doubt he’s checked his messages in the past week."

"I want to go check on him, want to come with?"

"No thanks, I’ve had enough of watching that poor sap sleep. How’s John doing?"

"He woke up an hour or two ago and went home. I guess, where else could he have gone?"

"Doesn’t matter, he doesn’t have enough money to buy any more of his shit: he left his wallet here."

"Does that really matter anymore? We are never going to get anywhere."

"Shit! That’s right. I forgot that music and every other kind of self-expression is a complete and utter WASTE OF FUCKING TIME!"

"Sorry for mentioning it." Kyra timidly replied.

"Don’t be, I’m just on the edge from the whole death thing. And I still have to call Tom Wong at the recording studio to book us some time."

"Make it soon. We need money from something I heard about once, called a job. We haven’t seemed to have had any of those things lately."

"Sarcasm abounds... I know, but I also got a call from some record company... wouldn’t that be even better?"

"Maybe, but first thing’s first, we need to make a demo-tape dreamer boy."

......

Flame red light poured from the crack between the door and its frame. Streaks of this light floated in the air, manifesting themselves on the hazy smoke in that hallway like an apparition phasing out of existence. A young boy in feet-pajamas walks wearily towards the light. As he draws closer, with every scuffing footstep, he began to hear a deep melodic voice behind the door. He couldn’t help but succumb to his childish curiosity, and despite his fears, he continued to inch closer.

He came to the threshold of the door and peered with wide eyes through the opening into the room. He saw the bare back of his older brother, with deep bleeding horizontal wounds covering it. They were fresh and the deep red blood flowed freely from them in vertical streams, dripping down and touching the horizontal lines. Making his back look like a morbid patchwork of blood-seam flesh.

Deep guttural chanting was coming from the room, like the disembodied voice of his brother, but deeper and with a twinge of hate and pain added to every note. His brother sat cross-legged in the front of a long table, covered almost completely with candles on top of what must have been some altar cloth. Along with the chanting in some foreign tongue the young one heard the irregular beating of a pestle and mortar, which stood out from the chant by not accompanying any beat.

He took a quick short breath in acknowledgment of the astonishing sight before him, and stumbled a baby-step forward, inching the door open on its rusty hinges. The door creaked. The young boy took another quick gasp in surprise and fear. He did not yet know it but at that moment he should have felt severe dread of what was about to happen.

The only noticeable change in his older brother was that he stopped chanting. He knew now that it was his brother chanting, but the irregular thumps of the pestle and mortar continued as a coarse, deep voice called out: "There are eyes watching us. Finish up your business." The thump of the pestle and mortar stopped.

The boy stood innocently transfixed with surprise and childish fear in his feet-pajamas at the threshold of his brother’s room, a deer in the headlights of a Mac-truck. His brother rose and turned toward him mechanically, with a look of fierce hatred and fire in his eyes. Walking quickly and heavily towards the boy, he flung the door fully open, and the boy could see all of the room.

"What are you doing here?" His brother demanded. "I will take care of him." He continued as if answering a question that no one had posed. He pulled the boy into the room and slammed the door. Scared and curious, the boy looked around the candle-lit room; they weren’t alone.

II

The honk of a car horn awoke Rhys and Kyra.

"T is never on time, always late, why did he choose today to start being early?" Rhys asked the air.

"Because it is our careers if we fuck this one up." Kyra replied. Looking at the clock she continued, "And we have less than an hour to get there. Get your ass up."

"Yeah, right. Let’s go make some music."

"Sarcasm abounds."

At the recording studio, they met and waited, ironically, in the waiting room outside of studio 6C. Waiting for their friend in the biz, Tom Wong, who worked the controls during recordings, to get there. He was good at working the controls with the pot-head techs that fish-bowled in the booth between appointments.

One such employee stepped through the door with a twinky in his hand and announced that they could go in and set up. "Thanks..." T read his name tag: T-Bird Recording Studio; DOUG. "Doug."

"Smoke clear?" asked John in a thin weak voice to match his body.

Douche, Kyra and Rhys laughed as they walked with their equipment past Doug, intently munching his twinky. Moving everything into position and plugging in all the mikes and amps took the good part of an hour and finally Tom showed up in time for the end of their sound check.

"So nice of you to join us." stated Rhys, rather unhappily.

"Uh...traffic?" was Tom’s reply, "You sound great, let’s make some music!"

"STOP SAYING THAT!" Kyra shouted, useless through the sound proof glass.

Rhys turned around to the rest of the band and said "Let’s start with Deflowered and then Mother Fucker and then..." a pause, he sputtered his lips like a motor boat, "whatever the fuck comes to mind. OK?"

"NO!!" They replied in unison.

"Sarcasm abounds." Rhys mumbled to himself and then answered with laughter.

"One. Two. Three. Four." John counted off with clicks of the drumsticks, counting down to a burst of loud and violent music. Rhys listened intently to the beat, counting off to when he would break in with his dying voice:

"She wasn’t Fucked...She was Devoured! She wasn’t Fucked... She was Deflowered!" Thus went the chorus to their song about a girl loosing her virginity to a rapist, one of their happier songs about a girl with whom Rhys and T wen to high school. None of their songs were happy. As none of them really were either. They all had their addictions and afflictions, misfortunes and misgivings. All in all they had a mountainous heap of troubles from which to draw material for songs. Their self expression through their music saved some of their sanity, but only some.

They finished up their ten best songs in a little less than forty minutes. Tom popped them on a tape and gave three copies to Rhys. "You can make more copies yourself, fly-boy." Tom told him.

"What is it with everybody calling me boy!?? It’s getting on my nerves."

"It’s because you are a boy." Kyra answered with a grin.

"She’s got a point." John added.

"Be quiet."

They all went back to Rhys’ apartment and began to make a copy of the tapes to send out to local clubs, record companies and radio stations. Sitting in the living room talking while the music boomed from the bedroom. No one paid much attention to it. They had heard it all a billion times before, practicing and playing small gigs. Since the day they found Mary, Dave had been very quiet. No one said anything.

"Anyone want anything to eat?" T pondered aloud.

"Chinese!" John stammered.

"Your Treat?" Kyra asked.

"Tex’s!" Was Rhys’ immediate response.

"More whiskey?" Dave asked himself quietly. "Why, thank you." He replied. No one noticed.

"Pizza it is." T stated. "So what do you want on it?"

"Mushrooms and onions." Rhys quickly answered.

"Anchovies and pepperoni and green pepper." Kyra added.

"Pregnant much?" John asked her.

"No!" She instantly replied, not too sure, but with a little nervous laugh.

"Sarcasm A-" Kyra whacked Rhys with a pillow before he could finish.

"Sausage and extra cheezzzzze." John hissed.

"Hey, you’re not whiskey!" Douche told the bottle he was holding, "or are you?" He stopped looking puzzled and drank it anyway. No one noticed.

"All right, three large pizzas with everything. Pick off what you don’t want. Cough up the dough now." T got up to leave, collecting the cash.

"Rhys! Rhys, man, you wouldn’t believe it!" T shouted excitedly over the phone. "I gave our tape to the dude at the Coffin Factory and he listened to it, liked it, and gave it to his friend at EarAche Records. That dude liked it, so he’s giving to his boss to look over. Final review kinda, ya know? But the real test comes when the see us live."

"Who the hell is this?!?!?!" begged a surprised voice from the other end. "Wrong Number." and they hung up.

Undaunted, T dropped another quarter and tried to dial Rhys’ apartment again, succeeding, he retold his story to Rhys himself. Who became just as excited as T and was much more grateful for the news than that strange voice before.

"Problem. We don’t have a gig yet." Rhys pondered, breaking the mood.

"Taken care of! Know the dude at the Coffin Factory who liked the tape? Well, he’s the dude who books the acts. All you gotta do is fix a date with him." T happily came back. The mood return more vibrant than before.

"Well, then this calls for a bit of a celebration don’t you think?"

"On occasion but it starts to hurt too much when done on a regular basis."

"Uh... was that a yes?"

"Of course."

"Party tonight?"

"I don’t see why not."

"Great, see you here at, oh... six, no! four-ish?"

"OK, I don’t mind starting early."

"Kyra, we’ve almost got a record deal!" Rhys shouted, dancing a jig and getting tangled in the phone chord. "The bosses at EarAche wanna hear us live and then they wanna talk! It’s amazing! Starting early right at four." He still had not hung up the phone.

"Don’t we ‘celebrate’ over almost everything" and don’t we usually ‘start early’ around four? And don’t we always end up done by the other four, ever-so fulfilled but some extravagant amount of money and brain-cells short?"

"So?" Rhys defended, trying to hang up the phone and make the damned recording stop. He wasn’t succeeding.

"bee-boo-bop! Your call did not go through. Please, hang up the phone and try again." The electronic operator unceasingly insisted.

"Just checkin’. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t stuck reliving the same day every single day, day after day after day. Luv ya!" She walked up to him, kissed him on the forehead and unplugged the phone from the wall jack.

"Where are you going?"

"Paris"

"Four words: Condoms, aspirin, and Crazy Glue."

The celebration began with shots of Tequila, and betting who could commit the most crimes in their first year of stardom. They made a pool and marked it on the kitchen wall with permanent marker. Then came the "drinking whatever you could get your hands on" phase, followed by the "drinking whatever you could reach" phase. Then came the dancing wildly to whatever insanity was being blasted from the stereo at the time. T and John both passed out somewhere between KMFDM and Monster Magnet, or Billy Holiday and a random Calypso group, thrown in for good measure, no one could really ever remember. Rhys and Kyra retired to the bedroom and pounded along to the beats of their demo tape. Kyra was rather surprised that Rhys could even get it up, she gave him a lot of credit for handling his liquor, and her, as well as he did.

Through all this Dave was quiet. He sat back and enjoyed his liquor, he had brought the whole store with him. When he thought no one was looking, which was from about four thirty and after, he would stare at Sour Milk, the statue that claimed the life of his former girlfriend and try to stare it down with an evil eye. Occasionally, he would run dry and be forced to crawl around on the floor littered with empty bottles and cans looking for something fresh, but he would always return to his sentinel position to keep the murderer at bay.

In the midst of all the fervor of his friends dancing and laughing, he was sullenly drunk in the corner opposite the door to the studio, and getting more drunk the whole time. Staring down the malicious hunk of metal that created more trouble than it was worth. Occasionally he would work up the nerve to yell at it, saying, with a minimal amount of slurring "I know who you are and I know what you’re done. But I won’t tell if you just get up an’ be gone." Or he would just point vindictively between swigs. He passed out as the sounds of Deflowered ran off the tail end of a Run D.M.C. song and overpowered it.

Rhys and Kyra in the bedroom could not keep their hands off each other. They immediately started stripping each other as soon as the tape started rolling. In a tangle of flesh they fell on the bed. Kyra and Rhys were both ready and willing with minimal fore-play. Penetration occurred on the first sad "Deflowered" of the chorus and they moved together along with the rhythm.

Rhys could hear the creaking of the bed, the thumping of the bass line, the beating of the drums, and their heart beats. All were pumping with the rhythm of the song. Everything synchronized, in unison. To the beat. To the beat. To the beat. But strangely he started to hear something that didn’t match. It was so soft he wouldn’t have heard it otherwise, but because it was not in tune with the beat, it stood out like Barney at an orgy. It was the soft thud of worn stone on worn stone, like a pharmacist’s pestle and mortar.

Kyra began to really climax which grabbed his attention. The crescendo of Fetish Factory was building up to the final big bang, as was Kyra and Rhys. The sound of her breath and moans in his ear drowned out everything but his own pounding heart and that demonic fucked-rhythmed thud. With the final screams, shouts and cymbal crashes of Fetish Factory, they both let go and came. Joyous, he couldn’t hear it.

Laying next to Kyra, holding her. Listening to the silence of the blank end of the tape, the silence of the room, the silence of the night and the beating of their hearts in dreadful anticipation of hearing the sound of a pestle against mortar, pounding and grinding away at his sanity. He tried not to fall asleep, fearing it would find him in dreams. He stared at the ceiling above him for hours. But finally he gave in to exhaustion and drunkenness, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

The next day, however, he felt foolish about the whole thing. Doubting that he heard anything at all. "It was all in my head." he kept telling himself. Again, he felt childish because he was still slightly afraid of that noise he wasn’t even sure existed. He sat down to listen to it again.

Deafening Silence.

......

"CUT!!"

"WHAT IS IT, PETER?" a booming voice demanded, aggravated.

"That isn’t how it should go. He oughta hear it again, like in the tell-tale heart."

"Not very original, Peter, I am disappointed. But life goes on, this is how it must be. Try it again."

......

"But it just doesn’t make sense like this!" Rhys shouted, noticing he was alone after the fact.

"Whaaaaat??" Dave asked slightly bewildered from behind the door.

"Nothing, Douche."

"Who were you talking to?"

"No one..." he tapered off, looking around the room. Who was I talking to? The tape continued and he still heard no odd sounds.

The days dragged on and the sound still troubled him. To him, it was so clear and real, but he hadn’t heard it since that party, in bed with Kyra. In a week, they had a show. He wanted to get another practice in before then. At least it would occupy my mind, he told himself, but I still hate practices.

T and Dave, the guitarists of their little rabble, were already going over the usual set. Rhys could hear them finishing up Asylum Whore and then starting Bloody Mary, dedicated to Mary and Sour Milk, through the bedroom wall.

Their usual set was Deflowered, Mailbox, For Lease, Asylum Whore, Bloody Mary, Tasty Virgin, Alka-Seltzer, Serpentile and finishing up with He Stood Laughing. He remembered their last show and staring into the pit, filled with every kind of freak: Goths, Punks, Skins, Grundges (their numbers dwindling), Alternateens (getting the shit kicked out of them), Metal-heads, and Ska-punks, all lashing out at whoever was near them: kicks, knees, elbows, punches. It was beautiful, a huge ego trip for them because they incited it all.

He had a daydream of what next Saturday would be like. More freaks and weirdos than ever, he imagined with a grin. More carnage laid out before us. He mused, smiling. He slowly began to weep. The tears lazily rolled down his cheeks. Laying on the floor, He came into the room Peter Grey stood over his own body. Rhys pushed with the heels of his hands, pushed himself back, sliding on the floor. Abruptly his shoulders and head hit the wall, Peter advanced.

"Nowhere to run, eh, cry baby?" Peter asked with a strange fire in his eyes.

The band played on in the background without his vocals breaking through Bloody Mary like wet toilet paper. Time seemed to move so fast, but everything was happening so slow. Rhys could only gawk at himself, an insufficient answer. Peter slapped himself across the face open handed. Rhys’ tears flowed readily.

"Why do we cry? Just because our mouths water at the thought of another Bloody Mary? Tasty Virgin’s burn our tongues. Why was mother such a fucking crazy slut?"

"Peter?" a voice rang out loud and clear above Grey’s shouts and the band’s music. "Peter!"

God? Is that you? Rhys started to laugh. Drool trickled down from the corners of his mouth. "Why did we do it, Peter? Why did we?" Peter screamed holding Rhys up to his own face by his collar. "There are eyes watching us. Finish up your business." Rhys stated with disconcerting clarity and calm.

......

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING PETER??" The voice again boomed. "CAN THE MUSIC!"

They picked themselves up and walked off the set into one another. The trailer will be quiet, I can be alone. Peter told himself. "What a shitty script!" he told the air. No Bible to be thrown here. The wick was short today. My manager is gonna kill me. "Star goes berserk, story at eleven" He still was alone. What the fuck did I drink this morning? I forgot my lines again. Can’t keep slipping. I need a drink...

......

"It’s just about a band, The road to stardom. The corruption of fame and money."

"It sucks! OK? This guy is crazy. No one wants to see crazy! And that sound wasn’t even in the script!" Peter shot down the lowly assistant.

"If you don’t go back there now, you’re dead, man. Nothing else."

"Isn’t it just a job?"

"This is you’re fucking life! You’re awfully calm all of a sudden."

"We have business to finish up. Let’s get it done. We don’t want him to get mad."

"Yeah, right." The assistant mumbled under his breath. "All of your psycho scenes weren’t in the script, either. Nutcase actors. Fucking actors...!"

......

"What’s wrong with him?" T asked, walking through the door. Rhys was curled in a fetal position, weeping, between the bed and a nightstand pressed tightly against the wall. His face was red with the imprint of a hand across it, like he had been smacked with a lead glove. His right eye was pure red from the shock of the blow. He didn’t make a sound. His breath was shallow and his tears flowed steadily. His clothing was soaked with sweat and tears. He didn’t blink and his stare was blank. John sat on the edge of the bed like a gargoyle. Toes curled over the edge, hands on knees, biting his thumbnails. Kyra had a hand on Rhys’ knee, unable to pry him out of his huddle.

"I heard shouting. I could have sworn it was just him, but it looks like someone else was here." Kyra told T, not removing her gaze from Rhys.

"Man, this dude is fucked in the dome, if you know what I’m sayin’" John added tapping his temple.

Rhys went limp, slumping down to the floor. His legs unfolded, head flopped over to the side. He began to whimper, sounded like a scared puppy. Then he began to mouth some words: "... ... -ant ‘im to get mad." The last two words came out crystal clear. He blinked twice and swung his arm to hit the wall and screamed. Kyra and John both jumped back, instinct reaction to insanity. T dropped his chocolate milk. Dave was in the kitchen, guitar hanging limp from its strap over his shoulder, still plugged into his amplifier. He was searching for something to drink. "Can’t make an omelet," he instructed himself, "without breaking a few eggs. Can’t make a movie without breaking a few... laws? wills? Crackin’ some skulls? Bustin some cherries! Cherrrrrrrr-ees! No... Destroying some sanity." He was pleased with this thought. "Proper." He refocused his gaze. "Yummy..." He walked towards the bedroom with a beer and a bottle of J&B. Walking in he stepped in a puddle of chocolate milk. Turned on the light. Rhys looked up, squinting through the brightness. "Dude! I could use a drink." Dave handed him the beer and took a swig of the J&B, correction, he finished it off. No one noticed.

John hooked together his thumbs and flapped his hands like wings. T acknowledged it by touching his left index finger to his fisted right hand, and whistling while he made a high arch, finally pointing over the horizon. His fist dropped to his side and his eyes dropped to Rhys, who had finished his beer.

"Got a cigarette? Good, don’t need it. Don’t plead it. Let’s smoke. Up Down. Yo-Ho! Blow the man down! No. Seriously, where’s my weed?" Rhys wasn’t quite coherent.

"Our boy has lost it." John noted.

Rhys was in the process of searching through the contents of the nightstand drawer, dumped on the floor. Most likely he was looking for his pipe and stash, but who could guess at this point.

"This dude is disturbed." T said, shaking his head.

"Puuuuurdy" Douche added, still with his guitar, guitar still plugged in, still holding an empty bottle of J&B.

Kyra pulled our her lighter, not knowing what else to do, and started playing with the flame, waiting. Rhys produced the doobage and a bowl. Everyone sat down for a session without a second thought. Dave was sitting in a puddle of chocolate milk. No one noticed.

Somehow, Dave was put in charge of watching Rhys overnight. He brought in a kitchen chair and sat in it backwards, leaning forward on the back, watching Rhys sleep. For once, he had stopped drinking. No one noticed that either.

Rhys woke up from his frying-pan induced slumber around four, and asked lazily what had happened. Dave was happy to fill him in:

"Well, you were attacked by somebody, right in this room, too, Dude. And Kyra and John found you in here between the bed and nightstand curled up like a baby, not saying anything." He took a breath and Rhys interrupted with "Why does it smell like sour milk in here?" Dave reached down and picked up the empty bottle of J&B and tried to coax out the last few drops. "Be right back." He went off to the kitchen and brought back a six-pack of Cider Jack. Cracked one open and continued. "You said something about getting someone mad. Then you punched the wall, screamed a bit, went nuts. I gave you a beer." Rhys put his hand out. Dave filled it. "You babbled on a bit. Begged for some pot. You ripped open that drawer and shot through it looking for your stash. The milk is T’s, it’s chocolate!" His voiced cracked when he said chocolate, made it sound happy. He smiled. "We all got blizzed. We laughed a little, made some jokes. But then you started yelling and flailing your arms around. When you started throwing punches Kyra decked you and John put you out with a frying to the head. We had stopped laughing." He took a deep breath and continued. "Kyra is staying at T’s place because your mind is fried. John went to see his priest, er, um, dealer. And here I am, left playing guard."

Peter stood up, finished his cider and said "That’s a really compelling story, whatever your real name is, but that’s not in the script and I’m not sticking around to find out what else you freaks have ad-libbed. Later." He started walking towards the windows, He opened one, put a leg through, looked back and said: "Fucking actors." just before be calmly swung his other leg out. He disappeared.

Rhys’ apartment is on the third floor.

"TAKE TWO!" The Voice boomed.

"And here I am, left playing guard." Dave finished. He took a gulp of beer and waited for Rhys to say something. Rhys just blinked. "Guarding whom?" He finally asked.

......

Judge MacMarr gaveled the court into order. "Mr. Bell, I have no choice but to deny your ludicrous request to post bail. Seeing as how you have plead guilty, we’ll move on to sentencing as soon as possible. Mr. Bell, Thank you for wasting this court’s time."

"NO!" Brian Deacons shouted, standing up. "I must finish up my business! I have some loose ends! You can’t do this!"

"Mr. Deacons, you are in contempt of court. Bailiff, restrain him."

......

A woman sat at the edge of a small brown sofa with a man’s head lying in her lap and his arms rapped around her waste, his legs folded under him. He was sobbing and breathing heavily; she just looked down at him with pity while stroking his hair back out of his eyes, trying to comfort him.

"I just can’t do it anymore..." He let out between sobs. "I don’t know what’s real anymore... The lines blurred and now I’m in the wrong lane...everyone is someone else..." He sucked in a heavy breath between chattering teeth. "I can’t tell anymore."

"Aw, Sugar, you’ll make it."

"But I should be dead... I jumped out my window Kyra, I jumped... It was me but it wasn’t. I was there but I wasn’t in control. Some voice like god said something and boom! I was back in bed and Dave was talking again. I’m dead, Kyra! But I’m here."

"No, no, Honey, I already told you, you can just call be Krystal. And you’re not dead, Baby, you’re right here with me. Now, what is it you want me to do for you?"

"Kyra....?" Peter looked up with wet eyes at the prostitute and sniffled quietly and quickly. Krystal’s skirt was wet through with tears and sweat. Her bracelets clicked and clacked as she scratched an itch behind her ear. The trailer door began to open and Peter jumped to his feet, looking around in confusion: shocked by his surroundings. Peter sniffled again and wiped his nose with the back side of his hand, looking from Krystal to the walk-on extra in life and back again.

"What the ffff..." was all he could verbally manage.

"Mr. Grey, they’re ready for you on the set. They’re ready for the next scene."

"Who are you?!" Peter asked weakly.

"I’m Bobby. I’m just a temp with the production crew." Peter looked as confused as he did before Bobby said a word. "I was told to come tell you they are ready for you. I knocked." He paused. "I waited for a while so I knocked again." Another pause. "No one answered so I came in. I didn’t mean to disturb you, I’m terribly sorry..." His voice trailed off again into nothing and Peter just kept staring through him, looking confused as ever. His eyes widened and he finally brought his eyes into focus, on the door. He started walking swiftly towards it with decisive steps. Krystal stood up in protest. He reached for the handle, fumbled with the lock and opened the door. Bobby had taken a step back and out of the way and was just watching the scene unfold.