The Hive

#humour #music #flashfiction #Promptmanteau Generator

It was raining. Most people hate rain, but it made my job easier, like a pre-clean in a carwash but on a stage. A monsoon wouldn’t stop these fans from coming out and paying homage to their heroes. The New Yorker called it a sacrilegious spectacle; Nu-Metal Hammer described it as the gig of the century. That was a hell of a claim in the same century that Felon played to 1.5 million people in the Vegas Holodome.

I read all the reviews and still had to pinch myself that I was actually part of this… spectacle. Pinch, punch or stab me in the face that I couldn’t escape this torture. Why they hadn’t shut us down was beyond me. But the crowds kept coming, the cities kept booking us, and we kept burning, bleeding, fucking and singing (in that order) our way around the States. The crew had been running a book on when they would run out of patience and cart us all off to jail since the fire in Reno, but so far, nothing—just a massive fine, which the fans paid through a Kickstarter and a slapped wrist or two. I figured Gina Savage had lovers in high places and wasn’t afraid to use them.

Hell, Gina wasn’t afraid to do anything. Anything I could come up with, at least.

A tour like this has a lot of crew. Riggers, Sparkies, Soundies, Roadies Vidiots, Derin the Crew Manager, Niki the groupie wrangler (not her official title, but you know… Rock & Rol), and me, the Imagineer. I hated that title, but like everyone else, I wasn’t gonna argue with Gina Savage.

Savage by name and all that.

My job was to devise new ways to shock the audience, disgust the press and incite religious groups to campaign outside our venues. At first, it had been a bit of fun. After some gig in a dive bar in Texas, Gina and I found ourselves drunk together, naked together, then high together. We were listening to Sabbath or something, and I made some flippant and life-changing comment: “They knew how to do a show. You know he bit the head off a live bat on stage!”

Gina stopped rolling her hips long enough to light a cigarette. She always took fag breaks when we fucked. It was so off-putting, but you don’t complain when you have Gina Savage pinning you to the floor, demanding you to hold on for dear life.

“That was Alice Cooper, you dumb arse, and it’s a myth…no way they would have let them do that back then.”

“It’s true… I read…”

Gina took the cigarette out of her mouth and brought it down on my chest; she missed burning my nipple off by a centimetre. The smell of burnt hair hit my nose before the pain did. Ketamine was the real deal back then. I growled at her; she laughed, I dared her to drink a half pint of a fan’s blood onstage and… well, the rest is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, six albums and nearly a billion slathering worker bees paying homage to THE HIVE, and my psychopathic ex, Gina Savage.

I was awakened from my daydreams by the clang of the third and final cage hitting the stage deck. I watched as it descended onto the floor on the grav lift. Jesus, what kind of band can afford grav lifts on a stage… The frickin Hive, that’s who.

“Don’t jolt that thing. It’s sedated; don’t want it waking up too soon, eh!” I shouted across the stage. The two local crew I had roped into helping me looked around nervously. The cage was covered. The stage was empty; I never let anyone see the surprise. Gina liked it like that; it meant she got honest reactions from the band and the crowd. It changed the music, she said, distorted it, and gave it a raw quality. Yeah, there is nothing rawer than your drummer dying of a heart attack when his drums explode, or the bassist finds himself catapulted into the audience, but the safety wire is wrapped around his thigh and cuts through it like a block of cheddar. It was funny at first, then serious, then dangerous and recently downright nasty. Gina had no boundaries, and she demanded I keep pushing us further and further.

I was getting nervous about this. I knew I had gone too far this time. I also knew this was the only way out of this Dante-inspired hell I had created for myself. Everyone else had escaped, some in one piece. We tore through band members and crew faster than we could recruit them. None of the originals were here. It’s just me and her and tonight, we would both be set free.

From the wings, I could see they had started letting the crowd in; they couldn’t see me, though; that’s the beauty of Neo-mesh gauze, like a one-way mirror onstage. It works, I promise you. Gina and I screwed in front of 75,000 people, and not one of them knew…just the band watching on in shock or awe. She liked it when we achieved both. That might have been the last time I let her touch me… or maybe it was the other way around. It’s hard to tell when your life is this toxic. I had to get out or die trying… it was that bad.

One hour later, the lights dimmed. I was at the back of the enormous arena. I had a plane ticket in my pocket and an unmanned Uber waiting outside. There was no witness to my exit, just another lost person in the chaos of another Hive gig… I hoped. The pyros ripped from the front of the stage, showering anyone who wanted to get burned… so many wanted to get burned. The world was going to hell, and our fans were rushing to get there.

“Be my guests”, I thought, but by the way, the Lighting Op looked at me, I said it out loud. “ Raise the lift,” I ordered instinctively.

“Already?” he questioned, his hand hovering over the control button.

“YES!” I slammed my hand down on his, and the lift was activated. GINA was still waving to the crowd as they patted out the fires that had sprung up on their brand-new, aptly named KILL ‘EM ALL TOUR T-shirts.

At the back of the stage, the three cages began to rise. I thought I could hear the growling and snarling over the screaming crowd. That was impossible, of course; it was actually coming out of me. The noise grew from deep inside, my teeth were baring, and the crew gave me space. Lots of space. I stood watching, transfixed. All thoughts of fleeing were suddenly replaced with the rage of ten years of semi-consensual abuse and the realisation that I wanted the answer to the question “Where were you when those bears ripped Gina Savage apart on stage?” to be -“In the control room, releasing the safety chains.”

Now, that’s the kind of story that becomes a rock and roll myth… even when it’s true.