AVE MARIA AND THE DEAD POP BAND

AVE MARIA and the DEAD POP BAND

A popular band, struggling to find their place in the afterlife, thwarts a backroom deforestation deal while attempting to keep their music alive.

“I'm the founder of a band of pompous imbeciles!” Dagger, lead singer of the infamous band, Electric Blue, raged on live television. It was a publicity stunt he’d used before every new tour. A few hours later, the entire band, their manager, and a lone groupie named Daisy plunged, in fiery fashion, into a U.S. National Forest. This was a stunt Dagger had never considered.

Straightaway, anguished fans plotted pilgrimages to visit the crash site, bearing tokens of their devotion. Unbeknownst to everyone, a logging venture had other plans for this forest. A sweetheart deal between politicians and mega-corp Razum Inc. had already been struck, with plans to decimate the ancient trees, under the guise of environmental conservation.  Investigators had barely vacated the scene, before Razum, delivered its destructive machinery in the dead of night. Floodlights scorched the scarred landscape as lumberjacks scrambled to unload.

 “Good God! What’s that fucking light?” Mange, Electric Blue’s guitar player gasped. “I was finally getting some sleep!” He tried to raise his arm against the mega-watt glare only to find it missing.

“What are you crabbing about?” Dagger sputtered, feeling around for the glasses he never wore onstage.

“Holy Jesus!” came the voice of Natchez, bass player extraordinaire. “Where’s my other leg?”

“What about your leg?” Groat yawned, his two remaining fingers scrabbling for his drumsticks.

 “Hey! Do I look too black?” Natchez asked, puzzling over his hand, several feet away.

“You’re a Nawlin’s bass player. You can’t look too black,” snorted Dagger.

“Don’t look now, but we’re all too black,” interjected Daisy, a previously blonde nymph with scorched hair.

“We’re not looking so good!” Mange said.

 “Somebody call the roadies…”

“My mom told me not to come!”  Daisy’s voice wailed above the pandemonium.

“Seriously, where the fuck are we? Dagger…we’re not in Kansas anymore!”

“I can see right through you, Mange!” said Groat, swiping his hand through Mange’s midsection. “You’re not even all there!”

“Never been all there!” Dagger chuckled.

 “Hell guys, pull yourselves together!” directed the band’s manager, nicknamed Red Rover for his affinity for redheaded bitches.

What followed was a flurry of limbs as the band struggled onto what remained of its feet. Mange Karate chopped in all directions. “Did any of you feel those?” They all shook their heads.

“Holy shit, what happened to us?” The question hung in the air like a guillotine blade.

“Okay! Okay! Enough with the lights!” Rover shouted.  Surprisingly, the huge floodlights blinked out, leaving the group to adjust to the stars in the night sky. Dagger unclenched his fist. A swatch of stewardess uniform rolled from his fingers. 

“I remember now. The crew bailed. We must be dead.”

“HUH?”

“My mom’s gonna be so pissed!” whispered Daisy.

“This is your fault, Dagger, you and your big mouth in front of the cameras. Bad Karma, man!”

“Bullshit, talk about cursed, I told you if you cheated on your wife with that tree-hugging little twit, you’d bring us bad luck!” Dagger countered. The little twit began to cry.

“Hey! Some respect,” Groat chimed in. “She didn’t ask to get stuck here in eternity with all you jerks.”

“ETERNITY? What the hell we gonna do here for ETERNITY?” Natchez cried, as the sun rose over the horizon.

“GUYS! What the heck is all that?”

“Looks like logging equipment. Isn’t this a state-protected forest?”  Mange responded. “Come on guys! Grab your body parts and let’s find someplace safe.”

“Well, eternity is a pretty safe bet already, seems to me.” snarled Rover.

“I meant… away from this logging camp until we figure out what’s next.”

After what seemed like an eternity, Electric Blue was at wit’s end. With nowhere to go, and nothing to do, the creative juices that had originally brought them all together slammed into overdrive.

“I miss the band,” pined Dagger.

“How the fuck can you miss the band?” Natchez snarled, “We’re all right here!”

“I mean PLAYING,” Daltry said, “I miss making music with you guys.”

“Well, tough luck, buddy, our instruments died too.”

“I have an idea,” said Daisy. “I’ve been scouting around, and I think I know a way to save the music and some trees at the same time!” The group snapped to attention.

The logging foreman was awakened just after midnight by an incessant drumming outside his tent. Investigating, he ran smack into two crewmen, who’d heard it as well.  “Woodpeckers,” the foreman concluded. “Go back to bed.”

They were barely back in the sack when the “thrumthrumthrumthrum” began again. Crewmen stumbled into the clearing brandishing flashlights, looking for culprits. 

The foreman lit a lantern, which blinked right out.

“How’d you do that?” Daisy giggled.

“Shhh!” whispered Groat.

Noticing his tool case wide open, the foreman says, “My handsaw’s gone. Who took it?”

“Dunno,” somebody replied.

“What a minute…” another shouted, “Mine’s gone too!”

“And mine!”

“And mine!” another voice echoed.

Suddenly, from the deep woods, came a cacophony that stopped the crew cold.

“WROOONG-WROOOONG-BRONGG-WRONG-WROOONNNG-WROOONNNGGGG-BROOONG-BROOONG-WROOONG-WRROOONG-BROOONG-WROOOOOOONG”

“Shit, we sound like hell,” Natchez grumbled, as the band twanged away on the stolen saws.

“Try bending them and bowing with these,” Daisy said, offering some lean twigs she’d spent the day honing with river rocks until they were smooth and supple. “And let me help you! You’re all missing parts!”

“HROOONG-HREEEE-HREEE- EEEE- AAAIIIII00000-EEEEIIIIIIIOOOO-OOOOEEEEE”

“I’m getting the hell out of here. This place is haunted!” cried the foreman over the din, as he vaulted for his truck. The remaining crew burned rubber in his wake.

In minutes, the clearing stands empty, a melody of sorts, vaguely resembling “Ave Maria,” rising into the crisp mountain air. “I used to hate this music!” Dagger confesses. The others nod in agreement.

“Burnt Offerings,” the first band ever to be formed in the afterlife while saving their eternal home in the process, rehearses a descant. The little twit claps her hands in appreciation.

Dagger is hammering out harmony when an adoring fan hammers a signpost through his foot:

“WHEN THE MUSIC’S OVER,
BURN OUT THE LIGHTS!”

“Right on, Man.”

by Taree Belardes

10/25/15

NYC MIDNIGHT
Flash Fiction, 3rd rnd story

1000 words

ghost story, a forest, a saw.