Sonic Teratology
By Thomas Vaughn
“So why do people call you Suicide?”
The blogger’s question amused the razor-scared woman born with the unfortunate name Norma Hackfleisch. It wasn’t like the old days when the reporters from magazines like Zigzag or Flipside knew how to ask questions. Even the hacks at Spin knew their ass from a hole in the ground. But the band’s manager had assured them the smooth-skinned, twenty-something hipster whose glasses frames matched his shirt had ten times the readers than any rag from the old days.
“I guess it’s because of the all of the beauty in the world,” she replied at length.
“Beauty? I don’t get it.”
“You know… All of the birds and flowers and shit. It makes me want to blow my brains out.” The sarcasm in her voice was only outweighed by the Brooklyn dialect.
Thirty-five years later Sonic Teratology was still at it. Suicide discovered the guitar at fifteen. She had just broken out of the detention center for the third time. The streets were hard, but not nearly as bad as the old man’s belt. The washed-out hippy she shacked-up with showed her a few chords on the battered Peavey he had sitting in the corner—only about six or seven. But that was enough to get her started. Once she learned how to barre up and down the fretboard that was all she needed.
“Yeah, I get that,” said the young man, stroking his well-manicured beard. “But most of your contemporaries either died or mellowed-out. I don’t get the whole suicide trip. This isn’t 1982. And I heard your last gig was in Dothan Alabama before you flew back here to L.A. You don’t need to be playing shows like that. What are you trying to prove?”
“Hey Star,” said Suicide, turning to her bass player. “This guy wants to know why we’re still so fucked-up.”
“I think it’s the whales’ fault,” replied the bored looking musician.
“Didn’t we kill all of them?”
“No. There’s like thousands of them left.”
Suicide turned back to the blogger. “We haven’t killed all the whales yet. There are thousands of miles of pristine, unpolluted ocean out there. The next time life takes a shit in your mouth, think about that. All those whales are out there having a little swim party while you suffer.”
“Oh come on,” he smiled. “Cut the act. Things are a lot better. The air is cleaner and crime rates are down. We’re making real progress these days.”
Suicide returned his smile, peeking at him through the bangs that hung to her nose. “You see… That’s why we play places like Dothan. Where do you live?”
The guy shifted. “I’m not an elitist. I live in Long Beach.”
“Yeah,” she cooed. “A nice little condo three blocks from the beach, right?”
“Four actually.”
“That’s your problem. You don’t see the world like I do.” Suicide smoothed out the black miniskirt that highlighted her mortician’s knees. “The whole center of this country is nothing more than a festering, burned-out wasteland. I’m not going to run and hide in some sustainable, community garden in Seattle and tell myself everything’s OK. I look at the world the way it is.”
The man flushed. “I’ve spent my adult life writing about artists who challenge corporate exploitation. I don’t see anything like that here. I can’t even tell what you’re rebelling against?”
“Something you’ll never understand. There are too many lies floating around out there.
I may not have much, but I still have the truth. The truth is we’re fucked. The environment is fucked. Democracy’s fucked. The whole species is fucked. There’s nothing left to save.”
Sonic Teratology hit in the early eighties, a three-piece band catching the tail end of the L.A. punk wave.
Suicide played lead guitar and sang most of the vocals. Star was a former prom queen from Staten Island who had fallen so far off the golden pedestal she still couldn’t find the bottom. No one knew much about the Silhouette, who sat in the corner idly twirling a drumstick. She did all of her talking on stage. One thing was for certain. They still had a loyal cult following. The show was going down at a humid cavern called The Purge. The four of them could hear the early arrivals muttering like water in a distant sewer.
The blogger settled back and looked at the stained ceiling. “You know the thing I really don’t get? Your lyrics are all right. It’s your music… your voice. It’s just…” His voice trailed off. Someone in the loft apartment above them lit a cigarette and the smell drifted through the vents.
“Go on,” prodded Suicide. “You’re not going to hurt our feelings.”
He met her bloodshot eyes. “I tried listening to your first album. Your songs are only two or three minutes long, but I wasn’t able to finish any of them. They upset me.”
Star lit her own cigarette. “Whoever said music was supposed to make you feel good?”
“I can’t put my finger on it,” he continued, ignoring her. “They’re just songs, right? But I felt kind of sick after hearing them.”
His musings were interrupted when a massive stagehand entered the room.
“Does twenty minutes work ladies?” he inquired in a voice that seemed much too high and nasal for a man his size.
“Yeah. Thanks, Barry,” replied Suicide.
The hulking frame lingered in the doorframe. When the interviewer’s eyes fell on creature he froze. The stagehand was at least six-five. In the center of his forehead sat a single, massive eye. From there his face tapered rapidly past two twisted nostrils to a puckered mouth. The thing glanced in the blogger’s direction, an inscrutable expression on its face. Then it turned and ducked beneath the doorframe.
“What the fuck was that?” The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them.
“That’s Barry,” said Suicide. “He’s been with us for seven years now. Nice kid.”
“He’s only got one eye.”
“So what? He sees good enough. Just a touch of cyclopia.”
“So what? He sees good enough. Just a touch of cyclopia.”
“Huh? Oh… I think I read an article about that. Isn’t it supposed to be fatal?”
Suicide shrugged. “He ain’t breaking no laws by being alive.”
“Christ,” muttered the blogger, reaching into his pocket for his phone. “I’ve got to get a picture of that guy.”
Suicide laughed. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you. He’s kind of camera shy.”
“And he’s real strong,” added Star.
The man hesitated, then smiled conspiratorially. “You guys are punking me. Right? That’s got to be a professional make-up job.”
Suicide glanced over at Star. “Can’t put anything over on this guy,” she said dryly.
“Yeah. He’s a one-man Penn and Teller.”
The blogger leaned forward. “I guess that brings me to my last question. I was wondering if you would mind talking about the urban legend surrounding the band.”
“What urban legend is that?”
“Oh come on,” he said, gesturing to the empty door frame. “Obviously you guys are playing around with the myth. I’m talking about the rumors that your music causes birth defects.”
“You believe everything you hear?”
“No,” said the blogger, scanning the room through the lens of his phone. “But it’s an interesting marketing ploy. I have a couple of friends who swear those stories are true.”
“Your friends aren’t too bright. Next thing you know they’ll be telling you that GMOs cause brain cancer and jerking-off leads to blindness.”
“Give me a break. Don’t tell me your publicist isn’t stoking these stories. I’ve seen whole websites devoted to it.”
Star stubbed her cigarette. “We ain’t got no publicist.”
A loud yawn emanated from the corner as Silhouette shifted in her chair. Her eyes wandered pointedly to words scrawled above the stage door that read “FUCK YOU.”
At this point the young man’s eyes narrowed.
“Do you know who I am? I’m Sebastian Young—the lead editor of The Global Pulse. I have over a million readers on five different platforms. Now this can go two ways. You can either tell me the truth about these legends or I can go back and write an article about a bunch of washed-up old has-beens. Now I want my story and I want a selfie with the guy in the make-up.”
Suicide cocked her head and smiled. “Hey Star! This guy wants to know the story.”
The bass player wiped at her eyes, smearing black mascara across her temple. “I think you should enlighten him.”
The blogger glanced from one woman to the other, a look of obstinate petulance on his face.
“Do you want to know what sonic teratology really is?” inquired Suicide playfully. “So everything in the universe vibrates, right? Every atom vibrates. That’s all the universe is, just one big vibratory pulse. Now what’s music? It’s just vibrations too. What if someone was able to unlock the code that allowed those sonic vibrations to alter reality? What if they could even use it to rewrite genetic language?”
The young man blinked. “Bullshit… I mean, it’s a cool theory, but it’s bullshit.”
“Why don’t you take a look at the crowd?” Suicide nodded toward a hole in the wall.
He shook his head and strolled to the aperture. The Purge was nothing more than a narrow room with dark walls covered in graffiti. There were a couple of hundred people milling about the broken tile floor and makeshift bar in the back. A neon sign that read “REPENT” flickered in one corner. At first he saw what he expected. There were a bunch of Silicon Valley types slumming it with their iPhones. Sonic Teratology still had a certain cultural cachet that made them great fodder for a timeline.
As Sebastian Young strained his eyes he saw something else. There were people with too many limbs while others had none. Some snaked across the floor while others lurched. A person with four-limbed ectrodactyly clambered to the top of a support poll where he surveyed the crowd intently. Heads were disproportionate to bodies. A woman opened her shirt to reveal a conjoined twin jutting from her chest. The twin opened its toothy mouth, guzzling the beer that her sibling offered. The room was full of every conceivable perversion of the sacred organ primordia.
It was easy to spot the ones who had never been to a Sonic Teratology show. They looked nervous, trying to prevent their eyes from lingering on the monstrosities around them. Many were already drifting toward the exits.
“It’s a bunch of people with birth defects,” he blurted.
“What do you got against birth defects?” said Suicide. “I thought you millennials were supposed to be all sensitive and shit.”
“But… I can see a woman’s brain out there. At least I think it’s a woman.” He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Are you telling me your music actually caused these mutations?”
“No. We’re a teratogen, not a mutagen. There’s a big difference.”
He looked back at the tattered pixie in the black mini-dress. “This has got to be a con.”
“Those people have been coming to our shows for years, just like their parents before them. You see all of the pregnant ones up front?”
Instead of a mosh pit the crowd made room for an assortment of grotesque Madonnas, their faces etched with anticipatory ecstasy. They gathered like supplicants, offering their developing fetuses to the speakers.
“That’s why we tour so much. We got a lot of people depending on us.”
The blogger staggered back to the dressing room, his clammy skin belying a mild state of shock.
“This can’t be real,” he said, falling heavily in his chair.
“Let me lay it out for you. You ain’t gonna save shit. What do you think is going to happen when the oceans rise and the cities are nothing but poison waste-dumps? There ain’t no stopping it. You know why? Because that’s what humans do. But those people out there are different. They’re born into suffering and that’s what makes them strong. Where you retreat from pain, they advance through it. Welcome to the new world disorder, Sebastian Young.”
He looked at each of the women in turn. “You’re fucking insane.”
“We’re not insane,” interjected Star. “We’re late.”
Suicide stood, loosening her neck. Slowly the musicians walked to the stage entrance where the perverse bestiary waited with rabid anticipation. Suicide glanced over her shoulder. “You want a story? Go tell your one-million readers that we’re coming for them.”
Her smile was not menacing, but concealed a deep sadness.
A woman with Sirenomelia slithered around the microphone stand. Her face was beautiful beyond description. The crowd began to cheer. A normal person turned toward the exit, vomiting just short of the threshold. But the initiated surged closer to the stage.
“Do you hear the storm?!” cried the MC, wiggling her serpent’s tail.
“Yes!” they roared.
“Then put your hands together… or whatever you’ve got… for Sonic Teratology.”
Sonic Teratology was showered with howls of pain and rage as they walked on stage. They launched straight into Cain’s Anthem. Sebastian took a step back as Star began pounding out the rhythm. Silhouette had seemed so dazed during the interview he wondered if she was partially catatonic. Now her drumsticks became a blur. Suicide rocked coquettishly, letting the beat fill her. She looked like a demon faire paroled from the bowels of the inferno. As her pulse caught up with the music she brought her hands to the strings and began strumming with manic fury. Her mop of hair thrashed. The strumming crested and she began singing with all of the fury God had ever given her.
“What happened to our Eden
Where is our Shangri-la
We don’t know where we’re going
Just that we’ve gone too far”
Sebastian clutched at his guts as her gravelly voice summoned something unwelcome. Hearing the recordings was one thing, but the live music was intolerable. He backed away from the stage, repulsed by the sight of twisting fleshing churning throughout the room. That’s when he saw the claws and spines spring from hidden orifices. The women were right. These were not genetic mutations. These were monsters. The remaining interlopers fled. The pregnant women threw back their heads and bared their teeth as the sound waves penetrated their wombs.
“Don’t need no constitution
Heaps of twisted junk
At least we saw it coming
The rulers of the dump”
Suicide felt her awareness tuning into dozens of unborn heartbeats. Her voice swam amid the homeotic proteins, tearing them apart. The fetuses reached out across the sonic stream and wept at the beauty of her rage. They were offspring birthed by a universe that was relentlessly neutral to pain. They knew that God had long ago fled the ongoing tragedy of creation. And they were getting stronger in his absence.
Finally Sebastian could stand it no longer. He didn’t understand what was happening, only that he wanted to leave. He had come for a story. Instead he had been granted a vision of the future he wished he had never seen.
His kind would fade into the latrine of history.
Sonic Teratology.
He tried to calculate the damage. They played shows everywhere. There was no telling how many people had been affected. At least two entire generations compromised. There would be no story in The Global Pulse. If he told the truth, more people would come to the shows out of morbid curiosity.
As he reached the exit a familiar voice stopped him.
“You still want that picture?” The cyclops loomed from the darkness.
“Uh… No… That’s cool. I’m just leaving. I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble,” said the creature gliding through the shadows. Sebastian stared into that single, dark eye and felt himself going faint. He felt an arm around his shoulder. The creature smelled like stale piss and cigarettes.
“Go ahead,” it said in that impossibly high-pitched voice. “Take your picture.”
Sebastian wanted to pull away, but he could feel the power in the arm around his shoulder. He looked into the iPhone screen, trying to frame them for the shot. His hand shook violently as he tilted it upward to capture the massive bulk of his companion.
As his finger touched the shutter-button the cyclops snapped his neck like a tulip stem. Back on the stage the age lines that creased the faces of the musicians momentarily vanished and they glowed in the darkness. Desolate and beautiful, they tore through the final riff into the last verse.
“Fuck all your rules of order
Fuck your reality
Don’t need your absolution
Just organic anarchy”
The cyclops knelt by the dead man and picked up the phone. He studied the surprised look on the blogger’s face in the picture. It had captured the precise moment when his vertebrae snapped. What passed for a smile creased the puckered mouth. There was something deeply satisfying about the photo. It was a snapshot of the day of judgement.
One thing was for sure. They would never see it coming.
This story was originally published in Issue #3. Get the whole
print issue here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/631267104/the-rock-n-roll-horror-zine-3
See more of Thomas Vaughn's writing here: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Vaughn/e/B078RTCZ7C
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