Ghost Town by Chase Block

Ghost Town

by Chase Block

“Are you done yet? It’s almost the good part!” Graham was eager to share his passion for movies with, well, anyone. In this particular instance he was summoning his wife, L.J., who sat across the room, her ginger face glowing from the light of her computer monitor.

“No. There are no gigs in Arkansas this weekend. Everywhere in Little Rock and Fayetteville is booked. Why does it have to be Arkansas?”

“The list!” Graham referred to a list of states they had played. Their band, Ghost Town, was based out of Oklahoma City, and Graham had got it in his head they should try to play a show in every state to ‘get the word out’ on their way to superstardom. So far, they’d played nearly every state that bordered Oklahoma. Arkansas was next, yet superstardom was still a long way away. Despite shifting responsibility to that piece of paper, L.J. definitely blamed Graham. “Get in here!”

L.J. rolled her eyes, then her chair to see whatever it was Graham wanted her to see. It was a film about a band, much like their own, that had run afoul of white supremacists while playing a show. This particular scene involved slicing someone’s gums with a boxcutter. Graham let out a satisfying groan. L.J. winced, and returned to her seat.

Her desperation mounted. She closed the last six search tabs and scanned her initial web search. A little blue link she’d missed before caught her eye.

“Ever hear of Whispering Mounds?”

“A band?”

“A town. Some club called the Paradiso is looking for bands to play Saturday.”

“Then let’s go!”

L.J. typed out an email offering their services, and hoped for the best. It was all she could muster, the hour getting late. She collapsed on the couch beside her husband, her red hair falling a bit on his shoulder, falling asleep somewhere around the time the movie’s drummer got chewed apart by some Nazi werehound.

***

Thursday evening, L.J. had not heard anything back from Paradiso. She started to curse her stupid husband and his stupid list. She could book seven shows in OKC where they already had fans. But no. It had to be Arkansas.

She pulled up Netserv, a social media forum for bands looking for gigs. The weekend fast approaching, dozens of other desperate bands had already filled the pages with their own requests. L.J. added one more to the pile, certain no one would ever see her post at the very bottom of the directory.

Graham forced L.J. to watch some unenjoyable, unsubtitled avant-garde flick. They crawled into bed around midnight, despite being exhausted from the long hours at their respective day jobs. Then another hour of insomnia followed, L.J.’s mind a grand prix of random, worrisome thoughts. This was her life.

After drifting off to sleep around 2:00 AM, her phone rang.

L.J.’s vocal timbre reflected a reluctant rousing from deep sleep. The caller did not seem to care.

“Is this the agent for a band called Ghost Town?”

“Yes?”

“This is Bo Bones, calling from Paradiso. I got your number off Netserv. You still available for Saturday?”

***

Friday afternoon was practice. L.J. told Terrance about their gig as he sat behind his purple drum set, a color he chose to complement his ebony skin.

“Whispering Mound? Never heard of it. Then again I never heard much of anything about Arkansas.”

“Well, half the fun of being in a band is seeing the world,” Graham said with the enthusiasm of an adventurous six-year old.

“Ain’t the world, man, it’s Arkansas,” Terrance said, twirling his drumsticks. Flicking his thick black dreadlocks behind his shoulder, he said, “We gonna play ‘US or A’?”

Graham answered with a subconscious flick of his own hair. “Been thinking about it a lot, with this political stuff going on. Wanna see how the crowd responds.”

“Then let’s do it,” Terrance said, rolling out the opening drum riff.

As they moved through practice, they wrote a setlist for the show. They wanted to showcase the band’s diversity, hoping beyond hope that someone in the crowd might be an angel that could help them to the top. Graham’s lyrics broadcast their liberal ideology and evoked the zeitgeist championed by Dylan and Lennon, yet the music itself was inspired by Elvis and the Boss. Plenty of their songs were honest toe-tappers, but Graham’s heart didn’t bleed all over the audience with those. Terrance and L.J. had some songs of their own that were a bit quicker tempo, but those didn’t get played as often. It was Graham’s band, after all.

Mid-morning, the three packed up their van and headed east, doing their best to follow L.J.’s comatose chicken scratch. Apparently writing directions half-asleep in pitch black didn’t facilitate easy navigation.

Thus, the only certain leg of their journey was traveling east on I-40; Everything else came with difficulty. Mr. Bones wasn’t answering his phone. There were plenty of missed streets, U-turns, doublebacks, and stops for directions. No one had any idea where Whispering Mound was. Fewer had heard of Paradiso. Nary a sign indicated the places existence until they finally stumbled upon it: WHISPERING MOUND, UNINCORPORATED, POP. 1200. The sign was faded, splintered, and honeycombed with bullet holes and carpenter bees. The population could’ve easily read twelve thousand or a hundred twenty.

Surveying their surroundings, L.J. assumed the latter. Houses with windows boarded, gas stations with the lights out, and piles of debris littered the roadside. There was nothing of interest, the very definition of podunk. The only person they saw was a child, wearing nothing but his tighty-whities barefoot in a ditch. L.J. considered pulling over to help the obviously lost child, but hesitated once someone drove by in a rusted Ford. It slowed, the boy disappearing behind it. L.J.’s eyes met with the driver, whose penetrating scowl silently screamed to her she was unwelcome.

A sense of relief hit when they arrived at Paradiso. It was just as ramshackle as its neighbors, with no indication that anyone ever frequented the place at all. Its walls were a decoupage of torn handbills, once stapled then left to waste for all eternity. If one of them was meant to advertise their show, they could not identify it.

L.J. went to pull open the front door, finding it locked. She knocked.

A black cat hissed at them from above, its face powdery brown with mange. As it walked the perimeter of the roof, L.J. could not identify any tail, only a badly infected wound where it once had been..

“I’m gonna start unloading my kit around back,” Terrance said. “Open the back door when you get in.”

Terrance had barely turned the corner when the door swung open to reveal a burly man, bald under his black leather cap, bushy meerschaum hair erupting from his face in a frosted jungle, eyes invisible behind small, circle-frame sunglasses.

“Help ya’? We’re closed right now,” he said.

“Um, we’re the band,” Graham said,

“Ghost Town? Nice to meet ya, Bo Bones. Everybody calls me Bobo.” He extended a muscled arm in greeting. His black tank-top showcased an exhibit of tattoo work from his fingertips to his shoulders. On his right arm was a tattoo of a humerus, transforming to radius and ulna at the elbow. Graham accepted his hand with a friendly shake, finding it frigid. “Come on in.”

The smell punched them in the face, a combined force of stale cigarettes and cat urine. This was exacerbated by the heat, with humidity near ninety-nine percent. L.J. shuddered at the thought some fetid condensation might drip from the black ceiling and infect her with myriad diseases.

Bobo showed them around, then unlocked the back door where they saw Terrance waiting with his drums. Bobo was surprised.

“You stealing those drums you monkey nig-” Bobo stopped himself, a modicum of tact overpowering his natural proclivity.

Terrance stood up straight, silent and powerful.

“He’s our drummer,” Graham said.

“You shitting me?” Bobo said. Their faces indicated they weren’t. “Dammit, you ain’t got no other drummer?” Their faces remained unchanged. “Then you’re gonna have to wear a sheet or something. People coming here tonight’s old fashioned like that.”

Graham said, “We’ll figure something out.” Bobo seemed reassured, then left.

Terrance was hot. “Seriously Graham, a fucking sheet?”

“Just for tonight.”

“My grandpa would smack the black off of me. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Come on, it’ll be fine. Something you can tell your kids someday. We’re called Ghost Town, after all. Nobody will know, they’ll think it’s our gimmick.”

“Motherfucker!” Terrance agreed under one condition; they would all be wearing sheets.

***

After some time, L.J. was ready to back out. The heat, humidity, and stench had not subsided, not even a little. The three had joked how people become accustomed to terrible smells, forgetting them until they walk out of a room and then return. But not this one. They sat on the couch drinking skunked, piss-warm Natty Ice, all Bobo could offer to drink since the water was out. Terrance gladly took another, and Bobo stretched out his arm, hurling mumbled epithets. Graham then noticed the triskele tattoo on his left arm, a symbol of white power. Suddenly everything made sense. “Okay, we’ll leave,” Graham whispered.

“Hey, Bobo, I just got a call, something’s-” he was stopped mid-sentence as Bobo wheeled around with a gun pointed at Terrance.

“I’m sorry, was you saying something? I was just about to clean Betsy. She gets caked up sometimes, you gotta get down in her.” Bobo holstered the gun in his waist then pulled a stiletto from his boot. “Hard to find these, but they’re perfect for scraping out gunbarrels if you ain’t got a proper kit. Look at the point on it.” Bobo extended his arm, the tip of the dagger menaced millimeters from Graham’s eye.

The tension broke with clatter from a group of teenagers entering the back door, sunset flooding the dim room. They wore polos and dockers, as if their grandmothers had just dressed them at Macy’s. “Oh, hey guys, are you the other band?”

Graham confirmed. “Yeah, name’s Ghost Town.”

“No way! I saw you at Oktoberfest last year, you were great! I even bought your CD!” L.J. lamented, as he was the only one that night who had. “Guys, this is the band I was telling you about! We’re playing with them tonight!” The other boys exchanged some awesomes then high-fived each other. One even asked for an autograph.

There was a collective thud as Ghost Town’s hearts hit the floor. Between Betsy and their reputation, there was no backing out of this gig.

The band fretted over their setlist, considering last-minute changes to avoid the ire of a potentially hostile crowd. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Skinheads are too stupid to figure out meanings behind lyrics,” said the drummer hiding under a white sheet. Nevertheless, Graham decided to make changes anyway, just in case.

The teenagers emerged from an alcove, listless and wan, the exact opposite of ebullience radiated ninety minutes earlier. “You know, um, when we’re supposed to play?”

L.J. could see the tourniquet bruises and tracks on the kids’ arms. “Five minutes.”

“Groovy,” one said, putting up his hand. “High five.”

***

L.J. was amazed, but somehow in this wasteland of rural Arkansas, patrons began to flood the Paradiso. The A/C was apparently on at full blast, because it was no longer sweaty-camel-balls hot, but downright chilly. She figured that might change as more people entered the club, their body heat affecting the convective equation. It did not.

The teens, which it was discovered called themselves Silent Majority, played a terrible set. “No surprise there. Heroin and inexperience don’t make for quality music.”

Once Ghost Town came to the stage they immediately got a response from the crowd. Through the little holes cut for his eyes, Graham watched his audience. They didn’t look like whatever he imagined Nazis should from all his movies. Of course, they weren’t goose-stepping into the club wearing swastikas, nor were they all bald. Some of them were, but it seemed to be attributed to age rather than hate.

In fact, they all seemed very old. A good dozen of them were in wheelchairs. More than one carried an oxygen tank, another puffed a cigarette through a tracheotomy. A few were walking with IV bags plugged into their arms. There were arms in slings, crutches, deformities, and hideous wounds stitched together. “Did anyone remember seeing a hospital nearby?” L.J. asked. Between the sheet and the crowd noise, no one heard her.

“Hey everybody, thanks for coming out. We’re Ghost Town, from O-K-C. 1-2-3-4!”

They played. In their wisdom they pulled the songs they perceived could be controversial, replacing them instead with impromptu covers of Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Buddy Holly. The crowd loved it. It was difficult under the sheets, but they made it work. As the show wore on, the three synergized to play one of the best shows they’d ever had.

Two encores later, they moved back to the green room. The previous band had all left, save one who was passed out on the disgusting couch, abandoned by his slightly straighter bandmates.

Bobo came back, just as excited as Graham. “That was a great show, you done good. Crowd loved you guys. Best music they’ve had in years. People around these parts don’t get out much, so when they do, they appreciate a good time.

“Who’s the money man, here, ready to settle up?” Bobo nodded his head down at the stupefied Ralph Lauren. “You want their cut, too? They all ran off, and I don’t think he even knows what planet he’s on.”

“Uh,” Graham waffled, holding out his hand. Bobo counted out $200. It wasn’t much,  barely covering their gas. “This was a great experience,” Graham said, cementing his real motivation behind the band. Terrance and L.J. preferred money.

“And you, little strawberry, come here,” Bobo said. He grabbed L.J. uninvited, and gave her a too-close, too-long hug. Bobo was still icy, L.J. being embraced by a side of beef hanging in a slaughterhouse “I’d like it if you just stayed here forever, be our house band. Sure I could find a place to put you up.” He addressed the band, but spoke it directly to L.J.’s eyes.

L.J. found herself using a bit too much muscle to extricate herself from Bobo’s uncomfortable death grip of a hug, “No, we’re a touring band, sorry. In fact, looks like it’s time to get back.”

The club empty, Bobo let Terrance remove his sheet and even helped him load his drums into the van. As soon as they shut the doors, L.J. and Terrance buckled up, waiting for Graham to get the hint and stop chatting with Bobo.

***

On the highway back toward the interstate, they came upon an old Mobil station, its pegasus logo still out front. Terrance craved Little Debbies.

Each of them found snacks and poured up large sodas. Graham pulled their take from his pocket to pay the cashier.

“What’s this?” the cashier asked, holding the bill up to the light.

“Money. You never seen cash before?” Graham said, sarcastically. As he said it, however, he saw exactly what caught cashier’s eye. The colors were all wrong.

“You giving me monopoly money, boy?”

Graham looked at his stack. All of the bills were like that. They still appeared to be genuine, just bearing the words Silver Certificate at the bottom. No bill was dated after 1965.

“This is still legal tender, it’s good,’ Graham said.

“I ain’t takin’ it,” the cashier said.

L.J. stepped forward, offering her debit card to defuse the situation that Graham prepared to ignite.

“Where’d you get all that?” the cashier asked.

“Paradiso, over in Whispering Mound,” L.J. said as he scanned her card.

“Naw, lady, can’t be. Ain’t nobody lived in Whispering Mound since the sixties. Textile mill given everybody cancer, then burnt down. Weren’t no reason to live there no more, so people left.”

“We were just there one hour ago,” L.J. said.

“Alright lady, whatever you say. All I know is you got gypped good with that funny money.”

Walking back to the car, Graham made the decision. “We have to go back.”

Terrance and L.J. twisted their faces in horror. “No,” they said in unplanned unison.

Graham commandeered the driver’s seat before the protest could go further. “We have to get paid. I’m not having this same argument at the bank. Let’s go.”

Finding Whispering Mound was much easier the second time around, but the Paradiso was not. They drove past it three times before they found it again. The sign wasn’t lit, neither were any of the lights on its facade, or the street for that matter.

Graham walked to the door and pounded it three times with his fist. No answer. He knocked again, but with the third rap his fist splintered the wood. It was then he noticed a sign by the headlights of the van that he had not seen in the light of day.

POSTED:

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED

BY THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

JULY 18, 1969

Graham yanked the handle hard, nearly pulling it off the hinges.

Inside, nothing was recognizable. Animal droppings were everywhere, and the wood was black with carbon as if it had been aflame years ago. Indeed, the roof was caved in, without any indication this was a recent happening. The only thing confirming they were in the correct place was the heat, and that unforgettable stench.

“What the fuck is going on?” L.J. shouted with fear that vibrated through her chest.

Terrance broke the cold silence that broadcast everyone’s terror. “At least they weren’t fucking skinheads.”

This story was previously included in issue #4. Purchase the full print issue here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/639457118/the-rock-n-roll-horror-zine-4