The Rock N' Roll Horror Zine

Afterglow by Charlotte O’Farrell Tom held the drumsticks aloft as if he couldn’t quite believe they existed. Throwing aside the packaging they’d arrived in, he kept repeating to himself “these are mine now. Mine”. Twenty years ago, they had belonged to him , when there was still a “him” alive to own things. But now they were Tom’s. He sat on the sofa in the middle of his tiny apartment, rolling the worn wooden sticks between his fingers. Scraping together enough cash to win the auction – through selling his car and most of his otherworldly possessions – had been a great moment, but nothing had prepared Tom for this. He was holding the sticks of the world’s greatest ever rockstar, Fleet Hicks, in his shaking hands. Fleet had been Tom’s hero since he was a lonely kid, penning terrible song lyrics about his latest crushes in his bedroom. There was something almost supernatural about the drummer’s talent; every song pulsated with longing and urgency. It had been Fleet that ha...