Horror D’oeuvre #13
The Next Hit Album
by Ray Wallace
© 2007 by Ray Wallace
All Right Reserved.
Johnny stood at the top of the stairs looking down into the basement. As always, it was dark there. Because that’s the way the thing that lived down there liked it.
He didn’t want to descend those stairs but he had to. It was something that could not be put off any longer. Nearly three years now since the release of his debut album. His critically acclaimed, number-one-on-the-Billboard-rock-charts-for-eleven-straight-weeks debut album. The release had been followed by two years of constant touring. He’d gone from opener to headliner after the first six months. Sold out shows from New York to Los Angeles, from London to Moscow. Yes, he was quite the phenom. And now it was time to prove that he wasn’t a one album wonder.
In the past year since he’d come home to the sprawling new estate he’d purchased, he hadn’t written a thing. Well, nothing worth keeping, that was for sure. And the record execs were getting nervous. So was his agent. She’d called him just the previous day. “The label’s breathing down my neck, Johnny. They want to hear something. Anything. What have you got?”
“I’ve got shit,” a part of him wanted to say. Because that part of him wanted the whole thing to be over. He’d made his money. He’d had his fame. Women. It was a good couple of years. Why not move on? Because the price of it all… And that’s what it came down to. Was it worth the price he’d paid? Was it really worth it?
But there was a bigger part of him, it seemed, that thought, “Fuck yeah it was worth it!” That part wanted more money, more fame, more women. And that’s why he was here now, standing at the top of the stairs, taking off his clothes. Shirt, pants, underwear, he let them fall to the floor.
The fact that he had no new material was not due to a lack of trying. Oh, he’d tried, alright. On the road he’d often sit in the back of the bus with his guitar, his laptop, and his recording interface, just riffing out, laying down the occasional vocal track. But it was nothing he’d ever let his agent or the rest of the band hear because it was… Well, it was shit, nothing in comparison to the genius of the album. And the stuff he’d written since he came home was even worse.
Johnny descended the stairs. As he did so his mind went back to a time before he was famous. He’d been interning at a local recording studio. The local studio, where any number of world famous musicians came to record on a regular basis. There was this legend, this rock god, now in his fifties, who had the A room booked for a couple of weeks. One day Johnny was hanging out in the lobby, playing his guitar, when suddenly the legend was there standing before him.
“You want to be a star, kid?” asked the legend.
“Hell, yes,” Johnny had said. “Who doesn’t?”
A couple of weeks later this big crate showed up at his apartment. There was a letter with it. “It’s time I moved on,” it read. “Time to pass the torch. Better to a stranger than a friend.” Not until later did Johnny understand that part. “Open the box in a dark place. Enjoy the fame.”
Johnny placed blankets over his bedroom windows, closed the door, and opened the crate. There was barely enough light to see the thing inside with its tiny head, its long, snakelike body, and its tentacles. Johnny backed away in horror, turned to flee the room…
Just as the thing opened its tiny mouth and sang. Just a line. But what a line it was! Johnny stopped dead in his tracks. The thing sang again. Instantly Johnny realized what this thing could do for him. But there was a price, of course.
And now here he was, bare feet walking across the basement floor. At the center of the room he knelt, got down on all fours. There was a rustling sound as the thing approached. He felt the dry touch of its tentacles encircle his body, the wet, uncomfortable sensation of something entering him from behind. Then he felt the breath from that tiny mouth caress the side of his face as the thing started to sing…
On into the night it sang and sang, all the words, the melodies, to his next hit album.
Comment by macker on 11 June 2007:
eeuugghhh! entered him from behind?
nice one ray, i reckon jack will like this one
Comment by earthtotim on 11 June 2007:
Jack would dig it if the Thing double stuffed him from behind…Ick!
Comment by kresby on 14 June 2007:
Ha! I wasn’t expecting that…and right after I ate lunch.
Comment by SinAuthor on 1 November 2007:
Read this story about a month ago and it still rocks my world. The ending is a pure delight. Well, maybe not to poor Johnny…
Comment by meking on 27 November 2007:
Sorta reminds me of Bestseller Guaranteed by Lansdale (I think)…but with a bit more ‘bite’..