The Story So Far:
Part I
This is part one. Read part two here and part three here
If I had a dollar for every time I told a story that started out: “So, this one time in a bar,” I’d probably starve to death, because American currency…currency from anywhere on the planet Earth, for that matter…sort of went out of style awhile back, when humanity ceased to exist.
Well, most of humanity. A few of us made it out alive.
The point is, I was in this bar, and a series of questionable decisions led to a really lucky break. Isn’t that always how these stories go? I mean, I guess some of them don’t, but those are the stories that get told by other people. I’m telling this story, so it’s sort of implied that I didn’t die or anything (at least not yet). This is the story of how the Drunk Pedestrians killed it at their first gig. Literally.
The awakening was a nasty one, so we’re not gonna dwell on it. Suffice to say, I came to with what felt like the granddaddy of all hangovers, and no memory of what had happened the night before. As I rubbed my eyes and turned onto my side, fighting waves of nausea, I realized I also had no memory of anything else, other than my first name was something like Chris, and I was from somewhere in North America. Probably.
The view out of the nearest porthole informed me that I was on some kind of spaceship. The view of the half-dozen pairs of clawed feet surrounding my position on the floor informed me that the spaceship was not from anywhere close to North America. Or Earth, for that matter. The half-dozen pairs of feet turned out to belong to a single being—a Veephrean, to be exact.
“What’re you doing in my solar system?” I croaked, rather rudely. My head was pounding.
“I’m not in your solar system,” the Veephrean hissed. The translator implants all the more advanced species had these days didn’t do much to make alien voices sound more pleasing to the ear. He was probably thinking the same thing. “You’re in my solar system.”
At that point, several other crew members arrived, and soon had me in the ship’s infirmary. From their findings, it was determined that I was a human, male, approximately thirty-three Earth-years old. Never mind the fact that I’d already informed them of these facts several times while I was being unceremoniously bathed and examined from head to toe before being handed back my clothes. In the back pocket of my jeans, I discovered a singularity pack.
They seemed utterly shocked by the fact that they had an actual human onboard. Once I’d had a meal and something to ease the jackhammering in my skull, I learned the reason for their shock: Approximately 150 years ago, a global plague had wiped all of civilization off the face of the Earth. How I’d ended up in this place and time was as much of a mystery as the life I’d lived before.
And what exactly was this place? It was a luxury cruiser, just setting sail for a remote star cluster resort located over one hundred light years from the Milky Way. The Veephreans argued about what to do with me. A lot of them were in favor of putting me on display and charging guests to come take a gander at the last known human. The crewman who’d first discovered me—Zarf was his name—was against this, insisting that if I could get back my memory, we could all learn about ancient Earth culture and time travel.
While they were still deep in discussion, I occupied my time exploring tones on the Martin acoustic guitar I’d discovered in the singularity pack. My musical capabilities were the one good thing I’d discovered since waking up here. Lost in the music, I started coming up with lyrics, and holy shit, I was pretty good at that, too.
Gradually, I became aware that the debate over my fate had petered out and the roomful of Veephreans had turned all attention on me. The ship’s captain stood and approached. “You’ll entertain us and our guests,” he said. Through the forest of tusks, his mouth appeared to be smiling as he turned to his crew. “They’ll pay out the ass to hear this shit!”
The room filled with deafening hisses.
Free room and board, plus all the booze I could drink. Our cruises became the envy of the surrounding galaxies, attracting royalty from distant nebulae, travelers from foreign dimensions. In all that time, I never got any closer to figuring out how I’d gotten here, or who I’d been on Earth. But the longer I spent playing that stage, the less important it seemed. I kept that gig for three Earth-years, hopping from system to system, wooing females with my singular rhythms.
Then, I made the mistake of sleeping with the captain’s wife. Sure, she had six legs and a face consisting mostly of fangs, but when you got past all that… Hey, when you’re the last living human, you learn not to discriminate.
The crew talked the captain out of jettisoning me, reminding him that I was from an earlier, less civilized time. Instead, they dropped me off on some godforsaken rock in the asteroid belt of Nefarus—the Dark Star. There was supposed to be a mining colony here. “Good luck,” said Zarf, waving a claw as the ship’s airlock closed and the Veephreans lifted off.
I’d heard rumors that some of the fugitives from the recent prison break all over the news lately had sought refuge in the Nefarus belt. Reports were still coming out about the body count at the Downwater Rehabilitative Tranquility Center. The DRTC was maximum-security, reserved for only the most dangerous intergalactic offenders. I swallowed hard, looking around at the dark and jagged landscape.
Wait. A faint sound, just below the screaming of the wind. Was that an electric guitar?
The sound of music seemed odd in a place like this. But there it was. As I crested a ridge, I beheld sullenly glowing letters above a long, sprawling structure carved into the wall of a deep canyon and surrounded by a variety of vessels drifting like debris in the floating parking lot. I couldn’t read the letters, but like a beacon in all that darkness there shone the unmistakable Budweiser logo in red, white, and blue. A little bit of Earth had survived, after all. “Home sweet home,” I said, and crossed the skywalk in record time, already fumbling for my payment chip, which still had a few credits (hopefully).
On the far side of the canyon, I descended stone steps that looked like they led down into a cellar. As I neared the bottom, the thrum of rock music grew louder beyond a rusted door.
Pulling the door open, I entered a good-sized pub where various creatures hunched around tables in front of an empty stage, but one older man—a humanoid by all appearances—sat at the bar, nursing a dark liquid in a tumbler. No one looked up or acknowledged my entrance in any way.
I went up to the bar and motioned to the bartender, a seven-foot Kraukon. One of his eye stalks turned in my direction and I said, “Vodka. Straight.”
“That’s a stiff drink,” said a voice from my right. I turned to look at the older man. He kept his gaze forward as he swirled his glass. His dark complexion was accented by his charcoal suit.
“You talking to me, old timer?”
The man turned at last, eyes concealed behind black shades. “Sure am. Don’t see many Terrans these days. Where are you from, son?”
“Where and when. Nearest they can guess is, North America, some years before the plague. I got caught in some kind of temporal bloop that scratched most of my memory. What about you?”
The man smiled and I felt the weight of his invisible gaze. “Oh, I’ve been around, but I bet my stories aren’t as wild as yours, synth I’ve never traveled through time. One of my areas of interest is ancient Earth history. Is there anything you do remember?”
I was mesmerized by his sunglasses, so much so that I barely noticed the strange way he pronounced some words. It was dark in the bar, but the lenses were like two black holes. “Not a lot about my own life, but I can tell you what I remember about the world at large.”
I sat and talked with the old dude—Charles, I learned—for a couple hours, him drinking whiskey and me tossing back vodka until I was pleasantly sloshed and he was…oddly sober. I handed my payment chip to the bartender and shook Charles’s hand. “Great passing the time with you,” I said, looking around the bar. I was astonished at how crowded it had become over the course of our conversation.
Charles was about to reply when the bartender cut in: “Oy, this got declined.”
“What? I just got paid! Try running it again.”
“Already tried three times, mate.” The Kraukon tossed the chip on the bar in disgust. “Fuckin’ humanoids, always skippin’ out on their tabs.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, “no one’s skipping out on anything.”
“So you got cash, then? Another account?”
“Well, no,” I replied. The bartender’s eye stalks trembled with barely-contained anger.
Charles drew out his own chip. “I can pick up your tab, Chris. Least I can do for keeping me entertained.”
“No way,” I said. “I settle my own debts.” I turned back to the bartender. “Anything we can work out? Barter?”
“Barter?” the Kraukon said. “Not unless you can wash glasses faster than a dishbot—fourteen glasses per second with a 99.99% microbial destruction rate.” He nodded at my silence. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Only other thing is, if you’re a musician, the annual battle of the bands. It starts in about an hour. Winning act drinks for free until the next battle.”
“I don’t remember much about my life before,” I said, pulling my singularity pack from my back pocket, “but I can tell you I was a musician, and a pretty good one, back on Earth. ‘Cause I woke up with this in my pack, and I’ve been jamming on it ever since.” From the pack, I produced a vintage ’84 Peavey Fury ash-body bass guitar. I didn’t add that this singular object felt like the one real link to my past life, that every time I played it, the memory of that life, while still beyond my reach, felt closer than ever, as if somehow waiting for my return.
“That’s wonderful,” said the bartender. “But unless you also have a band in your pocket, you’re shit outta luck. No solo acts.”
I looked over at Charles. “Wanna join my band?”
The old man grinned, crackling his knuckles. “How do you even know I play anything, or play it well?”
“I don’t, but I know that otherwise I’m gonna end up in a cell for the night over an unpaid bar tab. Worth a shot, right?”
“Well, synth you asked, I just so happen to be pretty good on the keys.” He drew a double-stacked synth from his own pack. The top row of keys was solid white, the bottom row multicolored. I was pretty sure Charles was blind, but made a mental note to ask him later about the colored keys.
The bartender said, “Charles, everyone knows you can rock, but come on. Are you really gonna risk your life for this bozo?” His eyestalks flicked in my direction. “Don’t forget what happened to the last band who challenged the Horsemen.”
“You let me worry about that, Flevus. You just don’t want to have to serve free drinks to a customer that can drink a gallon of 100-proof before even catching a buzz.”
Flevus laughed. “Fat chance. Old as you are, it’ll probably only be another month or two, tops.”
I coughed loudly. “Er. What was that about…risking our lives?”
“Only two other bands competing: The Whore’s Heads—punk band from the Horsehead Nebula that’s won the past five years in a row. Then there’s Bobthwait. A metal band whose singer is a sixth-gen clone of Bobcat Goldthwait. They’ve got some balls. Not many bands have gone up against The Whore’s Heads since they slaughtered another band at the second battle.”
“Slaughtered?”
“Yeah, they take the ‘battle’ part pretty seriously,” said Flevus. “But only if they think you’re a threat.” He gave me that look again. “I’m sure you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“Shit.” I turned to Charles. “The Whore’s Heads sound pretty hardcore. Think we’ve got a chance?”
Charles flashed that smile. “How fast can you write a song? Excuse me.” He pocketed his synth and walked away without another word.
As the three members of Bobthwait took the stage and started their sound check, I sat nursing my vodka and trying hard to remember the last song I’d composed. I could tell they were awful before they played their first song, what with the untuned squeal of the lead guitar, the rhythmically challenged drummer banging out disjointed noises, and the bass player attempting a slap and pop that was more of a thud and twang. Then they started the first song, confirming my suspicions. Fortunately, I was on my fifteenth drink, which made the noise almost bearable.
I was still trying to think over the awful din when Charles returned and shouted something in my ear. “What?” I yelled.
“I said, follow me into the bathroom!” Charles yelled back, just as Bobthwait’s first song jangled to a halt. In the ringing silence, every head and eyestalk rotated in our direction.
I swayed on the barstool. “Hey man, you’re a good-looking dude and all, but I’m a little too drunk to—”
“Just come along.” Charles seemed unconcerned with the audience we’d attracted. “It’s time to—” The rest was lost as Bobthwait charged into their next musical composition. Charles motioned Flevus for a glass of water and pushed it into my hand, took what remained of my vodka and tossed it back, then ushered me out of my seat.
I stumbled after him into the corridor just off the front entry, which was lined with doors of varying shape and size, each bearing a symbol vaguely resembling a lifeform. After passing the door marked with a mass of coiling tentacles, and the next with what may have been a pterodactyl, Charles pushed open a door with the silhouette of something vaguely simian.
I gazed blearily around at the rusted stall doors, the cracked mirrors, the grimy tiled floor of unidentifiable pattern. “What’re we doing here?”
“Drink your water.” Charles’s tone left no room for argument, and I obediently gulped it down. A small part of my brain flickered to life, struggling to produce a thought.
“This is weird,” I finally said.
As if in answer, a toilet flushed in the very last stall. “We’re here,” Charles said to the stagnant air. From behind the still-unopened door came a long, low, mournful note that filled the room, echoing off the stained tile and vibrating the corroded pipes underneath the sinks. It throbbed across the ceiling and up from the floor, resonating throughout my body.
My hand found my back pocket and pulled out my Peavey, along with the Gorilla amp. Nothing felt more natural. I matched the key, an eerie f-sharp minor, with a run of harmonics, ending on the subdominant b-flat. More cells in my alcohol-infused brain were beginning to fire.
The stall door swung open, and the curling scroll head of a stringed instrument emerged, followed by a girl lugging a cello that was about the same size as her small frame. A buzzsaw of blue and purple hair added a couple inches to her height, and her clothing seemed made almost entirely of zippers. She stopped, taking in my gear while seeming to have little interest in me.
“I’m—” I started awkwardly, then cleared my throat. “Hi!”
Her eyes finally found mine. “Clearly,” she said.
“I mean, I’m Chris,” I said with a little more conviction.
“Notkelly,” said the cellist. “But you can call me NK.”
Charles drew out his synth and looked toward the row of battered stalls. “Jenkem,” he said.
“Ugh,” I said. “Never again, bro. Although I wouldn’t say no to some DMT—”
I was interrupted by a heart-stopping CRASH of cymbals, then the metal door of the nearest stall was torn from its hinges as the hulking frame of a man emerged, his angular brow reminiscent of an early cousin of humankind, his ancient Ramones t-shirt and pants ripped and frayed in so many places it wasn’t entirely clear how they stayed intact.
“Hey Jenk,” said Notkelly, not looking surprised at all.
The huge man swung around. “NK?!” As he stared down at her, a couple of tears began running down his rough, brown cheeks. “Goddamn, shoulda known that was you!” he roared, lunging forward.
I glanced over at Charles, wondering what, if anything, could be done to stop this brute from smashing her to bits with one giant fist. “H-hey now,” I sort of squeaked, waving a hand in the air.
The giant was on her in two massive steps, reaching down with both hands, and then he was carefully laying her instrument aside as he lifted her up in a gentle hug. “But I thought you were dead!” he said.
Massive eyeroll. “Then you underestimated me,” said Notkelly. “Either that, or you overestimated the competence of the Ministry of Public Safety.”
“I never even knew you played anything,” said Jenkem, still holding her off the ground and looking at her with wonder.
“Ditto.” She broke into a grin that made her look like an ornery teenager. “Guess it never came up in the midst of the riot and all.”
Riot? “Wait a minute,” I said, and they both looked at me as if I’d only just appeared in the room. “Are you talking about that riot at the DRTC?”
“Small talk can wait,” Charles said. “We only have a few minutes to rehearse.”
Jenk set NK back down and hauled out some kind of improvised percussion rig that looked like a welder and a robot got into a fistfight. “Holy shit,” I said, getting a good look at the drumheads on the toms and snare. “You’ve got Mobius Xicars? What are you, some kinda financier, some kinda baron?”
“Wrong. Not Xicars. They’re the new Ordinals, just came out.” He ignored my second question.
Through the alcoholic haze, my head had cleared enough to recall two or three songs I’d written, although I’d never attempted to play them with anyone else. Hoisting the Peavey, I began the intro to “Overqualified,” throwing out beats and verses here and there.
Jenk picked up my groove with an intricacy that his Cro-Magnon appearance had belied until now. Charles’s fingers glided over the keys, producing a wave of sound through which NK wove a melody that pulled the whole thing together. A cracked tile rattled loose from the wall and shattered on the floor.
By the end of “Overqualified,” I was a little breathless, gawking around at my new band in amazement, but Charles snapped his fingers. “What else you got?”
Desperately dredging the far reaches of my brain, I managed the opening riff to “Ain’t My Girlfriend.” Once more, they rallied, turning my song into an anthem that shook a few more tiles from the wall. Feeling more confident with every verse, I proceeded to run them through a couple more tunes.
“Not bad,” Notkelly finally said, and she was actually smiling now. “Where’re you from, again?”
“Well,” I began, relishing the chance to lay my woes on a sympathetic ear, “I’m possibly the oldest living Earthling, if you count from my date of birth, but I can still rock pretty hard for an old fart. You see, I was transported to the future through a temporal bloo—"
“Synth we’re going last,” Charles interrupted, “we should probably listen to the Whore’s Heads and see what we’re up against.”
“Fuck ‘em, we’re gonna kill it out there,” said Jenk, but he and NK both pocketed their instruments and headed out the door after Charles. I trailed behind, feeling vaguely nauseous.
The four of us took a table off to the side of the stage.
“Bobthwait sucked taint,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to see Flevus, cleaning a glass behind the bar. Even his eye stalks seemed to be smirking. “You can tell because they’re all still alive.” He nodded toward the stage.
As a little more of the alcohol left my bloodstream, that uneasy feeling was growing. What did I think I was doing? And why had these three strangers agreed to do it with me?
The three members of the Whore’s Heads all wore the same uniform, along with realistic horse head masks. I was impressed by their dedication; those masks probably made things hot as hell. After a minute of checking their instruments, the Whore’s Heads launched into a cacophonous first song, blasting a wave of ratcheting audio mayhem across the bar. I could feel my hair moving, and the frenzied thumping of their drummer in my chest. They only played two songs, but the last was the longest punk song I’ve ever heard, at least seven minutes. At the end of their set, the Whore’s Heads collapsed their equipment into a singularity chest and exited, taking a seat at a table uncomfortably close to the front of the stage.
“Your turn,” Flevus said. “Don’t fuck up.”
I looked at the antennaed barman. “Thanks.” I hoped he couldn’t see my anxiety, but the fear on my face was probably plain as day. If we sounded as good up there as we had in the bathroom, we might have to fight for our lives. Maybe I should throw the set, I thought.
Rising from his seat, Charles looked over at the Whore’s Heads, who still hadn’t removed their masks. “Ought to keep an eye on them while we’re playing.” He glanced at Jenkem and Notkelly, then turned to me with a wry look. “If they feel threatened, that is.”
I resisted the urge to drop my gaze, feeling like Charles had been reading my mind a second ago. “Fuck that,” I said under my breath. I turned what I hoped was a determined gaze on Notkelly and Jenkem. “We ready?”
From the stage where we were setting up, it was obvious that the Whores’ Heads set had packed the bar in short order—primarily with folks wanting to see some bloodshed, if the money being slapped down on many of the tables was any indication. “These assholes are betting how long we’re gonna live,” I said to no one in particular.
“Fuck ‘em,” said NK, deftly tuning.
Flevus had sauntered out from behind the bar and onto the stage, stopping at a microphone. “And finally, to cap off tonight’s showdown, Lamerde is proud to present…” His voice trailed off and he looked back at me.
Shit. I knew we’d forgotten something. “We’re the, uhhh…”
“He’s drunk!” yelled a drunken voice from somewhere near the back.
“Get ‘em off the stage!” said someone else, and the room began to fill with jeers and catcalls.
An angry red wire lit up inside my sodden brain as I glared out at the crowd of assorted beings. “Yeah we’re drunk, so what? We’re the drunk, er—” I glanced over at the Whores’ Heads, who were staring up at us intently, suddenly realizing those were not masks. Their nostrils flared, and one gnashed his teeth at us. “Equestrians,” I finished lamely.
“Jesus,” NK muttered, rolling her eyes and hefting her bow.
“The Drunk Pedestrians!” Flevus finished with a sarcastic flourish, and stomped back to his spot behind the bar. Zero applause. The joint darkened as the stage lights went a sinister red.
“No, that’s not what I—”
“No one gives a shit, let’s play,” said Jenkem, ripping through a drum riff that made the Whore’s Heads sit at attention.
He was right. Buffeted by the angst permeating the room, I rapped out, acapella-style:
I've seen the days turn into years
I took my stands and gave my tears
As though we’d planned it, Charles’s voice rang out, clear and strong:
Became a man, I did my best
I made mistakes, but I always passed the tests
The rowdy room began to quiet as more beings took notice. That was when the band leapt full-force into the intro of “Overqualified,” and I realized the reason I was here was not just for the free beer. If there was anything worth dying for, it was this feeling.
By the expressions on the faces of my fellow Drunk Pedestrians, it was obvious they felt it, too.
And now I got a kid, and a wife, and a job,
And a life, and it's odd, at times I feel like a fraud
Where had these words come from? Had there been a wife? Children? Who the fuck was I?
I’d almost forgotten our lives were in danger. We were nearing the end of that first song when I happened to glance over at the Whore’s Heads table and almost stumbled over the final chorus. The eyes of all three band members were glowing a sullen red. As one, they stood up, reaching behind their backs.
So this is it, we’re going to die, I thought, continuing to play. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to go out. Charles was still laying down a heavy groove, Jenkem was steady on the kit, and Notkelly was…where the hell was Notkelly?
A loud crack and fountain of red drew my attention back to the edge of the stage, where one of the Horsemen spasmed, still on his knees, just feet from his comrades, who stood frozen, fusion rifles flickering in their motionless hands. NK stood over the fallen Horseman, the rigid side of her bow planted in his skull and suspending his corpse, his weapon lying a few feet away, still fully charged.
Her eyes on the two other would-be assassins, NK dislodged the bow and flicked away the gore in one fluid motion as the dead Horseman collapsed. “Try it, assholes,” she said with a smile. “He’s lucky I didn’t have time to enjoy it more.” Deliberately turning her back on the two armed Whore’s Heads, she leapt back onstage and picked up the song as if there’d been no interruption at all.
The beat dropped for the first time since we started, and I whirled to see my drummer struggling with a Horseman. The two surviving band members had apparently decided to target less-daunting opponents. Jenk was still drumming with one hand, despite the thick forearm of a Horseman cinched around his neck. What a badass.
A sound came from my left and I turned to see Charles, his left hand still pounding keys, his right pressed against the forehead of a Horseman, lowering him to the floor. The life slowly drained from that horsey face. Charles gently laid the body on the stage, then grabbed the fusion rifle and tossed it into the crowd. It landed with a clatter at a table of passed out reptilians.
Behind me, the drumming had stopped. I turned to see Jenk still fighting the final Horseman, a powerful man almost the size of the hulking drummer. NK stopped for a moment and started to raise her bow, but Jenk flashed her a smile. Still smiling, he jammed a drumstick into the Horseman’s left eye with a sickening pop. The arm around Jenk’s neck loosened and the murderer slumped to the ground as soon as the drumstick was removed.
And, just like that, we picked up “Ain’t My Girlfriend” and rode it out to the end with a grand flourish. I looked up to see a crowd of almost entirely wide eyes and open mouths. The reason it wasn’t entirely is because not everything the crowd had a mouth.
I heard a slow clapping from off to the right, and turned to see Flevus grinning, his eye stalks bouncing as he shook his head and chuckled. “Congratulations,” he said. Then he took the stage, careful not to slip in the blood. “Folks, meet your new champions… the Drunk Pedestrians!” And, for a wonder, a few patrons actually clapped. Some even cheered a little. A couple creatures out there even raised their drinks in salute.
A killer band and free alcohol for a year. Fuck yeah.
