Tales From the Road: One time I had to kill the band

    I’m out of town with the band, in some city that I don’t know (could be anywhere, really).  It’s a big festival kind of thing, and there are a bunch of bands on the bill.  We are there early.

    We’re at somebody’s house, where we are sleeping the night.  People are partying and turning into zombies.  They keep trying to touch us, or give us drinks- these two things will turn us into zombies.  I’m not sure how or why I know these truths, but I do.

    It’s easy to avoid these zombies.  They have a mark.  A dull grey circle forms on their foreheads, roughly the size of a silver dollar. They’re also kinda slow.

    These zombies do crazy things- like walking straight into walls, or into the enveloping sink hole spiral things that are forming outside, swallowing up the ground all around them.  We really should leave, but we want to have a few drinks (zombie-virus-free drinks) before the show, so we just avoid the zombie people.

    Eventually we pack some bottles into bags and split up, planning to rendezvous at the venue.  I suppose we’ve already dropped our instruments at the venue.

     On my walk, the roads are lined with these enveloping sink hole spiral things.  They are like big, slow moving, spinning, quicksand circles.  These people (zombies) are just walking right in, driving cars and trucks and fixed gear bicycles right into them, as if they are being magnetically pulled.  They become enveloped and disappear, for what I can only assume is forever.  They don’t even scream when they get taken under, which freaks me out even more.

     Making my way to the venue, I am slowly becoming convinced that everyone is a zombie, including the band, an ex girlfriend of mine, and a photographer from Greensboro who is on the road with us.

     At the venue, we are backstage in some kind of green room.  We have some time to kill, so we start running through one of our songs.  Our photographer friend enters the room with drinks as we continue to play and sing.  Two other gentlemen follow the photographer in, all three are dressed in black, all three have dull grey circles on their foreheads, roughly the size of a silver dollar.

    I keep moving around the room to avoid contact with them.  We’re still playing.  I start sweating a little bit, and suddenly it occurs to me that we might be in Charleston, South Carolina.  As I move around the room I get closer to each of my band mates and I notice they have now definitely been turned into zombies.  I wonder how or why they can still play the song.

     I get cornered as they all slowly move towards me.  I kick zombie photographer in the face as he scoots close and kneels down to snap a picture of me. The kick demolishes his face, and I had to really pull to get my foot back out of his skull.

     As everyone else gets closer to me, I just start smashing all of them with my guitar.  It’s my favorite acoustic guitar that I’ve had for years, the wood sounds just right. BAM BAM BAM…

     In disbelief, I stand there and soak it in.  We are, of course, not playing anymore, but I can still hear the song loud and clear, like I was in a video for the song somehow.  A terribly gross and inappropriate video.

     I glance at my reflection in the mirror across the room, across the dead bodies.  I have a silver dollar sized grey circle on my forehead.  I move my head to the side to make sure I’m not seeing some smudge on the mirror, and not actually on my forehead.

     It’s on my forehead alright.

     I wake up sweaty and fumble for a pen.