"Wait, so Kristina's no longer in the band?" Astrid asked, hurrying to catch up to me as we headed into the cafeteria, ignoring the curious stares from students who had no doubt heard the rumours about me being in a band.
"Yeah, her mom forced her to quit," I replied, grabbing a lunch tray and handing another one to my friend.
"What the heck? Why? She was so good though," Astrid exclaimed as we went over to sit on an empty bench.
I was pretty certain that Kristina wouldn't have wanted most people outside of our friend group to know of her situation so I decided to keep it very simple.
"Her mom didn't want her to play in the band any longer," I said.
"Damn, that's a waste. I'm no expert on heavy metal but she had a lot of talent," Astrid replied, shaking her head, "I hope you guys find a replacement soon."
"We already did," I said, wincing at the bitter aftertaste of the slightly burnt potatoes.
"Really? Who?" Astrid asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Kristina's cousin Sebastian," I answered.
"What's he like?" she asked, "I think I remember her mentioning him to me a couple of times but she didn't say much other than that he was a musician like her."
"He's hot ," I said and we both giggled.
"Okay, but what else has he got?" Astrid said rolling her eyes.
"He's good at bass and he seems pretty nice. I mean, he did impress Eric so that's gotta be saying something."
"Speaking of Eric..." she nudged me, nodding as the black haired guitarist made his way over to us, pushing past groups of chattering students.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Well, first things first," Eric said joining us on the bench, "we've sold nearly 350 tapes which is pretty fucking awesome and Morgan's releasing 100 more soon."
"That's great," I grinned, looking over at Astrid, "it looks like the promotions that we've been doing have been paying off."
Indeed, it was quite wild how only several months ago, we were still playing covers in our garage and now we were selling dozens of tapes of our demo.
Eric nodded.
"Oh, yeah it is. I really appreciate all the shit that you've been doing, Astrid. But anyways, we have a gig tomorrow with the new dude and I was wondering if you both could make some new posters for that."
"You don't even need to ask me," Astrid beamed.
———
Snowflakes fell around us as we trudged towards Svenn's car, shivering from the cold winter chill.
The previous day, Astrid and I had laminated and taped posters around our small town, advertising that Hell's Gate would be performing at an old theater turned venue for local up and coming music acts.
Sebastian wasn't here yet so we waited for him in the car, not wanting to stand in the cold.
"Is this guy ever not late to something?" Eric complained, "I just want to be at the venue already."
"Dude, be patient. It's not like you're always on time for anything either," Ace pointed out.
Eric let out an exasperated groan, staring out the grimy car window at the snow covered houses.
Finally, a car drove up and Sebastian's tall figure got out.
"Apologies for being late," he said, smiling and brushing snowflakes out of his hair, "I lost track of time."
"No worries. You're all good," Ace reassured, "Now we can get going," he added looking pointedly at Eric who frowned.
As we drove, Svenn and Eric deep in conversation about a potential stage setup for future shows, I felt Sebastian give me a small nudge.
"You are quite a talented guitar player, Marlene. How long have you been playing for again?"
My mouth felt a little dry as my mind, more slowly than usual processed the question.
"Well...?" He inquired.
"Oh, my bad. I zoomed out for a bit there but I've been playing for about 5 years now. What about you?" I blurted out, my voice awkward.
He nodded, his ice blue eyes focused on the front seat of the car but occasionally flitting to glance at me.
"I've been playing ever since I moved here, so about 4 years. One year less than you," he replied, giving me a small smile.
I looked away from him, suddenly feeling really shy that this drop dead gorgeous dude was talking to me.
"You're an amazing bass player," I managed to blurt out.
"Why, thank you," he said, dipping his head at me slightly.
I bit my lip and was silent the rest of the way, trying to force him out of my mind and focus on the show instead.
"We're here," Svenn said as he parked the car.
Getting out of the car, I spotted Astrid's red hair among a small crowd of metalheads.
She spotted the car pulling over and quickly headed towards us, a small bag in her hand.
"Hey guys," she said, "great weather isn't it."
"You can say that again," Eric huffed, rubbing his rosy cheeks.
"Huh, I didn't know that an evil metal band like yours got groupies?" Sebastian smirked, inciting a short laugh from Svenn.
"Oh, if only..." Ace said, shaking his head.
"She's not a groupie, man," Eric scowled.
I frowned at the comment.
"She just helps out with promos and stuff, she makes our posters and sells tapes," I explained to Sebastian.
He tsked.
"Is that so? Well, I apologize for that comment....what's your name?"
"I'm Astrid," my friend said, shaking his hand, "and it's alright. I've had wayworse things said to me than this."
"Guys, let's get inside. It's cold as fuck out here," Ace said, his teeth chattering as he hugged himself.
Grabbing our guitars, we made our way inside, stopping to talk to a few excited fans who wanted to buy our demo after the show before heading backstage to into the changing rooms to change into our stage outfits.
We had discussed various props for this show and after a long argument settled on splashing a vial of fake blood into the audience.
It was cheap but shocking enough to leave quite an impression on the average metal concert goer.
Shock value and heavy metal back then went together like peanut butter and jelly.
Pulling on a pair of tight leather pants, I paired them with a black Iron Maiden t-shirt, a denim vest with a Slayer "Show No Mercy" back patch, and a bullet belt, all which were now hidden deep in my closet away from my mom's sight.
Taking Astrid's advice, I squirted the fake blood on my lower lip, watching it trickle down my chin and drip onto my clothes.
In this outfit, I didn't feel like Marlene Fjörsberg.
I felt like a different person, like I was adopting a different personality every time I walked onto the stage with my guitar and my bandmates by my side.
Quickly smoothing down my hair, I grabbed my guitar and trotted up to the backstage area where Eric and the others were already waiting for me.
Sebastian's eyes followed me as I went to stand beside Eric.
Wanting to distract myself from his ice cold stare, I asked Eric when we were supposed to be coming on.
"In like two minutes," my bandmate said, looking at his watch, "you ready, Sebastian?"
The bassist nodded confidently, pushing a strand of brown hair out of his face
"Obviously. It's those pansies standing in the audience who probably aren't ready for what they are about to experience."
"Hell yeah, that's the spirit," Ace said with a smirk.
"Oh shit, we're on," Eric burst out, "let's go."
We all ran up to the stage, me and Sebastian nearly colliding each other in the rush to the front at once began playing the first song on our set list.
Mothers scream and priests reach for the holy book of God
Our music shall shatter your fucking brain and take your fucking soul
Hail the goat headed lord as your saviour and join us in our quest of darkness...
———
Sebastian's POV:
Do you ever just join a group of people who claim to be one thing but end up to be the exact thing that they claim that they hate?
That is how I felt when I joined Hells Gate.
And one thing that I've always despised are hypocrites.
Apologies for distracting from the actual story but I must get some time to shine too, don't you think?
Now, everyone has their worst fears.
Mine was ending up a nobody. A gray person in a world of gray people.
I didn't want that.
But I was almost never accepted anywhere I went.
I was called a lunatic, a freak, crazy...
My parents were hardly around, not that I cared, it taught me to be tough. To raise myself and to not rely on other people for help.
I eventually did find companions, like minded people like myself.
People who loved and listened to extreme music and lived out the lifestyle.
So, when my dimwitted cousin had mentioned her band to me and that they desperately needed a bass player, I was of course interested.
But they were not who they claimed to be.
I could see it from the start.
Fake Satanists who only put on a Satanic act to scare the pathetic sheep that polluted this country like a disease. Posers. The very thing that they claimed that they hated. For them, this was all a game. I doubted that any of them even had a remote idea of what real Satanism was apart from sticking inverted crosses and pentagrams everywhere.
So why didn't I leave?
Well, I liked their music. It had something going for it.
Fear controls weak minded people and I knew just what I was going to do.
These were only naive teenagers, easy to manipulate and control.
I did think that I liked that girl though, quite a bit. She was beautiful and so unlike most of the ditzy, air headed girls that I knew.
One day, I would make my move on her, I decided.
One day when the right time came....
YOU ARE READING
Metal Storm
General Fiction17 year old heavy metal nerd and English whiz Marlene Fjörsberg had never thought that her near future would be much different from the university life that her family had already planned out for her but a poster would very quickly change all of tha...
