Metal Storm

Bad Moon Rising

Astrid's POV:
A loud, ear splitting ring broke my tranquil morning reading session, sending my copy of Stephen King's The Stand crashing to the wood floor.
Picking up the phone, I glanced at the unfamiliar number, wondering who it might be.
"Hello. Astrid Lindgrenn speaking." "Astrid! How are things going with you?"
Marlene's voice sounded from the other end.
I felt a small tide of happiness well up inside hearing my best friend's voice again.
I hadn't heard from her since she had first moved away, which, even though it wasn't even that long ago...barely a month had passed since she'd left for Stockholm with her bandmates, it seemed as if I had last hung out with her months and months ago.
"Oh, I'm great! Just finishing up reading The Stand. You were right; Humanity's second descent into chaos and conflict is so disturbing and scary to read!
"It's very wonderfully written, indeed," Marlene agreed. "The human element is so real."
"And how are you? What's Stockholm like?" I asked her, practically dying to know what it was like for her now that she practically owned her own place.
I'd never been to Stockholm...or hardly anywhere out of Ystad, I was still living with my family so I couldn't lie that I was slightly envious of my friend who was now living with her bandmates in some house with no parents to tell her to clean her room or to mow the lawn for the 3rd time this week.
"For one, Stockholm is huge. It's so much larger than Ystad. It looks a bit like London, actually. And it's way more...contemporary," she replied.
"Jeez, must be easy to get lost there."
"Oh, yes. It is. Just ask Eric," Marlene chuckled.
"How is Eric doing," I questioned, "how are all of you doing? Has he finally beaten Ace in the contest of who is greasier than who?"
Marlene laughed a little and there was a few seconds of silence on her end before she began to reply.
"We're great. I got a job recently and we played our first show in the city yesterday. It was kickass, yeah, our sales have been doing well too. Everything's fine," she said, keeping her tone very light.

*Too light.*

You know when you sometimes ask someone how they're doing and they speak in that tone of voice to try and convince you not to worry about them? But you can still hear the shakiness, and the dishonesty in their reassurance.
I furrowed my brow.
"Are you sure everything's all right?" I asked her firmly.
"Yeah, it is. Why are you asking?" she inquired.
"It's just that...I feel like it's not fine," I told her. "I know how you sound when it's not alright."
Silence.
"There's just been some arguments. It's nothing that major but I don't really want to talk about it right now. I kind of hope that this will all get resolved soon but I guess it's been getting to me lately. Probably to us all if I were to tell the truth," she said, bringing her voice down to a hushed whisper as if she didn't want her housemates to know about this.
"Are you sure you don't wanna talk about this? I'm all ears and you know that," I told her.
I had always tried to be the 'mom' kind of friend, always the emotional support rock whenever something went wrong and always trying to give advice whenever I felt I could in a bad situation.
"No," she whispered, "not today at least, not when he's around. How is Snowball doing?"
He?
As worried as I felt for her, given that I was pretty sure that there was something bad going on, I decided not to further badger her about it and moved on to other topics.
The usual gossip.
How my cat Snowball had once again gotten stuck in a tree for the third time this year and the hilarious story about the alcoholic who'd ran down our street naked cursing the Soviet immigrants the other day.
A story that I'm pretty sure had Marlene just about dying on the floor from laughter.
We talked about movies that we'd seen and books that we'd been reading and Marlene told me that Hell's Gate may or may not have their first album finished by the end of the year.
I promised- no, literally swore on my life that I would come and visit her and her friends sometime in the coming month.
Of course, there'd be plenty of convincing to do and all that but my stubborn ass was determined to make it all happen one way or another.
Even if we had gone our separate ways in life, I was really proud of my friend, proud of what she had accomplished so far with her music even if the music that she played wasn't really what I listened to normally.
I guess you could call me clingy, but as we bid each other farewell, and as I later sat in my room thinking over how I was gonna somehow get my parents to allow me to take a train to Stockholm for a few days, my thoughts wandered to the distress in Marlene's voice when she had mentioned that there were some arguments going on.
When she had mentioned him.
But who even was him?
A face suddenly flashed through my mind.
Not Eric's friendly face or Ace's goofy smile, but a pale, bone chilling gaze and chiseled cheekbones paired with a wolfish grin.
I didn't know him that well at all but whenever he was around, I'd feel literal chills run up and down my spine.
From the few times that I'd met him; he seemed so odd. He was unlike any other person that I'd ever met.
Seemingly contemptuous towards almost everyone.
Except for one person.
Sitting back in my chair, I felt a small rush of nausea.
I had a bad feeling about him.
Maybe I was just being overbearing, but I wasn't going to lie to myself that I felt a slight bit of concern for my friends. I was worried for Marlene, even worried for Eric, Ace, and Svenn, who, even though I had doubts about initially, had quickly grown to be people that I liked and even considered friends.
I hoped to God that my assumptions were wrong and I was just worrying over nothing and that whatever was going on with Marlene and her bandmates was just a minor argument over music or something like she had said it was and that it was something that would be resolved soon without anyone getting hurt....