Warped Pranks

The Show Must Go On

I don't even think about it. I jump and kick the taller man in the chest, and he stumbles back into the red-headed person.

"Wait!" I hear Bryan cry out as he runs away from a stirring Kyle, and in between the man and me.

The man regains his balance and helps the red-headed man up. That's when I realized who it is.

It's Austin Carlile and Alan Ashby.

"Shit! I'm sorry, guys! I wasn't thinking, and I didn't know it was you." I apologize. I really have got to stop thinking with my foot at times like this. I could've really hurt Austin. I jump-kicked him for Christ sake!

"Are you guys okay?" I ask and Bryan steps out from in between me and the other two. He goes back over to Kyle, who looks like he's waking up.

"Yeah, we're okay. But we should be asking you guys that! We heard that you guys stopped the show because of technical difficulties, and never came back on. We just came to see what was up. What happened?" Austin asks, and Alan nods along as he explains.

"We came backstage to fix the tech, and got jumped. They tied us up and put paper bags on our heads, and handcuffed us. Kyle passed out because of panic," I answer them.

I turn around and looked at Kyle. He's awake. Bryan appears to be telling him what happened after he passed out.

"Do you guys need help with the cuffs?" Alan asks. I nod and he pulls out a small pocket knife. He holds out his hand and I hold out my hands in front of me. He takes one of the cuffs and goes to work on the lock with a tiny blade.

As Alan works, I look over at Kyle. He is fully awake now. Bryan walks over to Austin and starts telling him what happened in more detail. Johnnie is sitting in a chair next to Kyle, and they're talking quietly.

I hear a click, and one of the cuffs fall off. He gets to work on the other one, on my left wrist. I roll my right wrist around, stretching it.

He's quicker with the second one since he figured out what to do with the first. I hear a click and he waves Bryan over as the cuffs fall to the ground.

He starts to work on Bryan's next.

I walk over to Kyle and Johnnie. Austin has joined them.

"Hey Austin, are you sure you're okay? That was a pretty hard kick, the bottom of my foot feels like it's bruised," I say. I want to make sure he's okay. When I landed that kick, I felt the impact's shock go up the bones in my leg and stop at the base of my spine. It had to hurt him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It took me a few seconds to recover, but I'm good now. Don't worry!" He says and reaches over to mess up my hair.

I giggle and swat his hand away. Then I remember that there is still an audience waiting. How long has it been? Maybe about ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.

"I had better go tell the Writers we'll be a few more minutes," I say, and start to walk away. Austin's hand on my shoulder stops me.

"Here, let me do it. You stay here with Kyle. Johnnie went to get de-cuffed," He says and runs off.

I sit down in front of Kyle, who is still in a chair.

"How are you feeling?" I ask him softly. I just know I look really worried.

"I'm okay now. Are we going to continue the show?" He asks, shifting around a bit. He's always the one to say things like 'the show must go on!'

"If all of us feel up to it, then yeah," I answer and continue my questioning, "what's the last thing you remember?"

"Not being able to breathe. The bag wasn't suffocating, I was just scared. Guess it got to be a bit too much and I passed out," He answers, and I nod.

About that time Austin comes bounding back. I stand up and he comes up next to me. Bryan walks away from Alan, who has just freed Johnnie, and skips up to Kyle. Johnnie's right behind him.

Me and Austin step aside as they help Kyle up and take him over to Alan.

Soon Kyle's free too. We've been offstage for about twenty to twenty-five minutes. We need to figure out if we're going back onstage. Austin says he didn't say anything to the crowd about what happened, and I decided we shouldn't either. We're running out of set time.

"Are you guys okay to preform? If we go now, we can still play a few songs before times up," I say as Austin and Alan start walking away, probably back to their bus. We all call out thank you's. We'd thank them better later.

All the boys nod, so I suggest we not mention what happened yet because of time problems. They agreed with that too.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Johnnie says loudly and runs out on stage. Austin fixed our equipment. It turns out the amps were not plugged all the way in.

We all shrug and head out.

...