Ghosted

Cigarettes and Broken Bones

Ray Toro squinted his eyes as the hot desert sun glared into them. He looked away from the window into the interior of the bus, where the Way brothers were huddled around a laptop, discussing the video they were about to shoot. Meanwhile, Frank Iero sat by the window across from him, smoking a cigarette lazily.

"Would you put that thing out?" Ray asked Frank. "It's hot enough out here already."

Frank threw Ray a slightly dirty look before blatantly taking another puff. "I need it to relax."

The fact was that they were all a little tense at the moment. It was not only the day of the long awaited shooting the Na Na Na music video, but it was also probably the hottest day of the summer. Yet the heat was hammering down on Ray Toro particularly hard. Damn hair.

He took a deep breath and ended up only inhaling more of Frank's smoke. He coughed. Unable to take it any longer, he sprung up and grabbed the cigarette from Frank's hand, opened the window, and threw it out.

"THE FUCK?" Frank shrieked at him, causing Mikey and Gerard's heads to snap in their direction.

"Seriously Frank, I don't know why you'd want smoke right now at all!' Ray threw his arms in the air. "Its fucking boiling out here."

"Is the air on?" Gerard asked.

"Full blast." sighed Ray.

A disgruntled Frank mumbled something containing the word "whatever" and went back to staring out the window. He did not however, get to see much. Within 15 minutes, they were at their destination. Once the bus came to a halt, everyone inside the bus came scrambling out like eggs 🍳

When they got there, the first thing they had to do was costume fitting. Gerard frowned as he noticed his jacket was a bit too tight. He looked at his reflection in the mirror as he wore it, trying to suck in his stomach as much as he could.

"You look brilliant." Frank said behind him, as though already knowing his thoughts. Gerard smiled at him and waited for him to put on his outfit before going over to the filming crew for their next instructions.

Once they got there, they were told it would be at least an hour before everything was ready. "Theres nothing you can really do but wait." A crew member said. "If you guys want, you can have your lunch now. We'll call you when we're ready."

They boys looked at one another.

"I am pretty hungry." Pitched in Mikey who clenched at his stomach as though trying to illustrate it's emptiness.

"Alright." Shrugged Gerard.

"There's a nice ledge over there we can sit on that's totally not dangerous." Frank pointed slightly upwards to the east.

"Let's go get the food from the bus then." Nodded Ray.

And so they did. They threw sandwiches, chips, portable salads, and condoms into a traditional picnic basket that Ray had brought from home. They told the crew they'd be back, and head out where Frank had pointed.

While it was a rather high climb, it was also a very pleasant view when they actually got there. There was a lovely overview of the desert and its hills and cliffs. They could see the bus and the crew below them, miniature in size.

They sat and talked, each of them feeling in a much better mood now that they were actually there. A very slight breeze even graced them with its presence from time to time. The chipper atmosphere allowed Ray to apologize to Frank about earlier. "Nahhh, its cool man. You owe me a fuckin cigarette though." He teased.

They talked of their usual geeky chatter, and laughed at each other's jokes, all the while enjoying the food that Lindsey had packed for them. They ended up having such a good time, that time itself sort of slipped away.

"Holy shit." Frank remarked as he looked at his phone, "We've been out here for almost 3 hours."

"We should probably head back." Gerard agreed.

"I wonder why they haven't called us yet..." Ray pondered if something great.

They packed away their things and started heading downwards. However, along the way, they met a small hitch in their plans.

It was just when they were almost at the bottom when Frank, Ray, and Mikey heard an alarming scream. They each looked around in different directions, but it was Frank who identified the source of the noise first.

"Gerard!" Frank cried out.

Mikey and Ray both turned to where Frank was staring. Gerard was sprawled out on the side of the ledge awkwardly, his leg bending at a strange angle, his face contorted in pain.

"Gee!" Mikey scrambled over to get his brother. Ray and Frank went to go help. Eventually they were able to carry a howling Gerard down to the bottom of the ledge. It was there that they laid him down on the floor to examine him.

"Well he obviously broke his leg." Ray pointed out, staring at the mangled limb. An area around the shin had snapped, and some bone could be seen protruding from an open wound.

"Can we fix it?" asked Frank.

"Yeah, but don't count on us doing much shooting today." Mikey sighed. He looked down at his brother who was twitching and whimpering.

"You're going to be okay Gerard." Frank comforted their singer, "We're just going to get you back to the bus and patch you up, then we'll take you home, okay?"

Gerard only cried in response.

"C'mon, let's get out of here." Ray rushed them, wanting to get Gerard help as soon as possible.

They picked up Gerard again, both Ray and Mikey supporting him on each side. The hot desert sun was suddenly much more difficult to walk in, especially with an injured man between them. However, the bus could not be too far off, right? They had remembered it only being about a three minute walk.

However the bus did not appear three minutes later. Nor did it appear fifteen minutes later, nor thirty. Nor did it appear one hour later. Even when sun down began to rear its head, all that could be seen was sand and rock.

"We're lost." Ray finally admitted, panting from the heat.

"That's impossible." Frank scratched his head. "The bus was a straight shot from the ledge, there's no way we could have missed it!"

Gerard groaned. They all exchanged worried glances at one another before Mikey said, "Well let's just keep walking. It's bound to be somewhere around here."

They then resumed their search, becoming more and more bewildered by the minute. Until finally, one thing was clear: The bus was nowhere to be found.