Harvey James was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in his dressing room. He didn't seem to be backstage and people were panicking. The band were on in twenty minutes and they were on next. And they were running out of coffee.
Rory was standing by the coffee machine with two cups in his hands and taking a sip from both of the cups and never just one of them. He was freaking out. As he finished both of them. He put a few coins in the machine but nothing was coming out. He shouted and then arrogantly kicked the machine.
''Here take mine'', said someone behind him.
He got a fright and jumped. As he collected himself he turned to see Florence Hart. He looked at her in confusion. She stood there with her arm outstretched with a cup of coffee in her gloved hand. He took the cofee and slowly sipped it.
''Ms. Hart, what are you doing here? You don't really ever come to any of our shows at all''.
''Oh yeah your welcome for the coffee I just gave you'', she said with sarcasm.
''Sorry''.
''Don't worry about it. Oh and I'm here because I heard abou Harvey going missing and I obviously came down''.
''Yeah. So do you think he'll show up?''
''Of course he will. He's never bailed before. I dont know why he'd start now''. Now listen there's something I need to tell you.....
Chuck Wrent sat in the hall outside his dressing room playing tunes on a lime green guitar. After playing a dreary song he felf his phone buzz on his pockets and pulled out his phone and saw he had a text message. He went into his messages and saw a text from Rory:
Oh my god I'm so annoyed. Hot Flames is over. Harvey's going solo. C U on stage. I have to go kick something. Grr...
Chuck sat there in dismay. He felt confused and frustrated. Their manager Lloyd must ahve known about this somehow and hadn't told him. Now he was annoyed. More importantly he felt like killing pretty much everyone.
He picked up his phone and searched his contacts he found Lloyd under ''L constacts'' just as he was about to call the number. He stopped. He knew that Lloyd would be at the festival so he would talk to him face to face.
LLoyd Parks sat backstage at a with a plate of pancakes with honey drizzled on them. As he was finished topping them. He jabbed his yellow plastic fork into the middle of it and tugged a small chunk from the pancake and shoved it into his large mouth.
The pankcakes tasted sweet and crisp. As he stuck in his fork he felt a tap on his back. He pulled himself up and turned his headslightly to see Chuck Wrent looming over him with, for the first time in his life, an overpowering look in his face.
He quickly chewed the remaining chunk of pancake in his mouth, swallowed and spoke to Chuck. 'Hey Chuck. What's up? Want a pancake?'', said Lloyd self-consciously knowing exactly what this was about.
''You know what? I don't want some stupid pancake'', he said grimacing.
''Hey, hey, hey. Don't take it out on the pancake''
''You know what this is about!'', he shouted, ''why didn't you tell me?'', his tone rising hisgher as he spoke.
LLoyd didn't answer. He just stood there. As he reached for the pancake, keeping his eyes on Chuck the whole time. For the one second his eyes flung over to the pancake Chuck quickly clenched his hand and swung his fist to Lloyd''s stomach.
LLoyd tumbled over trembling with fear. He was winded as was too in shock to speak. He just gasped out the word 'security''.
Chuck gave him a kick. And another. Until two smartly dressed men grabbed him and pulled him away from him. They shoved him back out of the food hall and into the hallway near the dressing rooms.
Chuck shouted and quickly simmered down. He pulled himself together and stormed into his dressing room.
Marie Watson stood around doodling on her small clipboard. She felt nervous. Harvey had been so nice to her but then he bailed. Was the nice thing all a joke. A stunt he was told perfrorm from his manager.
She wrote Harvey James on her clipboard and jabbed the name constantly never stopping. There was eventually about a million dots on the name. She suddenly felt much better. She breathed in a deep breath and chilled.
She checked her watch. Wow. Five mintues until they went on stage. Ouch. They were going to crash amd burn if Harvey didn't show up, which he probably wouldn't.
One of the stage managers, Bill approached her. He was tall with a large curly beard and was overall, very grumpy.
''Marie I'm a bit busy at the moment and, Hot Flames obviously aren't going to go on so could you..err..break it to the crowd?''
''What?', she shouted, ''but they'll be booing and screaming and...and I'm not that good on stages..so...''
''Great thanks I owe you one''. He gave her a microphone and shoved onto the stage. She looked up at all the people who had come, all there for the very same reason.
''Excuse me''. Everyone looked up at her all eyes glaring. ''It has...it has come to my attention that due to difficulties Hot Flames will not be performing today. So would everyonev like to make an exit to your left and drive...er...safely''.
Everything was silent. Everyone was looking around in confusion as some woman with a clipboard had told them to leave as the moment they had all been waiting for was cancelled due to.. ''difficulties''
People booed. And they booed hard. Marie was trembling snd quaking. ''I assure you this isn't my fault-''
Suddenly something fell on top of Marie knocking her down. She thought it was a stagelight. As she started to pull herself up she realised that t his must have been some heavy stage light.
As she got up and for some reason people in the crowd started shotung and panicking she spoke into the microphone and assured them that everything was okay.
As she turned round she caught sight of the stage light that had fallen. That was no stage light. It was a-a body. It was Harvey James and he was dead. Marie Watson screamed fro her life and ran off stage.
