by Gina Ranalli
Chemical Gardens
Gina Ranalli
Also by Gina Ranalli
Novels
Suicide Girls in the Afterlife
Wall of Kiss
Mother Puncher
Swarm of Flying Eyeballs
Sky Tongues
House of Fallen Trees
Praise the Dead
Unearthed
Dark Surge
Peppermint Twist (forthcoming)
Still Life with Vibrator (forthcoming)
Collections
13 Thorns (with Gus Fink)
Winner of the Wonderland Award
Published by Blooskize Books
www.ginaranalli.com
Chemical Gardens
ISBN-10: 0-9766310-6-7
Copyright © 2006 by Gina Ranalli. All rights reserved.
Cover art and design copyright © 2011 by Gary McCluskey www.foggie32.deviantart.com
This book is a work of fiction
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.
1
“A FUCKING NOOSE! IT’S A NOOO-O-O-OSE”
I scream-sing the words a few hundred times into the microphone while hammering the strings of my Sweet guitar and blink-squeezing sweat out of my eyes. Behind me, the rest of the band is going ballistic, especially Pawn who’s swinging her own guitar around her neck by the strap, simulating a noose. She’s knocked herself unconscious on more than one occasion by doing this, not to mention injured a spectator or two. The last thing I feel like dealing with tonight is a pissed-off punk with a split-lip, so I take the song down a notch, wrapping it up.
The crowd of a hundred or so people eat our shit up. They mosh their brains out on the floor in front of us, slamming into each other, wreaking havoc and chaos, just as they should. Fists and feet fly, sometimes catching people in the face and breaking noses or fingers or teeth, but it’s all good. The fights are few and the blood and sweat belong to us all equally. It’s punk as hell.
“THE END OF OUR ROPE, END OF OUR ROPE IS A NOOOOOOSE!”
Kicking the mic stand over, I leap into the crowd, guitar held high over my head, and manage to land on my feet in an empty spot that wasn’t there a millisecond ago. The guitar unplugs, the feedback quits and except for the echo of crashing cymbals, our set is over.
I feel a few pats on the back, hear a phrase of praise and then the crowd has moved on, ignoring me, catching their breath and anxious for the next band to take the stage.
Good times.
2
The next voice I hear in my ear, however, isn’t offering praise at all. Instead, it says, “Where’s my fucking money, Ro?”
I turn, unsurprised, and see exactly who I expected to see: Wanda Drago, the chick I bought my guitar off of. Well, most of my guitar anyway. I still owe her a couple hundred bucks for it. “I should have some of it next week,” I say loudly, trying to be heard over the crowd. I keep pushing through the people, aiming for the bar, Wanda right at my heels.
“Shouldn’t you have some of it tonight?” she shouts. “This shit hole does pay you, doesn’t it?”
“Barely. And don’t forget that whatever we make gets split four ways.”
Wanda grabs me by the arm, forcing me to stop and look at her. “I want my money!” she yells. “Give me the money or give me the guitar back. It really makes no difference to me.”
Irritated, I shake my arm free. “I fucking told you it would take me a couple of months, Wanda. You agreed to that!”
“It’s been five weeks! I was doing you a favor, letting you pay ‘in installments.’ You know I would have had no trouble selling it outright but I felt sorry for your pathetic ass!”
“A deal is a deal. You knew I couldn’t give you the whole thing at once.”
She glares at me, green eyes blazing. I can tell she’s thinking about what to say next but apparently nothing comes to her because then she spins on her heels and walks away. I breathe a sigh of relief and continue on to the bar, where the owner of the club—our pathetic hundred dollars in hand—is waiting.
3
We don’t hang around to hear the next band play.
Normally, we would, not only to show our support of the local music scene and our friends, but also because after a set is when we sell the most demos. On a good night, we’ve been known to sell a few dozen of them, 8 songs for 5 bucks. A good deal, considering our band is said to be going places. Hopefully someday anyone with a Green is the Enemy demo will be able to make their money back tenfold. And it’s for this very cause that tonight we are splitting early.
We have places to go and connections to make.
4
Out in the cool Seattle night, we load our gear into my shitty dilapidated van and get ready for our road trip.
“Whoooo,” Whey yells, tossing most of his drum kit inside as if it were nothing more than sacks of dog food. “San Francisco is gonna rue the day!”
There are a few people milling around on the sidewalk outside the club, smoking and talking mostly. A couple of them come up to us and say things like, “Awesome set tonight, guys,” and “You guys kicked ass!”
Some are more enthused than others, of course. One skinhead, bare-chested and wearing tight black shorts, tells us we blow donkey dick while his girlfriend looks on in a drunken stupor. A tall chick with a huge platinum blonde Mohawk asks, “Yo, you want X?” She’s dressed like a Klingon or something equally lame.
I shake my head, guitar case in hand.
“You sure? It’s good shit. Make you see God.”
Both Pawn and Dose come over, clearly interested and I give them a firm look. “No way,” I say. “I’m not having you two wigging out on the way down to Frisco.”
Dose looks at me with wide innocent blue eyes. “I’ll save it for when we get there.” He’s Green’s bass player and resident bad boy. To say he has an addictive personality would be the understatement of the century but luckily, he is as obsessed with his playing as much as he is with getting high, which makes him the best bass player in the entire city. Currently sporting a short orange Mohawk, trashed black motorcycle jacket with band names painted all over it and motorcycle boots, he is the quintessential punk rocker. He even wears a genuine dog collar locked with a padlock around his neck, a la Vicious. Like Sid, he lost the key to the lock long ago.
“Whatever,” I say, climbing into the van with my guitar. I’m not crazy about them scoring X but I’m not their fucking mother either.
As it turns out though, the dealer is asking too much and both Dose and Pawn have to turn away empty handed. Pretending to not be paying attention, I’m secretly relieved. It’s going to be a long trip and I’d prefer to have as few adventures as possible until we get there. Then we can all get as trashed as we want without worrying about cops, collisions or bad trips.
Dose gets in followed by Whey who throws himself into the back with the same carelessness he displays with his drums, causing a loud thud back there. He’s a big guy with lots of crazy dark hair—facial and body—and far more hippie than punk, dressed in his tie-dye tank-top and brown corduroy jeans. He slams the rear door closed just as Pawn jumps into the passenger seat beside me, closing her own door. I start the engine, check the mirrors, pull out into traffic and we’re on our way.
5
We aren’t driving for more than a minute when Pawn tosses a CD into the player and turns up the volume to 10. Seconds later, Peroxide is exploding out of the speakers and we’re all screaming along with the music. There’s a tangible vibe in the air; we’re all psyched for this trip. Driving down to San Francisco to open for our mentor band Peroxide tomorrow night is yet another dr
eam about to come true and we all mutually decided that waiting till the last minute, jumping in the van and going after a gig was the way to do it. No stopping at home for a change of clothes, no grabbing a bite to eat before hitting the highway. Just fucking doing it right after jamming for friends and peers alike, while we’re all sweaty and pumped and ready to smash faces.
Of course we’ll have to stop before we get there. I’m counting on a 12 hour drive, maybe more, depending on traffic, coffee, food and piss breaks. The show isn’t until nine pm, which will leave us with plenty of time to get there, chill for a while, see some sites and do whatever.
One of the main reasons for doing this gig in the first place, aside from Peroxide being a kick-ass band we all idolize, is that we heard some execs from Withering Skin Records (Peroxide’s label) will be in attendance and Pawn has been doing some email thing back and forth with one of them. She sent the dude some of our MP3’s and apparently he dug the fuck out of us and when the original opening band fell through, he thought of us and asked if we could do it. If all goes as planned, we could end up with a record deal or at least some pretty cool gig contacts. Maybe a long shot, but what the fuck. We’re always up for an adventure.
6
Downtown, the traffic is a bitch. Slow going, lots of honking, middle fingers, pedestrians who walk like fucking glaciers. We’re stopped at a red light; Pawn is screaming out the window, snarling along with the tunes on the stereo while in the back Whey is wailing on air drums and Dose is messing with his bass. I’m checking my foot-tall black hair spikes in the rearview, making sure they’re still standing straight up, which isn’t easy because they keep getting bent by hitting the roof of the van. I have to hunker down in the seat a little to maintain optimum spikage.
The light changes. I wait for a couple of mall rat teenagers to cross and then accelerate through the intersection. The cars in front of me are finally looking like they’re gonna start going more than 10 mph and then the world starts to shake. Hard.
“What the fuck?”
The universe pauses for a second; everything—people, traffic, noise—seems to be held in suspension, silent and still. Even the blaring music seems to fade to background noise for a minute.
And then:
Pandemonium.
The street in front of the van opens wide, swallowing the cars in front of us, a crack splaying its fingers all the way to the sidewalk where the mall rats stand frozen one second and are gone the next.
Somewhere, someone yells “EARTHQUAKE!”
People begin screaming and running in all directions and the buildings around us begin to shatter, concrete and glass falling in huge chunks, crushing cars flat.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, holding on for dear life as the van is heaved first up, then down and then from side to side. We become grains of salt in a shaker, in mortal danger of being shaken out and disappearing all together.
The noise is tremendous.
I know the speakers are still thumping but I can’t really hear them anymore. A slab of what I assume is cement smashes onto the roof of the van and both Whey and Dose shriek like murder victims.
Pawn is gripping the dashboard, her eyes suddenly wild in her ashen face. Our eyes meet and she shouts, “We have to get out of here!”
Without another word, she flings open the passenger side door and flees. Crazily, I think about my guitar, lovingly named Nemesister, in the back of the van.
The crack in the ground yawns wider still and the van rocks forward, causing me to yelp like a frightened puppy. A quick glance in the mirror reveals Whey and Dose leaping out the back and running for their lives, Whey screaming over his shoulder, “RO! COME ON!”
I have every intention of running. Any second the van is going to fall into the hole in the earth and be completely gobbled up by darkness.
But, my guitar…
Letting go of the wheel, I spin around and dive for the back of the van. Nemesister’s case is just behind the driver’s seat, wrapped in a wool blanket for extra protection. The van is thrown skyward once more and once more crashes back down. All around me is the sound of shrieking metal and chaos. I wrap my arms around the guitar case, straighten up to bolt for the van’s open back doors and then I’m tossed backwards as the van is once again airborne, this time falling forward without stopping.
The back doors slam shut, which apparently causes the sun to go out. All is black and the pit is never-ending.
7
I wake up upside-down on the floor, my feet somehow tangled in the steering wheel. I remember everything and immediately know exactly where I am. Or, pretty much where I am anyway: the center of the world.
Everything is dark and I can hear water dripping somewhere. I’m hugging my guitar case and move my hands over it looking for damage before I even attempt to disengage myself from the steering column. The case seems fine, thank God. To a lesser extent, I also seem fine. Bruised and with a few nicks from the windshield which must have exploded all over me, but other than that, I feel okay. Whole, at least.
It takes me a few seconds to pull my feet free, mostly because my heart is hammering too loud in my ears and I’m playing over the earthquake in my head, the whole 60 or so seconds of it, from stoplight to here. I can’t concentrate and my head hurts which is probably why the first thing I think to do is grab the keys from the ignition. In my disorientation, it seems important that no one tries to steal the van, so I shove the silver Sweet Thang guitar keychain and its few keys into my pocket for safe keeping.
When I’m finally able to stand, I note that the van is sitting at an odd angle, tilted to the right like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I move cautiously, certain that the van will plunge deeper into the earth with every movement I make. Band equipment is strewn every which way; drums with bent rims and busted skins. Even in the dark, I can see that Dose’s bass, graffiti and band stickers plastered all over it, is beyond repair, the body smashed in half.
I wince and step gingerly over the corpse, hugging my own baby to my chest all the tighter.
Beyond the windows, everything is gray but brighter than I would have expected. And quieter. I can’t see much but I can hear even less and I’m starting to wonder why that might be. Given the fact that I saw at least two other cars fall into the crevasse, there should have been shouting. Crying or moaning at the very least. But all I can hear is silence, which can’t be a good thing.
Carefully, I try to make my way to the rear of the van. Since I’m uninjured, I should attempt to get out and see if there is any way for me to help the others who were swallowed.
I almost reach the door, stretching out my hand in the darkness to find the handle, when an aftershock rumbles beneath me, violently shaking the van once more. Quickly, I throw my left shoulder against the right-side wall and brace for impact.
Sure enough, the van tips over, and even though I’m ready for it, my head whacks hard against metal and for a while there is nothing.
8
Eyes twitching, I find myself buried in junk. My head hurts worse than ever and I groan loudly, shoving a snare drum off my chest.
“This fucking sucks,” I tell the darkness. “Fucking cunt earthquake!”
I decide I don’t want to risk standing up, since it most likely will only lead to falling down again and I really don’t think my aching ribs and brain could handle another jolt like that. Instead, I locate Nemesister in her case, grab the handle and drag it along as I crawl towards the back of the van.
Getting the door open proves to be no easy task, given that the van now lies on its side and resembles a crumpled cigarette pack, but a good kick pops the latch and I’m free.
Free to what I don’t know, but I figure it has to be better than waiting in a steel coffin.
Outside the van, I stand and expect to find myself in a huge sink hole, probably balanced precariously on the lip of another huge sink hole that drops down all the way to China or some shit. I expect to see another car or two, maybe burning
. I expect to see dead bodies, or at least pieces of dead bodies, along with chunks of stone and brick from the collapsed buildings up above. Maybe a piece of road, a traffic light or a lamp post.
But I don’t see any of that.
There is actually very little evidence that there has just been an earthquake—an earthquake that must have easily registered as an 8.5, I would guess—but still…
There is no sign of the other cars anywhere. No people, dead or otherwise. When I look up, I do see a speck of starry sky but instead of being in a hole about 60 feet deep, which is what I would have assumed at the very most, I find myself gazing up the walls of an unfathomable canyon, the sides of which must be hundreds of feet tall.
I gasp, not only horrified to see how far I’ve fallen, but also amazed that I not only lived to tell about it but also somehow managed to escape unscathed.
“Fuck,” I whisper, gazing up at the pinprick of night so far above me. If I’d had any notions of climbing out of this pit, they were definitely smashed now.
Looking back at my immediate surroundings, I’m quite amazed to see that the van landed in what appears to be the middle of a lantern-lit city street, deserted but a street just the same, with the remains of all kinds of old junk littering it. Nearby, a rocking chair lies broken and bent. A thin tire, perhaps from an ancient Model T, rests mere feet from where I stand and beside it is a toilet, long since broken in half and forgotten.
Squinting, I study the ground beneath my feet and see that it is made of crumbling old cobblestone, which clues me in to where I am: the Seattle Underground.
