Carver Pike - Scalp

It was his time to finish what his tiny buddies had started.

“Let’s do this,” he said as he put a bullet in the girl with the stringy hair’s head. She fell back to the floor.

This was the part he couldn’t handle alone.

As much as he didn’t want to do it, he was hit with the realization that he could quite possibly make it out of here alive if he had help. He shot the wolf and then the bear five times. He would run out of bullets before he could kill all hundred or so of these bastards.

He thought of Nitsy and her code word. He’d originally had no plan to use it, but those kids could help him stop these things from escaping. Hal smiled as he leaned his head back against the tree and yelled, “Family!”

In no longer than ten seconds, the office door burst open, and the sweet sound of gunfire filled his ears.

“It worked!” he yelled over the sound of the blasts. “The bugs ate the lice! Kill the hosts!”

And they did.

Like a video game come to life, these kids blazed their way through the farm and shot everything that was no longer human. Hal did his part and watched as the bodies hit the ground.

These kids might never forget this, but at least they’ll live to know they might have saved the world tonight.

The air smelled of gunpowder, the kids’ maniacal laughter filled his ears, and Hal smiled knowing he would finally rest tonight. The hosts would all die. Hal and his ragtag team of teenagers, plus Sally, had won.

The side of the bus read Carnal Cavity and Cyanide Super Soaker – Two Bands, One Nationwide Tour.

Nobody would be excited to see it. Not unless they were diehard heavy metal fans who kept up with the scene. It was a nice bus though. It was once owned by Greyhound, so it had the old fabric seats that now smelled like pot and karate dojo. Marijuana and sweaty feet.

Carlisle drove the bands around because his kids were all adults now, their kids were in high school, and his wife left him ten years ago for a younger man. He used to be in a band himself back in his twenties and he smoked medical marijuana now, so he figured why the hell not. Driving this bus wasn’t much more difficult than driving the camper he used to take his family up into the mountains in.

In fact, his family might have been a lot louder. These guys usually stayed up late either working on music or playing video games, but they only got really wild when they let groupies into the bus after a show. Carlisle had to admit, some of the women they picked up were even able to get him aroused, and that wasn’t easy to do nowadays. Then, some of the others were so skanky he was afraid he’d get an STD when they blew him a kiss on the way out.

“What a sweet old man.”

“Look at the old pervert watching.”

“He reminds me of my grandpa.”

The things these women said to him or about him should have infuriated him. They would have a few years earlier. He couldn’t remember when it happened, but at some point it was like a switch was flipped, and he stopped giving a damn. They could have said just about anything to him now and he would have shrugged it off. As long as he got paid and was able to think of things other than Angela and the young Russian stud she’d left him for, he was okay.

“Hey, Mitch, I need to stop for gas,” Carlisle called over his shoulder.

Mitch Hedrum was the lead singer for Carnal Cavity, if you could call it singing. He’d heard the boy sing a few times and when he wasn’t busy trying to impress his hardcore fans, he actually had a nice set of pipes on him. Only yesterday he’d heard him singing Journey’s ‘Faithfully’ almost as perfect as Steve Perry. That was when nobody else was around, of course, and Carlisle would tell no one about it.

Like the 80s bands these guys based themselves on, Mitch had long, messy black hair that hung down past his shoulders. He wore makeup on stage. Carlisle didn’t understand that, but he didn’t challenge it. He wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing makeup back when he played guitar for Herbal Hiatus. None of the guys would have. They sent messages through their music back then, and the message wasn’t that it was ok to glamour up. No, they were badasses back then. They worked construction sites and patrolled the mean streets of Pittsburgh during the day, took to the stage at night, and fucked groupies in the early morning hours. That was how he met Angela.

Angela. My queen.

“Mitch,” he said again, “I need to stop for gas.”

Mitch finally lifted his heavy eyes from the notepad he was scribbling in. Carlisle imagined it was either song lyrics or he was doodling ideas for the band’s new logo.

“Okay, mate,” Mitch said.

He threw the word “mate” around like he was from England or Australia. He was from Houston.

“Where are we anyway?” Mitch asked.

“Fifteen… twenty miles from Clydesville I suppose,” Carlisle replied. That was what the last sign he passed said anyway. Wherever the hell Clydesville was. Somewhere in West Virginia.

The bands had a party they were going to in Myrtle Beach, then they were headed down to Georgia for the Battle of the Broke Bands. It was a small band, indie rock, competition that from what Carlisle witnessed last year, was less about the music and more about the dope. It was the Woodstock of his day only with lesser known bands. Naked people sliding through mud, people fucking all over the place, and clouds of smoke that threatened to rain bongwater.

“Good,” Mitch said, “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

Carlisle pulled the big bus into a gas station parking lot. It was the only place in sight. One of those quick stop joints. Get in, fill up, take a piss, grab a snack, and get the hell out of our state kind of places.

“If anybody wants to step off the bus for a few minutes, now’s your chance,” Mitch said. “I know some of y’all wanna fill your lungs with cancer.”

For all the marijuana Mitch smoked, he wouldn’t let anyone light up a cigarette on the bus. Not even those vape things everyone was smoking.

“Yeah, I need a smoke,” lead guitarist for Carnal Cavity, Vick Timms, announced.

“Me too,” went up around the bus.

The rest of the band: Charlie Morris, Jordan Long, and Opie Sanders stepped out followed by all the members of Cyanide Super Soaker: Cliff Downs, Roger Rickshaw, Leanne Main, Cynthia Kitt, and Harry St. James.

Pete Barrett was the manager of both bands. He and Carlisle got along fairly well. They were both outsiders as far as the bands were concerned. They often shared conversation over whiskey and cigars.

“I’m starved,” Pete said as he brought up the rear. “I’m gonna go inside and see if they have any chips or donuts. Maybe a honeybun or something.”

“If you find any kind of pastry, buy me one, would ya?” Carlisle asked. “I need to fill this sucker up with fuel.”

“Sure thing.”

By the time Carlisle made it off the bus, all the metal heads were already crowded out by the highway with a cloud of smoke around them. Mitch was inside the gas station with Pete.

Removing the nozzle from the gas tank, Carlisle started filling up the big beast of a bus. It took forever and this was clearly going to be one of those tanks that pumped fuel at a snail’s pace. He had his head down and was close to nodding off when he heard the rumble of engines and the band members excited about something.

“Holy shit, man,” Leanne Main called out, her pink pigtails blowing in the wind.

“The fuckin’ Army’s here, bro,” Jordan added.

He had his arm around Leanne. The two had been having sex since the start of the tour. They were the glue holding these two bands together. With all the bands’ bickering and arguing, they were close to traveling in separate buses.