Friday, October 16, 1998

The lights seemed a little warmer than usual. Hot even. The 5th Street Pub was suffocating, thick with cigar smoke, alcohol, and sweat. This wasn’t one of her fa­vorite places to sing, but she did it for her boyfriend’s buddy, Frank, who ran the pub.

He’s a good guy, Charm reminded herself.

Just the same, she made a mental note not to play cramped venues like this again. The place had to be past the max capacity limit, with every single person at shoulder touch with each other.

Reason enough for her to be glad to be on stage. She had nobody else around her except for a local drummer and guitarist to her right, and a keyboard maestro to her left.

Sweat dripped down her brow as the crowd waited for her to sing the final song of the evening.

The set tonight was less than stunning. At least, Charm thought so. The fans in the crowd though seemed to like the music she had been performing.

Charm shifted her multi-colored bangs out of her eyes and turned to the drummer and guitarist, nodding. She then turned to the keyboardist and nodded.

As the beats and tunes filled the air around her, she held the mic to her mouth and sang with half of her heart…

“Drifting haze, crazy days, I kissed his mouth and went all a’ craze,

It was October morn, fall leaves in air, and the only thing I did was care,”

The lyrics hung above her, thick and sparkling like gem­stones. But they always just sat there, unmoving, as if they wanted to do something, anything.

Charm remembered a point in her past, the time she became famous, when she was singing in her Stalus choir. When she did that solo—Destiny’s Place—was when everything changed for her. Those lyrics over her head, they popped and moved, they sped across the Stalus sanctuary in ribbons of bright lights.

That day, she swore she saw an angelic presence filling the room.

Many to this day believe the video that was taken of her pe­nultimate moment were doctored.

But she knows they weren’t.

“Every day, on the train, I see his luscious mane,

He’s my main squeeze, I want only to tease, but he’s so hard to please,”

She cringed at the lyrics. Of course, she had approved them, but they hadn’t been written by her, but rather her manager’s fiancée.

The crowd went wild anyway, even though in her heart of hearts, Charm only half believed (if even that) in what she was singing, in what she was saying.

She closed her eyes and dug deep to try to find feeling in the lyrics…

“Hazy days, crazy ways, there was a way for life to pay,

A moon so full, a baby’s drool, eating the porridge of a fool,”

Charm’s eyes opened, and she felt the true stupidity of the lyrics she was spouting.

Why had she agreed to sing a song written by her manager’s fiancée?

Because Roy had been there at the beginning. He was the first to contact her after the video of her choir singing went viral so many years ago. She felt loyal to him, so she took Renee’s song and turned it into this mess.

Somehow, the crowd was eating it up, dancing and swaying to the awful noise that masqueraded as music. 

Charm swayed on stage, under the hot lights, and she sud­denly wanted to be home, in her pajamas, digging through a car­ton of ice cream while she watched some mindless TV show with Stewart.

Through the bright lights and haze of smoke, she spotted them at the back of the room: the Trio—three girls who seemed to be at every single one of Charm’s concerts of late. They looked to be sisters. Two were somewhat tall, but the third stopped a couple feet shorter than her counterparts. They all had dyed hair—one with shoulder-length blue and white hair, an­other with long flowing hair that went to her waist, the strands colored a bright red. The shorter one had bright green strands that almost glowed. They were very cyberpunky, especially with their black stockings and corsets, and their neon-colored ear­rings and bracelets. If not for the fact that they always acted weird at her concerts, Charm would think they were somewhat whimsical.

Each concert, Charm witnessed them bow their heads, close their eyes, and mutter to themselves. Charm wasn’t sure what it was they were doing. They never made a move on Charm. They never tried to talk to her. They all sat in the back of each concert, observing, sometimes mingling with others around them. Never did they dance. Never did they seem to enjoy the music like the others at these events.

Charm thought to speak with one of them, but by the time each of her events were over, the girls were gone.

The drummer beat out the final strands of the song’s tune, and Charm sucked in a breath of air, glad this was the last num­ber of the night.

When the song ended, the crowd screamed for an encore. Though she used to love doing encores, Charm couldn’t stom­ach singing another one of these idiotic songs, so she darted backstage and grabbed some water and a muffin from the food cart. She felt sticky and sweaty, and her head hurt.

“Darling! That was crazy awesome!” Roy grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a bit as water splashed out of her bottle and onto her legs, soaking through her stockings. “Oh, sorry,” he said.

He wore his usual ‘lucky’ suit: a black and white pinstripe with a black and white tie. His hair was plastered to his head in a wave, and his bushy eyebrows practically jumped off his face like a strange exotic insect one would find in the Wastelands.

“Roy, I hated that song.”

He grimaced, and just then, Renee came clapping across the backstage flooring with her three-inch high heels. She wore a fur coat, and her hair was so blonde it was practically white.

She beelined for Charm, but Charm shifted so that Roy had to take the woman’s hug. “I’m so excited!!” she screeched. “You actually sang my song. It was sooooooo good!”

Charm turned back to the food cart, sipped some of what was left of her water, and took a bite of the chocolate chip muf­fin, hoping to find a way to escape this place. All her fans were in the main area through which she would have to pass to escape this building, as the back door had an emergency alarm that would trigger if she tried to sneak out that way.

She knew Stewart was on his way, and she would want to be outside when he arrived so she could jump into the car and leave, but she would have to cut through the raucous crowd in the main area to do that.

“Roy,” Renee screeched, “I have another song I wrote last night while I was downing a bottle of Syn Red.”

“Okay, okay,” Roy said, smoothing out his tie. “Calm down. I think Charm needs a bit of a break. Those stage lights looked a bit much.”

Charm turned around, her cheeks full of muffin, and nodded.

Roy nudged Renee back and the woman put her hand to her chest in offense. “A break? She’s a star. She has all of this be­cause of you. YOU!” The woman glared at Charm, her eyes full of something Charm couldn’t quite put her finger on. “If she needs a break, she can get it after the afterparty.”

Charm left the backstage area, exiting through the curtains and down the three steps into the area where circular tables and high stools were set up for the crowd. Each table was full of people mingling with one another. Eyes turned toward her, and the crowd went wild.

Luckily, Johnathan, a security guard they hired on many such occasions, quickly swept in front of her and put his arms out to keep the crowd back. He summoned some of the other security guards from other points in the room and they all moved in unison to hold the crowd at bay.

“Thanks,” she said.

He nodded. “Listen, you’re going to want to get out of here. I’ve been watching that kid off in the corner, and I think he’s the one that’s been stalking you.”

Charm did her best to look in that direction without seeming too shaken. She glanced over the heads of the crowd and spotted the lanky young man at a table in the far corner of the room. He sat with a can of beer in his hand. His head was bald, and he had a disheveled air about him. He always wore a black hoodie and jeans.

He had appeared at a handful of her concerts over the last year. Charm didn’t know what about him unsettled her, but he always just sat in a corner of whatever venue they were at and stared at her with beady black eyes.

The feelings she got from him were much different from those she got from the Trio. Whereas they gave off a weird fan vibe, this guy gave Charm a rancid breath, kidnapper vibe. She scanned the crowd and realized the Trio were gone. Maybe they were off chanting blessings on her or something along those lines.

This guy… He gave Charm a different feeling. Fear. Dread. Something to come…

How could I have missed him tonight? She knew it was because she had been distracted with the quality of the music. Her first few songs had been classic hits she sung over the years at almost every concert. These last two, Delta Wave and My October Romance, had bottomed out her spirit. They weren’t songs she would have written. Both were songs from others. Delta Wave was a poem her boyfriend had written for her that she thought would have been a bigger hit. My October Romance, the last song she sung this evening, was a hit, but wasn’t one she had any passion for.

She suddenly felt sick. Lightheaded.

The crowd started to move in toward her, as if they could read her mind and wanted to put a stop to her thoughts of leav­ing this place.

“I’m ready to go home,” Charm said to Johnathan.

He nodded and began parting the crowd to give her a path to the front door of the pub.

Charm ducked outside. It was raining, and she had forgotten her umbrella. Normally, Stewart would have remembered some­thing like that for her, but her boyfriend had to work late tonight and was probably—

The black car pulled up, and she smiled. The driver’s side door immediately opened and a handsome man with ruddy fea­tures, disheveled hair, and a warm smile came around to the pas­senger door and opened it for her.

The tension in her shoulders dropped, as she always felt safe when Stewart was around. He wasn’t one to not pay attention to their surroundings, and he had to step in and protect her on a number of different occasions from raving fans, the occasional drunk, or others who wanted just to ‘touch’ Charm and ‘absorb’ her luck.

“Thank you, my prince charming,” Charm said as she kissed him on the cheek before sliding into the car.

He blushed, making sure her legs were all the way into the car. Before he could shut the door, Charm saw the stalker from inside the venue rush past Stewart and try to lunge into the vehicle.

In a flash, Stewart grabbed the man and shoved him away from the car. The man slipped in a puddle and landed on the ground against the wall of the pub. The crowd inside started to gather around the door, and even with Johnathan doing his best to hold everyone back, Charm knew it would only be a matter of minutes before everyone descended on them.

The man Stewart pushed sat slumped against the brick, his beady black eyes looking at Charm through a curtain of raindrops.

“What’s your deal man?” Stewart said as he shut Charm’s door and hurried to the driver’s side.

Charm watched the man as Stewart drove them away from the pub. He did nothing to get up from his spot there in the rain, but he did stare at their car as it drove away.

Once he was out of sight, Charm rested in the seat and watched the rain drizzle down across the windshield, blurring the city lights as Stewart drove them through Lysallis toward their apartment.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m just… exhausted.” She pressed her face against the glass and felt the cold from outside rain against her skin.

“You really need to take a break, babe. Like, really. I can take us out of here for a bit. I have some vacation days at work I can cash in.”

Charm shrugged. “I hate singing some of these songs.” It felt good to admit it out loud.

Stewart was quiet for a moment, most likely swallowing his pride. “Let me guess: My October Romance wasn’t a hit?”

“It was,” she answered with a sigh. She started playing with her long pink nails, clacking them together like crab claws, won­dering about that strange man who lunged at her. She was used to mad fans, but he was something different. There was an om­inous air about him… something foreboding.

“Just not with you?”

She blushed nervously.

“Sorry that my poem isn’t a hit.”

She stopped playing with her nails and turned toward him. She knew they were almost home, at which point she would want to shower, get ready for bed, and maybe snuggle in for a show. Really, she might just crash on the bed without doing any of those things. “Who cares?” she said. “I love that you wrote it.”

He smiled, and it was that smile that she wanted to come home to every day.

“How about you take tomorrow off?” Stewart suggested.

Charm let out a little laugh, girly and jovial. Stewart gave her a serious glare, and she tilted her head at him. “You know I can’t do that. I have a concert tomorrow at the park.”

“Cancel it,” he said as he pulled into the parking garage to their apartment building. He parked the car, shut off the engine, and then turned to her. “Seriously. Don’t worry what Roy will say. Don’t worry about your fans. Just take the day off. I’ll take you out into the city and we can just spend the whole day to­gether. No talk of music.”

She huffed, rolling the idea around in her mind. She hadn’t canceled a show in years. She hadn’t had a break in months. The thought of spending a whole day with Stewart aroused a tender warmth in her chest, and she nodded. “Ok.”