Chaos falls, p.1
Chaos Falls, page 1
part #1 of Sound of Survival Series
Chaos Falls
Sound of Survival Book 1
Sean Patten
Contents
Chaos Falls
1. Amy
2. Amy
3. Amy
4. Ed
5. Ed
6. Amy
7. Ed
8. Amy
9. Ed
10. Amy
11. Ed
12. Amy
13. Amy
14. Ed
15. Amy
16. Amy
17. Ed
18. Amy
19. Ed
20. Amy
21. Ed
22. Amy
23. Ed
24. Ed
Fight or Flight
1. Ed
Also by Sean Patten
Chaos Falls
Copyright 2019 by Sean Patten
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
1 Amy
May 8 2020; 11:00 Pacific Time
The desert was oven-bake hot, even with my head stuck out the window of the tour bus as we careened through the dunes of Southern California. The landscape passed by in a rust-colored blur, the sunbeams warm on my face.
It was almost peaceful. That is, if I could ignore the grinding roar of the engine.
“Will you shut that window?”
So much for calm. I pulled my head back inside and looked around for whoever had barked out the order, though I had a good idea who it had been.
“You’re letting all the AC out.”
I turned back towards the window and pulled it shut.
“Since when did you care about the environment, Ty?” I asked, stepping towards the back of the vast interior of the ultra-luxury, two-story tour bus of our band, KPX.
“It’s not that,” came Ty’s voice from one of the beds. “You’re wasting all the cool air. I’m burning up over here.”
I stepped over in his direction. The lean, attractively slender body of Ty Weiland, our lead singer, was sprawled out onto the largest of the beds, his dingy white V-neck shirt pulled up enough that I could see the tattoos of purple flames that covered his lower belly.
One of his ink-covered arms was draped over his face, his long black hair splayed out all over the pearl-white sheets. Even lying there in the throes of a hangover or comedown or whatever it was, there was something about the guy that just sucked you in. A pain in the ass, maybe, but he was a natural front man.
“Aw,” I said, propping my arms on the top of the bed frame and leaning in. “Is Princess Ty sleepy?”
I sniffed the air, the scent of lavender and jasmine all around me. I smirked, knowing the source right away. Sure enough, Ty had lit a few of his scented candles, three separate flames flickering just behind his bunk.
“Princess Ty’s hungover!” he barked, waving his slender hand towards me and rolling over. “Now fuck off and leave me alone!”
In any other circumstance, I’d never let a guy talk to me like that. But after spending months—hell, years—on the road with these guys since forming KPX back in college, I’d gotten used to their various personality quirks.
But the candles bothered me. I stepped around Ty, blowing them out one by one.
“Whatever,” I said. “Just make sure you get your beauty sleep. We’ve got a festival ahead of us. And quit leaving these things lit if you’re going to sleep—last thing we need is you burning this bus down.”
He let out an annoyed grumble in reply before fumbling around the sheets for his headphones and jamming them into his earring-studded ears. I knew that meant the conversation was over.
There was a time when I might’ve played den mother, told Ty that maybe it wasn’t a hot idea to be spending every night of the week loading himself up with booze and drugs and pills and whatever the hell else he could get his hands on. But those days were over. Best I could do was make sure he knew when we had a show to play.
I took one last look at Ty before leaving him alone and heading back towards the main room of the bus. Once away from the beds, I put my hands on my hips and looked the scene over.
The absolute luxury on display in the bus was something I still had a hard time with—anything we needed was in here. Massive TVs lined one of the walls, plush, expensive furniture appointed the space, and a fully-stocked kitchen was there for whatever snacks we wanted on the road. And that wasn’t even getting into what we had on the second floor.
Hell, there was even a fish tank. In the middle of one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, we had a massive tank full of exotic fish. A more useless thing I couldn’t imagine.
I stepped over to the fridge, pulled it open, and took out a can of mineral water. As I cracked it open, I listened to the gentle strains of classical guitar music drifting through the otherwise quiet air of the bus. After a moment, I recognized the tune.
“Pachelbel’s Canon in D?” I asked.
Chris Remington, our guitarist and the sole member of the band I felt like I could have a normal human conversation with these days, glanced back at me from where he sat, guitar on his lap, legs propped up in front of him. A broad smile broke out across his boyishly handsome face.
“Good ear,” he said, his fingers still effortlessly plucking the strings in perfect time.
“Some things from music school actually stuck,” I said, plopping down onto the couch across from him.
“In spite of the fact that we all dropped out together,” he said, finishing the song with a bright, clear D chord before setting the guitar down.
“Right,” I said.
He glanced around at the interior of the bus, apparently still as struck with the luxury on display as I was.
“Guess it was worth it, though,” he said. “I mean, can’t argue with results.”
I glanced over at Elliot Deckard, our drummer, who was seated shirtless, his lean, tattoo-covered torso on full display, in front of one of the enormous TVs. He wore a pair of headphones, a video-game controller in his hand, and a look of frantic determination on his face. The screen displayed one of those first-person games, the kind where you could see the gun in front of you as you blew apart zombies or monster or people or whatever.
“Fuck!” he shouted out, his voice cutting through the air.
“Shut the hell up back there!” called out Ty, the headphones apparently not doing the trick.
Elliot went right back to the game, grumbling curses under his breath.
I turned my attention back to the passing landscape, each moment bringing us closer and closer to our destination—Dead Air Festival.
“You ready for this?” asked Chris as he took a glass from the nearby bar and filled it with a little of my mineral water.
Normally, I wouldn’t let anyone help themselves to my food or drink like that. Chris was the one exception. Both of us were only children, and together over the course of our seemingly endless touring, we’d wordlessly managed to form the kind of relationship we both figured siblings might have, food stealing and all.
“I’m still trying to answer that question,” I said, shaking my head. “Six months on the road and Ty goes ahead and signs us up for one last gig.”
The bubbling of the fish tank mingled with the drone of the engine and the clack-clack-clack of Elliot’s fingers on the controller.
“You really wanted to say no to this?” he asked. “I mean, I was a little hesitant, but hey, when I saw how much money they were offering…” He looked around again. “And the perks, I have no idea if could’ve said no.”
He had a point. Dead Air promised to be a three-day pain in the ass, but the amount of cash the promoters had offered had proved too much to pass up.
“It’s weird, though,” I said.
Chris took a sip of the fizzy water in his glass and cocked his head to the side.
“What is?” he asked.
“This,” I said, gesturing to the interior of the bus.
“The bus?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “All of it. Dead Air’s supposed to be this desert retreat sort of thing, right? Like, go out into the middle of nature and get away from it all. And here they are sending us luxury buses and giving us air-conditioned villas to sleep in. I mean, isn’t that how it used to be when it started out?”
“You saying you’d rather sleep in a tent?” Chris asked.
“It’s not that,” I said. “Just wondering if the new management know what they’re getting into.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said. “But Dead Air hasn’t been anything close to roughing it since, like, five years ago. It’s all glammed out now, just someplace for LA types to go and take pictures for social media.”
“Good point,” I said. “Makes me wonder what people would do if they had to actually rough it, as in no electricity and no internet.”
Chris laughed.
“Don’t even want to think about it,” he said. “Can you imagine these Silver Lake girls doing anything that would inconvenience them in the slightest if there wasn’t the sweet, sweet reward of selfies at the e nd of it?”
“Right,” I said with a smile. “If you didn’t take a picture of it, did it even really happen?”
“The ‘tree falling in the woods’ of our time,” Chris said, a smile on his face as he raised the glass to his lips.
He took a sip, then set down his glass before rubbing his slim face and running his hand through his wavy, copper hair. Chris was a good-looking guy, no doubt, but there was something about him and the rest of the guys that made romance something that turned my stomach to think about. We were more like siblings than anything.
“But seriously,” I said. “The guys in charge of this thing.”
“Screw The System,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“That was the name of their company. Screw The System. Guess it’s their attempt at being edgy.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “No doubt. But they’re spending shitloads to make this thing a luxury affair. I know Dead Air makes money, but not ‘luxury accommodations in the desert’ money.”
“You think they’re overreaching or something?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’m being paranoid. But the last thing I want is to be in the middle of the Colorado Desert if something goes wrong.”
“You’re being a worrier,” he said. “As always. It’s going to be fine—we’re going to swing in, play the hits, and get out. Worse ways to earn a ton of cash than hanging out for a few days, playing music for high-out-of-their-mind rich kids that are too stoned to even know what’s going on.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said.
“Bullshit!”
Chris and I both snapped our attention over to Elliot, just in time to watch the controller fly out of his hand and right through one of the windows. The crisp sound of glass breaking rang out, a blast of heat coming in through the now-broken window.
“Jesus, Elliot,” I said, standing up.
“That motherfucker’s cheating!” he said, yanking off his headphones and tossing them into the corner of the bus. “Using one of those hacks where you can see through the goddamn walls.”
“And you thought a measured reaction was to throw your controller through the window?” Chris asked.
“Piss off,” Elliot snarled, reaching over and grabbing the bottle of expensive whiskey he’d been working his way through during the trip.
He yanked the top off with his teeth and spit it out before taking a long swig.
“And the internet,” he said, waving his free hand towards the TV. “It keeps cutting out. How the hell am I supposed to play if I’ve got a spotty connection?”
Chris laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Elliot, crinkling up his bearded face and shooting a hard glance in Chris’s direction.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just the complaining about the spotty internet in a luxury tour bus in the middle of the desert.”
I got what he was saying, offering a smile of my own in response.
“Yeah,” I said. “Imagine telling us back when we were starting playing in those shithole bars that this is the kind of thing we’d be worried about down the road.”
But Elliot didn’t share our opinion of the matter. He took another sip of his booze before putting his hands on his lean hips. Elliot was reedy and skinny, but not without muscle tone. He was the bad boy of the band, exuding a rugged, dangerous sort of masculine that was catnip for a certain kind of girl.
And his wild ways weren’t an act. He’d been out of control from the moment we’d brought him on as our drummer, and our success had only given him more access to his vices. Elliot could be a pain in the ass, but that didn’t mean I didn’t worry about the guy.
He glared at Chris.
“You calling me soft or something?”
Chris winced, realizing he’d said something that was better kept to himself.
“No,” he said, his tone already suggesting he knew the damage had been done. “Just saying we’ve come a long way, you know?”
“I don’t know,” said Elliot, taking another sip and moving closer to Chris. “Because it sounds to me like you’re telling me I’m turning into some spoiled pop star or some shit.”
“Elliot,” I said. “Calm down. Please.”
I didn’t know why I bothered—no chance it’d do any good.
“Listen,” said Chris. “We’ve got a long weekend ahead of us, and I don’t want to get into it before we’ve even gotten there.”
“Oh, now what are you saying?” asked Elliot. “That you’re annoyed that you can’t just call me a pussy?”
By this point Elliot was right up in Chris’s face, his thick beard grazing the tip of Chris’s chin.
I was beginning to get worried. Elliot losing his temper wasn’t out of the ordinary, especially when he’d had a few drinks, but something about the way he was in that moment scared me.
“Look,” said Chris. “I take it back. I was being an asshole, okay?”
Elliot kept his dark eyes on Chris, leaving them locked on as he brought the whiskey bottle up to his lips. Once he’d taken a sip, he let out a long, loud “ahhh” right in Chris’s face, one seemingly intended to blast Chris with hot whiskey breath.
“That’s right you were,” he said.
He took one more sip. Then he twisted around on his heels and whipped the bottle across the bus, punching another hole in another window.
“Fuck yeah!” he shouted out, his tense anger now replaced by the other side of Elliot—the wild, party animal side. “Who’s ready to get lit in the desert?”
He grabbed another bottle of booze from the bar and cracked it open. Chris and I glanced at each other, both annoyed, both glad that the storm appeared to have passed. I glanced over at the two holes in the windows, already imagining the conversation that I was going to have to have with the owner.
“I’m stocked up,” said Elliot. “Coke, Molly, and all the pot I’ll need to mellow out right after.”
“Elliot,” I said. “Please don’t tell me you have it on the bus.”
Trying to get him to not indulge was something I knew not even to bother with at this point. The best I could hope for was him keeping it away from us.
“No, Mom,” he said with a snide tone. “I got a guy at the festival who’s gonna hook me up. And when I—”
“Which of you assholes opened the window again?”
The three of us glanced over in the direction of the voice. It was Ty, who was up and leaning against the small opening that led to the sleeping area. His inky dark hair fell down in tendrils around his shoulders, his sparkling blue eyes tight with annoyance.
He glanced over at the two holes in the windows.
“Jesus, Elliot!” he shouted out, moving across the bus with his usual ethereal glide.
“Why do you think it was me?” asked Elliot.
The air was tense, the way that had been so common over the last few months of the tour. But before either of us could say another word, I glanced out the window, spotting the crowds and tents that made up the festival.
“Guys,” I said. “We’re here.”
2 Amy
Dead Air 2020 was a zoo—and that was putting it mildly.
The four of us stood pressed against the windows of the bus, taking in the sights. Right there in the middle of the desert was one of the largest gatherings of people I’d ever seen in one place. We’d played stadiums before, but this was something else. There had to have been tens of thousands of people, maybe even more.
Tents and other temporary structures dotted the landscape, all of them looking modest when compared to the massive stages set up in the center. Off in the distance I could spot the luxury villas of the millionaire and billionaire tech guys and girls who were known to show up.
Temporary mobile towers sprouted out here and there, giving the attendees access to the 5G and the social media it allowed, that was the lifeblood of this place. Throngs of festival-goers, all young and dressed in trendy, fashionable clothes, drank and mingled and took copious pictures, both of themselves and of the scene.
“We ever played in front of a crowd this big before?” I asked.
“Nah,” said Chris. “There’s got to be eighty thousand people here.”
