Apeshit (8 page)

Buddy the Lobster Boy. And when he saw those dead fetus

limbs dangling out of Buddy’s head, my brother screamed.

Then Buddy killed him and dragged his body away.”

Jason takes a long drink from his beer.

“So let that be a warning to you,” Jason says. “While

you’re staying here, no matter what happens, no matter what

you see, never, ever scream.”

Jason looks at them all with a serious face. Then

Jason smiles and yells out, “Unless you’re having
sex
!”

Rick and Kevin burst into laughter.

“Booyah!” Kevin cries. He stands up and gives Ja-

son a high-five.

“I totally got you guys!” Jason says.

“No, you didn’t,” Desdemona says. “That was the

lamest attempt at a ghost story I’ve ever heard.”

Crystal looks at her boyfriend and shakes her head.

Jason stops laughing and sits down. He stares down

at his fingers and realizes he’s much drunker than he thought

he was. He doesn’t know why he decided to bring his broth-

er into the story. He never talks about his brother. Normally,

the story is about his dad when he was a kid and a childhood

friend of his dad’s, but he wanted the story to have more

impact this time so he made it about himself and his brother

instead.

The fucking Theremin put him on my mind
, Jason

thinks.
I never would have brought him into the story if I

didn’t find that Theremin
.

He crushes his half-full beer can and tosses it over

the balcony into the black forest below.

Crystal finally convinces Stephanie to join the party.

Stephanie doesn’t really want to party, but she agrees to play

the Theremin for them. She has always wanted to play her

Theremin for her friends, but she always figured they would

think it was nerdy. The jocks and the cheerleaders always

make fun of the band kids. She doesn’t want anyone to think

she is a nerd.

In the center of the living room, Stephanie begins

to play. She plays a solo rendition of Ave Maria on the

Theremin. Her friends are gathered around her, on the mus-

tard yellow couches and chairs. Rick and Kevin have never

even heard of a Theremin before. They watch in drunken

amazement as Stephanie plays. The haunting music is like

an electronic violin flowing through the dimly lit room, as

Stephanie’s fingers wiggle in the air. Kevin can’t believe

that Theremins are played without touching any part of

the instrument. He doesn’t know how Stephanie is able to

figure out which notes are which just by manipulating her

hands in the air.

Stephanie pours her emotions into the song. It is a

powerful moment for them. Desdemona finds the song both

sad and eerie, even though she always thought of Ave Maria

as more of a pretty song. Even Jason is speechless.

After a couple minutes, Stephanie begins to think

of the time when her brother caressed her back while she

was playing the Theremin. It was before they started having

sex. She was confused and disturbed, but she didn’t stop

him from doing it. She just kept playing while he rubbed her

shoulders, neck, and lower back. Stephanie’s eyes tear. She

tries to shake it off, but the tears keep flowing.

Jason’s eyes are also beginning to tear. He is thinking

about his brother. He is thinking about how good Stephanie

is at playing the Theremin, and how his brother might have

become just as good if he would have lived long enough.

He could have been hanging out with them, playing a duet

with Stephanie right now.

Halfway through the song, Stephanie’s hands go

limp. The song breaks into a static hum. She can’t go on

any longer.

“Hey!” Desdemona says. “What happened?”

Desdemona is too drunk to notice Steph’s tears.

“I’m sorry,” Stephanie says, rubbing her eyes.

Jason stares at her with widening eyes. He rubs his

tears and clears his throat.

“Keep playing,” Jason says.

Stephanie sniffles.

“I said,” Jason stands up, “keep playing.”

“I’m sorry,” Stephanie cries. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“Come on,” Jason says, his voice cracks. His face is

turning red.

“Jason, she’s had enough,” Crystal says. “Let her be.”

Jason charges over to Crystal and grabs her by the

hands and holds them over the Theremin. “Keep fucking

playing!”

The Theremin makes shrieking feedback noises as

Jason struggles with Stephanie’s hands.

“Jason!” Crystal says. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Jason squeezes her wrists as hard as he can. Stepha-

nie whimpers. He pulls her close to him and whispers firmly

into her ear, “I just want to hear you play for a little longer.”

“Don’t be a dick, dude,” Kevin says.

“Just finish the
fucking
song, you
fucking
cunt,” Jason

whispers closely so that nobody else can hear but Stephanie.

Stephanie shoves Jason away and runs out of the

room, crying.

“Why the heck did you have to go and do that for?”

Desdemona says to Jason.

“What?” Jason says. “I liked her song and wanted

her to keep playing. What’s the big deal?”

“You didn’t have to be such a dick about it,” Rick says.

“You too, Rick?” Jason says. “Why are you all gang-

ing up on me? She’s the one who is fucking up our trip by

crying all the time. She can’t even finish playing a simple

song.”

Crystal and Desdemona get up and leave the room.

Rick and Kevin follow them. Jason stays behind, staring at

the mustard yellow furniture.

“Fuck you all then,” Jason says.

He steps over to the Theremin and wiggles his fin-

gers over it like Stephanie was doing. All that comes out of

it are ugly electronic squeals.

Rick is sitting next to Kevin. He has a secret that he

is dying to tell him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Kevin asks.

Rick smiles. He wants to tell him, but he has to wait

until later that night.

Though he likes women, Rick is much more ho-

mosexual than bisexual. He didn’t really know this about

himself until after he started sleeping with Kevin. He likes

masculinity. He likes muscles and strong personalities.

He hasn’t told anyone, but Desdemona really isn’t all

that important to him anymore. If she were to leave him he

would be perfectly happy with just Kevin for the rest of his

life. Sometimes he wonders if it wouldn’t be better without

her. After she got a mohawk and all those tattoos, Rick re-

ally hasn’t been all that attracted to her. She looks more like

a guy, but not his kind of guy. If she gained fifty pounds

of muscle and got a crew cut instead of a mohawk, then he

would probably be much more attracted to her. Unfortu-

nately, that’s just not Des’s style.

There is something living out in the woods. Some-

thing not quite human. It is sharpening its teeth on rocks

and eating live frogs down by the stream. It sees lights in

the distance. Lights in a place that is usually dark. There is

something bad about these lights. Something evil. It has to

make the lights go away. It has to make the evil, all evil, go

away.

Desdemona is peeing out in the bushes nearby. She is

still quite drunk and her knees wobble as she squats. Weeds

tickle the bottoms of her thighs. She cringes, worried that

the tickling sensations might be caused by black spiders

crawling towards her crotch. She closes her eyes tight, hop-

ing to be done soon, but she had so much to drink that she

has a lot to pee out.

“I fucking hate nature,” Desdemona says, completely

pissed off that the toilets aren’t working in the cabin.

She wishes she could pee off of the balcony like the

guys were doing. That would be so much easier. She’s heard

they sell a device, a small plastic (or sometimes cardboard)

funnel-thing, that girls can use to pee standing up. If she had

one of those she would use it. She would love to stand next

to the guys and pee off of the balcony with them.

There is a sound like cracking twigs under footsteps

coming toward her. She stops peeing and looks around. The

forest is quiet. There aren’t anymore noises. She isn’t sure

if the footsteps were just her imagination. She couldn’t real-

ly hear too well over the sound of her urine splashing against

the ground.

There is another cracking of twigs. She can’t tell

which direction it is coming from. The moon is bright enough

for her to see dozens of feet in every direction. There is no

movement. No prowlers in the dark. Frogs begin to croak

around her. Just a couple at first, then several. She can’t see

them but she can definitely tell they are frogs. The croaking

makes it impossible to hear anymore footsteps.

She pulls up her pants and scurries back inside.

Next time I have to pee
, she thinks,
I’m taking

Jason’s gun
.

Kevin and Rick are making out in the living room

when Desdemona bursts in, rubbing her tattooed arms and

shivering. Rick looks kind of annoyed that she busted in on

them. His head is drunk and floppy.

“It’s fucking cold out there,” Desdemona says. “I

fucking hate pissing in the woods.”