Page 2 of Bewitched By the Phantom
“Who cares?” Vivian laughs. “We’re in! This is it!”
“We still have to win,” Claudia points out.
“And we will,” I reassure them. “The fact we weren’t invited in the beginning is bullshit and you know it.”
“Now they’re gonna know it,” Claudia grins. “Fuck yeah!”
This is the battle of the century. If we win this, everything changes. Even if we don’t win this, the amount of publicity we’re going to get is massive. Everyone will know who Hell Hath Honey is after this.
Yet despite this excitement and the jumping around with my bandmates, there’s only one person I want to message. I pull out my phone and scroll to the Snapchat app, before clicking on the one profile that has only a picture of a mask on it. I click it open and start typing.
We made it. Another band dropped and we got invited, I type before hitting send.
Like always, the bubble lights up immediately and he starts typing. I don’t know his name or really anything about him. All I know is that he goes by the name “Phantom” and that he has a keen interest in my singing. In fact, he’d been giving me lessons for a few years now, and he’d popped in when I needed him most. I’d been on the verge of giving up on this and going back to college for some boring job behind a desk. Only he’d stopped me. My probably-a-catfish, mysterious friend.
I knew you’d make it, he types. I’ll see you there.
I frown. We’ve never met. So for him to type . . .
What do you mean?I shoot back.
But the bubbles don’t light up again. Figures.
I tuck my phone away and continue the celebration with my bandmates. At some point, someone cracks open the wine bottle we’d been saving for a special occasion. That’s all that matters right now.
Not the fact another band had to fail for us to get here. Not the rumors surrounding disappearing bands for NYX. And definitely not the mysterious mentor in my phone that drives me insane and refuses to give up his mystery.
No, definitely not that.
Chapter
Two
Three months later, a little bit homeless, and a whole lot excited, we pull up to the address listed on the invitation. So yeah, we’d gotten kicked out of the trash apartment we’d been living in. Claudia’s waitressing job had ended with her sucker punching the manager who groped one of the other waitresses and she’d had a hard time finding another one. Lidia sells her artwork, but hadn’t had any buyers in the last three months. Vivian still has her office job she moonlights at, but it hardly pays enough to cover rent. And fuck, my own job with the catering company fell through. We’ve been living in our old rickety van for the better part of a month, having to stop at truck stops for showers, and I’m ready to be done with it all.
Luckily, with the invitation comes accommodations. None of us know what to expect, but at least we know we’ll have a shower to ourselves tonight. At least, a girl can hope.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask as I peer through the windshield.
“It’s the address you gave me,” Claudia grumbles, but even her voice sounds uncertain as we stare at the rusty gate.
It’s open at least, which is a good sign, but the trees and bushes obscure anything past what our headlights can see.Which isn’t a lot. It’s dark out here, darker than it feels like it should be, but I think that’s just because the moon is hidden behind the clouds right now. We would have gotten here hours ago, but we’d had a flat tire on the way and a radiator leak. Still, we’d limped this van along until we made it.
To what exactly is the question.
“Just drive in,” Vivian encourages. “Maybe it’s an aesthetic thing.”
“Yeah. Rock n’ roll always hits hard,” Lidia adds. “It’s probably part of the appeal.”
They’re not wrong. This competition is going to be televised nationwide. Hell, maybe worldwide. It’s one of the first competitions of its kind, where it pits us all against each other and focuses mainly on rock. Bands from around the world enter this competition. Think like Eurovision. We’re going to be battling the best of the best, bands that already have cult followings on social media, bands that are prodigies and legends, ones that come from families already famous in the rock scene. There are current rumors going around that one of the Osbourne kids are here. I don’t know how true that is though.
Claudia eases off the break and pulls past the rusty gate, following the gravel road around the trees. It’s a few minutes before we get an eyeful of where we’re actually going, and when we leave the trees, I think all four of us gasp.
“Wicked,” Lidia breathes.
I agree with a silent nod of my head. Wicked is probably the best explanation for it. The competition every year is held in different aesthetic places. One year it was an old asylum, haunted so badly that the bands still talk about the nightmares they had in the place. Another year, it was an old, dilapidated mansion. Hell, last year it was an abandoned theme park. This year, they don’t disappoint.
In front of us rises an old power plant, towering like a sleeping giant lit up with spotlights and all sorts of neon additions. The power plant has been decked out in a gothic lover’s dream, neon running along the metal beams, projectors screening bats and other crazy things onto the large stacks that once upon a time generated power for the small cities around this place. Cities that are mostly abandoned nowadays. They’d gone all out with this place, and when we pull up, there’s actually someone waiting for us.
