Disasterpiece

Within ten minutes of Jim leaving, he was back again; collapsing on one of the couches and shrugging nonchalantly at the guys. Josie and I were still sitting in the corner keeping to ourselves as the guys continued a less vicious version of the previous conversation.

"I might go check on Corey," I whispered to her. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about him as Jim wouldn't have returned if he wasn't ok, but the air was still a little tense and awkward in here and I wanted to remove myself from that.

Josie nodded as I stood up and slipped out of the room silently. Once out my only dilemma was working out where Corey had gone...though, if I was my nicotine addicted brother and trying to relax from a stressful situation, then I would be heading for the smoking terrace. So that's where I dragged myself too, finding my prediction right as I spotted Corey sitting on the floor, back up against the brick wall.

"I knew you'd be hitting the hard stuff," I joked lightly, approaching him I slid down the wall and sat beside him. He grinned weakly across at me and took another long drag.

"Sorry you saw all of that," he apologised, I just snorted at him.

"Corey...seriously, I have seen you blow up so many times a hundred times more than that," I laughed, to which he smiled sheepishly, finished his cigarette and stubbed it out.

"Yeah I guess that's true...” he pondered. “Hey remember the time 'le douche came over and Uncle Frank had to wrestle me?" he mused, I smiled and thought back to the memory.

The girl's feet pounded round and round in circles across the entrance hall. Her mid length black hair held none of the bright colours it was use to; it just jostled around with her movement limply and plain looking. She felt uncomfortable in the dress she was wearing; she was use to jeans and band shirts, not frilly and lacy with the ability to fly up in the slightest bit of wind. She wiped her sweaty hands over the fabric on her hips, biting her lip nervously and in annoyance as she stopped once more to glance out the window; but he still wasn't there.

"What the fuck, are you still waiting?" her brother exclaimed as he rounded the corner and found his sister still pacing in that ridiculous dress the asshole had told her to wear. She ignored him, just shrugged and kept pacing. The boy growled under his breath, stringing a long line of profanities before stomping back down the hallway.

The girl sighed inwardly, she tugged lamely at the hem of the dress in a vain attempt to make it longer. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been pacing, but it felt like hours. With one last quick glance out the door pane she turned and headed out into the kitchen where her Uncle and brother were sitting. Before sitting down with them she noted on the wall clock that it had indeed been almost two hours of waiting. She sat, placed her head in her hands and huffed.

“What a fucking cocksucker,” her brother growled, slamming his glass of coke down just a little too hard on the table.

“Corey...” the Uncle warned lowly, personally he didn’t care that much about the language, but it was the principal of trying to be a good guardian.

“What?” the brother shot back tersely. “This douche bag fucking makes my sister wear this shit, tells her to be ready on the dot and then doesn’t turn up with so much as a call! He needs a fat metal pole shoved up his ass!”he ranted angrily. The girl groaned and let her face fall onto the table top with a soft thud; she hated her brother getting narky on her behalf. The Uncle ran his fingers through her hair and gave the boy a stern look.

“I know you’re angry but it’s probably not the time to get on your high horse,” he told him wisely, knowing that the anger was just making the girl feel worse. The brother sculled the rest of his drink, stood up and stalked out of the room. The Uncle felt a little bad at that moment; the boy was just voicing what he also thought internally. The Uncle went to open his mouth and reassure the girl who still had her face on the wood when the door bell ring; followed by the sound of running footsteps.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” the brothers voice bellowed through the small house. The girl and her Uncle shot up quickly out of their chairs and ran down the hallway to the entrance. The brother and the late arrival were on the porch standing each other off.

“None of your business Taylor, where is she?”the new arrival seethed, a dark look shadowing his face.

“None of my business?” the brother repeated in disbelief. “How about I make it my fucking business,” he finished as his arm raised into the air, hand scrunched into a fist, before rushing forward and connecting with the arrivals face.

“No!” the girl gasped in shock as her date fell to the ground; her Uncle ran forward to pull back her brother who was preparing to leap onto the fallen body and continue punching.

“Let me go, he deserves this!” the brother yelled as the Uncle wrapped his arms around him from behind and pulled him back into the house. The girl ran forward, kneeling by her date who was sprawled on the ground clutching his face.

“You know he deserves this, he can’t fucking do this to her!” the brother was heard yelling before the front door slammed closed. The girl frowned and helped the boy to his feet, the boys nostrils were flaring, his eyes shooting daggers at the closed door.

“You make that dress look horrible,” he spat before pivoting on his foot and marching back down the pathway to his car. The girl just sighed and quietly followed.

"You were always so protective," I grinned weakly after the memory came back.

"Damn straight...and I would still do that if a guy didn’t treat you right," Corey informed me, pulling a battered cigarette packet from his jeans pocket.

"Well you don't have to worry, making guys like me is not my speciality," I joked, though inside I knew this to be a statement of truth. When I’ve thought about it, “le douche” as Corey referred to him as, is the only guy whose ever taken any interest in me. Maybe just because I was with him for so long; but I doubted that.

"Hmm...so there's no one you like?" he asked knowingly, cocking his eyebrow up at me. I blushed, looking down at my hands in to lap – my fingers ringing around each other nervously.

"No," I lied slowly, suddenly feeling like I was just a pane of glass and he could see right through me. Corey let it go for a minute, taking some time to light another cigarette and breathe in its toxic fumes a few times.

"Well...even though you say there's no one, I'll just put it out there that even if they're like a brother to me, if they hurt you I would smash them," Corey said, turning his head to stare intently at me. I looked up into his eyes and saw a twinkle flash through them; it was then that I knew he knew. Looking away again I sighed deeply and got to my feet.

“Trust me, you don’t need to worry about that at all,” I promised, offering him my hand to help him up.

After Corey finished his smoke we walked back down to the green room together so he could get ready for the show. Upon entering the room Corey strode straight over to Shawn and gave him a big ‘manly’ hug, both apologising for their outbursts. I rolled my eyes and made my way over to the couch; sitting between Josie (who was talking to Sid, of course) and Joey.

“Set list sorted?” I asked Joey.

“Like it always was,” he joked back with a grin. “Hey, um, I won’t get to finish those lessons today since we have to get ready and everything...but maybe another time?” he added, to which my heart fluttered.

“Yeah maybe I guess,” I replied; though I wasn’t sold on the whole idea of going through that nerve racking, heart stopping, palm sweating ordeal again. He seemed content with my answer as he got up and went over to his locker to pull his stage gear out. I couldn’t help but stare at his butt as he walked, it was amazing how there was only a few pieces of fabric preventing him from nakedness. I shook my head at myself suddenly and pinched my thigh lightly – definitely not sold on that idea yet.

A few days after that show we found ourselves in Leeds with permission from John to have a day off. Most of the guys seemed happy to chill on their own, or in Corey’s case go meet up with a certain red head I was still itching to find out about; but Joey and I had decided that we would hit the town together, so to speak.

“So you’ve never been out of Iowa until now?” Joey asked in disbelief as we trudged through the muddy ground of the local fair; a fair which we had found out about thanks to some travel brochures in the hotel lobby. I pulled a piece of fairy floss from the stick he was holding and popped it into my mouth.

“Yeah seriously, I never had any reason to leave or anyone to leave with before,” I explained. We were having an amazing time getting to know each other even more today, despite the fact that the sky was overcast and it started to drizzle every now and then. Joey just shook his head in amazement.

“Don’t get me wrong I love Iowa, but I couldn’t imagine not getting to travel and do this all the time,” he replied, taking some fairy floss for himself.

“I guess it’s good you have that drive then...will help you keep making records,” I joked as we came to a halt in unison behind a crowd of people.

“A lot of people say I work too hard,” he mused, then paused. “I guess that’s why my relationships don’t work you know?” he added sadly. I bit my lip and extended my hand out to rub him reassuringly on the back.

“Anyone lucky enough to be in a relationship with you should be able to put up with that and respect that you have a job to do,” I said, fleetingly imagining how amazing it would be to be said person in relationship. Joey grinned weakly and looked up, past the crowd.

“Hey this is a line for a haunted house!” he exclaimed excitedly, I peered around the other side of the crowd to see a wooden hanging sign reading “Hollywood Horrors”.

“So it is, are you up for the challenge Mr Jordison or are you chicken?” I mocked jokingly, with a wink.

“Bring it on Miss Jordi – I mean Law,” he laughed in embarrassment, trying to cover up his slip up. I blushed and tried to pretend I didn’t notice, heart pounding in my chest.

It wasn’t long before we reached the front of the line; Joey had discarded the rest of the fairy floss and was almost bouncing with anticipation. I on the other hand was feeling pretty nervous, as we drew closer to the ride I could make out the continuous screams of the patrons before us.

“This is going to sound ridiculous, but I’m totally chickening out,” I told Joey as the attendant walked towards us to check our wristbands.

“It’ll be fun I promise,” Joey replied; grabbing my hand he pulled me forward so we could flash our wrists. The attendant opened the gate to let us through, but my legs felt like they were made of stone.

“Joey...” I whispered nervously, I could feel my face whiten as the people before us started to scream from inside. He turned to me, grabbing both my hands.

“Trust me ok?” he said, his gorgeous blue eyes piercing me with promise and security. I sighed and nodded, letting him lead me up to the entrance doors. “Let’s do this!” he proclaimed, pushing open the doors we barraged in with our hands still entwined.

Inside it was pitch black, I literally could not see a damn thing except the whites of Joey’s eyes. I tightened my grip and he squeezed back reassuringly. We walked forward slowly, in the distance the sounds of chainsaws, screaming and creepy music could be heard; perhaps it was even more nerve racking that it was silent where we were. I trod carefully, letting Joey lead the way but still keeping as close to him as I could. It smelt damp in here, maybe because of the weather outside or maybe because it helped make the atmosphere scarier – either way I was starting to get chills up my spine and my apprehension was building up as I knew something was going to have to happen soon.

Just as I thought I couldn’t take the build up anymore I felt a hand on my shoulder. I let out a blood curdling scream that even I wasn’t aware I could make and jumped into the air. Flipping around I screamed again as I came face to face with a hockey mask. Joey turned as well.

“Mother fu-” he started, but I was out of there. Running forward I pulled on Joey’s hand, dragging him as fast as I could away from the masked menace.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathed in panic repeatedly. It wasn’t that long of running through the darkness before we turned a corner and found ourselves in a girls bedroom.

“Motherfucking creepy girl!” I screamed upon seeing a pale faced girl with ripped clothes and blood red eyes twisting and turning on the bed – staring directly at us.

“Wow-” Joey said, but I was off again, pulling him through the ride before he could muse much more. The next part was a tunnel of realistic body parts hanging down which you had to weave your way through, what made it worse was that I could hear the sound of a chainsaw getting closer.

“Joey something’s-” I began, but at that moment someone dressed up as Leatherface jumped out at us with a chainsaw. I screamed again until my throat felt hoarse, ducking under the fake blades I charged forward down another hallway and into the next room. I wasn’t sure my heart or lungs could take much more of this.

This set wasn’t too bad but, and gave me some time to catch my breath. It portrayed the creation of Frankenstein in your typical B-grade movie set, with the bride of Frankenstein fussing over her lover who lay on a table. I loosened my grip a little on Joey’s hand and slowed to a walking pace; able to enjoy this scene. We were almost through to the next hallway when the girl playing the bride looked up at us.

“Joey?” she asked, her voice full of surprise. Joey stopped and cocked his head as if trying to place her face. “Joey I-” she said, stepping forward. This time it was Joey’s turn to pull me into the darkness, we lurched into the hallway hurriedly, pretty much flying into the next room, which was thankfully the last one but still managed to get some decent screams out of me.

Breaking out into the fresh air, I let go of Joey’s hand and took a deep, relaxing breath – glad to be free of the horror and hoping I would never have to endure that again. I turned to Joey who had a blank expression on his face; it worried me.

“Did you know that girl?” I asked cautiously; he seemed to be off in his own little world but. “Joey?” I prompted. He shook his head, coming back into reality.

“What? Oh nah...don’t know her. Let’s get corn dogs,” he replied, taking my hand again he pulled me away from the haunted house a little faster than was necessary.