Scream Like You Mean It

Scream Like You Mean It
By Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711

The music studio was dark and baleful; a few dim red lights, a lone yellow bulb in a far corner illuminating the abundance of electronic instrumentation and band equipment setting around the main recording room.

The recording session was over now. The producer, William Noxquist, who had been running the entire session sighed loudly and slammed his fist down on the mixing board in the engineer’s room. He mumbled a curse and cradled his forehead in one hand. It had been a horrible recording day. The lead singer, Roan Lombardy of the band Jet-Set Llama, had a major ego problem (typical L.S.D. – lead singer disease); and William had a naturally sarcastic personality, so of course the two didn’t mesh well which had caused arguments after almost every take. To make matters worse, the lead singer’s girlfriend, Samantha, entered the studio as soon as the session was over and began screaming incessantly and ordering everyone around. The band members all hated her and William did too. Bitchy Samantha, with her large fake boobs and her butt-cheek implants and her extensive facial surgery that gave her that off-putting Michael Jackson look.

“I hope you weren’t too hard on Roan today,” Samantha told William as she walked into the small engineer’s room. “You know how he treats me when he’s had a bad singing day. And you just love putting people through this recording torture chamber for hours, don’t you?”

William scowled and glared at her. “Well, little Missy,” he said sarcastically, “Roan’s out in the hallway waiting for you now. Why not go out there and check his mental status for yourself and not badger me about it. Go ahead and haul his dumb ass outta here because I’ve had more than enough of him for one day. You think you can do that for me, sweetie?”

“Why are you always so damn sarcastic, William?” Samantha said. “Why can’t you be nice for just one freakin’ day? Or act the least bit respectful towards me and the other band members of Jet-Set Llama.”

“Hey S-s-s (he almost said ‘slut’) Samantha, I’m dead tired so don’t start telling me how to behave! You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through today. Even before work I had a terrible day.”

She squinted and bunched up her huge tits with the top portion of her arms, then brushed back her new hairdo with a defiant gesture. Surprisingly, she plopped down in a chair beside William.

“Do you wanna know what happened?” he said. “I swear if you hear it, it’ll ruin your day too.”

“Go ahead. It won’t bother me.”

“All right, here goes... On my early morning jog at around 7 a.m., before coming to the studio, I decided to run by the park. I wanted to take a different route to help stave off the boredom of running and when I got near the basketball courts I noticed two little asshole teenagers pulling trash out of a garbage dumpster and stringing it through the trees and throwing it on the sidewalk. Of course that pissed me off since I work hard volunteering on the weekends to keep this town beautiful, and I knew the kids were nothing but little degenerate pricks since I’d seen them around town before and knew their family. So I ran in their direction to shoo them away. I started jogging faster and my face reddened with anger watching them litter up the park. They didn’t even notice me they were so busy vandalizing. Then I saw one of the punks go over to the concession stand, a small blue building, now closed for the winter, and one of them squatted down beside it. I ran closer and they still didn’t see or hear me and I watched that punk squatting by the little building and gradually realized what he was doing: TAKING A SHIT RIGHT BY THE CONCESSION STAND! RIGHT THERE IN PUBLIC! Finally they both heard me running toward them and the shitting one stood up and pulled on his pants, but not before dragging a white sheet of notebook paper up the crack of his ass to wipe it. I couldn’t believe one of these punks would just take a crap in the park in broad daylight. Taking a dump right by the concession stand where people sell food and other people eat it! Can you fucking believe that! Uncouth little retards! They both ran and the one struggled with his pants and I was so freakin’ pissed off I started shouting and they both got on their bikes and pedalled off as I ran on, out of breath screaming at them. I went over to the small covered area where the kid had crapped and saw numerous long winding brown turds scattered all over the cement. Jesus Christ, a tremendous amount of shit came out of that little scumbag’s ass and it smelled like a backed-up cesspool. I felt like calling the police and reporting the incident but I had to get to work and couldn’t fool with it. So I jogged home and took a shower and came to work. That’s the kind of morning I’ve had. Then I have to come to this depressing-assed recording studio and be forced to endure your boyfriend’s nasty prima donna attitude and your constant bitching. What a day... My life truly sucks...”

Samantha slapped the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She ignored William’s story about the kid crapping in the park and focused instead on his degrading statements about Roan and herself: “You know what, William? You’re nothing but an asshole. Don’t ever talk that way about my man! You’re lucky to even be here recording Roan Lombardy’s incredible voice! He knew Axl Rose in Indianna when they were teenagers, they grew up together, and he even inspired Axl to become a singer and also secretly helped him write some of the songs that later showed up on Chinese Democracy. Roan is a major talent while you’re only a C-level producer! You don’t know jack squat about real talent! Yeah, I know he can barely remember the lyrics to the new songs and he sings off key quite a bit, but you’re still lucky to be able to work with him on this record which is going to sell through the roof and make me at least ten million bucks!”

William sneered at her and shook his head, “Fuck you, you stupid shallow bitch. Get outta here before I slap your fake face off. You didn’t listen to one goddamn word I said. Now leave and take Roan Lombardy the prick with you and go fuck yourselves. I’m just wasting my time talking to you. You’re not even supposed to be in this recording studio anyway!”

Samantha laughed and shook her head, then squeezed her lips together tightly. She stood up to leave but wanted to give William Noxquist one last thing to remember before she left the studio. So she raised her left leg high and stomped down on his foot with her pointed high heel, which penetrated William’s boot and entered the top part of his foot.

It took awhile to register, but the pain eventually traveled to his brain and it felt almost unbearable. William screamed, reached down and grabbed his foot, then growled and lunged at Samantha, taking hold of her throat. When he jumped at her, his arm accidentally pushed the record button. He started choking her and she started screaming – deranged squeals and bloodcurdling shrieks issuing from her luscious lips. He squeezed harder and shook her neck a little and Samantha’s shirt ripped in front from her struggling to free herself. Her shirt gradually ripped more and more until finally her large fake breasts were released.

William looked down at her tits. He gasped at the large dark aureolas and the erect half-inch nipples. They were beautiful. His eyes protruded and he felt his genital region pop a boner. But he continued choking her anyway and she kept on screaming maniacally. Then William leaned down and licked one of her gorgeous nipples. He moved a hand down and squeezed one of her fake tits, then sucked on both breasts some more.

High-pitched screams still erupted from Samantha’s throat and William finally stopped sucking, raised up and gritted his teech and choked her harder. The sounds coming from Samantha’s luscious mouth were shrill and disturbing unhinged caterwauls of insane noise and she sounded like she was near death. He listened to her screams and became worried if he would ever release her or if she’d die. He seemed powerless to stop the choke. He stared down at her fake boobs again, now covered with his own saliva. He felt his massive hard-on raging in his pants so much he suspected it might tear right through the fabric.

The recording button on the console was still glowing a brilliant red. William was still recording Samantha’s freakish screams of death without even realizing it. He listened again to the intriguing noises issuing from her mangled throat and was amazed.

Finally the lead singer of Jet-Set Llama, Roan Lombardy, heard the screams in the hall where he’d accidentally fallen asleep waiting for Samantha to pick him up in her BMW. Her loud disturbing screams had forced him to awake and he groggily rose from the couch in the hallway and ran into the recording studio to investigate.

Inside he saw William Noxquist, the producer he despised, with his hands wrapped tightly around his girlfriend’s neck. Her blouse was ripped and her large succulent breasts exposed as they glistened with a slimy coating. Roan saw William with a large tent in the front of his pants and the producer seemed in a deep daze or trance as he continued strangling the woman Roan loved with all his heart and soul. Her outlandish death shrieks continued unabated, and it seemed like Samantha would eventually run out of air, but she never did.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Roan Lombardy yelled.

Roan always kept two weapons handy for emergencies such as this:

1) A pair of homemade “brass” knuckles that he’d made out of lead.

2) A small .22 pistol with pearl handles

Both weapons were tucked away deep inside Roan’s snakeskin boots since last summer he’d been robbed and almost beaten to death by a pimp in an alley and had decided to carry sufficient protection ever since.

He bent down and extracted the brass knuckles from his boot and slipped them on. He went into the engineer’s room, lurched back as far as possible and slammed William in the temple. The dazed producer flew and landed on the mixing console a few feet away. Roan then took off the brass knuckles and brought out the .22 pistol. He aimed right between William’s eyes and let fly with five slugs that shattered the producer’s skull into thousands of tiny fragments as brain tissue and blood flew everywhere. Roan wiped the gore from his face and aimed the pistol at William’s chest and put another slug in his heart just for the hell of it.

Samantha was now passed out on the floor. Roan went over to her. He pulled her shirt back over her fake breasts and tried to button it a little. Samantha was making gurgling noises in her throat and Roan looked at the bright red marks covering her neck. That son-of-a-bitch almost killed her, he thought.

“Wake up, Samantha!” he yelled. After slapping her cheeks lightly, she awoke groaning and drooling and he wiped her face with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here right away.”

Then he looked down and noticed the recording light still glowing red on the console below.

“What the hell is that doing on? Was William recording something in here?”

He went over and rewound the file and pressed the play button.

The horrific sounds of Samantha screaming while William choked her filled the recording studio at maximum volume.

Hot and cold chills traveled up and down Roan’s spine.

William Noxquist had captured every ghoulish shriek and eldritch squeal and freakish gasp that issued from Samantha’s throat as he tried to choke the life out of her and thus caused her body to feel excruciating pain.

Roan’s eyes opened wide with pure musical excitement. He couldn’t believe how awesome the screaming of someone near death sounded. A combination of “almost-lost” existence on a terror-filled planet with the bone-chilling fear of postmodern death lurking deep within her subconscious. “Gruesome,” he said. “I love it. I’ve got to use these sounds on our next album. Her screams sound incredible, I always knew she had a superb voice. Surely Samantha won’t mind if we use them as long as I give her credit on the album.”

Over the next few weeks, Jet-Set Llama worked on hiring a new producer for their next album which they decided to call, “Scream Like You Mean It.” Roam Lombardy was cleared of killing William Noxquist on a self-defense claim for his girlfriend, Samantha. And Roan also placed the sounds of Samantha screaming in the middle of their first single, “Blood On A Dog’s Dick” as special effects during the instrumental section; and he also positioned more of her vocal wailings at the very end of the album, which he thought acted as an eerie outro expressing even more harrowing music to be released from the band in the future. The single became an immediate hit and climbed the musical charts; and later that year, Jet-Set Llama won a Grammy for ‘best rock album’ and ‘most stunningly original use of special effects,’ all thanks to Samantha (and William Noxquist, one of the greatest music producers in the world who was tragically killed at the peak of his abilities.)

-end-

(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact me.)

http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711

Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.