One More Hour

Dim, warm light bathed the garage-turned-practice room, but the air between them could not have been colder. Silence, dead silence, broken only by the awkward smack of Flint’s lips, and the hollow words he spoke to her.

“I probably shouldn’t have, but I read it. I’m sorry–”

“Get out.” Vera’s venomous words cut through the air as they were forced through her clenched teeth. She stared into the badger’s amber eyes, and his snout twitched. He had known her long enough to see what was coming.

“Just try to be on stage on time,” was all he added as he slinked out of the house.

There she was. Alone again. Alone with the torment of her thoughts, and the poison written across that paper– the paper she had unwittingly crumpled in her clenched fists. A letter bomb to the heart. She realized just how light headed she felt, only barely able to hold herself up on the wall as her breaths came shallow and quick. She hadn’t even realized she had dropped the paper. With each breath came a new question.

What the hell was it all for? Her claws dug deep into the foam padding, scraping against the cinderblock beneath. 

Why would she do this to me? She bared her fangs and began to growl, her jaw growing sore from the pressure of her grinding teeth.

All the times I fucked the shit out of that vixen, all the times she screamed my name when I pinned her against her bed, all the times that whore moaned when I put my maw on her neck, but I have one of my turns and suddenly it’s all down the fucking drain? 

With an unsatisfyingly quiet thunk, she slammed her fist into the wall. The soundproofing drained the punch of all catharsis it could have given the raging shepherd, disappointing her just enough to pause her outburst. Vera collapsed to her knees, claws tearing through the foam and screeching on the wall. Silent again. Her thoughts raced, memories flooding back. The time she spent too big a coward to ask her out, the night she finally had the guts to do it, all the nights they spent in each other’s arms and beds.

With a rip, she freed her hands from the wall. Her eyes, glazed over, glanced over the room as her jaw hung slack with heavy breaths, her vision skipping between the scattered beer bottles. A mess of wires and instruments strewn all around, mics on stands, guitars against the walls and in cases, amps beside every cheap metal folding chair, a shitty loaner drum kit in the corner. Vera had seen the ticket sales; the crowd outside numbered three hundred at minimum. Every single piece of equipment in that room could be bought– not rented, bought– by ticket prices alone. Add merch sales, that’s an extra two thousand, maybe three if they were lucky. This wasn’t even their largest show. All of that green, just for one show– one night. 

None of it fucking matters.

If it was money she cared about, she never would have put all her effort into starting a punk band. All the big name artists– not just the pop stars, even Vera’s idols– made their money and bought big houses and fancy cars, sent their kids to expensive private schools and bought diamond rings for their partners. None of that appealed to her. What spoke to Vera was the sound of a crowd cheering her name, seeing the look in someone’s eyes at a bar and knowing they’re terrified to approach her, the scent of a woman’s musk in her nose and the taste of her sweat on her tongue. Those were the things that made her feel alive. The money was nothing but a means to keep living to see her next performance, buy her next drink, and seduce her next flame.

For years, that’s what this life was all about. Drinking until she dropped, doing every drug under the sun, being envied by those around her, and getting as much strange as she could possibly dream of. Until…

Emerald green eyes, fur like the setting sun, a heart as black as night. Claws like daggers as they dragged across her back, a tongue that lashed like a whip in her mouth, a body as warm as a funeral pyre.

That view of a fox pinned beneath her, staring up at her with those enchanting eyes that asked ‘why did you stop’ but knowing that she was too bashful to tell the truth. That feeling when she saw the vixen’s soul in her eyes, all the love she had to give, and realized that for the first time ever she was feeling something other than primal lust. It was an image that would forever be burned into Vera’s brain, and she would never see it again. 

The mutt never wondered what it was like to love until she felt it, and she never knew what it was like to lose it until it was gone. How could she possibly feel it again? The storm brewed darker, her double-edged mind poking at her from both sides.

Forget her. How could you ever forget her? Move on. How could you ever find happiness? She ruined you. You ruined it. 

I need a beer.

That single lapse in self-hatred, that brief urge to intoxicate herself, was more than enough to motivate Vera to her feet. It was cheap, shitty, room-temperature beer, straight from a box that had been sitting in the corner for three hours, but it was beer. For her, it might as well have been ambrosia. The carbonated hiss as she popped off the cap with her thumb’s claw was like a symphony, and the taste was like a second wind. In only a few seconds she had finished half the bottle.

Then she stood still. Her mind calmed, even if only for a few moments. She had no thoughts of the crowd gathering across the road, of her bandmates anxiously waiting for her behind the rent-a-stage, of that orange furred, pale nosed, perky breasted vixen. 

For a moment, there was serenity. Vera breathed in deep, and took in the humming of the air conditioner, the rustling of her leather jacket when she cracked her neck, the fizzing carbonation of the golden pisswater beer in her hand. The shape of the cigarette box in her jacket pocket jutting against her was just noticeable. Maybe a smoke would be nice too.

However, the mild euphoria the beer gave her began to wane, and her thoughts came back. The calm would only linger so long. Her jaw relaxed. A year she and that fox were together. 

‘That fox….’

She realized she could barely handle even thinking of her name. She was a fox, a vixen, a whore, a slut, a conniving bitch, anything but that name. Why did she leave her? Vera had asked forgiveness, prostrated before her and begged that vixen to give her a chance. Vera was always a proud dog, the kind of canine that made you wonder how separated she was from her wolf blood. Arrogant, rude, and most of all stubborn. She never begged anybody for anything– nobody except for that orange witch. Maybe she was right to never beg to anyone, because the first time she threw away her pride all she got was that letter. The vixen didn’t even have the guts to tell it to her face.

Why? 

A lone tear welled in her eye.

Why, god dammit why?

Her fists were clenched again, her teeth gnashing against each other. She snorted and growled as her breaths grew heavy once again. She knew what the answer was, and the more and more she thought on it, the more she realized there was only ever one answer.

She didn’t have much more time to think on this. The show must go on, and it was supposed to start in just a few minutes. Only, the thoughts continued. There was no undoing what had already begun. By the time Flint handed her that letter, this was already inevitable. Desperate to finish the bottle, she poured the rest of it straight down her gullet, greedily gulping it up, spilling some of it over her jacket. 

The moment she swallowed the last drop, the floodgate burst. With a primal, bloodcurdling roar she hurled the bottle across the room, shattering it on Marley’s stratocaster. Before the shards hit the floor, she had already yanked Grea’s five-string Ibanez from its stand. Her hands clasped around its neck, choking the fretboard as if it had breath to steal, she slammed it into the concrete floor. Once, twice, thrice she hammered the ground with the bass, each time birthing an explosion of blue-green resin shards. The fourth swing, it gave out, and the neck of the suffocating instrument split in half. Again she screamed, as she flung the obliterated five-string directly into the Blackstar amp across the room.

Dear Vera, I have always been the type of woman to do this sort of thing in person. I always thought it was best to have these kinds of talks face to face.

The feral hound lunged across the room, grasping her claws on Nick’s synthesizer. With a growl she heaved it above her head, her arms brushing against her twitching ears, and swung it straight into his keyboard. Keys from both the Behringer and the Yamaha sprinkled the floor. It only took a moment for Nick’s stool to collide with the Bosch speaker in the corner.

But I know you, and I know that talk would be a waste of time. The words simply wouldn’t get through to you. Even if they did, I wouldn’t want to see the way you torment yourself.

Flint’s torino red Gibson taunted her, like a matador waving his flag for the bull to charge. And she did charge. She wielded that axe like a crazed killer, brutally slaughtering Flint’s cheap Yamaha violin. Her next victim was the Behringer mixer. It was the first serious piece of sound equipment the band had ever purchased for themselves, instead of renting. With every slash of the bright red six-string there came a spray of knobs and resin. Only when her weapon grew blunt, and dangled by its strings, did her assault relent.

I have spent a while thinking about your apology, and the only conclusion I can come to is that it isn’t enough. No apology could ever be enough, because it isn’t an apology I need. It isn’t what you need either.

With a howl she pounced on Marley’s jet black stratocaster, and used it to bludgeon the drum set Jackson had been borrowing from his uncle. The floor tom was the first to burst open, followed by the snare. Each cymbal echoed a ring with every smash wrought against them. It only took two swings to send the ride cymbal flying like a frisbee across the garage. With a final, killing blow, she struck the kit directly in the bass drum, flinging the black and white Fender through it like a bullet through paper.

I love you, Vera. I really do. When I think of you, my heart throbs and my knees get weak. But what we have simply cannot work. How can I spend the rest of my days with a woman who cannot control herself?

She tore the soundproofing from the wall.

I wonder if you simply do not see this side of you, the part of you that seemingly exists to do nothing but hurt yourself.

She shattered beer bottles on the floor.

Do you see how you destroy yourself? Do you see the suffering you cause yourself when you get blackout drunk every other night? When you burn through half a pack of cigarettes a day? When you take every drug offered to you just to make it through the week?

She slammed a speaker into the bathroom door.

Vera, my dearest Vera, what I would give to see the you that I love all the time, rather than gambling on if I see you, or the monster you make of yourself.

She pounded her fists into the wall, now unguarded by foam.

Maybe someday, we will meet again, and we can work. But I can’t stay with you any longer. If I can’t fix you, then all I can do is make sure it doesn’t happen to me.

She roared as every punch splattered blood from her knuckles.

I’m leaving you, Vera. Please, do not try to find me. I hope that you continue to succeed in your music, and I hope that you will someday succeed personally. 

And then she saw its case, leaning against the wall, across the room. An Epiphone acoustic of mahogany and spruce. A laurel bridge and fingerboard, with an ivory saddle. Sunburst pattern on the body. 

I love you. Goodbye. Signed, with terrible regret in my heart,

That horribly beautiful instrument, resting in its black leather case lined with rouge velvet. It was $700– not even close to the most expensive instrument she had ever purchased– but when she bought it, it was the most special one. Vera named it after her. Every breath came with a growl as she threw open the case with such force it dislodged the bottom hinge. She held the guitar high above her head, staring down at the letter that fox wrote, slightly crumpled on the floor. Tears flooding like a river from her eyes, she cried from the top of her lungs,

Annabella Locke.

A crash. A rain of splinters. One swing was all it took to obliterate the acoustic’s body. That wasn’t enough for her. The neck still in hand, Vera fell to her knees, and with another cry she thrust the fretboard into the letter. Another crash, another crack, and she craved more. All that was left of it was the headstock, and all the strings that dangled from it. The rest of it was just a pile of splinters.

Her note had been torn apart, the words unrecognizable. Vera staggered up to her feet, lightheaded from her screaming, and ran into the bathroom. Her palms fell on the rim of the porcelain sink, and she stared at herself in the mirror. The awful fluorescent light highlighted every detail of her ugly mug. The nicotine stains on her lips, cigarette burns on her neck, her eyes that had been yellowed from eight years of abusing her liver with liquor, her muddy brown irises and narrow pupils. She could even see the five year old switchblade scar on her cheek, even if just barely. This was the face of Vera Braun. A face like that deserved nothing but pain and suffering.

Her reflection burst into tiny pieces as her fist shattered the mirror. Her already bloody knuckles were made worse by the shards of glass that pierced it, but she did not flinch at the pain. She just punched again, and again, and again, and again, each swing staining the white cinderblock a foul crimson. One final punch, and all of her energy was gone. As her rage faded, so too did the adrenaline. Suddenly, she was in a slouch again, and needed something to pick her up.

I need a smoke.

She took her time, calmly exiting Flint’s garage as she retrieved her cigarettes and her silver zippo from her jacket pocket. She paid no mind to the fact that her $200 jacket was being soaked in her blood. Cigarette between her teeth, the shepherd flicked open her zippo and sparked it to life. With a deep inhale, the blissful smoke filled her lungs. Click, the zippo dropped back into her pocket.

The night sky was a dark yellow, as lights from the city emanated through the air, obscuring the stars in the sky. The only heavenly body above was the waning crescent, mocking the hound with its false smile. 

She took another drag, finally aware of the blood on her lips. It slightly tainted the flavor of her Camel Blue– the tobacco was infused with the iron taste. Something deep inside her loved it. As the gray smoke pall emerged from her maw, blanketing her face in a shroud of nicotine miasma that sparked her back to life, her senses seemed to return. She could finally hear the crowd of excited fans, gathered around the temporary stage in the park down the way. They were gathering for her, all the hundreds of them. It took pulling a lot of strings to get that stage set up and to get permission to do this show. It was time.

Maybe this is all I was ever made for.

A drag, and with it came resolve. Acceptance. The cigarette fell limply from her fingers into the grass, and was crushed beneath her boot. It was a bit of a walk to the stage, she might as well start it now. 

Each step closer, the sound of crickets became more and more drowned out by the audience’s cheers. Minutes passed, that excited roar growing louder and closer, the anticipation for what was to come only getting stronger.

There they all stood behind the stage, her loyal bandmates. The closest thing to friends she had. A lanky badger and a slender leopard tuning their instruments– Flint, a violin, and Marley, a guitar. Grea, the bearded boar with a beer, glaring at her, impatiently. A giant, ugly crocodile, Jackson, twirling a drum stick in one hand, and ripping from a dab pen in the other. The pen wasn’t his, though. It was Nick’s, the husky that had about a dozen piercings in his face. If it was possible to have an awkward silence with a crowd of three hundred people excitedly murmuring in the background, that’s what they had. Marley started towards her, but paused a few steps away. She said nothing.

“Well,” Vera growled, “let’s get this show on the road.”

“Vera,” Marley gasped, “your hand.”

“I’m fine,” the german shepherd snorted. “It’ll give them something to remember. As for the show, just follow my lead.”

“What about the fucking setlist?” asked Grea.

“To hell with the setlist.” Before she could get to the stage, Flint slapped his hand onto her chest. He leaned in close to her ear.

“And, about the–”

“I’ll pay for the equipment.” She shouted as she shoved him away from her and stepped up to the stage. “And you’re all taking my cut.”

“Fucking ay right, psycho bitch,” Nick huffed before Jackson silenced him with an elbow to the side.

The spotlights warmed her face, and as her eyes adjusted, her ears were graced with excited cheers. She held up her fist, unconcerned with the blood drooling from it. The sight of her crimson-stained fur welcomed a few gasps, but the excitement was not at all deafened. 

Vera’s face blank, her eyes traced the front row. She froze when she saw her. For just a moment, there stood a fox leaning on the stage, yipping cheerily. Fiery fur, enthralling green eyes, a smile that made her weak. Annabella. 

She blinked, and the vixen was gone– replaced with a hot little lioness. The girl looked like she could have fainted when she realized Vera was staring at her. Her jaw dropped when the mutt started ambling down the stage, right towards her. The crowd went wild, but the lioness couldn’t make a sound. 

The dog crouched down, her boots right at the edge of the stage, and locked eyes with her. The lioness was young, but not much younger than Vera. Early twenties, maybe nineteen at the youngest. 

She extended her bloody fist, balled up, presenting it to her. It was only inches from the girl’s face. 

What’re you gonna do, little cat? Show me what you want.

The lioness hesitated a bit as she grabbed Vera’s bloody hand, but once they touched, her attitude shifted. A devious, cute grin painted her maw as she narrowed her eyes up at her, then sensually stuck out her tongue and licked the shepherd’s bloody knuckles. The cheers around her grew wilder, and the lioness finished her display by placing a kiss on the mutt’s fingers. Vera’s blood was now the girl’s lipstick.

“Good girl,” she snarled. 

She’d had her fun. It was showtime. All her bandmates stood by their instruments, amping up the crowd. They were just waiting for her to start.

Vera marched to the center of the stage, where her mic and guitar waited for her. Resting on a stand, in the spotlight, a pearly white telecaster, her beloved Weißblüte. With a smooth motion she slung its black leather strap about her shoulder, and let the instrument fall to her hips. She had done this a million times.

She glanced around the stage. Her bandmates, smiles on their faces basking in the audience’s cheers, started to glance at her. This wasn’t the first time they had started a show with some improv, despite how much some of them disliked doing it. They fell in line, though. They always did.

The nickel-plated strings were cold on her fingers. Her boot fell on the distortion pedal, and gently pressed it down. A click resonated through the leather. She pressed her claw down on the E string, all the way at the top of the neck, and as she plucked the string she scraped her claw against it, all the way down to the bottom. Weißblüte howled to life, its metal vocal chords screaming a foul welcome to a night of rage and regret, its snowy face now painted red. The crowd cheered, but as the pale and maroon instrument’s roar fell silent, so too did theirs. Vera looked them over once more, her eyes scanning the crowd, hoping– praying– that she would be there, waiting in the audience.

She wasn’t.

The hound turned back, looking to the burly crocodile behind the drums. She and Jackson always had the greatest mental link for these improvisational bits. If there was anyone who could handle whatever sonically out-of-whack mess she was about to unleash, it was him. They exchanged a knowing nod. Something about his look encouraged her, a silent rallying cry. 

The shepherd faced the crowd, hundreds of people waiting with baited breath to hear her fury given form. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let her fingers fall wherever felt most natural. Her eyes opened, and with one last breath she leaned into the microphone.

This was what Vera was made for. She could live again. All she had to do was survive, for just one more hour.