Ethan's musical projex, etc. inc. corp.: 2010

It started with her tongue flicking inside of her mouth.

"I don't even know your name," I said.

"Caroline," she sputtered as she splashed a puddle two feet in front of me. "Caroline Graham. And yours?"

I was caught off guard by her enthusiasm and curiosity. I looked up with a question on my face. "Oh, oh. Eric. My name is Eric Wells."

"Eric Wells, I love you."

We had only met 40 minutes ago.

40 minutes ago, I stepped onto the bus to escape the rain. The sky was escaping into my skin, and I was hoping to get home easily. I paid my 40 cents into the fare bucket, and stepped into the aisle. It was symmetrical. It was rectangular and perfect. And there she sat.

I sat on the opposite side. A couple seats back. This was obviously the type of woman who would not even consider me worthy to talk to. But there we sat, as the bus roamed on. A block from where I had gotten on, she turned around and stared directly into my eyes.

"Did you know that while filming 'Singing in the Rain' Gene Kelly had a temperature of 103 degrees? He was dead-sick and tromping around like he was the happiest man on Earth. I was lied to. You were lied to. Gene Kelley lied to us all."

"My house," she said. "We'll stay at my house. Is that okay with you?"

"Uh, sure. Yeah, that's fine."

And so that's what we did. I had no idea who Caroline Graham was and I was about to go to her apartment. I wondered what kind of God smiled down on me tonight. We ran what seemed like a lifetime to 742 River Drive, where Caroline Graham apparently dwelled.

She fumbled for her keys as I used my coat to protect her from the tears of clouds who, miles above, were leaking on the reddest hair I had ever seen. When she found the right key and finally unjammed the rustic door from its hinges, we barreled inside and let out a laugh to the heavens. I looked over at her and saw she was already staring at me.

"I don't think Gene Kelley was too much of a liar."

I woke up alone in a bed I did not recognize. The sheets were tussled and tossed aside, as if someone had bolted from the opposite side of the cushion. The pillow laid on the floor. Distant voices came from an opposite room.

I walked through the archway to find her talking quickly and quietly on a turquoise rotary phone. The television was switched on the news, and there were shots of crowds swarming a main street. It seemed to be some sort of riot or something.

She noticed me standing there, and exclaimed, "Oh! Eric! ... Oh, oh no." She turned back to whisper into the phone. "I have to go. I will see you soon. ... I love you too. Goodbye."

"What's wrong?" I spit.

"We have to go now. We'll take my car. Get dressed."

She was silent. This was the first time I'd ever seen her silent, in the near-24 hours I'd known her. The only noise was from the engine's hum and the low drone of speckled voices coming from the radio. The road flashed by in the early sunlight's breath, the grass blowing in the gaze of light.

"Caroline?"

"Yes?"

"What... What is going on, Caroline?"

"Eric... Eric, honey. I don't know how to tell you this."

"Tell me what?"

She turned up the radio, a news station became my closest fried.

"What does this mean?" I spoke finally.

"It means we have to get out of here. We have to get out of town. I don't know why I'm taking you, but I am."

Then a figure appeared in the middle of the road, lumbering and stiff.

"Stay in the car," she commanded and parked. I watched as she went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. The man ahead stretched out his arms, hugging the air in front of him. I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. As I stepped out of the car, the trunk slammed shut. Caroline carried a pickaxe.

"What the fuck are you doing?! What the fuck?"

She uttered not a sound as she approached the man in the road. It was an odd symbol, the girl in a skirt with bright red hair and a farmer lumbering forth. Against the bright shine of a sun, it was the perfect image. I remember it so clearly now, it would be forgery to paint it.

"Caroline! No! Stop it! Don't do this!"

She lifted the pickaxe and split his head against the pavement. Again and again she bashed the pickaxe against the concrete.

I ran up and held her arms to contain her attacks.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

"What needed to be done."

"What the fuck!? What?!"

She handed me the pickaxe and winked.

"It's our dream come true, loverboy."

The man got back up.

"Oh fuck!" and I swung at his stomach, the pickaxe piercing right through him. I dropped the handle and backed up to get a hold of myself. In front of me stood a headless man with an axe in his belly. This was a bit too much for a man whose most exciting night of his life had been meeting a cute girl on a bus.

Caroline pulled the car next to me.

"We better just go," She said.

And so we did, we drove on and on. The road seemed to stretch on, and time was frozen. I stared at the dashboard until I had burnt holes in the glovebox.

I looked down at my jacket. It was covered in blood.

"Get used to it," she said. "There's a lot more where Pickaxe Pete came from."

*************

"You know what you have to do, Eric."

Caroline laid on a table we had found in the tunnels. She was covered in the decaying cells of her blood. Her eyes shone with tears, as they trickled down creating a pool of makeup and blood. I put my hand in hers.

"I thought..."

"...Don't. ...Don't do this to yourself, Eric. ...You just... ...met me."

"But I love you, Caroline. I... I love you."

"...I... love you too, cowboy... I love you..."

And she had a final breath.

Under the singular glow of a lightbulb, I loaded the shotgun. The cold, black metal stung my fingers. Both of the shells smiled as they were clicked into place. I felt a stream run down my face and I brushed her hair with my hand. I led my fingers down to her wrist, to find the pulse slowly returning.

I raised the shotgun, sticking it tightly into my shoulder as she had shown me.

"Remember me, Caroline. I'll remember you."

Her eyes opened and she rose up. Letting out air into a dry crackle of noise, she bared her teeth. I pulled the trigger. Her skull shattered against the back of the dark, grey concrete.

I etched a heart in the wall. "EW + CG" I wrote.

My skull joined hers.