{"id":162657772,"date":"2025-10-31T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657772"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:24:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T02:24:39","slug":"chapter-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657772","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 25"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cOkay what\u2019s up everybody!\u201d Parth said. The room quieted. The bandage on his chest was huge and thick, almost gleaming white against his brown skin. \u201cWe are Crystal Lake Counselors! This song is about how this guy at my girlfriend\u2019s job turned out to be a serial killer and he stabbed me in the chest and then my totally badass girlfriend who kicks ass<\/em> stabbed him in the throat and saved my life and legally I\u2019m not supposed to talk about this so the song\u2019s called \u2018Ongoing Investigation!\u2019 Goes like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four drumstick clicks and the band splashed in. Guitar like a screeching power drill, then silence. I GOT STABBED IN THE CHEST<\/em>. Then the band back in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the first show since that night. Two weeks passed. Crystal Lake Counselors was playing with Gradient Purple and White Men With Katanas. What a bill<\/em>, Mara had told Parth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone wants to play with the stabbed guy,\u201d Parth had said. Alewives had even called the show BACK FROM THE DEAD<\/em> and included on the flyer a hand drawing of Parth playing bass and yelling into a microphone with a knife sticking out of his chest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara shook and swayed and thrashed with Melissa, letting the music wash over her. In the crowd, Mara noticed people from the WaveRace97 show. Some were even singing along to Crystal Lake Counselors\u2019 songs. She saw Ether, dancing in front of Gareth\u2019s guitar amp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa had parlayed the whole incident into a medical marijuana card. To help with the anxiety, you know, I have PTSD<\/em>, she\u2019d tell anyone, whether they asked or not. Actually <\/em>we have PTSD, because it was <\/em>her coworker, and that\u2019s all I\u2019m allowed to say about an ongoing investigation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara had been letting herself partake whenever Melissa offered. She did<\/em> have bad dreams, actually, she did<\/em> flinch every time she saw a knife, thank you, and the weed was helping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, she never knew that music could sound this good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hand on her arm. Amparo, decked out again, tonight in a Dead Milkmen shirt that looked like it\u2019d spent the last two decades in a cardboard box under the Christmas decorations. She carried a real sadness with her. It was the way her muscled arms seem to finally be sagging, the split second earlier that her smile faded, the way her eyes would settle unfocused on a corner if there was a lull in conversation. Still, the proud way that she pointed at her Dead Milkmen shirt and then to the BACK FROM THE DEAD<\/em> flyer showed that her grief included jokes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDiego wasn\u2019t old enough to drink,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I might have insider auntie information that he liked Modelo Dark, too. My nephew had good taste.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe just wants an excuse for double fisting,\u201d Mart\u00edn said from behind Amparo, dad-smiling in a sensible polo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara hugged them both. It had been two weeks since she\u2019d seen them, her last words being I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t think I can work here anymore<\/em>. Both had an eager we get it<\/em> on their lips. Amparo got a little teary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo need to come in for a two weeks\u2019 notice or whatever,\u201d Mart\u00edn had said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll still pay you like you are. I\u2019m sorry I can\u2019t offer more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks\u2019 of free money was fine with Mara. She didn\u2019t hold anything against them. Tommy had been right about something: the people at Olly\u2019s were good people. Honest people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Killers walked amongst honest people all the time, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music felt more urgent, more alive, more joyous even in its anger. Each song felt like it was soundtracking a reunion after a yearslong separation. The guys were playing their asses off, Parth\u2019s voice soaring and commanding. There was an energy there that wasn\u2019t unlike the first time Mara and Parth had hooked up\u2014a release, an overflowing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara danced with her friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Crystal Lake Counselors finished, Mara went to the bar to get a rum and pineapple for Melissa and Topo Chico for herself. Ears not quite ringing, heart rate coming down, she basked in the show\u2019s afterglow. Her back thanked her for sitting down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have a tab?\u201d the bartender asked. \u201cYour name\u2019s Mara, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, good memory,\u201d Mara said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShaun. I\u2019ve seen you around a bunch. Nice to meet you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, I, uh. Like music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHell yeah, dude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaun turned to do something at the register, gathered a few empty bottles, and took an order. As he made Mara\u2019s order in front of her, she felt a tug, some pull from the universe. The same way she attacked Tommy without realizing it, her brain didn\u2019t tell her mouth to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey Shaun are you guys hiring?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaun looked up. Set the pineapple can down on the bar mat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike, for whatever. I have serving experience, cash handling experience, I\u2019m plugged into the music scene, like, my old boss is right over there, you could talk to him if you wanted, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaun laughed. \u201cHey, cool. Tell you what, we have a few openings coming up. People going back to school in the fall. Can you come by tomorrow around three to talk?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d she said. \u201cHave a good rest of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drinks in hand, she turned to go, when her eye caught the front window. Tommy was standing there. His stupid knife bag in hand. His throat was bloody. The blood ran down his shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy waved at Mara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara looked back to the stage. They were still tearing down\/setting up between bands. The lead singer mic stood alone, angled towards where Parth\u2019s lips would be. Mara thought about how completely fucking punk rock it was to play a shirtless set with your stab wound bandage shining above your heart and under your bass strap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked back at the window and Tommy was gone. Probably slunk off to Hell, tail between his legs, that loser coward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, she hadn\u2019t thought much about the fact that she had ended Tommy\u2019s life. Her True Crime interest had disappeared entirely. It left her with a nagging inclination that she had been chosen to play a part, that she had been charged with stopping this one monster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she could go back to trying to make rent and take care of her mom, twin eternal struggles that couldn\u2019t be stabbed in the throat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night at Melissa\u2019s apartment\u2014in the hazy fog of plenty of weed smoked, instrumental trip hop lazing through speakers, and some takeout pad Thai\u2014Melissa laid out her theory that people sometimes get pushed in certain directions, like they have to go on a quest or complete a task or fulfill some promise that was made before they were even born, and that humans don\u2019t have control over or even knowledge of when these assignments are handed out, but there are these invisible forces out there, and sometimes they needed things done, and she didn\u2019t want to call these invisible forces gods<\/em>, like that, but humans served these invisible forces, you know, whether we knew it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mouth full of noodles, Mara considered it. \u201cWhy not,\u201d she had said, and fell back into music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then and now, for some reason, she didn\u2019t feel responsible that Tommy wasn\u2019t alive. She took a sip of cold and sharp sparkling water. Looked back at the window. Tommy had been there, looking as real and present as Shaun or Melissa or Parth, but deader than dead could be. Mara figured she\u2019d be seeing him for a while. Probably forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parth surviving, Tommy dying, her mom slowly dying\u2014Mara felt like she had the same amount of control over all of it. She couldn\u2019t strum a chord, she could only dance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The noise of Gradient Purple plugging in and tuning strings and soundchecking individual drums started up. The growl and scratch of Deja\u2019s guitar, testing levels with different pedals. Floor-shaking bass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara would always know how to dance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Killing wasn\u2019t something that Mara needed to add to her toolbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOkay what\u2019s up everybody!\u201d Parth said. The room quieted. The bandage on his chest was huge and thick, almost gleaming white against his brown skin. \u201cWe are Crystal Lake Counselors! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162657769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162657772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-with-knife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162657772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162657773,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657772\/revisions\/162657773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162657769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162657772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162657772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162657772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}