The van bumped across gravel with the grace of a drunk moose. Dust clouded the windows as they pulled up to what the GPS optimistically called “Red Pines Event Pavilion.” It was, in fact, a half-rotted barn with a corrugated tin roof and a faded “Bud Light Presents: Open Mic Friday” banner barely clinging to the eaves. A neon horseshoe sign blinked “ECLIPSE TONIGHT” with a C flickering like it was on life support.

Gabriel leaned forward in his seat and peered out the windshield. “I think I’ve been here in a nightmare once.”

“Is it the smell of cow shit or the tumbleweed stuck in the fence?” Maya muttered, clutching her guitar case like it might leap out and run away.

Mark squinted through the windshield, unimpressed. “This place is haunted.”

“I’d rather hope it’s haunted,” Thane grunted. “Means the last band probably didn’t survive to leave a bad review.”

Rico, sprawled sideways with his guitar case wedged between his knees, pointed toward the double doors that looked like they were once kicked in by an angry goat. “Why is there a stuffed deer head outside the building?”

Jonah, barely awake, pulled his hoodie tighter over his head. “Please let it be taxidermy. Please.”

Inside wasn’t much better.

The “stage” was a wooden platform raised exactly six inches off the ground. It leaned just slightly to the left, as if it had opinions. A single overhead light swung gently above it, flickering like a possessed lightning bug. The only speakers in sight looked older than three of the band members combined. There were two mic stands—both duct-taped—and a jukebox in the corner blasting Toby Keith at skull-rattling volume.

The bar owner, a wiry man in a denim vest with a handlebar mustache that deserved its own zip code, stepped forward and held out a greasy hand.

“You the Eclipse fellers?”

Gabriel—ever the diplomat—grinned and shook the hand. “Yes, sir! We’re Feral Eclipse.”

The man looked around the group, pausing on Gabriel’s clawed hand and then on Mark’s towering gray-furred frame. “Damn. Y’all ain’t just a band. Y’all a damn furry convention.”

Thane inhaled sharply.

Mark put one clawed hand on Thane’s shoulder.

Gabriel held up a hand quickly. “We’re all musicians, sir. We just play a little harder than most.”

The owner snorted. “Harder, huh? We usually do country covers on Fridays, but hell, y’all can play whatever. Long as the beers flow and no one dies.”

“Low bar,” Maya muttered.

Rico wandered off toward the “dressing room,” which was actually a broom closet with a folding chair and a single fly strip swinging from the ceiling.

And yet—somehow—as soundcheck began, something shifted.

Gabriel’s first bass thrum reverberated through the rickety walls like thunder. Jonah’s drums—jammed between hay bales and a broken jukebox—exploded into rhythm. Maya’s guitar screamed defiance into the stale air.

The local crowd started drifting in—cowboys, punks, confused tourists, a dude in a tank top that read “Beers Before Fears.”

And they loved it.

They whooped. They howled. They two-stepped in the mosh pit. One guy cried.

By the time the set hit its peak, the band was on fire. Mark’s lighting rig was working overtime with whatever surviving bulbs he’d found. Thane looked like a war god behind the mixing board, soaked in sweat and growling orders into his headset mic.

And the barn? It didn’t collapse.

They played their hearts out. They screamed. They burned. They converted.

When it was over, the crowd roared for more.

Outside the barn, beneath the red Oklahoma sky, the band leaned against the van. Gabriel passed around cold sodas from a cooler someone left behind. They were sticky and half-warm, but perfect.

Mark smirked. “So. Not haunted.”

Thane took a long drink. “Worse. It was honest.”

Gabriel raised his soda. “To the barn that didn’t fall.”

Maya clinked hers. “And the stage that almost did.”

Everyone laughed.

Jonah looked back at the building with a stunned expression. “…What the hell just happened?”

Thane shrugged. “Magic. Or moonlight. Maybe both.”