Category: Tour Life Page 13 of 20

The tour van coasted through the tree-lined streets of Oakridge, a picturesque college town so charming it practically had a degree in wholesomeness. Brick buildings gleamed in the late afternoon sun, bike racks overflowed, and students wearing beanies and earbuds walked in clusters, sipping cold brew and quoting Nietzsche.

Thane squinted at the navigation app. “This can’t be right.”

Gabriel leaned between the seats, tail twitching with curiosity. “Says the event is at the ‘Simmons Cultural Auditorium.’ Sounds… fancy.”

Mark growled from the back seat. “If we’re playing next to a guy giving a lecture on butterfly migration again, I’m not responsible for what happens.”

The van turned onto a narrow service road and pulled behind an ivy-covered building. A banner flapped overhead in awkward, cheerful font:
“OAKRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESENTS: INSPIRING MINDS SERIES — TONIGHT ONLY!”

Underneath in smaller print:
Featuring Feral Eclipse

There was a pause.

Maya leaned forward, staring out the window. “…Please tell me that’s the name of a student poetry collective.”

Jonah slowly lifted his head off the window, blinking. “Oh no. They think we’re here to speak.”

Cassie, staring at the banner, deadpanned, “Well I do inspire minds. Mostly to run.”

Rico pulled a laminated event pass off the dashboard and read aloud:
“‘An immersive evening of empowerment, artistic expression, and the creative voice in modern society.’”
He turned to look at Thane.
“…Bro. We’re opening with Blood Moon Breakdown.”

Thane just muttered, “Kill me.”

---

Inside, things got worse.

The “green room” was stocked with vegan muffins, herbal tea, and a collection of pre-highlighted books on mindfulness. A student volunteer named Braeden with an undercut and ironic Crocs handed out personalized name tags.

“Just wear these on stage, yeah? Helps the audience connect with you emotionally.”

Gabriel’s tag read:
GABRIEL – BASS / TRANSFORMATIONAL ENERGY LEADER
He was thrilled.

Thane’s tag:
THANE – SOUND TECH / AURAL ARCHITECT
He immediately crumpled it and shoved it in his pocket.

Mark stared at his:
MARK – LIGHTING DESIGNER / EMOTIONAL CONTRAST SPECIALIST
“…I will burn this building down.”

---

Ten minutes before showtime, a soft-spoken organizer approached.

“We’re so excited to have you all. Just a quick note—no pyrotechnics, no flashing lights, and please keep the volume below 85 decibels. We’re still within library hours.”

Cassie stood there in full leather, mic in hand.
“…You know I scream for a living, right?”

The woman beamed. “That’s the spirit!”

---

Showtime.

They walked out onto a fully seated auditorium stage—no pit, no fog, no lights. Just polite clapping from two hundred students holding complimentary stress balls.

Gabriel took the mic and cheerfully declared, “We are Feral Eclipse—and we are not your usual lecture!”

Then he slammed into a bassline so filthy it made Braeden drop his reusable water bottle.

Maya launched into the rhythm guitar part like she was starting a riot.

Rico’s solo tore through the auditorium like a sonic earthquake.
Cassie let out a bloodcurdling scream halfway through the chorus.
Someone in the third row fainted.

Jonah, grinning like a demon, smashed through the bridge and howled into the breakdown. One of the professors actually stood up and cheered.

And Thane—offstage—cranked the mix past 100 decibels.
Library hours be damned.

---

Afterward, the event organizer approached, shell-shocked and smiling.

“That was… not what I expected.”

Cassie, still panting, wiped blood off her lip ring. “You’re welcome.”

Braeden handed Gabriel a tote bag. “Here’s your honorarium. Also, like… what are you guys doing later?”

Gabriel blinked. “Uh. Sleeping?”

Rico took the bag, peeked inside, and muttered, “Cool. They paid us in granola bars and bookstore gift cards.”

Mark just stared at the ceiling. “We should’ve played the frat party.”

Thane, arms folded, nodded. “Next time someone offers us a ‘cultural engagement opportunity’—we say no.”

Gabriel leaned on him, grinning wide. “But we did inspire minds.”

“Yeah,” Thane said. “To invest in better earplugs.”

Somewhere between Red Pines and the next town—wherever the hell that was—the van was in full-blown gremlin mode.

Jonah had taken over DJ duty from the passenger seat and was abusing it.

“I SWEAR TO GOD,” Maya shouted from the back bench, “IF YOU PLAY THAT ‘TRUCK YEAH’ SONG ONE MORE TIME I’M THROWING YOUR IPOD OUT THE WINDOW.”

“It’s not even an iPod,” Jonah grinned, cueing it up again from a busted knockoff MP3 player with duct tape holding the battery in. “It’s a Moozic Rockz.”

Gabriel, sprawled across two seats with Randy the Possum in his lap like a war trophy, snorted. “Let him live! This is his villain arc.”

“I’M the villain if this keeps up,” Maya grumbled.

Up front, Thane had a clawed hand white-knuckling the wheel.

“I swear, one more plastic bag flies across this road looking like a raccoon ghost, and I’m putting the whole state in park.”

Cassie was next to him, sipping gas station coffee through a Twizzler straw like it was a lifestyle. “You know we’re all slowly mutating in this van, right?”

From the back cargo section came a thud.

“…What was that?” Rico asked, slowly turning his head.

Mark’s voice came from the very rear, half-buried under guitar cases. “A bag of Funyuns just fell off Jonah’s amp and hit me in the throat.”

“Is it your bag of Funyuns?” Cassie asked.

“No. And now I have questions.”

The van hit a bump. Jonah yelped. “MY MOOD SWINGS CD JUST FLEW OUT THE WINDOW!”

“Good,” Maya muttered.

Gabriel reached down into a questionable cooler and fished out something in a crinkled foil wrapper. “Guys… who brought gas station sushi?”

The entire van went silent.

Thane didn’t even turn around. “Gabriel. Put it down. Slowly.”

Gabriel stared at it. “…It’s warm.”

“OUT. THE. WINDOW.”

The van hit another pothole. Cassie spilled her Twizzler-coffee. Jonah accidentally hit play on a ten-hour YouTube loop of screaming goats that he had saved for reasons.

And somewhere in the chaos, Randy the Possum fell over sideways, seatbelt and all.

Mark spoke again, voice calm and low: “If we crash, I want it on my tombstone that this was not my idea.”

“Noted,” Thane grunted.

Eventually, the screaming goats stopped. Jonah ran out of cursed playlists. Maya ran out of ways to threaten him without physically leaping across the van. Gabriel fell asleep with a bag of sour worms stuck to his chest, and Cassie began drafting the setlist on a napkin with a broken eyeliner pencil.

Peace, as fragile and temporary as ever, returned.

And then Rico said, “Hey, has anyone seen my left boot?”

The van erupted again.

The air outside the Red Pines barn was thick with post-show heat, bug spray, and the kind of giddy madness that only follows a musical exorcism. The makeshift parking lot had become an impromptu fan zone—pickup trucks pulled up with tailgates down, beer coolers cracked open, headlights on for ambiance. Someone had lit a citronella candle on the hood of their Ford and called it a VIP table.

Feral Eclipse filed out one by one, still dripping, still riding that adrenaline high.

Cassie was immediately mobbed by a group of teens who looked like they’d lost a bet with a thrift store. “YOU SAVED ROCK AND ROLL!” one girl cried, holding up a homemade poster that just said HOWL MOMMY in glitter.

“Sweet,” Cassie grinned, signing it without breaking stride.

Gabriel, tail flicking lazily behind him, posed for selfies with fans who dared get close—though one kid ran off squealing, “HE WINKED AT ME AND MY SOUL LEFT MY BODY.”

Jonah stumbled toward the van, but two fans intercepted him with a battered snare drum and a sharpie.

“You were like an angry wizard back there, man,” one said.

“I blacked out after the second song,” Jonah replied, scribbling his name upside-down. “Glad it worked out.”

Rico was holding court near the folding merch table (which was actually just a milk crate and a flatbed trailer), showing a young guitarist how to do a hammer-on while simultaneously swatting mosquitoes. “We play loud enough, they usually leave,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Maya had cornered a guy who asked if her amp “came in pink.”

“Does your ribcage come in rearranged?” she snapped.

Thane stood to the side, arms crossed, watching it all with a tired, satisfied grin. His black polo shirt was damp with sweat, his jeans dusted in hay and stage gunk, and his claws still faintly glowing under the weird pink light of a bug zapper.

Mark appeared beside him like a silent ghost, passing him a lukewarm bottle of water.

“They love us,” Mark said flatly.

“They’re insane,” Thane replied.

“Same thing.”

Then it happened.

A man in overalls and a mullet that defied physics approached, cradling what at first looked like a wrinkled pillowcase.

“I made this for y’all,” he said, proud as sin.

He opened it to reveal… a full-sized, taxidermied possum.

Wearing a tiny leather jacket.

With “Feral Eclipse” scrawled on the back in puffy paint.

The crowd erupted.

Gabriel lost it, laughing so hard he dropped his soda.

Maya recoiled. “Is it… blinking?”

“It’s just the gloss,” Cassie whispered, eyes wide.

Jonah whispered, “It’s got tiny sunglasses…”

“His name’s Randy,” the fan explained. “Thought he’d look good on y’all’s merch table.”

Rico gently accepted the offering. “He’s… perfect.”

Mark deadpanned, “If I wake up and that thing’s on my pillow, I’m setting the van on fire.”

Thane finally chuckled, shaking his head. “Okay. Okay. That’s it. Show’s over. Let’s load up before we inherit anything else.”

As they packed up the van, Gabriel buckled Randy the Possum into the front seat.

“Randy rides shotgun now,” he declared. “He’s earned it.”

Thane just muttered, “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

And with that, Feral Eclipse rolled out of Red Pines, headlights piercing the night, Randy’s tiny shades catching the moonlight.

Ready for the next chaos, claws and all.

The lights dimmed—or tried to. One flickered like a moth on its last wing while the rest buzzed angrily like they owed someone rent. But the crowd in the “Red Pines Pavilion” didn’t care. They were already half-drunk, half-hyped, and whole-heartedly rowdy.

A dude in the front row screamed, “SHOW US YER TEETH!” right before pouring Coors on his own head.

Backstage, Thane’s headset buzzed with static. “Mark, I swear—if the foggers fire during the opening line again, I will bite the fuse out of them.”

Mark’s reply was bone-dry: “No promises. The breakers are doing Morse code and I think they’re asking for help.”

Cassie stood by the curtain, microphone clutched like a dagger, hair wild and eyes burning. “This is gonna be one for the FBI files, isn’t it?”

Gabriel bounced on his heels, bass strapped low, coffee in one clawed hand, absolute chaos dancing in his icy blue eyes. “I love this already.”

“Y’all are feral,” Maya muttered, adjusting her guitar strap (duct taped for extra faith).

“Damn right,” Rico said from behind his battered lead guitar, running a pick down the strings with a flick that sparked pure mischief. “Let’s burn this barn.”

Thane barked into the headset, “Standby, lighting—”

BOOM.

The foggers exploded at once.

Every VL2B Mark had managed to coax into life fired a hellbeam of red down into the fog, slicing through the room like the wrath of a disco demon.

A beat of silence.

Then…

Cassie screamed the first lyric.

And the barn went berserk.

---

Gabriel launched into the bassline like he was possessed, claws shredding across strings, tail whipping, head thrown back as he roared into the opening chorus. Fans screamed back. Some howled. One tried to climb the stage and was immediately tackled by a bouncer who looked like he used to wrestle gators.

Maya shredded rhythm guitar like it owed her child support. Her eyes blazed with fury as she stomped across the crooked stage, body angled into every chord.

Rico let loose with a solo so intense, sparks flew from his amp—or maybe that was the faulty wiring. Either way, it added to the aesthetic.

Jonah was a demon behind the drums. At one point, he flung a stick into the air and caught it with his teeth like some kind of heavy metal seal. The crowd lost their minds.

Cassie’s vocals ripped through the rafters—pure power, raw rage, and zero chill. She hit a note so hard it made one of the beer signs fall off the back wall.

Thane, stage-right at the board, fur dripping, headset half-fried from sweat and panic, was manually rerouting power while shouting into his backup mic: “YES, MARK, I SEE THE STROBE—NO, DON’T AIM IT AT THE DANCE FLOOR—TOO LATE, NEVER MIND!”

Mark, from the back truss, was cackling into comms while running a rapid-fire combo of red-white-red that turned the crowd into a sea of seizure-dancing cowboys.

Someone crowd-surfed in a hay bale.

Two couples started line dancing in the pit.

A fight broke out over whether Gabriel was “part bat” or “just built different.”

And through it all, the band crushed it.

---

By the time the final song hit, “Red Moon Rising,” the air was thick with sweat, fog, and unfiltered Oklahoma chaos. Cassie belted the final chorus. Jonah hit a crash so hard the snare jumped. Rico lit up the last solo like a pyromaniac on a sugar rush.

Gabriel dropped to one knee, bass held like a holy weapon, and howled into the crowd.

The crowd howled back.

Thane, drenched and exhausted, hit the final cue. Every light Mark had left flared blood red one last time.

Blackout.

Silence.

Then the barn erupted.

---

Backstage, chaos still buzzing in their ears, the band collapsed into mismatched chairs, breathing like they’d just run from a pack of demon possums.

Mark passed around bottles of water.

Gabriel looked at his claws. “I think I dented the fretboard again.”

Jonah was still panting. “I think I need new lungs.”

Maya muttered, “I think that one guy tried to throw his boot at me.”

Cassie grinned. “We’re never gonna top that.”

Thane just laughed—low, hoarse, and a little wild.

“Oh, we will,” he said. “Just wait till we hit Arkansas.”

The moment Gabriel set foot on the stage—a spray-painted plywood riser with “Rock It, Cletus!” still faintly visible beneath the black paint—his clawed foot stuck to something.

“Either that’s a stage booger,” he muttered, “or crawfish juice is way more adhesive than I expected.”

Cassie pointed to the stage-left monitor. “Why is that wedge covered in duct tape that says ‘DO NOT SING HERE’?”

Thane checked the patch bay and grimaced. “Because if you do, it feeds back so hard it calls the dead.”

Jonah was crawling under his drum setup—wedged between what looked like a folding table and a fake cactus—to figure out why one of his toms was wobbling like a nervous chihuahua.

“Uh… guys?” he called. “There’s a mouse. Just… chillin’ in the kick drum. I think it’s judging me.”

Mark was high up on a shaky scissor lift made from an unholy mix of rebar, rust, and prayer. He had managed to secure two surviving VL2Bs to the flimsy truss overhead.

“Don’t bump the fogger,” he called through comms. “It’s directly wired into the breaker for the snack bar. Again.”

Maya let out a full-body sigh and glared at her mic stand, which had all the stability of a Jenga tower in an earthquake. “If this collapses mid-set again, I swear on every string I’ve ever broken, I will eat it.”

Gabriel was mid–bass thrum when one of the fluorescent lights above them fizzled, sparked, and then flickered back to life—revealing that the venue ceiling still had disco balls from the skating rink days… and possibly a squirrel nest.

Cassie laughed. “This is either gonna be the best show we’ve ever played or a paranormal crime scene.”

Thane barked into comms, “Let’s get it over with. Line check. Pray to whatever gods are listening.”

---

Five minutes into soundcheck:

• Maya’s strap broke and she did try to play with her teeth.
• Gabriel tripped over an extension cord and almost took out a full speaker tower.
• Rico knocked over a paper crawfish mascot that somehow burst into flames.
• Jonah’s snare stand collapsed and the mouse retreated, unimpressed.
• Cassie shredded her throat trying to sing over the venue’s popcorn machine whine.
• The lighting rig shorted during the fog test, cutting power to the bouncy house next door—mid-birthday party.

Mark, from his post near the breaker box, sighed. “Congratulations. We’ve broken everything. Including childhood.”

Thane slowly lowered his headset mic. “I’m starting to miss the birthday party gig.”

Gabriel, sweat-soaked, claws covered in stage grime, looked up and grinned. “Still better than Tulsa.”

The band collectively agreed.

Even the mouse seemed to nod.

By the time Feral Eclipse limped into their next destination, the sun was setting over Crawdad Crossing, a place so small it had a church, a bar, and a feed store—all in the same building.

The town sign featured a giant smiling crawfish giving a thumbs-up, with a crudely added “NO FURRIES” spray-painted beneath in dripping red letters.

“Oh great,” Thane muttered, leaning over the steering wheel with a scowl. “We’re already famous.”

Gabriel, still emotionally wounded from the gas station fan ambush, peeked up from behind his clawed hands. “Please tell me they don’t have Wi-Fi.”

Jonah checked his phone. “They have 3G and a Facebook page last updated in 2014 with a photo of a dead raccoon holding a Bud Light.”

Mark grunted. “At least it’s not a possum. That’d be culturally aggressive.”

The venue? A hollowed-out skating rink now used for “Community Events, MMA Fights, and Weddings.”

Inside, a dusty banner hung above the stage: CRAWDAD FESTIVAL KICKOFF – Featuring THE ECLIPSERS.

Cassie tilted her head. “Did they just… pluralize us?”

Rico raised an eyebrow. “Pretty sure that’s a different band.”

A man in an American flag tank top approached with the swagger of someone who’d once punched a vending machine for stealing his Snickers bar.

“You them… Eclipse boys?”

Thane sighed. “Feral Eclipse.”

The man blinked. “Right. That’s what I said. Y’all the ones with the fursuiter?”

Gabriel’s tail bristled.

Before he could lunge, Maya stepped in, guitar case slung over one shoulder like a bat. “Say that again, cowboy. I dare you.”

The man backed off fast. “Hey now, no need to get spicy.”

They entered the venue to find… an actual kiddie pool full of boiled crawfish next to the merch table.

Also at the merch table?

A freshly printed stack of Team Pupslut shirts.

Gabriel’s soul left his body.

Thane picked one up and held it up with a smirk. “You approve of the font at least?”

Cassie howled with laughter.

Rico grabbed one and spun it like a prize wheel. “Who’s responsible for this?”

A young local girl in a homemade “I ❤️ Werewolves” hoodie peeked out from behind the folding table. “I saw it online. I thought it’d be cute. I made thirty of ‘em! They’re selling super well!”

Gabriel covered his face.

Mark put both hands on his hips, looked to the ceiling, and muttered, “This is our legacy now.”

Jonah just whispered, “We’re gonna die here.”

The van rolled to a sputtering stop outside Buckhorn Quick Mart & Liquor, the only gas station within twenty miles that didn’t look like it doubled as a meth lab… just a highly suspicious bottle return depot.

Mark killed the engine with a growl. “Five minutes. Fuel, caffeine, and whatever passes for food.”

“Bathroom too,” Jonah said, already bolting for the door like his bladder had filed an HR complaint.

Gabriel stepped out, stretching with a big yawn, his black T-shirt riding up slightly as he did. Two things happened instantly:

1. The automatic doorbell to the Quick Mart let out a bweep like it was dying.
2. A high-pitched gasp came from the snack aisle.

“OH. MY. GOD. It’s HIM.”

Everyone froze.

Out stepped a twenty-something woman with dyed green hair, phone in hand, wide eyes sparkling like she’d just spotted Elvis doing the Macarena. She turned the screen around to show… Gabriel. Shirtless. Flexing. Covered in glitter. With wolf ears on a headband.

Caption: “Rawr Daddy 😈🐾 #LycanLust2023”

The entire band blinked.

Gabriel blinked harder.

“…Oh no,” he said softly. “That was a dare. That was for charity. THAT WAS PRIVATE.”

“IT’S ON REDLUSTFURRIES DOT NET,” she squealed, practically vibrating. “I run a whole fan page! You’re like… a LEGEND!”

Thane choked on his Mountain Dew mid-sip. “RedLust what now?”

Cassie dropped a protein bar. “Oh my god. I knew I recognized that abs pic from somewhere.”

Rico couldn’t stop laughing. “Dude. Dude. That site has rankings.”

Jonah came out of the bathroom, took one look at Gabriel’s face, and immediately went: “Nope. Not getting involved in whatever the hell this is.”

The girl was now circling Gabriel like she was trying to summon him with her camera app. “Can you do the howl? Like the one in the video? Please?! I have merch.” She pulled out a handmade T-shirt that read “Team Pupslut” with paw prints in… questionable placement.

Maya was screaming into a bottle of water, trying not to pass out.

Mark just walked back to the van and mumbled, “This is why I drink soda.”

Gabriel looked like he wanted to ascend to another plane of existence.

“I—I can sign something,” he stammered, “but only if you promise not to tag me on anything ever again.”

She happily handed him a RedLust-branded notepad shaped like a paw print.

He signed it with shaking hands. Thane patted him on the back like a soldier returning from war. “We’ve all done shameful things for gas money, my wolf. You just did it better than most.”

They all scrambled back to the van, half-laughing, half-mortified. As they pulled out, the girl waved both arms and yelled:

“WE LOVE YOU GABRIEL! TEAM PUPSLUT FOREVER!!”

Gabriel curled into a seat and groaned, “I’m never stopping at a gas station again.”

By the time the van creaked its way into the gravel parking lot of The Dusty Hollow Inn, the band was too road-worn to argue. The sign buzzed angrily with flickering neon letters—only D S Y H _ _ L _ W I N still lit—and a hand-painted banner beneath it read “NEW MANAGEMENT (WE THINK)”.

Cassie stepped out of the van, glanced at the building with one eye twitching. “This is where ghosts go to retire.”

“Does it come with free tetanus?” Maya muttered, hauling her guitar out of the back like it might catch something if it touched the ground.

The lobby smelled like burnt coffee, lemon air freshener, and failed dreams. A grizzled man behind the counter barely looked up from a TV playing static and Walker, Texas Ranger reruns.

“You the band?”

Gabriel, still hyped from the gig, beamed. “Sure are! We’re Feral Eclipse!”

The man pointed at a key rack behind him. “Pick one that’s not crooked.”

Thane narrowed his eyes. “That’s your booking system?”

“It’s worked since ‘82.”

Jonah grabbed a key labeled “Room 3 (sorta works)” and immediately sneezed. “This place smells like expired toothpaste.”

Inside the rooms? Even worse.

Room 1’s ceiling fan wobbled like it was trying to escape. Room 2 had a bathtub full of tax forms from 2006. Room 3—Jonah’s—had an unplugged mini fridge containing exactly one jar of pickles and a cassette tape labeled “DO NOT LISTEN AFTER MIDNIGHT.”

Gabriel flopped onto a bed and was immediately engulfed in a cloud of dust. “…Soft.”

Mark walked in behind him, took one look around, and said, “I’m sleeping in the van.”

“No, you’re not,” Thane replied, rubbing his temples. “If I hear you dragging an extension cord out there again, I’m sedating you.”

They tried to relax. Jonah swore his room’s toilet flushed upward. Rico claimed the wallpaper moved when he wasn’t looking. Cassie found an ancient Gideon Bible with a love letter to someone named “Cooter” tucked inside.

By 2 a.m., the power blinked out for no reason.

Mark’s voice cut through the pitch-black like a blade. “I didn’t do it this time.”

Then the fire alarm chirped once, just to say hi.

“…Okay,” Thane said, sitting up. “We’re never staying in a place that has quotes around the word ‘clean’ in the welcome packet again.”

Gabriel turned on his phone flashlight, holding it under his face like a horror movie narrator. “You think if I lick the wall I’ll get powers?”

“Do it,” Maya said instantly from across the room.

They survived the night.

Mostly.

By sunrise, they were half-dressed, caffeine-starved, and fleeing the motel like it owed them money. As they piled into the van, Jonah whispered, “I think something watched me sleep.”

Mark took a swig of warm soda and said, “Same. But it tipped its hat, so I let it be.”

The next venue on the Feral Eclipse tour route? A former church converted into a music hall in rural Missouri called The Rafter Room. The GPS nearly gave up halfway there, rerouting them past suspiciously watchful cows and a hand-painted sign that just read: “Y’all better turn back.”

The old chapel loomed like a relic of some long-forgotten saint of chaos. The steeple had a lightning rod bolted on crooked, and someone had spray-painted Rage is Holy on the side of the bell tower. Stained glass windows had been replaced with colored plexiglass. The front marquee read:

“TONIGHT: FERAL ECLIPSE
TOMORROW: BINGO & BRISKET”

Inside, pews had been cleared to make way for folding chairs and a tiny bar in what used to be the confessional booth. The “green room” was the old Sunday school office—still decorated with sun-faded Noah’s Ark posters and an unsettling number of googly eyes stuck to the ceiling.

Cassie walked in, took one look around, and deadpanned, “I feel like we’re gonna summon something just by soundchecking.”

Maya kicked over a plastic duck. “If the power goes out mid-set, I’m blaming Jesus.”

Thane was already pacing near the back wall, eyeing a breaker box that looked like it had been through at least two exorcisms. “This place has three-prong outlets but only two wires.”

Mark, perched high on a truss trying to mount a VariLite with duct tape and hope, muttered, “It’s fine. We’ve lit worse.”

Gabriel was grinning ear to ear. “This is going to be the most metal church revival ever.”

Rico wandered up holding two mic cables in either hand. “These both say ‘Lead Vocals’ in Sharpie… one’s sticky.”

“Great,” Thane groaned. “We’re gonna get electrocuted and sued.”

But when showtime hit? The crowd—mostly locals, a few confused youth group members, and one guy in a Slayer shirt holding a casserole—turned wild. The sound bounced off the vaulted ceiling in ways that made even Jonah say, “Okay, that was kinda beautiful.”

Gabriel shredded his bass so hard a section of the back wall started rattling. Maya lost a pick mid-song and improvised with a communion wafer someone had tossed on stage. Jonah launched into a solo that echoed like thunder through the old rafters.

Cassie, radiant under Mark’s chaotic lighting work, had the entire place clapping and screaming by the third song.

At one point, an elderly lady in the front row stood, held up her walker, and yelled, “THIS SLAPS!”

Backstage after the set, dripping with sweat and pure disbelief, Thane slumped into a folding chair next to the now-empty baptismal font.

“We just headlined a haunted chapel.”

Gabriel, drinking soda from a chalice he found in the back, nodded solemnly. “And brought salvation through distortion.”

Jonah blinked. “Is this sacrilegious?”

Mark walked by and slapped a clawed hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Nah. It’s rock and roll.”

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.”