Three Werewolves: Tour Blog

The van door clunked shut behind Thane as he climbed back in, sliding into the passenger seat. The others were scattered—Cassie had called dibs on the bench to sleep, Jonah was curled up around a sack of jerky like a dragon guarding treasure, and Maya had her earbuds in, eyes closed but still buzzing from adrenaline.

Gabriel sat behind the wheel, paws on the steering wheel, idling with a lukewarm gas station coffee in one hand. He didn’t look over. Just sipped. Slowly.

Then:
“So. You gonna tell me when you joined the chivalry squad, or was that a one-night engagement?”

Thane raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”

“You know—stepping in, saving the damsel, flexing a little fur,” Gabriel said, dragging out every word like molasses. “Very knightly. I’m surprised you didn’t toss a flannel over a puddle first.”

Thane snorted. “She was getting grabbed, I stopped it. You want me to not do that?”

Gabriel finally turned, grinning wide. Just a little too wide. Icy blue eyes gleaming with the kind of energy that screamed dangerously under-caffeinated and looking for an excuse.

“Oh no, I think it was adorable,” he said, leaning a little closer. “My big strong wolf, defending another guitarist like she’s some sacred relic. Very noble. Very growly.”

Thane gave him a sideways look. “You jealous?”

Gabriel’s ears flicked, and his smirk sharpened—literally. A flash of white fangs. “Me? Nahhh. It’s not like I wanted to handle the guy myself or anything. Or that watching you go full apex predator didn’t make my tail twitch a little.”

Thane rolled his eyes, but there was a smile tugging at the edge of his muzzle. “You done?”

Gabriel leaned in close, voice low and mock-serious, warm breath just brushing Thane’s ear.

“You’re mine. Everyone knows it. Even she knows it. But next time you break out the full ‘protective werewolf’ routine, make sure it’s for me, yeah?”

He paused, then added with a sleepy grin and a teasing glint in his eye, “Otherwise, I might just bite you — just to make sure you remember.”

Thane didn’t flinch. He just leaned back, head tilted lazily. “That a promise?”

Gabriel blinked — then grinned again, this time softer. Less fang, more warmth. “Keep talking like that and I’m gonna leave a mark.”

Thane reached over and stole his coffee.

“HEY—”

“I love you,” Thane said, sipping it.

Gabriel sighed dramatically, flipping on the headlights. “You’re lucky you’re mine.”

As the van rumbled back onto the highway, fading taillights glowing red in the misty dark, Gabriel finally relaxed into his seat.

“…Still should’ve let me handle the guy, though.”

Thane smirked. “Next time, I’ll bring popcorn.”

It was somewhere past 2 a.m. when the tour van finally creaked into the fluorescent-lit lot of a weathered old truck stop just off I-55. The kind of place that looked like it hadn’t changed since the ’80s, right down to the buzzing neon sign that said Open 24 Hours but was missing the “O.”

Inside, it was that surreal mix of too-clean diner booths and dusty shelves of snacks no one had bought in years. Jonah darted for the drink cooler like a kid at recess, eyes wide. “Mountain Dew or Code Red? Wait, do they have Code Red?”

Thane stayed back near the doorway, arms crossed, eyes scanning. He was tired, road-dusted, and his fur itched under his black polo. Gabriel, next to him, looked about two cups of coffee short of his usual chaos, but still alert—especially when a few locals peeked up at the sight of bare clawed feet padding softly on the tile.

Mark had already disappeared somewhere into the back, probably sniffing out the nearest working coffee pot or a fuse box to “fix.” Maya, meanwhile, strutted up to the diner counter like she owned it, plopping down on a stool and ordering pancakes like she wasn’t the baddest rhythm guitarist this side of Memphis.

That’s when he showed up.

Tall. Stringy. Smelled like diesel and cheap whiskey. That kind of smile you only see in mugshots and back alley ghost stories. He slid up next to Maya, leaned in way too close.

“Hey there, sweetheart. You lookin’ real fine tonight. You in a band or somethin’?”

Maya didn’t even look up. “Not interested, cowboy.”

“Aww, c’mon now. I like ‘em feisty.”

Thane clocked the guy the second he entered. The tone of his voice—the angle of his lean—it all screamed trouble. Gabriel had picked up on it too and was already shifting on his paws, ears twitching.

Maya stood up, eye to eye with the guy. “You should walk away.”

“Or what?” he sneered, grabbing her wrist. “You gonna bite me?”

That was it.

Thane didn’t growl. He didn’t snarl. He just moved.

One second he was against the wall. The next, he was right there, looming over both of them, brown fur bristling under the truck stop lights. His icy blue eyes practically glowed.

He didn’t roar or shout—he spoke.

“You’re going to let go of her. Now.”

The guy turned, looking up—and then up a bit more. Thane was a wall of muscle, claws curled just enough to catch the light. The man faltered.

“I… I was just joking, man. No harm—”

Thane leaned in, voice low and lethal. “You lay a finger on her again and I’ll show you what real harm looks like.”

The guy backed off fast. Practically stumbled over a mop bucket on his way out. The ding of the door chime sounded like a finish line bell.

Maya glared at Thane, arms crossed tight. “I had that.”

He just raised an eyebrow, brushing a few silver-streaked strands out of his face. “I know.”

“Hmph.”

Later, outside by the van while the others argued over snack rations and Jonah bounced from soda to soda, Maya nudged Thane’s arm—barely perceptible.

“…Thanks. I mean, not that I needed it. But…” She sighed. “Okay. I was scared. Just a little. But if you tell anyone I said that—”

Thane gave a quiet chuckle and leaned down just enough to nudge her shoulder with his. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The GPS said “Danny’s Barrelhouse.” The sign out front said “D’Nys.” Half the bulbs were out. One flickered like it was dying of embarrassment.

Gabriel peered through the bug-smeared van window. “This place looks like it got condemned and just didn’t notice.”

Mark gave a slow blink from the passenger seat. “I’ve been in worse.”

Thane grunted from the driver’s seat, pulling into the gravel lot with a crunch. “Name two.”

Mark didn’t answer.

The dive bar sat between a pawn shop and a taxidermy place that proudly advertised “We Mount Anything.” A lone neon sign buzzed over the front door, casting a radioactive green glow on a pair of tipped-over barstools and what was either an opossum or a very drunk cat.

Cassie stepped out and sniffed the air. “Smells like regret and pickle juice.”

Inside, the bar was dim, humid, and full of character—if the character in question was a whiskey-soaked cryptid who played darts with switchblades. The stage was barely big enough for a drum kit and a bad attitude. The sound system looked like it had been built during the Cold War, and someone had clearly spilled a drink on it in every decade since.

A bartender with half a mohawk and a full neck tattoo waved them in. “You the band?”

Gabriel smiled. “Yes, sir. Feral Eclipse.”

“Cool. Set up fast. The bingo crowd’s still in the parking lot, and they get mean when the jukebox stops.”

As Thane unloaded cables and gear like a man preparing for war, Jonah wandered toward the stage and poked at a speaker that gave off an ominous wheeze.

“Pretty sure this thing just said a racial slur.”

Rico stepped over a puddle that may have been beer or ammonia. “If I get electrocuted tonight, I’m haunting Gabriel.”

Maya shot a glance around the bar. “You sure we’re not in a Quentin Tarantino movie?”

“I’m almost sure,” Thane muttered.

They managed to wedge themselves onto the stage, Mark doing his lighting magic with three clamp lights and a prayer. The bar regulars stared with a mix of suspicion and mild amusement. One man in a “Born to Fish, Forced to Work” tank top raised his beer and nodded at Thane.

“Nice boots.”

Thane looked down at his bare clawed feet, then back up. “Thanks. Yours are… consistent.”

The first song blasted through the space like a sonic cleansing. Gabriel’s bass lines cracked a pint glass. Maya’s riffs scared off the jukebox entirely—it sparked and died in the corner. Cassie’s voice melted the wax off a decorative deer skull.

Jonah went full animal behind the kit, launching into his fills with the grace of a caffeinated bear. Rico’s solos carved holes in the cigarette haze, each note daring the crowd to look away.

And the crowd?

They loved it.

One woman tossed her bra at Cassie and missed by four feet, hitting Mark in the face. He didn’t even flinch. Another guy tried to mosh with a barstool and immediately got ejected by the bartender, who high-fived Gabriel on his way back behind the bar.

By the end of the second set, people were dancing. Not well. Not in time. But with wild, drunken joy.

Thane worked the soundboard like it owed him money, drenched in sweat, barely keeping the system from exploding. At one point he smacked the compressor with a flashlight, and it started working better.

Cassie leaned into her mic between songs. “We’re Feral Eclipse. We love you weirdos.”

A guy screamed, “I WANNA BE A WEREWOLF!”

Mark just muttered, “No, you don’t.”

After the show, they got paid in mostly cash and half a gift card to a gas station that might not exist anymore. The bartender slid Thane a paper envelope and said, “That was the loudest this place has ever been without police showing up.”

Thane smirked. “Give it time.”

Back in the van, everyone collapsed into their usual piles.

“That wasn’t entirely awful,” Jonah offered.

“It was half-awful,” Rico corrected. “With a chaser of almost-fun.”

Gabriel grinned, fangy and delighted. “I’d play there again.”

Cassie threw a towel at him.

Thane leaned his head against the window, eyes closed, voice low.

“We survive everything.”

Mark, already dozing in the back, cracked one eye open. “Even this.”

And the van rolled into the night, chasing the next disaster with claws, chords, and caffeine.

The smell hit them first.

Grease, funnel cake, dust, livestock, and teen rebellion—it was the unmistakable bouquet of a county fair.

The fairgrounds sprawled across several acres, dotted with rusting rides, questionably secured game booths, and concession stands with names like Curly Fries 4 Jesus and Corn Dog Kingdom. A Ferris wheel turned slowly above it all like an ominous eye, watching, judging.

The “stage” for the Battle of the Bands was tucked beside the demolition derby arena and dangerously close to the goat enclosure. A hand-painted banner reading Creech County ROCKS! flapped against a bent chain-link fence.

The stage crew—two teenagers and a man named Dale with three teeth—helped them load in.

Dale, eyeing Gabriel: “Y’all one of them cosplay boy bands?”

Gabriel: “Sure. And we bite.”

Thane, muttering into his headset: “We’re gonna die here.”

---

There were seven bands scheduled. All of them looked like they’d formed last Tuesday in a group chat.

The band before them—Rage Farm—had an accordion and a kazoo solo.

Jonah stared into the middle distance. “I’ve seen things today.”

Maya whispered to her guitar: “We don’t belong here. But we will win.”

Cassie was warming up by yelling scale exercises into the porta-potty because it had the best acoustics.

Rico was double-checking his strings, fingers flying with practiced precision. “Do we at least win a prize?”

Mark read the flyer. “Says here we win a bucket of fried pickles and a fifty-dollar gas card.”

Gabriel grinned. “I’m in.”

Thane, behind the board, grimaced. “I didn’t bring us to Arkansas for pickles.”

---

The stage creaked ominously under their boots. The crowd—a mix of fairgoers, teenage metalheads, and at least one alpaca—looked up with mild interest.

Cassie stepped to the mic.

“We’re Feral Eclipse. This song is called Full Moon Breakdown. It’s loud. You’re welcome.”

Mark hit the lights—six barely working VL2Bs rigged to the truss. They barely survived the jolt.

Gabriel’s bass snarled through the speakers. Rico launched into the first blistering riff. Jonah’s sticks flew like fury.

The fairgrounds went absolutely feral.

People ran from the cotton candy stand to the stage. One kid in a “Support Local Cryptids” shirt climbed the goat pen for a better view. An old man in a cowboy hat started headbanging so hard he lost his dentures.

Thane’s gear survived the set—barely. One speaker caught fire for a second. Mark just used it as a smoke effect.

By the third song, the crowd was losing it.

Even Dale was dancing. Dale.

---

After the final act—Jugular Honey (who ended their set by stage-diving into the pig pen)—a very tired woman from the Chamber of Commerce shuffled up with a clipboard.

“And the winner is…” she mumbled, adjusting her bifocals. “…Feral… Elks?”

Cassie: “Close enough.”

They were handed a metal bucket of pickles, a gas station gift card, and a plaque made from a sawed-off cutting board.

Maya held the plaque aloft. “Victory tastes like brine and despair!”

Jonah already had three pickles in his mouth.

Gabriel took a selfie with a goat.

Mark, dragging a coiled light cable, smirked. “Let’s never do this again.”

Thane exhaled, exhausted but grinning. “Agreed.”

The alarm went off at 4:45 AM.

Thane nearly tore it off the wall.

Gabriel sat straight up in his motel bed like a horror movie jump-scare. “TV TIME! I need coffee, pants, and maybe a prayer.”

Cassie groaned into her pillow. “You’d better be joking about the pants.”

By 5:15, the Feral Eclipse crew looked… less than glamorous. Gabriel was trying to slick back his fur with hotel conditioner. Thane was in full silent murder-mode. Mark had sunglasses on indoors. Jonah wore one sock and a hoodie that said “Don’t Talk to Me Until the Encore.”

They piled into the van, half-dead. The streets were still dark.

---

The TV station looked like it had been built inside a former dentist’s office. Their green room was actually a beige hallway with a vending machine and a fake plant.

A perky intern handed them clip-on mics and a printout that said:

“WELCOME LOCAL ACOUSTIC ROCK BAND ‘FERRET ECSTASY’!!”

Maya: “I’m burning this place down.”

Gabriel: “No no no. We lean in. We’re Ferret Ecstasy now. This is our life.”

Cassie wheezed. Jonah tried to make a new logo on a napkin. It involved whiskers.

The host—Cheryl With a C—was a woman in a fuchsia blazer with energy levels illegal before sunrise. She met them in the studio with an aggressive handshake and a high-pitched squeal.

“You guys are the wolfboys, right? You look so REAL!”

Thane: “We are real.”

Cheryl blinked. “…Okay! Love the commitment!”

---

🎤 “Live on Channel 9 – Wake Up, Waffles, and Werewolves!”

The segment started with cheerful jazz. The camera panned to Cheryl, smiling like a cartoon news anchor.

“Welcome back to Good Morning Corner County! Today we have a treat for you—joining us is a band called Ferret—sorry, Feral Eclipse!”

The band, all squeezed onto a couch meant for three people, nodded in varying degrees of discomfort.

Cheryl turned to Thane. “So, you’re the lead singer?”

Cassie coughed.

“No,” Thane said, voice flat. “Sound tech. I make the chaos audible.”

“Oh!” She turned to Cassie. “Then you’re the lead singer?”

Cassie gave her best fake smile. “Accidentally, yes.”

Cheryl beamed. “And you all dress like this for every show?”

Gabriel leaned in, still caffeinating. “Ma’am, this is us. We don’t dress up. We dress down for breakfast.”

Cheryl did not know how to respond.

Then came the “live performance.”

They were given exactly one powered speaker, two clip-on mics, and a guitar amp the size of a lunchbox.

Maya strummed once. The speaker made a phhhfft noise. Jonah tapped a practice pad. Gabriel tried to hit a bass note, but the mic clipped so hard it sounded like a bear coughing underwater.

Thane gave up and plugged one thing directly into the camera guy’s headphone jack.

Cassie leaned forward, grinning like she’d already accepted her fate.

“This one’s called Howlcore Breakfast.”

It was the messiest, weirdest, quietest rendition of their usual chaos ever performed. Mark tried to hit the lights for a little flare and accidentally turned off the teleprompter.

The host read closing remarks from memory while the credits rolled—off-beat and off-kilter.

“That was Ferret Eclipse, everybody. Be sure to check them out at the Creech County Fair Battle of the Bands later this week! Stay tuned for local gardening tips and a segment on haunted doll repair!”

As soon as the cameras cut off, the band fled.

---

Everyone collapsed into the seats.

Jonah: “Did we just…?”

Gabriel: “Yes. Yes we did.”

Cassie: “I am never waking up before 9 AM again.”

Mark, deadpan from the back: “We survived. But the name Ferret Ecstasy will haunt us forever.”

Thane rubbed his eyes. “Someone find that napkin Jonah drew on. That’s our next shirt design.”

The GPS brought them to a squat, stucco building labeled “Mid-Oklahoma Conference Center & Banquet Hall”, which was generously optimistic. Half the letters on the sign were missing. The parking lot was full of minivans, bumper stickers that said “ASK ME ABOUT MY ORB PHOTOS,” and one rusted-out hearse painted with a wolf howling at three different moons.

Thane stared out the van window, unblinking. “We’ve been tricked.”

Gabriel grinned. “We’ve been invited to destiny.”

Jonah yawned. “Please let this be a vampire LARP thing. I brought my cloak this time.”

The banner above the entrance read:

“3rd Annual Paranormal Midwest Con: Energy, Entities, & Enlightenment!”
Starring: Feral Eclipse – Live Ritual Sound Journey

Maya’s voice was dangerously flat. “…What the hell is a ritual sound journey?”

Cassie, peeking at the event flyer someone handed her, raised a brow. “Apparently we’re headlining between ‘Aura Cleansing with Dr. Phaedra’ and ‘Bigfoot Roundtable: Why He’s Real and Probably Sad.’”

They walked inside like they were entering a crime scene.

The lobby smelled like sage, old carpet, and stale cinnamon rolls. People in wizard hats mingled with folks in alien t-shirts and one man in a full plague doctor costume. A nearby booth had a banner: “Past Life Regression While You Wait.”

Mark looked around with deadpan calm. “I swear to the moon, if someone tries to smudge me with a turkey feather, I’m lighting the whole booth on fire.”

A woman with eight crystal necklaces stopped Gabriel immediately. “You’re glowing. I mean, really glowing. Your aura is vibrating like a microwave.”

Gabriel, already caffeinated beyond reason, lit up. “Thanks! I had three espresso shots and a chocolate donut shaped like a pentagram!”

Cassie kept getting mistaken for an actual medium.

Jonah accidentally walked into a ghost photography slideshow and got stuck between two guys arguing about EMF interference.

Thane? Thane was trying to find the event coordinator. The only “staff” he managed to locate was a guy in a bathrobe who claimed the band’s performance needed to “match the resonance frequency of the collective astral field.”

“Do you have a rider?” the guy asked, eyes wild with chaotic intent.

Thane stared at him, dead inside. “Yeah. We emailed it. Twice.”

“Oh, right. Uh… we don’t really do paperwork. We align our logistics through crystal resonance.”

Gabriel appeared behind Thane, coffee in hand, barely suppressing a grin. “Perfect. Our lighting rig’s calibrated to shatter quartz.”

Thane turned and walked away without another word, muttering, “I hate everything about this gig.”

---

🔮 The Show

Their stage was a repurposed ballroom, complete with folding chairs, a disco ball, and one massive dreamcatcher hanging behind the band logo.

Before the set, someone handed Thane a “blessed quartz triangle” and asked him to place it near the subwoofer to “channel ancestral frequencies.”

He nearly ate it.

Then the lights dimmed. The fog machine—already rigged up by Mark—hissed to life. The band took their places.

Gabriel leaned into the mic.

“Are you ready to transcend?”

The audience erupted into whoops, howls, and one person yelling, “CHANNEL THE WOLF GOD!”

They started playing.

It was thunderous. Wild. Ferocious. The kind of show that makes walls shake and ancestors weep. The crowd didn’t mosh—they vibrated. Some people cried. One woman screamed she saw a vision of her dog reincarnated as a bass guitar.

Midway through the second song, someone tossed a crystal at the stage and Gabriel caught it without missing a note. “A gift from the spirits,” he said, dead serious.

By the end, Gabriel was soaked in sweat, the room reeked of incense and fog fluid, and Mark was holding up a power strip like a talisman against whatever might try to talk to him next.

---

Aftermath

As they loaded out, a man in a lab coat gave Jonah a handmade award that read:

“Best Rhythmic Portal Opening 2025”

Jonah: “I’m putting this on my résumé.”

Rico found a zine titled “Werewolf Soulmates & the 5th Dimension” featuring artwork suspiciously similar to Gabriel.

Maya was glaring at someone trying to hand her a pamphlet about lycanthropy as spiritual awakening. “Do I look like I need awakening?”

Gabriel hugged three people goodbye and was offered a speaking slot next year.

Cassie handed Thane a souvenir T-shirt:
“I Played a Paranormal Convention and All I Got Was Possessed (by Riffs)”

Thane didn’t speak for 20 minutes.

When they finally got back in the van, Mark turned to him and said:

“At least no one tried to baptize us this time.”

Thane nodded. “…We are never doing that again.”

Gabriel: “They want us back next year.”

Thane didn’t even flinch.

🕷️ The InkSink Parlor – Open Late, No Questions Asked

The rain had just started to fall when the van rolled into yet another middle-of-nowhere city, the kind with more vape shops than streetlights and at least one billboard advertising “Discount Bait & Divorce.”

They were two days early for the next gig. For once.
Naturally, that meant trouble.

“Guys,” Gabriel said from the back, holding up his phone like it was sacred scripture. “This place has a tattoo shop with 4.8 stars on Yelp.”
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Out of how many?”
“…Five.”
“Uh huh.”

Thane didn’t even glance up from tightening a power connector in his rigging bag. “We are not getting tattoos. We’re getting groceries. Laundry. Sleep.”
Maya: “Lame.”
Jonah: “Coward.”
Rico: “I bet he secretly has a tramp stamp.”
Thane: “I heard that.”

Gabriel leaned forward between the seats, eyes wide and conspiratorial.
“What if we just… looked? No needles. Just reconnaissance. Come on. Be wolves of culture.”
Mark, arms crossed and unimpressed: “This smells like a trap.”
Gabriel grinned. “So does Thane after load-in, but we still take him places.”

---

The shop was tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop. Its flickering neon sign read:
INKSINK – WALK-INS, MISTAKES, & MEMORIES.

Inside, it looked exactly like every tattoo parlor in the movies—walls plastered with flash art, the scent of antiseptic and regret heavy in the air. A man with a lopsided mohawk and full-face skull ink looked up from a sketchpad.

“You the furry band?”
Thane pinched the bridge of his nose.
Gabriel: “That’s us!”
Tattoo Guy: “Cool. I did a werewolf paw on a preacher last week. Midnight special.”

---

Cassie picked out a microphone wrapped in a rose.
Maya found a flaming guitar on a poster and said, “That. But angrier.”
Jonah, who claimed he was just here to watch, somehow ended up pointing at a cartoon possum holding drumsticks.
Rico wanted a stylized wolf skull on his shoulder blade to “look cool in profile shots.”
Mark said nothing… and then asked if they had ink that would show under stage lights but not normal lighting. (They did. Of course.)

Gabriel?
Oh, Gabriel was ready.
He picked out a design he claimed he’d “seen in a dream”—a full moon, a claw slash, and a bass clef stitched together like some supernatural battle standard.
He wanted it on his back.
All of it.

Tattoo Guy blinked. “You sure?”
Gabriel: “No.”
Tattoo Guy: “Perfect.”

---

While the others got prepped, inked, and numbed into varying levels of existential dread, Thane sat in a creaky metal folding chair, arms crossed and glaring.
At one point, Gabriel leaned over mid-ink and stage whispered, “Come on, Thane, even Mark’s doing it.”
Thane didn’t move. “Mark got ultraviolet lighting cues tattooed on his arm. That’s functional.”
Rico shouted from across the room, “You’re just scared of needles!”
“I am the needle,” Thane growled, gesturing at a bundle of XLR cables.

---

Jonah nearly passed out twice and left with a smiling possum on his bicep.
Cassie’s mic tattoo looked suspiciously like it was shouting.
Maya’s flaming guitar had literal smoke curls tattooed in.
Rico? Rico looked like a horror movie album cover and was thrilled.
Mark, when shown his under-UV ink lighting pattern in a dark room, simply nodded once.
Gabriel, shirtless and glowing with pride, looked like a battle-scarred lunar warlord.
“This,” he said, spinning slowly, “is how I ascend.”
Thane: “This is how you get a staph infection.”

They limped back to the van like war survivors.
Gabriel curled up in the backseat, whispering lovingly to his new ink.
Thane buckled in and muttered, “Next stop, an actual hospital.”

Maya, flipping through photos on her phone, smirked.
“Tell me this tour isn’t the best goddamn disaster we’ve ever survived.”

🎪 Somewhere Outside Texarkana, Population: Unsettled

The sign came out of nowhere.
A cracked wooden billboard, lit by a single flickering bulb, perched at a crooked angle beside the highway:

“SPINDLE’S WHIRL-O-RAMA CARNIVAL! One Night Only! FUN! FOOD! FERAL FRIENDS?”

“Did that sign just say feral friends?” Jonah asked from the back, peering between seats.
Gabriel, slurping the dregs of a canned iced mocha, leaned across the dashboard. “We have to go.”

Thane didn’t even look up from the map app on his phone. “No.”
Cassie: “Come on. It’s fate.”
Mark, deadpan from the passenger seat: “Fate is dumb.”
Rico, scrolling through TikTok: “Yeah, but if we don’t go, we’ll wonder forever.”
Maya, already strapping on her boots: “And if we do go, we’ll probably get tetanus.”

Thane sighed. “…Ten minutes. We look. We leave. No carnies, no carnage.”

---

The carnival looked like a Tim Burton fever dream sponsored by expired corn dogs.
Half-lit signs buzzed above rusted rides. A lone Ferris wheel groaned in protest against gravity.
A suspiciously damp clown waved from near the cotton candy stand.

Gabriel was in heaven. “This is amazing.”
Thane: “This is how horror movies start.”

The band spread out, each drawn to something weird.

Cassie found a fortune teller named “Madame Skarlette” who read her aura with a vape pen and whispered, “Beware the full moon… and gluten.”

Jonah wandered into a mirror maze and accidentally scared himself three times before walking into a glass wall.
“This place is cursed,” he announced, nose bleeding.
“No,” Rico said, laughing, “you’re cursed.”

Gabriel, meanwhile, had somehow gotten pulled into a carnival game.
By the time the others found him, he was wielding a giant plastic mallet at a “Smash the Rat” booth while a kid in a mullet screamed, “HIT IT HARDER, FURRY MAN!”

Thane yanked him away mid-swing. “We are leaving.”
“But I almost won a SpongeBob!” Gabriel whined.

---

“Last call for the Wheel of Wonder!” shouted a voice from atop a rickety scaffolding.

Naturally, they had to ride it.
All of them.

The moment they were strapped in, the whole thing lurched into motion like a dying banshee.

Jonah: “I don’t think it’s supposed to lean like this.”
Rico: “I think I can see the past.”
Gabriel (arms raised): “I REGRET NOTHING.”
Maya: “If we die, I’m going to haunt whoever suggested this.”
Cassie: “That was Gabriel.”
Mark: “Figures.”

At the top of the spin, the ride groaned, shuddered—
—and then stopped.

Mid-air.
Forty feet up.
In silence.

Jonah: “I’m never eating cotton candy again.”
Gabriel: “I think this is how I unlock my final form.”
Thane (claws gripping the safety bar): “When we get down, I am burning this carnival to the ground.”

---

Back on solid ground, the band stumbled off the ride like baby deer.
Mark’s fur was windblown. Thane looked like he’d fought God.
Cassie threw up behind the churro stand.

Gabriel, still clutching the SpongeBob prize someone did give him, raised a clawed hand.
“Worth it.”

Thane grabbed him by the neck scruff. “You’re sleeping outside tonight.”
Gabriel grinned. “Under the stars. With my SpongeBob.”

---

Rico: “That was the dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”
Jonah: “No. That birthday party gig still wins.”
Maya: “At least this one didn’t end in cake and crying.”
Cassie: “…Speak for yourself.”

Thane, slumped behind the wheel, muttered to no one in particular:
“Next detour, I’m putting myself in a crate and mailing me home.”

🎧 From the “Cryptid Killers & Creatures Weekly” Podcast Studio

They knew something was off the moment they walked into the basement “studio.”

There were two lava lamps.
A dozen Funko Pops of obscure monster movies.
And a mounted jackalope head wearing a trucker hat that read: “SILVER OR BUST.”

The host—who went by the moniker “Ranger Rick”—stood proudly behind a folding table with two mismatched microphones, a beat-up laptop, and a bucket of beef jerky labeled “Emergency Rations.”

“Feral Eclipse!” he declared, wearing a camo vest over a Bigfoot T-shirt, “Thank y’all for comin’. Now, which one of y’all is the actual werewolf?”

Everyone turned to Gabriel.
Who was currently sipping a triple espresso and had already stolen one of the Funko Pops.

Thane raised a clawed finger. “All right, let’s get this straight — Gabriel is the only werewolf  — in the band.”

Mark: clears throat
Thane: “In the — musical — part of the band.”
Mark: grunts approvingly

---

Five Minutes In: The Downward Spiral

Ranger Rick: “So, Gabriel — have you ever killed a man with your teeth?”
Gabriel (cheerful): “Not yet!”
Thane: audible facepalm

Rick leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. “Do y’all use music as a way to lure prey? Like sirens?”

Cassie, sipping iced tea from a paper cup: “If you mean screaming lyrics about existential pain and claw marks, then… yeah, sure.”

Maya: “We mostly lure people into circle pits.”
Jonah: “And sometimes Taco Bell.”

Rick flipped through a notepad filled with hand-drawn diagrams labeled “Full Moon Rage Timetable” and “Feral Drool Ratios.”
He tapped the table. “Do y’all find silver affects sound quality?”

Thane stood up. “We’re leaving.”

Rick panicked. “No no no! Wait! We haven’t gotten to the listener Q&A!”

---

Q&A Section: A Disaster Wrapped in a Mic Pop Filter

Caller 1: “Can you ask the werewolf if he sheds in the van?”
Gabriel: “Absolutely. Especially after espresso.”

Caller 2: “Do the others ever feel unsafe around him?”
Cassie: “Only when he tries to DJ at 3 a.m.”
Gabriel: “You loved the Eurobeat, admit it!”

Caller 3: “If I throw beef jerky into a clearing during a full moon, will a werewolf appear?”
Mark (growling): “Only if he’s hungry and your playlist doesn’t suck.”

Caller 4: “Can I join your pack?”
Thane: “…Do you know how to coil cables without tangling them?”
Caller: “No?”
Thane: “Then no.”

---

Exit, Stage Weird

As the band packed up, Ranger Rick handed each of them a “Cryptid Killers” bumper sticker and a vial of something he swore was “anti-lycan essence.”

Gabriel sniffed it. “This is Mountain Dew.”

Rick: “And holy water.”

Thane muttered something about a restraining order.

As they piled back into the van, Cassie looked back at the basement stairs. “Was this the weirdest one yet?”

Maya shrugged. “Still ranks below the birthday party gig.”

Jonah held up the beef jerky. “But hey. Free snacks.”

The van rolled down a winding country road lined with wooden signs advertising “Ye Olde Mead Tastings,” “Unicorn Petting Zoo,” and “Mutton on a Stick – $5.”

Thane blinked at the GPS, then at the sprawling encampment ahead, where tents and wooden stalls stood like a medieval-themed army preparing to invade the 21st century.

A massive hand-painted banner flapped in the breeze at the entrance:
“Oakenridge Renaissance Revelry – Featuring: Feral Eclipse (Saturday Only!)”

Cassie leaned forward in her seat, brow furrowed. “Wait… wait.”
She turned to Gabriel. “You told me this was a music festival.”

Gabriel grinned sheepishly. “It is a festival. With music. And turkey legs!”

Maya stared at the jousting arena forming in the distance. “Tell me we are not about to play a set between a falconry demonstration and a dude named Sir Fartsalot.”

Jonah opened the van door, looked out, and immediately slammed it shut.
“Nope. I saw a wizard. A real one. Not doing this sober.”

---

Backstage… or what passed for it

The “green room” was a canvas tent with hay bales and a single folding chair. A lute player was in the corner tuning strings with the solemnity of a monk preparing for war.

A Ren Faire coordinator in full armor clanked over. “Greetings, noble minstrels! You shall take the main stage anon—just after the Maypole dance and right before the leechcraft demonstration.”

Thane rubbed his temples. “We’re not minstrels. We’re a rock band.”

“Ah,” the knight nodded, “most excellent! Do ye require… amplification?”

Thane stared. “We require electricity.”

---

30 Minutes Later: Chaos Brews Like Mead in a Barrel

Mark had managed to scrounge together enough extension cords to power the sound rig from a nearby joust judge’s Winnebago. The stage itself? A hastily constructed platform of plywood and what might’ve been old ship parts.

Gabriel tuned his bass next to a man dressed as a bard playing a kazoo.

Maya glared at her guitar strap, now tangled with a string of medieval bunting. “I’m going to set something on fire.”

Cassie, now dressed in a borrowed corset she absolutely did not request, muttered, “They asked if I could sing ‘Greensleeves.’ I’m doing ‘Razor Vein Carousel’ or I riot.”

Rico re-strung his guitar while drinking a chalice of something purporting to be “ancient cranberry wine.” He squinted at the crowd of families in flower crowns and chainmail. “This is going to go terribly.”

Jonah, currently arguing with a pirate about stage time, shouted, “WE ARE LITERALLY ON THE POSTER.”

---

High Noon. Feral Eclipse Takes the Stage

The crowd quieted. Jugglers paused mid-throw. A guy on stilts stopped walking and nearly face-planted into the straw.

Then—Gabriel hit the first note. A deep, distorted bass line that shook the mead out of several flagons.

Maya came in like a thunderstorm. Rico followed with a solo that cleaved the air like an axe.

Cassie growled the first lyric with such intensity a flock of doves behind the Maypole fled.

The Ren Faire attendees were stunned. Half of them had no idea what was happening. The other half were rocking the hell out.

A group of teens in chainmail started moshing with a guy dressed as a druid.

Someone screamed, “IS THIS THE NEW LUTEWAVE?”

One enthusiastic bard threw his recorder into the air and started headbanging.

A knight yelled, “M’LADY, I HAVE SEEN THE GODS, AND THEY SHRED.”

---

Aftermath – The Stocks

The band was politely asked to leave after Jonah shattered a wooden ale barrel during a particularly aggressive drum solo.

Thane, still trying to roll up power cables, muttered, “I don’t even know what happened. Did I just mix sound for a goblin pit fight?”

Gabriel, now wearing a flower crown and dual-wielding turkey legs, beamed. “We made like forty new fans. I signed a baby.”

Cassie: “I sang about blood in front of a blacksmith. Who clapped.”

Maya: “I crowd-surfed on a wooden cart full of carrots.”

Mark, deadpan: “Never again.”