This is the very beginning of my new novel Requiem Descent, book five in my Skye Wright Rise and Fall series. Skye’s band, The Dynamite Chicks, is enjoying widespread alt-underground success, to the point where they are threatening to break out into the mainstream. But Skye’s rock and roll life catch up to her, as those around her start to fall apart, threatening to derail her as well.

In the meantime, Skye creeps around a corner, expecting an attack…

    Fwap!

     Gripping the baseball bat, she knew she was near, waiting for her.
     She brought up the bat, ready to swing as she carefully looked around the corner.
     But she was not quick enough.
     Fwap!
     “Ow! You fucker!” winced Skye as she grabbed her head.
     Molly brought back the frying pan. “What? It’s made out of rubber!”
     “Cut cut cut!” said Lanker as he waved his hands around.
     “Can we still use it?” asked Miranda, coming up behind Skye with her rubber crowbar.
     “Mmmm… gonna have to look at it first. Maybe we can use it as a kinda Three Stooges kinda thing.”
     Roach came out from behind a wall with a large rubber mallet. “Dammit. I’m never gonna bonk Molly with this thing if we keep cutting these scenes short.”
     They were outside an abandoned warehouse in West Berkeley shooting a video for the newest Dynamite Chicks song Rock Head. Their filmmaker friend, Amen Lanker, had arrived early with a graffiti artist so they could paint some of the exterior walls with bright colors. Colors Lanker referred to as “Wacky.”
     “Where’s Annie?” asked Lanker as he swiveled his head around.
     “I think she’s by the van, playing with the bomb,” said Miranda.
     Amen told the young punks who had been holding up reflectors and boom mics to take a break while he set up the next shot. He went to his van and retrieved a box made out of construction paper.
     “We ever gonna use a different filmmaker for one of our music videos?” asked Roach as she sided up next to Skye, impatiently waving around her rubber mallet.
     “Every video he’s made for us has been a hit. Let’s not fix something that’s not broken.”
     Skye brushed back her long hair as she watched the tall and skinny Lanker busy himself with lights, cameras, and props. Amen was a fixture in the local punk scene, always videotaping and recording local punk shows at just about every small music venue. He was a walking encyclopedia of Bay Area rock and roll bands, and knew virtually every musician in the Bay Area. He was also what one would refer to as a “plainclothes punk.” His short yet disheveled brown-reddish hair was never colored, and he always wore plain t-shirts. Skye had never seen him wear a band shirt.
     Amen had directed their first music video, the one for their song Atomic Bomb Betty. It had gone viral on YouTube and broke them out as the newest alt-underground sensation. Even though they were not mainstream popular, at least not yet, every punk, heavy metal headbanger, music nerd, and college radio DJ had heard of them.
     As a result, Atomic Bomb Betty was their now signature hit, a song they were obliged to play at every show.
     Roach lifted the large rubber mallet up over her head.
     “Hey!” blurted Skye. “What the fuck?”
     “I wanna bonk someone with this thing!”
     “I already got hit by Molly’s frying pan. Step off you dork!”
     Skye looked around the set as her bandmates whiled away the waiting time. Skye always thought her drummer Roach and her lead guitarist Annie were a perfect pair of friends. They were both skinny with large plumes of hair that stuck out in all directions. Annie’s frazzled dyed black hair and Roach’s curly mane of light brown hair contrasted perfectly, looking like negatives of each other.
     Annie and Roach were also the only members of the band who still drank and occasionally did drugs. Skye, her singer Molly Mix, and the statuesque Miranda, were all clean and sober, regularly attending twelve step meetings together.
     Molly and Miranda were the most recognizable members of the band. Molly was the only member of the band with short hair, which she kept dyed black and spiked. Her reputation as the singer of her former and now defunct band Bus Stop Hookers was helping to propel their local celebrity. Her marriage to Gail Burp, a rising alt-music star, helped put their band over the top, increasing their exposure and their sales.
     Miranda was, by far, the most striking member of the band. Six feet tall and built like a fifties pin-up, she was absolutely covered with scars and tattoos. As if that were not enough, her long mane of wavy black hair went down to her waist, making her look like a villain that Conan the Barbarian might have to fight.
     “We should write a song,” said Skye, “called You look like a metal band!”
     “We do look like a metal band,” said Molly.
     “Molly is the dyke Rob Halford,” said Annie.
     “Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!”
     “Hey, no metal music during a punk shoot!” shouted Roach.
     “You know you’re going to lose,” sang Miranda, “an’ gamblin’s for fools, but that’s the way I like it baby I don’t want to live forever!”
     Skye saw Amen shooing along his helpers as he called for everyone to take places for the next scene.
     After what seemed like a long time of fiddling with cameras, lights, and reflectors by Amen and his young minions, he directed Skye to stand on a ladder behind one of the painted walls, holding the square paper box Amen had put together to represent a cartoon anvil. Starting the shoot, Annie came around the corner, walking along the wall, carrying an oversized plastic prop gun.
     Annie kept walking and looking around while bugging out her eyes, carefully moving her mane of heavily hairsprayed hair that Amen himself had styled so that one would always be able to see Annie’s face. Annie tried to keep her best cartoon-like expression as she walked right under Skye.
     Skye maintained her best evil-villain expression as she dropped the paper box on top of Annie’s head. It bounced off of her tangled black hair.
     “Cut!” exasperated Lanker. “Annie…”
     “I barely felt it!” protested Annie.
     “It’s supposed to be an anvil!”
     “Okay, I’ll try and do better.” Annie picked up the paper box. “How the fuck is this gonna look like an anvil?”
     “CGI,” said Lanker as he adjusted his camera. “It’ll look totes Roger Rabbit.”
     Skye leaned over the wall and looked down at Annie. “Can’t we do something to make it heavier? It’s like, way too light.”
     Amen nodded. “Sure. We can tape like, I dunno, a buncha guitar pics to it.”
     “Guitar pics?” asked Annie as she handed the box to Amen.
     “I don’t want this thing to get so heavy it actually hurts you.”
     “Rubber fryin’ pan!” bellowed Skye.
     “Quit whining you big baby!” shouted Molly.
     Skye chatted with Annie as Amen worked on the box, taping pics and other small plastic objects inside of it to make it heavier.
     Skye got back on the ladder, holding up the paper box as Annie crept around the corner again. Skye became confused when Annie stopped in place, just as she was rounding the the corner, becoming completely still, and dropped the prop gun.
     That’s when she heard the screeching tires.
     Two police cars roared up to the curb and several police officers jumped out of the cars, crouching behind their car doors with their guns drawn.
     Skye dropped the box and held up her hands as Amen held up his camera. “Video shoot! Video shoot!” he shouted. “We’re making a music video!”
     Skye’s heart froze as her skin turned ice cold. She braced herself for gunfire as Amen kept waving his camera around.
     The cops slowly walked out with their guns still drawn. “Where is it?”
     “It’s a prop gun!” said Amen, still holding up his camera.
     “Put it down!” snapped a rotund officer as he pointed his gun at Amen.
     “But this is just a camera!”
     “Amen, put the fucking camera down!” shouted Skye, raising her hands higher.
     Amen slowly put the camera down as the officers kept their guns trained on him.
     Skye strained to keep her hands up, with her flat and empty palms out.
     She could feel her heart beating in her temples as she braced herself for gunfire.
     It felt as if her heart had stopped beating when she wondered if she was going to get shot.
     The cops kept their guns out for a long time as Skye and everyone else except Amen kept their hands held as high as possible.
     Once the cops had grabbed their props and lowered their guns, everyone slowly lowered their hands as Amen kept chattering at the police officers.
     “What the fuck is this for?” growled a tall and slim cop as he cradled Roach’s large rubber mallet in his hands.
     “It’s a prop hammer,” explained Skye cautiously.
     “What are you doing with it?” asked the cop as if he were interrogating a dangerous criminal.
     “Making a music video.”
     “What does a rubber mallet have to do with making a music video?”
     “We’re tryin’ to do a cartoon-like video. Y’know, like the old Warner Brothers cartoons where they hit each other with frying pans and rolling pins.”
     The cop stared intently at the rubber mallet. Skye strained to stay silent as more than half a dozen smart comments came to mind. She thought about how, in the old days, she would sass off to police officers whenever they hassled her and her friends.
     She wondered why she was keeping her cool this time, why she was not giving them the kind of shade that she used to back in her runaway days.
     While Amen kept frantically chattering at the officers, Tandasil suddenly showed up with a woman wearing a pantsuit and carrying a briefcase. The pantsuit walked up and talked to one of the officers.
     Skye felt her body breathe a sigh of relief as the pantsuit chatted with one officer while another officer kept meticulously going over the comically oversized prop gun.
     “Cops are fuckin’ stupid,” whispered Annie through her gritted teeth. “That gun is just solid rubber. How long is it gonna take him to figure that out?”
     “I wanna know how Tandasil got down here so fast with that suit,” whispered Skye.
     “I texted her.”
     “What?”
     “Zapped her a quick text. Five-oh fucking with us on our shoot.”
     A short and stout police officer with a neatly trimmed mustache walked up to Skye. “Hey, it’s the rock star!”
     Skye recognized him. He was one of the police officers who had come by her storage unit apartment because some fans had climbed over the fence to try and find her, an incident that had taken place last year.
     “How ya doin’?” said Skye as casually as possible.
     Trimmed mustache turned to his fellow officers. “Hey guys! I know her. She’s a rock star!”
     A tall and slim cop with a sallow face walked up. “Rock star?” she asked. “Who you play for?”
     “The Dynamite Chicks,” said Skye.
     The sallow faced officer glanced at the mustache. “Dynamite Chicks? I’ve never heard of you. How can you be a rock star?”
     “Well, we play a pretty specific genre of hard rock music.”
     “My kids know who she is,” said the mustache.
     “They do?” asked sallow face.
     “They showed me their video on YouTube. They were playing at that dive down on Gilman.”
     “Dive?” said Annie through her teeth.
     “It’s a dive,” said Skye as she gave Annie a look.
     After what seemed like far too much time, most of the police officers finally left. The only remaining cop was someone who looked like a supervisor who talked at length with Tandasil and the pantsuit.
     Skye walked up to Amen. “Whattaya say? Should we keep filming?”
     “Fuck. The sun’s gone way down. If it weren’t for the pigs we coulda gotten a bunch more shots in. We’ll have to pick it up again tomorrow.”
     Skye glanced at her phone. “Can we make it between one and three? Is that enough time?”
     Amen shrugged. “I guess it’ll have to be.”
     Skye let out a long sigh as she looked around the whole scene. She did not relish having to ask her bandmates if they could wrench around their schedules for another shoot so soon.
     “Whatup boss?” asked Molly as she walked up to Skye with her rubber frying pan.
     “Amen says it’s getting too dark to keep shooting.”
     “Can’t we just break into Gilman and do some shots in there?”
     Skye rolled her eyes around for a moment. “You wanna?”
     “We’re here. We got alla these silly props and we have all night. Why not?”
     Skye walked up to Amen. “Molly thinks we should break into Gilman and just keep shooting in there.”
     Amen perked up. “Sure. We can do that.”