AITJ: Corey Shields

AUTHOR: Garrison Kelly

ORIGINAL POSTER: Corey Shields

STORY: The Benoit Blues (formerly known as Darkness Reigns)

BOOK: American Darkness

I’m a 45yo male and I’ve been teaching music in the Paulson City school district for close to twenty years. I’ve seen just about everything there is to see during that time. But a recent string of budget cuts has plagued our school and it’s affecting not only the teachers who already have limited resources, but the students as well. I wanted to take my students to Washington DC for a symphonic concert field trip, but the lack of funding for our schools kept that from happening.

Even more infuriating is our Principal, a 55yo female, not doing everything she can to fight for us when she wields the most power in these budget committee hearings. I’ve even heard rumors that she was funneling some of that money for herself while the rest of us are left holding the bag. I have no way of proving these rumors, but they sound true on paper.

So in a last ditch effort to urge Principal Scotch into action, I had special instructions for my students at this year’s spring concert. They were worried about it at first, but I assured them that everything would be okay. And sure enough, they carried out those instructions at the concert beautifully.

The first and only song that my student band played that night was “Whatever” by Our Lady Peace, which was used as the theme song for former WWE wrestler Chris Benoit. The parents in the audience probably never watched an episode of WWE television a day in their lives, but they know who Chris Benoit is because he was all over the news for killing his wife and son before committing suicide.

Naturally, the parents and faculty were shocked that I would choose this particular song for my student band to play. And then I took the microphone and gave the ultimate punchline: “What? You think that’s offensive? Try withholding funds from our school.” The message was loud and clear for everyone to hear, especially Principal Scotch, who fired me on the spot for my protest anthem. 

Did the school end up getting more funding? Were the teachers actually being paid a living wage? Hell if I know. It probably didn’t help matters that the next day, my phone blew up with angry text messages and emails from the parents of my students along with other teachers and faculty members. While my intentions were good, the outcome was most likely a dud and now the school is probably suffering because of it.

AITJ for using a murderer’s theme music to protest the lack of school funding or does Principal Scotch get all of the blame for this one? I certainly feel like TJ knowing that the protest blew up in my face. I would feel like an even bigger jerk if I knew my students were being punished for what was ultimately my plan.

Demon Axe, Chapter 7

Despite the pounding that the Demon Axe tour van took, it did an adequate job of getting Daniel and Raven from point A to point B. The breeze blowing through the shattered windows felt good against their wrapped up wounds. The feeling of having their hair blown backwards was relaxing to where Daniel almost fell asleep at the wheel.

He couldn’t complete drift into dreamland just yet because he knew where his ultimate destination was. The thought of returning to that outdoor arena formed a knot in his stomach the size of a medicine ball. His blood ran cold like a frigid river of anxiety and depression. His skin tingled like a thousand needles impaling him. He tried the old trick of breathing deeply, but not even a hurricane force breath was enough to calm his frosty nerves.

Raven could see the terror on Daniel’s face and ruffled his hair in a small attempt to bring him back down to earth. The affectionate gesture soothed him, but only minimally as the van was getting closer and closer to the outdoor arena. When a highway sign said that it was at the next exit, that was when Daniel slammed on the brakes and pulled over on the side of the road, his breathing intensified once more.

“I can’t do this. I can’t go back there, Raven. I’ll go fucking crazy,” said Daniel through a shaky voice.

“I know this is hard for you, but you need to trust me on this one. Within the holy grounds is a portal to the elven world. You’re going to see some things that you hoped you’d never see again, but I’m here for you. I wouldn’t bring you back here if I didn’t think it was important for you to see my king. He can help you. And you can help him. Whether you know it or not, the world needs your help, Daniel,” said Raven with a soothing tone.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and said, “What the fuck do I have to offer to the world? I can’t just sing my way through all of this. Music can only do so much. It was never meant to do much against a blade-swinging maniac!”

Raven placed her tender arm around Daniel’s shoulders and said, “You can do this. It’s either this or a lifetime full of pain and misery. I like your chances better when you actually put forth the effort to healing yourself. Or you can sit around in your home while bills pill up, debt collectors scream at you, and your house eventually gets taken away. You can either be traumatized at the arena, or you can be traumatized on the streets. I hate being this rough with you, but that’s the reality of it.”

After Raven removed her arm, Daniel stared out the shattered windshield with his eyes half closed and his mind numbed out. It would be another half minute before he started the van again and bolted down the highway towards the exit ramp. He felt like a human popsicle with the chilled feeling in his blood intensifying. But when he finally pulled into the parking lot, his facial expression changed from a vegetative zombie to a warrior ready to march into battle. He turned to Raven and sternly warned her, “You’d better be right about this portal. I’m not fucking around with you.”

Both passengers got out of the van and began walking around the arena with the chilly morning air blowing gently against them. All of this walking was the first real form of exercise that Daniel got ever since the incident took place. Being mobile and active actually felt good on his Novocain mind. It was common knowledge that exercise was essential to a healthy life, but feeling this sudden burst of endorphins relaxed Daniel a little bit. It also helped that Raven held his hand the entire time. They had just met and would probably never be a romantic couple in a million years, but this was a stark contrast to the “coward” labeling from back at the house.

Daniel and Raven were so busy getting their exercise in that the former failed to notice a small stump that tripped him without knocking him over. “Sorry, Vulture Man, didn’t see you there.” The Lord of the Pit realized the gravity of what he absentmindedly said. His eyes widened, his lips quivered, his body trembled, and his intestines felt like he got hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. He didn’t want to turn his head, but when he slowly did so, that was when the realization hit him like a thunderous right hand. The bureaucratic geniuses who scoped this place forgot one measly little detail: the heads and spinal columns of Daniel’s former band mates, which were covered in grass, though still visible to the naked eye.

“Daniel, please don’t cry. Please hold it together. It’ll be okay,” begged Raven with her hands together prayer-style.

After a few tears trickled down the Lord of the Pit’s shaking face, he let out a blood-curdling scream like he had just walked into a horror movie. The pathetic nature of his screaming fit caused Raven to slowly back away from him while holding her hands in a defensive, pseudo-calming gesture.

The traumatic rage sent Daniel running like a wild man into the woods where he began scraping at a nearby tree with his fingernails. He climbed up the sturdy oak like a wild animal, slipping and sliding a few times, but ultimately achieving his destination at the highest branch. He curled into a ball and rocked back and forth while muttering nonsense to himself and shedding an avalanche of tears. His head felt like he just got kicked by an angry horse with steel shoes. If he could, he would stay up in this safe place for the rest of his life. What good was he as a hero if he was constantly fleeing like this?

With more grace and athleticism than her male counterpart, Raven scaled the tree and took a seat next to Daniel while wrapping her arm around him and fluffing his hair yet again. “It’s okay, Daniel. It’s okay. You’re going to be just fine. I need you to trust me. I know of something that will help you put your mind at ease. I should have done this earlier, but I see that you need it now more than ever. You can even do this yourself if you’re ever feeling helpless.”

“Get lost, you crazy bitch! What can you possibly do to help me now?! Look at me, I’m a train wreck!” shouted Daniel. Raven placed one hand on each of his shoulders and tapped them rhythmically one at a time. “Wait a minute, what are you doing?” Daniel asked. The elf warrior continued this strange form of therapy while the Lord of the Pit’s tears started to dry up and his sitting position became more relaxed. He had no idea what his new friend was doing or why it was working, but as long as he found his temporary peace, he wouldn’t complain.

“Deep breath in…and out,” said Raven, to which Daniel complied. “If you had agreed to go to a trauma therapist, he would do this exact same thing for you, but with an electrical device or a light board. It’s called EMDR, or Eye Movement Distortion Reprocessing. I know this because I had to start doing it for my people when they experienced the trauma of having their homes invaded. While you don’t necessarily have to use your eyes to do it, it’s supposed to use both halves of your brain to deal with a traumatic memory, hence the patting of both sides of your shoulders. Psychologists swear by this treatment. And I can see it’s beginning to work for you.”

Raven continued to apply this therapeutic technique and Daniel’s breathing became deeper and more stable. She added positive messages to this unique treatment when she said, “The deaths of your band mates and the audience members are not your fault, Daniel. You didn’t swing the blade. You didn’t hold hateful beliefs in your heart. You didn’t spread terrorism of any kind. You were there to play music. The dark fantasy tropes of Demon Axe are more than just a gimmick. They’re a creative force that is just as important as the heavy metal music itself. Creativity is what will set you free in the end, not mindless conformity. You knew that when you formed Demon Axe and it’s still true to this day.”

The therapy had ended, but the recovery was just beginning for Daniel Mercer. As he looked down at his lap, he contemplated having to use this same technique in the future for the journey that lied ahead. Everything that Raven told him just then was true. Creativity killed conformity. Dark magic is not sinful. And goddamn it, the Lord of the Pit was far from finished.

He looked at Raven with dewy eyes and a renewed sense of purpose. “I’m ready. Let’s go,” he said. The two of them slowly descended the treetops and continued their walking exercise for the day. Daniel walked by the severed heads and spinal columns of his former friends and merely waved at them before saying, “I’m doing this for you guys. Your deaths will not be in vain.”

Raven patted her friend on the back and squeezed his shoulders as they trekked along the blood-bathed arena. She along with Daniel held the lives of everybody who came to the concert in their hands. They were determined to bring peace to this world and to the fallen ones if it meant using every last breath of fresh air and every last shred of strength to do it. And right at that moment, Daniel felt stronger than Greek titan.

Demon Axe, Chapter 4

After so many days of reliving nightmare after nightmare, a blank gray dream was soothing to Daniel Mercer’s brain. This was the one part of his day-to-day life where being spacey and numb was perfectly acceptable. No racing thoughts, no bloody traumas, no rapid heartbeats, just a slow, drowsy screen of gray and a relaxed body and mind. Daniel was so out of it that the mere act of lifting a body part was more taxing than trying to lift the heaviest stone. He didn’t give two shits about the piles of bills sitting on his coffee table or the general messiness of his house. The garbage-smelling laundry and filth-encrusted dishes could wait just one more night of Novocain bliss.

He could have stayed in bed all night and sank into his mattress like quicksand if it wasn’t for this painful and heavy sensation in his bladder. He opened his eyes halfway and slurred his words when he said, “Goddamn it.” The minute he left his hazy cloudland, the numbed out feeling returned to his brain. Wearing little more than a T-shirt and athletic shorts, Daniel eased his way out of bed and bumped into every wall, corner, and piece of furniture on his way to the bathroom, only giving a minimal, “Ow!” every time.

Releasing his waterfall of urine into the toilet was the only thing more pleasurable than having a dreamless sleep. With the halogen lights burning his eyeballs and forcing them open, Daniel leaned his head backwards as the last of his fluids emptied into the foamy toilet. He didn’t even bother flushing or washing his hands. He stumbled right to the sink and splashed cold water in his face, as if that would actually ease the never-ending ache in his mind.

Looking into the mirror and seeing an elf woman standing behind him sent a jolt throughout Daniel’s body and caused him to scream as he turned around. His breathing was heavy and raspy, like a shot of adrenaline had just pierced his heart Pulp Fiction-style. “This better be a fucking dream,” Daniel struggled to say. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you Dungeons & Dragons motherfuckers ever again!”

Compared to the elf terrorist at the concert, this woman was a breath of fresh air, though still an elf and still worthy of xenophobia, in Daniel’s mind. Her long black hair, pale green skin, and plump cherry lips gave her the appearance of a sex goddess. Her studded leather armor fit around her like a one-piece bathing suit. Her furry brown boots kept the longest knife tucked away in the most obvious spot, keeping away anybody thinking of screwing with her.

Her arms were folded against her chest and her quarter-smile accented her sarcasm as she shook her head at the pathetic-looking Daniel Mercer. “You share the stage with people from all walks of life and you still have enough hatred in your heart to disparage an entire race of people. That’s okay, though. I understand people of your world aren’t quite used to seeing my race just yet. Up until Roger Zee invaded your concert, we’ve done a fairly good job of keeping quiet among the masses.”

Daniel wheezed and laughed as he held the edges of the sink to keep from falling over. “His name is Roger Zee? Wow. Holy shit! If he wasn’t so good with a machete, nobody would be afraid of this fucking clown. It’s like my man George Carlin once said: there would have never been a World War II if Hitler’s first name was Floyd. They would have beaten the shit out of him in Munich in 1931.”

“Mockery aside, that’s exactly what I came here talk to you about: Roger Zee. I didn’t want to knock on your door, because my race is still trying to keep quiet about its existence. But I hear the whispers. I see the television screens. The racism and xenophobia of your pundits is astounding,” said the elf woman.

“Welcome to America, babe,” said Daniel in a disturbingly nonchalant way. “I don’t like the bigotry either, but it doesn’t really matter what I think anymore. I’m just one guy. I used to have three other guys with me, but they’re all fucking dead and my vote didn’t matter anyways because the system sucks. I’m forty years old and I can safely say that after what happened at the concert, nothing shocks me anymore.”

The elf woman placed her soft hands on Daniel’s shoulders and said in a low voice, “I can see you’ve gone through a lot over the past few days. We all have. But instead of coming together and living as one, all I see from your people is hatred and division. They don’t know what to do about Roger and his rampage. But I do. I know exactly what it takes to bring him down. But I can’t do it without your help.”

Daniel gave the elf woman a raised eyebrow of confusion before pushing her hands off of his shoulders. “You know the dark fantasy shit is just a gimmick, right? We didn’t actually do any weird ass rituals backstage during a Demon Axe show. It’s a motivational tactic. I’m not a warrior by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been in a few barroom brawls, but nothing beyond that. Fighting a bunch of drunken losers isn’t going to prepare me for a madman with a goddamn machete. Sorry, lady, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

The former Lord of the Pit tried to walk away, but felt his hand being tugged on by the elf warrior’s silky grip. This would have been lovely to him if he wasn’t trying to get a good night’s sleep and forget all of this “happy horseshit”. The elf said, “If you don’t want to fight alongside me, then at least agree to get out of this place for your own safety. Roger isn’t done with you. You played what he calls ‘sinful music’ on holy grounds. As a zealot, he’s not going to forgive you that easily.”

Daniel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, “You know what, lady? If this Roger Ball Z guy wants to slash me open, I’m not entirely against it. I’ve been having traumatic nightmares left and right and getting my head cut off might be the best thing for me right now. I’m done with life. If I can’t play badass fucking music with my friends, then I don’t want to live anymore. Fuck it, I’m done.”

The rock star jerked his hand away from the woman’s grip and trudged slowly on his way back to his bedroom. “So that’s it, huh?” the elf said. “You’re just going to let Roger win that easily?” Daniel stopped and listened. “I thought your race didn’t negotiate with terrorists. I thought you were all about truth, justice, and the American way. I thought you people shot off pyrotechnics every year to celebrate your patriotism. Are you telling me that you’re all out of firepower?”

Daniel shot the elf woman an insidious glare before marching back to her with fists clenched and feet pounding. “You know what?” he shouted while pointing his index finger at her. “You’re absolutely right! You’re one hundred percent on the dot! I should be like those assholes out there who like to play army and form my own fucking militia! I should go to a gun show and buy every bazooka, every AK-47, every Sherman Tank that they’ve got and blast that motherfucking elf right out of the ground! And then I’ll stand on top of his corpse with an American flag in one hand and a greasy ass cheeseburger in the other! And then we’ll all gather in a circle and chant ‘USA! USA! USA! USA!’.”

The moment of rage turned so awkwardly quiet that the heavy breathing between Daniel and the elf could be heard from a mile away. The former Lord of the Pit continued his tirade with, “That shit may be acceptable in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, but in the real world, this shit hurts so badly that we feel it forever. The good guys sometimes lose. The police are not always on your side. The politicians don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves. As long as this country is occupied by selfish ignorant people, nobody can do a goddamn thing about Roger fucking Zee!”

The elf woman’s expression changed from brave cheerleading to vulgar disgust. She shook her head and said, “You’re right. Demon Axe is just a gimmick. You’re no different from any other musician who sings about being tough and mighty in the face of danger. What was I thinking coming here? That battleaxe microphone you used is nothing more than a toy. I’m sorry your band mates were led to believe that the whole gimmick was just a lie. It was a little white lie that cost them their lives. And now you don’t want to put in any work to avenge their souls. Good day to you, Lord of the Pit!”

She stomped her way to the front door when Daniel stopped her by shouting, “Who in the hell do you think you are talking to me like that?! You don’t know me! You’re just a fan girl who probably downloaded my band’s albums for free! Hell, you’re worse than that! You’re a groupie!” The elf woman stopped at that insult and turned around to stare daggers into her assailant. “That’s right! You’re a groupie who rides every dick to the top of the mountain! Oh, did I touch a nerve? Is that not who you are? Well, then answer my fucking question, you crazy bitch! Who in the hell do you think you are?!”

The woman marched up to Daniel and slapped him across the face with a shot so stiff that it knocked him on his back. The rock star clutched his stinging, burning cheek with both calloused hands while the elf pointed at him and said in a menacing voice, “I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Raven Triscloud. I am the daughter of King Arthur Triscloud and the only reason my people will know any kind of salvation. If you won’t help me take down a nationalistic zealot like Roger Zee, then I’ll be more than happy to take him on myself. I just thought maybe you’d like some closure. But instead, all you want is sweet, sweet death. If I didn’t have any fucking principles, I’d kill you myself. But for now, I have a terrorist to catch. Enjoy your sleep, you cowardly human!”