Current location:	The Flat, Southampton, UK
Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Apocalyptica- Worlds Collide

Apocalyptica Fic: What Could Go Wrong? Part 10: Epilogue (Relief)

Eicca was jounced awake with the coach’s wheels bumping over a slip of the curb as it rolled into a gas station. The sun was well up; the morning well under way. The Driver was just cruising to a standstill by the diesel stand for larger rigs that couldn’t safely fit under the station’s roofed area. The coach came to a standstill, and the motor was cut. There was a rattle of keys and the Driver emerged from the cab. He cast a quick eye over the men sprawled around the interior in various attitudes of tiredness, nodded to Eicca when he caught his eye, then exited the coach to fill her up.

 

Eicca looked about, and found Paavo’s face searching his with a question. Paavo looked dead tired, still. He’d fallen back on one of the couches, Antero against him, his head on his shoulder, still asleep. The fair-haired one looked considerably less pale than before, ad his face appeared smoother, more relaxed. On the other couch, Mikko’s arm was still lying across Perttu’s shoulders, and Perttu had unconsciously snuggled up against the drummer’s side, hiding his face in a fall of long dark hair. His rather huddled position suggested a need for closeness and comfort. Clearly, the youngster was still pretty rattled. Mikko, on the other hand, was snoring gently, head resting back on the back of the couch, relaxed and away with the sleepy goblins.

Eicca returned his gaze to Paavo.

“Where’re w’?” Paavo slurred, his body trying to tug him back to rest.

“Gas stop. Go to sleep, we’re not there yet.” Eicca gave his friend a reassuring smile and squeezed his shoulder. Paavo nodded, eyes already closing, his head lolling towards Antero’s.

Eicca’s mouth twitched into a swift smile. If the others knew how cute they looked right now…. Oy, oy, what a potential for blackmail-able photography! But then his sunny expression clouded over once more. No, cute as it was, it was also proof of fear, exhaustion and near-death. And who’d want to be reminded- however jokingly- of that? Instead he arose from the chair he’d crashed out in and stretched hugely, cricking his neck and back and yawning expansively as a lion. Shaking some warmth and life back into his limbs, he went forward first, a small, vague idea demanding to be heard having got itself some time on trial.

What about this Driver, eh?

The small idea had a good point. Eicca made his way forward to the cab and slid inside, dropping into the driving seat. First of all he checked in the rear-view mirrors. The Driver was a way down the side of the coach; pump in hand, his back to the cab. Eicca started to look about, turning up magazines, a few empty water bottles, a few packets of sweeties, maps, some caffeine tablets; nothing out of the way for a long-distance driver. He wrinkled his nose over the Driver’s choice of CDs, but it was when he flipped down the sunshade, for want of a better idea than that is what always produced the goods in American films, that the Driver’s license and papers fluttered from the restraining strap behind the screen and into his lap.

 

Puzzled, Eicca flicked through the insurance and details- nothing extraordinary, there. But then, in replacing them with a sigh of frustration that perhaps he was just getting a damn sight too paranoid and seeing drooling beasties everywhere when they were all safely back in the woods, Eicca’s eye landed on the photo license. And on the name, the full name of the Driver.

Funny, they’d always just called him ‘Driver’. He’d introduced himself as “your Driver” and the titular nick-name had stuck.

They had never even bothered to find out his real name.

 

Eicca stormed from the coach and strode down its flank to where the Driver stood, calmly waiting for the tank to have had its fill. Eicca grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around, to slam (rather harder than he intended) against the side of the rig. The pump was lodged in the tank opening, and consequently did not jump out and make a terrific inflammable mess.

The Driver gaped at Eicca, who stood before him, sleep-starved, hollow-eyed and shaking with barely repressed fury. His feverish imagination had had ample time during the short distance to the Driver to come up with an incredible, but, in his tired and overwrought state, entirely plausible, explanation.

 

“Like to explain yourself?”

“Uh, Eicca, you Ok?”

“Your name!”

“Er…. yes?”

“What is it?”

“You have my license, there. It’s on that.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“Peter. My name is Peter.”

“All of it!”

The Driver- Peter- noted signs of rapidly disintegrating sanity in Eicca’s eyes, and held out his hand.

“Alright, Ok,” he said, calmly and gently. “Can I have my license, please?”

“Your name!” Eicca was all but shaking with repressed excitement.

The Driver sighed. “Peter Hellsig.”

Full name?”

Another sigh. “Peter Gabriel Hellsig.”

“Hellsig... Hell-sig… Hell-sing, isn’t it? A family devoted to the destroying of monsters, is it?”

The Drover regarded Eicca with sympathy. Just then, the pump beeped.

“Excuse me, the pump-” he removed it and closed the cap. Eicca watched him with hot, angry eyes. The Driver regarded him a moment, then took his shoulder.

“C’mere.” He lead him to the other side of the coach- the sunny side that flanked the long highway, stretching into picturesque bleakness to either side and, opposite them, in the distance a range of fuzzy-outlined mountains rising above a dark stain of deep forest.

“You have had one hell of a night- enough to make anyone start to take some very strange fancies into their heads. This land- it is beautiful, but it has a habit of making even sensible ones a bit… loopy. In fact, it is often the most sensible that do so.” The Driver turned to face Eicca, now looking deflated as the Driver’s very sensible words started to puncture his balloon of righteous indignation.

“You need sleep; you’re shocked. Come tomorrow, it’ll all seem just a bad dream. Trust me on this. Don’t let the ravings of some mad Irishman disturb you. Pure coincidence is all it is.”

 

Eicca had been in the process of hanging his head, and might have let the subject drop, had not the Driver brought up that last comment.

“Coincidence?” Eicca murmured, head up again, confusion in his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s all,” The Driver affirmed.

“Coincidence?!” Eicca spluttered, face reddening, and the Driver took a step back.

“Hold on, there, Eicca!”

“Just happening to have a tour Driver with a very suspect name could be coincidence!” Eicca was hissing now, really quite angry. “Just taking a stroll in the woods and being captured by what turn out to be freakin’ werewolves could be coincidence!” His eye widened as a thought struck him.” Perttu only started wanting to go sight-seeing after you suggested it!” he stabbed a finger at the Driver, red rage misting his vision. “We were nearly killed! And your lot are meant to do this for a living!”

“It’s just a name, Eicca!” The Driver’s voice was intense, low, his face a boiling white.

“Just a name, my arse! I’ve read the book! I’ve seen the films! Van Helsing is a bloody demon hunter- just like you!”

The Driver gave a bark of unamused laughter. “You’re saying you got given a driver who just happens to be a scion of a fictional family bent on ridding the world of monstrous abominations?”

“.. A Driver that just happens to be fully armed?!” Eicca couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might be shouting by now. He couldn’t hear much over the roaring blood in his ears.

The Driver shrugged tense shoulders, eyes riveted to Eicca’s shaking, agitated form. “It can be a dangerous country.”

“Silver bullets?!” Eicca spat, and then a truly horrific idea walloped him between the eyes. “We were bait!” he whispered, all the blood drained from his face.

Suddenly the Driver was behind him, grabbing his wrists and twisting it behind his back, and then Eicca found himself slammed (gently) face-first into the side of the coach, the Driver leaning in to his ear.

“Shhhh! You’ll wake the others- and half the local town!” the Driver muttered, then took a step back and eased the painful pressure, although he did not release Eicca’s arm, Eicca could stand back from the coach and stare at the Driver, an accusatory red mark spreading over the cheek that had been coach-slapped.

The Driver leaned closer and spoke with a grave intensity. “Yes, it is coincidence, Eicca. I could tell you a thousand times a day till the end of time and you still would not believe me, I know. You’re a good man, and you did brilliantly by your own- your friends are safe, thanks to your skill, and I salute that.” The Driver gave a sigh, his face suddenly sad. “Falling in with that lot of woodsmen was a coincidence. I swear on my great-grandfather’s grave that it was. You were certainly not bait.” He spat the word distastefully, as if such tactics were so far beneath him that they did not even feature in his lowest imaginings. He took a deep breath. “Maybe the armoury... and the nae ate not so… coincidental, but that is all I am prepared to say!” he leaned in very close and eyeballed Eicca, who balked and looked away first.

 

The Driver released his arm and shrugged. “I’m just a driver, man, and at the moment I’m your driver. I swore I’d get you safe A to B to C on this tour, and I pretty much have. Let’s get on to the last gig, hey?” Eicca goggled at him. “Go get some rest- you’ve got more fiddling to come!” the Driver grinned and sauntered away to the small shop to pay for the fuel.

Left in the early morning sun, Eicca felt suddenly very small and very tired.

Suddenly he didn’t care about supernatural secrets or not; he just wanted his bed. And he’d all but forgotten that it was, indeed, their last gig in this country. Soon they’d be home- far away for inexplicable mystery and violent insanity.

 

There was one thing, however… he waited until the Driver returned, enjoying the fresh air a while longer.

“Why the jelly sweets? I mean, why did they stop for a load of sugar?”

The Driver squinted at him in the light, and then gave a conspiratorial shake of his head and a wry grin.

“Old wives’ tale in this land tell of how, to stop a vampire, you just have to throw rice or, even better, salt grains, behind you. They have to stop and pick up every last one before they continue.”

Eicca thought about this. “Vampires are OCD?”

“Supposedly. Apparently so are lycanthropes- or some, anyway. I’d hate to make a generalisation.”

Eicca gave a bittersweet half-smile. “Naturally, wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

The Driver gave him a very old look. “Nah- I just wouldn’t want to rely on it if I had to do some den-clearing and discover it was only a few packs thus afflicted. All aboard!” he added with a return to the cheerful pleasantry he had almost convinced Eicca with before, and swung onto the coach.

Eicca stared after him, then shook his head, threw his hands up in a gesture of exasperation and climbed the stairs to the dark interior, where he made straight for his bunk and crawled in, fully clothed, pulling the covers over his head.

 

By the time they made the final town by late afternoon, the band awoke feeling surprisingly refreshed, if very hungry. They freshened up and trooped out for a meal, then inspected the venue. It was a well-appointed place with all the technical detailing they could wish for. Their technical lorry had arrived some time before them, and had been busy setting up the familiar logo, raised blocks and chairs, Mikko’s kit crowning the stage mid centre. By the time the band walked in, it looked as familiar as every stage they had made their own during their touring career, and their cellos were already waiting, still safely in their cases, for tuning and sound check.

Without a word being spoken, they had all agreed not to mention now- if ever- the events of the previous night. It felt a million miles away from the modern humanity of the bustling town and the bright venue, and none of them wanted to particularly dwell upon it. If Antero paused a moment before taking up his cello, touching it as if remembering the touch of another instrument, or is Mikko cast a wary glance at the local roadies, or Perttu was  a little quieter than usual, Eicca pretended not to notice. Paavo, however, was eyeing Eicca closely.

“Are you alright?” he asked solicitously as, tuned and warmed up, they made their way stage-side for a sound check.

Eicca gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, really. You?”

Paavo looked relived. “OK, I suppose. Might have a few interesting dreams for a while.”

“Yeah, but what a soundtrack for them, eh?” Eicca grinned, and Paavo joined him in the smile. For just a moment in time, a short while, they had been playing some of the rarest and most beautiful cellos ever made, and for that privilege, Paavo, while he’d rather not have to pay with his life, was extremely grateful, and would always treasure.

With such manly solidarity the two friends shrugged away the shadows. Behind his dark glasses, Antero seemed more himself, even favouring the odd mishap and comedy moment during the sound check with a smile. Mikko was having no problems keeping the beat, but Perttu…. He remained quiet and distant. He played well, he agreed to all the usual stage business suggested and discussed, but there were no daft ideas, no playful comments. He watched with lowering eyes, and said little, hearing much. Eicca’s heart ached for him. It would take longer for him to overcome whatever place he had seen- whatever spirit he had touched in the course of their ordeal, and the music he played for it.

 

The concert itself went very well. The audience would never have known that the band was recently escaped from life-threatening danger, or that they were still pretty tired. Red Bull is a wonderful invention.

But while there was energy, humour and passion all over the stage, still Eicca felt that it was still very much by rote for the dark-haired youth to his right. Perttu joined him for head banging, he played solos with a flourish, and he even managed a few wild faces during the heavier numbers. But still, his friends could tell his heart was elsewhere.

And then it broke open.

It was the last but one-but-one number; Farewell; Perttu’s baby. They had agreed that, being his own number, Perttu should introduce this one, and so when he came front and centre and took the mike from Eicca with a calm air, no one was the wiser.

He placed the mike before his mouth and opened it to speak. The crowd, with them and swelling with love for their favourite band, were possibly the best place for Perttu to be, so why, then did he dry up like a first year suddenly picked to play he major solo at the finalist’s concert at the Academy?

“I…” he trailed off, his eyes glazing. Worried, Paavo threw a glance at Eicca. Antero leaned forward from his habitual seat, as if willing Perttu the energy to continue. Perttu’s chest heaved a little, as if short of breath.

“I… this number…” again he tailed off.

“Leaves him speechless!” yelled Mikko from the rear, to relieved titters from the crowd. Perttu, however, was frowning.

“This song… I heard- in the moon. On a dark, dark night.” He said, and the room fell utterly silent. Eicca bit his lip, Antero winced and Paavo looked as if he was all but ready to step in and start the bass line of Farewell if Perttu couldn’t cope; at least in music the younger man had been supported an they’d at least finish the concert, but no, because Perttu had laid bow to instrument, and right there, central stage, a spotlight finding him and picking him out silvery in the darkness of the cavernous hall, he poured out his soul.

 

The band recognised it immediately. But this time they felt no compunction to join in; the spell was not so strong. While in a free form that changed subtly to the needs of a soloist, as well as the fact that it started softly this time and without that awful sonic crunch he’d employed to bring everything to a crashing halt last time, still the band recognised its soul.
It was the song, as Perttu said, of the moon- the song in a wolf’s heart and on his lips when he pours out his devotion to the lunar lady.
“Oh, Perttu…” Antero whispered.

 

They did not join him; they could not. This had to be, and it had to be just him. In excising the last of the melodic madness from his system, Perttu was purging the poison of fear from his soul, and they could not touch the agony and ecstasy that came pouring from his fingers and strings.

The crowd was entranced. With open mouths and wide eyes they swallowed every note, swayed to every crescendo, and when it came, at last, at longing, lovely, amazingly last, to its final diminuendo and his head dropped momentarily over his instrument, there was a silence in which a roomful of tears could almost be heard to fall, heedlessly, and drop to the floor.

And then they erupted in joyous adoration, yelling and screaming and clapping and generally showing that, while they did not understand why he’d done it, they were bl*ody glad he had.

 

In the midst of the maelstrom Paavo and Antero appeared at either side of Perttu, chaffing his back, smiling broadly, proud of their friend. He lifted his head and gave them a watery smile. Antero swiftly used the tail of his jacket to wipe the tears from Perttu’s cheeks and then gently shoved him forward.

“Take your bow!” he told him. And Perttu did- following old habits ingrained in him since infancy, when his road to mastering the cello began.

 

Eicca watched, relief clear in his face. Even Mikko vaulted his drums to wrap Perttu in a massive bear hug, much to the crowd’s delight, and the yelling and screaming carried on for some time.

But in the middle of the crowd, not shouting, not moving, even, Eicca spied three shapes. One huge, two smaller. Ion’s face glared back at him, although he than transferred the focus of his glowering amazement to Perttu. Daciana and Aedd, however, fixed Eicca with a laser-like intensity. Eicca stared back, his lower jaw working in defiance, and then he lifted his chin and stared down at them, imperious as a king in the middle of his court, sure of his power.

A faint smile flickered on Aedd’s mouth and he gave Eicca a small salute- fingertips flicking from his brow; from one alpha to another: respect. From the corner of Eicca’s eye he saw a glint in the lighting frame to one side of the stage, and glancing there, he saw the Driver, crossbow raised and loaded, sighting down towards Aedd. Eicca caught his eye and shook his head slightly. The Driver held his eye a moment, then lowered the crossbow, his sight returning to keep the three interlopers under strict surveillance.

Seeing this exchange, Aedd’s eyes flickered back to Eicca and he quirked one eyebrow, admitting Eicca’s supremacy in this environment. Then very carefully he raised his hand- and produced a large bag of jelly sweets. He gave Eicca a wry grin and made an expansive gesture with his hand.

You win here. But next time, next time you trespass into our lands…

Then Aedd had turned, jerking Ion with him, Daciana pausing a moment. She gave Eicca a lewd wink and blew a kiss. Then she also turned and joined the other two by a side exit. Eicca just about saw Aedd carefully place the sweetie bag on a flat surface and pat it as if abjuring it to stay put and cause no more grief. Then they were gone out of the fire exit.

 

It was an exchange of but moments and when Eicca glanced back, the Driver had gone. The crowd was still roaring its approval, and on such a high he decided to skip Farewell and move straight into the first of the two rip-roaring enders. Shouting to the others, he started sawing his cello as an exhortation to attend, and soon Paavo was with him, Antero- remaining stood up front, and Perttu, who had his old cheeky grin back. He shared a look with Eicca and stuck his tongue out. Eicca laughed as Mikko, having made it back to his skins, thumped out the beat and they were off again- bigger, better than before. Worlds might collide, indeed, but it didn’t have to mean the end of everything- just a new chapter.

 

By the time they were done and showered and outside once more, signing autographs and flirting gently with the fans, the tour coach was long gone; their personal effects neatly packed and stacked in the gear lorry. They never saw the Driver again. They would be spending the night here and then taking a taxi to the airport for home. Home… they sat that night around a table in a low-ceilinged tavern and chewed over everything that had happened since they had arrived.  No prizes for what was uppermost in their minds. Eicca toyed with his beer, contemplative and brooding. Paavo stared into middle distance, absently chewing his lower lip. Antero had his chin resting on his stacked fists, watching the rising bubbles in his glass. Mikko and Perttu were playing poker for jelly beans.

“Well, here’s to one tour that’ll probably never be topped,” Paavo broke the silence, presenting and ironic toast.

Antero smirked and chinked glasses with him. Eicca ceased to brood and raised his eyebrows, and also his glass. The other two swung their soft drinks into the general area of the salute.

“So, have you boys found enough room to breathe? Gone back to basics? Got a few new ideas, maybe?” Antero rolled a dry eye towards Eicca, who pouted blankly.

Perttu’s magpie memory, however, had seized on these titbits of conversation and he was giggling already. Paavo joined him, and then Mikko and finally Eicca caught up.

“I hear central Europe is quite nice this time of year,” Antero continued wistfully. The others gawped at him. He grinned and shrugged. “After all, what could possibly go wrong?”

He was answered with howls and a shower of flying sweets and peanuts.