Last Rites: The End of Days
Chapter One: The Beginning of the End
Christian Coma lay on his back in his bunk of the Black Veil Brides tour bus, bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. It was the middle of the summer, and they were on the Vans Warped Tour once again. He was excited to see all the fans at the mainstage show and the Alternative Press signings. CC was flipping through his phone, going between funny videos on YouTube and funny memes on Google. He would find one every now and then and show it to Andy, whose bunk was just across from him.
They were almost at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre when the bus hit something in the road. The driver slammed on brakes, and CC was jolted from one side of his bunk to the other, his phone falling to the floor of the bus as he grabbed hold of the side of the bunk to keep from falling out of it. "What the hell?!" CC heard Jake exclaim from the lounge area at the front of the bus.
Andy climbed out of his bunk and handed CC his phone before heading up to the front to see what it was the driver had hit. CC lay there another few minutes before getting up himself. He followed Andy's route to the front of the bus, astonished to find the engine smoking. Whatever they had hit had been pretty big. He saw Andy and the guys standing outside the bus with the driver. They were looking at something on the ground. Jon, their tour manager, was on the phone, probably calling Kevin Lyman to let him know what had happened.
CC crept around to the front of the bus, curiosity getting the better of him. By the time he saw what it was they'd hit, he wished he hadn't bothered. There was so much blood all over the hood and the road, and he gagged and had to turn away when he saw that it was a person they'd hit.
The area was swarmed with ambulances and police vehicles after Jon got off the phone with Kevin. The guys had been giving statements to the police ever since the cops arrived on the scene. CC wanted nothing more than to go back in time and keep it from happening. Something was very wrong with this scenario. This person had just crossed in front of them, though, with the way the driver told it, it was almost like the person had been watching for something like their bus to cross his path.
Andy spotted CC standing off by himself, away from the commotion, just kind of trying his best to ignore what was going on. He walked over to CC and put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?" Andy asked.
"Yeah. Just a little shaken up. I can't believe this is happening," CC stated.
Andy nodded. He glanced back at the cops milling around the scene and then turned back to CC. He pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, taking a few minutes to take a long drag off of it before speaking. "Yeah. It's pretty crazy. I'd think something like this would be more likely to happen in a place like New York or Los Angeles. Not here."
"Did you hear the way that the driver was talking about it? He said it seemed like the guy just ran out in front of him. Like he wanted to get hit. Like he was possessed or something," CC stated.
"Come on. The guy might've walked out, not paying attention. It happens all the time. But there's no way he was possessed. That's just crazy."
CC wasn't so sure, but he didn't say anything more on the subject. Instead, he changed it. "So when do you think we'll be able to get to the show?" he asked.
"No idea. The cops wanted us to give our statements, which we've done. I guess now they're just waiting until the scene is cleared up so that we can get a tow truck in here to get the bus out of here. I think Kevin may send someone out to get us and our equipment and maybe put us on a temporary bus until ours is fixed. I think Jon said that was what was going to happen .But there's no telling when they'd actually let a bus through to get us." Andy took another drag off his cigarette and shielded his eyes from the sun as he glanced back at the scene.
"Have you called Juliet yet?" CC asked.
"Yeah. I talked to her a few minutes ago. She said to be careful. Apparently there have been multiple reports of things like this happening all over the country in the last few days."
"And that doesn't sound like anything is off to you?" CC asked.
"I mean, people could just be going crazy from the heat. It's been unusually hot lately. Or they could be high on bath salts or some shit like that. It's happened before."
"Yeah, but before the people high on bath salts were trying to eat each other. You don't think that could be what's happening again?"
"I don't know, CC. I just want to get back on track and get to the show." Andy stubbed out his cigarette and walked back over to Jon to see what was going on with their transportation.
A few hours later, they were back on the road. Something about this was bothering CC. He'd gotten back on his phone as soon as they got on the temp bus, but, instead of looking up funny videos and memes, he started looking at the news reports over the last few days. Juliet had been right. Something was definitely going on. There were reports of people walking out in front of vehicles all over the United States, as well as reports of people going crazy out of the blue and killing each other in the streets all over the world. There was some guy in Japan who had stabbed his coworker repeatedly with a pencil until the guy died. With a pencil! There were more and more talks of the end of the world occurring and of people disappearing left and right from different parts of the world. What was going on?
