My new book, Wahoo, was originally a gory monster mash about Thomas Jefferson-descended Lovecraftian fish monsters and the main character fighting them over a long night with help from a homeless cultist who knows the ritual to stop them.
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| You know, things like this. |
It didn't work. So I took out the monsters and made it a slice-of-life college story instead.
When I tell people about my original horror-tastic idea for the book (one I've been turning over in my head since 2012), with its themes of race relations, mysterious fires, mayhem & riots in Charlottesville, and analysis on cultural worship of historical figures despite their moral ambiguity, everyone tells me, "Man! That would've been really relevant to our current social issues! You should have written that!"
Yeah...Thanks.
(Again: I wrote Wahoo and sent it in to my publisher MONTHS before Charlottesville was in the headlines for terrible reasons.)
Anyhoo, just for fun, here's the original opening chapter, which culminates in the monster outbreak.
The final published version is pretty similar, just with the ominous occult touches deleted, plus the police (rather than the monsters) attack the crowd at the end. Take from that what you may. (If you've already read it, I highlighted in bold the different/new parts.)
Also, this is the pre-formatted, pre-copy-edited version with all errors fixed by Amanda Glass and Jean Cooper left un-fixed. Behold my first-draft sloppiness, ye mighty, and despair!
Wahoo
Prologue: Midsummers
Something was fishy.
Kara winced at the smell of the drink she’d been handed by some random guy.
This frat didn’t have a reputation for roofies, but there was definitely some alcohol in this allegedly non-alcoholic fruit punch.
And she had no interest in that.
She left her red Solo cup on a crooked, cracked end table next to a tattered couch in the main entryway area and looked around.
Jam-packed rooms and hallways with bodies in motion, bouncing up and down and around and grinding against each other. And women were twerking. Kara didn’t know that was still a thing. They seemed to be having a competition to see who could have the shortest skirt. They all seemed more beautiful and skinnier and better-dressed than her.
The lights were flashing in a hypnotic blur, strobing erratically in the adjacent ballroom. The hallway was blacklit, giving everyone’s face an unnerving aquatic blue hue with sparkling white teeth in their big dumb smiles.
Decorations were wall-to-wall. In addition to the rainbow of scattered balloons and streamers, seasonal lights hung from the ceiling in every room. And some joker had hung up those singing fish toys at intervals up and down the main hallway, each one singing a different classic rock tune. “Born on the Bayou,” “That Smell,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” etc.
The fish songs were barely audible under the assault from the house stereo system. The music was numbingly loud, a dubstep-flavored dance remix of an eighties pop song, the one about everybody wanting to rule the world.
Sensory overload.
Kara’d never thought of herself as an introvert, but nothing made her want to be alone more than the atmosphere at this Midsummers party.
Her previous experience with parties had been limited to getting together with a few friends and yakking over ice cream and maybe watching a movie. Sometimes they would blow out candles on a cake if they were feeling really wild.
She felt like a fool for even coming out for this event. Her parents had warned her against frat parties. She didn’t drink. She didn’t party. How did she even let Christie talk her into this?
Come out to the party, she said. It’ll be fun, she said.
Ugh.
And where was Christie, anyway?
She scanned the crowd of strangers. Whole lot of folks taking selfies and posting them, if they weren’t dancing. Kara was trying to go social media-free for her Charlottesville visit. But it wasn’t like she was having an amazing time that she wanted to share publicly, anyway.
After looking in every direction, Kara realized that the guy who’d handed her the drink was still next to her, and it looked like he was talking in her direction. She couldn’t hear a word this guy was saying and if he was the type who would hand her a spiked beverage, she wasn’t interested in listening close enough to hear.
So she leaned in close to him. He stopped talking, taken aback by her sudden close proximity. He looked like he was expecting a kiss.
And she said, “No.”
That summed it up nicely. Not interested in anything he had to say in response, she walked down the psychedelic party hallway and made her way outside.
Before she left, she noticed an odd photo of Jefferson above the main fireplace. She’d seen the Founding Father prominently featured in statues and artwork all around grounds (grounds, not campus, she’d learned). But something about this photo weirded her out. His features looked a bit too sharp, his eyes somewhat predatory. His teeth looked wrong.
Not to mention the “7” and “Z” on the wall on either side of the painting. They were crudely smeared on the wall with dark red paint. She remembered Christie telling her that those symbols had a local meaning - it was hard to remember because Christie blasted a firehouse of information her way during orientation - but something about it really creeped her out.
There were bowls full of a variety of snack foods on the table there. Sea salt-covered pretzels, Goldfish, crab chips. She felt faint and hungry, but estimated that a handful of any of those would be a hundred calories. Not worth it. She’s already eaten her full daily allotment of fifteen-hundred calories and there was no reason to go over her limit when it was so late and there was no way she’d be able to work that off.
Plus, they were public serving bowls and probably crawling with a million strands of bacteria.
She pushed past a couple of folks who were dancing like no one was watching and made her way out the front door. She always sneered at anyone who danced in public because she could never bring herself to loosen up and do so herself.
What if someone filmed you? Everyone has a device in their pocket that they can use to capture you and stick you on the Internet forever. If you make a fool of yourself, that foolishness will follow you for the rest of your life and echo into the eternities.
When she finally made it out of that claustrophobic, overwhelming pinball machine of a house, she found that it wasn’t much quieter outside.
An ocean of partiers greeted her, filling up the enormous Mad Bowl and the streets on either side of it. The police had given up on crowd control. The people ruled the streets on this Midsummer. Trying to make public drunkenness arrests would be a truly Sisyphean task.
Christie had told her this crowd was unprecendented. Nothing like it since the glory days of the Easters celebrations, which ended in 1982 when The Man decided they weren’t good for the community. Kara couldn’t imagine why that would be.
People, people, everywhere, yet not a brain to think.
It looked like one huge organism at work, every human a semi-functioning cell in a giant giddy blob.
Even in the middle of this endless crowd, she felt painfully alone. Her RA-turned-friend, Christie, left her in the middle of a frat party, probably to pursue a hookup. And everyone in her UVA student summer orientation group had already gone home earlier that day. Bill, Bri, and...everyone else. She’d talked to a whole lot of people, but everyone except for Bill and Bri morphed into a faceless blur. Casualty of meeting five hundred people all at once.
She was stuck in town thanks to her brother ending up in the hospital and her parents not being able to get away and pick her up earlier that afternoon.
And this just happened to strand her in Charlottesville on the biggest party night of the year - Midsummers.
Kara’d never heard of this event before orientation, but apparently it was a huge deal where students from the past and present all descended onto grounds and had a huge blowout. Christie explained that it wasn’t really a themed event like Mardi Gras, more just a celebration of friendship and a reunion of classmates. Classes ended in early May and started in late August, so this mid-July event was a great excuse for everyone to leave their summer jobs or internships or unemployment at their parents’ place back home to come down and have a huge party with each other. Alumni from a few years back often came down to partake, but there was a common-courtesy cutoff of three years post-graduation. Any older than that and they risked Matthew-McConoughay-in-Dazed-and-Confused Syndrome.
And here Kara was, stuck in the middle of it.
Yay.
Woo.
She doubted she’d be returning to town for this event next year.
She had the key Christie gave her for her apartment off Main Street where she could crash for the night. It was just a bit far to walk - especially on such a chaotic night - so Kara made her way down to University Avenue. Which was a ridiculous road. Two blocks east, it became Ivy Road. Two blocks west, it became Main Street. And then it dead-ended at the Downtown Mall, where Christie told her it used to carve a path right between the storefronts there. Strange road naming, strange road layout.
And then as she made her way into the crowd of thousands, she ran into someone familiar, walking up the front steps with his head down, on his way up to the Sigma Phi frat.
“Bill?”
Bill looked up, startled. But then he smiled. “Kara! Great to see you again! What are you still doing here?”
“Oh, my idiot brother fell out of a tree. My parents are stuck with him at the hospital, so I’m crashing with a friend for the night.”
“Oh, cool. Cool.”
“I thought you were going home, too. I remember you saying something about not wanting to go out again after what happened last night?”
“Yeah, yeah. Totally. This is...well…”
Kara laughed at his fumbling.
“I was peer pressured!” shouted Bill. “I can’t be blamed for my actions!”
“Sure, sure,” she said.
“Hey, I haven’t had anything to drink, at least. I’m thinking I might visit Phi Delt. I hear they’re dry. And they have the better rep.”
“And before we ran into each other, you were walking into Sigma Phi because…?”
He did that adorable thing where he looked to the side, half-smiled, and shrugged. Kara just shook her head. “Don’t cut your fun short on my behalf.”
“I won’t! I just...I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“How does a dry house party on a night like this, anyway? It’s like Mardi Gras times a hundred out here.”
“Yeah, I’m actually curious to find out.”
“You’ve lived here all your life and you’ve never come out for this?”
“Never had the guts. Always wondered what I was missing, though.”
“Alright, do what you gotta do. I’m not your mom. Goodnight, Bill.”
“Uh...okay. Goodnight, Kara.”
Kara squeezed her way through the crowd in the common area between the three frats facing each other and made it out to the sidewalk. There was a bit more room out there, but not much.
She didn’t look back at Bill. She liked the guy, he was nice enough, but she already had an “are-we-or-aren’t-we?” boyfriend back home and didn’t want to get involved with a guy who was just looking to get lost in the chaos of college life. She had more than enough drama in her own mind and life.
So she moved right along through the madding crowd. The relentless debauchery on all sides of her was completely alien. She’d heard that the UVA school mascot was the Wahoo, a fish renowned for drinking twice its own weight. She wasn’t sure how that worked. But the student body seemed to embrace it as they guzzled or chugged or nervously sipped their various beverages in various colored bottles and cups of all shapes and sizes.
At the same time, she didn’t want to ignorantly dismiss everyone. They were having fun. This was what they wanted to do. They were celebrating their independence and this was a special night to them. One of her favorite writers, Oscar Wilde, once said something to the effect of, “Don’t make fun of society - it makes you sound jealous that they won’t let you in.”
She saw one of her fellow Wahoos puke all over a bush in front of the Fralin Museum as that thought floated through her mind.
Not gonna judge, not gonna judge....
The smell was pretty rank, though.
Seeing the lovely pillars and sculptures displayed in front of the university’s prestigious art museum in the background with a vomit-decorated bush in the foreground was...profound.
She was was vigilant about her weight - compulsively counting calories - but she figured all she had to do was retain this mental image whenever an unhealthy appetite struck her. That’d kill any craving that tried to sink its hooks in her tummy.
She’d heard about the “freshman fifteen,” the curse that only seemed to strike females in the college population. Apparently it was the norm to pack on an extra fifteen pounds during your first year of college. Though UVA should really call it the “first-year fifteen,” since that was the preferred nomenclature. Stress-eating, excessive drinking, lack of structure, too much structure, too many cafeteria buffet meals, too much fast food, too much pizza, too many light night meals with friends. Whatever caused it, it seemed pretty universal. Even to calorie-counters like her.
But with help from the gentleman who just unloaded his stomach contents before her very eyes...she was confident she could keep those fifteen pounds from attaching themselves to her!
She wondered if the Fine Arts Library was open at this time of night. She learned on her tour that it was right behind the museum here. The poor souls who worked there must spend most of their time shooing away the hearty-partiers. Kara wanted to work there, or at any of the University libraries. She’s had a lot of fun visiting them over the past two days.
She saw that University Avenue was open to traffic and not choked with people like Rugby Road. Relief filled her because she needed to get a ride to Christie’s apartment. No way she was walking there. Not through the sea of red Solo cups, crushed and uncrushed cans, soda cans (mostly PBR), broken and unbroken bottles (mostly Stella Artois), and empty tumblers and champagne glasses.
She stepped off the sidewalk to avoid getting run over by the conveyer belt of people flowing in both directions - to and from trouble - and unlocked her phone, using her ridiculously complicated security code.
She tapped the Uber app, then second-guessed. She’d had too many negative experiences there. The last guy who picked her up tried to force her to sit in the front seat. She reached for the rear door handle and found it locked. The guy waved her to the front, but she walked to the other side of the car and tried that rear door. Also locked. She came around to the passenger front door and opened it. “Back doors don’t work, sorry! Have a seat!” he patted the seat next to her. She smiled, got in, climbed over the passenger seat, and got in the back. He looked disappointed. And wouldn’t you know it, the back doors were locked. All Kara had to do to make them work was unlock them. Kara didn’t respond to a single word of the creep’s attempts at conversation for the duration of the trip. She rated him one star.
There was also the guy who tried to make a stop at a coffee shop and invited her to come in with him and hang out for a bit.
That one-two punch was enough nope for her.
She closed the Uber app.
She looked at her home screen and remembered she also had the Lyft app. Or she could wait and take the free trolley down Main Street. She’d heard there was a public transit bus, too. Was that free to prospective students? Too many choices, like always.
She hadn’t thought much about her sorta-boyfriend since she arrived in Charlottesville, but she acutely missed him at that moment. If she was back home, she could call him and he’d come get her in his parents’ car. She’d thought about asking him to come pick her up here, but a four-hour round-trip was a bit much to request from someone who didn’t even want to admit was in a relationship with her on social media.
She never told him about the Uber creeps. She kept unsettling experiences like that to herself. That probably didn’t say great things about their interpersonal comfort level.
But he was nice. He could hold a conversation without compulsively checking his phone. And - as far as she knew - he never vomited on bushes in front of art museums. So he had his merits.
She finally decided to keep it simple and just catch the free trolley that cycled between the Downtown Mall and the University. It was green and gold and liked like an old-timey streetcar that should be attached to cables. And best of all - it was free. It had a stop right in front of the World of Beer on Main Street, which would only leave her a block or so to walk to get to Christie’s. Solid plan.
She swam through the sea of partiers, frazzled by the cacophony of dance and pop songs coming out of the various frat houses and party stations with grills set up all through the jam-packed Mad Bowl. The smell of salmon and fish sizzled on the grills. No steak or burgers or dogs.
That was neat. Kara liked seafood. About two-hundred calories per serving of fish.
Kara liked a lot of what she’d seen during orientation.
She’d probably never be interested in the party scene here - even on a normal non-Midsummers eve - but there was a lot to love.
She’d enjoyed the libraries, the lore, the architecture, the cleanliness, and the people. Biggest highlight: getting a whirlwind tour from Christie on the lesser-known sights and facts that weren’t on the corporate tour had stayed with her.
She hadn’t ventured outside the bubble of the University, but she looked forward to exploring the historical sights around town in the surrounding counties. She’d always wanted to see Monticello and Montpelier and she heard there were some great nature trails through the mountains. A far cry from the pancake-flat Northern Virginia suburb where she’d been born and raised.
It was all fresh and different and ready for her to put her mark on it. She could finally get some control of her life here and make her own decisions.
She was happy with her decision to attend UVA, regardless of that evening’s events.
In other good news, no more pukers interrupted her way and no one bothered her as she made her way University Avenue and neared the trolley stop.
The nearby Rotunda was glowing, with a row of lights behind the giant pillars and a pair of spotlights at the base of the white stairs leading up to it. The historic building was so bright and vivid, it looked like a CGI effect.
And then a sound emerged from the distance.
It was faint at first, then grew louder and louder.
People paused their revels. The party music stopped. Everyone stood still and silent. The only sound was from a few bottles shattering as people dropped them.
Violins.
The sound of violins, coming from somewhere off in the east.
And as the air grew eerily still - fear and confusion on every frozen face around her - she was pretty sure she heard steady chanting underneath the music.
Kara wondered if this was part of Midsummers.
Did everyone pause in the middle of celebrating on the first night? There were so many traditions and rituals at work here, she was having trouble keeping up.
But she was pretty sure this wasn’t normal.
As the mournful violins continued, she recognized the tune.
Her parents had found it on YouTube and played it for her after she got accepted to UVA.
It was the “Cavalier Fight Song.”
And it sounded really disturbing when slowed down and transmitted through violins.
It grew louder and louder and she was able to better pinpoint its source. It was coming from on high.
From Monticello?
Then she heard another noise, this one much closer.
The free trolley.
It was still moving, even as everyone else stood still.
It came barreling down McCormick Road, and then hopped the curb and plowed through stupefied pedestrians and the poor folks who were waiting at the bus stop. It kept going and then skewed right, ramping up the grass there and slamming into the University chapel that had stood there unmolested for over a century. Smoke rose from the impact but there was no movement coming from the trolley. Anyone in there was dead or trapped. Mercifully, the chapel had been empty.
Kara expected this chaos to wake everyone up, or at least run to the scene of the accident and help. But no dice. Her entranced fellow Wahoos slowly turned to face the mountain with Monticello on top. Glassy-eyed and blank-faced, they began to chant along with the slow, mournful dirge rendition of the “Cavalier Fight Song” that was thick in the air. The violins were drowned out by their chant.
And then the doors of the imposing Rotunda opened up. A group of finely dressed older ladies and gentleman slowly walked out. They stood in a row across the top of the steps and smiled down at the ocean of hypnotized hummers.
And then their faces began to shift.
Kara had been on a prescription acne medication for the past year and she’d heard that the side effects would include hallucinations and even psychosis. But those seemed like distant possibilities, and a small risk to take for a clear complexion. Every drug commercial had a mile-long list of possible side effects, so she just didn’t take the possibility seriously.
But now, she was hoping that all of this was just an unpleasant side effect. She wasn’t in the middle of a chanting crowd. That trolley crash hadn’t just happened. And those people in suits and evening gowns up by the Rotunda were not mutating.
Mutating into...fish?
Their heads were flattening, their hair sloughing off as their skin shifted and grew more silver and scaly. The irises of their wide eyes expanded and their mouths opened to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth on the top and bottom. These weren’t fish. They looked like the piranha Kara saw once at the Baltimore Aquarium.
And they promptly descended on the people that were standing or sitting on the Rotunda stairs. Biting and devouring. Blood poured down the Rotunda steps.
One of the things crawled up the side of the structure using freshly-transformed webbed hands.
It raised its head and triumphantly hissed, blowing a cloud of mist out of its inhuman mouth.
The people nearest her raised their arms and approached her. Their dead, impersonal eyes indicated no hunger or anger or violence.
They just wanted to capture her.
To hold me so those things can eat me?
She backed away, out into the street.
She looked around to see if anyone else was free from the spell of the song that crowd was still chanting.
She saw nothing that could help. Though in the distance, a few people were moving, weaving their way through the crowd. And their faces were bubbling and shifting, as well. One of them she could just barely make out, it looked like a goldfish head planted on a human body.
She kept closing her eyes and opening them again, hoping it would all go away. Telling herself this was just a hallucination. Just an elaborate freakout thanks to a bad batch of acne medication. Then - Kara had a thought that she was sure no woman had ever had before:
Maybe I shouldn’t have left that frat party.
-Phony McFakename
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