Living in a second-hand jacket
Taught to read by a coke-head abbot
I roam unfree, born in debris
Bow down to the subway maggot
Rich was feeling it, so we all felt it. All it takes is one guy to get into the groove for the rest of us to follow suit. My legs were already burning, the ‘Subway Maggot’ chorus is by far the most intense part for the drummer. That’s why we’d written in a short break during the solo. As Rich gave way for Cam, I got out of my seat and clapped along with the audience. I felt like a conductor, holding my drumsticks up while Cam was shredding.
That’s the first time I saw him; the man in the raincoat. In the far back. He was easily 6’5 . I had no idea how he wasn’t sweating to death in that outfit. It was so warm up front that some of the security guards were spraying people with water bottles; basement gigs always have shit ventilation. But there he was, in the far back, completely unfazed.
I didn’t get a good look at him at first, but he was hard to miss in a pulsating sea of leather jackets, denim, and chains. He wasn’t moving, just swaying back and forth with the flow of the crowd. Black locks of hear hanging from the side of his face.
Weird.
We finished an encore of ‘Waltz of the Apostate’ and called it a night. Great gig. Lynne was manning the merch booth with Cam while Rich and I crashed backstage. I picked out a couple of beers from the cooler while Cam checked our socials on our laptop. I was halfway through my second brew when I looked up at Rich. He was watching images from the crowd.
“You saw the guy in the back?” I asked. “Raincoat guy?”
“Yeah, what was up with that?” Rich frowned. “Man’s gotta be sweating buckets.”
“You think he was label? Could be label.”
“Could be, yeah” nodded Rich. “Doubt it, but yeah.”
I handed him a beer and got a good look of a crowd image on the laptop. Raincoat man stood out like a sore thumb. Hadn’t it been for those big eyes, he would’ve just looked like a shadow.
Damn big eyes.
Before going on tour we usually have a month of doing local gigs, just to see what works live and what doesn’t. Getting comfortable with the new equipment, that sort of stuff. That first gig was at the basement of the Mary Digs’, but the next night we were playing a bigger stage at Fausto’s.
I got there pretty early. Fausto’s actually has a decent menu, so I got myself a lasagna and a coke. I was expecting a small crowd, maybe 20 people (mostly regulars), but as more and more people started pouring in we ended up with more than 40. About an hour before we went on stage, the place was packed. Lynne was almost foaming at the mouth as she set up the merch.
We got ready, we put our game faces on, and stepped out to the pre-recorded intro notes of ‘Concrete Baby’. The sound guy had some trouble adjusting the main mic volume, so we got a nasty feedback loop straight off the bat. Not gonna lie, it just kinda added to our look. Most of the crowd thought it was part of the show. Kinda punk.
When we got to ‘Subway Maggot’, I once again stood up during Cam’s solo. The lights were high and dim, and the view of the crowd pulsed with the beat of the song. It was to be a short show, but our supporters showed up in full gear anyway. Gotta love ‘em.
But once again, in the back, I saw the man with the raincoat. Among all these people, jumping up and down, there he was. Those big white eyes gleaming in the spotlights, ceaseless and unblinking. I just stared at him, almost losing track of time. I lost my rhythm, causing an awkward break in the song. Rich just played it off, and it turned out pretty well in the end. Still, can’t say I didn’t lose my cool. I think the guys noticed.
We tried to finish on ‘Coca Cola Cannibal’ this time, but it was clear that we should stick to ‘Waltz of the Apostate’. Got a better clear-cut ending. I made a mental note of it.
I stayed a few seconds extra and just watched the man in the raincoat. He just stood there, far in the back, watching us. No applause, no cheers, nothing. Just those big white eyes.
As we stepped off stage, Rich and Cam both came up to me. We agreed on putting ‘Waltz of the Apostate’ back as the finisher, but all in all we were pretty happy. Still, there was something unsaid hanging in the air. Rich gave me a look.
“Raincoat man was in the back again” he said. “Creepy motherfucker.”
“If we’re gonna have stalkers,” Cam sighed, “the least they can do is get some fucking merch.”
“Has he talked to you? Any of you? You seen him up close?”
Cam leaned out of the door and peeked into the venue.
“Fucker’s gone,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Hard to miss.”
We played our Sunday gig at Rowland’s the next night. It was a bit outside of town, but we still drew a bit of a crowd. Again, the guy in the raincoat showed up. Just after the show ended, Cam tried to push his way through the crowd to talk to him. Before he could get there, I saw the raincoat man slip out through a side door; pushing his way past a guard.
Apparently, no one had seen him come in. It was like he just… popped up. There was no paid entrance, so he could just have walked in, but no one had seen where he came from. One moment, he was just sort of… there. We joked about him being our mascot, but deep down, I was unsettled. I wouldn’t want to meet those big white eyes, alone, in an alleyway. That unblinking, ceaseless stare.
Fuck no.
We rehearsed most nights of the week, but Cam and I both had day jobs to deal with. It’d always been a point of contention with Rich, who thought it was holding us back. To him, it was this one thing holding us from greatness. He wanted us to burn bridges, to commit fully, and to just be non-stop 24/7 heavy metal. Cam and I argued that without our jobs we wouldn’t even have any equipment. Unless we were going all-in on acapella, we needed gear.
When Friday night came back around, we were ready. We went back to the basement at Mary Digs’ and opened for an out-of-state black metal band. Twice the crowd, easy. Local paper was there to cover it too. This after-party was gonna be insane.
We were on first. I kept an eye out for the man in the raincoat, trying to see when he showed up. He wasn’t there for the first song. This was a different type of venue, it actually required tickets. If he showed up, someone had to have seen him come in. You don’t forget those weird eyes. Unless he was already in here to begin with, or had some kind of secret entrance.
It wasn’t until we got to ‘Subway Maggot’ that I saw him. As we got to the first chorus and the crowd started to jump, the raincoat man was this immovable object in the back. His eyes almost shone.
Living in a second-hand jacket
Taught to read by a coke-head abbot
I got a good look at him. As a spotlight shone directly at him, I could see something. A strange texture on the raincoat. A weird sheen on his face. Not sweat, but… something.
I roam unfree, born in debris
No mouth, just these two white orbs. Fucker barely even looked human. Was he? Was that even a raincoat?
Bow down to the subway maggot!
This time, I completely dropped the ball. As Cam’s solo ended, I just stood there, lost in thought. I stared at the raincoat man, and I just had this feeling that I was seeing something… wrong. Like he wasn’t what he appeared. Like he wasn’t… real.
The rest of our show went off without a hitch, but Rich was pissed. The raincoat man disappeared just after our show, before the main act even got on stage. Not that it mattered to Rich. As far as he was concerned, there was no main act.
“If you fucked this up, you’re out,” said Rich. “I don’t care if it is fucking Jesus in that crowd, you do your fucking part.”
“It’s that fucking…”
I composed my thoughts. Rich tapped his foot and bit his lip.
“It’s the guy in the coat. I think there’s something wrong with him,” I continued.
“Wrong? What the fuck do you mean, wrong?”
“There’s something off about him!” I sighed. “Like, he’s… there’s… something wrong about him.”
“I don’t care!” yelled Rich. “I don’t fucking care, so get your head in the fucking game!”
He pushed past me and stormed down the hall. Cam followed suit, giving me an apologetic shrug.
I stepped out into the alley to have a smoke. It was some sort of inner yard, surrounded by brick walls, at least 9 feet high. I was alone with six trashcans, but I could still feel the music pump from the main hall. I lit a cigarette and checked my socials. The tobacco masked the trash stench pretty well. Rich could get intense during big shows, so smoking was pretty much a requirement.
But there was a strange sound. A flutter, like someone opening and closing blinds, again and again. A strange clicking noise. A kind of vibration in the air.
I looked up.
Standing on top of the brick wall, just behind me, was the raincoat man. But this time I got a better look at him. The streetlights reflected off his head and shoulders. That wasn’t just a plastic raincoat, that was something thick. Rubber, maybe. And the eyes… the goddamn eyes. They weren’t eyes at all. They were just these… white spots. Like the spots on the back of a ladybug.
As I watched, I could see parts of it moving. Thin twig-like arms twitching back and forth. What I thought was strands of black hair moved like mandibles. And in the blink of an eye, the raincoat just twitched; folding outwards, then back in, like the wings of a black housefly.
He vibrated, making this strange humming noise. Exactly like the hum of our loudspeakers. It just burned into my head.
As I stared at it, I realized it was staring back. Like an animal ready to pounce, it was just waiting for an excuse.
Despite that, I burst into a sprint.
I dropped my phone and my cigarettes as I dove back inside; slamming the door behind me. I could hear something bash against the door, then stop. It stayed out there, skittering, scratching on the door. I could hear the hum again, right outside. I stood there for a few minutes, just trying to listen, but I could barely hear my own thoughts over the blast of the music. I didn’t even notice I was crying until a teardrop hit the back of my hand. I was in complete shock, and when I realized what could’ve happened, I just screamed. No one heard it over the music.
I tried to talk to the guys about it. I tried to bring it up, to explain it, to… make sense of it. But I couldn’t. I tried to convince myself that I was misremembering it, but the image was burned into my mind. The hum of the loudspeakers started to give me shivers. It was like they were calling out to it, asking it to come back and finish the job.
The next day, as we were setting up at an outdoor stage downtown, I thought about cancelling the whole thing. I’d been looking for excuses all day, but Rich needed a win after my screw-up the previous night. Still, if I saw that thing in the audience again, I had no idea what I’d do. That thing was coming for me. It was there for a reason, and something we were doing was causing it to follow us. Maybe it was just the hum of the loudspeakers, I had no idea.
That night, as we were about to go on stage, I had cold sweats. My stomach was protesting, and I was just… a mess. I couldn’t bear the thought of looking out and seeing it. To see it twitch closer and closer. To just go out there, and know it was coming for me, was just… awful. I threw up minutes before we stepped up, and Rich was panicking.
“I’m good,” I lied. “I got this.”
We played a decent set. ‘Shades’, ‘Blackout Summer’ and ‘Coca Cola Cannibal’ went just fine, but when we got to ‘Subway Maggot’ I got nervous. That was always the time I saw him. When I stood up during that solo, I knew I’d see him. He’d be there, far off in the back, just swaying back and forth. I’d see those white spots, tricking those next to him he was one of us. Camouflage. A predator.
When you’ve played a song as many times as we have, you know it by heart. You can wake up hung-over and beaten and still play the damn thing before you even remember your name. That was the only thing keeping me going – the automation. My heart, legs and arms just feeling the beat. But me, mentally? I was out there in the crowd, looking for the raincoat man.
And as the chorus ended, and Cam took the stage, I stood up once again. Conducting the crowd with my drumsticks.
There he was.
I saw him in the far back. Flashing images from the strobe lights. But he wasn’t just standing there this time; he was feeding.
I saw a dozen little twig-like arms holding a young man. His head was held back as it choked him. A thousand little hairs were cutting him, drinking his body from six different angles. Mandibles biting at his head, trying to take a bite out of his scalp. Even from this distance, I saw blood and strips of flesh coming loose. A pair of panicked green eyes met my gaze.
If I’d dropped the ball before, this was ten times worse. I threw my drumsticks aside, pushed Cam out of the way, and took the mic from Rich. I pointed at the very back, screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Put the lights up! It’s killing him, put the fucking lights up!”
The audience gasped. Some screamed. But when the spotlights came on, all that was left was a victim lying in the grass, clutching his wounds. Shrieks of a wounded mammal. And somewhere, far above me, I could hear the hum of a loudspeaker.
The raincoat man was just gone, scattering to the wind like a fucking cockroach.
There was police and an ambulance on-site within minutes. The victim just kept screaming, and people didn’t know what to do. There were bits of hair and skin all over the grass.
People were escorted away, and we were asked a whole bunch of questions. Me in particular. I tried to describe the raincoat man as if I didn’t know what it looked like up close, but it was hard. I wasn’t giving them much to go on, but I couldn’t stand there and say it was an insect. I just couldn’t. Instead I just said I saw blood, and what looked like someone dressed in black. Maybe a knife.
We skipped playing for the rest of the month. Once we went on tour and got away from it all, things would feel better. For a while, I couldn’t even rehearse, as the hum of the loudspeaker would make my heart skip a beat. I’d get panic attacks. I could imagine it listening, just outside. I even stopped listening to music at home, fearing that the vibrations might bring it back.
But I’m getting paranoid. Whenever I see someone resembling that silhouette, or whenever I hear a strange sound overhead, it feels like it is coming for me. Like it stalks me. And I’m not crazy for saying that.
Just last week, Cam told me he got a message from my old number. You know, the one I dropped in the alley. It was simple and short.
play more subway maggot
And that, well… that’s why we no longer play ‘Subway Maggot’.