Chapter 8

Kimmo could see through the clear plastic of his gas mask that the road ahead seemed quite quiet. While he was normally concerned for safety, VERY concerned for safety, this did not seem odd to him. In fact itgratified his need for security. No cars to collide with; no highway pirates to raid him; Jukka too high to raid other vehicles. It was the perfect situation for him to be behind the wheel. He could hear Anette reading posts aloud on the Nightwish forum. One user named Calatin made a particularly nasty sounding post in the “Constructive Criticism” topic that read: “Anette is fat and ugly. She needs to lose a few pounds and get a facelift.” Normally such a post would have sent her into tears. Apparently B.C. Bud is really potent, enough to counter the effect of B.C. Assholes, and rather than sulk for the rest of the day she made funny (ugly) faces at everyone else and stuffed her shirt with pillows, laughing all the while. It was quite a merry ride.

While he was driving he noticed a charming old house and thought it would be a good place for them to stop so they could get over the weed.Even if they were a bit late that would still be better than showing up with the entire band high. Tuomas had already gotten really emotional about going sock-less. Baked as he was just would not do. Kimmo carefully parked the bus and led them out into the house. Kimmo is a very trusting person, and knew he could rely on Finnish hospitality.

As they entered they were greeted by an old lady. She seemed quite pleased to see them. Perhaps she was just happy to have visitors.“Why hello there! You look like an interesting bunch. Tell me what brings you here? ”

This was embarrassing for Kimmo to answer, so he decided to be honest:“Uhh… my friends here just hot boxed their tour bus and they need sometime to recover. Mind if we crash here for a few minutes before heading on?”

“Oh that would be wonderful! ” She did not seem to react at all. Maybe the officer was right. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal after all.

“Well come right this way. I have space for all of you.”

They entered the largest room. There were seven chairs: one for Kimmo, one for each member of the band and one for the old lady. They were all the right size for each member, even Marco who almost always had to get them custom built and professionally reinforced..

“So you must be Nightwish? ” She asked sweetly as she poured a cup of tea.

“Hehehe, yeah that’s us.” Giggled Anette. “You’re a big fan?”

“Oh you could say that. I have been following you for quite some time.You look different from the photos, Tarja.”

This would have been awkward but for the weed. They just figured she had been cut off from the real world, wasting what remains of her life wallowing in fandom.

“Oh, I’m not Tarja. She got fired, didn’t she Tuomas.”

Normally, he was sensitive talking about this issue, but not now:“Yeah. We fired her ass hard. High Five Fellas!”

The old lady seemed intrigued by the self-congratulatory move. Usually the band had pretended to take quite a serious tone discussing the matter.

“Oh really? Tell me about it.”

“Yes, tell us, ” said another very similar voice from behind Marco.

“We are dying to hear it from you, Nightwish, ” said two more behind Captain Jukka.

“Yes. Yeeeeesssssss.” It came from all sides, not as a word, but as a very feline-sounding hiss.


The sweet innocent old ladies had gone. They were now surrounded by several being whom resembled nothing Tuomas had ever imagined, even in his wildest song-fantasies. They looked just like adolescent girls, but had cat-like tails and whiskers. Each one was wearing a colourful knitted sweater and a badge with an icon of the Nightwish owl placed overtop of a book with their name beside.

Tuomas was at first just confused, which is saying something after the day’s most recent events. “Who are you and how much did I smoke in the Fort Bargain-bin parking lot?”

One of the smaller ones answered: “We are the Tearoomers: a secret society that dates back a thousand years. We built this place to celebrate and share our works. It is a refuge. The rest of the world thinks we are backward and perverted. This is the only place we have left ”

As an artist, Tuomas was not initially too creeped out. He knew what it was like to be badgered by critics and kvlt and gr1m metalheads alike for consistently turning out less-than-listenable material. “Oh I see. So this is some fringe art form.”

“You could say that. We would like to share with you what we have done. ”

“Well normally I would love to, but I have to be at a meet’n’greet at Noon and now really isn’t a good-“

They closed in aggressively. They were none too pleased at the indifference shown to them by their favourite band.

“For a thousand years we have been writing fanfiction about Nightwish. Some of it is realistic and some of it is pure fantasty. Within the walls of the tearoom it becomes reality. ”

Though a giant, Marco is no fool and could put two and two thousand together, though he usually needs to think aloud in order to perform such extremely complex intellectual tasks. He is quite smart for a giant: “I’m not sure if you” (he paused for a moment while he tried to come up with a term he could use to describe them “… girls realize this, but we started playing together in 1995. Now I don’t know how to use rocket appliances, but I do have enough intell.. intellect… brain power to know that 2009 minus 1995 does not equal a thousand. In fact, it is at least three times less. Maybe you were looking for the Medieval Babes.”

“SILENCE, ” they shrieked together. “You will not question the ways of the Tearoom., kk?”

Tuomas, still too high to realize the danger he was in, tried to reason with them: “Look I’m really sorry but I have a meet’n’greet up the road from here. Maybe one day I can come back and spend some time here.”

“Don’t you realize? You were meant to come here. It was us who put holes in your socks, despite the temptation to seal them and hold them dear. It was us who lit your stash of weed afire and got everyone high.”

“You lit my weed stash!? You little-“

They hissed, and again he backed down.

“We knew Kimmo didn’t know the region – we know everything about you – and we made sure he would be at the wheel. You fell right into our trap. We were even going to drug the tea we so graciously served you, but let’s just say that after all that weed, the work was already done. ”

By now, Tuomas was a little on edge: “Who are you and what do you want?”

“You need not know my real name,” she said in a haughty tone. “But on the Nightwish forum, I go by the name of NWSavedmylife. ”

This was an awkward moment. The band had stopped posting on the forum since these girls swarmed the concerts and record stores. While they embraced the increased sales and attendance, they had no idea that the fangirls wanted something in return and were serious about taking it.

“As I can clearly see, you have not been reading the forum. Shame on you! You leave us no choice but the following. We will read to you our fanfiction. When we are finished, which should be sometime within the next two million years, you may leave. ”

“Fuck this shit,” exclaimed Marco, who was not too impressed. “We’ve got better things to do than play teenaged girls’ games.”

The Tearoomers became even more irritated. They protracted their claws and hissed aggressively. Emppu was terrified. A small trickle of urine dribbled down his legs as his pants were soaked. Luckily they were leather so no one noticed. Emppu was always careful to hide his lack of control over a situation. The Tearoomers seemed to be enjoying their new-found controlling power over their favourite band.

“No further objections?” asked the Tearoomer known as NWSavedmylife in her usual girlish pretentious tone. “Great. I will take the pleasure of starting.”

She pulled a book from a pink knit satchel. Judging by the look of it she had spent quite some time writing.

“Ahem ahem. Shatterpoint: Chapter 1: Tuomas walked into the rehearsal studio.."

Even with the B.C. Weed, to listen was pure agony, for no one more so than Tuomas. Not because of the poor writing style, flat and boring characters, and stories that go nowhere. No. He was all too familiar with this writing style. Far worse: these Tearoomers had the nerve, the audacity to even acknowledge, let alone write stories about, the other members of Nightwish. It went on and on, repeating itself like a broken record as story after story was told. Then a pause.

“Ahem ahem. That was chapter 1. Did you like it? ” asked the one known as NWSavedmylife?

Before anyone could answer, they heard a faint noise. Not a cry; not a whimper; a quite but aggressive “yaaarg!” Captain Jukka had just woken up from a short nap. The Tearoomers were not pleased, but now they were not unopposed. During the nap, the high had worn off. Jukka was sober, and ready for vengeance.