Page 31 of Dead Rockstar

“What are you talking about?” Sloan looked more confused than ever.

“I faked it.”

“You pulled an Elvis,” Sloan said dryly. “I'm going to need more of an explanation.”

“When I overdosed, they pronounced me dead,” Phillip said smoothly. “They were able to revive me at the hospital. But by the time I came to, somebody had already leaked the news that I'd died. All my fans, half my friends thought I was gone. And I was in a bad place. Really bad – drugs, alcohol, depressed to the point of being suicidal – I was in no shape to leave, not without some serious medical and psychiatric care. I needed a break, a stint in rehab, and some serious therapy. The band and my family got together and decided that it might be for the best if everybody continued to think I was dead for a while. It'd give me a chance to get well.”

“So you just let people think you were dead?” She was baffled. “I kind of get it, doing that for a short time. But I mean...it's been like twenty-five years!”

“Twenty-three. Almost,” I piped up. Sloan glared at me.

“After I kicked the drugs and booze and had some time to decompress, it had already been over a year,” Phillip continued, the lie appearing to come to him easily. “And I found that I wasn't really interested in the band or playing music anymore. I waited for a long time to feel ready. But I just wasn't into that life anymore. And the more I thought about the poor fans, all of them who had grieved for me and everything, who were putting flowers on my phony grave and getting tattoos and shit...I just didn't want to rip the rug out from under them. I thought it might be best to stay buried.”

“Frankly, that's fucked,” Sloan said bluntly. “First of all, who are you to make those assumptions? To keep your fans in the dark like that? And not to mention, faking your own death is a hell of a fucking undertaking. Wouldn't it have been easier to announce that you were leaving the business and quietly go on with your life?”

“I couldn't have left without a big, clean break,” Phillip said. “They wouldn't have let me.”

“Arrogant.” Sloan snorted with indignation, and Phillip's eyes blazed with fury. A laugh escaped my lips and I clapped a hand to my mouth.

“Anyway, have you seen yourself?” Sloan asked incredulously. “How have you not been recognized?” I rolled my eyes at her. An hour ago I’d been wondering the same thing about her.

“I have,” he said. “From time to time. I usually use the 'impersonator' excuse. You were just too smart to fall for it.” I smirked behind my pizza at how smoothly he lied. Sloan apparently swallowed it, though, because she looked pleased with herself. I fought the urge to roll my eyes again.

“So you never did the spell?” she asked me. “That was all bullshit?”

“No, I did the spell,” I said. “Mainly just to wind you up, but the recording got deleted. So it turned out to be useless.”

“I knew it. I knew it was all hock-and-booey,” she said in a satisfied tone.

I gave her a little smile and took a bite of pizza, hoping she'd let it go now. No such luck. “But none of this explains how the two of you hooked up,” she pointed out, picking more peppers off her pizza. “Or why Stormy didn't tell me the moment she met you.” She looked at me, her face full of irritation; she was used to me telling her literally everything. How many times had she said to me, “just get to the point, I don’t need the details?”

“The spell is how we met,” Phillip answered for me, sensing my discomfort at lying. Sloan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “You know that album she bought, the rare one? It's so special because it's got the spell buried in the liner notes. I guess she's told you all that already.”

Sloan nodded.

“There's a whole thread on reddit about the spell.” I was suddenly glad I'd told Phillip all about reddit and the wormhole that it was. “People sharing theories, trying out the spell and posting pictures, stuff like that. I read it from time to time, just to keep up with what the fans are doing. Makes me laugh. And it's nice to see I still have my dedicated fans.” He smiled at me. “Stormy posted about the spell a while back, and I don't know...I just was drawn to her, somehow. She seemed too interesting, and so invested in the music. I liked her. It gets lonely, being dead. On a whim, I emailed her.”

“And we got to talking,” I said, seeing where he was going.

“I felt bad for her, going through a divorce and everything. We talked a lot, got to be friends. I was flattered. She was such a huge fan of mine. She knows every single song. Knows me better than I know myself.” He winked at me. Okay, he was laying it on pretty thick now. “I couldn't help myself. Against my better judgment I decided to tell her the truth. About who I was.”

“When was this?” Sloan asked.

“About a week ago,” I said. “I didn't believe him. I told him I needed proof.”

“So here I am,” he said, with a casual shrug. “I came down to Jekyll Island to meet her in person and show her I am, in fact, Phillip Deville.”

“This is so weird,” Sloan said finally. “But there's one more thing I don't understand. Who the fuck are the guys who were after Stormy and me?”

“We don't know,” I said, thinking quickly. “But we have our suspicions that it's two guys from the reddit group. I know there were a couple of guys in there who wrote for GOTHZine, you know, that metal/doom online mag? It's like Vice meets Rolling Stone? I think maybe they uncovered Phillip's secret. They found him somehow and now they know for sure that he's not dead. That he never died. They want to break the story.” I was surprised at myself, now that I'd gotten into it, how easily the lies came.

“Some of my fans are crazy as fuck,” Phillip explained with a sympathetic look. “I mean, I get it, but damn. We think these guys are onto me, and they followed me down here to catch a glimpse. They want to get my photo, or better yet, confront me and get proof that I'm alive. Can you imagine the payout if they broke that story with some exclusive? They obviously know who Stormy is, and that she's made contact with me. They're hoping to expose me through her.”

“Is that why you're leaving?” Sloan asked us.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“It seems awfully impulsive, to risk outing yourself like that just to meet some girl you met online,” Sloan said, a hint of judgment in her voice.