secret show

I had made plans months ago to see this show with some friends. It was somewhere in the Midwest, and I was staying with this girl I'd met a few times but whose name I had forgotten on the trip over. Luckily, she had no idea who I was, either. After dumping my stuff at this mystery girl's house, I headed down to the river, where one of my friends was supposed to arrive by submarine. The sub let people out inside a top-secret government compound and then bussed them out to the entrance. Several people threatened me with machine guns when I tried to walk in. So I waited for my friend and then we walked back to the house along the river. The trees on the banks had petrified animals hanging from the branches---frozen white frogs and squirrels. We knew the monster from The Host was swimming alongside us in the river, but we tried to act natural.

Back at the house, the parents of the girl I was staying with were throwing a raging party in the backyard. There were bonfires among the cornstalks. Maybe this was not a safe thing to do. I don't know, I didn't see a lot of corn growing up. I overheard someone saying, "Oh my god, Winona Ryder is here!" But I never saw her. It turned out this was the show we were all in town to see, which was convenient for me because I didn't need to find a ride home afterward.

At some point during the night, I wandered into the basement. It was the same as the basement at my parents' house, minus all the piles of Christmas ornaments and old ski equipment. Instead, there was a girl sitting alone at a desk under an exposed lightbulb. I knew she was the sister of the girl who let me stay there, but I didn't know her name, either. She talked to me but she didn't make any sense, so I went back upstairs and rejoined the party.