Dag led them through the corridors. Gecko, Fiesta, Machina and Molly had their eyes tied with a rag so they were as blind as Doof, who was stumbling one step behind them, holding to Gecko's pants, carrying his guitar and dragging the amplifier behind him. They could feel the chilly wind, implying that they were going through the garden. Then they heard Dag fighting with the heavy creaking door. She led them to the Vault. They stepped in and heard some voices, giggling and whispering.
"You can remove the blindfolds." She said mysteriously.
They did, to find out they were in the round room of the Vault, which was dramatically lit, yellow light dancing on the stone walls and casting playful shadows shaped like skulls, various faces, flowers and flying crows. People were sitting in the middle, bathing their feet in the round pool. They all looked up and chanted: "Happy anniversary!"
Molly looked around, happy and surprised, but confused "What day is it?" She breathed.
"It's so beautiful..." Said Gecko, eyes open wide in childlike wonder over all of these decorations and shimmering lights.
Doof looked puzzled a frustrated, guessing what could there be so exciting for the seeing folks. He dug out his trumpets from his pocket and stuck one to his ear so he could at least hear better.
"It's been exactly one year. 365 days since the Fury Road events." Said a woman's voice. It was Furiosa.
Doof could hear splashing of the water as somebody wiggled their feet in the pool.
They gathered to the middle and found a place to sit.
Furiosa continued her speech, very casually, sounding almost insecure.
"This is not any sort of official celebration. We' re not doing that. There were people killed and we're not celebrating any killing ... Me and Max are gonna leave soon anyways, let you young folks enjoy the evening your style...," she said and Doof could hear a consenting grunt of a male voice beside her. "It's just us here today, the War Rig family and friends, I'd say. To celebrate that we're alive and we're here and together. The survivors, their friends, and boyfriends and girlfriends... "
"And babies.." Whispered Molly to Fiesta and they joined their hands on her belly.
"Yeah, and babies," said Furiosa, looking to Cheedo, who was gently rocking Warlord Junior in her arms (the baby was actually a beautiful four months old white-haired baby girl named June, but she still had that terrible nickname.)
Fiesta helped Doof to make the full picture of the scene. He adjusted the trumpet headset properly around Coma's head and started whispering the description:
"so, all of the wives are here..."
"-sisters!," corrected him Dag, whispering to Doof's other ear.
"Capable with Nux, and he is looking less shitty than usual," continued Fi, "and Toast is here with Slit. Two milking mothers -"
" - that's Mira and Bubbles," added Dag
"- With imperator Ace"
"-Bubbles married him"
"And a man with Furiosa, that Road Warrior..."
"Max. He came here yesterday. Didnt see 'im since Fury Road"
"Blooodbaaaag!" Whispered Nux loudly and dramatically, laughing, as he noticed the scene was being described to Doof.
Fiesta could see Furiosa and Max rolling their eyes.
Coma smiled and waved shyly to greet all the people in the circle. Gecko embraced him from behind. The polecat didn't feel very good in company of that many people, but he decided to manage this, because of Doof. It was his sort-of birthday, after all, as well as Nux's and Slit's and all the war boy's who got out of the Canyon barely alive. One year ago, they were born again. And it was also almost a year since Gecko and Doof got together.
They ate and drank and took turns at telling stories.
Cheedo told them about how they used to throw parties in the Vault when they were still being held there as breeders. Molly made Coma embarrassed telling how she got him terribly drunk that one time, and then had to drag him around the gardens with Dag and the war pup named Buckley ("let him rest in peace," she added).
Then Capable continued about how she and Molly and Dag used to intrique against Fiesta to get Coma together with Gecko.
"Remember all the letters we wrote?" She laughed.
Gecko smiled at her, blushing. "Still got them. All of 'em." He piped shyly.
"You better still have them! Those drawings took me forever to get them done. All of those tattoos of yours, i never got them quite right!" Exclaimed Dag.
"And then we wrote all those letters to make Slit stop hating Nux..." Added Toast.
Slit shuffled in his wheelchair and covered his face in embarrassment. "Told you not to bring THAT on ever again, babe," he grunted grumpily.
"Why, it was fun." Grinned Toast, punching him into his biceps. "And don't call me babe, or I'll fight you," she chuckled.
"Mediocre tiny Toasty baby," hissed Slit at her.
"Will you play for us tonight, Coma?" Asked Furiosa suddenly. He shrugged and nodded and tapped something on Fiesta's hand.
"What would be suitable for this occasion, he asks," translated Fi.
"Something... Mysterious! Magical," suggested Cheedo enthusiastically. "It's Beltain!"
"Yeah, we read this thing with Cheedo in old books..." Explained Dag. "That the night between last day of April and first of May, is, like... A magical night. Never mind that today we have 7th of May already, it's still close enough. So we decided to celebrate it today midnight. Make a fire outside. Pray for good crops this year. Tell some spooky ghost stories maybe..."
"That's Halloween! It's half a year from now," corrected her Cheedo.
"Guess you're right, but. Like...Who cares, I love ghost stories," said Dag.
Gecko handed Doof his guitar and turned the amplifier for him, tuned down so they could still hear each other talking while Coma improvised on his strings. Fiesta sat there clutched to Molly, bathing his feet in the refreshing water, listening to his best friend's music, watching the scintillating lights reflected from the water and multiplied in the double glass of the dome. He studied all the faces, all of them looking satisfied and happy about this moment. When his gaze found Machina, he noticed that the other drummer was looking him right in his eyes and viewing him with mysterious expression.
"What?" Asked Fiesta quietly, looking at his brother.
"Nothing," smiled Machina, his usual white-teethed smile revealing the nice guy beneath his badass image.
"Glad it all turned out this way, bro." Whispered Machina and winked at him.
And Fiesta knew what he meant by it. He looked at Coma, who was almost sitting in Gecko's lap. The young war-boy was watching every move on the guitar, occasionally brushing the black hair from his grey, lizard-like eyes. The hair he let grow just for Coma to touch. Something still stung in Fiesta's heart when watching them so in love, but he reminded himself not to be foolish and not to worry anymore. He imagined them a year from now. He, Fiesta, will be sitting here as a father to a tiny son or daughter. And he believes that Coma will be sitting here still with Gecko, whose hair will be even longer and his love not a bit smaller. In this crazy year, so many things changed, and at the end, Fiesta was glad for it.
When Dag decided it was the Midnight, they all went out to the garden and light a fire.
"This is a maypole. Thanks to Gecko he brought it for us," she said, gesticulating to the pole with a steel steering wheel mounted on top and various things dangling from it on strings. With help of Nux, Max and Machina, they stuck the thing to the ground next to the bonfire.
"In ancient european cultures, they built these on first May evening. People from other villages went and tried to steal their neighbors maypole."
"I can totally see them Buzzards go and try," joked Slit.
"We made sure no one will come to steal ours tonight. We have good guards and our home is a safe fortress," said Furiosa.
Dag continued with her history lesson: "People also used to make a figure from old clothes and hay, and set it on fire and then they danced around it as was slowly burning. They called it 'burning the witch' and it symbolized getting rid of the winter, the death. Greeting the summer, the life... I personally don't see why we should burn any witches. It might mean burning me, and no, thanks," said Dag, smiling.
"But let's burn this. It's sage. Against malevolent spirits..." She said and put the little dried tree thing into the fireplace.
The smoke filled with sweet smell. Molly sent a flask of booze to the circle. She didn't drink herself as she was pregnant, but she was still the one with best alcohol supplies. "Let's drink to the ones we've lost."
Coma continued playing guitar and they drank and talked and had a great time.
Furiosa, Max and Ace with Bubbles with little Warlord Junior left early and slightly tipsy Cheedo and Dag requested the ghost stories again.
"Ok," said Nux. "You ever heard of the unwitnessed?"
Cheedo's eyes went wide. Slit, Machina, Fiesta nad Gecko heard these legends, sure, so they nodded with gravely serious faces.
"Them's the war-boys who died heroic in a battle, but weren't witnessed. So they keep walking amongst us as ghosts, possessing our cars, making them crash, so we'd die and become unwitnessed ourselves! They're killing us! I also heard about about them possessing a guy's tumors. He started behaving all weird and..." Nux's speech was interrupted by a coughing fit.
Capable handed him a bottle of water. It took a while until his breath evened out.
"And then what? Continue, Nux!" Demanded Cheedo. But Nux was looking at her, silent and pale with fear in his face. Slit understood his game quickly and he managed to shape his burned face into to the best frightened expression he could.
"What?" Cheedo said, clutched to Dag.
"Don't you feel it?..." Whispered Slit.
"Feel what?" Cried Cheedo, annoyed.
"Well there is one unwitnessed standing right behind you..."
In that moment, Coma plugged one single high-pitched note - and they all jumped in terror, including Slit and Nux, and few girls shrieked.
Coma's strange, voiceless laughter didn't make them feel any better at first, but then they joined him, even Cheedo was laughing.
"No but seriously. Did any of you ever seen a ghost?," said Toast.
Coma saw that as a nice opportunity to be creepy and entertain the crowd. He raised his hand and waited to feel all the eyes hanging on him. There were few giggles and whispered remarks about how he could "see" a ghost, but he just stared at them with his empty eye sockets, with knowing smile playing on his lips. Gecko and Fiesta both looked at him curiously.
"Tell us!" Exclaimed Nux. Capable kicked his leg. "Eh.. Sorry" apologized Nux to the mute man.
But Doof stretched his arm Fiesta's way, waiting for his translator to grab his hand, ready to tell his improvised ghost story.
"I... I swear I have no idea what you want to say, boss..." Shrugged Fiesta.
Doof started tapping the morse code. "Oh. Oh well I will translate. Coma wants to tell you about... About his...mask."
"So have you ever heard, that the mask was haunted?" Said Doof with Fiesta's help.
"Yes, actually..." Admitted some voices.
"Coma says it's true. 'The mask really was haunted,' he said" said Fiesta.
"Boss, what are you telling us, for V8's sake?" Asked Machina and put his hand on Coma's shoulder.
"Could you light my face so it looks scary?" Demanded Coma, tapping on Machina's hand.
"It looks kinda scary anyways, boss." Said Machina politely. "I can light it up for you, lemme try..."
He took the torch and aimed it at Coma's face. As he was searching for the scariest angle, the face looked all different kinds of really creepy.
"What's the point of lighting your face when you're not moving your mouth when speaking? I should light Fiesta's!"
"Illustration." Said Coma and opened his mouth in terrible grimace, barring his teeth. Cheedo shrieked again.
Coma was satisfied with the result. He continued his story.
"My mask was haunted. When I had it on, i was literally inside the head of my dear departed mother. I saw what she saw - the land of the dead. With her eyes. I liked that, because when I had her face on, I wasn't blind. I pretended I was, because this was my secret. But i saw all of you. You, Fiesta. You're a handsome man. The thing that ruins it is that dead girl's ghost constantly licking your ear - Boss stop it!" Yelped Fiesta, "I'm not translating any of this nonsense anymore,"
"Afraid?" teased Molly and licked Fiesta's ear.
Everybody laughed. Coma continued on making silent spooky grimaces to the torchlight.
Fiesta still looked offended. He sat there with his hands crossed. "I'm not translating any of it. Don't believe him a word." He said.
But the crowd demanded the ghost story to be continued. Gecko said he could translate the rest. He was slower than Fiesta, and his voice was quiet, so everyone had to be really silent so they could hear properly. The wind was chilly and they gathered closer to the bonfire, eyes hanging on Coma's illuminated face, that looked like it was flying in the dark without a body, as if they'd indeed summoned a ghost, talking through Gecko as the medium.
" those... Of...you...i met...after the... Fury Road...i naturally haven't...seen, since...i lost...the mask there," translated Gecko. "But...the most.... terrible...vi-vision... I had...when i looked...to the mirror. I once...went...to my room...after...dark...with....her skin... still on....and i saw... The most...terrifying...satanic...thing. I saw...instead my...eyes two...burning...coals - and instead my...nose a...b-beak. And my-m-mo-mother...came to me...she...was faceless...just ...bones...a skeleton...maggots crawling between her teeth...and...she...said...son...now you...finally see the truth...about who you are. Look...closer to...your....burning eyes. See?...there...in those eyes...you can see the demise of the whole world. I want to tell you son... That you are..."
Gecko was waiting for new words to come, but Coma stopped tapping. Everybody was looking at the face, bit it didn't move any tiny bit. Long silence, just trees creaking in the wind. The dangly parts on the maypole were drumming to the steering wheel.
"What did she tell you, Coma?" Whispered Cheedo finally, all wide-eyed.
Coma's face turned into the scariest grimace. His ear-trumpets resembled horns. His teeth looked razor sharp.
Finally Gecko received other portion of dots and dashes into his palm. He continued.
"She... Told... Me... That... I am...
"...the..."
Gecko couldn't hold his laughter when he got the rest of the sentence from Coma.
"She told me that I am the really fucking cutest!"
Everybody nearly died from laughter. Nux ended up almost coughing his lungs up.
"So you were lying the whole time?!" Exclaimed Cheedo.
"Told you guys! He's terrible!" Complained Fiesta, still offended by that creepy remark about a ghost licking his ear, that will probably haunt him in his nightmares from now on.
Coma nodded, smiling innocently. The trumpets around his head were again looking just the like the ridiculous hearing aid contraption they actually were, and he was no longer resembling a horned devil. He was... Cute. Just like he said.
That didn't stop the girls from their revenge plan for scaring them with the silly horror story.
"Let's go inside. It's cold," suggested Capable.
"We go first, and you, manly men, please extinguish the fire," she said, turning especially to Gecko and Fiesta. "We take Coma with us," she added and took Coma's hand. They left the garden, Toast wheeling Slit into the Vault as well. Nux went too, he was the sick one after all and he still couldn't catch his breath.
Soon Fiesta, Machina and Gecko heard laughter and splashing and some screams.
They got in to find Cheedo and Dag holding Coma in the water, pinned to the pool wall, while others were splashing water at him and tickling him in his armpits. He laughed and involuntarily drank water, and he tried to fight back, but he was no match for the furious women. Slit and Nux were laughing like madmen at his feeble attempts to escape them.
Both Drummers and Gecko had the same instinct to go and rescue him, Gecko even shot his creepiest evil stare at Cheedo, who was holding Coma's wrists with all her strength.
"He deserved it!" she squeaked, when she finally let go and watched the disoriented, wet Doof Warrior groping for a brim, his teeth chattering with cold.
Gecko hurried to rescue him and help him out, but Capable pushed his back and the bendy polecat fell into the water as well. Then she jumped to the pool herself.
"Come on... Everybody to the pool! Let's give this party some nice wet finale!" Laughed the redhead. "Who is still dry, undress and jump in. Who is wet, just undress and stay inside!"
Girls started taking off their clothes, soon followed by Nux and Machina. Slit undressed as well, revealing the healed burns covering more than half of his body. Then even Fiesta shed his skirt to the floor and jumped into the pool to give Molly a passionate underwater kiss. Doof found Cheedo with his hands and tried to pay her back by holding her tight and tickling her. Gecko was focusing on his handstands and headstands at the poolside, and Nux was calling him chrome and Slit mediocre. The splashing and the laughter echoed the dome for the next hour or so, as they goofed around in the pool like kids.
Then, tired and frozen, they got out and laid in a big pile by the fireplace, huddled into blankets. Like this, they fell asleep.
Gecko disappeared without a trace in his usual silent way, this evening being too much of a social event for as asocial polecat he was, and the idea of sleeping in pile being an utter horror for him.
Both Doof and Molly laid their heads on Fiesta's chest and he embraced them, listening to their breathing and heartbeats. And he thought how under Molly's heart, there was another life growing. He kissed her on her thick, still wet hair. Coma was already asleep and he was deaf without his hearing aid anyway.
"It was fun tonight..." Fiesta whispered.
"Yes it was. Such a crazy night... Look, it's sunrise. The sky's all violet." Whispered Molly.
"Violet...hey, if it's a girl, let's call her Violet"
"Ok, daddy. I love you."
"I love you too."
They kissed again and just silently watched the sunrise.
"Fi..., you still awake?" Continued Molly in a while. "I was so surprised Coma did that mama joke."
"Yeah, me too. I think this year lot of things changed for him."
"That's good. He suffered for so long. He deserves to be happy, let it go, make jokes even..."
"We all do. We all deserve to be happy."
.