Spikey popapple wanted the Applesville Opera House to shake again. He wanted monsters packed to the rafters, proof that rock still breathed in a town of the dead. But tonight he stood in a purple punk club, holding a borrowed guitar, playing other men's songs to an empty floor. Three ghouls sat at the bar. None of them turned around. He finished a cover and waited. Nothing. A skeleton near the door stood up and walked out. The violet light buzzed over cracked walls and broken glass. Spikey's fingers ached. He had played every song he knew, and the room still felt like a grave. "Stop," said a flat voice behind the bar. Granny Smith set down a glass. She was a green apple, broad as a door, her grin carved sharp and permanent. She ran the bar to scare people, and she was good at it. She watched Spikey the way she'd watch a leak in her ceiling. "You play fine," she said. "Nobody stays." "They're songs people love," Spikey said. "Songs the living love." She wiped the glass. "Dead folks heard those already. You're giving them a memory. They want a wound." Spikey opened his mouth to argue. The club door banged. A man walked in from the dark, red hair swept back, rings on both hands, a scowl set deep. Jake hazardapple. Spikey knew the name. Jake played guitar in a real band, a band that still drew crowds. He'd heard Jake could make ghosts go quiet and gentle instead of fighting them. Jake dropped onto a stool. He didn't order. He just looked at the borrowed guitar in Spikey's hands. "That's not yours," Jake said. "I don't mean the guitar. I mean the song." "I don't have my own songs yet," Spikey said. His face went hot. "Then you've got nothing." Jake leaned forward. "A dead town doesn't want borrowed. It wants something that bleeds. You play one true thing, these walls will wake up." Spikey looked at the three ghouls. He looked at Granny, who said nothing now, waiting. He set the borrowed guitar down. His hands shook. He thought about the Opera House, dark for years, and the fear that he had nothing to fill it. He started again. No cover this time. He played the sound of wanting into an empty room. He played the fear. The notes came rough and ugly and his. He sang about a town that forgot how to feel alive. The nearest ghoul turned on its stool. The second lifted its head. The violet light flickered in time with his hand. By the last line, all three were watching, leaning toward him. Jake didn't smile. He nodded once. "That's the first one," he said. "Now you need more. A whole set. Written before the Opera House gatekeeper laughs you off his stage." Spikey picked the guitar back up. He had one song now. He had nowhere to write the rest.