Everybody

This story is a loose dramatization of the video, Everybody (Backstreet's Back).

Everybody

Brian woke up, disoriented and dazed. For a moment, he forgot where he was, and sat up quickly. Banging his head on the bunk above him, he remembered he was on a tour bus, traveling through England. But, the tour bus wasn't traveling anymore; it was still, and the motor wasn't running.

He got out of his bunk and saw Nick, in the bunk across from him, sitting up, looking confused.

"Why did the bus stop?"

"I don't know," Brian answered. "I hope it didn't break down again."

The rest of the guys were now awake, and the bus driver stuck his head back into the sleeping area. "Just as well get dressed. The bus broke down, and I can't get it started again. There's a house of some kind up ahead. We'll see if we can stay there until someone comes to fix the bus."

There was a lot of grumbling, but the guys got up and began pulling on clothes. They got off the bus, and the driver locked it up. Then, they began trudging ahead to the house the driver said he had seen. The road was pitch black, the only light the narrow beam of the flash light Kevin had thought to grab before they got off the bus. They were in a very, very rural area, and there wasn't any traffic.

Brian shuddered as they walked down the narrow road. "I knew I shouldn't have watched An American Werewolf in London tonight."

There was a low howl, which sounded like it came from out on the fields. Brian and Howie both jumped, and Nick gasped. AJ began to laugh, and Kevin turned around and looked at him. "AJ, was that you?"

AJ nodded, still laughing. Howie, who was standing next to him, gave him a small push. "That wasn't funny, AJ."

"Sure it was," AJ answered, grinning at Howie. "You just had to be the observer, and not the ones being observed."

They arrived at the door of the ‘house.' It wasn't exactly a house; it was more like a castle. The bus driver reached up to knock at the door, and his knock cause the door to swing slowly open, with a loud creak. Everyone was silent for a moment, then they all began to speak at once.

Nick pulled cobwebs out of his hair disgustedly. "I can't believe this happened. This is the second time the bus broke down!"

Defensively, the bus driver retorted, "That ain't my fault."

Brian came up, his hands to his head. "Yo, we're never gonna make the next show." While he was speaking, Nick was shaking his head, walking away. "Man!"

Howie pulled out his cell phone. "Yo, wait, I'm gonna try to get ahold of management."

The phone, however, wasn't working. Everyone began talking, except for Kevin, who was just looking around, with an "I can't believe this is happening" expression on his face. Finally, the bus driver began yelling, "It ain't my fault! The bus broke down, I'll get it fixed, ya'll just chill here."

There were loud protests from the group, and Howie exclaimed, "No way, this place is creepy!"

The bus driver ignored the protests. "Look, look, I'll be back, Backstreet!" And he took off, leaving the Boys to stare into the dark doorway of the castle.

Kevin sighed. "I guess we'd just as well go in. It seems like the place is abandoned." He looked up at the sky. "It looks like it's going to storm. At least inside, it'll be dry."

The five of them slowly walked into the castle, huddling close together. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous room. The floor of the room was painted in a purple and white spiral pattern unlike any they had ever seen.

Nick made an attempt at humor. "Maybe the owners are Grateful Dead fans," he said, gesturing towards the floor. "Psychedelic."

They ascended the stairs and found rooms to sleep in. No one wanted to sleep in the rooms alone, but no one wanted to confess they were afraid to sleep alone, either. So, with apprehension, they separated and went to bed.

Brian settled in his bed. It was musty-smelling, but not so bad. However, just before he dozed off to sleep, he felt something under the covers with him. Cautiously, he put both arms under the blankets and felt something furry. Pulling it out, he found himself face to face with a huge rat. Brian yelled in alarm and threw the rat across the room. With an indignant squeak, the rat ran out of the room.

Brian tried to catch his breath and sat up in bed. When he looked down, he saw his clothes had disappeared, and had been replaced by a suit and a long fur coat. His hands were covered with long, brown fur, and his nails had grown long and sharp. Brian lifted his hands to his face, and felt hair on his face. No, he corrected himself, not hair. Fur. Running his tongue over his teeth, he wasn't surprised to find that his canines had grown into long, sharp fangs.

Brian opened his mouth to scream, and instead, a long howl issued from his throat. * * * * *

The last thing AJ remembered was going to bed in a dark room. When he opened his eyes, he was at a banquet table, covered with food. There were dozens of women in Victorian dress sitting around the table, devouring the food. With some trepidation, AJ noticed there were rats running around on the table.

Looking down at himself, AJ saw that, instead of the jersey he had been dressed in when he went to bed, he was in a tuxedo with white gloves and a long cape. Reaching up, he felt a mask which covered half of his face. "The Phantom of the Opera," he thought to himself, with cold detachment. "I must be dreaming. That's it. A dream."

* * * * *

Howie awoke to complete darkness, and a feeling of being confined. Reaching out with his hands, he encountered rough wood on all sides.

"Where am I?" he wondered to himself. "And how did I get here?"

Howie started to lick his lips, and stopped when his tongue ran over his canine teeth. They had grown long and sharp, and he suddenly felt incredibly thirsty.

He pushed at the top of his confining vessel and it came open with a bang. He was in a coffin, and, now that he was in some type of light (although it was very dim), he could see that he was now dressed in a three piece black suit, complete with watch-chain. Something tickled the back of his neck, and he touched long, black hair--much longer than his normal hair.

Engrossed with trying to figure out what was going on, Howie didn't notice the young girl standing in front of him--at first. When he did notice her, the first thing he noticed was her neck--her skin was smooth, and Howie's thirst suddenly increased.

Wondering what in the world he was doing, Howie reached for the girl, baring his teeth.

* * * * *

Kevin awoke to find himself sitting in a chair. All he was doing was sitting, not doing anything special. His clothes were different--he was now dressed not in a windbreaker, but in a Victorian era three piece suit.

He looked around him. One half of the room he was in was a normal library, with books on the shelves, a globe--the normal things in a normal library.

The other side of the room was a nightmare.

The other side of the room was crowded with beakers and test tubes. Most of the beakers had bubbling liquids of varying colors, and the shelves on this half of the room were covered with dusty, ominous looking books. Kevin couldn't have told anyone why the books looked ominous; it was just something he felt.

Catching sight of a mirror on the wall, Kev stood and walked towards it. When he reached the mirror, the sight that greeted him struck him speechless with shock. The right side of his face was the normal Kevin face.

The left side of his face was covered with green scales. His hair on the left side had grown long and unkempt, with red streaks. Kevin held up his hands, and discovered his right hand normal, but his left hand also covered with green scales, the nails grown long and sharp.

As Kevin opened his mouth to scream, a rat ran across his collar, trailing his tail across Kevin's neck.

* * * * *

Nick opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He let the breath out in a harsh, dry cough--it seemed as though he had breathed in a lungful of dust. Where was he?

There was a sliver of light coming in through a crack in the object Nick was in. "That's funny," he thought. "I don't remember my bed having a lid."

He pushed the lid open and when a little more light came in, he saw the bandages on his hands. Stepping out of what he finally decided was a coffin, he looked down at himself and saw he was entirely covered with bandages. His head was wrapped with bandages, with his blond hair sticking out every which way.

"What in the world is going on?" he thought, surveying his surroundings. "I must be dreaming."

He was in a small, dusty room, filled with candles and coffins. As he looked around, two of the coffins opened, and two girls came out, also dressed in bandages.

"Hey," Nick thought to himself. "Maybe this dream won't be so bad after all."

* * * * *

Brian ran out of his room and stopped short. The hallway was nothing like he remembered it. Instead of a short hallway with several doors, the hallway now seemed to be miles long. "I knew I shouldn't have watched that movie," he thought to himself. "Then I wouldn't be having this weird dream."

Lightning flashed outside, followed by a loud crash of thunder. Brian went to the window and looked out. The sky was covered with dark clouds, and faintly through them, Brian could see the moon, full and round. As he looked at the moon, a strange feeling came over him, and he suddenly found himself howling at the top of his lungs. When the moon disappeared from view, he stopped, feeling slightly foolish. "Do you feel foolish in dreams?" he wondered, growing increasingly nervous. If this was a dream, it was the most realistic one he had ever had.

* * * * *

AJ got up from the banquet table (where the women were absolutely making pigs of themselves) and wandered out of the room. He wasn't sure what part of the castle he was in, but he wished he would wake up. Not only was the dream a little disturbing, what with his face being scarred enough to wear a mask, but it was actually kind of boring. Who wanted to watch a bunch of people eat through a whole dream?

AJ walked into the hallway and saw someone coming down the stairs. At first glance, it looked like Brian, but since when did Brian wear a long fur coat and have a Mohawk? As the figure descended the steps, AJ saw it was in fact Brian--but a Brian unlike any he had ever seen.

Brian stopped about three steps from the bottom of the stairs and stared at AJ. AJ stared back. Brian was the first to speak. "AJ? What happened to you?"

"I should be asking you the same question," AJ responded. "Man, you need to shave!"

Brian came the rest of the way down the stairs. "And you need to stop reading the Phantom of the Opera so much. It's starting to affect your sense of style."

"We're dreaming, right?" AJ asked.

"We have to be," Brian responded.

"Otherwise--"

Neither of them could finish the sentence.

* * * * *

Howie stopped himself right before he sank his teeth into the girl's neck and turned and ran. "What was I getting ready to do?" he thought to himself, horrified. Even through his horror, however, he found a part of himself insisting that he turn back.

He ran down a set of stairs, having no idea where he was going, and ran full-tilt into AJ and Brian. All three of them ended up in a heap on the floor, and stared at each other in shock.

Brian was the first to speak. "This is getting too weird."

Howie looked at AJ and Brian and asked, "What is going on here?"

"We don't know," AJ replied, as he got to his feet. "We think we're dreaming." He looked closely at Howie. "You don't look so good."

"I don't feel so good," Howie replied. He shuddered, partly from revulsion at what he had almost done, and partly because he still wanted to go back and finish the job. "I don't feel so good at all."

* * * * *

Nick watched as the two female mummies approached him. From a distance, they looked attractive (at least, as attractive as they could look covered with bandages), but the closer the got, the more unsure Nick became of their motives. When one of them got close enough, he could see her bare her teeth, and realized that, bandages or no bandages, he was going to be dinner if he didn't get out of there fast.

Trying to figure out how to get past the two girls, he stood there, watching them closely. They got closer and closer, and reached for the bandages. One of them, after unwinding a portion of the bandage on Nick's arm, opened her mouth to bite, and this broke Nick's paralysis. He yelped and took off running. His feet, also covered with mummy wrappings, didn't give him a lot of traction, so he did a lot of slipping and sliding until he found a door that led upstairs out of the subterranean room and into a carpeted hallway. He could hear shrieks of anger coming from the bottom of the stairs, but no one came up after him.

Nick slammed the door to the room closed and slumped against it, sighing with relief. Then, after catching his breath, he walked down the hallway, wondering exactly where in the huge castle he was. He spotted three figures standing at the end of the hallway, and he ducked into a smaller, side hallway, hiding. As the three people got closer, his fears were alleviated by the sound of a familiar voice.

Nick heard Howie's voice. "Where do you suppose Nick and Kevin are?"

"I don't know," AJ's voice replied as they came closer. "I just wish we could find them and get out of here!"

Nick stepped out from the side hallway just as Brian, AJ and Howie walked up. "Hi, guys."

The three of them yelled, alarmed, and started to turn and run the other way. "Wait!" Nick called, running after them. "It's me, Nick!"

They stopped, and Brian turned and walked up to Nick. "Nick? What's with the weird outfit?"

Nick looked at Brian's new wolfman persona and replied, "You should talk. At least I don't have hair growing off every part of my body."

The four of them stood and looked uncertainly at each other, then Howie asked, "What's happening? I'm not so sure this is a dream anymore."

"Oh, come on!" Nick scoffed. "You turn into Count Dracula, AJ turns into the Phantom of the Opera, Brian is some kind of a pimp wolfman, and I'm a mummy in bondage, and this isn't a dream? Even for you, Howie, that's a stretch."

Howie suddenly reached out and pinched Nick's arm, hard. Nick yelped in pain and pulled his arm away. "What was that for?"

AJ eyes had widened. "Haven't you ever heard that pinches don't hurt in dreams?"

"That's just an old wives' tale," Nick replied, but he reached up and rubbed his arm absently, the confidence in his eyes fading.

"Let's go find Kevin," Brian said, turning to leave. "Then see if we can get out of here."

* * * * *

Kevin looked around in the laboratory side of the room. The rat was still curled around his neck, but he didn't mind anymore. It actually seemed--well, kind of normal for the rat to be there. He couldn't explain it; it just felt that way. What didn't feel normal was the fact that he was half-man, half---

"Half what?" Kevin wondered. He looked in the mirror again. He knew that he should be trying to figure out a way to get out of here, but he was fascinated by his transformation. "It kind of looks like a fish, but fish don't have long nails."

In his logical mind, Kevin knew this had to be a dream, but part of him kept asking, "Are you sure you're dreaming?" He tried to ignore that part of him; if he paid too much attention to it, he would go nuts.

Kevin began looking through the things on the laboratory side of the room. The beakers with the colored liquids smelled terrible, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the combined odors. Searching through the debris on the tables, he found a wallet and opened it curiously. There was a handwritten card inside.

"This looks like some kind of ID card," he thought to himself, pulling it out. "But who handwrites ID cards?"

The question concerning the hand written card was forgotten as Kevin read the card, then dropped it and bolted from the room.

The name on the card was Jekyll. On the reverse side of the card, the name scribbled there was Hyde.

* * * * *

Kevin ran as fast as he could down the hallway. In his logical, perfectionist mind, he kept insisting, "This is not happening. Not happening." Not watching where he was going, he collided with Brian, and the two of them fell on the floor in a heap. Nick, AJ, and Howie, following behind Brian, tripped over the two guys and also landed on the floor.

After everyone had gotten to their feet, AJ folded his arms and said dryly, "Well, we found Kevin."

Kevin began pacing up and down the hallway, muttering, "This is not happening, this is not happening."

The other four watched in amazement as Kevin frantically paced the floor, beginning to seriously freak out. He kept running his Hyde hand over the Hyde side of his face. Finally, AJ spoke, "Um--I take it you're Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?"

Kevin stopped and stared at AJ as if he was seeing him for the first time. His eyes traveled to Brian, Nick, and Howie and then he sat down abruptly on the floor, his knees up and his head hanging down. After staring at him curiously, Nick finally asked, "What are you doing?"

Kevin looked up; the normal side of his face was pale. "I'm trying to keep from passing out," he said.

"You can't pass out in a dream," Brian said.

"Sure," Kevin answered, hanging his head down again. "Then why do I feel like someone just whopped me over the head with a big hammer of modeling clay?"

"Let's get out of here," Howie said, running his tongue compulsively over his new, sharp teeth. "I wanna be normal again."

"You weren't normal before," Nick responded. "But I agree with you. Let's find our way out of the freaky place."

After Kevin had finally recovered enough to walk (the fact that Kevin, the ‘in-control' person of the group, had freaked out so drastically, had subdued the group considerably), the five of them began searching for a way out. After frantically running around the building (it didn't seem that any of the hallways led anywhere), they found themselves in the cavernous room with the purple and white spiral floor that they had encountered when the first entered the castle.

"Finally!" Kevin exclaimed, the relief in his voice clearly audible. "Let's get out of here!"

The Boys headed across the floor. When they reached the middle of the floor, all of the doors surrounding the room suddenly flew open with loud bangs. Dozens of people, all in Victorian dress, spilled out of the doorways. Nick recognized the two mummy-girls, now in long, full skirts. Howie saw the young girl he had almost bitten. Her teeth were now as long and sharp as his own. AJ saw all of the women from the banquet table, their faces covered with the remnants of their feast. Entwining themselves around the feet of the crowd of people were dozens of rats.

The five guys began drawing in closer together in the middle of the floor. The crowd of people surrounded them, cutting off any chance of exit.

As the mass of people (or, were they people? BsB couldn't be sure; the faces kept changing) descended upon them, all five of them closed their eyes and . . . .

* * * * *

Brian sat up straight in bed, trying to catch his breath. He let his hands travel over his arms. No hair, and he was in the same clothes he had gone to sleep in. Lastly, he felt his face. The facial hair and teeth were gone.

Finally, he let out a deep breath. "Whew!" he thought. "What a crazy dream!"

* * * * *

Kevin woke up suddenly after landing with a loud thump on the floor. After sitting there a minute, he jumped to his feet, fighting with the sheets, and rushed over to the mirror. He sighed explosively with relief. He was the same old Kevin again.

"It was a dream," he said aloud to himself. "Passing out and all."

* * * * *

AJ awoke slowly. He was dazed, wondering exactly where he was, then the events of the prior night flooded his mind. His hands flew to his head; no mask. And he was in his old clothes again.

"Gotta stop obsessing over that theater role," he told himself, getting up. "I don't think I ever wanna think about Phantom of the Opera again."

* * * * *

Nick awoke, pulling at his clothes compulsively. The bandages were gone, and he was back in his clothes again. He looked around the room--no mummy girls trying to eat him.

"Man," he thought, getting up. "And I thought gremlins under the bed biting my toes were bad!"

* * * * *

Howie woke up upside down in bed--his head stuck way down under the foot of the blankets, as though he was trying to hide.

He crawled out of the bed and felt his teeth. They had shrunk back to normal (if they had ever been long and sharp to begin with--it was a dream, wasn't it?) and his hair was short once again.

"A dream," he thought to himself. "But what a dream!"

* * * * *

The five BsB all decided at about the same time that they would really like to get out of the castle and go back to the bus, running or not. Besides, all of the reasoned separately, surely the driver was there by now, and they could get back to civilization.

Brian met up with Howie in the hallway. "Yo, yo, Howie, I gotta tell you about this dream that I had last night. I was a werewolf and I had hair all over my body . . . ."

Howie interrupted. "No way, man! I had a dream also. I was like Dracula, and I was like, suckin' blood . . . ."

Kevin approached. He looked slightly disoriented. "Did you guys have trouble sleeping last night?"

AJ rushed up. "I had this trippy dream last night, and I don't know---"

Nick, coming up from behind, broke in. "Yo, yo, guys, I had a dream, too, and I was a mummy, and there was these two girls . . . ."

Everyone began talking at once, trying to compare notes, and finally Howie said, "Let's just get out of here!"

That seemed like an awesome idea, so everyone headed straight for the door. Howie threw the doors open, and . . . .

The bus driver was standing at the door in the unnaturally bright sunlight, holding the bus steering wheel in his hand. A long, red gash ran across his face, and he held up the steering wheel, grinning fiendishly. "Let's go!"

Backstreet Boys screamed, all of them thinking, "Oh my God! It wasn't a dream!"

The End

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