A World Without Love

On February 9th, 1964, The Beatles invaded America. 

On February 10th, 1964, the country was in ruins.

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“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahhhhh!”

The Fab Four bowed for the audience after their first set, then ran backstage to wait for their encore. Signs with individual Beatle names popped up and down as the crowd jumped and cried for whichever one was their favorite. Teenagers, mostly girls, continued to scream through the following acts until Ed Sullivan threatened to bring out a barber. The kids didn’t care about acrobats and Broadway stars. Beatlemania had already taken hold of them, and they just wanted those Beatle Boys back on stage.

The musicians finally returned and immediately started playing I Saw Her Standing There. Tears streamed down the faces of the enamored girls who knew they had no chance with any of the boys onstage yet fantasized throughout the set anyway.

Everyone in the audience and even some of the adults on show staff knew the next song, I Want to Hold Your Hand. After a few lines, however, they realized the lyrics were different. Instead of the upbeat familiar melody, they played the song in a lower octave, slowing it down so it was almost hypnotic.

Oh, we’re here to tell you somethin’

You’d better understand

When we give the signal

You’ll stand up hand-in-hand…

The audience quieted down; the girls dropped their signs. Whispers traveled throughout the rows of seats and backstage.

“What did they say?”

“What’s going on?”

“Are they okay?”

The Fab Four suddenly stopped playing. Paul, John, and George strummed a note in unison as Ringo stepped down from his drum kit. The note turned into a non-stop humming that silenced everyone. Everyone stood, holding hands.

Guitar-string antennae pushed out of the strummers’ foreheads; drumsticks popped out of Ringo’s. The three guitarists turned and looked at the drummer.

“What?” he asked.

They shook their heads. 

Their black suits hardened into carapaces, their arms and legs became thin and bristled. Two more legs grew from their sides. They dropped their instruments and walked to the front of the stage on their back legs, appendages clicking the floor.

They began to sing again.

And when we touch you

You’ll feel dead inside

You’ll look alive but truly

You’ll have died

You’ll have died

You’ll have DIIIIIED.

This last word was sung very low and drawn out, almost demonically.

Then, the Beetles got down on all-sixes and skittered around the studio, touching audience members and staff at random. Anyone they touched stiffened in response. Their heads snapped back, and their eyes went black. The same thing happened to those whose hands they held.

The Beetles filed out of the studio, crawled over the nearby crosswalk, together but in a single-file row, one after the other, and then separated to touch as many humans as they could. The people they touched died. The people who died, in turn, found and touched others, killing them as well. 

Throughout the night, people ran in terror. Gunshots filled the air, drivers wrecked cars and other vehicles. People lay bleeding and dead in the streets, bats were swung to crack heads, children screamed for their parents, parents cried for their children.

Anyone who escaped the studio tried to leave the city, but everyone would be touched in the end. The living dead boarded trains, planes, boats during the night, spreading out across the the country. Nowhere was safe.

In less than 24 hours, America no longer existed. The Beetles were never seen again.Yet, the effects of their rampage continued for decades all over the world.

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In Liverpool, a young man listened to the news on his transistor radio.

“Man, that’s some wiggly shit,” he said. “Looks like I dodged a bullet.”

Pete Best turned off the radio and began to board up his windows and secure his home.