The situation at Elan School was bad from the start. Entering as a Non-Strength, she had no privileges, and spent six months “shot down.” The school had adopted “the game” that was part of the drug rehabilitation program run by Synanon…a form of “attack therapy” that involved people screaming abuse at one another. Elan took this to the extreme, subjecting other kids to loud, violent verbal abuse as part of their regular “therapy.” This was done in what was called a General Meeting, and Miranda spent day-after-day standing in front of the other kids in General Meetings as they verbally attacked her for hours. But she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She would not lay bare her feelings and didn’t give a damn what the others thought of her. She was almost 18 years old, at which point she could sign herself out of the school. But the situation was such that she decided to split, moving through the woods to escape those sent out to find her and bring her back. This time, she was successful, and made it all the way back to Massachusetts. Now that she was almost an adult, they simply stopped looking for her, figuring that she would end up dead or in jail anyway.

Miranda made a long journey back to Nebraska, not sure what to do when she got there. She moved westward, sometime hitching rides, and other times hanging around town long enough to serve drinks in cheap bars and waitress at local truck stops. She was able to pay for bus rides from one place to another. Then she’d hang around tending bar and waitressing, before moving on to the next town. She finally found herself back in Jesper City, completing the year long journey from the Elan School in Maine. There she found some friends she knew from so long ago, moved into an apartment with two other girls, and worked long hours at Denny’s as a waitress. One of the girls she lived with had an electric guitar. She had given up playing it, so Miranda picked it up and it was soon clear that she had a natural talent. It wasn’t long before she bought her own guitar and amps. She played guitar with the most distortion she could get from her amps…before blowing them out and getting new ones. Jesper City was close to Nebraska University, and one of her roommates would go to the campus on Friday and Saturday nights to crash the parties and drink for free. Miranda began going along with her, ending up drinking alone one Friday night at a bar called The Drop-out. The guy tending bar was named Rickie Steele, and he aspired to forming a heavy-metal band with himself as vocalist. Soon Miranda was tending bar at The Drop-out. It was at this time that she changed to a Gothic look, wearing black leather, and wearing black make-up around her eyes. She also began playing guitar at The Drop-out, and decided to go by the name…Morbia. Rickie told Morbia that he was living with a bass player named Maggy Mannis, and soon brought her to the club to meeting Morbia. For a while, the three formed a band named…Morbia. But then Rickie skipped out on Maggy after meeting two scouts from a record label, and headed to Los Angeles. He would get a recording contract after being spotted performing in Oakland. Besides, Rickie and Morbia weren’t getting along very well at the end. Maggy had been kicked out of the Young Ladies Deportment Academy, and now, with Rickie gone, she’d have to pay the full monthly rent on her apartment. Her father gave her six months of rent, but, so he said, she’d be on her own after that. Her mother told her that two girls from Nebraska University were renting the recording studio she never used, and that they played a very loud form of rock music that her father described as…grinding. However, Betsy Billows and Melinda Danes were also jamming at The Drop-out, and she had noticed them several times, but had no idea that they were the “college chicks” renting her mother’s recording studio. Erzebet, fascinated by Countess Elizabeth Bathory was impressed not only by Morbia’s playing, but also her look. She decided that the trio should develop characters that imitated Morbia’s look, and use dark imagery for their albums and stage show. Betsy became Erzebet, after the countess, Maggy became Druvillia, and Melinda became Mallacaria. The next night they were playing while Morbia was tending bar. She finally joined them on stage to jam. And so the band was formed, Morbia and Erzebet sang as well as played guitar. When Rickie Steele was on the Midwest part of his band’s latest tour, as they were passing through Nebraska, he stopped into The Drop-out to do some drinking. He was surprised to find out that Maggy, now Druvillia, was still in the area. The band played later that night, and Rickie decided to fire his current warm-up band, booking the girls to tour with him. Tammy Hedrick, who would later be recruited by Erzebet, and her band also played shows with Rickie Steele. Erzebet became friends with Tammy and her bandmate guitarist Kerry Cooper, though she quickly became enemies with vocalist Courtney Blaine. Druvillia’s band later toured with Tammy, and when she was about to leave her previous band, Erzebet convinced her to join, using the name…Bathoria. And thus the classic band came into existence. The band would go on to win acclaim for their talent and their sound, releasing a series of platinum albums including Curse of Darvulia; Phantasm; Necromancer; Santa Muerte; and Sin Eater. After the album Phantasm, Morbia left the band, marrying Skip Little, owner of The Drop-out, and opted for the quiet life she never had. The band met guitarist Vivian Vaster in a bar during a long lay-over at LAX, and she was invited to meet the band in San Diego the following week for an audition. She was hired on the spot, joined the band, adopting the name…Hekate. Morbia returned to being just Korey Keel, and raised four children with Skip. The two went on to open three more very successful bars around Nebraska University. Still, the name recognition was such that when they opened a restaurant, they named it…Morbia’s Steakhouse. Miranda would appear as a guest musician on some of the albums released by her old band after she departed, stayed on close terms with Druvillia, and jammed with Vivian (Hekate) whenever the band passed through Nebraska. She also helped fund the establishment of the Nebraska Academy for Adolescent Excellence, a school for troubled teens that won nationwide acclaim for fostering a program based on caring and personal development, combined with a first-class educational component. The growing success of the Academy led many former residents and students, having gone on to graduate from college and embark on successful careers, to provide additional funding, and three more locations were established over the years, including one near Poland Springs, Maine. Miranda was a favored speaker at the Academy and adviser to many other teen programs around the country.

Morbia

Morbia was born Korey Keel to Harvey and Dinah Keel of Jesper City, Nebraska, a town located 15 miles from the town of Filbert.  Miranda’s parents were constantly fighting, and when she was quite young, she also found herself at the receiving-end of the wrath of her mother and father. Harvey was an alcoholic, who hadn’t had a job in over a year. One morning Miranda woke up and found that her mother left the night before. Her father became even more angry, and Miranda would spend days away from home by the age of 13. She rarely attended school, and became excellent at avoiding truancy officers sent out by the school to find her. Her friends were several years older than she was, and by the age of 14, she was deep into drugs. One Sunday she returned home to find that her father was gone. Miranda never saw either of her parents again. She went from one friend’s house to another, crashing at night and cruising around with her friends during the day. One Saturday night they were pulled over for speeding, and the cops realized that she was underage. She was taken out of the car, and the cops tried to find out who she was, but she wouldn’t answer any of their questions. Since they couldn’t get even a name out of her, she was put in the back of the car to be taken to the police station. Halfway there, she jumped out of the car at a red light. She disappeared into the night, and they weren’t able to find her.

After the police were unable to get her to identify herself, she was transferred to the Boyersville Youth Detention Center. She was there for about two weeks, and made several attempts to escape. Given her habit of taking other kids’ food, she spent most of her first week being held in isolation. She refused to follow any of the rules. Finally a social worker came in who was able to get her to provide her name, the name of her parents, and where she came from. Then she was transferred to the Hogwood Institute for Adolescent Girls while the social worker investigated her case. Miranda ran away from the Institute, and managed to hitchhike back to Boyersville, where the police picked her up. There was an alert out for her, so she was taken back to Hogwood. She spent several days in a violent temper-tantrum before trying to run away again. Not able to make it out of the grounds because security guards were milling around, she pulled out some keys that one of the staff left on the counter of the nurses’ station. She hurriedly went from car to car attempting to determine which car the keys were for. It turned out to be a blue Pontiac GTO, and she started the car, sped off, and crashed through the main gate. Soon she was on the two-lane road that led toward town. Police stopped her after only a few miles. One of the Institute’s guards picked her up to take her back, roughing her up along the way, leaving her with a couple of noticeable bruises on her face. She swore and laughed at him, and hurled all manner of insults and abuse the whole way back. They put her in an isolation room until the social worker met with her. She explained to Miranda that nothing could be done for her as a result of her behavior. So she said that Miranda would have to be transferred to a behavior modification program…the Lincoln County Girls’ School. The discipline there was harsh, and it wasn’t really much of a school. Newbies came in as “tots” and had to work their way up through the different levels, each level having certain privileges associated with it. But this depended on the girl… getting with the program. Miranda spent four months as a tot, scrubbing and mopping floors, cleaning the bathrooms, and supervised constantly by a “Big Sister” whose job it was to report all her infractions of the rules, no matter how minor, to the staff. After a certain number of infractions, a girl received more months as a tot, was stripped of all privileges, and received only two meals a day. Miranda hurled so much verbal abuse that none of the older girls would be her “Big Sister.” When she saw the chance, she escaped through a window that was left unlocked by a janitor, and she disappeared again.

Miranda decided to head back to Nebraska, but was soon caught while stealing food from a gas station. The police took her back to Lincoln County. Two days later the social worker was standing over her bunk, looking down at her. Miranda could no longer stay at the Girls’ School. She was to be transferred to the Lexington Academy for Way-ward Girls in Massachusetts. A very large transfer agent accompanied her the whole way to the front gates of the Academy. Even from the outside, the place looked much worse than Lincoln County. It was aging and worn-down…the funding for the Academy had been cut several times. This meant that there were simply not enough staff anymore to effectively control the population. Many of the girls there were older than Miranda, and some of them were being held for violent offenses. Drug use was rampant, the residents had formed gangs, and the overworked staff sought to turn the girls against each other to relieve the pressure on themselves. Some of the male staff were known for inappropriate behavior…so to speak. She entered the Academy as “first-level scrub.” To avoid the daily violence, she violated rules that would get her put in solitary, where she spent most of her first three months…no privileges, no school, no nothing. But it was quiet, she didn’t have to worry about fighting anyone, and she was allowed out into the yard for an hour per day…all luxuries she didn’t have while staying in a dorm full of older, rougher girls. After three months she was placed in a different dorm with girls her own age, and remained there for about two years. But when she saw her chance, she made it out of the dorm, over the wall, and disappeared again. But as in the past, she was soon caught. Her new social worker said she was being transferred to the Elan School in Poland Springs, Maine.