A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

  Tunning looked at me. “Congratulations,” she said, as if the word carried the same meaning as your death would please me. She looked back to Andre and took a step forward. “Stop unpacking that.”

  “No way,” said Andre as he teased the keyboard from its case. “Not until you hear him play. You need him on your station, today.”

  “The schedule’s complete,” said Tunning. “No changing it once it’s up.”

  “You’ll make time in your schedule for this,” said Andre. He pulled a tangle of cables free of the bag and started to look around for a power socket.

  Tunning placed a hand on his shoulders. “No, I won’t.”

  For the first time, Andre seemed to comprehend what the pinheaded woman was saying. He dropped the cables into a slithering heap, rammed a hand into his pocket, fumbled with his wallet, and fished out every note he could find inside, which looked to be close to £300. He thrust them into Tunning’s hands.

  “That won’t get you on air,” said Tunning.

  Andre closed Tunning’s fingers over the notes with shaking hands. “I know, that’s just for three minutes of your time, just to listen to him. Three minutes, that’s all—right here, right now.”

  Tunning jabbed at the inside of her lower lip with her tongue, making the sound of a wet fish hitting a chopping board. Eventually the coloured paper with the royal faces swayed her.

  “Three minutes. After that, it’s out or the police, capiche?”

  I snorted at the word, but a look from her tungsten eyes— because she was tungsten, shiny and cold as a nail—fired a warning shot across my bow.

  The keyboard was Andre’s best, with a rich sound for a machine, not like the faded junk he hoisted on session musicians who paid him to use their practice room. This was a performance tool, recording quality. I felt bad touching it, but only for a second.

  The next second flowed heavy with music, and I forgot everything else.

  I finished later. I hadn’t timed it, but the sun was now high in the sky outside, burning away the shadows from directly above. Where before it had been empty, now the lobby was full of people that I didn’t recall seeing before. They were all watching me, with Tunning at their head. She led the applause and didn’t stop or speak until Andre approached her.

  A few swiftly-spoken words had sealed the deal, and soon I was back at the piano; this time in the radio station broadcasting room with more people listening to me than ever had before.

  The following few days are hard to recall.

  After the radio station, the song moved. You could call it word of mouth, but there were no words—although mouths there were, too many to count, singing the notes back to us as we walked the streets—me and Andre and Tunning/Tungsten, the receptionist, and the woman who smelled of acid.

  We moved and sang, and others sang with us. It didn’t matter that there were no words; there were sounds, and everyone added their own guttural twang to the heady mix. Men, women, and children who hadn’t been lucky enough to hear the song before stared at us and all of the other singers laughing and smiling, until they understood, and after that, they sang too: loud, open sounds. They were my choir.

  Biblical isn’t a word I use often, as I’m a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. Still, it was the best word to describe the scenes I saw in the streets of London.

  The first thing that happened after the singing was that people began to stop, sometimes in crowds or sometimes alone. They just picked a place and stayed there. Some fell from windows, their bodies splitting on the floor or crushing others who continued to sing with broken spines.

  We saw them as we moved past, me and my disciples. Whenever I slept, either on benches or grass or pavement, they lulled us to sleep and were there when I woke up. As their voices became hoarse, they fell into humming the sound, but they never slept, and as the time went on, they began to fall, letting the song take them over even as their body fell to dehydration. Heads hit the floor and cracked like eggs, and every face smiled, even in sleeping/dying.

  I kept wondering, why me? Why did I manage to keep going when so many others just stopped? And the answer came to me just as another wave of arterial blood washed against my shoes.

  It needs me. It needs me to play it. And it needs me to help it live. There wasn’t any part of this world where they wouldn’t think this tune belonged with them, and it did. It was no more mine than the air, than the oceans. Everyone needed to hear it.

  I picked up an apple that had started to turn, taking what sweetness I could before it rotted away. There probably wouldn’t be any more apples picked now, but I could always claim them where they fell. And there would be music, and that’s better by any stretch.

  I wondered briefly whether the woman in the chair was looking down at me and smiling, and I was sure that she was. It came to me then, when I thought of her face, that she was the girl, the singer … the one who had taken my first hit and made it larger than any of us. I hadn’t recognised her; the new song had been more important.

  She had famously taken her car to the crest of a hill and breathed in its fumes until the world had faded. That was what had made the song memorable to the public. Truth be told, the tragedy had sold it far more than any artistry on my part. Now she had a new song, one that stood on its own merits, and one that I could spread for her.

  Whatever had happened to her body didn’t matter. It was probably deep in the brambles, as brown as the apple in my hand. What mattered was that her music had lived.

  I bit into the apple. My teeth severed the body of the worm, and both parts danced.

  Sick. I’ve never felt so sick.

  “Welcome.”

  The sensation of an arm, hot on my skin, slid around my shoulders companionably, then slithered away.

  “We’ve been waiting for you. You’ve taken much longer than expected.”

  Formless words—or thoughts of words—infiltrated my mind in a freight train rumble.

  Jesus … I covered my ears with my hands.

  “Now, now. Let’s leave Him out of this.”

  A dizzying in-and-out of focus, a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t sort of shimmering, wobbled in front of me. Liquid like mercury one minute and an almost non-existent vapor the next. The vision unmoored me, like a tsunami.

  Where the hell am I?

  “Yes. Once you get settled in, Mr. Davis, we can have our formal meeting, and it will all become clear. But for now, you’ll need some time to acclimate.”

  With a crisp snap of unseen fingers, a small primate in an old-timey bellhop uniform appeared at my side. He wore a tiny, red double-breasted jacket and pants accented with gold buttons, a ridiculous little cap, and white gloves. An outfit that trained monkeys might wear to charm tourists out of their loose change. My jaw dropped.

  “You summoned, Your Eminence?”

  “Martin, this is Mr. Davis. Please show him to his room.”

  My room? Hot acid roiled in my gut. I had the obsessive urge to flee, but my feet wouldn’t—or better, couldn’t—move.

  “Yes, Your Eminence.” Martin bowed to his sovereign, then turned to me. “This way, sir.”

  What was that look? Pity?

  An inhumane chuckling surrounded me, oppressive and sweaty, like a schoolyard bully.

  What the hell am I doing here? I was gripped by a racking dry heave. And that putrid smell … Who are you?

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the disembodied voice said. “Tsk tsk. I’m not being a very good host, am I? I’m, well, I have so many names, but you may address me directly as Your Eminence.”

  I recoiled from the three-fingered … hand? … that solidified and extended toward me.

  “The serpent of old, at your service.” The voice falsettoed to a little girl’s high pitch. An introduction so polite, it almost came with a Shirley Temple curtsey.

  “Mr. Davis?” Martin’s monkey-voice was in my head.

  I swallowed repeatedly to soothe my cartwheeling stomach. Viper eyes appeared just inches fro
m my nose, vertically slit and scale-rimmed. I was entranced in the serpent’s tractor-beam gaze. Those eyes. Hot blue and lit from the inside, unlike any I’d ever seen, but familiar at the same time.

  A minute or a million minutes passed. It was difficult to tell. My brain began moving again, like slow-warming oil, searching, searching to fill cracks with understanding.

  What happened? Where’s Leona? Wait …

  “Becoming clearer, Mr. Davis?” The pupils pulled outward at their sides, widening with interest. “My, you are slow on the pickup. I’ll wait.”

  She shot me.

  “Split your head in half, actually.”

  The beast went entirely limpid in an excited scatter of unbound atoms, then drew together into a thousand dripping, rotted faces at once. A horror show somehow thrust directly into my brain against my will. Molecules broke apart again and accelerated in agitated friction. A sizzling buzz, faint at first, swelled to an earsplitting crescendo.

  Shit … I always knew it would come to this.

  “Yesss … and indeed, it has.”

  The vaporous creature took a unified shape, yet, somehow, I also sensed it was infinite. I couldn’t see the apparition fully unless I looked away, as if in deference, and used my peripheral vision. The thing was black and bloated, like a corpse left to foul in water, and smelled even worse. My unstable stance, less steady than during the worst of my benders, was a funhouse mirror reflection; my brain told me one thing, my body, another. I doubled over, enduring another wave of nausea.

  “Leave us!” The serpent turned to Martin, absorbing the bellhop into its scintillating darkness. Its gaze once again rested on me in an eternal pause. There was a reflective weight to the way the beast studied me; cutting, heavy, and sharp.

  Whoa.

  “On second thought …” The monster’s maw stretched wide, an oven of flames flicked toward me.

  I jerked my head backward. The smell of my scant facial hair melting sickened me all over again.

  Blackened claws tapped at its re-hinging jaw. “I have an offer for you, Mr. Davis.”

  Wait, what? The shrieking in my head diminished.

  “Let’s play a game,”—its grotesque face appeared next to mine—“a gamble for your freedom, if you will.”

  Hell, I’d agree to almost anything—

  “Good … ‘Almost anything’ is what will be required of you. If you want away from here, I’ll give you the opportunity.” The serpent’s words were a sulfur-laced stink. “You’re lucky you’ve caught me in an … irregular mood.”

  Oh, shit! A rush of bile slammed into the back of my throat, and I leaned over to retch. If the serpent had been wearing shoes, I would have splattered them.

  “It seems we are of the same mind then?”

  I hesitated, then managed a stiff, almost imperceptible, nod. Drawing the back of my hand across my mouth, I steadied myself and stood to my full, proud height. White bolts of pain ripped through me, stealing my breath and stooping my back.

  “This is no place for dignity, Mr. Davis.”

  C’mon man, wake up. It’s only a dream!

  “Tick tock, do you want to play or not?”

  The pain ratcheted up again, thousands of tiny teeth gnawing at my bones. Okay, okay. What do I have to do?

  “You must become a walk-in,” the creature hissed, slamming its baritone voice into my brain. “Steal a body, send me the soul, and I let you go, free and clear.”

  Send you … a soul?

  “Why yesss … a soul in place of yours.”

  Send you a soul.

  “But here’s the rub; you must drive your victim to suicide.”

  And steal their body.

  “That’s correct, Mr. Davis. You must occupy their body. After all, possession is nine-tenths of the law, or so they say.” The serpent grabbed my face, pulling me closer and branding my skin. “Immediately prior to their death, you’ll have the energetic power to dislodge the host soul with nothing more than intention—but you’ll have only a few, short minutes.”

  I struggled to turn away and closed my eyes, as if I could block the sewer-gas stench threatening my stomach again. Kick it out energetically?

  “A walk-in must remove the soul while the body is still living. It’s really the only way to step in,” the monster said, releasing me roughly. “Once the death process has started, it’s almost impossible to stop, so you must move quickly.”

  But, suicide?

  “Yes, Mr. Davis. Suicide. All suicides come to me. Now concentrate.”

  Make someone take their own life? How?

  “How you do it will be up to you, but I suggest you guide your host toward a means that inflicts the least damage. After all, you’ll be inhabiting their body afterward,” the beast said, snickering. “That’s what makes the game so entertaining.”

  Pills? Slit wrists? Bridge jump?

  “You will not be in your naked spirit; however, your soul will be provided with a loaner shell—a body—of your choice and any documents or props you feel necessary. Anything you need or want shall be at your disposal. That only seems reasonable, now doesn’t it?”

  Reasonable? We left reasonable a long time ago. I wanted to nod but could only muster a fragile grimace.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing.”

  There’s more? Lead-like trepidation coagulated somewhere near my small intestine.

  “You have one month, Earth time, to choose your victim and carry out your task. If you fail, we spend the rest of eternity together. If you succeed, well, then you have the rest of your chosen victim’s natural life to correct the mistakes you’ve made, to settle debts, whatever.”

  Mistakes?

  Its tongue clucked at me. “You’ve been a very bad boy. You’ve left many of us defiled in your wake,”—the little girl’s voice again— “almost enough to make me proud.”

  Shit. How—? A shiver of foreboding crawled up my back.

  “I know everything about you!”

  The creature spit, its high scream a cyclone. I’d already encountered the worst pain I could imagine, but now I had no choice but to withstand more.

  The serpent became genial again. “The game is more than fair; what do you say? Would you like the chance to live a little longer, Mr. Davis?”

  I know just the debt that needs settling. Irrational hatred blistered in me, bubbling to the surface to congeal in one cool, calculating thought.

  “You have someone in mind then?”

  Let’s do this.

  “Oh let’s, indeed.”

  When I came to, the first thing I was aware of was my white doctor’s coat in the mirror. I smoothed the fabric, straightening it. Beneath were dark slacks, fitted snug around my muscular thighs and ass. A shiny name badge was pinned over my right pectoral muscle. I felt like shit, head throbbing, as if I had the worst hangover of my life, but I resembled a Chippendale dancer in disguise. Perfectly sculpted. Irresistible.

  That’s right, baby. I remember what worked for you.

  She wouldn’t be able to resist me. Tightly-cropped blond hair, a little bit of stubble, angular jawline, and crystalline eyes. I was tall and rugged-looking; her favorite dessert. But the coat … well the coat, and the dollar signs it implied, would seal the deal.

  Gold-digging whore.

  “Here’s your office. Here’s your password. And your case files.” My new administrator dropped a large stack of folders on the desk. “Welcome to Sunnyside State Women’s Hospital, Doctor Carter. We’re glad to have someone of your esteemed accomplishments join our team. Please let me know if you need anything.” He spun on his heel to go as I set down my box. “Oh,”—he turned back toward me—“you might want to lose the coat though, these girls will be all over you in that getup … Unless, of course, that’s what you’re going for.” He winked, firing a finger-gun at me, and left.

  I ran my hand along my new name placard on my way to sit behind the solid mahogany desk. Dean Carter, Psy. D. It had a nice ring to it. I
began to unpack my props: framed diplomas, textbooks so I could best play my part, electrical cord, and my copy of Dante’s Inferno. I had become quite the reader in the two weeks since my transition, fascinated with my own journey into Hell.

  Sifting through the files on my desk, I found the one I wanted. Leona Davis was scrawled in tight, formal handwriting on the label. My jaw tightened. “Let’s see, wifey, what you’ve been up to while Daddy was away.”

  Scanning the initial pages, I found that the previous psychiatrist, a Dr. Winger, had left a brief summation of their sessions to date. Leona’s new diagnosis was psychotic depression, in addition to her previously existing bipolar disorder. Apparently, she had been reluctantly participating in daily therapy, both group and individual, and it appeared she had made some progress once she admitted to, and began working through, the murder.

  My murder.

  I had no idea how much time had passed since my … death. It’s an odd thing to consider one’s own killing. I wonder who had walked around my bloody corpse, careful not to step in my splattered brains. There were photos, I would imagine. My stomach fluttered. I would have to work up to looking at those.

  Leona’s court folder protruded from beneath her open file, and judging by how thin it looked, the trial must have been quick.

  I’ll save that one for bathroom reading.

  I traced my finger along the lines of Dr. Winger’s notes:

  Mrs. Davis vacillates between rageful violence and depressive stupor and is prone to delusions. She has a history of suicide attempts by hanging and overdose, and we are currently trying to find a workable antipsychotic/antidepressant combination to complement her lithium. History, medications, and dosages are in her chart.

  Hmm … abruptly removing all medication is just the thing to help her over the edge.

  We have been working on moving toward participation in group therapy more fully to alleviate some of the guilt she retains over her husband’s murder. Patient is particularly triggered when discussion of her husband’s pedophilia arises.

  Bitch. That was my business. My teeth ground against each other.