The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  She had seen Sarah exactly once. There had been no chance to talk; they had passed one another in one of the corridors, but each of them had been guarded by Horsemen and all Perla could do was give Sarah a quick wink before she was whisked away. That had been two weeks ago.

  Every day, halfway between breakfast and lunch (so she supposed it was mid-morning, although there was no way to tell), a guard unlocked her door and escorted her to the Horse Room to watch a movie. The movie was a nightmarish series of loud sounds and vague but horrifying images: people being beaten by police, tortured by soldiers, and other similarly disturbing scenes. Perla didn’t watch the movies; she pretended to look at the screen, but her eyes were constantly searching the room, looking for anything she could use to her advantage.

  At the center of the Horse Room was a wide, flat rock formation in the shape of a raised platform, on which Nathaniel had placed two metal chairs, back to back. One of these was occupied by a big man with a bald head. He’d been heavier once, but had lost considerable weight chained to his chair. The other chair was empty.

  One day out of every seven was a day of rest. Today was one of those rest-days. Perla thought of it as Sunday, whether or not it was actually a Sunday outside the cave. The day of rest didn’t mean anything special to Perla, but she had noticed that the tunnels tended to be crowded with Horsemen on Sundays. They didn’t do any work. The meals were better on Sunday, too. Most days she had food brought to her in her cell, but on Sunday her guard would walk her to the dining room for lunch and dinner. With so many Horsemen around, there wasn’t much danger of her escaping.

  Today, it was getting on toward dinnertime. Perla’s stomach was beginning to growl when she heard a tapping on her cell door. It was Flem. None of the others knocked before coming in. The key turned in the lock and Flem opened the door. The flashing light on his collar was bright in the dim cell. “Ready for a walk?” he asked.

  Perla straightened her skirt as she stood up. She hated skirts and dresses, but there wasn’t much of a choice. Flem had arrived one day carrying a pile of women’s clothes and had hidden them under her cot. They were far too feminine for her taste, but she didn’t complain. She would never go so far as to say that Flem was a friend, but he had made an effort to do her small favors on several occasions. From the way he looked at her, she could tell that he wanted to do more—but he never attempted to take advantage of her. That was good; she would have clobbered him if he’d tried anything, and she didn’t want to clobber the only person who was nice to her.

  “Dinner?” she said, forcing a smile. “Not the brown mush again, I hope.”

  “Yellow mush today,” he said. “But we’re not going to dinner just yet.”

  Perla wanted to ask what he meant, but he was already out in the hallway waiting for her to come along. He shut her cell door without locking it, and led her through the maze of gray corridors until they reached the point where the walls changed over to bare rock. Every tunnel Flem chose led downhill, deeper into the earth. She saw seven other Horsemen along the way, all headed in the opposite direction. They glanced at her as she went by, but she felt safe as long as she was accompanied by Flem. “Where are we going?” she finally asked, unable to contain her curiosity. She’d never been in this section before. There were dark stains on the walls where groundwater trickled in through small cracks.

  “Shhh,” said Flem. “Almost there.”

  Perla stopped and folded her arms stubbornly. “Don’t shush me. I’m not going another step until―”

  Flem took her arm and pulled her into a branching corridor. “Nathaniel called a general meeting,” he whispered. “He has something important to say. To everyone.”

  “So?”

  “So, this is our chance. I’m getting you out. All the guards will be at the meeting, except for the two outside the main door. But there’s a second way out.”

  This made Perla very happy. She’d never seen Flem take any initiative before. But something bothered her about his plan, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The hum made it so hard to think. Her mind was the only weapon she had, and she couldn’t afford to have it go dull.

  “Oh!” Flem took something out of his pocket. “You’ll need this.” He placed a smallish lump of white putty in her hand. She stared at him dumbly until he turned his head and showed her his ear. He had a piece of the putty stuck in there like an earplug. “For the… you know.”

  Understanding dawned on her. Perla pulled the putty apart into two pieces and stuffed them into her ears. It didn’t make the hum go away, but her head did clear enough for her to pin down the thought that had been buzzing around in the back of her brain. “Sarah. I’m not going anywhere without Sarah.”

  Flem smiled. “I know. That’s why we’re here.” He took her hand and led her to the last door on the right side of the hallway, taking a ring of keys out of his pocket. “I had to steal these from Dick Bunton. Hope he doesn’t miss them.”

  The keys jingled loudly, echoing in the dark tunnel, as he tried each one in the lock. Finally he found the right one, and the lock clicked open. Flem breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door. Then, after taking a look inside, he quickly closed it again.

  “What are you doing?” Perla said. “Let her out!”

  Flem shook his head, looking suddenly troubled. “She’s not in there.”

  Perla nudged him out of the way and opened the cell door herself. Inside were two men dressed in blue, sprawled unconscious on the concrete floor. Or they might have been dead; she couldn’t tell. There was no sign of Sarah.

  “Your friend must be a pretty tough gal,” said Flem.

  * * *

  As much as she hated being in a cell, Sarah dreaded the sound of the key in the lock. Nathaniel had taken a particular interest in her, and he often came to talk to her or give her tours of the place that he called his house. Her revulsion at seeing him was doubled by the fact that he now looked like Tom Kajdas, except that his silver hair had now grown down almost to his shoulders.

  The door swung open. She prepared herself to look him in the eye. She always forced herself to maintain eye contact with Nathaniel, no matter how much it made her want to throw up. But it wasn’t Nathaniel at the door.

  “Big John?” she said. It seemed too good to be true. He was wearing the same blue clothes as the rest of them, but he had a hat on his head that appeared to be made of aluminum foil. Had he been captured by the Horsemen too? But the look in his eyes was sharp and clear. He had not been defeated like the other men.

  “Little Sarah,” said John. “Don’t worry, I’m not one of them. I’ve been snooping around to see what they’re up to.”

  “Is Ed here?”

  John sighed and shook his head. It had been too much to hope for, really. “Ready to get the fuck out of Dodge?” he asked. The casual use of profanity made her quite certain that it really was John.

  Sarah leapt into his arms and hugged him tightly to make sure he wasn’t imaginary. Only then did she notice the two bodies on the floor outside. “What did you do?”

  John shrugged. “They were assholes. Move aside for a sec.” He grabbed one man under the arms and dragged him into Sarah’s cell, while Sarah went out into the hall and plugged her ears. The humming sound filled up her head with unpleasant thoughts. It made her think of her father and all the unspeakable things he’d done to her. It made her think of her mother and sister, who hated her and would never speak to her again. Sometimes, after the lights were turned off at night, she saw them in the darkness, reaching out for her with hatred in their eyes. She thought that must be power of that sound, to make her see the things she dreaded most.

  But now she was out of her cage. She forced herself to stand up straight and take a deep breath. The air smelled better out here.

  John dragged the second man into the cell and locked the two bodies inside. Taking her hand, he led her down several branching hallways and into a rocky tunnel that sloped gently downward.


  “Perla’s here, too,” Sarah said. She kept her voice low, but the sound echoed up and down the tunnel as if she’d been shouting.

  “I know. We can try to circle around to her wing, but the blue bastards are everywhere. We might have to leave her for now.”

  “We can’t―”

  “Better for two of us to get out than none at all.” He peeked around a corner and suddenly pulled back. “It’s him,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be him.” He looked around the corner again. “This place messes with my head. I thought I saw Arthur.”

  “It’s hard to tell what’s real down here,” Sarah said. She kept seeing her father every time she looked into the darkness, and had to remind herself that what she was seeing was not real.

  John put a finger to his lips and pulled her backward into an open room. It looked like a classroom straight out of the 1950s, with a chalkboard and three rows of empty desks. There was a thick layer of dust on everything. John eased the door shut, cringing at the sound of the rusty hinge. He removed his foil hat to wipe the sweat from his head.

  Voices were coming from somewhere down the hall. Sarah couldn’t tell how far away they were, but they sounded close. John leaned over and whispered, “One of them sounds like the doctor. Whitehead. I don’t know the other one.”

  Sarah held her shirt over her nose to try to keep from inhaling the dust they had kicked up. She felt a tremendous urge to sneeze, and forced herself to hold it in until the men were gone. But they didn’t go; they stopped right outside the door to chat.

  “Bill Dibble?” one of the men was saying. “Are you sure?”

  “They just found him inside the front door,” said the other one. “Dead.” He had a precise way of pronouncing his words, which made Sarah think he must be the doctor.

  “How?”

  “Throat cut. Bled out of his carotid artery. Or so I heard.”

  Sarah glanced at John, who had a distinctly guilty look about him.

  “Is that why Nathaniel’s calling a meeting?”

  “Maybe. He doesn’t tell me what’s on his mind. Nobody’s sounded the alarm, so I’m guessing Nathaniel is still gathering information.”

  “Or he doesn’t want everybody to know about it. Do you think somebody found the tunnels?”

  “If they did, Nathaniel will take care of it. Just keep your eyes open—Nathaniel may need to use them.”

  At that moment there was a sudden change in the hum: it grew louder and rose in pitch, and Sarah thought she could almost make out something underneath the sound. It was as if words or images or thoughts were being transmitted directly into her mind. She heard herself groan involuntarily, gripping her head in both hands while it went on. Then it was over, and the hum was back to normal. She looked up and saw a thoroughly startled look on John’s face.

  A single image remained in her mind, like the afterimage that lingered after looking at a bright light. It was an image of a body on the ground with its throat cut. A dark pool of blood was spreading around the body and soaking into the dead man’s clothes.

  For a moment she was sure the men had heard her cry out. They would come crashing through the door looking for the source of the noise. But they didn’t come in.

  “Nathaniel didn’t send that,” said the doctor. “It came from someone else.”

  “See, I told you. Somebody’s found us.”

  “Either that, or there’s a traitor. Get down to the meeting and see if anybody else is missing. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The two men went away. Sarah erupted into a fit of sneezing and prayed that they were out of earshot.

  “Bless you,” John said when she was done.

  Sarah wiped her streaming eyes. “What was that?” she said.

  “They sent out an alarm over the hum. The hum is just a way of communicating, like a carrier frequency on a radio. Nathaniel uses it to keep the men under control, but he can also use it to send out messages. The dead man was a guard at the front door. He was supposed to conceal the door and take down anybody who tried to get in.”

  “Until you killed him,” said Sarah.

  John sighed and put his foil hat back on his head. “It was me or him. I like me better.”

  “But now they know you’re here.”

  “No,” said John. “They know somebody’s here. Did you hear what the doctor said? ‘Keep your eyes open.’ Nathaniel must have a way of seeing through their eyes.”

  Sarah pondered that idea. “So if any of his men see us while he’s looking through their eyes…”

  John sighed and shook his head. “Then we’ll probably both end up on garden duty.” Sarah did not want to know what that meant.

  * * *

  “I still say you’d be better off at the house with Rachael,” said Rayfield. “I can handle this.”

  Joy snorted, hefting the baseball bat she had brought with her. “You’re not as bad as you think you are. Anyway, it’s my friends in there too, and I can’t sit around and wait knowing my Shnookie is in there alone.”

  The night before, Joy had tried calling the police to file a report. She had made the mistake of telling them exactly how she knew that two of her friends had been kidnapped, and the Denver police had not shown an interest in investigating the matter. With no one else to turn to, she and Rayfield had followed the clues from the dream that had been put into both of their minds. This had led them past the entrance of the arsenal, down the road with the gas station, and down the dusty path to the fence with the hole under it. They crawled under and stood up on the other side in the tall, brown grass. The sun was low over the mountains to the west.

  In the dream, the door in the ground had been hidden so it looked like part of the hill. But the door was plain to see once they got close enough. There had also been guards, but no guards were in evidence today. Rayfield looked ready for a fight, but no one arrived to challenge them. “Guess we just go on in,” he said. He was carrying a two-foot length of rebar that Joy’s father had had lying around in his garage.

  “Guess so,” said Joy. The hum was starting to bother her, especially now that they were close to its source. She felt queasy and… something else. She felt full of despair. It was an emotion she had seldom experienced in her life, even during her most difficult times. If there was one thing that kept Joy going, it was her conviction that no matter how unpleasant or scary a story might be, there was always room for a happy ending. The idea that there might not be a happy ending was the one thing she feared more than anything else in the world.

  “Lord,” said Rayfield, holding his hands to his head. His afro was quivering. “That sound. Makes my legs feel all wobbly.”

  Joy didn’t want to think about the hum. Instead of answering, she pulled the door open and peered inside. Behind the door, a stairway descended into the earth, lit by dim, yellow light bulbs on the walls. “I wonder why nobody’s watching the door.”

  Joy took Rayfield’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Then she gripped her bat with both hands and went inside. Rayfield ducked his head and followed her. Once past the threshold, he found that the clearance was quite high and he was able to stand up straight, with only the top of his hair brushing the ceiling. There was enough space for them to stand side by side with elbow-room to spare. The steps went down a long way. Joy crept forward with her bat held high, while Rayfield came close behind with his rebar. Joy was pretty sure he could take off someone’s head with that thing if he wanted to. Rayfield didn’t get angry easily, but when he did, it was something to see.

  At the bottom of the steps, they came to an intersecting corridor and stopped just short of it. Joy was about to take a peek when she heard a very soft noise from just out of sight around the corner. It was a sliding sort of sound, like something heavy being dragged across the rocky floor, interspersed with the flopping sound of something wet slapping against the concrete. Joy looked up at Rayfield; he looked down at her, smiling with anticipation. They both raised their weapons, but it was Joy who stepped
around the corner first.

  A young man, dressed all in blue just like the people in her dream, looked up and stopped what he was doing. He had been scrubbing with a mop at a dark stain on the floor. “Uhh,” he said as Joy took a swing at his head. That was all he managed to say before he collapsed to the floor.

  “Joy!” Rayfield said. “He’s just a kid!”

  “He’s wearing blue,” said Joy. “Anybody in blue down here is not our friend.”

  Rayfield’s eyebrows rose very high on his forehead and he stepped back out of range. “Just don’t hit me by mistake,” he said.

  Only then did Joy notice another man a short distance down the hall. He was struggling to drag something that looked like a human body, and appeared to be having a difficult time of it. It took him quite a while to realize that something was wrong. When he finally did look up, he squealed like a small rodent and held up a hand as if signaling Rayfield and Joy to stop.

  “What the…” Rayfield looked around, suddenly bewildered. “Where’d he go?”

  “Sweetie, he’s right there. Can’t you see him? He hasn’t moved.” Joy looked from the man and the dead body to Rayfield, then back again. “Are your eyes okay?”

  Rayfield shook his head. “He just disappeared.”

  “Oh!” Joy exclaimed. “He’s making it so you can’t see him. Now I can’t see him either! Can you?” The man had suddenly vanished from her sight, but the body remained visible. An instant later the body disappeared as well. “I don’t think he’s too good at hiding,” said Joy.

  “There,” Rayfield said. “Now he’s back.” He raised his metal bar and advanced on the disappearing man.

  “Careful, Rayfield. These people are tricky.” Joy followed with her bat, but Rayfield was quick and dispatched him before Joy could help out. She thought she heard his invisible skull cracking under the impact. The illusion vanished as soon as Rayfield had taken care of him.