Vern, look at what DreamTime could have had. Why settle for that damn leased record company garbage when you could have this! He spread his arms wide, dug his nails into his palms, relished in the power of the studio, his studio. He stared at the rows of skeletal guitars lining the walls. He walked over to them, gently touching the necks of two Les Pauls. Black, scorpion-like configurations, beautifully carved from the finest oak, painted and polished, pick-ups set and wired, bodies bridged and strung. Each model stood out like a demon statue against the pale walls, their prospect for resonation unmistakable, infinite. The guitars silently joined forces with one another, their fusion a form of communication that only Nicolas could hear and understand.
The color of the guitar played an important motivation factor when seeking the perfectly suited feel, given the song in question. Red for fast and fiery leads, black for thrashing solos, white for something a bit more ambient. Nicolas eyed each instrument with true regard, recalling the songs they created, the sounds that in combination with his fingers encapsulated all that made up DreamTime.
Now all that was gone.
He closed his eyes. The chilling fear of solitude sank deep into his muscles, into his blood and soul. "I will create the ultimate music," he uttered, sinking down to his knees, fingertips resting prayerfully upon the hollow body of a beautiful sunburst ES-335. His thoughts swam through the memories of his so-called rock-star career, a life laden with ups and downs, inspirations and apathies. Burning desires fraught with burned-out efforts.
A shame, all he had to show for it was utter dismissal. A hankering for substance, for success, for the ultimate ambition to create music. Music. A means to calm the inferno raging inside, to quell the fiery lusts rising from the conviction to feed the breeds—those hungry for Nicolas to express himself. His fans. Adolescents rushing forward through crowds to purchase tickets to his concerts, eager for him to give his sweat and soul away, pour his heart out. All through his music.
He wiped the tears from his eyes, stood and walked to the control room. Once inside he opened the black-painted cabinet tucked into the corner and removed all the tapes he'd ever created with DreamTime, all two-inch masters. Originals. Not duplicates. He carried them to the studio and piled them into the trash can. Looking at them, he removed the top tape. The label read: Ugly Red River. Their first top forty single on the indie charts. He opened the box and flung the wound tape against the wall. It unfurled from its spool, fluttering across the studio like a piece of ribbon at a parade. He grabbed it again, whipped it into the bass drum of his kit. The tape fell free and lay in winding spirals on the carpeted floor.
"Goodbye to you, DreamTime."
And thus began Nicolas's solo career.
Nearly one week, locked in the studio. Minimal food and rest, maximum inspiration triggered through chemical reliance. Passions flew as his new music found its form through experimentation and vision. Anger, happiness, excitement, dismay, whipped together to form an emotion as new and as odd as the sounds filtering throughout the studio.
Long gone was the orderly presentation of guitars and other instruments. Here havoc ensued, the guitars lying haphazardly on the floor, some placed down gingerly after successful sessions, others madly strewn through the frustration of misaccomplishment. One lay smashed to pieces in the corner, a hole in the wall the tell-tale sign of its demise.
Yards and yards of two-inch recording tape lay all over the room, slung from their spools, slashed at, burned, torn, each embodying snippets of weak music now severed from the tangle of his mind. The misrelated parts lay entwined together, wrapped around those instruments that had failed to perform, mummifying them. Forgotten cigarettes formed graveyards of butts in numerous ashtrays, others tossed and crushed underfoot to leave charred holes in the carpet.
A Fender Stratocaster hung lifelessly around Nicolas' neck, a great pendant of failed creation. He pressed the record button on the remote next to him, song six, track five—rhythm guitar. He strummed out his chords as the tape ran the drum, bass, and keyboard tracks he recorded earlier.
Images sucked at his mind. Drug-induced children seeking solace in the comfort of his music, unable to comprehend the butchery of sound he attempted to offer. They lay writhing in pain, holding their ears as blood seeped from the cracks between their fingers.
Nicolas screamed in frustration, fear, the cigarette falling from his mouth to the floor. He shoved the remote aside then unstrapped his guitar and threw it across the studio in a surge of uncontrollable madness. It met the partition separating the control room and crashed through. The glass exploded into a shower of silvery shards.
His vision blurred. Fear ate its way into his bones. His eyes bore cold biting tears. He moved from his stool with no direction in mind. Pacing forward, backwards, sideways. A thick shard of glass found his foot, ripped through his sneaker, punctured his heel. His body arched backwards. He grasped at the nearest microphone stand, pulling it down on top of him. It proved no support as his head impacted with the corner of the Marshall Amplifier. He hit the floor. Blackness ensued, then cleared, and he lay there numbed, glass tearing at his back.
Time passed. A burning smell jarred his senses. Then, flickers of orange light sparking across his vision. The carpet began to flare, ignited by the cigarette that had fallen from his mouth. Flames spread to the drum kit. He crawled, swatted at them, burning his hands. The fire slowly spread throughout the room, trapping Nicolas inside. Smoke rose and tendriled across the ceiling.
Unable to help himself, Nicolas could only continue to do what he did best: create. He reached over, picked up the remote, then pressed "Record," capturing on tape the ultimate sacrifice to his music. His death.
"Still hard to believe what happened to Nick, eh?" Grant leaned back in his chair, money-hungry eyes sizing up Vern.
Vern shrugged, holding the box close to his chest. "He died with his music."
"And now we will profit, Vernon. Wouldn't you agree?"
"I feel a bit unsure doing this, Grant. I—"
"DreamTime is dead, as dead as Nicolas is," the exec interrupted. "Admit it. That was a God-awful album you made there without him." Grant placed his stubby hands on his head, elbows pointed out. "By the way Vernon, where are you living now?"
"I have an apartment."
"You making ends meet?"
Vern left that question unanswered. It was no secret that he'd had his share of money problems since the third DreamTime album bombed. The past year had him spending a lot of time gigging around with various bands, trying to find something, anything that worked for him. Now the royalties from the first two DreamTime albums had slowed to a trickle and desperation had become an all-too-familiar feeling.
"Let's listen to the tape, Vern. Nick's legacy could go on, he could be the next Jimi Hendrix, or Kurt Cobain. But only if you allow it to happen. And then there'll be plenty of royalties for DreamTime to collect."
But Nicolas didn't die in the fire, Vern thought. He disappeared. That's what the detectives said. They found nothing, no charred bones, no teeth or jewelry.
Everything inside the studio had been burnt to a crisp—except the tape. Nicolas found it lying on the floor under a melted guitar case, unblemished, rewound and safely nestled in its box. It was as if it had been left there for him. A gift from the missing Nicolas.
Vern took a deep breath, staring the Grant down. No, Vern's not dead. He's not even missing. He's exactly where he belongs...
A week after the fire, after all the publicity died down, Vern found the courage to listen to the tape. On it he heard some of the most incredible music he'd ever chanced to experience, forty three minutes of beauty that brought shivers to his body. How grand it was to absorb this new form of music—a music that encompassed everything Nicolas had been. It was an interpretation of emotion, sparked from his body, mind, and soul.
Vernon had kept the tape a secret, electing to share it with no one, lest they think him truly crazy. It was only after the record c
ompany people started offering big bucks to anyone who could come up with unreleased recordings of Nicolas' work that he admitted having it. Stupid.
The tape couldn't be rationally explained, it couldn't be shared with the world. It was foolish to sit here with the music bigwigs and consider it a possibility.
Without saying a word, Vernon upped and walked out of the office, shouldering off the shouts of the executive. He realized at that moment that the tape was for his own use, for DreamTime. It was the catalyst that would bring DreamTime back, just as Nicolas would have wanted.
Still wants.
It didn't matter what kind of playback machine the tape was wound on. The same remarkable thing would happen every time. It would register as a blank tape, show no signal whatsoever. Yet when played, instead of projecting blaring white noise, beautiful music emanated from the speakers. And not just the same music, but something different every time. Something new, something unique and never before heard by human ears.
The music it played couldn't be copied to another tape. It would record as white noise. The music of the moment existed only once, and that was all, only to be replaced by something else. Newer. Better.
And, at the end of every forty-three minutes of music, there was a terrifying scream, signifying two ends: the finale of the music, and Nicolas' last foray into the music world.
The tape wasn't just Nicolas's music, it was Nicolas. Although Nicolas was gone from this world, he would be with DreamTime forever, making music, promising success to the only thing that ever meant anything to him: the band.
Vern would make sure of it.
Sweet Dreams
Cool beams of spring moonlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a tide of gentle illumination illuminating the master suite, watching over Lissette and her infant as they slept, Lissette in her bed, the baby in its bassinet.
Amidst the suddenness of a fleeting moment, an alarming vision jarred Lissette awake, its somber ambiguousness shrouding her ability to discern whether it had been triggered by reality, or a slumber-induced fantasy.
Its threat nevertheless was coherent: so terribly daunting.
She felt a terrible strain in the muscles of her eyes, terror-filled tears bursting from their ducts to drown her sights, burning away all true perspective, distorting reality. The veins in her body swelled with blood, hot rushing cells streaming through her in sudden reaction to the impenetrable horror replacing the cool white beams from the moon. Her body jerked uncontrollably, fists clenching, desperately seeking the sheets in bunches, pulling, twisting, writhing, hot sticky perspiration sheathing her, dampening the mattress. Muscles tightening, tendons contracting, jaws clenching—all taut with distress.
She bolted upright, lungs heaving, the white moonbeams in the room now laced with veiny black streaks, flaming serpentine eyes within staring at her, venomous fangs swelling from each crystallizing snake, chiding rattles pointing at her. Sweat gushed from her pores, the twitching skin on her arms and neck and back rippling with dread as the floating demons meshed to form one solid entity: a great face, scowling, deriding, a mask miraculously formed by the vile orgy of reptiles, a hundred or more emerging to create lips, horns, fangs: a red and black demon of unnamable proportions.
Lissette hid beneath the damp covers, the thing mere inches away, its foul breath seeping through the thin cotton fabric, torturing her nostrils with a putrid stench too spoiled to fathom.
Then suddenly, silence.
She inched the covers back, first over her eyes, then down to her chin, tearing at it with her front teeth as the snaked-formed demon hovered over the infant's bassinet, its ungodly countenance smiling as it bore down upon her first born.
Lissette tore away the safety of her covers, edging on all fours across the mattress on all fours to the foot of the bed. The floating demon-head aimed its wicked sights at her, a collection of tiny black snakes slithering amongst themselves to form its bulbous eyes.
She prayed tearfully for a purpose to this monstrosity in her sanctuary, then for a means to defeat its horrible threat before it menaced her child.
Suddenly, a voice inside her head: The drawer, Lissette! Remember? In the drawer!
Her subconscious, calling out to her, a fleeting memory from a previous night when a similar peril had distressed her. Yes, she remembered! The drawer! Something in it could protect her!
She crawled backwards across the bed, eyes still pinned to the demon. Reaching the end table, she ever so gently pulled it open.
Inside, twelve inches of razor-sharp steel gleamed at her. A formidable weapon, its handle black serrated rubber. Its point, twinkling. Eager.
She grabbed the knife.
She turned to face the demon.
It had vanished! The snakes, the heat, the odor—no longer in existence. In its place, the cool white beams of the moon filtered into the suite, just like earlier, purifying everything in its wake with fresh, taintless light.
Confused, she rose from the bed, paced warily to the bassinet.
She peeked inside...
...and all blackness returned, encapsulating her like a great rushing tide swallowing a tiny mound of sand on the beach. All her relief, now washed away in a second's time, replaced by a fear greater than the horror of the terrifying snake-demon itself.
At first contemplation it appeared her infant child had vanished, its soft gentle image gone and replaced by something foreign. But her sights quickly absorbed the occupant within the bassinet, and it became immediately apparent that the baby had not been switched. It had become something else. Something truly hideous. Malformed and despicable.
Wrapped in its newborn creeper, the exposed flesh of its hands and chest had become a coating of scales, a gross overlaying of hardened leaflets with white crusted edges culminating into sharp points. It had become an armadillo, its face similarly masked, black orbs for eyes peering and deliberating the figure before it—what it could only assume to be its mother. It opened its mouth to utter; instead of whimpers a forked tongue fell out, a procession of guttural grunts and viscous matter following.
It reached two sets of claws to Lissette. To its mother.
Fear robbed Lissette of her of her voice, weakened gasps emerging from her throat as she tightened her grip on the knife. She pressed the cool steel blade against her cheek in vain effort to test the reality of the moment, its stabbing threat radiating shudders along her spine.
She managed a deep labored breath, its forced entry burning her lungs. Then, she closed her eyes. Raised the knife. Preparing to plunge it into the baby beast.
Suddenly, a cry. Soft, yet heard. Very real. Very human.
Knife still raised, she opened her eyes, ever so slowly, for her mind could never maintain its sanity should another glimpse of the creature enter her sights.
But the thing was gone. Her baby—it had returned to its place in the cradle. Her beautiful infant girl, once again pink and soft and sweet-smelling as she should be. Eyes bright, smile buoyant, happy to see its mother.
Lissette threw the knife to the bed. Crying, she picked up her baby girl and held it close, singing a gentle tune. As she rocked her to sleep, she prayed for the hideous evil tormenting her to abandon its hold so that she may go on living a normal peaceful life. Just the two of them together, just Lissette and her baby daughter.
Ever so gently, Emily the housekeeper opened the door to Lissette's suite, and peeked inside. Things looked somewhat amiss. The sheets on Lissette's bed were strewn about, Lissette herself sleeping in an awkward position, arms and legs twisted, head pressed to the sheets. Emily tiptoed forward, careful not to rouse the sleeping debutante, or her child.
She saw the knife, its gleaming blade peeking from within a soft crease in the sheet. Emily paused, observing the scene, the sleeping Lissette, the silent bassinet.
Slowly she walked to the cradle. Placed a gentle hand on the edge.
Then, heart pounding, she peered inside.
The baby slept, undi
sturbed, unharmed.
A welling of emotions beset Emily, the baby's silent repose meeting her gaze, its tender skin unblemished from harm, its miniature eyes fluttering to meet her looming countenance. How Emily prayed for the chance to give birth, her insides now torn apart, a consequence of drug dependency.
The baby smiled at her. Mockingly.
Emily scowled, turned away, grabbing the knife from the bed. She put it back into the drawer, right on top, where it could be easily grasped by Lissette.
Emily stared at Lissette, clenched her fists in frustration, her efforts still unrewarded.
Tapestry
Joey Zamp sat erect on a worn bar stool, his client lying stiff and flat on his stomach atop a patent leather couch. Jimmy Cooper had come in for the remaining touches of fill-in—his tenth and final visit. All of the artwork had been completed over the course of six weeks.
Joey's eyesight had begun to blur now after five hours of sweat. The tapestry Cooper had tattooed on his back depicted a great dragon, spires of red and orange flames firing from its maw and morphing into a blanket of demon-like specters that surrounded the reptile and settled into a sun shape behind it. The tattoo—or series of tattoos, really—began at the nape of Cooper's neck, forming a collar, sheathed his entire back and abruptly terminated at the waist, giving way to the white skin of his buttocks like a wall before an ocean. A masterful work of art—an example of Joey Zamp's best.
Joey's eyes found a less-than-perfect line within the various flames encircling the dragon. With a flick of the wrist, a dab of the needle, it was fixed, now perfectly blended within the color-rich scenery. He dabbed at the droplets of blood rising from Jimmy's skin with an alcohol-dampened cloth, then placed the needle down for a moment to admire his work. Another half-hour of touch-up and the tapestry tattoo on Jimmy Cooper's back would finally be complete.
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