The Music Man

by Amy Cross

  “Then there are the boxes in the barn,” he points out. “Donald wanted to destroy them, but I persuaded him that it'd be too risky, that maybe the creature would get out. I'm thinking that maybe we should bury them.”

  “That's something we can discuss tomorrow,” I tell him.

  “There's no point being awake at night,” he continues. “I figure I'm going to start going to bed when it gets dark and waking up when it gets light. That's the best use of resources.”

  “I agree,” I tell him. “I shall retire soon and see you in the morning.”

  He heads through to the other room, and I'm left standing alone at the kitchen window. As I look out across the yard, I can't help wondering where Dean and the others are now. I can't say that I believe in any higher power, but I very much hope that – if there is one – then he or she is going to set the world straight soon. Perhaps the lights will magically come back on, and the water too, and we shall miraculously find that things are going back to normal.

  Reaching into my pocket, I take out my mobile telephone and switch it on. I suppose I can afford to check occasionally, just in case the signal returns. After a moment, however, I find that the screen remains dark. I press the button on the side again, but there's still no sign of life. Turning the telephone over, I find that the panel on the back is slightly loose. When I pull the panel away, I find to my surprise that the battery is missing.

  ***

  There's just enough moonlight in my room for me to be able to see the guitars as I slip the bin bags away. Both guitars – mine and Sarah's – are badly damaged, but I feel it might be possible to repair them.

  Of course, right now, I cannot even play. I spend a short while trying to straighten the damaged neck, but it's clear that this is a job that will take quite some time. If I cannibalize parts from one guitar and then switch them around, then with a little luck it's possible that I might end up with something that can at least be played. The sound will not be pretty, but that's better than nothing.

  Sighing, I lean back and close my eyes.

  Suddenly I feel a tremendous rushing sensation in my chest. I lean forward and open my eyes, but I find that I'm now in the forest on a gray morning. Frantically getting to my feet, I look around and tell myself that I must be dreaming, but a moment later I hear an agonized scream coming from nearby. I turn again, and this time I see Adam standing nearby, beating the creature with the branch.

  “Hey!” I shout. “Get back!”

  I take a step forward, determined to pull him away and save his life, but then I stumble as I feel a sudden rush of fear. Stopping, I find that my hands are trembling wildly, and the creature's cries seem to be somehow entering my body and filling me with the most astonishing sense of pure terror. It's as if I'm about to die, as if I'm the one who's being beaten, and I can't shake the sensation at all.

  I try to cry out, but then I see the creature burst into thousands of tiny black teeth, and I watch as those teeth cut through Adam. It's his moment of death all over again, and there's nothing I can do to help him. Even as I tell myself that this is all a dream, I feel the horror and hopelessness once again rushing through my body, and then I realize that the earlier fear has been replaced by something else.

  Sorrow.

  No, not sorrow.

  Guilt.

  As Adam's body slumps to the ground, I feel an immense sense of responsibility, as if I'm the one who killed him. With tears in my eyes, I start crawling across the forest floor, until finally I reach Adam and see his dead eyes staring back at me.

  “I'm so sorry,” I whisper, my voice trembling with shock. “It should have been me. I'm an old man, I haven't got many years left anyway, I should have been the one who died.”

  Sensing something moving nearby, I turn and see that the teeth are pulling back together, re-forming the creature's original body shape. I can hear the scraping sound of all the teeth scraping against one another, but after a moment the creature – or at least, what's left of it -slumps back down as if it's too weak to continue. In that moment, I realize to my surprise that I can once again taste eggs, and I start spitting sand from my mouth.

  “What is this?” I gasp, as more and more sand comes bursting up from the back of my throat, threatening to suffocate me. “I don't understand!”

  I roll onto my back and clutch my neck, but the sand is pouring out now and I can't breathe at all. I try to call out for help, and when that doesn't work I try to tell myself that this can't be happening, that it's just another dream. At the same time, I'm starting to suffocate and there's nothing I can do to break free as more and more sand bursts out from the back of my mouth and starts pouring not only from my lips but also from my nostrils and eyes, until finally everything goes black.

  Twenty-Two

  I open my eyes and sit up.

  I'm on the camp-bed in the room at the back of the farmhouse. The guitars are next to me, in a patch of moonlight, and for a moment I sit in absolute silence.

  Finally, however, I realize that I know what I have to do.

  ***

  As soon as I reach the barn, I can hear a faint rattling sound coming from the six metal boxes. I expected as much. Whereas I was able to put the first 'dream' down to a series of coincidence, this time I'm certain that there's something else happening. And as I stop in front of the boxes and crouch down, I find myself filled with a sense of awe.

  “I get it now,” I whisper. “I heard you.”

  Reaching out, I open the first box, then the second, and then the rest. Thousands of tiny black teeth come rushing out, spilling across the floor, and then they slowly start to pull toward one another. The effect is quite startling, and finally I step back and watch. There's still a part of me that worries I might be making a terrible mistake, but Craig is fast asleep in the farmhouse so I suppose the only person at risk here is me. And it's a risk I'm willing to take, because I think I know what I should have done at the start.

  I head further into the barn, using a candle to light the way, and finally I reach the coop where the chickens are kept. I crouch down and take a look, and I see that the chickens are unharmed, just as they've remained unharmed despite the several times that this creature has 'attacked' them. It would have been very easy for the little black teeth to have swarmed into the cage and attack the chickens, so it's clear that they were not the target. Instead, my suspicions are proven correct as I examine the side of the cage and find that the eggs run into a small metal box that's attached to the lower edge.

  I fiddle with the box for a moment before finally managing to get it open, and then I reach inside and take out the two eggs that I find.

  “It wasn't the chickens you wanted at all,” I mutter to myself as I get to my feet and head back toward the boxes. “I get that now.”

  The piles of black teeth are still drawing themselves together, but the process seems painfully slow and it's clear that the creature remains weak. Crouching down again, I hold the eggs out and crack them together, and then I drop them down directly onto one of the piles. I watch for a moment as the eggs seep into the mass of teeth, and I must admit that I feel rather foolish. Then again, if the supposed dream was trying to tell me something, I rather think that the taste of the sand was supposed to be a clue. Is it possible that, for whatever reason, these creatures feed on something that is very similar to the eggs of our world?

  Suddenly the piles of black teeth start shuddering and pulling together faster, as if the eggs have given them strength. I pull back, just as the teeth begin to rise up into the air. For a moment, they seem ready to attack me, and I worry that I am to suffer the same fate as Adam, but then there's a rush of activity and the teeth bind together to once again form the vaguely human shape that I saw before. Except, this time the shape looks taller and bigger, stronger even, as it towers above me.

  “I understand,” I stammer, trying not to panic. “You got left behind by your friends, and you were hurt. You needed food, but you couldn't get to the e
ggs. But you're strong now, so you can go. Can't you?”

  I wait, but the figure simply stares down at me.

  “Why did you take the music?” I continue. “Don't you have it, where you come from? You didn't have to take it all, you could have just taken some of it. We could have shared.”

  The figure leans down toward me, and I hear all those thousands of sharp teeth jostling together. For a moment, the entire creature seems to be comprised of nothing more than the teeth, as if it's poised to attack. Finally, however, the teeth begin to disappear beneath the surface, leaving the creature once again with a smooth face.

  “I saved you!” I snap angrily. “Now can't you do something for us? You took all the music, you left us with nothing! Go to your friends and tell them we need some of it back! Our world is collapsing and it's all your fault!”

  The creature tilts its head slightly. Is it listening? Is it capable of understanding?

  “We need it!” I continue. “At least some of it! You've left us like this, and look at us! Look what we've become! Wherever you've taken it, you owe us the chance to hear it again! If you were so desperate for it, that means you know how important it is. It means you know what you've taken from our world. Are you really going to just leave us like this? Don't you care at all?”

  I wait, but the creature is still just staring at me.

  Suddenly I feel cold air blasting against the back of my neck, and I turn to see that a hole has been torn in the air right behind my shoulders. I pull away, shocked by the sight of flickering lights that seem to have come from nowhere, but after a moment the hole widens slightly and I realize I can see a whole other world on the other side. I lean a little closer, and I'm just about able to make out an orange beach at the edge of a vast purple sea, with scores of orange island in the distance. It's the world from my dream, and I can only stare with a sense of wonder as I realize that it's all real.

  Slowly, I reach out toward the flashing light.

  Before I can get too close, however, there's a rush sound nearby and I turn just as the creature falls apart and becomes a mass of little black teeth. This time, however, the teeth race past me, falling quickly through the hole.

  “Wait!” I call out. “Come back!”

  The hole closes, and I'm left kneeling all alone in the dark barn. Even the candle has been snuffed out, and the only sound is the clucking of chickens in the nearby coop.

  Twenty-Three

  Five years later

  “Two this morning,” Craig says as he comes through into the kitchen and sets a pair of rabbits on the table. “I hope you're not getting sick of them.”

  “They're nice and plump,” I point out. “They'll go well in a stew or a casserole.”

  “How's the guitar going?” he asks.

  Looking down, I take a moment to inspect the work that I completed this morning. I've managed to very carefully fix the damage to the neck, and I'm starting to think that perhaps I'm close to being done.

  “I'm not quite there yet,” I explain. “It might look okay, but that doesn't mean that it'll sound right. I'm afraid I shall have to keep working on it for some time yet.”

  “Don't take this the wrong way,” Craig continues, “but isn't that what you've been saying for a few years now? Does it really take this long to fix a guitar?”

  “You don't understand.”

  “Have you tried playing it yet?”

  “Of course not. Don't be foolish.”

  “But you could, if you wanted,” he replies. “You said it yourself, you still have a little of your music left. Not a lot, but maybe enough to play for a few minutes.”

  “Which is precisely why,” I mutter, “I do not intend to waste that precious resource. I need this guitar to be absolutely perfect before I ever play it again. I've even had to force myself to stop thinking about music, to stop hearing it in my head, in case I accidentally use up some of the remaining music that I possess.” I peer more closely at the guitar's neck. “It's not perfect yet. Maybe when it's perfect, I can start to play, but not yet.”

  After a moment, I realize that he's staring at me, so I turn and meet his gaze.

  “Yes?” I ask testily.

  “I was just wondering whether it'll ever be perfect,” he says, “but I guess it's none of my business. I'm going to skin these rabbits and get them ready, and then I'll go and do some work in the field.”

  “I'll skin the rabbits,” I reply, as I start getting to my feet, “and then -”

  Suddenly I feel a blast of pain in my back. I let out a gasp as I collapse back in the chair, and then I push Craig aside as he rushes over to help.

  “I'm fine!” I snap. “Just because I hurt my back, that doesn't mean I'm too old to do things around here.”

  “I never said that you were.”

  “But you were thinking it!” I say firmly. “Go on, get out of here. Go and tend to the field. When you get back, those two rabbits will be skinned and ready to cook.”

  “Sure,” he replies, taking a step back. “I'm sorry, Derek, I didn't mean to annoy you.”

  He hesitates, and then he heads out of the room, leaving me sitting alone with the guitar on my lap. Sighing, I tell myself that I shouldn't have lost my temper. At the same time, I'm in more pain than I want to admit, and I don't want Craig to start noticing my struggles. He already does most of the work around this place, and I don't want him to think that he's right about the fact that I'm becoming so inform.

  I also don't want him to realize that he's right about the guitar.

  ***

  There.

  Two rabbits, skinned and ready to cook.

  Sure, my back is killing me now and I feel like I need to take a rest, but at least I did what I promised. Glancing out the window, I can just about see Craig in the distance as he tends to the potatoes in the field. When he gets back, I shall show him these rabbits, and I very much look forward to seeing the expression of surprise on his face.

  I take a deep breath and turn to head through to my camp-bed for a rest, but then I stop as I see the guitar still resting on the table. It's such a funny-looking guitar, with pieces from Sarah's instrument cobbled onto the core of my own. I've been working on this thing for so very long, and I'm starting to think that perhaps my quest for perfection is holding me back. I'm sure I could spend the rest of my life making alterations, but then what if I drop dead before I ever get a chance to play the wretched thing?

  I hesitate, before slowly reaching down and picking the guitar up. After all this time, am I finally ready to play a few chords? I haven't played anything since I arrived here at the farm five years ago, but now...

  I look out the window again and see that Craig is still far away. He wouldn't be able to hear me if I shouted for him, let alone if I played an instrument.

  Why am I hesitating? I've been desperate to play for so long, yet now I find myself standing here with a sense of genuine, palpable fear.

  I carry the guitar through to the back room, so as to put as much distance as possible between Craig and myself, just in case he turns out to have some kind of superhuman hearing. Then, finally, I force myself to put my hands into the right position, and I start to play.

  I stop almost immediately.

  The sound of music, after all this time, is almost too much for me to bear. My initial instinct is to put the guitar away and never touch it again, but after a moment I realize that I have to play more. With tears in my eyes, I try a few more chords, then some more, and finally I begin to play a piece of music that I wrote years ago for an ex-girlfriend. It's a simple piece, which is just as well since my fingers feel rather stiff and unwieldy, but it's perhaps the simplicity that makes the music sound so beautiful on this occasion. For a few seconds, I even forget to play softly, and I have to quickly force myself to stop being so loud.

  I look toward the window again, and this time I see that Craig is coming back to the farmhouse.

  I quickly hurry through to the front room and set the g
uitar down, and then I make my way to the kitchen just in time to meet him as he returns.

  “There are your two rabbits,” I tell him, trying not to sound too flustered. “I trust that they meet your high standards?”

  “They look perfect,” he replies. “The potatoes are coming along, too.” He pauses. “How about the guitar? Are you done fixing it?”

  “It'll take some more time yet,” I reply, not wanting to admit that I played. “Please, don't rush me.”

  “Are you...” He stares at me for a moment. “Have you been crying?”

  “Of course not,” I mutter, turning and taking the two skinned rabbits over to the counter. “Stop asking stupid questions. Don't you have any work that needs doing?” I know that I'm being unreasonable, but I can't help myself. The pain in my back – which has never entirely gone away since I was beaten to a pulp all those years ago – is particularly bad on cold days such as this. “The energy you put into your suspicions,” I continue, “might be better directed elsewhere.”

  Twenty-Four

  A few days later, the pain in my back has lessened, no doubt due to the better weather.

  I take the rabbit bones and drop them into a pot of water, which I then carry out into the yard so that I can set it to boil. For most of my life, I cared not one jot for the art of cooking. I was content with whatever I could find at the local corner shop. Now look at me, however: I'm making broth from the bones of the two rabbits Craig caught the other day, and I already have a fair plan as to how I'll turn that broth into a decent soup. Trial and error have been my watchwords of late, and I must admit that I seem to have a very slight knack for this sort of thing.