by Mark All
Jim leaned over her desk. “Come on, Anna. Just for a minute.” She could barely hear him over the music.
“I told you,” she said stiffly, “I don’t want to. I have work to do.”
He looked over her shoulder, clearly able to see that she was not working, but listening to Her Song. She didn’t give a rat’s ass.
“We need to boost morale,” Jim said. “The esprit de corps is flagging a bit after the last round of layoffs.”
Anna stared coldly back at him, figuring that if she were a big enough pill about it, he’d go away and leave her the hell alone.
She was wrong. The precarious job security situation must have been getting to her boss as much as the rank and file, because he yanked her earbuds out and pulled her to her feet. She gaped at him. The sound was gone. She felt empty. She reached for the earbuds again.
“Come on, Anna,” Jim said, guiding her by the arm toward the cubicle that held the department’s two large printers, with enough empty desk space between them for the cake. “Time for a little team building. Just sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ smile for a minute, then you can bring your cake back to your cube.”
Anna stumbled in a daze, painfully twisting her ankle. She didn’t want any fucking cake. Jim was hurting her arm, which pissed her off. A lot. More importantly, he’d taken her away from Her Song. As he dragged her after him, her anger rapidly built. They reached the printer cube, where a dozen people had gathered, the four Birthday Girls standing in a circle around the cake. They all smiled and looked fake happy, like they were so freaking glad they’d joined the company. A few people clapped.
Jim recited a few blah-blah platitudes, then lead them in singing Happy Fucking Birthday. That was when Anna noticed that four of her coworkers were wearing earphones or earbuds; the little cords ran to their phones and, in one case, an iPad. Why did they get to listen? That’s what set Anna off.
After a quick glare at Jim, the instigator, she shoved roughly past the Birthday Girls to where the cake sat between the two huge printers. Beside it was the department cake knife.
Anna snatched up the knife, a dull chef’s blade, and wheeled, scanned the faces, and focused on Jim. She marched over to him, jerked him around by his arm to face her, and raised the knife over her head. His eyes opened comically wide and he stumbled away from her and into the printer table. As he struggled to regain his balance, she brought the knife down over-handed into his chest. The blade hit a rib and twisted in her hand, so she let go, clenched her hands together, and pounded the knife the rest of the way in.
Blood spurted from Jim’s white shirt and gurgled from his mouth as he collapsed. While the others screamed, too shocked even to run, Anna followed him down, wrenched the knife free, then turned on the Birthday Girls.
* * * *
Wesley Lambert decided he had Heavy Metal poisoning. And he liked it.
He also liked venting his spleen on his blog, to which a surprising number of right-minded thinkers subscribed. They tweeted and retweeted links to him when he launched a particularly scathing fusillade at the godless, communist blacks and queers who’d ruined his country.
Today’s blog was a Call To Action. Ask any advertiser, you’ve got to end with a Call To Action, and this post was the exclamation point to punctuate the end of his blogs of the past few days. This post called out the Righteous.
There was going to be a concert tonight, and Wesley had a gut feeling it would change the world. His comrades in arms would be there to see that it did.
* * * *
Bob Finster sat on a dirty lawn chair in his garage, grinning as he carved away with his hunting knife. Tonight Penumbra would make their triumphant return, and he would be there, out on the prowl like in his salad days. He’d told the wife and kids to stay in the house and lock the doors, because there was going to be some shit going down tonight. The Little Woman had looked a little scared, and oddly, he’d found that he liked that. He’d heard her on the phone with her sister in Sandy Springs, speaking in a hushed, serious whisper. Well, if she wanted to run off with the rugrats after he left for the show, maybe that was just as well. Although Bob didn’t think Sandy Springs was far enough to run. He wasn’t sure there was any place far enough to run.
He drew the blade of the knife twice across the tender skin of his inner forearm again, creating a V shape this time. Blood welled and droplets fell to stain the oily cloths at his feet. He picked one up and blotted the wound. In a minute it would stop bleeding and he’d cut again. He didn’t know why he was doing it, but the pain felt good. Everything was different since the music had discovered him; pain was pleasure, fear an aphrodisiac. It made no sense, but he didn’t care, because he was moving through reality in a euphoric haze.
Bob removed the cloth from his arm. Crudely carved scarlet runnels spelled out:
O B L I V
With a wistful smile, he slowly, gently sliced a vertical line with tiny crossbeams at its top and bottom.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Saturday afternoon
John Emory lived in an older but well-kept neighborhood in Athens’ Five Points area. Jessica followed her printed-out Google maps to her destination, checked the number on the mailbox, and pulled up to the curb in front of his small but picturesque stone cottage.
The quaint little single-story house, with its wrap-around porch flush with potted ferns and its lush lawn, should’ve been charming, but instead gave Jessica the creeps. All the windows were dark even though a late-model Toyota sat in the driveway. No one had heard from the bass player since David called him Tuesday night, and he still wasn’t answering his phone. She had the distinct feeling that some malevolent presence lurked behind the drawn shades.
She told herself she was just anxious about confronting the antagonistic bassist. On the bright side, when she’d gone online this morning, she’d gotten an email from David saying that Mike was on board, she could count on the drummer signing the contract.
After that, she’d spent a few hours hyping the concert on the web—and stumbling over one news report after another of Looper incidents, which were growing ever more disturbing. Some crazy fucker had shot up a library to get at a computer to listen to “Fire It Up.” He escaped in a bloody shootout with police after they turned off the building’s electricity. Now there was a mass murderer on the loose.
What if somebody got violent at the concert tonight? Her imagination ran wild and she pictured a full-scale riot. The Athens Theater was big; they didn’t just have bouncers, they had “Security”—but they weren’t armed.
Meeting Alan and Nancy had been less than reassuring. When Jessica had gone to their house, the couple had the damn song blaring, as if they were Loopers themselves. She’d liked the laid back singer and his perky wife, though, and despite being fixated on the music, they seemed functional and jazzed for the gig. They’d signed the contract after Nancy had read it and quizzed Jessica thoroughly on the provisions. Jessica just had to take care of the bass player problem, and she’d have this deal locked in. She took a deep breath and opened the car door.
When she got out, she noticed a funny smell. Probably pollen from one of the stinky Bradford Pear trees in the neighbor’s yard. The day was hot, the kind of hot that engendered murders and riots, and humid as evening approached. Her skin felt damp by the time she reached the porch.
The odor was more pungent the closer she came to the house. As she realized with a start that the front door was open a crack, she became certain the smell came from within.
Jessica did not want to go inside. She wasn’t just unnerved by the Looper news and anxious about dealing with John Emory. Something wasn’t right.
Maybe they hadn’t heard from the guy because he’d had an accident. He might be lying injured in the house.
“Mr. Emory?” she called out. “John?”
After a few seconds she decided there wouldn’t be a response, and she nudged the door open and peered in. She told herself to get on with it and stepped ac
ross the threshold, bumping the door all the way open with her hip.
The front door opened directly into the living room, letting in a swath of light as it swung wide. Jessica moved cautiously into the room, the keys in her hand jingling until she paused to stuff them into her purse.
“John?” she called again, fumbling for the light switch beside the door. “It’s Jessica Chandler from Sage Records. Are you here?”
All was silent. Maybe he had a studio in a back bedroom and was holed up in there, under the headphones.
The smell was so strong she nearly gagged. She fought an urge to turn and run, fumbled for the light switch, flipped it. Three matching lamps came on. The room was tastefully furnished, with a masculine but sophisticated style, moderately expensive furniture, and what appeared to be original pieces of modern art on the walls. A huge flat-screen television and a surround sound system added the final touches.
She slipped a couple of tissues from her pocketbook and clamped them over her nose, then stepped forward. As she moved around a wide, plush chair near the door, she nearly tripped on something.
A body on the floor.
A man, limbs splayed, head hacked open, broken apart. Blood had pooled around him and soaked into the carpet in a spatter pattern like another work of abstract art, complementing the style of the framed pieces on the wall.
Jessica dropped the tissues and backed away, gasping too violently to scream. Between the ghastly sight and the overpowering stench, her stomach rolled and she whirled away. She vomited copiously on the carpet in front of the door. Her guts heaved and heaved again till she was weak in the knees and she dropped to the floor. Then she leaned over and retched again. It took a while before she had nothing left to contribute to the body fluid Pollacking of the floor.
Her eyes already streaming from throwing up, she began to cry fresh tears and struggled to catch her breath. She crawled around the puddle of her vomit, already soaking into the carpet and adding its own foul odor to that of the rotting body, to the other side of a second oversized chair to lean against it and wail. Her bag slipped from her shoulder and she dug into it for more tissues to wipe her mouth and eyes.
She risked another quick glimpse around the side of the chair to convince herself that what she’d seen was real. She whimpered when she saw the mess of John’s head, and swiftly blinked and turned away again.
Police, she had to call the police.
Her fingers shaking, barely under her control, she managed to drag her phone out of her bag, but could only stare at it numbly, unable to process exactly what to do with it.
The front door slammed with a bang like a gunshot and now she did scream, her entire body flinching. She whipped her head around to see a man standing five feet from her.
His right arm hung at his side, holding an axe.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saturday afternoon
David suddenly experienced himself swinging the axe, bringing it down with all this strength and will. He saw his beautiful Les Paul split under the blow, strings ricocheting away, whipping through the air like tiny tentacles of a living organism, the blade burying itself in the wood, cracking the finish around the site of impact like jagged spider webs.
His mind reeling, he staggered to the kitchen counter and leaned against it, coffee sloshing from his mug.
He had the overpowering urge to go get the axe and manifest his fantasy in real life. Why? What would destroying his guitar accomplish? Especially now that he’d found a reason to live again?
Another vision rocked him, of smashing his computer with the axe, the way he’d hallucinated it a week ago. He felt the need to do it as strongly as a survival instinct, as if his, or someone else's—Jessica's—life depended on it.
He blinked. Why had he thought of Jessica? For a moment he saw her face, looking lost and forlorn, then a piercing pain shot through his head, as if he were undergoing electroshock therapy. The excruciating pain spread throughout his being and he felt as if his soul were trying to tear itself apart, the impulse to destroy Vince Buckley’s music at war with the desperate desire to preserve and protect it at all costs. His mug fell from his hand to shatter on the floor, sending shards of glass and spatters of coffee everywhere, and he put his hands to his ears and screamed.
Screamed again.
Screamed until he was hoarse and gasping.
Abruptly, his mind cleared, like a summer afternoon thunderstorm had burst on him and just as suddenly disappeared, leaving a fresh, cloudless sky and bright sunshine in its wake.
What had he been doing? He couldn’t remember. A glance at the clock on the stove told him he needed to get moving. He’d stayed up most of the night remixing the live performance version of Oblivion for the concert, then slept insanely late. He had to eat something, shower and dress, pack up the computer and guitars, and get over to the theater.
He took a step and felt a sharp pain in the sole of his right foot. He jerked the foot up reflexively. Coffee and pieces of his broken mug surrounded him on the kitchen tiles.
When had he done that?
Whatever. He had a show to do. Shaking his head, he gingerly stepped out of the mess and went for the broom.
Chapter Thirty
Saturday afternoon
Crouching in mindless terror, Jessica tore her gaze from the axe and dared to look at the tall man before her. Oddly, despite the weapon he held, its blade encrusted with dried blood, his stance and posture were not threatening. There was something disturbing about his eyes, but in her current state, she couldn’t discern what it was.
“Hello, Jessica,” he said in a lilting tone, his voice eerily familiar. “I’m sorry you had to see this.” He glanced at the corpse. “He was going to be a problem for us.”
“Us?” she croaked.
“As you may or may not have guessed,” he said, “I’m Vince Buckley. So glad you like my music.”
“You…you’re dead.”
“In a manner of speaking. I have a purpose that transcends death. Art. It’s important; people need art.”
His stare transfixed her and Jessica suddenly realized he was not blinking. That was what was bothering her about his eyes. She thought she was losing her mind, that none of this could be real—but she recognized the voice. It was from Penumbra’s backing vocals. The man before her was without doubt Penumbra’s late keyboard player. Had he faked his death? No. Something in his awful presence told her that this entity was not truly living. He had returned from the grave, and he’d brought something terrible back with him.
She shuddered. On some deep, psychic level, she’d known the truth about this music, but hadn’t dared allow herself to consider it—or hadn’t been allowed to consider it. Oblivion was too ethereal, too powerful to be of this world. It was beautiful and seductive, but beneath its surface, unspeakably vile. The music of Hell.
Vince nodded, the axe swaying slightly with his movement. “You’re getting it now, aren’t you? Not just the beauty, but the power of the music. Transformative power. The ability to change the world through sound, which is, after all, just physics. Like the super-symmetrical strings that make up reality itself, energy vibrating at different frequencies. It’s taken millennia for scientists to recognize what the ancient mystics taught all along.”
“Why doesn’t it affect me more?” she sputtered. “And David? And Ben?”
“Because I need you. The music needs you. Don’t be frightened, sweetie, you don’t have to worry.”
Struggling to her feet, Jessica couldn’t avoid glancing at the body again. “You needed him, too.”
Vince’s expression hardened. “John was not cooperative. He was not for us, he was actively against us. You see what happens when you fight this kind of power. I said you don’t have to worry. As long as you play your part. As long as you bring the music to the world.”
To the world.
News photos of the outbreaks of Looper violence flooded Jessica’s mind. Vertigo rocked her and she reached out
to the chair for support, nearly dropping her phone, and she hid it behind her back on instinct. The dead man wanted to poison the minds and souls of everyone on the planet. The thought of how much savagery had erupted when people had listened to just one song from the album sickened her, and she fought to keep from throwing up again.
“You’re insane,” she stammered. Insane? He was dead. “What in the Hell are you trying to accomplish?”
“I’m going to make them listen to my music!” he screamed. “Now they have no choice, and they’re going to pay for ignoring me. The music commands their attention, and then it opens their souls, draws out their true nature. If their true nature is brutal, then they get what they deserve. Character is destiny.”
Abruptly, the dead man on the floor raised his head, turned his lifeless gaze on her. Coagulating blood oozed slowly from the horrific rent in his skull.
Jessica.
She gasped. John Emory’s mouth had moved, but she was sure his voice was only in her head. She looked at Vince Buckley, and he appeared completely unaware of, or at least oblivious to, the bass player’s movement and speaking.
Cancel the band’s contract. Stop the concert.
Jessica felt lightheaded, verged on passing out from the shock. She was confronted by two dead men. Yet she sensed John was trying to help her, protect her from Vince. She moved the hand that held her phone behind her.