by Stephen King
‘What did you learn at school today, Bobby?’ he asked at last. ‘Give me one fact you learned,’ and Bobby promptly gave him the date for the Battle of Naseby. There wasn’t much to add to that. ‘Hey, good boy,’ said Alan, relieved to see the dog slouch past the open doorway, ‘hey, come here, come here, boy.’ The dog trotted closer, but when he saw that Alan had no intention of feeding him anything, turned right around and trotted away again.
‘I bet the music will be off by nine o’clock,’ said Alan. ‘That’s the watershed. Everyone knows that.’
Bobby did the washing-up, and so as a treat was allowed to be Tiger Woods until bedtime. Alan enjoyed concentrating on golf for a while; he almost persuaded himself he couldn’t hear the beat of music getting louder and thicker and uglier, couldn’t hear the pointed sighs of despair from his wife.
‘It’s gone nine o’clock,’ Alice said at last. ‘You said they’d have stopped by now.’
‘I said they might have.’
‘Bobby has to go to bed. Bobby, will you need ear plugs?’
‘I don’t need ear plugs,’ said Bobby. ‘I’m fine. I kind of like it. Night, Mummy. Night, Daddy.’
Alan and Alice watched television for a while.
‘There’s a child here trying to sleep!’ Alice suddenly cried, and she didn’t even wait for a commercial break. ‘That’s what I don’t understand! How they can just ignore that!’
‘They don’t know we’ve got a child,’ said Alan.
‘They didn’t bother to ask. It’s gone ten o’clock.’
‘I know.’
‘Next, it’ll be eleven. Eleven!’
‘Yes, I know.’
The music never stopped. There was never a pause when one song ended, and another waited to begin. Alan idly wondered how they managed to do that. Was it just lots of little songs mashed into one unending paste, or were his neighbours simply playing the longest song in the world?
At last Alan and Alice went to bed. Alice used the bathroom first. Alan got undressed in the bedroom. At first he thought the music was quieter in the bedroom, and that was good, that was a relief. But then he realised it wasn’t quieter, it was just different – and this different, if anything, was louder. He heard Alice spit out her toothpaste, and she really spat, she really went for it.
They swapped positions, bedroom out, bathroom in, and he brushed his teeth as well. He thought he saw the mirror reverberate to the sound of the beat, but he had to really stare at it to check, and he wasn’t sure whether it was just the effect of his head moving as he breathed. He got into bed beside Alice. She had her eyes screwed up tight, not wanting to look at him, not wanting to let in the world. He turned off the light.
As soon as the red neon of the clock radio turned midnight, that very second, Alice said, ‘That’s enough.’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to do something now.’
‘All right.’ Alan turned on the bedside lamp. He put on his dressing gown, his slippers.
‘Tell me what you’re going to say to them,’ said Alice.
‘Um. Please turn the music down?’
‘Ask them to turn the music off.’
‘I will.’
‘Down isn’t good enough.’
‘All right.’
‘And be firm.’
‘Yes.’ He went towards the door.
‘You can’t go out like that,’ she said. ‘Not in your pyjamas.’
‘But I’ve just been woken up …’
‘It sends entirely the wrong message,’ said Alice. ‘It robs you of any authority. You should look smart, formal even. Wait. Wait.’ She got up, looked through the wardrobe. She handed him a jacket, a freshly ironed shirt. ‘This will do,’ she said. She smiled as he put the clothes on, she was enjoying this. ‘Now, go. And whilst you’re there, get me my cup back.’
He stepped outside into the night. The air was still so clammy, but there was a welcome breeze to it and Alan closed his eyes and drank it in and enjoyed it; he wished he was still wearing his pyjamas, he’d have loved to have felt it properly against his skin. He could feel the sweat already beginning to pool behind the layers of his suit, and rebelliously he loosened his tie …
… and listened. Because he could now hear what the music was, and it wasn’t aggressive, it posed no threat, it was charming, charming. And he felt the urge to go back inside, go and fetch Alice – yes, and Bobby too, wake him up, wake him and the dog, bring them all out for this.
How much we take it for granted, thought Alan, when it plays on every television ad, when it’s pumped into every department store, when it’s allowed to define just one little month of the year, when it sells stuff – you get sick of it, or you screen it out – but now, here, in the middle of a July heat-wave, how incongruous it sounds, how nostalgic. Memories of days long ago, when he was a child, when his mother was still alive, when his father still talked to him – and he felt his eyes pricking with happy tears, he should rush inside, get his family whilst the music lasted, this was a treat.
But he didn’t go back inside. He didn’t want his family there. He didn’t want them, and the thought of that surprised him and hurt him a bit, and somehow made him lighter too. And he stood on his porch, and listened, and basked in the little breeze he could feel, basked in the sound of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ as it segued seamlessly into ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.
But he knew Alice would be watching him. She’d be watching from behind the curtains. Watching and waiting. So he set his face into the proper authoritative pose, he straightened his tie again. And he marched down the garden path, out on to the pavement, through the next-door gate, into strangers’ territory.
There was no light visible from the house. All the curtains were closed. It looked as if everyone had gone to bed – no, more than that, it looked as if the house were deserted, as if it had been long ago abandoned and no one had lived in there for years and no one ever would again. It looked like a dead place. And he nearly turned back – not out of fear, good God, no – but because it was ridiculous to think that such music could be coming out of a house like that. But it was, it was.
The mat in front of the house said WELCOME upon it. Alan stood to one side of it, he didn’t want to be accused of accepting even the smallest part of their hospitality. He knocked on the door – gently, very gently, because he didn’t want to wake the household up. Then he realised how stupid that was; he lifted the knocker high, he let it swing.
He knocked like this for a little while. There was no answer. He felt like an idiot, knocking away, in the middle of the night, dressed like he was going to a business seminar and no one paying him any attention. He stooped down to the letterbox, lifted the flap, called through. He felt a cold draught from it – they must have had their air conditioning on.
‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’ He hated how weak and anxious his voice sounded. ‘Hello? Could you turn the music down a little? Hello?’ You idiot.
He tried knocking again. He then tried knocking whilst calling through the letterbox at the same time. ‘Please!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got a family and they can’t sleep! Really, you’re being a little selfish! And, and. And if you don’t quieten down, I’ll …’
Alan had no idea how to finish that sentence, so it was just as well that at that very moment the music switched off. The sudden silence was numbing. He blinked in it.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, thank you. Thank you, that’s very kind! Sorry to be a nuisance, we don’t want to be … But it was past midnight and I … Well. Well, welcome to the neighbourhood!’
With that he eased the letterbox back into position, gently teasing it closed with his fingers so it wouldn’t make any unwelcome sound. And he left their porch, walked up their driveway. He turned around, and the house was still so dark and the curtains still drawn – and he doubted anyone could see him, but nevertheless he gave a friendly neighbourly wave.
The sound that burst out of
that house a few seconds later almost knocked him off his feet. It couldn’t have been loud enough to have done that – not really – that was silly – but the sudden blast of it frightened him, and he did stagger, he did, he nearly toppled to the ground. It took his brain a few precious moments to realise it was just music, maybe music ten times louder than before – and a few moments longer to identify the song as ‘Auld Lang Syne’. But in even that little time he was overcome with an almost primal terror, that this was the roar of a monster, that this was the roar of death, that he should run from this inhuman scream wrenched so impossibly out of the perfect silence, that he should run away fast whilst he still could.
And he very nearly did; he suddenly knew with absolute cold certainty how very small and useless he was before that wall of noise, and how very quickly the night had become very dark indeed, he could be lost within that pitch darkness, and within the battle cry the pitch was shrieking out, he knew that he’d drown in that noise and be lost forever …
And instead he found a rage within him he’d long forgotten, or never even guessed he had.
He stood his ground.
‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never—’
‘You fucks!’ he screamed at the music. ‘You selfish fucks! I’ve got work in the morning! And a wife, and a son, and a dog – we’ve all got work in the morning!’
And up on the first floor he saw a curtain twitch – a little chink of light, then gone.
‘I see you!’ he raged. ‘I see you up there! Do you think I can’t see you?’ He picked up a loose piece of crazy paving, he ran towards the house, towards that noise, he hurled it up at the window. It struck. For a moment he thought he’d broken the glass, terrified he had – then he hoped he had, hoped he’d smashed the whole fucking pane in – and was disappointed when the paving bounced back harmlessly.
‘I’m coming to get you!’ Alan screamed.
‘We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for the sake of auld lang syne … !’
He raced out of their garden and into his own. He scrabbled at the door of his garage. He pulled out a metal stepladder; it clanked in his grasp. He felt his jacket rip under the strain, but that was too bad, fuck Alice for making him wear a jacket in the first place. For a terrible moment as he lugged the ladder out into the darkness he thought the song might have stopped, and he didn’t want that, then what would he do? – but no, it was back on for another bout, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was ringing in another new year, just so loud, just so selfish, just so fucking festive.
He dragged the ladder out of his garden, first pulling on one side then on the other, it looked as if the two of them were dancing together to the music.
And now he was leaning the ladder against their house – no, slamming it against the house, and up he went, the metal rungs creaking under his weight – ‘I’m coming to get you!’ he shouted again, but perhaps less confidently than before, and he knew his rage was still powering him on, but maybe it was starting to ebb away, who knows, just a little?
And he looked down once, and he wished he hadn’t, because the night was so black now, everything was so black, and he couldn’t see the ground below. But still he climbed and cried, ‘I’m coming to get you,’ but almost softly now, like it was a secret, and suddenly there were no more rungs to climb, he was at the top, and – look! happy coincidence! – he was right by the window. And there was no light behind, the curtain was closed tight.
‘Hey!’ He banged upon the glass. ‘Hey! Open up! Open up!’ And this close to the music he thought it was buffeting him, that the force might knock him from the ladder, but he was strong, he was holding firm – nothing could stop him now, and any terror he might be feeling in his gut, that was just a private terror no one could see, right? Right? ‘Open up! One last chance!’ And he banged again—
And the curtains opened.
And the music stopped.
Later on, he would doubt what he saw in that room. He would suspect that he’d misunderstood it at some fundamental level. Alice would ask him about what had happened that night, and he’d lie, he’d just say he never got a glimpse inside the house at all. That the neighbours had resolutely refused to show themselves, that he still had no idea who their enemies were. It was so much easier that way. He almost began to believe it himself.
The curtains pulled back all the way, they opened wide and he was blinded for a moment in the light of the room. So maybe that’s why he couldn’t see who had opened them, because someone had to have, surely, they couldn’t open themselves? But there was no one in the room – no one – Alan thought there was at first – he gasped when he saw those figures, they looked so human – so lifelike – but …
But they were dummies. Dummies, the sort you’d get in clothes shops, modelling the latest fashions. There was a child wearing sports gear, and he was lying on his back, his body splayed out over cardboard boxes. The child looked dead in that position, or wounded, that wasn’t a natural way for a body to lie – so why then was he smiling so widely?
There was a man, and he was in a business suit (and, Alan noted, not a suit as good as his, this dummy didn’t have someone like Alice to dress him, quite clearly!) – and he was almost standing, propped in the corner of the room, head swivelled towards the window, almost facing Alan but not quite, almost grinning at Alan, almost grinning because of Alan, but not really, not quite.
And the third figure – the closest figure – oh – she was naked, and Alan felt such guilt suddenly, here he was staring at her, like she wasn’t a woman at all, just an object, a slab of meat – but wait, she was just an object, just a dummy, what was the problem? And her breasts were perfect symmetrical mounds, and they looked quite inhuman, so why did Alan want to look anyway? – and her legs were long and smooth and had no trace of hair on them, the (frankly) pretty face locked into a smile too, but it was a cautious smile, a demure smile – it made her look so innocent, as if she needed protecting – or, wait, did it just make her look stupid?
She was bending over, her arse in the air, one hand dangling towards the floor as if in a painful yoga position – and now it looked to Alan as if the man in the corner was inspecting that arse, as if he were examining it critically, and his grin was because he had that job, who wouldn’t grin if their job was arse-examiner? – and the little boy in the sports clothes was rolling around on the floor laughing at the fun of it.
And all three of them wore Santa hats, little red Santa hats, as if they weren’t just part of some Christmas revelry but were Christmas decorations their very selves.
And that’s when the dog began to bark, and it was loud, and it was fierce, and it was the fury of a dog defending its territory and its family from attack – and in a moment the curtains pulled back shut, impossibly fast – and Alan was lost again in the darkness, and suddenly the stepladder was falling one way and he felt himself falling another.
‘I’m going to die,’ he thought, quite clearly, ‘I’m falling back into the black,’ and down he crashed, and he wondered whether death would hurt. And he wasn’t bothered, and he wondered why he wasn’t bothered, and his brain said to him, ‘God, Alan, just how depressed are you?’, but he put that out of his head quickly, he always put it from his head, he had no time for depression, and besides, he didn’t want that to be his final thought as he died.
But he wasn’t dead – that fact now dawned on him – he hadn’t fallen that far after all – and he was lying in the little flowerbed that only so recently Barbara and Eric had worked at hard to make look pretty.
There was still barking, but it was definitely inside, so he was safe – but what if the beast burst through the door? And he hadn’t got time to pick up the stepladder, they could keep the stepladder – he stumbled to his feet, ran from the garden, so fast that it wasn’t until he reached his own bedroom he realised how bruised he must be and how much those bruises hurt.
‘You got them to turn down the music,’ said Alice, in the dark. She sounded snug and cosy
beneath the duvet. ‘Well done.’
‘Yes,’ said Alan. ‘But I think I woke up their dog.’
That night Alan dreamed of the woman dummy. He couldn’t help it. He dreamed of her breasts and decided quite formally that they were a lot firmer than Alice’s – from what he could remember of Alice’s breasts, that is. The dummy’s were too perfect to be human, too round, too sculpted – but inhuman was better than nothing, surely. He dreamed that there had been hair on that too-smooth plastic skin, something soft there after all. He dreamed that the dummy was smiling at him.
And the next morning Alan woke up, and was surprised at how refreshed he felt. He was in a good mood. A cloud had lifted – he’d known the cloud would just go away if he didn’t think about it, and now he could be happy again, couldn’t he? – he couldn’t even remember why he’d been unhappy in the first place. He thought of the breasts and he smiled – and he looked across at the still-sleeping Alice and he smiled at her too, oh, bless. He felt he could face the day with equanimity. And next door was quiet, no music, no barking, everything back to normal.
He went to his car. The stepladder was propped against the garage door. The neighbours had brought it back. That was kind of them. The neighbours had brought it back. The neighbours had been around and brought it back. All smiles, how kind of them, all smiles and breasts. The neighbours had been around, they had left that still dead house, they had stolen into his garden in the night, they had come on to his property, they could have come up to his very front door, they could have been leaving their footprints all over his welcome mat, they could have been wiping their plastic hands all over his door knocker. How kind. The neighbours – they’d been around – in the dark, whilst he slept, whilst his family slept, whilst they slept and would never have known. They’d brought the stepladder back. He could have it back. He could use the stepladder again. He was welcome. He was welcome. He could come over with his stepladder, and climb up, and look through their windows whenever he wanted. He was welcome.