MUSICAroLina

by Daniel William Gunning

  ‘Twas quite happy to be here, but you put him six feet below.

  Yeah, I’m pointing the finger; it’s your own fault that he’s dead.

  I took the sword from my cane and I swiftly lopped off his head.

  So where is Mac now? Oh, it’s with the worms he makes his bed.

  He was but a drunken fool and the dangers he did ignore.

  For all he wanted was to be blissfully ignorant forevermore.

  Unfortunately for him, I am true to my roots, despite this exterior.

  There are no happy endings here like stories from days of yore.

  So naturally I removed his head and allowed his blood to freely pour.

  And that bloody fountain was more refreshing than a two-dollar whore.

  Now here’s the one that really hurts ya, your true love met her end.

  And the worst part is that in this town her soul shall never ascend.

  So what does this mean for her? Take a moment to truly comprehend.

  It means her soul forever stays trapped with me and I’ll enjoy it so.

  Now I know verily this may cut you deeply, I feel your pain overflow.

  But what fun, you both get to die so poorly like Juliet and her Romeo.

  She saw your soul, your darkest parts and those she would have bore.

  But you kept her at arm’s length, those feelings you would not explore.

  You had long since closed the door on love afraid to walk that corridor.

  Only then did you realize this was foolishness as her body hit the floor.

  But alas it’s to late, there is no happy ending for you, no joyous encore.

  And I find the death of your love more enjoyable than a two dollar whore.

  So in these final moments you should know that you have utterly failed.

  And you shall suffer long and hard after your final breath is exhaled.

  You damned your own soul, your friends’ too; your coffins you nailed.

  Now please listen closely to me my friend, your time here soon is done.

  Your miserable failure was a rather funny, but a sad and pathetic one.

  But good for me, three cheers, I’ll keep on singing, killing and having fun.

  For here I am the one true god, I am the writer of the legends and the lore.

  And here no god can save you, not Christ or Buddha, not Zeus nor Thor.

  So bow before me worm, your king, your Lord, you all, the mighty emperor.

  Know that I shall feast upon you all like each and every one who came before.

  And know that this is the bloody bitter end, your doom, hope nevermore.

  And know that your pain to me is more exquisite than a two-dollar whore.

  “Oh God, kill me now,” John groaned.

  “Oh, God certainly won’t, but I’ll be more than happy to oblige you. Oh, and by the way, the two-dollar whore in that song is your mother,” the mayor said grinning.

  CHAPTER 22

  WHEN IT HITS THE FAN

  John lay motionless on the ground underneath the water tower. His body was broken and bleeding; bones protruded through the skin from several of his more severe wounds and his blood now drained freely into the dirt. The mayor, cocky and victorious in his human form, ducked underneath the metal crossbars of the water tower quite easily and came to stand over John; he looked down at John curiously, his face a mix of jubilation and something almost approaching pity, or as close as a demon could come to mimicking it. John ignored him entirely. With great effort he rolled over and struggled with all his might to pull himself along the ground back toward the precious bag filled with explosives. When he was near enough to it, John reached out his hand and tried to grasp the handle. Seeing this attempt, the mayor swiftly pulled the sword from his cane and thrust it directly through John’s outstretched hand, pinning it to the ground.

  “Now, now, now. We can’t be having any of that, my friend. Why, you’re plumb liable to hurt yourself with those nasty li’l things and we wouldn’t want that now, would we? Always remember, safety first,” the mayor said tauntingly. In response, John defiantly spat blood onto the mayor’s perfectly shined shoes. The mayor seemed quite perturbed by this latest desperate, futile act of aggression.

  “Well, that was certainly rude and thoroughly uncalled for. Now I ask you, where are your manners, sir? Just because you’ve lost soooo spectacularly doesn’t give you any proper provocation to be such an exceptionally poor sport about it; for shame, sir, for shame. Perhaps, if you actually hoped to pull off some kind of major upset victory against such overwhelming odds, you should have come up with a slightly less moronic plan. Why should my shoes suffer? It’s not like they can help the fact that you’re so colossally stupid. I mean, you honestly thought that you’d just, and if you pardon the joke, waltz through my streets and blow up the town hall? Did you really think with the town hall in ashes that I wouldn’t be able to feast on the souls of the poor wretches here? I tell you truly, that’s deeply ignorant and incredibly asinine. Why, I could feed on them in the middle of the town square for all to see if I had half a mind to, but it seems so uncouth.

  In the grand scheme of things, all you would have succeeded in accomplishing, if this had all worked out for you, amounts to little more than the destruction of my dining room, and I easily could’ve had it rebuilt by the same people you were so desperately trying to save. In clear point of fact, you might have helped me out. I have been meaning to remodel the ol’ place for quite a while now. I could’ve made it a whole lot fancier, with some proper, comfortable seating this time, and maybe a chandelier; I could have really dined in style and comfort from here on in. Truthfully, now that I’m forced to take a step back and think about it, I’m actually a bit sorry I didn’t let you do that very useful piece of demolition, but what’s done is done I suppose. After all, I can still do home improvements after you’re dead; life goes on and all that. It’s kind of our town motto. I might even use your own explosives for the job. How would that be? I’ve got to ask though, is this really all that the preacher died for?

  Frankly, I will admit I am sorely disappointed in all of you. The preacher had over four hundred years to plan a way to kill me. He finally gets someone who is willing to be so enormously ignorant as to pass up on everlasting life, to take a shot at the big dog, and this is the best your little rebel brain trust could come up with? You didn’t even come close to accomplishing any of your goals and the saddest part is that it wouldn’t even have worked if you did. Tell me before you die, because I have to know: How does it feel to fail so dramatically?” he asked, gleefully twisting the blade in John’s hand, grinning devilishly as he listened to the blade as it scraped along the bone, and watching as John grimaced in pain.

  “Who says we failed?” John managed to say, coughing up more blood as he did.

  “Well, if you call this a success, then ‘congratulations’ I suppose, but I think you have shockingly low standards. Don’t feel too bad about it, though; you were always doomed to fail. You never had a ghost of a chance, as they say. Don’t you see that by now? Everyone in this town is truly happy here, or at least they fervently believe that they are, which is all that matters in the end. Do you think things honestly would be any better for them out there in the modern world? People out there still suffer, they die poorly, and they all have those same grand illusions, or delusions, if you will, of freedom, of free will. Here is the grandest of all illusions. They are happy, blissfully content to do what they are told and enjoy all the pleasures that life has to offer without any of the pesky judgment or the nasty side effects and repercussions of what they’ve done, much like the ones you have the distinct pleasure of experiencing right now. Oh, sure sometimes someone gets inconveniently murdered, raped, or robbed here, but that happens out in the real world too and at least here, outside those violent little hiccups, everything is sunshine, rainbows, puppy dogs, kitty cats, and grand ol’ musical numbers. Heck, I could even conjure you up some unicorns.

 
Let me tell you something, you just can’t get that anywhere on the outside; believe me, I have looked far and wide in my considerable time in these worlds. Oh, it was even worse down in hell; I can assure you. You simply do not want to be the demon who loves musicals; it’s just not cool, or hot, as the case may be. I tried to explain it to them, of course. You have to understand; it was so beautiful the first time I ever had the good grace to behold a musical. There they all were; everyone singing and dancing on stage, perfectly choreographed synchronicity, following other’s commands for their every move, and speaking the words others placed in their mouths. It’s such a wondrous pageantry of puppetry, but none of the other demons wanted to listen; they called me a sissy, said I was going soft, the charlatans. But alas, I’m boring you with my tales of yore and you have such precious little time left.”

  “Oh, I’d say I have about as much time left as you do.”

  “And how do you figure that, John?”

  With a great amount of pain and effort John managed to say, “Can’t you guess? You said it yourself, the preacher had over four hundred years to plot and plan, to dream up a way to kill you, but he didn’t need remotely that long. He had this plan worked out almost from the beginning; he just didn’t have the resources to pull it off at the time. The only shame of it all is that, after all these long centuries of waiting, of watching you feed on his flock, that he couldn’t be the one to personally kill you.”

  “Well, he really won’t be doing much of anything now, will he? You see, if you will recall for a moment, I kind of tore him into itty, bitty li’l pieces. I shredded him up further later on, too; you probably just didn’t see that part, I suppose, and I kicked his various bits and pieces around the streets for a while. Oh, and I’m having his head stuffed too. I think it’ll truly look mighty nice in my office right above the fireplace. It’ll really set the curtains off nicely. I might use yours too, if you’re lucky. But you’re right; it is a shame, though. I would have loved to see the perfect pain in his eyes when he had to bury you in that little churchyard of his. To put to rest his one great hope. I wonder if, in the end, he even would’ve had the will left to say a prayer over your cold, dead corpse.”

  “Oh, I think he did all the praying he needed to in the end.”

  “And how’s that, exactly?”

  “He blessed the water tower, bitch,” John spat, triumphant. As he said this, the mayor’s eyes widened. He slowly looked up and saw, to his horror, an explosive placed carefully on the bottom of the water tower. He then heard a shrill whistle and whipped his head around to see Kurt step out from behind a building, holding a detonator in his hand. Kurt smiled at him, waved, and cheerfully extended his middle finger with one hand as he pressed the button on the detonator with the other.

  John pulled himself forward as hard as he could, the sword slicing completely through his hand, severing several fingers, blood gushing from the wound. He ignored the pain as he knew he was close to the end anyhow and now that he was free, he stretched forward with his other hand, grabbing hold of the bag just as the explosion ripped the bottom of the tower wide open and the water cascaded onto John and the mayor; washing them violently into the street. The mayor bellowed in agony, writhing in pain on the stone streets, now soaked in holy water. His body boiled and contorted, parts twisted wildly between his human and his demon halves. Smoke curled upwards from his body and small fires started to pop up all across his hideous form. He roared in a mixture of both suffering and anger, while John merely lay calmly and contently just a few paces away, his work nearly done, clutching the bag tightly to his chest.

  ***

  John, beyond all sensations of pain and suffering now, looked serenely at the sight of the convulsing, burning demon. John’s blood flowed along the streets, mixed with the water, but he somehow found the remaining strength to wonder aloud with an odd sense of clarity, “I wonder what your master will do to you, Mister Mayor? All these centuries that you’ve kept so many wicked souls from his grasp, I imagine that he can’t be very happy about that. What is the punishment like in hell for a demon I wonder? Oh, well, I guess we’ll find out together.” John then produced the detonator he had carried the entire time from his pants pocket with his one good hand; he closed his eyes tightly, and without further thought or hesitation, thinking only of Virginia’s final moments, he pressed the button.

  The explosion ripped through the streets. The shockwave shattered the windows in the nearby buildings and the ground shook mightily. Stone shards from the street careened through the air. It tore the mayor apart and rained tiny flaming chunks of his corpse down upon the streets of the town he had once so completely owned.

  ***

  John awoke with a start. He shot up, opening his eyes wide and gasping for air. He quickly and instinctively patted himself down, expecting to feel his gaping wounds, but they had completely vanished. In fact, he was no longer injured in the slightest; his clothing was neither burned nor torn. He squinted his eyes as the bright sunlight shone warmly upon his face. He thought it rather strange that it didn’t seem to emanate from the sun and stream down from the sky, but rather it felt like it surrounded him, as if it were part of the air itself. He found himself to be lying in a grassy meadow. The grass was lush, green, and cool against his skin. The sunlight was of the most brilliant golden hue that he had ever seen, and all throughout the meadow, wildflowers of all imaginable vibrant colors blossomed. The air was crisp, pure, and clean. A cool breeze blew past him, but otherwise it was pleasantly warm.

  He heard birds singing in the far-off forest and then, emerging out of that peculiar sunlight, John saw Virginia coming toward him through the meadow, wearing a simple white sundress; her outline dazzled in the radiant golden sunlight. She didn’t appear to be walking, but rather gliding through the meadow. He scrambled to his feet and watched in confusion and awe as she approached him. As she came near, she stretched out her hands toward him. He stepped forward and took her hands in his.

  “Where are we? What happened?” John asked.

  “I don’t really know; I just got here myself, remember?” Virginia replied, no longer using her fake American accent.

  “Was it all a dream?”

  “No, it definitely wasn’t a dream John. If it was, you should probably see a doctor because there’s something seriously wrong in that head of yours.”

  “Are we in heaven?”

  “I don’t know about all that, but it sure doesn’t feel like hell, silly.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “Well, if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that I got here by painful stabbing and you were propelled here by a fiery explosion amongst an impressive assortment of injuries. To think, all this time you didn’t see that we were really soul mates, and then you go and sacrifice yourself for the greater good like that. See, we do think alike. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I must point out that I was brave enough to do it first, you merely copied me, real mature.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “And well you should be, you were being most unkind to me, indeed, and all I was doing the whole time was looking out for your sorry behind, like I tried to do for your brother as well, telling him the wrong time for the meeting and all. Whether it was by frightening you to let you know things were all wrong, giving you great advice, standing up for you, singing you songs, and even, in the end, sacrificing myself to prevent you from doing something stupid and heroic. Well, technically, I sacrificed myself for everyone’s sake, but you were in the mix. It would have been a whole lot easier for me to just cross that fence and join you there in the churchyard, but I took the higher path, for you. Honestly, now that I really think about it, it was always about you; wasn’t it, selfish pig? It’s okay, though; I forgive you. It really doesn’t matter now anyway and you’ll have all of eternity to make it up to me.”

  “Okay, fine. You’re the best. So, what happens now?

  “I don’t really know. It’s an adventure; it’s the pr
overbial wonder and mystery of things to come. All I do know for certain is that I waited for over four centuries for you to come into my life, and then when you finally did arrive I had to kill myself to save you. Quite the proverbial bummer, as the kids say. So now, I’ve waited here in death for you to join me once again. I think that’s more than enough waiting for one lifetime. The truth is, my love, it doesn’t really matter to me where this is—heaven, hell, or someplace else altogether—because wherever it is, we can finally find out together. What do you say; care to go exploring with me?” she asked, winking at him. She released John’s hand then and glided off through the meadow, enveloped back into the sunlight.

  John needed no time to think, to analyze, or even to breathe, if such a thing was even necessary in this place. He followed instantly, caught up to her, took her hand in his once again and said, “Through all the oceans of time.”

  “You know, I heard that song of yours, watching you from this place. It was terribly romantic, but for future reference, you may want to try to say more romantic things before your true love goes and gets herself brutally killed. It doesn’t really have the same effect after.”

  “Well, live and learn,” John replied, and they both smiled.

  “Well, here we go,” she replied. John felt his feet lift off the ground, then, and together they sailed, hand in hand across the meadow, through the sunlight, and on to whatever grand adventures awaited them in the next life.

  CHAPTER 23

  ALL GOOD AND, FOR THAT MATTER, BAD THINGS

  Kurt ducked behind the stone frame of the closest home to shield himself from the fiery explosion and the smoking debris that now rained down upon the town. As the dust finally began to settle, he tentatively stuck his head out from behind the shelter of the building. Seeing no immediate danger, he walked cautiously into the middle of the street and came to stand before the smoking epicenter of the blast. Kurt stood there in the middle of the street at the edge of the newly-formed crater, transfixed on the spot where his best friend had given his life. There was no sign of John’s body, or the mayor’s hulking form for that matter, except for a few indistinguishable chunks of charred flesh scattered about.