MUSICAroLina

by Daniel William Gunning

  Looking past the crater, the rest of the street flowed with a mixture of water and blood; the reddish liquid continued to cascade over the stones and ran through the cracks between them. All that was left inside the crater was cinders and wreckage. Smoke, ash, and all sorts of unidentifiable burning materials floated through the air all around him. Pushing past his overwhelming grief as he allowed himself to focus, he noticed it wasn’t all from the explosions. The stones themselves were blackened and shattered around the crater where the blast had originated, but somehow that burning blackness had begun to spread. Like an infection, the darkened tendrils snaked their way outward from the edges of the crater. As Kurt looked around at the town, in every direction, the buildings blackened like ash. It began at the base and steadily spread upwards throughout the frame, as if they were being consumed from the inside by some unseen flame.

  The wind began to pick up now out of nowhere, perhaps somehow in response to the withering of the crumbling, dying city. It swept through the town, crumbling the ashen remains of the buildings and carrying them away in a swirl of dust. All that was left behind was the grass beneath, leaving no trace that any building had ever stood upon that spot. Massive walls gave way as easily as crumbling sand castles set upon by the unforgiving waves, and they blew away as easily as mere piles of leaves in that autumn wind. It was as if they had never been of any substance at all.

  There were a few citizens that managed to make it out of their rapidly vaporizing homes. Kurt saw them as they stumbled out of the buildings where they had once felt so safe inside, their arms outstretched toward him imploringly. However, they too were quickly turned to ash and dust, as that same unseen fire also consumed them from the inside. Their features darkened, their ashen legs gave way with a sickening crack in a cloud of dust and they too collapsed onto the ground and shattered on impact. All were carried away with the force of the same cleansing wind that removed the buildings. This process continued until that unseen inferno consumed every building, every person, and everything in the village, and turned it to ash. Shortly, the entire town had been blown away on that wind, which died down and disappeared, as quickly as it had come, along with the last speck of dust that had once been Musicarolina.

  Trees, grass, and all types of brilliant, lush foliage had begun to spring forth upward through the stones of the streets as the stones too blew away, helped by the plants bursting upward through them, which propelled the ash into the air. Within what seemed like mere seconds to Kurt, there was nothing left at all of that once great and terrible town. He stood now, alone and confused in a newly-created woodland, like some strange form of Eden. The leaves on the newly-sprouted trees were already bursting with the fall colors befitting the time of year, like the seasons had always come and gone here and all was right and normal. It was almost as if nothing of any real consequence had ever occurred here at all.

  Kurt remained frozen there in the same place on this suddenly normal mild North Carolina fall day. All these events overwhelmed his senses, not only what unfolded in front of his eyes now, but also all that had transpired over the last few days now washed over him. He had no idea what to do, how to act, what to say, or most of all, where to go from here. He did not have to ponder this for long, however.

  “It’s a beautiful part of God’s great creation now, isn’t it? As it always should have been,” came the voice of the preacher, suddenly and unexpectedly, from behind him. Kurt whipped around to see the preacher standing there with him in the woods, just a short distance away. The preacher looked upwards toward the tops of the trees, watching the leaves fall; a slight smile hung on his lips as he was let the sunshine fall down through the tree branches onto his face. Kurt could see the light pass through him and the trees behind him quite clearly, as even those falling leaves passed through his form. The apparition said, “Oh, sorry mate, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “But you’re...”

  “Dead? Oh yeah, I’m dead all right; quite dead. In fact, he killed me pretty good. You know, I knew it was going to be bad because it was personal and all that rubbish, but heavens! I did not see that coming. Clearly he had some very serious anger issues; then again, I guess he was a demon, so maybe I got off easy. It was exceptionally quick even if it was abundantly graphic.”

  “Then how are you here?”

  “Oh, yes, that. Just a favor from the big guy upstairs. It’s just his way of telling you ‘job well done’. Jolly good show and all that.”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on; be excited, my son! Congratulations are more than in order. After all, you and your friend slew the mighty demon and freed all the poor souls he had trapped here, and that’s on top of all the poor souls you saved at the bank before you even got here. Really, I know you’ve had an astoundingly rough couple of days, but you must admit, you lads were quite productive.”

  “Um thanks. So, what do I do now?”

  “Well, that’s really up to you now; isn’t it? You could head on toward the town you passed through on the way here, you could live in the woods like mankind used to, or you could head off in any old direction, really. From there, who knows? Do anything your pretty little heart desires. As it always was, your future is entirely up to you.”

  “And what about John?”

  “John and Virginia bravely sacrificed themselves for the lives of others. Therefore, they have been duly rewarded as the heroes they were. I can assure you that they are together now and that they are finally happy and beyond all the sufferings of this world. Which, may I say, is simply delightful; I always was such a sucker for a happy ending. That’s just the eternal optimist in me, I suppose.”

  “Well, what about you then? You did pretty much the exact same thing. Shouldn’t you be beyond all the sufferings of this world as well?”

  “I very well could have been; in fact, I was offered that rather sublime opportunity, but alas my flock is still out there lost in limbo somewhere. I’ve decided I’m going to try to help them find their way home. It’s no different than the some old routine that I’ve been doing for the last couple of centuries. Well, with the obvious exception of there being no pesky homicidal demons in my way this time. I swear someone owes me a major overtime check for all this, plus back pay. Oh, speaking of which, as a little bonus to you for all your hearty efforts in concluding this particular matter, no one will ever remember anything involving this whole unpleasantness. The people back in town won’t ever remember you passing through and you will never be connecting to that bank robbery you left behind. Additionally it seems, by some curious random happenstance, all the surveillance cameras in that whole town went dead at the same time for no apparent reason and no witnesses clearly remember any detail about you. Also, strangely enough, due to a weird and seemingly miraculous computer glitch, your entire slate has been wiped clean. Not a single felony, suspicion of a felony, or even a parking ticket for you remains. It’s a brave new world for you, my friend; don’t waste it.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Not a problem; always happy to help. I didn’t really have anything to do with it, mind you; that’s waaay above my pay grade, but I’ll take credit for it nonetheless. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a whole flock of lost sheep to round up,” the preacher said, turning to leave.

  “Wait, I have just one final question.”

  “And what would that be, my son?”

  “Who was the mayor, really? What was his name?”

  “Really, that’s your question? After all that we’ve been thorough together, you want to know his name when you never even thought to ask mine? Even after I so nobly and selflessly sacrificed myself so you could live on and helped erase your rather dubious past? Well, I know this may sound rather petty and I’m sure you’d expect more from an angelic specter, but that really hurts my feelings Kurt; it truly does. Just for that, I’m never going to tell you my name, you insensitive clod, but I will answer your question all the same because I’m a kindly spirit.

&nbs
p; I was always surprised you gents never thought to ask me how I found myself in Musicarolina in the first place. I never chose to come to this town, if you remember, so how did I get here? Funny story actually, well, not so much funny as deeply depressing and tragic. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even originally the pastor of our settlement. I inherited the job, shall we say, sometime after we arrived. I hadn’t even had the job for more than a few months when that beast came to our settlement and I alone was left behind with my God when he took my congregation away, leaving behind only his name carved on that fence post to mock me.

  I guess, now that I look back on it, I suppose I wasn’t very good at my job. I mean, most preachers don’t lose their entire flock to a demon in their first year on the job, or so I’m told. I, however, managed to pull it off in a mere matter of months. Over the following weeks, I prayed for their souls continuously and I prayed for their safe return to the settlement, but alas, my prayers went unanswered, or at least so I thought at the time. In my despair and my weakness, I turned to the hollow solace provided by the bottle and on one particularly dark, dreary, rainy day, I decided to put an end to all my sufferings. After I had consumed quite a shameful amount of liquor, I fashioned a noose, put it around my neck, and I picked out the most suitable tree to hang myself in. I even started carving his name in it, I think; the details are still understandably a little fuzzy. Most fortuitously for all involved, I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, what you would call a prodigious or experienced drinker. I passed out cold there in the mud, in front of the tree, before I had a chance to do anything rash, noose still knotted around my neck like some kind of ridiculous tie. When I woke up, I found I was still in my church yard, the tree was gone and now I was in his town.

  At first, I couldn’t figure out if I had been put there as some form of punishment for my drinking and my rather misguided attempt at suicide, or for some other greater purpose. Over time, though, I came to realize just how much and how very deeply he hated every second of me being there with every fiber of his rotten being. I knew then that this wasn’t the work of evil, but of God. I knew that my prayers had finally been answered. I was put back where I could finally help my congregation and redeem all of our souls, and generally annoy that pesky little demon, of course, which was fun.”

  “That’s all well and good, preacher, but you didn’t really answer my question, did you? What was his name?”

  The preacher laughed lightly and said, “Don’t you know by now, my son? Haven’t you been able to guess it? I don’t know if it was always his name, or if he took from that tribe; maybe they even gave it to him, but I’ve always known him as Croatoan.” With that, the preacher simply vanished into thin air.

  ***

  Kurt spent the next several hours combing the woods in search of the largest stones that he could find. With great effort, he hauled them back to the center of the woods where Musicarolina had once stood. There he was determined to make a monument out of the stones he had chosen. He stacked them there lovingly, in a small clearing, in a simple mound. Kurt then found a suitable piece of wood for his purposes, produced his pocket knife, and set to carving a one-word inscription in it. Upon its completion, he placed that rough, homemade plaque at the center of the stone mound, and though he was far from a religious man before, now he kneeled, bowed his head, and said a silent prayer for his departed friends and for all the souls that had been lost over the centuries in that trap masquerading as a town.

  Kurt then rose and walked away from that plain, stone monument. He left it there behind him as a memorial to the fallen, even though he knew if anyone were to stumble upon it they would likely fail to grasp its true meaning. He began to walk back in the direction they had originally come to this place, back on that fateful night. He longed now for only one thing, to leave this place as far behind him as he was able. Kurt knew he would never be able to forget the dreadful events of the past few days, but he longed still to put as many miles between him and the place that held those memories as he was able. As he walked away, a shaft of sunlight broke through the thick tree branches behind him and illuminated the piece of wood on that small stone memorial. It read, simply, “Roanoke”.

  CHAPTER 24

  IN THE BEGINNING

  John eased the semi-truck to a gentle stop in the abandoned loading dock of the vacant building while Kurt, riding shotgun, scanned up and down the streets for any sign of curious onlookers. Seeing nothing that they believed they should be wary of, they quickly exited the truck and began to walk around the side of the building toward the main entrance still searching the area for any activity as they did. As they approached the entrance, several armed men unexpectedly flung the door wide open and stormed out of the building brandishing their weapons.

  “Whoa, hey fellas! Easy there! We’re just here making your late night delivery, by special request,” John said as both he and Kurt raised their hands in the air.

  “You don’t think we know that? We’re your ‘security detail’, shall we say,” responded a large scarred thug who seemed, by his demeanor, to be in charge.

  John shrugged and coolly replied, “Fine with me, pal. It seems a little excessive, but I guess we can’t complain. It sure is nice to be treated like celebrities for once, I suppose. I’m sure we could’ve handled it on our own though, we are pretty tough hombres in our own right, you know. That’s why most people choose to hire us in the first place when there are a plethora of other options for your various clandestine needs, after all. I will say, at the very least, you could give a guy some kind of warning if you’re planning on busting out with your big boy guns like that though. I would be willing to bet that having your truck drivers die of massive coronaries probably can’t be very good for your company’s health insurance rates, or your recruiting videos, for that matter.” John finished talking, hoping he had managed to ease the tension somewhat. Seeing the men make no more aggressive moves, he nodded to Kurt, and together they cautiously lowered their arms. The scarred one merely grunted and nodded toward the door, so they followed his caveman-like instructions and headed inside as the armed men escorted them the entire way. They led them through the large empty building past the smaller docks where vehicles could enter and over to the larger truck docks, where a new handful of armed men waited for them by the bay door.

  John, anxious to get unloaded and away from the rapidly growing number of menacing thugs as soon as possible, proceeded hurriedly to the open dock door. He produced the key from his pocket and unlocked the padlock on the back of the semi. The scarred thug rudely shoved him out of the way the instant the padlock had been removed and raised the semi’s door. Swiftly, the other men rushed forward and poured inside as if their very lives depended on it. The men quickly began to file back out, each one carrying a young woman in his arms. The captives’ hands and feet were bound, they had gags tightly and cruelly tied in their mouths and they gave little resistance to their captors. Some of them feebly tried to struggle, but they were clearly far too weak to pose any serious threat. Each and every one was unnaturally sluggish and you could see simply by glancing at the pupils in their wild-eyed stares that they had been heavily drugged.

  John and Kurt took several steps backward, in shock at the abhorrent spectacle rapidly unfolding before their very eyes. They hadn’t imagined, until this very moment, what sort of precious cargo they had been carrying in the back of their truck. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t known the slightest what it could possibly be when they agreed to take this job. Nor truthfully had they really cared up, until this very moment. Like so many jobs that had come before this one, it was cash-only, up-front, and absolutely no questions asked. Now however, this policy, that once had seemed so clever, so protective and profitable to them, seemed unfathomably naïve and foolish to them now, as it was weighed against the true cost of this vile parade of terrified young women. It had always been far easier to ignore their role in the grand scheme of things when they had no idea what the part was
that they had played in the tragedy, or even what play they were in for that matter. However, much like Schrödinger’s cat, once that truck was opened, there was no denying the ugly truth.

  They realized this, the scales falling from their once-blind eyes as they stood there listening to the muffled screams of the frightened captives. Soaking in the immorality of what they found themselves involved in; the filth was on their hands. They had always known that it was something terrible they carried, drugs, or guns, but never had they allowed their minds to wander into this vulgar a territory. It amazed John and Kurt to feel how those screams, so very quiet, muffled by the combination of the gags and the hands so roughly clasped across their mouths, still somehow managed to make their way out into the air and straight into their hearts, piercing them deeply. The men carried the young women over to a trap door in the floor and lowered them down into the tunnel below and into the waiting arms of unseen villains down there in the darkness. John and Kurt turned silently and begin to stagger out of the building, obviously dazed by this horrific turn of events.

  “Hey! You guys got some kind of problem?” the scarred thug growled out after them.

  “Nope, no problems here, friend; most of the time people have the common courtesy to wait ‘til we leave to unload the goods is all. But whatever; it’s none of our business. The job’s done is all; so it’s time for us to be moseying along. Good luck with your whole, whatever this is, though,” John called back to him, trying to act as if nothing were amiss. The scarred thug once again grunted and turned back to the depraved job at hand.

  ***

  Once they were safely back out onto the street, far out of earshot from the human traffickers, Kurt turned to John and asked, “We’ve got a problem with this, right?”