Dark Muse (15 page)

“Oh no,” Muddy said to no one. “I’m the king
of accidentals.”

Poe looked dead on at him and said, “Silver
Eye said one thing to Corey. Just one.”

“Which was? Please. Tell me.”

She caught a shaky breath. She was obviously
scared, not an easy feat after what she dealt with at home. “He
said, ‘imagine what would happen when you left the door open if
your house sat in the heart of a jungle. What would come inside?’
“

Oh, crap. What did I do?

But what came out of his mouth was, “What’s
the worst that can happen?”

Before the period ended, the screams outside
began.

“What the heck?” Otis tumbled out of his seat
and slammed into the window. “I can’t see anything.”

Muddy sidled up next to him and peered out
the wide, multi-paned glass. “All that construction stuff is
blocking our view. So much for making the front courtyard pretty
for us.” His hands shook the frame.

“Let me in,” Poe said. Despite her
disability, she could hear a mouse fart a block away. Students
learned not to whisper and gossip in her classes. If they were
foolish enough to talk about someone she knew well, she retaliated
online. She turned her left ear to the glass before Corey reached
over them and lifted the window open.

“That better?” he asked.

“Thanks,” she replied, leaning outside.

Then her face darkened. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

Mrs. Berg crowded in with them and craned her
neck for a glance over the mess of wood and metal that littered as
far as the eye could see. “They were supposed to be done six months
ago. I knew someone would get hurt out there. That darn
superintendent.”

“What is it, Poe?” Muddy needed to know. She
sounded scared, yet something told him that it wasn’t Dr. Scitz’s
fault this time. The second scream rang much louder. It actually
sang,
he thought.

With a massive backup band.

Rumblings of music followed the obviously
female voice. Not a school band sound, nor a rock band sound. It
was…different.

“What the heck is that?” Mrs. Berg’s voice
shook. She hadn’t experienced any of the weird stuff at the
crossroads so Muddy wondered what she thought it was. “Did
something blow up?”

“No,” Poe replied. “It’s worse.” She turned
to Muddy with a knowing look. “You didn’t close the door.”

He was so distracted he didn’t even recognize
who’d said it. The dread that poured over him like wet concrete
made him feel two hundred pounds heavier.

Silver Eye had warned them. They all heard
him—yet none heeded his words.

“The door—it’s still open,” Corey
repeated.

I didn’t play that song. The one that
closed the door. But I didn’t…know
.

Oh, but he did. He simply forgot, caught up
in the moment.

All of them gazed at him, save for their
teacher. They all knew.

Corey sighed. “All of it’s our fault, not
just yours. We decided to go there alone. None of us knew.”

Poe placed her hand on Muddy’s shoulder. “And
I don’t know about you, but I was so scared, I couldn’t remember
anything.” She gazed back out the window. “Silver Eye should’ve
been with us.”

Their teacher screwed up her face. She
usually did when the band started in on one of their weird talks.
“Silver Eye? Close the door? Did someone forget to give me a
clue?”

“Well,” Otis said, tapping his fingers as he
always did when trying to talk his way out of something, “you
see—”

“Oh, crap. I’d better go out there and make
sure our principal doesn’t do anything stupid—again.” She hurried
to the door, but stopped before pushing through it. “I’m going to
hear this whole story of yours later, right? I don’t like being
kept in the dark. I have a feeling about this one.”

Didn’t they all? Muddy thought nervously as
he watched her run to the scene of the screaming.

“Shouldn’t we go?” Corey didn’t like to wait.
“I have a feeling—”

“That it’s something due to what we did? Or
didn’t do?” Poe knew each of them too well. “Okay. Guys, grab your
gear and let’s go.”

Muddy flinched. “The real instruments or the
ones we used over there?”

“How would I know?” Corey stammered. “Both, I
guess. Better to be safe.”

“But, they’re all at Muddy’s,” Otis said.

Corey looked at him. “And your point is?”

At Muddy’s house, the quartet gathered up
Muddy’s acoustic guitar, Otis’ marching band snare drum and Corey’s
sax. They also strapped the odd instruments from the “other world”
to their backs. The school seemed miles away despite the brisk pace
all of them set during the four-block jaunt from the rehearsal
basement.

“Do you think this will work?” Corey asked.
“Normal instruments here?”

“
Does it matter?” Poe began their march
toward school. “It’s not like we have a choice—especially when it’s
our fault.”

They broke into a full-out run when they
heard the chorus of screams.

Within seconds, they turned the corner and
saw the cause of those screams.

Corey stared. “What did we
do
?”

The most frightening song imaginable echoed
down the street in front of the school. A snake or something like
it, but much bigger, slithered down Carteret Avenue. The biggest
street in the entire town appeared to be a mere sidewalk under the
beast.

“Dang,” Otis said. “It must be a half-block
long.”

Scared out of his mind, Muddy stared,
transfixed by the sight.

I know where you came from because I let you
in. What did I do?

It wriggled on the blacktop with
rhythm
.

“Is that thing throwing down a beat?”

It was tossing around a syncopated groove
that left the people on the street hypnotized, paralyzed. Onlookers
stuck like glue to where they were with expressions of fear and
confusion frozen on their faces. The more the thing moved, the
crazier the rhythm became. Its undulating body shook most people
out of their minds, transfixing them. When the band crept closer,
hiding between a pair of school vans, it became clear that the
creature was anything but the garden variety of basic giant
anaconda-type serpent. Like one of those cheap toys a crazy aunt
buys at a dollar store, it was constructed of several connected
segments. When those segments rubbed against each other, the sound
resembled maracas that island dancers shook. But this didn’t
inspire people to get up and shake their butts; instead, they
became frozen where they stood.

“Corey,” Muddy called, but the big teen
simply stood there, eyes glazed over.

“Poe?” This time his voice rose to a pitch
that sounded like it did pre-puberty. She remained silent and glued
to where she stood.

“Otis?”

The drummer stared ahead for a long moment.
“Right here with you, man. That thing is wicked! I wish I could
play that.”

“Otis!” Muddy slapped his friend’s shoulder,
immediately regretting the action.

“Sorry,” they said in unison.

“Look,” Muddy said, pointing at the others.
“They’re not moving.”

Otis poked Corey and almost touched Poe
before he appeared to think better of it. “Wow, that thing has them
stuck like that. I wonder why?”

“Predators do weird stuff to their prey.”

The smaller boy shook and dropped one of his
sticks. “Prey? You mean, like, it’s going to eat somebody?”

Muddy shook his head. “Look, it’s not the
body. It’s the fangs.”

Jutting from the snake’s refrigerator-sized
mouth was a pair of long teeth that extended then clashed together.
The noise rang out in an odd, exotic-sounding chord in high-pitched
tones that were both metallic and organic at the same time.

“It’s just like the tuning forks that Satch
uses in class,” Otis said. “Except, we usually ignore those.”

“It must be hypnotizing everyone around here.
Man, I hope this thing is gone before they let school out.” Mrs.
Berg allowed them to run to their lockers, not thinking her star
pupils would temporarily ditch class. “It’d turn this street into a
buffet!”

“Oh, no.” Poe sensed what she could not see.
The thing slithered right into the path of a group of pedestrians
huddled on the corner. With a few shakes of its head, the spot
emptied.

“What happened to them?” Corey squinted,
hoping to find a survivor. “Did it roll over them?”

“No,” she replied. “They became brunch.”

A numbness Muddy hadn’t felt since the
funeral filled him inside. His fingers tingled with pins and
needles. Just a moment ago, people had been there. Now they were
inside that...thing. He looked at the others standing on either
side of it, oblivious to it all.

Muddy’s face twisted at the thought. “But,
how come we’re not like them? We can move, and talk.”

“Well, simple. I’m a drummer. I’m immune to
it. I get lost in my own rhythms, but focus too much on others to
let myself go. It sucks.”

“Well, why isn’t it freezing me up?” Muddy
began to shiver.

Otis just gave him that deep, open-eyed stare
that sometimes scared the heck out of him. “Man, I don’t know.
Maybe something happened to you over there. Or maybe, it’s
something else. Worse, I mean different.”

Ice ran down Muddy’s back. Why didn’t it
affect him?

“Maybe something
did
happen to us over
there,” Poe said. “I still can’t see, but the blurs mean something
now.”

Otis brought them back to focus on the
problem. “We’ve gotta kill it. I think I know how.”

“But Silver Eye said the instruments didn’t
work that way on this side.”

The drummer smiled. “They don’t need to. I’ve
got this one.”

He slung the drum in front and twirled his
sticks of bone. Both of them ran out to face the adversary as it
slunk toward them. It hesitated for a moment, lifted its head,
swung it back and forth then did something that sealed the deal for
the group.

It sped up and charged.

“It came for
us
, Muddy.” Yet Otis
didn’t waver.

“All because I forgot to close the door.”

He held the sticks at the ready, an odd grin
forming on his face. “Dude, we screwed up. It’s time to set things
right.”

Nodding, he framed the snake before him,
swung down as hard as his arms could and shook the world with
thunder. From Otis’ feet to the creature’s tail, the vibration of
the street drum raced, cracking a line in the road and smashing
right into the behemoth. The other-worldly sounds echoed and shook
it. The beast lost its beat. Both teens left the ground as the
serpent slammed itself into the street.

Muddy smacked Otis lightly on the back.
“More! Don’t stop.”

Shaking off a good case of the nerves, Otis
found his footing and began to roll out a rhythm that would shame
most of the great rockers in history. The snake swung around,
knocking a school security cart and sending it flying into the
building.

“Uh-oh,” Muddy muttered. “There goes the
budget for next year.”

With a swift shake of its tail, the serpent
began the maraca-type sounds once more. With each undulation, it
moved closer to the other band members, nearly knocking over
several students who remained frozen in place.

“Poe?” He began to run, then stopped. This
wasn’t his game. He turned to his drummer. “Otis?” His voice
sounded strange, even to himself.

“Gotcha, buddy,” Otis said, not missing a
beat. “I see her. Now shut up and stand back.”

The snake and drummer began a battle of
percussion in a match of musical chess. For each line the snake
slithered out, Bones countered with one that altered the rhythm,
first going along with it then changing it slightly.

He’s drawing the thing in, suckering it.
Beautiful! Just hope we survive the song!

Muddy began to feel his eyes glaze over as
the snake began a more hypnotic rhythms. Maybe if he started
playing?

“Don’t,” the drummer replied, sensing his
friend’s intention. “I’ve got him.” He played along with the
creature, adding more and more to the beat while Muddy felt himself
begin to stiffen up from head to toe.

It was overpowering, whatever they got from
the other side.

Its progress stopped right before the two of
them, almost within snapping distance. The man-length teeth slammed
into the street, rendering Muddy deaf and petrified, glued to where
he stood. Fear rippled through him, thoughts racing, praying Otis
could win out, but his mouth failed when he tried to cheer on his
friend.

Rattle. Dissonance. Jangle of alien
chords.

Counter rhythms. Double beats. Trebly rim
shot.

The two danced musically while the snake’s
jaws yawned precariously over the drummer’s head. Whether Otis felt
no fear or he was entranced with his own beat, he showed no
reaction.

On and on it went until…Otis stopped.

The snake attempted to halt its swaying,
jangling, beating body, but it couldn’t.

Otis smiled then launched into the exact
opposite of what both had played.

The creature froze then stumbled then flopped
onto its belly, shrieking.

The drummer intensified his new beat,
stepping right up to the massive jaws.

Don’t, Otis. Don’t.

But he did. He began to play on the serpent’s
pipe-like teeth. He beat a wild rhythm on each massive fang.

With a cry Muddy would hear for months in his
sleep, the creature howled and spun away. Its body swung and
slithered as if on ice, back in the direction it came.

It bolted away from them and as it moved, its
song became a disjointed mess.

“Dang,” the drummer said. “It doesn’t
die?”

“Maybe back there, but not here. I have no
clue. More importantly,” Muddy said, beginning to feel again,
“Where’s it going now?”

They knew before either moved their lips.

The crossroads. Like a beaten dog, it meant
to head home with its tail between its legs.