1
David Reardon’s eyes snapped open and he
stared into darkness. Even though it was too dark for him to see anything, he
knew that something was not quite right. He
felt it.
“Is
anybody there?” he asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper; there was no
answer.
Slowly,
he snaked his left hand out from beneath the covers, towards the bedside lamp
on the shelf beside him. The lamp spluttered into life, bathing the room in
sheer white light, momentarily blinding David as his sleep-laden eyes adjusted.
For
a brief span of seconds, he thought he saw someone at the window; a shadow,
perhaps, but no—the room was empty; no one was there. David exhaled in relief,
mopped at his sweaty brow. Despite the effort of the ceiling fan, which was
whizzing around with a soft whirring noise, the room was still oppressively
hot. Even with the cool breeze teasing the curtains at the window, the heat was
imminent. David found himself staring at the curtains waving in the breeze. Before
he even realised he was doing it, he was out of bed, and with the cool breeze
tickling his semi-naked body, was standing with the curtains held apart, his
eyes scanning the side of the house for the something he felt sure was in his
room. But if there was someone out there, and whether or not they were in
David’s room, they were now long gone.
He
let the curtains fall closed of their own accord, before turning back to his
room and to his bed. He slipped once more under the covers, and was about to
switch the lamp off when he heard it…
…coming
from just by his window.
In
an instant, he was up and at the window again, throwing aside the curtain,
looking out.
Nothing.
There was nothing… but the sound…
The sound!
It came not
from outside the window, but further off into the yard; the sound of someone
playing a musical instrument… either a pipe organ or something very much like
it.
But at this hour?
David
glanced at his clock. The red led
display panel told him that it was 2:33 am.
Surely no one in the right frame of mind would play an organ—let alone any
other sort of instrument—at this time of night?
“Well,”
David muttered beneath his breath. “This idiot is.”
Once
more, he let the curtains fall back into place, and sidled back to his bed. He
paused once more, listening to the musician playing away in the night. What
possessed him to play at this hour was beyond David—only a fool or an insomniac
would dare do something so… well, ludicrous.
Somehow,
David doubted that this person was a fool. A fool couldn’t command this kind of
alluring power over a keyboard as this person
was it a man or a woman?
seemed to
command. The melody, though it sounded rather simplistic even to David’s
untrained ears, leapt out and seemed to caress David’s naked skin. This touch
ran all over his body, through his mind… lifting him… holding him. There was
nothing else in David’s life for the next few minutes except the powerful (and
simple) tune that came from somewhere outside of David’s window. He sat upright
in his bed, goosepimples standing out where the magical music hands had touched
his skin, feeling the world spin beneath him, feeling every individual beat of
his heart, every pulse of his synapses…
…and
before he knew it, morning sunlight was piercing the fabric of the curtains,
casting strange shadows around the room. David was still sitting upright in his
trance, but there was no more music. When he turned to the clock, the led display read 6:29 am.
David
shivered. Had he stayed up for that long? He shook his head, ruffled his hair,
and put his head onto his pillow. In no time, he was asleep.
2
He thought nothing of it when he awoke later
on that day, however that night, in the still heat of summer, he heard it
again.
The
sound was low, resonant, and seemed to rise and fall in steady rhythms, like
the beating of a heart. The tune being played was heavy with melancholy, and
had a slow, almost mechanical feel to it. David listened attentively; once more
rapt in the hypnotic lulling of the music he was hearing.
Very
soon, he was out of bed and at the window, peering once more through the glass,
out into the backyard. There was a need within him to prise the window open,
and climb through the gap into the hot night. He overcame this urge through a
great effort, becoming conscious of his hand as it reached for the window’s
latch and reprimanding it when it did so. He could not, however, escape the
hypnotic pull of the organ, whose keen music held him attentive with its
forceful hand. So he stood by the window, face pressed against the pane, whilst
some unknown musician played a slow, haunting melody…
3
David awoke with a jolt. The sun bored
through the window into his freshly opened eyes, sending searing bolts of pain
straight into his head.
He
groaned, pushed aside the bed coverings and staggered over to the window,
intent on ostracising himself from the offending rays of light. As his hands
grabbed the curtain, he became suddenly aware of the lonely building standing
in the vacant lot some way from the edge of the backyard. Never before had he
given it more than a customary glance; but now, for some strange reason, it
seemed to beg for his attention.
He
stood at the window, staring at the old building in a new way, unable to
discern why. The building was a very simple—albeit decrepit—building, lacking
anything to make it stand out in any special way. It was constructed with large
red bricks, held together by mortar that was now green with mould, or in
places, non‑existent. Running along its side were many windows, as dark as pits
of tar, and as lucid, peppered in places by vandals who threw rocks at them. At
its front, where it looked onto the main street, there was a sign painted above
the door that simply read: “SCHOOL OF ARTS. Est. 1812.” David had ridden past
it many times on his bicycle, and had never really given it a sideways glance…
so why should he now be staring at it as if it were something unusual?
Presently,
he shrugged, closed the curtains and pulled on some clothes. By the time he
went downstairs for breakfast, all thought concerning the School of Arts had
eluded him…
4
This time, the tune was not a slow lament;
but rather, a loud cacophonous noise that
invaded David’s brain, robbing him of the precious sleep he had just been
enjoying. How no one else was affected by all of this was beyond his level of
understanding, fatigued as he was. He merely accepted that some whacko was
playing a pipe organ at the early hours of the morning for some kind of
perverted merriment. However much he thought this, some unnatural force didn’t
want it dismissed so easily.
Too
tired to fight himself, David allowed the raucous music, now being played in a
horrific frenzy, to lift him from beneath his covers and drag him towards the
window. His hand caught the latch, the window sprung open, and before he
realised what he was doing, he was through the window, into the oppressive late
night heat.
Once
more, the music filled his mind, eradicating all other thoughts, pushing them
away with malevolent force, and dragged David as if he was on a leash through
the backyard. At the back fence, he noticed for the first time the School of
Arts.
It
had changed.
No
longer was it a drab, ancient, rotting building. Now, it had renewed vigour;
the whole building appeared to be alive… but what struck David most was the
series of flashing lights emanating from the once dark windows… orange… red…
blue… green…
…and
coming from within those flashing palls of light was the sound of the organ.
David
stopped now, fear gripping his body. At once, rationality leapt forward in his
brain, escaping the bonds the music had enslaved it with. It told him not to go
there, to run… to go back to the safety of his bedroom…
His
feet inched slowly forward, moving at first as if he were wading through thick
syrup, before gradually unwinding, becoming smoother.
He
now stood at the back door of the School of Arts; here were stained glass
windows in a variety of colours, now looking much like a psychedelic light show
at a hippy freak out. Instinct told him once more to back away, to run, but the
pull of the music controlled his hand, made him reach out, made him touch the
door.
It
opened slowly, giving rise to the musty odour of neglect. The music seemed to
leap around him like phantasms, digging into his exposed skin, caressing his
hair. He stepped up into the mouth of the door, into the hall where he was at
once assaulted with wild flashes of bright light and loud, seemingly
apocalyptic, noise.
He
screamed; but the noise was drowned by the droning of the organ, which was
soloing at a blistering pace, reaching a vibrant crescendo. With his hands
firmly over his ears, he staggered into the adjacent hall, and there, glimpsed
for the first time the person responsible for the music.
He
sat in front of the pipe organ, his back to David, his hair a flowing white
cockatoo nest, coloured by the lights that were coming from the pipes with the
sound. His elongated fingers moved haphazardly over the keys, whilst his feet
pumped at the myriad pedals, opening valves, sending wild treatises of music
into the hall to vibrate on the walls, there to build in intensity and impact
amongst the exploding colours. David watched in horrific fascination as the
Organ Man suddenly launched into the final orgasmic splutters of sound, before—in
a brilliant flash of blinding colour—the climax was reached.
The
silence was alien. To David it was a complete void. It was as if nothing else
existed, except him and the Organ Man, who now slumped over the pipe organ, his
body shaking, rasping breaths tearing from his lungs.
“Excuse
me,” David ventured, his voice hollow; nothing compared to the greater voice of
the pipe organ.
The
Organ Man slowly turned around to face David. His face was extremely pale and
bony, with prominent cheekbones and a pointed jaw. His eyes were sunken, and
stared at David, appearing to have the clarity of water. His lips were pencil
lines drawn tightly across his mouth, under a thin wafer of a nose.
“Who
are you?” he said, his voice nasal.
“I’m
David.”
“David,
eh?” The Organ Man looked away momentarily, a bony hand playing at the cuff of
the untidy coat he was wearing. “Well, David. What brings you to my midnight
recital?”
“I
couldn’t sleep.”
“Yes.
Insomnia. Does not go well with this summer heat. I suffer somewhat from
insomnia myself… a kind of—how should I put it—spiritual insomnia.”
“I’m
afraid I don’t understand.”
“Nor
should you,” the Organ Man replied plaintively. He grinned, the pencil line
lips moving slightly, if at all. “There’s many things in this world that are beyond
our understanding. It’s just the way life is. One long riddle.” The Organ Man
turned back to the keyboard, stared down at it longingly.
“What
do you do here?” David asked.
“Me?
Nothing. I do nothing. Nothing at all. Except bring life to this decrepit old
building that should have died years ago. My life is this building. This
building is my life.”
“I
don’t get it. You come in here and play this organ in the middle of the night?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because
it brings me great joy. Because it brings me peace. Because I have to. Because
I am compelled to play… I’m attracted
to the organ. It wraps me in its power. It holds me in its hands… I am the
Organ Man!”
“But
why can’t anyone hear you?”
“You
heard me didn’t you?” This was said with a wry smile that on the Organ Man’s
face seemed unreal. His pupils were dilating as he spoke, and began to appear
glazed.
“I
mean… you make a lot of noise…”
“Noise?
Is it just noise to you, David?”
“Well;
it’s noisy…”
The
Organ Man leaned back on the stool he was sitting on, his frail frame twitching
slightly. A bony finger caressed the wood grain of the keyboard, running slowly
down the polished surface. “Doesn’t it do
something to you? Doesn’t it lift you?
Inspire you? Make you feel cold, lonely, fearful, hungry, angry—dare I say it! —horny?”
“I—?”
David stammered as the Organ Man rose from the stool, still grinning his pencil
mark grin.
His
eyes were glowing now, wide with wild excitement. “I feel all those emotions
coursing through my body… those and more… as I play. My whole body gets
involved in the sculpting of the music, not only my hands and feet. All of me. It’s like one big pool of
emotion, mixed together in a huge cauldron, boiling, frothing—” The Organ Man
threw his hands into the air. “At first, there was nothing. I was nothing. And
then, like the woman of an ugly man’s dreams, along came… this machine! Before
her, I felt dead, lifeless… Now—? There’s so much power in this devilish thing!
It has my soul, boy, and there is naught that can be done about it. Nothing! I
am caught, I fear, by the devil inside this blasted contraption. It claimed my
soul after I struck the first note…” With that, he reached out with the index
finger on his right hand, and struck a note, sending off a short peal of sound,
a splash of orange light. “It’s that easy, David,” the Organ Man whispered. “That
simple. All it takes is for your finger to press a key… and you’re gone.”
“Gone
where?”
“Oh.
Nowhere. You needn’t worry about it, son. In fact, my advice is simple: turn around and leave. Don’t come back.
For your sake, don’t come back—ever!”
David
was stunned. The Organ Man turned away from him, his attention wandering back
to the organ. He sat, and began to absently poke at a few keys with his right
hand, creating a melody, before bringing his left hand in to manipulate some
chords. The sound coming from the organ was half way between mournful and
spirited; it shifted continuously in and out, and while David watched, the
Organ Man began to sway with the music that undulated like a valley unfolding
into green pastures. David saw on the Organ Man’s face such an intensive look
of concentration; it was as if the Organ Man was pushing his soul through the
pipes, for with every change of chord, a new groaning twitch would rush across
his face. The movement of the Organ Man’s fingers over the keys and the
movement of his feet as they stroked the pedals fascinated David. As David
looked up, he saw the same lights that had greeted his arrival, only this time,
they were in shades of dark blue and green, and moved slowly, as if in sympathy
of the music. They billowed across the walls like curtains blown in the wind,
merging one on top of the other, slowly, sensually.
Then
it suddenly stopped, and the Organ Man was looking at David, his eyes sharp,
the pupils shrinking. “Didn’t I just tell you to go, boy?” the Organ Man asked,
his voice carrying in the empty hall.
“I—?”
“I
want no excuses… just go, damn you! Go, and never come back! Do I make myself
understood? Do not come back!”
The last was almost shouted, but
even if it wasn’t it was said in such a way that demanded prompt action. David
scurried backwards under the steely gaze of the Organ Man, who now folded his
arms over his chest, his eyebrows knitted into a frown. David turned and bolted
for the back door, wrenched it open and ran out into the warm night, back to
the sanctuary of his bedroom.
5
The sunlight burned his retinas. The light
was white, hot. David swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand, feeling
the grimy sweat that was there. The crowbar weighed tonnes in the fold of his
shirt. It was cold, unlike the day; though not unlike the heavy feeling that
dwelt in the pit of David’s stomach, threatening to bring up the meagre
breakfast he had forced himself to eat.
With
a nervous glance over his shoulder, David produced the crowbar, and regarded
the rear door of the School of Arts building as if he was a magpie watching a
wriggling worm writhing in the mud. He swallowed nervously hefting the crowbar
from one hand to the other.
What the hell am I doing?
He placed
the flat wedge into the edge of the door where the old rusty lock was. He was
determined at first to tear open the door, but something other than nervousness
made him stop. With his hand, he reached out, and pushed at the door. It didn’t
budge.
David
let out a shaky breath, wiped more sweat from his brow. This is too freaky, man, too freaky. How the hell did I open the door
last night?
“Why
that’s really simple,” David whispered. “The Organ Man was inside, and he left
the door unlocked.” David placed the crowbar at the lock. “It is that simple,”
he concluded as the old wood of the door splintered at the lock, and it swung
open.
David
stood in the doorway, his heart hammering in his chest.
What the hell am I doing?
He was
tempted to drop the crowbar and run; indeed his fingers released their grip on
the piece of steel, and it clattered onto the ground. David, however, remained
where he was.
Musty
odours wafted out first; the smell of disuse, decay and cockroach infestation. David’s
nose wrinkled at this, and he felt the urge to sneeze. However, he controlled
this urge enough to scoop up the discarded crowbar and push his way inside,
closing the door behind him.
It
was dark inside the School of Arts. Dark and cold, for the windows were too
clogged with dust to allow sufficient sunlight to pass through. It was very
much like David imagined a tomb would be like; except there was nobody in here. Or was there? David
inched slowly across the floor, seeing the footsteps he had made last night. One
set of footprints going in… another out…
David
swallowed once more; the sweat that had poured from his body when he was
outside now froze to his skin. Only one
set of footprints, he thought. Mine. Which
meant?
“He’s still
in here,” David whispered, and as a precaution, gripped the crowbar as if it
were a baseball bat.
He
followed his footsteps over the creaking floorboards and into the adjacent
hall. There, where it had been last night, and indeed—so it seemed to David—for
all of eternity, was the pipe organ. David stared at the now lifeless monolith,
still feeling a sense of awe as flickers of the night before flashed through
his mind; however, these were swiftly dissipated when David noticed what the real organ looked like. The pipes were
rusted in places, clogged with dust; if anyone tried to play them in the
condition they were now in, they’d fall to pieces. Cobwebs clung to the various
pipes, their owners long gone, the webs the colour of the red swirling dust that
seeped in through the decrepit old building’s cracks. David approached the
platform on which the pipe organ sat and noticed for the first time the holes
in the floorboards into which several mice disappeared. With a mind not
accepting the truth, David stared longingly at the vacant stool, half expecting
the Organ Man to be sitting there, glaring at him with those weird eyes…
But
he wasn’t there. All that was there was the stool, with various horsehair tufts
sprouting from the tears in the rotted vinyl. The organ itself was in a similar
state—the keys were stained a disgusting yellow colour, looking like teeth in
the mouth of an old man. David found his lips curling up in disgust as he
recalled the fingers of the Organ Man sliding over those exact same keys, the
ecstatic look of joy on his pencil-thin lips, in his eyes…
“Doesn’t it do something to you? Doesn’t it
lift you? Inspire you? Make you feel cold, lonely, fearful, hungry, angry—dare
I say it! —horny?”
David felt his entire body sag with
the disappointment he felt. “No,” he whispered, and in the confines of the
School of Arts, this whisper was much louder. “I feel… dead, lifeless.”
He
lowered his eyes.
“At first, there was nothing. I was nothing. And
then, like the woman of an ugly man’s dreams, along came… this machine! Before
her, I felt dead, lifeless… Now—? There’s so much power in this devilish thing!
It claimed my soul after I struck the first note… It’s that easy, David, all it
takes is for your finger to press a key… and you’re gone.”
David
swallowed, grimacing again at the yellow keys. What once was beautiful was now
haggard, old. David shifted the crowbar from hand to hand, the temptation to
bring it down onto the keyboard becoming suddenly overwhelming. He wanted to
destroy the accursed thing, wanted to make the Organ Man pay the price for
keeping him awake in the middle of the night. Most of all, David wanted to
release the primal fear he felt freezing his stomach, to replace that fear with
the more primal feeling of explosive rage. But he couldn’t find the energy to
even lift the bar over his head once, let alone do it repeatedly. The crowbar
felt like a dead weight in his hands, a null, frozen entity… a dead limb. It
hit the floor with a dull thud, causing a spatter of red dust to waft into the
air, to irritate David’s nose. He sneezed, the sound reverberating around the
empty hall, sounding as if a hundred people had sneezed and not just one.
The
destructive moment passed as swiftly as it had come, to be replaced with a
weakening of his knees. David sagged forward, cradling his face in his hands,
feeling the cold flesh of his palms and face. He closed his eyes, heard his
heart beating away in his chest.
This is crazy, he thought. What am I doing here at all? Why did I break
in? What am I achieving by being here? The thoughts bounded around inside
his mind, but as it always seems to be, there were no answers for the
questions, and David resigned himself to that fact grimly, and with a shake of
his head, rose to his feet.
“It’s
this fucking organ,” he groaned, approaching it again, mounting the few steps
to be level on its dais. He stared wildly at the sickening yellow keys, the
cobweb encrusted pipes, the stool with the horsehair bulging out everywhere. “The
Devil in the Machine,” David whispered. “The Devil.” He reached out with the
index finger of his right hand, watching it close the gap between himself and
the keyboard with a semi-detached fascination, a wry smile on his lips. He was
aware of every sordid detail of that finger; the way the last knuckle bent
towards the middle finger, the crest of white at the base of the fingernail,
the twisted little scar that ran along the top surface. He was watching his
finger travel slowly towards the keyboard, but it was not his finger. It was the
Organ Man’s finger, or someone else’s finger. It wasn’t David’s finger.
Inch
by inch he closed the gap, until the moment where his finger was a mere
fingernail’s width above the grimy key, so close that he could actually feel it beneath the pad of his finger. Here
he paused, coldness flushing his body once more. His breath was ragged, and he
found himself drawing nothing but the red dust into his lungs… the choking red
dust that clogged everything without mercy. David’s vision swam before his
eyes, his tears causing the organ to bend and move, to form a grotesque leering
monster, the keyboard becoming teeth, the pipes hair like the snakes of Medusa…
and David froze like a stone.
What are you doing here? David’s mind
asked him, or at least he thought it did. He shook his head to clear it of the
horrendous vision, and was about to stab the key that his finger was poised
above, when the question was repeated with more force… but not in his mind.
“I
said, ‘what are you doing here?’”
David
screamed, jerking back, slipping off the stool he had no recollection of ever
sitting on. He snapped his head around to catch a glimpse at whoever it was
that called out to him, but all he could see was the piercing demonic eyes of
the Organ Man, holding his long fingers out, fingers that curled like snakes. David
screamed again, scurrying along the floor, away from the organ and the Organ
Man alike, covering his face with his hands, a stabbing coldness grabbing his
balls in an iron fist.
“Who
are you?” the old man asked, approaching the platform carefully.
David
ceased his whimpering, stared at the old man, his first thoughts becoming
floundered as the man came into focus. His hair was the same stringy white that
was the Organ Man’s, but it was neatly combed on either side of his head. His
lips were full, unlike the pencil line lips the Organ Man possessed. The eyes
were similar in colour, but the old man’s were rheumy gelatinous globules that
needed the assistance of a thick pair of glasses to discern any of David’s
features.
“Why
are you here?” the old man demanded, a sense of urgency in his voice.
David
said nothing for a few shocked seconds, brushed the hair from his eyes. The old
man’s attention was now on the organ, lying decrepit and innocent in its dais,
cloaked in the dust of ages. His look of longing seemed alien upon his creased
and grey face, his rheumy eyes filling with tears that were more than an
allergic reaction to the excess dust lying around. “Is it your organ?” David
asked, his voice nothing more than a splutter.
The
old man shook his head. “The organ belongs to my brother,” he whispered, his
thin frame rocking gently back and forth as if caught on a wind. “Or so he
believed. But he was wrong. No one is its master.” He was silent again, but
only for a few minuscule seconds, but that silence was so intense that David
could hear the blood coursing through his veins. “You still haven’t stated why
you’re here.”
“Are
you going to call the police?” David asked.
The
old man shrugged. “I can’t see what they’re going to do. Nobody owns this
place.”
“I
thought you said your brother—”
“—owns the organ. He owns the organ,
boy. Or he likes to think he does. As for the hall… well, it’s owner died at
least fifty years ago. Besides that, the police will be of no help to me. Or
you for that matter.”
The old man watched David closely
and David withered beneath that gaze. There was something the old man wasn’t
telling him, but David was morbidly afraid to ask what it was. He wanted to
rush past the old man, to push him away if he went to stop him, to run out into
the warm sunshine. Anything would be more welcome than the cold tomb-like
interior of the hall with this strange man who was talking in riddles and that
organ, standing behind him in dusty, monolithic silence; a horrifying presence
in itself, made more horrifying by its silence. David swallowed nervously,
shuffled from one foot to the other, unable to move, even though he wanted to. He found his gaze locked onto
the old man’s, who returned it levelly, his gelatinous eyes wide, knowing—maybe
too knowing.
“You heard the music, didn’t you?”
the old man asked suddenly, breaking the silence that had been in place since
last he spoke. His voice was loud, bouncing around the hall, echoing, one voice
on top of another, and another, and another… “You heard the organ being played,
didn’t you?” he asked again, with urgency sustaining his voice. He came a few
steps nearer, his gait awkward. David noticed for the first time that the old
man’s left leg was prosthetic, giving him the stride of a marionette. “Please
tell me you only heard the music… that you never actually played the accursed
thing?”
“What music?” David snapped, finding
the strength to move, if only to turn back to the organ, anything than to stare
at the old man who hobbled along on a plastic leg, who looked like the
geriatric version of that stupid pirate in Peter Pan. “What music could
possibly come from this thing? Look for yourself, old man. This thing is fucked!”
David heard the old man shuffle
forward a few steps. “Then why did you break in?” he countered. “There’s
nothing of interest in this place to a person of your age. Maybe if you were
younger, then curiosity could be justification… but a younger child wouldn’t
have had the strength or ingenuity to break open the door. Therefore, I can
only surmise that there was another force enacting on you. Don’t lie to me. You
heard the music, didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” David challenged.
The old man only stared. “God rest
your soul.”
“What do you mean by that?” David
snorted, his first strains of fear melting into boyish bravado.
“What it means literally,” the old
man stated, unaffected by David’s sarcasm. “But for your sake as well as mine,
I need to know!”
David paused, shuffled forward a few
nervous steps, his toe striking the discarded crowbar. He glanced briefly down
at it before returning his gaze to the old man. There was an urgency in the old
man’s gaze that David found frightening. The old man wasn’t angry so much by
David’s trespass, but rather, by David evading his inquiries. But just how
genuine were those inquiries? What if David had heard the midnight recital? Was
it as important as this old fool was making it out to be?
“You say your brother owns this
organ,” David said in a matter-of-fact way. He turned and embraced the organ
with a sweeping gesture. “An interesting piece. And yet, I wonder… does it
still work?” David grinned at the old man, and made to touch one of the dirty
yellow keys.
At once, the old man staggered
forward, his prosthetic leg throwing his walking motion awry. A garbled cry
escaped from his mouth, the words unintelligible, choked. “No!” he stammered
after trying a series of blurted monosyllables. “No! Don’t touch it!”
But David wasn’t going to touch it. He
had no particular need to do so. The thought of his fingers caressing those
ugly, stained keys caused his breakfast to make itself known in the churning
cavity of his stomach. The keyboard smiled at him, silent, beckoning him, the
dirty yellow keys set apart by the shorter, black keys… looking like spots of
decay in the mouth of a long dead dinosaur.
The old man was suddenly beside him,
swatting the air frantically with his hands. He reeked of sweat and some cheap
cologne and fear. His fear was
paramount, rancid. It combined the bitter tang of piss with the subtle aroma of
cinnamon and the dusty, cloying stench of mothballs. Death, David’s mind whispered. This
old geezer smells like death. And it was true; he smelled exactly how old
deserted houses smell, how stained wallpaper and old linoleum floors smell when
dry rot sets in. He smelled of an old couch that was the home of mice. It was
repulsive, more so than the insect-like movements the old man was fluttering
about, or the nervous intonations
don’t touch it!
that fluttered from his trembling
lips. David backed away from the old man, backed a far way away from him. In
fact, once David was well clear, he spun on his heels, and just as he had fled
the Organ Man last night, he fled from this crazy, smelly old man.
6
He passed
the rest of the day in his bedroom with the window tightly shut and the
curtains drawn, the ceiling fan chugging effortlessly away in the background. The
darkness was a comfort, anything to be out of the sun and the heat. His mother
had knocked on the door about an hour ago, to see if he was in. He remained as
still as a statue, not even daring to draw a breath, the thought of leaping
under his bed coming to mind should she choose to investigate. But she didn’t
press the matter, and when she was gone, David locked the door.
He lay on his bed, hearing only the
monotonous beating of the ceiling fan, seeing only grey shadows running over
the walls of his room. He was tired, but couldn’t sleep. Each time he closed
his eyes, an image formed in his mind. The Organ Man, the School of Arts, the
old man; they all leapt and coaxed, each with their own sense of omnipotence,
forming one collected collage of madness. It was all inconceivable, so… unreal. Where had the organ come from? And
why, all of a sudden, could David hear it? And why only him? Surely, the
wretched thing was loud enough to wake the entire neighbourhood? So many
questions, but no answers, at least nothing tangible. There was only the
semi-deranged babblings of that old coot, and that did nothing to allay the
confusion David felt, the sense of dread.
In one moment, the organ was alive
with promise and vitality; the next, it was a worn, decrepit old machine
looking for a place to die. The building also underwent the same change,
changing from a decaying, rotting building into a living, breathing concert
hall, and then back again. But what of the Organ Man? Who was he… and where did
he go? What was the meaning behind his midnight recital? And just who was the
old man? Were they really brothers… or the
same person?
David turned over, away from the
window where he had followed the call of the organ, whose lilting tunes exacted
the same attractive powers as the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Was that the purpose
of the midnight recital? To attract
somebody by some magical force… in this case David? He turned again, lay on his
stomach. There must be more behind it,
he thought solemnly, listening to the fan beat the air above him. Surely, others must hear the raucous…
You heard me
didn’t you?
The Organ Man had said that, with a
sly twist of his lips, as if David was wearing a dunce cap and had stated the
obvious for the amusement of the class. Why had nobody else heard the Organ
Man? Because David had heard the
Organ Man! Was it really that simple?
He sat up slowly, feeling a
momentary whirl of vertigo as he did so. The mud was clearing, but the pond was
far from lucid. If the Organ Man was attracting
David, then the next question was why? If the Organ Man was playing the Pied
Piper, did that mean that David was a rat?
No,
he decided. There is a darker purpose
here. But what? What could the Organ Man want of a young boy in the middle
of the night?
David shrugged. That answer was
anybody’s guess. For all David knew, the Organ Man could be some dirty pervert
with a taste for young flesh… and that old coot could be an assistant—a
shopping guide if you will. It sounded far-fetched, but deviant behaviour took
all sorts of arcane twists did it not? The Organ Man could at this very moment
be deciding how best to serve David on a platter; he could be literally creaming his pants in sadistic
anticipation. This last thought sent a simultaneous shiver of fear and mirth up
and down David’s spine, and despite the fact that it was mid‑summer, a cold
hand teased the flesh below his stomach.
What if the Organ
Man was a murderer?
The thought leapt into David’s mind
so suddenly and so totally, knocking aside the mild perversions as if they were
nothing more than annoying bugs. What if the Organ Man attracted people to his
midnight recitals in that decrepit old building, and then killed them? What if his kicks went further than just kinky
deviance with little boys… what if they went all the way to, say… homicide?
David froze where he sat, felt his
heart skipping away frantically; after all, he had actually seen the Organ Man, had talked to him.
What if David was the next victim?
He swallowed, tasted fear, sour,
choking.
“Oh,
my God!” he whispered, feeling a creeping sensation ripple through his guts
and up and down his throat.
Panic brought him to his feet, but
only as far as the door. What was he
going to say? And to whom was he going to speak? His parents wouldn’t
believe him, nor would the police. Who in their right mind would believe a
story about an old organ in an old hall being played by a nocturnal madman? But
if he could convince them to stay up…
and listen. Could he? Would his parents listen?
He sauntered over to his bed.
You’ve got an
over active imagination, his mother would say.
His father would just tan his hide. What stupid prank are you playing this time?
He could forget trying to explain the crowbar and actually breaking into the
hall and finding the organ smouldering in a pile of dust. This same reason also
excluded him telling the police. What would they think if they saw the busted
lock, or if they found the crowbar lying abandoned on the floor in the hall?
You
were trying to rip something off, weren’t you, kid? Or you were caught
red-handed trying to break up the place, maybe as part of a dare from your little
mates. Yeah, that was it, wasn’t it, kid? The owner of the place caught you and
you shat yourself and ran away and now you’re inventing all these kid stories
to cover your own sorry little arse.
Flustered, he flopped back onto the
bed. Was there nothing he could do?
He cursed, rolled over yet again,
became aware once more of the sticky summer heat, encroaching despite the
effort of the ceiling fan. He glared up at the stupid thing, disliking the thump‑thump‑thumping! of the rotors. He
wanted silence, cold, dependable silence, not the monotonous sound of beaten
air, or the whining drone of an old organ. He wanted to be immersed in absolute
silence—a void. Even when he buried his head beneath his pillow, he could still
hear the god‑awful fan blathering away like an idiot… and it angered him. He rose, made for the
switch on the wall, and turned it off. The fan slowed, slowed… stopped—its
noise ceased. It was now silent and hot.
He sagged against the wall, stared
at the window, the same window through which he had leapt through in pursuit of
the sound of the organ. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, painting
yellow-orange lines on the walls. These he stared at for a long time, and as he
stared, his eyelids became heavier… heavier… heavier still…
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