Amy Cross - The Music Man

“ I don’t understand?” I roar, turning to him. “I’m a musician, and I’m the one who doesn’t understand? Well, let’s see if you understand this!”

I raise the guitar above my head and then bring it crashing down, smashing it against the ground. The neck fractures but doesn’t break, so I hit it again and again, eventually using my feet to stamp on the wretched thing until it breaks clean apart. The back is also coming loose, and for a moment I bring down my full fury and contempt on the guitar, until finally I step back and breathlessly admire the damage that I’ve caused.

“Are you happy now?” I gasp. “Everyone when I was younger told me to be a rock n’roll rebel, but I never wanted to be like that. I just wanted to play. But now that I’ve played my last, maybe the rebel side should come out a little, huh?”

“That was a very expensive guitar,” Glass replies.

“It could no longer be played. It was just a lump of wood and strings.”

I hesitate, before kicking the remains of the guitar. A futile gesture, of course, and one that doesn’t really make me feel any better. Still, the anger has passed and now I feel exhausted. I just want to crawl away somewhere, curl up under a rock, and never see another soul again.

“And now that I’ve performed for you,” I continue, “I think it’s time for me to leave. I don’t want anything from you, Glass. I just want to get out of here.” I turn to walk away, but then I stop as I see him tapping at his laptop. “I played because I chose to,” I add, hoping to regain a little dignity, “not because of your threats. Remember that as you disarm your ridiculous bombs.”

“Why would I disarm them?” he replies. “I’m just making sure that they’re synchronized.”

“What do you…” I pause for a moment. “I did what you wanted.”

“I know you did.”

“Then why would you—”

“The bombs weren’t a threat,” he says. “They’re a celebration! If you’d refused to play, I’d have shut them down.” He turns to me. “Did you not understand?” he adds, with a maniacal glint in his eyes. “The bombs are a celebration! They’re like fireworks! And they’re going to toughen Joshua Jr. up. I’ve set them so that he should easily survive, but he’ll emerge with a tougher skin. Trust me, he really needs that.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, taking a step toward the madman. “Why—”

Suddenly I spot something moving outside the window, and I realize I can see all those guards and goons hurrying away across the causeway. I stare at them for a few seconds, and then I turn to see Glass grinning as he taps one final time on the laptop.

I think maybe I understand why all of Glass’s men suddenly deserted him.

The explosion sends me crashing across the room, slamming into a window that’s already in the process of getting blown apart. I fall out of the room and come crashing down onto the grass, and I let out a gasp of pain as I feel hundreds and thousands of glass shards cutting my hands and face.

Behind me, there’s another loud boom. Not all of the devices went off at once, and I can hear a couple more being detonated now. I haul myself up and turn to look, but suddenly another huge blast sends me bumping across the lawn until I hit the slope at the edge, at which point I begin to roll down. I try to steady myself, but I’m already falling faster and a moment later the ground gives way beneath me.

I hit my head on a rock and – as I lose consciousness – the last thing I feel is the sensation of plummeting through the air.

When I open my eyes, I find myself on a shore, next to a beach of orange sand. I recognize the place immediately, from a dream I dreamed many years ago, and I immediately sit up and look around.

The creature is standing nearby.

A strong wind is blowing, and I can hear the thousands of teeth jostling and rustling inside the creature’s body. As the wind picks up a little, the strange sound changes slightly, almost as if the wind – by blowing through the creature – is somehow creating music. I listen for a while longer, as the wind continues to change pitch and direction every few seconds, and finally I allow myself a faint smile as I realize that the sound is actually rather pleasant.

And then, quite suddenly, the creature steps forward and comes closer.

“Am I dreaming again?” I ask. “The last thing I remember is…”

I pause, thinking back to the explosions that rocked the house at Lindisfarne. I was falling, and then I got knocked out, and then I woke up here.

“I’m not dead, am I?” I continue finally. “Is that what’s bloody happened? Did I die and end up here? How would that even happen, unless… You didn’t bring me here intentionally, did you?”

The creature stares at me for a moment and then, slowly, begins to nod.

“You’re the same one, aren’t you?” I mutter. “The one from the farm, I mean. It must be five years since I last saw you, but it is you. I’m right, aren’t I?”

He pauses, and then he nods again.

“Well,” I continue, as I get to my feet and brush more orange sand from my jacket, “thank you for catching me. Or whatever you did. It’s really rather sweet to think that you remembered me at all.”

I wait, but he’s staring at me and I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Indeed, considering the fact that this chap doesn’t even have eyes, I’m finding his stare to be extremely piercing.

Before I can say anything, however, he holds his right hand out and I see that the little black teeth are swarming in his palm. I feel as if I’m supposed to understand something, but in all honesty I can’t imagine what this message might be.

And then, slowly, I realize that I can hear music coming from the creature’s hand. Whereas before I could hear a kind of music when the wind blew through his body, now I can hear something much more complex and much more beautiful. There are proper harmonies, and the overall effect is utterly overwhelming.

“It has been a while since I heard anything like this,” I say after a moment. “It’s wonderful, but I still don’t understand why you’ve brought me back here. Is it just to gloat? To show me what we’ve lost in my world? Because if that’s all this is, then I think it’s pretty—”

Suddenly the creature turns, as if it’s alarmed by something. It immediately closes its hand into a fist, cutting off the music, and then we both watch as a swarm of black teeth rushes high above us. I realize after a moment that this must be another creature, heading off somewhere, and it’s soon gone. When I look back at the creature in front of me, I swear I can somehow sense that it’s worried.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Would your friends not approve of the fact that you brought me here?”

I wait, and the creature slowly turns back to face me.

“Are you being a bit of a rebel?” I continue, with a faint smile. “Well, congratulations. Real rebels are hard to come by, at least in my world. And I suspect in yours as well.”

The creature raises its hand again, and this time the sound of music comes much more quickly. This time there’s a faint glow, too, as if something is burning beneath the ever-jostling patch of little teeth, and the music sounds a little more urgent.

“Are you expecting me to do something?” I ask, as the music gets louder. “Listen, you’re going to have to have to be more—”

Before I can finish, I hear a rushing sound over my shoulder. Turning, I’m shocked to see several swarms of black teeth rushing toward us.

“My friend,” I say cautiously, “I think we might be about to get—”