Melody Burning

by Whitley Strieber

  He paced for a long time, he had no idea how long. Time was always kind of a surprise to him. He’d known night and day—but mostly night—in the crawls and chases where he’d lived. Sometimes on the roof he’d seen the sun, which was always disturbing because of how hard it made it for him to hide.

  Finally, he felt sleepy and thought it was time to find a vacationer or go to his place on the roof—and then he remembered where he really was. He cried out, stifling it instantly with his fist.

  Beresford lay down on the incredibly soft bed, then, as he had on all the nights he’d been here, took the blanket to the floor so he could sleep without feeling like he was falling. Melody had an even softer mattress. How could she stand it?

  He lay staring up at the ceiling, at the faint reddish light that kept the room not quite dark. That was another thing he didn’t like here. It was never totally dark. He was best in total darkness, even climbing and moving through the crawls. It was what he was used to. He could navigate just by sound and touch.

  He must have fallen asleep without realizing it, because a sound woke him up. The door went bzzt! Hardly any buzz at all.

  Was it morning? No, the window was black. He sat up. Why would they be opening the doors now? He stood and grasped the door handle. Gently, he pulled and pushed, but the handle did not turn. So maybe he’d dreamed it.

  The door burst open. Four hooded figures came in and pushed him up against the far wall. As they did, he shouted in surprise.

  “Shaddup! The bulls ain’t comin’. The bulls gone deaf tonight.”

  One of the figures was Rufus the Butcher, a gang guy. In his hands was a length of wire.

  Beresford had not used his real strength against them before, but he had to now, he saw that immediately. As Rufus raised his fists, the wire taut between them, Beresford shrugged off the two boys holding him, lifting one of them and throwing him into the ceiling. The boy hit hard, crashing to the floor in a heap of ceiling tiles.

  “Jesus!”

  Beresford waded into them, swinging his arms, hammering them. Strong as they appeared, to him they were like paper. A lifetime of climbing had turned his muscles to iron.

  He grabbed Rufus by his T-shirt and landed the hardest punch he could throw right in the middle of his stomach. With a huge gasp, Rufus shot backward out the door and into the far wall, then slumped to the floor.

  The other two started to run, but he caught up with them in the hall and hit their heads together, dropping them both. The one he had thrown into the ceiling was still knocked out on the floor of his room.

  He did not like hurting anyone—he hated it, in fact—but that wire meant only one thing, that they were there to kill him. Then the place would go back on lockdown and nobody would be the wiser. That was how it happened here.

  He went down the hall and out into the rec room. From here, he had to pass the front desk, but just as Rufus had said, nobody was there. To keep the peace, the guards cooperated with the gangs.

  Why would the gangs want to kill him, though? He had nothing to do with them.

  He pulled open the main door and smelled the air, rich, cool, and scented with night-blooming flowers. The world was beautiful in so many ways. He would never cease to feel this, not after all his years in concrete and darkness and dust.

  He ran, dashing between the gym and classroom building and heading across the baseball diamond to the high fence beyond. He knew about maps, but the connection between the lines and the streets and roads did not make any sense. His instinct was to get high up; then he could see.

  The lights on the baseball diamond were on, so he skirted it and climbed the twelve feet of chain-link fence, until he reached the vicious-looking razor wire at the top. He’d only seen this stuff from a distance, and he touched it in horrified amazement. How could anybody put up something as evil as this? It could cut a person to pieces. But it kept people like Rufus inside, and you sure didn’t want him free, did you?

  Beresford lifted his body on one arm, drew in his legs, twisted until his feet were facing the other side of the fence, then extended his legs through a gap in the wire.

  Even for him, holding his entire weight on one arm was hard, so he immediately grasped the fence with the other hand as well, then levered himself down, drawing his head carefully through the wire.

  He moved one arm out and closed his fist around two links of the fence, then tightened his muscles so when he released the hand still on top of the fence, he could pull it out without touching a single razor.

  On the other side, he hooked his feet into some links below him, stretched, grasped links at waist level, then let the weight of his body down on the strength of his arms.

  When his feet touched the ground, a rush of heat went to his face and hope filled his heart. Usually, he went barefoot. It was quieter, and his toes were essential to climbing. You didn’t want to negotiate a chase in shoes—not if you wanted to live. Here, though, he would leave on the sneakers they’d given him. This was rough ground.

  The land sloped upward, although not steeply. It was fairly well wooded, which was a help to him, especially because all the lights in Willamette suddenly turned on and the bell started ringing.

  He moved faster, heading for the top of the hill. He needed to get some idea of where he was. Behind him, he heard an engine start, then another, and in moments there were headlights moving through the woods, coming fast. Small trucks? No, four-wheelers, the kind the staff used.

  A big voice: “Stop running, son. You can’t get away!”

  He would not stop.

  From above, a huge light appeared, and with it the thunderous chopping roar of a helicopter. He’d watched helicopters from the roof of the Beresford. They were fascinating.

  The helicopter’s searchlight was playing along the edges of a nearby road, but he had no intention of going anywhere near a road. He continued to the top of the hill where, very suddenly, a view unfolded—even more magnificent than the one from the roof of the Beresford.

  Keeping to the trees, listening to the clatter of the engines and the roar of the helicopter, he surveyed a gigantic ocean of lights. To the east, above the shadows of the mountains, the sky was a pink so perfect that it seemed to him in some way sacred.

  Tears choked his throat. There was no time to waste, though. He headed down the far side of the hill, going toward houses that were buried in the trees.

  He made progress, soon leaving his pursuers behind, at least for the moment.

  There was a problem, though. He had no idea which way to go. In the Beresford, he could usually tell what floor he was on, no matter how dark it was or how fast he’d been moving. Outside, all was confusion, an incomprehensible complication of trees and streets full of madly rushing cars.

  Moving more carefully, his tread so soft that he left only the occasional track, he hopped a fence into a back garden. Here was a house with a swimming pool. The Beresford had a swimming pool, but he’d avoided it because of the cameras.

  Time was passing, and what had been darkness when he left Willamette was now thin gray light. He looked around, seeking someplace to hide. He went toward a big house, but a dog started barking and, a moment later, lights began to turn on inside.

  He hopped back over the fence and went to the next yard, and the one beyond it, and so on.

  As he jumped a last fence, the helicopter suddenly popped up out of nowhere, so low that he could feel its prop wash on his back. Worse, the lights of the four-wheelers appeared, moving fast, heading straight for the row of houses.

  He rushed along the side of the house, then out into the front yard. Crossing the street, he came to a ravine, which he leaped into immediately—and not a moment too soon. Police cars came screaming around the corners at either ends of the street. Policemen piled out and raced through yards, shining powerful flashlights into every bush and hiding place.

  “Okay, son, we got you—come on outta there.”

  Except that they were pointing their flash
lights at the wrong cluster of bushes.

  Beresford went down the ravine, picking his way among the sharp stones, then moved up the side and into a more elaborate yard, this one with not only a pool but also a tennis court. Keeping between the fence that enclosed the court and the high brick wall that edged the property, he once again followed the side of the house, then slipped down the driveway and into the next street.

  After a while, he could hear only the occasional distant thutter of the helicopter. He was fast and had gotten away.

  He was soon passing storefronts, and there were people here and there on the quiet street. Farther along, there was a rattling sound as a merchant opened the front of his store.

  Then he saw a police car. He stepped between two buildings, went down an alley, crossed a nearly empty parking lot, and came out on another street.

  There was a bookstore in an old building. He went up to it, found a basement window, opened it with a few easy shakes, and slipped inside.

  The dark was better. He felt a bit safer. But where was he now?

  He crossed the cellar and opened a low door. Inside, there were dusty bottles of wine. He went in and pulled the door closed behind him. In the dark, he listened to his own breathing and tried to decide what to do.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Greek is roaring, every seat filled. You can hear the anticipation. Is my mouth gonna be too dry to sing?

  Mom says, “Five minutes.” She’s hoarse from the ordeal of our final rehearsals.

  I say, “Don’t state the obvious.” She nods. After the knock-down-drag-out over my beautiful boy, we’ve come to a silent agreement. She understands that I’m not some raving lunatic, and I accept her place as my mother and my manager. No more criticism, either side.

  I think I have lost him. The juvie system is not telling us anything. I’m going to put the amazing feelings I have for him into my music.

  The band is set up, the drums are riffing. Suddenly makeup people are all over me and I freak, but then my mike is in my hand and Timmy turns it on, and I know that every sound I now make will be heard by the crowd.

  The stage is dark. My marks glow, the six step marks and the stop marks in night-glow tape. As I walk out, there is this awesome sense of bigness.

  Silence. Then, with a whoomp of circuit breakers, the lights hit me, which feels like a physical slap of energy. We’ve lit rehearsals, of course, but not like this, not in the dark, and suddenly my entire body is glowing, my arms as if coated in white fire, the glitter of my blouse like stars around me, and my red boots two prancing flames as I take the mike to my lips and sing my very first hit, “I Want You.” It’s a girl just saying it, what they all want to hear, the long and the short of it, dammit, tell us, tell us.

  “I want you, come with me, I want you, let me hold you, I want you, I want you. . . .”

  I go on, but it doesn’t click with them.

  They are watching, waiting, and I feel this total horror, that all the controversy and media attention has built me into something bigger than I am, that Mom has filled this auditorium with more anticipation than I am worth.

  They watch and I sing, and it feels like being torn to pieces with silence. I tell myself I am putting my heart into it, I caress my words, I cover them with my blood—“Don’t leave me, I want you, I want you, don’t tell me good-bye.”

  And they watch.

  Agony. I want to be like a boxer who can go off and get pumped up for the next round. If I look into the wings, I can see Mom standing like a statue, Medea or Lady Macbeth, one of those tragic horrors, her face zombified by the steely ref lected light from my funeral pyre.

  The song ends and there is applause, but who wants that? I need screaming, I need total wild frantic mystical passion, or I am dead after tonight. That’s the reality of music nowadays. Elvis or the Beatles could reach the entire world on one damn TV show. No more. I need ultimate buzz everywhere, or I am nothing.

  Next, I do another of my hittish hits, “So Long, Boyfriend.” This is slow and intimate, and it takes full advantage of the throaty whisper that haunts the edges of my voice. “Tomorrow I’m gonna meet you, tomorrow I’m gonna talk to you, tomorrow.”

  And they watch.

  My heart beats harder, and I try harder, almost eating the microphone, willing myself to feel the longing that defines the song. “Tomorrow, I’m gonna love you, tomorrow I’m gonna hold you. . . .” A girl dreaming of a boy to whom she dares not speak. Alone in her room at night, knowing that this tomorrow will never come.

  And now they do not watch. I think I can hear a new sound, a sort of low buzz, and I know what it is, under the band, under me. There is this sound coming up almost from my subconscious or whatever, but it’s not coming from me; it’s coming from them. They’re talking. As I sing, they’re talking, and I can feel them starting to tweet their disappointment to the world.

  Why, why, why? I have no emotion left in me, nothing to transmit, nothing inside me but a heart so sad that it has turned to white winter ice, and snow queens cannot sing.

  I do two more songs, and they might as well both be called the same thing—“Robot Girl.” The more I lose them, the more shy I become, until I am practically whispering. You can hear the tears and the anger in my voice, and my throat is all tortured and dry, and I am barely even making a sound when suddenly—that’s HIM! IT IS!

  My heart has been a locked safe until this second, because right down there in the second row, looking up at me, is my beautiful boy with his wild blond hair and his huge shoulders.

  Somehow he’s escaped. Somehow he’s come here.

  I close the door of my soul on everyone except him. My eyes drill into his. My heart engages his heart, I can feel it. I cue my band and I go not to the next song in the set but rather to “Flying on Forever,” which is the song of our tragedy and our hopes, and suddenly I am back out on the roof of the Beresford in the night, looking out across the sea of lights to the low moon, and he is behind me, a reproachful sentinel.

  “When you are remembered, you’re not remembered at all, nobody’s real, nobody falls, nobody at all . . . ’cause we’re all flying on forever . . . forever . . . forever.”

  As I sing, conversations slow down, then finally stop. I stare straight at him, and he’s noticed now. He looks back in confusion, and my heart practically tears itself into pieces when I realize that it’s not him—it’s some other boy who is wondering what’s going on.

  Oh, my poor lost boy, where are you? “Are you flying somewhere in the stars? Are you lost in the darkness of the lights? Are you flying . . . flying . . . flying?”

  Then it’s over. Silence fills the theater. I see a bat flutter through the lights and disappear.

  Earthquake. Volcano. Never heard anything like it. Never knew such a sound could exist. A gigantic wave of noise, and the noise is clapping, it’s yelling, it’s foot-stomping. It’s huge and totally awesome, and it makes me feel at once like dancing. And then they are coming toward me—the guy is actually coming up on the proscenium. I can see veins pulsating in his temples, his face is practically purple, his lips are twisted. He looks like some kind of monster.

  Then he is at my feet and there are cameras flashing. Suddenly I’m jerked back, and I realize that guards are frantically pulling me away from him. My drummer, Mickey, and a guard are also pulling me, and for a second I think it is him! I lash out and scream at them and watch as he is swallowed up in the crowd. An instant later, about eight brown uniforms move off with him buried among them.

  “I’m okay, man,” the guy yells. “I’m okay,” but they keep walking him out and then he is off somewhere in the crowd, gone.

  Was it him, or wasn’t it? I don’t know, but my heart is just breaking now. Suddenly the drums start again and somebody puts my mike in my hand. The lights hit me.

  The audience disappears into the blackness, and I yell back to the band, “So Not Free.” I have no idea what we rehearsed—my mind is a blank. I have almost no idea even who
I am, because I know now that what happened in that dark crawl space was way bigger than it felt at the time. It’s burning me alive from the inside. I have to see him again.

  I look out into the dark. Some longing part of my soul is looking back at me, and I feel this song as I have never felt any song before in my life. The words come out of me echoing with the loss of being a kid and looking at a future you thought would be free—the wonderful adult world that in reality is even less free than ours, and ours is so not free.

  I sing not only from my heart and soul but from an even deeper place. I sing from behind the bars of life, but as I sing, I also see that the song is not entirely true—that all we have to do to find our freedom is to find love.

  For a long moment, there is silence. Then a sound hits me. It’s so loud that I think a bomb has gone off. Then I realize it’s people clapping. They are clapping and yelling and stomping.

  Somebody is yelling at me from the wings. Yelling at me to do something.

  More. Yes, that’s what they’re yelling.

  When I put the mike up to my lips, the whole audience turns off like a switch. I sing “Nature Boy.”

  At first, I sense a withdrawal from the crowd, as if they’ve been in the dark and are getting hit by light.

  It happens again, though. Here I am singing this old song, and something opens up in me—a door, like, to another world.

  The song ends. The applause comes again. The crowd surges forward, and I notice that a couple of the guards have their uniforms torn up, and there are cops—real ones—coming up on the stage and surrounding me.

  As they lead me off into the wings, I say nothing. Being up there was incredible, and I know what it is now to be truly high, in the sense of being taken totally out of myself, of letting my heart flow like a river, of becoming something primitive and completely free.

  Mom’s face is covered in tears. She shakes so much it scares me. She looks suddenly little and old. I see that she is crying not only with joy for me but also with sorrow for herself. This is her own life’s dream, and now it has come true before her eyes, but it’s not her.