Left Hand of Doom

by Mike Allan

  6

  Sharp blows snap my head back and forth. I open my eyes to see Phillips crouched over me, hand poised for another slap. My cheeks sting in slightly overlapping turkey patterns.

  “There you are. I can’t believe you fainted for the trip through. That’s the best part.”

  Phillips backs off so I can sit up.

  All around us scrub brush and tough yellow grass sway in a hot breeze. Faded orange ribbons flutter on a grid of wooden stakes.

  “A bit disappointing.” Phillips frowns. “Not as far back as usual.”

  “Far back? What?”

  “We’ve traveled through the Soundscape and returned to the same spot in the material world, only in the past. When did they break ground on this place?”

  “Uh, maybe eight years ago?”

  He purses his lips. “When the amp’s plugged in you can go back as far as fifty. But I suppose it was important to show you that you can still invoke some amazing things without electricity.”

  “What. . .how? How is this possible?”

  “Sound,” he says, like that explains everything. After a few moments of me staring dumbly at him, he goes on, “It’s no mistake that Yahweh speaks the Universe into being in Genesis. It’s not without reason theoretical physicists dream up vibrating strings at the heart of all matter. Sound, noise. . .it’s all there in the Scape. Every sound that ever was, every sound that ever will be. All we did was ride it to a was.”

  He stands up, dusting off the knees of his trousers, and offers me a hand. In the distance I can see the highway. Car windshields flash along it like water beads on a spider’s web.

  Nothing in the tomes I found ever talked about a power like this. They told about the Soundscape, sure. They even told you how to get there. That was how I cooked up my moronic plan to steal the G5. But traveling it to come out in a different time?

  “Amazing.”

  “Child’s play.” He sneers. “Just a parlor trick. There’s really no use to it.”

  “No use for time travel?”

  “We’re discordant notes in the grand symphony of all creation now. The titans can’t abide anything out of place. They’ll send their pets to return us to our proper stations soon enough. Which is good since you won’t be bringing us home.” He points at my amp. The grill is blown outward and wrapped back around the case. White smoke billows from the hole.

  “Damn.”

  “Should’ve brought a tube amp. They can handle the energies better.”

  I shudder, and not just at the prospect of seeing the writhing madness again. With a nifty guitar lick and a drop of my blood, Phillips sent us back in time, and somehow that’s not the biggest deal ever. Whatever else he has in his head must be incredible.

  “They’re coming. Quicker than usual.”

  I look down. The white is back, only this time it’s hardly empty. It’s just like I remember. A wriggling snarl of tentacles gropes upward. The suckers sport inward facing, wedge shaped teeth. Each one has a little mouth at the center of it. They open up and scream in unison. The white swirls around my feet as they wrap around my legs and seize my wrists.

  “Are you in, Eddie?” Phillips shouts over the suckers’ earsplitting chorus.

  I nod.

  Phillips has me drop him at the bus station. The line at the ticket counter is a rainbow of human misery. Nobody rides the bus if they have a choice. Or a damn good reason.

  “Those warding tattoos aren’t just for show, are they?” I ask as Phillips rifles through his bag.

  “No. Which is why you need one of--aha!--these.” He holds up a simple black cord necklace with a clay pendant. There’s an eye scratched onto one side and a spidery knot of cuneiform gouged into the other. “Take this. Never take it off.”

  Hence the tattoos. No taking those off. No losing them unless somebody skins you alive, and if it comes to that you’ve got bigger problems than being found. Skinned alive is usually a very short stop on the way to being skinned dead, I’m guessing. I don’t have a lot of experience with flensing but it seems like that’s how it would go.

  “Somebody after you?”

  He goes back to digging through his bag. “Let’s just say there are many unenlightened souls out there who don’t approve of human beings meddling with the primeval sounds of creation.” His mouth twists up into a sour expression. “Self-appointed inquisitors of the Soundscape.”

  “Huh? Like Catholics?”

  “Some of them are, I’m sure. Let’s just say it’s not entirely true what Mr. Snider sang. You can stop rock and roll.”

  After I reel in my jaw I say, “Did you just make a Twisted Sister reference?”

  “What’s so strange about that?”

  “Nothing, I just didn’t figure you for a hair metal fan.”

  “There you go with your ill-mannered prejudice again. Here we are.” He pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. I peek inside. Holy shit. For one of the few times in my life, I’m actually speechless. The hundreds just go on and on. A whole legion of Benjamin Franklins in my hands.

  “That should be enough to last you a few months. Find yourself a good tube amp and a practice space.” He opens the door. “I’ll see you soon, Eddie.”

  “Where’re you going exactly?”

  “Matters need attending. And I’ve got a few more tweaks to the rite before its ready. Expect me to send you the first cuts in a few days. You can read sheet music?”

  “Huh? Yeah.” My voice comes out slow and languid. I’m still dazed from the absolute fortune he just handed me.

  “Good. I abhor tablature. Oh, and you might want to fix up a space in your apartment. You’re going to have a guest.”

  “Guest?”

  “Don’t worry. He’s quiet.” He slams the door.

  Once I’m back on the road Purd calls me. I let voicemail get it. I’m too afraid to talk about it, like if I do the spell will break and the money in my pockets will crumble into ashes. It’s too early, like when a new riff is just starting to knock around my skull. Too much daylight and oxygen in infancy will kill it.

  First thing I do is put down another two months of time at the old Swamp Dragger practice space. Then I hit the pawnshops. Even though I’ve got enough cash to easily get a brand new, high end rig, I’m more comfortable playing through something battered and bruised.

  In a place called Lou’s, tucked in a dust choked corner behind some caved in speakers, underneath a shelf of off-kilter turntables, there’s a vintage rig. It’s been in the wars. Half the face plate of the head is gone, revealing smashed and missing tubes inside, but there’s enough for the thing to limp along at half output. I put it through the paces with my Les Paul. It sounds thin, weak, rasping, but there’s a ghost of old power in it. Give this old soldier some new tubes, it’ll be ready for battle.

  I buy it for next to nothing. Mission accomplished. This calls for a drink.

  Or six.

  7

  The knocking on the door syncopates with my throbbing headache. Whoever’s at the door isn’t satisfied with just a quick rap-tap. They just keep at it with a steady rhythm. Knock-throb-knock-throb-knock-throb. I throw my forearm over my eyes and radiate get lost vibes.

  Knock-throb-knock-throb-knock-throb.

  I’m still a little tipsy from the night before so my walk to the front door meanders. The knocking keeps going as I throw the deadbolt and pull it open.

  A kid stands in the hall. His raised hand morphs from a loose knocking fist to a wave. He rips a tiny sheet of paper from the notepad in his hand.

  “Hello! Very good to meet you! I’m Nilos. I drum for HP. Said I should crash here. Big fan of Swamp Dragger!”

  While my brains sifts through its jumbled contents for the file marked “English”, the kid grabs a crated up bass drum. All smiles and shrugs, he slips past me and sets the drum down in the living room. He goes back out and grabs another.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” My booze addled brain finally catches up to reality. “Ph
illips sent you?”

  He sets down the second kick and the notepad comes out again along with a ballpoint.

  “Said he told you?”

  “Yeah.” I run a hand through my tangled hair. “Yeah, he did, I just. . .he didn’t tell me you were bringing a whole kit.”

  He scribbles, “Got to practice the rite.”

  “I’ve got a practice space we can use.”

  He lights up. “Perfect!” A thumbs up. Then, “Still need to crash here though. OK?”

  He really is a kid. Eighteen at the most. Wiry, long limbed. Even standing still, he buzzes and blurs at the edges. I remember having that kind of energy once. I can’t decide if it’s inspiring or infuriating to see it thrown back at me.

  “Yeah, man. Yeah, that’s cool. The couch folds out, that’s cool.”

  Nodding, he writes, “Cool to stash my kit here for now?”

  “Sure.”

  He flits out into the hall and returns with another kick. I double take at him. “Why do you have three kicks?”

  He grins and writes something on the notepad, tosses it to me before heading back into the hall.

  “Three is a magic number.”

  Hungover or not, I’m a sucker for a gimmick, whether it’s costumes or ridiculous instrumentation. I've seen bands with Mongol fiddles, hurdy-gurdies. Once I saw a percussionist who eschewed lame, actual drums in favor of thrashing a chain on an empty oil barrel. But this?

  "This I’ve got to see. Like, right now.”

  He tucks a tom under his arm to give me a thumbs up.

  Nilos’ kit is a fortress. His three bass drums form a wedge bulwark. “Maiden”, “Mother”, and “Crone” are written in jagged white across the black skins. A rack tom battlement sits above them. His cymbals stretch high before drooping low into reach like mantis limbs.

  “Ready?”

  He waggles his eyebrows.

  “Gimme a beat, DJ.”

  One stick whispers across a cymbal edge while the other skitters across a snare. He goes on like that for about a minute, then his knees start to bob. One pair of the drums are linked on a single pedal and the third has its own. The tethered pair strike within eye blinks of each other, almost but not quite blending into a single tone. A quarter note rest then the singleton thumps out. It sounds like the beat of some alien leviathan’s three stroke heart. After a few bars of that, he jams the space between kicks with viper quick rides on the cymbals and gut rumbling mini-fills across the toms.

  We lock eyes, heads bobbing in time. As he raises his hands up to crash from the intro into the first verse, I slide down the low e. From studying Phillips’ sheet, I know the rite’s built around the eldritch scale. To look at it, to hear it, even when you play it, it appears as nothing but a discordant jumble of notes, but there’s an order beneath all that noise. I cobbled together my ritual five years ago from the same scale, but in a lower key and not nearly as complex as the monster Phillips has stitched together.

  Nilos slices the tempo thinner and my hand spider creeps down the neck. I use my toe to flip the first sheet aside so I can see the second one. Might have to invest some of my windfall in a music stand like I’m some kind of professional musician or something.

  We go through the whole thing. It’s rough as hell, the pieces don’t quite fit together right, all out of kilter with each other. We’ll work out the burrs with time. As the last notes fade away the earth doesn’t split. No tentacles latch onto us to drag us down for judgment. The music itself isn’t the only part you need to make the rite sizzle. You need blood. For something like this, whatever it’s meant to do, you need time and place as well. The stars must be right.

  “That’s some cool shit,” I say. Nilos nods in agreement, then makes a spinning “Again?” motion with his finger.

  “Nah, fuck that,” I say. We’ve got weeks to work on Phillips little pet project. I want to see what this kid can do with his mutant kit. “Let’s jam.”

  He grins and rolls out a rapid-fire tattoo on the snare. I’m smiling like I haven’t in a long time as I spring into a searing lead.

  “So how’d you get mixed up with Phillips?”

  We’re sitting in the Hour, a beer in front of me and Nilos nursing a Coke. No ID on him, but I suspect he wouldn’t have ordered a beer even with the requisite paperwork. For all I know he’s not even old enough.

  He frowns, takes a sip, frowns some more. He starts to write something, scratches it out. Starts again and slashes through the letters. Finally he just writes, “Long story.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Weird. Cool ink.”

  “Yeah, really. You got any tats?”

  He shakes his head. “Promised my mom.”

  He’s no more embarrassed to admit this than he was to order a soda in a beer snob joint. Whether it’s complete self-confidence or total lack of self-awareness, I kind of envy him.

  “So if you hadn’t what would you get?”

  He turns red. Ah, so something does embarrass him. Everybody’s got their shames.

  “Come on.” I nudge his arm.

  His shoulders rise and fall in a silent sigh. He sketches out a five line staff and hangs three lonely notes on it.

  I recognize it before he’s finished filling in the last one. It’s the sound. The broken-fingered tritone of my dreamings. It's the whole reason I went for the G5. There's power in that sound, the first chord of the first song of the first album of the greatest band ever. Iommi had to be an initiate of the sonic mysteries. There's no other explanation for how he conjured such heavy doom from a sprightly chord like the G5. If there really is an ursound like they say, he's come the closest to dredging it up from the depths.

  “You need to start drinking so I can buy you a goddamn beer.” We spend hours talking music, bands we’ve seen, festivals. We play the who's listened to more obscure shit dick measuring contest for a while, but it’s all in good fun. Nilos wins that one hands down. Nilos exhausts the rest of his notepad, but Purd (of course) can read his fluttering hands, so she keeps feeding him Cokes and me beers. When we finally close the place down, I’m at a respectable but not sloppy stagger and he’s wired on caffeine and buzzing like a tuning fork. We walk back to my apartment playing our respective air instruments.

  As my head hits the pillow, in the moments before sleep creeps up on me, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long while. Swamp Dragger was just a holding pattern, I realize. A limping, hollow life. I feel alive. I dream of a G5, ringing out perfect, and for once it’s not a mocking nightmare.

  8

  For the second time in as many days I wake to syncopated beats. This time it’s my across the hall neighbor pounding on my door. He’s pissed because of the other half of my alarm clock, Nilos wailing away on a cymbal.

  I stagger into the living room, shout at my neighbor to shut the fuck up and he just starts knocking harder. “Hey, Nilos!” He doesn’t move, just keeps hammering on the cymbal. I don’t know where he got it, or the stand it’s on. It’s pretty late morning. Maybe he made a run back to the practice space while I snored off the night before.

  I catch his wrist at the top of his stroke. He bobs his eyebrows in greeting

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  He points at the arm of my couch. Atop the blanket I tossed at him, now neatly folded, is a fresh notepad.

  “Got to break this cymbal. Important for rite.”

  “Can’t you just, you know, slice it apart with a hacksaw or something?”

  He shakes his head. Of course. It’s not that simple.

  “It’s pretty noisy, Nilos.”

  He nods slowly at me, gives me a look like he’s worried I killed off some particularly crucial brain cells last night.

  “Maybe we should do that at the place, yeah?”

  He looks down at the cymbal, back up at me, and shrugs.

  “What do we need a broken cymbal for anyways?”

  He snatches the notepad from my hand and underlines
the last sentence.

  Yeah, you mentioned that. “And you’ve got to do it like this? No other way?”

  He nods.

  “Can I help?” Whaling on a crash till it breaks doesn’t sound like the most fun in the world, but it could be amusing for a little bit.

  “Got to be me.”

  Now I’m annoyed. How dare he hog the cymbal whaling all to himself? That cymbal whaling looks like the coolest activity ever devised by man.

  “What’s so special about you?”

  He starts listing. “Better looking. Smarter. Not alcoholic. Can actually keep rhythm--”

  I walk away tossing two middle fingers over my shoulder.

  Nilos and I lock into a groove. Get up, eat, practice, eat, practice some more. Nilos commences to beating the shit out of a crash for a few hours while I go off and amuse myself with delinquency. After he’s tired out I come pick him up and then we hang out. Usually this means the Hour but sometimes we go someplace else. Sometimes there’s a show we both want to catch. Big acts don’t come through here often, but it’s a way station for road warrior bands. Lots of wonderfully shithole venues to see, little cubes stinking of BO carved into loading docks and light industrial graveyards. We start talking about maybe possibly, I dunno, if you want, getting a band together. It happens without me even realizing that's what I want.

  One day I come back after doing my thing to find Nilos sitting cross legged with the broken halves of the crash in his lap. Sharpie runes march across the rims.

  “Looks good.” I mean, I guess. “What’s it for?”

  He slashes his finger across his throat.

  “The fuck? I’m not going to kill anybody.”

  Shaking his head, he reaches for his notepad. The Sharpie lines are thick and black compared to the thin pens he prefers. “Not kill. Scare. Titans. Going to scare the sound right out of them.”

  I want to ask how the hell, Sharpie or no, a broken cymbal is going to scare a being of pure sound, but my phone buzzes. Nilos’ chirps a moment later. We both look at the email from Phillips.