in these shoes, in this heat?” Susan said as she struggled to escape the confines of the car.
“Suit yourself.” He said over his shoulder as he walked down the narrow ribbon of asphalt. What choice did they really have? It could be some time before anyone else came this way. He looked around. At the vast fields on either side of them, at the thick forest in the distance, and another thought tumbled through his mind.
Predators were on the prowl! He shuddered. He had no desire to be out when it got dark.
“Wait for me!” Susan yelled and the sound of her bare feet slapping on the pavement brought a smile to his face.
Serves her right.
The heat hung over them like a damp towel as they trudged down the asphalt ribbon. Donald glanced back occasionally at the car sitting in the ditch. Forlorn. Abandoned. He felt like he was severing his last ties with civilization when it vanished behind the shimmering heat waves.
They came to a sign along the road. Its surface was faded, weathered, showing the signs of neglect that come only from abandonment. Paint flakes mingled with the tangled knot of weeds growing around the base of the two wooden legs that held the sign upright. Most of the lettering was worn off, but enough remained for Donald to decipher what the sign had once said
‘ elc me t Wh e a l’
The sight of it sent a chill spilling down the length of his spine. Beyond the sign lay the gloomy depths of the forest that crowded close to either side of the road. Surprisingly enough no sound emanated from the forest depths. Silence held it in a death grip of solitude.
“Can you hear that? Donald asked.
“I don’t hear anything.” Susan said.
“That’s just it, this place should be teeming with life, and we should be able to hear the animals in the forest moving about. Instead all we get is silence. It’s not natural.”
Susan tilted her head to one side as a slow smile crept across her face.
“I can hear something.”
“What?”
Her smile widened.
“It’s music, very faint, must be a festival or something nearby.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Susan walked into the shadows of the trees overhanging the road. Donald, still in the sunlight, momentarily lost sight of her and panic shot through him.
“Susan!” He cried out sharply.
“What?” Her disembodied voice came back to him from the shadows.
“Wait for me.” He took a deep breath and stepped into the shadows. The forest around him was filled with an air of expectancy. A hundred yards away waited a sun filled clearing. Donald focused on it as he walked briskly through the gloomy passageway.
“It’s beautiful,” Susan whispered.
The forest around them sighed. Donald struggled to keep from crying out as shadowy shapes flitted to and fro in the gloomy depths to either side of him. He tried to focus on one of the shapes, thought better of it, and returned his attention to the clearing ahead of them.
Squatting amid a small gravel lot, a single story building waited in the sunlight of the clearing. In one corner of the lot a phone booth stood as a silent sentinel.
“Maybe they have something cold to drink,” Susan said and Donald realized just how dry his own mouth had become. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth as he spoke.
“Get me something too, I’m gonna try to get some help.”
Susan looked back at him, her eyes flashing with anger, but she remained silent. Nodding her head slightly she turned and gingerly made her way across the gravel lot. Donald was approaching the phone booth when a glimmer of sunlight drew his attention back to the small building.
He scrutinized the structure. A low railing, separating the porch from the lot, ran the length of the front. The building appeared to be abandoned. The dust covered walls, a section of railing lying broken on the gravel lot, weeds growing in large clumps here and there about the building.
Everything screamed neglect except the many paned windows that reminded him of a multi-faceted bug’s eye. They sparkled in the sunlight, as if they had just been cleaned, in sharp contrast to the run down appearance of the rest of the building. Gazing into the glass the sensation of being watched returned. He felt like he was in the presence of something forbidden. An ancient entity, unseen, watching them from the emptiness behind the sparkling glass.
With a shudder he turned back to the phone booth. The walls of the phone booth were perfectly clean, the glass sparkling as if it too had just been cleaned. Not a mark marred its walls. No phone numbers for a good time. No scribbled notes scared the painted shelf. Not even a ‘so and so was here’ was carved into the metal frame between the windows. It was odd. No, more than odd, it was downright unnatural. He’d yet to see a phone booth as clean as this one.
Fishing around in his pocket for change he looked back at the building. The sensation of being watched grew stronger. He spotted Susan peering through the glass. Her hands cupped around her face as she tried to look into the interior of the building.
She shouldn’t be doing that. His flesh crawled as he watched her. Once more the feeling that they didn’t belong here washed over him. He wanted to tell her to get away from the building. But how could he explain his feelings. He wasn’t even sure himself what they meant.
“Susan,” he called out, unable to restrain himself. She turned from the window with a disappointed expression.
“They’re closed I guess.”
Donald was relieved when she stepped away from the glass and strolled across the dusty porch.
Donald turned back to the phone as he pulled a quarter from his pocket. He allowed himself to breath when he lifted the receiver and the comforting sound of a dial tone hummed in his ear.
Unnaturally clean or not it worked. His quarter dropped through all right, the dial tone changed pitch, and he dialed the number for Roadside Assistance. There was a brief ring on the other end before it was picked up by an electronic answering system. He glanced back at Susan as the voice recited the menu of options. She was once more peering through the sparkling glass and Donald felt his heart hammering in his chest.
“I wish she would stay away from there.” He whispered.
Donald made his selection and a distant phone rang once. Someone on the other end, probably sitting in a nice, air-conditioned office, picked up the line. Before a word could be exchanged between them a heavy static filled the line. Donald yelled into the mouthpiece, trying to be heard over the crackling racket, his voice lost amid the static. He strained to hear what was being said and could barely make out a female voice, so far away, fading in and out amid the hissing.
Donald slammed the receiver down and backed out of the phone booth.
“Damn phone!” He said.
“Donald, can you hear that?” Susan said and he spun around.
“What?”
“The music, can’t you hear it?” Susan stood in the lot looking at him with a peculiar expression.
“What’s wrong Donald?”
“Nothing, what music?”
“Coming from the forest,” she pointed at the dense trees crowded close behind the building, “must be a festival or something.”
“I don’t hear anything!” Donald said, but he could see something in the forest. Shadowy shapes that darted back and forth through the gloomy depths.
There be predators on the prowl. The thought whispered and he shuddered.
“Let’s go see, maybe we can get help.” Susan said as she approached the forest.
“No, don’t!”
Susan stopped and turned back to Donald.
“What is wrong with you?”
For the first time Donald noticed that her features had changed. The crease that had furrowed her brow was gone, the edges of her face had softened, and the girl he’d married had come back to him.
“I.” He stopped, how could he explain what he felt, what he saw in the forest depths. She’d laugh at him for sure, a
nd the old nag would quickly return.
“There it is again, can’t you hear it?” Susan asked.
Donald shook his head.
“It’s beautiful.” Susan said. As if in a trance she turned to the forest.
“Susan, don’t!”
There was a flurry of shadowy activity as Susan approached the tree line. Fear kept Donald rooted in place as Susan stepped into the brush that served as a border between the forest and what man had tamed.
“Wait,” Donald cried after her and willed his legs to move forward. At the edge of the forest he stopped. In the shadowy depths he could see deeper shadows moving among the tree trunks. One flashed nearby and he was overwhelmed with a deep sense of foreboding as an image briefly filled his mind.
He saw stars glittering with a hard light against the velvety backdrop of an alien sky. The gapping maw of an endless abyss through which the tortured souls of millions of the dead marched in a perpetual gloom.
He stepped into the forest. An audible sigh whispered through the gloomy depths. A warning? A soft rebuttal? Acceptance?
He saw Susan ahead of him, winding her way among the trees, her head still cocked at an odd angle as she followed the music only she could hear.
“Susan, wait!” He called after her. She ignored him, vanishing into the gloomy depths, her white shirt fading from view.
He ran after her then. Plunging headlong through the thick underbrush of the forest, ignoring the shadows that dogged his every step. His eyes fixed only on that fading spot of white that threatened to be swallowed by the all-consuming shadows.
Soon she was above him, climbing the side of a step incline
Music of the Gods Page 2
