by Cat Knight
And Rattler did have a remarkable session. She had to admire how he handled his axe.
She might have asked Ears what he thought, but she didn’t want to affect Ears’ concentration. She had learned long before not to interrupt talent while it was working.
After the recording ended, and everyone had left, Julia wandered into the control room. Ears was busy with the mix, his eyes closed, his fingers on the controls.
She watched in silence until his eyes popped open. She smiled and stepped into his view.
“Good?” she asked as Ears pulled off his headphones.
“Very good,” he answered.
“No ghosts?”
“Not a one.”
Julia breathed in relief. “That’s great. How much longer?”
“Hour or so. But the final cut will wait till tomorrow. You know, I like to sleep on it.”
“Works for me. If she calls…”
Ears winked, “Tell her she’s a genius, and this will go platinum.”
Julia laughed. “I heard it. Not even gold.”
Ears shrugged. “I can do only so much.”
With a wave, she left the room and returned to her office. Relief had her feeling euphoric and comforted her butterflies. Good beginnings begat good endings. At least, that was what her mother always told her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The pub was noisy and bright, and she was in the booth for maybe ten minutes before the first bloke hit on her. She politely turned him away with the message that she was waiting for her significant other. She knew the message would filter down the bar, and the blokes would not wander over. She waited only ten minutes before Alden sat down behind the pint waiting for him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said and grabbed the pint. “Tell me how your very first gig went.”
“It wasn’t a gig,” she replied. “A gig is when you’re involved. This was a session, and I wasn’t on the board. Ears was.”
“You know what I mean. Is my investment safe?”
“Ever hear of a ghost?”
“Ghost? Who hasn’t? You’re not saying you saw some shrouded figure playing drums.”
She laughed. “No! Not that kind of ghost. It’s just a strange sound on the recording, something you can’t explain. Could occur for any number of reasons, but the result is the same—unacceptable recording. Most ghosts are easily removed via the mix. Cut it out of a track and let another track take over.
Or just dub in another sound. Pretty routine stuff. Like taking out a siren when you’re recording outdoors.”
“Why are you telling me about ghosts?”
“Because we had one this afternoon before the session. Ears thought he could take care of it, but he said it kept switching frequencies, tracks, making it impossible to isolate and mask.”
“That’s bad news, right?”
“It would be if the ghost had persisted. But it didn’t. Ears ran the board after the session and assured me the ghost had disappeared.”
Alden raised his glass. “Well, that certainly sounds like a reason to celebrate.” They toasted, and Julia did indeed feel like celebrating.
“So,” Julia said. “Shall we order takeout?
“Indeed, takeout it is.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In their flat, Julia sipped red wine and nibbled while Alden ate heartily and told her about his latest conquest.
She didn’t interrupt him. She had had her victory for the day and vanquished her foe. It was Alden’s turn.
The last thing she did before she headed for bed was to check her phone. There was a message from the singer. She wanted to know how the session had turned out. Julia texted “FANTASTIC!!!!!” back, and left her phone on the table. She failed to see the new message from Ears. “CALL ME!!!”
Chapter Two
Julia sipped at her tea. Early morning was her favourite time of day. She had been up an hour already, savouring yesterday’s inaugural recording before she looked at her phone when hot tea almost spewed from her mouth.
“You OK?” Alden asked.
“Fine,” she answered. “Have a good day.”
She watched him close the door before she dialled Ears.
“Talk,” she said as soon as Ears answered.
“It came back.”
“What came back?”
“The ghost. I was going through the mix one last time, and it just popped up. I swear it wasn’t there before. I listened to it five more times, and it never went away. Am I losing my mind?”
“No, you’re not losing your mind or your skill. Meet me at the studio. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“I don’t know, Jules. Maybe I should take a day off or something. I might be working too hard.”
“Ears, I can’t do this without you. Thirty minutes!”
She killed the connection, threw away the dregs of her tea, and ran to the bedroom. It was going to be a jeans and sweatshirt day because she didn’t have the time to dress for success. She barely remembered to lock the door behind her.
Ugly thoughts raged in her head, unsuccessfully she tried to push them away. ‘You can’t turn out even a passable recording’ ‘Stop panicking – you’ll get it sorted’. ‘How would it feel to lose everything?’ ‘Not a chance, not a chance. I’m not going to let that happen.’
By the time she alighted her station she was calmer but the din of construction hadn’t taken a day off. It met her at the corner and chased her all the way down the tremoring footpath.
God! Why the hell did I choose this place!
When Julia reached the studio, it was still locked. Where was Ears? She passed the studio and control room, and they were empty. Battling panic, Julia fixed a cup of tea before she entered the control room.
Per the rules, her cup stayed on the back credenza, away from the mixing panel. Spilling liquid on the panel was apt to create more than a ghost. It might start a fire.
She sat at the board and stared. How could she pull up the recording? How could she listen to the ghost? How could she find a way to track down the rogue sound and do away with it?
She put on earphones and tried to find the most current recording. As she fiddled, she reminded herself that she needed to learn all the ins and outs of the board.
What would she do if Ears got hit by a double-decker—God forbid. She would add the task to her daily job list.
Every day, she would learn something new about the board, until she knew it as well as Ears. And she needed to find an understudy for Ears. Well, she needed to find one as soon as she could afford it.
She slipped on headphones and called up the file system. Certainly, Ears had stored the master file somewhere. As she browsed, a cold draft flowed past her, and she looked up. Where had that come from? There were no windows and only one door to the room. All she needed was a furnace problem. Wouldn’t that put the cherry on the sundae. She shivered and went to the next folder.
She was still looking for the file when Ears grabbed her shoulder.
Julia jerked off her headphones and spun. Her lips were trembling and her heart thumped.
“Whoa,” Ears said as he stepped back. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”
“Don’t ever sneak up on me,” she said far too loudly. Then, “Sorry, I’m just on edge. We’ll fix it, we’ll get it.”
“I called out,” Ears protested. “But you were wearing earphones.”
“Next time, tap the table, OK? Just don’t scare me like that.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Now, show me this ghost.”
Ears pulled up a chair and took over her spot at the board. “It’s right here.”
He slipped on earphones and motioned for her to do the same. Still shaky, she settled the cups over her ears and willed her heart to beat slower.
“OK,” Ears said into her earphones. “I’ll play a few bars before the ghost. Here goes.”
Julia listened the best she could as the music came up. She immediately recognized a Rattler chord. Sounded
good. As the seconds crept past, she waited for the ghost, for the sound Ears had been unable to cast out. But try as she might, she didn’t hear anything but a near perfect mix of music.
“Crap,” Ears said. “Crap, crap, crap!”
The music stopped in her earphones, and she knew he was rewinding, taking her back to the where the ghost had been.
“I swear it was there,” Ears said. “I swear. Oh god, I’m losing it, aren’t I?”
Julia didn’t talk. She merely reached out and touched his arm. He looked over, and she smiled, a smile she hoped would reassure him.
“We’ll try it again,” he said.
She concentrated, closing her eyes, focusing on the sound. She didn’t know why closing her eyes helped, but it did.
Maybe sight created too many distractions, too much data for the brain to handle while the music played. Eyes closed, she hoped for Ears’ sake that the ghost introduced itself in her headphones.
Despite her closed eyes, she heard nothing.
“Nooooooooo,” Ears moaned. “Nooooo.”
Julia opened her eyes and pulled off her headphones. She tapped Ears on the arm, and he removed his set.
“Look at it this way,” she said. “With no ghost, you can finish the cut, right? I mean, it’s a good thing.”
Ears looked at her, a sincere sadness in his face. She understood. If he couldn’t trust his hearing, he couldn’t work.
“It’s a momentary thing,” she added. “You’re fine, you really are. Just wrap up this job, and then take a couple days off. Let your brain recover. Go to the sea or something. Salt air is said to work wonders.”
“I heard what I heard.”
“I’m sure you did. It was there, and it may show up again, but right now, there’s nothing on the master. Finish it, Ears, finish it. Then, we’ll both take a day off.”
He shook his head, like some sad soul who had just been told he had a month to live. Or maybe a man handed a life sentence with no parole. And there was little she could do for him. She patted his shoulder and looked for her tea cup. It was supposed to be on the credenza, but it wasn’t there.
She looked around. The cup sat on the mixing board, dangerously close to the electronics. What? That was totally against her rules.
“Did you move my cup?” Julia asked Ears.
“Cup?”
She pointed at the tea cup. “I swear I put it down on the credenza.”
Ears shook his head. “Never touched it.”
She frowned. Could she be mistaken? The tea cup didn’t move itself. And there were only two explanations. Either she had put it in the wrong place, or Ears had moved it. Well, there was a third explanation, but she was absolutely certain there was no one else in the building. She nodded, grabbed the cup, and left the studio.
Her hands shook as she made fresh tea. Julia wasn’t sure whether it was joy at having a clean recording or fear that it was all some kind of cosmic joke. Perhaps the gods of failure were laughing at her, letting her soar before they batted her back to earth, stealing every bit of energy from her soul. She breathed deeply and listened to her heart slow. To bloody hell with the gods of failure.
Julia settled at her desk and wondered where to start. Now that she had a clean recording, she could arrange a press release, something to tout the new studio, something to jumpstart her career as an up and coming producer. The question was who to give the news to.
She could do a blast, sending out a press release and see who picked up the story. She could add Facebook and Twitter, but she didn’t have many followers.
What she needed was someone with a huge fan base, someone intimately known by a few million people, internet addresses that would pick up the blurb and run with it, spread it like a virus. If the source were famous enough, her new studio would be the topic of conversation for at least a day or two. That would be enough. That would send a lot of business her way, and business was…well…business.
She smiled at the idea of her voice mail filling up with people needing to make music.
A fantasy flitted through her mind about a terraced house in the middle of London and one over in the other continent and – well why not – maybe one in Hollywood too.
Ears rushed in, his phone in hand. “You have to listen to this,” Ears said.
Chapter Three
Rattler eased his way down the basement stairs, careful not to make too much noise. Cowboy boots weren’t designed for stealth. At the bottom, he turned and stopped. Across the room, one wall was nothing but boxes, stacks and stacks of them that reached from floor to ceiling.
For a moment, they spooked him. Why was Julia saving hundreds of boxes? They might come in handy in a move, but Rattler didn’t think Julia was moving any time soon. Maybe she was just a pack rat. He had known his fair share of those. One guitarist he knew had saved every pick he had ever used. He used one until the magic was drained out of it. Crazy. Then, Rattler smiled.
He walked across the room and chose the fourth box from the floor on the left-hand side.
It wasn’t a large one, pretty small actually, but it was easily removed without upsetting the rest of the stacks. Simple, easy. He opened it, and as he had suspected, it was empty.
With a grin, he pulled several pill vials from his pockets and placed them inside. From another pocket, he added a baggy of white powder.
His stash, well, most of his stash.
He had been looking for safe hiding place for several days, ever since someone had found his hidey hole in the laundry room of his flats. Carrying the drugs was risky, and he didn’t want them in his digs. Yet, he needed ready access. The studio seemed perfect, at least in the short run. Access would be natural, and no one ever used the basement. If anyone did, he certainly wouldn’t search the wall of boxes. Rattler almost whistled as he put the box back in the wall, but he caught himself.
While the box would handle most of his goods, there was something that he wanted to keep separate. He pulled the vial and syringe from his pocket and looked around. The vial was his insurance policy. If he lost everything else, the vial would feed his habit until he could acquire new goods. He kept it separate from the rest precisely for that reason. Insurance, it was insurance.
A cold breeze brushed over and around him and the floor seemed like ice through his boots. He shook himself and jumped up and down, Odd, he hadn’t noticed how cold it was before. A small noise caught his attention. He stood still, but for his turning head. Then, the boxes trembled.
Jumping back, he yelled. “What the hell?!”
The boxes stopped. For a long moment, Rattler was stumped. Why had the boxes trembled? Then, he remembered the construction.
Of course, it was nothing more than the equipment moving or a ditch being dug, nothing really. He chuckled.
Turning, he looked around the room again.
Yeah, it was the construction. Now, to find somewhere to hide his little bit of insurance. There was a small closet, but people would use the closet. The rest of the room was empty. Then, he spotted the stairway. He walked over and examined the underside.
Nobody would ever look there, would they? He went to the closet and found a roll of clear tape. He quickly went to the stairs, and taped the syringe and vial to the underside of the stairs. He picked a low riser so that the syringe and vial would be invisible from casual looks.
When he was finished, he stepped back. He saw nothing.
Perfect.
Placing his hand over his mouth, he laughed.
“You clever snake you little Rattler” he whispered to himself.
A hard hand clapped down on his shoulder.
Rattler whirled, expecting to find Julia or Ears. Instead he found…nothing.
Nothing?
He stared. He did a slow spin, looking into every corner of the basement. Everything was exactly as it should have been, which was scary as hades. Someone had put a hand on his shoulder.
But there was no one there. Rattler’s hands shook, shook li
ke when he was locked into the dark times. Those were the worst times of his life. He never wanted to go through that again. He had almost forgotten all about them. That was when he saw what wasn’t there and heard what wasn’t said and didn’t work for a time. Dark times those were. He went back to the stairs and quickly climbed out of the basement.
Dark times. Rattler frowned as he left. He didn’t know what he’d do if those times returned.
Chapter Four
Julia didn’t have time to ask what everything was about, although she might have wanted to. Ears was so nervous, she was scared he would have a seizure.
“I downloaded the master to my phone,” Ears began.
Julia had the idea that maybe she should ask him why he had done such a thing. After all, once they had a master, they had a master. What good would adding a phone do?
“I’m not sure why I did it,” Ears said. “I guess I was just making sure that transferring the file would be seamless. I mean, I didn’t want to start the process before I verified that the music would sound the same every time, you know what I mean?”
Julia did and didn’t know what Ears meant. Verification was always necessary, but that was routine, wasn’t it?
“So, you have to listen,” Ears said, one finger in the air. “I mean, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
As Julia watched, Ears punched the screen a couple of times. Up came the music she had become familiar with.
“What?” she asked.
“Shhh,” Ears hushed. “Listen.”
She listened, and there it was. She looked at Ears who beamed in triumph.
“Play it again,” she ordered. Ears played the piece a second time, and again there was the sound, the noise, the thing that marred an otherwise perfect recording. She couldn’t say for sure what it was. It wasn’t something she had heard before, nothing that she recognized. A woman’s voice, she surmised, but not in words. But not a scream either, or a groan, or even a moan. It was just a noise, a thing.
“Again,” she repeated. The third time added nothing to the first two. It was something that wasn’t supposed to be there, something that meant her studio wasn’t as soundproof as she supposed.
