7
He awoke at
dusk where the light changed from oranges and reds to deep blues and deeper
purples. The shadows twitched and fought with each other, vying for wall space
before being absorbed together into the one collected shadow of night. Outside,
there was a chorus of cicadas whose musak David felt more than heard. Inside,
it was hot; David felt hot sweat score his armpits and run down the small of
his back. He gasped, and was about to reach for the fan switch when he heard a
knock on the door.
“David?” It was his mother. “David? Are
you in there?”
He gave a grunted, slurred reply.
“Dinner’s ready, love.”
“Down in five,” he returned, again
in a slur.
8
“Are you all
right?” she had asked him as he came to the table, and he must have looked like
shit, for his father, usually restrained to the point of emotional
constipation, repeated the question.
He had nodded yes, and sat down and
tried to eat. Dinner was take-away, of all things, and the sight of greasy
chicken thighs detracted from the meagre sense of hunger David felt. In the
end, he ate two or three thick, greasy french fries and half a cob of corn. Concerned,
his mother did all those matronly things that mothers tend to do; she placed a
cool hand upon his brow, announced that he had a slight fever and should go
promptly to bed. She said that she would bring him some ice cream and jelly in
five minutes and some aspirin.
So, he plodded back to his room,
confused, sick in the stomach and so damned hot.
Sweat poured freely from his face, down his back, from his armpits. His stomach
churned, his knees clicked with every second step. He could feel each
individual vertebra in his back crackle with electricity.
A
slight fever, he thought candidly. Slight,
my arse!
In his room, he slumped heavily onto
the bed, perspiration almost instantly soaking the covers and his pillow. There
he lay in total unearthly silence, sweating, hot, the chorus of cicadas gone. His
hands felt hot, his feet felt as if they were on fire. Even his ears felt
scorched. He lay in silence for what seemed to him to be hours, but was really
only scant minutes until a gentle poke at his shoulder alerted him.
“Mum?” he groaned.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said,
propping him upright, placing the promised bowl of ice cream into his hands.
He ate it slowly, without enthusiasm
and watched as his mother set the ceiling fan into motion again,
thump-thump-thump!
and even
though the breeze was cold, it did nothing to stem the horrible sweat pouring
from his body. At length, he pushed the bowl away, settled back on the bed. He
felt his mother’s hand once more on his forehead, heard her whispering gently
into his ear… and then he was asleep…
9
He jerked
awake suddenly, felt a scream catching in his throat. He glanced at the led display of his clock, and it told
him it was 1:31 am. At first, it
was pitch black; then gradually, shadows detached themselves from the general
gloom. He could see the window outlined with a surreal grey colour, the
curtains moving in and out like wispy ghosts. His mouth felt dry, as if he had
guzzled a bucket full of sand and his heart and lungs smashed against their
cage of ribs in perfect unison with the throbbing sensation inside his head.
He groaned, and sank back down onto
his pillows, and closed his eyes for no longer than a millisecond when he heard
a voice…
“David!”
His eyes opened slowly, feeling
gluey and sticky, a chrysalis breaking open to reveal the mature insect within.
“David!”
the voice whispered in a singsong articulation. “Da-a-vid! I’ve been waiting for you!” A high pitched giggle
followed this remark, accompanied by scurrying in the bushes near the window.
David froze in his bed, the sweat on
his body crinkling his flesh, sending the sensation of something small and
furry running down his limbs. He tried to say something—anything! —but his throat was so dry, emitting nothing but a savage
croak. And still the voice beyond the window beckoned, plaintive, derisive,
demanding immediate action.
“I’ve
been waiting for so long, David. And
now it’s time, David. It’s time!”
Time
for what? his addled mind asked.
But there was no answer, only the
next entreaty. “Are you ready, David?”
Ready?
he asked himself, ready for what?
And this time, there was an answer:
“Are you ready to take the next step?”
David shook his head, the coldness
in his body turning into dull aching vices, crushing his joints, burning him. He tossed on his bed,
rolled over, and ducked his head beneath the pillows. Still the voice wouldn’t
leave him be. “When you’re ready, David,
you come on over. You come on over, David, you come on over!”
No,
he tried to say, but his throat had frozen over. He lay in bed, trembling,
and still he was sweating, cold, clammy sweat that made him feel like a fish. He
smelled his sweat and his fear, so much like the nervous smell of the old man
in the School of Arts. His mouth tasted of bile, and then, suddenly, he
realised he had thrown up all over himself.
“Ugh!” he breathed, and “Ugh!”
again. His repulsion propelled him out of bed and frantically he removed his
vomit-stained shirt, threw it away. Outside, he heard more rustling in the
bushes; the sound was manic, as if a large animal were thrashing about out
there. And the voice: “Come on over,
David. Tell ‘em that the Organ Man sent ya!” This was followed once more by
the wicked high‑pitched laughter and a further shake of the bushes outside…
…and then, all was silent. Just like that. And
David was cold and shivering and half-naked, smelling of nervous sweat and
vomit, his head pulsing in time with his heart. The curtains danced in the
breeze, waving like material arms, beckoning him, pleading for him to heed the Organ Man’s invitation. But David
coughed, spat out a large wad of undigested French fry, his knees threatening
at any moment to collapse underneath him. His attention was drawn to the
window, allured as if by a magnet. For more than a minute, he stood and stared
at the waving curtains and the grey outline in a perfect oblong. He stared,
tasting choking bile in his throat, feeling his lungs expand and contract,
expand and contract, feeling his breath tear through his chest. The wind was
alarmingly cold, more like winter’s frigid kiss than summer’s long, warm
caress. He felt icicles tease his naked skin, felt a frozen hand cup his
testicles, and squeeze them so taut
that it was painful.
He stared at the window, and the window
stared back, a large, unblinking, angular eye with a single dark pupil
surrounded by a lighter grey iris. The curtains fanned out, gesticulating, the
material soft, though scratchy, like the tongue of a cat. They reached out,
these spectral hands, and rubbed against his face, against his bare torso…
He jerked alert suddenly; aware now
that he was only inches away from the window. He gave a startled gasp as the
realisation was at last driven home, and backed away a few awkward steps,
wrapping his arms around his body in a vain attempt to ward off the cold.
And then he heard it… its droning
unmistakable, a single rising tremolo that built upon itself over and over and
over again…
…the organ.
David shook his head, sank onto his
knees, a wretched sob breaking out of his chest.
NO!
his mind screamed, and then, he softly articulated, “no.”
But the organ music sang out in a
blatant affirmative, so much louder than before, more strident, more resonant. It
filled the entire soundscape with its ferocity, keening, wailing, and roaring
without end. David held his ears in his hands, tried to scream over the
cacophony, but it was no use. The Organ Man was in control and his instrument
was shouting his triumph, announcing to no one else but David that he was there
and that he was the master.
David let out a moan of self-pity,
rocking back and forth where he hunched like a rag doll. There was no stopping
the Organ Man, playing now as if he were jerking himself off, such was the fervour in the playing, the overall impression of the noise. And just like
that final spluttering of ejaculation, the music died suddenly, and silence
rumbled through David’s world with the subtlety of a sonic boom.
“Oh,
God,” he sighed, sitting upright
again. He was sweating again, cold, fish sweat. It stank worse than ever now,
reeking of fear and puke. He was drenched in it, wore it like a T-shirt made
out of thin ice. “Oh, God,” he
muttered again as his stomach rippled and a lace of bile dribbled from his
lips.
Apart from his harsh breathing,
there were no other sounds. It was quiet… quiet like a graveyard. The Organ Man
was silent, the organ was silent; nothing moved, or made a sound. It was like
death. And then, there came the voice.
“David Reardon? Do we have a David Reardon out
there?”
It was loud, as loud as the organ
had been, sounding as if the Organ Man were speaking through a microphone.
“I repeat: is there a David Reardon out there?”
David
shuddered at the mention of his name, his entire body collapsing into a string
of spasms. He shivered, his entire body quaking, and before he realised it, his
bladder had decided to empty itself in a warm flood in his pyjama shorts.
“Come on, David. I know you’re there, awake,
afraid. You needn’t be afraid. It’s not as if I’m gonna hurt you. What do you
say? How ‘bout you come on over and we can jam. How ‘bout it, Dave, old boy? Wanna
jam with the Devil?”
“I—” David began,
but the words he wanted to say were coated in a slippery stream of bile.
“Come on, David. Quit pukin’ on yourself and get
your scrawny little arse o’er here. The sooner it’s done, the sooner you can
put an end to all this shit. Come on, boy. You know what I mean. What are you
afraid of, boy? Me? I ain’t gonna hurt you!”
“No!” David whispered, wiping his
mouth. His sides hurt from the dry retching and his guts felt as if they were
turned inside out. He was kneeling in the remains of the scanty dinner he had
eaten; shredded chunks of corn and curdled milk, lying on the carpet
irradiating their very own special feral stench, mingling now with the
sweet-tang stink of David’s piss.
“Come on, kid. You can’t imagine how lonely I
am… how desperately lonely. Come on over, just this one time… just this once!”
No,
his mind retorted. No! and he
remained where he was, kneeling in a puddle of his own urine and vomit, feeling
the gruesome conglomeration cool and coagulate around him. Above him, the
curtains teased and waved, festive spirits alive and free, jiving in the fresh
breeze that belonged to winter, that belonged to the unfathomable creature in
the School of Arts, the horrible demon called the Organ Man.
The music began to play again, this
time, a dirge, the notes melting against each other slowly, chillingly. Every
chord the Organ Man struck dug into David’s body, rattled his teeth, his bones;
he felt every body hair rise from the skin, the hair on his head prickle with
electricity. And the Organ Man spoke: “If not for me, then for the Organ! It is for
her that you come, my pretty!”
David trembled, cold, sick, smelling
of his own refuse. The music was infiltrating his mind, music like a weevil,
boring, boring, and sinking into the soft flesh of his brain. Without his
knowing it, he was parting the curtains, feeling their silken caress on his
naked body. His fingers snatched the window open as wide as it could go, and he
plunged through it, out into the night. It was hot, very hot, how David
imagined the surface of Mercury would be, but all the same, he felt so cold, as if he had spent the last half
hour immersed in a bathtub full of ice water. What was more was that the air
was heavy, making David feel as if he
were wading through it, the way one wades through the surf.
The organ called him, pushed him,
poked him, prodded him through the hot and heavy air, over the rough,
unrelenting ground. Through the backyard, out onto the dirt lane out back,
where he stopped, his breath expelled in shock. He was staring now at the
School of Arts, or rather, where the decrepit old building had previously lain.
Now, it was totally changed, looking more like a spacecraft from a Star Trek
movie than a tacky monument to learning built in 1812. Lights flashed
everywhere like psychedelic will-o’-the-wisps, chasing one another around and
around the building to the accompaniment of the surreal organ soundtrack. There
were myriad colours: reds, yellows, greens, blues and every shade, tint and hue
in between. And like tiny satellites, they revolved around the School of Arts,
splendid now in a shimmering haze of metal, like the hulk of a shining
spaceship.
David could only stare in stupefied
horror, and despite the oppressive heat he could feel on his limbs, he was deathly cold. His brain was numb, the
music from the hellish organ acting like a powerful narcotic, deadening his
senses. If there was such a thing as sensory overload, then he was sure he was
at that point now. With the music and the flashing lights, he supposed he
should count himself lucky that he wasn’t writhing around on the ground in the
midst of an epileptic fit. But maybe he wasn’t lucky not to be… for what horrors awaited him should he venture inside?
Should
he venture inside?
But even before an answer could be
formulated, he watched in terrified fascination as his feet picked themselves
up and placed themselves further and further along the track, bringing him
unconsciously towards the great hulk that used to be the School of Arts. And
thus, the building drew closer; a monolith brightly festooned with every
conceivable colour, alive with the loudest of loud soundtracks splitting the
night sky. Somewhere inside, the Organ Man was frenziedly manipulating the
organ, threading music into the night, threading his soul into the night, amongst the colours and the glitz. And David
was helpless to stop him… in fact, he was being drawn to him and the devil in the machine, but for what sinister
purpose, David didn’t know, but the creeping sensation in his guts told him
that it wasn’t going to be pleasant, not by a long shot.
The music stopped once more, and
dead silence ensured, broken once more by the thunderous amplified voice of the
Organ Man.
“Well,” he announced, “about
fucking time you showed up!”
“I—” David began, certainly not for
the first time, but his mouth snapped shut with a loud pop when he saw the
Organ Man standing before him.
He was dressed much the same as he
was before, except he looked much, much neater. In fact, David was tempted to
believe he looked like pictures he had seen of Beethoven, dressed in a neat
jacket of navy blue, with a nice rippling ruffle around his neck, the same as
the two ruffles on the end of his sleeves. Finishing the costume off was a pair
of tight corduroy pants and a pair of pointed moccasins that looked so much
like joker’s shoes that David would have laughed if the situation were
different. It wasn’t, so he didn’t; instead, he glanced over the rest of the
Organ Man’s features. His hair was certainly rough in that Beethoven fashion,
standing on end delightfully, due more to the properties of static electricity
than untidiness. His eyes were dark pools, staring intently at David, and his
smile was large, the thin lips splitting to reveal straight teeth in great
multitudes. This wasn’t the old man,
David decided forlornly. This was a
different person—
thing
—altogether.
The Organ Man bowed low, a mocking
gesture done gracelessly, with arms pirouetting like those of a marionette. He
straightened, grinning still, and approached slowly. David was too frozen with
fear to back away.
“Why,” the Organ Man stated, his
voice normal, returning to that nasal lilt that it had when first they met. “The
young lad’s gone and peed in his pants!” He laughed, and it was that crazy high‑pitched
giggle as it was before, outside of David’s window. “Never mind,” the Organ Man
said. “We was all afraid when it came to our turn. And yes, there was always
something to be afraid of… but, hey! I’m here, you have nothing to worry
about.” With that, he placed a cold hand on David’s naked shoulder, gave it a
little squeeze. “You’re cold… freezing!” the Organ Man hissed. “Oh, God! Can’t
have that!” He whipped off his jacket, and held it out for David, who stiffly
took it into his hands. “Put it on,” the Organ Man urged, and David hardly
failed to notice a sparkle alight his eyes.
David only stared, his mind reeling
in every direction. He held the jacket in his hands, and it felt thick, heavy
and warm. But there was something wrong
with it. Something evil about it.
“Put it on,” the Organ Man repeated,
his words flat, a sound akin to slapping wet clothes on a rock. “Put it on and
come inside. She’s waiting for you.”
“S– she?” David implored. Oh, God, it’s so damn cold out here!
But the Organ Man only smiled and it
was a smile of which the very worst nightmares were made.
David held the jacket at arm’s
length, clutching it between thumb and forefinger. Something inside his head
told him not to put it on, to cast it aside and to run. He stared at the Organ
Man, now dressed in his ruffling shirt and tight corduroy pants, trying to
fathom the reason behind this elaborate scheme. The Organ Man only waved his
finger at him, and still smiling, said, “You’ll feel better if you put the
jacket on.”
David shook his head, his teeth
chattering despite the awesome heat.
“Put the jacket on, David. I command
you to put the damn thing on.”
David shook his head once more, and
the Organ Man stomped his feet.
“Listen! Do you want me to put it on
you myself?” he demanded, his voice nothing more than a sibilant hiss.
David tried to resist once more, but
when the Organ Man began to march towards him, he decided it was better to
tempt fate. He shrugged the jacket over his shoulders, and almost instantly,
the cold was gone.
“There,” the Organ Man stated, hands
spread out before him. “You see? There’s nothing to be scared of!”
David nodded dumbly, unsure of what
was happening. It was all too much at the moment, with the lights and the weird
hulk of the School of Arts. He cast a nervous glance around him, hugged the
jacket tighter around his body. Suddenly, he began to relax, his mind began to
ease away from the panic switch. His erratic heartbeat slowed, his lungs began
to compose themselves. All the while, the Organ Man was smiling; his entire
face was alight with what appeared to be happiness. However, the longer David
stared at his face, the more the happiness looked like a sham, like the painted
face of a clown—demonic, cold even.
This time, when the Organ Man
touched his shoulder, he didn’t flinch. Even when his mind screamed for his
body to move, it didn’t. It remained where it was, accepting the proximity of
the Organ Man as if he were David’s best friend. And when the Organ Man began
to lead David towards the cavernous doors of the School of Arts building, David
felt his body moving as if under no obligation. Just as the organ had pulled
his body against his will, so too was the Organ Man, leading him into the
School of Arts, through the double doors that were impossibly big, foaming with
what appeared to be fog, swirling with colours from the massive light system
within.
“We’re going to go inside,” the
Organ Man stated. “We’re going to inside, and we’re going to jam with the
Devil.”
With one foot methodically placed in
front of the other, the Organ Man led him into the School of Arts and towards
the organ, which belched fog like a cheap disco special effects machine and
blew coloured light into the air. It was surreal, a veritable monolith of a
machine.
The first thing David noticed was
the almost endless forest of pipes reaching for the heavens, or so it seemed. There
were so many, in different sizes, all of them polished so amply that David
could see his gaunt face reflected in every single one, distorted, twisted, a
massed assortment of crazed gargoyle faces. They melded and changed like globules
of oil on the surface of a lava lamp, and it didn’t take him too long to
realise just why. For as he watched the thousand or so twisted duplications of
his face mould into various ugly mutations, he realised suddenly that the pipes
themselves were moving; they were
writhing about as if they were living, moving creatures!
David stepped back half a pace, his
mouth hanging open in awe as the taller of the pipes loomed above him, a
predatory sea serpent. He half expected them to grow mouths, and the mouths to
grow fangs. He was even expecting them to lurch down at him, snapping, biting,
to sink those impossible fangs into his flesh. But they didn’t. They only writhed and wiggled, so much like large metallic noodles with the neat little
flute openings through which they belched smoke and light and, when the time
was right, sound.
There were teeth, however, in the
shape of the organ’s many keys, but they didn’t have the capacity, David hoped,
to bite. The ivory keys glistened the brightest shade of white David had ever
seen before, reflecting the hovering globules of light so perfectly that at
first, he thought he was looking into a segmented mirror. The ebony keys were
similarly polished, appearing as holes between the ivory keys, holes big enough
to lose your hand in. And there were thousands upon thousands of keys; at least
five discernible rows, stretching far beyond the reach of any man’s arm span,
rendering it virtually impossible to play without having to stand up and run from one side of the row of keys to
the next. The same unbelievable configuration ran true for the foot pedals. As
David stared in utter disbelief, the only logical thought that entered his mind
was simple, what kind of creature could
possibly play this… thing?
“Isn’t she beautiful?” the Organ Man
enthused. He had gone much closer to the contraption than David had. He half
turned to face David, his smile lost in the swirling of different colours of
light. “She’s so… alive… so charged. So—”
“—repulsive,” David offered, before
realising what he had said, but the Organ Man either didn’t hear him, or was
ignoring him. He approached the organ as a disciple would approach Jesus, his
mouth hanging loosely, his eyes glowing brightly with delirium.
“Oh, my baby, my precious,” he
muttered. “I’ve brought him to you, my precious! I’ve brought you the
successor!” The Organ Man sank to his knees before the organ, and David was
certain that if it had feet, then the Organ Man would caress them with his
lips. “He has come as I said he would… as you
said he would. The successor has arrived!”
David felt a sudden chill encircle
his belly. Successor? Successor to what?
He stared long and hard at the writhing organ, its pipes swaying as if they
were fronds caught in a wind. He stared at the gaping clefts in the pipes’
ends, at the glowing white and black keys; he stared at it all, his mind
working inside his head. Successor, his
mind repeated. Successor to what? And
then, the Organ Man rose, his eyes glistening, filling with tears. He smiled at
David, really smiled at him, and with
a wave of his hand, beckoned him to
approach.
He was powerless and could only
watch as some invisible force pushed him towards the organ, which was
pulsating, emitting a powerful feeling
into the air, a feeling that pierced David, pierced his mind, and touched his soul. The organ was reaching out to him,
extending a spectral hand towards him. It wanted him; needed him. The feeling was at first illuminating, mourning for a
sense of loss, a loss that David felt as a tangible entity in his heart. The
feeling was complimented by splashes of bottle green and deep blue light and
other peaceful colours; purples and mauves. From the pipes, there came a soft
hum, almost like a sigh. David suddenly felt as if he were filling a hitherto
empty space, that the organ was a living soul in want of companionship. In the
flickering seconds that he felt all of this, he was willing to just close his
eyes and allow his body to tumble haltingly in the organ’s direction… but then,
as he approached, everything changed.
Need turned into lust, the hand held
out for supplication began to snatch and demand. He sensed a change in the
organ’s psyche. No longer was it driven by need; no longer was it stung by
loss. It was hungry, in need of
souls, and it wanted David’s soul… it wanted it desperately. He opened his eyes
and the lights had changed to fiery reds and hot yellows and oranges. The music
was horrible, cacophonous, staccato bursts that rent and tore at David’s ears. And
now, he fought against his body, tried to command it to stop, but it was to no
avail. The pipes swayed and belched fire and ear shattering sound and the Organ
Man leapt from one foot to the other in joy, because his tenure of the demon
organ was soon to end, and David’s was soon to begin.
He understood now what he was being
prepared for, and he fought. He tried
so hard, tried to force his feet to root themselves into the floor and stay
put, but it didn’t happen. His left foot first edged forward, hesitant at first
as if considering David’s frantic pleas, but then, sliding anyway. And his
right foot, not wanting to be left out, followed suit. Left… right… left again…
right again… until he was at the Organ Man’s side, and the grinning Organ Man
waved his finger at him, as if admonishing him.
“Don’t fight,” he said. “Don’t
fight. The organ always wins. It always wins.”
David’s eyes locked onto the Organ
Man’s for the shortest of possible times, and in that time, understanding
passed between the two. Understanding and more… so much more. The Organ Man
stared, and his eyes were wide, trembling like a rabbit caught in the
headlights of a car, brimming with tears. His lips were moving, but no noise
came out. He mouthed a single word over and over again. It could have been “sorry,” but the Organ Man looked far
from sorry. David was his ticket to freedom; he had no need to feel sorry for
him. And yet, in that split second, his eyes conveyed a message so stark, so
profound that David knew that there was still humanity clinging to that thin
frame…
But the heartbeat was completed,
David moved on, closer, closer to the organ on the dais. There was a stool set
in front of the monolithic beast; a stool that looked more like a miniature
throne studded as it was with stones and gilded with gold plate. David found
his body easing itself onto the stool, found it to be comfortable, oh, so
comfortable as if it were tailor made for his bottom.
And
maybe it just is, a stray thread of his mind spoke in a hollow cadence. Maybe this entire place was designed with
you in mind; a palace for you to rule as a lord, subject only to a higher being,
in this case, the devil in the organ.
The thought would normally have
scared David, but now, he was in such a state of torpor that nothing could
touch him. He felt a cauldron of different feelings crash over him. He felt
scared, omnipotent, melancholy, pious… aroused. They were all there, a seething
paradox in his belly, rumbling, volatile, burning. He felt hot and cold, he
felt hungry, sick… he felt horrible, confused. All the while, the organ closed
around him, the music entered his head, bringing with it one instruction. One
simple innocuous instruction…
Play.
And David froze… remembering…
It
claimed my soul after I struck the first note… It’s that easy, David, all it
takes is for your finger to press a key… and you’re gone.
And you’re gone.
And you’re gone.
The sentence
played and replayed in his head, echoing around and around as if he had shouted
it down an endless chasm. He stared at his hands, poised above the middle row
of keys, inches above them and trembling in anticipation.
Play,
the organ ordered. Become my minion.
And David watched his fingers dip,
lower… lower, inches vanished between his fingers and the glowing keys. He
could see their mirror images floating up to meet the real ones, could see his
face reflected in the cavernous smile of five rows of keyboard teeth. He could
feel the tension rising in the Organ Man and machine alike—the air was so
thick, so cloying and hot that David could almost swear it was sitting on top
of his shoulders.
And still his fingers dipped, down,
down, down… to the space of a fine hair between fingertip and ivory keys, to
the point where his fingers actually rested on the keys. He could almost feel
the valves wanting to open, to spray forth their music like an ejaculation of
semen.
Stop!
Was it his
voice? No; somebody else.
“Stop!” someone miraculously shouted over the chaos
of colours and floating, disconnected images. “Ab
insidiis diaboli, libera nos Domine!”
The organ squealed as if in pain, a loud, high
note that made David shout out in pain. And in the same instant, he was thrown
backwards, caught on an apocalyptic gust of wind. He felt the world spinning
around him, saw it from every conceivable angle, saw the organ, surrounded by a
lurid assembly of lights, emitting a loud blurting of noise, and noise it was. There
was nothing musical in this hideous outcry of rage, pain and frustration that
split the very fabric of the universe. The peal of anger was so animal, so primal; the kind of primal anger vented
upon the earth by a volcano or an earthquake.
There was the Organ Man, leaning
against the wall, his hand at his throat and the most desperate look of fear
plastered across his face. His eyes were so wide and so white that his pupils
were almost invisible. His lips moved into an ‘O’ of fear, relaxed, became an
‘O’ once more so that he was mimicking perfectly the breathing of a fish. His
gaze was not on either the organ or David, but on the person who had
interrupted the midnight ceremony.
He stood at the far end of the hall,
surrounded by a halo of light, dressed in a long flowing cloak made from
material blacker than a starless night. In his right hand he held a
leather-bound book, while his left was raised, the fingers splayed like a
magus, pointing at the organ. “In the name of the Holy Trinity, I command thee
begone!” he shouted at the machine, and the machine gave another discordant
shout as if in pain. But the newcomer was not bothered by the noise. His face
set in grim determination, he stepped forward, his eyes blazing with fury. As
he stepped forward, he revealed behind him another, older man, one whom both
David and the Organ Man recognised at once, though it was only the Organ Man
who could acknowledge this man’s presence with a name.
“Raymond!”
he hissed, his voice a furious hiss. He reached out his hands pathetically,
like a gorgon, scratching the air hopelessly. “You cur! You betrayer! You Judas!” But he was reduced to silence,
as was the organ, whose long trill of rage seemed to fade as if it were sliding
down a long tunnel.
As David watched, the lights began
to fade, the noise began to soften. He looked at the pipes, and no longer did
they tremble or writhe. They shrank, falling into themselves like molten glass,
returning to their normal size and their normal, rusted state. The five
keyboards gave an enormous shudder, clicking like stiff vertebrae before
collapsing one on top of the other until they were restored to the original
dual keyboards. The bright colour faded as if someone had poured thick yellow
syrup over the keys, spreading like plaque over teeth. Lastly, the stool shrank
in upon itself like a potato chip packet in an oven. The horsehair stuffing
bulged through the stretched vinyl before emitting a loud tearing noise and
breaking through the surface. All of this happened in milliseconds, accompanied
by a rushing of air towards where the organ stood as matter rushed into the
vacuum created by the organ’s transformation. Into the vacuum went the lights
and the fog, whirling around a single dark portal before even this portal was
sucked into itself with a tiny pop!
All that was left was the Organ Man,
trembling in fear and frustration. He stood looking around him, at the hall,
returned to its dark tomb-like countenance, at the priest, his brother, and
then at David, who lay where he had been thrown by the organ’s rage, cold and
bruised. It was dark, so horribly dark, the only light being a torch that the
old man now trained on the Organ Man. After a long time spent in bone jarring
silence, he smiled, and waved a bony finger at the trio sharing the hall with
him. And before either the old man or the priest could gather their senses to
move in on him, and maybe finish it forever, he began to sink between the gaps
in the floorboards… melting like a candle, flowing dark and treacly over and into the floor…
But before he had totally vanished,
David had keeled over, exhausted.
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