Amy Cross

THE MUSIC MAN

Prologue

The explosion sends me crashing across the room, slamming into a window that’s already in the process of getting blown apart. I fall out of the room and come crashing down onto the grass, and I let out a gasp of pain as I feel hundreds and thousands of glass shards cutting my hands and face.

Behind me, there’s another loud boom. Not all of the devices went off at once, and I can hear a couple more being detonated now. I haul myself up and turn to look, but suddenly another huge blast sends me bumping across the lawn until I hit the slope at the edge, at which point I begin to roll down. I try to steady myself, but I’m already falling faster and a moment later the ground gives way beneath me.

I hit my head on a rock and – as I lose consciousness – the last thing I feel is the sensation of plummeting through the air.

One

Several years earlier…

Pulling the curtain aside, I peer out at the audience.

“Bums on seats, my friend,” Giancarlo says proudly, as he continues to examine the strings of his violin. “Bums on seats. I bet it’s been a while since you had such a large audience, eh?”

“At least my audiences came to hear me,” I mutter. “They came for the music. Yours seem more interested in dinner and gossip.”

“Is that jealousy I detect in your tones, Derek? I’d have thought that such base emotions were beneath you.”

“Then you don’t know me at all,” I reply, watching the crowd for a moment longer before letting the curtain fall slack as I turn and limp back over toward the table in the center of the room. Anyway, I had bigger crowds back in the day, when I was invited to perform on the telly all the time. Not that there were many bums on seats, though. Everyone was too busy dancing.”

“And there,” Giancarlo says archly, “in a nutshell, is the difference between you and I. You sold out and became a minor pop star, whereas I remained faithful to proper, high-minded music. Which seems to have worked out well, seeing as how I’m now headlining one of the most prestigious music events of the year. And you’re…”

He pauses for a moment, while conspicuously eyeing me up and down.

“What are you doing these days, Derek?” he continues. “Last time I saw you, about ten years ago, you were talking about trying to cobble together an album of guitar music. Something to do with popular American songs, I believe?”

“I’m still working on that,” I reply, while wishing desperately that I had some grander news to deliver. “A few old friends might make guest appearances. I’ve already contacted Mick and Ringo and Elton.”

“And have they replied?”

“They will,” I tell him. “They’re very busy.”

“You’re such a name-dropper,” he says with a smile. “You barely knew any of those people, even back in the day.”

“And how would you know who I knew?” I ask. “Actually, I’ve been playing live quite a lot lately. I’ve been picking up gigs.”

“Are you on tour?”

“I prefer not to travel too far from home,” I tell him.

“So, what, are you playing in pubs?” He chuckles, and then he starts to smile. “Are you, Derek? That’s hilarious! Tell me, do they actually pay you, or do they just give you a bottle of wine and a free meal?”

“I get by,” I say darkly. “Besides, I never liked this kind of hoity-toity place.” Turning, I pull the curtain aside again. “Look out there. They’re here to chatter and eat. Your music, as great as it might be, is something for the background. They’ll barely be paying attention.” Now it’s my turn to smile. “I’m so glad that I was able to come and see you this evening, though. I’ve been thoroughly disabused of any notion that I might be jealous. At least people in pubs actually listen to what I’m playing.”

“Pure jealousy,” Giancarlo replies, as he carries his violin over to the door at the far end of the room. “You’ll be staying to hear me play, I hope?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I tell him. “And of course we must share a bottle of red when you’re done. Or two.”

He turns to leave, but then he hesitates.

“Why do you always wear those ridiculous sunglasses?” he asks. “Are you under the mistaken impression that they suit you?”

“Of course not,” I reply, even though I happen to know for a fact that the Ray Bans make me look cool. “I happen to like them, that’s all.”

“And do you still wear them everywhere you go? Even at night?”

“It’s a free world.”

“How do you not walk into things?”

“I do take them off sometimes,” I tell him firmly.

He disappears into the next room, and I turn back to look out across the stage. A man is at the microphone now, attempting to introduce Giancarlo’s performance, but he’s struggling to make himself heard. Glancing toward the crowd, I see people merrily chatting away, and I’m starting to realize that I was absolutely right just now: these people are here for the social side of the evening, and because they want to curry favor with the great billionaire philanthropist Sir Joshua Glass. They don’t care about the music at all.

Finally, the man manages to introduce Giancarlo, who strides out onto the stage and waves at the crowd. His reward is a smattering of disinterested applause, and I know him well enough to be sure that he’s disappointed. Still, he shows no flicker of emotion as he takes a seat, and then he begins to get ready for his performance.

“Good luck, old chap,” I mutter. “Break a leg.”

As I say those words, I must admit to a flicker of jealousy. After all, I could most certainly have had a career like this. A better career, even. It’s just that I never warmed to the world of classical music, and I could never bring myself to start sucking up to the likes of Joshua Glass. Even now, as Giancarlo asks the audience to be quiet and then sets the bow against his violin, I find that I don’t envy him at all. I’d rather be playing in The Pig and Buckle or The Globe’s Head than here at some dusty old music hall.

Listen. People are still talking and eating as Giancarlo begins to play. One of the world’s greatest violinists is on the stage, and they’re paying – at best – partial attention.

Rolling my eyes, I turn to head over to the table, but at that moment the music suddenly fades away. I stop and turn, and as I pull the curtain aside I see that Giancarlo is adjusting his bow. I don’t know what happened just now, and it’s certainly very rare for Giancarlo to make a mistake. I watch as he starts to play again, yet as the bow moves I hear only the very faintest flicker of music.

Is he okay?

Tilting my head, I wait for Giancarlo to pull himself together. Most of the chattering in the room has ended, and people are watching the stage as Giancarlo attempts to recover.

He draws the bow across the strings again, yet still there is no music. And as he tries again and again, the only sound is the increasingly nervous chatter of the audience.

Two

“What is this?” Giancarlo snaps as he tries again and again to play the violin in the rest room. “Why is it not working?”

“Let me try,” I reply, reaching out for the violin, but he ignores me and keeps trying.

“I don’t understand,” he continues. “I’m playing it like normal, but there’s no music coming!”

He tries several more times, and each time he seems more despondent as the bow scrapes helplessly against the strings.

“I have not suddenly forgotten how to play the violin!” he says firmly, clearly on the verge of tears. “I am sixty-seven years old and I have been playing since I was a child! I have not forgotten more than fifty years of work!”

Hearing the door opening, I turn just in time to see that we’re to be joined by one of Joshua Glass’s relentlessly energetic young assistants. She seems like a nice-enough girl, although I fail to understand how someone of her tender age could possibly be useful.

“Hi,” she says, sounding a little breathless, “I just wanted to see how things are going.” She steps past me, clearly more interested in Giancarlo. “Are you ready to go back on?”

“Do I look ready to go back on?” he snarls.

“Perhaps you can send someone on in his place for now,” I suggest diplomatically, lowering my sunglasses for a moment so that the nice young lady can see my eyes. “I’m sure you can find a willing substitute.”

“We sort of tried,” she replies tentatively. “Um, the problem is…”

Her voice trails off.

“The problem I what?” I ask.

“We tried to send Mr. Mehuen on,” she explains, “the pianist. Only, he got about two minutes in and then…”

I wait, but she seems almost too shocked to go on.

“He couldn’t play either,” she says finally. “The same thing happened. It was like the music just… ran out.”

“Ran out?” I say, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“What nonsense are you going on about?” Giancarlo spits back at her. “The music ran out? What does that even mean?”

“It means the piano stopped making noises,” she says. “He hit the keys, but all that came out was a series of little bumps and thuds. We switched to another piano, and the same thing happened. Then we tried to get the jazz band on, and they couldn’t play either.” She pauses for a moment, as if she can scarcely believe what she’s saying. “The crazy thing is, there are reports online about it happening in other places, too. All around the world.”

“Music is just… not working?” I say incredulously.

“Mr. Glass is getting agitated,” she replies. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if we can’t get the concert going again. He’s got a lot of very important guests here, and I think he’s starting to feel embarrassed. Tonight was supposed to be the big launch of his new satellite network. Now he’s got no music, and his pregnant wife is apparently trying to leave.”

“Mr. Glass is certainly the real victim in all of this,” I mutter, rolling my eyes, before heading over to Giancarlo. “Please, old friend. Let me try to play it.”

“How would—”

“Just let me try,” I continue. “I’m no virtuoso, but I at least know how to make a few semi-decent sounds.”

He hesitates, and then he hands me the violin. I set it into position, and then I carefully draw the box across the strings, only to find that no sound emerges. I try several more times, before lowering the violin in defeat.

“See?” the assistant says. “People are reporting the same thing all over the world. Music has just… stopped happening.”

“Don’t talk such garbage,” Giancarlo says, turning to her and clearly fuming with anger. “What do you know about music? Nothing! You’re just a child! Meanwhile, I’m one of the world’s greatest classical musicians and suddenly I find myself reduced to the level of an amateur! Not even that!”

“I’m sorry,” she replies plaintively, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You couldn’t offend me if you tried,” he says, before taking the violin and bow back from me. “The most you can manage is some mild irritation.” He attempts once more to play, and then he begins muttering to himself as he turns and walks away, still futilely sliding the bow back and forth across the strings.

“It would seem that something rather unusual is happening,” I say to the assistant.

“All I know,” she replies, “is that if someone doesn’t get out there and play soon, Mr. Glass is going to be really angry.” She pauses. “You don’t happen to play anything, do you?”

“Well, I’m—”

Stopping suddenly, I realize that this young lady was probably not even born when I had my top ten hit. I suppose I could explain, but I’ve done that to so many people over the years and I’m rather tired of their blank faces. Besides, I left my guitar at home and I’d prefer not to play on an unfamiliar instrument. On top of even that, I have a niggling worry that perhaps I too shall find that I can’t play. The guitar has been my constant companion, my only true friend in life, and the thought of being abandoned by music is enough to fill me with fear.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” I tell the girl, as a feeling of unease begins to spread through my chest. “I rather think we shall all have to wait and see what—”

Before I can finish, I hear the most terrible crashing sound over my shoulder. The girl and I both turn just in time to see Giancarlo smashes his violin against the wall. The poor man is shouting at the same time, as if the inability to play has driven him to the brink of insanity.

Three

It’s late by the time I get back to my apartment. The buses around here are notoriously unreliable, and the walk across the unlit estate leaves my tired old legs feeling rather achey. Still, I don’t really mind the delay, since I am worried about something I must do when I get home.

I’m worried that perhaps I too shall find that I can no longer play my instrument.

I have one of those modern mobile telephones that allows one to access the internet, so I decide to check the news as I walk. Indeed, the assistant at the concert was correct when she said that the whole world seems to have been gripped by this sudden inability to create music. I read several news reports about concerts that have been canceled because musicians and singers found themselves unable to perform. Amateurs at home are reporting the same problems, and it seems that even recorded music is failing to play. Several times, reports mention the same nonsensical phrase, suggesting that ‘the world has run out of music.’”

As I unlock the door to my building, I see that young Sarah is sitting in her usual spot on the stairs.

“Good evening,” I say, and I must admit that I’m slightly relieved to see that she’s holding her guitar. Taking off my sunglasses, I offer her a friendly smile. “Are you one of the few people who can still string a piece of music together.”

“It’s fading,” she replies, ashen-faced.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Listen.”

She starts playing. Sarah is a good musician. At only nineteen years of age, she has been taking free lessons from me, and she studies hard. As she plays now, however, I cannot help but notice that the sound is weaker somehow, as if Sarah is struggling to make herself heard.

“You need to play out more,” I tell her.

“I am.”

“More.”

“I am!”

Indeed, I can see from the movement of her fingers that she seems to be playing with plenty of gusto. As I step closer, however, it’s clear that for some reason the sound is struggling to come out.

“It’s not just playing, either,” she explains, with fear in her voice. “I can’t hear the music properly in my head, either. And I can’t sing.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean it’s fading away,” she says earnestly, before stopping and lowering the guitar onto her lap. “I don’t understand, Derek. How can this be happening? Music’s everywhere. The instruments still work, I haven’t forgotten how to play, but it’s as if I can feel it running out. I’m certain that, if I keep playing, I’ll soon lose the ability altogether.”

“That’s quite impossible,” I reply, although I can’t shake a hint of concern myself.

She lifts the guitar, as if she means to play again, but then she hesitates.

“What if I only have a few more minutes left?” she asks. “Or just seconds? I’m scared to play, in case it runs out and I can’t get it back.”

“You mustn’t think like that.”

“But it’s happening to people all over the world! You must have seen the news!”

“I have,” I say with a sigh, “but I’ve also lived long enough to know that something like this simply can’t happen.”

“Can you still play?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply, but with more hesitation that I should like.

“Are you sure?” she continues. “Have you tried?”

“I know how to play the guitar,” I tell her. “One does not lose such an ability overnight.”

“Everyone else has,” she says. “Or they’re in the process of losing it. What makes you think that you’re going to be any different?”

“Because…”

I pause, as I try to work out how to explain this to her. Before I can say anything, however, I hear a distant scream, and Sarah and I both turn to look toward the door. It sounds as if someone somewhere is having a bad night, although they would seem to be some distance away. Finally, turning back to the poor girl, I see fear in her eyes.

“Because this whole story is nothing but hysteria,” I tell her. “It’s an idea that’s spread all around the world. What’s the word that young people use these days? Viral. That’s it, it’s a stupid idea that’s gone viral. And now people, even very intelligent people, are tricking themselves into believing that music is somehow going away. I’m not saying you’re foolish for believing it, I know very well that the human mind can be fooled in so many ways. But how about we try to ignore it, eh? Would you like to come up to my place for a glass of wine?”

“I’m scared to play it,” she replies, looking back down at her guitar.

Sighing, I realize that Sarah – an intelligent girl, and very sensitive – has fallen for all this nonsense. I should very much like to dissuade her, but I’m exhausted and I’d very much like to think that the whole world will have sorted itself out by the time I wake up in the morning.

“I think I should pack myself off to bed,” I say finally, as I step around her and start making my way up the stairs. “You should do the same, Sarah, and things will seem fine tomorrow. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“We’ll see,” I tell her, preferring to avoid a big discussion on the subject. “We’ll see.”

She’s clearly still troubled, but I can’t stop and talk to her for the whole night. My legs are aching as I make my way up the stairs, although I try not to show the discomfort until I’m well out of sight. By the time I reach my door, I can afford to let my shoulders slump a little, but it’s only when I’m safely inside my apartment that I allow myself to truly relax. I push the door shut and lean back, and then I wince as I feel a flicker of pain run up my spine. I’m not doing too badly for a seventy-one-year-old, but now and again I feel twinges and twists all over my body.

Shuffling through to the front room, I stop as soon as I see my guitar over by the window.

Usually when I get home, I practice a little, just to soothe my mind before I go to sleep. Tonight, however, I have so much nonsense ringing in my ears. Sarah’s words, in particular, seem to echo in the darkness all around me.

“I’m scared to play it.”

“Rot,” I mutter, but I turn and head through to the bedroom.

I’ll play in the morning, and by then hopefully the world will have shaken itself from this mass hysteria.

Four

Alas, this does not prove to be the case.

“Quite extraordinary scenes outside one French music school this morning,” the attractive lady newsreader says on the television as I shuffle into the front room, carrying my morning bowl of porridge, “where angry students are demanding medical help to restore their ability to play music. A spokesman for the students told reporters that the mysterious condition must be some form of contagious sickness, and that the onus is on governments around the world to come up with a cure.”

I change channels, but I quickly find that the same subject is dominating all the broadcasts.

“It could be some kind of neurological condition,” a doctor is saying on the BBC, “although it’s difficult to imagine how this could have spread so quickly, given that there were no reports of anyone losing musical abilities before about eight o’clock last night, British time.”

“But one thing that our viewers are repeatedly saying,” the interviewer replies, “is that they’re even losing the ability to sing, or to hum. We’re getting messages from parents who can’t sing to their children. It’s as if human minds are no longer capable of understanding music.”

“Indeed,” the doctor replies, “and that goes back to my suggestion that this is neurological. It’s possible that the sounds are still emerging, but that we can no longer hear them or interpret them as music. This might also explain why recordings of music are failing to work.”

I change to yet another channel, and this time I see that our beloved prime minister is addressing the nation with his usual sickly, lying grin.

“I want to assure everyone,” he says, “that we’re sparing no efforts in finding a solution to this problem. An international team is being assembled to determine the cause of what’s happening, and to come up with a solution. Now, I can’t give a time frame as to how quickly they’ll be able to get to the bottom of it all, but I’m assured that there has to be an answer eventually. It’s simply not possible that we’ve all lost the ability to play and hear music, all at once.”

“What about reports that some people are losing the ability more slowly than others?” a reporter asks.

“We have people looking into that as well,” the prime minister replies, “and there does seem to be some hope there. Again, I’m not an expert, so I can only really talk in generalizations, but whatever’s happening is clearly reversible. We just have to understand the mechanism.”

“And what about suggestions that this is an attack?” another reporter asks.

“There’s nothing to suggest that at the moment,” the prime minister says. “This condition seems to be affecting people everywhere in the world. England, the United States, Russia, the Middle East, Australia. We’re getting reports from Africa and from North Korea. We don’t think that this is an attack. At the moment, our best guess is that it’s some kind of mass, simultaneous outbreak of a sickness that we don’t yet understand.”

I switch the television off, and then I stand for a moment in silence. There are some voices outside, yelling in the street, but that’s hardly unusual for this part of town.

Slowly, I turn and look over at my guitar.

I’ve been delaying this moment all morning, but I know now that I have to see if I can play. I keep telling myself that I’ll be fine, and indeed I’ve managed to hum a few bars already. At the same time, the news reports can’t all be wrong, and I’m deeply concerned that perhaps something’s seriously wrong after all.

I set my bowl of porridge down, then I take my guitar from its stand and go to sit on the sofa.

“Come on, old thing,” I mutter, still not quite daring to play, not just yet. “You’ve never let me down before, so don’t start now.”

I get into position, but something’s still holding me back.

“You can do it,” I continue, before taking a deep breath and deciding to start with something nice and simple. A Carulli piece, perhaps.

I take another deep breath.

And then I start playing.

To my great joy, everything works. I’m able to play the entire piece, all the way through, although I do make a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes along the way. Still, those are most likely caused by nerves, and I feel a rush of relief as I get to the end of the piece.

Well, it would seem that I at least am still able to produce music.

Feeling more relaxed now, I start playing a Spanish piece, one that I’ve been learning recently. As I play, however, I start to realize that my fingers are feeling rather unusual, as if they’re harder to move. At the same time, my mind is getting muggy and I’m starting to make more and more errors. I manage to play the whole piece, of course, but when I reach the end I can’t help but feel rather unsettled. I’ve been playing the guitar for as long as I can remember, and this morning something’s definitely a little ‘off’.

I tell myself I should play a few more pieces, but I can’t shake a lingering fear that perhaps I – like everybody on the news – might ‘run out’ of music.

“Hey!” a voice shouts, and suddenly I hear a fist pounding on my door. “You!”

Startled, I get to my feet and head out into the hallway, where the pounding continues.

“Were you playing music in there?” the voice continues, and now I realize that this is the disagreeable man who lives opposite. “I heard music!”

I reach out to open the door, but then I hesitate as I realize that Roger sounds unusually frantic. For all his faults, he tends to be rather dull and dour.

“Open the door!” he shouts suddenly, and then I hear another voice out in the hallway. “I heard music,” he continues, clearly speaking to somebody else now. “Didn’t you? I think it was coming from in here!”

He bangs on the door again.

I briefly consider pretending to be out, but then I realize that perhaps I have no reason to be afraid in my own home, so I leave the chain in place and carefully open the door just a little.

“Were you playing music in there?” Roger snaps as soon as he sees me. “I heard you, Watkins! I heard your guitar!”

“I—”

“How were you doing it?” he continues, not even letting me explain. “Open the door! I want to come in!”

“Is it true?” another voice asks, and I see Sandra from 4B peering through at me. “Did you manage to play music in there?”

“Do you mind?” I ask, feeling a little flustered. “What I do in my—”

“Let us in!” Roger shouts, slamming his shoulder against the door in an attempt to break through. The man seems positively feral. “Play for us!”

“I shall do no such thing,” I reply, relieved that the chain held. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t play anything at all and I didn’t even hear anything. I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I’d thank you to leave me alone!”

“Then where did it come from?” he asks.

“I don’t have a clue,” I tell him, keen to get this lunatic to leave me alone. “Now go and bother someone else. I don’t have time for this!”

He stares at me, glaring with stark intensity, and for a moment I worry that he might try to break the door down. Then, finally, he steps back and mutters something before turning and hurrying along the corridor. A moment later, I hear him banging on another door.

“You!” he yells. “Were you the one?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t you?” Sandra asks me, with tears in her eyes. “Please, if you can play, won’t you let me in so I can listen? It’s been hours now and I need to hear some music.”

I open my mouth to reply, but in that moment I hear Roger shouting again.

“I won’t tell him,” Sandra continues, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Just let me in. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” I reply, worried about what might happen if I let anyone into my apartment right now. “I—”

“Please!” she hisses desperately. “Just a few seconds would be enough!”

I hesitate, wondering whether perhaps I should be more trusting. After all, Sandra has always seemed very calm and pleasant, and it’s hard to imagine her causing too much trouble. Still with some concerns, then, I reach out to pull the chain aside.

“Let me in!” Sandra screams, suddenly throwing herself against the door. “Why are you being so selfish? If you can play, you have to play for me!”

Startled, I force the door shut.

“I can’t play for you!” I shout, as she continues to pound against the door’s other side. “I just can’t, I’m sorry! I’m like everyone else! I can’t play a note!”

Five

“These scenes from Los Angeles are very similar to what we’ve been seeing in cities around the world,” the reporter says as I watch the BBC news coverage again. “Civil disturbances are breaking out as people struggle with the sudden loss of music in the world. Casualty numbers are impossible to determine, but I’m afraid it’s very clear that people are dying.”

The screen now shows awful images of fires burning in a street. Some people are screaming, while others are wandering around with dazed expressions.

“In most cities now,” the reporter continues, “we’re hearing that emergency services are struggling to keep up with what’s happening. We mentioned that story earlier about several hospitals effectively losing staff who find themselves unable to work, and now we’re hearing in the past few minutes that all flights in European airspace have been grounded, following similar decisions that have been taken in America and the Middle East.”

I’ve never seen anything like this. As midday approaches, it’s as if the world is on the brink of madness, and all because music is apparently ‘running out’. I dislike that phrase intently, since it’s clear nonsense, but I suppose that in some ways it does seem to describe the situation. And as much as I like to think that I’m beyond superstition, I am becoming increasingly aware that I have been avoiding my guitar.

Then again, the last thing I want is for that dreadful man to come knocking on the door again.

Stepping over to the guitar, as the television continues to run, I can’t help but feel as if I’m suddenly cut off from my best and only friend. I never married, never had children, and I don’t suppose I’ve ever had a truly close relationship with another human being. The guitar has been my life, and this particular guitar has been my focal point since I purchased it twenty-five years ago in Italy. In all honesty, today must be the longest I’ve ever gone without a proper practice session. Yet even now, I hesitate to play, just in case I too begin to ‘run out’ of music.

“There’s a genuine concern here,” one of the voices says on the television, “concerning mental health. We’ve already heard that billionaire Sir Joshua Glass has offered a reward of ten million dollars for anyone who can play for him today, and that’s a clear sign that people from all walks of life are really struggling. Unfortunately, the longer this situation persists, the more severe the consequences might become. We’re already getting reports of suicides being attributed to this lack of music.”

Reaching out, I touch the neck of the guitar.

Do I dare?

Suddenly I hear a faint tapping sound at the door.

Turning, I look through to the hallway. If another idiot from one of the other apartments has come to demand music, I think my best option is just to hide and hope that they go away.

And then I hear a voice.

“Derek? Are you there?”

Sighing with relief, I realize that it’s Sarah. She’s never knocked on my door before, but – as I head through to answer – I’m at least glad that I’m not to be assaulted or shouted at by another ignoramus.

When I open the door, however, I’m immediately struck by the fear on her face.

“I’m losing it,” she stammers. “The ability to play, I mean.”

“Sarah,” I reply, “try not to—”

“It’s going away!” she says firmly, clearly distressed. “I crawled into my closet and shut the door so no-one would be able to hear me. Even then, someone banged on my door, they were onto me. I got them to go away, but the point is… I could feel the music draining away.”

“Sarah, you must stay calm. Come in, we’ll sit down and talk calmly.”

“It was like I was being drained,” she continues. “It was like they describe it on the TV. The longer I played, the more I could feel the music fading away. It’s as if I have this finite amount left, a few minutes that I can play, and once that’s over I’ll never be able to play again.”

“Sarah—”

“What do I do?” she asks frantically. “Do I just not play, and keep it inside? Then what? Or should I just play and get it over with? It’s like torture, Derek. What about you? Can you still play?”

“I…”

My voice trails off. Sarah is a good girl, very kind and peaceful, but I’m worried about how she might react to this latest development.

“I’ve been avoiding my guitar,” I explain finally, choosing to be truthful. “I’m going to wait until all this madness is over, and then hopefully things will be back to normal.”

“People are looting outside,” she replies. “I saw one of my cousins smashing the window of the corner shop down the road. It’s like the lack of music is turning people into animals. Is that possible?”

“Perhaps,” I reply, “or perhaps people just take any cue and use it as an excuse to go wild. Who can say?”

“I’m going to play,” she says, taking a step back. “I can’t live like this, knowing that it’s inside me. I have to play and get it out.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“No, you’re right.” She takes a deep breath. “I should save it. It’s precious, I should keep it hidden. I can’t afford to lose it.”

“I think the best thing is to sit tight,” I tell her, “and don’t draw attention to yourself. The less that those idiots notice you, the better.”

“This can’t go on for much longer, can it?” she asks plaintively, as if she’s close to tears. “It’s a sickness, right? And sicknesses always get cured. They won’t let this carry on forever.”

“And who are they, exactly?” I reply.

“The government. Soldiers. I don’t know, but someone has to fix it.”

“Of course,” I say, hoping to reassure her, even though I’m not sure that things will be so simple. “But for now, keep your head down. Those of us who can still play – who might still be able to play – must look after ourselves.”

“You’re right,” she says, before mumbling something as she turns and hurries away.

Once she’s gone, I shut the door and head back through to the front room. I’m minded to pick up my guitar and play at least one note, but then I look at the television and I see truly horrific images of riots in a city. I quickly realize that the city in question is Paris, a city that I happen to love, and I watch as cars are set on fire and rampage gangs of frenzied citizens storm through the streets. Is this really possible? Is all of this carnage occurring in the world, and is it all because of this mysterious loss of music?

Perhaps Sarah was right. They will put everything straight soon enough. Within a day or two, everything will be back to normal and we shall have music again.

Six

One week later

The howl continues for a few more minutes before petering out into a kind of stuttering growl. Then, finally, after several minutes the wretched sound is gone.

Standing all alone in the middle of my front room, with the lights off, I listen intently. As usual, the howl began shortly after midnight and continued for about ten minutes. It’s been a week now since the first howl, and it’s becoming abundantly clear to me that someone somewhere in this building is starting to degenerate entirely. Then again, that shouldn’t be terribly surprising. After all, over the past week I have seen my neighbors turned to savages, to the extent that I barely dare leave my apartment.

Heading to the kitchen, I first try the faucets, to check whether there’s still water. I’m relieved to find that there is, although I worry that soon the basic infrastructure will begin to fail. Clearly someone somewhere is managing to keep the water and electricity systems running, although I can’t help but wonder whether these too will eventually be abandoned.

I open the fridge and see all the bottles of water that I’ve collected, but then I look down at the space where I was gathering food. Until yesterday, I had enough to keep going, but now my stocks have dwindled to almost nothing. Now, however, it has been twenty-four hours since I ate, and my stomach is gurgling loudly. I can certainly stand to lose a little weight, especially from my belly, but the thought of another entire day without food is a little too much to contemplate. In which case, I feel that going out at night would be infinitely preferable to making the same journey during daylight hours.

I shuffle to the window and peer out. There’s no sign of anyone out there. Indeed, the nights seem less dangerous that the days, at least out there on the streets of our little part of London. In which case, I think that perhaps tonight is the night that I must finally go and find something I can eat.

* * *

Pulling my coat tighter for warmth, I head along the dark pavement, hoping to keep out of the light. I can’t walk too fast, of course, on account of my bad hips, but I keep telling myself that I can defend myself if necessary. Besides, I’m probably letting my imagination run wild. Would anyone really attack me? I’m just an old man with nothing to offer. If I’m quick and clever, I’m sure I shall be absolutely fine.

I make my way to the corner shop. Ever since I moved here, I’ve been buying pretty much all my food from that place, preferring to avoid the long bus journey to the supermarket. I’ve even become pretty friendly with Pavel, the man who runs the shop, and with his son Adam as well. I’m quite sure that they’ll see to it that I don’t starve, even if I only receive a pack of biscuits.

As I get to the shop, however, I’m shocked to see that while the lights are off, the windows have been smashed and the door has been left hanging wide open.

I peer inside, and I’m shocked by the carnage. All the shelves have been emptied, and entire cabinets have been tipped over. There’s broken glass everywhere, and one of the light fittings is hanging from the ceiling. It’s as if some kind of tornado has passed through the place, and I can’t see so much as a morsel of food anywhere. Still, I’m fiercely hungry and I can’t possibly walk the five miles to a supermarket, so I have no choice but to gingerly pick my way into the shop and try to avoid as much of the glass as possible.

I open my mouth to call out and announce myself, but then I begin to wonder whether that would be wise. What if some monstrous attacker is still lurking here somewhere?

Looking around, I suddenly spot a large patch of blood smeared on the far wall. Somewhere in the patch, there’s the faint trace of a hand print.

Suddenly I hear a bumping sound, and I turn just in time to see something move behind the counter. There’s a glass panel in front of one of the displays, and reflected in that glass there’s a shape that seems to be moving back and forth. The bumping continues, and after a moment I hear the sound of someone muttering under their breath.

Worried about being attacked, but still desperately hungry, I make my way to the end of the counter and look around the side, and to my horror I see the body of young Adam on the floor. His face is bloodied, and part of his head appears to have been smashed away. A little further along, his father Pavel is sitting cross-legged in front of an upturned bucket, and I watch as he bangs the bucket with what looks like a plastic pen.

“What…”

My voice trails off.

Pavel turns and looks at me, and I see pure madness in the white of his eyes.

“What happened?” I gasp, unable to keep from looking back down at the poor dead boy.

“I think I’m getting closer,” Pavel replies. “Listen. Tell me if you agree.”

He starts banging the bucket again, hitting it rapidly with the pen. This continues for a few seconds, before he stops and turns to me again.

“I know it wasn’t music,” he continues, “but it was something. I think I’m getting there.”

“What happened to Adam?” I ask, taking a step forward but then stopping as I see that the boy’s brain has been partially torn from his head, with chunks left crushed against the dirty floor-tiles.

“If I can just get this right,” Pavel replies, turning back to the bucket and hitting it again, “I think I can build an actual piece. It’s just a noise right now, but it’ll become music eventually. Won’t it?”

“What happened to your son?” I stammer, horrified by his apparent lack of care. “Tell me, man! What’s going on here?”

Pavel looks down at Adam’s corpse for a moment, but then he turns back to face the bucket.

“Something’s holding me back,” he says finally. “I need to focus more. I’m allowing myself to get distracted. He was distracting me at first, but then he stopped. Now I need to focus all my attention, all my senses, on getting music out of this thing.”

“Tell me you didn’t do this,” I reply, unable to ignore the fact that there’s blood all over Pavel’s arms and chest. “For the love of…”

Again, my voice trails off.

“I’m seeing too much,” Pavel continues. “I need to focus on just hearing. Don’t you get it? Adam didn’t understand, he wouldn’t stop whining and begging for things. People came and took the food. Adam tried to stop them. At least he doesn’t whine anymore.” He holds the pen up and examines the tip. “I need to focus purely on the sound. I can’t let anything else into my mind.”

“Listen to me, man,” I say, trying to work out how I can help, “I think you need to come with me.”

I wait, but he’s simply staring at the pen. And then, before I can say another word, he turns the pen around and drives it into his left eye.

“Stop!” I shout, stumbling forward, but I’m too late.

Gasping, Pavel struggles to pull the pen out. The clip on the side of the lid is caught inside the eyeball itself, and blood starts pouring from all around the socket as the pen is finally torn free. Then, as I watch with a growing sense of horror, Pavel does the same to his other eye, blinding himself completely.

“There!” he shouts triumphantly, as he starts laughing. “Now I can’t see, I’ll be able to focus better on the sound!”

He starts banging the bucket again, faster than before but with no rhythm whatsoever. He’s completely ignoring the blood that’s gushing from his eyes, and after a moment he starts tapping the side of the bucket in an attempt to establish some sort of harmony.

“Maybe smell!” he shouts finally. “Maybe I need to get rid of my sense of smell as well! It stinks in here! I need to block my nose. That’s when I’ll be able to make some music.”

“Pavel,” I stammer, “please… Your son is dead!”

“I need something that’ll really stick,” he continues. “Do you have any glue? Or cement? How can I make music when my other senses keep getting in the way?”

“Pavel—”

“Leave me alone!” he screams, banging the bucket harder and harder. “I can’t hear anything else! Stop polluting the sounds in here! I need to hear what I’m doing!”

Stumbling back out of the shop, I stop for a moment and listen as Pavel continues to bang the bucket. I want to help him, to do something, but the man seems completely insane. Shocked, I turn and make my way back toward my apartment building. I’ll find food from somewhere else, but for now I need to get home and then I must find a way to forget the horror that I just witnessed. Even as I walk away, however, I can still hear Pavel in the distance, banging his bucket and screaming into the night air.

Seven

“Damn it!” a voice hisses in the darkness, as I get close to my building’s front door. “Nearly!”

Startled, I turn just in time to see a rat scurrying away into the darkness, and then I watch as a man – one of my neighbors, I think, although I don’t know his name – chases the creature.

“Get back here!” he shouts. “Come on, this isn’t fair!”

Stopping in the little pool of light in front of the main door, I listen to the sound of the man hurrying through the bushes. I can’t quite believe that he’s attempting to use a rat as a source of food, but then I tell myself that this would not be the most horrific thing that I have witnessed so far tonight. At least I can no longer hear the sound of Pavel hitting his bucket, although I have no doubt that he’s still hard at work trying to make music.

I have to get inside.

Turning, I take the key from my pocket.

“You’re that musician.”

I glance over my shoulder, and for the first time I notice a man sitting on the bench near the broken lamppost. He must have been there all along, and I simply didn’t notice.

“Derek something, right?” he continues. “I know about you. You had a hit back in the 80’s.”

Squinting, I try to make the man out, but he’s too far from the light.

“There’s no point denying it,” he says. “I knew about you even before all of this happened. You’re the nearest thing this part of town has to a celebrity. Why would someone like you live in a place like this, anyway? Didn’t you make millions from your song?”

“It wasn’t that much of a hit,” I say cautiously.

“Weren’t you, like, number one in France for two weeks?”

“Three weeks, actually,” I say cautiously.

“And you didn’t make a load of money?”

“I get by,” I tell him. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must—”

“Can’t you play us a little of it?” he asks, interrupting me. “Just part of it. I know you’ve got a guitar. I used to hear you practicing for hours and hours. To tell you the truth, the sound used to kind of annoy me. I almost came down sometimes to ask you to pack it in, but my wife used to say that I was being mean. So I didn’t say anything, even though the tenancy agreement here gave me every right to put in an official complaint. Don’t you think that means you owe us?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” I tell him, “but I can’t just—”

Before I can finish, I hear a shuffling sound nearby, and I turn to see that there are in fact three more figures standing in the shadows, a little further from the bench.

“I’m afraid I can’t play anything tonight,” I say after a moment, trying to remain diplomatic. “It’s just not possible. I’m sure you understand.”

“Can’t you play?” the man asks.

“The situation is rather—”

“I heard you,” he adds, suddenly getting to his feet. “About two days ago. I heard you play a few bars of music, and I got to thinking that maybe you’re keeping it from the rest of us.”

“I assure you,” I reply, “that I am doing no such thing.”

As I say those words, however, I hear a rustling sound over my shoulder. Turning, I spot several more figures in the shadows, and I begin to realize that I seem to be rather surrounded. I take a step back, bumping against the building’s front door, and then I reach into my pocket and fumble for my key. I don’t want to seem as if I’m in too much of a hurry, but at the same time I very much want to get to the safety of my apartment.

“You can play,” the man says firmly, stepping out of the shadows.

“Roger,” I reply, recognizing one of my less agreeable neighbors, “I assure you—”

“Don’t lie, Derek,” he continues, cutting me off. “I never had you down as a liar. How about you go upstairs and get your guitar, and then you come back down and play for us? Is that really too much to ask?”

“I’m very sorry,” I say, before turning and unlocking the door, “but I’m afraid I’m busy.”

I pull the door open and step into the foyer, only to stop as soon as I see that there are three more men standing on the stairs, blocking my way.

“These fine chaps will escort you,” Roger says firmly, leaving me in no doubt that I shall be forced to comply, “so that you don’t get lost on the way. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Please play for us,” a woman says, edging closer to me with her hands thrust together as if in prayer. “I’m begging you, play something. Anything’ll do, just play for us!”

“Try to understand,” I reply, “I’m not—”

“Please!” she sobs, suddenly dropping to her knees. “I’ll do anything you want! I just need to hear music again!”

“You must try to pull yourself together,” I reply, before realizing that perhaps I am being a little harsh. “I can’t play for you right now,” I continue, “but please, try to be patient. Whatever’s happening, it will pass soon and then everything will go back to normal.”

“You don’t know that!” she whimpers.

“What’s the alternative?” I ask. “That this madness continues?”

“The alternative,” Roger says menacingly, as he comes over to join us, “is that you play for us, Derek. It can be anything. It can even be that stupid pop song that briefly made you famous. Just play something.”

“I—”

Before I’m able to finish, I’m shoved hard in the back, and I take a couple of stumbling steps forward. Just as I begin to recover my balance, I’m shoved again, and now I’m right in the middle of the pool of light. Turning, I find that I’m surrounded by these aggressors.

“Play!” another woman snaps. “Get your guitar and play!”

“Here,” a voice calls out, and I turn to see a man coming down the stairs. To my shock, I realize that he’s holding my guitar.

“Where did you get that from?” I gasp, rushing toward him, only to be held back by another man. “Did you break into my home? You have no right!”

“Play the guitar!” Roger snaps.

“No!” I reply, filled with indignation. “How dare you accost me like this? How dare you even—”

Suddenly Roger swings at me, punching me so hard in the belly that I immediately cry out and drop to my knees. Barely able to catch my breath, I reach out to steady myself, and then I lean forward onto my elbows. The pain is intense and brutal, radiating through my chest, and for a moment I can’t even sit up.

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” Roger continues. “Do you know how much we’ve been suffering? You could make us all better, Derek. You could bring us out of the madness.”

“I can’t!” I splutter. “I’m just a—”

Before I can finish, I’m shoved hard onto my side, and then a boot slams against the side of my face. I recoil in agony, and once again I feel desperately short of breath.

“Are you not gonna do it, man?” Roger yells, as he grabs my guitar from one of his associates and holds it closer to me. “What’s wrong with you?”

“That’s mine!” I gasp, trying in vain to reach out and take the guitar. “Give it to me!”

“Play!”

He thrusts the guitar into my hands.

“Play it,” he snarls, “or, so help me God, you will suffer in unimaginable ways.”

I adjust the guitar in my hands, but my hands are trembling and I can taste blood in the back of my throat. I try to work out what I might play, but at the same time I hate the idea of surrendering to these bullies.

“Play!” a woman says behind me, and then all the other voices join together in chanting the same word over and over, filling the air all around me.

“Play!” they shout.

“Play!”

“Play!”

My left index finger hits one of the strings by accident, but nobody even hears the sound. I call out, telling them all to be quiet, but then I’m shoved in the back and send falling forward. Somebody else punches the side of my face, and then I’m hauled up and spun around before another thud knocks me back down.

“Play!”

“Play!”

“Play!”

I try to beg them to stop, but the frenzy is building and I’m getting kicked and punched from all sides. I feel ribs starting to break, and I can feel blood bursting into the back of my mouth. I try to crawl forward, only to get kicked in the face, and then several more kicks slam into my chest and I fall down. As I land against the concrete ground, I feel and hear a loud, ominous cracking sound coming from the neck of my guitar.

“Play!”

“Play!”

“Play!”

“Stop!” I yell, before holding the guitar up for them to see the damage. “Look what you’ve done, you fools!”

Some of them pull back, and I see Roger staring in horror at the broken instrument. The neck has been cracked open, leaving the strings straddling the gap. I’m sure that even an untrained eye would be able to understand that this guitar can no longer be played.

“Look at it!” I snap. “Is this what you wanted?”

“Why didn’t you just play for us?” Roger asks.

“Why didn’t you leave me alone?” I snap, turning to him. “You had no right to touch me!”

“Well,” he replies, stepping closer, “now you’re no use to us, are you? That was a stupid move, old man. It’s not like we can magically summon up another guitar for you to play, is it? Now you’re just an annoyance, and frankly I think you deserve to be punished for what you’ve done here tonight.”

I try to respond to him, but my left eye is starting to swell shut and I think I’m missing several teeth. My jaw’s damaged, too, and I find that it won’t open when I attempt to speak. Then, as I raise my hands, I see that I have a number of broken fingers. Even if I wanted to play now, I wouldn’t be able. Finally, realizing that the whole situation is hopeless, I let out a faint, low whimper.

“Enough of your self-pity, old man,” Roger says firmly. “This is all your fault.”

With that, he pulls me back and puts an arm around my throat, and then two of his associates come over and start punching me hard in the chest. The first few impacts send great, crashing jolts through my body, but then I feel myself starting to become limp. Held up for the beating, I can barely even let out a murmur as blood begins to run from my mouth, and with my remaining good eye I look up at the night sky and wait for the end.

And then, just as I think I’m about to die, I hear a lone voice cry out from nearby:

“Stop!”

Eight

As Roger and his friends let go of me, I slump down against the cold concrete. I’m too weak to support myself, so I simply roll onto my side and try to ignore the shimmering pain in my ribs.

“I’ll play for you!” the voice shouts nearby. “But only if you leave him alone!”

It’s Sarah.

“Don’t come any closer!” she continues. “I mean it, I’ll smash this thing if you do.”

“Do you even know how to play, little girl?” Roger asks.

Rolling onto my other side, I can just about make out the angry crowd edging closer to Sarah. She’s standing on the low wall that runs along the edge of the path, and she’s holding her guitar as if she’s about to start playing at any moment.

“Don’t,” I whisper, unable to speak more loudly. “Run.”

“I’ll play,” she says firmly, “if you all swear that you’ll never touch Derek again.”

“We promise,” Roger replies, “but you’re going to have to come up with the goods. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re not in the mood to get bluffed.”

“If you could play,” one of the women adds, “you’d have done it by now. There’s no—”

Suddenly Sarah plays a few chords, causing an audible gasp to rise from the crowd. I must admit that even I find myself transfixed as I hear proper music for the first time in a week.

Almost immediately, however, Sarah stops.

“Carry on!” a voice calls out. “You have to!”

“I want you to promise me two things,” Sarah replies. “First, you’ll leave Derek alone and never hurt him again.”

“We promise!” all the voices shout.

“And secondly,” she continues, “you’ll actually listen, and you’ll try to remember it, because I don’t know how long I can play for. Do you understand?”

“Get on with it!”

“Just play, please!” another voice yells. “What are you waiting for?”

Everyone’s shouting now, their voices drowning one another out. After a moment, however, I start to realize that I can hear guitar music playing, and slowly the voices begin to fade away until finally the entire crowd is standing in silence.

After a week with no music, I must admit that Sarah’s playing makes me want to weep with joy. She’s good, better than I remembered, and she makes no mistakes as she seamlessly moves from one piece to the next. I start to slowly sit up, and eventually I’m able to ignore the pain in my body and focus instead on the sheer beauty of the music.

It seems that I’m not the only one, either.

Every single member of the crowd seems lost in the moment. They’re staring at her, as if the sound is making them almost catatonic. Indeed, they appear almost zombie-like as the minutes pass, and I swear that not one of them has spoken a single word since they began to hear Sarah’s playing. Despite the pain that’s filling my body, I listen to the music and feel as if there’s still hope in the world, and for ten, maybe fifteen minutes this perfect moment continues.

Finally, however, Sarah makes a mistake.

Then another.

And another.

At first, these are just small, isolated errors, but over the next few minutes they start to become both more frequent and more obvious. I try to tell myself that such errors are perfectly natural, that the girl has never really performed in public before, but gradually I begun to realize that something else is happening here. As the mistakes pile up and begin to disrupt the piece that she’s playing, I start to understand that it sounds as if she’s slowly but surely losing the ability to play.

As if, for her too, the music is finally starting to ‘run out’.

Still she plays on, forcing herself to somehow keep going. I can hear her faltering more and more, and after a few more seconds there are faint murmuring and grumbles starting to rise up from the crowd.

And the mistakes are becoming more and more frequent.

“Play properly!” a voice calls out, and this seems to embolden the rest of the crowd.

“Why are you screwing it up so much?” another voice shouts.

“Come on, do it properly!”

“Get out of here,” I gasp, unable to raise my voice above a whisper, due to the pain in my side. “Sarah, run.”

She doesn’t run. She continues to play, even when it’s clear that she’s no longer pleasing the crowd. I hear her calling out, telling them to be patient, but the crowd has begun to surround her now.

Angry voices are rising into the air, and finally Sarah’s playing stops completely.

“More!” several people yell. “Bring it back!”

“I can’t!” Sarah gasps from somewhere in the crowd, although I can no longer see her. “That’s all I could do! I’m sorry!”

That’s not enough! I hear shouts and curses, and it’s clear that people are starting to grab at Sarah in an attempt to force her to continue. I hear her voice, too, calling out to them and trying to make them understand.

“Stop!” I try to shout, as I stumble to my feet, only to slip and fall back down. “Leave her alone! She’s done enough!”

The roar of the crowd is getting louder, and I’m barely able to crawl closer on my hand and knees. I know I have to stop them, that I have to somehow rescue Sarah, but my battered body is unable to support me. By the time I reach the very edge of the crowd, I can hear ferocious voices shouting ahead and – beyond that – the most awful scream.

“Stop this!” I gasp, reaching out and grabbing the leg of the nearest woman. “Stop it at once!”

Ignoring me, the woman presses deeper into the crowd, and I swiftly find that I have no chance of penetrating any deeper into this mass of people. I try as hard as I can, but I’m beaten back as the cries and screams rise higher into the night sky. For a moment, it’s as if all I hear are the cries of wild animals, and then finally – as if all are suddenly agreed- they begin to wander away.

They all look so exhausted now as they wander back to their apartments. Dazed, they seem almost to shuffle.

Roger stops and glances at me, and for a few seconds I wonder whether he’s going to come over and finish me off. Then, as if he’s too tired and he supposes I’m not worth the effort, he turns and heads back into the building.

Slowly, I turn to look at Sarah, and I feel an instant burst of horror in my chest as I see what they have done to her.

Nine

“No!” I sob, crawling as fast as I can to the spot where her crumpled body has been abandoned. “What’s wrong with you people?”

As soon as I saw her, I knew she was no more. Now that I’m closer, I am able to make out the true nature of her injuries. I would say that she has been trampled to death, except I am not sure that this description is adequate. Instead, as I crawl closer and reach out to touch her shoulder, I find that she appears to have been torn apart.

Her left arm has been wrenched from its socket, with thick strands of muscle bulging from beneath the sleeve of her t-shirt. Her neck has been twisted ninety degree to one side, and her eyes are bulging from their sockets. She has been almost completely ripped apart at the waist.

Nearby, her guitar has been trampled and destroyed.

“Why did you do that?” I whimper, with tears running down my face. “I’m an old man, you should have left me to die. Why did you throw your life away like that?”

* * *

Slamming the remains of Sarah’s guitar down onto the desk in my front room, I stop for a moment and try to work out what I should do next.

I’m filled with rage, and it’s the rage that is allowing me to keep going. Despite the pain in my body, and the fact that I have numerous broken bones all over, sheer rage is allowing me to get about. I was unable to actually dig a grave for poor Sarah, but I dragged her into a bush and left her there, while telling myself that I can return later to give her a proper burial. Now I’m starting to realize that this might be impossible, and it’s clear to me now that there’s no honor or decency left in this world.

“Barbarians,” I mutter, before taking my mobile telephone and trying yet again to call the police.

I need to report this murder, but so far tonight nobody has picked up at the station. Indeed, before the news broadcasts stopped there was talk of officers abandoning their posts. All across the world, people seem to be forgetting their responsibilities and wandering off into the streets. I let the call ring for a few more seconds, and then I set my phone down while muttering a few disgust-laden curse words.

My hands are shaking.

I want to go and bang on Roger’s door and ask him why he murdered that poor girl. At the same time, I doubt very much that he would listen to me. Everyone in this building is now insane, as if the events of the past week have tipped them completely over the edge. If this is how things are now, I hate to imagine how low these monsters will stoop after a day or two more, and I most certainly do not want to stick around and see the horror for myself.

I have to go.

Suddenly filled with this realization, I hurry through to my bedroom and grab my tattered old suitcase. It has been a long time since I traveled anywhere, but I am quite certain that I would not survive another twenty-four hours in this building. I have friends in town, and I suppose I shall have to head to the main road and hope that some of the bus services are still running. Then, when all of this horror is over, I shall go to the police and make sure that Sarah’s murderers are brought to justice. I refuse to believe that human civilization has completely fallen apart.

For now, however, I must get out of this wretched building.

Once my suitcase is packed, I hurry back out to the front room. I can hardly think straight, and my mind is racing, but after a moment I stop as I see Sarah’s broken guitar resting next to my own. The sight is enough to send a chill up my spine and – although I know that time is of the essence – I cannot help but set my suitcase down and make my way over to take a closer look at the guitars.

Both are broken at the neck.

I know that I should travel light, but I cannot bear the thought of leaving my precious guitar behind. I grab the case, before realizing suddenly that perhaps such a thing might prove to be unwisely conspicuous. I hesitate, before hurrying to the kitchen and then returning with a pack of large black plastic sacks. I start pulling them open, and I quickly manage to disguise my guitar. Then, feeling as if it would be terribly sad to leave poor Sarah’s guitar behind, I wrap hers up as well. If I am to take one guitar with me, it is not much inconvenience to add a second.

Before leaving, I switch the television back on. The last signals faded a while ago, and sure enough I flip through the channels and see nothing but error messages and blue screens.

Things must be bad in London, if even the BBC is no longer broadcasting.

Finally, once I am certain that staying here is no option, I head back to the kitchen and gather my last meager scraps of food and water, and then I head to the door and pull it open.

Peering out into the hallway, I see no sign of anyone. Evidently Roger and his fellow monsters have retired for the night, no doubt worn out from their burst of anger. I still wait for a few seconds, just in case there’s any hint of movement, and then I step out and pull my door shut before heading as quietly as possible toward the stairs.

As I pass Roger’s door, I stop for a moment and listen. I hear a sound from within, and after a couple of seconds I realize that it sounds as if the man is sobbing. There is a part of me that feels rather sorry for him, but then I remember what he and the others did to Sarah. He’ll have to answer for his actions once order has been restored. He and all the rest of them.

Once I’ve reached the top of the stairs, I hurry down as fast as my bruised legs will carry me. I’m already struggling with the combined weight of the suitcase and the two guitars, but I know I can manage.

Reaching the building’s front door, I peer out to make sure that there’s still no sign of anyone, and then I begin to make my way along the darkened path. After just a few paces, however, I stop in my tracks as I spot the bush where I left Sarah’s body, and I realize instantly that I can’t just walk away like this.

Maybe I can’t bury her, but there’s still one thing I can do.

I set my suitcase and the guitars aside, and then I make my way to the janitorial shed at the end of the building. There’s a lock on the door, of course, so I remove my jacket and use it to cover my fist as I break one of the windows. Ordinarily someone would come running, perhaps alerted by an alarm, but on this occasion I believe I am fully justified in my actions. I use my mobile telephone to light the way, and after a few minutes I manage to find what I need. I head back over to the bush where I left Sarah’s body, and I see her lifeless corpse still on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I say, supposing that I should try to say something deep and meaningful. “I won’t forget you. I’ll make sure that those bastards pay for what they did for you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

With that, I open the can of petrol that I found in the shed and I douse Sarah’s body. I’m not sure how I shall explain this to the police when all this drama is over, but I suppose I shall tell them that I feared some kind of disturbance. At least this way the poor girl will have some dignity, so I finally toss the can aside and then I take a lighter from my pocket. Again, I feel I should say something profound, but I can’t think of the words so – instead – I simply flick the side of the lighter and set it down, and immediately flames rush across Sarah’s body and begin to burn not only her but also the bush.

Stepping back, I’m rather startled by the realization that I might have started a significant fire that will tear through the entire garden, but then I tell myself that somebody will surely come and extinguish the flames.

For now, I stare for a moment at the inferno and I think of poor Sarah, and then I turn and gather my belongings. As I do so, however, I happen to glance up toward the side of the building, and then I freeze as I see a human figure hanging from one of the windows.

The flames behind me pick out the sight of a male body dangling from a rope that has been attached around its neck, and I realize quickly that I recognize this man. I heard Roger sobbing a short while ago, and it was appear that he has now taken his own life. Did he, perhaps, pull out of his frenzy and realize the horror of what he’d done? Even though he acted like a monster, I suppose the original, decent Roger was in there somewhere.

Finding the whole mess too horrible to contemplate, I turn and carry my belongings along the dark path. Ahead is the main road and, I hope, a way to reach the safety of my friends’ home.

Ten

By the time the sun begins to rise, I have been walking for several hours and I have not been passed by a single vehicle.

At first I waited at one of the bus stops, before realizing the folly of my choice. There are clearly no buses running at the moment, so I decided to head north and hope that I might hitch a ride. Now, however, my tired and pained body feels as if it’s beginning to fail, and I’m not entirely sure what I should do next. Going back is not an option, yet this road is in the middle of nowhere and I am fully aware that there are no buildings for several miles to come.

Finally I stop for a moment and set the suitcase and guitars down, and then I take a few seconds to listen to my surroundings.

All I hear is silence. Even now, with the sun poking above the horizon, there is no noise. After a moment I look up and see birds in the trees, but even they are not singing. Has this strange malady affected not just humans, but all creatures? Perhaps I am reading too much into the situation, but I fancy that the birds look a little out-of-sorts, as if perhaps the inability to sing is causing them trouble.

Still, at least they aren’t turning on one another like crazed monsters. Already, then, they’re one step above humanity.

I pick up my suitcase and the guitars, and I once again start walking along the road. This journey feels relentless, and I’m starting to wonder whether I shall ever see another living soul. Just a few seconds later, however, I hear the distant sound of an engine. Turning, I look back the way that I have just walked, and sure enough after a few more seconds I spot a truck coming this way.

For a moment, I consider trying to step out of sight, just in case this truck is driven by another maniac. Realizing that it’s too late to hide, however, I watch as the truck slows and passes me, and then as it comes to a halt at the side of the road with its engine still running.

Perhaps I was right.

Perhaps this really is another crazed fool.

A moment later the driver-side door opens, and it occurs to me that while my fears are justified, the driver might be wondering the same thing about me.

Finally a face peers out from inside the truck, and I see a middle-aged man staring at me.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I…” For a few seconds, I’m not quite sure what to say. “I’m going to see some friends,” I manage finally. “There’s no bus service, so…”

My voice trails off.

“Where?” the man asks.

“It’s quite a walk,” I reply, “but they live in Borrell Avenue and—”

“You don’t want to go there,” he says firmly.

“You see, my friends live there and—”

“If your friends have got any sense, they won’t be there now anyway,” he adds, cutting me off yet again. “I just went that way and it’s not good up there.”

“Well, I still think that my friends—”

“You’d be better off coming with me.”

I hesitate for a moment. This man seems friendly enough, but in the current situation one cannot be too careful. Finally, as the man climbs out of his truck and comes closer, I start to realize that I’m rather defenseless. Still, if he has as go at me, I’ll fight back. I might be in my seventies but that doesn’t mean I can’t swing a punch.

“I’ve been to the city,” the man says, putting his hands on his hips, “and it’s a bad place to be right now. I saw dead bodies just left out on the side of the road, and people who looked like they’d gone completely nuts. The way I figure, the best thing right now is to hunker down somewhere and wait for all this madness to pass over. That’s why I’m going out to visit some people I know who have a farm. Good people. Safe people.”

“That’s all well and good,” I reply, “but my friends will be—”

“Your friends’ll be dead if they’re still at Borrell Avenue,” he says, apparently unwilling to let me complete a single sentence. “Either that, or they’ll be raging crazies by now. I don’t know how to put this any other way, but the city’s a death-trap right now.” He pauses, looking me up and down. “You don’t seem so crazy,” he adds finally. “How about you come along with me. It’s better than the way you’re going right now.”

“You’re very kind,” I reply, “but…”

My voice trails off again. This man seems nice enough, but at the same time there’s something a little unusual about him, something I can’t quite put my finger on. As much as I’m sure he’s very earnest in his advice, I think I should continue with my original plan. I’m a good judge of character, and this fellow doesn’t seem right to me.

“You’re very kind,” I say again, “but I really think I should get going. Thank you all the same, and good luck to you.”

With that, I turn to walk away.

“Hey, aren’t you Derek Harrisford?” he asks suddenly.

Stopping, I look back at him.

“The singer,” he continues, tilting his head slightly. “The musician. You had that song back in the ’eighties, didn’t you? The one that was everywhere for a few weeks.”

“Well…”

Pausing, I realize that I’ve been recognized.

“We used to listen to that song all the time,” he says, smiling as he takes a step closer. “I worked at a car repair place at the time, and we actually wore out two tape copies ’cause we played it so much. That song was a real ear-worm, huh?”

“It was certainly popular,” I reply.

“I liked that follow-up you did, too,” he says. “Too bad it wasn’t as big, but I thought it was great.”

“Thank you.”

He pauses, before taking a step back.

“Okay,” he continues, “well, I really don’t think you should go to the city, not until things get better. But I get it, you’ve got your own plans. Stay safe, Mr. Harrisford. I hope one day everything goes back to normal. I had no idea you lived round here. I’ll keep an eye out in case you play somewhere.”

He turns to head back to his truck.

“Where did you say you were going?” I ask.

He glances at me again.

“I was thinking,” I continue, “maybe you have a point about the city.”

“It’s not nice there at the moment.”

“That offer of a ride in your truck was very generous,” I say, stepping toward him, “and I was wondering, is there any chance that I could change my mind and accept?”

“I can take you to the farm,” he replies.

“That would be extremely kind of you.”

He comes closer and we shake hands.

“Dean Clarke,” he says with a smile. “It’s a real honor to meet you, Mr. Harrisford, but I think we should get going. I want to reach the farm before sundown.”

As we head to the truck, I tell myself that this chap seems very trustworthy. I have been very lucky, running into someone who is clearly so trustworthy, and I feel rather bad for doubting him earlier. I’m sure he’s right about the city being a dangerous place, and I quite like the idea of hiding out on a farm until all this madness has passed. I can only hope that some day we shall all be able to get back to normal, and that this nightmare will not mark the complete breakdown of human civilization.

Eleven

“There she is,” Dean says a few hours later, as the truck bumps along a dirt road. “Big place, huh?”

Squinting, I’m just about able to make out a farmhouse in the distance, along with a large barn and several out-buildings. The journey has been rather uncomfortable so far and I’m glad that it’s almost over, although Dean and I have managed to keep the conversation going. For the most post, he wanted to hear my stories of the music industry, and I confess that I dropped a few names. Still, this fellow’s musical tastes are not terribly sophisticated, and I doubt he would have wanted me to talk about my more recent classical work.

“Don’t worry,” he continues, “I’ll introduce you to Donald and Sharon. They’re friends of mine from a long way back. They’ll take real good care of you.”

“That’s very generous,” I reply, “and—”

Before I can finish, the truck hits a particularly large bump and I’m jolted forward. At the same time, my right knee bangs hard against the side of the door and I feel a sharp pain bursting up my leg.

“Sorry about that,” Dean says. “Like I said, nearly there!”

* * *

“Sure, I remember that song,” this Donald chap says as we stand in his yard. “I think so, anyway. It was a hit for a while.”

“A modest one,” I reply.

“It wasn’t really my cup of tea,” he continues with a loud sniff. “I heard it on the radio a few times, mainly when other people had it on. I’ve never really been a fan of the poppy, lowest-common-denominator stuff that fills the charts.”

“What my friend is trying to say,” Dean interjects, “is that it’s nice to meet you.”

“That’s true enough,” Donald adds with a nod. “We’ll be glad to give you a place to rest your head, Mr. Harrisford. Let’s just hope that things start getting back to normal soon. The power went out this afternoon, which isn’t a good sign, and the phone lines are all down. We’ve still got water for now, but we’re starting to stockpile it in case the pipes start running dry. As for food, luckily we—”

“What are you all doing out here?” a woman’s voice shouts suddenly, and a moment later a worried, harried-looking lady emerges from the house and glares at us. “Donald, get them inside,” she adds, before looking past us as if she’s seen something that upsets her.

I turn and follow her gaze, but all I see is the dirt road and the forest.

“Hurry!” she continues as I turn back to her. “It’s getting dark!”

“You’ll have to forgive my wife,” Donald says with a sigh. “She’s easily spooked at the moment, although I guess she has a point. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see about making you comfortable.”

“You’re very kind,” I reply as I follow him and Dean into the farmhouse, although I can’t help glancing back once again toward the forest, and wondering why the lady seems so troubled.

“This is our daughter Jessie,” Donald says as I reach the kitchen, where a gangly young girl is sitting at the table with a pair of headphones on her ears and a mobile telephone in her hands. She barely even looks up at me as I enter. “And over there,” he adds, “is our son Adam and his friend Craig.”

Turning, I see two young men – teenagers, really – sitting on a sofa in the next room.

“This is a lovely place,” I say to Donald, as I notice that his wife is staring out the window as if she’s still afraid of something. “Might I ask what kind of farming you do?”

“Potatoes,” he replies, “as far as the eye can see. And some chickens.” He turns to Sharon. “Honey, can you get away from that window? You’re making us all tense.”

“Damn it!” Jessie hisses, and I turn to see the girl gripping her phone tightly. “Why can’t this thing just work? Is it really that hard for them to just leave the transmitters on?”

“Easy there,” Donald says, wandering over and putting a hand on her shoulder, only for her to swat the hand away. “The phones’ll be on again at some point, you just have to be patient.”

“I’ve been patient for days now!” she snaps, her voice shaking with anger. “We need to be able to communicate, Dad! We need to know what’s going on out there!”

“We’ll find out when we find out,” he tells her, before looking over at his wife again. “Sharon, can you talk some sense into this girl?”

As they continue to argue, I drift over toward the door that leads into the next room, and I find myself looking through at the two young boys on the sofa.

“Good evening,” I say.

“Who are you?” one of them asks.

“My name’s Derek and—”

“What are you doing here?”

“Don’t be rude, Adam,” the other boy says, nudging his companion. “You’ve got loads of room here.”

“We don’t have loads of food, though,” Adam says, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “Did you bring food, old man? Or are you just planning of freeloading?”

“I—”

“That’s enough,” Dean says, slipping past me and stepping into the room. “It’s good to see the pair of you. Your father has very kindly agreed to let Derek and I stay for a few days. If there’s still been no improvement by the weekend, I think we’re all going to have to re-think our approach.”

“I’m going to go and check that the barn’s locked,” Adam mutters, getting to his feet and heading out into the kitchen. As he goes, he glares at me. “We don’t all have time to stand around doing nothing and expecting other people to help out.”

I open my mouth to tell him that I’d be glad to go with him, but he’s already hurrying out through the front door, and it’s clear that the young man is decidedly angry.

“Ignore him,” Dean says, keeping his voice low. “That kid’s had a chip on his shoulder for as long as I’ve known him.”

“Food’ll be ready soon,” Donald says, coming over to join us. “We don’t have much, Mr. Harrisford, but we’re happy to share. To be honest, we’ve been cooped up in here for a few days now. It’ll be nice to have someone fresh to talk to over dinner.”

“Thank you so much,” I reply, although I can’t help noticing that his wife is still peering out the window, watching the darkening yard. “You’ve all been so very kind.”

“Come on, you stupid thing!” Jessie says, still desperately tapping at her phone. “Why won’t you work? It’s not rocket science! Just work!”

Twelve

“I knew it was trouble, right from the start,” Donald says later, as we sit at the dinner table. Candles are flickering between us, bringing just enough light for us to eat. “I had a hunch. I said to Sharon on the first day, that this is going to be trouble.”

He turns to his wife.

“Remember that, honey?”

We all wait, but she’s staring at the window.

“It’s okay,” he continues, nudging her arm. “Come on, stop worrying. I told you, the barn’s perfectly secure now.”

“Is everything alright?” I ask.

Sharon turns to me and opens her mouth to say something.

“My wife just worries about the chickens,” Donald says firmly, as if he’s keen to keep her from telling me what’s really on her mind. “We’ve had some trouble with foxes over the past few days.”

“Sure,” Adam murmurs nearby. “Foxes.”

“It’s foxes, alright,” Donald continues. “There’s no doubt about that.”

I feel as if I’m coming in at the tail-end of a disagreement that has been going on for some time, so I focus on setting some vegetables onto my plate. After a moment, however, there’s a sudden bumping sound and I turn to see that Sharon has jumped to her feet, sending her chair scraping across the floor in the process.

“What was that?” she gasps.

“It was nothing!” Donald says with a sigh, grabbing her arm. “Sit down, you’ll get everyone spooked.”

“Didn’t you hear?” she asks, before turning to each of us in turn. “I swear, there’s something out there!”

“It’s just the wind,” Donald tells her firmly. “We’ve talked about this before. That barn is fox-proof now, there’s no way anything’s getting in there.”

“Unless it’s not a fox,” Adam mutters.

Sharon sits back down, although I can tell from the look on her face that she’s still not convinced. The whole rooms seems tense. Jessie is still tapping at her phone, but everyone else is now sitting in silence and carefully avoiding eye contact. I want to say something to break the ice, although I can’t really think of anything. Usually, in situations like this I’d fetch my guitar and play a few songs, just to lighten the mood, but that’s not an option right now.

“Are you okay with the camp-bed in the back room, Mr. Harrisford?” Donald asks finally. It’s clear that he wants to move the conversation on. “It’s not much, but I’m afraid it’s all we can offer.”

“It’s very good, thank you,” I reply. “I should only—”

Before I can finish, there’s a loud bang from outside.

Donald, Sharon and the two boys immediately get to their feet and look toward the window, although all that can be seen is a reflection of our candlelit dinner. A moment later, however, Sharon blows out all the candles and rushes over to peer out at the yard, and Donald goes to join her.

“Don’t tell me that was a fox!” Sharon hisses. “That thing is back again!”

“What thing?” I ask, before turning to Dean and seeing that he seems to have no idea either.

“Sharon, Jessie, you both stay here,” Donald says firmly, before turning and heading toward the front door. “Adam, Craig, you’re with me.”

“We’ll come too,” Dean adds, and he and I go after the others as they head outside.

Donald has taken a shotgun that was resting near the shoes, and once I’m out in the yard I can just about see him heading toward the barn. There’s a decent amount of moonlight tonight, bathing us all in an ethereal blue haze, but there’s no time to take in the beauty of the scene. Already, there are more loud bangs and bumping sounds coming from the barn, along with the clucks of disturbed chickens.

“I told you it’d come back!” Adam shouts. “It’s getting braver!”

“What is?” I ask, struggling to keep up with them all. I’m already a little out of breath.

Before anyone can answer, there’s another – louder – bang straight ahead, accompanied by an almighty growl that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

We all stop, and now it’s clear that something is causing havoc inside the barn.

“You’ve got to kill it this time, Dad!” Adam sneers. “You’ve got to make sure you hit it right. Give me the gun, I can do it.”

“Leave it to me,” Donald replies.

“But Dad, I—”

“I said, leave it to me.” After pausing for a moment, Donald starts making his way once again toward the barn. “Everyone else stay back.”

“I grew up on a farm,” I say, watching the yard ahead for any hint of movement coming from the barn’s large, bolted main door, “and I never knew of a fox that could make all that racket.”

“That’s because it isn’t a fox,” Craig says, turning to me in the moonlight. “We all know that.”

“Then what is it?” I ask.

“We haven’t seen it,” he replies, “not properly, but we’ve seen what it can do. And we heard about them, right before all the TV channels and the internet went off. People were saying that they’d seen them on the day the music went away. At first it sounded crazy, we just assumed everyone was imagining stuff, but then…”

I wait, but there’s fear in his eyes.

“Then what?” I ask.

“Then we realized one was here,” he continues. “I don’t know how, but it’s as if—”

Suddenly a shot rings out, and we both turn to see that Donald is racing around the side of the barn. Adam and Craig immediately start running after him, and then Dean goes too, while I limp along as fast as I can manage. My battered body is fighting back, begging me to rest, but as I reach the side of the barn I realize that pure adrenaline must be keeping me going. I can hear Donald and the others shouting, and a moment later there’s another gunshot.

And then silence.

I wait, standing all alone in the darkness. The barn towers high above me, blocking out the moonlight, and after a moment I realize that I can hear a series of bumping sounds coming from inside. I want to call out to the others, to ask what’s happening, but I tell myself that they must have fallen silent for a reason.

Watching the barn’s dark wall, I realize after a moment that the bumping sound seems to be coming closer. Something’s on the other side of the wall, coming this way, and finally I take a step back as I realize that I can feel the ground rumbling beneath my feet.

Before I can react, a shape smashes through the barn’s wall, sending pieces of wood flying in all directions. I turn away and slip, slamming down hard in the mud, and then as I start to sit up something brushes against me. After pulling away, I look around, and finally I spot a dark, human-sized shape scrambling away across the yard and heading toward the forest. Whatever that thing was, however, it seemed to have very long arms and legs, and I think I made out a domed, bald head.

“Where is it?” Donald shouts, and I turn to see the others coming up behind me.

“Did it come this way?” Adam asks breathlessly. “We have to kill it! It won’t stop until we do. And if it lasts much longer, it’s going to start coming for us.”

Turning, I look back toward the forest. There’s no sign of the creature – whatever it was – but I know that I saw something in-human. Something that looked as if it had crawled up from the depths of Hell.

Thirteen

“I only got a glimpse of it, very briefly,” Craig says as we sit by the window in the front room, with a single candle flickering nearby. “That was enough, though. I could tell that it was… not from here.”

“Not from where?” I ask. “From the farm?”

“From the whole world,” he replies, keeping his voice low as the others talk in the next room. “You saw it, you said it yourself, it didn’t look human.”

I pause for a moment, but at the same time I know that I can’t really argue with him. Every time I think back to the sight of that creature earlier tonight, I feel more and more certain that what I saw was some kind of monstrosity.

“I think these are the things that took the music away,” Craig says.

I turn to him.

“I know how it sounds,” he continues, “but hear me out. There were reports of them showing up right around the time that it all happened. It seems like they can usually hide themselves from us, unless something goes wrong. Apparently they were swarming in certain places, and then they were gone. For whatever reason, this one seems to have stayed behind.”

“You’re right,” I reply. “That does sound crazy.”

“It ripped through the side of the barn,” he points out. “That shows strength. But it keeps coming back, almost every night. I think maybe it’s hurt in some way, or there’s something keeping it from going home.”

“Home?” I ask. “Where would home be for something like that?”

“I have no idea, but it keeps going for the chickens in the barn.”

I open my mouth to tell him that none of this can be true, but then I realize that I saw the wretched creature with my own eyes.

“Has it ever attacked anyone?” I ask finally.

“Almost,” he replies, “but I think that was defensive more than anything. Donald and Adam want to kill it, but I think it’ll go away if we just give it whatever it wants. Not that I know what that might be. The thing is, I think Donald managed to hit it the other night, but he only managed to slow it down. Just going out there and trying to use brute force is never going to work. We have to try to understand this thing.”

Before I can answer, I hear footsteps nearby, and I turn to see that Dean has come through from the front room.

“We were thinking we should all get some sleep,” he says. “There’s a cold wind blowing from the south, and that usually means rain’s coming. Besides, Donald says that thing never attacks twice in one night, so we should be safe for now. And then tomorrow we can start trying to figure out exactly what’s going on.”

“How long are we going to stay here?” Craig asks.

“Hopefully just until things get fixed,” he replies.

“Which is when?”

“I don’t know, but—”

“We need a better plan,” Craig continues, and he sounds a little agitated now. “Right now, we’re sitting ducks. We’re going to run out of water at some point, and then things will get really bad. We have to consider the possibility that things aren’t going to get better, at least not any time soon.”

“The government—”

“There might not even be a government!” he hisses. “For all we know, everything has collapsed. The sooner we start making a proper plan, the more likely we are to be able to survive this mess.”

“He’s right,” I suggest, even though I don’t want to admit the fact. “I’ve been waiting for things to magically go back to normal, but I have to admit that if anything it would seem that we’re headed in the opposite direction. Most people seem to have lost their minds, and the rest of us seem to have little hope of being rescued. I think we might be better off trying to settle in for the long-haul.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Dean replies, but his voice sounds heavy and tired, and I think he knows that I’m right. “I know Donald has some thoughts that he wants to share with us all. He’s been a farmer all his life, he knows how to live off the land. If anyone can figure out what we should do next, it’s him. Now, please, try to get some sleep. Something tells me that if the weather’s really bad tomorrow, we’ve got a real bad day in store.”

He turns and heads back through to the others, and I realize after a moment that he might be right. Besides, I’m exhausted and in pain, so I haul myself up from the chair and wince slightly as I feel a flicker of pain in my right leg.

“Are you okay?” Craig asks.

“Never better.”

“I hope you don’t mind the question,” he continues, “but did you get beaten up recently?”

“I don’t mind at all,” I tell him, “and yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“Before or after the music went away?”

“After,” I explain. “It was last night, actually. I think I’ll be okay, though. Nothing too important seems to be broken.”

With that, I turn and start limping toward the door.

“What was the name of your song?” he asks.

I turn to him, startled by the question.

“Sorry,” he continues, “but I heard Dean telling Sharon that you had some kind of hit song.”

“You wouldn’t have heard of it,” I tell him. “It was released before you were born.”

“Try me,” he replies. “I might know.”

“As a matter of fact, it was called Picture in Your Pocket,” I explain. “Three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of the poppiest nonsense you ever heard.”

“I know that song,” he says with a faint smile. “It shows up in TV shows sometimes.”

“That’s good,” I reply, “I’m glad someone somewhere is getting some royalties for it.”

“Do you still write songs?”

“I’m more into classical music these days,” I tell him. “Elizabethan is my favorite, the likes of John Dowland. Some of his…”

My voice trails off as I suddenly realize that there’s no point explaining. Besides, it’s not as if I can go and fetch my guitar to play him some examples, even if he seems genuinely interested. The boy seems keen, however, so I put my lips together and whistle a few bars of Dowland’s In Darkness Let Me Dwell. At least I can still whistle a little, although even this is probably being subtracted from whatever musical ability I still possess.

“That’s cool,” he says. “That’s the first music I’ve heard in well over a week.”

“Me too,” I reply. “I hope I shan’t run out now.”

“Can you play me something when this is all over?” he asks. “If it ever ends.”

“When this is over,” I reply, “I imagine there will be some very special concerts all around the world. And I will certainly get involved in some capacity.”

“I can’t wait,” he replies. “Sometimes I see people going nuts without music, and I worry that I might join them. I’m holding it together so far, but it’s hard. I really need to hear music soon.”

“Fingers crossed, eh?” I say, before turning and heading out of the room.

The kitchen is mostly empty as I head through to the room in which I am to sleep, although I notice that Jessie is still tapping at her phone. She must have spent all day glued to that thing, and I’ve barely seen her move from her spot at the table. I tell her that I’ll see her in the morning, but she doesn’t respond and I doubt that she even heard me. By the time I reach the next room and push the door shut, I feel as if I’m absolutely exhausted. Despite the pain throughout my body, and the thoughts that are rushing through my mind, I think I shall sleep rather well.

Once I have settled on the camp-bed, however, my thoughts turn to poor Sarah, and I find myself staying awake for hours, reliving the moment of her death over and over again.

Fourteen

Hearing a whispering sound in the dark, I open my eyes and turn to look across the room.

I have no idea of the time, but it’s still dark outside as I sit up. I instinctively reach out for a light-switch, before remembering that there’s no point. I must have dozed off after thinking about Sarah, but now I’m wide awake and I’m quite certain that I heard somebody whispering close to my ear.

I listen, but all I hear now is silence.

“Hello?” I say cautiously. “Is somebody in here?”

I wait, and I watch the darkness, but there’s nothing.

“If somebody’s here,” I continue, “I should like very much to get back to sleep.”

Again, I wait.

Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps the whisper was something that existed merely at that point between sleep and wakefulness. Besides, after everything that has happened over the past few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if I start hallucinating and hearing things. Why, it’s a miracle that any of us have managed to remain even remotely sane.

Once I’m satisfied that there was no whisper, I settle back down onto the camp-bed and try once more to find a comfortable position.

Almost immediately, however, I hear the whisper again.

Sitting bolt upright, I look yet again into the darkness. Apart from the faint outline of the door, I really can’t make out much in this room, and I suppose it’s entirely possible that somebody could be lurking nearby. After a moment I look over at the window, and I start to feel as if I’m being watched. I tell myself that this is nonsense, of course, but the feeling persists and finally I get up from the camp-bed, which creaks as it’s released from the burden of my weight.

I stare at the window for a moment, and then I take a step forward.

Instantly, I’m hit by a strong sense of hunger. It’s as if sheer, uncontrollable hunger has filled my body, and I immediately step back. This doesn’t help, however, and I have to steady myself for a moment against the wall. Still the hunger burns through my soul, but I’m starting to realize now that this hunger isn’t physical at all. It’s as if I’m hungering for something intangible, for something that should be a part of me.

Finally I let out a faint gasp, and I’m forced to sit back down on the edge of the camp-bed.

“Help me,” I whisper as the sense of hunger gets stronger and stronger. “Please, someone…”

For a moment, I start to wonder whether this is the end. Is it possible that after all the extremes of the past few days, not to mention the beating that I endured, perhaps my heart is failing? This strange sensation doesn’t feel like a cardiac arrest, but – as I lean back against the wall and struggle for breath – I can’t shake the fear that my time is up. I squeeze my eyes tight shut, hoping against hope that I might miraculously recover.

And then, suddenly, I feel a breeze against my face.

Startled, I open my eyes and find that I am no longer in that dark little room. I am on a beach of brilliant orange sand, staring ahead at a calm, tranquil purple sea. Above, a bright sun burns high in an auburn sky, and after a moment I realize I can hear the sound of water lapping against rocks. Turning, I see that the purple sea is pushing against a set of green rocks that rise up from the sand.

Getting to my feet, I realize that the sense of hunger has left me as swiftly as it came.

“What is this place?” I whisper, turning around and seeing that behind me there is a vast green cliff-face. “What—”

Before I can finish, I hear music playing.

I turn and look out toward the sea, and then I realize that the music is coming from just a few paces away. Hanging in mid-air, there is a flickering black line barely a couple of inches wide, with flashing stars twinkling in the heart of a small void.

I step closer, and now it’s very clear that the music – which sounds like a simple composition played on a flute – is definitely coming from this strange shape. Instinctively, I reach out to touch the small stars, only to feel the same sense of hunger returning to my body. This time, however, something is different, and I realize after a moment that the hunger is now mixed with a sense of wonder. I stare at the stars for a moment longer, and then – quite inexplicably – I lunge forward and try to bite the sparkling shape.

Of course, I fall straight through and land hard on the orange sand, and then I turn to see that the shape is gone. The music has stopped, too, but I’m stunned for a moment by the realization that I was briefly filled with an urge to try to eat the music.

I must be dreaming.

I get up again and brush the sand from my jacket, but suddenly I hear footsteps. I turn, just in time to see a figure coming this way along the beach. Whoever this fellow is, he’s jet-black from top to toe, glistening as if he’s covered in some kind of thick oil. His arms and legs seem longer and more gangly that might be possible, and after a moment I realize that the bald head reminds me of the creature that I saw breaking out of Donald’s barn.

“Who are you?” I call out, but the creature ignores me and instead stops to peer at the spot where the strange shape previously hung in the air.

I wait, but it’s as if the creature has not noticed me.

“What is this place?” I ask, taking a step toward him. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Tell me that I’m dreaming.”

The creature stares at the empty space for a moment longer, before slowly turning to me.

“This isn’t real,” I whisper, before starting to pinch my left hand. “It can’t be real. I must be losing my mind. I must be having a stroke or something, right there on that camp-bed. I can only—”

Suddenly the creature’s featureless black face begins to change, and I see row upon row of sharp little teeth starting to poke out from beneath the surface. I take another step back, but more and more teeth are appearing until finally the creature’s entire body seems to be made of nothing but these dark little shards, all shifting and scraping against one another. And then, just as quickly, the shards turn in on themselves and the creature’s body goes back to its former smoothness.

I can’t help thinking that I was just warned for getting too close.

“What are you?” I ask, but already I’m feeling more and more certain that I recognize the creature. “Are you… I think I saw you tonight, coming out of the barn. That was you, wasn’t it?”

The creature stares at me for a moment, before slowly tilting its head.

I wait, not daring to say another word, until suddenly some more teeth appear on the creature’s face.

Stepping back, I realize that the creature is now emitting a brief, repetitive whistling sound, and I finally recognize this as the notes that I whistled when I was talking to Craig.

“What are you doing?” I ask cautiously. “I don’t understand.”

Slowly, the creature reaches down and scoops up some of the orange sand. It slips the sand into its face, through a hole that briefly appears, and then it scoops some more sand and holds it out for me.

“I can’t eat that,” I reply.

The creature steps closer.

“I can’t—”

Suddenly the teeth return, filling the creature’s face. Startled, I reach a hand out and take the sand, and I realize that perhaps I have no choice in this matter.

I take a few grains of the sand and slip the into my mouth, and to my surprise I find that they dissolve quickly on my tongue. I’m also surprised to notice that the taste is rather familiar, like…

Eggs.

This strange orange stand tastes like eggs.

“Very nice,” I mutter, “but I really don’t know what I’m doing here. Please, you have to help me understand. Is this a dream, or…”

I pause, before reaching down and scooping up a handful of sand myself. As I let the grains run between my fingers, I can’t shake the feeling that this all feels so much more real than any dream I’ve ever experience before. At the same time, I know quite well that a moment ago I was in that dark little room on the farm, so I suppose the only possible explanation is that I’m going through some kind of neurological episode.

Suddenly the creature steps toward me and reaches out, shoving me hard in the chest and forcing me to take a step back. At the same time, another hole appears on its face – ringed by sharp little teeth – and I hear a harsh, grating rattle coming from somewhere deep within its body.

“What was that for?” I ask. “I don’t even know why—”

Before I can finish, the same thing happens again, except that this time the shove is harder and I’m sent splashing back into the purple water.

“I don’t know what you want!” I shout, as the rattling sound gets louder and the creature seems to become more agitated. “Can’t you speak? Can’t you just tell me what’s happening?”

The creature stares at me for a moment, or at least I assume that’s what it’s doing. I can see no obvious eyes, although the dark teeth are now starting to come back to the surface of its body in more and more places. The sense of menace is impossible to ignore, and I’m starting to feel more and more threatened.

“I want to go home!” I say firmly, unable to hide my fear. “Do you hear me? I didn’t ask to come to this place, wherever it is, and I demand to go home!”

Suddenly the creature’s growl becomes a full-throated roar, and thousands upon thousands of tiny black teeth are now dancing and writhing all across its body like little shark fins that constantly criss-cross against one another.

“I don’t know what you are!” I shout, struggling to be heard as the roar gets louder and louder. “I demand that you—”

And then, before I can get another word out, the creature lunges at me and screams, and all the tiny teeth rush toward me through the air. I raise my hands in a futile attempt to protect myself from the swarm, and I fall back and land in the purple water as I feel all those sharp little razor-edged teeth slicing against my body.

Fifteen

Gasping, I open my eyes and sit up, and to my astonishment I find that I’m back on the camp-bed. Grey morning light is streaming through the window, and rain is battering against the glass. A moment later I feel a drip land on my forehead, and when I look up I see that there’s a hole in the roof. I must have been dreaming after all, although I still have to look down at my trembling hands to check that I wasn’t cut to ribbons by those monstrous teeth.

I have had vivid dreams before, but this particular dream was something else. I can still taste the egg-like sand in my mouth, and I can feel those tiny dark teeth ripping in my skin. I check my pulse and find that it’s racing, but after a moment I tell myself that it really was just a dream. At the same time, I glance once again at the window and stare for a few seconds at the distant forest. For a moment I feel as if something is staring back at me, but then I’m woken from this thought by the realization that I can hear something much closer to home.

In another part of the house, voices are shouting.

* * *

“No, you’re going to sit down and shut up!” Sharon is saying as I reach the kitchen, and when I look through I see that she’s holding onto Jessie’s arm and trying to pull her away from the front door. “This isn’t helping anyone!”

“Let go of me, you bitch!” Jessie yells, twisting this way and that in her increasingly violent attempt to get free. “I’m not staying here! I have to go and find some music!”

“Get a grip,” her brother Adam mutters from his seat at the table, clearly unimpressed.

“What did you say to me?” Jessie snaps, turning to him.

“You heard,” he replies. “The rest of us are—”

“Go to Hell!” she shouts, rushing at him and trying to pull him from his chair, and then she starts pummeling him with her fists.

He pulls away and stumbles out of her reach, and then Sharon grabs the girl and holds her back.

“How can you all be so calm?” Jessie screams, with tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t stand it anymore! I’d rather die!”

“Don’t say things like that,” Sharon replies, clearly struggling to stay calm. “Jessie, we’re all finding this hard, but we need you to stay strong. We can’t keep arguing like this.”

“We’ve been sitting around here since forever!”

“It’s been just over a week. That’s really not so long.”

“We have to go and get help,” Jessie continues manically. “I’m not going to just sit around and wait to die! We have to go somewhere else. They have to have fixed this somewhere!”

Behind her, Donald hurries into the room carrying a metal box, which he hands to Sharon before stepping past her and grabbing Jessie firmly from behind.

“No!” Jessie screams, suddenly flailing wildly as if she knows what’s about to happen to her. She turns and tries to bite her father, but her mother has already taken a syringe from the box and quickly uses it to inject the girl.

Jessie struggles for a moment longer, before suddenly falling limp. Her father helps her into the nearest chair, where she slumps forward and bumps her forehead against the table.

“We have to do it sometimes,” Sharon says pleadingly, turning to me with tears running down her face. “Please don’t think that we’re bad parents, it’s just that she’s struggling so badly. The injection calms her down for a few days, that’s all.”

“I’m sure you’re doing what’s right,” I reply, although I can’t help feeling sorry for the girl as she remains slouched at the table. “I’ve seen many people who find it hard to deal with the loss of music. Indeed, I would imagine that those of us in this room are in the minority when it comes to surviving. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m certainly finding it very difficult to keep my head straight.”

“I’ll find something for us to eat,” Sharon says, heading over to the counter.

“What were you dreaming about?” Craig asks.

I turn to him and see that he’s eyeing me with a hint of suspicion.

“You were mumbling in your sleep,” he continues. “I could hear you from the next room. I didn’t want to come and disturb you, but it sounded like you were having some kind of nightmare.”

“It was nothing,” I reply, as I glance at the window and see torrential rain falling across the yard. “Nothing at all. Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”

“We’re going to have to make some decisions today,” Dean says as he sets plates on the table. “I know everyone wants to hope for the best, but Craig’s right when he says that we should be prepared for things to get worse.”

“How could they get worse?” Donald asks. “Look at us, we’re already struggling to keep going. By my reckoning, we’ve got food for about two more weeks.”

“And that’s if we don’t take in more strays,” Adam mutters darkly.

Hearing a clanking sound nearby, I turn and watch as Sharon tries several times to get water from the tap. She turns the handle first one way, then the other, and finally she turns to us with a fearful expression.

“Let me try,” Donald says, hurrying over and grabbing the handle.

He tries several times, before stepping back and staring at the empty sink.

“The water’s gone,” Craig says, looking around the room before turning to me. “I told you. That means things aren’t getting better. No-one’s fixing things. It’s getting worse.”

Sixteen

“We have water in these barrels,” Donald explains, raising his voice to be heard over the rain as we head into the barn. “I’ll put a few extra out while the weather’s bad.”

He stops in front of a set of large plastic barrels, and then he carefully removes the lid of one.

“Damn it,” he mutters suddenly.

Stepping forward, I peer inside and see that there are hundreds of small, wriggling worm-like creatures in the water.

“Mosquito larvae,” Dean says, peering over my shoulder. “Nothing a few drops of soap won’t get rid of.”

“But it means the water isn’t drinkable, doesn’t it?” Adam asks. “Or that it’s contaminated, something like that?”

“It’s drinkable,” Donald says, although he sounds concerned. “I’m going to need to come up with a better system, though. If these things can get in, then other things can too.”

“Without water, we’re really screwed,” Dean adds. “A man can go a week without food, probably longer. But even three days without water is too much.”

For a moment, everyone stands in silence, as if we’re each contemplating this worsening of our situation. I can’t help staring down at the larvae. Mankind might be struggling in the present circumstances, but I suppose the impending collapse of civilization will be a boon for other creatures. These mosquito larvae, for example, certainly seem to be thriving. I suppose they know nothing of music, so to them it’s as if nothing has changed.

“Perhaps music was a curse,” I whisper.

“What was that?” Dean asks.

“Nothing.”

“The power went out a while ago,” Donald says as he starts opening the other barrels, revealing more and more of the larvae. “The gas too, and the internet and TV. Water was the last thing left, the last thing that made it feel like someone somewhere was keeping things ticking over. Now that’s gone, I think we have to assume that there’s nobody at the wheel of this ship. We’re on our own.”

“Which means we have to look after our own,” Adam adds, in what is presumably a dig at my presence.

“I can carry my weight,” I say, turning to him. “And if I’m no longer welcome, I can always—”

“You’re staying, my friend,” Donald says, patting me on the shoulder as he steps past. “We’re all in this together, although Adam has a point. We probably can’t afford to take in anyone else.”

Adam glares at me, and it’s most clear that he’s irked by the fact that I’m here at all. Indeed, after a moment he mumbles something under his breath and storms away, heading back out into the driving rain and then hurrying toward the farmhouse. I should like to go after him and say something that will defend my position, but I suppose there’s not much that I could say. The boy seems set against me.

“We need to find a reliable source of food,” Donald says after a moment. “I went out into the forest the other day, on my own. I thought I could catch some rabbits, something like that, but there was nothing out there. I don’t know if I was looking in the wrong places, or if I was scaring them away.”

“Or something was scaring them away,” Dean suggests.

“When I was a boy,” I interject, “my friends and I used to catch rabbits. We made these little traps using some wire and a few other bits and bobs.”

“And that worked?”

“We were only catching them for fun, to keep as pets,” I explain. “Occasionally the wire would cut a little too deep, and hurt the rabbits, but I suppose that wouldn’t be a problem right now. It’s not the most humane method in the world, but in the present circumstances it would be wise to start building a few of these traps. Then, when the rain ends, we can put them out and hope for the best.”

“You’d better lead the way and show us how to do it,” Donald replies. “Right now, it’s either that or we start coming up with recipes for mosquito larvae soup.”

* * *

“No, you loop this around the section here,” I explain, taking Craig’s half completed trap and turning it around to show him. “You create a kind of slide lock that’ll trap the rabbit more once it starts struggling.”

“And then that other part attached to the post.”

“You’re starting to get it,” I tell him. “Just make sure that the main section is at least five inches wide at every point, otherwise the rabbit will be less likely to put its head through.”

“You really grew up on a farm, huh?”

“That was a long time ago,” I admit, as I set the trap down and take another length of wire. “I grew up in the 1950’s, in a small village in Wales. Then again, I suppose some things haven’t changed so much. Rabbits, for one thing. Wire traps for another.”

“I guess you had to be smart back then,” he replies. “It must have been difficult to keep busy without electricity.”

“We had electricity,” I point out. “I’m not that old.”

“And is that when you first started to play the guitar?”

“The guitar came a little later. It was my—”

Stopping myself just in time, I realize that there’s no need to go into all the details. Nobody wants to hear a sob story about a dead mother and an inherited instrument.

We work in silence for a moment.

“So you can still play a little?” he asks finally. “After what happened, I mean.”

“I believe so.”

“You could play something right now?”

“I believe so.”

“Do you think…” His voice trails off for a moment. “Do you think you’d run out too, if you played for a few minutes?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, feeling a little uncomfortable with this topic. “I prefer to sit the whole thing out and wait for some grand, miraculous resolution.”

“What if there isn’t one? What if the music never comes back?”

“I can’t imagine a world like that,” I tell him.

“Sometimes I want to be like Jessie,” he replies. “I want to yell and shout. She’s always been kind of a drama queen, but for once I can see where she’s coming from. I keep having to force myself to be sensible. I went home when this madness first happened and there was no sign of my parents, but there was damage in the house. I wanted to go looking for them, but I told myself that the sensible thing would be to come back here.”

“And you haven’t seen or heard from them since?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” I add, although I feel rather foolish for offering such feeble promises.

“I’m not sure at all,” he says darkly. “People have been going crazy.”

“Oh, I know that,” I reply. “Just two nights ago, I saw…”

I hesitate, thinking back to the moment when I saw poor Sarah’s body. I haven’t told anyone what happened to her, and I’m not sure I can bring myself to utter the words. Then again, I suppose it might be good to share, even if I end up traumatizing the poor chap.

And then, just as I’m about to mention Sarah’s name and start telling her story, someone starts yelling outside. Craig and I both turn and look to the window, and it’s clear that something’s happening in the barn.

Seventeen

“It’s back!” Adam snarls, hurrying out ahead of us across the yard, carrying the shotgun. “That damn thing thinks it can come and steal our stuff in broad daylight!”

“It’s never come during the day before,” Craig says. “It’s never been that bold.”

By the time we reach the entrance to the barn, we’re already soaked. The huge wooden doors are open, and the barn’s interior feels dreadfully cold as we make our way past the shelves of farming equipment. I wipe water from my face, but already there’s more water dripping down from gaps in the barn’s high wooden roof.

Ahead, Donald is examining the coop where the chickens are kept.

“Did it get any of them?” Craig calls out.

“No, they’re all still here,” he replies, turning to us. “It’s almost as if it’s more interested in the eggs than the chickens themselves.”

“I’m gonna get it this time,” Adam says, raising the gun and slowly turning to look around the barn. “I’m sick of some dumb monster trying to steal our stuff!”

“Steady!” Craig hisses, as Adam aims his gun in our direction.

“Don’t worry,” he replies, “I know what I’m doing.”

He turns and aims toward the open door, just as Sharon and Dean run through to join us.

“Give me the gun,” Donald says firmly.

“You always miss!” Adam snaps.

“It’s probably not even here anymore,” Craig suggests. “It always retreats to the forest when it’s challenged. Whatever it is, it’s either scared of us or it’s weak. It’s never come near the actual farmhouse. Then again, it’s never come out in the day before. It must be getting really desperate.”

I step over to the chicken coop and see cracked eggs on the ground.

“Or hungry,” I whisper, and for a moment I think back to the orange sand that I tasted in my dream, and to the sense of extreme hunger that I felt.

“Can you please put that gun down, Adam?” Sharon says nearby. “You’re making me nervous. You’re going to end up shooting someone by accident!”

“The only thing I’m going to shoot is that creature,” he says firmly, with the gun still raised. “Dad’s had enough shots, and he’s never managed to take the damn thing down. It’s my turn now, and you know I’ve got a better aim. My hands don’t shake like his.”

For a few seconds, nobody speaks. Adam continues to slowly turn, aiming the gun at the far corners of the barn, while the rest of us wait. All I can hear is the sound of rain crashing down outside, and the occasional splatter of drops that manage to slip between the slats in the roof. It’s as if we’re all waiting for the creature to suddenly rush at us from its hiding place, although I’m starting to think that perhaps the creature isn’t actually here at all. And in my mind’s eye, I’ve already begun to assume that the creature in the barn is the same as the creature from my dream.

Suddenly there’s a crashing sound, and we all turn and look back toward the barn’s farthest end.

“It broke out again!” Adam yells. He starts running in the direction of the sound, before changing his mind and instead racing out into the yard with the gun still raised.

Dean and I follow, with Craig right behind us, and we stop next to Adam just as he turns and fires.

To my astonishment, I see a dark figure running toward the forest. Even from this distance, I can tell that it’s exactly the same figure from my dream.

Adam fires again, and this time he hits his target. The creature lets out a howl of pain as it falls to the ground, and a chunk of its body – including its left arm – is blasted clean away.

“I got it!” Adam gasps, before starting to hurriedly re-load the shotgun.

“What is that thing?” Dean whispers, as the creature stumbles to its feet and starts limping away toward the forest. “It doesn’t look human.”

Suddenly another shot rings out, and the creature drops again. It was already a couple of hundred meters away, almost as far as the forest, and now it’s slowly getting back onto its feet, albeit clearly wounded.

“Come on,” Adam mutters, still aiming the shotgun. “Stay down.”

He fires again, and again his shot hits its target. The creature lets out a louder scream than before and slumps down onto the muddy field. And then, as Adam starts re-loading again, the creature stands and starts stumbling toward the treeline.

“I hit it three times already!” Adam snaps. “How can it still be moving?”

He aims again, but the figure has disappeared into the forest now.

“It’s hurt,” Adam says firmly, lowering the gun. “Time to finish it off for good!”

With that, he starts running toward the forest, racing out across the mud.

“Wait!” Donald calls after him. “It’s dangerous!”

“We can’t let him go alone,” Dean points out. “We need to at least find out what this thing is.”

He hurries out across the field, and after a moment Craig and I follow too. I’m already a little breathless, and running through all this mud isn’t exactly easy, but I have to get closer to that creature and see what it really looks like.

As Adam gets to the treeline and follows the creature into the forest, Craig and I stop as we find part of the creature’s body on the ground. There’s a dark, glistening arm, and some trailing sections that seem to have been blasted away from its chest.

“It looks like oil,” Craig says, crouching down in the rain to get a closer look.

“It looks exactly like my dream,” I whisper, stepping closer and peering down.

Sure enough, the edges of the torn arm are ringed with tiny, sharp black shapes, like the teeth that seemed to form the creature’s entire body. I only caught a glimpse of the creature last night when it escaped from the barn, so it’s impossible that I could have picked up enough detail for the dream, yet now it’s as if every aspect of that dream is starting to become real.

Another gunshot booms in the distance, and then another, and then Adam’s voice rings out from the forest.

“I got it!” he screams. “Hurry! I finally brought the bastard down!”

Eighteen

Rain is still pouring as Craig and I pick our way through the forest. The ground is uneven beneath our feet, and I have to support myself against the soaking wet trees, but up ahead I can already see Adam and Dean standing at the edge of a clearing.

Just as we get closer, Adam raises the shotgun and fires twice, aiming at something on the ground. Almost immediately, the air around us fills with an agonized, howling cry of pain.

“What is it?” Craig gasps, getting further ahead of me and then stopping next to the others.

I can barely breathe as I reach them, and then I stop as I see the writhing, wriggling shape of the creature on the forest floor. Several chunks of its body have been blown away, including both of its legs, and the damaged body parts have been left strewn across the ground. The main part of the creature, meanwhile, is struggling desperately to drag itself away from us, while emitting a sound that seems to switch constantly from snarl to scream.

“I’ve only got one more shot left,” Adam mutters angrily as he aims the gun again.

I open my mouth to tell him to stop, but I’m too late. He fires again, hitting the creature in the chest area and sending it rolling across the ground as it cries out.

“Okay,” Adam snarls, turning and thrusting the gun into Craig’s hands before heading away and grabbing a fallen branch from the forest floor, “now it’s time to really put this thing out of its misery.”

“Let me see,” I say, limping after him as I try to get a better look at the creature. “It’s hurt!”

As I get closer, I see that this is the exact same creature that I encountered in my dream. It turns its head toward me, and for a moment I see ripples of sharp little shapes struggling to break through the surface of its smooth black face. The shapes are in two patches near the top of the face, and finally I realize that they look a little like eyes. Not that they are eyes, of course, but I can’t help feeling that perhaps the creature is attempting to mimic the human face.

Adam steps past me with the branch raised high.

“Wait!” I snap, trying but failing to grab his arm and pull him back. “You can’t just kill it!”

“Keep out of this, old man,” he replies, stepping around the side of the creature.

“But—”

Before I can finish, he slams the branch down against the creature’s head. The creature emits a low howl as it falls to one side, and then it cries out again as Adam hits it several more times.

“Stop!” I shout. “Don’t you want to know what it is? Don’t you want to try to communicate with it?”

“There’ll be time for questions later!” Adam snaps, as he hits the creature with more and more ferocity. “Once it’s dead, you can cut it open and see how it works! Right now, I’m going to make sure that it can’t attack our farm ever again!”

I watch with a growing sense of horror as he continues to strike the creature, until suddenly I see more and more of the little teeth starting to burst through to the surface.

“Wait!” I call out. “Adam, be careful!”

“I’m gonna bust this thing apart!” he replies.

“No, stop!” I shout, watching as more and more of the teeth appear, until the creature’s entire body seems to be made of a swarm of those things. “It’s in pain! It’s going to fight back!”

“Not if I finish it off first!”

He raises the branch again, but suddenly one of the little black teeth snaps away from the creature’s body and hits Adam’s arm, slicing clean through and then bursting out the other side.

“What the—”

Clutching his arm, Adam takes a step back as a small patch of blood begins to soak through the fabric of his t-shirt.

“You have to be very careful,” I tell him. “I think that was a warning. You don’t know what this thing is, but you can’t just keep attacking it and not expect it to defend itself. Please—”

“Oh, you think you’re smart, do you?” Adam hisses, before stepping closer to the creature and hitting it several more times. “That hurt! You just made a big mistake, my friend. You just made me even angrier than I was before!”

He hits the creature again and again, battering it with the branch.

And then, suddenly, the creature’s entire body seems to fall apart. All the sharp little black teeth come away from one another, and after a moment they rise up in front of Adam and hang in the air. It’s almost like that moment in my dream when the creature rushed at me.

“Get away from it!” I shout, as Adam stares at the thousands of floating teeth. “Don’t—”

Before I can say another word, the teeth all rush straight at Adam, slamming into his body and slicing straight through before emerging from the other side and then falling to the ground, when they immediately begin to reform themselves to recreate the creature’s body.

Horrified, I stare at Adam as he takes a faltering step forward, and then he turns to reveal that all over his body there are thousands of small bloodied cuts where the teeth passed straight through him. There are even cuts on his face, as if some of the teeth went through his brain.

He opens his mouth and lets out a faint groan as blood starts trickling down his face. He takes a step toward us and drops the branch, and then – as rain continues to crash down – he drops to his knees and then topples over.

“Adam!”

Donald rushes past us, hurrying to his son and scrambling to pull him up.

Craig, Dean and I step closer, but it’s already clear that we’re too late. Thousands upon thousands of those sharp little teeth sliced straight through the poor boy, no doubt causing untold damage to his organs, and blood is now starting to soak out through his clothes. He’s still twitching slightly, and he lets out a faint, rattling gasp, but then he falls still in his father’s arms and I realize that he’s dead.

Turning, I look down at the creature and see that it has already reformed the central part of its body. Meanwhile, some of its severed sections are starting to break down and swarm back to rejoin the torso, although it’s clear that overall the creature is extremely weak.

“Metal,” Craig says suddenly, next to me. “We need metal boxes, metal cases, metal anything from the barn. Hurry!”

Nineteen

“It can break through wood, but not metal,” Craig says a short while later, as he sets the metal boxes on the floor in the barn. “If it could break through metal, it would have done so when it was trying to escape before.”

There are six boxes in front of us, of varying shapes and sizes, and each contains a section of the creature’s body. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what Craig was planning, but now I understand that he means to keep the creature’s different parts separate so that they can’t recombine. Even now, as rain continues to fall outside, I can hear faint bumping sounds coming from inside some of the boxes, as if the creature is starting to recover.

Suddenly there’s a scream from the farmhouse, and I turn to look out across the yard.

“He told her,” Craig says, and we both listen to the sound of Sharon sobbing loudly as she learns of Adam’s death.

“Why didn’t he listen?” I reply after a moment. “I told him to stand back. I told him it was dangerous.”

“How did you know?” Craig asks.

“I—”

Turning to him, I realize that I’m not sure how to explain. I would feel extremely foolish if I claimed to have encountered the creature before in a dream, although that is in fact what seems to have happened. Still, I tell myself that there must be some other explanation, that something else must have happened to give my dream that incredible lucidity and detail.

One of the boxes bumps loudly, and it’s clear that the creature is gathering strength. Still, the boxes seem to be keeping it contained, at least for now.

“There should have been another way,” Craig says after a moment. “I’ve never seen someone die before. He was my friend. There should have been another way to deal with this.”

* * *

“She’s inconsolable,” Dean says quietly as we stand in the kitchen, listening to the sound of Sharon sobbing in one of the upstairs bedrooms. “I think it’s finally broken her.”

“I’m not surprised,” I reply. “Did he tell her exactly how the poor boy died?”

“He didn’t go into all the details. I’m not sure he even understands it himself. I think he’s going to try to give her one of the sedatives they usually use for Jessie, and then he’s going to come down and we’re going to figure out what to do with Adam’s body. I guess we’ll have to bury him somewhere.”

“These young people shouldn’t be dying,” I tell him. “They had their whole lives ahead of them.”

“We need to know what’s going on,” Dean says. “In the rest of the world, I mean. I feel like I’m going crazy, just sitting here and waiting to see what happens.”

“You said the city was too dangerous,” I remind him.

“I did, but maybe that’s not a reason to stay away.” He pauses. “I think I was wrong, Mr. Harrisford. Regardless of the risk, I think I’d rather go and face whatever’s out there, instead of hiding away like this. How many more of these creatures are there? Is this some kind of invasion? And how is it connected to what happened to the music?”

“I think they came for the music,” I tell him, “and they took it. How and why, I can’t even begin to imagine, but I think that’s fundamentally what happened. And now this one, for whatever reason, seems to have been left behind.”

“That sounds nuts,” he points out.

“It does indeed,” I reply, “but if you’d told me two weeks ago that all the music could be drained from the world, I’d have said that too sounded nuts.”

He sighs.

“I’m going to go and look for some shovels,” he mutters, turning and heading to the door. “Donald shouldn’t have to dig the grave. I can at least do that for him.”

Once he’s gone, I lean back against the wall and try to work out what to do next. I have now seen two young, healthy people get cut down right before my eyes, and I don’t think I can bear to see it happen again. The world has deteriorated so fast and by such an extreme, and I feel that at any moment I might sit down and find that I lack the will to keep going. What’s the point, if all that’s left is death and misery?

“Damn it!” a voice hisses nearby.

Turning, I look at the empty doorway that leads through to the front room, and then I wander over and see Jessie sitting cross-legged on the sofa, still tapping at her mobile telephone.

“Do you have any battery?” she asks, turning to me. “I’m down to almost nothing. If it dies, I won’t know when the network comes back up.”

“I’m so sorry about your brother,” I reply.

“Do you have any battery?” she asks again. “Can I have it? I need to keep my phone alive.”

“Your brother—”

“You must have battery,” she continues, before suddenly getting to her feet and stepping toward me. “You have to give it to me. I’m in charge of checking to see if the phones work, it’s selfish of you to keep your battery when other people need it.”

“I wanted to say that I—”

“Where’s your battery?” she snaps, suddenly shoving me hard in the chest. “What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid? Can’t you understand what I’m saying?”

She leans closer, and then she starts speaking slowly, as if to a child.

“Give. Me. Your. Battery. Old. Man.”

I wait, but now she’s glaring at me with barely concealed anger.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say finally. “I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed like a fine, upstanding young man.”

She stares at me, as if she can’t quite believe what I’m saying. And then, just as I begin to wonder whether I should try again to console her, she steps back and screams before slamming the door shut in my face.

Twenty

“I’m not sure where to begin,” Donald says as he stands at the head of the grave. “When this is all over, we’ll get a proper priest to come and speak. And we’ll move him. We’ll move Adam to a proper grave in a churchyard.”

Down at the bottom of the grave, Adam’s body rests wrapped in white sheets. It has been almost exactly twenty-four hours since he died, but the rain did not relent until this morning. I’m shivering slightly in the cold air, and I already regret leaving my jacket on a chair in the kitchen.

“So this is just temporary,” Donald continues. “I promise you that, son. We’ll get you a proper grave just as soon as we can. We’ll come back and do that, you won’t be here forever. I’d like to thank Dean for digging the grave, I know it must have been difficult with the ground being so wet. And of course I’d like to thank my dear wife for dressing our son and getting him ready. And I’d like to thank everyone else for coming, too. Amen.”

He pauses, before taking the shovel that was leaning against the wall, and starting to fill the grave. As he works, his wife sobs and Jessie continues to tap angrily at her phone.

* * *

“We’re leaving,” Donald announces later, once we’re all back inside the farmhouse. “Sharon and I have talked about it, and we can’t just sit around here and hope that things work out. We’re going to go to town and see what’s what, and then I think we’ll probably go on to London. Things are bound to be better organized there.”

“I think that’s wise,” Dean tells him. “Thinking about it, we’re just waiting to die if we stay here. I’m going to go too.”

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” Donald continues, before turning to me. “You seem like a very nice gentleman, Mr. Harrisford, and I have nothing but good wishes for you. At the same time, I have to protect my family, and we’re already low on food and water. I hope you’ll understand that I can’t invite you to come with us. I can’t even offer you a lift in our vehicle, on account of how the extra weight would be a burden.”

“I understand,” I reply, as I realize that I am to be left alone.

“And that goes for you too, Craig,” he adds, turning to address the boy who stands next to me. “I’m very sorry, you were Adam’s friend growing up and we love you like a son. Almost like a son. Anyway, the point is, family’s family and Sharon and Jessie and I have to stick together. We can’t take you either.”

“Sure,” he says, although he sounds a little scared. “I get it.”

“Maybe you think I’m being selfish,” Donald says as his wife heads out of the room and goes upstairs, no doubt to pack some possessions for the journey, “but like I told you, it’s about family. We’re going to struggle as it is, and I can’t put my wife and daughter in jeopardy just because I try to help other people. They have to be my priority.”

“You don’t have to explain,” I tell him. “It’s entirely understandable.”

“You’re welcome to sit around here,” he replies. “I don’t know how long it’ll be before we’re back, but at least here you’ll have a roof over your heads. Just don’t cause any damage to the place, ’cause we fully intend to return eventually. Maybe that’ll be in days, or weeks, or months or… Well, like I said, we plan on coming back, so I’d thank you to not do anything that messes the farm up.”

“Of course,” I say. “That’s very kind of you.”

“We aim to be gone within the hour,” he adds, stepping past me and heading toward the door. “Jessie, get some things together.”

“Tell them to give me their batteries,” she replies, barely even looking up from her phone. “Tell them, Dad!”

He ignores her and instead makes his way upstairs.

“I can give you both a ride,” Dean says, turning first to Craig and then to me. “If you don’t want to come to London, I can drop you off somewhere along the way. I can’t just leave you here, it wouldn’t be right.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I reply, “but I think I shall remain here, if it’s all the same to you.”

“But—”

“I saw enough when I was back at my flat,” I add. “I saw what people are capable of, and how they’re acting. The idea of going to a city and seeing more of that… Well, I think I’d prefer to stay here and see what I can manage. I’m no spring chicken, that’s true, but I know a few tricks.”

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Good luck,” I continue. “I mean that, and I think you’ll need it. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting old, but I think I prefer the solitude of this place right now. I have no desire whatsoever to rush headlong back into the company of others.”

“I’m going to stay too,” Craig says suddenly.

I turn to him.

“I feel the same,” he continues. “I don’t know what it’s like in London right now, but I don’t think I want to find out. I’ve seen enough movies and read enough books to know that people tend to go crazy sometimes. I’d rather stay here and wait it all out.” He glances at me. “If you don’t mind the company.”

“Of course not,” I reply cautiously, “but… are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he tells me. “We can survive here, at least for a while. I’d rather try that than go rushing headfirst into some kind of dystopian nightmare in the city.”

I pause for a moment, wondering whether I should dissuade him from this idea, before telling myself that I should let the young man make his own decisions. Taking my jacket from the back of the chair, I slip it on in an attempt to keep myself warm, and then I hear Donald and Sharon coming downstairs.

Half an hour later, they’re all gone, leaving me alone at the farm with just Craig for company.

Twenty-One

“I got rid of the mosquito larvae from the water,” Craig says a few hours later, as he comes back into the house. “It’s getting too dark out there to do a lot more tonight.”

“Very good,” I reply, as I light another candle. “Very good indeed. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. We can start taking stock and working out how best to proceed.” I force a smile, hoping to appear optimistic even though I fear we face an uphill battle.

“Then there are the boxes in the barn,” he points out. “Donald wanted to destroy them, but I persuaded him that it’d be too risky, that maybe the creature would get out. I’m thinking that maybe we should bury them.”

“That’s something we can discuss tomorrow,” I tell him.

“There’s no point being awake at night,” he continues. “I figure I’m going to start going to bed when it gets dark and waking up when it gets light. That’s the best use of resources.”

“I agree,” I tell him. “I shall retire soon and see you in the morning.”

He heads through to the other room, and I’m left standing alone at the kitchen window. As I look out across the yard, I can’t help wondering where Dean and the others are now. I can’t say that I believe in any higher power, but I very much hope that – if there is one – then he or she is going to set the world straight soon. Perhaps the lights will magically come back on, and the water too, and we shall miraculously find that things are going back to normal.

Reaching into my pocket, I take out my mobile telephone and switch it on. I suppose I can afford to check occasionally, just in case the signal returns. After a moment, however, I find that the screen remains dark. I press the button on the side again, but there’s still no sign of life. Turning the telephone over, I find that the panel on the back is slightly loose. When I pull the panel away, I find to my surprise that the battery is missing.

* * *

There’s just enough moonlight in my room for me to be able to see the guitars as I slip the bin bags away. Both guitars – mine and Sarah’s – are badly damaged, but I feel it might be possible to repair them.

Of course, right now, I cannot even play. I spend a short while trying to straighten the damaged neck, but it’s clear that this is a job that will take quite some time. If I cannibalize parts from one guitar and then switch them around, then with a little luck it’s possible that I might end up with something that can at least be played. The sound will not be pretty, but that’s better than nothing.

Sighing, I lean back and close my eyes.

Suddenly I feel a tremendous rushing sensation in my chest. I lean forward and open my eyes, but I find that I’m now in the forest on a gray morning. Frantically getting to my feet, I look around and tell myself that I must be dreaming, but a moment later I hear an agonized scream coming from nearby. I turn again, and this time I see Adam standing nearby, beating the creature with the branch.

“Hey!” I shout. “Get back!”

I take a step forward, determined to pull him away and save his life, but then I stumble as I feel a sudden rush of fear. Stopping, I find that my hands are trembling wildly, and the creature’s cries seem to be somehow entering my body and filling me with the most astonishing sense of pure terror. It’s as if I’m about to die, as if I’m the one who’s being beaten, and I can’t shake the sensation at all.

I try to cry out, but then I see the creature burst into thousands of tiny black teeth, and I watch as those teeth cut through Adam. It’s his moment of death all over again, and there’s nothing I can do to help him. Even as I tell myself that this is all a dream, I feel the horror and hopelessness once again rushing through my body, and then I realize that the earlier fear has been replaced by something else.

Sorrow.

No, not sorrow.

Guilt.

As Adam’s body slumps to the ground, I feel an immense sense of responsibility, as if I’m the one who killed him. With tears in my eyes, I start crawling across the forest floor, until finally I reach Adam and see his dead eyes staring back at me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my voice trembling with shock. “It should have been me. I’m an old man, I haven’t got many years left anyway, I should have been the one who died.”

Sensing something moving nearby, I turn and see that the teeth are pulling back together, re-forming the creature’s original body shape. I can hear the scraping sound of all the teeth scraping against one another, but after a moment the creature – or at least, what’s left of it -slumps back down as if it’s too weak to continue. In that moment, I realize to my surprise that I can once again taste eggs, and I start spitting sand from my mouth.

“What is this?” I gasp, as more and more sand comes bursting up from the back of my throat, threatening to suffocate me. “I don’t understand!”

I roll onto my back and clutch my neck, but the sand is pouring out now and I can’t breathe at all. I try to call out for help, and when that doesn’t work I try to tell myself that this can’t be happening, that it’s just another dream. At the same time, I’m starting to suffocate and there’s nothing I can do to break free as more and more sand bursts out from the back of my mouth and starts pouring not only from my lips but also from my nostrils and eyes, until finally everything goes black.

Twenty-Two

I open my eyes and sit up.

I’m on the camp-bed in the room at the back of the farmhouse. The guitars are next to me, in a patch of moonlight, and for a moment I sit in absolute silence.

Finally, however, I realize that I know what I have to do.

* * *

As soon as I reach the barn, I can hear a faint rattling sound coming from the six metal boxes. I expected as much. Whereas I was able to put the first ‘dream’ down to a series of coincidence, this time I’m certain that there’s something else happening. And as I stop in front of the boxes and crouch down, I find myself filled with a sense of awe.

“I get it now,” I whisper. “I heard you.”

Reaching out, I open the first box, then the second, and then the rest. Thousands of tiny black teeth come rushing out, spilling across the floor, and then they slowly start to pull toward one another. The effect is quite startling, and finally I step back and watch. There’s still a part of me that worries I might be making a terrible mistake, but Craig is fast asleep in the farmhouse so I suppose the only person at risk here is me. And it’s a risk I’m willing to take, because I think I know what I should have done at the start.

I head further into the barn, using a candle to light the way, and finally I reach the coop where the chickens are kept. I crouch down and take a look, and I see that the chickens are unharmed, just as they’ve remained unharmed despite the several times that this creature has ‘attacked’ them. It would have been very easy for the little black teeth to have swarmed into the cage and attack the chickens, so it’s clear that they were not the target. Instead, my suspicions are proven correct as I examine the side of the cage and find that the eggs run into a small metal box that’s attached to the lower edge.

I fiddle with the box for a moment before finally managing to get it open, and then I reach inside and take out the two eggs that I find.

“It wasn’t the chickens you wanted at all,” I mutter to myself as I get to my feet and head back toward the boxes. “I get that now.”

The piles of black teeth are still drawing themselves together, but the process seems painfully slow and it’s clear that the creature remains weak. Crouching down again, I hold the eggs out and crack them together, and then I drop them down directly onto one of the piles. I watch for a moment as the eggs seep into the mass of teeth, and I must admit that I feel rather foolish. Then again, if the supposed dream was trying to tell me something, I rather think that the taste of the sand was supposed to be a clue. Is it possible that, for whatever reason, these creatures feed on something that is very similar to the eggs of our world?

Suddenly the piles of black teeth start shuddering and pulling together faster, as if the eggs have given them strength. I pull back, just as the teeth begin to rise up into the air. For a moment, they seem ready to attack me, and I worry that I am to suffer the same fate as Adam, but then there’s a rush of activity and the teeth bind together to once again form the vaguely human shape that I saw before. Except, this time the shape looks taller and bigger, stronger even, as it towers above me.

“I understand,” I stammer, trying not to panic. “You got left behind by your friends, and you were hurt. You needed food, but you couldn’t get to the eggs. But you’re strong now, so you can go. Can’t you?”

I wait, but the figure simply stares down at me.

“Why did you take the music?” I continue. “Don’t you have it, where you come from? You didn’t have to take it all, you could have just taken some of it. We could have shared.”

The figure leans down toward me, and I hear all those thousands of sharp teeth jostling together. For a moment, the entire creature seems to be comprised of nothing more than the teeth, as if it’s poised to attack. Finally, however, the teeth begin to disappear beneath the surface, leaving the creature once again with a smooth face.

“I saved you!” I snap angrily. “Now can’t you do something for us? You took all the music, you left us with nothing! Go to your friends and tell them we need some of it back! Our world is collapsing and it’s all your fault!”

The creature tilts its head slightly. Is it listening? Is it capable of understanding?

“We need it!” I continue. “At least some of it! You’ve left us like this, and look at us! Look what we’ve become! Wherever you’ve taken it, you owe us the chance to hear it again! If you were so desperate for it, that means you know how important it is. It means you know what you’ve taken from our world. Are you really going to just leave us like this? Don’t you care at all?”

I wait, but the creature is still just staring at me.

Suddenly I feel cold air blasting against the back of my neck, and I turn to see that a hole has been torn in the air right behind my shoulders. I pull away, shocked by the sight of flickering lights that seem to have come from nowhere, but after a moment the hole widens slightly and I realize I can see a whole other world on the other side. I lean a little closer, and I’m just about able to make out an orange beach at the edge of a vast purple sea, with scores of orange island in the distance. It’s the world from my dream, and I can only stare with a sense of wonder as I realize that it’s all real.

Slowly, I reach out toward the flashing light.

Before I can get too close, however, there’s a rush sound nearby and I turn just as the creature falls apart and becomes a mass of little black teeth. This time, however, the teeth race past me, falling quickly through the hole.

“Wait!” I call out. “Come back!”

The hole closes, and I’m left kneeling all alone in the dark barn. Even the candle has been snuffed out, and the only sound is the clucking of chickens in the nearby coop.

Twenty-Three

Five years later

“Two this morning,” Craig says as he comes through into the kitchen and sets a pair of rabbits on the table. “I hope you’re not getting sick of them.”

“They’re nice and plump,” I point out. “They’ll go well in a stew or a casserole.”

“How’s the guitar going?” he asks.

Looking down, I take a moment to inspect the work that I completed this morning. I’ve managed to very carefully fix the damage to the neck, and I’m starting to think that perhaps I’m close to being done.

“I’m not quite there yet,” I explain. “It might look okay, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll sound right. I’m afraid I shall have to keep working on it for some time yet.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Craig continues, “but isn’t that what you’ve been saying for a few years now? Does it really take this long to fix a guitar?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Have you tried playing it yet?”

“Of course not. Don’t be foolish.”

“But you could, if you wanted,” he replies. “You said it yourself, you still have a little of your music left. Not a lot, but maybe enough to play for a few minutes.”

“Which is precisely why,” I mutter, “I do not intend to waste that precious resource. I need this guitar to be absolutely perfect before I ever play it again. I’ve even had to force myself to stop thinking about music, to stop hearing it in my head, in case I accidentally use up some of the remaining music that I possess.” I peer more closely at the guitar’s neck. “It’s not perfect yet. Maybe when it’s perfect, I can start to play, but not yet.”

After a moment, I realize that he’s staring at me, so I turn and meet his gaze.

“Yes?” I ask testily.

“I was just wondering whether it’ll ever be perfect,” he says, “but I guess it’s none of my business. I’m going to skin these rabbits and get them ready, and then I’ll go and do some work in the field.”

“I’ll skin the rabbits,” I reply, as I start getting to my feet, “and then—”

Suddenly I feel a blast of pain in my back. I let out a gasp as I collapse back in the chair, and then I push Craig aside as he rushes over to help.

“I’m fine!” I snap. “Just because I hurt my back, that doesn’t mean I’m too old to do things around here.”

“I never said that you were.”

“But you were thinking it!” I say firmly. “Go on, get out of here. Go and tend to the field. When you get back, those two rabbits will be skinned and ready to cook.”

“Sure,” he replies, taking a step back. “I’m sorry, Derek, I didn’t mean to annoy you.”

He hesitates, and then he heads out of the room, leaving me sitting alone with the guitar on my lap. Sighing, I tell myself that I shouldn’t have lost my temper. At the same time, I’m in more pain than I want to admit, and I don’t want Craig to start noticing my struggles. He already does most of the work around this place, and I don’t want him to think that he’s right about the fact that I’m becoming so inform.

I also don’t want him to realize that he’s right about the guitar.

* * *

There.

Two rabbits, skinned and ready to cook.

Sure, my back is killing me now and I feel like I need to take a rest, but at least I did what I promised. Glancing out the window, I can just about see Craig in the distance as he tends to the potatoes in the field. When he gets back, I shall show him these rabbits, and I very much look forward to seeing the expression of surprise on his face.

I take a deep breath and turn to head through to my camp-bed for a rest, but then I stop as I see the guitar still resting on the table. It’s such a funny-looking guitar, with pieces from Sarah’s instrument cobbled onto the core of my own. I’ve been working on this thing for so very long, and I’m starting to think that perhaps my quest for perfection is holding me back. I’m sure I could spend the rest of my life making alterations, but then what if I drop dead before I ever get a chance to play the wretched thing?

I hesitate, before slowly reaching down and picking the guitar up. After all this time, am I finally ready to play a few chords? I haven’t played anything since I arrived here at the farm five years ago, but now…

I look out the window again and see that Craig is still far away. He wouldn’t be able to hear me if I shouted for him, let alone if I played an instrument.

Why am I hesitating? I’ve been desperate to play for so long, yet now I find myself standing here with a sense of genuine, palpable fear.

I carry the guitar through to the back room, so as to put as much distance as possible between Craig and myself, just in case he turns out to have some kind of superhuman hearing. Then, finally, I force myself to put my hands into the right position, and I start to play.

I stop almost immediately.

The sound of music, after all this time, is almost too much for me to bear. My initial instinct is to put the guitar away and never touch it again, but after a moment I realize that I have to play more. With tears in my eyes, I try a few more chords, then some more, and finally I begin to play a piece of music that I wrote years ago for an ex-girlfriend. It’s a simple piece, which is just as well since my fingers feel rather stiff and unwieldy, but it’s perhaps the simplicity that makes the music sound so beautiful on this occasion. For a few seconds, I even forget to play softly, and I have to quickly force myself to stop being so loud.

I look toward the window again, and this time I see that Craig is coming back to the farmhouse.

I quickly hurry through to the front room and set the guitar down, and then I make my way to the kitchen just in time to meet him as he returns.

“There are your two rabbits,” I tell him, trying not to sound too flustered. “I trust that they meet your high standards?”

“They look perfect,” he replies. “The potatoes are coming along, too.” He pauses. “How about the guitar? Are you done fixing it?”

“It’ll take some more time yet,” I reply, not wanting to admit that I played. “Please, don’t rush me.”

“Are you…” He stares at me for a moment. “Have you been crying?”

“Of course not,” I mutter, turning and taking the two skinned rabbits over to the counter. “Stop asking stupid questions. Don’t you have any work that needs doing?” I know that I’m being unreasonable, but I can’t help myself. The pain in my back – which has never entirely gone away since I was beaten to a pulp all those years ago – is particularly bad on cold days such as this. “The energy you put into your suspicions,” I continue, “might be better directed elsewhere.”

Twenty-Four

A few days later, the pain in my back has lessened, no doubt due to the better weather.

I take the rabbit bones and drop them into a pot of water, which I then carry out into the yard so that I can set it to boil. For most of my life, I cared not one jot for the art of cooking. I was content with whatever I could find at the local corner shop. Now look at me, however: I’m making broth from the bones of the two rabbits Craig caught the other day, and I already have a fair plan as to how I’ll turn that broth into a decent soup. Trial and error have been my watchwords of late, and I must admit that I seem to have a very slight knack for this sort of thing.

I set a small fire going and place the pot on some sticks, and then I step back.

Suddenly I feel a sharp, twisting pain at the base of my back. Wincing, I stumble slightly before supporting myself against the side of the farmhouse, and then I have to slide down and sit on the edge of an old crate. The pain is getting worse and worse, as if the nerves are rubbing red raw, and no amount of stretching or changing position seems to help. I’ve had this pain before, of course, but usually only in small flashes. This time, however, the agony seems to be settling in for the long haul, and I finally lean back and grit my teeth as I wait in hope for it to pass.

Finally, the pain at least subsides, although I can still feel a faint throbbing sensation as I start to get my breath back.

“Derek!” Craig calls out from somewhere around the other side of the farmhouse. “Derek, where are you?”

I take another deep breath. There’s no way that I’m willing to let him know about this latest little attack, just as I never tell him about the headaches or the occasional traces of blood in the toilet bowl.

“Derek!”

Sighing, I haul myself up, and thankfully the pain doesn’t become significantly worse. Still, it takes me a moment to regather my composure, and I turn around just as Craig hurries into view.

“I saw someone!” he says, with a hint of concern in his voice.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I saw someone, out there in the forest. I was checking the potatoes, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted movement. So I turned and looked, and I saw a figure ducking out of sight.”

“What kind of figure?” I ask, immediately thinking back to the creature that was here five years ago. “Was it human?”

He nods.

“Why would someone come here?” I continue.

“Maybe they just happened to stumble across the place,” he suggests. “I mean, it’s five years since Donald and the others left, and we haven’t seen a single other person since. Even if there are only a handful of people left out there, it makes sense that eventually one of them would find us.”

“You’re probably mistaken,” I tell him. “Perhaps you saw a deer, or—”

“It was a person, I’m sure of it. I called out and went over to try to find him, but he was gone. I guess I don’t blame him, he’s probably scared.”

“And did you get a close look at this fellow?”

“Not really. I might be wrong, but I think he was wearing some kind of camouflage jacket. And do you remember yesterday afternoon, when I thought I heard an engine in the distance?”

“You heard no such thing,” I tell him.

“What if someone’s out there?” he asks. “Even if they can’t help us, we could maybe find out a little more about what’s going on.”

“Or we could end up getting our throats slashed,” I suggest, “by some maniac who thinks we have a decent little set-up here.”

“I was thinking about maybe putting a sign out there,” he replies, “letting them know that we’re friendly.”

“And are we friendly?” I ask. “Do we really want strangers showing up?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“We don’t know what they might bring with them,” I point out, as I try to ignore another flicker of pain in my back. “I’ve had, to say the least, very mixed experiences with strangers ever since the world went down the drain. I’m not sure that I’d automatically want to invite any Tom, Dick or Harry to come and join us.”

“So you think we should just stay here forever like this?”

“I think we should be careful,” I tell him. “Donald took his shotgun when he left, remember? We’re armed with nothing more than a few kitchen knives.”

“I’m going to do it,” he says firmly. “If nothing else, I want to hear what’s going on out there in the world. I want to know whether there’s any hope left.”

“It’ll be the death of us,” I mutter as he turns and heads inside.

As soon as he’s out of sight, I ease myself back down onto the crate. The pain in my back is coming and going now, but I think that overall something seems to have clicked down there. I’m not far off turning eighty, and the past few years haven’t exactly been easy. My body is slowly but surely starting to break down and there’s nothing I can do to reverse the process. Soon I won’t even be able to help Craig, and I already think that leaving this farm would kill me.

He wants to know about the rest of the world, and I understand that. But if he decides that he has to leave, I won’t last long here without him. The worst part is, I know that wanting him to stay is so utterly, irredeemably selfish.

Twenty-Five

“A lot of people went crazy,” Craig says that evening, as we sit eating left over scraps of rabbit meat for dinner, “but some didn’t. You and I didn’t. Donald and Sharon, Adam, Jessie… Well, maybe Jessie went a little nuts, but the point is that plenty of people survived. So it stands to reason that at some point, order’s going to be restored.”

“You have faith in mankind,” I mutter, as I feel the painful knot burning in my back. “I hope you’re right.”

“Are you okay, Derek?”

“I’m fine,” I reply, with my mouth full of food.

“Are you in pain?”

I glance at him, and I can tell from the look in his eyes that he’s onto me.

“It’s nothing,” I say after a moment. “Listen, if you want to go, I understand. It’s just, I can’t come with you. That shouldn’t stop you, though. You’re young, you need to fight for your future.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he replies.

“You might have no choice,” I tell him, and I have to admit that it feels good to be doing and saying the right thing. “I’m knackered anyway, I probably only have a few years left.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“You mustn’t be sentimental,” I add, fixing him with a determined gaze. “We’ve survived here for five years. Five years, Craig! That’s sensational. We had a lot of luck, but we also worked hard. Frankly, it’s a miracle that we’re still alive, but it’s getting harder. Why didn’t you mention that the potato yields are getting so much lower? And don’t deny it, because I went out there myself and took a look. There’s some kind of blight attacking the crops.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

“For how long?”

He sighs.

“And rabbits are getting harder and harder to come by, aren’t they?” I continue. “When we started, we were catching almost one a day. Now it’s two a week if we’re lucky.”

He sighs again, but it’s clear that he’s got no argument. When we began this conversation, my intention was to let him know that I understood if he wanted to leave. Now, however, I realize that I’m actively encouraging him to get out of here, which is a rather sobering thought. It’s as if I’m signing my own death warrant, but I tell myself that things can’t be that bad. I’m sure I can find a way to keep going.

Craig opens his mouth to say something, but instead the silence is suddenly interrupted by a knock at the front door.

We both turn and look out toward the hallway, and then we turn back to one another.

“Did you put that foolish sign out in the forest?” I ask cautiously.

“Not yet,” he replies. “I was going to do it tomorrow.”

He pauses, before getting to his feet.

“Wait!” I hiss.

“For what? Whoever it is, they already know we’re here. They’ll have seen the candlelight. For all we know, we’ve been being watched through the window.”

I look over at the window, but all I see is a reflection of the dimly lit kitchen. I know that Craig is right, and a moment later I turn to watch as he heads through to the hallway. The idea of some stranger coming into the farmhouse leaves me feeling extremely nervous. For so long, I’ve told myself that there’s always a chance of the world getting back to normal. What if this new arrival tells us the opposite, that everything’s in ruins?

Craig opens the door cautiously, and I hear him speaking to someone.

A moment later he steps aside, and a scruffy-looking man enters the house, wearing a faded white baseball cap and filthy overalls. Something about him instantly sets me on edge.

Craig comes back through to join me, with the man a few paces behind.

“This is Jerry,” he explains. “He saw our lights and… Well, he wanted to come and introduce himself.”

He steps aside, and this Jerry fellow enters with a rather sheepish expression on his face. At the same time, I can’t help noticing that he’s glancing around the kitchen, almost as if he’s casing the joint. My first thoughts are confirmed, and I’ve already taken a dislike to the man.

“Hey,” he says nervously. “Nice to meet you.”

“You haven’t met me yet,” I point out, partly as a joke but partly to let him know that he’s not just being welcomed inside with open arms. “But please, sit down.”

“Yeah,” he says with a grin, and he’s still looking around as he takes a seat. “So is it just the two of you guys here?”

“Maybe,” I reply.

He’s still grinning as he looks around, but after a moment – perhaps sensing the fact that I’m watching him – he turns to me.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he says.

“Would you like some water?” Craig asks. “And something to eat?”

“We don’t have much,” I add, “but I suppose we can spare some for a passerby.”

“That’d be really nice of you,” Jerry replies. “Thanks.”

We sit in silence as Craig goes to the counter and sets some scraps of rabbit meat onto a plate. I watch Jerry and he watches me in return, and the entire situation is starting to feel incredibly uncomfortable. I don’t know what this Jerry fellow is after, but I’ve definitely got him pegged as a threat.

“So I have to ask you something,” Craig says as he brings the plate over and sets it down. “Where have you been? What’s it like out there in the rest of the world?”

“Oh, it’s…”

Jerry hesitates, and he doesn’t seem particularly interested in the meat, or in the water that Craig now brings over and places on the table.

“It’s not exactly safe out there,” he says finally. “I’ve traveled through whole towns where there’s no sign of anyone. People have mostly evacuated the big cities ’cause of disease, but that didn’t stop it spreading. There are bodies by the sides of some of the roads, and no-one cleans them up or buries them or anything like that. You have to be really careful traveling, because there are armed gangs that’ll cut your throat and take everything from you, even your clothes. There are at least five different groups who are claiming to be the new government, but none of them’s got a hope. You really have to look after yourself.”

“How many people do you think are still alive?” Craig asks.

“Not many,” he replies, shaking his head. “You can go weeks without seeing anyone, and then maybe you bump into a little group. A lot of people have clustered together to try to survive. But like I said, it’s the disease that gets you. Dysentery’s a real killer.”

“Don’t you want the rabbit meat?” I ask.

“Oh, sure.”

He picks up a piece and slips it into his mouth, but I can’t help noticing that he doesn’t chew. He simply swallows, while grinning at me. It’s almost as if he only ate that piece of meat because he wanted to prove some kind of point, and now he conspicuously ignores all the other chunks on the plate.

“So is there any sign of improvement?” Craig asks, sounding a little desperate now. “It’s been five years. Someone must have done something.”

“Tough to say,” Jerry replies. “So which of you two guys is the guitarist, huh?”

“Why would you think either of us plays the guitar?” I ask.

“I saw them,” he says, “when I came in.”

“You came in through the front door,” I point out, “and you wouldn’t have seen anything that’s in one of the back rooms.”

“Huh.” He pauses, clearly aware that he’s been caught out, but instead of explaining himself he merely sits there with that same moronic grin slapped across his face. “So which of you is it?”

He looks at Craig, and then at me.

“Is it you?” he continues, nodding in my direction. “You look like you could be a musician.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I tell him.

“So it is you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He laughs nervously.

“Come on, man,” he says, as he adjusts his position in the chair a little. “We don’t need to keep secrets from each other, do we? If you’re a musician, you should be proud. That’s totally cool.”

“In current circumstances,” I reply, “it could be seen as something of a liability.”

“Or an opportunity,” he suggests, before leaning forward slightly. “I think it’s time to put my cards on the table. I didn’t just turn up here by accident.” He pauses, and finally his grin fades. “I was sent here, with an offer for you. One that you really, really can’t refuse.”

Twenty-Six

“I’ve never heard an offer I couldn’t refuse,” I say after a few seconds of silence. “In fact, I rather pride myself on being able and willing to turn down anything that I don’t like.”

“How did you find us?” Craig asks, and it’s clear now that he’s worried. “None of this makes sense.”

“Does it matter?” Jerry replies, leaning back in his chair and resting an arm on the back, as if he’s trying to make himself seem relaxed. “Let’s just say that the sound of music was detected coming from here a day or so ago, and an interested party would like to hear more.”

“There’s been no music here,” Craig replies, before turning to me. “Has there?”

Instead of answering, I keep my eyes fixed firmly on Jerry.

“Has there, Derek?” Craig asks. “Did you try to play that guitar you’ve been fixing?”

“What I do in my own time,” I reply, trying to stay calm, “is my own business. Who heard me? I don’t understand, I only played for a few seconds.”

“Eyes in the sky, my friend,” Jerry says. “Or should I say, ears in the sky.”

“What are you talking about, man?” I snap.

“Satellites,” he replies. “Listen, I’m not a tech guy, but a very powerful set of satellites picked up on the sound of music being played in this area, and you two are the only people living for miles around. So it wasn’t too difficult to figure out where to come.”

“Satellites can’t detect music like that,” I tell him. “It’s simply not possible.”

“That’s what I thought, but…” He shrugs. “Here I am. And I’m only the messenger. Please, don’t ask me to explain the rest of it, ’cause I can’t. I can only tell you that your presence is requested. I was sent to issue that request and make sure that you’re happy to come along.”

“Where to?” I ask.

“We have transportation waiting,” he replies. “I only need to call it in. Trust me, you’ll be looked after really well. You’ll be better off than you are right now in this ramshackle old dump.”

“I’m not sure that I want to travel,” I tell him.

“Well, I’m not sure that you…” He pauses. “You’re not making this easy,” he adds finally. “My employer is unwilling to travel, so I’m afraid that you’re going to have to go to him. The transportation will be—”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I say firmly, interrupting him.

“Mr. Glass has instructed me to change your mind,” he explains.

“Glass?” I pause for a moment, trying to remember where I’ve heard that name before. “Do you mean Joshua Glass, the odious little twerp who thinks it’s his business to record everything that everyone does anywhere in the world?”

“I guess now it makes sense how the satellites worked,” Craig suggests.

“Mr. Glass wants to hear your music,” Jerry explains. “He’s still one of the world’s richest men, and he’s not willing to take no for an answer. So I think it’d be much better for everyone if you simply agree and come with me.”

“You do, do you?”

“I do,” he says, staring at me intently. “I think you should definitely make the smart decision.”

“Or what?”

He smiles.

“I don’t like being told what to do,” I reply, “and I’m not some kind of performing monkey that can be ordered around. You can go back to your Mr. Glass and thank him for the offer, but please inform him that I must decline. I’m sure there are others around who can play for him.”

“Probably, but you’re the first one we’ve actually found,” he replies, before biting his lip for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, let me pop outside for a cigarette and give you some time to think.” He gets to his feet and reaches into his pocket, before taking out a packet of cigarettes. “See? Working for Mr. Glass brings some real benefits. I doubt there’s anyone else within five hundred miles who can lay their hands on some of these.”

He chuckles to himself as he heads to the front door, and by the time he steps outside his cigarette is already lit.

“Did you hear that man?” I ask, turning to Craig. “He thinks he can just show up and demand that we go with him!”

I wait, but Craig seems lost in thought.

“You can’t seriously be thinking that it’s a good idea,” I tell him. “What do you think would happen when I got there? I’d play for a few minutes and then I’d run out of music and he’d toss me straight out the door! I’d be of no value to him!”

“I know,” he replies, “but…”

His voice trails off.

“But nothing,” I say firmly. “The arrogance of that man, coming in here and demanding that I go with him! I have never been one for obediently doing what I’m told, and I certainly do not intend to start now at the grand old age of seventy-six! I’ve never been so insulted in all my life!”

“But if—”

“No!” I add, getting to my feet. “I’m not doing it! I absolutely refuse to waste the last of my music on some rich asshole who wouldn’t even appreciate it anyway!”

“You don’t know that it’d be the last of your music,” he replies.

“Of course I do!” I snap. “I felt it when I played the other day! I could feel it fading away! And once it’s gone, I have nothing! Don’t you understand? Music has been my whole life and once I know I can never play again, that’s it! I might as well jump off a cliff!”

“I get it,” he replies, but it’s clear that he’s still frustrated.

“I can’t face it,” I add. “I can’t face the day when I know I’ve played that last piece of music. I’d rather carry it around with me and know that one day, at the end…”

My voice trails off.

“If that’s your decision,” Craig says finally, “then that’s your decision.”

“Please try to understand.”

“I do,” he replies, “and Jerry will have to understand as well. He’ll just have to go back to his boss empty-handed.”

Suddenly feeling utterly exhausted, I lean back in the chair and let out a long sigh. For the first time, I’ve faced my deepest fear. My whole life, I’ve been terrified that music would be taken away from me. Perhaps by a stroke, or by dementia, or by some other affliction. And somehow I think I always knew that it would be taken away, that I was gifted with this great ability but that nobody could ever be lucky enough to enjoy it forever. Granted, I didn’t quite imagine that it would be taken away in this manner, but the fear isn’t new. At least now, I have a modicum of control over the situation, and I do not intend to surrender that control to some know-nothing billionaire.

I turn to Craig, to tell him that I understand if he wants to leave, but suddenly I hear a rushing sound and I look at the window just in time to see a vast red light exploding across the yard.

“What’s that?” I gasp, getting to my feet.

The light seems to be moving fast, casting long, twisting shadows.

“I think it was…” Craig hesitates, before turning to me. “I think it was a flare!”

Twenty-Seven

“Calm down, gentlemen,” Jerry says as he steps back into the kitchen with his hands in his pockets. “I was sensing some resistance on your parts to my offer, so I sent a signal to my friends.”

“What friends?” Craig asks, stepping toward him. “You can’t just come here and—”

“This isn’t about you, buddy,” Jerry adds, cutting him off and turning to me, “it’s about our musician friend.”

“I told you,” I say firmly, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“And I told you,” he replies, “things are a little more complicated. Mr. Glass knows what he wants, and he gets what he wants.”

“Find someone else to play for him!”

“We would if we could,” he explains, “but you might just be the last musician on the planet. Mr. Glass has had his surveillance system tuned to find music for the past few years, and all across the world he didn’t pick up anything until you started strumming your guitar the other day. Naturally he wanted us to spring into action. The world might have fallen to pieces, but some people still manage to keep a grip on things.” He takes a step forward. “You’ll be properly compensated, I assure you.”

“I’m not doing it,” I tell him. “You might as well leave right now.”

“You heard him,” Craig says. “This discussion is over.”

Jerry smiles.

“I think you’d better leave now,” Craig adds, putting a hand on his arm, ready to lead him out. “Nobody asked you to come here.”

“Mr. Glass asked me,” Jerry replies, “and—”

“Get out!”

Craig tries to push him toward the door, but Jerry resists. Craig tries again, and this time Jerry shoves him against the wall.

“I told you to leave!” Craig says again, this time grabbing Jerry and pushing him toward the door. “Get out or I’ll make you get—”

Before he can finish, Jerry puts and arm around his neck and twists him around, and then slams him face-first against the wall.

“You talk a big fight,” Jerry mutters, as he turns Craig around, “but you’re just a kid.”

With that, he punches Craig hard, sending him crashing back against the table and then thudding to the floor.

“I will not come with you!” I shout, as I hurry over and help Craig to his feet. “I don’t care how much force you think you can use, I refuse!”

“I’m the nice guy,” Jerry replies, still with that asinine smile plastered across his face. “My friends, who are coming, will be a little more forceful. I really think you should read between the lines here and try to see how this is all going to play out. Let me be more blunt. You’re going to come and play for Mr. Glass, and then he’ll send you right back here if that’s what you want. He’ll even provide some good food for the pair of you, and then you can go on living your lives in this hovel. If that’s really, truly how you want it to end.”

Once he’s back up, Craig steps toward him.

“Are you going to try all of that again?” Jerry asks, apparently amused by the situation.

“We told you to get out!” Craig says firmly.

“And I’m very keen to leave,” Jerry tells him. “With the musician.”

“You’ll be lucky to leave with your teeth,” Craig replies. “I’m done trying to do this the nice way.”

He lunges forward, grabbing Jerry’s shoulders and trying again to push him to the door. In an instant, however, Jerry kicks his legs away and sends him crashing back down to the floor. Craig tries to leap straight back up, only to get Jerry’s knee crunching against the side of his face.

“Stop this!” I shout, hurrying around the table to check that Craig’s alright. “We’re not animals!”

I kneel next to Craig, just as he sits up with a bloodied face.

“My friends’ll be here in a minute or two,” Jerry continues, as he takes the pack of cigarettes back out of his pocket. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go out for another smoke and leave you two to figure this out for yourselves. You seem like smart guys, so I reckon you’ll understand pretty fast. This situation has already become far more violent than it ever needed to be, and I hope you’ll back away from all of that.” He turns and starts heading toward the door. “Come out when you’ve accepted the inevitable. And have a think about any little luxuries you wanna ask Mr. Glass for. I’m sure he’ll be in a generous mood once he’s heard a tune or two.”

“No chance!” Craig sneers, getting to his feet.

“Wait!” I hiss, trying to hold him back. “Let’s not—”

“We told you to leave!” Craig shouts, hurrying up behind Jerry and grabbing his shoulder, forcing him to turn back toward us. “Now leave!”

Before Jerry can say a word, Craig punches him hard, and his fist connects with Jerry’s nose. Falling back, Jerry tries to steady himself, but this time Craig’s too fast for him. Hauling Jerry around, Craig slams him into the wall and then locks one of his arms behind his back, giving it a twist that brings a cry of pain from Jerry’s lips.

“You’re done here,” Craig snaps, pulling Jerry back and then turning him toward the door. “Take your offer and shove it up your ass!”

He starts pushing Jerry out of the room, but in a flash I spot Jerry’s free hand reach out and grab something from the countertop. There’s a glint of light, and I suddenly realize that he took one of the knives we’ve been using to skin the rabbits. And then, before I have a chance to warn Craig, I see Jerry spin around and lunge forward, and I hear a series of sickening crunches as Craig shudders and falls back.

“No!” I shout, but I’m too late.

Craig staggers back, clutching his chest, and as I reach him I see that he’s been stabbed several times.

“That wasn’t my intention,” Jerry says firmly, still holding the bloodied knife. “I want to make that perfectly clear. No-one had to get hurt.”

Craig tries to turn to me, but at that moment his legs buckle. I manage to grab hold of him and support him, and then I ease him down onto one of the chairs. Turning, I grab a tea-towel from the counter, but then I look down and see that huge amounts of blood are rushing from the wounds all over his chest and belly.

He tries to say something, but now there’s also blood running from his mouth.

“Like I said,” Jerry continues, “I’ll be outside. Mr. Musician, when you’re ready to come out, we’ll be waiting. Just don’t leave it too long, or we’ll have to come and get you.” He heads to the door and pulls it open, and there are already lights outside, heading this way. “Oh, and don’t forget to bring your guitar.”

Twenty-Eight

“It’s going to be okay,” I stammer as I kneel next to Craig and try to figure out how to stop the blood-loss. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I’ll fix you up.”

I start unbuttoning his shirt, but when I pull the fabric aside I see that the stab wounds are thick and wide, with blood flowing freely from several different places. I press the tea-towel against one of the wounds, but if anything that only makes more blood burst out from a spot further down on his belly.

“I’ll sew them up,” I continue, as I hear voices shouting outside the farmhouse, and as the beams from car headlights start blasting through the kitchen window. “You’ll need to rest, but you’ll be okay.”

I turn to hurry across the room, but then I hesitate for a moment.

“Do we have string?” I ask after a moment. “Or cotton. Something I can use.” I turn to him. “I don’t know what to use to sew you back up!”

He opens his mouth and lets out a faint, guttural whisper, but I can’t make out any of the words. Already, blood is starting to drip down and splatter against the kitchen floor.

“I don’t know what to do!” I shout, trying not to panic. “Why don’t I know? I’m seventy-six years old, I should know what to do in an emergency! How have I got to this age without knowing any basic first aid?”

Craig tries again to speak, but once more his voice is too low. Stepping closer, I drop down onto my knees and lean toward him, hoping that this time I’ll be able to understand.

He whispers, but I still don’t manage to pick it up.

“I didn’t hear that,” I tell him. “What do I need to do?”

“You can’t do anything,” he replies, raising his voice a little. “It’s okay, Derek. You just have to make sure you get away from that bastard.”

“I know, but first I have to fix you up!”

“You can’t do that, Derek.”

“I have to find some—”

“It won’t work,” he says firmly, placing a trembling hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m not scared.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, looking into his eyes. “You’re not going to die!”

“I am,” he replies, “and I’m not scared. I used to think I was, but I’m not. I just need you to do one thing for me.” He pauses, as if he’s struggling to stay conscious. “Two things, actually.”

“Craig, tell me what to do,” I stammer. “Tell me how to save you.”

“The first thing is… I need you to survive. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed, not like I did.”

“You’re not going to die,” I tell him again. “Stay strong.”

“The second thing is… I want you to just leave me right here, on this chair.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not scared of dying,” he says firmly. “I’m just scared of all the stuff that goes with it. I’m scared of being buried in the ground, like Adam was. And I’m scared of being burned. I’m scared of being cut open for an autopsy, although I doubt that’d happen now. But I’m not scared of actually dying and just being left here, where I fell. That feels kinda dignified.”

Staring at him, I realize that he’s serious.

Suddenly he reaches down and grabs my right hand, and he squeezes tight.

“I never heard you play,” he continues. “That sucks. But you’ll play again one day. This whole thing will pass and the world will go back to normal. And when it does, you’ve got to play a lot, do you understand? Maybe you’re the only one who can.”

“I… I’ll play for you now,” I reply, before getting to my feet and slipping my hand free of his. “Wait right there!”

I hurry to the next room and grab my cobbled-together guitar, and then I head back through to him.

“It might not sound good,” I explain as I grab a chair and pull it closer, and then I sit down and set the guitar into the correct position. “It’s hopelessly out of tune, and I haven’t exactly had time to practice.” I stare down at my hands for a moment, trying to work out exactly what I should play, and then finally I turn to Craig. “Is there anything in particular that you’d like to hear?”

He’s dead.

I can see that instantly, from the glassy look in his eyes. I stare at him for a moment, hoping against hope that perhaps he’ll stir, but deep down I know that there’s no chance.

Reaching over, I gently close his eyes.

How many young people have I seen die since this madness began? First there was Sarah, then there was Adam, and now Craig.

If I’d been Craig, I’d have been raging at the end. He was only in his early twenties, I believe. How could he have been so brave, so mature, even as he knew his life was fading? I’ve always been absolutely terrified of death, I’d have been panicking and trying desperately to cling to life, but in his last moments Craig seemed to reach some kind of peace. As I stare at his face now, I know with absolute certainty that I am incapable of that kind of peace.

I have to get out of here.

Suddenly filled with a sense of sheer terror, I grab my guitar and hurry toward the door, before stopping as I hear the voices outside. I hesitate, and then I race through to the rear of the house. Once I’m at the back door, I stop again and listen, but this time I don’t hear anyone nearby, so I pull the door open and rush out into the cold night air.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Startled, I turn and see Jerry watching me from just a few feet away. He has his arms folded, and he’s grinning as he leans against the wall.

“Are you still going to fight this?” he asks. “There’s no—”

Turning, I rush back into the house and slam the door shut, and then I head through to the kitchen just as two men in dark uniforms come through the front door. I turn to go back, but Jerry is already inside the house and I realize that I’m surrounded. I glance around for a moment, and then finally I grab another of the knives from the counter and hold it up.

“Don’t come near me!” I yell.

“Or what?” Jerry asks.

“Or…”

I pause for a moment, staring at Craig’s poor, lifeless corpse, and then I turn and see that Jerry is still smiling.

“Or I’ll kill myself,” I say finally, before setting the guitar down and then placing the knife’s tip against my chest, roughly above my heart. “What will your Mr. Glass think about that? I’m not much use to anyone if I’m dead.”

“That’s true,” Jerry replies, “but I guess that if I rush at you right now, you’ll drive that knife straight into your own chest, puncturing your heart.”

“Damn straight I will!” I say firmly.

“And we’re not going to leave without you,” he adds, “so this seems to be some kind of stand-off.” He pauses for a moment, before taking a step forward.

“Don’t come any closer!” I yell.

“If you’re going to kill yourself, old man,” he replies, taking another step toward me, “then you’d better get on with it.”

I step back until I bump against the counter, but my hand is trembling. I look over at Craig again, wondering what he’d do in this situation. I want to be brave like him, and unafraid of death, but then I look down at the knife’s tip and imagine it slicing into my heart. I refuse to leave this farm and be taken to Joshua Glass, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to carry out my threat.

Finally, slowly, Jerry reaches out and takes the knife from my hand.

“Well, there’s a surprise,” he gloats. “The old man is too afraid of dying. These shenanigans have gone on for long enough, don’t you think? It’s time to hit the road.”

Twenty-Nine

“You’ve been in a helicopter before, haven’t you, Mr. Harrisford?” Jerry shouts as he climbs out of the car an hour or so later. “I’m sure you traveled in style back in the old days, at the height of your pop career.”

He comes around and opens the door next to me, and then he pulls me out. I stumble slightly, and then I turn to see that one of the uniformed goons has already removed my guitar from the vehicle.

“We’ve got quite a journey ahead of us,” Jerry continues, leading me across the tarmac and toward the waiting helicopter, “so we might as well get going now. I’ve already radioed ahead to let Mr. Glass know that we’re coming, and I’m sure he’s very excited. I hope we won’t be getting any more silliness from you.”

I try to pull away, but his grip is too tight and I know that fighting back is hopeless. As we get closer to the helicopter, I feel a knot of dread in my belly as I realize that I am indeed going to be flown to the lair of this Glass beast, where no doubt he’ll command me to do his bidding. I tell myself that I must think of a way out of this mess, that perhaps I could yet leap up and try to have my head taken off by the helicopter’s blades, but then I’m bundled into the rear of the machine and I realize that I have missed my chance.

I’m a coward.

If I had just had a little more courage earlier, I would not have to do any of this.

“Put these on,” Jerry says, placing a set of headphones over my ears. “We’ve got several hundred miles to cover. You don’t want to be deaf by the time we get to Mr. Glass.”

I don’t reply. I don’t do anything. I merely sit like a doll, like some dumb creature with no mind of its own, as the helicopter’s doors are slid shut. And then, before I even have a chance to react, the helicopter lifts from the ground. I turn to see Jerry sitting beside me, and then I look out the window and watch as we rise higher and higher into the slowly brightening morning sky.

“You haven’t been in one of these things before, have you?” Jerry asks, nudging my arm. “I looked you up, Mr. Harrisford. You’ve had quite an impressive career, although I can’t help thinking that you were mis-managed somewhere along the way. Tell me, did you ever think about Eurovision?”

I turn to him.

“I think you’d have done well in Eurovision,” he continues. “That hit song of yours could have won in Eurovision. That’s not an insult, by the way. It’s a compliment. Actually, it’s a huge compliment. I love Eurovision.”

“You’re a murderer,” I reply.

“It was self defense,” he says firmly, and now his grin is gone, as the helicopter swoops out toward the horizon. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but he gave me no choice. If I’d failed in my mission, Mr. Glass would have either had me killed, or he’d have cut me loose. I did what I did in order to survive. I’d suggest that you start acting the same way.”

Turning and looking out the window, I’m shocked to see the glinting tops of London skyscrapers. As the helicopter races across vast empty fields, I look toward the distant city and search for any sign of life, but somehow the whole place looks dead.

“There’s not much there anymore,” Jerry explains. “London’s not the place to be, not anymore. I’m sure there are a few people scrabbling for survival, but the metrics aren’t good. Disease, violence, unrest… I wouldn’t want to go to London now. Even the proto-governments are ignoring the place, they’re setting up in places like York and Winchester instead. I guess they’re aiming for some historical significance.”

“There’s really nothing out there,” I whisper, watching the tombstone-like skyscrapers and buildings of that once-great city. “London has fallen, and all because we lost music.”

“Don’t feel bad about it,” Jerry replies. “Change is good. Change is vital. If you really think about it, the world was in something of a rut, we needed something to come along and shake things up. And men like Mr. Glass are leading the way. Give it another ten years, and I think you’ll see some kind of new order start to rise from the ashes. That’s when humanity’s really going to take a great leap forward, although it’ll never be the same without music. I have a feeling that the next phase of human existence is going to be fundamentally different from everything that’s gone before.”

“With murder and brutality at its heart?” I ask, still watching the vast, still land as the helicopter races through the morning air. “With men like Joshua Glass getting exactly what they want?”

“I didn’t have you down as a pessimist, Mr. Harrisford.”

“I have always had a rather innate aversion to tyrants,” I tell him. “And to murderers.”

“Things will shake out eventually,” he replies, sounding rather amused by the whole situation. “Do you remember when all people had to talk about was politics and celebrity gossip, Mr. Harrisford? Those days seem so long ago now. And I for one am very excited to see where men like Joshua Glass are going to lead us next.”

The helicopter takes a sharp turn, banking left at great speed. I feel my stomach turn, but I suspect that this is not due solely to the helicopter’s rather rapid movement. Indeed, I fear that at the end of this journey I am going to come face to face with the very epitome of everything I hate in this world. Worse still, I cannot even stand up to Mr. Glass when I meet him, for today I learned that I am a coward.

Thirty

“I recognize this place,” I say several hours later, as I step out of the helicopter and see a set of ruins rising up high above us. “Where are we?”

“Lindisfarne,” Jerry replies. “Mr. Glass has always had an affinity for the place. When it became available after the collapse of civilization, he decided to move here. He’s had the most wonderful home built for himself and his family, combining modernity with the ancient ruins of the old abbey.”

As he speaks, I realize that I can indeed make out glinting glass and metal running between the ruined abbey walls. I came to Lindisfarne once when I was a child, and I remember my father attempting to tell me all about the Viking raids that ruined this place. I was too young to really absorb the tale at the time, but I do recall being awestruck by the sight of what remained of the abbey. Now it seems that this Mr. Glass fellow has put his own stamp on the place, and the result is singularly hideous.

A grander example of opulent bad taste, I cannot possibly imagine.

“We are entering the age of barbarians,” I whisper.

“And here’s Mr. Glass himself,” Jerry announces, as I turn to see a man in a dark suit coming to meet us. “He’s very pleased to see you, Mr. Harrisford. Oh, here—”

He thrusts my guitar into my hands.

“You should be holding this,” he explains. “It looks a lot better.”

“Now this is a sight for sore eyes,” Glass says as he reaches us and holds out a hand for me to shake. His eyes are hidden behind dark glasses. “A real musician, for the first time in more than five years. Mr. Harrisford, I must admit that I was beginning to lose hope that such a rare thing could still exist. You’re priceless, absolutely priceless.” He takes my hands and shakes it firmly, even though it was not offered. “And I mean that in the most literal sense.”

“I imagine that Mr. Harrisford is tired,” Jerry suggests. “He hasn’t slept at all during the night.”

“Then you must be shown to your room at once,” Glass replies, taking a step back and looking me up and down, as if he’s admiring my presence. “I want you to be fully rested before you give us the honor of a performance. I trust that Jerry and his men have been treating you well?”

“Actually,” I reply coldly, “they murdered my friend.”

Glass hesitates, before lowering his sunglasses slightly to reveal a pair of piercing blue eyes.

“I beg your pardon?” he says.

“Your associate here killed my friend in cold blood,” I explain. “For no other reason than that he refused to do as he was ordered.”

“Is that so, Jerry?” Glass asks, turning to him. “I thought we discussed this.”

“It was self-defense,” Jerry replies. “I’m sorry, Mr. Glass, but I did what was necessary in order to acquire the asset. If I hadn’t, I’d probably still be there arguing with him now.”

“I see,” Glass replies, before putting a hand on my arm and trying to lead me toward the path that leads to his home. “Please, come with me,” he continues. “You’ll be looked after, I assure you. Whatever hardships you’ve endured over the past five years, they are over now. Your miraculous survival is going to be well-rewarded.” He reaches into one of his pockets. “And I can assure you that nothing else will happen that might unsettle you in any manner.”

With that, he pulls out a gun and turns, and I watch in horror as he aims at Jerry and then fires. He hits the man straight in the forehead, blasting a chunk out of his brain and sending Jerry falling back and crashing to the ground.

“Again, my apologies for Mr. Sudbury’s actions,” Glass says as he calmly puts the gun back into his pocket. “As you can see, I do not tolerate that sort of thing. Jerry disobeyed my orders by hurting your friend, and I can only hope that this trauma will not harm your playing in any manner.”

Staring down at Jerry’s body, I watch as two uniformed men come and pick him up. They carry him away, heading toward the beach as if they mean to simply dump him into the water.

“Please, come,” Glass continues, touching my arm again. “I think you’ll be very surprised when you see what I’ve created here.”

This time, too dazed to really resist, I let him lead me along the path. I’m still holding the bodged-together guitar that I fixed back at the farm.

“The first thing you must understand,” Glass says, “is that you’re not here for me. Not really. I’ll explain later, but you’re here for the future. For the future that I intend to create. I don’t know whether you’re aware, Mr. Harrisford, but we didn’t simply lose the music in our world. It was taken from us. My men have been examining the evidence, and it’s quite clear that creatures of some sort came here and stole our music.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware of that,” I reply.

“So many people lost their minds,” he continues, “but I see that as a sort of culling of the herd. The weak are gone, Mr. Harrisford, and now the likes of you and I are left to propel the world forward. Really, we should be grateful to those creatures. Whatever they were, and wherever they took the music, they most likely did us a great favor. Do you remember how music was everywhere? The night that it was taken, I was holding a concert in London, and I was astonished to realize that most of my guests were ignoring the music itself. They were too busy talking. Music became something for the background, something we took for granted. And now?”

Ahead, two more uniformed men open a door at the front of the building.

“Now music is the most precious thing around,” Glass adds. “More precious than gold, more precious than diamonds. And you possess it, don’t you? You’re one of the very few people in the world who can still play, even if your gift will only last for a few more minutes. That’s why I had you brought here, to my villain-like lair. Something so precious must be cared for and used only when it can give the maximum possible benefit to the world. Now, what do you think of my home?”

Stepping into the foyer, I look around and see vast glass windows that stretch between the ancient ruins of the abbey. Even the roof is glass, as if this Mr. Glass fellow has an unhealthy obsession, and I can’t help but feel that this whole place is utterly sterile.

“Actually,” I say, turning to him, “I think it’s a disgusting travesty. Even the Vikings showed this place more respect.”

He stares at me for a moment, as if shocked, and then he smiles.

“A perfect answer,” he replies finally, patting me on the shoulder. “Truly perfect, Mr. Harrisford. If you’d lied and said you liked it, I would have been very disappointed. I trust you will be able to make yourself comfortable, however. You must rest now, and later you will bless us all with your gift.”

I look around for a moment, unable to ignore the goons in uniforms who seem to be guarding the place, and then I turn back to Mr. Glass.

“And what makes you think,” I say cautiously, “that I will play anything for you?”

“Because when you realize why I have brought you here, and for whose benefit,” he replies, “you will have no other choice.”

Thirty-One

Stopping at the window of my room, I look out and watch for a moment as water laps at the shore of the nearby beach. We’re so far north now, just a few miles from the Scottish border. The scene is rather beautiful, and I am heartened by the realization that – despite all the travails of mankind – the natural world continues on its way.

“Humans need to hear music,” I remember an old girlfriend saying to me one day, as we rested in bed after a heavy night out. “Nature doesn’t. For humans, music is this separate thing. For the rest of the world, even birds, music is part of their core. We’re so desperately unlucky, really.”

I didn’t know what she meant at the time, and to be honest I think perhaps she was inspired by a few too many tokes on a funny cigarette, but perhaps she was trying to get at some deeper point that she didn’t quite understand. For the first time, I find myself wondering whether it might be better for the world if the human race died off entirely. Then we wouldn’t be around to interfere, and the natural world could get back to the simple pleasure of singing to itself without our constant interruptions.

Then again, deep down, I’m already trying to plan my escape. Sure, Mr. Glass has a lot of guards, but I’m certain I can slip away, and then I’d have to make it to the beach. From there, I think my best bet would be to head north along the coast, so that hopefully I can eventually slip into Scotland. I have no idea what I would find there, but I can only hope that perhaps the Scots are making a better fist of this brave new world malarkey.

Suddenly hearing a bumping noise, I turn just in time to see a young lad – no more than five years old, I’d say – watching me from the open doorway. He has blue eyes, much like the man I must assume is his father.

“Good morning,” I say, forcing a smile. I have never been good with children. “My name is Derek Harrisford. And who might you be?”

The boy stares at me, but he does not reply.

“It seems that I am a guest of your father today,” I explain. “Whether I like it or not.”

I wait, but still he says nothing. After a moment, however, he turns and looks over at the corner of the room, where my guitar rests on the floor.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” I ask. “It’s really two guitars. Both were damaged, but out of their remains I was able to construct something semi-decent. One of the guitars belonged to me, and the other belonged to a girl named Sarah who… Well, I don’t suppose that you need to know that now, she was—”

Suddenly he raises his right hand and gestures for me to follow him, and then he slips out of view.

“Excuse me?” I call out, but I can already hear his footsteps walking away.

I hesitate, wondering whether I should perhaps focus on trying to find a way out of this place, but then I tell myself that perhaps I should go and see what the child wants.

Stepping out into the corridor, I see that he’s heading around the far corner, so I follow. I feel faintly ridiculous, but I suppose that it would behove me to trust a child. He might be the son of Joshua Glass, but I refuse to believe that at such a young age this boy could already have learned to replicate his father’s deceit and cunning.

Reaching the corner, I see the boy turn to check that I’m coming, and then he walks calmly into another room.

I look around, feeling rather as if I’m being drawn into a trap, and then I follow the boy through, and to my surprise I find myself in a large room lined – on either side – with musical instruments on various stands. There are saxophones and trombones and clarinets, and violins and violas, and drums and guitars and lutes and pianos, and scores of other instruments, some of which I don’t even recognize.

“What is this,” I ask, “some kind of museum?”

The boy walks over to one of the stands and carefully takes a black recorder, which he then puts to his lips. He attempts to play it, but of course no music emerges.

“You should be glad that thing doesn’t work,” I tell him. “Trust me, the screeching sound of the recorder is far from pleasant.”

He lowers the recorder for a moment, before setting it back onto the stand and then moving along and picking up a saxophone. He struggles with the heavy instrument, but finally he manages to try blowing into it. Yet again, there is no music.

“Now that is a finer instrument,” I explain. “Not that I was ever very good at playing the saxophone, you understand, but I knew some fine musicians who were masters on the thing.” I pause for a moment, watching the boy’s relentless and rather sad attempt to play. He even presses his fingers against the pads, mimicking the proper method, as if he’s been taught a pantomime version of the art of musicianship. “Perhaps it’s a little big for you,” I suggest. “You should start with something smaller.”

“You misunderstand,” a familiar voice says suddenly, and I turn to see that Mr. Glass is watching us from the doorway.

He steps into the room as the boy continues to blow futilely into the saxophone.

“This is Joshua Jr., my son,” he explains. “On the night the music vanished, Joshua was still in my wife’s belly. So you see, he was born into a world without music. He’s fascinated by the instruments, he spends hours every day pretending to play them. It’s rather tragic, really, for the truth is, he has never heard music. I’ve told him about it, but I don’t think he really understands what it was. Still, I think he has some instinctive understanding that something is wrong. That something is missing from the world.”

Turning, I watch for a moment longer as the child tries again and again to play the saxophone. The scene is, indeed, very tragic, although I must admit that there’s a hint of comedy as well.

“Can you imagine how hard it has been,” he continues, “trying to explain all of this to him? He knows that there exists this precious thing, but he also knows that he doesn’t understand it. It’s impossible to explain music to someone who has never heard it being played. I worry that as he gets older, this sense of loss will drive him insane. Eventually he will have to succeed me, and he’ll need to be strong. Perhaps now, Mr. Harrisford, you’re beginning to understand why I went to such extreme measures in order to bring you here.”

I turn to him, and I swear I can see fear in his eyes.

“My son is the reason,” he says firmly. “Tonight, once you have rested, we shall stage a performance in my purpose-built auditorium. And Mr. Harrisford… I assure you, you will play.”

Thirty-Two

Sitting in silence, I watch as the two uniformed men make their way across the open foyer. They seem to have some kind of routine, and I’ve been studying them for over an hour now. Sure enough, they quickly head into a side-room, and I find myself completely alone.

This is my chance.

I hurry across the foyer, with my guitar in my arms, and I head quickly to the exit. I had been expecting to find the door locked, but to my surprise I find it open, so I slip outside and immediately feel a strong wind blowing against me. I can hear distant waves, too, crashing against the beach far below, and for a moment I look out at the vast wilderness and I realize that I don’t really have much of a plan beyond escaping the home of Joshua Glass.

Still, I suppose I can come up with a plan once I’m on the road. For now, I really have to get moving.

I glance around to make sure that I haven’t been spotted, and then I hurry across the patch of open grass that leads to the path. Looking over my shoulder, I’m surprised to find that I still haven’t been spotted, but a moment later I see a guard coming around from the rear of the building.

I duck down behind some rocks, still clutching my guitar, and then I wait. I can hear voices in the distance, but as far as I can tell my absence has not yet been detected. The wind is really picking up now, causing the grass to rustle loudly, and I suppose that perhaps this extra noise will aid my escape. After a few more seconds, I begin to peer around the side of the rock, and I watch as the guard heads into the main building. All seems calm so far, but I am quite sure that soon an alarm will be raised.

When that happens, I must be as far from this place as possible.

Turning, I hurry down the grassy embankment, while looking ahead and trying to work out exactly how I am to escape from the island. I know that there is a causeway that links the island to the mainland at low tide, but as I reach the bottom of the embankment I look down and see that the tide is not yet sufficiently low. Still, it will take me at least another half hour to get all the way down there, and I tell myself that the gods will perhaps be on my side. I turn and take one last look back up toward the ruins of the monastery, and then I start picking my way along the rocky path.

Suddenly I stop as I see a figure straight ahead, and my heart sinks as I recognize the young boy.

He’s staring straight at me.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I tell him, “but I’m afraid I can’t stay. I have to leave. Please, send my regards to your father and ask him to understand.”

I wait, but the boy does not react at all.

“It’s not that I don’t want to play,” I continue. “I’d give anything to be able to play for you, it’s just that once I’ve played, I can never play again. And I can’t face that.”

He still says nothing, so I start making my way cautiously toward him. If I am to get down to the beach, I shall have to continue on this path, which means passing the child.

After a moment, he turns and looks down toward the rocks.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see that there’s still no sign of any guards coming after me. Turning back to face the child, I consider trying to step past him, but I worry that he might do or say something that will cause a commotion. I remain frozen for a few seconds in indecision, and then finally – realizing that I cannot simply stand here forever – I take couple of faltering steps forward.

“It’s cold up here,” I say, trying to make a little small-talk. “You should go back up to the house.”

Still, he does not reply.

“Not quite yet,” I add suddenly, worried that if he returns he might give me away. “Wait here a while, even though it’s cold. Cold is good for you, it strengthens your immune system, something like that.”

I hesitate, and then I make my way past him. The path ahead is now clear, so I hurry on ahead, and I believe that I can already see the causeway starting to become clear. Then, suddenly filled with a sense of guilt, I stop and look back at the boy. He appears so mournful, standing there all alone, staring down at the rocks.

“I’m sure you’ll hear music some day,” I tell him, hoping to make him feel a little better. “I’m not the only one who can play. I mean, I can’t be. That would simply be absurd. The fate of all music in this world can’t possibly rest on the shoulders of a washed-up has-been with a broken guitar.”

I smile slightly, hoping that the boy might smile as well, but after a moment he turns to me with the same mournful expression that he’s had since I first saw him. I know that I don’t have time to stop and talk to him, but I can’t quite bring myself to simply hurry away.

“Just have faith, okay?” I continue. “I know that’s difficult, but this can’t last forever and eventually it’ll change. You’ll hear so much music, you’ll be sick of the stuff. Besides, there are some up-sides to the current situation. You never have to hear lift music, for one thing. Plus, I can think of half a dozen so-called musical artists whose work I’d gladly leave lost in a void forever. The world was by no means perfect, even when we had music.”

I step toward him and hold out a hand.

“Now how about you come a little way back from the edge?” I add. “I hate to admit it, but you’re making me feel very nervous. I think I’m developing vertigo by proxy.”

He hesitates, and then finally he takes my hand and lets me pull him back. As I do so, I can’t help but peer down at the rocks far below, and I wince as see the waves crashing against all those sharp, jagged points.

“That’s better,” I tell the boy, before patting his shoulder. “And now, if you don’t mind, I really do have to—”

Before I can finish, I hear footsteps nearby, and I turn just in time to see several of Glass’s goons running this way. I instinctively turn to run, but then I realize that there’s no point. If I’d been quicker, perhaps I could have hidden and then escaped later. Perhaps. As things are, it would seem that I have missed my chance and am to be hauled back up to the house.

“It’s okay,” one of the men says over his radio, as they come to fetch me. “We’ve got him.”

Thirty-Three

A new suit has been laid out for me in my room, along with a rather fine new guitar.

I refuse to touch either.

Thirty-Four

The door is held open for me by two rather nervous-looking goons, and I amble forward with the battered, Frankenstein guitar in my right hand.

“Mr. Harrisford,” Glass says, as he finishes pouring some glasses of wine and then turns to me, “I’m so—”

He hesitates as soon as he sees me, and it’s clear that he’s displeased by the fact that I have not dressed up like the performing monkey that he was expecting.

His son, Joshua Jr., is sitting on a stool at the side of the room, waiting patiently.

“Mr. Harrisford,” Glass continues finally, having evidently reset himself. He even manages a smile. “I’m so glad that you could join us this evening. We’ve been waiting a long time for tonight. Haven’t we, Joshua?”

When the boy fails to answer, he turns to him.

“Haven’t we, Joshua?” he says again, more firmly this time.

The boy nods and murmurs a faint, inaudible assent. It would seem that he knows better than to contradict his father.

“This is to be a rather special evening,” Glass continues as he brings a glass of wine over and holds it out for me. “Forgive me for leaving that expensive guitar in your room. I fully understand that you would prefer to play on an old friend.” He looks down at the guitar with barely disguised disgust. “It looks very… homely.”

“It does indeed,” I reply, ignoring the wine even though I would dearly love a taste, “but you’re mistaken about one thing. I have not come here to play. The decision is mine to make, and I have made it. I have come instead to bid you farewell. I shall be leaving now. There’s no need to show me to the door, I can find my way alone.”

“I anticipated your response to the new guitar,” he replies, “so I arranged for another to be here.”

He indicates toward the corner, and I turn to see yet another guitar resting neatly on a stand.

“That one, I believe,” he continues, “is from Italy. It would have cost twenty thousand pounds in the old days. It’s probably worthless today, at least in terms of money.”

“I’m sure it’s a fine guitar,” I tell him. “It’s not going to make me change my mind.”

I see a flicker of irritation on his features, and I can’t help but smile. This man is a tyrant, and it pleases me to stand up to him. Besides, what’s he going to do? Shoot me? Then he really does know that he shall never hear music again.

After a moment he turns and walks away, seemingly lost in thought.

“How long do you think you’ve got left, Mr. Harrisford?” he asks finally, stopping with his back to me.

“I could probably play for a few more minutes,” I tell him, “but not for—”

“I don’t mean that.” He turns to me. “I mean, how long do you think you’ve got left to live? You’re an old man and you’re hardly in good shape. In perfect circumstances you might last a few more years, but with the world as it is, you’ve got… I don’t know, a month or two? I mean, look at you. You’re sweating already, and it’s cool in here.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Glass,” I reply, before turning and heading toward the door. “All the best.”

“Stop.”

I keep going until I reach the door, only to find that it is locked. I try it a couple of times, just to be sure, and then I slowly turn to see that Glass is watching me intently.

“Joshua was in the womb when the music stopped,” he explains. “Sometimes I wonder whether he might have heard something while he was in there. It’s impossible to be certain, of course, but his mother certainly believed that it was possible. She used to try singing to him when he was in his crib, she tried for hours and hours every day, but nothing came. Can you imagine how that felt for her, Mr. Harrisford? I think it’s what drove her mad in the end. The inability to sing for her child.”

“And where is she now?” I ask cautiously.

“My wife?” He hesitates, and then he furrows his brow. “Do you know what? I can’t remember what happened to her.” He glances around, as if looking for some trifling object that he’s replaced. “She’s not here anymore, but she was with us when we arrived at Lindisfarne.”

He pauses, and then he shakes his head.

“It’s the strangest thing,” he continues, “but I simply cannot remember what happened to poor Lara.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t like tyrants,” I suggest.

“Perhaps, or…”

His voice trails off for a moment, and then he begins to nod slowly.

“Now I remember,” he adds with a sigh. “I already told you that she went mad when she couldn’t sing for our son. Well, I’m afraid that despite my every effort to help her, she ended up tossing herself off the cliff. How did I manage to forget that? Maybe it was too painful to think back to the sight of her down there on the rocks.”

I turn to look at the child, who is now staring down at his own two feet. I suppose now I understand what he was thinking about earlier, when I met him out there.

“You lost your mother young, didn’t you?” Glass says, and I turn to see him watching me with a faint smile. “How tragic. I’m sure you can understand how my son feels. You must have empathy for him. What better way to help him, however, than to play him some music?”

“Your efforts at manipulation are a little transparent,” I reply.

This irritates him. I can see that from the expression on his face, and I can’t shake the feeling that beneath his calm exterior there’s a molten vat of seething anger and resentment. I glance once again at the young boy, and for a moment I feel utterly sorry for the child. What chance can he have, growing up with such father?

“Maybe I should make things a little clearer for you, Mr. Harrisford,” Glass says finally, setting the glass of wine down and then heading over to a laptop on a nearby table.

Affecting an air of cool disinterest, I wander to a nearby window and peer out. To my surprise, I see that several of the guards are hurrying away, making their way across the grass as if they’re abandoning ship and heading for the causeway. Indeed, there are a lot of them out there, and I can’t help wondering whether the entire gang is leaving. Darkness is falling, and I’m not sure that they’ll have much luck out there. They must be rather desperate.

Suddenly I hear a whirring sound, and I turn to see that – as Glass taps at his laptop – panels are slowly opening at several spots all around the room. I look at the nearest panels and see that is contained some kind of small device that looks like a set of black bottles stuck together.

“I’m not a man who messes around,” Glass says, and now his voice sounds harsher and more clipped, “so forgive me if this seems a trifle extreme. However, I need you to play tonight, Mr. Harrisford, and you’ve given me no choice in the matter. So allow me to introduce a little extra encouragement.”

“I’m really not in the mood to be threatened,” I say firmly, although I can’t help peering at these strange devices and feeling a tad concerned.

“I’m not threatening you, Mr. Harrisford,” Glass replies. “I’m merely informing you of the situation. There are sixteen explosive devices around the edges of this room. That’s more than enough to blow the roof off, so I really think you should consider your options here.”

Turning to him, I see a mad glint in his eyes.

“I always get what I want,” he adds, with his hand resting on the laptop’s keyboard, “and I want you to play. So play.”

Thirty-Five

“You’re lying,” I say after a moment, refusing to believe that Joshua Glass is quite this insane. “These empty threats won’t work.”

“Do I need to provide a demonstration?” he asks.

“I’m not going to give in to tyrants!” I say firmly, before turning to head back to the door. Perhaps I can break the wretched thing down. “I have never in my life been one to—”

Before I can finish, one of the devices explodes on the far side of the room. I spin around just in time to see debris being cast out across the floor, and smoke rises from the site of the detonation.

“That was just one of them,” Glass says calmly. “There are still fifteen of the devices left, and I can assure you that when they all explode at once, they’ll destroy this place.” His hands is still resting on the laptop. “I’m losing patience with you, Mr. Harrisford. You’ve demonstrated your defiance, and I commend you for that, but it’s time to grow up and be a little more considerate. Play that guitar.”

“I…”

For a moment, I consider doing as I’m ordered, but then I feel a kind of burning anger in my chest. All my life, I’ve resisted doing what I’m told. There has always been a little voice in my head, telling me to resist orders. At times, that voice has been my undoing, and has held me back from opportunities. But if that is the case, I am most certainly not going to break the habit of a lifetime now. I am not going to bend the knee for this asshole.

“Play it,” he says again.

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“I know you can.”

“If I play the last of my music,” I reply, “then I shall have nothing left. It’s the most precious thing in the world to me and I can’t give it to—”

“Play it!” he screams suddenly, stepping away from the table and hurrying toward me in a moment of sudden fury. “I swear, you will play that thing!”

“I—”

Before I can finish, he grabs me by the shoulders and swings me around, shoving me into the wall with such force that I feel a flicker of pain in my back. At the same time, I lose my grip on the guitar, letting it clatter down against the floor.

“He has to hear!” he snarls, leaning closer to my face. “I brought you all the way here, old man, and now you will play that guitar! I don’t care what you play! It’s been five years and I’ve heard no music at all. I’ve tried to keep my head together, but I’m coming apart at the seams! And my son struggles every day with this great gap in his life! I’ve tried being nice, Mr. Harrisford, but I’m reaching the end of my tether.” He leans even closer, until I can feel his hot breath on my skin. “I’m ordering you to play the guitar!”

“And I’m telling you,” I reply, “that I—”

Suddenly he lets out a furious scream and pulls me away from the wall, and then he throws me to the floor. I land hard and let out a gasp of pain, but a moment later I feel a boot slamming into the back of my neck and forcing me back down. I try to get free, but the boot digs harder and harder against my spine, and I can hear Glass snarling and hissing as he towers above me.

“This is what disobedience looks like!” he shouts. “Do you see this old man? He thinks he’s standing up for something, he thinks he’s somehow being proud, but his face is on the floor and my foot is holding him there! Do you see, son? Do you see how pathetic he is? He’s fighting for some illusion of dignity, and he doesn’t even care that his face is in the dirt!”

I try to cry out, but he’s pushing harder now and there’s a pain in my neck. It’s almost as if he means to kill me, and the pain gets stronger and stronger until finally I scream.

Immediately, he pulls his boot away, but a moment later he kicks me hard in the ribs. I let out an agonized gasp and roll onto my side, only for Glass to kick me in the side of the face.

“Look at him!” Glass yells. “He still thinks he’s resisting!”

“I will never do what you want!” I stammer. “I’m not—”

Suddenly he moves his foot closer to my face. I cry out and hold my hands up to protect myself, but Glass doesn’t kick me this time. Instead, he simply starts laughing.

“You will play that guitar, old man,” Glass sneers. “We both know it, so why not just get on with it now? Let my son hear music for the first time.”

“Never!” I gasp, as I taste blood in the back of my throat.

“Now!”

“Never!”

“Now!”

“Ne—”

He kicks me again, this time in the throat. I roll onto my other side and reach up, clutching the sides of my neck. For a few seconds I can’t breathe at all, as if the impact has crushed my wind-pipe, but finally I’m just about able to get some gasps of air into my lungs.

“See how he continues to resist?” Glass calls out to his son. “This can be a useful lesson to you, son. Choose your battles. He’s going to surrender eventually, he’s just making it difficult for himself.”

I hear him starting to walk away.

Rolling back over, I watch for a moment as he heads to his laptop. He checks something on the screen, as if to remind me of the explosive devices that are all around us, and then he turns and grins at me. It’s the same kind of sickly grin that I remember seeing on Roger’s face all those years ago. I stood up to Roger, and I will now stand up to -

Suddenly I think back to the sight of Sarah’s corpse.

I stood up to Roger, and consequently that poor girl died.

Glancing over at young Joshua Jr. as he continues to stare at the floor, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of sorrow. That poor child has lost his mother, and I certainly know how that feels. Now he’s a virtual prisoner of an insane father, of a father who has brought him into this deadly trap. The child has never heard music, he can’t even imagine how it sounds, and his entire life looks set to be miserable. If there is one thing I can do to help him, to maybe offer him hope, then should I not at least try?

And that’s when I realize that while I desperately want to stand up to tyrants such as Joshua Glass Sr., I am inadvertently bowing down to an even great tyrant. To a tyrant who has been with me my whole life. There is a tyrant in my heart, constantly telling me that I must be difficult and contrary at each and every turn. That tyrant has led me to this point, and I think he is the true tyrant who I must overthrow, even at this late point in my life.

Slowly, despite the immense pain in my frame, I start getting to my feet. I reach out and grab the guitar, and then I take a step forward.

Glass is staring at me, as if he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

Ignoring him, I limp over toward the young boy and take a seat next to him, and then I take a moment to adjust the guitar. And then, finally, after all this time, I play my final piece of music.

Thirty-Six

“There,” I say finally, as my fingers brush against the strings and no more music emerges, “it’s over. I’m done.”

I lower the guitar against my lap.

I managed about five minutes of playing, which is more than I expected. At first, the sound was strong and beautiful, and I must admit that for a moment I began to think that I might be immune to everything that has happened. Then I felt myself starting to falter and I realized that I was, as they used to say, ‘running out’ of music. I kept that music safe for more than five years, ever since that evening with Giancarlo when the music first went away, but now it’s spent.

I’m empty.

Suddenly Glass starts clapping.

Turning to him, I see that there are tears in his eyes. I hate the fact that he’s so happy, so I look instead at the young boy, and I see that he’s staring at me with a slightly bemused expression. I don’t know how I expected him to react, but he’s certainly not jumping for joy. If anything, he seems rather confused.

“Bravo!” Glass says as he comes over to us, still clapping. “Maestro, that was magnificent! It was almost worth the wait! Well, not exactly, not given the circumstances, but I’m sure you can appreciate the sentiment. You absolutely out-did yourself.”

“Did you like it?” I ask the boy. “Did you feel anything?”

He stares at me for a moment, before looking down at the guitar.

“It probably sounded quite strange,” I continue. “It was an old piece from Spain. I don’t know why I chose that, really. I think I just wanted to show off.”

He peers at the guitar for a few seconds, and then he reaches out and tries to play the strings. Of course, no music emerges.

“I’m not sure what’s worse,” I tell him. “Never having heard music, or having heard it and lost it. I’m afraid that’s something that you shall have to decide.”

He plucks the strings again, as if he’s convinced that eventually he’ll be able to tease out some music. I don’t blame him, but it’s rather sad to see his continued efforts.

“Doesn’t that feel better?” Glass asks, kneeling next to his son. There are tears in the man’s eyes, as if he’s immensely proud of his son. “Was it like you imagined? No, that’s impossible. No-one could imagine music if they hadn’t heard it before. Isn’t your heart buoyed now, to know that there’s such beauty in the world? And I know you can’t hear it in your head, the way we all used to hear music, but you can at least remember what it was like to feel so happy.” He hesitates, as if he’s waiting for his son to speak. “Say something,” he adds finally. “Surely you can finally speak again?”

“Does he not talk at all?” I ask.

“Not since his mother died,” he replies through gritted teeth, and now he seems a little disappointed. “I thought this might break him out of his rut, but…”

He watches as the boy continues to pluck the guitar strings.

“I should have known that it would take more than this,” he continues finally. “The boy is smart, he takes after me, but he needs toughening up. If I keep him wrapped in cotton wool like this, he’s never going to learn. That’s something I realized a while ago. Sometimes I have conversations with myself about what to do, and finally I came up with a solution.”

“You’re completely insane, aren’t you?” I reply as he gets to his feet and heads back toward the laptop. “Tell me, was it the loss of music that ruined your mind, or were you like this before?”

He mutters something, but I can’t quite make out the words.

“I think you were like this before,” I continue, passing the guitar to the boy and getting to my feet. “You’re a fool, Mr. Glass. You know nothing about music. I bet you didn’t even give a damn about it before it was gone, you just saw it as something you could buy.”

Spotting the Italian guitar in the corner, I head over and pick it up. Five years ago, I would have been stunned to hold such a beautiful instrument; my hands would have trembled and I would have been nervous at the thought of trying to play the thing. Now, however, this pristine guitar suddenly feels like an emblem of everything that’s wrong with men such as Joshua Glass. Indeed, my hands begin to tremble, but not because of nerves. They’re trembling because I’m angry.

“You don’t understand,” Glass says calmly. “There’s no—”

“I don’t understand?” I roar, turning to him. “I’m a musician, and I’m the one who doesn’t understand? Well, let’s see if you understand this!”

I raise the guitar above my head and then bring it crashing down, smashing it against the ground. The neck fractures but doesn’t break, so I hit it again and again, eventually using my feet to stamp on the wretched thing until it breaks clean apart. The back is also coming loose, and for a moment I bring down my full fury and contempt on the guitar, until finally I step back and breathlessly admire the damage that I’ve caused.

“Are you happy now?” I gasp. “Everyone when I was younger told me to be a rock n’roll rebel, but I never wanted to be like that. I just wanted to play. But now that I’ve played my last, maybe the rebel side should come out a little, huh?”

“That was a very expensive guitar,” Glass replies.

“It could no longer be played. It was just a lump of wood and strings.”

I hesitate, before kicking the remains of the guitar. A futile gesture, of course, and one that doesn’t really make me feel any better. Still, the anger has passed and now I feel exhausted. I just want to crawl away somewhere, curl up under a rock, and never see another soul again.

“And now that I’ve performed for you,” I continue, “I think it’s time for me to leave. I don’t want anything from you, Glass. I just want to get out of here.” I turn to walk away, but then I stop as I see him tapping at his laptop. “I played because I chose to,” I add, hoping to regain a little dignity, “not because of your threats. Remember that as you disarm your ridiculous bombs.”

“Why would I disarm them?” he replies. “I’m just making sure that they’re synchronized.”

“What do you…” I pause for a moment. “I did what you wanted.”

“I know you did.”

“Then why would you—”

“The bombs weren’t a threat,” he says. “They’re a celebration! If you’d refused to play, I’d have shut them down.” He turns to me. “Did you not understand?” he adds, with a maniacal glint in his eyes. “The bombs are a celebration! They’re like fireworks! And they’re going to toughen Joshua Jr. up. I’ve set them so that he should easily survive, but he’ll emerge with a tougher skin. Trust me, he really needs that.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, taking a step toward the madman. “Why—”

Suddenly I spot something moving outside the window, and I realize I can see all those guards and goons hurrying away across the causeway. I stare at them for a few seconds, and then I turn to see Glass grinning as he taps one final time on the laptop.

I think maybe I understand why all of Glass’s men suddenly deserted him.

The explosion sends me crashing across the room, slamming into a window that’s already in the process of getting blown apart. I fall out of the room and come crashing down onto the grass, and I let out a gasp of pain as I feel hundreds and thousands of glass shards cutting my hands and face.

Behind me, there’s another loud boom. Not all of the devices went off at once, and I can hear a couple more being detonated now. I haul myself up and turn to look, but suddenly another huge blast sends me bumping across the lawn until I hit the slope at the edge, at which point I begin to roll down. I try to steady myself, but I’m already falling faster and a moment later the ground gives way beneath me.

I hit my head on a rock and – as I lose consciousness – the last thing I feel is the sensation of plummeting through the air.

Thirty-Seven

When I open my eyes, I find myself on a shore, next to a beach of orange sand. I recognize the place immediately, from a dream I dreamed many years ago, and I immediately sit up and look around.

The creature is standing nearby.

A strong wind is blowing, and I can hear the thousands of teeth jostling and rustling inside the creature’s body. As the wind picks up a little, the strange sound changes slightly, almost as if the wind – by blowing through the creature – is somehow creating music. I listen for a while longer, as the wind continues to change pitch and direction every few seconds, and finally I allow myself a faint smile as I realize that the sound is actually rather pleasant.

And then, quite suddenly, the creature steps forward and comes closer.

“Am I dreaming again?” I ask. “The last thing I remember is…”

I pause, thinking back to the explosions that rocked the house at Lindisfarne. I was falling, and then I got knocked out, and then I woke up here.

“I’m not dead, am I?” I continue finally. “Is that what’s bloody happened? Did I die and end up here? How would that even happen, unless… You didn’t bring me here intentionally, did you?”

The creature stares at me for a moment and then, slowly, begins to nod.

“You’re the same one, aren’t you?” I mutter. “The one from the farm, I mean. It must be five years since I last saw you, but it is you. I’m right, aren’t I?”

He pauses, and then he nods again.

“Well,” I continue, as I get to my feet and brush more orange sand from my jacket, “thank you for catching me. Or whatever you did. It’s really rather sweet to think that you remembered me at all.”

I wait, but he’s staring at me and I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Indeed, considering the fact that this chap doesn’t even have eyes, I’m finding his stare to be extremely piercing.

Before I can say anything, however, he holds his right hand out and I see that the little black teeth are swarming in his palm. I feel as if I’m supposed to understand something, but in all honesty I can’t imagine what this message might be.

And then, slowly, I realize that I can hear music coming from the creature’s hand. Whereas before I could hear a kind of music when the wind blew through his body, now I can hear something much more complex and much more beautiful. There are proper harmonies, and the overall effect is utterly overwhelming.

“It has been a while since I heard anything like this,” I say after a moment. “It’s wonderful, but I still don’t understand why you’ve brought me back here. Is it just to gloat? To show me what we’ve lost in my world? Because if that’s all this is, then I think it’s pretty—”

Suddenly the creature turns, as if it’s alarmed by something. It immediately closes its hand into a fist, cutting off the music, and then we both watch as a swarm of black teeth rushes high above us. I realize after a moment that this must be another creature, heading off somewhere, and it’s soon gone. When I look back at the creature in front of me, I swear I can somehow sense that it’s worried.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Would your friends not approve of the fact that you brought me here?”

I wait, and the creature slowly turns back to face me.

“Are you being a bit of a rebel?” I continue, with a faint smile. “Well, congratulations. Real rebels are hard to come by, at least in my world. And I suspect in yours as well.”

The creature raises its hand again, and this time the sound of music comes much more quickly. This time there’s a faint glow, too, as if something is burning beneath the ever-jostling patch of little teeth, and the music sounds a little more urgent.

“Are you expecting me to do something?” I ask, as the music gets louder. “Listen, you’re going to have to have to be more—”

Before I can finish, I hear a rushing sound over my shoulder. Turning, I’m shocked to see several swarms of black teeth rushing toward us.

“My friend,” I say cautiously, “I think we might be about to get—”

Suddenly the creature slams into me, breaking into thousands of sharp little teeth, and I’m lifted up into the air. Crying out, I try to spin around, but already I’ve been carried high into the auburn sky, and when I look over my shoulder I see that the other swarms are racing after us. I open my mouth to ask what’s happening, but at that moment the swarm spins me around and sends me cartwheeling through the sky as if we’re trying to lose our pursuers.

Looking down, I see the vast purple sea far below, and then we race across a patch of land and I spot what seems to be a gleaming domed city. I crane my neck, trying to get a better look, but then the swarm around me changes direction again and we’re dive hard, swooping into a deep valley and then racing between several huge boulders. We dip close to the surface of a bright purple river, so close that I could reach out and run my hand through the water, and then we swoop around and when I look ahead I see that we’re heading straight toward a huge, rushing purple waterfall.

I wait for us to change direction, and then I shout a warning as we instead rush directly into the waterfall’s path. I’m instantly soaked, and a moment later I’m dropped clumsily against the rocky ground. Gasping and spluttering, I roll onto my side and start to get up, as the creature reforms just a few meters away.

I slip on the wet rocks, and then as I get back to my feet I look at the creature. In all the drama of the past few minutes, I rather lost track of which creature actually got ahold of me. For a moment I’m worried that one of the pursuers might have grabbed me, but then this creature steps forward and holds its right hand up again, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I realize that this is, indeed, my ‘friend’.

“Did we lose them?” I gasp, before looking toward the waterfall. It’s dark here in the cave, and the only light comes through the huge purple cascade.

I turn back to the creature just as it steps closer, and I realize that – over the roaring sound of crashing water – I can just about make out the sound of music once again emerging from the hand.

“Why are they chasing us?” I ask. “They really don’t like the fact that you brought me here, do they? But why did you bring me here? Why would you take such a huge risk?”

I hear a rushing sound nearby, and I half-expect to see more swarms rushing through the waterfall and coming to apprehend us. Instead, the sound passes high overhead, and it would seem that the search continues.

“Well,” I say after a moment, as I turn back to the creature, “I’m afraid I need to—”

Before I can finish, the creature slams its right hand into my own. There’s a bright flash of light and I feel a tremendous vibration bursting through my body, and for a moment my heart seems to stop. I let out a shocked gasp, and then I close my eyes as I feel myself fall back down against the wet rocks.

Thirty-Eight

When I open my eyes again, I find myself on a shore – again – next to a beach. Again. The sun has risen, so I suppose I must have been here all night. I blink, and then I manage to look up, and I see a steep grassy hill rising up high above. Beyond that, thick black smoke rises from what I assume must be the remains of Mr. Glass’s home.

Looking around, I squint as I try to spot some sign of the creature. I’m no longer in that strange world; I’m back home, that much is clear, and it would seem that the creature didn’t come with me. My heart is pounding, and I briefly think back to that moment behind the waterfall. I felt as if the creature actually pushed something into my body, although I know that the idea is absurd.

I start to get up, but instantly I’m held back by sharp, piercing pains all through my chest. It’s as if somebody has implanted razor blades all through my body, and I hear a series of jostling, scraping sounds. Slumping back down, with my back resting against a rock, I realize that my ribs seem to be broken. Next, I try to move my legs, but they fail to work, and when I look down I see that they’re both broken. My right leg is twisted almost ninety degrees at the knee, and a section of bloodied bone is poking out through the fabric of my trousers on my left leg.

Why am I not feeling more pain?

I should be screaming, I should be in absolute agony. Then again, perhaps deep down I know that there’s no point. Perhaps I’m being given one final moment of peace before the end.

“Damn it,” I mutter finally, as I realize that there’s no getting away from this spot.

I look to my left and see that the causeway is covered at present by the tide. Not that I could even drag myself in that direction anyway. Even in the old world, I’d be in a sticky position. As things stand, I doubt very much that I’m getting away from this rather unfortunate spot.

I close my eyes, and for a moment I feel perfectly calm. I wait, hoping that perhaps I shall hear a choir of angels waiting to welcome me into the afterlife, but all I hear is the sound of water lapping at the shore. Will I soon find myself walking up to the pearly gates? I would imagine that, if my name is on St. Peter’s list at all, there will at the very least be an asterisk. Perhaps the ground will then open up beneath me, and I shall tumble down into Hell. There, I shall be doomed to an eternity listening to modern jazz.

Suddenly I hear footsteps nearby, and when I open my eyes I see the young Joshua Glass Jr. walking this way along the beach. I blink several times, wondering whether this can be real, but as he gets closer I realize that it really is him. His clothes are torn and slightly blackened from flames, and there’s a cut on the side of his face, but overall he seems to have survived the explosion rather well. And in his right hand, he’s carrying the Frankenstein guitar that I’ve had ever since I left my apartment building all those years ago.

“Good morning,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’m glad to see that you survived last night’s mayhem.”

He stops in front of me, and for a moment he looks me up and down.

“I know,” I continue, “I must look dreadful. Don’t tell me, please. If I don’t have my looks, then I really am ruined.”

I start to laugh, but my broken ribs quickly put paid to that.

“How about your father?” I ask after a few more seconds. “Did he too survive the explosions?”

The boy stares at me, and then he shakes his head.

“I see,” I continue. “My condolences. Then again, I think it would be fair to say that he only had himself to blame.” I pause for a moment. “Where are you going, anyway? Are you going to the mainland?”

He thinks about this for a few seconds, and then he nods.

“Good luck. You’ll need it. I have no idea what you’ll face out there, and I imagine you’ve led a somewhat sheltered life up to this point. You’ll need to have your wits about you.”

Another pause, and then he nods again.

“You’ll need to be brave,” I add.

He nods.

“You’ll need to be nice to people.”

Another nod.

“You’ll need to know who to trust, and who not to trust.”

He nods again, very easily this time.

“And as I said,” I continue, “you’ll need a lot of luck. A lot of luck.”

Another nod.

“Be careful of the causeway,” I explain. “You could drown if you cross at the wrong time, you must make sure that the—”

“I know how the causeway works,” he says suddenly, interrupting me.

“You do, do you?”

I stare at him for a moment, and in all honesty I’m starting to feel that this young man might be able to take care of himself. Last night, I assumed that he was a weak little thing, the product of his father’s madness. Now, however, it would appear that he’s fairly unfazed by the journey that awaits him.

Slowly, I look down at the guitar.

“You won’t need that,” I tell him. “It’s just wood. Maybe you could burn it at night for wood, but otherwise it’s just unnecessary weight.”

He pauses, before holding the guitar up. He places a finger against one of the strings, and then he plucks it gently. A sound, of sorts, emerges.

“That’s not music,” I explain. “It’s a sound, but I’m afraid all the music is still gone.”

He hesitates, and then he plucks a different string. Again, this produces a sound, although it’s a long way from actual music.

“Very good,” I say, “but—”

He plucks another string, and then another, and this time I can’t help but notice that the sound is at least slightly melodic. I open my mouth to tell him that he’s still on a hiding to nothing, only for him to then pluck a couple of other strings. Looking at his face, I see an expression of intense concentration, and a moment later he repeats everything he just played.

“I have to go now,” he says finally. “I need to time the causeway properly. Thank you for playing, and I’m sorry for what happened. Goodbye.”

With that, he turns and walks away, and I can hear him still gingerly plucking at the strings even after he’s disappeared around the corner.

I tell myself, of course, that the boy wasn’t actually playing music. At the same time, there was something primitive but impressive about the sound he was producing, and I listen until finally he’s too far away for me to hear another note.

Suddenly feeling a strange warmth in my right hand, I look down and see that there’s a slight redness in the palm. Is it possible that my otherworldly friend gave me a little gift to bring back to this world? Something that might not replace what was taken, but that might nevertheless provide a spark? If that is the case, then I hope very much that he didn’t get himself into too much trouble.

Perhaps he is also responsible for my curious lack of pain.

Sighing, I lean back against the rock and try to whistle, but I can’t manage to produce a sound. I suppose I half-expected that one day music would come flooding back into the world one day, yet now it’s clear that this won’t happen at all. Perhaps, however, children like Joshua Glass Jr. might still be able to produce something of their own, even if it’s clear that this will take them a very long time indeed. They will have no help from the likes of me, as I wait to die on this remote, abandoned beach. They will have no theories to learn, no past performances to study, no colleges and academies to attend.

They will have to discover music all over again, right from the very start.

Epilogue

Several decades ago

“Okay, man, are you ready?”

As soon as I hear those words, I freeze. I knew this moment was coming, of course, and up until about an hour ago I was really looking forward to playing my first gig. Once I arrived at the club, however, I began to feel a slowly tightening knot of fear in my chest, and now – with show-time having arrived – I feel as if I can barely move at all.

“Hey, Harrisford,” the manager continues, “there’s a crowd out there waiting for you. Let’s hurry things up.”

I mutter something about needing a few seconds, and then I take a long, deep drag on my cigarette. I’ve smoked three of these things over the past half hour alone, which must be some kind of personal record. My guitar is on the table, waiting for me to head out there and entertain the club’s customers, but my hands are trembling and I’m starting to think that I might have to pull out.

“Not again,” the manager says with a sigh, before coming over and picking the guitar up. He takes the cigarette from my fingers and stubs it out against the table, and then he thrusts the guitar into my hands. As he does so, I see my own frightened reflection in the man’s Ray-Ban sunglasses.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer, “I—”

“This is why I don’t usually book newcomers,” he says angrily, “but I’ve heard good things about you, Harrisford. Now it’s time to forget your nerves and just go out there and play.”

“But—”

“Or I’ll personally kick your butt and make sure you never play another show again. Is that what you want?”

I open my mouth to tell him that, actually, that sounds rather good now. At the last moment, however, I realize that I’ve been building up to this moment for my entire life. I’m twenty years old, and if I don’t play a gig now, I never will. I’ll have to get some dull job in an office, or I’ll end up sweeping the streets. The point is, I can’t have a career as a musician if I’m too scared to actually play in front of people.

“Right,” I say, turning and carrying the guitar toward the door that leads through to the back of the stage. “Yes. Absolutely. Here we go.”

“Is that it?” the manager asks. “Is that your rock n’roll attitude?”

I turn to him, and again I see myself in his glasses. I look so utterly ridiculous. This is never going to work.

“Well,” I say after a moment, “I mean…”

My voice trails off.

“This is the worst case I’ve ever seen,” he mutters as he comes over and grabs my shoulder, spinning me around and then shoving me up the steps that lead to the door. “There’s stage-fright and then there’s outright cowardice. I don’t care how you feel, just get out there and play your set for half an hour. If you hate it, you never have to do it again. But if you don’t try, you’re just a chicken.”

“I suppose so,” I reply, and then the manager pushes the door open and I see the empty stage.

The crowd is roaring, as if they’re baying for blood. For a moment, I imagine myself being booed off the stage, pelted with rotten fruit. It’s one thing to try to be brave, but I really don’t think that I have what it takes. I hesitate, trying to find the strength as I stare at the bright lights, and then finally I realize that this isn’t for me. Maybe I’m a coward, or a chicken, but that’s fine. I might enjoy playing the guitar at home, in private, but I’m no performer.

I turn to tell the manager that I’m ducking out.

“Take these,” he says suddenly, removing his sunglasses and forcing them onto my face. “Yeah, that’s a good look for you. They cover the fear. Now move!”

With that, he turns me around again and shoves me onto the stage. I stumble slightly, and before I can stop myself I end up halfway toward the microphone. Hearing a sudden roar, I turn and find that I’m right in front of the crowd. I stare at them for a moment, and then I turn to see the manager slamming the door shut, and then I look at the crowd again. For a few seconds, all I can see is a sea of excited, happy faces, and then I see that there’s a mirrored wall at the far end of the club. I look at my own reflection, and I have to admit that with these sunglasses I actually don’t look too out of place.

Well, maybe this will be my one and only performance, but I should at least give it a go.

“Good evening,” I say as I step up to the microphone, “Senors and Senoritas. My name is Derek Harrisford, and this is my first song.”

I take a deep breath, and I start playing.

BOOKS BY AMY CROSS

1. Dark Season: The Complete First Series (2011)

2. Werewolves of Soho (Lupine Howl book 1) (2012)

3. Werewolves of the Other London (Lupine Howl book 2) (2012)

4. Ghosts: The Complete Series (2012)

5. Dark Season: The Complete Second Series (2012)

6. The Children of Black Annis (Lupine Howl book 3) (2012)

7. Destiny of the Last Wolf (Lupine Howl book 4) (2012)

8. Asylum (The Asylum Trilogy book 1) (2012)

9. Dark Season: The Complete Third Series (2013)

10. Devil’s Briar (2013)

11. Broken Blue (The Broken Trilogy book 1) (2013)

12. The Night Girl (2013)

13. Days 1 to 4 (Mass Extinction Event book 1) (2013)

14. Days 5 to 8 (Mass Extinction Event book 2) (2013)

15. The Library (The Library Chronicles book 1) (2013)

16. American Coven (2013)

17. Werewolves of Sangreth (Lupine Howl book 5) (2013)

18. Broken White (The Broken Trilogy book 2) (2013)

19. Grave Girl (Grave Girl book 1) (2013)

20. Other People’s Bodies (2013)

21. The Shades (2013)

22. The Vampire’s Grave and Other Stories (2013)

23. Darper Danver: The Complete First Series (2013)

24. The Hollow Church (2013)

25. The Dead and the Dying (2013)

26. Days 9 to 16 (Mass Extinction Event book 3) (2013)

27. The Girl Who Never Came Back (2013)

28. Ward Z (The Ward Z Series book 1) (2013)

29. Journey to the Library (The Library Chronicles book 2) (2014)

30. The Vampires of Tor Cliff Asylum (2014)

31. The Family Man (2014)

32. The Devil’s Blade (2014)

33. The Immortal Wolf (Lupine Howl book 6) (2014)

34. The Dying Streets (Detective Laura Foster book 1) (2014)

35. The Stars My Home (2014)

36. The Ghost in the Rain and Other Stories (2014)

37. Ghosts of the River Thames (The Robinson Chronicles book 1) (2014)

38. The Wolves of Cur’eath (2014)

39. Days 46 to 53 (Mass Extinction Event book 4) (2014)

40. The Man Who Saw the Face of the World (2014)

41. The Art of Dying (Detective Laura Foster book 2) (2014)

42. Raven Revivals (Grave Girl book 2) (2014)

43. Arrival on Thaxos (Dead Souls book 1) (2014)

44. Birthright (Dead Souls book 2) (2014)

45. A Man of Ghosts (Dead Souls book 3) (2014)

46. The Haunting of Hardstone Jail (2014)

47. A Very Respectable Woman (2015)

48. Better the Devil (2015)

49. The Haunting of Marshall Heights (2015)

50. Terror at Camp Everbee (The Ward Z Series book 2) (2015)

51. Guided by Evil (Dead Souls book 4) (2015)

52. Child of a Bloodied Hand (Dead Souls book 5) (2015)

53. Promises of the Dead (Dead Souls book 6) (2015)

54. Days 54 to 61 (Mass Extinction Event book 5) (2015)

55. Angels in the Machine (The Robinson Chronicles book 2) (2015)

56. The Curse of Ah-Qal’s Tomb (2015)

57. Broken Red (The Broken Trilogy book 3) (2015)

58. The Farm (2015)

59. Fallen Heroes (Detective Laura Foster book 3) (2015)

60. The Haunting of Emily Stone (2015)

61. Cursed Across Time (Dead Souls book 7) (2015)

62. Destiny of the Dead (Dead Souls book 8) (2015)

63. The Death of Jennifer Kazakos (Dead Souls book 9) (2015)

64. Alice Isn’t Well (Death Herself book 1) (2015)

65. Annie’s Room (2015)

66. The House on Everley Street (Death Herself book 2) (2015)

67. Meds (The Asylum Trilogy book 2) (2015)

68. Take Me to Church (2015)

69. Ascension (Demon’s Grail book 1) (2015)

70. The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1) (2015)

71. Eli’s Town (2015)

72. The Horror of Raven’s Briar Orphanage (Dead Souls book 10) (2015)

73. The Witch of Thaxos (Dead Souls book 11) (2015)

74. The Rise of Ashalla (Dead Souls book 12) (2015)

75. Evolution (Demon’s Grail book 2) (2015)

76. The Island (The Island book 1) (2015)

77. The Lighthouse (2015)

78. The Cabin (The Cabin Trilogy book 1) (2015)

79. At the Edge of the Forest (2015)

80. The Devil’s Hand (2015)

81. The 13th Demon (Demon’s Grail book 3) (2016)

82. After the Cabin (The Cabin Trilogy book 2) (2016)

83. The Border: The Complete Series (2016)

84. The Dead Ones (Death Herself book 3) (2016)

85. A House in London (2016)

86. Persona (The Island book 2) (2016)

87. Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2) (2016)

88. Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories (2016)

89. The Ghost of Shapley Hall (2016)

90. The Blood House (2016)

91. The Death of Addie Gray (2016)

92. The Girl With Crooked Fangs (2016)

93. Last Wrong Turn (2016)

94. The Body at Auercliff (2016)

95. The Printer From Hell (2016)

96. The Dog (2016)

97. The Nurse (2016)

98. The Haunting of Blackwych Grange (2016)

99. Twisted Little Things and Other Stories (2016)

100. The Horror of Devil’s Root Lake (2016)

101. The Disappearance of Katie Wren (2016)

102. B&B (2016)

103. The Bride of Ashbyrn House (2016)

104. The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal Trilogy book 1) (2016)

105. The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel (2016)

106. The Ghost of Longthorn Manor and Other Stories (2016)

107. Laura (2017)

108. The Murder at Skellin Cottage (Jo Mason book 1) (2017)

109. The Curse of Wetherley House (2017)

110. The Ghosts of Hexley Airport (2017)

111. The Return of Rachel Stone (Jo Mason book 2) (2017)

112. Haunted (2017)

113. The Vampire of Downing Street and Other Stories (2017)

114. The Ash House (2017)

115. The Ghost of Molly Holt (2017)

116. The Camera Man (2017)

117. The Soul Auction (2017)

118. The Abyss (The Island book 3) (2017)

119. Broken Window (The House of Jack the Ripper book 1) (2017)

120. In Darkness Dwell (The House of Jack the Ripper book 2) (2017)

121. Cradle to Grave (The House of Jack the Ripper book 3) (2017)

122. The Lady Screams (The House of Jack the Ripper book 4) (2017)

123. A Beast Well Tamed (The House of Jack the Ripper book 5) (2017)

124. Doctor Charles Grazier (The House of Jack the Ripper book 6) (2017)

125. The Raven Watcher (The House of Jack the Ripper book 7) (2017)

126. The Final Act (The House of Jack the Ripper book 8) (2017)

127. Stephen (2017)

128. The Spider (2017)

129. The Mermaid’s Revenge (2017)

130. The Girl Who Threw Rocks at the Devil (2018)

131. Friend From the Internet (2018)

132. Beautiful Familiar (2018)

133. One Night at a Soul Auction (2018)

134. 16 Frames of the Devil’s Face (2018)

135. The Haunting of Caldgrave House (2018)

136. Like Stones on a Crow’s Back (The Deal Trilogy book 2) (2018)

137. Room 9 and Other Stories (2018)

138. The Gravest Girl of All (Grave Girl book 3) (2018)

139. Return to Thaxos (Dead Souls book 13) (2018)

140. The Madness of Annie Radford (The Asylum Trilogy book 3) (2018)

141. The Haunting of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 1) (2018)

142. I Just Want You To Be Happy (2018)

143. Day 100 (Mass Extinction Event book 6) (2018)

144. The Horror of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 2) (2018)

145. The Ghost of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 3) (2018)

146. Lights Out (2019)

147. Apocalypse (The Ward Z Series book 3) (2019)

148. Days 101 to 108 (Mass Extinction Event book 7) (2019)

149. The Haunting of Daniel Bayliss (2019)

150. The Purchase (2019)

151. Harper’s Hotel Ghost Girl (Death Herself book 4) (2019)

152. The Haunting of Aldburn House (2019)

153. Days 109 to 116 (Mass Extinction Event book 8) (2019)

154. Bad News (2019)

155. The Wedding of Rachel Blaine (2019)

156. Dark Little Wonders and Other Stories (2019)

157. The Music Man (2019)

Copyright

Copyright 2019 Amy Cross

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle edition

First published: July 2019

His name is Derek Harrisford. Many years ago, he had a hit song that briefly pushed him into the limelight. Now he’s all but forgotten, a man who few remember. But then, one night, everything changes.

In an instant, people all over the world forget how to play music. Nobody can pick out a tune on a guitar, or sing a song, or hum, or even remember how music sounded. Only a few people have any musical ability left, and even they are rapidly running out. And Derek is one of those people.

As the lack of music drives the world crazy, Derek is forced to flee his home. He soon discovers the shocking truth about what has happened, and about the strange creatures that have come to steal every last note. Before he can even try to save the day, however, Derek discovers that he’s being pursued. As a man who can still play a few notes on the guitar, he’s in high demand. And one of the world’s richest men will stop at nothing to make him perform.

The Music Man is a tale of horror and science-fiction, about a world that can’t survive without music, and about a man who might just be able to save human civilization from collapse.

Content

Amy Cross
THE MUSIC MAN

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

BOOKS BY AMY CROSS

Copyright