“What do you mean what m-music?” That was all I remembered saying back to the concierge through chattering teeth.
I’d never felt this fucking cold in my life as I did now. It was somehow colder inside than it was outside, where the blizzard still raged and plundered.
In my head, meanwhile, continued the familiar: C-E-G-C#-E#-G–
A sea of notes, slow, melodic. Persistent.
It’d started ever since we’d stepped into the bed and breakfast, a shivering, wet mess, our holiday plans abjectly ruined. We just needed a place to crash, which would’ve been fine if I couldn’t hear the music. It wasn’t very apparent at first, it was actually rather soft in the beginning. It’d started to grow louder and louder as I’d approached the help desk, however, which was anything but helpful.
“The music,” I said again shakily. “It’s–are you sure you can’t hear it? Are you sure you don’t have any speakers set up or–or a piano lying around here somewhere?”
The concierge frowned at me. He was a peculiar looking man. His features were sharp, angular, but in the way a rat might look if anthropomorphized. Wispy black hair, slightly overgrown teeth.
I didn’t like rats so his appearance perturbed me.
The man’s clothes meanwhile weren’t any less peculiar.
His coat was raggedy, dirty, coarse like human hair. Likely skinned from an animal. I could almost smell the fresh smell of flesh oozing out from it.
My eyes involuntarily flicked upward, up at the wall of mounted heads. Deer, boars, bears, even rabbits. A morbid collection. God, what a place to land up in at 3 in the fucking morning.
I glanced over at my wife, who was standing near the entrance, arms folded, glaring at me. My two daughters, Lisa and Selene, were jumping up and down around her, shrieking at the top of their lungs.
If my wife’s pretty eyes could talk, they’d probably be cursing me to Hades and back.
G-E-E-G-C#-G-E–
“I guess that’s a no then?” I said, trying to talk over the music, looking back at the concierge. “Come on, you must have a piano or an organ somewhere around here. There’s no other explanation for–”
“Sir–”
“Enough,” my wife said, and she stormed over to the help desk.
I didn’t even care at this point. Sure, this might as well happen. My head was throbbing and my body was frigid. I just wanted to get to bed as soon as possible.
C-G-E#-A-A#-B–
“Look, we’re all very tired here,” my wife said. “Which would explain my husband’s hallucinations. Any chance you could spare us one of your rooms for the night? Please, we’re willing to pay a little extra.”
“Uh, we are?” I said, but the look my wife threw at me was enough for a second attempt.
“I mean, yeah… we are!”
That was better. The concierge seemed to think so too because his paper-thin lips curled into a smile, which I wish he hadn’t done because it only made me more uncomfortable.
“Like I said to your husband earlier, we’re all booked up,” he said. “But I suppose you could take my room for the night. Just one night since the both of you are willing to spare me the trouble.”
Yay, capitalism.
And, sure enough, the four of us were ushered up a rickety staircase and through a dimly lit hall lined with paintings, old and new, which led into what was presumably the smallest room in the bed and breakfast. I expected to see more mounted trophies gracing the space, but it was rather barren, except for what I’d consider the bare minimum.
A bed, a lamp, two bedside tables, a carpet, a closet, and, oh, of course, music, the same fucking music that was still playing near the back of my skull.
“Honey, are you sure you can’t hear it?” I mumbled, crashing onto the bed and closing my eyes. I felt my two girls crash alongside me, play fighting with one another over my catatonic figure.
“For the twelfth time, no,” she said, rolling her eyes as she unpacked our suitcases. “Honestly, I wasn’t exaggerating back there. You were driving for at least seven hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were hallucinating.”
Maybe. Actually no, you know what, she was probably right. Like always. I’d driven us through utter darkness and icy death for seven hours, getting by on nothing but Red Bull and a dream.
“Yeah, yeah, that checks out,” I said and I turned the lamp off as my wife climbed into bed with the kids and I. I kissed her on the forehead. “It’s just a hallucination.”
It wasn’t just a hallucination.
I stumbled upon this rather unnerving realization when the second instrument started to play. It was a violin, which was different from a piano last I checked. I lay awake, listening to the two instruments ebb and flow, bouncing off from one another, spinning together a beautifully haunting melody.
I could almost picture the men playing the instruments. The man playing the violin was classy, posh. I’d probably guess British in every sense of the word. The bespectacled piano player, meanwhile, was nothing but bone, a metaphorical skeleton of the person he once was.
Once was? I thought, and my blood suddenly turned cold. I didn’t know what I meant by that.
It was too much to take at one point, however, and I needed a break. A glass of water didn’t sound too bad. I slowly got to my side, careful not to wake Lisa, who had completely sprawled on top of me.
I put on some slippers and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me with a quiet click. I was almost down the staircase when I heard a–
“Is there a problem, sir?”
It was the concierge. He was still standing at his desk, reading a book, his gaunt, rat-like face barely illuminated by a nearby fireplace.
“Oh, no, not at all,” I said. “Just… trouble sleeping.”
“Trouble rarely finds you when you’re sleeping,” the concierge said, smiling. “It’s the time in which you spend awake that I’d be more worried about.”
“Sure,” I said, perplexed. What a weird thing for a concierge to say. “But you’re awake at, you know, five in the morning, so I’m guessing you like the trouble then?”
“You’re awake at five in the morning too. Do you like the trouble?”
“Huh. I–no. I don’t know”
I remained standing near the foot of the staircase.
The concierge continued smiling at me, which didn’t make me want to come any closer.
The music had grown louder again, both the violinist and the pianist. It didn’t sound so much as beautiful as it did haunting now. My attention turned to the book in his hand.
“What’s that you’re reading?” I said, my throat catching slightly.
The concierge held it up. “The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. Have you heard of it?”
“Yeah, sure I have,” I replied. “I teach English at a high school actually, it was required reading for my section. You liking it so far? I mean, I bet you do given… all this.”
I gesture up at the head mounts. The concierge looks up at them too.
“‘The best sport in the world,’” he said bluntly. My stomach did somersaults when he did, and my heart started racing at a hundred miles per hour.
“Right.” I took a tentative step back up the stairs. “Well, it was good talking to you. Good night.”
“Can you still hear the music?”
“What’s that?” I turned to look at the concierge again, my heart pounding.
“Can you still hear the music?” The concierge repeated.
“N-no,” I said, weakly. “No, it stopped. Sleep’s good medicine, so… lucky me.”
And I headed up the staircase, quickly, not really in the mood for a glass of water seeing as my head was swimming with that damned music. It was at the loudest it’d ever been. I was pretty sure a third instrument had been added in, a cello. I could still feel the concierge’s eyes following me.
I reached the top of the staircase and had started to head toward our door, back to my family, until something absolutely harrowing caught my attention. I haven’t had the strength to move since glancing upon it, and, lo and behold, I’m still standing here.
It is also here that I’ve decided to seek help from you guys.
It was one of the paintings. It looks like it dates back at least a couple hundred years. It’s a symphony orchestra, complete with a string quartet, wind instrument players and… a piano.
And playing this piano is a thin bespectacled man.
I’ll update everyone soon but I think I have to sign off here for now. Good night.