“Just a minute,” Jacob gasped, pulling me behind the cover of a massive oak. “Just… Gotta… Catch… My… Breath….” He bent over, hands clutching his knees while his chest rose up and down like a bellows. I knew the feeling. My lungs felt like they’d caught fire. “Check the… map,” he said. “We should… figure out a way… back before–”
THUD
Jacob fell backward. His head struck the dirt with a dull thud, and he cursed, pointing his flashlight toward his bottom half. There was something around his ankles. A tendril.
“Gotta be fucking kidding me!” he spat, tossing me his flashlight. “Hold this, will you? I’m gonna cut this fucker off.” He produced his pocket knife, snapped it open and got to work. “I don’t get it,” he grunted, carving the knife into the wood. “Why us? The hell did we do to deserve this?”
“I don’t know,” I said, panicked as I fought to loosen the tendril’s grip on his legs. Then, a thought hit me. The music. The legend. I swallowed, my mind piecing together a puzzle I was too arrogant to see. “The Maestro…” I muttered. “He took revenge on everybody who insulted his music, right? Well, you and Eli called it awful earlier.” I looked at Jacob’s face, my eyes widening in realization. “Apologize! If you apologize he might let us go.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” Jacob said in disbelief. “If this is the Maestro, then I’ll kill the asshole myself. He murdered, Eli, Tommy! He fucking–”
Jacob was gone. His body slipped backward, snapping across the ground with a dozen quick thumps before the tendril stole him into the darkness of the forest. I listened as he skipped across the forest floor. I listened to each wheeze of air pushed from his lungs, to each snap of branch and bone, and then I listened to the final sharp crack of his spine splitting across the trunk of a distant tree.
Jacob was dead.
I reached down, tears streaming from my eyes and I picked up Ryan’s head. I gazed into it. Into those flickering, candle-light eyes. He was all I had left now, but when I looked at him I felt nothing but hatred. He brought us here. He made us do this stupid ritual, and now Eli and Jacob were dead, and I was next.
“Is this what you wanted?” I screamed, shaking his head. “To fucking kill us? To make us suffer the way you had to?”
No. Of course it wasn’t.
If this nightmare belonged to anybody– if it was anyone’s responsibility, it was mine. I’d treated this as a joke. A morbid waste of time. I’d been so convinced that Ryan had lost it, that his obsession with the paranormal was nothing more than untreated mental illness, that I’d forgotten part of his notes. I’d forgotten the whole purpose of Ryan being here tonight.
He was much more than a jack o’lantern to light our way. He was our admission fee.
Charmouth Wood swayed with the creak of parting branches. It sighed with the whisper of falling leaves. Something was coming, something was coming for me and it walked on old limbs, shifting with the antique slowness of ancient horror.
The Maestro.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. I lifted Ryan’s head, held it high above me and with as loud a voice as I could muster, called out, “Maestro! A token to hear you play!”
A heartbeat of silence.
And another.
The silence stretched into eternity, it was enough to encompass the entire passage of time itself, the birth of the universe and the death of the cosmos, and through it all my knees shook. Piss dribbled down my leg. My teeth chattered like a 1950’s pick-up truck and I knew, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was it.
I was going to die.
Two lights appeared above me. They began as narrow slits before growing into bright orbs, round and full. They hovered near the treetops, as if observing me. Studying me. A long groan met my ears. Another shift of limbs, ancient and horrible, and I knew then that it was him. The Maestro of Charmouth Wood. It gazed at me with his full moon eyes, and just beyond them I could make out a gnarled head wearing a crooked crown of thorns.
He reached toward me, a hand that was long and twisting. His fingers were like narrow sticks. I thought he might grab me for a moment, that he might break me in his grip but instead he plucked Ryan’s head and brought it toward those bright eyes. He grumbled. Then, with a haunting howl he opened his dark maw, and dropped Ryan’s head into it.
A wet pop. A sickly crunched. The Maestro chewed, working Ryan’s skull into mulch as blood and brain matter seeped from the monster’s wooden teeth. My stomach squirmed. Vomit boiled in my gut but I didn’t dare let it loose– insulting this creature held a promise of death.
The monster finished its meal. It shifted again, rising and leaves rustled in the dark. From the forest came a slither of wood, a tendril that held something in its gnarled grip. No– somebody. I brought a hand to my mouth, stifled a horrified whimper as I looked at Eli’s corpse.
The Maestro raised a sharp finger, it jabbed it through Eli’s chest. It calmly broke open his ribs. Then, it fished around inside of him, his guts spilling onto the dirt like human confetti. Lungs. Intestines.
I screwed my eyes shut. Ryan’s notes echoed in my mind, and I knew that there was only one thing the monster could be doing– exactly what he’d done a century ago. He was gathering materials. I listened as Eli’s organs slapped against the forest floor. I listened as his bones broke, as the Maestro bent them, twisted them. I listened as the creature harvested my friend, tearing out pieces of Eli for his newest project. An instrument made for my ears alone.
Then, when it was finished the Maestro spoke.
W E L C O M E
His voice echoed like a maelstrom, haunting, ethereal and endless. It shook the forest. Birds squawked, scattering from their nests in a flurry of black wingbeats. My bones rattled beneath my skin. “Thank you,” I sputtered weakly. “I’m honored to be h-here tonight.”
It grunted, kneeling before me upon legs the size of lamp posts as it presented its newest creation. A violin. According to the legends, it was called Pale for its marrow sheen, but this instrument was anything but. It gleamed red in the glow of the Maestro’s eyes. All across it were scraps of Eli– skin, bone, and hair. I gagged, recognizing his ribcage as the body of the instrument, and his tendons, still dripping blood, were pulled tight to use as strings.
W E… B E G I N said the Maestro.
He lifted the bow– something made out of Eli’s femur, and brought it to the face of the violin. Then, his symphony commenced.
The first note stole my breath. It drowned my mind, crashing over me in a tsunami of delirium that brought me to my knees. I gasped. Madness. All I could hear was madness. It spilled through my ears, filling up the inside of my skull before forcing itself through my veins like molten fear.
Worst of all, I wasn’t alone.
The forest had transformed. Gone was the Halloween silence, now it’d been replaced by a cacophony of shrieks and agonized animal bleating. Birds spun from overhead, ricocheting through the air in twos and threes as they snapped and pecked at one another. Deer cut across my vision. They tore over the dirt, brandishing their antlers and hooves as squirrels and insects crawled up their legs, tearing into their flesh. The Maestro’s tune infected even the trees. They sagged, withering as their leaves fell in blackened heaps, their branches snapping as the funeral dirge smothered them in its decaying melody.
I wanted to join them.
All of them.
Carnage. Violence. It was everything I wanted, all that I needed– I had a deep desire, a near-religious obligation to add my blood and misery to the tapestry of pain spread out before me. My fingers twitched. Ached. My tongue slithered across my lips as I imagined the shuddering ecstasy of bashing my skull against a tree.
Yes, a voice said, deep inside. That would be a lovely offering, wouldn’t it?
That tree, it told me. It’ll do just fine. Go ahead, mark with all of your inner beauty. Go on.
I stumbled to my feet, and as I did another voice entered my mind. This voice gentle. Familiar. Die now, and you’ll have really screwed the pooch. Eli? Jacob? They’ll be dead for nothing. Trapped. They’ll be lost in suffering for eternity, Tommy– remember my notes, okay? My will.
I fell forward. My mind screamed, my fingernails digging into the dirt. I knew that voice. It belonged to Ryan.
Ryan.
Ryan.
My mind spun, rioting in a typhoon of grief.
Ryan.
Ryan.
He was the reason I’d come here tonight– him. But why? What was it that he told me? I ground my teeth, fists smashing the dirt as I tried to focus past the unholy anguish of the Maestro’s music. This was about more than simply paying our respect. It was about more than saying goodbye to an old friend, wasn’t it?
Damn it!
I screamed, howling into the night in a desperate attempt to block out the monster’s tune. Darkness. Ryan had mentioned a darkness, something that permeated Charmouth, that had birthed our little town two centuries ago. It owned us, Ryan once told me. That darkness owned every soul born in Charmouth– Eli’s, Jacob’s, and my own included.
But there’s a way to save us from that darkness, Ryan’s voice echoed in my mind. It’s standing before you right now, Tommy. Don’t give up. You’re so close.
The Maestro’s wish.
I clenched my fists until my bones ached, until the skin of my knuckles split and blood trickled down my hands. I screamed. Longer, harder than before. I screamed with everything I had, roaring in guttural desperation. If I was going to make it through this, then I had to drown the Maestro out. So I did. I let loose everything I had, channeling all the pain, all the grief and all the self-loathing into a never-ending howl of defiance.
The rest became a blur. A red, bloody blur of death and temptation, but I never gave in. I couldn’t. People were counting on me– the living and the dead. By the time the Maestro stopped playing, my throat was a shredded mess. It hurt to speak. Hurt to breathe.
But I’d made it. I’d survived the Maestro’s black symphony.
I shifted, my muscles stiff and cramped. Pain shot through my shoulder. I figured I probably managed to dislocate it while writhing around in the dirt. With a groan, I look around me, taking in the aftermath for the first time. Death. It was everywhere. Animal carcassess littered the forest floor, whether trampled birds in the dirt or half-eaten elk buried beneath a blanket of insects. It was revolting.
H M M M . . .
My heart pounded. I turned my gaze to the monster, to the crooked beast that sat perched in shadow atop the hillside, its full-moon eyes gleaming like ghosts in the gloom. It resembled a bundle of sticks. Something older than hate itself, a decrepit titan fashioned from wicker and tragedy.
O V A T I O N ?
My arms ached, and my palms were caked in blood but I brought them together all the same. It seemed unwise to refuse the Maestro. I clapped. I clapped as hard as I could, wincing with every slap of my hands.
The Maestro leaned forward, its scarecrow frame creaking as its snaggle-toothed mouth parted to rumble its next word. W I S H ?
I swallowed, alight with anxiety. This was it. What I’d come to do. Memories lurched up from the dusty corners of my mind, memories of Ryan. He’d ask us to come here not for him, but for us– for everybody. He’d warned that there was evil in Charmouth. He’d said that our spirits never died, that our souls didn’t belong to us, but instead to something else. An elder god. A fiend who fed upon them, and who walked among us to this day.
A Stranger.
The very same that found the Maestro over a hundred years ago, on Halloween night.
“I’m sorry…” I said, tears falling from my eyes. It occurred to me then, everything occurred to me– Ryan knew he was going to die. He must have. That’s why he wrote the will the way he had, why he’d entrusted it to me, why he’d ensured his head would end up in my possession. He’d begged me to complete this morbid ritual. He did all of that because he knew the elder god, The Stranger, was onto him. It’d caught wind of Ryan’s efforts to free Charmouth from its clutches.
W I S H ? the Maestro roared.
“A-Apologies,” I said quickly, doing my best to bury my fear. “M-My wish is to free the souls of Charmouth, past and present. I w-wish for you to release them from The Stranger’s hold.”
The Maestro blinked.
I M P O S S I B L E
What? I shook my head, horror and confusion fighting inside me. “Sorry? W-What do you mean?” I’d done exactly as Ryan had asked, even phrasing the wish as he’d written it.
B E Y O N D… M Y… P O W E R
T H R E E… S O U L S
N O… M O R E.
My heart fell. After so much pain, so much sacrifice, three souls felt like a pittance. That still left thousands in the grip of The Stranger, their souls lost to his appetite. My nails gripped the dirt. I dragged them, snarling in defeat. I hated this. I hated this all the more because it made sense.
The Maestro had been granted its power by The Stranger. Of course it couldn’t overrule him. Damn. “Alright,” I said hoarsely. “In that case, I wish for the souls of Eli Acosta, Jacob Young, and Ryan Colthart to be released from The Stranger’s hold. Please.”
The Maestro’s eyes shone, glowing brighter and brighter still. They pulsed. The ground trembled, the wind whipping about in a rising scream as lightning poured from the sky like falling rain. Bolts struck in a flurry of ash and cinder. Trees snapped, falling in a circle around us. Then, in a vacuum of air, it all vanished– the lightning, the corpses. All of it.
Gone.
I T… I S… D O N E
“Thank you,” I said, voice hollow.
The Maestro turned from me. Its long limbs creaked as it stalked back toward the black forest, back into the abyss it’d risen from. I watched it go, numb with loss. My chest heaved. Tears leaked from my eyes. I fell backward onto a blanket of leaves, and I choked back my grief until I couldn’t choke it back any longer. Then, I cried. I cried my heart out until the sun bled over the horizon, and then I kept on crying because there was nothing else for it.
Then, it turned from me, its long limbs creaking as it stalked back toward the trees. Back into the abyss it’d come from. I watched it go, feeling numb with loss. My chest heaved. I fell backward, onto a blanket of leaves, and I choked back tears until I couldn’t choke them back any longer. Then I cried. I cried until the sun bled over the horizon, until the night had been burned away by the day, and then I kept crying because there was nothing else for me to do.
I’d failed.
Not only Charmouth, but myself too. I was doomed. _________
The hike back was long. Haunting. I spent it lost in my thoughts, absorbed in grief and regret. Three souls. That was all the Maestro could offer me, and that meant so many were still on the hook– myself included. Sooner or later, I’d die. When that happened, I wouldn’t get to pass on like my friends because I was already spoken for.
I’d stolen from an elder god. A stranger. A monster more terrifying than the Maestro could ever hope to be, a creature who subsisted on the souls of the damned. I’d taken three of those souls from it, robbing it of its fuel and food.
I swallowed, a chill creeping through me. I wondered what horrors awaited me when I finally crossed The Stranger’s path. My imagination spun up scenes of torture. Of torment. It was too much to think about, so I did my best to bury my thought– to think of what Jacob, or Eli might say to make me feel better.
“Who knows,” I muttered darkly. “Maybe he’ll give me a new guitar. Then the Maestro and I can start our own band– couldn’t be any worse than Nickelback.”
I laughed.
I laughed all the way back to the car because laughter was all I had left. There was no escaping my situation. My fate. For Eli and Jacob, the nightmare of the Maestro was over. For me, the nightmare of The Stranger had just begun.
And I had a terrible feeling it wasn’t the sort of nightmare I’d ever wake up from.