frustration, “or the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket.”
Maybe both.
Warmer weather arrived sooner than usual. April was often a winter
month at that latitude and altitude, but this year the daytime
temperatures rose into the forties. The season-long accumulation of
snow melted, and gurgling freshets filled every gully and declivity.
The nights remained peaceful.
Eduardo read most of the books he’d borrowed from the library.
Blackwood and especially James wrote in a style that was far too
mannered for his taste, heavy on atmosphere and light on substance.
They were purveyors of ghost stories, and he had trouble suspending
disbelief long enough to become involved in their tales.
If hell existed, he supposed the unknown entity trying to open a door
in the fabric of the night might have been a damned soul or a demon
forcing its way out of that fiery realm. But that was the sticking
point: he didn’t believe hell existed, at least not as the carnival
gaudy kingdom of evil portrayed in cheap films and books.
To his surprise, he found Heinlein and Clarke to be entertaining and
thought-provoking. He preferred the crustiness of the former to the
sometimes naive humanism of the latter, but they both had value.
He wasn’t sure what he hoped to discover in their books that would help
him to deal with the phenomenon in the woods. Had he harbored, in the
back of his mind, the absurd expectation that one of these writers had
produced a story about an old man who lived in an isolated place and
who made contact with something not of this earth? If such was the
case, then he was so far around the bend that he would meet himself
coming the other way at any moment.
Nevertheless, it was more likely that the presence he sensed beyond the
phantom fire and pulsating sound was extraterrestrial rather than
hell-born.
The universe contained an infinite number of stars. An infinite number
of planets, circling those stars, might have provided the right
conditions for life to have arisen. That was scientific fact, not
fantasy.
He might also have imagined the whole business. Hardening of the
arteries that supplied blood to the brain. An Alzheimer-induced
hallucination. He found it easier to believe in that explanation than
in demons or aliens.
He had bought the video camera more to assuage self-doubt than to
gather evidence for the authorities. If the phenomenon could be
captured on tape, he wasn’t dotty, after all, and was competent to
continue to live alone. Until he was killed by whatever finally opened
that doorway in the night.
On the fifteenth of April, he drove into Eagle’s Roost to buy fresh
milk and produce–and a Sony Discman with quality headphones.
Custer’s Appliance also had a selection of audiotapes and compact
discs.
Eduardo asked the Mozart lookalike for the loudest music to which
teenagers were listening these days.
“Gift for your grand-kid?” the clerk asked.
It was easier to agree than to explain. “That’s right.”
“Heavy metal.”
Eduardo had no idea what the man was talking about.
“Here’s a new group that’s getting really hot,” the clerk said,
selecting a disc from the display bins. “Call themselves Wormheart.”
Back at the ranch, after putting away the groceries, Eduardo sat at the
kitchen table to listen to the disc. He installed batteries in the
Discman, inserted the disc, put on the headphones, and pressed the Play
button. The blast of sound nearly burst his eardrums, and he hastily
lowered the volume.
He listened for a minute or so, half convinced he’d been sold a faulty
disc.
But the clarity of the sound argued that he was hearing exactly what
Wormheart had intended to record. He listened for another minute or
two, waiting for the cacophony to become music, before realizing it
apparently was music by the modern definition.
He felt old.
He remembered, as a young man, necking with Margaret to the music of
Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tommy Dorsey. Did young
people still neck? Did they know what the word meant? Did they
cuddle? Did they pet? Or did they just get naked and tear at each
other straightaway?
It sure didn’t sound like music you’d play as background to