And now an original horror story.
Enjoy.
Or be frightened.
Or uh, do whatever you want as long as you read, ok?
“The Entertainer”
The end of summer never went over well with Brick. He always enjoyed the crisp northeastern weather in the waning weeks of the season but knew they were merely the last gasps of freedom he had. In the fall he’d have to finally submit a draft of his manuscript to his publisher for approval and despite all his best efforts he knew that he was out of steam and good ideas. He was going to be let go, he could just feel it.
But none of that mattered because Brick’s life was now about to be changed forever by something far worse than his career falling apart at 24. No, he was about to enter a plane of existence that few mortals could dare imagine let alone exist in or be happy about. For legal reasons beyond our control we can only tell you that he was now entering The Pastiche Zone, not any other type of zone, especially not a zone that shares its name with an awful series of books about vampires and werewolves that manages to make both of those creatures seem lame. But we digress…
Brick lived on the outskirts of a major American city in the early decades of the 21st century. Like many others his age, money and financial security were a big concern for him because of the recession. In fact money and financial security were an issue for anyone during an economic recession so his feelings of desperation were a common condition of man…or woman, but in this case man. He lived in a small, tightly knit block of homes at a crossroads between hills. Brick lived at the bottom of the highest hill but across from the road that led downhill towards the nearby highway.
When he wasn’t busy writing or reading on his terrace which overlooked the neighborhood, Brick would go downhill to pick up his groceries from the store. On the walk back uphill, he’d usually see the same old scene: Mrs. Voorhees would be smoking a cigarette on the front porch as her son Jason would run around scaring the other local kids who seemed to change quite often; Old man Krueger would be walking around with his little Schnauzer in his favorite striped shirt; the little Myers kid was quietly judging everyone from his bedroom window; Mr. Bates would be walking home from work, saving his money to buy a bed and breakfast. Of course Brick assumed that every neighborhood had its quirks.
There was one bright spot to his walk home. His next door neighbor was the lovely, and inexplicably single, Selma. She was about the same age as Brick, beautiful as a rose and sharp as a thorn. When she wasn’t busy working at her father’s store, she would come to see how Brick’s writing was coming along. Their relationship was that oh so familiar and oh so frustrating platonic dynamic where Brick was too dense to see that she was interested in him and Selma was too subtle for him to notice her hints of affection. But enough of such things. They were happy to see one another. If you want romance, wait for the rom-com spoof. Where were we? Oh yes…
“Hey there, mister writer” she said with a half smile, holding a bag with a couple of ice cold lemonades in them.
“Hey Selma,” he said with his usually aloof tone, more focused on his impending poverty than the adoring company awaiting him at his doorstep. “Finished your shift at the store already?”
“Yeah, I got Becky, the new girl, to cover for me. How’s the writing coming along?”
With a heavy sigh as he reached into his jean pocket for his keys Brick replied “If writing were a river, then we’re in the middle of a drought right now.”
He opened the door and the two walked inside the cramped entryway into the writer’s house. After a quick stop to the kitchen to put away the usual batch of frozen dinners that Brick would feast upon in the late hours of the night, the two adjourned to the terrace that overlooked the whole block. Sitting down on Brick’s sofa swing with its tattered blue cloth spread, they toasted with their glass bottles and basked in the mid afternoon buzz of the neighborhood . The summer’s heat and humidity was beginning to recede and autumn’s deathly breeze began to whisper its return ever so slightly every day.
Selma, flecked by drops of sun peaking in between the swaying leaves of the magnolia tree in front of the house, resumed the conversation “So what exactly are you having problems with?”
“Huh?”
“With your writing.”
“Oh… I don’t know. I guess I’ve just reached the limit of my ability to care enough to write something readable.”
“How depressing that must be for you.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t whine.”
And as the air rippled from the sounds of the passing cars, the sounds of lawns being mowed and tree branches being pruned, a new sound echoed from down the hill. It was a distant but discernable jingle, an excerpt from the old song “The Entertainer” passing by for the better part of thirty seconds before fading out as quickly as it had Doppler-ed into listening distance.
“Creepy…” muttered Selma.
“What?”
“That melody, that song. My grandfather used to play that on vinyl all the time and it never sat well with me.”
“Don’t worry. It’s just the new ice cream truck that started driving around here a couple of weeks ago.”
“I know but still…”
“Then again, I’ve never actually seen the ice cream truck in this neighborhood.”
“It must be there. I’m just being a dork.”
And so the ruby afternoon melted into violet evening. Selma went back home and Brick sat at his computer trying desperately to come up with something he could present to his publisher in early September. Inspiration had long fizzled away and hours passed by with not a single word typed. Defeated, Brick dragged himself to the kitchen to thaw a frozen pizza. After he sated his belly, he retired to his bed.
Sleep came to him as easily as words to the page, meaning not at all. He rolled and turned on his poorly padded futon, thinking of the disgusted look on his publisher’s face when Brick would presented his lifeless manuscript. The insects’ nocturnal screeching in his backyard was oppressive. Trying to get his mind off of his troubles, Brick remembered his afternoon with Selma and her irrational fear of “The Entertainer”. With a chuckle, Brick began humming the melody in a crude and tuneless way, hoping to fall asleep from exhaustion.
The next day was just like the last few weeks had been. Brick woke up in a warm sweat, crawled into the shower, went downstairs to write. After another unproductive morning, he decided to go down the hill to get some sweet forgettable snack from the deli before Selma got off from work. As he walked back uphill, he noticed that the Voorhees boy wasn’t running around like he usually was. When Brick looked to see if the kid’s chain-smoking mom was around, all he saw was cold ashtray laying next to an empty lawn chair.
“Must have taken him to the pool or something…” Brick thought before scolding himself for caring about the affairs of a family he barely saw except during his daily stroll for high caloric sustenance.
When he finally reached his house, Selma was already there for their afternoon sugary beverage.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing his obviously pensive expression.
“Oh, nothing… This is going to sound weird.”
“Ok. What is it?”
“Did you see the Voorhees’ today?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“It’s just they’re usually outside around this time…”
“What do you care? I’m the only one you talk to on this block anyway.”
“Right. I guess it was just weird that’s all.”
“Can we go now?” she inquired, gently swinging the bag of glass bottles by her knees.
“Yeah, sure…” Brick replied as he reached for his keys. Just then he heard “The Entertainer” playing down the hill again.
“Not that song again… I can’t stand it.”
“Yeah…”
With that, Brick and Selma went inside and engaged in their usual late afternoon dialogue. Alone again, Brick tried writing but nothing came to him. After another frozen dinner, he dragged himself off to bed to weather another night of cricket orchestras and torturous humidity. As he lay there, he detected a whiff of freshly picked flowers but for the life of him could not figure out where the scent was coming from. He wondered why he had cared so much about the Voorhees’ not being around. It’s not like he ever spoke to either of them and they were both a bit of a handful to the neighbors. Yet something still bothered him about the whole thing. He stared at the ceiling until he slipped into unconsciousness once more.
The next few days passed by and Brick kept his misgivings to himself as the Voorhees’ remained missing. In addition to that, Old man Krueger and his dog were no longer patrolling the streets nor was the entrepreneurial Mr. Bates and the Myers Kid was gone from his window too. And each day he kept hearing “The Entertainer” ring in the distance as it passed by the hill street that was now growing empty of residents.
About five days after the Voorhees’ first went missing, Brick came home and saw that Selma wasn’t there waiting for him as she usually was. Convincing himself that there was some logical explanation for what was happening, Brick headed on inside. A few hours later he heard the doorbell ring. It was Selma.
“Hey…” he said with relief to see her.
“Hey yourself.”
“Why are you late?” he asked.
“Becky never showed up to work so I had to stay a few hours later. I tried calling her but her phone has been disconnected.”
“Selma…”
“Yeah?”
“A lot of weird stuff has been going on. People seem to be going missing for no good reason. What the hell’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
The wind’s gust hummed low with the buzz of insects but no more of the neighborhood’s usual passing cars or lawn mowers or any of that. Soon that old song began playing again from down the hill as it always had.
“It all started around the time that ice cream truck started riding all over our neighborhood.”
“Brick, I don’t like that song any more than you do, but that’s crazy.”
“What else could it be? I can’t write. I can’t sleep. Our neighbors are vanishing one by one. I can’t get that damn song out of my head. It taunts me.”
Selma rubbed his shoulder and looked him right in the eye. “You have to snap out of this, Brick. You can’t go on much longer like this.”
“You don’t believe me…” he replied with resentment.
“Brick…”
“Leave…Leave! Please.”
Sullen Selma slunk away from her friend and went back home. Brick didn’t even bother writing that night. His mind was focused. He would figure out what was going on even if it killed him.
The next day, Brick went down the barren street to the deli only to find it closed and locked. As he returned up the empty hill, he felt guilty for snapping at Selma the day before. He desperately wanted to apologize to her. When he saw that she wasn’t waiting for him on his doorstep, he took out his cell phone and tried to reach her. He got an automated message that this number was no longer in service. With fear in his heart, he rushed over to her father’s store only to find that it was locked down with not a soul in sight. He ran back to her house and knocked on her door.
“Selma!” he yelled in vain as he received no acknowledgement.
He looked at his watch and noticed that it was a few minutes before the song that had haunted his psyche for a week was scheduled to play. Already sweating and out of breath, Brick ran down the hill to find out the source of the infernal music. The moment came and so did the melody. It was now louder and more distinct than it was before however no matter where Brick looked, he couldn’t spot the source of the song. Even as the music thundered past his ears, the streets were all completely empty. Soon even the sound was gone. Stupefied, Brick returned home and went straight to bed. Night came and even the insects that had once kept him awake with their nocturnal screeching had been silenced. All Brick could hear was a distant beeping sound. He closed his saline eyes and waited for the morning.
Surprised to have made it to morning unscathed, Brick showered away the night sweats. He put on a clean suit and grabbed his flawed manuscript. It was the day he was scheduled to take his book to his publisher. With no time left to delay, he ran down to his car and drove out of the area that was once a community. He drove for miles and miles without seeing a single soul. As he entered the city, he began to see some cars on the streets and people on the sidewalks. He finally reached the publisher’s building downtown and parked the car in front before running inside.
The receptionist let him through to the elevator and within a minute he had reached the office level. Racing up the grey and red carpet to get to the publisher’s office, Brick knocked anxiously on the oak door.
“Come in” said the publisher in his usual brusque baritone.
Brick, without hesitation, rushed in and shut the door behind him.
“Hey Rod…” Brick said with barely any breath.
The publisher, a forty something year old with dark hair and cool demeanor looked concerned at his writer.
“Are you alright?” he asked as Brick carried his manuscript into the room.
“You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve been having. All that’s missing is Burgess Meredith saying ‘It’s not fair’.”
The publisher laughed. “It couldn’t be all that bad.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“That’s fine. Have you brought us something to read, finally?”
“Yes sir. Here you go” he said as he handed over the stack of papers.
As the publisher began reading, a cold shiver ran down Brick’s exhausted spine. Even from the thirtieth floor he could hear that familiar and unholy tune playing outside. “It can’t be…” he moaned as he walked up to the window.
“Brick? What is it, son?”
“Don’t you hear it?” the frustrated writer asked with a screeching in his voice as he walked back to the publisher’s desk.
“Hear what?”
“That song…That damned song. It won’t leave me alone. It took everyone away from me and now…”
The melody was no longer coming from down below but was now just outside the Publisher’s office door.
“What’s the matter? Brick? Brick?!”
No longer able to bear the encroaching noise that had haunted him for so long, Brick rushed towards the window behind the publisher’s desk, ignoring his warning to stop. The glass gave way from Brick’s weight and so man and pane plunged headlong toward the sidewalk below. And for once since this whole ordeal had begun he no longer heard anything except the rushing air as he fast approached the hard top.
* * *
Doctor Serling was making his afternoon rounds through the sterile halls of St. Alfred’s hospital when he stepped into room 201. Inside was a young coma patient that had survived a near fatal car crash a few weeks before but remained unconscious since then. At his side was the patient’s beautiful fiancé holding his motionless hand, despair in her eyes.
“Good afternoon, Selma” said the doctor as he passed by the bouquet of fresh flowers next to the patient’s bed.
“Hello doctor… Has there been any change in his condition?”
“I’ll have to check his chart, but there hasn’t been any change that I’ve seen.”
“I feel so rotten. I wasn’t able to make it here yesterday… I thought maybe he had awoken in my absence.”
“No such luck I’m afraid” replied the doctor with a sympathetic tone.
“It’s so unfair…” declared the heartbroken woman. “We were so excited. We were supposed to get married today. Brick was on his way to drop off the final draft of his book at his publisher when he…when he crashed. I should have driven him. He didn’t sleep at all the night before…”
The doctor, with a concerned look examined the devices hooked up to the young patient, which produced a steady beeping noise. He noticed an abnormality in the readings and with a heavy heart turned to the grieving woman.
“Selma. I’m afraid Brick is brain dead. He’s not coming back.”
“No…” whimpered Selma as an ice cream truck passed by underneath their window, merrily playing “The Entertainer” as it turned the corner and disappeared.
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