Dark Muse (12 page)

Muddy grinned. “No one will notice. Besides,
remember what Silver Eye said? Time acts different there. We could
be gone a week and still make math class.”

“Let’s not.”

“Still,” Poe said. “You don’t know that for
sure. I can’t deal with a suspension.”

“Trust me, we’ll be back in time. Why do you
think Silver Eye looks so young?”

Corey put a big hand on his friend’s chest.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Stop quoting movies.” Muddy’s focused stare
rivaled Silver Eye’s. “Even Han Solo wouldn’t turn down this
adventure.”

“But we’re not heroes. We’re the ‘The
Accidentals.’ “

* * * *

Morning came without incident, but also with
little sleep. No strange sounds. No mud-caked shoes. Yet Muddy
would have liked to have encountered his mother, real or the dream
version, one last time. Their little group of misfits were about to
embark on a journey without permission into a land, or world, that
none of them understood. In a few hours, Poe, Otis, Corey and he
would disappear at the crossroads—to hopefully return—and not
alone.

Muddy and his dad exchanged morning grumbles,
typical of a school day morning. He headed for the cereal and
coffee, hoping to get through the meal with little or no
conversation. Despite the friction between them, he couldn’t bring
himself to lie to the man who never failed him. If Muddy did, it
hurt, and as his father often told him, guilt sprouted in neon
letters all over his face. Great writers understood characters and
everything that went along with it. Reading his expressions must
have been akin to flipping through those “See Dick Run” books.

“How’s the prepping for the big battle
going?” his father asked, the man’s face behind his laptop reading
the news.

The teen’s fingers nearly launched the coffee
mug into the ceiling. Nerves would kill him one day, he thought.
Thankfully, he thought before freaking out. That was hard to
accomplish with his anxiety running rampant.

“Uh…yep,” he replied in a voice he hoped
sounded normal. “Just one more rehearsal before the shindig
tonight.”

Crap, he thought, realizing that before
they’d decided to save his brother’s life, or attempt to, that
they’d auditioned and had to perform at eight o’clock tonight! The
order of the bands wouldn’t be determined until the lottery before
the show. Hopefully, they’d get a later slot. Just in case one of
them had to be replaced.

Bad joke
, he thought, chiding himself.
Don’t even think that.

“Ed? Edgar? You there? I asked if you were
ready.”

“For what?” His mind spun, hoping the truth
had remained beneath his flesh. “Oh yeah. The battle. We’ll be set
to kick serious butt tonight.”

What did Silver Eye say about time behaving
differently over there? Oh yeah, he didn’t. They’d assumed and
hoped they wouldn’t return to a world which had aged centuries
without them.

Then his father flashed the knowing smile,
which always worried the boy.

“So, who’s the victim tonight?”

“What?” Shards of ice rained down his
neck.

His father tossed his hands in the air. “The
bassist who’s enemies with fate and good luck. Did you find anyone
brave enough to pull duty who’s not worried about electrocution,
impaling themselves on a string, or drowning in the crowd
surf?”

A laugh escaped Muddy’s lips. One thing about
his father, no matter how scary his stories were, he could always
get people to laugh. Most horror writers could. He often stated
that being scared and laughing your butt off were two sides of the
same coin.

“Yep. Leo offered. Not the most amazing
player.”

“He’s the only one left?”

“Just about.”

He shot Muddy his best evil eye. “Better stop
killing off the four-stringers.”

The laughter came as a release, even though
Muddy couldn’t shake the bad feeling brewing inside him.

“Now hurry up and eat. You’re gonna be late
for school.”

Man, he hated lying to his father. “Hopefully
not,” he replied, crossing his fingers that his words would be
partially true.

The rest of the meal ensued without
discussion. His dad checked the message boards on his writers’
site, whining and moaning about sales, the classics and other stuff
he usually did before he sat down to write in his “zone.”

Muddy wondered if writers ever went over, or
was it just for musicians. Words could be just as magical as music,
in a way, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around how the curtain
would part for a story. Weird. Too bad one of Dad’s conferences
wasn’t soon. He’d bet money that if a passage were possible, one of
the serious writers already found it.

Grabbing the strange guitar Silver Eye gave
him two nights ago, he headed toward the door, half wishing his
father would have asked where he really was going and forced him to
stay home. His hands shook so hard the case nearly slipped from a
sweaty grasp.

* * * *

The group met at the corner of Muddy’s street
with quiet excitement, three of them bouncing on their heels. Even
Otis remained relatively mum that morning. Muddy figured that fear
had found its way into everyone’s heart sooner or later. Only Poe
appeared gung-ho, but after a fifteen-plus-year sentence in her
home, not much
would
scare her. Hopefully, that would stay
true, at least for today.

He wondered how they’d managed to avoid the
school bus. Otis insisted on hitching a ride with Muddy instead of
riding in his mom’s convertible. Poe always walked and had Corey as
a bodyguard.

“Leo?”

The tall player in the role of karmic
misfortune smiled. Somehow, they had all doubted he’d go along with
the idea, but he’d showed up anyway. “Hey bud. Heard you needed a
hand. Since you didn’t have an actual bass yet, I borrowed Poe’s
whatchamacallit thing. I can lay down a mean low line on that for
you.”

How Otis got Leo to come, Muddy would never
know. He probably didn’t believe much, if any, of the story, yet by
the strained look on his face, something had clicked in his
brain—something he’d sensed wasn’t right.

“Thanks, Leo. Trust me, we appreciate any
extra hands we can get.”

The journey took only a fraction of the time
it did the other night, or so it seemed. In the daylight, shadows
still existed in the Iron section of town, but didn’t pose as much
of a threat. In no time at all, The Accidentals found themselves
out of their neighborhood and scaling the hump of the landfill,
peering over the top as if a tiger, or other beast, waited on the
other side because the real dangers lie behind the barrier they
couldn’t see. But reality ceased to exist over there. That was the
problem.

The group walked the path to the crossroads
as though they were simply following a well-traveled trail. Under
the protection of the sunlight, the “X” of the passing lines seemed
to be as imposing as an intersection in the middle of nowhere. Long
grass streaked down each of the four lanes, but lay trodden to the
ground and devoid of any natural color. Wind failed to reach inside
the amphitheater of waste and forgotten land, lending a silence to
the setting that coaxed the fear back into Muddy’s veins.
Sometimes, the absence of a threat frightened a person much worse
than when it was shoved right into your face; especially when that
fear had seen your face and many more lurked behind it.

Forming a cross, they unslung their
instruments and gazed at each other, waiting for the word.

“Well,” Corey said, “are we just going to
stand here like idiots or are we going to play to get our butts
over there?”

“Well, what do you suggest we play, sax man?”
Otis chimed in, possibly feeling a little more brazen. “We don’t
know how the old man got the ball rolling the other night. Once it
rolled, it was pretty easy to join in, but how do we start?”

“Muddy?” Corey turned to the guitarist. “You
really turned it on with him and sent us over. Can you do it
again?”

“Do what?” Leo asked. No one answered
him.

Truth was, Muddy had no idea what Silver Eye
did last time. He’d just followed the old man’s lead until the
music flowed from his veins. “Umm….”

“I know,” Poe said, sounding impatient.
“While you three were jacking around with ol’ one eye, I paid
attention to the music. It’s pretty simple—in theory.”

“Theory?” Otis squawked in a high-pitched
whine. He’d inhaled like someone had just taken a vacuum cleaner to
his lungs.

Poe raised her hands in mock surrender.
“Listen, if you’re too—”

“Don’t you
dare
say the word.”

She smiled as though she could see his pained
expression. “Okay, I’ll shut up, but we’ve gotta get going
here.”

“Otis, give me the rhythm.”

He opened his mouth to inquire which rhythm,
but then zipped his lips and took hold of the sticks. Gripping them
tight, he twirled them once, loosening his wrists and fingers
slightly before rapping on the top of the drum skin. In a matter of
seconds, a boogie-like, two-four beat echoed through the garbage
canyon. His eyes closed and he hung his head back, drowning in the
pattern.

A deep fog horn bellowed beside Muddy. He
turned to see Corey sound a low D and hold it over the drummer’s
syncopation. The bigger teen inhaled, almost in a sonorous tone
like what emanated from his sax. He sank—deep—into that zone, even
with a dearth of notes. The way he played said it all. The sax
became a voice that invited them to join.

Even Leo, the bassist du jour, hopped in on
the fun and laid down a serpentine line that shook the dirt upon
which they stood.

Muddy shivered.

They all seemed so focused. So determined.
So…brave.

And where was he?

No matter how much he missed Zack, no matter
how much he wanted to be the next Rambo, Luke Skywalker, even Harry
Potter, he hadn’t been born with a lightning scar on his forehead
or Jedi blood coursing through his veins, so he was definitely out
of luck in that department. He wondered if Poe knew what lie ahead.
Or what lay hidden in his own heart.

She hummed, loud enough to cut through the
others’ noise, the voice of an angel who’d seen way too much hell
in her short life. He wished he could tell her all, tell her how he
felt, but his mom, her dad, both their lives’ baggage—it served as
an easy out. Maybe one day he’d have the strength to knock down
those walls.

Sucking it up, Muddy gripped the neck of his
guitar until his fingers hurt and slipped a pick into place. Taking
a deep breath, his thumb and forefinger plucked the first magical
note. He thought it was magical, but knew there was some rational,
scientific reason for what happened in the next couple of
minutes.

The bends which rode Otis’ rhythm slithered
around Corey’s sax line and answered Poe’s call, wafted from the
strings as they vibrated. Muddy spun a web of blue that made the
antiquated oddity of a guitar seem like a vintage Les Paul. How
Silver Eye got his hands on that musical contraption that no guitar
luthier had ever imagined was beyond him, but none of that mattered
now.

As the waves of melody and rhythm grew, the
curtain once again parted.

He tried his hardest to keep his eyes open,
to see what lay behind this reality and the one they’d visited—and
were headed to again. Yet, whatever power controlled the front
stage of life to the back lowered the drapes on his lids. He saw
something that he would never, ever forget, but then it dissipated,
just like the images of his friends traveling next to him. The last
picture his open eyes saw was the peaceful, closed ones of the
band.

Chapter Ten

Fear reared its head again as they came to,
the other reality now theirs.

“Where the heck are we?” Leo began to freak
out a bit. “I didn’t sign up for this. Otis! What did you do to
me?”

Poe gave her death stare to the little guy.
“You didn’t tell him?”

He shrugged. “He’s a big boy. Besides, I
didn’t think we’d get back here to tell you the truth. Sorry,
Leo.”

The bassist began to freak. “Sorry for what?
For where?”

“Guys, be careful. We don’t know what’s
lurking around this place.”

Leo’s issues were suddenly forgotten. In all
the turmoil, nobody had even bothered to check if those
ape/oaf-like things were nearby. Everyone swung their heads back
and forth, checking for the creatures that had nearly crushed them
with their percussive bodies the first time. Ears cocked, the band
listened, looked, even felt the ground.

Nothing.

But no one had warned Leo about the dangers
here. If they had, he probably wouldn’t have come. Actually, Muddy
knew he wouldn’t have believed anything they said, so leaving out a
few key details was not the worst thing they could do.
Unless...something happened.

But this wasn’t the stage. It wasn’t Star
Trek. He wasn’t just an add-on who was destined to bite the big one
the moment the team landed, was he?

“Look, this path leads somewhere,” Leo said.
“There’s a marking. I found something. He might be down this
way!”

Then it happened. Muddy doubted Leo even saw
it coming.

One moment, the bass player skipped along the
path, side-stepping long plants and weeds jutting into his way,
giddy with the excitement of finding a clue. The next moment,
something exploded out of nowhere. Leo screamed, more out of fright
than in pain, but it still sent sheets of ice down Muddy’s back.
From the looks on the rest of the band’s faces, they felt the
freeze, too.

“Oh, crap—” Corey whispered.

Poe covered her eyes. “Not another one.
Please, not another.”

* * * *

As Leo stepped off the path to the “sign”
he’d believed would help, the entire ground leapt to life. The
long, thick blades of grass took shape in the form of things that
looked like a massive smorgasbord of linguini. Really thick, long,
green linguini.