Dark Muse (28 page)

Soon the raft, about five feet by eight feet,
steadied enough in the unseen current for him to stand and survey
his surroundings. Things wavered in the light against the walls,
the ceilings, but didn’t appear to be interested in him. Thank God
for that, he mused. Maybe all he’d have to worry about was whatever
lay at the end of this tunnel.

Surely, the slaves who built it had an end in
mind, some kind of escape route to rid themselves of the Tritons—or
did they? No, no one would be that blind to their cause. Then he
remembered some of his history class and the recent elections in
the world, and prayed he was wrong here.

The river flowed and curved this way and that
without incident or forks in the path. He barely steered at all,
just mostly pushing off the walls when he got too close. Nothing
but water flowed before his eyes.

Muddy began singing the song, hearing the
guitars, bass and drums in his head. He was thankful no one was
here to hear his voice. He loved guitar and could dabble in backup,
but there was a reason he never sang lead.

Today, there was no one around to hear. Otis
loved the song more, but the main guitar riff was too cool for him
not to like. And that nasty bass line, if only they could find
someone to play it—consistently.

Thump.

The raft must have hit a rock or stalagmite,
maybe a piece of debris. Regardless, it was only a bump.

He barely shifted his stance, but steadied
his guitar, just in case. It looked like a tree stump in the middle
of the river, about thirty yards ahead. Just a stump, or rock.

Keep rowing. Keep steering.

Another stump/rock appeared on the left side
about ten yards past the first one.

Now that he was closer, he got a better look
and wished he hadn’t.

The stump sunk about a foot. The good
news.

Then it rose up again and broke open.
Not-so-good-news.

How did it break open? Muddy wondered,
fingers whitening on the wooden oars. If they hadn’t slipped into
the rings on either side of the raft, he’d be floating without a
paddle—and this wasn’t a creek.

The stump appeared dark, yet opaque. Muddy
remembered seeing a man-of-war once at the Jersey shore after a bad
storm. It looked monstrous, but kind of see-through. Those
jelly-bags didn’t have mouths, though. What broke open on these
things were definitely mouths. Wide open jaws, seemingly without
hinges.

Another image came to mind. That movie his
dad showed him from the 1980s.
Alien
. It had plagued him
with nightmares that took a week to wear off. He wondered if he
would live to suffer through another bad dream.

The oar swung in his hand and wavered as he
pushed away from the wall toward the middle, leaving a stump with a
brutal maw waiting for him to venture too close. Both mouths tilted
in his direction as he passed and showed an internal view of
teeth—layers, rows and more layers of silvery teeth. The mouths
managed to open even wider as if attempting to scream, or beg him
to row over to them.

He looked for eyes and saw none, thankfully.
He guessed none were needed down here. The vibrations of passing
prey triggered them and they held open their mouths until something
fed them. It also reminded him of some other things from the
shore—the ones with two legs on that reality show.

He glanced off the right wall, something he
had failed to see at first, and the raft bounced up a little, but
it jumped too much for simply hitting into smooth rock. He jammed
the oar down as hard as he could. It stuck. The river didn’t care,
however, and continued to push him along. The raft turned. He was
no longer pointed forward and couldn’t see where he was going, if
he was going anywhere.

He wasn’t.

The oar came apart and as he pushed off the
cold rock with bare hands, he looked down. The man-o-war stump had
chewed the wide end of the oar to splinters within seconds. Muddy
watched the creature inhale it all as the teeth shredded the wood
quicker than a piranha hopped up on energy drinks. Then it was
gone. A roar he felt more than heard burst forth from somewhere
around him. Not the one with the oar in the mouth. The other two
had disappeared, so where had it come from?

He straightened the raft and paddled on with
a single oar.

Just ahead, the monsters in the water made
the movie,
Alien
, seem like a cakewalk. At least, in
Alien
, there was only one of them.

One by one, they arose from the water. Left
side, right side and center, they emerged, obviously sensing he
would be smart enough to avoid the walls.

Muddy’s mouth hung open. How could he avoid
all of them? The current didn’t propel the raft fast enough to zip
through their territory before they could converge on him. Could
they move from where they rose? Were they grounded to the bottom?
Just how deep
did
the river go? He didn’t wish to find out,
but realized if even one of them overturned the raft, he wouldn’t
last long enough to find out.

It hit him like a bass drum when he was
thinking of how to paddle through them. It has been about the music
all along—why quit now? The old two-four beat that made rock music
rock,
came to him in a flash. Ten feet before the next
creature, he rowed left, narrowly avoiding it. Another popped up to
the right. Muddy kept the beat, felt the rhythm.

He rowed and pushed, the snare to the left’s
bass, the backbone to most rock songs since the Beatles hit the
American shore. Actually, the beat struck long before in hidden
roadhouses down south, far from the public eye, blazed by the
bluesmen and women who laid the tracks for all to follow.

He could do this.

He rowed left, they arose on the left. He
rowed right, they met him there.

Keep the boom-snap, boom-snap of the
rhythm
, he thought,
and I’ll make it.

For a few minutes, he did just that. Then
something else happened. They caught on. They learned the beat.
They adjusted.

How the…?

They arose before he could row away and one
cracked its head under the front edge of the raft, shattering two
planks without effort. Cold water flowed across his feet and colder
blood shocked his system.

Now what?

The two-four, left-right rowing worked, but
some of them had learned, proving a little intelligence existed
within those jaws.

Out of nowhere, a voice sung in his head.
Remember where you are. What you are. What this river sings to
you.

Silver Eye?

The words repeated. Then—
you must get to
the Dark Muse. You can’t allow him to leave.

Leave? Where would he go?

Another stump smashed the middle of the raft.
Its head burst through, nearly between Muddy’s legs. He jumped back
a step and swung the oar as hard as he could.

Home run! The oar connected with the stump
thing and broke.

Both disappeared instantly. He was left
without a paddle, but he recalled what his dad always said when he
was trying to meet a deadline.

All that remained was his guitar; the one
that really wasn’t anything like what he’d ever played before, but
Silver Eye had given him the instrument and that meant something to
him. The old man died because of them and Muddy would be both a
fool and a coward if he failed the mission now.

Remember what this river sings to
you
.

The song. He’d been singing it all along, but
what was different about it? He’d passed the first test by handling
the steps, the right notes. How would the slaves build in a
fail-safe here?

One more stump-creature crushed a plank on
the right side. The raft tipped a bit with the water rushing over
the side. Muddy shifted to ease the weight. Another waited on the
left side for him and nearly caught his sneaker with razor teeth.
If they broke another plank, the raft would likely disintegrate and
pitch him into their hunger.

How many rows of teeth?

He wished he was as smart as Tom Sawyer was
in that book, or song. Wait—that was it, the clue. Most of the song
had worked just like it was meant to work, but the end, the solo,
break part changed to something most people, most musicians
couldn’t handle playing.

Could he?

He counted in his head, first. He needed
to—it was the only way to time the song right. Another creature hit
the raft and broke up more wood.

Quickly! Remember the song
, came the
voice again.

Forget the counting,
he thought.
It’s the song
. He remembered a few musicians who played in
odd tempo songs. They sometimes said, “It’s a feel thing.” They
didn’t count; they knew it would kill the passion of the song. They
let it breathe through them. Just like this band did. Like he
would.

He hoped these things hated his playing. His
rowing couldn’t help him anymore.

He unslung the odd wood and steel instrument.
He’d never let this guitar, this gift from his mentor become
sullied by the filthy water. Yet he really felt like shoving it
down one of their throats.

Muddy felt the inspiration from Silver Eye
encourage him and although it felt odd not touching the water, it
seemed right. He aimed the guitar at the first creature and
played.

The “A” he plucked shot out at the thing
ahead of him. Though he actually couldn’t see it, he felt it fly
like a bolt of electric directly at the open mouth. It shrieked as
the note struck it, and sunk it.

Did it die? Muddy wondered for a moment then
realized he didn’t care. He wouldn’t be returning this way. He
struck out the next note in the pattern, to the right this time.
Again, a direct hit. The creature howled and sunk out of sight, but
the next ones lined up in the order they expected him to turn.Left,
right. Left, right.

They anticipated the primal beat. Muddy
smiled. As they sunk one by one, the waves they created pushed him
left and right so he didn’t even have to steer.

It was both a good thing and a bad thing, he
mused, knocking out the F# to the left, the current and swell
leading the way. He readied the next note and struck to the right.
The next three lined up so close together on the left that there
was no way he could nail all of them without one gnashing its teeth
into him.

Just as he’d planned it.

The middle and end sections of the song had
changed to 7/8 time, an odd meter that most bands hadn’t touched,
at least the popular ones. The one who wrote this song did and
thanks to Otis’ fetish for cool drummers, Muddy bought into them
and fell for one of the few bands that didn’t follow the normal
rock and roll way. The time change meant that the usual downbeat,
upbeat, one-two-three-four count was shortened. Otis had taught him
to imagine walking eight steps then subtract one, ending on the
left foot only to begin again on the same foot, but without losing
time. It lost just one step, which, in music, often killed the
heartbeat rhythm that fans loved. But the great bands made it work
somehow. Still, most didn’t follow and couldn’t tap their feet to
it.

Just like Muddy wished.

One and two and three and four. Then again.
One half-beat missing that threw off so much and left the listener
hanging. Perfect for strong musicians to send a strong message.

The three on the left never saw it
coming.

He aimed and shot sharp tones to the left.
Then to the right, and when the left one rose, he shot to the right
once more, keeping him on track, away from the line of predators.
The vibrations the guitar threw out knocked these primitive beings
for a loop. They stood fooled and like he hoped, rooted to their
spots.

More lined up, in the same pattern, the same
rock pattern. Once more, he played the three-and-a-half beat rhythm
and careened safely through without any creatures touching the
battered raft. If he kept it up, safety had to be around the
corner. Hopefully.

For the next minute or so, he played his
heart out and though several things almost caught on and learned,
he avoided the maws and teeth. Just in time for him to hit the end
of the tunnel that had emerged without warning. It knocked him out
completely.

He didn’t even manage a cry before blackness
claimed him. As he faded, he felt his body being pulled under.
So this was what it was like to drown
, he thought.
Mom
couldn’t be far away now.

Chapter Twenty-Four

In the dark, Muddy saw her. His mother, six
months removed from the cancer, and his father and Zack. His father
coped by diving into his books; Muddy had his music and Zack. Well,
Zack swam deep with his drugs, music, girls and anything that would
hide him from the pain.

Muddy was in the water, but drowning in it.
Until this happened, he’d never believed in what would happen after
death. He believed his mother went to a better place, even Heaven
as many of his family and friends said, but still, he didn’t
believe in it for himself. Maybe it happened for only those who
were pure or had suffered enough. Now he was there and feared he
would never see his father again.

Or Poe.

He could handle the rest as they would live
happy lives, but he knew Poe had so little to look forward to,
other than the band. Even though they all tried to protect her, he
wanted to be the
one
. Her savior, even though he knew she’d
saved him lately and was likely the strongest of the group.

He opened his eyes and saw nothing but black.
Maybe there wasn’t anything there after all. Maybe he didn’t
deserve anything.

Edgar
.

Someone called to him.

Mom? I’m coming home
. Even in death,
that felt cheesy to say. But he meant it.

Edgar.

Yet, it didn’t sound like his mother. Then
who in the world was it?