Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (7 page)

Gerard took it. The stock of the paper was heavy and the grain coarse on his fingertips. Two words were written on the outside in exquisite calligraphy:
Maazo Maazo.

“Read it,” the man said, insistent.

Now curious, he unfolded the brittle parchment-like paper. It appeared ancient, and he was careful not to rip it along the seams.

In the center of the paper was a single stanza, handwritten with accomplished penmanship. It appeared to be a poem, perhaps, or the verse of a song. Gerard read the first few words to himself and realized it was in a foreign language. It looked a little like Portuguese, but he wasn’t sure.

He looked up, puzzled.

“I don’t know this language, sorry,” he said, and tried to hand the paper back, but the man refused to take it.

“It’s not a foreign language,” the man said, a hint of derision in his voice. “It’s a new art form, one the world has never seen before. That’s why I need your opinion.”

“How can I give you an opinion on something I don’t understand?” Gerard said.

The man took a deep breath, clearly growing irritated. Gerard wondered if something was wrong with the man. He seemed
off
, somehow.

“You have to read it
out loud
,” the man said, making clear he was stating the obvious.

“Words and music are inseparable,” he said, “no dividing line exists between one and the other. Music permeates every word ever uttered.”

His suspicions about the man’s mental state now seemed justified, and he looked for a way to make a graceful and rapid exit, as the man continued rambling.

“For this to work - for you to hear the actual song embedded in the words,” he said, “you have to speak them with your mouth. You can’t just think them in your head. Your vocal cords are the instrument on which the music of those words will be played. It’s the physical act of saying them that releases the music they contain. Try it, you’ll be amazed – I promise.”

“Okay, I’ll read it,
once
- but then I have
got
to go,” Gerard said, laughing weakly. “My wife is going to have the cops out looking for me if I’m even one minute late for dinner tonight,”, he said, hoping it sounded remotely plausible - especially if this nut job had any more weird ideas in store for him.

Gerard spoke the strange words aloud, sounding them out phonetically as he read.

“Mah-zoe Mah-zoe toso nimi so, tumay noso oolaya ma-yi, Noso olaya anona ya na-mi…”

He paused. The man’s expression had changed from irritation to pure anticipation. His eyes were eager, pupils dilated.

“Go on, go on,” he urged, “the good part’s coming.”

Gerard continued.

“Tumay noso oolaya ma-yi, Mah-zoe Mah-zoe toso nimi so,” he finished.

“Yes! Yes!” the man growled, and his voice became surly and strange as he spoke.

He grabbed Gerard by the face before he could react, pulling him forward until their noses touched, snatching the paper away, crumpling it in his fist. The fragile parchment disintegrated almost instantly, its remnants drifting like brown snowflakes to the floor.

The man’s pupils began to flash open and shut, like a camera aperture, snapping photos one after the other, and his breath blew hard against Gerard’s lips. It was hot, too hot, almost scalding, like steam blowing from a kettle. Gerard tried to pull away, but the man’s hand was like a vice clamped over his jaw.

Gerard felt steamy breath entering his mouth, crawling over his tongue like it was alive, sliding down the back of his throat. Then he felt it somewhere deep inside him, moving.

The man’s pupils stopped flashing. He released Gerard, stumbling backwards, as though he had been punched in the stomach by an invisible fist.

Gerard’s heart pounded, making a hot angry noise as it beat louder than ever before. The pulsing throb of the muscle in his chest sounded like muffled words being spoken inside him, words that repeated over and over.

Maazo Maazo
,
Maazo Maazo
, it said.

“I’m sorry,” the man mumbled, his voice little more than a whisper as he gasped for breath. “I had no choice. He made me do it.”

Gerard could barely hear the man over the sound of his own pulse thumping in his ears.

“What did you do?” Gerard asked, frantic. “Who are you?”

“
Free
,” the man said simply, then turned and ran from the store. The little bell rang overhead as the door slammed behind him. Within seconds, he had disappeared into the descending gloom of the rainy evening.

The owner of the store finally poked his head out of the back office after hearing the scuffle, but wasn’t able to identify the deranged man, telling Gerard that he had only spoken to the man once before, a few days ago.

Gerard drove straight home, wheels splashing through puddles on tree lined streets. He was shaken but otherwise unharmed, and eager to get back to the safety and comfort of his family and home. He knew it would be a while before he would have the courage to visit the bookstore again.

As he drove, his throbbing heart eased back into its regular rhythm, the words “
Maazo Maazo
” still reverberating loudly inside him. It was like having a second heartbeat – not in his chest, but in his mind. The hum of it in his head was both energizing and comforting. It felt as though something had been missing from his life until today, and now he was whole.

“Maazo Maazo,” he said out loud, and as he spoke the words, a powerful feeling of energy surged through him. A new sense of determination to finish his book, to complete what he had started, took root in his gut. That feeling continued to blossom as he turned the car into his driveway.

Maazo Maazo, Maazo Maazo
, the rhythm whispered.

He would finish his book, and it was going to change the world.

Gerard turned the key to his front door and stepped into the foyer.

He was greeted only by darkness and silence, which was unusual. He wasn’t terribly late getting home, not late enough to make Sonia get angry and take off, anyway.

Besides, he had a good excuse - no, a
great
excuse.

“Sonia?” he called into the darkness.

He was relieved when she answered.

“I’m in the living room, could you please help me with something?” she called in a happy, sing-song voice.

Gerard fumbled along the wall, looking for a light switch.

“Did a breaker trip in the garage again?” he asked as his fingers located a switch beside the living room door. He didn’t expect it to work, but flipped it into the “ON” position anyway.

He was startled when the lights came on like they were supposed to, and then again when he found the living room full of balloons and smiling people.

“Surprise!” everyone shouted. The room was draped with decorations; a big banner over the fireplace read, “
Lordy, Lordy, Gerard is Forty!
”

A few minutes later, Gerard was seated at the head of the dining room table, and refrains of “Happy Birthday” filled the air.

Maazo Maazo. Maazo Maazo.

The refrain was still pounding in his head like a mantra, and it was making him feel as though he would burst if he didn’t start working on his book soon, or even better –
right now
.

His fingers started tapping on the tabletop, impatient to begin typing. Gerard clutched his hands together in an effort to make them be still, but his fingers continued to struggle, as if they had a mind of their own and were eager to get to work.

Sonia handed him the first slice of cake, but he only took two bites before he excused himself and darted off to his study.

He settled into the soft leather chair at his desk and realized it had never felt so good before. He looked at the hopeless stack of papers piled on his desk - that was his draft, the one that needed to be completed in two weeks. Finishing his book had seemed almost impossible until tonight; he had been sure he would miss his deadline, and hadn’t been confident he would be able to make the project coherent enough to publish, much less sell enough copies for him to quit his day job.

But those doubts had gone, replaced by a vigor and determination he had never felt before. He pulled his keyboard towards him, caressing its keys with his fingers as he waited for the computer to boot up.

Beside the monitor was a functional dipping pen and matching ink well, a thoughtful gift Sonia had given him when they were dating. He remembered that she had wrapped it in glossy red paper dotted with little white hearts. It had been a permanent fixture on his writing desk ever since.

Gerard picked up the pen, its metal surface cool and smooth against his skin. On its silver stem, the pen was engraved with elegant lettering: “
To the best man who ever wrote his way into the story of my life; make sure it has a happy ending! Love, Sonia
”.

Once the computer was ready, Gerard slipped the pen back into the ink well and began to type. The noise of the party in the other room seemed to drift from somewhere now far away.

Gerard began typing with a slow and steady pace at first, but the tempo of his fingers on the keyboard grew faster and faster as he went - a locomotive picking up steam and headed down the straightaway, a full load of coal in its boiler and the devil on its heels.

Sonia and the kids found Gerard still working hard at his desk the next morning, dozens of printed pages strewn across his desk. It looked as though he had written his way through the entire night.

After much pleading, she convinced him to take a break from writing and join her in the kitchen for breakfast.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he poured a coffee. “I shouldn’t have acted like that.”

Sonia smiled.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “I told everyone you were under a lot of pressure to meet your deadline, and they seemed to understand. I probably shouldn’t have sprung a party on you like that - I just thought you could use a night off. You’ve been working yourself to death with that book.”

Gerard remembered the previous evening, and an excited expression lit up on his face.

“Something happened yesterday at the bookstore, before the party,” he said.

She shot him a quizzical look.