Chapter Twelve

“What did you say?”

“Dude,” Otis said seriously, “you forgot to close the crossroads when we came back.”

A waterfall of ice chased Muddy’s blood up his arms and down his back.

Close the crossroads?

“But we played the same song as the first time. I made sure of it.” Yet his voice lacked the strength he’d built through the morning.

Corey stood up. “Man, you screwed up. We all did. None of us should’ve gone there without the old man.”

More ice slid down his back. His face burned with fear. “What did we forget to do?

The sax player sat back down. “So simple, but so elusive. A blues scale in reverse, ending in a true blue note. Remember now?”

“Oh no,” Muddy said to no one. “I’m the king of accidentals.”

Poe looked dead on at him and said, “Silver Eye said one thing to Corey. Just one.”

“Which was? Please. Tell me.”

She caught a shaky breath. She was obviously scared, not an easy feat after what she dealt with at home. “He said, ‘imagine what would happen when you left the door open if your house sat in the heart of a jungle. What would come inside?’ “

Oh, crap. What did I do?

But what came out of his mouth was, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Before the period ended, the screams outside began.

“What the heck?” Otis tumbled out of his seat and slammed into the window. “I can’t see anything.”

Muddy sidled up next to him and peered out the wide, multi-paned glass. “All that construction stuff is blocking our view. So much for making the front courtyard pretty for us.” His hands shook the frame.

“Let me in,” Poe said. Despite her disability, she could hear a mouse fart a block away. Students learned not to whisper and gossip in her classes. If they were foolish enough to talk about someone she knew well, she retaliated online. She turned her left ear to the glass before Corey reached over them and lifted the window open.

“That better?” he asked.

“Thanks,” she replied, leaning outside.

Then her face darkened. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

Mrs. Berg crowded in with them and craned her neck for a glance over the mess of wood and metal that littered as far as the eye could see. “They were supposed to be done six months ago. I knew someone would get hurt out there. That darn superintendent.”

“What is it, Poe?” Muddy needed to know. She sounded scared, yet something told him that it wasn’t Dr. Scitz’s fault this time. The second scream rang much louder. It actually sang, he thought.

With a massive backup band.

Rumblings of music followed the obviously female voice. Not a school band sound, nor a rock band sound. It was…different.

“What the heck is that?” Mrs. Berg’s voice shook. She hadn’t experienced any of the weird stuff at the crossroads so Muddy wondered what she thought it was. “Did something blow up?”

“No,” Poe replied. “It’s worse.” She turned to Muddy with a knowing look. “You didn’t close the door.”

He was so distracted he didn’t even recognize who’d said it. The dread that poured over him like wet concrete made him feel two hundred pounds heavier.

Silver Eye had warned them. They all heard him—yet none heeded his words.

“The door—it’s still open,” Corey repeated.

I didn’t play that song. The one that closed the door. But I didn’t…know.

Oh, but he did. He simply forgot, caught up in the moment.

All of them gazed at him, save for their teacher. They all knew.

Corey sighed. “All of it’s our fault, not just yours. We decided to go there alone. None of us knew.”

Poe placed her hand on Muddy’s shoulder. “And I don’t know about you, but I was so scared, I couldn’t remember anything.” She gazed back out the window. “Silver Eye should’ve been with us.”

Their teacher screwed up her face. She usually did when the band started in on one of their weird talks. “Silver Eye? Close the door? Did someone forget to give me a clue?”

“Well,” Otis said, tapping his fingers as he always did when trying to talk his way out of something, “you see—”

“Oh, crap. I’d better go out there and make sure our principal doesn’t do anything stupid—again.” She hurried to the door, but stopped before pushing through it. “I’m going to hear this whole story of yours later, right? I don’t like being kept in the dark. I have a feeling about this one.”

Didn’t they all? Muddy thought nervously as he watched her run to the scene of the screaming.

“Shouldn’t we go?” Corey didn’t like to wait. “I have a feeling—”

“That it’s something due to what we did? Or didn’t do?” Poe knew each of them too well. “Okay. Guys, grab your gear and let’s go.”

Muddy flinched. “The real instruments or the ones we used over there?”

“How would I know?” Corey stammered. “Both, I guess. Better to be safe.”

“But, they’re all at Muddy’s,” Otis said.

Corey looked at him. “And your point is?”

At Muddy’s house, the quartet gathered up Muddy’s acoustic guitar, Otis’ marching band snare drum and Corey’s sax. They also strapped the odd instruments from the “other world” to their backs. The school seemed miles away despite the brisk pace all of them set during the four-block jaunt from the rehearsal basement.

“Do you think this will work?” Corey asked. “Normal instruments here?”

“Does it matter?” Poe began their march toward school. “It’s not like we have a choice—especially when it’s our fault.”

They broke into a full-out run when they heard the chorus of screams.

Within seconds, they turned the corner and saw the cause of those screams.

Corey stared. “What did we do?”

The most frightening song imaginable echoed down the street in front of the school. A snake or something like it, but much bigger, slithered down Carteret Avenue. The biggest street in the entire town appeared to be a mere sidewalk under the beast.

“Dang,” Otis said. “It must be a half-block long.”

Scared out of his mind, Muddy stared, transfixed by the sight.

I know where you came from because I let you in. What did I do?

It wriggled on the blacktop with rhythm.

“Is that thing throwing down a beat?”

It was tossing around a syncopated groove that left the people on the street hypnotized, paralyzed. Onlookers stuck like glue to where they were with expressions of fear and confusion frozen on their faces. The more the thing moved, the crazier the rhythm became. Its undulating body shook most people out of their minds, transfixing them. When the band crept closer, hiding between a pair of school vans, it became clear that the creature was anything but the garden variety of basic giant anaconda-type serpent. Like one of those cheap toys a crazy aunt buys at a dollar store, it was constructed of several connected segments. When those segments rubbed against each other, the sound resembled maracas that island dancers shook. But this didn’t inspire people to get up and shake their butts; instead, they became frozen where they stood.

“Corey,” Muddy called, but the big teen simply stood there, eyes glazed over.

“Poe?” This time his voice rose to a pitch that sounded like it did pre-puberty. She remained silent and glued to where she stood.

“Otis?”

The drummer stared ahead for a long moment. “Right here with you, man. That thing is wicked! I wish I could play that.”

“Otis!” Muddy slapped his friend’s shoulder, immediately regretting the action.

“Sorry,” they said in unison.

“Look,” Muddy said, pointing at the others. “They’re not moving.”

Otis poked Corey and almost touched Poe before he appeared to think better of it. “Wow, that thing has them stuck like that. I wonder why?”

“Predators do weird stuff to their prey.”

The smaller boy shook and dropped one of his sticks. “Prey? You mean, like, it’s going to eat somebody?”

Muddy shook his head. “Look, it’s not the body. It’s the fangs.”

Jutting from the snake’s refrigerator-sized mouth was a pair of long teeth that extended then clashed together. The noise rang out in an odd, exotic-sounding chord in high-pitched tones that were both metallic and organic at the same time.

“It’s just like the tuning forks that Satch uses in class,” Otis said. “Except, we usually ignore those.”

“It must be hypnotizing everyone around here. Man, I hope this thing is gone before they let school out.” Mrs. Berg allowed them to run to their lockers, not thinking her star pupils would temporarily ditch class. “It’d turn this street into a buffet!”

“Oh, no.” Poe sensed what she could not see. The thing slithered right into the path of a group of pedestrians huddled on the corner. With a few shakes of its head, the spot emptied.

“What happened to them?” Corey squinted, hoping to find a survivor. “Did it roll over them?”

“No,” she replied. “They became brunch.”

A numbness Muddy hadn’t felt since the funeral filled him inside. His fingers tingled with pins and needles. Just a moment ago, people had been there. Now they were inside that...thing. He looked at the others standing on either side of it, oblivious to it all.

Muddy’s face twisted at the thought. “But, how come we’re not like them? We can move, and talk.”

“Well, simple. I’m a drummer. I’m immune to it. I get lost in my own rhythms, but focus too much on others to let myself go. It sucks.”

“Well, why isn’t it freezing me up?” Muddy began to shiver.

Otis just gave him that deep, open-eyed stare that sometimes scared the heck out of him. “Man, I don’t know. Maybe something happened to you over there. Or maybe, it’s something else. Worse, I mean different.”

Ice ran down Muddy’s back. Why didn’t it affect him?

“Maybe something did happen to us over there,” Poe said. “I still can’t see, but the blurs mean something now.”

Otis brought them back to focus on the problem. “We’ve gotta kill it. I think I know how.”

“But Silver Eye said the instruments didn’t work that way on this side.”

The drummer smiled. “They don’t need to. I’ve got this one.”

He slung the drum in front and twirled his sticks of bone. Both of them ran out to face the adversary as it slunk toward them. It hesitated for a moment, lifted its head, swung it back and forth then did something that sealed the deal for the group.

It sped up and charged.

“It came for us, Muddy.” Yet Otis didn’t waver.

“All because I forgot to close the door.”

He held the sticks at the ready, an odd grin forming on his face. “Dude, we screwed up. It’s time to set things right.”

Nodding, he framed the snake before him, swung down as hard as his arms could and shook the world with thunder. From Otis’ feet to the creature’s tail, the vibration of the street drum raced, cracking a line in the road and smashing right into the behemoth. The other-worldly sounds echoed and shook it. The beast lost its beat. Both teens left the ground as the serpent slammed itself into the street.

Muddy smacked Otis lightly on the back. “More! Don’t stop.”

Shaking off a good case of the nerves, Otis found his footing and began to roll out a rhythm that would shame most of the great rockers in history. The snake swung around, knocking a school security cart and sending it flying into the building.

“Uh-oh,” Muddy muttered. “There goes the budget for next year.”

With a swift shake of its tail, the serpent began the maraca-type sounds once more. With each undulation, it moved closer to the other band members, nearly knocking over several students who remained frozen in place.

“Poe?” He began to run, then stopped. This wasn’t his game. He turned to his drummer. “Otis?” His voice sounded strange, even to himself.

“Gotcha, buddy,” Otis said, not missing a beat. “I see her. Now shut up and stand back.”

The snake and drummer began a battle of percussion in a match of musical chess. For each line the snake slithered out, Bones countered with one that altered the rhythm, first going along with it then changing it slightly.

He’s drawing the thing in, suckering it. Beautiful! Just hope we survive the song!

Muddy began to feel his eyes glaze over as the snake began a more hypnotic rhythms. Maybe if he started playing?

“Don’t,” the drummer replied, sensing his friend’s intention. “I’ve got him.” He played along with the creature, adding more and more to the beat while Muddy felt himself begin to stiffen up from head to toe.

It was overpowering, whatever they got from the other side.

Its progress stopped right before the two of them, almost within snapping distance. The man-length teeth slammed into the street, rendering Muddy deaf and petrified, glued to where he stood. Fear rippled through him, thoughts racing, praying Otis could win out, but his mouth failed when he tried to cheer on his friend.

Rattle. Dissonance. Jangle of alien chords.

Counter rhythms. Double beats. Trebly rim shot.

The two danced musically while the snake’s jaws yawned precariously over the drummer’s head. Whether Otis felt no fear or he was entranced with his own beat, he showed no reaction.

On and on it went until…Otis stopped.

The snake attempted to halt its swaying, jangling, beating body, but it couldn’t.

Otis smiled then launched into the exact opposite of what both had played.

The creature froze then stumbled then flopped onto its belly, shrieking.

The drummer intensified his new beat, stepping right up to the massive jaws.

Don’t, Otis. Don’t.

But he did. He began to play on the serpent’s pipe-like teeth. He beat a wild rhythm on each massive fang.

With a cry Muddy would hear for months in his sleep, the creature howled and spun away. Its body swung and slithered as if on ice, back in the direction it came.

It bolted away from them and as it moved, its song became a disjointed mess.

“Dang,” the drummer said. “It doesn’t die?”

“Maybe back there, but not here. I have no clue. More importantly,” Muddy said, beginning to feel again, “Where’s it going now?”

They knew before either moved their lips.

The crossroads. Like a beaten dog, it meant to head home with its tail between its legs.

“Do you think Silver Eye knows?”

“Are you kidding? He knows all about what goes in and comes out of that thing.”

Corey stared at his friend. “Then why isn’t he here? Why didn’t he come to help? Why didn’t he know?”

The world suddenly morphed from color to black and white as a thought cut like a razor through Muddy.

They began to run toward the landfill, toward the portal where they left the door wide open when Muddy stopped short.

“Look.”

“What? Is that Bentley?”

Their nemesis, the cocky musician stood frozen before them.

Otis shook his shoulders. “Forget it, man. He probably didn’t even see us.”

“He didn’t have to,” Muddy replied.

The teen held a cell phone in the air. “He recorded it?”

“I guess.”

“Well, don’t be an idiot. Take it and hit erase.”

Muddy tried to wrestle the skinny phone from the boy’s big hands but as he was a few moments ago, Bentley remained frozen. “I can’t get it out! What do we do?”

“Hope,” said Otis. “We have to make sure it’s gone.”

They ran off to their bikes and sped off to the trail leading to the crossroads.

As they arrived, the creature had just finished slinking back through the portal.

“What’s that on the ground?” Otis’ voice shook.

“No. No.” Muddy’s mind broke as he realized the full gravity of his mistake.

“It’s Silver Eye.”

“Crap.”

“Is he...?

“No, but he seems close. Very close.”