#midnightcollective

[Written by Reddit user MidnightCollective]..

I haven't been able to talk to Matt or Liz about what happened that night. At first I wanted to. I needed to know that I wasn't the only one who heard the lullaby that night.

I wanted to yell out for Liz to call the cops. To get Matt and tackle that sick son of a bitch holding the head of that poor girl. My mouth was open and the words were right on the tip of my tongue when the slow spin of the head brought it full circle to face me. I caught a glimpse of a mangled ear as the head spun around, only a mass of red flesh peeking out from the stringy hair.

It should have continued spinning. Free dangling object like that, that’s what they’re supposed to do. But it didn’t. It came to a dead stop when it was facing me. Her eyes were half open, only whites showing. The worst thing was her mouth. Her lips were still moving. I paused, mid-stride, at the impossible sight. She was saying something. No, singing something. The music I heard from earlier. It was coming from her mouth. The song stopped me in my tracks. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. The song was getting louder. Like it was the only sound in the entire world. I felt every fibre of my body.

The song didn’t stop. It got louder and louder. The volume revealed new wonders in the song, like little sub-tunes and arrangements hidden under the voice of the woman. Then the pain started. It felt as though my eardrums were fit to burst. I slapped my hands over my ears but it was too late, the song was coming from everywhere now. From inside my head too. I felt a warm wetness on both my hands and I knew that I was bleeding.

The pain drove me to my knees. Liz was right there. Her lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the song. I didn’t believe that the song could have gotten any louder but it did, building up to an unearthly crescendo as the blessed darkness finally took me.

My head ached horribly when I woke up on my bed. I didn’t remember how I got back. Two aspirin and an ice pack barely took the edge of the headache off. I decided to take a walk through the city to soothe my head. Stepping out of my home, I found myself whistling a catchy little tune. It took me a full 5 minutes to realize where it was from. It was the tune from the night before. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was like I was 16 again listening to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It kept looping in my head. I hummed it to Shazaam on my phone. There was no hit.

I wondered the streets aimlessly, trying to walk off the twin distractions of the song and the thumping in my skull. That’s when I heard it. Above the low rumble of traffic, like a ray of sunlight in the darkness. The slow lilting tune of the song. I swung my head around, trying to figure out where the song was coming from. I grew impatient. Like a bloodhound, I took large strides down the empty streets, swinging my head around, trying to identify the source of the song.

Nothing. There was just a couple down the street having some kind of argument. The guy had his back towards me. He was a big dude. Maybe six and a half feet, wide as hell. I could barely see the outline of the woman he was shouting at. I only knew she was there because I saw her arms twitching wildly as the two of them argued.

The man draws a muscular arm back, palm open. In that split second where his arm cocked back, I found the source of the music. The same straggly hair. The same half opened eyes, rolled up, whites exposed. Her mouth was still open, just like it was the night before. Still singing to me.

My heart was still thumping in my chest when I slammed the door to my home. I told myself that it must have been a mistake. Some deranged fever dream brought on by lack of sleep. Or maybe a blow to the head. For a second there, I thought I had heard the singing out there on the street, seen the face of girl again. Then the man brought his hand down in a big sweeping arc, the rifle shot of the slap made me blink and the face was gone, all that was left was the scared face of a different young woman.

The phone in the hall rang, making me jump. It sounded like it was a mile away.

“Hey, it’s Liz. Can you talk?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I pulled the phone from my ear and tapped it. Liz sounded distant, like the volume of the phone was off.

“I want to talk about last night, about that thing we saw in the woods. That man, or whatever it was.”

“Liz, can you speak up?” I could barely hear her. The response was a quiet whisper I could barely hear. Then there was something else. "Liz, can you hear that? The music?" The phone went dead. Or at least, I couldn't hear anything over the faint tune calling out to me from the window. The lullaby felt like an old friend. I leaned out of the window. It felt like it was coming from across the street. Then I saw her. One of those people on the fringe of your vision that your mind filters out. A scavenger on the seabed of society, pushing a shopping trolley filled with the detritus of her sorry life. She could have been anywhere between 20 to 60. Her hang hung down in matted dreadlocks, covering her face. On a good day, a sympathetic pang would have been the appropriate response, on any other day, in disgust and feigned ignorance. Today, hearing her humming that song filled me with an inexplicable joy instead.

I burst out of my house. She was only 30 yards away, moving her trolley at a snail's pace. I caught up with her easily, but slowed for the last few yards, both to savour the sweet strains of the song as well as to avoid the smell wafting downwind. The faint white marks on her arms stood still stood out against the unhealthy pallor of her skin. She was humming the tune I remembered. It filled my entire world. I couldn’t hear anything else.

I hesitated, then gently tapped her on the shoulder. “Ma’am, excuse me but I need to know the name of that...”

Half opened eyes peered out at me from behind the cage of her dirty hair. It was her again. The beauty of the tune in stark contrast with the gaping hole in her face from which it poured forth.

I took a step back in horror at the apparition before me. The heel of my foot caught on the edge of the sidewalk and the visage in front of me was replaced by a view of the open blue sky as I landed hard on the cold asphalt.

The sunlight was blotted out by the slightly concerned face of the shopping trolley lady. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like some predatory eel. I frowned and raised one trembling hand to my ear. I snapped my fingers till they were sore, just to make sure. I couldn't hear a thing.

I think lost it for a few minutes. I screamed for an eternity. Only after pausing for breath for the third time did I accept that I could not hear my own voice. I didn’t remember how I got into my car and started driving, or where I intended to go. The silence in the car was eerie, even as I whipped down the empty roads. No growl of the engine. No wind howling by the open window. I don't know how far I got before I saw the accident. The tiny car had wrapped itself around a tree. The hood, crumpled like so much tin foil. As I stopped my car, I heard it again. The faint sound of the song, coming from the other car. It filled me with a terrible joy, to be able to hear again and to have my ears filled with such beauty.

I peered into the car. The driver was a young woman about my age. No seat belt. Her face was pressed up against the airbag, presenting me with only one flawless half. A syrupy crust of blood gluing the other side of her face to the airbag hinted at the damage that had already been wrought there. Not the face of the woman from the night before. Just an ordinary lady. Just like anyone on the street.

Her one blue eye focused on me, pleading. The song was very loud in my ears. I had my very own front row seat to the best live performance in the world. I watched with childlike fascination as her lips purses and forced out words slightly out of sync with the song.

Help me.

Help me.

Help me.

A single perfectly formed tear rolled down her face. I squatted there by the roadside until the song got softer and softer. Then it stopped. Then I drove home.

There's nothing wrong with my hearing. I try hard enough, I can still catch hints of the dross that fills the ears of the rest of humanity. There's no reason for me to want to do that. The man in the woods showed me something else. That there is a song in pain. In madness. It's played on flesh and sinew and nerve.

I have everything I need. It's amazing what you can get from a Home Depot. Cable ties. Duct tap. A sturdy knife.

Someone will sing for me tonight.