When You Hear Music, Run

44.

"This will be my sixth time up in them woods, on my previous five trips, I only found one person, and that one was," Gilbert paused for a moment, "Well he came back wrong best I can say it, he's still alive last I heard, and his parents are doing their best, but what's in them woods isn't a normal creature, it takes things from you." The two exterminators were on a ferry at the moment, the sun was going down. Gilbert had informed Clarissa they wouldn't be going into the woods till the morning, he didn't dare start out at night.

"Is it some kind of ancient spirit, like something native american?" Gilbert smiled.

"You went the same place I did on my first trip up there, I checked a local reservation figuring someone had cursed the place, maybe I could get it removed? They knew the place, knew the evil there, but it was there before their people had ever come from wherever they came from. They put me in touch with the only person to ever come back from them woods. He was old, up over the age of 98, didn't speak, when I ran across him he'd moved to just outside of the woods, lived in a small cabin his grand daughter helped maintain. She told me he hadn't talked to anyone in over five years, spent most of his time sitting on the porch in a rocking chair just staring into the woods. I asked my questions, he didn't say anything, I was about to leave when I told him I was going into those woods, and that's when he snatched my arm strength like a taught cable, he stared me right in the eyes and said 'When you hear music, run.'" Gilbert fell silent for a bit. Clarissa felt a chill run up her spine at the story, she could tell Gilbert was bothered by it. He himself was staring at the mountains, she could tell he was probably going back to those woods in his mind.

"For my first trip I wasn't alone, authorities hadn't learned to avoid the woods, we had search and rescue, sheriffs, even some fire fighters had joined the effort. I was just hired at the time because I'd worked for the sheriff once to kill a werewolf, so he knew that the woods could harbor things normal people didn't believe in. We had no idea what we were walking into. Lost five people in two days, never found a trace of them, they were just up and gone, including the sheriff who hired me. The second time out it was just me and Charlie, no one else would go. Charlie saw something in the woods I didn't, he wouldn't tell me what it was, but he never went back to them. Hell he didn't come back to the peninsula for any regular job, I never blamed him, I don't take jobs in wyoming either." Gilbert didn't say anything again. Clarissa was beginning to regret coming on this job.

"That third job though, it was just me, so I was already high strung. Those woods are deep and you start seeing things, hearing things, and you know you're hearing things, because those woods are quiet like the grave. Its the first thing you notice about when you get deep in, past the normal woods areas, past the birds, and squirrels and other shit, when you get in deep it gets quiet, real quiet," Gilbert considered his next words carefully, Clarissa had goose bumps all over her arm, "When I heard it at first I thought I was just hearing more shit, I swear I'd heard my mothers voice earlier in the day, but that music was unmistakeable, faint at first, just drifting on the wind and then it was all around me. You know carnival music? Loud and bombastic? It's what I heard, my father used to take me to carnivals as a young man, I loved it, loved seeing clowns and high wire acts, it was a grand ole time. This music put the chill into my spine. I'd forgotten about the old native american's warning up till then, and then it came flooding back and I was chilled to my core." A bird made a loud cawing sound from somewhere on the sound and both Clarissa and Gilbert got startled and laughed at the situation.

"Out of nowhere amidst this music was a carnival barker. He even had a little booth, I couldn't believe my eyes at first. I was dumb then, just a stupid fool who didn't run when he should have. 'Step right up, step right up, we have rides, we have thrills, we have stuff you ain't never seen, step right up sir' I was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to talk, and that barker had a look to him, something was off, I mean obviously because it was a carnival barker in the middle of the woods, but there was something else, something insidious about how he was looking at me. While I was staring at him his outfit changed, started small, fabric getting frayed, skin looking off. Soon enough his clothes were made from skin and bone, his own body that of a corpse. And I was being strangely drawn to him, I could feel my desire to go with him," Gilbert shuddered again and gathered his thoughts, "I probably would have gone with him if not for Tyler Smith, the young boy I was out there to find, he screamed at me no and I woke up like from a dream, I snatched him up and ran, I could hear the barker behind me making demented requests cursing my family but I paid him no mind. I just ran."

"When I got Tyler back home to his family he wasn't speaking, his hair was all white, all the boy would say is 'when you hear music, run' I heard that's all he does say now, though he hardly speaks. Just sits on the porch looking back to the woods, his family moved away, but he knows which direction to look, knows where to stare." Gilbert looked to the woods again, shivered and walked back to the van, the ferry ride was almost over.

"So what's the plan?"

"I booked some hotel rooms, we will set out in the morning, check in with the sheriff just to let her know we're going up there, she'll probably give me a song and dance like Doris did, and then we'll find Ms Hansen, or not, either way we will leave those woods by night time, but remember what I did not."

"When you hear music run."

"When you hear music run, good Clarissa you may outlive me yet." Clarissa didn't feel that, and couldn't help shake the feeling Gilbert had mentioned he'd been up there five times but only told her of three of them.