Visions of the Dark

I am super excited about one of my stories from The Other Side of Despair being featured on the latest podcast episode of Random Transmissions. This podcast is super cool and you should go and check out all the episodes!

Random Transmissions

Claire and Lucius walked down the hall of the South Wing to the small, padded isolation room. A chair and Lucius’ guitar sat in the far corner.

Lucius smiled at Claire as he entered the room.

“Alright, Lucius, you have one hour and then I’ll be back to escort you back.”

“Thank you.”

Claire shut the door and then proceeded to go into the adjacent room. This room was dark but Claire didn’t turn the lights on. Instead, she left the door ajar so that light from the hallway could illuminate enough of the room.

In times past this room had been used as an observation room. The shared wall with the padded cell was a one-way mirror. From Lucius’ point of view, it looked like a large mirror, but for Claire, it was a window. She could see Lucius adjust his chair and then almost lovingly pick up the guitar.

The room was equipped with a microphone and speaker so that Claire could have listened to Lucius, but that was unnecessary – she knew he would meticulously tune his guitar only to skew the tuning before playing. Besides, it wasn’t the audio she wanted to record, it was the visual performance.

Claire had already deposited a camcorder on a tripod in the room. She turned it on and ensured the angle and focus were correct, then she pressed the red record button and left.

***

Lucius wasn’t the least bit surprised that Claire had been the one to retrieve him and escort him to his playing session. The Baron had already told him that today was the day of his escape.

His patience and practice had finally paid off and he was ready to spread the performance now.

The Baron had requested that before he help Lucius escape, that Lucius play the entirety of the suite one more time. At the end of the today’s session, Claire would help Lucius leave Rathbone Asylum for good.

And so, Lucius poured his heart and soul into his final practice within the walls of the asylum. And his performance was incredible.

After he had finished, he placed the guitar back against the wall and sat waiting for Claire to return.

Shortly, Claire opened the door and smiled at Lucius. “Okay, Lucius, are you ready to head back to your room?”

Lucius merely smiled pleasantly and followed her into the hallway. They took no more than a few steps when Lucius said, “Oh, Claire, one moment, please. I must look upon you for what you are.”

Claire turned confused and Lucius proceeded to peel the mask completely from his face so the he might behold her in her true form.

What Lucius saw was shocking – almost too shocking for him to believe, but the Baron had not lied. Claire was one of the insect things just as the Baron had warned him. He stood transfixed as the human-like covering finished sloughing off into a pile in the floor. Her head reminded Lucius of the head of some great praying mantis. If was triangular with two enormous compound eyes. The antennae wiggled, testing the air and then the strange, sideways mandibles opened and a horrendous screech issued forth like the forest erupting with the sound of a host of cicadas.

Lucius’ hypnotic stare was broken and he realized that now was the time to act. He lurched into the Claire-creature and struck the thing exactly how the Baron had told him. There was a brief struggle where the creature tried to use its insect appendages to fend off the attack, but Lucius persisted through his revulsion until the creature was still. Then Lucius took the swipe key from the body and returned to the isolation room to retrieve his guitar.

After that, it was a relatively easy task to use the key to exit out of the little used and empty South Wing.

Lucius Rivers was now free to introduce the world to the Baron Shadowmancer’s grand Suite Insanity in E minor.

Claire, one of the night-shift nurses, and Jason, one of the night-shift orderlies, sat at the nurse’s station chatting and drinking coffee.

“So, is it true that Dr. Middleton confiscated Lucius’ guitar?” Jason asked.

“Yes.”

“Thank God we don’t have to listen to that infernal racket anymore, huh?”

“It’s hard to believe that he used to be an amazing guitarist.”

“What?” Jason said.

“Yeah, his nephew was telling me that he used to be this incredible classical guitarist who performed all over the place. You know, it doesn’t surprise me. There’s something about him that makes me think there’s something going on with him that we don’t get.”

Jason snickered at the absurdity of Claire’s statement. “Come on, now. Surely you’re joking. The guy‘s as whacked as they come. He plays in the toilet water and talks to the corner, for Chrissake.”

“I know he’s lost his mind. I’m not trying to say he’s lucid, but I do think that there‘s some kind of method to his madness that makes sense to him and no one else. For example, the talking to the corner. If you watch him, he only does it after dark when the hall lights come on. The light from the hallway casts a certain shadow in the corner that is kind of human shaped. It’s the shadow that he sits and talks to; no other time will you see him conversing with the corner.”

“That’s just creepy,” Jason said.

“Yeah. It’s so bizarre. And I’ve watched him while he plays guitar. He’s actually pretty good.”

At this Jason nearly spit his coffee out. “Now I know you’re messing with me, Claire. There is no way you can call that atrocious twanging, good.”

Claire giggled and continued. “I know it sounds horrible, but if you just watch his fingers, he plays the same patterns over and over quite deftly. The weirdest thing is that he’ll pause to tune the guitar and once he has it tuned, he’ll mess up the tuning in different ways before starting to play again. But then he’ll play the exact same patterns in that out-of-tune manner before doing it all over again.”

“Well, I think you give that kook too much credit. I think he’s just a nutty as the rest of these poor saps around here – maybe even worse.”

Claire smiled and said, “Maybe you’re right”.

“I know I’m right. Well, I gotta go walk my rounds. Thanks for the coffee, Claire.”

“You’re welcome.”

As Jason moseyed down the hallway, Claire muttered to herself, “I wonder what it would sound like if it were in tune?”

***

Baron Shadowmancer: After the modulation to C minor, the piece also transition to five-four time. Beginning on C on the fifth string, next go to E flat on the fourth string –

Lucius: Hold on. I can’t keep all this straight unless I have my guitar in hand. It’s too hard to remember all of it in my head.

Baron Shadowmancer: That’s alright, Lucius, you’re doing splendidly. Tomorrow you work on what we’ve covered and we’ll pick up from the C minor modulation after that.

Lucius: How much longer must we endure these arrangements?

Baron Shadowmancer: Not much longer. After you’ve learned this piece, I believe it will be time for you to go.

Lucius: Go? Go where?

Baron Shadowmancer: Out of this place, Lucius. Down south, I should think. Not too far; maybe the Springs or so. The time for your unveiling is very close at hand. But I want you to be ready – I want the Suite to be ready.

Lucius: I don’t know if I can make it out there. After all these years in here, I’m afraid I’d be lost. I’m afraid I’d just be . . . well, afraid.

Baron Shadowmancer: Lucius, my subject, my prodigy, my child. Lucius, you’ll be under my protection and my guidance. You have nothing to fear so long as you are the vehicle of my grand work. The Ne Plus Ultra of my creative output. My Magnum Opus.

Lucius: How will I get out, though? Those beasts are too watchful. Their cunning is too thorough.

Baron Shadowmancer: The one called Claire will help you.

Lucius: Yes, she seems nice. Are you sure she’s one of them. I’ve been so afraid to withdraw the mask and see her true form – afraid I’ll really see her as she is and then I’ll be devastated.

Baron Shadowmancer: That’s probably for the best. You must trust me when I tell you that she is one, but do not look upon her without the mask, Lucius. Even though she is one, she still will serve her purpose – for me; for us.

Dr. Middleton and Dr. Harris strategized a plan of how they were going to handle the patient Lucius Rivers as they strode the sanitized, white hallways of Rathbone Asylum.

“His nephew said that he was a very accomplished musician in his youth,” Dr. Middleton said.

“I have no doubt that at one time he was,” replied Dr. Harris.

“He even studied classical guitar under the Cuban Maestro Rubio Colon.”

“I’m sorry; I’m not familiar with him.”

“Well, anyway,” Dr. Middleton continued, “after nearly fifteen years of seemingly no interest in playing, Lucius suddenly began to hum snatches of music and to ‘play guitar’ on whatever surfaces were available to him – mostly just his own body or the air.”

“Hmmm, interesting.”

“Yes, we thought so. You can see that we thought it would be healthy for him to have a go at playing guitar again after learning from his nephew that he used to be a virtuoso.”

“Really? He was considered that good?” Dr. Harris said with some skepticism.

“Well, that’s what his nephew claimed anyway. We gave him the green light to bring Lucius’ instrument to the asylum so that Lucius might be reacquainted with the guitar.”

“From the sounds of it, the two still hate each other.”

Dr. Middleton chuckled.

Ever since John Graham, Lucius’ nephew, had brought the guitar, Lucius had been playing the most grating, discordant music ever heard. Not only was the music insufferable, but it had actually caused the staff, and especially the other patients, to become more agitated and cross.

Almost immediately one of the patients had broken down in tears while another began to rage and curse and strike at anyone who came near. The nurses and orderlies were at their wits end trying to placate the patients while the ward deteriorated into chaos and dysfunction.

One of the nurses had gone to Lucius and attempted to confiscate the instrument but Lucius retaliated by screaming at her and threatening to boil her alive as he obsessively hugged his guitar.

The next step in the protocol of the ward was to isolate the patient and notify the senior Psychiatrists on duty. Dr. Harris was the most senior staff member and Dr. Middleton was the treating physician on Lucius Rivers’ case.

The two doctors continued to discuss Rivers until they arrived at the door to his room. Dr. Middleton knocked.

***

Lucius Rivers sat in his sterile, soft cell mulling over the Baron’s revelations. For so many years Lucius had struggled to understand his plight, knowing that things were askew. It wasn’t until Baron Shadowmancer arrived that he had begun to learn the true nature of so many things.

The first major revealing was the nature of the stone pillow. That was difficult to figure out. But after Lucius had determined that the smooth stone in the yard was to become his seer’s pillow, then the rest flowed quite quickly. Lucius had managed to elude the baleful eyes and sneak the stone into his pillow case. Almost immediately, his nightly visions had started in a glorious procession toward epiphany.

The first evening that he noticed the Baron’s arrival would be forever etched in Lucius’ mind. It was terrifying to behold. The Barron didn’t arrive alone – apparently couldn’t manifest alone. He had to come in the company of the Wild Witch. For you needed light to create the proper shadow. You needed the proper shadow to manipulate the gateway. At first, Lucius was confounded by the light, not realizing that the real power resided in the shadows behind him.

So, night after night, Lucius had lain in his bed as the yellow light summoned the Wild Witch and captured his awe. Mesmerized by her glory, he sat in fear and watched her cavorting in the light, not realizing that behind him the shadows danced too.

It was on the fifth night – for the Baron dealt in fives – that Lucius sat watching the play of light and heard a soft whisper from behind. Turning his head slowly and in growing terror, he saw the Baron towering in the corner’s shadows. Tears began to stream down his face as he realized the immensity of his power.