Chapter 5: The Roadside Hymn

Chapter 5: The Roadside Hymn

The ultimatum hung in the air, thick and suffocating as the storm-charged humidity. Play a song of true terror. The lantern on the floor cast the shadows of Silas, Jett, and the hulking man into grotesque, dancing giants on the walls. They were a trinity of judgment, and Leo was the sinner pinned at the apex of their holy altar.

His guitar, the instrument of his pride and his downfall, lay on the floor a few feet away. His mind, once a whirlwind of clever melodies and confident lies, was now a dead, silent space. Terror wasn't a riff or a chord progression; it was a paralysis, a hollowing out of the self. How could he play a song about nothingness?

Silas watched him, his serene expression unwavering. Jett’s lips were curled into a hungry sneer, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists, eager for the moment Leo would fail, eager to provide the "inspiration."

You have until the storm breaks.

As if on cue, there was a momentary lull in the deluge. The hammering rain softened to a roar, the wind’s shriek dropped to a mournful howl. It was his deadline. The quiet after the thunder was a countdown.

In that fleeting silence, Leo’s survival instinct, buried under layers of crippling fear, finally sparked. He couldn't play for them. To play would be to participate, to accept their madness, to truly and formally offer himself to the unseen thing they worshipped. It would be the ultimate act of submission. His arrogance, his core belief that he was smarter than everyone else, wouldn't allow it. Even in the face of death, his pride was his last, desperate defense.

He gave a slow, shaky nod, as if in acceptance. He reached for his guitar, his movements deliberately sluggish, cowed. "Okay," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Okay."

Jett’s grin widened. Silas’s eyes held a flicker of triumphant satisfaction.

Leo’s calloused fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar. He knew its weight, its balance, better than he knew his own body. He lifted it, not to his lap, but up to his shoulder, like a baseball bat.

And then he moved.

In one explosive motion born of pure adrenaline, he swung the heavy wooden body of the guitar in a vicious arc, straight at the lantern.

The sound of shattering glass and the whoosh of igniting kerosene was a more honest note of chaos than any he could have played. The room plunged into absolute, disorienting darkness as the lantern’s flame died. A single, furious curse from Jett was his only guide. Leo didn’t hesitate. He scrambled for the hallway, for the memory of the back cellar door.

He crashed through the doorway, his shoulder slamming into the frame, and careened down the dark hall. Behind him, he heard the heavy, frantic footsteps of the giant and Jett’s enraged roars.

“Don’t let him escape! The Listener will be starved!” Silas’s voice, no longer serene, boomed with cold fury.

Leo found the cellar door and wrenched it open, throwing himself down the stone steps. He landed hard, his ankle twisting, a hot lance of pain shooting up his leg. He ignored it. He scrambled through the musty dark, found the exterior door, and slammed his shoulder against the old wood. It groaned, held fast by the storm-swollen frame. He hit it again, a desperate, sobbing grunt tearing from his throat. The wood splintered. On the third try, it burst open, and he fell out into the raging storm.

The world was a maelstrom of wind, water, and lashing branches. The run to his truck, parked a hundred yards away at the end of the tree-choked lane, was a nightmare marathon. Mud sucked at his boots, trying to pull him down into the earth. Rain, cold as needles, blinded him.

But it was the sound that terrified him most. The whispers started then, carried on the wind. At first, he thought it was just the rustle of leaves, but the sound coalesced, taking on a familiar shape. It was his music. A ghostly echo of the lament he’d played in the square, twisted and distorted, as if played on strings of wind and rain. It was a hungry sound, a curious sound, a melody that probed and searched for him in the darkness.

The Listener.

A flash of lightning illuminated the woods, and for a heart-stopping second, the shadows of the trees seemed to twist into long, grasping fingers, reaching for him. He screamed, a raw, ragged sound swallowed by the storm, and pushed himself harder, his lungs burning, his twisted ankle screaming in protest.

He saw it then, a darker shape in the maelstrom—his Ford Ranger. Hope, fierce and desperate, surged through him. He fumbled in his wet pocket for his keys, his fingers numb and useless. He could hear them now, the men of the Choir, crashing through the undergrowth behind him, their pursuit relentless.

His fingers closed around the cold metal of his keys. He reached the driver’s side door, jamming the key at the lock, his hand shaking so violently he missed twice. The key slid in. He twisted. The lock clicked.

He yanked the door open and threw himself inside, slamming it shut behind him. The sudden muting of the storm’s roar was a blessing. He was safe. He was in his steel shell.

He jammed the key into the ignition, but before he could turn it, another flash of lightning lit up the entire scene outside his windshield.

And his blood froze solid in his veins.

They weren't chasing him anymore. They were waiting.

Lining the edge of the woods, standing perfectly still in the driving rain, was the entire Silent Choir. There were dozens of them. Men and women, young and old, their faces pale and emotionless in the strobing lightning. He saw the old transient from the town square, his chipped-flint eyes fixed on him. He saw Silas and Jett and the giant, no longer running, but standing at the front of their congregation.

They weren't a lynch mob. They were an audience. Their heads were all tilted slightly, as if listening to something he couldn't hear. They weren't there to stop him. They were there to watch him go. A silent, terrifying send-off.

With a choked sob, Leo turned the key. The old engine coughed, sputtered, and then roared to life. He slammed the truck into reverse, spun the wheel, and stomped on the accelerator. The tires shrieked as they found purchase in the mud, and the truck shot forward, away from the house, away from the silent, watching faces.

He sped down the lane and onto the main road, leaving Andalusia behind him. He didn’t look back. He was crying, laughing, a hysterical, broken sound filling the small cab. He’d done it. He had escaped. He was free. The money was still in his pocket, his life was his own.

He was five miles out of town, the storm beginning to recede into a steady drumming on the roof, when the truck’s old radio crackled. It hadn't worked in a year.

Static hissed from the speakers, then resolved into a sound. It was a melody. A simple, haunting melody.

His melody.

It was the song he had played in the square, the song that had earned him three hundred dollars. But it wasn’t his guitar. It was a chorus of voices, humming the tune. A choir of ghostly, disembodied whispers, singing in a discordant, ethereal harmony. It sounded like it was being recorded from the bottom of a deep, dark well. It was the hum from the house, the whispers from the wind, now given his tune.

Leo stared at the radio in horror. He reached out and slammed the power button. The humming continued, unabated. He twisted the volume knob frantically. It snapped off in his hand.

The ghostly music grew louder, filling the cab, the ethereal voices weaving his beautiful, lying melody into a chilling, inescapable hymn. It was a song of ownership. A claim.

He had escaped the town. He had escaped the Choir. But as he raced down the dark, empty highway, miles from anyone, with his own music sung back at him by a chorus of the damned, Leo knew with sickening certainty that he had not escaped The Listener. He was the song, and it would be listening forever.