Night Music
When the first child was reported missing in the small, quiet, town of Tranquility, Massachusetts—a place that brought to mind the old-fashioned family values of a Normal Rockwell painting—people looked suspiciously at the youngster's parents. After all, it was not unheard of for a mother or father to crack under the pressure of parenthood and kill his or her own child, either accidentally or on purpose. We have only to watch the Investigation Discovery Channel to see true crime cases of filicide and infanticide. When the second and third children disappeared, however, suspicion shifted from the mother and father to an unknown predator.
Fear quickly spread through Tranquility, and worried parents kept a watchful eye on their offspring. The teachers at Tranquility Elementary School warned their students to go directly home after the last bell of the day. The youngsters were also reminded not to talk to strangers and never, under any circumstances, to get into a car, even with neighbors or people they knew, without first getting permission from their parents.
Miss Gloria Hobson, a stern, pedantic kindergarten teacher not only warned her students of the dangers that might exist, but the elderly educator also took great delight in frightening them out of their wits as she did so.
One morning, during the designated "book time," the last activity before noon recess, Gloria read aloud to her young students the classic fairy tale of the Pied Piper.
"The children of Hamelin followed the Piper's music and were never seen again," she concluded with a Machiavellian smile of satisfaction on her normally sour countenance as she looked out over the classroom and saw twenty-seven pale, attentive faces and fifty-four eyes wide with fear staring back at her. "Of course, that's just make-believe. There's no such person as the Pied Piper, not in Hamelin or here in Tranquility."
The children looked relieved.
"But there is a ghostly violinist who haunts Saint Stephen's Cemetery. He was once a music teacher here in this very school."
The look of fear returned to the children's faces. Doubtless, most adults would frown on her comments, especially given the current events; but she doubted any of the students would relay her comments to their parents.
Thankfully, the recess bell rang before their teacher could go into greater detail, and the children hurried from the classroom to the cheerful cafeteria for their snack time.
* * *
The five-year-old Patrick twins, Kelly and Michael, lived more than a mile from the school and had to walk past Saint Stephen's Cemetery on their way home. They, more than their classmates, had been frightened by Miss Hobson's mention of a ghostly violinist.
"Do you think it's really haunted?" Kelly asked as they approached the cemetery.
"If Miss Hobson says so, it must be true," Michael replied.
When they arrived home, there was no car in the driveway. Their mother and father worked in the city and took the Interstate home. Earlier that day there had been a multi-vehicle accident, and Mr. and Mrs. Patrick were held up in traffic. The twins waited on their swing set in the backyard for their parents to come home, but by six o'clock not only were they not home yet, but it was beginning to get dark out.
"I'm scared," Kelly admitted to her brother. "I don't want to be out here at night. Miss Hobson says there's a bad man in our town who is looking for children."
"Let's walk to Grandma's house then," Michael suggested. "Mom and Dad can pick us up there when they get home."
"But won't we have to walk past the cemetery again to get there?"
"It's either walk to Grandma's or wait here in the dark. And we don't know where Mom and Dad are or when they'll get home."
Michael got the battery-powered lantern out of the garage—which unlike the house was unlocked—and the twins walked quickly toward town, only slowing when they saw the monuments of Saint Stephen's directly ahead of them. Michael took Kelly's hand in his, and the two twins hurried down the dark street, wanting to get past the frightening cemetery as quickly as possible.
They were halfway down the block when a familiar voice called to them.
"Miss Hobson!" they cried with relief when they saw their teacher.
Gloria had a longstanding habit of taking a walk every night after dinner, rain, shine or snow, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. The children came upon her as she was heading home.
"What are you two doing out by yourselves at this time of night?" she demanded to know.
"No one is home at our house, so we're going to our grandmother's," Michael, the braver of the twins, answered.
Miss Hobson frowned, a gesture more natural to her than the smile she had shown the children earlier in the day.
"Don't you realize there's a madman out there who preys on little children?" the teacher scolded the twins. "I can't have you walking to your grandmother's house and risk getting abducted. I'll tell you what. I live in that house next to the cemetery. You come home with me, and I'll phone your parents and tell them where you are. Then they can come pick you up."
Michael and Kelly weren't overjoyed at the idea of spending the evening with their dour-faced teacher, but they liked the idea of walking in the dark night even less.
"Take your coats off," Miss Hobson said after the Patrick twins entered her house. "I'll make some hot cocoa for us."
The children followed the teacher into the kitchen, surprised that their teacher was actually being nice to them. Her students feared her only slightly less than the faceless boogeyman who was kidnapping the children of Tranquility.
"Aren't you scared to live here next to the graveyard?" Michael asked with a newfound admiration for Gloria's bravery.
"Scared? No. Why should I be? Despite what they say in horror books and movies, the dead can't hurt anybody. They're dead! Besides, I've lived in this house all my life. My father was a gravedigger by trade, so he built his home next to his place of employment. You know he buried most of the people in Saint Stephen's."
Kelly, uncomfortable with all the talk of burials and cemeteries, instinctively moved closer to her brother.
Michael, however, was morbidly curious.
"Did you ever see him?"
"Of course, I saw him," Miss Hobson replied. "He was my father. I lived with him for more than thirty-five years."
"I wasn't talking about your father. I mean ... him—the music teacher."
Miss Hobson's thin lips pursed, and her face turned pale.
"Oh, him! As a matter of fact, I saw a great deal of him," she answered, more to herself than to her young guests. "We were in love, and I was going to marry him. But that was before ...."
The teakettle suddenly whistled shrilly, causing Kelly to tighten her grip on Michael's arm. Gloria continued to speak while she prepared the cups of hot cocoa.
"... he found out about the baby."
"So, you did get married," Michael said innocently, believing only married women gave birth.
"No, we didn't," Gloria explained as best she could. "The baby was—well, it's hard for you to understand—conceived out of wedlock. That means I wasn't married to the baby's father. Back then having such a child caused quite a scandal, especially in a small town like Tranquility."
The teacher put the mugs of steaming cocoa in front of the two children.
"No one here ever knew about my predicament because I was away at college at the time. I went to a doctor, and he helped me ... get rid of it."
"You gave the baby to someone else?" Kelly asked.
"No, not exactly. Doctors have a way of taking a baby out of its mother before it's born. That's what this doctor did for me. I just don't know how Richard ever found out about it."
"Was Richard the music teacher?" Michael asked, trying his hardest to understand the teacher's explanation.
"Yes. When Richard found out about my little ... indiscretion, he broke off the engagement."
Tears welled up in Gloria's eyes.
"I was so furious at his rejection of me that I ... I killed him in a fit of rage. Afterward, I confessed my crime to my father, who then buried my former fiancé in an unmarked grave in that cemetery. I didn't want to kill my baby or Richard. I didn't want to kill any of them."
Michael, although only a young child, had instincts keener than most people years older. He pushed the mug of poisoned cocoa away from him and told Kelly it was time to leave.
"Where are you going?" Gloria asked, her eyes twinkling brightly with madness.
"My parents must be home by now, and they'll be wondering where we are."
Michael grabbed Kelly's hand and they hurried outside with Miss Hobson on their heels.
"Come back here," she ordered as the distance between her and the children widened.
The twins ran as fast as their little legs would allow, no longer fearful of the dark, deserted cemetery ahead. One thing Gloria told them had been right: the dead wouldn't hurt them. But Michael wasn't so sure about his teacher, who was very much alive.
Suddenly, a bluish-gray, translucent image rose up from the hallowed ground the Saint Stephen's Cemetery. It was the revenant of the dead music teacher, playing a funeral dirge on his violin.
"Richard!" Miss Hobson shrieked with fright.
She tightly clasped her hands on her ears, trying to block out the sorrowful tune the vaporous violinist played.
While the Patrick twins stared in awe, they saw the ghosts of the three missing children and one tiny light—shining brightly despite its small size—dance across the ground as the ghostly music teacher played. It reminded Michael of the legendary children of Hamelin following the hypnotic music of the Pied Piper.
As the phantom children encircled Miss Hobson, the kindergarten teacher fell to the ground, screaming in terror. The spirits of Gloria's innocent victims danced above her while her murdered suitor continued to play his violin. When the eerie song finally came to an end, the music teacher, the three children and the soul of Miss Hobson's unborn child disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind two relieved children and one dead kindergarten teacher.
The above story is based on one I originally wrote as an entry to a Horror-Web.com short story contest. The story was to be inspired by the picture at the upper left of the page and had to be under 1000 words. My story won first place for the month and 2nd place for the year.)
Our neighbors don't appreciate Salem's night music very much.
