The first story from Music’s Box is from one of my favorite writers, Anya J. Davis. She contributed a story for my last project, the Lazarus taxon Project. Despite how many drafts she went through of this story, she makes it seem so effortless, and where her mind goes with this story is so damn great.

The song she chose is “Light Pollution” by Bright Eyes, a song dealing with socialists/economic ideas. In a stroke of brilliance, Anya keyed in on certain phrases and turned this song into a bite of science-fiction/horror greatness.

Please enjoy “Finding the Frequency” by Anya J. Davis!

Finding the Frequency

By Anya J Davis

White noise. It scratched and fizzled, fractious. He moved the dial, millimetre by millimetre, this way and the other, passing through the solid, clear broadcasts from the commercial stations to the dead zones between them. The hums and whines made him wince, but he strained to hear beyond them, to the voice that stuttered like an ageing engine on a winter’s morning, its words fractured and distorted. He searched for familiar phrases but there were none. It wasn’t the right voice. It was never the right voice. It was just a case of finding the frequency though, he was sure of it. Find the frequency and they would be there.

*************

They could communicate without the radio. They murmured to him at dawn, at noon, at dusk, the vibrations tickling the inside of his ear until he squirmed. They talked to him of a world where the moon hung low above the sea, where the breeze caressed the golden wheat, where white stone gave way to monochrome, chequered floors. They spoke to him of libraries crammed with leather-bound books, of snow-capped peaks where eagles soared, of warriors, of love. And when he succumbed to sleep, they came to him, their presence in his dreamscape both a comfort and a thing of dread.

Sometimes they would manifest within the shabbily decorated walls of his dingy basement flat. Serpentine tendrils of thick, white smoke coalesced, unravelling and disappearing the moment he focused on them. Slate grey shapes crouched in the hallway, flickering and pixelating, before fading into nothing. Shadowy things peered around doorways at him, furtively darting backwards as he faced them. It had taken time to get used to them permeating his home and mind, but he accepted it now. He had moved from fear to tolerance and finally to craving their company. If they left now, he would be lost.

He kept his knowledge of their existence to himself. He was canny enough for that. His friends had noticed changes in him, but they were too polite or embarrassed to mention anything, and he had always been avant-garde. Eccentric, others would say, or even just plain strange. The thought amused him, but nonetheless he preferred avant-garde. He said nothing to anyone though. Instead, he led a curious dual life, one foot in this world and one in another, while he waited for the shift.

He just wished they could tell him what he wanted to know. When he asked the questions that gnawed away at him like ravenous rats, their responses were jumbled, as if their speech had been translated from a long-forgotten language through badly programmed software. Their voices became muffled, as if he were listening through a glass pressed to a wall. He would miss a word here, a phrase there, the key to the secret of the sentence, or get flashes and colours where an image should be. “Keep trying,” they said, but the frustration twisted through their voices, wringing the calmness from them like water from a dishcloth, as they tried to send him the answer again.

“Step closer,” he had pleaded with them one warm spring evening, as they drove him to distraction once more. “Step closer to our world so I can see, so I can hear, so I can truly understand.” But they would not, they could not. It was the pollution, they explained. It coated them, clung to them, the toxicity weakening them. The hum of the power lines, the grime in the streets, the choking fumes that swirled around the skies. The chemical-laden creatures sniping and jostling for position, churning up bitterness and bile around them like silt, as they scurried through the streets. The earthly filth seeped into the visitors, ate away at them like acid, so they flittered in and out like butterflies, never maintaining contact for long.

They had a message to pass on, they insisted, something he needed to know. And, though he had yet to comprehend their meaning, they would not stop trying. They knew a way in which they could push through, they told him, a purer, cleaner communication channel, where they could brush the contaminants aside like cobwebs. He needed to be ready for the shift. He needed to prepare.

“You can tell me all this,” he said, “yet not the message. I don’t believe you anymore.”

Their pain was tangible, a torrent of sadness rushing through the room. They swept around him, their energy crackling as they tried to reassure him, change his mind.

“We are bound by laws,” they chided, “laws of physics and of faith, laws of our world, laws of yours. Laws that you know nothing of and cannot understand. We cannot share our knowledge with you until the time is right. And you must meet us halfway. You must search for us. For those that do will find the truth and the others will be left behind.”

“I don’t have time for this. Leave me alone. Find someone else to taunt.” His words rat-tat-tatted like machine gun bullets, as he sought to inflict wounds to avenge his own pain.

“Don’t give up on us. We will not give up on you. Find the frequency and unlock the door.”

“Riddles within riddles,” he muttered, slamming his coffee mug on the table. But he chewed the words over anyway, trying to decipher the code. After a few hours of contemplation, a thought struck him. He headed towards the radio and set the dial to a dead channel. He listened for some time without hearing anything, yet something told him he was on the right track.

“Is this it?” he demanded. “Is this the answer?” No reply came and he took that as a sign that it was.

Day after day, he tried to find them but to no avail. He was about to give up when he heard soft singing in the corner of the room. He didn’t recognise the tune and the words were indistinct.

“What? What is it?” His patience was at an end.

“The stars sing too.  They sing and they spin and they sparkle. Oh, if only you could hear them, see them as we do. If you could just break through the veil that separates you from them. If you could only peep through the keyhole, listen from the landing, peek through a chink in the door.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Just tell me what you mean. Nothing you say makes sense.” He glared at it but it had already gone.

That was the last visit he received. He pretended he was relieved, that their absence had not left a gaping hole, but time passed more slowly after that. He struggled on alone.

 ****************

Something was different today. By noon, there was testiness in the air, a restlessness that set him on edge. It was probably the heat. The sun was too bright, too violent. The thought of spending the day cooped up indoors made him feel sick. He would go to the shopping centre. There were things he needed and it would be air-conditioned. Then, perhaps, a walk in the park.

The steering wheel in his rust-speckled, second-hand car was hot to the touch and, by the time he had reached the end of the street, his shirt was drenched in sweat. It stuck to his skin as he shifted position. He took a left to join the stream of traffic heading towards the town centre. At first, the flow was steady, but it ground to a halt as they reached the football ground. Saturday. Match day. The shopping centre would be crowded too.  He should have remembered, paid more attention to the passing of the days. And now he was stuck here, festering in this wretched metal can.

He switched the radio on and let the sound of Don Henley in. The station’s lack of imagination rankled him, but it was better than the silence he had come to hate. The car in front crept forward. He waited, expecting it to be a false alarm, but it kept moving, so he followed suit. They edged forward, foot by foot, sneaking past the gaudy billboards that lined the route. As he passed beneath the heavy stone bridge that marked the halfway point, they paused again.

Its shadow fell upon him and a cool draft chilled his face. The radio cut out, then emitted a shrill bleep, as the granite blocked the signal. Annoyed, he turned the volume down but then realisation sank in. Break through the veil, they’d said. Find the frequency. Open the door. Listen to the stars.

The waiting drove him almost over the edge, but finally they reached a junction and he turned off, using the side streets to escape the crowds. He made his way out of the city, along hedge-lined roads that wove their way across the countryside, through picture postcard villages and past long-abandoned farms, until the vista opened up to reveal a carpet of bracken and rocks that seemed to stretch forever. On and on, he drove, searching for the perfect location. Somewhere without pylons, people, noise, as far from civilisation as possible.

He found an isolated spot and parked in a lay-by. He wished he had a portable radio with him, so he could trek deeper into the moorland, but he’d have to make do for now. He pushed the button, turned the dial and waited.

White noise. It scratched and fizzled. The sky darkened, shot with pink and orange, before blackening. The stars glistened. He climbed out of the car and stared upwards, relishing the cool, unpolluted air as it filled his lungs. He waited for hours, sometimes pacing back and forth, sometimes huddled on the ground, but always listening, watching the skies. Still they did not come. Weary of it all, he got in the car, started the engine and pulled out into the road.

Suddenly, a voice he recognised, the traces of something, somewhere, behind the static. He leaned down to tune the radio in, to hone in on it, looking for clarity. The lorry sped on through the night. They stepped towards him.

Blinding light. Frequency found. Door opened.

White noise.

Dead air.