And the Music Played On...

© 2000 William L. Henning
All rights reserved.

The First Incident

Robert Fopert walked towards his school, listening to his Walkman. He had forgotten a tape, so he listened to the radio. He kept switching the stations-going from FM to AM over and over again. Most of the stations were extremely full of static or didn't come in at all. Robert pushed the search button (for the third time) and waited and waited for the small radio to find a station that came in.
He crossed a street and the radio abruptly stopped on station 87.1 FM. Robert immediately stopped in his tracks and began listening to the work. He had never heard it before. He looked at his digital radio. He never even knew that the stations went that low.
The instrumental song went up and down the scales. Guitars, pianos, bells, violins, and many more instruments were being played. He tried to remember if he had heard it before, but his mind went blank and didn't seem to find anything.
He hadn't moved a step since the music came in. He stood on the sidewalk, staring into space and listening to the song. It seemed so beautiful. The arrangement of guitars and cellos and pianos was awe-inspiring.
The song wasn't in the least bit boring. In fact, he quickly started humming to it. For the first time in his life, Robert found himself humming to a song, even though he had never heard the music before.
"It's so awesome," he said out loud.
Then the music got ugly.
It went out of tune. The pianos quickly went out key. Bells had become breaking glass. Violins reached keys so high that the strings snapped. Clarinets hurt his ears. Flutes rose louder and noisier. Drums sounded like flat tires. Microphone interference started to come in as well. Then he heard a voice: "This is 87.1 FM radio! All music, all the time!" Robert went to take the headphones off, but the voice came back to him: "Don't do it, Robert! Don't you dare take those off!"
He didn't.
"Now you listen to me, Robert. Tell your friends about our wonderful station—tell them all. And if they don't listen, kill them all—one by one or in a group, I don't care. They must listen, Robert. They must listen to my music."
Robert threw his Walkman onto the ground and looked at it—still on search, trying to find a radio station.
He left the Walkman on the ground and walked to school. He would be late if he didn't hurry.
On the rest of the way to school, the only thing he could think about was the music he had heard. And the little slogan from radio 87.1 FM that didn't seem to go away: All music, all the time! The music had been really beautiful. But then it had gotten really bad. It's too odd, he thought.
He arrived at his elementary school five minutes late. He opened up the school doors and walked to his class. His teacher was speaking to the class about the math homework they had last night.
"Robert? Why are you late?" Mrs. Tomak asked him.
"I got caught up on something," he said and sat down in his desk. He heard the voice again: Make them listen, Robert. They must listen to my music.
"What?" she asked. Frustrated, Robert got up from his desk and went by the teacher's radio on her desk.
"I want you all to hear something. I want everyone to hear this," he said and turned on the radio. He turned the dial all the way past the beginning station to the channel he had been listening to: 87.1 FM.
"Robert, leave that alone!"
"You've got to listen to it. It's so beautiful," he said calmly.
"I don't want to listen to anything except an explanation for your behavior! Robert, knock this nonsense off!"
And if they don't listen, kill them. One by one, or in a group, I don't care.
"Oh, but you must! You must listen!" he said with excitement. Robert turned up the volume, and at first no one heard anything except static. Then, after a moment or so, the music started to come back in.
It started once again with piano music, soothing and relaxing, mesmerizing. It started with a simple five- or six-note solo, but then led up to chords and more than just one piano.
Then came the orchestra—full force: violins, cellos, and every other instrument imaginable. The children in the classroom stared at the chalkboard with mouths shut and eyes blank. Their minds had been robbed of all thoughts except how beautiful the music sounded and how comforting it felt.
"Robert, what is the matter with you?" the teacher shouted at him. She walked over and shut the radio off.
"Why won't you listen? It's so cool!" he shouted and turned it back on. He pumped up the volume louder than before. Robert's teacher attempted to turn it back off when he grabbed her hand.
"Just listen to the music," he said in a deep, non-bargaining voice.
"Robert, I don't want to! Now let go of me!" she shouted and began struggling to break her hand free. However, the ten-year old boy had a strong grip, and he didn't feel like letting it go.
"It's so pretty," a girl, Allison, said from the back of the classroom.
"Yes, yes! Listen to the music!" Robert told everyone.
"She's not listening, Robert! Your bimbo of a teacher isn't listening to my music, Robert!" the voice from the radio said.
"Why won't you just listen?" Robert screamed at his teacher.
"Robert, I've had enough of these pranks! Now let go of me!" she demanded, scared.
Allison crossed the room and grabbed the fire extinguisher. She walked to the teacher and clobbered her over the head. The teacher didn't even scream—she just fell to the floor.
"Good job, Allison!" the voice from the radio said.
While walking down the hallway, Mr. Francisco, the principal of the elementary school, came upon the 4th grade classroom that had Allison, Robert and the music in it. He opened up the door and heard the loud music. It wasn't very pretty anymore—it was turning ugly again. It hurt the principal's ears. The class started screaming in pain from the awful noise. Mr. Francisco ran over and shut the radio off. He looked around the room and saw Mrs. Tomak motionless on the floor beside Robert and Allison. He began to scream.
The beautiful music returned. Robert and Allison sat down and leaned against a wall. Mr. Francisco stopped screaming . He stood straight up and looked forward at the chalkboard, stunned by the music's beauty.
"Don't you like it?" Robert asked.
"It's so beautiful isn't it?" Allison added.
"Keep listening, Francisco! Keep listening to my music!" he heard the voice say from the radio. "Don't you dare stop listening to it or you're going to end up like the bimbo you were sleeping with!!" the voice threatened. "Turn it up! Turn up my beautiful music!"
The principal turned the volume louder.
The music played as loud as it could go. The whole class stood up. They began swaying back and forth. They started humming. Even though no one was touching the volume, the music got louder.
Then it got ugly.
The children began to scream. They ran around the room holding their ears and screaming at the top of their lungs, as if they were on fire. They ran into the walls and into each other. They banged their heads against the walls and desks as if that would make the music stop.
"Turn it off!" the principal shouted. Robert felt horrible now. The music no longer comforted him, or anyone else. He began to cry.
"Turn it off!" the principal shouted again.
Mrs. Indigo, from the room next door, came over. She immediately began to scream—the sound was so awful and so loud. She ran over and unplugged the radio, but the music still played. It was crystal clear and unbelievably loud.
Mrs. Indigo picked up the radio and threw it across the room. It slammed against the wall and shattered. But the music still played.
Robert ran across the room, moving between the children who were now bleeding from banging their heads on the walls and desks, and jumped on one of the speakers that had broken off. He kept jumping until the horrible music stopped coming out of it.
He went over to the other speaker and did the same.
"Robert, stop it! You ass, stop it!!" he heard the voice in the speaker say.
"Allison, make him stop!" the voice shouted, and all of the sudden, the music became beautiful again. The children stopped screaming and Allison stopped crying. Robert jumped once more on the speaker and the beautiful music was no longer audible. Allison screamed in anger.
"Why did you do that?" Allison screamed. "Why did you make it stop? It was so beautiful!"
She picked up the fire extinguisher and ran after him. She threw it and it hit his head. He fell to the floor. She picked it up again and kept beating him with it. She smashed his left leg. She busted his right knee. She shattered his left shoulder.
She hurled the extinguisher down once more and broke his skull. Blood flew from Robert's head and flowed down to the ground. Allison laughed and looked up at the classroom.
All the children were dead. Nothing was left of them except their skeletons—frozen with their mouths open in a screaming position. The principal and the two teachers had died as well.
The music had killed them. It had eaten their flesh. It had taken their souls.

Incident #2

"Did you hear about that girl who killed her classmates?" Amanda asked her husband Lincoln. "Isn't that the weirdest thing in the world?"
"Yeah, it's all over the TV and newspapers. Probably on the radio as well."
"It's so sad. I wonder why she did it. Did they ever say?"
"No. But they kept on saying that she was rambling on about some music. They found a radio broken into a million pieces as well. She kept changing her mind about the music—first saying it was beautiful, next saying it was ugly. She claims the music made her do it—that she heard a voice from it," Lincoln said.
"Music? Doesn't surprise me. All those bands nowadays, with their foul language. I can't stand to hear it. They never had music like that when we were kids. It was because of that Woodstock outrage. If it hadn't been for the '60s, we would have been just fine!"
"Apparently the music didn't have words to it. She kept saying it was just instruments."
"Well, you never really can believe what you hear, I guess."
"Yeah, you're right there," he agreed.
"Well, I'm off to work. And unfortunately, what you just heard is true," she said with disappointment. She gave him a kiss and then left the apartment.
Amanda walked across the parking lot towards her '91 Nissan. She started the car up and pulled toward the exit of the parking lot, then waited for an opening in the morning traffic. She turned on her radio and flipped it over from FM to AM. She tuned the digital radio to 780 WHSJ.
The top story was that of the 4th grader who had brutally murdered her entire class, as well as two teachers and the principal. Amanda just shook her head in disgust. She jumped when the car behind her honked its horn. "Get the car on the road, stupid!" Amanda made a right turn and headed to work.
The radio station was getting remarkably boring. After five minutes on the road, she flipped the band over to FM and pushed the search button.
When, six minutes later, Amanda found herself waiting at a red light, she realized that her radio hadn't found a station at all. It kept going from 87.5 all the way up to past 107.7 and then returning back to 87.5 again. She finally decided to stop the search and turn the radio off when the search abruptly stopped and music came from the speakers. When she looked down at the digital radio, it read 87.1.
All music, all the time!
The music was instrumental in the classical genre, and wasn't her type at all. She couldn't stand classical music. But, better than not listening to anything, she thought.
It started off with a simple, redundant melody. It sounded as if it were played on a piano, but she wasn't sure—might be an organ or keyboard, she speculated. The melody was hypnotic. The same notes kept playing—over and over and over and over and—
Guitars! The sudden change uplifted her. The piano—keyboard, organ, whatever it is, she thought—was gone. The guitars were fascinating and relaxing. Amanda was thrilled by the sudden change of the music.
"This is nice," she said to herself.
She drove down the road, happily listening to her music, when the cars in front of her slowed down and came to a complete stop. She slowed her own car down and tried to look ahead of her, but saw nothing that could have caused the sudden traffic jam.
Then the music got ugly
The guitar strings snapped and went out of tune. Suddenly, other instruments joined the music: horns as loud and squeaky as rusty car brakes; flutes going deafeningly high; clarinets bursting out. Amanda screamed at the horrible noise. She heard more honking, but it came from the cars behind her—telling her to get herself in gear.
"Kill them," she heard from the radio.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" she screamed.
"Lady, come on, let's get a move on!"
"Kill them all," she heard from the radio again. "They're not listening. They don't understand. They don't deserve to live, Amanda."
"What are you talking about?"
The car behind Amanda passed her on the left. Amanda saw the driver's lips moving quite fast, but didn't hear what he said.
"Him," she heard, "get him."
The music got worse. The screeching of the wind instruments, the explosion of the bass instruments, the crashing of pianos deafened her, but she still heard the voice from the radio, and it told her to drive. "Drive! DRIVE FAST! FASTER DAMN IT!"
Amanda stepped on the gas, hard. Her car slowly accelerated up to thirty miles an hour.
"He must listen to my music, Amanda. They all must listen!"
Scared, she pushed harder on the pedal. Her car crept up to forty miles an hour. She pushed on her automatic window buttons and let all four windows roll down to the bottom. She turned up the radio—not as loud as it could go, but loud nonetheless.
Her car started to swerve as it reached fifty miles per hour. It swerved from the right lane, across the center lane, and over to the left lane and back again. Cars around her honked and drivers swore.
Her car sped up to sixty miles an hour.
"Stop it!" she pleaded with her stereo. "Please make it stop!"
Her car swerved and slammed into another. Both cars squealed over to the right and off the road. They slid across the wet morning grass and into the trees that lined the area. Amanda's car completely collapsed on itself and Amanda. The other man was still alive, jammed against his steering wheel.
A motorist who had witnessed the event called *99 on his car phone. He explained what he had seen and the cops came as fast as possible.
It took over an hour to clean up the crash site. The man Amanda had hit died before the paramedics got to him. Ambulances drove away with the dead bodies. The five cops, each with their own squad car, were about to leave when one of them heard a noise from Amanda's car.
Amanda was dead, but the music played on. Officer Anna Larson walked over to the car and investigated the noise—it came from the radio. Just as Amanda had heard it start out, the music was a simple, somewhat annoying melody on piano. The police officer started to walk away from the car, relieved, but slightly disappointed, when she heard the music get ugly.
Guitars twanging, pianos crashing, horns squealing, drums exploding, cellos bombing, violins screeching, the whole works. A voice came from the radio: "Listen to my music!"
Anna ran back to her car, trying to escape the horrible music. She opened up her car door and heard the music coming from her car radio as well. She turned and looked at her fellow members of the squad, but they already left the scene.
All music, all the time.
The music got worse and worse still. Anna ran with her hands on her ears, trying not to listen to the horrible sounds that came from her and Amanda's car. At last she pulled out her gun and shot a bullet at her car radio, but the music still played. She fired again: still the horrible music played. Crying and screaming at the same time, she raised the gun to her head—straight between her eyes and not a millimeter off. Crying because she didn't want to kill herself and yelling because she didn't want to hear the music anymore, she fired.
The single shot echoed above all the traffic, and with that echo, the music stopped.

Incident #3

The music began to expand. It had started at 87.1 FM, but after it had killed Anna, Amanda, the innocent driver, and the classroom of children, word started to spread—and that's exactly what it wanted.
One day, in newspapers published nationwide, a telephone number appeared—1(800) 555-8718. Underneath the phone number appeared the slogan: All music, all the time! No one knew how it got there and no one cared. People called in nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to find out what the number was for and what it meant by "all music, all the time." Phones rang non-stop, but no one was able to get through—all they got was a busy signal.
Despite never being able to get through, people still called. And as if powered by their interest, the radio station that started at 87.1 FM took over the airwaves of all the stations up to 89.9—and all stations were coming in crystal clear, no matter where people were or the time they heard it. Nothing mattered at all.
All music, all the time.
DJs and radio station managers whose stations' airwaves were being controlled by the music began to complain. Their radio programs, music, news, sports, commentaries, and shout-outs were being played over the airwaves, but the signal that the strange music played on was overriding it. Investigations into the strange radio signal couldn't begin until current lawsuits and settlements were dealt with, though.
"We have too much on our hands right now. We just can't drop everything we've been working hard on and come to your rescue right now," said the chairman of the FCC at a press conference. TV journalists quickly commented on his actions, saying he was rash to make such a remark. So the music played on.
The music changed, though. It didn't kill everyone who heard it right on the spot. It played with their minds. When people heard it, they started to tell their friends and relatives about it. Some businessmen even built billboards promoting the music. It was always beautiful and never got ugly. The president of the United States even heard it a couple of times.
The music was different for everyone. Whatever kind of music people liked, they heard it on the radio stations from 87.1 to 89.9 FM—"all music, all the time." The music didn't have any interruptions.
Gradually, unwittingly, most of the general population that listened to the music stopped going to religious services. They stayed home and listened to their music all morning and all night. In some areas, religious buildings were being torn down, and parks with huge speakers and radio towers were put in. Since the FCC was too busy to deal with new problems, the zoning of radio towers next to houses was never questioned, even though the "no tolerance for unregistered antenna structures" should have been in effect.
The 7th inning stretch now lasted an hour long, and it played the beautiful music. Movie theatres were now just sound theatres. People paid $7.50 to get into a dark theatre and sit and relax and listen to the music for two hours at a time.
About a month later, another small bit of information was published in newspapers nationwide: an e-mail address for the music: music@playitnow.com. People ran to their computers, jumped on the net, and e-mailed the address. There wasn't any website for it, just e-mail.
When the station began receiving approximately 4,000 pieces of e-mail an hour, it expanded to 94.3 FM—and, once again, the music still played clearly as crystal and as beautifully as always. People never received any replies from the e-mail, but all over the Internet sites held music chat rooms in which people could log on and talk to others, such as "SweetQTPi" and "Loves666," about the strange and mysterious, awesome and relaxing music.
Dance clubs across the nation were open 24 hours a day. DJs played the music full blast with bass booming and treble banging.
TV journalists made numerous news reports on people's feelings toward the music. Most of the comments were the same: "I don't know how I lived without it!"; "I listen to the music at least four hours a day!"; "My school plays the music during the lunch hours!"
"But what about those people who died from apparently listening to the music?" a few asked.
Responses included, "Don't ask questions like that!"; "Don't doubt the music"; "Don't ask questions, just listen!"; "Maybe it was the music's plan for those people to die."
"You're talking about the music as if it is God, and that this is part of 'God's will'. Do you believe that?" the journalists countered.
"Maybe it is," listeners responded. "Maybe it is."
Shortly after the e-mail address was given out, voices started coming from the radio again. Most of the time a simple, deep voice told them to listen to the music. However, some people who called were able to get through and talk on the air to the mysterious radio disc jockey. Political leaders used it as an opportunity to advertise. All across the nation mayors, governors, treasurers, and other political offices were advertising with their promises that they would make everything "better" if they were in office.
A week later, the radio station expanded to 98.5 FM.
TV journalists asked more questions: "Why do you continue to listen the music? You don't even know who is playing it."
Responses were slightly different than before: "I like the sound of it. Yeah, I guess it's kind of odd that no one really knows where the music is coming from"; "I never thought of that"; "Hey! You're right!"
Some people decided they were going to stop listening to the music; however, ultimately they were unable to resist it.
One day, a caller got through to the station and over the airwaves; he mentioned that no one knew the name of the person who was making the music. People agreed, and because the question created a break in the wonderful music, members of the audience were able to stop listening. Soon, people from all over called in, demanding to know the man's name—but still he refused, and refused, and refused, to identify himself.
"What makes you think this thing has a name? You make it sound as if it's a human making the music," journalists egged their readers and viewers on.
"What else could he be?"; "Well, yeah, of course he's human! What do you think he is? A space creature from beyond?"; "Human or not, he needs to called something!"
The listeners started to get disgusted and annoyed with the music, and so they attempted to stop listening to the music again. It wasn't too hard this time, not like quitting smoking, and so people accomplished it. And when they stopped listening, the radio station lost some airwaves, dropping from 98.5 to 91.5. The Master Behind the Music (so dubbed by his listeners) tried to make more music—more beautiful music.
But because not enough people were listening to the beautiful music, the killings started up again, just like before, to remind listeners of the music's power.
"DO IT, JOHNNY!" The voice screamed from his radio in the kitchen.
"I don't want to!" the six-year-old shouted back.
"Johnny, don't listen to him," his mother said.
"I'm sorry, mommy." Johnny began to cry.
"YOU'RE GOING TO BE EVEN MORE SORRY, YOU MOMMA'S BOY, IF YOU DON'T DO IT!"
"Oh mommy, I'm so sorry!" he said and walked toward her.
"COME ON, YOU PANSY, DO IT!"
"Johnny, don't!"
"I can't. He's making me!"
He wasn't looking at his mother anymore, but at the radio. His mother she didn't exist where Johnny was. What he was looking at wasn't human or animal. As far as Johnny was concerned, he didn't want to look at it anymore. It was the radio. Or the Master. Or maybe the music.
Its head was long and narrow. It had eyes, but they were set toward the very center of the face. The eyes were so close together that it looked as if it had one eye. Johnny couldn't see any hair on its head. But he saw its head give off a colorful glow. Johnny saw streams of colorful rainbows swim off of the thing's head and towards him.
The colors seemed beautiful to Johnny at first, a slight comfort from the ugliness of the thing's face. But then the colors got dark red and ugly. Johnny heard the music in the background. He shut his eyes and screamed, waving the knife around without looking, hoping to hit the red and ugly thing that gave off the red and ugly lights. The pain in his eyes and ears was excruciating. Johnny felt his tears boiling down his face. The boy felt his whole body boiling.
I don't wanna go to Hell, mommy, he thought.
He walked slowly, still waving the knife around in the air. He took another step. Plop splat!
The red lights were gone. Johnny opened his eyes, and saw his mother on the floor, decapitated. He screamed with fear and horror, sickened. He had done it. He had decapitated his mother, just like the red and ugly thing had told him to do. The plop sound was him chopping her head off, and the splat was it hitting the ground.
It seemed unbelievable. The Master Behind the Music must have done something to his mother, to make the head fly off so easily, he thought.
All the while, the music was still playing in the background of Johnny's radio—and it was ugly.
Johnny threw up and ran into his room. He searched his desk for crayons and found them, knocking most of them onto the floor. He took a blue and red crayon and went back into the kitchen.
On the wall behind his mother, he wrote in big blue letters:
Make the music stop! Some 1 make it stop!
Then he stabbed himself in the eye with the blue crayon—the Master stabbed him. Johnny continued to stab himself with the crayon in various parts of his body, enough to make bleed all over. Then he wrote one more thing in red crayon:
HE'S GONNA KILL US ALL
Johnny grabbed the knife with which he had decapitated his mother, and the Master made him stab himself. Johnny died next to his mother in their kitchen.
That night, all over the radio (at least, the stations that were not under the Master's power) and on TV ran the story about Johnny and his mother. Scared for their own lives, people started to listen to the music once again, fearing that otherwise they might turn into a victim like his mother. And the following morning, the Master had taken control of all the radio waves up to 101.3 FM.
"Perhaps if it had been one adult killing another adult, it would be less appalling, but because a six year old did it, I just find it revolting!" one critic said to the journalists.
About noon on the day after the murder/suicide, the Master Behind the Music spoke to everyone over the radio on his stations. "Listen to my music, and you will be forever happy," he said. He would never speak another word on the radio again.
"What do you think of this incident?" the TV journalists asked again. "Do you still believe it is the work of God?"
"Whatever this thing is, he's not God."
"What is he then?"
"He's more powerful than God"; "This thing isn't God!"; "He's the devil: Satan himself!"
"Well, if he's Satan, why do you continue to listen to him?"
"I can't stop"; "Because no one is making it stop!"; "The almighty Satan is upon us! And he's gonna kill us all!"

Incident #4

Weeks went by. The music kept on playing, going from beautiful to ugly in a matter of seconds as well. The music was more powerful than it had ever been before.
And from Hawaii all the way to Maine, people were listening, worshiping, and obeying the commands in the music. The messages were heard subliminally, and they told people to keep listening to the music, and never stop—all music, all the time.
"What do you want from us!?" a caller asked when he got through to the Master, but he never received a reply.
From Alaska to Florida and back again, the killings and suicides continued, and the music kept on playing, and kept on growing stronger. The extent of its strength had never been guessed by anyone in the States until one day in Alaska, outside of Anchorage.
A man who lived alone was working on his car in his garage. He had the garage door open and had his radio in the car on loud. While walking around his car, he accidentally bumped the antenna. The music he was listening to faded out and the beautiful music started to fade in. It was relatively quiet, but as time went on it got louder and louder. It then became so loud that people who passed his condominium could hear it. The man, slightly scared but mostly confused, shut off his car and threw the keys out the garage door, looking at them as if they were the things that made the music play. Throwing the keys out the door didn't work. The music still played on, and on, and on.
"What's going on?" he shouted, now more scared and more confused. "Who's playing this music?"
The music was just as beautiful as always. But he didn't appreciate it. It didn't sound beautiful to him. He didn't like the music at all.
He started pulling his hair out of his head and jumping up and down. The music didn't have to become ugly in order for some people to lose their minds—and this man was one of them.
When the music got ugly, the man's condition worsened.
He ran around his car with his hands over his ears, screaming for the music to stop. Almost half-bald, he slammed the hood down, and put his fist on it. He smiled at the windshield.
"I know what you're up to," he said. This is no longer my car, he thought. This is a monster: the windshield is its eyes, and the hood is its nose.
"I'll fix you," he said and laughed. He ran and picked up a sledgehammer and brought it back to his car. "I'll make you stop!"
He lifted the sledgehammer and slammed it down onto the hood of his '99, but the music didn't stop.
He slammed again, and again, and again. He broke the monster's eyes. He slammed in its brain. He totaled its back, making its spine twist and turn in odd shapes. He went inside the monster. He slammed its sinus cavity, its brain, and its heart. But the music still played. The man dropped the sledgehammer in exhaustion and looked out where the windshield used to be. I'm looking out its eyes, he thought.
Then the Master's true power manifested.
The man looked outside the car where the sledgehammer had fallen. The hammer begin to sway back and forth on its own. It moved to the beat of the music. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Up and down.
It slammed into the concrete garage floor. The man began to laugh. Then the music began to get even more ugly, and the sledgehammer rose into the air. The hammer flew around the car and stopped when it reached the front. It slammed down on the hood. It slammed closer to the man. Closer again, and closer still.
Then it slammed down on the man's knee. He stopped laughing and started screaming. The hammer turned sideways and started spinning horizontally in the air. It whirled around in front of the man's face over and over and over and over.
Then it slammed again.
The dark red blood and gray brain matter flew everywhere: all over the garage walls, all over the floor, all over inside of the car, and all over the sledgehammer. The man died instantly, but the hammer slammed on. Just like the music played on. Over and over, around and around until the man's head was completely gone.
The bloodstained hammer then went out of the garage and down the driveway, still slamming down. It slammed down on a car that was driving by. The millisecond that the hammer hit the car, it spread the music, so the car's radio started to play the ugly music, too. The driver lost control of the car and it swerved to the right and hit a condo.
The sledgehammer and the car weren't the only inanimate objects controlled by the music. Streetlights, stop signs, and even mailboxes began to sway and finally uproot themselves.
Stop signs flew into people houses and severed their heads. Mailboxes crashed into people in their front and back yards. Street signs knocked people around like golf balls, sending them sailing into the air and crashing into trees and houses.
Then houses began to pick up the beat of the ugly music. The houses, as if they had no foundation, rose up into the air and hit the ground. Then they collapsed on themselves, killing everyone inside.
Not long after it all started, the music abruptly stopped. Everything stopped altogether. Anything that was in mid-air was stuck there. Everything ceased, as if time didn't exist anymore.
Then one more push, one more pull, one more slam, and everything came tumbling down. The entire town was crushed. Not a single resident survived.
And the music expanded to 105.3 FM. All music, all the time!
"What do you think now?" the pesky journalists asked.
"We've been tricked!"
"Tricked? By whom?"
"The king of the underworld!"; "Satan is coming!"
"But if this is Satan, won't God save us all?"
"I don't know"; "No one can save us, not even God."

Incident #5

"Come on! Let's hear some spirit!" Ms. Knats shouted at the high school during the pep rally. The crowd roared but then quieted once she started talking again—not completely silent: the kids in the back couldn't stop giggling and snickering.
"Let's hear it for our varsity football team!" she shouted. The entire varsity football squad came running into the gymnasium. "They're first in the district!" she shouted. The crowd of students roared again.
Her voice grated on most of the students, and the speaker system was so bad that it rang in the kids' ears. Despite the bad sound, though, all of the kids were cheering—except a few.
"Let's get out of here. This is driving me crazy," Ted suggested.
"You're right; this is stupid. Who cares about football? I don't," Tiffany said. "Stupid big jocks!" she shouted at them. No one heard her over the cheering. Ted, Tiffany, and two of their friends left the gym without being seen.
The students walked through the cafeteria and into a hallway outside the study hall area. They sat down by Tiffany's locker and she pulled out her Walkman. Ted took out his small portable speakers and adapter and hooked them together.
Tiffany pressed the search button and waited for a station to come in. The radio, when it had been turned on, was on the station 105.5 FM—the very edge of the Master's radio stations. The radio searched all the way to the end of the FM frequency without finding anything. It then started over again at 87.1 FM. The second it hit 87.1 the search stopped and began playing the beautiful music.
"What is this?" Tiffany asked. Then she realized what she was listening to. The music was playing a slow, but yet amazing, melody on a guitar. After listening to the music for only less than a minute Tiffany said, "it's so beautiful. This is that music everyone's been talking about. It's not evil," she said with awe, "it's so beautiful."
"Oh my God!" Ted said. "That's the music! Change it, Tiffany!" He reached for the Walkman.
"Don't you dare touch it," Tiffany said in a deep voice—the Master's voice. Ted's eyes widened as she gripped his wrist. "Listen to my music."
"Tiffany? Tiff, are you okay?" Ted asked. "Tiffany, let go of my wrist!" He tried to break free, but couldn't. "Please, Tiffany, you're hurting me!"
Ted and Tiffany's two friends left, running down the hallway when they heard Tiffany's voice change. They knew the Master had come. They remembered hearing his voice on the radio about a month and a half ago. They didn't want to be around when things got ugly. And they both knew that things were going to get ugly—real ugly.
"Obey me! Listen to my music, dammit!"
"Tiffany, stop it! This isn't funny!"
"Tiffany is gone!" the voice snarled. "She isn't here anymore. Now listen to my music, you bastard!" Tiffany pulled Ted's head close to the speakers. "LISTEN TO IT!" she screamed at him, placing Ted's right ear against the speaker.
"Tiffany, stop it! You're scaring me!"
"I already told you! Tiffany isn't here! She's gone! Now listen to my music, you son of whore!" Tiffany shouted, pushing Ted's head harder into the speaker. "LISTEN!"
"What are you talking about!" Ted shouted. This can't be happening! he thought. Stuff like this doesn't happen around here! The thing never took over people did it? Oh my God!
Tiffany then stood up and dragged Ted back toward the gym. She opened up the doors and walked into the center of the gym. She grabbed the microphone from Mrs. Knats, who was about to introduce the soccer team, and looked at the students.
"YOU WILL ALL OBEY ME! LISTEN TO MY MUSIC!" she shouted. Some of the students laughed.
"Shut up ya freak! Stupid little goth freak!" one of them shouted at her. A lot of other students shouted at her as well.
Tiffany raised her hand to the ceiling and pointed her index finger. The music started to play through the speakers in the gym.
Immediately all the girls in the stands stood up and gazed around, amazed. The boys, on the other hand, covered their ears and screamed in pain.
"Now listen to my music," she demanded. Even Mrs. Knats stared at the ceiling. Tiffany laughed in the deep voice that was the Master's.
"Now," she told them in the same deep voice, "make them suffer." The music turned ugly. The girls started to scream in anger. The boys were still screaming in pain from the horrible music.
"Make them listen! Make them suffer! It's all their fault!" Tiffany screamed.
The girls picked up their backpacks and purses and started beating all the boys. They took out their combs and brushes and knocked them over their heads. The boys took the abuse for only twenty seconds or so before Ted grabbed the microphone from Tiffany and shouted, "Don't listen! Don't listen to the music! It's him! He's gonna kill us all!"
Tiffany snatched the microphone back and swung it at Ted's head. The blow made a loud report in the speakers. Ted lost his balance and hit the hardwood gym floor.
The boys retaliated. They hit the girls with their backpacks. They punched them in the faces. The varsity football team viciously attacked their cheerleader girlfriends. The male and female teachers attacked each other.
Tiffany laughed at the sight. The master cranked the music louder.
Am I the one? Tiffany asked inside herself. Did you choose me? Take me with you!
He's going to stop us, Tiffany.
Who?
Him.
Before she realized it, Ted managed to get up and attack her. He knocked her to the ground and began punching her face. A tooth flew out of her mouth, covered in blood, and sailed across the waxy gym floor. As he watched the tooth skid across the floor, Ted saw that it was a fang.
Kill him.
Ted punched at Tiffany's mouth once more, but she opened her mouth wider than humanly possible. When Ted's hand went into it, she bit down, biting his hand off at the wrist. Ted screamed so loud that it made everyone—all the girls, all the boys, all the teachers, all the athletes—stop fighting. Even the music stopped. They all looked at Ted and Tiffany on the ground—and they saw Ted without a right hand. Tiffany swallowed it. Ted saw it go down her throat like a snake's as it eats something alive. He looked at her eyes: they were deep red.
Tiffany opened her mouth wider than before and brought her head up to Ted's. Ted heard the horrible music echoing out of her mouth.
She opened her mouth ever wider and bit down on the top of Ted's head. Sharp fangs made cuts all around his head and blood flowed from it. His hair wasn't blond anymore.
Tiffany bit harder and harder until she broke past the skull and hit his brain with her long sharp fangs. Ted died due to loss of blood. Tiffany's fangs had also injected his brain with a sharp poison.
They're going to stop us, too, Tiffany.
Who?
Them.
She looked at the students that were still staring at her with perfect stillness. She screamed, a loud and agonizing scream that pierced everyone's brain. The scream made them deaf, and also made them die. The scream went into their brain and infected it with the same poison she had infected Ted with.
Tiffany ran out of the gym and out of the school. She stopped when she saw cops all around, with the two friends who'd run off when she'd attacked Ted in the hall.
They betrayed us Tiffany! They are descendents of Judas! Kill them! Tiffany screamed another loud and piercing scream. The guns the cops were holding fired. At least 20 bullets exploded out of the guns and flew across the air at Tiffany. They went into her head and into her brain. She fell over and hit the hard and cold concrete.
The cops, deafened by Tiffany's screaming, ran over and looked at the dead girl. She was back to normal—no fangs, no large mouth, no evil eyes, and no music.
"We have to do something about this now!"; "We can't wait any longer!" people complained to the TV journalists.

The Last Incident

As the previous incident happened with Ted and Tiffany, 27 reports of the same thing were reported around the U.S. Something had to be done about the music.
The Master Behind the Music took over the remaining FM stations and all of the AM stations. Not only that, but he was almost ready for the biggest move ever—television. In exactly one week, reported news ads and Internet messages, he would change Channel 2 on every single TV to nothing but a black screen with the music playing in the background.
People protested and turned to the president for answers. The president was just as angry at what was going on as most of the Americans. He held several press conferences, trying to reach out to his people in their time of need.
"Throw away your radios," he told them. "I know it's going to be hard, but don't listen to it. No matter how beautiful it may sound, it's nothing but pure evil underneath. We all know that, and we all know what happens when that evil comes out and does something," he told them. "May God have mercy on us all."
"Why throw away the radios? Why not just tell them to stop listening, or just simply turn them off?" the reporters asked.
"The temptation is too great. If the radio is there, people could give into temptation, turn it on, and listen. If temptation is not there, we can not give into it. As an example, I will throw all my radios out," he said.
"Do you believe in God, Mr. President?" the journalists asked.
"Yes," he answered, "Yes, I do."
"Do you believe this is the work of Satan?"
"The president has no more comments. Thank you for your time," a member of his cabinet said quickly, ending the press conference.
People returned to religious services for help. They prayed that the music would go away. If the devil were at work, perhaps all the praying would help his evil go away.
"It's the apocalypse! The end of the world is coming!" fanatics shouted on the street corners.
Approximately three-quarters of the United States population took the president's advice and tossed out their radios—all of them. It was extremely difficult for some, but with the support of neighbors, friends, and family, they were able to do it. And for those who couldn't do it on their own, government officials were assigned to assist. People ripped out their car stereos. Some of them stopped using their cars altogether. Fewer people used the bus services because of the radio music the buses played.
"The Master will lose his power if we do not listen," the president added.
He notified a physicist team from Alaska that they were being asked to help find some sort of a signal that could destroy or at least lessen the Master's signal. The team had won several awards for papers and essays on waves and frequencies and radio signals. Over the next two days the group of physicists and several high-tech people from the Pentagon who never revealed their name, or what department they were from, spent all their time trying to figure out a way to block the Master's airwaves. Their chances of finding a frequency or signal that was greater than the Master's were fairly low, yet they tried anyway.
Then came the final day—it had been exactly one week, and the Master would go on TV in less than 12 hours. The president held a conference over television telling people that they had figured out a way to block the Master's waves.
"Everything will be okay. We are going to get through this," he told them.
The physicists and the high-techs from the Pentagon went into an abandoned radio station in the D.C. area and set up their equipment. They sent out a radio signal across the FM wave—a strong signal. Nothing special, just a loud hum, but it worked. And within less than an hour, the DC area and the state of Maryland were free from the Master's music. All the FM and AM stations were clear of the once, but not now, beautiful music. The men in the radio station then broadcast how to set up what they had done to people in the DC and Maryland area. They hoped others would do the same, and get the entire USA free from the hell that the Master had made it. The physicists also broadcast on live TV how to make the signal and how to broadcast it.
What they had done was simple. Since the Master had made a new FM frequency lower than any station had gone before (87.1), they made their own frequency higher than any station had gone before: 108.1 FM.
People saw the broadcasts on TV, and residents with enough experience in radio set up the signal, broadcasting it as far as they could over the frequency of 108.1 FM.
In two hours: New Jersey and Delaware were free from the awful music. The signal was working.
Three hours: Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts were free.
Four hours: Pennsylvania and New York were free.
The plan was working, but slowly. Only the New England states and a few others were free from the music, and the Master was going to go onto TV in five hours. It wasn't very plausible to get all the states free from the music in five hours—half, maybe. But not all.
Because fewer people were listening to his music, the Master's power lessened and he lost radio stations. His power dropped down to only 103.3 FM. His chances of going on TV were getting smaller and smaller.
Four hours left: The Carolinas, Virginia and its western state, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida were free from the music. And the Master's control dropped to 101.5 FM.
Three hours left: Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas were free from the music. The Master's control went down to 99.9 FM. The plan was working, but working the long and slow way. The radio signal that was strong enough to overpower the Master's was going around the edges of the USA. The signal didn't travel straight across, like the men who developed it had thought would happen.
This gave the Master Behind the Music a little boost. Most of the people who were still listening to his music were in the heartland and near the Great Lakes. Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, and Wisconsin had the highest listening rate. And since the Master had taken over their minds and souls, they weren't about to listen to anything else. Governors from these states held their own press conferences, telling people to listen to the music. The citizens of Michigan and Ohio fell under the Master's power, and his grip increased back up to 102.9 FM.
Two hours left: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington were free from the music. However, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri fell further under the Master's control, and the Master's power raised up to 105.5.
One hour left: Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas were free. Nebraska was now under the Master's power. Only two states were left that hadn't been reached by the radio signal—Alaska and Hawaii.
It was now a race against the Master to reach those states. If the Master were to get either one, he would go on TV. Hardly any of Alaska was listening to the Master's music, but most of Hawaii was.
It took only a matter of minutes, but a signal from California raced across the Pacific Ocean and reached Hawaii. Only another matter of minutes, and the state was free from the Master's control. However, the Master Behind the Music sent out more music in the state of Alaska, and faster than Hawaii had been freed, Alaska had been captured.
The master went on TV.
"Obey my commands," he said on the dark screen.
The master played his music on TV.
"Listen to my music," he demanded.
He showed his red face on TV.
"Meet your new God," he declared.
But he made his biggest mistake ever by going on TV. Because he had put so much of his energy and power into his radio signal, his TV signal was so weak that cable and local companies overrode it. Channel 2 was brought back to normal. His music didn't have any effect. He was beginning to lose the battle.
Still, 14 states were still under the Master's control. The Pentagon techs set up radio stations and antennas all along the borders of these 14 states. All the way from the Pennsylvania/Ohio border to the Wyoming/Nebraska border, men from the Pentagon prepared to play their signal. Radio stations were set up along the border of Alaska and Canada. They all worked for over a week getting the signal ready.
Then they were ready.
At midnight Eastern Time (8:00 Alaska Time) on January 1, the Pentagon technicians launched the radio signal over the 14 states.
Within hours the music from the Master Behind started to fade. The hum from the Pentagon Signal (as it was now called) spread itself all over the 14 states like a fog—blanketing everything under it. The signal was working.
The Master lost all control of the AM frequencies within an hour. The Master's control over FM went down to 103.5, 101.3, 96.3, 92.7, 90.1, 88.9, and then to 87.1, where it disappeared.
By midnight Alaska Time (4:00 AM Eastern Time) all the music was gone. The Master's power went down to nothing, and it remained nothing.
The music was gone. But people would remember it: the sweet beautiful sounds it started with, and the awful screams it ended with.
They would always remember how the music would play on.

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