MUSIC OF THE DAMNED

Luella "Lulu" Wellins, a petite pixie-cut brunette teen, was visiting her grandfather, Dwight Reginald Wellins, at the Cosy Arms Retirement Home at 300 to 360 Howard Street,, Glen Hartwell. Cosy by name, Cosy by look, the home was made of homey-looking red bricks, with large double-glazed windows to allow the sun in, and to keep the sound out; although 300 Howard Street was way outside Glen Hartwell's CBD. The roof was black terracotta tiles, with a traditional chimney, plus a less traditional radar dish to allow access to Fox TV, Sky TV, Dave, Stan, and other pay-for-view TV stations.

The inside of Dwight's room was surprisingly spacious, although he had a single room, with en suite. Dining was done in a communal room as were other activities such as sing-a-longs, dancing for those still mobile, and church on Sunday mornings at nine.

"How are you today, Popsy?" asked Lulu, although her grandfather had lost the power of speech after having a massive stroke three years ago.

When he didn't answer, it was always her hope that one day he might, she reached into the large brown paper bag that she was carrying. She had brought along doggy treats for Woof who was tied up outside, and a bag of chocolate-coated aniseed rings for Dwight. They had always been his favourite lollies.

Breaking open the plastic bag, she looked carefully around to make certain the care workers weren't around, since they had told her a number of times not to give him treats because he might choke upon them. Seeing that she was safe, she held an aniseed ring against his lips, which he opened to suck in the treat. His eyes glazed over with pleasure as he sucked on the sweet treat. Seeing his delight made it worth her risking being told off by the care workers.

Lulu continued to feed Dwight the chocolate-coated treats for forty minutes. Until she heard the rattling of the medicine trolley, and realised that they were about to give him his medication

Kissing him on his dry, leathery cheek, Lulu said: "I have to go now to visit Nana. I can't leave you the rest of the aniseed rings, or the nurses will pinch them. But I'll bring you some more next time I visit."

Getting up from the cane chair she had been sitting upon, she headed out into the corridor, almost colliding with the medicine trolley.

"Leaving already?" asked the duty nurse Suzie O'Halloran, a tall anorexically thin, forty-something blonde.

"I still need to visit Nana," explained Lulu. Turning, she strode toward the glass front door, through which she could see Woof looking impatiently in at her.

"I'm coming big boy," said Lulu to the massive yellow-brown bull mastiff.

"Woof!" said Woof, wagging his tail, pleased to see his mistress returning at long last.

"Sorry, but they won't allow horse-sized dogs into the home," said Lulu.

"Woof!" said Woof, the only thing he could say, wagging his tail again as he smelt the doggie treats in the brown paper bag.

Reaching into the bag she pulled out half a dozen bone-shaped dog biscuits and held them out to him.

"Here you go; you've got to build your strength up for the long walk ahead of us."

"Woof!" agreed Woof, hungrily lapping up the bikkies.

Deciding she needed to build up her strength too, Lulu grabbed the last four chocolate-coated aniseed rings for herself. Working at the Glen Hartwell Mall she got an employee discount, and often the manager, Mr. Brody, let her have the aniseed rings gratis knowing that they were for her grandfather.

It was a long walk back up Howard Street, till it crossed with Baltimore Drive; then up Baltimore Drive, through the entire length of Glen Hartwell, till just out of town she reached the Shady Rest Cemetery. Lulu had stopped at the florist at the corner of Baltimore and Matthew Flinders Road to buy a bouquet of Jonquils, Nana Maisie's favourites.

Lulu waved to Horace in the reception area as she started up Linlithrow Street till reaching Eucalypt Way. She turned left and reached Nana Maisie's grave just short of the secondary reception area at Glenrowen Drive.

"Here you go, Nana," said Lulu placing the Jonquils on the pebble-covered gravesite: "Your favourites."

"Woof!" said Woof, knowing the routine by now, having visited the grave twice a week since Lulu had adopted him. He sat patiently facing the grave while Lulu talked to her Nana, telling her all that had happened in her life and Popsy Dwight's since she had been here three days ago.

"It's a bit lonely in the house by myself now. But Woof keeps me company."

"Woof!" said Woof, hearing his name.

She continued talking for twenty minutes or so, until the strange unearthly music started to blare out of the sky, seemingly from nowhere and from everywhere at once.

"Where the Hell is that coming from?" demanded a tall blond man, Kev, sitting on his wife's grave as he talked to her: "Don't they have any respect for the dearly departed?"

"Woof!" said Woof in agreement, not liking the eerie music at all.

"Perhaps we'd better get out of here," shouted Lulu using her left hand to cover one ear, unable to raise her right hand due to holding Woof's chain.

"Woof!" said Woof starting to whine as the discordant melody continued.

"Woof?" said Lulu surprised. It was the first time she had heard the huge dog make any vocal sound other than his name.

Suddenly the ground began to quake and the graves began breaking open.

"Earthquake!" shouted Kev running toward where Lulu and Woof were.

As the bull mastiff continued whining, Lulu tried to pull him away from Nana Maisie's shattered grave, but he held fast, now bowing down to cover his ears with his front paws while continuing to whine.

"Woof! Come!" ordered Lulu, trying unsuccessfully to pull him away.

"Let me help you," offered Kev.

He grabbed the thick chain, and between them they managed to drag a whining Woof down Glenrowen Drive, heading toward the exit.

As they ran, graves continued to explode open revealing bodies and skeletal remains.

"What the hell is going on?" shouted Lulu.

"Don't ask me!" shouted back Kev.

Then, hearing screaming from in front of them, they looked toward the exit from the cemetery and saw what at first looked like people falling into the shattered graves.

"What are they...?" began Lulu, stopping as Woof, alerted by a sudden movement to her left, leapt at the mouldering figure reaching out for her.

"The dead are coming back to life!" shouted the blond man, carefully avoiding the Z-word.

"Zombies!" shouted Lulu, less particular, as skeletons and decaying corpses, plus a few newly buried -- looking like dirty sleepwalkers -- came to life and started grabbing the living and pulling them down into the ground, burying them alive.

Woof stopped whining and tried leaping at the attacking zombies, but Lulu and Kev managed to pull him back and drag him on down Linlithrow Street toward the front of the cemetery.

"If we can get outside," said Kev: "We can escape in my Jeep Cherokee."

"Sounds good to me," said Lulu as Woof started growling, then barking at the advancing undead.

As they ran, skeletons and corpses continued to stagger toward them However, the undead's shambling was no match for their running, even having to drag Woof along behind them.

Finally, they reached the gate and raced out and across the grass verge toward Kev's Jeep.

Outside the cemetery, Woof calmed down a little.. Although still barking, he allowed Kev to heft him into the rear of the Jeep, then they were soon off heading toward the Mitchell Street Police Station.


At the Mitchell Street Police Station, Terri Scott a beautiful ash blonde, the top cop of the BeauLarkin to Willamy area, Sheila Bennett a tall muscular Goth chick with orange-and-black-striped hair, and Colin Klein a tall redheaded man, Terri's fiancée, were seated around the large black wood desk studying the Victoria police Manual.

"Oh, I'm sick of studying," complained Sheila.

"Well, until our next case comes along, girl, you're gonna keep studying ready for your exam in November," insisted Terri.

"But we've been at it for six days since our last case ended!"

"And we'll keep at it for another six days if our next case doesn't come along by then," said Colin: "And then another six, and then another six if we get the chance."

"As if we ever go that long between our wacky supernatural cases!" said Sheila. [See my stories, 'The Dark Rider', and 'The Lily White Boys'.]

"Just be grateful that I'm allowing you to watch both hours of 'The World's Stupidest Stuntman Down Under' each night," said Terri.

"I am, it's the only thing keeping me sane."

"Surely watching 'The World's Stupidest Stuntman Down Under' would stop you from being sane?" protested Colin.

Before they could argue the point, they heard the screeching of tyres outside, then running feet, before Lulu, Kev, and Woof raced into the police station.

"Zombies have just broken out of the graves at the Shady Rest Cemetery!" cried Lulu.

"They've killed dozens of people!" said Kev.

"Woof!" said Woof.

Staring at Lulu and then Kev for a moment, Terri turned toward Colin and Sheila and said: "That is the last thing I expected them to say."

"Woof!" agreed Woof.


Twenty minutes later Terri, Colin, and Sheila were standing in the Shady Rest Cemetery looking at the shattered remains of the graves.

"Well, something strange has certainly happened here," said Colin.

He walked across to a grave which had split open upwards. Two arms protruded, a skeletal arm, and a flesh-and-blood arm. He tentatively touched the normal arm, then said:

"She's certainly been dead less than half an hour."

"Time to call to Jesus, Tilly, and Elvis?" asked Sheila.

"Not until we've spoken to Don Frazer, the acting magistrate, to get a warrant to exhume the graves," said Terri.


Not sure what to make of their zombie story, Donald Frazer, a tall, heavily built man with blond hair and a ginger moustache, insisted on going to the cemetery himself. But after checking a couple of open graves, he readily wrote out the warrant that they needed.

An hour later the Department of Building and Works was carefully opening all of the burst graves -- perhaps eighty percent of them. Many contained nothing but corpses or skeletons. But a couple of dozen graves contained the long-dead lying arm-in-arm with people who had died of asphyxiation when pulled below ground.

As they exhumed the graves, Terri, Colin, Sheila, Elvis, Tilly, and Jesus all stood around watching.

"I think it's time to go to work," said Jesus Costello (pronounced 'Hee-Zeus'), a tall man, the chief administrator and head surgeon at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital in Baltimore Drive.

"Whatever you say, Chief," said Tilly Lombstrom, an attractive fifty-something brunette; Jesus's second in charge.

Jerry 'Elvis' Green, the local coroner and a massive Elvis Presley fan went across to a third grave. Trying his best to ignore the skeleton, he examined the silently screaming redhead that it was bear-hugging.

After a while, he looked around and said: "I can find no reason for Jezz to be dead; other than possibly from asphyxiation. Perhaps caused by her being dragged underground by her long-dead granny ... but don't quote me on that."

"Same here," seconded Tilly.

"And here," thirded Jesus.

It would take the rest of the day to exhume and examine all of the broken graves. Most, thankfully, did not contain fresh corpses, but twenty-one did.

"So it seems something animated the corpses, then they died down again," said Colin after the examinations had finished.

"Yes, but don't quote us on that," said Jesus.


"But what could have animated them?" asked Terri back at Mitchell Street a short time later.

"The music," said Lulu stepping back into the police station.

"Woof!" agreed Woof.

"We forgot to tell you earlier, but just before the corpses came to life, horrid, screeching classical music burst out from nowhere and everywhere, almost deafening us. And making Woof whine in terror."

"He's never whined before, has he?" asked Sheila.

"No. He also snarled for the first time."

"So what kind of music was it?' asked Terri.

"Big booming scary music."

"Ride of the Valkyries!" said Sheila: "That one always scares me."

"No, I would have recognised 'Ride of the Valkyries', it was one of Nana Maisie's favourites. She played it all the time, when raising me after my parents died when I was a baby."

"The Death March then?" said Sheila: "The Devil's Advocates have a great version of that."

"The Devil's Advocates recorded the Death March?" asked Terri.

"Well, they jazzed it up a little and added lyrics. Their version is called 'Death March Boogie Woogie'."

"I bet you're sorry you asked," teased Colin.


The next day, despite the stress of the zombie attack, Lulu was back at work on the checkout counter at the Glen Hartwell Mall (actually, no more than a two-storey supermarket) in Boothy Street. She had left Woof home but had bought some doggy toys from the pet section and would take them home to him at lunchtime since she lived nearby.

The Mall's latest manager, since they seemed to keep dying or resigning, Hiram P. Brody came across to ask: "Are you sure you're all right to work today, Lulu?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Brody; I'll be going home at lunchtime to give the toys to Woof."

"Well, let me know if you need any special leave."

"Yes, Mr. Brody."

They were still talking, when the jangly, glaring music began to blare out of everywhere and nowhere within the mall.

At the sound people stopped and stared in amazement, till their eyes began to glaze over. Then they began screaming and running around like Dodgem cars crashing into each other. Before starting to attack each other for no reason. One man strangled his own wife to death, then picked up their baby daughter and hurled her the length of the aisle.

"What the hell!" cried Hiram, seconds before a maniac raced at him, brandishing a carving knife taken from stock. Shrieking in terror, Hiram held his hands up over his face.

"Die, zombie, die!" said Lulu.

She grabbed her bag of doggie toys and whacked the attacker over the head with them, knocking him unconscious:

"It's a good thing I included a large rubber bone in here."

"I thought you bought him a bone a few days ago?" said Hiram as they headed toward the glass doors for the imagined safety of the parking lot.

"Yes, but he buried it in the backyard, so I bought him a new one."

"Well, from now on you can take as many doggy treats and toys as you like gratis for saving my life. In fact, there's a red Frisbee in there I'm sure he would love chasing; you can have it too."

"Thank you, Mr. Brody."

Inside the Mall was mayhem. Some of the frenzied former shoppers had started throwing bags of vegetables at each other. Others threw relatively harmless boxes of cereal or porridge at each other. Still, others took to hurling glass bottles or canned foods at each other.

One maniac threw a can of baby peas straight at the head of another shopper, squashing his left eye. Without flinching, the victim picked up the can, complete with most of his splattered eye, and threw it straight back at his attacker, smashing his skull, so that the original attacker fell to the lino-covered floor, dead.

Snarling like a wolf in satisfaction, the second attacker started grabbing cans of baby corn and jars of pickled onions to start hurling them at men, women, and children, laughing in hysterical joy each time he heard the crunch of skulls as the items connected.

Outside Lulu had rung through to the Mitchell Street Police Station


"That was Lulu at the G.H. Mall," said Alice Walker, a forty-six-year-old brunette. Alice was a part-time officer usually, although due to colds and flu by other officers, she had worked full-time for the last month or so: "It's happened again."

"A zombie attack!" cried Sheila standing.

"No, this time the music started in the Mall and everyone started running around madly attacking each other. Some idiot attacked Hiram Brody with a carving knife. But Lulu knocked the guy out with a bag of doggy toys."

"Good for her," said Terri, as all four of them climbed into her police-blue Lexus.


Inside the mall chaos still reigned with cans, jars, and boxes being thrown by almost everyone; except for a few terrified innocents who for some reason had not been affected.

Outside the mall, the music blared as loudly as inside. While some shoppers raced at others with shopping trolleys, empty or more lethally full, others had started their cars and a demolition derby-cum-Dodgem contest had started, with dozens of vehicles colliding with each other. Pedestrians were run down, as though the drivers were scoring points in some psychotic pointless game-of-death video game. Small and medium-sized cars met head-on like bison or moose charging each other. Large cars smashed medium-sized cars and reduced to tin foil small cars. Trucks and delivery vans made tin foil out of any of the mere cars.

"They've gone completely mad!" cried Hiram Brody.

"It's the damned, insane-making music," said a tall blonde, Mary Matfield, as she and four other survivors managed to make it out of the mall.

"I used to love classical music, growing up with my grandparents who played nothing else," said Lulu: "But I'm starting to have second thoughts. I might ask Sheila Bennett to lend me some of her Devil's Advocates music."

"The Devil's Advocates?" said Mary: "That seems strangely appropriate for what's going on here."

As she spoke, they heard the sound of a window pane smashing, then screaming, followed by the thud of two or three people crashing down upon the corrugated iron overhang that they were cowering beneath.

"What the Hell?" said Hiram.

In the distance, they heard the wailing of sirens.

"Here come Terri and co.," said Lulu.

However, it turned out to be all six of Glen Hartwell's ambulances based at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

"Did you ring them?" Lulu asked Hiram Brody.

"No, I did," said Mary Matfield.

"Thank God you didn't bring your triplets here today, Mrs. Matfield," said Hiram.

"Yes, my hubby had a day off work, so he agreed to look after them."

Looking across, they saw that the ambulances had stopped in Boothy Street, clearly the paramedics were reluctant to drive into the oversized Dodgem game going on in the car park.

Then, unexpectedly, the music of death and madness stopped. Allowing the ambulances to enter the car park, seconds before Terri Scott's blue Lexus, which roared into the car park, then up to the front of the mall, as though Sheila was determined to join the demolition derby.

"What the Hell happened here?" asked Tilly Lombstrom, stepping out of one of the ambulances, three of which had driven right up to the entranceway. While the other three stayed in the car park to try to sort out the mayhem as best as they could.

"The music started up again," said Lulu: "But this time instead of raising the dead, it drove living people mad."

"Well let's get to it," said Tilly, storming into the mall.

She was followed by two nurses; Topaz Moseley, a gorgeous platinum blonde, and Leo Laxman, a back Jamaican by birth.

"Hello, babe," said one of the paramedics, Derek Armstrong

A tall, muscular black man, Derek had been dating Sheila Bennett for the last few months.

"Babe," said Sheila, walking next to Derek as he and his boss, Cheryl Pritchard, a tall athletic woman of sixty-three, pushed a wheeled stretcher into the shattered mall.

"Jesus!" said Cheryl, not usually a blasphemer, as they saw the dozens of maimed or dead people. Many victims with their heads caved in.

As they started ferrying the most seriously injured to the hospital, Terri instructed: "Colin, Alice take some of them to the hospital in the Lexus. And on the way back, stop in to borrow Stanlee Dempsey's Land Rover."

"Gotcha, Chief," said Alice, taking the keys to the Lexus from Sheila.

They continued right through the night to transfer the injured and then dead to the hospital. Along the way, they borrowed another Land Rover, and Paul Bell's Range Rover to help ferry the injured and dead.

Once the living had been transported, they also ferried Lulu, Mary Matland and the others who had avoided the mayhem to their homes.

"Thanks," said Mary Matland: "Our Honda 2 has been reduced to so much tin foil. Thankfully we're insured." Then to Lulu: "Mr. Brody seems to have been generous to you today?"

"Yes, he even let me take a fifteen-kilo bag of doggy dins gratis for Woof ... You don't think he's sweet on me, do you?" asked a worried Lulu. Although she liked Hiram Brody, she had no romantic interest in him.

"No, you probably remind him of his daughter, Mandy, she looked a lot like you at the same age," said Alice Walker.

"Oh, my God! Did something happen to her?"

"Yes, she married an American and they moved to L.A. She emails him most days complaining about the L.A. smog compared to the sweet-smelling air in Glen Hartwell."


By the time they had finished, and Terri and co. could return to the Yellow House where all except Alice boarded, it was seven-thirty in the morning.

"Just in time for brekkie," said Deidre Morton as Terri, Colin, and Sheila, looking ready to collapse, staggered into the front corridor of the Yellow House. Deidre was a Michelin-Star standard cook, who was obsessed with the colour yellow, which is why the boarding house was painted yellow inside and out.

"Thank God, I'm starved," said Sheila, echoing the thoughts of Terri and Colin.

"Don't worry, Sheils," said Tommy Turner another boarder: a short fat man with yellow blond hair: "I recorded last night's episode of 'The World's Stupidest Stuntman Down Under', for you."

"Bonza," said Sheila, almost collapsing into the bowl of porridge and treacle that Deidre had placed before her: "But I'll have to watch it later. All I can do now is eat then sleep till noon."

"Was it that bad?" asked Natasha Lipzing, at seventy, the Yellow House's oldest resident.

"Fifty-two people dead, seventy more in hospital," said Terri: "Once they're stabilised most of them are going to be air-lifted to the Royal Melbourne in Parkville, or the Sunshine Hospital. The Glen Hartwell Hospital is overflowing after all the monster-related cases we've had over the last year." [See my stories: 'The Lily White Boys', 'The Crystalline Warrior', and 'Across the Plains Comes the Verdillac'.]


It was after 1:30 PM before Deidre Morton awakened the three sleeping police officers.

"Mrs. M.," said a yawning Terri Scott: "You should never have allowed us to sleep so late."

"No, she made us wait for lunch until you three came down," complained Tommy Turner.

"You needed the sleep, you were almost dead this morning," said Deidre.

"And it won't hurt Tommy to wait for a meal," added Natasha Lipzing: "He could do with losing a few kilos ... Quite a few, in fact."

"How dare you, I've got a fine figure."

"For a middle-aged hippo maybe," teased Freddy Kingston. A recent retiree, Freddy was tall and bald, other than a Larry Fine-style ruff of curly black hair.

"How dare you!"

"Now, now, children," teased Deidre.


"So what's the procedure for today?" asked Alice Walker as Terri and co. finally entered the Mitchell Street Police Station.

"Try to track down where the music of madness comes from," said Terri: "Lulu and the others said that it seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere. So it must be piped in from somewhere powerful."

"Like the newish mobile phone tower," said Sheila.

"Assuming it's not just being supernaturally spread throughout the atmosphere," added Alice.

"Which in Glen Harwell you can't rule out," pointed out Colin as they set out again to get a warrant to check out the phone tower.

However, the manager of the phone company didn't bother looking at the warrant:

"Oh, that won't be necessary," said the manager Clyde MacBloom, a tall athletic bespectacled man, allowing them into the tower: "We've heard about the chaos caused by the 'Music of the Damned' as the newspapers are now calling it. So we've already started checking out all of our circuits in case some bastard has somehow tapped into it. But so far zilchamundo, to quote the Fonz."

He slowly led them through the tower over the next couple of hours, confirming with the electricians that they had found no tampering of any kind.

"So where else could music that seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere originate from?" asked Terri as they departed the tower.

"A helicopter hovering out of sight, with massive speakers attached," suggested Clyde MacBloom seeing them out.

"The only chopper we know of in the area is Louie Pascall's," said Sheila: "And he would never do anything like this, he's a good bloke."

"Besides, Louie's into trad. jazz and wouldn't know shit about big booming classical music," said Colin Klein: "So what's next, babe?"

"Check with Louie in case his Bell Huey has been stolen," suggested Terri: "And if not, try to track down any other choppers anyone else might have brought into the area without telling us."

"You do know there are over a hundred farms, all good chopper hiding places, between BeauLarkin and Willamby?" asked Sheila.

"Yes ... which means this is a bad time for most of the local cops to be off ill," said Terri.

"If Louie's still got his Bell Huey, maybe we can hire him to take us around all the farms, babe," suggested Colin.

"Great idea!" said Terri and Sheila as one.


Less than an hour later Terri and co. were up in the Bell Huey starting a long and fruitless search for a hidden helicopter. Although it was barely an hour till darkfall by the time that they started out, so they only managed to check out two farms, not far from Glen Hartwell before having to quit for the night.

"Don't take offence," said Terri: "We haven't singled you out, we've still got another hundred or so farms to check besides yours ... hopefully not taking the remainder of June."

"Hopefully not, since it's only the tenth of June," said Sheila; although she preferred to be checking out farms, rather than studying the police manual.

By nightfall, they headed back to the Yellow House for a sumptuous tea.


After feeding Woof his tea, Lulu reluctantly went to shower and then changed. She had agreed to go to the dance at the town hall in Boothy Street, not far from the devastated G.H. Mall. She had been asked weeks ago by a freckle-face redhead teen, Tory Munroe, who worked with her and clearly had a crush on her. After the massacre, Lulu had wanted to cry off, but the Mayoress had announced that the dance would go ahead, in an attempt to buck up the town's morale. And under the same excuse, Tory had browbeaten Lulu into agreeing to still be his partner to the dance.

He's probably never had a girl go dancing with him before, thought Lulu, feeling sorry for the nerdy but nice redheaded boy.


All went well for most of the night, with Tory mainly dancing with Lulu, since all of the other girls had refused his requests. A lot of the music the DJ played was schmaltzy like 'Don't Worry, Be Happy', or retro like disco or rockabilly. Although not familiar with it, Lulu didn't mind the rockabilly, but she found the disco trite and jarring.

It was nearly midnight, and Lulu was tired and desperately wanted to go home when the Music of the Damned suddenly started blaring out, both inside and outside of the town hall.

"Who the hell is playing...?" began the Mayoress.

She stopped as the DJ, a steady responsible man in his mid-thirties, suddenly raced across the stage and throttled her to death.

Then as inexplicably, the DJ tried to strangle himself to death. After failing, he raced across the stage screaming "Geronimo!" as he ran, to leap off the stage, crashing down upon a table covered with plates of cakes and sandwiches. Although the table collapsed under him, the man was unharmed So he climbed to his feet and raced across toward Tory and Lulu.

"No!" cried Lulu cowering.

However, Tory stood his ground and punched the DJ in the face, causing him to gurgle, and then collapsed to the ground unconscious.

"We'd better get out of here," said Tory, pulling Lulu back up and then half-leading her, half-carrying her across toward the double oaken doors.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" shrieked a blonde-haired man. Lifting the punch bowl, not noticing as he doused himself with raspberry punch, he raised the glass bowl head height and raced after Tory and Lulu, still shrieking.

However, Tory and Lulu had already exited the ballroom, allowing the solid doors to slam shut, causing the maniac to run straight into the oaken doors, making the glass bowl shatter against his face, slicing off his nose and left cheek. He tried to scream again, but it came out as a wheezing gurgle instead.

Throughout the ballroom people were attacking each other, men were raping women on the floor, or on the stage, and some ravishing their own daughters or nieces.

"Daddy! No!" shrieked a thirteen-year-old brunette, Yvette, who had been warned by the bigger girls at school that when her chest started to develop her father would want to rape her. Until now she had never believed it.

Beside Yvette, her cousin, Yolanda was being raped by a complete stranger. However, Yolanda also had got the madness and far from fighting off her attacker, was matching him thrust for thrust, despite having been a virgin, shrieking obscenities of encouragement at him:

"Harder! Harder, you eunuch! Fuck the living shit out of me!"

"Yolanda!" cried Yvette; as shocked by her cousin's words, as by what was happening to them both: "How can you!"

"Fuck off, tight arse!" shouted Yolanda, before starting shouting encouraging obscenities at her molester again.

Across the dance hall the sane were murdered, molested, or beaten up by the insane, for over half an hour before the music of the damned suddenly stopped and people calmed down, and looked around, many shocked, horrified at what they had done:

"Yvette!" cried her father, Caleb Lincoln climbing off the thirteen-year-old: "What have I done, baby!"

"Daddy!" shrieked Yvette again, through salty tears.


The madness at the Glen Hartwell Town Hall had ended by the time that Tory and Lulu started hammering upon the front door of the Yellow House in Rochester Road, Merridale. They had been too traumatised to think to try ringing the boarding house, or triple-0.

"It's happened again ... at the town hall!" cried Tory when a bleary-eyed Deidre Morton finally answered the door.

"Another massacre?" asked Deidre hurriedly awakening.

"The Music of the Damned started around midnight," said Lulu, a few minutes later, after Terri, Colin, and Sheila had dressed and come down.

"Then, as the cliché goes, all Hell broke lose ... starting with the DJ strangling the Mayoress," said Tory: "Then trying to strangle himself without any luck."

"Hillary Braybrooke is dead?" asked Terri.

"Her face was purple, and her tongue sticking out," said Tory: "So, I'd say she's dead."

"Jesus, we'd better get down there," said Colin.

Along the way, they phoned through to the Glen Harwell and Daley Community Hospital, only to find that when the madness had ended, survivors had already rung the hospital.

By the time they arrived at Glen Hartwell, all six of the area's ambulances were at the town hall, along with Tilly Jesus, and Elvis, also half a dozen nurses from the hospital, including Leo Laxman, Topaz Moseley, and Annie Colfax, an ash blonde who was Nurse-In-Charge at the hospital and who had celebrated her 40th birthday just that day.

"Maybe we should take blood tests of the survivors to see if they've got any kind of weird virus," suggested Annie as they started helping the most seriously hurt first.

"No, it's definitely the music that does it,' insisted Tory.

"Definitely," agreed Lulu: "Each time the music has started first, then instantly corpses start rising up, or people go crazy."

"Still it won't hurt to check, if only to rule it out," said Jesus; like the police not knowing what else to do.

Again it was past their normal breakfast time by the time that everyone living or dead had been transported to the Glen Hartwell Hospital.

"So what's the plan now, Tezza?" asked Sheila.

Not bothering to tell her off for calling her Tezza, Terri said: "We implement a curfew to keep everyone indoors at night."

"But the first two crazinesses happened in broad daylight," pointed out Lulu.

"Then we'll make it a total lockdown for all the towns and farms within fifty kays of Glen Hartwell."

"The farmers are gonna love you, babe," teased Colin as they staggered outside to the Lexus.

"They'll love me even less if I do nothing and more people get killed."

"Good point ... well made, Tezza," said Sheila starting the Lexus.

"And don't call me Tezza," chided Terri as they started back toward the Yellow House: "Don't think I didn't notice the first time."

"Gotcha, Goth chick," teased Colin: "So where to now, babe."

"Now we have to notify all the TV and radio stations to broadcast the lockdown notice. Then we can keep looking for our missing helicopter."

"Assuming it's not supernatural like so many of our cases," said Sheila. [See my stories: 'A Banshee Shrilling', 'A Beautiful Demon', and 'Death Riders'.]


The next day the lockdown was implemented to the delight of paid workers, and the dismay of self-employed farmers.

They were waiting at the Mitchell Street Police Station for Louie Pascall to arrive with his brand new Bell Huey, which replaced his recently crashed chopper. [See my story, 'Flight of the Gryphons'.]

"He should be here any time," said Sheila, looking impatiently at her wrist watch.

"Unless he's heard the lockdown warnings and thinks it applies to him too," teased Alice Walker.

"Don't even joke," said Terri as a knocking came at the front door.

"I'll get it," said Colin.

He walked across to open the door, signed for something, then returned with a largish brown cardboard box.

"Excelente," said Terri, opening the box to reveal a couple of dozen snazzy looking sets of headphones.

"Bonza," said Sheila grabbing a pair: "I need a pair of new headphones for my MP3 player."

"They're not for listening to music," said Terri: "Although by the looks of them you probably could connect them to your MP3 player. They're so that we can communicate with each other without hearing the madness music if it starts up. I've got a set for each of the local cops, even on sick leave, for everyone at the Yellow House, since we don't need them going mad and killing us in our sleep. Then there's a set for Louie..."

"Since we don't need him going mad and crash diving the chopper, killing us all," Colin finished for her.

"Exactly," agreed Terri: "Unfortunately Russell Street refused to pay for twelve thousand headsets to cover everyone from BeauLarkin to Willamby."

"Those stingy bastards," said Sheila as they heard the whir-whir-whir of the Bell Huey approaching: "Sounds like our ride is coming."

"All the best on your chopper hunt," said Alice speaking through her headset as Terri and co. headed out into Mitchell Street.

As they climbed into the chopper, Terri handed Louie a headset.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A prezzy," said Terri: "It allows us to communicate to each other, without hearing the Music of the Damned."

"Yes, I guess you don't need me going gonzo while we're all in the air," said Louie putting on the headset.

"You can also attach it to your MP3 player," added Sheila as the helicopter started climbing vertically.


It was a little after noon when the music started blaring out again. This time inside houses and farms:

Over at the Gordon Sheep Station outside LePage, Jacob Gordon and his family were locked inside their farmhouse eating lunch when the music started blaring out of everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Where is dat hidjuss muzac comin' from Mummy?" asked six-year-old Jemima, a pretty ravenette like her mother.

"I don't know," said Jessica Gordon, as her husband suddenly stood up and headed toward the back door: "Where are you going, Jacob? You know we aren't allowed outside."

Ignoring his wife, the burly farmer walked outside and headed toward a corrugated iron Nissen Hut where he kept much of his farm equipment. Unlocking the door, he entered and walked across to the gun cabinet. He unlocked the cabinet and removed two repeating rifles: a Martin 1895 SBL, and a Winchester Model 94.

After loading the two rifles, he filled his pockets with extra shells, then headed back to the farmhouse.

"Jacob, what are you...?" began Jessica, stopping as he shot her in the forehead with the Winchester.

Screaming, little Jemima hurriedly dropped beneath the kitchen table to hide, as Jacob shot dead his two teenage sons.

Then, showing no emotion, the burly farmer stopped, wondering if he had forgotten something. Then, after a moment he turned and walked outside.

A hundred metres or so behind the farmhouse, Jacob had a dog yard with a dozen or so sheep dogs using old oil drums as kennels. Despite the sound of shots earlier, the dogs barked in delight as Jacob approached, thump-thump-thumping their tails against the side-on oil drums they lay in, expecting to be fed their lunch.

Instead the farmer started shooting the soon-whining dogs, until all thirteen dogs were dead or dying.

He then started down to the back paddock to begin shooting his prize-winning merino sheep; including his ram worth three thousand dollars.


Over in BeauLarkin, two hours' drive from LePage, the Reynolds family were dressed in bathers, ready to have a nice hot tub together.

"Can we geddin yet?" asked Tisha a cute seven-year-old raven haired girl in a blood-red one-piece swimsuit.

"Not yet, honey," said her mother, Leticia, a much taller ravenette in an identical red swimsuit: "Your dad still has to finish checking the mechanics."

"Just be grateful your old dad is an electrician," said Hector Reynolds, a tall forty-something man with a few strands of blond hair on his otherwise bald pate.

He managed to get the hot tub set up and it was soon bubbling.

"All right, everybody in," shouted Hector.

"Last is lousiest," said Callum, a thirteen-year old in Australian-green bathing trunks, diving into the tub.

"Hey!" complained Tish: "I don't wanna be lousiest!"

"Don't worry, honey," said her mother. Picking up her daughter, the ravenette swung one long leg over the side, and they were soon both sitting in the hot tub.

"Now it's gonna be Daddy or Jordan who's lousiest," said Tish in satisfaction.

"Not me," said Jordan, a redheaded boy of twelve. He did a perfect dive into the tub: "Dad is lousiest."

In all of the excitement, none of them had even noticed the music starting up from their television set, which wasn't even switched on.

"Where is that awful racket coming from?" asked Leticia

"Taylor Swift it ain't," said Jordan, a big fan of the American singer.

"Honey, did you turn the TV on?" asked Leticia: "Honey?"

However, Hector was staring vacantly ahead of him.

"Honey?" she repeated.

Then Hector picked up a large radiator, switched it on and started walking slowly toward the hot tub.

"Honey!" shouted Leticia, suddenly afraid. She grabbed up a startled Tish and leapt out of the hot tub, running toward the lounge room adjacent, shouting: "Boys get out of the tub!"

However, both boys were too nonplussed to react in time.

Stepping into the tub, Hector smiled broadly, for the last time in his life, then sat down in the hot tub carrying the radiator, shocking himself and his two sons to death.

"Callum! Jordan! No!" shrieked Leticia.

"Daddy!" shouted Tish.


"What's that?' asked Sheila Bennett as they soared above the forest. She pointed to where they could see a small rusted-out corrugated iron shack. Big enough to perhaps be a one-bedroom home.

"Lord knows," said Terri: "People are forever building in the forestland without bothering to get planning permission."

"Yes, we once found an entire holiday camp that had been there for years," said Colin to Louie Pascall. [See my story, 'Dryanna'.]

"Should we go down for a butcher's?" asked Louie.

"Might as well," said Terri.

On the ground, the cabin looked to be nothing but rust.

"Take a care going in, in case it collapses on you," advised Louie.

Doing as suggested, Terri took out her military-style torch before risking trying to open the metal door. Despite looking rusted out, the door at first refused to budge, until Colin and Louie each lent a hand, and with a hellish screeching the door finally slid outwards.

Around the cabin stood wracks of dust-covered vinyl LPs, plus ancient electronic equipment. In the centre of the room was a table covered in dust four or five centimetres thick, plus an ancient record player. Despite not being lugged in, the vinyl album was spinning around.

Putting a finger on the LP to stop it spinning, Sheila read: "Music of the Damned. Hey the press got it right for a change."

Taking the LP off the turnstile she smashed the record upon the player, saying: "That takes care of that."

She took off her headphones, as the music started playing again.

"What?" said Sheila. Turning to her left she saw that the LP was back on the turnstile, no longer smashed, spinning around again: "But I just smashed it!"

"I didn't think it would be that easy," said Terri.

Nonetheless, Sheila snatched the LP off the player and smashed it again.

Only to see it was back on the turnstile and playing again in a few seconds.

"I hate it when witchy things happen," said Sheila. Then inspiration struck: "Hey wait a minute, we know a witchy chick."

"Magnolia McCready!" said Colin and Terri as one.


1/21 Calhoun Street, was the right-hand half of a sub-divided yellow weatherboard house. In the front room, Magnolia McCready, a tall busty redhead with electric-blue eyes, handed around cups of blackberry tea.

"So what can I do for you this time?"

They hastily explained the situation, leaving the Wiccan looking puzzled.

"And the record won't stay broken?"

"I smashed it twice," said Sheila.

"Hmmm, well there are dozens of gods-demons of music from around the world. From Chinese God Fuxi, to Slavic God Veles, to Greek God Pan, to Egyptian God Hathor, and so on and so on..." said Magnolia: "But they all predate recordings by centuries or millennia. So, I'd rule out gods. And probably demons as well."

"Which leaves us with what?" asked Terri.

"Black witches, warlocks, maybe even a simple ghost. What is known about the ancient-looking radio station?"

"Um," said Terri. She looked at Colin, then Sheila, both of whom shrugged at her.

"Maybe you need to find out the history of the radio station."

"How?" asked Sheila.

"Well, checking out the Glen Hartwell City Library might be a good starting point. Although they've gone largely digital to attract the kids, they still have plenty of books. And their head librarian Lizabeth Strongwater has been employed there for decades, so she oughta be able to help you.

"Oh, and most importantly," said Magnolia, holding out her right hand: "You owe me fifty bucks for the consultation."

"Yeah, we know, Wiccans gotta live too," said Terri standing up.


Glen Hartwell was one of the first towns established in Victoria, after the foundation of Melbourne itself in 1835, so the local library in Dirk Hartog Place was more than a hundred and eighty years old. Built by convict labour, in a pseudo-Grecian style, the outside was decorated with large stone pillars; two white marble lions standing guard over the front entrance.

"Funny I've never seen this place before," said Sheila as they mounted the concrete stairs.

"Sheils, surely you went here to research your homework at school?" asked Terri.

"Nah, I just copied off you, remember."

"Oh, yeah," said Terri as they walked inside.

The building looked ancient, except that it now had a couple of dozen PC terminals, and most of the shelves were filled with CDs, DVDs, or Blu-Ray discs rather than books.

"Hey, this place isn't as bad as I feared," said Sheila as they walked up to the vinyl-coated reception desk: "I was afraid there'd be books everywhere."

"We still have hundreds of novels," said Lizabeth Strongwater, a tall, attractive fifty-something redhead with pale blue eyes, wearing clear-framed tinted glasses: "Harry Potter novels are amongst our most popular withdrawals, understandably."

"Personally, I'm more into 'The World's Stupidest Stuntman' or graphic horror movies," said Sheila.

"By graphic, she means gruesome, Mrs. Strongwater," explained Terri.

"You're Terri Scott, aren't you? You always did have an inquiring mind. So what can I help you with today, honey?"

"What do you know about a haunted radio station in the area?" blurted out Sheila, catching the head librarian by surprise.

"Well, the Houston Radio station -- that's the Houston Family, not the town in America -- operated from the mid-1920s until the mid-1960s."

She walked across to one of the shelves to take out a DVD which she placed in one of the PC terminals. She typed in her password and they were soon watching the video 'Haunted Sites of Glen Hartwell'. She skipped through most of the DVD till it said: 'The Haunted Radio Station.'

"Isn't that an episode of The Night Stalker?" asked Sheila: "And if not, why not?"

Ignoring Sheila, they watched the segment which mentioned the Music of the Damned record.

"All that's known for certain," said Lizabeth: "Is that someone, possibly from the once infamous witch coven the Ordo Templi Australis...," [See my story 'Haunted Mountain' a.k.a. 'The Watchers at the Portal'.] '...sent them the album. They played it and people started going crazy killing each other. That included the owner of the radio station, who killed his entire family, then himself."

"That explains it being haunted," said Colin: "But why has it suddenly started playing again after six decades."

"The radio station started up in June 1924. So this is its one-hundredth anniversary," explained Lizabeth.

"So how do we stop it?" asked Terri.

"It's haunted," said the librarian: "You need to get it exorcised."

"I had an awful feeling she was gonna say that," said Sheila, getting nods from Terri and Colin.

"I think Father Montague performs exorcisms."

"I was afraid she'd say that," said Terri.


Father Thomas Montague strode along Blackland Street, till reaching the spacious lawns of St. Margaret's church. Founded in 1838, one year after Glen Hartwell, St. Margaret's was one of the centre points of the Glen. Inside, the floors were traditional polished teak, with red felt-lined wooden pews, plus more than life-size plaster statues of Jesus, the stations of the cross, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles lining the walls and the rear of the small stage upon which Father Thomas conducted his sermons.

"You want me to perform an exorcism?" demanded Fr. Thomas.

"That's right," said Terri a little sheepishly. She went on to explain what they had just learnt about the Houston Radio Station, plus the unbreakable LP, and how it all related, she believed, to the waves of madness that had been affecting Glen Hartwell and the surrounds over the last few days.

"Yes, my father told me when I was a teenager, of the outbreaks of madness in Glen Hartwell and the surrounds in the 1960s," said the priest, reluctantly agreeing to do the exorcism at the abandoned radio station.

An hour or so later they were back at the radio station with everyone except Father Thomas wearing the headphones.

"The Lord will protect me from the demonic music," insisted the priest.

"Yes, but the Lord helps those who help themselves," said Sheila holding out a set of headphones to the priest who still refused to take them.

The rust-and-dust-coated station looked the same as the last time they had been there, except that the record, although still on the turnstile, was not playing. However, as soon as the priest opened his exorcism book the record started spinning, sending waves of chaos out across the surrounding area.

As soon as the priest started the ritual, the volume soared up on the Music of the Damned; even though the speakers and electronic equipment in the radio station were all rusted out beyond repair.

When the volume soared, feeling a little strange, Father Thomas reluctantly accepted the headphones from Sheila and then continued with the exorcism ritual.


Over at Baker Street in Upton township, the Post family was enjoying the first Die Hard movie, which they had on DVD, while eating cheese and onion dip on Sao crackers.

"Hey, Dad just double-dipped," complained six-year-old Hayley, a strawberry blonde, like her mother.

"Did not," insisted Donnie Post, a fifty-year-old raven-haired man, looking more like a builder's labourer than the bank clerk that he was. As he spoke, he triple-dipped the half-eaten Sao cracker.

"Did so, you just triple-dipped," insisted ten-year-old Cosmo, a ravenette like his father.

"Did not!" lied Donnie.

"Did so," said Annika, a seven-year-old brunette.

"Honey, we all know that you're a pig when it comes to double-dipping," said his wife, Ellie.

"That's a bit harsh," said Donnie quadruple-dipping the last mouthful of Sao.

"That's it, I'm getting some cheese to have with my Saos," said Cosmo heading towards the kitchen.

"Bring enough for four," called Ellie.

"And the Vegemite," called Hayley: "Can't eat cheese on crackers without Vegemite."

"Yeah, yeah..." said Cosmo, suddenly stopping as the Music of the Damned started blaring out of their TV, instead of Die Hard.

"What the Hell!" complained Donnie grabbing up the remote control: "Who's been fiddling with the remote?"

"No one, you were probably sitting on it," said Elle.

After a few minutes, Hayley asked: "What's keeping Cosmo with the Vegemite?"

"Cosmo, are you all right?" called Ellie.

By way of an answer, Cosmo raced into the lounge room shrieking insanely as he waved a large carving knife in his right hand and a meat cleaver in his left.

"Cosmo!" shrieked Ellie, making the others turn to see what was going on.


As the exorcism ritual was coming to an end, Father Thomas picked up a two-litre bottle of holy water which he had brought with him, and began sprinkling it around the radio station. Each sprinkle caused a hissing spit as though he had sprinkled it onto a hot plate. Finally, he poured the last of the holy water onto the vinyl LP, which burst into reddish-yellow flames and immediately stopped playing.


Over at the Post house in Upton, Cosmo was advancing on his terrified family, when the music suddenly stopped. As the rage went out of his eyes, he dropped the knife and cleaver and looked about himself in puzzlement.

"Damn, I forgot the cheese and vegemite," said Cosmo, heading back into the kitchen.


"So, is that it?" asked Terri, as the priest closed up his exorcism book.

"That's all that I can do," said Father Thomas: "If the ritual didn't work, we'll have to ring through to the Vatican for advice."

Peering at the half-melted LP, Sheila read: "Underworld Records, the Netherworld. Isn't that in Holland?"

"No, you great dingleberry," said Colin: "That's the Netherlands."

"After this case, I'll never complain again about spending day after day studying the police manual," said Sheila.

"A likely story," said Colin, making everyone laugh.

THE END
© Copyright 2024 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia