I have to get out of here.
Suddenly filled with a sense of sheer terror, I grab my guitar and hurry toward the door, before stopping as I hear the voices outside. I hesitate, and then I race through to the rear of the house. Once I’m at the back door, I stop again and listen, but this time I don’t hear anyone nearby, so I pull the door open and rush out into the cold night air.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Startled, I turn and see Jerry watching me from just a few feet away. He has his arms folded, and he’s grinning as he leans against the wall.
“Are you still going to fight this?” he asks. “There’s no—”
Turning, I rush back into the house and slam the door shut, and then I head through to the kitchen just as two men in dark uniforms come through the front door. I turn to go back, but Jerry is already inside the house and I realize that I’m surrounded. I glance around for a moment, and then finally I grab another of the knives from the counter and hold it up.
“Don’t come near me!” I yell.
“Or what?” Jerry asks.
“Or…”
I pause for a moment, staring at Craig’s poor, lifeless corpse, and then I turn and see that Jerry is still smiling.
“Or I’ll kill myself,” I say finally, before setting the guitar down and then placing the knife’s tip against my chest, roughly above my heart. “What will your Mr. Glass think about that? I’m not much use to anyone if I’m dead.”
“That’s true,” Jerry replies, “but I guess that if I rush at you right now, you’ll drive that knife straight into your own chest, puncturing your heart.”
“Damn straight I will!” I say firmly.
“And we’re not going to leave without you,” he adds, “so this seems to be some kind of stand-off.” He pauses for a moment, before taking a step forward.
“Don’t come any closer!” I yell.
“If you’re going to kill yourself, old man,” he replies, taking another step toward me, “then you’d better get on with it.”
I step back until I bump against the counter, but my hand is trembling. I look over at Craig again, wondering what he’d do in this situation. I want to be brave like him, and unafraid of death, but then I look down at the knife’s tip and imagine it slicing into my heart. I refuse to leave this farm and be taken to Joshua Glass, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to carry out my threat.
Finally, slowly, Jerry reaches out and takes the knife from my hand.
“Well, there’s a surprise,” he gloats. “The old man is too afraid of dying. These shenanigans have gone on for long enough, don’t you think? It’s time to hit the road.”
Twenty-Nine
“You’ve been in a helicopter before, haven’t you, Mr. Harrisford?” Jerry shouts as he climbs out of the car an hour or so later. “I’m sure you traveled in style back in the old days, at the height of your pop career.”
He comes around and opens the door next to me, and then he pulls me out. I stumble slightly, and then I turn to see that one of the uniformed goons has already removed my guitar from the vehicle.
“We’ve got quite a journey ahead of us,” Jerry continues, leading me across the tarmac and toward the waiting helicopter, “so we might as well get going now. I’ve already radioed ahead to let Mr. Glass know that we’re coming, and I’m sure he’s very excited. I hope we won’t be getting any more silliness from you.”
I try to pull away, but his grip is too tight and I know that fighting back is hopeless. As we get closer to the helicopter, I feel a knot of dread in my belly as I realize that I am indeed going to be flown to the lair of this Glass beast, where no doubt he’ll command me to do his bidding. I tell myself that I must think of a way out of this mess, that perhaps I could yet leap up and try to have my head taken off by the helicopter’s blades, but then I’m bundled into the rear of the machine and I realize that I have missed my chance.
I’m a coward.
If I had just had a little more courage earlier, I would not have to do any of this.
“Put these on,” Jerry says, placing a set of headphones over my ears. “We’ve got several hundred miles to cover. You don’t want to be deaf by the time we get to Mr. Glass.”
I don’t reply. I don’t do anything. I merely sit like a doll, like some dumb creature with no mind of its own, as the helicopter’s doors are slid shut. And then, before I even have a chance to react, the helicopter lifts from the ground. I turn to see Jerry sitting beside me, and then I look out the window and watch as we rise higher and higher into the slowly brightening morning sky.
“You haven’t been in one of these things before, have you?” Jerry asks, nudging my arm. “I looked you up, Mr. Harrisford. You’ve had quite an impressive career, although I can’t help thinking that you were mis-managed somewhere along the way. Tell me, did you ever think about Eurovision?”
I turn to him.
“I think you’d have done well in Eurovision,” he continues. “That hit song of yours could have won in Eurovision. That’s not an insult, by the way. It’s a compliment. Actually, it’s a huge compliment. I love Eurovision.”
“You’re a murderer,” I reply.
“It was self defense,” he says firmly, and now his grin is gone, as the helicopter swoops out toward the horizon. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but he gave me no choice. If I’d failed in my mission, Mr. Glass would have either had me killed, or he’d have cut me loose. I did what I did in order to survive. I’d suggest that you start acting the same way.”
Turning and looking out the window, I’m shocked to see the glinting tops of London skyscrapers. As the helicopter races across vast empty fields, I look toward the distant city and search for any sign of life, but somehow the whole place looks dead.
“There’s not much there anymore,” Jerry explains. “London’s not the place to be, not anymore. I’m sure there are a few people scrabbling for survival, but the metrics aren’t good. Disease, violence, unrest… I wouldn’t want to go to London now. Even the proto-governments are ignoring the place, they’re setting up in places like York and Winchester instead. I guess they’re aiming for some historical significance.”
“There’s really nothing out there,” I whisper, watching the tombstone-like skyscrapers and buildings of that once-great city. “London has fallen, and all because we lost music.”
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Jerry replies. “Change is good. Change is vital. If you really think about it, the world was in something of a rut, we needed something to come along and shake things up. And men like Mr. Glass are leading the way. Give it another ten years, and I think you’ll see some kind of new order start to rise from the ashes. That’s when humanity’s really going to take a great leap forward, although it’ll never be the same without music. I have a feeling that the next phase of human existence is going to be fundamentally different from everything that’s gone before.”
“With murder and brutality at its heart?” I ask, still watching the vast, still land as the helicopter races through the morning air. “With men like Joshua Glass getting exactly what they want?”
“I didn’t have you down as a pessimist, Mr. Harrisford.”
“I have always had a rather innate aversion to tyrants,” I tell him. “And to murderers.”
“Things will shake out eventually,” he replies, sounding rather amused by the whole situation. “Do you remember when all people had to talk about was politics and celebrity gossip, Mr. Harrisford? Those days seem so long ago now. And I for one am very excited to see where men like Joshua Glass are going to lead us next.”