A Midnight Concert

A Story by Tom Float

A Story which is centred around Beethoven's 'Fur Elise'. Any and all critique welcome.

Exactly one year ago tonight, I was woken to the graceful chords of Beethoven’s Fur Elise. As the first few seconds of the majestic piece serenaded me, I felt the breeze of a whisper in my ear; soft and steady. I could not quite decipher the words and so enough doubt drew up within me for me to accept the notion it was nothing but the wind through my window.

Beethoven’s notes rang out through my house like water through a straw and were I in possession of a music player I would have no doubt been delighted by its sudden introduction. This, however, was not the case. Within a couple moments of the piece’s commencement, my blissful, sleepy ignorance quickly transformed into a catalyst for terror; How could a piece of classical music be resonating around the rooms of my house? How had I found myself the sole audience member of this mysterious midnight concert?

Unlike most, I was able to rule out any friendly prank or practical joke as I was and even more so now, have been, a bedfellow with loneliness. I had entertained the notion that I was being burgled, but quickly rejected that idea as well; why would a thief would declare their presence? What purpose would playing Beethoven perform in their task? I found it hard to imagine a person who would possess an enjoyment of both Beethoven and robbery within their repertoire of interests.

The piece continued to play and I faced a choice; Either I investigated the source of this performance or do nothing and wait the night out in the comfort of my locked bedroom.

My hesitation seemed to have had tested the patience of my unknown guest as the decision was taken away from me. In the darkness I heard my lock click, and the door slowly open. I could see nothing of my hallway, only opaque blackness. The music was pure, uninhibited by the obstacles between the piano and my ears; a perfect level of clarity. A wave of frozen fear cascaded over my brain. The music was so penetrative as though the intrusion of my house had now become an intrusion of my being. Despite the night being blistering hot and I under my covers, I could not suppress a violent cold shiver.

As the ghost of Beethoven’s hands moved swiftly along the keys the piano rejoiced and the notes flew to and around me like birds of prey searching for a mouse in the fields below. I swept aside my bed sheets and swung my legs over the side of the bed and placed my feet on the carpeted floor. I sat for a moment and listened, though this time, not to the music but for movement; shuffling feet or hands ripping pictures from the walls.

I heard nothing.

Like a young child I raised myself unsteadily and held still as Beethoven continued to play for his mysterious Elise; a woman whom history had failed to identify. He painted a picture of one who possessed beauty and tranquillity, and in doing so separated me from both. There was less than a minute until the final note; a low vibrating key. I improvised a plan that upon this note, I would rush out and onto the landing, down the stairs and through the front door into the street where with luck, I would find someone to aid me in searching my home for the intruders.

With a small nucleus of courage I had gained through the birth of my plan of action I waited, listening for that final note; the do or die moment. The notes came and they floated through the hallway and into my bedroom, I could now hear the direction from which the music was coming; The sounds were coming from my bathroom. Confused, I wondered why of all the places in the world, Fur Elise should be mysteriously playing from my bathroom. However, the time for pondering this oddity was after I made my escape and not before, so I quickly returned my focus to the music. Eventually, Beethoven repeated his famous melody one last time and played that final note. The power the note held was beyond that of which I had ever heard before; it hit with such a resonance that it felt the house had shaken both with a visceral convulsion from within and a literal shaking of the building’s foundations.

I stood to the side of the open door still hearing the echo of the sinister conclusion, queasily aware of my failure to run and the resulting feeling that escape had ceased to be an option. The brief adrenaline then faded away leaving only a pocket of nothingness. I was numb.

Silence descended and my flight option had evaporated leaving only fight. I denied myself the helplessness of fear and fought my urge to crumble against the wall and sink to the floor. For a moment it seemed as though I would again fail in my attempts to leave my room which was now bathed in noiseless darkness. Doubt seemed to have gotten the better of me, but then it passed and I fought against my instincts to force my head to not only look through the doorway but into the hallway itself. No movement greeted me but still my courage faltered and quickly withdrew, but only to recover. The time had come to face my interloper, I stepped through the doorway and into the hallway. I closed the door softly as I left.

To my right was a short walk to the staircase and then a short descent which lead to the outside world. To my left, the spare bedroom and just beyond that at the very end of the passage, the bathroom. An exit to this scene was no longer in my interests, that time had passed and I only thought of the confrontation with the player of Fur Elise.

Despite my secular nature, I had to stress to myself that I was dealing with a “who” and not a “what”, for every second that passed I was becoming fearful that I was participating in a supernatural event. How else had Beethoven and his piano found his way into my world? There had been more than just sound to the piece; there was substance, and the longer the piece played, the heavier the air felt.

I was beginning to feel like a rat in a science experiment, like every movement I made was being directed for me which grew in me a strong desire to meet my conductor. I did not risk the hallway light terrified I might provoke my guest. I crept along, slowly, submerged in the dark until I reached the door to the bathroom. I was greeted with more silence and it was as debilitating as poison. I held my breath almost begging for sound, wanting the suspense to end. Not knowing the elements of a situation had always angered me, but this time, it terrified. And still, the bathroom as well as its tenant, remained mute.

Desperate to have an impact on the proceedings of events, to prove I could instigate action, I knocked on the door. I knocked with more force than I had intended; the wooden clunk raced down the hall along the same waves Fur Elise rode to my bedroom. The bathroom light switched on and light escaped underneath the door. Someone was inside.

“Whatever this is,” I called through the door. “It finishes now.” My words were coated with authority but my voice shook, I was not presenting myself as much threat to anyone. “I’m going to count to ten, if you do not leave my bathroom peacefully, I will come in and be warned, I am armed.” This may have been untrue but I had been hoping that I would not reach ten.

I counted and was allowed to progress through the numbers.

“Eight… nine…”

Before I unwillingly called out ten a voice softly called from behind the door.

“Wait. Please.”

It was a woman’s voice and it sounded afraid. This I had not anticipated. I expected to hear the voice of a defensive and angry youth calling me every name under the sun.

“Excuse me,” I began, noticing I sounded embarrassingly polite considering I was speaking to an intruder, “but who are you? What are you doing in my house?” I waited. No reply. ‘I’m sorry.’ This time, I intentionally sounded unapologetic, ‘but I am coming in.’

Hearing the voice of a scared young woman from behind my bathroom door did not do too much to reinstate my fear and so I pushed the door open gently, not wanting to antagonise my visitor unnecessarily. I looked about the bathroom, but there was no-one in sight. I checked in the bath, behind the door and even the cupboards beneath the sink.

No-one.

There wasn’t even a sign that anyone had been in there since I had last been in the room just before heading to bed.

Confused, I shut the cupboard doors and lifted myself from the floor and as I did so I heard movement behind me. I turned my head and I saw a leg, covered by a white dress disappear into the hall. I could not quell the growing irritation at the continuation of this immaturity. Anger replaced fear completely. I ran to the door and glared down the corridor, only to see my bedroom door slam shut. A small spike of fear returned. Everyone sees their bedroom as their sanctum. Their safe space. My safe space had now been violated by some young, and no doubt drunk, student type. I had been about to march down the hall and demand my room be returned to me, when for the second time, Fur Elise struck up inside my home. This time from the bedroom. A cold but raging shiver spread across my body and mind; I no longer entertained any other concept of this intrusion of being anything other than supernatural. It was as though I was standing only feet away from the piano which much have manifested inside my bedroom after I left or perhaps since my intruder had found their way inside.

The piece was playing in a deeper key than the original composition, it was no longer enticing but intimidating. It was threatening. It was also being played slower, the overall effect made the piece sound demonic, but still so clearly the flowing chords of Beethoven.

I have always liked to think myself rational; a thinker even. I like to think that if placed in almost any situation, I would find the route of common sense and follow it till its end. I proved on this night that once common sense becomes clear and accessible, I will choose to ignore it.

I did not run away. Fear truly felt is as inhibiting as love and as dangerous as any drug. Unless you have felt this fear, you cannot know my mind in these moments no matter how detailed my description. Fear goes beyond words. It is with this fear that I listened to the performance of Fur Elise and it is with this fear that I walked towards my bedroom door. Unlike my first excursion I found every step came too quickly and before I was prepared, I was outside my bedroom door. Only a few feet of bedroom carpet and a few inches of wood separated me from where the piano must have been standing. I quickly became aware of how much time I had spent outside of doors trembling, I may have found it funny had I not heard a familiar soft voice,

Come in my darling. Come to bed

I stiffened and my heart skipped straight up into my throat. The words had not come through the bedroom door but had been spoken into my ear from behind. I slowly turned and for the fleetest of moments, saw the face of a young woman. Her mouth curled into a small smile illuminated by her deep red lipstick, but it was her eyes that I must describe for they are what drove ice through my veins. Her eyes were wide. Inhumanly wide and showed an unnatural amount of the whiteness behind the iris and pupils, which were dark and unmoving. She looked both animal and human, but it was the eyes that showed her other-worldly condition, and I understood them perfectly. I continued to see those eyes long after they had vanished.

I had not realised that for the final time Fur Elise had ceased. I heard the quiet but recognisable sound of a piano lid closing. This was followed by light shuffling and the squeak of bed-springs as someone laid on top of the mattress.

Suddenly I realised that the voice I had just heard was the same that had woken me what seemed like hours ago; the voice that had begun this whole terrible nightmare. Like one remembering the events of a dream the previous night, I recalled the exact words that gently brought me to consciousness;

Chase me a while my love. Chase me before bed. I will let you catch me. I promise.

All inhibitions dampened by a mixture of inevitability and curiosity, I chased her. I opened the bedroom door and stepped inside.

The room was just as dark as the hallway, however, my eyes had grown used to the lack of light and I could see the outlines of my possessions. Everything was as normal as could be; nothing had been moved to make space for the piano which was of course, absent. There was no sign that a piano had even been in the room. The only addition to my room was the body lying in my bed, facing away from me on its side. Its long hair sprawled across my pillows and sheets like a large velvet spider. I edged a step closer, morbid curiosity dominating all other reactions. My mind screamed a name. Elise. I took another step, and then another. I was now halfway between door and bed, I was on the precipice of committing to the urge to see her face. To see the eyes. I had spent too much of the night passive, waiting for events to happen to me, this time, I had to take charge. I stepped forward and found myself a step away from a pivotal change in perspective; one more step and I would be able to see her face. I paused. I took a breath to compose myself but was dispossessed of any sense of control for with an inhuman rapidity, her head twisted to face me. Her eyes were open and they were wide and bright. Black pupils gone, it was only the whites of the eyes that greeted me. The rest of her face was expressionless. She did not need to snarl or sneer or thrash to show her hate, her violence. She simply stared and I saw that she was evil, I saw her malicious intent. I heard Elise scream inside my mind. She turned her body around, all of her now facing me. She tilted her head and contemplated the weak and frightened man in front of her. She remained in this pose for some time, before returning her head to an upright position before breaking my understanding of movement for a third time by scuttling insect-like under the covers, down the bed and feet first onto the floor. She now stood mere inches from me, possessing no smell or breath. She was simply there. The deep pools that were here eyes held mine effortlessly. She moved, slowly this time, and came closer to me, her feet never leaving the floor and always soundless. She continued until she was shoulder to shoulder with me. I was too terrified to turn so I just viewed her from my peripheral, she was staring straight ahead, towards the wall behind me. Her voice was level, louder than a whisper but softer than anyone had ever spoken to me before;

Let me chase you a while my love. Let me chase you before you die. Will you let me catch you? Will you promise me?

She moved out of sight, and without turning, I knew that she was no longer in the room and I was alone.

That was nearly a year ago, and I have travelled all over England, Wales and Scotland, from the busiest and loudest of cities to the peaceful reclusive woodland hovels, never settling for long. She has not allowed it. Ever since I finally ran from my home in the early hours of the morning, I have felt her, known her eyes to be boring into the back of my head as she chases me.

Tonight I stop running. Tonight I will let her catch me.

I am not a young man. Before this began I had already entered the realms of the aged and am now too tired to run anymore. I doubt that even in my youth I would have run forever, she does not run out of breath. She does not slow down. I wrote these pages to warn the world of her. How she found me and why she chose me I cannot say, but if you ever hear a whisper as you sleep. Sleep on. Do not allow yourself to wake, and if you do, run. Run before she plays you her favourite piece. The piece that was written for her over two hundred years ago by a man I can only imagine suffered the same torment as I have.

My time has come. As I write these final words, the springs of my single bed are groaning under the new weight. She is here. She is humming the notes of Fur Elise. It is magnificent, so elegant. I can hear her humming from the corner behind me where my bed lies.

It is truly a beautiful way to die.

© 2017 Tom Float

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Reviews

Richard Charles

Bravo! This piece felt so solid and wonderfully told. Your sentences are so well crafted and flow so easily. The story itself was captivating. You reveal its path with a really nice rhythm. Thanks for the share!