Rachmaninoff's Ghost

Rachmaninoff's Ghost

Isle of the Dead

By M.F. Korn

Smashwords Edition

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, entities or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by M.F. Korn

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Author's Note

The author would like to state that this novel is not intended to imply that Sergei Vassilyovich Rachmaninoff was evil or practiced or had any knowledge of the Occult. The author has the greatest amount of respect for Mr. Rachmaninoff and wishes that no amount of harm be brought to his name.

To Savannah Hart Korn

If there be a hell upon Earth it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart.

--Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Democritus to the Reader

Hence loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,

In Stygian Cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

--Milton, L'Allegro

An Antecedent and a Horror

Near the corner of 57th and Columbus in Manhattan, New York, a tall, thin young man lay sprawled on the sidewalk. He wore a filthy trenchcoat over a tattered navy-blue suitcoat. His body was not quite in the shade of the awning of a brownstone building housing Al's Tailoring Shop.

It was the shank of winter - a blustery day in this miasmic city full of Existential fury. It was lunch hour for the business crowd. The masses of businessmen and women went about their appointed rounds. The skyscrapers were edified against a cerulean sky and their jutting shadows dwarfed the rushing crowds on the street. The stifling traffic, cabs and trucks, honking and bleating, crept past the young derelict choking on exhaust fumes.

The man shivered with fright and cold. His chest spasmed with pain. He coughed violently as masses of passersby walked over and around him. He lay facedown on the street drain. His blonde crew-cut was tainted with filth, his bare ankles blistered beneath scuffed-up dress shoes. Death seemed to lurk over his dry-heaving body. Panic glazed his eyes. He wasn't unconscious, but silent and still.

A hot-dog vendor, who had been watching the prone man for twenty minutes, walked up to where he lay motionless.

Hey? You all right?

No.

You want me to call a cop or something?

I am Sergei, mumbled the man. I have been to the Isle of the Dead. You know?

What are you saying?

No answer.

Okay. The vendor shrugged. He slowly walked back to his cart. He muttered crackhead to himself.

The young man had been sleeping in a hotel near 45th until he was kicked out. Then it was Central Park - until the cops forced him to move on. He couldn't remember his last meal. His face was handsome.

He'd been nodding in and out of narcoleptic stages when two medics from nearby Saint Luke's Hospital appeared, dispatched in response to a concerned 911 call. They approached him slowly and cautiously.

Hey, Mister. Mister… Come along with us.

He didn't move. The medic spoke again.

The young man lifted his head.

That's it. . . . Get yourself up, now. . . . Gooood . . . That's it, now.

The man managed to stand up with their help. They walked him to the ambulance. He mumbled, Isle of the Dead. . .

The driver radioed in to his dispatcher:

We've got a Caucasian male, no identification, early twenties. He probably hasn't eaten - really out of it. Dehydrated, emaciated, irregular breathing, not responding much . . . possibly drugs. Low pulse rate, blood pressure ninety over sixty.

At the emergency room of St. Lukes, a hospital gown replaced his torn clothing, and they put him on an IV drip.

Yeah, he's dehydrated, assessed the nurse.

He sobbed on the bed. He tried to speak but only slurred in intervals.

Rachmaninoff . . . have . . . been to . . . Isle of the Dead.

Okay, that's fine, coached the nurse. Now, is that your name? Where do you live?

He didn't understand.

You look like you haven't eaten for a while. You don't look like a druggie to me. Mental illness, maybe? Who knows?

What have we got here? asked the doctor, picking up the patient's printout off the end of the bed

Seems to be delusional. All he seems to say is 'I am Rachmaninoff,' or some Russian-sounding name like that. Like Sergei something. That might be his name, right?

Probably not. Don't you know your composers, Gwen?

"A shopkeeper said he saw him busting into businesses, raving about the Isle of the Dead or something. Saying he was going to be on the cover of Time magazine. Then they saw him lay in the gutter all morning. Said they figured him for dead. He has no wallet, nothing."

Looks emaciated, way underweight, said Dr. Kennedy, looking at his patient whose blank expression silently spoke of mental anguish. His pale face was a portrait of tortured features.

So, he thinks he is Rachmaninoff, eh? the doctor continued. It's okay there, young man. We'll take care of you. Give him a change of clothes, and we'll get him transferred to Behavioral if he starts coming around. No medical insurance here, obviously. If he doesn't eat in a while, he's a goner. Keep that intravenous drip for a good while.

Yes, Dr. Kennedy. I'll finish up his chart in just a minute and bring it back to you, she said.

Good.

Chapter One

Six months earlier:

When Mark Conner drove to the tiny, barely-on-the-map town of Hemdale, he didn't exactly know where Southeastern College was. Then he realized it was the town itself, as if the college had swallowed it whole. Hemdale was fifty miles east of Mark's hometown, Baton Rouge, but he had never been here before.

Two miles past the I-55 interstate exit, he left the highway and threaded his way down Railroad Avenue, which led to Southeastern's campus - it seemed any road would have led to it. He passed an old downtown area that appeared unchanged since Reconstruction. Then were the tennis courts and dormitories. Across from a circular drive was a University Theater.

He parked the car. His parents had given it to him a year ago.

Excuse me, where do you register? he asked a passing co-ed.

Thomas Hall, that building right there.

Thanks.

The campus was stirring from slumber. The chaos of Registration was going on, and the municipal lungs of Hemdale were being aerated once again by streams of youthful students plodding their way to one degree or another.

His switch from engineering to music - and probable loss of a perfectly good career, too - was in defiance of a direct order from his dad. Mark knew he wasn't that talented a pianist; he had taken lessons since third grade but had seen plenty of others play better than he could. Mark had bought a classical album of Vladimir Horowitz performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no. 2, and he had practically worn it out. He had since bought every Rachmaninoff album he could buy.

The big, lofty lobby of the music building was just as he had thought it would be - complete with twin spiraling staircases draped with music majors milling about. The main office was in the left wing, and the sign on the already opened door read: Dr. L. Petrie. Inside sat a very short, elderly-mannered man rubbing lotion on his hands, his thick horn-rimmed glasses sitting atop his small head. Mark walked in and introduced himself.

So, you would like to major in piano, said the professor. His smile gave way to a set of the tiniest teeth Mark had ever seen. Dr. Petrie's speech was slightly effeminate but quite firm.

Yes sir.

Why don't you sit?

The short, pleasant man hummed a bit.

So, what music do you play?

Mark smiled self-consciously. He had the shyness that ran in the family.

Oh, lots of ragtime, Gershwin a little, Mark said animatedly, smiling.

This was his dream, and here he was. He knew he wasn't good enough to get in the music school at Louisiana State University. Why, they would have laughed him right out of there. And yet here he was, with a good chance of getting in.

I see, said the professor. Mark, we teach the classics: Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.

Rachmaninoff?

Rachmaninoff? My dear boy, I don't know if you're ready for him. His music is . . . very complicated, very complex. He was a great talent of this century and wrote for himself and others of his caliber.

Mark tried to hide his disappointment.

Would you like to play something for us? asked Petrie. Mark wondered who was us, but saw just a huge, framed signed photo. Above the two grand pianos in the office, staring ominously back at Mark was the great German pianist Rudolph Ganz, who Mark assumed had taught Dr. Petrie. The professor hummed. Mark swallowed.

Sure.

Fear began to crawl through him as he sat down on the bench. He gently put his hands on the keys, waited for a few moments, and then played a sonatina - the only one he knew. He missed some notes, and then some more. Dr. Petrie cupped his hands, tapping his fingers in a philosophical manner as he listened. Then it was over.

Um, well, that's fine, said the professor.

Chills ran down Mark's thin frame as he walked out of the building into the sweet afternoon air. I did it! I am a piano performance major, he thought to himself. He knew he would have to practice every day if he wanted to be any good. Maybe he could minor in voice, if his piano ability wasn't that strong. Regardless, he had made it!

After registering for classes, he called his parents from his newly assigned dorm room. He broke the news. Of course they didn't know what to say - last they heard he was in engineering about to reregister at LSU. He knew he shocked them, but, once again, they gave in.

It would be a few days before classes started. He would have a long weekend in his new dorm, thinking and ruminating about his new status as a piano major.

After unpacking, Mark had noticed something interesting as he roughed out the directions to the nearest McDonald's. A block away from campus was Greenlawn Cemetery.

That night, he asked his new roommate, Kirby, about it.

...the music majors like to go there at night to party. We roam among the tombs, he'd said, just having fun.

Nice guy, Mark thought. Chubby nice black guy. Music major. Going to be a band director. Mark could tell they would get along famously.

***

The next morning, Mark drove downtown to Railroad Avenue, a shabbier part of town. Next to an abandoned trailer in a vacant lot used for refuse was a small bookshop, The Book Trader.

Mark was intrigued by the Occult; he had been reading about it since Junior High. When he was young he had gone on occult picnics with his mother. She was also his best friend, a self-taught artist who dabbled in the craft of sketching and in things a little less mundane. She had taken him as her bosom companion; together they had discovered an old rural cemetery and began exploring around the graves, looking for the oldest date. They often did gravestone etchings. His mother used to secretly do spells with him in the graveyard on their picnics.

Mark never questioned her strange little obsession and always kept her secret; dad never knew. At home, she would read to him from many occult tomes. He got very familiar with the standard texts in the field. And ever since mom introduced him to her passion in the occult and esoteric, he had made a point of it to rove through any used bookshop for hidden occult treasures.

He hadn't mentioned any of this to Kirby and didn't plan to.

A sign on the door of this run-down store read: Cannot enter adult section unless 18 years of age.

Mark entered and the smell of old, dingy books immediately filled his senses. He had found most of his treasure troves of arcane volumes and peculiar tomes in places just like this. To his immediate left, he saw an old lady behind the register - not just any old lady, a hideous old lady.

Under a wild rise of white hair, her skull looked like it had voluntarily been placed in a steel vise and squeezed into an oblong shape. She wore plain clothes, and under one arm he could see a thatch of hair. One eye almost bulged right out of its socket, and especially so with the arrival of a potential-money-giving customer. Mark guessed that she had emphysema by the way she hacked and strained to breathe, or perhaps it was the noxious smell of all those dingy books.

The racks that were deliberately placed near her, laden with fifteen-minute time warnings, held the pornography. An ill-looking young man with deathly white skin eyed the merchandise; Mark turned away.

Sir, your fifteen minutes are up, announced the storeowner. Sir! Your fifteen minutes are up in there!

The man hurriedly put the magazine back and exited the store without buying anything.

She sucked in a long drag on her Camel cigarette. The ashtray next to her was overflowing with stubs of butts. Mark sidled to the counter near the cash register.

Excuse me, do you have any, um, Occult books?

She put her smoldering cigarette in the ashtray and a ghastly archaic smile formed. She looked straight at him through her single eye, the abnormal one shut most of the way.

What are you looking for, sir? Horror or Occult? she said in a low, wheezing voice that had a sickly edge to it.

Anything really. Well, Occult.

Well, how do you know what you want, if you . . . do you know any authors?

E. A. Wallis Budge, um, Blavatsky, Churchward, um . . . I am trying to think of some more.

I have some books like that in the back. Follow me.

Mark followed her, trying to avoid looking at her frail body. She led him to the very back section of the dusty store, where books were piled high in bins and boxes. She turned on the light by pulling a knotted string, and then wheezed again from the sudden exercise.

"I have some books here so old I can't even give them away. I