Music from the Stars

A group of radio astronomers working in a secluded desert observatory have died. Investigation suggests that they all killed each other in a kind of frenzied bloodlust. Detailed investigation reveals that the astronomers were picking up a strange signal from a distant star - a strange kind of music with high-pitched wails and deep groaning moans.

Possibilities

1 The song is the Song of Shoggoth and is transmitted from a star in a far-distant galaxy. The song is a prayer that causes madness in weak-willed humans. Cults in certain areas of South America have duplicated the song in their own way over the years but none of them has ever brought the madness that the true Song of Shoggoth brings upon those who hear it.

2 The astronomers picked up a communication from another galaxy that is being sent by a highly advanced civilization as a message of peace. However, the message is too complex for human minds to comprehend, and those that try are stricken with madness.

3 The music is made by the mi-go as they travel across the vastness of space. It is filled with subliminal signals that are meant to convey an attitude of peace and solitude, but human minds cannot process the complexity of the music and they go insane from listening to it for too long.

© Paul Comeau

Drinking in the Blues

A black musician arrives in town with a guitar and a suitcase done up with string. His name is Simon Turner and he plays sweet music for anyone who asks him to, be it for a couple of dollars in a smoke-filled speakeasy, or for a meal and a bed for the night, or even for nothing but a few kids loitering on a streetcorner. The gentle guitar notes trickle like gold into the ears of Simon’s audience, and his mellow bass voice soothes all troubles.

An investigator encounters Simon accidentally, bumping into him in the street or hearing him playing in a rented room in a flophouse, where the music drifts down to the listener as he walks home at night. The investigator is enchanted, longing to hear it again. However, no matter how much she tries to meet Simon, she misses him every time, by only a few minutes.

After staying for a few days, Simon moves on, but in the weeks that follow, the town’s attitudes start to mellow. Racists and bigots become less ardent, and life becomes just that little bit easier for blacks in the town. While not a complete turn around, things have improved, and Simon Turner has left his mark.

Possibilities

1 Simon Turner is an ordinary, if incredibly gifted, man. His music is beautiful, but not Mythos inspired. Not all strange events relate to madness and tentacled monstrosities.

2 Simon is one of the less malevolent avatars of Nyarlathotep. His music is the music of gods and demons, an ambrosia for the ears, a melody divine. And, like his music, his favour is heaven sent. Anyone actively antagonising the black community without fair reason disappears with a slither of tentacles and a strange piping at night.

3 Simon is an Outer God named Yd’gh’tjetye, the same who lured Erich Zann to music and to madness. This inhuman musician seeks an audience. The mellowing is a side effect of listening to such unearthly music.

P.S. Please use this Tale of Terror as an excuse to play some really fine music.

© Eamon Honan