Catching Ghost

Twelve Drummers Drumming - A Dark Tidings Horror Story

Twelve Days of Christmas—Dark Tidings is a Substack special holiday event. Each day beginning Friday the 13th, we’ll count down to Christmas Eve with a dark tale featuring one of the gifts from the classic carol. A guide to all the stories can be found here

art by Mark of the Brand

We trained in the catacombs under the defunct apostolic church on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Benny says it's the best vibe in town for spirit slips and resonant thrumlets. The kind that quiver through the skin and make the head sweat.

And after many months of practice, even through the chaotic echoes of the underground, locking in was easier than we ever thought it might be. Sticks on skins, we were a rhythm machine of exacting certitude, though it wasn't always this way.

Back in the thaw of Spring, when the mountain melt comes down from the sublimating vapour structures, I joined the gang out at the Falls to experience The Draw. And when those first droplets of the new year fell, slipping over the slate and bursting on the limestone shelf, I almost cried—a primal sensitivity to the auspicious meter flow, in nested polyrhythms. It was an affecting moment, divining the one hundred and forty-four beat pattern that would be our sacred study and song of sacrifice up until the Dark Solstice.

In those early days, I don't think any of us thought we could do it. After all, we twelve were conscripted fresh out of school. Our discipline was flimsy at best despite our surface level courage and performative confidence up against certain annihilation in the event of a dropped stroke or clumsy syncopation.

I was second snare. Bethany was first and the Micro twins were three and four. Benny and Hazel held the bass, Thad and Maddie got mids, and Serp and Trini got the high toms, though I wasn't sure these were exactly the correct assignments, hindsight and all. Helena was on blocks and Shin on the bell to round out the high notes.

The trick was letting go. Giving in to the call. We called it Catching Ghost but it wasn't about possession, it was communion with invisible forces and unknowable science in a realm of mercurial deities and an indifferent natural order.

A few weeks before the big show, we thought it might be a worthwhile activity to check out the venue before practice. The Bat Council Band Shell in Hurley Mazinsky Park looked like the scalloped exoskeleton of some ancient giant mollusk. We softened, reverent and silent as some fallen leaves whisked across the stage in a baby twister as the late afternoon sun teased through the bare branches at the far end of the glade near City Hall. The days were so short now.

Serp broke the silence, “I will be glad when it’s over,” he said oblivious to how it sounded to the rest of us.

It gave me the bumps and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one. It’s when I knew we had a weakness in the chain. Serp was focused on the done instead of the doing. This was bad. It was catchy.

Shin blurts out, “My Grandoodle says, the Drumline 89 went down in pieces, one at a time”

Maddie chips in, “Like a hammer on a carton of eggs Mom says,”

So I’ve got to stop the nervous descent into insecurity and self doubt before all the poised assurance we’d built up starts to unravel.

“They're just scary stories. Every band has been flawless for the last thirty-six years, it will be no different this year,” I tell them feeling like I have to over extend my informal command of the group.

I wasn’t the leader but I wasn't not the leader either. Someone had to wrangle and cheerlead this outfit.

As for me, I was all in. You had to be. Performing The Dodecatam was an immersive rite of devotion, and if you weren't open to the flow, there’d be something terribly eager to open it up for you on the other end.

Later that night in the incandescent glow of yellowing lightbulbs, under the stone arches of our rehearsal chamber, I was happy to affirm that the Drumline felt unaffected by the earlier nervous chatter and dismissive tone. But I kept an eye on Serp just the same.

It was, in fact, a particularly heady session that evening. Took an extra few minutes to clear the residual endospectral goodies out of the cranium after a ripe enthrallment. Thad stayed zoned out for a good half hour before Helena poked his ribcage and pulled him out of the phantom interference. From here on in we needed to run Dodecatam drills every day. Gotta ramp up the stamina or we'd never last the cycle.

Got home late that friday night and my little sister, Marlo-Megan, had left me a cardboard diorama of the Drumline rehearsing in our little hollow. It was her way of coping with the gravity of the whole ceremony. She carefully cut out our figures and drums from recycle bin packaging and glued them in a shoebox then drew us all in with expressions of concentration, furrowed brows and serious scowls, except for one character in the scene, with a scribbled out face. I didn't ask.

Bat Council was a pretty kind of dreary this time of year. We were nestled in the hills, downstream from the watershed that drained into the great black inland sea we called Dypdød. It had been snowing for weeks, but by the time it hit the ground, it melted into dirty puddles and slushpiles. Remote and eerie, the earth groaned beneath the town and the forests threatened to envelop us at any opportunity but the natural beauty charmed us into a contentment that was only briefly fazed by an approaching Dark Solstice.

So everyone baked, and crafted, chopped wood, and decorated their homes to dampen the nervous tension you could feel slither, like tentacles through the neighbourhood. Our families all hung the twelve pointed drum star, our sigil of dedication and motif that adorned our skins and regalia. When we passed, people would stop and drop their chins, sometimes signaling their appreciation and respect with a four over three hand sign. I was still getting used to the elevated status and truthfully didn't think about it much. There was too much at stake to be distracted by my ego and the flares of attention.

The problem was, if one drummer broke out of spirit—out of sync, it was likely the rest would follow, untethered from the group unity and collective rapture, the drumline could devolve into their own sputtering demise. Stories say judgement is swift and dramatic but I don't intend on any of us finding out.

We don't talk about them much, don't try and describe them, and don't try to understand their intentions or meaning. Like Bethany says, they just are and will be. Manifest entities of terrible power—elemental beings, when they call, we respond.

I was walking to Hazel's place looking at my Dodecatam study guide, a laminated card with 12 concentric rings in 12 segments with stochastic groupings of red dots across the grid. She thinks we should give Serp less to do, and I don't disagree but I also don't want to change anything at this point.

Then, a few days before the grand event, Trini and Serp, came to practice with fever chills. Everyone masked up but we made them practice in the corner facing the wall anyway. Had to keep a full outbreak to a minimum. Couldn't risk anyone coming down with sweaty slippery hands in the middle of a 9 over 5 rotating counter point with accents on the sevens. .

In retrospect, we might’ve not shunned them so severely. Guess it gave Serp, already feeling sensy, a little more skeleton chair anxiety than we'd considered. Bad form on our part, but at least some of us stayed strong.

Last night, before practice, and I catch Maddie and Thad humming high before dress rehearsal with nerve ticks and fuzz logic. Benny made them mellow tea and we brought them back down easy. Best we hold them open now with the promise of bold fascination. The rest of us finished the steeped elixir and entered the transvection.

Helena started the Dodecatam on the blocks. And when we heard those first beats, the groove transition was sublime and the shade seduction fogged our sockets. The Micro twins showed the whites as they alternated rims and rolls. And in perfect time, we all entered the movement in ecstatic attunement.

There was nothing like it. The mesmerizing thrum fell like cosmic rain, and for a moment, I caught myself thinking I would miss this fellowship and union with the supernatural. What would I do? Who would I be when it was over? Where would we go from here?

And like I was afraid of, my philosophical meandering snipped the ethereal conduit and my focus faltered. I stuttered through a triplet, sloppy and late. Bethany and the others tried to hold it together, but succumbed to disorientation and we all fell like dominos.

There was a hissing in the walls and the air in the basement thickened like expanding wet gas, a primitive emanation responding to our fateful error. We held our hands over our ears as the dark whistle grew louder until it peaked with a crack like a barrier breaking. Then nothing.

Serp broke down sobbing, "We can't do it, it's too much," he burbled through the snot. Trini held his trembling shoulders but also started to cry, sniffling into the back of his neck.

Shin beaned his bell like an alarm, trying to snap us out of the collective despair, signalling us to start again. "No sense dwelling on it. We've slipped before. That's why we practice" he said taking control of the situation.

I'm happy someone was able to help us regroup. I was in no state to do it. Still reeling from my profound blunder, I couldn't believe I let it happen so easily.

After some mediation and soul sharpening, we brushed off our sequined singlets and got back in. Though not as bright and confident as we hoped, we managed to execute our rhythmic covenant, trying to erase the awareness of the lurking haunt we knew was listening.

The next day we sequester in the Pipers Annex just beside the amphitheatre until golden hour. Helena and Shin try to keep it light with a vaguely choreographed head bobbing performance, their fez tassels swinging in matching circles and bumping from side to side like dancing furballs.

The toms are sitting together and try and pump each other up, but really, it's all for Serp. He's doing an okay job at looking strong but his aura sags and I can hear the cracks in his feigned affirmations.

I keep my resolve, and rally the group with long jokes and rhyming chains. It was better to stay loose and limber. And as the light fades, we lower the tone and stretch out our ligaments.

When we climb the stairs to the stage, I see Marlo-Megan and the folks wave to me from the front row. I sneak out a one corner smile as we line up from high to low.

We wait for our cue. The town has gathered in front of us ready for the Dodecatam to begin. Then like it does every year, the air pressure drops and all things become still. The birds, silenced, the trees freeze, and all atmospheric phenomena dissipate into a vacuum. The absence of movement is unnerving. It's time to begin.

I'm quickly entranced by the long practiced charismatic invocation. Strong and free, I've got the charge of shadow plasma articulating through my movements. The hits punch and pulse, we crackle with vitality and fill the park with strata of reverberating praise.

But near the end, the weave does not hold and Serp, dripping with the tang of dread, loses his grip and misses the next beat which sends Trini and Thad off course which makes Maddie try to correct the imbalance with frantic flams and asynchronous rudiments. We keep playing, but what is undone is undone.

Then the last strike thunders in the shell. The Dodecatam decay vibrates around us, bending the blue light, but there is no finite resolve. No slack in the chain. And no diffuse de-escalation for the people in Bat Council today. Entropy is loose.

The crowd, aware something is wrong, bump out of the way, parting like a curtain as a Black Goat staggers forward through the audience toward the stage. Harbinger of calamity, it hops, limping, like it's wounded. Twelve horns curl serpentine from it's skull like a tangled crown of writhing keratin and twelve eyes square blink across it's bearded face.

When the Black Goat cries out, I almost vomit. The bleating sonic scraping wipes away any agency in the throng of onlookers as they are compelled to lift their heads to the sky and drop their jaws open like baby birds gaping for worms. And from their mouths comes a dissonance of brass, horns wailing with formidable urgency. Their tongues spasm uncontrollably and I can see tears roll off my little sister's cheeks as she blares, helpless and terrified.

Our instruments lowered to our feet, the drumline gawks uselessly, now stuck in place, like the ominous chorus has heralded some super gravity that kinks our spines and buckles our legs. I have to lower myself to hands and knees and try maneuvering away from Serp and Trini who have crumpled to the floor, apparently feeling more crushing weight than the rest of us. Their contorted faces sink deep into their softened bedazzled torsos. The town continues to trumpet manically as Thad and Maddie try to crawl away but their escape is thwarted by an invisible thumb that presses down into their backs and pinches them in two. The Black Goat begins to sing over the din, dark and angelic, with the rasp of cold earth and gurgle of water.

I roll off the hardwood onto the ground as the wind picks up and flings our drums into the trees. There's a roar, like an unseen fire too hot to perceive onstage where the disordered tom section, now a corporeal mass of skin, bones and unctuous fat is thrown skyward into a swirl of browning clouds with a repulsive force. The Black Goat closes it's eyes and hits an impossible high note. A clarion call and signal as the Dark Solstice commences and the longest night begins.

I lay on my back looking up, half waiting for some ghastly torture to rip me apart but nothing comes. The Black Goat disappears back into the crowd and my remaining bandmates, now unencumbered, climb to their unsteady feet. The enchanted attendees, still in their stupour begin to shiver awake, and now, a coarse stinking particulate rains down on us as we begin the new year. Dark Tidings everyone.

Next up:

Andy Futuro

and Eleven Pipers piping