Mr. Burke did not know he was about to die.
He hummed quietly to himself as he began to prepare for bed. It was a happy little tune, not any song in particular, but he found it always seemed to help him feel a little less lonely, as if there were someone else there to listen.
Tonight, someone was listening.
Had he been a more observant man, Mr. Burke might have noticed the knife missing from the kitchen knife rack. Yet, as it was late, and as Mr. Burke rarely noticed such things, he went about making himself his lunch for the next day without noticing a thing out of place. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple, chips, and a bottle of water. The same lunch Mr. Burke had eaten for the last 57 years. He was a man of habit, and he had never found any reason to break this one.
As he brushed his teeth, Mr. Burke remarked—as he often did—how empty the house seemed with Mrs. Burke gone. Although he had come to terms with her death, he felt strange living there alone. It was as if a part of the house was missing, that gaps had appeared in the structure that could only be filled by another companion.
Knowing that he did have company that night, however, may not have done much to soothe him.
Mr. Burke made sure all of the lights in the house were off and crawled into bed. He was moving much slower these days, but he usually didn’t mind. He found that he rarely needed to rush anywhere anyways, and regardless of the pace he moved at, he was able to manage.
His head had barely hit the pillow when Mr. Burke heard something strange. Music was coming from the living room, and was getting louder by the second. A classical piece, Beethoven perhaps, or maybe Mozart. A slow and sad melody sung by strings filled the house, and Mr. Burke reached over to the light switch to determine the source of this strange tune. Yet when he flipped the switch, the room remained concealed in darkness. He sighed and made his way to the bedroom door, reaching his hands forward in the dark to make sure his path was clear. It had been a long time since he was afraid of the dark.
As Mr. Burke groped his way down the dark hallway, he began to worry about what the neighbors would think about the music playing so loud at this time of night. He had no doubt that at this volume, they would be able to hear every note. Now a choir had joined the sound of the strings, a medley of deep, lamenting baritones and wailing, tragic sopranos, singing in some language he couldn’t understand. Mr. Burke had never heard the piece before, but found it deeply saddening. The music filled his ears and he felt immersed in it, yet his overwhelming feeling was confusion as to why it was playing in his home. Down the hall, a faint glow emanated from the living room.
He stumbled his way out of the hall to find his laptop open, and connected to large speakers he hadn’t used in a very long time. As he moved toward the computer, the voices that surrounded him rose and fell in agony and sorrow, and in combination with the strings surged toward a climax, the vocals and instruments building off of each other like breakers coming into shore, preparing to crash down all at once in one great tidal wave. Mr. Burke squinted down at the screen right as the piece came to its height.
All of a sudden, a strong, gloved hand grasped what remained of Mr. Burke’s hair, and the missing knife from his kitchen appeared at his throat. In one swift motion, the knife was gone again, and Mr. Burke’s neck split open in a spurt of blood. He fell to the ground, the choir still wailing their woeful song, now tragically seeming to lament Mr. Burke’s unfortunate fate. He couldn’t move, he could barely think. He didn’t exactly know what was happening or why. All he could do was lay on the floor of his living room and listen to the mournful dirge as he felt the life slowly drain out of him.
Mr. Burke knew he was about to die.