Travis E. Hughes

Devil Music Travis E. Hughes

They just wanted to open a rock-and-roll nightclub. But when renovating their newly acquired, Creole building in New Orleans, a former Grunge musician, Eric Talbert, and his young wife, Sarah, discover lewd postcards from the eighteen hundreds, advertising the talents of fallen doves. Under a layer of paint they find a mural that depicts ominous looking cherubs dancing around an orange sunrise. Below it, written in French, it reads: La Maison Du Soleil Levant, ?The House of the Rising Sun.? A farm boy with a pretty voice and a dream to make it as a rock guitarist, Johnny Hudson, comes to work behind the bar. He?s a naïve rube who everyone takes pity on and Eric offers him the apartment above the club for dirt cheap rent. Upstairs had been the brothel. It starts as unexplainable noises. But eventually raps and bumps lead to disenchanted voices and distant music, when no one else is in the club but Johnny. Until one night, Johnny finds a leather-bound notebook hidden in the floor. In it are beautiful, but chilling songs written in a deft hand. Suddenly Johnny can read the music and play the guitar like a master, even though he?s only had a month of lessons. The baser emotions work heavy on everyone who passes through the doors. Sex and violence impregnate the atmosphere each night. And despite good girl Sarah?s trepidation they open the club and awaken long dormant entities that have been the ruin of many a poor soul and will threaten to devour each and every one of them. But the music never sounded so good.