How to Backmask Liner Notes

Robert Jeschonek     

Back in the day, there were many who claimed that liner notes on the covers of vinyl record albums were the highest form of literature.  It was in that era that the most infamous liner notes ever published made their debut.  We reprint them here for the fifteenth time, at the risk of triggering yet another unsolved missing person case, as has happened every time they've been printed so far.

Without further ado, I—Stark Pomeroy, liner notes expert—bring you those fateful notes, printed this time on the cover of a newly-pressed record by a modern group, exactly as originally printed on the cardboard sleeve of the album Easy Come by the X-Pop group Genius Presenting as Moron:

~

My name is Avery Halifax, and I am being held prisoner in the plant that prints these album covers.  Please, if you have an ounce of humanity in your heart, find a way to free me from my captivity before it's too late.

Though I fear it is much, much later than that already.

~

WAIT, STOP!  Apologies, dear reader.  As any student of these notes will tell you, the name of the captive in the original first printing was Bertram Sibilant.  That is the name that should have appeared above, in this reprint of the original notes.

But somehow, as has happened every other time the notes have been reprinted, a new name has been substituted in the text for that of Bertram Sibilant.

In each reprint before this, a different person claimed to be trapped in the printing plant where the album sleeves were produced…and, indeed, an actual person by that name was later reported as missing.  That was fourteen people ago, and here we are again with someone new being mentioned—someone by the name of Avery Halifax.

Given the possible life-or-death stakes that these notes portend, let's read on in search of clues to Avery's location:

~

I do not know the name or address of this printing facility…but I do know the name of the musical group whose album sleeves are currently being manufactured here, the sleeves to which I'm adding this text.

The band is called Paraffin-de-siècle, as you can see from the cover of the record in your hands.  With little trouble, you should be able to find the name of the plant that printed it, then the location…and then…

~

STOP!  Before you ask, no, we did not intentionally swap out the name of the band (Genius Presenting as Moron) from the first published edition of the notes for the name of the new band (Paraffin-de-siècle) on whose album sleeve we are currently reprinting the original text.

Somehow, the electronic file of the original liner notes has been compromised.  According to the revised text, someone is again trapped in a printing plant, about to be killed…or they were when this was printed, at least.

If there is the slightest chance of saving this person's life, we must take it.  I am placing a call right now to the appropriate authorities to rush to the printing plant where this new album sleeve was printed in the hope of rescuing Avery Halifax.

#

Alas, that lead has gone nowhere.  The name and address of the printing facility we have in our records are incorrect.  We have no way of knowing where the album sleeve was actually printed or where Avery Halifax is being held…unless there's another clue in the remaining text.

Holding my breath, I keep reading:

~

Please hurry.  I have no idea how long I'll have before this message is found by my abductor.  Will the albums with the tampered sleeve be destroyed or shipped before then?

Will anyone who can help me read this?  Will I already be dead when they do?

What if no one come to my rescue before he returns—my captor, my torturer…the man who has promised to kill me…

… Stark Pomeroy?

~

WAIT!  NO!

WHY WOULD MY NAME BE PRINTED THERE?  HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???

I read the passage again and again, and it still makes no sense.  There must be an elaborate prank in progress at my expense!

Pulling out a lighter, I flick it to life near the cardboard sleeve.  I intend to burn it, reducing its hateful accusations to ash.

And yet, my eyes wander back to the text.  My soul curdles, yet I read on:

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This is no joke!  Stark Pomeroy is my abductor and likely killer.  Do not hesitate to bring him to justice if…

~

Here, there is a break in the text, as if another voice has interrupted Avery's:

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Cullin Pomeroy and his son, Stark, are my abductors and soon-to-be killers.  Do not hesitate to…

~

Again, another break, another voice:

~

Randall Pomeroy, his son, Cullin, and his grandson, Stark, have abducted and promised to kill me.  I beg you to rain down vengeance upon these monsters and never let me be forgotten.  My name is Lacy Bridgewater.

~

THAT NEVER HAPPENED!  NONE OF IT DID.  I did no harm to any of those listed in the liner notes, nor do I know any of them.  I only recognize their names from reading previous reprints of the notes, all pleading for rescue from various nonexistent printing plants.

ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE.  WHY THEN DO THEIR NAMES APPEAR AGAIN, FADING INTO VIEW ONE AFTER ANOTHER ON THE ALBUM SLEEVE IN MY TREMBLING, SWEATY HAND?

~

My name is Darrell Whittaker.

My name is Eleanor Barstowe.

Gavin Reynolds

Sylvia Oakley

Jonathan

Howard

Beverly

Carla

Douglas

My name is Marvin Collier.

~

Hands shaking like leaves in a hurricane, I set fire to the sleeve with the flame from the lighter…

…and the pounding on the door begins.

Someone on the other side shouts, "Police!  Open up!"

The door crashes inward, propelled by a battering ram.

"Drop the weapon!" shouts a cop.  "Drop the weapon now!"

Suddenly, I hear voices in my head, the voices of the people listed in the liner notes all talking at once.  All of them are angry, proclaiming my guilt, hammering like psychic battering rams at the inside of my head.

Gaping at the blazing sleeve, I see my current thoughts being translated into black text on its charred surface, text that I swear didn't exist seconds ago.  How can what I'm thinking at this moment be magically printed on the cardboard right before my eyes?

I suppose it doesn't make much difference as the compartmentalization of a lifetime breaks down in my brain.  Walls crumble, exposing the truth of the terrible deeds I've tried hiding from even myself, my own conscious mind…the only way I could live all this time with what I've done, and my father before me, and his father before him.

In a way, it's like a song, with secrets woven in like backmasked code under the surface—ever present, darkening every moment, yet hidden, undetected until someone reverses the spin of the record.  It's a song with a theme that recurs and a catchy hook and chorus, made to repeat like an earworm no matter how much you wish you could forget it.  And then at the end there's a helluva crescendo and a final, lingering chord right out of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life."

That crescendo starts when I raise the flaming album sleeve as the cops scream at me to drop it right now or we'll shoot!

And it echoes on and on long after the last of the policemen's triggers have been squeezed, the last of their bullets discharged into my body.

Robert Jeschonek a USA Today bestselling author. His poem, "Murder by the Numbers," and story, “Secretary to a Serial Killer,” appeared in Yellow Mama. His work has also been published in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Weird Fiction Quarterly, and other markets around the world.