American Supernatural Tales Part 30

Vastarien, he whispered as he stood in the shadows and moonlight of that bare little room, where a ma.s.sive metal door prevented his escape. Within that door a small square of thick gla.s.s was implanted so that he might be watched by day and by night. And there was an unbending web of heavy wire covering the window which overlooked the city that was he whispered as he stood in the shadows and moonlight of that bare little room, where a ma.s.sive metal door prevented his escape. Within that door a small square of thick gla.s.s was implanted so that he might be watched by day and by night. And there was an unbending web of heavy wire covering the window which overlooked the city that was not not Vastarien. Vastarien. Never, Never, chanted a voice which might have been his own. Then more insistently: chanted a voice which might have been his own. Then more insistently: never, never, never never, never, never. . . .

When the door was opened and some men in uniforms entered the room, they found Victor Keirion screaming to the raucous limits of his voice and trying to scale the thick metal mesh veiling the window, as if he were dragging himself along some unlikely route of liberation. Of course, they pulled him to the floor; they stretched him out upon the bed, where his wrists and ankles were tightly strapped. Then through the doorway strode a nurse who carried slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle.

During the injection he continued to scream words which everyone in the room had heard before, each outburst developing the theme of his unjust confinement: how the man he had murdered was using him in a horrible way, a way impossible to explain or make credible. The man could not read the book-there, that that book-and was stealing the dreams which the book had sp.a.w.ned. book-and was stealing the dreams which the book had sp.a.w.ned. Stealing my dreams, Stealing my dreams, he mumbled softly as the drug began to take effect. he mumbled softly as the drug began to take effect. Stealing my. Stealing my. . . . . . .

The group remained around the bed for a few moments, silently staring at its restrained occupant. Then one of them pointed to the book and initiated a conversation now familiar to them all.

"What should we do with it? It's been taken away enough times already, but then there's always another that appears."

"And there's no point to it. Look at these pages-nothing, nothing written anywhere."

"So why does he sit reading them for hours? He does nothing else."

"I think it's time we told someone in authority."

"Of course, we could do that, but what exactly would we say? That a certain inmate should be forbidden from reading a certain book? That he becomes violent?"

"And then they'll ask why we can't keep the book away from him or him from the book? What should we say to that?"

"There would be nothing we could say. Can you imagine what lunatics we would seem? As soon as we opened our mouths, that would be it for all of us."

"And when someone asks what the book means to him, or even what its name is . . . what would be our answer?"

As if in response to this question, a few shapeless groans arose from the criminally insane creature who was bound to the bed. But no one could understand the meaning of the word or words that he uttered, least of all himself. For he was now far from his own words, buried deep within the dreams of a place where everything was transfixed in the order of the unreal; and whence, it truly seemed, he would never return.

KARL EDWARD WAGNER.

Karl Edward Wagner was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1945. He was trained as a psychiatrist before abandoning that career for writing and editing. Initially influenced by the sword-and-sorcery tales of Robert E. Howard, Wagner produced several novels and stories centering around the figure of Kane, a prehistoric hero (loosely modeled on the biblical Cain) who uses both his mind and his muscles to overcome his enemies. Wagner also wrote a novel utilizing Howard's heroes Bran Mak Morn (Legion from the Shadows, 1976) and Conan ( 1976) and Conan (The Road of Kings, 1979). In 1980 he took over the editors.h.i.+p of the series 1979). In 1980 he took over the editors.h.i.+p of the series The Year's Best Horror Stories, The Year's Best Horror Stories, and his diligence in unearthing worthy stories from small-press and other obscure publications earned him well-deserved respect. and his diligence in unearthing worthy stories from small-press and other obscure publications earned him well-deserved respect.

In addition, Wagner wrote numerous short stories of fantasy, science fiction, and the supernatural set in the contemporary world. His most celebrated tale, "Sticks" (1974), is largely a pastiche of H. P. Lovecraft and was meant as an homage to the celebrated fantasy artist Lee Brown Coye. His supernatural tales are gathered in In a Lonely Place In a Lonely Place (1983), (1983), Why Not You and I? Why Not You and I? (1987), and (1987), and Unthreatened by the Morning Light Unthreatened by the Morning Light (1989). These stories range from tributes to such writers as Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers to tormented tales of medical horror, drug addiction, and s.e.xual aberration. Along with David A. Drake (his collaborator on the science fiction novel (1989). These stories range from tributes to such writers as Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers to tormented tales of medical horror, drug addiction, and s.e.xual aberration. Along with David A. Drake (his collaborator on the science fiction novel Killer Killer [1986], set in ancient Rome) and Jim Groce, Wagner founded a specialty press, Carcosa, that issued four volumes from 1973 to 1981. Wagner, beset by alcoholism and other ailments, died unexpectedly in 1994. A posthumous volume of stories, [1986], set in ancient Rome) and Jim Groce, Wagner founded a specialty press, Carcosa, that issued four volumes from 1973 to 1981. Wagner, beset by alcoholism and other ailments, died unexpectedly in 1994. A posthumous volume of stories, Exorcisms and Ecstasies, Exorcisms and Ecstasies, appeared in 1997. His final volume of appeared in 1997. His final volume of The Year's Best Horror Stories The Year's Best Horror Stories was published in 1994, after which the series was canceled. was published in 1994, after which the series was canceled.

"Endless Night" (first published in The Architecture of Fear, The Architecture of Fear, edited by Kathryn Cramer and Peter D. Pautz [1987], and collected in edited by Kathryn Cramer and Peter D. Pautz [1987], and collected in Exorcisms and Ecstasies Exorcisms and Ecstasies) is a prose-poetic narrative in which dream and reality are inextricably confused.

ENDLESS NIGHT.

I runne to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday;

-John Donne, Holy Sonnet I

The dream landscape always stretched out the same. It had become as familiar as the neighborhood yards of his childhood, as the condo-blighted streets of his middle years. Dreams had to have some basis in reality-or so his therapists had tried to rea.s.sure him. If this one did, it was of some unrecognized reality.

They stood upon the edge of the swamp, although somehow he understood that this had once been a river, and then a lake, as all became stagnant and began to sink. The bridge was a relic, stretched out before them to the island-on the far sh.o.r.e-beyond. It was a suspension bridge, from a period which he could not identify with certainty, but suspected was of the early 1930s judging by the Art Deco pylons. It seemed ludicrously narrow and wholly inappropriate for its task. As the waters had risen, or the land ma.s.s had sunk, its roadway, ridged and as gap-toothed as a railway trestle, had settled into the water's surface-so that midway across one must slosh through ankle-deep water, feeling beneath the sc.u.m for the solid segments of roadway. Spanish moss festooned the fraying cables; green lichens fringed the greener verdigris of bronze faces staring out from the rotting concrete pylons. Inscriptions, no doubt explaining their importance, were blurred beyond legibility.

It was always a breathless relief to reach the upward-sloping paving of the far end, scramble toward the deserted sh.o.r.eline beyond. His chest would be aching by then, as though the warm, damp air he tried to suck into his lungs were devoid of sustenance. There were ripples in the water, not caused by any current, and while he had never seen anything within the tepid depths, he knew it was essential not to linger in crossing.

His companion or guide-he sometimes thought of her as his muse-always seemed to know the way, so he followed her. Usually she was blonde. Her bangs obscured her eyes, and he only had an impression of her face in profile-thin, with straight nose and sharp chin. He sensed that her cheekbones would be p.r.o.nounced, her eyes large and watchful and widely s.p.a.ced. She was barefoot. Sometimes she tugged up her skirt to hold its hem above the water, more often she was wearing only a long T-s.h.i.+rt over what he a.s.sumed was a swimsuit. He realized that he knew her, but he could never remember her name.

He supposed he looked like himself. The waters gave back no reflection.

It-the building-dominated the sh.o.r.eline beyond. From the other side he often thought of it as an office building, possibly some sort of apartment complex. He was certain then that he could see lights s.h.i.+ning from its many-tiered windows. It appeared to have been constructed of some salmon-hued brick, or perhaps the color was another illusion of the declining sun. It was squat, as broad as its dozen-or-more stories of height, and so polyhedral as to seem almost round. Its architecture impressed him as featureless-stark walls and windows, Bauhaus utilitarian. Either its creator had lacked any imagination or else had sacrificed external form to unguessable function.

The features of the sh.o.r.eline never impressed themselves upon his memory. There was a rising land, vague blotches of trees, undergrowth. The road dragged slowly upward toward the building. Trees overhung from either side, reaching toward one another, garlanded with hanging vines and moss-darkening skies a leaden ribbon overhead. The pavement was cracked and broken-calling to mind orphaned segments of a WPA-era two-lane highway, bypa.s.sed alongside stretches of the interstate, left to decompose into the wounded earth. Its surface was swept clean. Not disused; rather, seldom used.

Perhaps too frequently used.

If there were other structures near the building, he never noticed them. Perhaps there were none; perhaps they were simply inconsequential in comparison. Sometimes he thought of an immense office building raised out of the wilderness of an industrial park or a vast stadium born of the leveled wasteland of urban renewal, left alone and alien in a region where the genius loci genius loci ultimately reconquered. A barren s.p.a.ce, encroached upon by that which was beyond, surrounded the building-sometimes gra.s.s-latticed pavement (parking lot?), sometimes a scorched and eroded barrier of weeds (ground zero?). ultimately reconquered. A barren s.p.a.ce, encroached upon by that which was beyond, surrounded the building-sometimes gra.s.s-latticed pavement (parking lot?), sometimes a scorched and eroded barrier of weeds (ground zero?).

Desolation, not wholly dead.

Abandoned, not entirely forgotten.

The lights in the windows, which he was certain he had seen from across the water, never shone as they entered.

There was a wire fence, sometimes: barbed wire leaning from its summit, or maybe insulated b.a.l.l.s of brown ceramic nestling high-voltage lines. No matter. All was rusted, corroded, sagging like the skeletal remains that rotted at its base. When there was a fence at all.

If there was a fence, gaps pierced the wire barrier like the rotted lace of a corpse's mantilla. Sometimes the gate lay in wreckage beneath its graffitied arch: Abandon Hope. Joy Through Work. War Is Peace. Ask Not.

My Honor Is Loyalty.

One of his dreams is a fantasy of n.a.z.is.

He knows that they are n.a.z.is because they are all wearing jack boots and black uniforms, SS insignia and swastika armbands, monocles and Luger pistols. And there are men in slouch-brim hats and leather overcoats, all wearing thick gla.s.ses-Gestapo, they have to be. White-clad surgeons with b.u.t.ton-up-the-back surplices, each one resembling Lionel Atwill, suck glowing fluids into improbable hypodermics, send tentative spurts pulsing from their needles.

Monocles and thick-lensed spectacles and gla.s.s-hard blue eyes peer downward. Their faces are distorted and hideous-as if he, or they, someone, is viewing this perspective through a magnifying gla.s.s. The men in black uniforms are goose-stepping and Heil-Hitlering in geometric patterns behind the grinning misshapen faces of the doctors.

The stairway is of endless black marble, polished to a mirror-sheen, giving back no reflection. The SS officers, alike as a thousand black-uniformed puppets, are goose-stepping in orderly, powerful ranks down the polished stairway. Toward them, up the stairway, a thousand blonde and blue-eyed Valkyries, sequinpantied and bra.s.s-bra.s.siered, flaxen locks bleached and bobbed and marcelled, are marching in rhythm-a Rockette chorus line of Lorelei.

Wir werden weiter marschieren, wenn alles in Sherben fallt, denn heute gehort uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt!

Needles plunge downward.

Inward.

Distancing.

Der Fuhrer leans and peers inward. He wipes the needles with his tongue and snorts piggishly. leans and peers inward. He wipes the needles with his tongue and snorts piggishly. Our final revenge, Our final revenge, Hitler promises, in a language he seems to understand. The dancers merge upon the stairway, form a thousand black-and-white swastikas as they twist their flesh together into DNA coils. Hitler promises, in a language he seems to understand. The dancers merge upon the stairway, form a thousand black-and-white swastikas as they twist their flesh together into DNA coils.

Sieg Heil!

Someday.

A thousand bombs burn a thousand coupled moths into a thousand flames.

A thousand, less one.

Distance.

While he hated and feared all of his fantasies, he usually hated and feared this one worst of all. When he peered through the windows of the building, he saw rows of smokestacks belching uncounted souls into the recoiling sky.

But often there was no fence. Only a main entrance.

A Grand Entrance. Gla.s.s and aluminum and tile. Uncorroded, but obscured by thin dust. A receptionist's desk. A lobby of precisely arranged furniture: art moderne or coldly functional-nonetheless serving no function in the sterile emptiness.

No one to greet him, to verify an appointment, to ask for plastic cards and indecipherable streams of numbers. He always thought of this as some sort of hospital, possibly abandoned in the panic of some unleashed plague virus.

He always avoided the lifts. (Shouldn't he think of them as elevators?) Instead he followed her through the deserted (were they ever occupied?) hallways and up the hollow stairwell that gave back no echo to their steps.

There is another fantasy that he cannot will away.

He is conscious of his body in this fantasy, but no more able to control his body than to control his fantasy.

He is small-a child, he believes, looking at the boyish arms and legs that are restrained to the rails of the hospital bed, and examining the muted tenderness in the faces of the white-clad supplicants who insert the needles and apply the electrodes to his flesh.

Electric current makes a nova of his brain. Thoughts and memories scatter like a deck of cards thrown against the sudden wind. Drugs hold his raped flesh half-alert against the torture. Smokestacks spew forth a thousand dreams. All must be arranged in a New Order.

A thousand cards dance in changing patterns across his vision. Each card has a face, false as a waxen mask. His body strains against the leather cuffs; his scream is taken by a soggy wad of tape on a wooden paddle.

The cards are telling him something, something very essential. He does not have time to read their message.

I'm not a fortune-teller! he screams at the s.h.i.+fting patterns of cards. The wadded tape steals his protests. he screams at the s.h.i.+fting patterns of cards. The wadded tape steals his protests.

The rape is over. They are wheeling him away.

The cards filter down from their enhanced freedom, falling like snowflakes in a dying dream.

And then he counts them all.

All are there. And in their former order.

Order must be maintained.

The Old Order is stronger.

But he knows-almost for certain-that he has never been a patient in any hospital. Ever.

His health is perfect. All too perfect.

She always led him through the maze within-upward, onward, forward. The Eternal Female/Feminine Spirit-Force. Goethe's personal expression of the ultimate truth of human existence-describing a power that transcended and revoked an informed commitment to d.a.m.nation-translated awkwardly into pretentious nonsense in English. He remembered that he had never read Goethe, could not understand a word of German.

His therapists said it was a reaction to his adoption in infancy as a German war orphan by an American family. The a.s.sertive and anonymous woman represented his natural mother, whom he had never known. But his birth certificate proved that he had been born to unexceptional middle-cla.s.s American parents in Cleveland, Ohio.

And his memories of them were as faded and unreal as time-leached color slides. Memories fade before light, and into night.

False memories. Reality a sudden celluloid illusion.

Lightning rips the night.

Doctor! It's alive!

Another fantasy evokes (or is invoked by, say his therapists) visions of Macbeth, Macbeth, of scary campfire stories, of old films scratched and eroded from too many showings. His (disremembered) parents (probably) only allowed him to partake of the first, but Shakespeare knew well the dark side of dreams. of scary campfire stories, of old films scratched and eroded from too many showings. His (disremembered) parents (probably) only allowed him to partake of the first, but Shakespeare knew well the dark side of dreams.

Sometimes he is on a desolate stretch of moor, damp and furred with tangles of heather. (He supposes it is heather, remembering Macbeth. Macbeth.) Or perhaps he is on a high mountain, with barren rocks thrusting above dark forest. (He insists that he has never read Faust, Faust, but admits to having seen but admits to having seen Fantasia. Fantasia.) Occasionally he stands naked within a circle of standing stones, huge beneath the empty sky. (He confesses to having read an article about Stonehenge.) And in this same Gothic context, he has another such fantasy, and he never speaks of its imperfectly remembered fragments to anyone-not to lovers, therapists, priests, or his other futile confidants.

It is, again (to generalize), a fantasy in which he is again the observer. Pa.s.sive, certainly. Helpless, to be sure. But the restraints hold a promise of power to be feared, of potential to be unleashed.

Hooded figures surround him, center upon his awareness. Their cloaks are sometimes dark and featureless, sometimes fantastically embroidered and colored. He never sees their faces.

He never sees himself, although he senses he stands naked and vulnerable before them.

He is there. In their midst. is there. In their midst. They They see him. see him.

It is all that matters.

They reach/search/take/give/violate/empower.

There is no word in English.