American Supernatural Tales Part 31

His therapists tell him this is a h.o.m.os.e.xual rape fantasy.

There is no word in any language.

There is only the power.

The stairway climbed inexorably as she led him upward into the building. Returning-and they always returned, he knew now-the descent would be far more intolerable, for he would have his thoughts to carry with him.

A stairwell door: very commonplace usually (a Hilton or a Hyatt?), but sometimes of iron-bound oak, or maybe no more than a curtain. No admonition. No advice. On your own. He would have welcomed Fire Exit Only Fire Exit Only or or Please Knock. Please Knock.

She always opened the door-some atavistic urge of masculine courtesy always surfaced, but he was never fast enough or certain enough-and she held it for him, waiting and demanding.

Beyond, there was always the same corridor, circling and enclosing the building. If there were any significance to the level upon which they had emerged, it was unknown to him. She might know, but he never asked her. It terrified him that she might know.

There is innocence, if not guiltlessness, in randomness.

He decided to look upon the new reality beyond the darkened windows of the corridor. She was impatient, but she could not deny him this delay, this respite.

Outside the building he saw stretches of untilled farmland, curiously demarcated by wild hedgerows and stuttering walls of toppled stone. He moved to the next window and saw only a green expanse of pasture, its gra.s.sy limitlessness ridged by memories of ancient fields and villages.

He paused here, until she caught at his arm, pulled him away. The next window-only a glimpse-overlooked a city that he was given no time to recognize, had he been able to do so through the knowledge of the fire that consumed it.

There were doors along the other side of the corridor. He pretended that some might open upon empty apartments, that others led to vacant offices. Sometimes there were curtained recesses that suggested confessionals, perhaps secluding some agent of a higher power-although he had certainly never been a Catholic, and such religion that he recalled only underscored the futility of redemption.

She drew aside a curtain, beckoned him to enter.

He moved past her, took his seat.

Not a confessional. He had known that. He always knew where she would lead him.

The building was only a facade, changing as his memory decayed and fragmented, recognizing only one reality in a dream-state that had consumed its dreamer.

A stadium. A coliseum. An arena.

Whatever its external form, it inescapably remained unchanged in its function.

This time the building's interior was a circular arena, dirt-floored and ringed by many tiers of wooden bleachers. The wooden benches were warped and weathered silver-gray. Any paint had long since peeled away, leaving splinters and rot. The building was only a sh.e.l.l, hollow as a whitened skull, encircled by derelict rows of twisted benches and sagging wooden scaffolding.

The seats were all empty. The seats had been empty, surely, for many years.

He sensed a lingering echo of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" played on a steam calliope. Before his time. Casey at the bat. This was Muddville. Years after. Still no joy.

He desperately wished for another reality, but he knew it would always end the same. The presentations might be random, might have some unknowable significance. What mattered was that he knew where he really was and why he was here.

Whether he wanted to be here was of no consequence.

She suggested, as always. The woman at the bank who wouldn't approve the car loan. Send for her. The woman at the bank who wouldn't approve the car loan. Send for her.

She was only doing her job.

But you hated her in that moment. And you remember that hatred.

Involuntarily, he thought of her.

The numberless windows of the building's exterior pulsed with light.

A window opened.

Power, not light, sent through. And returned.

And the woman was in the arena. Huddled in the dirt, too confused to sense fear.

The unseen crowd murmured in antic.i.p.ation.

He stared down at the woman, concentrating, channeling the power within his brain.

She screamed, as invisible flames consumed her being. Her scream was still an echo when her ashes drifted to the ground.

He looked for movement among the bleachers. Whatever watched from there remained hidden.

Another, she urged him. she urged him.

He tried to think of those who had created him, this time to send for them. But the arena remained empty. Those he hated above all others were long beyond the vengeance of even his power.

Forget them. There are others.

But I don't hate them.

If not now, then soon you will. There is an entire world to hate.

And, he understood, too many nights to come.

Some are Born to sweet delight,Some are Born to Endless Night.

-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence Auguries of Innocence NORMAN PARTRIDGE.

Norman Partridge was born in 1958. As a youth growing up in California, Partridge absorbed horror and fantasy through several media-oral tales from his father, books by Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury, and films and television. All these elements are found in Partridge's work. He began publis.h.i.+ng short stories in the small press in the 1980s, and his first story collection, Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales (1992), won the Bram Stoker award from the Horror Writers a.s.sociation. This was followed by the novel (1992), won the Bram Stoker award from the Horror Writers a.s.sociation. This was followed by the novel Slip-pin' into Darkness Slip-pin' into Darkness (1994), a powerful and moving nonsupernatural account of the effect of a woman's suicide upon the members of a gang who had raped her in high school. The collection (1994), a powerful and moving nonsupernatural account of the effect of a woman's suicide upon the members of a gang who had raped her in high school. The collection Bad Intentions Bad Intentions (1996) contains additional tales that fuse such pop-culture elements as B-movies, rock-and-roll, and hot rods with the supernatural. In that same year, Partridge coedited (with Martin H. Greenberg) (1996) contains additional tales that fuse such pop-culture elements as B-movies, rock-and-roll, and hot rods with the supernatural. In that same year, Partridge coedited (with Martin H. Greenberg) It Came from the Drive-In!, It Came from the Drive-In!, an anthology of horror tales written in homage of the drive-in movie. After writing two crime novels, an anthology of horror tales written in homage of the drive-in movie. After writing two crime novels, Saguaro Riptide Saguaro Riptide (1997) and (1997) and The Ten-Ounce Siesta The Ten-Ounce Siesta (1998), Partridge published the novel (1998), Partridge published the novel Wildest Dreams Wildest Dreams (1998), a dark and gruesome novel about a bounty hunter and his sorcerer father. He has also written a novel in James...o...b..rr's graphic novel series The Crow, (1998), a dark and gruesome novel about a bounty hunter and his sorcerer father. He has also written a novel in James...o...b..rr's graphic novel series The Crow, Wicked Prayer Wicked Prayer (2000); it was filmed in 2005. Partridge is at work on an expansion of his story "Frankenstein '59" (in (2000); it was filmed in 2005. Partridge is at work on an expansion of his story "Frankenstein '59" (in It Came from the Drive-In! It Came from the Drive-In!) into a novel.

Partridge, who lives in California and works in a library, has gathered his best tales in The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists (2001); it includes such specimens as the vampire story "Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu"; "In Beauty, Like the Night," a zombie tale; and "The Bars on Satan's Jailhouse," which melds the theme of lycanthropy with the Western. (2001); it includes such specimens as the vampire story "Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu"; "In Beauty, Like the Night," a zombie tale; and "The Bars on Satan's Jailhouse," which melds the theme of lycanthropy with the Western.

"The Hollow Man" (first published in Grue Magazine, Grue Magazine, Fall 1991) is a subtle and ambiguous tale that appears to be told from the point of view of a wendigo, a mythical air elemental believed to haunt the forests of Canada. Fall 1991) is a subtle and ambiguous tale that appears to be told from the point of view of a wendigo, a mythical air elemental believed to haunt the forests of Canada.

THE HOLLOW MAN.

Four. Yes, that's how many there were. Come to my home. Come to my home in the hills. Come in the middle of feast, when the skin had been peeled back and I was ready to sup. Interrupting, disrupting. Stealing the comfortable bloat of a full belly, the black scent of clean bones burning dry on glowing embers. Four.

Yes. That's how many there were. I watched them through the stretched-skin window, saw them standing cold in the snow with their guns at their sides.

The hollow man saw them too. He heard the ice dogs bark and raised his sunken face, peering at the men through the blue-veined window. He gasped, expectant, and I had to draw my claws from their fleshy sheaths and jab deep into his blackened muscles to keep him from saying words that weren't mine. Outside, they shouted, Hullo! Hullo in the cabin! Hullo! Hullo in the cabin! and the hollow man sprang for the door. I jumped on his back and tugged the metal rings pinned into his neck. He jerked and whirled away from the latch, but I was left with the sickening sound of his hopeful moans. and the hollow man sprang for the door. I jumped on his back and tugged the metal rings pinned into his neck. He jerked and whirled away from the latch, but I was left with the sickening sound of his hopeful moans.

Once again, control was mine, but not like before. The hollow man was full of strength that he hadn't possessed in weeks, and the feast was ruined.

They had ruined it.

"Hullo! We're tired and need food!"

The hollow man strained forward, his fingers groping for the door latch. My scaled legs flexed hard around his middle. His sweaty stomach sizzled and he cried at the heat of me. A rib snapped. Another. He sank backward and, with a dry flutter of wings, I pulled him away from the window, back into the dark.

"Could we share your fire? It's so d.a.m.n cold!"

"We'd give you money, but we ain't got any. There ain't a nickel in a thousand miles of here . . ."

Small screams tore the hollow man's beaten lips. There was blood. I cursed the waste and twisted a handful of metal rings. He sank to his knees and quieted.

"We'll leave our guns. We don't mean no harm!"

I jerked one ring, then another. I cooed against the hollow man's skinless shoulder and made him pick up his rifle. When he had it loaded, c.o.c.ked, and aimed through a slot in the door, I whispered in his ear and made him laugh.

And then I screamed out at them, "You dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! You stay away! You ain't comin' in here!"

Gunshots exploded. We only got one of them, not clean but bad enough. The others pulled him into the forest, where the dense trees m.u.f.fled his screams and kept us from getting another clear shot.

The rifle clattered to the floor, smoking faintly, smelling good. We walked to the window. I jingled his neck rings and the hollow man squinted through the tangle of veins, to the spot where a red streak was freezing in the snow.

I made the hollow man smile.

So four. Still four, when night came and moonlight dripped like melting wax over the snow-capped ridges to the west. Four to make me forget the one nearly drained. Four to make me impatient while soft time crept toward the leaden hour, grain by grain, breath by breath . . .

The hour descended. I twisted rings and plucked black muscles, and the hollow man fed the fire and barred the door. I released him and he huddled in a corner, exhausted.

I rose through the chimney and thrust myself away from the cabin. My wings fought the biting wind as I climbed high, searching the black forest below. I soared the length of a high mountain glacier and dove away, banking back toward the heart of the valley. Shadows that stretched forever, and then, deep in a jagged ravine that stabbed at a river, a sputtered glimmer of orange. A campfire.

So bold. So typical of their kind. I extended my wings and drifted down like a bat, coming to rest in the branches of a giant redwood. Its live green stench nearly made me retch. Huddling in my wings for warmth, I clawed through the bark with a wish to make the ancient monster scream. The tree quivered against the icy wind. Grinning, satisfied, I looked down.

Two strong, but different. One weak. One as good as dead.

Three.

Grizzly sat in silence, his black face as motionless as a tombstone. Instantly, I liked him best. Mammoth, wrapped in a bristling grizzly coat he looked even bigger, almost as big as a grizzly. He sat by the fire, staring at his reflection in a gleaming ax blade. He made me anxious. He could last for months.

Across from Grizzly, Redbeard turned a pot and boiled coffee. He straightened his fox-head cap and stroked his beard, clearing it of ice. I didn't like him. His milky squint was too much like my own. But any fool could see that he hated Grizzly, and that made me smile.

Away from them both, crouching under a tree with the whimpering ice dogs, Rabbit wept through swollen eyes. He dug deep in his plastic coat and produced a crucifix. I almost laughed out loud.

And in a tent, wrapped in sweat-damp wool and expensive eiderdown that couldn't keep him warm anymore, still clinging to life, was the dead man, who didn't matter.

But maybe I could make him matter.

And then there would only be two.

When the clouds came, when they suffocated the unblinking moon and brought sleep to the camp, I swept down to the dying fire and rolled comfortably in the crab-colored coals. The hush of the river crept over me as I decided what to do.

To make three into two.

Three men, and the dead man. Two tents: Grizzly and Redbeard in one, Rabbit and the dead man in the other. Easy. No worries, except for the dogs. (For ice dogs are wise. Their beast hearts hide simple secrets . . . ) The packed snow sizzled beneath my feet as I crept toward Rabbit's tent. The dead man's face pressed against one corner of the tent, molding his swollen features in yellow plastic. Each rattling breath gently puffed the thin material away from his face, and each weak gasp slowly drew it back. It was a steady, pleasant sound. I concentrated on it until it was mine.

No time for metal rings. No time for naked muscle and feast. Slowly, I reached out and took hold of Rabbit's mind, digging deep until I found his darkest nightmare. I pulled it loose and let it breathe. At first it frightened him, but I tugged its midnight corners straight and banished its monsters, and soon Rabbit was full of bliss, awake without even knowing it.

I circled the tent and pushed against the other side. The dead man rolled across, cold against the warmth of Rabbit's unbridled nightmare.

"Jesus, you're freezin', Charlie," whispered Rabbit as he moved closer. "But don't worry. I'll keep you warm, buddy. I've gotta keep you warm."

But in the safety of his nightmare, that wasn't what Rabbit wanted at all.

I waited in the tree until Grizzly found them the next morning, wrapped together in the dead man's bag. He shot Rabbit in the head and left him for the ice dogs.

Redbeard buried the dead man in a silky snowdrift.

That day was nothing. Grizzly and Redbeard sat at the edge of the clearing and wasted their only chance. Grizzly stared hungrily at the cabin, seeing only what I wanted him to see. Thick, safe walls. A puffing chimney. A home. But Redbeard, d.a.m.ned Redbeard, wise with fear and full of caution, sensed other things. The dead man's fevered rattle whispering through the trees. An ice dog gnawing a fresh, gristly bone. And bear traps, rusty with blood.

Redbeard rose and walked away. Soon Grizzly followed.

And then there was only the hollow man, rocking gently in his chair. The soles of his boots buffed the splintery floor and his legs swung back and forth, back and forth.

Two. Now two, as the second night was born, a silent twin to the first. Only two, as again I twisted rings and plucked muscles and put the hollow man to sleep. Just two, as my wings beat the night and I flew once more from the sooty chimney to the ravine that stabbed a river.