The Cleft, and Other Odd Tales

by Gahan Wilson

  I started and felt the old guide's fingers dig into my wrist as we saw the green vine stir beneath the volunteer's touch. The thing was not only alive in its origins, it was clearly sentient!

  "Pull back!" commanded the old guide. "Leave it!''

  The bearer looked over his shoulder at him, and there was something indescribably piteous in his expression, but otherwise he did not move. The vine continued to stir, and as the rest of us watched in horror, we saw fresh, almost luminescently green new tendrils, pop out from its shiny skin and writhe upward even as they thickened. More and more appeared and steadily, layer upon layer, wrapped themselves possessively, even quite caressingly, about the bearer.

  That unfortunate's body had now begun to tremble most oddly in all its parts, and his long mouth opened as he started a steady, monotonous, high-pitched wailing which was far and away the loudest sound I had, up to that moment, ever heard a New Martian make.

  I turned to the old guide and was astonished to observe that his eyes had lost the haughty squint so typical of his race and were now positively bulging from their sockets as he stared at his compatriot.

  'This cannot be!” he cried, totally abandoning his customary whisper. "There is no woman! This cannot be!"

  I stared at him a second longer, then turned my attention back to the bearer and saw that a most remarkable transformation was beginning to take place.

  I had, in the several weeks of my stay on the planet, found very little difficulty in becoming entirely accustomed to the structure of the New Martians. It was highly visible since their clothing consisted merely of short, diaphanous togas whose main purpose seemed not to be modest concealment or protection from the elements, but to carry and display their insignia of rank.

  Though they were extremely tall and thin to the point of emaciation, and the glittering red polish of their featureless, poreless skin was at times a little disconcerting, they were, by interstellar standards, constructed along lines very similar to my own species, having four limbs and a head attached to a central torso in the same general fashion as were my own.

  Now I saw that there were very important aspects of the New Martian anatomy which were ordinarily concealed from view. Under the stroking—I can think of no other word which would apply— of the constantly increasing number of tendrils enwrapping his form, dripping slits were opening between his ribs and along a line running from his groin to the base of his throat. From each and every one of those slits, with a languid, almost graceful turning, delicate pink spirals were beginning to emerge.

  I had no doubt, no doubt at all, that I was observing a sexual arousal.

  "How awful!” I exclaimed, and was surprised to realize that I had said it aloud.

  The head guide turned and looked at me with interest.

  "I am not surprised to hear you say that, ” he said, after a pause, his voice returned to its usual whisper. "The sexual functionings of species other than one's own often do seem revolting.”

  He paused again, and I observed considerable concern and puzzlement in his expression.

  "But I must admit that this particular manifestation is, ” he continued, "highly disturbing even to myself, who reproduces in a like manner, since it is markedly unusual in two important respects: it is ordinarily quite impossible for us to become sexually activated in the absence of a female, and I have never heard of the emergence of more than four wanoon simultaneously, not even in the most erotic legends. Here we have all fourteen functioning at once. His state of arousal must be incredible."

  The wailing of the bearer—who was now totally encaged in the ever-increasing accumulation of new green vines—reached an extraordinarily high, trilling note and then abruptly cut off.

  For a long moment the head guide and I stood and watched as the bearer's thrashings diminished. Then, very slowly and carefully, we approached and peered down at him, only to pull back in horror when his body suddenly twisted in several enormous final spasms, then sagged inside its vegetable cocoon with the complete and unmistakable stillness of death.

  "Is this the way it is with your kind, then?” I asked. "Is the sexual act fatal for the male?”

  "No, ” said the head guide, his whisper grown so quiet I could hardly make it out at all, "It is not. This is a third, and by far the most depressing, variation from the norm. "

  A few hesitant steps nearer, and we saw that a new, different sort of tendril had begun to grow from the constantly extending vine. These differed from the previous forms by terminating with a sort of bulb which, even as we watched, opened and showed itself to be a dark, deep purple flower with a ring of what I took to be pointed pistils and stamens around the deep interior of its cup.

  Something about the flowers had given me the dim but unmistakable sensation that they were oddly sinister, and when I leaned closer I saw clearly what before had frightened me only vaguely— that the pointed things in the central cavity were not pistils and stamens at all, but a ringed multitude of sharp, tiny teeth. I had barely managed to assimilate that grim new aspect of the vine before the flowers began, first one by one and then in nodding waves, to attach themselves systematically to the dead bearer's flesh.

  I felt a soft, insistent, increasing pushing and turned my head to see that all the New Martians in the party had gathered close behind us and were steadily pressing against our backs in order to peer over our shoulders at their dead comrade.

  When I looked again before me I felt a cold chill run through my body as I saw that the petals of all the flowers had spread and flattened and were now squeezing and kneading the dead bearer's skin. They looked like evil, purple stars as they began to pulse together as regularly and smoothly as a baby sucks, and I observed that every one of the vines leading from their bases had now become swollen and veined with red.

  "Observe," whispered the old guide, almost dreamily, "they are drinking him dry. See how he shrinks."

  What he said was true. First only the skin reaching to the points of the petals sank like little craters in a moon, but these depressions spread and joined and soon the whole form of the bearer began to steadily decrease and shrivel before our fascinated gaze. The eyes sank into their sockets even as they withered; the lips dried and wrinkled back to reveal the teeth they had heretofore concealed; the very joinings of the bones beneath the skin became more and more clearly defined.

  As the body of the bearer slowly collapsed, new tendrils of the vine, doubtless encouraged by the end of their long drought, groped eagerly out beyond him in search of new nourishment. I stared transfixed and observed one of the revolting things pawing in my direction.

  A coiling green branch of it paused just before me and I gaped stupidly as one of its leaves gently touched my fingers, then slid forward and flattened itself on the back of my hand. The leaf was warm and faintly throbbing and I felt a loathsome but seductive glowing spread insidiously out from its touch.

  I found myself swaying and sagging where I stood as an extraordinary languor spread through my body like some interior version of the vine, but then I saw my hand—all on its own, with no command from my conscious mind—begin to stretch out longingly toward the nearest green swaying of the damned thing and a thrill of total disgust woke me suddenly from my trance. I cried aloud and pulled my hand quickly back and the spell was broken.

  "We must leave this awful place!" I shouted.

  I do not think that any one of the New Martians so much as heard me, so deep was their fascination with the growing plant. Their breathing was now clearly audible and was not coming in unison, each one like one great, hissing inhalation; their bodies exuded a thick, strong odor which was at the same time both bitter and sweet.

  There was a terrible moment when I found I could not retreat because of the steady forward pressure exerted by the crowd of blankly staring creatures behind me, but then I discovered it was possible to edge sidewise, and I began a crablike scramble along the front of the mob, carefully arching my body back from the constantly exploring, gre
edy tendrils which, nevertheless, managed to flick at my flesh and clothing as their reach from the expanding vine grew longer and longer.

  I had hardly left my space when a bearer who had been directly behind me shuffled forward. His mouth flopped open and he began a keening, monotonous moaning which was instantly taken up by all the others save for the head guide who reached out toward him vaguely, half trying to stop him.

  The bearer evaded him easily and his moaning changed to a wavering howl, an awful sort of singing, as several dripping slits opened in his chest and I observed the pink corkscrews, which I now knew were called wanoon, begin to rotate, dripping, into view. As they continued to emerge and spiral and were joined by others besides, the New Martian, shuddering and jerking in ever more violent spasms, began to lower his body clumsily into a squirming tangle of juicy new vinelets even as they reached up to gather him into their writhings. The guide let his hands fall slowly back to his sides, continued to stare ahead with increasing fascination, and—softly at first, but then more and more loudly—began to join the others in their endless moronic keening.

  In spite of all my efforts, I was totally unable to quell an increasing trembling as I worked my way past these hypnotized creatures. They were now, to the last one, starting to shamble forward, and though I greatly feared their mindless shoving would push me into one mass or another of the monstrous purple flowers, my struggles succeeded. I finally managed to force my way clear of them all and stagger some yards down the path which had been chopped through the old, withered growth of vine before I collapsed entirely, flopping like a rag doll onto a desiccated tangle of wood.

  After my breathing became less than a painful gasping and the pounding in my chest receded to a tolerable level, I was able to gather myself together enough to look back.

  I was appalled to see that so many of the New Martians had thrown their bodies into the fresh green sproutings of the vine that they had filled its first shoots altogether and their companions had been forced to shuffle slowly along the sides of the noxious plant so that they could eagerly follow the unfoldments of its steady growing.

  As soon as those who had shouldered themselves into the lead judged that a sufficient tangle of new vines had sprouted to absorb them, they would throw themselves into the fresh green mass with its sprinkling of gaping flowers and leave those behind them in the shuffling line to wait for the next enthusiastic budding which the absorption of their bodies would produce.

  For a short time I was so exhausted that I could only lie back on my complex hammock of dry twigs and watch this grotesque parade of New Martians and growing vine steadily work its way in my direction, but as the gap between us grew smaller and smaller I finally managed to summon the strength to pull myself up, stagger to my feet, and somehow lurch down the entire length of the tunnel we had all foolishly carved through the ancient growth of this fiendish vegetation during the last few days, before I completely lost consciousness.

  When I woke I found that this diary had tumbled out of my pocket as I fell and was lying in the chill New Martian sun, spread open to my last entry, and I confess it struck me as looking more than a little pathetic on the ancient paving of the street. After staring at it vaguely for a while, I pulled it to me and began to put down this account of the vine for no particular reason.

  It occurs to me only now, as I reach the end of this record, that I may have been writing a warning for the next visitors unfortunate enough to find their way to this accursed place and its hideous inhabitant.

  If there is to be some reader of these pages, some traveler following after me, I beg you to leave now, while you are still in the outskirts where you will have found whatever husk remains of my body. In particular I implore you: do not go to the center of the village, to its well. Do not look on the living vine!

  Some time ago it grew around the first bending of the road leading from the arched entrance of the village wall. I have watched its slow creeping under the twin pink balconies as I have lain here patiently on the cobbles. I have been writing and watching it near.

  It moves a good deal slower now that it is not being constantly fed, but that is not what intrigues me most about its new mode of progress. What interests me most is that it did not come straight for me, as I expected, but rather circled round me in a graceful coil which was as large and spacious as the confines of the street would admit.

  Even then it was leisurely in closing the gap, in sealing me in. I calculate I may have watched for as long as half an hour before it grew the last few inches and twined itself together.

  Then, in a manner so slow as to be almost unobservable, the encirclement has thickened, the space about me gradually lessened.

  Now, at last, the vine is all about me, touching my curled body gently on all sides. I am at the very center of a bower of purple flowers.

  I could have left at any point heretofore. I’ve tried to tell myself that I stayed because I knew I could never make the journey through the desert on my own, but I'm well aware that’s a lie.

  I stayed because I wished to.

  I want the damned plant as much as it wants me.

  Sighing very softly, licking his many lips, Ehnk Nahk S'Tak'n gently closed the diary and looked up to see the venerable guide, Soonsoon, looking curiously back at him.

  "We have cut our way to the center of the village, sir visitor," Soonsoon reported with a tiny bow.

  S'Tak'n flowed erect. He looked briefly at the arched entrance of the village and through it to the coral desert which stretched endlessly open beyond; then he looked back the other way to where the village road curved under the twin pink balconies on its way to the well.

  "What do you wish to do, sir?" asked Soonsoon, after a respectful pause.

  "Why, go to the center, of course," exclaimed S'Tak'n. "And find the root. And hope it's still alive!"

  The Book

  Doren's fingers found the black book before the rest of him. They had cruised, almost independently, hopping, groping, from book to book after the manner of the fingers of collectors the world over, touching each book tentatively, but with skill, and when they felt the odd, almost furry spine of the black book they had stopped as quickly as an owls gaze halts on a mouse. He looked down at the book his fingers had discovered for him and carefully concealed any outward signs of the electric thrill which ran through him. Casually, studiously so, he took the black book from its place and languidly began to turn its pages.

  His eyes and fingers worked together now, taking in the peculiar softness of the skin pages, noting the heavy black type deeply indented into its sienna-splotched, ocher background, touching and seeing the barbaric woodcuts of astrological signs and magic circles and imps and dark angels.

  Doren's heart began to beat with a thudding intensity which frightened him. He almost believed it might be audible to others. He could imagine its thumping carrying across the empty shop where the ears of old Steiner would perk and listen. But Steiner's back remained solidly turned and Doren gave a strained smile at the fantasy.

  He closed the book and carefully slipped it back where he had found it. His head buzzed with schemes and confusion. A large black cat jumped soundlessly onto the stall and Doren stroked it, thankful for the interruption. He felt the cat's back arch under his hand and he attempted to consider his situation coolly.

  It was the sort of situation which never happened. People who didn't collect books, or who collected them only a little, always felt that they really might come across a Shakespearean folio, or a Gutenberg Bible, or, Doren swallowed, a black book such as this. But it never happened. Old Steiner and his fellow bookdealers saw to that.

  He glanced down at the book again, tore his eyes from it, and selected another one at random. The cat mewed pettishly and he stroked it again to silence it.

  It wouldn't take a Steiner to spot the black book, thought Doren. This was no subtlety, no delicately flawed wonder, no first edition panted after only by certain esoterics. There was nothing obscure
about this treasure. Its feel, its look, even the smell of it broadcast its singularity. The most ignorant clerk would have been sophisticated enough to at least strongly suspect the black book's value.

  He put down the book he'd been toying with, he couldn't even remember its title, and risked another inspection of his find. Its absurd, its altogether ridiculous price was lightly penciled on its end page: one dollar and seventy-five cents. He almost gasped when he recognized Steiner's European seven with its crossbar. That eliminated the idea of a blunder by a part-time assistant. The old man had priced it himself.

  Had he been drunk? It wasn't in character. But how on earth could the old man have come to make such a gigantic error? How could he have given the black book its grotesque price and condemned it to a common stall?

  Would he give challenge when Doren went over to buy the book? It seemed likely. The hideous mistake would be seen at once, a plausible explanation would be hastily presented, and the book would be out of Doren's hands forever. Forever— because Doren knew he would never be able to afford anything like its true cost. It was an item only for richly endowed libraries and millionaire collectors. The thing must be practically priceless.

  Doren turned to a carefully cut magic circle. Each minute detail was sharp and clear. It was important, he reflected wryly, not to make mistakes when you drew a magic circle. He had seen plenty of them before, of course. Every grimoire, every warlock's spell book, contained at least one of them. The idea of the circle was central to the diabolist's art. But this one was, in some tingling way, different from any of the others. This one looked as if it might actually work.

  He closed his eyes and opened them again, like a man with a bad headache, and the shop seemed to rush in at him. It was as if he had been away in some far-off place for an immeasurable time and only just returned. He looked down dazedly at the cat and it looked up at him with green expectation in its eyes.