The Night Listener and Others

by Chet Williamson

  Rusty mentally inquired if the others were ready to hunt, but he felt only mild interest in return. Their last few nights of hunting had been unsuccessful. Humans hardly dared to travel the road anymore, and when they did they drove so fast that Rusty and Sparks found it difficult to leap at the windows. Indeed, on the last attempt, while Sparks was still alive, Rusty had landed on the car’s trunk and slid right off, while Sparks had missed the vehicle completely.

  Something else interested the pack tonight. Fluffy, the only female among them, had somehow gone into something that passed for estrous, despite the mutilation of her sexual organs. She dragged her posterior along the ground, whining and moaning, her vegetation-coated insides roiling behind her like thick, drunken serpents. The males crowded around her, sniffing futilely, but recalling the scent, and what remained of their penises left their sheaths reluctantly, as if sheer will rather than blood engorged them, making them a sickly yellow rather than the thrilling pink of former matings.

  Rusty ignored them. His equipment would have functioned better than any, but he wasn’t in the mood, and wondered how the others could be. He felt no sexual stirring whatsoever, and suspected that the pack was planning to rut (or attempt to rut—what could they really do with that conglomeration of bowels and fissures that used to be Fluffy’s slit?) more for the sake of nostalgia than out of any real lust.

  For a while he sat there, watching the others follow the bitch through the woods. Soon they were out of sight, and he sighed for the lost times that would not come again, and thought about taking the pack elsewhere, away from the woods where prey no longer came, perhaps into the cities, from which humans could not flee. The dogs could hide there almost as easily as in the woods, and the supply of prey would never run low.

  Rusty trotted back to the shelter, crawled in, and lay down, his head on his forepaws. He could hear them now, and guessed that they were a half mile or more away. He heard the feigned yaps of anger as the males fought for dominance, then Fluffy’s rather unconvincing yowl as something Rusty didn’t care to think about was penetrated, then a long period of silence, during which, he surmised, a mere charade was performed for old time’s sake.

  Screams shattered the silence—authentic, sincere cries, yelps, growls that Rusty took at first to be the vocal outbursts of passion, and, upon hearing them, forgotten lust launched itself in his haunches, engorged his rod with memory alone, pressing it from its sheath. Aroused, he stood, drinking in what he took to be the sounds of hot, wet sex, until he realized that such could not take place in cold, dry bodies.

  The screams were screams of pain, of terror.

  But what could terrorize the dead?

  Rusty launched himself toward the sound. He was supposed to have been the leader, and he cursed himself for not going with them, as he thought of what it could have been that had taken Sparks. He pushed himself through the brush, taking the most direct route to the sounds of his shrieking pack. There was no moon, and the darkness was thick and blinding. Several times he battered his already crushed forehead against the trunks of trees, but it had no more effect on him than if he had been wearing a helmet. He simply righted himself, aimed himself in the direction of the sounds, and charged once more, bouncing, ricocheting off oaks, maples, pines, until he broke through a final thicket whose thorns and brambles tore at his scraggly coat like sharp wires, one of them piercing his eye and holding him captive until he wrenched himself away from it, ripping the eyeball, leaving half of it hanging on the thorn, and entered a small clearing.

  With his one remaining eye. Rusty saw the carnage that had been his pack. He saw Fluffy’s head lying on the leaves, the jaw flapping up and down, trying to drag it toward the mud-yellow body from which great chunks of dead meat had been chewed away; saw the junkyard dog, his middle bitten through so that only a rod of spine connected the two halves, trying to push himself to his feet like a broken bridge in a windstorm; saw the dachshund’s short legs swinging at something that towered above it, a deeper darkness against the dark of night, and that darkness detaching itself, falling toward the dog and entrapping his pointed head in blackness. There was a thick crunch, and the dachshund’s head vanished in a cacophony of splitting bones and tearing gristle. The legs of the headless body continued to jerk, but with no sense of balance, no eyes to guide it, no ears to hear, it could do no more than wait to join its cicerone in the maw that had stolen it. With the next bite it was divided once more, then, with the last, was reunited with its other pieces.

  Whether it continued to live in the stomach of its devourer was a possibility that occurred only dimly to Rusty. Such metaphysical thoughts on the afterlife of the afterlife were far from his mind now. The destruction of his fellows had maddened him, returned him to that state of canine savagery to which rational thought was a stranger, and he thrust himself at the greater darkness over the bits and pieces of the pack. Something sharp-edged and brutal battered him, hurling him to the side and against a tree whose trunk cracked his spine. Then that something pressed against his chest like God’s hammer, pinning him to the ground, and Rusty heard a snort, but saw no breath steam from the creature’s nostrils. It was as dead as Rusty, but not as dead as the pack.

  The horse’s head came down, buried itself in Rusty’s guts, and chewed. Its teeth and jaws were strong, even stronger than the musky, tinny taste of its fellows’ canned flesh that Rusty had wolfed down a thousand times. And as Rusty watched himself entering the horse’s dead mouth bite by bite, he wondered with his recently-found imagination what would devour the horse? Then his head was taken, the brain smashed, swallowed, and the thoughts ceased.

  Grain? thought Rowdy, continuing Rusty’s thought. Dead oats? Dead apples come alive again? And what would they do? Bounce up the road on which they fell and were run over? Fruit roadkill? But how could they bounce if they were squashed? And how could oats devour, or hay destroy, or clover hate? But hell, there’d be something.

  Rowdy shook the half dome of his skull. The thoughts were too much for him, and he lay still while the horse finished its meal, going from chunk to chunk, its grinding teeth preparing the flesh for its ruminant stomach, unused to meat and bone. The feast would kill it, Rowdy thought, if it weren’t already dead.

  It came up to Rowdy, and he saw the great rift in its once proud neck where the car or truck must have struck it and killed it. It sniffed Rowdy for a moment, but Rowdy remained still. It was easy for a dead thing to pretend to be dead.

  The horse moved on then, and Rowdy waited until it was gone, then examined the small remnants the beast had left. Nope. They twitched and moved, but they weren’t worth a bitch’s spit. He’d have to find another pack, and he would. He moved slowly, but he had time. Yep, time was all he had. What kind of creature, dead or alive, would bother a ratty old hunk of kitchen carpet like him?

  He had scarcely traveled ten yards when he felt the first flea bite him. And him without a leg to scratch with.

  “Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey.”

  —George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

  The Swing Of The Knife

  It was only 3.10. Would it never be over, the dull words, futile concerns, unimportant questions? If the other people around the table were any indication, the answer was no. There was interest on all the bland, unsmiling faces, the plodding interest a four-year-old shows watching the third hour of Saturday morning television, the childish, hopeful, watchful expression that says soon now maybe something will be neat.

  But nothing was neat. It was only another full-day business meeting, empty words about empty topics from empty heads, Nichols thought, feeling bored, smug, and superior all at once. He looked around the table and started to hate.

  There was Rice at his side, the bastard, lord of all he surveyed, from the way he acted. Just another department vice-president, as far as Nichols was concerned, and more inept than most. Then Keller, the toady, with a nose browner than his suit; Quentin, section ma
nager and yes-man extraordinaire; Merrick, from Research and Development, where they still wore pocket protectors and double-knits; and finally North, of jock body and sub-jock mentality.

  A fine crew, thought Nichols, as he fantasized for the hundredth time their individual and joint demises. Then he took out his knife and opened the shining blade.

  The knife was to Nichols what cigarettes were to Quentin and Merrick and North, cigars were to Rice, and fawning was to Keller—something to play with, something to keep the hands moving, the eyes open, the mind as close to alert as was possible at these marathon wordfests. It was a handsome thing, small and sharp, like a bee sting forged in steel. The handle was mother-of-pearl, the blade was Toledo.

  He had met the knife’s maker at a knife show he had attended with a rather bizarre date who was into things that were heavy, long, and pointed. While she had admired the swords, he had marveled at the table full of folding knives, behind which sat a young, bearded man. ‘Like ‘em?’ the man had asked.

  Nichols had nodded. ‘They’re beautiful. That one,’ he had said, pointing to the knife he now held at the conference table. ‘How much is that?’

  ‘Toledo steel,’ the man had said, ‘but in a simple case. The perfect knife for the man who likes quality but shuns ostentation. Two hundred.’

  There was never any question in Nichols’s mind. He would have bought it if the man had said two thousand. ‘I’ll take it. Check all right?’

  The man had nodded. ‘Make it out to cash.’

  He had written the man a check and handed it over. The man had taken the small knife from the case and passed it on to Nichols. ‘Blood it,’ he had said.

  Nichols didn’t understand. ‘What?’

  ‘Blood it,’ the man had repeated, not smiling.

  ‘I don’t…what do you mean?’

  ‘It’s your knife. Let it taste you.’ ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No. Just pass it over a finger. It’ll cut.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Nichols had said with a disbelieving laugh.

  ‘Then you can have your check back,’ the man had said, holding it out.

  ‘Now wait a minute…’ Nichols had suddenly panicked at the thought of losing the knife. ‘It’s got to cut my finger before you’ll sell it to me?’

  The man had nodded.

  ‘What is this, some kind of tradition or something?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Nichols had looked at the knife, then at the man, then back at the knife, and made his decision. If he didn’t sneeze at two hundred dollars, what the hell was a little cut? In one motion he had picked it up and drawn it across the side of his left index finger, astonished at how easily and painlessly it left a thin red line. He had then held out the stained blade. ‘Happy now?’ he had asked the knifemaker.

  ‘The knife is,’ the man had replied. He had smiled then, and waved the check. ‘Thanks a lot. Hope you enjoy it.’

  The cut healed quickly, but left a tiny scar. Nichols was glad of it in a way. It reminded him that he had bought the knife with more than money, and he thought maybe the crazy knifemaker hadn’t been so crazy after all. The knife was special, sure enough. He treasured it. He had lost it several times, or at least he thought he had, but it had always turned up, on the back of his dresser top, deep in a forgotten pocket, even one time under his pillow in the morning, as if it had gone out, gotten lonely, and come back in the dead of night.

  But now it lay on its back on the conference table in front of him, blade open, its edge upward. He tapped its side with his finger and the motion set it rotating silently, round and round like a deadly spin-the-bottle. It slowed, then stopped, pointing directly at Rice, who rambled on, oblivious to its steely pirouette.

  Spin-the-bottle.

  Lovely thought, mused Nichols, and he composed a bit of instant doggerel that he repeated silently to himself:

  Mystic blade goes spinning by—

  If it points at you, you die.

  Absolutely lovely. Bye bye, Rice. Well, it made sense. After all, Rice was the oldest there; with about forty years of cigars (inhaled) behind him, and overweight to boot.

  Who next then?

  He spun the knife again, and watched its silvery length whip about over and over until it slowed and pointed dead-on at Merrick.

  No wonder. All those years of plastic pocket protectors have smothered your heart, Merrick m’dear.

  And again.

  Ah, Keller. No one deserves it more. Did someone break arsenical wind while you were up to your anal burrowing? Rest in peace, thou great toady thou.

  Well, who left? Quentin, North, and…

  And Nichols.

  Damn the torpedoes, full blade ahead.

  It pointed at Quentin:

  Oh captain, my captain,

  Your number’s up at last.

  Because, no doubt, you tried to nod

  Your goddam head too fast.

  And now, ta-da, the moment of truth.

  The blade spun, danced, and pointed most definitely back at Nichols himself.

  It was a game, merely an imaginative fantasy game to keep him awake. But when the point faced Nichols, he realized uncomfortably how strange it was that the knife had pointed directly and unwaveringly at each man in turn without once repeating itself. Coincidence, of course. And yet…

  He spun it a sixth time, and it came to rest, finally, on North.

  Good God, didn’t the order make sense though? Rice was the oldest, then Merrick. Keller and Quentin were both high-blood-pressure-boys, then Nichols himself (no smokee, no drinkee, no worree), and finally North— young, strong, vital North who would probably live forever. It was all quite tidy and quite reassuring. Nichols would never have expected to outlive North anyway.

  Thank you, knife, he thought gaily, for letting me see these flaming assholes go to their final reward. Then he began to carve his styrofoam coffee cup, and in a few minutes forgot about the game.

  Until two months later, when one of the company’s Learjets crashed.

  It was returning from Albuquerque when it happened.

  Although the pilots reported to the tower that the landing gear was down, it was in fact not. The night and the fog made it impossible for any warning to come from the ground. The plane belly-dove onto the runway, metal sparked and ruptured, and ignited jet fuel suddenly lit up the night. Both pilots and all five passengers were killed within seconds. Among them were Steven Merrick, John Keller and Thomas Wilkins Rice.

  After the initial shock of the news wore off the next day, Nichols found it difficult to feel any sorrow. He had liked none of the men, and he had no illusions that they had cared one way or the other for him. Not until he was cleaning his fingernails with his knife that afternoon did he make the connection.

  He had just wiped the blade gingerly on his handkerchief and was beginning to fold it away when he remembered the grim child’s game he had played at that meeting months ago. His throat tightened, and his chest felt cold, as when he imagined lumps on his testicles while toweling after a bath.

  Rice, Merrick, Keller. That had been it, hadn’t it? The first three?

  Jesus.

  He left his office, putting his knife in his pocket as if it were a living thing, and went down the hall to see Quentin, who immediately noticed his discomfort. Years of practiced agreement had enabled him to read people with uncanny precision.

  ‘You all right. Bill?’ he asked Nichols.

  Nichols nodded. ‘Just been thinking about the crash. It’s pretty upsetting.’ He paused before continuing. ‘Listen, Hank, you saw it, right?’

  Quentin nodded bitterly, taking short, sharp puffs on his Camel. ‘Yeah. Christ, it was ugly. I know why they didn’t want the wives to identify them, but I sure wish they hadn’t called me.’

  ‘Where were they?’ Nichols’s words were expectant, almost feverish in their intensity.

  ‘What…in the hangar? What do you mean?’

  ‘No, no. I mean in the pla
ne. Where were they in the plane?’

  ‘You mean when it hit?’

  Nichols nodded abruptly.

  ‘Well…what difference does it make?’

  ‘I’m just…’ Nichols swallowed with difficulty. There was a click in his throat. ‘Just curious, that’s all.’

  Quentin stubbed out his cigarette and lit another, a wariness behind his eyes. ‘From what I heard, Rice was up front with the pilots to watch the landing. Merrick was right behind him in a front seat, and I think Keller was sleeping in the back.’

  Rice, Merrick, Keller …

  ‘Where did the fire start?’

  ‘The front of the plane. But it raced to the back in seconds.’

  Front to back.

  Rice, Merrick, Keller.

  Quentin…

  Nichols.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? You know something I don’t?’

  Nichols guiltily wiped away the sweat that had beaded on his upper lip. ‘No, it’s just…been such a shock. A shock.’

  Quentin nodded. ‘I know. Horrible. You never know when your number’s up. That’s why I figure, hell, why quit smoking? When it’s time it’s time, you know?’ And he took a deep drag as if to illustrate his contemptuous and begrudging acceptance of his karma.

  When it’s time it’s time. Nichols had heard that one before. He had also heard another one—

  My time is your time.

  Quentin was next in line. Quentin, then Nichols. But as long as Quentin lived…

  Nichols watched Quentin inhale the unfiltered smoke, and it seemed as if the tars and poisons seared his own lungs, changing healthy tissue instantaneously into rabid carcinogenic beasts that tore and gnawed.

  He watched Quentin’s leg shake nervously, watched his fingers drum the desktop, and it was as if Nichols’s tension was rising, elevating his blood pressure, reddening his face, making a once-firm heart beat tiredly and trippingly.