The Claw

by Ramsey Campbell

  As he took one stumbling step forward, more to keep his balance than out of any wish to go on, a fragment of the undergrowth scuttled away from him. It was a chameleon that was turning into jungle. The shock brought him back to himself: he no longer felt he was sleepwalking. Isaac was fully aware of what he was doing, coming all this way for Alan, away from his wife and his bright-eyed daughters. If he could do so much for Alan, surely Alan could do what he must for his own family? Perhaps he could if he didn't think about it. He stepped forward and squeezed between the fat moist trunks of the trees that formed the gap.

  They felt like sweaty flesh. Thick rubbery leaves stroked him, cold wet caresses. A mass of flies buzzed out of the knee-high undergrowth and crawled over his face and arms. Though the path was short, he was ready to tear his way through before he'd struggled to the end, to splinter the trees, anything to fight the silence, the congealing dimness, the flies that he hadn't room to beat off. By the time he reached the end of the path he was so desperate for freedom that he almost fell.

  It was even dimmer here, and more oppressive. Though the trees and the undergrowth had been cut back, branches and dense foliage stooped overhead. He had to stand on the squelching grass while his eyes adjusted, and then he stood gazing. If he let himself feel anything, it would be relief. Thank God, this wasn't like his dream at all.

  There were perhaps a dozen huts in the clearing, squat conical buildings, little more than a roof and a circular wall with an open doorway that faced into the compound. Some of the roofs had collapsed. As the huts took shape from the dimness they made him think of giant mushrooms, swollen by the climate, or by magic. They were grey with dimness and moisture, and seemed to glisten like snails. They looked as if they hadn't been lived in for years.

  In that case, why was he afraid to go forward? It was only a primitive village, the trees were nothing but trees… Yet he already felt as if they were creeping forward to surround him. What was that clutter of thin whitish sticks in one hut? Were they bones? If he stepped forward he might see, but he felt as if something was waiting for him to move.

  He mustn't be afraid, not now. There wasn't even a reason for him to be. Good God, what would he be like when there was? Fury made him step forward, a fury that left no room for thought, lie stopped halfway between the huts and the way through the trees, his head twisting back and forth as if he were a beast in a cage.

  He was still trying to decide what the whitish sticks were when a sound behind him made him swing round, his empty hand snatching at the air as he realized that he had no weapon. The sound had only been Isaac, but as Alan turned, he saw what was wrong with the trees. A red shape had been painted on the trunk on each side of the gap.

  He had to peer before he could make it out, and yet he felt as if he knew it. It was a thin crouching shape, the shape of a man – or almost a man. It had been painted in blood, which looked fresh. A man composed of blood, or covered in it – where had he encountered that before? He was struggling to think when Isaac whispered 'That's it. That is what they believed would hunt with them.'

  Alan couldn't think. His inability to think, combined with the thickening gloom, maddened him. As he peered at one of the bloody paintings, he realized that the crouching shape was stirring, ready to leap at him. No, a mass of flies was crawling on it; that was why its limbs were squirming. He turned to Isaac to ask him to explain what he'd said. But Isaac was gazing beyond the huts. He was gazing as if he couldn't look away.

  As he followed Isaac's gaze, Alan felt the nightmare closing in. He was scarcely aware that he was moving forward, and he couldn't have halted himself; there is no controlling a nightmare. He'd moved before he could even see what Isaac saw.

  The first thing he saw through a gap between the huts was a cooking pot, a grey bulge in the dimness. It took him a few moments to realize what it was, from the pinkish glow of the fire smouldering beneath it. As he peered at the glow, a shape loomed at the edge of his vision, a thin shape against the trees at the far side of the clearing. He looked up and met the eyes that were watching him.

  The dream had him now – the dream in which time was suspended, and from which he would never wake. He had seen that figure before, the thin crouching figure wrapped in its own limbs like a dried-up spider. Now he saw that its head was disproportionately small, which made it look even less human. The air about it seemed darker, swarming, and he thought of flies.

  He was only peripherally aware of all this. All he could see were the eyes. If the body looked almost wasted away, the eyes were unnaturally bright with a kind of insane senile brightness. He could read their dreadful hunger all the way across the clearing. They were insatiable, and they were waiting for him.

  He had forgotten Isaac until the translator took hold of his arm. 'He's alone,' Isaac murmured, as if that mattered. 'The others must be hunting. Stay here.'

  He stepped forward, drawing the pistol. Perhaps he meant to give himself no time for second thoughts about what he had to do, but then it would be Alan's turn. At least the spidery eyes were watching Isaac now. That might give Alan a chance to prepare himself, but that thought was appalling too.

  Now he could see more of the dried-up figure that was squatting amid its tangle of limbs. Its skin was like a mummy's, leathery and ancient; its mouth was a skull's mouth – too large for the head. It looked as if it had no right to be alive, and yet the eyes looked older than the body, the life in them did.

  Isaac was moving more slowly. Perhaps he'd seen exactly what he was approaching. Alan had a sudden inkling that Isaac couldn't stop himself. The silence was a stagnant fluid in which they were drowning. It dragged at their limbs, it suffocated time. Isaac might take forever to reach the thing that was watching them – and then Alan realized that Isaac had found he couldn't shoot. Now that it came to the moment, he couldn't kill another human being, however nominal its humanity was, in cold blood.

  Alan was suddenly afraid for him. He opened his mouth to call him back, but sourness choked his throat. He went after Isaac just as the crouching figure opened its enormous mouth, baring pointed brownish teeth. Even at that distance Alan could smell its breath, which stank of stale blood.

  He made a grab for Isaac, but wasn't quick enough. Isaac must have seen what was coming, for he halted. Nevertheless neither of them could have believed that anything so old and withered could move with such speed.

  Before Alan could reach Isaac, or Isaac could step back, the fleshless creature sprang from its crouch and came scuttling at Isaac on all fours.

  Isaac stumbled backward, almost tripping himself. It wasn't enough. The dried-up man had the swiftness of a spider, and the method too. Before Isaac could kick out or retreat further the creature seized him, grabbing his ankles and swarming up him, wrapping its legs around his. As Isaac struggled desperately to free himself from the thing that was grinning mirthlessly up at him, he lost his balance and fell on his back in the squelching grass.

  His arms were flailing helplessly. All the breath had been knocked out of him. The pistol had jerked from his hand and was trapped under his body. As he screamed, the fleshless man climbed onto his chest and crouched there, the wizened head darting to his throat.

  Alan rushed at the creature to drag it away from Isaac, but the long brownish claws were already at Isaac's throat. They ripped open the jugular vein, releasing an appalling rush of blood. Isaac's convulsion uncovered the gun, and Alan snatched it up. Before he could use it Isaac's screams had choked off as the enormous mouth fastened on him and tore out a mouthful of his throat.

  Isaac's outstretched hands clawed at the muddy earth, then they relaxed. He was dead. Alan's only thought was that he had brought Isaac here to his death. He was staring, dazed and unable to move, at Isaac's inverted face and blank eyes when the scrawny thing on Isaac's chest looked up, exposing the raw ruin of Isaac's throat. The ancient eyes gazed brightly at him until he understood what their expression meant. It was an invitation – an invitation to feast. He lifted th
e gun with a hand that was all at once steady and fired once, twice, blowing out those unbearable eyes.

  Forty

  Alan leaned against a tree at the edge of the clearing. He was afraid that he was going to fall. As soon as the eyeless figure had jerked and fallen back, his fury had left him. He felt drained, giddy, weak as a convalescent. The silence seemed empty now, no longer ominous, but his thoughts were deafening. He was thinking of what he still had to do.

  It made his guts squirm. How could he ever have believed himself capable of such a thing? He was just an ordinary civilized human being, alone and far from home. True, he'd left behind everything he knew and loved; but that didn't mean that he could leave himself behind. There was nobody to see what he did except himself, but that was enough to prevent him. Perhaps if Isaac had still been alive to encourage him he might have forced himself, for Anna's sake.

  Isaac had died in bringing him here. Isaac had as good as died for him. That thought rekindled his fury, briefly. However dreadful his task might be, considerably less than his life was required of him. It would be a kind of revenge for Isaac, and that was the least Isaac deserved. He made himself step forward while that was clear in his mind, and used one foot to lever the withered corpse off Isaac's body.

  Averting his eyes from the wound that had been Isaac's throat, he reached inside Isaac's jacket and found the knife. His innards clenched again. He must have been hoping it wouldn't be there. He'd known it was, known that Isaac had been keeping it out of sight so as not to remind him before it was necessary. He grasped the sheath and drew it out, making sure he didn't touch the blade. He knew how sharp it was.

  The glade was growing dim. Did that mean it would soon be dark, or was it just his eyes? Perhaps the Leopard Man's companions were on their way back. At least that gave him a reason to hurry. He stuck the sheathed knife in his belt and stooped quickly to the old man's wrists. He wanted no time to think.

  He began to drag the corpse along, its buttocks bumping over the ground. Its trail on the grass looked more like an insect's juices than blood; very little had leaked out of its leathery face. When he'd dragged the corpse almost to the fire, he dropped the wrists and went to look in the pot.

  Except for a few inches of steaming water, it was empty. He poked at the embers beneath it with a stick. In a moment they reddened and flared up, and before long the water was bubbling. It was churning, and so were his guts. How could he go through with this horrible farce? But it was the only way he could think of to attempt what he had to do.

  He pulled out the knife and stood over the corpse. By God, there wasn't much of it. He was grinning savagely, hysterically. To come all this way, through so much, only to be thwarted because there was no meat on his adversary's body! He turned it over with his foot, then he had to close his eyes, he was so sickened by his plan. There was no alternative. He stooped, and with two inexpert slices hacked off the corpse's scrawny buttocks.

  He had to close his eyes again before he could pick up the pieces of meat. He would have carried them between finger and thumb, except that they were too slippery. He dug his long nails into them and stumbled to the cooking pot, almost running. Rump steak, his mind was babbling, rump steak. When he threw in the meat, drops of hot water stung his hands like needles.

  He began to pace slowly around the clearing. If he walked fast he was too aware of trying to distract himself. It still wasn't dark; the general gloom seemed not to have deepened – perhaps he'd been trying to believe it was later than it was in order to give himself an excuse to flee. In the silence he could hear the pot bubbling. His stomach tightened, his throat writhed. He remembered Isaac's words: By devouring your enemy you gain his power, conquer it – there is no other way to conquer the power of the Leopard Men, of the claw. He'd been eating dead flesh all his life, that was what meat was; he just hadn't butchered it himself before. Butchery was the old man's corpse face down on the grass, the glimpse of reddened bone poking through the raw flat patches where the buttocks had been. Alan had to turn away quickly, choking.

  Time was passing. The water in the pot must be boiling now. As the steam drifted toward him, it seemed to bring with it a faint smell of meat. Every moment made his throat tighter, made him shrink further into himself, more and more aware of what he was proposing to do. By God, he'd go through with it; it must be the worst thing you could do to a Leopard Man – that at least would be some revenge for Isaac. All at once, while his fury was uppermost, he strode to the pot.

  There wasn't much meat to be seen through the greasy bubbles. The two slices looked greyish and shrunken. At this rate there'd soon be no meat left. He plunged the knife into the boiling water and speared one slice. When he held it up, steaming, he could almost believe it was just meat -dark chicken meat, perhaps. As soon as it seemed cool enough, he sawed off a piece. Holding the rest in his left hand, he lifted the piece to his mouth on the point of the knife.

  He'd hoped that it was small enough to swallow without chewing, but his throat had closed tight and his mouth was dry. He had to chew the stringy meat, chew and keep chewing. He was holding his breath, with the vague idea that to do so would prevent him from tasting, but there was a taste like greasy pork in his mouth now – not quite enough like pork. Though he had his back to it, he was intensely, almost feverishly, aware of the mutilated corpse. He swallowed at last, and stood there, eyes closed, stomach writhing, body trembling.

  The portion he'd swallowed might not be enough, assuming that mattered. He sawed off another small piece and managed to down that, then he stuffed the rest of the slice into his mouth, chewing desperately, eager to be finished. That was a mistake. His stomach rebelled. He had to keep the meat down, whatever he did; whatever happened, he mustn't open his mouth. He was chewing violently, but his mouth was dry. His thoughts were babbling, trying to take his mind off what he was doing: rump steak, think of Anna, finish here and then he could go home, do it for Anna and Liz, they need never know, they must never know, one look at his face and they would know, if they recognized him at all, the butcher, the baker, the cannibal maker, my husband the cannibal…

  All at once his whole body convulsed and he vomited uncontrollably, straight into the pot. He felt as if he was trying to vomit the depths of himself, give back the part of himself he couldn't bear.

  He groped his way blindly to the trees and leaned against them. He was shivering as if he would never stop. He felt purged, empty, hardly there at all. Sounds of the jungle, faint but clear, surrounded him. Soon it would be dark. He felt that the moment he left the support of the trees he'd fall and never be able to move. Yet he had to move: suppose the old man's companions came back while he was here? He had to go into the darkening jungle. There was only one thing he could think of to do.

  Forty-one

  Liz stood in her darkening bedroom and gazed down at Anna. Beyond the curtains, night had already swallowed the sea. Darkness was softening the shape of the bedroom furniture, settling on Anna's face, smoothing out the frown that was like a deep scratch between her eyebrows. Incredibly, the house was silent except for the rushing of the sea. It seemed impossible that Anna was quiet at last.

  Since the day before yesterday she'd been intolerable, worse than a baby, far worse. 'You said I could go to the Lakes. When can I go?' Liz had begun to feel as if these were the only words the child knew, that she'd learned them like a parrot – a parrot that could follow Liz from room to room, pestering and whining. No, nothing so intelligent as a parrot: a worn-out mechanical toy that could no longer do what it had been built to do, a toy that could only wander aimlessly about, squawking its two sentences over and over. A toy would have run down eventually, but Anna would undoubtedly start up all over again in the morning. Long before dark, Liz felt she was ready to do anything to get rid of the child.

  There was nothing she could do. Even when the car was repaired – the repairman was collecting it tomorrow, they took their time hereabouts – she was damned if she'd put her parents to any
further trouble. She didn't blame her father for being disgruntled when she'd cancelled Anna's visit. To have inconvenienced her parents so much for nothing, when her father was convalescing, and all because Anna had made her lose her temper – she couldn't understand why she'd felt the need to send Anna away at all. It wasn't as if she'd said anything to the child that a normal person wouldn't have said under all the circumstances. Anna was lucky that Liz had managed to confine her anger to words.

  She turned away from the bed, for the sight of Anna was only making her angry. Besides, she had more important problems than Anna to deal with. As she went downstairs, the sound of her footsteps reminded her how empty the house was, how far away Alan was. She wished desperately that he would come home. Apart from anything else, she'd be able to talk to him about the claw.

  She couldn't talk to Jane. She ought to have done so when she'd had the chance; she ought to have gone with Rebecca and Gail, and found an excuse to speak to Jane alone. She would have been able to but for Anna, but for being unable either to leave the child with anyone or to take her with her. Now it was too late; Gail had returned from her visit yesterday almost in tears, saying that now Jane was refusing to be visited. It wasn't only the refusal that had upset her, it was Jane's reason for refusing. Apparently she was claiming that someone she'd trusted had made her kill Georgie.

  It couldn't be Alex; even Jane couldn't have trusted her. Could she have meant Anna? There was no doubt in Liz's mind that if it hadn't been for Anna and all she'd done that day, she would have been in time to prevent Jane from harming Georgie. Anna was as responsible for the baby's death as Jane was – more so, for Jane couldn't have been able to help herself.

  Liz shook her head dully. It was no use brooding about it, but what else could she do? She couldn't find a pretext to visit Derek at home, because he wasn't there; he couldn't bear to stay alone in the house. Why couldn't she ask him or the police to search the house for the claw? Somehow she didn't want anyone to know how important it was to her, perhaps because it seemed shamefully trivial in the context of Jane's tragedy. Could she break into Jane's house? She couldn't imagine herself doing so. She seemed unable to think clearly on the subject of the claw.