by Bob Leman
No saints, and, to be blunt, not even standard human beings. Except perhaps for Billy, every habitue of Doyle's was in some degree deficient in those qualities that make it possible for the human race to cope with the world. These people had opted out. They had elected not to try any longer, and in making that election they had outraged some basic part of their natures. Uncountable generations of our ancestors were shaped by the unforgiving iron imperatives of ecology, and our genes know, even when our minds do not, that failure to try is death. Deep in their hearts the people in Doyle's despised themselves, and their self-contempt made them in fact contemptible.
Thus Garft's behavior cannot be called courageous; it was not even the desperate valor of the cornered rat. It was, rather, simple failure to curb an access of spite and malice toward this creature who had had the effrontery to take him at his own evaluation. He was shaken by impotent rage, and for a brief moment his need to strike out at someone or something overrode his pusillanimity. But — all this having been said — he did, in the event, stand up to and prevail over a most repulsive and unquestionably powerful agent of darkness, and for that he deserves praise and thanks.
He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, this unlikely David, sweating under his layers of ragged sweaters, trembling with equal parts of fear and rage, desperately winnowing his exiguous vocabulary for words that would flay and sear. The words simply were not there. It did not cross his mind that a gentle benediction might have caused Robinson at least a little discomfort, while the trite scatological and sexual imagery that made up his best effort at scathing words was, from Robinson's point of view, mild praise. He squeaked out his obscenities while Robinson grinned and his frustration grew, until at last Robinson said, "Okay, turkey, you've had your fun. Now make your wish. Now."
"My wish?" Garft said in a strangled voice. "My wish? I'll tell you my wish, you creepy little rat. I wish — " He stopped. He had nothing in mind except that he desperately wanted something very bad to happen to Robinson. There was, at that point, a distinct possibility that he might say, "I wish you'd go to hell" — or words to that effect. If he had done so, Robinson's mission would have been instantly and neatly completed: the wish would have been granted without actual benefit to Garft, and Robinson would have been back at headquarters to receive whatever plaudits are awarded by the likes of Smith and Jones.
But if that was Robinson's plan, it failed. The word "rat," which Garft
had hurled only as a stock term of opprobrium, without thought of its literal meaning, had bred a sluggish activity in his brain, and he remembered Lurlene's abortive exorcism.
"You want my wish, I'll give you my wish, you — you lousy rat," he said. "I wish Lurlene's dumb poem worked, that's what I wish!"
And of course Robinson disappeared.
There was for a little time a bemused silence at the table. At length Lurlene said, "Kind of an ugly fella.”
Billy nodded "Yeah. Sure was. Glad he's gone. You want a drink, Garft?"
"Sure do, Billy. Say, what did that guy want, anyhow?"
The other two looked puzzled. The encounter was rapidly fading from all three memories, as invariably happens after such events.
"Why — I think he said he'd buy a drink," Billy said. "He never did, though. I'll do it." He went to the bar for the drinks, and all was as usual in Doyle's, and with that we reach the end of our fairy tale.
The question will of course be asked: Did they all live happily ever after? There is no answer at this time, because these things happened only recently. One can perhaps predict happiness — or at least reasonable contentment — for Lurlene and Billy. That was their state before they met Robinson, and there is no reason to think that anything may change for them. As for Garft, one would like to hope that some residual memory of his heroism lodged in his subconscious and will serve to spark a renascence of spirit in him, so that he will take a bath and find a job and perhaps have his teeth seen to. Such a beginning might lead him into the paths of productive respectability, where he would end with a wife and children and a lawn to rake. On the other hand (and this is no doubt more likely), he may simply continue his present life, which does, after all, bring him happiness of a kind. If he had thoughtfully considered his wish, instead of squandering it in a fit of temper, his highest aspiration would have been to spend the rest of his life in the condition we have described as stage one of his drinking day. It is probably safe to say that Garft will live happily for two or three hours of each day, and not so happily the rest of the time.
Last of all, Robinson. We know what happened to him. At the instant the wish was uttered he found himself, without any sense of transition, at the bottom of a deep hole in a cold northern land. He did not even make an attempt to get out. He was well aware of where he was, and how he had come to be there, and he was resigned to his imprisonment. He knew that he was going to be there for nine hundred and forty years. At the end of that time a poor woodcutter named Garft was going to find the hole and pull him out, and he would have to grant the woodcutter three wishes as a reward.
The Tehama
(The Magazine of Fantasy & S.F., December 1981)
In an old house, late one night, a quantity of brick was suddenly pushed out of a cellar wall from behind, and the entrance of a tunnel was exposed. Two creatures hopped from the tunnel into the room. They were human in form, in a general way, but their legs as well as their arms terminated in hands with heavy claws, and there was something strongly canine about the heads and faces. Their doggish mouths were full of enormous yellow teeth, as pointed and sharp as needles. They were absolutely hairless, and covered with yellow mud. Here and there on the squat bodies mudless patches exposed skin as white as chalk.
They could speak. One of them said, "Soon food."
"Long time no food," said the other. They spoke in whines and growls and snuffles.
"How long time?" said the first.
They stared at each other with dull curiosity.
"Long time," said the other. "Long time! Long time!" They did not possess very many words. He snapped ferocious teeth at the questioner to bring home his point.
The first snuffled agreement. In a dim, vague way, he could feel that it had been a very long time indeed. "Hungry," he said.
They had always been hungry, of course; hunger was their natural state, a perpetual thing. They hungered for flesh, preferably in an advanced state of natural decomposition, but also acceptable bloody and alive. They had been hungry when the medicine man's spell shut off their consciousness (such as it was), and the hunger continued even though unfelt during all the centuries they had lain encysted deep in the yellow clay. When consciousness returned, it was first as awareness of hunger.
"Find food," the first one said. They looked about them. They could see very well in the dark. There was an open door on the other side of the room. They went to it and tried to pass through the doorway together. Each individual was almost as wide as the opening, and they became involved in a clumsy slapstick tussle in the doorway, chewing and clawing each other with great ferocity, leaving splotches of yellow blood on the floor.
Once they were through, however, the altercation was instantly forgotten, and they went snuffling down the passageway with their talons clicking on the stone floor. It was a very large house, and the cellars were extensive. The passage turned and twisted, and brought them at last to the foot of an iron spiral staircase, which they climbed, after some confusion and bloodletting over their order of precedence in the necessary single file. At the top of the staircase was a landing with a door. They pushed and pulled at the door, and growled at it, and bit each other out of frustration. At last one of them struck it a vindictive blow; it flew open, its lock shattered.
They had reached the kitchen. There was food here, a great deal of it, but they had no way of knowing. It was food that lay cold and odorless behind refrigerator doors, or was sealed in cans, or was boxed dry stuff that would no more have seemed food to them than the doo
r they had just smashed. They stared about with dull wonder at the gleam of chrome and the shine of enamel, at a hundred incomprehensible artifacts.
One of them gave a noisy sniff; the other became instantly alert and joined him in testing the air. The first said, "Food." They moved off in the direction of the smell's source. They went through a dining room and down a hallway and into the main living room of the house, where there was indeed food.
It was in the form of two men and a German shepherd dog. The dog was large and fierce, and he had been aware of the intruders long before they became aware of him. Because he was a highly intelligent animal, and supremely well trained, he had obeyed a command to stand fast and be silent; but he quivered like a taut wire under the tension of restraining himself, and his chest trembled with a deep, subvocal growl of the utmost malignity. He was crouching to spring, a powerful engine of destruction caught up in a frenzy of rage and loathing.
When the creatures entered the room, he attacked. A voice shouted, "Stay!" but the dog was beyond control; he was suddenly a blur of movement, a flashing passage of great savage teeth launched at the foremost of the intruders.
The creature did not shift its position, nor did it appear to move hastily when it swung its stubby arm; but the blow was timed with exquisite precision, and in it was enormous strength. The dog's rib cage was instantly shattered and splintered, and his heart pulped; he was dead in midair. Before he could drop to the floor, the second creature hooked him at the neck with its talons and pulled. The talons of the first were sunk deep in the body, and it resisted the pull. The head separated from the body; there was a sudden, copious spout of blood.
With importunate, single-minded greed they tore the dog to pieces and began to feed noisily, cramming huge chunks into their terrible mouths, devouring flesh, bones, hide, and offal indiscriminately, crunching and snuffling and slobbering. In less than a minute nothing of the dog remained but his blood soaking into the carpet and a terrible stench in the air.
The two men were standing at the other end of the room. "Oh, my God," one of them said. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Both of them were pale and trembling. They were slender men dressed in youthful clothing of gaudy color and design, but they were twenty years older than their clothing indicated. One of them was quite gray; the other had dyed his hair yellow. The hair of both was arranged with extreme care.
"Oh, my carpet, my carpet!" the gray one cried. "Dennis, look at my carpet!"
"Your carpet" - your carpet! Look at those things! How are we going to get out of here? Oh, my God, they see us! Oh, my God!"
The dog had been no more than an appetizer for the pair. The two men promised a filling, if not particularly tasty, meal. Snuffling, the creatures moved toward them.
"Gordon, do something!" Dennis cried. "For God's sake, do something!" His voice rose to a thin, terrified piping. "Do something, do something." He had wet his trousers.
"Oh, Jesus," Gordon said. "Yeah. Do something. I've got to -I've got to-"
"The spell, Gordon! The spell!"
"Yeah, the spell. I've got to -the spell!"
Gordon seemed to make a partial escape from his trance of terror. He snatched up two painted gourds that lay on the table. They were rattles. He began to shake them in an odd rhythm and to chant in a minor key.
The creatures halted their advance. Their snuffling ceased. They stood without motion. Gordon continued to shake his rattles, and his chanting became louder and more assured. The creatures shivered suddenly and became as rigid as stone. Then, in a ponderous and almost stately manner, they tipped and crashed stiffly to the floor, where they lay like toppled idols.
The men collapsed into chairs and sat trembling for a time. At length Gordon said, "Well, it works. I raised them and I put them down." He thought about it for a moment. It works. I did it. It really works." He began to laugh. Dennis joined him, tentatively at first, and then with equal abandon. They were caught up in an hysteria of relief from their terror, and it was some time before they could gain control of themselves. Then, as their giggles gradually subsided, they began to stare with mounting horror at the recumbent monsters. At last Dennis said, "We almost got killed."
"And eaten," Gordon said. "Poor old Rex."
"Oh, Jesus," Dennis said. Both looked sick.
"The thing is," Gordon said, "is what do we do now? What do we do with these things?"
"You should have thought about that beforehand. 'Let's try it, let's try it’ you said. Now you've got ‘em. My God, look at 'em."
They looked at the comatose creatures with fear and revulsion. Gordon rose and edged toward them, timid and tentative, ready to take flight if they showed signs of life. They remained totally inert, their eyes closed, the feral muzzles slackly agape, revealing bits of dog clinging to the frightful teeth. Gordon reached out with a finger and, after a couple of hesitant withdrawals, poked at one of them. It had no effect.
"They're out, all right," he said. "Back in suspended animation, or whatever it is. The spell works okay." He thought about that for a moment. "Both spells work. Everything's going according to the plan. Right?"
Dennis had cautiously come up to join him. '"According to the plan'" he said with scorn. '"According to the plan.' What's the matter with you? The plan was to invoke something to kill your aunt for you. How the hell are you going to get these -things to do that- to do anything?"
"I can control them. You saw that," Gordon said defensively.
"Control?" Dennis said. "You can raise them up and put them back to sleep, that's all. In between you've got about as much control as Rex had."
Gordon winced. "Well, yeah. I suppose that's right. We'll have to figure something out. But what do we do right now? These things can't stay here."
"We’ll have to hide them," Dennis said. "They came up from the basement. They must have been buried someplace down there. We'll find their hole and put them back."
"And how do you suppose we'll do that? Look at the size of them. And they're as hard as a piece of wood. They must weigh three hundred pounds apiece. There's no way in the world we could carry them down to the basement - or anywhere."
"All right. Leave them there, then. Use them for decoration. Just the thing to complete the decor. Hose off the mud and they'll be exactly the right color." The room was, in fact, painted and furnished in subtle gradations of near-white.
"Oh, shut up, Dennis," Gordon said. “I guess there's no way out of it. I'll have to call Pokatewa for help.”
"It's not according to the plan at all. He knows too much already. We're going to get caught. I know we're going to get caught."
"We haven't broken any laws yet. And he already knows we're up to something. Anyhow, who the hell else can help?" He went to the telephone and dialed. After a time he said, "No answer."
As he hung up, the doorbell rang. The two stared at each other in panic. "What-?" Gordon said. "Who-?"
"Oh, my God, they've got us!" Dennis said.
"The window," said Gordon. "You can see the front door from the bay window. See who it is."
Dennis peered through the curtain and turned with relief on his face. "It's him," he said. "The Indian. Smithers."
"Native American," Gordon corrected automatically. "And don't use his paleface name. Call him Pokatewa."
"Whatever," Dennis said. He went out of the room, and there was the sound of the opening and closing of a door. He re-entered with a companion, a thickset man dressed in what is sometimes called "Full Cleveland" - maroon polyester trousers, a green blazer of the same material, a black shirt with no tie, and white patent leather shoes and belt. He raised his hand to shoulder height, palm outward, and without visible irony said, "How."
"Smithers!" Gordon said. "I mean Pokatewa! Am I glad to see you! I was just trying to call."
"Well, well, well," Smithers said. "What have we here?" His eyes had widened for a moment at the sight of the monsters, but he showed no other sign of alarm or amazement. "So these are what you got."
>
"They're what I got," Gordon said, "and they're not what I wanted. What on earth am I going to do with them? What are they, anyhow? They killed my dog."
"Ate him," Dennis said.
Smithers was examining the teeth and talons. "'Why, I think they're what's called Ne-dake-ne-kevis," he said. "At least they're kind of like what the old man described. Of course he had only tradition for the description. Look at the size of 'em. They look mean."
Gordon shuddered. "Oh, they are, they are. But what are they?"
"The name means 'Eaters of those whose ghosts have departed,'" Smithers said. "What you have here is your basic ghoul. My people never did think very well of them. Where'd they come from?"
"They came up from the basement."
"Yeah, that figures. I've heard that this area through here was put off-limits by the medicine men in the olden times. They thought the white men were crazy to live around here. When you woke ‘em, they must have started burrowing and came out in your cellar."
"Well, they can't stay here," Gordon said. "How do we get rid of them?"
"Gordon," Smithers said, "I think we'd better have a little talk. You want to fix me a drink?"
***
The sun was rising when Smithers left the house. He descended the broad stone stairway to his car, a huge, unabashed gas-guzzler, and drove off down the long driveway. The land on both sizes of the driveway belonged to real estate speculators, now; all that remained of the old Alfred Evans estate was the house Smithers had just left, with two acres of land and a right-of- way from the highway.
The house was a very large and very ugly one, built at the turn of the century by a rich man to flaunt his wealth. The Evans brothers, Alfred and Frank, had been coal barons, rapacious cold men who pulled themselves out of the pit and into opulence in the space of a decade, leaving a debris of broken businesses and broken men at the stages of their climb, and making their name a synonym for merciless greed. They lived austere bachelor lives in the grimy house where they had been bom until long after they became millionaires, when at last both built ostentatious and very similar mansions on adjoining large estates located at a decent remove from the mines. Alfred never married, but Frank had a son, and then a grandson and granddaughter, and, finally, a great-grandson. This was Gordon, who was clearly destined to be without issue and the last of the line. Gordon had inherited the Alfred Evans place when he came of age and had supported himself ever since by selling off the land, piece by piece, until only the house was left.