by Roger Elwood
The sun heaves itself above the horizon, swims up along the sky. I move slowly, hesitantly, stretching stiff muscles. The air is blue and clear and fresh, cold as crystal water. A web of morning sounds crackles around me. The grass is heavy with dew, and mists retreat uphill, swirling and parting around my crouched form.
I drop the field pack to the ground near my feet, fumble at it with numb fingers, come up with a package of cigarettes from a dead man’s pocket. I nudge a cigarette into my mouth, clumsy with cold, waste a precious match. I suck in the hot smoke, feeling it filter down through the pores and cracks of my body, loosening it, dissolving the molecular chains that bound it into rock. The sun is high now, nestled among fiery pink clouds. I drag at the cigarette. For the first time, I think that it may be okay to five.
The thought is hesitant, shy; I have not allowed myself to think of the future before. The smoke in my throat is like burning leaves. Why can’t I live? I can survive. It is even worthwhile to survive. The marching miles of autumn trees shiver in response to the sun’s caress, suddenly flash with bright life. I puff; this is nice. Life is still worth living after all, even without people. I realize that I will survive, and the knowledge is soothing to my mind, smoothing the jagged edges of my thoughts. I sit bathed in the morning, at peace.
As he rested on the stone, slivers of rock suddenly exploded into the air a few inches from his hand, stinging him. A sharp echoing crack! rolled around the hills, shuddering slowly into silence. He stared in unbelieving horror at the new powdery scar on the surface of the stone. More rock exploded near his hip, the sound of a richochet lashing away through the trees, shredding leaves. Another flat coughing crack echoed! cruel in the morning hush.
He forced his legs to uncoil, grabbed the field pack and dived behind the large rock he had been sitting on at the edge of the forest. He flattened close to the stone, pressing against the grass. His metal crutch was crushed under him, jabbing against him and sending tiny fingers of pain darting across his body. The grass was wet against him. His mind was blank; he couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Another shot slapped the stone above him, the bullet skipping away through the tangled leaves. He peeked around the edge of the stone in time to see a bright muzzle flash from behind a hollow fallen log halfway down the slope of the gentle hill. Stone pinged! nearby.
His mind churned, thoughts tumbling in haphazard procession. One thought emerged from the welter: it is the enemy down there, trying to get me, trying to kill me. A memory he couldn’t identify flashed a picture of the enemy into his mind: immaculate, bestial, a hunched figure stalking him with inhuman arrogance and strength. Automatically, he drew his pistol, poked it around the edge of the stone in the direction of the hollow log and fired. The roar of the gun rattled his teeth. He heard bark tear soggily. He suddenly smelled the reek of hot oil, and there was a shiny empty shell lying on the dirt near his elbow. He had killed near Pittsburgh, a swift firelight under a broiling sun, and the dead eyes had stared at him without seeing, and the neatness of geometrical shells in the dirt had been an ultimate mockery. Time seemed to slip and waver, blurring crazily, past and present and future mingling horribly into an insoluble maze, an endless circle.
Not again, he screamed silently, not again. There was crusted blood under his fingernails. Not again! He triggered off two wild shots in the general direction of the hollow log, heard stone sing and shiver above in reply as the enemy fired back; and then he jammed his pistol into his holster and crawled frantically into the forest, keeping in the shelter of the boulder and dragging his crutch and the field pack clumsily along behind him.
He wormed his way deeper and deeper into the sheltering forest, sliding down steep inclines on his belly, puffing and struggling on knees and elbows up tangled hills. The meadow fell away behind and was lost. He kept crawling, his flesh tom and bleeding from the clawing underbrash. Far away he heard two more shots, faint with distance; the enemy had not yet seen through the ruse.
Finally he stopped, invisible under a dense thorn thicket. He curled in exhaustion, gasping, wincing at the thorns that tore his flesh, leaving drops of red blood on the shiny black wood. Jammed against the thorns, he writhed, and his lips formed words silently, puffing against the air. The bastards, he whispered, not knowing whom he was accusing, the bastards—
He found that he was having more difficulty thinking. Sometimes it was even hard for him to tell when he was awake.
I stretch cold fingers toward the crackling fire, straining, flesh as absorbent as a sponge, sucking up heat. Blue wood-smoke curls around me, stinging my nostrils, framing my head, making a pearly halo. The wood spits and moans as it is eaten, as it is translated into smoke, just as my flesh stiffens slowly into stone with the approach of night. I press closer to the fire, drinking heat. If there is enough heat, enough light, I will not have to turn into a rock to hide from the watching darkness.
Outside, it is dusk, the sky being slowly translated from whorled granite into smooth, secret ebony. As I watch, a few fat snowflakes squeeze like lazy teardrops from the slate grey sky, drifting and swirling like tiny dancing diamonds among the bare dead branches of trees. It is the first snowfall of winter. I watch it drown the falling sun on the horizon, blank it out with churning white. I can no longer see the gabled hills that rim the world. Will they sneak up on me under cover of the storm, tear me with their cruel talons? I feel my flesh turning to safe stone at the edges of my body.
I watch, straining through the snow. Everything is very quiet, pressing in. Far away I can hear the slow crackle of the Cities of Men smouldering beyond the horizon. I wonder what warms its hands at those fires? My cave is high, high on the shoulder of a hill, and I can see all the world from here without it seeing me. I am invisible.
The snow dances, pirouetting, pressing its soft mouth wetly against the jagged mouth of my cave. I can see down the throat of the storm now, and deep within its shifting velvet body, a face forms from the flying snowflakes, built up layer by layer out of a million individual crystals, a crazy-quilt face with staring empty eye-sockets that slowly fill up with white snow, which looks like silver fire. Go away, I scream at it, go away.
It speaks, hissing at me, its lips billowing and expanding with the wind, its crawling tongue flickering. I shake my head, trying not to listen to its whispering. It wants me to do something with my pistol. The snow drives me back against the rear wall of the cave. Go away, I scream. The face hisses. I am invisible, and I do not need you, I do not want you. I don’t want to hear what you say. You can’t tempt me because I am a rock. The snow howls. Go away. There is nothing left to tempt me with, the world’s treasures are ashes. I am the only one left and I am invisible. The face chuckles, lips pursing and writhing, whispering, whispering. I won’t listen, I scream, I don’t have to listen. I’ve got to find the one who’s responsible. I’ve got a mission. The snow lips laugh at me, puffing.
Suddenly surrounded by the cold echo, I think of spring and blades of grass, but I will not think of that. Symbolism was in books, and all the books are dust. Spring was a dream; winter is the reality. Outside, the face wails plaintively, evilly, whispering.
You stupid bastard, I scream, why don’t you give up? Why don’t you go away? You’re an anachronism too. The world doesn’t need you anymore, you stupid bastard. There’s not even anyone left to tempt anymore. Go away!
But the face doesn’t go away. The lips shape the words, but I will not listen to the trickling whisper. The fire is gutting, dying. My hand touches the butt of the pistol, wrapping around it, but then the fire dies and my arm turns to stone, the paralysis seeping up through my body, translating my flesh into a safe, dappled marble.
And as the sun blinks out on the horizon and I become a rock, I hear a gunshot, faint with distance. Far away, the enemy is hunting among the high hills and the soft dead fall of snow.
The shadows came on him at midnight, rousing him from his long, stone thoughts. Who are you who are you, he screa
med at the hunched waiting darknesses. Shadows darted around the cave, leaping and contorting. I didn’t do it I didn’t do it, he gibbered, cowering on his knees., I didn’t mean it I didn’t want it nobody wanted it. He laughed, tearing his throaty Nobody wanted it, please, nobody wanted it. The shadows screamed at him, knocked him over, straining to absorb his blood into their hollow selves. Oh God, he moaned, twisting on the floor, did we want it to happen? Did we want it to happen, all of us, secretly want it to happen? Did I want them to die, all the people I’ve known? The shadows clustered closer, and he almost thought that he could make out faces, recognize the longing darkness. He screamed. No I won’t look. I won’t. He thought of all the people he had known, numbering them, and as he spoke each name silently in his mind, a shadow darted in response from the dark comers of the cave and tore his flesh like a black thorn. He wailed mournfully. I wanted you dead, but I didn’t know that you would have to die. Please go away please go away. The shadows rolled over him, tightening convulsively around him like misty talons. They were female shadows now, velvet darknesses all with long, rippling hair and bright, gleaming eyes. He felt his body stirring in the night, and he thought a certain name and sobbed—no, surely I didn’t want you to die too—but the shadows twined around him and pressed him helplessly flat to the floor of the cave and tore away his sheltering clothing, making him naked and unclean. The soft female shadows buried him then, hissing sibilantly and touching him with probing hands of mist, their eyes gleaming in the night. He felt his body stiffening in response, and as the shadows wrapped him in warm, contracting darkness, he leaped and moaned and thrust, bucking like a mating salmon, trying to pin down the shadows, trying to hold them against him, trying to touch misty flesh that melted and flowed through his straining fingers, hammering and rolling, grappling with elusive shadows, which enfolded him and yet stayed just out of reach, until he gasped and screamed hoarsely, the hot pulsing madness draining from his flesh. He slumped spent and crumpled in the ashes of the cold fire. His body wet and trembling, sweat drying in the cold night air, he shuddered into feverish sleep, ravished by old dreams, raped by shadows.
I watch the sun go. down and I shift the knife in my hands. I must wait for the exact moment, or it will not work. The snow has been piled deep around the cave for many days, and I cannot get out to hunt. My ribs stand out nakedly through my parchment-thin flesh. It must work. It will work.
The sun sinks lower. There is a huge rubbery worm behind the painted horizon, and it swallows the sun every night, swallows it down to its spongy, chambered belly where they do filthy unclean perverted things so that the sun is belched forth in the morning pale and exhausted, unable to melt the prison snows. I know the signs, I know the signs well. They are unclean and they must be stopped. They are perverts. I will make the worm let go of the sun, and the sun will rise flaming strong and melt the snows and translate my cold stone into flesh and make me clean again, and I will not have sinned or have blood under my fingernails.
A weak feathery rustle under my hands. I have a bird there, a bird I trapped in a snare. I have pinned it to a board, crucified it there still living. It is an instrument, a sacrifice to free the sun.
The sun nears the horizon.
I press my knife slowly into the bird, the cold steel sliding into its flesh. There is blood on the steel, blood matting the feathers. The bird screams and thrashes, and I pull the knife out a little, slowly, probing oh so slowly for its life, letting the steel explore its body.
The bird screams again, throwing itself wildly against the rusty nails that pin it down. I control what it feels, I can make it writhe, I can make it twist. It is the controlling that counts, the burning focus of passion and hate. It is love. Love is touching and sharing, love is stirring emotion, making another feel what you feel. This is love, the steel snickering into flesh and the bird writhing, sharing my passion, I feeling its pain. There are all kinds of love.
I am not alone because I can still touch something else.
I can still make something else feel, and I will not think that I am alone. And the emotions are so strong that they are broadcast, sent out across all the world. The worm behind the horizon feels what the bird feels, and I can make the worm let go of the sun by hurting the bird. Everything, every living creature all over the world feels what the bird feels, and so they are all writhing under me and my passion covers and conquers the world.
My excitement grows, but I must wait until the sun is gone, I must wait until I have hurt the worm as much as possible. The knife probes. The bird’s struggles are weakening. The sun is suddenly gone, vanished into the worm’s gaping gullet behind the horizon. I drive the knife home to the hilt. The bird strains against the steel, gasping, dying, and I gasp with it in sympathy and sorrow and love. There are all kinds of love.
When I have finished, I push the messy remains of the bird to one side and return to the fire. I take one of my last food-concentrate tins from the field pack and begin to work it open with the bloody knife. I will survive. The sun will come in the morning and melt the snows, and I will survive.
The stars are out sharp and bright in a clear winter’s sky, but I am inside my cave and I do not think they can see me. I watch the black bulk of the gabled hills rimming the world, bright in the moonlight, and I do not see them watching, so I do not think they will come to get me. I will not have to become a rock tonight; the fire is bright. And I don’t think the shadows will come for me tonight; fighting the worm has left me drained and shaky. The most important thing is to survive. Do not listen to the whispering. I inch closer to the fire and spoon food concentrate into my mouth, licking spilled crumbs from my hands. What is the enemy doing? I wonder. I imagine the enemy doing things and feel a faint spark of returning excitement. They are all perverts. I must kill the enemy. He is the one responsible. He is an agent of those who hide behind the gabled hills. While he is here I am not unique.
I scrape the bottom of the tin for more food, the metal rasping loud in the night. I am not an ordinary man. An ordinary man would have gone insane under the pressure, he would have been driven mad by the thought that he would always be alone don’t think of that. I have managed to retain my sanity in spite of the fact that I am the only one left don’t think of that. I will not listen to the whispers, I will not listen. It is not easy to stay sane, but I will keep up the struggle, unlike the enemy. The enemy is insane. Crazy people are unclean. They are all perverts.
Suddenly I feel like crying and I don’t know why. All the world outside is hollow and empty don’t think of that. I will not listen to the whispers. Time is a maze and all the roads lead to the same place, over and over again. You cannot get out, you cannot ever get out. I feel eyes watching and I look up in fear, thinking of the enemy. But I see a flash of a liquid fiery eye peering hungrily over the rim of the world, and I know that they are thinking of coming to get me.
I think of them heaving themselves up from behind the gabled hills, towering monstrously into the night sky, scaly bodies gleaming in the moonlight, striding forward to get me, crushing trees under slimy webbed feet, and I am afraid. I am invisible, I think, and you cannot come to get me. I begin to turn into a rock, growing into the ground, turning cold and hard and opaque, my blood curdling into veins of streaky quartz. I am not an ordinary man.
At night as he slept, twitching uneasily and curled against the cold, dreaming stone dreams of the granite veins that run madly through the secret body of the earth, he would sometimes return to the battlefield in his mind’s-eye, seeing the white drifted snow that covered the blasted ground like a feathery shroud.
And at such times, he would imagine that the scattered bits of machines—broken pistons, shattered flywheels, twisted springs—were stirring slowly under the heavy snow with a horrible kind of life, stirring and crawling toward each other, groping blindly. He could see the resurrected parts inching and worming over the frozen ground,
meeting, fusing together, until a sinister, mismatched machine
began to grow, self-assembled, swelling part by part until it bulked huge and bloodstained in the night, a pulsing mountain of junk. Then, shattered, misshapen, held together only by some inhuman will, it would begin to drag itself painfully across the hills toward the cave, oil seeping like dark blood from the fissured surface, the bent needles of meters flickering behind cracked glass in time to a metallic heartbeat, knotted black wires groping to find his throat, and he would wake up, screaming.
And every night of the long winter it would creep closer across the high hills, rattling and shuddering and clanking and groaning, and he would begin to listen a little more closely to the whispers.
I cannot remember my name. This is not fair. I have not been well. The world is frozen outside. The snow never melts and I cannot get out, and I find it hard to think anymore. I cannot remember my name. I have it right on the tip of my tongue, but every time I try to say it, it slips away and I cannot remember. I know that I did have a name once. It began with a D or a B. It could have been a G. I cannot remember. This is not fair. Everyone should be able to remember their own name. But I have not been well.
The thing crept closer that night, churning through the frozen earth like a blunt plow, leaving a ruler-straight furrow in the ground. There was a red glow somewhere deep in its bowels, the smouldering glare seeping fitfully out through cracks and rivet holes, and battered gears whirled and spun and clicked nakedly inside the hollow iron skull, gleaming in the moonlight.