Totentanz

by Al Sarrantonio

  "Why don't you let him go?" Reggie asked quietly.

  Ash hesitated before answering. "That would be foolish."

  "I want you to let him go."

  "That can't be done." Ash sounded almost unsure of himself.

  Reggie bent down to help Pup to his feet. Pup clutched at him, trying to find air. Reggie turned his face to Ash.

  "Take me instead."

  "I'll have you both."

  "Will you?"

  'Yes.''

  Ash had banished his uncertainty, and Reggie was thrown away from Pup's body. With an artificial sound, air rushed into Pup's lungs and then was pulled out again, giving him an instantly withdrawn respite.

  Ash stood over him. Pup looked imploringly at Reggie; and Reggie suddenly saw in the startled, terrified face the boy that Pup had been—so different from the creature he had become.

  "Watch," Ash instructed Reggie, and then a low, humming wail started deep in Pup's throat and built to a piercing whine. His hands darted convulsively over his body, slapping everywhere as if a thousand bees were stinging him.

  With infinite, tearing slowness, portions of Pup's flesh began to rip themselves from his body.

  "You've heard of a pound of flesh?" Ash placidly asked Reggie. "I'll give you a hundred and fifty pounds of it. This will take quite some time, so I suggest you find a chair."

  "Stop!" Reggie said, looking at the red flaking thing that was Pup Malamut thrashing and screaming on the ground. Pup's eyes were fixed on Reggie's, wild with pain and terror.

  The flesh slowly ripped away from around Pup's eyeballs, leaving two round, staring monstrosities in his disintegrating face.

  ''Ash, stop!"

  "I don't want to." He spoke happily, and his face was tinted a flushed pink. He moved a step closer to Pup, pushing at him with the toe of one shoe, which only made Pup scream louder. "You do see the point I'm making, don't you? He's dying, and he knows it. The slowness of the act makes him realize it all the more acutely." He leaned down over Pup's face. "You do know you're dying, don't you, `King of the Dead'? What you're experiencing now is that thing you were so in love with. But for you there'll be no more giving of that kind of love. In fact, you'll be nothing in a matter of minutes. You're literally disappearing, cell by cell, before our very, eyes. You know that, don't you?"

  Pup's staring, horror-filled eyes gave answer.

  "He knows it," Ash continued, addressing Reggie, "and you know it too. That's the point. Death is a horrible thing. You seem to have gotten the strange notion into your head that it doesn't mean anything, and that's completely wrong. What your former friend is going through is death itself, a dissemination, an uncoupling of Pup Malamut from himself. In a few moments there will be no more Pup Malamut. Pup Malamut will be dead. In the past there will have been two Pup Malamuts—the one who lived up to the moment of death, and Pup Malamut at the moment of death. The second one is the one I own. I own that moment. That's what all the poor fools you saw risen from their Montvale graves were, merely the good citizens of Montvale at the moment of their deaths. I own that moment. The rest of them, the good citizens who lived, no longer exist. They are gone. And I suppose that's a shame, eh?"

  He looked over at Pup now, a nearly skeletal figure trembling as ever more flesh flaked away from his body. "A shame, eh, Pup? No more living Pup Malamut. Not ever. He's made his rounds, and now he's out of the picture. Just like your parents, Pup. They're no more either. No more Mr. and Mrs. Malamut, ever. Did you think of that while you murdered them? Did you think about poor little Lavinia Crawford while you strangled her, how her little pink breasts will never blossom under your fingers, or anyone else's, ever again? There was only one girl in all of time with her breasts, and she's gone. You killed her. No one ever again or before with exactly her body, her eyes, her lips, her sly, stupid smile. Did you think about any of that, Pup? Say yes and I might save you yet."

  Pup's ruined, disappearing face nodded wildly. "Sorry, Pup. It's too late."

  A keening wail escaped the carcass on the floor of the tent. Ash laughed, the sound building from a croak to a dry cough to a full roar. The wailing sound continued incessantly, even over Ash's laughter, and then suddenly Ash turned to Reggie, continuing to laugh but dropping his tone to a lower register.

  "Do you want to see the exact moment when Pup Malamut becomes mine? Would that make you happy?" His laughter stopped, and he said harshly, "You think you went through this when that milk truck hit your bicycle, but you didn't. You saw only the very beginning, and I'll make sure your departure is longer and harder than this foolish boy's ever could be. You're a special case for me, and I'm going to enjoy you." He moved closer to Reggie, grabbing him by the hair and dragging him over to Pup's body. Holding him by the back of the neck, he thrust his face down toward Pup.

  "Look closely, boy," he hissed, his sickle mouth close, as wet as a snake's, to Reggie's ear. "More than this will be yours."

  Pup Malamut, the skin all but shorn from his face, bare patches of smooth white skull showing beneath his flesh, thrust himself up horribly on his elbows and tried to reach out at Reggie. "I . . . don't want . . . to . . . die," he gasped. His eyes were huge in their white sockets, his raw hands, as the body fell back, reaching convulsively for Reggie. "Don't . . . let . . . me . . . die . . . please."

  Reggie tried to turn away, but Ash's grip held him firmly. He closed his eyes, and then Pup's hands, finding hidden, desperate strength, were upon him, pulling him down.

  "Please. . .

  Reggie opened his eyes to see Pup's ruined and torn visage mere inches from his own face: it pulsated with escaping warmth, and Pup clasped Reggie tight about the neck.

  "God, please!" Pup said, and then his tongue lashed out of his mouth and his teeth bared and he tried to bite Reggie.

  Reggie threw himself away from Ash's reaching grasp and fell off to one side. Pup began to scream again.

  Laughing, Ash said, "Don't let anyone tell you I don't have compassion," and then Reggie heard a horrified, screeching wail, and when he looked at Pup, there was only a mass of white and red bits.

  "There," Ash said, his face flushed dark, the word coming out of him like a tiny gasp. He stood regarding the remains of what had been Pup Malamut, staring at them as if remembering warmly what had just occurred, and then he finally spoke to Reggie.

  "I hope you enjoyed what you saw."

  Reggie looked at him in simple awe, as though he had just discovered Ash's secret. "You own only one moment," he said.

  Ash regarded him mildly. His skin had resumed its normal pasty color. His pitted eyes gave away the interest with which he was following Reggie's words.

  "That's all you are," Reggie went on. "You're only that one brief second when life leaves the body, nothing more." His words were a revelation to himself. "That's the only power you have.”

  Still maintaining his placid demeanor, Ash's voice betrayed the anger he held. "Is that what you think?" He took time to draw one of his cigarettes out and light it. "Have you thought about what it would be like without Reggie Carson? What will happen when you are no more?" His voice was rising in angry degrees. "Have you thought about what it will be like for Reggie Carson when he falls over that ledge, when that one tiny moment comes?"

  Darkness assaulted Reggie. And coldness. He was in his own body, and he saw the world begin to fall away. He saw the tunnel, up there above him, but he had fallen away from that too. He must have fallen into a hole. It was cold and damp. And then he felt moist earth around him, smelled putrefaction, felt tiny things crawling over him and into him, and when he moved his hands over his body, he felt his body give way, cold parts of his flesh sliding loose from his bones and dropping into his hands, the bones themselves softening, rotting. He was Reggie Carson, and he was decomposing, being eaten away

  He was Reggie Carson, and he was rotting away!

  His mind was in turmoil. Once again he was before Ash, and he wanted to lie in the dust where he was, to curl up like a
baby and not move. Ash was right. There was nothing in him that told him Ash was lying. Reggie Carson would be no more! No matter what the warming eyes had said to him, no matter how they had filled him with courage and the will to do what he had to do, he knew now that this was the truth—he, Reggie, would be dead.

  Ash was laughing. Whatever caution and doubt he had possessed about Reggie was gone. "I knew there was nothing special here," he taunted. "I don't know why I ever thought there was. Do you know," he continued, his tone growing malicious and proud, "that you bothered me? I've been among the slime on this earth long before your conception was even a dream. I've been here since the first stupid, crawling, filth-ridden human crawled on all fours to hit his brother with a rock from behind. When the first cells divided after being struck by lightning, I was there, watching while one of them broke and died, turning back into dead water. And I laughed. I've always been here, waiting to drink and feed from this empty, senseless thing you call life. I've enjoyed every minute of it." He spoke with disgust. "And to think that you bothered me."

  He turned away, and then Reggie heard his name called, but not by Ash. He looked up sleepily from the dust, pushed himself onto his hands and knees.

  He saw Ash grinning at him. Then from behind Ash he heard the voice, a pleading "Reggie . . ." that was weak and hopeful and full of despair. He stood up shakily, brushing the dust from his body. Rips in the tent canvas showed the bright world outside.

  Ash stepped aside. Crazy Frances was standing there, and behind her there was another person whom Reggie could not make out. He felt very tired. He heard his name called again, and then Crazy Frances stepped to one side, revealing that the other figure was his mother.

  She was kneeling, and Crazy Frances rested her hand on her shoulder. His mother looked confused and tired. She stared at Reggie as if she didn't believe he was really there.

  "Reggie?"

  "I'm all right, Mom."

  She tried to rise but could not; either Frances' hand was holding her down or she didn't have the strength to get up. Ash again lit one of his black cigarettes.

  "As you can see, that nasty business with the horses on the carousel hasn't happened," he commented.

  "Don't hurt her," Reggie said.

  "Can I do otherwise? Do I want to do otherwise?" Ash took a long pull on his cigarette and then quickly tossed it aside; it smoked lazily, giving off black puffs from the floor.

  "Frances," he said softly, cajolingly. Frances stepped forward, taking her hand from Reggie's mother's shoulder.

  "Frances," Ash said, "kill the woman."

  Frances turned to Reggie's mother, and Ash began to laugh, low and building.

  Frances, a voice called from above, and Frances looked up. Reggie saw that the eyes were there, as huge as dishes, as if they contained the whole world.

  Frances, the eyes said gently, He who sent me is the resurrection and the life: if you believe in Him, though you were dead yet shall you live. And whosoever believeth in Him shall never die.

  "He who saves," Frances sobbed, though no tears formed in her eyes. "The North Star. Ash lied to me." She was telling this to herself, and a great cry broke from her.

  He who saves was your veil, the voice said, and He is with you now. Ash owns you no longer. Go, and mix your dust with the sands of the earth.

  Frances' cry of despair changed to another kind of cry, and a great weight was drawn from her mind, a leaded veil lifted. She held her hands out, and then her body turned instantly to dust that was borne away on soft, scattering winds.

  I told you I was with you, the eyes said to Reggie.

  A door opened in Reggie's mind, flooding him with light, and he saw what he must do. He knew now that there could never have been any other way. The fear that had possessed him vanished; he wondered why it had ever existed. When he looked up, the eyes were gone because they were within him now, and he heard Ash's scream of rage and saw Ash's face looming over him.

  "Kiss me," Reggie said, and he put his mouth on Ash's mouth.

  Ash's eyes widened in surprise, and the word "No" tried to make its way to his voice. Reggie held tight. He reached into the shadow man's coat to grasp his body to him, but his hands went into nothingness. There was a terrible black, cold weight upon him, but Reggie would not let go. Then Ash's mouth began to grow. Reggie felt it moving away from his own mouth on all sides, the thin, burning lips stretching outward. Ash was hissing with rage, and when Reggie opened his eyes, he saw that Ash's face filled his whole vision. The head had pulled back, away from him. It was indistinct, and now, behind it, Reggie could barely make out the sides of the tent and sky beyond. The tent was falling to pieces, and the sky was not red now—it was blue.

  Ash opened his mouth to shout something, but only a low, pain-filled hiss escaped. When he grabbed for Reggie, his hands would not reach. They had become the hands they always had been beneath the skin—long, brittle, skeletal bones—and Ash's head was now the hollow, clacking skull bone that had been hidden just beyond sight. The mouth was wide, the eye holes burning with black emptiness. Ash hissed again, a long, sibilant sound, and then everything behind Ash was lost to view and Ash himself was gone in a burn of screaming, sharp light.

  A dark, silent envelope enclosed Reggie like a womb; he floated fetus-like in it until it pulled out ahead and behind him, and he was in the tunnel. For a moment he was in darkness, and then suddenly before him, as if the lamp of creation itself had gone on, a bright light arose, and the two eyes were there before him, bathing him in their radiance.

  They were his own eyes.

  Hello.

  The eyes were surrounded by the dim outlines of a body. At a close distance it resembled an animal, a hare or a lamb, but then Reggie saw that it was not an animal at all, but something that looked like a human. Something that looked like himself.

  Reggie drew closer, and he saw that the figure's tiny, almost formless arms were spread wide, as if to embrace him.

  "I died the day that truck hit me," Reggie said.

  Yes, the figure, himself, said. But you were sent back. Every man is really three men: the man during life, the man at the moment of death, and the man after death. Ash owned man at the moment of death. But even that, which he was able to take advantage of in the weak, was only an illusion because there is only one spirit. You. Me. Look.

  Reggie looked and saw that a part of himself was not with him anymore. There was a slight, sweet tug, and he saw the body that had been Reggie Carson falling down and away from him, to rest in some other place. He no longer felt that he was of that body, and at the same time, he felt as if he had lost nothing of himself.

  That is what he owned; that was his domain. Though it will mean nothing to you now, I will tell you that your town of Montvale has been restored and that your mother is safe. The others, Jeff Scott among them, now rest. A tone close to amusement came into the soft voice. They will put our both, the man who we were, in the tomb you always visited, the Tomb of the Unknown Man.

  "Who sent me back?" Reggie asked.

  His own altered self smiled. That is what you will see.

  The form held out its arms and drew Reggie to itself. He folded gently into it; the form's arms held him like a mother might hold a baby. Reggie closed his eyes and found that he did not want to open them. There was no reason to. He had new eyes now.

  He gently wrapped his arms around himself, and rocked himself. And then he slept until it was time for him to open his eyes once more.