The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  ‘Good. You can have him for reasonable wages, especially if you take a little rum on board. It can be cheap rum: he’s not particular about quality as long as the quantity is there. And then there’s Steevens, a Fleming. He never talks, but he can break a mooring chain as easily as you can bite through the stem of a clay pipe.’

  ‘And I suppose he also has a prison term in his past?’

  ‘It’s not unlikely.’

  ‘I’ll take him. What did you say his name was again?’

  ‘Steevens.’

  ‘Steevens…Is he expensive?’

  ‘Not at all. He makes up for his low pay by eating vast amounts of bacon and biscuits. And currant jam, if you buy any.’

  ‘We’ll take half a ton of it on board if you like.’

  ‘He’ll be your slave…I might suggest Walker to you now, but he’s very ugly.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘No. His face lacks half a nose, part of a chin, and a whole ear, so it’s not pleasant to look at for someone who’s not used to Madame Tussaud’s museum of horrors, especially since the operation was sloppily performed by some Italian sailors who were in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘And who else?’

  ‘Two excellent men: Jellewyn and Friar Tuck. Friar Tuck – I don’t know him by any other name – is a cook, among other things, a seagoing Jack-of-all-trades. He and Jellewyn are always together. If you see one, you see the other, and if you hire one, you must hire the other. They’re rather mysterious. It’s said that Jellewyn has royal blood in his veins and that Friar Tuck is a devoted servant who has stayed with him in adversity.’

  ‘And their price is in keeping with their mystery?’ ‘Precisely. The fallen prince must have driven a car in the past, so he’ll be the one to take care of your auxiliary engine.’

  It was then that an incident took place that has little bearing on the events of this story, but that I remember with a certain uneasiness.

  A poor devil had just been blown into the bar by the gusty night wind. He was a kind of emaciated, rain-soaked clown, faded by all the miseries of the sea and the waterfront.

  He ordered a glass of gin and greedily raised it to his lips. Suddenly I heard the sound of breaking glass and saw the derelict throw up his hands, stare at the schoolmaster with unspeakable terror, then hurry outside into the wind and rain, without picking up his change from the bar. I don’t think the schoolmaster noticed the incident, or at least he didn’t seem to; but I still dare not imagine the formidable reason that drove that poor wretch to drop his gin on the floor, abandon his money, and flee into the icy street when the bar was filled with exquisite warmth.

  On one of the first days of a very mild spring, the North Minch opened before us as though for a brotherly embrace. A few angry currents were still moving craftily beneath the surface, but we could detect them by their green backs, writhing like segments of mutilated snakes.

  One of those curious southeastern breezes that blow only in that region brought us the fragrance of the early Irish lilacs from two hundred miles away and helped the auxiliary engine to take us to Big Toe Bay.

  There, things changed radically. Whirlpools dug holes in the water, hissing like steam engines. We avoided them only with great difficulty. The moss-green hull of a sunken ship, raised from the depths of the Atlantic, shot up almost under the bobstay of our bowsprit and was hurled against a rock wall, where it exploded in a dark burst of rotten wood.

  A dozen times, the Mainz Psalter was in danger of being dismasted as though by a stroke of a giant razor. Fortunately, she was a beautiful sailer and she lay to with the elegance of a true lady of the sea. A few hours of calm enabled us to run the engine at full speed and pass through the narrow channel of Big Toe Bay just as another furious tide came thundering after us in a green spray of tormented water.

  ‘We’re in inhospitable waters,’ I said to my men. ‘If the coastal scavengers find us here, we’ll have to give them an explanation, and since they’ll try to chase us away before hearing what we have to say, we’d better have our guns ready.’

  The scavengers did put in an appearance, but in so doing they met with a disaster that was as disturbing as it was incomprehensible to us.

  For a week, we had been lying at anchor in that little bay, which was as calm as a duck pond. Life was pleasant. Our supplies of food and drink were worthy of a royal yacht. By swimming twelve strokes, or rowing seven times, we could reach a little red sand beach and, further on, a stream of icy fresh water.

  Turnip caught halibut on a line. Steevens went inland to the deserted moors, and sometimes, if the wind was right, we could hear the boom of his shotgun. He brought back partridges, grouse, occasionally a big-pawed hare, and always some of those delicious heath rabbits with fragrant flesh.

  The schoolmaster had not appeared. We did not worry: we had been paid in cash for six weeks in advance, and Turnip had said he would not leave until the last drop of rum was gone.

  One morning this serenity was shattered. Steevens had just filled a keg with fresh water when a shrill sound vibrated above him and, a foot away from his face, a rock exploded into dust. He was a phlegmatic man; without haste, he waded into the bay, spotted a puff of blue smoke rising from a cleft in a rock, ignored the angry little slaps that struck the surface of the water beside him, and calmly swam back to the ship. He went into the forecastle, where the crew was waking up, and said, ‘Someone’s shooting at us.’

  His words were punctuated by three sharp blows against the hull. I took a rifle from the rack and went up on deck. I instinctively ducked at the sound of a whining bullet; an instant later, a handful of wooden splinters leapt into the air, and the bronze rolling-gear of the boom clanged beneath the impact of a lead slug.

  I raised my rifle toward the cleft that Steevens pointed out to me. I saw billows of black-powder smoke coming from it. But suddenly the shooting stopped and was replaced by vociferations and shouts of fear.

  Something struck the dark red beach with a heavy thud. I started in horror: a man had just fallen three hundred feet from the top of the cliff. His broken body was almost entirely buried in the sand, but I was able to recognize the coarse leather clothing of the wreckers of Cape Wrath.

  I had scarcely turned my eyes away from that lifeless mass when Steevens touched me on the shoulder.

  ‘Here comes another one,’ he said.

  An awkward, ridiculous shape was hurtling toward the ground; it was like the loose, ungainly fall of a big bird that has been hit by shotgun pellets at a great height, and, conquered by gravity and betrayed by the air, comes tumbling down without dignity.

  For the second time there was a soft, ghastly thud on the sand. This time a villainous face quivered for a few seconds, spewing crimson froth. Steevens slowly pointed to the top of the cliff.

  ‘One more,’ he said in a slightly faltering voice.

  Wild screams rang out from above. Suddenly we saw the bust of a man against the sky, struggling with something invisible. He made a desperate gesture, then flew from the cliff as though propelled by a catapult. His cry was still floating down to us in a slow tailspin of despair when his body was smashed beside the two others.

  We stood still.

  ‘It’s true they were trying to kill us,’ said Jellewyn, ‘but I’d still like to avenge those poor devils. Please give me your rifle, Mr. Ballister. Friar Tuck, come here!’

  Friar Tuck’s shaved head emerged from the depths of the ship.

  ‘Friar Tuck is as good as a hunting dog,’ Jellewyn explained with a touch of condescension. ‘Or rather he’s as good as a whole pack of them: he smells the quarry from very far off. He’s phenomenal…And what do you think of this quarry, old boy?’

  Friar Tuck hoisted his round, massive body onto the deck and waddled over to the rail. He scrutinized the mangled corpses and showed deep surprise; then an ashen pallor came over his face.

  ‘Friar,’ said Jellewyn with a nervous laugh, ‘you’ve seen some strong sights in you
r day, yet you’re turning pale like a young chambermaid.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that,’ Friar Tuck replied dully. ‘There’s something ugly behind this…There’s…Shoot, Your Grace!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Up there! Hurry!’

  Jellewyn turned on him furiously:

  ‘I’ve warned you about calling me by that damned name!’

  Friar Tuck made no reply. He shook his head, then murmured, ‘Too late, it’s gone.’

  ‘What’s gone?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, the thing that was watching us from the cliff,’ he said foolishly.

  ‘What was it?’

  He gave me a crafty look.

  ‘I don’t know. Anyway, it’s gone.’

  I did not pursue my questioning. Two loud whistles came from the top of the cliff, then a shadow moved against the patch of sky behind it.

  Jellewyn raised his rifle. I pushed it aside.

  ‘Pay attention to what you’re doing!’

  The schoolmaster was coming down toward the beach from the cliff, following a path we had not noticed before.

  A beautiful cabin in the stern had been reserved for the schoolmaster, and the adjoining room had been made into a bedroom for me, with two bunks.

  As soon as he arrived on board, the schoolmaster shut himself up in his cabin and spent his time going through a pile of books. Once or twice a day he went topside, had the sextant brought to him, and carefully took the sun.

  We were sailing northwest.

  ‘We’re headed for Iceland,’ I said to Jellewyn.

  He attentively looked at a map and wrote down a figure.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘we’re headed for Greenland.’

  ‘Well, what’s the difference?’

  We had left Big Toe Bay on a clear morning, leaving the Ross Mourtains to warm their humps in the rising sun behind us. That day we passed a ship from the Hebrides manned by a flat-faced crew whom we insulted lavishly. Toward evening we saw a ketch in full sail just above the horizon.

  Next day, the sea was rising. To starboard, we saw a Danish steamer fighting against the waves. She was surrounded by so much smoke that we could not read her name.

  That was the last ship we saw, although on the third day there were two trails of smoke to the south that Walker said were from a dispatch boat of the British Navy.

  Every evening the schoolmaster invited me to have a drink in his cabin. He himself did not drink; he was no longer the loquacious companion of the Merry Heart Tavern, but he was still a well-bred man, for he never left my glass empty, and while I drank he kept his eyes on his books.

  I must admit that I have few memories of those days. Life was monotonous; and yet the crew seemed apprehensive to me, perhaps because of an incident that occurred one evening.

  We were all seized with violent nausea at almost the same time, and Turnip shouted that we had been poisoned.

  I sternly ordered him to be silent. The nausea passed quickly, and a sudden shift of wind forced us to perform a strenuous maneuver that made us forget everything else.

  The sun had risen on the eighth day of our voyage.

  I found the crew with anxious, sullen faces. I was familiar with such faces; at sea, they are not a good sign. They indicate an uneasy, gregarious, and hostile feeling that groups men and makes them merge in a single fear or hatred; an evil force surrounds them and poisons the atmosphere of the ship. It was Jellewyn who spoke first:

  ‘Mr. Ballister, we want to talk to you, and we want to talk to you as our friend and shipmate, rather than as our captain.’

  ‘That’s a fine preamble,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘We’re being nice about it because you’re our friend,’ said Walker, and his horrible shapeless face twisted.

  ‘Tell me what’s on your mind,’ I said.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ said Jellewyn, ‘and the worst of it is that none of us can explain it.’

  I cast a dark glance around me, then held out my hand to him.

  ‘It’s true, Jellewyn, I feel it the same as you do.’

  The faces brightened; the men had found an ally in their captain.

  ‘Look at the sea, Mr. Ballister.’

  ‘I’ve seen it too,’ I said, looking down.

  Yes, I had seen it! The water had taken on a strange appearance that I had never seen before in all my twenty years at sea. It had oddly colored streaks, and it sometimes bubbled suddenly and loudly; unknown sounds, something like laughter, would burst from a rapidly approaching wave and make the men look around in alarm.

  ‘Not one bird is following us any more,’ said Friar Tuck.

  It was true.

  ‘Last night,’ he said in his deep, slow voice, ‘a little herd of rats that had been living in the storeroom ran topside and all jumped overboard at once. I never saw anything like it.’

  ‘Never!’ said the other sailors in a somber echo.

  ‘I’ve sailed in these waters before,’ said Walker, ‘and at about this same time of year, too. The air ought to be full of scoter ducks, and schools of porpoises ought to be following us from morning till night. Do you see any?’

  ‘Did you look at the sky last night, Mr. Ballister?’ Jellewyn asked me softly.

  ‘No,’ I admitted, and I must have blushed a little. I had drunk a great deal in the schoolmaster’s silent company, and I had not come up on deck, for I had been in the grip of a powerful intoxication that was still pressing my temples with a lingering headache.

  ‘Where is that devil of a man taking us?’ asked Turnip.

  ‘Devil, yes,’ said the taciturn Steevens.

  Everyone had had his say.

  I made a sudden decision.

  ‘Jellewyn,’ I said, ‘listen to me. I’m the captain, it’s true, but I’m not ashamed to admit in front of everyone that you’re the most intelligent man on board, and I also know that you’re not an ordinary sailor.’

  He smiled sorrowfully.

  ‘You know more about this than the rest of us, don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But Friar Tuck is a rather…curious phenomenon. As I’ve already told you, he senses certain things without being able to explain them. It’s as though he had one more sense than the rest of us: a sense of danger…Speak, Friar Tuck.’

  ‘I know very little, almost nothing,’ said the low voice. ‘I know only that something is around us, something worse than anything else, worse than death!’

  We looked at each other in alarm.

  ‘The schoolmaster,’ continued Friar Tuck, seeming to choose his words with difficulty, ‘is not alien to it.’

  ‘Jellewyn,’ I said, ‘I don’t have the courage myself, but I want you to go and tell him.’

  ‘Very well,’ he replied.

  He went below. We heard him knock on the door of the schoolmaster’s cabin, knock again and again, then finally open the door.

  Minutes of silence went by.

  Jellewyn came back up on deck. He was pale.

  ‘He’s not there,’ he said. ‘Search the whole ship. There’s no place where a man can hide for long.’

  We searched the ship, then went topside one by one, looking at each other uneasily. The schoolmaster had vanished.

  At nightfall, Jellewyn motioned to me to come up on deck. When I was beside him he pointed upward.

  I think I fell to my knees.

  A strange sky was arched above the roaring sea. The familiar constellations were no longer there; unknown stars in new geometrical groupings were shining dimly in a frighteningly black sidereal abyss.

  ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed. ‘Where are we?’

  Heavy clouds were rolling across the sky.

  ‘That’s better,’ Jellewyn said calmly. ‘The others might have seen it and gone mad…You want to know where we are? How should I know? Let’s turn back, Mr. Ballister, even though it’s useless, in my opinion…’

  I took my head between my hands.

  ‘The compass has been inert for two days,’ I murmured.


  ‘I know,’ said Jellewyn.

  ‘But where are we? Where are we?’

  ‘Be calm, Mr. Ballister,’ he said rather ironically. ‘You’re the captain, don’t forget that. I don’t know where we are. I might make a hypothesis, to use an erudite word that sometimes covers an imagination that’s too daring.’

  ‘Even so,’ I replied, ‘I’d rather hear stories of witches and demons than that demoralizing “I don’t know.” ’

  ‘We’re probably on another plane of existence. You have some mathematical knowledge; it will help you to understand. Our three-dimensional world is probably lost to us, and I’ll define this one as the world of the Nth dimension, which is very vague. If, by some inconceivable magic or some monstrous science, we were transported to Mars or Jupiter, or even to Aldebaran, it wouldn’t prevent us from seeing the same constellations we see from earth.’

  ‘But the sun…’

  ‘A similarity, a coincidence of the infinite, a kind of equivalent star, perhaps. Anyway, these are only suppositions, words; and since, I believe, we’ll be permitted to die in this strange world the same as in our own, I feel that we can remain calm.’

  ‘Die?’ I said. ‘I’ll defend myself!’

  ‘Against whom?’ he asked sarcastically.

  ‘It’s true that Friar Tuck talked about things worse than death. If there’s anyone’s opinion that shouldn’t be ignored in time of danger, it’s his.’ I returned to what he called his hypothesis: ‘What do you mean by the Nth dimension?’

  ‘For the love of heaven,’ he said nervously, ‘don’t give my idea such real importance! There’s no proof that existence is possible outside of our three ordinary dimensions. Just as we’ve never discovered any two-dimensional beings from the world of surfaces, or one-dimensional beings from the linear world, we must be indiscernible to beings, if there are any, who live in worlds having more dimensions than ours. I’m in no mood to give you a lesson in hypergeometry, Mr. Ballister, but I’m sure of one thing: there are spaces different from ours. The space we’re aware of in our dreams, for example, which presents the past, the present, and perhaps the future, on a single plane; and then there’s the world of atoms and electrons, and relative and immense spaces with mysterious kinds of life…’ He made a gesture of lassitude. ‘What was that enigmatic schoolmaster’s purpose in bringing us to this devilish region? How, and especially why, did he disappear?’