The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  All need for sleep forgotten, I was loath to leave this wondrous nocturnal scenery, where the only missing element was a touch of life. I said to Sylvain, ‘What a pity that this fabled Ghoulbird of yours is only a legend; otherwise, I would have listened to its song and applauded with enthusiasm!’ The servant grabbed my arm and squeezed it. I realised that my words had robbed him of his pleasure. His voice dropped to a whisper.

  ‘Never ever make such a wish, sir,’ he breathed out. ‘Particularly not under a full moon…It’s the kind of night the creature would choose to lead us to our deaths…’ And he forced me to leave the roof terrace. Back in the garret room, he carefully locked the door to the tower. In the light of the lamps, I was surprised to see his crumbling face covered with perspiration. Not to mention his manifest apprehension, so strong I felt almost compelled to reassure him by patting him in the back. But, made curious by his extreme reaction and exploiting my previous display of disbelief, I used a more artful way to restore his trust. I managed to have him sit with me on the edge of the bed and, matching the tone of my questions to his concern, I obtained a few details about this dreadful bird.

  And so I learned that the bird mentioned by Mr. Tibaldière existed. Better still, the bird’s favourite place was the marsh of Gobble-Ox, right here, five or six gunshots from us and at an equal distance from the village. Its appearance was not at first frightening, and it could look like any common bird, but shifted continuously from one species to the next to fool its victims. In its call, an additional note rang out…a bit strident. It was the Ghoulbird’s curse…To listen to it was to lose one’s will to the bird and forever be the creature’s slave. Obedient, the victims rose from the beds, left the security of their homes and went out in nightclothes, like sleepwalkers, heading toward that bird of Hell, which rejoiced in any new prey. The victims went to the bird, oblivious of the mud that squelched under their feet, not realising they were padding through the marsh. And the creature would draw back, retreating further to lure its prey into the slimy depths that captured and swallowed its victims without mercy. Pessaut, Guérin, the woman called Marguerite, and so many others had died in this way. Their bodies were never found, only the footprints in the hardened banks of the Gobble-Ox, which, without doubt, had shared the meat with the Ghoulbird.

  But the creature betrayed its presence in one tell-tale way: most other birds do not sing or whistle at night. So when you heard it, you had to move quickly and bolt your door, barricade up all the openings, clasp your hands over your ears, bury yourself deep under the blankets and, above everything else, be in the company of at least another person so that one could prevent the other from responding to the evil call…

  Having unburdened himself of this awkward secret, Sylvain departed in great haste, taking the lamp and leaving me in a pitch-black room. I heard him double lock the door, probably out of habit, and step down the stairway, stumbling in his haste.

  The silver needle of the moon, taking advantage of the open window, slanted into the darkened garret without disturbing the heavy silence, which then engulfed me. I undressed and lay down on the bed, my fatigue dulling the stressful images put into my head by the superstitious servant.

  The heat prevented me from falling asleep immediately. I tossed and turned, feeling oppressed, until I decided to get up and open the door of the tower. After some blind groping, I found it. The fresh air that blew through the doorway joined the draft that entered through the window, bringing me relief. I went back to bed, and this time I slept right away.

  I dreamt a dream agreeable at first but, little by little, it filled me with a vague uneasiness…I found myself in a vast ballroom, in old-fashioned garb, relaxed and content, sitting in an armchair…A beautiful young woman asked me to dance, favouring me with the most charming smile…But I declined rudely and remained seated instead of rising to my feet, eager to grant her the dance she’d requested…She, without seeming to be in the least shocked by my attitude, laughed in a strange way, with three high-pitched notes balanced by pauses, creating a peculiar rhythm…Then, taking me by the hand, she pulled me into her arms…I felt myself become heavier and heavier. But her gentle strength gradually managed to lift me…Standing, I felt a sensation of nakedness and a sudden embarrassment forced me to flee…I ran into a wall or a closed door, I did not know which…I fell, and people came to pick me up, pitying me…Their hands supported me and pulled me away into a park smelling of freshly cut grass…They led me to a well and, once there, either for fun or malice, they pushed me forward, to make me step over the edge…

  I resisted the motion, letting myself fall to the ground, where, seized with a sudden terror, I hunkered down, refusing to participate in this stupid act…And again I heard the shrill laughter of the young woman, who had become invisible. All my attention was riveted on the unseen woman, as I was filled with a belated regret for not having accepted her company…

  The chill of dawn woke me. I was on the terrace of the tower, lying on the ground and shivering. A gray mist covered Guernipin, which the rising sun gilded progressively. After the first moment of astonishment, it wasn’t difficult to understand the reason why I was lying there. Surely, I had wanted to escape the sweltering garret room and, seeking fresh air, I had risen, half-conscious, to spend the rest of the night up here. Leaning out from the parapet, I discovered the impressive drop, and, upset, I realized that I had been on the point of falling from that height!

  The second day with M. de la Tibaldière was as fascinating as the day before. The man knew so much – the mystery of the onager, the cyclical migration of the warthog, and provided anecdotes and biological digressions as arguments. We lunched in the park, in the temperate shade of a cedar tree as the wind, blowing gently, failed to ruffle its leaves. The table was a long tombstone taken from the floor of a deserted abbey nearby; we ate heartily on the belly of an austere priest stiffly engraved in the granite.

  In the evening, we had yet to explore the second floor where, according to Mr. Tibaldière, suddenly excited by his own words, rested the jewels of his collection: coelacanths, large saurians from Borneo, and other survivors of antediluvian times. Therefore, I dined again at Guernipin, but I managed to escape the lecture after the meal. By now the place was familiar to me so I went to bed alone, this time keeping the lamp. And, fearing a new awakening on the roof terrace, I left the door to the corridor open but firmly shut the door leading to the tower, to avoid renewing the misadventure of the night before. I went to bed and began reading a book, but hardly had I reached the third page than it slipped from my hands. I blew out the light and let sleep come. This time the heat did not torment me, on the contrary! Again, I was involved in a dream that seemed light-hearted in the beginning…I visited Guernipin on my own, only to discover new rooms of an amazing variety…I could finally handle birds, touch soft plumage…Mysterious birds of unknown shapes, which came alive and quivered under my hands…Soon they were so numerous they crowded me, pushing me, guiding me to the freedom of the park, where they remained around me, driven by a silent determination…Mr. Tibaldière appeared on the front steps and indignantly shouted to come back before his most precious avian specimens escaped forever…Anger choked his cries, to the point they resembled a bullfrog’s call…But, not listening, I suddenly ran away, now at the heart of the cluster of freed birds, whose wishes I obeyed, and which led me so fast I was out of breath…I ran on until I felt a terrible tightness to my heart…Choking, I felt myself gradually hindered in my race by viscid forces, which woke me suddenly.

  Today, I find it impossible to describe the violent revulsion I felt while I was victim to that cold thickness. Brusquely, I returned to reality, and found my feet in gluey mud up to my thighs. Hadn’t I been sleeping? Where was my bed? And Guernipin? Where was I? Prisoner to a monstrous vacuum that was slowly sucking me in, I was trapped within a stinking, nauseous swamp. My hands, my arms, in vain sought purchase: a root, a branch, my life…Sudden bellows, reminiscent of an angry bull, brok
e my struggle. From the marsh where I was sinking, they tore at the night. Despite my terror, I identified a heron’s call. But instead of being regular in their three consecutive notes, these cries came with no pattern, no rhythm.

  Then I saw it…thrashing next to me. And Sylvain’s comments came back to me: the Ghoulbird. Did it exist? Yes, it did, for this could only be the mythic bird, shaking with justified laughter at its gullible and ridiculous prey. And here I was, in the middle of the Gobble-Ox Marsh.

  Nevertheless, I saw the bird hop around as if under the same threat from the swallowing slough. Seeing my redoubled efforts to break free from the mud that was gradually gaining on me, the bird cried louder. I would have thought it wanted to coax me into escaping the quagmire. I finally managed to reach the nearest stretch of grass and, extricating myself from the greedy mud, I crawled to safety. The heron, which had come closer, supported me by flapping his wings, helping me to reach the firm soil of a pebbly path. If I did not collapse into a heap, I owed it to the angelic bird that nudged me with its beak, and forced me to rise and head for Guernipin, a solid and reassuring sight within reach of hope.

  Then I felt an invisible, hostile force that knotted my spirit with terror. I felt the terrifying sensation of a huge but impalpable single wing flapping around me, as nimble as a ray of nothingness in the ocean of night, an immaterial reality that pushed me with relentless perseverance to bring me back into the swamp. Without the frantic cries of the heron, which was engaged in a frenzied dance to come to my rescue, inciting me to flee, I confess that I wouldn’t have resisted the Thing that held me enthralled.

  And I understood at last! I realized that the Ghoulbird – be it owl, crow, heron or any bird that happened to be there and sensed the threat – was neither a legend nor an enemy of man, but a protector…that it warned of the unspeakable danger it perceived…That its cries, far from being cursed calls, were a warning: terrified, the bird screamed against fear, not to elicit fear!…The Marsh of Gobble-Ox, foul lair still preserved after thousands of years, harboured an invisible ravenous monster, survivor of the times when dark powers ruled under the subtlest forms!

  I then glimpsed two greenish and fleeting glows…An illusion, a reflection of my fear? No…those glowing spots were eyes! Screaming in revulsion, I wrenched myself free from the horror that had chosen me and had already failed to lure me in my sleep, out of my bed at Guernipin.

  At sunrise, Mr. Tibaldière, eager to show me around the floor of prehistoric ancestors, surely gave Sylvain the order to wake me up. But all the servant could find of me, apart from traces of mud left everywhere, was this note, doubtless destined to remain a mystery:

  …Never, ever, kill the Ghoulbird…

  The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be

  Gahan Wilson

  Gahan Wilson (1930–) is an iconic American writer and cartoonist who has received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. (The World Fantasy Award bust of H. P. Lovecraft was designed by Wilson.) His art, routinely appearing in The New Yorker, intersects with his fiction in their shared playful grotesquery. Stories have appeared in Playboy, Omni, and, perhaps most famously, in Again, Dangerous Visions with a tale whose title was simply an ink blob. The three-volume set, Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons (2010), showcases his art. ‘The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be’ (1967), using Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass as partial inspiration, is one of the weirder and more disturbing tales in this volume.

  I felt we made an embarrassing contrast to the open serenity of the scene around us. The pure blue of the sky was unmarked by a single cloud or bird, and nothing stirred on the vast stretch of beach except ourselves. The sea, sparkling under the freshness of the early morning sun, looked invitingly clean. I wanted to wade into it and wash myself, but I was afraid I would contaminate it.

  We are a contamination here, I thought. We’re like a group of sticky bugs crawling in an ugly little crowd over polished marble. If I were God and looked down and saw us, lugging our baskets and our silly, bright blankets, I would step on us and squash us with my foot.

  We should have been lovers or monks in such a place, but we were only a crowd of bored and boring drunks. You were always drunk when you were with Carl. Good old, mean old Carl was the greatest little drink pourer in the world. He used drinks like other types of sadists used whips. He kept beating you with them until you dropped or sobbed or went mad, and he enjoyed every step of the process.

  We’d been drinking all night, and when the morning came, somebody, I think it was Mandie, got the great idea that we should all go out on a picnic. Naturally, we thought it was an inspiration, we were nothing if not real sports, and so we’d packed some goodies, not forgetting the liquor, and we’d piled into the car, and there we were, weaving across the beach, looking for a place to spread our tacky banquet.

  We located a broad, low rock, decided it would serve for our table, and loaded it with the latest in plastic chinaware, a haphazard collection of food, and a quantity of bottles.

  Someone had packed a tin of Spam among the other offerings, and, when I saw it, I was suddenly overwhelmed with an absurd feeling of nostalgia. It reminded me of the war and of myself soldier-boying up through Italy. It also reminded me of how long ago the whole thing had been and how little I’d done of what I’d dreamed I’d do back then.

  I opened the Spam and sat down to be alone with it and my memories, but it wasn’t to be for long. The kind of people who run with people like Carl don’t like to be alone, ever, especially with their memories, and they can’t imagine anyone else might, at least now and then, have a taste for it.

  My rescuer was Irene. Irene was particularly sensitive about seeing people alone because being alone had several times nearly produced fatal results for her. Being alone and taking pills to end the being alone.

  ‘What’s wrong, Phil?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said, holding up a forkful of the pink Spam in the sunlight. ‘It tastes just like it always did. They haven’t lost their touch.’

  She sat down on the sand beside me, very carefully, so as to avoid spilling the least drop of what must have been her millionth Scotch.

  ‘Phil,’ she said, ‘I’m worried about Mandie. I really am. She looks so unhappy!’

  I glanced over at Mandie. She had her head thrown back and she was laughing uproariously at some joke Carl had just made. Carl was smiling at her with his teeth glistening and his eyes deep down dead as ever.

  ‘Why should Mandie be happy?’ I asked. ‘What, in God’s name, has she got to be happy about?’

  ‘Oh, Phil,’ said Irene. ‘You pretend to be such an awful cynic. She’s alive, isn’t she?’

  I looked at her and wondered what such a statement meant, coming from someone who’d tried to do herself in as earnestly and as frequently as Irene. I decided that I did not know and that I would probably never know. I also decided I didn’t want anymore of the Spam. I turned to throw it away, doing my bit to litter up the beach, and then I saw them.

  They were far away, barely bigger than two dots, but you could tell there was something odd about them even then.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ I said.

  Irene peered in the direction of my point.

  ‘Look, everybody,’ she cried, ‘we’ve got company!’

  Everybody looked, just as she had asked them to.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ asked Carl. ‘Don’t they know this is my private property?’ And then he laughed.

  Carl had fantasies about owning things and having power. Now and then he got drunk enough to have little flashes of believing he was king of the world.

  ‘You tell ’em, Carl!’ said Horace.

  Horace had sparkling quips like that for almost every occasion. He was tall and bald and he had a huge Adam’s apple and, like myself, he worked for Carl. I would have felt sorrier for Horace than I did if I hadn’t had a sneaky suspicion that he was really happier when groveling. He lifted one scrawny fist and sho
ok it in the direction of the distant pair.

  ‘You guys better beat it,’ he shouted. ‘This is private property!’

  ‘Will you shut up and stop being such an ass?’ Mandie asked him. ‘It’s not polite to yell at strangers, dear, and this may damn well be their beach for all you know.’

  Mandie happens to be Horace’s wife. Horace’s children treat him about the same way. He busied himself with zipping up his windbreaker, because it was getting cold and because he had received an order to be quiet.

  I watched the two approaching figures. The one was tall and bulky, and he moved with a peculiar, swaying gait. The other was short and hunched into himself, and he walked in a fretful, zigzag line beside his towering companion.

  ‘They’re heading straight for us,’ I said.

  The combination of the cool wind that had come up and the approach of the two strangers had put a damper on our little group. We sat quietly and watched them coming closer. The nearer they got, the odder they looked.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ said Irene. ‘The little one’s wearing a square hat!’

  ‘I think it’s made of paper,’ said Mandie, squinting, ‘folded newspaper.’

  ‘Will you look at the mustache on the big bastard?’ asked Carl. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger bush in my life.’

  ‘They remind me of something,’ I said.

  The others turned to look at me.

  The Walrus and the Carpenter…

  ‘They remind me of the Walrus and the Carpenter,’ I said.