Carem nodded.
The hag said, “Know, it is the Tomb of the Black Dog Himself. So we discovered to our cost. He Himself lies buried here, that guardian invoked in so many other places.”
Carem shivered, but it was only the heat.
“Thus all of you died, granny, and you’re a ghost.”
“Nay,” said granny, “me alone He let live. But see,” and she opened her robe with her left hand to reveal horrid scars and omissions. “He tore off my right arm and my right breast. I am His warning.”
“Thank you,” said Carem. “Now you have warned me you may be off.”
The hag got up and walked away. She cast no shadow. That too the Black Dog had torn from her. She went down the cliff by another way, invisible to ordinary persons.
Oh, he was not alarmed. Not Carem.
He sat by the black hole in the stone and took a pipe from his garments. On this he blew. It made no noise.
It would sound however a few hours’ journey away, at the spot to which he had earlier sent the men who would help him at the tomb. He had now merely to wait.
He first anointed himself from a phial, then stretched out in the hot night. The dead breath of the wind lulled him. He slept.
When the moon rose, the jingle of harness conveniently roused him again, and sitting up, he beheld the twenty men he had hired, who had gathered at the foot of the cliff.
Carem rose and poured onto the stone of the tomb some wine and oil.
“What are you doing?” demanded one of the men below among the cameloids.
“Making the first offering,” said Carem. “Come up now, as I will direct you.”
Up they came. A mixed bag they were. Some aristocratic and anxious, others pure fresh scum. They crowded around him, and Carem pointed to the hole.
“The rope I have readied. Who will be first down into the tomb?”
No one thrilled at the chance.
Carem said, “This gold piece to the first.”
After this there were some offers.
Presently three men climbed down, one after the other.
“What do you see?”
“Darkness.”
“Yes that’s as it should be.”
Then Carem went down and the others followed him.
In the tomb, Carem struck a light, and lit a torch.
It was very hot, as Carem was well used to, but no bats laired there. Nothing lived in that enclosure. Not even a spider or a beetle. Bones there were, however, on the floor.
The walls were brown, and painted dimly by a massive figure that had the head of a long-nosed black dog. At this the crew pointed uneasily.
Carem drew from his clothes a small dark bottle. He spilled out its contents on the stone floor. Fluid ran, and formed a pattern. It was a map, in liquid, of the tomb.
Just at that moment came a low, soft growl.
The hired men, most of them, bleated with alarm.
But, “It’s only magic,” said one.
“Exactly so,” said Carem. “You are meant to fear it and run away empty-handed. Think of the treasures that lie in the inner chambers.”
The men were somewhat consoled. They rubbed their amulets and muttered.
“Do you see that door,” said Carem, consulting his liquid map, “who will go through first?”
There was great rivalry as to who would not.
While they argued, something came rushing.
It was like a wind, or five hundred hounds, packed close as fish in a shoal, running after game.
The man nearest the door was one minute there, and then his head was off. It was wrenched from his shoulders. Next the fellow beside him was disemboweled, and another split from throat to crotch. All this was done by an agency invisible.
With quick screams, and sometimes so swift there was no time for that either, the twenty men of Carem’s hire landed in pieces and bits on the floor, where the bones of previous victims lay.
But Carem, who had anointed himself with a certain thing repellent to all dogs, was not touched.
When the last man had had his throat torn out, a low satisfied growl rang round the space.
“Thus I make the second offering,” said Carem.
Then he walked through the dark door without being molested, and through thirteen passages, right up to the farthest wall. There he kneeled and felt with his hands by the light of his torch.
Soon he made out a round door no higher than a child of three, and no wider than said child lying sideways.
Through that Carem crawled, and so entered the treasure vault.
There was just enough light to behold.
The room was stuffed with gold, and jewels, green and crimson, blue and white. But everything was on a little scale, even the emeralds no larger than a thumbnail, and the golden effigies of dogs and wolves, foxes and jackals, were the size of acorns and peach-stones.
Carem filled the bags inside his clothes, his boots, his loin-pouch. He opened the ready purses at his neck and waist. He put things into his mouth, and up his nostrils, and in his ears, and elsewhere, which shall be nameless.
Take as you find.
On the wall of this last room, which was a sort of kennel, was painted no dog, but a black eye. Carem took no obvious notice of it as he screwed a ruby into his navel. Sucking a last golden standing jackal with diamond eyes between his lips, Carem crawled back out of the inner place.
He had accrued a great amount, yet a greater was left. Let that, then, be the third offering, his temperance. For the rest, he would have reputation. That was worth a vaster amount than the stones themselves.
Back through the thirteen passages he waddled. In the outer passage he waddled. In the outer place, he stepped fastidiously over the bones.
He stood a moment listening.
Somewhere something howled, but it was, as usual, on the desert outside.
Carem climbed the rope, awkwardly, and emerged into the boiling air, which was itself like the interior of a grave.
On the table-top of the tomb, huge black paw marks were apparent in the moonlight, and overhead the mass of stars seemed to describe, for a moment, the skull of a dog.
Carem pulled up the rope, and spoke a word. The entry to the tomb, the hole, vanished.
Below the cliff most of the cameloids had run off. But a few remained, trembling and farting with fear. He would sell them at a handy village. Well, a shame to waste.
When he got down from the cliff, Carem turned about on the sand, clanking and clinking from his weight of jewels and gold.
There on the smooth ground lay something black, pointing from him and away from the moon. He had kept his shadow. All was well.
On his return home, plain Bisint tactfully sent word that she was out of sorts, and beautiful Zulmia met Carem in the garden, plump as a white plum and garlanded with blue-black hair. Much joy he had of her, under the roses and lemon trees, while bees buzzed and the honeyed sun slowly set into the uncomplicated pink desert of Noom Dargh.
He did not tell Zulmia, or even Bisint, anything of his exploits, nor did he give them anything from his robbery. Instead he brought Zulmia a rope of pearls and sapphires to match her skin and eyes, and Bisint a rope of topaz to match her teeth.
The treasure of the tomb Carem sold carefully and meagerly. Soon nobles and lords sent word to him, and later might come the words of kings. He would be famous now. He would be feared as well as praised.
Zulmia approached her husband modestly. She told him, as if he, not she, had been clever, that she was with child.
“I am sure it’s a boy, masterful husband. Only a male would spring from your loins.”
Carem was pleased, for never before, to his knowledge, had he reproduced himself.
He looked delightedly at his lovely wife, plumper than ever, her hair like silk, and at her feet her jet-black shadow. All was wonderfully well.
How charmingly the days and nights passed then. Even Bisint was helpful, often ailing, and keeping to her ro
oms. If she should die, all her wealth would come to Carem.
He would think now, upon sunny evenings, watching the final noose of light about the towers of the city below, how he might give up for good his profession. How he might turn to other things, from which none would dare refuse him entry. His son, after all, should inherit a business, not merely an empire of robbery.
On the night of the full moon, eight months later, Bisint peacefully passed away.
In a generous spirit, Carem left her her topazes to be buried in.
It was midday, and beautiful Zulmia had gone into labor. From the arbor where Carem sat drinking pomegranate wine, the house was closely visible, and her screams of pain might now and then be heard. They were good, rounded, healthy screams. It seemed the birth was going perfectly.
Carem saw a woman approaching through his gardens. He took her for a servant bringing roast lamb and date leaves. He smiled and poured a little wine on the ground, an old custom, for the child to be.
Something caught Carem’s eye then. It was his fine dark shadow. How bold it was. How black.
Carem studied this. He noticed, oh yes, that some curious arrangement of the awning, or the arbor trees, had caused his shadow to take on a peculiar shape. It had two upright ears. Its nose was very long.
As Carem was pondering this, the servant woman came up to him. She was not his servant, but a squat female, veiled, with the sun shining through her. Around her neck gleamed faintly a rope of yellow stones.
“I am your dead wife,” said Bisint’s uncomely ghost, unnecessarily. “I have arrived to warn you.”
“That was most kind. Of what?”
“Hark.”
Carem hearkened, and heard another loud scream from the house.
“Yes,” said Carem. “That is Zulmia.”
“Indeed,” said Bisint, “and she does well to scream. O stupid Carem, what did you bring away from the Tomb of the Black Dog?”
It was random to lie to or upbraid a ghost. “Some trinkets,” he replied.
“What else, O stupid Carem?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Only I, myself.”
“Stupid, stupid Carem,” emphasized Bisint, and disappeared.
Carem looked down for his shadow, that had pointed ears and a snout. It too had vanished.
A particularly awful scream rocked through the air.
Carem glanced at his mansion.
Zulmia’s windows, which were hung with crystal-clear cloth, turned suddenly violently red. More, they appeared wet.
Then came other screams, the shrieks of women and the bawling of men.
A noted physician sprang suddenly out of the window. He fell down among the lemon trees.
Carem rose and went toward him.
“What, pray, goes on?”
“Your wife is delivered,” said the physician. He had broken both legs, but paid them no heed. His robe, like the window hangings, was soaked by blood.
“A boy or a girl?” asked Carem.
“Neither. I will tell you,” said the physician, “since I cannot run away. Something tore itself from the womb of your wife, up out of her belly. It burst her like an orange. It was dark. It had a pointed snout.”
Carem turned from the physician and gazed at the doorway of his house.
From the golden inner walk, something black was coming. It was tall and lean and moved lightly on its hind limbs.
Nothing had he brought from the Tomb of the Black Dog, save his loot and his body, with every aperture blocked. But one. One too small indeed to fill. And the shadow had gone with him. The shadow had run out of him, there among the roses.
From Carem’s doorway stepped Anubar, Biter of Souls. He was black as night, in the mid of day. His ears stood up, His snout was long. In His clawed paws lay the remains of Zulmia’s womb and round His feet, like bracelets, were wrapped the entrails of others. He ripped the physician’s body in half, in passing. Then stared at Carem, who bowed low and waited for death.
As well he might.
TIGHT LITTLE STITCHES IN A DEAD MAN’S BACK
JOE R. LANSDALE
Joe R. Lansdale has published more than forty-five novels, dozens of novellas, and over four hundred short stories and articles. He has written for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series; his novella Bubba Hotep was filmed by director Don Coscarelli and starred Bruce Campbell, and his novel Cold in July was made into a movie starring Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson, and the late Sam Shepard. More recently, his series of books about the eponymous oddball couple has been adapted for the Sundance Channel as Hap and Leonard, featuring James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams.
Lansdale has been named a Grand Master by the World Horror Convention and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. His other awards include ten Bram Stoker Awards from the HWA, an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his novel The Bottoms, and a Spur Award from The Western Writers of America for his novel Paradise Sky.
“‘Tight Little Stitches …’ was written in response to an anthology request,” the author recalls. “An after-the-bomb anthology titled Nukes. I have always been interested in ‘after the bomb’ or ‘after the disease’ or ‘what happens after’ type of stories, but frankly, I didn’t have an idea for one. Then, for whatever reason, the idea of a man with his back tattooed (maybe I recalled Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man?) came to me and the rest of the story filled itself in with dollops of The Day of the Triffids and other novels of that ilk, and it became its own thing, I’m glad to say.
“I hated writing it at the time and thought I had a total disaster. It was the first story I wrote that actually got attention and was a nominee for the World Fantasy Award. To this day people surprise me by thinking it won the award. It’s nice the story is remembered, and I think, though it’s somewhat atypical of my style, that it’s one of my best.”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF PAUL MARDER
(BOOM!)
That’s a little scientist joke, and the proper way to begin this. As for the purpose of this notebook, I’m uncertain. Perhaps to organize my thoughts and not go insane.
No. Probably so I can read it and feel as if I’m being spoken to. Maybe neither of those reasons. It doesn’t matter. I just want to do it, and that is enough.
What’s new?
Well, Mr. Journal, after all these years I’ve taken up martial arts again—or at least the forms and calisthenics of Tae Kwon Do. There is no one to spar with here in the lighthouse, so the forms have to do.
“ALL AROUND IT LITTLE WORMY THINGS SQUIRMED.”
There is Mary, of course, but she keeps all her sparring verbal. And as of late, there is not even that. I long for her to call me a sonofabitch. Anything. Her hatred of me has cured to 100 percent perfection and she no longer finds it necessary to speak. The tight lines around her eyes and mouth, the emotional heat that radiates from her body like a dreadful cold sore looking for a place to lie down is voice enough for her. She lives only for the moment when she (the cold sore) can attach herself to me with her needles, ink, and thread. She lives only for the design on my back.
That’s all I live for as well. Mary adds to it nightly and I enjoy the pain. The tattoo is of a great, blue mushroom cloud, and in the cloud, etched ghost-like, is the face of our daughter, Rae. Her lips are drawn tight, eyes are closed, and there are stitches deeply pulled to simulate the lashes. When I move fast and hard they rip slightly and Rae cries bloody tears.
That’s one reason for the martial arts. The hard practice of them helps me to tear the stitches so my daughter can cry. Tears are the only thing I can give her.
Each night I bare my back eagerly to Mary and her needles. She pokes deep and I moan in pain as she moans in ecstasy and hatred. She adds more color to the design, works with brutal precision to bring Rae’s face out in sharper relief. After ten minutes she tires and will work no more. She puts the tools away and I go to the fu
ll-length mirror on the wall. The lantern on the shelf flickers like a jack-o’-lantern in a high wind, but there is enough light for me to look over my shoulder and examine the tattoo. And it is beautiful. Better each night as Rae’s face becomes more and more defined.
Rae.
Rae. God. Can you forgive me, sweetheart?
But the pain of the needles, wonderful and cleansing as they are, is not enough. So I go sliding, kicking, and punching along the walkway around the lighthouse, feeling Rae’s red tears running down my spine, gathering in the wasteband of my much-stained canvas pants.
Winded, unable to punch and kick anymore, I walk over to the railing and call down into the dark, “Hungry?”
In response to my voice a chorus of moans rises up to greet me.
Later, I lie on my pallet, hands behind my head, examine the ceiling and try to think of something worthy to write in you, Mr. Journal. So seldom is there anything. Nothing seems truly worthwhile.
Bored of this, I roll on my side and look at the great light that once shone out to the ships, but is now forever snuffed. Then I turn the other direction and look at my wife sleeping on her bunk, her naked ass turned toward me. I try to remember what it was like to make love to her, but it is difficult. I only remember that I miss it. For a long moment I stare at my wife’s ass as if it is a mean mouth about to open and reveal teeth. Then I roll on my back again, stare at the ceiling, and continue this routine until daybreak.
Mornings I greet the flowers, their bright red and yellow blooms bursting from the heads of long-dead bodies that will not rot. The flowers open wide to reveal their little black brains and their feathery feelers, and they lift their blooms upward and moan. I get a wild pleasure out of this. For one crazed moment I feel like a rock singer appearing before his starry-eyed audience.
When I tire of the game I get the binoculars, Mr. Journal, and examine the eastern plains with them, as if I expect a city to materialize there. The most interesting thing I have seen on those plains is a herd of large lizards thundering north. For a moment, I considered calling Mary to see them, but I didn’t. The sound of my voice, the sight of my face, upsets her. She loves only the tattoo and is interested in nothing more.
The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories Page 32