The Howling Man (47 page)

I don't know what you mean.

I mean, where does he find anything to eat.

I never thought about it.

Stray dogs, probably.

And we'd laugh and then talk about something else. Then, after we'd courted six months, I asked Etilla to be my bride, and she said yes.

We set the date for the first of June, and I mean to tell you, I worked from dawn to dusk, every day, just to keep from thinking about it. I wanted so much to hold her in my arms and wake up to find her there beside me in the bed that it hurt, all over. It wasn't like any other hurt. It didn't go away, or ease. It just stayed inside me, growing, till I honestly thought I'd break open.

I was thinking about that one day, out in the field, when I heard the music. I let go of the plow and turned around, and there he was, maybe a hundred yards away. I hadn't laid eyes on him in six years, but he didn't look any different. Neither did the holes where his eyes used to be, or the raven. Or the people behind him.

Long valley, dark valley . . . hear the wind cry! . . . in darkness we're born and in darkness we die . . . all alone, alone, to the end of our days. . . to the end of our days, all alone
. . .

I felt the old hate come up then, because seeing him made me see my daddy again, and the look on my daddy's face when he held the ax in the air that first time and when he died.

But the hate didn't last long, because there wasn't any part of me that was afraid, and that made me feel good. I waited for him to finish and when he did, I clapped applause for him, laughed, and turned back to my plowing. I didn't even bother to see when they all left.

Next night I went over to Etilla's, the way I did every Thursday night. Her mother opened the door, and looked at me and said, You can't come in, Lonnie.

Why not?

Why not? You know why not.

No, I don't. Is it about me and Etilla?

You might say. I'm sorry, boy.

What'd I do?

No answer.

I didn't do anything. I haven't done what you think. We said we'd wait.

She just looked at me.

You hear me? I promised we'd wait, and that's what we're going to do. Now let me in.

I could see Etilla standing back in the room, looking at me. She was crying. But her mother wouldn't open the door any farther.

Tell me!

He called on you, boy. Don't you know that?

Who?

Solomon.

So what? I don't believe in all that stuff, and neither does Etilla. It's a lot of lies. He's just a crazy old blind man. Isn't that right, Etilla!

I got mad then, when she didn't answer, and I pushed the door open and went in. Etilla started to run. I grabbed her. It's lies, I said. We agreed on that!

I didn't think he'd call on you, Lonnie, she said.

Her mother came up. He never fails, she said. He's never been wrong in forty years.

I know, and I know why, too! I told her. Because everybody
believes
in him. They never ask questions, they never think, they just believe, and
that's
why he never fails! Well, I want you to know I don't believe and neither does Etilla and that's why this is one time he's going to fail!

I could have been talking to cordwood.

Etilla, tell your mother I'm right! Tell her we're going to be married, just like we planned, and we aren't going to let an old man with a guitar spoil our life.

I won't let her marry you, the old woman said. Not now. I like you, Lonnie Younger, you're a good, strong, hard-working boy, and you'd have made my girl a fine husband, but you're going to die soon and I don't want Etilla to be a widow. Do you?

No, you know I don't, but I keep trying to tell you, I'm
not
going to die. I'm healthy, and if you don't believe it, you go ask Doe Carson.

It wouldn't matter. Your daddy was healthy, remember, and so was Ed Kimball and Mrs. Jackson and little Petey Griffin, and it didn't matter. Solomon knows. He smells it.

The way Etilla looked at me, I could have been dead already.

I went home then and tried to get drunk, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. I kept thinking about that old man and how he took the one thing I had left, the one good, beautiful thing in my whole life, and tore it away from me.

He came every day, like always, followed by the people, and I kept trying to see Etilla. But I felt like a ghost. Her mother wouldn't even come to the door.

I'm alive! I'd scream at them. Look at me. I'm alive.

But the door stayed barred.

Finally, one day, her mother yelled at me, Lonnie! You come here getting my Etilla upset one more time and I'll shoot you and then see how alive you'll be!

I drank a quart of wine that night, sitting by the window. The moon was bright. You could see like it was day, almost. For hours the field was empty, then they came, Solomon at their head.

His voice might not have been different, but it seemed that way, I don't know how. Softer, maybe, or higher. I sat there and listened and looked at them all, but when he sang those words,
All alone
, I threw the bottle down and ran outside.

I ran right up to him, closer then anyone ever had got, I guess, close enough to touch him.

God damn you, I said.

He went on singing.

Stop it!

He acted like I wasn't there.

You may be blind, you crazy old son of a bitch, but you're not deaf! I'm telling you--and all the rest of you--to get off my property, now! You hear me?

He didn't move. I don't know what happened inside me, then, except that all the hate and mad and sorrow I'd been feeling came back and bubbled over. I reached out first and grabbed that bird on his shoulder. I held it in my hands and squeezed it and kept on squeezing it till it stopped screaming. Then I threw it away.

The people started murmuring then, like they'd seen a dam burst, or an earthquake, but they didn't move.

Get out of here! I yelled. Go sing to somebody else, somebody who believes in you. I don't. Hear me? I don't!

I pulled his hands away from the strings. He put them back. I pulled them away again.

You got them all fooled, I said. But I know you can't smell death, or anything else, because you stink so bad yourself! I turned to the people. Come and take a sniff! I told them. Take a sniff of an old man who hasn't been near a cake of soap in all his life--see what it is you been afraid of!

They didn't move.

He's only a man! I yelled. Only a man!

I saw they didn't believe me, so I knew I had to show them, and I think it came to me that maybe this would be the way to get Etilla back. I should have thought of it before! If I could prove he wasn't anything but a man, they'd all have to see they were wrong, and that would save them because then they wouldn't just lie down and die, like dogs, whenever they looked out and saw Solomon and heard that damn song. Because they wouldn't
see
Solomon. He'd be gone.

I had my hands around his throat. I felt like wet leather. I pressed as hard as I could, and kept on pressing, with my thumbs digging into his gullet, deeper and deeper, and then I let him drop. He didn't move.

Look at him, I yelled holding up my hands. He's dead! Solomon is dead! God is dead! The man is dead! I killed him!

The people backed away.

Look at him! Touch him! You want to smell death, too? Go ahead, do it!

I laughed till I cried, then I ran all the way to Etilla's house. Her mother shot at me, just the way she said she would, but I knew she'd miss. It was an old gun, she was an old woman. I kicked the door open. I grabbed them both and practically dragged them back to my place. They had to see it with their own eyes. They had to see the old man sprawled out dead on the ground.

He was right where 1 dropped him.

Look at him, I said, and it was close to dawn now so they could see him even better. His face was blue and his tongue was sticking out of his mouth like a fat black snake.

I took loose the guitar while they were looking and stomped it to pieces.

They looked up at me, then, and started running.

I didn't bother to go after them, because it didn't matter any more.

It didn't matter, either, when Sheriff Crowder came to see me the next day.

You did murder, Lonnie, he said. Thirty people saw you.

I didn't argue.

He took me to the jail and told me I was in bad trouble, but I shouldn't worry too much, considering the facts. He never thought Solomon was anything but a lunatic, and he didn't think the judge would be too hard on me. Of course it could turn out either way and he wasn't promising anything, but probably it would go all right.

I
didn't
worry, either. Not until last night. I was lying on my cot, sleeping, when I had a dream. It had to be, because I heard Solomon. His voice was clear and high, and sadder than it had ever been. And I saw him, too, when I went to the window and looked out. It was him and no question, standing across the street under a big old elm tree, singing.

Long valley, dark valley . . . hear the wind cry! . . . in darkness we're born and in darkness we die. . . all alone, alone, to the end of our days. . . to the end of our days, all alone
. . . .

It scared me, all right, that dream, but I don't think it will scare me much longer. I mean I really don't.

Tomorrow's the trial. And when it's over, I'm going to take me a long trip. I am.

The following stories were left unpublished at the time of Beaumont's death. Three--"Appointment With Eddie," "The Man With the Crooked Nose" and "The Carnival"--were to have been included in a fourth Beaumont collection,
A Touch of the Creature
. The book, to have been released in 1964, was dropped after lengthly negotiations with Bantam Books fell through in late-i 963.

"The Crime of Willie Washington" is an early work, and, according to one of Beaumont's letters, one for which he had a "great fondness." It reflects a young writer's obvious talents.

"To Hell with Claude" was to have been the last in a string of "Claude" stories ("The Last Word," "I, Claude," "The Guests of Chance;" "The Rest of Science Fiction') which Beaumont had written in collaboration with Chad Oliver. "The series," explains Oliver--which appeared in
F&SF
magazine--was the result of"a mutual dislike for all of the cliches that had crept into science fiction. We decided to just take all of them we could possibly cram into one story and just get rid of them.
Forever
. And, of course, we used an Adam and Eve frame, which was about as trite as you could possibly get . . ."

January 10, 1987

Dear Chuck:

A lot of years, as Claude might say. You'll remember. We roughed out this story in 1955, rolling around on the floor and howling like maniacs. You wrote your part and sent it to me in April, 1956. 1 wrote the rest and finished it up last night. Who knows, maybe we have set some kind of record for procrastination. In any event, what with one thing and another, it came out about half Beaumont and half Oliver, as usual. We'll leave it to the Claude scholars to figure out who wrote what.

There are probably a few things I forgot to tell you the last time we talked. You know how it is. Did I mention how much I treasured your friendship? Did I mention how much I admired your magic with words? Did I tell you how proud of you I was? I suppose we were always too busy having fun to speak what was in our hearts.

Writing this was pure joy for me. It brought you back for a few days. Chuck, I can hear you laughing, and that is as it should be. That's how I remember you.

If there is a sadness--a fly in the old ointment, so to speak--it is because there can never be another Claude story in this world. That's all she wrote Claude, dear Claude, whatever he was, belonged to both of us. Where else could Tony Boucher, who bought the first Claude stories, appear as a character in the final epic? (Yes, and Mick McComas too, offstage but present in spirit.)

I am a little older now. Beje and I think of you often. I have looked a short distance down that last road you travelled. Not far, and a different bug, but I understand what you faced. Cheers, Chuck.

Hey, I'm not in any hurry. I'll hold the fort here for another decade or two. But when I see you again, what think you? Wouldn't it be great to do it all again, one last time?

Old friend, Claude awaits. He won't let go of us.

With love,

Chad

There was a breeze, sun-warmed and gentle; the smell of magnolia blossoms; and, from the work fields, happy voices raised in song. To another, the day might have spelled Peace. But to Claude Adams, thrice father of the Earth's population, old now and tired, tired, but still possessed of a mind sharper than any razor, there was little to cheer about. He fingered the bulky object in his lap for a fleeting moment and then sent it hurtling across the room.

"Books!" he snorted.

"Now, Dad," his wife said.

"Books!" he repeated. "Confound it, Woola, it is not fair. It is lacking in justice. I get a civilization ticking, tune it finally to perfection, and what happens? The seeds of decay are planted. The rumblings of revolution. By all the Gods, woman, am Ito have no rest?"

Woola wheeled herself to her husband's side and ran desiccated, though cool, fingers through his stone-white hair. "I know, I know," she wheezed in what she fondly imagined to be a soothing manner. "You've worked so hard. But isn't it possible that you're getting your dander up over nothing?"

"Be damned to dander!" Claude had his blood up. "Nothing? Do you call those nothing?" He gestured toward the stack of ill-bound volumes in the corner and trembled like a wind-whipped sapling.

Woola could not reply.

"Here's the thing," Claude said, aware that he had startled the old lady. "We've got a pretty neat little lifeway working now. Nothing fancy, mind you, but it clicks right along, one-two, one-two, and. .

Ah, but what was the use? The former Sarboomian princess had a doll's face and, he had to admit, a mind to match: how could he expect her to grasp the true complexities of the problem? Poor, frightened little bird, there was no way for her to understand that it was books of the imagination, not armies, not diseases, but books--these innocent-looking, silent volumes--that destroyed worlds .

"Go to your room," he commanded. "I must think. Wait!" He grasped her arm. "What are you hiding?"

Woola's eyes widened in terror. "Hiding?" she quavered. "Why, n-nothing. Claude, I implore you. You're hurting your Woola."

"No secrets, woman. Give it to me."

Woola went limp. Listlessly she reached into her literally voluminous bodice.

Claude reeled back as though struck by a crowbar. "What's this, what's this?" he cried.

"It's called," his wife said, softly, "
Alice in Wonderland
."

"Under my own roof! My own wife . . ."

"Oh, Claude, I'm so sorry. But I didn't see where it would do any harm. Just a little light reading before I went to bed--"

Claude tossed the book onto the pile. "Depart," he said, crisply.

Then, when the crash of crineline and tattoo of sobs had diminished down the hall, he moved to the bell-cord and gave it a stiff yank.

Everything, he mused dispiritedly, had been going so well. He should have known. It was ever thus when the serpent slithered into Eden.

Recalling the errors of advanced technological civilizations, Claude had built this new world along simple, almost spartan lines. Medieval-Virginian, he had dubbed it, allowing the whimsical part of his nature some small leeway. It combined the severe serious-mindedness of the Thirteenth Century with the graceful
joie d'vivre
of the pre-bellum Southern states. It worked so perfectly. Everyone had slaves and yet were slaves themselves: an aristocratic bourgeoisie, so to speak. And Claude, from whose remarkable loins all these teeming millions had come, was alone the government, the ministry, and The King; he ruled, benignly, mercifully, but strictly, from Redolent Pines, the grandest plantation of them all and Seat of World Government; and he was revered.

It was a happy, prosperous world. No television, no motion pictures, in fact, no entertainment of any sort whatever: the people had plenty to do with their hands, and you didn't find them slouching about imagining things or dreaming. If they were inclined to be a trifle sluggish, well, Claude reasoned, that was a small price to pay for harmony.

And now it was ending. He thought he had destroyed the menace, fantasy, for good in the Forest of Darkness on far Sarboom; but he had not. The growth still flourished, and, if not checked, would cause another revolution, sure as shooting.

"You rang, Colonel?"

Claude turned to face Ezra, his faithful retainer. Ezra seemed even paler than usual. In fact, Claude thought, the man looked like a ghost, much as Claude detested the expression.

"Ezra," he said, "the way I have doped it out, one man is responsible for these treasonable machinations. Knock him out and you have wiped out the trouble. Well?"

"You are probably right, Colonel."

Claude permitted himself a smile. He had a weakness for yes-men. "Dammit, I know I'm right," he advised, with some acerbity. "Oh, he's clever, I'll give him that. But I did not just fall off the turnip truck myself. I have, if I may say so, been around the barn a few times. I shall flush him out no matter what the cost!" He flipped his black string tie. "You know, of course, that the greatest concentration of fantasy books has been in Plainville in one of the states of the effete east. You are perhaps aware that the town has secretly changed its name to Arkham. You doubtless are cognizant of the fact that at Miskatonic University there is a veritable hotbed of fantasy activity."

"All news to me, Colonel. I didn't know."

"Well, Ezra, I make it my business to know. That is why I am Claude and you are Ezra. Between you and me and the old gatepost, I'd say our man is lurking in Plainville. But he is a shrewd firebrand or I miss my guess. If he thinks we're after him, he'll belt. So we must be foxy, eh? Ezra, summon the Royal Atom-Arranger: I believe the time has come for action!"

The retainer, ever faithful, bowed silently and shuffled away.

Claude's ancient brow furrowed as his plan took form. Devilish clever it was, but dangerous.

Very dangerous.

Still, he thought, thumbing down a goblet of damp shag and lighting his aged briar with a wooden stick match, this will not be the first tight squeak I've seen; and--one might as well confess it--there is a certain sameness to plantation life. Of all men, he knew that perfection had its flaws.

He stepped from his wheelchair and clapped his hands. Action! That was the ticket.

Ezra shambled back, not too fast. "You called, Colonel?"

"Yes," Claude snapped. "I will need a bit of equipment. Specifically, I want a mirror, a sprig of garlic, a wooden stake--no, make it two--a crossroads, seven silver bullets, and a stream of running water. Get on it, man!"

Ezra paled almost to transparency.

"And Ezra?"

"Yes, My Lord?"

"Tell the Royal Atom-Arranger to make it snappy!"

The hansom jounced and squealed and strained, uttering its weary song of the road. Claude held to the seat. From time to time he would turn his gaze to the passing countryside, and moan, gently: it was a long way to travel.

When at last he saw the sign marked PLAINVILLE, and the shadowed little twisting road, he put his discomfort aside and rapped sharply with his cane. "Turn off here, driver!"

The hansom shrilled to a halt, throwing up plumes of oddly-shaped dust. The driver pulled open the door, his seamed face a study in fear. "Sorry I be," he said, "but that there is a road I'll not be traveling, Lord and Master."

"But," observed Claude, "there is no other way to Plainville."

"
Plainville!
" The driver laughed mirthlessly, spat, shook his head, grimaced, blenched, and trembled. "Look here," he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "I'm not what you would call, now, a coward. But, say, there's no power on this Earth of yours that'd get me to go into that ancient, time-snubbed Abode of Evil!"

"You seem to have strong feelings on the subject."

"Indeed, Lord and Master." The driver climbed back up to the cab. He was shaking horribly. Somewhere, an owl laughed. "I beg you to reconsider. Why not give Harvard a try? There's a nice, friendly, respectable school."

Claude was about to answer, when the horse--which had been frantically pawing the ground and whinnying--rose, suddenly, eyes red as flame, flailed the fetid air with its hoofs, and galloped perempterially away, the hansom clattering behind.

In moments, Claude was alone.

"Superstitious peasants," he muttered. Confound it, he had lost his equipment. He adjusted his beanie at a jaunty angle and set forth down the road. Precisely as planned, the touch of the beanie triggered a transformation that bordered on the awesome. To the untrained eye, Claude had become a typical college freshman, smooth of cheek and innocent of guile, a lad in his teens. The Royal Atom-Arranger had done his job well.

Yet, Claude knew, for all the plan's cunning, it was well not to count one's chickens before they were hatched. He was pleased with the turn of phrase.

He proceeded cautiously, noting that the sun had tucked itself behind a dreary clump of clouds, and that the trees were increasingly gnarled: naked reptilian shapes against the sulphurous sky. "Like fingers," Claude observed, admiring his simile.

He pressed on. The air turned into thick fog and the signposts now read: ARKHAM. Did the fools think that because they were a small village, off the beaten track as it were, they could escape notice?

A sound caused him to stop, abruptly. He listened: it came from the shrouded moor to his immediate left, the sinister side. It was a sing-song sort of chant:

"
Ia ia shub niggurath
. . ."

Claude blinked. "Cthulhu," he sneezed. The fog was so heavy that he could hardly see the road. He walked carefully in the direction of the chanting.

The scene before him became momentarily clear.

In an unspeakable grave there were five nameless beings. All were reading the Bible backwards. Across the damp sward lay five couples engaged in abominations. There was a hideous stone idol, barnacled with age, infinitely evil, and a man dressed entirely in black. The man was doing something vile to a sheep.

Claude surmised instantly that he was on the right trail.

But now was not the time for decisive action. Patience!

"I beg your pardon," he said, when the man had finished the act he had begun, "but I seem to have lost my way. Would you be so kind as to direct me to Arkham?"

"
Ia, ia
," the man said, advancing in what might be construed as an unfriendly manner.

"How's that?"

"
Dia ad aghaidh's ad aodaun. Agus bas dunach ort! Ungl, ungl. Rrlh chchch
. . ."

"Speak up, can't you? Don't mumble. My name is, ah, Smada, and I'm on my way to the University."

"
Ia, ia. Smerk ygdrsll yanter!
"

"Oh, let it pass, let it pass." Claude snapped his fingers with disdain, turned from the black-robed figure, and found the road again. "Pesky Foreigners," he stated to nobody in particular.

At last the trail became cobbled, and, topping a rise, Claude saw it.

The town was sunken in fog, of course, but one could discern gray chimneys, rotting towers, flickering gas lamps, scurrying figures, and time-lost streets.

Plainville? Claude shook his head, suffused with sadness. No, indeed.

Arkham. Why, he could
smell
the legends.

He stopped a hooded citizen whose face was deathly white, and inquired, in what he trusted was a callow fashion, "Where, pray tell, might I find Miskatonic U.?"

The creature pointed with a shaking finger to a wavering gray stone mansion, eaten by moss and consumed by years. It stank of decay. "Go half a mile down Providence Road, turn off at Lonely Yew Lane, go past Hangman's Corner, take thirteen steps and take a left at Sorcerer's Nook. You can't miss it."

"Clear as crystal," Claude said. "It is good to hear plain English again, and I offer my thanks."

The pale citizen pulled his hood across his face.

Claude shifted his satchel of school books, sighed with both excitement and resignation, and made his way down the cobble-stoned hill.

The game, he knew, was now afoot.

The Dean of Admissions was having trouble with his ice cream. The bats hanging in the rafters kept dropping ghastly pods into it. He stroked his lantern jaw and wiped his wig with a soiled cloth.

"Ah, Smada," he intoned. "No need for transcripts here. We rather pride ouselves on a certain informality."

Claude could hardly approve of that, but he held his tongue. Haste, as he had often observed, made waste.

The Dean picked up a quill pen, dipped it in some dark fluid, and scratched his initials on an official-looking parchment sheet: HPL. "Take this document to my assistant, whom you will find in the next chamber. He will be overjoyed to show you about. We receive few fresh students these cheerless days. Besides, it is his job."

Claude bowed. It would not do to push this informality craze too far. He made his exit.

It was then, in the ominous silence, that he first heard the Noise. It was a tap-taptapping, distant and vague. As of someone rapping? No, it was more of a clicking sound...

The man in the next room proved to be a bit of an enigma. He was as big as an ox, barrel-chested and wire-haired, and he had the massive leathery hands of a wrestler. However, his voice was astoundingly pleasant and cultured, enhanced by a slight lisp. "You are the Dean's assistant?" Claude asked.

The man nodded. "To be more exact," he said, conspiratorially, "I'm a good deal more than that. The old boy loves his craft, but he wouldn't be where he is today, in fact, without yours truly."

"You are Dr.--"

"Nameless," the man said, scanning the parchment. "A new student?" He grinned toothily. "Why, we haven't had one for over a year! Perhaps you would like to examine a course schedule?"

"I would," Claude said. One must play the role. "But first I would be grateful to learn about that Noise I hear. It seems to be coming from below."

The giant man frowned. "You mean a sort of tap-tap-tapping?"

"Yes, that's it."

"I hear nothing." Dr. Nameless picked Claude up by the shirt and held him a bare inch from his, Nameless's, face. "There is no Noise," he said, not without meaning.