The Night Listener and Others

by Chet Williamson

Ice seemed to surge through every one of Eustace’s limbs, and his mouth was suddenly too dry to protest. Fear held every muscle as he watched Frederick stand and take a rifle from the wall.

  “No, Frederick,” came Olaf ‘s voice. “Don’t kill him.”

  Yes. Exhilaration shot through Eustace, melting the ice, replacing it with the fire of love. He had seen the young man’s eyes when their fingers had touched, and now was the moment of truth, the moment when Jack Binns would save Maria from Texas Bill. In another second, Eustace was sure of it, Frederick would say the Norwegian equivalent of, “So! Throwin’ over yer old pard fer a skirt!” and the battle would begin in earnest, a battle with only one possible ending—happiness, love, eternal devotion!

  Olaf looked at him and smiled. “Don’t kill him, Frederick.” He stood up, walked to the bed, and sat next to Eustace, then took his hand. “Your skin is just as soft and pretty as a vooman’s.”

  Oh yes! As if it was destined! All fear left Eustace’s heart as he looked into Olaf ‘s bright blue eyes, felt the warmth of his hand.

  “You vant to be a vooman…”

  Olaf, still holding Eustace’s hand, began nodding, and the smile on his face twisted to something that terrified Eustace even more than had the prospect of death.

  “Ve can make you a vooman…”

  The old man arrived a half hour late for work that morning at the Barkley Hotel. Owen Barkley, having noticed that his new guest was absent from breakfast, and recalling his conversation of the day before concerning the Brogger brothers, was quick to formulate an hypothesis, and the old man was quick to ascertain it upon fear of losing his position.

  Two hours later, Sheriff Zedediah Dorwart, the town doctor, and three deputies armed with Parker double-barreled shotguns and Winchester .30-30’s rode into the clearing that housed the Brogger brothers’ cabin. When the sheriff had been told by Owen Barkley that Wiley Andrews had taken an Eastern guest out to the cabin on Terry Peak, he had left town immediately with his deputies, fearing for the Easterner’s welfare, and, with a premonition of violence, had asked the doctor to accompany them. The five horsemen tethered their mounts at the edge of the clearing near a horse they recognized as belonging to Owen Barkley, and the sheriff and deputies walked stealthily toward the cabin. Not until they were within a few yards of the front door did they hear the moans.

  Sheriff Dorwart then pulled his Colt Army .45 from its holster, ran to the door, kicked it off its hinges, and followed it swiftly into the single room, where Frederick Brogger leapt from the bed, dashed to the opposite wall, and from it yanked a rifle which he attempted to turn upon the sheriff. The sheriff shot him directly in the chest, and the charge thrust him backward against the wall, down which he proceeded to slide like a sack of lime. He was quite dead when his bare posterior struck the floor.

  Olaf Brogger, in the meantime, was trying to dislodge a Colt Dragoon pistol from somewhere within the folds of a red and heaving mass upon the bed, but stopped when two of the deputies pressed the muzzles of their shotguns against his head and upper back. It was not until he stood up, stark naked and smeared with blood, that the lawmen ascertained where it was the gun was lodged. Then two of the men, who had witnessed many gunshot wounds of various and violent types, turned pale, and the sheriff ‘s arm went up to point his pistol directly into Olaf Brogger’s face.

  “Take it out of him and then drop it,” the sheriff said. “And may g_d d_mn your soul, you be gentle.”

  Olaf did as he was directed, careful to keep his fingers on the grip alone, and not to allow them anywhere near the trigger. The barrel, which had refused to disengage before when forced now slid out smoothly, and Olaf, the shotguns still prodding his skin, dropped the weapon on the floor.

  “Doc!” the sheriff called, then said, “Tie his hands.” He coughed up and spat out the bile that had risen to his throat. “Chr_st,” he said softly of the thing moaning on the bed. “Oh dear Chr_st.”

  Eustace P. Saunders’s toothless mouth was horribly bruised: the flesh of his chest had been severed so that large flaps of skin hung down in a hideous parody of a woman’s dugs, and his organs of regeneration had been detached from his body and lay on the dirt floor amid his scattered teeth. His heart’s blood was everywhere.

  “Is there any way he’s gonna live?” one of the older deputies asked the doctor, who shook his craggy head.

  “He’s lost too much already. Best I can do is make him comfortable,” and he drew from his bag a vial and a needle.

  “He vanted to be a vooman,” Olaf began to say, but the youngest deputy brought up the butt of his shotgun and broke the Norwegian’s jaw, knocking him to the floor.

  “Sorry, Sheriff, Doc, but d_mn it…”

  “Never mind,” said the sheriff. “Take him outside. And keep him naked.”

  “And get Mr. Sanders some water,” said the doctor, who pulled a blanket over Eustace while the deputies conveyed Olaf outside, where two remained with him while the third got water from a bucket that stood next to the stone stoop. The doctor trickled water into Eustace’s mouth until he regained enough consciousness to begin screaming.

  “All right, son, all right,” said the doctor, stabbing him with the needle. “This’ll make you feel better.” The doctor shook his head, looked at Olaf, then at the sheriff as the screaming subsided. “I can’t believe you’re gonna waste a trial on that son of a b_tch. I sure as h_ll don’t want to testify about this.”

  Sheriff Dorwart nodded sagely and examined the lined and leathered face of his eldest deputy. “What do you think?”

  “If the doc don’t say nuthin’, I never will.”

  The sheriff looked again at Eustace lying on the bed. “Any man does that to another doesn’t deserve a trial. I can’t be party to it, neither can the deputies, we took oaths. But nobody’s to stop you, Doc, from swattin’ a horse’s _ss.”

  The doctor smiled grimly. “I’m game for it.”

  “What about Hippocrates?” the sheriff asked.

  “Hippocrates would’ve cut the b_st_rd’s throat himself and laughed about it,” the doctor said.

  The sheriff sat rapt in contemplation for a long time before he spoke. “Get him ready, Dan.” The deputy left the cabin.

  “Whe…where…” Eustace called from the bed. His eyes were open, and he was attempting to raise his head as if to look about the room.

  “Just take it easy now,” the doctor cautioned.

  “Where…” said Eustace through his toothless gums. “Where…Olaf?”

  “He’s outside,” said the doctor. “He won’t hurt you again. He’s going for a little ride in a minute.”

  “Take me.” Eustace said through bloody froth. “Want to…see.”

  The doctor looked at the sheriff. “Why not?” Sheriff Dorwart said. “He deserves to see it if any man does.” Then he whispered to the doctor. “Will he ever tell?” The doctor shook his head.

  When the deputies hauled out the bed on which Eustace lay, Olaf Brogger was saddled naked upon his horse, and a rope trailed from around his neck over the branch of a large tree down to the trunk, where it was firmly tied. The deputies put their strong hands beneath Eustace’s shoulders, raising him gently so that he might more easily see the tree, the rump of the horse, Olaf ‘s bare back.

  The doctor walked up to the horse and gave it a resounding blow upon the left flank. It whinnied, reared, and bolted, its involuntary rider remaining in the space it had just deserted, his legs jerking, shoulders twitching, the rope twisting so that his choking, swollen face turned toward Eustace, who remembered:

  “He turned his face toward her as his horse galloped into the dawn.”

  Eustace found just enough strength to raise an arm, and, like Maria

  Prescott, like the Eustace of the painting, wave farewell to his handsome, Western lover.

  There is nothing that dies so hard as romance.

  The Confessions of St. James

  Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you …He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

  —John 7: 53, 56

  It is this that is so shocking, and I shall say it at once, that in the eating of human flesh I feel God’s love.

  It is so difficult to write that. I never have before. I have never written it or spoke it aloud to anyone, even to myself. My thoughts have been full of that knowledge for years, of course, for it was necessary that I be able to rationalize my actions to myself, else I could not continue as a pastor. And I have, I think, done it successfully in my eyes, hopefully in the Lord’s, but most assuredly not in Mankind’s, not yet. What I do and have done is crime, not sin. Even the most recent actions that prompt the writing of this testament, if you will (unseen and unknown reader—perhaps policeman, prosecutor, judge, or beneficiary), are the same, for the commandment states, “Th shall not murder,” in the strictest sense of the translation. What I have done is no more murder than when Gideon executed the kings of Midian, or Samuel put to death Agag, King of the Amalekites. Though I would do nothing differently, and if my actions are misunderstood and I am taken, may these words, written at leisure and in the coolness of my spirit, speak for me.

  The flesh, first of all, for it is my belief and joy in that which caused much of what was to follow.

  It is difficult to know how to describe it to someone who has never tasted it. The salt is naturally the strongest flavor, since that is what preserves it. But in time the palate educates itself, seeks beneath the salt to the true taste. As you hold it in your mouth, thinking of its meaning, the saliva softens it and the salt slowly fades away, leaving only the delicate, wafer-thin flesh, like a coating over the tongue. And then, very slowly, as the now moist and tender morsel dissolves, the ineffable flavor of God’s spirit and love comes upon you like the presence of the dove at Christ’s baptism.

  There is no sin in it, not even that of gluttony, for my taking of this mystical communion occurs only twice a month, and the piece is always small, smaller and thinner than the cubes of white bread I have distributed at my church’s legal and not at all shocking communion. Indeed, these bits of flesh look far more like the pale and fragile wafers the Roman Catholics serve than the dotless dice of Methodist dough offered up on our wooden plates.

  Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

  I do love God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and if you were to say that I blaspheme, I would tell you that I do not. I have never intended, in word nor deed, to go against the will of God. The only Biblical laws that I have broken are those of diet and health as pronounced by the Pentateuch, and Protestantism has blithely ignored most of those for centuries anyway. My conscience is clear. God knows.

  God knows and God has blessed me. He has given me a wonderful community in which to live, good health, a lovely church steeped in history, an old and stately parish house, and access to the fruits of my unique mode of worship. The only thing I have not been granted that the rest of the world sees as necessary is my own family. This omission has been by personal preference, for reasons that I will set down at some more opportune time.

  But into every Eden a serpent may come, and so it is with Hempstead. God blessed this area of the state with dark rich soil which lured the Amish and Mennonite farmers from the fields of Germany. They settled here on their farms, and around them the small towns sprang up, towns with names like Myersburg, Paradise, Purity, Hempstead.

  Hempstead, named for the growing of hemp which, until the late 1800’s, was as highly prized a crop in this area as tobacco, which still flourishes. It is still a small town, the town itself, that is. But now, along with the assortment of stores that seemed to have been here since the thirties if not before—the grocery, the dry goods, sporting goods, drug store—have been added two video rental stores, a computer store, a games arcade, a beer distributor who carries domestic but specializes in imports, and a “New Age” shop that peddles herbs and books, among other things.

  The town changed because times and people change, but the town changed mostly due to the influx of people from Philadelphia, for the county is slowly becoming a suburb of that large city. The population of our own county seat has already grown to overflowing, and now the new folks are spilling out into developments that surround the small towns like barbarians around the walls of Rome. Farms are sold to developers for as much as $20,000 an acre, and the Amish are moving upstate, far from the madding crowd who are more concerned with widening the highways to ease their drive into Philadelphia than they are with easing their souls by preserving the agricultural heritage that has nourished the county for so many years.

  These people are different. They are outsiders—or insiders, depending on your point of view. Most of them regard the natives as impossibly backward, even amusing. You see it most clearly when they are confronted by an Old Order Amishman. The two cultures are so far apart. One, it seems, belongs to God, and the other does not.

  They have no time for religion. Oh, some make an effort for their children’s sakes perhaps, for this past year my church has welcomed four new families, all of whom were originally from the Philadelphia area. Now only three remain. They sit in the stern, wooden pews on Sunday morning, not even trying to hide the fact that they are bored. When my congregation—my native congregation—begins to lapse into that catatonic condition caused by a too-hot Sunday morning, they fix a look of placid contemplation on their broad, well-fed faces, some of them adding to it a gentle smile, if to say yes indeed, pastor, you are so right, I understand perfectly, so you and the Lord will forgive me if my mind wanders just a bit to cooler and less loquacious climes.

  I understand, and I forgive, and sometimes I speed the sermon along, or try to make it a bit more dramatic in order to win them back again. But the Holts, and the three other families who still remain, were and are irretrievable. Sadly and, in the case of the Holts, tragically irretrievable.

  There was a sense of wrongness about the Holts. I have read in several books recently of the uncomfortable and unmistakable feeling one gets when one is in the presence of people who are truly evil. This was the feeling I had when I first met the Holt family, at least the three older members. Kimberly, the six-year-old, seemed too young to be tainted by the bland corruption I smelled in the father, and the silky superiority worn by the mother, which, I feared, had blended together into a potent and heady malignance that simply exuded from every pore of fifteen-year-old Keith. His parents wore masks that were but feeble attempts to hide their true personalities, but the fact that they knew the masks were needed and thus recognized the evil in themselves said something for the possibility of their eventual return to normal humanity.

  But the boy wore no mask at all. He smiled when I first set eyes on him from the pulpit, but it was a wolfish smile. With such a smile must Satan have tempted Christ to cast himself from the roof of the temple, a smile that said to Christ, there is pride in you, for what God cannot be proud? and in that pride will come your fall, as did mine.

  In weeks to come, I began to see more in that smile. I began, to my horror, to see knowledge in it. I began, even as I continued to mouth the words of my sermon and to chant the litany of the well-known scriptures, to hear his thoughts. This is what he said, what he said with that smile—

  You are an Eater of Man-Flesh.

  I see you. I can see all the way inside you.

  I can see the flesh inside your mouth.

  That is what his smile cried to my guilty mind, my mind that, after so many years, retained no self-guilt, no guilt in the eyes of God, but still lived in fear of discovery by those who did not understand, by which I mean, of course, the world. Even now I do not know whether or not what his smile spoke to me was true or not. After all, he did not really find out until later. Still, all in all, he knew. In a way, somehow he knew. And I felt guilty.

  I say that I have banished the guilt, and I have, except for every now and then,
when the teachings of society come thundering into my brain and displace the teachings of God. It was much the same, I have no doubt, for Jimmy Swaggart. Though I have no sympathy for the unkind politics he espouses under the name of religion, I have nothing but sympathy for his weakness of the flesh that made him seek the company of prostitutes. Society has said for the past twenty years that sex is fine, sex is all right, sex is open and free and natural. Sex is sold in every movie, every novel, every advertisement that we and our children see in newspapers and magazines and on television. And finally it becomes too much and the man—a man of God—goes out and sins and sins and sins some more. Crimes? Only partially. But sins? Yes, most emphatically.

  I know the pressures of society all too well, pressures that have a hundred times nearly made me stop my communion with God. But His law is the higher one, and it is in this way that He has allowed me to draw so near to Him and know His love.

  It is His will, I believe, His guidance. For a long time I attempted to look for a human reason, to psychoanalyze myself, always a dangerous occupation. And if I am discovered, I am sure that someone else will try and do the same. It may be a combination of both God and man, for I do not claim full knowledge of how God works. I only know that what brought me into the ministry also brought me to the partaking of flesh—

  My mother. Rather one should say the absence of my mother. That, and blisters.

  It sounds quite absurd, and it is funny when you come to think of it. I can just see myself on Phil Donahue—

  And what turned you into a slavering ghoul, Pastor St. James? (for ghoul is what I would surely be called)

  Oh, I suppose it must have been nibbling blisters, Phil. (and Phil says)

  And we’ll be back with Pastor Brandon St. James, the Ghoul of Dunbarton Church, right after these words from Chapstick.

  Morton Downey Jr. would be even less kind.

  But in truth it was blisters, the blisters that sprouted on the palms of my hands just below the finger joints when I was eleven years old and began to mow the lawn for the first time. We had a push mower, for our yard was small and my family far from being wealthy enough to afford a power mower. And that spring night, when I lay in bed waiting for sleep, I rubbed my fingertips over those blisters and began to pick at the dead flesh that covered them, and slowly they came off, one by one.