The Last Dream

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “Nothing doing,” said Harry. “If you know anything about this mantrap that’ll make him slow down for a bit, you tell it to him tonight.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tonight!”

  “All right,” sighed Amos. “Bring him up here.”

  “You bet!” said Harry. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He took off from the lodge at a run, which, however, due either to the scotch, or the reassuring effect of Amos’ unconcern, slowed down to a more cautious walk which was infinitely kinder on his bare feet. He picked his way down the slope to where the lights of the cabin belonging to David and himself, loomed.

  But when he got there, David was gone.

  It was high breakfast-time when the prodigal returned. Harry was just finishing his third cup of coffee and looking at Leona with deep suspicion in his eyes, when David wandered in. He was wearing a shirt and pair of slacks, somewhat dirty, rumpled and torn. Harry compared his tangled condition with the bandbox freshness of Leona and the suspicion deepened. “Where have you been?” he asked. ‘Morning, darling,“ said David to Leona. ” ’Morning, dear,“ replied Leona. ”I said,“ repeated Harry. ”Where have you been?“ ”Out,“ replied David, turning to him with a courteously puzzled expression. ”In the woods. Is it important? What is the difference?“

  “Important?” said Harry, with a bitter laugh. “To me? Hah! No. I wouldn’t say it was important. Merely inconvenient. You babble deliriously in the night. I run for help to the lodge and arouse Dr. Slizer and McCloud. Amos implores me to bring you back up to him right away. I go to get you. You’re gone. Hah! No, not important. Merely inconvenient, when you’re used to people keeping their promises to stay places until you get back to them.”

  “Oh, did I say that?” inquired David, vaguely. “You did,” said Harry. “Perhaps after you’ve had breakfast you’ll see Dr. Slizer.”

  “Oh, I don’t want any breakfast,” said David. “I’ve already eaten. Some of that raw beef in the icehouse,” he turned toward Leona. “You’re quite right. It’s much better that way.” “Then maybe we can go talk to Amos,” said Harry. “Certainly,” consented David. “Be right back, Leona.”

  “Take your time, dear.” “Hah!” said Harry.

  The two savants were sitting on the sun porch. Amos waved Harry and David to chairs as they approached.

  “Cigars?” he said.

  They shook their heads and sat down.

  “Ah, David,” said Amos.

  “Yes?” said David.

  “Harry here tells me you’re quite taken with Leona.”

  “I intend to marry her shortly,” said David, nodding his head, “one o’clock this afternoon—or two.”

  “Humm,” said Amos.

  “I beg your pardon?” said David.

  “The truth is,” Amos frowned professionally, “you are making a mistake. You think you’re in love.”

  “I am.”

  “No,” said Amos. “I’m afraid not. In the case of any other two people it could well be love. But in your case I’m afraid that what you think is love, is actually something else.”

  David blushed.

  “No, I don’t mean that either,” said Amos hurriedly. “The truth is—well—I understand you were out all night last night.”

  “Well, yes,” answered David. “I was.”

  “Tell me,” said Amos, leaning forward confidentially. “While you were out in the woods by yourself, did you have the impulse to—or did you actually—er—bay at the moon?”

  “Why,” said David, turning a trifle pale, “come to think of it, I believe I did do a little baying.”

  “At the moon?”

  “Yes.”

  “On any other occasions?”

  David squirmed in his chair.

  “Well,” he stammered. “There was that rabbit.”

  “What rabbit?”

  “Oh, just a rabbit,” said David, with a bad attempt at airy unconcern. “I chased it a little way.”

  “Baying?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Holy Hannah!” exploded Harry. “Running around the woods at night and howling at moons and rabbits.”

  “I wasn’t howling,” said David, with dignity. “I was baying. There’s a difference.”

  “There is, there is,” interrupted Amos, hurriedly. “Harry, of course, doesn’t understand.”

  “Damn right I don’t,” said Harry, belligerently.

  “But what’s this got to do with me and Leona?” asked David. Amos got up, walked over, and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder.

  “My boy,” he said, “brace yourself. You and Leona can never be married. Leona is a werewolf.”

  Angus snorted.

  “Angus!” said Amos, sternly. “You promised not to say a word until I was through here.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” said David.

  “Is it any more ridiculous than what has happened to you in the last twenty-four hours?” asked Amos. David colored, but stuck to his guns.

  “Even if it was true,” he said, “I’m not afraid. We’ll go see a specialist, or something. Leona and I can never be kept apart.” Amos turned his head away sadly.

  “Truer words were never spoken,” he said. “But not the way you think it. You’ve only heard half the story. Remember last night. Remember chasing the rabbit. Didn’t you notice any change in yourself?”

  David’s face went totally white.

  “Come to think of it—come to think of it—” he choked—“I did. I had a—a tail; and dewlaps.”

  “You see?” said Amos. “Unknown to yourself all these years, you have been a were-wolfhound, one of the old breed whose ancestors were developed by the Magicians Anti-Were-creatures Guild of Verona in the early thirteenth century. You are a were-wolfhound, and Leona, being a werewolf, is your natural prey. It is her proximity to you that has made you revert to type. Due to the fine selective breeding of your ancestors, you have felt the were-call early. Leona will feel it in a night or two. She will become a werewolf. You will become a were-wolfhound, and track her down and tear her to bits. The attraction, David, that you feel for Leona, is not the love of a male for a female, but the lust of a hunter for his game.” David fainted.

  Later on that day, when David had finally been calmed down and put to bed, Harry slipped away from the first distraught snores of his friend and cornered Amos in the library.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked.

  Amos shook his head, sadly.

  “I’ve been trying to think of some way para-science could be used to obvert the inevitable,” he said. “But my knowledge of the field is still too much in the theoretical stage.”

  “Can’t you do anything?”

  “I wish I could,” said Amos. “I set this little tragedy in motion in a thoughtless impulse to convert Angus to a true scientific curiosity. Now, I’d do anything I could to stop it.”

  “Well, there must be something we can do.”

  “What?”

  “Can’t we lock them up at night, or something?”

  “We can try,” Amos shook his head dolorously, “but remember, we’re not dealing with ordinary humans. Both David and Leona are were-creatures, and nobody can know just what powers they possess.”

  “Well I don’t know about you!” snapped Harry. “But I’m going to keep my eye on Leona, from here on out!”

  And so, for the next two days, Leona suffered what can only be referred to as persecution. She took it as long as she could; but finally even her were-will cracked. She sought out Amos in the library and cried on his shoulder.

  “There, there,” said Amos, nervously, patting her shoulder.

  “But it’s just awful!” she wailed.

  “Come now,” said Amos, with the falsely cheerful air of a man who has just heard what his wife claims are burglars downstairs, “are you sure you aren’t just imagining things?”

  “Certainly not!” sniffed Leona. “It’s that Harry. He keeps following me a
round and saying ‘Hah!’ darkly.”

  “Pay no attention,” answered Amos soothingly.

  “—And David. He keeps putting off getting married, and every time he looks at me and sighs deeply, as if I was somebody dear departed.”

  “Nonsense,” replied Amos. “It’s just your imagination. You’re overwrought. You haven’t—er—been having any strange feelings or impulses lately, have you?”

  “Me!” said Leona, indignantly. “Certainly not. Has that Harry been telling stories about me? Oh, I get so mad at him I could tear his throat out!”

  “Er—yes,” said Amos.

  At this moment, there was a knock on the door and Harry breezed in.

  “Hah!” he said, noticing Leona in close conversation with Amos.

  “You see!” cried Leona, bitterly, and swept out. Harry carefully closed and locked the door behind her.

  “Hist!” he said in Amos’ ear. Amos jumped back nervously.

  “Don’t hiss at me!” he snapped.

  “I’ve got it all fixed,” said Harry. “They’ll be delivered this afternoon. One large steel cage for Leona, and a stout collar with a strong leash for Dave.”

  “You young idiot!” fumed Amos. “You can’t lock a girl up in a steel cage.”

  “Hah!” said Harry. “Can’t I?”

  “Don’t ‘Hah!’ at me!” barked Amos irritably. “And anyway it wouldn’t do any good. No steel cage will hold a werewolf. It would have to be silver at least.”

  “Hmm,” muttered Harry, a bit crestfallen. “Well, we’d better think of something quick. Time’s getting short.”

  “Nonsense,” said Amos, but without his usual spirit, “it probably may not happen for days.”

  “Hah!” retorted Harry disbelievingly, and went out.

  Unfortunately, as it turned out, Harry was justified in his pessimism. That afternoon, Leona was missing. Harry went out looking for her; and came bursting back into the lodge to spoil what was left of the small appetites of the three men sitting around the dinner table—I beg your pardon, two of the three men; Angus McCloud, serene in his scientific skepticism, was eating with his normal appetite, which is to say, like a horse.

  “It’s started!” cried Harry, slamming the door open. Amos and David leaped like harpooned whales.

  “What’s happened?” roared Amos, when he had recovered his balance.

  “It!” shouted Harry excitedly. “Leona is on the loose. They’ve found a kid about five miles down the road, torn to pieces.”

  David turned pale, Amos turned green.

  “Oh, no!” groaned Amos. “A little child—”

  “Not child!” interrupted Harry, excitedly. “The other kind of kid—son of a goat—you know.”

  “Thank God,” muttered Amos, mopping the perspiration relievedly from his brow. Suddenly, however, his brightening eye caught sight of David sitting at the table, gazing abstractedly at the tablecloth. David was still pale, but there was a slightly puzzled expression on his face, as if he was trying to remember something.

  “Oh, oh,” groaned Amos. He moved hurriedly over behind David’s chair and from this obscure position began to signal frantically to Harry.

  “What on earth are you waving your hands for like that?” inquired Harry, in a loud, interested voice.

  Amos groaned again, clutching at his forehead in an extremity of despair. Suddenly he took his hands down and began to sing wildly in a cracked voice.

  “If a body get a leash

  “Comin‘ through the Rye,

  “If a body wear a collar,

  “Need anybody cry?”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Harry cheerfully. “You want the collar and the leash I got to tie Dave up with.” And he hurried out.

  There was a loud clang from the end of the table where Angus’ knife and fork had dropped unheeded on his plate. He was rising to his feet, his face convulsed with wrath.

  “By Heaven!” he thundered. “I’ve been insulted and maligned and controverted by you, Amos Slizer, but I’ll be damned if I stand for parodies of Scots’ songs. If ye wish to apologize, I will be smoking in the library.”

  And he stalked out after Harry.

  “Kid torn to pieces?” murmured David, wrinkling his forehead at the tablecloth.

  Harry came back in with the leash. In response to Amos’ frantic signals, he brought them around behind David’s chair.

  “Kid?” murmured David. “Torn? Teeth? Animal? Wild? Wo—”

  “Stop!” yelled Amos, grabbing David by the shoulders. Don’t think of it. Think of the girl you love. Think of Leona. Think of her as a beautiful woman—“

  “That’s silly,” interrupted Harry. “He knows as well as we do, she’s a were-wolf.”

  “You fool!” cried Amos. And—

  “Werewolf?” roared David, surging to his feet. “Were—grrrh, gnash, gnash. Yowp! Yowp! Yowp!”

  “Get the collar on him quick!” panted Amos, who was struggling with the metamorphising David.

  “Got it!” grunted Harry, snapping the collar shut. “Sheer good luck the clasp on this happened to be silver.” He looked down at David, who was now down on four legs and completing his tail and ears. He made a very good looking hound, indeed. About the size of a St. Bernard, with the dewlaps of a bloodhound and the rather trimmer body of German shepherd or police dog. He was straining at the leash.

  “We can’t hold him very long,” cried Harry; and, sure enough, just at that minute David got all four feet dug in and took off through the house, casually smashing the front door, which happened to be closed, open.

  They charged off through the night. Together they made a weird sight, skimming over the ground, the two men being pulled along the path and some-times through the air, under the light of the rising moon. David’s magnificent baying filled the woods.

  “We—can’t—keep up this pace much longer—” grunted Amos, as he bounded along with fifteen-yard strides.

  “Why—” gasped Harry. “Why—don’t we just— ride him?”

  “Fine—idea,” agreed Amos as he drew closer.

  Hand over hand they hauled themselves up the leash and assisted each other to seats on David’s back. He did not seem to notice the weight, and, as a matter of fact, picked up speed.

  “Yowp! Yowp!” bugled David. “Huroo! Huroo!”

  He put on the brakes, suddenly, and skidded to a stop.

  “What’s up?” asked Harry, peering over Amos’ shoulder.

  “I think,” said Amos, cautiously, “that we’ve reached the dead kid.”

  “Snuff? Snuff? Snuff?” sniffed David loudly.

  “You’re right,” said Harry. “We have. Do you suppose it’s still possible to reason with him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Amos. “We can try.” He leaned forward toward one of David’s floppy ears. “David!” he said.

  “Ruff!” snapped David.

  “I don’t think he wants to be bothered right now,” said Amos, a little timidly.

  “Try again,” urged Harry.

  “David,” said Amos.

  “Yowp?”

  “Stop and think, David. She may be a werewolf, but she is also Leona, the girl you love. When you think of that, doesn’t your heart soften toward her?”

  “Gruffff—growr!—gnash-rashashash!”

  There was a moment of shaken silence on top of David.

  “I gather,” said Amos, finally, “it doesn’t make him feel much different.”

  Meanwhile, David had been casting around in circles, which grew wider and wider. Suddenly he paused, stopped his circling and plunged off in a straight line, baying with greater energy and intensity than ever.

  “What now?” jolted Harry into Amos’ ear.

  “I think,” Amos shouted back, “he’s hit her trail.”

  “Huroo! Huroo! Huroo!” yodeled David.

  “This is the end,” choked Amos. “She doesn’t stand a chance.” They plunged on through the night woods, the three of them, David gallop
ing and the other two hanging on for dear life, but nevertheless bouncing clear of David’s broad backbone some ninety or hundred times a minute. Up gullies, under pine trees, through underbrush and over huge boulders, they raced, with the moon keeping pace with them, flickering through the trees.

  “Hey!” said Harry suddenly. “Aren’t we heading back toward the lodge?”

  “That’s right,” ground out Amos, between his clacking teeth, “we seem to be. He’ll catch her there. She’ll be cornered. And it’s all my fault. Why didn’t I leave Angus to wallow in his stupidity?”

  But at this moment, David checked his headlong flight so suddenly that the two men shot on ahead off his back.

  “What’s up?” spluttered Harry, coming to a sitting position with his mouth full of moss. He looked around him and was astonished to see Amos on his feet and doing an impromptu war dance.

  “Huh?” said Harry, his eyes bugging out.

  “Why, don’t you see?” chortled Amos. “She’s confused her trail. He’s all mixed up trying to untangle it. Oh, clever girl, clever girl!”

  “And what good,” inquired Harry grumpily, “is that going to do us?”

  “Why, it’ll give us enough time to get to the lodge and head her off. Come on.”

  “Sniff? Snuff? Snuff?” Sniffed David perplexedly.

  “You’re right!” said Harry, leaping to his feet. The two men ran off through the woods.

  They were still about a quarter mile from the cabin and they covered the distance at the best speed they could manage, which was a slow trot. This, unfortunately, gave them time to think, and memory jabbed them both sharply as they came into the clearing around the resort.

  “My heavens!” said Harry, suddenly. “She’s a werewolf.”

  “And Angus is all alone in the lodge!” added Amos, strickenly.

  They burst into a clumsy run, approaching the French windows that opened on the library. Across the greensward, as they approached came the rumbling tones of Angus’ voice.

  “Good girl, nice girl. All right now.”

  They redoubled their pace and burst through the windows into the library. The sight that struck their eyes brought them skidding to a halt on the library’s well-waxed hardwood flooring. Angus McCloud was half bent over by the library table, under which Leona crouched, her eyes shining greenly in the shadow.