The Mammoth Book of Terror

by Stephen Jones

  Bill shook his head; shrugged. Then he passed a hand along hisjaw. The anger left his countenance and a look of perplexity replaced it.

  “Then he left,” Bill said, simply, and he shrugged once again. “Hard to figure out. I was pretty helpless by that time. And there’s no doubt he wanted to kill me. Only thing I can figure is that when I hit him with the cane I hurt him pretty bad. Worse’n I thought. Took the heart out o’ the bastard. I guess maybe that’s what happened, ‘cause he was limpin’ when he left. I heard him go. Thought maybe he was trying to fool me – that he’d wait by the door an’ then come sneakin’ back after I stopped whippin’ the cane about. But he left all right. He wasn’t breathin’ hard and he walked calm enough but he seemed to be favouring one leg. I heard the front door close. I sat there for a long time, holdin’ the cane ready and listenin’ but he was gone all right. Then I crawled out to the street and called for help. And that was that. Hard to figure. The coppers said it might have been the guy who killed a couple of other people, too, so I got to think he bit off more’n he could chew with ol’ Billy, eh?”

  “I expect you’re right,” I said.

  “Guess so.”

  He nodded. His cigar had gone out while he spoke and he lighted it again, holding the match cupped in his hands to guide the flame. The leaf had started to uncurl and there was white ash on the bed. He held the cigar in his teeth. He was very much alive. We chatted for a few more minutes and then I left. As I was going out several other visitors came into the room. They nodded to me the quiet way one nods in a hospital and went over to Bill’s bed. They were all women. Widows and unfaithful wives, no doubt. Bill greeted them cheerfully and I went out and walked to the museum.

  I found it impossible to concentrate on my research.

  I sat in the library and ran my eyes over the pages, again and again, without comprehension. My thoughts kept drifting back to Bill’s account of the attack. The most remarkable aspect was that he had been left alive. Whether or not Bill actually believed he had driven the attacker away with his cane, it seemed obvious to me that was not the case – that Bill had been helpless at the end. He’d been terribly battered and must have been nearly unconscious. And yet, even in that brutal beating, there was an element of calculation related to the murders. The blows all appeared to have been struck with the solitary purpose of causing unconsciousness and subsequent death – not pain. There seemed no element of sadism in the method of attack. There had been pain, certainly, but not deliberate, not as an end in itself, the agony no more than a side effect of an amateur attempt at striking a mortal blow. And this created a paradox for, when the end was in sight, the maniac had broken off the attack. It had not been panic. He had not fled and, by Bill’s own account, had been cool and calm. And still he had left the job unfinished. Or was it unfinished? Was there some purpose which escaped me? If the goal had been death, why should the man have settled for less? And if the goal had not been death, why had his blows been so obviously intended as lethal?

  My mind spun over these disturbing questions again and again, as my eyes moved back and forth across the page and the text failed to register. At last I pushed the book away and looked at my watch. I decided that research was impossible at the time; that I might as well have an early lunch and try again in the afternoon. I replaced the volume on the shelves and left the library. At the main doors, however, a notice caught my eye and I remembered that the new natural history exhibit had been opened the day before. I’d not yet had a chance to visit it and had been eagerly awaiting the pleasure and this seemed an excellent opportunity. I turned back and took the elevator up to the new hall.

  It was there I once again encountered Claymore . . .

  The new exhibit was the Johnson Memorial Hall of North American Mammals and I knew it had been planned somewhat differently to the other rooms. Johnson had been a wealthy industrialist who had, in later years, found great peace and pleasure in the Canadian wilderness and had left a large sum of money for the express purpose of creating the new hall. He had also stipulated conditions. It was to be as natural as possible. The whole room was to be fashioned into a simulated forest and there were to be no straight corridors, no display cases, no guard rails. There were not even signs to identify the various flora and fauna, on the principle that the animals in the wilds did not wear labels. Johnson’s desire was to create a room where one could wander at random, in simulated solitude, in the mood of the far-reaching forests. It seemed a fine idea to me, and I was anxious to see how well it had been carried out.

  I was pleased as soon as I entered the hall.

  The plans had been well executed. The entrance was irregularly shaped with roughly plastered walls so that one had the impression of passing through the mouth of a cave. The forest stretched away within, the walls hidden behind backdrops of distant mountains which conveyed a sense of great distance and taped music softly repeated the forest sounds, birds and breezes and vague cracklings. Water dripped rhythmically from an artificial cataract. I stood beside the entrance for a time, letting myself fall into the mood, and then advanced. It was very realistic. Narrow paths wound about between arbours and brush and rock, seemingly at random as I turned my head from side to side. At first I saw no animals. Then abruptly the vegetation opened out and I found myself looking at a colony of beaver beside a plastic pool blocked with fallen timber. The animals were there, but one had to look. I strolled on; glimpsed a lynx stretched along an overhanging limb, tufted ears laid back, snarling; turned as the path angled and stopped short as a Kodiac bear reared up. The taxidermy was excellent, the animals were realistically grouped in lifelike positions, often I caught just a flashing glance as I passed some small mammal peering from the undergrowth. I thought Johnson would have approved.

  Then, turning on to a secondary trail, I found myself face to face with Claymore.

  “A splendid hall, this,” he said.

  I nodded. Somehow, seeing Claymore, my thoughts left the artificial wilderness and returned to reality . . . to the crimes we had discussed before. I mentioned I’d just come from the hospital where Bill was and Claymore appeared interested.

  “Ah yes. The blind gentleman. How is he?”

  “Recovering.”

  “Ah. The newspapers stated his condition as critical. But then, one learns never to have faith in journalism.”

  “He’s a tough one,” I said.

  “Tough? Yes. Yes, I should imagine so. Obviously he had the will to survive. Admirable and natural. He will undoubtedly live until his time to die.”

  “Unlike the others.”

  “Others?”

  “The other victims.”

  “Oh. Oh, no doubt it was their time to die.”

  I made no comment. Claymore nodded. “No doubt,” he said again and then turned and strolled on. I followed. The path was too narrow to walk side by side and I trailed behind him. His limp seemed more noticeable and he seemed very interested in the exhibits, very alert, as if this were truly a wilderness and he were keeping an eye out for dangers or prey. From time to time he paused and used his walking stick to part the growth, revealing some secreted animal I hadn’t even noticed, looking up and down. Fox and wolverine and badger lurked on every side. Presently the path opened into a clearing and Claymore halted. He sighed. A deer was bounding tangen-tially from us, white tail bobbed in graceful flight. At first glance I imagined the deer had been positioned as if fleeing from the visitors’ approach down the path, but then I looked sideways and saw differently. Emerging from the opposite side of the clearing charged a pack of timber wolves, frozen in an instant of action, lean and fierce. I was about to point them out to Claymore when he spoke.

  “Ah, it makes me long for the wilds,” he said. “Books . . . books can only teach what other men have learned, not what each man must learn for himself . . . the sensations, the moods, the tone of nature. The totality.”

  He leaned on his stick.

  “Well, I’m just as pleased these brute
s are stuffed,” I said, jokingly. “How would you like to face that lot in the flesh?”

  Claymore turned, his eyebrows lifting. He saw the wolves. His reaction was startling. He cried out and took a staggering step backwards, raising his walking stick like a club. I stepped forward, afraid he would fall, but he caught his balance: lowered the stick. His face was white and he was sweating.

  “Good heavens, man. What is it?” I asked.

  Gradually he relaxed. The blood returned to his face and he looked embarrassed.

  “Forgive me. A thoughtless reaction.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head; moved towards the wolves and regarded them, then motioned at the pack with his stick, holding it like a fencer.

  “You ask if I should like to face them,” he said.

  “A silly comment,” I said.

  “Ah, but I have,” said Claymore.

  I waited, hoping he would continue, sensing the past trauma in his sudden reaction. I noticed he had raised his stick more in a position of attack than defence and that even now his eyes were bright as he looked at the wolves.

  He said, “They are fine specimens. Very fine. That big fellow must have weighed well over a hundred pounds, I should think. It saddens me to see a wolf which has been killed in his ferocious prime. I love wolves. I hate them but I love them for they have taught me so much. Everything is there to be learned in canis lupis. Territorial instinct, the pack urge, monogamy. And mystery. People have always thought the wolf as different from other predators. Finer somehow, and yet inspiring fear far greater than its size and strength should warrant. Why, there is even a disease in which one believes himself to be a wolf. Lycorexia. I wonder if there is a philosophy, as well?”

  He shrugged.

  “You have been attacked by wolves?” I asked, hoping to hear the tale.

  “No. Not attacked. But I have faced them. I faced the pack and therefore they did not attack me, you understand? And facing them, I learned to face all – to face the past as well as the future and to see myself with humility, a small part of existence, of little importance in the total scheme of life . . . and of great importance in that I learned to act as nature intended.”

  “You stared them down, you mean?”

  He gestured vaguely.

  “Oh, one might say that. But it was far more than that.”

  “You interest me greatly.”

  “Ah, it was . . . interesting. You wish to hear the story?”

  “Very much. If it won’t disturb you to remember . . .”

  “No, not at all. I constantly remember it. You take your knowledge from books – from still lives, as it were – and perhaps you should know how my knowledge came to me.”

  “I should like to know.”

  He nodded and glanced at the wolves once more. Then he moved away with a sideward step. A fallen tree had been propped against a stump across the clearing and Claymore took a seat on the log. I sat beside him. For some time he collected his thoughts while I waited. A man passed, pausing to look at the wolves and then looking at us. Then a middle-aged woman with three children crossed the clearing. They, too, observed us for a moment. We must have looked as out of place as they did. But our ectopia was of a different nature, and I felt I belonged there, listening to Claymore as a sceptic might have listened to Socrates, knowing one need not agree to learn. The taped sounds played on and the waterfall rustled and presently Claymore spoke.

  “Several months after publication of my book I returned to the north,” he said. “The book – I believe you mentioned reading it? – dealt with ecology in general and now I had decided to make a study in depth on a specific relationship. For several reasons I selected that existing between wolves and moose. The most important reason was expediency, for both are territorial animals. The wolf pack sticks within its own boundaries and will tolerate no others there and the moose, in deep snow at least, remains in his own small area or yard. Well, this territorial instinct enables an observer to define the limits of the area and use the square miles within as a field laboratory with checks and controls far more accurately than if the observer had selected his own boundaries at random. I have little patience with those who set aside a tract of land without regard for the animals’ own limits . . . less with the modern practice of observing from aeroplanes. This may be a scientific prejudice on my part, and I’ve considered that sort of work since losing my leg, but cannot see it leading to accurate conclusions. However, I didn’t have that problem. All my research was done on snowshoes with a pack on my back, far from the world of society. It would have been difficult to be farther. It was a world of true desolation and abandoned beauty, and my base camp was a little cabin of rough logs beside a stream which opened out, some miles below, into a river. The river was ringed by fir trees and frozen in winter. I had but one companion – my guide – a man of dubious ancestry called Charles. He had spent his life in the wilderness and was a rough, silent man with vast practical knowledge and experience. He hadn’t the faintest idea what I was studying and did not care at all. He was paid and that was sufficient. That was the way I wanted it, as well, for all men are susceptible and I might well have let my conclusions be affected by a companion who understood the subject. I could ask Charles questions and he would answer from his experience, accurate and precise, not knowing what answer I sought and therefore unable to commit the common error of slanting the answer to give me satisfaction. We carried all our supplies with us and relied on Charles to provide fresh meat. I have always believed in travelling light and Charles was the sort to regard even my meagre equipment as luxury.

  “We went into the wilderness in the late autumn and prepared the base camp. I made preliminary investigation and identified the wolf pack I would study – a pack some twenty strong – and the outline of their territory, where they would remain as long as the food supply permitted. Then it was necessary to wait, for wolves seldom hunt the moose until winter. In open water an adult moose can wade out so far that the pack must swim to reach him, and that is not a pleasant prospect for the wolves. But in winter the water is frozen, the beaver keep to their lodges, the snowshoe hares are insignificant meals for pack strength, and then there is the moose.

  “Well, winter came.

  “Charles and I followed the wolf pack. It was a time of great physical hardship and exhaustion, of dogged perseverance. Often we were away from the cabin for weeks at a time, as the pack ranged over the outer limits of their land, describing a wide and predictable circle which allowed us to anticipate them and often wait for them. This was necessary for they travelled far faster than we could follow. I learned many things but my main goal was to witness the confrontations between the pack and the moose. Seldom did I manage to be present at the actual kill, although often we arrived before the remains were devoured. This was important. It was absolutely essential that I gather data about the victims – to do an autopsy on the remains. This was no simple matter. For one thing, a healthy wolf will eat about fifteen pounds of flesh a day and, if we were far behind the kill, there was little left to examine. On the other hand, when we managed to arrive before their first hunger had been satisfied, the pack was understandably reluctant to surrender their feast to science. These were wolves of the wilds, they had not yet learned fear of man, and to shoot them would have completely ruined the natural balance existing there. The pack regarded us with curiosity and, when they sensed no fear in us, with respect. Undoubtedly they saw us as fellow carnivores, but not as rivals, as they would have another wolf pack or a fox, and territorial defence seldom extends beyond the genus. So my findings were difficult and not extensive, but I persevered and gradually certain aspects of the relationship began to take form.

  “Have you ever seen a moose, full grown in the forest? The wolves had a healthy respect for their prey, and it is understandable. Seven feet tall at the shoulders, weighing a ton and a half, unpredictable in mood and often changing from docile grazing to a thundering charge witho
ut a period of transition . . . they are formidable indeed. Often a moose in deep snow can outdistance the wolves with that awkward, long-legged stride. More often they choose to stand defiantly against the pack and invariably the wolves move on in these cases, searching easier prey. I witnessed this several times and came to the conclusion that the pack tested at least ten moose for every one against which they pressed the attack. This conclusion led me to predictions which only sufficient autopsy examinations could prove and I pressed on, faithfully inspecting gnawed bones, scraps of hide, uncoiled lengths of intestine. Eventually it was enough to convince me my predictions were correct -that the wolves’ depredations were essential to the moose’s survival as a species; that they systematically culled the old and the infirm and left the finest specimens to benefit from limited winter food supplies. Invariably my examinations of the remains showed the same results. The victims suffered from bone disease, cysts in the lungs, tapeworm. Their teeth were worn with age and an abundance of ticks implied they suffered from a weakened condition due to innumerable other diseases. And every victim I examined, discounting calves, proved to be more than seven years old – beyond their prime. Without the wolves these old moose would have lived for a good many years yet, consuming vast amounts of food and depriving the young members of the species.”