It was too late for the rabbit to realize it had made an error. Coleman's hands closed around the soft, furry body.
The rabbit squealed and squirmed and tried to bite, but Coleman would not let it escape.
He opened a vein with a small sharply pointed rock because his teeth would never tear the skin. The rabbit squealed but blood flowed.
Coleman drank.
He drank until his thirst was satisfied and then he left the rabbit and went to find the cave where he had lain after the attack on him. Night was almost finished. Soon the sun would rise and Coleman felt a fear of the sun. The sun would sap his strength, make him weak like the day before.
But minutes later when the sun started to rise, Coleman was protected: in the cave, safely covered with the dirt in which he had been buried.
4
He did not think of himself as changed in any way. He awoke and the thirst was a hotness in his throat, governing his thoughts and emotions. He was what he was and did not seem ever to have been anything else. He dug himself out of the dirt that protected him and began the night's prowling.
He was searching for something and his only thought was that he had to find it. The object of his search bore no labels, no identity other than as that which would satisfy the thirst. The obsession was complete; the fight for survival, overwhelming. Coleman had at last achieved completeness.
The forest was silent with night-too silent. There should be sounds: insects, nightbirds, small animals, the barking of dogs at shadows and each other. Coleman recalled that there was someone else abroad in these woods who was also obsessed with the thirst. The one who attacked him. But that person meant nothing to Coleman. He was not a source of satisfaction to the thirst and therefore had no place in Coleman's schemes.
Coleman still wore the overalls which had been loaned him at the funeral parlour and his own shoes, which,the deputy had brought from the sheriff's office. He had no socks but if the shoes rubbed against his heels they did not cause 'blisters or pain. Briars and brambles tugged at the coarse cloth of the overalls and one leg was already torn from last night. Coleman was oblivious to all this. Suddenly he sensed the presence of something-a small animal of some kind. He dropped to his knees and peered ahead. Yes, he could see it. Another rabbit. These woods were full of rabbits.
He leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the ground. A lancet of pain tore through his right hand, causing him to cry out. He tried to stifle the sound but he could not prevent it from frightening the rabbit. Coleman held the offended hand tightly until the pain subsided. It was like a burn. He looked down where the hand had touched the ground and there he saw a nail. An ordinary, iron nail.
He felt fear as he stared at it.
Fear and memory. Memory of how uneasy he felt in the sheriff's car and of his care not to touch the metal screen of the door in his house. The deputy had given Coleman an envelope containing his watch and wallet which he had not opened. At the time Coleman thought nothing of that; now he knew why.
Metal was an enemy. Not all metal but two metals specifically: Iron and silver. The iron in the nail that burned him and the silver in his watchcase. These were metals of the sun and the sun was his enemy as well. His fear of the metals in the car was based on this. Chromium could not harm him but it was not a pleasant thing to touch. Steel was a form of iron. It was not the serious threat to him that iron was but it was an enemy and he felt a revulsion to it-he felt revulsion at the very thought of it.
But only cold iron and silver could harm him: silver and cold iron that burned like the sun.
Coleman backed away and circled the nail, giving it much room; and then he started hunting again.
He hunted for two hours before he finally located and caught a rabbit. He sat on the ground where he caught the animal. He had to tear the vein with his fingernails and teeth because he could find no sharp stick or stone at hand. He finished the rabbit but was dissatisfied by the knowledge that soon the thirst would return, would demand again; and that never would a mere rabbit be able to satisfy it for long.
He heard a noise-merely the rustling of foliage. But Coleman knew that another source of blood was at hand, moving through the woods. He became a hunter again, assuming automatically, the wiles and cunning that were now so much a part of his being. He got silently to his feet, the rabbit forgotten, and moved toward the sound.
He moved more silently than his prey. The noise it made told him how large it was: large enough to be a deer perhaps. Desire grew into anxiety and it was with some effort that he restrained himself from rushing forward to see what he pursued. But noise would frighten it, he told himself. He must wait until he could be certain of success…
Then the trees and bushes thinned out and Coleman saw that it was not a deer he followed but a man.
It was sobering. Coleman came to a stop and crouched down in the bushes, chose the ground carefully for stray nails or other pieces of metal. For a full minute he hesitated. That there was a relationship between himself and other men he knew, had always known. But there was a difference, now. That man was a source of blood, the source of that which would satisfy the hunger. That was important. More important than anything else in the world.
Coleman got to his feet and moved with as much speed as he could muster without making noise.
But when he finally got close to his prey, Coleman found that the man had been joined by another. He knew better than to attack two men at once. The thirst raged within him, demanding satisfaction. But it was now subordinate to the cautioning of Coleman's new-found animal cunning. He followed after them, curious as to what reason two men might have for being in these woods so late at night and so close to Overhill Mountain.
Suddenly he saw more men coming from the woods and converging on the path the other two were following. They carried torches and Coleman panicked. He threw himself to the ground without regard for what nail might be lying there. He hated the light, he wanted to flee, to get away from these people. But something told him to stay, watch, to learn. When he was certain he would not be seen, he got to his feet and moved around to a place where he could watch them and enjoy maximum protection.
The men were coloured. They were converging on a road… No-not merely a road'… crossroads. The sight of it filled Coleman with fear and revulsion; feelings allied with those he felt at the thought of iron and silver.
A group of five or six men seemed to be forcing another man toward the crossroads. The man fought but was out-numbered despite his obvious strength. He was coloured too with a beard that was unkempt and matted. Even from that distance Coleman could see the length and sharpness of the man's fingernails. He was clawing at his tormentors and one nail was already broken. His struggles were futile and he snarled like an animal.
Near the crossroads stood a man Coleman recognized as Isaac Smith. At Smith's feet were pieces of wood, whittled into long sharpened stakes. There was a sledge hammer next to the stakes. Smith was grim-faced and his voice was loud enough to reach Coleman's ears when he said, "It's almost time."
The group fell silent except for the captive who continued his animal snarling. For a moment everyone stood as if frozen and the captive ceased his snarls. He glanced nervously around, a look of absolute terror on his face.
"It's almost midnight," Smith said.
The captive screamed out in agonized fear as he was shoved toward the crossroads. He was forced down and held to the ground in the centre of the crossroads. Smith picked up one of the stakes and the hammer and approached the man. The man was held tightly by each arm and leg and by the head so that he could not move. But he tried and almost succeeded in twisting away from the point of the stake as it was placed against his breast. A man held the stake for Smith and Smith stood up, the hammer held in both hands.
"Tell me the minute and second," Smith said.
A small frightened man came forward, an old pocket watch held in one hand so that the time could be read in the flickering torch light. For a moment no
one spoke and not even the captive moved. The man with the watch said, "It's about… just about… now!"
Smith's muscles flexed and knotted as he raised the hammer over his head. Before Coleman quite caught the significance of it, the hammer came down. Coleman saw the stake dig into flesh; saw the spurt of dark blood-heard the unearthly death scream. Smith raised the hammer and struck again, driving it until the corpse was pinned to the ground.
Smith stood back, throwing the hammer aside. The man who held the corpse let go. A low murmur ran through the crowd.
"We ain't through," Smith said. His voice was deep and filled with a grim tremoring. "There's more yet. Don't nobody go till it's done with."
A man stepped forward and torchlight reflected brightly from the blade of a steel knife the man held. Without hesitation, the man lifted the knife above the body and brought it down heavily on the neck. There was a sound like a young sapling being cut and the head rolled free. The headsman stepped back and Coleman could see that the man was trembling. Smith lifted the head with both hands and placed it between the feet of the corpse. "Who's got the kerosene?" he asked.
"I have," said the man who had wielded the knife. He came forward, carrying a gallon can. He doused the body and as he stepped back, Smith motioned to one of the men with a torch. Carefully the man tossed the torch on the corpse. It caught fire with the swiftness of ignited kerosene. The fire burned high and the brightness hurt Cole-man's eyes making him turn away. The fire was like the sun. Instinctively Coleman knew that one of his own kind was being consumed by that fire; and while he felt no feeling of kinship he recognized the inherent threat of such a happening.
Somehow he fought down the urge to run. He made himself stay, to watch the fire die down. When it was dead and only smoke curled up from the ashes, Smith came forward and poked the ashes with a stick. Bright sparks glowed among ashes but no flames leaped up.
"It's done," Smith said., "Scatter the ashes."
People came forward and raked the ashes into sacks which they carried off, going in pairs. Coleman watched Smith who stood silently watching. He seemed tired, now. And perhaps scared as Coleman was scared. Coleman heard Smith tell someone, "We're lucky. Suppose he drunk the blood of some white person. We couldn't make no white person bury their dead with no stake through their heart."
"We ain't lucky at all," said the other man. "If we was lucky this wouldn't have happened to us at all."
Coleman waited until most of the crowd left before moving away himself. Fear was heavy in him. Fear and hatred. He wanted to find one of the mob and kill him but he was afraid. Here at the base of Overhill Mountain wise men did not travel alone.
Coleman moved aimlessly through the woods until suddenly he stepped out of the trees and found himself standing next to a highway. For a long time he stood in the shadow of the trees and stared at the ribbon of asphalt. A car sped by but there was no other traffic. Coleman turned and started walking along the highway not sure what his reason was. Fear was forgotten; the Thirst was great. But something kept him from going into the woods where he might find game-he realized that his instinct told him prey was close. He felt new excitement charge through him and he moved faster.
Then he saw the car pulled to the side of the road. A man was bent next to a tyre, apparently trying to fix a flat. Coleman watched as the man finished and lowered the jack. While the man was putting the tools back in the trunk, Coleman came up behind him. Coleman made a sound and the man turned, staring blankly at him.
"Trouble?" Coleman asked.
The man laughed. "Boy, you gave me a scare. I had a flat. Fixed it though. You live around here or looking for a ride?" He wiped his hands busily on a rag.
"I live back there," Coleman said. "Sure I can't help you?"
"Everything's all right," the man said. "Awfully late to be out, though, isn't it?"
Coleman moved towards him. The man was suddenly obviously scared. He tried to back away.
The man screamed once and Coleman hit him as hard as he could on the side of the head. The man went limp. Coleman found a rock and gouged at the man's neck until the flesh tore and blood began flowing.
Coleman satisfied his thirst as he had never satisfied any thirst before.
5
McDonald rose at six, quietly so as not to wake his wife. The call came at six ten. A dead man found on the Savannah Road with wounds so similar to those found on Coleman that the deputy in charge decided McDonald should be informed at once. The corpse was on the shoulder of the road, just as he had been found, when McDonald arrived. The throat was ripped and the jugular vein severed. Yet there was not much blood.
"I don't like it," the attending doctor told McDonald. "That man there died of loss of blood but there's no more than a few scattered drops on the ground around him. I never saw, anyone lose blood that well, before."
"Are you trying to say he wasn't killed around here?"
"He couldn't have been. I don't like the looks of it."
"I like it even less than you do," McDonald said. "I've got to find whoever did it."
The doctor only scowled.
McDonald bent down and lifted the sheet that covered the body. "Except for the fact the body has been moved, I'd say an animal did this."
"No animal,' the doctor said. "That wound wasn't made by teeth or claws-not sharp ones like you'd find on an animal that could kill a man."
"What did do it, then?"
"A rock."
McDonald let the sheet back down. He got to his feet and faced the doctor. "Now, what makes you say that? "
"For one thing, we found the rock. A nice pointy one with blood stains. Your deputy has it. He says it won't give any fingerprints:but he figured a lab test would be nice."
"Looks like we got a madman to find," McDonald said. "Coleman said it was a man who attacked him with a stick or knife. I was hoping he was. suffering from delusions."
"If Coleman lived through it, you better question him," the doctor said.
"Coleman's missing. Ran right into the woods. His wife ain't seen him since."
The doctor got into his car and scowled at McDonald. "Don't expect me to solve your case for you, Alvin. I got my own problems. I'll get the autopsy out of the way soon as the body's in town."
"Just one thing about that," the sheriff said. "We thought Coleman was dead but he wasn't. Check this one out real good before you cut him open, hear?"
"Don't worry about that," the doctor said. "If that fellow's anything, he's dead."
As the doctor drove off, McDonald turned to Brice Sherman and said, "We got ourselves a live one this time."
Sherman gave him an odd look.
"I mean the killer, not the victim," McDonald said snappishly.
Sherman nodded. "Maybe liver than you think. We found footprints and signs of struggle. Also, there's a fiat tyre in the trunk of the car and a new one that doesn't look as if it's been driven on, right there." He pointed. "I think he stopped to fix a flat and was attacked before he could get back into the car."
"That would mean he'd have to be killed here."
"It'd take a damned clever man to fake all these signs, Sheriff."
"Then what happened to the blood?" McDonald asked.
Sherman shrugged.
"I guess we're looking for a madman, sure enough," McDonald said. "Like that Gein fellow up North who used to make clothes out of his victim's skin and use the skulls for cups. Don't guess our killer's ever been under treatment but put a call out to all the institutions in the region. Maybe someone's escaped. I've already called in State investigators. We'll need their crime lab on this one."
Sherman glanced at the body. "None of this makes sense, Sheriff."
"You're right. We have a pattern but I'd be happier if we didn't have this one."
"We've had patterns like this before," the deputy said. He pointed at Overhill, which loomed up just a couple of miles away. "We never had murders like this before but I think it's the old trouble stirring up agai
n. Overhill attracts all kinds of things like this-unnatural things."
"Overhill's just a mountain," McDonald said. "There's not a ghost on it."
"You've read the records and heard the stories," Sherman said. "There's always been people who claimed they worshipped devils in that mountain and things do happen around it. All I'm saying is that some crazy man could be killing and taking the blood for some purpose he thinks he has. Like one of those witch groups."
McDonald scowled. "Maybe. A cult murder's possible. It's hard to say."
"Should we take a look around up on the mountain?"
"I guess it won't hurt," McDonald said.
McDonald waited for the arrival of the state investigators and for a long time he watched them putter around, asking questions, making photographs and plaster casts and taking samples of the soil and the rock that was supposed to be the murder weapon. The investigators were the cynical, professional men McDonald had expected and they had only contempt for the killer. They impressed McDonald with their certainty that there was enough evidence to reveal the killer's name by noon and his whereabouts by evening. McDonald wished he could be so certain. After the investigators drove off and the body was loaded in the wagon and on its way to Celine, McDonald got into his car and drove to Grace Coleman's.
Grace fixed him strong coffee and talked about her argument with Sam and about the strangeness of Sam's actions. McDonald had heard it before but he wanted to hear it again-to give her a chance to say it not as a distraught wife talking to an officer of the law but as a girl talking to the man who was almost a father to her. But Grace added nothing new to the story. Before lunch McDonald looked around in the woods and found a place where some brush was trampled-but nothing else.
Back in town he had a large lunch and spent the rest of the day on paper work. The identification of the corpse came through shortly after three: a farm equipment salesman from Atlanta, returning from a business trip in Day-tona. Word came through that a fingerprint found on the dead man's throat had been identified at five. McDonald was impressed that the state lab could identify the fingerprint at all. But the identification itself was even more impressive. It was the fingerprint of Sam Coleman.
Richard Davis (ed) - [Year's Best Horror Stories 02] Page 3
