Incubus

by Ann Arensberg

  It resembled the corpse of a man shrouded tightly in a thin, gauze-like fabric, a featureless body imprisoned in its wrappings. Like the woman, his state of being was ambiguous. He might have been a candidate for burial or the subject of some fiendish experiment, awaiting revival. He was immobilized, as I was, and therefore preferable, as a bedmate, to the unbound woman. My arm had gone numb from lying too long in one position. There was an ache in my thigh along the sciatic nerve. I resolved that if I stared at him intently, I might keep him at bay. I succumbed to magical thinking, but I had no other recourse. I was powerless to move and I could not use my voice for fear of rousing him. Why was I using the masculine pronoun when the neuter form was more fitting? He could hardly be said to be human. It was not even certain he was a life form. I did my utmost to stare without blinking, but my eyes swam out of focus. I had brought on the symptoms of migraine, a band of pain behind the eyeballs, throbbing temples, waves of nausea. I closed my eyes to let the sickness pass. In my misery I spared no thought for my predicament, hoping only for physical respite.

  I cannot say how long I waited, abject and abandoned, while the pain in my head changed sites from the eyes to the scalp to the base of the skull. It seemed worse from lying down and worse yet from the heat, two conditions I was powerless to alter. At last it began to subside, leaving me agitated and sensitive to light. I tried to read the time, but the numbers on the clock seemed to flicker. There was a flickering haze all over the room. Objects pulsated, lost their solidity, as they did under strobe lights. By blinking hard, several times in succession, I could convert these dancing shapes into a single image. I concentrated on the clock, which read one twenty-five; on the lamp; on the framed botanical print above the bedside table—anything rather than fix my attention on the form across from me. Even with imperfect vision I had too clear a sight of it. It was there, and it had shifted position.

  It was larger than before, or perhaps only closer. It had moved a foot or so inward, away from the edge. In some respects it was the same as before. It was inert, either lifeless or dormant. It had the outline of a hominid. In every other respect, it was drastically different. It had lost its mummylike wrapping and was clothed in flesh, or some doughy, putty-colored substance intended to imitate flesh. It had limbs and extremities fashioned in this plastic material by an untrained hand, a primitive who lacked experience in working from life. Its legs were as straight as tree trunks; its fingers and toes unjointed stubs. It had been given the rudiments of gender, three rounded lumps where the legs forked. The shoulders were massive in proportion to the haunches. The neck was so short that the head seemed to grow directly from the chest.

  My vision had cleared, just at the moment when dim-sightedness would have been kinder. The face was in the planning stage. There were holes representing the ears, eyes, and nostrils, but the mouth was being modeled in front of me. An unseen implement was cutting a slit in the lower face, a lipless gash stretching almost the width of the head, like a grin on a Hallowe’en pumpkin carved by an idiot child. Who was the artist? The life form itself? Or some agency apart from it? Whichever it was, it was arrogant, like all bad artists. Did it hope to deceive me with this bungling forgery of life? Until now I believed I had seen three separate apparitions. In fact, it was one and the same. It was a shape-changer.

  “It” or “they”? I think there were hordes of them, like flights of bats, swarming in on us from worlds above the earth or passages beneath it, civilizations beyond the reach of our telescopes and dredgers. I think they landed or emerged here by accident, blown or strayed off course, revisiting singly or in legions across the ages. Like all adventurers, explorers, and space travelers, their motives were probably mercenary. They came for slaves, wives, ores and precious metals; for hunting, trading, replenishing shrinking populations, establishing colonies; to bring back samples for scientific study; to set up research stations. They had territorial ambitions. They fought one another to convert us or own us. They were the rulers of ancient Ireland, the earliest settlers of Peru. Since their numbers were incalculable, it was safe to assume they were always with us, appearing to us in various disguises: as clouds, comets, angels, hooded jinns, giants, pygmies; big-eyed, gray-skinned aliens.

  I think they can masquerade as every kind of natural and supernatural phenomenon, leaving our beliefs and observations open to doubt. Henceforth any event or article of faith must be considered suspect, from the fall of a leaf to the feeding of the five thousand. Who appeared to the Mexican boy at Guadalupe? Who rolled the stone away from the mouth of the holy sepulcher? Do volcanoes really erupt because gases build up in molten rock? Are earthquakes caused by fractures in the earth’s surface? When we look out the window at our carefully tended properties, how will we know that a rose is a rose or a hailstone a hailstone? I think we have been warned. The age of faith was over, faith in science as well as in religion. We were entering the era of uncertainty.

  Were they trying to teach us or condition us? For all I knew, we were puppets. They preferred us softheaded and credulous. They manipulated our beliefs, staging miracles and eclipses, spectacles to abash us and keep us malleable. Perhaps we were useful to them. But useful for what? As guinea pigs? Day laborers? As livestock? They had some reason for interacting with the human race, and we did not know what it was.

  Were they assisting in our evolution or our extinction? I had seen with my own eyes that they were trying to duplicate us and making poor work of it. Their capabilities were vast, but they had not yet created a convincing replica of a human being. From now on we must temper our natural instincts with suspicion, withhold our compassion for cripples, paraplegics, victims of third-degree burns, Thalidomide babies, the birthmarked, clubfooted, scarfaced, harelipped, and hunchbacked, until we make certain they have human forebears.

  Even by taking every precaution, we may still be deceived. How can we know they don’t steal our eggs, implant their embryos in our borrowed wombs? They were masters of illusion and stagecraft. Their powers were absurd, inconsistent with reason, and reason was our only defense against them. Had they come, these gods and monsters, seraphs and specters, to show us the limits of our understanding or ways to develop it? For the present we regarded them as enemies, and they were winning. If we banished one migration, others would follow. I knew Henry had made the right choice. How could he continue to preach a religion that might have had its origin in one of their conjuring tricks? He would devote the rest of his life to studying them, case after case, pattern after fantastic pattern, using the only instruments at his disposal, his critical faculties and his obsolete human intelligence.

  If I were more like Henry, I could muster his passionate detachment. Absorbed in the spectacle before me, observing its body redden with the hue of life, I would lose all capacity for fear. I would wish for a notebook and pencil to record the elevation of its penis, the thick, segmented shaft, the absence of a tip, as if the head were still in the making. The unfinished penis rose slowly to a vertical position, accompanied by movement in other sections of the body. One mittlike hand jerked sideways. A spasm shook the corresponding foot, convulsions that portended full-scale animation and its consequences for me. The life form was being constructed for sexual purposes, in so far as its makers understood them. A bubble of hysteria expanded in my gullet. I thought my vocal cords were paralyzed like the rest of me or I might have broken down howling. Was the penile shaft hollow inside? Would the head, when they got around to adding it, be uncircumcised or circumcised? The testicles were still unfashioned, the same crude lumps.

  Why couldn’t they do better? The little woman was more believable; so was the shadow looming over Adele Manning’s naked body. They had terrorized us capably for months, using shadows and sounds, touch and pressure, invisible suggestions of their presence. Why had they chosen this moment to take us backstage and show us how the magic worked—the false bottom, the trapdoor, the sliding panel, these ludicrous mannequins? Why had they abandoned illusion for a primi
tive attempt at realism? I think they wanted to move among us undetected, a more efficient way of controlling us than improvising marvels. When they created an entity that resembled us in every particular, from our patterns of speech to our means of reproduction, there would be no end to their influence. The morning papers would be full of it.

  I was pinned here, adjacent to this monstrosity, because I was part of their program. I was one of their laboratory animals, like the other girls and women in our parish. They needed my body to test their prototype of a male organ. Did they also need my life? Why should they be any more merciful than human beings, who tortured and sacrificed helpless creatures to advance the “healing arts”? I must admit I was in pain. The tendons in my neck were on fire. The cramp in my calves brought tears to my eyes. Wincing and grinding my teeth, I realized I still had the use of my facial muscles. Again and again I tried to move my limbs. Depleted from pain and effort, I felt the chill of exhaustion.

  As the sensation increased, I noticed that the cold came from a source outside me, as if the dial on an enormous air conditioner were being turned toward the highest setting. The temperature in surgical theaters was kept cool to discourage the breeding of germs. Were they creating a sterile environment for their trials? Sending cold to anesthetize me during the operation? Or was the cold simply a byproduct of their power and malevolence, as it was in the casebooks of ghost hunters. The freezing air came in waves, taking my breath away. Victims of hypothermia became delirious, then comatose. Was it a sign of delirium that the entity’s features seemed to be changing benignly? He had taken on the face of a man, not unhandsome, but stereotypical, like the models for students in popular manuals on how to draw: broad forehead; straight nose; bow-shaped mouth; firm, square chin. A normal face except for the eyes, which had no pupils. Was this bland image meant to reassure me, even to entice me? I think they wanted me alive and responsive to guarantee the success of their experiment.

  Its jaw came unhinged, yawning open. Its chest rose and fell, as if it were breathing on its own. Without any warning I was thrown from my side onto my back, arms above my head. The weight pressing down on me had the power to crush me. The weight was on top of me, but the life form was next to me, no closer than before. My legs were pulled apart, my knees bent sideways. They were making me ready to receive him. The mattress pitched and shook underneath me. The life form was in motion. Was it trying to stand? Rolling over to rise up on all fours? I heard it snuffle and wheeze from the untried effort of breathing. I heard the bed frame creaking as if it would come apart. Any moment it would be on me, pushing and lunging in a parody of coition, missing the mark, thrusting home again, battering my hidden parts with an engine made of some inorganic substance excruciating to flesh.

  Where was my family? The friends who had contracted to watch over me? Their infatuation with outlawed games had brought this on me. I wanted to scream, as much in anger as in terror. I felt a scream rising in my throat. If no sound came out the scream would implode, rupturing my lungs. I tried to stifle it, choking on it, gagging as it forced a passage. I heard scream after scream fill the room, amplifying each other. I couldn’t stop. I was like an alarm bell tripped by a rash intruder or a short in the system. I would keep on screaming after death, the same way fingernails and hair keep on growing when the heartbeat ceases.

  They were rattling the doorknob, pounding on the door, trying to break in. They were calling my name, berating me for locking them out. There was no lock on our bedroom door, on any of the bedrooms. The door gave way under their combined weight, pitching them over the threshold. They were shouting to make themselves heard. “Cora, stop screaming! It’s all right!” “Why is it so cold?” “I can’t turn on the lights!” “Henry, stop her. Can’t you get her to stop?” “What is that? Jesus Christ, what is it?”

  A woman’s scream pierced the air, overpowering. I heard footsteps running and stumbling and my mother crying, “I can’t stay here!” A second set of footsteps, lighter-footed, long-strided, belonging to Sally. Ruth sobbing, “I can’t walk! I can’t move my legs!” “Walter, take her out of here!”

  Strong arms were pulling me across the mattress, handling me roughly, yanking me into a sitting position, grabbing me as I fell backward. Lifting me up, Henry started toward the open door. The room was swirling with darkness, black clouds massing against us, gathering at the doorway, all but canceling the light from the hall. The cold was shocking, unbreathable. Doubled over, Henry braved the headwind. Very soon he could no longer carry me. He dropped my legs but caught me around the waist, hauling me along beside him like a grain sack. He lost his grip on me again, and in the end he had me by the wrists—a tenuous hold, then by one wrist with both his hands, his fingers numbing from the cold and slipping.

  I felt the hump of the doorsill graze my spine and I was lying across the threshold, half in, half out of the bedroom. “Walter, help me! Pull her over!” It took two of them to finish the job. Their final effort flung me back against the stair railing, knocking the wind out of me. It was only then that I stopped screaming. Between them they got me downstairs, Henry at my shoulders, Walter at my feet, where a huddle of women waited in the dining room. They drew closer together when they saw me. My mother turned her face aside as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me. Henry sat me on the floor, propped against the wall. Without realizing I could move, I settled my head back, squinting at them, bothered by the light. They weren’t very friendly. Were they staring at me because I was naked under my nightdress? Henry could stay, but I wanted the others to go away. If they left me alone, I could fall asleep like this. There was some reason I couldn’t sleep in my own bed. I tried to think what it was, but Walter was down on his knees, leaning in too close to me, pulling back my eyelid. “Her pupils are dilated,” he said.

  All at once the lights began to dim and flicker. We were losing power. Here in the country it might be a day or more before service was restored. The group was very upset. Emily was gasping asthmatically. I could see the whites of her eyes. Walter tried to light the candles on the sideboard. His hands were trembling so badly he dropped the flaming match on the rug. Perhaps they would go home now. Henry and I could manage. We had a gas stove. But Henry seemed more upset than the rest. He ordered everyone out of the house, but no one wanted to take the lead. “Get into the car!” he barked. “Wait in the car!” I felt so cold. I wondered if they felt it too. It came snaking under the doorsill, tendrils of freezing air reaching across the floor, phosphorescing in the intermittent blackness. “The temperature’s dropping,” said Henry. “We’re almost out of time.”

  PART XI

  Christ All Around Us

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Unlike the rectory, St. Anthony’s had full electric power. Every bulb in the church was blazing, lights that were never turned on except when workmen were making repairs. In that garish overhead light, which depleted rather than intensified reality, the nave resembled a terminal at three a.m., a place where life is at a low ebb. The hymn board hanging to the far right of the pulpit was set up for morning worship. It read Sunday, September 29, Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, along with the numbers of four hymns, including 625a, “As thou with Satan didst contend.”

  This was the last Sunday of Henry’s furlough. His locum, Sam Borders, was scheduled to take the services, but Henry had put on clerical vestments, wearing a gold brocade stole instead of the green that was usually worn at Trinity season. The light picked up the gold fibers, canceling the floral pattern, turning the band of cloth into a solid strip of metal, a piece of ritual body armor. In old paintings St. Michael was often shown dressed for battle in a breastplate and loin guard. Had Henry chosen metallic fabric to invoke the aid of the Archangel, commander-in-chief of God’s armies, who fought and won the war in heaven? But that engagement was a clash between the hosts of God and the forces of Satan, between good and evil, fealty and treachery. How could tradition serve us in the present emergency? The Christian religion was based on
one god, who ruled over one universe. If these invaders came from other universes, other physical or psychic realities as yet undiscovered, neither God nor any of his soldiers could defend us.

  Henry’s acolytes were dressing the stage for the coming enactment. Robed in white surplices borrowed from the vestry, they consulted with him in hushed voices. Walter lifted the lid of the font, with its reservoir of holy water. Ruth brought a vessel of consecrated oil to the altar, enough to anoint a multitude. The objects on the altar formed an unorthodox still life: a box of name-brand table salt, a carton of communion wafers baked at a monastery in the Catskills, a disposable cigarette lighter, a liturgical candle some five feet long and as thick as a waste pipe, my crumpled, sweat-soaked nightgown. The women had removed it as soon as we arrived and covered me with a modest black choir robe. They led me to the front pew, trusting I was calm enough to be left unattended. I had lost my voice so completely from screaming that nothing came out, not a croak or a whisper. I saw from their pitying frowns that they assumed I was still non compos.

  Henry beckoned them. At his bidding they arranged votive candles in glass holders in a circle six feet in diameter on the chancel floor, below the altar steps and in front of the choir stalls. Another gesture from Henry, and Walter carried the nightgown to the font, holding it by one strap between his thumb and forefinger, as if it might infect him. They put their heads together, engaging in a muffled debate. It appeared Walter wanted to immerse it, but Henry chose to sprinkle it. They gathered at the altar. Henry dipped his fingers in the holy oil and traced the sign of the cross on their foreheads, then on his own. They filed down the chancel steps, Henry bearing the vessel of oil and Walter the giant candle.

  They bowed their heads while Henry anointed me on my brow and over my heart. Walter placed the candle on the pew beside me for some later function. There was a whispered discussion about the proper size of the candle. According to ancient practice, it should have been as long as the cross or Christ’s body. How high was the cross on Golgotha? Ten or twelve feet? How tall was the Savior? No one remembered the exact dimensions of the imprint on the Shroud of Turin. Ruth contended that the average height of a Roman soldier was five feet four inches. Henry said they needed some rope to bind the candle. One of the cords used to belt the surplices would do the job. They intended to fasten the candle to something, or someone, at some point in the proceedings. They looked down at me appraisingly, taking my measurements. “Naked?” asked Walter. Henry shook his head. “Only in the last extremity.”