Fiends

by John Farris

  "He was always angry about something, wasn't he?"

  "It seems so. Because God was angry, he cursed Eve and her unwashed children, saying, 'From this day those you have hidden from me shall be hidden from the sight of all men.'"

  "How many unwashed children did she have?"

  "No one knows. But there may be thousands today, hidden in the mountains and fjords of Iceland; the survivors who settled in our land after so many were put to the Black Sleep, or driven out of the old countries."

  "That's one of them? In the crate?"

  "Yes."

  "You said he wasn't dead. But he looks—"

  "None of the huldufólk can die, Arne. They live forever. But they may be blinded or paralyzed by the sun's rays. And the touch of green, growing things puts them to sleep, a sleep like death."

  "Is that why the vine is around his neck?"

  "Oh, yes. But if the vine is cut or removed, then—"

  "He'd wake up?" Arne shuddered against her side. "That's not going to happen. Is it?"

  "No, Arne. But I think it would have happened if fate had not seen to it that the crate was delivered into our hands. I'm sure that Professor Ayres would have removed the vine, unless he knows of and believes in the legend. We won't take the chance. We'll bury the crate where it shouldn't be disturbed for ten thousand years."

  "Are the huldufólk bad? Are you afraid of them?"

  "I've never seen one before tonight. Afraid—? Well—yes. It's sensible to be afraid. In some ways huldufólk are like us. They envy us, and want to be human, but God's curse is eternal, it's a hopeless yearning. I've heard that the huldufólk love music, dancing, art. They decorate their caves with paintings and sculpture. My father said he knew of a man who had visited one of their caves, on a night when they were all on the wind—but we heard such stories all the time, there was no proof."

  "What do you mean, 'on the wind'?"

  "That is the terrible part. They fly. Their wings are made of human skin, dyed the colors of the luna moth—green, pink, lavender. Without these wings they would be condemned to spend Eternity below the ground. That's one reason why they're such a danger to us . . . they seek human skin, flayed from the bodies of their living victims."

  "What's another reason?" Arne asked, giving his mother a nudge when she was silent too long. He had goosebumps.

  "Huldufólk have no living hearts. No breath to cloud a mirror. They may not conceive. Those mortals they choose not to flay they turn into huldufólk. I don't know how this is done. Oh, yes—their touch is deadly cold—a kiss freezes human flesh."

  Now Arne felt sickened and crept closer to his mother, until he was half in her lap, head on her bosom, which was full and warm beneath the cotton nightdress. Her heartbeat in his ear reminded him of his own origins, the humanness he took for granted.

  No longer a baby, still he did not mind being rocked in his mother's arms. Fear was distanced by intimacy; with her assurances in mind, he could think objectively about the thing in the barn, indulge his fascination. (The touch of green, growing things puts them to sleep) . . . Yes, the Black Sleep—and he would never go near the crate again, remove the lid, without a sprig of fresh-cut vine in his hand.

  "Arne," his mother said, as if she were aware of his thoughts, "we must stay away from the barn, until we're ready to bury the crate in the woods.

  We don't want to look at the Dark Man again."

  "But if he's—”

  "Even in the Black Sleep, I think he's aware of us. As if we are part of his dreams. He still may have power."

  "What kind of power?"

  "He might make us do things we know we shouldn't do—cut the vine that's around his throat."

  Arne trembled as fear returned like a rush of wind. "How could he do that?"

  "I don't know." Her eyes were half closed; she kissed his forehead as if it were a religious object. "As long as we're careful, then nothing will happen."

  "Is there another way he could wake up?"

  "He isn't going to wake up," she said, her voice still soft; but her heartbeat reverberated in her breast as if an axed tree had crashed there. Outside the house, perhaps half a mile off, they heard bobcats, mating squawls that had begun with the blood-raising spring.

  His mother began to sing, a repetitious snatch of song in Icelandic. She had sung to him many times, but he knew he'd never heard this one before.

  "What's that?"

  She broke off and lifted her head slowly. Her heart was pumping furiously, he felt the heat in her throat, her caressing hands.

  "Oh—it's an old song. I don't know why it should come back to me, after so many years. Well—it is very late, you should try to sleep now. You're not afraid to be by yourself, are you?"

  "No," he said, and wondered why he should lie. He had only to say "Stay with me," and she would have spent the night beside him. But he was ashamed of his need—he wanted to be brave for her, like his father. Nothing was going to hurt him.

  But if he hoped to sleep at all tonight, then he had to make sure of that.

  8

  After he had lain awake for at least another hour, until he was certain his mother had settled down for the night, Arne put on his trousers and went barefoot down the loft ladder, clutching his barlow knife and deerskin pouch of lucky pieces in one hand.

  He stood at the kitchen door for several minutes staring at the barn, which he could see clearly against the luminous night sky. Then he put a match to the lantern hanging on a peg beside the door and carried it outside.

  Hawkshaw came swiftly and silently out from beneath the steps where he spent all but the coldest winter nights. Arne ran a hand across the top of the dog's flat, bony head, not taking his eyes off the barn. The beating of his heart was in rhythm with the creaking din of cicadas, the peeping of frogs that had appeared by the thousands in the shallow backwater of the flooded Harpeth River three hundred yards south of the farm. The night was warm, too warm for dew, the air still and odorous of rich earth, pear blossoms.

  Arne took out his knife and cut pieces of the pea vine trained to a trellis next to the porch. He stuffed the vines into a back pocket.

  Hawkshaw realized they were going to the barn and not the outhouse; he trotted ahead and now Arne felt a little foolish, because if anything was . . . wrong . . . inside, Hawkshaw would be aware of it. The Dark Man slept, would go on sleeping until his crate was as deep in the ground as Arne could dig. Nothing more to it, and nothing to be scared of.

  Hawkshaw went sniffing off after something—possum or raccoon— that had crossed the barnyard earlier, leaving its radiant scent on the ground. Arne looked at his coursing dog, then set the lantern down and opened one of the barn doors. He went in with the lantern held head-high and before he had gone more than a few steps he was shuddering—his feet, the hollow of his throat, his ears suddenly cold. The temperature in the barn was close to freezing.

  Amazed, he saw his foggy breath by lantern light, and in the gloomy corner by the harrow and plowstock and hanging harness, the shape of the nailed-up crate.

  Something on the lid of the crate that hadn't been there earlier; it was indistinguishable from where Arne stood. A little gray clod of dirt, he thought, and moved closer—

  —still shuddering, the lantern at a right angle from his body and jiggling, dancing the light into darkness, throwing his boy's shadow up and back as high as the loft, illuminating—

  —a mouse.

  Nothing more than a mouse, lying atop the crate on its side, little pink feet outstretched, eyes closed, tail stiff as a nail, dead mouse.

  He touched it with a straw. The fur and body of the mouse were unyielding, as if frozen. Where Arne stood only a foot from the crate the air was intensely cold; it seared his nostrils when he breathed. His toes felt as if they were burning on the ground.

  Arne backed away, lungs pumping clouds of vapor. Something flew at him like a ghost from the dark of the loft overhead, fluttering in the nimbus of the lantern, which he almost dr
opped. He saw the fluttering thing first as a shadow, then a small silken kite, and recognized by its distinctive shape that it was a luna moth, one of the largest he'd ever seen. The luna hovered, as if it might be tempted to plunge into the heart of the flame. Two pairs of enigmatic eyes studied Arne, smudges within a veil of the palest green found in nature.

  No call to be afraid of a moth any more than a dead mouse—but Arne forgot his resolve to reopen the crate and wrap the shoots of pea vine around the Dark Man's neck. He left the barn in a hurry, barring the doors, shutting in the inexplicable cold as Hawkshaw came circling around to see what he was up to.

  9

  For the first time in centuries, Theron, seventh born of the first man and woman, is again reminded of his lack of Grace, of the bitterly fallen. Of his mother, twice-shamed. Of the last days of Paradise.

  After the womb's surge, the child unbreathing in her arms. At her side, the Beau apocalyptic, his mind a fossil of the brain like the bare bones in space, the freezing deities. One child less in Eden; she'd wear mourning to the funeral, if only there were cloth. Her hair could use a rake, yet gray becomes her. Old lion yawns, a pecky bird devours the tidbit of the moon, there is a stillness of depletion, a time of grieving in the napping green.

  Dissipated, immobile, hatefully bound by a bit of blooming vine, a remnant of damned Paradise, Theron dreams of the new Eden he has glimpsed in the minds of the woman and the boy. He schemes renewal, the getting of freedom, mastery of this promising, desirable environment he senses despite the darkness of the prisoning body. He senses fear, and susceptibility. A hidden, unrecognized yearning that matches his own. In his depths, within thicknesses of pitch, the power of Luna glows.

  Reach her, Theron commands.

  10

  Moonlight passes through the chinks of the barn. An owl screeches. On the edge of the crate, a motionless moth.

  11

  She is restless an hour before dawn; then he is awake. He slides a hand beneath her nightdress. She is not wearing step-ins. But Birka, who would customarily make it easy for him, relaxing, opening her thighs, tenses this time.

  "No," she says. "I'm not ready yet."

  It's a lie. She is more than ready, but afraid. Like Lilith who came before her, Birka has dreamed of serpents.

  August, 1970:

  Looking for Arne Horsfall

  1

  Marjory came out to the front porch after getting off the phone and said to Enid, "That potpie won't be fit to eat if it stays in the oven much longer." For emphasis she gave the screen door a push so that it slapped shut with enough velocity to startle one of the cats.

  Enid, still in a funk after three days, didn't look around. She was sitting on the porch railing facing west, her lips bloodless without makeup, circles under her eyes. The light of the fading sun tinted her hair red at the temples. She was taking this whole thing entirely too hard, but Marjory wasn't about to say so again.

  "I mean it'll be okay if you want it later, the crust'll get a little soggy is all I'm saying. Just tell me."

  "You can go ahead and eat my pie for me, Marj, I'm just not feeling hungry."

  "Do you think I was hinting—?" Marjory shook her head. "I'm meeting Boyce and Rita Sue at Dairy Queen after I drop you at work," she said. She scooped up Zombie, who was walking between her feet, and held him snugly against her breast. "They fixed me up," Marjory said, with a wry smile, and that got Enid's full attention.

  "Oh—that's nice. Who is—" Enid frowned. "You're not going like that, are you? On a date?"

  "What's wrong with the way I look?"

  "You know. That awful bloody rag you've been wearing tied around your head."

  "This?" Marjory said pridefully, tugging at a loose end. "I told you, Enid, it's not blood. Red paint. Symbolic. A whole group of us are wearing them until those responsible for Kent State and Jackson State get the electric chair. Up to and including Tricky Dick."

  Enid shrugged halfheartedly, and resumed her lookout, as if she expected Arne Horsfall to come staggering up out of the depths of Crudup's pond at any moment. Although, at her insistence, the pond had been dragged by members of the sheriffs department the day before.

  "Enid, you'll be late for work. And you don't need that creep Shelnutt on your back for the rest of the week. His problem is he thinks he owns the store—”

  "I'm not working at Buy-Rite tonight; I've got something else to do."

  Marjory put the cat down in a cane-bottom rocker and came up behind Enid.

  "You know as well as I do—" She sounded slightly belligerent, and softened her tone. "Mr. Horsfall's just scared and hiding out somewhere, and when he's hungry enough hell turn up."

  "That's not what you thought Sunday night."

  "I get a little hysterical, that's all. I don't like spooky stuff. Enid, you know there're times when you shouldn't pay any attention to me."

  Enid smiled slightly and looked at her sister, without the little critical squinting of her eyes. "Who's the guy?"

  "His name's Duane Eggleston. I remember him, sort of, from church camp three years ago. He wears glasses and collects spiders. Or something like that. Butterflies."

  "Just let me get my purse. I wonder what I did with my purse?"

  "Hall table. Would you put the pie in the fridge? Maybe you'll eat it later."

  "I wish I didn't have to go to work," Enid said from inside the house.

  "That's okay, don't go to work! I'll have both my permanent crowns melted down and sell the gold! I don't need to chew, I can live on peanut butter!"

  "What I meant was, I'd like to drive around before it gets dark again, maybe see if—"

  "Enid, everybody's looking for him, how can you do any better? You know what I think? He'll drop off a truck in front of the gates of Cumberland State any time now."

  "I just don't think so," Enid said, coming outside, hesitating. Enid could be a little dreamy at times, but tonight it was as if she'd just awakened from a coma. "Do I need anything?"

  "Lipstick. Come on, we're—"

  "I'll put it on in the car."

  "Good idea." The telephone rang. "It's not important!" Marjory said, suddenly with a case of the jitters for no good reason.

  "I think it's probably Ted."

  "Make it quick, will you?"

  Enid was five minutes on the phone while Marjory fretted, and called to her twice. Enid came outside looking both puzzled and hopeful.

  "It was Ted, all right. Marjory, somebody may have seen him!"

  "Oh, yeh, where?"

  "Gaithers Lick."

  "That's twelve miles from here! I don't see Mr. Horsfall getting that far on foot."

  "Marjory, let's—”

  "No. No. Enid. Listen to me—"

  "But you don't know how awful I've felt! I've just got to do some-thing—”

  "You can do something. You can go to work and let the cops handle it. Enid, really, I've got a date. Do you know how long it's been since—"

  Enid capitulated with a preoccupied nod, and Marjory drove her to the Wager-Symms mortuary, a white Colonial mansion separated from the highway by two acres of immaculate green lawn. Local people called the funeral home Wages of Sin. It was conveniently located across from Balm of Gilead Cemetery, where Marjory and Enid's parents had been laid to rest.

  "I don't know about you," Marjory said, dropping Enid beneath the dark green canopy that came down to the drive from the veranda, "first it's loony bins, and now—"

  "Marjory? Your morbid streak."

  "I'm not being morbid. It's just that every time I come by this place I think about—”

  "I know, I know. But Cornell's paying me five dollars an hour to help reorganize their filing system—"

  "Why, did they lose somebody?"

  Enid gave Marjory a stark and possibly unfriendly look.

  "Sorry," Marjory mumbled. "I need to have lip surgery. But I'm afraid the zipper will jam at mealtimes."

  Enid relented with a smile. "Have a good time; and
Marjory, could I offer you a teeny bit of advice—?"

  "No."

  "It's just that you have so many opinions about everything. Give what's-his-name—"

  "Duane."

  "A chance to talk about himself."

  "I will. I promise. You know I really do value your advice. Enid?"

  "Yes?"

  "Should I let a boy put his tongue in my ear on the first date?"

  "You don't need to bother picking me up; Cornell will give me a lift home."

  "What a treat; maybe he'll let you ride in that long silver job with the vinyl—"

  "Good night, Marj."

  "Give Cornell my best, but whatever you do, don't shake hands with him."

  Marjory was still in a good humor when she pulled into the parking lot at the Dairy Queen. Rita Sue and Boyce Bledsoe were there already. Boyce had a new pair of crutches and a stocking bandage on his injured foot.

  They were alone in a booth. Marjory didn't see anybody in the place who looked as if he might be Duane Eggleston.

  "Marjory," Rita Sue asked, "couldn't you find a Band-Aid?"

  "Ha-ha, Rita Sue, that's . . . not bad, for you. This is a symbol of our outrage, which I thought I explained—"

  "Oh, you know I'm not political," Rita Sue said, flapping one hand in annoyance.

  "You will be, when the Tennessee National Guard opens fire on the Tri-Delt house in Knoxville."

  "Why would they do a thing like that?" Rita Sue said with a frown.

  "How's the foot, Boyce?"

  "No fractures. Just a bad bruise,"

  "What did you do with—"

  "Duane's in the little boys' room," Rita Sue said. Elbows on the table, she put her chin on the backs of her hands, her serious gossiping pose. "Marjory, you will never guess!"