Terovolas

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “How do you like that?” Alvin remarked to me as he drove us down the muddy lane later.

  Doctor and Mrs. Ravell’s coach lurched ahead of us, and I heard the doctor’s whip crack as his miserable team slipped upon the mired ground.

  My thoughts were in turmoil. I felt I was on the verge of something, but what was it? Purpose, or madness? It seemed like madness. Yet, there is such order to it. Such rationality. How readily I had accepted the reality of a vampire in modern London...why then, can I not come to terms with the idea that something far less unlikely is occurring here in Texas? Is it because my thought process is colored by my recent bouts with delusion? But delusion would suggest an inability on my part to discern what is real and what is not.

  I put my hand in my pocket as we rumbled along the road. What lie there was certainly real.

  The fact that Skoll’s ‘antique’ sword had an edge as keen and clean as any modern surgeon’s scalpel...that was real too. I knew, for Vulmere had so startled me as I inspected the blade, I had mistakenly passed its edge across my thumb, and the cut was not shallow.

  But what does the thing I carry in my pocket have to do with the wedge I have sliced into my thumb?

  Perhaps there really is some sort of puzzle here, and I am not weaving webs of gossamer in my poor, befuddled braincase. But am I the only one with the perception to see that things are awry?

  I am not.

  For good, beloved Alvin turned to me from the driver’s seat of his leaky buggy, and said;

  “Do you think something...a little off is going on at Skoll’s?”

  I could have embraced him, but having remained silent with my own thoughts, to have done so without preamble would surely have confirmed the suspicions I have read in his eyes from time to time. Namely, that I myself am ‘a little off.’

  And I do not think it would be advisable for anyone with lesser credentials than myself to come to that conclusion.

  CHAPTER 9

  From Aurelius Firebaugh’s Diary

  Aug 25th

  Found Buckner Tyree dead in his shack today. Think the lion killed him. Never heard of a lion going for a man like this, especially not one that’s fat on cattle and coyotes. But it couldn’t be nothing else by the state Buckner is in. Busted right through his door. Never heard of a lion doing a thing like that. Never. Might be it has gone mad. Expect it made for the canyon. Wanted to try and track it, but that damned rain hit and hit hard. Put what was left of Buckner in the buckboard and made for Cole’s place, but got bogged in the mud and will have to spend the night in the wagon. Too old for this. Keep hearing sounds out there, and the horses are skittish. Let that damn cat show its face and we’ll see what’s what.

  * * *

  From the Pen of Alvin Crooker

  26th Aug

  We got as far as Cole’s before the rain started really pouring, and so spent the night once again. I expect he must be getting tired of having houseguests. The Ravells stayed as well. The damned weather slowed us to a crawl, so by the time we got to the Q&M I only had time to strip off my wet clothes and crawl into bed. Van Helsing stayed up talking to Cole. I suspect that old man knows a good deal about what was going on at Skoll’s yesterday. At least he understood a whole lot more than he told me.

  I woke up too late to catch the Ravells, and too late for breakfast again. When I came downstairs Cole, Ranny Brogan, and Van Helsing were having coffee and watching Useless lick the breakfast plates clean. Having the dog do the dirty breakfast crocks was a curious Morris family tradition first instated by Quincey, much to the Captain’s annoyance. I was surprised to see Cole allowing it, and wonder if he remembers it was his elder brother who first started it.

  Van Helsing seemed as preoccupied as ever. I still can’t believe Cole hasn’t asked him about his brother. It’s as if he doesn’t want the old Dutchman to leave, as though if he avoids the Professor’s news he’s somehow preventing Quincey’s death in his mind. Why? Does he think he can reconcile himself with the man somehow, in between training a new foreman and getting the cattle ready for the winter drive? Maybe I’m just reading into things. I know for certain he is prolonging what Van Helsing has teasingly assured me must be a helluva good story. I’m certain if nothing else, Quincey must’ve made a game end to have induced this old coot to come halfway around the world to tell about it.

  Cole has sure soured on Skoll though. His dislike of the man was never so keen as that of his men, but now he has been infected. I don’t think it’s entirely because of the big fight, either. I remember they had words on the back porch before that. I asked him what they’d talked about.

  “Ain’t no concern of yours, Alvin,” was all he would say.

  These are trying times for the free press.

  A wagon rolled up midmorning. It was old Alkali, and he looked like something the cat had dragged in. His eye was red and cracked and there was a tremor in his voice I’d never heard before. He had us come over to his wagon and directed us to the buckboard, where a grey bundle stained red was piled in back. Hooking the edge of the cloth, he peeled it back, revealing the dead face of old Buckner Tyree.

  “He’s been mauled,” said Alkali, “by that damned lion.” His voice seemed strained like after a long night of whiskey and tobacco.

  “Where did you find him, Mr. Firebaugh?” Van Helsing demanded, his eyes all alight at the sight of the corpse.

  “In his shack over by Misstep Canyon,” Alkali said, stifling a phlegmatic cough in his fist. “It busted in and got him.”

  “What?” That was from me.

  “I spent all day with that foalin’ mare, then when she finally dropped her colt, I went over to Buckner’s to ask him if he’d seen any sign of that lion, on account of that coyote it brang down on my property. That’s when I found him. It busted his front door right in. I wanted to track it straight off, but with that son of a bitchin’ rain I didn’t know how long it’d take me, so I tried to bring the body back here. The wagon got stuck. I had to spend the night out on the road.”

  That explained the cold he seemed to have developed.

  “I never heard of a lion busting into a man’s shack before,” Ranny said.

  “Think I have?” Alkali growled, making the boy cow slightly. “This ain’t no ordinary critter. I seen it. Last night, out on the road. The son of a bitch is huge.”

  “Hold on,” said Coleman. “You saw it?”

  “Mr. Firebaugh,” Van Helsing said, “are you certain it was a cat you saw?”

  “It was,” Alkali nodded. “But it was huge. It had shoulders like a goddamned buffalo. I could hear it movin’ around, and when I saw it snufflin’ at the back of the wagon I took a shot at it. Don’t know how I could’ve missed, but it run off.”

  “What kinda animal fills its belly on coyotes and beef and then still has room to go after a man?” Coleman wondered out loud.

  “Maybe it’s got the hydrophobia,” I said. “Maybe its rabid.”

  “It sure acted crazy,” Alkali admitted. “I scared it off more’n a couple times with the rifle and it kept comin’ back all night. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. And I ain’t ashamed to admit it, boys. I was scared. I kept thinkin’ how if it got at the team I might get stranded. And I knew I couldn’t outrun the damn thing.”

  “You mean to say it was trying for your horse?” Ranny said.

  “That’s sure what it looked like,” Alkali nodded.

  “Strange,” muttered Van Helsing.

  He leaned forward and started to undo the bloody wrappings around Buckner’s body, but I laid a hold of his wrist. That slaughter in the jailhouse has been the last thing I see before I fall asleep most nights. So far I’d resisted the bottle. I didn’t need any new nightmares to bring me closer to falling off the wagon.

  Coleman was set on going after the animal forthwith. It was agreed that by the lion’s bizarre behavior it had surely gone loco. And if there’s anything more dangerous than a mad lion, it’s one that has had a taste of man. An
animal that has killed a human being is no different from a murderer; once he gets the taste, you can bet the farm he’ll be back for more.

  We decided to let Alkali rest up for an hour before we headed out to Buckner’s shotgun shack and the canyon. The old man made us promise not to leave without him. I guess the wildcat had struck at his pride by forcing him to sit up all night in the road and saddling him with a cold.

  He dearly wants satisfaction.

  So now we sit waiting. Cole and Ranny are cleaning their rifles. Ranny’s boyish face is a mass of welts and yellowing bruises. He can see through both eyes today, at least. I noticed Cole has the Winchester that once belonged to his brother Quincey — the brass nameplate on the stock was there, as shiny as I remembered it. I guess Van Helsing must have brought it. I wonder if Cole elected to use it on purpose or if it’s just because it was on hand.

  Quincey won it in a shooting contest in Ft. Worth. I still remember the day he brought it home. He let all of us try it out just once, with the understanding that it would be the only chance we ever got to handle it, and that we need not ask again. It had the smoothest action of any gun I’ve ever fired. It’s funny. Him coming home with that repeater—it was like all of us had won that contest. Everybody was proud of him that day. Captain Morris never bragged about anything in his life, but I can remember how he puffed his chest out as Quincey passed that rifle around. I can’t remember Cole. I think he was away then.

  Van Helsing has elected to spend the hour indulging in his usual ghoulish past time. He is outside by the wagon examining the corpse.

  Poor old Buckner. He was just a harmless tramp, half crazy. He couldn’t have picked a worse end. What to write in his obituary? I don’t know much about him. Just that he had hunted buffalo way back, and when they’d played out, he had made a living as a wolfer, along with that Indian partner of his, Picker. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Picker in some time either.

  Alkali is snoring like a hog in a sun patch.

  * * *

  From the Journal of Professor Van Helsing

  26th August

  With cursory examination, it would seem that Early Searls and this Mr. Tyree were both savaged by animals, but this is not so. I have ruled out the possibility that it was an animal that killed Searls, despite the foreign object I retrieved from his body, which I have not yet produced a plausible explanation for (my best guess would surely be grounds for my committal). There was no animal hair found on Searls. Buckner Tyree’s wounds are rife with it.

  Yet he was not killed by any indigenous cat. The copious hairs in the lacerations on the body are coarse and long, not the fur of a feline. Also, the patterns of the wounds do not suggest a cat. Feline predators are quite generous in the use of their claws in attack. They rend and tear their prey, knocking it senseless and bloody, or else they hook into it with their front claws and tear it apart with vigorous kicks of their back legs, only resorting to the bite as the coup de grâce. I would assume that a cat driven mad from sickness would be even more savage.

  But the marks in the flesh and bone indicate bites, as of a canine. There are claw marks interspersed, to be sure, but they are less pronounced, more like the claws of a dog, which are intended for digging, not fighting. Those bones which are exposed have been thoroughly gnawed, and the plethora of jagged tears in the throat point also to teeth. There are several hemispherical puncture wounds suggesting the arrangement of an animal’s maw in various places. But the immensity of those jaws! They certainly do not belong to any of the smallish, timid coyotes, or the feral domestic dogs I have seen.

  I am told the wolves were hunted out of this region, but what else but a mad wolf — a very large mad wolf, and not the sort that would have existed here (or anywhere in modern times) — could have inflicted such bites with the precision of the born hunter?

  Why should an animal of any sort engage in such odd behavior? Even a very hungry beast would hardly force its way into a man’s home if it could summon the courage to approach it at all. This animal was not hungry by any means. Not if the reports that it has had the pick of the country for the past month may be believed. Yet if it did attack Buckner Tyree for food, which by the absence of several of his choice internal organs seems likely, why did it not attempt to drag the body back to its den? Mr. Firebaugh says he found the man dead lying in his shack.

  There is the possibility that this is not a lone hunter, but a member of some communal pack. If this is so, it could be storing food to regurgitate later and share with less able members of its group, or perhaps with young. Such practices are not unheard of in the animal kingdom.

  Then there is the odd behavior attributed to the animal by Mr. Firebaugh (if the animal he saw was the same one which attacked this man — but why would it follow his wagon, having freshly dined?). For it to actively seek to bring down the horse seems reasonable, if it were hungry enough. But to return after having been fired upon by a repeating rifle, it would have to be more than mad.

  This land is sparse, but it supports a good deal of animal life of the lower orders. I have observed field mice, hunting birds, and deer in abundance. Why then, with such diversity of prey about, is this cat (if it be a cat, and alone) displaying the characteristics of a mad, starving animal? Beasts attacking men are but stories from the middle ages, and if they occur at all in present day, they are confined to the Dark Continent, where creatures more capable at killing than men still roam.

  So while I am convinced that it was indeed an animal that killed this man, I am not convinced it was any kind of normal hunting cat; at least not one indigenous to this part of the world. I am also doubtful that it is diseased. This is the handiwork of a strong, vigorous beast, quite capable and possessing of all its predatory faculties, whatever they may be.

  Baring-Gould works his black magic. Just now I took the object I kept from the wounds of Early Searls and tried to match it with the punctures in the body of Buckner Tyree. They are not the same. The wounds on Buckner are significantly larger. Is there any connection here?

  Was this truly the work of an animal, or is it only meant to appear so?

  I am quite bothered by the sight of all this blood.

  But why? Have I not worked in blood and death all my career? Why are these dark visions haunting me now? Is it because suddenly I feel so near to the animal? Have I not carved and dissected men and women in the same manner all my life? Have I not in some way emulated the natural talents of the beast with my poor clumsy tools, my claws of surgical steel and my fangs of needle and bonesaws? What difference, if it be I or some wild beast which slices up the man before me? The end result is the same, a shapeless thing, barely recognizable as God’s own image. What difference then?

  There is a difference. I do not kill.

  But that’s not entirely true, is it? Have I not broken that commandment before? Dracula’s brides were not the first to die at my hand. How many died in Natal by my will?

  Yet I have never taken a life in vain.

  Never in vain? Because it was in defense of my life? Who is to say my life is worth more than that of the men I killed in Africa? Who is to say that raving Zulu could not have thrown off the trappings of savagery in time and become a great humanitarian? Did he not have children and a wife? Isn’t that for whom he was fighting? Where is my wife? She lingers like an earthbound ghost in a gray room, tended by strangers. Where is my progeny? Spitted long ago on a native spear. What have I added to the sum total of man’s accomplishments, except the death and ruination of poor, damned women?

  But I didn’t kill those women. They were dead already. I freed their eternal souls.

  It frightens me to read what I have just written. How many murderers have rationalized their crimes in the same way? ‘I freed their souls from the prolonged torment of a sinful life (or un-life, in this case)?’

  Who am I to judge whether their lives were a torment? Indeed, perhaps they reveled in their existence! They were after all, immortal. If I were granted
immortality, wouldn’t I...

  But what would I, Abraham Van Helsing, do with immortality? Gather knowledge, like some shambling Faust, hoarding the dusty secrets of the universe, and forever frustrated in my pursuit of the one Great Secret which all mortal men are eventually privy to? There is the rub. An immortal like Dracula and his wives could fill their heads with all the secret lore of the earth, but it would be just that. The secrets of heaven (and yes, perhaps even of hell) are promised only to mortal man.

  I see that I am at war with myself. The darkness seeks to bloom. May God grant me strength. I do not know the root of this evil inside of me, but I pray I can find the strength to conquer it.

  CHAPTER 10

  From the Pen of Alvin Crooker

  26th Aug, Later

  We set out a little after noon when Alkali woke up. Van Helsing was sitting on the porch writing in his notebook when we came out. Useless was licking the blood off of the Dutchman’s fingers, and the Professor seemed not to notice. I gave the mangy hound a good kick. I should’ve spared one for the Professor too. The more I’m around him the more I begin to doubt he’s got his hat on straight. There’s something off about the old man.

  I almost objected when Cole offered Van Helsing a rifle, but the old man demurred, saying Quincey’s pistol ought to serve him well enough. The scattergun I was carrying was borrowed from Cole’s cabinet anyway, so I had no right to say anything. With my busted wing I was lucky enough to be allowed to come along.

  It will take us till about two ‘o clock to get up to Buckner’s shack. Cole sent Pepperbelly and one of his waddies into town with Alkali’s wagon and Buckner’s body. Cole sent Paul with money for the old wolfer’s burial. That lush of a Mex would’ve surely drunk it down and dumped the body somewhere otherwise. Me calling Pepperbelly a drunk is something like the buzzard shouting ‘ugly,’ I expect. Had I not sworn off whiskey two months and eight days ago, we would have been bellying up to the bar together as we had so many times in the past. My arm itches, and I keep thinking a dram would do it good. I watched Paul and that dear old Mex depart with a fearful longing.