by Clive Barker
I actually did spend a brief time in the Army, but opted out after only a few short months. It was then my true life began, as a newspaper editor and part-time carpenter in a small town named Buxley, Massachusetts. I chose the town for two reasons—firstly, because it was within driving distance of Boston—Poe’s hometown—and secondly, because it was the only place in the country where I was able to locate a street actually called Tamer Lane. I purchased a small house there, and took a wife by the name of Virginia. As I have said, I had done none of these things consciously, nor with any ebb of sanity. From my youngest days, I have felt that my life has been mapped out in the course that Poe navigated. I believe I was born unto this world to resume the shape and form that Poe originally designed—to become Poe, to live again as Poe once lived. And I was almost successful, almost, almost.
It was the frequent appearance of the bird, I believe, that caused my downfall. The bird ever so gently tapping at my window in the dead of night. I awoke late one evening, plagued by headaches that remained as remnants from the opium-laced drink in which I’d earlier indulged. Virginia slept in the other chamber, and perhaps it was for the best that she could not hear the tapping. O, it was maddening! I came to with a start, my head pounding, and I looked toward the window, at the ebony bird beguiling, tapping its beak against the pane of glass. Tapping, tapping. I stood slowly, rising to stand, staring at this bird. This black bird. I knew, in my heart, that this, as with the rest of my life, had been scripted. I delighted in knowing which words to say, and which actions to take.
I threw the window open, and the bird, of course a raven, fluttered in and did indeed perch above the bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. I’d had the bust made to my own specification, no expense spared. To become Poe, one must live as Poe—and as the people he wrote about.
I turned toward the bird, my bedclothes clinging to me with the slick perspiration sliming my skin. “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou,” I said, “Art sure no craven, ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore. Tell me what thy lordly name is, from the night’s Plutonian shore!”
Yes, yes he did. Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
I stood, terrified and exalted, my mind reeling. This is what I had been waiting for! This was my entire life’s journey, coming to summation here in my chamber! But, as I was to learn, it was simply the beginning. The quiet dedication to my master was finally being rewarded—I was to for once and forever become Poe!
Presently I gathered my wits about me. My heart was racing—the time had come to put Poe’s words into action. I slowly opened my chamber door and allowed myself into the hallway that connected my room and Virginia’s. I would have to be careful—this would have to be precise. I was nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous, but I was calm, and my senses were sharp. I knew what to do.
Slowly, I crept past Virginia’s door and to the stairs, moving slowly so as not to wake her. I had almost reached the bottom when our cat, Plutonian, raced past me in the dark. It was all so perfect, so right. I reached out blindly and caught the cat by its tail, hoisting it up to me. It jerked about, its claws flying in the air. It could scratch me all it wanted—I was no longer myself. I held the beast at arm’s length and carried it out to the backyard, moving slowly, slowly. It scrambled to and fro and I believe even then, it may have known what was to happen to it. I felt an odd sort of pity for the cat, but it was no longer my will which brought the animal to its destiny. It was Poe’s will, Poe’s story, just as it had always been.
Still grasping the creature by its tail, I entered the tool shed I had built in the backyard several years ago. From within I retrieved the two items I would need. The first was a length of rope. I exited the shed and proceeded to the large elm tree looming above. Securing the mewling, scratching creature under one arm, I tossed one end of the rope around a thick high branch. Swiftly, I made a layman’s noose—a sloppy job, but one that would suit my purpose. I dug my hands into the bristly fur on the creature’s back and thrust its head through the noose, yanking the rope tight and killing Plutonian instantly. It jerked twice and hung there, suspended in the moonlight, its tongue lolling out and spittle drying on its whiskers. I looked at it a moment longer, and saw with no surprise that the white patch splayed across the creature’s back was no longer shapeless—it had formed into the shape of a Gallows, that mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime! It was then I knew I was following Poe’s prophecy to the letter—I could feel myself fill with the entity and being that was the man. My actions had shocked me, and I was terrified. Yet that terror was not fright, but a tremendous delight, and I felt the same exaltation I had felt in my chamber, the feeling that my entire life had been lived to be paid off in this moment.
I took the axe, the other item I had removed from the shed, and slowly made my way back to the house.
* * *
I stood outside Virginia’s door, my hand on the doorknob. I needed to be slow, slow—as slow as possible. I turned the knob with exquisite care, opening the door just a crack. Little by little, the door opened, and I prided myself on my patience. An hour or more sped by as I continued to open the door, and finally it was open enough for me to look inside. Virginia lay sleeping, curled up in a ball near the head of the bed. For a moment, some of my original consciousness overtook me—I saw her beauty, and her innocence, and no part of me wanted to do what I was about to do. Yet just then, her eyes flew open, and she saw me and screamed, and the mind and will of Poe rushed back in me and I fled forward, axe high. Bringing it down, I screamed, as if gripped in a mania, “I am chilling and killing my Annabel Lee! I am chilling and killing my Annabel Lee!” I couldn’t help it—the axe sliced down into her pretty face, into her bosom, erasing the young Virginia in a dark spray of blood. My young Virginia, my Annabel Lee.
* * *
After I had buried her parts beneath the floorboards on the first floor, I glanced out the window to see the sun was coming up. I showered briefly, and then set about to telephone my good friend Charles Forten. Here, I would need to stray a bit from the path set before me, but what was important was the end, not the means.
“Hello?” he asked, and I found myself pleased that he was groggy, and that he would be more susceptible.
“Charlie,” I said, keeping my voice regular, “Could you come over, please? I have some matters to discuss with you.”
“Come to the House of Usher at seven in the morning? Why?” I smiled a bit at that. Charlie had always indulged me in my obsession.
“To tell you the truth, Virginia left me,” I said. “We had a fight and she went all to pieces.”
“Oh,” Charles said sympathetically, “Oh, I’m sorry. Sure, I’ll be right over.”
As I waited for him, I prepared his drink—a glass of wine laced with opium. For once, I didn’t take any opium for myself—I would need to be clear-headed for the work I was to perform.
Charles arrived soon after, and I immediately made it clear that I most wanted to be drunk at this time. We could discuss Virginia’s leave at another time, but now was the time to drown my misery in wine. It being a Saturday, and Charles being a man who never passed up a drink—even early in the morning (in this, we were remarkably similar), he agreed. Before we set down in the sitting-room, he noticed the bottle from which I had drawn the wine.
“Amontillado, is it?” he asked.
“But of course, “ I said, smiling. Once more, I felt a vague unease begin to creep into my senses. Perhaps this was not the way. Perhaps…
But then Charles put the glass of opium-wine to his lips, and I thought, Nemo me impune lacessit. No one challenges me with impunity. True, Charles hadn’t challenged me with anything, but they were the right words at this point in the path, and again, I felt the presence of Poe grow strong within me.
* * *
By his fourth glass of Amontillado, Charles began to hallucinate—imagining he saw rats traipsing about the floor, and blood pouring out of the wal
ls. I tell you, his imaginations of blood unnerved me, in light of Virginia’s leave of this world. I knew the time had come to rid myself of Charles Forten, and that in doing so, my transformation would be complete. No longer just William Wilson, a character, but Poe himself. I would become Poe.
Charles nodded, nearly napping, and I dragged him by the armpits to my cellar door, kicking it open. His boots thumped softly on the cellar stairs, and he grunted once or twice from the depths of his stupor. I had used this place mainly as a wine cellar and a workroom, but I had also constructed something in the under dwelling my wife had never discovered: a sub-cellar. As with all things, I had built it primarily without knowing why, but I had persevered in the project, and eventually had a small warren of rooms nearly the size of the actual cellar itself. One could get there through means of a trapdoor, if one knew the exact place it was set into the basement floor (I had cleverly hidden the whole floor with a carpet several years before.) It was here I bought Charles.
The ladder leading into the sub-cellar was steep, and I had to hoist Charles down bodily. I would have to hurry—the movements were quickening Charles’ revival, and I wanted him to be in place before that happened. I dragged him to the smallest room in the cellar—not more than an alcove, really, with twin iron supports standing parallel from the floor to the ceiling. I dumped Charles into the room and quickly went to retrieve a box I had kept down here for years without knowing why. Now, I understood.
Inside were four pairs of handcuffs, a bag of cement mixture, and a straight razor. Another room in the catacomb was filled with solid red bricks. I smiled as I realized my plan and set to work securing Charles’ feet and legs to the iron supports. He finally began to come around when I got the last appendage—his left foot—clinched tightly.
“What are you doing?” Charles asked, his mouth moving slowly and deliberately as if stuffed with cotton.
“I am exacting the thousand injuries of Charles Forten,” I said, smiling. “You have done nothing out of sorts to me, so I must prepare the injuries myself. Stand still, Charles.” It was then I brought the straight razor up and proceeded to cut my friend, over and over. Murder was not my intention, oh no, and the cuts I made were shallow. I counted—I was ever so precise—one thousand times I cut him, one thousand injuries. As it was written.
Charles stood alert, bleeding and whimpering, as I began to brick up the entryway to the alcove. He had weakened, and he called my name over and over. He begged of me. Once, he tried to laugh and pretend as if it were a joke. It appeared as if he remembered the story, and thought that by playing along he would appease me. I needed no appeasement, however. The horror and dread which had gripped my heart during the previous encounters had departed—and I felt free.
Before I fastened the last brick into place, I looked in at Charles. He had grown quiet, and now, I saw, his eyes had closed. “Charles,” I called in a singsong manner.
His eyes opened slowly, and he turned his face to me. It was a bloody ruin. He began to grunt at me, trying to fight weakly against his bondage.
“Now you dwell alone, in a world of moan,” I said, laughing, and put the last brick in. Satisfied with my work, I retreated to house above, where I partook in a bit of opium myself.
* * *
The police arrived some time later, answering calls regarding strange noises from my house. I appeared to them puzzled, then knowingly I revealed that my wife and I had had an argument the night before. They nodded, smiling, and I was about to send them on their way when I was taken by an overpowering need to extend hospitality to them. I invited them to stay for cookies and ale, and they stayed awhile with me, joking and talking. I began to show them around the house, noting all the additions and improvements I made. Eventually, God help me, I led them to the cellar, feeling an overwhelming and compelling need to show them the sub-cellar. I was so taken with pride over its construction, and no one had seen it but Charles, who was well on his way to dying in it.
“And here,” I began, after showing them the workstation, and the wine racks “Is something I’m especially proud of. A sub-cellar I built entirely alone…” My voice trailed off. I had begun to hear it. It had been inevitable, of course.
The low, steady thump-thump of my wife’s tell-tale heart coming from the floorboards above. My voice cracked, my head swooning. This was where it ended, I thought. This must be the ending to the story.
But it wasn’t, for then a high-pitched scream of agony erupted from the trapdoor I had opened for the police. It was Charles, still alive and shrieking. My mind fluttered. Oh, God, my torments have arisen!
A shatter of glass came from behind us—I knew at once a force had broken the cellar window inward. I spun crazily to see the cat—the very cat I had murdered the night before—leaping through the window, snarling at me. Immediately following the wretched beast were birds—scores and scores of ravens, fluttering and flittering through the burst glass. They flocked upon me, pecking at me, each and every one screaming Nevermore! Nevermore!, Nevermore!
“Get thee back!” I howled! “Get thee back into the tempest!” They paid no mind, beating me to the floor of the cellar, and I lay screaming “I did it!” Shrieking, spewing forth my guilt and admittance, anything to stop the scourge of ravens!
The police lunged at me and dragged me up, rescuing me from the rats that had begun streaming up from the sub-cellar. The rats with their sharp, rodent teeth—hurrying at me in troops, wanting to gnaw and bite. The rats and the ravens and the cat, oh dear God!
It was then I fainted, and awoke in this place, sitting in a corner, wrapped in a tight vest that allows me no movement.
* * *
And still I am here, still am sitting, still am sitting, listening to the clanging of bells somewhere outside of my room. Surely you must not think me mad, but the people here do. They have begun to move the walls in on me, and I know that soon they will send me hurtling into the pit I cannot yet see. But they may have their torments, for I am become Poe, and I will just sit, just sit, and listen to the bells outside the walls of my room. They toll for my death, you see.
Bells, bells, bells.
Bells, bells, bells.
Arbeit Macht Frei
Del James
When David Bradshaw’s parents told him about the month long vacation they were giving him as a graduation present, the seventeen year old almost felt like an adult. All of the hard work he’d done to bring his grades up so that colleges would consider his application, working two part-time jobs to make his car payments, and enduring all the drama that came with his final year of high school seemed worth the effort. His first trip overseas included London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, and a few other spectacular destinations.
The catch— his parents planned on chaperoning.
David couldn’t believe they were tagging along. Talk about losing one’s erection. Going to Europe with his folks seemed like the equivalent of being given a motorcycle with training wheels. So much for the coming of age adventure-- the road trip that includes meeting exotic young women in exotic places before travelling to the next city or country. Now, with his cock-blocking mom and dad along he wouldn’t even need to program a ‘European Hookups’ playlist for his iPod.
If David had his iPod handy, “Teenage Lament” by Alice Cooper might be the most appropriate song for his feelings toward the month of July. Seriously, why call it a present if it had stipulations attached? This trip wasn’t a gift to him. It was a family vacation for them. If they thought he couldn’t see the reality of the situation they were wrong.
Nothing was ever quite as it seemed and behind their upwardly middle-class appearance, the Bradshaw family was mired in fiscal turmoil. Mom and dad declared strong annual incomes but they were heavily taxed and lived way above their means. When they weren’t fighting over bills they squabbled about who spent more. To David it seemed as if they enjoyed arguing over money more than anything else they did together. Certainly more than whatever they were sup
posed to be doing behind closed bedroom doors.
For the duration of this so-called vacation where the Bradshaws would get cozy in one room, David would have to try his damndest to smile his way through boring sight-seeing tours and tune out his parent’s constant bickering. Hence, the iPod must always be charged.
Big Ben is a big clock.
The Eiffel Tower is tall.
The Berlin wall isn’t much of a wall anymore.
The Mona Lisa is ugly.
The Salvador Dali museum is bugged out.
English food is bland.
French food is not bland and not good.
Germans make great schnitzel.
Italian food is fantastic.
Spanish food is better than Italian food.
Wi-Fi rarely works well in Europe.
The subway system is manageable.
Tits on topless beaches are rarely tits that a young man wants to see.
No matter what language it was broadcast in, European television sucks ass.
Toward the end of the Bradshaw family vacation, mom and dad decided that instead of visiting Athens they would check out Krakow instead. Greece teetered on the verge of economic collapse and David’s great grandfather was Polish so Mom felt a connection. Dad became sold on the idea when he learned how inexpensive Poland was.
Much to David’s surprise, Poland was one of the most beautiful countries they visited. Other than its role as a punching bag in World War II and as a punch line for tasteless jokes, the teen knew very little about Poland. He learned that that Krakus founded a stone-age settlement on Wawel Hill. The settlement stood above a cave occupied by a dragon and would eventually become Poland’s second largest and second most important city, Krakow. Many works of Polish Renaissance arts and architecture were created in Krakow during the 15th and 16th Century- Poland’s Golden Age. Wawel Castle is the city’s centerpiece and a must-see but most visitors are drawn to the Old Town. With its soaring Gothic churches and gargantuan Rynek Glowny, it is the largest market square in the nation.
