The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  ‘They made a pact,’ said Ramse, knocking on the door. ‘It’s a subsect. Whatever else they’re missing they cut out the eye once they’re initiated. Borchert started down that path,’ said Ramse. ‘He was a guard initiate, and then gave it up. What his connection to the guards is now isn’t quite clear, is mysterious. That’s why he’s second in command, not first.’

  ‘And the eye’s not all,’ said Gous.

  ‘No?’ said Kline.

  ‘Let’s just say that a guard can hit all the high notes and none of the low ones.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ramse, ‘nobody knows about that for certain except the guards. And they don’t discuss it.’

  The door was opened by another guard who asked again What is wanted? This time Ramse brought his heels together and rattled off what to Kline seemed clearly a memorized, ritual response. Having been faithful in all things, we come to see he who is even more faithful than we.

  ‘That is correct,’ said the guard. ‘And what are the three of you?’

  ‘Two ones,’ said Gous. ‘And an eight.’

  ‘Which is the eight?’

  ‘I am,’ said Ramse.

  ‘You may enter,’ said the guard. ‘The others may not.’

  ‘But we’re here with Kline,’ said Ramse. We’re bringing Kline to Borchert.’

  ‘Kline?’ said the guard. ‘We’ve been waiting for him. He can come in, too, the other one will have to wait outside.’

  Kline felt something on his shoulder and looked back to see Gous’ stump lying there. ‘A pleasure, Mr. Kline,’ Gous said. ‘Don’t forget me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Kline, confused.

  The guard ushered them through the door and into a bare, white hall. Before the door closed Kline looked behind him to see Gous on the other side, tilting his head trying to see in. This guard, Kline saw, had only one hand, all the fingers on it shaved away except for thumb and the bottom half of the forefinger.

  The guard led them down the white hall, to a door at the end of it, knocked three times.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ said Ramse.

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘To come in,’ said Ramse. ‘Normally a one wouldn’t be allowed. There had to be a special dispensation.’

  ‘I don’t feel lucky,’ said Kline. The guard turned around and looked at him, hard, then turned away, rapped thrice more.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ whispered Ramse. ‘You don’t know how hard it was to convince them to bring you.’

  The door came open, another guard pushing his face out. Ramse and Kline watched their guard push his face in and whisper to the other. They whispered back and forth a few times then the other guard nodded, opened the door.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said the first guard. ‘Go through.’

  They passed through the door, the other guard shutting it behind them. Behind was a stairwell. The guard led them up it to the third floor, led them down a hall, past three doors, stopped to knock on a fourth. When a muffled voice answered from behind, he opened it, ushered them in.

  The room was large, Spartan in furnishing: a bed sitting low to the floor, a low desk, a small bookshelf, a reclining chair. In the latter sat a man wearing a bathrobe. He was missing an arm and a leg, his robe cut away and left open at shoulder and hip to reveal the planed surfaces, hardly stumps at all. The other arm and leg were intact, though the hand was missing all but two of its fingers, the foot all but the big toe. Both ears, too, had been cut off, leaving only a hole and a shiny patch of flesh on either side of the head. One eyelid was open, revealing a piercing eye, the other closed but deflated, the eye under it clearly absent.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘Mr. Kline, I presume. I had assumed you had refused our invitation several weeks ago.’

  ‘It seems not,’ said Kline.

  ‘He’s delighted to be here,’ said Ramse, quickly. ‘It’s a true pleasure for him, as well as for me, sir, to be granted audience with –’

  ‘– I wonder,’ said Borchert, raising his voice. ‘Mr. Ramse, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ramse, ‘I’m –’

  ‘I wonder, Mr. Ramse, if you’d mind waiting outside. Mr. Kline and I have private matters to discuss.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ramse, looking crestfallen. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘An eight,’ said Borchert, once Ramse was gone, ‘though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. What does he mean wearing shoes in here? Where are his manners?’

  ‘Do you want me to take my shoes off?’

  ‘Are you missing any toes?’

  ‘No,’ said Kline.

  ‘There’s no point then, is there?’ said Borchert. ‘But come a little closer and show me your stump.’

  Kline went closer. He held his missing hand out; Borchert took it deftly between his remaining fingers and thumb and pulled it forward until it was only inches from his face, his eye dilating.

  ‘Yes, nicely done,’ said Borchert. ‘Quite profession. But I’d thought you were a self-cauterizer?’

  ‘I was,’ said Kline. ‘It was redone afterwards.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Borchert, smiling thinly. ‘Still, a good start nonetheless.’ He let go of Kline’s hand, readjusted himself in his chair. ‘You’re welcome to sit down,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately I’m in the only chair. Do feel free to help yourself to the floor.’

  Kline looked about him, finally settling to the floor, posting his stump against it and bringing the rest of his body down.

  ‘There,’ said Borchert. ‘That’s better now, isn’t it. I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.’

  ‘The investigation,’ said Kline.

  ‘The investigation,’ said Borchert. ‘That’s right. You want the details.’

  ‘No,’ said Kline.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’m wondering how I can arrange to leave.’

  ‘Leave me?’ said Borchert. ‘You find me offensive somehow?’

  ‘Leave this whole place.’

  ‘But why, Mr. Kline?’ said Borchert, smiling. ‘This is paradise.’

  Kline did not say anything.

  Borchert let his smile fade slowly, artificially. ‘I was against bringing you,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind telling you. No outsiders has always been my policy, and no recruiting. But some of the others were impressed by this story of self-cauterization. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a story, Mr. Kline?’

  ‘No,’ said Kline. It’s true.’

  ‘But why, Mr. Kline? Surely you could have easily applied a tourniquet and called a doctor?’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t have been able to kill the man who cut my hand off.’

  ‘The so-called gentleman with the cleaver,’ said Borchert, nodding. ‘But surely you could have killed the fellow later?’

  ‘No,’ said Kline. ‘It was either him or me, right then. I cauterized the arm to distract him. He couldn’t quite take in what I was doing, which game me a certain advantage. Otherwise, he would have shot me.’

  ‘Yet you could take it in, Mr. Kline, even though it was your own arm. And afterwards your remaining hand was steady enough to shoot him through the eye. You were a God for a moment, even if you didn’t realize it. I suspect you tapped into something without knowing it, Mr. Kline. An ecstacy.

  I almost begin to suspect we have something to learn from you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ said Kline.

  ‘Modest, too,’ said Borchert. ‘You know what you’ve done to our community? You’ve started something, Mr. Kline. Everybody is talking about self-cauterization. The creed is threatening to transform. Schism. No self-cauterizers yet, but it’s only a matter of time, and then smoothly cut surfaces,’ he said, gesturing at his missing arm and leg, ‘are likely to give way to hard-puckered and rippled stumps, ugly and dappled. A little bit rough trade, no? I can’t say it’s to my taste, Mr. Kline, but perhaps I’m becoming antiquated.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Kline.

  Borchert looked at him sharply. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘In any
case, Mr. Kline, despite my personal objections to you, now that you are here, I can’t afford to let you go. Too much is at stake. I send you out of here without an investigation and we’ll have schism.’

  ‘I’m not staying,’ said Kline.

  ‘You leave and I’ll have to kill you,’ said Borchert. ‘For the good of the faith. Nothing personal.’

  Kline looked at his hand, then looked at Borchert.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to at least hear about it, Mr. Kline? Before deciding if it’s worth dying for?’

  ‘All right,’ said Kline. ‘Why not?’

  ‘A crime has been committed. You are not to discuss the specific details of this crime with anyone with less than ten amputations. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kline.

  ‘And in any case, Mr. Kline, I expect you to be discreet. This is a somewhat precarious society. The only one who knows the full extent of this crime is myself and, in a moment, yourself.’

  Kline just nodded.

  ‘In short, we’ve had a murder,’ said Borchert.

  ‘A murder,’ said Kline. ‘Murder’s not exactly my speciality.’

  ‘No,’ said Borchert. ‘But you’re all we have.’

  ‘May I ask who was murdered?’

  ‘A man called Aline,’ said Borchert. ‘He organized this community, this brotherhood. A prophet, a visionary. Both arms lopped off at the shoulder, legs gone, penis severed, ears removed, eyes removed, tongue cut partly out, teeth removed, lips peeled away, nipples sliced off, buttocks gone. Anything that could be removed removed. A true visonary. Murdered.’

  ‘How was he murdered?’

  ‘Someone broke open his sternum, chopped his heart out.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who –’

  ‘– no,’ said Borchert. ‘And we’d like the heart back if possible.’

  ‘Why do you need the heart back?’

  Borchert smiled. ‘Mr. Kline,’ he said. ‘We’re a brotherhood. This is a religion. His heart means something to us.’

  Kline shrugged.

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ said Borchert. ‘You’re an outsider. But perhaps you’ll understand one day.’ He moved awkwardly in his chiar. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘what became of your own hand?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kline.

  ‘You don’t know,’ said Borchert. ‘Imagine that. Colonel Pierre Souvestre’s leg was buried in a full blown state funeral when he lost it in 1917. Your hand, on the other hand, is probably rotting in a pile of garbage somewhere.’

  Kline stood up. ‘When can I see the body?’ he asked.

  Borchert sighed. ‘I’ve told you everything you need to know about it,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to to see the body.’

  ‘You don’t have the body anymore?’

  ‘No,’ said Borchert. ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘His body is sacred to us,’ said Borchert. ‘Even without the heart.’

  ‘Are there any witnesses?’

  ‘You’re not to approach anyone with more than ten amputations without an invitation.’

  Kline looked about the room. ‘That makes the investigation a little difficult.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ Borchert said.

  ‘Can I at least see the room?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Borchert, slowly. ‘I suppose we could manage that.’ ‘So I’m to investigate a murder without seeing a body and without being able to interview witnesses or suspects?’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Mr. Kline. Just don’t break in on anyone unannounced. Talk to me and I’ll make arrangements.’

  Turning, Kline made for the door.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Kline,’ said Borchert.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Kline.

  Borchert held up one of his two remaining fingers. ‘As an act of good faith,’ he said, ‘to show you I have nothing against self-cauterization, that I’m an open-minded man, I’d like your help removing the upper joint of this.’

  ‘You want me to cut it off.’

  ‘Just the top joint,’ Borchert said. ‘Little more than a symbolic gesture, a pact if you will. You’ll find a cleaver in the top drawer,’ he said, gesturing to the back of the room with a flick of his head. ‘There’s a stove there as well, Mr. Kline, built into the counter, which I’ll ask you to turn on.’

  Kline looked at him, looked into the back of the room, shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  Opening the drawer, he removed the cleaver. He placed it on the counter, resting it on a butcher’s block, the wood of which was laced with dozens of thin crosshatched marks. He went back to Borchert, and dragged his chair back, set it flush against the counter.

  ‘You don’t know what an honor this is for you,’ said Borchert. ‘It’s quite a gesture of intimacy. Almost anyone here would kill for it. A shame it’s wasted on you.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Kline.

  He took Borchert by the wrist and placed the hand on the butcher’s block. He folded the index finger back into Borchert’s palm, leaving the remaining finger, the middle finger, angled down against the butcher’s block. The burner had warmed now and was glowing red, smoking slightly. He rested his stump just above Borchert’s knuckle and held the finger steady, pushed it down slightly so that he first joint was firmly against the wood.

  ‘Just the first joint?’ he asked.

  Borchert smiled. ‘For now,’ he said.

  He lifted the cleaver and brought it down hard and fast, as had been done to him, to his hand. The blade was sharp; there was almost no resistance as it went through the joint, perhaps a slight snap as it chopped through bone. The finger’s nail and the flesh and bone just below it sat on one side of the blade, the rest of the finger on the other. Borchert’s face, he saw, had gone pale.

  ‘Well done,’ said Borchert, his voice strained. ‘Now, Mr. Kline, if you would see your way clear of releasing my hand…’

  Looking down, Kline realized that his stump was pushing down on Borchert’s hand so hard that Borchert couldn’t move. Blood was sputtering a little out of the finger’s end, weakly. He lifted his stump and Borchert moved his finger away from the blade slightly and blood came puddling up now against the blade. He watched Borchert swing the hand about and, stretching his arm, bring it down onto the burner coil.

  The flesh hissed, the blood hissing too, the air quickly filling with a smell that seemed to Kline like the smell of his own burning flesh. Now, he thought, it is time for Borchert to pick up the gun and shoot me through the eye. When Borchert took his finger away, Kline could still hear it hissing a little. And then Borchert turned to face him, his face wreathed in ecstacy, his eye dilated wide.

  IV

  He was allowed to go back to his room and rest. He seemed to be the only one occupying the house, despite there being a half dozen other rooms. Gous brought him a tray of food at lunchtime, and Gous sat at the small table with him, querying him gently about what Borchert had said, while he ate. Kline didn’t answer.

  ‘Of course I understand,’ said Gous. ‘There’s an order to these things. A one can’t be told much.’

  ‘Where’s Ramse?’ asked Kline.

  Gous shrugged. ‘Ramse was needed elsewhere,’ he said. ‘We’re not glued at the hip.’

  Kline nodded, cutting into his meat, pork he thought, with his knife, keeping the plate from sliding with his stump. He put down the knife, picked up the fork, speared the meat.

  ‘Do you know Aline?’ he asked, once he had finished chewing.

  ‘Aline?’ asked Gous. ‘Everbody knows Aline. Not personally, maybe, but we know him. He’s the prophet. He’s the great one.’

  ‘Gous,’ said Kline. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you get involved in all this?’

  ‘In all what?’

  ‘All this,’ said Kline, gesturing with his stump. ‘This whole place.’ He reached out and took hold of Gous’s stump. ‘In this,’ he s
aid.

  ‘Ramse,’ said Gous. ‘He got me started.’

  ‘He came up to you and said, “Why don’t you hack that off?”’

  ‘It’s not something I’m supposed to talk about,’ said Gous. ‘Not with outsiders.’

  ‘Am I an outsider, Gous?’

  ‘Well,’ said Gous. ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘Here I am,’ said Kline. ‘I’m right here, just like you.’

  ‘True,’ said Gous.

  ‘I’ve talked with Borchert,’ said Kline. ‘Have you talked with Borchert?’

  ‘No,’ said Gous.

  ‘Well, then?’

  Gous held his head with his hand. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ said Kline.

  ‘Not secret, sacred,’ said Gous. He looked straight at Kline. ‘When you have the call, you’ll know,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe I’ve already had the call.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Gous. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

  He spent the day thinking. Aline was dead, the cult in crisis. What he was being called upon to do was to investigate, discoverer the murderer, and thus redeem the cult, allow it to go on. Was that right? Yet, according to Borchert he would not be allowed to see the body, would have to ask permission to interview anyone, would be monitored every step of the way. Was he really there to investigate at all, or was he simply Borchert’s concession to someone else?

  Near dark Ramse arrived, a basket full of food slung over one of his arms.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Had a good day?’

  ‘Fair,’ said Kline. He opened the basket, dished up the food. There were two plates, so he gave some to Ramse as well.

  ‘Borchert’s quite a fellow, no?’

  ‘Yes, quite.’

  ‘They don’t make them better than that,’ said Ramse. ‘And a twelve too, to boot.’

  ‘Thirteen,’ said Kline. He began eating. Ramse, he noticed, wasn’t touching his food.

  ‘Thirteen?’ asked Ramse, looking stricken. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He had me cut off something.’

  ‘Leg, toe, toe, toe, toe, toe, left arm, finger, finger, ear, eye, ear. What else?’