The Berserkers

by Roger Elwood

  The doctor looks at you and you say, “When did you first realize you had this, Lauris?”

  His eyes move about the room, searching for support, relief.

  “Ever since…since I can remember. I remember being a kid, a little kid, and…afraid. I didn’t know what it was, then. I…I would scream. I scream sometimes now, I think. I can’t remember.”

  “I see. But when did you first know it for what it is?”

  He shakes his head again, tentatively. His mouth moves several times, shaping words, before he speaks.

  “I was…eight or nine. My teachers saw…there was something…different…about me. I had some…tests. Then they…explained it to me. me.”

  “And you were twelve when you were sent to a hospital for the first time?”

  “Yes…yes, sir. My parents, they…sent me.”

  “And this is your tenth commitment.”

  “Yes, sir. I…I live here now…I guess.”

  The doctor frowns and clears his throat. Lauris is moving his eyes slowly across the floor, as though counting individual tiles. You think of him now, for the first time, as a boy.

  “Lauris, are you receiving?” the doctor asks.

  The boy faintly nods.

  “I thought so.” The doctor turns to you. “He seems to be peaking again. He spent most of the last week in wet sheets; it shouldn’t be happening again so soon. Perhaps the stress of the interview—”

  The doctor crosses the room and moves his hand across the space directly before the boy’s eyes. There is no response.

  “It’s no use now, Mr. Vandiver. He’s out of touch again. I’m afraid we’ll have to terminate the interview.” “‘Receiving,’ you said. He was actually reading my thoughts?”

  The doctor purses his mouth and frowns again. “Not thoughts, Mr. Vandiver—feelings. I was under the impression that you understood that. Feelings, you see, are illogical, confused, destructive. Right now he’s picking up on several hundred people. He’s taking all that on himself, with no way to get rid of it or shut it off. And you see the result”

  “It’s not quite the way we thought it would be, is it?” you say. The boy is shaking, his entire body, as though he is being pulled in many directions at once. Which, you suppose, is the truth of the thing. “How many are there like him?”

  “In our facility, twenty-three.”

  “And what will become of him now?”

  “He’ll be put in a padded room, and in restraint when he becomes violent; we can’t allow him to injure himself. Perhaps he’ll come back to us, perhaps not; we never know. He’ll be given injections of Thorazine—in some cases it helps psychotics think more clearly—and, if all else fails, electroshock.”

  “I didn’t think anyone used electroshock anymore.”

  “What would you have us do? We feel we have to try everything, anything that might help. Our approach here is reality oriented. We—”

  He stops because the boy has stood and walked closer to you. For a moment his eyes come alive. He says, “Will you come again to see me, Mr. Vandiver?” And now the eyes blank out again. They are blue and still.

  “I’m afraid I must insist we leave; he could become violent at any moment.”

  So hard to believe those lost eyes violent. But you turn and move toward the door, and for the first time something flickers behind the doctor’s professional mien.

  “Don’t let it get to you, what he just said. It takes some getting used to. He’s a good kid; everyone likes him.” He moves his hands for a moment, reaching for words, and says again, as though he can think of nothing else, “It takes some getting used to.”

  Now the door closes behind you, and something else closes within you. The hall is brightly lit; you blink in the sudden light. The hall is empty.

  “Then there’s nothing anyone can do.”

  “Nothing more, Mr. Vandiver.”

  Inside, you hear a scream.

  The Genuine Article

  Adrian Cole

  Modern in some ways, the terror here is as old as

  Poe.

  Jake Austin raked his fingers through his tousled hair, sniffed characteristically, and opened the front door. There had been an unceremonious banging on it, followed by receding footsteps; it was probably the postman. An icy blast met the youthful Jake as he swung the door inward, and he bent down quickly, picking up the wrinkled parcel that had been dumped on the doorstep.

  “What is it?” shouted his mother from the kitchen, where she could almost always be found, clattering the pots and pans and adjusting some control or other on the battered stove. Jake hefted the parcel, peering through sleepy eyes at the postmark.

  “Looks like that coat’s come at last,” he said.

  “Oh. About time, too. Let’s have a look at it, then.”

  His mother came into the hall, wiping her hands on her apron, eager to see the coat as she was whenever Jake brought new clothes, though she rarely approved of his purchases. Jake wrestled clumsily with the thick paper, yanking it off in ragged strips, oblivious to the squawks of annoyance from his mother as he let them flutter across the carpet. Eventually he had the coat free of its interminable wrappings.

  “Oh, Jake, it’s much too big for you. You can’t wear that. You’ll never get it…”

  “Nonsense, mother. It’s just the job,” Jake yawned. He held the huge coat up and inspected it It was a thick-materialed, very heavy Russian army coat having been advertised as surplus stock, at a very moderate price. It was quite long, but so were most of the heavy coats that Jake’s generation were wearing these days. Jake felt the gray material, grunting satisfactorily at its width, then tried it on. It was certainly far too big, reaching nearly to the ground, and his mother gave another sigh of incomprehension. But Jake pretended to take no notice of his mother’s disapproving looks. After all he had bought the coat and there was no point in rejecting it.

  “Ugh,” she grunted finally, and went back into the kitchen, knowing there was no point in trying to dissuade him if his mind was made up. Jake smiled at her retreating back, took the coat off, and slung it over his shoulder. It felt like a ton weight.

  “I think I’ll have another hour or so in bed.”

  Well, it was Saturday.

  The pub was full as usual. There was the same cross section of society grouped around the big lounge, bustling and jostling as they made their ways to and from the overworked bar. Young people in flamboyant clothes dominated the garish scene, though there were a few diehard regulars, muttering to themselves about the untidiness and scrufliness of the youngsters, secretly wishing that they too could be part of the excitement that always surrounded them.

  Jake squeezed into the room, pushing his way to the bar, unperturbed by one or two of the scathing looks he was getting. He saw the group of friends he had come to meet and went over to them.

  “Pint, Jake?” shouted a long-haired, bearded youth above the noise of clinking glasses and muddled gibberish of combined voices. Jake grinned acquiescence.

  “Hey, man, you got your new coat. Crazy. Really crazy,” commented another of the group, shaking his frizzy mop, the light winking in his coal-black sunglasses. This was Paul, one of the more eccentric and, Jake felt, pretentious of the crowd, a typical product of the “alternate” society at its worst. Paul was no genuine person—he’d just found the so-called dropout way of life a convenient vehicle for his laziness. He was tall and thin, always chewing, always clicking his fingers to the jukebox, no matter what record was playing, always taking drugs, always doing something to be in. His radio-garnered collection of monotonous cliches gave Jake the neck ache, but he was tolerant enough to put up with the guy.

  “Yeah,” Jake nodded as pleasantly as he could in answer to the question. “Came today.”

  “It’s big enough,” smiled one of the girls. “Plenty of room in there for me too.” She tossed aside a mane of thick black tresses as she spoke.

  “Hi, Lyn. Come and snuggle up,” Jake grinned, hi
s thoughts of Paul momentarily forgotten. Lyn laughed, winking at her companions and gave Jake a hug. Presently his promised pint arrived.

  “Cheers, Roy. Got the tickets?”

  “Uh-huh. Should be a good concert tonight. We’ll have to go early, though. Bound to be a queue.” Roy swigged at his own beer. He was in direct contrast to Paul, reflected Jake, and although equally as exotically clothed, far more natural—he could never be anything but himself.

  “I got some weed,” Jake overheard Paul say to one of the girls, one who was far too young to be mixing with the shiftless elements of this crowd and too easily led into bad habits by thoughtless fools like Paul. Roy cut into his thoughts.

  “Where did you get that ruddy coat?” he laughed.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Jake countered.

  “What is it, a tent?”

  “Russian, mate.”

  “Oh, Russian, is it? Blimey. I should think you could get the whole Russian front in it. Do you intend to sleep in it?”

  Jake gave his friend a good natured push, and Roy was hard put not to spill any beer.

  “Get out. Good material this.”

  “Tell you what, old son. Why not cut me and Jane one out of it—you’d still have plenty left for yourself.”

  Roy’s elegant, blue-eyed girl friend had come to join him out of the throng. She had silky, long hair and possessed far more brains than her simple attitude to life belied.

  “Ignore him, Jake,” she said, poking Roy in the ribs.

  “I’ll tell you what, though,” smiled Jake, froth gleaming on his thick moustache, “it’s bloody warm. In this ice and wind, I don’t care what I’m wearing, as long as it’s warm.”

  “Me, too,” chirped Lyn from beneath his arm. He looked down at her with a chuckle. She appeared to have settled herself; he had no objections.

  “Is it really Russian, or is that just the sales talk?” asked Jane skeptically.

  “I don’t know. No real reason for them to lie, I suppose. There is a name embroidered in the lining. Let’s have a look—”

  Jake undid a few brass buttons and fumbled about with the inside. “Here…uh…Bredehoeft.”

  “Brede-what? Don’t sound Russian to me,” said Roy from inside his emptying beer glass with a grin at Jane.

  “Could be Polish, or Czech or something,” commented Lyn.

  “Probably made up and sewn on by the warehouse people,” said Jane, typically down to earth.

  “Who knows?” said Jake, with a sniff. “I’m not particularly bothered.”

  “Me neither,” said Lyn, giving Jake another hug.

  After the concert, which had been another howling success, Jake nestled down amidst the warmth of his bedclothes, more than glad to be back inside. It was a bitter night, typical of this winter, that he reflected, was turning out to be the coldest in a long time. Jake was soon asleep, the echoes of the guitars and organs winking out in his mind at last. He drifted into a deep slumber, and for the first time since he was very young became conscious of the fact that he was dreaming. Whether he had been thinking of his new coat or not before dropping off, it was of this that he now dreamed.

  He had the vaguest recollections of the scene in the pub where he had speculated on the coat’s history, then his dream melted into a different setting, prompted perhaps by the freezing weather outside. He saw a snow-covered landscape, where wraithlike soldiers were marching, guns and packs slung despondently across their backs. He could not make out their faces as they trudged along, knee-deep in the powdery snow, but he sensed pain and suffering and the unmistakable presence of something fearful and shadowy. Death was in the air, hanging like coiled smoke about the moving figures.

  Somewhere on the horizon, the lights of bigger guns flickered, followed by the doomful booming of their discharges. The soldiers huddled closer to each other, moving on through the deepening drifts of whiteness as fast as they could. Jake seemed to feel the cold through his dream, and he began to move about restlessly in the bedclothes.

  Without apparently changing, the scene somehow became a mad melee of activity, and pandemonium broke out. Rifles were feverishly unslung, and Jake heard the sharp reports of the exchanges. Figures were struggling to find cover in the thick blanket of snow. White turned red as men fell, staining vividly the scene as they died, choking out their lives.

  Jake had no idea who was fighting who, but the soldiers who fell into the enveloping snow all wore heavy gray coats. His own could almost have been one of them.

  At long last the battle ended, and from a bare copse of thorny bushes, grim figures emerged. Some carried rifles, others held staves and sickles. They were a ragged bunch, dressed inadequately in tatters, all shivering in the terrible cold. Jake watched them, himself numbed by cold, as they stole furtively upon the soldiers they had killed and began looting the corpses.

  It was at this point in the dream that Jake awoke with a shudder. For a moment he wasn’t aware of anything but the snow and cold, half expecting to be lying in snow, but then he realized he was still in bed. He had become so disturbed by his strange dream that he had kicked off all his bedclothes. No wonder he was cold. He felt as if he was encased in ice. With muffled curses, he dragged the tangled sheets and blankets back over himself and with some difficulty managed to fall asleep again.

  The next day he was sniffing more than usual, and he realized he was sickening for his annual bout of flu, or a heavy cold at least. Nevertheless he went to work, though it was a struggle to get through the day. He had arranged to meet Lyn, but he phoned her and told her that he wouldn’t be able to make it. She didn’t believe him, of course, but he was determined and in no mood for arguments. Nothing would tempt him out again in this weather; it was snowing again, and on top of all that had already frozen, the new fall was bound to stick.

  Jake had trudged home in the snow, thinking of the soldiers in his dream, wrapped up like him in their heavy coats. That night he went to bed early, thankful to be beneath the warm blankets once more.

  But it was to be another restless night, for no sooner had he got off to sleep then he started to dream again. The strange landscape of the previous night’s dream formed before him again, and with irrepressible inevitability, the whole action of the dream unfolded once more. Jake watched as the helpless soldiers were cut down, wanting to warn them but unable to. He became restless, tossing and turning in the numbing cold which seemed to gnaw into him with icy teeth.

  This time the dream seemed to develop, for after the soldiers had fallen, Jake saw the other men loot their bodies, and he saw one soldier have his coat stripped from him to be jubilantly donned by a freezing peasant. The soldier’s pathetic corpse lay in the snow while everyone slowly disappeared, leaving only snow-blown corpses.

  Jake himself was bitterly cold, as though it was he who lay dead in the snow of the dream. Overhead the atmosphere was strangely permeated with something dreadfully evil, some inescapable dark power, yet there was nothing to be seen in those ominous, cloud-streaked heavens.

  Once again Jake came to; all around the room the bedclothes were scattered in wild disarray, as though he had taken them. in some frightful fit and flung them about him like a madman. He was trembling uncontrollably with the cold, his nose streaming, his head aching. As he scrambled across the carpet, his teeth chattering, he threw the clothes back onto the bed, at length wrapping himself up in them in a vain attempt to get back to sleep.

  But the night grew worse, and his mind began to hover on a frustrating borderline between sleeping and waking, so that he caught glimpses of peculiar scenes, imagining that he heard odd sounds. Outside the snow continued to fall heavily.

  When morning mercifully came, he staggered downstairs in the gloom and put on the kettle, hugging a dressing gown to him. His slippered feet were like blocks of ice.

  “That you, Jake? Whatever you doing up at this time? It’s only half-past six.” His mother was in the back room, up first as she always inevitably was, despite his o
wn early arousal.

  “I know, mum. Can’t get back to sleep. Thought I’d have a cup of tea or something. Got any of that lemon powder? I’ve got a stinking cold.” He sniffed, fingers fumbling in the cupboard where the handkerchiefs were kept. His mother appeared.

  “My word, you are in a state. Flu by the look of it. There’s a lot of it about. You better get back to bed with a hot-water bottle. I’ll phone the works up and tell them you’re stopping at home. You’ll have to sweat that fever out…She went on for a while, the words becoming lost on Jake who had started to shiver uncontrollably again. He went into the back room and allowed himself the luxury of putting both bars of the electric fire on, then slumped into an armchair. He dozed until his mother brought him a warm drink.

  After he had taken and sipped at the warm lemon drink, she handed him his Russian coat.

  “Here. Put this around you till you get back to bed.”

  Jake was too dopey to refuse, and so the coat was draped about him. For a brief moment he thought he smelled earth, dank and mossy, but the thought flashed away, and he dozed again.

  Eventually Jake got back to bed, and that day he managed to sleep on and off without any recurrence of the dreams. His bedclothes were doubled and tucked in around him; he didn’t feel inclined to move around, so he didn’t disturb them. On top of them his mother had placed his coat, just to add a little extra warmth. The day wore on swiftly, turning to dim twilight as Jake slept. The snow blew in fitful gusts up against the windows, but Jake did not hear it.

  As the darker hours passed, Jake began to slip into the dream world again, like a drowning man sliding beneath the waters, slowly, inexorably. -

  He saw the dead soldier of his previous visions, his coat taken, and he watched the man lie there, his own bones numbed by the awful cold. For some time the image of the dead man was still. Then the soldier opened his eyes, lifting his fingers to feel the already frozen blood that had trickled from his scalp.