by P. N. Elrod
You laugh, drawing stares from the crowd.
So many warm-bloods! Their numbers spiral to infinity, like drops of water in the ocean, stars in the sky. They bask in the sunshine, light which has, over half a millennium, become increasingly abhorrent to you. It would not surprise you if soon you can no longer tolerate these fiery rays and prefer to sequester yourself entirely in the indirect light of the moon. You are so unlike these mortals, who believe the light beneficent. Who have recently created sunlight in small globes of glass and this, like their other inventions, leads them to believe they are conquering nature. All in an attempt to master death. But it is you who are the Master of Death. And you have done this by adhering to your true essence, something these peasants cannot imagine.
That they should envision themselves greater than nature, that they believe they can control eventualities with their industries, both amazes and amuses you, the latter in a grim way. You survey the skyline of London, blotted with inky smoke from their factories, fumes that choke the air, and you wonder: are they insane?
They cannot breathe. They die of illnesses brought about by their own wicked habits, and yet they place such childish faith in science—even now, they believe they can replace the blood in the veins that you have drained, blood that calls to you as the lark calls to her mate. Oh, these straight-backed fools! The strict and serious men arrayed in silly top hats, the prim parasol-carrying women who believe themselves better than one another, their rosy-cheeked children skipping across the lawns as if they will never age. As if their blood will never cease flowing through their veins… and into yours.
You cannot even pity them. Are they not less worthy of compassion than these caged animals you approach? The mortals ignore their carnal instincts while you indulge yours. They are to you as the beasts are to them—inferior. It is your right by virtue of your superiority to take them. They will become your eternal storehouse at which you will sate your hungers.
They call this park the London Zoological Gardens. To either side are structures the living have built to amuse themselves. Such romantic, pastel buildings, with domed roofs and arched wrought iron gates. There! Close up. The electrical carousel, the painted ponies dipping and lifting to the music, in imitation of the horses you once rode into battle. It amazes you that barely more than a decade ago, in your part of the world, a clever inventor generated electrical power for the first time and it is that which drives this frivolous machinery. This is yet one more indication of the inevitable downfall of this century.
At least there are the remnants of nature. The flora, though cultivated, inspires you. Color splashes the lawns, the flowers still as the dead, their brilliance enhanced to your eyes by the growing darkness as the sky following you becomes overcast.
Ahead, an abomination! You are assaulted by sounds and smells. Caged wildlife! A horrifying concept. You see one animal familiar to you. You reach back into your memory where this furry humped spitter emerges from a time long ago when your father offered you and your handsome brother to your mortal enemies, the Turkish Ottomans. He betrayed you to save himself, abandoning you in a foreign land with strange customs and intense cruelties. You learned a lesson well at a vulnerable age, one you have carried with you all of your long existence—none are trustworthy!
A pachyderm from India is chained to a spike. This enormous beast you have read of, have seen sketches of, yet have never before experienced. Dusty grey flesh, pig-like eyes, ears that could be wings, a snout functioning independent of the rest of its body.
And the scent! Sharper than that of the camel. This beast emits a strong mix of the hay it consumes and the natural result of that consumption. It bays, but not like a horse, more like a horn. This giant of a creature even now recognizes you in the crowd, turns towards you, rearing back on legs like tree trunks, then kneels before you…
You pass by quickly. There are other, stranger sights here, and you have a mission.
Birds of all sizes and colors flutter in the aviary. And the lion, ruler supreme of the jungles of the world, roars in your direction, shaking its mane, bowing, prepared to relinquish his reign to one supreme.
These wild beasts that once roamed free on the earth are now caged in spaces far too small for such majestic life. If you were capable of pity, you would pity them. Where Homo sapiens invade, the extinction of a species follows.
This is the natural extension of Darwin's theory. He is an Englishman, one of their own, and yet you know they have not paid heed to his work. But you have. The origin of the species is linked with natural selection. These feral creatures are doomed. Only the strongest survive, and you know in your heart that you prevail absolute over humanity, even as they rule the beasts.
The animals are fearful. They sense you. Sense the danger. Their muscles lock in terror, their eyes bulge. The felines pace with tension and the airborne take frantic flight. These reactions alone make them superior to the stunned men surrounding them.
Your acute hearing identifies a sound you heard but moments ago, so familiar. It is the reason you have ventured so far into the land of the living on this sun-drenched day. The low panting emanates from the far end of a row of hideous metal cages. He is confined, the area cramped for one of his proud nature. You have command over all animals, including this kindred spirit—he will do your bidding.
The wolf pauses, sensing your approach. He turns to face you. His nostrils flare. He recognizes a species akin to his own, but not of his pack. Indeed, he has no pack, no mate. Like you, he is far from home soil. He is alone.
"All the way from America, they brought him, they did." The keeper, a fat man with a suit official but too small, looks at you, hoping to impress you with his knowledge. "Fearsome beast, ain't he? Tore a man's heart right from his chest in a minute, he did."
"Is that so?" you say calmly.
"Oh, absolutely! That's the wolf for you. They've rid the continent of them a hundred years ago for that very reason. That's why they had to bring this one over the ocean."
The wolf glares at the keeper and growls low in his throat. Clearly he understands the meaning of the human's words. His feral odor becomes sharp to your nostrils, betraying his fury.
The gray wolf of the timberlands stares at you, savvy to your understanding. The glint in his eye tells you that his wild nature has not been tainted by years in captivity.
"Name's Berserker," the keeper interrupts your thoughts. "On account of his being so deranged and all."
"A fitting name," you say, "for clearly he is not predictable."
The wolfs ears prick in your direction, for he knows you speak of him and to him. He knows you know him deeply. The madness in his eyes is the spark of passion that aligns with your own.
Suddenly, the keeper reaches for a wooden pole. He jams it between the bars. Berserker growls low, and snaps at the wood, his large teeth gouging the birch.
"See what I mean?" the keeper says, jabbing at Berserker again with the pole. The wood slams hard into the animal's furry side, causing him to yelp. Fear and fury claw the airwaves as his savage scent turns sharp with this provocation.
Patience, I tell him. Your revenge will be sweet.
"In Transylvania," you say, distracting the keeper, "such beasts freely roam the forests still."
"That right? Well, this one shoulda been shot long ago. He's a menace, he is."
You survived Europe's encroaching civilization. Planned destruction forced these wondrous animals further back into the wilderness until their numbers became few. You know intimately of their habits, though, for you have spent centuries among them. They are not the werewolves of mythology, nor the killers of legend, but gentle, timid mammals, akin to the dog—indeed, you have kept them as pets on occasion. It is rare they kill anything as large as a man, and then only out of desperation. They nurture their young, travel together for protection, the strongest male with the strongest female, working in tandem to defend the pack and its territory.
The moronic keeper gra
bs up a slab of raw meat in his fist and slaps it through the bars. Berserker sniffs at the stale flesh, then licks it twice for the blood. He stops, raises his head, and stares at you, the insanity in him the result of incarceration. Soon, you assure him, you will have fresher flesh, and dine with a lost hunger borne of exertion.
Berserker nods. He bows his graceful head slightly, ears pressed back against his skull. His tail droops between his legs. Now, he haunches down on all fours, watching you, waiting.
"See the way it is?" the keeper says. "Let 'im know you ain't scared. Show 'im who's the master, ain't that right gov'ner?"
"As you say," you tell the stupid man, whose flabby throat you would tear out yourself were there not the crowds still littering the grounds.
Berserker is a noble brute. He is so much like you, frustrated by his fate. He longs to find purpose again. He longs for the hunt. He longs for revenge on the weak and the stupid, and to bring down the brazen. Given a fair altercation between the two, this keeper would not survive. All three of you know that to be true.
Berserker stares into your eyes, his yellow orbs speckled with hope and despair. You watch the pupils dilate then contract, and again. He bares his teeth, but just once, then you hear the whimper of submission as he bends his head even lower, muzzle resting on the floor of the cage, eyes still fixed on yours.
You laugh in delight, thrilled to find one unbroken here, amidst the tamed.
The keeper jerks his head around to stare at you, askance.
"A storm approaches," you say. "One that will devastate this city of London, and this country, leaving dead and near dead in its wake."
The keeper's small eyes turn fearful. He follows your gaze to the blackened sky. Lightning cuts through the darkness, diving toward the ground near his feet, startling him. Thunder rocks the earth you stand on.
The mortals scurry for cover. The keeper turns to run, crying after him, "Best to find safety!" and then he is gone.
Every animal in this evil zoological garden responds to the elements. The pungency of their scents clog the air as the storm rampages towards you. You hear them screech and roar in terror and hope. The finches in the aviary fly hysterically, like bats. The larger animals pace and stomp, trembling. Berserker twitches, on his feet now; you have captured his soul. He and the storm become aligned in agitation. You see the ruthlessness in him and it cheers you.
These animals have more sense than the men fleeing for cover. They know where danger lies, and where it does not. The mortals have much to learn from what they deem inferior life-forms. But they are prideful, willful. And alienated. These traits spell their doom.
"We will stake our claim to their thin blood!" you cry, and Berserker throws back his head and howls in tandem.
Your laughter equals the explosion of thunder. Oh, how the dark rage buries the blinding sunlight! Berserker paces, races back and forth in his prison, excited, eager for freedom. His wild eyes are alive, brilliant with awareness of your authority. The earth trembles as if in awe, sensing he will do your bidding.
In the century in which you were born, the French deemed what lay above as the macrocosm, the greater world or universe, reflected here on this tiny earth as the microcosm. You are in touch with this reality that equates the inner with the outer, the small and insignificant with the grand and incomprehensible. It is the source of your strength and to draw from it is your right.
You contemplate the earth itself, so abundant with the flicker of warm-blooded creatures. Their metallic scent seeps through their wet pores, wafting along humid air in a tantalizing manner— the scent of steaming blood! In the blackness that has descended, you see them here and there, glittering stars with the added dimension of being aromatic.
You have always acknowledged nature. Respected her. You know you are her equal. Nature is, perhaps, all you respect, for you believe only in the natural order. You are the culmination of Darwin's evolution. The one who has evolved over time to become the most advanced life-form on the planet. You are master of this terran universe. The English naturalist would have been thrilled to meet you.
These mortals would declare that such notions disease the mind, although you do not permit dis-ease to infiltrate your crystal awareness. Berserker is a worthy assistant because beyond all else, he is like you: adaptable and cunning, dominant traits imbedded in your genes as Herr Mendel discovered when he played with peas. Dominant traits which are the foundation of potency and preeminence!
The storm crashes around you, drawn to you, for you are the source of division. Berserker leaps at the bars that confine him, as if crying "Death or Freedom!"
Over 400 years of existence have developed your organic talents. You will adapt to England. But England will never adapt to you. You will infect these bleeders as the Frenchman Pasteur predicted. You will spread through the population like a germ, a plague darker than black, leaving them helpless, unable to resist. Imprisoning them in their own weakness.
Your laughter expands, drowning out the thunder, and Berserker begins to howl in earnest, bashing his body against the bars, drawing blood. The smell of it intoxicates you. The mortals for miles around tremble at the unfamiliar sound and scent of wildness that strikes a primal cord.
The wolfs victory cry delights your ears, riding sharp and crisp through the wind. You are a pair, in unison, like lovers, or father and son, master and slave. Two warriors, unstoppable.
You raise a hand to the sky and lightning follows where you point, splitting a birch down the middle. You are a warlord now, as you were vivode throughout your existence. One deemed so fierce—mad even—that your countrymen fear you still. They learned to respect and fear you in the past, when you drove the
Ottomans buck from your boundaries, back over the Carpathian Mountains, back to the land where they belonged. They respected and feared you for preserving the law, for enforcing Christian values. Did you not punish the dishonest, those who would steal and lie and cheat for personal gain? And even as much as those you ruled respected and feared you, they loved you. Then, and now. Your reputation survived, even as has your body in this supple, corporeal form you continue. You are a hero to your countrymen. The British who have colonized so much of the world are simply modern Ottomans. You defeated the turbaned ones, you will erode from within this society that wears the high hat symbolizing the pinnacle of civilization.
You are Ruler of Transylvania, King of Terrors, Lord of the Undead. You are invincible. That truth causes your lips to split apart and a long hiss to escape your throat, swirling through the air like a current that will crush everything in its wake, mingling with Berserker's mad howls. The wind whips the soul of every soon-to-be corpse in this park. It slices through to the subconscious Freud postulates. But humanity's creative inventors and astute thinkers cannot save them!
You have read that Kierkegaard preached an acceptance of fate, which includes suffering. That philosophy is repugnant to you. It is Nietzsche who speaks your creed. You and you alone are of paramount importance. The prattle of Marx and Engels will dissolve in the vapors of time—there is little strength in a collective without a strong leader. Machiavelli, your contemporary, knew this. He spoke from your era, where politics sired all.
Berserker's instincts are aligned with your own. He understands all too well the rules of power and control as crucial for survival. He cannot cower at your just fury because he shares this reaction. You cannot bear to see him entrapped this way. It is not sentiment which inspires you but a sense of reestablishing order. These mortals will pay for their insolence! Let them gloat for now. Their telegraphs and telephones and phonographs. Their printing presses and cameras. Their refinement of pistols and rifles and gunpowder. None of it will help them! All will incinerate in the blaze of a power greater than their own. All of their knowledge will crumble to dust.
Your knowledge has been gleaned over many lifetimes, knowledge that covers the spectrum of life, that totals the grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world! Mort
al philosophy is correct in one thing—they will taste divine suffering through their servitude to you, their master. Your violent kiss will bequeath this destiny to them. They will languish in the knowledge that they will be like you but never be your equal.
With the strength of ten men, you direct the forces of nature. Your hand sprouts talons that claw the lock on the cage. Instantly, sparks shoot through you. In the deluge, the metal sizzles and melts. You grasp it in your hand, snap the lock, and pull open the door of the prison.
Berserker does not hesitate. In one leap, he is on the ground, before his master. "Go!" you tell him, mentally directing his instincts toward Whitby and Hillingham. Toward the glass that separates you from Lucy, as if such tangible reality can stand in your way!
Berserker swivels his head to stare in the direction of the keeper. "When you have served me and my work is done," you remind him, "then and only then will you will reap your reward!"
He hesitates but a moment. Then, swiftly, he sprints over the drowning grass and into the trees. Free. Alive. As lucid as can be.
Curtain Call
Gary A. Braunbeck
(From the unpublished papers of Charles Fort)
I have been, for most of my life, a collector of notes on subjects of great diversity—such as deviations from concentricity in the lunar crater Copernicus, to the great creature Melanicus and the super-bat upon whose wings it broods over the affairs of Man, as well as stationary meteor-radiants, the reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy, the appearance of purple Englishmen, instances of amphibians and blood raining down from the heavens, apparitions, phantoms, the damned, the excluded, wild talents, new lands, and "Did the girl swallow the octopus?"
But my liveliest interest is not so much in things as in the relations of things. I find now, in the twilight of my life, as I pour over the endless data that I have assembled throughout my days, that I think more and more about the alleged pseudo-relations we call "coincidences." What if these events, rather than being happenstance, are the final result of great, secret, dark machinations of the Universe interacting with the subconscious to produce an event or events which guide humanity down certain roads its members were destined to take?
