Wild Things: Four Tales (10 page)

I went up and blew out more than half the candles. The sun was going down, and darkness surrounded us. Only six or so candles lit the stage. It was an effect I’d worked on – the backdrop now seemed ominous and evil – the Commander’s face on the backdrop seemed to have gone in shades into a diseased, corrupt form rather than the healthy look that backdrop had when sunlight was upon it.

The crowd quieted even further, although I heard murmurs among the Enemy that set my teeth on edge – they had begun to feel uneasy.

The Commander stepped up next to me, and he even patted me on the shoulder. He announced to the crowd that I was a shining example of the realignment procedure that had been developed in the Great City. I told the Axeman that it was time to begin the carving of the Americans. He brought the blade up to the ear of one of my boys.

I stopped him, and announced, “Why an ear? Can you make a good purse from it, ladies?”

A tittering from the women in the bleachers as if this were the cutest of jokes.

“I think not! Why not flay him alive? Right now? But even better, see, how his friends –“ I pointed to the other two men, “—do not know what is to come? Their ears are stuffed with wax. Their eyes are covered! Why not have them skin their friend for the delight of the Commander?”

Cheers went up, as I had expected. In the dark, of course, it was the Americans who began the cheer, but in a stadium, cheers and claps become contagious. People want to be enthused about a show, and so the Enemy began clapping and cheering.

Then, when they quieted, I asked the Axeman for his blade.

Now, this was the point when my nerves nearly destroyed what I was about to do.

The Axeman gave me a strange look, but his Commander, the Supreme Leader of the camp, nodded to him, and told him in a not-friendly tone, to go on. The pressure of an audience watching did exactly what I wanted it to do – the Commander was caught up in the magic of the theatrical moment. He wanted the show to go on as planned.

Reluctantly, the Axeman passed me the blade.

It was heavy, and its edge was sharp.

“You will now see,” I announced, “one of the Evil Americans be skinned before you, and before your Commander, by his own compatriots!”

The audience went silent as I passed the blade to one of the blindfolded men.

Quickly, however, I took it back, and whispered to the three men whose ears were not, in fact, blocked, “Now. To your left.”

I turned with the blade, and stabbed the Axeman in the groin, and then cut my way up into his belly and sternum –

As the audience began to gasp –

And the three men, blindfolds still on, grabbed the Commander, and tore at him as if they were wild dogs.

In their heads, they were wolves, in fact, and they believed that they were tearing at a stag in the hunt.

The commander screeched, but the men were strong, and in the darkness of the stadium, the Enemy rose, panicking, but it was too late.

They had drunk the opium and liquor, and my countrymen had already risen up with gnashing teeth and a strength that they had never known they’d had in their bodies.

I wanted to see Hoax one last time, to see the look on his face when he knew that this had not gone his way. That he had misplaced any trust he had in me. But it was too dark, and knowing him, he probably died too quickly.

I heard what sounded like wolves tearing at bleating sheep in the dark.

22

The beauty of the escape of my men – men from various platoons who now thought of me as their hero – was that none could remember the show at all.

By dawn, not all the prisoners had survived. Many had died in the fight.

But those who lived, blood on their faces and blotching their clothes, awoke without memory of the past year.

They didn’t know the atrocity committed against them, neither did they know of their own savagery, which had killed the Enemy in the camp.

I returned home, eventually, a hero.

The surviving men believed they had escaped the camp; their memories were washed so that they did not believe they had ever torn apart and eaten those who had imprisoned them.

By dawn, I commanded the men, still under the influence of the Dark Game, to set fire to the last of Hell.

23

An old memory: I was sixteen, and my father lay dying in his bed.

My mother, who had to take up work now, needed me home to help nurse him while he was in pain.

I sat each day with him, and one morning, when I brought him his breakfast, which he barely touched, he told me, “You’re an evil son-of-a-bitch, Gordie. You show the world how good you are, but I know who you are on the inside. I’ve seen it since you were a baby. You have the Devil in you, and you spend your time hiding it.”

I sat with him, patiently, nodding so that I might not appear to be the bad child.

Then, when he was through talking about my evil and how I was going to Hell, I offered him a glass of water.

He drank it, greedily, and passed the glass back to me.

“I still love you, dad,” I said.

“I know you do,” he said.

In the afternoon, he died, peacefully, in his sleep.

I missed him terribly.

His lifeless body, in that bed, made me remember the day he had me shoot my dog and had taught me about how sometimes,
Death is a friend
.

24

There. I’ve told you it all. I’ve told you about the war, and the young woman, and my father.

My youth, pulled from the drawer, so you can look at it and judge me.

I should be tied up.

Bound.

Whipped.

It is the only way for me to go out of this body, the freedom of my mind to wander. It intensifies the Dark Game for me.

I don’t want to remember anymore.

I want to close the drawer now.

I want to lock up the past.

I give to you, my wife, Mia, the key.

About the Author

Douglas Clegg
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Priest of Blood,
Afterlife
,
Isis,
and
Neverland
among other novels. His short story collection,
The Machinery of Night
, won a Shocker Award, and his first collection,
The Nightmare Chronicles
, won both the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. He lives in New England.

Visit Douglas Clegg at
www.DouglasClegg.com

Get stories, bonus content, screensavers and more at
DouglasClegg.com
right now.

Be sure and pick up other Douglas Clegg ebooks, including:

Afterlife

In this tense gothic thriller, Julie Hutchinson is a woman driven to the edge of sanity when a brutal murder ignites a series of psychic invasions at her home.

From the Publisher's Weekly starred review for
Afterlife
:
"Stoker-winner Clegg (The Hour Before Dark) has an uncanny ability to frighten readers by chronicling everyday characters' perilous descents into their own private hells. Julie Hutchinson mentally unravels after the brutal and mysterious murder of her husband, Jeff, in this stand-alone tale full of subtle suspense, inventive twists and credible characters. Julie has erotic nightmares and hideous hallucinations while slowly trying to piece together the decades-old puzzle involving her husband's past....The book's final sentence is guaranteed to unnerve readers and leave them wanting more."

Also available in ebook format:

The Words

Purity

Isis

Neverland

Goat Dance

Just search for "Douglas Clegg" online in your favorite ebook format for these titles and more.

Praise for Clegg's fiction from bestselling authors:

"Clegg is the best horror writer of the post-Stephen King generation."
— Bentley Little, author of The Policy
"Clegg delivers!"
— John Saul, bestselling author of Faces of Fear and The Devil's Labyrinth.
"A master of the genre. Absolutely thrilling! Douglas Clegg is the future of dark fantasy."
— Sherrilyn Kenyon
New York Times bestselling author of the Dark-Hunters.
"Douglas Clegg has become the new star in horror fiction."
— Peter Straub
author of Lost Boy, Lost Girl and the New York Times Bestseller Black House (with Stephen King)
"Clegg's stories can chill the spine so effectively that the reader should keep paramedics on standby."
— Dean Koontz
"Clegg is one of the best!"
— Richard Laymon
"Douglas Clegg is a weaver of nightmares!"
— Robert R. McCammon
author of The Queen of Bedlam and Speaks The Nightbird.