Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts Page 2

  We got a ’andful a places we go. Lonesome places, mostly, where the constables don’t. Ya’d think they’d catch us, since we keep comin’ back, but they don’t care. Only worry we got is a ’usband or a fiancé waitin’ up wi’ a pistol, an we watch out fer that.

  We keep comin’ back ’ere, though, more than the others. The best diggin’s ’ere, like a mine that keeps payin’ out. Or it was. Since Anna Fairchild we aint ’ad much luck wi’ this place.

  Christ, I still remember ’er name.

  Third time we been back since then, third time we dug ’em up. Nothin’ left a the bodies, just worms an bones. Jesus, ’ow do they eat ’em so fast? They gotta get through the casket first, don’t they? An this one ain’t been in the ground a day. What we gotta do, take ’em off the wagon?

  There’s blokes that kill to fill the tables at the anatomy schools. I know it as well as anyone. Folks at the schools know it too, though they pretend they don’t. But I ain’t interested in stretching me neck fer a few pounds.

  We didn’t talk about it, but I guess Wolfe an I both knew we was comin’ out ’ere early tonight ’cause we might ’ave ta dig twice. ’Cause, without sayin’ anythin’, I just go over an start diggin’. An older grave, the body won’t be worth much ta the schools, but I got to know.

  Thunk! An then the mattock, almost ’fore I can get outta the way. ’S a man, or was, though I dunno ’ow I can tell. The features’re gone, just starin’ sockets an blank white bones an the worms, pale an squirmin’ like a bed all ’round ’im.

  Wolfe dropped the lantern, I guess. ’S out, anyway. Glad there’s a moon tonight, though usually’s a bane ta such as us. Thanks ta it I can see Wolfe run over ta another grave an start ’ackin’ at it wi’ the mattock, throwin’ bits a dirt out behind like a hound diggin’ for a bone.

  There’s the sound a the mattock splinterin’ the casket, an then there’s Wolfe retchin’ an cursin’, but I don’t ’ave ta go an look ta know what ’e’s found.

  ***

  “Know ’ow I got inta this business?” Wolfe asks me at the pub. That’s ’is what? Fifth? “I were married once, y’know?”

  ’Ard to see Wolfe as married, but ’e ’olds up ’is fingers an there it is—years gone now an almost lost unner a film a graveyard dirt—the lighter circle ’round ’is finger where the weddin’ ring use’ta sit. “’Ad me an honest job—well, more honest anyway. ’Ad me a place, though it weren’t much. ’Ad me a woman ta come ’ome to ev’ry night. Pretty thing, too, though you’d not think it ta see ’er now, I wager.”

  ’E ain’t lookin’ at me, thank God. If ’e did, ’e’d see I’m near ta squirmin’ in my seat. Wolfe don’t talk like this, ain’t never talked like this, an ’e’s makin’ me mighty nervous doin’ it now.

  “We was young, I guess,” ’e says. “She was, an I know if I weren’t young then I felt it. Yer stupid when yer young, an that’s good. Maybe yer still young enough ta be stupid like that, ya find the right girl. Ya think things is always gonna get better. Not all at once, but gradual. On balance. Ya ever felt like that?”

  ’E takes a drink, but don’t wait fer me ta answer, an I’m glad ’cause if I answered it’d be “no” an I think that’d stop ’is story. An while the story’s makin’ me uncomfortable, the silence’d be worse.

  “’Course, it don’t. Maybe for some folks it does. I use’ta think so, now I know better’n ta think about it at all. What matters ’s that it didn’t fer me, an it didn’t fer ’er. I lost me job’s ’ow it started. She took it better’n I did, an that’s good ’cause I didn’t take it s’well. Then, one mornin’, she’s comin’ back ta our place an she falls in front of a carriage. Somehow er other she’d gotten ahold a some eggs. She was gonna make ’em fer me breakfast, I guess. There they was, I remember, eggs all over the road, an all of ’em busted.”

  ’E finishes ’is drink. I don’t blame ’im, an I do the same, partly ’cause I need it an partly ta keep from ’avin’ ta say anythin’.

  “I sold ’er body to the resurrection man,” ’e says, quickly now. “What did I care, eh? An most a ’er were intact, in spite a the ’orses. I sold me ring. It was that or starve, eh?”

  Christ, the thump a ’is bottle on the table makes me jump. “If I don’t get to bury ’er, ’ave a place to go an leave the flowers, then why should other folks, eh? They can cut ’er up, they can cut up anybody. Jus’ bodies anyway. Jus’ meat. A man ’as ta make a livin’, while ’e’s alive. An ain’t no bloody worms gonna beat me to it.”

  ***

  I think maybe Wolfe’s gone crazy. So then why’m I goin’ along? ’Cause we’re partners, I guess.

  The stuff in the wagon clinks together an sloshes. Sounds like we’re ’aulin’ liquor. God, I wish we was ’aulin’ liquor.

  I tried ta talk ’im inta givin’ it up, inta goin’ ta on a the other boneyards. We only found the worms in this one, but it were our best one, ’an ’e were ’avin’ none a it. Wouldn’t be beaten, ’e said. Not by worms.

  ’Srainin’, of course. Be a blessin’ ’cause it’ll keep us from bein’ seen. Be a curse if we was diggin’, but we ain’t, not tonight, though we got the mattock an the spade with us outta ’abit.

  Wolfe says the rain’ll be good, keep the fumes from gettin’ too bad, though we got our bandanas up over our mouths, like highwaymen.

  Fumes, I say. Christ Jesus. But ’e won’t be dissuaded.

  I don’t know where ’e got the stuff. Said ’e ’ad a friend at one a the schools what owed ’im a favor.

  Some favor! Fifteen bottles a carbolic. Fifteen! Like bottles a whiskey back there—clink clink—’cept they got labels on ’em says they’re poison an then some.

  The rain’s let up a bit. Jus’ drippin’ off things now, like ’eavy fog. I ’ate the rain, even if it does keep the smell down. I ’ate the way it makes the trees look soggy, like they’d give if ya put yer ’and on ’em.

  This is the grave we’d a dug up tonight, I guess, if we’d been diggin’. Just thinkin’ ’bout all those worms down there. Rain’s made the ground soft so it squishes under me boots, makes it easy to imagine ’em comin’ up. Water’s runnin’ in rivulets down the ’ill, slidin’ like snakes off the ’eadstones, so it looks like the ground’s crawlin’ an writhin’ like it’s made a worms.

  There goes the tarp, an Wolfe’s got a bottle an ’e’s showin’ me ’ow ta pour it, like I don’t know ’ow ta pour somethin’ onta the ground.

  ’E wasn’ kiddin’ ’bout the fumes, I guess. They rise up like smoke, yella an sick lookin’ in the light from the lantern. I’m imaginin’ what the grass’ll look like tomorra or the day after or the day after that: yella an brittle an dead. Maybe tha’s ’ow it ought ta be. Maybe all the grass an trees in a graveyard ought ta be dead. A reminder, like Ol’ Skull-Head.

  I see if I can spot the statue that was standin’ near Anna Fairchild’s grave. Anythin’ ta stop lookin’ at the ground an the poison fog that’s comin’ up as Wolfe pours the carbolic. But everythin’ outside the little spot a light’s a shadow, an all the monuments jus’ look like black shapes crowdin’ up on us. Patient brigands, waitin’ ’til we’re dead an gone. Like the anatomy students; like the worms.

  Speak a the devil an ’e will appear, as my pa used ta say ’fore I ran off from ’ome. They’re boilin’ up outta the ground, writhin’ an squirmin’ as the acid burns ’em. An Jesus, the sound it makes. Sounds like they’re screamin’, an Wolfe’s laughter ain’t no better. ’E don’t sound triumphant, like I think ’e means ta, ’e just sounds crazy.

  Wha’s that? A shape outside the light? Constable, maybe, or, God ’elp us, a mourner? We weren’t careful tonight like we shoulda been. Oh, tonight of all nights don’t let it be a mourner.

  But it ain’t. Oh merciful ’eaven it ain’t an I wish it was. The wind’s up now, an the sackcloth is blowin’ in black tatters ’round it, makin’ it writhe like the worms. Only that ain’t all sackcloth.

  I got the spade, been
’oldin’ it this whole time, an I hit it an knock pieces off that disappear, squirmin’, inta the dark. Jesus Christ, Wolfe, get the lantern off it! I don’t wanna see!

  But I do see. There’s bones under all those worms. Bones up an walkin’ round like they got a new skin.

  The sound that Wolfe makes I ain’t got a name for, an ’e dashes the bottle a carbolic in its face, if it’s got a face, an it’s shrieking.

  I’m runnin’, I realize. The ground’s wet an soft an I’m fallin’ runnin’ fallin’ runnin’ again. I ain’t got the spade anymore. I ain’t got nothin’.

  Wolfe’s beside me, an then ’e slips an goes down an doesn’t get back up. I stop, stumble, look back. I’m gonna ’elp ’im, I know I am, but ’e comes up all covered in worms an behind ’im is the shadow of that thing, like Ol’ Skull-Head, grinnin’ an grinnin’ outta a hood a worms an I don’t ’elp ’im. I just run.

  ***

  The rain’s started ta come ’ard again. I feel it against the door at me back. I don’t remember slidin’ down ’ere, but I guess I did ’cause ’ere I am.

  The door’s locked. I remember doin’ that, but I check again anyway, reachin’ up wi’ me ’and. I take it down, then I dunno, so I check again, an again.

  I didn’t see nothin’. Didn’t see nothin’, jus’ a statue an some worms an it was dark an Wolfe an... Jesus Jesus Jesus.

  A knock. Oh Christ, a knock on the door, soft but firm, like a rotten log. Just the rain. Just a gust a wind. Scarin’ myself, all I’m doin’.

  Again. There it is again.

  “Charlie.”

  That’s Wolfe’s voice. ’E made it back. But it sounds as if ’e’s ’urt, maybe. Talkin’ through a mouthful a blood an broken teeth.

  “Let me in, Charlie.”

  It must be awful bad. Sounds like a kid talkin’ wi’ ’is mouth fulla porridge.

  I ain’t gonna open the door. I’m gonna stay right ’ere an it’ll go away. Oh Jesus, please let it go away. I’ll do better. I won’t be a resurrection man no more.

  I don’t care if the anatomy schools get me when I’m gone, but not this. Please not this.

  “Let us in, Charlie.”

  I ain’t gonna open the door, ’cause it ain’t Wolfe. It’ll look like ’im, right enough, least a little bit. Like someone wearin’ ’is clothes, maybe, an a suit as ’is skin an a mask as ’is face. Not someone, though. Something.

  Worms. ’E’ll be made a worms.

  Author’s Notes:

  While “The Worm That Gnaws” may get its title and the idea for its monster from my favorite Lovecraft quote, it was written as an ode to all those grave robber duos who used to provide comic relief in the old black-and-white horror movies of the ’30s. It was partly an exercise to see if I could write in that thick Edinburgh grave robber accent, and partly just an extension of my lasting obsession with cemeteries and resurrection men. The statue of Ol’ Skull-Head is a nod to the grave robbing scene in James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein.

  “The Worm That Gnaws” is the oldest story in this collection, and this is its first time in print, though it’s been out in the world since 2009, when it was my first sale to Pseudopod. I struck up a pretty good relationship with them, and I’ve since sold two other stories to current Pseudopod editor Shawn Garrett. This is the only story I ever sold to them that wasn’t a reprint. I figured it would work nicely in audio form, because of the accent, and I was more right than I could have guessed. Ian Stuart nailed the voice so perfectly that the podcast remains my preferred version of the story, and a favorite among Pseudopod listeners. If you enjoyed it here (or even if you didn’t), I’d definitely recommend giving the podcast a listen.

  When he bought the story, then-editor Ben Phillips said that it had “more apostrophes than any story I’ve ever seen.” I’d imagine it probably still holds that record.

  The White Prince

  At night, then, it came crawling through Miss Anna’s open window. A pale thing. I doubt it ever had seen the sun.

  Why did she accept its embrace and not my own? By the time we knew the truth, she was already far gone, and her shame sealed her torn lips with silence. Neither would she speak to me, one of her suitors, nor to Peter, her fiancé. Visiting Dr. von Stane attended her that last night. Afterward, he pulled me aside and told me that, delirious, she pleaded for her “alabaster prince.”

  That final night we all waited: Peter crouched in her wardrobe, the rest of us in the next room. Lights hooded, hands sweating on the hafts of spears cut from the ash trees found down by the stream, listening for the sounds of its ascent. I thought I heard a wet sound, as if something damp slapped at the walls of the manor. We had to wait to be sure, wait until we saw the hideous outline set against the moonlight streaming through the open window, until it had slumped into the room and was almost upon her bed, as it had been now for how many nights. Only then did we reveal our lanterns and spring into the room.

  Its bulbous eyes grew wide, swiveling in a batrachian face, as it peered at us. It was Peter who drove in the spear, piercing the damp, fleshy bag of the thing’s body. It made a sound, not quite a dog’s bark, and it stumbled back, its long fingers with their sucking pads reaching feebly for my friend, who drew away in terror. The ungainly creature flopped for a moment, then disappeared out the window.

  The gardener was the first to the ground, and found the spot where the body had fallen, the grass crushed flat and smeared with blood. Even in the dark we could see the trail it left, spatters of crimson that showed black in the lantern light. Peter’s father, Sir Godfrey, organized the party to hunt it down. Peter wanted to go, demanded to go, but Dr. von Stane laid his hand on Peter’s arm and said, “Anna needs you here, now more than ever,” and so Peter stayed behind.

  The good doctor, Sir Godfrey and I went out, along with the gardener and two of the stablehands. We armed ourselves with lanterns and spears, shotguns and revolvers, though I don’t know if any of us really believed that the guns would do us much good against our quarry. Sir Godfrey brought along the hatchet from the woodpile behind the house.

  We followed the trail into the woods that bordered the property, past a stream where the rocks were spattered with blood. One of the stablehands said something about how it “couldnae a got far, leakin’ like that,” but I thought of how bloated it had been, and wondered how much blood it could keep in that sack-like body, how much it could do without.

  During the whole affair, no one had ever uttered the word “vampyre,” not even Dr. von Stane, who told us to cut the branches from only the ash and sharpen them into long stakes. But all of us had read Mr. Stoker’s work published the prior year and I doubt I was alone in my thinking. But then, was it really blood it took from frail Anna, those nights when it oozed into her bed? I had been the one who caught them together, I in my bold—dare I even admit, untoward—mission to change her mind about marrying Peter. I had seen it atop her, seen her hands caressing its clammy flesh. Certainly, though, it was taking something from her, for she had been wasting away before our very eyes, dying in front of us even as her countenance took on the glow of a girl newly in love.

  As we trudged after the wounded creature through the dew-wet undergrowth of the forest, I knew that Anna would be dead before we returned. I had seen it in Dr. von Stane’s eyes as we left. We were too late to save her, and now we were simply executioners, carrying out a sentence.

  ***

  We found the cave among the moss-grown ruins of a monastery that had long since fallen to scattered stones. “Good Lord,” Sir Godfrey said as we stood in a semicircle around the dark opening, scarcely larger than a pantry door. “I used to play near here when I was a boy. There were stories, but none of us believed…” His words died with a sigh.

  One by one we crept into the dank, dripping tunnel, which seemed half-natural, though here and there hewn stones showed old carvings of monks with their heads bowed in prayer. We kept our spears before us, and our guns near at hand, moving li
ke men hunting a bear, though what we found was something already half-dead, collapsed upon some ancient crypt, its moist skin heaving as it struggled to breathe. For all its inhumanity, it looked less a hideous supernatural creature, and more just a dying animal, but our disgust and pity were worse than our fear, and it was only a moment before one of the stablehands drove in his spear once, and then again. Sir Godfrey followed suit, and I stood and held the lantern aloft so they could see to do their grisly work.

  As the thing died, it reached up and its spidery fingers found my wrist. I trembled, as if in forbidden pleasure, and saw not the ghastly creature I had seen before, but a youth, pale and frightened, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Please,” he said, his voice cracking, “please help me.” Then Sir Godfrey brought down the hatchet, and severed his head.

  I didn’t speak to the others of what I had seen, but I urged them to carry the body impaled on their spears and not to touch it. We burned the remains on a pyre in the back garden, but only after Dr. von Stane had examined them carefully. He suggested that the creature must have exuded a toxin from its beslimed skin, perhaps a hallucinogen, like certain mushrooms. I thought of the boy I had seen, and remembered the fairy tale that we were all told as children, of the princess who kisses the frog and finds him transformed into a handsome prince. I watched the fire burn, and I shuddered.

  Author’s Notes:

  “The White Prince” was written for Steve Berman’s incubus anthology Handsome Devil, and it’s one of a pair of stories that I wrote back-to-back exploring different takes on early portrayals of vampires in popular media. This one uses Stoker’s Dracula as its jumping-off point, of course, and the many-angled romances that always sat at the hearts of those early vampire tales, but it also plays with the vampire’s seductive hypnotic abilities. I was originally going to call it “The Frog Prince,” but Steve felt like that gave the game away a bit too early.