The Claw

Forty

Alan leaned against a tree at the edge of the clearing. He was afraid that he was going to fall. As soon as the eyeless figure had jerked and fallen back, his fury had left him. He felt drained, giddy, weak as a convalescent. The silence seemed empty now, no longer ominous, but his thoughts were deafening. He was thinking of what he still had to do.

It made his guts squirm. How could he ever have believed himself capable of such a thing? He was just an ordinary civilized human being, alone and far from home. True, he'd left behind everything he knew and loved; but that didn't mean that he could leave himself behind. There was nobody to see what he did except himself, but that was enough to prevent him. Perhaps if Isaac had still been alive to encourage him he might have forced himself, for Anna's sake.

Isaac had died in bringing him here. Isaac had as good as died for him. That thought rekindled his fury, briefly. However dreadful his task might be, considerably less than his life was required of him. It would be a kind of revenge for Isaac, and that was the least Isaac deserved. He made himself step forward while that was clear in his mind, and used one foot to lever the withered corpse off Isaac's body.

Averting his eyes from the wound that had been Isaac's throat, he reached inside Isaac's jacket and found the knife. His innards clenched again. He must have been hoping it wouldn't be there. He'd known it was, known that Isaac had been keeping it out of sight so as not to remind him before it was necessary. He grasped the sheath and drew it out, making sure he didn't touch the blade. He knew how sharp it was.

The glade was growing dim. Did that mean it would soon be dark, or was it just his eyes? Perhaps the Leopard Man's companions were on their way back. At least that gave him a reason to hurry. He stuck the sheathed knife in his belt and stooped quickly to the old man's wrists. He wanted no time to think.

He began to drag the corpse along, its buttocks bumping over the ground. Its trail on the grass looked more like an insect's juices than blood; very little had leaked out of its leathery face. When he'd dragged the corpse almost to the fire, he dropped the wrists and went to look in the pot.

Except for a few inches of steaming water, it was empty. He poked at the embers beneath it with a stick. In a moment they reddened and flared up, and before long the water was bubbling. It was churning, and so were his guts. How could he go through with this horrible farce? But it was the only way he could think of to attempt what he had to do.

He pulled out the knife and stood over the corpse. By God, there wasn't much of it. He was grinning savagely, hysterically. To come all this way, through so much, only to be thwarted because there was no meat on his adversary's body! He turned it over with his foot, then he had to close his eyes, he was so sickened by his plan. There was no alternative. He stooped, and with two inexpert slices hacked off the corpse's scrawny buttocks.

He had to close his eyes again before he could pick up the pieces of meat. He would have carried them between finger and thumb, except that they were too slippery. He dug his long nails into them and stumbled to the cooking pot, almost running. Rump steak, his mind was babbling, rump steak. When he threw in the meat, drops of hot water stung his hands like needles.

He began to pace slowly around the clearing. If he walked fast he was too aware of trying to distract himself. It still wasn't dark; the general gloom seemed not to have deepened – perhaps he'd been trying to believe it was later than it was in order to give himself an excuse to flee. In the silence he could hear the pot bubbling. His stomach tightened, his throat writhed. He remembered Isaac's words: By devouring your enemy you gain his power, conquer it – there is no other way to conquer the power of the Leopard Men, of the claw. He'd been eating dead flesh all his life, that was what meat was; he just hadn't butchered it himself before. Butchery was the old man's corpse face down on the grass, the glimpse of reddened bone poking through the raw flat patches where the buttocks had been. Alan had to turn away quickly, choking.

Time was passing. The water in the pot must be boiling now. As the steam drifted toward him, it seemed to bring with it a faint smell of meat. Every moment made his throat tighter, made him shrink further into himself, more and more aware of what he was proposing to do. By God, he'd go through with it; it must be the worst thing you could do to a Leopard Man – that at least would be some revenge for Isaac. All at once, while his fury was uppermost, he strode to the pot.

There wasn't much meat to be seen through the greasy bubbles. The two slices looked greyish and shrunken. At this rate there'd soon be no meat left. He plunged the knife into the boiling water and speared one slice. When he held it up, steaming, he could almost believe it was just meat -dark chicken meat, perhaps. As soon as it seemed cool enough, he sawed off a piece. Holding the rest in his left hand, he lifted the piece to his mouth on the point of the knife.

He'd hoped that it was small enough to swallow without chewing, but his throat had closed tight and his mouth was dry. He had to chew the stringy meat, chew and keep chewing. He was holding his breath, with the vague idea that to do so would prevent him from tasting, but there was a taste like greasy pork in his mouth now – not quite enough like pork. Though he had his back to it, he was intensely, almost feverishly, aware of the mutilated corpse. He swallowed at last, and stood there, eyes closed, stomach writhing, body trembling.

The portion he'd swallowed might not be enough, assuming that mattered. He sawed off another small piece and managed to down that, then he stuffed the rest of the slice into his mouth, chewing desperately, eager to be finished. That was a mistake. His stomach rebelled. He had to keep the meat down, whatever he did; whatever happened, he mustn't open his mouth. He was chewing violently, but his mouth was dry. His thoughts were babbling, trying to take his mind off what he was doing: rump steak, think of Anna, finish here and then he could go home, do it for Anna and Liz, they need never know, they must never know, one look at his face and they would know, if they recognized him at all, the butcher, the baker, the cannibal maker, my husband the cannibal…

All at once his whole body convulsed and he vomited uncontrollably, straight into the pot. He felt as if he was trying to vomit the depths of himself, give back the part of himself he couldn't bear.

He groped his way blindly to the trees and leaned against them. He was shivering as if he would never stop. He felt purged, empty, hardly there at all. Sounds of the jungle, faint but clear, surrounded him. Soon it would be dark. He felt that the moment he left the support of the trees he'd fall and never be able to move. Yet he had to move: suppose the old man's companions came back while he was here? He had to go into the darkening jungle. There was only one thing he could think of to do.