The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

STEVEN ERIKSON This Rich Evil Sound

I'm not an old man. Sometimes the tracks old men think along are so deep cut nobody can see where they're going, maybe not even see the tracks themselves. But then I think that maybe there are different kinds of old. People say I should've been born a hundred years ago. Does that make me old in some way? They don't mean harm when they talk like that. It's just that they don't know me. I was in love with this girl, once, back in high school. Her name was Linda, and she was pretty popular, I guess. One day in the lunchroom I got down on one knee and sang for her a love song. One of my buddies had laid a dare on me — they sat at their table laughing and cheering. It was something I wanted to do anyway. No harm in it. The guys thought it was silly, but that's all right, too.

I know people make fun of me. I just look at things different from others. Before I got big I used to get in fights. There's always guys who don't like the way you look at things. They think it makes you weaker than them, maybe, and that's what they were trying to prove by fighting me. By the time I was fifteen they left me alone. They still figured me weak in my head, probably, but my body didn't look weak, not any more.

I'm twenty now, so people have been leaving me alone for about five years. I don't mind. I like being alone. I quit school when I was sixteen, headed out into the bush. I spent the winter in northern Manitoba, nearly froze my feet off. I learned to lay trap lines from this Ojibwa Indian. He didn't know a word of English, except "nineteen seventy". I tried to teach him "nineteen eighty" because that was the year, but I don't think he ever got it. When I got back to Winnipeg I applied for and got a trapping licence and that's what I've been doing ever since, out in Whiteshell Park.

In summers the park is full of people, so I head to Grassy River where it's quieter. But in the winter the only people in the park are rangers and trappers and old people who don't like the city and stay in their cabins. I don't mind running into those people, because we usually look at things the same way, and they don't make fun of me or anything.

This winter I was working Redrock Lake and the Whiteshell River. I'd heard from one of the rangers that Charlie Clark was wintering for the first time up at his cottage on Jessica Lake, so I decided to pay him a visit. Ever since they'd retired, Charlie and his wife had been spending the summers out here. But his wife died last summer, so he was all alone. I knew he'd be glad for some company.

I use a tent, but most trappers got cabins, because the years just pull at you and pretty soon a tent or quincy's too cold. It gets hard checking the lines when all your bones ache. Charlie wasn't a trapper, but I knew he'd understand and put me up for a couple days so I could dry out and get toasty. I'm pretty tough but I don't mind some luxury when I can get it.

Getting to Jessica Lake was easy. The Whiteshell River connects most of the lakes in the park. I broke camp an hour before dawn and walked the river. Winter's the quietest season. You're the only thing moving, the only thing making any sound. You listen to your breath, to the backpack creaking in its straps, to the crunch of your snowshoes. You can sing songs to pass the time and your voice sounds beautiful. And you can think about things, taking all the time you want to, with nobody pushing you for answers. You can think as slow as you like, and the rest of the world, if it cares at all, just waits. No ticking clocks, just shadows all blue and soft and moving slower than you can see.

I reached the park highway by noon. They keep it ploughed for the cross-country skiers who come out from Winnipeg on warm weekends and for people like Charlie Clark.

I smelled wood smoke long before I saw his cottage. There'd been a cold snap the last couple weeks. No snow, no wind, just that rich silence under a sun-dogged sky. The smoke hung in the air like it had no place to go, smelling bittersweet because it was black spruce. It's not a good wood to burn, since it goes fast and doesn't give off much heat. I figured Charlie was getting low on his wood supply. A few minutes later the cottage came into view, its windows lit.

I gave a shout just to warn him, then turned into the driveway. At the porch I unstrapped my snowshoes. Charlie had come to the window and was now trying to open the frozen door. He had to shove it hard a couple times before it swung free of its frame.

"Goddammit, Daniel, it's good to see you! Get in here!"

"You running low on wood, Charlie?" I asked as I stepped inside and Charlie closed the door behind me.

"Just one pile's getting down," Charlie said. "I cleared some black spruce from out back last summer. Just using it up. How the hell have you been?"

"Good." I took my backpack off, started stripping down some. "Thick pelts this winter."

Charlie shook his head, rubbing his brow. "Animals. They always know when it's gonna be a cold one. They always know, don't they?"

"Sure do," I said. We went into the den and sat down in front of the fireplace. The ranger had told me that Charlie had taken his wife's death pretty hard, and I could see that he didn't look too good. The skin of his face was pasty and yellow. And I saw that a shaking had come to his hands. "How you been, Charlie?" I asked, stretching my feet towards the fire.

"Strange winter, eh?" Charlie looked down, rubbing his forehead again. "I know this sounds funny, but I'm tasting metal these days." He squinted at me. "Can't really explain it, Daniel. But ever since the snows hit for real, I might as well be eating lead ten times a day, from the taste I'm tasting."

I glanced at him, then looked away. He was giving me this real troubled look. I stared at the fire. "Don't know," I finally said. "Maybe it's the lake water."

"Hell no, it isn't like that." He paused. "Had a heart attack last summer, did you know that?"

I shook my head. "Didn't hear anything about it. How bad was —»

"The doctor in the city — I forget his name, he took over when Bill retired, just a kid, really — he's been phoning me about once a week, asking me how I'm doing. So I tell him, but he says it's just psychological. He says there's no way somebody can taste a pacemaker. I suppose he knows what he's talking about." Charlie looked up at me and smiled. "But he was the one making the connection with the wind-up, not me, right? I just said to him, 'I keep tasting metal, Doc. How about that?'"

"And what did he say to that?"

"Psychological, like I told you."

"Oh yeah. Right." I studied the flames, listened to the snapping wood. It was burning real fast, that black spruce. For some reason I wanted it to slow down. It was burning too fast, just eating itself up and hardly any warmth reaching my feet. The way the wood spit out sparks bothered me, too, like words coming so quick all you can do is nod, answering everything «yes» no matter what you hear.

"Young people," Charlie said. "The ones in the city, like that doc." He looked at me. "The city people — can you figure them, Daniel?"

I laughed. "If I could maybe I wouldn't be here."

"You can't figure them, then?"

I shrugged. "They're just different, that's all. Like when things go quiet — they gotta make noise. So when they do something funny everybody laughs real loud, and it's not quiet anymore, and they get comfortable again. And winter, and the bush — well, they don't know what winter is, and they don't like the bush, the way it just swallows their noise. You couldn't laugh loud enough to keep that from happening, I bet."

Charlie was nodding. "Always questions, that's what I notice. Always 'why?' They ask 'why?' and then they answer themselves right away. 'Why? Because.' Just like that. Making everything seem so simple. Know what I mean? And they're always so suspicious, especially about complicated things, like when I say I'm tasting metal. 'Why?' 'Psychological.' Just like that. I was a teacher, did you know that, Daniel?"

"Sure."

"Ten-year-old kids like that question. 'Why?' How old are you, Daniel?"

"Twenty," I said, feeling uncomfortable for some reason, maybe about the way he kept using my name. He made it sound strange, like it wasn't my own. I thought about what I'd said, about city people, and I wondered at how angry I got saying it.

Charlie was talking. "Me and Mary couldn't have kids, did you know that? It was a hard thing for her to accept. I didn't mind. I didn't mind at all. The Lord just didn't see fit, that's all."

The room should have felt cozy, with the bear rug between us and all the knick-knacks crowding the shelves, the mounted jack and the antlers on the walls, the easy chair deep and comfortable. But it didn't feel cozy. I put more black spruce on the fire, then pulled my chair closer to it. "Anybody else drop by?" I asked.

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, the strangest winter. And it's not just the taste in my mouth, either. When it was snowing the ploughs used to come and clear the road a couple times a week. I'd go out and give them a wave, let them know I haven't run out of batteries or something." He laughed. "On the really cold days I flagged them down, gave them a thermos of hot chocolate. And you know, no matter if it was a different driver next week, I always got the thermos back. Sometimes we talked a bit. You know, just to keep the jaws greased. I told them about the buck, the one that comes across the lake every morning, right up to the cabin looking for food. And the very next week one of the drivers drops off two bales of hay. How about that?"

He'd been talking so fast I wondered if I'd missed something. "Charlie, what buck?"

He looked surprised. "I didn't tell you about the buck?"

"I don't think so."

Charlie's gaze returned to the fire. "Hasn't snowed in weeks. The ploughs stopped coming. Sometimes I swear I can hear them, way off down the road, so I go out, right? I go out and wait, figuring they're coming to check up on me. But they must be doing something else, cause they don't come. I can hear them, all right. They must be busy, right?"

"Sure." I stood. "Listen, I'm gonna get some other wood, if that's all right?"

"Fine. You go right ahead and get it, Daniel. That's fine by me. I got some birch out back."

"Great," I said.

Outside, I stood in front of the woodpile, holding Charlie's axe in my hands. I listened to the silence beyond the sounds of my breath. The muscles around my neck felt tight. I let the quiet sink into me, studied the grey trees beyond the clearing. Without leaves the trees all seemed to be standing alone, each one cut off from the others. The snow beneath them was like empty space, as if the roots and earth had been wiped away, leaving nothing behind.

My feet began to tingle. My toes had been frozen so many times there wasn't much feeling left in them anyway. All I had to do, I knew, was to get moving, but I just kept standing there, and the cold started working its way up my legs the way it does — picking out little areas, making them feel sort of wet, exposed. Then the feeling goes and there's just an empty patch. My knees went, then my thighs.

Behind me the backdoor opened. "Hey, Daniel?" The spell, or whatever it was, broke. I turned around. Charlie was standing just inside the door, clouds of vapour around his legs.

"Just thinking," I said to him, smiling.

"Thought you froze right up!" Charlie said, laughing. "Hurry up back inside. I got hot chocolate brewing."

"Right," I said, turning back to the woodpile. I began pulling out birch logs. To split them all I had to do was let the axe fall of its own weight — the logs seemed to almost jump apart. But the moving around brought the feeling back to my legs.

I piled wood on the back porch, then brought an armload inside. Charlie was in the kitchen, standing by the stove.

"They must be pretty busy, right?" he asked, stirring Fry's cocoa into a pot of simmering milk.

"Who?"

"The guys who clear the roads, like I was saying before. There's lots of side roads that probably need work, ones they couldn't get around to earlier, right? Can you believe this cold snap? All night long I can hear trees cracking. Exploding, you know? It's an eerie sound, all right. Can't say I like it. Do you like it, Daniel? I've been getting up at dawn and I make some coffee and sit in the rocker so I can look out over the lake.

"That's how I first saw the buck, looking out over the lake. He comes from the far side, every morning. Stumbling through the deep snow. Uses a different trail every time. Can you figure that?"

Charlie poured us cups of hot chocolate. We returned to the den. I set my cup down on the mantle and went to bring in the birch. The echo of the axe splitting the wood kept going through my head, making me think of what Charlie had been saying about exploding trees.

I stoked the fire, then sat down again. "That doc in the city," I said, "he's still phoning you every week?"

Charlie rubbed his face, then licked his lips. "I unplugged the phone. He kept saying the same old thing, over and over again." He leaned towards me and gestured for me to get closer. "Tell me, do you think my tongue's turning blue?" He poked out his tongue.

I looked at it, then sat back. "Hard to tell," I said. "Don't think so."

"I think so," Charlie said.

The heat coming from the birch logs made me push my chair back. I thought about the nights I'd spent alone, wrapped in my Woods arctic sleeping bag, watching my breath lay a sheet of ice on the nylon ceiling above me. I'd be filled with the silence, so filled and warm, with my thoughts going slow as they like to do. Then crack! A tree would explode. I'd jump, stare into the darkness, my heart pounding. Black spruce. It's the black spruce that explodes.

"I hope the ploughs come back," Charlie said. "We're running low on hay." He frowned suddenly. "Oh," he said, "I forgot." He climbed to his feet. "Come on, Daniel, let's look out over the lake."

I followed him to the large frosted window. We stood side by side and stared outward. I could see the buck's trails, shadowed blue. They stopped at a scuffed-up area just below the porch deck, maybe thirty feet away. The scuffed-up area was spattered with frozen blood, and off to one side lay the frosted carcass of the buck, half-eaten.

"Wolves? Jesus, nobody's seen a wolf in this park for years."

Charlie asked, "Did you see the Northern Lights last night?"

"I'm usually asleep by seven," I said.

"From horizon to horizon, I've never seen them so big. They made a sound like, like wind on sand, falling all around. All around. It's so beautiful, Daniel. There's no real way to describe it, is there?"

"Not really. You're right in that." But I knew that sound, the voice behind the silence, the voice that pushed the silence into me. And I knew what that voice said, the single word over and over again. Alone, alone, alone.

"Only," Charlie continued, "only, there'd be this falling from the sky, right? And all these streams of colour. And deep in the forest, deep in the forest, Daniel. The trees kept on shattering. As if, for just last night, for just those few hours when I was standing out there, the world was made of glass. The thinnest glass. And the trees reaching upward. I don't know." Charlie turned to me, a terrible frown on his lined face. "Maybe the trees were made of glass, too. But all gnarled and bubbled and black. Trying to join the sky, but too rough." He turned back to the window. "Too rough. Just no way they could make it. They were reaching up, to where the colours played. Reaching. Then snapping. Like gunshots. I tell you, in certain lights you can see it — the blue on my tongue. Then the glass in the sky shattered, and there was this falling. Endless falling."

I nodded. "Like the world was made of glass." His words had left a pain inside me, a deep, spreading pain. "Too rough," I said, "wanting to play with the colours, all the colours. But too rough." The voice whispered its word in my head, and it hurt me.

"That buck," Charlie said, "he was so strong, so healthy. All his life. You could see that. He — I built this cabin with my own hands, Daniel, did you know that? He was strong, healthy. He'd been through hard times lately, but he was all right. Four wolves. I watched it all happen. That buck, running across the lake, full bore. I was sitting in this rocker, this one right here. They took him not twenty yards from here — you can see where he first went down. I'd been thinking about getting my bear rifle, but it was already too late. That's the way it looked anyway. But the buck," he shook his head, "that buck, he just got up and kept coming. You can see it — he dragged those wolves ten, fifteen yards. Dragged all of them."

"Son of a bitch," I said.

"He'd been so strong, all his life. He dragged them all right, but in the end it didn't matter. It didn't count for nothing. I just sat here, all this morning, watching them wolves eating. Funny, they kept walking around and around him, not knowing what to do, really. What to do with it all."

I stared at the carcass, at the gnawed ribs and purple ice-flecked meat. "They'll be back for more," I said. "They earned it."

"I'm thinking, Daniel, the same things over and over again. Funny how that happens, eh? I'm thinking about my rifle, and that taste filling my mouth. Metal. He'd been so strong, cut down just like that. And I'm thinking about this window, this one right in front of us, Daniel. Two panes each a quarter inch thick. How everything happened in absolute silence. And the only sound I knew, I know, is something I feel more than hear. It's probably psychological, eh, Daniel? But there's this tingling, like glass chimes, and there's this humming — both coming from my chest. It's fading, I think, Daniel."

I shook my head, again and again, but he wasn't paying any attention to me. I didn't even know what I was saying no to, but in my head a voice kept asking, "Why?" Why? And Charlie, he kept answering me, he kept saying "Because, Daniel. Only because. Just because."

"The strangest winter," Charlie said. "No way to explain it, any of it. My tongue turning bluer and bluer, getting stained deeper and deeper every time, the doc telling me it's psychological — what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

We stood there for a long time, staring at the carcass. I wanted to cry, I wanted to shut my ears, stop the silence outside, never again let it in. But the tracks were cut too deep inside me. I'm not an old man. I don't think I'm very smart as far as young people go. I was never good at things they're good at. I'm not brave, and I'm sorry for that. I really am. I left Charlie that afternoon. I ran from him, across the lake, using one of the buck's trails. I pitched my tent on the other side of Jessica Lake. I could've gone farther but I didn't. I know it wasn't a tree shattering that woke me that night, made me jump up, staring into the darkness, heart pounding. I know that it wasn't a tree, and I'm sorry. Truly sorry.