Classics Mutilated (44 page)

"It is a spirit, of sorts. The Indians of the North—the Cree, the Inuit, the Ojibwa—know it well," he explained, pausing to light his pipe. "It comes with the winter storms and is driven by a horrible hunger for human flesh. Some say it overtakes those who stay too long alone in the wilderness, while others claim it possesses only those driven to cannibalism. Of the last I have my doubts, for I have known many a cannibal in my travels, some of whom were men of good character, if not Christian disposition." 

I stared at Ahab for a long moment, trying to determine if he truly believed what he had just told me. Under normal circumstances I would have laughed and called him a lunatic. But things were far from normal, as evidenced by poor Martin, lying there under his makeshift shroud. 

"How is it you knew poor Buchan was afflicted by the wendigo?"

"My friend, are thee sure of thine desire for knowledge?" Seeing the steadfastness in my gaze, the old sailor gave a heavy sigh. "Very well, I shall answer thee, as promised. It is my business to know the unknowable, for I have been set a task unlike any since the labors of Hercules. Where once I hunted the great beasts of the ocean, now I stalk the fiends of Hell."

I could no longer hide my incredulity, and responded to this declaration with a rude laugh. "Have you lost your mind?" 

"I was once mad, but no more," Ahab said sadly. "Would that I had the balm of insanity to allay my suffering; for I am just as sane as thee, my friend, if infinitely more damned." 

"What are you babbling about?" I snapped, my patience finally worn thin. 

"Once, decades ago, I bragged of being immortal on land and on sea. Now I find I must bear the burden of that boast for all eternity."

As I listened to the old sailor's rant, the hairs on my neck stood erect. The dark fire deep in Ahab's eyes frightened me in a way the wendigo's did not. It was one thing to be stalked by a fiendish creature, quite another to be trapped with a lunatic.  

"Ah, I see the look in thine eyes," Ahab said with a grim smile. "Thou hadst seen what thou hath seen, and yet thee still deem me mad? What of
this
, then?" He pulled aside the cravat about his throat, revealing the marks of a noose no man could have survived. "Aye, I am dead. I have been such since long before your birth. I was once a righteous, God-fearing man, but I was made wicked by my pride and blasphemous by my wrath. I was determined to avenge myself on the whale that took my leg, and offered up my immortal soul in exchange for its annihilation. 

"It did not matter to me that I had a child-bride and an infant son awaiting me in Nantucket. Nor did it matter that thirty men, brave and true, had placed their lives and livelihoods in my care. There was a fire in my bosom that burned day and night, and naught would extinguish it, save the blood of the whale that maimed me. Now my child-bride is a withered crone, my infant son dead on the end of a Confederate's bayonet, and my brave crew, save for one, sleeps at the bottom of the sea. 

"I chased the accursed beast halfway across the world, and sank my harpoon into its damned hide, only to run afoul of the line. A flying turn of rope wrapped itself about my neck, yanking me below the waves, drowning me within seconds. Yet, to my horror, though I knew myself dead, I was still aware of all that transpired about me. I was helpless witness to the destruction of my ship and the deaths of my men by the whale I had pursued across three seas and two oceans.  

"And when it was over, the hated whale pulled me down, down, down—past sunken galleons, past the lairs of slumbering leviathans, past the drowned towers of long-lost kingdoms—down to the very floor of the ocean. With dead man's eyes I beheld a great chasm, from which boiled dreadful beasts with the bodies of men and heads like that of jellyfish. These abominations freed me of my tether and escorted me down into the rift, which lead into the very belly of the world, Hell itself. There I swam not through a mere lake of fire, but an entire ocean, until I came at last to a great throne.

"The throne was fashioned of horn and upon it sat the King of the Fallen, the Devil himself. The Lord of the Damned resembled nothing so much as a gigantic shadow in the shape of a man, with wings of flame and eyes that shone like burnished shields. The Devil spoke unto me, and though he had no mouth, his voice rang like a gong, shaking me to my marrow.

" ‘Ahab', he said, ‘Thou promised me thine soul in exchange for the life of the whale. Yet here you stand before me, and the fish still swims! Let it not be said that I do not honor my covenants. I have within my kingdom a park unlike any seen on Earth, with trees of bone and rivers of blood. I would populate it with monsters for the pleasure of my sport. Bring me as many fiends as men you led to death, and I shall return thy soul, to do with as thou wish.' "

Although I did not want to believe the outrageous tale the old sailor had just told me, my curiosity got the better of me. "How many men died under your command?"

"Nine and twenty," he replied solemnly.

"And how many monsters have you hunted?"

"This will be the second," he admitted. "There. I have told thee what thou asked, nothing more, nothing less. I have come to this place on the Devil's business, and I cannot leave until it is finished. It is as simple as that."

"I have had enough of this lunacy!" I exclaimed, hoping the anger in my voice would hide the fear in my heart. "You are welcome to the cabin, but I am taking the dogs and returning to the trading post!"

"The wendigo will be upon thee within minutes of setting forth," Ahab cautioned. 

"I have my rifle and my axe," I countered. "I won't be as easy to kill as Martin."

"Mortal weapons are of no use against that thing." 

"It seemed to let go of me quickly enough when you jabbed it with that over-glorified pig-sticker of yours," I pointed out.

"This is no mere harpoon," Ahab said, nodding to the spear lying across his lap. "It was forged from the hardest iron there is: the nail-stubs of steel horseshoes—the ones that racehorses wear. I myself hammered together the twelve rods for its shank, winding them together like the yarns of a rope. The barbs were cast from my own shaving razors—the finest, sharpest steel to ever touch human skin. But, most important of all, it was tempered not in water, but the blood of three pagan hunters, who, at my bidding, opened their veins so that the instrument of my revenge might partake of their strength. Thus I baptized it not in the name of the Father, but the Devil himself.
That
is why the wendigo feared it."

"All that may very well be true, but I am not a man prone to fancy. If I can see a thing, and hear a thing, and most certainly
smell
a thing, then to my mind it is of this world, not the next. And that means I can
kill
it. And if it gets in my way, I will do just that, Devil's menagerie or no!"

"I have no claim on thee," Ahab said quietly as he returned to his whetstone. "Escape if thee can."

I had no idea if Ahab was mad, damned, or a liar, and I had no desire to find which was the truth. Lantern in hand, I left the cabin and hurried to the pen where the dogs were kept. However, before I was halfway there I heard an unholy cacophony of yelps and barks. I quickened my pace, trying not to lose my footing in the knee-high snow and ice, and arrived at the dog-pen just in time to see the wendigo attack the last of the team. 

The wendigo, now easily twice the size of man, held the hapless animal by the tail and lowered it, head-first, into its gaping mouth, the jaws of which were dislocated like those of a serpent. The fiend's belly was hideously distended, far beyond human limits, and I could clearly see the outlines of the other dogs squirming underneath its ash-gray skin as they were digested alive. The wendigo's jaws snapped shut like a trap, severing the tail of the last dog, which fell to the snow in a gout of crimson.

I had been so horrified by the scene before me, I was rooted to the spot. But the sight of the dog's blood snapped me out of my petrified state, and I turned and fled back to the safety of the cabin. I did not dare turn and look behind me, for fear of what I might see in pursuit.

As I burst into the cabin, I found Ahab where I had left him, patiently applying the whetstone to his harpoon. "The dogs are dead!" I shouted. "It ate all of them!"

Ahab nodded as if this was something to be expected. "The wendigo is hunger incarnate. No matter how much it eats, its belly is never full; it exists in a perpetual state of starvation. The more it eats, the larger it grows; the larger it grows, the hungrier it gets. There is no end to it."

My mind was still reeling from the fresh horror I had just witnessed, and was only just realizing I was trapped. While I might have been able to flee the wendigo using the sled, there was no way I could possibly escape the camp on foot. It was then I surrendered my disbelief and embraced Ahab's reality as my own. 

"How can we fight against this monster?" 

If Ahab had an answer I did not hear it, for, at that exact moment, the window in front of which I stood abruptly shattered inward. I turned to see an emaciated arm as long as I am tall reach through the broken sash. I screamed in terror as the wendigo's fingers, the tips black from frostbite, closed about my leg, dragging me inexorably toward whatever stood on the other side.

Ahab was on his feet as quick as lightning, his harpoon at the ready. Without hesitation he dashed forward and plunged the spear into the wendigo's arm. The monster screamed in agony and anger as it let go of me, the absurdly long extremity withdrawing like a snake fleeing a fire. 

"I have cost it an arm, if I'm lucky!" the old sailor said excitedly, pointing to a foul-smelling, tar-like substance splashed across the floor. "That bastard won't escape me by climbing the rigging
this
time!"

Harpoon in hand, Ahab rushed out of the cabin and into the snowy night. I followed close behind, for fear the creature might return while he was gone. I saw Ahab standing in the door-yard beside the sled that was to have been my escape, surveying his surroundings with eyes accustomed to scanning the open ocean for the fleeting flash of a fluke or the spume of a distant whale.

"Thar she blows!" Ahab sang out, pointing to a shambling shape moving off in the distance. I could barely make out the gray silhouette framed against the darkness, but it was obvious that the wendigo's right arm hung uselessly at its side. 

Ahab hurled his harpoon after the fleeing figure. Because it had its back to us, the creature was unable to play its trick of turning sideways and disappearing, and this time the harpoon found its target, striking the creature between the shoulder blades.

The wendigo roared in angry pain and instantly took flight, running faster than any creature on two legs ever could. Ahab quickly grabbed the towline attached to the end of the harpoon and secured it to the brush bow of the sled.

"Fare thee well, friend," Ahab said as he took his place behind the handlebars. "Lord willing, we shall never meet again, in this world or the next!" And with that the sled sped away, shooting across the snow-covered landscape like a longboat dragged by a stricken whale.

As the Devil's huntsman and his monstrous quarry disappeared from sight, I could hear Ahab's shouted curses carried on the wind, mixed with the unholy wail of the wendigo, until they became one and the same.

So exhausted was I by the terrors I had undergone, I returned to the cabin, where I immediately collapsed into a deep sleep. When I awoke the next day, it was to find the blizzard abated and a gun in my face. 

I discovered that a posse had been sent out from the trading post in search of me on account of my stealing three dogs. I insisted that I was innocent of the charges—that the dogs had been paid for, cash on the barrelhead. But even if they had been willing to believe me in regard to the dogs, there was still the matter of the mutilated corpse that lay twenty feet from where I slept. 

I was promptly arrested for the murder of Ben Martin—as well as Dick Buchan, even though his body was never found—and taken back to the trading post and locked up in the stockade. And here I sit, awaiting the thaw, when I will be taken down to Winnipeg and put on trial. 

I tried to explain about Ahab, and how he had bought the dogs for me, but the clerk who had waited on me and took the doubloon in payment claims no such person was ever in his store, nor is there any coin in the trading post's coffers matching the description I gave. 

My only hope is that Jack will reappear and vouch for what he saw in Buchan's gaunt, sunken eyes. For now, too late, I realize the reason for the Indian abandoning the camp. If he does not come forward, then I will either be hung as a murderer or imprisoned as a madman. 

Sometimes, late at night, when the frigid wind blows out of the north and whistles cruelly through the bars of my cell, I still hear Ahab's voice as he is dragged across the vast, uncharted wilderness by his captured fiend:
"Run! Run! Run to thy infernal master! To the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart, I stab at thee!"

Vicious

By Mark Morris

There was this bird. John said she was bad news. But then John thinks everyone's bad news. He's just fucking paranoid. 

Not as bad as Malcolm, though. Malcolm thinks the CIA and the FBI and fuck knows who else is following us. He thinks they're waiting for the chance to blow us all away. Wipe the Sex Pistols off the face of the earth. 

Well, ha fucking ha. They won't get me. I'm Sid Vicious. I'm fucking indestructible. I'm gonna live forever.

This bird, though. Came on to me after the gig. These American birds love me. "Sid, Sid, fuck me." "Yeah, alright, darlin'. Anything to oblige." 

John says I'm disgusting. He says I'm turning into a Rolling Stone. But he's just uptight and jealous. He ain't as pretty as me. Ain't got no anarchy in his soul no more. I'm the only one with any anarchy left. Steve and Paul. What a couple of cunts. They're just the backing band. After the gig tonight Steve went mental. Said I was out of control. Said I was dragging them all down.

"We're
supposed
to be out of control, you fucker," I told him. "We're the Sex Pistols."

He told me if I didn't sort myself out I'd be out of the band. 

"You can't throw me out," I said. "You'd be nothing without me. People don't come to see you. They come to see me."

"Yeah," said John. He was sitting in the corner on his own, with a can of beer in his hand like an old man in a pub. "But that's 'cos most of the morons who go to the circus prefer the clowns to the artistes." 

He don't know what he's talking about. He's so full of shit. He's a miserable bastard. They're all miserable bastards. Not me, though. I'm having a great time. I ain't got no gear, and that's fucking killing me, but at least I'm making an effort. 

Thing is, I hurt all over from not having any stuff, and I can't sleep, and every time I eat something I throw it back up. And I fucking itch. Itch, itch, itch. All over. My arm, where I cut myself, and my chest, where I carved Gimme A Fix (and I don't even remember doing that), and my fucking bollocks. My bollocks most of all.

I thought I had some disease. I thought I was dying. Our tour manager, Noel Monk. He's a fucking hippie, with a moustache like a fucking faggot cowboy, but he's all right.

"Noel," I said. "There's something wrong with me. I fucked some bitch before I come here and I fucking itch like crazy."

He laughed. "Don't worry, Sid. You got crabs, that's all," he said.

So yeah. I hurt and I itch and I'm sick and I need some stuff so bad and I'm missing Nancy, but that don't stop me enjoying myself. Fucking America. It's great.

So this bird. She come up and she wanted to fuck me. We were hanging out after the show. We're in this place. Baton Rouge. Louisiana. The Kingfish Club. 

I was feeling all right. I was drinking peppermint schnapps 'cos it stops the hurting, and Noel had given me some of his valiums, and I was floating. Everything soft and mellow. And this bird said, "Sid, you're beautiful. I want to fuck you."

And so we fucked. Right there on the bar. Animal magnetism. People were watching and taking photos, but I didn't care. Let 'em. It's their problem if they wanna be perverts, not mine.

She was going down on me, and I was lying back, thinking of England (ha ha ha) and then there was all this shouting, and I opened my eyes, and there was Noel and Glen, one of the security blokes, and some other geezers, and everyone was going apeshit. Glen was trying to grab someone's camera and Noel was pulling the bird off me, and so I took a swing at him with my bottle, but I missed.

"What the fuck are you doing, Noel?" I said. "You said I could shag who I wanted."

It's true. He wouldn't get me no smack, but he said any time I saw a bird I liked he'd bring her to me.

"And so you can, Sid," he said. "But not here. Here is a bit too ... public."

I saw John out of the corner of my eye. He curled his lip and sneered at me. He looked disgusted. 

"Where then?" I said.

"We'll find somewhere. Come on."

They took us away. Me and the bird. It was like being arrested. Surrounded by all these bodies. Big guys. Like a fucking moving wall. I saw faces through the wall. A blur of faces, looking at me. I spat at them. "Fuck off." They were like demons. Grinning. Eyes shining. "Fuck off, fuck off." I wanted to slash them all open.

We didn't have a hotel. When the equipment was packed we were all getting back on the bus and driving through the snow and the dark and the shit. Endless fucking black roads. Driving and driving.

I don't mind the driving, to be honest. It's a bit boring, but it's all right. I like that we stop at roadside diners. Steak and eggs. I love my steak and eggs. Steak rare, eggs runny. But I can never keep it down. Eat it all up, yum yum, lovely. But then my guts cramp and I have to run for the bog and throw it back up again. All over the wall. In the sink. Everywhere. Blood and puke all over America. Sid was here.

"Oi, Glen," I said. 

Glen looked at me. He's a big fucking guy. Big fucking beard. I told him only hippies and arseholes have beards, but he's all right. Glen's tough.

"Yeah, Sid?" 

"Where we going tonight?"

"When we've finished here, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"We're going to Dallas, Sid."

"Oh yeah," I said. 

Dallas. That's where that President got shot. I remember my mum telling me about that when I was a kid. Big deal. Big news. Maybe we'll get shot in Dallas too. Maybe we'll be as famous as that President.

"Dallas," I said. "Yeah, brilliant."

Noel and Glen found us this place backstage. Fucking broom cupboard. Sink in the corner. 

"We'll be right outside, Sid," Noel said, "so don't get any smart ideas about running out on us."

"I won't, Noel. No way."

He shut the door. It was fucking dark in there, but me and the bird fucked on the floor. I was knackered. I felt sick. I puked in the sink. My head was pounding.

"You okay, Sid?" the bird asked. She tried to touch me, but my skin was sore. Her touch was like needles. I shrugged her off.

"Don't fucking touch me," I said. 

"Jeez," she said. "What's your problem?"

"You," I said. "You're my fucking problem."

She went all whiny. "What have I done wrong, Sid? Tell me what I've done wrong and I'll put it right."

"I need smack," I said. "You got any smack?"

"No," she said.

"Then you're no fucking good to me," I said. "Why don't you fuck off?"

She started to cry. Black lines trickling down her face. I felt bad. "Fucking hell," I said. "Don't cry."

"I can't help it. You're mad at me."

"No, I'm not," I said. "I'm not mad at you. I just need some stuff. Noel and that lot, they won't let me out. They won't let me go anywhere. They think if I go off somewhere I'll end up killing myself."

"And will you?" said the bird. Little squeaky voice.

I laughed. I was hurting again. Sweats and chills. Body cramps. "Yeah, probably," I said. "Or some fucking cowboy will shoot me. They hate us here. Fucking America hates the Sex Pistols."

"I don't," said the bird. "I love the Sex Pistols."

"Yeah, well, you're one of the smart ones," I said. "Most people are scared of us. They think we're gonna destroy America."

"You should," said the bird. "You should destroy America. It's a dump. I hate it."

"Yeah," I said. "It's a fucking dump."

"Maybe I'll come to England," the bird said.

"Don't bother," I said. "It's a dump there too."

I didn't wanna talk no more. I finished the Schnapps and curled up on the floor and closed my eyes. I hurt all over. I just wanted everything to go black.

"Do you want me to go?" the bird asked.

"I'm not bothered," I said. "Stay or go. I don't care."

I went to sleep. I had these dreams. Bad dreams. Faces looking at me. All these fucking faces. Shouting and laughing. Twisting out of shape. Turning into something bad. I was trying to push them away, but I was trapped. I couldn't get out. I couldn't breathe. I was a kid again. I was crying for my mum. I was cutting myself. Slash slash, across my arms, across my chest. I wanted the pain and the blood. But there was no pain, no blood. I couldn't make myself bleed. I couldn't feel anything. I cried out, but I couldn't make any noise.

"Shh, mon petit."

The voice was in my head. It went through me like a cold breeze on a hot day. It blew all the shit and fear away. Made me feel calm.

I opened my eyes. Big brown eyes looking down at me. 

"Who are you?" I said.

This wasn't the bird I'd fucked earlier. This was someone different. Light brown skin. Smooth, like toffee. Big brown eyes and big red lips. Black hair in little twisty dreads. She was fucking beautiful. She was so beautiful I couldn't breathe.

"You want to be saved?" she said.

I was shivering. My leather jacket was over me like a blanket, but the floor was cold underneath me and I felt like there was nothing left of me but bones. 

"Saved from what?" I said.

"From yourself."

"Dunno what you mean."

I tried to sit up. I felt so weak. She had to help me. She jangled when she moved. She was wearing all these bracelets and necklaces. She smelled like flowers and spice and dark forests.

"How did you get in here?" I asked her.

"I go where I please," she said.

She put her hand under the tap in the sink and turned it on. She held her dripping fingers over my face. I opened my mouth and the water ran over my lips and tongue and down my throat. It tasted sweet, made me feel like a kid again. Everything new and bright.

"You want to be saved?" she asked again.

I shrugged. "I dunno. Are you one of those Jesus nutjobs?"

She laughed. "I believe in spirits, mon petit. Do
you
believe in spirits?"

"Yeah," I said. "Whisky and vodka."

She didn't laugh this time. She reached out and touched a badge on my jacket. "Is this true?"

"What?"

" ‘I'm A Mess.' Is it true, mon petit?
Are
you a mess?"

I looked into her big brown eyes. They held me. They were fucking hypnotic. It was like just by looking at me she was clearing all the shit out of my brain. I wanted to cry. I felt it all rushing up through me like puke. I nodded, but I couldn't speak.

"Tell me," she said.

I still wanted to cry, but I swallowed it back down again. "I'm a junkie," I said. "I'm fucked up. I don't wanna be, but I can't help it. People offer me stuff and I can't say no. But I'm gonna get straight. I am. I'm gonna get straight and pull this band back together. I'll be a better bassist than that art school cunt, Matlock. We'll conquer the fucking world. We're the best fucking band there's ever been."

I stopped. It sounded like someone else talking. After a minute I said, "My head is fucked up. I don't know what's true and what isn't anymore. I don't know who I am."

"Who do you
think
you are?" she said. "Tell me everything. Let it all out."

"I'm Sid Vicious," I told her. "I'm a Sex Pistol. I'm a fucking star. I'm the bass player who can't play. I'm a joke. A pathetic junkie. I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna be dead before I'm twenty-five. I fucking love Nancy. I can't live without her. She's fucked up my life. She's the worst thing that ever happened to me. John's my best mate. He looks out for me. I hate him and he hates me. He's got no future. I want him to fuck off. I love him. I don't wanna lose him. Everything's falling apart. Everything's turning to shit. We're gonna rule the fucking world. We're gonna be heroes. We're gonna destroy America. Malcolm's a fucking genius. Malcolm's a cunt who doesn't care about us. I'm gonna be a legend. I'm gonna be forgotten."

I couldn't stop. It was like cutting my arm and watching the blood spurt. I put a hand over my mouth to stop it pouring out of me. What I was saying was all true and all lies. It was everything and nothing, the good and the bad, the dream and the nightmare. They were different, but they were the same. It was all happening together, all at once, and I was stuck in the middle.

"You are at the crossroads, mon petit," the girl said.

"The crossroads, yeah," I said.

"Which way do you go from here?"

"I dunno."

She was staring at me, like she could see the thoughts fighting in my head. What was I? The bassist in the best fucking band in the world? Or a walking fucking cliché, press fodder, Malcolm's fucking puppet? If I cleaned myself up, got myself together, we could be fucking huge, we could go down in fucking history as the band that changed music forever. But did I really want that? Did I wanna be a legend? Did I wanna be Elvis Presley twenty years from now, fat and ugly and useless, dying of a heart attack on a fucking toilet? Did I wanna be a dinosaur, like Led Zep and Pink Floyd and all that hippie shit? Did I wanna be a fucking
rock
star?

Fuck that. Fuck it all. I'd never be fucking
establishment
. But I'd find a way. My way.

The girl was still staring. Her eyes were glittering. At that moment she could've been an angel or a demon.