Dan Simmons - The Terror

Walking has been very Difficult since my Seventh through Tenth toes have been Removed. I had never truly Understood how Essential our Digits are for Balance. And the Pain, of course, over the past Month, has not been Insignificant.

I think I would be Committing the Sin of Pride – not to mention that of Lying – if I said Here that I had not considered Drinking from my hidden bottle of Morphine, Opium, and Laudanum (and other materia medica) all mixed into the hidden bottle I have Thought of for so many Weeks as my Final Draught.

But I never took the Bottle out of hiding.

Not until this Hour.

I Confess I had thought the Effect would be more Rapid than it is Proving.

I can no Longer feel my Feet – which is a Blessing – and my Legs have just gone Numb up to the Patella. But at this Rate, it will be another Ten Minutes or More before the Potion reaches and Stills my Heart and other Vital Organs.

I have just Drunk more of the Final Draught. I suspect I was a Coward for not Drinking it all down At Once to begin with.

I confess here – for Purely Scientific Purposes should someone someday discover this Diary – that the Mixture is not only Quite Potent but Quite Intoxicating. If anyone else here were alive this dark, stormy Afternoon – except for Mr. Hickey and possibly Mr. Manson up in their Throne Pinnace – they should see my Last Moments spent with Bobbing Head and Drunkard’s Grin.

But I do not Recommend that this Experiment be Repeated for anything but the most Dire of Medicinal Purposes.

And this leads to a true Confession.

For the First and Only Time in my Medical Career and Life, I have not Served a Patient to the Utmost of my Ability.

I speak, of course, in regards to poor Mr. Magnus Manson.

My Initial Diagnosis of the twin Gunshot Wounds was a Lie. The Bullets were small of caliber, it is True, but the Tiny Pistol must have packed a Great Charge of Powder, for both Projectiles had – it was Obvious from my first Inspection – penetrated the Idiot Giant’s skin, flesh, muscle layer, and stomach lining.

From my first Consultation, I had known that the Bullets were in Mr. Manson’s Belly, Spleen, Liver, or some other Vital Organ, and that his Survival Depended upon Exploratory and then Removal Surgery.

I Lied.

If there is a Hell – in which I no longer Believe, since this Earth and some of the People in it are Hell enough for any Universe – I would be and should be Cast Down to the Worst Bolgia of the Lowest Circle.

I Don’t Care.

I should say here – my Chest is now Cold and my Figners… fInGErS are also growing Cold.

When the Storm STRk about one Monf ago, I thank’d Gd.

It seemd at the Tim that we wer Actully going to Gt to Terrorr Camp. It Seemed that Mr. Hickey had won. We were – I believ – less than Twenty MIls frm thatt Camp and Pogrssing 3 or 4 miiles a Day in nar-Perfect wether when the Fist of The Enlesss Storms Hit.

If there is a Godd… I… thank you, Deaare God.

Snowe. DAarknss. Terrrible winds Day and Nigt.

Even the Men who could Wlk cld not Pulll. The Harneesess were Abandoned. The Tents blew dwno, then bleww away. T he tempretre Droppped 50 degres.

Winter hd Strukc like Gd’s Hammmer, and Mr. Hickey cuoold do Nothing but set Tarps aside his Thronepinacce and Shoot Half the Men to Feed the Other Half.

Some Men ran away into the Bolizzardds and Died.

Some Men stayed and were Shot.

Sme M Froze to Deth.

Sm Men Ate theother mn and Died Anwwyay.

Mr. Hickey and Mr. Masnsonn sit up There in Ther Boat in the Wind. I thinge, but donnot Know, that Mrr. Mansin is No Lngr Livvng.

OI killed him.

I kelled the Men I lff behing at Rescue Camp.

I am so Sorry.

I am so Sorry.

All my lfe, my Brother knows I wish my brther werehere now, Thmoshe knws, al my lifI hve lved Plato and the Dialogues of Sokrates.

Like the grete Sokates, but not rf not grete I, the Poisoin, mcuh Deservd, movs up throu my Torso and Deadeens my Limbs and Turns my Fingrs – Surgeons fingers – to Unfeellling Sticks and

So glad

Wrote the note nw pined to my Cheset befre this

EAT THESE MORTAL REMNAS OF DR HARRY D.S. GOOODSIRIFFF YO U WISSSH

THE POISSSSN WITHINN THS BONES AND FELSH WIOL KILL YOOU ALSO

TheMen at Re cm

Thomnas, if they Find this Upon my and Ret

I am So Sorry.

I did My Best But never is en

Mr. Msnsns Wonds I AM NOT S

Gd wac ov Th MEn

Sometime in the last few days or weeks, Cornelius Hickey realized, he had ceased being a king.

He was now a god.

In fact – he suspected, was not yet certain, but suspected strongly and was close to certain – Cornelius Hickey had become God.

Others died around him yet he lived. He no longer felt the cold. He no longer felt hunger or thirst, much less the need to slake those former appetites. He could see in the encroaching dark as the nights lengthened toward the absolute, nor did the blowing snow and howling wind hinder his senses.

The mere mortal men had required a rigging of a tarp from the boat and sledge when their tents ripped and blew away and they huddled there like sheep with their woolen asses turned to the wind until they died, but Hickey was comfortable high on his throne in the stern of the pinnace.

When, after more than three weeks of being unable to move because of the blizzards, winds, and plummeting temperatures, his dray beasts had whined and begged for food, Hickey had descended among them like a god and provided them with their loaves and fishes.

He had shot Strickland to feed Seeley.

He had shot Dunn to feed Brown.

He had shot Gibson to feed Jerry.

He had shot Best to feed Smith.

He had shot Morfin to feed Orren… or perhaps it was all the other way around. Hickey’s memory could no longer be bothered with trivial matters.

But now those he’d so generously fed were dead, frozen hard into their blanket sleeping bags or contorted into the terrible claw shapes of their final throes. Perhaps he had become bored with them and shot them as well. He did vaguely remember carving up the choice parts of more men than he had shot to feed the others in the past week or two, back when he still needed to eat. Or perhaps it had just been on a whim. He could not recall the details. It was not important.

When the storms ended – and Hickey now knew that He could command them to cease at any time if it pleased Him to do so – he would probably bring several of the men back from the dead so that they could finish hauling Magnus and Him to Terror Camp.

The damned surgeon was dead – poisoned and frozen in his own little tarp tent some yards from the pinnace and the common graveyard tarp – but Hickey chose to ignore that unpleasant development – it was but a mild irritation. Even gods have phobias, and Cornelius Hickey had always held a deep fear of poison or contamination. After one glance – and after firing a single bullet into the corpse from the entrance to the tarp tent to make sure the damned surgeon was not feigning death – the new god Hickey had backed away and left the poisoned thing and its contaminated shroud-tarp alone.

Magnus had been mewling and complaining for weeks from his favored place in the bow but had been strangely quiet the last day or two. His last movement, during a lull in the blizzards when a dull winter light had illuminated the pinnace and the snow-buried tarp next to it and the low hill they were on and the frozen beach to the west and endless ice fields beyond, had been to open his mouth as if to make a request of his lover and God.