William Tenn - Of Men And Monsters

“Wild Men!” he whispered. “A tremendous pack of them coming this way. Get your knapsacks off. We’ll have to make a run for it.” He wondered how fast Rachel could run. She’d barely been keeping up.

“Let me do it,” Roy said, slipping out of his overloaded knapsack swiftly. “You two stay here.”

Before they could stop him, he had darted out to the intersection with his forehead light uncovered. He looked off to the left, stiffening as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. Then he threw his arms over his head and screamed. He screamed like one gone mad with terror.

The Wild Men heard him and saw him. They bellowed a wall-shaking hunger call in reply.

Roy turned and ran off to the right, screaming as he went. A moment later, the Wild Men roared past the branch in pursuit.

Eric and Rachel had flattened themselves against the left-hand wall. They clung to each other, afraid to breathe, as the horde thundered past the intersection. If only one of these horrible creatures glanced in their direction, they were done for. They’d never be able to get out of their knapsacks in time, to pick up any speed.

But with live meat visible up ahead, the Wild Men concentrated on that alone. From time to time, they threw their heads back—it seemed in perfect unison—and screeched out a repetition of their hunger call. The rising and falling notes bounced savagely off the walls around Rachel and Eric and made their muscles go rigid with terror spasm. That was the main purpose of the call, Eric realized: to freeze the prey in his tracks. It also served to encourage the slower members of the pack and keep them aware of the hunt’s direction.

He’d never seen a Wild Man before, but one look down the corridor had been enough to tell him that the legends had all been true and that Rachel’s experiences in the cage had been fully as ugly as she had said. They were as Rachel had described them: a chilling throwback to some original version of the primate horde, and yet with overtones of an all-too-human mob. The mass of hairy bent-over figures, their fingertips dragging along the floor, shambling along in a tight pack shoulder to immense shoulder—somehow even the Monsters weren’t as upsetting. These things were foul.

Since there were children among them—tiny bits of shrilling ugliness who bounced past as much on the knuckles of their hands as on their splayed feet—the pack had to consist of both males and females. Yet it was almost impossible to tell one from the other. Perhaps the shorter were female. But short and tall, they all looked alike: they all had vast tangled quantities of head hair—and they all seemed to have beards.

They poured past the intersection in a run that was part roll, part hop and part fast walk, and that had a surprising amount of speed to it. Many of them were holding grisly lanterns: torn-off heads which still had the glow lamps of warriors bound above the eyes. But they carried no weapons, they wore no clothing. They merely pounded on the floor with their fists as they ran and reiterated the slobbering screech of their call. And they exuded an enormous, collective stink that seemed to fill the burrows with its fog.

When the last bellowing straggler had scuttled by, anxiously considering its chance of getting a bite of the distant meal, Eric and Rachel each took an opposite strap of Roy’s knapsack and, heavily loaded themselves, began carrying it back down the tunnel in the direction of the last place they had slept.

There wasn’t much chance they’d ever see Roy again, but if he escaped from the Wild Men, this was the only possible place for him to meet them. They got there, unloaded themselves and sank to the floor in each other’s arms.

If was time for food, but neither of them even thought of eating. Food reminded them of the Wild Men—and the Wild Men’s hunger.

Eric folded his arms and leaned against the wall near which Rachel was sitting. His ears were alert for any sound indicating the approach of Wild Men, but there was a deep, painful puzzle in his mind. “I’ve never seen anyone do that before,” he said. “I’ve heard of such things, but only to save a tribe or a mate and children. And I thought—I was worried about Roy. He was so upset, so angry.”

“He was miserable, darling. The closer we were getting to my people, the more he was brooding about his position once we arrived.”

“You mean that he’d be nothing but an ignorant, front burrow savage? I’m facing the same problem. I try not to think about it.”

Rachel made a face. She lifted a foot deliberately from where the sat and kicked at his leg—hard. “You’re my mate,” she pointed out. “The husband of Rachel Esthersdaughter will automatically be a personage among The Aaron People. And you’re not an ignorant savage any= more. At least, you’re not ignorant,” she added with a tiny, warm smile. “But Roy—he felt he had no skills, no knowledge, which would be useful where he was going,’ nothing to set him off and give him hope of winning a mate. He’s had nothing, really, ever since he joined us in the cage. All the planning was yours, all the leading was yours. You pointed the way to every action and did whatever was important. And you were the one with a mate. Roy was feeling that he was just an extra—not at all necessary.”

“He was sure as hell necessary in that escape from the Monsters. You’d never have been able to hook the sewer joint, Rachel, and hold on long enough for me to open the thing.”

“But you never told him that, darling. Did you? And if Roy thought about it at all, he probably decided that any full-grown man who happened to be along could have done just as well. Roy wasn’t necessary: nothing about Roy himself was necessary to anything we’ve done.”

She was right, Eric decided. One hell of a commander he’d turned out to be! Leading and directing were only a’ small part of the command function, his uncle used to say—it was like making love without caresses.

And now there were only two of them again. How long would it be wise to stay here before giving up on Roy? How long would it be safe?

They heard footsteps coming toward them.

Rachel rose and stood behind Eric, who unslung a spear. The footsteps came closer, grew louder. Roy trotted around a curve in the tunnel.

“Roy!” they yelled, and ran at him with open arms. Rachel hugged him, covering his face with kisses. Eric pounded his back, grabbed a fistful of hair and pulledhis head back and forth. “You old Runner, you!” he car-oled ecstatically. “You crazy old heroic Runner, you!”

When they finally let him go, Roy shook himself and inquired mildly: “Where’s the food? I built up a bit of an appetite.”

Catching sight of his knapsack, he strode over to it, opened it and squatted to eat. There was a jauntiness in the Runner’s bearing that Eric hadn’t seen for many a sleep period.

They sat down next to him. “What happened?” they demanded.

“Nothing much,” he said with his mouth full. “I led them around and around and around. Then I put on some speed and lost them. Most of the time I’ve been spending has been to get back here.”

“You’re wonderful!” Rachel told him. “You’re absolutely wonderful! People will make up songs and stories about what you did.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Rachel. The whole thing wasn’t much of a sprint for a Runner. For a real Runner, that is.”

“And that’s what you are,” Eric said earnestly. “The best damn Runner in the whole twisting burrows! Where did you lose them?”

Roy grinned. “Remember that tribe yesterday? The poisoned people?”

They nodded.

“I led them back there. ‘You want to eat people?’ I said. ‘Here you are. Some people. Eat them.’ I hope they get a bellyache they’ll never forget.”