Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

Fear wakes up in him.

This could be bad.

This could be very bad.

“Can I help?” the uncle says, mocking Andrew’s American accent. “Who could help this ?”

He gestures at the boy’s gushing leg.

“Or this?” he continues, nodding at the idiot brother, who draws back his scythe.

Strikes off the uncle’s head.

O mother of fuck fuck fuck

Andrew’s legs buckle in fear.

He begins to back up at something more than a leisurely pace, unable, however, to turn his head from the scene in the field.

Now the big idiot bends over, legs splayed, the crack of his ass winking below his too-short shirt, and delicately picks the cap from the uncle’s head so he can get a handful of his hair. He lifts the head, the white and rolled-back eyes of which now slot into place.

Fix on Andrew.

A few yards away, the uncle’s body sits up.

Then it stands up, arterial blood jetting.

It takes the rope belt between two fists and pulls it slack.

“Now do you want to help? Does Jesus Christ want to help?” the head asks from the idiot’s huge fist, now hawking and spitting out a bright clot of blood. The idiot takes his scythe up in the other hand and begins to stumble toward Andrew.

“I think he wants to hear American, Uncle,” the bleeding boy says, using a scythe as a crutch and standing on his remaining leg. “Two kopecks says he does.”

The head hanging from Ivan’s hand now opens its mouth and a sound like television static comes out of it.

The chunk chunk chunk of a television dial being turned, and then…

News.

A newswoman speaks through the uncle’s open mouth, in perfect midwestern American English.

“The remains of an American backpacker missing in the Soviet Union since June were returned to his family today… .”

Andrew backs up faster.

He spits his cigarette out.

“The young man’s mother and elder brother flew to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to claim the body, which had suffered great violence at the hands of unknown assailants…”

The idiot holding the severed head, the bleeding boy hobbling along with his scythe, and the headless peasant with the rope belt between his fists advance on Andrew.

Andrew feels backward with his feet, terrified to fall.

“… His hands, feet, and genitals were cut from his body by what appeared to be a farm instrument, although the cause of death has been established as strangulation…”

Andrew keeps backing up, not wanting to take his gaze from them. As long as he looks at them, they aren’t closing distance.

“General Secretary Andropov has promised a full investigation into the killing, which he will see to personally as soon as his nagging cough goes away.”

“Help,” Andrew shouts. “I need help!”

“HELP!” the head screams, much louder than Andrew had, making wide eyes at him.

Oh, to turn and run.

He dares a glance behind him and sees that the road keeps straight, intermittent trees punctuating pastures in which sheep and the odd cow walk, heads bent to the grass, chewing.

When he turns his gaze back to them, the three peasants are yards closer, though he can see no difference in their gaits. He notices now their grass-stained boots.

“You owe me two kopecks, Lyosha. The man did not want to hear American.”

The head hawks and spits again.

I’m dreaming.

This is 1983 and I’m dreaming.

Look up!

A series of very tight jet contrails etch themselves in the clear summer sky.

Bomber

“BOMBER!” the head screams, never looking away from Andrew. “HELP ME, BOMBER!”

The idiot likes this, says it also, as if to himself.

“Help me, bomber.”

They continue down the road for some time, Andrew sweating more than the cool day should call for.

He hopes to hear a truck behind him, all but prays to hear one blow its horn. No sooner has he thought this than the uncle’s head blares the AH-ooo-GAH! of a farm truck.

Mustn’t look away again

“Hey, Lyosha,” the head says to the hobbling boy, “I don’t think he means to look away again.”

“I think you’re right, Uncle.”

“It’s no good if he sees us; he can just keep the same distance all day long.”

“Right again, Uncle.”

“He is young with long legs. Not like you since your accident, stupid boy.”

“You had an accident, too, Uncle.”

“But mine did not slow me down, as you see.”

So saying, the body walking with the strangling rope executes something between a spasm and a tour jeté.

The simple man laughs, then bites the head’s ear to hold it so he can clap his pancake hands together.

The body leaps again.

“Vanka,” the head says, rolling its eyes dramatically back to look at the simple man carrying it, “how many flies did you catch?”

The head goes back to the fist so Vanka can reply.

“Many.”

“Enough to bring on night?”

“Night! Night! Night!” the big man chants, and it is clear he would clap his hands except for the head he carries.

“Do it, then, big boy!”

Now the idiot opens his mouth and what looks like a big, black pudding begins to emerge from it. He vomits this into the road, where it writhes and undulates, weak light from the sun playing on its slick surface.

Now the boy hops up on his remaining leg and uses his scythe to take a huge swing at the pudding, which bursts into a swarm of blackflies that cover the sun.

And it is night.

Night without stars.

Andrew runs.

The dream changes so he finds himself in a nest.

Or perhaps a bed of dry hay?

Something woolly nuzzles his arm aside, chewing.

He pushes at its head to get it away from him, but it baas explosively, showing him its black tongue.

A sheep.

Where the fuck am I?

A crude wooden roof stands above him.

No walls.

A stable?

The sun is setting, or perhaps rising, casting a dim violet light. A pitchfork stands up from the ground, backlit, tines up, two of those tines spearing an oblong, head-shaped something, also backlit.

Oh, it is a head

It hawks and spits, then speaks.

“Our little baby is awake now, yes?”

Husky laughter comes from near the water trough, against which the idiot brother sits, Andrew’s backpack spilled out near him. He unrolls a pair of faded blue jeans and marvels at them, a lit cigarette in his mouth.

Wait until he finds the Playboys

He shouldn’t smoke

Why, because he’s retarded?

Special, we say special now because it’s nicer

“Don’t burn a hole in those, Vanka—we can sell them to a party member for a lot of money,” the head says from its perch. “So, little baby, you like Jesus, yes?”

Andrew says nothing.

“You like him so much we put you in a manger.”

The sheep baas again, as if prompted.

He looks into the field, where the headless body jerkily brushes down a plow horse, who stands placidly, swishing its tail against flies. Clearly headless bodies groom horses all the time in this hellish fairy-tale Russia.

Maybe I am in hell?

I ran into something hard in the dark.

A fence?

A plow?

Maybe I died?

“What, you have nothing to say?”

Andrew just blinks.

The head hawks and spits again, excusing itself.

A dream that’s all just a dream

But I thought that when it happened

And it was real

“Even in a dream, one must be polite. But no. You are badly raised in America. Even if you did speak, all I would hear would be the sound of America coming from your mouth. Do you know this sound?”