Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

The tumbling stream was cold and clear as ice, and a thin mist hovered over it in the early morning light. Its rocky bed, a chaotic jumble of polished boulders and gravel, made a thousand tiny waterfalls and pools. Kirsten was reminded of her native Harz Mountains, as she knelt to suck in the crystal water.

Her body felt lame and sore, and she was covered with dirt and dried blood. Her green silk dress was stained and ragged, and somewhere in the night she had lost one shoe entirely and snapped the heel off the other. Kirsten grimaced at her reflection and splashed water on her bruised and grimy face. The cold water stung her skin and drove the clouds of night-horror from her hair. Quickly she pulled off her torn frock and lacy silk shimmy, kicked off her remaining shoe and peeled off her tattered stockings — then waded into the pool. The icy stream took her breath away as she briskly splashed about.

Moments later when she stepped out, her skin was numb and tingling, but she felt refreshed. Washed clean, her white figure was marred with purple-green bruises and livid red scratches. But she at least had a whole skin, Kirsten mused grimly — so far.

She felt a pang of sorrow over Wingfield’s hideous death, now that the shock of it was receding enough for thought of anything other than panic-sped flight. Poor Wingfield had been a persistent admirer, though she had never cared for him except as a social partner. Her expressed concern over Cullin Shelton’s phone call had spurred him to take over Chance’s role and investigate for her sake. In an indirect manner, Kirsten felt responsible for his death. But for the moment her own danger demanded full attention.

Making a bundle of her shredded stockings and broken-heeled shoe, Kirsten waded back out to hide them under a rock at the bottom of the pool. Shaking herself dry, she rested on a smooth boulder and finger-combed her short blonde hair — looking like a bobbed and battered Lorelei in the midst of the cascading stream. The morning chill covered her lithe body with goose-pimples, and the sun was driving off the mists. Again she remembered the wild forests of the Harz Mountains. It seemed impossible that a supernatural horror of another age could shadow the unspoiled freedom of this mountain wilderness… Kirsten knew otherwise.

She wriggled her silken shimmy onto her still damp skin, fastidiously brushed dirt and leaves from her torn frock before getting dressed. The rounded gravel bruised her bare feet, but there was no help for that. Someone had once told her that the thing to do when lost was to find a river or such and follow it downstream, as it would eventually go past some habitation. Having no other ideas, Kirsten had decided to put this advice to the test. Resolutely she began to make her way along the streambed.

The sun appeared over the tops of the trees, grew high overhead, then began its decline. Kirsten was exhausted and hungry, the soles of her tiny feet were bruised and sore from clambering over the rocks. Twice she had come upon major forks in the stream; once she took the left branch, next time the right. She must have wandered for miles along the streambed without catching sight of any sign of civilization.

Bleakly she had forced herself to keep moving, frequently wading along the shallows to throw off pursuit. If Dread suspected she had lived, Kirsten knew he would seek her. Chance had only begun to grasp the extent of Dread’s powers — only had recently found confirmation of his vague suspicions of Dread’s presence in these mountains. But Kirsten realized that if Dread were hunting her, it would take more than running water to hide her trail.

Her knowledge of American history and geography was spotty — learned from books rather than culturally acquired. She knew the southern Appalachians were a desolate region. The Depression had sent a good number of its inhabitants elsewhere in a hopeless search for security, and the Rockefellers had recently bought up vast stretches of the mountains to turn into a national park. While she was aware that marauding Indians no longer hunted white men here as they did in Karl May’s thrilling novels, nonetheless, it still was very possible to get lost in these mountains and never be found. And there were bears, probably mountain lions… Kirsten kept moving.

As twilight overtook her, the girl paused to rest her fatigued limbs. Each step had been agony for her stone-bruised feet. She had munched handfuls of blackberries from the thickets that grew along the streambed. Blackberries had been her only nourishment, and they barely assuaged her hunger. The sun had been warm on her shoulders, but now with twilight the chill mountain breeze was biting through her thin silk dress. Kirsten shivered and wished again for the lighter in her lost handbag. She hated fire, but right now a fire would have been welcome.

Then she heard the eerie howl, echoing along the rocky streambed. She froze in terror. The sound came from back along the direction she had wandered. Could it have been the wind?

Again the ululant cry, closer.

Desperately Kirsten forced her overtaxed legs to stumble a few score yards farther downstream. The pain of her feet made her gasp through clenched teeth. Her knees were rubbery with exhaustion. Flight was hopeless.

Dragging her fatigue-racked body into the damp shadow where two massive boulders leaned together, Kirsten waited in heart-stopping fear for her pursuer to appear.

The howling came closer. She could hear the crunch of a heavy tread on the polished gravel, approaching her refuge.

John Chance stood pensively gazing at Moore’s bookshelves, waiting for the other man to return. From the bathroom, sounds of dry-retching no longer grated, and he could hear water running in the sink. Chance drew down a thick black volume stamped in red and gold. He was paging through it when Moore returned.

“I see you have Guy Endore’s new translation of Hanns Heinz Ewers’ Alraune,” Chance commented. “Do you know Ewers?”

Moore found a cigarette and struggled to light it. His face was drawn and pallid, his lips a bloodless line. The hand that held the match shook a little, but his red-rimmed eyes were sober.

“I met Ewers socially in Berlin,” he answered. “At Kirsten’s mostly. We hit it off pretty well, but I wouldn’t call him a bosom friend.”

Chance nodded. “He’s a fascinating man — a genius, however twisted. We’ve talked together throughout the night a time or two. I’ve never been sure where the line between genius and madness lies with Ewers.”

He read aloud from the opening lines of Alraune:

“ ‘You cannot deny, my dear friend, that there are in existence creatures who are neither man nor beast, but strange unearthly creations, born of the nefarious passions that arise in distorted minds.”’

Chance thoughtfully closed the book and returned it to the shelf. “I’ve often thought of those lines,” he said, “as an apt portrayal of Dread.”

Producing a lighter from the pocket of his tweed trousers, Chance reignited the cheroot he’d set aside an hour earlier when Moore had collapsed. Harsh whiskey and strong colfee had first rallied his old friend’s sanity, then purged his benumbed senses. Chance judged Moore to be rational enough now, though not long ago he had conjectured whether or not this time the man had pushed himself past the brink.

But then, Chance reflected, he had himself been past the brink. And, after a fashion, he had returned.

“I don’t remember very much of the first few months after the crash,” he began, involuntarily rubbing his artist’s fingers over the hairline scars that seamed his face. “You were there when that Fokker dropped onto my tail out of the sun over the Somme. Ironically it was ground fire that did it for me — after I leveled off from the dive that tore the tripe’s wings off. I got hit over the trenches and went into a spin. Low. Full engine. Hit the mud like a shell going off. Reported dead.