Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

She came and stood looking down at us. And though I strained every muscle to rise, though my throat swelled with a shriek, I could not! I lay as if paralysed; even my lips were locked.

Aretoúla said nervously: “You will not touch the young one, Grandmother? You had Grandfather awhile before you ate out his vi tals; Mother had Father awhile before you and she ate his out. I, too, want my time of love.”

The old woman grunted. “You shall have it, little one; never fear. We will take the big one first; he should be the richest and most savoury. Give me the dish now.”

Aretoúla bent and lifted it from its place beside the hearth. A pot that I had often seen them cook in; a fine old copper pot. It gleamed now as the torchlight touched it.

Kyra Stamata came a step nearer; stood squarely above us. Above Bert.

I tried to cry out; I tried, as hard as any man ever tried to move. But I might as well have tried to lift a stone wall as my own body.

I saw the knife flash, swift and bright as lightning, as the old woman’s arm shot down. I saw it rip Bert’s whole chest open; heard him groan and saw his body lift convulsively and then stiffen. There was another hollow groan. And then he lay very still, with a bright red ribbon seeming to stretch between his throat and chest.

But not for long. The old woman still bent over him. She thrust the knife back into the wound, turned it. thrust in her whole hand. I think I must have swooned.

After that I had only brief glimpses. I saw her straightening up again, with Bert’s heart in her hand; Bert’s heart, red and dripping. I heard her telling Aretoúla to stir the embers of the fire. Once after that, I was roused from another spell of unconsciousness by the smell of burning flesh.

But I will not tell what I saw after that. I cannot. Only one thing: once Ronnie stirred and moaned in his sleep, and Aretoúla came across to him and laid her hand gently on his face, her own face as tender as a young mother’s.

“Sleep, my golden one,” she murmured in her soft, singing voice. “Sleep.”

And he did sleep. Thank God, he is still asleep.

Before they went back into the inner room they came and leaned over Bert again. They ran their slim hands gently over his body. And they laughed; their sweet, shrill, birdlike laughter.

“Beware! Beware, O squeezed sponge, of running water!”

And then again, I seemed to swoon. And when I awoke, a little while ago, Bert was breathing peacefully. There was no sign of any wound upon his chest. But I dare not try to sleep again; I dare not dream again. I will sit up for what is left of this night.

8th June: I will steal a few minutes to write in this journal before we leave. To write something sane and sensible in it, after last night’s vagaries. It was a dream; all a horrible, fantastic dream.

And yet Bert seems a little pale this morning; not quite his hearty, vigorous self. He has not joined in the laughter and talk about the breakfast table as he usually does. And I wish Kyra Stamata were not polishing her copper pot. Polishing it carefully, as if it had been used. And I wonder why Aretoúla is so gay and laughing; I had thought she would be sad for Ronnie’s going.

But they are calling me now; Bert himself is calling me. We must start.

Night again: We are back in Kyra Stamata’s cottage. That is, two of us are back. Bert is dead.

We walked all morning, down the steep mountain roads that Kyra Stamata had told us of. And he complained of hunger, of a queer feeling of emptiness. “Like as if I was hollow inside,” he said once. He, the strong man, was as ready as Ronnie to rest, when we sat down at noon.

We did not dare eat much; we did not know how long the food Kyra Stamata had given us might have to last. And Bert was ravenous. After he had eaten he rose and walked over toward a little mountain stream that foamed about a hundred yards from us.

“Water ain’t my choice of a drink, but maybe it’ll fill me up some. I don’t know what ails me, anyway. The old lady’s wine must have given me a funny kind of hangover.”

He drank. I was beside him; I saw his throat move as the wa ter went down. And then I heard him gasp; saw the red ribbon spring out again, across his chest. He fell forward, with his face in the torrent. Ronnie and I pulled him out together.

Ronnie thinks it must have been a haemorrhage; some lesion caused by all the fatigue of our wanderings, begun again too soon. There was a little blood on his mouth; Ronnie thinks it must have fallen from there to his chest, that shows no wound. But there was not much blood anywhere. I cannot help thinking of a sponge that has been squeezed.

And while we were dragging the body up the bank Ronnie’s leg crumpled under him. I had to go back to the cottage and get the women to come and help me. With Ronnie; with Bert’s body. So we are back here — back, I had almost said, where it all happened.

But there is no danger. There can be no danger. What I saw last night was a dream. Bert’s illness and death were a coincidence. I will not insult, even in thought, women who have been kind to me; who have risked their lives to help me, as all Cretans risk their lives when they help Allied soldiers now. I will not let myself go mad.

I will not remember blood running down the sides of a copper pot.

15th Aug: I have let the weeks pass by as in a trance; I have not even written in this journal. I was ill for awhile, and Kyra Stamata nursed me as tenderly as if she had been my mother. And sometimes Ronnie and Aretoúla would tiptoe in, hand in hand, and smile down at me. They are happy. Perhaps Bert was right, and one should never try to prevent happiness. It may indeed be all that these war-united youngsters will ever have.

I do not sleep well. Kyra Stamata has noticed it, and has brewed potions of herbs for me to drink. I try to throw them out when she is not looking, for somehow at night I am afraid to sleep. Full of fancies; not sane and reasonable as I am by day.

But she watches me too closely; it is becoming harder and harder to get chances to empty the stuff out. I suppose she thinks I do not like the taste of it, and has a womanly determina tion to help me against my will. So often I have to fall into sleep as a man might fall over a precipice; passing blindly, in blind terror, into oblivion.

16th Aug: Morning again, the good, bright morning, wholesome as fresh bread. It shows one how foolish are night terrors, the grisly shadows childhood leaves in every man’s brain. Ronnie and Aretoúla are laughing outside the window; young wholesome laugh ter. Her laugh is as tender as any woman’s could be, and yet it never loses that shrill sweet note that is a little wild; the note that sounds like a bird.

There! He has caught her, and they are kissing. Their lips are too busy for laughter now. Too sweetly busy. Her arms are tight about his neck, with that hungry, enfolding tightness they seem to have at times. She loves him.

I do not know why I am afraid, even at night. For Bert knew nothing; he did not wake. And I will never see that happen to Ronnie. They will take me before they will take him, because Aretoúla still loves him. And when his turn does come he, too, will know nothing. We will not suffer; men die far worse deaths on the battlefield.

And yet—

I will tear this page out. It is lunacy, madness as great as Aretoúla’s great-grandmother’s.

17th Aug: Today Kyra Stamata said that she was feeling ill and sent Ronnie and me out onto the mountain to look for more of a certain herb she wanted to dose herself with. Aretoúla, she said, must stay with her. Ronnie and I wandered far afield; we were never able to find any herb to match the sample she had given us.