As he followed Isaac's gaze, Alan felt the nightmare closing in. He was scarcely aware that he was moving forward, and he couldn't have halted himself; there is no controlling a nightmare. He'd moved before he could even see what Isaac saw.
The first thing he saw through a gap between the huts was a cooking pot, a grey bulge in the dimness. It took him a few moments to realize what it was, from the pinkish glow of the fire smouldering beneath it. As he peered at the glow, a shape loomed at the edge of his vision, a thin shape against the trees at the far side of the clearing. He looked up and met the eyes that were watching him.
The dream had him now – the dream in which time was suspended, and from which he would never wake. He had seen that figure before, the thin crouching figure wrapped in its own limbs like a dried-up spider. Now he saw that its head was disproportionately small, which made it look even less human. The air about it seemed darker, swarming, and he thought of flies.
He was only peripherally aware of all this. All he could see were the eyes. If the body looked almost wasted away, the eyes were unnaturally bright with a kind of insane senile brightness. He could read their dreadful hunger all the way across the clearing. They were insatiable, and they were waiting for him.
He had forgotten Isaac until the translator took hold of his arm. 'He's alone,' Isaac murmured, as if that mattered. 'The others must be hunting. Stay here.'
He stepped forward, drawing the pistol. Perhaps he meant to give himself no time for second thoughts about what he had to do, but then it would be Alan's turn. At least the spidery eyes were watching Isaac now. That might give Alan a chance to prepare himself, but that thought was appalling too.
Now he could see more of the dried-up figure that was squatting amid its tangle of limbs. Its skin was like a mummy's, leathery and ancient; its mouth was a skull's mouth – too large for the head. It looked as if it had no right to be alive, and yet the eyes looked older than the body, the life in them did.
Isaac was moving more slowly. Perhaps he'd seen exactly what he was approaching. Alan had a sudden inkling that Isaac couldn't stop himself. The silence was a stagnant fluid in which they were drowning. It dragged at their limbs, it suffocated time. Isaac might take forever to reach the thing that was watching them – and then Alan realized that Isaac had found he couldn't shoot. Now that it came to the moment, he couldn't kill another human being, however nominal its humanity was, in cold blood.
Alan was suddenly afraid for him. He opened his mouth to call him back, but sourness choked his throat. He went after Isaac just as the crouching figure opened its enormous mouth, baring pointed brownish teeth. Even at that distance Alan could smell its breath, which stank of stale blood.
He made a grab for Isaac, but wasn't quick enough. Isaac must have seen what was coming, for he halted. Nevertheless neither of them could have believed that anything so old and withered could move with such speed.
Before Alan could reach Isaac, or Isaac could step back, the fleshless creature sprang from its crouch and came scuttling at Isaac on all fours.
Isaac stumbled backward, almost tripping himself. It wasn't enough. The dried-up man had the swiftness of a spider, and the method too. Before Isaac could kick out or retreat further the creature seized him, grabbing his ankles and swarming up him, wrapping its legs around his. As Isaac struggled desperately to free himself from the thing that was grinning mirthlessly up at him, he lost his balance and fell on his back in the squelching grass.
His arms were flailing helplessly. All the breath had been knocked out of him. The pistol had jerked from his hand and was trapped under his body. As he screamed, the fleshless man climbed onto his chest and crouched there, the wizened head darting to his throat.
Alan rushed at the creature to drag it away from Isaac, but the long brownish claws were already at Isaac's throat. They ripped open the jugular vein, releasing an appalling rush of blood. Isaac's convulsion uncovered the gun, and Alan snatched it up. Before he could use it Isaac's screams had choked off as the enormous mouth fastened on him and tore out a mouthful of his throat.
Isaac's outstretched hands clawed at the muddy earth, then they relaxed. He was dead. Alan's only thought was that he had brought Isaac here to his death. He was staring, dazed and unable to move, at Isaac's inverted face and blank eyes when the scrawny thing on Isaac's chest looked up, exposing the raw ruin of Isaac's throat. The ancient eyes gazed brightly at him until he understood what their expression meant. It was an invitation – an invitation to feast. He lifted the gun with a hand that was all at once steady and fired once, twice, blowing out those unbearable eyes.
Forty
Alan leaned against a tree at the edge of the clearing. He was afraid that he was going to fall. As soon as the eyeless figure had jerked and fallen back, his fury had left him. He felt drained, giddy, weak as a convalescent. The silence seemed empty now, no longer ominous, but his thoughts were deafening. He was thinking of what he still had to do.
It made his guts squirm. How could he ever have believed himself capable of such a thing? He was just an ordinary civilized human being, alone and far from home. True, he'd left behind everything he knew and loved; but that didn't mean that he could leave himself behind. There was nobody to see what he did except himself, but that was enough to prevent him. Perhaps if Isaac had still been alive to encourage him he might have forced himself, for Anna's sake.
Isaac had died in bringing him here. Isaac had as good as died for him. That thought rekindled his fury, briefly. However dreadful his task might be, considerably less than his life was required of him. It would be a kind of revenge for Isaac, and that was the least Isaac deserved. He made himself step forward while that was clear in his mind, and used one foot to lever the withered corpse off Isaac's body.
Averting his eyes from the wound that had been Isaac's throat, he reached inside Isaac's jacket and found the knife. His innards clenched again. He must have been hoping it wouldn't be there. He'd known it was, known that Isaac had been keeping it out of sight so as not to remind him before it was necessary. He grasped the sheath and drew it out, making sure he didn't touch the blade. He knew how sharp it was.
The glade was growing dim. Did that mean it would soon be dark, or was it just his eyes? Perhaps the Leopard Man's companions were on their way back. At least that gave him a reason to hurry. He stuck the sheathed knife in his belt and stooped quickly to the old man's wrists. He wanted no time to think.
He began to drag the corpse along, its buttocks bumping over the ground. Its trail on the grass looked more like an insect's juices than blood; very little had leaked out of its leathery face. When he'd dragged the corpse almost to the fire, he dropped the wrists and went to look in the pot.
Except for a few inches of steaming water, it was empty. He poked at the embers beneath it with a stick. In a moment they reddened and flared up, and before long the water was bubbling. It was churning, and so were his guts. How could he go through with this horrible farce? But it was the only way he could think of to attempt what he had to do.
He pulled out the knife and stood over the corpse. By God, there wasn't much of it. He was grinning savagely, hysterically. To come all this way, through so much, only to be thwarted because there was no meat on his adversary's body! He turned it over with his foot, then he had to close his eyes, he was so sickened by his plan. There was no alternative. He stooped, and with two inexpert slices hacked off the corpse's scrawny buttocks.
He had to close his eyes again before he could pick up the pieces of meat. He would have carried them between finger and thumb, except that they were too slippery. He dug his long nails into them and stumbled to the cooking pot, almost running. Rump steak, his mind was babbling, rump steak. When he threw in the meat, drops of hot water stung his hands like needles.