called truly dead. Having heard Mother’s story of Grandfather’s death, having seen him in the filth he now used for flesh, I was willing to credit that belief and anything else, no matter how bizarre, that I had ever heard about those vermin. According to an even less credible tale, a ghoul can for a time assume the identity of a corpse whose heart and brain it eats. I would take no chances. The ghouls had had enough fun with my wife, and she with them. I had brought a stone crock for her organs, and I would take them home with me to lock away in a safe place.
I cut a ring beneath her still-lovely auburn curls. Her scalp squeaked a protest when I ripped it off. I peeled her face down, no great loss now, to reveal the raw bone beneath. Sawing her skull was arduous work, as it was slippery and hard to hold, and I wanted my cut to be precise. I would leave no slightest morsel of her brain to amuse a ghoul.
My hands by now were smeared with clotted gore, and when I paused to rest I was horrified to catch myself absently licking them clean. I had never tasted human blood, or the congealed slime that was like Umbra’s blood, and I wondered why it didn’t sicken me. I deliberately licked my hand. Except for the idea of it, I found nothing to dislike.
I turned her over, revealing a huge bruise of pooled blood on her back. I had to stamp on her buttocks and crack some of her bones to compose her more comfortably for sawing the back of her head, but by then I was too weary to go on. In the hope of refreshing myself, I reached for the food I had put by.
I wish I could make my thoughts and feelings at that time clear, but they weren’t clear then, nor are they now. I had seen the great love of my life—yes, she was—polluted by the foulest of fiends, I had been beaten senseless, I had murdered her that morning, I had heard and guessed more than enough about my heritage to drive anyone mad, and now I was violating her body in accord with a superstition I would have laughed at yesterday: it would be inadequate to say I was overwrought.
I may have been asleep for a moment without knowing it, because the final horror began just like a dream: I was eating something that I assumed I had brought with me, but I couldn’t remember bringing anything, nor could I say what I was eating. Instead of looking in my hand, as any sane, waking man would have, I pondered the question while continuing to chew and swallow.
I put the food aside and resumed sawing, stopping every now and then for another bite. Only when I had sawed off the top of Umbra’s skull did I know in a dim way that I had devoured her heart. I began to scoop out gobbets of her brain and eat them, too.
* * * *
I had no idea why I was wearing my husband’s clothes. The sleeves were too long, they got in the way of ... what I was doing.
It couldn’t be his stupid joke, as I thought when I came to myself and noticed the clothes, because I was the one doing it: I was the one eating this unknown woman’s corpse. The mere fact didn’t repel me. I had wanted to join Exudimord in his feasts. I had wanted to share his pleasures. But the things he offered me always stank and crawled with maggots, and my weak, human stomach would rebel. Not even his promise that I would become a ghoul if I acted like one had given me the strength to overcome my despised nature.
Why had he never given me fresh meat like this? It was delicious! He must have been testing me.
And I knew he must have arranged this treat. Had I passed his tests at last? “Exudimord?” I called. Sleithreethra! Just saying his name made me squirm inside, made me moist and ready for him.
He wasn’t here. No one was, just me and the corpse, inside a little box I identified from murals celebrating their fatuousness as the tomb of the Glyphts. Lord Glyphtard! I had to laugh. If the lowest of Vendrens pissed on the highest of Glyphts, the stream would disperse to a golden dew before it fell far enough to touch him,
I cut a ring beneath her still-lovely auburn curls. Her scalp squeaked a protest when I ripped it off. I peeled her face down, no great loss now, to reveal the raw bone beneath. Sawing her skull was arduous work, as it was slippery and hard to hold, and I wanted my cut to be precise. I would leave no slightest morsel of her brain to amuse a ghoul.
My hands by now were smeared with clotted gore, and when I paused to rest I was horrified to catch myself absently licking them clean. I had never tasted human blood, or the congealed slime that was like Umbra’s blood, and I wondered why it didn’t sicken me. I deliberately licked my hand. Except for the idea of it, I found nothing to dislike.
I turned her over, revealing a huge bruise of pooled blood on her back. I had to stamp on her buttocks and crack some of her bones to compose her more comfortably for sawing the back of her head, but by then I was too weary to go on. In the hope of refreshing myself, I reached for the food I had put by.
I wish I could make my thoughts and feelings at that time clear, but they weren’t clear then, nor are they now. I had seen the great love of my life—yes, she was—polluted by the foulest of fiends, I had been beaten senseless, I had murdered her that morning, I had heard and guessed more than enough about my heritage to drive anyone mad, and now I was violating her body in accord with a superstition I would have laughed at yesterday: it would be inadequate to say I was overwrought.
I may have been asleep for a moment without knowing it, because the final horror began just like a dream: I was eating something that I assumed I had brought with me, but I couldn’t remember bringing anything, nor could I say what I was eating. Instead of looking in my hand, as any sane, waking man would have, I pondered the question while continuing to chew and swallow.
I put the food aside and resumed sawing, stopping every now and then for another bite. Only when I had sawed off the top of Umbra’s skull did I know in a dim way that I had devoured her heart. I began to scoop out gobbets of her brain and eat them, too.
* * * *
I had no idea why I was wearing my husband’s clothes. The sleeves were too long, they got in the way of ... what I was doing.
It couldn’t be his stupid joke, as I thought when I came to myself and noticed the clothes, because I was the one doing it: I was the one eating this unknown woman’s corpse. The mere fact didn’t repel me. I had wanted to join Exudimord in his feasts. I had wanted to share his pleasures. But the things he offered me always stank and crawled with maggots, and my weak, human stomach would rebel. Not even his promise that I would become a ghoul if I acted like one had given me the strength to overcome my despised nature.
Why had he never given me fresh meat like this? It was delicious! He must have been testing me.
And I knew he must have arranged this treat. Had I passed his tests at last? “Exudimord?” I called. Sleithreethra! Just saying his name made me squirm inside, made me moist and ready for him.
He wasn’t here. No one was, just me and the corpse, inside a little box I identified from murals celebrating their fatuousness as the tomb of the Glyphts. Lord Glyphtard! I had to laugh. If the lowest of Vendrens pissed on the highest of Glyphts, the stream would disperse to a golden dew before it fell far enough to touch him,
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