This was apparently Nash's final letter. Two items are appended to the correspondence. One is a page torn from a book. It bears no running title, and I have been unable to locate the book, which seems to have been either a collection of supposedly true stories about Gloucestershire or a more general anthology of strange tales, including several about that area. Presumably whoever tore out the sheet found the following paragraph on page 232 relevant:
Residents of Berkeley still recall the night of the great scream. Sometime before dawn on the 15th of March 1937, many people were awakened by a sound which at first they were unable to identify. Some thought it was an injured animal, while others took it for a new kind of siren. Those who recognised it as a human voice did so only because it was pronouncing words or attempting to pronounce them. Although there seems to have been general agreement that it was near the river, at some distance from the town, those who remember hearing it describe it as having been almost unbearably loud and shrill. The local police appear to have been busy elsewhere, and the townsfolk were loath to investigate. Over the course of the morning the sound is said to have increased in pitch and volume. A relative of one of the listeners recalled being told by her mother that the noise sounded 'as if someone was screaming a hole in himself'. By late morning the sound is supposed to have grown somehow more diffuse, as though the source had become enlarged beyond control, and shortly before noon it ceased altogether. Subsequently the river and the area beside it were searched, but no trace of a victim was found.
The second item is a photograph. It looks faded with age, a process exacerbated by copying. The original image is so dim as to be blurred, and is identifiable only as the head and shoulders of a man in an inadequately illuminated room. His eyes are excessively wide and fixed. I am unable to determine what kind of flaw in the image obscures the lower part of his face. Because of the lack of definition of the photograph, the fault makes him look as if his jaw has been wrenched far too wide. It is even possible to imagine that the gaping hole, which is at least as large as half his face, leads into altogether too much darkness. Sometimes I see that face in my dreams.
Violence, Child of Trust
Michael Cisco
Michael Cisco is the author of the short story collection
I watch.
The fly rubs its things. It came out of the well. That well is full of flies. There are always more after for a while. Julius didn't need to take the bucket off the rope and put it away in the cellar to stop me drinking any more well water because I kept forgetting not to drink it because I stopped liking the taste since the pit was filled in and there are too many flies. Now there's just the loop.
I used to come out to the well all the time because Father didn't give me water in the house. They didn't remember me because I was always quiet even before I stopped talking. Julius had the pump put in so we don't have to use the well water anymore. After Father left.
Grass. The up and down where the wood starts. Sun in my eye. The rough grey wood of the well. The hum the flies make in the well. One of them lands on my hand. I shake it off. Todd said it has to be soon. But we just did the it. We just did one. Julius is angry about it. I wish Todd would just tend the women and quit fussing with Julius, because Julius shouts when he gets mad. And he hits me for no reason.
The day sure is fine. It might be today.
'You took your time,' I said when Todd came in.
I was certainly ready for him. I was braced and ready. I took a good hard look at him. He didn't answer me. He was always backtalking me but this time he kept his peace. That irregularity put me up.
'What kept you, Todd?'
He rubbed his brow. I hadn't expected that. I thought he might be shamming.
'Are you ailing, Todd?' I asked.
He wouldn't meet my gaze.
'You look at me when I address you,
He shook his head once, almost as if he wanted to shush me. The day he shushes me — but then I thought again.
'Is it —?'
After some dither he managed to get it out. He said he thought.
'You think?' I demanded. He could sham that too.
But he told me it was still going on, that he was coming out of it. His Lordship. The Prophet.
Right then he looked at me. I knew that was the look. Todd couldn't have shammed that look if he'd practiced day and night.
'Again?'
The word just dropped out of his mouth, and he leaned against the lintel like he'd been biffed on the head. His eyes blundered from nothing to nothing. Stupidity washed down his seamy white face and made it even longer. I had to keep my eye on him now that I'd looked at him; it was helping me to come back out of it.
It came over me with more force than ever, as I was coming back from tending the women. The one Julius dubbed Elaine, her name was Katey or something like that actually, had given me a bit of smart mouth and I'd had to crack her in the chops. Then I reminded her why she was there. In that frame of mind it is not for me a protracted matter and Julius never suspects. I don't think he hardly goes out there any more. Perhaps he can't manage it, in his senescence.
It doesn't really start until you notice. I had been feeling good, although my hand was a little sore, then I realized that, now that I was out of the dark, that close little cell with the women, the sun dazzle isn't diminishing. Every time I move my eyes I see streaks. Then my breath whistles in my teeth and I know this is really it. I don't like to fall down. I keep myself clean, I hate to get even the slightest bit dirty. So I hold myself up.
My mouth watered and my stomach turned over. My arms and legs got weak, hateful. Next I notice some dark spot; in this case, it was the shadow that fell between the house and the tupelo tree. I saw the sign in there. The dark opened and spread itself around me, and then the palaces.
We'd had to know it would come to this sooner or later. The last time hadn't been but a month ago, less than a month. Julius had relaxed. I have to admit I'd let myself relax too. I shouldn't have.
We're not ready. We haven't got a girl and we haven't got time to grab one. The last time was a close call — she was a tussler and Julius came back white as a sheet and swearing, pacing and swearing up and down he'd been seen. Nothing came of it. Nothing has as yet come of it.
He asked me how long, still gawking at me as if there were ever any variation how long between the sign and the time, as if I set the time.
'Tomorrow dusk like always,' I said, throwing it at him.
His mouth was hanging open, and I could see he hadn't a thought in his head not an uncommon condition.
No.
He did have a thought in his head — I had it, too. We were ready, that was the thing. There were girls. He was thinking of Claire. I was thinking of Ruth.
He was thinking of Ruth.
