As my therapy progressed, I was allowed the freedom of the city. A small congregation followed the teaching of the blessed Zoroaster and placed their dead in a Tower of Silence, to be devoured by genetically engineered buzzards. I visited the Tower by the light of the double moons to cut hunks of flesh from the Zoroastrian dead. I couldn’t eat them there in the thin Martian atmosphere, but carried the slices back in my total environment suit to the domed city. Needless to say, I shot all the pseudo-buzzards. Who needs competition?
The hospital had a huge library. I read endlessly about cannibalism and ghouls. Certain Arabic texts were helpful. I wasn’t alone. There was little biology—no clear information to aid me in my survival. What were my vulnerabilities? What were my strengths? If I wrote a manual for future ghouls—who would publish it?
One legend touched me more than the others. It turned me as I have never been turned before. Certain Amerindians spoke of the Wendigo.
A party of hunters becomes lost in the snow. They find a cave. Eventually, they must kill one another for survival. One of the party loses his disgust at eating long pig. He warns the other survivor(s), “You must go. I am a Wendigo.” They flee in pious terror. The rogue warrior lives on, becoming like a wild beast—long of tooth and claw. Eventually, the tribe destroys this raider with many arrows.
Other legends said that the Wendigo was Ithaqua the Wind Walker, a terrible god of storms and ice. This being could only be bought off with human sacrifice. They would lead the wretches deep into the snowy forest and leave them there to freeze. The remains were found miles away. Fiery, cold eyes could be seen among the trees, the true spirit of deep space—of pure Hunger as a ball of mind-wrenchingly-cold fire. Iä Ithaqua!
There was no attempt to match the legends of Arab ghouls and Canadian cannibals with whatever lived in my soul, but I felt they were connected.
I began to use makeup to cover the dull grey of my complexion. Bright light—a blessedly rare commodity in the domed cities of Mars—discomforted me greatly. I thought I might have a mutated form of pellagra, a disease that causes its victims to desire blood, but decided I suffered from a deeper spiritual change. Unlike most spacefarers, I had no mystical side, no prayer, no meditations—I had an emptiness inside where the Cold Hungry One could live. It ate my soul in the Great Dark and now, it would eat everything. I was happy. I finally had a purpose.
I had no social life, but my warders felt that was because I was a man of the last century—I simply had no one to talk to. Would that my estrangement from humankind were so simple! I began to stalk the streets at night, but I knew this was only a temporary solution. My killings didn’t fit in their computer yet, but as the problem expanded from computer to computer, my research would be discovered.
I visited the Tower of Silence, having noted the death of a Parsi merchant in the weekly data. As I sliced into his corpulent paunch, I knew I was not alone. I looked up.Far away—to the west—I saw two carmine stars where no stars should be. A red haze swirled about them. It was Ithaqua, my soul. I removed my respirator.I could breath the thin Martian air. I thanked my new god as I greedily feasted on the corpse.
An opportunity arose soon afterwards to ship out on a deadliner ship. With my seniority, I got on easily. A “deadliner” is a term invented by the 20th century philosopher Barrington Bayley. It’s a spaceman gone for decades at a time, a victim of time dilation who has become totally removed from human warmth and kindness. When they’re in port, they know everyone they see will be dust before they return. I felt at home among those dead souls. Deadliners go deep into the galaxy, further than I’d ever been. Some of the crew actually had birthdates decades before mine. In a ship of such individualists, I could stalk easily. I signed on as ‘Albert Donner’, a famous miner and cannibal of the 19th century. Even a ghoul can have his little jokes.
A light month past the solar system, I began to let my claws grow. They were semi-retractable. I could pass in human society. Especially in deadliner society—for deadliners never look too closely at their shipmates. They’re always spiraling inwards.
A young-looking computer tech with magnificent red hair would be my first target. I stalked her quietly, waiting for my moment. When the moment came, I ripped her tender, white throat open with my claws. I carefully placed the bleeding body on plastic to avoid telltale bloodstains.
I hadn’t taken the security of a deadliner ship into account. These people often kill each other. The stresses of the long voyage overcome all of their civilised traits. The ship was ready. It snared me in hundreds of tiny robot arms.
They didn’t give me a trial, didn’t ask me anything. They came into normal space and shoved me through the airlock.
I felt all the air sucked from my lungs. I screamed the call in the silence of airless space. Ithaqua came and filled me and changed me. Oh, my burning feet of freezing fire! As the ancient wind god, long since banished from the Earth by disbelief, filled me, he changed me into a burning ball of hunger and hate.
I travel through the void at great speeds. I will return to Earth. I will eat you all, every one.
PHOENIX WOMAN
By Kelda Crich
Kelda Crich is a new-born entity. She’s been lurking in her host’s mind for some time, but now, she wants her own credits. Find her in the intestines of London, laughing at the status quo, or on her blog, (It’s about time she got one of her own): http://keldacrichblog.blogspot.com/.
POSTFLESH
By Paul Jessup
Paul Jessup: Published in a slew of magazines(in print & online) and a mess of anthologies. Has a short story collection out (Glass Coffin Girls) published in the UK by PS Publishing. Have a novella published by Apex Books (Open Your Eyes) and a graphic novel published by Chronicle Books.