Marchand/"The Revenant"

The Revenant by Bart A. Marchand Am I alive?

I know not for certain of my current condition, but let me tell you of my tale which relates the circumstances leading to my pseudo-life.

My story begins in England. I was in the full temper commonly associated with unrestrained youth and soon found myself in debt to one Harvad Teepes, a notorious lender of money.

But so enmeshed was I in the drunk's dissipations that I viewed my predicament apathetically. I caroused like the prosperous prince, and frequently staggered to the stairway with just enough strength and sensibility to reach the sanctuary of my apartment. Even during the sunlit hours, I could not restrain myself from the intoxicating grip of the enfeebling spirits. However, the results of my curse soon caught up with me.

One autumn evening Teepes came to my apartment. I, caught in the weird phantasms often produced by the excesses taken by a hard drinker, received him with a gay welcome and quickly ushered him into my dilapidated lounge.

Teepes, in his shrill and unmistakable voice, indignantly demanded recompense for his generous loan. My temper, true to the heavy partaker of the baneful drinks, quickly changed from blissful acceptance to blind fury. With great effort, I restrained myself as I informed the lender of my current lack of funds.

Teepes immediately impugned my honor (questionable as it was), by calling me vagrant names and other loathsome terms, and pushed me roughly into a couch.

A drunken madness, completely imbalanced, swept over me with fevered heat. I leapt to my feet, seizing the first movable object at hand, and attacked Teepes with that convenient weapon. To my everlasting sorrow, it was a fireplace poker which cleanly pierced the lender's chest. He fell without a sound.

Instantly my rage faded into oblivion and I faced my crime with sober eyes. My intellect quickly conjured up an accident by which the true nature of the murder would remain undiscovered. I put the corpse at the bottom of the stairway, contriving an appearance of Teepes falling down the stairs and impaling himself on a large splinter of wood. My perfect alibi, I equally gave care to, and so thoroughly did I protect myself from the crime that no suspicion fell upon me.

Soon after the deed, I resolved to break the hold that the intoxicants had upon me. I sold my apartment and moved to Norway, thinking that the cold serenity of this seaside nation could likewise disperse the heat raging in my blood.

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For several years, nothing untoward happened to me. Step by step, I loosened the tempestuous handhold the destructive liquids had on me, and eventually dispensed with all need of such unhealthy diversions I quickly settled down into my new way of life, all the while admiring the austere clarity of the waters and crisp atmosphere of the mountains.

Yet, I found myself unable to entirely dismiss the awareness of my horrid deed. It lurked in my mind like a diseased toad, all too willing to lurch into conscious memory.

And then it occurred, the events which sealed my fate.

One autumn evening I was returning home to a solid and drafty chateau within the mountains, from a regatta near Oslo. Such an event was the last to have occurred before stormy winds and driving snow made maritime sports impossible to perform. Already during that evening the clouds wreathed the mountains, threatening to discharge their loads even as I rode home. I was alone on an ebony steed which was as familiar with the road home as I was.

As I rode, my soul slowly slipped into a dreadful melancholy. My morbid feat, I was all too aware of, but there seemed no physical agent by which I could release my consciousness from the numbing dreariness that settled on my mind. The surroundings, usually pleasant, conspired to prevent any relief coming into my mind. I traveled a muddy trail, a dark sticky rill clearly outlined by the recently fallen snow. A collection of mountains bleakly rose to my left. They were severely clad in cold greys, blacks, and whites; reluctant to add any color to the scenery. On my right, there was a short stretch of level ground, a meadow in warmer times, now entombed in an unbroken icy whiteness. The sky brooded overhead. Leaden clouds morosely prowled the sky, while others floated easily, gleaming with a pallor. The environment like a gloomy weight, served to intensify my morbid mood. Under such a dreary stillness my brain, numb as it was, feebly asked for anything to break the guilty spell holding my consciousness in thrall, even if it was of a hazardous nature. Unfortunately, my unspoken wish was granted.

So deep was I in this enveloping melancholy that my mount guided itself home. Suddenly, my mind perceived a difference in the surroundings not present when I passed by that very morning.

Spurring my steed to the right, I rode toward this new feature, glad for an excuse to divert the ruminations my consciousness dwelled upon.

A black form marred the otherwise pale perfection of the enshrouded meadow. As I approached, it solidified into a rigid and gaunt structure. A shudder convulsed my frame as I recognized the black edifice. It was a gibbet; cold and featureless as the snow surrounding it. Although it appeared new, an invisible vapor, immersed in antiquity, securely wrapped the grim frame. It stank of death, a sour reek that sluggishly persisted, vapid and malicious, despite the faintly brisk wind. My steed shied from it, as though the animal could feel the death agonies that implicitly pervaded the gallows. I was forced to dismount to closely inspect it.

The distance between the monument of death and myself became less and less, even though my mind shuddered and thrilled to an active terror. The crunch, as my boots penetrated the thin crust of snow, I perceived as the brittle breaking of yellowed bones.

Abruptly a figure, seemingly an element of the black gallows, detached itself from the gibbet. Now the cold, hitherto an exterior force, entered every pore and cell of my body, numbing all sensation, save a slowly cresting tide of terror. A man of medium height and slightly built, although it was difficult to discern his frame, wrapped in a full length robe, with a cowl completely obscuring his face stepped forward. The diffuse light seemed reluctant, almost repelled, by the void of stygian depths provided by the cowl. I trembled, shuddered with the consuming cold and the rampant terror raging in my mind as the figure approached me. Its stride, situated between a stagger and a stumbling shuffle, had a remote stateliness within it. The man pulled an ancient weapon from the airless confines of his robe and my physique and mind convulsed to new terrors rooted in recognition. It was a spear, its shaft a lifeless and wan type of wood. But it was the point that thrilled the very core of my being. It was shaped like the poker by which I killed Harvad Teepes!

As I gazed at the spear's head in morbid fascination, a peculiar sensation invaded my consciousness. Terror no longer dominated my brain. In fact, I was inexplicably gay, the exact same irrational joy induced by the virulent intoxicants I no longer imbibed. Willpower, along with all vestiges of warmth, fled my body. The figure spasmodically pointed his spear towards the stairs of the gallows and I obeyed, giddily climbing the steps in a jerky fashion as my strength rapidly disintegrated. I moved clumsily to the platform as my dark companion pointed the way. I ascended the platform and waited, my mind sedate.

The silent figure slipped the noose around my neck. It appeared new, but reeked of molding blood slowly clotting in the frigid air. The figure stepped back and said, "Your death is my release" in a familiar shrill voice.

The cowl fell back, revealing the grey, rotting, but still recognizable visage of Harvad Teepes. He kicked the platform away and plunged the spear into my chest. My head snapped back. I felt the rope choking my throat, snapping my neck bones, as the poker-shaped spear pierced my body...

Yet I still live. The gibbet is now my property. I feel my body and face twist and contort. Even now, I am assuming a new personage. I wait. I wait for him, the one who will release me.

He knows me and I know him.

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Illustration by Christopher Robin Tirri

This story originally appeared in the December 1990 issue of Amazing Experiences.

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