Skin and Other Stories Read online

  He put the earphones on his head and switched on the machine. He listened for a moment to the faint familiar humming sound; then he picked up the axe, took a stance with his legs wide apart and swung the axe as hard as he could at the base of the tree trunk. The blade cut deep into the wood and stuck there, and at the instant of impact he heard a most extraordinary noise in the earphones. It was a new noise, unlike any he had heard before - a harsh, noteless, enormous noise, a growling, low-pitched, screaming sound, not quick and short like the noise of the roses, but drawn out like a sob lasting for fully a minute, loudest at the moment when the axe struck, fading gradually fainter and fainter until it was gone.

  Klausner stared in horror at the place where the blade of the axe had sunk into the woodflesh of the tree; then gently he took the axe handle, worked the blade loose and threw the thing to the ground. With his fingers he touched the gash that the axe had made in the wood, touching the edges of the gash, trying to press them together to close the wound, and he kept saying, 'Tree ... oh, tree ... I am sorry ... I am sorry ... but it will heal ... it will heal fine ...'

  For a while he stood there with his hands upon the trunk of the great tree; then suddenly he turned away and hurried off out of the park, across the road, through the front gate and back into his house. He went to the telephone, consulted the book, dialled a number and waited. He held the receiver tightly in his left hand and tapped the table impatiently with his right. He heard the telephone buzzing at the other end, and then the click of a lifted receiver and a man's voice, a sleepy voice, saying: 'Hullo. Yes.'

  'Dr Scott?' he said.

  'Yes. Speaking.'

  'Dr Scott. You must come at once - quickly, please.'

  'Who is it speaking?'

  'Klausner here, and you remember what I told you last night about my experience with sound, and how I hoped I might -'

  'Yes, yes, of course, but what's the matter? Are you ill?'

  'No, I'm not ill, but -'

  'It's half-past six in the morning,' the Doctor said, 'and you call me but you are not ill.'

  'Please come. Come quickly. I want someone to hear it. It's driving me mad! I can't believe it ...'

  The Doctor heard the frantic, almost hysterical note in the man's voice, the same note he was used to hearing in the voices of people who called up and said, 'There's been an accident. Come quickly.' He said slowly, 'You really want me to get out of bed and come over now?'

  'Yes, now. At once, please.'

  'All right, then - I'll come.'

  Klausner sat down beside the telephone and waited. He tried to remember what the shriek of the tree had sounded like, but he couldn't. He could remember only that it had been enormous and frightful and that it had made him feel sick with horror. He tried to imagine what sort of noise a human would make if he had to stand anchored to the ground while someone deliberately swung a small sharp thing at his leg so that the blade cut in deep and wedged itself in the cut. Same sort of noise perhaps? No. Quite different. The noise of the tree was worse than any known human noise because of that frightening, toneless, throatless quality. He began to wonder about other living things, and he thought immediately of a field of wheat standing up straight and yellow and alive, with the mower going through it, cutting the stems, five hundred stems a second, every second. Oh, my God, what would that noise be like? Five hundred wheat plants screaming together and every second another five hundred being cut and screaming and - no, he thought, I do not want to go to a wheat field with my machine. I would never eat bread after that. But what about potatoes and cabbages and carrots and onions? And what about apples? Ah, no. Apples are all right. They fall off naturally when they are ripe. Apples are all right if you let them fall off instead of tearing them from the tree branch. But not vegetables. Not a potato for example. A potato would surely shriek; so would a carrot and an onion and a cabbage ...

  He heard the click of the front-gate latch and he jumped up and went out and saw the tall doctor coming down the path, little black bag in hand.

  'Well,' the Doctor said. 'Well, what's all the trouble?'

  'Come with me, Doctor, I want you to hear it. I called you because you're the only one I've told. It's over the road in the park. Will you come now?'

  The Doctor looked at him. He seemed calmer now. There was no sign of madness or hysteria; he was merely disturbed and excited.

  They went across the road into the park and Klausner led the way to the great beech tree at the foot of which stood the long black coffin-box of the machine - and the axe.

  'Why did you bring it out here?' the Doctor asked.

  'I wanted a tree. There aren't any big trees in the garden.'

  'And why the axe?'

  'You'll see in a moment. But now please put on these earphones and listen. Listen carefully and tell me afterwards precisely what you hear. I want to make quite sure ...'

  The Doctor smiled and took the earphones and put them over his ears.

  Klausner bent down and flicked the switch on the panel of the machine; then he picked up the axe and took his stance with his legs apart, ready to swing. For a moment he paused.

  'Can you hear anything?' he said to the Doctor.

  'Can I what?'

  'Can you hear anything?'

  'Just a humming noise.'

  Klausner stood there with the axe in his hands trying to bring himself to swing, but the thought of the noise that the tree would make made him pause again.

  'What are you waiting for?' the Doctor asked.

  'Nothing,' Klausner answered, and then lifted the axe and swung it at the tree, and as he swung, he thought he felt, he could swear he felt a movement of the ground on which he stood. He felt a slight shifting of the earth beneath his feet as though the roots of the tree were moving underneath the soil, but it was too late to check the blow and the axe blade struck the tree and wedged deep into the wood. At that moment, high overhead, there was the cracking sound of wood splintering and the swishing sound of leaves brushing against other leaves and they both looked up and the Doctor cried, 'Watch out! Run, man! Quickly, run!'

  The Doctor had ripped off the earphones and was running away fast, but Klausner stood spellbound, staring up at the great branch, sixty feet long at least, that was bending slowly downward, breaking and crackling and splintering at its thickest point, where it joined the main trunk of the tree. The branch came crashing down and Klausner leapt aside just in time. It fell upon the machine and smashed it into pieces.

  'Great heavens!' shouted the Doctor as he came running back. 'That was a near one! I thought it had got you!'

  Klausner was staring at the tree. His large head was leaning to one side and upon his smooth white face there was a tense, horrified expression. Slowly he walked up to the tree and gently he prised the blade loose from the trunk.

  'Did you hear it?' he said, turning to the Doctor. His voice was barely audible.

  The Doctor was still out of breath from running and the excitement. 'Hear what?'

  'In the earphones. Did you hear anything when the axe struck?'

  The Doctor began to rub the back of his neck. 'Well,' he said, 'as a matter of fact ...' He paused and frowned and bit his lower lip. 'No, I'm not sure. I couldn't be sure. I don't suppose I had the earphones on for more than a second after the axe struck.'

  'Yes, yes, but what did you hear?'

  'I don't know,' the Doctor said. 'I don't know what I heard. Probably the noise of the branch breaking.' He was speaking rapidly, rather irritably.

  'What did it sound like?' Klausner leaned forward slightly, staring hard at the Doctor. 'Exactly what did it sound like?'

  'Oh hell!' the Doctor said. 'I really don't know. I was more interested in getting out of the way. Let's leave it.'

  'Dr Scott, what-did-it-sound-like?'

  'For God's sake, how could I tell, what with half the tree falling on me and having to run for my life?' The Doctor certainly seemed nervous. Klausner had sensed it now. He stood quite still, starin