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Title: Scream at midnight

Author: Joseph Payne Brennan

Release date: May 20, 2023 [eBook #70817]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Macabre House

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCREAM AT MIDNIGHT ***






                          SCREAM AT MIDNIGHT

                        By JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN

                             Macabre House

                        New Haven, Connecticut

                                 1963

                  Copyright Joseph Payne Brennan 1963

      [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
  evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


                     BOOKS BY JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN


                             SHORT STORIES

                    Nine Horrors and a Dream (1958)
                       The Dark Returners (1959)


                                 POEMS

                         Heart of Earth (1950)
                       The Humming Stair (1953)
                        The Wind of Time (1962)




                               CONTENTS


                          The Horror at Chilton Castle

                          The Midnight Bus

                          The Vampire Bat

                          The Seventh Incantation

                          Killer Cat

                          The Dump

                          The Tenants

                          The Man Who Feared Masks

                          The Visitor in the Vault




                     THE HORROR AT CHILTON CASTLE


I had decided to spend a leisurely summer in Europe, concentrating, if
at all, on genealogical research. I went first to Ireland, journeying
to Kilkenny where I unearthed a mine of legend and authentic lore
concerning my remote Irish ancestors, the O'Braonains, chiefs of Ui
Duach in the ancient kingdom of Ossory. The Brennans (as the name was
later spelled) lost their estates in the British confiscation under
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. The thieving Earl, I am happy to
report, was subsequently beheaded in the Tower.

From Kilkenny I traveled to London and then to Chesterfield in search
of maternal ancestors, the Holborns, Wilkersons, Searles, etc.
Incomplete and fragmentary records left many great gaps, but my efforts
were moderately successful and at length I decided to go further north
and visit the vicinity of Chilton Castle, seat of Robert Chilton-Payne,
the twelfth Earl of Chilton. My relationship to the Chilton-Paynes was
a most distant one, and yet there existed a tenuous thread of past
connection and I thought it would amuse me to glimpse the castle.

Arriving in Wexwold, the tiny village near the castle, late in the
afternoon, I engaged a room at the Inn of the Red Goose--the only one
there was--unpacked and went down for a simple meal consisting of a
small loaf, cheese and ale.

By the time I finished this stark and yet satisfying repast, darkness
had set in, and with it came wind and rain.

I resigned myself to an evening at the inn. There was ale enough and I
was in no hurry to go anywhere.

After writing a few letters, I went down and ordered a pint of ale.
The taproom was almost deserted; the bartender, a stout gentleman
who seemed forever on the point of falling asleep, was pleasant but
taciturn, and at length I fell to musing on the strange and frightening
legend of Chilton Castle.

There were variations of the legend, and without doubt the original
tale had been embroidered down through the centuries, but the essential
outline of the story concerned a secret room somewhere in the castle.
It was said that this room contained a terrifying spectacle which the
Chilton-Paynes were obliged to keep hidden from the world.

Only three persons were ever permitted to enter the room: the presiding
Earl of Chilton, the Earl's male heir and one other person designated
by the Earl. Ordinarily this person was the Factor of Chilton Castle.
The room was entered only once in a generation; within three days after
the male heir came of age, he was conducted to the secret room by the
Earl and the Factor. The room was then sealed and never opened again
until the heir conducted his own son to the grisly chamber.

According to the legend, the heir was never the same person again after
entering the room. Invariably he would become somber and withdrawn; his
countenance would acquire a brooding, apprehensive expression which
nothing could long dispell. One of the earlier earls of Chilton had
gone completely mad and hurled himself from the turrets of the castle.

Speculation about the contents of the secret room had continued for
centuries. One version of the tale described the panic-stricken flight
of the Gowers, with armed enemies hot on their flagging heels. Although
there had been bad blood between the Chilton-Paynes and the Gowers, in
their desperation the Gowers begged for refuge at Chilton Castle. The
Earl gave them entry, conducted them to a hidden room and left with a
promise that they would be shielded from their pursuers. The Earl kept
his promise; the Gowers' enemies were turned away from the Castle,
their murderous plans unconsummated. The Earl, however, simply left
the Gowers in the locked room to starve to death. The chamber was not
opened until thirty years later when the Earl's son finally broke the
seal. A fearful sight met his eyes. The Gowers had starved to death
slowly, and at the last, judging by the appearance of the mingled
skeletons, had turned to cannibalism.

Another version of the legend indicated that the secret room had been
used by medieval earls as a torture chamber. It was said that the
ingenious instruments of pain were yet in the room and that these
lethal apparatuses still clutched the pitiful remains of their final
victims, twisted fearfully in their last agonies.

A third version mentioned one of the female ancestors of the
Chilton-Paynes, Lady Susan Glanville, who had reputedly made a pact
with the Devil. She had been condemned as a witch but had somehow
managed to escape the stake. The date and even the manner of her death
were unknown, but in some vague way the secret room was supposed to be
connected with it.

As I speculated on these different versions of the gruesome legend, the
storm increased in intensity. Rain drummed steadily against the leaded
windows of the inn and now I could occasionally hear the distant mutter
of thunder.

Glancing at the rain-streaked panes, I shrugged and ordered another
pint of ale.

I had the fresh tankard halfway to my lips when the taproom door burst
open, letting in a blast of wind and rain. The door was shut and a tall
figure muffled to the ears in a dripping greatcoat moved to the bar.
Removing his cap, he ordered brandy.

Having nothing better to do, I observed him closely. He looked about
seventy, grizzled and weather-worn, but wiry, with an appearance
of toughness and determination. He was frowning, as if absorbed in
thinking through some unpleasant problem, yet his cold blue eyes
inspected me keenly for a brief but deliberate interval.

I could not place him in a tidy niche. He might be a local farmer, and
yet I did not think that he was. He had a vague aura of authority and
though his clothes were certainly plain, they were, I thought, somewhat
better in cut and quality than those of the area countrymen whom I had
observed.

A trivial incident opened a conversation between us. An unusually sharp
crack of thunder made him turn toward the window. As he did so, he
accidentally brushed his wet cap onto the floor. I retrieved it for
him; he thanked me; and then we exchanged commonplace remarks about the
weather.

I had an intuitive feeling that although he was a normally reticent
individual, he was presently wrestling with some severe problem which
made him want to hear a human voice. Realizing there was always
the possibility that my intuition might have for once failed me, I
nevertheless babbled on about my trip, about my genealogical researches
in Kilkenny, London and Chesterfield, and finally about my distant
relationship to the Chilton-Paynes and my desire to get a good look at
Chilton Castle.

Suddenly I found that he was gazing at me with an expression which,
if not fierce, was disturbingly intense. An awkward silence ensued. I
coughed, wondering uneasily what I had said to make those cold blue
eyes stare at me so fixedly.

At length he became aware of my growing embarrassment. "You must
excuse me for staring," he apologized, "but something you said...." He
hesitated. "Could we perhaps take that table?" He nodded toward a small
table which sat half in shadow in the far corner of the room.

I agreed, mystified but curious, and we took our drinks to the secluded
table.

He sat frowning for a minute, as if uncertain how to begin. Finally
he introduced himself as William Cowath. I gave him my name and still
he hesitated. At length he took a swallow of brandy and then looked
straight at me. "I am," he stated, "the Factor at Chilton Castle."

I surveyed him with surprise and renewed interest. "What an agreeable
coincidence!" I exclaimed. "Then perhaps tomorrow you could arrange for
me to have a look at the castle?"

He seemed scarcely to hear me. "Yes, yes, of course," he replied
absently.

Puzzled and a bit irritated by his air of detachment, I remained silent.

He took a deep breath and then spoke rapidly, running some of his words
together. "Robert Chilton-Payne, the Twelfth Earl of Chilton, was
buried in the family vaults one week ago. Frederick, the young heir and
now Thirteenth Earl, came of age just three days ago. Tonight it is
imperative that he be conducted to the secret chamber!"

I gaped at him in incredulous amazement. For a moment I had an idea
that he had somehow heard of my interest in Chilton Castle and was
merely "pulling my leg" for amusement in the belief that I was the
greenest of gullible tourists.

But there could be no mistaking his deadly seriousness. There was not
the faintest suspicion of humor in his eyes.

I groped for words. "It seems so strange--so unbelievable! Just before
you arrived, I had been thinking about the various legends connected
with the secret room."

His cold eyes held my own. "It is not legend that confronts us; it is
fact."

A thrill of fear and excitement ran through me. "You are going
there--tonight?"

He nodded. "Tonight. Myself, the young Earl--and one other."

I stared at him.

"Ordinarily," he continued, "the Earl himself would accompany us.
That is the custom. But he is dead. Shortly before he passed away, he
instructed me to select someone to go with the young Earl and myself.
That person must be male--and preferably of the blood."

I took a deep drink of ale and said not a word.

He continued. "Besides the young Earl, there is no one at the Castle
save his elderly mother, Lady Beatrice Chilton, and an ailing aunt."

"Who could the Earl have had in mind?" I inquired cautiously.

The Factor frowned. "There are some distant male cousins residing
in the country. I have an idea he thought at least one of them might
appear for the obsequies. But not one of them did."

"That was most unfortunate!" I observed.

"Extremely unfortunate. And I am therefore asking you, as one of the
blood, to accompany the young Earl and myself to the secret room
tonight!"

I gulped like a bumpkin. Lightning flashed against the windows and I
could hear rain swishing along the stones outside. When feathers of ice
stopped fluttering in my stomach, I managed a reply.

"But I--that is--my relationship is so very remote! I am "of the blood"
only by courtesy, you might say! The strain in me is so very diluted!"

He shrugged. "You bear the name. And you possess at least a few drops
of the Payne blood. Under the present urgent circumstances, no more is
necessary. I am sure that Earl Robert would agree with me, could he
still speak. You will come?"

There was no escaping the intensity, the pressure, of those cold blue
eyes. They seemed to follow my mind about as it groped for further
excuses.

Finally, inevitably it seemed, I agreed. A feeling grew in me that the
meeting had been preordained, that, somehow, I had always been destined
to visit the secret chamber in Chilton Castle.

We finished our drinks and I went up to my room for rain ware. When
I descended, suitably attired for the storm, the obese bartender was
snoring on his stool in spite of savage crashes of thunder which had
now become almost incessant. I envied him as I left the cozy room with
William Cowath.

Once outside, my guide informed me that we would have to go afoot to
the castle. He had purposely walked down to the inn, he explained, in
order that he might have time and solitude to straighten out in his own
mind the things which he would have to do.

The sheets of heavy rain, the strong wind and the roar of thunder made
conversation difficult. I walked Indian-fashion behind the Factor who
took enormous strides and appeared to know every inch of the way in
spite of the darkness.

We walked only a short distance down the village street and then struck
into a side road which very soon dwindled to a foot path made slippery
and treacherous by the driving rain.

Abruptly the path began to ascend; the footing became more precarious.
It was at once necessary to concentrate all one's attention on one's
feet. Fortunately, the flashes of lightning were frequent.

It seemed to me that we had been walking for an hour--actually, I
suppose, it was only a few minutes--when the Factor finally stopped.

I found myself standing beside him on a flat rocky plateau. He pointed
up an incline which rose before us. "Chilton Castle," he said.

For a moment I saw nothing in the unrelieved darkness. Then the
lightning flashed.

Beyond high battlemented walls, fissured with age, I glimpsed a great
square Norman castle with four rectangular corner towers pierced by
narrow window apertures which looked like evil slitted eyes. The huge
weathered pile was half covered by a mantle of ivy which appeared more
black than green.

"It looks incredibly old!" I commented.

William Cowath nodded. "It was begun in 1122 by Henry de Montargis."
Without another word he started up the incline.

As we approached the castle wall, the storm grew worse. The slanting
rain and powerful wind now made speech all but impossible. We bent our
heads and staggered upward.

When the wall finally loomed in front of us, I was amazed at its height
and thickness. It had been constructed, obviously, to withstand the
best siege guns and battering rams which its early enemies could bring
to bear on it.

As we crossed a massive timbered drawbridge, I peered down into the
black ditch of a moat but I could not be sure whether there was water
in it. A low arched gateway gave access through the wall to an inner
cobblestoned courtyard. This courtyard was entirely empty, save for
rivulets of rushing water.

Crossing the cobblestones with swift strides, the Factor led me to
another arched gateway in yet another wall. Inside was a second smaller
yard and beyond spread the ivy-clutched base of the ancient keep itself.

Traversing a darkened stone-flagged passage, we found ourselves facing
a ponderous door, age-blackened oak reinforced with pitted bands of
iron. The Factor flung open this door and there before us was the great
hall of the castle.

Four long hand-hewn tables with their accompanying benches stretched
almost the entire length of the hall. Metal torch brackets, stained
with age, were affixed to sculptured stone columns which supported the
roof. Ranged around the walls were suits of armor, heraldic shields,
halberds, pikes and banners, the accumulated trophies and prizes of
bloody centuries when each castle was almost a kingdom unto itself. In
flickering candlelight, which appeared to be the only illumination, the
grim array was eerily impressive.

William Cowath waved a hand. "The holders of Chilton lived by the sword
for many centuries."

Walking the length of the great hall, he entered another dim
passageway. I followed silently.

As we strode along, he spoke in a subdued voice. "Frederick, the young
heir, does not enjoy robust health. The shock of his father's death was
severe--and he dreads tonight's ordeal, which he knows must come."

Stopping before a wooden door embellished with carved fleurs-de-lis
and metal scrollwork, he gave me a shadowed, enigmatic glance and then
knocked.

Someone inquired who was there and he identified himself. Presently a
heavy bolt was lifted and the door opened.

If the Chilton-Paynes had been stubborn fighters in their day, the
warrior blood appeared to have become considerably diluted in the veins
of Frederick, the young heir and now Thirteenth Earl. I saw before me a
thin, pale-complexioned young man whose dark sunken eyes looked haunted
and fearful. His dress was both theatrical and anachronistic: a dark
green velvet coat and trousers, a green satin waist-band, flounces of
white lace at neck and wrists.

He beckoned us in, as if with reluctance, and closed the door. The
walls of the small room were entirely covered with tapestries depicting
the hunt or medieval battle scenes. A draft of air from a window or
other aperture made them undulate constantly; they seemed to have a
disturbing life of their own. In one corner of the room there was an
antique canopy bed; in another a large writing table with an agate lamp.

After a brief introduction, which included an explanation of how I came
to be accompanying them, the Factor inquired if his Lordship was ready
to visit the chamber.

Although he was wan in any case, Earl Frederick's face now lost every
last trace of color. He nodded, however, and preceded us into the
passage.

William Cowath led the way; the Earl followed him; and I brought up the
rear.

At the far end of the passage, the Factor opened the door of a
cobwebbed supply room. Here he secured candles, chisels, a pick and a
sledgehammer. After packing these into a leather bag which he slung
over one shoulder, he picked up a faggot torch which lay on one of
the shelves in the room. He lit this, waited while it flared into a
steady flame. Satisfied with this illumination, he closed the room and
beckoned for us to continue after him.

Nearby was a descending spiral of stone steps. Lifting his torch, the
Factor started down. We trailed after him wordlessly.

There must have been fifty steps in that long downward spiral. As we
descended, the stones became wet and cold; the air, too, grew colder,
but the cold was not of the type that refreshes. It was too laden with
the smell of mould and dampness.

At the bottom of the steps we faced a tunnel, pitch-black and silent.

The Factor raised his torch. "Chilton Castle is Norman but is said to
have been reared over a Saxon ruin. It is believed that the passageways
in these depths were constructed by the Saxons." He peered, frowning,
into the tunnel. "Or by some still earlier folk."

He hesitated briefly, and I thought he was listening. Then, glancing
round at us, he proceeded down the passage.

I walked after the Earl, shivering. The dead, icy air seemed to pierce
to the pith of my bones. The stones underfoot grew slick with a film of
slime. I longed for more light, but there was none save that cast by
the flickering, bobbing torch of the Factor.

Partway down the passage he paused and again I sensed that he was
listening. The silence seemed absolute however, and we went on.

The end of the passage brought us to more descending steps. We went
down some fifteen and entered another tunnel which appeared to have
been cut out of the solid rock on which the castle had been reared.
White-crusted nitre clung to the walls. The reek of mould was intense.
The icy air was fetid with some other odor which I found peculiarly
repellent, though I could not name it.

At last the Factor stopped, lifted his torch and slid the leather bag
from his shoulder.

I saw that we stood before a wall made of some kind of building stone.
Though damp and stained with nitre, it was obviously of much more
recent construction than anything we had previously encountered.

Glancing round at us, William Cowath handed me the torch. "Keep a good
hold on it, if you please. I have candles, but--"

Leaving the sentence unfinished, he drew the pick from his sling bag
and began an assault on the wall. The barrier was solid enough, but
after he had worked a hole in it, he took up the sledgehammer and
quicker progress was made. Once I offered to take up the sledge while
he held the torch but he only shook his head and went on with his work
of demolition.

All this time the young Earl had not spoken a word. As I looked at his
tense white face, I felt sorry for him, in spite of my own mounting
trepidation.

Abruptly there was silence as the Factor lowered the sledgehammer. I
saw that a good two feet of the lower wall remained.

William Cowath bent to inspect it. "Strong enough," he commented
cryptically. "I will leave that to build on. We can step over it."

For a full minute he stood looking silently into the blackness beyond.
Finally, shouldering his bag, he took the torch from my hand and
stepped over the ragged base of the wall. We followed suit.

As I entered that chamber, the fetid odor which I had noticed in the
passage seemed to overwhelm us. It washed around us in a nauseating
wave and we all gasped for breath.

The Factor spoke between coughs. "It will subside in a minute or two.
Stand near the aperture."

Although the reek remained repellently strong, we could at length
breathe more freely.

William Cowath lifted his torch and peered into the black depths of the
chamber. Fearfully, I gazed around his shoulder.

There was no sound and at first I could see nothing but nitre-encrusted
walls and wet stone floor. Presently, however, in a far corner, just
beyond the flickering halo of the faggot torch, I saw two tiny fiery
spots of red. I tried to convince myself that they were two red jewels,
two rubies, shining in the torchlight.

But I knew at once--I _felt_ at once--what they were. They were two red
eyes and they were watching us with a fierce unwavering stare.

The Factor spoke softly. "Wait here."

He crossed toward the corner, stopped halfway and held out his torch
at arm's length. For a moment he was silent. Finally he emitted a long
shuddering sigh.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed. It was only a sepulchral
whisper. "Come forward," he told us in that strange hollow voice.

I followed Earl Frederick until we stood at either side of the Factor.

When I saw what crouched on a stone bench in that far corner, I felt
sure that I would faint. My heart literally stopped beating for
perceptible seconds. The blood left my extremities; I reeled with
dizziness. I might have cried out, but my throat would not open.

The entity which rested on that stone bench was like something that had
crawled up out of hell. Piercing malignant red eyes proclaimed that
it had a terrible life, and yet that life sustained itself in a black,
shrunken half-mummified body which resembled a disinterred corpse. A
few mouldy rags clung to the cadaver-like frame. Wisps of white hair
sprouted out of its ghastly grey-white skull. A red smear or blotch of
some sort covered the wizened slit which served it as a mouth.

It surveyed us with a malignancy which was beyond anything merely
human. It was impossible to stare back into those monstrous red eyes.
They were so inexpressibly evil, one felt that one's soul would be
consumed in the fires of their malevolence.

Glancing aside, I saw that the Factor was now supporting Earl
Frederick. The young heir had sagged against him. The Earl stared
fixedly at the fearful apparition with terror-glazed eyes. In spite of
my own sense of horror, I pitied him.

The Factor sighed again and then he spoke once more in that low
sepulchral voice.

"You see before you," he told us, "Lady Susan Glanville. She was
carried into this chamber and fettered to the wall in 1473."

A thrill of horror coursed through me; I felt that we were in the
presence of malign forces from the Pit itself.

To me the hideous thing had appeared sexless, but at the sound of its
name, the ghastly mockery of a grin contorted the puckered red-smeared
mouth.

I noticed now for the first time that monster actually was secured to
the wall. The great double shackles were so blackened with age, I had
not noticed them before.

The Factor went on, as if he spoke by rote. "Lady Glanville was a
maternal ancestor of the Chilton-Paynes. She had commerce with the
Devil. She was condemned as a witch but escaped the stake. Finally her
own people forcibly overcame her. She was brought in here, fettered and
left to die."

He was silent a moment and then continued. "It was too late. She had
already made a pact with the Powers of Darkness. It was an unspeakably
evil thing and it has condemned her issue to a life of torment and
nightmare, a lifetime of terror and dread."

He swung his torch toward the blackened red-eyed thing. "She was a
beauty once. She hated death. She feared death. And so she finally
bartered her own immortal soul--and the bodies of her issue--for
eternal earthly life."

I heard his voice as in a nightmare; it seemed to be coming from an
infinite distance.

He went on. "The consequences of breaking the pact are too terrible to
describe. No descendant of hers has ever dared do so, once the forfeit
is known. And so she had bided here for these nearly five hundred
years."

I had thought he was finished, but he resumed. Glancing upward, he
lifted his torch toward the roof of that accursed chamber. "This room,"
he said, "lies directly underneath the family vaults. Upon the death
of the male Earl, the body is ostensibly left in the vaults. When the
mourners have gone, however, the false bottom of the vault is thrust
aside and the body of the Earl is lowered into this room."

Looking up, I saw the square rectangle of a trap door above.

The Factor's voice now became barely audible. "Once every generation
Lady Glanville feeds--on the corpse of the deceased Earl. It is a
provision of that unspeakable pact which cannot be broken."

I knew now--with a sense of horror utterly beyond description--whence
came that red smear on the repulsive mouth of the creature before us.

As if to confirm his words, the Factor lowered his torch until its
flame illuminated the floor at the foot of the stone bench where the
vampiric monster was fettered.

Strewn about the floor were the scattered bones and skull of an adult
male, red with fresh blood. And at some distance were other human
bones, brown and crumbling with age.

At this point young Earl Frederick began to scream. His shrill
hysterical cries filled the chamber. Although the Factor shook him
roughly, his terrible shrieks continued, terror-filled, nerve-shaking.

For moments the corpse-like thing on the bench watched him with its
frightful red eyes. It uttered sound finally, a kind of animal squeal
which might have been intended as laughter.

Abruptly then, and without any warning, it slid from the bench and
lunged toward the young Earl. The blackened shackles which fettered it
to the wall permitted it to advance only a yard or two. It was pulled
back sharply; yet it lunged again and again, squealing with a kind of
hellish glee which stirred the hair on my head.

William Cowath thrust his torch toward the monster, but it continued to
lunge at the end of its fetters. The nightmare room resounded with the
Earl's screams and the creature's horrible squeals of bestial laughter.
I felt that my own mind would give way unless I escaped from that
anteroom of hell.

For the first time during an ordeal which would have sent any lesser
man fleeing for his life and sanity, the iron control of the Factor
appeared to be shaken. He looked beyond the wild lunging thing toward
the wall where the fetters were fastened.

I sensed what was in his mind. Would those fastenings hold, after all
these centuries of rust and dampness?

On a sudden resolve he reached into an inner pocket and drew out
something which glittered in the torchlight. It was a silver crucifix.
Striding forward, he thrust it almost into the twisted face of the
leaping monstrosity which had once been the ravishing Lady Susan
Glanville.

The creature reeled back with an agonized scream which drowned out
the cries of the Earl. It cowered on the bench, abruptly silent and
motionless, only the pulsating of its wizened mouth and the fires of
hatred in its red eyes giving evidence that it still lived.

William Cowath addressed it grimly. "Creature of hell! If ye leave that
bench 'ere we quit this room and seal it once again, I swear that I
shall hold this cross against ye!"

The thing's red eyes watched the Factor with an expression of abysmal
hatred which no combination of mere letters could convey. They actually
appeared to glow with fire. And yet I read in them something else--fear.

I suddenly became aware that silence had descended on that room of the
damned. It lasted only a few moments. The Earl had finally stopped
screaming, but now came something worse. He began to laugh.

It was only a low chuckle, but it was somehow worse than all his
screams. It went on and on, softly, mindlessly.

The Factor turned, beckoning me toward the partially demolished wall.
Crossing the room, I climbed out. Behind me the Factor led the young
Earl, who shuffled like an old man, chuckling to himself.

There was then what seemed an interminable interval, during which the
Factor carried back a sack of mortar and a keg of water which he had
previously left somewhere in the tunnel. Working by torchlight, he
prepared the cement and proceeded to seal up the chamber, using the
same stones which he had displaced.

While the Factor labored, the young Earl sat motionless in the tunnel,
chuckling softly.

There was silence from within. Once, only, I heard the thing's fetters
clank against the stone.

At last the Factor finished and led us back through those nitre-stained
passageways and up the icy stairs. The Earl could scarcely ascend; with
difficulty the Factor supported him from step to step.

Back in his tapestry-panelled chamber, Earl Frederick sat on his canopy
bed and stared at the floor, laughing quietly. Pompous medical tomes
to the contrary, I noticed that his black hair had actually turned
grey. After persuading him to drink a glass of liquid which I had no
doubt contained a heavy dose of sedation, the Factor managed to get him
stretched out on the bed.

William Cowath then led me to a nearby bed chamber. My impulse was to
rush from that hellish pile without delay, but the storm still raged
and I was by no means sure I could find my way back to the village
without a guide.

The Factor shook his head sadly. "I fear his Lordship is doomed to an
early death. He was never strong and tonight's events may have deranged
his mind--may have weakened him beyond hope of recovery."

I expressed my sympathy and horror. The Factor's cold blue eyes held
my own. "It may be," he said, "that in the event of the young Earl's
death, you yourself might be considered...." He hesitated. "Might be
considered," he finally concluded, "as one somewhat in the line of
succession."

I wanted to hear no more. I gave him a curt goodnight, bolted the door
after him and tried--quite unsuccessfully--to salvage a few minutes'
sleep.

But sleep would not come. I had feverish visions of that red-eyed thing
in the sealed chamber escaping its fetters, breaking through the wall
and crawling up those icy, slime-covered stairs.

Even before dawn I softly unbolted my door and like a marauding thief
crept shivering through the cold passageways and the great deserted
hall of the castle. Crossing the cobbled courtyards and the black moat,
I scrambled down the incline toward the village.

Long before noon I was well on my way to London. Luck was with me; the
next day I was on a liner bound for the Atlantic run.

I shall never return to England. I intend always to keep Chilton Castle
and its permanent occupant at least an ocean away.




                           THE MIDNIGHT BUS


Old Mrs. Twining was telling a story about imported marmalade for the
third time that evening when Martha glanced at her watch.

"O my goodness!" she exclaimed, "I really must be off! If I don't
hurry, I'll miss the last bus!"

Assuring her elderly hostess that she had had a most enjoyable evening,
she wriggled into her coat, scurried into the vestibule and was soon
off the veranda steps and down the garden walk.

Mrs. Twining was an old dear--but she _was_ tedious at times, Martha
thought as she swung open the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Goodness! Here it was almost midnight and Mrs. Twining was going on
about marmalade for the third time! Lucky she'd looked at her watch.

She had rushed out in such a hurry, she was well down the walk before
she noticed the fog. Rising from the nearby river, it was thickening in
the empty streets. The lights looked dim and faraway; the whole suburb
seemed muffled and silent.

Shivering a little, Martha reached the bus stop and sat down on the
cold bench. Glancing along the street, she saw that it was quite empty.
The river fog was swirling in rapidly and now even the trunks of trees
were becoming blurred and half-shadowy.

It was too bad, Martha thought, that people had to become old. Old and
lonely and hungry for talk. Leading such dreary, uneventful lives that
a little thing like imported marmalade assumed vast importance.

She hadn't been out to see old Mrs. Twining for over a year and the
poor dear would have kept on talking till morning if Martha hadn't
broken away to catch the midnight bus back to town.

Martha sighed, drawing her coat a little closer. She _did_ wish the
bus would hurry along. The bench began to feel like a carved slab of
ice and the fog was getting so thick she could scarcely see across the
street.

It was just after twelve by her watch when she saw a faint light
flicker through the fog. It was a very feeble light and it approached
with maddening deliberation. It appeared to just creep along, as if the
driver of the vehicle were groping his way down a totally unfamiliar
route.

When the bus stopped in front of the bench, she saw that one of its
headlights was quite dead. And the other did not look very bright.

As she stepped up into the bus and dropped her coin, she intended
telling the driver about the single headlight. But she didn't. The
driver thrust a ticket at her without turning his head and for some
reason which she didn't at the moment grasp, her impulse to speak
vanished.

She walked back to the middle of the bus and sat down. The bus rolled
forward again. Glancing out, she could see nothing but fog. It pressed
against the windows like a white wall; it even seemed to be seeping
into the bus. The seat felt as cold as the bench back at the curb stop.

For some reason she kept looking at the driver. Perhaps because there
wasn't much else to look at. About all she could see of him was his
back. He sat slumped in the seat, hunched over the wheel, looking to
neither left nor right, his total attention focussed on the fog-blurred
ribbon of road immediately ahead.

Martha wished there were some other passengers on the bus. The driver
was no company at all and the smothering fog outside made everything
seem so desolate. The interior of the bus itself looked dingy and
soiled, as if it hadn't been swept out or polished for months on end.

Frowning toward the window, Martha realized that she would never be
able to tell when they were approaching her destination, Barley Street.
The fog had become an impenetrable blanket, swirling close on all sides.

"Driver," Martha called out, "will you please stop at Barley Street?"

He didn't answer, didn't turn, didn't so much as nod his head. He
stared forward into the fog and Martha imagined that he hadn't even
heard her.

But of course he must have. It was simply that the fog made driving
hazardous and his entire attention was concentrated on the street ahead.

Trying to stifle her irritation, Martha leaned her head back against
the seat and attempted to relax. But the top of the seat was hard and
cold and she soon sat up straight again.

She suddenly realized that she was shivering. What a bore! She must be
catching cold! But the bus _did_ seem frigid. She could scarcely keep
her teeth from chattering.

And now a new vexation caught her attention. In spite of the almost
opaque wall of fog, the bus driver was steadily increasing the speed of
his vehicle. The bus careened along at a constantly accelerated rate,
bumping and lurching and swaying from side to side.

Martha felt a funny little knot of fear and apprehension begin to
tighten in her breast. For a block or two she held tight to her seat,
stifling an urge to shout at the driver, but finally she could stand it
no longer.

"Driver," she called out in a strained voice which didn't sound at all
like her own, "you're going much too fast! Won't you please slow down?"

As if in response, and without paying her any other heed, the driver
managed a new and positively fearful burst of speed. The bus thundered
ahead until the fog seemed to be going by in white streamers of light.

Fighting back rising hysteria, Martha stood up. "Driver! Please! We'll
be killed!"

For the first time the driver turned. In the poor light, his face under
the visor of his driver's cap looked as blurred and white as the fog
outside.

"We're late on the run! We'll never make it!"

He turned back to the wheel. Martha felt deadly fear coil up within
her. The man was either drunk or mad and she sensed at once that any
further attempt to reason with him would be futile.

Clutching the seat handles, she began stumbling toward the front
of the bus. At least she would be near the door, she decided,
when--if--something happened.

Once a sudden lurch of the bus almost threw her off her feet. Clutching
the back of a seat, she regained her balance and staggered ahead.

She could no longer force back the panic which was welling within her.
She felt--she _knew_--that her life was in imminent and deadly danger.

And when she finally reached the front of the bus and stared ahead into
the fog, it was impossible to retain any lingering doubts about the
lethal jeopardy of her position.

The vehicle's single headlight had gone out. The bus was racing through
the midnight fog in total darkness!

With a scream, Martha turned toward the driver. He sat with a fixed
stare, grimly intent, entirely oblivious to everything except the white
wall of fog looming up immediately ahead.

With the scream still on her lips, Martha whirled toward the door. It
opened. Or perhaps it had been open. She was too terrified to know. But
in any case there was the cold white fog streaming past outside.

She hesitated momentarily. It took courage to hurl yourself into that
rushing white wall, never knowing exactly what lay beyond it, beneath
it--within it.

But some sure instinct warned her that there was no choice. This
fearful icy bus racing ahead into the foggy darkness without any lights
could come to only one end.

With another wild scream she plunged through the open door into the
streamers of fog.

For a second she was snatched through space in the wake of the midnight
bus. Then she struck earth with a thud which seemed to loosen every
bone in her body and went bouncing and rolling along the ground like a
rag doll hurled aside by an angry child.

She came to rest against a hedge and lay motionless, the taste of wet
moldy earth in her mouth. She was still lying there, wondering how many
bones she had broken, when a rending crash sounded somewhere ahead in
the foggy darkness. She heard the tinkle of falling splinters of glass
and then there was silence. Sudden, terrifying silence.

The silence endured, pregnant and somehow horrifying, and she wanted
to scream again, but her mouth was full of dirt and screaming was
difficult.

A light appeared; someone shouted; and she managed a groan.

A face materialized out of the fog, a kindly, anxious face.

The man bent over her. He spoke soothingly for a moment; he
straightened up and called into the fog. "It's a girl, Alica! She's
hurt! Bring a blanket! Quickly!"

In less than a minute a sturdy woman appeared. The two of them, the man
and the woman, slid the blanket under Martha and lifted her up.

In another minute she was carried out of the fog into a cozy lighted
house and tenderly laid on a couch.

While the man telephoned for a doctor, the woman Alica asked Martha
where she was hurt the most.

Martha wasn't sure. She hurt all over, but not in any special place.

The woman brought a wet cloth, a glass and a pitcher of water. After
Martha had rinsed out her mouth, the woman gently washed her face.

The man came into the room. "The doctor's coming right over! Now don't
you worry!"

Martha sat up and carefully moved her legs. They felt bruised but
assuredly not broken. And she could move her arms without any
concentrated pain.

The man nodded. "Good! No bones broken, by the looks. You were lucky,
child. You struck the turf outside and not the hard cobbles!"

The woman peered at her intently. "What happened, dear--if you want to
tell."

Martha suddenly remembered that splintering crash which had followed
shortly after her frenzied leap from the speeding bus.

"Oh, that poor man!" she said. "Has anybody gone to help him?"

They both looked at her. "What man, dear?" the woman asked.

"The bus driver," Martha said. "That was such a horrible crash!"

They went on looking at her without saying anything. A queer uneasiness
overcame her. "Didn't you--hear it?" she asked.

The man shook his head. "We heard you scream. But we didn't hear
any--crash."

"But--there was," Martha explained frowning. "The bus I jumped out of
didn't have any lights and it was speeding and--I heard it crash!"

They were looking at her strangely now. As if they didn't believe a
word she was saying. As if, Martha thought, they were patiently hearing
out the imaginary story of a feverish child.

"What bus did you jump out of?" the woman asked, laying a cool hand
against Martha's forehead.

"The midnight bus," Martha replied. "I was visiting a friend on
Coverton Street. I got the last bus--the midnight bus--just after
twelve."

The woman smiled gently. "The last bus on Coverton Street runs through
at eleven. The midnight bus was discontinued a year ago. Nobody used it
much and then after the crash--"

"What crash?" interrupted Martha with an eerie feeling that she knew
what the answer would be.

"A year ago," the woman explained, "the driver of the Coverton Street
midnight bus ran off the road into a wall and was instantly killed.
Luckily, no passengers were on the bus. It happened not far from here.
There were no witnesses to the crash, but someone claimed later that
the bus had been seen speeding along Coverton Street through the fog
without any lights--"

Suddenly the woman turned pale. She stared at Martha. "And you were
saying--your bus--no lights--"

Remembering the cold, grim interior of the bus, the white face of the
driver and the one feeble headlight which had finally gone out, Martha
felt an icy thrill of fear.

She saw her bag lying on the couch, and she pointed to it.

"My bus ticket," she told the woman, "is in there."

When the woman drew out the bus ticket and held it up to the light, her
pale face seemed drained of every drop of blood.

She stared at her husband and then at Martha with round frightened eyes.

"I had forgotten," she said softly. "The date on your ticket reminds
me. That crash was just a year ago tonight!"




                            THE VAMPIRE BAT


I was in the Amazon collecting background material for a projected
series of stories and travel articles and I was to join a government
exploring party at a small native settlement two hundred miles north of
Cuyaba.

When I arrived at the settlement I was very much surprised to see a
white man sitting on the screened-in veranda of a shack some distance
from the huddle of native huts. The government party was not due to
arrive until the next day, and I had no idea that a white man was
living at the settlement.

He walked out to meet me and introduced himself as Cecil Hubbers. He
said that he had been staying at the settlement for nearly six months
and that he represented a South American pharmaceutical firm which was
endeavoring to establish a permanent base in that area.

He was middle-aged, gaunt and faded-looking, with an expression of
chronic weariness etched on his wan face. A huge, high-crowned straw
hat accentuated the strained lines of his pinched countenance. He acted
jumpy and nervous.

He was certainly a pathetic figure, and I felt sorry for him, but he
seemed sincerely glad to see me and he was hospitable enough.

After I had washed and taken some food, I sat on his screened porch
and he talked. He said that except for the natives he was alone for
months at a time. The company he worked for had parties further in the
interior but they remained in the jungles for long periods, collecting
roots and herbs and bark which were used to concoct precious drugs.

He had come down from Panama some years before with a fair grubstake,
he said, but he had lost his money in a mining venture and since
then he had drifted from one poor-paying job to another. When the
pharmaceutical company offered him work at the settlement, he was flat
broke and he had accepted it.

His job was easy enough. He had to store and check supplies, list and
pack outgoing raw materials and recruit and pay the native guides. But
it was obvious to me that there was some aspect of the job, or of the
locale, which he detested.

After he had talked for nearly an hour, I finally learned what was
preying on his mind. He lived in constant fear of a vampire bat which
he said was systematically draining him of blood and life. I say bat,
not bats, because he had a weird conviction that a single bat was to
blame.

When he first mentioned the bat, he made some effort to describe his
predicament in a detached and objective manner, but it was impossible
for him to do so. He became emotional. His voice grew shrill and I
thought that he was about to leap out of his chair.

"If I don't find out how it's getting to me, that bat will bleed me to
death!" he cried. "I've already lost half my blood! _Half of it_ I tell
you!"

He became so agitated at one point, I thought I might actually have to
restrain him from some violent action. Finally he calmed down a little
and I managed to change the subject.

He certainly looked anemic, but I found it hard to believe that he was
not exaggerating about the bat.

Contrary to much popular superstition, vampire bats are not immense
flapping horrors which rob their victims of quarts of blood in a single
night. The vampire bat is a small creature, scarcely two inches long.
Its capacity is obviously determined by its own dimensions.

This is not to say that the vampire should be considered a gruesome but
harmless pest. Although the vampire's capacity is limited, this little
light-hating bat makes a circular incision in its slumbering victim's
flesh with such precision and stealthy finesse that the sleeper rarely
awakens. After the vampire laps up its fill of blood and flies away,
blood usually continues to flow from the wound. It is this continuing
flow of blood which ordinarily awakens the victim. By the time the
victim becomes fully alert, however, he may have lost much more blood
than the bat itself has actually absorbed.

Although I knew of well authenticated instances in which both animals
and men had been seriously weakened by attacks of the vampire bat,
I decided that my host's fear of being bled to death was largely
groundless. I felt that he actually had been attacked by a vampire bat
some time in the past and that the experience had proved so revolting
and even terrifying he had suffered a kind of traumatic shock. Now the
vampire bat had become an obsession which was never out of his mind.
Loss of sleep and morbid nagging fear had turned him into a physical
and mental wreck.

I accepted his invitation to set up my cot and mosquito net in his
shack that night. Before he blew out the kerosene lantern, I witnessed
a prolonged performance which was both ludicrous and disturbing. For
the space of two hours my host inspected the floors, walls and ceiling
of the screened shack. Inch by inch his eyes searched every plank
and every screen. He had apparently done this many times before and
although at the end of his inspection he had not found a single crack
or aperture of any kind, he did not appear to be particularly relieved.

Certainly if any means of ingress originally existed, it must have
long since been sealed up. I did not see how a fair-sized insect could
squirm inside.

But when my host finally--for the first time I believe--removed his
huge straw hat, placed it on a shelf, and crawled under his mosquito
net, he still wore a worried frown.

I had had a tiring day and I fell asleep soon afterwards. About three
hours later I was awakened by a hair-raising scream. I sat up and
stared around in the blackness. My heart was pounding. I thought that a
bushmaster or some other deadly kind of snake had gotten into the shack.

Cecil Hubbers moaned in the nearby darkness. "The vampire!" he cried.
"It's been at me again!" He began to whimper like a sick child.

I felt sure that he had merely experienced a recurrent nightmare, but
nevertheless I got up and lit the kerosene lantern. When I brought it
to his cot, I gasped. He was staring down at a tiny circular incision
on the top of his foot where the blood was still flowing.

I was more shaken by the sight of blood trickling out of that little
hole than I have been at the sight of gory accidents.

I suggested that we both undertake an immediate search of the shack. If
the bat was still inside, we would find it and kill it.

He shook his head and moaned again. "It's no use. They can't stand
light. As soon as you lit the lantern, it got out."

He finally arose, bathed and bandaged the puncture on his foot and sank
back on his cot. He left the lantern lit and he lay there with his
eyes wide open. He looked so haunted and unhappy I wished I could say
something to cheer him up, but for the life of me I couldn't think of
anything that made sense.

I stayed awake for a while trying to figure out how the bat had
gotten in. But I had watched Hubbers inspect the interior of the
closely-screened building inch by inch a few hours before and I
couldn't think of a single corner or chink that he might have missed.
Finally sleep overcame me again.

When I got up the next morning, my host was sitting on the veranda. He
looked even worse than he had the night before. His face was ghastly,
really grey and drawn, and his eyes appeared feverish. I knew without
asking that he hadn't slept again after the vampire's attack.

After breakfast I suggested that he ask the pharmaceutical company to
transfer him to some other locality.

"I haven't enough strength left to go out in the jungle with the
gathering parties," he said. "And there isn't anything else."

He said nothing more. His tense agitation of the previous day appeared
to be changing into a sort of fatalistic apathy. I felt seriously
concerned about him and I wished I might help, but I didn't know what I
could do.

The party I was to accompany arrived by mid-morning and soon afterwards
I bid Cecil Hubbers goodbye. He wished me good luck and shook hands in
a perfunctory manner.

At the edge of the jungle I turned around. He was slumped down in his
chair on the veranda. All I could see of him was his pinched white face
under the brim of his immense cone-shaped hat. He didn't bother to wave.

Nearly two months passed before I returned to the settlement on my way
back to Cuyaba. I had separated from the government party several days
before and I arrived with my own Indian guides.

I immediately crossed to Cecil Hubbers' shack. He was not on the
veranda. I went up the three steps and rapped on the screen door. A
short swarthy man who looked part Indian and part Portuguese got up
from a cot inside and came to the screen. I asked for Mr. Hubbers.

"He's dead," the dark man said in good English.

Somehow I had expected it, but still I was startled.

"What happened?" I inquired bluntly.

The man rolled his thick shoulders as if explanations were distasteful
to him. "The little bat took too much blood," he said. "One morning
they found him dead on his bed."

"How horrible! I'm very sorry," I said. And I meant it.

There was something more I wanted to know. "Did they ever find out how
the bat got in?" I asked.

The man rolled his shoulders again. "It didn't get in," he said. "It
_was_ in--all the time. It was living in his hat."

I stared at him and I suspect my mouth fell open.

He nodded. "The bat clung by day in the top of Mr. Hubbers' funny big
hat. He never took his hat off except at bedtime; it was always dark
inside. At night the vampire came out and fed on him. After he was
dead, we found the bat asleep in the top of his hat, on the shelf. It
was a very fat bat and we killed it."

I stood there on the porch remembering Cecil Hubbers' huge
high-crowned, cone-shaped straw hat--the hat that left his head only
just before he crawled under his mosquito net at night.

In spite of the close moist warmth of that clearing, I felt myself
enveloped by an eerie chill.

"It's--unbelievable!" I murmured, half to myself.

The dark man turned from the door with a shrug. "He's dead!" he
grumbled.




                        THE SEVENTH INCANTATION


"Of these black prayers or incantations there be seven, three for
ordinarie charmes and aides, and the like numbere for the unholie and
compleat destruction of alle enemie. But of the seventh the curious in
alle these partes are warned. Let not the last incantation be recited,
unlesse ye desire the sight of moste aweful deamon. Although it be
said the deamon shews not unlesse the wordes be spake by the bloodie
altar of the Olde Ones, yet it were well to beware. For it be knowne
that the Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal, dide wantonlie chante the dire
wordes and the deamon dide come--and not finding a bloodie offering
did rage at the wizard and rende him exceedinglie. The life bloode of
a childe or chaste maid be best, yet a beaste, a goode ox or sheep, is
said sufficient. But beware lest the beaste be dead when the bloode be
taken, for then shall the deamon's rage be dire. If the offering be
well, the deamon shall give unholie power, so that the servant grow
riche and reache above alle his neighbors."

For the third time, and with growing excitement, Emmet Telquist read
the faded words. They were contained in a crumbling and curious and
probably unique bound manuscript book which he had discovered quite
by accident some days before while shuffling through the dust-laden
packing crates which held his deceased uncle's library.

The book was entitled simply "True Magik", and the writer signed
himself "Theophilis Wenn." Quite possibly the name was a pseudonym;
certainly, judging by the contents, the rash author must have had
reason to keep secret his real identity.

The book was a veritable encyclopedia of devils' lore. There was
everywhere manifest a genuine and erudite scholarship which had been
lavished on a vast variety of esoteric and forbidden subjects. There
were detailed discussions on enchantments and possession, paragraphs on
vampirism and ghoul legend, pages devoted to demonology, witch worship,
and eldrich idols, notes on holocaust rites, unspeakable maculations
and fearsome full-moon sacrifices to the powers of pristine darkness.

Evidently the writer had been a necromancer of note. The style in
general was arbitrary and assured, betraying egoism and not a little
arrogance. There was no faint note of humor. Theophilis Wenn--or
whoever it was that disguised his true identity under that name--had
written in dire earnest. Of that there could be no doubt.

Emmet Telquist, the village outcast, the bitter misanthropic issue of
an infamous father and a mother who had died insane, regarded the book
as a sudden treasure, a secret storehouse of knowledge and power which
would enable him to compete with his more successful neighbors.

He had always been an outsider, a misfit, the subject of vindictive
local gossip and criticism. He had always felt himself more or less
allied to inhuman laws and agencies.

His uncle, the only relative he ever remembered, had been a sour,
black-hearted brooding old man who tolerated him only because of the
chores and errands which he performed. He never had had the slightest
doubt that his uncle would have disowned him utterly had he not been a
useful drudge. The bond of blood would have been meaningless to the old
man.

As a matter of fact, had it not been for his sudden and somewhat
mysterious death, the scoundrel probably would have seen to it that
his nephew inherited only black memories. But since no will had been
located, Emmet Telquist had gained possession of his uncle's rambling
farm house and such meager chattels as it contained.

But as he squinted eagerly at the quaint faded hand-writing of the
necromancer, Theophilis Wenn, Telquist began to believe that the
manuscript book was by far the most valuable item which his evil
relative had unintentionally put into his hands.

Furthermore, a number of matters which had always puzzled him in the
past became less baffling. He had often wondered about the peculiar
behavior of his uncle--his long absences from the house, especially at
night, the muttering and mumbling which frequently came from his room,
his unexplained sources of income.

With a sense of mounting suspense and expectation, he turned the pages
whereon the seventh incantation was inscribed. It was written in a
peculiar bluish-grey ink which seemed faintly phosphorescent. He did
not dare to read the words; he merely glanced at them, ascertaining
that they were what appeared to be merely a jumble of meaningless vowel
sounds frequently interspersed with the name "Nyogtha."

Grinning slyly to himself, he turned back the pages and reread the
paragraph which served as an introduction and explanation of the
incantations. Well he knew what Theophilis Wenn had in mind when he
referred to the "bloodie altar of the Old Ones"! He, Emmet Telquist,
had seen such an altar.

Although that had been years before when the swamp was not as nearly
impassable as it had since become, he had no doubt that he could locate
the accursed sacrificial cromlech. How well he remembered crawling
along the faint raised pathway which wound through the swamp! The
sudden, unexpected knoll, dark, somehow, even in the mid-day sunlight,
the circle of huge monoliths, the mound in the center, the enormous
flat slab on its top, rusty red with an unspeakable eldrich stain which
even the rains and winds of centuries could not blot out!

He had never spoken of his discovery to anyone. The swamp was a
forbidden place--ostensibly because of rumored quicksands and poisonous
serpents. But on more than one occasion he had seen old-time villagers
cross themselves when mention was made of the area. And it was said
that even hunting dogs would abandon the pursuit of game which fled
into its fastnesses.

Already anticipating the power which would ultimately be his, Emmet
Telquist began to formulate plans. He would not make the mistake of
the unfortunate Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal. Although he did not quite
dare to take the necessary steps to secure a human sacrifice, "a childe
or chaste maid", a sheep should be relatively easy to obtain. He could
steal one at night from any of the several village flocks. He knew all
the woods and lanes and would be safely away with his prize long before
the loss was discovered.

The night before the advent of the full moon, he slipped into a nearby
pasture where sheep were grazed and made away with a fine fat ewe,
shoving and dragging it over a stone wall and then leading it off along
circuitous back roads and grass-grown lanes.

The next day he paid a stealthy visit to the environs of the forbidden
swamp, exploring the rank underbrush until he discovered the start of
the faint trail down which he had stolen years before. Although it was
partially obliterated by a thick growth of sedges, vines and lush swamp
grass, there were indications that deer used it occasionally. Probably
patience would be required to force a way through, but at least the
path should not be impassable.

Carefully noting its location, he returned home and completed his
preparations for the evening.

Shortly before eleven o'clock he crept into the shed where he had
tethered the ewe and led it forth into the moonlight.

The countryside was steeped in a bewitching silver light. He
experienced no difficulties in reaching the swamp and after some little
searching located the narrow trail.

But as he plunged into the shoulder-high grass, the tether tightened
in his hand. The ewe strained against the rope, its eyes suddenly wild
with fright.

Cursing, he scrambled around and kicked it brutally. It bolted forward
a few yards and stopped. Grimly determined, he tightened the tether
until it cut through the ewe's wool into its hide.

He made progress by the foot and by the inch. The ewe had to be dragged
and shoved at regular intervals. And as he penetrated toward the
heart of the swamp, the increasing height and thickness of the lush
undergrowth made passage more difficult.

Moonlight filtered down eerily among the trees and on all sides
treacherous pools gleamed silver-black in the shadowy darkness.
Occasionally hidden watchers stared at him out of the depths and
quite often enormous toads hopped into the path and regarded him with
their amber eyes. They seemed to be devoid of fear, almost as if they
considered the swamp their special domain and deemed him incapable of
harming them. He began to imagine there was something vaguely malignant
about them. He had never seen them so large before, nor in such
numbers. But probably that was merely because they were left unmolested
in the swamp to breed and develop without encountering the artificial
obstacles which would inevitably prevail in any less shunned area.

As he pushed into the heart of the swamp, the gathering silence became
oppressive. The ordinary night sounds ceased altogether and only his
own strained breathing broke the silence. The ewe became more obstinate
than ever; all his strength was required to drag it along. It appeared,
he imagined, to sense the fate which awaited it.

Suddenly, so suddenly that he nearly cried aloud in astonishment, the
underbrush ended and he was standing at the base of the unhallowed
knoll.

It was just as he had remembered it--huge menhirs standing in a rough
circle about a central mound upon which lay a large flat slab of a dark
hue which did not match the color of the surrounding monoliths. Over
all a shadow seemed to fall, and yet when he glanced upward he saw that
the full moon stood directly overhead.

Shaking off the sense of dread which closed upon him, he started up
the lichen-covered slope. But now the ewe sank upon its forelegs and
he was obliged to drag it inch by inch toward the circle of megaliths.
He rather welcomed the exertion however, for it freed his mind of the
nameless fear which the cromlech aroused in him.

By the time he had dragged the sheep alongside the ring of boulders, he
was nearly exhausted, but he dared not pause to rest, for he knew that
delay would be his undoing. He already had a wild desire to leave the
ewe and rush back through the toad-infested swamp to the familiar outer
world.

Quickly slipping off the sheep's tether, he bound its legs firmly
together and with a tremendous heave shoved it onto the rust-colored
sacrificial slab.

Rejecting an almost uncontrollable impulse to flee, he unsheathed the
hunting knife which he carried and drew from his pocket the curious
bound manuscript book, "True Magik" by Theophilis Wenn.

He had no difficulty in locating the strangely sinister seventh
incantation, for in the bright moonlight the unusual bluish-grey ink in
which the characters were inscribed seemed actually luminous.

Holding the book in one hand and the knife ready in the other, he began
to repeat the jumble of unintelligible sounds.

As he read, the syllables appeared to exert some unearthly influence
upon him, so that his voice rose to a savage howl, a high-pitched
inhuman ululation which penetrated to the farthest depths of the swamp.
At intervals his voice sank to low gutturals or a thin sibilant hiss.

And then, at the last enunciation of the oft-repeated word, "Nyogtha",
there reached his ears as from a vast distance a sound like the rushing
of a mighty wind, although not even a leaf stirred on the surrounding
trees.

The book suddenly darkened in his hand and he saw that a shadow had
fallen across the page.

He glanced up--and madness reeled in his brain.

Squatting on the edge of the slab was a shape which lived in nightmare,
a squamous taloned thing like a monstrous gargoyle or a malformed toad
which stared at him out of questing red eyes.

He froze in horror and a sudden rage flamed in the thing's eyes. It
thrust out its neck and an angry hiss issued from its mottled beak.

Emmet Telquist was galvanized into action. He knew what the thing
wanted--life blood.

Raising the knife, he advanced and was about to plunge it downward
into the sheep when a new horror seized him.

The ewe was already dead. The unspeakable presence which squatted
beside it had already claimed it. It had died of fright. Its eyes were
glazed and there was no indication that it still breathed.

Remembering Theophilis Wenn's warning, "beware lest the beaste be
dead", Emmet Telquist stood like a stone statue with the knife still
upraised in his hand.

Then he dropped it and ran.

Darting between two menhirs, he plunged down the knoll and raced toward
the swamp trail.

Lifting its scaly neck, the presence on the slab looked after him and
finally, hissing in fury, bounded off the stone and leaped in pursuit.

One terrible shriek rang out and presently the thing hopped back onto
the slab, holding in its bloody beak a dangling lifeless form, a
fitting sacrifice.




                              KILLER CAT


It had occurred to him quite suddenly and he had acted on the impulse
before there was time to ponder the matter.

He had the little paper open and was slipping the barbital powder into
a glass when the idea first came to him. For a half minute he just
stood there while his heart beat faster. Then he dumped in three more
of the powders and walked to the bedroom where his Aunt Martha lay
softly moaning. She swallowed the drug without even opening her eyes
and one hour later she was dead. It was as simple as that.

Dr. Myerbron assured him that her heart had given out, showed no
surprise and even hinted that he had expected her demise long before.

Dennis Stonegate was no calloused murderer. Far from it. After the
funeral when he had finally moved into his aunt's house for good, he
assured himself on that point.

He had, he told himself, acted through mercy. His aunt was suffering;
Dr. Myerbron had tacitly admitted more than once that she would not
recover; and certainly a few weeks or even months could make little
difference to the semi-conscious invalid. Better to relieve her of
suffering rather than permit her to linger and perhaps undergo worse
tortures later on when her last powers of resistance were spent.

He repeated this to himself so often he finally came to believe it.
But secretly he knew otherwise. Some small insistent chamber in his
brain kept whispering the truth. The truth was he had grown tired of
waiting.

At first all seemed to go well. Now that he was relieved of a certain
measure of responsibility, he began to enjoy life. Of course, for a
time, he had to put on a sober countenance when he left the house in
the morning. And he had to act properly subdued on certain occasions.
But that was easy enough. He even prided himself a little on his acting
ability. Sometimes he played the part so well he could feel himself
becoming melancholy. And then he would laugh, struck by the irony of
the situation. His Aunt Martha had never meant very much to him. She
had merely been an obstacle to be removed.

The first time the cat annoyed him he dismissed the incident without
further thought. It was a big black Persian with a silky plume of a
tail and luminous yellow eyes and it had been his aunt's favorite pet
for years.

One night after he had mashed some sardines in its dish, he became
irritated when, instead of running up to eat, it drew back and spit at
him. But he merely shrugged and went back to the paper.

The next day it again refused to eat. He speculated, idly, assumed that
it was undergoing a disorder, or distemper, or whatever it was that
cats undergo, and forgot the matter.

A week or so later however, the cat's actions began to annoy him. He
remembered then that so far as he could recall it had eaten almost
nothing he had set out for it since his aunt's death.

Even then, the affair did not really bother him much. It was just an
irritant in the back of his mind.

Nevertheless, some time later he had an experience which definitely
upset him. There was certainly nothing very unusual about it--and he
felt a little like a fool at times when he realized how he permitted
the incident to prey on him.

He had gone to bed late and had had a vague but unpleasant dream. It
seemed that he was lying somewhere in the darkness unable to move,
pinned down by a deadly paralysis, a smothering weight. He awoke
suddenly drenched with sweat and saw two yellow eyes staring into
his own. For just a moment he was on the verge of a scream; then he
remembered the cat and felt at once relieved and rather angry. The
beast was lying flat on his chest and made no move until he swung his
arms and swept it roughly to the floor. It sprang toward the door,
turned once and scurried down the hall.

The next morning he laughed at himself. The cat had often slept on his
aunt's bed and had happened to climb up on his for a cozy place to
spend the night.

He felt uneasy though, when he recalled how wide-awake the cat had been
when he opened his eyes.

For well over a week nothing further happened to upset him. The cat
skulked out of sight most of the time.

Then he had an experience which thoroughly frightened him and he
determined to get rid of his aunt's old pet.

Again he had a dream. Again he was in darkness. And this time he was
being smothered. He was rigid, unable to stir, struggling to breathe,
and there was no air to be had. He awoke as before, suddenly, cold with
sweat, and felt his spine tingle when he realized that something soft
and black was pressed firmly against his face. He sat up violently and
groped wildly for the switch. Something plopped on the floor just as
light flooded the room and then the cat paused at the door as before,
turned its yellow eyes on him and disappeared.

He sat still for some minutes, while his head whirled. He was
frightened and shocked at the things which he dared not admit to
himself and now a determined rage took possession of him.

The next day did not shake his determination. He brooded about the cat
and purposely planned his work so that he could leave early.

He let himself in quietly, entered the kitchen and picked up the iron
poker, and then softly started down the cellar stairs. It was here the
cat usually hid itself when it sensed his approach.

Pressing the light switch at the bottom, he quickly crossed toward the
coal bins. He had left some wooden crates piled near a window in one
of the bins and now in the light he saw the cat's yellow eyes shining
behind the bottom slats.

Springing toward the crates, he swung the poker viciously. The bottom
crate collapsed with a rending of brittle wood and the whole pile
lurched off balance. As he stepped back to avoid being struck, the cat
shot past.

Cursing, he started after it, but his foot caught on a crate and he
fell headlong. He jumped up, white with rage, and rushed into the open
cellar. Dust billowed out from the bin and he could not see the cat.
He stood back, glaring around the cellar, and waited for the dust to
settle. His foot felt hot however, and glancing down he was shocked to
see his shoe wet with blood. A nail must have penetrated his ankle and
cut a vein. Thoroughly unnerved now, he dropped the poker and hurried
upstairs.

He bathed his foot, dressed it and at length sat back, weak with
nervous exhaustion. But now he was more determined than ever. Before
another day had passed he would kill the cat.

Although his foot grew sore, his wound was not really serious, and the
next day he went to work as usual. A black mood seemed to settle on
him however, and finally he found it impossible to concentrate on the
various details which required his attention. He felt that until the
cat was destroyed, his peace of mind would never be regained.

Towards mid-day he complained of a violent headache, excused himself,
and hurried homeward.

Making sure that all the windows were closed and all the doors locked,
he began a slow and systematic search of the house. He started in the
garret and worked downward.

By the time he descended to the cellar a half hour had passed and his
patience was nearly exhausted. He poked through the coal bins, inwardly
cursing the elusive beast, and then smashed each crate in turn to
eliminate every possible hiding place.

As he mounted to the garret a second time some portion of his anger
gave way to a feeling of faint but persistent dread. He was positive
that the cat had been locked in the day before.

He began the search again, ferreting in every conceivable corner,
overturning baskets, scouring the closets, even jabbing the poker in
amongst his aunt's clothing hung in a dusty hall store room.

Another hour passed before he gave up. He slumped in a chair, weary and
possessed by a nameless fear, and tried to think. One moment he told
himself he was a superstitious fool, and the next he pictured the cat
as an incarnation of calculated evil and malice. He had heard stories
of the dead entering the bodies of animals in order to wreak their
unholy revenge. Tales of werewolves and vampires had haunted the race
since the misty beginnings of recorded time. Why not a cat? especially
one that had been so closely allied to the dead? one that had, perhaps,
with that strange insight sometimes possessed by high-bred animals,
read his very thoughts?

He sprang up, cursing himself for a childish fool, and determined to
put the entire matter out of his mind. He prepared a warm bath, soaked
at leisure, refreshed himself with a highball and sat down to read the
paper.

By evening his spirits had improved. He ate a light but well-selected
dinner--since the death of his aunt he no longer denied himself
expensive articles of food--left a note for the woman who would come to
clean in the morning, and settled down to an evening of relaxation with
his books.

As he read however, he again found his mind wandering. He glanced up
sharply on a number of occasions, sure that he had seen a shadow move
against the wall. Once he heard, or imagined he heard, a cry just
outside the window. It sounded like the wail of a cat, but there was an
unearthly note mixed in it which lifted the hairs on the nape of his
neck. He sat rigid, bathed with perspiration, and waited for the cry
to be repeated, but the silence flowed on and at last he lay back in
his chair, weak with the strain of expectation. He told himself that
his nerves were on edge; certainly there was no reason to become upset
about a cat prowling outside. Cats prowled, especially at night. Why,
what a fool he had become!

He stirred from his chair, mixed himself a stiff drink, and resumed
his book, riveting his attention on every page. He was congratulating
himself on his success when chancing to glance up to momentarily rest
his eyes, he was terrified to see a shape of darkness dart quickly away
from the window.

For a second he sat frozen in his chair; then he hurled down the book,
rushed to the door and literally flung himself outside.

The long lawn in front of the house lay bathed in soft moonlight and
not even a wind rustled the maple leaves. The lawn and the stone walk
and the garden space against the house were entirely empty. Not a
shadow was out of place.

He stood a long time, pondering, listening, peering into the misty
veil of moonlight. Once a moth swooped into the light, causing him an
inordinate fright. At last he closed the door.

He assured himself again that his nerves were on edge; he did not feel
too well. He was beginning to imagine things. There was really nothing
to be afraid of--certainly not of a mere cat! Perhaps he needed a
vacation, a trip to the mountains, a change of scenery.

He continued to reason with himself, meanwhile occupying himself with
various tasks about the house. At length, after a careful scrutiny of
every dark corner, he retreated to his room, bolted the door, looked
under the bed and made a detailed inspection of the mesh screen on his
window. It appeared quite substantial--certainly no cat could ever
penetrate it.

Soothed by weariness and the elaborate precautions which he had
observed, he at last slid into bed and switched off the light.

He was asleep within a half hour and for some time slept soundly. Then
he began to dream. It appeared that he was hiding somewhere when a
shadowy shape of evil, an indefinable manifestation of overpowering
hate, appeared suddenly on the scene and immediately sought out his
hiding place, glaring down at him with baleful yellow eyes. He awoke
with a scream, sat up in bed, half turned toward the window--and found
himself staring straight into the luminous yellow eyes of the cat.

The beast did not offer to move. It squatted on the window ledge and
fixed its eyes on his own with unmoving intensity. For a long moment he
sat paralyzed with horror. The beast hated him; it had waited until
he was asleep, helpless, and only the wire screen had kept it from the
room. He shuddered when he thought what might have happened.

At length he managed to switch on the light, but the cat did not move
an inch. It crouched motionless on the sill outside, watching him with
cold hate in its tawny eyes.

He began to dress, slowly, keeping one eye on the cat. Further sleep
would be impossible.

When he had dressed, slipped on a warm jacket and regained full
possession of his faculties, his courage began to assert itself. He
searched the room for a weapon, finally selecting a knotty laurel-wood
cane.

The cat remained on the window ledge, watching his every move.

Taking a firm grip on the cane, he slid the bolt and stepped into the
outer hall. It did not appear at all fantastic to him that he should
dress in the middle of the night, arm himself, and creep outside to
destroy a cat.

He unlatched the rear door, slipped quickly outside, and made a run for
his bedroom window.

The cat leaped off the sill an instant ahead of his arrival, dodged the
downward sweep of the cane and ran toward the open field in the rear of
the house.

He cursed, regained his balance and whirled after it.

A low mist had risen over the meadow; it was like a curtain of
grey-white shadow in the moonlight. Momentarily he lost sight of the
beast; then he glimpsed it again, bellying its way slowly through the
wet grass. It crawled with a queer dragging of its hindquarters, as if
it had been injured, and frequently it looked back.

He took a firmer grip on the cane and rushed forward with a feeling of
exultation. His first swing of the cane must have struck it after all!
He would catch it now! He would be upon it in an instant! The sneaking,
murderous black devil--he'd pound it to a pulp! Ah, now he had it!

He swung the heavy cane with all his strength. The cat leaped nimbly
aside, ran a few yards, then stopped and turned its head, fixing its
eerie yellow eyes on him.

The sweep of his arm had caused him to lose his balance and now as he
lunged in pursuit again he lost his footing entirely; his feet shot
sideways on the slippery grass and he crashed to the ground.

He was up in an instant, cursing, frantic with rage, and sprang toward
the motionless cat.

The animal waited until he was almost upon it, then quickly dodged
aside and ran in another direction.

He was out of breath now, but it never occurred to him to abandon the
chase. He rushed after the hated black beast which ran ever ahead of
him in the swirling mist, now scarcely crawling, now darting out of
reach with the suddenness of a whiplash, now pausing and turning its
flat head to make sure he was following behind.

He leaped forward like a madman, striking out savagely with the
cane, sliding to his hands and knees, a wild frenzied figure in the
moonlight. He was possessed by the one idea; he had lost all sense of
proportion, of direction; he did not even know into which part of the
meadow he had ventured.

Suddenly the cat made a long leap. It landed heavily and appeared to go
limp. It looked back but did not move as he lunged forward.

Without warning the ground vanished beneath his feet and he plunged
downward like a stone. Even as he fell he understood the trap to which
he had been led. With demoniac cunning, the cat had caused him to run
directly over the shaft of a deep abandoned well which was located in
the rear unused portion of the meadow.

He screamed once before the black water closed over his head, sending
him straight down a pool of freezing darkness. He kicked and clawed and
at last came to the surface, but already the icy water was working its
paralysis in him.

He stared up and screamed again, but the steep walls of the well
smothered his cry; it was little more than a weak moan above the
surface of the ground.

As his wildly clutching fingers scraped in vain against the smooth
moss-slick sides of the well, he looked up with a last desperate hope
and there silhouetted above him, like a fiend from hell, was the
remorseless shape of the cat, gazing steadily downward with a glow of
triumph in its yellow eyes.

He started to scream again, but his fingers lost their frail grip on
the mossy stones and he sank out of sight beneath the surface of green
scum.




                               THE DUMP


Pulling aside the dingy kitchen curtain, she looked out. "It's starting
again," she said tensely.

To the north, a scant mile from the house, a great greasy billow of
black smoke rolled skyward. Squealing sea gulls flapped over huge
mounds of smouldering trash. Although she couldn't see them from the
window, the woman knew that the reeking wasteland literally crawled
with an army of voracious rats.

Somehow, the omniscient, all-encompassing State had overlooked the
dump. In its dynamic zeal to provide prefabs, food capsules and
carefully edited newstapes for all citizens, the State may have
bypassed the dump temporarily.

There was a rumor to the effect, however, that the wasteland had
been deliberately preserved as a sort of monstrous museum area, a
"See-how-things-used-to-be" tourist attraction.

In any event, in the very midst of marvels of efficiency, exactitude
and unending impersonal energy, there it remained, a sour, rat-sluiced
tract carefully shunned by the average State citizen.

If people still existed in the dump itself, or even in its immediate
environs, it was generally conceded that it was their own fault. The
State always stood ready to house and feed the indigent.

Broken springs groaned as the man arose from a cot. He shook his head.
"Wish you'd relax, Lucy. Little smoke ain't hurtin' you none."

She turned, eyes bright with anger. "_Little smoke!_" she repeated.
"Smoke that seeps right through the shingles into the house! Smoke that
gets in your lungs, in your hair, in your food, in your clothes--even
in your skin! I tell you I've had enough of smoke and cinders and
rats--and sea gulls! Sea gulls! Hah! Those dirty birds screeching like
hungry cats all the time. They're dump gulls. Garbage gulls! I'd like
to wring their filthy necks!"

Slipping into a threadbare jacket, the man started toward the kitchen
door. "You sure get worked up over nothin'. Sea gulls got to live, like
everything else."

The woman's voice rose in fury. "I suppose you'd say the rats have got
to live too! You'd even defend the rats!"

The man paused, his hand on the door knob. He looked aggrieved. "Why
that ain't fair, Lucy. We fight the rats. You know that."

"You fight them!" she mocked. "Well, let me tell you something! You're
losing the fight! The rats are winning! They're taking over! There must
be a million out there!"

The man rubbed his chin reflectively. He looked thoughtful. "They're
tough, all right. But they're under control. We club a couple hundred
to death, most every night." He opened the kitchen door.

As he stepped out, the woman's fury seemed suddenly to vanish. Her
voice was no longer shrill; it was flat, listless. "When will you be
back, Ralph?"

He shrugged. "Can't say, exactly. We might go on a rat kill. Take a
couple hours. Maybe we'll poke around for stuff till dark. Maybe just
gab over a can of mulligan." He closed the door.

From the window, she watched him cross the littered back yard and
disappear in the adjacent cattails.

Supper time came and went and he had not returned. She had a cup of tea
and a biscuit and then sat up, trying to read, but found herself unable
to concentrate. Finally she crossed to the kitchen window.

Darkness had fallen, but the Enemy was still visible, revealed in the
lurid flickering light of towering trash fires. At night the dump
seemed even more forbidding. You never knew what that flame-riven
darkness might conceal.

As she stood at the window, she imagined that the approaches to Hell
itself might resemble the scene before her--fires circling the night
and beyond in the deeper darkness terrors and frights unspeakable.

At last, wearily, she undressed for bed. But she did not sleep
peacefully. This evening the nightmare came swiftly. There were
variations, but the essential outline was nearly always the same.

From the outside darkness, from above and below and from all sides,
came subdued but ominous whispers of sound--gnawing, scraping,
squeaking, scuttling. And then the house began to settle, literally
to sink, like a ship in the sea. The busy rats had eaten away its
foundations and now it was being engulfed in great tides of trash.
The dump was closing in on it, like a monstrous growth. Soon it would
disappear out of sight in the slimy darkness. As it slipped into the
sour earth, the rats broke through. They poured through the windows,
the doors, down the chimney--huge, hairy creatures with red eyes and
yellow flashing fangs. They leaped upon the bed, lunged for her throat.

She was sitting up in bed, screaming, bathed in sweat, when she finally
awoke.

Ralph had not yet returned. She got up, drank tea, and went back to bed
for a few minutes' fitful sleep in the hour or two before dawn.

She was sitting in the kitchen when Ralph returned. Grey light was
filtering over the cattails. In the distance a sea gull squealed.

Ralph yawned, stretched, sat down. "Quite a night. We musta clubbed a
hundred rats. Maybe more. Jim Tavey got nipped, but not bad. When we
got back, Fred Morgee's woman had a pail of the best damned mulligan I
ever ate. Hot and spicy! Jeepers, that was good!"

She glared at him. "That filthy woman! Living in the dump! Bad enough
to live next to it."

He spread his hands. "Why Lucy, it ain't bad. Morgee's rigged up a
shack with a real tin roof. Got a floor and a potbelly. Got bunks.
Sheila Morgee's the happiest female I ever did see."

She slammed her fist on the table top. "Well she can have her filthy
shack in the dump! _I'm_ through! Living here right on the edge is
getting just as bad as being inside. Cinders, smoke, smells, sea
gulls--and rats, rats, rats!" Her voice rose hysterically.

He spoke soothingly. "What can we do, Lucy? Twenty years ago we paid
ten thousand for this place. Now the State wouldn't give us over three.
How long would that last? In a year or so we'd be wards. Broke. The
State would take us."

"What's so bad about that?" she countered. "We'd have two rooms in
a plastic prefab. Plenty of food capsules. An entertaintime screen.
Now they even give you the choice of a permajade juniper bush or a
simulated maple tree for the lawn."

He snorted. "Lawn! Artificial grass you spray green in the spring and
brown in the autumn!"

Her voice rose again. "That's better than looking out at those dingy
cattails all day long--watching them shake as the rats swim around the
roots!"

He was silent.

She continued, her voice weary but resolute. "I'm through, Ralph. I
can't stand those nightmares no more. If you won't sell to the State,
I'll bring suit for my share and I'll leave anyway. I'm not going on
living like this."

He shook his head, frowning. "I won't fight, Lucy, if you really want
to go. You can keep what the State gives for the house. But I'm telling
you, it's a mistake. We ain't got much here, but at least we're alive."

Her voice was bitter. "I've had enough. I'm selling. If you won't come,
go and live with the rats in the dump!"

He went to bed. He knew that further argument would be futile. A few
weeks later the man from the State came. Ralph had already signed the
papers, waiving his share of the proceeds from the sale of the house.
The State had agreed to pay twenty-seven hundred.

Sitting down in the one stable armchair remaining in the living room,
the State man--a Mr. Feckwith--opened his document case. "All that
remains," he explained to Mrs. Leeson, "is for you to sign these
papers." He passed them over to her.

As she read, a look of consternation spread on her careworn face. "What
does this mean? Don't I get the twenty-seven hundred?"

Mr. Feckwith coughed politely. "Well, you see, Mrs. Leeson, before you
can become a State ward and qualify for a prefab, plus furnishings and
food, you have to turn all assets over to the State. Otherwise you are
not considered, ah, dependent."

She hesitated. "But I--I won't have a penny!"

Mr. Feckwith smiled reassuringly. His chubby face beamed. "You
won't _require_ a penny, Mrs. Leeson! All needs are taken care of.
Shelter, food, clothes, medicine. And you'll have all the extras--an
entertaintime screen, the news tape delivered every day, the monthly
excursion. Think of it!"

She thought of it. She thought of it while black soot drifted past the
windows, while the sea gulls squealed and the dump fires flared. She
thought of it and she signed.

Three days later the State sent a tronicar to pick her up. She was glad
that Ralph was away. It made things easier.

As the car sped off, she turned for a last sight of the dump. A huge
pall of thick smoke hung over the area. Tireless sea gulls flapped
above the refuse heaps, screeching raucously. Sighing with relief, she
looked away, concentrating on the tronicar's gleaming interior. Within
seconds the dump was far behind her.

Her new life was like a dream. She had two private rooms in a plastic
prefab, complete with entertaintime screen, newstape projector and
remote music disc. Food, mostly in capsule form, was delivered daily.
The trugrass lawn, freshly sprayed, boasted a simulated maple tree over
eight feet high.

If she felt ill, all she needed to do was press the button marked
"Dispensary." A State doctor would arrive in three minutes.

Sitting in her foamease chair, in front of the entertaintime screen,
she reveled in her new luxury. No dump smoke seeped into these rooms.
No soot drifted past the windows. When she looked out, instead of
dingy cattails she saw the bright green simulated maple tree and the
sparkling trugrass lawn. No more rats scampering across her back yard.
No noisy sea gulls circling overhead.

She felt sorry for Ralph. He would probably die in the dump. He'd end
his days in some dirty shack, slurping up mulligan stew. He'd die
alone, some dismal night, while the dump fires flickered and the filthy
rats squealed and scuttled in the darkness.

After the first week she got to know some of her new neighbors. There
were twenty-nine other units on her block, each with its own trugrass
lawn. Some, like hers, boasted a simulated maple tree. Others were
graced with one of the permajade juniper bushes. She was welcomed
warmly. They were all very friendly, all very polite. She never
mentioned the dump. They talked about the past as if it were life
on another planet. They talked about their favorite programs on the
entertaintime screen, about where they had gone on the monthly tronicar
excursions sponsored by the State. They talked about their illnesses.

And yet, it seemed to Lucy Leeson, they did not actually talk very
much. Perhaps it was too much effort. Mostly they just sat in front of
their entertaintime screens and watched. Most of their meals they could
swallow in capsule form without even moving from their foamease chairs.

The weeks came and went and finally a man appeared one morning and
sprayed the trugrass lawn a uniform brown. A week or so later he came
back, worked a mechanism at the base of the simulated maple tree and
all the bright green leaves curled up tight and invisible against the
limbs. It was autumn.

The man told her they had tried leaving everything green all year
round, but in the long run the people didn't approve of it. They liked
to look out, some fine spring morning, and see the trugrass lawn and
the maple trees unexpectedly green again. The service men came just
before dawn to spray the lawns and unfold the maple leaves.

It was a landscaping marvel. The grass never had to be cut and Lucy
knew that the simulated maple tree would never be over eight feet tall.
No pruning, no troublesome roots, no falling leaves to rake.

Her only criticism was that the birds seemed to avoid both lawn and
tree. She looked out, rather wistfully, in hopes of seeing a bird.
But she rarely saw one. She remembered with a pang of nostalgia the
red-winged blackbirds which descended on the cattails bordering the
dump every spring. They were such bright, frolicsome, saucy creatures!
But they never flew over the trugrass lawns.

After a while, Lucy stopped visiting her neighbors. For some reason
which she could not specifically name, they depressed her. They were
old and listless and often ill, but it was more than that.

At length she knew the reason. They were dead; they were corpses
waiting for interment. They would be transferred from the plastic
prefabs to State permaplastic coffins with scarcely a groan of protest.
They were just waiting for death, day after day. Consciously, they
swallowed their capsules, read their daily newstapes and sat with
their eyes riveted on the screens. But subconsciously they had stopped
living. Subconsciously they longed for death to release them from the
bondage of State security, State brainwashing, the bland and eternal
aura of State assurance and reassurance.

She began to feel that she was being smothered to death in the plastic
prefab. She grew to loathe the food capsules. The endless entertaintime
programs finally filled her with boredom. The newstapes were some
diversion but she resented them because she sensed that all the news
had been too carefully sifted and predigested beforehand.

She stared out at the meek leafless tree and hated it. Sometimes she
sat on the floor because she was so tired of the foamease chair. Once
she pressed the "Dispensary" button just to see what would happen,
but she never tried it again because she was subjected to a tedious
two-hour examination which left her exhausted and taut with irritation.
The examination was thorough but so impersonal she was left feeling
like an inanimate object.

She no longer had nightmares about the dump rats but now a new and
even more terrifying dream haunted her sleep. She dreamed that the
State, unable to supply prefabs fast enough to meet the thousands of
new applicants, secretly filled some of the food capsules with sleeping
powders. The sleeping victims, chosen at random, were then carried out
of their quarters, slipped into State permaplastic coffins and quietly
buried. In her dream the plastic prefab became a permaplastic coffin.
Doped with sleeping powder, she was buried alive. She would wake up,
night after night, screaming, throwing her arms in the air to claw her
way out.

At length she began to sit up most of the night; during the day she
would sleep at frequent intervals in the foamease chair. This routine
effectively ended the dream of being buried alive, but she still
dreaded the nights.

She would sit for hours thinking about the dump--the sea gulls
squealing, the trash fires flaring, soot flying past the windows and
finally Ralph tramping in with his crazy stories about the rats or the
mulligan stew or the fortune someone had found in a discarded fruit jar.

She had hated it all before but now she wasn't sure she hated it very
much. Maybe she no longer hated it at all. What was it Ralph had said?
How did it go? Oh yes: "We ain't got much here, _but at least we're
alive_."

The words echoed in her mind. She thought of them a hundred times a day.

It was a small thing that decided her. One morning she was standing
at the window, looking out across the trugrass lawn, when a State
dispensary ambucar drove up. Two hospital men entered the prefab across
the road. In a few minutes they came out carrying old Miss Quinsonby in
a plastic bag.

Lucy Leeson felt sick. Although she was perfectly aware that Miss
Quinsonby had been ailing for months, the memory of her nightmare
came back to torment her. Was it possible that the State actually did
"dispose" of the very old and infirm in order to make room for new
applicants? The thought was fantastic, and yet the State people were so
deadly, impersonally efficient in so many ways....

That very afternoon she signed up for the next monthly tronicar
excursion. She had nearly two weeks to wait and she counted the days.
One afternoon when she was sleeping in the foamease chair she had a new
nightmare. She dreamed that she became ill and pressed the Dispensary
button. In the prescribed three minutes two State hospital men
appeared. One of them winked at the other and they both smiled slyly at
her. Then she noticed that the one who had winked held something behind
his back. It was a big folded plastic bag. She awoke with a scream.

On the morning set for the tronicar excursion, she stuffed some
personal items in a small kit and went outside to wait. The tronicar
driver was supposed to stop and touch her signal chime, but she was
taking no chances. She waited nearly an hour, afraid the car might come
early. When it finally swung into view down the street, she hurried to
the ramp.

After the tronicar had picked up its cargo of State wards and left the
immediate prefab area, the driver began an oral travelogue, describing
new buildings, sites and developments as the car sped past. She
scarcely heard his monotonous speel droning over the speaker system.

Her plans were made. When the car stopped in Newbridge, she would get
off on some pretext and simply keep on going. She knew the tronicar
excursions were tied to a rigid schedule. The driver would not wait for
her very long.

Assuring him that she would return in five minutes, she got out in
Newbridge and scurried away in the crowds. Once out of sight, she
signaled for a cruisecab.

As the cab slid smoothly through city traffic toward the highway which
skirted the dump, horrible doubts assailed her. Suppose Ralph had
left? Suppose all of them had left? What would she do? Where could
she go? The State owned the house. She did not possess any money. She
would have to go back to the prefab, back to the trugrass lawn and the
simulated maple tree, back to--_Death_. Once she had spoken it in her
mind, she kept on repeating it. Death, death, death. She would have to
go back to death. She would have to go back to death.

It became a refrain, ringing in her head. The crisp voice of the driver
came through the partition tube, startling her. "This is the refuse
area, lady. Where did you want to go?"

Her heart began to pound. She looked out the window, searching for
landmarks. "About a mile yet. There's an old empty warehouse and then
some catalpa trees. Right after that."

In a minute or two the cruisecab glided to a stop. She paid the driver
and got out. Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe.

"You want me to wait, lady?" The driver regarded her quizzically.

She shook her head. "No--no thanks. I--I'm meeting someone here."

The driver glanced at the smoky pall of the dump and shrugged. Seconds
later the cruisecab was disappearing down the highway.

She walked past the clump of catalpa trees bordering the highway. There
were bushes and then set back a bit would be the house. She stopped,
staring, motionless. The house was gone. The State had torn it down and
filled in the cellar hole.

As she looked across the littered back yard toward the clump of
cattails, she experienced a strange sense of unreality. Sea gulls cried
overhead and the sun filtered down through a pall of smoke, but the
familiar scene seemed eerily unfamiliar.

Scowling, she closed her eyes momentarily and forced down the panic
crowding within her. The house was gone; that was what made everything
seem so strange, so unreal. Now she would take the little path that led
across the back yard into the cattails. She would find Ralph and the
others. Surely they were here somewhere. They would have shelter, at
least a substitute for a house. She was acting like a fool. She should
have expected the house to be gone; even if it hadn't been, it was no
longer hers. She would have no right to enter it, if it were still
standing.

Crossing the yard, she hesitated at the edge of the cattails. She
imagined she could hear rats squeaking somewhere in the tangle ahead.
Finally she picked up a heavy stick, took a deep breath and stepped
into the narrow path which twisted through the cattail marsh.

She had thought the marsh covered only a small area; now she became
appalled at its size. The path twisted on and on, like some kind of
maze laid out to confuse the unwary. Every few yards her feet got
wet. At length she had to stop and sit down. There were squeaks and
twitterings around her. The eternal sea gulls flapped overhead. Smoke
drifted sluggishly skyward. She arose and went on.

Noon found her sitting at the base of a great mound of ashes and trash.
The sea gulls still squawked and the sun glared down. The cattail marsh
lay far away. She was tired, confused and fearful. The dump area seemed
enormous and she had not met a single human being. She had believed,
previously, that the dump was mostly a level plateau; now she found to
her dismay that it actually consisted of a great many mounds, gullies,
ridges and pits. Unless she climbed to the top of a mound, she could
not see very far. And even then she could not see down into distant
holes and depressions.

She had called out until her voice broke. Now she sat silently. A huge
grey-brown rat scurried into sight. Her hand tightened on the stick
which she carried. The rat pretended it was nibbling on a paper shred
but she knew it was watching her. It did not dart away.

She had a sudden horrible thought of night closing in, of rats by the
dozen, by the hundreds, watching her, waiting....

She arose so abruptly the rat took alarm and disappeared. She would
have to get out, she told herself. She would return to the marsh, take
the little path and go back to the highway. Once there, she would be
relatively safe.

But she soon found that she was hopelessly lost. The cattail marsh had
vanished. She trudged on with growing apprehension, encountering bigger
mounds and deeper gullies. The blazing sun seemed reflected back from
every inch of the scorched sour earth. Her head began to ache; she
developed a raging, tormenting thirst.

Rats watched her warily. Once a sea gull swung down, surveyed her with
its cruel eyes and flapped off silently.

Finally her legs simply gave out. She collapsed weeping. Ralph had
gone; they had all gone. She was now convinced that she was alone in
the dump. Surely, by now, someone would have seen her, heard her. They
had all left; perhaps the State had driven them out.

Shadows were beginning to slant across the gullies by the time she got
up. She was dry-eyed, but her legs ached, her eyes smarted and her
throat was so parched she could scarcely swallow. When she tried to
call out, her voice was only a whisper. Her first terror had passed.
Now she felt a kind of calm despair.

Rounding a huge bank of calcified waste, she stopped, frozen. She was
feverish, she concluded, dying maybe, for there scant yards away was a
group of people, a shack of some sort, a cleared area which was like
a little island of orderliness in an ocean of congealed chaos. She
stared, unbelieving.

Someone saw her, exclaimed, and the whole group turned to stare at her.

"_Lucy!_"

It was Ralph. He broke from the group, bolted toward her. "Lucy! Lucy!
How did you--What on earth--" She was in his arms then and he was
laughing and she was crying. She was too exhausted and too thirsty
to talk. She simply fell into his arms and he carried her toward the
shack. The others crowded around, murmuring sympathetically.

Ralph settled her into a big broken-down armchair under the tin roof.
Someone else held out a dipper of cool water, the sweetest water she
had ever tasted in her life. Mrs. Morgee appeared with a wet cloth and
began bathing her forehead and face. Someone took off her shoes.

In a few minutes she felt so much better, she sat up and looked around
at them. Ralph hovered at her side, grinning idiotically. The rest of
them only smiled at her, understanding that she did not yet wish to
answer questions.

As darkness closed in, someone lit a fire. In a few minutes the
aroma of mulligan stew spiced the air. Lucy's mouth watered; she was
ravenous, she now realized.

After she had finished a huge bowl of stew, she could scarcely keep her
eyes open. Mrs. Morgee led her inside to a cot, helped her undress and
got her into bed. Ralph remained outside with the others, around the
fire. Explanations could wait until morning.

She had the sensation of melting without effort into a deep, dreamless
sleep. She had made up her mind. She would never return to the plastic
prefab, the trugrass lawn, the simulated maple tree and the food
capsules. She wouldn't be carried away, all alone some morning, in a
plastic bag.

She'd never get used to the rats and she didn't like the smoke and the
sea gulls, but now she knew there were worse things.

At least she felt alive.




                              THE TENANTS


That January Madge and I were in desperate need of a rent. Two days
before we were due to be evicted--for owner occupancy--we heard about
the house in suburban Clarisville.

We got out there as fast as we could, made inquiries and located the
woman who owned the house, a Mrs. Dallis, who agreed to show us the
property.

The house was an ordinary-looking, white frame, two-story structure
located at the far end of a rather sparsely settled street. It needed
paint, new wallpaper and several new window panes. A porch step was
dangerously cracked and the entire grounds surrounding the house needed
a thorough going-over. Also, we would have to sign a two-year lease.

But of course we took it. It was much better than a tent in somebody's
back lot.

When we mentioned the eviction hanging over our heads, Mrs. Dallis
permitted us to move in immediately. And so it happened that our
furniture was already in the house before we actually signed the lease.

A few days later we drove over to Mrs. Dallis' place in Clarisville
Center to affix our signatures. She invited us in and was most cordial,
but after some preliminary pleasantries there came a slight pause and
Mrs. Dallis said, "There is just one thing--"

Our hearts skipped a beat. All along, while rejoicing at our good luck,
we had both wondered if there might be some hidden "catch" to the
business.

After mentioning the "one thing", Mrs. Dallis sat rather nervously
twiddling her fingers. To Madge and I, already on edge, this was
anything but reassuring.

Finally our new landlady found her tongue.

"Well," she said, "I won't conceal anything. Some years ago a certain
Mrs. Molleman lived in the house you've taken. She was, ah--eccentric.
There were conflicting reports concerning her. Some people said she was
merely a harmless old lady grown a little bit queer in solitude. Others
pictured her as a vindictive, even a cruel, woman. For instance, she
kept as pets over a dozen assorted cats and dogs. There were rumors
that she did not treat them well. So far as I know those rumors were
founded on hearsay."

Mrs. Dallis inspected us closely to see what effect her revelations
were having and went on.

"Well, one night, neighbors living at the other end of the street heard
a terrific commotion proceeding from Mrs. Molleman's house. The dogs
were barking and howling furiously and the cats were screeching. The
neighbors were of a mind to investigate, but finally the racket died
down, and so they went to sleep instead.

"Two days later however, after no further sound had emanated from the
house, the police broke in and discovered a ghastly spectacle. The
dozen or so cats and dogs, their throats cut, were found lying dead in
pools of their own blood. There was at least one of them in every room
in the house. Mrs. Molleman herself was found hanging in the garret.
The entire house was a shambles. It looked as if the remaining cats and
dogs had gone berserk with the smell of blood after Mrs. Molleman had
cut the throats of one or two of them. Apparently she had had to chase
them all over the house. Blood was splattered everywhere."

Mrs. Dallis sighed deeply.

"Mrs. Molleman, it was said, killed herself because she learned that
she was in the advanced stages of an incurable disease. Certain of the
neighbors said she destroyed her pets out of vindictiveness and an evil
heart, but the more charitable view is that she did away with them in
order that they would not suffer abuse and neglect after she was gone."

Her gruesome revelations apparently at an end, Mrs. Dallis sat back and
surveyed us.

Madge, surprisingly, was the first to speak. "It's certainly a terrible
little story," she admitted, frowning, "but I don't quite see what it
has to do with signing the lease. Neither Jim nor I are superstitious."

Mrs. Dallis nodded. "Good," she said. "Neither am I. But nevertheless
it is pertinent to the lease. There has been some strong evidence
that on October 20th of each year--the anniversary of that horrible
night--certain, ah, manifestations have been observed. Therefore the
lease you will sign specifies that from six p.m. to six a.m. on each
October 20th, you will remove yourselves from the premises, lock the
house securely and remain away."

Madge and I glanced at each other. It was certainly a bizarre
requirement, yet I think we were both relieved to learn the details.
To remain away from home one night a year was actually no great
inconvenience.

We agreed to obey the weird clause and signed the lease at once.
After we left, we made light of the matter. We concluded that the
"manifestations" existed only in Mrs. Dallis' mind. October was a long
way off--and we did have a rent.

That year was a hectic albeit prosperous and happy one and the
months flew past. Madge and I were too busy to worry about ghosts of
old ladies. We never encountered any in the house and although we
occasionally remembered the October 20th clause and joked about it, we
were so occupied with other matters we very nearly forgot about the
date when it finally did arrive. Mrs. Dallis, however, had foreseen
the possibility of that and made provision for it. At five o'clock on
the afternoon of October 20th she telephoned to make sure that we were
planning to vacate the house by six. We assured her that we would be
out in an hour.

Actually, we just did make it. We had neglected to pack an overnight
bag till the last minute and, as always, several minor but essential
items had to be searched for. After we had checked the locks on the
back door and all the windows, we stepped out onto the front porch. I
think it was about one-half minute before six p.m. when I turned the
key in the front door and we walked down the porch steps.

We made a lark of the affair. We had dinner at a fine restaurant,
attended a play, drank cocktails and finally turned in at the hotel
room which we had engaged for the occasion.

The next morning Madge sleepily assured me that she had no qualms
whatsoever about returning to our house and that she'd consider me a
fussbucket if I insisted on leaving early so that I could stop at the
place before I left for the office.

I told her I'd go directly from the hotel to work and leave her to
contend with any old ghosts that happened to be nursing a hangover on
our premises.

Madge is always vague about time early in the morning however, and
I did leave the hotel earlier than was necessary. I started driving
toward the office, thinking I'd get a head start on some papers which
had piled up. But some obscure impulse persuaded me to turn the car and
drive toward the suburbs. I felt a bit foolish, but I couldn't argue
myself out of stopping at our house for a quick checkup. I have always
been grateful that I heeded the dim prompting which caused me to change
directions that morning.

When I unlocked the door and walked into the house, everything seemed
in order. The windows and rear door were still securely bolted and
nothing was amiss. I searched the house from cellar to garret and found
nothing disturbed.

Finally, feeling rather sheepish at this point, I sat down in one of
the living room chairs to rest a minute before I drove to work.

As I sat there, I noticed some small object protruding from behind the
divan on the opposite side of the room. I couldn't distinguish what it
was; mild curiosity prompted me to get up and peer behind the divan.

As I bent down, I froze. Huddled against the back of the divan was a
pitiful little heap of fur lying in a pool of blood--our cat, Jinko,
with his throat slashed wide open. It was the tip of his tail which I
had seen protruding.

In our haste to leave the previous evening, we had forgotten about him.
We hadn't noticed him in the house and I think we both subconsciously
assumed that he was outside when we locked up.

I cleaned up the blood, buried the little creature in a corner of the
backyard, poured myself a stiff drink and went to work. Several times
during the day I called up to make sure that Madge was all right. She
called me a ninny and said she couldn't even find an old shroud dropped
around the house.

Of course she got somewhat suspicious in a day or so when Jinko failed
to show up. But he had disappeared for days at a time before, and I
finally persuaded her that he must have wandered away or met with an
accident.

The following summer I saved some of my vacation time; Madge and I
spent the entire week of October 20th in Maine. In December I put
a down payment on a new house. We moved into it just before the
holidays--and one of Madge's Christmas presents was a cuddly little
Persian kitten.

She had been teasing me to buy one for months, but somehow I just
hadn't got around to it till then.




                       THE MAN WHO FEARED MASKS


Mr. Apondee was terrified by masks or false faces of any type.
Halloween to him was an idiot's festival of unmitigated horror. He
would sooner enter a tiger's lair than attend a masked ball. If he
saw a false face harmlessly dangling in the window of a novelty shop,
he would shudder and turn away. The memory of it would haunt him all
evening long--even intrude in his dreams and torment him until he
awoke, limp with nightmare panic.

The detailed circumstances surrounding the inception of Mr. Apondee's
mask fear were somewhat hazy, since he was scarcely three years old at
the time. But the particular moments of terror he remembered vividly,
as if they had transpired within his recent adult life.

He was sitting in a huge circus tent with his father. It was his first
circus; he was enormously excited, tense, somewhat fearful. He held
tight to his father's hand. Suddenly all the lights went out. There
were screams, frightened cries, roars, howls and monstrous bellowings.
People began pushing and shoving, trying to force passage toward the
entrances of the pitch-black tent.

In the whirlwind commotion he lost his grip on his father's hand. He
was swept away in a trampling, cursing tide of sweating humanity.
He fell down between the seats, screaming, and suddenly out of the
darkness appeared a nightmare face, luminous with a green-silvery
shine, huge of nose, gashed by great white rubbery lips which writhed
with insane merriment. The face bent over him, with its tiny glittering
eyes, its fearful pink mouth and its greasy shine.

His screams of a few moments before turned to delirious shrieks of
ultimate terror. He remembered nothing more.

Eventually of course the lights went back on and the masked circus
clown returned a screaming and hysterical child to its father.

The child screamed all the way out of the circus tent, screamed all
the way home and screamed and sobbed half the night, until exhaustion
brought hypnotic sleep.

The distressed parents finally forgot the unfortunate incident, but the
child never did. In the recesses of his memory a grotesque and hideous
mask wavered always just out of sight, awaiting its chance to loom out
of the darkness, awaiting the sudden unexpected moment when it would
leap into light and petrify him with pure terror.

The show window of a toy store might bring it lunging out at him.
He might be swept with acute panic upon glancing up at a billboard
advertising a traveling sideshow. Once he nearly fainted on the
street when a weirdly masked "Man from Mars"--advertising a local
movie--strode around a corner in front of him.

The fear remained with him through his childhood, through his
adolescence and on into full maturity. It seemed impervious to the
rationalizing of his adult years. It would not be argued away. Its
roots had pierced the psychic marrow of his being and resisted all his
efforts to wrench them out.

The obsessive fear haunted him to such an extent that he finally
consulted a reputable psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist patiently heard him out and then painstakingly
explained in simple layman language that his early childhood experience
had made an impact on his impressionable, too-vulnerable young mind
all out of proportion to its actual importance. He pointed out that
the mask fear was far more than a physical one. True, the child had
been buffeted by the circus crowd, had been shoved and pushed down
between the seats--painfully and perhaps severely bruised. But the
fear went deeper than that. When the lights in the circus tent went
out, the child had been holding tight to his father's hand. The father
represented security, comfort, protection, home. Suddenly the child was
hurled into milling blackness and then out of the darkness appeared a
hideous leering face which bore down on him with apparent evil intent.
So--the psychiatrist explained--in Mr. Apondee's subconscious mind
the mask--or any mask--had come to symbolize the loss of security,
of stability and protection. It symbolized all of the inherited and
acquired fears which lurked in Mr. Apondee's own psychic depths.

Mr. Apondee listened and he was impressed. He felt better. He believed
that he now thoroughly understood the origin of the mask terror, and in
understanding, he judged, was exorcism.

But this was only partially true. Although the explanation tended to
alleviate Mr. Apondee's mask fear, it by no means entirely dispelled
the fixation. The fear remained, buried deep in Mr. Apondee's psychic
being, and even though it no longer flickered into furious life at the
smallest draft of provocation, still it went on smouldering.

In his early thirties Mr. Apondee got married, and if his marriage
had its occasional "ups and downs", it was probably no better and no
worse than the average. All considered, it might be termed reasonably
successful.

Probably Mr. Apondee believed it far more successful than did his
spouse. Mrs. Apondee was frequently exasperated by her husband's lack
of enterprise, by his timidity and by his tendency to accept rather
than alter his lot.

But after the first few years she seldom complained. It did no good,
and in any case Mr. Apondee had plenty of laudable qualities. Although
his job was a modest one, he worked steadily at it. He didn't drink,
nor stay out at night, nor grumble about the meals.

Mr. Apondee himself was quite satisfied with his circumstances. He had
a faithful wife, a small but neat apartment home and a job which was
probably his as long as he wanted it, providing he was willing to
forego any prospect of raises within the foreseeable future. All in
all, he felt that he possessed a measure of security.

He never mentioned his mask fear to his wife. He had an uncomfortable
feeling that she would consider it silly, that she might even ridicule
him. It was, after all, an awkward thing to explain to anyone and Mr.
Apondee could see no point in broaching it.

If Mrs. Apondee had known about it, the chances are the surprise
birthday party for Mr. Apondee would have been staged in a far less
fanciful manner.

Actually, the introduction of the masks was an afterthought.

The five couples and Mrs. Apondee were crowded into the Apondee's small
apartment late one October afternoon. A big birthday cake covered with
pink icing and candles rested on a table in the living room. It was Mr.
Apondee's birthday and they meant to surprise him when he came home
from work at five-thirty.

Suddenly young Mrs. Tyler had an idea. She was giving a Halloween
masquerade party later in the month, she said, and that very afternoon
she had been out shopping for masks. She had them with her now. Why
didn't they each put on a mask before Mr. Apondee came in? It would be
great fun; for a minute he wouldn't know who any of them were and that
would add to the element of surprise.

They all--including Mrs. Apondee--agreed with enthusiasm. Then a
further eerie touch was added when fertile Mr. Fentonby suggested that
they put out all the lights in the apartment, except in the vestibule,
pull down the shades, and hold lighted birthday candles near their
masked faces. When Mr. Apondee first came in, they would remain silent
and he would be confronted by nothing but an assemblage of weird
glowing masks, hovering, as it were, in mid-air.

Mr. Fentonby's suggestion was adopted with shouts of delight. At
five-fifteen they slipped on their grotesque false faces, snapped out
all the lights and got their little candles ready. Ten minutes later
they drew the shades, lit their candles and waited breathlessly like
mischievous children.

The minutes dragged, but presently they heard the click of the
self-service elevator down the hall. And then Mr. Apondee's light but
steady tread.

He was, as a matter of fact, slightly late. Work had piled up at the
office and he was more tired than usual.

Opening the door into the tiny vestibule of his apartment, he sighed
with contentment and relief. After hanging up his hat and coat, he
strolled into the living room.

In that impossibly black place eleven luminous, nightmare masks floated
suddenly out at him. They gleamed and flickered with an unearthly light
all their own. The masks were different, but they were all hideous, all
malevolent. Some had huge drooping noses; some, great white rubbery
lips, grinning with insane merriment; some had tiny glittering eyes and
fearful pink mouths.

For one terrible moment Mr. Apondee stood frozen and speechless. Then
he began to scream. He screamed and kept on screaming and shouts of
"Surprise!" died in eleven throats which were in turn suddenly stricken
silent.

Candles were dropped, and some of the masks, but too late. Mr. Apondee
plunged like a maddened thing through the darkened room. He headed for
the only glimmer of natural light which was visible--a window.

He hurled himself through it, shade and all, and he was still screaming
when he struck the cement walk, seven stories below.




                       THE VISITOR IN THE VAULT


Newling hated the vault. Hated its shadows, its silence, its cold stale
air.

But this morning there could be no escape. Preston Haver's books had
been sorted and classified, and Mr. Twais, the head librarian, had
given instructions that some of the most valuable of the lot were to be
stored in the locked basement vault.

Running his hand through his thinning hair, Newling pushed the book
truck into the staff elevator. Mrs. Joy, the desk attendant, watched
him with an abstracted expression. There was no one else in sight. Mr.
Twais was in his private office, reading the morning mail.

The elevator glided to a smooth stop and Newling rolled out the truck.
Fretting with irritation, he started down the long, dimly-lighted
corridor which led to the locked vault.

Preston Haver always had been a nuisance. Always poking and prying
around the library, looking for some outlandish book which no one
had ever heard of. He had given Newling many a start as he shuffled
suddenly into sight around a book shelf, grinning and nodding like an
overgrown gnome.

Some weeks before he had donated and shipped his entire private book
collection to the library. Mr. Twais had been ecstatic, but Newling
considered the whole business a bother.

Reaching the far end of the corridor, he stopped before the massive
locked door of the vault, twirled the shiny dials until he heard the
familiar faint click, and then pushed ajar the heavy metal door.

Frowning, he rolled the truck inside. The atmosphere of the vault this
morning seemed even more oppressive than usual. It seemed far colder
than it ordinarily was. Newling shivered as he brought the truck to a
stop and scanned the shelves for a suitable spot for the books.

Most of them were vellum-bound incunabula, written in Latin and
embellished with archaic designs. Remembering Preston Haver's
yellow-toothed smile and bony hands, Newling lifted the books with
distaste.

He began placing them on shelves as rapidly as he could, occasionally
glancing behind him into the deeper shadows of the vault. The lighting
was far from adequate, and although Mr. Twais had promised that
something would be done, somehow nothing ever was.

Newling filled one shelf and started another. He was cold in spite of
his hurried movements. He glanced toward the vault door, to make sure
that it was still open. More than once he had had nightmares about
being shut up in the vault.

The book truck was nearly empty, and he was beginning to feel somewhat
relieved, when he suddenly froze with his arm half outstretched toward
a shelf.

He had heard nothing and seen nothing, but he knew, even before he
turned, that he was no longer alone in the vault.

His heart was hammering and he could feel the cold sweat break out on
his forehead. Mustering his last shred of will power, he forced himself
to turn around.

Weakly, he leaned back against the book shelves. Preston Haver stood
inside the vault door, half in shadow. He looked yellower and bonier
than ever and his gaunt mirthless grin seemed more grotesque.

Nodding and still grinning, he shuffled forward. "I see you're shelving
my books!" His voice was cracked and thin. It sounded to Newling as if
it came from the far end of the corridor.

Newling stammered. "You, you have a fine collection, Mr. Haver. We're
putting the--the best ones--here in the vault."

Preston Haver's ghastly grin widened. His long yellow eye-teeth looked
like fangs, Newling thought.

He peered at the librarian with his reddish eyes. "There's just
one"--his eyes roved the shelves--"one that I sent by mistake. I want
it back."

Newling nodded. "Of course. Could you--ah--describe it, sir?"

The visitor stared at him, with a kind of enigmatic smirk. "A small
book, with a soft cover. I'm sure you'd have it here. It's rare--oh,
very rare!"

He threw back his head and laughed, while Newling listened in horrified
fascination. He had never heard Preston Haver laugh before. He hoped he
never did again.

Regaining some measure of composure, Newling turned to the shelves
and began a systematic scrutiny. He felt thoroughly chilled, chilled
to the very marrow. Of course it was imagination, but Preston Haver's
presence seemed to have immeasurably intensified the oppressive clammy
atmosphere of the vault.

Newling sighed with relief when he spotted the book.

His unwelcome visitor literally snatched it out of his hand, a quick
gleam of triumph in his glowing eyes. He chuckled with glee. Newling
recoiled from his evil grin.

Preston Haver peered up at him with an air of confidence which he found
utterly repellent.

"This cover," he said, stroking it fondly with his bony hand. "Human
skin!"

Newling stared at it, horrified. It was a pale, grey-yellow, mottled
looking.

"Human skin!" his visitor hissed again.

Newling wiped the perspiration from his face. He felt weak and he
suddenly realized that he was actually trembling.

"I'm sure it's--quite a treasure," he managed.

Preston Haver nodded. "Quite a treasure! You see," he went on, again
with that odd air of confidence which Newling found revolting, "I'm
starting on a trip--a long trip--and I couldn't leave without this
book!"

Newling's voice was scarcely a whisper. "I'm glad you, we, found it."

His visitor moved toward the vault door. Just before reaching it, he
turned, and his red eyes sought out the librarian's. His face contorted
into one last, lingering malignant grin and then he was gone.

Newling leaned against the shelves for a full five minutes before he
summoned up enough strength to finish emptying the book truck.

Still shaking, he rolled it out of the vault, slammed the great door,
automatically twirled the dials and started back down the corridor.

He was cold and weak. He had scarcely strength enough to slide open the
elevator doors.

He stepped out of the elevator into the large open-shelf room of the
library with a feeling of indescribable relief. He felt as if he had
ascended from a tomb.

Mr. Twais, the head librarian, was coming down the aisle. He stopped
when he came abreast of Newling. He was about to say something, but at
the sight of Newling's face, his mouth fell open.

"What is it, man?" he exclaimed. "You look positively shaken!"

"Oh--nothing," Newling whispered. "I'll be all right. Just--the air--in
the vault. I guess I felt a trifle faint."

Mr. Twais seemed satisfied. He nodded. "You'd better go in the lounge
and rest for a few minutes. Oh, by the way, have you heard the news?"

Newling shook his head.

Mr. Twais' expression became properly sober. "Preston Haver, our
generous benefactor, died during the night."




                          IN THE VERY STONES


"It is inconceivable to me," wrote my psychic-investigator friend,
Lucius Leffing, "that any person of reasonable perception and
sensitivity could pass a long period of his life in a specific
habitation without leaving something of himself, impregnated as it
were, in the very stones, wood and mortar of the place."

How vividly I recalled this statement later on! But let me start at the
beginning.

I had been away from New Haven for many years and I returned in a
rather weary mood of reminiscence and regret. My health was not good.
The rheumatic fever of my childhood had finally damaged my heart. In
addition, I was having eye trouble. The optic nerves were unaccountably
inflamed; strong light was painful to me. In dim or subdued light,
however, I could see remarkably well, so well in fact that I began to
feel that my vision was becoming abnormal.

After engaging a room in one of the few remaining residential areas
of the city which had not been engulfed in the spreading contagion of
human and social degeneration, I began to take long, rambling walks
about the town. I usually waited for a day when the sun was hidden;
when the sky was overcast and the light was grey rather than gold, my
eyes stopped throbbing and I could stroll in relative peace.

The city had changed remarkably. At times I scarcely knew where I was.
Acres of familiar buildings had been swept away. Remembered streets had
vanished. Great new structures, efficient but ugly, rose on every side.
New highways looped and slashed in every direction. In bewilderment I
frequently retreated to the still unseized central Common, or Green as
it is called. (I understood, however, that even this last leafy refuge
was under siege; various interests were agitating to cover the grass
with cement in order to create a gigantic pay-toll parking lot.)

One afternoon in late October when a threat of rain hung in the air, I
started out on a walk. The lack of sun rested my eyes; the chill air
somehow soothed me. For an hour or so I strolled aimlessly. On a sudden
whim I decided to visit a city area which I had so far neglected. I
had lived in this section as a very young child--over forty years
ago. Although I was scarcely more than three when the family moved, I
retained vivid memories of the neighborhood and of the specific house
itself.

The house was a two-story, red-brick structure, solidly built, located
at 1248 State Street. When I lived there, a big elm tree stood in
front of the house. In the rear, a large empty lot which stretched
to the adjacent street, Cedar Hill Avenue, made an ideal playground.
Subsequently the elm tree was cut down, the lot was nearly filled by a
cheap tenement-type building and the entire neighborhood declined.

As I approached the old area, I was appalled at the appearance of
things. Some houses had been torn down; others stood vacant, displaying
smashed windows, broken doors and collapsed verandas. On one block
every house was empty and partially wrecked. I was amazed and
disconcerted. I had not seen such desolation since war days.

Under those grey October skies, with a thin mist already starting to
fall, it was the bleakest scene imaginable. I experienced an intense
oppression of spirits, and as I continued to walk along those strangely
deserted streets, my mood of dejection only deepened.

I finally met a pedestrian, muffled already in a winter overcoat. He
squinted at me suspiciously when I asked him why so many of the houses
stood smashed and empty. "Route 91," he muttered, hurrying away.

Although I had learned there was indeed a rational explanation for the
devastation, I felt no better. I was firmly convinced that a slight
alteration on the highway blueprints could have carried the new road
across empty marsh flats, only a few miles away. The cost of fill
would have been a fraction of that expended on extensive condemnation
proceedings.

I fully expected that the brick house of my early childhood lay already
in ruins. I felt a thin exultation at finding it still standing. I say
"thin" because of course I knew it was doomed. Already its windows were
broken, its door sagged in and part of its front hedge had been ground
away by truck or bulldozer.

As I stood regarding it, remembering clearly episodes of over forty
years past, I reflected on the rootlessness which marks the average
city denizen. By choice, or more likely necessity, he moves from one
house to another. He has no anchor, nothing of continuity. When he
visits his old neighborhood, he may find that his former house has
vanished. The site of it may be occupied by a city-supported "project"
for permanent welfare cases, or by a cinder-block garage, or by a
barren parking lot. The house, the trees, the back yard, the very
curbstones and sidewalks may be gone.

The returner will experience a haunting sense of loss, a sense of
bewilderment, of chaos. He may finally begin to feel that he is even
losing his own identity, that, in fact, he has no identity. He will
feel lost in time, without either a future or a past. There will be
nothing he can go back to and nothing of permanence that he can foresee
in an uncertain future.

Isolated, fugacious, essentially a drifter, he will experience a
loneliness of spirit which nothing can assuage. Thousands of his kind
inhabit the modern city, gnawed by a sense of their own rootlessness,
hungering in vain for a home, a habitation which partakes of the flavor
of time, a continuing and cherished spot of earth which links their own
past with some kind of hopeful future.

With these depressing thoughts in mind, I stood before the lost red
brick house of my childhood. I had an impulse to enter, but I supposed
it was unsafe and very probably forbidden.

Dusk fell; the mist grew heavier; and still I lingered in that area.
Moving away from the doomed house I had known, I wandered along those
desolate streets, peering through cracked windows, through sagging
doors which never again would open to a friendly hand.

In some windows, frayed, blackened curtains, left hanging in the
confusion of forced removal, fluttered in the cold October wind. Odd
bits of broken furniture, dishes and ornaments lay scattered about.
Entire lifetimes had been passed in some of these houses; now they
stood as empty shells, awaiting absolute and final destruction.

The entire area seemed deserted, silent, drained of all life. Even the
usual city noises were strangely muffled and distant.

I roamed restlessly, numbed by the desolation which surrounded me, yet
perversely unwilling to leave. The mist thickened and full darkness
fell and I remained.

In spite of the darkness I could see remarkably well. I linked this
abnormal ability with my eyes' unusual sensitivity to strong light; I
felt that both conditions stemmed from the inflamed state of the optic
nerves, an affliction I have already mentioned.

I passed an alley, glittering strangely with bits of scattered window
glass, and stood surveying an adjacent house which leaned crazily with
a collapsed roof. It was a small white frame house, inexpensively
built, and yet I saw that someone had once tended it carefully. The
paint was bright; the little mailbox looked as if it had been scrubbed;
and the trampled remains of a once-neat garden surrounded the place.

As, musing, I stared at this wrecked house through the growing mist,
I saw a face at one of the two front ground-floor windows. It was
the face of an old man, white, mournful, filled with an ineffable
desolation.

I gazed at it in astonishment. My first thought was that an elderly
vagrant had crept into the wreckage of the white house in order to pass
the night. The dampness, probably, made his old bones ache.

The face continued to look out at me; I walked away with some
uneasiness. I shivered, blaming it on the cold mist.

I had gone less than a half block when I saw the woman. Enormously fat,
she sat in a wicker chair on the half-demolished veranda of a two-story
house. She wore very thick-lensed glasses which seemed to reflect light
from some hidden source. There was no moon, certainly, and I saw no
artificial lights nearby.

I was startled, but I supposed that a few people must still be clinging
illegally to old homes in the area, pending final arrangements for the
occupancy of a new residence.

Some impulse urged me to hurry past, to move straight ahead without
looking aside. Stubbornly, however, and against my own best judgement,
I refused.

Instead, I paused, cleared my throat and spoke. "Good evening," I said.

The fat woman did not reply; she did not seem to have heard me.
Possibly, I reasoned, in addition to having weak eyes, she was also
hard of hearing.

I moved a few steps up the front walk and nodded. "Good evening," I
repeated, loudly.

Then I blinked in astonishment. The wicker chair was empty! I stopped
dead and stared at it. Momentarily I had glanced down at the walk to
make sure that I would not stumble over debris; in those scant seconds
the fat woman must have vacated her chair and slipped inside.

I marveled. For one of her bulk, she moved with amazing agility.
Turning, I went back to the sidewalk and started on. I supposed
that the woman was self-conscious about her continued occupancy in
the condemned house and had gone inside to avoid any necessity of
discussing it with a stranger.

As I walked away, I glanced back. Once again I saw light glitter on
those thick-lensed glasses; the fat woman was back in her wicker chair.

Something more than the swirling mist made me shudder. Frowning, I
hurried on. It was late, I told myself, and I had better leave these
ruined, mist-shrouded streets and go home to a good cup of hot tea.

I walked rapidly, but I could not resist looking at the vacant houses I
passed.

Suddenly I stopped. My heart began pounding. An icy gush of fear made
my scalp tingle. Wide-eyed, mouth agape, I gazed through that tenuous
wall of mist and felt that reason and sanity were leaving me.

Nearly half of those smashed and deserted houses all at once were
occupied. I saw pale sad faces peering from a dozen different windows.
Dim, mist-circled figures sat on some of the porches. An old man,
twisted with some arthritic malady, worked feebly in a tiny front
garden. A middle-aged woman, white as death, but with a kind of
hopeless fury stamped on her face, stood glaring near a broken gate.

Worse than these were other sights. I saw a rocker moving to-and-fro
on a porch, although there was no one in it. I saw a claw-like hand,
tapering to a vague sleeve which in turn raveled away to nothingness,
clutching the brick side of a building. In the rear garden of a
half-destroyed house I glimpsed what appeared to be the disembodied
head of a woman in a big straw hat drifting slowly above the matted
tangle of a neglected flower plot.

I felt the clutch of near madness. I no longer had any faint desire
to linger and look. Flight, immediate and imperative, became my only
object.

I rushed wildly through those forsaken, yet-not-forsaken streets
with fear like a hound at my heels. I ran till my heart thumped and
dizziness overcame me. At last, away from that accursed area of peering
white faces, of clinging mist and strange pregnant silence, I collapsed
in a doorway.

Hours afterward I reached home and fell into bed. For days I was ill.
My heart had been strained anew and in addition I manifested pleuritic
symptoms. As I lay in bed, I brooded over my weird experience on that
street of silent houses. I told myself that my eyes, inflamed and
super-sensitive, had played tricks on me, that the drifting fog plus my
own imagination had been at fault.

But weeks later when I related my adventure to my psychic-investigator
friend, Lucius Leffing, he shook his head at my explanations.

"I am firmly convinced," he told me, "that neither your inflamed eyes
nor your imagination conjured up the phantoms which you describe.

"As I wrote you recently, it is inconceivable to me that any person of
reasonable perception and sensitivity could pass a long period of his
life in a specific habitation without leaving something of himself,
impregnated as it were, in the very stones, wood and mortar of the
place.

"What you saw were the psychic residues of the poor vanished souls
who, in the aggregate, had spent hundreds of years in those condemned
houses. Their psychic remnants were still clinging to the only earthly
anchors that remained, and already, as you relate, some of them had
dwindled and faded to mere detached fragments."

He shook his head. "Poor souls!"



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