Collected Short Fiction, page 101
At last, nerving myself against the new horrors that might surround me, I raised my lids.
I looked into the somber, crimson radiance of the ebon-pillared temple. Beside a dull jet wall I lay, upon a pile of rags, with a blanket thrown carelessly over me. Beyond the row of massive, black, cylindrical pillars, I saw the great, strange machine, with the huge copper ring glistening queerly in the dim, bloody light. The polished mirror behind it seemed flushed with a living glow of molten rubies, and the many electron tubes, now mounted in their sockets, gleamed redly. The mechanism appeared to be near completion; livid, green-orbed figures were busy about it, moving with a swift, mechanical efficiency. It struck me abruptly that they moved more like machines than like living beings. My father, Stella, the two mechanics.
For many minutes I lay very still, watching them covertly. Evidently they had brought me down into this subterranean chamber, so that I would have no chance to repeat my escape. I speculated upon the possibility of creeping along the wall to the ascending passage, dashing through it. But there was little hope that I could do it unseen. And I had no way of knowing whether it might be night or day; it would be folly to run out into the darkness. I felt the little automatic still under my arm; they had not troubled to remove a weapon which they did not fear.
Suddenly, before I had dared to move, I saw my father coming across the black floor toward me. I could not repress a tremor, at closer sight of his deathly pallid body and sinister, baleful greenish eyes. I lay still, trying to pretend sleep.
I FELT his ice-cold fingers close upon my shoulder; roughly I was drawn to my feet.
“Further assistance from you must be ours,” whined his wolfish voice. “And not again will you be brought back living, should you be the fool to run!” His whine ended with an ugly snarl.
He dragged me across toward the fantastic mechanism that glistened in the grim, bloody radiance.
I quailed at the thought of being bound to the black pillar again.
“I’ll help!” I cried. “Do anything you want. Don’t tie me up, for God’s sake! Don’t let her gnaw me!” My voice must have become a hysterical scream. I fought to calm it, cudgeled my brain for arguments.
“It would kill me to be tied again,” I pleaded wildly. “And if you leave me free, I can help you with my hands!”
“Be free of bonds, then,” my father whined. “But also remember! You go, and we bring you back not alive!”
He led me up beside the great machine. One of the mechanics, at a shrill, wolfish whine from him, unrolled a blue print before me. He began to ask questions regarding the wiring to connect the many electron tubes, the coils and helixes and magnets, all ranged about the huge copper ring.
His strange brain seemed to have no conception of the nature of electricity; I had to explain the fundamentals. But he grasped each new fact with astounding quickness, seemed to see the applications instinctively.
It soon developed that the great mechanism was practically finished; in an hour, perhaps, the wiring was completed.
“Now what yet is to be constructed?” my father whined.
I realized that no provision had been made for electricity to light the tubes and energize the magnets. These beings apparently did not even know that a source of power was necessary. This, I thought, was another chance to stop the execution of their hellish plan.
“I don’t know,” I said. “So far as I can see, the machine now fits the specifications. I know nothing else to do.”
HE snarled something to one of the mechanics, who produced the bloody rope with which I had previously been bound. Stella sprang toward me, her lips curled in a leering animal snarl, her white teeth gleaming.
Uncontrollable terror shook me, weakened my knees until I reeled.
“Wait! Stop!” I screamed. “I’ll tell if you won’t tie me!”
They halted.
“Speak!” my father barked. “Quickly describe!”
“The machine must have power. Electricity?”
“From what place comes electricity.”
“There is a motor generator up in the cellar, where the other machine is. That might do.”
He and the monster that had been Stella hurried me down the black-pillared hall, and up the inclined passage to the old cellar. He carried the red-glowing electric lantern. In the cellar I showed them the generator and attempted a rough explanation of its operation.
Then he and the woman bent and caught the metal base of the unit. With their incredible strength, they lifted it quite easily and carried it toward the passage. They made me walk ahead of them as we returned to the machine in the black hall—blasting another hope for a chance to make a dash for the open.
Just as they were placing the heavy machine—gasoline engine and dynamo, which together weighed several hundred pounds—on the black platform beside the strange, gigantic mechanism, there came an interruption that, to me, was terrifying.
From the passage came the rustle of feet, and mingled whining, snarling sounds such as the monsters seemed to use for communication. And in the vague, blood-red light, between the tall rows of great black pillars, appeared the pack!
Huge, gaunt wolves there were. Frightfully mutilated men—Judson, and the others that I had seen. The gray horse. All their eyes were luminously green—alight with a dreadful, malevolent fire.
Human lips were crimsoned. Scarlet smeared the gray wolves’ muzzles, and even the long nose and gray jaws of the horse. And they carried—the catch!
OVER Judson’s livid, lacerated shoulders was hung the torn, limp, bleeding body of a woman—his wife! One of the gaunt gray wolves had the hideously mangled body of a man across his back, holding it in place with jaws turned sidewise. Another had the body of a spotted calf. Two more carried in red-dripping jaws the lax gray bodies of coyotes. And one of the men bore upon his shoulder the remains of a huge gray wolf.
The dead, torn, mutilated specimens were dropped in a horrible heap in the wide central aisle of the jet-pillared temple, near the strange machine, like an altar of death. Dark blood flowed from it over the black floor, congealing in thick, viscid clots.
“To these we bring life,” my father snarled at me, jerking his head toward the dreadful, mangled heap.
Shuddering and dazed with horror, I sank on the floor, covering my eyes. I was nauseated, sick. My brain was reeling, fogged, confused. It refused to dwell upon the meaning of this dreadful scene.
The mad, fearful, demoniac thing that had been my father jerked me roughly to my feet, dragged me toward the motor generator, and began plying me with questions about its operation, about how to connect it with the strange mechanism of the copper ring.
I struggled to answer his questions, trying vainly to forget my horror in the work.
Soon the connection was completed. Under my father’s directions, I examined the gasoline engine, saw that it was supplied with fuel and oil. Then he attempted to start it, but failed to master the technique of choking the carburetor. Under constant threat of the blood-darkened rope and the were-woman’s gnawing fangs, I labored with the little motor until it coughed a few times, and fell to firing steadily.
Then my father made me close the switch, connecting the strange machine with the current from the generator. A faint, shrill humming came from the coils. The electron tubes glowed dimly.
And a curtain of darkness seemed suddenly drawn across the copper ring. Blackness seemed to flow from the queer tube behind it, to be reflected into it by the polished mirror. A disk of dense, utter darkness filled the ring.
FOR a few moments I stared at it in puzzled wonder.
Then, as my eyes became slowly sensitized, I found that I could see through it—see into a dread, nightmare world.
The ring had become an opening into another world of horror and darkness.
The sky of that alien world was unutterably, inconceivably black; blacker than the darkest midnight. It had no stars, no luminary; no faintest gleam relieved its terrible, oppressive intensity.
A vast reach of that other world’s surface lay in view, beyond the copper ring. Low, worn, and desolate hills, that seemed black as the somber sky. Between them flowed a broad and stagnant river, whose dull and sullen waters shone with a vague and ghostly luminosity, with a pale glow that was somehow unclean and noisome, like that of decaying foul corruption.
And upon those low and ancient hills, that were rounded like the; bloated breasts of corpses, was a loathsome vegetation. Hideous, obscene travesties of normal plants, whose leaves were long, narrow, snake-like, with the suggestion of ugly heads. With a dreadful, unnatural life, they seemed to writhe, lying in rotting tangles upon the black hills, and dragging in the foul, lurid waters of the stagnant river. Their thin reptilian, tentacular vines and creepers glowed with a pale and ghastly light, lividly greenish.
And upon a low black hill, above the evil river, and the rotting, writhing, obscene jungle, was what must have been a city. A sprawled and hideous mass of red corruption. A foul splash of dull crimson pollution.
This was no city, perhaps, in our sense of the word. It seemed to be a sort of cloud of foul, blood-hued darkness, trailing repulsive tentacles across the low black hill; a smear of evil crimson mist. Mad and repulsive knobs and warts rose about it, in grotesque mockery of spires and towers. It was motionless. And I knew instinctively that unclean and abominable life, sentience, reigned within its hideous scarlet contamination.
My father mounted to the black stone step between the copper ring, and stood there howling weirdly and hideously, into that world of darkness—voicing an unclean call!
IN answer, the sprawled, nightmare city seemed to stir. Dark things—masses of fetid, reeking blackness—seemed to creep from its ugly protuberances, to swarm toward us through the tainted filth of the writhing, evilly glowing vegetation.
The darkness of evil concentrate, creeping from that nightmare world into ours!
For long moments the utter, insane horror of it held me paralyzed and helpless. Then something nerved me with the abrupt, desperate determination to revolt against my fearful masters, despite the threat of the bloody rope.
I tore my eyes from the dreadful attraction that seemed to draw them toward the foul, sprawled city of bloody darkness, in that hideous world of unthinkable evil.
Realization came to me that I stood alone, unguarded. The green eyes of the monsters about me were fixed in avid fascination upon the ring through which that nightmare world was visible. None of them seemed aware of me.
If only I could wreck the machine, before those creeping horrors of darkness came through into our world! I started forward instinctively, then paused, realizing that it might be difficult to do great damage to it with my bare hands, before the monsters saw me and attacked.
Then I thought of the little automatic in my pocket, which I had been permitted to keep with me. Even though its bullets could not harm the monsters, they might do considerable damage to the machine.
I snatched it out and began firing deliberately at the dimly glowing electron tubes. As the first one was shattered, the image of that hideous, nightmare world flickered and vanished. The huge, polished mirror was once more visible beyond the copper ring.
For the time being, at least, those rankling shapes of black and utter evil were shut out of our world!
As I continued to fire, shattering the electron tubes and the other most delicate and most complicated parts of the great mechanism, a fearful, soul-chilling cry came from the startled monsters in human and animal bodies.
Suddenly the creatures sprang toward me, over the black floor, howling hideously.
CHAPTER IX
The Hypnotic Revelation
IT was the yellow, stabbing spurts of flame from the automatic that saved me. At first the fearfully transformed beasts and men had leaped at me, howling with the agony that light seemed to cause them. I kept on firing, determined to do all the damage possible before they bore me down.
And abruptly they fell back away from me, wailing dreadfully, hiding their unearthly green eyes, slinking behind the massive black pillars.
When the gun was empty, some of them came toward me again. But still they seemed shaken, weakened, uncertain of movement. In nervous haste, I fumbled in my pockets for matches—I had not realized before how they were crippled by light.
I found only three, all, apparently, that I had left.
The weird monsters, recovered from the effect of the gun flashes, were leaping across toward me, through the sullen, blood-red gloom, as I struggled desperately to make a light.
The first match broke in my fingers.
But the second flared into yellow flame. The monsters, almost upon me, sprang back, wailing in agony again. As I held the tiny, feeble flame aloft, they cowered, howling, in the flickering shadows cast by the huge, ebon pillars.
My confused, horror-dazed mind was abruptly cleared and sharpened by hope of escape. With the light to hold them back, I might reach the open air.
And to my quickened mind it came abruptly that it must be day above. It was morning, and the pack had been driven back to the burrow by the light of the coming sun!
As swiftly as I could, without extinguishing the feeble flame of the match with the wind of my motion, I advanced down the great hall. I kept in the middle of the wide central aisle, afraid that my enemies were slinking along after me in the shadows of the pillars.
BEFORE I reached the passage which lead to the surface, a stronger breath of air caught the feeble orange flame. It flickered out. Dusky crimson gloom fell about me once more, with baleful green eyes moving in it, in the farther end of the temple. The howling rose again, angrily. I heard swiftly padding feet.
Only one of the three matches was left.
I bent, scratched it very carefully on the black floor and held it above my head.
A new wailing of pain came from the monsters; they fell back again.
I found the end of the passage, rushed through it, guarding the precious flame in a cupped hand.
In the great hall behind me, the blood-chilling wail of the pack rose again. I heard the monsters surging toward the passage.
By the time I had reached the old cellar, from whose wall the slanting tunnel had been dug, the match was almost consumed. I turned, let its last dying rays shine down the passage. Dreadful cries of agony and terror came again; I heard the monsters retreating from the tunnel.
The match suddenly went out.
In mad haste I dashed across the cellar’s floor and blundered heavily into the wall. I found the steps that led to the surface and rushed up them desperately.
I heard the howling pack running up the passage, moving far swifter than I was able to do.
At last my hand touched the under surface of the wooden door, above the steps. Beyond, I knew, was the golden light of day.
And at the same instant, corpse-cold fingers closed about my ankle, in a crushing, powerful grasp.
Convulsively, I thrust upward with my hand.
The door flew up, slammed crashingly beside the opening. Above was soft, brilliant azure sky. In it the white morning sun blazed blindingly. Its hot radiance brought tears to my eyes, accustomed as they were to the dim crimson light of the temple.
Fearful, agonized animal wailing sounds came again from behind me.
The grasp on my ankle tightened convulsively, then relaxed.
LOOKING back, I saw Stella on the steps at my feet, cowering. writhing as if in unbearable agony, animal screams of pain coming from her lips. It seemed that the burning sunlight had struck her down, that she had been too much weakened to retreat as those behind her had done.
Abruptly she seemed to me a lovely, suffering girl—not a strange demoniac monster. Pity for her—even, perhaps, love—came over me in a tender wave. If I could save her, restore her to her true, dear self.
I ran back down the steps, seized her by the shoulders, started to carry her up into the light. Deathly cold and deathly white her body still was. And still it had a vestige of that unnatural strength.
She writhed in my arms, snarling, slashing at my body with her teeth. For a moment her green eyes smoldered malevolently at me. But as the sunlight struck them she closed them, howling with agony, and tried to shield them with her arm.
I carried her up the steps, into the brilliant sunlight.
First I thought of closing the cellar door, and trying to fasten it. Then I realized that the light of day, shining down the passage, would hold back the monsters more effectually than any locked door.
It was still early morning. The sun had been up no more than an hour. The sky was clear, and the sunshine glittered with blinding, prismatic brilliance on the snow. The air, however, was still cold; there had been no thawing, nor would there be until the temperature had moderated considerably.
AS I stood there in the blaze of sunlight, holding Stella, a strange change came over her. The fierce snarling and whining sounds that came from her throat slowly died away. Her writhing, convulsive struggles weakened, as though a tide of alien life were ebbing from her body.
There was a sudden last convulsion. Then her body was lax, limp.
Almost immediately, I noticed a change in color. The fearful, corpselike pallor slowly gave place to the normal pinkish flush of healthy life. The strange, unearthly chill was gone; I felt a glow of warmth where her body was against mine.
Then her breast heaved. She breathed. I felt the slow throbbing of her heart. Her eyes were still closed as she lay inert in my arms, like one sleeping. I freed one of my hands and gently lifted a long-lashed lid.
The eye was clear and blue—normal again. The baleful, greenish fire was gone!
