Part 8 (1/2)
Another board creaked, and now Terry felt his knees growing limp. But that was the doctor's firm step on the lower stairs. Terry's knees stiffened and he began to be able to breath once more. In a few seconds the strong comforting presence of that iron-nerved man would be with him and he would be himself again.
The shadow seemed to know that too. Terry was aware of a rush, of a dimly monstrous density of blackness that launched itself at him. He was hurled numbingly against the wall by a m.u.f.fling air-cus.h.i.+on sort of impact. Helplessly dazed, smothered, he did not know how to resist, to defend himself. He was lost. And then the glutinous pressure recoiled, foiled. He could almost hear the baffled hate that withdrew from him and hurtled down the stairs.
His senses registered the fact that without his own volition he shouted, ”Look out!” and that there was a commotion somewhere below. He heard a stamping of feet and a surge of wind as though a window had been blasted open; and the next thing was the doctor's inquiry ”Are you hurt?” and the beam of a flashlight racing up the steps.
He was not hurt; miraculously, it seemed to him, for the annihilating malevolence of that formless creature had appeared to be a vast force. But the doctor dressed him down severely.
”You lost your nerve, you poor sap, in spite of all that I explained to you. You let it influence your mind to fear and so play right into its hands. You laid yourself open to attack as smoothly as though you were Mrs. Jarrett herself. But out of that very evil we can draw the good of exemplary proof.
”You were helpless; paralyzed. And yet the thing drew off.
Why? Because you had your iron blackjack in your hand. If it had known you had that defense it would never have attacked you, or it would have influenced you to put the iron down first. Knowing now that you have it, it will not, in its present condition of weakness, attack you again. So stick that in your hat and don't get panicky again. But we've got to keep after it. If we can keep it out of the house; if we can continue so to guard the sick man that the thing cannot draw any further energy from him its power to manifest itself must dwindle. We shall starve it out. And the more we can starve it, the, less power will it have to break through the resistance of a new victim.”
”Come on, then,” said Terry.
”Good man,” approved the doctor. ”Come ahead. It went through the living room window; that was the only one open. But, why, I ask myself. Why did it go out? That was just what we wanted it to do. I wonder whether it is up to some devilish trick. The thing can think with a certain animal cunning. We must shut and lock the living room window and go out at the door. What trick has that thing in store, I wonder? What d.a.m.nable trick?”
”How are we going to find an abstract hate in this maze of shadows?” Terry wanted to know.
”It is more than, abstract,” said the doctor seriously. ”Having broken into our plane of existence, this thing has achieved, as you have already felt, a certain state of semi-materialization. A ponderable substance has formed round the nucleus of malignant intelligence. As long as it can draw upon human energy from its victim that material substance will remain. In moving from place to place it must make a certain amount of noise. And, drawing its physical energy from this particular sick man, it must cough as he does. In a good light, even in this bright moonlight, it will be to a certain extent visible.”
But no rustlings and scurryings fled before their flashlights amongst the ornamental evergreens; no furtive shadow flitted across moonlight patches; no sense of hate hung in the darkest corners.
”I hope to G.o.d it didn't give us the slip and sneak in again before we got the entries fixed. But no, I'm sure it wasn't in the house. I wish I could guess what tricks it's up to.” The doctor was more worried than he cared to let his friend see. He was convinced that leaving the house had been a deliberate move on the thing's part and he wished that he might fathom whatever cunning purpose lay back of that move.
All of a sudden the sound of footsteps impinged upon their ears; faint shuffling. Both men tensed to listen, and they could hear the steps coming nearer. The doctor shook his head.
”It's just some countryman trudging home along the road. If he sees us with flashlights at this hour he'll raise a howl of burglars, no doubt.”
The footsteps approached ploddingly behind the fence, one of those nine-foot high ornamental screens made of split chestnut saplings that are so prevalent around many country houses. Presently the dark figure of the man a” Terry was quite relieved to see that it was a man a” pa.s.sed before the open gate, and the footsteps trudged on behind the tall barrier.
Fifty feet, a hundred feet; the crunch of heavy nailed boots was growing fainter. Then something rustled amongst the bushes. Terry caught at the doctor's sleeve.
”There! My G.o.d! There again!”
A crouching something ran with incredible speed along this side of the fence after the unsuspecting footsteps of the other. In the patches of moonlight between black shadows it was easily distinguishable. It came abreast with the retreating footsteps and suddenly it jumped. Without preparation or take-off, apparently without effort, the swiftly scuttling thing shot itself straight into the air.
Both men saw a ragged-edged form, as that of an incredibly tall and thin man with an abnormally tiny head, clear the nine-foot fence with bony knees drawn high and attenuated ape arms flung wide; an opium eater's nightmare silhouette against the dim sky. And then it was gone.
In the instant that they stood rooted to the spot a shriek of inarticulate terror rose from the road. There was a spurt of flying gravel, a mad plunging of racing footsteps, more shrieks, the last rising to the high-pitched falsetto of the acme of fear. Then a lurching fall and an awful silence.
”Good G.o.d!” The doctor was racing for the gate, Terry after him. A hundred feet down the road a dark ma.s.s huddled on the ground; there was not a sign of anything else. The misshapen shadow had vanished. The man on the ground rolled limp, giving vent to great gulping moans. The doctor lifted his shoulders against his own knee.
”Keep a look out, Jimmy,” he warned. His deft hands were exploring for a hurt or wound, while his rapid fire of comments gave voice to his findings. ”What d.a.m.ned luck! Still, I don't see what it could have done to a st.u.r.dy lout like this. How could we have guarded against this sort of a mischance? Though it just couldn't have crashed into this fellow's vitality so suddenly; there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, anyhow. I guess he's more scared than hurt.”
The moaning hulk of a man squirmed and opened his eyes. Feeling himself in the grip of hands, he let out another fearful yell and struggled in a frenzy to escape.
”Easy, brother, easy,” the doctor said soothingly. ”You're all right. Get a hold of yourself.”
The man shuddered convulsively. Words babbled from his sagging lips.
”It a” It a” its ha a” hand! Oh, G a” got a” over my face. A h a” hand like a eel a” a dead ee a” eel. Ee a” ee!”
He went off into a high-pitched hysteria again.
There was a sound of windows opening up at the house and a confused murmur of anxious voices; then a hail.
”What is it? Who's there? What's the matter?”
”Lord help the fools!” The doctor dropped the man cold in the road and sprang across to the other side from where he could look over the high fence and see the square patches of light from the windows high up on their little hill.
”Back!” he screamed. ”Get back! For G.o.d's sake, shut those windows!”
He waved his hands and jumped down in an agony of apprehension. ”What?” The, fatuous query floated down to him. ”What's that you say?”
Another square of light suddenly sprang out of the looming ma.s.s, from the sick man's room. Laboriously the window went up, and the sick man leaned out.
”What?” he asked, and he coughed out into the night.
”G.o.d Almighty! Come on, Jimmy! Leave that fool; he's only scared.” The doctor shouted and dashed off on the long sprint back to the gate and up the sloping shrubbery to the house that he had thought to leave so well guarded.
”That's its trick,” he panted as he ran. ”That's why it came out. Please Providence we won't come too late. But it's got the start on us, and it can move ten times as fast.”
Together they burst through the front door, slammed it after them, and thundered up the stairs. The white, owlish faces of the Jarrett family gleamed palely at them from their door. The doctor cursed them for fools as he dashed past. He tore at the k.n.o.b of the sick-room door.
The door did not budge.
Frantically he wrestled with it. It held desperately solid.
”Bolted from the inside!” the doctor screamed. ”The fool must have done it himself. Open up in there. Quick! Open for your life.”
The door remained cold and dead. Only from inside the room came the familiar hacking cough. It came in a choking fit. And then Terry's blood ebbed in a chill wave right down to his feet.
For there were two coughs. A ghastly chorus of rasping and retching in a h.e.l.l's paroxysm.
The doctor ran back the length of the hall. Pus.h.i.+ng off from the further wall, he dashed across and crashed his big shoulders against the door. Like petty nails the bolt screws flew and he staggered in, clutching the, sagging door for support.
The room was in heavy darkness. The doctor clawed wildly along the wall for the unfamiliar light switch. Terry, at his heels, felt the wave of malevolence that met them.
The sudden light revealed to their blinking eyes the sick man, limp, inert, lying where he had been hurled, half in and half out of the bed, twisted in a horrible paroxysm.
The window was open, as the wretched dupe had left it when he poked his foolish head out into the night to inquire about all the hubbub outside. Above the corner, of the sill, hanging outside, was a horror that drew both men up short. An abnormally long angle of raggy elbow supported a smudgy, formless, yellow face of incredible evil that grinned malignant triumph out of an absurdly infantile head.
The face dropped out of sight. Only hate, like a tangible thing, pervaded the room. From twenty feet below came back to the trembling men a grating, ”och-och-och, ha-ha-ha-heh-heh-heck, och-och.” It retreated down the shrubbery.
Dr. Muncing stood a long minute in choked silence. Then bitterly he swore. Slowly, with incisive grimness he spoke a truth: ”Man's ingenuity can guard against everything except the, sheer dumb stupidity of man.”
It was morning. Dr. Muncing was taking his leave. He was leaving behind him a few last words of advice. They were not gentle.