Shudders in the Dark & Carnival Of Terror

by Ruskin Bond

  The steward was standing near. He turned at my step; his face was white and he took a couple of paces towards me doubtfully.

  ‘They’re—they’re—’ he began; but I never let him finish.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ I roared, and swept him to one side. I ran forward.

  ‘Haul in on that rope!’ I shouted. ‘Tail on to it! Are you going to stand there like a lot of owls and see them drown!’

  The men only wanted a leader to show them what to do, and, without showing any thought of insubordination, they tacked on to the rope that was fastened to the stern of the boat, and hauled her back across the weed—cuttlefish and all.

  The strain on the rope had thrown her on an even keel again, so that she took the water safely, though that foul thing was straddled all across her.

  ‘Vast hauling!’ I shouted. ‘Get the doc’s cleavers, some of you—anything that’ll cut!’

  ‘This is the sort, sir!’ cried the bo’sun; from somewhere he had got hold of a formidable doublebladed whale lance.

  The boat, still under the impetus given by our pull, struck the side of the yacht immediately beneath where I was waiting with the gun. Astern of it towed the body of the monster, its two eyes—monstrous orbs of the Profound—staring out vilely from behind its arms.

  I leant my elbows on the rail, and aimed full at the right eye. As I pulled on the trigger one of the great arms detached itself from the boat, and swirled up towards me. There was a thunderous bang as the heavy charge drove its way through that vast eye, and at the same instant something swept over my head.

  There came a cry from behind: ‘Look out, sir!’ A flame of steel before my eyes, and a truncated something fell upon my shoulder, and thence to the deck. Down below, the water was being churned to a froth, and three more arms sprang into the air, and then down among us.

  One grasped the bo’sun, lifting him like a child. Two cleavers gleamed, and he fell to the deck from a height of some twelve feet, along with the severed portion of the limb.

  I had my weapons reloaded again by now, and ran forward along the deck somewhat, to be clear of the flying arms that flailed on the rails and deck.

  I fired again into the hulk of the brute, and then again. At the second shot; the murderous din of the creature ceased, and, with an ineffectual flicker of its remaining tentacles, it sank out of sight beneath the water.

  A minute later we had the hatch in the roof of the superstructure open, and the men out, my chum coming last. They had been mightily shaken, but otherwise were none the worse.

  As Barlow came over the gangway, I stepped up to him and gripped his shoulder. I was strangely muddled in my feelings. I felt that I had no sure position aboard my own yacht. Yet all I said was:

  ‘Thank God, you’re safe, old man!’ And I meant it from my heart.

  He looked at me in a doubtful, puzzled sort of manner, and passed his hand across his forehead.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied; but his voice was strangely toneless, save that some puzzlement seemed to have crept into it. For a couple of moments he stared at me in an unseeing way, and once more I was struck by the immobile, tensed-up expression of his features.

  Immediately afterwards he turned away—having shown neither friendliness nor enmity—and commenced to clamber back over the side into the boat.

  ‘Come up, Ned!’ I cried. ‘It’s no good. You’ll never manage it that way. Look!’ and I stretched out my arm, pointing. Instead of looking, he passed his hand once more across his forehead, with that gesture of puzzled doubt. Then, to my relief, he caught at the rope ladder, and commenced to make his way slowly up the side. Reaching the deck, he stood for nearly a minute without saying a word, his back turned to the derelict. Then, still wordless, he walked slowly across to the opposite side, and leant his elbows upon the rail, as though looking back along the way the yacht had come.

  For my part, I said nothing, dividing my attention between him and the men, with occasional glances at the quaking weed and the—apparently—hopelessly surrounded Graiken.

  The men were quiet, occasionally turning towards Barlow, as though for some further order. Of me they appeared to take little notice. In this wise, perhaps a quarter of an hour went by; then abruptly Barlow stood upright, waving his arms and shouting:

  ‘It comes! It comes!’ He turned towards us, and his face seemed transfigured, his eyes gleaming almost maniacally. I ran across the deck to his side, and looked away to port, and now I saw what it was that had excited him. The weed-barrier through which we had come on our inward journey was divided, a slowly broadening river of oil water showing clean across it.

  Even as I watched it grew broader, the immense masses of weed being moved by some unseen impulsion.

  I was still staring, amazed, when a sudden cry went up from some of the men to starboard. Turning quickly, I saw that the yawning movement was being continued to the mass of weed that lay between us and the Graiken.

  Slowly, the weed was divided, surely as though an invisible wedge were being driven through it. The gulf of weed-clear water reached the derelict, and passed beyond. And now there was no longer anything to stop our rescue of the crew of the derelict.

  VII

  It was Barlow’s voice that gave the order for the mooring ropes to be cast off, and then, as the light wind was right against us, a boat was out ahead, and the yacht was towed towards the ship, whilst a dozen of the men stood ready with their rifles on the fo’c’s’le head.

  As we drew nearer, I began to distinguish the features of the crew, the men strangely grizzled and old looking. And among them, white-faced with emotion, was my chum’s lost sweetheart. I never expect to know a more extraordinary moment.

  I looked at Barlow; he was staring at the white-faced girl with an extraordinary fixidity of expression that was scarcely the look of a sane man.

  The next minute we were alongside, crushing to a pulp between our steel sides one of those remaining monsters of the deep that had continued to cling steadfastly to the Graiken.

  Yet of that I was scarcely aware, for I had turned again to look at Ned Barlow. He was swaying slowly to his feet, and just as the two vessels closed he reached up both hands to his head, and fell like a log.

  Brandy was brought, and later Barlow carried to his cabin; yet we had won clear of that hideous weed-world before he recovered consciousness.

  During his illness I learned from his sweetheart how, on a terrible night a long year previously, the Graiken had been caught in a tremendous storm and dismasted, and how, helpless and driven by the gale, they at last found themselves surrounded by the great banks of floating weed, and finally held fast in the remorseless grip of the dread Sargasso.

  She told me of their attempts to free the ship from the weed, and of the attacks of the cuttlefish. And later of various other matters; for all of which I have no room in this story.

  In return I told her of our voyage, and her lover’s strange behaviour. How he had wanted to undertake the navigation of the yacht, and had talked of a great world of weed. How I had—believing him unhinged—refused to listen to him.

  How he had taken matters into his own hands, without which she would most certainly have ended her days surrounded by the quaking weed and those great beasts of the deep waters.

  She listened with an evergrowing seriousness, so that I had, time and again, to assure her that I bore my old chum no ill, but rather held myself to be in the wrong. At which she shook her head, but seemed mightily relieved. It was during Barlow’s recovery that I made the astonishing discovery that he remembered no detail of his imprisoning of me.

  I am convinced now that for days and weeks he must have lived in a sort of dream in a hyper state, in which I can only imagine that he had possibly been sensitive to more subtle understandings than normal bodily and mental health allows.

  One other thing there is in closing. I found that the captain and the two mates had been confined to their cabins by Barlow. The captain was suffering from a pistol-shot
in the arm, due to his having attempted to resist Barlow’s assumption of authority.

  When I released him he vowed vengeance. Yet Ned Barlow being my chum, I found means to slake both the captain’s and the two mates’ thirst for vengeance, and the slaking thereof is—well, another story.

  I wrote this little story for the schoolgirl who said my stories weren’t scary enough, Her comment was ‘Not bad’, and she gave me seven out of ten.

  EYES OF THE CAT

  BY RUSKIN BOND

  Her eyes seemed flecked with gold when the sun was on them. And as the sun set over the mountains, drawing a deep red wound across the sky, there was more than gold in Kiran’s eyes. There was anger; for she had been cut to the quick by some remarks her teacher had made—the culmination of weeks of insults and taunts.

  Kiran was poorer than most of the girls in her class and could not afford the tuitions that had become almost obligatory if one was to pass and be promoted. ‘You’ll have to spend another year in the ninth,’ said Madam. ‘And if you don’t like that, you can find another school—a school where it won’t matter if your blouse is torn and your tunic is old and your shoes are falling apart.’ Madam had shown her large teeth in what was supposed to be a good-natured smile, and all the girls had tittered dutifully. Sycophancy had become part of the curriculum in Madam’s private academy for girls.

  On the way home in the gathering gloom, Kiran’s two companions commiserated with her.

  ‘She’s a mean old thing,’ said Aarti. ‘She doesn’t care for anyone but herself.’

  ‘Her laugh reminds me of a donkey braying,’ said Sunita, who was more forthright.

  But Kiran wasn’t really listening. Her eyes were fixed on some point in the far distance, where the pines stood in silhouette against a night sky that was growing brighter every moment. The moon was rising, a full moon, a moon that meant something very special to Kiran, that made her blood tingle and her skin prickle and her hair glow and send out sparks. Her steps seemed to grow lighter, her limbs more sinewy as she moved gracefully, softly over the mountain path.

  Abruptly she left her companions at a fork in the road.

  ‘I’m taking the short cut through the forest,’ she said.

  Her friends were used to her sudden whims. They knew she was not afraid of being alone in the dark. But Kiran’s moods made them feel a little nervous, and now, holding hands, they hurried home along the open road.

  The short cut took Kiran through the dark oak forest. The crooked, tormented branches of the oaks threw twisted shadows across the path. A jackal howled at the moon; a nightjar called from urgency, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Bright moonlight bathed the hillside when she reached her home on the outskirts of the village.

  Refusing her dinner, she went straight to her small room and flung the window open. Moonbeams crept over the window-sill and over her arms which were already covered with golden hair. Her strong nails had shredded the rotten wood of the window-sill.

  Tail swishing and ears pricked, the tawny leopard came swiftly out of the window, crossed the open field behind the house, and melted into the shadows.

  A little later it padded silently through the forest.

  Although the moon shone brightly on the tin-roofed town, the leopard knew where the shadows were deepest and merged beautifully with them. An occasional intake of breath, which resulted in a short rasping cough, was the only sound it made.

  Madam was returning from dinner at a ladies’ club, called the Kitten Club as a sort of foil to the husbands’ club affiliations. There were still a few people in the street, and while no one could help noticing Madam, who had the contours of a steam-roller, none saw or heard the predator who had slipped down a side alley and reached the steps of the teacher’s house. It sat there silently, waiting with all the patience of an obedient schoolgirl.

  When Madam saw the leopard on her steps, she dropped her handbag and opened her mouth to scream; but her voice would not materialise. Nor would her tongue ever be used again, either to savour chicken biryani or to pour scorn upon her pupils, for the leopard had sprung at her throat, broken her neck, and dragged her into the bushes.

  In the morning, when Aarti and Sunita set out for school, they stopped as usual at Kiran’s cottage and called out to her.

  Kiran was sitting in the sun, combing her long black hair.

  ‘Aren’t you coming to school today, Kiran?’ asked the girls.

  ‘No, I won’t bother to go today,’ said Kiran. She felt lazy, but pleased with herself, like a contented cat.

  ‘Madam won’t be pleased,’ said Aarti. ‘Shall we tell her you’re sick?’

  ‘It won’t be necessary,’ said Kiran, and gave them one of her mysterious smiles. ‘I’m sure it’s going to be a holiday’