The Universe of Horror Volume 1: The Soft Whisper of the Dead (Neccon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  “Believe what,” Ned sneered. “That you’re some kind of monster? Please, Mr. Brastov, give me some credit.”

  The count stepped closer.

  Ned backed slightly away, pulling Pamela with him though the revolver was still up and armed.

  “You have a short memory, policeman.”

  The park, and the wolf, and the shot that went wild.

  “No,” Ned told him. “No, I don’t. And this time I won’t miss.”

  Before Pamela could stop him, he pulled the trigger, and the explosion in the small room was deafening. The smell of black powder, and the sound of the bullet striking the wall behind the Count. He opened the cloak, and his white shirt was untouched. The gun fired again, and again the explosion, and a shower of stone chips that pattered to the floor. A third time before Pamela put her hand on his wrist and forced it slowly down. He was breathing heavily, and there was perspiration on his brow. He stared stupidly at the useless weapon, at John Webber by his feet, and at the morgue door. His mouth opened, closed, and as he stared at the iron cross his eyes widened in comprehension.

  “Enough, Mr. Stockton,” Count Brastov said, all patience over at the game he was playing. “Open the door, now!”

  “Ned, he can’t do it!” Pamela said. “The cross — ”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Mr. Stockton!”

  Ned’s right hand trembled violently and reached out as if to grab for the bar, suddenly veered and snapped the delicate chain from around Pamela’s neck. She yelped, but Ned had the tiny silver cross up and in front of them.

  “Open it yourself,” he taunted. “Go ahead, Mr. Brastov. Open the door yourself.”

  The Count’s face darkened in fury, and his lips pulled away from his gleaming sharp teeth in a silent, enraged snarl. “Put it down, Mr. Stockton. I tell you for your own good to put that vile thing down.” Ned moved forward, and the Count backed toward the stairs.

  “Ned,” Pamela whispered, “be careful.”

  “It’s all right,” he assured her. “He’s not got us yet.”

  Brastov had reached the staircase. His hand took the bannister and in a sudden wrenching motion pulled a section free and flung spinning it at Ned’s head. Ned ducked, but the wood glanced hard off his shoulder, sending him to one knee, pain blurring his vision. But he was able to hold up his hand just as Brastov gathered himself for a leap at his throat.

  “No.” Ned gasped, gritting his teeth, his jaw taut. “No.”

  There was a silence, until the Count sighed. “I am so sorry for you, Mr. Stockton.” He said as he began to climb the stairs. “I am so very sorry indeed. You think you have the answers, but all they are going to do is provide you with more questions. I suggest you do not think of this as victory.

  In fact, it would be a good thing for you, a very healthy thing indeed if you left Oxrun Station first thing in the morning and did not return. If you stay, Mr. Stockton, you will not like what you see. When I am finished, you will not recognize it at all.”

  Ned drew back his hand as if to throw the crucifix, but there was a vague crackling sound, a hissing, and when Pamela gasped he looked to the Count’s boots and saw thick mist slipping out from under the cloak. Slowly at first, a death-pale grey, then more rapidly until it enveloped the man, all but the redfire eyes that glared once before winking out.

  The wind came immediately after.

  It roared down the stairs and scattered the mist, flinging dirt and debris in a hailstorm around their heads, forcing them to duck away and cower against the wall.

  And in the midst of the wind, a maniacal laugh.

  And out of the wind a monstrously huge bat that dove at them and wheeled, dove again while Ned held up the cross and shoved Pamela between him and the protection of the wall. The bat circled and came a third time, the sound of its wings the sound of the wind. the sigh of the fog. Its eyes were red-fire, its fangs stabbing at his neck, and when Ned swung his arm and the cross struck its chest it spun to one side, hovered, and vanished.

  And when the wind was over there was nothing left but silence.

  Ned stood cautiously, peering at the empty staircase as he brushed at his clothes. Then he turned to see if Pamela was all right and saw her standing in front of the door, swaying as if she were about to faint. He grabbed her arms and tried to pull her away, but she balked.

  And then he heard it.

  From beyond the morgue door the sound that had bothered him earlier.

  Voices, distant but unmistakable, and they were whispering his name.

  The Last Night

  14

  The kitchen was sunny, filled with a soft gold light that better belonged to early spring, brightened further by the church bells that rang out by the dozens over the village. The wood stove in the comer muttered sharp incantations to itself as it held the cold at bay, and a cardinal perched boldly on the outside sill of the window over the sink. Pamela watched it from her chair, her hands palmed around a cold cup of tea. It looks like blood, she thought, and shuddered. Smiled wanly when Ned, rumpled and wrinkled from sleeping on the couch, reached over to touch her arm.

  They had said little to each other since rising several hours past dawn. He had heated the water for her makeshift toilet, slipped wood into the stove so the kettle would boil. He knew they should try to eat something, but each time he reached for an egg, a slice of bread, his stomach rebelled, and one look at Pam told him she felt the same. But it was more than her silence that worried him; it was the reasons for it. On the one hand she had been given the shock of her life at Squires Manor the night before when she saw with her own eyes her father hand away her birthright and announce his impending marriage to a woman less than half his age.

  And then there was Count Brastov, something not even a nightmare dared conjure for their sleep.

  Immediately the vampire had left them, they had stumbled up to the doctor’s front room where Ned raided the dead man’s liquor cabinet for the strongest brandy he could find. But the fires they had set within them did not quell the deathly cold they felt. They waited, fearful Brastov would return for another attempt to free his slaves, waited for an hour while they heard all the whispering downstairs.

  Finally, arms about each’ other’s waist, they hurried into the night and ran back to the Inn. By the time they reached it, however, Ned had been able to find some order for his thoughts and suggested they go directly to his home.

  Brastov, he reasoned, knew where she was staying, and the only way Ned would be able to protect her would be if he were close by. He doubted the Inn’s landlord would believe their story, and doubted further he’d be allowed to sleep on a table downstairs. Pamela hadn’t hesitated at all; she agreed, and even argued when he threw a series of blankets over the sofa for his own use. And it was then that he told her for the first time that he loved her, told her he’d be honored if she’d agree to be his wife. Perhaps the moment was ill-timed, but her response was to kiss him full upon the lips before she slipped away to the bedroom.

  They left all the lights on, after Ned had drawn crosses on every door and window while whispering prayers he’ d thought were long forgotten.

  The night had exhausted them; they slept too hard for dreams, too lightly for nightmares, and now, as Ned stared at her golden hair so warm in his kitchen he suddenly decided he was hungry after all. Without a word, with only a smile, he rose and made a large breakfast, and startled himself with his appetite, noting with pleasure that Pamela too was feeling the aftereffects of their fear.

  By noon they were in the living room, on the sofa, her head on his shoulder.

  “We’ve wasted a lot of time,” she said.

  “We had to believe.”

  “Yes. Yes, we did.”

  “And now?”

  She stirred. “Now we … ” She moved out of his embrace and stared at him. Her emerald eyes were clouded with worry, and ringed with fear just barely controlled. “Now we have to stop him.”

  He smoo
thed a hand over his collarless shirt. “Why?” he wondered to the room. “Why here? With all the cities, all the people in this country, why did that creature have to pick us?”

  She shrugged. “What does it matter? We have him, and we have to be rid of him.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t let it go at that. Pam. I can’t. You’re right, but I have to know why.”

  “He’s evil.”

  “Indeed.”

  Her hands wrestled in her lap slowly. “He used Saundra, you know. He used her to bring him here. She must have met him on the Tour and he … Ned, is she one of his?”

  He rested his head on the sofa’s high back. “I don’t know. I would think so, from the looks of it. but then he must have powers we can only begin to understand. She could be his. Or she could simply be someone he has bewitched.”

  “Like she did my father,” she said bitterly.

  “I’m afraid so, darling. But that’s a bewitchment easily broken. That’s — ” He sat up abruptly and turned to her. “Yes! By god, Pamela, that must be it!”

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  “Your father. I remember him telling me that first night he had half the village at his party for Miss Bernhardt, and most of them were some of the most powerful influences in the country. Brastov, whatever he is, is no fool. A small village as a base because he must remain undetected, and what better village than this one?”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, that’s all right as far as it goes, but surely you don’t believe he thinks he can turn all of us into loathsome creatures like himself, like he did with Jubal and the others. It wouldn’t work, not if he wants to … to take over the country.”

  Ned smiled. “But he doesn’t, darling. What he wants is power, more power than he has now. And protection. By getting these people under his influence, one way or another, he has both to such a degree that he’d never be caught. Never. And the first step would be to get a man like your father — ”

  “My God, Ned,” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “My God, Father!”

  She started for the door. snatching down her cloak as she entered the hall. Ned was instantly behind her, taking hold of her arm and shaking his head. “Darling, we can’t.”

  “We have to!”

  “Not yet,” he said urgently. “Not until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

  “I thought we had a fairly good idea.”

  “No, you misunderstand. What I mean is, we have to know more about him. It’s like … god, I hate to say it, but it’s like knowing someone like Marty Reston. You get to know him, what he can do and what he can’t or won’t, and you’ve found his weakness. It’s the weakness that puts men behind bars, Pamela. The weakness.”

  After a moment she stopped resisting and considered what he’d said. “And how are we supposed to find this out? Ned, except for Rick — ”

  “Exactly!” he declared, reaching for his own coat.

  “We’ll get over to Rick’s house and find out just where he learned about these vampires and things. Perhaps Faith can help.” Then his expression turned grim. “And once we know, we can act.”

  Pamela opened the door and winced at the bright sunlight. “We don’t have much time. Father’s party is tonight.”

  “Don’t worry, darling. As long as we have the sun, please, don’t worry.”

  Grandon Squires sat alone in his study, a large tray filled with half-eaten sandwiches on the floor beside him. On the desk beneath his hands were ledgers and accounting books, open and filled with notation scrawls. He was frowning. But less at the figures he was working on than at his daughter’s rebellion. He knew he’d been wrong in springing the news on her that way, but he’d been so excited when Saundra had accepted his proposal that he’d scarcely been able to contain himself. He had been alone for so long, and though there was a part of him that would always love Violet, there was an even greater part that did not want to see him spend his declining years alone.

  Saundra.

  Dear Saundra.

  His brow furrowed with concern. Though she had assured him a dozen times over the malady she’d picked up during her journey was not serious, nevertheless he could not stop himself from fretting. Each time he tried to see her during the day she refused him admittance, and Timmons had just informed him her meal trays were untouched. It wasn’t natural for a young woman to be so without an appetite, and he decided that protest or not he would send for John Webber and have her examined. Today, without fail. He wouldn’t have her dying on him, just when he thought he’d found happiness again.

  With a loud sigh to the empty room, then, he pushed away from the desk and walked to the window overlooking the back lawn. A glance at the sky, and he scowled. Tendrils of pale clouds were sifting over the blue. There would be a storm tonight, he thought; he’d best get Timmons immediately, before it was too late.

  And then … then he would send an urgent message to his daughter. Not even Saundra could begin to console him if Pamela were no longer here by his side. And the first thing he would tell her is that a reexamination of the books had proved he had indeed been a fool, that the broad portraits of grandeur Jack Foxworth had painted so lovingly and persuasively were little more than vague sketches in a child’s school pad. More so since it was obvious Pamela had been right, that the man had been using him to get directly at her. Even young Ned Stockton was more honest than that.

  He grunted and returned to the desk, yanked the bell-pull and reached for his stationery. By the time Timmons had made his way upstairs the note for his daughter would be finished and sealed.

  And then he would visit Saundra. Ill or not, the best thing for recovery was time with one who loved you. He smiled to himself and whispered her name.

  Ned was shaken. As he veered around the comer on the roan he’d taken from the police stables, swinging up to Reverend Alden’s church on Williamston Pike, he tried to convince himself he was still not in bed, still not dreaming that his home, his love, his world were crumbling around him.

  He and Pamela had gone straight to the Driscoll home, a small brick cottage on King Street, where they found Faith sitting alone in her front room, waiting for her husband to return. Her eyes were swollen with tears long since dried, and in her hands she held a book whose pages had been tom viciously from their binding. It had taken nearly an hour to bring her around to speaking, and an hour following for the young Irish woman to tell them what she knew and what she suspected, and what she had told her husband to do. They had said nothing. They had expressed no surprise, no disbelief, only a deep sickening revulsion as what they feared was confirmed.

  It had to be true or they’d all lost their minds.

  He had left Pamela with the sobbing woman and raced back to the station. As he did, he considered telling his father, and decided against it. The older man had often told him many curious stories about Oxrun and its past, and always ended each with a mild but stem caution: “No matter how it looks, there are always explanations, son, there are always explanations. Just because we’ve not been privileged to know them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Things happen in the Station, that’s all. Things happen. It’s been that way since the beginning, and maybe someday I’ll tell you that story as well.”

  No; this he would have to handle on his own. The fewer people involved, the fewer people liable to be hurt. As it was, he thought as he reined in his mount, he was afraid Rick Driscoll in his zeal was dead, if not worse.

  The church was a Gothic building of perfectly cut, large fieldstone blocks, impressively solemn, cathedral-like in its presence if not its size. The vicarage was beside it, but after several minutes of frantic pounding he received no answer and cut through the yard to the church’s side entrance. It was unlocked. Once inside, the quiet and the dim light worked to unnerve him as he made his way through several deserted antechambers toward the altar.

  He called out several times, cringing at the echoes so recently ringing with hymns, but Alden did n
ot respond, and he felt no qualms about running down the center aisle between the polished walnut pews to the grey marble baptismal font set in an alcove just at the back. The sculptured lid was heavy, and he scraped his knuckles as he heaved it from its place. From his pocket he pulled a series of small herb vials Faith had given him, and filled them with the holy water lying still at the bottom. As the last one bubbled to a close, he capped it and reached to the lid again.

  And stopped.

  The little water remaining had begun to tremble, ripple, and as he stared it grew dark, darker, and black. He glanced up at the alcove’s stained-glass window, and realized with a silent groan that the sun was fading, the leading edge of the storm already covering the village.

  When he looked down again he saw his reflection … and suddenly, without warning, his own face was gone and in its place was Gregor Brastov and his red-fire eyes.

  Busy, my friend, he heard in the silence of the old church. Very busy, I’m sure, but I’m afraid you’re too late.

  15

  Pamela’s apprehension drove her to anxious pacing across the Driscolls’ front room. From door to window to a rocking chair by the hearth; she picked up the tattered book and reread the pages in fearful disbelief, tossed the book to the chair and paced once again. Faith watched her but said nothing, her eyes almost blank as they followed the golden hair, the glints of light on the dress, the boots whose heels were muffled on the carpeted floor.

  “You can’t help him, you know. No more than you can help my poor Rick.”

  Pamela sighed and scrubbed her hands dryly.

  “It’s too late. Too late for us all.”

  “Oh do shut up,” she snapped, whirling around with a scowl. “We have hours of daylight left. You said yourself he’s helpless in daylight.”

  Faith lowered her head to stare at her hands. “You have to find him first, don’t you. It won’t matter if you don’t find him.”