Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  “He looked at me shrewdly and intently with his candid blue eyes—and after a pause suddenly drew a long breath and nodded his head.

  ‘“I’ll do it.’ he said firmly. ‘Whether it would please my superiors I really don’t know, and frankly, I’m not going to ask! I believe you are a good and spiritual man, Mr. Pennoyer, though your way upwards is far from being mine. But since God looks behind the action for the motive—and I believe your motive pure, and am humbly sure that mine is—I shall follow your lead in this, and trust that God in His infinite mercy will guide us both aright.”’

  Pennoyer paused and poured himself out another glass of orange juice. He smiled at my absorbed face—absorbed is the word, for I had clean forgotten my pipe, which lay half burnt out in the ashtray—and I protested.

  “Go on, man—you haven’t told me the rest of the diary yet.”

  “That will come out in due course,” said Pennoyer sententiously. “Let me tell my story in my own way—if I told you what was in the diary now it would anticipate my climax, and that would be bad storytelling! Well, thirty-six hours later we set out. I would have gone the very next night, but the Dean insisted on preparing himself by keeping vigil with prayer and fasting for the whole of the night beforehand, and I am the last person to quarrel with anybody else’s system of putting themselves en rapport with the Unseen. So the night after that, at a quarter to twelve, we set out for the Cathedral.

  “There was a lovely gibbous moon watching us as we crossed the Close, and it was as bright, almost, as day. The Dean kept glancing nervously from side to side, and I felt rather like a conspirator, and certainly we looked the part, me in my black cloak and my old sombrero, and the Dean in his cassock! If any of the Dean’s parishioners had been abroad that night, they would have stared to see their reverend preceptor out at such a time, for the good folk of Nant went early to bed. But luckily there was no sign of anybody save a stray cat as we crossed the moonlit space of ground and gained the side entrance to the Cathedral. I remember thinking, as we walked towards it, how like a snowclad thing it looked, with the moonlight sharply white on spire and turrets, arch and gable, and the inky shadows lying in between—then we were inside the vestry and the Dean began with trembling fingers to don surplice and stole in preparation for his part in the drama we were about to play together.

  “I suppose that is rather an irreverent phrase to use but it was true. I had coached the little man carefully in his role; I knew that only he could play it. For all my knowledge and training, there are things only an ordained priest could do, and I was a layman; and when at last the little man stood ready, wearing his snowy surplice above his long black cassock, the rich Roman-purple of the stole cutting a stripe of lively colour down each side of the surplice, and the black biretta crowning his thick white hair, he attained suddenly a presence so impressive and dignified that I thought how true was the old saying that the apparel makes the man . . . yet there was more to my little priest than mere brave attire. I came close to him and took his hands in mine. They were cold and rather shaky, but his blue eyes met mine courageously as I spoke.

  “‘Sir, I hope you don’t think I don’t appreciate this that you have undertaken to do—I honour and admire you for it more than I can say! I’ve only got one thing to ask you—whatever you may see or hear tonight, don’t give way! Go through with the rite to the end. You say you have only occasionally heard or felt . . . something. But tonight, because I am here—and I shall be concentrating all my psychic strength on you, to help you to do what only a fully ordained priest can do—you may also, for the moment, see what I see! If—then—you give way, through fear or shock, as your Bishop did, then all this effort that we are putting forward will be wasted, and this thing that we are trying to cure may even be intensified. These two souls so pitifully earthbound may be bound here for ever. . . .’

  “He nodded.

  “‘I understand—and as far as it lies in the power of a weak man to undertake to follow through a thing to the end, Mr. Pennoyer, I give you that undertaking, for the sake of the good we are both trying to do. And may God prosper us!’

  “‘Amen to that,’ I said. ‘Now, are you ready? It is close on midnight. Give me time to get into my place—and then come.’

  “Drawing a long breath, he nodded again—and I left him and hastily took up my accustomed place in the body of the Cathedral.

  “My heart was beating with excitement as I settled back against the hard wooden back of the pew and fixed my eyes upon the scene now so familiar—the seven marble steps up to the altar with its clustered lilies and shining brasses; the giant golden Crucifix in the centre, the gorgeous reredos and the painted windows behind, and against them, like serpents’ eyes, the seven crimson-lighted lamps hanging motionless in the incense-heavy air. As I watched I saw the little figure of the priest emerge slowly from the side approach to the altar, and kneeling before it, bow low in prayer . . . and even as I watched it, I was conscious of that familiar tensity swelling in the atmosphere about me, flaming upwards, like a fire just lighted, as though the appearance of that little figure possessed a significance far deeper than I had realized . . . and suddenly they were there! That now-familiar vibration all about me told me so even before I saw them, or rather him. For, as always, the man appeared before the child.

  “He stood, as usual, halfway up the steps before the altar—staring up at it, and his back was towards me, so I could not see his face as he watched with a queer kind of hungry intensity the figure of the Dean, now risen from his knees, moving quietly about the altar preparing for what he had to do—and from where I sat I sensed that intensity with a sharpness almost painful. I knew how a prisoner, held fast behind bars, might watch someone who, outside that prison, showed him the key. . . .

  “The Dean turned, and I heard his sharp-drawn breath and knew that he saw even as I saw. More clearly indeed, since he saw the man’s face, and for a moment I caught my own breath, wondering what effect the sight was going to have on him . . . but I need not have feared. There was sterling stuff in the little priest, and after a moment I heard his voice, quavering at first, but gathering strength as he spoke, ringing out in the silence.

  “‘Walter Gregg Hart, is it you that I see standing there?’

  “The figure bent its head in assent, and I felt that wild and bitter tide of emotion well about me like a swelling tide—shame, anguish, and, above all, bitter, bitter repentance surged about me, and above it the Dean’s voice rose again.

  “‘Is that which I fear true—that you have stained your hands, your hands that built this holy place, with blood?’

  “Again the shadowy figure bent its head, and the utter wretchedness of its pose brought stinging tears to my eye. I wiped them hastily away as the priest went on.

  “‘Do you haunt this place because of your sorrow for that most dreadful sin, and do you with your whole heart and being repent?’

  “For the third time the figure nodded—and the Dean drew a deep breath and went on.

  “‘Then, Walter Gregg Hart, I call upon the spirit of the child who died at your hands, and who also haunts this place because of the fear and suffering you caused her, to come now, and grant you her forgiveness, if she will, in the Name of the Child who died for her and for you and for all sinners!’

  “I sat sharply upright in my place—for even as he spoke, there she stood, close to his side! One small hand, it seemed, catching the fringe of his purple stole, shrinking against him as for protection, her eyes fixed on that dark, despairing figure that stood with hanging head halfway up the steps below the altar—unable to approach nearer the holy place.

  “That faint phosphorescent light still shone about her, and seemed, as she stood close to the Dean, to be brighter than usual—or else my sight was momentarily sharpened, for I saw a pinched little face with wide, scared dark eyes under the tangle of shaggy hair. Eyes that started at the figure of the man, and stared and stared . . . when suddenly he fell upon his knees
and stretched out both arms to her in a gesture most piteous to see, a gesture of agonized supplication, a gesture that was at once a prayer and an appeal. As though in accord with this action, the tensity of the atmosphere pulsating about me deepened and strengthened until I shook all over with the mighty force of the vibrations, clinging to my balance and sanity with an effort that cost me almost more strength than I could summon up . . . and then even as I caught my breath and brushed the perspiration out of my eyes, I saw the miracle happen! The thin little hand of the child reached up and touched the hand of the Dean! And—all honour to my little priest, though, he told me afterwards, it came as a terrific shock, that sudden chill touch like an icy wind, and he scarcely blamed his Bishop for fainting!—when he looked down and saw what stood at his side his pity and his longing to help rose stronger than his fear. For she was smiling up at him shyly, faintly, and as he looked down she pointed first to the kneeling shape that had once been a man, and then to the Cross above the altar.

  “‘Walter Gregg Hart,’ said the Dean—and his voice quavered like a leaf in a wind, and I did not wonder. I, too, was almost at the end of my tether, for the whirlpool of emotion that had shaken me each night in this place had been nothing to the terrific intensity of that which I was passing through tonight. ‘Be thankful in your soul, and bow yourself with gratitude! The child you murdered grants you her forgiveness—and on your sincere repentance I herewith grant you the pardon of the Church. Down on your knees, and greet it humbly!’

  “The little man seemed somehow to grow immense, the whole Cathedral shook and throbbed about me like the beating of a great heart, and my dazed eyes seemed to see the childish shadow that still stood shyly clinging to the Dean’s side shine out suddenly into a blinding Glory above a dark shape bowed in humility—and high above the uproar and tumult in my ears I heard the great words of the Exorcism ring out.

  “‘. . . Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences! And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost! Amen.’

  “There was a mighty flash like a blaze of summer lightning as the Dean made the Sign of the Cross, and as he made it I saw that which is so rarely seen by man—the Sign itself remaining, hanging in the air, as it were, in pure white brilliance, for the space of a breath! Then as it vanished the whole world seemed to shake and split into a thousand pieces that went spinning round my head to the accompaniment of a terrific roaring like that of some colossal waterfall, and the last thing I knew before I lost consciousness was that above all the tumult I seemed to hear a distant sound, faint but glorious, of singing, high and triumphant, as though in welcome. And a childish voice was leading it. As I sank away into the darkness the words ‘there is more rejoicing over one sinner that repenteth’ flashed across my mind. . . .

  “After a long time, it seemed, I came back into myself, and I found I was huddled in a heap in the corner of my pew, and that the Dean was kneeling in prayer before the altar. When I went up to him, he rose, trembling, and all but collapsed in my arms. Poor brave little man—he had done wonders! But he was so nervously shattered that he was almost weeping, and I had great difficulty in getting him home at last, he was so shaky at the knees—and then I was obliged to sit beside him for quite an hour before I could get him off to sleep. He had been amazingly plucky, carried things through, as I had begged him, to their ultimate end, and freed not only those two poor earthbound souls, but his beloved Cathedral, from bondage. So it was well worth it—for since then the two figures, with the dreadful atmosphere of suffering they brought with them, have never been seen again.”

  There was a long pause. I was more moved than I dared to admit. “That,” I said at last, “is a thundering good story! But I want to know various other things. Obviously Hart murdered the child—but why and how and when?”

  “As regards the how, I can’t tell you,” said Pennoyer. “But after the Exorcism was over, the Dean got permission to take up one of the flagstones at the corner of the altar—where she always appeared first—and found what I told him he would find. The remains of a child. A little girl, dressed in a ragged scarlet frock. She was buried reverently in a corner of Nant churchyard—and it is obvious that Hart, driven mad by the constant hindrances and hitches to the building of the Cathedral, conceived the awful idea that only a human sacrifice would appease whatever Force he imagined was opposing him, and murdered her, poor little soul. I suppose he lured her into coming there one night by a promise of sweets or money, killed her somehow—strangulation, I imagine—and buried her there. Brrh! It’s an ugly story. Only hinted at in the diary—but I pieced it together.”

  “But why?” I persisted. “What was the idea?”

  “Oh,” said Pennoyer, “It’s an old superstition, you know, that a living thing must be buried under any building as a sort of sacrifice to the gods of the earth. You often find bones . . . animal generally, but sometimes human . . . under the centre-posts or hearthstones of old buildings. And the practice is by no means entirely dead even today—it still exists in certain parts of the world.”

  “I suppose,” I said, “Hart’s obsession that he was being deliberately hindered by the Devil worked on the man to such an extent that he lost his mental balance.”

  Pennoyer nodded.

  “That’s right,” he said. “He was always a man of very violent temper, and the set-backs consequent upon the building of the Cathedral fairly drove him mad with rage. You see, the whole of that tragic story expressed in emotions was still living and vital in that infernal symphony of vibrations that came with them—I picked up the ‘echoes’ of those earlier moods of his, as well as the later. I think this child was probably a ‘stray’ belonging to some gipsies who used to wander through here occasionally—she looked a gipsy type, blackhaired and lean and ragged. There you have the element of fear and shrinking—the child’s part in that awful symphony—and the later reaction also of poor Hart, when he realized what he had done . . . shame and horror, guilt and a desperate anguish of repentance! Obviously he committed suicide because of what he had done. I should not be surprised if he himself saw the child—there are one or two cryptic remarks that read as though he did, in the latter part of the diary. But equally obviously, once out of the body, with his mind no longer clouded by semi-madness, he realized to the full his awful sin, and could not leave this place until he had received forgiveness both from the child he had murdered and from the Church he had defiled.”

  “What about the phosphorescent effect that you got with the child?” I said. “And why didn’t you get it with the man as well?”

  Pennoyer laughed.

  “There are questions that even a fairly experienced psychic such as myself can’t answer with absolute assurance,” he said. “But I imagine that the real answer would have something to do with the child’s essential innocence that expressed itself thus—as opposed to the man’s older, more darkened spirit. I believe poor Hart had led a pretty ragged sort of moral life, while she had died—been killed—while her aura was still pure, untouched. At least, that is the only answer I can give you.”

  I was silent for a moment.

  “There’s another thing too,” I said at last. “Now at the end, when the Dean gave the absolution, apparently it was you who passed out in a faint, while he didn’t. You said that when you came to he was kneeling in prayer at the altar. He was shaken, but that was all . . . and you had collapsed! With your experience and powers that surprised me. I should have thought you were the tougher of the two.”

  “My dear Jerry,” said Pennoyer with a wry smile. “There are limits to the physical strength and endurance of the most highly trained practitioner of any art! And don’t you realize that sitting there in the Church, apparently taking no active part in the whole affair, I had actually been providing, so to speak, the blood—the psychi
c force and the strength—needed by the little Dean to get through the whole thing? He was amazingly plucky—and if he had not been so brave he would have failed. But sitting there quietly in the body of the Church, out of the limelight, so to speak, I was providing the main strength on which he was depending. And further, I saw what he didn’t at the finish—I saw the proof that Hart was pardoned. I saw the visible Cross of Light Itself, hanging in the air—and that is an experience that will temporarily knock out most psychics. The intense power, the almost terrible purity of it . . . well, there you have your explanation.”

  He rose as a signal that the evening was over, and reluctantly I rose too, and shook out my unsmoked pipe.

  “Pen,” I said, “you are a queer chap—and a rather wonderful one.” Pennoyer shook his head.

  I’m only using gifts that all of us possess in a greater or lesser degree,” he said. “And believe me, often it is a curse to possess ’em in a really highly trained and developed form! Many is the night’s sleep I’ve lost not only in going through these experiences, but in thinking of them afterwards. . . . Psychic work takes it out of you to a terrific extent, and however well you may train your courage, there are sights and sounds that shake it to the core and leave you as weak and shaky as a kitten. He laughed. “Never mind! It’s all in the day’s work—and I wouldn’t be doing anything else for anything in the world! Bless you—goodnight.”

  JOHN THUNSTONE IN

  THE SHONOKINS

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  Just when you thought that nothing new could be added to the occult detective format, along came Manly Wade Wellman (1903–1986). Wellman had, in fact, been around for a good few years, selling his first story to Weird Tales in 1927, but had concentrated on science fiction and other genres during the 1930s before returning to his love of the weird. Wellman had been born in Portuguese West Africa (now Angola), where his parents had been medical missionaries, and though they returned to the United States when he was six, he still had memories of listening to the folktales of the locals, of shape changers and shamans. Living first in Kansas, where Manly desired to be a cowboy, but later moving to North Carolina, he became fascinated by the folklore of the Appalachian mountain men. Wellman first created the occult specialist Judge Pursuivant in “The Hairy Ones Shall Dance” (1938), and the Judge took centre stage in three more stories but then took on the role almost as a godfather or mentor to the other occulteers that Wellman created: John Thunstone, John the Balladeer and Lee Cobbett. Pursuivant even gives Thunstone his silver sword-cane. It is perhaps in the John the Balladeer stories where the lode of Appalachian folklore proves most fertile, but Wellman used this as seasoning in many of his stories. With Thunstone he created the shonokins, a race of human-like creatures who had dominated America before the arrival of humans and who seek to reassert themselves. The following is the first story where we meet them head on.