The Macabre Reader

by Donald A. Wollheim

  Then the thing happened. Derby’s voice was rising to a thin treble scream as he raved, when suddenly it was shut off with an almost mechanical click. I thought of those other occasions at my home when his confidences had abruptly ceased—when I had half-fancied that some obscure telepathic wave of Asenath’s mental force was intervening to keep him silent. This, though, was something altogether different—and, I felt, infinitely more horrible. The face beside me was twisted almost unrecognizably for a moment, while through the whole body there passed a shivering motion— as if all the bones, organs, muscles, nerves, and glands were readjusting themselves to a radically different posture, set of stresses, and general personality.

  Just where the supreme horror lay, I could not for my life tell; yet there swept over me such a swamping wave of sickness and repulsion—such a freezing, petrifying sense of utter alienage and abnormality—that my grasp of the wheel grew feeble and uncertain. The figure beside me seemed less like a lifelong friend than like some monstrous intrusion from outer space—some damnable, utterly accursed focus of unknown and malign cosmic forces.

  I had faltered only a moment, but before another moment was over my companion had seized the wheel and forced me to change places with him. The dusk was now very thick, and the lights of Portland far behind, so I could not see much of his face. The blaze of his eyes, though, was phenomenal; and I knew that he must now be in that queerly energized state—so unlike his usual self—which so many people had noticed. It seemed odd and incredible that listless Edward Derby—he who could never assert himself, and who had never learned to drive—should be ordering me about and taking the wheel of my own car, yet that was precisely what had happened. He did not speak for some time, and in my inexplicable horror I was glad he did not.

  In the light of Biddeford and Saco I saw his firmly set mouth, and shivered at the blaze of his eyes. The people were right—he did look damnably like his wife and like old Ephraim when in these moods. I did not wonder that the moods were disliked—there was certainly something unnatural in them, and I felt the sinister element all the more because of the wild ravings I had been hearing. This man, for all my lifelong knowledge of Edward Pickman Derby, was a stranger—an intrusion of some sort from the black abyss.

  He did not speak until we were on a dark stretch of road, and when he did his voice seemed utterly unfamiliar. It was deeper, firmer, and more decisive than I had ever known it to be; while its accent and pronunciation were altogether changed—though vaguely, remotely, and rather disturbingly recalling something I could not quite place. There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty’ pseudo-irony of the callow “sophisticate,” which Derby had habitually affected, but something grim, basic, pervasive, and potentially evil. I marveled at the self-possession so soon following the spell of panic-struck muttering.

  “I hope you’ll forget my attack back there, Upton,” he was saying. “You know what my nerves are, and I guess you can excuse such things. I’m enormously grateful, of course, for this lift home.

  ‘‘And you must forget, too, any crazy things I may have been saying about my wife—and about things in general. That’s what comes from overstudy in a field like mine. My philosophy is full of bizarre concepts, and when the mind gets worn out it cooks up all sorts of imaginary concrete applications. I shall take a rest from now on—you probably won’t see me for some time, and you needn’t blame Asenath for it.

  “This trip was a bit queer, but it’s really very simple. There are certain Indian relics in the north woods—standing stones and all that—which mean a good deal in folklore, and Asenath and I are following that stuff up. It was a hard search, so I seem to have gone off my head. I must send somebody for the car when I get home. A month’s relaxation will put me on my feet.”

  I do not recall just what my own part of the conversation was, for the baffling alienage of my seatmate filled all my consciousness. With every moment my feeling of elusive cosmic horror increased, till at length I was in a virtual delirium of longing for the end of the drive. Derby did not offer to relinquish the wheel, and I was glad of the speed with which Portsmouth and Newburyport flashed by.

  At the junction where the main highway runs inland and avoids Innsmouth, I was half-afraid my driver would take the bleak shore road that goes through that damnable place. He did not, however, but darted rapidly past Rowley and Ipswich toward our destination. We reached Arkham before midnight, and found the lights still on at the old Crowninshield house. Derby left the car with a hasty repetition of his thanks, and I drove home alone with a curious feeling of relief. It had been a terrible drive—all the more terrible because I could not quite tell why—and I did not regret Derby’s forecast of a long absence from my company.

  The next two months were full of rumors. People spoke of seeing Derby more and more in his new energized state, and Asenath was scarcely ever in to her callers. I had only one visit from Edward, when he called briefly in Asenath’s car—duly reclaimed from wherever he had left it in Maine— to get some books he had lent me. He was in his new state, and paused only long enough for some evasively polite remarks. It was plain that he had nothing to discuss with me when in this condition—and I noticed that he did not even trouble to give the old three-and-two signal when ringing the doorbell. As on that evening in the car, I felt a faint, infinitely deep horror which I could not explain; so that his swift departure was a prodigious relief.

  In mid-September Derby was away for a week, and some of the decadent college set talked knowingly of the matter —hinting at a meeting with a notorious cult-leader, lately expelled from England, who had established headquarters in New York. For my part I could not get that strange ride from Maine out of my head. The transformation I had witnessed had affected me profoundly, and I caught myself again and again trying to account for the thing—and for the extreme horror it had inspired in me.

  But the oddest rumors were those about the sobbing in the old Crowninshield house. The voice seemed to be a woman’s, and some of the younger people thought it sounded like Asenath’s. It was heard only at rare intervals, and would sometimes be choked off as if by force. There was talk of an investigation, but this was dispelled one day when Asenath appeared in the street and chatted in a sprightly way with a large number of acquaintances—apologizing for her recent absence and speaking incidentally about the nervous breakdown and hysteria of a guest from Boston. The guest was never seen, but Asenath’s appearance left nothing to be said. And then, someone complicated matters by whispering that the sobs had once or twice been in a man’s voice.

  One evening in mid-October, I heard the familiar three-and-two ring at the front door. Answering it myself, I found Edward on the steps, and saw in a moment that his personality was the old one which I had not encountered since the day of his ravings on that terrible ride from Chesuncook. His face was twitching with a mixture of odd emotions in which fear and triumph seemed to share dominion, and he looked furtively over his shoulder as I closed the door behind him.

  Following me clumsily to the study, he asked for some whisky to steady his nerves. I forbore to question him, but waited till he felt like beginning whatever he wanted to say. At length he ventured some information in a choking voice.

  “Asenath has gone, Dan. We had a long talk last night while the servants were out, and I made her promise to stop preying on me. Of course I had certain—certain occult defences I never told you about. She had to give in, but got frightfully angry. Just packed up and started for New York —walked right out to catch the eight-twenty into Boston.

  I suppose people will talk, but I can’t help that. You needn’t mention that there was any trouble—just say she’s gone on a long research trip.

  “She’s probably going to stay with one of her horrible groups of devotees. I hope she’ll go west and get a divorce—anyhow, I’ve made her promise to keep away and let me alone. It was horrible, Dan—she was stealing my body �
�crowding me out—making a prisoner of me. I lay low and pretended to let her do it, but I had to be on the watch. I could plan if I was careful, for she can’t read my mind literally, or in detail. All she could read of my planning was a sort of general mood of rebellion—and she always thought I was helpless. Never thought I could get the best of her … but I had a spell or two that worked.”

  Derby looked over his shoulder and took some more whisky-

  “I paid off those damned servants this morning when they got back. They were ugly about it, and asked questions, but they went. They’re her kind—Innsmouth people—and were hand and glove with her. I hope they’ll let me alone —I didn’t like the way they laughed when they walked away. I must get as many of Dad’s old servants again as I can. I’ll move back home now.

  “I suppose you think I’m crazy, Dan—but Arkham his—tory ought to hint at things that back up what I’ve told you —and what I’m going to tell you. You’ve seen one of the changes, too—in your car after I told you about Asenath that day coming home from Maine. That was when she got me—drove me out of my body. The last thing I remember was when I was all worked up trying to tell you what that she-devil is. Then she got me, and in a flash I was back at that house—in the library where those damned servants had me locked up—and in that cursed fiend’s body … that isn’t even human… . You know it was she you must have ridden home with—that preying wolf in my body—you ought to have known the difference!”

  I shuddered as Derby paused. Surely, I had known the difference—yet could I accept an explanation as insane as this? But my distracted caller was growing even wilder.

  “I had to save myself—I had to, Dan! She’d have got me for good at Hallowmass—they hold a Sabbat up there beyond Chesuncook, and the sacrifice would have clinched things. She’d have got me for good—she’d have been I, and I’d have been she—forever—too late—My body’d have been hers for good—She’d have been a man, and fully human, just as she wanted to be—I suppose she’d have put me out of the way—killed her own ex-body with me in it, damn her, just as she did before—just as she, he, or it did before—” Edward’s face was now atrociously distorted, and he bent it uncomfortably close to mine as his voice fell to a whisper.

  “You must know what I hinted in the car—that she isn’t Asenath at all, but really old Ephraim himself. I suspected it a year and a half ago, and I know it now. Her handwriting shows it when she goes off guard—sometimes she jots down a note in writing that’s just like her father’s manuscripts, stroke for stroke—and sometimes she says things that nobody but an old man like Ephraim could say. He changed forms with her when he felt death coming—she was the only one he could find with the right kind of brain and a weak enough will—he got her body permanently, just as she almost got mine, and then poisoned the old body he’d put her into. Haven’t you seen old Ephraim’s soul glaring out of that she-devil’s eyes dozens of times—and out of mine when he has control of my body?”

  The whisperer was panting, and paused for breath. I said nothing; and when he resumed his voice was nearer normal. This, I reflected, was a case for the asylum, but I would not be the one to send him there. Perhaps time and freedom from Asenath would do its work. I could see that he would never wish to dabble in morbid occultism again.

  “I’ll tell you more later—I must have a long rest now.

  I’ll tell you something of the forbidden horrors she led me into—something of the age-old horrors that even now are festering in out-of-the-way comers with a few monstrous priests to keep them alive. Some people know things about the universe that nobody ought to know, and can do things that nobody ought to be able to do. I’ve been in it up to my neck, but that’s the end. Today I’d bum that damned Necronomicon and all the rest if I were librarian at Mis-katonic.

  “But she can’t get me now. I must get out of that accursed house as soon as I can, and settle down at home. You’ll help me, I know, if I need help. Those devilish servants, you know—and if people should get too inquisitive about Asenath. You see, I can’t give them her address. … Then there are certain groups of searchers—certain cults, you know—that might misunderstand our breaking up … some of them have damnably curious ideas and methods. I know you’ll stand by me if anything happens —even if I have to tell you a lot that will shock you… .”

  I had Edward stay and sleep in one of the guest-chambers that night, and in lie morning he seemed calmer. We discussed certain possible arrangements for his moving back into the Derby mansion, and I hoped he would lose no time in making the change. He did not call the next evening, but I saw him frequently during the ensuing weeks. We talked as little as possible about strange and unpleasant things, but discussed the renovation of the old Derby house, and the travels which Edward promised to take with my son and me the following summer.

  Of Asenath we said almost nothing, for I saw that the subject was a peculiarly disturbing one. Gossip, of course, was rife; but that was no novelty in connection with the strange menage at the old Crowninshield house. One thing I did not like was what Derby’s banker let fall in an over-expansive mood at the Miskatonic Club—about the cheques Edward was sending regularly to a Moses and Abigail Sargent and a Eunice Babson in Innsmouth. That looked as if those evil-faced servants were extorting some kind of tribute from him—yet he had not mentioned the matter to me.

  I wished that the summer—and my son’s Harvard vacation—would come, so that we could get Edward to Europe. He was not, I soon saw, mending as rapidly as I had hoped he would; for there was something a bit hysterical in his occasional exhilaration, while his moods of fright and depression were altogether too frequent. The old Derby house was ready by December, yet Edward constantly put off moving. Though he hated and seemed to fear the Crownin-shield place, he was at the same time queerly enslaved by it. He could not seem to begin dismantling things, arid invented every kind of excuse to postpone action. When I pointed this out to him he appeared unaccountably frightened. His father’s old butler—who was there with other reacquired servants—told me one day that Edward’s occasional prowlings about the house, and especially down the cellar, looked odd and unwholesome to him. I wondered if Asenath had been writing disturbing letters, but the butler said there was no mail which could have come from her.

  It was about Christmas that Derby broke down one evening while calling on me. I was steering the conversation towards next summer’s travels when he suddenly shrieked and leaped up from his chair with a look of shocking, uncontrollable fright—a cosmic panic and loathing such as only the nether gulfs of nightmare could bring to any sane mind.

  “My brain! My brain! God, Dan—it’s tugging—from beyond—knocking—clawing—that she-devil—even now—Ephraim —Kamog! Kamog!—The pit of the shaggoths!- Iä Shub-Nig-gurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young! …

  “The flame—the flame—beyond body, beyond life—in the earth—oh, God! …”

  I pulled him back to his chair and poured some wine down his throat as his frenzy sank to a dull apathy. He did not resist, but kept his lips moving as if talking to himself. Presently I realized that he was trying to talk to me, and bent my ear to his mouth to catch the feeble words.

  “—Again, again—she’s trying—I might have known—nothing can stop that force; not distance nor magic, nor death—it comes and comes, mostly in the night—I can’t leave—it’s horrible—oh, God, Dan, if you only knew as I do just how horrible it is… .’’

  When he had slumped down into a stupor I propped him with pillows and let normal sleep overtake him. I did not call a doctor, for I knew what would be said of his sanity, and wished to give nature a chance if I possibly could. He waked at midnight, and I put him to bed upstairs, but he was gone by morning. He had let himself quietly out of the house—and his butler, when called on the wire, said he was at home pacing about the library.

  Edward went to pieces rapidly after that. He did not call again, but I went daily to see him. He would always be sitting in his library, s
taring at nothing and having an air of abnormal listening. Sometimes he talked rationally, but always on trivial topics. Any mention of his trouble, of future plans, or of Asenath would send him into a frenzy. His butler said he had frightful seizures at night, during which he might eventually do himself harm.

  I had a long talk with his doctor, banker, and lawyer, and finally took the physician with two specialist colleagues to visit him. The spasms that resulted from the first questions were violent and pitiable—and that evening a closed car took his poor struggling body to the Arkham Sanatorium. I was made his guardian, and called on him twice weekly— almost weeping to hear his wild shrieks, awesome whispers, and dreadful, droning repetitions of such phrases as “I had to do it—I had to do it—it’ll get me—it’ll get me—down there —down there in the dark—Mother! Mother! Dan! Save me —save me—

  How much hope of recovery there was, no one could say, but I tried my best to be optimistic. Edward must have a home if he emerged, so I transferred his servants to th§ Derby mansion, which would surely be his sane choice. What to do about the Crowninshield place with its complex arrangements and collections of utterly inexplicable objects I could not decide, so left it momentarily untouched—telling the Derby household to go over and dust the chief rooms once a week, and ordering the furnace man to have a fire on those days.