Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Beyond the last one, on the rise that led to the Carver cabin, Jerry stopped the car. They looked at one another. Watson rubbed his face irritably. "I'm beat, Jerry. There's somethin' here I can't get my hands nor my head onto."

  "I know."

  The sheriff banged one big hand against the crumpled list. "That butter churn of Mulford's. By God, I saw it! Same brand, same color. Even had scratches around the base where that old cat of his sharpened her claws."

  "I know," Jerry said again. "But it had a letter 'Z' cut into it. Worn and weathered, so you'd swear it had been there for years and years."

  "That spring-toothed harrow of Zimmerman's."

  "Except the one we saw had twelve teeth instead of fifteen. And even the man who made it couldn't find where it had been altered or tampered with."

  It had been the same with a score of other things. Each one slightly changed, just different enough to make identification impossible to prove.

  Slowly, Jerry said, "Wood gets weathered, metal oxidizes, honest wear is unmistakable. And these all take time, which can't be faked."

  His implication hung in the air. If the things had been stolen, then altered to avoid identification, whoever did it had more than human ability.

  "Magic," Watson muttered.

  "There's ... no ... such ... thing!"

  "No, there absolutely ain't."

  They sat looking with troubled eyes out over Dark Valley, till Jerry said abruptly, "I'm going on up to see the Carvers."

  Watson reached for the door handle. "They don't have no use for me. I'll wait here. I got plenty to think about."

  Jerry nodded. The sheriff would be remembering the seeds already sprouting in the kitchen gardens. The leaves that had jumped out on the old fruit trees. The lambs and calves capering in pastures washed with the green of new grass.

  The road was smooth, its ditches cleared and deepened. Bright clothing napped on shiny new clotheslines (those were on the list, but how can you identify a roll of wire?). Cordwood was stacked in every yard. New shingles spotted the roofs, the windows held glass again, fresh paint glistened on porches. In the fields, corn and oats and hay were shooting upward....

  Jerry found the Carvers waiting for him, their wrinkled old faces tense. They didn't answer his greeting, just jerked their heads. They led him past the cabin, through open brush, and halted at a bare place. Slowly, Jerry sank to his knees.

  Except for its size, it could have been a splayed-out cougar print. But it was two feet across, and pressed more than an inch into the hard, dry soil.

  Finally Ed Carver nudged Jerry. The gnarled finger pointed to a twig of wild lilac eight feet off the ground. Caught on the twig were several coarse black hairs, six inches long. Jerry looked from them back to the Carvers, then down at the ground again. He didn't speak. What was there to say?

  As they started back toward the cabin, Ed Carver said harshly, "We found that two nights ago."

  Jerry brooded for some distance, then he said, "Ned Ames has the best hunting dogs in the country."

  They looked at him disgustedly.

  "Dammit, you have to do something! Come back to town with me. We'll get some of the boys together, and hunt it down."

  They had passed the cabin and reached the car. The Carver brothers looked out over Dark Valley and shook their heads. "We've lived alone," Ed said. "We'll fight alone."

  When Jerry told the sheriff about the giant spoor, Watson gave a derisive snort. "Those old coots got bats in their belfries!"

  "But I saw the print."

  Watson dismissed such evidence with a wave of his hand. "They made it up, probably. Forget it till you see the animal itself. You'll have time to believe it then. We got enough to worry about already."

  Jerry couldn't forget it. But there was a kind of reassurance in such hearty skepticism. With each passing minute, that huge print seemed more unreal.

  Halfway through the valley they stopped to look at the river. The bed was half full—muddy, debris-laden, with a sheen of dust on the surface. But it was water—wet, tangible, undeniable.

  Watson took off his hat and rubbed his head and swore.

  "Good afternoon."

  They turned. Joe Merklos was smiling at them.

  "Hello," Jerry said. Watson just glowered.

  Merklos moved beside them and looked down. His brilliant teeth flashed. "Good, is it not?" The guttural words came out flat, one at a time, as though shaped carefully.

  "Better than money, in this part of the world." Jerry's eyes narrowed. "Did you know about the water when you bought the valley?"

  Merklos smiled again. He was bare-headed, dressed in dark trousers and a loose, short-sleeved blouse. His neck and muscular forearms gleamed bronze in the sunlight. "You like what we do here?" he asked in his deep, hesitant manner.

  "You've done wonders," Watson said shortly.

  Merklos' smoky eyes held Jerry's. "My people are used to work."

  Slowly, significantly, Watson said, "The thing we don't understand is how you managed to bring so much equipment. The exact things you needed—right down to the last nail."

  Merklos' inscrutable gaze swung around. The smile lingered on his face. "We are a careful people. We plan a long way ahead."

  Watson opened his mouth for another question—and shut it. Merklos' attention had left them. The man was listening, his head slightly cocked. After a moment he turned. "I am happy to see you making a visit. I hope you come again." He nodded and walked swiftly away.

  Wordlessly, Jerry and the sheriff got back in the car. "Could you hear what he was listening to?" Jerry muttered.

  "I didn't hear a thing."

  "Notice anything else about Dark Valley?"

  Watson shook his head.

  "No flowers. Not one dog." Jerry's hand tightened on the steering-wheel. "And who has ever gotten a single, clear look at one of the kids?"

  Jerry spent a restless night. On the way to his office the next morning he met Watson, talking to a farmer on the courthouse steps.

  "Listen to Carson, here," the sheriff said grimly.

  Carson's straw hat bobbed as he talked. "I'm waitin' to see the farm adviser. Somethin's gone wrong out at my place on the South Fork. I'm on good bottom land—highest yield in the county. But in the last two, three weeks my corn, my wheat, even my berries has stopped growin'!"

  Jerry's eyes jumped to Watson.

  "Yep," Carson went on, "every single ear o' corn is still a nubbin." He threw out his arms. "And, by God, even my wife's radishes has stood still. Ain't anything on earth that'll slow up a radish."

  "How about other stuff? How about eggs?"

  "Same thing. Cut right down. Hens lay one in ten now, mebbe. An' my alfalfa has turned a funny gray-green. Even the fruit—"

  "What about the river?" Watson broke in. "You still got water in the South Fork?"

  "Way down for this time o' year. But we got enough."

  Several people had stopped to listen. One of them, a big, tow-headed Swede, burst out excitedly. "Mister, you got the same trouble as my cousin. His crops, they're growin' backwards!"

  There was more of the same impossible talk. Jerry made an excuse to get away to his office. He sat at his desk and stared out the window.

  There wasn't any problem, he tried to tell himself. Anything he could not measure by experience and logic was out. And that had to include giant paw-prints and mysteriously missing objects as well as radishes that wouldn't grow.

  Dark Valley was taking on life and freshness. Fact. The South Fork, and portions of the North Fork, seemed to be losing fertility. Fact. But to conclude from this that Dark Valley was gaining at the expense of the others—that was the road no reasonable man could allow himself to take.

  From his window, he saw the huge old trees that shaded Wide Bend. They looked suddenly wrong. Weren't they less green, less thick than before? The buildings and streets looked dingier, too. And when did all those broken fences, cracked windows, missing shingles show up...?
r />   Jerry lunged from his chair and strode up and down the room. Then the telephone bell tore through his nerves. He grabbed the instrument.

  "Watson. I just wanted to tell you, two boys have been reported missin'."

  "No!"

  "The Simmons kids. But they've run away before. They'll be back."

  Jerry's hand went slowly down. The sheriff's voice echoed hollowly from the lowered receiver. "Well, won't they?"

  It was after midnight when the doorbell rang. It didn't wake Jerry—he was sitting in bed, staring into the darkness. There was a pile of books beside him; he knocked them over getting up to answer the door.

  Mike Carver stumbled in. He dropped into a chair, panting. Jerry went for a bottle and glass. Carver gulped the drink, then held the tumbler out for another.

  "I run all the way down the ridge," he gasped, "till I catched a ride. I figgered you ought to know what happened. It got my brother Ed."

  Jerry's lean face hardened.

  "Yeah. It was prowlin' around. We went after it, an' shot it."

  "But you said ..."

  "I said it killed Ed." The old lips tightened. "We gave it one slug through the heart and one through the head. They didn't even slow it down."

  "You mean," Jerry asked carefully, "that they didn't have any effect at all?"

  Mike nodded. He tipped the glass, wiped his ragged sleeve across his face, and rose.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Back to the cabin."

  "Mike, you can't go there!"

  "That's where my brother's body is."

  "Look," Jerry said evenly, "you can't help him now. Stay here with me, and we'll go up in the morning."

  Carver shook his head. "My brother's there at the cabin. I got to set up with him." There was no arguing against that tone of simple and utter finality.

  "All right. Wait till I get some clothes on, and I'll drive you back."

  A few minutes later they passed through Wide Bend's deserted streets and started out the road to the valley. Carver rolled down his window and spat tobacco juice. "Feller was up to see us," he said gloomily. "Told us people was losin' things all over the county—includin' two kids. Said crops has shrunk. Said water in the forks is way down."

  "He's right."

  "Said people were gettin' the idea Dark Valley was livin' off the rest of the land. Feedin' on it, like a parasite. How crazy you think that is?"

  Slowly, Jerry said, "I'm not sure it's crazy at all."

  Carver brooded. "I shot that thing tonight. Should 'a been dead if a critter ever was. Then I seen it go after Ed."

  "You know what all this means, don't you? Witchcraft. Something people haven't believed in for hundreds of years."

  "Mebbe they better get started again."

  They were nearing the divide that overlooked Dark Valley. "Mike, I've been reading up on it, for hours. Everything I could find. And it fits. It's been the hardest struggle I ever had—admitting such a thing existed. But it was either acknowledge that or lose my mind."

  The night seemed colder as they started downward. Unaccountably, the headlights dimmed.

  "Somethin' watchin' us," Carver said suddenly, as the car bored on through the thick and swirling darkness.

  Jerry nodded. His hands gripped the wheel until the knuckles were white. Sweat began to glisten on his forehead.

  The headlights picked out a dark spot, that looked like a yawning hole. Jerry stamped on the brake, skidded slightly. But there was only a shallow rut, deformed by shadows. He pressed the accelerator ... and the motor died. Hurriedly, he jabbed the starter button, pumped the gas pedal. Again he pushed it, and again, as the lights faded from the drain on the battery.

  "What's the matter?" Carver's old voice was thin.

  "Flooded, maybe. Better let her sit a minute."

  The darkness pressed close around them, shifted and danced. Chill air moved over their faces.

  "Mike."

  "Yeah."

  "Why didn't that animal come after, you, too?"

  Carver breathed heavily for a moment. Then he took something from his shirt pocket and held it out. Jerry's fingers moved over it. A crucifix.

  "My mother give it to me a long time ago."

  "That's probably the only thing that could have saved you. From what I read, they can't stand a cross. And silver's got something to do with it." Jerry reached into his own pocket. "Feel this."

  Carver's rough hand fumbled over the object.

  "Made it this evening. Took a cold chisel and hammer to an old silver tray. Not fancy, but it was all I had."

  "You done that, before I came and told you about Ed?"

  Jerry nodded grimly. "I'm convinced we're up against something terrible. And believe me, Mike, I'm scared."

  The shadows drew closer, thicker still. They seemed charged with menace.

  With a catch in his voice, Jerry said, "Maybe now's the time to try it."

  Carver's head jerked around.

  "I mean smash Merklos and his tribe for good."

  "How?"

  "With fire, and the silver crosses."

  After a long pause, Carver said, "What about Ed?"

  "We'll get to your cabin. We're not far from the first farm. We can go right up the valley. If it works."

  "And if it don't?"

  "We might end up like Ed."

  Carver turned and spat out the window. "I don't want to, but I will."

  They got out of the car, into the humming darkness. They took gunny sacks and rags from the trunk compartment and soaked them in oil from the crankcase. They wired a bundle on the extension handle of the jack, and another on the radio aerial rod which Jerry unscrewed.

  They tried to start the car once more, without success. So they turned off the lights and left it. With one torch burning, they started up the road for the first gate.

  Dark Valley's shadowy legions closed in. There was a rustling and a whispering all around them. There were shiny glints where none ought to be. There was an overwhelming feeling that something frightful waited—just beyond the edge of darkness.

  "The gate," Carver said hoarsely.

  Jerry unclenched his jaws and lit the second torch. The flare-up reflected from the blank windows ahead.

  "What about the wimmen? What about the kids?"

  Jerry spoke jerkily, his eyes on the house. "There aren't any kids. What we saw was something else. The women are the same as the men, the same as the thing that killed Ed. Don't worry about them. Hold the cross in front of you, and for God's sake hang onto it!"

  The darkness swelled like a living thing. It swayed and clutched at the torches. Somewhere a high whining began, like a keening wind.

  There were sudden sounds from the house—bangings and scramblings. Carver faltered.

  "On!" Jerry said savagely, and began to run. He touched his home-made crucifix to the wood of the porch, and with the other hand brought the torch down. Blue sparks jumped out at him. The dry wood hissed and blazed up furiously.

  A frightful scream rang out. There was the tinkle of breaking glass. Formless figures thudded to the ground and scuttled away on all fours, headed up the valley.

  Within minutes the farmhouse was a mass of roaring flame. Jerry backed away from it. He saw Carver outlined against the glowing barn, which he had fired. They came together and hurried back to the road. There they stopped to watch the pillar of flame and smoke, boiling upward.

  "It worked," Carver said.

  Jerry nodded. "We can't kill them. But we can drive them out."

  "Wimmen and kids," Carver said bitterly. "Did you see them things that came out?"

  "Yes." Jerry was drenched in sweat and the torch trembled in his hand. "Let's get on to the next one, Mike."

  They went on to the neighboring farm, and to the one after that, while the shadows pulsed in an unholy turmoil. The night swarmed with malignant invisible forces, that tried to blow the flame from their torches, that flayed them with the naked sword of fear. There were hideous s
hapes, half-seen. There were waves of terror like a physical shock. There were puffs of ordure, so rank they gagged.

  But they plodded through it, faces set, sweating and agonized. Till, halfway up the valley it came....

  Carver knew it first. His leathery face paled; his hands fumbled instinctively for the gun he was not carrying.

  Then Jerry said hoarsely, "Mike, did you hear that?"

  Carver nodded dumbly.

  Clearly, now, came the sound of those huge paws, padding first on one side of them, then the other. Jerry clutched his cross till the rough edges bit deep into his hand.

  It seemed that his very life was bound up with the torch that now smoked and struggled to burn. If its feeble flame went out, that meant extinction, black and final.

  Then he became aware that Carver was no longer beside him. He whirled. Ten yards behind, the other was bending down, scrabbling frantically in the dust.

  "I dropped it!" he shouted. "I can't find it!"

  Jerry tried to reach him, but the other thing was quicker. A whirlpool of blackness engulfed Carver, blotted him out. Then Jerry was confronted by an unbelievable sight—a great, savage head, towering over him, its eyes glowing redly and foam creaming over gigantic, open jaws.

  Desperately, he shoved his cross straight at it. The thing spat and roared deafeningly. The thud of its paws shook the ground. It lashed out with monstrous claws that sliced his skin. Half-stunned, Jerry kept lunging toward it, till finally his cross touched its coarse hide. There was a crackle of blue flame, a shriek that split the night, and the thing disintegrated in roiling clouds of bitter smoke.

  Jerry swayed. The hand that held the cross was numb and tingling. Like an automaton, he turned, went back, and knelt beside the crumpled shape that had been Mike Carver. Then he rose, still carrying the feebly flickering torch, and plodded on....

  They met him as he was coming back—Watson, Henderson, Caruso, Miller, Hammond and the rest. They had flashlights and guns and tear gas, and their faces were grim and desperate.

  "We found your car," they said. "We could see the flames from Wide Bend. What in hell has been going on?"

  Jerry stared at them. He dropped the dead torch. One hand tried to put the cross back into his pocket. His face was black, his hair singed, his side wet with blood.