The Universe of Horror Volume 3: The Long Night of the Grave (Neccon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  The poker fell.

  He lowered his head. Turned it slowly so he could see over his shoulder, to a shadow of himself rising and falling and filling the front hall and hiding the door. He turned back to the fire and covered his face with his hands.

  Trying to remember the words that he needed to keep the nightmares away.

  The wind rattled the panes.

  The fire reached for the chimney.

  And the words wouldn’t be found.

  Though his lips moved and his hands dropped away to knead at his thighs and his gaze followed the writhing of the flames, the words wouldn’t be found.

  A dog howled, and he scrambled back, fell onto his side, fought his way to his feet and stood trembling, looking out of the window on the other side of the room. To the silverwhite of the valley and the black wall of the hills; nearer, to the gleaming of the railroad tracks and the front yard whose grass had been barred with tree shadows.

  The dog howled again, and he closed his eyes tightly.

  It’s only Gert Naysmith’s hound, he told himself; on the loose again in spite of the warnings he’d given the old woman. He didn’t care that she was his only neighbor; he’d never had use for her and her nosy ways, the way she looked at him as if he’d grown a second head every time he strolled past her hut just a hundred yards through the trees, up the line.

  A third time, high-pitched and anxious.

  He licked his lips, wiped his face with a sleeve, and moved closer to the sill. His reflection a ghost of a man once great with weight, once distinguished with fine clothes and a fine head of grey hair. A stickman now, hair matted and stringy, clothes dusty and torn, the face of a dead man whose last breath was a scream.

  He blinked, and through his reflection saw a figure in the yard, dust swirling around him, not touching him, passing on.

  “Oh my god,” he whispered, and backed away denying.

  A look to the hearth, to the flames, and finally to the poker aimed toward the embers. He snatched it up and hugged it. A wild look side to side. An idea that running out the back door and into the woods would save him, if only he’d be able to run all the way to the village through the dark.

  Or make it to that damnable house of traitors where he knew the words were, written by his own hand between dark leather covers, on fine gold-edged paper; words that had once been his sword to keep his treasure from being stolen, a sword now aimed at the soft hollow of his throat.

  He could do it. He had to do it — he was tired of running when there was no place to go.

  Slowly he made his way to the window again and peered out from the side. The figure was gone. The wind had died. Nothing left but the moon, and a few strands of mist that became cloud over the tracks.

  A tremulous smile, a shake of his head, and he turned his back on the outside. “They wouldn’t dare,” he told himself.

  A nod of agreement, and he leaned the poker against the sill and hurried to the sideboard to pour himself a large snifter of brandy from an open decanter already half empty though it had been filled just that morning. He drank it in two large gulps, put a hand to his chest to feel the fire, poured himself another and carried it over to the hearth.

  He never should have left the book out of his sight. That had been his second mistake. The first had been to let the others know he had it.

  Damn, he thought, and drained the glass in haste. Brandy slipped over his chin, and he wiped it away with a sleeve, took a deep breath and strode boldly back to the window.

  Nothing.

  The yard was empty.

  And filled with sudden anger he whirled and threw the snifter into the fire and went into the hall where he grabbed his coat from the rack, and screamed when something pounded against the door.

  The coat fell to the floor as he backed out of the foyer, stumbling over a shadow, groping for the poker until it was safely in his hands.

  The pounding again, and a panel splintered.

  They couldn’t have done it, he thought as he looked desperately around the room; they couldn’t have, they need me!

  The hinges snapped in thunder, the door fell inward, and something came in.

  Reskin held the poker high as he sidestepped toward the dining room, chest rising and falling as though his lungs couldn’t get the air that he needed.

  The fire roared.

  The wind rose again.

  And it stood in the doorway, blackshadow and tall, the mist snaking in after it, bringing in the cold.

  A moment of courage: “Go!” he commanded. “This is not your place, go!”

  It didn’t move.

  Blackshadow, without a sound.

  Reskin glanced at the wall beside him, cursing the day he’d pulled out the telephone to keep it from bothering him while he was trying to work; he glanced at the window and wondered if he could reach it before the blackshadow reached him; he felt the fire at his back and the brandy in his stomach, and courage fled as the first tear worked its way from a squinting bloodshot eye.

  The thing was moving toward him.

  One step at a time.

  Mist curling now around its legs.

  Blackshadow without eyes.

  “No,” Reskin whispered.

  Into the room where the fire gave it a face.

  “No!” Reskin screamed, threw the poker as hard as he could at its head, and bolted into the small dining room.

  A stack of books in his way, and he tried to dodge it, fell over it, and whimpered as he half-crawled, half-ran toward the kitchen door, his left shoulder striking the leg of the table, his right shoulder smashing into the wall when he tried to right himself and lost his balance.

  A single glance behind, and he saw it framed by the window and lighted by the fire, nearly seven feet tall and looking like the grave.

  He grabbed his arm and ran on, right, into the kitchen and out the back door without bothering to slam it shut behind him.

  The backyard was shallow, and in six long strides he was into the trees.

  And hadn’t gone six paces more when he slammed into a bole and was knocked to the damp ground. He groaned and pushed himself slowly to his knees. His arm was afire, his chest felt crushed, and when he blinked and squinted into the night he could feel blood on his brow, slipping around to his right temple.

  Dizziness as he staggered to his feet, swaying, turning without wanting to, and seeing the figure standing by him.

  Blackshadow.

  Waiting.

  “Please,” he whispered. “I didn’t tell. Please, dear God, I didn’t tell, I swear it.”

  The thing reached out its hand.

  “Please. “

  And took hold of Reskin’s throat.

  The dog howled, and Gert Naysmith stormed angrily out of the house, a broom in her hand. She wasn’t going to get a god’s luck worth of sleep tonight if that misbegotten creature didn’t shut its mouth. A look around the ragged yard, and she stalked to the tracks where the trees couldn’t hide the face of the moon, but she still couldn’t see where that idiot hound had gone.

  Were it the rabbit sound she’d heard, or the raccoon, she could have let it be; she could sleep to that noise, God knew.

  But not this one.

  This was a hunting sound like none she’d ever heard, and she yanked at a trailing end of her shawl as she made her way south along the ties, muttering, wishing she’d given the beast a name so she could call it to her and find out what the hell was going on.

  Probably that damned Reskin again, beating the poor thing because it bothered his precious studying. A hundred times she’d been there since the fool had moved in, trying to get him to see that he needed someone to look after the place — look after him, if it come to it — so’s he could do all that work he kept claiming he had to do. Jackass. Killing himself was what he was doing. Killing himself right next to her place and not giving a damn.

  She swatted a cowering field mouse off the rails.

  She felt the chilled night through the
layers of skirts found in people’s trash, the homespun blouse, the sweater, the shawl.

  She swatted the air and slowed as she approached the cottage.

  The hound bayed, softly, sadly, as if it was ready to die.

  Too damn old for this stuff, she thought as she hurried on; I should be taking care of myself, not some fool dog. Then her temper began to rise as the trees fell away, flickering light from the professor’s cottage reaching out to his lawn as if the building were on fire.

  It was his fault, she thought sourly; everything had been fine until he moved in. The nights had been quiet, no one bothered her, no one talked to her. Just the way she liked it.

  Then everything had changed.

  The nights were no longer quiet, they were silent.

  Two of her dogs ran off, the hound the only one that stayed and that because it was too old to do much of anything but bark; her cats, she never knew how many because they came and they went, all disappeared. Not one by one; all at the same time.

  And the noises. Quiet noises. Sneaking noises. Noises she couldn’t hear once she started listening.

  Even poor witless Freddy didn’t visit her anymore. He was ascared, he said, of the spooks and the haunts that he claimed had come to live in the woods.

  Gert didn’t know how, but she knew it was Reskin’s fault.

  And tonight, for some reason, was the last straw.

  It was by God the last night she’d put up with him, hurting her pets.

  With her broom at the ready, her dander up and running, she lifted one foot up to step over the rail and march at him and demand he stop whatever it was and leave her alone.

  It took her a moment to see through her anger, but when she could, she saw the hound lying on its side in the slow moving mist, and the thing coming toward her. One step at a time.

  She threw the broom and turned to run, her foot snagging in a gap between tie and gravel. And when she fell, the side of her head struck the flat of the rail, and the last thing she heard was something stepping up beside her.

  Chapter 6

  The clouds joined after midnight, the storm hovering on wings of black and grey, sending wind down the streets to spin leaves into the gutters, sending droplets against windows to streak with the dust blown from the roads; hovering, and calling both wind and rain back when the sun rose and the clouds lightened and those who left their homes glanced back over their shoulders, sure they had seen something, telling themselves it was only the weather.

  On Williamston Pike, John scowled at the dismal look of the back garden from his bedroom window. The flowers were dull, the grass lifeless despite the predawn shower, and the trees at the back looked no better than they did when autumn stripped them bare. Yet Leo was still out there each time the rain stopped, attacking the weeds, raking the leaves, pretending that what he did wasn’t futile, wasn’t dumb.

  “God, Johnny,” he muttered, “you’re going to slit your throat next.”

  A palm wearily rubbed across his forehead.

  He hadn’t slept well; there had been dreams.

  Not his frugal father chiding him for letting the family’s slim cache of money slip away. Not this time.

  This time it was shadowy figures passing a wooden bowl among them, something gold flaring back in a corner, and voices that slipped past his ear without leaving words behind.

  He had awakened twice with a start, each time staring at the bedroom door and swearing to himself that the glass knob was turning over, each time taking more than a few minutes to lie back among the pillows and stare blindly at the black ceiling until sleep took him again.

  And brought back the dreams.

  He knew it was because he was feeling guilty about Jeffrey, and knew too it meant he was weakening. If he couldn’t shake the feeling, sooner or later he would go up to the Hall and tell Isle that the money was his, goddamnit, and don’t disappoint me this time or it’ll surely be the end.

  He dressed slowly, leaving off his collar, pulling on a pair of trousers he used when hiking through the woods. A belt instead of suspenders. His lightweight blue sweater. Full boots instead of Wellingtons. This kind of weather, and the mood he was in, didn’t deserve a proper outfit; and if he hadn’t been afraid of tempting the dreams, he would have slipped back under the covers and let sleep kill the day.

  Then he returned to the window and, holding the draperies aside, stared at the garden again, watching with melancholy envy as Karragan knelt on the damp earth and pulled out the weeds, lips moving, head bobbing, hands in a rhythm that knew each of the beds as if they were his children.

  He was still standing there at ten o’clock when Mrs. Karragan knocked on his door and told him there was a visitor.

  “At this hour, who?” he asked, following the plump woman along the hall to the stairs.

  “He wouldn’t give his name, and it’s not for me to ask,” she said stiffly. “A foreign gentleman is all I know. “

  He grinned at her disapproving back. “Bring him into the study, if you please, Mrs. Karragan. And some tea as well. I still don’t think I’m awake yet.”

  She grunted a scolding at the hours he kept and headed for the door while he turned to the right at the foot of the staircase and hurried down the short hall to the first door on the left. He went in, threw open the drapes, and grimaced when the grey light didn’t make the cluttered room look any better.

  He had just managed to dump a stack of books from a leather chair when a knock on the doorframe turned him around.

  Mrs. Karragan stood stiffly on the threshold, stern-faced and silent, then sniffed and backed away and a man took her place, without coat and hat, only a scarf thrown around his neck.

  “Mr. Vicar, please?”

  John managed a smile. “Do come in, sir.” He hesitated. “You must be Khirhal Bey.” He hesitated again before adding, by way of explanation, “Jeffrey Isle is a friend of mine.”

  The man in the severe black suit bowed slightly. His hair was black and brushed straight back over his scalp; his skin dark, his figure slender, his features soft with youth though there were harsh lines about his mouth, deeper ones at his eyes. He bowed again when John offered him the chair, and was ready to sit when Mrs. Karragan entered with the tray. John took it from her with thanks and closed the door behind her.

  “Tea?” he asked.

  Khirhal Bey shook his head.

  John poured his own, sipped at it, winced with a smile, and drained the cup.

  The man said nothing.

  John sighed to himself, refilled his cup and sat on the corner of an open roll top desk. From the expression on the man’s face, he knew pleasantries were going to be out of the question.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Bey?”

  The Egyptian was perched rigidly on the edge of the cushion, hands flat on his knees. “You have, I believe, a certain bowl, Mr. Vicar,” he said, the words clipped, the accent a cross between British and something John couldn’t place. “I believe it was given to you by a certain Peter Reskin.”

  “Not given,” he corrected politely. “I purchased it.”

  Bey lifted a hand: a mere detail, no matter.

  “I should like to have it back.”

  An eyebrow lifted. “Ah. It’s yours then?” And: damn you, Jeff, I was right — it’s been stolen.

  “My people’s, Mr. Vicar, not mine alone. In this capacity I merely act as their agent.”

  “I see. You’re from the Egyptian government, I take it.”

  “Not exactly,” the man replied. “An agent merely of my people.”

  John waited for further explanation as he stirred sugar into the tea. There was something about the man he instantly disliked, a bearing that told him Bey considered him somewhat inferior, definitely less than an equal.

  And when the man said nothing more, he cleared his throat. “And you are prepared to buy it back from me, is that it? Is that what Jeffrey suggested?”

  Bey’s lips, dark and full, twitched in a brief
smile. “I have no intention of giving gold for what is rightfully ours, Mr. Vicar.”

  He smiled back as he placed cup and saucer on the desk beside him. “Well, that’s something you’ll have to take up with Mr. Isle, I’m afraid. You see, matters are a bit more complicated here than you may be aware of.”

  “Sakhtu,” said Bey sharply.

  John was puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

  The Egyptian rose to his feet, hands tight at his sides. “You see, Mr. Vicar? You do not recognize the name, yet you steal from him without qualm. “

  “Just a minute,” he said, standing as well. “You’d better think twice before accusing a man of theft in his own home.”

  The man’s chest rose and fell several times before at last he lowered his eyes. “I am sorry. It is my curse that my youth has not yet granted me patience. ‘ ,

  John lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Mine as well, Mr. Bey. But perhaps you’d better explain — ”

  Khirhal Bey folded his hands professorially before him. “Yes. Yes, thank you. Knowledge is always best for illumination of wrongs.”

  John barely managed to keep himself from frowning.

  “Sakhtu,” the Egyptian continued, “is a great priest, Mr. Vicar. A man of vision and unlimited wisdom. A man of power. During the heathen reign of Mentuhotep many centuries ago, he was severely persecuted for his beliefs, much as your ancestors were before they fled to this grand country.” He looked up, dark eyes bright with what John thought were tears. “He is a priest of the great Ra, and at the time of Mentuhotep and Osiris, that was an invitation to murder. There is little left of him now, sir, save a few paltry artifacts to console those who follow him even unto this day.”

  “I see,” John said. “And what you’re saying is, Reskin stole some of these things from you.”

  Bey nodded once.

  John moved to the window and once again looked out at his garden. His hands were curled just shy of fists in his pockets, and he wished he could put them around Isle’s neck for getting him, and no doubt the others, into this awkward situation. His initial impulse was to give the bowl to the man and be done with it. He certainly didn’t need trouble with any possible fanatical followers of a long dead priest.