The Year's Best Horror Stories 4

by Gerald W. Page (Ed. )

  Halfway of the rock projection Crewson paused for an instant to stare down at an enormous horseshoe crab which the recent blow had cast up upon the beach in an upside-down position. It was wriggling its legs furiously in its efforts to right itself, and he was moved by pity to bend down, pick it up, and toss it far out beyond the small waves that were lapping at the sand a few feet from where he was standing.

  A strange thought came into his mind—what Timothy had said about the Greek ships riding at anchor in an age remote from ours, but not in the least ancient to a horseshoe crab. For uncounted millions of years horseshoe crabs had survived unchanged, passed over by an evolutionary process that had brought about the rise and fall of the dinosaurs.

  He had just started to walk on when he heard the screaming. Two voices seemed to be screaming in unison, one unmistakably that of a woman and the other even more unnerving, because it wasn't often that a man screamed in just as high-pitched accents of masculinity.

  He had no doubt at all that the screams were coming from the anchored sailboat. The beach was unoccupied by human forms as far as the rock projection, and when screams drifted ashore across a short stretch of water they had to come either from someone thrashing about in the water, or from a boat. And there were no desperately struggling forms anywhere in the water.

  Crewson had always believed that it was a mistake to break into a run, unless someone in need of help was in immediate, critical danger. A swift stride could lessen the danger of stumbling and when the distance was very short the loss of a few seconds was more than offset by a gain in purposeful assurance.

  He moved swiftly enough, keeping parallel with the surf-line, but avoiding a too close approach to the narrow ribbon of sand which the waves had left wet and soggy.

  He was soon within wading distance of the boat, with the rock ledge stretching out in front of him like the fanlike crest of some enormous lizard half buried in the sand.

  The tide was receding, but that did not mean that he could reach the anchored craft solely by wading. But the distance he might have to cover by swimming would, he felt, be so short that untying his sneakers and kicking them off would needlessly delay him.

  The screams had stopped, but before the water reached to his knees other sounds came to his ears—a creaking and a shuffling, followed by a groan that made him pause for an instant to stare at the boat's rail. He could see nothing and continued on until the water rose to his shoulders.

  He was less than thirty feet from the boat when the depth of the water ruled out further walking. He surrendered to the buoyancy of the tide and swam toward the almost stationary craft with a breaststroke, feeling that an overhand crawl would have been an absurdity.

  So short was the distance that he was at the rail, grasping it firmly and heaving himself across it, before the froglike movements of his legs had made more than a slight swirl in the water.

  There were two people in the sailboat, both of whom he recognized.

  Richard Forbes was dragging himself across the foredeck, one hand pressed to his side and the other grasping the loose end of a coil of rope that kept unraveling like a snake in his clasp. His features were distorted with what could have been either stark terror or dazed incomprehension. It was impossible for Crewson to tell. His jaw sagged and his eyes had a slightly filmy look.

  Slumped on the deck a few feet from him was perhaps the most strikingly beautiful of the dozen or more women who had accompanied Forbes in a sailing cruise around the harbor and often further in coastal waters in the past year and a half.

  Helen Tanner was thirty or thirty-two but she had the rosy-cheeked complexion of a girl of seventeen. Only now most of the rosiness had vanished and she looked haggard-eyed and drawn. Her pale blond hair, dampened by the fog, clung to her brow in such a way that, quite suddenly and appallingly, made Crewson think of Medusa's coils. She had seemed to be bearing up fairly well, but the instant Crewson looked directly at her, her expression changed and she screamed once shrilly, and then fell silent with a look that might well have turned Perseus to stone.

  It was a terrible, fathomless look, as if she had gazed on something so monstrous that it had drained away all that was womanly in her.

  But still, despite all that, she seemed to want desperately to tell him what had happened to bring her to such a pass. Her lips moved, twitching spasmodically, and she raised herself a little more and her hand went out toward him.

  He moved toward her on his knees—getting to his feet had seemed less urgent than reaching her before she collapsed—and took firm hold of her hand.

  "What is it?" he breathed. "What has happened here? Did—did Forbes try to attack you?"

  She shook her head. "No, no—oh, God, no. He's badly hurt. Can't you see? It tore at his side . . . clawed him."

  Forbes's voice came then, as if from a great distance, as if the air surrounding him had changed into a swirling vortex carrying him far away in space and time. There was a deadness in his voice, a hollowness. Yet it seemed laden with anguish as well.

  "It was like a mist at first—a mist that crept in over the rail. I thought it was just the fog—coming back again, getting quickly denser, as fogs often do."

  Crewson released his tight grip on Helen Tanner's hand, swung about and stood up, a little surprised by the steadiness in his legs. He was grateful for the slight swaying of the boat, for it enabled him to cross to Forbes's side in a somewhat lurching way. Otherwise he might have given Forbes the impression that he was sturdily in command of himself and he did not want to do that. A man or woman in great distress, in need of support, likes to think that he is not alone in experiencing inner torment. The comforter, Crewson knew, has to be a little shaken himself—if he is to provide a wholly sympathetic kind of support.

  He took as firm a hold of Forbes's shoulder as he had of Helen Tanner's hand and cautioned: "Perhaps you'd better not try to talk. Suppose you just let me have a look at your side. The wound may not be as bad as you think."

  Forbes made no attempt to rise. But he removed the hand that had been pressed to his side, exposing a dull, red stain that was triangular in shape. His sport shirt was badly ripped, with pinpoints of glistening redness on the torn cloth where it clung to the wound in frayed strips.

  He shook his head when Crewson bent to examine more closely one of the lacerations, which seemed the opposite of a superficial scratch.

  "No sense in looking at it," Forbes said, quickly replacing his hand. "I know how bad it is. Its talons were like little knives. If they had been longer—"

  "Its talons?"

  "I tried to tell you. Why did you stop me? It was like a mist at first, and then it changed. It changed into some kind of animal. It was jet-black and had four limbs and a head. The head kept getting larger and there were eyes in it, and I think it had a beak. But I can't be sure, because something happened to my mind. I could see nothing clearly after that."

  "Did you try to defend yourself when it attacked you?" Crewson heard himself asking. "Did you struggle with it?"

  Forbes let go of the rope he'd been gripping and pounded the deck with his fist, as if just remembering what had happened demanded some kind of emotional release.

  "I couldn't move. I tried to back away from it, tried to get the rail behind me for support. But it rose up and flung itself at me while I was in a state of shock. There was a heaviness in my legs, and the deck looked warped, twisted up. It must have done something to my mind."

  "It didn't attack Miss Tanner?"

  "No, she tried to make it let go of me. She screamed and tugged at it. I don't know why it didn't turn on her. You can see what just the sight of it has done to her."

  "It may have been the feel of it," Crewson said. "I didn't ask her."

  "Please don't." Forbes said, staring across the deck to where Helen Tanner was still sitting motionless, her shoulders now a little hunched, and her fingers pressed to both sides of her brow. "She's been through enough."

  The salt sea air which h
ad always meant so much to Crewson seemed suddenly an unhealthy kind of air to breathe.

  He found that he could not take seriously a great deal of what Forbes had said. But something could have come flopping up out of the sea and landed on deck—probably had. A seal perhaps. They were not unheard of in New England waters. Then some kind of wild hysteria could have gripped both Forbes and Helen Tanner, and—

  But how explain the lacerations on Forbes's right side and his ripped shirt?

  Could Helen Tanner have succumbed to so wild a fright that she had lost all contact with reality and lunged at him with a knife, mistaking him for whatever it was that had flopped over the rail to the deck? But if she had done that what had happened to the knife?

  Crewson came to a quick, firm decision. He bent and took steadying hold of Forbes's shoulder for the second time.

  "We've got to get you to a hospital," he said. "I'll go ashore and come right back, and drive you both to East Windham. Miss Tanner needs immediate medical attention. The worst wounds are not always physical."

  "You can say that again," Forbes muttered, with a slight upward tilt to his lips that didn't quite result in a smile.

  It was past midnight when Crewson returned to the cottage after a two-way, fifty-mile drive. He put the car back into the garage and walked wearily up the white gravel path to the door of the sun parlor, surprised by its lighted-up aspect.

  The instant he passed through the door he was greeted by Timothy with an open book still in his hand.

  "What happened, Dad?" he asked. "What did they say at the hospital. Were they surprised?"

  "Naturally they were surprised," Crewson said. "A man with a bad wound in his side he can't readily explain away and a woman half out of her mind."

  He looked steadily at his son for a moment, then demanded: "Why are you up so late? I hope you have an excuse that stands up. I'm sure it can't be because you were worried about me."

  "I never worry about you, Dad," Timothy assured him. "You can take care of yourself."

  "I often wonder about that," Crewson said. "Going for a walk when supper was practically on the table wasn't such a bright idea—in view of what happened on the beach."

  "Do you believe Mr. Forbes's story?" Timothy asked.

  "I'm sorry I even mentioned what happened when I came back to get the car," Crewson said. "Now look. Forget about that excuse. What I want you to do is go straight upstairs to bed. You've done enough reading for today."

  "The Grecian ships—" Timothy began.

  Crewson suddenly became as angry as he was capable of becoming in the presence of his son.

  "You heard me. Straight upstairs to bed. I'm very serious, Timothy."

  "All right. But I just wanted you to know that what happened to Mr. Forbes wasn't my fault. I couldn't have stopped it. If I hadn't been reading about the Fall of Troy—"

  It confirmed everything that Crewson had feared. Stories of heroes and mythological monsters and ancient cities famous in song and legend might or might not be just the right kind of reading for children living under the shadow of The Bomb. But even if that could be debated pro and con it was the worst possible kind of reading for his son.

  It was Timothy above every other child in the world that he had been seeking to safeguard in taking what his wife had considered a ridiculous stand.

  Was it already too late? Had Timothy lost all contact with the world of sobriety and common sense? Childhood schizophrenia—

  It was a horror he refused to dwell on. Not tonight, not after all he had endured. It had been even worse at the hospital, in a way, than when he'd heaved himself up over the rail of Forbes's boat, and looked into Helen Tanner's fathomless, terror-haunted eyes. At the hospital she had collapsed again and they had carried her, shrieking and raving, into the emergency ward. It had taken two strong interns to control her.

  "Timothy," Crewson said.

  "What is it, Dad?"

  "Forgive me if I spoke a little harshly. Just go upstairs now and turn in. And try not to wake your mother. She may be needing all the sleep she can get."

  "But don't you want to know why—"

  "I don't want to hear anything more tonight," Crewson said, silencing his son with a look which would have been unwise for Timothy to ignore. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

  As soon as Timothy had vanished in the darkness at the top of the staircase Crewson took a slow turn up and down the sun parlor. It wasn't even a moon parlor now, since the night beyond its wide-paned windows was inky black, and the instant Timothy had ceased to make the stairs creak he had reached up, and pulled the chain on the hanging electric bulb which his son had left blazing.

  He had no particular desire to join his family upstairs. Anne, he knew, would go right on sleeping and not miss him at all unless she happened to wake up, and if she did she would take for granted that he'd chosen to spend the rest of the night on his favorite couch.

  Timothy would tell her that he'd returned safely, even if she didn't come downstairs to make sure. Probably she wouldn't, because he'd made a habit of sleeping on the couch several times a month, where the air was cooler on hot nights. It was something Anne did herself at times, creeping downstairs in the middle of the night and leaving him to slumber on in the heat in their upstairs bedroom.

  The couch was quite long and spacious and since it was on the side of the sun parlor where a cool breeze from the sea blew in most strongly—if just one window remained raised—all Crewson had to do was stretch himself out at full length and relax,

  It creaked a little as he eased himself down, making him decide to oil the springs in the morning. He sighed, turned on his side, and almost immediately fell asleep.

  Just how deep it was he had no way of knowing. He knew only that he awoke once, aware of an unusually strong sea smell in the room, but was far too drugged with sleep to pay it. much attention. In a deep, half-conscious way he remained aware of it for perhaps a full minute, but so overwhelming was his drowsiness that when it became no stronger he made no effort to resist the tug of slumber.

  When he opened his eyes again the sun parlor was no longer in total darkness. There was a faint glow in the eastern sky, and though the light which had crept in through the windows was too dim to enable him to see more than the shadowy outlines of the furniture—three chairs, a flower-stand, and a small, circular table—he could make out something huge and misshapen in a far corner that should not have been there at all.

  It was too solid-looking to have been a shadow. And there was nothing in the sun parlor that could have cast one of that shape and size.

  For a moment Crewson wasn't in the least frightened. There were so many ways of explaining something like that—a big chunk of bark from the dead oak on the lawn, ripped from the trunk and blown through the open window by a fierce gust of wind in the night, or something Timothy had lugged downstairs in the small hours, being too restless to sleep and wanting something to do. Or just possibly—but no, it was far too large to be a cat or a wood-chuck or a skunk.

  The chill began when he realized that thinking it might be some animal that had climbed through the window while he slept might very well be the truth. It got worse when it began to move about, sending so great a coldness lancing up through him that his lips began to shake.

  He sat up abruptly, as wide awake as he had ever been, jolted by an awareness of danger so acute that it drove every vestige of slumber from his brain. Only the dimness of the light prevented him from seeing it clearly, for his vision had ceased to be even slightly blurred.

  There was something vaguely parrot-like about it. But its body did not seem in the least birdlike and it moved with a scraping sound, as if its feet were claw-tipped.

  Crewson was shaking violently and uncontrollably now. He knew that he possessed as much courage as most men. But when a breath from the unknown blew cold upon anyone, man or woman, courage became a relative thing. It had always been that way, from the rude beginnings of human life on earth.

&nb
sp; There was a breath—sea bottom-fetid, as if some decaying shellfish had been stirred into a vaporized broth and sprayed into every corner of the sun parlor. It was moving toward him more swiftly now, swaying as it advanced, and making a sound that he had never associated with an animal of land-dwelling habits. It was neither a growl nor a catlike whining, but a kind of blubbery smacking-together of what may or may not have been lips.

  Suddenly it reared up and appeared to increase in bulk, and that abrupt change in its attitude seemed to do something to the light. There was a sudden brightness high up under the ceiling, bringing into view an enormous, shining beak and two eyes as large as dinner plates that were trained so fiercely upon Crewson that he could feel the heat of them searing his pupils and burning its way into his brain.

  There was an abrupt, loud clattering on the stairs, followed by a thud. It brought about an instant dimming of the light again. The beak and the eyes hovered for the barest instant in the diminished glow and then whipped away out of sight. The high-rearing bulk of the monstrous shape began to dissolve as Crewson stared, growing more and more attenuated until nothing but a thin curtain of revolving mist lingered between the couch and the corner of the room from which it had emerged. And in another moment even the mist was gone.

  Crewson's trembling had not stopped. But shaken as he was, he somehow managed to stand up and jerk at the chain of the hanging light bulb which he'd turned off long ago, in another age surely—some immeasurably remote period in time when his sanity had not yet deserted him in quite so total a way.

  The instant the sun parlor became flooded with light he saw Timothy. He was lying at the foot of the stairs in a sprawled-out heap, with no trace of animation in his limbs or features. His eyes were tightly shut and he was pajama-clad, and there was a swelling, dark bruise on his forehead which was visible from where Crewson stood.

  It was the bruise more than anything else which brought Crewson to his son's side with a concern so acute that he staggered and almost fell. He bent and gathered Timothy into his arms and started shaking him, not trusting himself to speak.