“I stood in amazement looking at their bare feet. They seemed unaware of the glass, unaware of everything. Great gashes were in their feet. As he lifted his feet ceaselessly across the floor, two of Tresaint’s toes dangled like broken palm leaves. The wounds had a strange unnatural appearance. There was no sign of blood.
“Horrified I looked in Tresaint’s face. His eyes did not move, his nostrils and mouth gave no sign of breathing. And as I looked I saw his face set in rigidity, the flesh seemed to drop away leaving nothing but cheek bones and eyes. His ribs stood out through the torn shirt—bare.
“I screamed in horror. He was dead! They were all dead! They were corpses treading a fantastic dance of death.
“My screams awoke the drunken slaves from their stupor. Opening their eyes, without rising from the floor, they saw what I had seen. The truth was plain to them. They cried in terror at the dead dancing bodies. They scrambled to their feet and fled out of the house and down the road. The whole mountainside shook with their yells of horror as they raced away. I was left alone with these prancing shells of men.
“For some reason, I do not know what, unless it was for the love I had borne him, I was impelled to touch him who had been so close to me. I reached for his hand as he passed by in his endless mad dance.
“The fingers closed cold around my hand. The two arms pressed me against the body which stopped still. I could hear and feel my own heartbeat—nothing more. It was as if I was being enfolded by the cool marble of the villa.
“He placed a hand over my heart, then quickly on one of the other forms. He turned his unseeing eyes full from my face to the others. Then those eyes, which had been as glassy and dead as the eyes of a fish two days from the bay, mirrored such horror as the world had never seen. From the dead caverns of the throat came a cry. Half shriek and half groan of such force and terror that my blood froze.
“The others took up the cry. I was mad from horror.”
Marie was living again those dead days. Her body was shaking with emotion. Her voice rose and fell, reflecting all the horror of her story.
She arose from her stool, stepping fantastically in the moonlight, to show how that macabre measure was trod by the moving dead in the glass covered marble of the salon.
I was too engrossed to interrupt. She talked on:
“Those shrieks of horror meant that they knew they were dead. It was their spirits crying out—crying to be released from their dead bodies.
“My hand was still held by the lifeless fingers—fingers without blood, but with all the strength of iron bands.
“With one accord the forms rushed through the villa, bounding me along with them. Down the road they tore. My feet did not seem to touch the ground. I felt as if I were being whisked through the air. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but so mighty were their cries that my ears never received a sound coming from my lips.
“Down, down the road we flew. A sight to strike terror into the bravest heart. For miles the screams could be heard and we met nothing on the road, but deserted burros. The travelers had heard the fearful noises and the dust that the leaping spirits raised in the afternoon sun had sent them scurrying from the approaching horror, to a safe retreat from the roadside. God, Monsieur, it was such a sight that would strike you dead. Six dead men racing and falling down the road, dragging along a woman more gripped by fear and horror than death itself holds. Heads like death; bodies stripped of clothes, the rags fluttering behind them; skeleton ribs showing the dust of the road through their gaunt gaps; the fleshless arms raised, threshing the air; and above all the shrill, deep unearthly yells that came from still throats. On down the road!”
Marie had worked herself up into a fearful pitch of excitement. She arose from her stool.
“Like this they ran!” And with that she threw open her dress, lifted her arms and began bounding around the garden. Her dress trailed after her as she ran, her arms clutched wildly at the air, and from her throat came a low horrible cry.
There in the moonlight I myself saw that mad race down the mountain. She was no longer an old woman of more than a hundred years, she became a deathless spirit.
I jumped to my feet, throbbing with excitement. She dashed up and caught my hand in a viselike grip. I had become part of the mad cavalcade.
She ran on, pulling me by her side. I was the living being dragged along by death. I shuddered and wrenched my hand loose from her cold clutch.
She was too wrought up to resume her seat. She continued to move about spasmodically as she spoke:
“On down the road we came—never stopping. On, on, near the city. The other slaves had run down before us and spread the news that dead men were dancing in the master’s villa. Crowds filled the roads out from the city. They had heard us coming. They wanted to see with their own eyes. As we bounded around a curve into their midst, they shouted in horror. They had not expected so terrifying a sight. Screaming they turned in their tracks and rushed down the road before us. Like a herd of wild cattle from the hills they stampeded into the city, shoving one another wildly, tripping and falling—all screaming in terror at the oncoming spectacle. Such confusion, fright and horror as no one could picture.
“On in the city we came, heralded by the crazed multitude. Old men throwing away their crutches and running lamely away. Mothers with babies clutched to their breasts, fleeing as if from death itself. The very animals in the town were overcome with terror. Droves of burros charged wildly around the Champ de Mars; horses, deserted by their drivers, crashed their empty carriages against the palms as the crazed beasts sought to escape the tumult. Goats, dogs and fowls sensed the terror and added their voices to the bedlam of the humans. Still on, on, I was dragged. I was as powerless as a baby in that grip of death. Those long strong bones that had only a few hours before been the hand of my lover jerked me along as if I were one of the rags that fluttered behind the crazed spirits.
“My whole soul had gone out in horror. I thought there was no feeling left in me. Drained by terror as I was, I saw before me a sight that seemed to draw all the horror of the fear-stricken city into my own breast. Directly in front of me were the gates to the cemetery!
“The spirits’ screams grew wilder and louder than ever. There seemed a note of triumph to the din as I was whisked through the gate.
“On over the graves we went. My mouth was open wide, but no sound came. My eyes felt as if they had fallen on my cheeks; my throat as if it were being clutched by the ghosts of the countless dead as I was yanked from one grave to another.
“With one last effort I tore at the bones around my hand. It was like tearing at the marble tombstones. My eyes could see no more. They closed.
“My body swung through the air and bounded over the ground like this—” The old woman hurtled herself on the grass, turning over several times.
I rushed to her side. It was a violent jolt to an old woman of her years. But she lay there as she fell and continued talking. Spellbound I drank in every word.
“Oui, Monsieur, I lay like this. I do not know how long and then I noticed that the cries seemed far away—and different. They were the cries from the frightened city, not the wailing screams of the spirits. I lifted my right hand—it was free. I opened my eyes. There beside me were the bodies, perfectly still, lying peacefully on their backs all in a row. That which had once been Tresaint was nearest me. I reached out fearfully and touched the hand. It was stiff in death.
“I staggered over the graves and out through the cemetery. Some of the braver of the town people did not run when they saw me approaching. They knew that the spirits’ shrieks had ceased and that I was alive. They went into the cemetery, on back into the corner where the bodies lay.
“As they lifted up the corpses they discovered a curious looseness to the earth. There were six graves under the covering of sod. Each body had lain evenly over a waiting grave. The spirits had known that, Monsieur , and that is why they had rushed down the mountain to set themselves at rest, to re
lease themselves from the dead bodies. That which was Tresaint had tried to drag me to the grave with him, but when he found only the six graves he had flung me aside. There would have been seven graves in the cemetery yonder at the foot of the mountain if I had eaten of the salt.
“Ah! If Tresaint had listened to my warnings my lover would be with me now.”
“But the salt, Marie?” I enquired. “By obeying the master—is that what keeps you well and strong?”
“What else could it be?” she answered earnestly. “As surely as the rains come from the sea, if I never tasted salt I should live to be as old as the mountains and as strong.”
“Then you will never die?” I asked, struck by the earnestness in the old woman’s voice.
“Monsieur, have you a match?”
Wonderingly I made a light as she ran her thin fingers over the grass near her head.
“Would you taste this for me?” She dropped a few grains of salt she had pinched between her fingers into my hand.
I made as if I tasted it. “It is salt,” I said in a low voice. I was becoming strangely upset—so in sympathy with the old woman’s story that I was afraid of a grain of salt.
“Yes,” she said, “I thought so. That is why I have told you all this. Everyone who knew my story died many years ago, but now I wanted someone to learn it before I go.”
“But you said you would never go unless you tasted—salt.” I hesitated on the word. My voice was jumpy. The old woman’s strange calm and cryptic remarks after her delirious running around the garden had upset me more than I cared to admit.
“Oh! but I have—this afternoon.” Her voice became sharp and venomous. “That little imp of the Evil One threw some in my mouth. He said he stumbled and accidentally a few grains hit my tongue—but,” her voice became low again, “but what difference does it make how it happened? I have eaten and the curse is upon me. Perhaps a little more will hasten the time.”
She licked her hands hungrily, then ran her tongue over the grass.
I shuddered and rose to my feet.
“Good night, Marie,” I called weakly as I walked to the hotel door.
“Adieu, Monsieur,” she answered.
I climbed the stairs to my room. Why did she say farewell instead of good night? I did not want an answer. “Don’t be such a fool,” I told myself, “as to be worrying over some voodoo spell of over a hundred years ago.”
I undressed and got into bed, but I could not sleep. I arose and poured a stiff drink of rum from a bottle on the washstand. With the drink and a cigarette I felt that I could get to sleep. I reached for my matches. Then I remembered I had left them in the garden. The moon had gone down and the night was inky black, but I thought I could find them by locating the stool and feeling around in the grass.
I slipped on my shoes and bathrobe, and groped my way down the back stairs. As I opened the door I hoped that old Marie had gone to her room. The dark was thick enough to cut with a knife. I hesitated a moment to get my bearings. I did want a cigarette.
Then out straight in front where I was looking I saw a faint glow. She was still there. The glow brightened and the huge bowl of the calabash pipe took shape before my eyes. And then the face! Plainer than in the moonlight!
Great drops of perspiration rolled down my chilled forehead. I was rooted in horror. My heart pounded the roof of my mouth.
That face! The flesh melted away under my terrified gaze. Nothing was left, but the grim bones of the dead.
As I watched, stricken with cold terror, old Marie fell headlong on the cool grass of the garden. I knew she was dead, and I knew how it was she had died.
A THOUSAND DEATHS
Jack London
Jack London was the author of the adventure classics The Call of the Wild and White Fang. He was born in San Francisco, the illegitimate son of a traveling astrologer. As a child, poverty forced him to work ten-hour days in a canning factory for ten cents an hour. At the age of fourteen he borrowed money to buy a small boat and joined in raids on privately owned oyster fields, before switching to the other side, working for law enforcement. When he was seventeen he signed aboard a ship bound for Japan. On his return he became a hobo, traveling throughout the United States, with ninety days in prison for vagrancy.
London’s education came primarily from books. At the age of nineteen he began high school and the following year he attended a semester at the University of California. In 1897 he left for the Klondike to take part in the gold rush there. On returning to San Francisco, he tried to make a living by writing, but had little luck until his adventure stories set in the Yukon began to be published. Those were a tremendous success. An active socialist with Marxist leanings, he claimed he only wrote for money, saying, “If I could have my choice about it, I never would put pen to paper—except to write a socialist essay to tell the bourgeois world how much I despise it.” But this didn’t slow him down, for he wrote close to fifty books in seventeen years. After enduring a divorce, continuing financial difficulties, severe health problems, and his heavy drinking, he finally died from an overdose of morphine at the age of forty. Some believe his death was a suicide, while others are convinced it was accidental. His stories remain tremendously popular, largely for capturing the American ideal of rugged individualism.
This story is an excellent foray into the realm of science fiction, along the lines of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
I had been in the water about an hour, and cold, exhausted, with a terrible cramp in my right calf, it seemed as though my hour had come. Fruitlessly struggling against the strong ebb tide, I had beheld the maddening procession of the water-front lights slip by, but now I gave up attempting to breast the stream and contented myself with the bitter thoughts of a wasted career, now drawing to a close.
It had been my luck to come of good, English stock, but of parents whose account with the bankers far exceeded their knowledge of child-nature and the rearing of children. While born with a silver spoon in my mouth, the blessed atmosphere of the home circle was to me unknown. My father, a very learned man and a celebrated antiquarian, gave no thought to his family, being constantly lost in the abstractions of his study; while my mother, noted far more for her good looks than her good sense, sated herself with the adulation of the society in which she was perpetually plunged. I went through the regular school and college routine of a boy of the English bourgeoisie, and as the years brought me increasing strength and passions, my parents suddenly became aware that I was possessed of an immortal soul, and endeavored to draw the curb. But it was too late; I perpetrated the wildest and most audacious folly, and was disowned by my people, ostracized by the society I had so long outraged, and with the thousand pounds my father gave me, with the declaration that he would neither see me again nor give me more, I took a first-class passage to Australia.
Since then my life had been one long peregrination—from the Orient to the Occident, from the Arctic to the Antarctic—to find myself at last, an able seaman at thirty, in the full vigor of my manhood, drowning in San Francisco bay because of a disastrously successful attempt to desert my ship.
My right leg was drawn up by the cramp, and I was suffering the keenest agony. A slight breeze stirred up a choppy sea, which washed into my mouth and down my throat, nor could I prevent it. Though I still contrived to keep afloat, it was merely mechanical, for I was rapidly becoming unconscious. I have a dim recollection of drifting past the sea-wall, and of catching a glimpse of an upriver steamer’s starboard light; then everything became a blank.
I heard the low hum of insect life, and felt the balmy air of a spring morning fanning my cheek. Gradually it assumed a rhythmic flow, to whose soft pulsations my body seemed to respond. I floated on the gentle bosom of a summer’s sea, rising and falling with dreamy pleasure on each crooning wave. But the pulsations grew stronger; the humming, louder; the waves, larger, fiercer—I was dashed about on a stormy sea. A great agony fastened upon me. Brilliant, intermittent sparks of light flashed
athwart my inner consciousness; in my ears there was the sound of many waters; then a sudden snapping of an intangible something, and I awoke.
The scene, of which I was protagonist, was a curious one. A glance sufficed to inform me that I lay on the cabin floor of some gentleman’s yacht, in a most uncomfortable posture. On either side, grasping my arms and working them up and down like pump handles, were two peculiarly clad, dark-skinned creatures. Though conversant with most aboriginal types, I could not conjecture their nationality. Some attachment had been fastened about my head, which connected my respiratory organs with the machine I shall next describe. My nostrils, however, had been closed, forcing me to breathe through my mouth. Foreshortened by the obliquity of my line of vision, I beheld two tubes, similar to small hosing but of different composition, which emerged from my mouth and went off at an acute angle from each other. The first came to an abrupt termination and lay on the floor beside me; the second traversed the floor in numerous coils, connecting with the apparatus I have promised to describe.
In the days before my life had become tangential, I had dabbled not a little in science, and, conversant with the appurtenances and general paraphernalia of the laboratory, I appreciated the machine I now beheld. It was composed chiefly of glass, the construction being of that crude sort which is employed for experimentative purposes. A vessel of water was surrounded by an air chamber, to which was fixed a vertical tube, surmounted by a globe. In the centre of this was a vacuum gauge. The water in the tube moved upwards and downwards, creating alternate inhalations and exhalations, which were in turn communicated to me through the hose. With this, and the aid of the men who pumped my arms, so vigorously, had the process of breathing been artificially carried on, my chest rising and falling and my lungs expanding and contracting, till nature could be persuaded to again take up her wonted labor.
The Book of the Living Dead Page 40
