by Cave, Hugh
He lets go the wheel and covers his face with his hands. He hears brakes screaming. They are not his own; they belong to the monster with one light out. The single eye of illumination rushes headlong forward. Peter suddenly feels arms around him and lips touching his own.
"Come to me, Peter."
He crushes the woman in white against him.
There is a grinding crash of steel against steel, and fingers are tearing him asunder like the fingers in the room above the Omega Lunch.
"Don't be afraid, Peter. Kiss me."
Darkness roars into him, bringing sudden agony.
The Strange Death of Ivan Gromleigh
For weeks Philip Oden had worked on the hideous little clay figures, and now they were finished. He had only to group them, photograph them, and the illustrations for Gromleigh's horror-novel would be complete.
The clock on the dining-room mantel read one-thirty, and every muscle of Philip Oden's body ached. For two days and two nights he had lived on black coffee and sandwiches. No rest, no sleep. Gromleigh had phoned from New Orleans that the illustrations must be mailed to his New York publishers tomorrow.
Outside, the rain was still whispering down. Ellen, returning from the spiritualist meeting, would have to walk from the end of the bus line, through red, sticky mud. That was the curse of living in the sticks.
One-thirty! God, how slowly the hours had dragged! But the rest of the job would be easy, now, and…
Hearing footsteps, Oden jerked around and glanced into the living-room, toward the front door. His nerves were jumpy. He had been alone too long with those ugly clay figures. The mutter of the rain, the tick of the tin clock, had done something to his brain.
"It's only Ellen," he muttered.
It was Ellen, his wife, and something was wrong. He knew something was wrong, even though he and Ellen had been married only three weeks and as yet he really knew nothing about her.
She was drenched and shivering, and her face was white. Not pale, but white. It was an attractive face, with large, dark eyes and alluring lips—but something had drained all the blood out of it.
"What's wrong?" Oden demanded.
She closed the door and leaned against it, staring at him with those dark eyes. The rain had soaked through her lightweight coat, and when she shrugged herself out of the coat her young body flowed out against the wet, clinging silk of her dress. She was breathing hard, and her arrogant breasts swelled and collapsed, swelled and collapsed as if worked with a bellows, and suddenly she was in her husband's arms, sobbing.
"Oh, God, I'm scared, Phil!"
"Scared? Of what?"
"Something followed me all the way from the bus! I heard footsteps behind me, and when I turned to see who was making them, nothing was there. Nothing was there, Phil! The road was deserted. But the footsteps kept after me. When I stopped, they did, and when I ran, they ran! And nothing was there! Oh, God, it was horrible!"
Oden held her close to him and told her she was crazy. "You shouldn't go to those spook meetings," he said gently. "It's too hard on the nerves."
He didn't tell her that he had heard queer sounds tonight, as of someone prowling around the house. He didn't mention the fact that he had seen an ugly, twisted face peering in at one of the dining-room windows, watching him work, or that he had taken a revolver from the bureau upstairs and gone out into the rain—and found no sign of a prowler.
Not so long ago, his flesh had crawled the way hers was crawling now. But he didn't tell her so. It would only add to her terror.
He said, "I've been lonesome, honey," and pressed his lips gently against hers, and stroked her hair. Lonesome wasn't exactly the word for it. This woman, when close to him, inevitably aroused him to a feverish longing for her, and when she went away, a maddening hunger gnawed at him, giving him no peace.
It wasn't her fault, of course. It was just that she was all woman, every tantalizing, alluring inch of her, and he was so keenly aware of her charms. He wanted her near him, even though the nearness induced agony.
"You'd better get that wet dress off," he said softly. "You'll be catching cold."
She slipped the dress over her head and draped it over a chair. Then, like a woman, she stood before the mirror and did things to her hair, oblivious to the fact that her mature young body, nearly nude, was a lodestone for her husband's gaze. It was always that way. She never seemed to realize....
Oden's hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He licked his lips. The impulse to seize her in his arms was almost unbearable but he had to fight it, conquer it, because his work with those damnable clay figures was not yet finished. But God, how beautiful his wife was! How soft and full and creamy those half-covered breasts! How flawless the graceful curve of her back
He grabbed a lounging-robe off the divan and thrust it toward her. "Put this on," he muttered. "You'll catch cold. You ought to take a hot bath and go straight to bed."
She turned, her body gleaming in the lamplight. "Is your work finished, Philip?"
"Nearly."
She pulled the robe around her and walked into the dining-room to look at the clay figures. There were eight of them, each about ten inches high, and each figure was really two figures, representing a beast and a woman in ghastly embrace.
"How horrible!" Ellen whispered.
"They're supposed to be horrible," Oden said simply.
Yes, they were supposed to be horrible. They represented scenes from Gromleigh's book, The Ghastly Thing, and the book itself was the most gruesome thing Oden had ever read. The manuscript was upstairs on the bureau, and he had refused to let his wife read it.
In the first place, Ivan Gromleigh was not a professional author. He was an eminent psychiatrist and a firm believer in the theory that every human being, male or female, possessed a secret other self which was constantly struggling for separate existence. The book, a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing, was based on that theory.
It was the life story of one Herbert Grove, and described in detail the growth and development of Grove's other self, which Gromleigh called The Beast. Huge and hairless, the Beast prowled through the book's three hundred pages on missions of indescribable evil, murdering innocent victims, attacking women, and plunging half a continent into nightmare panic. Gromleigh, in his narration, left nothing to the reader's imagination.
It was real because Gromleigh knew enough about his subject to make it real. And the book ended on a note of horror, with the innocent Herbert Grove committed to an asylum for the criminally insane while his monstrous other self, unfettered, roamed forth to revel in more sin.
No, it wasn't safe to let Ellen read such stuff. It was bad enough for her to see these hideous clay figures which, when photographed, would vividly illustrate certain episodes in the Beast's sadistic career.
"In a couple hours," Oden said, "I'll be all through—thank God! Now you run upstairs and get into that hot bath."
Her arms coiled gently about his neck, and she put her mouth up to be kissed. He forgot about the clay figures then. To hell with them! The woman in his arms was warm and real; her body melted willingly against his and his hands slid swiftly to the delicious hollow of her arched back.
"I wish you were through now," she whispered. "I've been lonely, too, Phil. You've worked so hard at this awful job...”
Reluctantly he released her. If he quit work now the job would not be finished tonight. And it had to be.
"You get into that bath," he muttered, and watched her hungrily as she left the room.
Working with camera and tripod, he wondered about the footsteps which had followed Ellen home from the end of the bus line. Imagination? Perhaps so. But the face at the window had been real enough, and—
He stared at the clay figures, and shuddered. They, of course, were the reason for his fears. They linked him with that damned manuscript upstairs, and something about that manuscript was disturbingly evil.
He arranged the clay figures against painted cardboard background
s and spent the next hour photographing them from various angles. The pictures had to be good. Two other artists, with reputations far exceeding his own, had attempted this job and given it up. He, Philip Oden, had to succeed.
Queer about those other two chaps. One of them, Ingershaw, was noted for his ability at this sort of thing; yet the task had apparently been too much for him. After receiving the order, he had retired to his Maine woods studio with a copy of the manuscript. Two weeks later he'd come out of the woods, haggard and ill and half insane, and had plunged into the heart of New York, swearing never again to live in solitude.
A syndicated column in last night's paper had mentioned him. "It is a curious fact that since returning from the Maine woods, Grayson Ingershaw, the artist, has never been seen without a companion. Rumor has it that he dreads being alone and has hired a bodyguard to accompany him day and night. A queer reversal of form, surely, for Ingershaw formerly raved about his love of solitude."
Well… the book had done something to Ingershaw; that was certain. And it had done something to Edmund Yago, the illustrator who had taken over the job after Ingershaw's failure. Yago had finished four of the required eight pictures and then, without a word to his wife or daughter, had walked out of his studio apartment one night, never to return. His body had been found two days later in the East River, apparently a suicide.
So there might be something to those footsteps . . . .
Working methodically over the last of the clay figures, Oden realized that the house was eerily quiet. There had been a sound of running water upstairs, in the bathroom, but that had ceased. He straightened and stood listening.
The stillness troubled him. The ticking of the clock and the low murmur of the rain still continued, but his frayed nerves no longer catalogued those sounds as anything other than a ceaseless background. What he wanted to hear was some sound made by his wife—something to assure him she was safe.
He thrust the tripod aside and went upstairs. The bathroom door was closed and no thread of light crept from under it. He knocked and said anxiously: "Ellen!"
There was no answer.
Oden's heart sledged against his ribs as he turned the knob and thrust the door open. Automatically his glance sped to the bath. Ellen was not in it. Then, stepping over the threshold, he saw her.
She stood at the window, her back toward him, and in the darkness she was like a pale wax figure without life. The room was hot and moist; the shade was up and the window-glass was sweating. When Oden whispered his wife's name, she turned like a startled deer and her eyes were wide with terror.
"What's wrong?" he asked hoarsely.
She stared at him without answering. Except for a bit of pink silk that clung tightly to her curving hips, she was nude. Her bare breasts, pale and lovely in the darkness, heaved tumultuously, and the sleek slope of her stomach moved violently as she breathed.
"What's wrong?" Oden demanded again. "What's the matter, honey?"
"It's out there!" she sobbed.
He strode to the window and wiped the rain off it with his fist. He knew genuine terror when he saw it, and the terror in his wife's eyes frightened him. For a moment he stared down at the yard.
It was dark out there. Rain drummed hollowly on the metal roof of the garage, and on the cement walk. But nothing moved. Nothing was out there.
He turned to his wife. She had backed away from him and the wall had stopped her, and she was breathing so hard that her breasts seemed about to burst. "I heard the footsteps again!" she sobbed. "Then I heard a voice, Phil—a horrible voice, slobbering and chuckling out there! I swear I did!"
Oden forced a grin to his lips. He didn't feel like grinning; he was thinking at that moment of Yago and Ingershaw and of the face which had leered at him through the window, a while ago. He was scared. But the grin worked its way to his mouth and he said banteringly: "Young lady, I'm going to raise proper hell if you go to any more of those spiritualist meetings. It's getting you down."
Then he drew his wife toward him. Her arms clung tightly to his neck and her face was wet and hot on his chest. "I—I did hear something out there, Phil!" she moaned.
"Nonsense, honey," he said softly.
Her satin-sleek flesh quivered against him and he was acutely aware of the nearness of her. He hadn't lit the light; he liked the intimacy of the darkness. Somehow or other his lips discovered those of the woman in his arms, and the heat of that limp, snuggling body worked its way deep into him. He didn't want to put his burden down. He wanted to hold it and caress it and kiss it… kiss away its fears.
When he did release her, she grabbed at his arm and said anxiously: "You're not going downstairs again, Phil? Please!"
"I've got to finish that job, honey."
"Oh God, don't leave me alone! I'm afraid!"
Her hand was cold in his, ice-cold, and she really was afraid. He knew that. He himself was a bit shaky, though he had tried hard not to show it. Well then—the job could be finished in the morning, couldn't it? The clay figures were all done. He had only to take a few more photographs and make some enlargements, and the stuff could be mailed before tomorrow noon.
"I'll let it go, honey," he said. "You take your bath and come to bed. I'll be waiting."
He set the electric alarm-clock in the bedroom for six the next morning. That would get him up in plenty of time. He stretched his aching body and then sat on the edge of the big four-poster bed, thinking.
Queer about that face at the window. Had he really seen it, or had he been suffering from a case of diseased nerves? Queer, too, about the footsteps. Ellen was usually pretty level-headed about that sort of thing, and not easily scared.
He wondered suddenly if she had been reading Gromleigh's manuscript. It lay on the bureau, in a box which had originally held typewriting paper. He lit the light over the pillows and dumped the manuscript out of its box and scuffed through some of the pages.
Even when quite sure that they had not been disturbed, he continued to paw through them. Here and there, vivid lines of description trapped his attention.
The street was a narrow canyon of gloom winding through the slums of the city, and the girl's high heels drummed out an eerie click-clack, click-clack, as she hurried homeward. It was not safe for young women to walk alone after dark. The police had said that. One never knew when that horrible monster would appear, seeking another victim.
Something was approaching. Something pale and huge bad stepped from the darkness of an ill-smelling doorway and was striding foward. The girl stopped. A hand flew to her mouth and she stifled a scream of terror, turned to flee. Too late! Slobbering like a hungry animal, the Beast swooped down on her.
Thick, hairless arms coiled about the girl's struggling body. A gnarled band ripped the front of her dress, baring the soft, white swells of her immature breasts. She screamed, and the scream went wailing down the deserted street, and the creature's mouth glued itself to hers, silencing her.
Thick fingers caressed her quivering flesh. Hot, moist lips slobbered against her eyes, her throat, her bare shoulders. She fought, but her struggles merely aroused the Beast's rage. One huge arm bent her backward, remorselessly; her frantic struggles grew weaker… weaker… ceased finally, with a pitiful sob of helpless surrender. Tossing her over his shoulder, be raced with great bounds into the night.
Oden shuddered. "Gromleigh must have a queer streak in him somewhere, to write stuff like that," he muttered. "If his Jekyll and Hyde theory were a fact, I'll wager his other self would come pretty close to being the original of this Beast he writes about."
But the manuscript fascinated him. He read other passages.
"I tell you, Herr Professor, every man has a double nature. Every one of us! And these horrible things of which they are accusing me—I didn't do them! I didn't, I tell you! My other self did them, and over that other self I have no control! My God, why mustI pay the penalty for crimes I have not committed?"
"Because no one believes you, my son. Even
I, who have an understanding of such things, cannot bring myself to believe the all of it."
"But you must believe!" Frantically Grove clutched at the older man's bands and clung to them. Footsteps were audible in the corridor as the attendant came to put an end to the Herr Professor's visit.
"My God, Herr Professor, they will not solve this horrible problem by keeping me locked up in this awful asylum! The Beast will still go forth to find new victims."
"If that is so, my son, there is only one solution. While you live, it lives, because it is a part of you. If I were you, I think I would find a way to destroy myself, for the sake of humanity."
"No, no! My God, no!"
The attendant's ring of keys scraped hollowly against the iron bars of the door. The Herr Professor turned away, murmuring a prayer. The prisoner sat like a dead man, staring, staring.
Oden replaced the manuscript in the box and put the box back on the bureau. It was not good to read that sort of thing before retiring. Gromleigh, damn him, might enjoy writing it, but few persons would enjoy reading it. There must be something wrong with Gromleigh.
There must be something wrong with the novel, too. Something evil. Otherwise, why had Ingershaw and Yago acted so queerly after attempting to do the illustrations for it?
"There's a beast in Gromleigh, all right," Oden muttered, "like the Beast in the story."
He had just put the light out when he heard the door open. He forgot about the book then, and smiled to himself when he heard the soft whisper of his wife's bare feet as she entered the room.
"Are you awake, Phil?" she asked.
He didn't answer. He waited until she was beside him; then, murmuring her name, he drew her close to him and thrilled to the warm, sweet nearness of her.
To hell with Gromleigh's Beast! To hell with footsteps and leering faces and all the rest of it! Soft flesh quivered deliciously to his caress, and Ellen's lips were moist against his throat as she snuggled up to him. She was a warm-blooded little creature, every inch of her alive and vibrant. Day or night, she was always responsive to his love.
