Nine Horrors and a Dream

by Brennan, Joseph Payne;

  His reception in the town enraged him. When he tried to tell people about the disappearance of his cow, Sarey, about the reek of sea and ooze in his barn the night before they laughed at him. The more impolite ones, that is. Most of the others patiently heard him out—and then winked and touched their heads significantly when he was out of sight.

  One man, the druggist, Jim Jelinson, seemed mildly interested. He said that as he was coming through his backyard from the garage late the previous evening, he had heard a fearful shriek somewhere in the distant darkness. It might, he averred, have come from the direction of Wharton’s Swamp. But it had not been repeated and eventually he had dismissed it from his mind.

  When Old Man Gowse started for home late in the afternoon he was filled with sullen, resentful bitterness. They thought he was crazy, eh? Well, Sarey was gone; they couldn’t explain that away, could they? They explained the smell by saying it was dead fish cast up by the big wave which had washed into the swamp during the storm. Well—maybe. And the slime on his barn floor they said was snails. Snails! As if any he’d ever seen could cause that much slime!

  As he was nearing home, he met Rupert Barnaby, his nearest neighbor. Rupert was carrying a rifle and he was accompanied by Jibbe, his hound.

  Although there had been an element of bad blood between the two bachelor neighbors for some time, Old Man Gowse, much to Barnaby’s surprise, nodded and stopped.

  “Evenin’ hunt, neighbor?”

  Barnaby nodded. “Thought Jibbe might start up a coon. Moon later, likely.”

  “My cow’s gone,” Old Man Gowse said abruptly. “If you should see her—” He paused. “But I don’t think you will. . . .”

  Barnaby, bewildered, stared at him. “What you gettin’ at?”

  Old Man Gowse repeated what he had been telling all day in Clinton Center.

  He shook his head when he finished, adding. “I wouldn’t go huntin’ in that swamp tonight fur—ten thousand dollars!”

  Rupert Barnaby threw back his head and laughed. He was a big man, muscular, resourceful and level-headed—little given to even mild flights of the imagination.

  “Gowse,” he laughed, “no use you givin’ me those spook stories! Your cow just got loose and wandered off. Why, I ain’t even seen a bobcat in that swamp for over a year!”

  Old Man Gowse set his lips in a grim line. “Maybe,” he said, as he turned away, “you’ll see suthin’ worse than a wildcat in that swamp tonight!”

  Shaking his head, Barnaby took after his impatient hound. Old Man Gowse was getting queer all right. One of these days he’d probably go off altogether and have to be locked up.

  Jibbe ran ahead, sniffing, darting from one ditch to another. As twilight closed in, Barnaby angled off the main road onto a twisting path which led into Wharton’s Swamp.

  He loved hunting. He would rather tramp through the brush than sit home in an easy chair. And even if an evening’s foray turned up nothing, he didn’t particularly mind. Actually he made out quite well; at least half his meat supply consisted of the rabbits, racoons and occasional deer which he brought down in Wharton’s Swamp.

  When the moon rose, he was deep in the swamp. Twice Jibbe started off after rabbits, but both times he returned quickly, looking somewhat sheepish.

  Something about his actions began to puzzle Barnaby. The dog seemed reluctant to move ahead; he hung directly in front of the hunter. Once Barnaby tripped over him and nearly fell headlong.

  The hunter paused finally, frowning, and looked ahead. The swamp appeared no different than usual. True, a rather offensive stench hung over it, but that was merely the result of the big waves which had splashed far inland during the recent storm. Probably an accumulation of seaweed and the decaying bodies of some dead fish lay rotting in the stagnant pools of the swamp.

  Barnaby spoke sharply to the dog. “What ails you, boy? Git now! You trip me again, you’ll get a boot!”

  The dog started ahead some distance, but with an air of reluctance. He sniffed the clumps of marsh grass in a perfunctory manner and seemed to have lost interest in the hunt.

  Barnaby grew exasperated. Even when they discovered the fresh track of a racoon in the soft mud near a little pool, Jibbe manifested only slight interest.

  He did run on ahead a little further however, and Barnaby began to hope that, as they closed in, he would regain his customary enthusiasm.

  In this he was mistaken. As they approached a thickly wooded area, latticed with tree thorns and covered with a heavy growth of cattails, the dog suddenly crouched in the shadows and refused to budge.

  Barnaby was sure that the racoon had taken refuge in the nearby thickets. The dog’s unheard of conduct infuriated him.

  After a number of sharp cuffs, Jibbe arose stiffly and moved ahead, the hair on his neck bristled up like a lion’s mane.

  Swearing to himself, Barnaby pushed into the darkened thickets after him.

  It was quite black under the trees, in spite of the moonlight, and he moved cautiously in order to avoid stepping into a pool.

  Suddenly, with a frantic yelp of terror, Jibbe literally darted between his legs and shot out of the thickets. He ran on, howling weirdly as he went.

  For the first time that evening Barnaby experienced a thrill of fear. In all his previous experience, Jibbe had never turned tail. On one occasion he had even plunged in after a sizeable bear.

  Scowling into the deep darkness, Barnaby could see nothing. There were no baleful eyes glaring at him.

  As his own eyes tried to penetrate the surrounding blackness, he recalled Old Man Gowse’s warning with a bitter grimace. If the old fool happened to spot Jibbe streaking out of the swamp, Barnaby would never hear the end of it.

  The thought of this angered him. He pushed ahead now with a feeling of sullen rage for whatever had terrified the dog. A good rifle shot would solve the mystery.

  All at once he stopped and listened. From the darkness immediately ahead, he detected an odd sound, as if a large bulk were being dragged over the cattails.

  He hesitated, unable to see anything, stoutly resisting an idiotic impulse to flee. The black darkness and the slimy stench of stagnant pools here in the thickets seemed to be suffocating him.

  His heart began to pound as the slithering noise came closer. Every instinct told him to turn and run, but a kind of desperate stubbornness held him rooted to the spot.

  The sound grew louder and suddenly he was positive that something deadly and formidable was rushing toward him through the thickets with accelerated speed.

  Throwing up his rifle, he pointed at the direction of the sound and fired.

  In the brief flash of the rifle he saw something black and enormous and glistening, like a great flapping hood, break through the final thicket. It seemed to be rolling toward him, and it was moving with nightmare swiftness.

  He wanted to scream and run, but even as the horror rushed forward, he understood that flight at this point would be futile. Even though the blood seemed to have congealed in his veins, he held the rifle pointed up and kept on firing.

  The shots had no more visible effect than so many pebbles launched from a slingshot. At the last instant his nerve broke and he tried to escape, but the monstrous hood lunged upon him, flapped over him and squeezed, and his attempt at a scream turned into a tiny gurgle in his throat.

  Old Man Gowse got up early, after another uneasy night, and walked out to inspect the barnyard area. Nothing further seemed amiss, but there was still no sign of Sarey. And that detestable odor arose from the direction of Wharton’s Swamp when the wind was right.

  After breakfast, Gowse set out for Rupert Barnaby’s place, a mile or so distant along the road. He wasn’t sure himself what he expected to find.

  When he reached Barnaby’s small but neat frame house, all was quiet. Too quiet. Usually Barnaby was up and about soon after sunrise.

  On a sudden impulse, Gowse walked up the path and rapped on the front door. He waited and there was no reply. He kn
ocked again, and after another pause, stepped off the porch.

  Jibbe, Barnaby’s hound, slunk around the side of the house. Ordinarily he would bound about and bark. But today he stood motionless—or nearly so—he was trembling—and stared at Gowse. The dog had a cowed, frightened, guilty air which was entirely alien to him.

  “Where’s Rup?” Gowse called to him. “Go get Rup!”

  Instead of starting off, the dog threw back his head and emitted an eerie, long-drawn howl.

  Gowse shivered. With a backward glance at the silent house, he started off down the road.

  Now maybe they’d listen to him, he thought grimly. The day before they had laughed about the disappearance of Sarey. Maybe they wouldn’t laugh so easily when he told them that Rupert Barnaby had gone into Wharton’s Swamp with his dog—and that the dog had come back alone!

  When Police Chief Miles Underbeck saw Old Man Gowse come into headquarters in Clinton Center, he sat back and sighed heavily. He was busy this morning and undoubtedly Old Man Gowse was coming in to inquire about the infernal cow of his that had wandered off.

  The old eccentric had a new and startling report, however. He claimed that Rupert Barnaby was missing. He’d gone into the swamp the night before, Gowse insisted, and had not returned.

  When Chief Underbeck questioned him closely, Gowse admitted that he wasn’t positive Barnaby hadn’t returned. It was barely possible that he had returned home very early in the morning and then left again before Gowse arrived.

  But Gowse fixed his flashing eyes on the Chief and shook his head. “He never came out, I tell ye! That dog of his knows! Howled, he did, like a dog howls for the dead! Whatever come took Sarey—got Barnaby in the swamp last night!”

  Chief Underbeck was not an excitable man. Gowse’s burst of melodrama irritated him and left him unimpressed.

  Somewhat gruffly he promised to look into the matter if Barnaby had not turned up by evening. Barnaby, he pointed out, knew the swamp better than anyone else in the county. And he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Probably, the Chief suggested, he had sent the dog home and gone elsewhere after finishing his hunt the evening before. The chances were he’d be back by suppertime.

  Old Man Gowse shook his head with a kind of fatalistic skepticism. Vouching that events would soon prove his fears well founded, he shambled grouchily out of the station.

  The day passed and there was no sign of Rupert Barnaby. At six o’clock, Old Man Gowse grimly marched into the Crown, Clinton Center’s second-rung hotel, and registered for a room. At seven o’clock Chief Underbeck dispatched a prowl car to Barnaby’s place. He waited impatiently for its return, drumming on the desk, disinterestedly shuffling through a sheaf of reports which had accumulated during the day.

  The prowl car returned shortly before eight. Sergeant Grimes made his report. “Nobody there, sir. Place locked up tight. Searched the grounds. All we saw was Barnaby’s dog. Howled and ran off as if the devil were on his tail!”

  Chief Underbeck was troubled. If Barnaby was missing, a search should be started at once. But it was already getting dark, and portions of Wharton’s Swamp were very nearly impassable even during the day. Besides, there was no proof that Barnaby had not gone off for a visit, perhaps to nearby Stantonville, for instance, to call on a crony and stay overnight.

  By nine o’clock he had decided to postpone any action till morning. A search now would probably be futile in any case. The swamp offered too many obstacles. If Barnaby had not turned up by morning, and there was no report that he had been seen elsewhere, a systematic search of the marsh could begin.

  Not long after he had arrived at this decision, and as he was somewhat wearily preparing to leave Headquarters and go home, a new and genuinely alarming interruption took place.

  Shortly before nine-thirty, a car braked to a sudden stop outside Headquarters. An elderly man hurried in supporting by the arm a sobbing, hysterical young girl. Her skirt and stockings were torn and there were a number of scratches on her face.

  After assisting her to a chair, the man turned to Chief Underbeck and the other officers who gathered around.

  “Picked her up on the highway out near Wharton’s Swamp. Screaming at the top of her lungs!” He wiped his forehead. “She ran right in front of my car. Missed her by a miracle. She was so crazy with fear I couldn’t make sense out of what she said. Seems like something grabbed her boy friend in the bushes out there. Anyway, I got her in the car without much trouble and I guess I broke a speed law getting here.”

  Chief Underbeck surveyed the man keenly. He was obviously shaken himself, and since he did not appear to be concealing anything, the Chief turned to the girl.

  He spoke soothingly, doing his best to reassure her, and at length she composed herself sufficiently to tell her story.

  Her name was Dolores Rell and she lived in nearby Stantonville. Earlier in the evening she had gone riding with her fiancé, Jason Bukmeist of Clinton Center. As Jason was driving along the highway adjacent to Wharton’s Swamp, she had remarked that the early evening moonlight looked very romantic over the marsh. Jason had stopped the car, and after they had surveyed the scene for some minutes, he suggested that since the evening was warm, a brief “stroll in the moonlight” might be fun.

  Dolores had been reluctant to leave the car, but at length had been persuaded to take a short walk along the edge of the marsh where the terrain was relatively firm.

  As the couple were walking along under the trees, perhaps twenty yards or so from the car, Dolores became aware of an unpleasant odor and wanted to turn back. Jason, however, told her she only imagined it and insisted on going further. As the trees grew closer together, they walked Indian file, Jason taking the lead.

  Suddenly, she said, they both heard something swishing through the brush toward them. Jason told her not to be frightened, that it was probably someone’s cow. As it came closer, however, it seemed to be moving with incredible speed. And it didn’t seem to be making the kind of noise a cow would make.

  At the last second Jason whirled with a cry of fear and told her to run. Before she could move, she saw a monstrous something rushing under the trees in the dim moonlight. For an instant she stood rooted with horror; then she turned and ran. She thought she heard Jason running behind her. She couldn’t be sure. But immediately after she heard him scream.

  In spite of her terror, she turned and looked behind her.

  At this point in her story she became hysterical again and several minutes passed before she could go on.

  She could not describe exactly what she had seen as she looked over her shoulder. The thing which she had glimpsed rushing under the trees had caught up with Jason. It almost completely covered him. All she could see of him was his agonized face and part of one arm, low near the ground, as if the thing were squatting astride him. She could not say what it was. It was black, formless, bestial and yet not bestial. It was the dark gliding kind of indescribable horror which she had shuddered at when she was a little girl alone in the nursery at night.

  She shuddered now and covered her eyes as she tried to picture what she had seen. “O God—the darkness came alive! The darkness came alive!”

  Somehow, she went on presently, she had stumbled through the trees into the road. She was so terrified she hardly noticed the approaching car.

  There could be no doubt that Dolores Rell was in the grip of genuine terror. Chief Underbeck acted with alacrity. After the white-faced girl had been driven to a nearby hospital for treatment of her scratches and the administration of a sedative, Underbeck rounded up all available men on the force, equipped them with shotguns, rifles and flashlights, hurried them into four prowl cars and started off for Wharton’s Swamp.

  Jason Bukmeist’s car was found where he had parked it. It had not been disturbed. A search of the nearby swamp area, conducted in the glare of flashlights, proved fruitless. Whatever had attacked Bukmeist had apparently carried him off into the farthest recesses of the sprawling swa
mp.

  After two futile hours of brush breaking and marsh sloshing, Chief Underbeck wearily rounded up his men and called off the hunt until morning.

  As the first faint streaks of dawn appeared in the sky over Wharton’s Swamp, the search began again. Reinforcements, including civilian volunteers from Clinton Center, had arrived, and a systematic combing of the entire swamp commenced.

  By noon, the search had proved fruitless—or nearly so. One of the searchers brought in a battered hat and a rye whiskey bottle which he had discovered on the edge of the marsh under a sweet-gum tree. The shapeless felt hat was old and worn, but it was dry. It had, therefore, apparently been discarded in the swamp since the storm of a few days ago. The whiskey bottle looked new; in fact, a few drops of rye remained in it. The searcher reported that the remains of a small campfire were also found under the sweet-gum.

  In the hope that this evidence might have some bearing on the disappearance of Jason Bukmeist, Chief Underbeck ordered a canvass of every liquor store in Clinton Center in an attempt to learn the names of everyone who had recently purchased a bottle of the particular brand of rye found under the tree.

  The search went on, and mid-afternoon brought another, more ominous discovery. A diligent searcher, investigating a trampled area in a large growth of cattails, picked a rifle out of the mud.

  After the slime and dirt had been wiped away, two of the searchers vouched that it belonged to Rupert Barnaby. One of them had hunted with him and remembered a bit of scrollwork on the rifle stock.

  While Chief Underbeck was weighing this unpalatable bit of evidence, a report of the liquor store canvass in Clinton Center arrived. Every recent purchaser of a quart bottle of the particular brand in question had been investigated. Only one could not be located—a tramp who had hung around the town for several days and had been ordered out.

  By evening most of the exhausted searching party were convinced that the tramp, probably in a state of homicidal viciousness brought on by drink, had murdered both Rupert Barnaby and Jason and secreted their bodies in one of the deep pools of the swamp. The chances were the murderer was still sleeping off the effects of drink somewhere in the tangled thickets of the marsh.