Nine Horrors and a Dream

by Brennan, Joseph Payne;

  Somewhere at sea the violence of the storm had wrenched the rotted remains of a ship from its resting place in the ocean muck and now bits of the wreckage hurtled shoreward with the waves. Pieces of a broken spar, splintered deck timbers and brine-encrusted rags appeared along the beaches.

  Whatever was cast up, however, remained totally unseen, for there was no one foolhardy enough to prowl the shore while such a storm still raged.

  At eleven o’clock that evening the night clerk on duty in the lobby of the Atlas Hotel on Ocean Street seated himself in front of the switchboard and picked up a novel.

  The switchboard seldom buzzed, and, due to the storm, most of the hotel guests had already gone up to their rooms. Except for the night clerk, the lobby was entirely deserted.

  Outside, the cold, wind-driven rain, blown in from the open sea, beat steadily against the pavements along Ocean Street. A curtain of raindrops ran down the hotel’s plate-glass windows and at intervals a sudden savage gust of wind drove rain against the glass with a sound like water being hurled out of a bucket.

  Occasionally, when the buffeting of wind was at its worst, the night clerk glanced up from his book, scowled briefly toward the darkened, storm-lashed street, and then settled back to his reading.

  As he progressed past the introductory chapters of his novel, the book’s tempo began to quicken and his attention became almost completely absorbed. Even when the front door of the hotel was pushed open, he did not look up.

  At length, however, the draught of chill, moisture-laden air blowing into the lobby compelled his attention. Lifting his eyes from the book, he saw that the front door was wide open.

  Frowning with irritation, he laid his book aside, got up and started across the lobby to close the door.

  At first he thought that an unusually fierce gust of wind had somehow blown the door open. As he closed it, however, he noticed a fresh series of irregularly-shaped muddy tracks which began just inside the door and continued into the lobby.

  He had not seen anyone enter the lobby and now he glanced around with some curiosity.

  For a moment he saw no one at all. Then he noticed someone standing at the far end, near the self-service elevator. The person was leaning against the wall next to the elevator, apparently waiting for the lift to descend to the ground floor.

  Something about the figure aroused the night clerk’s interest. The man leaned against the wall as if standing upright were a distinct effort. He had an odd, limp, collapsed look. But perhaps that was caused by the shapeless black raincoat which he wore.

  The raincoat—a shiny, black rubber affair—simply had no shape at all. It was so long it nearly touched the floor. The sleeves looked as if they were a foot longer than the man’s arms inside of them.

  Discounting the raincoat, it occurred to the night clerk that the man might be sick or injured—or perhaps merely drunk.

  In any case the clerk felt that perhaps he ought to help the man onto the elevator and see that he arrived safely at his room. It would take only two or three minutes, and there was little likelihood that any calls would come through the switchboard in that space of time. And if one did come through, it could wait.

  But for some reason the clerk hesitated. He could not have put into words any tangible reason for his hesitation. It was simply that he felt strangely reluctant to cross the lobby and escort the man in the black raincoat up to his room.

  While he hesitated, the elevator arrived. The man leaning against the adjacent wall flung the door open with a swift movement, limped inside and closed the door behind him.

  He had not once turned around, and when the night clerk finally arrived at the elevator and peered through the little glass window into the shaft, there was nothing in sight except the swaying steel cables.

  Returning to his novel, the night clerk found that he could no longer concentrate on it. Questions about the man in the black raincoat kept entering his mind and distracting his attention. Why had the man left the hotel door wide open to the elements? How had he walked through the lobby without being seen? Why did he wear a raincoat which was much too large for him? Had he been ill, or drunk—or merely exhausted as a result of trudging back to the hotel through the sheets of cold, cutting rain?

  It was nearly midnight before the clerk stopped asking himself questions about the man in the black raincoat. And then, just as he was beginning to get absorbed in the novel again, the switchboard buzzed.

  A decidedly hysterical female voice smote his ear. The woman was quite obviously terrified, and very nearly incoherent, and the night clerk had difficulty in understanding her words. He gathered, finally, that she was calling from Room 311 on the third floor, that she had intended coming down to the lobby and that she had seen something on the elevator which had imbued her with pure terror.

  After doing his best to reassure the woman, the night clerk promised to investigate at once and hung up.

  With a feeling of guilt, he laid aside his novel and started across the lobby. It didn’t require much imagination, he reflected, to picture what had happened. The man in the black raincoat had undoubtedly collapsed in the elevator and the woman in 311, chancing upon his sprawled form in the dimly-lighted lift, had been frightened half out of her wits.

  After he had pushed the elevator button, the night clerk stood nervously waiting, with his hand already on the door handle. He tapped with his foot, swore, and rubbed his chin and still the elevator did not appear. Squinting through the small glass window, he saw that the thick cables were almost motionless. That meant the elevator was not in motion; it was not descending, but remained stationary on one of the floors above.

  Muttering to himself, the night clerk started for the stairs. The fool woman, he decided, had probably left the elevator door ajar and thus stalled the conveyance.

  Arriving on the third floor somewhat out of breath, he started down the hall toward the elevator. Then he remembered that he would pass Room 311 before reaching it and, that being the case, he thought that he might as well stop and offer the distraught female hotel guest another word of reassurance.

  He tapped on the door and identified himself. There was a listening silence and he knocked again and called out, making little effort to disguise the irritation and impatience in his voice.

  At length the woman inside answered in a muffled voice, a key turned in the lock and the door was opened a crack. With a face the color of white ashes, the terrified hotel guest stared out at the impatient night clerk.

  “No need to be frightened,” the clerk said. “A man collapsed in the elevator. Something was wrong with him when I saw him in the lobby. I’ll make sure that he’s not just drunk and then call a doctor.”

  The woman stared at him with round eyes. Her voice was just a whisper. “But—he—it—wasn’t a man. It—didn’t have any face!”

  The night clerk stared back at her, a cold twinge assailing his stomach. The woman continued looking at him, wordlessly, as if she had said all that she could bear to say.

  The night clerk’s first impulse was to question the fear-ridden woman, but sudden anger—both at her and at himself—overcame him. Here he was listening to a hysterical woman while a man, obviously injured, lay helpless in the elevator. Probably the man in the black raincoat had struck his face in falling and the woman stepping into the dim lift had seen a spreading smear of blood instead of distinct features.

  Hesitating no longer, the night clerk curtly turned away and started down the corridor toward the elevator. Behind him he heard a door quickly slammed shut and the click of a key as it was locked.

  Reaching the elevator, he saw that the door was firmly closed. He gripped the handle and pulled—and nothing happened. Looking through the little window, he saw again the slowly swaying steel cables and realized that the elevator had moved up to another floor.

  He stood undecided, puzzled as to what he should do. Had the man recovered after all and gone on up to his room? Or had the woman imagined the entire episod
e? In any case, how had the elevator moved up to another floor when only five minutes earlier it had failed to respond to the call button? If the door had been open before, and was now closed, who had closed it?

  He was still hesitating when he heard a faint clash of metal echo down the elevator shaft. It sounded like the elevator door being slammed shut on a floor above. Pressing his face against the window, he saw the cable loop begin to descend.

  He had just drawn back from the window when a sudden terrifying shriek rang out above. It went on and on, louder and louder, one continuous hoarse, howling cry of ultimate torment, and then there was a blur of movement in the shaft as the elevator shot past.

  The night clerk remained rooted where he stood, utterly unnerved by that long-drawn howl of horror which was ringing in his ears.

  The terrible cry finally subsided, ending in a series of dreadful moaning gasps which seemed to arise from far below.

  Doors began opening along the corridor as frightened, pajama-clad hotel guests, aroused from sleep by the fearful scream, cautiously peered out to investigate its source.

  For a full minute or more the night clerk remained weakly leaning against the elevator door. Finally, as a sense of responsibility stirred in him, he turned and called down the corridor: “Will someone please telephone for the police—and an ambulance?”

  When he was assured that a police car and ambulance were on the way, the night clerk retreated down the corridor toward the staircase. In response to questions, he answered only that there had been “an accident on the elevator,” and he urged the uneasy hotel guests to keep to their rooms and lock their doors until the police arrived.

  He descended the stairs slowly and with vast reluctance, fearful of what he might meet at every turning. He had no desire whatsoever to enter the deserted lobby on the ground floor where he had seen the man in the black raincoat waiting for the elevator.

  Luckily, a police car arrived at the front door of the hotel just as he reached the bottom of the staircase.

  Sheets of rain still beat against the pavements outside. When the two dampened policemen hurried in, he explained the situation as well as he could, without adding any preamble or speculation of his own.

  The officers seemed singularly unimpressed. “Probably this guy you saw got sick on the elevator, couldn’t get out, and started yellin’ for help,” one of them said gruffly. “Let’s take a look in the elevator.”

  When the lift failed to arrive in response to the button, the night clerk peered through the little window at the cables.

  “I think it’s stuck in the basement,” he said.

  A moment later he was leading the two policemen down the basement stairs.

  Switching on the dim cellar lights, he led them toward the elevator.

  The little light inside the lift had gone out and as they approached they saw that the elevator door was partially open. Something black and shapeless lay on the floor, half in and half out of the lift. It was this object, apparently, which had kept the door ajar and prevented the elevator from responding to the electric call button a few moments before.

  One of the policemen produced a flashlight. They saw at once that the black object was a rubber raincoat, glistening and soaked with water.

  Then the patrolman directed the beam of light into the elevator and the three of them stood rigid with shock and horror.

  Inside the elevator the body of a portly, well-dressed man lay in a great puddle of blood. He had been savagely attacked. His face had been slashed until his features were unrecognizable. His throat was torn, and deep ragged gashes had been made in the jacket of his smart gray tweed suit. They were so deep that they penetrated all his clothing and blood oozed up out of them. He was quite beyond help.

  In spite of the obliteration of the man’s features, the night clerk recognized him as one of the hotel guests, a Mr. Traverson who maintained a small suite on the fifth floor. And he was sure, he told the two policemen, that it was not Mr. Traverson whom he had seen wearing the black raincoat.

  The night clerk believed that Mr. Traverson had gotten onto the elevator on the fifth floor, while he himself was waiting for it on the third. And he was convinced now that it was Traverson’s death screams which he had heard as the elevator shot past on its way to the basement.

  By the time the ambulance attendants arrived and found that they had a corpse on their hands, the police had made several startling discoveries.

  The black raincoat, they found, smelled of salt water and inside it they noticed several small bits of seaweed. More pertinent, they traced a series of fresh, irregularly-shaped muddy tracks which led from the elevator, through the basement, to an areaway which, surprisingly, had been left open—or had been opened—to the driving rain. Beyond this point, due to the sweeping torrents of water, the tracks were entirely washed away.

  The subsequent search and investigation uncovered nothing further. Although a cordon of police was immediately thrown about the district, no likely suspects were apprehended. Mr. Traverson, the coroner decided, had met his death “at the hands of a person or persons unknown.” The black raincoat proved useless as a clue, since all the labels had rotted away from it and there was nothing in any of its pockets except scraps of seaweed and a small mussel shell. The night clerk could add nothing further to what he had already told the police, and the frightened woman in 311 could only vouch that she was sure that it was not Mr. Traverson, living or dead, whom she had seen in the elevator. When questioned further she invariably became semi-hysterical and would only insist that whatever she had glimpsed in the lift did not possess any face.

  It was said that one of the younger doctors in attendance at the Traverson autopsy suggested that the savage gashes might have been made, not by a weapon, but by the claws or fangs of a wild animal, or even, he hinted, by incredibly long and powerful fingernails. This melodramatic suggestion was, of course, dismissed by the senior doctors who officially reported the lethal wounds as caused by a knife “or other sharp instrument.”

  The Atlas Hotel lost a great many regular guests—including the woman in 311—and eventually the night clerk got a daylight shift in another hotel.

  When questioned by curious reporters, who for a long time refused to give up on the case, he would patiently describe the events of that shocking evening and then, when pressed for an explanation, he would shake his head and say, “Well, if you ask me, chum, that murderin’ thing in the black raincoat was something dead that came up out of the sea!”

  THE GREEN PARROT

  SOME YEARS AGO, finding that urban interruptions were threatening to prevent my completion of a new novel on the deadline set by the publishers I moved back to a room at the Winford Inn where I had spent the previous summer. Winford, a tiny village tucked in the northern Connecticut hills, offered very few formidable interruptions.

  I arrived at the Inn during October and worked steadily until late November. At length, well pleased with my progress, I decided to take a day off.

  I got into my car and drove rather aimlessly around the countryside, admiring the scenery and in general enjoying myself. Although most of the leaves were down, and in certain lights the cold hills looked rather bleak, I felt that the little excursion was doing me a world of good.

  Late in the afternoon, as I was returning to Winford, looking forward to a quiet evening in my cozy room at the Inn, I turned down a narrow dirt road which branched off the main route and was reputed to be a short cut.

  I immediately regretted it. The road was in a bad state of disrepair and was crowded on both sides by large overhanging hemlock trees whose branches scraped against the car.

  I was just about to switch on the car lights when a large green parrot suddenly flew out of the hemlocks on one side of the road, fluttered frantically away from the windshield, and disappeared under the trees on the other side.

  I was so startled I very nearly ran the car off the road. Braking to a stop, I sat staring into the woods, wondering if my
eyes were playing tricks on me. If a pheasant, or woodcock, or hawk, had flapped across the road, I might have been momentarily startled, but no more. But a large green parrot, in New England, late in November. . . .

  I was still scowling into the woods, when a cracked and quavering voice began calling out plaintively, “Here Toby! Here Toby!”

  At first I thought it might be the parrot; then I saw a little old lady appear out of the hemlocks and step into the road. She looked around uncertainly, while a most woebegone expression came over her wrinkled face. In her shapeless housedress and funny little poke bonnet she made an odd and pathetic figure.

  I got out of the car and approached her. “Your parrot,” I said, “just flew across the road. He went toward the woods.” And I pointed toward the clump of hemlocks where I guessed he had headed.

  She stood stone still and stared at me. Apparently she hadn’t even noticed my car. Finally a slow unfathomable smile wrinkled her face.

  Her faded eyes sought my own. “Help me,” she whispered. “Help me find Toby. I’ve been trying to catch him so long; I’m so tired.”

  It was impossible for me to refuse. Her pale eyes held such a piteous appeal—and she was so old, frail and helpless-looking.

  “You’d better wait here,” I said. “I’ll see if I can catch him.”

  Without waiting for her reply, I plunged into the hemlocks. I knew there was little time to spare. It was already twilight under the trees; in another half hour the forest would be dark.

  I began calling the parrot by name: “Here Toby! Here Toby!”