“Enough, now. Enough. Sleep, now. Go to sleep.”
She lay back and her frantic breaths grew regular again. I rolled over and drew my face up close to hers. For some time I lay there, just gazing at her, feeling an unfamiliar sense of perfect physical contentment. My hunger was satisfied, my desires at least under my control, and I was warm and comfortable, lying here on a bed beside this lovely, sleeping girl. Before long a drowsiness settled on me, but it was so peaceful and pleasing that I did not fight it – simply enjoyed it. And then I must have dozed, for I next opened my eyes to see the room brightened by the first light of approaching dawn. I felt a momentary sense of confusion and panic, sitting upright with a jolt. Then I looked down at the girl. Her eyes were half-open, looking back at me. For a moment she stared, drowsy and uncomprehending. But then she recoiled, thrashing her arms in shock, gasping in fright. And she screamed, loud and shrill. Alarmed, dismayed, cursing myself for my carelessness, I slipped at once from the bed, back into the shadows, out of the dull beams of light from the open window. The girl continued screaming as I stood rigid, pressed against the wall. And then from outside the room I heard the sound of hurried footsteps, and the urgent voice of the girl’s father calling her name. The doorknob rattled as he gripped it outside, and in that instant I moved across the room, past the terrified girl, and leaped through the window, hurtling down to land noiselessly on the grass. Without looking back I ran, for there was no darkness now to conceal me, sprinting fast as I could across the lawn, into the cover of the bushes and trees beyond it.
Still dazed and shaken, I made my way back through the half-light to the crypt.
* * *
Darkness. I was alone in a darkness so immense and impenetrable that even my nocturnal senses could perceive nothing through it. My body was without feeling, heart or pulse. I was lying deep in my death-sleep, yet I seemed to possess an awareness I had never known before in this state – as if some part of my mind hovered urgently close to consciousness. It was an awful, frightening feeling: live thoughts in a dead body. I felt horribly vulnerable. It was not like a bad dream, from which men may escape by waking. I could not stir. I could not wake. I was trapped.
Then there came a ringing in my ears, and with it a horrible sense of foreboding. And at once I heard voices; distant mumbling voices, but I could not make out what they were saying. It reminded me vividly of my old childhood dream. What significance this dream could have to me now I did not know. I knew only that it filled me inexplicably with a dread far greater than ever it had in my human life. And I listened hard to those mumbling voices, disturbing though they were, for they were all my bemused mind had to cling to. And they grew louder and clearer, but still I could not understand what they said, until at last they faded back into a mighty buzzing inside my head.
Now a wave of shock swept through me. From the darkness in my mind there appeared a strange apparition: a grim sinister figure that stood in the distance observing me. And gradually it was drawing closer. Its features were indistinct. I could distinguish nothing about it. I just lay there afraid, aware again of my appalling helplessness. I wished only to wake and be free of these nightmare imaginings. But I could do nothing except stare and concentrate on the ghoulish figure, and at once I heard sharp footsteps as it advanced: a steady clack, clack, clack. And even when at last it stood over me I could not see its face. But then as I looked at it fearfully there started to grow about it countless tiny threads of brilliant silvery light which dazzled and sent a flood of nausea shooting through me. And for a fleeting moment the face of the vision grew clear – a twisted face with bright harsh eyes that looked down, burning with malevolence, gloating in a horrible hateful triumph. And then it seemed that a great cry split the air, and in the same instant the figure was gone, swallowed back into the sea of darkness in my brain from which it had come. Then there was just a single voice that came from somewhere nearby, booming out so loud and clear that it rang all about me.
“We’ve found it. We’ve found it. Thank God!” There were a few moments of silence, then the voice went on, hoarse with emotion. “What you see before you is the spawn of darkness. Sheer evil in human form. Satan’s power manifest on earth.”
“But… ” a second voice broke in… “It’s fresh. It can’t have been dead more than a day. It isn’t possible. Nothing has been buried in here for more than fifty years.”
“No,” said the first. “It’s not dead. Not truly dead.”
“Not dead! Not dead!”
“No. Watch when I cut the skin.”
“Fresh blood!” The second voice was a whisper of awe. “In God’s name how did it get here?”
“Father,” said the first. “What I must do now will seem like madness. Like sacrilege and desecration. But you must trust me. I know what must be done.”
“What?” demanded the second. “Do what? What are you talking about? How did you know where to find this corpse?”
“I didn’t. It was just a guess. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to start looking but here in the vaults. You saw that the lock has been broken. And see. This coffin has been forced open recently.”
“But of course. Someone must have put this body here. I don’t understand any of this… ”
A sense of numbness fell over me. I understood only too well. And through my head pounded again and again the single hopeless thought:
“This is no dream. It is real. I am discovered and I will be destroyed. And I am powerless. I cannot even open my eyes.”
The first voice droned on in a low breathless tone.
“Since I was a child I have known that the Devil is active in the world. You taught me as much. It was for this that I entered the service of Christ. And since I became a priest I have learned of many things. Terrible things. I have known them as reality. I have seen good pious men and women attacked by the forces of sin – raving, shouting blasphemies against God, obscenities against men and against the church. Human beings possessed, shrieking with the voices of devils. Men made less than beasts. I have seen that Satan is a reality. I have seen what his power can do.”
I lay, these words bursting through my head, frantic with fear, fighting hopelessly for life and feeling somewhere in my body.
“And this morning… ” the voice went on… “when I went to visit Mother’s grave, and I found that woman dead. When I saw her… the signs were there. But I would not… could not believe that such a thing could happen. That such a thing could be true. But last night! My own sister… in our own home… that mark on her skin! And now this! How can I doubt it any longer? Thank God we’ve uncovered this evil in time. It is God’s providence. It is God’s will we’ve found it. It is our chance to fight with evil. With Satan himself. And I know what must be done.”
The second voice spoke again, crying out in bewilderment, and then alarm, until at last both voices were raised almost to hysteria, and I could not follow what they said. But then silence fell. A silence so long and terrible it seemed to scream at me. Until at last a great cry rose up:
“I know what must be done!”
At once there was a cry of outrage and horror, but it was instantly drowned out by another cry, a terrible scream that burst all about me and inside me, as searing pain tore through every part of me. Then the pain was gone and I was spinning through darkness, spinning into death. But this was death as I had never known it. Death without distance. Not the death of another; no fleeting human demise I might experience from my pedestal of immunity. This was mad, frightening and uncontrollable. All about me it seemed were masses of fleeting phantom forms, while a voice throbbed suddenly in my brain. It was my voice, and it said softly:
“Do not fear. It is death. Only death.”
Now I was sinking down into eternal blackness, and my thoughts and senses were fading. I fought desperately, clinging to them, clinging to life, refusing to let go, knowing with certainty that if I did I should lose them forever.
I started with a cry, gasping for
air, struggling frantically to rise up out of the stifling heat and darkness that entombed me; thrashing my arms, hammering my fists against something solid just above. There was a mighty crash, a painful blow to my head, and I fell back down. I was weak with fright, exhausted, and my breaths were groans as I lay, trying to control and collect myself. Finally with incredible, almost disbelieving relief, I realised that I was lying awake and unharmed in my coffin. Light headed, laughing, near hysterical I pushed open the lid and clambered out, tottering on unsteady legs to the back of the vault, stumbling against the wall for support, unable to find my co-ordination.
“It was a dream,” I murmured to reassure myself, shuddering at the memory of how vivid, how hideously menacing it had all seemed. “All a dream, nothing more, brought on by what happened last night.”
I staggered to the door of the vault, leaning against it, sucking in gulps of fresh air as my head cleared; looking out into the night, which to my surprise was quite far advanced.
But now, though I told myself all was well, there crept over me that strange and powerful sense of disquiet that had been growing in me over the past two nights. As my strength returned I stood and pondered this. And when at last the thought came I simply froze and stood, my mind rigid, refusing at first to let it all grow clear. Then I was back inside the crypt, kneeling on the ground, grasping the lid of Helena’s coffin and tearing it open.
I stared down, and it seemed for the moment more than even my life could withstand and survive. Inside the coffin swam with blood, and she lay, her white dress stained all red. Into her breast was driven a metal spike, and her head was hacked from her body, and had rolled into the corner of the coffin, her mouth twisted, the eyes slightly open. Then there was just a wild cry that thundered and reverberated through the stone vault: my head roared, my vision swam, my strength and reason dissolved, hurling me down so I floundered on the cold, rough floor. I cannot say how long I lay there, half-senseless, as there passed before me memories of the life we had so long shared; of a bond so great that I had even known her death – that should have been my death – felt it as I lay unseen in another dark corner of the vault. And still it seemed that it was my death as in my thoughts I saw the terrible image of her lying mutilated and dead, and tried hopelessly to imagine life without her. Centuries of life without her.
And then I was on my feet and there welled inside me a wail so loud and long it seemed it must end or break my body in two. I was throwing myself about, mad with a violence my mind could not support, smashing out at anything in reach, grabbing the ancient coffins, flinging them to the ground so that they split open and their mouldering contents spilled all around. And when at last not a box remained undisturbed, save the one in which she lay, I stood staring all about at the yellow, leathery bones and skulls that littered the floor. And I truly believed that they laughed at me, those leering skulls. That the dead mocked me and whispered:
“She is ours now. Yours no longer. Now she belongs to us.”
The fury rose again out of my despair and I grabbed up each of the skulls, one by one, hurling them down so they shattered into fragments at my feet.
Then I turned and went to stand over Helena. Already her body had begun to decay. And as I looked down silent tears came, falling, discolouring patches of the dark, fast congealing blood. I closed the lid on the box and staggered to the door of the vault, almost falling outside. The sky was light. It was a bright, cloudless morning and the sun was half-risen over the distant, soaring hills. Its searing beams fell full on me and I shrank back, seeking the shade. But then I stopped. And I stepped forward and stood, staring out on the hostile, unfamiliar world of day, assailed by its harsh, scorching light and heat. I remained there until the sun climbed high above the horizon, filling the sky, and my eyes, with blinding white. My breath burned inside me and my body ached as if pricked all over with needles of fire. Yet I stood and endured all this in some terrible, deranged act of defiance against this world from which I was outcast. And I thought of the fair girl, of her father, and of her brother who had done this thing. And at last I shouted into the light, my voice croaking through blistering lips:
“Man! Priest! You think you saw evil lying passive and helpless in there. You are wrong. I will show you evil, beyond your every imagining. I will show you.”
And at last I spun about, back inside the vault, pulling the door shut behind me, falling down into one of the coffins I had thrown onto the floor as unconsciousness engulfed me.
X
The next evening I rose and walked the several miles back to my rented house at Matlock. I sat there in the dark the rest of the night. My thoughts were blurred. The world seemed confused and remote, in fragments about me. Strange images flooded through my head and I sat concentrating on them until they grew clearer; talking to them, laughing at them, my thoughts distracted from the true horror of my situation. It was only my plans, which formed and grew gradually within my mind, that kept some twisted sense of reality alive in me.
My recollections of the days which followed are few and vague. I remained there in the town the whole time, pacing the rooms of the house, or else drifting the lonely night streets as dull shock gave way gradually to feelings of fury and hatred. And vengeance. But it was only these obsessions, and my delirium, which kept me from thoughts of Helena, and of the future; kept me from a total fear and grief that might otherwise have finally destroyed my mind.
Once, as I roamed the night, I was importuned by a woman in the shadows behind me; ageing, half-drunk and shivering with cold in her flimsy, garish clothes. Barely thinking I turned and took her there in the open street, caring nothing that I might be seen. And as I felt the pull of death, the fury within found release and I drank deep, seeking oblivion. Yet at the last what I saw, beyond the rising wave of power and relief, was Helena, her bloodied countenance and bulging eyes fixed in a lifeless glare of fury and rebuke. I tore myself free, hurled the woman barely alive into the gutter and strode on.
Slowly now it came to me that I must act. I had arrangements to make there in Matlock. And as I carried them through I turned the details of my plan over and over in my mind, allowing myself no other thoughts, pushing myself on.
When all was complete I returned to the village, to the home of the girl, Elizabeth, and her hated family. I concealed myself outside their house, watching, catching occasional glimpses of them through the windows. And when I saw the brother, the priest, I shook with blind rage, maddened with the urge to rush forward and kill him. But I held back, suppressing my hate, holding and nurturing it inside, grinning as if I had seen some subtle trap and cleverly avoided it, looking at him and whispering with a low laugh.
“Oh no! Not yet. Not like this. It will be when I choose. When everything is as I want it to be.”
Several days later, soon after dark, I went back to the house. I entered silently through the back door, while the family were at dinner, and I slipped down into the cellar, concealing myself, and there I waited for several hours until the house above grew finally quiet and still. Then I climbed the stairs softly and entered the girl’s bedroom. She lay sleeping, as before, and I took her, drained her, but not too much. She was my instrument. I needed her and she must not die. But life was strong in her, and even as I drained her there was some part of her that resisted me at first, making my head spin and the pleasure even greater. Then at last I lay with my arms about her, and whispered gently into her ear:
“Now hear me. Hear only my voice. Your limbs grow numb and heavy. No feeling. No strength. Only my voice. Do you understand?”
She stirred, gave a short sigh, a feeble nod. I had come to realise what a simple matter it is for my kind to extend our will over our human victims, as Helena had controlled my mind in the beginning. When strength and life are drawn away the human mind is hurled blind and helpless into confusion amidst a rush of strange sensations that create a trance more powerful than any mesmerist may induce. And when a voice penetrates that state the lost min
d must grasp at it, the only link with its conscious state, to know and be guided only by that voice.
“Lie still and sleep,” I told her, my hand resting gently on her brow. “You are quite safe. You will not move until I tell you.”
Now I stood above her, looking down as her face shimmered, damp with perspiration, her beauty if anything increased by her sudden pallor and disarray. On her bedside table stood an old oil lamp. I lit it, turned it down low. Not much light, but enough. The time had come.
I crossed the room to the far corner, where stood a large heavy wardrobe. I placed both hands against it and shoved it hard. It toppled with a great crash and the floor shook as its panels splintered. I sank into the shadows, pressed up against the wall beside the door, and stood waiting, listening for the clamour, the footsteps, the voices calling in alarm. Then the door was thrown open. It was the old man, and he rushed in looking all about. I stepped forward. He turned, gazed at me in astonishment in the dim, flickering light. He looked older than when I had seen him before. His experience in the vault had clearly left its mark on him. Before he could move or utter a sound I struck out, hitting him in the chest, hurling him back against the wall where he cracked his head and slumped senseless to the floor. At once came the scuffling of more footsteps outside, and I stepped behind the half open door, watching as the young man entered, bleary eyed, dressed only in a nightgown. I threw the door back, slamming it shut. He spun about and I advanced, positioning myself between him and the door, my eyes meeting his. He stared for a moment, his mouth hanging open, searching for words, but I silenced him with a gesture.
“You must forgive me,” I said in a whisper, “calling so late. But I have a matter to discuss with you. An important matter. And really it cannot wait.”
His face stiffened, his eyes blazed with mixed outrage and bewilderment. But it was not until I sprang at him, grabbing his arms so tight he gasped in pain, that a look of fear came over him. I pulled him to me, brought his face up close to mine.
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