Horrible Imaginings

by Fritz Leiber

  A ditch of rough stone about eight feet wide and of similar depth separated him from a space overgrown with short, brownish vegetation and closely surrounded on the other three sides by precipitous, rocky walls in which were the dark mouths of two or three caves. In the center of the open space were gathered a half dozen white- furred canine figures, their muzzles pointing toward the sky, giving voice to the mournful cry that had drawn him here.

  It was only when he felt the low iron fence against his knees and made out the neat little sign reading, ARCTIC WOLVES, that he realized where he must be—in the famous zoological gardens which he had heard about but never visited, where the animals were kept in as nearly natural conditions as was feasible. Looking around, he noted the outlines of two or three low inconspicuous buildings, and some distance away he could see the form of a uniformed guard silhouetted against a patch of dark sky. Evidently he had come in after hours and through an auxiliary gate that should have been locked.

  Swinging around again, he stared with casual curiosity at the wolves. The turn of events had the effect of making him feel stupid and bewildered, and for a long time he pondered dully as to why he should find these animals unalarming and even attractive.

  Perhaps it was because they were so much a part of the wild, so little of the city. That great brute there, for instance, the biggest of the lot, who had come forward to the edge of the ditch to stare back at him. He seemed an incarnation of primitive strength. His fur so creamy white—well, perhaps not so white; it seemed darker than he had thought at first, streaked with black—or was that due to the fading light? But at least his eyes were clear and clean, shining faintly like jewels in the gathering dark. But no, they weren’t clean; their reddish gleam was thickening, scumming over, until they looked more like two tiny peepholes in the walls of a choked furnace. And why hadn’t he noticed before that the creature was obviously malformed? And why should the other wolves draw away from it and snarl as if afraid?

  Then the brute licked its black tongue across its greasy jowls, and from its throat came a faint familiar growl that had in it nothing of the wild, and David Lashley knew that before him crouched the monster of his dreams, finally made flesh and blood.

  With a choked scream he turned and fled blindly down the gravel path that led between thick shrubs to the little gate, fled in panic across empty blocks, stumbling over the uneven ground and twice falling. When he reached the fringe of trees he looked back, to see a low, lurching form emerge from the gate. Even at this distance he could tell that the eyes were those of no animal.

  It was dark in the trees, and dark in the lane beyond. Ahead the street lamps glowed, and there were lights in the houses. A pang of helpless terror gripped him when he saw there was no street car waiting, until he realized—and the realization was like the onset of insanity—that nothing whatever in the city promised him refuge. This—everything that lay ahead—was the thing’s hunting ground. It was driving him in toward its lair for the kill.

  Then he ran, ran with the hopeless terror of a victim in the arena, of a rabbit loosed before greyhounds, ran until his sides were walls of pain and his grasping throat seemed aflame, and then still ran. Over mud, dirt and brick, and then onto the endless sidewalks; past the neat suburban dwellings which in their uniformity seemed like monoliths lining some avenue of Egypt. The streets were almost empty, and those few people he passed stared at him as at a madman.

  Brighter lights came into view, a corner with two or three stores. There he paused to look back. For a moment he saw nothing. Then it emerged from the shadows a block behind him, loping unevenly with long strides that carried it forward with a rush, its matted fur shining oilily under a street lamp. With a croaking sob he turned and ran on.

  The thing’s howling seemed suddenly to increase a thousandfold, becoming a pulsating wail, a screaming ululation that seemed to blanket the whole city with sound. And as that demoniac screeching continued, the lights in the houses began to go out one by one. Then the streetlights vanished in a rush, and an approaching street car was blotted out, and he knew that the sound did not come altogether or directly from the thing. This was the long-predicted blackout.

  He ran on with arms outstretched, feeling rather than seeing the intersections as he approached them, misjudging his step at curbs, tripping and falling flat, picking himself up to stagger on half-stunned. His diaphragm contracted to a knot of pain that tied itself tighter and tighter. Breath rasped like a file in his throat. There seemed no light in the whole world, for the clouds had gathered thicker and thicker ever since sunset. No light, except those twin points of dirty red in the blackness behind.

  A solid edge of darkness struck him down, inflicting pain on his shoulder and side. He scrambled up. Then a second solid obstacle in his path smashed him full in the face and chest. This time he did not rise. Dazed, tortured by exhaustion, motionless, he waited its approach.

  First a padding of footsteps, with the faint scraping of claws on cement. Then a snuffing. Then a sickening stench. Then a glimpse of red eyes. And then the thing was upon him, its weight pinning him down, its jaws thrusting at his throat. Instinctively his head went up, and his forearm was clamped by teeth whose icy sharpness stung through the layers of cloth, while a foul oily fluid splattered his face.

  At that moment light flooded them, and he was aware of a malformed muzzle retreating into the blackness, and of weight lifted from him. Then silence and cessation of movement. Nothing, nothing at all—except the light flooding down. As consciousness and sanity teetered in his brain, his eyes found the source of light, a glaring white disk only a few feet away. A flashlight, but nothing visible in the blackness behind it. For what seemed an eternity, there was no change in the situation—himself supine and exposed upon the ground in the unwavering circle of light.

  Then a voice from the darkness, the voice of a man paralyzed by supernatural fear. “God, God, God,” over and over again. Each word dragged out with prodigious effort.

  An unfamiliar sensation stirred in David, a feeling almost of security and relief.

  “You—saw it then?” he heard issue from his own dry throat. “The hound? the—wolf?”

  “Hound? Wolf?” The voice from behind the flashlight was hideously shaken. “It was nothing like that. It was—” Then the voice broke, became earthly once more. “Good grief, man, we must get you inside.”

  ALICE AND THE ALLERGY

  There was a knocking. The doctor put down his pen. Then he heard his wife hurrying down the stairs. He resumed his history of old Mrs. Easton’s latest blood-clot.

  The knocking was repeated. He reminded himself to get after Engstrand to fix the bell.

  After a pause long enough for him to write a sentence and a half, there came a third and louder burst of knocking. He frowned and got up.

  It was dark in the hall. Alice was standing on the third step from the bottom, making no move to answer the door. As he went past her he shot her an inquiring glance. He noted that her eyelids looked slightly puffy, as if she were having another attack—an impression which the hoarseness of her voice a moment later confirmed.

  “He knocked that way,” -was what she whispered. She sounded frightened. He looked back at her with an expression of greater puzzlement—which almost immediately, however, changed to comprehension. He gave her a sympathetic, semi-professional nod, as if to say, “I understand now. Glad you mentioned it. We’ll talk about it later.” Then he opened the door.

  It was Renshaw from the Allergy Lab. “Got the new kit for you, Howard,” he remarked in an amiable Southern drawl. “Finished making it up this afternoon and thought I’d bring it around myself.”

  “A million thanks. Come on in.”

  Alice had retreated a few steps farther up the stairs. Renshaw did not appear to notice her in the gloom. He was talkative as he followed Howard into his office.

  “An interestin’ case turned up. Very unusual. A doctor we supply lost a patient by broncho-spasm. Nurse mistakenly inject
ed the shot into a vein. In ten seconds he was strangling. Edema of the glottis developed. Injected ammophyllme and epmephnne—no dice. Tried to get a bronchoscope down his windpipe to give him air, but couldn’t manage. Finally did a tracheotomy, but by that time it was too late.”

  “You always have to be damned careful,” Howard remarked.

  “Right,” Renshaw agreed cheerfully. He set the kit on the desk and stepped back. “Well, if we don’t identify the substance responsible for your wife’s allergy this time, it won’t be for lack of imagination. I added some notions of my own to your suggestions.”

  “Good.”

  “You know, she’s well on her way to becoming the toughest case I ever made kits for. We’ve tested all the ordinary substances, and most of the extraordinary.”

  Howard nodded, his gaze following the dark woodwork toward the hall door. “Look,” he said, “do many doctors tell you about allergy patients showing fits of acute depression during attacks, a tendency to rake up unpleasant memories—especially old fears?”

  “Depression seems to be a pretty common symptom,” said Renshaw cautiously. “Let’s see, how long is it she’s been bothered?”

  “About two years—ever since six months after our marriage.” Howard smiled. “That arouses certain obvious suspicions, but you know how exhaustively we’ve tested myself, my clothes, my professional equipment.”

  “I should say so,” Renshaw assured him. For a moment the men were silent. Then, “She suffers from depression and fear?”

  Howard nodded.

  “Fear of anything in particular?”

  But Howard did not answer that question.

  About ten minutes later, as the outside door closed on the man from the Allergy Lab, Alice came slowly down the stairs.

  The puffiness around her eyes was more marked, emphasizing her paleness. Her eyes were still fixed on the door.

  “You know Renshaw, of course,” her husband said.

  “Of course, dear,” she answered huskily, with a little laugh. “It was just the knocking. It made me remember him.”

  “That so?” Howard inquired cheerily. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me that detail. I’d always assumed—”

  “No,” she said, “the bell to Auntie’s house was out of order that afternoon. So it was his knocking that drew me through the dark hallway and made me open the door, so that I saw his white avid face and long strong hands—with the big dusty couch just behind me, where... and my hand on the curtain sash, with which he—’

  “Don’t think about it.” Howard reached up and caught hold of her cold hand. “That chap’s been dead for two years now. He’ll strangle no more women.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Of course. Look, dear, Renshaw’s brought a new kit. We’ll make the scratch tests right away.”

  She followed him obediently into the examination room across the hall from the office. He rejected the forearm she offered him—it still showed faint evidences of the last test. As he swabbed off the other, he studied her face.

  “Another little siege, eh? Well, we’ll ease that with a mild ephedrine spray.”

  “Oh it’s nothing,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind it at all if it weren’t for those stupid moods that go with it.”

  “I know,” he said, blocking out the test areas.

  “I always have that idiotic feeling,” she continued hesitantly, “that he’s trying to get at me.”

  Ignoring her remark, he picked up the needle. They were both silent as he worked with practiced speed and care. Finally he sat back, remarking with considerably more confidence than he felt, “There! I bet you this time we’ve nailed the elusive little demon who likes to choke you!”—and looked up at the face of the slim, desirable, but sometimes maddeningly irrational person he had made his wife.

  “I wonder if you’ve considered it from my point of view,” he said, smiling. “I know it was a horrible experience, just about the worst a woman can undergo. But if it hadn’t happened, I’d never have been called in to take care of you—and we’d never have got married.”

  “That’s true,” she said, putting her hand on his.

  “It was completely understandable that you should have spells of fear afterwards,” he continued. “Anyone would. Though I do think your background made a difference. After all, your Aunt kept you so shut away from people—men especially. Told you they were all sadistic, evil-minded brutes. You know, sometimes when I think of that woman deliberately trying to infect you with all her rotten fears, I find myself on the verge of forgetting that she was no more responsible for her actions than any other miseducated neurotic.”

  She smiled at him gratefully.

  “At any rate,” he went on, “it was perfectly natural that you should be frightened, especially when you learned that he was a murderer with a record, who had killed other women and had even, in two cases where he’d been interrupted, made daring efforts to come back and complete the job. Knowing that about him, it was plain realism on your part to be scared—at least intelligently apprehensive—as long as he was on the loose. Even after we were married.”

  “But then, when you got incontrovertible proof—” He fished in his pocket, “Of course, he didn’t formally pay the law’s penalty, but he’s just as dead as if he had.” He smoothed out a worn old newspaper clipping. “You can’t have forgotten this,” he said gently, and began to read:

  MYSTERY STRANGLER UNMASKED BY DEATH

  Lansing, Dec. 22. (Universal Press)—A mysterious boarder who died two days ago at a Kinsey Street rooming house has been conclusively identified as the uncaught rapist and strangler who in recent years terrified three Midwestern cities. Police Lieutenant Jim Galeto, interviewed by reporters in the death room at 1555 Kinsey Street...

  She covered the clipping with her hand. “Please.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “but an idea had occurred to me—one that would explain your continuing fear. I don’t think you’ve ever hinted at it, but are you really completely satisfied that this was the man? Or is there a part of your mind that still doubts, that believes the police mistaken, that pictures the killer still at large? I know you identified the photographs, but sometimes, Alice, I think it was a mistake that you didn’t go to Lansing like they wanted you to and see with your own eyes—”

  “I wouldn’t want to go near that city, ever.” Her lips had thinned.

  “But when your peace of mind was at stake….”

  “No, Howard,” she said. “And besides, you’re absolutely wrong. From the first moment I never had the slightest doubt that he was the man who died—”

  “But in that case—”

  “And furthermore, it was only then, when my allergy started, that I really began to be afraid of him.”

  “But surely, Alice—” Calm substituted for anger in his manner. “Oh, I know you can’t believe any of that occult rot your aunt was always falling for.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “It’s something very different.”

  “What?”

  But that question was not answered. Alice was looking down at the inside of her arm. He followed her gaze to where a white welt was rapidly filling one of the squares.

  “What’s it mean?” she asked nervously.

  “Mean?” he almost yelled. “Why, you little dope, it means we’ve licked the thing at last! It means we’ve found the substance that causes your allergy. I’ll call Renshaw right away and have him make up the shots.”

  He picked up one of the vials, frowned, checked it against the area. “That’s odd,” he said. “HOUSEHOLD DUST. We’ve tried that a half dozen times. But then, of course, it’s always different….”

  “Howard,” she said, “I don’t like it. I’m frightened.”

  He looked at her lovingly. “The little dope,” he said to her softly. “She’s about to be cured—and she’s frightened.” And he hugged her. She was cold in his arms.

  But by the time they sat down to dinner, things were
more like normal. The puffmess had gone out of her eyelids and he was briskly smiling.

  “Got hold of Renshaw. He was very Interested.’ HOUSEHOLD DUST was one of his ideas. He’s going down to the Lab tonight and will have the shots over early tomorrow. The sooner we start, the better. I also took the opportunity to phone Engstrand. He’ll try to get over to fix the bell, this evening. Heard from Mrs. Easton’s nurse too. Things aren’t so well there. I’m pretty sure there’ll be bad news by tomorrow morning at latest. I may have to rush over any minute. I hope it doesn’t happen tonight, though.”

  It didn’t and they spent a quiet evening—not even Engstrand showed up—which could have been very pleasant had Alice been a bit less pre-occupied.

  But about three o’clock he was shaken out of sleep by her trembling. She was holding him tight.

  “He’s coming.” Her whisper was whistly, laryngitic.

  “What?” He sat up, half pulling her with him. “I’d better give you another eph—”

  “Sh! What’s that? Listen.”

  He rubbed his face. “Look Alice,” after a moment, he said, “I’ll go downstairs and make sure there’s nothing there.”

  No, don’t!” she clung to him. For a minute or two they huddled there without speaking. Gradually his ears became attuned to the night sounds—the drone and mumble of the city, the house’s faint, closer creakings. Something had happened to the street lamp and incongruous unmixed moonlight streamed through the window beyond the foot of the bed.

  He was about to say something, when she let go of him and said, in a more normal voice, “There. It’s gone.”

  She slipped out of bed, went to the window, opened it wider, and stood there, breathing deeply.

  “You’ll get cold, come back to bed,” he told her.

  “In a while.”

  The moonlight was in key with her flimsy nightgown. He got up, rummaged around for her quilted bathrobe and, in draping it around her, tried an embrace. She didn’t respond.