The Day the World Ended

by Sax Rohmer

  I regretted, and the regret was unfamiliar, that my mode of life had led me along paths where the wiles of women had not come my way. Resolutely rejecting a number of memories from my recent studies, memories of Bohemian and of Polish vampires who inhabited young and lovely bodies, I endeavoured to consider Marusa as what she claimed to be—an English-educated girl of mixed parentage.

  “I am very grateful. But I don't understand. You say you were told that I was in danger. Who told you?"

  She watched me for a moment, and I would have staked all I owned on her honesty Then she lowered her eyes.

  “Please don't ask me questions,” she pleaded. “If you knew what I risked to get here, you'd know that what I've come to tell you is serious. I mean—" she laughed in embarrassment—“it’s obvious, without the risk I spoke about.”

  “I won’t ask any questions. Please sit down in the armchair until I get my dressing gown. If you’d like a cigarette there are some on the table.” “Thanks!”

  As I made myself rather more respectable, I saw her take a cigarette from the box and light it with a composure which I admired. I knew myself to be no psychologist but her behaviour definitely set my course.

  “Do you mind if I smoke a pipe?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. But really, I must hurry.”

  She watched me filling my pipe, and:

  “The truth about what’s happening here,” she went on, “must seem as incredible to you as it seems to me, and I’m taking frightful chances by talking to you about it at all. But there’s only one thing that really matters. You must leave Baden-Baden at once! I don’t mean by train in the morning—I mean now.” “What!” I paused in the act of lighting a match. “Truly it is so! You can easily have your things sent along later; but really”—she stood up and faced me—“I mean what I say. Your French friend has a car. He would be wise to drive you. The other one, the American, I’m told has gone.”

  Marusa’s last remark interested me keenly. It would appear that Lonergan’s theory was right. Whatever the Voice might know, others had been deceived by his change of identity.

  “I hate to think that you’re mixed up in this business.”

  Marusa made a little gesture of impatience.

  “I’m running the most appalling risks”—she laughed unnaturally—“in telling you even as much as I’ve told you already. Oh! it’s wildly absurd. How absurd, I haven’t time to explain. Since I came here to the Black Forest my life’s been just a sort of nightmare. My being here tonight and talking to you is all part of it. But I want you to make me a promise, before I say any more.”

  I walked across and grasped her slender strong hands.

  “What is it you want me to promise?” I asked.

  “That you will never tell anyone I came here tonight, and never use anything I tell you except to save yourself.”

  “I promise.”

  Our glances met and my grip on the sun-browned fingers tightened.

  “Please!” Marusa whispered. “I like you awfully, but it wouldn’t be fair, would it? Let me say what I came to say—then, I must go. I had to come, but I couldn’t have come if I hadn’t known I could trust you.” . . .

  2

  I stood by the open window listening to Marusa’s footsteps on a gravel path.

  When silence fell with no sound of a challenge I returned to my apartment and lowered the shutter again.

  Where had she come from? I strongly suspected, from Felsenweir. How would she return? I had no idea. I had asked her and she had evaded my question. In short, as I realized now, I knew very little more about Marusa than I had known before.

  One thing I knew, however; and despite the barriers between us it was good to know—that she cared enough to risk everything.

  I was in love. My respect of Marusa’s wishes, the reverence which checked my impulse to claim the right which her blue eyes admitted, told me that I not only desired but really loved.

  Sitting down at my writing table, I began to make notes.

  We were opposed, it would appear, to a creature who concealed his identity under the extraordinary pseudonym of Anubis. He was the chief of a secret cult or religion—Marusa was not particularly clear on the point. Their creed apparently included a belief in a great catastrophe shortly to end the world. This in itself was not new. There are many such cults.

  None but subjects of Anubis would outlive the cataclysm destined to destroy humanity. Those, admitted to the secrets of the order, who betrayed them, died.

  I might have been disposed to doubt the truth of the latter statement had I not personally witnessed an example of the power of the dread being referred to by Marusa as the Master.

  Anubis, I was told, had power over both hemispheres. My questions regarding the Voice and the giant bats she had declined to answer. Nor would she speak of Mme. Yburg. Over and over again I questioned the ethics of my behaviour. Marusa had trusted me. That was the keystone of the interview.

  Nevertheless, I realized to the full what Lonergan and Gaston Max would have said. Admittedly she was a member of the organization against which we were pitted, and plainly my duty was to have detained her.

  This organization, according to Max’s theory, was already responsible for many deaths in the Pyrenees. I had therefore compromised with an enemy whose hands were red with innocent blood. Yet what could I do?

  Now, every sound was a menace.

  My watch, lying close beside the blotting pad on the table, I was frankly afraid to touch. If, as Gaston Max believed, it was the medium through which the Voice spoke—might it not be a medium through which the Voice struck?

  How much I had failed to learn that I might have learned! Yet who can blame me? That Anubis could kill from afar silently, leaving no clue, I knew from experience.

  Marusa had assured me that she incurred this danger by visiting me. I had let her go with a hundred things unsaid—a score of questions unasked. How much she knew I could only guess. Possibly she could have unravelled all those mysteries which had brought myself, Lonergan, and Gaston Max to the Black Forest.

  Yet now, with some few facts added to my knowledge which I was not at liberty to share with them, I sat alone listening for any sound rising above the rippling of the Oos . . . not knowing what I expected to hear.

  Death might be stalking me now! The silence became terrible. I thrust the notes into a drawer and stood up.

  I determined to call Max’s room. Sleep was out of the question—solitude insupportable. Menace of poisoned arrows in the jungles of Brazil was as nothing to this fear of the invisible. I crossed to the telephone. I had almost reached it—in fact my hand was outstretched to the receiver—when for the second time that night came a loud rap on my window shutters!

  I turned, my heart thumping madly.

  Rap! Rap!

  “Woodville! Woodville! Are you awake?”

  It was Gaston Max!

  I rushed across.

  “Quiet as possible! But, open quickly!”

  I opened.

  Max leaped into the room. He wore a dark overcoat, muffler, and a soft black hat. Obviously he had dressed in haste, and his expression was rather wild.

  “Quick! Get some clothes on! Anything!”

  His manner drove me. I began to dress. His next remark was in the nature of a bombshell.

  “Lonergan has disappeared!”

  “What!”

  “I fell asleep, you see, and, it would appear, so did he. Something awakened me five minutes ago.” “What was it?”

  “Unless I dreamed, it was a voice calling me by name.”

  “The Voice?”

  “I don’t think so. This is not my recollection. I sat up with a start and put on the lamp. Naturally, first I looked in the direction of the other bed. . . . It was empty! Lonergan had vanished! But the window opening on to the balcony was ajar. I ran out and looked. Nothing! I ran back and tried the room door. It was locked. I returned again to the balcony —from which, as my presence h
ere shows, it is not difficult to climb down. By means of my pocket torch I searched about—and presently I found this!” From his pocket he took a slip of paper and laid it on the writing table. He snapped up the lamp. “Are you familiar with Lonergan’s writing?”

  I stared down at the message. It was dreadfully simple:

  Felsenweir. Follow—for God’s sake—

  “Yes, this was written by Lonergan! ... If he could write, why not speak—cry out—wake you?” Max met my glance with one no doubt as blank as my own.

  “I simply have not one idea on this subject! I did not wish to arouse the night porter and so I climbed down from my window to the garden. It was, I think, the route taken by our friend.”

  “You propose”—fastening my shoes and grabbing a hat—“to make for Felsenweir? What we can do unless we overtake him on the road isn't clear to me.” “Nor to me!”

  “But if you don't intend to rouse the hotel, how are we going to get there?”

  “Name of a very small dog! I am always prepared for sudden emergencies! My car is not in the hotel. No, no! I use a private garage. I have the key.” I nodded. A sort of apathy was beginning to claim me. Wonders were wonders no longer. Resembling an athlete in training—I wore flannel trousers and a pull-over—I extinguished all lights and followed Max out on to the balcony. We lowered the shutter as far as possible. Quietly we descended the steps.

  That gate which gave on to the bridge I knew was locked. But to wade the shallow stream was a simple matter, provided the night watchman didn't see us. We crossed at a shady spot, climbed the opposite bank, and came out on the public footpath.

  “Now,” said Max, “we must hurry. My garage in Maria-Victoria Strasse.”

  3

  Clear of the hotel grounds, we took a short cut back over the public bridge and hurried through deserted streets. Once, Max stopped dead, grabbing my arm.

  We stood for a moment listening intently. Not a sound could I detect to suggest that we were followed. We passed on.

  The garage was a small one belonging to an empty house. Max unlocked the door and swept the interior with his torch, peering all about suspiciously. There was no evidence of an intruder and we ran the Hispano out, relocking the garage.

  “We are two fools, I think,” Max declared as we headed for the hills. “Helpless as insects. Felsenweir we cannot, we dare not, penetrate. Our only chance is to overtake him on the road—if he is on the road. I have serious doubts, my friend.”

  “I share them! But we can’t ignore his appeal. We can do no less than try to overtake him.”

  After this, we proceeded in silence. Indeed, there was nothing to say. Mile after mile of empty road we traversed at high speed, always climbing nearer to those haunted woods.

  At last came the hairpin bend which I remembered. Max checked to negotiate it, and:

  “Not a sign, so far!” he said. “And here is Felsenweir.”

  We had reached the base of that frowning peak upon which the castle stood. We stopped. Max cut off the lights.

  Resembling a speckled ribbon, under dim starlight the highway stretched empty before us to where it disappeared at that bend which concealed the main entrance. From here the military road spoken of by Lonergan wound its tortuous way up around the mighty crag.

  We sat there, staring and listening. There was no sound: nothing stirred.

  “I fear we risk our lives in vain,” Max said sadly. “But we must reconnoitre. It would be craven to return, yet.”

  We alighted. I held the Colt repeater. My frame of mind was one which I find myself unable now to describe. I was conscious of a sort of buzzing in my ears; but, as I have since realized, this may have been due not to nervous excitement, but to an actual atmospheric condition surrounding the woods of Felsenweir.

  “I shall go forward twenty paces,” said Max, in a low voice. “Follow me slowly, so that you keep me in view. But never lose sight of the car. If you see anything or anyone, shout. I shall do the same. If you are attacked—shoot.”

  In this order we commenced our second reconnaissance of Felsenweir.

  I had never in my life experienced a tension similar to that which held me as I watched Gaston Max march slowly forward. I stood beside the car counting his paces. . . . When, looking all about as he advanced, these paces totalled twenty, he checked. Turning, he raised his hand.

  He moved forward again. And I set out, keeping him in sight. On he went toward the hidden gate. On I went, twenty paces behind him. The gate reached, he checked. Turning, he gestured—indicating that I should look back to assure myself I could still see the car.

  I twisted about and stared through the dusk.

  The Hispano was still visible, its metalwork gleaming dully.

  I saw that Max was advancing again. I followed. In this way I reached the scene of our recent miraculous escape. Ahead of me Max was approaching that dim crescent which concealed the gates.

  The night was deathly still. No sound was audible—if I except the queer buzzing in my ears.

  Again Max signalled me to look back. I did so. The car remained discernible. I waved my hand, indicating that he should go on. He signalled that I should draw up closer, then went ahead slowly, and I hastened my steps in order that I might not lose sight of him. . . .

  He had rounded the bend and for a moment become invisible before I reached that point heavily overshadowed by trees which marked one horn of the crescent.

  A dim stretch of road, its form resembling a new moon, stretched before me.

  Not a soul was in sight!

  I stood stock still. I was unwilling to believe the evidence of my eyes. I could hear no sound—see no living thing. Whereupon, precaution forgotten:

  “Max!” I cried. “Max!”

  My voice was tossed back to me mockingly from the Felsenweir slopes; but no answer came!

  What I should have done had I been entirely master of myself I cannot say: I know that a sense of horror settled on me like a damp cloak. But what I did do was to run forward wildly in the direction of a gap in the trees which I knew must mark the gates.

  I reached it. What I saw was this:

  A towering ancient iron gateway, reinforced with barbed wire, and flanked by miniature stone towers. Beyond, a rising ill-kept road, ploughed up as by passage of heavy vehicles. . . .

  Not a soul was in sight.

  Through trumpeted hands I shouted:

  “Max!”

  Again the word was buffeted back in mockery. That throbbing in my ears grew more intense.

  4

  I turned and doubled on my tracks. Round the horn of the crescent I raced to where star-lighted road stretched straightly.

  Then I pulled up with a jerk.

  I could see the car.

  But between me and my goal, lurching down upon me with long ungainly strides, was a giant figure of gleaming black!. . .

  Every man’s courage has a breaking point. I am not ashamed to confess that mine came now. Raising the Colt, I fired again and again—wildly—at that advancing horror.

  If I hit or if I missed I shall never know. I emptied the magazine. But its ungainly stride, heavy with the heaviness of the inevitable, never ceased, never changed. The Thing bore down upon me like a black Fate.

  “Merciful God!” I cried—and knew that I was frightened as a child.

  I turned. I began to run.

  Now, my knowledge of maps, upon which Lonergan had congratulated me, came to my aid. Straight on toward the ominous gates I ran, but, running, wondered if I should pass them alive! . . . Max!

  On I raced. And I passed the gates unchallenged. There was no road and no path marked in the map for five hundred yards or more. I must skirt those deathly woods. I concentrated on the map, visualizing it as I ran.

  Yes! I could see the footpath, the path which led to safety—or at least away from Felsenweir, with its black guardian horrors.

  It descended steeply past a ruined church—and, came a new pang of horror, actually led
to that bleak, sparsely wooded expanse which marked the site of the former village of Felsenweir—scene of Countess Adelheid's horrible visitations!

  No matter. It was a short cut to the highroad. I recalled that not a mile beyond were two or three scattered dwellings, the nearest so far as I was aware to the dreaded castle area.

  Hope of assistance before this point, I had none. I well knew there was not a soul for miles around who would have approached the ruins of the ancient hold at night for anything short of a king's ransom.

  I was none too fit, and my heart seemed to be bursting; but I carried on until—at last! at last!—I glimpsed the beginning of the path, a white finger pointing to safety.

  Here I had to pull up to recover my breath. Panting, I stood and looked back.

  What I expected to see was the armoured figure. For this I was in part prepared. For that which I did see I was not prepared. . . .

  A perfectly naked man of gigantic build, but so emaciated that he might have been an unwrapped mummy—his skin of a dull, lustreless yellow—was rapidly overtaking me!

  I caught the gleam of sunken eyes, of a face resembling a death's head. I saw fang-like teeth!

  The Thing—I could not otherwise identify it— carried something—a scarf, a cloak, flung over one shoulder. . . . With gigantic strides and a wild animal agility it sped toward me.

  I think I shrieked. Certainly I tried to do so.

  Then I turned, and literally hurled myself down the steep slope!

  At times, I could not see my way. Yet I never hesitated.

  Pat—pat—pat!

  The bare feet were ever behind 'me and ever nearer! My breath coming in sobs, I burst at last through a fringe of trees. Before me lay the desolation which had been Felsenweir Village.

  So much I saw. I collapsed. Mighty hands grasped me....

  CHAPTER XV - THE WILL OF ANUBIS

  1

  My next contact with the world afforded a moment I can never forget. I opened my eyes, supposing my^ self to be in bed at the Regal, and wondering why I had left the lamp on.