almost to the ceiling! That and only that was
tiny metallic clang, and, as the drapes fell of
all his straining eyes could see.
their own weight and adjusted themselves
It had been light with a light of its
from the slight confusion into which he had
own, like fox-fire in the woods, this drawn them, they opened to make one narrow unnamable thing in the corner of the room.
crack, that a band of moonlight might throw
Now, suddenly, it was dark, and still itself softly across the middle of the room.
Whitmore knew that it was there.
Just one narrow line of light, one
single band of silver against the dull red of the HE forced his laggard muscles to raise one
rug—against that and on something else that
heavy hand to the holster under his arm. That
caused Whitmore’s breath to stop.
hand held a .45 automatic when it dropped
heavily back to his lap.
A HEAD, of mottled green and brown. It must
“This throws a heavy enough slug to
have been a foot across; flat and triangular
Strange Tales
6
like that of a venomous snake. There were
glass had raked it. He paid no heed but
leathery lips, wet and dripping; and curved
struggled to fling open the window, lean out,
teeth that shone yellow against the dark and let the nausea that had swept him have its wetness of the jaws. There were fleshy way for, with the first touch of that soft tendrils like thick hair hanging from flabby-moonlight, there had come to him again that
pouched cheeks, and above all this nameless
intolerable scent of decay.
horror were two eyes that the band of silvery
light brought suddenly to life. Eyes of fire,
“I’M through!” Whitmore admitted. “Don’t
eyes so full of hatred, of blood-lust, of say another word, Betty dear, nor give it demoniac fury that Whitmore’s own eyes another thought. I know when I have had came to them in irresistible fascination.
enough.”
One instant only—one instant of utter
But he was evasive when his wife
horror, of a terrible conviction that here was
questioned him as to the happenings of the
nothing of earth; nothing, even, of hell. This
night before. Nor could he have had any
was something that could have been nurtured
slightest knowledge of the terrible forces he
only amid the dark recesses of some half-
had put into motion; for he smiled happily into
world!
the violet eyes that smiled back as he said:
One instant only while Whitmore’s “Never again, angel-child! There’ll be no brain raced like an engine gone wild as if to
more of that deviltry in this house.... Now,
make up for his deadened, helpless body. what show do you want to see to-night? I’ll Then even that instant ended, and, where the
phone Jim and Sally to join us. I want to talk
moonlight had disclosed a thing of frightful
with Jim anyway—tell him about last night.”
visage, there -was only a viscous pool ... and
They returned well after midnight.
still the moonlight shone wanly while that,
Whitmore’s man was waiting for him; he
too, vanished to blue-white mist and was handed his employer a packet of papers.
gone.
“They were left for you, sir,” he said.
Forgotten was the gun as it thudded
Jack Whitmore swore softly under his
upon the floor. Forgotten was all but one
breath as he hurriedly inspected the
recollection—the remembrance of the brilliant
documents. “It’s that confounded subway
light that would come with the opening of the
extension matter,” he explained to his wife.
door ... and somehow Whitmore lashed those
“You run along to bed, Betty; I’ll follow after
reluctant muscles and forced them to carry
a while. I’ve got to go over an unholy mess of
him across the room in one drunken, figures; got to be ready for a directors’
stumbling run until he crashed heavily against
meeting to-morrow.”
the door, flung it open, and clung weakly to
He threw off hat and coat, switched on
the paneled wood.
a shaded lamp at the table in his big living
The blinding glare of light was about
room, and, instead of taking the papers to his
him; he felt that he was safe, yet there was that study, he dropped unthinkingly into the same
which drove him on. And his last blind rush
chair he had occupied the night before.
across the room ended in a crashing of glass
The lamp made a circle of light upon
where he thrust his bare fist through a window
the table where Whitmore scanned endless
that he might fill his lungs with air pure figures and estimates. He was not aware of the enough to wash them clean of the foulness
darkness that filled the rest of the room; he
they contained.
was not aware of his own solitude; and his
One wrist was bleeding where the mind was entirely engaged with the engineers’
The Terror by Night
7
report and what their test borings had was brighter than the impenetrable darkness of disclosed.... The first sound that reached his
those other nights ... and Whitmore realized
ears went unheard.
that light, the only weapon he knew, was
losing its effectiveness.
CONCLUSIVE proof, this, of how far from
He did not turn at once; that chill that
his mind was anything more supernatural than
was gripping his heart was spreading in ever-
the modern magic of the machine age in widening waves throughout his body.
which he lived. The sound was repeated twice
In all the high-ceilinged room there
before he realized that he was hearing was but one sound: the whistling intake of that something like the whistling intake of an horrible breath through a tight throat, and a asthmatic breath. Then his head snapped up
softer, deeper-toned huff! as the breath was sharply, and, for a moment, he stared released. This eery combination of sounds was incredulously about him.
repeating itself with gruesome regularity....
“Absurd!” he said half aloud; “I’ve
In that instant the mind of Jack
seen men go to pieces—get the shakes—but,
Whitmore split sharply into two halves; he
by the gods, I thought I was immune!”
was two selves, and one of those selves swore
His eyes had gone unconsciously and cursed at the other: toward that place where, one night earlier,
“Coward! Fool! Turn around, you poor
they had stared into eyes of flaming red. He
damned idiot. There’s nothing there—nothing
found nothing, although that same strange to be afraid of! And if there is anything there, chill sensation along his spine had half you’re man enough to wring its ugly neck!”
prepared him to see a gray-green whirl of mist
But that other self stood in frozen,
in the darkness. By sheer will power he terror-stricken immobility. Not until the brought his gaze back to the papers and the
rasping breath grew perceptibly louder did
circle of li
ght, and he forced his mind once
Whitmore move. Then there clamored in his
more to concentrate upon the figures there.
brain one thought, repeating itself over and
“... And it is the recommendation of
over: “It’s coming! It’s coming nearer. In
our Mr. Donnelly that further borings should
another minute it will touch you!” It was the
be made at the points indicated on the attached
thought of that touch that gave the man
layout—” He pushed the papers quietly aside;
strength to turn slowly about.
his mind refused to be coerced when, in his
ears, there sounded again the labored AT first there was nothing! Then half-way breathing. And the same mysterious between him and the far corner of the room, something that had spoken to him on that
amid the heavy shadows, was something
other occasion told him again that here was
darker even than darkness itself. Those white
the loathsome, nameless thing, returned this
papers gleaming in the bright light had been
time unbidden.
blinding; there was time needed for
Whitmore’s eyes to adjust themselves—time
AND again there came to the stout heart of
in which every second seemed like a lagging
Whitmore that gripping fear, for, though he
hour.
had not yet turned to look, he knew that this
Dimly in that darkened room he saw
time the thing had come to him in the light.
first only the outline of a body, a stooped,
Dim, that light in the big room where it shrunken body it seemed. The figure of a man, reflected and was diffused from the lighted
standing motionless. Then, while Whitmore
circle of the table, but even this subdued glow
watched, that creature of the shadows took
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8
one halting, forward step, and even in the dim
the waxen pallor nor, more horrible yet, the
light Whitmore could see the sunken cheeks,
discoloration that spread across half the face.
the long, matted, gray hair that hung in a
Only the flashing hatred of those eyes gave
bedraggled fringe half over the face, as ragged
visible manifestation of the fearful light that
seemingly as the tattered fragments of cloth
had forced itself into this body.
that clung to the gaunt frame below.
And for Jack Whitmore, standing there
Then one hand was slowly raised, a
unmoving, hardly breathing, time lost all
hand more like a claw of some carrion bird
meaning and measure; all comprehension of
than anything resembling a human hand. But
normal things, all memories of the every-day
it come tremblingly upward to the face and
world were lost. They were erased from his
brushed aside the hanging hair, and, with that,
mind as if they had never been, and in all the
Whitmore for the first time saw the eyes!
great universe there was nothing but this
They were cavernous eyes, deeply nameless horror, nothing but two eyes that sunken in their sockets, which, in that blazed redly with malevolent menace meant emaciated face, were like the two black unmistakably for him.
openings in a skull; yet from their shadowed
One slow step; another as dreadful, as
depths they blazed as Whitmore watched, inexorable; and another— and, with that slow blazed redly with the same menacing look he
measured approach of something which had
had seen in the reptilian eyes that had stared at no right to existence in the world of living
him the night before.
men, the fear which had been born in Jack
It was the same thing! Whitmore knew
Whitmore’s heart that other night seemed to
in one intuitive flash that these horrible bodies have reached its full stature. Had one of those
were so many disguises for a still more dreadful claw-like hands reached within his horrible, more venomous and loathsome breast to close about his heart, that deathly creature that was using them for some terrible
clutch could have been no colder than the grip
purpose. And as before it announced its of the fear that seized upon him now. Dimly coming in a manner unmistakable.
he felt his whole body shiver; there were
The charnel-house odor which assailed
spasms of trembling that jerked and twitched
the senses of the helpless man was almost
at his deadened muscles.
more than human nerves could bear; and still
Whitmore stood, not moving, beside that big
SOME part of Whitmore’s mind was reaching
table with its single light where a scattered
deep among buried memories for phrases half
litter of papers shone whitely. And the thing
forgotten. His lips were moving stiffly.
came on.
“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror
by night nor for the pestilence that walketh in
THAT single light shed a mellow glow; it
darkness ...” he murmured. But Whitmore was
reflected softly throughout the room; shone
afraid, and the ghoulish visitant came slowly,
dully here and there on polished mahogany
haltingly forward; inch by inch it forced the
and lost itself at last in the neutral tints of the helpless, dead body to drag itself along in the
textured walls. And with equal delicacy it
dim light.
illumined the face from which Jack Whitmore
Closer! And now one bony, claw-like
could not remove his horrified gaze.
hand rested upon the table....
Not one single muscle of that face
Closer yet it came, and the hand at the
moved; and, rigidly set in the cold grip of
end of an arm whose thinness was apparent
death, there was no mistaking the meaning of
through the half-rotted cloth came slowly up
The Terror by Night
9
and out— out toward Whitmore’s face!
expressionless face. “Ah,” she said softly,
Reaching and straining it hung there
without waiting for Whitmore to announce his
until the dreadful body took one last forward
errand. “It is zat you have done as you say.
step ... and with the first touch of long You would have your own way about this.
fingernails to his cheek, that other half of
And now....” She shrugged her broad
Whitmore’s mind, that self which had never
shoulders disdainfully and waited for
yielded, took quick command. The response
Whitmore to complete the sentence.
of his muscles might have followed a
“For God’s sake—” began Whitmore.
tremendous electric shock.
There seemed no words by which he might
One hand which had hung limply at his
convey to another human even a faint
side shot up and out. It contracted into a hard
understanding of this dreadful truth.
fist, and that fist came up from below carrying
“Oui” said the Madame softly. “Pour
all the force and driving power that le ban Dieu—and for the sake of your little Whitmore’s heavy body could Impart.
lady who was
’fraid. Now tell me,” she
Where or how he struck the thing demanded sharply, “is it that you have done—
Whitmore never knew. That other self which
what?”
was in control was shouting frantically to him,
And Jack Whitmore told—not as Mr.
driving him in one backward spring towards
Whitmore, capitalist and builder of subways
the drawer in the end of the table, and his
might have spoken condescendingly to a
searching hand found the long flashlight that
disreputable charlatan; this was another
he sought, and pressed the switch.
Whitmore who spoke contritely and humbly
No dim light then; Whitmore had had
and who implored the fat, ill-dressed woman
this lamp made for his own use underground.
before him to come to his aid.
The beam which he directed toward a huddled
“It is,” she said at last, “zat you have
mass on the floor seemed in that dark room
left ze door open, and there has walked in a
like a blazing headlight of a locomotive. It
somesing that seizes any dead body it can for
was like a solid bar of light, like a torrent of to make it live. You have left it open, that
liquid force that battered and poured upon that
door, and once open, it is hard to close. It may huddled heap of rags and flesh ... and the thing be I can help, but, of a truth, it is dificile! ”
which had maintained a semblance of
wholeness in the dim light lost all form, WITH this promise of help another thought became a pool of utter horror, and then was
came uppermost in Whitmore’s questioning
gone. And only the strangling air of the room
mind. “This thing,” he stated abruptly, “it was
The Terror by Night By Charles Willard Diffin Page 2
