The Terror by Night By Charles Willard Diffin Read online

  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

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  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’

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  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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  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

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  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