The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (82 page)

“Perhaps I should have been thankful that the pain didn’t last. It wore off in about ten minutes, and when I got home I didn’t think I was any the worse for my experience. I’m sure I didn’t think I was any the worse until I looked at myself in the glass. Then I saw the hole in my head.”

Henry Wells leaned forward and brushed back the hair from his right temple.

“Here is the wound,” he said. “What do you make of it?” He tapped with his fingers beneath a small round opening in the side of his head. “It’s like a bullet-wound,” he elaborated, “but there was no blood and you can look in pretty far. It seems to go right in to the center of my head. I shouldn’t be alive.”

Howard had risen and was staring at my neighbor with angry and accusing eyes.

“Why have you lied to us?” he shouted. “Why have you told us this absurd story? A long hand! You were drunk, man. Drunk—and yet you’ve succeeded in doing what I’d have sweated blood to accomplish. If I could have made my readers feel that horror, know it for a moment, that horror that you described in the woods, I should be with the immortals—I should be greater than Poe, greater than Hawthorne. And you—a clumsy drunken liar…”

I was on my feet with a furious protest.

“He’s not lying,” I said. “He’s been shot—someone has shot him in the head. Look at this wound. My God, man, you have no call to insult him!”

Howard’s wrath died and the fire went out of his eyes. “Forgive me,” he said. “You can’t imagine how badly I’ve wanted to capture that ultimate horror, to put it on paper, and he did it so easily. If he had warned me that he was going to describe something like that I would have taken notes. But of course he doesn’t know he’s an artist. It was an accidental tour de force that he accomplished; he couldn’t do it again, I’m sure. I’m sorry I went up in the air—I apologize. Do you want me to go for a doctor? That is a bad wound.”

My neighbor shook his head. “I don’t want a doctor,” he said. “I’ve seen a doctor. There’s no bullet in my head—that hole was not made by a bullet. When the doctor couldn’t explain it, I laughed at him. I hate doctors, and I haven’t much use for fools who think I’m in the habit of lying. I haven’t much use for people who won’t believe me when I tell ’em I saw the long, white thing come sliding down the tree as clear as day.”

But Howard was examining the wound in defiance of my neighbor’s indignation. “It was made by something round and sharp,” he said. “It’s curious, but the flesh isn’t torn. A knife or bullet would have torn the flesh, left a ragged edge.”

I nodded, and was bending to study the wound when Wells shrieked, and clapped his hands to his head. “Ah-h-h!” he choked. “It’s come back—the terrible, terrible cold.”

Howard stared. “Don’t expect me to believe such nonsense!” he exclaimed disgustedly.

But Wells was holding on to his head and dancing about the room in a delirium of agony. “I can’t stand it!” he shrieked. “It’s freezing up my brain. It’s not like ordinary cold. It isn’t. Oh, God! It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt. It bites, it scorches, it tears. It’s like acid.”

I laid my hand upon his shoulder and tried to quiet him, but he pushed me aside and made for the door.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he screamed. “The thing wants room. My head won’t hold it. It wants the night—the vast night. It wants to wallow in the night.”

He threw back the door and disappeared into the fog. Howard wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and collapsed into a chair.

“Mad,” he muttered. “A tragic case of manic-depressive psychosis. Who would have suspected it? The story he told us wasn’t conscious art at all. It was simply a nightmare-fungus conceived by the brain of a lunatic.”

“Yes,” I said, “but how do you account for the hole in his head?”

“Oh, that!” Howard shrugged. “He probably always had it—probably was born with it.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “The man never had a hole in his head before. Personally, I think he’s been shot. Something ought to be done. He needs medical attention. I think I’ll phone Dr. Smith.”

“It is useless to interfere,” said Howard. “That hole was not made by a bullet. I advise you to forget him until tomorrow. His insanity may be temporary, it may wear off; and then he’d blame us for interfering. If he’s still emotionally disturbed tomorrow, if he comes here again and tries to make trouble, you can notify the proper authorities. Has he ever acted queerly before?”

“No,” I said. “He was always quite sane. I think I’ll take your advice and wait. But I wish I could explain the hole in his head.”

“The story he told interests me more,” said Howard. “I’m going to write it out before I forget it. Of course I shan’t be able to make the horror as real as he did, but perhaps I can catch a bit of the strangeness and glamour.”

He unscrewed his fountain pen and began to cover a sheet of paper with curious phrases.

I shivered and closed the door.

For several minutes there was no sound in the room save the scratching of his pen as it moved across the paper. For several minutes there was silence—and then the shrieks commenced. Or were they wails?

We heard them through the closed door, heard them above the moaning of the foghorns and the wash of the waves on Mulligan’s Beach. We heard them above the million sounds of night that had horrified and depressed us as we sat and talked in that fog-enshrouded and lonely house. We heard them so clearly that for a moment we thought they came from just outside the house. It was not until they came again and again—long, piercing wails—that we discovered in them a quality of remoteness. Slowly we became aware that the wails came from far away, as far away, perhaps, as Mulligan Wood.

“A soul in torture,” muttered Howard. “A poor, damned soul in the grip of the horror I’ve been telling you about—the horror I’ve known and felt for years.”

He rose unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were shining and he was breathing heavily.

I seized his shoulders and shook him. “You shouldn’t project yourself into your stories that way,” I exclaimed. “Some poor chap is in distress. I don’t know what’s happened. Perhaps a ship foundered. I’m going to put on a slicker and find out what it’s all about. I have an idea we may be needed.”

“We may be needed,” repeated Howard slowly. “We may be needed indeed. It will not be satisfied with a single victim. Think of that great journey through space, the thirst and dreadful hungers it must have known! It is preposterous to imagine that it will be content with a single victim!”

Then, suddenly, a change came over him. The light went out of his eyes and his voice lost its quiver. He shivered.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m as mad as the yokel who was here a few minutes ago. But I can’t help identifying myself with my characters when I write. I’d described something very evil, and those yells—well, they are exactly like the yells a man would make if—if.…”

“I understand,” I interrupted, “but we’ve no time to discuss that now. There’s a poor chap out there”—I pointed vaguely toward the door—“with his back against the wall. He’s fighting off something—I don’t know what. We’ve got to help him.”

“Of course, of course,” he agreed, and followed me into the kitchen.

Without a word I took down a slicker and handed it to him. I also handed him an enormous rubber hat.

“Get into these as quickly as you can,” I said. “The chap’s desperately in need of us.”

I had gotten my own slicker down from the rack and was forcing my arms through its sticky sleeves. In a moment we were both pushing our way through the fog.

The fog was like a living thing. Its long fingers reached up and slapped us relentlessly on the face. It curled about our bodies and ascended in great, grayish spirals from the tops of our heads. It retreated before us, and as suddenly closed in and enveloped us.

Dimly ahead of us we saw the lights of a few lonely farms. Behind us the sea drummed, and the foghorns sent out a continuous, mournful ululation. The collar of Howard’s slicker was turned up over his ears, and from his long nose moisture dripped. There was grim decision in his eyes, and his jaw was set.

For many minutes we plodded on in silence, and it was not until we approached Mulligan Wood that he spoke.

“If necessary,” he said, “we shall enter the wood.”

I nodded. “There is no reason why we should not enter the wood,” I said. “It isn’t a large wood.”

“One could get out quickly?”

“One could get out very quickly indeed. My God, did you hear that?”

The shrieks had grown horribly loud.

“He is suffering,” said Howard. “He is suffering terribly. Do you suppose—do you suppose it’s your crazy friend?”

He had voiced a question which I had been asking myself for some time.

“It’s conceivable,” I said. “But we’ll have to interfere if he’s as mad as that. I wish I’d brought some of the neighbors with me.”

“Why in heaven’s name didn’t you?” Howard shouted. “It may take a dozen men to handle him.” He was staring at the tall trees that towered before us, and I didn’t think he really gave Henry Wells so much as a thought.

“That’s Mulligan Wood,” I said. I swallowed to keep my heart from rising to the top of my mouth. “It isn’t a big wood,” I added idiotically.

“Oh, my God!” Out of the fog there came the sound of a voice in the last extremity of pain. “They’re eating up my brain. Oh, my God!”

I was at that moment in deadly fear that I might become as mad as the man in the woods. I clutched Howard’s arm.

“Let’s go back,” I shouted. “Let’s go back at once. We were fools to come. There is nothing here but madness and suffering and perhaps death.”

“That may be,” said Howard, “but we’re going on.”

His face was ashen beneath his dripping hat, and his eyes were thin blue slits.

“Very well,” I said grimly. “We’ll go on.”

Slowly we moved among the trees. They towered above us, and the thick fog so distorted them and merged them together that they seemed to move forward with us. From their twisted branches the fog hung in ribbons. Ribbons, did I say? Rather were they snakes of fog—writhing snakes with venomous tongues and leering eyes. Through swirling clouds of fog we saw the scaly, gnarled boles of the trees, and every bole resembled the twisted body of an evil old man. Only the small oblong of light cast by my electric torch protected us against their malevolence.

Through great banks of fog we moved, and every moment the screams grew louder. Soon we were catching fragments of sentences, hysterical shoutings that merged into prolonged wails. “Colder and colder and colder…they are eating up my brain. Colder! Ah-h-h!”

Howard gripped my arm. “We’ll find him,” he said. “We can’t turn back now.”

When we found him he was lying on his side. His hands were clasped about his head, and his body was bent double, the knees drawn up so tightly that they almost touched his chest. He was silent. We bent and shook him, but he made no sound.

“Is he dead?” I choked out. I wanted desperately to turn and run. The trees were very close to us.

“I don’t know,” said Howard. “I don’t know. I hope that he is dead.”

I saw him kneel and slide his hand under the poor devil’s shirt. For a moment his face was a mask. Then he got up quickly and shook his head.

“He is alive,” he said. “We must get him into some dry clothes as quickly as possible.”

I helped him. Together we lifted the bent figure from the ground and carried it forward between the trees. Twice we stumbled and nearly fell, and the creepers tore at our clothes. The creepers were little malicious hands grasping and tearing under the malevolent guidance of the great trees. Without a star to guide us, without a light except the little pocket lamp which was growing dim, we fought our way out of Mulligan Wood.

The droning did not commence until we had left the wood. At first we scarcely heard it, it was so low, like the purring of gigantic engines far down in the earth. But slowly, as we stumbled forward with our burden, it grew so loud that we could not ignore it.

“What is that?” muttered Howard, and through the wraiths of fog I saw that his face had a greenish tinge.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “It’s something horrible. I never heard anything like it. Can’t you walk faster?”

So far we had been fighting familiar horrors, but the droning and humming that rose behind us was like nothing that I had ever heard on Earth. In excruciating fright, I shrieked aloud. “Faster, Howard, faster! For God’s sake, let’s get out of this!”

As I spoke, the body that we were carrying squirmed, and from its cracked lips issued a torrent of gibberish: “I was walking between the trees looking up. I couldn’t see their tops. I was looking up, and then suddenly I looked down and the thing landed on my shoulders. It was all legs—all long, crawling legs. It went right into my head. I wanted to get away from the trees, but I couldn’t. I was alone in the forest with the thing on my back, in my head, and when I tried to run, the trees reached out and tripped me. It made a hole so it could get in. It’s my brain it wants. Today it made a hole, and now it’s crawled in and it’s sucking and sucking and sucking. It’s as cold as ice and it makes a noise like a great big fly. But it isn’t a fly. And it isn’t a hand. I was wrong when I called it a hand. You can’t see it. I wouldn’t have seen or felt it if it hadn’t made a hole and got in. You almost see it, you almost feel it, and that means that it’s getting ready to go in.”

“Can you walk, Wells? Can you walk?”

Howard had dropped Wells’s legs, and I could hear the harsh intake of his breath as he struggled to rid himself of his slicker.

“I think so,” Wells sobbed. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s got me now. Put me down and save yourselves.”

“We’ve got to run!” I yelled.

“It’s our one chance,” cried Howard. “Wells, you follow us. Follow us, do you understand? They’ll burn up your brain if they catch you. We’re going to run, lad. Follow us!”

He was off through the fog. Wells shook himself free, and followed like a man in a trance. I felt a horror more terrible than death. The noise was dreadfully loud; it was right in my ears, and yet for a moment I couldn’t move. The wall of fog was growing thicker.