Weird Tales volume 28 number 02 (21 page)

With wraith-like fingers, to a peril sure?

'Tis told that evil things lurk out of sight

With human bones that fester in the ooze;

Belike 'tis true, these bones that once were dothed In fleshly form now harbor deadly spite

Against the living, and this swamp still brews Within its bubbling depths the curse men loathed

Before they turned to leprous Things of Night!

DEATH HOLDS THE POST

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Vhe

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iary

of Philip Westerly

By PAUL COMPTON

"A strange, brief tale of the terrible fear inspired by a marts horrendous reflection in a mirror

IT HAS been ten years since my uncle, Philip Westerly, disappeared. Many theories have been advanced as to why and how he vanished so strangely and so completely. Many have wondered why a man should vanish and leave nothing behind him but a smashed mirror. But none of these theories or wild imaginings are half so fantastic as the story I gathered from the diary which some whim prompted him to keep.

But first a word about Philip Westerly. He was a wealthy man, and also a cruel, selfish man. His wealth was attributed to this same cruelty and selfishness. He also had many whims. One of them

was keeping a diary. Another was his love for mirrors. He was handsome in a cruel sort of way and almost effeminate in his liking to stand before them and admire himself. This eccentricity was borne out by the fact that covering one whole side of his room was a mirror of gigantic size—the same mirror that is linked with his disappearance. But read the excerpts from the diary of Philip Westerly.

AUG. 3RD. Afternoon; Billings asked - for an extension on that note today, but I saw no reason why I should grant him any such thing. When I told him

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this, he began cursing me in a frightful manner. He said I was cruel and that some day I would be called to account for the way I treated people. I laughed outright at this, but at the same time I felt a vague sense of uneasiness which even yet I have not dispelled.

Night: A remarkable thing has happened. I had gone to my room to dress for dinner and I was standing before the mirror tying my tie. I had begun the usual procedure that one follows, when I noticed that no such action was recorded in the mirror. True, there was my reflection in the glass, but it followed none of the movements that I made. It was immobile!

I extended my hand to touch the reflection and encountered nothing but the polished surface of the mirror. Then I noticed a truly remarkable thing. The reflection in the mirror wore no tie! I stepped back aghast. Was this an illusion? Had my mind and vision been affected by some malady that I was not aware of? Impossible! Then I regarded the reflection with a more careful scrutiny. There were a number of differences between it and myself. For one thing it wore a stubby growth of beard on its face. I was positive that I had visited the barber that very day and passed my hand across my chin to verify this. It encountered nothing but smooth skin. The lips of the man in the mirror drooped in a display of gnarled, yellow fangs, while my own bared nothing but two rows of gleaming, well-cared-for teeth.

I was filled simultaneously with a feeling of disgust and fear, and looked for further discrepancies. I found them. The feet and hands were abnormally large, and the clothing of the thing was old, baggy, and covered with filth.

I dared not stay longer. I tied the tie as best I could and descended hurriedly to dinner.

Aug. 4th. Morning: I awoke feeling jaded and tired. My friend in the mirror is still with me. Ordinarily the reflection of myself, in bed, is caught in the mirror, but not so this morning. Instead, I saw that the dweller within had, like myself, been having a night's rest. I hope he slept better than I did, for my own night was a series of fitful, restless toss-ings.

"Good morning," I said, rising.

When I moved, he moved. As I advanced toward the mirror he drew closer to me. I stopped and surveyed him. He resembled me only remotely—I hope. I smiled, and he responded with a wolfish twist of his mouth. I extended my hand as if I wanted to shake hands with him, but he drew back as if from fire. I can't understand the terror which he holds for me. I try not to show my fear in front of him, but I feel that, animal-like, he senses it. I refer to the reflection as "he," "him," or "it," for I cannot bring myself to admit that the thing in the mirror is my reflection. But I scarcely dare write what I do believe it to be. I have always been skeptical about such things as "soul," but when I look into the mirror —God help me!

Night: I am spending much time in my room now. I've spent most of the day here. This thing is beginning to hold a morbid fascination for me. I can't stay away for any length of time. I wish I could. My wife is beginning to worry about me. She says I look pale., ■She tells me I need a rest—a long rest-If I could only confide in her! In anyone! But I can't. I must fight and wait this out alone.

Aug. 5th. There has been little or no change in our relationship. He still remains aloof.

Today my wife came to my room to see how I was feeling. She stood in such

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a position that looking into the mirror was unavoidable. She stood before the mirror arranging her hair. She noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but he was still there. Damn him! He was still there, and this time he snarled in triumph at me.

One other remarkable thing. My wife hadn't seen the thing there in the mirror, but neither had I seen her reflection. It was the same with Peter, my valet, and Anna, the maid. Anna would have dusted the mirror had I not stopped her. I must take no chances. A close scrutiny might reveal him to them, and they must not know—they must not know!

AUG. 6th. Three days. Three days of *" hell! That's what it has been since I discovered that damned thing. How he tortures me! He has begun to mock me. When he thinks he has given an extraordinarily clever impersonation he shakes with laughter. I can't hear him laugh. But I see him. And that's worse. I can't stand it much longer!

Aug. 7th. We never know how much we can stand until we go through some ordeal such as I am now undergoing. But I feel that my nerve is near the breaking-point.

I have locked the door of my room. Anna leaves a tray outside my door. Sometimes I eat the food she brings, but more often I don't. My wife begs me to let her in, but I tell her to go away. I'm afraid to tell her—I'm afraid to tell anyone. I know what they do with people who have "hallucinations". No, I

can't tell. Neither can I leave. God knows why, but I can't.

Aug. 8th. It was day before yesterday that I mentioned his mocking me. Today—I tremble at the thought—he is beginning to resemble me! This morning I looked in the mirror and discovered that he had discarded his rags and was now dressed in one of my suits. I ran to the wardrobe and discovered his clothes hanging where mine had been. I turned and faced him. He laughed and pointed toward my hands and feet. They were bloated beyond recognition. I dare not guess how far this change has gone. I can write no more today.

Aug. 9th. The change is complete. He looks more like me than I do myself. He has grown more cruel with the change. He taunts me with my ugliness. Finally I could stand it no longer. I fled from the room. At last I found the thing I was looking for—a mirror. When I came face to face with what I now am I nearly collapsed. Yes, he has taken my form. God pity me! I've taken his!

I slunk back to the room in horror. Back to his laughter and the hell that is now my existence. God knows what tomorrow will bring!

Aug. 10th. Seven days since that devil has been in the mirror. I have prayed to God that it may be the last. It will! I know it will! He, in the mirror, senses it too. I see the look of apprehension in his eyes. Damn him! It's my turn to snarl in triumph now. For when I lay down this pen, for the last time, perhaps, I shall leap through the mirror. And he exists only in the mirror. God help me! / am laying down my pen!

n the Dark

By RONAL KAYSER

Is was a tale of sheer horror that old Asa Gregg poured into the dictaphone

1HE watchman's flashlight printed a white circle on the frosted-glass, black-lettered door:

GREGG CHEMICAL CO., MFRS.

ASA GREGG, PRES.

PRIVATE

The watchman's hand closed on the knob, rattled the door in its frame. Queer, but tonight the sound had seemed to come from in there. . . . But that couldn't be. He knew that Mr. Gregg and Miss Car-ruthers carried the only keys to the office, so any intruder would have been forced to smash the lock.

Maybe the sound came from the storage room. The watchman clumped along the rubber-matted corridor, flung his weight against that door. It opened hard, being of ponderous metal fitted into a cork casing. The room was an air-tight, fire-proof vault, really. His shoes gritted on the concrete floor as he prowled among the big porcelain vats. The flashlight bored through bluish haze to the concrete walls. Acid fumes escaping under the vat lids made the haze and seared the man's throat.

He hurried out, coughing and wiping his eyes. It was damn funny. Every night lately he heard the same peculiar noise somewhere in this wing of the building. . . . like a body groaning and turning in restless sleep, it was. It scared him. He didn't mention the mystery to anyone, though. He was an old man, and he didn't want Mr. Gregg to think he was getting too old for the job.

"Asa 'd think I was crazy, if I told him about it," be mumbled, 236

Inside the office, Asa Gregg heard the muttered words plainly. He sat very still in the big, leather-cushioned chair, hardly breathing until the scrape of the watchman's feet had thinned away down the hall. There was no light in the room to betray him; only the cherry-colored tip of his cigar, which couldn't be visible through the frosted glass door. Anyway, it'd be an hour before the watchman's round brought him past the office again. Asa Gregg had that hour, if he could screw up his nerve to use it. ...

He took the frayed end of the cigar from his mouth. His hand, which had wasted to mere skin and bone these past few months, groped through the darkness, slid over the polished coolness of the dictaphone hood, and snapped the switch. Machinery faintly whirred. His fingers found the tube, lifted it.

"Miss Carruthers!" he snapped. Then he hesitated. Surely, he could trust Mary Carruthers! He'd never wondered about her before. She'd been his secretary for a dozen years—lately, since he couldn't look after affairs himself as he used to, she had practically run the business. She was forty, sensible, unbeautiful, and tight-lipped. Hell, he had to trust her!

His voice plunged into the darkness.

"What I have to say now is intended for Mrs. Gregg's ears only. She will take the first boat home, of course. Meet that boat and bring her to the office. Since my wife knows nothing about a dictaphone, it will be necessary for you to set this record running. As soon as you have done so, leave her alone in the room. Make

IN THE DARK

237

sure she's not interrupted for a half-hour. That's all."

He waited a decent interval. The invisible needle peeled its thread into the revolving wax cylinder.

"Jeannette," muttered Asa Gregg, and hesitated again. This wasn't going to be easy to say. He decided to begin matter-of-factly. *'As you probably know, my will and the insurance policies are in the vault at the First National. I believe you will find all of my papers in excellent order. If any questions arise, consult Miss Carruthers. What I have to say to you now is purely personal—I feel, my dear, that I owe you an explanation—that

God, it came harder than he had expected.

"Jeannette," he started in afresh, "you remember three years ago when I was in the hospital. You were in Palm Beach at the time, and 1 wired that there'd been an accident here at the plant. That wasn't strictly so. The fact is, I'd gotten mixed up with a girl "

He paused, shivering. In the darkness a picture of Dot swam before him. The oval face, framed by gleaming swirls of lemon-tinted hair, had pouting scarlet lips, and eyes whose allure was intensified by violet make-up. The full-length picture of her included a streamlined, full-blossomed and yet delectably lithe Body. A costly, enticing, Broadway-chorus orchid! As a matter of fact, that ■was where he'd found her.

"I won't make any excuses for myself," Asa Gregg said harshly. "I might point out that you were always in Florida or Bermuda or France, and that I was a lonely man. But it wasn't just loneliness, and I didn't seek companionship. I thought I was making a last bow to Romance. I was successful, sixty, and silly, and I did all the damn fool things— I even wrote letters to her, Popsy-wopsy

letters." The dictaphone couldn't record the grimace that jerked his lips. "She saved them, of course, and by and by she put a price on them—ten thousand dollars. Dot claimed that one of those filthy tabloids had offered her that much for them—and what was a poor working-girl to do? She lied. I knew that.

"I told her to bring the letters to the office after business hours, and I'd take care of her. I took care of her, all right. I shot her, Jeannette!"

He mopped his face with a handkerchief that was already damp.

"Not on account of the money, you understand. It was the tilings she said, after she had tucked the bills into her purse . . . vile things, about the way she had earned it ten times over by enduring my beastly kisses. I'd really loved that girl, and I'd thought she'd cared for me a little. It was her hate that maddened me, and I got the gun out of my desk drawer "

Asa cregg reached through the dark->- ness for the switch. He fumbled for the bottle which stood on the desk. His hand trembled, spilling some of the liquor onto his lap. He drank from the bottle

This part of the story he'd skip. It was too horrible, even to think about it. He didn't want to remember how the blood pooled inside Dot's fur coat, and how he'd managed to carry the body out of the office without leaking any of her blood onto the floor. He tried to forget the musky sweetness of the perfume on the dead girl, mingled with that other evil blood-smell. Especially he didn't want to remember the frightful time he'd had stripping the gold rings from her fingers, and the one gold tooth in her head. . . .

The horror of it coiled in the blackness about him. His own teeth rattled against

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the bottle when he gulped the second drink. He snapped the switch savagely, but when he spoke his voice cringed into the tube:

"I carried her into the storage room. I got the lid off one of die acid tanks. The vat contained an acid powerful enough to destroy anything—except gold. In fact, the vat itself had to be lined with gold-leaf. I knew that in twenty-four hours there wouldn't be a recognizable body left, and in a week there wouldn't be anything at all. No matter what the police suspected, they couldn't prove a murder charge without a corpus delicti. I had committed the perfect crime—except for one thing. I didn't realize that there'd be a splash when she went into the vat."

Gregg laughed, not pleasantly. His wife might think it'd been a sob, when she heard this record. "Now you understand why I went to the hospital," he jerked. "Possibly you'd call that poetic justice. Oh, God!"

His voice broke. Again he thumbed off the switch, and mopped his face with the damp linen.

The rest—how could he explain the rest of it?

He spent a long minute arranging his thoughts.

"You haven't any idea," he resumed, "no one has any idea, of how I've been punished for the thing I did. I don't mean the sheer physical agony—but the fear that I'd talk coming out of the ether at the hospital. The fear that she'd been traced to my office—I'd simply hidden her rings away, expecting to drop them into the river—or that she might have confided in her lover. , . yes, she had one. Or, suppose a whopping big order came through and that tank was emptied the very next day. And I couldn't ask any questions—I didn't even know what was in the papers.

"However, that part of it gradually

cleared up. I quizzed Miss Carruthers, and learned that an unidentified female body had been fished out of the East River a few days after Dot disappeared. That's how the police 'solved' the case. I got rid of her rings. I ordered that vat left alone.

"Trie other thing began about six months ago."

A spasm contorted his face. His fingers ached their grip into the dictaphone tube.

"Jeannette, you remember when I began to object to the radio, how I'd shout at you to turn it off in the middle of a program? You thought I was ill, and worried about business. . . . You were wrong. The thing that got me was hear' ing her voice "

He gripped the cold cigar, chewed it. "It's very strange that you didn't notice it. No matter what station we dialed to, always that same voice came stealing into the room! But perhaps you did notice? You said, once or twice, that all those blues singers sounded alike!

"And she was a blues singer. ... It was she, all right, somewhere out in the ether, reminding me. . . .

"The next thing was—well, at first when I noticed it in the office I thought Miss Carruthers had suddenly taken up with young ideas. You see, I kept smelling perfume."

And he smelled it now. It was like a miasma in the dark.

"It isn't anything that Carruthers wears," he grated. "It comes from—yes, the storage room. I realized that about a month ago. Just after you sailed—one night I stayed late at the office, and I went in there. ... It seemed to be strongest around the vat— her vat—and I lifted the lid.

"The sweet, sticky musk-smell hit me like a blow in the face.

"And that isn't all!'*

IN THE DARK

238

Terror stalked in this room. Asa Gregg crouched in his chair, felt the weight of Fear on him like a submarine pressure. His cigar pitched to his knees, dropped to the floor.

"You won't believe this, Jeannette." He hammered the words like nails into the darkness in front of him. "You will say that it's impossible. I know that. It is impossible. It is a physiological absurdity —it contradicts the laws of natural science.

"Bui I saw something on the bottom of that vat!"

He groped for the bottle. His wife would hear a long gurgle, and then a coughing gasp.. . .

"The vat was nearly full of this transparent, oily add," he went on. "What I saw was a lot of sediment on the golden floor. And there shouldn't have been any sediment! The stuff utterly dissolves animal tissue, bone, even the common ores-keeps them in suspension.

"It didn't look like sediment, either. I looked like a heap of mold . . . grave-mold!

"I replaced the lid. I spent a week convincing myself that it was all impossible, that I couldn't have seen anything of the sort. Then I went to the vat again "

Silence hung in the darkness while he sucked wind into his lungs. And the words burst—separate, yammering shrieks:

"I looked, night after night! For hours at a time I've watched the change.... Did you ever see a body decompose? Of course not! Neither have I. But you must know in a general way what the process is. Well, this has been the exact opposite!

"First, I stared at the heap of grave-mold as it shaped itself into bones, a skeleton.

"I watched the coming of hair, a yel-

low tangle of it sprouting from the bare round skull, until—oh, God!—the flesh began making itself before my eyes! I couldn't bear any more. I stayed away—■ didn't come to the office for five days."

The tube slipped from his sweating, slick fingers. Panting, Asa Gregg fumbled in the dark until he found it.

Exhaustion, not self-control, flattened his voice to a deadly monotone. "I tried to think of a way out. If I could fish the corpse out of the tank! But I couldn't smuggle it out of the plant—alone. You know that, and so do I. Besides, what would be the use? If acid can't kill her, nothing can.

"That's why I can't have the lid cemented on. It wouldn't do any good, either! Until three days ago, she hadn't the least color, looked as white as a ghost in the vat. A naked ghost, because there's been no resurrection for her clothing. .. «

"I've watched her limbs grow rosy! Her lips are scarlet! Her eyes are bright— they opened yesterday—and her breasts were rising and falling—oh, almost imperceptibly—but that was last night.

"And tonight—I swear it—her lips moved! She muttered my name! She turned—she'd been lying on her side— over onto her back!"

The record would be badly blurred. His hand shook violently, bobbled the tube against his lips. Gregg braced his elbow against the desk.

"She isn't dead," he choked. "She's only asleep . . . not very soundly asleep. . . . She's waking up!"

The invisible needle quivered as it traced several noises. There was his tortured breathing, and the clawing of his fingernails rattling over the desk. The drawer clicked as it opened.

The loud click was the cocking of the revolver.

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"Soon she's going to gel out of that vat!" Gregg bleated. "Jeannette, forgive me—God, forgive me—but I will not— I cannot—I dare not stay here to see her then!"

THE sound of the shot brought the watchman stumbling along the corridor. He crashed against the office door. It banged open in a shower of falling frosted glass. The watchman's flashlight

severed the darkness, and printed its white circle on the face of Asa Gregg.

He had fallen back into the chair, a blackish gout of blood running from the hole in his temple. He stared sightlessly into the light with his tyes that were two gnarls of shrunken brown flesh, like knots in a pine board.

Asa Gregg was blind . . . had been, since that night three years past when the acid splashed. . . .

our Wooden Stakes*

By VICTOR ROWAN

THERE it lay on the desk in front of me, that missive so simple in wording, yet so perplexing, so urgent in tone:

Jack:

Come at once for old-time's sake. Am all alone. Will explain upon arrival,

Remson,

Having spent the past three weeks in bringing to a successful termination a case that had puzzled the police and two of the best detective agencies in the city, I decided I was entitled to a rest; so I or-

* From WEIRD TALES for February, 1925.

dered two grips packed and went in search of a time-table. It was several years since I had seen Remson Holroyd; in fact, I had not seen him since we had matriculated from college together. I was curious to know how he was getting along, to say nothing of the little diversion he promised me in the way of a mystery.

The following afternoon found me

standing on the station platform of the

little town of Charing, a village of about

fifteen hundred souls. Remson's place

W. T.—7

FOUR WOODEN STAKES

241

was about ten miles from there; so I stepped forward to the driver of a shay and asked if he would kindly take me to the Holroyd estate. He clasped his hands in what seemed to be a silent prayer, shuddered slightly, then looked at me with an air of wonder, mingled with suspicion.

"I dun't know what ye wants to go out there fer, stranger, but if yell take the advice of a God-fearin' man ye'Il turn back where ye come from. There be some might)' fearful tales concernin' that place floatin' around, and more'n one tramp's been found near there so weak from loss of blood and fear he could hardly crawl. They's somethin' there. Be it man or beast I dun't know, but as fer me, I wouldn't drive ye out there for a hundred

, dollars—cash."

This was not at all encouraging, but I

' was not to be influenced by the talk of a superstitious old gossip; so I cast about for a less impressionable rustic who would undertake the trip to earn the ample reward I promised at the end of the ride. To my chagrin, they all acted like the first; some crossed themselves fervently, while others gave me one wild look and ran, as if I were in alliance with the devil.

By now my curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and I was determined to see the thing through to a finish if it cost me my life. So, casting a last, contemptuous look on those poor, misguided souls, I stepped out briskly in the direction pointed out to me. However, I had gone but a scant two miles when the weight of the valises began to tell, and I slackened pace considerably.