A Weird Woman's Oeuvre of Original Frightening Fiction
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The Gruesomes of Goryville
(please do not reprint without permission)
The Gruesomes of Goryville
Daddy came home early from the graveyard shift so that he would be home in time to celebrate baby Gracie’s third deathday with the family. Of course, all of us had died on the same day, but Gracie had been three years old at the time, so it seemed only fitting to celebrate the day in her honor. When Daddy arrived a little before midnight we were all just arising from our coffins. It was a bit early to be up, but this was a very special day.
Oh good, you’re home in plenty of time!” exclaimed Mama, giving him a ghastly smile. He grinned ghoulishly in return, replying, “Not only that, but wait until you see what I brought home with me!”
We children clamored to know what the surprise was, but he only shook his head and told us to be patient, as all would be revealed in good time. Brother Garrett guessed that it would be a sackful of yummy toads, while I rather thought a bucketful of graveyard worms was more likely. Baby Gracie just gurgled and gasped in childish anticipation. Grammy and Grampa Gruesome, still a little groggy with sleep, grimaced at us and told us to hush or there would be no surprise. This terrible possibility put an end to our speculations, and we all went into the kitchen with Mama to help her prepare the celebratory feast.
Tonight’s meal was to be Gracie’s favorite – Slimeball Salad and Gag-me-with-a-spoon Ghoul-ash. Garrett dirtied the slimeballs while I dumped the spoons into the Ghoul-ash. Grampa supervised Grammy while she set the table with our worst dishes. Mama busied herself putting the finishing touches on the Death-by-chocolate Cake. We all chuckled at the ridiculous name, since of course we were already dead and no cake could make us any deader! Daddy disappeared into the nether regions of the house, and we all wondered just what sinister surprise he had in store for us.
“Gilda,” Mama called to me, “put the Ghoul-ash on the table, and you do the same with the salad, Garrett. Our feast is ready!”
We started the meal with the cake, a family tradition ever since our first deathday celebration. Then we all dug in to the main course. We children only had swampwater to wash everything down, but the adults indulged in blood-red wine on this special day, so spirits were high as we feasted and talked into the night.
Gracie received her special gift as the honoree of the day – a new shroud of moldy white to wear in her coffin. Then, an hour before dawn when all of us would head back to sleep the sleep of the dead, Daddy left the room to return with our special surprise. All eyes anxiously watched the door, waiting for it to creak open and end our suspense.
Finally the big moment arrived. Imagine our shock and delight as the massive old door swung open with a crack and a mighty hell-hound bounded into the room, red eyes glowing and massive jaws slavering as he surveyed his new family with delight! Garrett, Gracie, and I jumped down from our seats and threw our arms around his neck, so huge that even Garrett could not get his arms all the way around it. Parents and grandparents watched with ill-disguised glee, and Mama literally fell to pieces when our monstrous new pet went over and placed his gigantic head in her lap. Retrieving a wayward limb, Mama asked us, “Well, children, the newest member of our family is in need of a name, so what do you think we should call him?”
We deliberated for a while, but it was not long before we hit upon the perfect name. We decided to call him Grim, after a fellow with whom we had all become quite well acquainted on the day of our deaths. Suddenly, I had a dreadful thought. “Daddy,” I said with a fearful quaver, “you always told us our home was too small for a pet! We do get to keep him, don’t we?” The three of us tightened our grips on the gigantic hound, who towered protectively over us.
“Well, daughter, that brings me to the second half of my big surprise,” our father said with a mirthless chuckle. “Tomorrow night the Gruesome family moves into its grand new residence!”
A deathly silence initially followed this announcement, swiftly replaced by screams and screeches that would have made a banshee proud. “Where, Daddy, where is our new home?” we asked in eager unison.
“Do you remember that big old mansion at 666 Cemetery Circle, the one your mother has had her eye on?” Mama protested gently that she had been meaning to retrieve that errant orb, ruefully rubbing her empty eye socket. “Well, the previous inhabitants were exorcised just a few days ago, and I was able to make an offer on the place that the owners couldn’t refuse!” Daddy does have a way with words, as well as clanking chains, moans, and groaning gibberish that cannot be resisted for long – even exorcising priests cannot withstand his onslaught, and I am sure the mansion’s owners decided that a quiet and happy Gruesome family in the place was better than Daddy all by himself making a ruckus fearsome enough to raise the dead!
“And best of all, the house is surrounded by a boneyard big enough for a dog like Grim!” I exclaimed. “Oh, this has just been the best day – I haven’t been this happy since the day I died!”
The sun was threatening to peek over the horizon at this point, so we all scurried off to our coffins to avoid this horrible sight. Gracie the deathday girl in her new shroud was given the honor of sharing her coffin with Grim, although Garrett and I insisted that we would have him on the following nights. Mama, ecstatic at the thought of our future abode, did not protest, and we all fell asleep that dawn to dream of the most frightfully fantastic night we had just shared.
The End
The End
Original story for Halloween (10/31/11)
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The Destruction
“You must show them no mercy – they will show none to you.”
“But I cannot just slaughter them in cold blood!”
“Then you will die.”
I recalled this conversation as I crouched in the abandoned
farmhouse, awaiting the outcome I knew was inevitable. I had exchanged these words with the
old man who would become my mentor just a few short months ago. It felt more like a lifetime had
passed. The old man was gone now,
along with almost everyone else with whom I had, out of necessity, joined
forces. Some, like the old man,
were dead. Others had fled, their
fates unknown. The fate of
others I knew only too well, and these I mourned the most. Now my only intention is to avoid their
fate, but before I do what I know I must, I will leave this account in the
event that some other poor souls should find themselves in my situation. I cannot give you hope, but perhaps
these words will give you the strength to do what is necessary.
Before the bad times started, life for me was fairly
idyllic. The leaders of our nation
were benevolent and promised to keep us safe from harm. They made good on their promise. No strife penetrated our borders. We prospered and were content. Because of this, we did not question
our leaders’ methods. We should
have done so.
At first the trouble was almost unnoticeable. Life seemed to continue pleasantly on,
but a few of the more sensitive souls mentioned a feeling of mild discontent in
the air. The rest of us
scoffed. Nothing had changed –
what reason had anyone to feel discontent? As the months went by, however, the rest of us began to feel
it too. We had nothing to complain
about, but the feeling of dissatisfaction grew, eventually to the point of
irritation. Police forces that had
until recently had very little to do suddenly found themselves called to
numerous scenes of arguments, brawls, and occasionally vicious fights. Our jails filled almost to overflowing,
and still the altercations occurred.
Worse yet, the police themselves, previously relied upon as the voice of
reason, began to assault the very public they were supposed to protect. Those of us who were still in control
of ourselves began to spend more and more time locked in our homes, trying to
avoid being noticed. The situation
was becoming intolerable.
Then the military troops came. There was no attempt to talk to us or reason with us. In their protective suits and gas
masks, they began gunning people down, starting with the police force itself
and then the incarcerated. When
they began going door to door to our homes, the rest of us fled into the
night. The lucky ones found hiding
places the troops did not discover, and were able to survive the attack. Eventually the troops moved on, and we
survivors cautiously returned to our once beloved town.
The devastation that met our eyes was sickening to
behold. The dead were
everywhere. Beautiful buildings
and parks were scorched and razed.
Lush crops and productive farmlands were burned and plowed under. Nothing remained of the life we had
cherished. Why had this happened
to us, and what were we to do now?
It was at this time that the old man arrived. He walked into our town with an air
that was both weary and determined.
We flocked around him, eager for any news he may have brought. What he told us still brings chills to
my heart after all these months.
“I was a scientist for the government,” he began. “I was charged with helping to find
ways to end the sieges constantly being waged against us by neighboring
nations. My colleagues and I
discussed many options, and finally hit upon the idea of using pheromones to
control aggressive tendencies. We
reasoned that if we could find a way to introduce airborne agents into the
atmosphere of these adjacent countries, their will to invade our borders would
be eliminated. The method
worked. The pheromone was quite potent, and the molecule was
remarkably stable. We found that
by introducing the substance in gaseous form via aerial spraying just once a
year, we were able to prevent all potential attacks.
The method has been in use for over twenty years, and in all
this time we have had nothing but success. Not only were aggressive tendencies reduced, but cooperative
tendencies were greatly enhanced.
Nations worked with nations, communities with communities, and individuals
with individuals, to the greater good of all. Peace and prosperity reigned. Our solution surpassed even our greatest hopes, and we had
no reason to believe it would not last indefinitely.
Then the unthinkable happened. We discovered that the extremely stable pheromone molecule
did after decades eventually break down.
To our horror, the substances into which this molecule broke down were
terribly dangerous. In fact, the
effect of these new substances was exactly the opposite of that of the pheromone. Slowly, as more pheromone molecules
began to break down, the incidence of undesirable behaviors began to rise. We worked frantically to find a way to
counteract the new substances. The
conclusion we reached was that when these bad substances broke down, the
resulting byproducts would be harmless.
Unfortunately, this will not happen for at least another two
decades. We could find no way to
speed up the process. Most
worrisome of all was the amount of the original pheromone we had introduced
into our environment. Not
realizing the serious consequences of our actions, and believing it to be
harmless, our leaders not only released it locally, but sold the formula to all
other nations so that they could employ it as well. The negative side effects are worse as the dose of the
breakdown products increases. A
worldwide apocalypse seems inevitable.
There is only one ray of hope. A few individuals seem to be resistant to the effects of this
dangerous molecule. Our leaders
decided that the best way to minimize the danger was to strike
preemptively. By eliminating
people showing symptoms, the likelihood of those with immunity surviving
increases. Thus, if our species
survives, ensuing generations will become more and more resistant, and the
negative effects less and less severe.
By the time all of the bad substances deteriorate, the human population
should have stabilized to the same level of aggressiveness seen before the
pheromone was used.
We are running out of time. More and more people are succumbing to the negative side
effects. Our leaders and our
military can no longer be trusted.
Since I seem to be one of the few who are resistant, I have taken it upon
myself to reach as many communities as I can, warning them of the danger and
telling them of the strategy to minimize that danger. I am heartened to find so many in your town without
symptoms. Perhaps your relatively
isolated community has a higher percentage of those with immunity, in which
case you must help each other to survive.
I will show you how to neutralize the affected ones, and where to go to
best protect yourselves. God help
us – I hope that we have a chance!”
The old man was as good as his word. He took us to a place where other
survivors like us had taken refuge.
We fortified our stronghold as best we could with supplies and weapons,
and prepared to fend off attacks.
Then we waited.
At first it was as the old man had predicted. Roving parties of aggressors attempted
to invade our refuge, but we became more and more skilled at repelling
them. We began to hope that with
time we could lead some semblance of a normal, if circumspect, life. This was not to be.
What the old man could not know was that our immunity was
relative. Although we did not
immediately succumb to the effects of the dangerous substance, eventually some of
us began to show the signs. At
first we merely expelled the affected ones from the refuge, and out of fear
they ran off, never to be seen again.
Then, as more cases became evident, those we turned out began to return
and lay siege. They became more
organized, and we began to suffer casualties, the old man among them. The morning before he died, he took me
aside and into his confidence. He
had always had a liking for me, and seemed to think I was one of the ones who
stood the best chance of surviving.
With great sadness he told me there was something I needed to know.
“My friend, “ he said, grasping my hand in both of his, “I
am afraid that I have failed you.
I assumed that all of the survivors possessed the same level of
immunity, and that assumption is wrong.
It seems that the level of immunity differs with each individual. Now I am not certain that anyone is
permanently immune. I cannot even
predict who is likely to be more immune – there is no correlation to age,
gender, race, degree of health, or any of the other factors that can be taken
into account. I tell you this
because I believe that if you remain here you are in great danger. Your best option is to strike out on
your own. You must leave here
tonight and go to the place I will describe to you. But once you are there, you must heed what I tell you next.”
What he told me next frightened me to the core, but I
promised I would do as he asked.
Then I begged him to come with me.
If I was in danger, then he was even more so. The old man replied that without him my chances of reaching
my destination were much greater.
The journey would not be easy. He would only slow me down, and would probably not
remain alive long enough to reach the site. I begged him to reconsider, until he finally relented and
told me he would think about it.
Two hours later he was dead.
I have always wondered if he deliberately put himself in the way of the
crazed individual who killed him to spare me the burden of trying to make the
journey that night with him. I
will never know.
He was correct in stating that the trip would be difficult. Many times I barely escaped murderous
hordes who killed together, then turned on one another and murdered erstwhile
comrades. I finally reached the
destination to which the old man had sent me. It was an old farmhouse in an isolated area owned by him and
unknown to anyone else. He had
already stocked it with supplies, so with luck it might be possible to survive
here without being discovered for many years.
I arrived five weeks ago. So far I have remained undetected. Today something happened to remind me of my promise to the
old man. I have begun to feel the
negative effects of the bad substances.
I have only a few more hours before these effects take control of me and
I start upon my own murderous rampage.
I promised the old man I would not let this happen, as it reduces the
chances of any who are truly immune surviving. In front of me is the poison he gave me to end it all. I will drink it now, but have enough to
leave behind for anyone choosing to use it after I am gone. I wish the human race luck – I
know you will need it.
Original story for Friday the 13th (7/13/12)
The End
The End
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Peripheral Vision
Jack Lansing rubbed his eyes and stifled yet another
yawn. He had been driving since
five o’clock that morning and now, nearly twelve hours later, the strain was
beginning to tell. He regretted having
left the main highway in favor of the two-lane country road he was presently
travelling. At the time it had
seemed like a good idea, trading the dreary monotony of the interstate for this
scenic route through upstate New York, but even the golden beauty of autumn
woods and pastures could no longer dispel the fatigue, and he had lost a lot of
time on these winding lanes past endless small towns. The light of day was fading quickly, and he still had
another hundred miles to go before reaching his destination.
Scowling at the empty coffee thermos on the seat beside him,
Jack debated whether to stop at a diner for yet another cup of bad coffee or to
keep on going. His stiff, cramped
leg muscles ached to get up and stretch, and his fingers were numb from
gripping the steering wheel for so many miles. On the other hand, his gas tank was still over
three-quarters full and the section of road he was on now was practically
deserted. Deciding to complete the
rest of his trip nonstop, Jack edged the speedometer up to seventy and turned
the radio up louder, hoping that the raucous music would help to keep his
senses alert. He had almost fallen
asleep at the wheel twice already, and without some kind of stimulation would
surely do so again.
Dusk was falling on the autumn evening, and Jack, struggling
to keep awake, noted the changing shadows that loomed and lengthened as the sun
sank in the western sky. Too much
coffee and too little sleep were taking their toll on his nerves, however, and
every leaping shadow made him start.
To calm this edginess, Jack began to think about his journey’s end. He imagined himself home at last, in
Huntington, with Susan anxiously waiting at the door, her face lighting up with
relief and happiness when he returned safely from yet another convention. Perhaps after he got his promotion these
trips would no longer be necessary.
Or maybe the company could fly him out instead of expecting him to find
his own transportation. Jack liked
his job and was good at it, but the constant travelling it entailed was
beginning to wear on him, and if the promotion did not come through, he was not
sure he could stay on. Even Susan
was urging him to find a new situation, but jobs were tight these days and it
would not be easy. Maybe Monday
morning he should go in and talk to Mr. Jenkins, his boss.
Jack’s thoughts were interrupted abruptly by a sudden
movement on the side of the road.
Although he had only seen it out of the corner of his eye, Jack could
have sworn he had just witnessed a shadowy human figure jump into the weedy
roadside ditch. He slowed the car
as he passed the spot where the figure had disappeared. Nothing was there. Jack silently cursed his overwrought
nerves as he again pressed down on the accelerator. He hoped his mind was not going to play tricks on him now
when he was so close to home, especially as the deepening gloom made it that
much more difficult to rely upon his overworked senses.
The road before him stretched on, long and empty. There were no more small towns before
Jack reached his home, and he had just passed the last service station a few
miles back. On both sides of the
lane tall tress grew right up to the edge, and the twilight was accentuated by
their overhanging branches. A
faint glimmer of sunshine still shone, but it only served to increase the sense
of blackness all around him. The
headlights of his car cut a pitifully small path through the darkness.
Jack found himself hunching his shoulders tensely and
squinting his eyes in a vain attempt to penetrate the gloom before him. The last ray of sunlight flickered out,
and it was night. A blurred
radiance from the half-moon above was the only light now, save for that of his
headlights. Jack forced himself to
relax and leaned back in his seat.
No sense in giving himself eyestrain and a headache when he was almost
home. In another hour he would
reach the city limits of Huntington, and this thought caused him to accelerate
the car a bit more. His
travel-weary eyes became heavy.
Now that it was dark, there was almost nothing to see but the road
ahead, dull grey in the headlights.
This lack of visual stimulation was dangerous, Jack knew, but he could
think of no way to alleviate it.
He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, and the small pain
temporarily roused him, but he did not know how long this would be
effective. His tired mind fought
his attempts to force it into alertness.
Jack became alarmed. Perhaps he should pull over. He began to slow the car, when suddenly
he was jolted to wakefulness by a movement near the side of the road.
Had it been his imagination, or had he just seen a figure
dash into the woods beside him?
Remembering his optical illusion earlier, Jack was inclined to dismiss
this as another of the same.
Nevertheless, he once again accelerated and swept past the spot where he
thought he had seen the thing. If
it had been and optical illusion, there was no reason to stop, but if it had
indeed been a person, then he had no wish to investigate further. Vague stories of solitary motorists
hijacked and murdered on lonely back roads flitted through Jack’s mind, and he
judged it prudent to continue rather than take a chance on stopping. Besides, the incident had revived his
tired senses, hopefully for the duration of his trip.
For the next fifteen minutes, Jack continued to drive in a
tolerably alert state. His eyes
and mind adjusted to the autumn darkness, and even the slight mist that had
arisen did not worry him. His
headlights still pierced the blackness before him, and the emptiness they
revealed was reassuring. Still, at
the back of his mind there lurked a suspicion of shadowy creatures crouched at
the roadside, just beyond his range of vision, eagerly watching and waiting to
spring the moment his alertness faded.
Jack smiled grimly at this foolishness his exhausted mind had conjured
up. He was not normally a fanciful
person, and was a bit surprised at how little it took to provoke the
imagination of a tired brain. It
was, he thought, definitely time to speak to Mr. Jenkins about that
promotion. If he went on like this
much longer, he was likely to become a nervous wreck, and no good to the
company or Susan. The thought of
Susan made him smile again, this time tenderly. Best not to tell Susan about these hallucinations, Jack
decided. She already worried
enough as it was, and these little incidents would only make matters worse.
The minutes dragged by and Jack fought doggedly to stay
awake, but once more he could feel weariness overcoming him. He struggled to keep his eyes
open. The dark night enveloped him
like a soft blanket, however, and his eyelids began to droop. His efforts to resist became weaker.
Just before his eyes closed, a movement at the edge of his
vision roused him once again. Was
it just another hallucination, or had he really seen a shadowy figure loping
alongside his car? Glancing down
at his speedometer, Jack realized that he had been driving just over eighty
miles her hour. No one could
possibly run that fast! He gave
his head a violent shake, and dug his nails into his palms once more for good
measure. Perhaps he really should
pull over. These visions could be
dangerous. What would he be seeing
next, flying elephants or spaceships from outer space? What if he actually fell asleep at the
wheel and had an accident? Still,
he was only about twenty minutes outside of Huntington now, and surely he could
stay awake that long.
Cranking up the radio even louder, Jack drove on, determined
to fight off his increasing sense of drowsiness. The night mist had thickened, and he could barely see the
distant lights of the town ahead.
The strain of trying to see through the mist made his eyes feel dry and
heavy, and without realizing it Jack was once again succumbing to exhaustion. His tired brain only dimly registered
the movement seen out of the corner of his eye, and when the indistinct figure
running by the side of the car suddenly spurted ahead and veered in front of
him, Jack just barely managed to yank the steering wheel around to drive into
the deep roadside ditch.
********
“Mrs. Lansing?” a harried-looking young doctor addressed the
woman in the hospital lobby. “I’m
Dr. Mitchell. Your husband was in
a very bad accident, but it looks like he’s going to make it. I’m afraid he’s going to be here for
some time, though. He’s under
sedation right now, but if you’d like to look in on him, I’ll have the nurse
take you to his room.”
Dr. Mitchell watched as the nurse led the distraught woman
down the hall and shook his head.
With two broken legs, a broken back, and some minor internal bleeding,
Mr. Jack Lansing was in for a very long stay indeed at the hospital. If never ceased to amaze him that
people would push themselves beyond the limits of endurance and keep driving
when they were utterly exhausted, even though everybody knew how dangerous it
could be. Mr. Lansing was lucky to
be alive. Why, the man had been
almost stark raving mad when the paramedics had first brought him in, babbling
some nonsense about peripheral vision and the sinister figures that lurked
there.
Shaking his head once again, Dr. Mitchell turned and began
to walk down the semidarkness of the long corridor, tossing his crushed coffee
cup into a litter basket. He was
on the fortieth hour of a forty-eight hour shift, and it had been a very busy
time. He had managed to grab a
couple hours of sleep, but that had been about thirty hours ago and the strain
was beginning to show. Weariness
fogged his thoughts as he made his way to his next patient’s room, and his
eyelids began to droop. He snapped
quickly awake, however, when out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a
shadowy figure lurking in one of the darkened rooms…
The End
Original story for Halloween (10/31/12)
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Little Green Men from Mars
Little Green Men from Mars
Now, ordinarily Hannah and I don’t go in much for stocks and
bonds – too risky, you see, and the Lord knows we’re not exactly rich. So I suppose you’re wondering why we
put every last penny of our hard-earned savings into shares of an obscure
little chemical company hardly anyone here has ever heard of. Well, it’s kind of a long story, and I
doubt you’ll put much stock in it, so to speak, but I’ll give it to you for
what it’s worth and you can make up your own mind.
You know that when I retired, Hannah insisted on moving out
to this God-forsaken little town.
She’s always been an avid gardener, and I have to admit that our
apartment in the city didn’t give her much chance to pursue her favorite
pastime, even if it was convenient for my business. Anyway, the old girl had given up a lot for me over the past
35 years, so I felt it was time to let her have her turn. I figured I could find plenty to keep
me busy, having always had a knack for carpentry and all-around tinkering. So, the long and the sort of it was,
out we moved to Titusville. I’m
not complaining, mind you, but it did take a little time to get used to the
nerve-wracking quiet of the place.
Not much has ever happened here, and not much ever will, I thought at the
time, and after living in a big city all our lives, this lack of excitement was
a little overwhelming. In about
six months, though, we settled into a fairly comfortable routine, Hannah in her
garden and me in my workshop, and the days passed quite pleasantly.
Then one day, just last spring, things began to happen. Only little things at first, more
annoying than alarming, but after having adjusted ourselves to no surprises
whatever, Hannah and I were a little puzzled. You see, we live way on the edge of town, about two miles
from our nearest neighbors, and we had never been bothered before. Not even the mailman comes into our
yard – he just leaves the mail in the box by the gate, and we hardly ever see
even him, let alone anyone else.
And now, all of a sudden, we started losing things. First it was Hannah’s old straw
gardening hat. She never goes out
without it, and she keeps it hanging on a nail just inside the garden
shed. Well, one day it just
disappeared. We had just finished
breakfast and I’d gone out to my shop when Hannah came in with a little frown
on her face and said to me,
“Sam, where did you put my gardening hat?”
Surprised, I replied, “Your gardening hat? Now why in the world would I take your old hat?”
“Heaven only knows, Sam,” she said, still frowning. “You know I always hang that hat in my
shed and now it’s gone. I didn’t
take it so it must have been you.
Where is it?”
I was beginning to get a little irritated. “I don’t know why you should think that
I took it, my dear. Pinching
gardening hats is not my idea of fun.
I did not take it and I have no idea where it is. Maybe you mislaid it, forget where you
put it last time you used it.”
“The last time I used it was yesterday afternoon, and I
distinctly remember hanging it up again as usual,” Hannah retorted. Then the frown left her face and she
gave me a worried look. “Sam, do
you think there are vandals in the neighborhood?”
The very idea set me laughing. “In this neighborhood?
Honestly, Hannah! And what
vandal in his right mind would want to take your silly hat anyway? Maybe the wind blew it away or rats
carried it off – who knows? We can
get you another one easily enough.
Don’t worry about it, honey.”
“Oh, I suppose you’re right, Sam. All those years of city living seem to have made me a little
paranoid about thieves,” Hannah said with a rueful smile. “Still, it is rather annoying.”
In the end we went into town that same morning, bought
Hannah a new hat, and promptly forgot the whole thing. Then, two days later, the next and even
more perplexing incident occurred.
Once again, it was just after breakfast and I was in my shop. Right away I sensed that something was
wrong. Unlike Hannah, I’m not an
especially tidy person, and if something is missing in my shop I just assume
it’s around somewhere and work with something else until it shows up
again. This morning, though, I
needed a particular size of screwdriver, and I had made sure the day before to
leave it where I could find it right away, in the middle of my work table in a
little cleared spot. Only it
wasn’t there. At first I thought
it had rolled off, even though I had made pretty certain it wouldn’t, so I
looked all around the area but found nothing. Then I thought maybe Hannah had borrowed it. She almost never comes into my shop –
can’t stand the mess, she says – but if she really needs some tool or other she
will come in now and then. I was
just about to go looking for her when she actually came bursting in, waving
something about in her hand.
“Sam!” She exclaimed.
“You’ll never believe this, but… my old gardening hat is back! See, here it is! It was hanging on its old nail, right
on top of the new one. What do you
think of that?”
“Hannah, you didn’t happen to borrow a screwdriver of mine,
did you?” I asked her, fairly sure I knew what her answer would be.
“I haven’t been in this shop since the day this old hat
disappeared. Why, Sam?”
“Well, honey, one of my tools is missing now, and I think
we’re the victims of some silly practical joke. Not vandals, just someone playing tricks on us. It’s probably just the Anderson
boy. He’s a little wild, and with
school out he’s likely bored and considers these pranks rather fun. I’ll just have a talk with his parents
and see if they can’t speak to him about it.”
Hannah agreed that this was the most likely explanation, and
for the next several days nothing happened, although Pete Anderson stoutly
denied having pulled the pranks.
The next incident vindicated him anyway, since he was out of town visiting
his grandparents when it took place.
This time, a plastic watering can was missing from Hannah’s shed, and
not only that, my screwdriver was back where I had originally put it. To top it all off, these things
happened in spite of the fact that both shed and shop were locked up tight as a
drum. Hannah and I were beginning
to become a little concerned.
Granted, the “borrowed” objects were of relatively little value; still,
it was rather upsetting that someone seemed to have free access to our things without
leaving any clues as to how and when they came. I asked around town to find out if anyone knew who the
practical joker might be, but all likely candidates were eliminated for one
reason or another. I also found
out that Hannah and I were the only ones experiencing these annoyances, which
inclined me to the belief that we had been singled out as the newcomers to
town, as well as being the most isolated.
I mentioned our little problem to Titusville’s sole representative of
the law, Sheriff Fred Barnes, and he agreed to keep his eyes and ears open, but
pretty much told me that if Hannah and I didn’t see or hear anything, it wasn’t
likely that he would either.
To make a long story short, all that month and the next
these little disappearances from our shop and shed kept happening. At first I tried to stay up nights to
catch the thief, but since the occurrences were not on a regular basis and I
could never be sure what night he would be there, I soon gave that up. It was almost as if the thief were keeping
tabs on me, because he would invariably strike on the one night I happened to
nod off. However, since the things
taken were never valuable and were always returned in perfectly good condition
after a few days, Hannah and I eventually resigned ourselves to these minor
aggravations.
Then, in late August, things began to disappear from the
house. First it was an old vase
from the living room. Neither of
us had liked that vase much – it had been a wedding gift from my old Aunt
Mildred, who had never been especially fond of me anyway – but Hannah insisted
I see Fred Barnes again immediately.
I had to admit that the idea of an elusive stranger prowling in and
out of our house at will didn’t set too well with me either, so I drove into
town and went to see the sheriff.
“ ’Morning, Fred,” I said as I walked not his office. “our sneak thief has started on the
house now, and Hannah and I are getting a little worried.”
Fred looked up and wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sam,” he
replied, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his chin. “I guess something’s got to be
done. Anything valuable gone?”
No, no, same old story,” I answered. “Just an old vase, and it’s no great
loss, either, but I think this has gone on long enough.”
“And you say you still haven’t seen or heard anyone in the,
let’s see, almost three months now that this has been going on?” Fred shook his
head. “Seems hard to believe. No signs at all?”
I was getting a little impatient. “Look, Fred, I’m not a detective. Why don’t you come over and look for clues. After all, that is your job, isn’t it?”
Fred sighed and heaved himself to his feet. “All right, all right, I’ll come on
over. But don’t expect too
much. I’m no detective either,
just a small-town sheriff. Besides,
look at it from my point of view.
Useless objects stolen and then returned, no sight or sound of the
culprit in almost three months – if I were a detective, I would deduce that you
and Hannah were just imagining things, or making it all up to pull my leg. Anyway, we might as well get going,
Sam.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from flinging back a nasty reply
and followed him out the door.
After all, he did have a point.
There really wasn’t that much he could do unless the thief got careless
and had left some clue to his identity.
True to his word, once back at my place Fred found nothing
that would lead to the identification of the culprit. When I asked him what he thought we should do, he shrugged
and said, “I wouldn’t call in the state cops yet if I was you – I doubt they’d
even believe you. You might try
hiring a private investigator if you want to waste your money, but if you ask
me, it’s probably just someone playing an extended practical joke. Can’t say as I know who it might be or
how they do it, but they don’t seem to mean any real harm, and nothing valuable
has been taken. Why don’t you just
let it go? Maybe if you ignore
him, whoever it is will get bored and give it up.”
I pointed out to him that we had been ignoring our thief for
three months now and he was just as active as ever. With another shrug, Fred merely suggested we just keep
ignoring our thief, then went back to town. After talking it over, Hannah and I decided to wait two
weeks before taking any further action.
Then, if the thefts still continued, we would put an end to it once and
for all, even if it meant hiring a dozen detectives and calling the National
Guard to boot.
It was exactly two weeks later that things finally came to a
head, and believe me, it didn’t end at all the way Hannah and I had ever
imagined it would. The two of us
had just returned from a morning shopping trip to town. I had needed a pound of nails and some
plywood to finish some birdhouses I was building, and Hannah wanted to get a
few things for her garden – some fertilizer, a new weed killer, and some
chrysanthemums that were on sale.
On the way home we discussed the theft situation. Things were still being taken – not
many, and nothing valuable, and they were always returned in a couple of days
none the worse for the wear. It
even appeared to us that the thefts were becoming less frequent, as though the
thief were finally getting tired of his joke. Even so, it was an unsettling feeling having someone enter
your house whenever they felt like it, and we decided to talk to the state
police whether they believed us or not, as well as a private detective if need
be, that very afternoon. We ate
lunch, and I went to take a nap before making the call, figuring I would need
to be wide awake and alert for my talk with the police when they arrived. Hannah went to work in her garden, and
I was alone in the house.
Did you ever wake from a sound sleep with the feeling you
were being watched? Well that’s
exactly what happened to me that afternoon. I had been asleep maybe fifteen minutes at most, when all of
a sudden I awoke with a jolt, dead certain someone was staring at me that very
instant. At first I didn’t move,
straining my ears to try and catch the sound of breathing, or of feet shuffling
– anything to confirm my feeling. Hearing
nothing, I sat up slowly, then gazed all around the room. Nothing – I saw absolutely
nothing. I was puzzled, but also
relieved, and proceeded to put on my shoes before going to make that phone
call. And then it happened.
I had just finished tying my shoes and was halfway out of my
seat when I noticed a sort of green mist shimmering not four feet in front of
me. Fascinated, I sat down again
and continued to watch. The mist
seemed to grow denser, and the shimmering quality gave way to a kind of
quivering, and all of a sudden I found myself face to face with the most
extraordinary creature I had ever seen.
It was built like a man, with arms, legs, hands, feet, and a human-type
face, but it was only about three feet tall and its skin was a vivid
green. So astonished was I that it
didn’t even occur to me to be frightened.
I sat there like an idiot with my mouth hanging open, until finally the
little green man spoke.
“Hello, Mr. Weber,” the creature said in a pleasant, cultivated
voice. “I hope I haven’t startled
you.”
My voice no more than a croak, I managed to stammer out,
“Who are you?”
“Well, for one thing, Mr. Weber,” the green man replied with
a smile, “I am your sneak thief.
My name is Xan, from the planet you call Mars.”
Don’t ask me why, but the first thing that came into my head
when I heard this was, “Of course, little green men from Mars!”, as if this
explained everything. After that
my thoughts were in a whirl.
Curiosity, caution, fear, puzzlement – out of the chaos and confusion in
my mind I was only able to drag forth another question, albeit brief. “Why?”
Still smiling, Xan answered calmly, “You wish to know why I
am here, and why I have been carrying off various objects from your household?” Dumbly, I nodded, and Xan
continued, “The reason for carrying off the objects is simple. I needed to test them to determine any
potential detrimental effects these objects – or rather, the materials from
which they were made – might have upon my people. You see, Mr. Weber, mine is a thriving race. Our planet has at last reached the
point where no more inhabitants are possible. Therefore, we intend to establish an experimental colony
here.”
My whirling thoughts at last latched on to the meaning of
his words. “And… what about us,
Mr. Xan?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me that Earth was probably
just about as crowded as Mars.
“Oh, your species poses no threat to us, Mr. Weber.” Xan’s
complacent reply came as no surprise to me. Somehow, I’d been expecting something like that. “You see, of all the objects I
temporarily confiscated from your property, absolutely none of them proved in
any way harmful to us. In any way,
Mr. Weber,” Xan added, and suddenly I realized that we were communicating by
telepathy, and that he had read my thoughts about the old army pistol I kept in
the hall closet. Now I was good
and scared. If he could read my
thoughts so easily, there was no way I could escape from him.
“Ah, you are wise, Mr. Weber,” Xan said, pleased by my sudden
realization of helplessness. “You
see, our physical makeup is totally different, although there is some
superficial morphological resemblance.
From each of the objects taken from these premises, and from thoughts
read from countless beings like yourself, we were able to construct all of your
so-called weapons. All proved to
be completely ineffective against our kind.”
“But you can’t expect to just come here and wipe us all out
without a struggle,” I protested, more from desperation than from any real conviction
I felt that I could prevent their doing exactly that. “Not unless you intend to make the whole planet unfit for
habitation by anyone, that is.”
“There is some truth to what you say, Mr. Weber,” the
creature admitted with a frown, “which is why I am here now. We wish to obtain this planet with as
little unnecessary destruction as possible, and to do that we must study your
species more carefully. Mr. Weber,
I have come for you and your wife.
There are certain experiments that must be conducted, and the two of you
will be quite adequate as our first test subjects.”
By then my blood had turned to ice in my veins. Hannah and I were to be guinea pigs,
and from us these monsters would begin to learn how to most efficiently destroy
the whole human population of Earth!
Almost without thinking, I made a lunge at Xan, and by golly, I almost
had him. I saw the look of
surprise on his face, and then suddenly I was frozen in place. My muscles just went rigid, and I could
not move.
“Mind control, Mr. Weber,” Xan explained. “I did not think I would need it, but
evidently your will to survive is stronger than I expected. Come, Mr. Weber, and we will find your
wife.”
Somehow I was moving, walking behind Xan as he headed out
the back door toward the garden.
In the distance we could see Hannah stooping over her work. She had planned to get the chrysanthemums in before I made that phone call to the police, and was
evidently still hard at it. How I
wished I could shout, or run to her and tell her to get away while there was
still time! But I had lost all
control of my body. I walked behind
Xan like a zombie because he willed it, and although my thoughts were my own,
my power of speech was not. So
intent was Hannah on her work that she did not even notice our approach. When we were about three yards away
from her, Xan willed me to speak.
“Hannah,” I called out gently.
“Oh, Sam, I’m sorry I took so long, but I finally finished
planting the mums,” Hannah exclaimed, turning to face us, “so I thought I would
try the new weed killer and… gracious heavens!”
Hannah has always been the nervous type, and her reaction to
the situation was pure nerves. So
startled was she at the sight of little green Xan that she aimed the hose, with weed killer attachment, straight at him and in her shock let him have it full
blast. And bless me if she didn’t
save us both, and the entire human population to boot! This unexpected onslaught caused Xan to
release his mind control hold on me, and I was all set to tackle him, but it proved unnecessary. He suddenly just went all limp and sort
of brown, and slowly wilted to the ground, “like a great big dandelion”
according to Hannah. No wonder the
creature had not been concerned about any of our standard weapons – he and his
whole confounded race were nothing but animated plant life!
So there’s my story, make of it what you will. No doubt you probably think it’s just a
lot of malarkey, and I can’t say as I blame you. Hannah and I scarcely believe it all happened ourselves. It is possible, as some of our more
tactful friends had hinted, that the whole thing could have been a shared
hallucination brought on by our precipitate plunge into the unaccustomed
isolation of country life. The
only thing they can’t explain is that lump of decaying vegetation over by the
fence there. I sent a sample to
our county extension agent, by the way, who declared that it was the most
unusual botanical specimen he had ever encountered, although unfortunately far
too decomposed to make any sort of identification possible. He even asked us to send any fresh
specimens we happened to come across – heaven forbid!
Anyway, all of this finally brings us to that little
investment Hannah and I made with our savings. You see, that obscure little chemical company we bought
shares in is the one that makes the weed killer Hannah was using on that
memorable day. Say what you will,
that weed killer is damn good stuff, as we ought to know, and we’ve never
regretted our investment for a single minute!
Original story for Walpurgis Night (4/30/13)
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠
The Sea Creature
“I
wouldn’t be telling you this story if I wasn’t so damned drunk,” the old man
confided to me over his beer. We
had been sitting side by side at the bar for over four hours, steadily downing
beers until it almost became a sort of competition between us. I was attempting to drown my sorrow over
a disappointment in love; I didn’t know then what he was trying to forget.
“Forty
years ago I was a young graduate student studying marine biology,” he
continued, musingly rubbing a grubby hand over the stubble on his chin. “You wouldn’t think it to look at me
now, but at the time I was considered a most promising young scientist. I had what it took – an inquiring mind,
complete objectivity, and the discipline to examine a question thoroughly from
all angles, no matter how long it took.
My professors were so impressed with me that they decided to include me
on a summer expedition to South America to explore the waters off the coast. There had been reports of a recent
upwelling from the ocean floor in this area, and it was thought that these
rising currents might sweep some previously unseen denizens of the deep up to
the surface.
The
trip down was pleasant and uneventful.
The group of seven scientists that I was accompanying had chartered a
good-sized boat and crew, and it seemed that no expense had been spared. All of the latest equipment had been
brought aboard and carefully set up, and a team of competent technicians was
hired to assist us. There were
even a ship’s doctor and a professional cook on board, to ensure our complete
physical comfort. The expedition
promised to be a landmark experience in my budding career, and so it was, but
not al all in the way I thought it would.
I wish to God that I had never gone…
The
weather was favorable and we reached the site of the upwelling in record
time. As soon as we arrived, Dr.
Alderson, the organizer of the expedition, ordered a team into scuba gear and
over the side to reconnoiter. I
was one of this team, and my eagerness and enthusiasm as I entered the water
knew no bounds. We had been warned
to stay out of the current of the upwelling itself, and to simply survey the
area and keep an eye out for any unusual fauna. Almost immediately we were in luck. One of the team members began
gesticulating excitedly, and swam rapidly away from the group. The rest of us followed, and we soon
saw the cause of his excitement.
Half a dozen fish of a deep sea species known only from a few incomplete
specimens swam before us, still alive but obviously on the point of death, the
sudden decrease in pressure already proving fatal to them. I remember reaching out and touching
one as it floated listlessly by me, feeling a sudden pang of pity for the dumb
creature that had been forced so brutally from its calm life in the deep to an
agonizing death at the ocean’s surface.
This
touch of compassion was only momentary, however, and I was soon engaged with
the others in netting two of the fish to take back to the boat. A special pressurized chamber had been
designed and installed on our vessel.
Any unusual specimens found were to be captured and transported as
quickly as possible to this chamber, to minimize any damage caused by the
sudden pressure change and to keep any creatures alive as long as possible for
study. Unfortunately, both of the
fish died only a few hours after their capture. Nevertheless, even as preserved specimens much could be
learned from our find. We had been
remarkably successful on our first day, and spirits were high as we
congratulated each other on a job well done. Scientists and crew alike were fascinated by our unusual
catch, and all looked forward to more important discoveries in the days ahead.
The
next ten days brought no new discoveries, however. We prowled the ocean ceaselessly, watching the upwelling
current for any new creatures, but to no avail. Although the current was very strong, it was a very narrow
one, and I suppose the chance of anything running into it was rather small. We had been very lucky to be successful
on our first day; nevertheless, the disappointment of no further finds was very
keen. We had another week to
continue with our observations, but after that we would be obliged to return to
the States. Our initial high
spirits were dampened considerably, but on the eleventh day came a find so
unexpected and peculiar that at once all disappointment was forgotten.
We
were in the habit of patrolling the area in two teams of four, in four-hour
shifts from daybreak until the last rays of the sun had sunk beneath the
horizon. The first shift of the
morning had the first bit of luck.
Another specimen of the same fish species we had found on the first day
was captured, and this specimen was fairly healthy. Apparently it had not been in the upwelling for very long,
and had not yet suffered much damage from the change in pressure. We hastily placed the fish in our
pressurized chamber and had high hopes about getting some observations on this
specimen before it, like the previous two, succumbed to its alien
environment. After this find,
however, nothing else was seen in the upwelling, and once again our optimism
began to flag.
About
an hour before dusk on that fateful day, my team was out once again, swimming
about the upwelling rather halfheartedly, tired from the day’s work and all but
convinced that our efforts would be fruitless. The leader of our team, Dr. Richards, had just decided to
cut our shift short and was signaling to the rest of us to surface, when off to
my left I saw an amazing sight. It
was a creature so different from anything I had ever seen that at first I
believed it to be a mere figment of my overtired brain. It was quite large, over three feet in
length, and horseshoe-shaped. The
boy of the thing was flattened except for the two ends, which were inflated and
rounded, about the size of a man’s head.
The color was a dark blue streaked with grey and black, and from each
end an opalescent mass protruded from fist-sized holes. It did not appear to be swimming,
merely floating, and from where I was I could not tell if it was alive or dead.
Gesturing
wildly to my fellow team members, I swam as fast as I could toward the
creature. Soon the four of us had
the thing netted and were hurrying back to the ship, being as careful as
possible not to damage it. When we
lifted it out of the water, however, the extruded opalescent masses were
withdrawn into the holes at each end, and we all let out a cry of exhilaration
at the sight. We were all hoping
that, once in the pressure chamber, the creature would be able to survive and
more intensive studies could be conducted.
Our
find was surprisingly heavy, and it took all four members of our team to lift
it out of the water. The body was
hard and shell-like, and its weight was such as to suggest that this shell was
quite thick. We carried the
creature quickly and carefully to the room containing our pressurized
chamber. The chamber had been
hastily divided into two compartments by the technicians so that the creature, if
it was still alive, would not damage the specimen we had collected that
morning. As we released it into
its chamber, the strange creature slowly sank to the bottom and came to rest.
At
first all eight of us sat around the window to the chamber, watching and
waiting eagerly to see if the creature would once again extrude the gelatinous
masses we had seen earlier. Dr.
Alderson gave it as his opinion that our find was some species of mollusk,
totally unrelated to any species with which he was familiar. He and Dr. Hoffmann, another highly
respected marine biologist with an interest in malacology, began a perfunctory
argument over the probability of the thing belonging to an entirely new order,
but the focus of everyone’s attention was the motionless creature in the
chamber. The dinner hour arrived,
and a member of the crew came to fetch us. Several left the room, but the rest of us doggedly
remained. Our patience was
rewarded.
Slowly
at first, then with increasing rapidity, the masses at either end began to
emerge. We watched in breathless
silence as these masses started to pulsate, and suddenly the creature was
swimming, or rather floating, about mid-level in the tank. Initially the two ends with the
protruding masses were oriented toward us, which was the direction in which the
creature had come to rest on the bottom.
Soon, however, it began to turn to the right, where the divider
separating the chamber in half was located. With a gentle undulating movement, the thing began to move
toward this divider. It did not
slacken its speed even when it came into contact with the barrier, but instead
seemed to be attempting to push through.
The transparent divider was perforated rather than entirely solid, so
that the water from the two halves of the chamber intermixed freely. With a sudden exclamation, Dr. Richards
declared, “I believe the creature is after our other specimen!”
This
did indeed seem to be the case.
Frustrated in its attempt to push through the barrier, the strange
mollusk began to creep along its surface in the direction of our fish specimen. Once directly across from it, the
creature again tried to force itself through the barrier, without success. I remarked with interest that the fish
on the other sided showed no discernible reaction to the mollusk. Dr. Alderson opined that the trauma
suffered by the fish in its rise from the deep with the upwelling had probably
rendered it insensible to any potential danger, while the mollusk’s tough outer
shell may have protected it from severe damage. The other members of the expedition had returned by now, and
a rather heated discussion was begun on how to prevent our new find from
damaging itself in its struggles to cross the barrier. It did not seem to comprehend the
impenetrability of the divider, and its attempts appeared to be becoming more
strenuous.
In
the end, we decided to do nothing.
There seemed to be nothing we could do, short of giving our fish
specimen to the creature. Neither
one would probably survive the trip anyway, but at least we could keep both
alive for as long as possible for observation, which we decided to conduct
continuously. Each of us
volunteered for a shift, and then returned to our normal tasks.
Over
the next several days, the creature continued its attempts to cross the
divider, never stopping to rest or slackening its struggle in any way. The fish, on the other hand, visibly
appeared to be weakening. Finally,
on the fifth day, the fish died.
The mollusk’s reaction to this event was abrupt and unexpected. It simply fell from the side of the
barrier to the bottom of the chamber, the opalescent masses once again
retracted. After two days it still
lay where it had fallen, and we concluded that it too had died.
The
time allotted for our expedition was up, and we began the journey back
home. We had discovered no new specimens,
but our peculiar find more than compensated for this disappointment. It was Dr. Michaels, the physiologist,
who suggested that we dissect the creature on the ship. We still had about five days before we
reached our destination, the water was relatively calm, and we had all the
equipment and instruments we needed.
Drs. Hoffmann and Cumberland objected, stating that a find of this
importance demanded a more carefully controlled and fully outfitted setting,
but the rest of us, in our seal for more knowledge about the animal, overruled
them, and we set about preparing for the dissection.
I
was to assist Dr. Santiago in removing the creature from the chamber and
setting it up on the dissecting table so that he and Dr. Michaels could perform
the dissection early on the following day. Accordingly, at seven o’clock the next morning, Dr. Santiago
and I carefully netted the thing up and, with the assistance of a special
pulley rigged up by the technicians, got it out of the tank and onto a sturdy
gurney. We were about to wheel it
off to the dissecting room when Dr. Santiago discovered that he had forgotten
the keys to the room. Telling me
to stay with the animal until he returned, he left to get the key from Dr.
Michaels.
Not
more than a minute after he left, one of the crew members entered the chamber
room. I recognized him as Henley,
and greeted him cheerfully. Henley
had an inordinate and almost childlike interest in the creatures of the sea,
and we had struck up a friendship when he asked me to teach him “some of them
fancy science names you doctors is always spoutin’ off when you see them
things”. All of the crew had
sneaked in for a peak at the curiosities we had managed to find on our
expedition, but Henley was truly fascinated by them. He asked me if he could take a closer look at the thing on
the gurney, and, warning him to be very careful, I gave him permission. As he examined it solemnly from all
sides, I glanced down to make a few observations in my notebook. While I wrote I could hear Henley
muttering remarks to himself. All
of a sudden, he called out, “Hey, Doc Bowers, what’s this here thing?”
I
looked up from my notebook, about to admonish Henley yet again for addressing
me as a “Doctor” when I had not yet earned that title, when he let out a yell
of pain and surprise and I saw him jerk back from the gurney. To my horror, I saw that the first
joint of his right index finger was firmly clamped in the opalescent mass in
one of the ends of the creature.
Henley screamed again and called for me to get the thing off of
him. I was in a panic; I had no
idea how to extricate his finger from the creature, and it was obvious that
Henley was in tremendous pain. For
lack of a better weapon, I stuck the end of my pen into the gelatinous mass and
was aghast to see that my pen was irremovably clasped in the mass as well.
At
that moment Dr. Santiago returned with Dr. Michaels, and the three of us
struggled without success to detach the creature from Henley. Dr. Michaels tried to cut into the
creature with a scalpel, but this too was tightly held in the mass. Others began to arrive, but their
efforts were also in vain.
Attempts to cut through the body of the creature with an axe were
useless; the shell was too thick. Injections were impossible, and we were afraid to throw acids
or other chemicals onto the now rigid mass for fear of injuring Henley. Almost half an hour had passed, and Dr.
Michaels began to whisper urgently to us that amputation of the finger joint
might be necessary, when suddenly Henley let out a wail and staggered back
across the room.
Immediately
Henley was rushed to the ship’s tiny sick bay, still screaming with pain. The medical doctor on board, Dr. Lewis,
examined the afflicted finger.
Aside from a slight swelling and several small puncture wounds like
pinpricks, there appeared to be very little damage. Henley was still moaning, however, and told Dr. Lewis that,
although abated somewhat, the pain was still noticeable. Dr. Lewis, fearful that the creature
was perhaps venomous and that the poison would have no known antidote,
anxiously requested the ship’s captain to contact the authorities to have
Henley transported to the nearest hospital.
With
all of the pandemonium created by the creature’s attack on Henley, all thought
of dissecting the creature was forgotten.
Indeed, it now seemed unlikely that any of our instruments would have
been able to penetrate the tough outer covering of the thing anyway. A few of the scientists dumped it
rather unceremoniously back into its chamber, where it lay immobile and
inactive for the rest of the trip.
Two
hours after the attack on him, Henley had quieted down considerably. The pain appeared to have lessened, but
Henley now complained of a slight itching in his hand, particularly the wounded
finger. A few minutes later a
helicopter arrived to take Henley to a Latin American hospital, and I requested
permission to accompany him. I
felt responsible for his predicament, as I had been the one to allow him to
approach the loathsome creature, and there was also the consideration that it
would not be right to leave him in a foreign country by himself in his
uncertain condition. Accordingly,
I flew with him and checked into a hotel close to the hospital where he was
taken.
Henley
had been given a sedative for the trip to the mainland, and its effects did not
wear off until about eight o’clock that night. I had spotted by the hospital half an hour earlier, and was
just about to leave his room when I heard him groaning. I approached his bed anxiously.
“Henley,
are you all right? Should I call
the nurse?” I asked him. He did
not appear to hear me, but began writhing and tossing in the bed. His groans became louder and soon he
began to shout, at first incoherently, and then in short sentences.
“Make
them stop! Oh, how it hurts! I can’t stand it, make them stop!”
Henley repeated these words over and over, and I rushed to find the nurse. She hurried back into the room with me,
and tried to calm Henley, but his thrashings had become violent now, and we
were forced to get more help.
Several orderlies entered the room and held the poor man down, but the
pain was apparently so great now that Henley was in the throes of a fit. Medication was administered and the doctor
examined Henley carefully, but he was completely mystified as to the source of
Henley’s pain. An entire battery
of tests were being run, the doctor told me, but thus far nothing had been
found. There was no trace of any
type of poison in his system, and no known viral, bacterial, or fungal
infection had been discovered. The
only anomaly was a slight viscosity of the blood, but this was most likely due
to dehydration and Henley was on intravenous fluids for this. We puzzled a bit over Henley’s reference
to “them”, but decided that he had merely been delirious and dismissed his
words as meaningless ravings.
Henley’s
condition had worsened considerably by the next morning. He was being kept sedated continuously
now, as he became uncontrollably violent whenever he was conscious. He was also receiving potent
painkillers intravenously because his suffering was so acute that even under
sedation he writhed in agony. The
entire hospital staff was at a loss to know how to treat his condition. Though the hospital was not a large
one, the doctors were highly trained and competent, and were unquestionably
administering the best possible care.
One doctor desperately suggested exploratory surgery, but another one
impatiently snapped back, “For what?”
It was not even clear what type of specialist, if any, should be called
in to examine him. Finally it was
decided that Henley must be flown to one of the larger hospitals in the States,
and that as quickly as possible.
Once
again I accompanied poor Henley, this time with a medical team in constant
attendance. His pain was by now so
acute that even painkillers could not keep him lying quietly, and he was
strapped down to the bed in which he was transported. I was not permitted to ride in the same compartment with
him, but even so I could hear his terrible moans and the voices of the doctor
and nurse as they attempted to calm him.
By
the time Henley had been checked in to a hospital in Texas it was clear that a
crisis had been reached. He was no
longer violent, and appeared in fact to have lost consciousness entirely. Worse yet, his once strong and powerful
frame seemed to have shrunken into itself, and his skin was a ghastly grey in
color. The doctors despaired of
any recovery, and merely gave him enough medication to let him rest comfortably
until the end. They did not have
long to wait.
I
had been allowed to sit with Henley as he lay dying, since he was beyond the
point of being dangerous to anyone now although I was instructed not to touch
him or approach too closely. At a
little before eleven o’clock, less than two days after he had been attacked by
the horrible sea creature, Henley died.
I was by his side, and saw his body stiffen as the end came. To my indescribable horror, I also saw
something else. At the moment of
Henley’s death, I noticed a strange movement just underneath his skin. Suddenly, his skin began to erupt in
tiny boils, and then the boils burst open to reveal tiny, opalescent, almost
transparent threads. I had buzzed
for a nurse when I saw that Henley was near death, but when she entered the
room and began to approach his bed, I grabbed her arm wildly and shouted,
“Don’t go near him, for God’s sake, unless you want to die like he did!”
I
had told the doctors at both hospitals assigned to Henley’s case the history of
his condition, and had emphasized the fact that the creature that had attacked
Henley was totally unknown to science and could therefore have afflicted the
poor man with something untraceable by any known medical procedures. Henley’s rooms had been quarantined,
and only authorized personnel had been permitted entrance. This made the next task slightly
easier. Wearing protective
covering and cautiously approaching the bed, and without touching directly the
body the doctor and I removed Henley’s remains to an airtight body bag, which
was then removed and cremated. His
next of kin were merely told that Henley had contracted an exceedingly
dangerous contagious disease, and for that reason the body could not be
returned to them.
It
had seemed to me that the tiny threadlike masses had expired upon contact with
the air – they had not doubt been expecting seawater. Nonetheless, the bed and bedding from Henley’s room were
burned, and the room was thoroughly fumigated as well as disinfected. No other cases similar to Henley’s have
been reported, so it would seem that the horrible creatures were completely
destroyed.
And
what about the original? About a
month after Henley’s death, I hear from Dr. Michaels. He had taken charge of the creature upon the expedition’s
return to the States. After
hearing my story of Henley’s end, Dr. Michaels had taken extreme caution in
ensuring the creature’s demise.
Perhaps the thing was already dead by the time it arrived in the States,
or it could have been killed by the concentrated formalin treatment to which
Michaels subjected it. At any
rate, it was dead and Michaels, dedicated scientist that he was, decided to go
ahead with the dissection. When
the creature was, after much difficulty, finally opened up, there was really
not much in the interior to see.
Dr. Michaels informed me that there was no digestive system, no
circulatory system, no internal structures at all, except for thousands and thousands
of tiny egg sacs, each with a small needlelike appendage at one end.”
The
old man rubbed his bleary eyes, which were wet with tears. “Don’t you see the irony of it? Here we were, eight scientists with
years of collective experience among us, and yet we couldn’t recognize a simple
parasite when we found it! We
assumed that the monstrous creature had tried to reach our fish specimen
because it was hungry, when all it wanted was a host in which to deposit its
eggs. All ships were warned away
from the area of that cursed upwelling, but a few months later the current
stopped as abruptly as it had started, and now almost nobody remembers exactly
where the site was.” Heaving a
sigh, the old man said, “I had to give up any idea of pursuing a career in marine
biology, of course. I have a
morbid fear of the ocean now, or any body of water as a matter of fact, and the
mere sight of a snail makes me shudder.
And I can’t forget poor Henley.”
Downing
the last of his beer, the old man turned his ravaged and haunted face in my
direction. “You look like a
sea-faring fellow, son. Take my
advice and stay away from the waters off the South American coast. Hell, get yourself a nice, safe land
job and keep away from the water entirely! The sea and her creatures will always be a mystery to
land-dwellers like us – a cold, cruel mystery we would all do best to
avoid.” And with a final
despairing shake of his head, the old man slid clumsily off of his stool, made
his unsteady way to the door, and walked out into the night.
Original
story for Halloween (10/31/13)
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The Well
“I expect you’d like to see where it happened?”
With a guilty start, Robert turned to face his
interrogator. At eleven years of
age, he was well aware of trespassing and its consequences, and, judging from
the gruff, quavering voice that addressed him, Robert fully expected to be
confronted by the glowering frown of some grizzled old groundskeeper. Instead, to his relief, Robert found
himself meeting the rather vacant, blue-eyed gaze of a frail-looking elderly
lady. Dressed in a long,
old-fashioned black dress, she was tiny and bent, her gnarled and shriveled
fingers clutching a thin black cane.
A network of fine wrinkles covered her face, and patches of delicate
pink scalp were faintly visible through the wispy locks of fluffy white hair.
Relaxing a little, Robert gave her his most innocent look
and asked, “Then this is really Langley Manor?” knowing perfectly well that it
was. Years of experience with
grandmothers and great-aunts had taught him that elderly women were
particularly susceptible to the charms of boyish innocence, and he made a
special effort to look convincing in this case, as the history of the place
interested him enormously.
With a lady-like sniff, the old woman replied huffily, “Of
course this is Langley Manor!
There isn’t a grander estate within fifty miles, as any fool could tell
you.” Then, softening a little,
she repeated in a more genial tone, “And now, boy, would you like to see where
it happened?”
Robert hesitated.
His parents were constantly warning him about the dangers of talking to
strangers. He glanced uncertainly
at the big wrought iron gates through which he had crawled from the main road. It really was a very isolated spot, and
he had, of course, told no one where he was going. Even so, as Robert took another look at the tiny old lady,
he told himself that she was an unlikely-looking criminal. Why, she was barely more than an inch or
two taller than he, and probably weighed somewhat less. Surely he, a strong, active, healthy
boy, had no need to fear her? His
eagerness to learn more about the sinister mystery of Langley Manor finally
overrode any pangs of conscience that remained. In eager tones, he answered, “Oh, yes, please, ma’am, if I
could!”
With a half-amused smile, she gave a little nod and said,
“Very well, then. Come with
me.” The old woman caught his
wrist in a grip of surprising strength and led the way slowly down a grassy,
neglected path. “You may call me
Mrs. Wilton, boy. And what might
your name be?”
“It’s Robert, Mrs. Wilton,” he replied, attempting as
politely as possible to free himself from her grasp.
“Robert?” Her
odd gaze rested for a moment on his face in a troubled manner. “That was his name, you know.”
“Was it really?”
Robert was terribly excited.
Perhaps this other Robert had been involved in the mystery of the
manor. Although he had heard vague
rumors about some tragedy that had occurred at Langley Manor, he had been
unable to find anyone to tell him the tale. Presumably it was not fit for childish ears, and therefore
all adults, when questioned, were reluctant even to admit having heard it. Robert and his parents were only to be
in town for another two weeks, staying at the home of a distant relatives while
they were away in Europe. Robert
had despaired of ever discovering just what the dark and sinister event at
Langley Manor had been, and for this reason had decided upon the rather
hopeless plan of entering the grounds to look for some evidence of the
secret. Now, it seemed, if he were
very careful and clever, he might actually be able to wheedle the whole story
out of feeble Mrs. Wilton.
Robert was shrewd enough to know that the situation required
delicate handling. If he appeared
too eager to learn the secret of the manor, Mrs. Wilton might suddenly recall
that the story was considered unsuitable for children. Therefore, in an almost nonchalant
voice, Robert merely observed, “It must have happened an awfully long time
ago.”
Mrs. Wilton, staring vaguely up the path, replied mildly, “I
suppose forty-five years seems long ago to you, my boy, but I was a relatively
young woman then, and it seems like only yesterday to me. Married only a year, I was, and already
with a dear baby son. How I
thought the world of my little Evan, God rest his soul… he died a year later,
you know, of rheumatic fever.” She
paused, tears glistening in her eyes.
Then, blinking the tears away, she continued, “Robert was very fond of
Evan too. Even though he was only
ten, he was ever so gentle and patient with his little half-brother. Always asking to hold him, or touch
him, or play with him – how his father and I laughed to see him care for Evan
so tenderly! You see, Robert was
my husband’s son by a previous marriage.
John, my husband, had lost his first wife three years earlier, and
Robert was their only child.
Robert was terribly broken up by the loss of his mother. I don’t think he ever fully accepted me
as his stepmother until Evan was born.
Robert became so protective of his baby half-brother that my dear
husband used to joke that Evan need have no worries for his future, as Robert’s
mother left all of her considerable fortune in trust for her only son. John was comfortably well off, but he
wasn’t really wealthy. Robert, on
the other hand, upon reaching the age of twenty-one, would be a millionaire
many times over.”
Mrs. Wilton paused in her relation of family history to look
absently at the boy by her side.
Robert fought to hide his impatience. Was there any connection between her story and the secret he
longed to know, or was the old woman merely rambling? Hoping to get Mrs. Wilton’s thoughts back to the Langley
Manor mystery, Robert asked, seemingly out of polite curiosity, “Is it very far
to the spot, Mrs. Wilton?”
At the sound of his voice, the old woman appeared
bewildered. “Why no, Robert, it’s
just at the end of this path.” Her
voice sounded surprised. “The old
well, you know.” Then she looked
at him again and shook her head.
“Oh, but of course you don’t know.
You’ve never been here before.”
Ignoring her momentary confusion, Robert asked, “Were you
here when it happened?”
A curious look crossed her face. “I certainly was, young Robert, I certainly was. And if anyone knows the whole truth of
the matter, it is I.” Staring up
the path again, Mrs. Wilton reverted back to her original story. “The year before Evan died, my
husband’s fortunes took a turn for the worse. He did his best to assure me that our setback was only
temporary, and that we would be able to ride out our sudden loss of funds with
prudence and frugality until everything had been set right again. I was worried nonetheless, and asked
John if we might possibly borrow against Robert’s trust fund, the money to be
repaid as soon as we were financially able to do so. This John declared to be impossible, he being unable to
touch the money his wife had left for her son’s inheritance.”
Mrs. Wilton gave her companion a perturbed glance. “Poor little Robert was very upset
about all of this. He had a
general idea that he had quite a lot of money in the bank, and could not
understand why he could not give some of it to his father if he wanted. As the weeks went by, it became more
and more obvious that our money worries would continue for a longer period than
even John had anticipated. The
atmosphere in the house was strained, and tempers flared. John became sullen, I tearful, and
sweet, gentle Robert crept about the house as timidly as a mouse, frightened at
this sudden change he could not understand. Even baby Evan was unnaturally quiet, as though fearful of
provoking a scene, and the servants kept out of the way as much as
possible. And then one day, Robert
disappeared.”
As Mrs. Wilton paused again in her story, Robert’s heart
gave a hopeful leap. Was this
finally the secret he had been waiting to hear? He wished Mrs. Wilton’s memory would cease to wander as it
seemed to do; right now she was staring at him as though seeing him for the
first time. Once again turning an
innocent gaze upon the old lady, Robert urged, “Oh, please finish your story,
ma’am. What became of the little
boy?”
“Yes, Robert, yes, I will finish.” A sudden urgency filled the woman’s voice, as if recounting
the end of the story were of the utmost importance to her. “A search was begun for the boy
immediately. At first our efforts
were unsuccessful, and a kidnapping was feared. The police were informed and a more thorough search was
conducted. The next day, our
unfortunate Robert was found.” The
old lady stopped again, but before the boy by her side could comment, she
exclaimed, “Ah, here we are. See,
just ahead, that pile of stones?
It surrounds the old well where the poor fellow drowned.”
This revelation surpassed all of Robert’s hopes. To actually see the spot where a mysterious
death had occurred was far more than he had expected. He fought down the urge to leave Mrs. Wilton’s side and dash
to the well, so that he might hear the rest of her story.
“No one knew why Robert had come to the well, or how he had
met his death. He had often been
warned to keep away from the spot, as it was dangerous, and being an obedient
child Robert had never disobeyed.
There was no evidence of foul play, and no injuries save those incurred
in falling down the well.
Naturally, all sorts of rumors flew at first. Some of the servants even speculated that Robert, becoming
concerned about his father’s financial situation, had committed suicide so that
John would have the use of the trust fund. It was true that Robert was a sensitive child, and that he
had appeared terribly depressed at the time, but the idea of suicide seemed
quite unlikely. After all, he was
only a child, and no one could say for certain that he understood the
significance of his trust fund anyway.
Even more cruel were the suggestions that John or I had done away with
the boy for the same motive.”
Mrs. Wilton’s faded blue eyes once again blurred with
tears. “I remember John coming
into my dressing room to break the news of those rumors to me. He was so kind and considerate,
choosing his words so carefully to soften their effects upon my feelings. He also assured me that all of the
rumors about the trust fund were totally absurd. According to John, the money did not come to him at all, but
went, along with Langley Manor, to his first wife’s next of kin. You see, Langley Manor had belonged to
Robert’s mother’s family, not my husband’s. At John’s insistence, his first wife had left all of her
property to her own blood relatives rather than to him. The only one to gain by Robert’s death
was her nephew, a young man of eighteen who lived several hundred miles away
and could have had no part in Robert’s death.”
By this time the two of them had reached the well. Even as he listened to Mrs. Wilton’s
tale, Robert kept casting furtive glances at the scene of the tragedy. He longed to get closer, and to look
down into the dark depths of the pit.
However, Mrs. Wilton had not yet finished her story, and he forced
himself to stay by her side until she had had her say.
“The coroner finally ruled Robert’s death an accident, based
upon the evidence at hand. I was
not present at the inquest, having been in poor health ever since the day John
had come to break the news of the rumors to me. Two weeks later, John’s finances began to improve, just as
he had predicted, but this did little to cheer us. It had been decided that Robert’s cousin, Stewart Langley,
would not claim Langley Manor until he was twenty-one, and we were kindly
allowed to stay on until then if we wished. John was tempted to move away from the scene of our recent
tragedy, but at about that time Evan became ill, and we feared to move him.” Tears now coursed down the delicate
network of wrinkles on the old woman’s cheeks as she whispered, “Less than a
year later, Evan was dead. After
that, my husband became withdrawn and morose, and I could do nothing to rouse
him. He committed suicide several
months later, and I became a widow.”
The old lady had been gently propelling Robert toward the
well the whole time she was relating the end of this tragic story. Now they stood side by side at its
edge, and her sad blue eyes gazed down upon him with a queer look. “Stewart Langley moved into Langley
Manor, and he invited me to remain in my old home unless I had other
plans. As I had nowhere else to go
and only a small income to live upon, I remained. Stewart has been quite kind to me, and I have lived here
quietly ever since. And now,
Robert, you must look into the well.”
Robert looked up at her in surprise. Although this was what he had been
secretly longing to do the whole time, her insistence upon it was
unexpected. Most adults, he felt,
would have hustled him away, declaring the spot to be too dangerous for a child
considering what had happened once before. He wondered why the well had not been sealed up, then
noticed a heavy, round wooden cover lying on the ground beside the well. For some reason, the cover had been removed.
Robert realized that this might be his only chance to see
into the well. Whoever had removed
the cover would probably remember this oversight and return to rectify it the
next day. Nevertheless, he
hesitated. Again he remarked the
loneliness of the spot, especially now as the sun began to set and long shadows
from ancient trees stretched upon the ground about him. Mrs. Wilton stood patiently by his
side, smiling gently at him and giving him small encouraging nods. Well, Robert thought to himself, if she
thinks it’s all right, I suppose there’s no harm in just peeping over the edge
for a moment.
Shrugging off the vague uneasiness that had momentarily
assailed him, Robert took a couple of steps closer to the well and peered
cautiously over. It was quite dark
in the pit, and impossible to see anything. Robert leaned over a little farther, in hopes of penetrating
the gloom. So intent was he upon
this, that he barely felt the head of the thin black cane as it came down
between his shoulders, of the shove of those surprisingly strong old hands as
they sent him tumbling into the depths of the black well.
“You shouldn’t have come back, Robert,” murmured the old
lady softly. “You have thwarted me
at every step since the day I pushed you into this well forty-five years
ago. First the money, then my
baby, and finally my husband… all your doing, Robert. They should never have removed your body from this
well. I knew you would come back
for me one day, and I have been waiting.
Now you have returned to the well, and I am safe.”
****************
“Well, there you are, Aunt Millie! We were beginning to worry about you,”
Stewart Langley exclaimed as his aunt approached him out of the darkness in the
entry hall of the manor. “You
shouldn’t go roaming about the grounds by yourself for hours like that. What if something should happen to
you? Why, Aunt Millie, where is
your cane?”
Old Mrs. Wilton looked up at her nephew-in-law with
affection in her faded blue eyes.
“I am afraid I lost it in the woods, Stewart dear. I somehow strayed from the path and
became quite lost. In my panic I
suppose I dropped my cane.
Fortunately, I found the path again, and made my way back home.”
Stewart hurried to his aunt’s side. “My dear, I simply cannot allow you to
wander about like this any longer!
From now on you must ask one of the gardeners to accompany you. I should never forgive myself if
anything happened to you.” He
paused, and then added in a worried tone, “You haven’t been down to the old
well again, have you?”
When she did not reply, Stewart continued in a more
authoritative manner, “Aunt Millie, I have quite made up my mind that the well
will be filled in. The thing is
dangerous, and should have been dealt with years ago. You do understand, don’t you?”
To his surprise, Mrs. Wilton replied quite agreeably, “Do as
you like, dear boy, do as you like.
I shall no longer visit the well.
Robert will never return to me now. If you don’t mind, Stewart, I think I will go to my
room. I have had an exhausting day
and wish to retire early.”
The hallway was too dark for Stewart to notice the cunning
and satisfied look on his old aunt’s face as she passed him.
Later that evening, Stewart Langley remarked to his wife, “I
do believe Aunt Millie is improving.
You know how vehemently she has opposed filling in the old well where my
cousin Robert drowned all these years ago. It was all I could do to get her to allow me to cover it
over. Poor Aunt Millie, I think
she still expected little Robert to return to her from that well and did not
want his means of escape blocked.
Well, today she told me that she is sure Robert will never return. Poor old dear; how sad it must be for her
to give up hope like that! Still,
she did not seem overly downcast.
It is fortunate that this improvement should come now. I had quite made up my mind to have the
well filled in. The workmen were
out today to have a look, and will be back first thing in the morning to do the
job. I hope they remembered to
cover the well when they left this afternoon. Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t matter; after tomorrow morning
I will never have to worry about that old well again.”
The End
Original story for Walpurgis Night (4/30/14)
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