II. A Passer In The Storm

For days after that hideous experience in the forest-swathed mansion I lay

nervously exhausted in my hotel room at Lefferts Corners. I do not remember

exactly how I managed to reach the motor-car, start it, and slip unobserved

back to the village; for I retain no distinct impression save of wild-armed titan

trees, demoniac mutterings of thunder, and Charonian shadows athwart the

low mounds that dotted and streaked the region.

As I shivered and brooded on the casting of that brain-blasting shadow, I

knew that I had at last pried out one of earth’s supreme horrors - one of those

nameless blights of outer voids whose faint demon scratchings we sometimes

hear on the farthest rim of space, yet from which our own finite vision has

given us a merciful immunity. The shadow I had seen, I hardly dared to

analyse or identify. Something had lain between me and the window that

night, but I shuddered whenever I could not cast off the instinct to classify it.

If it had only snarled, or bayed, or laughed titteringly-even that would have

relieved the abysmal hideousness. But it was so silent. It had rested a heavy

arm or foreleg on my chest…

Obviously it was organic, or had once been organic… Jan Martense, whose

room I had invaded, was buried in the graveyard near the mansion… I must

find Bennett and Tobey, if they lived… why had it picked them, and left me for the last?… Drowsiness is so stifling, and dreams are so horrible…

In a short time I realised that I must tell my story to someone or break down

completely. I had already decided not to abandon the quest for the lurking

fear, for in my rash ignorance it seemed to me that uncertainty was worse than

enlightenment, however terrible the latter might prove to be. Accordingly I

resolved in my mind the best course to pursue; whom to select for my

confidences, and how to track down the thing which had obliterated two men

and cast a nightmare shadow.

My chief acquaintances at Lefferts Corners had been the affable reporters, of

whom several had still remained to collect final echoes of the tragedy. It was

from these that I determined to choose a colleague, and the more I reflected

the more my preference inclined toward one Arthur Munroe, a dark, lean man

of about thirty-five, whose education, taste, intelligence, and temperament all

seemed to mark him as one not bound to conventional ideas and experiences.

On an afternoon in early September, Arthur Munroe listened to my story. I

saw from the beginning that he was both interested and sympathetic, and

when I had finished he analysed and discussed the thing with the greatest

shrewdness and judgement. His advice, moreover, was eminently practical;

for he recommended a postponement of operations at the Martense mansion

until we might become fortified with more detailed historical and

geographical data. On his initiative we combed the countryside for

information regarding the terrible Martense family, and discovered a man who

possessed a marvelously illuminating ancestral diary. We also talked at length

with such of the mountain mongrels as had not fled from the terror and

confusion to remoter slopes, and slope again scanned for dens and caves, but

all without result. And yet, as I have said, vague new fears hovered

menacingly over us; as if giant bat-winged gryphons looked on transcosmic

gulfs.

As the afternoon advanced, it became increasingly difficult to see; and we

heard the rumble of a thunderstorm gathering over Tempest Mountain. This

sound in such a locality naturally stirred us, though less than it would have

done at night. As it was, we hoped desperately that the storm would last until

well after dark; and with that hope turned from our aimless hillside searching

toward the nearest inhabited hamlet to gather a body of squatters as helpers in

the investigation. Timid as they were, a few of the younger men were

sufficiently inspired by our protective leadership to promise such help.

We had hardly more than turned, however, when there descended such a

blinding sheet of torrential rain that shelter became imperative. The extreme,

almost nocturnal darkness of the sky caused us to stumble badly, but guided

by the frequent flashes of lightning and by our minute knowledge of the hamlet we soon reached the least porous cabin of the lot; an heterogeneous

combination of logs and boards whose still existing door and single tiny

window both faced Maple Hill. Barring the door after us against the fury of

the wind and rain, we put in place the crude window shutter which our

frequent searches had taught us where to find. It was dismal sitting there on

rickety boxes in the pitchy darkness, but we smoked pipes and occasionally

flashed our pocket lamps about. Now and then we could see the lightning

through cracks in the wall; the afternoon was so incredibly dark that each

flash was extremely vivid.

The stormy vigil reminded me shudderingly of my ghastly night on Tempest

Mountain. My mind turned to that odd question which had kept recurring ever

since the nightmare thing had happened; and again I wondered why the

demon, approaching the three watchers either from the window or the interior,

had begun with the men on each side and left the middle man till the last,

when the titan fireball had scared it away. Why had it not taken its victims in

natural order, with myself second, from whichever direction it had

approached? With what manner of far-reaching tentacles did it prey? Or did it

know that I was the leader, and saved me for a fate worse than that of my

companions?

In the midst of these reflections, as if dramatically arranged to intensify them,

there fell nearby a terrific bolt of lightning followed by the sound of sliding

earth. At the same time the wolfish wind rose to demoniac crescendos of

ululation. We were sure that the one tree on Maple Hill had been struck again,

and Munroe rose from his box and went to the tiny window to ascertain the

damage. When he took down the shutter the wind, and rain howled

deafeningly in, so that I could not hear what he said; but I waited while he

leaned out and tried to fathom Nature’s pandemonium.

Gradually a calming of the wind and dispersal of the unusual darkness told of

the storm’s passing. I had hoped it would last into the night to help our quest,

but a furtive sunbeam from a knothole behind me removed the likelihood of

such a thing. Suggesting to Munroe that we had better get some light even if

more showers came, I unbarred and opened the crude door. The ground

outside was a singular mass of mud and pools, with fresh heaps of earth from

the slight landslide; but I saw nothing to justify the interest which kept my

companion silently leaning out the window. Crossing to where he leaned, I

touched his shoulder; but he did not move. Then, as I playfully shook him and

turned him around, I felt the strangling tendrils of a cancerous horror whose

roots reached into illimitable pasts and fathomless abysms of the night that

broods beyond time.

For Arthur Munroe was dead. And on what remained of his chewed and gouged head there was no longer a face.

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