by Jerry
A sense of enormous depression, of overhanging evil, abruptly descended upon him, and he scarcely heard the terrific crash of thunder that shook the entire house. He became aware, however, that Rosella’s voice had ceased its frightened tones. Before him, the only object still visible to his weirdly obscured vision, was the statue of Zedri-Nesu. It seemed swelling, growing, becoming strangely sentient.
“It’s . . . it’s coming!” he gasped. Depressing terror swept numbingly over Lantry’s brain.
With a growing swiftness the statue tilted beyond balance as a portion of its base crumbled, and in a silence that seemed presaged with evil, it crashed to the floor, extinguishing the candles of the mystic ring. Blackness . . . blackness that moved and surged about the room, flowed over him like a cold shroud.
Rosella’s scream rang out, and Ludwig leaped to his feet, grasping Lantry’s shoulders. He was terribly weak, and dimly welcomed the doctor’s supporting arms. However, before his eyes, only one thing was visible. It shook him to the soul.
On the floor, lying in a shapeless pile of dust, all that remained of the statue of Zedri-Nesu, was a white, gleaming human skeleton, giant in stature. For a moment it lay there, then too crumbled into dust. Last to disappear was the grinning, malevolent skull.
Lantry realized with horror that the statue of Zedri-Nesu had been no statue at all, but an actual sarcophagus for a long-dead, half-human creature. Dimly, as he sank into a growing, enormously depressive darkness, Lantry heard the voice of Doctor Ludwig.
“It’s the drug!” he exclaimed. “The effects have worn off. He’s going to sleep!”
“Oh, Hilard!” came Rosella’s distressed tones. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone through with this silly rite. If this makes you any worse, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Don’t worry, child,” came Ludwig’s voice. “He’s perfectly all right. It’s the natural effect of the drug. At least, we’ve settled one argument. No amount of incantations can make an imaginary demon, benevolent or otherwise, come to life!”
Lantry was just barely conscious of being put to bed.
THE sound of frantic pounding and his name called in a hoarse voice slowly penetrated Hilard Lantry’s lethargic, sleep-fogged mind. Wearily he struggled awake, forcing his body to rise from the bed. Downstairs the pounding continued, insistent, beating with some unknown terror.
Lantry slowly pulled on his trousers, then stumbled from the bedroom and down the stairs. Dully realizing that it was early dawn, he cursed the author of the infernal noise at his door. Vaguely he wondered why he felt so tremendously weak. It seemed as though his very life had been partially drained from his body by some monstrous, sucking incubus out of a nightmare. Depressive horror still clouded his brain from unremembered dreams.
The clamor at his door grew more frantic, rousing him to voice.
“I’m coming!” he called in irritation. “You needn’t tear the house down!”
He reached the door, opened it to peer at the haggard face of a man he scarcely recognized as a neighboring farmer, so distorted by horror were his features.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“My daughter,” the man gasped. “She has been murdered! Her body is in your orchard!”
Lantry was shocked from his lethargy. “Murdered!” he echoed incredulously. “My God!”
The farmer babbled incoherently. “Last night . . . a scream . . . from her room. When I got there, she was gone. Outside I saw a big man all dressed in black; and he was carrying my little girl, my baby! I followed, but he was gone, as though hell had swallowed him up.” Sobbing violently, the farmer bowed his head in his hands.
Lantry gripped his shoulders. “A . . . a big man in black, you say?” he asked hoarsely, something shriveling up in his breast. “Could you see his face?”
A shudder coursed through the man’s shoulders. “A demon!” he uttered. “A thing from a nightmare! And he killed her. Killed her, do you hear? In your orchard!” His voice rose to a hysterical height.
“Wait,” said Lantry in curiously dead tones. “I am coming. Just let me get dressed.”
HE DRESSED, in a haste that was retarded by his usual depressive lethargy. Also, an unaccountable weakness dragging at his limbs. But in his brain was a ringing conviction.
“I have been duped by a demon. And now he is loose from his hell!”
Jaw set, he tried to force the realization from his brain, but it was futile. His hand fell on the box of pills containing the drug, and in desperate inspiration, he swallowed one hastily. Then he made his weak way back to where the farmer was standing, staring with dull, stricken horror in the direction of the orchard.
“Lead the way,” Lantry directed, shivering a bit in the cool morning air as they descended the porch steps.
Automatically the farmer led him toward the clump of trees. Rain-saturated grass soaked their feet. Off to the east the sun was just appearing, casting its first rays upon the high-floating clouds still remaining from what Lantry realized must have been a heavy rain.
Suddenly the farmer halted.
“There!” he pointed, his voice low and hoarse. “I can go no further!” He dropped to his knees, sobbing.
Slowly Lantry walked forward, overpowering dread welling up in his breast. Somehow, he knew what was there, although he didn’t question the knowledge. Yet, numbing shock ran through his body when he came upon the murdered girl. Just seventeen, she had barely reached womanly development, and her slim, delicately curved body lay in wet nudeness in the long grass. Lantry stared down at her a long moment, his hands and shoulders twitching convulsively in horror. Then he turned away.
“You have seen?” croaked the farmer. “None but a monster could have done such things!”
For a long moment Lantry stood before him, staring straight ahead, unseeing. In his mind’s eye rose the symbol of a hitherto unfathomable character written in an ancient, dead language, on a now too significant human-skin page in a horrible book of fiction, of lies! And no longer was its meaning a mystery. He knew now the horrible portent of it, and he nodded slowly in reply.
“Yes,” he agreed in strained, hoarse tones, “none but a demon, a horrible incubus come to life from the depths of hell. And tonight, unless l stop hint, he will return!”
A WAKE! He must stay awake!
All day his brain throbbed with the necessity of it. And now, at last night had come. Two tablets of Ludwig’s drug he had taken, the last just an hour ago. And already he felt the evil hovering depression that meant the wearing off of its effect. Always, as though just beyond vision, he felt the nearness of an awful presence, hallucinatory, yet material. It seemed ready to leap at him from every shadowed corner of the house. Desperately he strove to combat the lethargy stealing over him.
“I won’t go to sleep!” he said haggardly. “I won’t!”
But as he sat there tensely, in his study, it seemed as though a light-paralyzing darkness was stealing in upon him, dimming the electric lights blazing in every available lamp socket.
He stumbled to his feet, clutching for the table. Momentarily his vision cleared. His gaze fell upon the ominous brown of the book of Zedri-Nesu.
From it seemed to emanate a freezing coldness that penetrated to his marrow.
Snatching it up, he crossed to the fireplace, placing it atop the prepared pile of twigs resting on the stones. He fumbled for a match, struck it, and applied it to the tinder. It flickered, smoked, and seemed reluctant to burn, as though even the flames were being sucked empty of life. But the fire persisted, under his efforts, and grew, until the flames licked more brightly upon the book.
Eagerly he watched the leather begin to shrivel and hiss as from its ancient binding a thick oil began to ooze. Smoke whirled up from the burning book in a thick cloud, filling the room. But in the growing darkness he suddenly realized the gloom was more dense than the smoke should have made it. He felt seized by an overpowering weakness. He staggered, slumped down.
Ev
il flowed into the room, unchecked, and a great oppression enveloped him. He found it impossible to rise; although he struggled with lethargic panic. He felt drained of his strength, and sank back into whirling darkness.
Then, as though a cool breeze had wafted through the room, the evil presence was gone. For a while Lantry lay still, while the lights brightened. Then, slowly, he staggered erect, reaching the table. Several of the tablets came to his fingers and he thrust them into his mouth.
Whirling black smoke still came from the book of Zedri-Nesu, now almost entirely consumed. As though drawn by some powerful suction, the evil, black vapor poured through the open door of the study, and out into the darkness.
Lantry, his clearing brain still whirling with that strange dizziness, realized the awful truth. Zedri-Nesu had robbed him of enough strength to again venture on a ghastly mission of murder. His scalp crawled with horror.
“Rosella!” he croaked. “It is there he has gone!”
He staggered through the open door. Whirling black vapor choked him as he fought through it, clouded brain filling with evil apathy. Once more the terrible depression gripped him, this time laden with an awful fear.
REACHING the road, he plunged through the darkness, battling against the strange lethargy. It seemed now to drag materially against his legs, as though some actual substance hindered his progress. But to his dulled brain it meant nothing. He felt hot and sweating, as though just beyond in the night existed some lightless inferno. He stumbled on, forcing his numbing body to obey the commands of his terror-filled brain.
“Rosella!” he gasped. “I must be in time to save her. I must!”
In the darkness before him, looming out of the night, he discerned the bulk of the rambling farmhouse. He made his stumbling way up to the porch, climbed the steps. Once more he felt the sensation of an awful presence.
Off in the darkness his straining ears, filled with a strange roaring that seemed to emanate from his own skull, caught eerie slobbering sounds, as though of the approach of some horrid beast, slavering for a blood-feast. But his staring eyes saw nothing.
Desperately he plunged against the door before him. It gave way with a splintering crash. Inside, all was darkness. He fumbled forward, hearing all about him macabre, panting sounds. They seemed louder as he moved, but when he whirled to confront an attack, seemed softer, almost indistinguishable, farther away.
Moving softly as he could, he climbed the stairway toward the upper bedrooms. At the top of the landing he halted, breathing heavily, listening for the demonic sounds. Drooling evil seemed to envelop the whole house, and he could no longer determine the direction of its approach.
Filled with utter terror, he placed his back to the door of the room he knew as that of Rosella. Now let the monster come. He would fight it.
Dimly he wondered that Rosella still slept, unawakened by the crash of his forcible entry. Then the faint sound of movement beyond the panels came to his ears. She had been awakened!
Oddly, the only sound he could hear now was the sound of his own panting, rasping breath, sobbing through his tense lips.
The door opened behind him, sending a beam of light down the empty hallway. He whirled about, springing into the room to slam the door shut behind him. Rosella stood in a long white nightgown, her slim fingers clasped tightly to her lips; but they failed to suppress the awful scream of terror that broke from them as she shrank back.
He braced himself against the closed door, awaiting the assault he felt must come from beyond it. But there was none, and somehow, with some sleeping, suppressed portion of his brain, he knew all at once that the hallway behind him was empty of anything save darkness. Zedri-Nesu had gone—no longer followed him. He breathed a sucking sigh of relief.
And still, Rosella backed away from him, her pale features taut with terror.
“Rosella,” he croaked.
From his own lips broke not her name, but an awful slobbering sound, and chill iciness swept into his brain. Using every mental power, he drew his fascinated gaze from the face of the terrified girl, downward . . . down to a black muffling cloak that wrapped his body in a hellish self-masquerade of Zedri-Nesu. Senses reeling, he lifted his black-gloved hands, staring through a growing red haze at the darkly clotting, newly dried blood that stained them with crimson.
A horrid slobbering, as of beastly jowls slavering for a blood-feast, filled the room . . . and ended as the door behind him opened and a pistol shot rang out.
DR. LUDWIG stared uncomprehendingly down at the body of Hilard Lantry, lying in a contorted posture on the floor of his study. Then he looked out of the window to where the red glow of flames betokened the now almost entirely consumed farmhouse of Rosella.
The farmer at his side looked at him, features ashen.
“It’s him, again!” he gasped. “We just burned him—and her, in the other house . . .”
Ludwig shook his head slowly. “No, Hiram,” he said. “What we burned over there was the real demon. This is really Hilard Lantry, his life stolen by that inhuman thing from hell . . . We will give him a Christian burial—”
“No! No!” exclaimed the farmer. “We will take no chances. Flame cleanses . . .” With a sweep, he plunged the lamp from Ludwig’s hand, and flame sprayed over the room, covered the dead body of Hilary Lantry.
Ludwig staggered back, choking in thick, oily smoke. He felt Hiram’s hand on his arm, and together they stumbled out of the house.
Outside, Hiram stared fearfully back, as though he expected to see an ominous, horrible black form following them.
“Flame,” he muttered. “Fire! That is more Christian than the earth . . .”
Dr. Ludwig nodded. “Perhaps you are right, Hiram. It is better that we take no chances that Zedri-Nesu ever returns.”
He watched as the flames roared up, consuming even the smoke that billowed above them . . .
THE END
SECRET WEAPON
Joseph Farrell
In a Space War, a Clever Commander Finds One Way to Outwit a Vicious Pirate—and It’s All Done with Mirrors!
COMMANDER Sheldon studied the leering features in the teleplate. His eyebrows were drawn tensely above his troubled eyes, and his hard jaw was set grimly. His glance darted briefly to the two junior officers huddled beside the table, then back to the instrument.
“Hurth Lheuin,” he said, “‘have you considered what you are doing? You realize that when you defy the patrol, you defy all the civilized world?”
The face of the outlaw chief was smug, self-confident.
“That’s what I want, Sheldon. I’m setting myself against your so-called civilization, and you know I’m man enough to do it. Those two lieutenants I sent back to you saw my weapons—they know what I can do.”
Again Commander Sheldon’s eyes flicked to the two youths. They nodded woodenly. Sheldon rubbed his big fingers over the side of his jaw, and watched the teleplate as Hurth Lheuin’s voice went on.
“Civilization!” The thin lips of the outlaw curled. “Do you call it civilized to send a man to the mines of Oberon? To force him to dig uranium out of the frozen ground and breathe poisonous air and be fed with food that’s not fit for pigs? Is that civilization?”
The fanatic black eyes contracted with hate. Sheldon let the faintest trace of a smile play on his lips for a moment.
“Some men deserve it, Lheuin,” he said. “Your methods were discarded two hundred years ago—along with a man named Hitler. Any punishment you received was small indeed compared with your crimes.”
“I’ve had enough of your punishments,” broke in Hurth Lheuin, suddenly cool. “No prison can hold Hurth Lheuin, ruler of Mars—and soon to be ruler of Earth as well. You have my ultimatum. Surrender at once. Line your men up on the field—unarmed—and we’ll land and take over. With the Mare Wirtum base in our hands, we’ve taken the main defense of Earth. Then—”
SHELDON’S gaze strayed to the rocket base that was the key to Earth’s defense. He was in
a building on the far side of Luna, looking over the great satellite fortress. Out there men were standing by their vessels, waiting for orders. Hurth Lheuin wanted those ships intact. A thousand miles out was the fleet of the enemy, waiting to pick off any Earth ship that left the surface.
A motley crew, the pirates, and Sheldon’s men would barely use their second wind ridding space of the lot of them. But the new weapon of Hurth Lheuin!
Sheer force! Raw, crushing blasts of matter-destroying energy, without which Lheuin would have been only a third-class fugitive, ex-dictator of a backwoods Martian province. But now the man’s ship was surrounded by a shell of invulnerability.
Sheldon’s jaw tightened a bit more. There had to be an Achilles’ heel in that shell. There had to be!
He watched the activity on the field as a dozen trucks wheeled into a cleared area. Space-suited figures moved efficiently about their work. Crews of huge cannon gave their weapons a final check. Swarms of anti-spacecraft guns speared skyward, their crews unreeling long cartridge belts.
Sheldon let a faint grin linger on his features for a few seconds when he thought of the contents of those shells. Ordnance had thought him mad, but they had agreed to his wild plan. And in the twenty-four hours he had stalled Lheuin, they had performed workshop miracles.
“I’ve waited long enough,” Lheuin’s voice broke in. “Are you ready to surrender, or do I have to blow that base of yours into the atoms it’s made of?”
Sheldon’s answering smile was confident.
“You may as well come down and give yourself up, Lheuin,” he said. “Those two officers you showed your secret weapons to have been able to duplicate all the apparatus. We have a ship equipped with your force weapons, and a little better. It’s going out there to blow you out of space. So—”
The two lieutenants looked blankly at each other. They were out of the televiewer’s range, so Lheuin did not see their puzzled looks and shrugs.