by Jerry eBooks
And then: “Fulton lay quietly, without attempt to struggle. In the dark, the stillness of the vaults became unbearable, terrifying. Not a suggestion of sound, except the scraping of unseen rats—”
I dropped the book with a start. From the opposite end of the room in which I sat came a half inaudible scuffling noise—the sound of hidden rodents scrambling through the great pile of boxes. Imagination? I am not sure. At the moment, I would have sworn that the sound was a definite one, that I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I recount this tale of horror, I am not sure.
But I am sure of this: There was no smile on my lips as I picked up the book again with trembling fingers and continued.
“The sound died into silence. For an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid, staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted, like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly, from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded footfall!”
This time there was no doubt of it. The book fell from my fingers, dropped to the floor with a clatter. Yet even through the sound of its falling, I heard that fearful sound—the shuffle of a living foot! I sat motionless, staring with bloodless face at the door of room 4167. And as I stared, the sound came again, and again—the slow tread of dragging footsteps, approaching along the black corridor without!
I got to my feet like an automaton, swaying heavily. Every drop of courage ebbed from my soul as I stood there, one hand clutching the table, waiting . . .
And then, with an effort, I moved forward. My hand was outstretched to grasp the wooden handle of the door. And—I did not have the courage. Like a cowed beast I crept back to my place and slumped down on the stool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute stare of terror.
I waited. For more than half an hour I waited, motionless. Not a sound stirred in the passage beyond that closed barrier. Not a suggestion of any living presence came to me. Then, leaning back against the wall with a harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold moisture that had trickled over my forehead into my eyes.
It was another five minutes before I picked up the book again. You call me a fool for continuing it? A fool? I tell you, even a story of horror is more comfort than a room of grotesque shadows and silence. Even a printed page is better than grim reality!
And so I read on. The story was one of suspense, madness. For the next two pages I read a cunning description of the prisoner’s mental reaction. Strangely enough, it conformed precisely with my own.
“Fulton’s head had fallen to his chest,” the script read. “For an endless while he did not stir, did not dare to lift his eyes. And then, after more than an hour of silent agony and suspense, the boy’s head came up mechanically. Came up—and suddenly jerked rigid. A horrible scream burst from his dry lips as he stared—stared like a dead man—at the black entrance to his cell. There, standing without motion in the opening, stood a shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes, glaring with awful hate, bored into his own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extended toward him. Decayed flesh—”
I read no more. Even as I lunged to my feet, with that mad book still gripped in my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed, screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips, curled back over broken teeth. Hair—writhing, distorted—like a mass of moving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, were extended toward me, with open, clutching hands.
It was alive! Alive! Even while I stood there, crouching against the wall, it stepped forward toward me. I saw a heavy shudder pass over it, and the sound of its scraping feet burned its way into my soul. And then, with its second step, the fearful thing stumbled to its knees. The white, gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of living fire by the light of my lamp, flung violently upwards, twisting toward the ceiling. I saw the grin change to an expression of agony, of torment. And then the thing crashed upon me—dead.
With a great cry of fear I stumbled to the door. I groped out of that room of horror, stumbled along the corridor. No light. I left it behind, on the table, to throw a circle of white glare over the decayed, living-dead intruder who had driven me mad.
My return down those winding ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare of fear. I remember that I stumbled, that I plunged through the darkness like a man gone mad. I had no thought of caution, no thought of anything except escape.
And then the lower door, and the alley of gloom. I reached the grating, flung myself upon it and pressed my face against the bars in a futile effort to escape. The same—as the fear-tortured man—who had—come before—me.
I felt strong hands lifting me up. A dash of cool air, and then the refreshing patter of falling rain.
It was the afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M.S. sat across the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitant attempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my own lack of courage, of the events of the previous night.
“You deserved it, Dale,” he said quietly. “You are a medical man, nothing more, and yet you mock the beliefs of a scientist as great as Daimler. I wonder—do you still mock the Professor’s beliefs?”
“That he can bring a dead man to life?” I smiled, a bit doubtfully.
“I will tell you something, Dale,” said M.S. deliberately. He was leaning across the table, staring at me. “The Professor made only one mistake in his great experiment. He did not wait long enough for the effect of his strange acids to work. He acknowledged failure too soon, and got rid of the body.” He paused.
“When the Professor stored his patient away, Dale,” he said quietly, “he stored it in room 4170, at the great warehouse. If you are acquainted with the place, you will know that room 4170 is directly across the corridor from 4167.”
THE AVALANCHE MAKER
W. Ryerson Johnson
He’s a little guy, but man alive, he throws a whole mountain at a murdering thief!
“Old dad Summers never fell down no mine shaft. He got pushed!”
“That’s what you say,” White Horse Hanson’s level voice retorted. “Take it easy, Apples—easy. For yor size and weight, ‘Apples’ Appleby Jones, you’re the excitablest gazop in this whole Yukon backstretch. Yeah, and the plumb wildest guesser.”
“Says you!” Apples squawked.
White Horse shrugged his ponderous shoulders and let his glance drift out of the cabin window. Not much to see outside. Just snow heaped under a bleak sky, the sodden snow of March. His eyes roved lazily. High up on Roaring Mountain a single rock ridge outcropped through the glazed blanket, like a rib exposed through gleaming flesh. And far below in the valley wind-swept stretches of ice on the Illucaset River glinted dully.
White Horse regarded his half-pint partner again. “Snag Smedder ain’t such a bad egg,” he drawled, “if you take him right.”
“How’d you take a bad egg right?” Apples yapped. “You big tow-headed Swede, you got imagination like a dead walrus!” The little man leaned forward excitedly in his chair and continued spouting.
“Ten years I been runnin’ with you, White Horse,” he shouted. “We been in every gold push, you and me, from Nome to Aklavik. We’ve made gold strikes and we’ve made money—and we’ve had to battle plenty for ’em both. But in ten years I’m a cockeyed mush ox if I ever seen you show any emotion over any of it! Looka here, you gotta start actin’ like you belonged to the race of man. If you don’t”—he paused impressively—“if you don’t, I’m tellin’ you we’re all gonna be murdered in a week!”
“Huh? Murdered?” White Horse rested the half bale of loose-cut in the side of his jaw.
“Yeah, murdered! You and me and Lanky Jackson. Murdered! Old Dad got his last week. Our turn next. Wait and see.”
“Cheery prospect, ain’t it?” White Horse resumed his stamp-mill motion on the c
hew of tobacco. Nobody was quite sure if White Horse Hanson got his name from the town of White Horse that rules the destiny of the Canadian Yukon, or from his appearance—his big, blond Scandinavian frame, big fists and big feet, whitish hair and eyebrows.
Apples shot out of his chair like a bristling terrier. “Looka here, White Horse,” he yammered, “we’ve battered the Old Roaring Mountain Mine for better’n a hundred thousand in good gold. Now it’s springtime, and springtime is avalanche time!” Apples was raising his voice with every word. His cherub face was reddening with his excitement. But the volatile little man was not so cherubic as he looked, as many a sourdough spoiling for action had found. He was all nitroglycerine when he got steamed up. That was most of the time.
“Roarin’ Mountain wasn’t called Roarin’ Mountain for nothin’,” he wrangled on. “Up here on this hogback we and the cabin and the hundred thousand gold are safe enough. But the mine, farther down the slope, is gonna be buried under about forty feet of ice and slide-rock.
Every spring the slides have been mowin’ down the jack pines closer and closer—”
“Don’t you be tryin’ to stop no avalanche, son,” rumbled White Horse. “Leave the rocks roll.”
“White Horse, all your brains is in your jaws,” Apples fumed. “You can’t see no farther’n you can spit. Here we are about to get murdered and—Look here, dimwit, Snag Smedder wasn’t gonna start any dirty work till we had the gold out, was he? No! We was needed to get that gold out. All right, it’s mostly out, and we couldn’t work much longer anyway account of danger from avalanches. So now’s Snag’s time, see?” Apples paused, lapped a breath of air and barked on.
“Well, he’s workin’ on schedule. There’s been one ‘accident’ a’ready. Old Dad, he ‘fell’ down the hoistin’ shaft and he’s dead. There’s three more ‘accidents’ on the way quick—one to you, one to me, and one to Lanky Jackson.”
White Horse pawed the half bale from his mouth. He tossed the tobacco into the stove, ran his tongue exploringly from one cheek to the other, licked his lips and swallowed twice. Hitching up his worn corduroys, he looked down upon his half-pint partner.
“Apples,” he rumbled, “you must be goin’ bush-dingy. All them loco ideas—I dunno where you get ’em.
Hell, I don’t cotton to Snag Smedder no more’n you and Lanky does. Always seemed like a sanctimonious sinner to me, and I hate his guts. But maybe I’m wrong. Just because we don’t like him, is that any reason to be callin’ him a murderer? Have to give the devil his dust—if it wasn’t for Snag Smedder and the cold cash he put up we never could have reopened the old Roarin’ Mountain Mine.”
“We give up enough for his dirty money,” Apples blazed, surly faced. “Who was it that thought of investigatin’ this abandoned mine? Who was it that went down and found where a slip in the rock fold showed up a good payin’ lead that the Company give up tryin’ to locate forty years ago? Who was it, huh? It was you and me and Lanky and Old Dad, that’s who it was. We found it, not Snag Smedder—”
“But Snag put up the money we had to have to get started.”
“All right, big boy, but just the same I’m watchin’ that baby. Young Jones’s packin’ his old six-gun day and night. Yeah, and I’m takin’ other precautions—”
“Hold it,” White Horse ordered. “Listen—Hear snow crunchin’? Someone comin’ up the path—Lanky or Smedder.” He craned his neck to peer out of the frost-rimmed window. It’s Smedder—he’s runnin’.”
“Aw, the hell with him—”
“Shut up,” White Horse cut in. He strode forward and pulled open the door.
Snag Smedder, wheezing and gasping, staggered through the doorway and sagged back heavily against the log wall. The man’s thin lips were twisted in a grimace. A wild light gleamed in his eyes. His bony fingers crawled disjointedly over his throat and face, pressing tightly into the parchment-like skin. “Oh Gawd,” he moaned. “Oh Gawd!”
White Horse had his arm about him in an instant. “What is it, Snag? Speak!” He shook him. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s Lanky,” he croaked. “Top came in on us. I—it didn’t get me. But Lanky—he’s dead—”
“What’d I tell you, White Horse?” Apples screamed, and he cleared the space between himself and Smedder in one ferocious leap. His flint-calloused fingers dug into the other’s neck. “Lanky killed in a cave-in? Layin’ dead down there in the mine? Killed? Murdered! You mean murdered, you back-knifing carcajou—”
“Quit it!” White Horse roared. Lunging in between the struggling men, he pried Apples’ hands from Smedder’s throat and flung his partner roughly back. “Can’t you see the man’s scared to death already? You fire-snortin’ hellhound, stay back there now. I mean it. Leave Smedder have his say.”
Half-crouched for another spring, Apples glared wildly at his partner. White Horse glared resolutely back. Apples relaxed slowly, breathing hard, fingers clenching and unclenching. He nodded his head in sullen acquiescence. “O.K., White Horse,” he rasped, with an effort holding his voice steady.
Smedder, in gratitude, rolled panic-stricken eyes at White Horse. He straightened up, trembling. Standing erect, he was almost as tall as White Horse. But his frame was spare, bony. His funereal face was thin and sallow.
“About Lanky,” he croaked, “not much to say.
Accident, see—accident. I’ll take you down there. I’ll show you. Looks bad for me. I know what you’re thinking. I know. But it was accident, see?”
White Horse cut in harshly. “You acted like a whipped pup when you came in here, Smedder,” he said. “Before Apples ever took a pass at you. What was that for?”
Smedder gulped and ran his tongue over his trembling lips. “Apples,” he jerked, “thinks I murdered Old Dad Summers last week. So I knew what he’d think about this—this other accident. I was afraid. Afraid of what Apples and maybe you might do to me before I could explain. I wanted to run away—leave my share of the gold and run away. But you can’t get out of this cussed country this time of year. So I—I came here to get it over the best way I could.” He gulped again. The stricken eyes flashed from one man to the other in furtive appeal.
“Bull!” Apples blurted. “All bull and a mile wide!
He’s lyin’, White Horse. He knows what a soft-hearted mug you are. He wants to hold you off till tomorrow so’s he can arrange ‘accidents’ for us, too.”
A choking moan escaped Snag Smedder’s lips.
The tongue licked out again. He raised his hands weakly in supplication to White Horse. “Don’t—do anything yet,” he pleaded. “I’m innocent.
I’m innocent as you. You’ll see I am if you wait. And don’t let him get at me again, White Horse!” Smedder’s glance flashed to Apples and he quailed before the bleak savagery reflected in the face of the hard little prospector. “White Horse,” he gasped, piteously, eyes rolling, “don’t let him get me!”
“Aw, shut up,” Apples blared. “I ain’t no executioner. Whattya think, I’m gonna kill you in cold blood? Hey, whattya think I am? I wisht you’d make one pass at me, though! I’d lay you so cold you wouldn’t thaw out in the fire pan of hell.”
Smedder trembled visibly and shrank closer to White Horse. “You—you take my part of the gold,” he whimpered, “and give it to Lanky’s and Old Dad’s folks.
Take it all. I couldn’t touch a pinch of it with you and Apples thinkin’ I was in some way responsible for these deaths. Maybe you’ll find out sometime I ain’t the kind of fellow you’re thinkin’ I am.”
“Big hearted, ain’t you?” Apples snarled. “Throw away your gold today and cause a couple fatal ‘accidents’ tomorrow and get it back. Get all the gold.
Nice!”
“Aw, quit ridin’ the poor devil,” White Horse directed, a little impressed by Smedder’s magnanimous offer.
“O.K.,” Apples growled, “but all the same I think he’s acting. And from now on young Jones’s takin’ plenty precautions. It won’t be you or me
, White Horse, that happens to anymore ‘accidents’.”
Bold words. There in the homely warmth of the cabin they sounded like big medicine. Forewarned is forearmed. How could anything happen? But something did happen. Apples, the next day, was to recall his brag with a hopeless and a sardonic laugh.
Ever since the five men had reopened the old Roaring Mountain Mine, they had been working against time. Against that time when the warm chinooks of spring would rob the snow of its adhesive qualities, and start that twenty-foot wet blanket rolling down the mountain slope with the roar of thunder and speed of an express train.
Experienced Northern men, they kept themselves well informed as to the condition of the snow in order that they might work till the last possible minute. They knew that when the snow was of just the right wetness, so slight a thing as the jarring noise of a bear gun could unleash a destroying avalanche—a wave of snow, ice, slide-rock and match-stick timber that could shake the very mountain.
Double shifting with hand-steel and single-jack, the partners had succeeded in mining most of the ore. But now, with Lanky Jackson and Old Dad out of the game, the rhythmic clank of hammer on steel would beat a slower pulse. The drill would bite but half as fast into the gold-veined quartz.
All in all, the amount of yellow metal which the remaining three men could bring up was insignificant compared to the risk they ran. It was decided, then, on the morning after Lanky’s death, that they would clean up what loose stuff remained—less than a day’s work—then sit tight in their cabin, safe from the avalanche menace, till the ice-locked waterways should open and afford them a passage back to the land of men.
Apples and Smedder went below to send up the loose quartz. White Horse stayed on top to man the windlass and backpack the ore to the stamp mill.