The deck steward warned me about the passenger next to me. Not to mention the subject of money in any way, lest Reverend Peter MacBissett (that was the man’s name) should seize the opening to beg, dun, or cajole out of me a cash contribution for some one of MacBissett’s numerous church oriented business enterprises (bookstore, radio station, summer camp, etc.). MacBissett never price-tagged any of these services or goods, said the steward, instead asking for a “contribution” which was a clever way of evading income tax payment on capital gain.
The deck steward, himself an experienced professional in extracting money from passengers in the form of tips, found MacBissett a polished, grandmaster in the same art by his tactic of “poor mouthing;” and when the steward hinted about a gratuity, after carrying the preacher’s luggage to the latter’s cabin, he had the tables turned adroitly on him; for the preacher began with broad hints about the alleged financial straits of his radio station which needed a taller antenna. The steward exited the cabin backwards in a near panic.
MacBissett, the steward explained, was anything but poor. Impoverished preachers don’t take two vacations a year—one to a Western dude ranch in the states in the summertime and a second one, a tour of the Holy Land or Europe or Scotland, in the winter.
Also it was rumored that MacBissett’s various church oriented enterprises were not owned by the church, as those people contributing kitchen equipment, furniture, etc. for the summer camp assumed, but were rather corporate entities in his own name.
“Why he’s so rich, he ministers to two different churches,” continued the steward. “An all-colored church on St. Croix and a white one in Frederiksted where we’re sailing to now. He preaches to one on Wednesdays and the other on Sundays.”
This morning MacBissett sat in a deck chair alongside the one assigned to me on this trip. He was a thin, almost gaunt faced man with an ascetic, intellectual expression not the fat, bloated plutocrat I had envisioned him to be from the steward’s recital. An expression of physical discomfort was on his face, as if he suffered some minor, disabling pain.
Recalling the steward’s warnings about the preacher, I decided to aggressively steer the coming conversation into lines of my own choosing rather than allow him to begin cadging me for a contribution.
So I introduced myself at once and asked that since I understood he had been in the West Indies some time, did he believe in voodoo or obi?
MacBissett looked at his watch pointedly and replied, “I can talk to you maybe ten minutes for I must soon look over my business papers before we make port. No, I don’t believe in such superstition.”
“Even the Jumbee belief?” I quickly questioned.
He smiled indulgently, “Surely you knew it was an invention of the plantation owners to keep the islands’ colored population in at nights, allegedly to curb theft of crops among other things?”
“What about voodooing someone to death? These cases have been authenticated.”
“Their own fear of it killed them.”
“Yes, but I’ve heard of scoffers, who laughed at it like yourself, who did die.”
“Surely you know the voodoo doctor surreptitiously put ground glass in the food of such unbelievers?” MacBissett stared expressionlessly.
Having been refuted, I tried another approach. “To know all that, you must have read things like Williams’ Voodoos and Obeahs or Whitehead’s West India Lights?”
“Anything that doesn’t promote Christianity I don’t read.”
“But they were both clergymen—and I recall they both had some sort of acceptance of voodoo.”
“My knowledge of voodoo and its frauds comes from being a Baptist minister in these islands, especially in a poor, colored church.” The mention of “poor” brought a gleam into MacBissett’s eyes and he digressed, “The congregation puts out too much of that jingly stuff in the collection plate instead of that crinkly stuff.”
The concept “money” accidentally brought into the conversation caused a conditioned reflex in MacBissett’s whole manner. I even fancied I could see dollar bill signs where the pupils in his eyes should be. So I interrupted his start of a new sentence with a question: “So you became informed on voodoo through your colored congregation?”
“Yes. But only in the past couple of months. You see, I heard from several of my deacons that one of my flock, a Hezebiah Da Costa, was gambling, drinking, and fornicating. At the next church meeting I preached a sermon on those sins but didn’t name him. I added in my sermon that it was even a worse sin that money wasn’t donated to the church.”
His return to the subject of money caused me to hold my breath lest he get sidetracked again.
“When Da Costa,” MacBissett went on, “persisted in his reprobate ways, I expelled him from church, which my deacons expressed as ‘cratching der name off der church book.’ Very soon after that, at the start of a morning service, I opened the pulpit Bible and tucked within one page was a queer assortment of animals’ claws, feathers, dried leaves and eggshells. At the close of the meeting, being puzzled over its meaning, I showed the things to one of my deacons and asked him what sort of a prank it was. The poor man’s skin turned grey and he mumbled ‘obi.’
“After I got him to stop shaking, I pried deeper. The deacon suspected Da Costa, said it was that backslider’s way of threatening me with paganism, voodooism, if I did not receive him back into the Christian church though he refused to recant.
“One night later I found under my pillow a handful. Not wishing to frighten my deacon again, I asked of a planter who had been on the island many years what it meant. He said it could only be grave earth, that someone was angry enough with me to try to put an obi on me.
“Then shortly afterwards my colored house boy spoke of seeing the back of a man in my house at night, who disappeared into my bedroom. He swore it was a Jumbee but I concluded it was the same intruder, perhaps Da Costa back again to put some more grave earth under my pillow.”
“It was no surprise to me one night to awake to see an unknown colored man, whose body seemed shadowy, by the foot of my bed. As I do habitually with all strangers I meet, I at once solicited him for a contribution for the church.
“His face contorted with some strong emotion, some might describe it as hatred, but I think it was surprise and anger. Then unaccountably he just vanished into the gloom.”
MacBissett stopped his narrative and looked at me suggestively, “Some people just hate to give to the church, you know. Proof he was human and not a ghost as he vanished quickly when the matter of money was brought up.”
Fearing the conversation was veering into dangerous channels again, I quickly interrupted with: “But didn’t you think it strange he vanished so quickly?”
“My house boy did. He heard me speaking and assumed I was calling him for something and entered the room just as the intruder went off in a huff. The boy got very upset, insisting it was a Jumbee that Da Costa had sent to haunt me.”
“Was that the end of your experiences?”
“No. There was one more. Last Sunday I discovered, leaning against my front door, a doll dressed like a clergyman with pins sticking in its legs.”
“It appears to me your Da Costa is a persistent man.”
MacBissett looked at his watch and then looked at me significantly. He got up and began to rub the calves of his legs vigorously.
“Anything wrong?” I questioned, not realizing immediately the significance of his actions.
“It’s nothing,” he replied. “At my age you begin to develop poor circulation when you sit too long.”
“Sort of a pins and needles sensation?” I added, and then walked off, leaving the preacher to ponder a certain correspondence that must have suddenly occurred to both of us.
SEEING THINGS AT NIGHT
Originally published in The Gothic Horror And Other Weird Tales (1978).
The Saxon shepherd stood in the center of the road and waved them to stop. Grigorescu ignored him with a polite smile and tried to pass. Whereupon the shepherd grabbed the Romanian’s bicycle in great excitement and launched into a torrent of language.
“What’s wrong?” asked the heavy-set Charles Gosnell as he and Cimino pedaled up.
“My High German’s limited; besides, he’s talking too fast,” answered Grigorescu. “All I can understand, he doesn’t want us to go further along this road.”
While the two friends talked, several other shepherds and their flocks crossed into the road and stopped, blocking it and the fields on either side very effectively. The first shepherd relayed something to his associates which caused them to take an adamant stance on the road.
“Are these Transylvanian peasants always so hostile?” asked Gosnell.
Grigorescu suggested, “They won’t move their flocks so I guess we’re forced to go back to the village we just passed through and take the alternate fork south.”
Resentfully the three tourists turned their bicycles around. In five minutes they had returned to the Carpathian village they had spoken of.
“Wait here until I can find someone calm enough to tell me what’s wrong with the shepherds—besides, I want to buy a bottle of wine if I can.”
“Maybe they saw that Nazi flag you bought back in Austria,” Cimino said to Gosnell.
The latter shook his head and pointed to where it was folded up unrecognizably, lying at the bottom of his handle bar basket.
Several stray cats wandered around the village square. Gosnell decided to adopt one and placed it in the bike basket with the flag. At that instant Grigorescu returned with his bottle of wine, followed by a worried looking aged man.
“He said,” the Romanian pointed to the aged man, “that there are bandits—gypsies—along the road we were going. Two days ago they stopped a motorist and not only robbed him of his watch and money but made him take off and leave all his clothing before they would let him go on. That’s why the shepherds wouldn’t let us go on in that direction. They were trying to protect us.”
“Well we won’t make the inn in the valley by nightfall along the alternate road—it’s much longer. And it’s too cool to sleep out in the open tonight. Will these villagers…”
“I’ve already asked and been turned down.”
“We passed a ruined building a couple miles back up in the mountains. Let’s go back there.”
Some portions of the return road were on reverse slopes and they were able to coast down and up on the rise, so that in about fifteen minutes they were riding through a wood in which stood the ruin. Its foundations had been a Medieval castle on which was later built a chateau in the Baroque style, reminding Gosnell, with its elfin-pinnacled towers, of castles pictured in books of fairy tales.
A smaller building, separated from it—a gateway lodge?—was where they decided to spend the night. The fat man wrinkled his nose as he pedaled up to it and got off with the kitten under one arm. “A tom cat’s been spraying around here.”
They shoved open the door on protesting rusty hinges. Within was a large room, empty save for the omnipresent dust that made Gosnell sneeze. Surprisingly, the glass window was intact though grimy. In the wall opposite the door was a huge open fireplace. In a far corner beckoned the abyss of an open doorway into the cellar.
“You know what this place reminds me of?” Gosnell looked slyly at Grigorescu. “Dracula’s castle.”
“Cut it out,” snorted the other. “Just because my father was born in Romania doesn’t make me superstitious.”
Gosnell scoffed.
“Listen,” began Grigorescu, “the real Vlad Dracul was a soldier who impaled captives on wooden poles. But even his own people hated him and they said he should be killed by impaling with a stake too. So that this whole Dracula vampire business is nothing but a confusion of history and hatred.
Having no counter-argument, Gosnell smiled at him and said to the Italian, “Let’s get some firewood, Dago,” and the two of them went outside where they soon gathered an armful each.
The kitten began to sniff circumspectly about the room. Gosnell ceased his fire building activities, remarking, “What we need is a kitty litter box, but we don’t have one, so…”
With the kitten in one hand and his flashlight in the other, he descended into the cellar. At the bottom of the steps the floor was cobblestoned. He flashed his light around but beyond the dusty stones there was no dirt surface.
And the place was otherwise empty—that is, except for a long wooden box in a corner, its cover leaning against it. Other than a layer of earth sprinkled on its bottom, it was empty. Leaving the kitten perched on its side, the fat man went upstairs.
“There’s a wooden box in the cellar—just like a coffin.”
“Why don’t you and the Dago bring it up. We need more firewood.”
“No,” begged Cimino. “I’d rather go outside again and get more before I’d burn it.”
“Suit yourself,” snapped Grigorescu. Gosnell shrugged and returned to his fire-making while the Romanian opened a can of beans.
Obviously very hungry, Cimino first took a garlic onion from his saddle bag and began munching on it as he left. Grigorescu pinched his nose at the trail of garlic essence released by the eater.
“Are you ready for it?” Gosnell asked the Romanian, who looked at him puzzled.
“Did I ever tell you about my Uncle?—J. Mahlon Grim? When he was born, they were divided over what to make his first name. They settled on John. The rest of the family wanted him called Walter—you know, Walter Mahlon.”
Grigorescu made a sound as if in great pain, then replied with a question of his own.
“What’s the color of your eyes, usually?”
“Brown. Why?”
“I thought so. You must be a quart low.”
Before Gosnell could return the sally, there came a garbled cry from outside. Rushing through the door and into the night, they collided with Cimino heading in. When they calmed him down, he babbled of seemingly bumping accidentally into something in the dark (or was it waiting for him? he added in an aside) who, or which, proceeded to grab him by the throat and then thrust its face into his—
“Wait a minute, Dago,” interrupted Grigorescu, “you said because it was so dark, you couldn’t see to avoid running into whoever you did.”
“Yes. But I felt breathing on my face. So he had to be close.”
Cimino continued that inadvertently, in his surprise, he expelled garlic fumes from his lungs in a startled yell. His invisible assailant quickly released the grip on Cimino’s throat and began to flop awkwardly around in the unseen brush, making a sort of regurgitating sound.
“I’d say you’re seeing things—only you didn’t,” offered Grigorescu. “Maybe those gypsies are about here.”
“A ghost.” Cimino was terrified. “That coffin in the cellar… I’m not going back into that building.”
“Don’t be silly.” Gosnell was straight-faced. “If there was a ghost there, it’s not there now. Because it was out here—for a change of unseenery.”
“What’s he talking about?” Cimino looked at the Romanian.
The latter groaned. “I guess they weren’t kidding about the bandits, except they’re here somewheres. We better keep a bright fire going all night so they can’t sneak up on us.”
“Yeah and lay our bikes on the floor by the door so that they’ll stumble over them if they try coming in,” suggested Gosnell.
“Sometimes,” beamed Grigorescu, “you say something intelligent.”
Staying close together the three gathered brush and took it inside. Supper eaten, the three smoked a while before turning in. Whereas Gosnell’s friends only had their saddle bags for a pillow, Gosnell had the same plus the swastika-emblazoned flag which he proceed
ed to roll into, its silken fabric some protection against the night chill. Soon he was asleep.
Gosnell was having a nightmare. He knew it in the curious detached way people often do, experiencing the nightmare as a participant while also observing dream and dreamer as if another person. He was lying on a hospital cot, covered with a sheet that resembled a flag.
“We can’t take your blood for the Red Cross until we know your blood type,” the nurse told him.
“But I don’t—” protested Gosnell, but she had gone behind a curtain in the clinic. Immediately from back of it emerged a man in a black cape who manifested his intention of biting Gosnell on the side of the neck to test his blood type.
The frightened man hid under the sheet which the stranger tried to pull away. Gosnell began screaming. Then he realized his friends were rudely shaking him awake.
“What an awful dream,” he explained.
As they returned grumblingly to their repose, he reflected on the odd feeling—that some reality was mixed in with the dream. There was a lingering memory of the hideous man with curious fanged teeth snarling in a rage.
About dawn Gosnell was awakened by a series of guttural ejaculations. Though they sounded German instead of Italian, he looked in Cimino’s direction. Grigorescu also sat up but gave Gosnell all his suspicious glances. But Cimino’s eyes were on the cellar entrance.
“It came from down there,” he said.
“Did you hear someone yell something like ‘Kattscheibe’?” Gosnell looked at the Romanian. The latter nodded.
He and Gosnell grabbed flashlights and a couple of sticks from their wood pile and made for the cellar. Cimino faltered behind them.
The gloomy cellar appeared empty. Cimino pointed to the series of cat tracks entering the place through a small window, wandering around the box in a confusion with the kitten’s tracks, then returning the way it had entered.
“Phew!” said Grigorescu.
“Tom cat,” said Gosnell. “One cat always goes where another did.”
The Romanian shone his light into the box, then gasped. Within it was stretched out a fresh corpse—a man clothed in a style out of fashion for years and wearing a Turkish fez. The usual death grimace of an unembalmed corpse (country people consider embalming a frivolous waste) was missing, being replaced with a frozen expression of great emotion—an expression of anger and disgust.
The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™ Vol 2: George T. Wetzel Page 11