by Mike Ashley
Patiently he answered it.
“You are now aware,” he was told by the same accented voice, “that even your own thoughts may turn to fight you.”
“Any man may dismiss his own thoughts,” replied Thunstone at once. “I have a special hell to which I send thoughts that annoy me. Can you afford to go on blundering? Why do you not call on me in person? My door is unlocked.”
“So is mine,” replied the other coldly. “On the floor below yours. Room 712. Come down if you dare.”
“I dare, and do defy you for a villain,” quoted Thunstone from Shakespeare, who also made a study of supernormal phenomena. Hanging up, he took from his smoking stand a glass ash tray. In this he painstakingly built a gratelike contrivance from paper clips, and upon the little grate kindled a fire of wooden match sticks. When it blazed up, he fed upon it some crumbs of his blended tobacco and herbs, and when these caught fire he poured on a full handful of the pungent mixture. It took the flame bravely. He carried it across the room, setting it in front of the sealed closet. The smoke curled up as from an incense burner, shrouding the entire wall from any magical intruder. Thunstone nodded approval to himself, went out, down one flight of stairs, and knocked on the door marked 712.
The door opened a crack, showing a slice of sallow brown face. A deep black eye peered at Thunstone, and then the door opened. A hand with a too-long third finger waved as if inviting him in. He crossed the threshold. The room was dim, with curtains drawn and a single crudely molded candle burning on a center table. Three Shonokins were there—one motionless under a quilt on the bed, one at the door, the third sunk in the armchair. They might have been triplets, all slender and sharp-faced, with abundant shocks of black hair. They all wore neat suits of gray, with white shirts and black ties, but to Thunstone it seemed that they were as strange to such clothing as if they had come from a far land or a far century. The door closed behind him. “Well?” he said.
The Shonokin by the door and the Shonokin in the chair gazed at him with malignant eyes of purest, brightest black. Their hands stirred, rather nervously. Their fingernails appeared to be sharp, perhaps artificially cut to ugly points. The Shonokin on the bed neither moved not stared. Toward him Thunstone made a gesture.
“I guessed more correctly about you than you about me,” he said. “Your languid friend yonder—would it be tactless, perhaps to suggest that he lies there without any soul in him? Or that his soul is upstairs, animating a certain rude image which I have sealed carefully away?”
“We,” said the seated Shonokin, “have never been prepared to admit the existence of souls.”
“Tag it by whatever name you like,” nodded Thunstone, “this specimen on the bed seems to be without it, and worse for being without it. Suppose we establish a point from which to go on with our discussion. You were able to fabricate, in my room, a sort of insulting tableau. I, for my part, was to enter, be surprised and angry, and attempt to tear it to pieces. Doing that, I would release upon myself—what?”
“You do not know,” said the standing Shonokin tensely. It was his voice, Thunstone recognized, that had given the various telephone messages.
“Oh, it might have been any one of several things that hostile and angry spirits can accomplish,” went on Thunstone with an air of carelessness. “I might have become sick, say; or have gone mindless; or the cloth, as I loosened it, might have smothered me strangely, and so on. Strange you went in for such elaborate and sinister attacks, when a knife in the back might have done as well. You intend to kill me, don’t you?”
He looked at one of his interrogators, then the other, then once more at the figure on the bed. That Shonokin’s face looked as pale as paper under its swarthiness. The lips seemed to quiver, as if trying feebly to gulp air.
“I think that it has been well established,” Thunstone resumed, “that when a body sends forth the power that animates it, for good or for evil, it will die unless that power soon returns. But this doesn’t touch on why you dared me to come down here. Did you dream that I wouldn’t call your bluff. For it was a bluff, wasn’t it?”
The eyes of the two conscious Shonokins were like octopus eyes, he decided. The Shonokins themselves might be compared to the octopus people, whose natural home was deep in ocean caves, from which specimens ventured on rare occasions to the surface when man could see and divide his emotions between wonder and horror . . .
“Thank you for giving us another thought to turn against you,” said the Shonokin in the chair.
The dark room swam, swam literally, for to Thunstone it was as though warm rippling waters had come from somewhere to close over his head. Through the semi-transparency writhed lean dark streamers, like a nest of serpents, their tips questing toward him. At the ends furthest from him they joined against a massive oval bladder, set with two eyes like ugly jewels. An octopus—and a big one. Its eight arms, lined with red-mouthed suckers, were reaching for Thunstone.
By instinct, he lifted his hands as though in defense. His right hand held his pipe, and its bowl emitted a twirl of smoke. Smoke under water!—But this was not water, it was only the sensation of water, conjured out of his chance thought by Shonokin magic. As the wriggling, twisting tentacles began to close around him, Thunstone put his pipe to his lips and blew out a cloud of smoke.
The room cleared. It was as it had been. Thunstone tapped ashes from his pipe, and filled and lighted it as before.
“You see,” said the seated Shonokin, “that any fancy coming into your mind may blossom into nightmare. Is it a pleasant future to foresee, John Thunstone? You had better go up and open that sealed door.”
Thunstone’s great head shook, and he smiled under his mustache. “Just now,” he said, “I am thinking of someone very like you, who died and was buried at the Conley farm. Why not make him appear out of my meditations?”
“Silence!” snarled the Shonokin who had opened the door. His hand lifted, as if to menace Thunstone with its sharp nails. “You do not know what you are talking about.”
“But I do,” Thunstone assured him gently. “Living Shonokins fear only dead Shonokins.”
“Shonokins do not die,” gulped the one in the dark.
“You have tried to convince yourselves of that by avoiding all corpses of your kind,” Thunstone said, “yet now you are in dread of this dying companion of yours. His life is imprisoned upstairs. Without it he strangles and perishes. I learn more and more about your foolish Shonokin ways.” “You learn about us?” snapped the standing one. “We are ancient and great. We had power and wisdom when your fathers were still wild brutes.
When you understand that—”
“Ancient?” broke in Thunstone. “Yes, you must be. Only an unthinkably old race could have such deep-seated folly and narrowness and weakness. Do you really think that you can swarm out again from wherever you have cowered for ages, to overthrow mankind? Human beings at least dare look at their own dead, and to move over those dead to win fights. You vain and blind Shonokins are like a flock of raiding crows, to be frightened away by hanging up a few carcasses of your own kind—”
“I have it!” cried the Shonokin who had stood by the door.
Weasel-swift and weasel-silent, he had leaped at Thunstone, snatched the pipe, and leaped away again. A wisp of the smoke rose to his pinched nostrils, and he dropped the pipe with a strange exclamation that might have been a Shonokin oath.
“Without that evil-smelling talisman,” said the seated one, “I leave you to your latest fancy—raiding crows.”
The room was swarming full of them, black and shining and clatter-voiced. A whir of many wings, a cawing chorus of gaping bills, churned around Thunstone, fanned the air of the room. Then, of a sudden, they were swarming—where?
“Now do you believe that your kind can die?” said Thunstone bleakly, his voice rising above the commotion. “The crows believe it. For they attack the dead, not the living.”
The crows, or the vision of them, indeed thronged over and upon
the bed, settling into a black, struggling mass that hid the form that lay there. “I thought on purpose of carrion-birds,” said Thunstone. “Your power
to turn thoughts into nightmares has rebounded.”
He spoke to the backs of the two living Shonokins. They were running. He wondered later if they opened the door or, by some power of their own, drifted through it. He followed them as far as the hall, in time to see them plunging down the stairway.
Stepping back into the room, he retrieved his pipe and drew upon it. At the first puff of smoke the crows were gone, leaving him alone with the silent figure on the bed.
Now he made sure, touching the chill wrist and twitching up a flaccid eyelid, that the Shonokin was dead. He made a tour of the room, in which there seemed to be no luggage—only a strange scroll of some material like pale suede, covered with characters Thunstone could not identify, but he pocketed it for more leisurely study. Out into the hall he strolled, smoking thoughtfully. He was beginning to like that herb mixture, or perhaps he was merely grateful to it.
Back in his own quarters, he opened the sealed closet door without hesitation. On the floor lay a crumpled heap of sheets, garments and other odds and ends, as if something had worn them and had shaken them off. Thunstone carried them into his bedroom, then dismantled the image of himself. He telephoned for a chambermaid to make the bed and a tailor to press the suit.
At length he departed to find a favorite restaurant. He ordered a big dinner, and ate every crumb with an excellent appetite.
When he returned to the hotel late that evening, the manager told him of the sudden death, apparently from heart disease, of a foreign-seeming man in Room 712. The man had had friends, said the manager, but they could not be found. He was about to call the morgue.
“Don’t,” said Thunstone. “I met him. I’ll arrange funeral details and burial.”
For a Shonokin corpse, buried in the little private cemetery on the farm he had inherited, would make that refuge safe from at least one type of intruder.
The manager, who knew better than to be surprised at Thunstone’s impulses, only asked, “Will you notify his relatives?”
“None of his relatives will care to come to the funeral,” Thunstone assured the manager, “or anywhere near his grave.”
LUCIUS LEFFING IN
THE DEAD OF WINTER APPARITION
JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN
Joseph Payne Brennan (1918–1990) was one of the last great writers to appear in Weird Tales before it ceased publication in 1954 (though it has since been revived many times). A native of Connecticut, but of Irish descent, Brennan seemed a writer of the old school, but always keen to experiment with new ideas. A poet by inclination, he worked for forty years as an acquisitions assistant at the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, so was steeped in memorabilia, academia, and ancient studies. Rather uncharacteristically his first dozen or so story sales were westerns, and his first story in Weird Tales, “The Green Parrot” (July 1952), was rather mild, but his next appearance was with an instant classic, “Slime” (March 1953) followed by the highly atmospheric “On the Elevator” (July 1953). When Weird Tales ceased, Brennan started his own little magazine, Macabre, in 1957 as some small replacement, and it was here, in 1962, that the first story featuring Lucius Leffing appeared, “The Haunted Housewife.” Leffing was a far cry from John Thunstone or Jules de Grandin. He was a throwback to the early days, and although he lived in Connecticut, he evinced the Victorian era and had more in common with Sherlock Holmes. In many ways, the appearance of Lucius Leffing brought the occult detective full circle as he feels more at home with Martin Hesselius and Flaxman Low than with the modern sword wielders. The Leffing stories have been collected in The Casebook of Lucius Leffing (1973), The Chronicles of Lucius Leffing (1977), The Adventures of Lucius Leffing (1990) and one novel, Act of Providence (1979). Not all the stories are supernatural, but neither Brennan (who narrates the stories as Leffing’s colleague) nor Leffing shirk the sinister, or the horrors of the day, as the following story shows.
AS I REVIEW NOTES CONCERNED WITH THE CASES OF MY FRIEND, Lucius Leffing, psychic investigator and private detective, I find it difficult to decide which episodes may entail the most reader interest. A case which intrigues one reader leaves another indifferent. The best I can do, therefore, is to rely on my own far from infallible judgement and hope for the best. Although for various reasons Leffing refused many cases, it will never be possible for me to record all of his exploits. My time and energies have become far too limited.
One case, however, which has haunted me down the years, I find outlined under the title The Dead of Winter Apparition.
The business began in rather routine fashion. One winter evening, over a decade ago, Leffing telephoned to tell me that he expected two prospective clients, a husband and wife, to visit him the next day. He knew little about the case and was by no means sure he would accept it, but he cordially invited me to be “on hand,” as he put it, in the event he followed through on the investigation.
Late on the following afternoon he cheerfully welcomed me into his little Victorian-furnished house at 7 Autumn Street. Only a few minutes elapsed before the door chimes sounded and I was introduced to a Mr. and Mrs. Paul Pasquette.
Pasquette was a somewhat undersized, stocky individual with black hair and eyes. The suggestion of a scowl appeared to be permanently etched into his forehead lines. He possessed a ready smile however, which quickly transformed his features. The scowl vanished; his dark eyes seemed alight with good humor.
His wife, Viola, frail and blonde, was taller than he by a good two inches. Had it not been for sunken cheeks and frown lines of worry, she might have been decidedly attractive—even striking in appearance.
Both the Pasquettes were obviously laboring under some kind of nervous strain. They appeared apprehensive, subdued and ill at ease.
Paul Pasquette began speaking with hesitation and reluctance.
“Maybe you’ll think we’re both crazy, Mr. Leffing, but this thing has gone on too long and we can’t take it much more. We went through it last winter and we hoped that was the end of it, but now it’s started again—” He broke off as if groping for words.
Leffing tried to reassure him. “Believe me, Mr. Pasquette, I am firmly convinced that both you and your charming wife are totally sane, normal individuals. Please start at the beginning, take your time and explain matters as best you can.”
Pasquette resumed. “It commenced, I suppose, two years ago this past summer when we bought a tiny house up in the township of Comptonvale—that’s in Tolland County, far northwest corner. We were tired of apartment living; we like the country and I don’t mind driving to work.
“The house was very small—only two undersized rooms and a kind of kitchenette—but it still seemed a bargain at the price. A little land went with it—enough for a garden and a yard. We were short of ready cash after buying the place, but we fixed it up a bit and settled in. Everything went fine through the rest of that summer and into the fall. We didn’t notice a thing wrong until the weather began to get real cold. That was late October—up there anyway. It’s often twenty degrees colder in Comptonvale than it is here in New Haven on the coast.”
Leffing nodded. “I have experienced a few winters in northern Connecticut! Nothing like Maine, but severe enough for me!”
Pasquette’s scowl deepened as he groped for words. “It’s hard to explain just how it started. First, we both got, well, edgy, jumpy. We didn’t sleep good. Finally we both admitted that we were often having bad dreams—nightmares. Most of the time we couldn’t remember the dreams in any detail. We just had a sense of something getting into the house, hating us, threatening us somehow—something filled with spite, a desire for revenge—I don’t know what for!
“The colder it got the worse it got—our dreams, I mean. And then—I realize it sounds loony, Mr. Leffing—but the first time it snowed, it got worse than ever. It became so we dreaded snow. We coul
d hardly sleep at all. The whole house seemed filled with hate. We’d lay awake by the hour, while the hate seemed to come at us in waves. We could feel it some during the day, but it was always a hundred times worse at night. And we couldn’t see anything or hear anything. It was just this feeling of evil—sort of—what’s the word?—enveloping us.”
Pasquette paused, took out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead.
“It went on that way all winter. About the time we felt we couldn’t stand another night in that house, the weather turned warm and we began to sleep better. The dreams faded away, not overnight, but in a week or two. By the time summer came, everything seemed normal. We both decided that maybe the stress of moving, of money problems and other pressures, had jangled our nerves so that we had begun to imagine things. Although we had talked of selling the house, we decided to stay.”
He glanced at his wife. “But as the summer wore away and the first leaves began turning I know we both began to get worried again. We had a wonderful October that year. The weather stayed warm during the day and there was only a light frost once or twice. I guess it’s what they call Indian summer. Anyway it lasted right into November and we began to hope that our nightmares were behind us.”
He shook his head. “We were living in a fool’s paradise. About mid-November the weather turned bitterly cold; the very next day it started to snow. It was like some kind of signal. That first night we both had horrible dreams. The old feeling of hate and evil surrounded us again—stronger than before.
“We’d wake up from nightmares—but the nightmares didn’t end even after we got awake. Hatred seemed to be eating its way into the house—into us! It was as if we were losing our minds. There weren’t any neighbors for miles; everybody up there liked us. We never saw anyone lurking around. The only wild animals of any size were deer and maybe a few bobcats.
“We began trying to doze during the early evening and stay awake later to see if we could glimpse anything. But, while the hate feeling grew worse, we still couldn’t see anything—”