The Uncanny Stories MEGAPACK ™: 16 Classic Chillers

by Roy Vickers

  “Only about a week, sir,” the man answered.

  He brought me what I had ordered, and Norand looked up presently.

  “What do you think of this position?” he asked.

  “Well, white looks in rather a fix,” I answered. “Good Lord, what’s the matter?”

  I really thought he was going to have a fit; he fell back in his seat, panting for breath and ghastly pale. I might have pronounced his death warrant. I jumped up with some vague idea of getting a doctor but he stopped me.

  “No, no, I’m all right,” he said—croaked, rather. “For God’s sake, look at the board, and see if you can find any way out!”

  “For white?” I asked.

  “For white,” he repeated.

  I bent over the board. It seemed to me mate was pretty sure to come in three or four moves. I said:

  “Is it a game you’re playing?”

  He nodded.

  “Who’s your opponent?” I asked.

  He did not answer, and I could see well that a secret and terrible agitation possessed him.

  “I don’t know,” he stammered.

  And the idea came to me that he did know but that he dared not say. This seemed to me highly absurd and at the same time quite reasonable.

  He wiped his face again.

  “You see,” he argued, “the thing’s impossible.”

  “I don’t know what you mean; I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said angrily.

  But the idea burnt in my mind like fire, that I did know and that I also dared not say.

  He leant across the table, his eyes alight with that mingled desperate fear and deadly hate I had seen in them before.

  “You ought to have warned me,” he muttered. “Mind this, if I lose I will leave you the things in my will.”

  I remember it did not seem in any way absurd that he should couple together the ideas of losing the game and of making his will.

  I was studying the position of the pieces so intently that I, like him, pushed aside my lunch almost untasted. Gradually there was coming back to me a memory of the move poor Kerr had suggested Jenoure Baume might have tried in the game he lost to me. It seemed to me a variation of Kerr’s idea might be effective in Norand’s present position.

  I explained the move. Norand jumped at the idea. We developed it together and, so far as we could see, an attack pressed on those lines was practically sure to win the game. Norand’s relief was tremendous, mine scarcely less so. Then all at once his expression changed. He said:

  “Suppose when I play the knight it slips of itself on to some other square when I’m not looking?”

  I stared at him and laughed. The suggestion seemed so absurd I could not help it.

  “Well, of course,” I said, “if your pieces do that, I don’t see much chance.”

  He did not answer, and I left the restaurant and went back to the office, feeling relieved in one way, but a good deal worried about poor Norand all the same. His obvious terror, my own odd impressions, all seemed to me fanciful and even ridiculous in the face of his wild suggestion of pieces that moved of their own volition.

  All the same I was not surprised when, a day or two later, I heard that the poor fellow had drowned himself in a small pond that lay at the foot of his garden. The account in the papers said he had been sitting up late at chess and that he must have gone straight from the chessboard to his doom.

  Chapter IV

  The Invisible Antagonist

  I could not help making some inquiries about the position of the men on the board. I found, as I had half expected, that they indicated the close of a game in which black had just brought off a mate. My informant told me that presumably poor Norand had been analyzing some game. He had not been working out a problem as black was the winning side; and he had not been playing with anyone, as the evidence showed conclusively that he had been alone all the evening.

  The usual verdict was returned, and I wrote to Norand’s solicitor to say that I absolutely refused to accept any legacy he might have left me.

  But I did not post the letter. At one time I had the feeling that the whole thing was pure fancy and that it would be foolish and cowardly to refuse the chessmen if he had really left them to me. And then, again, the idea would come to me that it was all true, but that I was forewarned, and forearmed.

  As it happened they were delivered one evening while the Vicar was with me. While he was there I opened the parcel and showed him the chessmen. He was mildly interested and mildly shocked when I told him the tale that they were carved from human bone. He thought it a most repulsive idea, but remarked on the excellence of the carving.

  “That black queen, for example,” he said, “what an idea of—of—well, vitality, almost, that figure has.”

  I agreed, and after I had seen the Vicar to the door I went back to my room. I found those chessmen I had left lying on the table where the Vicar had been looking at them, now all drawn up in position on the board.

  No living soul, I knew well, had been in the room during my short absence. I stood for a moment or two on the threshold, a little daunted, a little confused, and as I watched I understood that I was expected to play—I saw, too, a thrill of a sinister impatience run through the drawn-up lines of the pieces.

  I sat down in front of them. I could not help myself. Each separate piece, from king to pawn, showed animate, palpitating, ready, one and all a-quiver with desire and greed, like hungry beasts of prey waiting for their living victim to be thrown to them. The impression grew in my mind that I was in a more dreadful and more imminent danger than any other living man that night, and that this danger was one that threatened not my life only.

  I would have fled, but flight, I knew well, was no longer possible. I tried to mutter a prayer, but the words would not come. I tried to lift my hand to push board and pieces to the ground, but I seemed to have lost control of my arm. The quivering, eager, evil impatience of the pieces increased; I should not have been surprised to see them break into some wild dance of hideous ritual.

  All at once they grew quiet, though still instinct with vivid, hungry eagerness, and I felt come upon me a sudden awe and fear and horror as I realized that my Antagonist was there.

  I could see nothing, I heard nothing, only I knew well that he was there, that he had come and was seated opposite.

  I understood the game was about to begin.

  I could not help myself. Slowly I lifted my hand. I swear I did not touch it, but the king’s pawn it had been my thought to move slid forward two squares.

  A moment’s pause and then the black king’s pawn, untouched, moved forward in reply. I made my next move, or rather, when I raised my hand with the intention of doing it, the piece transferred itself untouched to the position I had in my mind. The answering move came almost at once. And so the game was played on.

  All the time I never touched a piece; once I had made up my mind and raised my hand the piece I was thinking of immediately took up the position I wished. The black pieces did the same; they moved, advanced, retreated, but all in harmony and all in evident obedience to the will of my unseen, unknown Antagonist.

  Invisible, but not unknown.

  For I was very sure there sat opposite me a man long dead, with an evil face and cruel eyes and hungry, slobbering mouth, wearing the jeweled robes of an Indian prince, and playing with all his skill this game for his master in which the prize was—myself.

  I knew that now the game had begun, it had to be finished. I called up all my powers to my aid. I felt my mind grow clear; my nerves were calm and steady. I played my best. I played as I had never played before; I believe I played that night a game that would not have disgraced a master.

  More than once I felt I had my Antagonist in difficulties, but each time he retrieved himself
. I won a pawn, but lost it again. Still, I began to believe I had a chance of winning.

  I pressed hard. I felt a clearness in my brain, a vividness of thought and clearness of vision I have never known before or since. Once or twice, when I was tempted to make a move that might have been dangerous, it was as though I heard a secret whisper warning me to be careful. I knew, too, that my Antagonist was troubled, and I understood that the pieces themselves, both black and white, felt this, and were troubled also.

  I had begun a hot attack on the black queen. If I could win her I felt the game would be mine. It was not only that the queen is the most powerful piece, but I realized also that in her lay the focus of the opposing power, that from her or through her there radiated a sort of vigor and encouragement all the other pieces felt—and not the black only but my own white as well.

  My attack on the queen failed. I was a move too late, and she slipped out of the net I had so nearly drawn around her. The failure left my position less strong, and I found myself attacked in my turn. I rallied my forces, but the pressure grew stronger and stronger.

  The critical point was on my left, where I was beginning to plan a counter-attack. It promised well, and I was beginning to make progress when I found a return thrust aimed at me.

  I was puzzled, and, on looking, found that the position of my pieces was no longer as it had been, but a much weaker one. I could not understand, for I was sure I had not moved them. As I looked and wondered I was aware that my unseen Antagonist smiled evilly to himself, and the black queen shook with a horrid, secret merriment that spread and spread till every piece upon the board, black and white, was laughing wickedly to itself, rejoicing in the prospect of my defeat.

  I realized in a flash that one of my pawns had turned traitor and, when I was not looking, had slipped back from the square where I had placed it to the one behind where it was so much less effective.

  Chapter V

  At the Eleventh Hour

  It cost me my bishop before I could re-establish my position, and the small inner voice I had seemed to hear before whispered to me that I must watch closely and unceasingly, or the same thing would happen again. I understood that my Antagonist, smiling evilly to himself, could make any one of my pieces betray me, and that this foul play he kept ever in reserve to help him at need. No wonder that he had always won his games all through the centuries!

  I was a piece to the bad now, and I had the double strain of playing and of watching to see that none of my men slipped from the squares on which I had placed them. I set my teeth and played my best. I lost another piece, and my king, hotly attacked, was pinned into one corner. Still I fought on, though my brow was wet and my hands shook, and upon me lay the consciousness of impending doom.

  I made one last feeble attempt at a counterattack. I do not think it could possibly have saved me, but it was audacious, a little disconcerting, and meant delay at the least. And that was something, for I knew that if I could hold out till cock-crow I should earn at least a day’s respite. That my Antagonist knew also, and he grew, one must suppose, impatient.

  I was watching my pieces intently since there was not one of them but would have played the traitor had chance offered. My new attack hinged on the one rook I had remaining, and suddenly I saw it sliding away from where it stood to an adjoining square, where it would have been comparatively useless. It stopped when my eye fell on it, for apparently they had no power to move—or my Antagonist no power to make them move—when I was watching, and then something made me look away again. Instantly the rook slipped off to the adjoining square, and at once again all the other pieces, black and white alike, shook with a passion of secret, evil laughter.

  For a moment despair overcame me, for now it was only a question of mate in two moves.

  But, as before a tiny voice had whispered to me to be cautious when I had contemplated an unsound move, so now again I heard that small, still voice sound clear and vivid in my ear. I knew that my one hope was to do as it advised.

  I sprang to my feet.

  Pointing at the rook that had moved I cried with a loud voice:

  “I appeal.”

  I was aware of an instant, fierce commotion all around me; I saw the pieces, black and white, all palpitant; I heard no sound, but I knew that my Antagonist was dismayed and troubled.

  Again I cried:

  “I appeal.”

  The fierce tumult and commotion I was aware of all round, grew yet wilder and more fierce. Though I heard nothing, saw nothing, I knew that all about was fury, dismay, excitement, a hurrying to and fro of strange and evil things, a passage of vast and awful shadows. The pieces were all quivering with hatred and alarm. My dread, long dead Antagonist seemed to me to be screaming hoarsely in an agony of protest and pain. Though still I heard, saw, felt nothing, I was somehow conscious that I stood in the very center of a chaos of invisible, conflicting powers; that unimaginable forces were aimed against me, but that nevertheless I stood protected. For the third time I cried out very loudly:

  “I appeal.”

  That strange and awful tumult passed. All was still and silent, all that had filled my small room so dreadfully fled swiftly far away. The chessmen were no longer animate and palpitant, but were quiet as any other bits of carved bone; I had a vision of my Antagonist, baffled, howling, far in the depths of nethermost space.

  I knew I was safe now, and I knew also what next I had to do. The still, small voice I had heard before had whispered that to me also, and I hurried to obey. I swept the chessmen into their box, and carrying it carefully in my hands, I went into the garden, out by the side gate, and up the lane that leads to the churchyard.

  Dawn was grey in the east, the cocks were crowing as I reached it. There amidst the graves, in earth consecrated by holy words for the last resting-place of men, I dug with my bare hands and buried deep the box and the pieces of carved bone it held, deep in the shadow of a cross reared on a grave nearby. There I left them to rest for ever; and so, drunk with weariness and terror, went back to my home to rest in peace and thankfulness and safety.

  THE EIGHTH LAMP, by Roy Vickers

  Chapter I

  On the Underground

  With a muffled, metallic roar the twelve-forty-five, the last train on the Underground, lurched into Cheyne Road Station. A small party of belated theatre-goers alighted; the sleepy guard blew his whistle, and the train rumbled on its way to the outlying suburbs.

  A couple of minutes later, Signalman George Raoul emerged from the tunnel, swung himself on to the up-platform and switched off the nearest lamp. Simultaneously a door in the wall on the down-side opened and the stationmaster appeared.

  “Nothing to report, Mr. Jenkins,” said Raoul. He spoke in an ordinary speaking voice, but in the dead silence of the station his words carried easily across the rails—words that were totally untrue. He had something of considerable importance to report, but he knew that if he were to make that report he would probably he marked down as unfit for night duty, and he could not afford to risk that at present.

  “All right, George. Good-night.”

  “G’night, Mr. Jenkins.”

  Raoul passed down the length of the up-platform, dousing each light as he came to the switch. Then he dropped on to the track, crossed and made for the farthest switch on the down-platform.

  Cheyne Road Station was wholly underground—it was but an enlarged strip of tunnel—and the lighting regulations did not apply to it. There were eight lamps on each platform.

  The snap of the switch echoed in the deserted station like the crack of a pistol. Raoul started. The silence that followed gripped him. Pulling himself together he hurried on to the second switch.

  “Ugh!”

  By the third lamp he stopped and shuddered as his eye fell upon a recruiting poster. In the gloom the coloring of the poster was lost—som
e crudity in the printing asserted itself—and the beckoning smile of a young soldier seemed like the mirthless grin of a death mask. And the death mask was just like—

  “You’re all right,” he assured himself aloud. “It’s the new station that’s doing it.”

  Yes, it was the new station that was doing it. But he would not grumble on that account. It was a bit of rare luck, being transferred from Baker Street—just when he was transferred. For all its familiarity, he could never have stood night-work at Baker Street—now.

  Even after three weeks in the new signal-box he could never “pass” a Circle train without a faint shudder. The Circle trains had a morbid fascination for him. They passed you on the down-line. Half a dozen stations and they would be pulling up at Baker Street. Then on through the tunnel and, in about an hour, back they came past your box and still on the down-line. In the Circle trains his half nurtured imagination saw something ruthless and inevitable—something vaguely connected with fate and eternity and things like that.

  His mind had momentarily wandered so that he took the fourth switch unconsciously. As he made for the fifth, his nerve again faltered.

  “Didn’t ought to have taken on this extra work,” he seemed to shout into the dark mouth of the tunnel. “’Tain’t worth it for three bob. It’s the cleaner’s job by rights.”

  Yes, it was the cleaner’s job by rights. But the cleaner was an old man, unreliable for night-work and when the station-master had offered Raoul the job of “clearing up last thing” for three shillings a week, he had jumped at it. The three shillings would make life perceptibly brighter for Jinny—her new life with him.

  Between the fifth lamp and the sixth was the stationmaster’s den. On a nail outside the door hung the keys with which Raoul would presently lock the ticket-barrier and the outer door of the booking-office.

  He snatched the keys as he passed and then, as if to humanize the desolation, he broke into a piercing, tuneless whistle that carried him to the seventh lamp.