Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  Dr. Landscomb listened to Mr. Wesley’s chest with a stethoscope. “This man requires further medical attention. We must get him to a hospital at once.”

  Scobie shouted. He ran back to the group, his eyes red, his mouth twisted in fear. “Arlen’s gone. Arlen’s gone.”

  “Easy, friend.” Mr. Williams handed the older man the whiskey and waited for him to take a slug. “You mean that boy of yours?”

  Scobie nodded. “He climbed a tree when the beast charged our midst. Now he’s gone.”

  “He probably ran away,” Mr. Briggs said. “Can’t say as I blame him.”

  “No.” Scobie brandished a soiled leather shoe. “This was lying near the tracks of the stag. They’ve gone deeper into the wood.”

  “Why the bloody hell would the little fool do that?” Lord Bullard said, slowly returning to himself.

  “He’s a brave lad,” Scobie said and wrung the shoe in his grimy hands.

  “Obviously we have to find the kid,” Luke Honey said, although he was unhappy about the prospect. If anything, the fog had grown thicker. “We have four hours of light. Maybe less.”

  “It’s never taken the dogs,” Scobie said so quietly Luke Honey was certain no one else heard.

  THERE WAS A brief discussion regarding logistics where it was decided that Dr. Landscomb would escort Mr. Wesley and Mr. McEvoy to the prior evening’s campsite—it would be impossible to proceed much farther before dark. The search party would rendezvous with them and continue on to the lodge in the morning. Luke Honey volunteered his horse to carry Mr. Wesley, not from a sense of honor, but because he was likely the best tracker of the bunch and probably also the fleetest of foot.

  They spread into a loose line, Mr. Liam Welloc and Mr. Briggs ranging along the flanks on horseback, while Luke Honey, Scobie, and Mr. Williams formed a picket. Mr. Williams led his horse. By turns, each of them shouted Arlen’s name.

  Initially, pursuit went forth with much enthusiasm, as Lord Bullard had evidently wounded the stag. Its blood splattered fern leaves and pooled in the spaces between its hoofprints and led them away from the beaten trails into brush so thick, Luke Honey unsheathed his Barlow knife and hacked at the undergrowth. Mosquitoes attacked in swarms. The light dimmed and the trail went cold. A breeze sighed, and the ubiquitous fog swirled around them, and tracking soon became a fruitless exercise. Mr. Liam Welloc announced an end to the search on account of encroaching darkness.

  Mr. Williams and Luke Honey stopped to rest upon the exposed roots of a dying oak tree and take a slug from Mr. Williams’s hip flask. The rancher smoked a cigarette. His face was red, and he fanned away the mosquitoes with his hat. “Greg said this is how it was.”

  “Your uncle? The one who died?”

  “Yeah, on the second go-around. The first time he came home and talked about a disaster. Horse threw a feller from a rich family in Kansas and broke his neck.”

  “I reckon everybody knows what they’re getting into coming to this place.”

  “I’m not sure of that at all. You think you know what evil is until you look it in the eye. That’s when you really cotton to the consequences. Ain’t no fancy shooting iron worth any of this.”

  “Too early for that kind of talk.”

  “The hell it is. I ain’t fainthearted, but this is a bad fix. The boy is sure enough in mortal danger. Judging what happened to them dogs, we might be in trouble.”

  Luke Honey had no argument with that observation, preoccupied as he was with how the fog hung like a curtain around them, how the night abruptly surged upon them, how every hair of his body stood on end. He realized his companion wasn’t at his side. He called Mr. Williams’s name and the branches creaked overhead.

  An unearthly stillness settled around him as he pressed his hand against the rough and slimy bark of a tree. He listened as the gazelles at the waterhole listened for the predators that deviled them. He saw a muted glow ahead: the manner of light that seeped from certain fog banks on the deep ocean and in the depths of caverns. He went forward, groping through coils of mist, rifle held aloft in his free hand. His racing heart threatened to unman him.

  Luke Honey stepped into a small grove of twisted and shaggy trees. The weak phosphorescence rose from the earth and cast evil shadows upon the foliage and the wall of thorns that hemmed the grove on three sides. A statue canted leeward at the center of the grove—a tall, crumbling marble stack, ghastly white and stained black by moss and mold, a terrible horned man, or god. This was an idol to a dark and vile Other, and it radiated a palpable aura of wickedness.

  The fog crept into Luke Honey’s mouth, trickled into his nostrils, and his gorge rebelled. Something struck him across the shoulders. He lost balance, and all the strength in his legs drained and he collapsed and lay supine, squashed into the wet earth and leaves by an imponderable force. This force was the only thing keeping him from sliding off the skin of the earth into the void. He clawed the dirt. Worms threaded his fingers. “Get behind me, Devil,” he said.

  The statue blurred and expanded, shifting elastically. The statue was so very large, and its cruel shadow pinned him like an insect; the voices of its creators, primeval troglodytes who’d dwelt in mud huts and made love in the filth and offered their blood to long dead gods, whispered obscenities, and images unfolded in his mind. He thrashed and struggled to rise. A child screamed. The cry chopped off. A discordant vibration rippled over the ground and passed through Luke Honey’s bones—a hideous clash of cymbals and shrieking reeds reverberated in his brain. His nose bled.

  Fresh blood is best, the statue said, although it was Luke Honey’s mouth that opened and made the words. Baby blood, boy child blood. Rich red sweet rare boy blood. What, little man, what could you offer the lord of the dark? What, you feeble fly? His jaw contorted, manipulated by invisible fingers. His tongue writhed at the bidding of the Other. A choir of corrupt angels sang from the darkness all around—a song sweet and repellent and old as Milton’s pit and its inhabitants. Sulfurous red light illuminated the fog and impossible shapes danced and capered as if beamed from the lens of a magic lantern.

  Luke Honey turned his head sideways in the dirt and saw his brother hoeing in the field. He saw himself as a boy of fourteen struggling with loading a single-shot .22 and the muzzle flash exactly as Michael leaned in to look at the barrel. Luke Honey’s father sent him to live in Utah and his mother died shortly thereafter, a broken woman. The black disk of the moon occulted the sun. His massive .416 Rigby boomed and a bull elephant pitched forward and crumpled, its tusks ploughing the dirt. Mother stood in the entrance of the tent, wings charred, her brilliant nimbus dimmed to reddish flame. Arlen regarded him from the maze of thorns, his face slack with horror. “Take me instead,” Luke Honey said through clenched teeth, “and be damned.”

  You’re already mine, Lucas. The Other cackled in lunatic merriment.

  The music, the fire, the singing, all crashed and stopped.

  Mr. Williams leaned over him, and Luke Honey almost skewered the man. Mr. Williams leaped back, staring at the Barlow knife in Luke Honey’s fist. “Sorry, boy. You were having a fit. Laughing like a crazy man.”

  Luke Honey clambered to his feet and put away the knife. His scooped up his rifle and brushed leaves from his clothes. The glow had subsided, and the two men were alone except for the idol that hulked, a terrible lump in the darkness.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Mr. Williams said. “My uncle told me about these damned things too. Said rich townies—that weren’t followers of Christ, to put it politely—had ’em shipped in and set up here and there across the estate. Gods from the Old World. There are stories about rituals in the hills. Animal sacrifices and unnatural relations. Stories like our hosts told us about the Blackwoods. To this day, folks with money and an interest in ungodly practices come to visit these shrines.”

  “Let’s get away from this thing,” Luke Honey said.

  “Amen to that.” Mr. Williams led the way and they might’ve wandered all night,
but someone fired a gun to signal periodically, and the two men stumbled into the firelight of camp as Mr. Liam Welloc and Mr. McEvoy were serving a simple dinner of pork and beans. By unspoken agreement, neither Luke Honey nor Mr. Williams mentioned the vile statue. Luke Honey retreated to the edge of the camp, eyeing Mr. Liam Welloc and Dr. Landscomb. As lords of the estate there could be no doubt they knew something of the artifacts and their foul nature. Were the men merely curators, or did they partake of corrupt ceremonies by the dark of the moon? He shuddered and kept his weapons close.

  Dr. Landscomb and Lord Bullard had wrapped Mr. Wesley in a cocoon of blankets. Mr. Wesley’s face was drawn, his eyes heavy lidded. Lord Bullard held a brandy flask to his companion’s lips and dabbed them with a handkerchief after each coughing jag.

  “Lord Almighty,” Mr. Williams said as he joined Luke Honey, a plate of beans in hand. “I reckon he’s off to the happy hunting grounds any minute now.”

  Luke Honey ate his dinner and tried to ignore Mr. Wesley’s groans and coughs, and poor Scobie mumbling and rocking on his heels, a posture that betrayed his rude lineage of savages who went forth in ochre paints and limed hair and wailed at the capriciousness of pagan gods.

  There were no stories around the fire that evening, and later, it rained.

  MR. WESLEY WAS dead in the morning. He lay stiff and blue upon the lean-to floor. Dr. Landscomb covered him with another blanket and said a few words. Lord Bullard wept inconsolably and cast hateful glances at Luke Honey.

  “Lord Almighty,” was all Mr. Williams could repeat. The big man stood near the corpse, hat in hand.

  “The forest is particularly greedy this season,” Mr. Liam Welloc said. “It has taken a good Christian fellow and an innocent child, alas.”

  “Hold your tongue, Mr. Welloc!” Scobie’s face was no less contorted in grief and fury than Lord Bullard’s. He pointed at Mr. Liam Welloc. “My grandson lives, an’ I swear to uproot every stone an’ every tree in this godforsaken forest to find him.”

  Mr. Liam Welloc gave Scobie a pitying smile. “I’m sorry, my friend. You know as well as I that the odds of his surviving the night are slim. The damp and cold alone . . .”

  “We must continue the search.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow. At the moment, we are duty bound to see our guests to safety and make arrangements for the disposition of poor Mr. Wesley’s earthly remains.”

  “You mean to leave Arlen at the tender mercy of . . . Nay, I’ll have none of it.”

  “I am sorry. Our duty is clear.”

  “Curse you, Mr. Welloc!”

  “Master Scobie, I implore you not to pursue a reckless course—”

  “Bah!” Scobie made a foul gesture and stomped into the predawn gloom.

  Mr. McEvoy said, “The old man is right—we can’t just quit on the kid.”

  “Damned straight,” Mr. Briggs said. “What kind of skunks would we be to abandon a boy while there’s still a chance?”

  Dr. Landscomb said, “Well spoken, sirs. However, you can hardly be expected to grasp the, ah, gravity of the situation. I assure you, Arlen is lost. Master Scobie is on a quixotic mission. He won’t find the lad anywhere in Wolfvale. In any event, Mr. McEvoy simply must be treated at a hospital lest his ankle grow worse. I dislike the color of the swelling.”

  “Surely, it does no harm to try,” Mr. Briggs said.

  “We tempt fate by spending another minute here,” Mr. Liam Welloc said. “And to stay after sunset . . . This is impossible, I’m afraid.” The incongruity of the man’s genteel comportment juxtaposed with his apparent dread of the supernatural chilled Luke Honey in a way he wouldn’t have deemed possible after his experiences abroad.

  “Tempt fate?” Mr. Briggs said. “Not stay after sunset? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Welloc? Boys, can you make heads or tails of this foolishness?”

  “He means we’d better get ourselves shut of this place,” Mr. Williams said.

  “Bloody right,” Lord Bullard said. “This is a matter for the authorities.”

  Mr. Briggs appeared dumbfounded. “Well, don’t this beat all. Luke, what do you say?”

  Luke Honey lighted a cigarette. “I think we should get back to the lodge. A dirty shame, but that’s how I see it.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Me neither,” Mr. McEvoy said. His leg was elevated and his cheeks shone with sweat. His ankle was swaddled in bandages. “Wish I could walk, damn it.”

  “You saw what that stag did to the dogs,” Lord Bullard said. “There’s something unnatural at work and I’ve had quite enough, thank you.” He wiped his eyes and looked at Luke Honey. “You’ll answer for Wes. Don’t think you won’t.”

  “Easy there, partner,” Mr. Williams said.

  Luke Honey nodded. “Well, Mr. Bullard, I think you may be correct. I’ll answer for your friend. That reckoning is a bit farther down the list, but it’s on there.”

  “This is no time to bicker,” said Mr. Liam Welloc. “Apparently we are in agreement—”

  “Not all of us,” Mr. Briggs said, glowering.

  “—Since we are in agreement, let’s commence packing. We’ll sort everything out when we return to the house.”

  “What about Scobie?” Mr. Briggs said.

  “Master Scobie can fend for himself,” Mr. Liam Welloc said, his bland, conciliatory demeanor firmly in place. “As I said, upon our return we will alert the proper authorities. Sheriff Peckham has some experience in these matters.”

  Luke Honey didn’t believe the sheriff, or anybody else, would be combing these woods for one raggedy kid anytime soon. The yearly sacrifice had been accomplished. This was the way of the world; this was its beating heart and panting maw. He’d seen such offerings made by tribes in the jungles, just as his own Gaelic kin had once poured wine in the sea and cut the throats of fatted lambs. If one looked back far enough, all men issued from the same wellspring, and every last one of them feared the dark as Mr. Liam Welloc and Dr. Landscomb and their constituency in Ransom Hollow surely did. Despite the loathsome nature of their pact, there was nothing shocking about this arrangement. To propitiate the gods, to please one’s lord and master was ever the way. That expert killers such as the English and the Texans and, of course, he himself, served as provender in this particular iteration of the eternal drama filled Luke Honey’s heart with bitter amusement. This wry humor mixed with his increasing dread and rendered him giddy, almost drunken.

  Mr. Wesley’s body was laid across the saddle of Luke Honey’s horse and the company began the long trudge homeward. The dreary fog persisted, although the rain had given out for the moment.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m a coward,” Mr. Williams said. He rode beside Luke Honey, who was walking at the rear of the group.

  Luke Honey didn’t speak. He pulled his collar tight.

  “My mama raised me as a God-fearin’ boy. There’s real evil, Mr. Honey. Not that existential crap, either. Last night, I felt somethin’ I ain’t felt before. Scared me spitless.” When Luke Honey didn’t answer, Mr. Williams leaned over and said in a low voice, “People got killed in that grove, not just animals. Couldn’t you feel it coming off that idol like a draft in a slaughter yard? I ain’t afraid of much, but Bullard’s right. This ain’t natural and that kid is a goner.”

  “Who are you trying to convince?” Luke Honey said, although the question was more than a little self-referential. “The hunt is over. Go back to Texas and dream away the winter. There’s always next year.”

  “No, not for me. My uncle made that mistake. Next year, I’ll go to British Columbia. Or Alaska. Damned if I know, but I know it won’t be Ransom Hollow.” Mr. Williams clicked his tongue and spurred his mount ahead to rejoin the group.

  Later, the company halted for a brief time to rest the animals and allow the men to stretch their legs. The liquor was gone and tempers short. When they remounted, Luke Honey remained seated on a mossy boulder, smoking his last cigarette. His companions rode on, h
eads down and dispirited, and failed to notice his absence. They disappeared around a sharp bend.

  Luke Honey finished his cigarette. The sun slowly ate through the clouds, and its pale light shone in the gaps of the foliage. He turned his back and walked deeper into the woods, into the darkness.

  THE SHRIEKS OF the mastiffs came and went all day, and so too the phantom bellows of men, the muffled blasts of their weapons. Luke Honey resisted the urge to cover his ears, to break and flee. Occasionally, Scobie hollered from an indeterminate distance. Luke Honey thought the old man’s cries sounded more substantial, more of the mortal realm, and he attempted to orient himself in their direction. He walked on, clutching his rifle.

  Night came and he was lost in the endless forest.

  A light glimmered to his left, sifting down through the black gallery to illuminate a figure who stood as if upon a stage. Mr. Wesley regarded him, hat clasped to his navel in both hands, hair slick and shining. His face was white. A black stain spread across the breast of his white shirt. He removed a pair of objects from inside his hat and with an insolent flourish tossed them into the bushes short of Luke Honey. Dr. Landscomb stepped into view and took Mr. Wesley by the elbow and drew him into the shadows. The ray of light blinked out of existence.

  The objects were pale and glistening and as Luke Honey approached them, his heart beat faster. He leaned close to inspect them and recoiled, his courage finally buckling in the presence of such monstrous events.

  Luke Honey blindly shoved his way through low hanging branches and spiky undergrowth. His clothes were torn, the flesh of his hands and face scratched and bleeding. A rifle fired several yards away. He staggered and belatedly shielded his eyes from the muzzle flash, and a large animal blundered past him, squealing and roaring. Then it was gone, and Scobie came tearing in pursuit and almost tripped over him. The old man swung a battered lantern. He gawked at Luke Honey in the flat yellow glare.

  Scobie’s expression was wild and caked in dirt. His face was nicked and bloody. He panted like a dog. He held his rifle in his left hand, its bore centered on Luke Honey’s middle. In a gasping voice, he said, “I see you, Bill.”