by John Burke
He picked his way towards the door and opened it.
Beyond, there was still warmth and still darkness. He took a step forward, then another. A third . . . and he tripped over something and went sprawling. He lay quite still for a few seconds, then rolled over.
Against the pale grey outline of a window he saw the shape of a great cobra reared up, poised to strike. Harry braced himself, ready to kick himself away. But the creature did not move. He fumbled for his matches again and struck one, still tense and ready to fling himself to either side.
The rope-like coil of the king cobra remained motionless. The reptile was stuffed.
Harry felt his heart pounding. He grinned wryly and waited until the fear had subsided. Then he struck another match and looked round the room. In the flickering light it was threatening and macabre. He doubted whether it would have been much more attractive in daylight. Eastern curios were ranged all round the walls, surpassing even those in the library where he had sat with Franklyn. The whole house must be crammed with weird dead objects—and with things that were frighteningly alive. Japanese armor, Chinese masks, shrunken heads, bizarre Javanese puppets and tables piled high with heavy reference books . . . the room and its occupants made a strange contrast to the adjoining room.
There was another door. Harry went to it. He might get lost in a labyrinth, not knowing where to find the front of the house or the back. But he was driven on. Anna Franklyn was a wretched prisoner in the middle of her father’s foetid, perverse world. The sooner he took her away from here, the better.
To his surprise he found himself in the hall. A lamp burned on a low wick at the foot of the stairs.
He was sure that someone was watching him, waiting for him.
In a low voice he said: “Anna . . . ?”
There was no reply.
“Anna?” He did not dare to raise his voice too much.
From the top of the stairs came a faint rustle, the suspicion of a creaking of woodwork. Harry looked up. Shadows clung to the banisters, but there was a darker shadow where a door stood open—a shadow which diminished as the door was gently closed.
Harry started up the stairs. The sensation of someone waiting grew stronger. In his head there was the sound of Anna calling to him.
He stopped in front of the door. In spite of the suffocating warmth of the house he felt cold. His damp clothes clung to him.
He put his hand out to the door. It opened at a touch.
“Anna?”
He thought he heard a long sigh. The darkness beyond the door was lightened. The moon must have come out from behind the clouds and was shining into the room or corridor beyond.
Harry strode forward.
The door at once closed behind him.
He saw the moonlight spilling across the floor. He turned, and saw it welling up the surface of the closed door and over the woman who stood there.
Woman . . . ?
It was Anna. That much he saw even when he could not believe what he was seeing. It was Anna, but not the reserved, beautiful girl he had met. Her hair was drawn back into a slimy mane so tightly pressed against her head that it seemed almost to sink into the flesh and become part of it. Her head had narrowed, her jaw thrust forward, and the exquisite skin was scaly and iridescent. She opened her mouth, and a forked tongue flickered in a jet of hissing breath.
Harry let out a cry. The snake’s head that was still, grotesquely, a woman’s head struck forward. He fell sideways. The venomous fangs sank into the collar of his coat, missing by an inch the spot on his neck for which they had been aimed.
Pain stabbed into his shoulder. The contact had been brief but poisonous. He felt a raging fire begin to spread through him.
The force of the attack had carried the writhing snake woman forward. She swayed and coiled in the middle of the narrow space, twisting round in a hissing frenzy.
Harry threw himself at the door and tugged it open.
The staircase fell away before him into a blurred infinity. He went down it without knowing what he was doing. His left hand groped for the rail, but he was not conscious of touching it. Conscious only of the agony that could not get any more terrifying and yet impossibly got worse, until it screamed through his veins. Or was he the one who was screaming—was it his voice that he heard or only the howling of his blood?
His feet reached the floor of the hall and he went reeling on towards the door. The world spun around him yet his feet carried him on, lurching out into the cold air. The shock of the night chill saved him from complete collapse. He took a deep breath, and the rasp of it against his throat hurt. It steadied him. He stumbled on, not seeing but finding his way in a haze of pain down through the plantation and down the slope to the cottage.
He knew nothing of it. Only a blind animal instinct drove him on. When he crashed, sobbing, against the door of the cottage, he was no longer Harry Spalding but a racked victim in its death throes, an inhuman thing without personality and with no thought but that of pain, unbearable pain.
To give up . . . to let the pain take over . . . to be done with it . . .
The door opened and he collapsed across the threshold.
A woman was screaming in his ear. Her hands were on his shoulders trying to lift him. And the agony was worse.
“Knife!” he heard a harsh voice saying. “Sharp knife!” It was his own unrecognizable voice.
Some part of him that was still human struggled to the surface and fought for the survival of a puny self through a bedlam of anguish.
“Cut it!” He was tearing at his shoulder, ripping the material away to expose the wound. “In God’s name”—he saw the knife and saw Valerie’s face and saw that she was trembling and that if she couldn’t bring herself to do it then he would die—“cut it . . . cut it deep.” His voice rose to a shriek. “Cut deep—and let the poison out.”
Valerie bent over him. Her face swam away into a red haze. Even through the agony that he had thought was insuperable he felt another, more vicious agony, as though the venomous fangs had struck again and struck, this time, deeply and decisively. He arched with pain. There was a great gulf opening beneath him and at last he surrendered and let himself go down in a dizzying, interminable fall.
He had expected to disappear forever into the abyss. There should have been blackness . . . nothingness. But he swam in a sea of blood, trying to free his head so that he could wipe the red smears from his eyes and see; and a great heart hammered within the sea, deafening him, so that every muscle in his body twitched in time.
“Anna . . .”
She rose, a serpentine monstrosity, from the scarlet ocean, her head poised over him. The features were distorted so that she had ceased to be Anna and was a creature of dark legend, something which could never be human again. The forked tongue flashed in and out as though in anticipation, and the venom gleamed on the colossal fangs.
Something cool was wiped slowly across his forehead. For a fraction of a second his eyes cleared and he seemed to see Valerie bending over him with a damp cloth in her hand. Then he was falling again, and the snake was lashing and hissing around him once more.
He had meant to protect Anna. He had wanted, somewhere an age ago, to save Anna from the death that slithered and struck in the hot, foetid house of her mad father. It hadn’t worked. Anna . . . the snake . . . she had been struck, swallowed up, transformed, she wasn’t Anna . . . couldn’t be . . .
The nightmare seethed in his veins and his mind.
“Anna,” he groaned despairingly.
9
By dawn Harry had ceased to thrash around on the bed and was sleeping heavily, apart from an occasional jolt which shook his entire body. Valerie sat by his bedside, feeling utterly spent but thankful that the worst was over.
His abrupt appeals, the insistence of his calls to Anna, had ceased now; but they, more than anything, disturbed her. She wondered if he had reached Anna or if he had been too late. Or was the girl now a prisoner, the way barred by some un
speakable horror? Harry must have tried to fight his way through and must have been thrown back. Was it too late now to save Anna?
She could not go down to the village for help. She was unwilling to leave Harry. And there was probably little help to be expected from that quarter anyway. The villagers preferred to remain behind closed doors. If they heard what had happened to Harry, they would nod sagely, put shutters across their windows, and not venture out into the open at all.
As the daylight strengthened in the bedroom, Harry murmured in his sleep again.
“Anna . . .”
There was a sharp knock at the door downstairs. Valerie tensed. It came again, more insistent this time.
She realized that she felt, deep down, much as the villagers must feel. She was reluctant to open the door, to let anyone or anything in.
She opened the tiny window of the bedroom and leaned out.
Tom Bailey heard the squeak of the catch and stood back on the path so that she could see him.
He said: “I was wondering if Mr. Spalding—”
“I’ll come down and let you in.”
When he came into the sitting-room she gave him no time to speak, but directed him towards the stairs. Tom plodded up ahead of her. She heard his gasp when he saw Harry stretched out, unconscious in what was obviously no ordinary sleep.
She came into the room behind him and went round the bed. Gently she turned Harry’s head and took the dressing off the ugly black wound on his shoulder.
Tom bent over it and stared. Then he said: “When did he go up there?”
“Up there?”
“To the house.”
“Last night. But how did you know?”
“Thought as much,” Tom growled. “But what made him go?”
“A note was pushed under the door while he was out with you. It’s downstairs. I’ll go and—”
“Never mind. What did it say?”
“It was from Anna—Anna Franklyn. She asked for help.”
“Help? What kind of help?”
Valerie realized how elusive it all was, how very little they had to go on. “We can only guess,” she said lamely. “From her father, though—we’re pretty sure of that. She’s in danger.” The thought of Anna’s appeal to her came back, and with it the memory of Anna’s tragic eyes. “Tom, I ought to go to her.”
She went to the stairs and hurried down. Tom was hard on her heels. When she turned to take her coat down from its peg, he blocked her way.
“Now, Mrs. Spalding, you’ll do no such thing. You see what happened to your husband—and it’s your job to look after him. And you won’t do that if you wear yourself out. Dashing off up to that house won’t do no one any good.” He was respectful but firm as he took her arm and steered her towards a chair. “You’ll sit down and relax for five minutes. And perhaps you’ve got a kettle I could be putting on.”
The strain of the hideous night hours had been greater than she thought. When she allowed herself to be persuaded to sit in the armchair, the strength fled from her legs and arms and she went quite limp. Tom’s burly, reassuring presence enabled her to relax for the first time.
He was used to looking after himself and after his inn, and his movements as he made her a drink and set out cups and saucers on the table were trim and economical. When she was sipping the strong brew of tea he had made, he said:
“I’d best be getting back to open the doors and see to my customers. But you’ll be all right, won’t you?”
Valerie nodded. It was all she could bring herself to do.
“I’ll see if I can get one of the lads to take a note into town,” Tom went on thoughtfully. “Clem should be going in today, and maybe he’ll carry a message to the doctor. Not that they’re usually in any hurry to come all the way out of town to this place—but I’ll do what I can. And meanwhile I reckon Mr. Spalding isn’t going to come to any harm—provided you look after him properly.”
Valerie put her cup down. A terrible lassitude was seeping into her limbs and her mind. Drowsily she said:
“Tom . . . you’ve put something in this tea, haven’t you?”
He smiled and patted a bulge in his jacket pocket. It had the shape of a flask.
“Good for you,” he said. He pushed a small stool forward and lifted her feet so that they rested on it. “Now, just you stay there. If I can get back later today I will—and if I can get the doctor up, I’ll bring him with me.”
She wanted to get up to see him to the door, but he waved her down and she was glad to obey. When he had gone, she felt obscurely that she ought to go upstairs, ought to sit by Harry, ought to . . . ought to do so many things.
Wash the teacups.
Make a meal. No, not yet, but later she would have to . . .
Go up and see Harry.
Sleep . . .
The cottage and the fields around it were still. She drowsed. A few birds sang in a nearby tree but otherwise there was nothing.
Valerie’s head nodded. She gave up to the demands of her weariness, and slept.
When she awoke it was dusk. She couldn’t believe it. The hours had slipped by, and daylight had escaped over the crown of the hill.
There was a creak from the stove. The fire had almost gone out. Hastily she made it up again and then went upstairs to see that Harry was all right. He was sleeping soundly and normally now. He was safe. They were both safe in their snug little refuge.
Safe? Could anyone be truly safe, so long as that indefinable menace continued to exist in the Franklyn house?
She thought of Anna again and this time she came to a decision.
Darkness was closing in swiftly as she made her way up the slope. She went warily as she approached the trees. Harry had been struck down, but she did not know where it had happened—in that grim house, or out here in the overgrown grounds. She must take no chances.
She avoided the front of the house and clung to the side wall. A window was open at the end. It must have been through here that Harry got in. She had no idea if he had also escaped this way.
Valerie scrambled up and swung precariously over the window into a narrow passage. A door at the end of it stood wide open, and in the twilight she could see the faint gleam of wire bars. When she slid stealthily into the room she was confronted by rows and rows of small cages, all of them empty. Yet there was still a warm, oppressive smell, as though the cages had only recently been populated.
She went on. Another door was ajar, and there was a line of brighter light down it. Valerie tried to see through, but could catch only a glimpse of a narrow segment of the room beyond. An ivory figurine grinned sightlessly back at her from a shelf.
With infinite care she prodded the door open, waiting to dodge back if anyone should speak.
The back of a tall chair edged into view. A hand lay on the arm of the chair. As she watched, it moved. Valerie froze. She saw Franklyn push himself up from the chair and stand for a moment in the centre of the room. His shoulders were sagging, and he seemed unable to move any farther. Then he walked forward like a man in a trance and bent over something which was out of Valerie’s range of vision. When he stepped back he was holding a wicked-looking curved sword. He shook himself into life, turned, and strode out of sight. There was the sound of a door opening and shutting.
Valerie edged into the room. A suit of Japanese armor hung on a frame seemed to guard the farther door. She went past it, opened the door, and looked out into the hall.
It was deserted. She advanced to the foot of the stairs and looked up.
If Franklyn had gone up to his daughter with that murderous sword . . .
Terror clamped down between Valerie’s shoulders. But she was determined to see this through. The stairs were wide, the lamps were burning, she could turn and flee if she had to. But now she resolutely went up to the landing.
There were too many doors. She didn’t know which to choose; could not even begin to guess what lay behind any of them.
She turned the knob of
the nearest and looked into a small bedroom. There was nobody there.
The next one revealed the bare boards of a narrow passage leading apparently nowhere.
The third one opened into another bedroom. It had a musky, slightly cloying smell. A humped shape on the bed lay quite still in the faint light from the window. Valerie murmured: “Anna . . . ?”
Still it did not stir. She went in, one step at a time, tense and ready to jump aside or turn and run.
When she reached the bedside she found herself looking down at Anna’s naked body. It lay on top of the counterpane, head sunk in a pillow, utterly still.
Too late. Anna did not move, did not breathe. It was too late to save her: whatever Franklyn had planned for his daughter had been done.
Valerie leaned over the body and put out a hand to touch it.
She had expected to feel cold flesh—or perhaps flesh still warm, only newly dead. Instead the body yielded to her touch. There was no substance to it. Valerie almost overbalanced, and all her weight went down upon her hand. It pushed its way hideously down on to the skin . . . and the skin crumpled and distorted. The head was not, as she had thought, buried in a pillow. There was no head. The hollow shell flattened out on the bed, and Valerie fell back with a whimper of nausea.
This was not Anna. Yet it had been the shape and likeness of a beautiful young woman—the skin formed into a human semblance but now shed.
Shed . . . as a snake sheds its skin.
Valerie stumbled towards the door. She had lost all sense of caution. She moaned to herself as she blundered down the stairs. If anyone had barred her way to the front door there would have been no possible escape.
But nobody appeared. She stopped in the hall and looked wildly round.
A door below the stairs was open. Light filtered from below up a winding flight of stone steps. Valerie went to the door and hesitated. A faint whispering seemed to come up the stairwell—a whispering made up of pathetic little squeaks and even, she thought, the mewing of a cat.
She went slowly down.