Night Creatures

by Seabury Quinn

  ‘Of course,’ responded Ranleigh. Practically, he knew there would be almost insuperable difficulties. How could he get a transit permit for a body long since certified as buried? Who would sign a death certificate for a woman dead and in her grave almost a year? But these were things for him to worry over. His first duty was to ease his patron’s mind, so he nodded confidently again.

  Ranleigh’s thoughts were circling and spinning like a squirrel in its cage as he shot his self-starter and turned his car toward home. With his own eyes he’d seen the dead walk, looked into the eyes he’d sealed, heard words issue from the mouth he’d closed—Steadman’s story must be true: he could not doubt the testimony of his senses. But who but he and Steadman would believe it? What jury would give even momentary credence if he told them what he’d seen and heard, what lunacy commission would delay a moment to pronounce him insane when they heard the narrative of his experience tonight? This was an issue he must face alone, a problem he must solve by himself.

  Dog-tired, exhausted mentally as well as physically, he put the car in the garage. Mechanically rather than consciously he refilled the gas tank and checked oil and water. Funeral directors, like the fire department, must keep vehicles in readiness for instant response to the unexpected call. A final check-up of the tires’ pressure gage. ‘Now that’s done, thank heaven. Good Lord but I’m sleepy!’ he yawned as he stumbled rather than walked to his bedroom.

  Sleep was instantaneous and almost as deep as anaesthesia, but when he wakened it was to complete consciousness. The moon had long since set, and in the sky there was the changing light that heralds dawn. Involuntarily he sat up in bed, breathing quickly, and his breath plumed out before him in the frosty early-morning air, ash-gray, like cigarette smoke. Someone—something—stood between him and the window, silhouetted dimly in the wan light. It was a woman’s form, small, wizened, bent with rheumatism, and—this was utterly absurd, of course!—it seemed garbed in one of his ten-fifty burial dresses.

  But was it absurd? Ranleigh knew his merchandize as he knew the lines of his hand. Those rather sleazy rayon crêpe dresses were furnished with his cheaper funerals, such as that he’d conducted for—the figure made a little abrupt movement, brought its face into the slowly strengthening light, and he recognized the withered wrinkled countenance—Musya. Musya the old nurse and lady’s maid who hanged herself when Natacha died, and whom he’d buried without pay!

  Now, surely, he was dreaming. The things he’d seen at Mortmain Manor, the bizarre story Steadman told him, these had induced this vision . . . he stopped the rationalizing thought and leant toward the ceremented figure, for she was speaking in the high, cracked voice he remembered, and bobbing at him with a stiff-kneed curtsy.

  ‘The gaspadin must not be frightened. Musya means him no harm; she has come—it is permitted her—to ask a favor from him. A favor which will give the dead peace and the living safety. Yes, the gaspadin must listen, please.

  ‘He does not know, nor does anybody else, but Musya—old ugly Musya the Tartar half-caste—was the mother of the beauteous Natacha. Who her father was it makes no matter, time is pressing, and the gaspadin must understand. When Natacha wed the evil Ko’en Cheng she was desperate. She and Musya were starving; but had she known the thing he was, the thing that he would make of her, she would gladly have faced hunger’s pangs, or given her fair body to the wolves or tigers. Nichevo—never mind—it is too late for vain regrets. Milord Steadman has told the gaspadin Natacha’s history, how she came back from the grave to greet him with a kiss. Ahee! It was the kiss of death! Had he not had the safety-giving garlic rooted up and torn the wild rose from its place, she would be lying in her grave all harmless.

  ‘Musya put the garlic and the wild rose there, for Musya knew what would befall when Natacha had seemed to die, but really had become ch’ing shih. Musya should have had the gaspadin burn Natacha’s fair body with the fire that cleanses, but when she saw the child all beautiful in her false death she could not do it. Besides, she would do that which is required to make the vampire’s grave a safe one. Then, when she’d sown the garlic seed and planted the wild rose, because she had no further need of life, she would destroy herself. How was foolish old Musya to know that Milord Steadman would undo her work?

  ‘Aie—aie! The gaspadin must rise and dress all quickly and hasten to the house of Milord Steadman. The fate which no man may escape however fast or far he travels has found him, and he lies cold in death beside the coffin of Natacha. The dawning comes and all will be well till the evening sun goes down, but then Natacha will awaken and find no food to ease her craving, so she will go out ravening and killing. For that is what the ch’ing shih does. Oh, yes!

  ‘The gaspadin will go at once and give the bodies of Natacha and Milord Steadman to the cleansing flames? Only so can he prevent the night-terror from going forth upon its raids. Only thus can he give Natacha the peaceful rest the true dead have, protect the poor ones who may be her victims otherwise, and keep Milord Steadman from being even such as she. Oh, yes; he, too, will be ch’ing shih. Has she not drunk his breath and blood, has she not fleshed her lips in his throat? And does not the mad wolf make all other wolves he bites go mad?’

  Something of the urgency of her appeal communicated itself to him. It was not her words alone, but something undefinable, a sort of psychic fluid which seemed flowing from her mind to his. Despite himself he was convinced. He felt the exigency of the entreaty; the sudden compulsion for haste—this must be done quickly, or the countryside would reek with a vile virus. Dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds of graves would become lairs for fetid demons of the night. . . . Oh, hurry—hurry!

  ‘All right,’ he answered. ‘I’ll go there——’

  ‘Bless you! Oh, kindly heaven bless you, gaspadin!’

  He turned away a moment, feeling for the light switch. The lamps flashed on, but when he faced around old Musya was nowhere in sight.

  The house was very still as he forced the front door back. Fading in the strengthening light of the bright winter sun the gas lamps burned with a faint hissing; despite his rubber heels his footsteps echoed hollowly on the waxed floors. The whole place seemed to hold its breath as if it gasped in awe-struck horror at a tragedy it had witnessed—or waited for.

  Steadman half knelt, half lay by the casket, his hands, already stiffening in rigor mortis, grasping at the écru lining of the burial case, as though death paralyzed him as he attempted to climb into it. His head was thrown back to expose his throat, on which there showed a series of small perforated wounds, as though the skin had been repeatedly stabbed with long sharp needles. But there was no blood on or near the punctures. His face was very pale. His eyes were not quite closed, and a thin thread of white showed through his lashes. His mouth was slightly opened, lax and curved down at the corners, as if he were very tired.

  Ranleigh bent and felt his wrist, knowing in advance there would be no pulsation there. He had not dealt with death for thirty years for nothing.

  Natacha lay in her casket as in a bed. Her head was turned a little to the side; one slim hand rested on her breast, the other lay beside her, and in the flickering light of the gas jet it seemed her bosom rose and fell in a light peaceful sleep.

  ‘Lovely,’ murmured Ranleigh as he looked at her, ‘so lovely!’ It would be a desecration—worse, a murder—to destroy this glowing, vibrant beauty. How could he do it?

  He was tempted. He could close the casket, take her to his funeral home, and keep her there until . . . yes, until? Until the sun went down, and those black silken lashes fluttered up, disclosing long green eyes . . . then when the red lips parted and the deep, melodious voice addressed him . . . what madness was this? He was a funeral director, one who disposed of the dead. But he served the living, too. Yes, the living! Old Musya’s pleading echoed in his inward ear: ‘Give the dead peace and the living safety!’

  The plan came to him full-formed, complete. From lamp to lamp he went, turning from the burners. He te
sted every window, every door, making sure they were closed tightly, then hurried to the kitchen to turn the burners of the gas range on full force. The disagreeable pungent odor of acetylene was growing stronger every second . . . if only there were enough in the storage tank. No matter, he would have to chance that. Only embers glowed upon the hearth, but he dragged logs from the wood box, piled them in log-cabin formation upon the andirons, and blew on the ashes until a little curl of orange flame rose flickering in a spiral. Now, hurry!

  He slammed the door behind him, threw his clutch in and rode racing from the courtyard of the house. The dashboard clock said 9:15; the servants would report at ten o’clock. He must be well away before then.

  Five miles had clicked off on his speedometer when the blast roared through the quiet winter morning. From the hilltop where the manor house stood lighted in the slanting rays of the pale winter sun a shaft of white fire geysered up, sank for an instant like a guttering candle, then volcanoed up again. Then came the rushing, leaping, coruscating, roaring wall of yellow flame. Pouring from the opened jets and mixing with the air in the closed house the carbide gas had been ignited by the blaze in the fireplace, exploded with a blast of almost incalculable heat, and fired the centuries-old, oil-soaked woodwork of the building as if it had been celluloid touched by live fire. In half an hour Mortmain Manor would be only a charred mass of glowing embers and a heap of fire-blasted brick.

  What was it Musya begged him to do—give them to the cleansing fire? She could rest easy in her grave—the grave he’d purchased for her—till Judgment Day. He’d carried her request out to the letter.

  Uncanonized

  GRAY-BLUE AND PUNGENT-SWEET, the scent of leaf smoke floated on the breeze that wandered lazily across the valley; from the larches growing on the farther hills the cuckoo’s call, a little sad, a little mocking, drifted softly as the echo of a half-heard echo. Little animals, too insignificant to merit chase, looked startled-eyed from the long roadside grass as young Graf Otho Hohenschuh rode through the gathering dusk with his companions. They had been hawking since the cock had trumpeted his salutation to the morning; now, with game bags filled and palates dry with thirst, they sought the comfort of the Pulitzberg, the slippery, thirst-annihilating Reingau and the roasted joints of venison and brawn. With Otho rode his saddlemates and cup-comrades, Hans Richnau, Emil von Dessaur, and Werther von der Plücher, free-landed, towered junkers like himself, gallant riders and good swordsmen, mighty workers with the trencher or the flagon, and ruthless and acquisitive as the hooded hawks which they had coursed that day.

  ‘’Fore God,’ exclaimed von Dessaur as they cantered toward the cleared lands, ‘meseems this road grows longer as we wend it! I am thirsted till I scarce can speak——’

  ‘Then husband thy breath,’ laughed von Hohenschuh. ‘’Tis nigh three leagues until we reach the Berg, and thou’lt be choken to the death ere then. Now, if thy dainty throat could forgo wine and be content with home-brewed ale——’

  ‘Mary Mother, I would e’en take milk and pull no face on tasting it!’ the other interrupted. ‘Stretch forth thy rod and smite the rock whence small beer floweth, oh, Moses!’

  Graf Otho turned into a lane that crossed the ancient Roman road and led directly to the valley. ‘The farmerers make Harvest Home,’ he threw across his shoulder. ‘’Twill be a shame and a reproach if they’ve not beer and bread to give us.’

  The countryside was out in force. Farmerers, crofters, freedmen, carls, and villeins had turned out like an army for the gathering-in of corn; now, the wheat-heads gleaned and straw in ordered stacks, they made a feast of Harvest Home at the grange of Wolfgang the franklin. All day, from sun-up to late twilight, the mowers had weaved back and forth across the fields of standing wheat and rye, and after labor came refreshment. Whole-roasted pigs and sheep and oxen, chickens, ducks and geese, long loaves of wheaten and rye bread and cauldronfuls of cabbage boiled with fat-back disappeared almost as if by magic, and barrel after barrelful of ale and spice-tanged cider foamed and frothed into the pewter pots and earthen steins as the women made their rounds from group to group of feasting peasants; for Wolfgang the franklin spread the feast for his tenants and neighbors and it would be a shame to him if any left his farmstead able to look at a bite of food or sup of ale or cider other than with feelings of disgust.

  He had been cast in a heroic mold, this Wolfgang. Six feet three inches he stood in woolen hosen, and his weight was fourteen stone; yet nowhere on him was an ounce of fat, and though he scarce could form the letters of his name, his was the best hand with the scythe or quarter-staff or grisarme in all the countryside.

  Beside him on the oaken bancal sat his bride-betrothed, Gertruda, daughter of Humboldt the crofter, and next to them was stout Friar Hilderbrandt who when the feast was done should make them man and wife.

  Hilderbrandt was godly, though not saintly. Saints were woven of a tougher fiber, better able to resist the promptings of the flesh. As one who trod the common ways of common men and shared their joys and sorrows he was ever aware of the world, and he did not disdain it. He was a mighty worker at the table, his girdle spanned a waist an ell in compass, and he could toss pots with the strongest-headed drinker in the parish and still be thirsty and sure-footed when his cup-companion snored beneath the table. Now, as befitted one who knew not only the Four Gospels intimately, but the savor of good fare as well, he occupied the seat of master of the revels.

  ‘Laus Deo!’ he exclaimed with pious fervor, emptying his pint-cup at a draft and sighing gustily as he wiped his foam-flecked lips upon his cassock cuff. ‘Laus Deo, amen! Nay, wench, be not so hasty——’ as the girl cup-bearer was about to move along with laden tray. ‘Another cup to keep the first one company, and then a third in honor of the blessed Trinity. Wot ye not what good Aquinas saith, videlicet—in nomine Domini, here be noble visitors!’

  The peasants’ shouting merriment ceased abruptly as Otho and his comrades clattered into the barn court, and every feaster rose and stood respectfully to hear the young graf’s pleasure.

  ‘Ach Gott, are we a pestilence that ye leave off pleasuring at sight of us?’ the Count demanded testily. ‘Nay, Wolfgang,’ as the franklin left his place and came to hold his liege lord’s stirrup, ‘let merriment proceed. We be four thirsty-throated men come for a stoup of ale. Ye would not give a beggar less, methinks.

  ‘Ho, musickers,’ he waved a gloved hand to the knot of rustics who with viol and flute and tambour gathered at the barn door, ‘to work! Let’s see the harvest dance and hear the strain of your sweet instruments!’

  A peasant maid hurried forward with a tray of pewter mugs and Richnau, von Dessaur, and von der Plücher tossed bottoms up and belched with gusty relish, but Hohenschuh waved the cup aside. ‘Am I to be served by a field wench?’ he asked, his dark eyes on Wolfgang’s affianced bride. ‘Will not the mistress of the revels deign to bring me drink in her fair hands?’

  A blush swept up Gertruda’s slim pale throat and mounted to her cheeks and brow as with downcast eyes she left her place and bore a foaming ale mug to von Hohenschuh. ‘Will not your lordship dismount and take a place at table?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘It is not fitting that——’

  ‘Nay, mädchen, I have but time for this’—he interrupted as he took the ale mug from between her hands and drained it at a single long-drawn draft—‘and this!’ He tossed the empty pot away so that it rang and bounced and clanged against the kidney stones of the barn court, and bending from his saddle set a bent forefinger underneath her chin and kissed her on the upturned lips.

  And as he laughed again to see the quick blood burning in her face the music started, and to the rhythm of the tambour and the tune of viol and flute and flageolet the youths and maidens took their places for the dance.

  ‘By the bones of good Saint Hubert, patron of the chase, I’ll stop to tread a measure!’ declared Hohenschuh and swung down from the saddle.

  They made a gallant couple with the torchlight a
nd the bonfires’ flickering beams upon them. Hohenschuh was tall and dark and handsome as the Devil’s self with his sleek hair, his tiny black mustache, and the little tuft of black hair on his nether lip. His doublet was of Saxon green, cinctured tightly at the waist by a broad leathern belt, and falling almost to the knees in heavy pleats cross-stitched with gold; on his legs were high-laced boots of soft brown hide which came up to the chausses of green fustian that encased his thighs. He wore no sword, but at his belt there hung a heavy dirk-knife in a scabbard of brown leather set with gold.

  Gertruda, daughter of the crofter Humboldt, was lovely as the lily-spear from which she took her name. Her hair was fair with the bright sheen that ripened wheat stalks have at harvest time, and as the harvest queen she wore it unbound and unplaited, save for the wreath of cornflowers bound about her brow. Underneath the blossom fillet looked two deep blue eyes with a sweet, trusting frankness that proclaimed her spirit pure and virginal as her slim young body. Faint responsive roses bloomed in either cheek and seemed to cast a shadow of their color down her slender, graceful neck. In her gown of deep-blue linen, touched with bands of white at throat and wrist, with the glory of the firelight burnishing her unbound hair, she seemed as chaste and other-worldly as a carven angel set in a carven niche.

  ‘Kreuzsakrament,’ Graf Otho swore as he completed the dance and turned to mount his charger while Wolfgang, as was meet, stood by to hold his stirrup, ‘thou art the lucky one, my Wolfgang! Would that I might bide here to see thee wed this flower-maid’—Gertruda’s lashes dropped demurely, and a deeper flush dyed her flushed cheeks as his dark eyes looked down into her blue ones—‘but business at the Berg impels my presence thither. Howbeit, see thou to it that thou bring’st the molmen and thy bride into the castle hall ere thou hast smelled the flowers of the bride-bed.’