Dark Conflict

by John Glasby

  Blake opened his mouth to ask more questions, but at that moment, Sims returned with the blankets. He placed them down on the spare couch then straightened: ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’

  ‘No, that will be all for tonight, Sims. Better get some sleep. Sorry to have kept you up so late.’

  No sooner had the other closed the door behind him than Nayland walked swiftly across and locked it on the inside, slipping the key into his pocket.

  ‘One fortunate thing about this room,’ he said quietly, ‘is that it has only the one door and one window. There are no other entrances, or exits.’

  Blake nodded, then walked over to the empty couch and took off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. With an effort, he stifled a yawn. ‘I never realized I was letting myself in for anything like this when I got in touch with you,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘You’d better get some sleep too,’ said Nayland. ‘I’ll wake you in two hours’ time.’

  Within minutes, the other was asleep and Stephen Nayland leaned back in his chair, feeling the tenseness begin to grow in his brain as silence returned to the house.

  Try as he would, he found it impossible to get the memory of that terrible figure, wearing the grotesque mask which had passed them on the stairs of Merrivale’s house, out of his mind.

  What the devil had that been? It couldn’t have been a figment of his own overwrought imagination because Blake had seen it too and he had never heard of two people having the same illusion at the same time, unless both were under mass hypnosis, which hadn’t been possible at the time.

  No, he thought savagely, there had to be some other explanation, although at the moment, he found it impossible to find one. And the fact that the native they had seen looking for all the world like one of the witchdoctors of the African jungles, had also possessed a strange resemblance to Merrivale, made it all the more frightening and disconcerting.

  With an effort, he forced steadiness into his mind and body. There was no sense in panic at a time like this, he decided. That wouldn’t help and if anything really happened, he would need all of his wits about him if he were to defeat this terrible evil that seemed to be hanging over them.

  Chapter Five – The Messenger!

  As he sat there, the stillness and the emptiness of the house began to settle around him more and more. There was still the wind outside, at first very low and quiet and then suddenly shriller as it began to stir restlessly around the walls. Murmuring voices seemed to rise and fall with the wind and, acting on a sudden impulse, he got to his feet and switched off the light.

  The curtains over the window had been drawn aside and with the light on, it was impossible to see what was happening outside. It took all of his nerve to force himself to sit there and only the comforting thought that Blake was lying asleep less than three feet away kept him in his seat.

  Gradually, his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. There was a faint shimmering of moonlight outside and the tree close by the window threw a weird pattern of light and shadow over the floor.

  He began to wish that he didn’t feel so jumpy. Maybe, he reasoned, he had made a mistake in switching off the light. If there was one thing these creatures didn’t like, it was the light. They were nocturnal things, preferring the darkness and the shadows that seemed to be their natural home.

  He managed a wry grin in the darkness. After all, it wasn’t likely they would try anything tonight. His mind was thinking clearly now. But where had he heard all that before? He mustn’t let his mind lull him into a false state of security.

  His brain rambled on, fitting facts together, trying to make sense out of all that had happened since he had landed in London. How long had Merrivale been mixed up in this terrible business? In spite of the fact that he had tried to keep some of the seriousness of the situation from Blake, he still felt worried. Merrivale seemed to be in a state of deep coma. There were only two possibilities as far as he could see.

  Either the horror of what had happened earlier that evening after they had left him in the hands of Caltro had so shocked his brain that it had retreated into some insulated, unfeeling part of his mind, or they had really taken some degree of control over him and, to a certain extent, he was already in their power.

  Black Magic had been practised under Merrivale’s roof not once, but many times, in the past. He felt sure of that. But just how far they had gone during those ceremonies, he wasn’t quite sure.

  He glanced down at his watch, holding it close to his face so that he could just make out the luminous hands.

  It was a little after one-thirty. Everything was quiet and still and ominous.

  In his ears was the low moan of the wind, rising, sighing out of the yellow, liquid moonlight through a small gap in the curtains. They suddenly billowed out into the room, spreading outwards like a pair of clutching hands, reaching towards him in the dimness.

  The curtain cord began to hammer feebly against the glass of the window, swaying slightly with the wind. He endured it for as long as he could, then crossed over to the window and tied the cord back against the wall.

  This done, he half-turned to go back to his seat when something caught his attention, something moving with a peculiarly sinuous motion at the corner of his vision.

  He grew aware that his fingers were gripping the ledge of the window with a savage intensity. The thing came nearer, moving through the trees that bordered the street and he knew with a sudden conviction, that it was nothing even remotely human.

  His mind was beginning to race and reel inside his head. The red blood was pounding incessantly in his veins. The black shadow continued to flow forward with an avid, hungry motion. With a sudden movement, he stepped back into the room.

  He tried to see it clearly, but it was impossible. The moonlight appeared to flow around it, altering the outline in some strange way that didn’t make sense. Something with arms and legs but that was all he could clearly see.

  Cold sweat trickled down his taut face. It was as if he were suffocating and his life depended on him getting out of that room immediately. With a supreme effort, he pulled himself together and forced himself to think clearly and coherently.

  Even as he pulled back into the room and touched Blake on the shoulder to wake him, Simon Merrivale mumbled something hoarsely under his breath and tried to sit up, his eyes staring wildly at something in front of him as though seeing someone inside the room.

  Blake was awake in an instant. He swung his feet to the floor and sat for a brief instant, looking about him into the darkness.

  ‘What is it, Stephen? Something wrong?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Now listen carefully because there isn’t much time for me to explain. What I feared has happened. Caltro knows what we’ve done and he’s guessed that we have Simon here. He’s now going to do his damnedest to get him away from us and we’ve got to stop him at all costs.’

  ‘You can rely on me, Stephen.’

  ‘Good. There’s something outside, coming closer to the window. Whatever it is, you can be sure that it’s evil. If only we had a piece of the Sacred Host with us we’d stand a good chance. It would be our best protection against these things.

  ‘As it is, we’ll have to make do with what we have. I hope you know how to pray because that’s going to be our only standby now.’

  Something rattled against the window-pane, but Nayland didn’t look round. The immediate danger, he reasoned, would not come from that direction. It would come from Simon Merrivale himself.

  A moment later, Merrivale pushed himself upright from the couch and staggered forward across the room, moving towards the door. His gaze seemed fixed on something directly ahead of him and one arm was outstretched as though to fend off something horrible which was beckoning him forward.

  ‘Take care that he doesn’t make a run for the window as soon as he discovers that the door is locked and bolted,’ warned Nayland.

  Merrivale twisted the handle of the door, experimentally a
t first; then more savagely until, realizing that it was useless, he turned back into the middle of the room to face them.

  ‘Oh God, what an expression,’ muttered Blake.

  ‘He can’t see us,’ said Nayland quietly. ‘He’s acting under their compulsion. He knows nothing of what’s going on around him. All he knows is that he has to get out of here and back to Caltro.’

  Quite suddenly, Merrivale lunged across the room with an unexpected rapidity, but Nayland recovered his wits instantly and jumped after him, catching him around the ankles and pulling him to the floor.

  ‘Here, help me to hold him down,’ he gasped.

  After a brief struggle, they succeeded in pinning the other to the floor, his arms pinioned, his head forced well back. Even then, Merrivale did not cease to struggle. Strange, animal sounds came from his quivering lips. His throat muscles moved incessantly and his chest heaved.

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ muttered Nayland. ‘I think you’d better put the light on. It might help us.’

  Blake got to his feet and stumbled across the room, cursing a little as he knocked into the furniture in the darkness. Out of the corner of his eye, Nayland saw the dark shape that suddenly appeared outside the window, looking in at them with a malevolent leer on its face. Two eyes, red with hatred, stared back at him and there seemed to be twin flames leaping at the back of them, boring into his very soul.

  There was something empty and chill and dead about the way that thing had come forward, gliding with that oddly sinuous motion. And there was something decidedly ugly and evil in the way it came forward against the window with an obvious purpose, a singleness of design.

  The next minute, Blake had snapped on the light and the thing was no longer there. It seemed to have melted away into the shadows as though it had never existed. But Nayland knew that it was still out there, biding its time, waiting for its opportunity to enter the room and take what it had come for.

  He felt suddenly dry-throated and got slowly to his feet, trying to breathe slowly.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said weakly. ‘They nearly took us by surprise.’

  ‘How’s Simon?’

  The other glanced down. Merrivale had relapsed into his original comatose state, his lips twisted back over his teeth in an animal snarl that did something terrible to his face. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling over his head, fixed, but unseeing.

  ‘What do you think of him?’ asked Blake suddenly.

  ‘It’s far more serious than I’d thought at first. They seem to have some control over him which we may find difficult to break.’

  Going over to the small table, Nayland poured himself a drink from the crystal decanter. He felt the sweat popping out on his forehead although the air inside the room was cold. His throat was suddenly dry and stiff.

  ‘Do you mean that he may be insane — that this state could be permanent?’ There was incredulity in Blake’s tone.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that he was insane by any means. He isn’t.’

  He shuddered and turned away from the twisted face. The old fear and the black nightmare were back again in his mind.

  ‘I think he’s coming round again,’ said Blake suddenly.

  Nayland looked down. Even as he watched, the other’s features changed violently, convulsively. He twisted and writhed on the floor in his unnatural sleep. His lips drew back still tighter across his bared teeth and he snarled and groaned loudly.

  Desperately, he tried to lift himself from the carpet. His face became distorted, the face of a fiend, which startled both of the men.

  ‘God, what’s wrong with him?’ asked Blake. ‘I’ve never seen anyone like this before.’

  ‘I think there’s a devil in him.’ Nayland reached up and took the small golden crucifix from around his neck. ‘This should tell us whether I’m right or not.’

  He leaned further forward as the other stepped close to the struggling, figure of Simon Merrivale and laid the cross gently on his forehead.

  ‘I think you’ll see in a few moments. If I’m right — Ah, just as I feared.’

  Merrivale twisted and moaned afresh in his coma. His eyes closed momentarily and then flicked wide open again, staring straight at them, but there was no sign of recognition.

  Horror stared out of them. The lips were curled back in a snarl of almost bestial hatred. For an instant, Nayland had the unshakable impression that the teeth at the corners of the other’s mouth lengthened, became pointed, until they were long and yellow like fangs.

  Bending swiftly, he picked up the small crucifix and replaced it around his neck.

  ‘Good God.’ Blake went down on one knee, leaning closer. ‘That mark on his forehead. What on earth could have caused that?’

  Nayland stood quite still, looking down and shivering a little. The feeling of evil crystallized inside his mind and he suddenly remembered that thing outside in the moonlight.

  ‘There is a devil in him,’ he muttered thinly. ‘That’s the only explanation I have so far. It’s been almost four years since I ever saw anything like this. But you don’t believe in devils and demons, do you?’

  ‘And what if I did?’ Blake looked perplexed. ‘Would it help me to understand that at all?’

  ‘Perhaps, but —’ The rest of Nayland’s sentence remained unsaid. The lights in the room suddenly dimmed and flickered unsteadily. Dark shadows at the corners of the room reached out towards the center and the air turned suddenly far colder than before.

  Nayland felt sick in his stomach. Caltro had failed in his initial attempt to get Merrivale away from them. Now he was sending the messenger to take him away.

  Images of the black things he had encountered in the past kept trying to shape themselves in Nayland’s overwrought imagination. He fought desperately to keep them out of his mind. He would need all of his wits about him during the next hour or so.

  But if they could succeed in keeping them at bay until dawn, then they might still be safe.

  ‘I must get out of here. I must get out of here!’

  Nayland heard the words, but failed to realize for the moment who had uttered them. At first, he thought it was Merrivale and a moment fled before he recognized Blake’s plaintive voice, reaching him from the flickering dimness.

  Almost before he was aware of it, Blake ran for the door and began twisting the handle insanely, babbling at the top of his voice.

  Desperately, Nayland caught hold of him by the arm and pulled him round, forcing him to face him.

  ‘Quiet!’ he snapped loudly. Drawing back his arm, he hit the other hard across the face with the back of his hand, hoping to evoke a shock response. For a moment, the other continued to mutter obscene words to himself, then the look of madness in his eyes died away and sanity returned.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked weakly.

  ‘They tried to take control of you,’ said Nayland grimly, ‘to divert our attention from Merrivale. From now on, if you feel anything trying to reach into your mind start to pray. Anything you like, but keep on praying, you understand?’

  The other nodded slowly and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I think so,’ he murmured weakly. He followed Nayland back into the middle of the room where Simon still lay on the carpet, his fingers clenching and unclenching by his sides.

  The light gave a final flicker and then winked out, leaving them in almost complete darkness. Nayland turned his head slowly. Some moonlight flooded in through the window, but it seemed to give very little light and the shadows inside the room suddenly assumed alarming proportions and terrifying shapes that twisted and cavorted around their feet like living things.

  Panic thoughts chased themselves through Nayland’s mind as he stood there, fingering the crucifix around his neck. If the worst came to the worst, it was their only protection and God alone knew how potent it would be against the evil that surrounded them.

  He turned his head swiftly. Was that something moving over there by the
door? Whether it was or not, a fresh spasm of fear swept over him. Dimly, he was aware of a clock chiming the hour in the distance and then, quite suddenly, all noise seemed to stop. Cold sweat broke out on his body.

  The thing that had been Merrivale, lying on the floor at their feet, suddenly got up and stood facing them, a tall yet slightly hunched creature out of the worst of their nightmares.

  It wore the mask and headdress that had been lying on the floor near the couch and there was now no doubting the fact that this was no longer Merrivale, but someone else, something exuding an indefinable aura of evil.

  Nayland’s conscious mind was hammering away at him: This isn’t real. It isn’t real. It won’t hurt you, because it’s only part of your imagination. Don’t look at it because you’re becoming hypnotized. Break the spell. Look away — anywhere!

  With an effort, he dragged his eyes away from it.

  Another dark shadow appeared at the window, peering in. Nayland caught a fragmentary glimpse of liquid moonlight on a face rotten with corruption, a nightmare creature with dead unblinking eyes that stared right through him. A creature of hell, conjured up by these people to overcome them and take Simon Merrivale back to their ranks.

  He knew that his mind was slowly disintegrating. That it was gradually going to pieces under the terrible strain and when that terrible horror got into the room, he knew that it was possible he would go screaming mad.

  He had the impression that Blake was beginning to scream noiselessly deep down in his throat. His lips were trembling violently and his hands were shaking, reaching for his throat.

  Madly, he tried to pray but the words refused to come. The creature outside was beating on the windowpane now, hammering at the thin, fragile glass with taloned, bony fingers. His raving mind told him that it was only a matter of time before it was in the room with them.

  For a moment, he had forgotten about Merrivale, or the thing that had once been him. Now, in his place, stood this apparition that could only have a place in the depths of the African jungles. A shaman, a witchdoctor, somehow possessing Simon Merrivale’s body, taking over his mind, moving his limbs until they responded to this alien will.