“Talk!” screamed Fraser. “Talk!” Our silence and our white faces were his only answer. There was a gleam of the knife in the rosy light. Our cell lurched, quivered, then caught. Would it hold with only two cables? It was hanging on its side. We were standing on what had been the wall. Through the opening in the roof we could see nothing but rosy light and distant stars. How strong were the cables? Could they hold against the pull of the magnetic ray? We could feel the pull now; feel the strain on the cables above us. If Fraser cut the third one—
“Talk!” his voice came, hoarse with fury. “Talk now! You can’t see me,” he went on; “but I’m pulling the third cable toward me. I’m raising the knife. Will you talk?”
Standing on that quaking wall Foulet and I stared at each other. How long would it be? One second? Half a minute? Thank God it would be quick! This was the worst now. This eternity of waiting.... “I’m cutting it!” yelled Fraser—and with his words the cell lurched, swung, whirled like a spinning top. Foulet and I were tossed around like dried peas in a pod.
Suddenly the thing steadied. Two steel hooks were clamped on the edge of the opening in what had been the roof, and Brice stared at us through the aperture!
“Quick!” he gasped. “There’s not a second to lose. Don’t stare! Quick, I say. I’ve got the ladder here. It’s steel and it’ll hold. Climb up.”
Dumbly we obeyed. Our heads were whirling, our bodies bruised and mashed by the shaking up. Blindly, dizzily we climbed up the ladder, scrambled out on the platform. Solid footing again! As Brice loosed the ladder and pulled it up, there was a snap. The last cable had gone! The cell shot down to earth with a speed that must have reduced it to a powder. Foulet and I stared after it, dazed, unbelieving. Brice’s whisper hissed in our ears.
“Listen carefully,” he gripped our shoulders. “I’m not mad. They shot the stuff into me, but I found an antidote in Semple’s office and used it right away. Now listen to me! Our plane is over there,” he pointed across the platform. “It’s all ready to take off. They think they’re sending me off on an errand for them at dawn. It’s ready for a long trip. Go there; get in; and if any one questions you tell them it’s orders. They won’t, though. No one gives orders here but Fraser.” Brice nodded toward a dark heap beside the trap-door.
“You killed him?” asked Foulet.
“Stunned him,” said Brice. “He may come to at any moment and if he does—”
“Suppose we bind him and take him in the plane?” I suggested.
Brice shook his head. “Leave him here. It’s safer. Now go. Get in the plane and take off—”
“And not wait for you?” I gasped, “You’re crazy—”
“I’ll be there. You can pick me up later. There’s no time to explain—but you’ll know. Take off; then circle around and come back. But watch out!” He gave us both a shove toward the plane, the dim shadow of which we could see across the platform.
We took a step toward it, and then turned back. How could we go without Brice? But he had vanished. And in the shadow of the trap door Fraser groaned.
We waited no longer. To hesitate was to court death. Deliberately, as if we were acting under orders, we walked toward the plane. As Brice had said, it was in readiness. Evidently he was to have started at once. We climbed in, our hearts in our throats. A mechanic stepped forward. The propeller roared. But, above the roar of the propeller we heard a yell of fury—and Fraser, dazed and reeling, came stumbling across the platform toward us!
Foulet took the controls. The plane taxied across the platform, swooped into space. But it was not till it had risen and steadied that I realized the complete idiocy of our forlorn hope of escape. What fools we were! And Brice—Brice must, in truth, be mad! How could we get away? How could we ever escape the terrific power of the magnetic ray? That ray that Fraser worked himself from his laboratory—the ray that had drawn us first across the desert to this floating island of madness! It would be a matter of seconds before Fraser would reach it and turn it on us. There was no escape—none!
In despair I looked back at the platform. To eyes ignorant of its horror it would have been an amazing and gorgeous sight. The crimson lamps of the magnetic ray bloomed like huge desert flowers on the sand two thousand feet below us; the rays flamed up with the glory of an Italian sunset and, poised in space like a dark butterfly, floated the huge platform bathed in its rosy light. It was beautiful. It was unbelievable. It was horrible. I gazed, fascinated. When would Fraser reach the lamp? When would he turn it on? I stared at the dark shadow that I knew was the laboratory building. My eyes strained through the growing distance. When would the glow come? That glow that meant our death!
Suddenly I gasped. The light had gone! The great lamps down on the desert floor were out! Darkness, swift, comforting, wrapped us in velvet folds.
“Brice!” I yelled. “Brice has cut off the lamps—he’s released the platform. God! Look—Foulet!” My voice tore through my throat; my eyes burned with sudden, blinding emotion. In the soft darkness of the starry night I could see the platform waver, topple, rise! It rose straight up, tilting and swaying in the light breeze. What was it Fraser had said? If it was released it would go straight to the stars! It was on its way!
But Brice! Where was Brice? Was he on that terrible rising island? I strained my eyes through the darkness. Already Foulet had banked the plane—we were circling; turning back. A tiny white speck took shape beneath the rising island. A parachute! Brice was safe!
* * * *
Ten minutes later we slid along the hard desert sand and came to a stop. Brice came running over toward us. Foulet and I climbed out of the plane to meet him. Silently we gripped hands. It was a solemn moment. Beside us reared the great plane that would take us back to safety—back to the familiar life we knew and loved. Around us stretched the trackless wastes of the Great Arabian Desert—and above, somewhere between us and the stars, soared the floating island of madness.
“They believed I was mad,” said Brice as we climbed back into the plane. “I watched Fraser. I spied on the men. There were about thirty up there, and finally I saw where they regulated those lamps. The rest was easy—all except the minute when I found Fraser kneeling beside that trap-door slicing the cables. For a second I thought it was all up.”
“You got us just in time,” I muttered. But you can’t be grateful with an Englishman. They won’t stand for it.
“Oh, bosh,” Brice murmured, as the plane swung its nose toward that far distance that was home. “Well, it’s all over—but it’s a story that can never be told. The fate of Mad Fraser will have to remain a mystery—for no one would believe us if we told them!”
THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING, by Hugh B. Cave
t was ten o’clock on the morning of December 5 when M. S. and I left the study of Professor Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted with M. S. His name appears constantly in the pages of the Illustrated News, in conjunction with some very technical article on psycho-analysis or with some extensive study of the human brain and its functions. He is a psycho-fanatic, more or less, and has spent an entire lifetime of some seventy-odd years in pulling apart human skulls for the purpose of investigation. Lovely pursuit!
For some twenty years I have mocked him, in a friendly, half-hearted fashion. I am a medical man, and my own profession is one that does notsympathize with radicals.
As for Professor Daimler, the third member of our triangle—perhaps, if I take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor’s part in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S. and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlighted street just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. A tall, loosely built chap he was, standing in the doorway like a motionless ape, arms half extended.
“I’ve summoned you, gentlemen,” he said quietly, “because you two, of all London, are the only persons who know the nature of my recent experiments. I should like to acquaint you with the results!”
; He led the way to his study, then kicked the door shut with his foot, seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly he dragged me to the table that stood against the farther wall. In the same even, unemotional tone of a man completely sure of himself, he commanded me to inspect it.
For a moment, in the semi-gloom of the room, I saw nothing. At length, however, the contents of the table revealed themselves, and I distinguished a motley collection of test tubes, each filled with some fluid. The tubes were attached to each other by some ingenious arrangement of thistles, and at the end of the table, where a chance blow could not brush it aside, lay a tiny phial of the resulting serum. From the appearance of the table, Daimler had evidently drawn a certain amount of gas from each of the smaller tubes, distilling them through acid into the minute phial at the end. Yet even now, as I stared down at the fantastic paraphernalia before me, I could sense no conclusive reason for its existence.
I turned to the Professor with a quiet stare of bewilderment. He smiled.
“The experiment is over,” he said. “As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as a medical man, will be sceptical. And you”—turning to M. S.—”as a scientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist, am merely filled with wonder!”
He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of the room. Standing over it, he glanced quizzically at M. S., then at me.
“For a period of two weeks,” he went on, “I have kept, on the table here, the body of a man who has been dead more than a month. I have tried, gentlemen, with acid combinations of my own origination, to bring that body back to life. And ... I have—failed!
“But,” he added quickly, noting the smile that crept across my face, “that failure was in itself worth more than the average scientist’s greatest achievement! You know, Dale, that heat, if a man is not truly dead, will sometimes resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy, for instance, victims have been pronounced dead only to return to life—sometimes in the grave.
“I say ‘if a man be not truly dead.’ But what if that man is truly dead? Does the cure alter itself in any manner? The motor of your car dies—do you bury it? You do not; you locate the faulty part, correct it, and infuse new life. And so, gentlemen, after remedying the ruptured heart of this dead man, by operation, I proceeded to bring him back to life.
“I used heat. Terrific heat will sometimes originate a spark of new life in something long dead. Gentlemen, on the fourth day of my tests, following a continued application of electric and acid heat, the patient—”
Daimler leaned over the table and took up a cigarette. Lighting it, he dropped the match and resumed his monologue.
“The patient turned suddenly over and drew his arm weakly across his eyes. I rushed to his side. When I reached him, the body was once again stiff and lifeless. And—it has remained so.”
The Professor stared at us quietly, waiting for comment. I answered him, as carelessly as I could, with a shrug of my shoulders.
“Professor, have you ever played with the dead body of a frog?” I said softly.
He shook his head silently.
“You would find it interesting sport,” I told him. “Take a common dry cell battery with enough voltage to render a sharp shock. Then apply your wires to various parts of the frog’s anatomy. If you are lucky, and strike the right set of muscles, you will have the pleasure of seeing a dead frog leap suddenly forward. Understand, he will not regain life. You have merely released his dead muscles by shock, and sent him bolting.”
The Professor did not reply. I could feel his eyes on me, and had I turned, I should probably had found M. S. glaring at me in honest hate. These men were students of mesmerism, of spiritualism, and my commonplace contradiction was not over welcome.
“You are cynical, Dale,” said M. S. coldly, “because you do not understand!”
“Understand? I am a doctor—not a ghost!”
But M. S. had turned eagerly to the Professor.
“Where is this body—this experiment?” he demanded.
Daimler shook his head. Evidently he had acknowledged failure and did not intend to drag his dead man before our eyes, unless he could bring that man forth alive, upright, and ready to join our conversation!
“I’ve put it away,” he said distantly. “There is nothing more to be done, now that our reverend doctor has insisted in making a matter of fact thing out of our experiment. You understand, I had not intended to go in for wholesale resurrection, even if I had met with success. It was my belief that a dead body, like a dead piece of mechanism, can be brought to life again, provided we are intelligent enough to discover the secret. And by God, it is still my belief!”
* * * *
That was the situation, then, when M. S. and I paced slowly back along the narrow street that contained the Professor’s dwelling-place. My companion was strangely silent. More than once I felt his eyes upon me in an uncomfortable stare, yet he said nothing. Nothing, that is, until I had opened the conversation with some casual remark about the lunacy of the man we had just left.
“You are wrong in mocking him, Dale,” M. S. replied bitterly. “Daimler is a man of science. He is no child, experimenting with a toy; he is a grown man who has the courage to believe in his powers. One of these days....”
He had intended to say that some day I should respect the Professor’s efforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter than anything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series of horrors, came within the next three minutes.
* * * *
We had reached a more deserted section of the square, a black, uninhabited street extending like a shadowed band of darkness between gaunt, high walls. I had noticed for some time that the stone structure beside us seemed to be unbroken by door or window—that it appeared to be a single gigantic building, black and forbidding. I mentioned the fact to M. S.
“The warehouse,” he said simply. “A lonely, God-forsaken place. We shall probably see the flicker of the watchman’s light in one of the upper chinks.”
At his words, I glanced up. True enough, the higher part of the grim structure was punctured by narrow, barred openings. Safety vaults, probably. But the light, unless its tiny gleam was somewhere in the inner recesses of the warehouse, was dead. The great building was like an immense burial vault, a tomb—silent and lifeless.
We had reached the most forbidding section of the narrow street, where a single arch-lamp overhead cast a halo of ghastly yellow light over the pavement. At the very rim of the circle of illumination, where the shadows were deeper and more silent, I could make out the black mouldings of a heavy iron grating. The bars of metal were designed, I believe, to seal the side entrance of the great warehouse from night marauders. It was bolted in place and secured with a set of immense chains, immovable.
This much I saw as my intent gaze swept the wall before me. This huge tomb of silence held for me a peculiar fascination, and as I paced along beside my gloomy companion, I stared directly ahead of me into the darkness of the street. I wish to God my eyes had been closed or blinded!
He was hanging on the grating. Hanging there, with white, twisted hands clutching the rigid bars of iron, straining to force them apart. His whole distorted body was forced against the barrier, like the form of a madman struggling to escape from his cage. His face—the image of it still haunts me whenever I see iron bars in the darkness of a passage—was the face of a man who has died from utter, stark horror. It was frozen in a silent shriek of agony, staring out at me with fiendish maliciousness. Lips twisted apart. White teeth gleaming in the light. Bloody eyes, with a horrible glare of colorless pigment. And—dead.
I believe M. S. saw him at the very instant I recoiled. I felt a sudden grip on my arm; and then, as an exclamation came harshly from my companion’s lips, I was pulled forward roughly. I found myself staring straight into the dead eyes of that fearful thing before me, found myself standing rigid, motionless, before the corpse that hung within reach of my arm.
&nb
sp; And then, through that overwhelming sense of the horrible, came the quiet voice of my comrade—the voice of a man who looks upon death as nothing more than an opportunity for research.
“The fellow has been frightened to death, Dale. Frightened most horribly. Note the expression of his mouth, the evident struggle to force these bars apart and escape. Something has driven fear to his soul, killed him.”
I remember the words vaguely. When M. S. had finished speaking, I did not reply. Not until he had stepped forward and bent over the distorted face of the thing before me, did I attempt to speak. When I did, my thoughts were a jargon.
“What, in God’s name,” I cried, “could have brought such horror to a strong man? What—”
“Loneliness, perhaps,” suggested M. S. with a smile. “The fellow is evidently the watchman. He is alone, in a huge, deserted pit of darkness, for hours at a time. His light is merely a ghostly ray of illumination, hardly enough to do more than increase the darkness. I have heard of such cases before.”
He shrugged his shoulders. Even as he spoke, I sensed the evasion in his words. When I replied, he hardly heard my answer, for he had suddenly stepped forward, where he could look directly into those fear twisted eyes.
“Dale,” he said at length, turning slowly to face me, “you ask for an explanation of this horror? There isan explanation. It is written with an almost fearful clearness on this fellow’s mind. Yet if I tell you, you will return to your old skepticism—your damnable habit of disbelief!”
I looked at him quietly. I had heard M. S. claim, at other times, that he could read the thoughts of a dead man by the mental image that lay on that man’s brain. I had laughed at him. Evidently, in the present moment, he recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he faced me seriously.
“I can see two things, Dale,” he said deliberately. “One of them is a dark, narrow room—a room piled with indistinct boxes and crates, and with an open door bearing the black number 4167. And in that open doorway, coming forward with slow steps—alive, with arms extended and a frightful face of passion—is a decayed human form. A corpse, Dale. A man who has been dead for many days, and is now—alive!”
The Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 65