by Otto Penzler
He walked directly toward the Lansing mausoleum where Janice was buried. Dead or not dead, whether she were in the crypt, whether she were in Hell or Heaven, she had said she needed him. And he had come.
Yet despite his grim resolve, despite his firm purpose, he was not entirely unafraid. That uncanny telephone call had pricked his delicate nervous system with the pin of fear. And now in this ancient graveyard that had spread its earthy cloak over decayed corpses since the days of the Spaniards, there was an eerie electric atmosphere.
What it was he did not know. Normally he had not the weak man’s fear of death and dead things. But here tonight he felt that some intangible horror stalked him; that some invisible monster strode at his side.
He started for a moment as he saw a black rectangular shape rise from a tombstone, flap black wings and fly off in the face of the moon. An involuntary shudder ran through his body, for at that moment it seemed as if the bat presaged some dire happening; as if it were a forerunner of the evil thing that was destined to happen.
On his left, some forty feet this side of the Lansing tomb, stood a square marble edifice. Lane recognized it as the burying place of the Cervantes family, the old clan of the town who could trace their ancestry back to the brave days of Balboa.
Then, abruptly, he halted. A sound had broken that deathly silence. A faint creaking noise had reached his eardrum. And it had come from the tomb of the Cervantes!
For a long moment Gordon Lane stood motionless. But inside him there was no stillness. Fear swirled like a misty cloud within his heart. The vague apprehension that had been with him suddenly crystallized into a definite horror that the unknown thing which he had feared was at last imminent.
Again he heard the creaking sound. Long-drawn-out and undulating it crawled into his hearing. Then it ended, punctuated by a lower note like the grunt of a wallowing swine.
GORDON LANE’S WILL held him where he was, held him firmly from obeying all his screaming instincts to run from this place of evil. His face was white and in his eyes shone a mighty resolve as he deliberately turned his face toward the tomb.
His hand reached out and touched the handle on the crypt door, and his fingers were colder than the metal which they clasped.
He turned the handle and pushed his weight against the massive oaken door. Slowly it swung inward. The darkness that poured into his eyes was almost a material thing. Dank air seeped into his nostrils. The frightful odor of decaying flesh filtered into his lungs.
His cold fingers groped in his vest pocket, and found a package of matches. Then as he was about to strike the match, he heard a sigh—a human sigh!
It was a weary, discouraged exhalation like the last whisper of a damned soul. With effort Lane held his fingers steady as he struck the match.
The tiny light flared eerily in the chamber. Ghostly flickering shadows danced on the damp stone walls as the little flame burned unevenly. Lane’s eyeballs pained him as he stared strainingly into the gloom. The walls were lined with coffins of ancient wood. A rat scurried across the floor at his feet.
The match burned low and seared his fingers. Hastily he lit another. Then as he stood there, holding that tiny inadequate light in his hand, he felt a cold snake of terror crawl along his spine. Wings of panic beat in his brain.
His eyes stared straight ahead of him, and in their depth was a glazed expression of fearful doubt as if he trembled to believe the thing he saw.
For directly opposite him the lid of a coffin was rising. The rotted, dust-covered wood made an odd creaking sound as it moved, a sound like the off-key note struck on a ghostly violin.
Then as it lifted higher, Lane saw the hand that was moving it. It was a grey and bony hand with long prehensile fingers. Tightly they grasped the edge of the coffin lid and thrust it upward.
Then an arm appeared, a tenuous, naked arm like the ashen tentacle of some fiendish octopus. Lane’s eyes dropped from the ghastly sight for a moment and focused upon the tarnished silver nameplate of the coffin. Then as the words engraved there registered on his mind, a white madness froze his nerves.
For the man who was rising from the tomb had been dead for over a hundred years!
The creaking noise increased. Wildly Lane glanced about him. On all sides the lids were moving. Thin, emaciated arms appeared pushing, pushing up the covers which sealed the corpses in their tombs. Verily, the grave was yielding up its dead.
It was no longer the human concept of fear that coursed through Lane’s arteries. It was now an overwhelming dread; that awful paralyzing force which deluges man when he witnesses the violation of all natural law; of all the things that he has been taught to believe.
THE DEAD WERE rising up around him! The dead who never returned were rising from their coffins, coming back to an earthly sphere. They were bursting the inviolate bonds of the grave, shattering all natural law in one unholy manifestation.
Gordon Lane’s heart cried, “Flee!” His brain reeled dazedly before the incredible sight he witnessed. But his muscles were beyond his control. Some unseen vise held his sinews in mighty thrall. His legs were rooted to the spot where he stood.
Again the match burned his finger. His shaking hands essayed to light another. For darkness redoubled the terror of the tomb. Again the match flickered to jerky light.
Glassy eyes stared at Lane. The lifeless gaze of the dead stared at the intruder who had blasphemed their tomb with his presence. Their faces were horrible things over which the white hand of death had passed, leaving its indelible mark.
They were blank, expressionless faces, devoid of all intelligence, sans all life and animation. Gaunt, bony chests thrust themselves from filthy, ragged shreds which hung about their unearthly shoulders. But their eyes held the most awful thing of all.
They were the eyes of men who have gazed upon the unholy mysteries of the netherworld; eyes which have traveled across the Styx itself and witnessed the iniquitous evil of the banks of Hell.
And behind all this lay an insufferable pain, an agony of the soul which even Death’s great power had been unable to release.
Lane never knew how long he stood there, exchanging scrutiny with these Things that had climbed back from the abyss. It seemed that infinity ticked past and the muscles of his body remained completely beyond his control.
Then came the thing that broke the paralysis. A scream ripped through the air; a scream pregnant with terror and agony. And despite its unnaturally high-pitched tone, Gordon Lane recognized the voice.
Janice!
That single fact smashed into his numbed consciousness with a force that precluded all else. The blood surged through his arteries once more.
He flung the burning match to the floor. He spun around on his heel and raced like one possessed from the dank interior of this frenzied vault of death.
The cool fresh air of the night hit his face like a wave of cold water. As he ran he once again heard that awful scream hammer with dreadful force through the fetid atmosphere of the graveyard.
He changed his direction slightly. Now he knew whence that scream came. It had emanated from the Lansing crypt. There was no doubt of that.
Despite the terrific strain under which he was laboring, relief pumped into his heart. If that voice was Janice’s—and he knew it was—she was alive! Alive! She had returned from the tomb to him!
He crashed up against the door of the mausoleum. His trembling fingers found the handle and turned it. He raced into the tomb.
“Janice!” he cried. “Janice!”
There was no reply save the mocking reverberations of his own voice hurled back at him by the stone walls of the vault. Once again he groped for his matches, struck one and stared about him.
There was no sign of life here. Death was indicated by the solid line of coffins which flanked the wall.
SWIFTLY, LANE WALKED about the cavernous chamber. Swiftly his eyes glanced at the silver nameplates on the coffins. Then at last he came to a halt at the rear end of the room.
Reposing on a marble slab lay a bier, and on the gleaming argent at its base was written the name of the woman that Gordon Lane had loved above life itself.
He fell to his knees beside the coffin, murmuring her name. Then as his hands gripped the coffin lid to wrench it off, his match went out. Feverishly he struck another. He held it, flickering and dancing in his left hand, while he jerked the lid up with his right.
With a hollow thud the cover fell back. Lane leaned forward, lowering his match. A vague relief had temporarily banished the dread he had felt. Janice had needed him; even in death she had needed him. And now he was here.
He bent lower over the bier, staring into the little pool of light cast by the match. Slowly his eyes dilated, slowly the old fear seeped back into his veins. Slowly he became conscious once again of the gnawing horror inside him.
For the coffin was empty!
CHAPTER III
ZOMBIES
Gordon Lane let the match go out. He stood there in the thick darkness. Was this madness that assailed him? Had he taken leave of his normal physical world and through some unholy device been transported to a realm of evil paradox?
Janice was not there. Janice had broken her tomb, had slashed through the fetters of death even as had those ghastly things in the crypt of the Cervantes.
What unearthly things were happening here? Was this a case for the blue uniformed officer of the police, or the black robed servant of the church?
Then he moved. He strode swiftly toward the still open door of the vault. If a few moments ago he had taken care to avoid the keeper of the cemetery, he was seeking him now. Perhaps the caretaker could clear up the ghastly mysteries of the night.
He raced from the tomb and headed toward the distant gate of the graveyard.
With his fists he hammered on the wooden door of the lodge. After a while he heard a creaking footstep within the building. Then the door opened, and an old man in pajamas stood upon the threshold.
A pair of grey, rheumy eyes stared at Lane. A twisted, distorted mouth snarled at him.
“Why do you wake me at this hour? Are you a ghoul? Are you—?”
“No, no!” cried Lane. “But there’s hell abroad in this cemetery. Dead men are walking. Dead men are rising from their tombs. And a girl is missing. Gone from the Lansing crypt.”
Something flickered in the old man’s eyes. Something evil and calculating. A frown corrugated his brow. Then he stepped aside.
“Come in,” he said, and his voice was soft, slimy. “Come in. Perhaps we should telephone the police.”
He stepped aside and Lane entered the house. A telephone stood on a table near the window. The old man indicated it.
“Go on,” he said. “Call. If there is evil here we two cannot cope with it. Call the police.”
LANE NODDED. THIS, of course, was the sane thing to do. Supernatural or human, the pair of them could not cope with the terrifying forces which had been unleashed this night. He picked up the receiver.
He did not see the expression of sadistic triumph which had crawled into the old man’s eyes. He did not see the contorted grey, feral lips as the caretaker took a step toward him. He did not see the solid metal object that the old man held firmly in his right hand.
True, he heard the faint hissing sound as the blackjack hurtled down through the air toward his temple. But then it was too late. The club smashed hard against his skull. A streak of dancing light flashed across his vision.
Then blackness seeped in—total blackness that was even darker than the sable atmosphere of the tomb where he had seen the grave give up its dead.
Gordon Lane had no way of knowing how much later he opened his eyes. Directly above him a grotesque shadow danced on a rocky ceiling. His head throbbed achingly. With an effort he raised his head and looked about him. He blinked dully as he stared at the uncanny scene which met his eyes. His first thought was that he had been struck down by the Reaper’s scythe and that now he lay in some dank tomb of the underworld.
The rocky chamber was illuminated by a score of candles, which cast their unsteady light dispiritedly in the room. Far over to the left a half dozen creatures worked with pick and shovel.
They moved in their task like robots. Their thin arms swung mechanically through the air as they dug. No expression was on their drawn faces.
And as Lane stared at them, he inhaled sibilantly as he realized what they were. They were the Things he had seen resurrected from the Cervantes tomb!
Zombies! Snatched by some unholy hand from their surcease of the grave to slave for some iniquitous force. Lane felt the skin on the back of his neck tighten. Then he was aware of an ugly chuckle behind him.
Slowly he turned his aching head. There, standing directly over him, was the caretaker of the cemetery. His face was a twisted, ugly thing and in his hand the naked blade of a knife gleamed eerily in the flickering light of the candles.
Lane looked at him and beyond him. Needles seemed to prick his eyeballs. His throat was suddenly dry. His heart stood still. For there, at the other end of the cavern, clad in a single diaphanous garment, was Janice Lansing!
Unsteadily Lane got to his feet.
“Janice,” he cried and his voice was like a hollow echo in the rocky room. “Janice!”
But she did not look at him. Her usually vivacious, lovely face was drab and blank. Her eyes were turned toward a dark-garbed figure who sat some little distance from her.
Her full red lips were drawn thin and taut across her teeth, and in her eyes was a gleam of ineffable anguish. Shocked by her appearance, Lane cried out again.
“Janice! Janice! It’s Gordon. Janice, can’t you hear me?”
FOR A LONG moment there was a tense silence, broken only by the metallic clang of pick and shovel against the shale-filled earth. Then through the chamber there sounded a voice—a voice which was vaguely familiar to Gordon Lane’s ears. Yet which somehow seemed to hold a malignant threat.
“No, you fool, she cannot see you. She can see only what I will her to see. But you, you shall see death before another dawn. You were warned not to come here tonight.”
Lane lifted his eyes. He stared through the murkiness of the chamber. Slowly the figure was limned before him. Then as recognition dawned he uttered a gasp of utter astonishment.
For the speaker was Dr. Ramos!
Yet it was not the Ramos that Lane had once known. The bluff ruddiness of the man’s face now seemed to be the crimson stain of blood. The hearty, solid voice had lost its affable tone and it now held an awful note of doom.
The doctor’s casual atheism which the village had tolerated suddenly became a fearful thing to Gordon Lane. It was a black unholiness—a defy to the very God who had created him.
From the other side of the room, Lane noticed that the sounds of shoveling had ceased. He was aware of a low, animal-like rumble of voices. He turned his head to see the six emaciated Things that had once been men, standing stock still, their tools in their hands.
Their eyes were fixed on the dark figure of Dr. Ramos and in the depths of their gaze was the most appalling menace of evil that Lane had ever seen.
Ramos’ flashing dark eyes turned to them. He fixed them with a satanic gaze.
“Work, you dogs,” he snarled. “You, Cataran!”
The caretaker stepped forward. He thrust his knife in his belt and snatched up a crimson-stained whip which lay on the rocky bottom of the cavern. The doctor’s eyes were still fixed, glittering obsidian marbles, upon the creatures that had crawled from their tombs.
Cataran lifted the whip. Its rawhide sang a bitter ziraleet in the air. The lash bit deep into flesh. Blood, black and terrible, streaked down the cadaver’s body and ran onto the fresh earth.
The man opened his ashen lips and his vocal cords vibrated in a terrible cry of affliction. Yet, Lane noted, the Thing made no move to attack its torturer. The others seized their tools and resumed their arduous labor.
The flicker of life which had registered on
their faces a moment ago was gone now. They had returned to the lifeless life which seemed to hold them in its awful thrall.
Gordon Lane was frozen with horror. Janice, too, must be held fast in this overwhelming power of Ramos. She had not even glanced at him, Gordon. Her eyes were fastened to the dark figure of the doctor who sat upon a shelf of rock, for all the world like some wicked monarch surveying his wretched subjects.
“That’ll do, Cataran,” said Ramos. “Let them work. There is much to be done tonight. This shall be our night of nights. The treasure we’ve recovered thus far will be as nothing if we can find the Grail. It must be here. We’ve searched everywhere else that I can think of.”
LANE TURNED TO Ramos. No longer could he control the potent wrath that welled within him as he gazed at Janice. He rushed toward the doctor.
“You swine!” he roared and the echoes of his anger filled the catacomb. “What have you done? What evil thing have you wrought? Curse you, lift your evil spell off Janice or I’ll tear you to pieces with my own hands!”
Ramos smiled evilly as he looked down at him. Even as he finished the sentence Lane was aware of the cold steel of Cataran’s blade pressed against the flesh of his neck.
“You are a fool,” said the doctor. “You have blundered in here. You shall never blunder out. You know too much. Your girl knew too much. That is why she is here. That is why my spell is upon her.”
He indicated the laboring creatures with a wave of his hand. “Those,” he said contemptuously, “shall die, too, when I am done with them. They mean little. I needed bodies for my work and I took them. But Janice pried into my affairs. She shall never do so again. When I am finished with her, when her beauty tires me, she, too, shall join those creatures in the grave once more.”
Despite the threat of the knife at his jugular, Gordon Lane hammered against the rock with impotent fists.