Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  Enoch did not seem at all personally concerned in the fact that his brother had just died. He rubbed his hands together and snapped:

  “Well, I’m not staying.”

  “We’ll have to,” Dr. Maddern contradicted. “We can’t drive back in the storm that’s coming up. Too dangerous.”

  Enoch hesitated. “I—I guess that’s right. Don’t want to go over a cliff.” Trask watched Maddern who was again paring his nails. The room was heavy with stillness, intensified by the crackle of the flames and the roar of the distant wind. It was odd how dissociated everybody seemed from William Rice’s death, he mused. William had never been quite human, anyhow—merely a dyspeptic stomach and a sweating bald head. But he had died. How?

  Involuntarily the thought of Di Votan thrust itself into the director’s mind. Di Votan as Trask had last seen him, with diabolical murder-lust flaming in the deep-set eyes, insane malignity, as though of some alien spirit . . .

  Susan cried out. Trask whirled, followed the girl’s frightened glance toward the window. For an instant he had a glimpse of a pale, haggard face beyond the pane. Immediately it was gone.

  LES TRASK dived across the room.

  Di Votan? Gonder? He didn’t think so, but there was only one way to find out. He didn’t bother to go out by the door. Instead he wrenched open the window and almost dived across the sill.

  His aim and timing were good. He fell on someone who yelped in pain and tried to wriggle free. But Trask was too quick. He collared the man and lifted him erect.

  “Hey!” the man demanded. “What the hell is this?”

  “You’re going to answer some questions,” Trask retorted.

  He dragged his prisoner back into the lodge, this time using the door. There, in the gray daylight that filtered in from outside, he surveyed the man.

  His captive was a stranger, lean and thin as a wolf, with seedy clothes and an ingratiating grin that was rather shaky now. His garments were torn and disheveled. There was mud on his shoes. He looked around, and his glance paused on Enoch Rice.

  “Uncle Enoch!” he cried. “Remember me?”

  The old man hesitated, peering with dim eyes.

  “I—I—”

  “Dan? Dan Wentworth?”

  “Of course,” Enoch said, a light suddenly tranforming his face. “But, good Lord, I thought you were dead.”

  “What were you doing outside the lodge?” Dr. Maddern said.

  Wentworth made a pathetically useless attempt to straighten his tattered clothing.

  “I drove up from Los Angeles. At the studio they told me I’d find my uncles up here. Well, my car broke down five miles back, and I hiked the rest of the way. I saw the light in the lodge and looked in the window as I passed it. Then this guy came diving out at me.”

  “Where have you been?” Enoch said.

  “Knocking around the world. Singapore, Indo-China, Malaysia, Egypt—”

  “William is dead,” Enoch broke in.

  In a few words he explained what had happened. For the first time in years he willingly spoke of death. The effect on Wentworth was curious. His thin face whitened as he sat down tremblingly in the nearest chair.

  “You—you’re filming ‘Devil Man’ now?” he stammered.

  “Sure,” Trask said. “Why?”

  Wentworth tried to smile. “I ran into that legend in Egypt. It—it wasn’t pleasant. The fellahin there really believe that the Devil Man brings death wherever he comes. They say his spirit still roams the world, looking for a body to inhabit.”

  He stood up, but immediately collapsed with a grunt of pain. Apologetically he touched his leg.

  “Got a bad cut awhile ago. The hike up here didn’t help any. But this Devil Man business—”

  “Never mind that just now.” Dr. Maddern came forward and quickly rolled up Wentworth’s trouser leg. “Uh-huh. Infection. You’d better let me clean that wound for you.”

  “Well, I guess maybe I better,” Wentworth said reluctantly.

  TRASK silently went out. He was considerably worried about Di Votan, more than he cared to admit. The death of William Rice had been discomforting, and now apparently this fellow Wentworth seemed to believe in the efficacy of the Devil Man curse.

  Where was Di Votan? That was the important problem.

  Trask grimly started his search. It was past noon, and the storm was almost due to break. Soon rain fell, with a promise of snow.

  On a dangerously slippery trail edging a precipice, Di Votan suddenly came around a curve in the rock wall. He stood motionless, facing Trask.

  The horror-star was a frightful spectacle. His clothing was ripped and torn in a dozen places. The make-up was still in place—a beast-mask down which the rain trickled. His spine was still twisted, his head still cocked awry, held in place by strong clamps. But the eyes were those of a horrible destroyer.

  “Di!” Track shouted.

  Votan’s body swayed.

  “Kill,” he mumbled tonelessly. “Kill.”

  His huge frame and mighty hands looked dangerous. The director felt a warning thrill of premonition. Abruptly all sanity was gone from the frightful mask Votan wore. In that instant Trask realized he looked upon horror. The eyes that glared out from that beast-face were incredibly old, monstrously evil.

  Votan sprang forward!

  Trying vainly to duck, Trask felt a savage blow of the great arm drive sickeningly against his head, toppling him sideward. The void beside the cliff rose up to meet him.

  He was falling!

  CHAPTER III

  Death in the Storm

  TRASK felt that he had been unconscious only a few moments when his eyes opened. He was lying on a little ledge below the path, out of sight of it. Snow was falling swiftly now. It blanketed him.

  Crawling unsteadily to his feet, Trask eyed the precarious route that led back to the top of the cliff. The snow would make it more precarious than ever, and Votan might still be lurking up there.

  He was not, the director found when he struggled to the top. The discovery did not reassure Trask. The huge actor had gone elsewhere, perhaps to the lodge, with no other thought in his brain now but murder. Truly a monster was stalking the Sierras! Remembering the look in Votan’s eyes, Trask was uneasily conscious of the shocking metamorphosis that had changed the pleasant, easy-going actor into a killer. The soul of a ruthless demon dwelt behind Votan’s eyes.

  Trask hurried toward the lodge. He had been unconscious for many hours. The sun was almost at the peaks.

  The crew was in the smaller cabins outside. Their windows were lit up in the thickening twilight, blinking through the snowflakes.

  Trask strained his eyes for sight of a hunched, monstrous figure. Someone was staggering against the wind. It was the caretaker, young Andy Hathaway, gasping with exertion, holding a parcel carefully under his arm. He saw Trask and shook his head.

  “Whew, what a drive! I almost went over a dozen times.”

  Heads lowered, they stumbled toward the porch.

  “Where’ve you been?” Trask panted. “Didn’t you know? That guy Wentworth—the Rices’ nephew—passed out. That wound in his leg—tetanus. We didn’t dare drive him down to the village in this storm—so I went after an antitoxin. Tried to get the sheriff, too—but he was off on business of his.”

  “Tetanus?”

  “That cut—he’d neglected it. He fainted and started having convulsions.”

  The door opened as soon as they rapped. Susan Kane stood there, her greenish eyes wide with relief when she saw Hathaway.

  “Oh, you’re all right, Andy?”

  “Sure.” He grinned. “Where’s the doc?”

  “Upstairs.”

  Trask went up. At the head of the stairs he glanced back, his eyes widening with surprise. Susan was in Andy Hathaway’s arms, her lips tightly pressed against his. The director shrugged and went on. Presently Andy followed.

  IN the bedroom, Dr. Maddern was pacing nervously about. Enoch Rice, his withered f
ace white, stood staring at the figure on the bed. Dan Wentworth lay sunk in a coma, his body occasionally twitching with nervous spasms. His face was twisted in a grin of agony.

  “You’ve got the antitoxin!” Maddern seized the parcel from Hathaway and unwrapped it with hasty fingers. “Glad you got back in time. This damned lodge is farther than hell-and-gone!”

  “Farther than that, by now,” said the caretaker. “The snow’s stopping, but I barely got through. The roads will be blocked till they send snowplows.” Maddern was busy preparing a hypodermic. Trask watched him. So the curse had struck again, eh? But this time modern medicine was able to combat it. The power of ancient Egypt, the director thought wryly, wasn’t strong enough to battle science.

  The doctor cried out sharply, staring down at his patient. He whirled to the caretaker.

  “Andy, was that tetanus antitoxin?” He seized the bottle and examined it. “Yes, but—”

  “What’s wrong?” Enoch Rice asked sharply.

  Maddern stooped in alarm over Wentworth.

  “Wrong? He’s dying, that’s all, and I’ve no facilities here to save him!” Yet Maddern worked with desperate haste, till finally it became apparent that his attempts were useless. Dan Wentworth lay dead, still grinning as though in mockery. The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed them wearily.

  “There was time to save him, I’m sure of that,” he muttered. “There’s only one explanation.”

  “What?” Trask asked.

  “Serum shock. The antitoxin contains an animal protein. Wentworth must have been naturally allergic to that particular protein. If I had only known . . . You see, in people who are allergic to the protein in an antitoxin, administration of it causes a very serious reaction. That’s serum shock. It killed Wentworth.”

  Above the yell of the wind Trask seemed to hear mad, triumphant laughter, as though a demon from ancient Egypt rejoiced to find that its diabolical power was stronger than science.

  THE night was glassily clear when Trask let himself out of the lodge. Stars diffused a faint glow, but the moon was fairly bright. Snow crunched underfoot. In this distant wilderness, the director thought, they were as completely isolated from the rest of the world as though they were in the mountains of the moon. Wind was shrieking down from the snowy peaks above. Lights were glinting from the smaller cabins where the crew was quartered. No trace of Di Votan . . .

  Trask paused outside a small summer-house at sight of a dim figure moving amid the shadows. It was gone immediately, though now voices could be heard from the rustic structure, almost inaudible above the wind’s roar.

  “But I tell you I love—” said a girl’s voice.

  “That doesn’t matter,” a man was replying. “Our marriage must be kept a secret. Your uncle would—”

  The girl screamed. Trask sprinted forward. The summer-house was dark, and in the entrance he collided with a dim figure that sent him staggering.

  It plunged away and was gone.

  “Don’t!” Susan Kane cried. “Oh, don’t!”

  A man laughed. Trask caught his breath as Di Votan, a grotesque, tattered figure of horror, lurched out into the moonlight, dragging Susan. The girl was fighting against the actor’s strong grasp, but the contorted beast-face twisted in mad laughter.

  “I’ll kill you—all of you!” Votan yelled.

  He saw Trask and sent the girl spinning with a thrust. She fell into the snow and lay there, moaning. Votan rushed at the director.

  The actor was beyond sanity, Trask saw. His eyes looked like flames seen through gray ice. Only one argument was left.

  Trask dived low, snaring Votan with a rat-trap grip around the legs. The giant swayed on limbs twisted out of shape by metal braces, came crashing down. Roaring with maniacal rage, he smashed huge fists at Trask’s face.

  Trask rolled his head aside, but the glancing blows were murderous. He heard Susan scream. From the corner of his eye he saw the girl struggling in the grip of a short, squat figure. Gonder, the cult leader! Trask caught only a glimpse in the moonlight, then Votan had him by the throat.

  Bellowing, the monster sank his iron fingers into Trask’s neck, forcing him down into snow that blinded the director. Choking and gasping for breath, he flailed about vainly. Agony lanced into his chest and along his spine. Abruptly he felt himself ceasing to struggle. Nothing existed now but the iron grip that was strangling him. He could see nothing, and Votan’s bellowing had died into a distant monotone.

  Without reason, as his arms thrust up weakly, he remembered Dan Wentworth. Dying of serum shock, waiting for certain doom in his bed, Wentworth had been alone. No one could get through the death barrier that surrounded him. He could not break it.

  That was how Trask felt. He seemed to be surrounded by freezing, pallid walls that shut him out from life, from the people he knew, even from the man who was killing him. His hand groped up clawingly.

  “Men die alone,” he thought.

  Curiously he found he could breathe again. Somehow he stumbled to his knees, dragged himself erect. There were cries and running figures.

  VOTAN’S yells had brought the crew from the cabins. Di Votan himself was visible as a distorted, monstrous figure loping off through the snow. Susan was fighting to escape from Gonder, who had her in a vicious grip. The cult leader’s hands were pulling back the girl’s arms as he snarled curses.

  Trask darted forward and grabbed Gonder as the cultist violently flung Susan away. The crew ran up and held Gonder’s arms. He was powerless against so many.

  “What’s wrong?” they demanded. What happened, Les?”

  “Tell you later,” Trask said thickly. “Get Di Votan, quick. If he gets away—” He whirled on Gonder. “So you were behind all this, eh? For two cents I’d smash your ugly face in.”

  The cult leader screamed and struggled.

  “Don’t touch me! Let me go!”

  “I smelled liquor on Votan’s breath,” Trask gritted. “Are you going to talk?”

  The man holding Gonder twisted his arm slightly, and the cult leader broke down into incoherency.

  “You fed him whisky, eh?” Trask said. “And you kept feeding it to him. You knew that when Votan gets too much liquor in him, he goes crazy. His mind slips its moorings and he’ll do anything to get more. When Votan has too much booze, he’s dazed, almost hypnotized, ready to react to any suggestion. You made him think he was the real Devil Man, didn’t you?”

  “You mustn’t make that picture!” Gonder screamed.

  Trask shrugged. “Take him into the lodge and lock him up in a spare room. He’s insane, I’ll bet.”

  For a moment Susan and the director were alone. Trask, on an impulse, turned to the girl.

  “Who was that man with you in the summer-house?”

  An odd look flashed into the girl’s eyes.

  “I was alone, Les,” she said.

  “Yeah. Okay. Trot inside before you get pneumonia.”

  Susan obeyed, her golden-brown hair disheveled and glinting in the pale moonlight. Trask went into the summer-house and lit a match. Something at his feet attracted his attention. He bent and picked up several tiny objects, which he placed in an envelope and put in his pocket.

  The crew came back.

  “We couldn’t get Di. He went up over the ridge.”

  In the darkness there was no use trying to follow Votan’s tracks. Trask went back to the lodge, his mind working fast. At last he had a clue, but where would it lead? One thing was plain. Susan Kane had been married without her uncles’ knowledge.

  Trask entered the lodge and headed for the commissary, down in the cellar. With the aid of a flashlight, he went along the hall to the back of the house. Turning a corner, he found himself facing a brown-painted door.

  When he opened it, he saw steps leading down into darkness. The white cone of the flashlight showed a clean, well stocked cellar, with coal, lumber, coke, canned goods, and various other necessities neatly arranged along the walls.

 
Trask went down the stairs and ran the light across the rows of cans. He was searching for one—or more—that would be unusual in shape. Toward the back, hidden till he had pushed aside the first row, he found what he expected—two cans of corned beef. The ends of the cans were bulging outward, instead of being slightly concave. Trask put his thumb against the end of one and pushed. There was a sharp, curious sound.

  “That’s right,” the director said.

  Carefully he replaced the cans. He jerked back as a cry came from above, in Susan’s voice.

  “Di! It’s Di Votan!”

  Trask whistled in dismay as he fled back up the stairs.

  “This complicates matters . . . well, maybe . . .”

  But Votan wasn’t visible. Susan was cowering by the fireplace, wide-eyed. Dr. Maddem, Enoch Rice and Andy Hathaway were at the opened window, staring out.

  “Was it Di?” Trask blurted.

  Rice glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t know, Les. Susan says she saw him, but I didn’t.”

  “It was Di Votan!” she cried. “He was at the window, looking in, with that horrible face—”

  The girl shuddered, her palms flat against her white cheeks. Trask nodded and went out.

  CHAPTER IV

  Life for a Death

  FIRST he looked into the upstairs room, where Gonder was still bound and asleep. Then he let himself out of the house. There seemed to be new tracks in the snow, but he could not be sure, so many people had trampled around there since the snowfall had stopped. Nevertheless he spent a half-hour searching under the pines, stopping only when the icy wind made his bruised throat ache painfully.

  On the way back, he could not help shivering as he glanced up. The night was wearing on slowly and the stars were bright again. But before dawn, the curse might strike again. Only now he knew a bit more about it than he had an hour ago.

  The lodge seemed empty. Gonder was still asleep, head bent as he slumped in the ropes that bound him to a chair. Trask went into the living room, conscious of an odd feeling of anxiety. It was empty, though the fire blazed brightly.