VIII
A Token of Detestation
The days that passed after that time were, in the main, tedious yet filled with anxiety. During them, certain supplies were being brought from London and other places; Sardonicus spared no expense in procuring for me everything I said was necessary to the treatment. I avoided his society as much as I could, shunning even his table, and instructing the servants to bring my meals to my rooms. On the other hand, I sought out the company of Maude, endeavouring to comfort her and allay her fears. In those hours when her husband was occupied with business affairs, we talked together in the salon, and played music. Thus, they were days spotted with small pleasures that seemed the greater for having been snatched in the shadow of wretchedness.
I grew to know Maude, in that time, better than I had ever known her in London. Adversity stripped the layers of ceremony from our congress, and we spoke directly. I came to know her warmth, but I came to know her strength, too. I spoke outright of my love, though in the next breath I assured her I was aware of the hopelessness of that love. I did not tell her of the “reward” her husband had offered me—and which I had refused—and I was gladdened to learn (as I did by indirection) that Sardonicus, though he had abjured her to be excessively cordial to me, had not revealed the ultimate and ignoble purpose of that cordiality.
“Robert,” she said once, “is it likely that he will be cured?”
I did not tell her how unlikely it was. “For your sake, Maude,” I said, “I will persevere more than I have ever done in my life.”
At length, a day arrived when all the necessaries had been gathered: some plants from the New World, certain equipment from London, and a vital instrument from Scotland. I worked long and late, in complete solitude, distilling a needed liquor from the plants. The next day, dogs were brought to me alive, and carried out dead. Three days after that, a dog left my laboratory alive and my distilling labours came to an end.
I informed Sardonicus that I was ready to administer the treatment. He came to my laboratory, and I imagined there was almost a gloating triumph in his immobile smile. “Such are the fruits of concentrated effort,” he said. “Man is an indolent creature, but light the fire of fear under him, and of what miracles is he not capable!”
“Speak not of miracles,” I said, “though prayers would do you no harm now, for you will soon be in peril of your life.” I motioned him towards a table and bade him lie upon it. He did so, and I commenced explaining the treatment to him. “The explorer Magellan,” I said, “wrote of a substance used on darts by the savage inhabitants of the South American continent. It killed instantly, dropping large animals in their tracks. The substance was derived from certain plants, and is, in essence, the same substance I have been occupied in extracting these past days.”
“A poison, Sir Robert?” he asked, wryly.
“When used full strength,” I said, “it kills by bringing about a total relaxation of the muscles—particularly the muscles of the lungs and heart. I have long thought that a dilution of that poison might beneficially slacken the rigidly tensed muscles of paralyzed patients.”
“Most ingenious, sir,” he said.
“I must warn you,” I went on, “that this distillment has never been used on a human subject. It may kill you. I must, perforce, urge you again not to insist upon its use; to accept your lot; and to remove the threat of punishment you now hold over your wife’s head.”
“You seek to frighten me, Doctor,” chuckled Sardonicus; “to plant distrust in my bosom. But I fear you not—an English knight and a respected physician would never do a deed so dishonourable as to wittingly kill a patient under his care. You would be hamstrung by your gentleman’s code as well as by your professional oath. Your virtues are, in short, my vices’ best ally.”
I bristled. “I am no murderer such as you,” I said. “If you force me to use this treatment, I will do everything in my power to insure its success. But I cannot conceal from you the possibility of your death.”
“See to it that I live,” he said flatly, “for if I die, my men will kill both you and my wife. They will not kill you quickly. See to it, also, that I am cured—lest Maude be subjected to a fate she fears more than the slowest of tortures.” I said nothing. “Then bring me this elixir straightway,” he said, “and let me drink it off and make an end of this!”
“It is not to be drunk,” I told him.
He laughed. “Is it your plan to smear it on darts, like the savages?”
“Your jest is most apposite,” I said. “I indeed plan to introduce it into your body by means of a sharp instrument—a new instrument not yet widely known, that was sent me from Scotland. The original suggestion was put forth in the University of Oxford some two hundred years ago by Dr. Christopher Wren, but only recently, through development by my friend, Dr. Wood of Edinburgh, has it seemed practical. It is no more than a syringe—” I showed him the instrument—“attached to a needle; but the needle is hollow, so that, when it punctures the skin, it may carry healing drugs directly into the bloodstream.”
“The medical arts will never cease earning my admiration,” said Sardonicus.
I filled the syringe. My patient said, “Wait.”
“Are you afraid?” I asked.
“Since that memorable night in my father’s grave,” he replied, “I have not known fear. I had a surfeit of it then; it will last out my lifetime. No: I simply wish to give instructions to one of my men.” He arose from the table, and, going to the door, told one of his helots to bring Madam Sardonicus to the laboratory.
“Why must she be here?” I asked.
“The sight of her,” he said, “may serve you as a remembrancer of what awaits her in the event of my death, or of that other punishment she may expect should your treatment prove ineffectual.”
Maude was brought into our presence. She looked upon my equipment—the bubbling retorts and tubes, the pointed syringe—with amazement and fright. I began to explain the principle of the treatment to her, but Sardonicus interrupted: “Madam is not one of your students, Sir Robert; it is not necessary she know these details. Delay no longer; begin at once!”
He stretched out upon the table again, fixing his eyes upon me. I proffered Maude a comforting look, and walked over to my patient. He did not wince as I drove the needle of the syringe into the left, and then the right, side of his face. “Now, sir,” I said—and the tremor in my voice surprised me—”we must wait a period of ten minutes.” I joined Maude, and talked to her in low tones, keeping my eyes always upon my patient. He stared at the ceiling; his face remained solidified in that unholy grin. Precisely ten minutes later, a short gasp escaped him; I rushed to his side, and Maude followed close behind me.
We watched with consuming fascination as that clenched face slowly softened, relaxed, changed; the lips drawing closer and closer to each other, gradually covering those naked teeth and gums, the graven creases unfolding and becoming smooth. Before a minute had passed, we were looking down upon the face of a serenely handsome man. His eyes flashed with pleasure, and he made as if to speak.
“No,” I said, “do not attempt speech yet. The muscles of your face are so slackened that it is beyond your power, at present, to move your lips. This condition will pass.” My voice rang with exultation, and for the moment our enmity was forgotten. He nodded, then leapt from the table and dashed to a mirror which hung on a wall nearby.
Though his face could not yet express his joy, his whole body seemed to unfurl in a great gesture of triumph and a muffled cry of happiness burst in his throat.
He turned and seized my hand; then he looked full into Maude’s face. After a moment, she said, “I am happy for you, sir,” and looked away. A rasping laugh sounded in his throat, and he walked to my work bench, tore a leaf from one of my notebooks, and scribbled upon it. This he handed to Maude, who read it and passed it over to me. The writing said:
Fear not, lady. You will not be obliged to endure my embraces. I know full well tha
t the restored beauty of my face will weigh not a jot in the balance of your attraction and repugnance. By this document, I dissolve our pristine marriage. You who have been a wife only in name are no longer even that. I give you your freedom.
I looked up from my reading. Sardonicus had been writing again. He ripped another leaf from the notebook and handed it directly to me. It read:
This paper is your safe Conduct out of the castle and into the village. Gold is yours for the asking, but I doubt if your English scruples will countenance the accepting of my money. I will expect you to have quit these premises before morning, taking her with you.
“We will be gone within the hour,” I told him, and guided Maude towards the door. Before we left the room, I turned for the last time to Sardonicus.
“For your unclean threats,” I said; “for the indirect but no less vicious murder of this lady’s parents; for the defiling of your own father’s grave; for the greed and inhumanity that moved you even before your blighted face provided you with an excuse for your conduct; for these and for what crimes unknown to me blacken your ledger—accept this token of my censure and detestation.” I struck him forcibly on the face. He did not respond. He was standing there in the laboratory when I left the room with Maude.
IX
Not God Above nor the Fiend Below
This strange account should probably end here. No more can be said of its central character, for neither Maude nor I saw him or heard of him after that night. And of us two, nothing need be imparted other than the happy knowledge that we have been most contentedly married for the past twelve years and are the parents of a sturdy boy and two girls who are the lovely images of their mother.
However, I have mentioned my friend Lord Henry Stanton, the inveterate traveller and faithful letter writer, and I must copy out now a portion of a missive I received from him only a week since, and which, in point of fact, has been the agent that has prompted me to unfold this whole history of Mr. Sardonicus:
“. . . But, my dear Bobbie,” wrote Stanton, “in truth there is small pleasure to a be found in this part of the world, and I shall be glad to see London again. The excitements and the drama have all departed (if, indeed, they ever existed) and one must content one’s self with the stories told at the hearthstones of inns, with the flames crackling and the mulled wine agreeably stinging one’s throat. The natives here are most fond of harrowing stories, tales of gore and grue, of ghosts and ghouls and ghastly events, and I must confess a partiality to such entertainments myself. They will show you a stain on a wall and tell you it is the blood of a murdered innocent who met her death there fifty years before: no amount of washing will ever remove the stain, they tell you in sepulchral tones, and indeed it deepens and darkens on a certain day of the year, the anniversary of her violent passing. One is expected to nod gravely, of course, and one does, if one wishes to encourage the telling of more stories. Back in the Eleventh Century, you will be apprised, a battalion of foreign invaders were vanquished by the skeletons of long-dead patriots who arose from their tombs to defend their homeland and then returned to the earth when the enemy had been driven from their borders. (And since they are able to show you the very graves of these lively bones, how can one disbelieve them, Bobbie?) Or they will point to a desolate skull of a castle (the country here abounds in such depressing piles) and tell you of the spectral tyrant who, a scant dozen years before, despaired and died alone there. Deserted by the minions who had always hated him, the frightening creature roamed the village, livid and emaciated, his mind shattered, mutely imploring the succour of even the lowliest beggars. I say mutely, and that is the best part of this tall tale: for, as they tell it around the fire, these inventive folk, this poor unfortunate could not speak, could not eat, and could not drink. You ask why? For the simple reason that, though he clawed most horribly at his own face, and though he enlisted the aid of strong men—he was absolutely unable to open his mouth. Cursed by Lucifer, they say, he thirsted and starved in the midst of plenty, surrounded by kegs of drink and tables full of the choicest viands, suffering the tortures of Tantalus, until he finally died. Ah, Bobbie! the efforts of our novelists are pale stuff compared to this! English litterateurs have not the shameless wild imaginations of these people! I will never again read Mrs. Radcliffe with pleasure, I assure you, and the ghost of King Hamlet will from this day hence, strike no terror to my soul, and will fill my heart with but paltry pity. Still, I have journeyed in foreign climes quite enough for one trip, and I long for England and that good English dullness which is relieved only by you and your dear lady (to whom you must commend me most warmly). Until next month, I remain,
Your wayward friend,
HARRY STANTON
Bohemia, March, 18—
Now, it would not be a difficult feat for the mind to instantly assume that the unfortunate man in that last tale was Sardonicus—indeed, it is for that reason that I have not yet shewn Stanton’s letter to Maude: for she, albeit she deeply loathed Sardonicus, is of such a compassionate and susceptible nature that she would grieve to hear of him suffering a death so horrible. But I am a man of science, and I do not form conclusions on such gossamer evidence. Harry did not mention the province of Bohemia that is supposed to have been the stage of that terrible drama; and his letter, though written in Bohemia, was not mailed by Harry until he reached Berlin, so the postmark tells me nothing. Castles like that of Sardonicus are not singular in Bohemia—Harry himself says the country “abounds in such depressing piles”—so I plan to suspend conclusive thoughts on the matter until I welcome Harry home and can elicit from him details of the precise locality.
For if that “desolate skull of a castle” is Castle Sardonicus, and if the story of the starving man is to be believed, then I will be struck by an awesome and curious thing:
Five days I occupied myself in extracting a liquor from the South American plants. During those days, dogs were carried dead from my laboratory. I had deliberately killed the poor creatures with the undiluted poison, in order to impress Sardonicus with its deadliness. I never intended to—and, in fact, never did—prepare a safe dilution of that lethal drug, for its properties were too unknown, its potentiality too dangerous. The liquid I injected into Sardonicus was pure, distilled water—nothing more. This had always been my plan. The ordering of materia medica from far-flung lands was but an elaborate façade designed to work not upon the physical part of Sardonicus, but upon his mind; for after Keller, Morignac, Buonagente and my own massaging techniques had failed, I was convinced that it was only through his mind that his body could be cured. It was necessary to persuade him, however, that he was receiving a powerful medicament. His mind, I had hoped, would provide the rest—as, in truth, it did.
If the tale of the “spectral tyrant” prove true, then we must look upon the human mind with wonderment and terror. For, in that case, there was nothing—nothing corporeal—to prevent the wretched creature from opening his mouth and eating his fill. Alone in that castle, food aplenty at his fingertips, he had suffered a dire punishment which came upon him—to paraphrase Sardonicus’ very words—not from God above or the Fiend below, but from within his own breast, his own brain, his own soul.
RICHARD MATHESON, screenwriter, author of “Twilight Zone” scripts, short-story and fantasy-novel writer, may well be America’s most important author of horrific tales. Among his huge output is the dreadful story “Blood Son” and the twice-filmed novels I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man, as well as the unarguably most frightening haunted house novel in English literature, Hell House. “Graveyard Shift” delivers maximum shock in a remarkably short space. Warning: you are about to read one of the most hideous horror stories ever written.
Graveyard Shift
By Richard Matheson
DEAR PA:
I am sending you this note under Rex’s collar because I got to stay here. I hope the note gets to you all right.
I couldn’t deliver the tax letter you sent me with because th
e Widow Blackwell is killed. She is upstairs. I put her on her bed. She looks awful. I wish you would get the sheriff and the coronor Wilks.
Little Jim Blackwell, I don’t know where he is right now. He is so scared he goes running around the house and hiding from me. He must have got awful scared by whoever killed his ma. He don’t say a word. He just runs around like a scared rat. I see his eyes sometimes in the dark and then they are gone. They got no electric power here you know.
I came out toward sundown bringing that note. I rung the bell but there wasn’t no answer so I pushed open the front door and looked in.
All the shades was down. And I heard someone running light in the front room and then feet running upstairs. I called around for the Widow but she didn’t answer me.
I started upstairs and saw Jim looking down through the bannister posts. When he saw me looking at him, he run down the hall and I ain’t seen him since.
I looked around the upstairs rooms. Finally, I went in the Widow Blackwell’s room and there she was dead on the floor in a puddle of blood. Her throat was cut and her eyes was wide open and looking up at me. It was an awful sight.
I shut her eyes and searched around some and I found the razor. The Widow has all her clothes on so I figure it were only robbery that the killer meant.
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural Page 37