Murgunstrumm and Others

by Cave, Hugh

  He stopped in confusion, and the hands nudged him forward again. Their owner was playing a game with him, he realized, mocking his frantic efforts to reach the bedroom yet at the same time seductively urging him to try even harder. And the whisperings made words, or seemed to. "Come Norman sweet Norman . . . come come come..."

  In the upstairs hail, too, the swirling mist challenged him, deepening into a moving mass that hid the door of the room. But he needed no compass to find that door. Gasping and cursing—"Damn you, leave me alone! Get out of my way!" He struggled to it and found it open as Linda and he had left it. Hands outthrust, he groped his way over the threshold.

  The alien presence here was stronger. The sense of being confronted by some unseen creature was all but overwhelming. Yet the assault upon him was less violent now that he had reached the room. The hands groping for him in the eerie darkness were even gentle, caressing. They clung with a velvet softness that was strangely pleasurable, and there was something voluptuously female about them, even to a faint but pervasive female odor.

  An odor, not a perfume. A body scent, drug-like in its effect upon his senses. Bewildered, he ceased his struggle for a moment to see what would happen. The whispering became an invitation, a promise of incredible delights. But he allowed himself only a moment of listening and then, shouting Linda's name, hurled himself at the bed again. This time he was able to reach it.

  But she was not now sitting there staring into that secret world of hers, as he had expected. The bed was empty and the seductive voice in the darkness softly laughed at his dismay. "Come Norman. .. sweet Norman.. . come come come. .

  He felt himself taken from behind by the shoulders, turned and ever so gently pushed. He fell floating onto the old mattress, half-heartedly thrusting up his arms to keep the advancing shadow-form from possessing him. But it flowed down over him, onto him, into him, despite his feeble resistance, and the female smell tantalized his senses again, destroying his will to resist.

  As he ceased struggling he heard a sound of rusty hinges creaking in that part of the room's dimness where the door was, and then a soft thud. The door had been closed. But he did not cry out. He felt no alarm. It was good to be here on the bed, luxuriating in this sensuous, caressing softness. As he became quiescent it flowed over him with unrestrained indulgence, touching and stroking him to heights of ecstasy.

  Now the unseen hands, having opened his shirt, slowly and seductively glided down his body to his belt...

  He heard a new sound then. For a moment it bewildered him because, though coming through the ancient wall behind him, from the adjoining bedroom, it placed him at once in his own bedroom at home. Linda and he had joked about it often, as true lovers could—the explosive little syllables to which she always gave voice when making love.

  So she was content, too. Good. Everything was straight-forward and aboveboard, then. After all, as that fellow at the club had suggested, mate-swapping was an in thing in this year of our Lord 1975 . . . wasn't it? All kinds of people did it.

  He must buy this house, as Linda had insisted.

  Of course. She was absolutely right. With a sigh of happiness he closed his eyes and relaxed, no longer made reluctant by a feeling of guilt.

  But—something was wrong. Distinctly, now, he felt not two hands caressing him, but more. And were they hands? They suddenly seemed cold, clammy, frighteningly eager.

  Opening his eyes, he was startled to find that the misty darkness had dissolved and he could see. Perhaps the seeing came with total surrender, or with the final abandonment of his guilt-feeling. He lay on his back, naked, with his nameless partner half beside him, half on him. He saw her scaly, misshapen breasts overflowing his chest and her monstrous, demonic face swaying in space above his own. And as he screamed, he saw that she did have more than two hands: she had a whole writhing mass of them at the ends of long, searching tentacles.

  The last thing he saw before his scream became that of a madman was a row of three others like her squatting by the wall, their tentacles restlessly reaching toward him as they impatiently awaited their turn.

  The Grisly Death

  1. Death in the Night

  "Well," the young man said, "at least this is a whole lot better than listening to that damned jazz band any longer."

  He brought the car to a stop, leaned back in the seat, and drew a deep breath of cold, damp sea air. Snowflakes swirled fantastically in the glare of the headlights. The winding road, leading from King's Highway to South Beach, was a velvety aisle of white, blurred only by the marks of the car's tires.

  "This is going to be grand!" the girl said. "I've never seen the surf at night."

  She opened the car door and stepped down into the snow. She was a good-looking girl, about twenty. She wore dance slippers, a black velvet evening-gown, metal-cloth wrap, and no hat. The young man, climbing out after her, was attired formally.

  "You'll get soaked, young lady," he grinned.

  They walked together up the white-cloaked beach path, leaving the car unlocked behind them. Heavy storm surf rumbled on the far side of the dunes; the air was cold, wet with fine spray. Reaching the crest of the ridge, they stood staring out across the beach, where white waves broke on the sand. They kissed each other and laughed a little. The girl said, putting a hand to her wind-blown blond hair:

  "We're crazy; do you know it? We'll both get pneumonia!"

  "We'd have got D.T.'s, staying with that drunken crowd any longer," the young man said.

  They walked down to the water's edge and stood there, and the girl looked down at her ruined slippers and said: "I hate to get commercial at a time like this, but our little escape-act is going to cost you five dollars. Look. That must be the place Frank was telling about. The Sanderson place. Remember?"

  She pointed to where a gaunt black structure loomed ahead, at the top of a rising cliff, near enough to be visible through the falling snow. The young man nodded and put his arm around her. Together they walked along the shore.

  "It's lonely here," the young man said. "1 wouldn't want to come here alone at night. Would you?"

  "We're not alone," replied the girl. "We've got company. Look."

  She pointed again, and the young man stared, scowling. An indistinct shape was walking toward them along the beach, not far distant. The shape was a man, a large man, and grew larger as it came nearer. The young man said with a forced laugh:

  "Somebody else must have queer ideas. Most likely he belongs to the Coast Guard. I wouldn't want that job for—"

  He stopped talking and stood motionless, staring with wide eyes. The girl's eyes widened, too, and continued to widen as the intruding shape came nearer. The shape was human and naked, and walked with slow, mechanical strides, as if unaware of its surroundings. Its head hung grotesquely on its flat chest, its long arms swung like weighted pendulums. A mop of shaggy black hair concealed its features.

  The young man, gaping at it, stepped backwards abruptly.

  "My God! That's the thing Frank was telling us—"

  His voice broke the girl's spell. She put one hand to her mouth and screamed through her fingers. The scream was a short, shrill crescendo which rose above the mutter of the surf for a moment, then died to a whisper. The girl turned and ran headlong, stumbling as her high-heeled slippers caught in the wet sand.

  The oncoming naked shape stopped, stood rigid. His head jerked up. The young man, staring into the thing's face, made a sobbing sound in his throat and stumbled backwards, away from it. The face was leprous white, hideous. Small, hungry eyes glowered beneath thick brows. The distorted crescent of a mouth opened to release a guttural growling noise. The naked shape was suddenly in motion again, leaping with tremendous strides after the fleeing girl.

  The girl had no chance. She turned, screamed, and threw up both arms to defend herself. The thing fell upon her, smothering her wild shriek of terror. Powerful fingers clutched at her, hurling her to the wet sand. The naked shape dropped on her, tearing at her wit
h both hands, subduing her with the weight of its body.

  The girl fought wildly, turning and twisting in the creature's vile embrace, driving her small fists into the thing's evil countenance. Her efforts brought an increased snarl to the gaping mouth above her. The mouth descended abruptly, burying itself in soft flesh. The girl's struggles became weaker, and ceased.

  The young man, standing a dozen yards distant, came to life and forced himself to run forward. He screamed luridly: "Damn you, leave her alone! Leave her alone or I'll—"

  The unfinished threat meant nothing. The monster turned, glaring, and the young man's wild advance ceased abruptly. The naked thing rose slowly and stood erect. The young man stiffened, sobbed thickly, and took a faltering step forward. The leprous shape fell upon him.

  The young man struck twice with his fists, struck blindly at the lunging body of his assailant. A huge hand closed over the front of his snow-flecked tuxedo and dragged him into the monster's embrace. Powerful arms encircled him, exerting pressure. A scream of agony, of supplication, welled from the young man's mouth as the arms bent him backwards. Something snapped dully. The young man went limp.

  The monster stood on wide-spread legs, snarling. Deliberately he lifted the young man on his corded arms. Silently he carried the limp body of his victim to the water's edge, and raised it high, and hurled it. A dull splash accompanied the monster's grim laugh of triumph. Both the laugh and the splash were smothered by the unceasing mutter of the surf.

  The monster turned, strode back to the torn, mutilated form lying on the sand. He stopped, took the girl in his arms, and glared down at her hungrily. Slowly he walked away along the beach, toward the gaunt black house on the distant promontory, carrying the girl with him.

  Later, the incoming tide washed up a drowned, broken, tuxedo-clad body, and the body rolled back and forth, back and forth amid seaweed and white foam, as if still alive. There was nothing else. Nothing but wet sand, falling snow, and darkness.

  2. The House of Mystery

  "It's one of those cases," Hurley said, "that give you the living jitters. For no reason at all, this fellow and his girl walk out of a swell house-party, get in their car, and drive down to a lonely stretch of beach—at midnight of a cold night, when it's snowing to boot. Six hours or so later, somebody misses the two people out of the party, and raises a howl, and goes lookin' for 'em, and finds 'em murdered and phones us. And by that time, after it's snowed all night and covered up all possible footprints, there's nothin' for us to look at but the bodies."

  Hurley—Lieutenant Michael Hurley of the State Police—leaned his big bulk across the table and jabbed a stiff forefinger at Mark Simms.

  "Those bodies aren't pretty to look at, mister. We find the boy washed up on the beach, like he was drowned, only he wasn't drowned, because his back was broken. We find the girl almost half a mile away, all covered with snow in a kind of gully between two sand-dunes. She's been stripped, and what's left of her would give a guy the horrors just to look at. I've seen human bodies cut up with a knife, but this is the first time I ever saw one torn apart—with raw flesh ripped right off the bones."

  Simms stretched himself out of his chair and put a cigarette between his frowning lips. He was tall and powerfully built, and moved with a careless grace which gave him an appearance of being lazy. He said quietly:

  "Want me to go down there?"

  "As a personal favor to me," Hurley scowled.

  Simms nodded, took his hat and overcoat from the back of a chair, and walked to the door. A moment later Hurley went to the window, stood there, and watched a long black coupé, Simms' private car, drone out of the yard.

  The clock on the coupe's dash said ten-fifteen. Snow had fallen all night long, and the highways had not yet been cleared. Simms drove slowly. It was a long ride, and a dreary one, from State Police Barracks in Edgewater to the lonely stretch of beach between Plymouth and Segmore, where the bodies of the young man and the girl had been discovered. Most of the way, Simms slumped down in the seat and chewed an unlighted cigarette.

  Half a dozen cars were parked between the beach road and the sand-dunes when he got there. He scowled, muttered aloud his personal opinion of curiosityseekers, and paraded slowly toward the place which seemed to be the center of attraction. People in overcoats were standing around in groups, talking and staring. Murder, Simms reflected, was the biggest crowd-magnet in existence.

  He pushed forward and spoke quietly to a uniformed State Trooper who stood a little aside from the gawking spectators. The trooper said indifferently:

  "We took the bodies out of here, Mr. Simms. No point in leaving them there, was there? They're up to the Rand place, where the house-party was."

  "What's going on here?"

  "Nothing. I got orders to hang around, that's all. These other people are just sight-seers. They been parading in and out of here ever since eight o'clock. Queer how news gets around."

  Simms strolled down to the water's edge and along the beach to where another, smaller knot of curiosity-seekers stood around in overcoats. A second uniformed trooper nodded to him as he came up, and the trooper explained, in guarded tones, how and where the body of the girl had been discovered. Simms listened carefully, then looked around to be sure of missing nothing. Satisfied, he turned away.

  A figure detached itself from the group of spectators and came toward him. A low voice croaked:

  "Ain't you Simms, the detective officer, mister?"

  The owner of the guttural voice was a woman, large and foreign-looking. She wore a dirty dress, high shoes, and a crucifix, and her coarse gray hair was windblown and unkempt. She belonged, evidently, in the fishing-village down below, where the foreign element made a meager living by selling whatever sea-stuffs their broken-down nets were capable of dragging in.

  "Well?" Simms said impatiently.

  "If you're a detective officer," the woman said, waddling up to him, "I got somethin' to tell you. Ain't you the Mr. Simms that come down to the village the time Annie Garry was drownded?"

  "I'm Simms."

  "Well then, if you want to know what killed them two young people, I can tell you all right. It was somethin' not of this earth, that's what it was. Only last week I seen it with my own eyes, down in the village, and next mornin' we found Pete DiMosa's hound-dog all torn to pieces and half eaten, just like that poor girl was done to. And I ain't makin' up any story, either, because I seen it!" Simms peered into the woman's face and wondered. She was sincere. Being familiar with the district and its happenings, she might have something genuine to be sincere about.

  "All right," Simms said. "Who did it?"

  "It ain't a 'who.' It's a thing that looks like a man, and it goes around naked. Only it ain't a man, and you nor nobody else can tell me it is! It ain't of this world!"

  "What is it, then?"

  "I don't know, nor I don't want to know. I don't want nothin' to do with anything that goes around in the night-time, eating flesh off of dogs and human beings!"

  Simms made a sucking sound with his lips and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Staring at the woman, he debated the wisdom of questioning her further, and decided that other things were more important. Later, perhaps—

  "What's your name?" he said quietly.

  "Maria," the woman declared. "Maria Senko."

  Simms said unemotionally: "All right. I'll look you up later." Then he turned and strode down the beach.

  The woman's words were in his mind as he climbed into his car and backed it around. Ordinarily he would have shrugged his shoulders, made a wry face, and passed the whole thing off as being rank superstition. But this was obviously not an ordinary business. Murders were more or less in the line of routine duty; but most murderers, after committing their crimes, did not feed on the bodies of their victims.

  For future reference, it might be well to keep the Senko woman's conversation in mind.

  The big coupe bumped slowly along the shore road and turned left into King's Highway.
A little while later it stopped before a typical Cape Cod winter home, and Simms got out. According to Hurley's description, this was the Rand place, from which the murdered young man and his companion had started out on their last grim mile.

  The house was a middling large one, white with blue shutters and a long, screened-in veranda. Simms climbed the steps slowly and thumbed the bell. The door opened. A tall, sallow-faced youth stood staring at him.

  The young man's eyes were black-rimmed, twitching, his hair uncombed, his hands unsteady. Evidently he had gone a long time without sleep. He said suspiciously:

  "What is it? What do you want?"

  "The name is Simms."

  "Simms? Oh. They said you were coming."

  Simms paced down the hail and into the living-room. He stiffened when he saw two sheet-covered shapes lying side by side on the carpet. Slowly he walked toward them, stooped, and peered down. The young man said behind him:

  "We were told not to—to touch—"

  Simms raised one of the sheets, and the young man stopped talking and turned away abruptly. Professional indifference marked Simms' actions, but the indifference died a quick death as the second sheet came away, revealing what lay beneath.

  Simms sucked breath through his lips and lowered the white cover hastily. When he stood erect again, his face had lost color and he was breathing heavily. Walking across the room, he said grimly:

  "Who's around?"

  "Nobody. I'm alone here," the young man faltered. "The others have gone to police headquarters to—to be questioned. The police are sending some men down here to take charge."

  Simms glanced at him quickly. "Pretty tough ending for a party, eh?"

  "Good God, it wasn't the party! The party had nothing to do with it!" The young man choked back a sob and stared fearfully at the covered shapes on the floor. "They—they just walked out on us, to get some air, and—"