SteampubkPrime

by Mike Ashley

  It was on the evening of the 12th of June, 1906, that the “lights” first appeared, among a chattering and laughing crowd that was pouring out of the Strand Theatre into Surrey Street. Phyllis Brand was leaning upon my arm. We were newly engaged, and I was looking only at her till I heard cries from the people around us. Then I saw that the air was full of pale yellow lights. Most of them were some distance above, standing out clearly against the dark houses and cloudy sky; but a few were fluttering down among the crowd; round lights of about the bigness of a shilling, and much the same thickness. When they came quite near, it was seen that they went in threes, each at the corner of an equal-sided triangle, some eight or nine inches apart. Someone called “Fire” and the crowd began to sway dangerously.

  I put my arms round Phyllis, and forced our way through, with some damage to our clothes and a few bruises, and watched the crowd from a dark doorway a little distance down the street. The excitement increased, and several of the crowd were thrown down and trampled underfoot. Seventeen people were killed, we learnt the next morning. Afterwards they were accounted among the lucky ones.

  The treble lights dropped steadily among the fighting mass at the doors, and darted swiftly at some who escaped from the outskirts, always fastening upon their breasts. A white-bearded gentleman beside me declared it was only a meteoric shower, and there was no real harm in the lights. They were luminous, like electric light, he explained, but did not burn. A man with a hoarse voice suggestive of drink remarked that they had sent for a fire-engine, and when it came the crowd would be worse; and anyhow, it wasn’t his business, and he was going home. He had taken a few unsteady steps, when a triangle of lights dropped noiselessly upon him. He howled like an injured animal and ran. A woman in evening dress rushed by with the lights upon her cloak. She threw the cloak aside, but the lights had penetrated it, and adhered to her dress. She tore away the flimsy muslin, but they remained on the underwear; and when she plucked this away they were still left — three pale yellow spots upon the flesh. She tore at them with her fingers, till her nails made long red weals, but the fiendish spots remained. A man, hatless and coat-less, with three spots upon his shirt-front around a glittering diamond stud, seized her arm and hurried her away. Phyllis’s hold on me relaxed, and I found that she had fainted. I walked stealthily along the pavement, keeping in the shadow as much as I could, carrying her in my arms, and reached the Temple Station safely. The booking-clerk and ticket-collectors had fled, and I carried her down to the platform below.

  The people who had the yellow spots upon them were gathered at one end of the platform screaming, and trying to tear them from themselves and from one another. Those who had escaped attack were huddled together at the other end of the platform. A man with the spots upon him tried to join us, and refused to go away. Another man who stood before his children brandishing a big walking-stick felled him. Several women had fainted. A train hustled in, and we crowded wildly into the already crowded carriages, elbowing each other fiercely out of the way. A somber-looking man in a corner woke up and grumbled about the crowding, and asked what was the matter. Somebody told him that hell fire had dropped upon earth. He snorted and offered us some pamphlets upon “The Curse of Alcohol.” It is evident that the rest of the passengers also thought that we were all drunk.

  I got out at Blackfriars and carried Phyllis, who was still in the faint, into St. Paul’s Station. I tried to get some brandy from the buffet, but it was full of wailing people branded with the lights. They did not hurt, they said but they frightened them, because they would not come off: The lights penetrated the clothing and stuck to the skin; but when the clothing was removed they left no mark or rent upon it. In other words, it was the flesh on which they settled, but they showed through the clothing.

  I obtained half a pail full of water from the lavatory to bathe Phyllis’s hands and face, and she revived. She was very brave, and wished to try to help the sufferers, but I persuaded her that she could do no good. I would have run the risk of contact with them myself, but, of course, I could not let her.

  The officials assigned one end of the train to those who were attacked and their friends, and the other to those who were not, and we got back to Dulwich about twenty minutes after time. All the doctors of the locality were at the station, waiting for sufferers who had telegraphed for them. I did not stay to hear what they said, as Phyllis was very weak, and I thought it best to get her home Also, I confess, I was a little frightened of the light. Phyllis’s father pooh-poohed the matter as an optical delusion, and advised me to go home and get to bed, and I went.

  The morning’s paper, however, treated the matter very seriously, and gave two whole pages to it. The lights had appeared in most parts of the City and West End at about eleven o’clock; it stated, and had fastened upon people in the way I have described. There had been some hundreds of fatalities through panics in the crowds, and several persons had died of fright. Professor Morden, F.R.S., the great authority upon physical astronomy, considered that a disembodied asteroid, in the form of luminous vapor, had fallen upon the earth; and that, owing to chemical affinity for living tissues, its particles had adhered to the people with whom it came into contact. He could not explain why it, attacked only adult human beings, and not children, dogs or horses; but he was sure that it was too unsubstantial to do any real harm, and that the lights would fade away gradually. Dr. Maurice Ray, the specialist for skin diseases, held similar opinions, and pointed out that the perpetual dying out and regeneration of the tissues would in a short time, rid those who had been attacked from the objectionable spots. He gave a prescription for a lotion that would expedite this result.

  After calling to inquire about Phyllis, I went up to town by the train that should have started at 9:19. It was late owing to a special having been run to convey those who had been attacked by the lights to the London hospitals. At the Elephant and Castle we came into a swarm of the yellow spots, faintly visible in the light of day. A porter and three passengers had been attacked on the platform, and many people alighted to return by the next train. I went on, as I had an important business engagement. The lights were flitting about most of the streets in the City, but they bore no large proportion to the number of people. An early edition of the evening papers said that there was to be a question in the House, and that Dr Ray’s lotion had been issued to the police, so that they could render first aid to sufferers. A little later placards were stuck up, by order of the Home Office, directing those who were attacked to report themselves immediately to the nearest police-station.

  “In view of the uncertainty as to the effects of the plague lights, and their infectiousness or otherwise,” the placard said, “it is considered desirable that cases should be isolated and kept under observation. No permanent ill effects are, however, anticipated.”

  The lights, as I have said, were not very numerous, and they seemed to be flitting about like butterflies in search of something, rather than settling indiscriminately. Some of the newsboys were chivying them with their papers, and throwing their caps at them, and I went about all day without being attacked; but I saw at least a dozen people seized upon in the streets; and a man and woman who were together were branded at the restaurant during luncheon.

  The evening papers reported that pairs of the light-triangles appeared to have an affinity for one another, and to endeavor to attack couples, so that infected persons must be carefully avoided. The people who had been first attacked, the report said, were beginning to show signs of mental derangement, talking a strange gibberish, manifesting a marked antipathy to their former associates, unless these were also attacked, and frequently showing demonstrative affection to some one of their fellow sufferers of the opposite sex — “in which case the lights, which differ microscopically from one another in marking, are found to be identical.”

  “From the manner in which the plague lights select their victims,” the report went on, “and work in pairs, and from the forced, and often apparently u
nwilling attachment between the persons so attacked, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the lights are intelligent, but malevolent, beings, seeking to obtain an embodiment in human form; and that those which have been associated in their former sphere seek to associate those upon whom they seize here. It is noticed that, as the afflicted persons grow weaker, the spots grow larger and brighter. Dr. Lurnaker, the great philologist, maintains that the gibberish, which the sufferers frequently talk, manifests the characteristics of rational speech, and conjectures that it is inspired and understood by these evil visitants.”

  I found Phyllis sitting with her chin on her hand, a newspaper lying on the floor beside her. She was very pale, and she trembled a little in my arms.

  “If this evil has come upon the whole world;” she said, “it may come upon us, Frank. It will not matter so much if we are taken together. Promise me that, if you are attacked, you will come to me at once, so that the fellow lights may take me and no one else. I shall not flinch, or worry you with complaints, dear!”

  I promised what she asked, but, of course, I had no intention of keeping the promise until I knew how much or how little harm the lights did. I made her promise also that, if she were attacked first, she would come to me, but I fancied that she would not keep her promise either.

  I spent the evening at her house. About 10 o’clock her father came in with a late edition of the Evening Standard. They called it the “Plague Edition.” It stated that the lights had appeared in great force in Paris, Berlin, and New York, and to a less extent at all the great centers of life.

  In France the effects of the attack were much more rapid than elsewhere, probably owing to the excitable temperament of the people, and in several cases sufferers had died within a few hours. During the progress of the disease the lights grew in size and upon death detached themselves from the body. In some case the detached lights simply departed; in other instances they seized upon the doctors and nurses.

  Sufficient time had not elapsed to record the progress of these secondary attacks. ‘ In the primary cases the lights had grown as follows:

  Diameter of circles 7/8 inch to 3/8 inch.

  Thickness of circles 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch.

  The distance between the outer edges remained constant, so that the inside edges of the circles approached one another as they grew.

  The lights were unaffected by electricity, heat, or the action of any chemical agent which had been tried upon them; but they gave a dark skiagraph, like a solid substance, when photographed by the X-rays, from which it was inferred that they possessed substance, though of a kind unknown to us. The general theory was that they were disembodied spirits trying to reincarnate themselves in human bodies.

  In the morning my own newspaper did not appear, but I obtained one at the station, and learnt that the lights had spread all over England, and that many deaths seemed imminent. I started for town, but at Herne Hill I found that the up traffic had been suspended, and that extra down trains were being run to take home the people who had started earlier, many of whom had been attacked In most cases another set of lights was hovering about the sufferer, doubtless waiting for the second victim. A few who had been seized in pairs were holding one another’s hands, and some of these were talking in an unknown tongue, in which a phrase which may be represented in our characters as La-Lu-Le constantly recurred.*

  _____________________

  *Appendix LVI, of the Blue Books gives a few fragments of this speech and conjectural translations. It seems to be established beyond doubt that La-Lu-Le was a profession of affection, but its exact force is thought to have differed according to the syllable accented.

  _____________________

  The City was swarming with the lights, I heard, and a bright swarm of them was visible hanging over Brixton. People were running from that direction into Herne Hill. A hatless man with the lights on his vest was standing on the top of a cab outside the station praying aloud, and a crowd was kneeling in the street.

  As I could not get into a train I walked back to Dulwich, and went to Phyllis. People were leaving their houses, in cabs or on foot, for the country. Probably we should have fled likewise, but her mother was ailing and unable to be moved. I did not ask her. Her father had started for town earlier than I. He did not return, and we never heard of him again. Many people disappeared like that in those days.

  An early evening edition, hastily printed on a small portion of a single half-sheet, related that all the hospitals and public buildings in town were full of sufferers, and that whole streets had been commandeered for those who were crowded out. A local Plague Committee was hastily formed to make arrangements in West Dulwich. I offered my services, and worked all the morning at getting one of the houses in order, and laying in provisions, etc. As I was going back to Phyllis’s to lunch, along Thurlow Park Road, Doris Fane rushed out from her house. She had the triangle of lights upon her blouse, and another was fluttering behind her. They were much the same color as her pale yellow hair. She was white and half distracted with fear, and she ran to me and clung to my arm. We had always been friends, and I think, if I hadn’t met Phyllis, I should have grown fond of her.

  “See!” She cried, pointing to the light following behind her — “See! It is looking for its mate. He will be my lover, when it finds him. I shouldn’t be so frightened if it were you. Didn’t you know that I cared for you, Frank? I can tell you now, because I am going to die. Take them away-Oh! Take them away!” She tore wildly at the fiendish lights upon her breast.

  The other lights hovered around me — brushed my arm. I closed my eyes and shuddered. It was the thought that Phyllis would wait for me, look for me in vain, that frightened me most; but when I opened my eyes again, the lights were fluttering away, up the hill, towards the high school. Doris released her hold upon my arm and followed them slowly, looking backward with her eyes fixed on me.

  I went on to Phyllis’s house in Croxted Road. A number of the lights were flitting about the road. When they came near me I ran. I did not hope to escape them, but I wanted to get to Phyllis first. When I reached her gate I heard Dr. Hallam’s voice through the open window. We had been rivals for Phyllis, and I had won. He was a better man than I, but there is no accounting for a woman’s fancy.

  “Let them take me too,” he cried. “I am willing to die with you. I always loved you Phyllis.”

  “Hush!” She said gently. “Hush! I love Frank. I always shall while I am myself.” Then she saw me and flung out her arms, and I saw the yellow spots on her dress. They looked like golden ornaments; and the others looked like a halo of stars over her dark hair. “Frank! Frank! Run away, dear. It has taken me. It wants you — the other one. You are safe from the rest. I know. Run away from me and you will be saved. God bless you, dear!”

  I vaulted in at the window and took her in my arms. I did not notice when the other lights settled on me, or anything but the tears in her eyes. She smiled at me through them. Presently I looked down and found the three yellow spots on my breast. They did not burn, or hurt in any way, but they seemed to be drawing my very soul out of me. After a few moments Hallam came up and touched my arm.

  “You must go to the hospital,” he said huskily, “both of you. I will come quickly and do what I can. I will arrange with the nurse to look after your mother, Phyllis. I was mad just now, and you must forget. I don’t think it’s much use, the treatment that they recommend, but I’ll try it. I’d save you for one another if I could. Anyhow, you are together. You are lucky.”

  We went together to the hospital. It was in the high school and the houses adjoining it. A number of fellow-sufferers were there, and others were thronging in. Those who came singly were excited and restless, and some of them called wildly for their stars — meaning, doubtless, the “mates” of the lights that had seized upon them. Those who were in pairs mostly behaved like lovers, as some of them had previously been, we knew. Some, however, were evidently strangers, or unfriendly. These w
ere sullen, or reviled one another.

  We found a quiet corner in a garden, and sat there for a time holding hands. We did not feel any pain or illness, only very weak; and I think, perhaps, this was the effect of excitement rather than the stars. At length it occurred to me that we could help those who were more afflicted than we. So we went in again. We found Hallam and Doris Fane sitting together in the hall, looking at one another with set faces — hers flushed and angry, his pale and grave. The twin lights had bound her and him!

  We went a little nearer to speak to them, and I felt the lights leap on my breast. At the same moment Phyllis started and seized my hand, and he and Doris suddenly rose.

  “Frank!” Phyllis cried. “His stars are calling mine. Don’t let them take me from you.”

  “They shall not take you,” I said; and I seemed to hear the lights that held me hiss. Then we walked up to them and shook hands. And a struggle took place that I cannot describe or wholly understand, but I know.

  I cannot give any reason for the thing that saved us, but I know. So does Phyllis. So do Hallam and Doris. The twin lights that held us four had been wrongly mated. Mine wanted those of Doris, and hers wanted mine. Hallam’s wanted those of Phyllis, and hers wanted his. But they were bound otherwise, and having seized upon us they could not leave us, and struggling to leave us they did not take any great hold upon us or do us any great harm. That is how I have escaped to write these things.