by Cave, Hugh
But the glove compartment, like the trunk, yielded nothing.
Who was he? Where was he? How long would the pounding in his head, apparently caused by the bruise on his forehead, keep him in the dark about these things?
Anyway, he had to walk out of here and get help somewhere. There was no way he could use the car. Where was the road?
The car ought to tell him that, at least. It must have run off a road into this grove of trees, so the road should be behind the red glow of its taillights. Not too far behind, either, or the machine would have hit something else before slamming into the tree here.
Had he simply lost control while driving? A blackout? Or had another driver forced him off the road and then gone on without even stopping to help him? And what time was it, by the way? He had a feeling there ought to be a watch on his left wrist, but there wasn't. Had he been robbed after wrecking the car?
Start walking, he told himself. Just pray there's a house nearby, where you can phone for a doctor and a wrecker.
With both arms outthrust like the antennae of a night-prowling insect, he struggled on through the dark and came to a ditch. On the far side of that was a two-lane blacktop road. A pale moon shone feebly through cloud gaps above it.
Judging by the position of the car, he must have been coming from the left. Had he passed any houses? He didn't remember any. Better go the other way, then.
As he turned to his right and began walking along the road's edge, the lights of the wrecked car were still visible behind him, among the trees.
For two miles or more there was nothing. No car passed him in either direction. There were no houses. Wherever this road was, it obviously was little used. Then he came to a pair of old stone gateposts that somehow seemed familiar, flanking the start of an unpaved drive or private road that disappeared among tall trees. Beside one post was an old wooden mailbox. In the dark he had to lean close to make out the name on it.
EVEROL.
He stood there frowning at it—gratefully resting, too, because he had not stopped walking since leaving the car. Had he heard the name Everol before? Something far back in his mind, behind the pounding, said he had but supplied no details.
Strange, he thought; I don't know my own name. I don't know where I am or whose car I was driving. But I feel I ought to know who this Everol is.
It was encouraging, at least. Perhaps on coming face to face with the people who lived here, he would remember more. As he straightened from his slouch against the mailbox and went plodding along the drive, he felt his burden of despair lighten a little.
When he saw lights at last, they were the windows of a house far in from the road. A huge house, old and brooding. Two of the windows lit up a long veranda and showed him the steps. Certain he had never seen the house before, he climbed to the door with a strong feeling that he should not be doing so. Then he wondered whether he should be honest about not knowing who he was. What would he do if some hurt stranger appeared out of the dark and said, "Please help me. I've been in an accident; I don't know who I am or where I'm from or where I was going at the time it happened"? Would he let such a person in or quickly lock the door and call the police?
I could give myself a name, he thought. But unable to think of one that sounded right, he put his thumb against the bell button while his mind was still blank.
There was a buzzing sound inside, followed by the sound of slow footsteps on a wooden floor. How should he respond if the person coming to the door asked, "What do you want?"
The door opened. He found himself face-to-face with a small, white-haired woman who simply stood there frowning at him.
Recalling the name on the mailbox, he said, "Mrs. Everol?"
"Yes, I am Blanche Everol. Are you Mr. Gordon? We've been expecting you."
Gordon. That, too, seemed to be a name he ought to know, just as Everol was. Should he claim to be Gordon until he had a chance to tell them the truth? No, no, that could lead to trouble. Better be honest from the start.
"To be truthful, Mrs. Everol, I don't know who I am at the moment." Feeling weak again, as he had at the mailbox, he put a hand against the door frame to steady himself. "I've had an accident with my car. May I use your telephone to call for help, please?"
She came closer to peer at him. "Accident?"
"About two miles down the road. I don't know what happened. When I came to, the car was on its side in a grove of trees and I had this bump on my head."
She gazed at the bruise he pointed to. "It looks nasty. Yes, you can use our phone, I suppose. Come with me."
Closing the door behind him, he trailed her down a dim hall to a wide archway on the right, and through that into a living room. To his surprise, three of its half-dozen overstuffed chairs were occupied by persons at least as old as his guide. Their attire was old, too, and decidedly old-fashioned.
Mrs. Everol said to the others, "This man says he isn't Mr. Gordon. He's been hurt in a car accident and doesn't know who he is."
The three gazed at him with such intensity that he was tempted to turn and run. Two were women. The third was a tall man with snow-white hair and a wasted face that somehow resembled a skull.
"Don't you have a driver's license, mister?" The man's voice had the gritty timbre of sandpaper sheets being rubbed together.
"No. Or anything else with a name on it. Someone emptied my pockets while I was unconscious."
"Looks like you're in big trouble."
"I want to call a doctor. If I might use your phone—"
"Who you aim to call?"
"If you folks know of a doctor who lives within reach—"
"Won't be none willin' to come out here at this hour, mister." The man jabbed a bony finger at an old brass clock on a marble-topped table. "It's past eleven. We'd be in bed if we weren't expecting Mr. Gordon."
Jeff was startled. Past eleven? How long had he been unconscious there in the woods?
"You better forget about any doctor tonight," the man said. His gaze flicked to the woman who had opened the door, then to the others. "To look at him, I'd say what this man needs most is a good night's rest, wouldn't you? I don't know why we can't let him bed down in Jacob's room. Then if he wants to be looked at in the morning, we can call someone." After a pause, during which the three women exchanged glances in silence, he added in a voice sharp with impatience, "Well, Amanda? Susan?"
"I—suppose it would be all right, Everett," one of the seated women replied with seeming reluctance.
"Jacob's room, Everett?" The other actually whispered the words.
"That what I said. Jacob's room." Everol's raspy tone implied he was the head of the household and would tolerate a discussion, perhaps, but no real argument.
Trying to sort them out, Jeff studied the four in a haze of perplexity. Apparently the man was Everol, first name Everett. The woman who had come to the door was his wife, Blanche. One of the other two—tall, white-haired, with a face full of hollows—looked enough like Everett to be his sister. The other, the one who had whispered, "Jacob's room, Everett?" was tiny, like Blanche, and might be her sister.
Was this the whole household? And was the absent Jacob yet another member of this strange, old-world clan?
Everol, he thought. Everett Everol. Why did the name seem to tug at his memory so? And the other names, too. Where could he have heard them before?
Skull-face turned to him. 'Well, mister, what you say? You agree what you most need right now is a good night's sleep?"
"With all due respect, sir, I'd prefer to see a doctor," Jeff protested. "If you don't know one who might make a house call, do you—is there a cab I could call to take me to one?"
"No taxicab in this town, mister."
"What town is this, please?"
"Nearest one is Clandon."
"What state?"
"What state? Florida, o' course. Where you think you are?"
"I didn't know." But the name Clandon had come close to ringing a bell in Jeff's mind. Clandon, Flor
ida? Yes. If he asked a few more questions.
But he was afraid to do that. These people already suspected him of being unstable.
"Well. . . if I can't get to a doctor, perhaps you're right in saying a good night's sleep would be best."
"That's settled, then." Everol pushed himself out of his chair. He was even taller than he had appeared to be when seated. His feet were bare, Jeff noticed for the first time. In long-legged black pants that were held up by gray suspenders, and a long-sleeved white shirt that was patched in places, he could have passed for a scarecrow. "Blanche," he said to his smaller but equally plain wife, "why'n't you fix this feller some hot soup while I show him upstairs? When it's ready, you just bring it on up." He turned to Jeff. "Mister Whoever-you-are, you just follow me, if you will."
Jeff trailed the man up a wide flight of stairs, the carpeting on them almost black with age, and along an upstairs hall to the rear of the house.
Halting before the last of several doors, Everol produced a ring of keys and inserted one into an opening under the porcelain knob. Strange, Jeff thought with a touch of apprehension. How many people kept bedroom doors locked, even when their occupants were absent?
The click of a switch under Everol's thumb caused a lamp on a bedside table to glow. The room was larger than Jeff had expected, but this was a big old house, and probably all its rooms were spacious. This one had two windows in the wall facing the door and two more in the wall to his left. The bed was a massive four-poster of dark mahogany. Completing the furnishings were two huge dressers, a bedside table, and two bedroom-type chairs with faded rosebuds on their floor-length skirts of chintz.
"Bed's all made up," the tall man said in his sandpaper voice. "Be a good idea for you to get right into it, I should think. You look mighty peaked."
"Are you sure this won't inconvenience you, Mr. Everol?"
"No trouble at all."
"You said this is Jacob's room. Are you—"
"He don't use it now. Let me get you somethin' to sleep in." Striding to a dresser, Everol dropped to one knee to ease open its bottom drawer. "Reckon these'll fit you good enough. You're about his height and build." He placed a pair of short-sleeved gray pajamas on the bed and turned to peer at Jeff again. "You'll find a razor and shave cream in the top drawer there. While you're makin' ready for bed, I'll just go see what's holdin' up the soup I told my wife to fix you. The bathroom's down the hall to your left."
He went out, leaving the door open. But he was back again by the time Jeff had the pajamas on. On the bedside table he placed an old metal tray advertising Coca-Cola on which were a covered bowl and some sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper.
"Thank you," Jeff said. "I really am hungry."
"But still don't know who you are, eh?"
"No, not yet. But it will come, I'm sure."
"Maybe while you sleep," Everol said on his way to the door. "Things do sometimes. All sorts of things."
This time he shut the door behind him.
Chapter Four
Seated on a chair beside the bed, Jeff gratefully consumed his bedtime snack. Both the soup and the sandwiches were of chicken; the soup was homemade. After a trip along the hall to the bathroom, where the plumbing was as old as he had expected, he turned down the four-poster, got into it, and by switching off the lamp on the bedside table plunged the room into darkness.
Not complete darkness, however. As his eyes adjusted, faint moonlight filtering through the windows brought the furnishings into focus again. The night sky must be clearing.
That was comforting. He had been telling himself he did not trust this room or this house or these people, and was not sure he ought to risk going to sleep here.
Dear God, if only he could remember who he was and what he was supposed to be doing. And why did he feel he had been in this very room before, or at least had had it described to him?
For a time he lay without moving, his eyes wide open, the only sound that of his own breathing. Were the people in the living room downstairs talking about him, discussing his unexpected appearance at their door and his puzzling condition? They must be if they were normally curious folk, but he heard no voices. Perhaps, though, nothing but a very loud noise would pass through the heavy plank floor of this room and the faded, many-colored hooked rug that covered two thirds of it. What kind of planks were they? Not pine. Cypress, maybe? He seemed to have read somewhere that cypress floors were often used in old Florida houses.
Why had he been reading about old Florida houses?
But now he did hear something. He heard a car being started, and the sound seemed to come from below the windows at the side of the room. Sliding out of bed, he hurried barefoot to one of them and peered out through a pane of bubbly glass.
Yes, a car. A car in an old wooden barn that obviously served at least partly as a garage. The doors were open and the car's lights were on. Its taillights seemed to stare out like the red eyes of a crouching animal. Farther inside, its headlights created a mist of yellow.
As he watched, the machine crept out of the barn in reverse and made a turn on a patch of bare earth in front, then growled out toward the road.
To go where at this time of night? Probably to look for the car I was driving, Jeff thought. To see if I told the truth about having an accident. And if he finds the car and isn't stupid, he'll take down the license number and phone the police.
But all right. If Everol does that, the police will contact their counterparts in Connecticut and learn who owns the car, won't they? And since it probably belongs to me, I'll find out who I am when they come here to talk to me about it.
Good. Except that I should have had sense enough to take down the license number and call the police myself. Or memorize it, rather, since I didn't have anything to write it down with.
Anyway, Everol is not a threat; he's only trying to help. So. . . go back to bed and hope there is still some life in the car's battery and the lights are still on.
In bed he closed his eyes this time and courted sleep by breathing slowly and deeply. When this failed, he forced his mind to repeat over and over, "Who am I? Why am I here?"
It was like counting sheep. After a while he dozed.
And began dreaming.
The dream seemed to be faintly familiar, like the name Everol and the name Gordon—they had asked him if his name was Gordon, hadn't they?—and certain aspects of this house, this room. The room, in fact, was part of it. In the dream he was staring at the very window from which he had seen the car being driven out of the barn.
Something was in motion outside that window now. Something so big it filled the whole aperture. A bird? He had a feeling it ought to be a bird, a huge one, perhaps a huge black vulture.
But no, it was not a bird. It had a mouth, not a beak. A mouth like that of a snake, with a red tongue that kept flicking out to touch the glass. But no snake he had ever seen was that big or that. . . What was the right word? Prehistoric? If real, this thing must be a re-creation of some monstrous creature that had lived on earth thousands of years ago.
Now the jaws were agape and he saw the fangs. God in heaven, they were like stalagmites in a cave! And as the creature's head came closer to the window, swaying from side to side as though preparing to strike at him through the glass, it was so much bigger than the aperture that all he could see was an endless, waxy-white tunnel of throat down which he would be sucked and swallowed after the fangs shot their venom into him.
But wait. Wait. He was not just lying in bed mesmerized, waiting for that to happen. No, by God. In the dream he was out of bed and striding to the window. He was standing before the window on widespread legs, with his right hand outstretched to touch the lower sash. His finger was tracing a design on the glass.
A triangle? Five triangles? No—it was a five-pointed star, a pentagram. And though the glass intervened, his finger seemed to be tracing the design in the very throat of the monstrous snake-thing that was poised there to hurl itself at him.
Now on the upper sash his finger drew a second such star. And with that one finished, he straightened before the window and became a pentagram himself, his feet still wide apart, his arms outstretched, his head the focal point of power. How did he know that a pentagram could be a force for good against evil and might protect him? Where had such knowledge come from?
In the dream he stood there staring down the throat of the snake-thing outside the glass, a sentry on guard at the window, defiant. Then, with a hiss of rage that made the whole window clatter in its frame, the monster drew back.
The red tongue flicked a final time and was withdrawn. The jaws snapped shut. Slowly, very slowly, the hideous head retreated into outer darkness until only the glitter of its eyes remained visible. Then that, too, was gone.
Suddenly weak, Jeff clutched at the windowsill to keep from falling. Had he seen the thing or only dreamed it? Was he standing at the window or still in bed asleep?
A snake. He had seen a huge snake. Not a real one, surely, but a monstrous thing in a nightmare. Like the vulture.
Was he the one who had seen the vulture? No, no, that had been a woman. A woman named Ethel Everol.
Everol. People in this house were named Everol, too, weren't they? Was Ethel one of the women downstairs?
No. They were Blanche, Amanda, and Susan. But she was related to them somehow. And she had told someone named Dr. Walther, who had talked to her at some institution where she was now confined, that she had seen the vulture twice, first at a window of her brother Jacob's room the night he was so horribly killed, then at a window of her own room before she was put away.
Brother Jacob. This was Jacob's room.
Think, man. Think! You know about this house. It's a house of horror.
Get out of it, for God's sake! Now!
Chapter Five
"Mister, you awake?"
He must have passed out on the floor. The sandpaper voice came to him from the doorway, and the room was gray with daylight. He still wore the borrowed pajamas. The dead man's pajamas. Jacob's.