The Best Horror Stories of

by Robert E. Howard

  "Come on!" said he. "God knows what lurks in the hellish grave--but we've got to find out. The old man was overwrought--a prey to his own fears. His heart was none too strong. Anything might have caused his death. Are you with me?"

  What terror of a tangible and understood menace can equal that of menace unseen and nameless? But I nodded consent, and Conrad picked up the flashlight, snapped it on, and grunted pleasure that it was not broken. Then we approached the tomb as men might approach the lair of a serpent. My gun was cocked in my hand as Conrad thrust open the door. His light played swiftly over the dank walls, dusty floor and vaulted roof, to come to rest on the lidless coffin which stood on its stone pedestal in the center. This we approached with drawn breath, not daring to conjecture what eldritch horror might meet our eyes. With a quick intake of breath, Conrad flashed his light into it. A cry escaped each of us; the coffin was empty.

  "My God!" I whispered. "Job was right! But where is the--the vampire?"

  "No empty coffin frightened the life out of Job Kiles' body," answered Conrad. "His last words were

  'the thing in the coffin.' Something was in it--something the sight of which extinguished Job Kiles' life like a blown-out candle."

  "But where is it?" I asked uneasily, a most ghastly thrill playing up and down my spine. "It could not have emerged from the tomb without our having seen it. Was it something that can make itself invisible at will?

  Is it squatting unseen in the tomb with us here at this instant?"

  "Such talk is madness," snapped Conrad, but with a quick instinctive glance over his shoulder to right and left. Then he added, "Do you notice a faint repulsive odor about this coffin?"

  "Yes, but I can't define it."

  "Nor I. It isn't exactly a charnel-house reek. It's an earthy, reptilian sort of smell. It reminds me faintly of scents I've caught in mines far below the surface of the earth. It clings to the coffin--as if some unholy being out of the deep earth had lain there."

  He ran the light over the walls again, and halted it suddenly, focusing it on the back wall, which was cut out of the sheet rock of the hill on which the tomb was built.

  "Look!"

  In the supposedly solid wall showed a long thin aperture! With one stride Conrad reached it, and together we examined it. He pushed cautiously on the section of the wall nearest it, and it gave inward silently, opening on such blackness as I had not dreamed existed this side of the grave. We both involuntarily recoiled, and stood tensely, as if expecting some horror of the night to spring out at us. Then Conrad's short laugh was like a dash of icy water on taut nerves.

  "At least the occupant of the tomb uses an un-supernatural means of entrance and exit," he said. "This secret door was constructed with extreme care, evidently. See, it is merely a large upright block of stone that turns on a pivot. And the silence with which it works shows that the pivot and sockets have been oiled recently."

  He directed his beam into the pit behind the door, and it disclosed a narrow tunnel running parallel to the door-sill, plainly cut into the solid rock of the hill. The sides and floor were smooth and even, the roof arched.

  Conrad drew back, turning to me.

  "O'Donnel, I seem to sense something dark and sinister indeed, here, and I feel sure it possesses a human agency. I feel as if we had stumbled upon a black, hidden river, running under our very feet.

  Whither it leads, I can not say, but I believe the power behind it all is Jonas Kiles. I believe that old Job did see his brother at the window tonight."

  "But empty tomb or not, Conrad, Jonas Kiles is dead."

  "I think not. I believe he was in a self-induced state of catalepsy, such as is practiced by Hindu Fakirs. I have seen a few cases, and would have sworn they were really dead. They have discovered the secret of suspended animation at will, despite scientists and skeptics. Jonas Kiles lived several years in India, and he must have learned that secret, somehow.

  "The open coffin, the tunnel leading from the tomb--all point to the belief that he was alive when he was placed here. For some reason he wished people to believe him to be dead. It may be the whim of a disordered mind. It may have a deeper and darker significance. In the light of his appearance to his brother and Job's death, I lean to the latter view, but just now my suspicions are too horrible and fantastic to put into words. But I intend to explore this tunnel. Jonas may be hiding in it somewhere. Are you with me? Remember, the man may be a homicidal maniac, or if not, he may be more dangerous even than a madman."

  "I'm with you," I grunted, though my flesh crawled at the prospect of plunging into that nighted pit. "But what about that scream we heard as we passed the Point? That was no feigning of agony! And what was the thing Job saw in the coffin?"

  "I don't know. It might have been Jonas, garbed in some hellish disguise. I'll admit there is much mystery attached to this matter, even if we accept the theory that Jonas is alive and behind it all. But we'll look into that tunnel. Help me lift Job. We can't leave him lying here like this. We'll put him in the coffin."

  And so we lifted Job Kiles and laid him in the coffin of the brother he had hated, where he lay with his glassy eyes staring from his frozen grey features. As I looked at him, the dirge of the wind seemed to echo his words in my ears: "On! On to the tomb!" And his path had indeed led him to the tomb.

  Conrad led the way through the secret door, which we left open. As we moved into that black tunnel I had a moment of sheer panic, and I was glad that the heavy outer door of the tomb was not furnished with a spring-lock, and that Conrad had in his pocket the only key with which the ponderous lock could be fastened. I had an uneasy feeling that the demoniac Jonas might make fast the door, leaving us sealed in the tomb until Judgment Day.

  The tunnel seemed to run, roughly, east and west, following the outer line of the hill. We took the left-hand turn--toward the east--and moved along cautiously, shining the light ahead of us.

  "This tunnel was never cut by Jonas Kiles," whispered Conrad. "It has a very air of antiquity about it--look!"

  Another dark doorway appeared on our right. Conrad directed his beam through it, disclosing another, narrower passage. Other doorways opened into it on both sides.

  "It's a regular network," I muttered. "Parallel corridors connected by smaller tunnels. Who'd have guessed such a thing lay under the Dagoth Hills?"

  "How did Jonas Kiles discover it?" wondered Conrad. "Look, there's another doorway on our right--and another--and another! You're right--it's a veritable network of tunnels. Who in heaven's name dug them? They must be the work of some unknown prehistoric race. But this particular corridor has been used recently. See how the dust is disturbed on the floor? All the doorways are on the right, none on the left. This corridor follows the outer line of the hill, and there must be an outlet somewhere along it.

  Look!"

  We were passing the opening of one of the dark intersecting tunnels, and Conrad had flashed his light on the wall beside it. There we saw a crude arrow marked in red chalk, pointed down the smaller corridor.

  "That can't lead to the outside," I muttered. "It plunges deeper into the guts of the hill."

  "Let's follow it, anyway," answered Conrad. "We can find our way back to this outer tunnel easily."

  So down with it we went, crossing several other larger corridors, and at each finding the arrow, still pointing the way we were going. Conrad's thin beam seemed almost lost in that dense blackness, and nameless forebodings and instinctive fears haunted me as we plunged deeper and deeper into the heart of that accursed hill. Suddenly the tunnel ended abruptly in a narrow stair that led down and vanished in the darkness. An involuntary shudder shook me as I looked down those carven steps. What unholy feet had padded them in forgotten ages? Then we saw something else--a small chamber opening onto the tunnel, just at the head of the stair. And as Conrad flashed his light into it, an involuntary exclamation burst from my lips. There was no occupant, but plenty of evidence of recent occupation. We entered and stood following the pl
ay of the thin finger of light.

  That the chamber had been furnished for human occupancy was not so astonishing, in the light of our previous discoveries, but we stood aghast at the condition of the contents. A camp cot lay on its side, broken, the blankets strewn over the rocky floor in ragged strips. Books and magazines were torn to bits and scattered aimlessly about, cans of food lay carelessly about, battered and bent, some burst and the contents spilled. A lamp lay smashed on the floor.

  "A hideout for somebody," said Conrad. "And I'll stake my head it's Jonas Kiles. But what a chaos!

  Look at those cans, apparently burst open by having been struck against the rock floor--and those blankets, torn in strips, as a man might rip a piece of paper. Good God, O'Donnel, no human being could work such havoc!"

  "A madman might," I muttered. "What's that?"

  Conrad had stopped and picked up a notebook. He held it up to his light.

  "Badly torn," he grunted. "But here's luck, anyway. It's Jonas Kiles' diary! I know his handwriting.

  Look, this last page is intact, and it's dated today! Positive proof that he's alive, were other proof lacking."

  "But where is he?" I whispered, looking fearfully about. "And why all this devastation?"

  "The only thing I can think of," said Conrad, "is that the man was at least partly sane when he entered these caverns, but has since become insane. We'd best be alert--if he is mad, it's altogether possible that he might attack us in the dark."

  "I've thought of that," I growled with an involuntary shudder. "It's a pretty thought--a madman lurking in these hellish black tunnels to spring on our backs. Go ahead--read the diary while I keep an eye on the door."

  "I'll read the last entry," said Conrad. "Perhaps it will throw some light on the subject."

  And focussing the light on the cramped scrawl, he read: "All is now in readiness for my grand coup.

  Tonight I leave this retreat forever, nor will I be sorry, for the eternal darkness and silence are beginning to shake even my iron nerves. I am becoming imaginative. Even as I write, I seem to hear stealthy sounds, as of things creeping up from below, although I have not seen so much as a bat or a snake in these tunnels. But tomorrow I will have taken up my abode in the fine house of my accursed brother.

  While he--and it is a jest so rare I regret that I can not share it with someone--he will take my place in the cold darkness--darker and colder than even these dark tunnels.

  "I must write, if I can not speak of it, for I am thrilled by my own cleverness. What diabolical cunning is mine! With what devilish craft have I plotted and prepared! Not the least was the way in which, before my 'death'--ha! ha! ha! if the fools only knew--I worked on my brother's superstitions--dropping hints and letting fall cryptic remarks. He always looked on me as a tool of the Evil One. Before my final 'illness' he trembled on the verge of belief that I had become supernatural or infernal. Then on my 'death-bed' when I poured my full fury upon him, his fright was genuine. I know that he is fully convinced that I am a vampire. Well do I know my brother. I am as certain as if I saw him, that he fled his home and prepared a stake to drive through my heart. But he will not make a move until he is sure that what he suspects is true.

  "This assurance I will lend him. Tonight I will appear at his window. I will appear and vanish. I do not want to kill him with fright, because then my plans would be set at naught. I know that when he recovers from his first fright, he will come to my tomb to destroy me with his stake. And when he is safely in the tomb, I will kill him. I will change garments with him--lay him safely in the tomb, in the open coffin--and steal back to his fine house. We resemble each other enough, so that, with my knowledge of his ways and mannerisms, I can mimic him to perfection. Besides, who would ever suspect? It is too bizarre--too utterly fantastic. I will take up his life where he left off. People may wonder at the change in Job Kiles, but it will go no further than wondering. I will live and die in my brother's shoes, and when the real death comes to me--may it be long deferred!--I will lie in state in the old Kiles vaults, with the name of Job Kiles on my headstone, while the real Job sleeps unguessed in the old tomb on Pirate Hill! Oh, it is a rare, rare jest!

  "I wonder how old Jacob Kiles discovered these subterranean ways. He did not construct them. They were carved out of dim caverns and solid rock by the hands of forgotten men--how long ago I dare not venture a conjecture. While hiding here, waiting for the time to be ripe, I have amused myself by exploring them. I have found that they are far more extensive than I had suspected. The hills must be honeycombed with them, and they sink into the earth to an incredible depth, tier below tier, like the stories of a building, each tier connected with the one below by a single stairway. Old Jacob Kiles must have used these tunnels, at least those of the upper tier, for the storing of plunder and contraband. He built the tomb to mask his real activities, and of course, cut the secret entrance and hung the door-stone on the pivot. He must have discovered the burrows by means of the hidden entrance at Smuggler's Point.

  The old door he constructed there was a mere mass of rotting splinters and rusty metal when I found it.

  As no one ever discovered it, after him, it is not likely anyone will find the new door I built with my own hands, to replace the old one. Still, I will take the proper precautions in due time.

  "I have wondered much as to the identity of the race which must once have inhabited these labyrinths. I have found no bones or skulls, though I have discovered, in the upper tier, curiously hardened copper implements. On the next few stories I found stone implements, down to the tenth tier, where they disappeared. Also, on the topmost tier I found portions of walls decorated with paintings, greatly faded, but evidencing undoubted skill. These picture-paintings I found on all the tiers down to, and including, the fifth, though each tier's decorations were cruder than those of the one above, until the last paintings were mere meaningless daubs, such as an ape might make with a paintbrush. Also, the stone implements were much cruder on the lower levels, as was the workmanship of the roofs, stairs, doorways, etc. One gets a fantastic impression of an emprisoned race burrowing deeper and deeper into the black earth, century by century, and losing more and more of their human attributes as they sank to each new level.

  "The fifteenth tier is without rhyme or reason, the tunnels running aimlessly, without apparent plan--so striking a contrast to the top-most tier, which is a triumph of primitive architecture, that it is difficult to believe them to have been constructed by the same race. Many centuries must have elapsed between the building of the two tiers, and the builders must have become greatly degraded. But the fifteenth tier is not the end of these mysterious burrows.

  "The doorway opening on the single stairway at the bottom of the lowest tier was blocked by stones which had fallen from the roof--probably hundreds of years ago, before old Captain Jacob discovered the tunnels. Prompted by curiosity, I cleared away the debris, in spite of the tax it was on my strength, and opened a hole in the heap this very day, although I did not have time to explore what lay beneath.

  Indeed, I doubt if I could do so, for my light showed me, not the usual series of stone stairs, but a steep smooth shaft, leading down into the blackness. An ape or a serpent might pass up and down it, but not a human being. Into what unthinkable pits it leads, I do not care to even try to guess. For some reason, the realization that the fifteenth tier was not the ultimate boundary of the labyrinths was a shock. The sight of the unstepped shaft gave me a strangely creepy feeling, and led me to fantastic conjectures regarding the ultimate fate of the race which once lived in these hills. I had supposed the diggers, sinking lower and lower in the scale of life, had become extinct in the lower tiers, although I had not found any remains to justify my theories. The lower tiers do not lie in almost solid rock as do those nearer the surface. They are cut into black earth and a very soft sort of stone, and were apparently scooped out with the most primitive utensils; they even appear in places to have been dug out with fingers and nails. It mig
ht be the burrowings of animals, except for the evident attempt to imitate the more orderly systems above. But below the fifteenth tier, as I could see, even by my superficial investigations from above, all mimicry ceases; the diggings below the fifteenth tier are mad and brutish pits, and to what blasphemous depths they descend, I have no wish to know.

  "I am haunted by fantastic speculations as to the identity of the race which literally sunk into the earth and disappeared in its black depths, so long ago. A legend persisted among Indians of this vicinity that many centuries before the coming of the white men, their ancestors drove a strange alien race into the caverns of Dagoth Hills, and sealed them up to perish. That they did not perish, but survived somehow for at least several centuries, is evident. Who they were, whence they came, what was their ultimate fate, will never be known. Anthropologists might glean some evidence from the paintings on the upper tier, but I do not intend that anyone shall ever know about these burrows. Some of these dim pictures depict unmistakable Indians, at war with men evidently of the same race as the artists. These models, I should venture to say, resembled the Caucasian type rather than the Indian.

  "But the time approaches for my call on my beloved brother. I will go forth by the door in Smuggler's Point, and return the same way. I will reach the tomb before my brother, however quickly he comes--as come I know he will. Then when the deed is done, I will go forth from the tomb, and no man shall ever set foot in these corridors again. For I shall see that the tomb is never opened, and a convenient dynamite-blast shall shake down enough rocks from the cliffs above to effectually seal the door in Smuggler's Point forever."

  Conrad slipped the notebook into his pocket.

  "Mad or sane," he said grimly, "Jonas Kiles is a proper devil. I am not greatly surprised, but I am slightly shocked. What a hellish plot! But he erred in one thing: he apparently took it for granted that Job would come to the tomb alone. The fact that he did not was sufficient to upset his calculations."

  "Ultimately," I answered. "Yet inasfar as Job is concerned, Jonas has succeeded in his fiendish plan--he managed to kill his brother somehow. Evidently he was in the tomb when Job entered. He frightened him to death somehow, then, evidently realizing our presence, slipped away through the secret door."