Tales of the Grotesque: A Collection of Uneasy Tales

by L. A. Lewis

  'He shuddered, but, still keeping his eyes averted, edged himself a few feet away, hoping to entice her into the direct light of the lamp. Before he had time to test the success of his ruse he was shaken by a fleeting glimpse of a second white figure just visible in the corner of his other eye. He ripped out a startled oath, and involuntarily turned to face this new arrival. Nothing was visible but the bare stonework and the floor littered with wood-shavings; though he could have sworn to the existence of that second figure, deathly white as the first, but bearing the hirsute stamp of masculinity.

  'Yet could he swear to the existence of either?

  'Exercising tremendous self-control, he again riveted his attention on a blank piece of wall, and immediately became aware of white-limbed movement on either side of him. He rose to his feet and deliberately made a complete revolution, his eyes taking in the unrelieved bareness of each wall as he faced them in turn. But all the time white, weaving figures mocked the corners of his eyes. Good heavens! The cellar must be teeming with these things which he could only half see!

  'He resolved to make a new test. Were these forms tangible? Once more, but closer now, a hand was beckoning on his extreme right. He reached sideways towards it, felt his fingers taken in a firm but ice-cold grip, and, resist as he would, had to turn his head. His hand retained the sensation of being clasped by another, but of this not even the outline was visible, though he could see white indentations of pressure upon his own fingers. He tried to snatch it away, but instantly another set of fingers closed upon his wrist, and he felt his palm drawn caressingly over the chill but pulsating contour of a woman’s breast. Then wet lips, hot and passionate as the limbs were cold, pressed fiercely upon his own!

  'Lester said afterwards that even curiosity left him after that burning salute. For all he cared the cellar might be peopled by a thousand ghosts. He felt the nude form that he could not see sink to the floor at his feet and draw him down beside her. A languid contentment filled him, and for a while he seems to have slept.

  'A period of total oblivion was succeeded by one of half-conscious drowsing during which, lying with eyes half closed, he was aware of much agitated movement about the frame which he had built, and in the tail of his eye it looked as if several of the pallid creatures were grouped about it in attitudes of admiration, stroking it with their hands and making gleeful gestures. They seemed perfectly cognizant of its purpose, and were even testing it, tugging at the thongs and raising and lowering it by the ropes. Needless to say, as soon as he looked towards it they were gone, though the frame continued to move, while at the same moment there floated vaguely into the rim of his vision the white face and red lips of her who lay at his side. A soft, cold hand passed lightly across his forehead, lulling him, and again he relaxed into dreams. He dreamed of the woman whom he had loved last, and perhaps most deeply of all, who had requited him with greed and malice.

  'Now, I think, in fairness to Lester, I should at this stage state my own belief that his intentions towards his wife were not only just but clean. He meant to keep her a prisoner in his frame, and to reason with her daily, patiently explaining her errors and emphasizing them with a whip until he honestly believed she had learnt her lesson. Between the chastisements he would keep her warm with rugs, feed her properly, and even give her cigarettes - but the whip and sense of captivity were necessary, because in a state of freedom she simply would not respond either to reason or sentiment. Beyond the last his imagination had not travelled.

  'He was brought back to remembrance of his present uncanny surroundings by the most hideous and prolonged scream his ears had ever known - a woman’s scream of mingled agony and terror. Instantly his eyes were wide open, and he turned them automatically towards the frame, where the flicker of movement was now intensified. His brain in the same moment flashed him a warning that whatever was there would, as usual, vanish; but, to his amazement, this was not so.

  'Strapped there, spreadeagled by the thongs, just as he had visualized his wife, hung the struggling figure of a girl, a torrent of cries - some full-throated, others choked as by some muted pressure - issuing from her mouth. Her clothing lay scattered upon the floor, and by the writhing of her body and incessant turning of her head this way and that it was plain that she was trying to resist the loathsome embraces of some real but invisible thing that hugged her. Soon her screams died to little moans and her terrified eyes closed, only to reopen filled with new despair, while her hapless struggles began afresh.

  'Shouting hoarsely, Lester sprang to his feet heedless of unseen, restraining arms that sought to hold him down. He took one step in the direction of the frame and felt both arms pinioned in a vice-like grip, while the outer corner of each eye registered the presence of a tall, pale form sprinkled with tufts of coarse black hair. The girl in the frame seemed to realize his own presence for the first time, and called beseechingly: "You are human! Help me! Help - ” Then something cut off her utterance, though he could see the lips, pinched in and distorted by some external force, striving to open. He essayed another step, but found himself helpless in his captors’ grasp. "I can’t move. They hold me!” he called back. Then a cold, sinewy hand sealed his own mouth. Abruptly he was flung down and held sitting, turned half away from the suspended girl; and once more, out of the tail of his eye, he could see the numerous weaving bodies that in turn possessed her and passed on into obscurity.

  'Lester could never describe very clearly the after-events of that night. Alternatively he would sink back into a careless lethargy with the feeling of soft arms clasping him about, then find himself aroused by even more terrible screams and by gentle licking, sucking noises, indeterminate but very abhorrent. He held one recollection of seeing numberless wounds and rents in the skin of the captive from which blood welled. But the blood was never allowed to flow, being, it seemed, lapped up at its source by invisible tongues.

  'There was another period of peace while kisses rained upon his face and a voice whispered to him of the evil, irredeemable soul of his wife, and how no punishment of man’s devising could either uplift her or drive her back into the realms where she belonged. "Give her to us,” murmured the voice. "She is our sister and will sport with us in our Half-Life - after that humanity which she has abused has been taken from her.”

  'Followed an interval of universal whisperings and rustlings broken now and again by the sound of crunching bones, gulps, and the unmistakable chewing of flesh, after which it seems that Lester fell into a dead faint.

  'His next experience, with a return to full consciousness, was of finding himself lying on the cracked paving of the disused kitchen, the early dawn twilight falling on him through the skeleton roof. For a few moments he rested there, wondering where he was, and - gradually realizing that he was fully clothed and beneath open sky - thought that he must have had an accident with his car. Then remembrance flooded him and he sprang up in terror. The light of his lamp still glowed thinly beneath the raised flagstone, but it was many minutes before he dared approach the top of the steps. There he knelt and listened, but utter silence prevailed below.

  'Half convinced that his nerves were to blame and that he had been the victim of an incredibly realistic nightmare, he finally steeled himself to the descent, and saw, with intense relief, that the frame was devoid of an occupant. Neither, thank God, were there any stains upon its woodwork. He leaned wearily against it and closed his eyes. This would never do! He had, supposedly, overworked, fallen asleep after finishing his task, and -cardinal error! - left the flagstone raised and the light on at an hour when the exterior darkness would show it up. If he was to effect the merited punishment for the accomplishment of which he had taken great pains, he must maintain his self-control. He opened his eyes again preparatory to turning off the light, and noticed, flung untidily into a far corner, a heap of woman’s clothing!

  'He was up the steps again like a hunted hare, pausing only to throw down the heavy flagstone before bolting for the place where his car was hid
den.’

  The speaker’s voice lowered and ceased.

  'And so,’ I ventured, for a certain ring of sincerity had made the fantastic tale credible throughout, 'the project was abandoned - or, perhaps, another prison chosen?’

  The Author had relaxed in his chair, and his dreamy eyes seemed unaware of our presence. He replied distantly: 'On the contrary, I took her there the following evening and built a cairn over the flagstone to hold it down. Those things knew their job better than I.’

  'You say you took her there!’ the Barrister cut in with asperity.

  'Did I?’ said the Author carelessly, seeming to reawaken from a doze. 'Well, I suppose successful writers, like actors, must live in their parts.’

  'B-b-but,’ spluttered the B.G.H., 'we stipulated true ghost-stories!’

  The Author laughed softly, indulgently, as he pressed the bell.

  'Four bitters, Steward,’ he ordered.