by Philip Wylie
He glanced at the mirror. For a moment he was sick and nauseated. His head was no longer a face—but a skull. A skull that jerked up to meet the inspection of its own empty sockets. He was looking at his own skull, his own upper vertebra, his own ribs. They bent in and out with his breathing. When he moved, the thing in the mirror, defined constantly with greater clarity, moved also. His skeleton. Moving, walking, breathing, opening and closing its grinning jaws. The faint sheen left his flesh; it vanished altogether and there remained only the grey, mobile bones.
The enormity of this phenomenon was overcome by its uniqueness. No man had ever watched the actions of his own skeleton except with the aid of the X-ray. Then it was a skeleton of shadows. Here it was living bone, living tissue—pearl grey in some places, almost white in others. Not a cell of his flesh, not a drop of blood, none of the contents of his organs, nor any of his bodily fluids could be perceived by this time. Only the bare bones.
There was the difference in his process, he reasoned, in its effect on invertebrates. The flesh vanished first—the bony structure afterward. That was logical. The bones would be last reached by his compound. Circulation through them was slow. The increase in opacity of the plants, of the octopus, had been general. The light bony structure in the center of the devil-fish had been of a different composition from his own bones. The beak he had removed while he could still see it.
From his distant childhood there flashed into his mind the memory of the Cheshire cat which had vanished quickly for the redoubtable Alice and afterward, by request, slowly—beginning at the tail and ending with the grin which hung disembodied in the air for a while after the rest of the cat was gone. He was like that.
It occurred to him that he should study himself—that this stage of his progress gave a unique opportunity for the study of anatomy. He could see now what underlay the unusual build he possessed. The inordinately long femur. The equally exaggerated radius and ulna. The huge joints. The relatively narrow clavicles. The slight forward curvature of his spine. The heavy and lengthy splayed finger bones. The ridges and depressions of his prodigious brain pan. Again—the narrowness of the pelvis. It would be easy to identify William Carpenter by his skeleton.
His personal interest in it deprived it quickly of its horror. The first revulsion had passed in a surge of scientific interest. A walking skeleton—the bogie of all mankind, the figure of his ghosts, the ghoulish monster of his nightmare—Carpenter was that. He talked to himself now to watch the action of the mandibles. The extreme grewsomeness of his voice issuing from the jibbering bones did not occur to him.
So he passed an hour and then, on an instantaneous thought, he became restive. His bones had shown no sign of impending dissolution. Again he studied his hand under the light. It was as clear and sharp as if newly pared of its flesh. He went to his surgical cabinet and took out a powerful flashlight. Afterward, standing in front of the mirror, he shone it directly into one eye. With the other, he looked. Looked directly through the small orifice penetrated by the optic nerve and into the great dark cavity where even now his brain pulsated invisibly. A little eye of light traversed that cavity. His skull had grown not a whit opaque.
Then, dreadfully, he let himself consider a possible fact. The drug had never been tried on a vertebrate. Perhaps it would not affect the bony structure in any length of time. Perhaps he was doomed and destined to live on as a walking, talking, sentient skeleton!
Carpenter waited another half hour—waited with a mounting terror greater than any endured by a human being before him. As a transient phenomenon his visible skeleton was absorbing to his mind. As a permanent fact—it was hideous.
Point by point he checked over his calculations. Bones bending over a desk. He perceived no flaw. Again he went over them. Unseeable perspiration beaded his invisible brow. A tongue licked his lips and yet only the spasmodic separation of his jawbones could be detected. He forgot Baxter, forgot Daryl, forgot everything except his mad obsession to find his mistake and rectify it.
It was two hours now, since he had taken the potion—four times the period necessary by his estimate for a complete vanishing. His mind was as keen as ever; he had suffered no pain. But his bones were stark against the walls, sharp and terrible in the mirror and only his invisible flesh kept them from rattling grotesquely when he walked. The shadows he cast were unspeakable.
He groaned—a sound that would have struck the senses from any one who could have seen and heard.
With that groan there rose in the house a muffled hammering. Carpenter remembered his prisoners.
CHAPTER 4
ESCAPE AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR
It was half past eight when Carpenter heard the sound of hammering in his house. It had been a few minutes past six when he swallowed the compound toward the creation of which he had given fifteen years of his life. He had been, literally, a human skeleton for an hour and a half. The month was May. The day had been bright and warm but a chill had come into the air with the twilight.
Baxter paced slowly to and fro in his cell. He had long since exhausted every possibility of escape which his mind could contrive. The room was walled on all sides with thick cement. There was not even a glass of water in it—and his thirst was becoming intense. The reason Carpenter had been unable to hear him on many of the occasions of his listening was that Baxter was trying attentively to interpret the numerous sounds that came from the laboratory.
Daryl had placed a piece of carpet which she retrieved from the heap in the fruit closet over the cement at the edge of the door and with the heavy furnace shaker she was slowly cracking away a section of cement floor.
It was not that, however, which Carpenter heard. The rhythmic thuds in the cellar were inaudible in the workroom. A man was beating furiously on the back door.
Carpenter’s actions subsequent to eight thirty when he satisfied himself that the failure of his bones to disappear was no temporary arrest of his process but an unforeseen and permanent accident—and not only his actions but his thoughts—were without the basis of cohesive reason or calm logic. He was motivated purely by terror. His wits functioned in erratic flashes. He lost completely that steadfast and admirable self-control which had dominated his spectacular career. He remembered facts vividly in one moment which he forgot in the next. Impulse guided him, shuddering dread impelled him.
To understand his frame of mind precisely it would be necessary to undergo his brain-shattering experience. There is a point beyond which mortal nerves cannot carry even the most frigid scientific mentality—a point where sense flings shuddering from the windows of the soul and a dozen demons of dread prick the agonized remainder inchoately forward. That point Carpenter attained.
He identified the hammering sound which penetrated his laboratory at first with his prisoners. His answering thought was to let them remain imprisoned until he had reasoned himself somewhat free of his dilemma. Immediately after that he realized that the sound came from the. neighborhood of the kitchen. He thought Daryl had escaped into the cellar and was beating on the upper door.
He opened the iron portal and stepped into the hall. Then he perceived that the noise came from the back door.
It was the station master. Mrs. Treadle had hastened to the home of her sister-in-law—his wife—and poured out her tale of strange sights, particularly of Baxter’s bloody arm and Carpenter’s pink eyes. The station master, after the tenth repetition of the narrative, had vowed he was afraid neither of man nor devil and volunteered to call at the Mortland place for Mrs. Treadle’s possessions. If the old lady could work there for a year, he told his dubious wife, he, at least, could stop by for her clothes.
Mrs. Treadle filled his head with items and their position in the house—all of which were immensely valuable to her—and the two women sent him on his way. The station master drove his car truculently to the Mortland farm. He rapped on the door. When he received no answer, he began to pound on it with a dogged persistence. He knew that there were people in t
he house. He had fanned his small dreads of the name of Carpenter into hatred; he was determined upon an immediate settlement of Mrs. Treadle’s account and the repossession of her belongings.
After a long time he heard the laboratory door slam. He renewed his vigorous assault on the door. It opened. Carpenter, disproportionately annoyed by the interpolation of an outsider at so critical a time, had automatically crossed the kitchen and opened the door.
He said, “Who is it and what do you want?”
The question was never answered. The station master looked into the black eye-sockets and ineradicable toothy grin of a skull. Beneath it were human bones in the regular architecture of a man. His hands clawed forward in an inarticulate protest. His eyes bulged. His tongue thickened. He stood rooted to the spot.
These actions, however, immediately reminded Carpenter of his unseemly condition. He fled precipitately to the laboratory door. His key was in his clothes. He cursed and raced up the stairs, vanishing at that point from view.
The station master, unwilling witness to the scene through the open kitchen door, was galvanized to action. He flung himself headlong from the porch. He did not even think of his car. His heart resumed activity with a violent, convulsive throb. He ran as he had never dreamed of running. He fell on his face three times but he never remembered it. In the twilight, he followed the road. He did not stop until he had reached his house. The two women saw him coming.
“Didn’t I tell you!” Mrs. Treadle said.
Her sister-in-law threw open the door. “What happened?”
The station master gazed glassily at his wife. Air spouted in and out of his lungs. He made signs with his hands—but he did not speak for ten minues and then only after the repeated administration of applejack. He had seen a ghost.
The “ghost”—and Carpenter was probably the most authentic, certainly the most pretentious ghost that any man had ever seen—was facing a new consternation. He had recognized the station master. He knew that a report of the spectre he had become would be carried into town. He expected that there would be an investigation. He should evacuate his prisoners. Some strain of latent sensitivity affected him at that point: he found it unthinkable to show himself to Daryl, to Baxter. These tangled minutiae appalled him.
With a duplicate key which he procured from his quarters up stairs, he re-entered the laboratory. He dressed. The effect was more terrible than before; clothes lent a half-human semblance to the skeleton; and a suit of clothes upright and moving which terminated in a vitalized skull, sleeves which ended with bony hands was a form of horror which made his own invisible blood freeze. Watching this figure in the mirror so scared him that he began to feel that at any moment the unfamiliar Thing might begin of its own accord to reflect motions other than his own.
He next ran hastily to his chemical closets and secured a quantity of white powder. He poured it into a bowl and proceeded to wash his hands in the substance. An inorganic powder, it was not affected by the chemical in his veins, and it covered his hands evenly, giving the effect of white gloves and returning his hands once more to a somewhat normal aspect.
His delight was almost childish. He bent over the powder and rubbed it on his face, over his shaved head, around his neck, getting it into his nose and mouth. Again he looked into the mirror—this time with a hopeful anticipation. A dry white statue stared back at him—stared because in the place where the eyes should have been were two Stygian holes. It was like a death mask but infinitely more repulsive—for, in place of the inanimate repose of death were the twitchings and grimaces of an evil and unnatural life beneath the pallid substance.
He dashed to the sink and washed away the powder. He stalked back to the mirror and stood before it. Hysteria seized him. He laughed at himself. He tore open his shirt and coat and beat upon his chest—bone against bone and only the invisible pads of skin and sinew prevented the jibber of a raven-picked carcass stirred by unhallowed fingers from sounding in the room. He rushed again to the chemical chest and put a drop of silver nitrate on his tongue. He stood so he could see his profile, protruded his tongue and leered at the brown stain which hung in the air an inch in front of his white teeth. He roared at the prank. He pinched the flesh he could not see and felt the pain. He stabbed his finger with a tiny lancet, squeezed below the joint and tasted the salty fluid that oozed from the incision. He could bleed but he could not see his blood.
At that point he grappled again with his mania. It was necessary, profoundly necessary, that he should think sanely and lucidly. The close walls of the laboratory were unendurable. He thought of leaving the house and never returning. The preparations he had made for being invisible would serve him fairly well in this strait. Some one would come to the house in the light of the next day. They would release Daryl and Baxter. Above all other things, he must keep himself free. If he were caught—his soul cowered at the possibility. He would never be able to prove what had happened to him. The thought that he might perform the experiment on some animal to demonstrate the reason for his condition occurred to him. With that in mind, he slipped the bottle of the prepared fluid into his pocket. In a dire emergency, it might save his life by providing a parallel.
He left the house—uncertain whether he would return or not. The gesture of escape was partly symbolic. In the night no one could see him. He stalked through the darkness, carrying his frenzy like a burden. He took a direction opposite to Sinkak.
Carpenter might have managed to get to the harbor he had prepared for himself. He might have returned to the house and tried to carry Daryl away regardless of his condition. But he met with another accident.
A hundred yards up the road from the point where it was joined by the Mortland driveway a car had been parked. Its lights were out. Inside sat two young people—a boy and a girl. They had driven from Sinkak to the solitude of this leafy road for the purpose of sitting in that car together. Through the long twilight they had exchanged kisses. Darkness came. There was no moon. In the ebony night, his arms around her waist, her head on his shoulder, their lips pressed together, they were interrupted by the sound of steps approaching along the dark road ahead.
They released each other quickly and the boy bent forward and switched on the headlights—which fell full upon Carpenter. The scientist, astounded by this sudden radiance, stood still in the road long enough to give the occupants of the car a clear glimpse of his skull, of the bony fingers that rose instinctively to cover it. The girl fainted. Her escort, acting on instinct, started the motor, shot the car into gear, and drove directly at the Thing. Carpenter narrowly avoided being run over by plunging into the roadside thicket.
The driver forged recklessly ahead. In two minutes, almost before Carpenter had picked himself from the bushes, he had reached the center of town. A small crowd of people were gathered outside the grocery store. They had lanterns and guns. Some one was addressing them. The boy, brought to some sanity by the sight of so many people, skidded his car to a stop and leaped out.
“I’ve seen the devil!” he shouted. “She’s fainted. There’s a ghost in the woods!”
Instantly the attention of the mob was centered on him. “He’s seen it! It was after him, too! What was it like? Was it ten feet tall?”
The boy’s voice broke and wavered as he told his story. “We was parked up on the North Sinkak road. Near the Mortland driveway. It come from that direction.”
“What was it?”
“I dunno. Skull an’ bones. Had clothes on. I tried to hit it with the car but it kind of flew off the road.”
“That’s what Martin said.”
A deeper voice intruded the shrill clamor. “Well, folks, looks like with such corroboration there hadn’t ought to be any holding back. I’ll lead some of you up to the house. The rest can spread out. Better be careful not to shoot each other. Get it alive if you can—whatever it is.”
“That’s right, Judge.”
“We’ll take your car. And George. And Harry’s truck. Remember a
bout the shooting.”
“What is it?” the boy asked.
A woman answered him. Martin seen the same thing. They’re a-goin’ after it.”
“Essie’s fainted. She’s still cold,” the boy said.
“Hey! Some of you fetch a pail of water. We got a faint here.”
In the hubbub and uproar, in the half dark, making a scene similar to that which surrounds a fire in a country town, Sinkak’s ghost hunt was organized. Martin, the station agent, once he had caught his breath and fortified himself with apple brandy, was determined to take further steps. The people of Sinkak had known him and he them for fifty years. His word was good.
When, by expediting small sons, by making key telephone calls, he had started the assemblage of villagers—the work progressed on the momentum of curiosity and relief from tedium. Something was afoot in Sinkak. Every one was going to the store. There Martin was found, telling his story in graphic language and with an outraged voice. Ponderously, searchingly, Judge Temple questioned him. His fellow townsmen were enraged. The latent hostility against Carpenter was fanned into a flame. He was dangerous to the community. He was doing something queer. He and the ghosts he kept should be driven from town on a rail. And that girl. It was shameless.
Mrs. Treadle saw her chance to be in the limelight. She recited her experiences in the old Mortland farmhouse, adding to them with every recitation. She muttered about leprosy. She took up the word “ghost.” She told eerily of his sudden change to a bald head and red eyes. “Red as hell,” she said and the neighbors shuddered while they permitted this unladylike simile. A mob spirit was generated that was no less unreasoning or malignant because the numbers of the mob were small.
The arrival of the boy and his unconscious companion set off the charge. With ropes, lanterns, shotguns, rifles, old revolvers, flashlights—twenty-five or thirty men set out at once to end the menace. They made up in unbridled passion what they lacked in coordination and plans.