Of course I am not that unwell. Nevertheless, I must be more careful. Thank heaven I have no dependents to worry about. I have not even a wife, for I was never willing to exchange the loneliness of a bachelor for the loneliness of a husband.
I can say in all sincerity that the prospect of death does not frighten me. Speculation about life beyond the grave has always bored me. Whatever it is, or is not, I’ll try to get along.
I have been so preoccupied about the sudden turn of my own affairs that I have neglected to make note of a most extraordinary incident. The pale man has done an astounding thing. He has skipped three rooms and moved all the way to No. 203. We are now very close neighbors. We shall meet oftener, and my chances for making his acquaintance are now greater.
* * * *
I have confined myself to my bed during the last few days and have had my food brought to me. I even called a local doctor, whom I suspect to be a quack. He looked me over with professional indifference and told me not to leave my room. For some reason he does not want me to climb stairs. For this bit of information he received a ten-dollar bill which, as I directed him, he fished out of my coat pocket. A pickpocket could not have done it better.
He had not been gone long when I was visited by the room clerk. That worthy suggested with a great show of kindly concern that I use the facilities of the local hospital. It was so modern and all that. With more firmness than I have been able to muster in a long time, I gave him to understand that I intended to remain where I am. Frowning sullenly, he stiffly retired. The doctor must have paused long enough downstairs to tell him a pretty story. It is obvious that he is afraid I shall die in his best room.
The pale man is up to his old tricks. Last night, when I tottered down the hall, the door of No. 202 was ajar. Without thinking, I looked inside. The pale man sat in a rocking-chair idly smoking a cigarette. He looked up into my eyes and smiled that peculiar, ambiguous smile that has so deeply puzzled me. I moved on down the corridor, not so much mystified as annoyed. The whole mystery of the man’s conduct is beginning to irk me. It is all so inane, so utterly lacking in motive.
I feel that I shall never meet the pale man. But, at least, I am going to learn his identity. Tomorrow I shall ask for the room clerk and deliberately interrogate him.
* * * *
I know now. I know the identity of the pale man, and I know the meaning of his smile.
Early this afternoon I summoned the room clerk to my bedside.
“Please tell me,” I asked abruptly, “who is the man in No. 202?”
The clerk stared wearily and uncomprehendingly.
“You must be mistaken. That room is unoccupied.”
“Oh, but it is,” I snapped in irritation. “I myself saw the man there only two nights ago. He is a tall, handsome fellow with dark eyes and hair. He is unusually pale. He checked in the day that I arrived.”
The hotel man regarded me dubiously, as if I were trying to impose upon him.
“But I assure you there is no such person in the house. As for his checking in when you did, you were the only guest we registered that day.”
“What? Why, I’ve seen him twenty times! First he had No. 212 at the end of the corridor. Then he kept moving toward the front. Now he’s next door in No. 202.”
The room clerk threw up his hands. “You’re crazy!” he exclaimed, and I saw that he meant what he said.
I shut up at once and dismissed him. After he had gone, I heard him rattling the knob of the pale man’s door. There is no doubt that he believes the room to be empty.
Thus it is that I can now understand the events of the past few weeks. I now comprehend the significance of the death in No. 207. I even feel partly responsible for the old lady’s passing. After all, I brought the pale man with me. But it was not I who fixed his path. Why he chose to approach me room after room through the length of this dreary hotel, why his path crossed the threshold of the woman in No. 207, those mysteries I can not explain.
I suppose I should have guessed his identity when he skipped the three rooms the night I fell unconscious upon the floor. In a single night of triumph he advanced until he was almost to my door.
He will be coming by and by to inhabit this room, his ultimate goal. When he comes, I shall at least be able to return his smile of grim recognition.
Meanwhile, I have only to wait beyond my bolted door.
* * * *
The door swings slowly open….
WEREWOLF OF THE SAHARA, by G.G. Pendarves
The three of them were unusually silent that night over their after-dinner coffee. They were camping outside the little town of Sollum on the Libyan coast of North Africa. For three weeks they had been delayed here en route for the Siwa oasis. Two men and a girl.
“So we really start tomorrow,” Merle Anthony blew a cloud of smoke toward the glittering night sky. “I’m almost sorry. Sollum’s been fun. And I’ve done two of the best pictures I ever made here.”
“Was that why you burned them up yesterday?” her cousin, Dale Fleming, inquired in his comfortable pleasant voice.
The girl’s clear pallor slowly crimsoned. “Dale! What a—”
“It’s all right, Merle,” Gunnar Sven interrupted her. “Dale’s quite right. Why pretend this delay has done you any good? And it’s altogether my fault. I found that out today in the market. Overheard some Arabs discussing our expedition to Siwa.”
“Your fault!” Merle’s beautiful face, and eyes gray as a gull’s wing, turned to him. “Why, you’ve simply slaved to get the caravan ready.”
Gunnar got to his feet and walked out to the verge of the headland on which they were camped. Tall, straight as a pine he stood.
The cousins watched him; the girl with trouble and perplexity, the man more searchingly. His eyes, under straight upper lids, flatly contradicted the rest of his appearance. He was very fat, with fair hair and smooth unlined face despite his forty years. A sort of Pickwickian good humor radiated from him. Dale Fleming’s really great intellectual power showed only in those three-cornered heavily-lidded eyes of his.
“Why did you give me away?” Merle demanded.
His round moon face beamed on her.
“Why bluff?” he responded.
“Snooping about as usual. Why don’t you go and be a real detective?” she retorted crossly.
He gave a comfortable chuckle, but his eyes were sad. It was devilishly hard to watch her falling for this Icelander. Ever since his parents had adopted her—an orphan of six—she had come first in Dale’s affections. His love was far from Platonic. Gunnar Sven was a fine creature, but there was something wrong. Some mystery shadowed his life. What it was, Dale was determined to discover.
“Truth will out, my child! The natives are in terror of him. You know it as well as I do! They’re all against helping you and me because he’s our friend.”
“Stop being an idiot. No one could be afraid of Gunnar. And he’s particularly good with natives.”
“Yes. He handles them well. I’ve never seen a young ’un do it better.”
“Well, then?”
“There’s something queer about him. These Arabs know it. We know it. It’s about two months now since he joined forces with us. Just after my mother decamped and left us in Cairo. The cable summoning her home to Aunt Sue’s death-bed arrived Wednesday, May 3rd. She sailed May 5th. Gunnar Sven turned up May 6th.”
“All right. I’m not contradicting you. It’s never any use.”
“You refused to wait for Mother’s return in Cairo, according to her schedule.”
“Well! Cairo! Everyone paints Cairo and the Nile. I wanted subjects that every five-cent tourist hadn’t raved over.”
“You wanted Siwa Oasis. Of all God-forsaken dangerous filthy places! And in the summer—”
“You know you’re dying to see the oasis too,” she accused. “Just trying to save your face as my guardian and protector. Hypocrite!”
He roared with laughter. The Arab cook and seve
ral other servants stopped singing round their cooking-pots to grin at the infectious sound.
“Touche! I’d sacrifice my flowing raven locks to go to Siwa. But”—his face grew surprisingly stern—“about Gunnar. Why does he take such enormous pains not to tell us the name of the man he’s been working for?”
“I’ve never asked him.”
“I haven’t in so many words, of course. But I’ve led him up to the fence over and over again. He’s steadily refused it. With good reason.”
“Well?”
“He works for an Arab. A sheykh. A man notorious from Morocco to Cairo. His nickname’s Sheykh El Afrit. The Magician! His real name is Sheykh Zura El Shabur.”
“And what’s so earth-shaking about that?” asked Merle, patting a dark curl into place behind her ear.
“He’s a very—bad—hat! Black Magic’s no joke in this country. This Sheykh El Shabur’s gone far. Too far.”
“I’m going to talk to Gunnar. He’ll tell me. It’s fantastic. Gunnar and Black Magic kideed!”
Dale watched her, amused and touched. How she loathed subtleties and mysteries and tangled situations!
“She’d waltz up to a lion and pull its whiskers if anyone told her they were false. As good at concealment as a searchlight.”
* * * *
Gunnar turned from the sea as Merle walked purposefully in his direction. He stood beside her—mountain pine overshadowing a little silver birch.
“H-m-m!” Dale threw away a freshly lighted cigarette and took another. “Merle and I wouldn’t suggest that. More like Friar Tuck and Maid Marian.”
He was startled to see Gunnar suddenly leap and turn. The man looked as if he’d had a tremendous shock. He stood peering across the wastelands stretching eastward, frozen into an attitude of utmost horror.
Dale ran across to Merle. She broke from his detaining hand and rushed to Gunnar’s side.
“What is it? What do you see? Gunnar! Answer me, Gunnar!”
His tense muscles relaxed. He sighed, and brushed a hand across his eyes and wet forehead.
“He’s found me. He’s coming. I had hoped never—”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
She shook his arm in terror at his wild look and words.
“He said I was free! Free! I wouldn’t have come near you if I’d known he lied. Now I’ve brought him into your life. Merle! Forgive me!”
He took her hands, kissed them frantically, then turned to Dale with burning haste and fairly pushed him away.
“Go! Go! Go! Now—before he comes. Leave everything! Ride for your lives. He’ll force me to…go! Go!”
“Ma yarudd! What means this, Gunnar—my servant?”
The deep guttural voice seemed to come up from the bowels of the Earth. The three turned as if a bomb had exploded. A figure loomed up not ten feet away. Merle stared with wide startled eyes. A minute ago the level wasteland had shown bare, deserted. How had this tall Arab approached unseen?
Gunnar seemed to shrink and wither. His face was tragic. The newcomer fixed him for a long moment in silence, staring him down.
“What means this, Gunnar, my servant?” Once more the words vibrated through the still night.
The Icelander made a broken ineffectual movement of his hands, and began to speak. His voice died away into low, vague murmurings.
“For this you shall account to me later,” promised the tall Arab.
He strode forward. His black burnoose rippled and swayed about him. Its peaked hood was drawn close. A long face with pointed black beard, proud curving nose, and eyes dark and secret as forest pools gleamed beneath the hood.
Merle shrank back. Her fingers clutched Gunnar’s. They were cold and limp in her grasp.
Dale leaned forward, peering into the Arab’s face as a connoisseur examines an etching of rare interest.
“You speak very good English, my friend. Or is it enemy?”
The whole demeanor of the Arab changed. His white teeth flashed. He held out welcoming hands, clasped Dale’s in his own, and bowed low to the girl. He turned last to the Icelander.
“Present me!” he ordered.
* * * *
Gunnar performed the small ceremony with white lips. His voice sounded as if he’d been running hard.
“Zura El Shabur. Zura of the Mist,” translated the sheykh. “I am your friend. I have many friends of your Western world. The language! All languages are one to me!”
Dale beamed. “Ah! Good linguist and all that! Jolly good name yours, what! Gave us quite a scare, popping up out of the atmosphere like Aladdin’s djinnee!”
El Shabui’s thin lips again showed his teeth.
“Those that dwell in the desert’s solitude and silence learn to reflect its qualities.”
“Quite! Quite!” Dale gurgled happy agreement. “Neat little accomplishment Very convenient—for you!”
“Convenient on this occasion for you also, since my coming prevented the inhospitality of my servant from driving you away.”
“No! You’re wrong there. Gunnar’s been our guardian angel for weeks past. Given us a wonderful time.”
“Nevertheless, I heard that he urged you to go—to go quickly from Solium.”
Dale burst into laughter; long, low gurgles that relieved tension all around. “I’m one of those fools that’d rather lose a pot of gold than alter my plans. One of the camel-drivers has made off with a few bits of loot. You heard the thrifty Gunnar imploring me to follow him.”
Merle backed up the tale with quick wit. “Nothing of vast importance. My silver toilet things, a leather bag, and a camera. Annoying, but hardly worth wasting hours to retrieve.”
She came forward, all anxiety to give Gunnar time to pull himself together.
El Shabur made her a second low obeisance and stared down into her upturned vivid face. “Such youth and beauty must be served. Shall I send Gunnar after the thief?”
The idea of separation gave her a shock. Intuition warned her to keep the Icelander at her side for his sake, and for her own. Together there seemed less danger.
Danger! From what? Why did the word drum through her brain like an S.O.S. signal? She glanced at Gunnar. His face was downbent.
“No.” She met the Arab’s eyes with effort and gave a valiant little smile. “No. Indeed not. We can’t spare him. He’s promised to come with us, to be our guide to the Siwa Oasis.”
“Hope this won’t clash with your plans for him. We’ve got so dependent on his help now.” Dale’s cherubic face registered anxiety.
“So.” The Arab put a hand on Gunnar’s shoulder. “It is good. You have done well.”
The young man shivered. His eyes met Merle’s in warning.
El Shabur turned to reassure her and Dale.
“Now all goes well. I, too, will join your caravan. It is necessary for my—my work—that I should visit Siwa very soon. I go also.”
Dale took the outstretched hand. “Fine! Fine! We’ll make a record trip now.”
* * * *
In his tent, Dale slept after many hours of hard, concentrated thought and intellectual work—very pink, very tired, younger-looking than ever in his profound repose.
In her tent, Merle lay quiet too.
Native servants snored, shapeless cocoons in their blankets. Even the camels had stopped moaning and complaining, and couched peacefully, barracked in a semicircle. Great mounds of baggage within its wide curve lay ready for loading.
Moonlight silvered long miles of grass and rushes. Leagues of shining water swung in almost tideless rhythm half a mile from camp.
Gunnar looked out on the scene from his tent. What had roused him from sleep? Why was his heart thumping, and the blood drumming in his ears? He peered out into the hushed world.
Tents, men, camels and baggage showed still as things on a painted canvas. He left his tent, made a noiseless detour about the sleeping camp, then frowned and stared about in all directions.
A bird, rising on startled wing, ma
de him look sharply at an old Turkish fort. It stood, grim and battered sentinel, on a near-by promontory of Solium Bay. Through its gaping ruined walls he caught a glint of fire—green, livid, wicked names that stained the night most evilly.
“El Shabur! Already! The Pentacle of Fire!”
His whisper was harsh as the faint drag of pebbles on the shore. For several minutes he stood as if chained. Fear and anger warred with dawning resolution and a wild anxiety. Then he stumbled over to Merle’s tent and tore open its flap. Flashlight in hand, he went in and stared down at the sleeping girl. She lay white and rigid as if in a trance. Gunnar touched her forehead, took up a limp hand in his own. She gave no sign of life.
He stood looking down at the still, waxen features. The rather square, resolute little face was uniformly white, even to the curved, just-parted lips. The hair seemed wrought in metal, so black and heavy and lifeless did it wave above the broad, intelligent brow. Gunnar looked in awe. The girl’s animated, sparkling face was changed to something remote and strange and exquisite. Half child, half priestess.
“And in a few short weeks or months,” he muttered, “El Shabur will initiate her. This is the first step. She will rot—perish—as I am doing!”
He bent, in passionate horror, over the still face.
“No! No! Not for you! Dear lovely child!”
He clenched his hands. “But if I disturb him now!”
For minutes he stood irresolute. Fear took him by the throat. He could not—he could not interfere! At last his will steadied. He mastered the sick terror that made him tremble and shiver like a beaten dog. As he left the tent, he glanced back once more.
“Good-bye! I’ll do all I can,” he promised softly. “I’d give my soul to save you—if I still had one.”
He ran to the headland where the old fort stood. If El Shabur’s occupation was what he feared, he would neither hear nor see. Intensely concentrating on his rites, nothing in the visible world would reach him.
Gunnar’s calculations were justified. He went boldly in through the arched entrance to an inner court where green fires burned in a great ring, five points of two interlacing triangles which showed black upon the gray dust of the floor. In the center of this cabalistic symbol stood El Shabur, clothed in black. The rod he held was of black ebony.
The Weird Fiction Megapack Page 23