And Afterward, the Dark

by Basil Copper

  "The electric light still burned on, comfortingly modern, etching everything in bright relief. I had stood to one side of the window, so that my shadow could not be seen, but I felt that whoever—whatever—was outside, very well knew who was there. And I would not, for any money you can name, have turned out the light, for reasons too obvious to go into.

  "As the scratching noise was repeated, and, as it seemed to my hypersensitive nerves, even nearer, I looked around again for a weapon of some sort, but without success. There was a long moment of silence and then, from outside the house, came the foul, low sort of snuffling cough I had heard in the cave. The dog gave another whine that set my jagged nerves aflame and there was a creak as the big old wooden latch of the door commenced to lift.

  "I was galvanized into action then. I did not know what might be outside but I only knew that I should become insane if I met it face to face. I threw myself at the door and put all my weight on the latch, forcing it downwards. The pressure was not resisted, but a moment or two later I found it rising, with irresistible force. For a horrifying second or so the door actually opened an inch, perhaps two, then with the strength of fear I hurled it closed and clung to the latch with all the weight of my body.

  "Once more I felt it being raised, despite all I could do to stop it. But now I had got my feet jammed against a brick in the irregular stone floor and I exerted all my strength to prevent what was outside from coming in. I was still terribly afraid but something of that first appalling fear, which saps all will power from the brain, had left me, and as I was forced fractionally back, I cast looks about me for aid.

  "Then I saw the beam lying in the angle of the wall, not more than four feet from me. I crashed the door back into its framework, and jamming my foot against the bottom, I seized the huge piece of wood and with the strength of terror man-handled it towards me. My foot slipped on the floor as the door pressed in on me, and the end of the beam, rasping across the kitchen wall, upset a large brass warming pan which fell down to the stone floor with a tremendous crash. I think this is what saved the situation, for hitherto this insidious struggle in which I had been engaged, had been fought implacably, in silence.

  "The door gaped wide for a moment, but then the dog, aroused by the crash commenced barking angrily; and at the same instant Herr Steiner, woken by the noise, shouted down the stairs. Light sprang on in the upper-storey, and as the pressure on the door melted away I fell against it and slammed the beam home in the metal stanchions with almost hysterical strength. Then I fell onto the kitchen floor, all the purpose gone from my legs.

  "I will not weary you with the scene that followed; the amazed and terrified appearance of the Steiners; the temporary insanity of the dog; the pouring of brandy down my throat; my disconnected story to the innkeeper and his wife. Needless to say none of us slept for the remainder of the night; we piled the heaviest furniture we could find against all three doors—even this took considerable resolve under the circumstances—and it was as much as I could do to carry out my part of the undertaking.

  "Never have I felt such fear as I encountered that night; it turned my limbs to water, sapped all my will power; it took all the strength of character I possessed to double-rivet my soul back into my body, if you can understand such a term. After I had recovered myself a little—a false recovery, as it turned out, engendered largely by the brandy—Steiner and I secured all the doors and windows, as I have said. Then we retired to the topmost room of the house, leaving every light in the building burning. Steiner had the excellent idea of scattering the staircase with copper pans and utensils, so that we should have prior warning of anything moving towards us up the stairs.

  "He then took three enormous sporting rifles—one more like a blunderbuss—with him, and we all three locked ourselves in the bedroom with the stoutest door. We had more than four hours to wait until dawn—it was by now about half-past one—but since the commotion in the kitchen when I fell to the ground there had mercifully been no further sound from out of doors.

  "We passed a wretched time, talking in half-whispers and starting at the slightest sound outside—from the night wind to the faint tapping of a branch upon a topmost windowpane. After my explanation, we did not refer directly to the situation, but approached it by oblique routes, and I was more than ever convinced that the Steiners knew more than they were willing to tell.

  "Once I heard his wife mumble, 'But they have never come this far before,' and then her husband clamped his hand over her arm and she lapsed into silence. For my part, I was alone with the terrible truth of the situation; for which among God's creatures has the wit and intelligence to lift a door latch in the manner of a human being? An ape or monkey perhaps? Perhaps. But ridiculous to think of such a thing in these forests.

  " Another type of animal such as a deer might lift a door latch by accident, when its horn caught underneath, but the thing which had been on the other side of the door had lifted the catch easily, much as a human being would; and there had been a terrible force and purpose in the pressure which had accompanied that silent and sinister incursion into my reason. And I had been convinced from the beginning that no human being was responsible.

  "I gave it up at last and slept brokenly, sitting in a corner of the room, my back against the wall, my head on my upraised knees, clutching one of Steiner's antiquated rifles. Dawn came at about six o'clock, and though I was not awake to see it, when I did become aware of it I have never been so thankful, not even during the war years. The sounds of everyday came up to us with increasing clarity; the chant of a rooster, the grunting of pigs, the little, fussy noises of hens, and then, eventually, the reawakened bark of the old sheepdog, his fears of the night dispersed.

  "But it was not until past seven o'clock, that we dared stir downstairs. We first opened windows on every side of the house but could see nothing alarming. Then a creaking farm cart passed, with a man riding on top and another walking by the shafts, and this shamed us so much, particularly as the Steiners were usually abroad looking after their livestock before six, that we all three went downstairs at once, albeit we were talking and making rather too much noise.

  "The lights still burned, the copper pans were undisturbed; all was as it had been, even down to the unquestioned fact of the warming pan which I had knocked down in my superhuman efforts to get the door barred. While the Steiners set the kitchen to rights and prepared the breakfast, I mustered my courage to unbar the door and set foot outside. I must say that I waited until I heard the approach of another cart, and then with a sort of tottering bravado hefted the massive beam to the ground and stepped out into the sunlight.

  "My nightmare of the evening before might never have been. I breathed in the fresh morning air, said good-day to the two fine fellows on the cart, and then received my second shock of the last twelve hours. There had been no fantasy in the strength which had resisted mine an inch-door panel away from me, and neither was there in the curious prints of the thing which had stood without the door. I stumbled and almost fell.

  "Picture if you can, the prints which met my eye that autumn morning in the foothills of those Alps. I am certain that little similar has been seen since the dawn of time. There was nothing more than two holes which stood before the door. The impressions, which were quite small, were about six inches apart. They looked more like the imprints of the ferrules of a walking stick, except that they were both slightly elongated and oval in shape. I stared at these two slots in the ground until I thought I should go mad.

  "No God-created beast could have made such imprints, and as I fell back from the door I saw that there were further sets; advancing to and retreating from the inn back along the forest path I had taken on my walks to the area of the cave. Faint scratch marks linked the sets of prints.''

  There was a long silence in the room, as Wilson broke off his narrative and sat looking into the depths of the fire.

  "The prints of a deer, perhaps?" Pender eventually suggested nervously, as Wilson showed
no sign of resuming his story.

  He shook his head impatiently. "Impossible. I know the slots of a deer, man, as well as I know my own face in the glass. I said the prints were complete sets of two; in other words the thing, or whatever it was, was standing on its hind legs—or its only legs for all I know—while attempting to open the door.

  "I followed the tracks back for a short way—a very short way, for they gradually faded out. And then perhaps I did a rather foolish thing, in the light of what happened afterwards. For in a fit of angry panic I went down the path and deliberately erased the last trace of those devilish tracks with my heavy walking boots.

  " However, I felt I owed a very real duty to the Steiners and I spent most of the morning trying to dissuade them from stopping at the inn; I even tried to give them hints about the tracks I had seen, but the words wouldn't come properly. Naturally, the old couple wouldn't dream of giving up their home of a lifetime to move away at their age.

  " 'But, Herr Wilson,' said the old man, 'be reasonable. It is our living.' He had quite a point there, but it didn't dissuade me from asking them to go, for I was mortally afraid for the couple. They had been extraordinarily kind to me in the short time I had known them. But I saw it was no use in the end, though I did suggest that they buy a couple of wolfhounds like those at the hotel above and—before all—have a good set of bolts fitted to the kitchen door.

  "Steiner almost gave himself away at the last for he looked at me almost as though he would burst into tears, and said, 'Bolts are no good, in the end, against such things.' Then he saw the look on his wife's face and became silent; it was his last word on the topic and he never referred to it again. Naturally, I had no desire to remain any longer at the Gasthof where I had passed such a night; I had packed in the morning. The Steiners quite understood, but it was with a heavy heart that I said good-bye to them in the early afternoon, shouldered my rucksack, and set off through the forest once again.

  "I made one last attempt before I left and said, 'At least see that the village mounts a hunt and cleans out that cave.' He looked at me in a sorrowful manner and waved good-bye. His last words to me were, 'Thank you, mein Herr. We know you are only trying to be helpful.' I had rerouted my trail, to pass at least eight miles to the west of the cave, so I set off down into the village and resumed my walking tour, the remainder of which was uneventful—insofar as it touches the core of this story, that is.''

  Wilson paused again and silently drained his glass. "You need not worry that I shall leave the story unfinished," he said. "There is a sequel and a terrible one, though by rights I should have left the thing where it was. But all the rest of my holiday I kept thinking about the old couple, the loneliness of the guesthouse, that cursed cave and the nature of the events which had given me such a dreadful night.

  "I made the mistake of going back and thereby added guilt to my remembered fear. I made a slight detour on my way home to England and stopped off for a day on the way through. I was accompanied by three other people who don't concern the story, though one, as I have indicated already, was to concern me for the remainder of my life. I left them at the cafe and walked up the well-remembered hill to the hotel. On the way I met the sergeant of police and a lot of activity; cars and so forth coming down.

  "I asked him what was the matter and he said, quite quietly and simply, that the old couple had been murdered; in the most brutal and sadistic fashion imaginable. They had been literally torn to pieces after barricading themselves in a bedroom, and—most foul detail of all—had been decapitated; the heads were never found. I thought of the carving in the church and felt sick.

  This terrible event had happened only two days before; the forests had been combed, but to no avail. We had by this time walked back down to the small police station, for I now had no wish to continue up the hill. I thought of the events of three weeks earlier and began in my mind the first of a hundred thousand regrets.

  "And yet I was angry with the police, and the Steiners too, if I analyzed my own feelings; I asked the sergeant, rather roughly in the circumstances, whether he had taken my advice about the cave. Had they, in fact, organized a shooting party to kill the beast that I supposed lurked within it? The beast that might, in fact, be responsible for the Steiners' death?

  "He looked at me stammering, his face quite pale. Nothing had been done, of course; the matter had been entirely overlooked—the village and the police particularly, had the murders to think of. But with typical German efficiency he immediately set about organizing a hunting party and two hours later a heavily armed posse of about forty expert shots streamed out of the village.

  "I should have gone with them, but somehow I could not face it; the death of the Steiners had quite knocked me out; but we—that is, myself and my three friends—were put up for the night by one of the village families. The party, who, of course, knew the cave area well, returned long before nightfall. The sergeant, when I saw him again, was curiously reticent. It was, he said, a bad place.

  "The men had not ventured far beyond the entrance; the labyrinth stretched for miles, they had been told; they were fetching dynamite in the morning, and an Army expert over from the garrison town, to block the entrance. He looked at me apologetically, as though I were about to accuse him and his colleagues of cowardice. But I could not say I blamed him. Had I not done exactly the same? And that is what they did. Brought down the entire mountainside and bottled in the thing or whatever it was; I kept in touch by letter and so far as I can learn the countryside has remained untroubled.''

  Wilson broke off once more to recharge his glass. "Which brings the wheel full circle," he said. "The problem of fear. Fear such as I have never experienced in my life, and which I could not possibly face again. To this day I could not tell you why. Yet I saw nothing, unless you count two slots in the ground. And I felt little, except that tremendous pressure on a door; I heard little, except a muffled cough and some faint scratchings in the night. Little enough for a student of the macabre. Yet something devilish killed the Steiners.''

  "And you know nothing beyond that?" queried someone else, who sat in shadow beyond me.

  "Only theories," said Wilson, lifting his head in the brindled firelight. "I developed my rolls of film when I got back home. All were perfect except one, inside the church, which was a complete blank, with never a trace of a picture. And I am sure you will know the picture I mean. But if my theory is correct it would explain their attitude.''

  There was a long silence again.

  Then, "Pass the brandy, Pender," I said, rather more sharply than I had intended."

  Dust to Dust

  Mr. Appleton bought the house almost at first glance. It was within the confines of the village, but just far back enough in its own trim orchard grounds to be unobtrusive. The building was well maintained and really, there was a wealth of accommodation for the money. The price was not cheap and yet certainly well below the market value for a property of such character. Not that there was anything historic about Dotterells, Mr. Appleton judged.

  The house was Edwardian, he would have said. Tile-hung and well converted to modern standards it had an air of old-maidish smugness, as though it sat like a contented cat, back from the bustle of the street, its two clipped ornamental trees each side the path almost like paws reaching out to embrace the village.

  The simile was fanciful, Mr. Appleton felt, and he was not normally a fanciful man. As the last rays of spring sunshine stained the upper windows of the house carmine it seemed to smile at him. He smiled to himself at the notion and was inevitably reminded of Carroll's crocodile welcoming the fishes in "with gently smiling jaws." He stood back in the road, leaning on his stick, and glanced at the house again. It was benevolent. A heartening omen, he felt, and nothing in the subsequent negotiations led him to believe otherwise.

  The surveyor's estimate was good; there were no hidden snags in the property. To Mr. Appleton's surprise—and he was usually a most cautious man—not more than eight weeks had gon
e by before he was ensconced in Dotterells, had arranged his vast array of books and papers, and had engaged a housekeeper. A most sensible woman, Mrs. Grice seemed a very superior and intelligent person for one of that station. In the necessarily brief conversation he had with her before he moved into the house, he had gathered that the previous occupant, an elderly retired gentleman, had died rather suddenly; the relatives lived abroad, and as they wanted a quick sale had asked a price well below the market value.

  Mr. Appleton was satisfied. He was incurious about the everyday affairs of life and he had more than enough to occupy him; he was on volume three of his monumental work on primitive superstition, and he had promised his publisher the book would be ready in time to figure on his Christmas list. He had all summer before him, he was settling into Dotterells nicely, and if he could bring the book in by the autumn he would have a pleasant year.

  Mr. Appleton sat back in his study and blinked about him, warming at the prospect. He really was more satisfied with his new home than he cared to admit. He had not, it is true, been overeffusive with the agent for the vendor, on the principle that the prospective purchaser should never appear too eager. And he was not naturally an affectionate man; his austere, bookish life had left him little time or opportunity to make lasting friendships.

  But there was no doubt that the atmosphere of Dotterells was conducive to the contented spirit. His study for instance, a large, L-shaped room on the ground floor, with a huge bay window overlooking the orchard and road beyond, could not have been more convenient for his purposes. Just now it lay bathed in late May sunshine and with its cream-painted walls and rows of varicoloured books that faced him along the far corner, soothed all the instincts of a book-lover or collector.

  Mr. Appleton shifted his weight in his leather armchair and swivelled back to the window. He glanced again at the neat typescript in front of him and the tumbled heaps of reference works on the surface of the great rosewood desk and sighed. He should, he supposed, be a little more sociable, and make himself known to his neighbours on either side. But his work pressed and there would be time for the social niceties later. In the meantime he would set the house in order and press on as fast as he could. There were still eight chapters to be laid out and completed; more than enough work for his autumn deadline, for he was a writer who could not be hurried.