by Emil Petaja
The malefic influences which haunted the mansion persisted after the last of the Castonguas had left it. A mild little Englishman named Carter, a writer of semi-religious matter, took it over. Within a year he unexpectedly began writing vicious slanderous articles about persons well known in the Bay Area. He was challenged to a duel and shot.
The house was empty for a decade, then Albert Fast took it over. His difficulties brought forth a flare-up of the ghost legends that surrounded it, and now it lurked in that dark ravine with only an errant seagull and that old hang-tree to keep it company.
He was startled from his musings by the sharp rattle of bony fingers on the door. He put down the soup-pan with a sigh, and lagged to the door.
“Oh, Mr. Smith.”
“How are you, my dear Gormley?” The radio station owner was tall and pale, with mild gray eyes, and always a smile on his thin lips. He sidled in, those gray eyes wandering casually about the room while his aquiline nose quivered in distaste at the stale atmosphere.
“I don’t like to have to say this, Gormley, but—ah! There it is! There’s my machine!”
“Your machine?”
Dudley Smith went over, to it. “Of course. This and this and this—” He pointed a long finger at various parts of the heavy oblong object which Gormley had encased for portability in a metal foot locker. “All these parts came from my electronic supplies. Even the case is mine. I remember now. I thought it was for tools or something. The whole thing is mine, Dr. Gormley; I’ll take it with me, if you don’t mind.”
He snapped the lid shut and started away with it.
“You can’t!” Gormley cried. “You’re to go and see Albert Fast. He is my—partner.”
Smith looked hurt. “I thought I was your partner.”
“Yes-s. But you don’t seem to understand, either of you. I don’t care anything about the money. I’m a scientist. I want to help humanity. If there is money to be had out of my machine, keep it. You and Albert may have it all. I only want to continue my research. To—”
“To help humanity,” Smith said drily. “You said that before. Very noble, I’m sure. But what about my parts? The papers are calling you a crackpot. I can’t afford to wait forever. I thought you were engaged in something reasonable, not a ghost-trap.”
“Just let me explain—”
“Sorry. I’ve no time, Gormley. I knew that Fast was helping you and I was impressed by that, too. Now it looks like you were playing us against each other. I ask you, is that nice for a man with your educational background?”
“I didn’t mean to do that.” Gormley was appalled.
“Perhaps not. But now that Fast has dropped you—”
“But he hasn’t! Ask him!”
Smith turned. “Eh?”
“No. Albert is meeting me tonight at the old Castongua Mansion. We intend to culminate all my research there, at midnight. What is more, he believes there is money in my machine. If he can make the mansion habitable—”
“So that’s it.” Smith smiled wolfishly and sat down on the locker. “So Albert Fast actually thinks—wait a minute. So it is a phony. So what? A little judicious advertising. Some scientific claptrap, with your name to back it up. Yes. Maybe there is money in it. The world is full of gullible idiots. We could use the old ‘are you sure you are safe’ routine. Why, there might be millions in it. And I’m your partner!”
Gormley gasped. Not only was he hopelessly involved with an avaricious real estate man but now—fakery! Under Dudley Smith’s patronage, with his penchant for phony advertising, his machine was to be used to mulct people who had no need for it. Fake hauntings, fake cures. And his standing in the world of science was to be the lure…
“At least wait,” he begged. “Don’t take it now.”
“All right.” Dudley Smith unstraddled the case and looked down at the little man with a possessive smirk. “Have your experiment at the Castongua house. Only I’ll be there, too. I’ve a share in this. If Albert Fast sells the house, I get my cut. We’ll work it out. I’ll draw up a contract. Everything nice and legal. Then I’ll fake my machine to see there’s no hanky-panky. See you at midnight.”
And the door snapped shut behind him.
* * * *
Promptly at nine a Fast Enterprises pick-up truck braked in front of Gormley’s. He had been peering anxiously for it for some time, with the rain drizzling off the eaves and down his neck. He didn’t wait. He hoisted up the heavy machine in both hands and groped awkwardly down the many ill-lit flights.
Grumbling about special favors for the boss and why hadn’t Joe taken this run, the burly driver grabbed the foot locker out of Gormley’s hand and swung it up in back. The pick-up careened over the soaked streets out of Sunset and presently into the mouth of the lonely ravine. The sky was deadly black, like the black Bay unseen to the left of the narrow byroad. Only the vaguest silhouette of bulky monstrosity was visible beyond the iron gates. The great oak tree loomed like a cloak of evil above it. Gormley’s memory supplied the details—turreted gables and all the intricate gingerbread which was so lavishly expended on the prodigious wooden horrors of the period.
The driver unlocked the gate. Then, hurrying with the box up to the veranda, he yelled over his shoulder, “Where do you want it?”
Gormley panted up behind him.
“Second room off the hall. Just under the oak. It was once the master library, I believe.”
“You go ahead with the light,” the driver told him, kicking the door open.
Gormley smiled sympathetically in the darkness. Yes, this great galoot of a man was afraid. Of what he didn’t know. But he was familiar with at least some of the evil that this house had spawned. And besides that, he had the simple man’s instinctive primal fear of what cannot be seen or heard, only vaguely felt.
And his fear was right. It could save him. Fear is the symptom of evil.
They stepped warily across the great hall. The ring of light danced.
“Whew! What a stink!” The driver, talked loudly. “I’ve smelled lots of old houses. Damp rot. Termites. But this! What d’you think it is, Professor?”
“Perhaps it is the odor of evil itself.”
“Hey, I just thought of something. What are you gonna use for light in this weird old joint? No lights, you know.”
“My machine will provide me with light,” Gormley murmured. “Light is an excellent dispenser of surface evil in itself.”
“Yeah? Well, here we are. Put your light to working, Professor. I’m scramming.”
Then the dwindling footsteps and the driver’s dark-whistling was gone and Gormley was alone. But not quite alone…
The light pouring from his machine dazzled the eyes to look at it. Actually, it was many lights in one. Light rays and other rays, visible and invisible. These other rays did more than repel surface evil. They were calculated to destroy evil or at least to send it howling back to the dark dimensions that gave it life.
He looked around him at the musty paneling, the empty bookcases. In one corner the paneling was torn. That was where Albert Fast’s strippers had admitted defeat. In this room.
This room had to its evil credit three murders, two suicides. In a cache behind these bookcases malignant drugs had been hidden. A sash from those rotting drapes had been used to strangle a woman. Just above this room, in the odd rambling way the house had to be built if the tree was to be saved, was the great gibbet-branch itself.
Gormley busied his mind with a theory about oak trees. He made notes on it. Oaks were sacred to the ancient Druids. Or were they? Was it not rather their parasitic companion, mistletoe? He remembered the first scene in the opera Norma, where the high-priestess of the Druids is seen gathering mistletoe for an important ritual. Mistletoe, symbol of love and happy times. Why? Because it kept evil at bay—evil which the oaks attracted? On this oak tree no mistletoe would grow…Anyway, it was not this house itself that attracted evil. The evil that had happened in it had strengthened itself, fed on
it. But the evil was there before. It was not houses themselves; but something elemental in nature. Oak trees, perhaps. Or perhaps just places, invisible faults in the dimensional shield where evilness could come through. They could be on land, or in the middle of the ocean, or high in the air.
Partially the evil things that happened here were man’s responsibility. But only partially. The creeping evil from the dark dimensions had saturated and fed it. For evil loves evil. Evil begets evil…
An impatient clatter at the front door told him Albert Fast had arrived. The door had been left unlocked so Gormley waited for the big man to burst in. It was patent to Fast’s character to announce his arrival by noise. He blinked in the library doorway.
“Trying to blind a man?” he grumbled. He looked for a chair and, as there was none, pulled up a packing box and lowered his overdressed carcass on it with an expression of annoyance at its hardness. “Everything set?” he demanded.
“Everything.”
“Good. Let’s get going. This joint is like a wet tomb.” He shivered, his narrow eyes flicking, around him with distaste and active fear.
Gormley told him about Dudley Smith.
The big man exploded into profanity.
‘“Who does he think he is? Muscling in on my preserve!”
“He is in, Albert, just a little. After all, he did give me the parts. You kept me going. But never mind. I don’t want much of anything. It’s between you two.”
Fast’s rage mounted. “I’ll wait just five minutes. After we get through the machine goes home with me. I’ll put that two-bit faker in his place!”
To keep peace Gormley began to tell him about the machine.
“Lights,” Fast grunted. “If that’s all there is to it, I’ll install five-hundred-watt lights all over this house. What’s more, I’m beginning to think there’s nothing to this ghost stuff. Why doesn’t something show itself?”
“The reason we feel no manifestation of evil is proof that my machine does work. If I were to switch it off here—”
Fast blinked down at the lights, twitching his flabby shoulders in mounting impatience. “Maybe. Or maybe you just don’t want to turn the lights off because then I would know it was a fake. Like I told you before, I’m from Missouri. You got to prove to me there is something wrong with this house. Otherwise I don’t need you and your machine.” His eyes narrowed on the little scientist. “All right, go ahead. Prove it!”
Gormley stood over the machine protectively.
“I’m going to have to confess something, Albert.”
“So it is a phony.”
“No, no! I’ve tried it before. Many times. But every time I was alone. I didn’t like to think of anyone else coming to harm. When I was alone in the presence of an evil force I felt its power, and yet there was no overt demonstration because—”
Smith’s yell from the front hall interrupted.
Dudley Smith blinked owlishly as he stepped within the argent rays of the machine. Fast glared at him. He greeted the big man with a nod and a supercilious smile. Gormley didn’t matter. It was between them.
Suddenly Fast laughed loudly.
“You wouldn’t want it anyway, Smith. It’s a fake.”
“Really?” The tall man brushed some dust from his sleeve elegantly. “I don’t think that matters particularly, not to me. I’ve been making some telephone calls since I left you, Dr. Gormley. I think we’re in business.”
“But if the machine is a fake—”
Fast stopped suddenly. He looked at Gormley suspiciously. Maybe he had been a little hasty. He scowled at them both.
Dudley Smith put a cigarette in a jeweled holder and paced the room while he smoked, casting possessive glances at the machine.
“Just a minute!” Fast blustered; “Gormley, you’re into me for eight hundred bucks. I started you out before you even saw Dudley Smith. I fed you, kept you going while you were building it. Anybody else has claims on your work, I’ll buy them off!”
“Dr. Gormley,” Smith put in smoothly, “I am prepared to set you up for life in any kind of a laboratory you wish. All I ask in return is your signature on certain publicity documents from time to time.”
Gormley only stared. Fast reared up like an angered bull.
“I’ll go one better,” he bellowed. “Look here!” He pulled out his wallet and removed a check from it. “Here’s my certified check made out to you. Five thousand dollars. This is yours, Gormley. To set you up, keep you quiet, and to de-ghost this house.”
Dudley Smith laughed. Fast didn’t like it. He got up heavily and grabbed the tall man by the arm. Smith stopped laughing. His hand snaked toward an inner pocket.
“Don’t!” Gormley cried; “Don’t you see what you’re doing—both of you?”
They looked across the machine at him. Their looks said, ‘keep out of this.’
Fast held out the check. “Take it.” It was a command. “All you got to do is prove to me that this evil of yours exists here in this house, and that your machine can destroy it. How long will it take for your machine to clean it up?”
“I—I don’t know,” Gormley said. “The evil is strong. It has had much to feed on—”
“You’re hedging again,” Fast warned. “I got to have proof there’s anything to all this. Shut it off!”
“No-o!”
“Do what I tell you,” Fast gritted. “Shut it off.”
Gormley shook his head in terror.
“Go ahead,” Smith sneered. “Show him it’s a fake so you and I can get down to business.”
Gormley brushed his hand over his eyes. This was getting way out of hand. He was just beginning to realize what he had started. But in that instant Albert Fast’s hand whipped down and flicked off the switch.
Darkness invaded.
The room vanished. They were no longer there. They were in limbo, in black nothingness. This was the natural habitat of live evil. The odor of evil smote them heavily. For a moment Gormley was faint from it, and from the swirling aura of despair and sadistic triumph.
He tried to cry out. First he couldn’t. Then came his whimper of protest.
“No! No!” he wailed.
His cry was directed at the low animal noises that came from across the machine. He stood frozen. Something unseen held him trapped, powerless to move. The animal sounds thickened. It was as if a wild pig had attacked a hyena.
Something thin and sharp swished the black air.
Unseen forms writhed in terrible embrace.
At last he could move. He fell to the floor, groping for the machine switch. Then he found it and flooded the roiling air with light. The living evil bounded back to its lair, faster than sight or sound.
They lay atop one another on the floor. Albert Fast’s blunt fingers were deep in the radio station owner’s neck. Fast’s body was slashed in many places by the thin sharp blade Smith still clutched. Their heads drooped, eyes glazing as he stared.
When at last he could tear his eyes from this horror, he stumbled away from Castongua Mansion with his machine. He should have warned them. He had tried to. Evil loves evil. Evil begets evil. There had been no sudden evidence of evil in those other houses because Gormley was not of himself evil, not receptive to evil. But when it encountered Fast and Smith, with their insatiable greed and hatred for those who stood in their way…
* * * *
Back in his frigid loft he shivered and started to light the fire. It was then he noticed the check, Albert Fast’s certified check, clutched in his fist. His heart leapt. How he could use it in his research! For the sake of humanity. And yet—
He uttered a cry and dropped it in the stove. He set a match to it, watched it curl and blacken and become nothing. No. He couldn’t ever use that money for the sake of humanity. He hadn’t taken it from Albert Fast. Back in that evil-saturated room, he had not voluntarily taken it and clutched it in his fist as if it meant more than life to him.
No.
Something had put it the
re.
SKYDRIFT
Last night’s storm had left the desolate beach littered with drift. Drift of every kind imaginable, the flotsam of a harried ocean; and two human derelicts as well. The sky was antiqued copper, sheathing the earth, protecting it from the menaces lurking in outer space. Last night the wind had howled like a thousand demons, thunder had bellowed along the foothills, lightning had lashed. They had cowered in the deepest, driest cave they could find until dawn drove them out, or rather sharp hunger and cold. The wind had erased itself, a strange calm possessed the nervous gray ocean. But it was unseasonably cold for late April along this ragged skirt of ocean thirty miles north of San Quentin.
Big Tom’s heavy lips were blue. They shivered when he curled them and spat on the packed sand in anger.
“P-pick it up, jerk! We n-need dry wood! I’m freez-zing my t-tail off!”
Bony little Aino shivered, too. But he said nothing, he only hunched closer against the wet-smelling sand, staring at a chunk of drift in front of him, clutching some others to his scrawny chest.
The piece of drift was half-poked into the sand, as if it had been flung there like that. It was about ten inches long, flat, bleached and smooth. It was like all the other chunks of drift along the beach, half-rounded by gnawing waves, serrulated in curious rows so that you might almost imagine it had writing on it.
Big Tom Clegg scratched his paunch where his cowhide belt divided him. His wide stubbled face darkened when Aino didn’t answer him right away or do what he said. Then his foot went out. Aino toppled. He almost touched the curious piece of drift. He would have had he not dropped his load and plunged his hands against the wet sand.
“I said pick it up!” There was that ominous quantity to Big Tom’s command which had heretofore caused Aino to respond like a well-trained hound, back in the iron cell they’d shared for three years.
Aino Halvor was weak physically. Perhaps he was born to obey somebody stronger than he. Perhaps something in him demanded that he take orders from someone more able to bargain with life than he was. Tom Clegg had appointed himself that somebody back in San Quentin, and since their release eight days ago had continued to demand servility as his right by reason of superior physical strength. But now, for the first time in three years and eight days, Aino hadn’t obeyed his order.