Life Everlasting and Other Tales of Science, Fantasy, and Horror

by David Henry Keller

  Playing in the kitchen, the child developed two interesting habits. Rags, scraps of paper, and splinters of wood were continually being shoved under the thick oak door to fill the space between the door and the sill. Whenever Mrs. Tucker opened the door, there was always some trash there, placed by her son. It annoyed her, and more than once the little fellow was thrashed for his conduct; but punishment acted in no way as a deterrent. The other habit was as singular. Once the door was closed and locked, he would rather boldly walk over to it and caress the old lock. Even when he was so small that he had to stand on tiptoe to touch it with the tips of his fingers, he would touch it with slow caressing strokes; later on, as he grew older, he used to kiss it.

  His father, who only saw the boy at the end of the day, decided that there was no sense in such conduct, and, in his masculine way, tried to break the lad of his foolishness. There was, of necessity, no effort on the part of the hard-working man to understand the psychology back of his son's conduct. All that the man knew was that his little son was acting in a way that was decidedly queer.

  Tommy loved his mother, and was willing to do anything he could to help her in the household chores; but one thing he would not do, and never did do, and that was to fetch and carry between the house and the cellar. If his mother opened the door, he would run, screaming, from the room, and he never returned voluntarily till he was assured that the door was closed.

  He never explained just why he acted as he did. In fact, he refused to talk about it, at least to his parents, and that was just as well, because had he done so, they would simply have been more positive that there was something wrong with their only child. They tried, in their own ways, to break the child of his unusual habits; failing to change him at all, they decided to ignore his peculiarities.

  That is, they ignored them till he became six years old and the time came for him to go to school. He was a sturdy little chap by that time, and more intelligent than the usual boys beginning in the primer class. Mr. Tucker was, at times, proud of him. The child's attitude toward the cellar door was the one thing most disturbing to the father's pride. Finally, nothing would do but that the Tucker family call on the neighborhood physician. It was an important event in the life of the Tuckers, so important that it demanded the wearing of Sunday clothes, and all that sort of thing.

  "The matter is just this. Doctor Hawthorn," said Mr. Tucker, in a somewhat embarassed manner. "Our little Tommy is old enough to start to school, but he behaves childishly in regard to our cellar; and the Missus and I thought you could tell us how to do about it. It must be his nerves."

  "Ever since he was a baby," continued Mrs. Tucker, taking up the thread of conversation where her husband had paused, "Tommy has had a great fear of the cellar. Even now, big boy that he is, he does not love me enough to fetch and carry for me through that door and down those steps. It is not natural for a child to act like he does, and what with chinking the cracks with rags and kissing the lock, he drives me to the point where I fear he may become daft-like as he grows older."

  The doctor, eager to satisfy new customers, and dimly remembering some lectures on the nervous system received when he was a medical student, asked some general questions, listened to the boy's heart, examined his lungs, and looked at his eyes and fingernails. At last he commented:

  "Looks like a fine, healthy boy to me."

  "Yes, all except the cellar door," replied the father.

  "Has he ever been sick?"

  "Naught but fits once or twice, when he cried himself blue in the face," answered the mother.

  "Frightened?"

  "Perhaps. It was always in the kitchen."

  "Suppose you go out, and let me talk to Tommy by myself?"

  And there sat the doctor, very much at his ease, and the little six-year-old boy, very uneasy.

  "Tommy, what is there in the cellar you are afraid of?"

  "I don't know."

  "Have you ever seen it?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then how do you know there is something there?"

  "Because."

  "Because what?"

  "Because there is."

  That was as far as Tommy would go, and, at last, his seeming obstinacy annoyed the physician, even as it had for several years annoyed Mr. Tucker. He went to the door, and called the parents into the office.

  "He thinks there is something down in the cellar," he stated.

  The Tuckers simply looked at each other.

  "That's foolish," commented Mr. Tucker.

  "'Tis just a plain cellar with junk, and firewood, and cider barrels in it," added Mrs. Tucker. "Since we moved into that house, I have not missed a day without going down those steps; and I know there is nothing there. But the lad has always screamed when the door was open. I recall now that since he was a child in arms, he has always screamed when the door was open."

  "He thinks there is something there," said the doctor.

  "That is why we brought him to you," replied the father. "It's the child's nerves. Perhaps 'as'f'tidy,' or something, will calm him."

  "I'll tell you what to do," advised the doctor. "He thinks there is something there. Just as soon as he finds that he is wrong and that there is nothing there, he will forget about it. He has been humored too much. What you want to do is to open that cellar door, and make him stay by himself in the kitchen. Nail the door open so he can not close it. Leave him alone there for an hour, and then go and laugh at him and show him how silly it was for him to be afraid of an empty cellar, I will give you some nerve and blood tonic and that will help, but the big thing is to show him that there is nothing to be afraid of."

  On the way back to the Tucker home, Tommy broke away from his parents. They caught him after an exciting chase, and kept him between them the rest of the way home. Once in the house, he disappeared, and was found in the guest room under the bed. The afternoon being already spoiled for Mr. Tucker, he determined to keep the child under observation for the rest of the day. Tommy ate no supper, in spite of the urgings of the unhappy mother. The dishes were washed, the evening paper read, the evening pipe smoked; and then, and only then, did Mr. Tucker take down his tool box and get out a hammer and some long nails.

  "And I am going to nail the door open, Tommy, so you can not close it, as that was what the doctor said, Tommy; and you are to be a man and stay here in the kitchen alone for an hour, and we will leave the lamp a-burning, and then when you find there is naught to be afraid of, you will be well and a real man and not something for a man to be ashamed of being the father of."

  But at the last, Mrs. Tucker kissed Tommy, and cried, and whispered to her husband not to do it, and to wait till the boy was larger; but nothing availed except to nail the thick door open so it could not be shut, and leave the boy there alone with the lamp burning and the dark open space of the doorway to look at with eyes that grew as hot and burning as the flame of the lamp.

  That same day, Doctor Hawthorn took supper with a classmate of his, a man who specialized in psychiatry and who was particularly interested in children. Hawthorn told Johnson about his newest case, the little Tucker boy, and asked him for his opinion. Johnson frowned:

  "Children are odd, Hawthorn. Perhaps they are like dogs. It may be their nervous system is more acute than in the adult. We know that our eyesight is limited, also our hearing and smell. I firmly believe that there are forms of life which exist in such a shape that we can neither see, hear, nor smell them. Fondly we delude ourselves into the fallacy of believing that they do not exist because we cannot prove their existance. This Tucker lad may have a nervous system that is peculiarly acute. He may dimly appreciate the existence of something in the cellar which is unappreciable to his parents. Evidently there is some basis to this fear of his. Now, I am not saying that there is anything in the cellar; but this boy, since he was a baby, has thought that something was there, and that is just as bad as though there actually were. What I would like to know is what makes him think so. Give me the address, and
I will call tomorrow and have a talk with the little fellow."

  "What do you think of my advice?"

  "Sorry, old man, but I think it was perfectly rotten. If I were you, I would stop around there on my way home and prevent them from following it. The little fellow may be badly frightened. You see, he evidently thinks there is something there."

  "But there isn't."

  "Perhaps not. No doubt, he is wrong; but he thinks so."

  It all worried Doctor Hawthorn so much that he decided to take his friend's advice. It was a chilly night, a foggy night, and the physician felt cold as he tramped along the London streets. At last, he came to the Tucker house. He remembered now that he had been there once before, long ago, when little Tommy Tucker came into the world. There was a light in the front window, and in no time at all Mr. Tucker came to the door.

  "I have come to see Tommy," said the doctor.

  "He is back in the kitchen," replied the father.

  "He gave one cry, but since then he has been quiet," sobbed the wife.

  "If I had let her have her way, she would have opened the door, but I said to her, 'Mother, now is the time to make a man out of our Tommy.' And I guess he knows by now that there was naught to be afraid of. Well, the hour is up. Suppose we go and get him, and put him to bed?"

  "It has been a hard time for the little child," whispered the wife.

  Carrying the candle, the man walked ahead of the woman and the doctor, and at last opened the kitchen door. The room was dark.

  "Lamp has gone out," said the man. "Wait till I light it."

  "Tommy! Tommy!" called Mrs. Tucker.

  But the doctor ran to where a white form was stretched on the floor. Sharply, he called for more light. Trembling, he examined all that was left of little Tommy. Twitching, he looked into the open space down into the cellar. At last, he looked at Tucker and at Tucker's wife.

  "Tommy—Tommy has been hurt—I guess he is dead!" he stammered.

  The mother threw herself on the floor and picked up the torn, mutilated thing that had been, only a short while ago, her little Tommy.

  The man took his hammer and drew the nails and closed the door and locked it, and then drove in a long spike to reinforce the lock. Then he took hold of the doctor's shoulders and shook him.

  "What killed him, Doctor? What killed him?" he shouted into Hawthorn's ear.

  The doctor looked at him bravely in spite of the fear in his throat.

  "How do I know, Tucker?" he replied. "How do I know? Didn't you tell me that there was nothing there? Nothing down there? In the cellar?"

  THE DEAD WOMAN

  HE WAS found in the room with his wife, slightly confused, a trifle bewildered, but otherwise apparently normal. He made no effort to conceal his conduct, any more than he did to take the knife from his hand and the pieces from the trunk.

  Fortunately, the inspector was an officer of more than usual intelligence; and there was no effort made to give the third degree, or even secure a written confession. Perhaps the police department felt it was too plain a case. At least, it was handled intelligently, and in a most scientific manner. The man was well fed and carefully bedded. The next morning, after being bathed and shaved, he was taken to see a psychiatrist.

  The specialist in mental diseases had the man comfortably seated. Knowing he smoked, he offered a cigar, which was accepted. Then, in a quiet, pleasant atmosphere, he made one statement and asked one question.

  "I am sure, Mr. Thompson, that you had an excellent reason for acting as you did the other day. I wish you would tell me all about it."

  The man looked at the psychiatrist.

  "Will you believe me, if I tell you?"

  "I will accept every part of your story with the idea that you are convinced you are telling me the truth."

  "That is all I want," whispered Thompson. "If everyone I talked to in the past had done that, if they had even tried to check up on my story, perhaps this would not have happened. But they always thought that I was the sick one, and there was not one who was willing to accept my statement about the worms.

  "I suppose that I was happily married. At least as much so as most men are. You know that there is a good deal of conflict between the sexes, and there were a few differences of opinion between Mrs. Thompson and myself. But not enough to cause serious difficulty. Will you remember that? We did not quarrel very much.

  "About a year ago, my wife's health gave me considerable thought. She started to fail. If you are a married man, Doctor, you know there is always that anxiety about the wife's health. You become accustomed to living with a woman, having her do things for you, go to places with you; and you think about how life would be if she should sicken and die. Perhaps the fact that you are uneasy about the future makes you exaggerate the importance of her symptoms.

  "At any rate, she became sick, got a nasty cough, and lost weight. I spoke to her about it, and even bought a bottle of beef, iron, and wine at the drug store, and made her take it. She did so to please me, but she never would admit that she was sick. Said it was fashionable to be thin, and that the cough was just nervousness.

  "She would not go and see a doctor. When I spoke to her mother about it, the old lady just laughed at me and said, if I tried to make Lizzie any happier, she would soon get fat. In fact, none of our family or our friends seemed to feel that there was anything wrong with Mrs. Thompson, so I stopped talking about it. Of course, it was not easy on me; the way she coughed at night, and her staying awake so much. I work hard in the daytime, and it is hard to lose a lot of sleep. At last I was forced to ask her to let me sleep in the spare bedroom.

  "Even that did not help much. I could hear her cough, and when she did fall asleep, I would have to tiptoe into her room and see if she was all right. Her coughing bothered me so much; but when she did not cough, it worried me more, because I thought something had happened to her.

  "One night, the thing I was afraid of happened. She had a hard spell of coughing, and then she stopped. It was quiet in the house. I could hear the clock on the landing tick, and a mouse gnawing wood in the attic. I thought I could even hear my own heart beat, but there was not a sound of any kind from the other bedroom.

  "When I went in there and turned on the light, I just knew it was all over. Of course, I was not sure. A bookkeeper is not supposed to be an expert on such matters, so I went and telephoned for our doctor. On the way to the phone, I wondered just what I should say; for he had always insisted that my wife was in grand health. So I simply told him that Mrs. Thompson was not looking well, and would he come over. Just like that I told him, and tried to keep my voice steady.

  "It was about an hour before he came. I guess he had stopped to shave. He went into the bedroom, but I stopped at the doorway. He spent some time listening to her heart and feeling her pulse, and then he straightened up and asked me:

  "'She is fine. Just fast asleep. What did you think was wrong?'

  "That surprised me so much that all I could do was to stammer something about not hearing her cough any more. He laughed at me, as he hit me on the shoulder.

  "'You worry too much about her, Mr. Thompson.'

  "Right there, my difficulty started. There was a doctor who was supposed to know his business, and he said there was nothing wrong with my wife; and there I was, just a poor bookkeeper, and I just knew what was the matter. What was I to do? Tell him he was wrong? Send for another physician?

  "It was growing light by that time, so I went down to the kitchen and started the coffee. Often I did that, and later fried some eggs and bacon. I then shaved, and made ready to go to the office. But before I went to the office, I sat down a while by my wife's bed—rather bothered, but I had to keep telling myself that the doctor knew better than I did.

  "Before leaving the house, I telephoned to my mother-in-law. I just told her that Lizzie was not feeling well, and asked if she would come over and spend the day; and that she could get me at the office any time she called. Then I left the house. I fel
t better out in the sunshine; and after working a few hours over the books, I almost laughed at myself for being so foolish.

  "No telephone calls came from the old lady; and when I arrived home at six, the house was lighted as usual. My wife and mother-in-law were waiting for me in the parlor. They told me supper was all ready. Naturally, I was surprised to see my wife out of bed, but tried to act naturally. At the supper table, I watched her just as carefully as I could without making the two of them suspicious of me. Mrs. Thompson ate about as she usually did, just pieced and minced her food; but I thought when she swallowed that the food went down with a jerk, and there was a peculiar stiffness when she moved. But her mother did not seem to think there was anything wrong, at least she did not make any comment. Even when I went with her to the front door to say good night to her, and we were alone there, she never said a word to show that she thought her daughter was in any way unusual or peculiar.

  "I started to wash the dishes after that. Often I washed the dishes at night, while the wife sat in the front parlor watching the people go up and down past the house. After the kitchen was tidy, I lit a cigar and went into the parlor and started a little conversation; but Mrs. Thompson never talked back. In fact, I do not believe she ever talked to me after that, though I am positive that she talked to the others.

  "When the cigar was smoked, I just said good night and went to bed. Later on, I could hear her moving around in her room; and then all was quiet, so she must have gone to bed. She did not cough anymore. I congratulated myself on that one thing, because the coughing had kept me awake a good deal. During the night, I lit a candle; and, shading it with my hand, tiptoed in to see her. She had her eyes open, but they were rolled back so all you could see was the whites; and she was not breathing. At least, I could not tell that she was breathing; and when I held a mirror in front of her mouth there was no vapor on it. My mother told me how to do that when I was a boy.