New Title 1

by Campbell, J R

  “ Professor!” I called after him as he made his way quickly past the gathered crowds, towards a waiting car. I shoved my way through as well, avoiding more than one elbow or upraised fist as I shouldered past disgruntled-looking men and women. “Professor! Sir! Edward Malone sent me!”

  Five steps from the waiting car, he stopped and turned on me sharply; so sharply, in fact, that I nearly collided with him.“Did he, now?” he asked me, his fists strangling the handles of his bags. His face was growing red, and I could see in his gaze that he felt I was just another glory-seeker, trying to tie my name onto that of the great and world-renowned George Challenger.“And just how, exactly did Mr. Malone send you? Huh? And how do you know Malone in the first place?”

  Pulling the letter from my overcoat pocket, I thrust it into his hands, answering the first question simply enough with it. As to the second, I replied, “Met him in Hell, sir.”

  Quickly, he read the letter, his face returning to its natural colour gradually. Folding it back up, carefully, he looked at me closely, examining a specimen. His voice softer now, though in no way lacking its former strength, he said, “Malone has spoken to me of you, Mr. Grimm.He’s told me of what you did for him, in the thick of it. Either a fool or a hero was my impression. As you did well for a friend of mine, I am inclined to think of the latter.For what it’s worth, Mr. Grimm, I thank you.” I thought he might have been about to shake my hand then, but he was only returning the letter to me.

  He finished his short walk to the waiting car, opening the door himself, shaking off the driver like he was something offensive. I stood still, looking after him, for a minute, before he barked out of the car at me,“Well, get in here, you old fool.I’ve places to go, and people to see.”

  3 The car took us quickly to a hotel in Central Boston, large but hardly upper-class. That being said, I didn’t know anyone personally who could have afforded to stay there. Three feet inside the revolving doors, we were met by an advertisement, exclaiming for all of Massachusetts to see that appearing the following night, at the annual symposium of the American Academy of Sciences, was none other than the one, the only, Professor Challenger! Seeing his name pasted about in this manner, my traveling companion turned a grape purple.

  His immediate shouts were totally unintelligible, his volume punctuated by a mad-dog foaming at the lips. Finally, practically rupturing the eardrums of anyone unlucky enough to be standing right by him, he shouted, “Who is responsible for this?”

  The man who responded to him was only mostly there, small and pale, ethereal in a way, seeming nearly transparent. I never did get his name, as he may not have given it. His face grew paler, his body seemed to shrink, as Challenger shouted at him like I wouldn’t have shouted at a bad dog. Five minutes of this, with select phrasings comparing the gathering to a one ring circus, and the Professor turned on his heal and was gone from the place.

  Once more outside in the brisk January air, he took a deep breath, gathered himself together, and actually smiled. Still parked at the curb before the hotel, the car awaited us. Handing the confused driver a piece of paper, Challenger got back into the car, and beckoned me to follow. In no time at all, we were again off.

  Seated comfortably, he explained to me, “Driver said it should take no more than two hours to get there from here.”

  “Get where?” I asked, confused at the least. “ To the farm. Apparently a modest, but nevertheless goodsized place, just outside of Boston.” From an inside pocket, he retrieved a telegram, and handed it to me. I opened it, and read in the quickly darkening light of an increasingly overcast afternoon: TO: PROFESSOR GEORGE CHALLENGER -STOPPLEASE HELP -STOP- FOUND THE DEVIL IN MY FIELDS STOP - UDO LANDIS

  Suspiciously, I looked at him.“You never had any intention of speaking at that symposium,” I stated flatly. “ Yes and no,” he replied.“Never did much care for public speaking.What’s the use, when they call you a liar every time you challenge their perceptions even in the slightest. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Grimm: if the powers that be had their way, we’d all be living in another Dark Age. No, I was willing to give them a shot, but once I feasted my eyes on that Barnumesque nonsense, I knew that I couldn’t stay. Makes my getting out of it all the easier, though.”

  I handed him back the telegram, and asked, “But you’re surely not telling me that you travelled all the way here just to come see ‘The Devil’ that some hayseed has found in his corn rows?”

  “Yes, Mr. Grim, that’s exactly what I have done. Upon receiving this telegram, as a folly, I had some acquaintances of mine on this side of the pond look into this Udo Landis, and do you know what they found?”

  “What?” “ Nothing. His family has owned his farm for longer than anyone can remember, and Udo, himself, has come to be known as a man of unimpeachable morality. In other words, what he says, is the absolute truth, as he knows it. This had the effect of getting my interest. When I found that his discovery had been all but laughed at by those so-called “scientists’ that he brought it to, I felt a sympathy towards him.I’ve been on the end of that cluster of catcalls myself, if you remember. When this invitation to speak in Boston came bouncing upon my doorstep shortly after the word from Mr. Landis, I looked on it as something akin to Divine Providence. I decided on the spot to call upon our good friend Udo Landis, and see this ‘Devil’ of his.”

  The smile that parted his lips was mischievous at best, and thrilled me. I had the feeling that Malone’s words would find themselves to be true. Interesting times followed this man wherever he travelled, and for better or worse, I was traveling with him.

  4 The trip in fact took less than two hours, but not by much. On the far horizon, the sun was beginning its final trek behind the world as we pulled onto the rutted dirt road that led through Landis’ lands and directly to his front door.I hadn’t been on a farm in twenty years, not since my own Gran had passed, but I could tell an honest, modest place when I saw one. It being so cold, there was nothing growing, but we could see the barns where, no doubt, cows and pigs were kept, in an attempt to keep them from freezing during this winter that had already covered the rest of the place with an even inch of frost and ice. The farmhouse itself we saw a few minutes before actually reaching it. It was humble but not exactly small, with room enough for six or so people before they would start bumping elbows regularly.I’d stayed in far worse, and would again before I went off to my Reward.

  By the time the car had reached the thin path that fronted the house, Udo Landis was waiting for us. Chill or not, he stood there before his closed front door, overalls and a wool shirt keeping him from the elements. His booted right foot resting on the bottom bar of the front porch railing, arms crossed over his barrel of a chest, he appeared a mountain as he looked down at us.

  “Can I help you folks?” he asked, his voice deeper than a well and carrying well out into the distance.

  When the Professor got out of the car after me, Udo let down his guard somewhat. He seemed relieved, but far from happy. “ Thank God for small favours,” he said. He left the porch in two broad steps, and was gripping Challenger’s hand in his instantly. Height differences notwithstanding, their fists were of a kind.“Mr. Challenger,” he growled, “I cannot thank you enough for coming this far to help me and mine.”

  Returning his handshake pound for pound, the Professor replied, “There’s no place too far when a person is needed. But, for the moment, Mr. Landis, would you mind inviting us in, to get out of this damnable chill?”

  The inside of the home was quaint and lived in. Things were of obvious use, but nothing was trashy. A working home. There were half a dozen rooms: four bedrooms, a bathroom, and a shared living room/kitchen/dining room. Standing in this last were a sharp-eyed woman and three girl children, the oldest no more than ten.

  “ Mr. Challenger,” Udo Landis said by way of introduction, “This is my wife Esther, and our girls, Virginia, Abigail, and Rebecca. Family, this is Professor George Challenger, who I told you about, and
his companion, Mr...?”

  “ Ira Grimm,” I filled in. Standing behind us, by the door, was our driver, but no one seemed inclined to introduce him. In fact, I cannot ever remember learning his name. Mores the pity.

  We all sat, on a fine mix of chairs, ranging from rocking to over-stuffed, both hand-made and store bought. When we were all situated, strong but good coffee in our hands courtesy of Mrs. Landis, and after the girls had been dismissed to their respective bedrooms, Challenger looked at our host, and said, “Mr. Landis... tell me about your Devil.”

  5 Been more than a month now (he began). Early December, colder’n Hell, but not so much as we were afraid to let our girls out to play. Winter is a lonely time for children out in the country, I suppose you can guess, with nobody else to be around but your Momma and Da, so when the kids are able to go out for a bit, you let them.

  The girls were out playing in our back field, ‘bout a quarter mile from here out that way (he threw a crooked thumb back over his shoulder) while the missus and me were tending to things around the house: fixing supper, and whatnot.They’re out, mayhap an hour or so, when they come tearing right up to the house, all flustered and out of breath and crying like their best friends had died. I figured some hobo had come by over there and given them a scare, so I was fixin’ to go out there myself with my shotgun.

  They stopped me before I could even get on my coat, and told me that it weren’t any hobo that’d scared them. Said they were out playin’ in the back field, and started to feel warm, unnatural warm, when all of a sudden the ground under their feet starts quakin’ and the dirt wiggles. About scared them to death.

  ‘Bout ten seconds flat, I was in my coat, and out the door with my gun anyway, headin’ for the field. Didn’t take no time at all to see what they weretalkin’ about. Right in the middle of the field, there was this little mound that hadn’t been there before, all loose dirt and mud, and the closer to it that I go, the warmer I got. By the time I was standing on it, I’d taken off my coat, and was considerin’ losing the shirt, too.

  All the frost had melted, but quick, for about ten feet around this mound, so the ground was this sucking mud like you’d get after a heavy rain.Place just felt wrong, can’t think of any other way to put it.I’m not ashamed of saying, I didn’t want to be there at all.I’d plowed that field every year since I was old enough to, and there’d never been anything there before. It was like it had come up from underneath. Had this urge to run back here and hold my family like it was thelast time I’d be able to.

  I only stayed up there for a few minutes, as it was, just long enough to kick some of the mud about on that mound, to see what was what. Took about three good-sized kicks before I found something, and when I did, I took to runnin’ as fast as my feet could carry me.

  6 The silence that followed was only broken by the sound of the chill wind blowing around the house outside. The rest of the world might as well have been gone for all we heard.

  “What did you see, Mr. Landis?” Challenger spoke into the silence.

  Udo Landis looked at his wife, seeking strength from her, then took her hand in his and answered, “A face. Black as night, and twice as ugly. Solid like rock, and with two horns on top.” 7 We four men, that being Challenger, Landis, our driver, and myself, set out only minutes later into the growing dusk, shovels over our shoulders, and faces hidden in the collars of our coats to protect against the frigid chill of the wind. None of us said a word. What was there to say? Either this man was a lunatic, or... What?

  We made the back field in about twenty minutes. It seems odd to me now that it took us so long to make a trek of only a quarter mile, though remembering the push and pull of the wind, to say nothing of the slick frost beneath our feet, I sometimes marvel that we made it at all.

  After about fifteen minutes, the heat came upon us, making me break out in a full sweat, soaking not just my shirt, but the heavy coat I wore as well. By the time we made the mound, out coats were indeed off. Landis had been right: it was sweltering, and took a force of will to keep our shirts on.

  The mound and the twenty feet around it were the only things not frozen solid that I could see. It stood, perhaps, three feet higher that the surrounding ground, and there, right at the apex of the thing, even from ten feet away, we could see the face.

  It appeared to be half again as large as my own, seen only side-on, carved into the semblance of a shout. The visible ear was elongated at the top and pointed, the lobe seeming not so much rounded as flushed out, like a bats wing. There was hair on the thing, pushed back from its disrupted forehead, and growing down into a long, straggly sideburn. From about the centre of the forehead, disappearing into the dirt and wide around as one of my own fists, was a horn. All of it seemed to be carved from a smooth rock, polished but not radiant, as if it... ate the light that was cast upon it.

  “You’ve not been out here since finding the thing?” Challenger asked Landis, who shook his head disgustedly. Both men wiped sweat from their glistening faces.

  “Couldn’t stand the thought of it,” he said.“Been keeping my girls away from it.Was easy enough, as they’re scared half to death of the thing anyway.Staying away hasn’t stopped their bad dreams any. Nor mine. Tried to get some folks out here to look at it, but they only laughed.That’s when I cabled you. Read about you in the papers a few years ago. Never thought you’d answer.”

  Ignoring this last, Challenger threw his coat upon the ground, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and dug in for his first shovelfull. Nearly sixty, and keeping his own with the youngest of us...

  “Mr. Landis,” he said, panting.“I understand if you don’t want to be here for this.” In reply, Udo followed Challenger’s lead, and threw his back into the task of digging out whatever this thing was before us. The driver and I joined in, but it was only a few minutes before we had to stop because of the receding daylight. We people who live in cities aren’t used to the night anymore. Country nights are dark. Dark and hollow and full of goblins.

  It took us nearly an hour to get back to the house and return with lanterns. The digging was slow work, taking us all of the night. Each spade of dirt, every bit of the thing revealed piecemeal, seemed to build up the heat even more. Working in shifts, the off-shift pair making the walk back to the house for rest and refreshment, we finally managed to uncover the whole of the thing just before sunrise the following morning. What we saw as we unearthed the last of the thing made me pray for the dawn.

  From the tips of its horns to the razor-sharp hooves that ended its animal legs, it would have stood nine feet tall. Its body was the same lusterless black, emaciated and skinny, each bone standing out sharply. Each hand consisted of three central fingers, with a thumb situated on either side. Sprouting from its back, curled and tattered like an old sail, were a pair of ink black wings, spanning, we estimated, nearly thirty feet.

  Seeing it wholly uncovered in the grey early morning air, our driver slowly backed away, muttering under his breath,“Good God...”

  “ I think not,” Challenger responded without looking back. His gaze was fixed, as were all of ours, on the thing before us. Our stares were so intent that we all responded with shock at the same moment when it began to move.

  With a creak like an old tree held up in a heavy gale, the thing in the mound began to twist slightly, barely, almost invisibly. A single thumb quivered. A heavy-lidded eye twitched. Then, suddenly, startlingly, the head began to turn!

  Craning its head on a neck too thin to hold a fruit fly, it turned upon us, its black-on-black eyes opening fully, its mouth gaping wide, as a shriek not born of this earth left its chapped, horrible lips. My whole body erupted with fresh sweat and goose-flesh. As quickly as I could, I backed from the beast, never taking my eyes from it, though somehow I could feel our driver running for all he was worth to get away from there. Across from me, wide-eyed, I could see Challenger and Landis doing the same.

  Like a marionette lifted by an inexperienced puppeteer, the crea
ture slowly began to pull itself from the mound, one handful of dirt after another, pushing up with its skeletal arms, its legs shuddering beneath it, but holding it nonetheless. Deep within its horned head, a glow began, deep, fiery red, barely contained behind its smouldering eyes. Like a predator it looked at me, into me, sizing up my very soul like it was a succulent banquet.

  I don’t know if I cried out then or not, though afterwards I was aware that my throat was raw as if from screaming, my face wet from expelled tears. I have little memory of much else that I may have done, until it was all over.

  I abruptly found myself looking up at the thing, rising above me like a malevolent mountain. Having fallen over something, I was hip-deep in mud and muck on my backside, watching my death move toward me. Jerkingly, it moved forward, my companions too astonished themselves to do much more than I. It’s shriek froze my heart.

  When the sun broke from the horizon quite abruptly, bathing the thing in the first cleansing rays of the new dawn, it yelled all the louder, and turned away. Inch by slow inch, the golden morning ate its way into the creature, burning it, blistering it, hurting it too much for it to even crawl its way back into the mound. Sorry grey ash drifted from the thing as its body gave way to the light. Obsidian skin fluttering away, exposing deeper black bones that resisted with as much effect. In what seemed hours but must certainly have been only minutes, the creature from the mound was no more, reduced to pale cinders that fluttered away into the first breezes of morning.