told of that vileness which had lately been
alive, I tell you. I don’t mean the body. That
there.
was dead, dead! I mean the thing that was in
that body.
IT was a pale and shaken man who left his car
“Where did it come from? Where is it
that following day to walk up to a house
now? Are there,” he demanded, “things like
whose door bore a card announcing that that in the world of the dead? Is that what we within could be found one Madame Zembla.
have to meet when we go on from here?” For
Whitmore’s sleepless eyes in his fear-paled
the first time in his life, J. P. Whitmore had
face seemed almost as dark and sunken as
turned his inner vision away from the things
those other terrible eyes had been.
of this world toward a future that seemed
All this, it seemed, was noted by the
highly problematical, and the visions he saw
searching eyes in the medium’s fat, with that inner gaze were disturbing.
Strange Tales
10
Something of this may have shown in
“No; there’ll be no more of that,” was
his face, so pale and drawn; his hoarse tones
Whitmore’s brusque response.
may have hinted at the questions he had been
Jack Whitmore who had known pretty
asking himself. At least, there was something
women beyond number had found, as others
which made the medium lean forward and
have done, that true beauty is confined to the
place one pudgy hand on his knee. “In your
few. Betty Whitmore’s position in that
language,” she said, “you have ze— what you
restricted group could not be questioned. With
say?—quotation: ‘a little knowledge is a so-
beauty of form and feature, and that added
dangerous thing,’ and even ze little knowledge
beauty which comes from something within,
you have, it is all bad.
the wife of J. P. Whitmore had all of
“No,” she stated, and her voice rang
loveliness that might be desired.
clearly with conviction, “there is heaven and
And Whitemore could not face that
there is hell—though not such a hell as you
appealing figure standing at the foot of the
might think. We will know more about both of
broad staircase; he could not meet the troubled
them some day, I think, you and I.” She look in her eyes gone suddenly deep and dark.
touched herself swiftly in the sign of the cross, He could only repeat his reassuring words and
then went on:
hope they might bring greater conviction to
“But zis thing, it comes from neither
his listener than they did to himself.
place; it has, perhaps, escaped. There are those
“No, no; nothing of that sort, Betty!
over there who will help us to send it back
Just business, my dear. Now run along.” He
where it belong....
turned without the customary good-night kiss
“No, not to-night,” she told Whitmore.
and entered the living room.
“My help, it is needed by others than you. But
to-morrow night I come.”
HE was to remember that last caress he had
With one sharp look she checked failed to give—remember it while he stared Whitmore’s hand that had half withdrawn a
with hot, dry eyes unseeingly into a future
bill-fold. “This,” she told him, “is not a matter where there was only darkness and in which
of ze money. It is a matter of somesing even
there was nowhere an answer to the questions
more important— vraiment! —a great deal that hammered and beat within his brain ... but more important!”
now Whitmore was thinking only of light.
He switched on every lamp in the
THERE was a door—how well he knew it
room, then dropped into his big chair and
now—a door to some hideous half-world that
resolutely forced his eyes away from that far
held things neither of heaven nor hell, nor yet
corner toward which they turned fearfully.
of the world of men. And he had left that door
There were business papers upon
open!
which he tried vainly to focus his attention; he J. P. Whitmore at his beautiful home
threw them aside for a book. That too failed.
some hours later faced the oncoming night
He found a pencil in his hand: reached
with trepidation ill concealed.
for a pad of paper and made meaningless
“No, no,” he said with unwonted marks—meaningless to him, although their irritation, “don’t wait for me, Betty dear. You
significance to a psychiatrist might have been
go along. I—I’ve—some matters to attend to,
startling. From geometrical figures the pencil
some very important matters.
point passed on to more rhythmic, swinging
“Jack,” she began hesitantly, “you’re
lines. It was some time later that Whitmore
not going to—”
realized, with a start, that his hand was
The Terror by Night
11
moving unguided by himself.
where he lay he turned that he might look
The paper where he had been writing
through that open doorway where a band of
was black with a crisscross of confused marks
moonlight lay caressingly across Betty’s bed.
over its upper half, while, below, it bore
regular lines. Here was the writing of a HOW long he slept Whitmore never knew. He cramped hand where one word was repeated
knew only that he had gone to sleep with a
over and over throughout all the lines.
mind at rest; and farthest from his thoughts
J. P. Whitmore’s big sprawling was any suspicion that the repeated warning of chirography was as individual as the man; had
“Don’t go— don’t go” might have ended with
he consciously tried, he could not possibly
the words, “to sleep!” But he knew it when he
have imitated the crowded, vertical letters of
awoke—knew it with a certainty that sent that
this writing at which he stared. But neither, for gripping hand of fear once more about his
that matter, would he have written the one
heart.
word, “don’t,” again and again.
What was it? Where was it?
Only in the last line did an additional
Something threatened, some danger more
word appear. And here this repeated command
terrible than any that had come to him before.
became, “Don’t go—don’t go.”
Almost it was as if a voice had been shouting
to him, as if it were this voice that had
WITH an abruptness which indicated the wakened him, and with that he knew that the nervous tension that possessed the man, warning concerned his wife.
Whitmore suddenly revolted against his own
Betty! She was alone in her room! He
inexplicable conduct.
cursed the muscles that were slow in sending
“To hell with it!” he exploded, hell
him out of bed and toward that
with it all! I�
�m sick of it; sick—sick—sick!
communicating door.
Sitting up here like a scared schoolboy, afraid
And at last Whitmore learned the full
of the dark, afraid to go to bed.”
meaning of fear. Like one who has been
He crossed swiftly and snapped off a
dashed through treacherous ice into the black
master switch, and without another look waters waiting beneath, that inner self which toward the threatening darkness behind him,
was the real Jack Whitmore found itself
he passed out of the room and up the broad
plunged down and yet down into depths of
stairs where Betty Whitmore had stood.
nerve-gripping terror whose frigid chill
He saw her through the door that checked his heart in the very middle of a beat.
connected their two rooms. She was asleep,
And this fear was all for his wife.
breathing softly and regularly, and from some
That band of moonlight had moved. It
window of her room a broad band of lay now across the pillow where Betty’s face moonlight threw itself irregularly across her
would have been.
bed. It showed the regular rise and fall of her
Would have been! For Whitmore, his
breast, showed, too, the faintest ghost of a
rush checked for one frozen instant as he
smile that tugged at the corners of her lips as, reached the doorway, stared with straining
even in sleep, some memory moved her to that
eyes; yet where his wife had been he could see
ever-ready mirth.
only an irregular blur.
And Whitmore’s eyes shone with
Horrified, stricken with a paralysis that
tenderness and admiration as he tiptoed left him clinging to the doorway for support, quietly away and reached for the switch that
he saw that blur take form and become a
plunged his own room into darkness. But from
furred animal whose hair, like that of a
Strange Tales
12
monkey, was long and stringy.
folds under which was the lovely figure of
Betty Whitmore. Her head that had fallen to
ONE strangled cry escaped from his throat,
one side upon the pillow was swung face
and at the sound the crouching thing leaped to
upward as the creature landed. And now
the floor with a motion too quick for the eye
Whitmore could see in that band of moonlight
to follow. Creatures of the wild can do it; they that which transcended all else there had been
can move so quickly that it is as if they were
of horror.
in two positions at the same instant. And this
Her eyes were closed in a face that was
nameless thing that had been huddled over the
waxen pale; her lips, soft as the innermost
face and figure of lovely Betty Whitmore was
petals of a rose, had gone dry and colorless;
abruptly there no longer, but stood beside the
and suddenly those lips were covered by a
bed looking squarely at the man..., And Jack
beastly mouth in a face where decay had
Whitmore, who now knew fear learned also to
already left its mark.
recognize hate.
The scream that burst from
That same red fire was in the Whitmore’s tight throat was that of a raging creature’s eyes; it might have been a reflected
animal. He launched himself in one spring that
glow from some smoldering pit of hell. Here
threw him heavily against the bed while his
was hatred, yet not a human hatred; nor was it
two outstretched, straining hands tore
the ferocity of a wild beast. Here was frenziedly at something of flesh and fur into something that defied all words or thought to
which his fingers sank.
compass it, and it shone from narrowed eyes
Then he found himself standing once
in the head of a great cat-beast like nothing
more; he was breathing heavily, mumbling
Whitmore had ever seen.
over and over in a broken, hollow voice, while
Still that dreadful paralysis held him in
he stared with unbelieving eyes at the thing
its grip. He knew, though his eyes were upon the soft floor-coverings of Betty’s room.
fastened on the beast, that his wife was in her
A dead thing!—yet a thing where the
bed. He sensed too that that regular breathing
workings of death had been thwarted. And
had ceased. He heard her give one feeble,
now that process of dissolution, which by
gasping moan.
some devilish magic has been checked, went
In the moonlight a curtain fluttered.
on with terrible speed, and before his eyes,
The soft breath of the summer night touched
Whitmore saw that which darkness should
Whitmore’s face, and his own indrawn breath
always conceal.
died strangling in this throat, as again there
Betty! It was his next conscious
came to him the horrible stench of putrefying
thought. Betty was safe. But Betty must not
flesh.
see this! He tore his eyes away, then turned
There was no measure of time, nor
swiftly with the sudden realization that Betty
none to measure it. It one instant the needed help.
throbbing, beastly carcass was standing erect,
held there by that hideous something within it
HE must get a doctor at once. His arms were
that gave it the semblance of life. In the same
outstretched to reach her, to raise her up—but
instant, while yet that one feeble moan they were checked. For the figure that had whispered through the room, it was back been that of Betty Whitmore, the silent body where it had been.
that had lain so quietly was galvanized to life; while yet he reached forward, it snapped
IT landed, straddling awkwardly the silken
abruptly to a sitting position. Then, in the
The Terror by Night
13
merest flash of time it threw itself out from
whose soul it could displace!
under the silken robes, the soft, rose-colored
coverlets that had sheltered Betty Whitmore,
STILL it was a small thing which broke the
and sprang from the bed.
spell in which Whitmore was held. A bit of
And still the moonlight followed it.
lace at the V-shaped throat of the dainty robe
Still that broad band of silver touched softly
that Betty had worn! It rose and fell softly in
on those features that Jack Whitmore had the moonlight with the regular breathing of loved. And the eyes that stared back in fierce
that horrible breath that had been blown into
triumph were red with the fires of hate, red as
her body ... and with that Jack Whitmore went
some glowing reflection from the deepest pits
quite mad.
of hell, and the rose-petal lips drew back in an Betty was dead. He knew it without
animal snarl.
any emotion. She was dead; and this—this
Only for a moment did Whitmore see
thing!—
this malevolent transformation. Then between
The throat above that lace-edged robe
him and the fa
ce of his wife that had become
was white and soft. Jack Whitmore’s hands
so unbelievably beastly there came other were still about it when the police broke in; pictures.
his fingers were sunk into that soft flesh with a So plainly he saw them! They blocked
grip they loosened only with difficulty....
out even the face, distorted with fiendish
“The poor young thing,” said an Irish
exultation....
officer compassionately as he stared at the
There was the open door ... and body on the floor, at its soft half-opened lips, through that door there came a formless, slow-its drooping lids. “Like an angel she looks! ...
rising cloud.... In its folds were faces, horrible And why did you do it?” he demanded of
faces, of what had once been animals and
Whitmore. “Only a fiend from hell—”
men, and Whitmore, staring at that ever-
He did not complete the sentence, nor
moving spectral cloud, knew that within it was
did Whitmore reply. There had begun for him
a nameless horror, something beyond the the long silence which was to last throughout comprehension of men. It had found the open
the trial; which, except for that outburst in
door and was using these putrescent bodies as
court, was to continue until his death.
a vehicle. It was imparting to them its own
“They’ve had all the facts,” he cried.
quivering, vibrating life and it was seeking
“Give them the truth—the whole damnable
another, more desirable way to manifest itself.
truth. They won’t believe it, but—”
It was searching for a living human being
The Terror by Night By Charles Willard Diffin Page 3