Benjamin Franklin, Monster Wrangler (and Other Weird Tales): Volume One
Travis Greer (T. S. Greer)
Copyright Travis Greer 2011
Published by ignacio hills press at Smashwords.
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Story One: Benjamin Franklin, Monster Wrangler: The Crawling Horror on Pike’s Peak
Benjamin Franklin’s adventures in the Old West! In 1900, a man claiming to be Benjamin Franklin (yes that Ben Franklin!), tells his associate a very unusual story. This is the first story in the ‘Benjamin Franklin, Monster Wrangler’ series.
Story Two: Good Rhubarb Pie
Old Lady Lonergan really makes a mean rhubarb pie!
Story Three: For the Blood is the Life
A moonlit grave and it’s mysterious history.
Story Four: Chickens
A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction of exactly one hundred words in length. This illustrates why it’s always a good idea to mind your own business.
Story Five: The Beast in the Cave
A man becomes lost, completely, hopelessly lost in the vastness of Mammoth Cave. What ancient horrors lay in wait for him?
Story Six: The Horror in Room 401
In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse David saw a thing that drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. The mold of decay on its long-dead features—and yet it was alive!
Story Seven: The Chronic Argonauts
An account of the arrival of a mysterious inventor to the peaceful Welsh town of Llyddwdd. He takes up residence in a house sorely neglected after the deaths of its former inhabitants. The simple rural folk believe the mysterious stranger to be ‘devilish.’
Story Eight: Spalatro - From the Notes of Fra Giacomo
The story has a Gothic Italian setting, featuring a criminal, Spalatro, confessing his sins to a monk. His story is quite unsettling and speaks of demons walking among us...
Story Nine: The Beetle – A Mystery
A horrible creature with supernatural powers, “born of neither god nor man.”
Story One: Benjamin Franklin, Monster Wrangler - The Crawling Horror on Pike’s Peak
Story Three: For the Blood is the Life
Story Five: The Beast in the Cave
Story Six: The Horror in Room 401
Story Seven: The Chronic Argonauts
Story Eight: Spalatro - From the Notes of Fra Giacomo
Story Nine: The Beetle – A Mystery
Benjamin Franklin, Monster Wrangler: The Crawling Horror on Pike’s Peak
by T. S. Greer
I realize, of course, that I shouldn’t be writing this down. Mr. Benjamin Franklin (Yes, that Benjamin Franklin!) asked me not to tell a soul. But I fear that if I don’t at least write down my thoughts, I may go mad. Just how a man born in 1706 happened to be here in Colorado Springs in 1899 is beyond my understanding. He briefly mentioned something about having to work with Nikola Tesla in order to “go back” to his home. Mr. Franklin took great interest in Mr. Tesla’s experiments with electricity and whatnot.
Of course I didn’t believe Mr. Franklin’s stories at first. But as he confided in me and as I got to know him, I came to trust him. I believe that I am his closest confidant, and admittedly, I admire the man. My work ties me very close the printing industry, and his help in that regard has been invaluable.
It’s the recent occurrences that he has been “investigating” while trying to gain an audience with Mr. Tesla, that frightens me. If you happen to find this, gentle reader, then you can make up your own mind.
In response to Mr. Franklin’s usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at his temporary residence just off of Platte to find the dinner table already set. Five minutes later, Mr. Franklin and I were engaged in the pleasant occupation of dining.
“You haven’t been away very long,” I said as I finished my soup.
“No,” he replied. I changed the subject, mentioning that I had just purchased a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation. Mr. Franklin didn’t like to tell a story before it’s time had come.
Later, when dinner was finished, Mr. Franklin settled himself comfortably down in his favorite chair, along with his pipe, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. He was somewhat portly, but not uncomfortably so. He mentioned that the exertion of his recent endeavors was starting to show itself in regards to his recent weight loss. He gazed out the window and then began his story:--
“As you remarked just now, I’ve only been away a short time, and for a very good reason too—I’ve only been away a short distance. The exact location I am afraid I can not say; but oh what a story I have to tell! One of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever run against. Not counting the incident that brought me to these current times of course, but most extraordinary all the same.
“When I get back home, I just may give up the printing business and do these sorts of investigations full time. I have always felt that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
“As you well know, I’ve been working diligently with the fine Mr. Nikola Tesla in order to help me get back to my own timeline. At the time of our most recent visitation, I noticed that he was talking with a crew of rough-looking young men. From what I could gather, there were some unusual properties concerning the soil on Pike’s Peak.
“I expressed some interest in what was going on and Tesla asked me if I would like to join a team of men to climb the mountain and investigate the source of these strange power readings. He was thoroughly convinced that there was something unusual and useful to be found in the mountains. He mapped out the region that we were to explore and he promised payment once we returned. I happily accepted the challenge.
“Our party was made up of myself, David Weston, Joe Dawkins and a short quiet fellow named James Hellier. Once news got out of our trip, our friends shook us by the hands, rolled their eyes at us and bade us farewell. Tesla had quite the reputation of being a crackpot during those times—a reputation that I, myself, was quite familiar with back in my old Philadelphia.
“Early in the morning we started. We took with us arms, food and drink for many days, and the bare necessities of life. I also took one of my recent inventions. I had read some research papers presented by a German scientist concerning the controlled shooting of flame. Following that example and considerably improving upon it, I had developed a man-portable device that projected a stream of ignited oil.
“My fire-thruster consisted of a vertical single cylinder four feet long, horizontally divided in two, with pressurized gas in the lower section and flammable oil in the upper section. On depressing a lever, the propellant gas forced the flammable oil into and through a rubber tube and over a simple igniting wick device in a steel nozzle. The entire contraption could be carried on a man’s back with a modicum of difficulty.
“The weapon projected a long jet of fire and enormous clouds of smoke. I was weary to test it more than a couple of times in the city, so I thought that this expedition would be a great time to test it out--based on the fact that there is very sparse vegetation at the peak of the mountain. We carried everything ourselves. By Jove!--it felt good to get out of this stuffy house!
“A week later, we were having some difficulties, and I found myself sorely missing this old stuffy house. The work of going up Pike’s Peak by way of an old Southern Ute Indian trail was terribly severe, but we had determination, strength and courage. And vodka. We had expected to find plenty of obstacles, and we weren’t disappointed. Enormous boulders blocked the path. Beautiful waterfalls and ravines delayed us by way of unsure footing. Rocks were slick. Paths were uneven. Brittle and dry vegetation was so thick that in places we had to hack our way through it.
“There were also plenty of unknown dangers. There might be rattlesnakes concealed among those immense boulders; there were rumors that angry Ute tribes had planted death-dealing plants--indeed, we didn’t know what there might be on that majestic mountain.
“As we mounted gradually higher and higher we found ourselves in good spirit with few effects of altitude sickness. Far down in the valley we had once or twice during our progress caught glimpses of this very townlet called Colorado Springs and I searched in vain for my little stuffy house that I was suddenly very fond of. And still, we fought our way upward. My flame-thruster was proving inconvenient to carry on the uneven terrain, so we propped it against a tree along the path, planning to retrieve it on our way back down the mountain.
“Our surroundings gradually changed. In place of pink granite boulders and black soil, we now came upon wide tracks of gray sand. The undergrowth was still dense and thousands upon thousands of slim fir trees lay rotting upon the ground, evidently swept down by terrific storms. Storms in this area sweep down trees as a reaping machine sweeps down standing corn. Sometimes we came upon broad, open spaces, spaces swept clear apparently in the ice age days by giant waterfalls long since dried up. Then, as we climbed still higher, and the vegetation decreased in density, even the boulders grew smaller. Maybe in prehistoric times they had been flung out by a tremendous seismic disturbance. Rocks were scattered everywhere.
“ ‘Mr. Franklin, have you noticed all these godforsaken bugs?’ Weston remarked one day. ‘And the rats are getting more plentiful. Hardly any squirrels now. The squirrels were good eatin, but I ain’t about to eat no filthy rats.’
“As he spoke he stamped his foot upon an immense brown spider that was running away. Its body burst with a loud pop, and a white glutinous liquid spurted out from beneath his boot. I was about to remark on what I thought of the situation, but almost instantly several spiders ran out from beneath a large stone as if to investigate what had happened. We stopped. The spiders stopped. For a moment they seemed for all the world as if they looked at us--looked at us with a most malignant, vindictive expression. Then they scuttled away.
“ ‘Oy! I felt a bunch of those spiders crawling all over my face last night,’ Dawkins said. ‘They stink and they bite like mischief too. These mountains are famous for them and--look at that!’
“A couple of large black rats were chasing an enormous spider across a long, flat boulder. A moment later, spider and rats disappeared over the edge.
“ ‘Indians round here used to say that mountain rats will devour any living thing,’ Weston said. ‘They’ll probably even eat us if we don’t watch out for them. Lord God, I hate rats—especially ones that eat people!’
“I certainly didn’t think we were in danger of being eaten by rats, but those were the biggest rats I had ever seen. And friend, let me tell you, I had seen some big rats in Philadelphia. I’m not gonna speak in falsehood, I was a fair bit spooked. The rats were hideous to look at. They looked diseased—patches of hair missing. Their long hairless tails looked ragged and bloody.
“During the early part of the afternoon we had made good progress, when suddenly we came upon a large sloping tract of bare white sand. The sun, still high in the sky, shone down upon it, and at first sight the sand seemed to be alive with small, moving bodies.
“I had long ago—in previous adventures—grown accustomed to surprises. Few things astonished me now. Never in my life, however, had I seen anything like this. It was a huge, churning mass of spiders. There must have been thousands upon thousands of them running in about every direction, colliding with one another and tumbling over one another—apparently for no reason. An odd sort of smell that for several days had pervaded the air, struck our nostrils with renewed strength.
“Now, as we stepped forward into the open tract, a strange thing happened, for the entire space, which a moment before had been alive, became instantly motionless. The spiders slowed down and they all stopped moving. Oddly enough, too, every spider was now facing us.
“Instinctively we felt that we had become objects of intense curiosity. And as we stood there, interested and amused, we could distinctly see the spiders’ great eyes sticking out and evidently watching us. The sight would have given some people the heebie-jeebies, but we rather enjoyed it because it was just so unusual.
“ ‘Nasty little critters,’ Dawkins said, pitching a small rock into their midst. They scattered and in less than a minute, hardly a spider was to be seen.
“ ‘No one is gonna believe this,’ Weston said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’ve seen lotsa bugs but never gathered up all in one place like that.’
“The offensive smell was still strong in the air, and as we progressed, it increased. Once or twice it became almost unbearable. A stink that you could scarcely believe. We kept walking.
“We saw spiders at every turn, spiders by the thousand, sunning themselves on every rock and boulder, great brown spiders with fat, oval bodies, and with thick, hairy legs bent in grotesque curves. I aimlessly kicked over a stunted little tree that lay rotting—a bad idea on my part. Two or three hundred spiders must have scuttled away from under it.
“ ‘This is starting to get to me,’ Hellier, who seldom spoke, and was generally considered to be rather surly, suddenly said. ‘I’m not afraid to say that I’m gettin worried that these spiders will go for us.’
“ ‘Well don’t forget that you still gotta watch out for Weston’s man-eating rats too!’ Dawkins said, laughing at him, and we were still chaffing Hellier and Weston when Dawkins happened to look round.
“ ‘Look!’ he exclaimed.
“There was anxiety in his tone, and I felt his hand grip my shoulder. And no wonder. Though anything but a coward, Dawkins could not help but notice what we all realized a moment later—that Hellier’s evil omen was more than likely to come true. A sickening feeling of fear had come over us.
“For there, barely fifty feet away, a reddish-brown mass of spiders gradually assuming the form of a crescent, was gliding over the sand, steadily and swiftly overtaking us. And as it approached we could see thousands and thousands of spiders hastening towards the mass from every direction and quickly increasing its size.
“The swarm must have covered between twelve and fifteen square feet. Before it had glided over another twenty yards of sand, the entire mass was about one-third as large again. Yet a sort of horrible fascination kept us rooted to the spot where we now stood, watching the swarm approach.
“In order to brace up our courage, we told one another that the spiders could not be pursuing us at all; that if we moved aside they would pass us. And when we moved aside in order to convince ourselves of this fact, the creeping crescent immediately swayed around towards us and if anything, seemed to advance more quickly.
“Suddenly the intense horror of the situation flashed across my mind. What in the world could we do to avert the terrible fate that threatened us? Savage animals we might have coped with; treacherous human beings, even, we might have bested; but now we were face-to-face with a peril totally unexpected, utterly loathsome and unassailable.
“ ‘I think we should make a run for it,’ Hellier said.
“ ‘Just where do you think we would run to? The top of the mountain? No way we can make it there, it’s too far.’ It was Dawkins who spoke, and he spoke in tones of scorn.
“Looking around us, we now saw what we had not noticed before. We were surrounded. Everywhere we saw spiders—spiders approaching in brown, gliding crescents of varying sizes. And over a hundred yards away the largest and darkest mass of them, also winding its way along the sand, also approaching, also closing us in. And as this great crescent surged undulatingly, unservingly across the ground, it resembled a great wave of a sluggish, turbid stream of vulgar horror.
“ ‘Fire into them!’ I exclaimed, slipping a couple of cartridges into my shotgun. The two charges cut a lane in the approaching wave, but almost instantly the lane closed up and the undulating mass advanced as if nothing had happened. Together Dawkins and Weston fired four rounds. Rather a broader lane this time; but again it closed up. I reloaded.
“ ‘Keep firing,’ Weston called out. ‘Maybe we can clear a path!’
“We did so, but by the time the gunsmoke had cleared, the swarm had pretty much resumed its former size and shape. Could we sweep a lane with our eight shotgun barrels and then rush through it? No, that was obviously impossible; the width of the way was too great.
“And still more spiders were pouring in upon every side, and as we fired round after round into the quickly approaching swarms in the vain hope of turning them, the distant ravines rang again and again with echoes.
“ ‘This is it guys, we ain’t gonna make it,’ cried Hellier, as for the twentieth time he closed his gun with a snap.
“Our gun barrels had now become almost too hot to hold, and still the hideous, crawling waves, which must have contained millions of spiders, were fast approaching with a strange swaying motion, and rapidly narrowing our little circle.
“In a few minutes they would be upon us, overrunning us, dragging us down. Already many stragglers were running up our legs and over our bodies. Now the first swarm was so near that we could distinctly hear them rushing up to us, and–oh! the smell, it still hangs in my nostrils.
“Suddenly I saw several spiders run up Weston’s face and fix upon his eyes. With a scream he dashed them away, but as he did so his eyes began to swell, for the brutes had bitten him badly. I saw spiders all over his neck as he began to scream. He fell to the ground and they quickly overtook him. He stopped kicking and moaning soon after.
“I heard a strange sound coming from Hellier and turned to look at him and was repulsed to see that his mouth was completely filled with the hideous creatures. His hand went up to his throat as he fell to his knees. They were in his ears, on his eyes. He wasn’t even able to scream.
“I searched frantically for Dawkins, but I saw no sign of him. I yelled out his name, but no answer came. I turned to face the oncoming swarm as I tried to come up with a plan of escape. I didn’t enjoy the thought of a terrible death by these tiny devil-spawns.
“I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out my tumbler of vodka. I was already feeling bites on my legs as I poured a circle of the alcohol around me. I frantically swatted at my legs as I found my matches. I lit a match and dropped it onto the circle of vodka and it went up in flames.
“The mass of spiders reacted violently as they backed away. The flame started to go out and I lit another match. I felt a bite on my hand and I dropped the match in surprise. The flame went out before hitting the ground. I had one match left. The spiders were starting to surround me again.
“Suddenly I heard an unearthly scream to the right of me. At first I was confounded by what manner of beast was attacking me now. But I quickly realized that it was Dawkins. By Jove! He must have ran back for the flame-thruster!
“The poor fool was having trouble igniting the device as the brown wave started to overwhelm him. He was frantically pulling the trigger over and over.
“ ‘Good God, man!’ I yelled. ‘Push the lever at the front end to ignite the spark!’
“My directions failed to register with the confused fellow. He fell to his knees in agony and was quickly overtaken. His gurgling moans will haunt me the rest of my days. A terrible thing to witness.
“I could feel the beasts starting to crawl over my legs again and I poured out the last of the vodka on the ground in front of me and lit my last match. I should mention here that attaching my life to the hope of a single match is not an experience I wish to repeat anytime soon. I said a brief prayer—though I’m not especially religious—and placed the match to the alcohol-soaked ground in front of me.
“Our most revered Lord must have cast His loving hand upon me at that moment, because the match stayed true to form and a burst of flame shot up—driving the little buggers back. I made a mad dash for the remains of Dawkins and picked up the flame-thruster. The eight-legged vermin surrounded me as I pulled the trigger and pressed the ignition switch.
“Fountains of flame shot out of the nozzle and I sprayed in a vast circle around me. As the flaming oil shot out to the ground, heaps of the creatures burned immediately. I swear to you I could hear them screaming.
“Now, without bragging, I must relay to you that my flame-thruster worked perfectly for this type of situation. I made quick work of the tiny heathens and the ones that didn’t catch fire or die from the heat fled the immediate area.
“I backed down the path as I kept spraying the flame all around. Suddenly the flame went out. Unfortunately, my flame-thruster is a single-shot weapon. You see, for burst firing, a new igniter section has to be attached each time to reignite the liquid. I had no idea where these igniters were. I certainly didn’t have them on my person.
“I decided it was an excellent time to make a quick exit. I threw the entire flame-thruster contraption into the fire and ran down the path. I practically ran down the entire peak in two days straight. It’s my understanding that a bit of exercise is good for the soul. Not sure that I would recommend running for dear life from a horde of man-eating spiders, but I felt quite relieved and excited to make it back to town.
“Mr. Tesla was in no fair mood after finding out that I was unable to make the scientific calculations that he had asked me to record for him. I relayed to him the reason for my failure but he remained unmoved. I didn’t press my argument too much because I have often witnessed that those convinced against their will are usually of the same opinion still. And I was still counting on the old chap to help me get back to my own time period.”
Mr. Franklin eased back into his chair and grabbed is pipe as if to relight it. He seemed to decide against it and instead, he reached into his pocket. He pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a horribly-sized spider. I let out a bit of a scream, as it looked extremely eager to pounce upon me and attempt to end my life rather horribly. But then I realized that it was most dead. Perfectly preserved. I let out a slight sigh of relief.
“Well?” I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it back to him. “What are you going to do with it?”
Mr. Franklin shook his head.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “I’m actually quite afraid of spiders and other assorted arachnids. Vile creatures.”
Mr. Franklin then stood up, gave me a quick wink and began to shake my hand.
“Out you go!” he said, genially.
And presently I went, pondering, to my home as I glanced at the moon shining brightly down upon Pike’s Peak.
END
By T. S. Greer
Rhubarb pie. Old Mrs. Lonergan was known for it. People from all over the county would visit just to taste it. Everyone knew to go to the little white house with the broken fence, just by the gravel road.
A good pie today. Fresh from the oven. Mrs. Lonergan set it out to cool on the window sill. Then she went to make some iced tea.
She came back to find the pie eaten by the squirrels. Normally this would throw her into a rage—she hated squirrels more than anything in the world. “Rats with furry tails,” she always said. They had raided her pies before.
She wasn’t angry about it today though. Today’s rhubarb pie was made with some sugar, a bit of flour, and a pat or two of butter. And rat poison. Yep, today would be different. She smiled and went to the back porch to drink her iced tea.
Suddenly she heard a commotion out front.
“Must be the squirrels,” she thought to herself. She didn’t cherish the thought of scooping up dead squirrels. She hoped they weren’t still in the yard. How long does it take to die from rat poison anyway?
She walked around to the front of the house to see little Toby Rollins. His lifeless body was covered in blood. She ran to him and realized that it wasn’t blood that stained little Toby’s clothes. It was rhubarb.
Turns out that it takes about fifteen minutes to die from rat poison. If you’re nine years old.
Far above the horror, unseen by Mrs. Lonergan, squirrels chattered to each other and jumped from branch to branch in their favorite oak tree. They were enjoying their summer afternoon.
END
We had dined at sunset on the broad roof of the old tower, because it was cooler there during the great heat of summer. Besides, the little kitchen was built at one corner of the great square platform, which made it more convenient than if the dishes had to be carried down the steep stone steps broken in places and everywhere worn with age. The tower was one of those built all down the west coast of Calabria by the Emperor Charles V early in the sixteenth century, to keep off the Barbary pirates, when the unbelievers were allied with Francis I against the Emperor and the Church. They have gone to ruin, a few still stand intact, and mine is one of the largest. How it came into my possession ten years ago, and why I spend a part of each year in it, are matters which do not concern this tale. The tower stands in one of the loneliest spots in Southern Italy, at the extremity of a curving, rocky promontory, which forms a small but safe natural harbor at the southern extremity of the Gulf of Policastro, and just north of Cape Scalea, the birthplace of Judas Iscariot, according to the old local legend. The tower stands alone on this hooked spur of the rock, and there is not a house to be seen within three miles of it. When I go there I take a couple of sailors, one of whom is a fair cook, and when I am away it is in charge of a gnome-like little being who was once a miner and who attached himself to me long ago.
My friend, who sometimes visits me in my summer solitude, is an artist by profession, a Scandinavian by birth, and a cosmopolitan by force of circumstances. We had dined at sunset; the sunset glow had reddened and faded again, and the evening purple steeped the vast chain of the mountains that embrace the deep gulf to eastward and rear themselves higher and higher towards the south. It was hot, and we sat at the landward corner of the platform, waiting for the night breeze to come down from the lower hills. The color sank out of the air, there was a little interval of deep-grey twilight, and a lamp sent a yellow streak from the open door of the kitchen, where the men were getting their supper.
Then the moon rose suddenly above the crest of the promontory, flooding the platform and lighting up every little spur of rock and knoll of grass below us, down to the edge of the motionless water. My friend lighted his pipe and sat looking at a spot on the hillside. I knew that he was looking at it, and for a long time past I had wondered whether he would ever see anything there that would fix his attention. I knew that spot well. It was clear that he was interested, though it was a long time before he spoke. Like most painters, he trusts to his own eyesight, as a lion trusts his strength and a stag his speed, and he is always disturbed when he cannot reconcile what he sees with what he believes that he ought to see.
“It’s strange,” he said. “Do you see that little mound just on this side of the boulder?”
“Yes,” I said, and I guessed what was coming.
“It looks like a grave,” observed Holger.
“Very true. It does look like a grave.”
“Yes,” continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. “But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it. Of course,” continued Holger, turning his head on one side as artists do, “it must be an effect of light. In the first place, it is not a grave at all. Secondly, if it were, the body would be inside and not outside. Therefore, it’s an effect of the moonlight. Don’t you see it?”
“Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights.”
“It doesn’t seem it interest you much,” said Holger.
“On the contrary, it does interest me, though I am used to it. You’re not so far wrong, either. The mound is really a grave.”
“Nonsense!” cried Holger incredulously. “I suppose you’ll tell me that what I see lying on it is really a corpse!”
“No,” I answered, “it’s not. I know, because I have taken the trouble to go down and see.”
“Then what is it?” asked Holger.
“It’s nothing.”
“You mean that it’s an effect of light, I suppose?”
“Perhaps it is. But the inexplicable part of the matter is that it makes no difference whether the moon is rising or setting, or waxing or waning. If there’s any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on top.”
Holger stirred up his pipe with the point of his knife, and then used his finger for a stopper. When the tobacco burned well, he rose from his chair.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll go down and take a look at it.”
He left me, crossed the roof, and disappeared down the dark steps. I did not move, but sat looking down until he came out of the tower below. I heard him humming an old Danish song as he crossed the open space in the bright moonlight, going straight to the mysterious mound. When he was ten paces from it, Holger stopped short, made two steps forward, and then three or four backward, and then stopped again. I know what that meant. He had reached the spot where the Thing ceased to be visible — where, as he would have said, the effect of light changed.
Then he went on till he reached the mound and stood upon it. I could see the Thing still, but it was no longer lying down; it was on its knees now, winding its white arms round Holger’s body and looking up into his face. A cool breeze stirred my hair at that moment, as the night wind began to come down from the hills, but it felt like a breath from another world.
The Thing seemed to be trying to climb to its feet helping itself up by Holger’s body while he stood upright, quite unconscious of it and apparently looking toward the tower, which is very picturesque when the moonlight falls upon it on that side.
“Come along!” I shouted. “Don’t stay there all night!”
It seemed to me that he moved reluctantly as he stepped from the mound, or else with difficulty. That was it. The Thing’s arms were still round his waist, but its feet could not leave the grave. As he came slowly forward it was drawn and lengthened like a wreath of mist, thin and white, till I saw distinctly that Holger shook himself, as a man does who feels a chill. At the same instant a little wail of pain came to me on the breeze — it might have been the cry of the small owl that lives amongst the rocks — and the misty presence floated swiftly back from Holger’s advancing figure and lay once more at its length upon the mound.
Again I felt the cool breeze in my hair, and this time an icy thrill of dread ran down my spine. I remembered very well that I had once gone down there alone in the moonlight; that presently, being near, I had seen nothing; that, like Holger, I had gone and had stood upon the mound; and I remembered how when I came back, sure that there was nothing there, I had felt the sudden conviction that there was something after all if I would only look back, a temptation I had resisted as unworthy of a man of sense, until, to get rid of it, I had shaken myself just as Holger did.
And now I knew that those white, misty arms had been round me, too; I knew it in a flash, and I shuddered as I remembered that I had heard the night owl then, too. But it had not been the night owl. It was the cry of the Thing.
I refilled my pipe and poured out a cup of strong southern wine; in less than a minute Holger was seated beside me again.
“Of course there’s nothing there,” he said, “but it’s creepy, all the same. Do you know, when I was coming back I was so sure that there was something behind me that I wanted to turn around and look? It was an effort not to.”
He laughed a little, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and poured himself out some wine. For a while neither of us spoke, and the moon rose higher and we both looked at the Thing that lay on the mound.
“You might make a story about that,” said Holger after a long time.
“There is one,” I answered. “If you’re not sleepy, I’ll tell it to you.”
“Go ahead,” said Holger, who likes stories.
“Old Aderio was dying up there in the village beyond the hill. You remember him, I have no doubt. They say that he made his money by selling sham jewelry in South America, and escaped with his gains when he was found out. Like all those fellows, if they bring anything back with them, he at once set to work to enlarge his house, and as there are no masons here, he sent all the way to Paola for two workmen. They were a rough-looking pair of scoundrels—a Neapolitan who had lost one eye and a Sicilian with an old scar half an inch deep across his left cheek. I often saw them, for on Sundays they used to come down here and fish off the rocks. When Alario caught the fever that killed him, the masons were still at work. As he had agreed that part of their pay should be their board and lodging, he made them sleep in the house. His wife was dead, and he had an only son called Angelo, who was a much better sort than himself. Angelo was to marry the daughter of the richest man in the village, and, strange to say, though the marriage was arranged by their parents, the young people were said to be in love with each other.
“For that matter, the whole village was in love with Angelo, and among the rest a wild, good-looking creature called Cristina, who was more like a gypsy than any girl I ever saw about here. She had very red lips and very black eyes, she was built like a greyhound, and had the tongue of the devil. But Angelo did not care a straw for her. He was rather a simpleminded fellow, quite different from his old scoundrel of a father, and under what I should call normal circumstances I really believe that he would never have looked at any girl except the nice plump little creature, with a fat dowry, whom his father meant him to marry. But things turned up which were neither normal nor natural.
“On the other hand, a very handsome young shepherd from the hills above Maratea was in love with Cristina, who seems to have been quite indifferent to him. Cristina had no regular means of subsistence, but she was a good girl and willing to do any work or go on errands to any distance for the sake of a loaf of bread or a mess of beans, and permission to sleep under cover. She was especially glad when she could get something to do about the house of Angelo’s father. There is no doctor in the village, and when the neighbours saw that old Alario was dying they sent Cristina to Scalea to fetch one. That was late in the afternoon, and if they had waited so long it was because the dying miser refused to allow any such extravagance while he was able to speak. But while Cristina was gone matters grew rapidly worse, the priest was brought to the bedside, and when he had done what he could he gave it as his opinion to the bystanders that the old man was dead, and left the house.
“You know these people. They have a physical horror of death. Until the priest spoke, the room had been full of people. The words were hardly out of his mouth before it was empty. It was night now. They hurried down the dark steps and out into the street.
“Angelo, as I have said, was away, Cristina had not come back—the simple woman-servant who had nursed the sick man fled with the rest, and the body was left alone in the flickering light of the earthen oil lamp.
“Five minutes later two men looked in cautiously and crept forward toward the bed. They were the one-eyed Neapolitan mason and his Sicilian companion. They knew what they wanted. In a moment they had dragged from under the bed a small but heavy iron-bound box, and long before anyone thought of coming back to the dead man, they had left the house and the village under cover of darkness. It was easy enough, for Alario’s house is the last toward the gorge which leads down here, and the thieves merely went out by the back door, got over the stone wall, and had nothing to risk after that except that possibility of meeting some belated countryman, which was very small indeed, since few of the people use that path. They had a mattock and shovel, and they made their way without accident.
“I am telling you this story as it must have happened, for, of course, there were no witnesses to this part of it. The men brought the box down by the gorge, intending to bury it on the beach in the wet sand, where it would have been much safer. But the paper would have rotted if they had been obliged to leave it there long, so they dug their hole down there, close to that boulder. Yes, just where the mound is now.
“Cristina did not find the doctor in Scalea, for he had been sent for from a place up the valley, halfway to San Domenico. If she had found him we would have come on his mule by the upper road, which is smoother but much longer. But Cristina took the short cut by the rocks, which passes about fifty feet above the mound, and goes round that corner. The men were digging when she passed, and she heard them at work. It would not have been like her to go by without finding out what the noise was, for she was never afraid of anything in her life, and, besides, the fishermen sometimes come ashore here at night to get a stone for an anchor or to gather sticks to make a little fire. The night was dark and Cristina probably came close to the two men before she could see what they were doing. She knew them, of course, and they knew her, and understood instantly that they were in her power. There was only one thing to be done for their safety, and they did it. They knocked her on the head, they dug the hole deep, and they buried her quickly with the iron-bound chest.
“They must have understood that their only chance of escaping suspicion lay in getting back to the village before their absence was noticed, for they returned immediately, and were found half an hour later gossiping quietly with the man who was making Alario’s coffin. He was a crony of theirs, and had been working at the repairs in the old man’s house. So far as I have been able to make out, the only persons who were supposed to know where Alario kept his treasure were Angelo and the one woman-servant I have mentioned. Angelo was away; it was the woman who discovered the theft.
“It was easy enough to understand why no one else knew where the money was. The old man kept his door locked and the key in his pocket when he was out, and did not let the woman enter to clean the place unless he was there himself. The whole village knew that he had money somewhere, however, and the masons had probably discovered the whereabouts of the chest by climbing in at the window in his absence. If the old man had not been delirious until he lost consciousness he would have been in frightful agony of mind for his riches. The faithful woman-servant forgot their existence only for a few moments when she fled with the rest, overcome by the horror of death. Twenty minutes had not passed before she returned with the two hideous old hags who are always called in to prepare the dead for burial. Even then she had not at first the courage to go near the bed with them, but she made a pretence of dropping something, went down on her knees as if to find it, and looked under the bedstead. The walls of the room were newly whitewashed down to the floor and she saw at a glance that the chest was gone. It had been there in the afternoon, it had therefore been stolen in the short interval since she had left the room.
“There are no carabineers stationed in the village; there is not so much as a municipal watchman, for there is no municipality. There never was such a place, I believe. Scalea is supposed to look after it in some mysterious way, and it takes a couple of hours to get anybody from there. As the old woman had lived in the village all her life, it did not even occur to her to apply to any civil authority for help. She simply set up a howl and ran through the village in the dark, screaming out that her dead master’s house had been robbed. Many of the people looked out, but at first no one seemed inclined to help her. Most of them, judging her by themselves, whispered to each other that she had probably stolen the money herself. The first man to move was the father of the girl whom Angelo was to marry; having collected his household, all of whom felt a personal interest in the wealth which was to have come into the family, he declared it to be his opinion that the chest had been stolen by the two journeymen masons who lodged in the house.
“He headed a search for them, which naturally began in Alario’s house and ended in the carpenter’s workshop, where the thieves were found discussing a measure of wine with the carpenter over the half-finished coffin, by the light of one earthen lamp filled with oil and tallow. The search party at once accused the delinquents of the crime, and threatened to lock them up in the cellar till the carabineers could be fetched from Scalea. The two men looked at each other for one moment, and then without the slightest hesitation they put out the single light, seized the unfinished coffin between them, and using it as a sort of battering ram, dashed upon their assailants in the dark. In a few moments they were beyond pursuit.
“That is the end of the first part of the story. The treasure had disappeared, and as no trace of it could be found the people supposed that the thieves had succeeded in carrying it off. The old man was buried, and when Angelo came back at last he had to borrow money to pay for the miserable funeral, and had some difficulty in doing so. He hardly needed to be told that in losing his inheritance he had lost his bride. In this part of the world marriages are made on strictly business principles, and if the promised cash is not forthcoming on the appointed day, the bride or the bridegroom whose parents have failed to produce it may as well take themselves off, for there will be no wedding. Poor Angelo knew that well enough. His father had been possessed of hardly any land, and now that the hard cash which he had brought from South America was gone, there was nothing left but debts for the building materials that were to have been used for enlarging and improving the old house.
“Angelo was beggared, and the nice plump little creature who was to have been his, turned up her nose at him in the most approved fashion. As for Cristina, it was several days before she was missed, for no one remembered that she had been sent to Scalea for the doctor, who had never come. She often disappeared in the same way for days together, when she could find a little work here and there at the distant farms among the hills. But when she did not come back at all, people began to wonder, and at last made up their minds that she had connived with the masons and had escaped with them.”
- - - - -
I paused and emptied my glass.
“That sort of thing could not happen anywhere else,” observed Holger, filling his everlasting pipe again. “It is wonderful what a natural charm there is about murder and sudden death in a romantic country like this. Deeds that would be simply brutal and disgusting anywhere else become dramatic and mysterious because this is Italy, and we are living in a genuine tower of Charles V built against Barbary pirates.”
“There’s something in that,” I admitted. Holger is the most romantic man in the world inside of himself, but he always thinks it necessary to explain why he feels anything.
“I suppose they found the poor girl’s body with the box,” he said presently.
“As it seems to interest you,” I answered, “I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”
The mood had risen by this time; the outline of the Thing on the mound was clearer to our eyes than before.
- - - - -
I continued on with the story:
“The village very soon settled down to its small dull life. No one missed old Alario, who had been away so much on his voyages to South America that he had never been a familiar figure in his native place. Angelo lived in the half-finished house, and because he had no money to pay the old woman-servant, she would not stay with him, but once in a long time she would come and wash a shirt for him for old acquaintance’ sake. Besides the house, he had inherited a small patch of ground at some distance from the village; he tried to cultivate it, but he had no heart in the work, for he knew he could never pay the taxes on it and on the house, which would certainly be confiscated by the government, or seized for the debt of the building material, which the man who had supplied it refused to take back.
“Angelo was very unhappy. So long as his father had been alive and rich, every girl in the village had been in love with him; but that was all changed now. It had been pleasant to be admired and courted, and invited to drink wine by fathers who had girls to marry. It was hard to be stared at coldly, and sometimes laughed at because he had been robbed of his inheritance. He cooked his miserable meals for himself, and from being sad became melancholy and morose.
“At twilight, when the day’s work was done, instead of hanging about in the open space before the church with young fellows of his own age, he took to wandering in lonely places on the outskirts of the village till it was quite dark. Then he slunk home and went to bed to save the expense of a light. But in those lonely twilight hours he began to have strange waking dreams. He was not always alone, for often when he sat on the stump of a tree, where the narrow path turns down the gorge, he was sure that a woman came up noiselessly over the rough stones, as if her feet were bare; and she stood under a clump of chestnut trees only half a dozen yards down the path, and beckoned to him without speaking. Though she was in the shadow he knew that her lips were red, and that when they parted a little and smiled at him she showed two small sharp teeth. He knew this at first rather than saw it, and he knew that it was Cristina, and that she was dead. Yet he was not afraid; he only wondered whether it was a dream, for he thought that if he had been awake he should have been frightened.
“Besides, the dead woman had red lips, and that could only happen in a dream. Whenever he went near the gorget after sunset she was already there waiting for him, or else she very soon appeared, and he began to be sure of her blood-red mouth, but now each feature grew distinct, and the pale face looked at him with deep and hungry eyes.
“It was the eyes that grew dim. Little by little he came to know that someday the dream would not end when he turned away to go home, but would lead him down the gorge out of which the vision rose. She was nearer now when she beckoned to him. Her cheeks were not livid like those of the dead, but pale with starvation, with the furious and unappeased physical hunger of her eyes that devoured him. They feasted on his soul and cast a spell over him, and at last they were close to his own and held him. He could not tell whether her breath was as hot as fire, or as cold as ice; he could not tell whether her red lips burned his or froze them, or whether her five fingers on his wrists seared scorching scars or bit his flesh like frost; he could not tell whether he was awake or asleep, whether she was alive or dead, but he knew that she loved him, she alone of all creatures, earthly or unearthly, and her spell had power over him.
“When the moon rose high that night, the shadow of that Thing was not alone down there upon the mound.
“Angelo awoke in the cool dawn, drenched with dew and chilled through flesh, and blood, and bone. He opened his eyes to the faint grey light, and saw the stars were still shining overhead. He was very weak, and his heart was beating so slowly that he was almost like a man fainting. Slowly he turned his head on the mound, as on a pillow, but the other face was not there. Fear seized him suddenly, a fear unspeakable and unknown; he sprang to his feet and fled up the gorge, and he never looked behind him until he reached the door of the house on the outskirts of the village.
“Drearily he went to his work that day, and wearily the hours dragged themselves after the sun, till at last it touched the sea and sank, and the great sharp hills above Maratea turned purple against the dove-colored eastern sky.
“Angelo shouldered his heavy hoe and left the field. He felt less tired now than in the morning when he had begun to work, but he promised himself that he would go home without lingering by the gorge, and eat the best supper he could get himself, and sleep all night in his bed like a Christian man. Not again would he be tempted down the narrow way by a shadow with red lips and icy breath; not again would he dream that dream of terror and delight. He was near the village now; it was half an hour since the sun had set, and the cracked church bell sent little discordant echoes across the rocks and ravines to tell all good people that the day was done.
“Angelo stood still a moment where the path forked, where it led toward the village on the left, and down to the gorge on the right, where a clump of chestnut trees overhung the narrow way. He stood still a minute, lifting his battered hat from his head and gazing at the fast-fading sea westward, and his lips moved as he silently repeated the familiar evening prayer. His lips moved, but the words that followed them in his brain lost their meaning and turned into others, and ended in a name that he spoke aloud — Cristina! With the name, the tension of his will relaxed suddenly, reality went out and the dream took him again, and bore him on swiftly and surely like a man walking in his sleep, down, down, by the steep path in the gathering darkness. And as she glided beside him, Cristina whispered strange, sweet things in his ear, which somehow, if he had been awake, he knew that he could not quite have understood; but now they were the most wonderful words he had ever heard in his life. And she kissed him also, but not upon his mouth. He felt her sharp kisses upon his white throat, and he knew that her lips were red. So the wild dream sped on through twilight and darkness and moonrise, and all the glory of the summer’s night. But in the chilly dawn he lay as one half dead upon the mound down there, recalling and not recalling, drained of his blood, yet strangely longing to give those red lips more.