The Complete Stories, Vol. 1: Final Reckonings Page 6

  On second thought he didn't care to know. The vibrations were beginning to affect his nerves. He decided to turn in early. One more day and it would be over. If he could get a good night's sleep, now, his morbid fancies would vanish.

  Accordingly, Jerome ascended to bed, switching off the lights as he proceeded down the hall. He undressed, donned pajamas, plunged the castle bedroom into darkness, and sought sleep.

  Sleep came.

  And then Barsac came. He wheeled in the cabinet, the great metal cabinet, and once again his bright eyes caught and captured Jerome's astonished stare. Jerome's will slipped away and he entered the cabinet. He was clamped into the seat as a prisoner is clamped in the electric chair. Like a prisoner, Jerome knew he was facing the execution of a death sentence. Yet his will was a prisoner—and now, as Barsac turned the dials, his soul was imprisoned, too.

  Jerome stared through the great glass prism that loomed before his eyes. He could not look away, for the gigantic lens was in itself a hypnotic agent, pulling at his retina, impelling him to gaze ahead into the hugely magnified world of the focal field. He waited for the animals to appear in the field — but there were no animals.

  There was only Barsac. For suddenly a great face loomed through the glass — a monstrous face with the bulging eyes of Barsac, and the great domed forehead.

  Barsac was smiling and his yellow teeth were exposed, but Jerome could only see the eyes. The eyes that glared and pulled at his own eyes, at his brain behind them. Pulled his being into the glass, for as the humming rose insanely about him, Doctor Jerome felt himself plunging forward. His body was clamped to the seat, but his soul soared through the weird prism and lost itself in Barsac's mad eyes —

  Doctor Jerome awoke. It was daylight at last, but he did not sit up to greet its coming. He felt weak, drained.

  Drained.

  A dreadful suspicion was forming in Jerome's mind. He knew that he had dreamed — but he did not know what he hadn't dreamed. Could it be that there was a distorted truth in his symbolic nightmare?

  Was Barsac lying to him? Perhaps his machine could drain some of the vital essence from a man's soul. Perhaps Barsac wanted him to assist in the experiments so that a part of his soul would be removed — not to be incorporated into animals, but into Barsac! Hypnotic, scientific vampirism!

  Had Barsac been in this room last night while he slept and dreamed? Had Barsac hypnotized him in his sleep, seeking to snare his soul? Something had happened. Jerome felt weak.

  And then he was strong—strong with sudden purpose. The thoughts of yesterday came back, but they came now as a resolution. He would kill Barsac, today.

  He would kill him before he died himself. He would kill Barsac because he was a madman, because his experiments were blasphemous, because he deserved to die.

  Doctor Jerome would kill Barsac for the sake of science.

  That was it. For the sake of science.

  Doctor Jerome rose, dressed, prepared breakfast, took Barsac's tray upstairs, returned to the castle chambers below, and began to plan anew.

  Madman or genius, Barsac would die. He had to die. Suppose he were really doing what he claimed? Suppose he actually managed to create animals with human physical attributes and with human minds? Minds like Barsac's mind.

  Wouldn't that be the ultimate horror? And shouldn't that horror be avoided, stamped out?

  Of course. He, Jerome, would save humanity from this monstrous affront to the laws of life. He would do the deed as he had planned, by shock. Tonight.

  Yes, tonight. He'd short the electrical current in the castle, go up to the laboratory in the dark, and shock Barsac to death. Never lay a hand on him. A simple plan, and it would succeed. It must succeed.

  Jerome knew it must succeed by late afternoon—for when the vibrations sounded from above he realized he couldn't wait much longer. He couldn't stand the sound or the visions it conjured up. Barsac, draining his soul into the bodies of a horde of animals — it was impossible to bear the thought.

  What were the animals? Not rats, he had said. Jerome remembered the rats. Barsac had refused to show him the other monstrosities. He only showed the rats with the deformed paws. The paws with the missing finger or missing claw.

  Jerome prepared dinner and laughed. His apprehensions faded away with the memory of his dream.

  The paws. Of course! How foolish he was, letting Barsac's crazy talk and the morbid atmosphere of the castle affect him. Because of that and a few bad dreams he'd tricked himself into swallowing the grotesque claims of an obvious lunatic.

  There was a machine — but any lunatic, given the funds and a scientific training, can build an imposing machine. That didn't prove that it actually worked as Barsac claimed it did.

  There had been no other monstrosities for Jerome to see — for they didn't exist. Barsac's talk about previous experiments was merely talk.

  There were the rats, but what of it? Barsac had been cunning. He had taken twenty rats, killed them, and removed their individual claws on the left forepaws.

  That was all there was to it.

  Barsac was crazy, and there was nothing to fear.

  Doctor Jerome laughed again. That made it easier. He would kill the madman and take over. No more nightmares, no more fears. His laughter blended with the thunder.

  A storm was breaking. It shattered in fury over the castle, and the rumbling swallowed the noise of the vibrations from the laboratory upstairs.

  Jerome peered out of the window as jagged lightning slithered between the mountain crags.

  The thunder grew louder.

  Doctor Jerome turned back to get Barsac's tray ready. Then he paused.

  "Why bother?" he whispered. Yes, why bother? Why wait any longer? He'd go upstairs now, shut off all the lights, knock on the laboratory door. Barsac would appear, expecting his dinner tray. Instead, he'd dine on death.

  Yes. He'd do it now, while the resolution held.

  As the thunder mounted, Doctor Jerome walked up the stairs on his grim errand.

  Lightning flickered as he reached the second landing. Jerome moved toward the switch panel on the wall. Then came the blinding bolt, and as thunder followed, the lights went out.

  The storm had struck. It was an omen. Jerome exulted.

  Now he moved up the spiral staircase leading to the laboratory landing at the top of the great castle tower. He groped his way slowly, in utter darkness, tensing himself for the moment when he would reach the oaken door and knock.

  Then he listened, above the howling of the storm, for the vibrations from behind the door.

  They had ceased, abruptly, when the lightning struck.

  Jerome reached the top of the stairway. He edged toward the door. He was ready, now —

  The door opened, swiftly.

  Doctor Jerome heard Barsac's labored breathing.

  "Jerome!" called Barsac. The voice was faint, but filled with overtones of triumph. "Jerome — where are you? I've succeeded, Jerome, I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams!"

  Jerome was very glad Barsac had called out. It enable him to locate Barsac's body in the darkness.

  Now he glided forward and brought his cold hands up to Barsac's neck. Sudden shock, a fright —

  But Barsac did not scream with fear. He screamed with anger. "Jerome, it's you!" he shouted.

  So he knew. Knew Jerome meant to kill him. Therefore he must die. Jeromes hands, which had risen merely to frighten, now remained to strangle.

  He tightened his grip about Barsac's throat. Barsac tried to claw him off, but he could not see, and his gestures were pitifully weak.

  Now Barsac did not cry out. He merely gurgled as Doctor Jerome pressed his windpipe and then dragged him back along the corridor. He dragged him swiftly, purposefully, and with his own feet he felt for the edge of the great staircase.

  Then he thrust Barsac forward. There was a single shriek as Sebastian Barsac reeled in the darkness, and then only a dreadful series of rubbery thumps as he plunged down
the black well of the spiral staircase.

  Doctor Jerome stood there as the thunder came again. When its muttering reverberation died away, the thumping had ended.

  Barsac was at the bottom of the stairs.

  Cautiously, Doctor Jerome descended the staircase. His feet groped for the next stair, and groped for the feel of Barsac's body. But it was not until he reached the bottom that his shoes met the resistant flesh of Barsac.

  Jerome knelt and passed his hands over that flesh, finding it quite cold. As cold as death.

  So it was done. Barsac was dead. Long live the new ruler of Castle Barsac!

  Doctor Jerome straightened up with a grin. It was easy, after all. "Gentlemen, it was an unavoidable accident. Sebastian Barsac was at work in his laboratory when the lights went out. He came out into the hall, evidently with the purpose of descending the stairs. In the dark he must have made a misstep and fallen down the staircase."

  He whispered the words aloud, just the way he meant to repeat them at the inquest. He heard their echoes rustle and die away.

  And then he heard the other rustling.

  It came from far overhead, from a room at the top of the stairs. A room at the top of the stairs — a rustling from the laboratory! Jerome bounded up the stairs.

  The animals were loose. He'd better lock the laboratory door, at once.

  He heard the shrill squeaking as he made the second landing and turned to climb the last flight to the tower level.

  Then he paused. For there was a drumming from the floor above — a padding and a scraping as small bodies moved down the hall. They had already left the laboratory.

  For the first time he detected the ominous note in the squeaking sounds. Shrill little cries of anger resounded from the head of the stairs. They were angry, as Barsac had been angry when he had died. Barsac, who had come out, crowing in triumph that his experiments were successful beyond his wildest dreams.

  His experiments were successful!

  "I will transfer the physical attributes of myself, and also the mental attributes."

  Jerome knew the meaning of fear, then.

  The creatures of Barsac's experiments were loose. The creatures whose bodies he had changed. Whose minds were a part of Barsac's mind.

  They knew and they were loose. Loose and coming after him to seek revenge!

  Jerome heard them creeping down the stairway. They were after him. They knew he was there — they could see in the dark! He turned in blind panic down the hallway. He'd hide in his room. That was it, his room. He stumbled through the pitch-black corridor, and heard them at his heels.

  The beasts were swift. He reached the door, groped for his key. He fumbled in his pockets, cursing. The key wasn't on his ring. And the door was locked.

  Perhaps he'd dropped it now, dropped it on the floor. He stooped to feel around.

  And his hand encountered the warmth of flesh. Flesh that was furry, but not furry enough. Flesh that wriggled through his fingers. The creatures had come!

  Fangs nipped at his thumb. He stood up, hastily, and kicked out at the furry beast. But another body brushed his other ankle, and then they were all around him. Their squealing rose. One of the tiny monstrosities was crawling up his leg, and he felt the touch of minute fingers clinging to his body.

  Jerome screamed, and knew Barsac had spoken the truth. The monsters he had created with his mind were going to kill him in revenge for Barsac's death. And there was no escape.

  Their squealing filled the corridor and their bodies blocked it completely. They swarmed around Doctor Jerome like ravening rats, but they were not rats. Jerome knew that if he should see them he would go mad. And if he did not see them they would crawl up his body and sink their horrible little mouths in his throat, stroke his face with their ghastly fingers.

  Jerome wheeled and charged down the corridor again. The nightmare ranks broke for a moment and he sped down the black corridor of the haunted castle with the beasts of Barsac at his heels. He was playing tag with death in a nighted lair, and death ran behind him on purposeful paws.

  Death squealed and chattered, and Jerome fled. He had to get out before they reached him, touched him, took him. He had to.

  Gasping in agony he reached the corridor's end, knowing that the horde was keeping pace. He turned again, ran forward. He never gave a thought to the stairs.

  And then, as the squealing rose and echoed in his ears, Doctor Jerome tumbled down the castle staircase and landed with a sickening little crunch that he never heard. His head lolled grotesquely on the broken stem of a neck. He lay next to the body of Sebastian Barsac, and like Barsac, he was quite dead.

  It was casual irony that chose this moment for the castle lights to flicker on again.

  They revealed nothing but the two bodies lying at the foot of the stairs. Mad Barsac lay dead, and so did mad Jerome.

  On the landing above, the twenty escaped guinea pigs blinked down with stupid, uncomprehending eyes.

  The Skull Of The Marquis de Sade

  1

  CHRISTOPHER MAITLAND SAT BACK in his chair-before the fireplace and fondled the binding of an old book. His thin face, modeled by the flickering firelight, bore a characteristic expression of scholarly preoccupation.

  Maitland's intellectual curiosity was focused on the volume in his hands. Briefly, he was wondering if the human skin binding this book came from a man, a woman or a child.

  He had been assured by the bookseller that this tome was bound in a portion of the skin of a woman, but Maitland, much as he desired to believe this, was by nature skeptical. Booksellers who deal in such curiosa are not overly reputable, as a rule, and Christopher Maitland's years of dealing with such people had done much to destroy his faith in their veracity.

  Still, he hoped the story was true. It was nice to have a book bound in a woman's skin. It was nice to have a crux ansata fashioned from a thighbone; a collection of Dyack heads; a shriveled Hand of Glory stolen from a graveyard in Mainz. Maitland owned all of these items, and many more. For he was a collector of the unusual.

  Maitland held the book up to the light and sought to distinguish pore-formation beneath the tanned surface of the binding. Women had finer pores than men, didn't they?

  "Beg pardon, sir."

  Maitland turned as Hume entered. "What is it?" he asked.

  "That person is here again."

  "Person?"

  "Mr. Marco."

  "Oh?" Maitland rose, ignoring the butler's almost grotesque expression of distaste. He suppressed a chuckle. Poor Hume didn't like Marco, or any of the raffish gentry who supplied Maitland with items for his collection. Hume didn't care for the collection itself, either — Maitland vividly remembered the old servant's squeamish trembling as he dusted off the case containing the mummy of the priest of Horus decapitated for sorcery.

  "Marco, eh? Wonder what's up?" Maitland mused. "Well—better show him in."

  Hume turned and left with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. As for Maitland, his eagerness mounted. He ran his hand along the reticulated back of a jadeite tao-tieh and licked his lips with very much the same expression as adorned the face of the Chinese image of gluttony.

  Old Marco was here. That meant something pretty special in the way of acquisitions. Perhaps Marco wasn't exactly the kind of chap one invited to the Club — but he had his uses. Where he laid hands on some of the things he offered for sale Maitland didn't know; he didn't much care. That was Marco's affair. The rarity of his offerings was what interested Christopher Maitland. If one wanted a book bound in human skin, old Marco was just the chap to get hold of it — if he had to do a bit of flaying and binding himself. Great character, old Marco!

  "Mr. Marco, sir."

  Hume withdrew, a sedate shadow, and Maitland waved his visitor forward.

  Mr. Marco oozed into the room. The little man was fat, greasily so; his flesh lumped like the tallow coagulating about the guttering stump of a candle. His waxen pallor accentuated the simile. All that seemed needed w
as a wick to sprout from the bald ball of fat that served as Mr. Marco's head.

  The fat man stared up at Maitland's lean face with what was meant to be an ingratiating smile. The smile oozed, too, and contributed to the aura of uncleanliness which seemed to surround Marco.

  But Maitland was not conscious of these matters. His attention was focused on the curious bundle Marco carried under one arm — the large package, wrapped in prosaic butcher s paper which somehow contributed to its fascination for him.

  Marco shifted the package gingerly as he removed his shoddy gray ulster. He did not ask permission to divest himself of the coat, nor did he wait for an invitation to be seated.

  The fat little man merely made himself comfortable in one of the chairs before the fire, reached for Maitland's open cigar case, helped himself to a stogie, and lit it. The large round package bobbed up and down on his lap as his rotund stomach heaved convulsively.

  Maitland stared at the package. Marco stared at Maitland. Maitland broke first.

  "Well?" he asked.

  The greasy smile expanded. Marco inhaled rapidly, then opened his mouth to emit a puff of smoke and a reply.

  "I am sorry to come unannounced, Mr. Maitland. I hope I'm not intruding?"

  "Never mind that," Maitland snapped. "What's in the package, Marco?" Marco's smile expanded. "Something choice," he whispered. "Something tasty."

  Maitland bent over the chair, his head outthrust to throw a vulpine shadow on the wall.

  "What's in the package?" he repeated.

  "You're my favorite client, Mr. Maitland. You know I never come to you unless I have something really rare. Well, I have that, sir. I have that. You'd be surprised what this butcher's paper hides, although it's rather appropriate. Yes, appropriate it is!"

  "Stop that infernal gabbling, man! What is in the package?"

  Marco lifted the bundle from his lap. He turned it over gingerly, yet deliberately.

  "Doesn't seem to be much," he purred. "Round. Heavy enough. Might be a medicine ball, eh? Or a beehive. I say, it could even be a head of cabbage. Yes, one might mistake it for a head of common cabbage. But it isn't. Oh no, it isn't. Intriguing problem, eh?"