The-Crawling-Death-Chapter-07

Some unseen being was sorting the cards!

“The euchre deck,” Jim whispered. “It wants to get into the game.”

As if in confirmation of the words, the pack containing the face cards was taken up and skillfully shuffled. It was then passed to me to cut. I cut. Again the pack was raised and two cards drifted to me, two others falling at the empty space between Jim and me. This was repeated until I had twelve cards. The other twelve were then raised, were slipped rapidly between invisible fingers just as a skillful player would do, and then hung motionless, fan shape.

“I’m not in it, it seems. Play the game, Dick, if you know what it is.”

“I think I do, but I’ll know in a sec-
ond,” and I picked up and sorted the cards, made a discard and led an ace. Im-
mediately a small card in the same suit dropped on my lead. The strange game continued.

Suddenly, Jim leaned forward and looked into the hand of my opponent. I heard a smacking sound, like a blow, and Jim drew back with a cry, a livid mark on his face.

And then, before I could say a word, he sprang to his feet and, drawing his gun, shot once, twice, into the center of the suspended hand of cards. They flew in all directions, and at the same instant the automatic was snatched from his hand and he reeled violently backward and fell to the floor with a crash.

For a moment he lay there, then rose slowly on his elbow and stared stupidly around. Suddenly his eyes fixed and bulged. He got to his hands and knees and backed toward the wall, crab fashion. His eyes remained fastened, immovably, on some object that seemed to be creeping upon him. And then a blood-curdling shriek came from his lips, and with a cry of “Take them away, Dick, take them away!” he rose, pulled open the door and dashed down the hall and the stairs.

In another second I heard the crash of the front door, the sound of the quick ex-
plosions of the engine in the automobile, its rapidly retreating echo, and then si-
lence—utter, absolute silence. It had all happened so quickly I had been petrified into inaction.

Slowly I regained my equilibrium and calm. Not without the strongest exercise of will power and reasoning, however.

Why I was not crushed, annihilated, in that moment of demoralization, I will never know. I only know that for some purpose the unseen power in the room was quiescent. But not for long.

As I turned, with my back to the door, I became dimly aware of some presence in the room. The temperature began to fall rapidly, although the fire burned brightly.

By this time I had recovered fully my grip upon my nerves and I waited, tensely but calmly, whatever was to fol-
low. Then, quickly, like a candle, the fire was snuffed out.

“Come!” I said, “that trick has been worked threadbare. Can’t you originate something new? I suppose,” I contin-
ued, merely for something to say, “that the light will go next, although I am curi-
ous to know how you will get around a comparatively new element like electric-
ity.”

As if in answer to my words the thir-
ty-two candle power lamp went out. I was in blank darkness! With an effort I repulsed the sudden rush of fear that assailed my heart; I resolutely ignored the hideous sensation that played up and down my spine, and, groping my way over to where the lamp hung, I reached for it, at first confidently, then, as it evaded my grasp, with frantic, desperate hands that stabbed and clawed the mid-
night gloom. At last, with a sigh of in-
finite relief, my hands closed round the still warm globe. The key had not been turned.

Back to the door I went with a leap, and peered through the keyhole. The lights in the hall were burning. I reached up and caught the cord that had passed through the crack made by the door settling away from the jamb. I pulled this gently, then walked, with the cord passing through my fingers, un-
til I came again to the lamp. The cir-
cuit was intact. And yet I could get no light!

All of this time I was conscious of a presence near me. I felt something fol-
lowing my every step. I knew instinc-
tively that if I gave way for a moment to the fear that was driving me, it would leap upon me. I again backed to the wall and waited. I had no knowledge of the time, of how long I had been alone.

The silence and darkness became un-
bearable. If the thing that was in the room with me would only show itself, would utter some sound, it would be a relief. This waiting, this suspense, were more terrible than any sight or sound could possibly be, and I knew that unless something happened quickly, my nerves would give way.

And then, after what seemed hours, when I felt that I must shriek aloud, I saw in the far corner of the room a dim, misty figure shaping itself into the dark-
ness. At first I could make nothing of it, but gradually it resolved itself into the figure of a boy. A boy of about ten years of age, with yellow curls hanging about his face.

He was dressed in a rich, black velvet suit, silk hose and a pair of high-heeled, silver-buckled shoes. The face was hand-
some, but too matured for one so young. The eyes were hard and cruel, the mouth treacherous. Somewhere I had seen those features before.

My eyes lifted for a moment to the wall where the picture hung. I took a quick inhalation. Although the rest of the room was in pitch darkness, the pic-
ture stood out boldly, in a light seem-
ingly emanating from itself. The eyes were gazing upon the figure of the boy below and, it seemed to me, the lips twisted into a sardonic grin. I under-
stood now. The boy was the original of the picture, which was made at a later period in his life.

My attention was now called to the fig-
ure of the boy. He seemed to be calling some one. Presently into the field of vi-
sion romped a big Newfoundland puppy with which the boy played for a few min-
utes. In the play, the dog leaped upon the boy, bore him to the ground and soiled his clothes sadly.

In an instant he was on his feet, his face distorted with rage, his eyes gleam-
ing savagely. He sprang upon the dog, and the monstrous Ormond hands, look-
ing particularly grotesque on one so small, clenched around the dog’s neck, the fingers interlaced at the back. The terrible grip did not relax until the dog rolled over and lay still.

The boy got to his feet and was vi-
ciously kicking the unresponsive figure when a woman, apparently a servant, ap-
peared on the scene and seemed to re-
monstrate with the youth. He flew at her in a rage, with great hands out-
stretched, but she fled in terror.

Suddenly he cringed and trembled vio-
lently, looking about with furtive eyes for a way to escape, as the figure of a man stood before him. A tall man, stern and dignified. He was an Ormond, and apparently the father of the boy. He pointed accusingly to the dog. The boy cowered in terror.

Then all the figures vanished, and I was again in blank darkness. During all this time not a sound had broken the in-
tense silence.

Again my staring eyes saw a vague form taking shape. Again the picture flamed into view. This time the vision was that of a young man of twenty-eight or thirty. It was the exact counterpart of the picture on the wall, only more evil, more sinister looking.

Presently he was joined by a young and beautiful woman. She seemed to be pleading for something. He repulsed her. She fell to her knees, her hands up-
lifted. Then the same look I had seen when he strangled the puppy leaped into his face, and with a snarl which I could almost hear, he fell upon her and bore her to the earth, his horrid fingers en-
circling her fair young throat.

I tried to tear my eyes away, but could not, and there, before my sickening vi-
sion, I beheld a re-enactment of the ter-
rible crime that had been committed in this room years before.