The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales (11 page)

Not more than five or six minutes of daylight left now, Kugel calculated. It was getting darker and darker. Had he not stopped to strike a match and light a cigarette he would have certainly missed the pathway. It was partially obscured by an enormous bramble bush. Kugel grinned in relief. He sucked the cigarette smoke into his lungs and tossed the match aside once it stung his fingers. He’d got a good enough glimpse for his purposes. The pathway ran down the side of the hill. It had been hacked out of the undergrowth and, although not well maintained, was evidently still in regular use.

He was glad of his sturdy boots as he scrambled down the path, for they granted him a sure footing in the gloom. But he was gladder still when, at last, the forest began to clear and he saw a church steeple, shadow-like against the sky, and less than a mile away across a field. So black was the nightfall that only when he began to cross this field, surveying it close at hand, did he notice its grim desolation. The grass underfoot was sparse and blighted, and grew in isolated patches amidst the dusty soil. All the life appeared to have been drained out of the vegetation, leaving a ghostly scrubland behind.

Kugel had been making for the church steeple when he saw light shining through a casement window from another building just off to the right. He turned towards the source of the illumination, drawn by the possibility of more comfortable shelter and discovered a dilapidated two-storey house, set back from the field and abutting upon an adjacent track. A lantern had been hung in the front window, its wick turned up full. Kugel chuckled to himself at the thought of the folk that dwelt in this remote part of the country, cut off from civilisation and harbouring irrational fears that had been handed down uncritically from generation to generation. He pulled the rifle from his shoulder and used its butt to hammer a summons on the door. If need be, Kugel decided, he would take occupancy of the house for the night by force, commandeer what provisions he could find, and then carry on eastward at dawn.

“
Who’s there?” an elderly male voice called out.

“
A soldier of the Imperial army,” Kugel shouted back, “open this door without delay.”

The portal opened a fraction and a pair of rheumy eyes looked Kugel up and down.

“
I cannot admit you,” the ancient said, “I have a guest and to disturb the circle could be hazardous to us all.”

Kugel was astonished by the old man’s idiocy. In order to provide emphasis to his reply he brought the butt of his rifle up in front of the man’s face as if about to strike him down.

“
This is not a request, it is a command,” Kugel hissed.

“
Then you had better come in, and I bid you welcome.”

The old man bowed. He was bald, thin, and sported a little white moustache. His skin was horribly wrinkled. Kugel addressed him again, more civilly this time:

“
Private Hanns Kugel, at your service.”

“
Steinberger, likewise. And the rest of your company? Surely you are not alone?”

“
My company is scouting this area. They are hours away from here.” Kugel was not surprised that the old man appeared so eager to know the whereabouts of any more soldiers. He must have realised that the military have little compunction when it comes to taking what they want from the homes of gentlefolk. And the more soldiers, the greater their need.

“
Please wait here,” Steinberger said, “as I explained, I have a guest in another part of the house. We are engaged in a séance. My wife is a medium.”

Kugel crossed the room and slumped down into a chair. He rested his rifle against the arm, keeping it close at hand in case he had to deal sharply with this lunatic. He had read that such persons could become violent in an instant, a state often triggered by an individual who questioned their manias, rather than humouring them.

“
Guest?” Kugel said. “So, you are entertaining someone with this séance? Only one other?”

“
Yes, besides my wife and I.”

“
Then,” Kugel replied, trying hard to conceal the smirk he felt taking possession of his face, “you must have ample provisions. I trust I make myself plain?”

“
Stay right where you are Private Kugel. I will bring bread and cheese. Somewhere, too, I have a bottle of wine.”

Once Kugel had greedily consumed his repast and drank most of the wine, he extracted his packet of cigarettes from inside his jacket, lit one with the candle on the table, drew on it, paused, and then blew out deep blue smoke into the air. The wine had made his thoughts hazy and tobacco aided his concentration.

He flicked ash from the tip and addressed Steinberger again.

“
So,” he said, “now I should like to observe this séance of yours.”

Kugel had no interest in superstitious rubbish, but he knew that, in his own interests, he had to verify that what Steinberger had told him was true.

Steinberger’s gaze flickered to the rifle at Kugel’s side. The soldier had not failed to notice this reaction. He was grateful for the weapon’s power of persuasion. He shouldered the rifle by its leather strap, got up and waved its gun barrel towards the hallway door.

“
Lead on, Herr Steinberger,” he chuckled, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor with his boot, “and introduce me to your wife and guest.”

Kugel wondered if she was as crazy as her husband.

Steinberger bowed. Kugel followed the old man through a door into a narrow corridor until they reached another door at the end.

“
Claudia my dear,” Steinberger said as he opened it, “we have another visitor.”

Steinberger’s wife lay on a four-poster bed. She was an emaciated young woman with long black hair that fanned out across the white pillows beneath her head. There was something lupine about her long, bony face. But the strangeness of her features paled instantly in comparison with the sight of the guest seated on one side of the bed. Kugel almost reeled with shock. The “guest” was a black-suited corpse in a high-backed chair. Its face had been eaten away by worms and decay, leaving little more than a skull remaining. The Steinbergers are grave robbers, thought Kugel.

He had seen a great deal, far too much, of the dead. He had been in close quarters with corpses before, both Germans and Russians, lying in battlefields. He was familiar with them. He knew their smell, the stomach-turning stench of decay, syrupy and cloying.

Yes, he knew the dead. But he knew them only as victims of battle, as inert objects. To see one of those things turn towards him, to see it start at the unexpected appearance of the living—that was a sight he had never thought to experience
. He had heard the local legends of corpses who came back to haunt the living and to feed off them. Vampyr, they were called, and he had laughed at the idea, nothing more than fairy tales to frighten children.

Kugel recovered his composure and managed to get off a shot only when the corpse was halfway across the room and heading for the broken-open casement. He hit it square in its back, but the thing did not stop. It shuddered momentarily as if caught in a chilly draught and then kept going, crawling across the window ledge and out into the night air on all fours.

Kugel went after it in pursuit. He looked back once, as he climbed through the window, and saw Steinberger framed in the doorway, leaning against the jamb for support. His wife was staring after Kugel with a curious expression, albeit one that he did not have time to analyse. Her mouth was bloody, as if the thing had struck her across the face, seeking her silence and submission. But at least the two men had entered before the creature had done anything worse.

Outside, he could just make out the crouched shape of his quarry scurrying across the blighted field. He ran after it, unable to get a clear shot due to the darkness and his own rapid motion. He felt an instinctive revulsion at the thing, a desire to blot out its unnatural existence, and it was this sense, rather than any noble motive, that drove him on. Something dead had no right to walk amongst the living. It was an abomination, a rupture in the sane universe that had to be sealed. It mocked the memory of his fallen comrades, gone to their final peace in death.

Its destination became clear. It was heading in the direction of the steeple and, as Kugel approached the structure himself, in the creature’s wake, he now discerned the churchyard sheltering below. It was enclosed by railings and contained a jumble of gravestones and slabs. Kugel stopped, for he could make out the corpse scaling the railings, its shadowy outline high in the air. He took aim, fired, and saw it shudder again at the impact of the bullet in its neck. But he did not bring it down with his shot. In the next instant it had vanished amongst the gravestones and Kugel continued his pursuit.

Once over the railings, Kugel saw a figure waiting for him. At first he feared it was the creature lying in ambush, but it was a middle-aged sexton clad in clerical black, and he carried a spade. His hatchet face was soaked with sweat.

“
I heard the shot,” the man said, “but a bullet can’t stop the dead. I’ve dealt with two-dozen of these things. I’ve buried them and I’ve seen them come back. But if they do, I’ve made sure they stay in their graves thereafter. Now let’s finish this thing off. It crept down into that shallow grave over there.”

“
Not before I have a few questions answered,” said Kugel, “or, I swear, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

“
Don’t be a fool. Shoot me if you will, but I’ll delay not a moment longer.”

The sexton got to work at once with his spade, sparing scarcely a glance over at Kugel who stood there with his rifle half-raised, unsure of what to do. After a while he lowered his weapon and watched the sexton uncover the layer of soil beneath which the corpse had hastily hidden itself.

The sexton positioned himself at the ready and then raised his spade. Kugel now had his rifle poised, as the sexton stood astride the thing within the shallow grave. Its eyelids flickered open. The sexton drove his spade into its already badly wounded neck, severing the head in one powerful stroke. Then he turned the body over, chest-down, and producing a hammer and iron spike from the bag slung across his back, impaled the thing.

The two men sat down on a nearby slab and the sexton mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

“
I tell you, soldier, this is a hellish place. All the life has been drained out of it, and only death remains. Thanks be to God that there are no more left for her to summon . . .”

“
How many more of these graves contain vampyr?” Kugel said, laying his rifle across his knees with shaking hands.

“
Vampyr? Why do you mention that word? Here there are no vampyr, only the restless dead. It is a mercy we have done, for we have ended its torment,” the sexton replied.

“
But I saw the thing, it attacked Steinberger’s wife and tried to drink her blood...”

“
She
called it forth with her black magic. The same black magic she used to destroy our village. The evil in this village is not vampyr. I tried to put a stop to it, I smashed his precious wife’s legs so she could no longer come here, so that she could no longer take her unholy nourishment from those who should be at rest. Vampyr? Idiot!”

Kugel could not think straight. This whole business was confusing. He felt cold and numb. Funny that he had not noticed it before, but only now was he bothered by the fact he had long since ceased to blink. He absent-mindedly ran his fingers over the left side of his body and discovered two bullet holes in his tunic. It was then that he aimed his rifle at the sexton and pulled the trigger.

The séance was calling to him, and he could not resist the summons.

Nor Unto Death Utterly By Edmund Bertrand

“
And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”

Joseph Glanvill

It was in England that I met, for the first and the last time, the unfortunate, albeit extravagantly wealthy, gentleman who forms the central character in my strange narrative. He I shall designate under the appellation “Mr. Arnold”. His true name is known to me, but, for my life, I should not reveal it to the public. Locked away for years in the only habitable quarter of the ancient abbey he had once newly restored but which had subsequently and rapidly fallen back into its former state of ruination, his was an existence of inconceivable isolation. He admitted no visitor within the precincts of his gloomy and sacred redoubt, scorned the customary retinue of servants, and was tended to by an aged valet who lacked the power of speech and whose auditory sense had diminished almost to a complete absence.

I had learnt, by rumor in the nearest village, that “Mr. Arnold” had twice been wed, but both of his wives had died under extremely tragic circumstances, their deaths being horrible, albeit mercifully swift.

Of the first, it was said she might have hailed from the Rhineland but even this is mere conjecture. The truth is her nationality was unknown; indeed everything about her is shrouded in mystery, even her ancestral name. Of the second, I was told she was English, and of noble birth, of long and distinguished ancestry, but, alas, the strain of financial uncertainty had fallen upon her titled family, and the lady had been encouraged by her parents into a union fatal not only to her happiness but to her very life itself.