And I had seen, in that dark, alien world, the city of the creeping things of blackness. I could well believe the part of the story about those strangely malignant entities stealing the bodies of women and animals. It offered the first rational solution of all the astounding facts I had observed, since the night of my coming to Hebron.
And it came to me suddenly that soon the monstrous beings would have the machine repaired; they could need no further aid from me. Then other hordes of the black shapes would come through. Come to seize our world, Steele had said, to enslave humanity, to aid them in making our world a planet of darkness like the grim sphere they left. It seemed mad, incredible -- yet I knew it was true!
* * * *
I must do something against them! Fight them -- fight them with light! Light was the one force that destroyed them. That had freed Steele from his dread bondage. But I must obtain better means of making light than a few matches. Lamps would do; a searchlight, perhaps.
And I was determined to take Steele to Hebron, if he were able to go. I must go there to find the supplies I needed, and yet I could not bear the thought of leaving his for the monstrosities to find when night fell again, to seize his fair body again for their foul ends.
I found that at my command he would move, stand, and walk, though slowly and stiffly, like a person walking in sleep. It was still early morning, and I thought there might be time for his to walk to Hebron, with me to support his steps, before the fall of darkness.
I investigated his possessions in the room, found clothing for him: woolen stockings, strong shoes, knickers, sweater, gloves, cap. His efforts to dress himself were slow and clumsy, like those of a weary child, trying to pull off her clothing when half asleep, and I had to aid him.
He seemed not to be hungry. But when we stopped in the dining room, where the remainder of the food still lay on the table, I made his drink a tin of milk. He did it mechanically. As for myself, I ate heartily, despite ill-omened recollections of how I had eaten at this table on the eve of my first attempt to escape.
We set out across the snow, following along by the wire fence as I had done before. I could distinguish my old footprints and the mingled tracks of wolf, woman, and horse, in the trail the pursuing pack had left. We followed that trail with greater ease now, for the soft snow had been packed by the running feet.
I walked with an arm about Steele's waist, sometimes half-carrying him, speaking to his encouragingly. He responded with slow, dull mechanical efforts. His mind seemed far away; his blue eyes were misty with strange dreams.
* * * *
As the hours of weary struggle went by, with his warm body against mine, it came to me that I loved his very much, and that I would give my life to save his from the dread fate that menaced us.
Once I stopped, and drew his unresisting body fiercely to me, and brought my mouth close to his pale lips, that were composed, and a little parted, and perfumed with sleep. His blue eyes stared at me blankly, still clouded with sleep, devoid of feeling or understanding. Suddenly I knew that it would be wrong to kiss his so. I pushed his pliant body back, and led his on across the snow.
The sun reached the zenith, and began declining slowly westward.
As the evening wore on, Steele seemed to tire -- or perhaps it was only that his trance-like state became deeper. He responded more slowly to my urgings that we must hurry. When, for a few moments, my encouraging voice was silent, he stood motionless, rigid, as if lost in strange vision.
I hurried his on desperately, commanding his steadily to keep up his efforts. My eyes were anxiously on the setting sun. I knew that we would have scant time to reach the village before the fall of night; haste was imperative.
At last, when the sun was still some distance above the white horizon, we came within sight of the town of Hebron. A cluster of dark specks, upon the limitless plain of glittering snow. Three miles away, they must have been.
Still the boy seemed to sink deeper into the strange sea of sleep from which only hypnotic influence had lifted him. By the time we had covered another mile, he refused to respond to my words. He was breathing slowly, regularly; his body was limp, flaccid; his eyes had closed. I could do nothing to rouse him.
* * * *
The sun had touched the snow, coloring the western world with pale rose and purple fires. Darkness was not far away.
Desperately, I took the limp, relaxed body of the boy upon my shoulders and staggered on beneath the burden. It was no more than two miles to Hebron; I had hopes of getting there with him before dark.
But the snow was so deep as to make the effort of even unburdened walking exhausting. And my body was worn out, after the terrible experiences I had lately undergone. Before I had tottered on half a mile, I realized that my effort was hopeless.
Dusk had fallen. The moon had not yet risen, but the snow gleamed silvery under the ghostly twilight that still flooded the sky. My ears were straining fearfully for the voice of the dreadful pack. But a shroud of utter silence hung about me. I was still plodding wearily along, carrying Steele.
Abruptly I noticed that his body, against my hands, was becoming strangely cold. Anxiously, I laid his down upon the snow, to examine his -- trembling with a premonition of the approaching horror.
His body was icy cold. And it had again become ghastly, deathly white. White as when I had seen his running over the snow with the gaunt gray wolf!
But his limbs, strangely, did not stiffen; they were still pliant, relaxed. It was not the chill of death coming over him; it was the cold of that alien life, which the sunlight had driven from him, returning with the darkness!
I knew that he would soon be a human boy no longer, but a weird wolf-woman, and the knowledge chilled my soul with horror! For a few moments I crouched beside his inert body, pleading wildly with his to come back to me, crying out to his almost insanely.
* * * *
Then I saw the hopelessness of it, and the danger. The monstrous life would flow into his again. And he would carry me back to hateful captivity in the subterranean temple, to be a slave of the monsters -- or perhaps a member of their malefic society.
I must escape! For his sake. For the world's. It would be better to abandon his now, and go on alone, than have his carry me back. Perhaps I would have another chance to save him.
And I must somehow render his helpless, so that he could not pursue me, when the dread life returned to his body.
I snatched off my coat, and then my shirt. In anxious haste, I tore the shirt into strips, which I twisted rapidly into cords. I drew his ankles together, passed the improvised bonds about them, knotted them tightly. I turned the frightfully pallid, corpse-cold boy upon his face, crossed the lax arms behind his back, and fastened his wrists together with another rope of twisted cloth. Then, by way of extra precaution I slipped my trousers and buckled it firmly about his waist, over the crossed wrists, pinioning them.
Finally I spread on the snow the coat I had taken off, and laid his upon it, for I wanted his to be as comfortable as possible.
Then I started off toward Hebron, where a little cluster of white lights shone across the snow, through the gray, gathering dusk. I had gone but a few steps when something made me pause, look back, fearfully.
The inert, deathly pallid body of the boy still lay upon the coat. Beyond it, I glimpsed a strange and dreadful thing, swiftly through the ghostly, gray twilight.
Incredible and hideous was the thing I gazed upon. I can hardly find words to describe it; I can give the reader no idea of the weird, icy horror that grasped my heart with dread fingers as I saw it.
It was a mass of darkness, flowing over the snow. A creeping cloud of foul _blackness_, shapeless and many-tentacled. Its form changed continually as it moved. It had no limbs, no features -- only the inky, snake-like, clinging extensions of its blackness, that it thrust out to move itself along. But deep bright green points -- like eyes. Green baleful orbs, aflame with fiendish malevolence!
* * * *
> It was alive, this living darkness. It was unlike any higher form of life. But it has since come to me that it resembled the amoeba -- a single-cell animal, a flowing mass of protoplasmic pseudopods from its mass. And the green eyes of horror, in which its unearthly life appeared to be concentrated, perhaps correspond to the vacuoles or nuclei of the protozoan animals.
I realized, with a paralyzing sensation of horror unutterable, that it was one of the monsters from that world of black nightstallion, beyond the copper ring. And that it was coming to claim again Steele's body, to which it was still connected by some tainted bond.
Though it seemed only to creep or flow, it moved with a terrible swiftness -- far faster, even, than the wolves.
In a moment after I saw it, it had reached Steele's body. It paused, hung over him, a thick, viscid, clinging cloud of unclean blackness with those greenish, fearful eyes staring from its foul mass. For a moment it hid his body, with its creeping, sprawling, ink-black and shapeless masses, crawling over him like horrid tentacles.
Then it _flowed_ into his body.
It seemed to stream through his nostrils, into his mouth. The black cloud hanging over him steadily diminished. The infernal green orbs remained above, in the writhing darkness, until the last. And then they seemed to sink into his eyes.
Abruptly, his pallid body came to terrible life.
He writhed, straining at his bonds with preternatural strength, rolling from the coat into the snow, hideously convulsed. His eyes were open again -- and they shone, not with their own life, but with the dreadful fire of the green, malevolent orbs that had sunk into them.
His eyes were the eyes of the creeping blackness.
From his throat came the soul-numbing, wolfish baying, that I had already heard under such frightful circumstances. It was an animal cry, yet it had an uncanny human note that was terrifying.
He was calling to the pack!
* * * *
That sound nerved my paralyzed limbs. For the few moments that it had taken the monstrous thing of blackness to flow into Steele's body, I had stood motionless, transfixed with the horror of it.
Now I turned and ran madly across the snow toward the dancing lights of Hebron. Behind me the werewoman still writhed in the snow, trying to break his bonds, howling weirdly -- summoning the pack!
Those twinkling lights seemed to mock me. They looked very near across the ghostly, gleaming plain of snow. They seemed to dance away from me as I ran. They seemed to move like fireflies, pausing until I was almost upon them, then retreating, to scintillate far across the snow.
I forgot my weariness, forgot the dull, throbbing pain of the unhealed wound in my leg. I ran desperately, as I had never run before. Not only was my life at stake, but Steele's and my mother's. Even, I had good reason to fear, the lives of all humanity.
Before I had covered half the distance, I heard behind me the voice of the pack. A weird, wailing, far-off cry which grew swiftly louder. The werewoman had called, and the pack was coming to free him.
* * * *
On I ran. My steps seemed so pitifully short, despite my agony of effort, so pitifully slow. My feet sank deep into the snow which seemed to cling to them with maleficent demon-fingers. And the lights that seemed so near appeared to be dancing mockingly away before me.
Sweat poured from my body. My lungs throbbed with pain. My breath came in quick, agonized gasps. My heart seemed to hammer against the base of my brain. My mind seemed drowning in a sea of pain. And on I ran.
The lights of Hebron became unreal ghost-fires, false will-o'-the-wisps. They quivered before me in a blank world of gray darkness. And I labored on toward them, through a dull haze of agony. I saw nothing else. And nothing did I hear, but the moaning of the pack.
I was so weary that I could not think. But I suddenly became aware that the pack was very near. I think I turned my head and glanced back for a moment. Or it may be that I remember the pack only as I saw it in imagination. But I have a very vivid picture of gaunt gray wolves leaping and baying hideously, and pallid, green-eyed women running with them, howling with them.
Yet on I ran, fighting the black mists of exhaustion that closed about my brain. Heartbreaking inertia seemed to oppose every effort, as if I were swimming against a resisting tide. On and on I ran, with eyes for nothing, thought for nothing, except the lights before me, the dancing, mocking lights of Hebron, that seemed very near, and always fled before me.
Then suddenly I was lying in the soft snow with my eyes closed. The yielding couch was very comfortable to my exhausted body. I lay there, relaxed. I did not even try to rise; my strength was utterly gone. Blackness came upon me -- unconsciousness that even the howling of the pack could not keep away. The weird ululation seemed to grow fainter and I knew no more.
CHAPTER XI
A BATTLE OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
'Pretty near all in, ain't you, mister?' a rough voice penetrated to my fatigue-drugged mind. Strong hands were helping me to my feet. I opened my eyes and stared confusedly about me. Two roughly clad women were supporting me. And another, whom I recognized as the station agent, Connell, held a gasoline lantern.
Before me, almost at hand, were the lights of Hebron, which had seemed to dance away so mockingly. I saw that I had collapsed in the outskirts of the straggling village -- so near the few street lights that the pack had been unable to approach me.
'That you, McLaurin?' Connell demanded in surprise, recognizing my face. 'We figgered they got you and Judson.'
'They did,' I found voice to say. 'But they carried me off alive. I got away.'
I was too nearly dead with exhaustion to answer their questions. Only vaguely do I recall how they carried me into a house, and undressed me. I went to sleep while they were examining the wound on my leg, exclaiming with horror at the marks of teeth. After I was sleeping they dressed it again, and then put me to bed.
It was noon of the following day when I awoke. A nervous girl of perhaps ten years was sitting by the bed. Her name, she said, was Mavra Potts, daughter of Joeyl Potts, owner of a general store in Hebron. Her mother had been one of the women who had found me when their attention was attracted by the howling of the pack. I had been carried into the Potts home.
The girl called her mother. He, finding that I was hungry, soon brought me coffee, biscuits, bacon, and fried potatoes. I ate with good appetite, though I was far from recovered from my desperate run to escape the pack. While I was eating, still lying in bed, raised on an elbow, my host came in. Connell, the station agent, and two other women were with her.
* * * *
All were anxious to hear my story. I told it to them briefly, or as much of it as I thought they would believe.
From them I learned that the weird pack had found several more human victims. A lone ranch house had been raided on the night before and three women carried from it. They told me, too, that Judson, frantic with grief over the loss of his wife, had gone out across the snow to seek her and had not come back. How well I recalled now that he had found her! Bitterly I reproached myself for having urged the woman to risk the night trip with me.
I inquired if any steps had been made to hunt the wolves.
The sheriff, I learned, had organized a posse, which had ventured out from Hebron several times. Abundant tracks of women and wolves, running side by side, had been found. There had been no difficulty in following the trail. But, I gathered, the hunters had not been very eager for success. The snow was deep; they could not travel rapidly, and they had owned no intention of meeting the pack by night. The trails had never been followed more than six or seven miles from Hebron. The sheriff had returned to the county seat, twelve miles down the railroad, promising to return when the snow had melted enough to make traveling easier. And the few score inhabitants of Hebron, though deeply disturbed by the fate of their neighbors who had been taken by the pack, had been too much terrorized to undertake any determined expedition on their own account.
When I spoke of getting s
omeone to return with me to the ranch, quick evasions met me. The example of Judson's fate was very strongly in the minds of all present. None cared to risk being caught away from the town by night. I realized that I must act alone, unaided.
* * * *
Most of that day I remained in bed, recuperating. I knew that I would need my full strength for the trial that lay before me. I investigated the available resources, however, and made plans for my mad attempt to strike at the menace that overhung humanity.
With the girl, Mavra, acting as my agent, I purchased an ancient buggy, with a brown nag and harness, to carry me back to the ranch house; my efforts to rent a vehicle, or to hire someone to take me back, had proved signal failures. I had her also to arrange to procure for me other equipment.
I had her buy a dozen gasoline lanterns, with an abundant supply of mantles, and two five-gallon tins, full of gasoline. Find ing that the Hebron High School boasted a meager supply of laboratory equipment, I sent the girl in search of magnesium ribbon, and sulphur. She returned with a good bundle of the thin, metallic strips, cut in various lengths. I dipped the ends of each strip in molten sulphur, to facilitate lighting.
She bought me two powerful electric flashlights, with a supply of spare bulbs and batteries, extra ammunition for my automatic, and two dozen sticks of dynamite, with caps and fuses.
Next morning I woke early, feeling much recovered. The shallow, gnawed wound in my leg was fast healing, and had ceased to pain me greatly. As I sat down to a simple breakfast with the Potts family, I assured them confidently that, on this day, I was going to return to the den of the strange pack, from which I had escaped, and put an end to it.
Before we had finished eating, I heard the hail of the woman from whom the buggy had been bought, driving up to deliver it and collect the ample price that Mavra Potts had agreed that I would pay. The girl went out with me. We took the vehicle, and together made the rounds of Hebron's few stores, collecting the articles she had bought for me on the day before -- the lanterns, the supply of gasoline, the electric searchlights, and the dynamite.
* * * *