Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 12 (1943-07).djvu/59

 mouth. "We've got to work fast," he muttered. "Nancy has to be in by ten. Freddy will waste maybe fifteen minutes billing and cooing with her in the vestibule of the femme dorm, but we can't count on it."

He lit the cigarette with trembling fingers. "Terry, you and Limerick take hold of his shoulders. Slats and I will lift his legs."

It was a gruesome undertaking. O'Rourke was shaking like a leaf when they rolled the corpse into a tarpaulin, and loaded it on a carry-cot from the college supply room.

The cadaver was limp, flaccid, but remarkably well-preserved. Simeon Hodges had looked cadaverous in life and death had not changed him.

"Well, well," rapped Cummings. "What are we waiting for?"

"My legs," croaked O'Rourke.

"Damn your legs. Get going."

Out of the moonlit cemetery they plodded, four frightened medical students carrying a gruesome burden. Down a narrow dirt road to Miller's junction, and then east between lonely farmhouses to the dormitories, halls and grounds of Carlton Medical School.

Frederick Simpson was a fresh-air fiend. He had gone off with Nancy Summers and left the window of his room on the ground floor of the men's dormitory open to the Warm September night. Removing the wing fasteners on the outside of the screen and passing Simeon Hodges across the sill was a simple matter.

Slater and Cummings climbed into the room while O'Rourke and Limerick remained on the lawn with the carry-cot, hoisting the body up and sighing with relief when it was seized from above and dragged into blackness.

Slater and Cummings gripped the corpse in a sort of half-Nelson and staggered with it to Freddy's bed. It took them scarcely five minutes to accomplish their grisly task. They descended breathlessly, their faces wan in the moonlight.

"Did you tuck him in for the night," whispered Limerick, hoarsely.

"You bet we did. We propped him right up in Freddy's bed, and put a book in his hands. Babcock's Post-Mortem Appearances."

A gruesome smile creased Limerick's thin, bloodless lips. "A living case book, eh?"

"We shouldn't be standing here chinning," interposed O'Rourke. "Freddy'll be back any minute now."

Cummings nodded, rotated the wing fastener till it overlapped the screen and screwed it into place.

"You'd better return that cot to the supply room, Slats," he said. "Keep out of the moonlight and tiptoe when you hit the corridor. You'll find us in Terry's room."

Terry's room was three windows further along, at the southern extremity of the dormitory. Terry was not a fresh air fanatic, but he had left his window open on purpose to the warm autumn night.

The three conspirators climbed in hastily, leaving the screen fastener ajar. They sank into chairs by the window in darkness, and mopped sweat from their brows. O'Rourke had set four wicker chairs in a semi-circle close to the window in preparation for just such an event.

The session of watchful waiting which ensued dragged like a dead eternity. Every once in a while O'Rourke peered out, craning his thin neck and humming to keep his courage up.

INALLY he saw it. A wide swath of radiance on the trampled lawn immediately beneath Freddy's window. He withdrew his head with a jerk.

"Freddy's back," he whispered, hoarsely.

There was a scraping of chair legs, followed by a muffled oath and Cummings