Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/41

40 He was drifting off on the first soft currents of sleep when he suddenly sat up with a jerk. He had heard a noise!

His lamp was flickering weirdly and he could hear its faint singing—barely audible—yet it seemed to his ears like the mighty rush of steam from a boiler, for his ears were strained to hear a different sound, a sound he must hear again, the source of which he must locate.

His body began to ache from sitting rigidly in one position. Still all was silent.

Suddenly, with a sense of being jerked to consciousness, he again heard the noise, like the shriek of a siren. It seemed distant, yet close. His heart labored so hard that he could feel its beat all through his body. The shriek continued for several moments, and then all was silent again.

He wanted to rise, but he could not.

He was not afraid, he told himself,—and yet

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps—steps that seemed to come from the interior of the wall, pass through his room and die away gradually. Holding his breath, he listened.

The big clock in the front room struck the hour of midnight. He counted each beat as it rang through the house. He was wide awake now. The white curtains seemed to glimmer like sunlit snow, and the clock chimes, in the deathly silence, sounded like those of a mighty tower clock.

As the last note died away, Mac suddenly remembered that the clock had been stopped by Mrs. Mitchell as a mark of respect to her, who, in the adjoining room, was awaiting burial.

SUDDEN feeling of relief came over Mac. It was clear now; somebody had come back, Mr. Mitchell perhaps. That explained everything.

Confidently, Mae got out of bed and, unlocking his door, stepped into the hall. How different everything looked, how natural and homelike! The light that had had such a ghostlike appearance, a short time ago, seemed friendly and quite natural now. At the foot of the stair Mac stopped and called. He called louder and louder, but all remained silent. Suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, he approached the door of the room next to his, seized the doorknob resolutely and, with a sudden push, swung the door open. The rays of the gas light in the hall fell directly into the room, and what they revealed sent a cold shudder of horror through him. Before him stood two empty pedestals. The body had disappeared!

Turning violently, he almost ran to the front door and pulled it open. An icy gust of wind hit his thinly clad body. For several moments he stood breathing the cold night air, then, with a sudden determination, he slammed the big oak door shut.

As the door slammed, there came a sharp report, like the snapping of a wire, followed by a thunder and crashing and wailing. The electric light came on, and the same footstep that had sounded through the house before came closer and closer. He felt a sharp pain, like the thrust of a knife, between his shoulder blades And then he fell in a swoon.

EEKS passed before Mac was well again. Excessive exposure had brought on pneumonia. As soon as he recovered he summoned me to the hospital and begged me to find new lodging for him and remove his belongings from the Mitchell home.

I tried in vain to explain that he had misunderstood Mrs. Mitchell regarding the disposal of the corpse, for they had taken the body with them for burial in Wheeling, and it was not in the house at any time after their departure. But Mac was resolute. He