Weird Tales/Volume 5/Issue 3/The Better Choice

1

Two more hours to live!

The thought of his approaching death did not seem to cause John Castle much concern. Indeed, he fondled almost lovingly the capsule that contained the deadly drug. To die—and then to live again! For countless centuries the wisest men of all lands had vainly sought the secret he possessed. He held the world in the hollow of his hand! Yet he was barely thirty. All the years of middle age stretched ahead in which to enjoy his fame.

On the work-bench before him were the two large glass jars containing the chemicals he had mixed with his own hands. In one corner of the laboratory stood the machine which would transform these chemicals into the life-giving vapor. Upon these inanimate, unfeeling properties he must pin his faith; must launch out upon the Great Adventure dependent upon these alone to prove that his logic vras not at fault, that he was really master of eternal life.

He realized, of course, that there was a possibility of failure, and he had laid his plans accordingly. He was carrying life insurance to the amount of ten thousand dollars. The powerful drug the capsule in his hand contained was another of his own formulae and would leave absolutely no trace that he was a suicide.

The note to Montague White was already written. He knew that he could trust White to carry out his instructions to the letter. He had grown up with “Monty” from knickerbocker days. He held the friendship of this man next only to that of his wife and little ones. Playmates at school; chums in college; pals now. Although the business world had claimed Monty, he still dropped in for an occasional confab with the scientist, and under the latter’s tutelage had learned enough of laboratory methods to make Castle feel that he could safely trust the project to him. Besides, the letter explained everything so clearly that it left no loophole for any possible error.

Castle glanced once more at the clock upon the mantelpiece. There was still time for one last test before he died. Not that he feared anything might go wrong, but he felt that he needed the added assurance that such an experiment would give him. After all, it was a momentous step he was about to take.

He wheeled the cumbersome machine from its place in the corner and connected it to the socket in the chandelier. He measured a small quantity of each of the chemicals from the glass jars and emptied them into the bag-shaped body of the machine. Then he switched on the current and waited until time enough had elapsed to vaporize the chemicals.

He crossed to a crate at the other end of the room, and from it brought the cold, starlc body of a guinea pig. Two days before, he had put this animal to death by a small portion of the drug the capsule contained. He wheeled the machine up to the workbench and placed the body of the animal beside it.

Three long rubber tubes dangled from the grotesque machine. John Castle inserted one of these in each of the guinea-pig’s nostrils. He gently pried open the little animal’s mouth, and placed the end of the third between its teeth. Last of all, he turned the stop-cock that released the vapor, and anxiously watched the result of his experiment.

One minute — two — three — four — five—ah!

His keen eyes detected the scarcely perceptible pulsation of the animal’s body as the heart began to beat, once more. Stronger and stronger grew the throbbings, till at length, with a tiny frightened squeal, the resurrected guinea pig jumped from the workbench and scurried across the floor.

A hundred times in the last few' weeks John Castle had performed this miracle—a hundred different animals had been slaughtered by him and then granted a new lease of life. His was not an idle dream. But one step remained, and that step he was now ready to take: to prove that this same new' lease of life could be given to man.

Smiling complacently, John Castle locked the door of the laboratory behind him and made his way to his bedroom. Once there he made his usual preparations for retiring, drew the covers snugly about him and, still smiling, placed the capsule of death between his lips and closed his eyes.

2

John Castle’s astral self floated idly over the bed where the lifeless shell that had been his earthly body lay. It was rather an odd sensation, this being freed from the bodily prison one had occupied so long. It was quite an unusual feeling, too, to look at oneself from the viewpoint of an outsider.

So he was dead, at last. He wasn’t quite sure that he liked the idea of being dead, after all. Suppose something should go wrong? Suppose the machine should fail to resuscitate him? But then, it could not fail, he assured himself. It was perfect, without a flaw.

He wondered what his wife would do when she awoke, a few hours hence, and found him dead. At the thought of his wife, he found himself transported to her boudoir. As he drifted over the spot where her graceful form lay sleeping, her features lighted with a radiant smile, as if she sensed his presence there.

He sighed as he thought of leaving the children behind, even for a few short hours. Once more the scene changed, this time to the nursery, with its two cribs, where his little boy and girl slept the sweet, innocent, dreamless sleep of childhood.

Locked doors proved no barrier to John Castle in his new form. A sudden desire for one last look at his laboratory, and he was inside. Yes, everything was just as he had left it before embarking on this perilous voyage.

All at once, Castle sensed another occupant of the deserted room, but not a soul could he see. He could feel the presence of someone else by his side. An invisible hand touched his elbow, and a voice spoke into his ear: “Come, John, it’s time we were moving on.”

John Castle turned in the direction of the voice. Still he could perceive no one. He felt no fear, only an eery sensation at the novelty of the situation.

“Moving on? Whither? And who are you, to dictate whither I go?”

“Calm yourself, my dear John,” the voice returned; “I happen to be appointed to guide you through nebulous infinities to your ultimate eternal goal. You see, John, you no longer direct your own destiny. The physical ‘you’ has ceased to be.”

The newly-dead man felt an irresistible tug at his arm. He might just as well go along, he reflected; might just as well get the most out of this experience before his invention recalled him to his earthly body. With a last, long, backward glance at the old, familiar surroundings, he drifted through the windowpane and out into the night, the pressure of the invisible hand guiding him as they floated along.

Par up above the earth they made their way, high up into the azure of the clear sky where myriad twinkling stars lighted their path.

As they mounted, ever higher, it was if a veil fell from John Castle’s eyes. The air swarmed with astral bodies like his own. He could distinguish men and women from all walks of life—clerks, bankers, laborers, artists, all rubbed elbows in the most cosmopolitan fashion. But what impressed John Castle most forcibly, what made him realize that these were creatures different from those of the sphere he had left behind, was that each and all of the passers-by were as transparent as the glass in his laboratory window. He could see them, know that they were there, yet look directly through them!

He fell to speculating as to the sensation he would create when, after being pronounced dead by the physicians, he would live and breathe once more. He wondered whether, when he should tell them of his findings in the land beyond, they would believe, or scoff at him.

His ethereal companion seemed to read his thoughts.

“John Castle, have you entirely discounted the possibility of failure? Have you never Btopped to wonder why other scientists have never succeeded in obtaining the power over life and death you assume you control?”

Failure... assume... slowly, surely, the scientist realized the appalling inference in the specter’s words. Was he to fail despite his carefully laid plans? Must he really die and leave behind, forever, all that he loved and cherished ? Had he been a fool even to dream of matching his man-made science against the great All-Power who ruled the universe? A wave of bafflement swept over him, a sense of distinct loss, a feeling that he had been cheated. Yes, that was it, exactly—cheated! Just at the moment when fame seemed to be within his grasp, two-score years short of man’s allotted span; forced to leave home, wife and children while hundreds, thousands of others with not half his opportunities or interests in life lived to a ripe old age!

Again his ghostly guide divined his mood.

“Have you forgotten that your life was taken by your own hand? However, John, there is no room for discontent in the realm whither we are bound. Just what would you consider fair?”

“I would go back to earth as I had planned and live my life according to my own dictates. No one there would be the wiser—no one knows yet that I have died. Grant me just another twenty years of life, and I would be content to leave the world behind.”

John Castle’s companion sighed.

“I fear, John, that even then you would not be satisfied. For a good many centuries, now, I have guided souls from earth to eternity, and I have not yet found one who did not protest at severing his connection with the world below. Sometimes we find it necessary to send a soul back to earth for a few more years that he may learn to resign himself to the inevitable. It may be thus with you. But, first of all, you must come with me.”

He swerved sharply to the left, and soon they left the hurrying throng of astral wanderers far behind. Both fell silent as they traced their meteoric course, mounting higher and higher till the topmost star gleamed far below them in the vast universe.

John Castle became suddenly conscious of encompassing gloom, an illimitable ocean of inky darkness that engulfed him—a darkness so intense that the blackness hurt his eyes— dark, with the darkness of night; black, with the blackness of purgatory.

A tiny point of light appeared in the center of the black void. Slowly it grew, until it became a bright, spinning ball of golden yellow; larger and larger, till its brightness almost blinded him. The whirling slackened and John Castle discerned figures moving about in the nebulous mass. An unseen, magnetic power drew him into the vortex to join them. As he yielded to this uncontrollable impulse, he heard the voice of the stranger in his ear:

“Behold, John Castle, what Fate holds in store should you return to the land whence you came!”

3

John castle, wild-eyed, staring, let the latest message slip from nerveless fingers to the floor, and crumpled into his desk chair.

God! How his head throbbed! The Strain of the past few weeks had been nerve-racking, nerve-breaking. And now it was all over. This was the end. Home, money, reputation, everything swept away in one mighty, colossal upheaval, that left him penniless, ruined!

He wished he were dead! Then he thought of the odd nightmare he had had so many years before. He had never forgotten that dream. He remembered how he had pleaded with the ghostly stranger for a new lease of life—let him think: he had asked for twenty extra years. The time must be nearly up. How he wished the dream had been true, that the ethereal visitor would come now to take him out of his misery.

Well he knew who was responsible for his downfall. It was Montague White—damn his soul!

As near as he could remember, that crazy vision of his had been the beginning of it all.

He had always laid that dream to the effect of the drug he had taken. Somehow he had miscalculated the effect of the poison and it had failed to do its work. Then, he was glad; now, he wished it had killed him. Dream, vision, whatever it had been, it had so unnerved him that he had been unable to continue his laboratory experiments. His letter to White, the machine itself, he had destroyed.

Then, at his solicitation, White had taken him into his office. They made an ideal team: Castle, the genius, the brains of the combination; White, the doer, the balance wheel. Together they formed an unusually successful pair. In an incredibly short time he found himself a partner in the business. Then came the quarrel. He couldn’t even remember what it had been about, but he recollected how he had left the office in a blind rage.

Once alone, he had begun to amass a tremendous fortune. A modem Midas, everything he touched turned to gold. But for every dollar he made an enemy. Merciless, showing no quarter, he crushed his victims with as little compunction as a thoughtless boy smashes a tiny ant. Now the tables were turned. Now lie was the fly, his enemies the spiders who lay in the far corner of the web they had spun for him, waiting until he became enmashed in their toils. Not a single stone was left unturned; his failure was as sure as the sound of Gabriel's horn. And he knew that Montague White was behind it all. An insane demoniac light glittered in his bloodshot eyes. He opened his desk drawer, and the bright barrel of a thirty-two gleamed in the sunlight. He snapped open the chambers and looked them through, all the while fondling the weapon as if it were a child, talking to it in low, soothing tones. He loaded the revolver and dropped it into the pocket of his coat. Then, donning his hat, he set out upon his appointed mission—to find White and beg enough from him to insure his rehabilitation.

Failing in that—he shrugged his shoulders and his hand sought the weapon in his pocket. He found Montague White in his office, alone. The interview was brief and decisive. The sound of the shot brought a hundred people to the scene, and they found the half-crazed man standing above the body of his victim, the smoking revolver still in his hand. Strong arms gripped him from behind; firm hands took the smoldering weapon from his grasp. In the solitude of the lone, dreary cell, the brainstorm passed, and to John Castle came realization of the enormity of his crime. He clenched his fists until his nails bit deep into the flesh. His brow was furrowed with a thousand wrin-kles and the veins stood out in bold relief against his white, set face. He thought of his son, now grown to young manhood. How proud he was of the boy, his first born. "A true son of his father," everyone had said. He had pictured a wonderful future for the lad. Now. . . . His daughter was one of the sear son's most popular debutantes. The eligible males in her set were fairly falling over each other in their fran-tic endeavors to find favor in her eyes. But now he had killed. .. . He shuddered at the thought, and covered his eyes with his hand ; as if by so doing he might shut out the ever recurring vision of his victim. His wife, the woman who had borne and cared for his children ; the woman he loved with all his heart and with all his soul ! Now by this one rash deed he had stolen everything from her—home, happiness, reputation—all must go because Montague White was dead, and his own hands had done the killing ! Would to God that it were his own body that lay cold and stark instead of his former partner's! Would that he had died twenty years before, when he could have left behind him a spot-less name! Again his dream of years before came back to him with startling vividness. Perhaps it had not been all a dream. If only he could have looked ahead, how willing he would have been to die ! But he had not died. Instead he had lived on, each day weaving the chain of circumstances more tightly about him—and now he was here, behind prison bars, a murderer! All night long John Castle paced the narrow confines of his cell. All night long his tortured mind revolted at the horror, the gruesome reality of it all. At last, worn out with the strain of the ordeal, just as the first rays of the morning sun peeped over the hilltops—the sun whose light was never seen inside the prison's cold, gray walls—he flung himself in sheer exhaustion upon his cot, and dropped off into fitful slumber. The next few days were fraught with untold agony for John Castle. A hundred times a day he prayed that death might come and release him from his sufferings. But the law cold, hard, unrelenting—took care that he should live until he had paid in full for the deed he had done, live to expiate his crime. At last came the trial. The jury made short work of the case. John Castle was not at all surprized at their verdict. There was nothing else they could have decided : "Guilty of murder in the first degree." He drew himself erect as the old judge pronounced sentence. At least no one could accuse him of not meet-ing the situation like a man hanged by the neck until he is dead." There was a calendar on the wall of his cell. John Castle ringed the date which the law had set for his execution. As each day dragged by he checked it off upon the calendar, and prayed that the time would pass more swiftly. The nearest he came to breaking down was on the eve of his death, when his wife came to bid him a final farewell.

The next morning, his last on earth, a young priest came and asked a bless-ing for his sin-steeped soul. Then attendants led him on his last walk, through the narrow corridor lined with cells, out into the morning, out to where the scaffolding reared ghastly and forbidding against the gray walls of the prison. The sun had not risen nor would John Castle see it rise, for with its first beams his life would be snuffed out like a candle. He walked boldly upright to his place on the platform. of death. He marveled at his inward calm as they fitted the black hood over his head and shut out forever the world about him. He felt the weight of the hemp-en collar as they placed it about his neck; then—waited! In that last long moment his mind reverted to his weird dream—or was it a dream? He had figured it all out in the loneliness of his cell. It was twenty years to a day ! He won-dered if the ethereal stranger would be there to meet him and guide him to the seat of judgment. . . He would not have long to wait before he knew!

The flooring gave way beneath him. His body dropped. . . a sudden, terrific jolt. . . then oblivion!

4

The blinding effulgence again became a whirling, chaotic jumble. Gradually it diminished, until it was but a tiny revolving point. Then it was gone altogether, leaving intense, impenetrable blackness.

“Come, John,” the voice was saying, “the time grows short. Already upon the earth the stars have waned and the sun is starting its daily journey. You have seen what the future holds in store, should you choose to return to the life you have left behind. I repeat, there is no place here for the soul that is not content. The decision is yours.”

John Castle could not repress an involuntary shudder at the thought of what he had just witnessed. After all, perhaps man was not the best judge of his own destiny ! As he hesitated, the ethereal figure of his guide faded out before his eyes.

An invisible power gripped him, propelled him at breath-taking speed toward the earth. He wondered what could exert such a tremendous power. The answer came in a flash.

It was morning. They had found his body. White was manipulating the machine! It seemed hours, yet he knew it could have been but a mere minute before his astral body once more hovered above his inert physical one. His guess had been correct—White was at the machine. He could see his letter of instructions on the table beside the empty jars that had contained the last of his life-giving mixture. His wife and children were there, too, their tear-stained faces watching with prayerful intentness. His comprehensive survey glimpsed the family physician eying the proceedings with a supercilious sneer.

He felt the magnetic, irresistible power of his invention drawing his soul back into his body. How wonderful it would be! To die—and then to live again! Once more came that vision of the scaffold. Once more came memories of long hours fraught with misery, spent behind prison bars...

The watchers in the little room saw John Castle's eyelids twitch feebly. A hand moved. They stared, spell-bound, as it described an arc toward his head. White sprang forward with a sharp cry as the hand closed over the three rubber tubes that connected the man and the machine. Too late! One wrench, with a strength that seemed inconsistent with the wan figure on the bed, and the damage was done.

John Castle had made his choice!

As he drifted once more into un-consciousness, he could faintly hear Montague White's hoarse cry of horror: “Good God! Mrs. Castle! He's broken the machine!”