The Creeper in Darkness

by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.

Author of “Mind Out of Time,” “The Black Vortex,” etc.

A Man Routs Hell, His Lesson Learned, In Salem Town Where Witches Burned

Illustration by Virgil Finlay

An A\NN/A Preservation Edition.

Notes

Familiar—The tiny, demoniac attendant of a witch or warlock.

Crabb’s English Dictionary.

IT WAS a very old house indeed. Dale Eliot, notebook in hand, ice-blue eyes intently absorbed, moved almost reverently over the dust-strewn floor, stopping here and there to examine articles of furniture which dated back to the late seventeenth century. Some pieces even antedated this.

Dale Eliot was a professional antiquarian. He lived and breathed and had his being in the past. His emotions were so completely out of harmony with the modern world that he frightened people. All men have roots deep in the past and when Dale Eliot talked he brought the past to life.

There was something ghostly about him. He seemed to have stepped from the past into the present, a frozen swimmer emerging from the River of Time near its dim beginnings, with the hoary foam of centuries clinging to his garments.

But in this old witch house Dale Eliot was in his element.

The witch house had been converted into a museum for the edification of summer tourists. It was the third oldest house in Salem, and it stood on a high, windswept bluff overlooking Salem harbor.

It did not attract tourists as the House of Seven Gables did. It was a drab, squat little house with a gambrel roof that did not jut out as gambrel roofs should. Bleakly it faced the harbor, presenting to the town merely a windowless expanse of weather-eroded wood which impressed antiquarians, but left normal people cold.

Dale Eliot was in all respects the exact opposite of a normal person. He moved about in a kind of trance, examining objects which were unique in the annals of Salem. A spinning wheel which had once belonged to a notorious witch; a dog-eared prayer book annotated in the curious, cramped calligraphy of the Reverend Increase Mather, dour son of a grim and relentless father, dour father of a son who had left red thumb prints on the darkest pages of New England history.

All of the treasured antiques were roped off, but Eliot was contemptuous of the “Do not touch” signs scattered about the room. When he saw an object which attracted him he approached it, crept under the ropes and examined it with his hands. He liked the feel of old things.

Now he was examining a cabinet of drawers which stood under a small-paned window on the north side of the room. Examining it all over, running his hands over it in critical appraisal and even pulling the drawers in and out as he crouched in the gloom.

“Too bad, too bad,” he murmured. “The panels are badly warped.”

He was tugging at the lowermost drawer and balancing himself precariously on his instep when the little figure emerged.

It emerged so unobtrusively that he did not notice it until it was standing almost directly beneath his hand, blinking up at him in the dim yellow light which suffused the ancient room weirdly.

The figure was scarcely three inches in height—a tiny, shriveled human baroque with pointed ears and a thin, hairy tail. Peaked and dun-colored, it stood very still on the top of the cabinet and stared malignly up at him, its tiny face repulsively puckered, its shoulders hunched and misshapen.

Eliot’s flesh congealed. Instinctively he retreated a pace, his pupils dilating, his breath hissing from between his teeth.

“Do not be alarmed, Dale Eliot,” shrilled the little horror. “I am your familiar. I have waited here for you throughout the years.”

“Familiar?” gasped Eliot, his face corpse white.

“Yes. Your family familiar. Your great-great-grandfather was a member of a covin in good standing. I attached myself to all of your ancestors. You were born in this house. Don’t you remember, Dale Eliot?”

Eliot passed a trembling hand across his brow. “I knew that I was born in Salem,” he said. “But I did not remember the house. My mother died when I was a child. I was brought up by relatives in Boston.”

The little figure nodded grimly. “Well, Dale, we are together again. I remember you as an infant, rosy-cheeked, smiling, but with the mark of his Satanic Majesty already upon you.”

“You mean—my ancestors were witches?” Eliot asked in a small voice.

THE figure nodded. “Yes, Dale. Witches and warlocks. Your entire family attached themselves to his Satanic Majesty far back in the seventeenth century.”

Before Eliot could protest or cry out the little figure leaped upon him! Tiny, clawlike hands fastened on his clothes and clung. With a cry, Eliot staggered back across the room, his fingers clutching at his chest.

The little horror was burrowing under his shirt when the guard rushed angrily into the room. The guard was a big, heavy-set man of Portuguese extraction, dressed in summer linens.

“Look here, sir,” he exclaimed. “You can’t yell like that in here. This is a private house which is only open for ‘antickarians’.”

Eliot did not reply. He was backed up against the wall, his fingers clawing at his chest. The little figure was burrowing into his flesh. He could feel it squirming about under his clothes.

The guard said: “Drunk, eh? A fine thing. And you a grown man.”

He jerked a thumb toward the doorway of the room. “Out,” he said. “If you don’t get out under your own steam, I’ll help you out.”

Eliot got out. He staggered blindly out of the room and down a winding flight of stairs to the street. The sunlight was clear and bright over Salem when he emerged on the high, windswept hill overlooking the harbor.

But when he reached his lodgings a half-mile away the sun, westering, was spilling down like blood, splashingly ensanguining the gambrel roofs and red brick chimney pots of the old houses and turning the waters of Salem harbor a deep, rosy pink.

Eliot’s room was on the top floor of a three-story frame house on a winding, waterfront street where hollyhocks bloomed. He was trembling uncontrollably when he crossed a well-kept lawn and ascended a porch which creaked beneath his tread.

HIS blue eyes a mixture of stupefaction and terror, he fumbled for his keys, let himself into the house and mounted three flights of stairs to his attic room.

He locked the door of the room before he crossed to the window and sat down on a narrow, cotlike bed. He sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his coat. He was wearing a soft linen shirt and black bow tie. He ripped off the tie, unbuttoned the shirt and removed it, ripped off his undershirt.

The little baroque was clinging to his chest. Its tiny hands were buried wrist-deep in his flesh. All about it there was a glistening crimson circle, a halo of bright blood. For an instant he stared down in silence at the tiny shriveled form. So great were his horror and revulsion that for an instant the room swayed about him. For an instant he thought he was going to faint.

The tiny shape was staring maliciously up at him in the red sunlight which poured in through the open window, crimsoning the sheets of the bed. From its narrow, sloping skull two tiny black horns sprouted. In the dim light of the old house Eliot had failed to notice the horns.

Utter horror engulfed him as he stared.

The little baroque said: “It will take three days. When I have firmly attached myself I will never leave you.”

Eliot spoke to it then. He scarcely recognized his own voice. It seemed like a whisper from the grave.

“You mean your hands will grow into my flesh?”

“Yes, Dale. The wounds will heal and your flesh will become covin flesh and will obey the commands of his Satanic Majesty. See, I have made grooves for my hands. Eventually the wounds will heal.”

The little horror leaped suddenly from his chest to the sun-reddened windowsill and stood perilously poised in the crimson glow, mocking him.

The two deep grooves where its hands had rested were welling redly.

The little baroque said: “Night is falling. I must sleep.”

Eliot went perfectly white when the little horror leaped back upon him, inserted its hands into the encrimsoned grooves and coiled up in an attitude of repose.

“Sleep, Dale,” it murmured, as its eyelids flickered shut. “You will not resent me so much tomorrow. And in the months and years to come, you will not resent me at all.”

How Eliot passed the night he never knew. His thoughts were feverish, delirious. He twisted and turned, a dark ferment in his brain. Twisted and turned until the dawn broke in the east outside the window of his room.

When he awoke, sunlight was flooding the attic room. A confused and merciful forgetfulness pervaded his faculties. Slowly his drowsy eyes took in the familiar contours of the room, the sloping rafters of the ceiling that came to a triangular focus high above his head, the oaken chest where his clothes lay, a dresser with a photograph of his mother and a brush, comb, and hand-mirror familiarly arranged upon it.

Then he glanced down at the sheet which covered him and the horror came rushing back, filling him with unutterable terror and loathing. Across the white sheet there stretched a long trail of tiny, bloody footprints.

With a despairing cry he threw the sheets off and glanced down at his naked torso. The little shape was stirring restlessly in his flesh. Suddenly it opened its eyes and stared up at him.

“Good morning, Dale,” it said.

He made no attempt to dislodge it. He could not bring himself to touch it. Shaking in every limb, he arose from the bed and put on his clothes. He dressed swiftly while the little horror mocked him.

THE wounds in Eliot’s flesh were of a deep, violaceous hue. The blood had darkened, coagulated. Slowly, the little malign baroque withdrew its hands and leaped to the windowsill. It watched mockingly while Eliot struggled into his shirt and drew on his coat.

The big clock in the hall outside was ticking slowly when Eliot descended the stairs to the street. The little horror was squirming in his flesh again, twisting about restlessly under his shirt.

Eliot usually glanced at the morning paper before he let himself out. But now he simply pulled the paper from beneath the door and stuffed it in his coat pocket, going down the steps of the porch and crossing the lawn with the swaying gait of a drunken man.

His one thought was to escape from the horror by seeking the companionship of normal people. To escape for an instant from his terror by mingling with normal men and women. Perhaps it was all a mad illusion. Perhaps he was entirely mad.

He must find out. When he arrived at the little restaurant where he usually had breakfast, he had reached a momentous decision. He would enter the restaurant, sit down and tear the horror from his flesh. He would expose it to the gaze of the people about him.

He had to share the horror. It was driving him mad. At the little restaurant where he usually had breakfast he would meet people he knew. Kindly, sympathetic people. He must find out.

The restaurant was less crowded than usual. Unsteadily, he crossed to a table in a far corner, picked up a menu and glanced furtively about him.

None of his acquaintances was having breakfast at the restaurant this morning. The people who were sitting there were complete strangers to him. Nevertheless, he was determined to bring the horror into view.

He could imagine what they would say.

“God, what a ghastly thing!”

“What can it be?”

“It’s like a little man!”

He could see the patrons of the restaurant rising in sudden terror, upsetting their coffee-cups, sending plates crashing to the floor. But he had to have human sympathy and understanding. He had to know.

He was fumbling with the buttons of his shirt when he heard the man at the adjoining table say:

“No, they can’t explain it. He was found in his shop with his head bitten off. Chewed off. The medical examiner said it looked like a rat had chewed through the flesh of his throat.”

There were two men at the adjoining table. Now the second man was speaking. “And they found little red footprints all over the shop. Human footprints a tenth of an inch in length. Now that’s a puzzler for you.”

“Ghastly,” said the first man. He raised a cup of coffee to his lips. Eliot saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall, rise and fall. He was drinking all the scalding coffee at a single draught, as though the scalding horror in his mind was so unbearable that he had to scald his throat to keep from thinking of it.

“Suppose we talk about something else,” said the second man.

“Yeah, let’s. It’s all in the papers, anyway. We can read about it later on.”

With trembling fingers Eliot ripped the Salem Morning Chronicle from his pocket and spread it out on the table before him.

The headlines fairly screamed at him: “Antiquarian found murdered.” And in smaller type beneath: “Joseph Taylor, prominent antiquarian of this city, was found gruesomely murdered this morning in his antique shop at 13 Elm Street. Mr. Taylor, who has living quarters at the rear of the shop, was found at 2 a.m. by—”

Eliot rose from the table. Choking, his face livid, he staggered out of the restaurant into the blinding sunlight. The sunlight smote his eyes, dazzling and half-blinding him.

Indifferent to the glare, clutching at his throat, he reeled drunkenly down the street.

Disturbed by his reeling gait, the little baroque crept from beneath his shirt and stared coldly up at him.

“Well, what is the matter now? What is the matter with you, Dale Eliot?”

“You killed him,” Eliot choked. “Joseph Taylor, my friend. Yesterday afternoon, when I left his shop, he was alive and well.”

The little baroque shrilled: “Yes, I know. You were furiously angry with him when you left the shop. He tried to cheat you. He attempted to sell you a spurious antique. You swore to get even with him, Dale.”

“But I didn’t really mean it,” Eliot choked. “I didn’t know—”

“Dale, listen to me. I killed him because you hated him. I am your faithful familiar. A familiar is pledged to execute its master’s wishes. All wizards, magicians and warlocks have evil wishes.”

Eliot screamed: “You murderous little devil!” His fingers went out and raked across his chest. Agilely the little horror leaped aside and climbed to Eliot’s shoulder, where it leered up into his face in malign derision.

“Of course I am a devil. A demon, a little devil.”

Eliot groaned. “I will crush you to death. I will strangle you with my hands.”

The little shape shrilled: “You cannot destroy me, Dale. I would slip from your grasp. I am elastic, indestructible.”

“Then I will destroy myself.”

“No, Dale. I will grow into your flesh and you will cease to hate me.”

A child ran so swiftly past him that Eliot did not at first realize that he was not alone with the horror on the sun-dappled pavement. He did not know that a little girl on her way to school had been watching him with wide, wondering eyes, and had now run swiftly by.

The child had seen the little figure perched on his shoulder and was running screaming away from him, her school books clutched tightly in her arms, her pigtails flying. Suddenly she dashed out into the street.

ELIOT was so immersed in horror that he saw the child merely as a white blur moving swiftly through the sunlight.

The street climbed steeply to a bluff overlooking the bay. The child was running up the street, but the automobile was coming down. It was coming down with a screeching of brakes, and although the man in the car was trying desperately to avoid running down the child he had seen her too late to swerve aside.

The screeching brakes jarred Eliot from his daze. His vision cleared. He saw the child clearly; saw the careening car.

The car was less than twenty feet from the running child when he leaped with a cry from the pavement.

He leaped toward the child and gave her a violent push, sending her sprawling across the street to safety.

The car was traveling at thirty miles when it struck him. It smashed into him and hurled him thirty feet through the air. With a grinding scream it jolted to a halt, turning completely about on the steep gradient.

Eliot thudded to the pavement and lay still, blood trickling from his face. Sobbing with terror, the child picked herself up and stared at the little form that was running from Eliot’s sprawling body across the pavement.

Three feet from the curb the fleeing baroque staggered, swayed. Its tiny hands went to his throat. It screamed in shrill agony. It whirled about like a top. Then it tottered sideways; and collapsed in a heap in the dust of the gutter.

WHEN he who had nearly run down the child emerged white-lipped and trembling from the car, the little shape was as unmoving as Eliot’s big bulk spread out on the pavement.

Eliot awoke in a world of whiteness. He was lying on a soft mattress between white sheets, and the walls of the room were white and so was the ceiling above him. When he moved white-hot shafts of searing pain shot through him.

The girl who was bending above him and smiling down at him was dressed entirely in white.

She laid a soft, white hand on his forehead. “You must rest now,” she said. “You must get some sleep. You’ve been unconscious for hours.”

“Who—who are you?” gasped Eliot. “And where, where—”

“You are in the Salem General Hospital,” said the girl. “I am your night nurse.”

“But what happened?”

“You were struck by an automobile this morning. You saved the life of a little girl.”

Eliot remembered then. He started so violently that the nurse was compelled to admonish him. “You must try not to think about that. Later, if you wish, but not now. You must get some sleep.”

Eliot groaned. “Sleep, sleep? How can I rest when that little monster—” The girl said: “You mean your good luck piece. We’ve all been admiring it. You haven’t lost it. It is quite safe. They found it in the dust of the roadway, a few feet from where you were lying.”

Eliot stared at her, white-lipped. “What do you mean? What did you find?”

The girl smiled and left him. When she returned she was holding a small, flat object that glittered in the palm of her hand.

“Here it is,” she said. “Would you like it near you?”

Tremulously Eliot took the little baroque. It was cold and metallic and very flat now—a tiny, rigid figurine of bronze.

The nurse said: “What an ugly little horror. Wherever did you get it? I have seen some unusual good luck charms—my uncle collects them—but this little bronze is unique. I’ve never seen a duplicate.”

She smiled. “It is a little too large to wear on a watch chain. You just carry it loose in your pocket, I suppose. It certainly brought you luck this morning.”

Eliot remembered then. Remembered a passage from an old book which he had read somewhere in the course of his antiquarian browsings and witchcraft studies.

“Even warlocks may be saved. Even witches and black sorcerers. By heroism and sacrifice and repentance may warlocks be saved. And each demon that cannot abide goodness will shrivel and become as bronze, forsaking its warlock when its warlock forsakes the Evil One, dying in agony, shriveling and dying.”

Eliot’s eyes were shining strangely when he took the nurse’s hand and deposited the little metallic figure on her palm.

“You say your uncle collects charms?”

The girl nodded.

“Then give this to him with my blessings.”

The nurse gasped. “You—you don’t want it?”

Eliot smiled wanly. “I never want to see it again,” he said. “I have lived too long among antiques. I shall live henceforth among people—talk with them, laugh with them, work with them—yes, people are better than antiques… people are best…”

The End.

Notes and proofing history

Scanned by an anonymous benefactor with preliminary proofing by A\NN/A

February 13th, 2008—v1.0

from the original source: Strange Stories, April 1939

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