Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian (11 page)

Dr. Blake forced me to take a sedative then, and after a while, one by one the attendant, Blake, and the three nurses left the room.

I would go to sleep now, I understood from their talk.

Miss Meadows was the last to go, her bovine indifferent face looking back at me from the door. In a drowsy way— for the sedative was beginning to work —I was glad for the nail marks on her cheek. A black pit of unconsciousness

opened up for me then as I slipped off into drugged sleep.

I don't know how long it was before I woke up. It must have been quite a few hours, for darkness had fallen. I finally figured that it had to be fairly late because the small sounds of the sanitarium kept up during the early evening were now all absent. I struggled briefly but the restraining sheet was still my complete master. I was thirsty, cramped, and very uncomfortable. I had to get out of this thing. I called. I screamed, and after an eternity I heard steps upon the stairs. My door opened and someone lit the light at my bedside. It was Miss Meadows. I swore at her, I cried, I pleaded, and she just looked at me silently. I could see her gaze was professional, to ascertain whether I was still snug and safe—safe, that was a good one—in the restraining sheet.

Satisfied, she m lapped out the light and without answering any of my pleas to be let up, went out the door. I heard her steps descending the long stairs, and then there was the deep silence of late night.

T FOUGHT with myself then, using the A weapons Dr. Blake had given me, things I had laughed at once but used now against my fear of the steam shovel. So what if Big Mike had come across the state for this job. There were reasons, logical reasons probably. It had nothing to do with me or the steam shovel. The Greene Construction Company was pretty big. Maybe Big Mike was the only kind of shovel that could do this particular kind of job at Byerly Home. That last thought had an ominous significance. Big Mike was the only kind of steam shovel that could do this jobl_

THE MURDEROUS STEAM SHOVEL

Then came what I had been waiting for, what I knew would come, what I knew deep down I'd hear again ever since that first night I'd heard it in Northville. The tractor motor of Big Mike starting up, rumbling into life, vibrating and throbbing! The first sounds of the treads turning over as they scraped and bruised the earth, coming toward my window. Sounds no less horrible because I denied them and at the same time tried to drown them out with my own screams. The deep-throated combustion of Big Mike's engine was deafening now. It reverberated beneath me on the porch ceiling, which was also my own floor.

Then a new sound, a tautening of cables, the winch crying, steel against steel as the shovel part extended delicate-

ly and felt, felt through the darkness for what it wanted.

I prayed for unconsciousness and perhaps my prayers or my mad, frenzied struggles to get loose from the restraining sheet that held me caused me to become suddenly light-headed and faint. As I lay limp with a deeper blackness than of night exploding inside my eyeballs and head, there was still the last edge of consciousness, of life that registered crystal clear the thunderous sounds of Big Mike. The tearing, ripping shock of the shovel teeth at the wood under my bed, the close-by growl and the snarl of this immortal monster, the sudden sickening feeling of crashing impact ... of being scooped upward at great speed . . . and men . . . nothing I

Homecoming

HE Daemon said that he would take me home To the pale, shadowy land I half-recalled As a high place of stair and terrace, walled With marble balustrades that sky-winds comb, While miles below a maze of dome on dome And tower on tower beside a sea lies sprawled. Once more, he told me. I would stand enthralled On those old heights, and hear the far-off foam.

All this he promised, and through sunset's gate

He swept me, past the lapping lakes of flame.

And red-gold thrones of gods without a name

Who shriek in fear at some impending fate.

Then a black gulf with sea-sounds in the night:

*'Here was your home," he mocked, "when you had sight!**

-H. P. Lomonlt

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<&fe Mad Dancers

"The effects of the Black Plague had not yet subsided, and the graves of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a strange delusion arose in Germany . . . called the dancing mania."'—Epidemics of the Middle Ages.

~/. F. C. Hecker.

THOUGH it was early of an evening in June, the horizontal rays of the sun stiil caught the cupola of the Octagonal Chapel in Aix-la-Chapelle. It was the eve of St. John's, 1374, and in the streets preparations for the festival were under way. Deserted, however, was the interior of the chapel, except for Christian and Mina, holding hands and standing quietly in the center, the boy gazing at the floor, die girl looking upward.

The plague swept on across the land ivith a dread meaning

surely known only to the Devil.

A beam from the sun had struck through one of the little windows above the gallery, caught a portion of the great chandelier of gilded copper, presentation of Frederick Barbarossa more than 200 years before, and the reflections had spread through the whole structure so that it caught and dazzled the wondering eyes of Mina.

But it was the slab at their feet upon which Christian was reflecting. It bore the simple inscription, Carlo Magno. By

the strict measure of time, Giristoplier Columbus is less remote to us of 1915 than Charlemagne was to Christian NoM's generation. To this young student, however, Charlemagne was very real. Christian knew more about Charlemagne than did anyone else in Aix-la-Chapelle, but that was natural for one whose thirst for knowledge was so great. These, however, were the Dark Ages, and it was not entirely respectable to extend one's

ROGER S. VREELAND

THE MAD DANCERS

knowledge beyond the dogmas of the church.

Christian wanted to be, of all things, a physician. So it was gossiped about, though his friends and relatives tried to hush it. Since the papal bull of Boniface VIII forbidding the boiling of human bones, physiology was rather at a standstill. Christian's mother's brother, however, was head of the medical faculty at the University of Paris, which being 200 years old had a good reputation; and it was known that Christian's uncle desired him as a pupil.

But, so great a man was Charlemagne, thought Christian. "If only the things he had stood for had survived," he said aloud.

"Yes," replied Mina abstractedly, still enraptured by the chandelier.

"What pity," he went on dreamily, "that it all died here with him. He knew what glory there was in knowledge, and he wanted every one to share in it. And he had faith in the science of healing. What he started could have done so much for us, had there not been some power opposed to man's rising. Mina"—he tightened his hand about hers as he always did when enthusiastic—'"there are ways of working with nature. I so want to learn the art of healing, I hope that Dr. Planquette will accept me."

"But come, Christian. We must go or we'll be scolded for tarrying until after dark."

Out they went into the cobblestone court. Pretty Mina's yellow flowing hair lay smooth to her head under a light coronet. Her linen robe, sleeveless and tight-fitting to the hips, spread into a loose full skirt. Christian, also blond, and a few inches taller, was attired typically for his day—a slim tunic ending at his knees, broad ornamented waist-

belt and long hose. His low shoes, with long up-pointed toes, were fastened over the instep with silver clasps.

They were not alone in the court, for other young people, carrying wood and paraphernalia, were coming from many direction, noisy with laughter. Already one fire was burning. In another place a dried out tree was being set up and a group of boys supervised by a man was having a time with a large squirming sack. It contained all the cats that could be found in the neighborhood.

pHRISTIAN and Mina walked slowly ^** by, watching with interest, but with no plan to join. The bag of cats was tied to the tree and the tree set afire.* As it blazed up, hilarious screams of the young people rose throughout the court Mina was morbidly fascinated, but Christian drew her away. They strolled on toward their homes, until they came to another square. Here a bonfire was blazing full and the festivities were well under way. This being their own neighborhood, friends spied them and shouted to them—

"Christian!—Mina! Our Johannisfeur. is started! Come and jump with us!"

"Oh, come, Christian—let us do it,"

*An authentic St. John's Eve custom oi the times.

said Mina tugging at his sleeve. "Are you afraid to jump with me?"

"But I will jump with her!" said a husky young lad they knew, and snatching Mina he ran with her toward the fire. They clasped arms and in their turn leaped through the Johannisfeur. But in their frenzy to avoid being scorched their arms unlinked and they fell sprawlingly apart on the other side. Someone called jeeringly: "Too bad, Hans, but you cannot snatch a girt so

THE MAD DANCERS

61

roughly and hope to keep her! A bachelor you be for another year!"

With the next couple the boy fell on his seat in the fire amid howls of his friends and howls of his own, though he was quickly pulled out. Mina, who had now fully caught the spirit and was laughing gayly, was rejoined by Christian who led her back to the point whence the running started.

"Christian is going to jump with Mina!" shouted one. Another: "We all know they're in love!" And: "Of course they will marry within a year, so this will prove or disprove the legend!"

They started to run, but Mina with all her laughing and blushing could hardly go. As they approached the fire Christian swept Mina in his anus and holding her tightly leaped high through the blaze —only to slip as he landed. But still he held her. A circle quickly formed and danced around them. In a cacophony of voices they threw prophecies as to when they would be married and how many children they would have. All good-natured fun, just as had been for generations before them.