I awoke him, and waited.
He half looked at me, and then, gazing at the fire, gave a cry of ecstasy. A light of bliss shone for a moment in his eyes, as in a young child first staring at the mystery of cleansing flame; and then, as realization came, this too faded into a look of terror and loathing.
“The worms!” he cried. “The maggots! The odor came, and with it the worms. And I awoke. Just as the fire died…. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t cry out. The worms came — I don’t know whence; from nowhere, perhaps. They came, and they crawled, and they ate. And the smell came with them! It just appeared, as did the worms, from out of thin air! It just — became. Then — death! — I died, I tell you — I rotted — I rotted, and the worms — the maggots — they ate… I am dead, I say! Dead! Or should be!” He covered his face with his hands.
How we lived out the night without going mad, I do not know. All through the long hours we kept the fire burning high; and all through the night the lofty trees moaned back their mortal agony. The rotting death did not return; in some strange way the fire kept us clean of it, and fought it back. But our brains felt, and dimly comprehended, the noisome evil floundering in the darkness, and the pain which our immunity gave this devilish forest.
I could not understand why Fred had so easily fallen a victim to the death, while I remained whole. He tried to explain that his brain was more receptive, more sensitive.
“Sensitive to what?” I asked.
But he did not know.
Dawn came at last, sweeping westward before it the web of darkness. From across the forest, and around us on all sides, the giant trees rustled in pain, suggesting the gnashing of millions of anguished teeth. And over the ridge to eastward came the smiling sun, lighting with clarity the branches of our wood.
Never was a day so long in coming, and never so welcome its arrival. In a half-hour our belongings were gathered, and we quickly drove to the open road.
“Fred, you remember our conversation of a couple of evenings ago?” I asked my companion, after some time of silence. “I’m wondering whether that couldn’t apply here.”
“Meaning that we were the victims of — hallucination? Then how do you account for this?” He raised his sleeve above his elbow, showing his arm. How well did I remember it! For there, under curling skin and red as a brand, was the print of my hand!
“I sensed, not felt, you grip me last night,” said Fred. “There is our evidence.”
“Yes,” I answered, slowly. “We’ve got lots to think of, you and I.”
And we rode together in silence.
When we reached home, it was not yet noon, but the brightness of the day had already wrought wonders with our perspective. I think that the human mind, far from being a curse, is the most merciful thing in the world. We live on a quiet, sheltered island of ignorance, and from the single current flowing by our shores we visualize the vastness of the black seas around us, and see — simplicity and safety. And yet, if only a portion of the cross-currents and whirling vortices
of mystery and chaos would be revealed to our consciousness, we should immediately go insane.
But we can not see. When a single cross-current upsets the calm placidness of the visible sea, we refuse to believe. Our minds balk, and can not understand. And thus we arrive at that strange paradox: after an experience of comprehensible terror, the mind and body remain long upset; yet even the most terrible encounters with things unknown fade into insignificance in the light of clear day. We were soon about the prosaic task of preparing lunch, to satisfy seemingly insatiable appetites!
And yet we by no means forgot. The wound on Fred’s arm healed quickly; in a week not even a scar remained. But we were changed. We had seen the cross-current, and — we knew. By daylight a swift recollection often brought nausea; and the nights, even with the lights left burning, were rife with horror. Our very lives seemed bound into the events of one night.
Yet, even so, I was not prepared for the shock I felt when, one night nearly a month later, Fred burst into the room, his face livid.
“Read this,” he said in a husky whisper, and extended a crumpled newspaper to my hand. I reached for it, read where he had pointed.
MOUNTAINEER DIES
Ezekiel Whipple, lone mountaineer, aged 64, was found dead in his cabin yesterday by neighbors.
The post-mortem revealed a terrible state of putrefaction; medical men aver that death could not have occurred less than two weeks ago.
The examination by the coroner revealed no sign of foul play, yet local forces for law and order are working upon what may yet be a valuable clue. Jesse Layton, a near neighbor and close friend of the aged bachelor, states that he visited and held conversation with him the day preceding; and it is upon this statement that anticipation of possible arrest is based.
“God!” I cried. “Does it mean ”
“Yes! It’s spreading — whatever it is. It’s reaching out, crawling over the mountains. God knows to where it may finally extend.”
“No. It is not a disease. It is alive. It’s alive, Fred! I tell you, I felt it; I heard it. I think it tried to talk to me.”
For us there was no sleep that night. Every moment of our halfforgotten experience was relived a thousand times, every horror amplified by the darkness and our fears. We wanted to flee to some far country, to leave far behind us the terror we had felt. We wanted. to stay and fight to destroy the destroyer. We wanted to plan; but — hateful thought — how could we plan to fight — nothing? We were as helpless as the old mountaineer….
And so, torn by these conflicting desires, we did what was to be expected — precisely nothing. We might even have slipped back into the even tenor of our lives had not news dispatches showed still further spread, and more death.
Eventually, of course, we told our story. But lowered glances and obvious embarrassment told us too well how little we were believed. Indeed, who could expect normal people of the year 1933, with normal experiences, to believe the obviously impossible? And so, to save ourselves, we talked no more, but watched in dread from the sidelines the slow, implacable growth.
It was midwinter before the first town fell in the way of the expanding circle. Only a mountain village of half a hundred inhabitants; but the death came upon them one cold winter night — late at night, for there were no escapes — and smothered all in their beds. And when the next day visitors found and reported them, there was described the same terrible advanced state of putrefaction that had been present in all the other cases.
Then the world, apathetic always, began to believe. But, even so, they sought the easiest, the most natural explanation, and refused to recognize the possibilities we had outlined to them. Some new plague, they said, is threatening us, is ravaging our hill country. We will move away…. A few moved. But the optimists, trusting all to the physicians, stayed on. And we, scarce knowing why, stayed on with them.
Yes, the world was waking to the danger. The plague became one of the most popular topics of conversation. Revivalists predicted the end of the world. And the physicians, as usual, set to work. Doctors swarmed the infected district, in fear of personal safety examined the swollen corpses, and found — the bacteria of decay, and — the worms. They warned the natives to leave the surrounding country; and then, to avoid panic, they added encouragement.