The Hammer Horror Omnibus (16 page)

Elizabeth stood quite still and watched him as he walked towards the drive and on to the main gates. When he had disappeared, her shoulders sagged and there was a dejection in her whole manner which made me uneasy. She must not let herself feel too ready a sympathy for the absurd man.

Later that morning she asked me in a roundabout way what stage my experiments had reached. I could have been annoyed, knowing what had provoked this curiosity, but she spoke in such a way that there was nothing to which one could take exception. I assured her that all was going well and that I was nearly finished. At the end of the week perhaps she would be able to see what I had been doing. I was, in fact, so exhilarated by the prospect of forthcoming success that my happiness infected her, and she laughed without quite knowing why she was laughing. The morning sunshine and my obvious cheerfulness banished the dark forebodings which Paul had so unscrupulously tried to plant in her mind.

5

I
n the afternoon the skies grew darker. Beyond the peaks there was a slow barrage of thunder. The threat of rain was sufficient to keep Elizabeth indoors. She occupied herself with her embroidery while I, too, did a great deal of stitching—though on somewhat different material.

I worked through most of that night and through the next day, when a sullen greyness lay on the mountains and the valley was sunk in gloom. Lightning flickered pale in the daylight, but took on a new harshness as night began to fall.

Elizabeth and I dined together by candlelight. She was glad that I was in a gay mood: really, it was touching that she should depend so much on my smiles and approval. Her only disappointment came when I said that I proposed to do several hours’ work in the laboratory after coffee.

I was tempted to invite her to accompany me. She should have the privilege of watching the final stages. Then I decided against it. Without deferring to any of Paul Krempe’s melodramatic accusations, I realized that an ordinary person might be shocked at first by the magnitude of what I was attempting. Better to win the victory before boasting too loudly!

There was a vast difference between those two faces—the gentle face of Elizabeth and the seamed, unresponsive face in the tank. Indeed, the contrast between the rooms themselves was a striking one. Downstairs was the graciousness of a long tradition, the panelled beauty of high craftsmanship from a bygone world; here in my laboratory was a tangle of apparatus under a sloping roof, an accumulation of litter, all the scientific brashness of the new world—but one in which craftsmanship must still count.

There was a set of controls on the side of the tank itself, and a set which governed the magnetic impulses from a sparking wheel against the outer wall of the laboratory. Originally the entire layout had been planned with a view to dual operation, but now that Paul was no longer playing a part I would have to manage on my own. Some of the finer settings would be tricky. However, I had enough confidence in my own alertness to feel that I could cope.

The creature lay there, passive, waiting. The body was strong, the hands and feet admirable, the head splendid in spite of the still unhealed scars. And in that head one of the greatest brains in Europe was about to function again.

I slowly switched on the feed pipes to the tank, and a gentle bubbling began.

There was a flash of lightning. It made me start back, fearing for a moment that there was a fault in the apparatus. A clap of thunder, so far from alarming me, reassured me. I left the tank and set the generator wheel in motion so that the electro-chemical reaction could begin.

I seemed myself to be vibrant with electric forces. Whatever new avenues are opened up in the future, whatever progress is made in the physical sciences, and whatever may come from work which I know is going on in England, for example, at this very moment, history must acclaim me as the true pioneer in the application of magneto-electricity. Without Davy’s theories and demonstrations of galvanism I admit I could not have got so far in such a short time; but without my own discoveries of the relationship between the life force and magnetic force, further developments would not be possible.

Now began the delicate business of balancing the various adjustments. I darted to and fro between the tank and the controls of the sparking generator wheel. It was infuriating. A slight increase at one could mean the most minute alteration to the other. The dual controls ought to have been operated by Paul and myself, snapping instructions to and fro. Unless I could maintain a perfect balance, the experiment would not succeed.

The chemical input was surging and bubbling remorselessly now. There was no turning back. At least two hours of intense concentration lay ahead of me. The power pulses had to be injected with unfaltering regularity. I had to turn myself into an automaton—but an automaton capable of checking and rechecking, thinking fast and acting without hesitation, going from one control to the other, studying the body in the tank, pacing to and fro across the laboratory.

The fluid in the tank grew viscous, and the features were blurred. Slowly the body rolled over like a man lazily, contentedly swimming.

But the reaction was not what it ought to have been. From our work on the dog I knew that at this stage there ought to be an appreciable convulsion: there ought to be a sequence of minor jolts, as the body was stimulated by successive punches of power.

The timing was not exact enough. No, that is an unscientific way of expressing it. There was no question of being “exact enough’: it had to be
exact.

I made a swift, anguished calculation. The process could not be reversed or stopped. But given thirty minutes—forty minutes at the outside—I could cut off the pulses and keep the chemical reaction at its lowest while I went for help. There was no other way: I had to have another pair of hands here. Once more the idea of Elizabeth crossed my mind, this time as an assistant. But even after the preliminary explanations and reassurances, I would still have to teach her the innumerable details. It would be too late. The only man who could fall into the routine with the skill of long practice was Paul Krempe. He had to be persuaded. Faced with a crisis of this kind, surely I could rely on his scientific spirit?

I cut down the input and slowed the wheel to a stop. Then I went swiftly but silently downstairs and out into the night.

The storm was drawing closer. Lightning flickered along the mountain crags, its stabs of brightness as jagged as the peaks themselves. I seized a cape and flung it over my shoulders, then hurried down the footpath to the village.

I pounded on the door of Paul’s lodging with a force that should have wakened the dead. I felt that I was hammering life into that creature of mine: I wanted to pick it up and shake it, beat vitality into it.

Paul, swathed in a heavy dressing-gown, opened the door and stared.

Before he could speak, I said: “You’ve got to help me.”

“You must be mad.”

“The apparatus was constructed for dual operation. You know that. I thought I could work it myself, but I can’t.”

“I’m delighted,” said Paul. A flash of brightness from behind me fell across his face, etching stern lines into it. “That means your experiment will not succeed.”

“It’s got to succeed. Paul, you’re going to help me. You must.”

He shook his head.

I kept my voice down although I wanted to shout to the heavens. It was intolerable that my years of application should go to waste now because of the stubbornness of this one man.

“With so much at stake . . .”

He turned as though to go back into the house. I was desperate. I would have to make whatever terms I could with him.

“Paul,” I implored him, “if you help me I promise that once I’ve proved my theories I’ll dispose of this creature.”

He stopped. “How long will that be?”

“A month or two at the outside.”

“And have that thing alive up there all that time? No, Victor.”

“If you don’t help me”—I could not suppress my fury, in spite of my need of him—“then I make no such promise. Somehow I’ll manage on my own. However difficult, I’ll do it.”

“Very well,” he taunted. “Go back and do it.”

And then it came to me. It was my last chance. I said: “Or else I’ll train Elizabeth to help.”

“You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t be so—”

“I’ll introduce Elizabeth to the world of science,” I said, “and see how she likes it.”

If he could have killed me with a look he would have done so. “You wouldn’t be so wicked, Victor. Even a fanatic like you . . . you couldn’t.”

“There is nothing—do you hear me, nothing—more important to me than the success of this experiment. I’ll do anything to conclude it properly. It’s what I’ve worked for all my life.”

“Very well,” he said bitterly. “I’ll help you.”

“I knew I could rely on you,” I said.

He made an incoherent, contemptuous sound. Then he said: “I’ll get dressed. You go on ahead and set up the preliminaries. I’ll be no more than ten minutes behind you.”

“I can trust you to come?” I said.

“Yes, you can trust me to come.”

That was sufficient for me. I walked briskly back up the hillside. It would have been easy to lose one’s footing: the fitful lightning illuminated the path in bursts of glaring intensity, followed by a blackness more Stygian than that of an ordinary night. But I knew every inch of the way. This was my home, my property, the scene of my childhood rovings and now to be the scene of my mature triumphs.

The house was abruptly a black silhouette against the sky, and then was lost again.

I quickened my pace, eager to get back to that magic room at the top of the house.

Suddenly there was a stab of lightning so savage that I raised my arm to cover my eyes. It was followed by a crack that was not the crack of thunder. When I dared to look, I saw brightness like a malevolent will-of-the-wisp running along the eaves of my home. The window of the laboratory, high up under the roof, seemed to be lit from inside. It must have been an optical illusion, but it was terrifying in that split second of its occurrence; terrifying because of the uncanny blaze in that square, blank eye, and because of my fears for what lay inside. An electrical disturbance of that magnitude could easily affect the delicate balance of my experiment.

I hurried into the house. The whip-like crack of the lightning still stung my ears, but indoors there was tranquillity. Nobody stirred. Either none of them had heard the sound or they were all cowering in their beds, praying.

For once in my life I was trembling. My knees felt unsteady. I went into the salon and took a bottle of brandy from the wine cupboard. I poured myself a large drink and gulped it down with a haste which was unworthy of the brandy.

Then I went upstairs.

At the first landing I stopped. There was no sound from the direction of Elizabeth’s room. I went on my way.

As I approached the door of the laboratory I heard an impossible sound. Faintly, through the heavy door, came the intermittent splutter of the wheel as it turned and sparked. But it had no business to be turning. I had switched it off before leaving. Nobody could have entered the laboratory in my absence.

Filled with foreboding, I thrust the key into the lock. If that lightning had somehow triggered off the process and it was working again, the whole balance could have been wrecked.

I flung open the door.

Standing erect in the middle of the room was my creature. The bandages dripped with fluid. The arms hung slackly, but as I stood there, aghast, they tightened and fought against the bandages. There was a tearing of cloth. The groping hands went up to the face.

In the flickering light cast by the madly rotating wheel, the creature bared its teeth in a snarl. It was a wide, savage grimace such as I had never seen or ever wished to see in my life. It was utter bestiality unleashed.

I still had my hand on the door. The sight had robbed me of all power to move. I could neither go in nor retreat.

Suddenly the creature lurched towards me. Its legs were still impeded by the bandages, which made its shambling gait all the more horrible. I turned to run . . . and it was too late.

The heavy arm, with torn bandages drooping from it, curled round my neck. I was jerked back into the laboratory. The smell of the chemicals which impregnated the creature and its swathing bit at the back of my throat and in my nostrils. I tried to cry out, but the pressure was tightening. I kicked vainly against the padded, well-protected figure.

The lights in the room began an insane dance. They blazed in and out of a kaleidoscope of other lights, sparking not only before my eyes but somehow inside my head. A great hammer began to pound from within my skull.

I twisted round, trying to get a grip on the creature. Its distorted face was a slavering nightmare, a few inches from my own. I struck out, but the blow was feeble and useless.

To have come so far, and now to be destroyed by what I had created . . . to be killed by a grotesque mischance, a wayward jest of the elements . . . !

Then suddenly I was falling sideways. The creature had relinquished its grip. As I went down, I was dimly aware of Paul springing over me and lashing out again and again. I tried to push myself up, to come to his aid, but the roaring in my ears and the pain that ran through me were too much. I saw the feet of the creature trample towards me and then stagger away at a tangent. Paul lifted one of the laboratory stools and beat the creature back into a corner.

As I finally got myself up to my knees, with the floor reeling beneath me, Paul swung the stool against the creature’s head. It emitted a croaking, feral sound that rasped hideously through the room; and then it collapsed into a stained, ragged heap.

Paul dropped the stool and hurried to me. He got his arm round my shoulder and helped me to my feet. I leaned against him for a full minute, gasping and vainly retching.

And then, as the pain ebbed away, I was conscious of the most fantastic elation. It was as though, purged of irrational fear, I could see things not just as clearly as before but with an added vividness.