The Dark Other by Stanley G. Weinbaum (best classic books TXT) 📕

conscious of the illusion that they were expanding, filling all the space in front of her. Their weird glow filled the world, dominated everything.

"Will you yield?" he queried.

The eyes commanded. "Yes," she said dully.

She felt his hands icy cold on her bare shoulders. They traveled like a shudder about her body, and suddenly she was pressed close to him.

"Are you mine?" he demanded. For the first time there was a tinge of expression in the toneless voice, a trace of eagerness. She made no answer; her eyes, held by his, stared like the eyes of a person in a trance, unwinking, fascinated.

"Are you mine?" he repeated, his breath hissing on her cheek.

"Yes." She heard her own voice in automatic reply to his question.

"Mine—for the delights of evil?"

"Yours!" she murmured. The eyes had blotted out everything.

"And do you hate me?"

"No."

The arms about her tightened into crushing bands. The pressure stopped her breath; her very bones seemed to give under their fierce compression.

"Do you hate me?" he muttered.

"Yes!" she gasped. "Yes! I hate you!"

"Ah!" He twisted his hand in her black hair, wrenching it roughly back. "Are you ready now for the consummation? To look upon the face of evil?"

She made no reply. Her eyes, as glassy as those of a sleep-walker, stared into his.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," she said.

He pressed his mouth to hers. The fierceness of the kiss bruised her lips, the pull of his hand in her hair was a searing pain, the pressure of his arm about her body was a suffocation. Yet—somehow—there was again the dawning of that unholy pleasure—the same degraded delight that had risen in her on that other occasion, in the room of the red-checked table cloth. Through some hellish alchemy, the leaden pain was transmuting itself into the garish gold of a horrible, abnormal pleasure. She found her crushed lips attempting a feeble, painful response.

At her movement, she felt herself swung abruptly from her feet. With his lips still crushing hers, he raised her in his arms; she felt herself borne across the room. He paused; there was a sudden release, and she crashed to the hard surface of the couch, whose rough covering scratched the bare flesh of her back. Nicholas Devine bent over her; she saw his hand stretch toward her single remaining garment. And again, from somewhere in her harassed soul, a spark of resistance flashed.

"Nick!" she moaned. "Oh, Nick! Help me!"

"Call him!" said the other, a sneer on his face. "Call him! He hears; it adds to his torment!"

She covered her eyes with her hands. She felt his hand slip coldly between her skin and the elastic about her waist.

"Nick!" she moaned again. "Nick! Oh, my God! Nick!"

27
Two in Hell

The cold hand against Pat was still; she felt it rigid and stiff on her flesh. She lay passive with closed eyes; having voiced her final appeal, she was through. The words torn from her misery represented the final iota of spirit remaining to her; and her bruised body and battered mind had nothing further to give.

The hand quivered and withdrew. For a moment more she lay motionless with her arms clutched about her, then she opened her eyes, gazing dully, hopelessly at the demon standing over her. He was watching her with a curious abstracted frown; as she stirred, the scowl intensified, and he drew back a step.

His face contorted suddenly in a spasm of some unguessable emotion. His fists clenched; a low unintelligible mutter broke from his lips. "Strange!" she heard him say, and after a moment, "I'm still master here!"

He was master; in a moment the emotion vanished, and he was again standing over her, his face the same impassive demoniac mask. She watched him in a dull stupor of despair that was too deep for even a whimper of pain as he wrenched at the elastic about her waist, and it cut into her flesh and parted. He tore the garment away, and the red eyes bored down with a wild elation in their depths.

"Mine!" the being muttered, a new hoarseness in his voice. "Are you mine?"

Pat made no answer; his voice croaked in more insistent tones. "Are you mine?"

She could not reply. She felt his fingers bite into the flesh of her shoulder. She was shaken roughly, violently, and the question came again, fiercely. The eyes flamed in command, and she felt through her languor and weakness, the stirring of that strange and unholy fascination that he held over her.

"Answer!" he croaked. "Are you mine?"

The torture of his searing grip on her shoulder wrung an answer from her.

"Yes," she murmured faintly. "Yours."

She closed her eyes again in helpless resignation. She felt the hand withdrawn, and she lay passive, waiting, on the verge of unconsciousness, numb, spirit-broken, and beaten.

Nothing happened. After a long interval she opened her eyes, and saw the other standing again with clenched fists and contorted countenance. His features were writhing in the intensity of his struggle; a strange low snarl came from his lips. He backed away from her, step by step; he leaned against the book-shelves, and beads of perspiration formed on his scowling face.

He was no longer master! She saw the change; imperceptibly the evil vanished from his features, and suddenly they were no longer his, but the weary, horror-stricken visage of her Nick! The red eyes were no longer Satanic, but only the blood-shot, troubled, gentle eyes of her sweetheart, and the lips had lost their grimness, and gasped and quivered and trembled. He reeled against the wall, staggered to the chair at the table, and sank weakly into it.

Pat was far too exhausted, far too dazed, to feel anything but the faintest sensation of relief. She realized only dimly that tears were welling from her eyes, and that sharp sobs were shaking her. She was for the moment unable to stir, and it was not long until the being at the table turned stricken eyes on her that she moved. Then she drew her knees up before her, as if to hide her body behind their slim, chiffon-clad grace.

Nick rose from the table, approaching her with weary, hesitant tread. He seized a cover of some sort that was folded over the foot of the couch, shook it out and cast it over her. She clutched it about her body, sat erect and leaned back against the wall in utter exhaustion. Many minutes passed with no word from either of the occupants of the unholy chamber. It was Nick who broke the long silence.

"Pat," he murmured in low tones. "Pat—Dear. Are you—all right?"

She stared at him dazedly without answer.

"Honey!" he said. "Honey! Tell me you're all right!"

"All right?" she repeated uncomprehendingly. "Yes. I guess I'm all right."

"Then go, Pat! Get away from here before he—before anything happens! Put your clothes on and hurry away!"

"I can't!" she said, faintly. "I—can't!"

"You must, Honey!"

"I'm just—not able to. I will soon, Nick—honest. When I—when I get my breath back."

"Pat!" There was anguish in the cry. "Oh, God—Pat! We mustn't ever be together again—not ever!"

"No," she said. A bit of sanity was returning to her; comprehension of her position sent a shudder through her. "No, we mustn't."

"I couldn't bear another night like this—watching! I'd go mad!"

"Oh!" she choked, tears starting. "If you hadn't come back, Nick!"

"I conquered him," he said. "I don't think I could do it again. It was your call that gave me the strength, Pat." He shook his head as if bewildered. "He thought it was being in love with you that weakened me, but in the end it was that which gave me the strength to subdue him."

"I'm scared!" said the girl suddenly. "Oh, Nick! I'm frightened!"

"You'd better go. You'd better dress and leave at once, Honey. Here." He gathered her clothes from the floor, depositing them beside her on the couch. "There are pins in the tray on the table, Pat. Fix yourself up as well as you can, dear—and hurry out of here!"

He turned toward the door as if to leave, and a shock of terror shook her.

"Nick!" she cried. "Don't go away! I'm more afraid when I can't see you—afraid that he—" She broke off sobbing.

"All right, Honey. I'll turn my back."

She slipped out from under the blanket, found the pins, and repaired her ruined costume. The frock was torn, crushed and bedraggled; she pinned it together at the throat, though her trembling fingers made the task difficult. She pulled it on and took a tentative step toward the door.

"Nick!" she called as a wave of dizziness sent her swaying against the wall.

"What's the matter, Honey?" He turned anxiously at her cry.

"I'm dizzy," she moaned. "My head aches, and—I'm scared!"

"Pat, darling! You can't go out alone like this—and," he added miserably, "I can't take you!" He slipped his arm around her tenderly, supporting her to the couch. "Honey, what'll we do?"

"I'll be—all right," she murmured. "I'll go in a moment." The dizziness was leaving her; strength was returning.

"You must!" he said dolefully. "What a parting, Pat! Never to see you again, and then having this to remember as farewell!"

"I know, Nick. You see, I love you too." She turned her dark, troubled eyes on him. "Honey, kiss me good-bye! We'll have that to remember, anyway!" Tears were again on her cheeks.

"Do I dare?" he asked despondently. "After the things these lips of mine have said, and what these arms have done to you?"

"But you didn't, Nick! Could I blame you for—that other?"

"God! You're kind, Pat! Honey, if ever I win out in this battle, if ever I know I'm the final victor, I'll—No," he said his tones dropping abruptly. "I'll never come back to you, Pat. It's far too dangerous, and—can I ever be certain? Can I?"

"I don't know, Nick. Can you?"

"I can't be, Pat! I'll never be sure that he isn't just dormant, as he was before, waiting for my weakness to betray me! I'll never be certain, Honey! It has to be good-bye!"

"Then kiss me!"

She clung to him; the room that had been so recently a chamber of horrors was transformed. As she held him, as her lips were pressed to his, she thought suddenly of the words of the demon, that Heaven and Hell were always the same place. They had taken on a new meaning, those words; she drew away from Nick and turned her tear-bright eyes tenderly on his.

"Honey," she murmured, "I don't want you to leave me. I don't want you to go!"

"Nor do I want to, Pat! But I must."

"You mustn't! You're to stay, and we'll fight it out together—be married, or any way that permits us to fight it through together."

"Pat! Do you think I'd consent to that?"

"Nick," she said. "Nick darling—It's worth it to me! I'm realizing it now; I thought it wasn't—but it is! I can't lose you, Nick—anything, even that other, is better than losing you."

"You're sweet, Pat! You know I'd trade my very soul for that, but—No. I can't do it! And don't Honey, torture me by suggesting it again."

"But I will, Nick!" She was speaking softly, earnestly. "You're worth anything to me! If he should kill me, you'd still be worth it!" She gazed tenderly at him. "I'd want to die anyway without you!"

"No more than I without you," he muttered brokenly. "But I won't do it, Pat! I won't do that to you!"

"I love you, Nick!" she said in a low voice. "I don't want to live without you. Do you understand me, dear? I don't want to live without you!"

He stared at her somberly. "I've thought of that too," he said. "Pat—if I only believed that we'd be together after, together anywhere, I'd say yes. If only I believed there were an afterwards!"

"Doesn't he prove that by his very existence?"

"Your Doctor would deny that."

"Doctor Carl never saw him, Nick. And anyway, even oblivion together would be better than being separated, and far better than this!"

He gazed at her silently. She spoke again. "That doesn't frighten me, Nick. It's only losing you that frightens me, especially the fear of losing you to him."

He continued his silent gaze. Suddenly he drew her close to him, held her in a tight, tender embrace.

28
Lunar Omen

After a considerable interval, during which Nick held the girl tightly and silently in his arms, he released her, sat with his head resting on his cupped palms in an attitude of deep study. Pat, beside him, fell mechanically to repinning the throat of her frock, which had opened during the moments of the embrace. He rose to his feet, pacing nervously before her.

"It isn't a thing to do on the impulse of a moment, Pat," he muttered, pausing at her side. "You must see that."

"It isn't the impulse of a moment."

"But one doesn't