The Dark Other by Stanley G. Weinbaum (new ebook reader .txt) 📕

Pat’s ears. She replaced the instrument and sat staring dubiously at it.

Had that been Nick, really her Nick, or⁠—? Suppose she went to that meeting and found⁠—the other? Was she willing to face another evening of indignities and terrors like those still fresh in her memory?

Still, she argued, what harm could come to her on that bench, exposed as it was to the gaze of thousands who wandered through the park on summer evenings? Suppose it were the other who met her; there was no way to force her into a situation such as that of Saturday night. Nick himself had chosen that very spot for their other meeting, and for that very reason.

“There’s no risk in it,” she told herself, “Nothing can possibly happen. I’ll simply go there and bring Nick back to Dr. Carl’s, along a lighted, busy street, the whole two blocks. What’s there to be afraid of?”

Nothing at all, she answered herself. But suppose⁠—She shuddered and deliberately abandoned her chain of thought as she rose and rejoined her mother.

XX The Assignation

Pat was by no means as buoyant as she had been in the morning. She approached the appointed meeting place with a feeling of trepidation that all her arguments could not subdue.

She surveyed the crowded walks of the park with relief; she felt confirmed in her assumption that nothing unpleasant could occur with so many onlookers. So she approached the bench with somewhat greater self-assurance than when she had left the house.

She saw the seat with its lone occupant, and hastened her steps. Nicholas Devine was sitting exactly as he had on that other occasion, chin cupped on his hands, eyes turned moodily toward the vast lake that coruscated now with the reflection of stars and many lights. As before, she moved close to his side before he looked up, but here the similarity of the two occasions vanished. Her fears were realized; she was looking into the red-gleaming eyes and expressionless features of his other self⁠—the demon of Saturday evening!

“Sit down!” he said as a sardonic half-smile twisted his lips. “Aren’t you pleased? Aren’t you thrilled to the very core of your being?”

Pat stood irresolute; she controlled an impulse to break into sudden, abandoned flight. The imminence of the crowded walks again reassured her, and she seated herself gingerly on the extreme edge of the bench, staring at her companion with coolly inimical eyes. He returned her gaze with features as immobile as carven stone; only his red eyes gave evidence of the obscene, uncanny life behind the mask.

“Well?” said Pat in as frigid a voice as she could muster.

“Yes,” said the other surveying her. “You are quite as I recalled you. Very pretty, almost beautiful, save for a certain irregularity in your features. Not unpleasant, however.” His eyes traveled over her body; automatically she drew back, shrinking away from him. “You have a seductive body,” he continued. “A most seductive body; I regret that circumstances prevented our full enjoyment of it. But that will come. Yes, that will come!”

“Oh!” said Pat faintly. It took all her determination to remain seated by the side of the horror.

“You were extremely attractive as I attired you Saturday,” the other proceeded. His lips took on a curious sensual leer. “I could have done better with more time; I would have stripped you somewhat more completely. Everything, I think, except your legs; I am pleased by the sight of long, straight, silk-clad legs, and should perhaps have received some pleasure by running these hands along them⁠—scratching at proper intervals for the aesthetic effect of blood. But that too will come.”

The girl sprang erect, gasping and speechless in outraged anger. She turned abruptly; nothing remained of her determination now. She felt only an urge to escape from the sneering tormentor who had lost in her mind all connection with her own Nicholas Devine. She took a sudden step.

“Sit down!” She heard the tones of the entity behind her, flat, unchanged. “Sit down, else I’ll drag you here!”

She paused in sheer surprise, turning a startled face on the other.

“You wouldn’t dare!” she said, amazed at the bald effrontery of the threat. “You don’t dare touch me here!”

The other laughed. “Don’t I? What have I to risk? He’ll suffer for any deed of mine! You’ll call for aid against me and only loose the hounds on him.”

Pat stared blankly at the evil face. She had no answer; for once her ready tongue found no retort.

“Sit down!” reiterated the other, and she dropped dazedly to her position on the bench. She turned dark questioning eyes on him.

“Do you see,” he sneered, “how weakening an influence is this love of yours? To protect him you are obeying me; this is my authority over you⁠—this body I share with him!”

She made no reply; she was making a desperate effort to lash her mind into activity, to formulate some means of combating the being who tortured her.

“It has weakened him, too,” the other proceeded. “This disturbed love of his has taken away the mastery which birth gave him, and his enfeeblement has given that mastery to me. He knows now the reason for his weakness; I tell it to him too late to harm me.”

Pat struggled for composure. The very presence of the cold demon tore at the roots of her self-control, and she suppressed a fierce desire to break into hysterical laughter. Ridiculous, hopeless, incomprehensible situation! She forced her quivering throat to husky speech.

“What⁠—what are you?” she stammered.

“Synapse! I’m a question of synapses,” jeered the other. “Simple! Very simple! Ask your friend the Doctor!”

“I think,” said the girl, a measure of control returning to her voice, “that you’re a devil. You’re some sort of a fiend that has managed to attach itself to Nick, and you’re not human. That’s what I think!”

“Think what you please,” said the other. “We’re wasting time here,” he said abruptly. “Come.”

“Where?” Pat was startled; she felt a recurrence of fright.

“No matter where. Come.”

“I won’t! Why