Fear Read online

  The words came to him dimly, and the sensation of hands touching him at last reached his consciousness. He allowed himself to be helped from the wet pavement, feeling bruised and sore.

  The rain was blowing under the street light in silver clouds which polished everything they touched; there was a damp, good smell in the night, a smell of growing and the rebirth of the soil.

  Old Billy Watkins, his dark poncho streaming, was standing beside him, holding him up. Old Billy Watkins, who had been a young constable when Lowry was a kid and who had once arrested Lowry for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk and again on the complaint that Lowry had broken a window, and yet Old Billy Watkins could hold up Jim Lowry, Atworthy professor now, and be respectful if a little startled. The white mustache was damped into strings and was, for a change, washed quite clean of tobacco juice.

  “I wonder,” said Lowry in a thick voice, “how long I have been lying there.”

  “Well, now, I would put it at about five minutes or maybe six minutes. I come along here about that long ago and I got clear up to Chapel Street before I recollected that I’d forgot to put a call in at the box down here, and so I come back and here you was, lying on the sidewalk.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Well, I guess it’s pretty close to four. Sun be up pretty soon. Is your wife sick? I see some lights on in your house.”

  “No. No, Billy, I guess I’m the one that’s sick. I started out to take a walk—”

  “Must’ve been unable to sleep. Now me, I find out a nice hot drink of milk is just about the thing to put a man to sleep. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I guess I feel all right now.”

  “You must have stumbled and fell. You got a bruise on your face and you seem to have lost your hat.”

  “Yes . . . yes, I guess I lost my hat. I must have stumbled. What street is this?”

  “Why, your street, of course. That’s your house right there, not thirty feet behind you. Here, I’ll help you up the steps. I heard tell you had one of them tropical diseases. Mrs. Chalmers’ maid was saying it wasn’t nothing bad, though. What you want to go running off into countries like that for with all them heathens, Jimmy—I mean, Professor Lowry?”

  “Oh—I guess it’s exciting.”

  “Yeah, I reckon it must be. Like my grandpap. Fighting Injuns all night and buildin’ railroads all day. Now, there you are. Want me to ring the bell for you, or have you—”

  “No, the door’s open.”

  “Well, your missis took to lockin’ it while you was gone and I thought maybe she still did. You look pretty pale, Ji—Professor. You sure I better not call Doc Chalmers for you?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  “Well, by golly, you don’t look all right. Well, maybe you know best. Good night.”

  “Good night, Billy.”

  With fascination he watched Old Billy Watkins go hobbling down the steps. But the walk was perfectly solid and Old Billy reached the street, turned back and waved and then went on up the avenue through the rain.

  Lowry opened the door and went in. Water formed a pool about his feet as he took off his coat.

  “Is that you, Jim?”

  “Yes, Mary.”

  She leaned over the upper railing and then, drawing her robe about her, came swiftly down. “I’ve been half out of my mind. I was just about to call Tommy and have him come over so that we could look for you— Why, you’re soaking wet! And you’ve got a bruise on your face! And what’s that on your hand?”

  Lowry looked down at his hand; there was another bruise there and a cut as though he had been pinched. He winced. “I fell, I guess.”

  “But where? You smell like . . . like seaweed.”

  A chill gripped him and, all concern, she threw down his coat and, regardless of the carpet, pulled him up the stairs. It was very cold in the old house and colder still in his room. She got his clothes off him and rolled him in between the covers and then wiped his face and hair with a towel.

  There was a taste of saltwater on his lips and a string of words sounding in his brain: “Why, the bottom is at the top, of course!”

  “I should never have let you go out.”

  “Poor Mary. I’ve worried you.”

  “I’m not thinking about that. You’re liable to be very ill because of this. Why didn’t you come back when it first began to rain?”

  “Mary.”

  “Yes, Jim?”

  “I love you.”

  She kissed him.

  “You know I’d never hurt you, Mary.”

  “Of course not, Jim.”

  “I think you’re good and loyal and beautiful, Mary.”

  “Hush. Go to sleep.”

  He closed his eyes, her hand soothing upon his forehead. In a little while he slept.

  He awoke to the realization that there was something horribly wrong, as if something or someone was near at hand, ready to do a thing to him. He stared around the room, but there was nothing in it; the sun was shining pleasantly upon the carpet and part of the wall, and somewhere outside people were passing and talking, and a block or two away an impatient hand was heavy upon a horn button.

  It was Sunday and he ought to be thinking about going to church. He threw back the covers and stepped out of bed. His clothes were hung upon a chair, but the suit he had worn was smudged and spotted and muddy and would have to be cleaned before he could wear it again.

  “Mary!”

  She must be sleeping. He pulled a robe about him and went to the door of her room. She was lying with one arm flung out across the covers, her mouth parted a little and her hair forming a luminous cloud about her lovely face. She stirred and opened her eyes.

  “Oh!” she said, awake. “I’ve overslept and we’re late for church. I’ll have to get breakfast and—”

  “No,” said Lowry. “You aren’t going to church.”

  “But, Jim—”

  “You’ve earned a sleep. You just lie there and be lazy, for I’m certain you haven’t been in bed more than three or four hours.”

  “Well—”

  “I’ll keep up the family honor—and I’ll get something to eat at the diner. You turn over and sleep—”

  “My beauty sleep?”

  “You don’t need sleep to be beautiful.” He kissed her and then, closing her door behind him, went into his room and took out a dark suit.

  When he had bathed and dressed he tiptoed to her door again.

  “Jim,” she said sleepily, “there were some people coming over this afternoon. I wish you’d tell them that I don’t feel well or something. I don’t want to go hustling about straightening up the house.”

  “As you will, darling.”

  “Tell me what the women wore,” she called after him.

  He was feeling almost sunny himself when he walked down the porch steps. But on the last one he halted, afraid to step to the walk. It took him some time and the feeling that he was being observed by the passersby to make him move. But the walk was perfectly solid this morning and, again with relief and near-sunniness, he strolled to the street, nodding to people as he passed them.

  The diner was nearly deserted and the blue-jowled short-order cook was having himself a cigarette and a cup of coffee at the end of the counter. He scowled when he saw someone come in and then brightened upon discovering it was Lowry.

  “Well, Professor! Haven’t seen you since you got back.”

  Lowry shook Mike’s soft, moist hand. “I’ve been pretty busy, I guess. Make it ham and eggs and coffee, Mike. And speed it up, will you? I’m late for church.”

  “Bell hasn’t started to ring yet,” said Mike, and got busy with a frying pan, grandly cracking the eggs with one hand.

  “How’s it feel to be back among civilized people again?” asked Mike, putting the food down before Lowry.

  “I suppose so,” said Lowry, not listening.

  Mike, a little mystified, went back to his cup of coffee and lighted another smok
e to sit broodingly, cup and cigarette both poised for use but momentarily forgotten; Mike shook his head as he gave the problem up and drank his coffee.

  Lowry ate slowly, mainly because his head was a tumult of thought: Tommy’s words kept passing through his mind and he could not wholly shake away the bleak forebodings Tommy had uttered, for it was unlike Tommy to jest with a man who was already worried. He had felt a gulf opening between them even as he and Tommy had talked; it was odd to feel strange and ill at ease with Tommy Williams. Why, he had even confided in Tommy that it had been he who had broken the window that time when Billy Watkins had been unable to shake the alibi; and Tommy and he had once signed a boyish pledge in blood to be friends forever.

  Lowry had almost finished when he found that the food did not taste good to him; a slow feeling of quiet fear was seeping through him. Of what, he wondered, could he be afraid? The place was suddenly suffocating and he hurriedly reached for change to pay. As he placed a fifty-cent piece on the counter he caught a glimpse of the mirror between the coffee urns. There was his own face, bleak and haggard and—

  Through the mirror he saw that something was behind him! A blurry, awful something that was slowly creeping upon his back!

  He snapped around.

  There was nothing.

  He faced the mirror.

  There was nothing.

  “Forty cents,” said Mike.

  “What?”

  “What’sa matter? Are you sick or something? There wasn’t nothin’ wrong with them eggs, was there?”

  “No,” said Lowry. “No. There wasn’t anything wrong with the eggs.”

  “You forgot your change!” Mike called after him.

  But Lowry was already on the sidewalk, striding swiftly away, utilizing every faculty to keep from running, to keep from glancing over his shoulder, to fight down the frozen numbness which threatened to paralyze him.

  “Hello, Jim.”

  He dodged and then, seeing that it was Tommy, felt a surge of elation. “Hello, Tommy.”

  “You look shaky, old man,” said Tommy. “You’d better take better care of that malaria or the old bugs will carve you hollow.”

  “I’m all right,” said Lowry, smiling. Tommy was evidently on his way to church for he was dressed in a dark suit and a dark topcoat. Tommy, thought Jim, was a remarkably good-looking guy.

  “Did you take your pills on schedule?”

  “Pills?”

  “Quinine or whatever you are supposed to take.”

  “Well—no. But I’m all right. Listen, Tommy, I don’t know when I’ve been so glad to see anybody.”

  Tommy grinned. “Glad to see you, Jim.”

  “We’ve been friends for a long time,” said Lowry. “How long is it now?”

  “Oh, about thirty-four years. Only don’t say it. When one is as old as I am and still trying to act the Beau Brummell, he doesn’t like to have his age get around.”

  “You going to church?”

  “Sure. And where else would I be going?”

  “Well—” Lowry shrugged and, for some reason, chuckled.

  “We’ve been meeting on that corner, now, at about this time, for a long while,” said Tommy. “Where’s Mary?”

  “Oh, she didn’t get much sleep last night and she’s staying home today.”

  “I wish I had an excuse like that. Parson Bates is a baron among bores; I don’t think he’d ever heard of the Old Testament until I mentioned it to him at one of his wife’s endless teas.”

  “Tommy . . . Tommy, there’s something I want to ask you.”

  “Fire away, old top.”

  “Tommy, when I left you yesterday afternoon, it was about a quarter of three, wasn’t it?”

  “Just about, I should imagine.”

  “And I did leave, didn’t I?”

  “Certainly, you left,” replied Tommy, rather amused.

  “And I only had one drink?”

  “That’s right. Say, this thing is really bothering you, isn’t it? Don’t try to hide anything from the old seer himself. What’s up?”

  “Tommy, I’ve lost four hours.”

  “Well! I’ve lost thirty-nine years.”

  “I mean it, Tommy. I’ve lost four hours and . . . and my hat.”

  Tommy laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” said Lowry.

  “Jim, when you look at me with those serious eyes of yours and tell me that you’re half out of your mind over a hat—well, it’s funny, that’s all. No offense.”

  “I’ve lost four hours. I don’t know what happened in them.”

  “Well—I suppose that would worry a fellow. But there are plenty of other hours and plenty of other hats. Forget it.”

  “I can’t, Tommy. Ever since I lost those four hours, things have been happening to me. Terrible things.” And very swiftly he sketched the events of the night just passed.

  “Down the stairs,” said Tommy, very sober now. “Yes. I get your point—and I get more than that.”

  “What’s it all about?” pleaded Lowry.

  Tommy walked quite a way in silence and then, seeing that they were nearing the crowd before the old church, stopped. “Jim, you won’t believe me.”

  “I’m about ready to believe anything.”

  “Remember what I told you yesterday? About your article?”

  “You think my article has something to do with it?”

  “Yes. I believe it has. Jim, you took a very definite and even insulting stand upon a subject which has been dead for a hundred years at the very least.”

  “Insulting? To whom?”

  “To— Well, it’s hard to say, Jim, in a way that you wouldn’t decry the moment it was uttered. I wouldn’t try to find your hat if I were you.”

  “But . . . but somehow I know that if I don’t find it, this thing will drive me mad!”

  “Steady, now. Sometimes it’s even better to be mad than dead. Listen, Jim, those things you said you met—well, those are very definitely representative of supernatural forces. Oh, I know you’ll object. Nobody believes in supernatural forces these days. All right. But you have met some of them. Not, of course, the real ones that might search you out—”

  “You mean devils and demons?”

  “That’s too specific.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “First Jebson. Then four hours and a hat. By the way, Jim, have you any marks on your person that you didn’t have when you were with me?”

  “Yes.” Jim pulled up his coat sleeve.

  “Hmmm. That’s very odd. That happens to be the footprint of a hare.”

  “Well?”

  “Oh, now, let’s forget this,” said Tommy. “Look, Jim. Yesterday I was feeling a little bit blue and I talked crossly about your article. Certainly, it went against the grain, for I would like to believe in the actuality of such forces—they amuse me in a world where amusement is far between. And now I am feeding these ideas of yours. Jim, believe me, if I can help you I shall. But all I can do is hinder if I put ideas into your mind. What you are suffering from is some kind of malarial kickback that doctors have not before noticed. It faded out your memory for a while and you wandered around and lost your hat. Now keep that firmly in mind. You lost your memory through malaria and you lost your hat while wandering. I’m your friend, and I’ll throw everything overboard before I’ll let it injure you. Do you understand me?”

  “Thanks—Tommy.”

  “See Dr. Chalmers and have him fill you full of quinine. I’ll stand by and keep an eye on you so that you won’t wander off again. And I’ll do that for another purpose, as well. If you see anything, then I’ll see it, too. And maybe, from what I know of such things, I can keep any harm from befalling you.”

  “I hardly know what—”

  “Don’t say anything. As much as anything, I’ve been responsible for this with all my talk about demons and devils. I think too much of you, and I think too much of Mary, to let anything happen. And—Jim . . .”

>   “Yes?”

  “Look, Jim. You don’t think that I fed you a drug or anything in that drink?”

  “No! I hadn’t even thought of such a thing!”

  “Well—I wondered. You know I’m your friend, don’t you, Jim?”

  “Yes. Of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t run the risk of telling you these things.”

  Tommy walked on with him toward the church. The bell was tolling, a black shadow moving in the belfry, and the rolling circles of sound came down to surround the nicely dressed people on the steps and draw them gently in. Jim Lowry looked up at the friendly old structure; the leaves had not yet come out upon the ivy, so that great brown ropes went straggling across the gray stone; the stained-glass windows gleamed in the sunlight. But somehow he felt very much out of place here. Always it seemed to him that this was a sanctuary and place of rest, but now—

  A woman nudged against him in the crowd and he came to himself enough to see that it was the wife of Dean Hawkins. He remembered.

  “Oh, Mrs. Hawkins!”

  “Why, how do you do, Professor Lowry. Isn’t your wife with you today?”

  “That is what I wanted to say, Mrs. Hawkins. She is not feeling very well, and I believe she told you that she would be expecting you for tea this afternoon.”

  “Why, yes.”

  “She asked if she could beg off, Mrs. Hawkins.”

  “Perhaps I had better call and make sure she doesn’t need something.”

  “No. All she needs is a little rest.”

  “Well, do tell her that I hope she will soon be feeling better.”

  “Yes, I shall,” said Lowry, and then lost touch with her in the aisle.

  Tommy usually sat with Lowry and Mary, and, as usual, their section of the pew was reserved for them. Lowry slid into the seat and glanced around, nodding absently to those about who nodded to him.

  “She’s an awful old frump,” said Tommy in a whisper. “No wonder Hawkins has dyspepsia. It’s a wonder she’d speak to you after the news.”

  “What news?” whispered Lowry, barely turning toward Tommy.