The Invaders, Benjamin Ferris [unputdownable books .txt] 📗

brooded. "I shot that thing tonight. Should 'a been dead if a critter ever was. Then I seen it go after Ed."

"You know what all this means, don't you? Witchcraft. Something people haven't believed in for hundreds of years."

"Mebbe they better get started again."

They were nearing the divide that overlooked Dark Valley. "Mike, I've been reading up on it, for hours. Everything I could find. And it fits. It's been the hardest struggle I ever had—admitting such a thing existed. But it was either acknowledge that or lose my mind."

The night seemed colder as they started downward. Unaccountably, the headlights dimmed.

"Somethin' watchin' us," Carver said suddenly, as the car bored on through the thick and swirling darkness.

Jerry nodded. His hands gripped the wheel until the knuckles were white. Sweat began to glisten on his forehead.

The headlights picked out a dark spot, that looked like a yawning hole. Jerry stamped on the brake, skidded slightly. But there was only a shallow rut, deformed by shadows. He pressed the accelerator ... and the motor died. Hurriedly, he jabbed the starter button, pumped the gas pedal. Again he pushed it, and again, as the lights faded from the drain on the battery.

"What's the matter?" Carver's old voice was thin.

"Flooded, maybe. Better let her sit a minute."

The darkness pressed close around them, shifted and danced. Chill air moved over their faces.

"Mike."

"Yeah."

"Why didn't that animal come after, you, too?"

Carver breathed heavily for a moment. Then he took something from his shirt pocket and held it out. Jerry's fingers moved over it. A crucifix.

"My mother give it to me a long time ago."

"That's probably the only thing that could have saved you. From what I read, they can't stand a cross. And silver's got something to do with it." Jerry reached into his own pocket. "Feel this."

Carver's rough hand fumbled over the object.

"Made it this evening. Took a cold chisel and hammer to an old silver tray. Not fancy, but it was all I had."

"You done that, before I came and told you about Ed?"

Jerry nodded grimly. "I'm convinced we're up against something terrible. And believe me, Mike, I'm scared."

The shadows drew closer, thicker still. They seemed charged with menace.

With a catch in his voice, Jerry said, "Maybe now's the time to try it."

Carver's head jerked around.

"I mean smash Merklos and his tribe for good."

"How?"

"With fire, and the silver crosses."

After a long pause, Carver said, "What about Ed?"

"We'll get to your cabin. We're not far from the first farm. We can go right up the valley. If it works."

"And if it don't?"

"We might end up like Ed."

Carver turned and spat out the window. "I don't want to, but I will."

They got out of the car, into the humming darkness. They took gunny sacks and rags from the trunk compartment and soaked them in oil from the crankcase. They wired a bundle on the extension handle of the jack, and another on the radio aerial rod which Jerry unscrewed.

They tried to start the car once more, without success. So they turned off the lights and left it. With one torch burning, they started up the road for the first gate.

Dark Valley's shadowy legions closed in. There was a rustling and a whispering all around them. There were shiny glints where none ought to be. There was an overwhelming feeling that something frightful waited—just beyond the edge of darkness.

"The gate," Carver said hoarsely.

Jerry unclenched his jaws and lit the second torch. The flare-up reflected from the blank windows ahead.

"What about the wimmen? What about the kids?"

Jerry spoke jerkily, his eyes on the house. "There aren't any kids. What we saw was something else. The women are the same as the men, the same as the thing that killed Ed. Don't worry about them. Hold the cross in front of you, and for God's sake hang onto it!"

The darkness swelled like a living thing. It swayed and clutched at the torches. Somewhere a high whining began, like a keening wind.

There were sudden sounds from the house—bangings and scramblings. Carver faltered.

"On!" Jerry said savagely, and began to run. He touched his home-made crucifix to the wood of the porch, and with the other hand brought the torch down. Blue sparks jumped out at him. The dry wood hissed and blazed up furiously.

A frightful scream rang out. There was the tinkle of breaking glass. Formless figures thudded to the ground and scuttled away on all fours, headed up the valley.

Within minutes the farmhouse was a mass of roaring flame. Jerry backed away from it. He saw Carver outlined against the glowing barn, which he had fired. They came together and hurried back to the road. There they stopped to watch the pillar of flame and smoke, boiling upward.

"It worked," Carver said.

Jerry nodded. "We can't kill them. But we can drive them out."

"Wimmen and kids," Carver said bitterly. "Did you see them things that came out?"

"Yes." Jerry was drenched in sweat and the torch trembled in his hand. "Let's get on to the next one, Mike."

They went on to the neighboring farm, and to the one after that, while the shadows pulsed in an unholy turmoil. The night swarmed with malignant invisible forces, that tried to blow the flame from their torches, that flayed them with the naked sword of fear. There were hideous shapes, half-seen. There were waves of terror like a physical shock. There were puffs of ordure, so rank they gagged.

But they plodded through it, faces set, sweating and agonized. Till, halfway up the valley it came....

Carver knew it first. His leathery face paled; his hands fumbled instinctively for the gun he was not carrying.

Then Jerry said hoarsely, "Mike, did you hear that?"

Carver nodded dumbly.

Clearly, now, came the sound of those huge paws, padding first on one side of them, then the other. Jerry clutched his cross till the rough edges bit deep into his hand.

It seemed that his very life was bound up with the torch that now smoked and struggled to burn. If its feeble flame went out, that meant extinction, black and final.

Then he became aware that Carver was no longer beside him. He whirled. Ten yards behind, the other was bending down, scrabbling frantically in the dust.

"I dropped it!" he shouted. "I can't find it!"

Jerry tried to reach him, but the other thing was quicker. A whirlpool of blackness engulfed Carver, blotted him out. Then Jerry was confronted by an unbelievable sight—a great, savage head, towering over him, its eyes glowing redly and foam creaming over gigantic, open jaws.

Desperately, he shoved his cross straight at it. The thing spat and roared deafeningly. The thud of its paws shook the ground. It lashed out with monstrous claws that sliced his skin. Half-stunned, Jerry kept lunging toward it, till finally his cross touched its coarse hide. There was a crackle of blue flame, a shriek that split the night, and the thing disintegrated in roiling clouds of bitter smoke.

Jerry swayed. The hand that held the cross was numb and tingling. Like an automaton, he turned, went back, and knelt beside the crumpled shape that had been Mike Carver. Then he rose, still carrying the feebly flickering torch, and plodded on....

They met him as he was coming back—Watson, Henderson, Caruso, Miller, Hammond and the rest. They had flashlights and guns and tear gas, and their faces were grim and desperate.

"We found your car," they said. "We could see the flames from Wide Bend. What in hell has been going on?"

Jerry stared at them. He dropped the dead torch. One hand tried to put the cross back into his pocket. His face was black, his hair singed, his side wet with blood.

"It's all over," he croaked. "They're gone. Dark Valley is free again."

Big Joe Merklos was the first of them. He appeared at the Rocky Mountain Trust Company one day, cash in hand. The charm of him, his flashing smile, the easy strength in his big body, were persuasive recommendations. But the Company's appraisal scarcely got that far. Wasn't he the first buyer they had ever had for that suburban real-estate fiasco, Hidden Acres...?

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invaders, by Benjamin Ferris