The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories
empty. I looked in every corner and behind every stick of furniture, and
a student's bedroom on a top floor, costing twelve shillings a week, did
not hold many available hiding-places, as you may imagine.
"The crash, however, was explained. Some very practical and physical
force had thrown the books from their resting-place. That, at least, was
beyond all doubt. And as I replaced them on the shelf and noted that not
one was missing, I busied myself mentally with the sore problem of how
the agent of this little practical joke had gained access to my room,
and then escaped again. _For my door was locked and bolted._
"Smith's odd question as to whether I was disturbed in the night, and
his warning injunction to let him know at once if such were the case,
now of course returned to affect me as I stood there in the early
morning, cold and shivering on the carpet; but I realised at the same
moment how impossible it would be for me to admit that a more than
usually vivid nightmare could have any connection with himself. I would
rather stand a hundred of these mysterious visitations than consult such
a man as to their possible cause.
"A knock at the door interrupted my reflections, and I gave a start that
sent the candle grease flying.
"'Let me in,' came in Smith's voice.
"I unlocked the door. He came in fully dressed. His face wore a curious
pallor. It seemed to me to be under the skin and to shine through and
almost make it luminous. His eyes were exceedingly bright.
"I was wondering what in the world to say to him, or how he would
explain his visit at such an hour, when he closed the door behind him
and came close up to me--uncomfortably close.
"'You should have called me at once,' he said in his whispering voice,
fixing his great eyes on my face.
"I stammered something about an awful dream, but he ignored my remark
utterly, and I caught his eye wandering next--if any movement of those
optics can be described as 'wandering'--to the book-shelf. I watched
him, unable to move my gaze from his person. The man fascinated me
horribly for some reason. Why, in the devil's name, was he up and
dressed at three in the morning? How did he know anything had happened
unusual in my room? Then his whisper began again.
"'It's your amazing vitality that causes you this annoyance,' he said,
shifting his eyes back to mine.
"I gasped. Something in his voice or manner turned my blood into ice.
"'That's the real attraction,' he went on. 'But if this continues one of
us will have to leave, you know.'
"I positively could not find a word to say in reply. The channels of
speech dried up within me. I simply stared and wondered what he would
say next. I watched him in a sort of dream, and as far as I can
remember, he asked me to promise to call him sooner another time, and
then began to walk round the room, uttering strange sounds, and making
signs with his arms and hands until he reached the door. Then he was
gone in a second, and I had closed and locked the door behind him.
"After this, the Smith adventure drew rapidly to a climax. It was a week
or two later, and I was coming home between two and three in the morning
from a maternity case, certain features of which for the time being had
very much taken possession of my mind, so much so, indeed, that I passed
Smith's door without giving him a single thought.
"The gas jet on the landing was still burning, but so low that it made
little impression on the waves of deep shadow that lay across the
stairs. Overhead, the faintest possible gleam of grey showed that the
morning was not far away. A few stars shone down through the sky-light.
The house was still as the grave, and the only sound to break the
silence was the rushing of the wind round the walls and over the roof.
But this was a fitful sound, suddenly rising and as suddenly falling
away again, and it only served to intensify the silence.
"I had already reached my own landing when I gave a violent start. It
was automatic, almost a reflex action in fact, for it was only when I
caught myself fumbling at the door handle and thinking where I could
conceal myself quickest that I realised a voice had sounded close beside
me in the air. It was the same voice I had heard before, and it seemed
to me to be calling for help. And yet the very same minute I pushed on
into the room, determined to disregard it, and seeking to persuade
myself it was the creaking of the boards under my weight or the rushing
noise of the wind that had deceived me.
"But hardly had I reached the table where the candles stood when the
sound was unmistakably repeated: 'Help! help!' And this time it was
accompanied by what I can only describe as a vivid tactile
hallucination. I was touched: the _skin_ of my arm was clutched by
fingers.
"Some compelling force sent me headlong downstairs as if the haunting
forces of the whole world were at my heels. At Smith's door I paused.
The force of his previous warning injunction to seek his aid without
delay acted suddenly and I leant my whole weight against the panels,
little dreaming that I should be called upon to give help rather than
to receive it.
"The door yielded at once, and I burst into a room that was so full of a
choking vapour, moving in slow clouds, that at first I could distinguish
nothing at all but a set of what seemed to be huge shadows passing in
and out of the mist. Then, gradually, I perceived that a red lamp on the
mantelpiece gave all the light there was, and that the room which I now
entered for the first time was almost empty of furniture.
"The carpet was rolled back and piled in a heap in the corner, and upon
the white boards of the floor I noticed a large circle drawn in black of
some material that emitted a faint glowing light and was apparently
smoking. Inside this circle, as well as at regular intervals outside it,
were curious-looking designs, also traced in the same black, smoking
substance. These, too, seemed to emit a feeble light of their own.
"My first impression on entering the room had been that it was full
of--_people_, I was going to say; but that hardly expresses my meaning.
_Beings_, they certainly were, but it was borne in upon me beyond the
possibility of doubt, that they were not human beings. That I had caught
a momentary glimpse of living, intelligent entities I can never doubt,
but I am equally convinced, though I cannot prove it, that these
entities were from some other scheme of evolution altogether, and had
nothing to do with the ordinary human life, either incarnate or
discarnate.
"But, whatever they were, the visible appearance of them was exceedingly
fleeting. I no longer saw anything, though I still felt convinced of
their immediate presence. They were, moreover, of the same order of life
as the visitant in my bedroom of a few nights before, and their
proximity to my atmosphere in numbers, instead of singly as before,
conveyed to my mind something that was quite terrible and overwhelming.
I fell into a violent trembling, and the perspiration poured from my
face in streams.
"They were in constant motion about me. They stood close to my side;
moved behind me; brushed past my shoulder; stirred the hair on my
forehead; and circled round me without ever actually touching me, yet
always pressing closer and closer. Especially in the air just over my
head there seemed ceaseless movement, and it was accompanied by a
confused noise of whispering and sighing that threatened every moment to
become articulate in words. To my intense relief, however, I heard no
distinct words, and the noise continued more like the rising and falling
of the wind than anything else I can imagine.
"But the characteristic of these 'Beings' that impressed me most
strongly at the time, and of which I have carried away the most
permanent recollection, was that each one of them possessed what seemed
to be a _vibrating centre_ which impelled it with tremendous force and
caused a rapid whirling motion of the atmosphere as it passed me. The
air was full of these little vortices of whirring, rotating force, and
whenever one of them pressed me too closely I felt as if the nerves in
that particular portion of my body had been literally drawn out,
absolutely depleted of vitality, and then immediately replaced--but
replaced dead, flabby, useless.
"Then, suddenly, for the first time my eyes fell upon Smith. He was
crouching against the wall on my right, in an attitude that was
obviously defensive, and it was plain he was in extremities. The terror
on his face was pitiable, but at the same time there was another
expression about the tightly clenched teeth and mouth which showed that
he had not lost all control of himself. He wore the most resolute
expression I have ever seen on a human countenance, and, though for the
moment at a fearful disadvantage, he looked like a man who had
confidence in himself, and, in spite of the working of fear, was waiting
his opportunity.
"For my part, I was face to face with a situation so utterly beyond my
knowledge and comprehension, that I felt as helpless as a child, and as
useless.
"'Help me back--quick--into that circle,' I heard him half cry, half
whisper to me across the moving vapours.
"My only value appears to have been that I was not afraid to act.
Knowing nothing of the forces I was dealing with I had no idea of the
deadly perils risked, and I sprang forward and caught him by the arms.
He threw all his weight in my direction, and by our combined efforts his
body left the wall and lurched across the floor towards the circle.
"Instantly there descended upon us, out of the empty air of that
smoke-laden room, a force which I can only compare to the pushing,
driving power of a great wind pent up within a narrow space. It was
almost explosive in its effect, and it seemed to operate upon all parts
of my body equally. It fell upon us with a rushing noise that filled my
ears and made me think for a moment the very walls and roof of the
building had been torn asunder. Under its first blow we staggered back
against the wall, and I understood plainly that its purpose was to
prevent us getting back into the circle in the middle of the floor.
"Pouring with perspiration, and breathless, with every muscle strained
to the very utmost, we at length managed to get to the edge of the
circle, and at this moment, so great was the opposing force, that I felt
myself actually torn from Smith's arms, lifted from my feet, and twirled
round in the direction of the windows as if the wheel of some great
machine had caught my clothes and was tearing me to destruction in its
revolution.
"But, even as I fell, bruised and breathless, against the wall, I saw
Smith firmly upon his feet in the circle and slowly rising again to an
upright position. My eyes never left his figure once in the next few
minutes.
"He drew himself up to his full height. His great shoulders squared
themselves. His head was thrown back a little, and as I looked I saw the
expression on his face change swiftly from fear to one of absolute
command. He looked steadily round the room and then his voice began to
_vibrate_. At first in a low tone, it gradually rose till it assumed the
same volume and intensity I had heard that night when he called up the
stairs into my room.
"It was a curiously increasing sound, more like the swelling of an
instrument than a human voice; and as it grew in power and filled the
room, I became aware that a great change was being effected slowly and
surely. The confusion of noise and rushings of air fell into the roll of
long, steady vibrations not unlike those caused by the deeper pedals of
an organ. The movements in the air became less violent, then grew
decidedly weaker, and finally ceased altogether. The whisperings and