In the Dark, Page 2

other thing began about six months ago."

  A spasm contorted his face. His fingers ached their grip into thedictaphone tube.

  "Jeannette, you remember when I began to object to the radio, how I'dshout at you to turn it off in the middle of a program? You thought Iwas ill, and worried about business.... You were wrong. The thing thatgot me was _hearing her voice_----"

  He gripped the cold cigar, chewed it. "It's very strange that youdidn't notice it. No matter what station we dialed to, always thatsame voice came stealing into the room! But perhaps you did notice?You said, once or twice, that all those blues singers sounded alike!

  "And she was a blues singer.... It was she, all right, somewhere outin the ether, reminding me....

  "The next thing was--well, at first when I noticed it in the office Ithought Miss Carruthers had suddenly taken up with young ideas. Yousee, I kept smelling perfume."

  And he smelled it now. It was like a miasma in the dark.

  "It isn't anything that Carruthers wears," he grated. "It comesfrom--yes, the storage room. I realized that about a month ago. Justafter you sailed--one night I stayed late at the office, and I went inthere.... It seemed to be strongest around the vat--_her_ vat--and Ilifted the lid.

  "The sweet, sticky musk-smell hit me like a blow in the face.

  "And that isn't all!"

  * * * * *

  Terror stalked in this room. Asa Gregg crouched in his chair, felt theweight of Fear on him like a submarine pressure. His cigar pitched tohis knees, dropped to the floor.

  "You won't believe this, Jeannette." He hammered the words like nailsinto the darkness in front of him. "You will say that it's impossible.I know that. It _is_ impossible. It is a physiological absurdity--itcontradicts the laws of natural science.

  "_But I saw something on the bottom of that vat!_"

  He groped for the bottle. His wife would hear a long gurgle, and thena coughing gasp....

  "The vat was nearly full of this transparent, oily acid," he went on."What I saw was a lot of sediment on the golden floor. And thereshouldn't have been any sediment! The stuff utterly dissolves animaltissue, bone, even the common ores--keeps them in suspension.

  "It didn't look like sediment, either. It looked like a heap of mold ...grave-mold!

  "I replaced the lid. I spent a week convincing myself that it was allimpossible, that I _couldn't_ have seen anything of the sort. Then Iwent to the vat again----"

  Silence hung in the darkness while he sucked wind into his lungs. Andthe words burst--separate, yammering shrieks:

  "I looked, night after night! For hours at a time I've watched thechange.... Did you ever see a body decompose? Of course not! Neitherhave I. But you must know in a general way what the process is. Well,this has been the exact opposite!

  "First, I stared at the heap of grave-mold as it shaped itself into_bones_, a skeleton.

  "I watched the coming of hair, a yellow tangle of it sprouting fromthe bare round skull, until--oh, God!--the flesh began making itselfbefore my eyes! I couldn't bear any more. I stayed away--didn't cometo the office for five days."

  The tube slipped from his sweating, slick fingers. Panting, Asa Greggfumbled in the dark until he found it.

  Exhaustion, not self-control, flattened his voice to a deadlymonotone. "I tried to think of a way out. If I could fish the corpseout of the tank! But I couldn't smuggle it out of the plant--alone.You know that, and so do I. Besides, what would be the use? If acidcan't kill her, nothing can.

  "That's why I can't have the lid cemented on. It wouldn't do any good,either! Until three days ago, she hadn't the least color, looked aswhite as a ghost in the vat. A naked ghost, because there's been noresurrection for her clothing....

  "I've watched her limbs grow rosy! Her lips are scarlet! Her eyes arebright--they opened yesterday--and her breasts were rising andfalling--oh, almost imperceptibly--but that was last night.

  "And tonight--I swear it--her lips moved! She muttered my name! Sheturned--she'd been lying on her side--over onto her back!"

  The record would be badly blurred. His hand shook violently, bobbledthe tube against his lips. Gregg braced his elbow against the desk.

  "She isn't dead," he choked. "She's only asleep ... not very soundlyasleep.... She's waking up!"

  The invisible needle quivered as it traced several noises. There washis tortured breathing, and the clawing of his fingernails rattlingover the desk. The drawer clicked as it opened.

  The loud click was the cocking of the revolver.

  "_Soon she's going to get out of that vat!_" Gregg bleated."Jeannette, forgive me--God, forgive me--but I will not--I cannot--Idare not stay here to see her then!"

  * * * * *

  The sound of the shot brought the watchman stumbling along thecorridor. He crashed against the office door. It banged open in ashower of falling frosted glass. The watchman's flashlight severed thedarkness, and printed its white circle on the face of Asa Gregg.

  He had fallen back into the chair, a blackish gout of blood runningfrom the hole in his temple. He stared sightlessly into the light withhis eyes that were two gnarls of shrunken brown flesh, like knots in apine board.

  Asa Gregg was blind ... had been, since that night three years pastwhen the acid splashed....

  * * * * *