That night Carson dreamed. He awoke just before dawn with his heart
racing furiously and a curious feeling of uneasiness. Within the walls
and from below he could hear the furtive scurryings of the rats. He got
out of bed hastily, shivering in the cold grayness of early morning. A
wan moon still shone faintly in a paling sky.
Then he remembered Leigh's words. He _had_ dreamed—there was no
question of that. But the content of his dream—that was another matter.
He absolutely could not recall it to his mind, much as he tried,
although there was a very vague impression of running frantically in
darkness.
He dressed quickly, and because the stillness of early morning in the
old house got on his nerves, went out to buy a newspaper. It was too
early for shops to be open, however, and in search of a news-boy he set
off westward, turning at the first corner. And as he walked a curious
and inexplicable feeling began to take possession of him: a feeling
of—familiarity! He had walked here before, and there was a dim and
disturbing familiarity about the shapes of the houses, the outline of
the roofs. But—and this was the fantastic part of it—to his knowledge
he had never been on this street before. He had spent little time
walking about this region of Salem, for he was indolent by nature; yet
there was this extraordinary feeling of remembrance, and it grew more
vivid as he went on.
He reached a corner, turned unthinkingly to the left. The odd sensation
increased. He walked on slowly, pondering.
No doubt he _had_ traveled by this way before—and very probably he had
done so in a brown study, so that he had not been conscious of his
route. Undoubtedly that was the explanation. Yet as Carson turned into
Charter Street he felt a nameless uneasy waking within him. Salem was
rousing; with daylight impassive Polish workers began to hurry past him
toward the mills. An occasional automobile went by.
Before him a crowd was gathered on the sidewalk. He hastened his steps,
conscious of a feeling of impending calamity. With an extraordinary
sense of shock he saw that he was passing the Charter Street Burying
Ground, the ancient, evilly famous "Burying Point." Hastily he pushed
his way into the crowd.
Comments in a muffled undertone came to Carson's ears, and a bulky
blue-clad back loomed up before him. He peered over the policeman's
shoulder and caught his breath in a horrified gasp.
A man leaned against the iron railing that fenced the old graveyard. He
wore a cheap, gaudy suit, and he gripped the rusty bars in a clutch that
made the muscles stand out in ridges on the hairy back of his hands. He
was dead, and on his face, staring up at the sky at a crazy angle, was
frozen an expression of abysmal and utterly shocking horror. His eyes,
all whites, were bulging hideously; his mouth was a twisted, mirthless
grin.
A man at Carson's side turned a white face toward him. "Looks as if he
was scared to death," he said somewhat hoarsely. "I'd hate to have seen
what he saw. Ugh—look at that face!"
Mechanically Carson backed away, feeling an icy breath of nameless
things chill him. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, but still that
contorted, dead face swam in his vision. He began to retrace his steps,
shaken and trembling a little. Involuntarily his glance moved aside,
rested on the tombs and monuments that dotted the old graveyard. No one
had been buried there for over a century, and the lichen-stained
tombstones, with their winged skulls, fat-cheeked cherubs, and funereal
urns, seemed to breathe out an indefinable miasma of antiquity. What had
frightened the man to death?
* * * * *
Carson drew a deep breath. True, the corpse had been a frightful
spectacle, but he must not allow it to upset his nerves. He could
not—his novel would suffer. Besides, he argued grimly to himself, the
affair was obvious enough in its explanation. The dead man was
apparently a Pole, one of the group of immigrants who dwell about Salem
Harbor. Passing by the graveyard at night, a spot about which eldritch
legends had clung for nearly three centuries, his drink-befuddled eyes
must have given reality to the hazy phantoms of a superstitious mind.
These Poles were notoriously unstable emotionally, prone to mob hysteria
and wild imaginings. The great Immigrant Panic of 1853, in which three
witch-houses had been burned to the ground, had grown from an old
woman's confused and hysterical statement that she had seen a mysterious
white-clad foreigner "take off his face." What else could be expected of
such people, Carson thought?
Nevertheless he remained in a nervous state, and did not return home
until nearly noon. When on his arrival he found Leigh, the occultist,
waiting, he was glad to see the man, and invited him in with cordiality.
Leigh was very serious. "Did you hear about your friend Abigail Prinn?"
he asked without preamble, and Carson stared, pausing in the act of
siphoning charged water into a glass. After a long moment he pressed the
lever, sent the liquid sizzling and foaming into the whisky. He handed
Leigh the drink and took one himself—neat—before answering the
question.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Has—what's she been up to?" he
asked, with an air of forced levity.
"I've been checking up the records," Leigh said, "and I find Abigail
Prinn was buried on December 14th, 1690, in the Charter Street Burying
Ground—with a stake through her heart. What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Carson said tonelessly. "Well?"
"Well—her grave's been opened and robbed, that's all. The stake was
found uprooted near by, and there were footprints all around the grave.
Shoe-prints. Did you dream last night, Carson?" Leigh snapped out the
question, his gray eyes hard.
"I don't know," Carson said confusedly, rubbing his forehead. "I can't
remember. I was at the Charter Street graveyard this morning."
"Oh. Then you must have heard something about the man who——"
"I saw him," Carson interrupted, shuddering. "It upset me."
He downed the whisky at a gulp.
Leigh watched him. "Well," he said presently, "are you still determined
to stay in this house?"
Carson put down the glass and stood up.
"Why not?" he snapped. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't? Eh?"
"After what happened last night——"
"After _what_ happened? A grave was robbed. A superstitious Pole saw the
robbers and died of fright. Well?"
"You're trying to convince yourself," Leigh said calmly. "In your heart
you know—you must know—the truth. You've become a tool in the hands of
tremendous and terrible forces, Carson. For three centuries Abbie Prinn
has lain in her grave—_undead_—waiting for someone to fall into her
trap—the Witch Room. Perhaps she foresaw the future when she built it,
foresaw that some day someone would blunder into that hellish chamber
and be caught by the trap of the mosaic pattern. It caught you,
Carson—and enabled that undead horror to bridge the gulf between
consciousness and matter, to get _en rapport_ with you. Hypnotism is
child's play to a being with Abigail Prinn's frightful powers. She could
very easily force you to go to her grave and uproot the stake that held
her captive, and then erase the memory of that act from your mind so
that you could not remember it even as a dream!"
Carson was on his feet, his eyes burning with a strange light. "In God's
name, man, do you know what you're saying?"
Leigh laughed harshly. "God's name! The devil's name, rather—the devil
that menaces Salem at this moment; for Salem is in danger, terrible
danger. The men and women and children of the town Abbie Prinn cursed
when they bound her to the stake—and found they couldn't burn her! I've
been going through certain secret archives this morning, and I've come
to ask you, for the last time, to leave this house."
"Are you through?" Carson asked coldly. "Very well. I shall stay here.
You're either insane or drunk, but you can't impress me with your
poppycock."
"Would you leave if I offered you a thousand dollars?" Leigh asked. "Or
more, then—ten thousand? I have a considerable sum at my command."
"No, damn it!" Carson snapped in a sudden blaze of anger. "All I want is
to be left alone to finish my novel. I can't work anywhere else—I don't
want to, I won't——"
"I expected this," Leigh said, his voice suddenly quiet, and with a
strange note of sympathy. "Man, you can't get away! You're caught in the
trap, and it's too late for you to extricate yourself so long as Abbie
Prinn's brain controls you through the Witch Room. And the worst part of
it is that she can only manifest herself with your aid—she drains your
life forces, Carson, feeds on you like a vampire."
"You're mad," Carson said dully.
"I'm afraid. That iron disk in the Witch Room—I'm afraid of that, and
what's under it. Abbie Prinn served strange gods, Carson—and I read
something on the wall of that alcove that gave me a hint. Have you ever
heard of Nyogtha?"
Carson shook his head impatiently. Leigh fumbled in a pocket, drew out a
scrap of paper. "I copied this from a book in the Kester Library," he
said, "a book called the _Necronomicon_, written by a man who delved so
deeply into forbidden secrets that men called him mad. Read this."