RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on an picture generated with Bing Image Creator
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on an picture generated with Bing Image Creator
Amazing Stories, May 1948
with "The Forgotten Hades"
I looked up at the bronzed figure. He certainly
packed a wallop... He had knocked me out with ease.
What was in this eerie swamp? Who were the Forgotten People?
Will Dean went into the dank morass—and found out!
IN all fantasy, there is a thread of truth. Sometimes a person is unable to believe what he reads, for the words come from the mind of a man who has seen strange things, and is unable to give proof of what he writes. Yet his thoughts, while classified under fantasy, are real to him.
As in "Citadel of Hate," and "Appointment with the Past," I have enjoyed recording the wanderings of the "Forgotten People," for they existed in the wild, windswept marshes of New Jersey, and society chooses to ignore their horrible problem.
I must divide this story into two distinct parts. I refuse to slow down Will Dean's account with footnotes. I give you the facts first and you will hear from Will Dean later in the story.
If you are amazed at the tragedy of the Forgotten People, it will be because Will Dean saw and reported only what he saw. Call it history or fantasy. There is much history in fantasy and the reverse is also true. —Lee Francis.
IN the summer of Nineteen-Forty, my sister-in-law, Lucille
Forest, was acting as Chief Surgical Nurse in a large hospital
south of New York. Week-ends away from home proved lonely for
her, but she gradually found friends from various states. They
included a student nurse from Ohio, a tall, bony kid from Oregon,
and blonde twins from Chicago.
Came a hot Sunday afternoon and these girls decided to take a lunch down to the beach, cook corn in the sand and have a Sunday dinner near the Atlantic.
Let her tell the story as she wrote it in a letter to me. I was hard at work on "Citadel of Hate" at the time, and filed her information until such time as I could do proper research work on it.
Dear Lee:
Talk about Fantasy. Four girl friends and myself (you know none of them, so the names aren't important) walked out of the hospital this morning and straight into an incredible, horrible world. It isn't half as bad as it sounds, for we are all safely home once more, and you're in no danger of losing a sister-in-law. I promise you I won't go back.
We were told that it is against the law to light fires on the beach, unless one goes far south along the Jersey Coast, where civilization ends and the marshes close in.
I guess we drove longer than necessary, but finally we saw a spot where we thought we would reach the beach without too much walking. With our baskets of lunch, we cut across the marsh through the shoulder high grass and swaying cat-tails. We tripped often in fish nets which had been laid out in the grass to dry. The day was dark and the winds scudding in from the sea, made the marsh a vast lost world.
Later, we all confessed that from the moment we left the car, we felt a strange foreboding of evil to come. It wasn't anything we could put our finger on. Just a cold chill, and a feeling of panic in each of us. We climbed over the sea-wall and it was quite warm down on the beach. In a few minutes we had a fire going and the corn was ready to bury in the sand, once it became hot enough to roast the ears. The water was cold and we weren't in the mood for bathing.
We wandered up and down the beach and after a while one of my friends pointed out a half dozen children who had come down and were crawling along the sea-wall about fifty yards away. White caps kicked up far out at sea and the surf rolled in swiftly, pounding against the sand. Night was approaching.
We watched the children and they seemed very curious about us. They never came closer than the sea wall, and yet they increased in number until they were a dozen strong.
They had a number of tin cans which they seemed to be playing with.
I couldn't get those "kids" out of my mind. When the corn was cooking, I kept looking around at them. They didn't act like normal youngsters. In fact, I wondered at the time how they managed to get way down here in the marsh where we felt we would be quite alone.
Then I heard one of the girls gasp. "Those aren't children." I have never heard terror expressed in such simple words. "That one on all fours," she continued breathlessly, "Look at him. He has a beard."
He did have. I was sure of it after I took a good look at him. He was a very old man (I would say about seventy). His beard was a dirty gray and it hung down to his waist. He was dressed, and don't call me imaginative for I saw him clearly as he came toward us, in a piece of burlap that covered his thighs, and an inner tube, slit down the middle and tied around his waist. He walked on his hands and feet across the sea wall, then sat down and stared at us like a monkey.
We realized that something very terrible was wrong. We had no right to be here. There was no one to protect us. Yet for a little while we bolstered our courage by laughing the whole thing off and trying to pretend that we weren't frightened.
None of us could take our eyes off those people. The sun came out for a few moments and we could see them clearly. They were all sizes, but most of them seemed dwarfed and stunted. There were old and young, dressed in every type of garment from flour sack to burlap loin cloth.
Then, one by one, they disappeared from the sea-wall back into the marsh.
When they were gone, panic took hold of us. We must go back through that marsh. We had to reach the car, and reach it before we were destroyed. I can't tell you why we felt that way, but we did.
We left the corn behind. We forgot most of the things we had brought. Clustering together, we started for the car. We reached the sea-wall, and there panic conquered us and we ran.
Lee, we ran wildly and it seemed as though we could never get through that maze of nets. Strangely, we saw no other sign of the swamp creatures.
We made the trip out of that marsh as fast as the Chev would move, and by the time we reached the hospital, we were all admitting that each had been frightened out of her wits from the very first moment we entered the swamp.
How did it end? Who were they?
Lee, I'm not sure. You'll have to study your history or your statistics, or something, to find out about the Jackson Whites.
Yes, they were called the Jackson Whites. That much I learned from the staff at the hospital.
We couldn't get our friends to say much about them. When we told them where we had been, people shook their heads and said:
"You must have gone much too far south. Don't ever go back there. Terrible things could have happened."
That's the story, Lee, and I hope if you find out more than I have, you'll let me know. I'm curious about the Jackson Whites, but I'm not enough interested in them to go back to their marshes and swamps.
That's because I'm only a nurse, Lee, and not a curious old fiction writer.
By way of a lighter note, I'll be home for Christmas and hope to spend some time with you and Helen. Give Helen and the children my love and tell them I'll write to them soon. I had to get this thing off my mind for it has been troubling me and I think it should be looked into.
Lucille.
WOULD such a letter intrigue you? It did me. I wondered how,
in a civilized country, such a group could exist. I confess that
for a time I thought that my good sister-in-law was pulling my
leg. Then, quite by accident, I ran across a tabloid article in a
New York paper, written by Will Dean.
I won't bore you with all of it, for it had to do with an attempt upon the part of society people to install radios, schools and modern homes in a lonely section of the Jersey coast.
Evidently Dean and I thought much alike, for his story started with these words. I have the article before me as I write.
"It is hard to believe that a few miles south of the great metropolis of New York, a degenerate, lost race of people exists. A people so far deteriorated and hopelessly left behind by time, that they do not know there is a war, have never seen any building larger than the shacks they live in, and are in many cases unable to talk more than a strange monkey-like gibberish which they use when conversing among themselves."
FROM that point on, the account was no more than a history of
what had been done to help these heathens and how the attempt to
"save" them had failed.
Will Dean, I thought, has a story to tell, but he hasn't told it here. He must have seen and guessed much from his visit to the Jackson Whites. He can't write all the truth because the public wouldn't like it. New York, perhaps the whole country, would be shamed by this open, filthy sore that exists within our country.
However, I couldn't let the thing drop. I wrote to the newspaper in question, directing my letter to Will Dean, and hoped it would reach him. Promptly, I received this reply:
Dear Mr. Francis:
You were correct in assuming that the story I have in mind and the one I wrote for the consumption of Sunday Supplement readers, are very different. I think you understand, being a fantasy writer, that there are facts that the average man refuses to "swallow."
I won't say much about the Jackson Whites here, except that according to old timers here, they were supposed to have acquired that name because of some association with Jackson who fought during the French and Indian Wars.
It seems that according to history (and there is little of it in this case) these people were the spawn of French prisons, mixed with slave labor from the southern isles, and tossed into America to fight with or against the French. God alone knows which, for I am unable to find a word about them in any published book.
Do not doubt that they exist. (I didn't—Lucille had convinced me of that.) Next week I leave for the marshes of Jersey. I have taken a three weeks' vacation and will "free lance" as I go among the people of the marshes and try to learn something of them. You are a stranger to me, and perhaps are not the type who cares to discard civilization and live like an animal just to satisfy some whim of curiosity. However, if you care to share expenses (and they won't amount to much) I'll share my adventure with you. Wire me if you wish to go. I will take a short trip down some night, spot a likely location to start our wanderings and be ready to leave on a three week tour of the Jackson White territory by Saturday of this week. I will receive your wire in plenty of time, and I believe that there is fair plane service between Chicago and New York if you feel the urge to come this way.
Cordially,
Will Dean.
DID I want to go? I contacted Palmer that night.
"See here, Ray," I said, "I'm going to New York."
"Stay away from those New York editors," he warned me. "You're just a small-town boy. I'd hate to see you starve down there."
I assured him hurriedly that I owed my life to him, that I wouldn't drop one word in New York and that I was after a "true" fantasy story.
"No one will believe that fantasy is true," he warned me, "but—make it good and I'll see that your kids eat while you're gone, even if you starve yourself."
Palmer knows people in the high places. Through him I managed a reservation on the plane, found that I could have a berth all the way to the big city, and even got a cab to the airport (a real accomplishment on Palmer's part, because in Chicago cabs are like cockroaches, always on the move and usually where you can't catch them).
I wired Dean that I was on my way and gave him the time of my arrival.
Without waiting for his reply, I took the plane that night. Palmer had done a nice job of fixing things for me. The ticket and the berth were ready and I settled down for a good night's sleep on the air-liner.
Then came New York—and no Will Dean.
I arrived during the early morning and Dean wasn't at LaGuardia Field.
I spent two hours wandering around the terminal waiting for Dean to show up. How I ever thought I'd recognize him, I didn't know. I'd never seen the man in my life.
After I thought for a while, I decided that I was a darn fool for coming all the way to New York when I didn't have the slightest idea what or who I was looking for.
Will Dean—a name—a man who had signed a letter.
Then I thought of his newspaper and spent two more hours trying to phone them before anyone at the office knew who Dean was. At last I talked with Dean's boss, Bill Proust, an editor I had known quite well back in college days.
"Dean is a scrappy guy," Proust told me. "Damned near quit his job before I would give him that vacation. I can't afford to lose him, he's that good."
I asked him when he had seen Dean last.
"He left last night," he said. "Told me he'd be back today and go on his vacation Saturday. Thought he'd be in this morning. Say, why don't you come up and have breakfast with me. I eat about ten. Dean will probably show up here. Couldn't have got your wire if he was out last night."
Being a pulp writer and having the habit of waking at nine and attending Palmer's "Coffee Club" at ten, I liked the sound of coffee with Proust.
I shared a cab up-town with a couple of army lieutenants and managed to find the restaurant Proust had mentioned.
He met me, led me to a corner table and we ate. Proust had taken on six inches around the waist, was a great guy as I had remembered him, and insisted on calling the office every five minutes to see if Dean had come in.
We talked until noon, and Proust started to worry.
"That's Dean for you," he said upon returning from his tenth trip to the phone booth. "No sign of him. I called his boarding house. Landlady has your wire but he hasn't shown up to get it. I wonder...?"
HE didn't tell me what he was wondering about, so I suggested
that we part company and I would visit my sister-in-law in
Jersey. If he heard from Dean during the afternoon, he could
call me. Frankly, I was pretty sour on Dean by that time and
wanted to get away from New York. Just a small town boy at
heart, I was beginning to wish I'd stayed on Michigan Avenue
where I belonged and made up fantasy as I went along, without
any extended treks to the big city in search of the great and
illusive "truth."
Proust put me on the subway and told me where to catch a boat. Two hours and fifty-four minutes later I was giving my sister-in-law, Lucille, a proper brother-in-law kiss, and telling her w how I had faced the dangers of New York just because she had once written me a letter that I shouldn't have paid any attention to in the first place.
To my surprise, she was quite serious about the whole thing, and thought she could add some information to my meager collection.
"Wait a while," she said, "I'll talk to the Chief. I'd like you to see something we have upstairs."
She went whisking away down the clean, marble hall and left me standing there with mind in a turmoil and my nose full of antiseptic smell one finds in large hospitals.
In a few minutes she was back, motioning me to follow her. We took an elevator to the sixth floor and I followed her down the hall and into a room. I remember it. Room 13K it said on the door. It was neat and white inside and I noticed a child lying in the small bed, the bed clothes pulled up around her neck.
Was it a child?
I went closer, and after a long time, I looked up at Lucille who stood on the far side of the bed staring at me. She nodded her head.
"Jackson White," she said and then I knew.
This was no child at all. This creature whose dead eyes stared up at me was a woman. Her hair was long and matted with stick-tites.
"We cleaned her up this morning," Lucille said. "The hair was hopeless."
The woman was small. I could tell by the outline under the sheets that she wasn't larger than a twelve-year-old girl. Her face was free from wrinkles and one could detect a certain degenerate beauty about it. Her eyes had been filled with animal terror and she had died with the look still in them.
"What's—happened?" I asked.
Lucille shuddered.
"I flatter myself that I'm tough," she said. "But—this...."
She lifted the sheet. Then I saw what had given Lucille Forest the case of shudders. Just above the thigh, cut deep into the flesh, was a brand.
I CALL it a brand, for it had obviously been made with an
instrument of some kind. It was a perfect outline of the
fleur-de-lis, the French sign burned centuries ago, into the skin
of French convicts who must live out their years in prison.
Lucille covered the body.
"A salesman picked her up early this morning on the edge of the swamp. It was close to the spot where we went for the picnic."
I remembered her letter.
"The salesman was driving into New York. He thought this was a child. He said he couldn't just leave the body there. We have it up here for study."
She continued in a hushed voice, "The woman seems to be approaching her thirties according to the study we made of her, but she's carrying a doll."
I saw the doll for the first time. There was, in the un-Godly combination of a full grown woman with a brand on her hip, and the rag doll in her arms, something that struck terror in me. It didn't make sense. It didn't fit into any of the slick puzzles I had created for my readers.
I moved closer to the bed and saw that the doll's head was sticking from the covers.
I drew the sheet down a bit and studied the ragged, filthy object in her arms.
It was no more than a dollar variety of rag-doll common in so many nurseries. The filth of it and the way the woman had cuddled it to her gave the thing a special significance, a special meaning.
I was about to cover it again when I saw what I thought was a pencil smudge on the corner of a tiny gray-white apron tied about the doll's middle. I don't know what possessed me, but I clutched the doll suddenly and pulled it away from her.
Then I was reading the scrawl on the inner side of the tiny apron.
"Don't search for the source of the brand—the man with the claw," there followed several words that I could not read. They had evidently been obliterated by mud and water, then, the signature—"Dean."
I let it go at that and returned to New York. I contacted Proust and we had dinner together. Dean had not shown up.
Forty-eight hours passed. Will Dean did not return and no one heard a word about him.
A week—and I returned to Chicago without even visiting the strange marsh where the Jackson Whites made their home.
I was rushed to finish a novel for Palmer and he called me back on the job. I meant to write my quota, turn it in, and go back to search for Will Dean.
A MONTH passed, and then the search wasn't necessary. I
heard from Proust that Dean's body had been found, washed up
by the Atlantic on the border of the Jersey marshes. A Coast
Guard patrol had found the body. It was in a bad state of
decomposition, but on the right elbow they could make out a
strange, deeply burned scar. It looked, they said strangely
like a flower. A flower with three drooping petals. The
fleur-de-lis?
I'm not sure. I only know that I still kept the doll's apron in my desk and I took it out and read the strange message once more.
"Don't search for the source of the brand—the man with the claw—Dean."
It made no sense to me this time, nor had it before. I tried to put it aside and finish a short-short that I was working on. It was no good. I went out and got tight. Palmer tried to contact me for three days, but as he said afterward, he gave it up, "knowing your habit of hiding out in the damnedest places."
I don't know myself where I went. When I returned to my office, Palmer was waiting for me. He had a thick envelope with him.
"This came yesterday," he said. "Knowing you as I do, and with your usual three-day vacation used up, I have been expecting your remains to be carted up here for the past hour. You're ready for coffee."
I thanked him for bringing up the envelope, and I guess he was curious as I about it.
It was dated three days before and posted at a small sub-station south of New York. I'll swear that envelope had been dunked in the Atlantic, dragged through every mud hole in Jersey and mailed by the dirtiest fingered gent in the coal-hauling business. It was a tough envelope. An eight-by-ten, very full of pages and seemingly able to take the punishment it had been given.
I tore it open and a mess of odds and ends of paper fluttered out. Palmer and I collected them, placed them on the desk and tried to make sense of the writing.
It was evidently scrawled with a heavy black pencil and I thought the words looked familiar. I skipped back to the last page and found the signature.
"Will Dean."
No wonder I had recognized the handwriting. It was the same scrawl that had been used on the doll apron.
I think, when I had finished reading the script to Ray, that he agreed that although people might not believe all they read, at least this story, tossed up from God knows what hole in hell, was due to give them a great deal to think about.
I ADDRESS this to you, for although we've never met, Lee Francis is the only person who saw in my article about the Jackson Whites, an unsolved and highly complicated problem. A source of material that went beyond the fact that they were an ignorant, dying race who could not read, write, or offer anything to civilization.
You will not hear from me again, although you may read that they discovered by body on some forsaken spot. I don't know how well my body is hidden for I was not with it at the end. I had left the shell and proceeded to...
I cannot tell all of it on the first page. I must start at the beginning and build, step by step, to the final ending.
I left New York about four in the afternoon. It was after I was well down the Jersey Coast that I started to wonder if this trip, taken when night was closing in, was really wise.
I pulled into a gas station south of Asbury Park and waited until the attendant had examined my coupons and given me ten gallons of gas. Then I lighted a cigarette and asked:
"How far down the coast are the Jackson Whites?"
Of course I knew. I had been down here twice before. I wanted to get the man's reactions.
There wasn't much to give him away. A little scowl when I mentioned the Jackson Whites, and some hesitation before he spoke.
"You mean the swamp people?"
I nodded, though he must have been sure who I meant.
"About twenty miles," he said. "Damned if I'd stop the car down there though," he admitted. "Them guys give me the creeps."
I chuckled.
"I'm gonna visit my uncle Fud," I said. "He's one of the little guys with the long whiskers and the loin cloths."
I stepped on the gas and rolled out toward the highway.
Through the rear view mirror I could see the bewildered attendant standing by the pump, one hand on his hip, the other holding his cap as he scratched his forehead with an index finger.
I had a purpose for coming down before my regular vacation period started. For three weeks, I planned to live with the swamp people, as one of them, and learn just what made them click.
Tonight, I wanted to find a spot where one of the settlements was located and decide upon a place where I would enter into the life of the Jackson Whites for the three-week experimental period. I also wanted to decide upon the type of dress I would need, for the idea of a loin-cloth or discarded potato sack didn't appeal to me. I wanted to look primitive and fit into the picture, but I didn't want to look any more dilapidated than necessary.
THE swamps were closing in about me. It was nearly dark. The
tall marsh grass and the waving, velvet topped cat-tails were all
around me. The concrete road was a single strand of civilization
stretching away through a lost world of tall grass.
To the left, I could hear the sea pounding up the beach and against the sea wall. The clouds were low and scudding along with the wind. I rolled up the window and slowed the car down. It was warmer, and by driving slower, I thought I might get a better idea of the swamps.
I knew how vast the area must be, and it would do me no good to waste time along the highway. I had to find my way back to the hidden villages of the Jackson Whites and locate their hiding places in the marsh.
I parked the car in a small, rutted road that left the highway, locked it carefully and pulled my coat up around my neck. I wished I had worn something warmer, but it hadn't occurred to me that the light suit and summer hat wouldn't be sufficient for the trip.
I had gone about fifty feet into the marsh when I tripped on something and went head over apple-cart into the mud puddle I had been carefully circling. When I climbed to higher ground again, I decided that I should burn every fishnet in Jersey, for it had been a net I had fallen over. I felt that it would be no longer necessary to dress for the occasion. The heavy coat of mud I had acquired would make me look Jackson White enough to fool anyone.
I moved forward a little more cautiously now, as it was dark and I wasn't sure how many miles of nets the swamp people had laid out to dry. After a while I noticed the fireflies dancing ahead of me in the swamp.
My eyes settled down to business and informed me that they weren't fireflies at all, but lanterns bobbing on high ground far ahead.
I went toward them, for by now it was pitch dark and I knew that it would be a simple matter to become hopelessly lost. I had walked a quarter of a mile when the earth beneath me became firm once more and I started to climb up into a little clearing surrounded by low brush and a few stunted trees.
I heard a gruff voice ahead of me, and at first thought it was speaking to me.
"Are you prepared?"
I was about to make some original crack, like:
"Not so's you'd notice it," but it wasn't necessary. A feminine voice, cultured and soft spoken, replied:
"I am. I am ready for the journey."
I froze, wondering why I hadn't been seen, wondering about the educated, clear voice in the center of the unreal world of the marshes. Then I realized that between the speakers and myself there were bushes growing in profusion. They had shielded me. I went down on my knees and crept forward.
I HAD gone half the distance to the bushes when I heard the
man's voice gain, low and brutal. "Paradise Island is a long
way. Do you have the courage to make the trip?"
The voice of a young girl answered: "I'm waiting to go. I've waited long. I have served my term in this—this..."
Her voice broke.
"Then enter and prepare," the man said.
About that time, I rose to my feet, to see a flash of light ahead of me. I saw a slim, pretty girl enter a lighted cavern. I had reached the far side of the marsh and here was a small hill where the bushes could be parted and one could enter a tunnel that led into the earth.
I waited until the light was gone and the bushes had fallen back to hide the cave. Then I went forward again, leaned close to the tunnel and listened. I could hear no more.
I had no idea what was taking place, but I had to find out. This was a new angle to my story. Something that had, seemingly, little to do with the Jackson Whites. Something that would make a real splash on the Sunday Supplement cover.
I kneeled and found that by parting the bushes, I could see into the lighted tunnel. The light was dim. At the far end, the opening widened and there was a large room. It was about sixty feet away and I could see little of it.
Should I take a chance?
Sure! I was a fool reporter. There was never a bigger damn fool when it came to running risks to get a good story. I walked calmly into the tunnel.
There was no place to hide here. If either of them came out I'd be trapped. I went along the tunnel as quietly as possible, staying close to the wall. I could hear them talking again, but the voices were not yet clear enough to understand.
Then I stood in the entrance of the room. There was a small chest near the wall, and I slipped behind it. I crouched close to the wall, hoping I hadn't been seen.
The man was across the room, his back turned on me. He wore the faded coat of a sea captain, boots, and a rubber hat that came down about his neck to protect him against sea weather.
"The voyage has almost ended," he said. "You have served, and now you will go back and live in peace. You may enter the machine."
For the first time, I saw the "machine." It was nothing more than a facsimile of the sea chest behind which I was hidden. There were a dozen or more of them in the cavern. They stood about on the floor, some of them open, some closed.
They filled the room, and there was nothing aside from them but sand floor and a low, vaulted ceiling. The girl's face was toward me. Her eyes were wide and filled with happiness. She was dressed in a neat black dress and white frilly apron. Somehow she looked more like a maid than a character who talked riddles and wandered about the marsh.
AS I watched, she stepped into one of the open chests and sat
down. Carefully she drew her skirts about her and lay on her side
in the chest. The Captain's hand dropped to his side and I saw
his right hand.
I caught my breath and tried to keep from crying out. This was no hand at all. It was the huge, red claw of a monster crab. It hung out of the sleeve of his sou'wester. He bent over the girl and I saw that claw move toward her.
I stood up, ready to shout at him, but there was something—perhaps the pervading spirit of the place—that forced me to remain quiet. I could see the girl. Her eyes were closed. Then the claw touched her shoulder and pinched deep into the flesh.
The girl cried out in pain. The man stepped away, dropped the cover of the chest and turned away. He sighed.
"Another gone."
"Like hell she is," I shouted and sprang toward him.
The man pivoted toward me. I thought I saw a leering, grinning face, but by that time I was close and the face was gone.
The hat and coat were empty. Where the face had been was a black cavity in the rubber coat. Then the entire outfit fell to the floor in a heap. I stopped dead in my tracks. Then I whirled toward the chest in which the girl was imprisoned. I threw open the cover, stared down into the chest and backed away, choking back a sob of hysteria and honest-to-God horror.
The girl in the pretty black dress was gone. In the chest was an ugly, brown skinned old hag. Her dress was black, it is true, but wrinkled and torn. It clung around her old body, hiding no bony limb from sight. Her face was creased and dirty. She was dead.
I noticed the dress torn at the shoulder.
On the taut, aged skin was a brand. A brand burned deep into the flesh. I leaned closer and saw the fleur-de-lis.
Somewhere I had seen or heard of that symbol before. It wasn't good.
To say that I got out of that cave in a hurry wouldn't have been an accurate description. Whatever, whoever I had seen, had vanished before my eyes. A young, attractive girl had disappeared, while in a closed chest an aged hag had taken her place.
I paused outside the cave and took a breath of fresh air. It made me feel better. I walked for several yards, then turned, deciding to take another look at the cavern in the hillside. The man with the claw hadn't tried to harm me. In fact, if I knew anything, he wasn't a man at all. He was a ghost, or a darned clever facsimile.
I kept saying to myself, "Ghosts can't harm you—and you ought to try and find that girl."
I WAS a little selfish about the girl.
She was one of the prettiest wenches I'd ever seen, barring none. I didn't like the way claw-fist had traded her off so easily for the old woman in the trunk.
I searched for the cave mouth, pushing back the bushes, trying to find my way back into the place under the hill.
Finally I gave up.
The cave had either done a fine job of disappearing entirely, or I just wasn't cut out to be a bloodhound.
I could find no trace of it, and the longer I searched, the more hopelessly lost I became. Finally I gave up. I wasn't going to find the girl, not tonight. I hoped I'd never find claw-fist. I just didn't like mixing with leering old gents who could drop out of their underwear and stage a complete disappearance.
For one night I had about enough. I turned away, picked out a star to guide me and waded back into the neck-high grass toward where the highway had a pretty good chance of being.
I had gone about fifty feet when I came out into an opening. Before me I saw a tall, very good looking young man who owned a thatch of blonde, curly hair, a breech-cloth and a wicked look in his eye.
"You've been in the cavern of corpses," he said. It was a statement, spoken softly but with a sort of "that's-too-bad" tone.
I didn't say anything. I just stood there looking at him.
"You know that you can't go back now?"
I shook my head.
"I don't know who you are," I said, "but you're all wrong on one thing. I can go back—and I'm going back. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you get out of my way."
He smiled and flexed his muscles a little. His fists balled up in knots and the little smile vanished from his face.
"You're going to the doomed village," he said.
"To hell with the doomed village, whatever and wherever it is. I don't like Jersey and I'm going back to New York. I'm going the shortest way, right past the spot where you're standing."
He just stood there, waiting for me to try it. I was pretty sure I could, but he was young and very supple and very, very much loaded down with muscle. I took a couple of steps toward him and he frowned.
I didn't like this junior Tarzan, but I've never backed away from any man yet, so I stepped close and let him have it on the chin. Anyhow, I started one to the chin, but somewhere on the way up my fist hit something that wasn't his face. My arm was twisted rudely around and stars shot through my head. I had just time to yelp at him, and his fist caught me in the stomach and I went out like a light. You damned, low-hitting bum, I thought, and that's as far as I had time to think. After that, I saw a lot of stars that I know weren't in the sky, and I gave up.
I AWAKENED to a low, earnest mumbling of voices. Oddly enough,
they seemed to be speaking mostly in French, although I
recognized one English accent in the group. Gradually, as the
voices became clearer, I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor
of a crude, packing box hut. Jackson White houses are crude, made
of packing boxes, cardboard, anything that will hide their
occupants from the sky.
I stared around me. The slim youth who had evidently dragged me here was leaning against the door. He smiled down at me. The smile was a trifle sardonic.
"Stay here and serve as the others serve," he said. "I am ready to go back. You are not. You must live out your sentence."
Darned if I had any idea what he was talking about. In the first place, he was the second person I had seen in the last two or three hours who looked normal, yes, even handsome. Both he and the girl in the cave were very fine specimens. I may sound foolish, but there was something clean and sublime about them. They didn't belong to the swamp people.
I looked around at the small group that encircled me. They were leaning forward, and as I was still stretched full length on the dirt floor, I seemed to be the whole show. There were about a dozen of them. Tall and short, old crones with their skulls pressing tightly against yellow skin, men with gaunt faces and long, dirty beards. Their hands were all alike, yellow and skinny, with dirt pressed tightly under the nails. All in all, in the dreary lamplight, it wasn't a pleasant sight.
"Look here," I said to the kid who had knocked me out for the count. "You got me all wrong...."
He held up his hand and I stopped talking. It wasn't doing any good.
"You suffer with the rest," he said. "I have served my term. You must serve yours. Perhaps we meet again. When we do, we will be friends."
I didn't think so. I was pretty sure that once I had a chance to get out of this mess, I wouldn't come close enough to see' any of them again.
"I must go now, to the man with the claw," the kid said.
It was an odd, corny line. It wouldn't have made sense if I hadn't seen a man with a claw once tonight. Seen him press that claw into a lovely girl's body and turn her to an old hag.
I DIDN'T have time to say anything because all the old people
around me struggled to their knees and started chanting in a
lot of French garble and crossing themselves. They were humming
a song and it sounded lonely, like a lot of slaves locked in a
slave ship, or I thought, like a lot of lost souls.
The boy faded into the night and the audience grew quiet and turned on me. They sat there and stared.
"Look," I told myself, "You got to get out of here. This is enough to drive you bats."
It took all my courage to stand up, because I thought they might pounce on me and start tearing off slices. They looked that hungry and wicked. I pushed my way out of the circle and went to the door.
I looked back. One very small man of undetermined age rose and walked toward me.
"I would not go into the swamp," he said quietly. "It is the night of transformations, and you will not be safe."
This was a crazy, meaningless speech to make, but I'd been listening and witnessing things all night that seemed crazy.
"I'm going to New York," I said stubbornly. "I've seen ghosts with claws, boys who couldn't keep their punches to themselves and a junk yard full of decayed humans. Now one of them is pleading with me in a cultured voice not to go home to mother, and it makes as much sense as Coney Island would, set up in the middle of Broadway. I'm going home."
I went.
That is, I left the hut and got my bearing by the stars. That was all right, but inside of ten minutes the stars had all disappeared and I was out there wandering in a silent, reed-filled wilderness, lost as hopelessly as I had been earlier in the evening.
Then I met the woman with the rag doll.
It was just that simple. I thought I saw a light far ahead, and it kept blinking at me through the grass. I started to run and fell down several times trying to keep the light in sight.
At last I caught up with it and wished in a way that I hadn't. It was in a little open spot where several trees sprang from the grass and formed a little grove. In the center of the grove, the woman kneeled before the lantern.
I could hear her talking softly and somehow that warm, musical voice didn't fit the puffed lips and ugly body from which it came. The voice was sweet and her words were in French. I knew French and can even dabble around with a bit of Italian. Used to go with girls of both races and believe me, you've got to understand what a woman is talking about or you may let her talk you into something without even knowing what's going on.
SO I crouched down at the edge of the grove and watched the
woman. She was short and fat and she looked like a semi-negroid
savage kneeling there to worship a heathen god.
Her words were quite simple and to the point.
"You must be listening, for they said you would listen to all of us. You were bad then and we hated you, but they said you would have to listen to us. If you are listening, I have served my time and tonight is the end of my suffering. I ask for my reward. I ask for the transformation."
The wind was howling in across the swamp, and it was very cold. I drew my coat collar up around my neck. The wind wasn't coming from the sea tonight, I told myself. It was coming straight from the caverns of hell.
Don't ask me why I say that. I'm sure of It. This wasn't New Jersey. It was—Hades.
That savage, half woman, half animal sitting there on the ground, the wind pushing against her body, her voice soft and educated and pleading.
The lantern flame quivered and went out. I heard a scuffle in the brush and a little moan. Was it a moan of fright or of ecstasy? I couldn't be sure which. I had an idea of going in there and trying to get myself killed again by playing hero for that savage.
I waited and soon a match flamed up brightly and the lantern was alive again. The wind was dying.
The lantern flame grew brighter and brighter. I gave myself away.
"Good—Lord ..." I said aloud.
The girl in the clearing whirled around, one hand over her mouth. She uttered a little scream.
"Who...?"
She didn't talk French now. She spoke pure English. She wasn't like she had been either, and I was beginning to understand a lot of things that still didn't make sense, but seemed to be happening in spite of that fact.
"Don't be frightened," I begged. "I won't harm you."
She was frightened. She was scared stiff. I don't blame her. When the candle went out, I had seen a savage, ugly and almost naked, leaning forward over the candle. Now she had changed, as I had already seen one person change tonight, but this time for the better.
She still wore the brief clothing, but her figure had straightened and become clean and perfectly formed. Her face was beautiful. Her eyes sparkled and her whole body had life and loveliness.
As the body had changed, so had she dropped all resemblance of a savage. She spoke softly, and she possessed enough charm to drive a man mad.
"When were you transformed?" she asked breathlessly. "I don't remember you in the other life."
I shook my head.
"This is the only life I know of," I admitted. "But, I'd like to have known you. How in heaven's name did you...?"
She was still puzzled, and I knew that I didn't fit the puzzle at all. She was expecting someone, but not me. She kept staring at me.
"You are not from the Island?"
"What island?"
SHE had me there. I was supposed to know all about the
island, and I didn't. So far as she was concerned, if I
didn't know about the island, I didn't have any business
there.
"You must leave me," she said. There was terror in her voice. She wasn't sure of herself. Maybe, I thought, she likes my looks at least half as much as I do hers.
"Listen," I said, "I'm a New Yorker. I've been in and out of a lot of monkey business tonight and it hasn't made sense to me. If I told you what you looked like five minutes ago..."
Her face turned red and she looked frightened.
"You—saw...?"
I nodded.
"That's not all," I admitted. "I'm lost. I wandered around in this swamp and ran into more than I bargained for. I saw a girl, and a man in a raincoat with a claw. He touched her with it, and she turned into an old woman. That doesn't make sense. You don't make sense. I'm getting a headache."
"Then you are not from the island," she said. "You are from—from—somewhere—outside?"
All the time I had been talking, I was wondering what I could do or say to become her friend. I wanted her friendship more than anyone in the world. That was a devil of a place to fall in love, but I was falling so hard that I would never be able to climb back to normal.
"You tell me what you know and I'll fill in the spots that you miss," I offered. I still couldn't believe that she had actually changed from an ugly savage child to an attractive woman.
I guess I really frightened her that time.
Her face was very pale and she stared around, away through the swamp, with a panicky look in her eyes. Then her gaze went to the ground.
I looked down also. At her feet, covered with dirt and filth, was the rag doll she had been carrying when she came to the clearing.
She stooped down quickly and picked it up. She held it tightly against her and when she looked up at me again, her face was stern.
"You must leave me at once. I—I have a duty to perform. I must be alone."
I couldn't let her go as easily as that. I had to try...
"I'd like to help you," I said. "There's something odd about you. You've been suffering. You're going to do something foolish. I know by that look of determination in your eyes."
She was stubborn.
"You must go."
"I'm staying right here until you tell me what it's all about," I said.
I KNEW that she was having an awful fight with herself then.
Whatever her plans had been, I didn't fit into them. I dared
hope... I saw tears spring into her eyes.
"You're spoiling everything," she said miserably. "I have waited long for my reward. I must find the cave soon—or..."
The cave?
Suddenly I felt all prickly and covered with cold sweat.
I had seen the cave once tonight. Had been there and seen a pretty girl branded with the claw. Seen her body, changed to something old and unclean, tossed into an ancient sea-chest.
I stepped closer to the girl and she stood her ground. Her eyes were on mine now, watching me closely like a wild, frightened thing.
"I've seen the cave," I said hoarsely. "You're not going there."
"But I must."
I grasped her suddenly, holding on, frightened that she might break away and lose herself in the swamp.
"I saw a girl die there," I said. "Saw her die horribly, by the hand of a torturer. I don't understand it all yet, but I will. Meanwhile, you're not going to die as she did. I care too much for you to see that."
As I talked, I saw first fear then amazement come into her eyes. She didn't struggle to break away from me. She knew it was useless. She was very close.
"You—don't—understand," she said wonderingly. "You aren't one of the people of the swamp. You..."
"I said I was from New York," I said almost gruffly. "This is the first time I've been here."
I had mentioned several times where I came from. Still, here was a girl who lived just forty miles from the city, yet to whom the word New York meant nothing.
"You don't belong with us," she said. She sounded very patient and tried hard to explain so I could understand. "We go alone for that is our destiny. You must leave me here and never try to come back. Perhaps the leaders will let you leave peacefully. God grant that they do."
"You think you want me to go," I said, "but you're not sure that you do, are you?"
I felt her stiffen and try to draw away.
"I am sure," she said.
"I'm not."
I KISSED her on the lips, at first gently, then, because she
did not resist, harder until she responded and her arms went
around my neck. I'm crazy, I kept telling myself. I'm crazy as a
loon. I couldn't help it. I had fallen in love with a creature of
the swamp. A beautiful girl who held a dirty rag doll clasped in
her arms.
After a while, I said:
"You're going back to New York with me. I'm going to get you out of this mess."
I let her go and she stood there, her eyes full of stars, her fists clenched.
"I want to go with you," she said softly. "I cannot. I have a destiny and you are not part of it."
"Then you didn't mean that kiss? You don't give a damn if I turn around and leave here without you?"
Her lips were straight and stern.
"No. You must go."
I wasn't angry at her. I was sick. Sick all the way through, because I couldn't understand, and no one, not even she, would tell me.
"Okay, if that is the way it is," I said.
I turned and went blundering off toward the marsh grass and mud pits. I had gone about twenty feet when I heard her cry out:
"No—no."
I turned and she was standing there in the coming morning, swaying a little, her arms held out to me.
I went to her then, and I don't think even the man with the claw could have separated us then.
Yvonne—for that was her name, told me of the shipload of condemned people. You see, she took me to her hut that morning, a filthy, tiny thing where she had lived out her years in punishment.
She looked very much out of place in that sordid place. Sweet, quiet and poised, ready for what had to come, she told me of Captain Cristian and his ship.
"Many years ago, we were Frenchmen," she said. "Some of us were prisoners of France. Our crimes were not great. I was hungry in my little town of France and I stole a loaf of bread for which I went to prison for many years.
"I had been there for a short time when men came to me and told me to go to the courtyard of the prison. There were hundreds of us. Men, women and children. An officer spoke to us."
She paused, staring up at me. We sat together on the earth floor as the sun came up and the wind boomed in from the ocean. In her eyes I could see deep faith and understanding. She knew that I had to understand.
"We were told that we would go to a place called America, and if the men fought there, and the women worked there, after the war we would have our freedom. We had little choice. We all went aboard a ship."
She shuddered.
"Captain Cristian's ship," she continued. "For many days we lived as animals, locked below deck until the night the storm came and cast us ashore on Paradise Island."
NEVER have I seen a more exotic look on the face of a man or
woman. Never have I faced a person more impressed by
memories.
"Paradise Island," she breathed, as though mentioning the name did something to comfort her. "You have never been to Heaven, man from New York. That was Heaven. A low, palm covered island with birds of all shades, fruits and food hanging everywhere for us to eat. No man or woman on that ship was really bad. On the island, we were calm, happy and at peace with our souls. There were others there. Good people who had been on Paradise for many years.
"We dwelt with them until one day, the Authority came."
She was staring straight through me new, at a vast, wonderful world beyond.
"The Authority was not angry at finding us there. He was a simple, kindly man with the light of Heaven in His eyes and the voice of a gentle bird. He told us that we must be banished to Hades, where we would earn the opportunity to return to Paradise Island. It would take a long time, He said, to earn what we had already tasted.
"Who could argue that? One night He asked us to board the ship and by some miracle it was able to sail. He talked with us before we sailed.
"You will suffer," He said quietly, "but you are fortunate. You have already tasted the wonders of Paradise and will dedicate your lives to the task of returning. Our Captain, Cristian, is his name, will be the agent through which you return. However, Cristian is a bad man. He treated you as slaves. Therefore, through him you will return, while he, because he can never come again to this place, must remain to suffer through eternity.
"That is all."
"And, you came here?" I asked. She nodded.
I had to believe. I would have believed anything from those lips. Here, we were together, and I knew that she was trying to say that we must not remain together. That she had to return. That I must stay.
I KNEW now why the man with the claw, Captain Cristian, was
thus afflicted, and I knew why the girl in the cave had become
old and dead. Her youthful self had gone back to Paradise Island,
because Captain Cristian had been forced to send her there. I
knew what had happened to the youth who had fought me. He also
was ready to return. And now—Yvonne.
"I've got to go with you," I said. "Either that, or we'll escape here and go away. Leave the swamps." She shuddered.
"I could not escape. Perhaps—you—alone. Together we would never escape."
The sun was coming up now and the wind was dying. The swamp seemed almost normal again.
"But we've got to get away from here," I said. "I can lead us out of the swamp."
She shook her head.
"Then you'll go anyhow," I said firmly. "If I have to carry you. This business of Paradise Island is all right, but we're within a few miles of a civilized city. It doesn't add up. I'll..."
I started to stand up, but a strange dizziness hit me. I staggered and fell back. Instantly she was at my side, holding me up, talking to me in a soothing voice.
"I—I can't move," I said.
It was true. My body, from the arms down, was paralyzed. I sat there looking at her stupidly.
"I can't move."
She nodded.
"I was afraid something would happen. You see, the Authority is very stern. He could not let you take me away. My place is here, and tonight, I must go to Paradise Island."
She meant it. She meant to part from me, because it was necessary that she do that or sacrifice my life.
"Then by all the Powers that be," I said stubbornly, "I'll go with you to Paradise Island if I have to swim all the way."
That was a very long day. I asked Yvonne to find writing material for me. In my pocket I had a pencil. She searched in a box in the corner and brought paper and I spent the day writing this account. I wrote it for one man who had wanted to come here with me, and who I must warn against ever entering the swamp. That man will have a story that could never be bettered, for it is horrible and yet it was the truth.
I wrote when my arms were free and the remainder of my body was stiff and paralyzed. At last night came again and in the darkness I relaxed and I could move about freely again.
Then, arm in arm, we went to search for Captain Cristian and plead my case before him.
We stood in the glow of the cave, staring around us at the old, closed chests and the worn floor where so many footsteps had pressed into the sand and so many more would come. We were alone together, her hand pressed into mine, waiting.
I knew that Yvonne was frightened. Frightened for me, for she knew that I had little chance of following her.
FROM where Captain Cristian came, I do not know. He seemed to
materialize from somewhere behind us. Perhaps he entered the cave
silently, for he was there, staring at me, his body (or was it a
body) hidden under the rubber coat and the boots and hood.
"There are two of you. One does not belong here," he said. His voice was cold and hollow. It held no pity or depth.
Yvonne started to shiver and her hand in mine grew cold.
"Captain Cristian," she said in a weak voice, "I am ready to return, but I have fallen in love. With your permission, I would remain."
His voice held no emotion.
"You cannot, remain. He cannot go. The Authority would not allow it."
"But...?"
Suddenly he was angry. Angry, and I thought, perhaps a little frightened.
"I am no fool," he snapped, "Do you think I would remain here if I had the power to choose those who go back? Do you think I enjoy this? Do you think I am happy with this?"
This was the terrible claw of a hand that he stretched out now for her to see. She pressed close to me, trying not to look.
"I am to suffer forever because I made others suffer," he said. His voice was quite humble now. "You are a little fool. Would that I could go in your place. You cannot stay here without living in misery. You cannot take a person of this place back with you. Is that clear?"
It was horribly clear. I had not said a word. I was thinking of Yvonne. Thinking that she would remain earth bound and go on suffering just to be with me. I had been a fool to think it would work. A fool to make her die here when she could go back to her beloved Paradise Island.
"Yvonne," I said, "You've got to go back."
She stared up at me, her eyes moist. "Without you?"
I nodded, unable to speak. Suddenly she was in my arms, her whole body shaking, her cheek pressed to mine.
"The time is short," Captain Cristian said suddenly. "There are many others tonight."
I pushed her away from me.
"Yvonne—if the place where you go is truly Paradise Island, we'll not remain separated long. If I promise you that, will you go?"
She nodded, unable to speak to me.
"Then do as I say," I pleaded. "Go back to Paradise Island and wait for me. I have never harmed anyone nor committed a crime. I will come to you when I can."
I could have sworn that the look on Captain Cristian's face softened a bit as I spoke.
Then without looking again at him, I kissed her tenderly. I turned away and went swiftly from the cave.
I WAS half crazy then, or I might have known that she would
never leave me. I had stumbled a hundred feet into the swamp when
I heard her cry out and knew that she was following.
Like a fool I tried to escape. I thought that if she could not find me she would go back.
Then there were three of us in the swamp, for I heard Captain Cristian cry out behind her.
"Come back here. You cannot escape. It is my duty..."
I started to run, head down, blindly.
My feet caught on a hidden root and I fell face down in the mud. I guess my head must have hit a half buried stone.
I awakened and the sun was high over the swamp. I had a terrible headache, I sat up and wiped the mud from my face. The things that happened last night came back to me slowly. Memories made me want to die. I wondered where Yvonne had gone. I was sure that she had not escaped the Captain. I was sure that she had left me, until I could once more join her in death.
It isn't a pleasant thing, even to write about.
I found Yvonne—or what had been Yvonne—lying in a ditch near the road. Her body was changed and the soul had gone from it. I saw only the savage child of the Jersey swamps, ugly and showing the signs of all her suffering here, and in her arm she clutched the rag doll.
I felt no emotion after that, for I knew that this was not Yvonne at all, but the ugly husk of what she had been forced to suffer. Yvonne—my Yvonne, was waiting for me on Paradise Island.
So that Lee Francis would know, if he came this way, I picked up the doll and found a clean place on the under side of the tiny apron. With the pencil I had used yesterday, I wrote:
"Don't search for the source of the brand. You will never understand, nor will you, I hope, ever meet the man with the claw. I am happy and safe and will try to explain later... before...."
I broke off there, because I had no more to write. I was going to add, 'before I follow Yvonne to Paradise Island.'
That wasn't important anyhow. All I wanted to do was to save Francis the trouble of searching for something he could never find or understand.
I guess the note was foolish. The chances against him ever seeing it were very slim, and to others, it wouldn't even make sense.
I COULD do nothing for the ugly corpse in the ditch, yet I
remembered that this savage body had held the soul of Yvonne for
many years, and I placed the doll back in its arms and folded the
rough fingers around it tenderly.
I followed the road and passed the place where my car was parked. I would never use it again. Two miles along the road, partly hidden by the morning mist, I found a small town. I still had a partly finished account in my pocket. The papers I had written on so carefully yesterday, with Yvonne at my side. I knew it would not be hard to get to Yvonne. I wanted it so badly that no one, not even doomed Captain Cristian, could keep me away.
I found a quiet place in the village post office and continued writing until I had recorded all the story that I could ever hope to write.
Then I sealed it carefully and mailed it to Francis in Chicago.
WHEN I had finished reading Dean's story, I sat quietly for a long time, sipping coffee and staring at Palmer. There was a half smile playing over his lips but his eyes were thoughtful.
"Fantasy hits pretty hard sometimes, doesn't it?" he said.
I nodded,
"Do you believe it?" he asked.
I nodded again.
"I do," I said. "I can't believe anything else. That's one story that no one but Will Dean could write. It's a real Sunday feature, and his last."
"And you're sure of that?" he stood up and searched for money to pay for the coffee.
"I'm sure that Will Dean found Paradise Island and his Yvonne," I said. "Because, when they found his body in the sea, they found the brand of Captain Cristian on Will Dean's elbow. The Captain relented and sent Dean where he truly deserved to go."
Palmer chuckled, that dry, sardonic chuckle that is his alone.
"I'd hate to tell the people of America that to many this place is only Hell. A place where lost souls are sent to suffer and repent, in the Hades of a forgotten swamp. I suspect that there are many Hells in this country, and many people suffering the fate of Yvonne, where only death can release them from their slums and their forgotten swamps."
I'm afraid that he presented some rather interesting and unpleasant food for thought.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.