Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

Moments later my call-bell rang, I grabbed my hat and ran down. A touring-car was standing in front of the house, rear door invitingly open. I got in and found myself seated next to the Messenger. “All right, Brother,” he said to the driver. All I could see of the latter was the back of his head; the mirror had been removed from the front of the car.

“Let me caution you,” the Messenger said, as we started off. “You went into a pawnshop this afternoon to buy a gun. Don’t try that, if you know what’s good for you. And after this, see to it that the young lady isn’t admitted to your room in your absence. She might have read the summons we sent.”

“I destroyed it,” I lied.

He handed me something done up in paper. “Your mask,” he said. “Don’t put it on until we get past the city-limits.”

It was a frightening-looking thing when I did so. It was not a mask but a hood for the entire head, canvas and cardboard, chalk-white to simulate a skull, with deep black hollows for the eyes and grinning teeth for the mouth.

The private highway, as we neared the house, was lined on both sides with parked cars. I counted fifteen of them as we flashed by; and there must have been as many more ahead, in the other direction.

We drew up and he and I got out. I glanced in cautiously over my shoulder at the driver as we went by, to see if I could see his face, but he too had donned one of the death-masks.

“Never do that,” the Messenger warned me in a low voice. “Never try to penetrate any other member’s disguise.”

The house was as silent and lifeless as the last time — on the outside. Within it was a horrid, crawling charnel-house alive with skull-headed figures, their bodies encased in business-suits, tuxedos, and evening dresses. The lights were all dyed a ghastly green or ghostly blue, by means of colored tissue-paper sheathed around them. A group of masked musicians kept playing the Funeral March over and over, with brief pauses in between. A coffin stood in the center of the main living-room.

I was drenched with sweat under my own mask and sick almost to death, even this early in the game.

At last the Book-keeper, unmasked, appeared in their midst. Behind him came the Messenger. The dead-head guests all applauded enthusiastically, gathered around them in a ring. Those in other rooms came in. The musicians stopped the Death March.

The Book-keeper bowed, smiled graciously. “Good evening, fellow corpses,” was his chill greeting. “We are gathered together to witness the induction of our newest member.” There was an electric tension. “Brother Bud!” His voice rang out like a clarion in the silence. “Step forward.”

My heart burst into little pieces in my chest. I could feel my legs getting ready to go down under me. That roaring in my ears was my own crazed thoughts. And I knew with a terrible certainty that this was no initiation — this was to be “the punishment.” For I was of no value to them — having no money.

Before I had time to tear off my mask, fight and claw my way out, I was seized by half-a-dozen of them, thrust forward into the center of the circle. I was forced to my knees and held in that position, writhing and twisting. My coat, vest and shirt were stripped off and my mask was removed. A linen shroud, with neck-and-arm holes, was pulled over my head. My hands were caught, pulled behind my back, and lashed tight with leather straps. I kicked out at them with my legs and squirmed about on the floor like a maniac — I, who was the only sane one of all of them! I rasped strangled imprecations at them. The corpse was unwilling.

They caught my threshing legs finally, strapped those together at the ankles and the knees, then carefully drew the shroud the rest of the way down. I was lifted bodily like a log, a long twisting white thing in its shroud, and fitted neatly into the quilted coffin. Agonizedly I tried to rear. I was forced down flat and strapped in place across the waist and across the chest. All I could make now were inchoate animal-noises, gurglings and keenings. My face was a steaming cauldron of sweat.

I could still see the tops of their masked heads from where I was, bending down around me in a circle. Gloating, grinning, merciless death’s heads. One seemed to be staring at me in fixed intensity; they were all staring, of course, but I saw him briefly hold a pair of glasses to the eyeholes of his mask, as though — almost as though I was known to him, from that other world outside. A moment later he beckoned the Book-keeper to him and they withdrew together out of my line of vision, as though conferring about something.

The face of the Grave-digger had appeared above the rim of my coffin meanwhile, as though he had just come in from outside.

“Is it ready?” the Messenger asked him.

“Ready — and six feet deep,” was the blood-curdling answer.

I saw them up-end the lid of the coffin, to close it over me. One was holding a hammer and a number of long nails in his hand, in readiness. Down came the lid, flat, smothering my squall of unutterable woe, and the blue-green light that had been bearing down on me until now went velvety black.

Then, immediately afterwards, it was partially displaced again and the head of the Book-keeper was bending down close to mine. I could feel his warm breath on my forehead. His whisper was meant for me alone. “Is it true you are betrothed to a young lady of considerable means, a Miss Joan Blaine?”

I nodded, so far gone with terror I was only half-aware what I was doing.

“Is it her uncle, Rufus Blaine, who is the well-known manufacturer?”

I nodded again, groaned weakly. His face suddenly whisked away, but instead of the lid being fitted back into place as I momentarily expected, it was taken away altogether.

Arms reached in, undid the body-straps that held me, and I was helped to a sitting-position. A moment later the shroud had been drawn off me like a long white stocking, and my hands and legs were freed. I was lifted out.

I was too spent to do anything but tumble to the floor and lie there inert at the feet of all of them, conscious but unable to move. I heard and saw the rest of what went on from that position.

The Book-keeper held up his hand. “Fellow corpses!” he proclaimed, “Brother Bud’s punishment is indefinitely postponed, for reasons best known to myself and the other heads of the chapter—”

But the vile assemblage of masked fiends didn’t like that at all; they were being cheated of their prey. “No! No!” they gibbered, and raised their arms threateningly toward him. “The coffin cries for an occupant! The grave yearns for an inmate!”

“It shall have one!” he promised. “You shall witness your internment. You shall not be deprived of your funeral joys, of the wake you are entitled to!” He made a surreptitious sign to the Messenger, and the skull-crested ledger was handed to him. He opened it, hastily turned its pages, consulted the entries, while an ominous, expectant silence reigned. He pointed to something in the book, his eyes beaded maliciously. Then once more he held up his hand. “You shall witness a penalty, an irrevocable burial with the vents closed!”

Crooning cries of delight sounded on all sides.

“I find here,” he went on, “the name of a member who has accepted all our benefits, yet steadily defaulted on the contributions due us. Who has means, yet who had tried to cheat us by signing over his wealth to others, hiding it in safe-deposit boxes under false names, and so on. I hereby condemn Brother Anselm to be penalized!”

A mad scream sounded from their midst, and one of the masked figures tried to dash frightenedly toward the door. He was seized, dragged back, and the ordeal I had just been through was repeated. I couldn’t help noticing, with chill forebodings, that the Book-keeper made a point of having me stood up on my feet and held erect to watch the whole damnable thing. In other words, by being a witness and a participant, I was now as guilty as any of them. A fact which they were not likely to let me forget if I balked later on at meeting their blackmail-demands. Demands which they expected me to fulfill with the help of Joan’s money — her uncle’s, rather — once I was married to her. It was the mention of her name, I realized, that had saved me. I was more used to them alive than dead, for the present, that was all.