Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

"I said I'd set my mind on the old homestead, which I always understood was a pretty fairish size for the East though mebbe not so sizeable out West. An' I asked what was the improvements the Frenchman had put in, anyway. Well, the old goat got a map an' showed me the layout. It's a big chunk of land sticking out into the sea. There's a narrow neck about a thousand feet across before the land spreads out. Outside that it spreads a fantail which I figure's got two or three thousand acres in it.

"He tells me the Frenchman's built a twenty foot high wall across that thousand foot neck. There's a gate in the middle. But nobody gets through it. Anything that goes from the village, including the mail, is took in by the guards. Foreigners, he says; funny little dark men who always have the money ready an' say nothing no way. He says they take in a lot of supplies in their boat. Also, they got a truck, farm, an' livestock – cattle an' sheep an' such, an' bosses an' a pack of big dogs. He says: 'Nobody ain't seen the dogs, except one man, an' he – '

"Then he shuts up all of a sudden as though he's saying too much an' that funny, scared look comes on his face. So I file that for reference but don't press him none.

"I ask him if nobody ain't been inside an' knows what it looks like, an' he says: 'Nobody round here has been except the man who-' Then he shuts up again, so I figure he's referring to the man who seen the dogs, an' I get more curious about him.

"I say that with all that coastline I don't see why people can't slip in an' look around a bit without anybody knowing. But he tells me it's all rock, an' only three places where you can land a boat, an' that these three places are guarded like the gate. He looks at me suspicious an' I say: 'Oh, yes, now I remember, pap told me about that.' An' I'm afraid to ask much more on that line.

"I ask casual what other improvements there are, and he says they made a big rockery. I ask what anybody wants making a rockery in a place where nature has been so prodigal with rocks. He takes another drink an' says, this is a different kind of rockery, an', he says, mebbe it ain't a rockery but a cemetery, an' that funny scared look comes on his face plainer than ever.

"We have some more applejack an' he tells me that his name is Ephraim Hopkins, an' he goes on to say about a month after the Frenchman moves in there's a couple of fishermen coming home when their kicker goes bad right off the point where the house stands. The Frenchman's yacht has just dropped her anchor an' she's lightering a lot of men to the house landing. The fishermen drift awhile an' while they're doing it, they figure more'n a hundred men must been landed.

"Well, he says, about a month after that a Beverly man named Jim Taylor is driving along at night when his headlights pick up a feller staggering along the road. This man gives a yelp when he sees the lights, an' tries to run but he falls down. Taylor gets out an' sees he ain't got nothing on but his underclothes an' a pouch tied round his neck. He's fainted. Taylor picks him up an' totes him to this Beverly House. They pour liquor in him an' he comes to, but he's an Eyetalian who don't speak much English, an' he acts like he's scared half to death. All he wants is to get some clothes an' get away. An' he opens the pouch an' shows money. They get out of him that he's run off from this de Keradel place. Got to the water and swum till he figured he was past the wall, then come to land. He says he's a stone-cutter an' one of a big gang brought in on the boat. He says they're putting up a big rockery there, cutting out stones an' standing 'em up like giants' tombstones all in circles around a house they're building in the middle. Says these stones are twenty, thirty, feet high."

I felt something like a cold hand pass through my hair. I said:

"Say that again, McCann!"

He said, patiently: "Better let me go on an' tell this in my own way, Doc."

Bill said: "I know what you're thinking, Alan. But let McCann go on."

McCann said: "The Eyetalian won't tell what scared him. Just jabbers, and shivers, an' keeps crossing himself. They get he's telling 'em the house in the middle of the stones is cursed. Tells 'em it's the Devil's house. They pour more liquor in him an' he says the Devil is taking his toll. Says out of more'n a hundred men that come with him, half have died by stones falling on 'em. Says nobody knows where their bodies went afterwards. Says the gang was recruited from distant cities an' nobody knew each other. Says about fifty more have since been brought in. Says only men without any families were hired.

"Then all of a sudden he gives a screech an' ducks an' covers his head with hands an' runs out the door an' disappears before anybody can foller. And two days after, says the old goat, they find him washed up on the shore about a mile away.

"He tells me they all figure the Eyetalian's drunk or crazy. But I don't believe him. He looks too agitated. It don't take any eagle eye to see there's something queer here. He says, though, that some of the lads cruise around in boats trying to get a look at this rockery. But they can't see nothing. That don't mean it ain't there, because the rocks are steep around the point an' where they ain't there's big trees growing.

"Anyway, they bury the Eyetalian an' pay their taxes to the poor farm with his money. I'm telling you about that poor farm later," said McCann.

"Well, it seems to me that by then the old goat gets the sudden idea what he's been telling me ain't selling talk, for that place he's picked out for me. Anyway, be shuts up and waggles his beard and considers me. So I say that every word he's said only makes me more interested. Tell him there's nothing I like better than a good mystery, an' the more I hear him the more I yearn to settle right down close to a real-life one. We take another drink, an' I say if he can only dig up some more stuff like he's been telling me, I'm as good as sold. Also, I'm paying cash. Also, that tomorrow we'll go an' take a look at this ranch he's got in mind. I feel it's better to let all this sink in, so we have another drink and I go to bed. I notice he's looking at me darned peculiar as I go.

"The next day – that's Wednesday – he's up bright an' early, pert an' panting. We pile into his bus an' start out. After a bit he starts telling me about this feller that seen the dogs. 'Lias Barton, he calls him. He says 'Lias is more curious than ten old maids peeking out behind the curtains at a house with a bride just moved in. Says curiosity is like a disease with 'Lias. Says he'd pull out a plug in Hell for a look in, even if he knew it'd squirt in his face. Well, 'Lias gets brooding and brooding over this wall an' what's behind it. He's been all over the old Partington place dozens of times an' he knows darned well what it's like, but this wall's like his wife putting a veil over her face sudden. He'd know he'd see the same old face but he'd have to lift the veil just the same. An' for the same reason 'Lias just has to look over that wall.

"He knows there ain't a chance by day, but he reconnoiters an' crawls around, an' at last he picks a place down near the water. Eph says there's breasts of rock each end of the wall into which the wall is built an' you can't get over 'em from the water. 'Lias figures he can row down, slip to land and climb the wall. So he picks a night when it's full moon but clouds obscuring the moon frequent. He packs a light ladder an' sculls down cautious. He lands an' puts up his ladder an' when the moon's under a cloud he swarms up. An' there he is on top the wall. He draws up the ladder an' flattens out an' peers round. It's 'Lias's idea to drop the ladder on the other side an' prospect. He waits till the moon comes; he sees it's an open meadow below him out again an' dotted with big bushes. He waits till another cloud comes an' he unslings the ladder an' starts down –