Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

For a time I strove to draw what comfort I could from the assumptions that if it was a spirit form it could not harm me, and if it had a physical body it could not get in; then another idea came to me.

Perhaps it would come through the grating or the wall in its spirit form, and materialise a body for itself when it was inside the room. Yet Helmuth had said that it needed rotting offal, and such things, from which to form an envelope of flesh, and there was nothing of that kind here, except yes, the thought was horrifying, but he had mentioned blood my own blood.

With a shudder, I tried to thrust from my mind the appalling picture of myself lying there in bed, striking wildly with the Champagne bottle at an intangible form which yet seemed to smother me, and gradually became a semi fluid substance like reddish black treacle as it sucked at a vein in my neck.

I countered that unnerving vision by arguing that if it could enter and materialise in such a manner here, it could have done so equally well down in the library. But then again, perhaps in those early stages of my 'conditioning' Helmuth had held it in check, whereas tonight he had no such intention.

My grim speculations got no further. At that moment I heard footsteps on the stairs; the door opened and Helmuth appeared.

I could not see him very clearly, as the moonlight hardly penetrated to that corner of the room, but it shimmered faintly on the strange garment he was wearing, and as he moved forward I saw that it was a ceremonial robe of white satin with a number of large black symbols imposed upon it. The folds of the robe prevented me from making out exactly what they were, but they looked like the signs of the Zodiac. Round his neck he wore a black stole heavily embroidered in gold, and on his head a curiously shaped Sattish mitre. In his hand he carried a silver wand, at one end of which there was a crescent moon.

Without a word to me, or a glance in my direction, he walked past the foot of my bed. As he did so I could see the flattish mitre more clearly; it was really a toque of dark fur with two large red jewels in front; it was fashioned to appear like a big spider and the jewels were there to represent eyes.

Holding himself very rigid and moving with slow deliberation, as though he were in a trance, he advanced to the door that gives on to my little terrace, made the sign of the Cross the wrong way round with his wand, then unlatched the door and opened it a fraction.

The question I had been asking myself was answered. He had to assist the Great Spider to materialise itself by some hideous ceremony, and once it had acquired a body it could not pass through material obstacles. He had come up to let it in.

Turning, he walked slowly back towards the door that gives on to the staircase. I did not see him go. My eyes were fixed on the terrace door. At any second I expected to see it open and disclose the beast. As the other door shut behind Helmuth I had a wild impulse to call him back and beg him to spare me; but I managed to suppress it.

If I had not actually seen him unlatch the door to the terrace I would not have known that it was open. But I did know. It was just ajar, and it needed no more than a push of a child's hand for the heavy oak postern to swing slowly inward on its well-oiled hinges.

My hands were clammy as I stared at it, imagining that I could see it moving; but for what seemed an age nothing happened.

Suddenly my heart missed a beat. The door had not moved, but I knew that the beast was approaching. It was three weeks since I had felt that awful sensation, but there was no mistaking it. The perspiration that had already broken out on my forehead now chilled it as though snowflakes were melting there; my breath was coming faster yet catching in my throat, and I had a queasy feeling in my stomach that made me want to retch.

Still the door remained as Helmuth had left it. With the saliva running hot in my mouth I kept my gaze riveted on the old oak boards. The waiting seemed unbearable, and if at that moment I had been able to pray at all, I should have prayed for something anything to happen, that would end my agonising suspense.

The night was very still. It was close on twelve o'clock and I knew that all the Castle staff would normally be asleep. But even if any of them were awake and I had screamed for help, shut off as I was and at such a distance from their quarters, they could never have heard me.

All at once the eerie quiet was broken by a faint scuffling noise. The hair on the back of my head rose like the hackles of a dog. I could feel my eyes open wide with apprehension, and my ears seemed to start out from the sides of my head with the intensity of my listening.

The noise came again, louder this time. It sounded as if a boot was being scraped with quick, light jerks against rough stone. I still had my eyes fixed unswervingly upon the door; but a sudden flicker of movement just outside my line of vision caught my attention. Jerking my head round, I stared at the checkered patch of moonlight on the floor. Part of an all too familiar shadow sprawled across it. Slowly I raised my eyes; then I saw the beast itself.

It was peering through the left-hand lower corner of the grating at me. I could not see the whole of it; only about three-quarter of the body, the head and parts of several legs, one of which was fully extended above it and measured more than the length of my arm. Its body was fat and furry; its legs thick, sinewy and covered with sparse stiff hairs each about two inches long. As it clung there, silhouetted against the bright moonlight that was now streaming through the grille, I could see every detail of its outline; but its face was obscured by shadow, and all I could distinguish of that were two reddish eyes, glowing luminously.

The room was now ice-cold, and filled with an appalling stench. There flashed into my mind a temporary morgue that I had once had to visit, where bomb torn bodies were being preserved for identification on blocks of ice. The atmosphere was very similar, except that there the smell of putrefaction had been partially obscured by iodo form, whereas here it came undiluted in sickening waves from the pulsing body of the beast.

After a second it shifted its position. The movement was so swift that I only glimpsed its action. One nimble sideways slither and it was still again, spread-eagled right in the middle of the grating.

I was no longer capable of any coherent thought. All I could do was to keep muttering 'This is it! This is it!' while my brain subconsciously absorbed certain physical facts about the Horror.

It was as big as a fully fledged vulture. Its skin and hair were black, but splotched here and there with patches of a leprous looking greyish white. It could easily have torn a cat limb from limb or made mincemeat of a hound. But there seemed no animal, short of the elephant, hippopotamus and rhino, to whom the beast would not have proved a formidable opponent. Even a lion might have found himself bested by such a beast, had it sprung upon his back and, while he roared impotently, clung there, gnawing its way into his liver.

Suddenly it began its devil dance, scampering to and fro across the grating. With chattering teeth I watched it; and slowly the fact penetrated to my mind that although it possessed immense physical activity its intelligence must be dull and sluggish. It could see the terrace door through the grille yet it made no attempt to test that way into the room; instead it kept at its frantic blind fumbling to find a means of getting through the iron bars.

For a good ten minutes it continued to leap up and down, back and forth, until I was dizzy with watching it; then, all of a sudden, it dropped from sight.

I was sitting up propped against my pillows, the champagne bottle gripped in one hand and my heavy silver cigarette box in the other. For a moment or two I remained with every muscle tensed, then I relaxed a little. The room was still very cold, and the stink of rotting offal remained strong in my nostrils; but I was beginning to have just a flicker of hope that Helmuth's plan had miscarried, and that I might yet come through unharmed unless he had some means of communicating with, and directing, his foul emissary. I think now that must have been so.