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The Strange Case of Pascal by Robert Eugene Ulmer · Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider!

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Section nine of Weird Tales presents Web of the Spider. This is a LibriVox
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recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Weird Tales presents Web of the
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Spider. The Strange Case of Pascal by Robert Eugene Almer. Just how I
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stand in the sight of God, I do not know, For the affair
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of twenty years ago is still an unsolved mystery in my own mind and in
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the minds of others. I offer no defense, for I have no idea
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as to how the terrible deed was done, or whether I am directly or
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indirectly responsible for it, if at all, neither shall I attempt to explain,
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for I cannot. Rather, I shall related it all just as it
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happened, and the significance thereof, if any, must be sought in your
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own conclusions. I have borne it long in silence, for fear has sealed
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my lips. But now I desire to reveal that which has tormented body and
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soul and made an old man of me before my time, so that the
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world may judge for itself the weight of my misery can be supported no longer,
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and I thank God the end is in sight. Neither excusing nor explaining,
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then I shall begin. My name is David Pascal, profession doctor of
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medicine. As a young man, I held an enviable reputation in my chosen
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field, and was credited with the virtues of ordinary respectability, a law abiding
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nature, and abhorrence of the brutal. I was an average citizen at the
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time of which I write, I had a part Blenheim by name, a
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man of singular personality, intelligence, capability, and when I first met him,
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of most charming character. His countenance, however, filled me with a
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nameless fear and disgust. Its features were bloated and leering. This I could
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well afford to forget in view of his splendid capacities, and I prided myself
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upon affiliating with me such a splendid fellow. But it was not long before
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he developed into a most skillful criminal, who, by means of wily machinations,
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involved me in a net of shady operations conducted by him in my name
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and over my signature, of which I was wholly unaware and entirely innocent.
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I will not go into details, for they are of no significance, but
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suffice it to say, when I finally came to my senses, I was
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forced into silence in order to save my name from utter ruin. Had I
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been wise, I would not have delayed the inevitable. Blenheim slowly absorbed my
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interests, and I became a mere figurehead. He the actual head of the
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firm, while with each passing day I sank deeper into the mire, until
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in my own eyes I was a convicted criminal. More than once. Emboldened
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by desperation, I resolved to denounce him, but fear of the terrible cost
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always restrained me. At the crucial moment. All this I might have suffered
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to the grave. But when Blenheim poisoned against me the mind of the girl
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I loved and had resolved to wed and stole her affection, I rebelled.
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Grieved and desperate, I rushed upon him one day and publicly denounced him,
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while he stood by in smiling contempt, with Margaret deceitful beauty clinging to his
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arm, Regarding me in cold disdain, Blenheim fulfilled his threatretes. In a
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few days, he brought forth incriminating documents and other evidence signed by myself.
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I was accused, but he had cleverly shielded himself from possible prosecution in all
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matters questionable as well as legitimate. I was utterly damned. The result was
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that I was tried, found guilty, and sent to prison for fraud,
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to serve five years. I came out broken in health, embittered, but
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determined to avenge myself by finding Blenheim, if he yet lived, and forcing
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him the public confession of his guilt and my innocence. Here let me state
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that my thoughts, although bitter, did not take the terrible form they later
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assumed, but confined themselves strictly to the course mentioned. During my five years
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incarceration, Blenheim's cruel and avaricious face had obsessed me, waking and sleeping.
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I beheld his repellent fe creatures, obese and dissipated. It was through him
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I forfeited my reputation respect in all hope of rehabilitating my life. My name
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was forever besmirched, a subject for disgust and ridicule. Professionally, I was
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lost, self esteem was gone, my love shattered by my enemy. Altogether,
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the state of my mind was maddening, and I often wondered that my
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thoughts did not pursue a more violent course. When again I saw Blenheim,
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he was easily found, as his name was widely spoken. He was established
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in luxurious quarters, surrounded by all material evidence of the respect and favor that
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had once been mine. Margaret, his wife, had reared a family,
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but was now like a ruse that had withered a sorry vision of former beauty.
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I forced my way past protesting clerks into Blenheim's private sanctum and stood silently
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in the doorway, watching him. At his death, he had not changed,
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still crafty, leering as always, though his hair was slightly tinged with
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silver. Well he demanded curtly, swinging around and glancing up at my general
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ill favored aspect. I approached him. You don't know me, Blenheim.
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He peered earnestly into my eyes for a few seconds, and then I saw
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him start and turn pale. Pascal, Yes, I echoed grimly, Pascal.
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Then I warned him, promised that I would have vengeance for the wrongs
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he had done me, that he had best enjoy his prosperity wile he might,
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and left him a somewhat shaken, fearful man, but his natural boldness
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and quick recovery soon restored him. I am sure, and after I left,
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I believe he forgot me, at least temporarily. That night, lost
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in visions and plans of revenge, tired seeing as usual my old partner's leering
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face before me, but I could not sleep and began to pace the floor
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in a state of great agitation. Tiring at length, I sank wearily into
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a chair while my senses slowly slipped away from me. The room, I
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myself seemed unreal, as if viewed from a distance by my detached self,
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and a queer mist obscured my mental faculties. I nodded sleepily, my eyes
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drooped heavily and closed, and the only impression I carried into unconsciousness was a
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vivid, unforgettable one, the face of Lewis Blenheim, I dreamed. My
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bed seemed to have fallen silently away from me, and I hung, suspended
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and alone in the silence, darkness and loneliness of infinity, the only living
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thing in that black void, supported by I know not what strange influence that
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prevented my crashing into bottomless depths. But while waiting, I became conscious of
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a subtle presence, unseen, unheard, but growing more tangible each moment,
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until the darkness in front of me was relieved by a ghostly phosphorescent glow that
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emanated from a monstrous structure whose exact nature I could not determine. Growing more
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distinct, it developed into a colossal web, octagonal in shape, the wings
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and fibers of which were lost in the all enveloping gloom, and so vast
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that they seemed to fill the universal void. Its clinging silken threads vibrated as
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if stirred softly to and fro by some agitation of the atmosphere unfelt by me,
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fascinating yet filling my soul with terror. In the grip of the unnameable
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attraction toward the heart of the web, its filaments seemed hungry to receive me,
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and slowly but irresistibly, I was pulled forward, Struggling with all my
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bodily and mental powers. Nothing availed, and, as if impatient with my
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reluctance, the vast web began to glide toward me, growing more overwhelming than
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nearer, drew until I felt as an ant before an elephant, or as
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a man in the face of nature's might, utterly impotent, pitifully infinitesimal.
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At the mercy of overpowering force, a sense of suffocation developed. My struggles
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were renewed, and I cried out. But my wild utterances sounded oh so
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weak in that infinitude out of which had come this colossal fancy, so terribly
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grotesque that the most vivid imagination can never conjure up the conflict that raged within
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me. Straight to its heart. I was drawn until the web loomed before
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me, vast, unfathomed, filled with invisible horrors and a fate I could
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not divine. In a breathless rush, while I cried and frantically fought its
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fascination, I hurtled through the intervening space and into the web, which,
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then, with every clinging fiber, began to close upon me, entwining my
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arms and legs, choking my cries, stealing my breath, paralyzing every muscle
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in my body. I battled impotently against my doom. The soft silken film
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clung tenaciously to my fingers. I was enveloped in a shroud of the gauzy
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stuff, until lips eyes and nose were buried. It matted upon my hair
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and throttled my breath. But I was able still to see, though dimly,
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and realized what was occurring. And with mortal horror I beheld, layer
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upon layer, sheet upon sheet of that endless web fold themselves about me,
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remorselessly silently, until I was helpless, unable to utter even the slightest sound.
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But I wondered vaguely what would next occur, and why the demon of
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this mighty trap did not come running out upon its binding strands and with poisonous
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tentacles, cover my body with its repulsive self, and bear me away to
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its hidden layer of dread. At the thought, I shivered anew, and
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agony's perspiration trickled from my brow, for I was convinced that each succeeding instant
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would be my last, and breathing was accomplished with the greatest torture. I
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lay entirely blanketed in a shroud of gossamer fiber, from which there was no
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escape. But still the dreaded monster did not appear. Though my soul was
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alive to the ever present fear of its advent, was I to die?
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Thus a prisoner in this fantastic trap of horror, slowly with maddening torture.
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A sudden, rushing roar, beating against my muffs answered the unspoken thought,
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and with a terrifying swoop, the entire monstrous web engulfed me. A feeble
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attempt to scream was choked in my throat. My struggles ceased as I succumbed
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and lay still. Then a new sensation, a strange vibration upon the strands,
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and looking up, I beheld what I dreaded most, a monstrous spider,
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at least six feet long and three high, gliding swiftly over the network
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of his trap, A horrid creature with fat and bloated body, covered with
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stiff black spines and legs, dozens of them, long, powerful and bony,
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and patched over with a scrawny layer of black down. In places,
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the glistening hide was exposed, and as the thing drew nearer, I saw
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that it exuded a gummy fluid of pronounced sulphuric odor, covering the beast from
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head to foot and clinging to the fibers of the web in glittering globules.
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The head was huge, but more horrible because I perceived, with a thrill
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of revulsion, that it was a human head. The features of the countenance
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were almost livid in stark contrast to the jet of its body, and the
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face was that of Lewis Blenheim, infinitely more cruel and repulsive than in life.
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Two long fangs hung from the drooling mouth, through which was shot the
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deadly venom of its bite, and the great eyes, protruding and yellow,
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glared on me with such greed as turned my soul faint and made me long
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for the end. The hideous thing drew nearer, and I reeled from its
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stench, while its breath fanned my cheek hotly, the fangs glistening in its
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foul mouth, gaunt claws expanding and contracting like those of a cat, while
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the body seemed to pulsate and swell to twice its blown sighs. Before my
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revolted gaze, the disgusting creature was upon me, covering my own with its
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vile bulk, crushing out my life and settling searching thangs in my flesh.
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But when the gleaming eyes came so close to mine, and I felt the
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sticky fluid oozing from the monster, onto my own skin, quivered under the
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cutting pain of that bite, and revolted at the touch of the clammy brute.
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I renewed all my struggles with tenfold vigor, for visions of being dragged
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away to the monster's abysmal den, there to be feasted upon and subjected to
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the agonies of a rending death flashed before me. The hideous face was grinning
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fiendishly, and with a superhuman effort, I dragged weighted hands from the mesh
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of gossamer and buried their fingers in the slimy body, shuddering. But my
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efforts were as the breaking of a ripple against the mighty sea wall, and
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in the end I fell back, panting, exhausted. I was carried swiftly
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to the webb's yawning maw. There the spider paused to take firmer hold upon
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my body. But as it halted, I gazed into the black depths of
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the awful threshold before me, and instantly trembled with unspeakable terror. My mind
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flew to the knife I always carried, and with a wild thrill of desperate
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hope, I prayed God that I might grip the blade and suddenly to my
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unspeakable joy. I beheld the weapon in my hand. Whence it came,
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I knew not it was there my one hope of deliverance. I wrenched an
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arm free from the momentarily relaxed grip of aalon and dragged the steel upward.
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Swollen fingers gripped the hilt, and a leaden arm swung the knife with a
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snakelike hiss. The monster turned and I felt again the sting of its foul
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fangs, once twice thrice I struck, burying the steel in the hairy body.
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In the few anguish moments, I lived through ages blindly cuttings, slashing,
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tearing madly, while with each fresh wound I inflicted, a spurt of
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the nauseating fluid would cover and almost strangle me. But I fought on and
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on. Agony's rage distorted the features of the man's spider, and my hate
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of Blenheim rose to superhuman heights. Another bite of venomous fangs, and I
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cried, but continued to plunge my sticky and dripping knife into the bloated beast.
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With each incision of its teeth, I felt a rending pull within,
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leaving me weakened. And gasping, but I battled to the last, covering
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the monster with ragged, gaping wounds. At last, the body staggered on
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unsteady legs, and inwardly I sang with fierce triumph for the death wound had
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been inflicted. But how short lived was my triumph of what avail the struggle
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of man and death's grip. I too was surrendering to the inevitable, but
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my failing arm made a final swoop and then annihilation. My last impression was
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of Blenheim's face, with Spider's body gloating over my dead form in his final
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victory, like a hideous, brooding incarnation of the horrors of hell. My
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dream ended abruptly, vividly, and I awoke to find the morning well advanced
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and daylight streaming in through my window. I leaped my feet with a vast
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sigh of relief from that mental experience, but determined to seek Blenheim and a
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settlement that very morning. As I hurried from the house, a newsboy's cry
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halted me. Some instinct I know not what prompted me to purchase a paper.
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The next moment, I was gazing spellbound at the flaring headlines Louis Blenheim
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mysteriously murdered following as an excerpt from the account and Blenheim was found dead in
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bed early this morning, after his family had heard cries of distress and sounds
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of a violent struggle in his room. The body was bleeding from numerous dagger
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wounds. No clue to the murderer has been found, but there are several
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inexplicable circumstances surrounding the tragedy to colour it with an element of the supernatural.
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The deceased was covered by a strange gummy fluid which exuded a pronounced sulphuric odor,
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while in another part of the room were found what appeared to be remnants
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of a great web, some of which were clinging to the body. End
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of section nine. The Strange Case of Pascal read by Maurici d Si Largo,
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Florida, September twenty eighth, twenty twenty three.