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The Fearsom Touch of Death · Short Ghost and Horror Stories Collection

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  Speaker 1: The Fearsome Touch of Death by Robert E. Howard. As
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  Speaker 1: long as midnight cloaks the earth with shadows, grim and stark,
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  Speaker 1: God save us from the Judas kiss of a dead
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  Speaker 1: man in the dark. Old Adam Farrell lay dead in
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  Speaker 1: the house wherein he had lived alone for the last
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  Speaker 1: twenty years. A silent, churlish recluse. In his life, he
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  Speaker 1: had known no friends, and only two men had watched
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  Speaker 1: his passing. Doctor Steyne rose and glanced out the window
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  Speaker 1: into the gathering dusk. You think you can spend the
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  Speaker 1: night here, then he asked his companion. This man Forward
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  Speaker 1: by name, assented, Yes, certainly. I guess it's up to me.
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  Speaker 1: Rather a useless and primitive custom sitting up with the dead,
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  Speaker 1: commented the doctor, preparing to depart. But I suppose it's
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  Speaker 1: common decency. We will have to bow to precedence. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: I can find some one who'll come over here and
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  Speaker 1: help you with your vigil. Forward shugged his shoulders. I
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  Speaker 1: doubt it. Farrell wasn't liked, wasn't known by many people.
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  Speaker 1: I scarcely knew him myself, But I don't mind sitting
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  Speaker 1: up with the corpse. Doctor Stein was removing his rubber gloves,
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  Speaker 1: and Forward watched the process with an interest that almost
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  Speaker 1: amounted to fascination. A slight, involuntary shudder shook him at
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  Speaker 1: the memory of touching these gloves, slick, cold, clammy things
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  Speaker 1: like the touch of death. You may get lonely to
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  Speaker 1: night if I don't find any one, the doctor remarked,
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  Speaker 1: as he opened the door. Not superstitious, are you, Forward
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  Speaker 1: laughed scarcely, to tell the truth, from what I hear
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  Speaker 1: of Farrell's disposition, I'd rather be watching his corpse than
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  Speaker 1: have been his guest in life. The door closed and
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  Speaker 1: Forward took up his vigil. He seated himself in the
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  Speaker 1: only chair the room boasted, glanced casually at the formless,
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  Speaker 1: sheeted bulk on the bed opposite him, and began to
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  Speaker 1: read by the light of the dim lamp which stood
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  Speaker 1: on the rough table outside. The darkness gathered swiftly, and
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  Speaker 1: finally Forward laid down his magazine to rest his eyes.
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  Speaker 1: He looked again at the shape which had in life
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  Speaker 1: been the form of Adam Farrell, wondering what quirk in
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  Speaker 1: the human nature made the sight of a corpse not
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  Speaker 1: only so unpleasant but such an object of fear to
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  Speaker 1: many unthinking ignorant, Seeing in dead things a reminder of
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  Speaker 1: death to come, he decided lazily and began idly contemplating
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  Speaker 1: as to what life had held for this grim and
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  Speaker 1: crabbed old man, who had neither relatives nor friends, and
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  Speaker 1: who had seldom left the house wherein he had died.
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  Speaker 1: The usual tales of miser hoarded wealth had accumulated, but
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  Speaker 1: Forward felt so little interest in the whole matter that
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  Speaker 1: it was not even necessary for him to overcome any
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  Speaker 1: temptation to pry about the house for possible hidden treasure.
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  Speaker 1: He returned to his reading with a shrug. The task
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  Speaker 1: was more bowesome than he had thought. For after a
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  Speaker 1: while he was aware that every time he looked up
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  Speaker 1: from his magazine and his eyes fell upon the bed
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  Speaker 1: with its groom occupant, he started involuntarily, as if he
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  Speaker 1: had for an instant forgotten the presence of the dead man,
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  Speaker 1: and was unpleasantly reminded of the fact. The start was
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  Speaker 1: slight and instinctive, but he felt almost angered at himself.
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  Speaker 1: He realized for the first time the utter and deadening
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  Speaker 1: silence which enwrapped the house, a silence apparently shared by
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  Speaker 1: the night for no sound came through the window. Adam
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  Speaker 1: Farrell had lived as far apart from his neighbors as possible,
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  Speaker 1: and there was no other house within hearing distance. Forward
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  Speaker 1: shook himself as if to rit his mind of unsavory speculations,
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  Speaker 1: and went back to his reading. A sudden, vagrant gust
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  Speaker 1: of wind whipped through the window, in which the light
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  Speaker 1: of the lamp flickered and went out. Suddenly, Forward, cursing, softly,
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  Speaker 1: groped in the darkness for matches. Burning his fingers on
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  Speaker 1: the hot lamp chimney, he struck a match, relighted the lamp,
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  Speaker 1: and glancing over at the bed, got a horrible mental jolt.
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  Speaker 1: Adam Farrell's face stared blindly at him, the dead eyes
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  Speaker 1: wide and blank framed in the gnarled gray features. Even
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  Speaker 1: as Forward instinctively shuddered, his reason explained the apparent phenomenon.
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  Speaker 1: The sheet that covered the corpse had been carelessly thrown
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  Speaker 1: across the face, and the sudden puff of wind had
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  Speaker 1: disarranged and flung it aside. Yet there was something grisly
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  Speaker 1: about the thing, something fearsomely suggestive, as if in the
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  Speaker 1: cloaking dark, a dead hand had flung aside the sheet,
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  Speaker 1: just as if the corpse were about to rise. Forlhard
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  Speaker 1: and imaginative man shrugged his shoulders at these ghastly thoughts
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  Speaker 1: and crossed the room to replace the sheet. The dead
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  Speaker 1: eyes seemed to stare at him malevolently, with an evilness
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  Speaker 1: that transcended the dead man's churlishness in life. The workings
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  Speaker 1: of a vivid imagination fore agnew, and he recovered the
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  Speaker 1: gray face, shrinking as his hand chanced to touch the
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  Speaker 1: cold flesh, slick and clammy, the touch of death. He
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  Speaker 1: shuddered with the natural revulsion of the living for the dead,
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  Speaker 1: and went back to his chair and magazine. At last,
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  Speaker 1: growing sleepy, he lay down upon a couch, which, by
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  Speaker 1: some strange whim of the original owner, formed part of
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  Speaker 1: the rooms scanned furnishings, and composed himself for slumber. He
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  Speaker 1: decided to leave the light burning, telling himself that it
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  Speaker 1: was in accordance with the usual custom of leaving lights
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  Speaker 1: burning for the dead, for he was not willing to
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  Speaker 1: admit himself that already he was conscious of a dislike
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  Speaker 1: for lying in the darkness with a corpse. He dozed
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  Speaker 1: awoke with a start, and looked at the sheeted form
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  Speaker 1: on the bed. Silence reigned over the house, and outside
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  Speaker 1: it was very dark. The hour was approaching midnight, with
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  Speaker 1: its accompanying eerie domination over the human mind. For had
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  Speaker 1: glanced again at the bed where the body lay, and
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  Speaker 1: found the sight of the sheeted object most repellent. A
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  Speaker 1: fantastic idea had birth in his mind and grew that
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  Speaker 1: beneath the sheet, the mere lifeless body had become a strange,
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  Speaker 1: monstrous thing, a hideous, conscious thing that watched him with
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  Speaker 1: eyes which burned through the fabric of the cloth. This
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  Speaker 1: thought a mere fantasy, of course, he explained to himself,
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  Speaker 1: by the legends of vampires, undead ghosts, and suchlike, the
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  Speaker 1: fearsome attributes with which the living had cloaked the dead
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  Speaker 1: for countless ages since primitive man first recognized in death
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  Speaker 1: something horrid and apart from life. Man feared death thought forward,
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  Speaker 1: and some of his fear of death took hold on
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  Speaker 1: the dead, so that they too were feared at the
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  Speaker 1: sight of the dead, engendered grisly thoughts gave rise to
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  Speaker 1: dim fears of hereditary memory, lurking back in the dark
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  Speaker 1: corners of the brain. At any rate, that silent hidden
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  Speaker 1: thing was getting on his nerves. He thought of uncovering
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  Speaker 1: the face, on the principle that familiarity breeds contempt. The
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  Speaker 1: sight of the features, calm and still in death, would banish,
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  Speaker 1: he thought, all such wild conjectures as were haunting him
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  Speaker 1: in spite of himself. But the thought of those dead
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  Speaker 1: eyes staring in the lamplight was intolerable. So at last
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  Speaker 1: he blew out the light and lay down. This fear
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  Speaker 1: had been stealing upon him so insidiously and gradually that
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  Speaker 1: he had not been aware of its growth. With the
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  Speaker 1: extinguishing of the light, however, the blotting out of the
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  Speaker 1: sight of the corpse, things assumed their true character and proportions,
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  Speaker 1: and Forward fell asleep almost instantly on his lips a
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  Speaker 1: faint smile for his previous folly. He awakened suddenly. How
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  Speaker 1: long he had been asleep, he did not know. He
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  Speaker 1: sat up, his pulse pounding frantically, the cold sweat beating
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  Speaker 1: his forehead. He knew instantly where he was. Remembered the
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  Speaker 1: other occupant of the room. But what had awakened him?
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  Speaker 1: A dream? Yes, now he remembered a hideous dream in
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  Speaker 1: which the dead man had risen from the bed and
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  Speaker 1: stalked stiffly across the room, with eyes of fire and
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  Speaker 1: a horrid leer frozen on his gray lips. Forward had
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  Speaker 1: seemed to lie motionless, helpless. Then as the corpse reached
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  Speaker 1: a gnarled and horrible head, and he had awakened, he
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  Speaker 1: strove to pierce the gloom. But the gloom was all blackness,
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  Speaker 1: and all without, was so dark that no gleam of
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  Speaker 1: light came through the window. He reached a shaking hand
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  Speaker 1: toward the lamp, then recoiled as if from a hidden serpent.
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  Speaker 1: Sitting here in the dark with a fiendish corpse was
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  Speaker 1: bad enough, but he dared not light the lamp, for
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  Speaker 1: fear that his reason would be snuffed out like a
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  Speaker 1: candle at what he might see. Horror, stark and unreasoning,
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  Speaker 1: had full possession of his soul. He no longer questioned
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  Speaker 1: the instinctive fears that rose in him. All those legends
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  Speaker 1: he had heard came back to him and brought a
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  Speaker 1: belief in them. Death was a hideous thing, a brain
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  Speaker 1: shattering horror imbuing lifeless men with a horrid malevolence. Adam Farrell,
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  Speaker 1: in his life had been simply a churlish but harmless man.
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  Speaker 1: Now he was a terror, a monster of fiend, lurking
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  Speaker 1: in the shadows of fear, ready to leap on mankind
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  Speaker 1: with talons dipped deep in death and insanity. Fullard sat there,
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  Speaker 1: his blood freezing, and fought out his silent battle. Faint
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  Speaker 1: glimmerings of reason had begun to touch his fright when
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  Speaker 1: a soft, stealthy sound again froze him. He did not
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  Speaker 1: recognize it as the whisper of the night wind across
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  Speaker 1: the window sill. His frenzied fancy knew it only as
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  Speaker 1: the tread of death and horror. He sprang from the couch,
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  Speaker 1: then stood undecided. Escape was in his mind, but he
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  Speaker 1: was too dazed to even try to formulate a plan
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  Speaker 1: of escape. Even his sense of direction was gone. Fear
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  Speaker 1: had so stultified his mind that he was not able
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  Speaker 1: to think consciously. The blackness spread in long waves about him,
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  Speaker 1: and its darkness and void entered into his brain. His motions,
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  Speaker 1: such as they were, were instinctive. He seemed shackled with
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  Speaker 1: mighty chains, and his limbs responded sluggishly like an imbecile's.
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  Speaker 1: A terrible horror grew up in him and reared its
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  Speaker 1: grisly shape. That the dead man was behind him, was
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  Speaker 1: stealing upon him from the rear. He no longer thought
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  Speaker 1: of lighting the lamp. He no longer thought of anything.
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  Speaker 1: Fear filled his whole being, there was room for nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: He backed slowly away in the darkness, hands behind him,
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  Speaker 1: instinctively feeling the way. With a terrific effort, he partly
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  Speaker 1: shook the clinging mists of horror from him, and the
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  Speaker 1: cold sweat clammy upon his body. Strove to orient himself.
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  Speaker 1: He could see nothing but the bed was across the
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  Speaker 1: room in front of him. He was backing away from it.
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  Speaker 1: There was where the dead man was lying. According to
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  Speaker 1: all rules of nature, If the thing were as he
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  Speaker 1: felt behind him, then the old tales were true. Death
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  Speaker 1: did implant, and lifeless bodies and unearthly animation, and dead
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  Speaker 1: men did roam the shadows to work their ghastly and
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  Speaker 1: evil will upon the sons of men. Then, Great God,
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  Speaker 1: what was man but a wailing infant lost in the night,
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  Speaker 1: and beset by frightful things from the black abysses and
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  Speaker 1: the terrible unknown voids of space and time. These conclusions
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  Speaker 1: he did not reach by any reasoning process, they leaped
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  Speaker 1: full grown into his terror Day's brain. He worked his
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  Speaker 1: way slowly backward, groping, clinging to the thought that the
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  Speaker 1: dead man must be in front of him. Then his
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  Speaker 1: back flung hands encountered something, something slick, cold and clammy,
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  Speaker 1: like the touch of death. A scream shook the echoes,
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  Speaker 1: followed by the crashing of a falling body. The next morning,
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  Speaker 1: they who came to the House of Death found two
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  Speaker 1: corpses in the room. Adam Farrell's sheeted body lay motionless
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  Speaker 1: upon the bed, and across the room lay the body
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  Speaker 1: of Foulard beneath the shelf where doctor Steyne had absent
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  Speaker 1: mindedly left his gloves rubber gloves slick and clammy to
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  Speaker 1: the touch of a hand groping in the dark, a
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  Speaker 1: hand of one fleeing his own fear. Rubber gloves slick
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  Speaker 1: and clammy and cold, like the touch of death. End
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  Speaker 1: of the fearsome touch of death.