The Taint and Other Novellas Read Online Free PDF Page B

Martin often worked quite late. But he had found his young friend in the throes of nightmare. Never was a man—half inebriated or not and despite the hour—more welcome than Harold Moody; for, even realizing now that he had only been dreaming, Spellman sat and shivered uncontrollably on his bed while has late visitor brewed hot coffee. He could remember his nightmare clearly, and what he remembered was quite the most hellish thing he had ever known.
    The monstrous dream-jungle had been bad enough…and the blossom-bloated insects…and the clearing of dead and crumbling earth. Worse still had been the membranous, blind, winged creatures beneath the sickening green cloak of the giant. But worst of all had been the eyes in the head of that slowly turning colossus….
    • • •
    The next morning, despite an odd listlessness against which he had to fight very hard, Spellman set himself to the long task of searching diligently through the Cthaat Aquadingen . The dream of the previous night had been so real—and yet for his life he could not remember having seen in Larner’s “Black Book” a description of anything remotely like the nightmare vision he had experienced. Even in broad daylight, with a weak December sun shining in through his window facing the exercise yard, Spellman shuddered as he recalled The Thing of his dream. Other than Ernst Kant’s description of “a thing with black breasts and an anus within its forehead”—not from the Cthaat Aquadingen but a comparatively modern work on singular foreign mental cases, similar to the book Spellman was trying to write—there was nothing. From where, then, had his subconscious conjured up the monster of the dream?
    Spellman realized that he must after all have a mind far more open to suggestion than he would ever have formerly believed. He had, of course, dreamed of The Thing after reading of the supposed method of “scrying Yibb-Tstll in Dreams.” Ridiculous though it all was, the idea had strongly influenced his subconscious, and the nightmare had been the result….
    • • •
    For the next ten days and through Christmas, Spellman’s time was taken up in the main with matters far less to his liking than the work he had thus far been doing. In short, while he was free most nights, his day-duties included being instructed in methods of keeping the more dangerous inmates “neat and tidy.” He had to learn how to feed and bathe violent patients, and how to clean out the cells of those disposed to animal-like habits. He was glad when the lessons had passed, when he could settle once more to his old routine.
    It was the 27th December before Spellman found himself on night-duty again, and as the fates would have it his name appeared on the roster opposite that especially offensive duty: the lower wards, and particularly the one called Hell.
    That night, on his very first visit to Hell, Spellman found Larner waiting for him at the spy-hole of his cell.
    “Nurse Spellman—at last, it’s you! Did you…did you…?” Eagerly he peered out through the bars.
    “Did I what, Larner?”
    “I asked you to copy down the Sixth Sathlatta—from the Cthaat Aquadingen. Did you forget?”
    “No, I didn’t forget, Larner,”—though in fact, he had—“but tell me—what do you intend to do with…with the, er, Sixth Sathlatta?”
    “Do with it? Why!—it’s—it’s an experiment! Yes, that’s it, an experiment. In fact, Nurse Spellman, you might like to help us out with it?”
    “Us, Larner?”
    “Me—I meant me—you might like to help me with it!”
    “In what way?” Spellman found himself interested, and despite the circumstances he was impressed with the lunatic’s apparent lucidity.
    “I’ll let you know later—but you’ll have to let me have the Sixth Sathlatta soon—and a few sheets of paper and a pencil….”
    “A pencil, Larner?” Spellman frowned suspiciously. “You know I can’t give you a pencil.”
    “A crayon, then,” the man in