'But it gave me the impression that it was looking for something that it had dropped. For a minute the hand seemed to spread out over the road, and then it left the tree and came toward the wagon. It was like a huge white hand walking on its fingers with a terribly long arm fastened to it that went up and up until it touched the fog, or perhaps until it touched the stars.
'I screamed and slashed Hortense with the reins, but the horse didn't need any urging. She was up and off before I could throw the liver, or calf's brain, or whatever it was, into the road. She raced so fast she almost upset the wagon, but I didn't draw in the reins. I'd rather lie in a ditch with a broken rib than have a long, white hand squeezing the breath out of my throat.
'We had almost cleared the wood and I was just beginning to breathe again when my brain went cold. I can't describe what happened in any other way. My brain got as cold as ice inside my head. I can tell you I was frightened.
'Don't imagine I couldn't think clearly. I was conscious of everything that was going on about me, but my brain was so cold I screamed with the pain. Have you ever held a piece of ice in the palm of your hand for as long as two or three minutes? It burnt, didn't it? Ice burns worse than fire. Well, my brain felt as though it had lain on ice for hours and hours. There was a furnace inside my head, but it was a cold furnace. It was roaring with raging cold.
'Perhaps I should have been thankful that the pain didn't last. It wore off in about ten minutes, and when I got home I didn't think I was any the worse for my experience. I'm sure I didn't think I was any the worse until I looked at myself in the glass. Then I saw the hole in my head.'
Henry Wells leaned forward and brushed back the hair from his right temple.
'Here is the wound,' he said. 'What do you make of it?' He tapped with his fingers beneath a small round opening in the side of his head. 'It's like a bullet-wound,' he elaborated, 'but there was no blood and you can look in pretty far. It seems to go right in to the center of my head. I shouldn't be alive.'
Howard had risen and was staring at my neighbor with angry and accusing eyes.
'Why have you lied to us?' he shouted. 'Why have you told us this absurd story? A long hand! You were drunk, man. Drunk — and yet you've succeeded in doing what I'd have sweated blood to accomplish. If I could have made my readers feel that horror, know it for a moment, that horror that you described in the woods, I should be with the immortals — I should be greater than Poe, greater than Hawthorne. And you — a clumsy drunken liar…'
I was on my feet with a furious protest.
'He's not lying,' I said. 'He's been shot — someone has shot him in the head. Look at this wound. My God, man, you have no call to insult him!'
Howard's wrath died and the fire went out of his eyes. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'You can't imagine how badly I've wanted to capture that ultimate horror, to put it on paper, and he did it so easily. If he had warned me that he was going to describe something like that I would have taken notes. But of course he doesn't know he's an artist. It was an accidental tour de force that he accomplished; he couldn't do it again, I'm sure. I'm sorry I went up in the air — I apologize. Do you want me to go for a doctor? That is a bad wound.'
My neighbor shook his head. 'I don't want a doctor,' he said. 'I've seen a doctor. There's no bullet in my head — that hole was not made by a bullet. When the doctor couldn't explain it, I laughed at him. I hate doctors, — and I haven't much use for fools who think I'm in the habit of lying. I haven't much use for people who won't believe me when I tell 'em I saw the long, white thing come sliding down the tree as clear as day.'
But Howard was examining the wound in defiance of my neighbor's indignation. 'It was made by something round and sharp,' he said. 'It's curious, but the flesh isn't torn. A knife or bullet would have torn the flesh, left a ragged edge.'
I nodded, and was bending to study the wound when Wells shrieked, and clapped his hands to his head. 'Ah-h-h!' he choked. 'It's come back — the terrible, terrible cold.'
Howard stared. 'Don't expect me to believe such nonsense!' he exclaimed disgustedly.
But Wells was holding on to his head and dancing about the room in a delirium of agony. 'I can't stand it!' he shrieked. 'It's freezing up my brain. It's not like ordinary cold. It isn't. Oh, God! It's like nothing you've ever felt. It bites, it scorches, it tears. It's like acid.'
I laid my hand upon his shoulder and tried to quiet him, but he pushed me aside and made for the door.
'I've got to get out of here,' he screamed. 'The thing wants room. My head won't hold it. It wants the night — the vast night. It wants to wallow in the night.'
He threw back the door and disappeared into the fog. Howard wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and collapsed into a chair.
'Mad,' he muttered. 'A tragic case of manic-depressive psychosis. Who would have suspected it? The story he told us wasn't conscious art at all. It was simply a nightmare-fungus conceived by the brain of a lunatic.'
'Yes,' I said, 'but how do you account for the hole in his head?'
'Oh, that!' Howard shrugged. 'He probably always had it — probably was born with it.'
'Nonsense,' I said. 'The man never had a hole in his head before. Personally, I think he's been shot. Something ought to be done. He needs medical attention. I think I'll phone Dr. Smith.'
'It is useless to interfere,' said Howard. 'That hole was not made by a bullet. I advise you to forget him until tomorrow. His insanity may be temporary, it may wear off; and then he'd blame us for interfering. If he's still emotionally disturbed tomorrow, if he comes here again and tries to make trouble, you can notify the proper authorities. Has he ever acted queerly before?'
'No,' I said. 'He was always quite sane. I think I'll take your advice and wait. But I wish I could explain the hole in his head.'
'The story he told interests me more,' said Howard. 'I'm going to write it out before I forget it. Of course I shan't be able to make the horror as real as he did, but perhaps I can catch a bit of the strangeness and glamour.'
He unscrewed his fountain pen and began to cover a sheet of paper with curious phrases.
I shivered and closed the door.
For several minutes there was no sound in the room save the scratching of his pen as it moved across the paper. For several minutes there was silence — and then the shrieks commenced. Or were they wails?
We heard them through the closed door, heard them above the moaning of the foghorns and the wash of the waves on Mulligan's Beach. We heard them above the million sounds of night that had horrified and depressed us as we sat and talked in that fog-enshrouded and lonely house. We heard them so clearly that for a moment we thought they came from just outside the house. It was not until they came again and again — long, piercing wails — that we discovered in them a quality of remoteness. Slowly we became aware that the wails came from far away, as far away, perhaps, as Mulligan Wood.
'A soul in torture,' muttered Howard. 'A poor, damned soul in the grip of the horror I've been telling you about — the horror I've known and felt for years.'
He rose unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were shining and he was breathing heavily.
I seized his shoulders and shook him. 'You shouldn't project yourself into your stories that way,' I exclaimed. 'Some poor chap is in distress. I don't know what's happened. Perhaps a ship foundered. I'm going to put on a slicker and find out what it's all about. I have an idea we may be needed.'
'We may be needed,' repeated Howard slowly. 'We may be needed indeed. It will not be satisfied with a single victim. Think of that great journey through space, the thirst and dreadful hungers it must have known! It is preposterous to imagine that it will be content with a single victim!'
Then, suddenly, a change came over him. The light went out of his eyes and his voice lost its quiver. He shivered.
'Forgive me,' he said. 'I'm afraid you'll think I'm as mad as the yokel who was here a few minutes ago. But I can't help identifying myself with my characters when I write. I'd described something very evil, and those yells — well, they are exactly like the yells a man would make if — if…'
'I understand,' I interrupted, 'but we've no time to discuss that now. There's a poor chap out there' — I pointed vaguely toward the door—'with his back against the wall. He's fighting off something — I don't know what. We've got to help him.'
'Of course, of course,' he agreed, and followed me into the kitchen.
