Part 7

“Quick!” he whispered. “Up the stairs! You go first; I'll follow.”

The Kid needed no second invitation. With a bound he was half way up the rickety staircase; but a glance ahead at the darkness above gave him pause while he waited for Bridge to catch up with him. Coming more slowly with his burden the man followed the boy, while from below the clanking of the chain warned them that the THING was already at the top of the cellar stairs.

“Flash the lamp down there,” directed Bridge. “Let's have a look at it, whatever it is.”

With trembling hands The Oskaloosa Kid directed the lens over the edge of the swaying and rotting bannister. His finger slipped from the lighting button plunging them all into darkness. In his frantic effort to find the button and relight the lamp the worst occurred--he fumbled the button and the lamp slipped through his fingers, falling over the bannister to the floor below. Instantly the sound of the dragging chain ceased; but the silence was even more horrible than the noise which had preceded it.

For a long minute the two at the head of the stairs stood in tense silence listening for a repetition of the gruesome sounds from below. The youth was frankly terrified; he made no effort to conceal the fact; but pressed close to his companion, again clutching his arm tightly. Bridge could feel the trembling of the slight figure, the spasmodic gripping of the slender fingers and hear the quick, short, irregular breathing. A sudden impulse to throw a protecting arm about the boy seized him--an impulse which he could not quite fathom, and one to which he could not respond because of the body of the girl he carried.

He bent toward the youth. “There are matches in my coat pocket,” he whispered, “--the same pocket in which you found the flash lamp. Strike one and we'll look for a room here where we can lay the girl.”

The boy fumbled gropingly in search of the matches. It was evident to the man that it was only with the greatest exertion of will power that he controlled his muscles at all; but at last he succeeded in finding and striking one. At the flare of the light there was a sound from below--a scratching sound and the creaking of boards as beneath a heavy body; then came the clanking of the chain once more, and the bannister against which they leaned shook as though a hand had been laid upon it below them. The youth stifled a shriek and simultaneously the match went out; but not before Bridge had seen in the momentary flare of light a partially open door at the far end of the hall in which they stood.

Beneath them the stairs creaked now and the chain thumped slowly from one to another as it was dragged upward toward them.

“Quick!” called Bridge. “Straight down the hall and into the room at the end.” The man was puzzled. He could not have been said to have been actually afraid, and yet the terror of the boy was so intense, so real, that it could scarce but have had its suggestive effect upon the other; and, too, there was an uncanny element of the supernatural in what they had seen and heard in the deserted house--the dead man on the floor below, the inexplicable clanking of a chain by some unseen THING from the depth of the cellar upward toward them; and, to heighten the effect of these, there were the grim stories of unsolved tragedy and crime. All in all Bridge could not have denied that he was glad of the room at the end of the hall with its suggestion of safety in the door which might be closed against the horrors of the hall and the Stygian gloom below stairs.

The Oskaloosa Kid was staggering ahead of him, scarce able to hold his body erect upon his shaking knees--his gait seemed pitifully slow to the unarmed man carrying the unconscious girl and listening to the chain dragging ever nearer and nearer behind; but at last they reached the doorway and passed through it into the room.

“Close the door,” directed Bridge as he crossed toward the center of the room to lay his burden upon the floor, but there was no response to his instructions--only a gasp and the sound of a body slumping to the rotting boards. With an exclamation of chagrin the man dropped the girl and swung quickly toward the door. Halfway down the hall he could hear the chain rattling over loose planking, the THING, whatever it might be, was close upon them. Bridge slammed-to the door and with a shoulder against it drew a match from his pocket and lighted it. Although his clothing was soggy with rain he knew that his matches would still be dry, for this pocket and its flap he had ingeniously lined with waterproof material from a discarded slicker he had found--years of tramping having taught him the discomforts of a fireless camp.

In the resultant light the man saw with a quick glance a large room furnished with an old walnut bed, dresser, and commode; two lightless windows opened at the far end toward the road, Bridge assumed; and there was no door other than that against which he leaned. In the last flicker of the match the man scanned the door itself for a lock and, to his relief, discovered a bolt--old and rusty it was, but it still moved in its sleeve. An instant later it was shot--just as the sound of the dragging chain ceased outside. Near the door was the great bed, and this Bridge dragged before it as an additional barricade; then, bearing nothing more from the hallway, he turned his attention to the two unconscious forms upon the floor. Unhesitatingly he went to the boy first though had he questioned himself he could not have told why; for the youth, undoubtedly, had only swooned, while the girl had been the victim of a murderous assault and might even be at the point of death.

What was the appeal to the man in the pseudo Oskaloosa Kid? He had scarce seen the boy's face, yet the terrified figure had aroused within him, strongly, the protective instinct. Doubtless it was the call of youth and weakness which find, always, an answering assurance in the strength of a strong man.

As Bridge groped toward the spot where the boy had fallen his eyes, now become accustomed to the darkness of the room, saw that the youth was sitting up. “Well?” he asked. “Feeling better?”

“Where is it? Oh, God! Where is it?” cried the boy. “It will come in here and kill us as it killed that--that--down stairs.”

“It can't get in,” Bridge assured him. “I've locked the door and pushed the bed in front of it. Gad! I feel like an old maid looking under the bed for burglars.”

From the hall came a sudden clanking of the chain accompanied by a loud pounding upon the bare floor. With a scream the youth leaped to his feet and almost threw himself upon Bridge. His arms were about the man's neck, his face buried in his shoulder.

“Oh, don't--don't let it get me!” he cried.

“Brace up, son,” Bridge admonished him. “Didn't I tell you that it can't get in?”

“How do you know it can't get in?” whimpered the youth. “It's the thing that murdered the man down stairs--it's the thing that murdered the Squibbs--right here in this room. It got in to them--what is to prevent its getting in to us. What are doors to such a THING?”

“Come! come! now,” Bridge tried to soothe him. “You have a case of nerves. Lie down here on this bed and try to sleep. Nothing shall harm you, and when you wake up it will be morning and you'll laugh at your fears.”

“Lie on THAT bed!” The voice was almost a shriek. “That is the bed the Squibbs were murdered in--the old man and his wife. No one would have it, and so it has remained here all these years. I would rather die than touch the thing. Their blood is still upon it.”

“I wish,” said Bridge a trifle sternly, “that you would try to control yourself a bit. Hysteria won't help us any. Here we are, and we've to make the best of it. Besides we must look after this young woman--she may be dying, and we haven't done a thing to help her.”

The boy, evidently shamed, released his hold upon Bridge and moved away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I'll try to do better; but, Oh! I was so frightened. You cannot imagine how frightened I was.”

“I had imagined,” said Bridge, “from what I had heard of him that it would be a rather difficult thing to frighten The Oskaloosa Kid--you have, you know, rather a reputation for fearlessness.”

The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mantled The Kid's face. There was a moment's silence as Bridge crossed to where the young woman still lay upon the floor where he had deposited her. Then The Kid spoke. “I'm sorry,” he said, “that I made a fool of myself. You have been so brave, and I have not helped at all. I shall do better now.”

“Good,” said Bridge, and stooped to raise the young woman in his arms and deposit her upon the bed. Then he struck another match and leaned close to examine her. The flare of the sulphur illuminated the room and shot two rectangles of light against the outer blackness where the unglazed windows stared vacantly upon the road beyond, bringing to a sudden halt a little company of muddy and bedraggled men who slipped, cursing, along the slimy way.

Bridge felt the youth close beside him as he bent above the girl upon the bed.