Page:Weird Tales Volume 42 Number 06 (1950-09).djvu/35

"I wouldn't just now, Miss Terry," I said.

Her eyes widened and she leaned forward into the firelight. "Stop that, Mac. Now you've got me imagining things again. I can almost see forms out there in the dark—shaggy forms, closing in—"

"You almost see them?” I interrupted. "Do you mean that?"

"I do see them!" she cried. "Stop scaring me. You've got me seeing things."

"But I see them, too," I said.

They were within the fringe of firelight.

A great uneven loop of them, knobby shoulder to knobby shoulder—a head shorter than the average man, standing up on scrawny, crooked legs, their bodies shaggy with what might be thick, coarse hair or a jacket of pine straw. And low skulls, sharp pointed brown ears, jutting possum noses, glowing eyes like tiny bits of coal.

The Pineys stood all around us.

Terry jumped up, glancing all around. "They've stopped closing in," she said, in a tight whisper. "The magic dust works. Look, Mac, they’ve come as close as they can without stepping over the circle. We're safe—"

I got up, too. "Safe from the ones outside," I corrected her.

The carpet of needles churned and heaved. Forms broke out of it, as if rising from under bed clothes. There was a Piney on each side of Terry inside the circle. Anothed slid out of the tree she'd been sitting against, and still another fell almost on top of him.

Terry screamed, shrill and ear-splitting as a steam whistle. Mr. Beau woke up with a snort and a roar, and came floundering out of his tent. That same moment the nearest Pineys had him, the way big shaggy ants might pile on top of a beetle. They had him silenced and helpless while you could count three.

And others were rising out of the needles, dropping out of the trees, filling the space around the fire inside the circle of dust Terry had strewn.

Terry ran toward me, the only protection she could hope for. I stood where I had risen, and flung both my hands high above my head.

"Stand still, all of you!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Not one of you moves until I lower my hands!"

They froze where theyswere—the throng of them around us, the pile of them on top of Mr. Beau, the shoulder-to-shoulder ring of them outside the circle. Their noses pointed at me, their eyes glowed at me.

Terry caught me by the sleeve.

"Mac," she breathed, "you can save us from them. I know you can. You're stronger than all of them put together—even stronger than the king of the Pineys himself."

"You fool," I said to her.

I brought down my hands, that I'd lifted to make the Pineys stop for a moment. Thrusting them under Terry's nose, I showed her my fingers, the third fingers that were longer than the middle fingers.

"You fool," I said again. "I'm the king of the Pineys."