Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/56

the incident with the fortune-teller, but he was never to forget. It was shortly after that that his imagination began to work overtime.

He had bad dreams. That was the first development. In these dreams he saw a hideous old hag with vulpine features, and hawklike claws striving to reach his face—his eyes. Bad dreams at night, if continued, easily give rise to day dreams. Now, day dreams are supposed to be pleasant. They are—if you sleep well. But Graham Fletcher didn't, and so he began to "see things" even in the day time.

Many things happened which increased his fear. There was the time a hard-bodied little bug got into his eye. It sickened him, but his terror overcame even the feeling of nausea. A life in utter dark such as that his father was leading stared him in the face. He was afraid.

Of course there had been other incidents. Once he had tried to play football. A rough tackle which resulted in a black eye put the taboo upon that forever. Then there was the incident of the automobile race when a driver ran through the fence and a splinter of board struck Fletcher in the face, breaking his glasses and cutting a deep gash under the left eye. The whole world, it would seem, was conspiring to do away with the sight of Graham Fletcher. Thereafter he never attended the races and, though he needed spectacles, he never wore them.

Fletcher, of course, had his recurrent nightmare. Strange to relate, the old gipsy woman failed to appear again. Instead it was something intangible, yet quite real, which oppressed him. The change made it all the more certain that he was doomed. He never could figure out his illusion satisfactorily. Sometimes he seemed to be crushed under a weight that all the power in the world could not move. Again it seemed that he was being dropped through infinite space. Always, though, there was the sense of his eyes being dragged out of him. At first his awakenings would be with tears. Then as he grew older he would awake in a state of cold, clammy sweat. After the dream there was little sleep for him again the same night. It was when he was nineteen that he felt claws on his eyes. Thereafter he left the light burning in his room when he went to bed.

It was only natural that Fletcher should try to find things to keep him occupied so that he would have no time to think of his illusions. He kept busy—but the phantoms continued to come. He welcomed with avidity the chance to go into the north woods for a short stay with two friends.

For a time Fletcher was so busily engaged in the hunt that he forgot his trouble. All would have gone well, perhaps, had he not been left alone that night in the cabin.

Jones and Gordon tramped over to the station together to get supplies. They promised to be back before dark, and Fletcher had no premonition of impending disaster. During the afternoon he hiked through the woods and later wrote several letters. It was when the shadows began to become flickery that Graham Fletcher felt a chill as of a bitter cold creep through him. Twilight fell. The black shadow among the trees had arms now, arms that groped for him. Blind arms they were. Blind! He fled to the safety of the cabin.

For a few minutes the light gave him comfort. Then he saw the shadows in the cabin. Shadows that moved!

He jerked open the cupboard and took down a flat bottle.

He tasted the liquid—drank. He tried to read, but the shadows kept