Who is the mysterious Golden Warrior lingering near the ancient burial grounds? And what strange apparition haunts the dreaded Goodwin sands? Another spinetingling collection from the prolific pen of R L Fanthorpe!
Release date:
November 26, 2015
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
123
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“They would hang her unless Wayne could find the killer—but Wayne was already dead!”
Wayne Morris awoke in a cold sweat, aware of nothing but an agonising pain in the stomach that was rapidly spreading all over him. He tried to call out, but no words would come; he tried to get out of bed, but the pain held him paralysed in its grip. Sweat dropped from his forehead onto the pillow beside him, but he was unaware of it. The agony redoubled its intensity till every muscle in his body contorted with it, and then—quite suddenly—it was all over. He felt fine. Better, in fact, than he could remember feeling for some time. He had an odd sensation of lightness, almost of buoyancy, in all his limbs; but that in itself did not strike him as odd.
The bed, too, seemed far more comfortable than it had felt in all the years he had slept in it—almost as if he was not touching it … This puzzled him a little, and the realisation gradually dawned that he could not feel any one particular point of contact. Panic gripped him—that odd pain he had felt—surely it hadn’t left him with a paralysis? To reassure himself he sat up and moved his hands about first, then his legs. Relief broke over him in waves; he certainly wasn’t paralysed, but the strong sensation of lightness and buoyancy persisted.
And then another weird realisation dawned on him. He could move his arms and legs easily enough—too easily—he couldn’t feel the encumbering weight of the blankets. He lay back again to think over the problem. Was this all some peculiar nightmare? This strange sense of unnatural lightness, and the inability to feel the blankets?
He decided to reassure himself that he was indeed awake and slid out of bed, groping his way towards the light switch. He located it without undue difficulty, but to his extreme annoyance it seemed to have got jammed. Try as he would he was quite unable to budge it, until, when he was on the point of giving up the switch clicked on, filling the room with light. He was facing the dressing table when the light came on, and a strange feeling of unaccustomed terror gripped him.
He knew instinctively that something was wrong—desperately wrong. Yet just for a few stunned seconds it eluded him. It was something to do with the dressing table. But what? He stood in silent, perplexed thought for seconds that seemed an eternity, and then it dawned on him. Although he was standing directly in front of the dressing table mirrors—he could not see his reflection! The shock of it made him feel sick, and he ran frenziedly across to the glass, seized it in his hands and shook it—and that was the second shock—because it appeared to have no appreciable effect. His desperate shaking, which would normally have almost wrenched the mirror from its mountings, only made it quiver a trifle—like tall grass in a summer breeze.
Wayne’s whole world collapsed about him in a flood of incredulous bewilderment. Everything he knew, everything he understood, had crashed into a senseless chaos. His survival data; painfully gleaned by his subconscious mind since childhood was shaken—as surely as the dressing table had not been! His mind was completely staggered and reeling in disbelief. He told himself that it was all some crazy nightmare. That at any moment he would wake up and find himself back in bed in a cold sweat. In bed? Something had just registered from the corner of his eye—something at which he durst not look. Yet an unconquerable desire to know the truth, forced him to turn his head. Unwillingly he made himself look at the bed. His gaze travelled slowly over the rumpled sheets and finally came to rest on—the body of a man!
He stared in dumb surprise at the strained white face and parted lips, took in the staring, pain-wracked eyes, and knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the man was dead! Reluctantly he moved across to take a closer look and as he did so, he realised that the dead man’s face was very familiar. Amazingly familiar, he thought, trying hard to remember where he had seen him before. He was a man of early middle-age, with iron-grey temples and features that had once been reasonably pleasant, although they were now distorted with a death-mask of pain.
“Who the devil are you?” he whispered fiercely to the corpse as he looked at it even more closely, “and what the blazes are you doing in my bed?” Suddenly he recognised the pyjamas, and in almost the same instant, a blinding, mind-searing flash of inspiration enveloped him, and he recognised the dead man.
“It’s me,” he muttered hoarsely. Truth dawned on him at last—the loss of his reflection; the inability to switch on the light; the strange lightness in his limbs; his failure to feel the bed-clothes; all added up to the same inexorable conclusion—Wayne Morris was dead. His body lay on his own bed, clothed in his own pyjamas, its face contorted with pain, the very pain he had felt a few moments ago. There was no denying the facts, incredible as they were. The topsy-turvy world had settled down again. The senseless phenomena he had just experienced suddenly made horrible, final sense …
“I’m dead!” he screamed madly. “Dead, dead!” He flung himself down on the bed in an hysterical frenzy, as if trying to re-enter the mortal clay he had unknowingly left. But it was useless, an invisible wall seemed to separate him from the earthly body in which so recently he had lived and moved and had his being.
“Oh, God,” he screamed again. “I don’t want to be dead. Let me live again, let me go back!” From deep inside him there was an answer.
“We cannot go back, Wayne Morris. No man can go back. Forward! We must go forward. It is the only way. Do not be afraid. Press onwards.” Gradually Wayne got a grip on himself and stood up
“What must I do next?” he asked out loud. Again the answer seemed to come from inside him.
“Wait, there is a task for you here, before you begin the next stage of the journey.” Just that—then absolute silence.
“A task for me?” he repeated to himself. Footsteps sounded outside the door—anxious, running footsteps that stopped suddenly as someone tried the handle.
“Wayne?” The voice held a question. It was Laura, his wife. He stood absolutely motionless, aware of his own inability to be anything but a helpless spectator in the forthcoming drama. Hoping against hope that the shock would not harm her. He longed to say something, to try and comfort her, to explain—anything rather than this useless immobility. But he knew he could not reach her. He had already seen how little effect he had on the material world by his experiments with the light and the dressing table mirror. Laura opened the door and reached the bed in three quick strides. She fell on her knees beside the prostrate form upon it.
“Wayne, darling, are you all right? I thought I heard you …” she broke off with a horrified gasp as the terrible truth was borne home to her mind—for a second there was a tense, unnatural silence, and then the full impact of realisation hit her, and she collapsed into a sobbing heap. Wayne crossed to her side and put a hand lovingly on her shoulder.
“I’m all right,” he tried to tell her, “don’t worry, I’m not really dead—there’s another life, Laura darling. I’m alive now. That corpse on the bed isn’t me, the real me is still alive. Laura, my dearest, please don’t cry like that. My soul is still here with you.” Just for an instant it seemed as if she vaguely sensed something of his presence, but the moment of enlightenment quickly passed, and she resumed her helpless flood of tears. Finally she rose and walked stiffly away like an automaton, too deeply hurt to cry any more.
“She doesn’t understand,” thought Wayne bitterly. “Oh, God, how can I make her understand?”
“Wait,” said the voice inside. “Your time is coming. Remember, there is a task for you. Wait.”
Wayne glided silently up and down the room, deep in thought. What was the task of which the voice spoke? How could he communicate with Laura? What was going to happen next?
He waited anxiously for what seemed eons, until another footstep caught his attention. He listened intently … there were several people this time. Laura had obviously gone for help … the neighbours, perhaps? The door opened slowly, reverently, and the Carstairses from next door entered quietly.
John was a smart, confident type, who worked in an office somewhere. Ellen was a neat, houseproud little brunette. They were a moderately successful, sophisticated couple, of much the same type as Wayne and Laura. It was obvious that they were shaken to the core …
“Poor old Wayne,” whispered John. “I can’t believe it.” Ellen clutched his arm tightly.
“He must have been in terrible pain,” she murmured. “Look at his poor face.” John sighed deeply. Laura stood just behind them, framed in the doorway and still looking dazed.
“You must come back to our place,” said Ellen, turning to her. “John’ll see to things for you.”
“Thanks,” said Wayne gratefully. “I’m glad you’re taking care of her for me.” John looked straight towards him—through him—unseeing, and frowned perplexedly.
“I’m not psychic, or anything like that,” he muttered, “but I’ve got the most unearthly feeling that Wayne’s still here. I mean his spirit is still here, hovering somewhere near us. I suddenly felt instinctively that he wanted you to come home with us, Laura.” Ellen began to turn even paler.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Laura?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“I believe in an afterlife,” sighed Laura softly. “But I don’t know if there is any road back from that world to this.” John had pulled himself together a little now. The persona of efficiency was re-forming after the shock.
“You take Laura home now, Ellen,” he urged quietly. “I’ll take care of things.” Hesitantly he drew a sheet up over the face of the corpse and followed them slowly out of the room … Wayne glided after them. In the ball below John picked up the ’phone and began dialling for a doctor. With surprising clarity, Wayne heard a sleepy voice muttering:
“Brownlow here. What’s the trouble, please?” John explained, and as his neighbour spoke, Wayne imagined little Dr. Brownlow’s reactions.
“Wayne Morris?” he could hear him echoing incredulously “Dead?” Suddenly, Wayne wasn’t standing beside John Carstairs any more. He was in a tastefully furnished, oak-panelled study, looking at George Brownlow, M.D., who was holding a telephone receiver.
“I’ll come at once,” said the doctor and hung up. “Tch, tch,” he muttered. “Poor old Morris, can’t understand it. The chap was perfectly fit last time I examined him; perfectly fit.” He strode out of the study, donned overcoat and hat and went to fetch his car. Wayne was learning quickly, the afterlife was not without its compensations, he thought; this new method of instantaneous travel was one of them. Deliberately and carefully he willed himself back to his bedroom … and he was there.
The sinister, motionless thing on the bed lay quietly beneath the sheet. A few moments later Brownlow arrived. Wayne glided downstairs to watch Carstairs admit him. The two men walked slowly up to the bedroom, talking in subdued monotones.
“Terrible pity,” John was saying. “Quiet sort of fellow, but very likeable. Definitely one of our set, you know.”
“Quite, quite,” agreed Brownlow. “I must admit it’s a great shock to me. Sudden stroke, perhaps … heart maybe … but we shall soon see.”
Carstairs opened the door and Wayne watched the. . .
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