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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32710-8.txt b/32710-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02cf43a --- /dev/null +++ b/32710-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Doom of the House of Duryea, by Earl Peirce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Doom of the House of Duryea + +Author: Earl Peirce + +Release Date: June 6, 2010 [EBook #32710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Doom of the House of Duryea + +By EARL PEIRCE, JR. + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October +1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _A powerful story of stark horror, and the dreadful thing +that happened in a lone house in the Maine woods._] + + +Arthur Duryea, a young, handsome man, came to meet his father for the +first time in twenty years. As he strode into the hotel lobby--long +strides which had the spring of elastic in them--idle eyes lifted to +appraise him, for he was an impressive figure, somehow grim with +exaltation. + +The desk clerk looked up with his habitual smile of expectation; +how-do-you-do-Mr.-so-and-so, and his fingers strayed to the green +fountain pen which stood in a holder on the desk. + +Arthur Duryea cleared his throat, but still his voice was clogged and +unsteady. To the clerk he said: + +"I'm looking for my father, Doctor Henry Duryea. I understand he is +registered here. He has recently arrived from Paris." + +The clerk lowered his glance to a list of names. "Doctor Duryea is in +suite 600, sixth floor." He looked up, his eyebrows arched +questioningly. "Are you staying too, sir, Mr. Duryea?" + +Arthur took the pen and scribbled his name rapidly. Without a further +word, neglecting even to get his key and own room number, he turned and +walked to the elevators. Not until he reached his father's suite on the +sixth floor did he make an audible noise, and this was a mere sigh which +fell from his lips like a prayer. + +The man who opened the door was unusually tall, his slender frame +clothed in tight-fitting black. He hardly dared to smile. His +clean-shaven face was pale, an almost livid whiteness against the +sparkle in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster. + +"Arthur!" The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly, +as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips. + +Arthur Duryea felt the kindliness of those eyes go through him, and then +he was in his father's embrace. + +Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they +closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held +out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held +the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame. +They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling. + +Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "This is the happiest +day of my life," he said. "You can never know how much I have longed for +this moment." + +Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he +had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had +been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair. + +"I--I don't know how to act," he confessed. "You surprize me, Dad. +You're so different from what I had expected." + +A cloud came over Doctor Duryea's features. "What _did_ you expect, +Arthur?" he demanded quickly. "An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted +jowls?" + +"Please, Dad--no!" Arthur's words clipped short. "I don't think I ever +really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. But I thought +you'd look older, more like a man who has really suffered." + +"I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again, +and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than +compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I +found an ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your +American game of football." + +"Then you've been following my work?" + +"Yes, Arthur; I've received monthly reports ever since you left me. From +my study in Paris I've been really close to you, working out your +problems as if they were my own. And now that the twenty years are +completed, the ban which kept us apart is lifted for ever. From now on, +son, we shall be the closest of companions--unless your Aunt Cecilia has +succeeded in her terrible mission." + + * * * * * + +The mention of that name caused an unfamiliar chill to come between the +two men. It stood for something, in each of them, which gnawed their +minds like a malignancy. But to the younger Duryea, in his intense +effort to forget the awful past, her name as well as her madness must be +forgotten. + +He had no wish to carry on this subject of conversation, for it betrayed +an internal weakness which he hated. With forced determination, and a +ludicrous lift of his eyebrows, he said, + +"Cecilia is dead, and her silly superstition is dead also. From now on, +Dad, we're going to enjoy life as we should. Bygones are really bygones +in this case." + +Doctor Duryea closed his eyes slowly, as though an exquisite pain had +gone through him. + +"Then you have no indignation?" he questioned. "You have none of your +aunt's hatred?" + +"Indignation? Hatred?" Arthur laughed aloud. "Ever since I was twelve +years old I have disbelieved Cecilia's stories. I have known that those +horrible things were impossible, that they belonged to the ancient +category of mythology and tradition. How, then, can I be indignant, and +how can I hate you? How can I do anything but recognize Cecilia for what +she was--a mean, frustrated woman, cursed with an insane grudge against +you and your family? I tell you, Dad, that nothing she has ever said can +possibly come between us again." + +Henry Duryea nodded his head. His lips were tight together, and the +muscles in his throat held back a cry. In that same soft tone of defense +he spoke further, doubting words. + +"Are you so sure of your subconscious mind, Arthur? Can you be so +certain that you are free from all suspicion, however vague? Is there +not a lingering premonition--a premonition which warns of peril?" + +"No, Dad--no!" Arthur shot to his feet. "I don't believe it. I've never +believed it. I know, as any sane man would know, that you are neither a +vampire nor a murderer. You know it, too; and Cecilia knew it, only she +was mad. + +"That family rot is dispelled, Father. This is a civilized century. +Belief in vampirism is sheer lunacy. Wh-why, it's too absurd even to +think about!" + +"You have the enthusiasm of youth," said his father, in a rather tired +voice. "But have you not heard the legend?" + +Arthur stepped back instinctively. He moistened his lips, for their +dryness might crack them. "The--legend?" + +He said the word in a curious hush of awed softness, as he had heard his +Aunt Cecilia say it many times before. + +"That awful legend that you----" + +"That I _eat_ my children?" + +"Oh, God, Father!" Arthur went to his knees as a cry burst through his +lips. "Dad, that--that's ghastly! We must forget Cecilia's ravings." + +"You are affected, then?" asked Doctor Duryea bitterly. + +"Affected? Certainly I'm affected, but only as I should be at such an +accusation. Cecilia was mad, I tell you. Those books she showed me years +ago, and those folk-tales of vampires and ghouls--they burned into my +infantile mind like acid. They haunted me day and night in my youth, and +caused me to hate you worse than death itself. + +"But in Heaven's name, Father, I've outgrown those things as I have +outgrown my clothes. I'm a man now; do you understand that? A man, with +a man's sense of logic." + +"Yes, I understand." Henry Duryea threw his cigar into the fireplace, +and placed a hand on his son's shoulder. + +"We shall forget Cecilia," he said. "As I told you in my letter, I have +rented a lodge in Maine where we can go to be alone for the rest of the +summer. We'll get in some fishing and hiking and perhaps some hunting. +But first, Arthur, I must be sure in my own mind that you are sure in +yours. I must be sure you won't bar your door against me at night, and +sleep with a loaded revolver at your elbow. I must be sure that you're +not afraid of going up there alone with me, and dying----" + +His voice ended abruptly, as if an age-long dread had taken hold of it. +His son's face was waxen, with sweat standing out like pearls on his +brow. He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with questions which his +lips could not put into words. His own hand touched his father's, and +tightened over it. + +Henry Duryea drew his hand away. + +"I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes looked straight over Arthur's lowered +head. "This thing must be thrashed out now. I believe you when you say +that you discredit Cecilia's stories, but for a sake greater than sanity +I must tell you the truth behind the legend--and believe me, Arthur; +there is a truth!" + + * * * * * + +He climbed to his feet and walked to the window which looked out over +the street below. For a moment he gazed into space, silent. Then he +turned and looked down at his son. + +"You have heard only your aunt's version of the legend, Arthur. +Doubtless it was warped into a thing far more hideous than it actually +was--if that is possible! Doubtless she spoke to you of the +Inquisitorial stake in Carcassonne where one of my ancestors perished. +Also she may have mentioned that book, _Vampyrs_, which a former Duryea +is supposed to have written. Then certainly she told you about your two +younger brothers--my own poor, motherless children--who were sucked +bloodless in their cradles...." + +Arthur Duryea passed a hand across his aching eyes. Those words, so +often repeated by that witch of an aunt, stirred up the same visions +which had made his childhood nights sleepless with terror. He could +hardly bear to hear them again--and from the very man to whom they were +accredited. + +"Listen, Arthur," the elder Duryea went on quickly, his voice low with +the pain it gave him. "You must know that true basis to your aunt's +hatred. You must know of that curse--that curse of vampirism which is +supposed to have followed the Duryeas through five centuries of French +history, but which we can dispel as pure superstition, so often +connected with ancient families. But I must tell you that this part of +the legend is true: + +"Your two young brothers actually died in their cradles, bloodless. And +I stood trial in France for their murder, and my name was smirched +throughout all of Europe with such an inhuman damnation that it drove +your aunt and you to America, and has left me childless, hated, and +ostracized from society the world over. + +"I must tell you that on that terrible night in Duryea Castle I had been +working late on historic volumes of Crespet and Prinn, and on that +loathsome tome, _Vampyrs_. I must tell you of the soreness that was in +my throat and of the heaviness of the blood which coursed through my +veins.... And of that _presence_, which was neither man nor animal, but +which I knew was some place near me, yet neither within the castle nor +outside of it, and which was closer to me than my heart and more +terrible to me than the touch of the grave.... + +"I was at the desk in my library, my head swimming in a delirium which +left me senseless until dawn. There were nightmares that frightened +me--frightened _me_, Arthur, a grown man who had dissected countless +cadavers in morgues and medical schools. I know that my tongue was +swollen in my mouth and that brine moistened my lips, and that a +rottenness pervaded my body like a fever. + +"I can make no recollection of sanity or of consciousness. That night +remains vivid, unforgettable, yet somehow completely in shadows. When I +had fallen asleep--if in God's name it _was_ sleep--I was slumped across +my desk. But when I awoke in the morning I was lying face down on my +couch. So you see, Arthur, I _had_ moved during that night, _and I had +never known it_! + +"What I'd done and where I'd gone during those dark hours will always +remain an impenetrable mystery. But I do know this. On the morrow I was +torn from my sleep by the shrieks of maids and butlers, and by that mad +wailing of your aunt. I stumbled through the open door of my study, and +in the nursery I saw those two babies there--lifeless, white and dry +like mummies, and with twin holes in their necks that were caked black +with their own blood.... + +"Oh, I don't blame you for your incredulousness, Arthur. I cannot +believe it yet myself, nor shall I ever believe it. The belief of it +would drive me to suicide; and still the doubting of it drives me mad +with horror. + +"All of France was doubtful, and even the savants who defended my name +at the trial found that they could not explain it nor disbelieve it. The +case was quieted by the Republic, for it might have shaken science to +its very foundation and split the pedestals of religion and logic. I was +released from the charge of murder; but the actual murder has hung about +me like a stench. + +"The coroners who examined those tiny cadavers found them both dry of +all their blood, but could find no blood on the floor of the nursery nor +in the cradles. Something from hell stalked the halls of Duryea that +night--and I should blow my brains out if I dared to think deeply of who +that was. You, too, my son, would have been dead and bloodless if you +hadn't been sleeping in a separate room with your door barred on the +inside. + +"You were a timid child, Arthur. You were only seven years old, but you +were filled with the folk-lore of those mad Lombards and the decadent +poetry of your aunt. On that same night, while I was some place between +heaven and hell, you, also, heard the padded footsteps on the stone +corridor and heard the tugging at your door handle, for in the morning +you complained of a chill and of terrible nightmares which frightened +you in your sleep.... I only thank God that your door was barred!" + + * * * * * + +Henry Duryea's voice choked into a sob which brought the stinging tears +back into his eyes. He paused to wipe his face, and to dig his fingers +into his palm. + +"You understand, Arthur, that for twenty years, under my sworn oath at +the Palace of Justice, I could neither see you nor write to you. Twenty +years, my son, while all of that time you had grown to hate me and to +spit at my name. Not until your aunt's death have you called yourself a +Duryea.... And now you come to me at my bidding, and say you love me as +a son should love his father. + +"Perhaps it is God's forgiveness for everything. Now, at last, we shall +be together, and that terrible, unexplainable past will be buried for +ever...." + +He put his handkerchief back into his pocket and walked slowly to his +son. He dropped to one knee, and his hands gripped Arthur's arms. + +"My son, I can say no more to you. I have told you the truth as I alone +know it. I may be, by all accounts, some ghoulish creation of Satan on +earth. I may be a child-killer, a vampire, some morbidly diseased +specimen of _vrykolakas_--things which science cannot explain. + +"Perhaps the dreaded legend of the Duryeas is true. Autiel Duryea was +convicted of murdering his brother in that same monstrous fashion in the +year 1576, and he died in flames at the stake. François Duryea, in 1802, +blew his head apart with a blunderbuss on the morning after his youngest +son was found dead, apparently from anemia. And there are others, of +whom I cannot bear to speak, that would chill your soul if you were to +hear them. + +"So you see, Arthur, there is a hellish tradition behind our family. +There is a heritage which no sane God would ever have allowed. The +future of the Duryeas lies in you, for you are the last of the race. I +pray with all of my heart that providence will permit you to live your +full share of years, and to leave other Duryeas behind you. And so if +ever again I feel that presence as I did in Duryea Castle, I am going to +die as François Duryea died, over a hundred years ago...." + +He stood up, and his son stood up at his side. + +"If you are willing to forget, Arthur, we shall go up to that lodge in +Maine. There is a life we've never known awaiting us. We must find that +life, and we must find the happiness which a curious fate snatched from +us on those Lombard sourlands, twenty years ago...." + + + + +2 + + +Henry Duryea's tall stature, coupled with a slenderness of frame and a +sleekness of muscle, gave him an appearance that was unusually _gaunt_. +His son couldn't help but think of that word as he sat on the rustic +porch of the lodge, watching his father sunning himself at the lake's +edge. + +Henry Duryea had a kindliness in his face, at times an almost sublime +kindliness which great prophets often possess. But when his face was +partly in shadows, particularly about his brow, there was a frightening +tone which came into his features; for it was a tone of farness, of +mysticism and conjuration. Somehow, in the late evenings, he assumed the +unapproachable mantle of a dreamer and sat silently before the fire, his +mind ever off in unknown places. + +In that little lodge there was no electricity, and the glow of the oil +lamps played curious tricks with the human expression which frequently +resulted in something unhuman. It may have been the dusk of night, the +flickering of the lamps, but Arthur Duryea had certainly noticed how his +father's eyes had sunken further into his head, and how his cheeks were +tighter, and the outline of his teeth pressed into the skin about his +lips. + + * * * * * + +It was nearing sundown on the second day of their stay at Timber Lake. +Six miles away the dirt road wound on toward Houtlon, near the Canadian +border. So it was lonely there, on a solitary little lake hemmed in +closely with dark evergreens and a sky which drooped low over +dusty-summited mountains. + +Within the lodge was a homy fireplace, and a glossy elk's-head which +peered out above the mantel. There were guns and fishing-tackle on the +walls, shelves of reliable American fiction--Mark Twain, Melville, +Stockton, and a well-worn edition of Bret Harte. + +A fully supplied kitchen and a wood stove furnished them with hearty +meals which were welcome after a whole day's tramp in the woods. On that +evening Henry Duryea prepared a select French stew out of every +available vegetable, and a can of soup. They ate well, then stretched +out before the fire for a smoke. They were outlining a trip to the +Orient together, when the back door blew open with a terrific bang, and +a wind swept into the lodge with a coldness which chilled them both. + +"A storm," Henry Duryea said, rising to his feet. "Sometimes they have +them up here, and they're pretty bad. The roof might leak over your +bedroom. Perhaps you'd like to sleep down here with me." His fingers +strayed playfully over his son's head as he went out into the kitchen to +bar the swinging door. + +Arthur's room was upstairs, next to a spare room filled with extra +furniture. He'd chosen it because he liked the altitude, and because the +only other bedroom was occupied.... + +He went upstairs swiftly and silently. His roof didn't leak; it was +absurd even to think it might. It had been his father again, suggesting +that they sleep together. He had done it before, in a jesting, +whispering way--as if to challenge them both if they _dared_ to sleep +together. + +Arthur came back downstairs dressed in his bath-robe and slippers. He +stood on the fifth stair, rubbing a two-day's growth of beard. "I think +I'll shave tonight," he said to his father. "May I use your razor?" + +Henry Duryea, draped in a black raincoat and with his face haloed in the +brim of a rain-hat, looked up from the hall. A frown glided obscurely +from his features. "Not at all, son. Sleeping upstairs?" + +Arthur nodded, and quickly said, "Are you--going out?" + +"Yes, I'm going to tie the boats up tighter. I'm afraid the lake will +rough it up a bit." + +Duryea jerked back the door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut, +and his footsteps sounded on the wood flooring of the porch. + +Arthur came slowly down the remaining steps. He saw his father's figure +pass across the dark rectangle of a window, saw the flash of lightning +that suddenly printed his grim silhouette against the glass. + +He sighed deeply, a sigh which burned in his throat; for his throat was +sore and aching. Then he went into the bedroom, found the razor lying in +plain view on a birch table-top. + +As he reached for it, his glance fell upon his father's open Gladstone +bag which rested at the foot of the bed. There was a book resting there, +half hidden by a gray flannel shirt. It was a narrow, yellow-bound book, +oddly out of place. + +Frowning, he bent down and lifted it from the bag. It was surprizingly +heavy in his hands, and he noticed a faintly sickening odor of decay +which drifted from it like a perfume. The title of the volume had been +thumbed away into an indecipherable blur of gold letters. But pasted +across the front cover was a white strip of paper, on which was +typewritten the word--INFANTIPHAGI. + +He flipped back the cover and ran his eyes over the title-page. The book +was printed in French--an early French--yet to him wholly +comprehensible. The publication date was 1580, in Caen. + +Breathlessly he turned back a second page, saw a chapter headed, +_Vampires_. + +He slumped to one elbow across the bed. His eyes were four inches from +those mildewed pages, his nostrils reeked with the stench of them. + +He skipped long paragraphs of pedantic jargon on theology, he scanned +brief accounts of strange, blood-eating monsters, _vrykolakes_, and +leprechauns. He read of Jeanne d'Arc, of Ludvig Prinn, and muttered +aloud the Latin snatches from _Episcopi_. + +He passed pages in quick succession, his fingers shaking with the fear +of it and his eyes hanging heavily in their sockets. He saw vague +reference to "Enoch," and saw the terrible drawings by an ancient +Dominican of Rome.... + +Paragraph after paragraph he read: the horror-striking testimony of +Nider's _Ant-Hill_, the testimony of people who died shrieking at the +stake; the recitals of grave-tenders, of jurists and hang-men. Then +unexpectedly, among all of this monumental vestige, there appeared +before his eyes the name of--_Autiel Duryea_; and he stopped reading as +though invisibly struck. + + * * * * * + +Thunder clapped near the lodge and rattled the window-panes. The deep +rolling of bursting clouds echoed over the valley. But he heard none of +it. His eyes were on those two short sentences which his +father--someone--had underlined with dark red crayon. + + ... The execution, four years ago, of Autiel Duryea does not + end the Duryea controversy. Time alone can decide whether the + Demon has claimed that family from its beginning to its end.... + +Arthur read on about the trial of Autiel Duryea before Veniti, the +Carcassonnean Inquisitor-General; read, with mounting horror, the +evidence which had sent that far-gone Duryea to the pillar--the evidence +of a bloodless corpse who had been Autiel Duryea's young brother. + +Unmindful now of the tremendous storm which had centered over Timber +Lake, unheeding the clatter of windows and the swish of pines on the +roof--even of his father who worked down at the lake's edge in a +drenching rain--Arthur fastened his glance to the blurred print of those +pages, sinking deeper and deeper into the garbled legends of a dark +age.... + +On the last page of the chapter he again saw the name of his ancestor, +Autiel Duryea. He traced a shaking finger over the narrow lines of +words, and when he finished reading them he rolled sideways on the bed, +and from his lips came a sobbing, mumbling prayer. + +"God, oh God in Heaven protect me...." + +For he had read: + + As in the case of Autiel Duryea we observe that this specimen + of _vrykolakas_ preys only upon the blood in its own family. It + possesses none of the characteristics of the undead vampire, + being usually a living male person of otherwise normal + appearances, unsuspecting its inherent demonism. + + But this _vrykolakas_ cannot act according to its demoniacal + possession unless it is in the presence of a second member of + the same family, who acts as a medium between the man and its + demon. This medium has none of the traits of the vampire, but + it senses the being of this creature (when the metamorphosis is + about to occur) by reason of intense pains in the head and + throat. Both the vampire and the medium undergo similar + reactions, involving nausea, nocturnal visions, and physical + disquietude. + + When these two outcasts are within a certain distance of each + other, the coalescence of inherent demonism is completed, and + the vampire is subject to its attacks, demanding blood for its + sustenance. No member of the family is safe at these times, for + the _vrykolakas_, acting in its true agency on earth, will + unerringly seek out the blood. In rare cases, where other + victims are unavailable, _the vampire will even take the blood + from the very medium which made it possible_. + + This vampire is born into certain aged families, and naught but + death can destroy it. It is not conscious of its blood-madness, + and acts only in a psychic state. The medium, also, is unaware + of its terrible rôle; and when these two are together, despite + any lapse of years, the fusion of inheritance is so violent + that no power known on earth can turn it back. + + + + +3 + + +The lodge door slammed shut with a sudden, interrupting bang. The lock +grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor. + +Arthur shook himself from the bed. He had only time to fling that +haunting book into the Gladstone bag before he sensed his father +standing in the doorway. + +"You--you're not shaving, Arthur." Duryea's words, spliced hesitantly, +were toneless. He glanced from the table-top to the Gladstone, and to +his son. He said nothing for a moment, his glance inscrutable. Then, + +"It's blowing up quite a storm outside." + +Arthur swallowed the first words which had come into his throat, nodded +quickly. "Yes, isn't it? Quite a storm." He met his father's gaze, his +face burning. "I--I don't think I'll shave, Dad. My head aches." + +Duryea came swiftly into the room and pinned Arthur's arms in his grasp. +"What do you mean--your head aches? How? Does your throat----" + +"No!" Arthur jerked himself away. He laughed. "It's that French stew of +yours! It's hit me in the stomach!" He stepped past his father and +started up the stairs. + +"The stew?" Duryea pivoted on his heel. "Possibly. I think I feel it +myself." + +Arthur stopped, his face suddenly white. "You--too?" + +The words were hardly audible. Their glances met--clashed like +dueling-swords. + +For ten seconds neither of them said a word or moved a muscle: Arthur, +from the stairs, looking down; his father below, gazing up at him. In +Henry Duryea the blood drained slowly from his face and left a purple +etching across the bridge of his nose and above his eyes. He looked like +a death's-head. + +Arthur winced at the sight and twisted his eyes away. He turned to go up +the remaining stairs. + +"Son!" + +He stopped again; his hand tightened on the banister. + +"Yes, Dad?" + +Duryea put his foot on the first stair, "I want you to lock your door +tonight. The wind would keep it banging!" + +"Yes," breathed Arthur, and pushed up the stairs to his room. + + * * * * * + +Doctor Duryea's hollow footsteps sounded in steady, unhesitant beats +across the floor of Timber Lake Lodge. Sometimes they stopped, and the +crackling hiss of a sulfur match took their place, then perhaps a +distended sigh, and, again, footsteps.... + +Arthur crouched at the open door of his room. His head was cocked for +those noises from below. In his hands was a double-barrel shotgun of +violent gage. + +... thud ... thud ... thud.... + +Then a pause, the clinking of a glass and the gurgling of liquid. The +sigh, the tread of his feet over the floor.... + +"He's thirsty," Arthur thought--_Thirsty!_ + +Outside, the storm had grown into fury. Lightning zigzagged between the +mountains, filling the valley with weird phosphorescence. Thunder, like +drums, rolled incessantly. + +Within the lodge the heat of the fireplace piled the atmosphere thick +with stagnation. All the doors and windows were locked shut, the +oil-lamps glowed weakly--a pale, anemic light. + +Henry Duryea walked to the foot of the stairs and stood looking up. + +Arthur sensed his movements and ducked back into his room, the gun +gripped in his shaking fingers. + +Then Henry Duryea's footstep sounded on the first stair. + +Arthur slumped to one knee. He buckled a fist against his teeth as a +prayer tumbled through them. + +Duryea climbed a second step ... and another ... and still one more. On +the fourth stair he stopped. + +"Arthur!" His voice cut into the silence like the crack of a whip. +"Arthur! Will you come down here?" + +"Yes, Dad." Bedraggled, his body hanging like cloth, young Duryea took +five steps to the landing. + +"We can't be zanies!" cried Henry Duryea. "My soul is sick with dread. +Tomorrow we're going back to New York. I'm going to get the first boat +to open sea.... Please come down here." He turned about and descended +the stairs to his room. + +Arthur choked back the words which had lumped in his mouth. Half dazed, +he followed.... + +In the bedroom he saw his father stretched face-up along the bed. He saw +a pile of rope at his father's feet. + +"Tie me to the bedposts, Arthur," came the command. "Tie both my hands +and both my feet." + +Arthur stood gaping. + +"Do as I tell you!" + +"Dad, what hor----" + +"Don't be a fool! You read that book! You know what relation you are to +me! I'd always hoped it was Cecilia, but now I know it's you. I should +have known it on that night twenty years ago when you complained of a +headache and nightmares.... Quickly, my head rocks with pain. _Tie me!_" + +Speechless, his own pain piercing him with agony, Arthur fell to that +grisly task. Both hands he tied--and both feet ... tied them so firmly +to the iron posts that his father could not lift himself an inch off the +bed. + +Then he blew out the lamps, and without a further glance at that +Prometheus, he reascended the stairs to his room, and slammed and locked +his door behind him. + +He looked once at the breech of his gun, and set it against a chair by +his bed. He flung off his robe and slippers, and within five minutes he +was senseless in slumber. + + + + +4 + + +He slept late, and when he awakened his muscles were as stiff as boards, +and the lingering visions of a nightmare clung before his eyes. He +pushed his way out of bed, stood dazedly on the floor. + +A dull, numbing cruciation circulated through his head. He felt +bloated ... coarse and running with internal mucus. His mouth was dry, +his gums sore and stinging. + +He tightened his hands as he lunged for the door. "Dad," he cried, and +he heard his voice breaking in his throat. + +Sunlight filtered through the window at the top of the stairs. The air +was hot and dry, and carried in it a mild odor of decay. + +Arthur suddenly drew back at that odor--drew back with a gasp of awful +fear. For he recognized it--that stench, the heaviness of his blood, the +rawness of his tongue and gums.... Age-long it seemed, yet rising like a +spirit in his memory. All of these things he had known and felt before. + +He leaned against the banister, and half slid, half stumbled down the +stairs.... + +His father had died during the night. He lay like a waxen figure tied to +his bed, his face done up in knots. + +[Illustration: "He lay like a waxen figure tied to his bed."] + +Arthur stood dumbly at the foot of the bed for only a few seconds; then +he went back upstairs to his room. + +Almost immediately he emptied both barrels of the shotgun into his head. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy at Timber Lake was discovered accidentally three days later. +A party of fishermen, upon finding the two bodies, notified state +authorities, and an investigation was directly under way. + +Arthur Duryea had undoubtedly met death at his own hands. The condition +of his wounds, and the manner with which he held the lethal weapon, at +once foreclosed the suspicion of any foul play. + +But the death of Doctor Henry Duryea confronted the police with an +inexplicable mystery; for his trussed-up body, unscathed except for two +jagged holes over the jugular vein, _had been drained of all its blood_. + +The autopsy protocol of Henry Duryea laid death to "undetermined +causes," and it was not until the yellow tabloids commenced an +investigation into the Duryea family history that the incredible and +fantastic explanations were offered to the public. + +Obviously such talk was held in popular contempt; yet in view of the +controversial war which followed, the authorities considered it +expedient to consign both Duryeas to the crematory.... + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Doom of the House of Duryea, by Earl Peirce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + +***** This file should be named 32710-8.txt or 32710-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/7/1/32710/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Doom of the House of Duryea + +Author: Earl Peirce + +Release Date: June 6, 2010 [EBook #32710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>Doom of the House of Duryea</h1> + +<h2>By EARL PEIRCE, JR.</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October +1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A powerful story of stark horror, and the dreadful thing +that happened in a lone house in the Maine woods.</i></div> + + +<p>Arthur Duryea, a young, handsome man, came to meet his father for the +first time in twenty years. As he strode into the hotel lobby—long +strides which had the spring of elastic in them—idle eyes lifted to +appraise him, for he was an impressive figure, somehow grim with +exaltation.</p> + +<p>The desk clerk looked up with his habitual smile of expectation; +how-do-you-do-Mr.-so-and-so, and his fingers strayed to the green +fountain pen which stood in a holder on the desk.</p> + +<p>Arthur Duryea cleared his throat, but still his voice was clogged and +unsteady. To the clerk he said:</p> + +<p>"I'm looking for my father, Doctor Henry Duryea. I understand he is +registered here. He has recently arrived from Paris."</p> + +<p>The clerk lowered his glance to a list of names. "Doctor Duryea is in +suite 600, sixth floor." He looked up, his eyebrows arched +questioningly. "Are you staying too, sir, Mr. Duryea?"</p> + +<p>Arthur took the pen and scribbled his name rapidly. Without a further +word, neglecting even to get his key and own room number, he turned and +walked to the elevators. Not until he reached his father's suite on the +sixth floor did he make an audible noise, and this was a mere sigh which +fell from his lips like a prayer.</p> + +<p>The man who opened the door was unusually tall, his slender frame +clothed in tight-fitting black. He hardly dared to smile. His +clean-shaven face was pale, an almost livid whiteness against the +sparkle in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster.</p> + +<p>"Arthur!" The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly, +as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips.</p> + +<p>Arthur Duryea felt the kindliness of those eyes go through him, and then +he was in his father's embrace.</p> + +<p>Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they +closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held +out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held +the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame. +They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling.</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "This is the happiest +day of my life," he said. "You can never know how much I have longed for +this moment."</p> + +<p>Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he +had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had +been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know how to act," he confessed. "You surprize me, Dad. +You're so different from what I had expected."</p> + +<p>A cloud came over Doctor Duryea's features. "What <i>did</i> you expect, +Arthur?" he demanded quickly. "An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted +jowls?"</p> + +<p>"Please, Dad—no!" Arthur's words clipped short. "I don't think I ever +really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. But I thought +you'd look older, more like a man who has really suffered."</p> + +<p>"I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again, +and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than +compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I +found an ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your +American game of football."</p> + +<p>"Then you've been following my work?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Arthur; I've received monthly reports ever since you left me. From +my study in Paris I've been really close to you, working out your +problems as if they were my own. And now that the twenty years are +completed, the ban which kept us apart is lifted for ever. From now on, +son, we shall be the closest of companions—unless your Aunt Cecilia has +succeeded in her terrible mission."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The mention of that name caused an unfamiliar chill to come between the +two men. It stood for something, in each of them, which gnawed their +minds like a malignancy. But to the younger Duryea, in his intense +effort to forget the awful past, her name as well as her madness must be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>He had no wish to carry on this subject of conversation, for it betrayed +an internal weakness which he hated. With forced determination, and a +ludicrous lift of his eyebrows, he said,</p> + +<p>"Cecilia is dead, and her silly superstition is dead also. From now on, +Dad, we're going to enjoy life as we should. Bygones are really bygones +in this case."</p> + +<p>Doctor Duryea closed his eyes slowly, as though an exquisite pain had +gone through him.</p> + +<p>"Then you have no indignation?" he questioned. "You have none of your +aunt's hatred?"</p> + +<p>"Indignation? Hatred?" Arthur laughed aloud. "Ever since I was twelve +years old I have disbelieved Cecilia's stories. I have known that those +horrible things were impossible, that they belonged to the ancient +category of mythology and tradition. How, then, can I be indignant, and +how can I hate you? How can I do anything but recognize Cecilia for what +she was—a mean, frustrated woman, cursed with an insane grudge against +you and your family? I tell you, Dad, that nothing she has ever said can +possibly come between us again."</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea nodded his head. His lips were tight together, and the +muscles in his throat held back a cry. In that same soft tone of defense +he spoke further, doubting words.</p> + +<p>"Are you so sure of your subconscious mind, Arthur? Can you be so +certain that you are free from all suspicion, however vague? Is there +not a lingering premonition—a premonition which warns of peril?"</p> + +<p>"No, Dad—no!" Arthur shot to his feet. "I don't believe it. I've never +believed it. I know, as any sane man would know, that you are neither a +vampire nor a murderer. You know it, too; and Cecilia knew it, only she +was mad.</p> + +<p>"That family rot is dispelled, Father. This is a civilized century. +Belief in vampirism is sheer lunacy. Wh-why, it's too absurd even to +think about!"</p> + +<p>"You have the enthusiasm of youth," said his father, in a rather tired +voice. "But have you not heard the legend?"</p> + +<p>Arthur stepped back instinctively. He moistened his lips, for their +dryness might crack them. "The—legend?"</p> + +<p>He said the word in a curious hush of awed softness, as he had heard his +Aunt Cecilia say it many times before.</p> + +<p>"That awful legend that you——"</p> + +<p>"That I <i>eat</i> my children?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, God, Father!" Arthur went to his knees as a cry burst through his +lips. "Dad, that—that's ghastly! We must forget Cecilia's ravings."</p> + +<p>"You are affected, then?" asked Doctor Duryea bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Affected? Certainly I'm affected, but only as I should be at such an +accusation. Cecilia was mad, I tell you. Those books she showed me years +ago, and those folk-tales of vampires and ghouls—they burned into my +infantile mind like acid. They haunted me day and night in my youth, and +caused me to hate you worse than death itself.</p> + +<p>"But in Heaven's name, Father, I've outgrown those things as I have +outgrown my clothes. I'm a man now; do you understand that? A man, with +a man's sense of logic."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand." Henry Duryea threw his cigar into the fireplace, +and placed a hand on his son's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"We shall forget Cecilia," he said. "As I told you in my letter, I have +rented a lodge in Maine where we can go to be alone for the rest of the +summer. We'll get in some fishing and hiking and perhaps some hunting. +But first, Arthur, I must be sure in my own mind that you are sure in +yours. I must be sure you won't bar your door against me at night, and +sleep with a loaded revolver at your elbow. I must be sure that you're +not afraid of going up there alone with me, and dying——"</p> + +<p>His voice ended abruptly, as if an age-long dread had taken hold of it. +His son's face was waxen, with sweat standing out like pearls on his +brow. He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with questions which his +lips could not put into words. His own hand touched his father's, and +tightened over it.</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea drew his hand away.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes looked straight over Arthur's lowered +head. "This thing must be thrashed out now. I believe you when you say +that you discredit Cecilia's stories, but for a sake greater than sanity +I must tell you the truth behind the legend—and believe me, Arthur; +there is a truth!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He climbed to his feet and walked to the window which looked out over +the street below. For a moment he gazed into space, silent. Then he +turned and looked down at his son.</p> + +<p>"You have heard only your aunt's version of the legend, Arthur. +Doubtless it was warped into a thing far more hideous than it actually +was—if that is possible! Doubtless she spoke to you of the +Inquisitorial stake in Carcassonne where one of my ancestors perished. +Also she may have mentioned that book, <i>Vampyrs</i>, which a former Duryea +is supposed to have written. Then certainly she told you about your two +younger brothers—my own poor, motherless children—who were sucked +bloodless in their cradles...."</p> + +<p>Arthur Duryea passed a hand across his aching eyes. Those words, so +often repeated by that witch of an aunt, stirred up the same visions +which had made his childhood nights sleepless with terror. He could +hardly bear to hear them again—and from the very man to whom they were +accredited.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Arthur," the elder Duryea went on quickly, his voice low with +the pain it gave him. "You must know that true basis to your aunt's +hatred. You must know of that curse—that curse of vampirism which is +supposed to have followed the Duryeas through five centuries of French +history, but which we can dispel as pure superstition, so often +connected with ancient families. But I must tell you that this part of +the legend is true:</p> + +<p>"Your two young brothers actually died in their cradles, bloodless. And +I stood trial in France for their murder, and my name was smirched +throughout all of Europe with such an inhuman damnation that it drove +your aunt and you to America, and has left me childless, hated, and +ostracized from society the world over.</p> + +<p>"I must tell you that on that terrible night in Duryea Castle I had been +working late on historic volumes of Crespet and Prinn, and on that +loathsome tome, <i>Vampyrs</i>. I must tell you of the soreness that was in +my throat and of the heaviness of the blood which coursed through my +veins.... And of that <i>presence</i>, which was neither man nor animal, but +which I knew was some place near me, yet neither within the castle nor +outside of it, and which was closer to me than my heart and more +terrible to me than the touch of the grave....</p> + +<p>"I was at the desk in my library, my head swimming in a delirium which +left me senseless until dawn. There were nightmares that frightened +me—frightened <i>me</i>, Arthur, a grown man who had dissected countless +cadavers in morgues and medical schools. I know that my tongue was +swollen in my mouth and that brine moistened my lips, and that a +rottenness pervaded my body like a fever.</p> + +<p>"I can make no recollection of sanity or of consciousness. That night +remains vivid, unforgettable, yet somehow completely in shadows. When I +had fallen asleep—if in God's name it <i>was</i> sleep—I was slumped across +my desk. But when I awoke in the morning I was lying face down on my +couch. So you see, Arthur, I <i>had</i> moved during that night, <i>and I had +never known it</i>!</p> + +<p>"What I'd done and where I'd gone during those dark hours will always +remain an impenetrable mystery. But I do know this. On the morrow I was +torn from my sleep by the shrieks of maids and butlers, and by that mad +wailing of your aunt. I stumbled through the open door of my study, and +in the nursery I saw those two babies there—lifeless, white and dry +like mummies, and with twin holes in their necks that were caked black +with their own blood....</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't blame you for your incredulousness, Arthur. I cannot +believe it yet myself, nor shall I ever believe it. The belief of it +would drive me to suicide; and still the doubting of it drives me mad +with horror.</p> + +<p>"All of France was doubtful, and even the savants who defended my name +at the trial found that they could not explain it nor disbelieve it. The +case was quieted by the Republic, for it might have shaken science to +its very foundation and split the pedestals of religion and logic. I was +released from the charge of murder; but the actual murder has hung about +me like a stench.</p> + +<p>"The coroners who examined those tiny cadavers found them both dry of +all their blood, but could find no blood on the floor of the nursery nor +in the cradles. Something from hell stalked the halls of Duryea that +night—and I should blow my brains out if I dared to think deeply of who +that was. You, too, my son, would have been dead and bloodless if you +hadn't been sleeping in a separate room with your door barred on the +inside.</p> + +<p>"You were a timid child, Arthur. You were only seven years old, but you +were filled with the folk-lore of those mad Lombards and the decadent +poetry of your aunt. On that same night, while I was some place between +heaven and hell, you, also, heard the padded footsteps on the stone +corridor and heard the tugging at your door handle, for in the morning +you complained of a chill and of terrible nightmares which frightened +you in your sleep.... I only thank God that your door was barred!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Henry Duryea's voice choked into a sob which brought the stinging tears +back into his eyes. He paused to wipe his face, and to dig his fingers +into his palm.</p> + +<p>"You understand, Arthur, that for twenty years, under my sworn oath at +the Palace of Justice, I could neither see you nor write to you. Twenty +years, my son, while all of that time you had grown to hate me and to +spit at my name. Not until your aunt's death have you called yourself a +Duryea.... And now you come to me at my bidding, and say you love me as +a son should love his father.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is God's forgiveness for everything. Now, at last, we shall +be together, and that terrible, unexplainable past will be buried for +ever...."</p> + +<p>He put his handkerchief back into his pocket and walked slowly to his +son. He dropped to one knee, and his hands gripped Arthur's arms.</p> + +<p>"My son, I can say no more to you. I have told you the truth as I alone +know it. I may be, by all accounts, some ghoulish creation of Satan on +earth. I may be a child-killer, a vampire, some morbidly diseased +specimen of <i>vrykolakas</i>—things which science cannot explain.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the dreaded legend of the Duryeas is true. Autiel Duryea was +convicted of murdering his brother in that same monstrous fashion in the +year 1576, and he died in flames at the stake. François Duryea, in 1802, +blew his head apart with a blunderbuss on the morning after his youngest +son was found dead, apparently from anemia. And there are others, of +whom I cannot bear to speak, that would chill your soul if you were to +hear them.</p> + +<p>"So you see, Arthur, there is a hellish tradition behind our family. +There is a heritage which no sane God would ever have allowed. The +future of the Duryeas lies in you, for you are the last of the race. I +pray with all of my heart that providence will permit you to live your +full share of years, and to leave other Duryeas behind you. And so if +ever again I feel that presence as I did in Duryea Castle, I am going to +die as François Duryea died, over a hundred years ago...."</p> + +<p>He stood up, and his son stood up at his side.</p> + +<p>"If you are willing to forget, Arthur, we shall go up to that lodge in +Maine. There is a life we've never known awaiting us. We must find that +life, and we must find the happiness which a curious fate snatched from +us on those Lombard sourlands, twenty years ago...."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>2</h2> + + +<p>Henry Duryea's tall stature, coupled with a slenderness of frame and a +sleekness of muscle, gave him an appearance that was unusually <i>gaunt</i>. +His son couldn't help but think of that word as he sat on the rustic +porch of the lodge, watching his father sunning himself at the lake's +edge.</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea had a kindliness in his face, at times an almost sublime +kindliness which great prophets often possess. But when his face was +partly in shadows, particularly about his brow, there was a frightening +tone which came into his features; for it was a tone of farness, of +mysticism and conjuration. Somehow, in the late evenings, he assumed the +unapproachable mantle of a dreamer and sat silently before the fire, his +mind ever off in unknown places.</p> + +<p>In that little lodge there was no electricity, and the glow of the oil +lamps played curious tricks with the human expression which frequently +resulted in something unhuman. It may have been the dusk of night, the +flickering of the lamps, but Arthur Duryea had certainly noticed how his +father's eyes had sunken further into his head, and how his cheeks were +tighter, and the outline of his teeth pressed into the skin about his +lips.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was nearing sundown on the second day of their stay at Timber Lake. +Six miles away the dirt road wound on toward Houtlon, near the Canadian +border. So it was lonely there, on a solitary little lake hemmed in +closely with dark evergreens and a sky which drooped low over +dusty-summited mountains.</p> + +<p>Within the lodge was a homy fireplace, and a glossy elk's-head which +peered out above the mantel. There were guns and fishing-tackle on the +walls, shelves of reliable American fiction—Mark Twain, Melville, +Stockton, and a well-worn edition of Bret Harte.</p> + +<p>A fully supplied kitchen and a wood stove furnished them with hearty +meals which were welcome after a whole day's tramp in the woods. On that +evening Henry Duryea prepared a select French stew out of every +available vegetable, and a can of soup. They ate well, then stretched +out before the fire for a smoke. They were outlining a trip to the +Orient together, when the back door blew open with a terrific bang, and +a wind swept into the lodge with a coldness which chilled them both.</p> + +<p>"A storm," Henry Duryea said, rising to his feet. "Sometimes they have +them up here, and they're pretty bad. The roof might leak over your +bedroom. Perhaps you'd like to sleep down here with me." His fingers +strayed playfully over his son's head as he went out into the kitchen to +bar the swinging door.</p> + +<p>Arthur's room was upstairs, next to a spare room filled with extra +furniture. He'd chosen it because he liked the altitude, and because the +only other bedroom was occupied....</p> + +<p>He went upstairs swiftly and silently. His roof didn't leak; it was +absurd even to think it might. It had been his father again, suggesting +that they sleep together. He had done it before, in a jesting, +whispering way—as if to challenge them both if they <i>dared</i> to sleep +together.</p> + +<p>Arthur came back downstairs dressed in his bath-robe and slippers. He +stood on the fifth stair, rubbing a two-day's growth of beard. "I think +I'll shave tonight," he said to his father. "May I use your razor?"</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea, draped in a black raincoat and with his face haloed in the +brim of a rain-hat, looked up from the hall. A frown glided obscurely +from his features. "Not at all, son. Sleeping upstairs?"</p> + +<p>Arthur nodded, and quickly said, "Are you—going out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm going to tie the boats up tighter. I'm afraid the lake will +rough it up a bit."</p> + +<p>Duryea jerked back the door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut, +and his footsteps sounded on the wood flooring of the porch.</p> + +<p>Arthur came slowly down the remaining steps. He saw his father's figure +pass across the dark rectangle of a window, saw the flash of lightning +that suddenly printed his grim silhouette against the glass.</p> + +<p>He sighed deeply, a sigh which burned in his throat; for his throat was +sore and aching. Then he went into the bedroom, found the razor lying in +plain view on a birch table-top.</p> + +<p>As he reached for it, his glance fell upon his father's open Gladstone +bag which rested at the foot of the bed. There was a book resting there, +half hidden by a gray flannel shirt. It was a narrow, yellow-bound book, +oddly out of place.</p> + +<p>Frowning, he bent down and lifted it from the bag. It was surprizingly +heavy in his hands, and he noticed a faintly sickening odor of decay +which drifted from it like a perfume. The title of the volume had been +thumbed away into an indecipherable blur of gold letters. But pasted +across the front cover was a white strip of paper, on which was +typewritten the word—INFANTIPHAGI.</p> + +<p>He flipped back the cover and ran his eyes over the title-page. The book +was printed in French—an early French—yet to him wholly +comprehensible. The publication date was 1580, in Caen.</p> + +<p>Breathlessly he turned back a second page, saw a chapter headed, +<i>Vampires</i>.</p> + +<p>He slumped to one elbow across the bed. His eyes were four inches from +those mildewed pages, his nostrils reeked with the stench of them.</p> + +<p>He skipped long paragraphs of pedantic jargon on theology, he scanned +brief accounts of strange, blood-eating monsters, <i>vrykolakes</i>, and +leprechauns. He read of Jeanne d'Arc, of Ludvig Prinn, and muttered +aloud the Latin snatches from <i>Episcopi</i>.</p> + +<p>He passed pages in quick succession, his fingers shaking with the fear +of it and his eyes hanging heavily in their sockets. He saw vague +reference to "Enoch," and saw the terrible drawings by an ancient +Dominican of Rome....</p> + +<p>Paragraph after paragraph he read: the horror-striking testimony of +Nider's <i>Ant-Hill</i>, the testimony of people who died shrieking at the +stake; the recitals of grave-tenders, of jurists and hang-men. Then +unexpectedly, among all of this monumental vestige, there appeared +before his eyes the name of—<i>Autiel Duryea</i>; and he stopped reading as +though invisibly struck.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Thunder clapped near the lodge and rattled the window-panes. The deep +rolling of bursting clouds echoed over the valley. But he heard none of +it. His eyes were on those two short sentences which his +father—someone—had underlined with dark red crayon.</p> + +<blockquote><p>... The execution, four years ago, of Autiel Duryea does not +end the Duryea controversy. Time alone can decide whether the +Demon has claimed that family from its beginning to its end.... </p></blockquote> + +<p>Arthur read on about the trial of Autiel Duryea before Veniti, the +Carcassonnean Inquisitor-General; read, with mounting horror, the +evidence which had sent that far-gone Duryea to the pillar—the evidence +of a bloodless corpse who had been Autiel Duryea's young brother.</p> + +<p>Unmindful now of the tremendous storm which had centered over Timber +Lake, unheeding the clatter of windows and the swish of pines on the +roof—even of his father who worked down at the lake's edge in a +drenching rain—Arthur fastened his glance to the blurred print of those +pages, sinking deeper and deeper into the garbled legends of a dark +age....</p> + +<p>On the last page of the chapter he again saw the name of his ancestor, +Autiel Duryea. He traced a shaking finger over the narrow lines of +words, and when he finished reading them he rolled sideways on the bed, +and from his lips came a sobbing, mumbling prayer.</p> + +<p>"God, oh God in Heaven protect me...."</p> + +<p>For he had read:</p> + +<blockquote><p>As in the case of Autiel Duryea we observe that this specimen +of <i>vrykolakas</i> preys only upon the blood in its own family. It +possesses none of the characteristics of the undead vampire, +being usually a living male person of otherwise normal +appearances, unsuspecting its inherent demonism.</p> + +<p>But this <i>vrykolakas</i> cannot act according to its demoniacal +possession unless it is in the presence of a second member of +the same family, who acts as a medium between the man and its +demon. This medium has none of the traits of the vampire, but +it senses the being of this creature (when the metamorphosis is +about to occur) by reason of intense pains in the head and +throat. Both the vampire and the medium undergo similar +reactions, involving nausea, nocturnal visions, and physical +disquietude.</p> + +<p>When these two outcasts are within a certain distance of each +other, the coalescence of inherent demonism is completed, and +the vampire is subject to its attacks, demanding blood for its +sustenance. No member of the family is safe at these times, for +the <i>vrykolakas</i>, acting in its true agency on earth, will +unerringly seek out the blood. In rare cases, where other +victims are unavailable, <i>the vampire will even take the blood +from the very medium which made it possible</i>.</p> + +<p>This vampire is born into certain aged families, and naught but +death can destroy it. It is not conscious of its blood-madness, +and acts only in a psychic state. The medium, also, is unaware +of its terrible rôle; and when these two are together, despite +any lapse of years, the fusion of inheritance is so violent +that no power known on earth can turn it back. </p></blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>3</h2> + + +<p>The lodge door slammed shut with a sudden, interrupting bang. The lock +grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor.</p> + +<p>Arthur shook himself from the bed. He had only time to fling that +haunting book into the Gladstone bag before he sensed his father +standing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"You—you're not shaving, Arthur." Duryea's words, spliced hesitantly, +were toneless. He glanced from the table-top to the Gladstone, and to +his son. He said nothing for a moment, his glance inscrutable. Then,</p> + +<p>"It's blowing up quite a storm outside."</p> + +<p>Arthur swallowed the first words which had come into his throat, nodded +quickly. "Yes, isn't it? Quite a storm." He met his father's gaze, his +face burning. "I—I don't think I'll shave, Dad. My head aches."</p> + +<p>Duryea came swiftly into the room and pinned Arthur's arms in his grasp. +"What do you mean—your head aches? How? Does your throat——"</p> + +<p>"No!" Arthur jerked himself away. He laughed. "It's that French stew of +yours! It's hit me in the stomach!" He stepped past his father and +started up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"The stew?" Duryea pivoted on his heel. "Possibly. I think I feel it +myself."</p> + +<p>Arthur stopped, his face suddenly white. "You—too?"</p> + +<p>The words were hardly audible. Their glances met—clashed like +dueling-swords.</p> + +<p>For ten seconds neither of them said a word or moved a muscle: Arthur, +from the stairs, looking down; his father below, gazing up at him. In +Henry Duryea the blood drained slowly from his face and left a purple +etching across the bridge of his nose and above his eyes. He looked like +a death's-head.</p> + +<p>Arthur winced at the sight and twisted his eyes away. He turned to go up +the remaining stairs.</p> + +<p>"Son!"</p> + +<p>He stopped again; his hand tightened on the banister.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dad?"</p> + +<p>Duryea put his foot on the first stair, "I want you to lock your door +tonight. The wind would keep it banging!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," breathed Arthur, and pushed up the stairs to his room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Doctor Duryea's hollow footsteps sounded in steady, unhesitant beats +across the floor of Timber Lake Lodge. Sometimes they stopped, and the +crackling hiss of a sulfur match took their place, then perhaps a +distended sigh, and, again, footsteps....</p> + +<p>Arthur crouched at the open door of his room. His head was cocked for +those noises from below. In his hands was a double-barrel shotgun of +violent gage.</p> + +<p>... thud ... thud ... thud....</p> + +<p>Then a pause, the clinking of a glass and the gurgling of liquid. The +sigh, the tread of his feet over the floor....</p> + +<p>"He's thirsty," Arthur thought—<i>Thirsty!</i></p> + +<p>Outside, the storm had grown into fury. Lightning zigzagged between the +mountains, filling the valley with weird phosphorescence. Thunder, like +drums, rolled incessantly.</p> + +<p>Within the lodge the heat of the fireplace piled the atmosphere thick +with stagnation. All the doors and windows were locked shut, the +oil-lamps glowed weakly—a pale, anemic light.</p> + +<p>Henry Duryea walked to the foot of the stairs and stood looking up.</p> + +<p>Arthur sensed his movements and ducked back into his room, the gun +gripped in his shaking fingers.</p> + +<p>Then Henry Duryea's footstep sounded on the first stair.</p> + +<p>Arthur slumped to one knee. He buckled a fist against his teeth as a +prayer tumbled through them.</p> + +<p>Duryea climbed a second step ... and another ... and still one more. On +the fourth stair he stopped.</p> + +<p>"Arthur!" His voice cut into the silence like the crack of a whip. +"Arthur! Will you come down here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dad." Bedraggled, his body hanging like cloth, young Duryea took +five steps to the landing.</p> + +<p>"We can't be zanies!" cried Henry Duryea. "My soul is sick with dread. +Tomorrow we're going back to New York. I'm going to get the first boat +to open sea.... Please come down here." He turned about and descended +the stairs to his room.</p> + +<p>Arthur choked back the words which had lumped in his mouth. Half dazed, +he followed....</p> + +<p>In the bedroom he saw his father stretched face-up along the bed. He saw +a pile of rope at his father's feet.</p> + +<p>"Tie me to the bedposts, Arthur," came the command. "Tie both my hands +and both my feet."</p> + +<p>Arthur stood gaping.</p> + +<p>"Do as I tell you!"</p> + +<p>"Dad, what hor——"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool! You read that book! You know what relation you are to +me! I'd always hoped it was Cecilia, but now I know it's you. I should +have known it on that night twenty years ago when you complained of a +headache and nightmares.... Quickly, my head rocks with pain. <i>Tie me!</i>"</p> + +<p>Speechless, his own pain piercing him with agony, Arthur fell to that +grisly task. Both hands he tied—and both feet ... tied them so firmly +to the iron posts that his father could not lift himself an inch off the +bed.</p> + +<p>Then he blew out the lamps, and without a further glance at that +Prometheus, he reascended the stairs to his room, and slammed and locked +his door behind him.</p> + +<p>He looked once at the breech of his gun, and set it against a chair by +his bed. He flung off his robe and slippers, and within five minutes he +was senseless in slumber.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>4</h2> + + +<p>He slept late, and when he awakened his muscles were as stiff as boards, +and the lingering visions of a nightmare clung before his eyes. He +pushed his way out of bed, stood dazedly on the floor.</p> + +<p>A dull, numbing cruciation circulated through his head. He felt +bloated ... coarse and running with internal mucus. His mouth was dry, +his gums sore and stinging.</p> + +<p>He tightened his hands as he lunged for the door. "Dad," he cried, and +he heard his voice breaking in his throat.</p> + +<p>Sunlight filtered through the window at the top of the stairs. The air +was hot and dry, and carried in it a mild odor of decay.</p> + +<p>Arthur suddenly drew back at that odor—drew back with a gasp of awful +fear. For he recognized it—that stench, the heaviness of his blood, the +rawness of his tongue and gums.... Age-long it seemed, yet rising like a +spirit in his memory. All of these things he had known and felt before.</p> + +<p>He leaned against the banister, and half slid, half stumbled down the +stairs....</p> + +<p>His father had died during the night. He lay like a waxen figure tied to +his bed, his face done up in knots.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"He lay like a waxen figure tied to his bed."</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Arthur stood dumbly at the foot of the bed for only a few seconds; then +he went back upstairs to his room.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately he emptied both barrels of the shotgun into his head.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The tragedy at Timber Lake was discovered accidentally three days later. +A party of fishermen, upon finding the two bodies, notified state +authorities, and an investigation was directly under way.</p> + +<p>Arthur Duryea had undoubtedly met death at his own hands. The condition +of his wounds, and the manner with which he held the lethal weapon, at +once foreclosed the suspicion of any foul play.</p> + +<p>But the death of Doctor Henry Duryea confronted the police with an +inexplicable mystery; for his trussed-up body, unscathed except for two +jagged holes over the jugular vein, <i>had been drained of all its blood</i>.</p> + +<p>The autopsy protocol of Henry Duryea laid death to "undetermined +causes," and it was not until the yellow tabloids commenced an +investigation into the Duryea family history that the incredible and +fantastic explanations were offered to the public.</p> + +<p>Obviously such talk was held in popular contempt; yet in view of the +controversial war which followed, the authorities considered it +expedient to consign both Duryeas to the crematory....</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Doom of the House of Duryea, by Earl Peirce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + +***** This file should be named 32710-h.htm or 32710-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/7/1/32710/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Doom of the House of Duryea + +Author: Earl Peirce + +Release Date: June 6, 2010 [EBook #32710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Doom of the House of Duryea + +By EARL PEIRCE, JR. + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October +1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _A powerful story of stark horror, and the dreadful thing +that happened in a lone house in the Maine woods._] + + +Arthur Duryea, a young, handsome man, came to meet his father for the +first time in twenty years. As he strode into the hotel lobby--long +strides which had the spring of elastic in them--idle eyes lifted to +appraise him, for he was an impressive figure, somehow grim with +exaltation. + +The desk clerk looked up with his habitual smile of expectation; +how-do-you-do-Mr.-so-and-so, and his fingers strayed to the green +fountain pen which stood in a holder on the desk. + +Arthur Duryea cleared his throat, but still his voice was clogged and +unsteady. To the clerk he said: + +"I'm looking for my father, Doctor Henry Duryea. I understand he is +registered here. He has recently arrived from Paris." + +The clerk lowered his glance to a list of names. "Doctor Duryea is in +suite 600, sixth floor." He looked up, his eyebrows arched +questioningly. "Are you staying too, sir, Mr. Duryea?" + +Arthur took the pen and scribbled his name rapidly. Without a further +word, neglecting even to get his key and own room number, he turned and +walked to the elevators. Not until he reached his father's suite on the +sixth floor did he make an audible noise, and this was a mere sigh which +fell from his lips like a prayer. + +The man who opened the door was unusually tall, his slender frame +clothed in tight-fitting black. He hardly dared to smile. His +clean-shaven face was pale, an almost livid whiteness against the +sparkle in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster. + +"Arthur!" The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly, +as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips. + +Arthur Duryea felt the kindliness of those eyes go through him, and then +he was in his father's embrace. + +Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they +closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held +out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held +the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame. +They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling. + +Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "This is the happiest +day of my life," he said. "You can never know how much I have longed for +this moment." + +Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he +had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had +been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair. + +"I--I don't know how to act," he confessed. "You surprize me, Dad. +You're so different from what I had expected." + +A cloud came over Doctor Duryea's features. "What _did_ you expect, +Arthur?" he demanded quickly. "An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted +jowls?" + +"Please, Dad--no!" Arthur's words clipped short. "I don't think I ever +really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. But I thought +you'd look older, more like a man who has really suffered." + +"I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again, +and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than +compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I +found an ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your +American game of football." + +"Then you've been following my work?" + +"Yes, Arthur; I've received monthly reports ever since you left me. From +my study in Paris I've been really close to you, working out your +problems as if they were my own. And now that the twenty years are +completed, the ban which kept us apart is lifted for ever. From now on, +son, we shall be the closest of companions--unless your Aunt Cecilia has +succeeded in her terrible mission." + + * * * * * + +The mention of that name caused an unfamiliar chill to come between the +two men. It stood for something, in each of them, which gnawed their +minds like a malignancy. But to the younger Duryea, in his intense +effort to forget the awful past, her name as well as her madness must be +forgotten. + +He had no wish to carry on this subject of conversation, for it betrayed +an internal weakness which he hated. With forced determination, and a +ludicrous lift of his eyebrows, he said, + +"Cecilia is dead, and her silly superstition is dead also. From now on, +Dad, we're going to enjoy life as we should. Bygones are really bygones +in this case." + +Doctor Duryea closed his eyes slowly, as though an exquisite pain had +gone through him. + +"Then you have no indignation?" he questioned. "You have none of your +aunt's hatred?" + +"Indignation? Hatred?" Arthur laughed aloud. "Ever since I was twelve +years old I have disbelieved Cecilia's stories. I have known that those +horrible things were impossible, that they belonged to the ancient +category of mythology and tradition. How, then, can I be indignant, and +how can I hate you? How can I do anything but recognize Cecilia for what +she was--a mean, frustrated woman, cursed with an insane grudge against +you and your family? I tell you, Dad, that nothing she has ever said can +possibly come between us again." + +Henry Duryea nodded his head. His lips were tight together, and the +muscles in his throat held back a cry. In that same soft tone of defense +he spoke further, doubting words. + +"Are you so sure of your subconscious mind, Arthur? Can you be so +certain that you are free from all suspicion, however vague? Is there +not a lingering premonition--a premonition which warns of peril?" + +"No, Dad--no!" Arthur shot to his feet. "I don't believe it. I've never +believed it. I know, as any sane man would know, that you are neither a +vampire nor a murderer. You know it, too; and Cecilia knew it, only she +was mad. + +"That family rot is dispelled, Father. This is a civilized century. +Belief in vampirism is sheer lunacy. Wh-why, it's too absurd even to +think about!" + +"You have the enthusiasm of youth," said his father, in a rather tired +voice. "But have you not heard the legend?" + +Arthur stepped back instinctively. He moistened his lips, for their +dryness might crack them. "The--legend?" + +He said the word in a curious hush of awed softness, as he had heard his +Aunt Cecilia say it many times before. + +"That awful legend that you----" + +"That I _eat_ my children?" + +"Oh, God, Father!" Arthur went to his knees as a cry burst through his +lips. "Dad, that--that's ghastly! We must forget Cecilia's ravings." + +"You are affected, then?" asked Doctor Duryea bitterly. + +"Affected? Certainly I'm affected, but only as I should be at such an +accusation. Cecilia was mad, I tell you. Those books she showed me years +ago, and those folk-tales of vampires and ghouls--they burned into my +infantile mind like acid. They haunted me day and night in my youth, and +caused me to hate you worse than death itself. + +"But in Heaven's name, Father, I've outgrown those things as I have +outgrown my clothes. I'm a man now; do you understand that? A man, with +a man's sense of logic." + +"Yes, I understand." Henry Duryea threw his cigar into the fireplace, +and placed a hand on his son's shoulder. + +"We shall forget Cecilia," he said. "As I told you in my letter, I have +rented a lodge in Maine where we can go to be alone for the rest of the +summer. We'll get in some fishing and hiking and perhaps some hunting. +But first, Arthur, I must be sure in my own mind that you are sure in +yours. I must be sure you won't bar your door against me at night, and +sleep with a loaded revolver at your elbow. I must be sure that you're +not afraid of going up there alone with me, and dying----" + +His voice ended abruptly, as if an age-long dread had taken hold of it. +His son's face was waxen, with sweat standing out like pearls on his +brow. He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with questions which his +lips could not put into words. His own hand touched his father's, and +tightened over it. + +Henry Duryea drew his hand away. + +"I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes looked straight over Arthur's lowered +head. "This thing must be thrashed out now. I believe you when you say +that you discredit Cecilia's stories, but for a sake greater than sanity +I must tell you the truth behind the legend--and believe me, Arthur; +there is a truth!" + + * * * * * + +He climbed to his feet and walked to the window which looked out over +the street below. For a moment he gazed into space, silent. Then he +turned and looked down at his son. + +"You have heard only your aunt's version of the legend, Arthur. +Doubtless it was warped into a thing far more hideous than it actually +was--if that is possible! Doubtless she spoke to you of the +Inquisitorial stake in Carcassonne where one of my ancestors perished. +Also she may have mentioned that book, _Vampyrs_, which a former Duryea +is supposed to have written. Then certainly she told you about your two +younger brothers--my own poor, motherless children--who were sucked +bloodless in their cradles...." + +Arthur Duryea passed a hand across his aching eyes. Those words, so +often repeated by that witch of an aunt, stirred up the same visions +which had made his childhood nights sleepless with terror. He could +hardly bear to hear them again--and from the very man to whom they were +accredited. + +"Listen, Arthur," the elder Duryea went on quickly, his voice low with +the pain it gave him. "You must know that true basis to your aunt's +hatred. You must know of that curse--that curse of vampirism which is +supposed to have followed the Duryeas through five centuries of French +history, but which we can dispel as pure superstition, so often +connected with ancient families. But I must tell you that this part of +the legend is true: + +"Your two young brothers actually died in their cradles, bloodless. And +I stood trial in France for their murder, and my name was smirched +throughout all of Europe with such an inhuman damnation that it drove +your aunt and you to America, and has left me childless, hated, and +ostracized from society the world over. + +"I must tell you that on that terrible night in Duryea Castle I had been +working late on historic volumes of Crespet and Prinn, and on that +loathsome tome, _Vampyrs_. I must tell you of the soreness that was in +my throat and of the heaviness of the blood which coursed through my +veins.... And of that _presence_, which was neither man nor animal, but +which I knew was some place near me, yet neither within the castle nor +outside of it, and which was closer to me than my heart and more +terrible to me than the touch of the grave.... + +"I was at the desk in my library, my head swimming in a delirium which +left me senseless until dawn. There were nightmares that frightened +me--frightened _me_, Arthur, a grown man who had dissected countless +cadavers in morgues and medical schools. I know that my tongue was +swollen in my mouth and that brine moistened my lips, and that a +rottenness pervaded my body like a fever. + +"I can make no recollection of sanity or of consciousness. That night +remains vivid, unforgettable, yet somehow completely in shadows. When I +had fallen asleep--if in God's name it _was_ sleep--I was slumped across +my desk. But when I awoke in the morning I was lying face down on my +couch. So you see, Arthur, I _had_ moved during that night, _and I had +never known it_! + +"What I'd done and where I'd gone during those dark hours will always +remain an impenetrable mystery. But I do know this. On the morrow I was +torn from my sleep by the shrieks of maids and butlers, and by that mad +wailing of your aunt. I stumbled through the open door of my study, and +in the nursery I saw those two babies there--lifeless, white and dry +like mummies, and with twin holes in their necks that were caked black +with their own blood.... + +"Oh, I don't blame you for your incredulousness, Arthur. I cannot +believe it yet myself, nor shall I ever believe it. The belief of it +would drive me to suicide; and still the doubting of it drives me mad +with horror. + +"All of France was doubtful, and even the savants who defended my name +at the trial found that they could not explain it nor disbelieve it. The +case was quieted by the Republic, for it might have shaken science to +its very foundation and split the pedestals of religion and logic. I was +released from the charge of murder; but the actual murder has hung about +me like a stench. + +"The coroners who examined those tiny cadavers found them both dry of +all their blood, but could find no blood on the floor of the nursery nor +in the cradles. Something from hell stalked the halls of Duryea that +night--and I should blow my brains out if I dared to think deeply of who +that was. You, too, my son, would have been dead and bloodless if you +hadn't been sleeping in a separate room with your door barred on the +inside. + +"You were a timid child, Arthur. You were only seven years old, but you +were filled with the folk-lore of those mad Lombards and the decadent +poetry of your aunt. On that same night, while I was some place between +heaven and hell, you, also, heard the padded footsteps on the stone +corridor and heard the tugging at your door handle, for in the morning +you complained of a chill and of terrible nightmares which frightened +you in your sleep.... I only thank God that your door was barred!" + + * * * * * + +Henry Duryea's voice choked into a sob which brought the stinging tears +back into his eyes. He paused to wipe his face, and to dig his fingers +into his palm. + +"You understand, Arthur, that for twenty years, under my sworn oath at +the Palace of Justice, I could neither see you nor write to you. Twenty +years, my son, while all of that time you had grown to hate me and to +spit at my name. Not until your aunt's death have you called yourself a +Duryea.... And now you come to me at my bidding, and say you love me as +a son should love his father. + +"Perhaps it is God's forgiveness for everything. Now, at last, we shall +be together, and that terrible, unexplainable past will be buried for +ever...." + +He put his handkerchief back into his pocket and walked slowly to his +son. He dropped to one knee, and his hands gripped Arthur's arms. + +"My son, I can say no more to you. I have told you the truth as I alone +know it. I may be, by all accounts, some ghoulish creation of Satan on +earth. I may be a child-killer, a vampire, some morbidly diseased +specimen of _vrykolakas_--things which science cannot explain. + +"Perhaps the dreaded legend of the Duryeas is true. Autiel Duryea was +convicted of murdering his brother in that same monstrous fashion in the +year 1576, and he died in flames at the stake. Francois Duryea, in 1802, +blew his head apart with a blunderbuss on the morning after his youngest +son was found dead, apparently from anemia. And there are others, of +whom I cannot bear to speak, that would chill your soul if you were to +hear them. + +"So you see, Arthur, there is a hellish tradition behind our family. +There is a heritage which no sane God would ever have allowed. The +future of the Duryeas lies in you, for you are the last of the race. I +pray with all of my heart that providence will permit you to live your +full share of years, and to leave other Duryeas behind you. And so if +ever again I feel that presence as I did in Duryea Castle, I am going to +die as Francois Duryea died, over a hundred years ago...." + +He stood up, and his son stood up at his side. + +"If you are willing to forget, Arthur, we shall go up to that lodge in +Maine. There is a life we've never known awaiting us. We must find that +life, and we must find the happiness which a curious fate snatched from +us on those Lombard sourlands, twenty years ago...." + + + + +2 + + +Henry Duryea's tall stature, coupled with a slenderness of frame and a +sleekness of muscle, gave him an appearance that was unusually _gaunt_. +His son couldn't help but think of that word as he sat on the rustic +porch of the lodge, watching his father sunning himself at the lake's +edge. + +Henry Duryea had a kindliness in his face, at times an almost sublime +kindliness which great prophets often possess. But when his face was +partly in shadows, particularly about his brow, there was a frightening +tone which came into his features; for it was a tone of farness, of +mysticism and conjuration. Somehow, in the late evenings, he assumed the +unapproachable mantle of a dreamer and sat silently before the fire, his +mind ever off in unknown places. + +In that little lodge there was no electricity, and the glow of the oil +lamps played curious tricks with the human expression which frequently +resulted in something unhuman. It may have been the dusk of night, the +flickering of the lamps, but Arthur Duryea had certainly noticed how his +father's eyes had sunken further into his head, and how his cheeks were +tighter, and the outline of his teeth pressed into the skin about his +lips. + + * * * * * + +It was nearing sundown on the second day of their stay at Timber Lake. +Six miles away the dirt road wound on toward Houtlon, near the Canadian +border. So it was lonely there, on a solitary little lake hemmed in +closely with dark evergreens and a sky which drooped low over +dusty-summited mountains. + +Within the lodge was a homy fireplace, and a glossy elk's-head which +peered out above the mantel. There were guns and fishing-tackle on the +walls, shelves of reliable American fiction--Mark Twain, Melville, +Stockton, and a well-worn edition of Bret Harte. + +A fully supplied kitchen and a wood stove furnished them with hearty +meals which were welcome after a whole day's tramp in the woods. On that +evening Henry Duryea prepared a select French stew out of every +available vegetable, and a can of soup. They ate well, then stretched +out before the fire for a smoke. They were outlining a trip to the +Orient together, when the back door blew open with a terrific bang, and +a wind swept into the lodge with a coldness which chilled them both. + +"A storm," Henry Duryea said, rising to his feet. "Sometimes they have +them up here, and they're pretty bad. The roof might leak over your +bedroom. Perhaps you'd like to sleep down here with me." His fingers +strayed playfully over his son's head as he went out into the kitchen to +bar the swinging door. + +Arthur's room was upstairs, next to a spare room filled with extra +furniture. He'd chosen it because he liked the altitude, and because the +only other bedroom was occupied.... + +He went upstairs swiftly and silently. His roof didn't leak; it was +absurd even to think it might. It had been his father again, suggesting +that they sleep together. He had done it before, in a jesting, +whispering way--as if to challenge them both if they _dared_ to sleep +together. + +Arthur came back downstairs dressed in his bath-robe and slippers. He +stood on the fifth stair, rubbing a two-day's growth of beard. "I think +I'll shave tonight," he said to his father. "May I use your razor?" + +Henry Duryea, draped in a black raincoat and with his face haloed in the +brim of a rain-hat, looked up from the hall. A frown glided obscurely +from his features. "Not at all, son. Sleeping upstairs?" + +Arthur nodded, and quickly said, "Are you--going out?" + +"Yes, I'm going to tie the boats up tighter. I'm afraid the lake will +rough it up a bit." + +Duryea jerked back the door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut, +and his footsteps sounded on the wood flooring of the porch. + +Arthur came slowly down the remaining steps. He saw his father's figure +pass across the dark rectangle of a window, saw the flash of lightning +that suddenly printed his grim silhouette against the glass. + +He sighed deeply, a sigh which burned in his throat; for his throat was +sore and aching. Then he went into the bedroom, found the razor lying in +plain view on a birch table-top. + +As he reached for it, his glance fell upon his father's open Gladstone +bag which rested at the foot of the bed. There was a book resting there, +half hidden by a gray flannel shirt. It was a narrow, yellow-bound book, +oddly out of place. + +Frowning, he bent down and lifted it from the bag. It was surprizingly +heavy in his hands, and he noticed a faintly sickening odor of decay +which drifted from it like a perfume. The title of the volume had been +thumbed away into an indecipherable blur of gold letters. But pasted +across the front cover was a white strip of paper, on which was +typewritten the word--INFANTIPHAGI. + +He flipped back the cover and ran his eyes over the title-page. The book +was printed in French--an early French--yet to him wholly +comprehensible. The publication date was 1580, in Caen. + +Breathlessly he turned back a second page, saw a chapter headed, +_Vampires_. + +He slumped to one elbow across the bed. His eyes were four inches from +those mildewed pages, his nostrils reeked with the stench of them. + +He skipped long paragraphs of pedantic jargon on theology, he scanned +brief accounts of strange, blood-eating monsters, _vrykolakes_, and +leprechauns. He read of Jeanne d'Arc, of Ludvig Prinn, and muttered +aloud the Latin snatches from _Episcopi_. + +He passed pages in quick succession, his fingers shaking with the fear +of it and his eyes hanging heavily in their sockets. He saw vague +reference to "Enoch," and saw the terrible drawings by an ancient +Dominican of Rome.... + +Paragraph after paragraph he read: the horror-striking testimony of +Nider's _Ant-Hill_, the testimony of people who died shrieking at the +stake; the recitals of grave-tenders, of jurists and hang-men. Then +unexpectedly, among all of this monumental vestige, there appeared +before his eyes the name of--_Autiel Duryea_; and he stopped reading as +though invisibly struck. + + * * * * * + +Thunder clapped near the lodge and rattled the window-panes. The deep +rolling of bursting clouds echoed over the valley. But he heard none of +it. His eyes were on those two short sentences which his +father--someone--had underlined with dark red crayon. + + ... The execution, four years ago, of Autiel Duryea does not + end the Duryea controversy. Time alone can decide whether the + Demon has claimed that family from its beginning to its end.... + +Arthur read on about the trial of Autiel Duryea before Veniti, the +Carcassonnean Inquisitor-General; read, with mounting horror, the +evidence which had sent that far-gone Duryea to the pillar--the evidence +of a bloodless corpse who had been Autiel Duryea's young brother. + +Unmindful now of the tremendous storm which had centered over Timber +Lake, unheeding the clatter of windows and the swish of pines on the +roof--even of his father who worked down at the lake's edge in a +drenching rain--Arthur fastened his glance to the blurred print of those +pages, sinking deeper and deeper into the garbled legends of a dark +age.... + +On the last page of the chapter he again saw the name of his ancestor, +Autiel Duryea. He traced a shaking finger over the narrow lines of +words, and when he finished reading them he rolled sideways on the bed, +and from his lips came a sobbing, mumbling prayer. + +"God, oh God in Heaven protect me...." + +For he had read: + + As in the case of Autiel Duryea we observe that this specimen + of _vrykolakas_ preys only upon the blood in its own family. It + possesses none of the characteristics of the undead vampire, + being usually a living male person of otherwise normal + appearances, unsuspecting its inherent demonism. + + But this _vrykolakas_ cannot act according to its demoniacal + possession unless it is in the presence of a second member of + the same family, who acts as a medium between the man and its + demon. This medium has none of the traits of the vampire, but + it senses the being of this creature (when the metamorphosis is + about to occur) by reason of intense pains in the head and + throat. Both the vampire and the medium undergo similar + reactions, involving nausea, nocturnal visions, and physical + disquietude. + + When these two outcasts are within a certain distance of each + other, the coalescence of inherent demonism is completed, and + the vampire is subject to its attacks, demanding blood for its + sustenance. No member of the family is safe at these times, for + the _vrykolakas_, acting in its true agency on earth, will + unerringly seek out the blood. In rare cases, where other + victims are unavailable, _the vampire will even take the blood + from the very medium which made it possible_. + + This vampire is born into certain aged families, and naught but + death can destroy it. It is not conscious of its blood-madness, + and acts only in a psychic state. The medium, also, is unaware + of its terrible role; and when these two are together, despite + any lapse of years, the fusion of inheritance is so violent + that no power known on earth can turn it back. + + + + +3 + + +The lodge door slammed shut with a sudden, interrupting bang. The lock +grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor. + +Arthur shook himself from the bed. He had only time to fling that +haunting book into the Gladstone bag before he sensed his father +standing in the doorway. + +"You--you're not shaving, Arthur." Duryea's words, spliced hesitantly, +were toneless. He glanced from the table-top to the Gladstone, and to +his son. He said nothing for a moment, his glance inscrutable. Then, + +"It's blowing up quite a storm outside." + +Arthur swallowed the first words which had come into his throat, nodded +quickly. "Yes, isn't it? Quite a storm." He met his father's gaze, his +face burning. "I--I don't think I'll shave, Dad. My head aches." + +Duryea came swiftly into the room and pinned Arthur's arms in his grasp. +"What do you mean--your head aches? How? Does your throat----" + +"No!" Arthur jerked himself away. He laughed. "It's that French stew of +yours! It's hit me in the stomach!" He stepped past his father and +started up the stairs. + +"The stew?" Duryea pivoted on his heel. "Possibly. I think I feel it +myself." + +Arthur stopped, his face suddenly white. "You--too?" + +The words were hardly audible. Their glances met--clashed like +dueling-swords. + +For ten seconds neither of them said a word or moved a muscle: Arthur, +from the stairs, looking down; his father below, gazing up at him. In +Henry Duryea the blood drained slowly from his face and left a purple +etching across the bridge of his nose and above his eyes. He looked like +a death's-head. + +Arthur winced at the sight and twisted his eyes away. He turned to go up +the remaining stairs. + +"Son!" + +He stopped again; his hand tightened on the banister. + +"Yes, Dad?" + +Duryea put his foot on the first stair, "I want you to lock your door +tonight. The wind would keep it banging!" + +"Yes," breathed Arthur, and pushed up the stairs to his room. + + * * * * * + +Doctor Duryea's hollow footsteps sounded in steady, unhesitant beats +across the floor of Timber Lake Lodge. Sometimes they stopped, and the +crackling hiss of a sulfur match took their place, then perhaps a +distended sigh, and, again, footsteps.... + +Arthur crouched at the open door of his room. His head was cocked for +those noises from below. In his hands was a double-barrel shotgun of +violent gage. + +... thud ... thud ... thud.... + +Then a pause, the clinking of a glass and the gurgling of liquid. The +sigh, the tread of his feet over the floor.... + +"He's thirsty," Arthur thought--_Thirsty!_ + +Outside, the storm had grown into fury. Lightning zigzagged between the +mountains, filling the valley with weird phosphorescence. Thunder, like +drums, rolled incessantly. + +Within the lodge the heat of the fireplace piled the atmosphere thick +with stagnation. All the doors and windows were locked shut, the +oil-lamps glowed weakly--a pale, anemic light. + +Henry Duryea walked to the foot of the stairs and stood looking up. + +Arthur sensed his movements and ducked back into his room, the gun +gripped in his shaking fingers. + +Then Henry Duryea's footstep sounded on the first stair. + +Arthur slumped to one knee. He buckled a fist against his teeth as a +prayer tumbled through them. + +Duryea climbed a second step ... and another ... and still one more. On +the fourth stair he stopped. + +"Arthur!" His voice cut into the silence like the crack of a whip. +"Arthur! Will you come down here?" + +"Yes, Dad." Bedraggled, his body hanging like cloth, young Duryea took +five steps to the landing. + +"We can't be zanies!" cried Henry Duryea. "My soul is sick with dread. +Tomorrow we're going back to New York. I'm going to get the first boat +to open sea.... Please come down here." He turned about and descended +the stairs to his room. + +Arthur choked back the words which had lumped in his mouth. Half dazed, +he followed.... + +In the bedroom he saw his father stretched face-up along the bed. He saw +a pile of rope at his father's feet. + +"Tie me to the bedposts, Arthur," came the command. "Tie both my hands +and both my feet." + +Arthur stood gaping. + +"Do as I tell you!" + +"Dad, what hor----" + +"Don't be a fool! You read that book! You know what relation you are to +me! I'd always hoped it was Cecilia, but now I know it's you. I should +have known it on that night twenty years ago when you complained of a +headache and nightmares.... Quickly, my head rocks with pain. _Tie me!_" + +Speechless, his own pain piercing him with agony, Arthur fell to that +grisly task. Both hands he tied--and both feet ... tied them so firmly +to the iron posts that his father could not lift himself an inch off the +bed. + +Then he blew out the lamps, and without a further glance at that +Prometheus, he reascended the stairs to his room, and slammed and locked +his door behind him. + +He looked once at the breech of his gun, and set it against a chair by +his bed. He flung off his robe and slippers, and within five minutes he +was senseless in slumber. + + + + +4 + + +He slept late, and when he awakened his muscles were as stiff as boards, +and the lingering visions of a nightmare clung before his eyes. He +pushed his way out of bed, stood dazedly on the floor. + +A dull, numbing cruciation circulated through his head. He felt +bloated ... coarse and running with internal mucus. His mouth was dry, +his gums sore and stinging. + +He tightened his hands as he lunged for the door. "Dad," he cried, and +he heard his voice breaking in his throat. + +Sunlight filtered through the window at the top of the stairs. The air +was hot and dry, and carried in it a mild odor of decay. + +Arthur suddenly drew back at that odor--drew back with a gasp of awful +fear. For he recognized it--that stench, the heaviness of his blood, the +rawness of his tongue and gums.... Age-long it seemed, yet rising like a +spirit in his memory. All of these things he had known and felt before. + +He leaned against the banister, and half slid, half stumbled down the +stairs.... + +His father had died during the night. He lay like a waxen figure tied to +his bed, his face done up in knots. + +[Illustration: "He lay like a waxen figure tied to his bed."] + +Arthur stood dumbly at the foot of the bed for only a few seconds; then +he went back upstairs to his room. + +Almost immediately he emptied both barrels of the shotgun into his head. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy at Timber Lake was discovered accidentally three days later. +A party of fishermen, upon finding the two bodies, notified state +authorities, and an investigation was directly under way. + +Arthur Duryea had undoubtedly met death at his own hands. The condition +of his wounds, and the manner with which he held the lethal weapon, at +once foreclosed the suspicion of any foul play. + +But the death of Doctor Henry Duryea confronted the police with an +inexplicable mystery; for his trussed-up body, unscathed except for two +jagged holes over the jugular vein, _had been drained of all its blood_. + +The autopsy protocol of Henry Duryea laid death to "undetermined +causes," and it was not until the yellow tabloids commenced an +investigation into the Duryea family history that the incredible and +fantastic explanations were offered to the public. + +Obviously such talk was held in popular contempt; yet in view of the +controversial war which followed, the authorities considered it +expedient to consign both Duryeas to the crematory.... + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Doom of the House of Duryea, by Earl Peirce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA *** + +***** This file should be named 32710.txt or 32710.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/7/1/32710/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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