A True Horror Tale pt 4 (finally)

The slain sheep, so mangled and rent - the fantastic butchery - the print of the naked foot - all were explained; and the chain, the broken link of which was found near the slaughtered animals - it came from his broken chain - the chain he had snapped, doubtless, in his escape from the asylum where his raging frenzy had been fettered and bound, in vain! in vain! Ah me! how had this grisly Samson broken mancles and prison bars - how had he eluded guardian and keeper and a hostile world, and come hither on his wild way, hunted like a beast of prey, too! Yes! through the tatters of his mean and ragged garb I could see the marks of the seventies, cruel and foolish, with which men in that time tried to tame the might of madness. The scourge - its marks were there; and the scars of the hard iron fetters, and many a cicatrice and welt, that told a dismal tale of hard usage. But now he was loose, free to play the brute - the baited, tortured brute that they had made him - now without the cage, and ready to gloat over the victims his strength should overpower. Horror! Horror! I was the prey - the victim - already in the tigers clutch; and a deadly sickness came over me, and the iron entered into my soul, and i longed to scream, and was dumb! I died a thousand deaths as that morning wore on. I dared not faint. But words cannot paint that I suffered as I waited - waited till the moment when he should open his eyes and be aware of my presence; for I was assured he new it not. He had entered the chamber as a lair, when weary and gorged with his horrid orgy; and he had flung himself down to sleep without a suspicion that he was not alone. Even his grasping my sleeve was doubtless an act done betwixt sleeping and waking, like his unconscious moans and laughter, in some frightful dream.

Hours went on; then I trembled as I thought that soon the house would be astir, that my maid would come to call me as usual, and awake that ghastly sleeper. And might he not have time to tear me, as he tore the sheep, before an aid could arrive? At last what I dreaded came to pass - a light footstep on the landing - there is a tap at the door. A pause succeeds, and then the tapping is renewed, and this time more loudly. Then the madman stratched his limbs, and uttered his moaning cry, and his eyes slowly opened - very slowly opened and met mine. The girl waited a while and then she knocked a third time. I trembled lest she should open the door unbidden - see that grim thing, and bring about the worst.

I saw the wondering suprise in his haggard, bloodshot eyes; I saw him stare at me half vacantly, then with a crafty yet wondering look; and then I saw the devil of murder begin to peep firth from those hideous eyes, and the lips part as in a sneer, and the wolfish teeth to bare themselves. But I was not what I had been. Fear gave me a new and desperate composure - a courage foreign to my nature. I had heard of the beast method of mangling the insane; I could but try, I did try. Calmly wondering at my own feigned calm, I fronted the glare of those terrible eyes. Steady and undaunted was my glare - motionless my attitude. I marveled at myself, but in that agony of sickening terror I was outwardly firm. They sink, they quail, abashed, those dreadful eyes, before the gaze of a helpless girl, and the shame that is never absent from insanity bears down the pride of strength, the bloody cravings of the wild beast. The lunatic moaned and drooped his shaggy head between his gaunt, squalid hands.

I lost not an instant. I rose and with one spring reached the door, tore it open and a shriek rushed through caught the wondering girl by the arm and crying to her to run for her life, rushed like the wind along the gallery, down the corrider down the stairs. Mary's screams filled the house as she fled beside me. I heard a long-drawn raging cry the roar of a wild animal mocked of its prey and i knew what was behind me. I never turned my head - i flew rather than ran. I was in the hall already; there was a rush of many feet and outcry of many voices a sound of scuffling feet and brutal yells, and oaths and heavy blows and I fell to the ground crying. "save me" and lay in a swoon. I awoke from a delirious trance. kind faces were around my bed, loving looks were bent on me by all, by my dear father and dear sisters; but I scarcely saw them before I swooned again.

When I recovered from my illness, through which I had been nursed so tenderly, the pitying looks I met made me tremble. I asked for a looking-glass. it ws long denied me, but my importunity prevailed at last - a mirror was brought. My youth was gone in one fell swoop. The glass showed me a livid and haggard face, blanched and bloodless as of one who sees a specter; and in the ashen lips, and wrinkled brows, and dim eyes, I could trace nothing of my old self. The hair too, jetty and rich before, was now as white as snow; and in one night the ravages of half a century had passed over my face. Nor have my nerves ever recovered their tone after that dire shock. Can you wonder that my life was blighted, that my lover shrank from me, so sad a wreck was I?

I am old now - old and alone. My sisters would have had me to live with them, but I chose not to sadden their genial homes with my phantom face and dead eyes. Reginald married another. He has been dead many years. I never ceased to pray for him, though he left me when I was bereft of all. The sad weird is nearly over now. I am old, and near the end, and wishful for it. I have not been bitter or hard, but I cannot bear to see many people, and am best alone. I try to do what good I can with the worthless wealth Lady Speldhurst left me, for, at my wish, my portion was shared between my sisters.

What need had I of inheritance? - I, the shattered wreck made by that one night of horror!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Finally

THE END



blackwidow

[Edited on 29-7-2003 by blackwidow666]