And now Buttrick himself had been drawn into the Cullum horror. He had sworn to aid in the destruction of the thing which might still bear within it a spark of humanity, despite Cullum’s heated denials and the mystery of its parentage. Vicious, instinctively homicidal, yes; but was this enough, he asked himself, enough cause to betray a greater oath—that one which bound Nathan Buttrick to use his skills only for the preservation of life? It was a quandary, and the man writhed under the weight of his contradictory obligations.
The doctor had thus lain staring at the slowly rising patch of moonlight on his wall for three hours, when the telephone beside his bed rang. With a sudden clairvoyance Buttrick knew that this was no ordinary call summoning him to the sickbed of a villager. He swung out of the bed and snatched the earpiece from the hook. The voice of Laurence Cullum dinned in his ear.
“Nathan, come quickly, man. We can’t hold it. It’s breaking out of the Crib!”
Over Cullum’s voice came the sound of splintering wood and a ravening ululation such as never sprang from human throat. The telephone crashed to the floor as Buttrick leapt to struggle into his clothes. He vaulted across the yard to the barn, scarce feeling the bite of the early hoarfrost. With frantic speed he harnessed the team and urged them out of their warm quarters into the chill darkness of the road where the moon hardly penetrated the roof of overhanging trees.
Five minutes after the call, the wild-eyed horses lunged through the shadows of Penaubsket Bridge onto the gravel of Windham Road. Although the doctor was a good master to his animals, now he whipped them cruelly. He called the two mares by name, hurling imprecations foreign to his lips in an effort to gain more speed. Black masses of maple and oak lashed by, their sharp twig-ends striking blood from Buttrick’s face when the surrey veered too close to the road’s edge. Twice it seemed that all—horses, surrey, and driver—must surely fall to perdition, so headlong was their flight in rounding curves where granite outcroppings changed the road’s direction. If a goodman of the town had been abroad at that hour, he would have crossed himself in utter terror at the approach of the flying team and whipman.
It seemed an age to Buttrick, but at last the lights of Cullum House glimmered through the thickets ahead. At the stone pillars which marked the entrance to the estate the horses shied, nearly throwing the doctor from his seat. The whip cracked once, twice, but they would not enter. The team stood ready to bolt in the face of a terror which their senses could detect even at that far remove.
Cursing, Buttrick leapt down from the surrey and made for the house afoot. The rains of early autumn had washed innumerable gullies into the clay of the drive. Several times he stumbled, almost twisting an ankle beneath him. Over the sound of his labored breathing came a confusion of high-pitched cries. The nighthawks were swarming above the house in a dense cloud. Their mass eclipsed the light of the moon as they climbed to an apogee, plummeted suicidally toward the ground, then arced upwards. All about him the doctor heard the beat of their wings.
Nearing the great house Buttrick saw that the French doors which he had opened in another world, it seemed, were still ajar. The parlor within was lighted. Sobbing from his exertions he lurched onto the terrace and leaned against the door frame. “Laurence,” he cried. “Laurence, where are you?”
The doctor’s gaze slowly swept the room. The ottoman on which he had set his bag that afternoon lay on its side, the stuffing exposed through a long rent in the fabric. On the far wall the tapestry hung in folds from one of its corners. Beneath, the discolored area of the wall framed a gaping hole partially obstructed with shards of plaster and fang-like laths. By main force, the captive behind that wall had clawed and butted its way out of the Crib.
Buttrick stepped into the room, aghast at the wreckage of the once-sumptuous chamber. From behind an overturned sofa a moan broke the stillness, more like a sigh than an expression of pain. Cullum lay crumpled against the wall, hurled there by the inhuman force of the thing as it rushed from its confinement.
“Laurence! Are you all right, man?” cried the physician. There was a deep gash on Cullum’s brow.
“See—see to Amadee. In the hall. I—I’m afraid it caught him, Nathan.”
Buttrick found the Acadian halfway down the hallway which led to the steel door of the Crib. The Hell-Child had seized him at his middle, and dashed him fatally against the floor. Beside the dead servant lay the bullwhip, a puny weapon against a force of such unutterable malevolence.
The doctor returned quickly to attend Cullum. The shock of the events could prove dangerous to the aneurism. The weak spot of the brain artery might rupture from the slightest stress. But the heir indicated dazedly that he was unharmed except for the head wound.
“It went outside,” whispered Cullum. “I could hear it scrabbling about on the portico before you came. Thank God it’s stopped screaming. I could not bear that sound another minute.”
“Are there any firearms in the house?” asked Buttrick.
“Only an ancient pistol which failed me.” Cullum pointed to an old handgun lying at the middle of the floor. “I tried to fire at it as it came through the wall, but the mechanism was rusty from age. The beast flicked me off like a doll and went for Amadee, perhaps because he took so much pleasure in whipping it. But it will return to finish me, Nathan, because it has now matured, and needs its guardian no longer.” Cullum smiled weakly as a wistful expression fixed itself upon his pallid face. “If death is the price of freedom from that child of the Pit, then I shall pay it gladly,” he said.
Buttrick suddenly stiffened. Somewhere beyond the open doors of the entry-way he heard the sound of deep, animal respirations. A growl loosed itself from a savage throat.
“I must close and bar those doors,” the doctor muttered to himself, for Cullum had lapsed into an almost trance-like state. He grasped a heavy poker and walked carefully through the hall. “If it comes at me,” he thought, “I must slash at the eyes. The eyes.”
The main doors of the house stood thrown open to the night. Although it now rode the treetops, the moon illumined the steps up which Buttrick would have raced had he not entered through the French doors. The cries of the ominous birds had ceased. They roosted in the elms and oaks, as though awaiting a climactic event.
The doctor peered out onto the lawn, keeping well within the shadows of the entry-way. Nothing stirred. He stepped into the doorframe and quickly scanned right and left. Again there was only the wash of moonlight on the lawn and long-deserted walks. No sound was audible except an occasional chirrup from the trees.
Buttrick exhaled slowly. It seemed that the thing had run off, perhaps to Mohegan Swamp where it had claimed its first victim. This was work for a search party in the morning, not for a middle-aged physician unarmed except for a poker.
Wiping his brow against his sleeve, Buttrick stepped onto the portico beneath the massive jawbones. The moon caught the whiteness of the eccentric archway. He ran his palm along the ivory smoothness, grateful for a touch of cool solidity. Standing there for a moment, the man seemed to gain strength from the contact of his hand with the curving pillars of bone. On the steps of the mansion he took a final surveying glance over the grounds, unwilling to stray farther from the light. All was quiet. “We will run the beast to earth in the bogs come sunup,” he thought. “Surely it cannot escape us there.”