After a while she began to twitch. Small noises came from her throat and her eyelids edged open.
“Come on, we’ll go downstairs,” he murmured jerkily, trying to draw her up. “You’re feeling bad.”
“I’m terribly dizzy,” she whispered. “I must have fainted, I didn’t eat enough. And then I’m so nervous lately, about the war and everything, I guess. Why, we’re on the roof! Did you bring me up here to get some air? Or did I come up without knowing it? I’m awfully foolish. I used to walk in my sleep, my mother said.”
As he helped her down the stairs, she turned and looked at him. “Why, Mr Wran,” she said, faintly, “you’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead. Here, let me get it off for you.” Weakly she rubbed at it with her handkerchief. She started to away again and he steadied her.
“No, I’ll be all right,” she said. “Only I feel cold. What happened, Mr Wran? Did I have some sort of fainting spell?”
He told her it was something like that.
Later, riding home in the empty elevated railway car, he wondered how long he would be safe from the thing. It was a purely practical problem. He had no way of knowing, but instinct told him he had satisfied the brute for some time. Would it want more when it came again? Time enough to answer that question when it arose. It might be hard, he realized, to keep out of an insane asylum. With Helen and Ronny to protect, as well as himself, he would have to be careful and tightlipped. He began to speculate as to how many other men and women had seen the thing or things like it.
The elevated slowed and lurched in a familiar fashion. He looked at the roofs near the curve. They seemed very ordinary, as if what made them impressive had gone away for a while.
The Ghost
A. E. Van Vogt
Location: Agan, Gatineau Hills, Ottawa.
Time: August, 1942.
Eyewitness Description: “Was this alien creature a mind reader as well as a seer and ghost? An old, worn-out brain that had taken on automaton qualities and reacted almost entirely to thoughts that trickled in from other minds . . .”
Author: Alfred Elton Van Vogt (1912–2000) was among the group of young writers in the Thirties who transformed fantasy and science fiction into a new “Golden Age” of imaginative writing – “the literature of ideas”, as it has been described. Born in Canada, Van Vogt moved to America where, with other authors like Fritz Leiber and Ray Bradbury, he used his talents to explore new avenues of supernaturalism. His novels cut new pathways with their variety from Slan (1940), featuring a small boy able to read minds, to The Weapon Shops of lsher (1942), about a retail chain store operating inter-dimensionally. With Asylum (1942), he offered an adroit new twist on the vampire theme. Van Vogt turned his attention to ghosts after reading An Experiment With Time by J. W. Dunne – originally written in 1927 and revised several times – in which the English engineer and author expounded his theories about the nature of time to justify his conviction that dreams are often precognitive. From this came the brilliantly complex “The Ghost” – which acknowledges Dunne – and it was introduced on first publication in the August 1942 Unknown Worlds by editor John W. Campbell as, “One of the most unusual tales of haunting and ghosts we’ve read – and one that might explain what ghosts really are.”
“Four miles,” Kent thought, “four miles from the main-line town of Kempster to the railwayless village of Agan.” At least, he remembered that much.
He remembered the hill, too, and the farm at the foot of it. Only it hadn’t been deserted when he saw it last.
He stared at the place as the hotel car edged down the long hill. The buildings showed with a curious, stark bleakness. All the visible windows of the farmhouse itself were boarded up. And great planks had been nailed across the barn door.
The yard was a wilderness of weeds and – Kent experienced an odd sense of shock – the tall, dignified old man who emerged abruptly from behind the house, seemed as out of place in that desolate yard as . . . as life itself.
Kent was aware of the driver leaning toward him, heard him say above the roar of the ancient engine:
“I was wondering if we’d see the ghost, as we passed; and yep, there he is, taking his morning walk.”
“The ghost!” Kent echoed.
It was as if he had spoken a key word. The sun burst brilliantly from behind an array of dark clouds and flooded the valley with warm light. The blaze of it illuminated the drab old buildings – and wrought changes. The over-all grayness of the house showed in that bright illumination as a faded green.
The old man walked slowly toward the gate that led to the main highway. Nearer now, he seemed taller, thinner, a gaunt caricature of a human being; his black frock coat glinted in the sun.
Kent found his voice. “Ghost!” he said again. “Why, that’s old Mr Wainwright. He doesn’t look a day older than when I left this part of the world fifteen years ago.”
The old, square-fronted car ground queasily to a stop before the farm gate. The driver turned. It struck Kent that the man was smugly enjoying the moment.
“See that gate?” the fellow asked. “Not the big one; the little one. It’s padlocked, eh?”
Kent nodded. “What about it?”
“Watch!”
The old man stood fumbling at the gate less than ten feet away. It was like gazing at a pantomime, Kent thought; for the man paid no attention to the padlock, but seemed absorbed with some simpler catch.
Abruptly, the patriarch straightened, and pushed at the gate. Kent had no real sense of alienness. Without having given the matter any thought, he believed it was the gate that was going to open, and that it was some unusual aspect of the opening that he had been admonished to watch.
The gate didn’t. It did not so much as stir; not a creak came from its rusty hinges. It remained solid, held in position by the uncompromising padlock.
The old man walked through it.
Through it! Then he turned, seemed to push at some invisible counterpart of the gate and, once again, stood there, as if manipulating a hidden catch.
Finally, apparently satisfied, he faced the car again; and, for the first time, saw it and its occupants. His long, finely wrinkled face lighted.
“Hello, there!” he said.
Kent hadn’t expected speech. The words caught him like a blow. He felt a chill; his mind whirled with a queer, twisting motion that momentarily wrecked the coherence of his thought. He half leaned, half fell back against the seat because his muscles wouldn’t support him.
“Ghost,” he thought finally, dizzily. Good heavens, what was going on here?
The world began to right itself. The land and the horizon straightened; and there was the house and the barn, an almost colorless, utterly lifeless background to the beanpole of an old, old man and the magic gate through which he had stepped.
“Hello!” Kent said shakily. “Hello!”
The old man came nearer, peered; and an expression of surprise flitted across his face. “Why, it’s Mr Kent. I thought you’d left the Agan Hotel.”
“Eh!” Kent began.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the driver make a sharp movement with one hand. The man whispered hastily:
“Don’t act surprised at anything the ghost says. It confuses him.”
Ghost! There it was again. Kent swallowed hard. “Am I mad?” he thought. “The last time I saw this old fellow was when I was twenty. He didn’t know my name then. How—”