Weird Tales, Volume 1, Number 1, March 1923: The unique magazine

“What in heaven’s name did you do with it?” I demanded, excited now and pouring him an additional drink for fear caution might return to him.

“Took it through the bushes in back an’ slung it in the mud sink there! An’ suthin’ come up an’ drug it down!”

“A ’gator?”

“_Diable!_ How should I know? It was dark. I wouldn’t go close.” He shuddered, and the fingers which lifted his glass shook as with sudden chill. “Mebbe you’d of done it, huh? Not _me_, though! The young fellah tole me to sling it in, an’ I slung it.

“A couple times I come around in the light, but there wasn’t nuthin’ there you could see. Jes’ mud, an’ some water. Mebbe the thing didn’t come out in daytimes....”

“Perhaps not,” I agreed, straining every mental resource to imagine what Lee’s sinister pet could have been. “But you said something about _two hogs a day_? What did you mean by that? This paper, proof enough that you’re telling the truth so far, states that on the thirty-fifth day you were to throw forty pounds of meat--any kind--into the sink. Two hogs, even the piney-woods variety, weigh a lot more than forty pounds!”

“Them was after--after he come back!”

From this point onward, Rori’s tale became more and more enmeshed in the vagaries induced by bad liquor. His tongue thickened. I shall give his story without attempt to reproduce further verbal barbarities, or the occasional prodding I had to give in order to keep him from maundering into foolish jargon.

Lee had paid munificently. His only objection to the manner in which Rori had carried out his orders was that the orders themselves had been deficient. The pet, he said had grown enormously. It was hungry, ravenous. Lee himself had supplemented the fare with huge pails of scraps from the kitchen.

From that day Lee purchased from Rori whole sheep and hogs! The Cajan continued to bring the carcasses at nightfall, but no longer did Lee permit him to approach the pool. The young man appeared chronically excited now. He had a tremendous secret--one the extent of which even his father did not guess, and one which would astonish the world! Only a week or two more and he would spring it. First he would have to arrange certain data.

Then came the day when everyone disappeared from Dead House. Rori came around several times, but concluded that all of the occupants had folded tents and departed--doubtless taking their mysterious “pet” along. Only when he saw from a distance Joe, the octoroon servant, returning along the road on foot toward the Lodge, did his slow mental processes begin to ferment. That afternoon Rori visited the strange place for the next to last time.

He did not go to the Lodge itself--and there were reasons. While still some hundreds of yards away from the place a terrible, sustained screaming reached his ears! It was faint, yet unmistakably the voice of Joe! Throwing a pair of number two shells into the breech of his shotgun, Rori hurried on, taking his usual path through the brush at the back.

He saw--and as he told me even “shinny” drunkenness fled his chattering tones--Joe, the octoroon. Aye, he stood in the yard, far from the pool into which Rori had thrown the carcasses--_and Joe could not move_!

Rori failed to explain in full, but _something_, a slimy, amorphous something, which glistened in the sunlight, already had engulfed the man to his shoulders! Breath was cut off. Joe’s contorted face writhed with horror and beginning suffocation. One hand--all that was free of the rest of him!--beat feebly upon the rubbery, translucent thing that was engulfing his body!

Then Joe sank from sight....

_VII._

Five days of liquored indulgence passed before Rori, alone in his shaky cabin, convinced himself that he had seen a phantasy born of alcohol. He came back the last time--to find a high wall of brick surrounding the Lodge, and including the pool of mud into which he had thrown the meat!

While he hesitated, circling the place without discovering an opening--which he would not have dared to use, even had he found it--a crashing, tearing of timbers, and persistent sound of awesome destruction came from within. He swung himself into one of the oaks near the wall. And he was just in time to see the last supporting stanchions of the Lodge give way _outward_!

The whole structure came apart. The roof fell in--yet seemed to move after it had fallen! Logs of wall deserted retaining grasp of their spikes like layers of plywood in the grasp of the shearing machine!

That was all. Soddenly intoxicated now, Rori mumbled more phrases, giving me the idea that on another day when he became sober once more, he might add to his statements, but I--numbed to the soul--scarcely cared. If that which he related was true, what nightmare of madness must have been consummated here!

I could vision some things now which concerned Lee and Peggy, horrible things. Only remembrance of Elsie kept me faced forward in the search--for now it seemed almost that the handiwork of a madman must be preferred to what Rori claimed to have seen! What had been that sinister, translucent thing? That glistening thing which jumped upward about a man, smothering, engulfing?

Queerly enough, though such a theory as came most easily to mind now would have outraged reason in me if suggested concerning total strangers, I asked myself only what details of Rori’s revelation had been exaggerated by fright and fumes of liquor. And as I sat on the creaking bench in his cabin, staring unseeing as he lurched down to the floor, fumbling with a lock box of green tin which lay under his cot, and muttering, the answer to all my questions lay within reach!

* * * * *

It was not until next day, however, that I made the discovery. Heavy of heart I had reexamined the spot where the Lodge had stood, then made my way to the Cajan’s cabin again, seeking sober confirmation of what he had told me during intoxication.

In imagining that such a spree for Rori would be ended by a single night, however, I was mistaken. He lay sprawled almost as I had left him. Only two factors were changed. No “shinny” was left--and lying open, with its miscellaneous contents strewed about, was the tin box. Rori somehow had managed to open it with the tiny key still clutched in his hand.

Concern for his safety alone was what made me notice the box. It was a receptacle for small fishing tackle of the sort carried here and there by any sportsman. Tangles of Dowagiac minnows, spoon hooks ranging in size to silver-backed number eights; three reels still carrying line of different weights, spinners, casting plugs, wobblers, floating baits, were spilled out upon the rough plank flooring where they might snag Rori badly if he rolled. I gathered them, intending to save him an accident.

With the miscellaneous assortment in my hands, however, I stopped dead. Something had caught my eye--something lying flush with the bottom of the lock box! I stared, and then swiftly tossed the hooks and other impedimenta upon the table. What I had glimpsed there in the box was a loose-leaf notebook of the sort used for recording laboratory data! And Rori scarcely could read, let alone _write_!

Feverishly, a riot of recognition, surmise, hope and fear bubbling in my brain, I grabbed the book and threw it open. At once I knew that this was the end. The pages were scribbled in pencil, but the handwriting was that precise chirography I knew as belonging to John Corliss Cranmer, the scientist!

“_ ... Could he not have obeyed my instructions! Oh, God! This...._”

These were the words at top of the first page which met my eye.

Because knowledge of the circumstances, the relation of which I pried out of the reluctant Rori only some days later when I had him in Mobile as a police witness for the sake of my friend’s vindication, is necessary to understanding, I shall interpolate.

Rori had not told me everything. On his late visit to the vicinage of Dead House he saw more. A crouching figure, seated Turk fashion on top of the wall, appeared to be writing industriously. Rori recognized the man as Cranmer, yet did not hail him. He had no opportunity.

Just as the Cajan came near, Cranmer rose, thrust the notebook, which had rested across his knees, into the box. Then he turned, tossed outside the wall both the locked box and a ribbon to which was attached the key.

Then his arms raised toward heaven. For five seconds he seemed to invoke the mercy of Power beyond all of man’s scientific prying. And finally he leaped, _inside_ ...!

Rori did not climb to investigate. He knew that directly below this portion of wall lay the mud sink into which he had thrown the chunks of meat!

_VIII._

This is a true transcription of the statement I inscribed, telling the sequence of actual events at Dead House. The original of the statement now lies in the archives of the detective department.

Cranmer’s notebook, though written in a precise hand, yet betrayed the man’s insanity by incoherence and frequent repetitions. My statement has been accepted now, both by alienists and by detectives who had entertained different theories in respect to the case. It quashes the noisome hints and suspicions regarding three of the finest Americans who ever lived--and also one queer supposition dealing with supposed criminal tendencies in poor Joe, the octoroon.

John Corliss Cranmer _went_ insane for sufficient cause!

* * * * *

As readers of popular fiction know well, Lee Cranmer’s _forte_ was the writing of what is called--among fellows in the craft--the pseudo-scientific story. In plain words, this means a yarn, based upon solid fact in the field of astronomy, chemistry, anthropology or whatnot, which carries to logical conclusion unproved theories of men who devote their lives to searching out further nadirs of fact.

In certain fashion these men are allies of science. Often they visualize something which has not been imagined even by the best of men from whom they secure data, thus opening new horizons of possibility. In a large way Jules Verne was one of these men in his day; Lee Cranmer bade fair to carry on the work in worthy fashion--work taken up for a period by an Englishman named Wells, but abandoned for stories of a different--and, in my humble opinion, less absorbing--type.

Lee wrote three novels, all published, which dealt with such subjects--two of the three secured from his own father’s labors, and the other speculating upon the discovery and possible uses of interatomic energy. Upon John Corliss Cranmer’s return from Prague that fatal winter, the father informed Lee that a greater subject than any with which the young man had dealt, now could be tapped.

Cranmer, senior, had devised a way in which the limiting factors in protozoic life and _growth_, could be nullified; in time, and with cooperation of biologists who specialized upon _karyokinesis_ and embryology of higher forms, he hoped--to put the theory in pragmatic terms--to be able to grow swine the size of elephants, quail or woodcock with breasts from which a hundredweight of white meat could be cut away, and steers whose dehorned heads might butt at the third story of a skyscraper!

Such result would revolutionize the methods of food supply, of course. It also would hold out hope for all undersized specimens of humanity--provided only that if factors inhibiting growth could be deleted, some method of stopping gianthood also could be developed.

Cranmer the elder, through use of an undescribed (in the notebook) growth medium of which one constituent was _agar-agar_, and the use of radium emanations, had succeeded in bringing about apparently unrestricted growth in the paramœcium protozoan, certain of the vegetable growths (among which were bacteria), and in the amorphous cell of protoplasm known as the amœba--the last a single cell containing only neucleolus, neucleus, and a space known as the contractile vacuole which somehow aided in throwing off particles impossible to assimilate directly. This point may be remembered in respect to the piles of lumber left near the outside walls surrounding Dead House!

When Lee Cranmer and his wife came south to visit, John Corliss Cranmer showed his son an amœba--normally an organism visible under low-power microscope--which he had absolved from natural growth inhibitions. This amœba, a rubbery, amorphous mass of protoplasm, was of the size then of a large beef liver. It could have been held in two cupped hands, placed side by side.

“How large could it grow?” asked Lee, wide-eyed and interested.

“So far as I know,” answered the father, “there is _no_ limit--now! It might, if it got food enough, grow to be as big as the Masonic Temple!

“But take it out and kill it. Destroy the organism utterly--burning the fragment--else there is no telling what might happen. The amœba, as I have explained, reproduces by simple division. Any fragment remaining might be dangerous.”

Lee took the rubbery, translucent giant cell--but he did not obey orders. Instead of destroying it as his father had directed, Lee thought out a plan. Suppose he should grow this organism to tremendous size? Suppose, when the tale of his father’s accomplishment were spread, an amœba of many tons weight could be shown in evidence? Lee, of somewhat sensational cast of mind, determined instantly to keep secret the fact that he was not destroying the organism, but encouraging its further growth. Thought of possible peril never crossed his mind.

He arranged to have the thing fed--allowing for normal increase of size in an abnormal thing. It fooled him only in growing much more rapidly. When he came back from Cuba the amœba practically filled the whole of the mud sink hollow. He had to give it much greater supplies....

The giant cell came to absorb as much as two hogs in a single day. During daylight, while hunger still was appeased, it never emerged, however. That remained for the time that it could secure no more food near at hand to satisfy its ravenous and increasing appetite.

Only instinct for the sensational kept Lee from telling Peggy, his wife, all about the matter. Lee hoped to spring a _coup_ which would immortalize his father, and surprise his wife terrifically. Therefore, he kept his own counsel--and made bargains with the Cajan, Rori, who supplied food daily for the shapeless monster of the pool.

The tragedy itself came suddenly and unexpectedly. Peggy, feeding the two Gordon setters that Lee and she used for quail hunting, was in the Lodge yard before sunset. She romped alone, as Lee himself was dressing.

Of a sudden her screams cut the still air! Without her knowledge, ten-foot _pseudopods_--those flowing tentacles of protoplasm sent forth by the sinister occupant of the pool--slid out and around her putteed ankles.

For a moment she did not understand. Then, at first suspicion of the horrid truth, her cries rent the air. Lee, at that time struggling to lace a pair of high shoes, straightened, paled, and grabbed a revolver as he dashed out.

In another room a scientist, absorbed in his note-taking, glanced up, frowned, and then--recognizing the voice--shed his white gown and came out. He was too late to do aught but gasp with horror.

In the yard Peggy was half engulfed in a squamous, rubbery something which at first glance he could not analyze.

Lee, his boy, was fighting with the sticky folds, and slowly, surely, losing his own grip upon the earth!

_IX._

John Corliss Cranmer was by no means a coward. He stared, cried aloud, then ran indoors, seizing the first two weapons which came to hand--a shotgun and hunting knife which lay in sheath in a cartridged belt across a hook of the hall-tree. The knife was ten inches in length and razor keen.

Cranmer rushed out again. He saw an indecent fluid something--which as yet he had not had time to classify--lumping itself into a six-foot-high center before his very eyes! It looked like one of the micro-organisms he had studied! One grown to frightful dimensions. An amœba!

There, some minutes suffocated in the rubbery folds--yet still apparent beneath the glistening ooze of this monster--were two bodies.

They were dead. He knew it. Nevertheless he attacked the flowing, senseless monster with his knife. Shot would do no good. And he found that even the deep, terrific slashes made by his knife closed together in a moment and healed. The monster was invulnerable to ordinary attack!

A pair of _pseudopods_ sought out his ankles, attempting to bring him low. Both of these he severed--and escaped. Why did he try? He did not know. The two whom he had sought to rescue were dead, buried under folds of this horrid thing he knew to be his own discovery and fabrication.

Then it was that revulsion and insanity came upon him.

There ended the story of John Corliss Cranmer, save for one hastily scribbled paragraph--evidently written at the time Rori had seen him atop the wall.

May we not supply with assurance the intervening steps?

Cranmer was known to have purchased a whole pen of hogs a day or two following the tragedy. These animals never were seen again. During the time the wall was being constructed is it not reasonable to assume that he fed the giant organism within--to keep it quiet? His scientist brain must have visualized clearly the havoc and horror which could be wrought by the loathsome thing if it ever were driven by hunger to flow away from the Lodge and prey upon the countryside!

With the wall once in place, he evidently figured that starvation or some other means which he could supply would kill the thing. One of the means had been made by setting fire to several piles of the disgorged timbers; probably this had no effect whatever.

The amœba was to accomplish still more destruction. In the throes of hunger it threw its gigantic, formless strength against the house walls _from the inside_; then every edible morsel within was assimilated, the logs, rafters and other fragments being worked out through the contractile _vacuole_.

During some of its last struggles, undoubtedly, the side wall of brick was weakened--not to collapse, however, until the giant amœba no longer could take advantage of the breach.

In final death lassitude, the amœba stretched itself out in a thin layer over the ground. There it succumbed, though there is no means of estimating how long a time intervened.

The last paragraph in Cranmer’s notebook, scrawled so badly that it is possible some words I have not deciphered correctly, read as follows:

“_In my work I have found the means of creating a monster. The unnatural thing, in turn, has destroyed my work and those whom I held dear. It is in vain that I assure myself of innocence of spirit. Mine is the crime of presumption. Now, as expiation--worthless though that may be--I give myself...._”

It is better not to think of that last leap, and the struggle of an insane man in the grip of the dying monster.

[Illustration]

_Extraordinary, Unearthly Things Will Thrill and Amaze You In This Strange Story_

_The_ Thing _of a_ Thousand Shapes

_By_ OTIS ADELBERT KLINE

Uncle Jim was dead.

I could scarcely believe it, but the little yellow missive, which had just been handed to me by the Western Union messenger boy, left no room for doubt. It was short and convincing:

“_Come to Peoria at once. James Braddock dead of heart failure._

_Corbin & His. Attorneys._”

I should explain here that Uncle Jim, my mother’s brother, was my only living near relative. Having lost both father and mother in the Iroquois Theatre Fire at the age of twelve years, I should have been forced to abandon my plans for a high school and commercial education but for his noble generosity. In his home town he was believed to be comfortably well off, but I had learned not long since that it had meant a considerable sacrifice for him to furnish the fifteen hundred dollars a year to put me through high school and business college, and I was glad when the time came for me to find employment, and thus become independent of his bounty.