sound as they plodded over the black, mouldy earth. Between the wind-stirred branches of tall, thick-boled trees they caught occasional glimpses of a moon that seemed to be swimming in a sea of blood.
The illusion chilled O’Rourke more than the huge, misshapen shadows which crouched at the base of the tombstones and slumbered on the neglected graves. He knew that it wasn’t the redness of approaching dawn which glimmered between the branches but that mysterious, inexplicable ruddiness which the sky sometimes assumes in the small hours when the moon is gibbous and the night wanes.
THEIR thoughts were sloping down into
terror-haunted depths when they arrived at the grave and halted before Simeon
Hodges’ coffin. The coffin was still standing beside the grave where they had left
it, but it was no longer open, and it was
no longer empty!
Protruding from one corner of the stained, pine-board casket was a pale, claw-like hand.
"God!” shrieked O’Rourke, his neckhairs rising in terror.
Limerick dropped his spade and took a swift step backwards. Slater and Cummings stood rooted, their eyse wide and staring.
The coffin was unevenly sprinkled with fresh earth. A crude mound had been built up on one side of it, and part of the heaped earth had spilled over on the closed lid.
O’Rourke was ghastly pale. "He—he must have crawled back himself,” he moaned.
Cummings’ hands had gone to his face as though to shut out the sight. Now they dropped to reveal a countenance of haggard concern.
"What in hell do you mean?”
"It’s as plain as the nose on your face. He clawed up all that earth and climbed back inside before he let the lid fall. He knew that the jar would scatter dirt on the coffin.”
It was an ingenious explanation, but Limerick didn’t like it. "Why should he do that,” he sneered.
"For protection after sunrise,” said O’Rourke. "An unburied vampire endures the most horrible torments. He’s buried now—symbolically.”
"It looks like a one-man job, all right,” muttered Slater, awe and terror in his voice.
Limerick wheeled on him.
"Don’t be a fool, Slats. This could have been the work of a dozen persons.”
"I’ll soon find out whether he’s a vampire or not,” muttered Cummings. "If he has blood-stains on his mouth—”
He was reaching for the coffin lid when O’Rourke grabbed his wrist. "Don’t raise that lid, Empty.”
Cummings straightened, his lips twitching. "Why—why not?”
"It’s dangerous to look at a vampire right after it has feasted. We’ve got to drive a wooden stake through the coffin, Empty. We’ve got to destroy him tonight. Summers says—”
"To hell with your bogey books,” rasped Limerick. "We’ll look at him and then we’ll bury him.”
"All right,” said O’Rourke. "Raise the lid then, Limerick. Go on, raise it.”
Limerick hesitated, bit his lips.
"Maybe we better just bury him,” Cummings said.
Limerick and O’Rourke grasped one end of the coffin and Cummings and Slater the other. They lowered it into the grave and covered it swiftly with earth. O’Rourke shuddered when a spadeful of dirt descended on the protruding hand, but he went right on shoveling.
The grave looked very well when they had finished with it. Not so O’Rourke. He stood for a moment leaning on his spade,
