BEWARE, THE USURPERS!
by GEOFF ST. REYNARD
Have you ever seen monsters stalking the
streets? Only if you're drunk, you say?—Don't
laugh—your best friend could be one of them!...
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I stopped the black Jaguar beside the crumbling stone balustradeand swung my legs out. The drive was deep in rotted leaves andlong-uncleared trash. Above me the ancient castle looked out acrossthe groves of oak and elm and chestnut to the silent moors, likethe veritable ghost of Old England itself: aloof, brooding, noble,withdrawn from this hectic modern age into its memories. Blind blankholes of windows stared over my head as I walked up the drive where ina more regal century the carriages of dukes and knights and princesof the blood must have rolled, the big horses of neighboring squiresmust have pawed impatiently before many a hunt, and lovers in satin andvelvet and cascading lace must have strolled and dallied a thousandthousand times.
As I was hauling open the heavy iron-banded door, my foot trod uponsomething that squashed unpleasantly. I bent down, and in the sickyellow moonlight saw a newly-dead rook, its eyes already pecked out. Ishivered, uncontrollably. Then I went in and pulled the door shut.
My electric torch stabbing the darkness before me, I crossed theempty hall and mounted the broad curving stairs. At the top I turnedand glanced downward; the great hall was patterned with moonlight,and although there was no furniture of any sort, the whole vast placeseemed to crawl and pulse with shapes of menace, of dead-yet-livingevil. I shook myself angrily. My nerves were rotten, my mind wasbursting with fear. That was the whole trouble—fear, fear and nerves.The only thing to do was act quickly.
I strode down the dank passageway, opened the third door on the left,went into the room and shut the door behind me.
Here the old stone walls were ashine with lights, the air was lessmusty and far less creepy. Six people were here, standing about orsitting on straight-backed chairs. They all turned to look at me.Nobody spoke. I nodded to each in turn.
There was an old army officer, leathered and permanently tanned bydecades of the dreadful Indian sun; he wore a short grizzled mustacheand a stern, rather stuffy expression. There was a man of about fiftywho could not have been anything but a physician, so scrubbed andcompetent he seemed. There was a youngish fellow with only one arm, andanother whose dark glasses sheltered sightless scar-pitted hollows.There was an antique of a man, poker-thin and poker-straight andpoker-hard, with a pale face and keen, faded blue eyes. And there wasa girl, who had sometimes been described as a summer sky, as a star,and as other things just as lovely and unbelievable.
"What ho," I said, with empty cheerfulness. "Sorry to be late. Let'sget at it."
"Will," said the doctor abruptly, "I forbid it. It's madness, it'scriminal lunacy."
"Sorry you feel that way, John. We've gone too far to stop here—andwe've been all through this a hundred times." I went to the table andsat down briskly in the vacant chair beside it. Truth to tell, everymuscle in my