HEARTTHROB Read online

  Boris Karloff

  Presents

  More Tales Of The Frightened

  Text By Robert Lory

  HEARTTHROB

  The story of Duane Winsome

  I so detest pushy people, don't you? I mean the kind of people who just won't let you be alone, but who insist on forcing themselves upon you. Duane Winsome was such a person, but he learned his lesson. In any event, I think he did… he certainly should have... In the Los Angeles office building where Duane Winsome worked, he knew almost all of the young ladies by name, the pretty ones at least. He had dated most of them, not that they had willingly gone out with him. It was just that, well, he was that type of man. He simply wouldn't take no for an answer. He was a good-looking young man and intelligent too, but he did have one serious blind spot in his makeup. He simply could not comprehend that there was any woman on this earth, let alone Los Angeles, who would not want to spend an evening with one Duane Winsome.

  So it was with his usual arrogance that he carried his tray to a particular table in the building's ground-floor cafeteria and sat down uninvited across from the raven-haired young woman who seemed to be toying with her cup of black coffee. He was, of course, quick to introduce himself, and just as quick to observe aloud that he'd not seen her here before. She on her part merely said that she didn't work in the building. She just thought she'd try out the food here. Her eyes, however, communicated the fact that she wished Duane Winsome would take his tray and himself to some other table. Or they would have communicated that fact — to anyone other than Duane Winsome. On his part, he was eager for a date with this lovely — which she really was. It was only when she refused to accompany him that evening to, in order of mention, a movie, a stage show, a friend's party, a walk about town, and an evening at home — his — that he thought to ask the young lady why. Did she already have an engagement? Perhaps tomorrow night would be better?

  No, she told him. She had no engagement tonight, but — no — tomorrow night would be no better. It was her mother. Her voice tinkled like notes from a dainty silver bell as she told him: "I can go out with no one until Mother gives her approval, and for the tune being she has had her fill of my men friends."

  "But she has not met me!" Duane insisted, satisfying himself that it would be not much of a chore to set the girl's mother at ease. No doubt the old woman's interest was right in terms of some of the riff - raff who probably pushed themselves at her lovely daughter's feet. But he, after all, was Duane Winsome. The mother, as well as the daughter, would recognize his intrinsic qualities. Yet the girl seemed unsure. Nonetheless, he advanced his argument forcefully — with the fullness of his force, that is — and finally the girl could do little except stare open-mouthed at his power. He knew the moment when it came, knew that he'd be accompanying her home this evening. And after that... well, he would see about that.

  Indeed he would.

  When the taxi dropped them in front of the old wooden building in an ancient neighborhood which Duane never had ventured into before, he was surprised. "Privacy," the girl said softly. "Mother and I like privacy." Well, he thought to himself, this certainly was the place to get it. The buildings, all of them including the one, which they were now approaching, should have been condemned a long time ago. As she unlocked and opened the door, he noted that there seemed to be very little light in the interior. And the dust —

  "Ararg!" he said, startled as he stepped into the foyer and into the mass of cobwebs. The girl looked back at him, but said nothing. He shrugged, resigned to the filthy state of the housekeeping, and stepped after her. He did so for exactly six paces. Then he found he couldn't move. His legs and arms were so entwined by the gray-spun cobwebs that he could move neither forward nor backward. It was then the girl again turned and came toward him. Behind her was something Duane at first thought was her shadow. It wasn't. It evidenced movement of its own. Low to the ground it was a thing, which looked like the giant form of some shell one, might find at the beach. Well, it would have looked that way were it not for the six, long, thin, red-colored legs, which moved it forward. "Mother," the girl said by way of introduction.

  Well, you can imagine just how vigorously Duane Winsome fought against the strands, which held him. Alas, it was all to no avail. After he relaxed in a state of exhaustion, he looked up to see the gal's eyes shining bright before him.

  "As I said, Mother has had her fill of my men friends for the time being. Fortunately, you will keep..."

  It is in the remembered echoes of Duane Winsome's shrieking that I consider your invitation to dinner this evening — the invitation I have tried politely to decline but which now you have left me little alternative but to accept. I do accept it, but on one condition. That I am allowed to bring... someone... with me...

  BLOOD WILL TELL

  The story of Albert Winston

  You know, of course, that the majority of murders are crimes. Not of premeditation but of passion. But did you ever stop to think why? Think about it now. Think of yourself committing the conscious act of snuffing out the life of another human being — planning every step. Making sure that the execution was such that you would not be found out. And then performing with your own hands the execution itself. A decidedly grisly affair. One which not very many of us would be capable of. So it was with Albert Winston, who could not bring himself to murder his wife, but then went on to do so anyway... with maddening results...

  Albert and Cora Winston had been married for twenty-three years. It was a childless marriage, but not because they had planned it that way. They had in fact neither planned to have children nor planned not to have them. It was, to Albert Winston, symbolic of their entire span of years together. Nothing had been planned. Not the tedious clerical job at which he worked in spite of Cora's substantial inheritance. Not the huge dark house they lived in and which a goodly part of that inheritance had financed. Not even the gardens hi which Cora worked daily but hi such a disorganized way that, while the various flower plots looked satisfactory in themselves, the overall effect appeared visually disturbing. It was, in a way, quite... insane.

  That, at least, was how Albert Winston thought of the garden. Insane. And that is how he came to think of all aspects of his life with Cora. Oh, he didn't romanticize about having a woman who was more beautiful than the plain, bland Cora. No, he didn't do that at all. He recognized that he himself was as plain and bland as she was, perhaps even more so. Nonetheless, more and more, he felt the need to be free of her. She and everything about her, all of it was driving him insane. Yet, he knew he could not just pick up and leave her. Albert Winston was not imaginative enough even to dream of where he might go, what he might do. No, he would not leave his home, his town, and his job. Therefore, there was only one solution and that was that Cora must die. Very simple then. Albert would murder her.

  He planned very carefully, very methodically, but like Albert, very unimaginatively. He would dig a hole in the garden, lure Cora out there, and kill her with a meat cleaver. Then use the meat cleaver to chop up her body into little pieces, which would be buried in the garden. All of it was so simple. Albert Winston was certain it would work and that he would not be caught. There was only one problem. When the night came, when the very hour of the night came that he was to put his careful plan into action, he couldn't do it. He was outside in the garden, the spade dug into its first clump of soft dark soil, when he knew he couldn't go through with it. At that moment, perhaps, Albert's mind snapped. He could not murder, but he had to get away from his wife. He could not, would not move to another place. So to his mind there came but one solution. He would commit suicide.

  Again, Albert was most unimaginative. Right before the kitchen drawer from which he took the meat cleaver, which had been meant for Cora, he sliced his
left wrist. Because he blacked out before completing the job, he was not very thorough, and when Cora found him he still was alive. Plenty of time to get him to the hospital and to replace in his system the quantity of blood he had lost. He was back home in almost no time at all, no one even thinking that the mishap was anything other than an accident.

  He had failed at murder and he had failed at suicide. So Albert Winston resigned himself to his unbearable status quo. Which would have been the end of our story had not Cora confided to him one night something about the blood which had saved his life. It was about nine and they were in the garden. She had been using the spade, digging a hole much like the one Albert had planned to use for her grave when his thoughts were those of the murderous husband. Some kind of bush she was planting, one which required deep roots. And then she said the thing which sent Albert stalking silently back into the house.

  "The blood," she said. "The blood you received at the hospital. It was mine, you know. I wanted to do what I could to save you, and the doctor said I was of the same type."

  She had expected, perhaps, a word of thanks from Albert, but instead he was in a state of shock. And when he came out of the house...

  He had the cleaver with him. She screamed bloody murder, Cora Winston did, but Albert finished her off with slices the power of which amazed even nun. When the deed was done, it took him no time at all to cover her with earth. He even set in the two pieces of shrubbery that Cora had planned for the spot.

  Neighbors being what they are, the screams were reported to the authorities. Within the hour two policemen stood at Albert's door. He greeted them with a smile. The smile was not only the external expression on his face — no, he really felt good all over, deep inside. Of course, they wanted to check the house and the grounds as well. Naturally, Albert said they could do as they wished, also saying he had no idea where his wife was. She had said flatly she was leaving him. He was cordial and kind, the model of a good and cooperative citizen — even when they reached that place in the garden, the place where Cora lay buried. And then...

  The taller of the two policemen stared in wonder at the earth. "Blood," he said. "Fresh blood!" It was impossible! So thought Albert, but then he looked at the soil. There was fresh blood there. Yet he'd turned the earth so carefully. Then as the tall policeman called to the other to get a shovel, Albert saw it. He saw where the blood was coming from. His left wrist... it was dripping... dripping the blood which Cora had given him... dripping down to the place where Cora lay.

  An odd story? Albert Winston doesn't think so. Not that he places much value in what the police said in their report after they found Cora's body. They conjectured he'd cut himself accidentally on something on the way out to the garden. Just luck, Albert's bad luck, which the blood happened to drip where it did. And Albert's explanation? Perhaps he has one, but he's not telling. He's not telling anyone anything.

  He just sits there in his white-walled room, staring at nothing at all. There is, on Ms face, what might be a half smile. If that is what it is, perhaps it's there because, finally, Albert has escaped.

  THE FORBIDDEN PAGE

  The story of Charles Dell

  I so admire artists, don't you? The ability to look at a blank canvas and see something there which at that particular moment is but a mental image, and then, with deft strokes of brush and paint, to transfer the mental to the visual... Please, look up from that book you're holding for a moment to hear of another book. A book containing paintings, one of the pages of which —

  But I get ahead of myself. I should begin by telling you that Charles Dell was a bit of an artist himself. Not a very accomplished one, I must admit. But like many painters at his level of talent he liberally stole ideas from past artists. Thus by repainting their ideas he managed to keep himself just a bit beyond the state of poverty. For the people who buy paintings — even in sophisticated New York City where Charles painted and sold — are not always as knowledgeable about such things as they might be. Part of the reason, of course, was that Charles did not copy the works of well-known painters. No, he was much too smart for that. But the works of the obscure are not all that available for study, and thus Charles became a familiar haunt of the old and dusty used bookstores, which are found on Manhattan’s, lower half.

  It was a rainy day in September when Charles Dell noticed a store he'd never seen before, at least to his knowledge. It was, then, with a spirit of anticipation that he approached the narrow building and tried the door. For a moment he was under the impression that it was locked, but he was wrong. The door swung open easily, closing softly behind him as he entered. The long single room was hardly illuminated, the table upon table of books looking quite strange in their rows. It seemed as if there was no one in the place to assist him, but then that impression too was seen to be incorrect as, suddenly from somewhere behind Charles, a man with a gaunt face and wispy beard appeared. The man was smiling as if he recognized Charles, and indeed he did.

  "Ah, Mr. Dell," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "It is good of you to come." When Charles expressed surprise that the other man should know his name, the proprietor inclined his head. "You are an artist," he said. "I have seen much of your work. Much in the style of Claude Durham, I think." Charles Dell's heart almost stopped. Claude Durham — yes, his Claude Durham was a nineteenth-century watercolorist who had specialized in works, which bordered upon the grotesque. Charles's style for many paintings was much like that artist's. He had stolen liberally from every piece of Durham's work that he could find. Unfortunately, it had been more than two years since Charles had seen anything new at all by the long-dead artist.

  And then he heard the words, which thrilled him. The bookseller was saying that he had a special bound folio of Durham's work — a very limited edition, the man said. Would Mr. Dell like to see it? There was no question about it. It was in his hands but for a moment when Charles knew from the first two paintings in the folio that he'd seen none of this work before. His hands gripped the binding as if they were vises. He would own this folio, regardless of the price.

  As it happened, the price was far below what Charles had expected it to be. Curious, though, was the comment of the bookseller as he gave Charles his change. "For you, Mr. Dell," he said, "I have made a special price. I know that Claude Durham himself would want you to have this work." And then, a strange look coming over the man's face, he said something with a tone of warning, "Number 14, Mr. Dell. Do not under any circumstances look at that page."

  Charles, convinced that the man was mad, nonetheless assured him that he would do as warned. As he left the store, he saw that it still was raining, and, in order not to get his new possession wet, he hailed a taxi. Normally taxis were considered to be too expensive a mode of transportation for Charles, but today... well, the thing he had under his arm would put him in the money for some time to come. As he entered the rear of the cab, he was overjoyed to find that there were some forty pieces in the folio. Forty... counting that one he was warned against. Number 14, the bearded man had said. Number 14, Charles Dell thought to himself... that one must truly be a masterpiece. No sooner had he given the particulars of his address to the taxi driver than he opened the book and leafed through the first pages.

  Yes... yes... the same grotesque hand of Durham. The weird grays and greens, the wild blacks and blues, the blood-like reds. Page after page flipped over, and suddenly Charles realized he was looking down at Number 13, a curious picture of a fanged gargoyle chewing on what looked to be a human skull. His fingers trembled as they prepared to turn to the next page ... they trembled and stopped, as if of their own will they did not wish to perform the action. "Foolish!" Charles muttered to himself — and he turned the page.

  Odd... There seemed to be nothing on it. It seemed to be totally blank. No, that wasn't quite true. It was as if the painting were executed in a very watered-down brown ink, but it could be made out — barely — as he brought the page closer to his eyes. There was a face... a laughing
face. The face of... of the thin, bearded man in the bookstore! And below that face there was a single word, in darkening black Gothic letters. THIEF! Charles Dell screamed. He screamed once, twice, he screamed ever so much. But the taxi driver only heard the first cry, none of the others.

  The authorities were as puzzled as the driver who claimed that, one moment there was a man screaming in the rear of his cab, and the next there was no one. Nothing except the book of artwork the man had been carrying. If it hadn't been for that, there would have been nothing at all to substantiate the driver's wild tale. Of course, if the driver had bothered to leaf through the book... if he would have paused to give due attention to Number 14, he might have been ever more puzzled. He no doubt would have recognized the face of the man on that page... the man who seemed to be screaming for all he was worth...

  Yes it's true. Artists can be vindictive people. But I have found the same thing to be true of certain writers. That book you're holding now, for example... are you sure that you want to turn that next page?

  GRAINS OF DEATH

  The story of Frankie Ventura

  We've all heard about occupational stress. That's when the doctor peers at his little charts after your physical examination, peers and shakes his head a little, and advises you that you need a vacation. Get away from it all, all those pressures, go to some beach resort perhaps, lie in the sun and relax. If you don't, if you keep on the way you're going... well, doctors do have a way of sounding like funeral directors sometimes, don't they? And yet the cure they recommend sometimes is far worse than the ailment. Such was the case with Frankie Ventura, but of course Frankie's occupational stress was perhaps greater than yours or mine, due to the nature of his occupation.