Free Collected Stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes Page A

burst upon him like a blast of light. The terror inspired by approaching footsteps, the heart-stopping, exciting horror of wondering what would come in through the great French windows, the craving for a new experience, even if fulfillment meant madness or worse.
    They ate in the kitchen, two young, beautiful people, as modem as Carnaby Street. He tall, lean, dark; she petite, blonde, blue-eyed. His dark, clever eyes watched her, and he smiled often.
    That night they retired to bed early, and long after Rosemary had fallen asleep he lay thinking about the room behind the door.
    “It does not exist,” he told himself, “maybe it did long ago, but not now. A bulldozer flattened the house, and only the blue room door remains. A flat piece of polished wood.”
    There was comfort in that thought, and presently sleep closed his eyes with soft fingers, and for a while he was at rest.
     ***
    The room had not altered, the log fire still spluttered, the chairs were in the same position as on his last visit, and the blue journal lay upon the desk. William found he was dressed in his pajamas and his feet were bare.
    “I must have sleepwalked,” he whispered, “but now I am wide awake. This is not a dream.”
    He walked over to the door, opened it and stared into the gloom; a few yards away the outline of his desk shimmered softly, the door of his study was open, beyond was darkness. William closed the door, crossed the blue carpet and flattened his nose against the French windows. Back in his own world it was night, out in the garden it was sunset; long shadows lay across the smooth lawn, the trees were giant sentinels rearing up against the evening sky, and although it all looked beautiful and peaceful, there was something eerie about the scene. Suddenly William knew why. Nothing moved. There were no birds, the leaves did not stir, the flowers stood upright; it was as though he were looking at a three-dimensional picture.
    He shivered, then turned and walked over to the desk. The blue journal lay waiting, and he fingered the soft velvet cover before sitting down, then with a strange reluctance opened the book. Crisp parchment, about fifty pages he estimated, bound together; the first one was blank, serving as a fly-leaf. He turned it slowly, then read the clear, beautiful copperplate inscription:
    AN EXPERIMENT IN DARKNESS
     BY
     SIR MICHAEL SINCLAIR, BART.
     of the county of Kent, Lord of the Manor of Clavering, written in this the twenty-second year of the reign of his gracious majesty, King Charles the Second.
     It took a great effort of will to turn the title page, for the room seemed suddenly to have become very cold, and the dying sun sent its last shafts of light through the window, making the shadows scurry like so many disturbed mice. But he had to read on; the page went over with a disturbingly loud crackling sound.
    PART 1.
     INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE ENTRAPMENT OF THE UNBORN.
     Having kept myself aloof from the troubles of the preceding reign, I have devoted these many years to the pursuit of that knowledge which fools call evil, and from which, even those men that are dubbed wise, cover their faces, even as the night hides from the rising sun.
    To say that the knowledge I have confined to these pages is the unadulterated fruit of my own labors would not be true for I have been helped by the old masters, such as Astaste and his Book of Forbidden Knowledge , Conrad von Leininstein with his invaluable Transformation of Living Matter Through Quickening Time , and many others. But I have gone beyond them, have made myself as a seething-pot, created an essence of bubbling truth such as no man has yet conceived.
    Men avert their eyes rather than meet my glance, for I wear my knowledge about me like a cloak; they whisper about me in corners, and there is much talk of witchcraft, and were I not who I am, I might fear the stake.
    I prepared me the room after many years and the expense of much blood, and the damnation of my