Nine Horrors and A Dream by Joseph Payne Brennan

Author:Joseph Payne Brennan [Brennan, Joseph Payne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1958-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

On the Elevator

The storm had been building up far out at sea since early morning; by evening the full fury of it broke against the beach fronts. Mountainous gray waves rushed up the slopes of sand, washed across the boardwalks and churned into streets which paralleled the shore. With the thundering waves came an icy rain and winds of gale velocity. As the evening wore on, the storm raged unabated. A number of the flimsier beach cottages collapsed under its impact and waves hammered at the foundations of even the sturdiest beach-front buildings. The screaming wind sounded as if it would never stop blowing. Torrents of rain mixed with sea water swirled far inland.

Somewhere at sea the violence of the storm had wrenched the rotted remains of a ship from its resting place in the ocean muck and now bits of the wreckage hurtled shoreward with the waves. Pieces of a broken spar, splintered deck timbers and brine-encrusted rags appeared along the beaches.

Whatever was, cast up, however, remained totally unseen, for there was no one foolhardy enough to prowl the shore while such a storm still raged.

At eleven o’clock that evening the night clerk on duty in the lobby of the Atlas Hotel on Ocean Street seated himself in front of the switchboard and picked up a novel.

The switchboard seldom buzzed, and, due to the 61 storm, most of the hotel guests had already gone up to their rooms. Except for the night clerk, the lobby was entirely deserted.

Outside, the cold, wind-driven rain, blown in from the open sea, beat steadily against the pavements along Ocean Street. A curtain of raindrops ran down the hotel’s plate-glass windows and at intervals a sudden savage gust of wind drove rain against the glass with a sound like water being hurled out of a bucket.

Occasionally, when the buffeting of wind was at its worst, the night clerk glanced up from his book, scowled briefly toward the darkened, storm-lashed street, and then settled back to his reading.

As he progressed past the introductory chapters of his novel, the book’s tempo began to quicken and his attention became almost completely absorbed. Even when the front door of the hotel was pushed open, he did not look up.

At length, however, the draught of chill, moisture-laden air blowing into the lobby compelled his attention. Lifting his eyes from the book, he saw that the front door was wide open.

Frowning with irritation, he laid his book aside, got up and started across the lobby to close the door.

At first he thought that an unusually fierce gust of wind had somehow blown the door open. As he closed it, however, he noticed a fresh series of irregularly-shaped muddy tracks which began just inside the door and continued into the lobby.

He had not seen anyone enter the lobby and now he glanced around with some curiosity.

For a moment he saw no one at all. Then he noticed someone standing at the far end, near the self-service elevator. The person was leaning

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