Chapter XXX: The Monster

I stood frozen with horror; but as my brain cleared--awake at last to full rationality and consciousness--beneath the horror came a surging joy of the knowledge that at last Elza was near me. The scream was repeated; inactive no longer, I dashed the thicket branches apart with my arms and plunged forward through the darkness.

Ahead of me the thickets opened into a sort of clearing. I saw the sky, the stars--paling stars with the first flush of dawn overpowering them. I stood at the edge of an open space in the dim, flat-grey illumination of morning twilight.

Elza! She was there, standing near a huge isolated tree; Elza, pale, trembling, a hand pressed against her mouth in terror; disheveled, her garments dirty and torn with her wanderings through the forest.

A swift glimpse as momentarily I paused; a second or two only, but the scene was impressed upon my brain as actinic light upon a photo-screen. Close by Elza, partially behind her, I saw something small, no taller than Elza’s waist. A naked thing of sleek, glistening skin. The monstrosity of a human child; a bulging head, wavering upon a neck incapable of supporting it; a thick round body; twisted, misshapen limbs. A face ... human? It made my gorge rise with its gruesome suggestion of humanity. Nostrils--no nose; a mouth, lipless, but red like a curved gash with upturned corners to make the travesty of a grin; a triangle of watery eyes, goggling. Senselessly, it stood watching Elza with a dull, vacant curiosity. Not human, this thing! Yet monstrously repulsive in its hideous suggestion of an idiot child.

Elza was not facing it; my gaze instinctively followed hers to the tree. Crowning horror! The adult of this thing upon the ground hung swaying by a thick hand and arm from a low limb; hung, then dropped. Growling, mouthing as though it would try and form human words of menace, it picked itself up and shambled toward Elza.

I leaped for them. Elza seemed too terrified to run. The thing reached her, towered over her; seized her in its arms. She screamed--the agony of revolt and terror; but over her voice rose my own shout of rage, and abruptly the thing dropped her and turned to confront me. Snarling, glaring with its three hideous blood-shot eyes; waving its thick, bent arms.

I had no weapons save those with which nature had endowed me. The regret of that came as a fleeting thought; and then I crashed into the thing; my fist, passing its awkward guard, struck it full in the face. I sickened. Even in the heat of combat a nausea swept me. For no solid flesh and bone met my blow, like the shell of an egg, my fist crashed into and through its face.

Warm, sticky moisture ... a stench...

The thing had toppled backward, with me sprawling upon its bloated bulk. It struggled, writhed ... Its arms gripped me, its huge fingers clutched my throat ... I caught a glimpse of its smashed face ... so close, I turned away ... a face of yellow-white pulp...

My fist cracked and sank into its chest. I pounded, smashed; broke the shell of its distended body ... noisome ... the revulsion, the nausea of it all but overcame me.

At last the thing lay still; and from the wet, sticky foulness of it I rose and stood shuddering. Elza lay on the ground; but she had risen upon one elbow and I saw that she was unharmed save for the shock of terror through which she had passed--a mitigated shock with the knowledge now that I was with her, and that I too was uninjured.

The infant thing had vanished. I hastened forward.

“Elza! Elza, dear--”

Joy lighted her face.

“Jac!”

I would have lifted her up; but the consciousness of my own foulness--the yellow-white slime streaked with red which smeared my arms, splattered my clothing--gave me pause. In the growing light, beyond the clearing, I caught the silver sheen of water. Without a word I ran for it; a shimmering pool the existence of which no doubt had drawn these grewsome beings of the forest into its vicinity. To the cleansing water I ran, plunged in, purged myself of that horrible foulness which human senses could not endure.

When I returned, Elza was upon her feet. Recovered at last she flung herself into my arms. Impulsive; seeking protection as she clung to me; fear; the let-down of overwrought nerves as she stood and clung and sobbed upon my shoulder.

It was all of that; but oh! it was more than that as well. My Elza, raising her tear-stained face and kissing me. Murmuring, “Jac, I love you!” Murmuring her love: “Jac dear, you’re safe! I’ve wanted so long to be with you again--I’ve been so frightened--so frightened--”

Giving me back my kisses unreserved; holding me with eager arms ... Tarrano? The memory of him came to me. How foolish my fears, my jealousy! That man of genius ... conqueror of worlds...

But my Elza loved me!...