Haunted by their dark heritage, a medieval fateawaited them....
STRANGE
ALLIANCE
BY BRYCE WALTON
Doctor Spechaug stopped running, breathing deeplyand easily where he paused in the middle of the narrow windingroad. He glanced at his watch. Nine a.m. He wasvaguely perplexed because he did not react more emotionallyto the blood staining his slender hands.
It was fresh blood, though just beginning to coagulate; itwas dabbled over his brown serge suit, splotching the neatlystarched white cuffs of his shirt. His wife always did themup so nicely with the peasant's love for trivial detail.
He had always hated the silent ignorance of the peasantswho surrounded the little college where he taught psychology.He supposed that he had begun to hate his wife, too, when herealized, after taking her from a local barnyard and marryingher, that she could never be anything but a sloe-eyed, shufflingpeasant.
He walked on with brisk health down the narrow dirt roadthat led toward Glen Oaks. Elm trees lined the road. Themorning air was damp and cool. Dew kept the yellow dustsettled where spots of sunlight came through leaves andspeckled it. Birds darted freshly through thickly hung branches.
He had given perennial lectures on hysterical episodes.Now he realized that he was the victim of such an episode.He had lost a number of minutes from his own memory. Heremembered the yellow staring eyes of the breakfast eggs gazingup at him from a sea of grease. He remembered his wifescreaming—after that only blankness.
He stopped on a small bridge crossing Calvert's Creek, wipedthe blood carefully from his hands with a green silk handkerchief.He dropped the stained silk into the clear water.Silver flashes darted up, nibbled the cloth as it floated down.He watched it for a moment, then went on along the shadedroad.
This was his chance to escape from Glen Oaks. That waswhat he had wanted to do ever since he had come here fiveyears ago to teach. He had a good excuse now to get awayfrom the shambling peasants whom he hated and who returnedthe attitude wholeheartedly—the typical provincial's hatredof culture and learning.
Then he entered the damp, chilled shadows of the thickwood that separated his house from the college grounds. Itwas thick, dense, dark. One small corner of it seemed almostordinary, the rest was superstition haunted, mysterious andbrooding. This forest had provided Doctor Spechaug manyhours of escape.
He had attempted to introspect, but had never found satisfactorycauses for his having found himself running throughthese woods at night in his bare feet. Nor why he sometimeshated the sunlight.
He tensed in the dank shadows. Someone else was in thisforest with him. It did not disturb him. Whatever was herewas not alien to him or the forest. His eyes probed the mistthat slithered through the ancient mossy trees and hangingvines. He listened, looked, but found nothing. Birds chittered,but that was all. He sat down, his back against a spongytree trunk, fondled dark green moss.
As he sat there, he knew that he was waiting for someone.He shrugged. Mysticism was not even interesting to him, ordinarily.Still, though a behaviorist, he upheld certain instinctualmotivation theories. And, though reluctantly, hegranted Freud contributory significance. He could be an atavist,a victim of unconscious regression. Or a prey of someinsidious influence, some phenomena a rather childish sciencehad not yet become aware of. But it was of no importance.