A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 65: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

u _ looks at me suspicious an’ I say; ‘Oh, yes, _ now I remember pap told me about that.’ _ An’ I’m afraid to ask much more on that one. _ “Task casual what other improvements _ there are, and he says they made a big _ -rockery. I ask what anybody wants making - arockery in a place where nature has been _ so free with rocks. He takes another drink _ an’ says, this is a different kind of rockery, an’, he says, mebbe it ain’t a rockery but _ acemetery, an’ that funny, scared look - comes on his face plainer than ever. _ “We have some more applejack an’ he ' tells me that his name is Ephraim Hop- kins, an’ he goes on to say about a month _ after the Frenchman moves in there’s a - couple of fishermen coming home when _ their kicker goes bad right off the point _ where the house stands. The Frenchman’s yacht has just dropped her anchor an’ _ She’s lightering a lot of men to the house - landing. The fishermen drift awhile an’ _ while they’re doing it, they figure more’n - ahundred men must have been landed. . “Well, he says, about a month after that a Beverly man named Jim Taylor is driv- _ ing along at night when his headlights _ pick up a feller staggering along the road. ' This man gives a yelp when he sees the lights, an’ tries to run but he falls down. _ Taylor gets out an’ sees he ain’t got noth- _ ing on but his underclothes an’ a pouch _ tied round his neck. He’s fainted. “Taylor picks him up an’ totes him to _ this Beverly House. They pour liquor in - him an’ he comes to, but he’s an Eyetalian _ who don’t speak much English, an’ he acts like he’s scared half to death, All he wants is to get some clothes an’ get away. An’ - he opens the pouch an’ shows money. _ They get out of him that he’s run off from _ this de Keradel place. Got to the water and ' swum till he figured he was past the wall, _ then come to land. He says he’s.a stone- - cutter an’ one of a big gang brought in on the boat. He says they’re putting up a big _ rockery there, cutting out stones an’ stand- _ ing ‘em up like giants’ tombstones all in _ circles round a house they’re building in the middle. Says these stones are twenty, thirty feet high—” IT felt something like a cold hand pass ~ McCann said “The Eyetalian won’t tell hat scared him. Just jabbers, and shiv- We “a ’ “ o : a ~~ . 3 ga = , P- CREEP, SHADOW! ers, an’ keeps crossing himself. They get he’s telling ’em the house in the middle of the stones is cursed. Tells ’em it’s the Devil’s house. They pour more liquor in him an’ he says the Devil is taking his toll. Says out of more’n a hundred men that come with him, half have died by stones falling on ’em. Says nobody knows where their bodies went afterwards. Says the gang was recruited from distant cities an’ nobody knew each other. Says about fifty more have since been brought in. Says only men without any families were hired. “Then all of a sudden he gives a screech an’ ducks an’ cover his head with hands an’ runs out the door an’ disappears be- fore anybody can foller. And two days after, says the old goat, they find him washed up on the shore about a mile away. “Well, it seems to me that by then the old goat gets the sudden idea what he’s been telling me ain’t selling talk for that place he’s picked out for me. Anyway, he shuts up and waggles his beard and con- siders me. So I say that every word he’s said only makes me more interested. Tell him there’s nothing I like better than a good mystery, an’ the more I hear him the more I yearn to settle right down close to © a real life one. We take another drink, an’ I say if he can only dig up some more stuff like he’s been telling me, I’m as good as sold. Also, I’m paying cash. Also, that to- morrow we'll go an’ take a look at this ranch he’s got in mind. I feel it’s better to let all this sink in, so we have another drink an’ I go to bed. I notice he’s looking at me darned peculiar as I go.” {ccs went on: “The next day— that’s Wednesday—he’s up bright an’ early, pert an’ panting. We pile into his bus an’ start out. After a bit he starts telling me about this feller that seen the dogs. ’Lias Barton, he calls him. He says ’Lias is more curious than ten old maids peeking out behind the curtains at a house with a bride just moved in. Says curiosity is like a disease with ’Lias. Says he’d pull out a plug in Hell for a look in, even if ~ he knew it’d squirt in his face. Well, ’"Lias gets brooding and brooding over this wall an’ what’s behind it. He’s been all over the old Partington place dozens of times an’ he knows darned well what comichbook