




                 _A Tale of Stark, Unreasoning Terror_

                      The Fearsome Touch of Death

                          By ROBERT E. HOWARD

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Weird Tales February 1930. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] As long as midnight cloaks the earth
      With shadows grim and stark,
    God save us from the Judas kiss
      Of a dead man in the dark. Old Adam Farrel lay dead in the house wherein he had lived alone for
the last twenty years. A silent, churlish recluse, in his life he had
known no friends, and only two men had watched his passing. Dr. Stein rose and glanced out the window into the gathering dusk. "You think you can spend the night here, then?" he asked his companion. This man, Falred by name, assented. "Yes, certainly. I guess it's up to me." "Rather a useless and primitive custom, sitting up with the dead,"
commented the doctor, preparing to depart, "but I suppose in common
decency we will have to bow to precedence. Maybe I can find some one
who'll come over here and help you with your vigil." Falred shrugged his shoulders. "I doubt it. Farrel wasn't liked--wasn't
known by many people. I scarcely knew him myself, but I don't mind
sitting up with the corpse." Dr. Stein was removing his rubber gloves, and Falred watched the
process with an interest that almost amounted to fascination. A
slight, involuntary shudder shook him at the memory of touching these
gloves--slick, cold, clammy things, like the touch of death. "You may get lonely tonight, if I don't find anyone," the doctor
remarked as he opened the door. "Not superstitious, are you?" Falred laughed. "Scarcely. To tell the truth, from what I hear of
Farrel's disposition, I'd rather be watching his corpse than have been
his guest in life." The door closed and Falred took up his vigil. He seated himself in the
only chair the room boasted, glanced casually at the formless, sheeted
bulk on the bed opposite him, and began to read by the light of the dim
lamp which stood on the rough table. Outside the darkness gathered swiftly, and finally Falred laid down
his magazine to rest his eyes. He looked again at the shape which had,
in life, been the form of Adam Farrel, wondering what quirk in the
human nature made the sight of a corpse not only so unpleasant, but
such an object of fear to many. Unthinking ignorance, seeing in dead
things a reminder of death to come, he decided lazily, and began idly
contemplating as to what life had held for this grim and crabbed old
man, who had neither relatives nor friends, and who had seldom left the
house wherein he had died. The usual tales of miser-hoarded wealth had
accumulated, but Falred felt so little interest in the whole matter
that it was not even necessary for him to overcome any temptation to
pry about the house for possible hidden treasure. He returned to his reading with a shrug. The task was more boresome
than he had thought for. After a while he was aware that every time he
looked up from his magazine and his eyes fell upon the bed with its
grim occupant, he started involuntarily as if he had, for an instant,
forgotten the presence of the dead man and was unpleasantly reminded
of the fact. The start was slight and instinctive, but he felt almost
angered at himself. He realized, for the first time, the utter and
deadening silence which enwrapped the house--a silence apparently
shared by the night, for no sound came through the window. Adam Farrel
had lived as far apart from his neighbors as possible, and there was no
other house within hearing distance. Falred shook himself as if to rid his mind of unsavory speculations,
and went back to his reading. A sudden vagrant gust of wind whipped
through the window, in which the light in the lamp flickered and
went out suddenly. Falred, cursing softly, groped in the darkness
for matches, burning his fingers on the hot lamp chimney. He struck
a match, re-lighted the lamp, and glancing over at the bed, got a
horrible mental jolt. Adam Farrel's face stared blindly at him, the
dead eyes wide and blank, framed in the gnarled gray features. Even
as Falred instinctively shuddered, his reason explained the apparent
phenomenon: the sheet that covered the corpse had been carelessly
thrown across the face and the sudden puff of wind had disarranged and
flung it aside. Yet there was something grisly about the thing, something fearsomely
suggestive--as if, in the cloaking dark, a dead hand had flung aside
the sheet, just as if the corpse were about to rise....

Falred, an imaginative man, shrugged his shoulders at these ghastly
thoughts and crossed the room to replace the sheet. The dead eyes
seemed to stare at him malevolently, with an evilness that transcended
the dead man's churlishness in life. The workings of a vivid
imagination, Falred knew, and he re-covered the gray face, shrinking as
his hand chanced to touch the cold flesh--slick and clammy, the touch
of death. He shuddered with the natural revulsion of the living for the
dead, and went back to his chair and magazine. At last, growing sleepy, he lay down upon a couch which, by some
strange whim of the original owner, formed part of the room's scant
furnishings, and composed himself for slumber. He decided to leave the
light burning, telling himself that it was in accordance with the usual
custom of leaving lights burning for the dead; for he was not willing
to admit to himself that already he was conscious of a dislike for
lying in the darkness with the corpse. He dozed, awoke with a start and
looked at the sheeted form on the bed. Silence reigned over the house,
and outside it was very dark. The hour was approaching midnight, with its accompanying eery
domination over the human mind. Falred glanced again at the bed where
the body lay and found the sight of the sheeted object most repellent. A fantastic idea had birth in his mind and grew, that beneath the
sheet, the mere lifeless body had become a strange, monstrous thing,
a hideous, conscious being, that watched him with eyes which burned
through the fabric of the cloth. This thought--a mere fantasy, of
course--he explained to himself by the legends of vampires, undead,
ghosts and such like--the fearsome attributes with which the living
have cloaked the dead for countless ages, since primitive man first
recognized in death something horrid and apart from life. Man feared
death, thought Falred, and some of his fear of death took hold on
the dead so that they, too, were feared. And the sight of the dead
engendered grisly thoughts, gave rise to dim fears of hereditary
memory, lurking back in the dark corners of the brain. At any rate, that silent, hidden thing was getting on his nerves. He
thought of uncovering the face, on the principle that familiarity
breeds contempt.