Wethersfield High School - Elm Yearbook (Wethersfield, CT)

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TERROR: ' I walked up the rickety stairs, my heart in my mouth, and knocked on the door. No a'nswer. The silence that had issued after that dreadful scream clanged on my throbbing ear drums. With shaking hand, I essayed another knock, inhnitely feebler than the first. What do you want? demanded a gurreral voice. Overwhelmed by the suddenness and silence of his approach, and my mind dazed by the rapid course of events, I spun around. Wliat do you want? again asked the strange creature which my startled eyes beheld. Ignoring his question, I stammered out: H-how did you get there? ' That is my business. Answer my question or you will disappear as quickly as I have appeared. The very sharpness of his tone whipped my mind back to normalcy. I heard a scream for help and came accordingly, I replied, looking into his sharp black eyes, the orbs of which appeared to burn with a feverish light into the innermost recesses of my soul. His yellow skin contracted into a scowl and his long white beard twitched with unac- countable rage. This strange being appeared to wilt, and his voice broke into a hoarse whisper. This house must never be investigated. You shall learn a few of its secrets, as have others, but alsovl he grew vehement and burst out- even as they have died, you also must perish with your knowledge! I sprang towards him, but a concealed door opened in the wall, through which he darted, and I was brought up with a jolt against hard plaster. Infuriated beyond reason, I bounded to the door on which I had first knocked. I grasped the knob and a tingling shock passed up my arm. Closing my eyes, I charged like a mad bull at the offending door. In the meantime some force had automatically opened the door. Meeting no resistance I was flung into the room like a shot from a catapult. My Lord, I was in a mirrored room. Most dreaded torture. Every- where I wildly beheld myself! A door opened! What more horror? I rushed towards it with a stifled shriek! I stopped! My inhuman Captor stood in the doorway with a young man whose face was distorted with agony and whose mouth frothed blood. I leaped towards his tormentor, sending out a powerful blow. My fist was shattered against plate glass. I tore madly around the room, seeking in vain for that mocking face, but the powers of reflection utterly defeated me. The fiend soon tired of this sport and he closed the cleverly placed, mirrored door, and I was left to my half-mad self. Insensible to my throbbing hand, I beat and kicked the walls, bruising myself countless times, until I finally sank to the floor exhausted. God, the horror of it! My image appearing every- where, I could not distinguish which were the walls, which the ceiling or which the floor. I closed my eyes, and with the shutting out of the terror of the place, my poor mind once more began to function in the manner of an outraged normal person.

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There in the glare of the searchlight lay the ill-fated Joy. She had been thrown on a jagged rock with her bow pointed skyward and, on her lulling deck, over which the high seas broke, clung five figures praying that help would come before their craft slipped down into the fathomless depths. John dropped both bow and stern anchors, and the May came along side of the slanting deck tugging at her ropes as if in fear of the black rocks which jutted from the sea. One by one the victims, water soaked, and pale, climbed to the May's deck. The women fell, the men were too exhausted to speak. Winnie was the last to come aboard, and just as she was climbing from the slippery deck of the wrecked craft, the stern anchor of the May gave way and the wind swung her around, leaving Winnie clinging to the rail of the Joy. In an instant John was sliding down the remaining anchor cable to the deck of the joy. The men threw him a rope and with Winnie under one arm and the rope in his free hand, John was dragged over the rocks, up the side, and over the rail to the deck of the May, where he fell unconscious. John was put in the cosy cabin in the care of Winnie, who had now recovered herself. The rescued men got the May under way just as the Joy slipped before a giant wave into the sea. The May plowed her way through the sea and back home. Sixty miles away, the much relieved family could hear Winnie whispering sweet little nothings in John's ear. --Frczlerivk Pritchard, '2 8. MOODS I felt the sad, slow drip of tears upon my heart, And fought the misty shroud of grim despair, I saw my high-flung hope lie broken at my feet And watched my dreams go floating off in air. And then across the dim horizon came a whisper, A whisper of a deathless song, And I saw my hope arising, and my dreams come drifting back, Bringing peace and life for which I've hoped so long. I heard a burst of lilting music From the land of sunset glowg A robin's call at morning From a glen where violets growg The damp sweet wind of April And the patter of summer raing A long deep note of laughter And a joy devoid of pain. ' -Barbara Wz'Ils, '2S.

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XVho screamed in the first place? Who is this mad-man?', l'Who was the victim that he had in the doorway? These were a few of the unanswerable questions that I addressed to myself. I knew I could never escape from this room, so I reluctantly resigned myself to my fate. I thought of my friends-I had no family- and I wondered if they might think that I was just another victim of The Terror-Good Lord! This inhuman devil might be that dread thing concerning which the papers of New York and the whole country were printing amazing accounts of grewsome detail. Twenty-eight men taken from the face of the earth in the short period of six months and a half. One man every week, taken from every walk of life, from men high up in the financial and social world, down to drunkards and yeggs from the slums. The greatest criminologists and detectives were baffled. No traces of the victims had ever been found. The realization that I might possibly be in the hands of the horrible being called The Terror, goaded my mind into abnormal clearness. That elusive door was again opening! At last it swung wide and I walked towards it, slowly and sanely. Alas! I touched cold plate glass. Continued searching rewarded me in the end, and I passed from that fateful room, not knowing where I was going but determined not to die in this House of Mystery. I found myself in a long corridor, at the end of which was a door. I crept stealthily to the door and gingerly fingered the knob. This one apparently was not electrically charged. I cautiously opened the door and stepped into the room. It was dimly lighted, yet coming from the bright corridor I could see nothing. Horrors! The door was swiftly and irresistibly drawn from my retaining grasp! With a muttered exclamation I sprang to it. It was locked! I then realized that the room was in the grip of inky blackness. Terrorized, I groped my way, seeking a support of some kind. I felt something cold! It felt like a steel bar. Yes, after running my hand out in either direction I felt similar bars. I was touching a cage! Suddenly, as a lightning flash illuminates a storm swept sky, so did brilliant lamps brush away the Stygian darkness from that infernal room. Gradually, as my eyes accustomed themselves to this change, the vision of a little yellow man seated at a desk in a steel cage, crept into my senses. I-Ie was writing, writing, writing. My nerves broke! I cursed him with the most thorough language at my command. He absently raised his eyes, surveying me most dispassionately, then said: You already have heard one scream. You shall hear yourself scream many times, in terror as yet unknown to you or any other person in the outside world. My weekly victims have all died in fright and terror. Every man's self control has its end, they scream and cower. The proof is still going into these volumes. He tapped them as he spoke. He had admitted with his own lips that he was The Terror. As a reporter, I was acquainted with the magnitude of The Terror's efficiency, this must needs be the end.