Weird Tales/Volume 8/Issue 4/Seven Minutes

by Frank Owen

An Odd Little Story Is

Seven Minutes

By Frank Owen

 

When Dr. Gordon Winwood gave up his splendid practise on Upper Fifth Avenue and left the city, it was a great surprize to his friends. He gave no reason for his leaving nor did he acquaint anyone with his destination. He simply disappeared from his usual haunts in New York as completely as though he had dissolved into the very air. Among those who knew him the affair was a nine days' wonder, but on the tenth day it was forgotten, perhaps eclipsed by some new and greater enigma.

Only Barlow Garth, Dr. Winwood's colored assistant, knew where he had gone, and Barlow had gone with him. With him also had gone Coralie Winwood, the doctor's beautiful wife, although even she was unacquainted with the actual facts. As the train sped up into the wild stretches of woodland which carpet the slopes of the Adirondack Mountains, she sat by her drawing room window and crooned a rather weird love song, or rather it faintly resembled a love song, for it was like nothing of Earth. Sitting there by the window, bathed in sunlight, her lovely hair gleaming and shimmering about her shoulders like a golden flood, she was a thing of marvelous beauty. Her mouth was exquisitely fashioned, rather wistful and demure. The contour of her nose was flawless. Her eyes were violet-blue. They gleamed in the sunlight like gorgeous jewels, but their depths suggested darkness, black pools of brooding mystery. She smiled constantly for no apparent reason, and once she laughed aloud, a musical little laugh which made one think of the tinkling music of a tiny waterfall.

Dr. Winwood sat opposite his wife. He feasted his eyes upon her as though he were starving. He seemed to seek to slake his thirst for her in the dark flood of her eyes. When he spoke there was a gentleness in his voice that was almost a caress. He talked to her as though she were a mere child, and yet for the most part when he spoke to her he seemed to be addressing Barlow Garth, who stood constantly ready for commands, as faithful as the head eunuch in a sultan's palace. Yet though Barlow Garth stood in the manner of a servant, he was far from a servitor in the eyes of the doctor. For Barlow Garth was Dr. Winwood's greatest friend, despite their difference in color. He had assisted the doctor for years in all his experiments. In New York it used to be facetiously said that the black man was really the white man's shadow and not a separate personage at all. Barlow Garth heard the rumor and smiled his inimitable smile, but he did not seem ill-pleased.

If he had cared to be garrulous, he could have told an amazing story which would have sounded almost incredible, for the happenings of the past week had opened up an entirely new path in science. Barlow Garth had written exhaustive accounts of their experiment. He had done so at the doctor's request. Perhaps some day he will publish a technical treatise on the matter, but not until many seasons have passed and memory has rather dulled until it fails to cut.

Down in New York six days before, Coralie Winwood had died, not from any lingering or devastating illness, but merely as the result of a severe heart attack. Although Dr. Winwood and Barlow Garth were both with her at the end, neither broke down nor showed their grief in the slightest. There was no time. They were scientists—cold, calculating scientists. They worked over the lifeless body like tireless steel machines. They were summoning all their skill for one supreme experiment. For months they had been practising their theories on dead dogs and cats. Now they were trying them on Coralie Winwood. It was not a shocking experiment, nor was there anything even slightly revolting about it. They were simply trying to bring Coralie Winwood back to life by the use of adrenalin, the most powerful stimulant known, the only drug that is sufficiently strong to give the tremendous shock to the heart which is necessary to restore life. Dr. Winwood was not the first to experiment with adrenalin, nor was he the first to prove its remarkable restorative propensities. Several other scientists had preceded him. He was merely one of the developers.

Fifteen minutes after Coralie had died she was restored to life, but rationality did not return to her, for it is a proven fact that a person's brain never functions again naturally after he has been actually dead for more than seven minutes. Thus, while Coralie was apparently alive and well again, as beautiful and warm as ever, she was in reality just a living corpse, not even aware that she was alive. Dr. Winwood could not bear to have anyone see her thus so he had taken her away to Lost Lake, his summer home, hidden in the heart of the Adirondacks.

Dr. Winwood was a spiritualist. He believed there was a possible way for him to get into touch with the spirit of Coralie. If he could do so, he reasoned, he would then be possessed of both the physical and spiritual bodies of the girl whom he had loved more than anything else in the world. True, body and soul would be separated, but in any event he would be happy if he possessed them both. If his friends had known the workings of his mind, they would have thought him mad. But luckily nobody knew except Barlow Garth, and Barlow believed in his master utterly. Together they had performed many apparently impossible experiments. Neither of them admitted a thing impossible until it was proved so. And since there is always opportunity for further research, the only thing they admitted impossible was impossibility itself.

Although Coralie had lost her real personality, the wraithlike personality which she had assumed was distinctly alluring. She fascinated by her eery quaintness. She never seemed to truly know either Dr. Winwood or Barlow Garth. She ate the food they set before her, sat with them in the evenings before the open fire, and frequently went on rambles with them into the woodland. Yet never did she show by the faintest sign that she knew them. She would have gone away peacefully with anybody. To her, in her present condition, all people were the same. But what that sameness was is open to speculation.

When she was rambling about the forest trails or along the winding mountain paths she was like a dream awakened. Her usually pale face flushed with desire. Her eyes shone with an intense fire. As she walked through the woods, the flowers seemed to bend toward her. Perhaps it was only imagination. Nevertheless it seemed a reality. But certain it is that the little wild things of the forest never fled when she approached. Rabbits, squirrels, deer—none showed the slightest fear of her. They seemed to sense that she was a beautiful wild thing like themselves. And always on her wanderings she sang songs as alluring as those of the Sirens. The very woods seemed hushed to listen. Even the birds were silent till the music of her voice had ceased. It was this singing that surprized Dr. Winwood more than anything else. Where had she learned such songs of magical loveliness? If she had no personality whatsoever, how did she remember the songs? Had she gone back into the ages and assumed one of the far distant personalities which had been hers in a former existence? Although Dr. Winwood did not exactly believe in reincarnation, the subject interested him. Coralie seemed possessed of a strange, split-off personality. Only songs and woodland grandeur aroused any glow in her. All else she viewed as from a dream. She was undoubtedly mad, but in a calmly beautiful way. She was never loud or violent, but always gentle as a lovely child. She was like a gorgeous flower growing in a field of gold.

Night after night Dr. Winwood tried to commune with the spirit of Coralie. He went out into the darkness of the mountains, and there he would sit for hours, his eyes closed, trying by the very force of his will to get into touch with her spirit. About him the darkness of the night hung in folds like a velvet canopy. Thousands of sounds echoed faintly to his ears, all in a hushed, subdued tone. Magic could have run rampant in those forests without seeming out of place. But never did Dr. Winwood accomplish his purpose. Night after night he sat on the rocks of a great plateau until the rose-pink tints of dawn commenced to glow in the east. Then he would wearily rise to his feet and walk slowly back to the house, looking terribly haggard and careworn. His only accomplishment was failure. But he did not give up hope. He believed in his theory.

One day he heard of an old Indian woman who lived down the lake about three miles. She was said to be a hundred and ten years old, yet so keen was her sight that she could see beyond the veil of reality. At once the doctor sent Barlow Garth in search of the woman, and at length she came to him. She was picturesque to an extreme. She wore a soft leather skirt and a waist of blue wool. Strung about her neck were dozens of fantastic ropes of beads, which she constantly fingered as though drawing inspiration or solace from them. Her hands were so bronzed by the sun they were almost black, but they were well-shaped and graceful. Her long slender fingers were never still for a moment. They seemed ever bent on some obscure quest.

The face of the old woman was like a mask. Even when she spoke in a low quaint voice the muscles of her face did not appear to move. She seemed petrified by age, almost a mummy. Her little gimletlike eyes peeped sharply forth from her gray-brown face. She smiled craftily after she had conversed long with the doctor and assured him that she could commune with spirits at will.

"The proper time," she declared softly, "is when the moon is at the full."

That very evening she went with the doctor and Barlow Garth into the woods. She faced the east and muttered some strangely guttural words. Then from her bag she took an odd array of nicknacks, a goat's hoof, some tundra moss, a bit of salt and a polished piece of ivory nut. With these she proceeded to light a fire. It was slow work but eventually a tiny blue flame flared up in the darkness of the night. Immediately she commenced to dance a weird, wild dance. Despite her age she capered about the fire like a sprightly elf, shouting and screaming and shrieking for the spirit of Coralie to come to her. It was an uncanny sight. The pitch of her voice was frightful. It seemed to rasp on raw nerves.

Dr. Winwood shuddered. He knew at last that the old woman was a charlatan, that she possessed no spiritual power whatever. Her fame, such as it was, rested solely on her power to hypnotize and awe her audience. He rose to his feet and rushed blindly off into the cool blackness of the forest trails. He wanted to be alone, to get away from those awful sounds. His head was bursting. And he was unutterably sad and lonely. The exhibition which he had just viewed seemed like a sacrilege. He knew that the spirit of Coralie could never be influenced by such an extreme display of discord. All through the night he roamed through the forest. Often he fell, and the cool moist breast of the earth seemed to refresh him. Once he lay for almost an hour at full length, as though stunned, yet his faculties were doubly clear and calmness came to him in the soft fragrant lush of the dew.

When he returned to the house the sun had been up for hours. Coralie sat on the porch steps softly singing a plaintive melody. Near by Bar-low Garth reclined in a hammock, gazing into space as though even in his moment of relaxation his scientific mind refused to let him rest.

As Dr. Winwood entered the house he motioned to Barlow to follow him. Not till they had reached his study did the doctor speak, then he said, "All last night I wandered through the forest, endeavoring to solve my problem. Never before did my mind work so keenly. The cool air on my face seemed to awaken every ounce of energy in me. In the silence of the forest a simple solution came to me. I marvel I did not think of it before. All along I have been trying to induce the spirit of Coralie to come to me. I failed. But there is nothing to prevent my spirit from temporarily going to hers."

Barlow Garth leaned forward in his chair. "What do you mean?" he cried.

"Merely that death is a door," was the reply, "and I intend to pass through it for a few minutes only. To many, death appears to be a black flood of mystery. They fear it because they do not understand it. But to me death holds no fear. It is a natural thing. I think of it merely as an adventure, not necessarily a permanent one. Tonight I intend to die. I will take a certain drug that will stop my heart. Exactly five minutes later you will bring me back to life again. That will give me five minutes to remain with Coralie, and as time does not exist in the spiritual world, the period will be as long there as we choose to make it. That gives you a leeway of two minutes."

Barlow Garth was amazed, but he offered no objection to the suggestion. He knew it would be useless to raise any obstacles. In any event he did not desire to do so. He was the perfect servant. He was the perfect friend as well. One could not ask more.

So in the early evening as the mist blanket of night was spreading down over the countryside, the doctor and Barlow went to the study. They took the physical Coralie with them and arranged a comfortable chair for her in front of the cheerful hearth. In the grate an immense pine log crackled merrily, and Coralie laughed back at it with all the abandon of a simple child. She held out her white fingers to the blaze. And when the warmth came to them she was glad. She never tired of gazing into the fire, and usually she crooned a bit of a song as she stared.

Dr. Winwood took a small wineglass from the table and slowly drank its contents. Then he lay down on the couch and folded his arms peacefully across his breast as though he were about to sleep. In a few minutes he was dead. Without a tremor he had passed into the spirit world. With the aid of a stethoscope Barlow Garth assured himself that death had indeed come. Then he took up his watch and stood over the rigid form, counting the minutes. It was an awesome adventure. There was no sound in the room save the occasional crackling of the embers and the soft dreamy singing of Coralie.

One, two, three, the minutes dragged past. To Barlow Garth each seemed an age. As the fourth minute came he felt as though his nerves were being drawn taut like rubber bands. He longed for something to happen to break the dreadful spell. Even as the wish came to him, there appeared a bright glow in the room behind him as though someone had lighted a great torch. As he turned he beheld Coralie enveloped in flames. Jumping forward, he seized a great rug and wrapped it about her. He worked as quickly as though he had the energy of a dozen men. Her dress had been of a flimsy net material, and almost immediately after it had brushed against the burning log she was a mass of flames. As Bar-low fought to extinguish the fire, she moaned softly, but she did not scream. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to he losing consciousness, if such a term can be used in speaking of a girl who was scarcely ever conscious of anything.

Barlow garth burned his hands till the raw flesh showed before the last spark was out. But quick as he had been, he had not been quick enough. Her body was terribly burned and her face was scarred and blackened almost beyond recognition. The marvelous beauty of Coralie was gone forever. She lay as rigid before him as Dr. Winwood. Barlow Garth gazed on her in horror for a moment, then he slowly placed the stethoscope to her breast. Her heart had ceased to beat. When he was sure that life was really extinct he rose to his feet. He seized his watch. Dr. Winwood had been dead for fifteen minutes. The fatal seventh minute had come and gone.

Barlow Garth recoiled from the watch in horror. What should he do? He gazed at the gruesome thing which had once been the gorgeous Coralie. To rekindle life in her would be to subject her to untold suffering while the wounds were healing. Sadly he shook his head. Then he turned to Dr. Winwood. If he brought the doctor back to life again it would be but to make of him a living corpse. The mind would be gone. He leaned down and looked into his beloved master's face. The lips were smiling and there was an expression of calmer repose about the eyes than there had been for months. Barlow Garth bowed his head in thankfulness as he realized that Dr. Winwood had found his beloved Coralie at last.