Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [93]
“From the manner in which the plague lights select their victims,” the report went on, “and work in pairs, and from the forced, and often apparently unwilling attachment between the persons so attacked, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the lights are intelligent, but malevolent, beings, seeking to obtain an embodiment in human form; and that those which have been associated in their former sphere seek to associate those upon whom they seize here. It is noticed that, as the afflicted persons grow weaker, the spots grow larger and brighter. Dr. Lurnaker, the great philologist, maintains that the gibberish, which the sufferers frequently talk, manifests the characteristics of rational speech, and conjectures that it is inspired and understood by these evil visitants.”
I found Phyllis sitting with her chin on her hand, a newspaper lying on the floor beside her. She was very pale, and she trembled a little in my arms.
“If this evil has come upon the whole world;” she said, “it may come upon us, Frank. It will not matter so much if we are taken together. Promise me that, if you are attacked, you will come to me at once, so that the fellow lights may take me and no one else. I shall not flinch, or worry you with complaints, dear!”
I promised what she asked, but, of course, I had no intention of keeping the promise until I knew how much or how little harm the lights did. I made her promise also that, if she were attacked first, she would come to me, but I fancied that she would not keep her promise either.
I spent the evening at her house. About 10 o’clock her father came in with a late edition of the Evening Standard. They called it the “Plague Edition.” It stated that the lights had appeared in great force in Paris, Berlin, and New York, and to a less extent at all the great centers of life.
In France the effects of the attack were much more rapid than elsewhere, probably owing to the excitable temperament of the people, and in several cases sufferers had died within a few hours. During the progress of the disease the lights grew in size and upon death detached themselves from the body. In some case the detached lights simply departed; in other instances they seized upon the doctors and nurses.
Sufficient time had not elapsed to record the progress of these secondary attacks. ‘ In the primary cases the lights had grown as follows:
Diameter of circles 7/8 inch to 3/8 inch.
Thickness of circles 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch.
The distance between the outer edges remained constant, so that the inside edges of the circles approached one another as they grew.
The lights were unaffected by electricity, heat, or the action of any chemical agent which had been tried upon them; but they gave a dark skiagraph, like a solid substance, when photographed by the X-rays, from which it was inferred that they possessed substance, though of a kind unknown to us. The general theory was that they were disembodied spirits trying to reincarnate themselves in human bodies.
In the morning my own newspaper did not appear, but I obtained one at the station, and learnt that the lights had spread all over England, and that many deaths seemed imminent. I started for town, but at Herne Hill I found that the up traffic had been suspended, and that extra down trains were being run to take home the people who had started earlier, many of whom had been attacked In most cases another set of lights was hovering about the sufferer, doubtless waiting for the second victim. A few who had been seized in pairs were holding one another