The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus

by John Burke

  Valerie sighed with relief. “At last.”

  The lane, edging along the hillside, seemed in a hurry now. It tilted sharply downwards and ran into the village. The church dominated the little huddle of buildings. Its square, buttressed tower was set firmly on a little knoll, and sloping away from it was a graveyard dark with heavy granite headstones.

  Harry’s pace slowed.

  “Welcome to Clagmoor,” he said, and came to a stop by the heaped, uneven stones of the graveyard wall.

  Valerie stood beside him and touched his hand.

  “Darling,” she said quietly.

  He looked over the wall. Some of the older headstones were tilting as though about to give up and collapse from sheer weariness. The weight of the years thrust the tombs down or cracked the surrounds. A new grave was like a livid sore in the grey and green solemnity of the churchyard.

  A new grave. The earth was still like raw flesh. No stone had yet been set in place. The ground was not yet settled. The surface of the earth had not yet hardened sufficiently over Charles Spalding.

  Harry looked at Valerie. There was no need for words. She nodded slightly.

  He walked along the wall to a small, rusty gate. It shrieked as he opened it and walked in. Flints on the path rustled beneath his feet. He had to walk round a huddle of gravestones all bearing the name of one family, and then among the old Cornish names he found the still unnamed newcomer. Here was his brother’s resting place.

  It still seemed unbelievable. His mind refused to accept it. He stared at the shape outlined in the ground and could not persuade himself that Charles lay beneath it.

  How had he died?

  From now on this district was to be his home. Here he was to spend his honeymoon and perhaps many years of his life with Valerie. But they would not, could not settle until he knew what had stricken Charles down in the full flush of his life.

  He went back to Valerie. They descended the last stretch of the lane and arrived opposite an inn with a creaking, faded sign.

  The sun was going down but still glowed warmly in the treetops and along the erratic roofs of the village. From the open windows of the inn came a leisurely buzz of voices.

  “I’ll ask in there where the cottage is,” said Harry. “And perhaps I can get some help with the luggage.”

  “I’ll sit out here.” Valerie turned her face up towards the sun as though to catch its last rays and not waste any of its warmth.

  “Don’t talk to any strange men.”

  She looked quizzically across the patch of green and the small pond round which the houses clustered. Somewhere a dog barked, and in its basket the cat produced a brisk, defiant little squawk. Otherwise there was no sound, no movement.

  “Strange men?” Valerie echoed.

  Harry laughed. He pushed open the door to the bar and went in.

  The room had a low ceiling which had probably been dark to start with and now was almost black with years of tobacco fumes. The walls were a mottled ochre, and the darkness of the interior was intensified by the high-backed oak settles on either side of the fireplace and set at an angle from the windows.

  Harry blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the cool shadows.

  He got a face in focus. It was the seamed, weather-beaten face of an old man in the chimney-corner, and it swam out of the uncertainty because it had been touched momentarily by sunlight striking at an angle through the far window.

  Then it was gone. The old man pushed himself to his feet and tottered past Harry, out into the open.

  The comforting buzz of voices had died. There was utter silence. The other occupants of the bar might almost have been holding their breath to tantalize him.

  Harry said: “I wonder if . . .”

  It was as though he had given a signal. Before he could say another word, all the men in the bar got to their feet and made for the door. Their still hazy shapes came towards him so that he had to step aside. Nobody looked at him, nodded, or spoke.

  “Look,” said Harry, bewildered, “I only wanted to . . . Please, look here, I . . .”

  But it was no good. They had all gone. The bar took on sharper outlines as he got used to the dim light, and he saw that it was empty now.

  2

  The landlord appeared from a doorway behind the bar. He was a broad man with heavy shoulders and he left little space on either side. Harry had a glimpse of a cosy little room beyond, and then the landlord had planted both hands on the counter and was looking over it incredulously.

  “What the devil . . . ?”

  He scanned the floor and walls as though in search of hidden trapdoors and panels. Then he saw Harry, still only a few steps inside the main door.

  “What have you done with them?”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “You’ve driven them all away.”

  After the long journey down and the sight of the deserted station and then the dusty walk and now this frigid reception, Harry had had more than enough. He stiffened, and a military crackle came into his tone.

  “I’ve done nothing to drive anyone away. I came to this inn expecting hospitality. I’m a complete stranger here.”

  The landlord nodded wryly. “That’s it. You’re a stranger. They don’t think much on strangers. They don’t even like me all that much, and I’ve been here nigh on three years.” He leaned forward, studying Harry. His face was as seamed as that of the old man who had led the flight from the bar, but there was an indescribable difference: the lines were not those of local weather and not of suspicion and mistrust, but of a wider, rougher experience. “Here,” he said in a gruff but not unfriendly tone, “turn round. Into the light a bit. You remind me of someone. I’ve got it—Mr. Spalding.”

  “That’s hardly surprising,” said Harry: “that’s who I am.”

  “The Spalding that died, I mean. Are you a relative?”

  “I’m his brother.”

  “Are you, now.” The broad man hesitated, then pushed up the counter flap and came through. He put out his hand. “Then I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Spalding. Tom Bailey, that’s me.”

  They shook hands. The man’s grip was firm and, thought Harry, could be bone-crushing. He would sooner have the fellow as a friend than an enemy.

  He said: “I’m sorry I frightened your business away.”

  “Oh, they’ll be back.” Tom Bailey cleared his throat and added apologetically: “As soon as you’re gone, that is.”

  “In that case I’d better go and—”

  “Now you’re here, you’d better have a drink.” The landlord turned back to the bar and took down a pewter tankard. He filled it from a barrel tilted at the end of the counter. “Here’s our best stuff. See what you think of it.”

  Harry looked dubiously at the foaming beer. He was thirsty, certainly, but he didn’t want to keep Valerie waiting outside too long, and he didn’t think he was destined to get much help here.

  “I’d better not stay.”

  “No.” Tom Bailey laughed, harshly yet appreciatively. “Have your drink, then go. Don’t take too long—I need my regulars and their money!” He waited until Harry had taken a long, grateful swig at the cool bitter, then said in a more sympathetic tone: “Sad business that, about your brother. You’ve come about the cottage, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Won’t fetch much, you know. Not round here.”

  “I’m not going to sell it.”

  The oddly remote, far-seeing eyes widened suddenly and became sharp. “Going to live there?”

  “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Tom slowly. “But if I was you I’d . . . well, I’d sell it. Sell, and get out.”

  “Why? My brother lived there.”

  “And died there.”

  Again Harry thought of the long journey here, and the high hopes they had cherished. Everything had seemed so simple. He wasn’t going to have it complicated by dull, backward, inhospitable yokels. He s
aid:

  “It’s going to be our home. We intend to make—”

  “We? You’re not alone, then?”

  “My . . .” He found it hard, and then deliciously strange, to say the words. “My . . . wife . . . is with me.”

  “Is she, now?”

  The words dropped into the room like the slow, maddening drip of a tap. And then, as though the tap had been turned abruptly off, there was a silence in which one waited—waited for the drip to resume, or for a new sound to take its place. For something.

  Harry broke the silence. “Can you direct me to the cottage? That’s why I came in here in the first place.” He finished his drink and waited.

  “Well, now.” The landlord’s cheerfulness was a professional trick, meaning nothing and not disguising his unease. “You’ll find it easy enough. Up the street, left at the top, then over the moor. About two miles.”

  Another two miles? Harry’s heart sank. He hated to think that this was the life into which he had so quickly led Valerie. She ought to have been driven up to a mansion in a splendid carriage, or installed in a luxurious town house with no cares and no need to trudge for miles over a hostile countryside.

  “I suppose there’s no chance of getting any transport?”

  “Up there? Not a hope.”

  “Not even a farm cart? We could do with one to pick up our luggage from the station, for that matter. I’d pay.”

  “You wouldn’t get a farmer to go near the place, no matter what you paid.” Tom took the empty tankard and began to wash it below the bar. “I’m afraid you’ll be having to walk it. And if I was in your shoes, I’d like to get there before it got too dark.”

  A dozen questions trembled on Harry’s tongue. They would have to wait. The first essential was to get settled in. After that he would explore the neighborhood and dig out the truth. He was not a man for evasions. He was still a young man, but he had already had some years of experience in tight corners and strange situations, and knew that when one struck one must strike decisively. If there was an interrogation to be carried out, one must be quite sure of the line of questioning and what it was intended to elicit. When he was ready he would waste neither time nor words.

  He went out and found Valerie sitting tranquilly on the bench at the edge of the village green. She was lost in contemplation and he knew that in her own thoughtful, responsive way she was taking in the atmosphere of the place, touched by what was beautiful and puzzled by the dark uncertainties that lay as thickly across the rooftops as the shadows lay down the lane and across the pond.

  “I’ve found out where the cottage is,” he said, “and a lot more.” She got up, smiling, and looked around. “But,” he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep walking.”

  He picked up the cat basket and they moved off.

  The moors grew even darker and more inhospitable than the hollow in which the village sheltered. Only an occasional rosy tinge echoed the dying sun. The rock outcrops were savage and unyielding, and the side away from the sun was no more than a jagged blackness. Stunted bushes humped their shoulders out of grass and trailing undergrowth which had lost all color in the advancing evening.

  Harry felt that they were chasing the sun, that they ought to break into a sprint and try to catch it before it was utterly lost beyond the farthest horizon. He quickened his pace, and after a little wince of protest Valerie fell into step.

  They reached the crown of a hill and looked down beyond it.

  At last!

  The cottage was snug and secure below a windbreak of trees. A splash of color in front of it marked the pattern of a small garden. When they got closer they might find that it had been left untended for a while, but from here it was a gay, invigorating splash in the twilight.

  “There it is, darling,” said Harry. “The Spalding home for some years to come. What do you think?”

  “It’s what I’ve always dreamed of.”

  He was sure that she must have dreamed of something much grander. But she had said it because he needed her to say it, and, knowing her, he knew also that she was in a matter of seconds coming to believe it. The picture was an enchanting one. They would be happy here, whatever the cottage’s limitations. He kissed her and she laughed gently against his lips. Then he took her by the hand and they went towards the cottage, beginning to hurry until they were very nearly running, like two excited children unable to restrain their enthusiasm. And why restrain it? They both felt eager and loving and ready to be captured by the cottage.

  Roses drooped above the doorway and blossomed in a luxuriant yellow and crimson haze below the front of the house. The paint on the front door was dry and peeling, but there was a dumpy self-assurance about the small building as a whole that was welcome: it offered a warmer greeting than the bar of the inn had done, and although it was isolated on the edge of a field it looked cosier than the cramped houses of the village had done.

  “Roses round the door,” Harry marvelled. “And a brand new wife. What more could a man want?”

  He took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. When he pushed there was a second of resistance, then the door squeaked and opened before them. Valerie stepped forward. Before she could cross the threshold, Harry swept her up in his arms and strode in.

  “Home!” he said triumphantly as he set her down.

  Light from the doorway and the windows seeped into the sitting-room. It cast strange shadows. The room and its furniture were oddly distorted. Nothing seemed to be the right way up. The proportions were all wrong, the balance of the place somehow unsteady.

  They stood stock still and waited for sense to be established out of the chaos. But the chaos remained.

  The room was in a shambles. It had been wantonly wrecked. A table had been overturned, and two of its legs hammered until they twisted askew. Chairs were smashed and warped. Curtains had been ripped from the windows, a tablecloth was torn to shreds, the doors of a wall cupboard had been torn from their hinges, and broken crockery crunched underfoot as Harry took a step forward. Against the far wall was a stove. Its door was open, and coal spilled out across the carpet in a black, uneven stain.

  Valerie moved past him. She tried to pick her way, but still there was a snapping and splintering as she approached the door leading into the kitchen.

  Harry followed her and stood by her shoulder.

  Crockery had been smashed in the sink. A kettle lay on its side and had obviously been stamped on.

  Narrow stairs led up in a tight curve, opening directly into a small bedroom. Linen had been pulled from a chest of drawers and ripped into long shreds. Harry inspected it without advancing into the room, and edged his way cautiously back to ground level.

  He and Valerie looked at each other. In the dim light he saw tears glimmering in her eyes.

  “Darling.” He took her in his arms and felt her tighten against him almost as she had tightened when they made love. But now it was a despairing anger rather than love. “I’m sorry,” he said as her cheek pressed against his. “I’m so sorry.”

  He shook suddenly with a blind fury. Someone had come in and smashed everything that came to hand. In an answering rage he would have liked to get his hands on them, to smash and destroy just as they had smashed and destroyed. The pointless viciousness of it made him sick and at the same time savage.

  Valerie pulled away from him. He wanted to apologize, to beg her forgiveness for offering her such a beginning to their married life. It was not his fault, but somehow he ought to have been able to avert it. He ought to have been more patient, explored the ground before coming here. He could hear from a great distance the sage voice of Mr. Beeding telling him that he had rushed into things, that he ought to have taken his time.

  But his leave would not last forever. He must rejoin his brigade. There wasn’t a lot of time in which to do a lot of things.

  Valerie said: “Come on.” She was pushing back the sleeves of her dress as though it meant nothing more to her than an ol
d, stained apron. “Our home needs a little cleaning up.”

  He wanted to tell her that she was wonderful and that he loved her and would always love her, but she swept past him in a mood of grim practicality and flung herself into a frenzy of activity. He threw his jacket to one side and joined her.

  Under the sink was a can of paraffin which had escaped the attention of the intruders. Valerie found an oil lamp overturned in the sitting-room, a long trickle of oil soaking into the carpet. The lamp glass was mercifully not broken. They set up the light on the draining-board in the kitchen and, starting there, worked their way systematically back into the sitting-room. Valerie cleaned while Harry dragged debris out of her way and did what he could to repair essential pieces of furniture.

  At the end of an hour he said: “I think I’ve cleared the way for you. Do you mind if I go down to the inn?”

  Valerie, on her knees with a bowl of water and a scrubbing brush, glanced up at him. “You’re taking to drink already? So soon in our married life!”

  “I want to get to the bottom of this and let them know who they’re dealing with from now on.”

  “Darling—you won’t stir up too much trouble?”

  “Stir it up?” he exploded, waving round the room. It looked better now than it had done earlier but still bore grim and grimy traces of the devastation. “I didn’t start this but I’m the one who’s going to finish it.”

  She put up her lips to his. “Take care, my love. You’re very valuable to me.”

  Harry strode away from the cottage. The evening was cool but he was in a sweat of rage. The distance to the village meant nothing: he strode on with no awareness of time or distance. He was in no danger of losing his way. His sense of direction was sharpened by his need to get to grips with the vandals who had trampled over his property. Night closed in on the moors and he walked unseeing but with a sure instinct. His steady pace did not alter when flickering lights through curtained windows told him that he was on the outskirts of the village.

  The windows of the inn were brighter than most. From several yards away the babble was louder and more cheerful than it had been earlier. The cheerfulness ebbed as he flung open the door and marched in. Like a tide rushing away down the shingle, it died away to a murmur.