The Taint and Other Novellas

by Brian Lumley

  At 4:00 P.M. Spellman was required to go down to the yard with five other warders to stand guard over Hell’s inmates as they took their second and last exercise of the day. One of the other five was Barstowe, looking extremely nervous and uncomfortable, but he kept well away from the younger man. Spellman had noticed before how when Barstowe was in the exercise-yard the madmen were always exceptionally subdued—and yet now, for the first time, there seemed to be an indefinable attitude of quiet defiance about them—quite as though they had an “ace,” as it were, up their collective sleeve. Barstowe had noticed it too, and his interest picked up when Larner went over to Spellman to talk to him.

  “Not long now, Nurse Spellman,” Larner quietly said after exchanging reasonable greetings.

  “Oh?” Spellman smiled. “Is that right, Larner? I saw you today, you know, passing round those copies you made.”

  Larner’s face fell immediately. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t tell anyone. When are you going to tell me what it’s all about?”

  “Soon, soon—but isn’t it a pity I don’t know the Naach-Tith formula?”

  “Er—a pity, yes,” Spellman agreed, wondering what on Earth the fellow was rambling on about now. Then he remembered seeing that mention of a so-called “Naach-Tith Barrier” in Larner’s notes in the Cthaat Aquadingen. “Will it spoil the experiment?”

  “No, but…but it’s you I’m really sorry for….”

  “Me?” Spellman frowned. “How do you mean, Larner?”

  “It’s not for myself, you understand,” the madman quickly went on, “what happens to me can’t much matter in a place like this—and the others are as badly off. Not much hope for them here. Why! Some of them might even benefit from the reversals! But it’s you, Spellman, it’s you—and I’m really sorry for that….”

  Spellman considered his next question carefully. “Is the—formula—is it so important then?” If only he could get through to the man, discover the twisted circles in which his mind moved.

  But Larner was suddenly frowning. “You haven’t read the Cthaat Aquadingen, have you?” He made the question an accusation.

  “Yes, yes of course I have—but it’s very difficult, and I’m no—” Spellman searched for the word: “I’m no adept!”

  Larner nodded his head, the frown vanishing from his face: “That’s it exactly: you’re no adept. There should be seven but I’m the only one. The Naach-Tith Formula would help, of course, but even then—” Suddenly Larner caught sight of Barstowe edging closer. “Lethiktros Themiel, phitrith-te klep-thos!” he instantly muttered under his breath, then turned back to Spellman: “But I don’t know the rest of it, you see, Spellman? And even if I did—it’s not designed to keep his sort of evil away….”

  The next day, on the one occasion Spellman snatched to watch the inmates of Hell through his barred window, he again noticed the odd camaraderie between them. He also noticed a thin red welt, absent the previous day, on Larner’s face, and wondered how the madman had come by such an injury. On a whim, not knowing exactly just why he did so, he checked the roster to find out who had been on duty the night before. And then he knew it had been no whim at all but a horrible suspicion—for Barstowe had been on duty the previous night, and in his mind’s eye Spellman pictured the squat, ugly nurse with his stick! And the old unease welled up in his heart as he thought again of the welt on Larner’s face, and of that other inmate who had somehow contrived to gouge out one of his own eyes in “a fatal lunatic fit….”

  • • •

  That night, late on New Year’s Eve—after a day of very limited festivities, marred for Spellman by his growing unease—he received what should have been his first definite warning of the horror soon to come. As it happened he paid little attention: he was off duty and working on his book, but after all the shouting had died down in the ward beneath, Harold Moody, on duty, came to his room to tell him about it.

  “Never saw anything like that before!” he told Spellman after settling himself nervously on the younger man’s bed. “Did you hear it?”

  “I heard some shouting, yes. What was it all about?” Spellman was not really interested; his book was coming well and he wanted to get on with it.

  “Eh?” Moody cocked his good ear in his friend’s direction. “Shouting, did you say? Chanting, more like it—all of ’em together, at the top of their voices, so loud as to almost deafen me completely. Not words, mind you, Martin—at least not recognizable words—but gibberish! Utter gibberish!”

  “Gibberish?” Spellman got up immediately, crossing his small room to be closer to the shaken Moody. “What sort of—gibberish?”

  “Well, I really don’t know. I mean—”

  “Was it like this—” Spellman cut him off, taking out the Cthaat Aquadingen from his bedside locker and flipping its pages until he found the one he wanted.

  “Ghe ‘phnglui, mglw’ngh ghee’yh, Yibb-Tstll,

  Fbtagn mglw y’tlette ngh’wgah, Yibb-Tstll,

  Ghe’phnglui….”

  He stopped abruptly, realizing that he did not need to read the thing from the book, that of a sudden it was imprinted indelibly on his mind! “Did it—did what they were chanting go like—like that?”

  “Eh? No, no it was different from that—harsher syllables—not so guttural. And that Larner chap—my God, he’s a real case, that one! Kept ranting on about ‘not knowing the ending’!”

  Moody got up to go. “Anyhow, it’s all over now—”

  As Moody reached the door Spellman’s alarm clock began to clamor. The young nurse had set the mechanism to go off at midnight, simply so that he would know when to welcome in the New Year. Now he remembered and said “Happy New Year, Harold!” Then, as his friend answered in kind and closed the door behind him, he again took up the Cthaat Aquadingen.

  New Year’s Eve—the night before the First Day of the year! So, Spellman silently mused, Larner had attempted to build the “Barrier of Naach-Tith”—but of course, he had not known all of the words. Spellman pondered, too, the odd fact that he was able to remember, without any effort worth mentioning, the Sixth Sathlatta; and that the weird consonants of those diseased lines seemed somehow clearer in his mind and on his tongue.

  Well, all right—given that he had allowed himself a folly or two with Larner, that was over now—it was time the madman’s weird experiment came to an end. But for his foolish pandering to the lunatic’s crazed fancies the disturbance in the ward known as Hell would not have happened. And what of tomorrow night? In another twenty-four hours, would the inmates of Hell use the thrice-repeated Sixth Sathlatta in an attempt to call forth the dread Yibb-Tstll? Spellman thought so, and (damn the cunning of the lunatic mind), Larner had attempted to draw him into the—coven?

  Not that Spellman believed for a single moment that any sort of harm, supernatural or other, could come from the concerted mouthings of madmen; but a repeat performance of this night’s disturbance might well alert the sanatorium’s hierarchy to his decidedly illegal dealings with Larner. He would then certainly find himself in some sort of trouble, if not actual hot water, and he did not want to damage the atmosphere between himself, Dr. Welford, and one or two others of his superiors. He was on duty in the upper wards in the morning, finishing at 4:00 P.M., but before he finished he would find a way to get down to see Larner. Perhaps a gentle word with the lunatic would do the trick.

  In his bed before sleeping, Spellman thought again on his puzzling ability to recall in detail the chaotic Sixth Sathlatta, and no sooner had he pictured the thing in his mind than it was on his lips. Amazed at his unsuspected fluency he whispered the words through in the darkness of his room, and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep.

  —He was back in the alien forest beneath dark green, weirdly populated skies. Again, far stronger than before, his dream-spirit felt the pull of The Thing in the scabrous clearing: Yibb-Tstll, huge and potent, turning inexorably, almost stupidly about His own axis, with
His cloak billowing monstrously as the night-gaunts beneath its folds flapped and clung in blind horror to the black and writhing multiple breasts.

  This time, as soon as Spellman drifted (his dream-motion was as eerie as the drift of weeds in some outré Sargasso morass) into the crumble-earthed clearing, the vast obscenity at its center stopped Its turning, and as he wafted closer he saw Its eyes full upon him….

  The utter horror of the occurrence which followed as he drew closer to the loathsome Ancient One shocked Martin Spellman from his sleep, and if anything its simplicity only went toward heightening that horror. The wonder was that Spellman had been able to recognize the—writhings—of those hellish features for what they were!

  “It smiled—the Thing smiled at me!” he screamed, sitting bolt upright and flinging the bedclothes from him. For a long moment he simply sat, staring about wide-eyed in the darkness of his room; then, limbs trembling and with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he got up and shakily brewed coffee.

  Two hours later, at about 4:00 A.M., with dawn still some way off, he managed with some trepidation to get back to sleep. For the remainder of the night his slumbers were mercifully undisturbed….

  • • •

  When Martin Spellman awoke on the morning of New Year’s Day, 1936, he had no time to pause in consideration of the occurrences of the previous night; he had slept late, was on duty soon, and the time was flying by. Spellman was not to know it but that day was to be the most eventful since his arrival at Oakdeene—and at the end of the day….

  At ten-thirty in the morning he managed to find a way to get down to the basement ward, and once there in Hell he went straight to Larner’s cell. Through the barred spy-hole he saw that his mission was useless. Larner, frothing at the mouth, was flinging himself in a silent fit from wall to padded wall, his eyes bulging and his teeth bared through the foam of his madness in gnashing frenzy. The student left the ward and found the nurse whose duty it was to attend the lower wards. He made Larner’s silent raging known and then returned to his duties.

  Toward the end of the lunch-break, after missing Spellman at the dinner table, Harold Moody found the young nurse prowling worriedly back and forth across the restricted but private floor of his room. Spellman would say nothing of what was on his mind. In fact, he did not himself know what was bothering him, except that he had feelings of an impending—something. Feelings which were somehow relieved a little when Moody delivered his news that Alan Barstowe had quit his job at the sanatorium. No one, it transpired, knew for sure why the squat nurse was throwing up his job; but apparently there had been rumors about his nerves for some time. Moody stated that in his opinion the place and the inmates must have been “getting on top” of the man….

  • • •

  Later, after finishing duty for the day, Spellman—still inordinately pleased at the news of Barstowe’s imminent departure, feeling more himself and easier in his mind by the minute—ate a quick meal before returning to his room and getting out his manuscripts. By nine in the evening, however, discovering that with the encroachment of the dark outside his queasy uneasiness had returned at the expense of his concentration, he put away his book and simply lay on his bed for a while. He spent some time in trying to detect unusual sounds from Hell, finding himself no happier to discover that all seemed very quiet down there. A few minutes later, catching himself beginning to nod, he got up and smoked a cigarette. He did not want to sleep; his aim was to stay awake until midnight, to see if the inhabitants of the basement ward would get up to any more Larner-inspired tricks.

  By ten a powerful desire had taken hold of Spellman to read through the Cthaat Aquadingen again—particularly the Sixth Sathlatta—and he actually got the book out before managing to fight down the urge. For his life he could not see just what there might be in Larner’s “Black Book” to interest him now. He was feeling very tired, though, natural enough considering the disturbances of the previous night, and he had something of a headache coming on. But even following a hastily brewed cup of coffee and an aspirin, Spellman’s weariness and the pain behind his temples increased until he was forced to lie on his bed. He glanced at his watch, seeing that it was ten-fifty; and then, before he knew it—

  —Someone, somewhere—a well-known voice—was muttering the chaotic words of the Sixth Sathlatta, and even as he fell into a deep sleep Spellman knew that the voice was his own!

  He was at the edge of the poisoned clearing again, under dark-green skies and with the evil jungle already behind him; and to his front, in the center of the clearing, Yibb-Tstll waited, turning inexorably as ever on His own axis. Spellman wanted to turn and run, to get away from The Thing that waited in Its great green billowing cloak; and he fought—pitting all the strength of his subconscious mind and will against the awful magnetism radiating from the revolting, revolving monstrosity before him—fought and almost won….But not quite! Slowly, agonizingly slowly, with his sleeping mind squeezed to a tiny ball of concentration, Martin Spellman was pulled forward across the leprous earth. And as he pitted himself against the horror of the Ancient One, he could feel Its anger, could sense the urgency It engendered now in this hideous dream-region’s atmosphere.

  For what seemed like hours Spellman fought his losing battle, and then Yibb-Tstll—tiring of the game and aware of the shortness of time—tried a different tactic. While he had yet a good distance to go to the center of the clearing, Spellman saw The Thing stop Its turning; and then, without warning, the horror threw back its cloak to release the hellish “pets” beneath!

  Spellman could only fight one thing at a time, and Yibb-Tstll was not going to allow him to escape this time into wakefulness. Even knowing he was dreaming Spellman was at the mercy of his dream. He screamed voicelessly, lashing out at the flapping, blank-faced, vile-bodied night-gaunts as they buffeted him with skin-and-bone wings and tried to shove him off his feet. Finally they won and he fell, cowering down and wrapping his arms about his head as he felt himself swftly borne forward on his nightmare’s ghost-drift. When the noisome activity about him ceased, he fearfully looked up—and found himself at the feet of the colossal Thing in the green cloak!

  Again those awful eyes—those red eyes that were not fixed in their places—the eyes that moved quickly, independently—sliding with vile viscosity over the whole rotten surface of Yibb-Tstll’s pulpy, glistening head!

  Mercifully distracted from the horror before him, he saw suddenly that he was not alone. There were others with him—twelve of them—and even in the dream the features and shapes of some of the twelve were twisted, and some of them slavered and their eyes were strange, making their identities obvious.

  Larner!—and the rest of Hell’s inmates—a complete coven, now, come to worship at the feet of a lunatic “God,” the loathly Yibb-Tstll!

  Still kneeling, sickly turning his face away, Spellman saw a book lying open before him on the rotting ground. The Cthaat Aquadingen, Larner’s copy, and open at the Sixth Sathlatta!

  “No—oh, no!” Spellman screamed voicelessly in sudden understanding. Why?—to what end should this—Thing—be allowed to walk upon Earth?

  Larner got down beside him: “You know, in your heart, Nurse Spellman. You know!”

  “But—”

  “No time,” Larner cut off his protest. “Midnight is almost here! You’ll join us in The Calling?”

  “No, damn you—no!” Spellman cried his mental denial.

  “You will!” answered a booming, alien voice in his head, “Now!” And Yibb-Tstll reached out from under His cloak a green and black thing that might have been an arm, with a hand and fingers of sorts, pushing the tips into Spellman’s mouth and ears and nostrils—deep into his mind—searching and squeezing in certain places….

  When the great Ancient One withdrew his slimy fingers Spellman’s eyes were very vacant and his mouth, trickling saliva, hung slack. Only then, at midnight—as if at a spoken command though none was given, simultaneously and in perfect unison�
��did the coven begin the invocation; with Spellman sitting bolt upright in his bed, and with the others below in their cells.

  • • •

  It was early February before the furor at Oakdeene died down, by which time the events of the night of 1st January 1936 had been carefully examined—as best they could be—and chronicled for future reference in various reports. By then, too, Dr. Welford had resigned; he had been unfortunate enough to be Duty Officer of the night in question; and while it was generally recognized that the responsibility had in no way been his, his resignation seemed to appease directors, newspapers and the relatives of many of the inmates alike.

  Certainly, had Dr. Welford been a man without scruple, he might have turned at least part of the result of that night’s happenings to his advantage; for in the following month five of Hell’s inhabitants—three of them previously “hopeless” maniacs—were released as perfectly responsible citizens! Alas, five others, of which one was Larner, had been found dead in their cells shortly after the midnight disturbance—the victims of “frantic lunatic convulsions.” The remaining two—survived—but in states of deep and constant catatonia.

  Such had been the upheaval at Oakdeene on the morning of the 2nd January, that at first it was believed Barstowe’s ghastly death on the lonely road between the sanatorium and Oakdeene village had been brought about by a madman escaped in the confusion. For some reason the squat nurse had not waited until morning to leave—perhaps he had some premonition of the horror to come—but had departed on foot with his case shortly after eleven that very night. Apparently Barstowe had tried to fight back before succumbing to his attacker: a black telescopic stick with a silver tip—an instrument that could be opened out to make a pointed weapon some nine feet long—was found near his body, but his efforts had been of no avail.