The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror

by Campbell, Ramsey

  To turn and look upon its face,

  Brought fear I’d never known -

  The shadow has ever haunted me,

  As I walk the earth so alone -

  Karl Edward Wagner.

  ‘C’est de Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!

  Aux objets repugnants nous trouvons des appas;

  Chaque jour vers l’Enfer nous descendons d’un pas,

  Sans horreur, a travers des tenebres qui puent.

  ‘Serre, fourmillant, comme un million d’helmintnes

  Dans nos cerveaux ribote up people le Demons,

  Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons

  Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaints.’

  Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du mal.

  AS HENRY LAMSON looked from the gate of his brother’s farm on the outskirts of Pire he noticed that someone was walking along the lane in his direction. Although it did nothing to disconcert him at the time, he did wonder, as he bid farewell to the silhouetted figures in the doorway, before setting off for his bus stop, why someone should have been coming back from the moors at this time of the night, especially when it had been pouring down with rain all day.

  Shrugging his shoulders, Lamson pulled his raincoat collar up high about his neck against the drizzle and picked his way as carefully as he could between the puddles in the deeply rutted lane. He wished now, as his feet sank in the half hidden mud, that he had thought to bring a torch with him when he came on his visit, since the moon, though full, only faintly showed through the clouds, and the lane was for the most part in shadow.

  Engrossed as he was in finding a reasonably dry route along the lane, he did not notice until a few minutes later, when the lights of his brother’s farm had disappeared beyond the hedgerow, that the figure he had seen was nearing him quickly. Already he could hear his footsteps along the lane.

  Petulantly pausing to disentangle a snapped thorn branch that had caught on his trouser leg, he turned to watch the hunched figure hobbling towards him. A threadbare overcoat of an indeterminate colour swayed from about his body. In one hand he grasped a worn flat cap, while the other was thrust in his overcoat pocket for warmth.

  When he finally succeeded in freeing himself of the twig, Lamson made to continue on his way; the man was obviously nothing more than a tramp, and an old one at that. As he started off, though, he heard him call out in a cracked bellow that rose and died in one breath:

  ‘’Arf a mo’ there!’

  Irritated already at the drizzle that was soaking inexorably through his coat, Lamson sighed impatiently. As the tramp hurried towards him through the gloom, he slowly made out his bristly, coarse and wrinkled face, whose dirt-grained contours were glossy with rain.

  The old man stumbled to a halt and raucously coughed a volley of phlegm on the ground. The pale grey slime merged in with the mud. Lamson watched him wipe his dribbling mouth with the top of his cap. Disgusted at the spectacle, Lamson asked him what was the matter.

  ‘Are you feeling ill?’ He hoped that he wasn’t. The last thing he wanted was to be burdened with someone like this.

  ‘Ill?’ The old man laughed smugly. ‘Ne’er ’ad a day’s illness in my life. Ne’er!’

  He coughed and spat more phlegm on the ground. Lamson looked away from it.

  Perhaps mistaking the reason for this action, the tramp said: ‘But I don’t want to ’old you up. I’ll walk alon’ with you, if you don’t mind me doin’. That’s all I called you for. It’s a lonely place to be by yoursel’. Too lonely, eh?’

  Lamson was uncertain as to whether this was a question or not. Relieved that the man was at least not against continuing down the lane, he nodded curtly and set off, the old man beside him.

  ‘A raw night, to be sure,’ the old man said, with a throaty chuckle.

  Lamson felt a wave of revulsion sweep over him as he glanced at the old man’s face in the glimmering light of one of the few lampposts by the lane. He had never before seen anyone whose flesh gave off such an unnatural look of roughness. Batrachian in some indefinable way, with thick and flaccid lips, a squat nose and deeply sunken eyes, he had the appearance of almost complete depravity. Lamson stared at the seemingly scaly knuckles of his one bare hand.

  ‘Have you come far?’ Lamson asked.

  ‘Far?’ The man considered the word reflectively. ‘Not really far, I s’ppose,’ he conceded, with a further humourless chuckle. ‘And you,’ he asked in return, ‘are you goin’ far, or just into Pire?’

  Lamson laughed. ‘Not walking, I’m not. Just on to the bus stop at the end of the lane, where I should just about catch the seven fifty-five for the centre.’ He looked across at a distant farm amidst the hills about Pire; its tiny windows stood out in the blackness like feeble fireflies through the intervening miles of rain. He glanced at his watch. Another eight minutes and his bus would be due. As he looked up, Lamson was relieved to see the hedgerow end, giving way at a junction to the tarmac road that ran up along the edge of the moors from Fenley. The bus shelter stood beside a dry-stone wall, cemented by Nature with tangled tussocks of grass. Downhill, between the walls and lines of trees, were the pinpointed lines of streetlights etched across the valley floor. It was an infallibly awe-inspiring sight, and Lamson felt as if he had passed through the sullen voids of Perdition and regained Life once more.

  On reaching the shelter he stepped beneath its corrugated roof out of the rain. Turning round as he nudged a half empty carton of chips to one side he saw that the man was still beside him.

  ‘Are you going into Pire as well,’ Lamson asked. He tried, not too successfully, to keep his real feelings out of his voice. Not only did he find the tramp’s company in itself distasteful, but there was a foetid smell around him which was reminiscent in some way of sweat and of seaweed rotting on a stagnant beach. It was disturbing in that it brought thoughts, or half thoughts, of an unpleasant type to his mind. Apparently unaware of the effect he was having on Lamson, the tramp was preoccupied in staring back at the moors. Willows and shrubs were thrown back and forth in the gusts, intensifying his feelings of loneliness about the place.

  Finally replying to Lamson’s inquiry, the tramp said:

  ‘There’s nowhere else a body can go, is there? I’ve got to sleep. An’ I can’t sleep out in this.’ His flat, bristly, toad-like head turned round. There was a dim yellow light in his eyes. ‘I’ll find a doss somewhere.’

  Lamson looked back to see if the bus was in sight, though there were another four minutes to go yet before it was due. The empty expanse of wet tarmac looked peculiarly lonely in the jaundiced light of the sodium lamps along the road.

  Fidgeting nervously beside him, the old man seemed to have lost what equanimity he’d had before. Every movement he made seemed to cry out the desire to be on his way once more. It was as if he was morbidly afraid of something on the moors behind him. Lamson was bewildered. What could there be on the moors to worry him? Yet, whether there was really something there for him to worry about or not, there was no mistaking the relief which he showed when they at last heard the whining roar of the double-decker from Fenley turning the last bend in the slope uphill, its headlights silhouetting the bristling shrubs along the road and glistening the droplets of rain. A moment later it drew up before them, comfortingly bright against the ice-grey hills and sky. Climbing on board, Lamson sat down beside the nearest window, rubbing a circle in the misted glass to look outside.

  The tramp slumped down beside him.

  He was dismayed when, in the smoke-staled air, the smell around the old man became even more noticeable than before, whilst his cold, damp body seemed to cut him off from the warmth he had welcomed on boarding the bus.

  Apparently unconcerned by such matters, the tramp grinned sagaciously, saying that it was good to be moving once more. His spirits were blatantly rising and he ceased looking back at the moors after a couple of minutes, seemingly satisfied.

  In an effort to ignore the foetor exu
ded by the man, Lamson concentrated on looking out of the window, watching the trees and meadows pass by as they progressed into Pire, till they were supplanted by the gardened houses of the suburbs.

  ‘’Ave you a light?’ The frayed stub of a cigarette was stuck between the tramp’s horny fingers.

  His lips drawn tight in annoyance, Lamson turned round to face him as he searched through his pockets. Was there to be no end to his intolerable bother? he wondered. His eyes strayed unwillingly about the scaly knuckles of the man’s hand, to the grimily web-like flaps of skin stretched at their joints. It was a disgustingly malformed object, and Lamson was certain that he had never before seen anyone whose every aspect excited nothing so much as sheer nausea.

  Producing a box of matches, he struck one for him, then waited while he slowly sucked life into his cigarette.

  When he settled back a moment later, the tramp brought the large hand he had kept thrust deep in his overcoat pocket out and held it clenched before Lamson.

  ‘Ever seen anythin’ like this afore?’ he asked cryptically. Like the withered petals of a grotesque orchid, his fingers uncurled from the palm of his hand.

  Prepared as he was for some forgotten medal from the War, tarnished and grimy, with a caterpillar segment of wrinkled ribbon attached, Lamson was surprised when he saw instead a small but well-carved head of dull black stone, which looked as though it might have been broken from a statue about three feet or so in height.

  Lamson looked at the tramp as the bus trundled to a momentary stop and two boisterous couples on a night out climbed on board, laughing and giggling at some murmured remark. Oblivious of them, Lamson let the tramp place the object in his hand. Though he was attracted by it, he was simultaneously and inexplicably repelled. There was a certain hungry look to the man’s face on the broken head which seemed to go further than that of mere hunger for food.

  Lamson turned the head about in his fingers, savoring the pleasant, soap-like surface of the stone.

  ‘A strange thing to find out there, you’d think, wouldn’t you?’ the old man said, pointing his thick black stub of a thumb back at the moors.

  ‘So you found it out there?’ Somehow there was just enough self-control in Lamson’s voice to rob it of its disbelief. Though he would have wanted nothing more a few minutes earlier than to be rid of the man, he felt a yearning now to own the head himself that deterred him from insulting the tramp. After all, there was surely no other reason for the man showing the thing to him except to sell it. And although he had never before felt any intense fascination in archaeology, there was something about the head which made Lamson desire it now. He was curious about it as a small boy is curious about a toy he has seen in a shop window.

  Intent on adding whatever gloss of credibility to his tale that he could, the old tramp continued, saying:

  ‘It were in a brook. I found it by chance as I were gettin’ m’self some water for a brew. It’d make a nice paperweight, I thought. I thought so as soon as I saw it. It’d make a nice paperweight, I thought.’ He laughed self-indulgently, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat. ‘But I’ve no paper to put it on.’

  Lamson looked down at the carving and smiled.

  When the bus drew up at the terminus, Lamson was surprised, though not dismayed, when the tramp hurriedly climbed off and merged with the passing crowds outside. His bowlegged gait and crookedly unkempt figure were too suggestive of sickness and deformity for Lamson’s tastes, and he felt more eager than ever for a salutary pint of beer in a pub before going on home to his flat.

  Pressing his way through the queues outside the Cinerama on Market Street, he made for the White Bull, whose opaque doors swung open steamily before him with an out blowing bubble of warm, beery air.

  One drink later, and another in hand, he stepped across to a vacant table up in a corner of the lounge, placing his glass beside a screwed-up bag of crisps.

  A group of men were arguing amongst themselves nearby, one telling another, as of someone giving advice:

  ‘A standing prick has no conscience.’

  There was a nodding of heads and another affirmed: ‘That’s true enough.’

  Disregarding them as they sorted out what they were having for their next round of drinks, Lamson reached in his pocket and brought out the head. A voice on the television fixed above the bar said:

  ‘You can be a Scottish nationalist or a Welsh nationalist and no one says anything about it, but as soon as you say you’ re a British nationalist, everyone starts calling out “Fascist!”’

  Two of the men nodded to each other in agreement.

  Holding the head in the palm of his hand, Lamson realized for the first time just how heavy it was. If not for the broken neck, which showed clearly enough that it was made out of stone, he would have thought it to have been molded from lead. As he peered at it, he noticed that there were two small ridges on its brows which looked as though they had once been horns

  As he studied them, he felt that if they had remained in their entirety, the head would have looked almost satiric, despite the bloated lips. In fact, the slightly raised eyebrows and long, straight nose—or what remained of them—were still reminiscent of Pan.

  He heard a glass being placed on the table beside him. When he looked up he saw that it was Allan Sutcliffe.

  ‘I didn’t notice you in here before. Have you only just got in?’ Lamson asked.

  Sutcliffe wiped his rain-spotted glasses on a handkerchief as he sat down, nodding his head. He replaced his glasses, then thirstily drank down a third of his pint before unbuttoning his raincoat and loosening the scarf about his neck. His face was flushed as if he had been running.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d be able to get here in time for a drink. I have to be off again soon to get to the Film Society. What have you got there, Henry? You been digging out your garden or something?’

  Almost instinctively, Lamson cupped his hands about the head.

  ‘It’d be strange sort of garden in a second floor flat, wouldn’t it?’ he replied acidly.

  He drew his hands in towards his body, covering what little still showed of the head with the ends of his scarf. Somehow he felt ashamed of the thing, almost as if it was obscene and repulsive and peculiarly shameful.

  ‘Where did you say you were off to?’ he asked, intending to change the subject. ‘The Film Society? What are they presenting tonight?’

  ‘Nosferatu. The original. Why? D’you fancy coming along to it as well? It’s something of a classic, I believe. Should be good.’

  Lamson shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, but I don’t feel up to it tonight. I only stopped in for a pint or two before going on home and getting an early night. I’ve had a long day already, what with helping my brother, Peter, redecorating the inside of his farmhouse. I’m about done in.’

  Glancing significantly at the clock above the bar, Sutcliffe drained his glass, saying, as he placed it back on the table afterwards: ‘I’ll have to be off now. It starts in another ten minutes.’

  ‘I’11 see you tomorrow as we planned,’ Lamson said. ‘At twelve, if that’s still okay?’

  Sutcliffe nodded as he stood up to go.

  ‘We’ll meet at the Wimpy, then I can get a bite to eat before we set off for the match.’

  ‘Okay.’

  As Sutcliffe left, Lamson opened his sweat-softened hands and looked at the head concealed in the cramped shadows in between. Now that his friend had gone, he felt puzzled at his reaction with the thing. What was it about the thing that should affect him like this? he wondered to himself. Placing it back in his pocket, he decided that he had had enough of the pub and strode outside, buttoning his coat against the rain.

  Sunlight poured with a cold liquidity through his bedroom window when Lamson awoke. It shone across the cellophane that protected the spines of the hardbound books on the shelves facing his bed, obscuring their titles. It seemed glossy and bright and clean, with the freshness of newly fallen snow.
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  Yawning contentedly, he stretched, then drew his dressing gown onto his shoulders as he gazed out of the window. Visible beyond the roof opposite was a bright and cloudless sky. He felt the last dull dregs of sleep sloughing from him as he rubbed away the fine granules that had collected in his eyes. Somewhere he could hear a radio playing a light pop tune, though it was almost too faint to make out.

  Halfway through washing he remembered the dreams. They had completely passed from his mind on wakening, and it was with an unpleasant shudder that they returned to him now.

  The veneer of his cheerfulness was dulled by the recollection, and he paused in his ablutions to look back at his bed. They were dreams he was not normally troubled with, and he was loath to think of them now.

  ‘To Hell with them!’ he muttered self-consciously as he returned to scrubbing the threads of dirt from underneath his nails.

  The measured chimes of the clock on the neo-Gothic tower, facing him across the neat churchyard of St. James, were tolling midday when Lamson walked past the Municipal Library. Sutcliffe, who worked at a nearby firm of accountants as an articled clerk, would be arriving at the Wimpy further along the street any time now. Going inside, Lamson ordered himself a coffee and took a seat by the window. He absent-mindedly scratched his hand, wondering nonchalantly, when he noticed what he was doing, if he had accidentally brushed it against some of the nettles that grew up against the churchyard wall. A few minutes later Sutcliffe arrived, and the irritation passed from his mind, forgotten.

  ‘You’re looking a bit bleary eyed today, Henry,’ Sutcliffe remarked cheerfully. ‘An early night, indeed! Too much bed and not enough sleep, that’s your trouble.’

  ‘I wish it was,’ Lamson replied. ‘I slept well enough last night. Too well, perhaps.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Some dreams—’ Lamson started to explain, before he was interrupted by Sutcliffe as the waitress arrived.

  ‘Wimpy and chips and coffee, please.’