“I thought perhaps she had no memory of what had happened to her. Maybe the necromancer had put her into some kind of trance, I reasoned; and now she’d woken from it the past was all forgotten.
“I started to explain to her. ‘Walter . . .’ I said.
“ ‘Yes, I know –’ she replied. ‘He’s dead.’ She smiled at me; a May morning smile. ‘He was old,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘But he was always kind to me. Old men are the best husbands. As long as you don’t want children.’
“My gaze must have gone from her radiant face to the baby at her nipple, because she said:
“ ‘Oh, this isn’t Walter’s boy.’
“As she spoke she tenderly teased the infant from her breast, and it looked my way. There it was: life-in-death, perfected. Its face was shiny pink, and its limbs fat from its mother’s milk, but its sockets were deep as the grave, and its mouth wide, so that its teeth, which were not an infant’s teeth, were bared in a perpetual grimace.
“The dead, it seemed, had given her more than pleasure.
“I dropped the books, and the gift for my father there on the doorstep. I stumbled back out into the daylight, and I ran – oh, God in Heaven, I ran! – afraid to the very depths of my soul. I kept on running until I reached the road. Though I had no desire to venture past the graveyard again, I had no choice: it was the only route I knew, and I did not want to get lost, I wanted to be home. I wanted a church, an altar, piety, prayers.
“It was not a busy thoroughfare by any means, and if anyone had passed along it since day-break they’d decided to leave the necromancer’s body where it lay beside the wall. But the crows were at his face, and foxes at his hands and feet. I crept by without disturbing their feast.”
Again, Haeckel halted. This time, he expelled a long, long sigh. “And that, gentlemen, is why I advise you to be careful in your judgments of this man Montesquino.”
He rose as he spoke, and went to the door. Of course we all had questions, but none of us spoke then, not then. We let him go. And for my part, gladly. I’d enough of these horrors for one night.
Make of all this what you will. I don’t know to this day whether I believe the story or not (though I can’t see any reason why Haeckel would have invented it. Just as he’d predicted, he was treated very differently after that night; kept at arm’s length). The point is that the thing still haunts me; in part, I suppose, because I never made up my mind whether I thought it was a falsehood or not. I’ve sometimes wondered what part it played in the shaping of my life: if perhaps my cleaving to empiricism – my devotion to Helmholtz’s methodologies – was not in some way the consequence of this hour spent in the company of Haeckel’s account.
Nor do I think I was alone in my preoccupation with what I heard. Though I saw less and less of the other members of the group as the years went by, on those occasions when we did meet up the conversation would often drift round to that story, and our voices would drop to near-whispers, as though we were embarrassed to be confessing that we even remembered what Haeckel had said.
A couple of members of the group went to some lengths to pluck holes in what they’d heard, I remember; to expose it as nonsense. I think Eisentrout actually claimed he’d retraced Haeckel’s journey from Wittenberg to Luneburg, and claimed there was no necropolis along the route. As for Haeckel himself, he treated these attacks upon his veracity with indifference. We had asked him to tell us what he thought of necromancers, and he’d told us. There was nothing more to say on the matter.
And in a way he was right. It was just a story told on a hot night, long ago, when I was still dreaming of what I would become.
And yet now, sitting here at the window, knowing I will never again be strong enough to step outside, and that soon I must join Purrucker and the others in the earth, I find the terror coming back to me; the terror of some convulsive place where death has a beautiful woman in its teeth, and she gives voice to bliss. I have, if you will, fled Haeckel’s story over the years; hidden my head under the covers of reason. But here, at the end, I see that there is no asylum to be had from it; or rather, from the terrible suspicion that it contains a clue to the ruling principle of the world.
BRIAN LUMLEY
The Taint
A WIDELY TRAVELLED MAN, Brian Lumley has visited or lived in the US, France, Italy, Cyprus, Germany and Malta, not to mention at least a dozen or more Greek islands. His hobbies have included hang-gliding in Scotland and spear-fishing and octopus-hunting in the Greek islands. He still makes regular visits to the Mediterranean, indulging his passion for moussaka, retsina, just a little ouzo . . . and Metaxa, of course!
When not travelling, Brian and his American wife Barbara Ann keep house in Devon, England.
With the recent publication of Harry Keogh: Necroscope, & Others, the author has completed his epic “Necroscope” saga in an amazing fourteen volumes. Thirteen countries (and counting) have now published or are in the process of publishing these books, which in the US alone have sold well over 2,000,000 copies.
Lumley’s list of titles now runs to fifty and counting. A prolific if not compulsive writer, the bulk of his work has seen print in the last twenty-three years, this following a full span of twenty-two years of military service.
Although he had long been an acknowledged master of the “Cthulhu Mythos” sub-genre inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction, it wasn’t until 1986, with his military career behind him, that the UK saw first publication of his ground-breaking horror novel Necroscope, featuring Harry Keogh, the man who talks to dead people.
Twenty years later, the book has been reissued in a deluxe edition by Subterranean Press, profusely illustrated by Bob Eggleton.
Lumley received the prestigious Grand Master Award in recognition of his work at the World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1998.
“It would be impossible to deny HPL’s influence on ‘The Taint’ even if I wanted to, which I don’t,” reveals the author. “Because H. P. Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, those ‘batrachian dwellers of fathomless ocean’, which he employed so effectively in his story ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, and hinted at in others of his stories, have always fascinated me. And not only me, but an entire generation of authors most of whom weren’t even born until long after Lovecraft’s tragically early death.
“As for the novella that follows: much like ‘Dagon’s Bell’ and ‘The Return of the Deep Ones’, it’s the result of my wondering – what if certain members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon somehow escaped or emigrated from degenerate old Innsmouth to resurface elsewhere? For instance, in England. But more than that I mustn’t say . . .”
JAMES JAMIESON LOOKED THROUGH BINOCULARS at the lone figure on the beach – a male figure, at the rim of the sea – and said, “That’s pretty much what I would have wanted to do, when I was his age. Beachcombing, or writing books; maybe poetry? Or just bumming my way around the world. But my folks had other ideas. Just as well, I suppose. ‘No future in poetry, son. Or in daydreaming or beachcombing.’ That was my father, a doctor in his own right. Like father like son, right?” Lowering his binoculars, he smiled at the others with him. “Still, I think I would have enjoyed it.”
“Beachcombing, in the summer? Oh, I could understand that well enough!” John Tremain, the middle-aged headmaster at the technical college in St Austell, answered him. “The smell of the sea, the curved horizon way out there, sea breezes in your hair, and the wailing of the gulls? Better than the yelping of brats any time – oh yes! The sun’s sparkle on the sea and warm sand between your toes – it’s very seductive. But this late in the season, and in my career?” He shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. You won’t find me with my hands in my pockets, sauntering along the tidemark and picking over the seaweed.”
He paused, shrugged, and continued, “Not now, anyway. But on the other hand, when I was a young fellow teaching arts and crafts: carpentry and joinery, woodcraft in general – I mean, working with woods as opposed to surviving in them – now
would have been the ideal time for a stroll on the beach. And I used to do quite a bit of it. Yes, indeed. For it’s autumn when the best pieces get washed ashore.”
“Pieces?” Jilly White came back from wherever her thoughts had momentarily wandered, blinked her pretty but clouded green eyes at Tremain, then glanced from face to face in search of a hint, a clue. “I’m sorry, John, but I wasn’t quite . . .?”
“Driftwood,” the teacher smiled. “All those twisted, sand-papered roots that get tumbled in with the tide when the wind’s off the sea. Those bleached, knotted, gargoyle branches. It’s a long time ago now, but—” He almost sighed, gave another shrug, and finished off, “But searching for driftwood was as close as I ever got to being a beachcomber.”
And Doreen, his tall, slender, haughty but not unattractive wife, said, “You’ve visited with us often enough, Jilly. Surely you must have noticed John’s carvings? They were all driftwood originally, washed up on the beach there.”
And now they all looked at Jilly . . .
There were four of them, five if you included Jilly White’s daughter, Anne, curled up with a book in the lee of a sand-dune some twenty-five yards down the beach and out of earshot. Above her, a crest of crabgrass like some buried sand-giant’s eyebrow framed the girl where her curled body described a malformed eye in the dune’s hollow. And that was where Jilly White’s mind had been: on her fifteen-year-old daughter, there in the lee of the dune; and on the muffled, shuffling beachcomber on the far side of the dunes, near the water’s edge where the waves frothed and the sand was dark and damp.
All of them were well wrapped against a breeze off the sea that wasn’t so much harsh as constant, unremitting. Only endure it long enough, it would cool your ears and start to find a way through your clothes. It was getting like that now; not yet the end of September, but the breeze made it feel a lot later.
“John’s carvings?” said Jilly, who was still a little distant despite that she was right there with the others on Doctor (or ex-Doctor) James Jamieson’s verandah overlooking the beach. But now, suddenly, she snapped to. “Oh, his carvings! The driftwood! Why, yes, of course I’ve noticed them – and admired them, honestly – John’s driftwood carvings. Silly of me, really. I’m sorry, John, but when you said ‘pieces’ I must have been thinking of something broken. Broken in pieces, you know?”
And Jamieson thought: She looks rather fragile herself. Not yet broken but certainly brittle . . . as if she might snap quite easily. And taking some of the attention, the weight off Jilly, he said, “Scrimshaw, eh? How interesting. I’d enjoy to see your work some time.”
“Any time at all,” Tremain answered. “But, er, while it’s a bit rude of me to correct you, er, James, it isn’t scrimshaw.”
“Oh?” The old man looked taken aback. “It isn’t?”
The headmaster opened his mouth to explain, but before he could utter another word his wife, Doreen, cut in with, “Scrimshaw is the art or handicraft of old-time sailors, Doctor.” She could be a little stiff with first names. “Well, art of a sort, anyway.” And tut-tutting – apparently annoyed by the breeze – she paused to brush back some ruffled, dowdy-looking strands of hair from her forehead before explaining further. “Scrimshaw is the name they’ve given to those odd designs that they carve on shells and old whalebones and such.”
“Ah!” Jamieson exclaimed. “But of course it is!” And glancing at Jilly, now huddling to herself, shivering a little and looking pale, he smiled warmly and said, “So you see, Jilly my dear, you’re not alone in mixing things up this afternoon. What with driftwood and scrimshaw and the wind – which is picking up I think, and blowing our brains about – why, it’s easy to lose track of things and fall our with the facts. Maybe we should go inside, eh? A glass of cognac will do us the world of good, and I’ll treat you to something I’ve newly discovered: a nice slice of homemade game pie from that bakery in the village. Then I’ll be satisfied that I’ve at least fed and watered you, and warmed your bones, before I let you go off home.”
But as his visitors trooped indoors, the ex-Doctor quickly took up his binoculars to scan the beach again. In this off-the beaten-track sort of place, one wouldn’t really expect to see a great many people on the shore; none, at this time of year. The beachcomber was still there, however; hunched over and with his head down, he shambled slowly along. And it appeared that Anne, Jilly’s bookish, reserved if not exactly retiring daughter, had finally noticed him. What’s more, she had stood up and was making her way down the beach toward him.
Jamieson gave a start as Jilly touched his arm. And: “It’s all right,” she said quietly, (perhaps even confidentially, the doctor thought). “It’s nothing you should feel concerned about. Young Geoff and Anne, they’re just friends. They went to school together . . . well, for a while anyway. The infants, you know?”
“Oh dear!” Jamieson blinked his slightly rheumy old eyes at her. “I do hope you don’t think I was spying on them – I mean, on your daughter. And as for this, er, Geoff?”
“It’s all right,” she said again, tugging him inside. “It’s quite all right. You’ve probably bumped into him in the village and he may well have sparked some professional interest in you. That’s only natural, after all. But he’s really quite harmless, I assure you . . .”
Eating slowly, perhaps to avoid conversation, Jilly wasn’t done with her food when the Tremains were ready to go. “Anyway,” she said, “I’ll have to wait for Anne. She won’t be long . . . knows better than to be out when the light starts failing.”
“You don’t mind her walking with the village idiot?” John’s words sounded much too harsh; he was probably biting his lip as he turned his face away and Doreen helped him on with his coat.
“Ignore my husband,” Doreen twisted her face into something that didn’t quite equal a smile. “According to him all children are idiots. It seems that’s what being a teacher does to you.”
Jilly said, “Personally, I prefer to think of the boy as an unfortunate. And of course in a small seaside village he stands out like a sore thumb. I’m glad he has a . . . a friend in Anne.”
And John half relented. “You’re right, of course. And maybe I’m in the wrong profession. But it’s much like Doreen says. If you work all day with kids, especially bolshy teenagers, and in this day and age when you daren’t even frown at the little sods let alone slap their backsides—”
At the door, Doreen lifted her chin. “I don’t recall saying anything like that. Nothing as rude as that, anyway.”
“Oh, you know what I mean!” John said testily, trailing her outside, and colliding with her where she’d paused on the front doorstep. Then – in unison but almost as an afterthought – they stuck their heads back inside to thank Jamieson for his hospitality.
“Not at all,” their host answered. “And I’ll be dropping in on you soon, to have a look at those carvings.”
“Please do,” John told him.
And Doreen added, “Evenings or weekends, you’ll be welcome. We’re so glad that you’ve settled in here, Doctor.”
“Oh, call me James, for goodness sake!” Jamieson waved them goodbye, closed the door, turned to Jilly and raised an enquiring, bushy grey eyebrow.
She shrugged. “A bit pompous maybe, but they’re neighbours. And it does get lonely out here.”
They went to the bay window in the end wall and watched the Tremains drive off down the road to their home less than a mile away. Jilly lived half a mile beyond that, and the tiny village – a huddle of old fishermen’s houses, really – stood some four or five hundred yards farther yet, just out of sight behind the rising, rocky promontory called South Point. On the far side of the village, a twin promontory, North Point, formed a bay, with the harbour lying sheltered in the bight.
For a moment more Jamieson watched the Tremains’ car speed into the distance, then turned a glance of covert admiration on Jilly. She noticed it, however, cocked her head on one side and said, “Oh? Is there something . . .
?”
Caught out and feeling just a little uncomfortable now, the old man said, “My dear, I hope you won’t mind me saying so, but you’re a very attractive woman. And even though I’m a comparative stranger here, a newcomer, I can’t say I’ve come across too many eligible bachelors in the village.”
Now Jilly frowned. Her lips began to frame a question – or perhaps a sharp retort, an angry outburst – but he beat her to it:
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” He held up his hands. “It’s none of my business, I know. And I keep forgetting that your husband . . . that he—”
“— Died less than eighteen months ago, yes,” Jilly said.
The old man sighed. “My bedside manner hasn’t improved any with age,” he said. “I retired here for what I thought would be solitude – an absence of everything that’s gone before – only to find that I can’t seem to leave my practice behind me! To my patients I was a healer, a father confessor, a friend, a champion. I didn’t realize it would be so hard not to continue being those things.”
She shook her pretty head, smiled wanly and said, “James, I don’t mind your compliments, your concern, or your curiosity. I find it refreshing that there are still people who . . . who care about anyone. Or anything for that matter!”
“But you frowned.”
“Not at what you said,” she answered, “but the way you said it. Your accent, really.”
“My accent?”
“Very similar to my husband’s. He was an American, too, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that. And he had a similar accent? A New England accent, you say?” Suddenly there was a new, a different note of concern in Jamieson’s voice, unlike the fatherly interest he’d taken in Jilly earlier. “And may I ask where he hailed from, your husband? His home town?”
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