by Gary Fry
Alarm registered briefly in Melanie’s eyes. “He had a…” she began, but was unable to finish.
He stared at her. “Mel?” he asked, responding to the hand she’d now raised to her face. “What is it?”
“Just…something in my eye,” she replied with convincing haste, and he was too wrapped up in nostalgia to notice she’d lied.
He proceeded to tell her other stuff about his and Simon’s relationship, how his brother had enjoyed making models, which was why the clay figure now beside Melanie had brought Anthony to his knees when Carl had produced it earlier.
“He sculpted that giant elephant I took to my lecture last week—do you know the one? I broke off its trunk by accident and had to fix it when I got home.”
“But Ant, that was the day when—”
Both looked at the model resting on the couch.
“Creepy, eh?” he said with an uneasy tone. “Do you understand my concern now?”
She certainly did, largely because she had so many of her own. “Yes,” she replied, but wouldn’t add her own issues right now: how, during her in-laws’ funeral, she’d seen, loitering in the churchyard, a small boy with a blemish on his upper lip. And only today, how she’d experienced another episode of what might be termed telepathy out in the Yorkshire Dales, which had involved that weird word: Cthulhu…Instead she made the enquiry her husband had read in her mind earlier. “So why have you invited your childhood friends back here?”
“It must be a psychological thing,” he explained, blowing away cigarette smoke, which lingered in the room like insidious smog. “I think together we might…well, we might figure something out.”
“About Simon? Do you mean that, as they were the only people present when it happened, they might help you work through it?”
Anthony glanced again at that unsightly model. He supposed any kid living near a lake with clay banks might become creative in this way, but it was the nature of the beast that troubled him. It shared too many characteristics with the one his brother had made, so many years ago. Could that be a coincidence? Yes, he did believe these were common and accounted for many strange events. But what about Paul, Lisa and Andy’s artistic predilections? Each was into the darker side of invention: horror, monsters and other weird phenomena…
The truth was rational, however; he knew that was true. He was a psychologist, for God’s sake.
Looking up, he told his wife, “Something of the sort, I guess.”
She offered him a thumbs-up sign, always her way of supporting his resolutions. On this occasion, however, they both hesitated for long seconds, simply staring at Melanie’s hands. But neither gave voice to whatever they thought and this time was unable to read the other’s mind.
“It was thugs who did it, wasn’t it?” asked Anthony, struggling to suppress the knowledge he’d learned from Derek Gardiner, especially about the manner in which his parents had been killed, the unusual marks on their necks.
“Who else could it have been?” she replied, setting aside the wallet and the purse, which came to rest beside the clay model on the couch. She tried not to think of the incomplete handprints she’d noticed in the lake’s bank and instead glanced up at her husband. “Take me to bed, Ant,” she said, holding out her hands for him to help her up.
“Why…certainly, ma’am.”
“How quaintly old-fashioned.”
“I desire only to please, milady.”
After switching out the lights, they headed arm-in-arm along the hallway, pausing briefly outside the spare room’s door to hear breathing from inside, that of their son and the dog. Then they went to the master bedroom, already kissing and fondling.
“What do you plan tomorrow?” Melanie asked as Anthony removed her skirt in a single motion and began stroking the curves of her hips.
“I’m going to have a look around for our little tormentor, the so-called Suman. I’ll also return the model he gave Carl where it belongs. The lad might have found it inside…that house. Well, I aim to go in there.”
“Very sensible,” she said, running her hands through his hair. “There’s obviously a sensible explanation for all this.”
Anthony must have thought Melanie was more convinced than she was, because he quickly unbuttoned her blouse to reveal her breasts. “I’d be grateful if you could keep Carl inside the house all day. Promise him a walk around the village—maybe even a gift—later this week if he’s good.”
“I think that’s for the best,” she replied, and then lay on the bed to receive more intimate ministrations. Anthony had now removed his pants and unshouldered his sweater.
“I want to see Larry Cole again, the guy I was telling you about earlier.” He paused, drew breath, and then in a more upbeat voice, added, “But meanwhile we have a party to prepare for. I have good folk to introduce you to.”
“Sounds great,” she said, and as he entered her with such suddenness, her gasp merged with all the furtive activity outside the bungalow. She suppressed another issue that had been lurking in her mind since her husband had discussed his long-gone brother: the way Carl had said the boy he’d met had called him his nephew and described himself as his uncle…
Someone clearly had it in for Anthony. But Melanie knew her husband wouldn’t be fooled for long. He was a smart guy; splendid in bed, too.
They made love, slowly and with satisfaction, and after finishing an hour later, they chatted about the future, trying to throw off the gloom of the last few days. Anthony asked whether she’d settled on a PhD project and she told him the ideas she’d developed while strolling the moors. He told her these were excellent, making her feel more hopeful than she had in months. Perhaps they could move to Deepvale, after all.
“One thing’s for certain,” Anthony muttered before settling down for sleep.
“What’s that?” she asked, tucking her head under his chin.
As a breeze groaned across the hills and then along the grove outside, his reply sounded blighted by misery but also laden with optimism. “Whatever else is going on, dead is dead. After a hundred years, Peter Suman won’t be bothering us.”
She laughed, a halfhearted sound, and then striving not to listen to other sounds in the neighbourhood, they slipped into what they trusted would be gentle dreams.
THIRTEEN
“June, where’ve you put the bloody keys?”
“Don’t fret, Jack. I’ve already locked up. I don’t want you knowing where they are in case you sleepwalk again. I was washing mud from the garden off the carpet for days last time.”
“Bah!”
Jack Smith hauled his final can of lager that evening into the bedroom where his wife had already switched on the TV. No chance of any sex, then…but this didn’t bother him much. June had piled on the lard since hitting fifty, and whenever they did do it—once a full moon—he had to close his eyes and picture the tarts in the magazines he hid in his shed. This didn’t always work well, but it was better than seeing his wife’s vast outline in the gloom.
She was too excited tonight about Andy phoning earlier, anyway. Apparently the useless shrink who’d moved into the Mallinsons’ (and Jack would bet his last quid that he, his wife and their scrote of a boy would now live there with no mortgage, the lucky bastards) had called their son, asking him to travel over from the Wirral. Oh great. More pretentious crap to endure. Sure, the lad was doing well with his drawings, but how could Jack tell his mates at the factory that his kid was an artist? They’d rib him for days. The arseholes.
He crossed to the window, still thinking about his chat with Anthony Mallinson yesterday. Despite studying to become a doctor of the mind, the guy had been unable to sort out Jack’s sleepwalking. So much for experts. Working blokes like him slogged their bollocks off, paying their taxes, and the folk they funded couldn’t even help them. Fucking hell.
But Jack could admit his problem was growing embarrassing. The last time, he’d ended up in the garden shed. He was certain that nosy cow nextdoor—Beryl R
obinson—had been watching through her prissy curtains.
He parted his own now. Beryl’s husband, boozy Alan, had been out with the sheers earlier (on his only day off, the poor sod; talk about being under the thumb). After getting home from work, Jack had noticed the hedge had been clipped, but now it appeared shaggy again. Maybe the angle at which he viewed it had altered the shape of the conifers. They resembled small people out there…
His scrutiny was ended when his wife entered the bedroom.
“I was just saying, it’ll be nice to have Andy back for a night or two, won’t it? I’ve spruced up his old bedroom. I can’t wait.”
He supposed he should pay lip service to her excitement. She wasn’t a bad old girl, really. He always had a clean T-shirt and socks to wear, for instance. Jack turned from the window, stepped towards the bed, and then slid his bulky frame under the sheets. “Yeah, we’ll catch up on lost time, shall we?” he offered with a subdued sigh.
“That’d be nice,” his wife replied, her voice infectiously jolly. Then she looked at him defensively, as if he wanted more from her. But he simply rolled away, awaited the light going out, and was soon sound asleep.
Jack dreamed about rising from bed. June remained snoozing and the room had no weird stuff in it; the dream wasn’t unrealistic. But after pacing into the hall and towards the kitchen, he suffered strange perceptions. Where had his wife hidden the keys? He thought he could read the air traces left by her mind. He tried the cutlery drawer first, and was careful—even though he only dreamed—not to slice his thumb on a knife. At the back of this drawer, in which forks and spoons lay together like contented family members, he found the keys on a fob and then removed them.
He headed for the back door, unlatched it, and wandered outside. The dream-wind was stiff, but he needn’t worry about wearing only pyjamas; if he caught a cold, he could take a few days off work. Nevertheless, while treading across the lawn, which felt damp underfoot, he reminded himself that he was dreaming.
How else to account for the curious light illuminating his garden shed’s interior? It was as bright as that from the dream-moon and dream-stars, their rays flickering between dream-clouds shifting to and fro with restless menace. Jack advanced, the soil in front of the shed squelching beneath his feet. But why worry about that? He wouldn’t be taking this back into the bungalow. He was dreaming. Of course he was. Then he looked directly ahead.
Something was going crazy inside the shed. It resembled a cloud of whitish flies, but as he observed more carefully, this fragmentary movement acquired definition. Other entities were also looking on, including a small boy at the back of the shed, whose upper lip bore a small, dark mole…A troubling memory swooped at Jack, but he pushed it away, mainly because another concern had just risen to the fore: what should he make of the blackish creatures on either side of the phenomenon taking shape through the glass? Were these a few of his upended garden brushes, their heads bearing innumerable bristles?
Whatever the truth was, his attention returned to the mad, whirling activity at the shed’s heart. This swarming mass coiled and twisted, quickly coalescing, becoming solid…It was surely a person he noticed amid the riot—an old guy made of specks of whatever crazy substance was emerging from all the intense light. Then this aged man’s mouth dropped open in a facsimile of a scream, an incongruously silent response to his manic construction. His makeshift frame writhed and fell apart…only to make another attempt at solidity…which soon collapsed again.
Jack jerked back from the greasy window, realising that his dream had become a nightmare. He didn’t wish to continue watching the hideous spectacle of a million atoms forming the hideous shape of an ancient man lacking tangible mercy. This characteristic was apparent in his crazed gaze.
As Jack stole back for the house, voices that sounded muffled by hair trailed him.
“Peter…Suman…Peter…Suman…” they announced in a rising chant.
After reaching the door, Jack shut himself inside, returned the keys to their hidey-hole, and then fled back for bed. He’d never been fond of dreams and wondered what this latest one’s source had been. Perhaps his son Andy, an artist with a penchant for hellish visions, could make sense of the horror. Maybe such outrageous material was stored in genes.
Jack might be more like his boy that he’d ever admitted.
FOURTEEN
Anthony decided to make an early start today. He had much to do, and after getting out of bed, he quickly made breakfast for his family. A solitary box of cornflakes stood in a kitchen cupboard, and the sight tugged briefly at his heart. For some reason—maybe because he knew his parents would never finish the packet—this made him realise, more than anything else, that his mum and dad were dead.
He firmed his resolve and took cereal and drinks into the bedrooms. Having built himself up for where he planned to go this morning, he was determined not to be delayed by any distracting talk from Melanie or Carl.
Nevertheless, propped against the pillows, his wife said with surprising alertness, “You’re not just going there to return that thing, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you want to see where…it happened, to figure out if there’s anything you might notice that others haven’t?”
Mercifully he’d forgotten whatever dark entities he’d dreamed about overnight. He summoned courage to reply. “If the police couldn’t find anything, what chance have I got?”
“Oh, come on,” his wife continued, not very helpfully in Anthony’s opinion. “They couldn’t even find your parents’ wallet and purse in the wardrobe here.”
“Yes, that’s true, I suppose. Anyway…”
Tension had rendered him inarticulate and he could only shrug before saying good-bye. As he exited, Melanie offered him the luck he’d wasn’t sure he should rely on, and then he began to feel uncomfortable. Moments later, back in the hallway, he heard his son call from behind the spare room’s door: Simon’s old room.
“Daddy, can I come shopping with you today?”
While delivering breakfast, Anthony had told the boy he intended to go to the local supermarket to fetch food for their party later, but now regretted doing so. Carl had been too sleepy to speak after Anthony had left him with a bowl of cornflakes, but his usual mental focus had since returned.
“No, you stay here and look after your mummy and Lucy,” Anthony called back, and before the boy could protest, he hurried to the lounge and located the clay model his son had brought home yesterday.
Despite feeling uncomfortable touching it, he slid the beast inside a carrier bag he’d found beneath the kitchen sink. That weird episode of mind-reading he and his wife had experienced the previous evening had just been intimate familiarity, an ability facilitated by happy marriage. Nevertheless, Anthony found himself rushing for the front door to let himself outside.
A few middle-aged people who lived in the grove were leaving for work—men, mainly. Just then, a disturbance occurred when the entrance to the Smiths’ place clattered open and a woman—June—chased her husband—Jack—out onto their driveway.
“Mud everywhere!” she cried as the man headed for his car with a bewildered expression on his wrinkled face. “What on earth am I going to do? Andy’s coming this afternoon! What’s he going to think?”
The house’s door was slammed, leaving the browbeaten spouse to nurse his bruised sensibilities. He caught Anthony’s eye, stared for a long time, considered speaking, but thought better of it and began unlocking his hatchback.
Anthony turned away, feeling puzzled. He’d hoped the Smiths would be pleased after complaining at the funeral that their son rarely visited…He strolled on, shaking his head, but then stopped dead in his tracks. The man behind him had spoken, after all.
“Thanks a lot, you work-shy waster.”
Anthony turned, anxiousness giving way to anger.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, feeling the weight in the bag beside him shift a little—surely just the e
ffect of a cool breeze rushing along the pavement.
Jack Smith looked confused, and before climbing into the driver’s seat, replied, “Never said a word, son.”
Then he shut himself inside his car, refused to buckle up, started the engine and drove off.
Charming, thought Anthony, watching the vehicle retreat. Nobody else was around, and so he couldn’t ask for verification about the rude comment he thought the man had made. But Anthony now realised he was employing delaying tactics, a common foible when faced with stressful events. Advancing for the junction, he steeled himself for the task he’d been dreading for many years.
Time seemed to have passed so quickly. He might be eleven again, standing outside The Conjurer’s House with his friends and—more crucially—his younger brother.
“Oh, Simon,” he murmured, raking his gaze across the property. And it did resemble a face. The knowledge Larry Cole had imparted now made more sense than ever. A shrine to consciousness—weren’t those the words the historian had used? Anthony could certainly understand this: the way the windows resembled eyes, filthy brickwork like jowls, the doorway serving as a large mouth…It was as if the creature in his bag had been modelled after the house, or maybe vice versa.
He tried suppressing such thoughts while passing through a gap in the garden wall and then up the weed-strewn path for the entrance. He hadn’t just seen a figure on the piebald lawn to his left; that had been a shadow from several trees in its borders, cast by sunshine unburdened by clouds. There was no sign of the so-called Suman. Did the boy live elsewhere and only venture here because of some morbid tendency? Whatever the truth was, Anthony should concentrate on only one matter at a time.
Without further hesitation, he entered the house.
The ground floor proved almost disappointing, especially now Anthony’s body had begun rebelling. His heart skipped, his palms growing clammy. Nevertheless, after looking around, he saw only a hallway leading to what appeared to be a ramshackle kitchen. On the left stood a lounge, and to the right a wide staircase whose elaborate banister was tarnished by dirt. Beneath the steps was another door, its bulk sealed in a greasy frame. The ceiling was high, and as Anthony passed beneath to examine the rooms on this level, flakes dropped from its stained paintwork. The building was almost certainly reacting to a draught generated by his motion rather than anyone being upstairs, creeping around as he was.