Sepulchre

by James Herbert

  The journey to the Royal Cemetery of Ur had been long and wearisome and he had worried that the dig would be over by the time he arrived there; but no, there was still much to be done, many more tombs that lay at the bottom of deep shafts beneath thousands of surface graves to be revealed. And the merchant had been correct: the team of foreigners needed several of his ilk to organize the transient labor force, arrange permits and payroll, maintain supplies and medicines, as well as to secure the site against thieving infiltrators. He had worked diligently, never becoming too greedy with his own finds, taking only those objects small enough to be smuggled safely from the camp to the single room he had rented inside the city, a place where he could hide his private cache and where, every so often, the merchant from Jerusalem would arrive to relieve him of the treasures. The system worked well, and when all was complete, the merchant assured him, the profits would be admirable.

  He had not come upon the secret tunnel leading to the pit by accident, for he had always had the gift, the seeing in the mind, the ability to predict a death before it was claimed, a birth before conception, to judge beforehand good fortune for some, tragedy for others. Even when he was a child, should his mother lose a needle, it was he whom she urged to find it; should his father misplace an article, it was the boy who sought out its hiding place. Later, when his gift became known to others, it was he who was taken into arid territories to locate a source of water beneath the soil so that new settlements could be built around it. Rewards for that rare inner knowledge had paid for his welfare and education after his entire family had been taken by disease (strangely a tragedy he had not been able to predict). So it was that the merchant realized the young man's potential when the great find outside the distant city of Ur in the land where the ancient Sumerians had once reigned became world news. Who better then to seek out those exquisite but concealed antiquities that would end up as mere exhibits in some stuffy London museum unless redirected elsewhere?

  On his very first day inside that vast labyrinth of shafts and corridors, hidden rooms, and sepulchres, he had become confused and almost overwhelmed by mourning voices of the dead, whose spirits were locked beneath the earth, for their human vessels had taken their own lives to be with their deceased kings and queens and their high priests. Over the weeks that followed he had learned to shut out those incorporeal murmurings from his mind; yet one sensing persisted throughout, something that was not a spiritual utterance, but a kind of pulse, a split-second shifting of atmosphere, as if time itself had hiccuped. He would feel it but once or twice a day, never more than that. At first he had believed it was a physical phenomenon, a faraway subsidence, but no one else ever noticed the brief disturbance. The deeper he worked his way into the complex layers of tombs, the louder—or more sensed—the unheard "sound" became. Then one evening, when the day's labor was done, after the workmen returned to their tents or hovels outside the city walls and the foreigners retired to their lodgings, he had wandered alone through the lowest chambers, drawn by he knew not what, but compelled toward a destiny he had never dreamed of.

  The secret tunnel was behind an empty room at the furthermost extremity of the Royal Cemetery, a square space that had puzzled the learned archaeologists for it seemed to have no purpose: its walls were bare and there were no casks or ornaments within. It was merely an isolated chamber, one that was reached by crouching low along a lengthy corridor that had many turns and dips.

  The pulse had come as he had stood in that soulless room, and this time it was as though he had really heard the sound, The walls themselves had seemed to tremble. Startled, he had swung his lamp around and the light had caused a shadow on one wall. He moved closer to inspect the shadow and found a mud brick jutting out a fraction from its neighbors. He had used the trowel he carried, standard equipment along with brushes for the diggers, to cut around the brick and ease it from the wall. The stench of released gases sent him reeling backward.

  He approached again more cautiously, and the smell was still strong but less of a shock. Other mud bricks easily came loose, and soon a passageway was exposed. A dreadful fear had overcome him then and he had almost run from that place. But a curious fascination stayed him.

  He crawled into the narrow passage, holding the lamp before his face.

  The passage led downward, so steeply at certain points that he had to use his strength to prevent himself tumbling forward.

  Before long it opened out into a wide circular chamber at the center of which was a gaping hole, an open pit. Around the opening lay human bones, their rotting robes those of high priests and priestesses. Resting against the walls were clay tablets of cuneiform writing, wedge-shaped signs that represented words or syllables. He trod carefully to the edge of the pit and stared down at the blackness. That was when his fear became too much to bear, for something was urging him to descend, an inner compulsion inviting him to leap.

  And the mind-sound was a sound, disgorging from the pit.

  THUD-UP

  He had fled.

  Despite his terror, he had reseated the opening to the secret passageway, using dirt from the floor to cover the cracks (not that the room was of any interest to Sir Leonard and his team of archaeologists, who had treasures in abundance to drool over without bothering with empty chambers). This discovery would be his alone.

  Four days went by before he gained enough courage to venture down to that pit again, four days of nagging agitation and four nights of feverish nightmares. He knew he would go back; the difficulty was finding the will to do so.

  He waited until evening once more when all digging had stopped, only a few guards that he himself had helped organize left on duty above ground. This time he returned to the pit with rope and stanchion . . .

  . . . Kline wailed as he slept, and Khayed and Daoud leaned over him anxiously . . .

  . . . and fearfully, his limbs trembling so badly that he almost lost his grip, lowered himself over the edge of the pit. He descended slowly, drawn by an allure he could not comprehend, his lamp dangling below him, attached to his waist by thick string. He was aware that something evil awaited him, something ancient and cruel, for his dreams over the past few nights had revealed that at least to him, although no images, no visions of what it was, were presented. For in his sleep he had tasted the joys of carnality, had been seduced by the delights of depravity, had been pleasured by the thrill of vile-ness. The dreams had promised that those glories would be his if . . . if . . . if . . . he would but claim them. And to claim them, he would have to descend the pit.

  THUD-UP!

  The pulse was thunderous, reverberating around the shaft, causing a tremor, dislodging dust. His grip on the rope slipped and he plunged.

  But not far.

  For the pit was not deep at all. Its very blackness had created that illusion.

  His legs buckled and he crashed onto his back, the lamp toppling over, fortunately still burning. Without pause to re-gather his breath, he reached out and righted the lamp lest he be cast into complete darkness. Only then did he suck in the foul air and feel the pain of his jarred body.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position,' his back against the crumbling wall, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and frightened.

  Opposite was a niche. A square hole that was no more than two feet high, cleverly concealed in shadow so that no one above would ever realize it was there.

  It was some time before he was able to crawl toward the niche.

  The lamp revealed a closed receptacle of some kind inside, Its surface dulled by centuries of dust. He brushed shivery fingers across the front and felt metal; bumps and ridges that might have been symbols were embossed on what must have been a door, for set in one side was a small projection that served as a handle.

  He stared. He did not want to open it. He knew he was going to.

  His hand shook so violently he could barely grasp the handle. Squeezing his fingers tight around it, he tugged.

  The door opened easily.

&n
bsp; And his scream threatened to bring the walls of the pit down on him . . .

  . . . Kline's scream caused Khayed and Daoud to leap away from the bed in surprise. They quickly ran forward again and babbled soothing words to their master, assuring him it was only a nightmare, that he was safe under their watchful protection, nothing would harm him while they lived and breathed.

  He looked from one to the other, his face a cracked mask of seams and ruptures. Suddenly he understood.

  "He's dying," Kline rasped.

  35

  THE WAITING GAME

  He watched the Granada cruise by, its headlights brightening both sides of the narrow road. Keeping low and pulling aside minimum foliage so that he could observe but not be seen, he checked that there were still only two occupants in the patrol car. When it was gone, he stood and held up his wristwatch, waiting a moment or two for the moon to reappear from behind rolling clouds. Just under twenty minutes this time. The driver varied his speed during the circuit around the estate so that there was never a regular time interval between certain points. The driver of the second patrol car did the same.

  The man sank into the undergrowth, making his way back through the thick woods, only bringing out a flashlight when he was well clear of the road. Soon he arrived at a lane, one that eventually joined the route he had been watching; he continued his journey away from the estate.

  Two vehicles were waiting in a picnickers' clearing a few hundred yards on, their occupants sitting in darkness. He flashed his light twice, then switched off before climbing into the backseat of the first car.

  "Well?" the passenger in the front said.

  "Two patrols. Professionals, as you'd expect. We could easy take them out, though."

  "Shouldn't be any need."

  "No. It'll be no problem to get into the place. We only have to wait for them to pass, then make our move when they're out of sight. The fence'll be easy."

  "We'll wait awhile, give them time to settle in for the night."

  "It's been a time coming, Danny."

  His expression couldn't be seen, but the man in the front was smiling. "It has that," he said, the softness of his accent hardened by the intent of his words. "But all the sweeter for it."

  36

  A ROOM OF MEMORIES

  Halloran's senses reeled.

  It wasn't a room he was standing in but a kaleidoscope of memories. They spun before him, some merging so that yesterday mixed with yesteryear, experiences of childhood confused with those of later times, scenes superimposed upon others. It was as if screens or veils fluttered in front of him— he thought of the veils he and Kline had passed through together in the dream of last night—thin, transparent layers, older images on those new.

  He turned, ready to run from there, but the doorway was no longer behind him. Instead there were more visions, closing around him, the colors vivid and fresh, the details perfectly defined, as though they were being lived at that moment.

  Slowly some began to dominate the others, dispersing weaker memories—less significant memories—to the peripheries of his mind.

  He saw himself slicing the tendons behind the black tracker's knee, the man a volunteer of South Africa's Special Service brigade who would have followed Halloran and his small raiding band of ANCs back across the border to their camp, later to lead his own forces there, had he not been put out of action. Fading in over this was the church, moonlight through the high stained-glass windows revealing the three boys creeping along the center aisle, Liam hugging the dead cat wrapped in old rags to his chest, its body mangled, opened by the wheels of a speeding car, the other two boys giggling nervously as he approached the altar and reached up to the tabernacle, opening its gilt door, pushing the bloodied corpse inside, running for their lives, laughing and piss-scared of the consequences. He whirled. Now he was with the girl, Cora, taking her forcibly, ignoring her struggles, her protests, thrusting into her until she submitted, wanted him, her lust as intense as his, the rape no longer so, becoming a mutual desire which had to be satiated. And here he was with his father, and Dadda was being torn apart by bullets, his eyes bulging with disbelief while his son, Liam, urinated unknowingly into the stream, the father falling, then looking up at the boy, pleading—or was it warning?—telling him to run, to get away from there before the gunmen turned their weapons on him too, only unable to speak, his own blood choking his words. His father crawling to the bank, collapsing there, the masked Irishmen stepping on him, drowning him, shooting Dadda again. Halloran blinked, long and hard, but the visions would not disappear. Scenes from his military service, the killings, the terrible battle at Mirbat, the disillusionment with it all, the women who had drifted in and out of his life, the mother he had come to revile because of the craziness inside her head, the beatings he had dealt to others of his age who dared mock her affliction, and who dared spit the word Britisher as a curse at mention of his father, even though Dadda's birthplace was County Cork—and the beatings Liam received when his anger and frustration were no use against the gangs who taunted him. Halloran staggered with the intensity of it all. A blurred figure appeared, walking toward him through the hallucinations, the recognitions, arms out to him, calling his name beseechingly, and he could feel his Mam weeping, although she was but a specter, not yet clear in his vision. She drifted through the eidetic imagery, coming closer, her voice faint, begging for his embrace. And as she drew near, dissolving in and out of projections of his past, her head was distorting, becoming bent and twisted, as were her hands, pulping and spurting blood, as they had when she'd deliberately walked into the threshing machine on a neighbor's farm, her arms and upper body churned by the machinery, her head smashed and almost lopped off . . . as it was now, tilting, collapsing, hanging by bloody threads on her chest. Halloran screamed. But the memories were relentless. There was the big priest. Father O'Connell, warning Liam that the wildness had to stop, that the Good Lord Jesus would punish the boy for his wickedness, that his cankered soul would be damned eternally into Hell. The priest came at him, unbuckling the thick strap he wore around his waist, winding the buckle end around his fist, raising his arm to flail the boy, the man, pity as well as fury raging in his eyes. Then gone, before the black-robed priest could bring down the leather scourge. Replaced by the cousin of Liam's mother, one of the gunmen who had murdered his father. A man she had accused all those years ago, her accusations laughed off, sneered at. And here he was, sneering at Halloran again, a ghost not exorcised, even though the man had blown himself up along with a companion, a few years after the killing, the homemade bomb they had been carrying in the back of their car toward the border too delicate—or too faulty—for the rough, pitted lanes they had chosen to travel, the jigging and jogging causing wires to touch or to dislodge so that the boyos were blown sky-high, and the only person to celebrate the occasion was Liam, who could not understand how the assassin of his father could be venerated as a hero by the local townspeople, blessed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church when his bits and pieces had been returned for burial on consecrated ground, Father O'Connell himself pleading God's bountiful mercy for this poor unfortunate's soul, speaking of him as a martyr to the Cause, this killer who had robbed Liam of Dadda, who had laughed and sneered Mam to her death, who sneered at him now in this very room. Halloran yelled his outrage at the apparition, shaking with the emotion, every muscle and cord in his body stiffened rigid. Then it all began to darken and fade, the memories slipping away, fresh ones barely glimpsed until one bright spot remained; it seemed a great distance away, too far to be within the walls of the house itself. It grew in size, coming forward, the movement steady, a gliding, the object soon recognizable, its surroundings slowly filtering through, misty at first, but gaining substance. The tabernacle was on an altar, the altar itself raised above three broad steps, before the steps a Communion rail, the kneeling cushions and then the pews on either side of the center aisle. Liam, a youth, creeping toward the front of the church, in one hand a metal can from
his grandfather's workshed, in the other a lit devotional candle. He swung over the low rail, leaving the candle on top, and mounted the steps. Doubt, guilt—fear—urged him to open the tabernacle, to save the chalice containing the

  Communion wafers he knew Father O'Connell always prepared the night before early Sunday mass; but he didn't, too afraid to do so, for it would be like opening the door to God Himself, inviting Him to witness the sacrilege Liam was about to commit, and perhaps God—i/any such creature really existed—might take away the hatred, the one emotion Liam did not want to lose, because it gave him his life objective, it overcame grief and insecurity, if only for a short while. He tipped the can and poured gasoline over altar and steps, retrieving the candle and holding it aloft, well away from the inflammable liquid he splashed along the aisle. Eyes almost blinded with tears, Liam dropped the candle into the puddle near his feet. The fire sped away from him and now he was outside, face bathed in a warm glow, gazing in stupefied awe with the other townspeople as their beloved church perished in flames that might have been sent from Hell itself. And Father O'Connell could not be held back. He broke away from his flock and ran into the church, was gone for long minutes, an eternity, while the men outside moaned, the women wailed, and then he was bursting through the doors, the Holy Chalice clasped in his seared hands, but he was alight, his clothes, his hair, his skin on fire. He staggered on the church steps, and the people—his people—were afraid to go near, as if they would be contaminated, the flames would engulf them too. The priest screamed and he shrieked and he raised his arms up to the night, the chalice falling to the concrete, spilling its contents. The crowd moaned as one when Father O'Connell slumped to his knees. They cried aloud when he pitched forward onto his face. His body flared, a fireball without shape, and Liam's scream Noooooooo became Halloran's as he stood in the center of the room, hands striking the air as if to erase the memories, to banish the dreams.