Sepulchre

by James Herbert

  He stumbled back against the wall, the open doorway beside him. The worst of the stench came to him then, a smell so malodorous it was almost choking. He cupped a hand to his mouth and nose, blinking away wetness in his eyes. His whole body was damp, his clothes clinging, and it was only with considerable effort that he kept his legs straight. The urge to sink to the floor had to be fought against, for he was overcome with weariness and confusion; he resisted, acutely aware that there was danger all around him in this room, in this house.

  The penlight was lying several feet away, its thin beam pointed at the wall opposite, revealing only a strip of torn wallpaper. He could just make out the shape of the black bag he'd also dropped lying close by.

  In a crouch, his senses still not recovered from the onslaught they had received, Halloran moved forward and grabbed both items, then scrambled backward so that he leaned against the wall once more. He broadened the light beam to take in a bigger area.

  The floor was littered with rubbish and filth, a threadbare carpet, corners curled, covering a minimal section of bare boards. The walls were stained, the faded paper hanging in tatters; to one side were cupboards, the wood cracked and dull. A small table and chair were to his left; a few paces away, on the tabletop lay a plate on which remains of a meal had furred green. He noticed that the ceiling light socket had no bulb, the ceiling itself bulging in places, and pockmarked with dark fungi. Mustiness from that fungi contributed to the pungency of the room; the rest was a mixture of urine, stale feces, and . . . and something else. A sickly sweetness.

  The wide beam lingered around the single window in the room, the curtains of which were rendered gray by dust. A high-backed armchair faced the window. Wiry stuffing, like internal organs, spilled from holes in its upholstery. He knew that it was from here that the lodge keeper watched the gates to the estate. But Halloran could not see if the chair was occupied. Several seconds went by before he determined to find out.

  He edged past the doorway, keeping to the wall, moving to a position from where he could shine the beam directly into the chair. Shadows shifted also, stirred by the changing light. The angle improved as he drew closer, yet somehow he was reluctant to discover who sat there, his mind scarcely coping with the hallucinations it had already been bombarded with; he knew, though, that he could not leave the room without confronting the lodge keeper.

  He reached the corner, his shoulder brushing mold and dust from the mildewed wall, and raised the penlight so that it shone directly into the seat. Both relief and disappointment swept through him when he found it empty.

  But a faint disturbance was coming from elsewhere in the room. A sighing of air. A breathing.

  Halloran slowly swung the beam into the farthest corner, from where the sound came, the light passing an iron fireplace, this one too filled with hardened ashes, before coming to rest on a misshapen bundle of rags lying on the floor.

  As he watched, the bundle began to move.

  37

  JOURNEY AROUND THE LAKE

  There were five of them in all, lying low in the undergrowth, faces pressed into the earth as the car lights drew near. Only one of the men looked up when the brightest moment had passed, and he waited until the rear lights had become pinpoints in the distance before speaking.

  "That was it, all right. The Granada. Ten minutes at least till the other one comes along."

  Next to him, the man named Danny grunted. "Across the road, quick as you like, and as little noise as possible. There might just be a foot patrol inside the grounds."

  They rose as one, brushing through the foliage and around trees, sprinting across tarmac to reach the wire fence on the other side of the road. They were trained men, and one immediately turned his back and rested against the mesh, cupping his hands between his thighs as a stirrup. He hoisted his companions over, then threw the two rifles left lying in the grass to them. The weapons were deftly caught, and he scrambled over after them.

  The men melted into the shadows of the trees, then regrouped when they were well out of sight from the road.

  The leader whispered loud enough for them all to hear. "Round the lake, boys, an' no talking on the way. We'll keep to its edge in case there's an alarm setup in the woods. Eyes sharp, lads, an' single file. Make your mothers proud."

  He went forward, the others following down a slope that led to the edge of the water. They crept along the shoreline until the moon emerged from clouds like an all-encompassing searchlight; the group dropped to the ground. They crawled back into the undergrowth and waited to find out if they had been observed. Their leader eventually gave the order, and they rose as one to move silently through the trees.

  "Look out," one exclaimed.

  The others stopped, crouching low, hands reaching for weapons. Hammers clicked on revolvers.

  "What was it?" the leader demanded when there was no movement nor sound for several seconds.

  "I saw something ahead," the subordinate replied. "A shape."

  "What the hell are you talking about? Was it man or dog?"

  "Neither," came the nervous response. "Just a shape. I swear it disappeared in front of me."

  "You're going soft in the head, McGuire. Let's get the job done."

  They moved off again, but soon it was the leader himself who brought them to a halt. His scalp prickled as he watched the wavery mist that drifted in and out of the trees a few yards away. A cry close by distracted him.

  One of his men had raised his Armalite and was about to fire.

  "No," he ordered urgently, grabbing for the barrel. "What the hell are you playing at?"

  "Jesus, God, I saw them there." He pointed into the grass a short distance away. "A goddamn nest of 'em. Snakes. They just faded away."

  The leader shook his head in disgust. His men were behaving like old folk, frightened of their own shadows. He returned his attention to the spot where the mist had curled through the trees almost like arms reaching toward them. No mist now. God Almighty, he was as bad as the others.

  "Danny, will you look over there."

  "Keep it down," he growled, but turned to where the man was pointing. Through the woods he could see the lake. The water was choppy, stirred by a breeze that grew stronger by the moment, the moonlight tossed by undulations. But it was the far bank to which his man was directing him. There was movement there, a flowing stream that had nothing to do with water.

  "What is it?" someone whispered.

  "Can't you tell?" said the leader. "It's dogs, man."

  "Coming for us?"

  He could feel his men's panic.

  "Not at all. They'd be across the water at a sniff of us. No, they're on their way somewhere else, an' thank God for that."

  He watched the tiny, ghostly forms skirt around the lake, their low bodies catching the light so that in parts they looked silver. Clouds consumed the moon once more, and he could follow their journey no longer.

  He frowned, wondering where they were heading with such haste.

  38

  THE KEEPER

  The breathing became louder, a hissing that each time ended in a thick, muciferous sigh.

  It faded again, became almost a whisper, and Halloran strained to listen. The heaped bundle of rags was still, having moved only once.

  His own breathing was unsteady and Halloran realized that never before had he felt such debilitating trepidation, for a peculiar virulence seemed to poison the very air in the room. His inclination was to flee, to bolt through that doorway and get out into the night where the breeze was pure. But the curiosity that had led him to this place had become something more: an obsession, perhaps even a quest. Revelations from his own life had spun before him here, things that were bad, his worst sins re-created, and there had to be a reason why. He felt shame, a guilt he had always suppressed rising inside; yet it was his fascination that was stronger. It was that which prevented him from taking flight, for it prevailed over the fear, subjugated the exposed guilt.

  Halloran tentati
vely made his way toward the tangled rags.

  He saw the edges of a thin mattress, dried stains overlapping its sides, spreading where fluid had once seeped into the wood of the floor. The mound on top could have been anything—blankets, piled clothing, assorted pieces of material. That there was someone beneath there was no doubt, for the whispered breathing came from here and the jumbled covering quivered slightly with the exhalation. Halloran leaned forward and gripped the rags. He pulled them away.

  A face, partially concealed by a cowl, turned toward him.

  Halloran released the covering and stepped back, horrified at the countenance that stared up at him.

  The skin was withered and deeply rutted, like wrinkled leather left in the sun; and its coloring, too, was of old leather, except where there were festering scabs that glinted under the flashlight. Most alarming of all were the eyes. They were huge, lidless, bulging from the skull as if barely contained within their sockets; the pupils were cloudy, a fine membrane coating them, and the area around them that should have been white was yellow and patchworked with tiny veins.

  From this thing came the sickly sweet smell of death's corruption that dominated all the other scents of the room.

  Something seemed to shrink within those globular eyeballs when they came to rest on the shadowy form of Halloran, and the figure tried to rise, its scrawny neck arching backward as if the weight of its head was too much to bear. The hood fell away from a hairless skull whose surface was mottled with deep brown blemishes; incredibly, the skin there, which should have been smooth, was also wrinkled and ridged, as though the bone beneath had no firmness, no substance.

  Repulsed, Halloran took another step away. The impression of gazing down at an enormous lizardlike creature was enhanced when the figure's mouth opened and a tongue, so darkly red it seemed black, protruded and rolled across cracked, lipless flesh. The lidless eyes refuted the reptilian image.

  The figure attempted to speak, but no more than a gasped sigh escaped. The head sank back into the rough bedding with u finality that suggested the body itself had expired. Only then, and with reluctance, did Halloran advance again. Those bulbous eyes were fixed on him, and he shone the light directly into them. They did not blink, nor did the pupils, behind their mist, retract.

  "It's you," came the sibilant whisper.

  Halloran froze.

  The figure gasped in air, as though the effort of speaking had caused pain. Even deeper rents furrowed its skin, and the mouth puckered inward.

  Halloran struggled to find his own voice. "Who are you?"

  The slightest inclination of the withered head, a gesture that the question was of no importance. And then the whisper: Death comes." Its grimace might have been a smile.

  Halloran leaned close, ignoring the fetid air that rose from the rumpled head. "I can get help," he said, and the thought of touching this person almost made him retch.

  Again that toothless, puckered expression that could have been a grin. "Too late for me," came the whisper. "Come closer."

  Halloran shuddered inwardly and made no effort to comply.

  I must speak . . ." it said, " . . . with you."

  He knelt, but still could not find it in himself to bend near the hideous face. "Tell me who you are," he repeated.

  This time there was an answer, perhaps an inducement to draw him in. "The . . . Keeper." The voice was stronger, and that, he thought, of a man.

  "The gate keeper?" Halloran said. Surely it wasn't possible. The person before him was too ancient and too infirm to bear the responsibility.

  The man's laugh was a choking sound, and his head shook with the exertion. "The Keeper," he said again, the last syllable an exhaled breath. A silence between them, then: "And you . . . you are Kline's guardian." The dark tongue flicked out, the movement quicker this time as it swept across his mouth. The skin was hardly moistened. "I understand now,' he murmured so softly that Halloran wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.

  Those staring eyes with their veiled pupils were disconcerting, and he wondered how much the old man could really see. "I'm going to bring a doctor to you," he said, question racing through his mind.

  "Too late, too late." The words were drawn out as a sigh "At long last . . . it's too late." His head lolled to one side.

  Not anxious, but curious, Halloran reached out to feel the pulse between the still man's neck and chin. He jerked his fingers away when the face turned back to him.

  "Do you understand why you're here?" he was asked.

  "Felix Kline is a client," Halloran answered.

  "Do you know why you came to this house?"

  "Here, the lodge house?"

  There was no reply.

  "I came to check it out, to find out who was inside, who handled the . . . the dogs."

  "Now you've seen me."

  He nodded.

  "But it seems you understand nothing." The wrinkled face creased even more. "I wonder what you sense." There was an accent in the soft-spoken words.

  "What did you see when you entered . . . this room?" the old man whispered.

  How could he know? Unless he had caused them, just as Kline had caused hallucinations out on the lake.

  "Things past, but never quite forgotten?" A catching in the throat, perhaps a snigger. "Your account has been brought up to date. I wonder why."

  "Is Kline still playing stupid games with me, putting thoughts into my mind?" Halloran felt anger overwhelming his abhorrence.

  The shaking of the old man's head was feeble. "No . . . no . . . the thoughts came from you. They are yours alone. Memories. You brought yourself . . . to this point." Those disturbing, milky eyes watched him; the ragged gash of a mouth curled in what could have been a grin.

  "Tell me about Kline," Halloran said at last.

  A sighed whisper, a slow releasing of breath. "Ahhhh." The ravaged head shifted slightly so that his eyes looked into the blackness of the ceiling.

  Halloran waited, uneasy in the stillness, wary of this person whose decomposition seemed to precede his death. Halloran was wary, too, of the lodge house itself: there was movement in its shadows, as if spectral shapes weaved and danced there. Things perceived not with the naked eye but through the mind. Halloran checked himself, tried to throw off such crazy notions. Yet still they asserted themselves.

  The old man was murmuring and, despite his repugnance, Halloran edged closer, wanting to catch every hushed word.

  "A cunning boy. With powers—powers valuable to us . . . us Jews. But he was . . . foolish, too. He imagined . . . he had claimed his deity, not realizing that he was the one . . . to be claimed." He groaned and clutched at himself.

  Halloran held out a hand to steady him, but could not find it in himself to touch the thing lying there, even though it was covered by rags.

  When the worst of the pain had subsided, the aged and crumpled man spoke again. "Almost three thousand years of waiting before the . . . the Christ . . . two thousand years after . . ."

  He was rambling, and when he coughed, there was a pinkishness to the spittle dampening the corners of his mouth. He gasped, as though anxious to tell. "We searched the world for disciples . . . our kind. And we found them. It wasn't difficult. And Kline caused havoc wherever we went. All for the glory of Bel-Marduk . . ." He drifted away once more.

  Kline had spoken that name before. Halloran shivered, for the air was very cold. He looked around at the shadows; the beam from the penlight was frail.

  A stirring of the makeshift bedclothes, then a shriveled hand, more like a claw, fingernails long and curled, stained brown with age, appeared. It reached for Halloran's arm, and the operative shuddered when it came to rest on him.

  "He . . . Felix . . . used me . . ."

  He was drifting away. The trembling hand flopped from Halloran's arm. "No longer afraid . . ." came the hushed words. "No worse Hell than . . . here . . . ahhhh . . ." Life seemed to flow out from him.

  Overcoming his revulsion, Halloran shook the covering
over the old man's chest. "Tell me who you are," he demanded, both angry and frustrated. "How can you guard this estate, control the dogs? How do you keep the gates locked? You're old, you're sick . . ."

  A dry, reedy chuckle. The remnants of life flickered. "I have . . . power, too. Kline . . . working through me. My mind holds the . . . gates. My . . . mind controls . . . the beasts, the demons . . . But no more . . . too weak. He needs another.. Someone corrupted to his ways . . ."

  "Who are you?"

  "I am nothing."

  "Tell me!"

  "Nothing. Although once . . . I was a merchant." He drew in a grating breath. "He . . .he is vulnerable." Again he clasped Halloran's arm. "Is it you? Are you the one?"

  "To take your place? Is that what you mean?" A different kind of fear came over Halloran now.

  The slightest inclination of the wizened head. "No . . . no . . . something more . . . than that . . ."

  There were noises from downstairs. A soft rushing. Halloran remembered he had left the window open.

  He felt a tightening of the clawed hand on his arm. Then! the fingers uncurled and the hand fell away.

  A scuffling in the hallway below.

  There was a liquid rattling in the old man's throat as a long exhalation of air escaped him.

  Pattering on the staircase.

  Halloran scooped up the black bag as he rose and leapt for the door in a desperate bid to close it before the jackals came through.