by Brian Lumley
“Eh?” She was heading for the small room at the back.
“Toilet!” she said. “I have to.”
“No!” I jumped across the space between, dragged her away from the door to the toilet-cum-shower unit. “It’s crawling with them in there. They come up the plug holes.” In my arms, I could feel that she was also crawling. Her flesh. Mine, too. “If you must go, go outside. But first let’s get away from here.” I picked up my gun, loaded it with a single flap-nosed spear.
Leaving the chalet, I looked across at the ramp coming down from the rocky spur. The clatter of Dimitrios’s three-wheeler was louder. It was there, headlight beams bobbing as the vehicle trundled lurchingly down the rough decline. “Where are we going?” Julie gasped, following me at a run across the scrub between clumps of olives. I headed for the other chalets.
“Safety in numbers,” I answered. “Anyway, I want to know about George, and those three old spinsters.”
“What good will they be, if they’re old?” She was too logical by half.
“They’re not that old.” Mainly, I wanted to see if they were all right. Apart from the near-distant racket Dimitrios’s vehicle was making, the whole valley was quiet as a tomb. Unnaturally quiet. It had to be a damned funny place in Greece where the cicadas keep their mouths shut.
Julie had noticed that, too. “They’re not singing,” she said. And I knew what she meant.
“Rubbing,” I answered. “They rub their legs together or something.”
“Well,” she panted, “whatever it is they do, they’re not.”
It was true evening now, and a half-moon had come up over the central mountain’s southern extreme. It’s light silvered our way through thorny shrubs and tall, spiked grasses, under the low grey branches of olives and across their tangled, groping roots.
We came to the first chalet. Its lights were out, but the door stood ajar. “I think this is where George is staying,” I said. And calling ahead, “George, are you in?,” I entered and switched on the light. He was in—in the big double bed, stretched out on his back. But he turned his head toward us as we entered. He blinked in the sudden, painful light. One of his eyes did, anyway. The other couldn’t...
He stirred himself, tried to sit up. I think he was grinning. I can’t be sure, because one of the things, a big one, was inside the corner of his mouth. They were hatching from fresh lumps down his neck and in the bend of his elbow. God knows what the rest of his body was like. He managed to prop himself up, hold out a hand to me—and I almost took it. And it was then that I began to understand something of the nature of these things. For there was one of them in his open palm, its barbed feet seeming poised, waiting.
I snatched back my hand, heard Julie’s gasp. And there she was, backed up against the wall, screaming her silent scream. I grabbed her, hugged her, dragged her outside. For of course there was nothing we could do for George. And, afraid she would scream, and maybe start me going, I slapped her. And off we went again, reeling in the direction of the third and last chalet.
Down by the taverna, Dimitrios’s three-wheeler had come to a halt, its engine stilled, its beams dim, reaching like pallid hands along the sand. But I didn’t think it would be long before he was on the move again. And the nightmare was expanding, growing vaster with every beat of my thundering heart.
In the third chalet... it’s hard to describe all I saw. Maybe there’s no real need. The spinster I’d thought was maybe missing something was in much the same state as George: she, too, was in bed, with those god-awful things hatching in her. Her sisters ... at first I thought they were both dead, and ... But there, I’ve gone ahead of myself. That’s how it always happens when I think about it, try to reconstruct it again in my own mind: it speeds up until I’ve outstripped myself. You have to understand that the whole thing was kaleidoscopic.
I went inside ahead of Julie, got a quick glimpse, an indistinct picture of the state of things fixed in my brain, then turned and kept Julie from coming in. “Watch for him.” I forced the words around my bobbing Adam’s apple and returned to take another look. I didn’t want to, but I thought the more we knew about this monster, the better we’d know how to deal with him. Except that in a little while, I guessed there would be only one possible way to deal with him.
The sister in the bed moved and lolled her head a little; I was wary, suspicious of her, and left her strictly alone. The other two had been attacked. With an axe or a machete or something. One of them lay behind the door, the other on the floor on the near side of the bed. The one behind the door had been sliced twice, deeply, across the neck and chest and lay in a pool of her own blood, which was already congealing. Tick-things, coming from the bathroom, had got themselves stuck in the darkening pool, their barbed legs twitching when they tried to extricate themselves. The other sister...
Senses swimming, throat bobbing, I stepped closer to the bed with its grimacing, hag-ridden occupant, and I bent over the one on the floor. She was still alive, barely. Her green dress was a sodden red under the rib cage, torn open in a jagged flap to reveal her gaping wound. And Dimitrios had dropped several of his damned pets onto her, which were burrowing in the raw, dark flesh.
She saw me through eyes already filming over, whispered something. I got down on one knee beside her, wanted to hold her hand, stroke her hair, do something. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want those bloody things on me. “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right.” But we both knew it wasn’t.
“The ... the Greek,” she said, her voice so small I could scarcely hear it.
“I know, I know,” I told her.
“We wanted to ... to take Flo into town. She was ... was so ill! He said to wait here. We waited, and ... and …” She gave a deep sigh. Her eyes rolled up, and her mouth fell open.
Something touched my shoulder where I knelt, and I leapt erect, flesh tingling. The one on the bed, Flo, had flopped an arm in my direction—deliberately! Her hand had touched me. Crawling slowly down her arm, a trio of the nightmare ticks or crabs had been making for me. They’d been homing in on me like a bee targeting a flower. But more slowly, thank God, far more slowly.
Horror froze me rigid, but in the next moment, Julie’s sobbing cry—”Jim, he’s coming!”—unfroze me at once.
I staggered outside. A dim, slender, dark, and reeling shape was making its way along the rough track between the chalets. Something glinted dully in his hand. Terror galvanized me. “Head for the high ground,” I said. I took Julie’s hand, began to run.
“High ground?” she panted. “Why?” She was holding together pretty well. I thanked God I hadn’t let her see inside the chalet.
“Because then we’ll have the advantage. He’ll have to come up at us. Maybe I can roll rocks down on him or something.”
“You have your gun,” she said.
“As a last resort,” I told her, “yes. But this isn’t a John Wayne western, Julie. This is real! Shooting a man isn’t the same as shooting a fish ...” And we scrambled across the rough scrubland toward the goat track up the far spur. Maybe ten minutes later and halfway up that track, suddenly it dawned on both of us just where we were heading. Julie dug in her heels and dragged me to a halt.
“But the cave’s up there!” she panted. “The well!”
I looked all about. The light was difficult, made everything seem vague and unreal. Dusk is the same the world over: it confuses shapes, distances, colours, and textures. On our right, scree rising steeply all the way to the plateau—too dangerous by far. And on our left a steep, in places sheer, decline to the valley’s floor. All you had to do was stumble once, and you wouldn’t stop sliding and tumbling and bouncing till you hit the bottom. Up ahead the track was moon-silvered, to the place where the cliff overhung, where the shadows were black and blacker than night. And behind ... behind us came Dimitrios, his presence made clear by the sound his boots made shoving rocks and pebbles out of his way.
“Come on,” I said, starting on up again.
“But where to?” Hysteria was in her whisper.
“That clump of rocks there.” Ahead, on the right, weathered out of the scree, a row of long boulders like leaning graveyard slabs tilted at the moon. I got between two of them, pulled Julie off the track, and jammed her behind me. It was last-ditch stuff; there was no way out other than the way we’d come in. I loaded my gun, hauling on the propulsive rubbers until the spear was engaged. And then there was nothing else to do but wait.
“Now be quiet,” I hissed, crouching down. “He may not see us, go straight on by.”
Across the little valley, headlights blazed. Then came the echoing roar of revving engines. A moment more, and I could identify humped silhouettes making their way like beetles down the ridge of the far spur toward the indigo sea, then slicing the gloom with scythes of light as they turned onto the dirt ramp. Two cars and a motorcycle. Down on the valley’s floor, they raced for the taverna.
Dimitrios came struggling out of the dusk, up out of the darkness, his breathing loud, laboured, gasping as he climbed in our tracks. His silhouette where he paused for breath was scarecrow-lean, and he’d lost his floppy, wide-brimmed hat. But I suspected a strength in him that wasn’t entirely his own. From where she peered over my shoulder Julie had spotted him too. I heard her sharp intake of breath, breathed “Shh!” so faintly I wasn’t even sure she’d hear me.
He came on, the thin moonlight turning his eyes yellow, and turning his machete silver. Level with the boulders he drew, and almost level with our hiding place, and paused again. He looked this way and that, cocked his head, and listened. Behind me, Julie was trembling. She trembled so hard I was sure it was coming right through me, through the rocks, too, and the earth, and right through the soles of his boots to Dimitrios.
He took another two paces up the track, came level with us. Now he stood out against the sea and the sky, where the first pale stars were beginning to switch themselves on. He stood there, looking up the slope toward the cave under the cliff, and small, dark silhouettes were falling from the large blot of his head. Not droplets of sweat, no, for they were far too big, and too brittle-sounding when they landed on the loose scree.
Again Julie snatched a breath, and Dimitrios’s head slowly came round until he seemed to be staring right at us.
Down in the valley the cars and the motorcycle were on the move again, engines revving, headlight beams slashing here and there. There was some shouting. Lights began to blaze in the taverna, the chalets. Flashlights cut narrow searchlight swaths in the darkness.
Dimitrios seemed oblivious to all this; still looking in our direction, he scratched at himself under his right armpit. His actions rapidly became frantic, until with a soft, gurgling cry, he tore open his shirt. He let his machete fall clatteringly to the track and clawed wildly at himself with both hands! He was shedding tick-things as a dog sheds fleas. He tore open his trousers, dropped them, staggered as he stepped out of them. Agonized sulphur eyes burned yellow in his blot of a face as he tore at his thighs.
I saw all of this, every slightest action. And so did Julie. I felt her swell up behind me, scooping in air until she must surely burst—and then she let it out again. But silently, screaming like a maniac in the night—and nothing but air escaping her!
A rock slid away from under my foot, its scrape a deafening clatter to my petrified mind. The sound froze Dimitrios, too, but only for a moment. Then he stooped, regained his machete. He took a pace toward us, inclined his head. He couldn’t see us yet, but he knew we were there. Then—God, I shall dream of this for the rest of my life!
He reached down a hand and stripped a handful of living, crawling filth from his loins, and lobbed it in our direction as casually as tossing crumbs to starveling birds!
The next five seconds were madness.
I stumbled out from cover, lifted my gun, and triggered it. The spear struck him just below the rib cage, went deep into him. He cried out, reeled back, and yanked the gun from my hand. I’d forgotten to unfasten the nylon cord from the spear. Behind me, Julie was crumpling to the ground; I was aware of the latter, turned to grab her before she could sprawl. There were tick-things crawling about, and I mustn’t let her fall on them.
I got her over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift, went charging out onto the track, skipping and stamping my feet, roaring like a maddened bull. And I was mad: mad with shock, terror, loathing. I stamped and kicked and danced, never letting my feet stay in one place for more than a fraction of a second, afraid something would climb up onto me. And the wonder is I didn’t carry both of us flying down the steep scree slope to the valley’s floor.
Dimitrios was halfway down the track when I finally got myself under a semblance of control. Bouncing toward our end of the valley, a car came crunching and lurching across the scrub. I fancied it was Nichos’s taxi. And sure enough, when the car stopped and its headlight beams were still, Nichos’s voice came echoing up, full of concerned enquiry:
“Mister, lady—you OK?”
“Look out!” I shouted at the top of my voice, but only at the second attempt. “He’s coming down! Dimitrios is coming down!”
And now I went more carefully, as in my mind the danger receded, and in my veins the adrenalin raced less rapidly. Julie moaned where she flopped loosely across my shoulder, and I knew she’d be all right.
The valley seemed alight with torches now, and not only the electric sort. Considering these people were Greeks, they seemed remarkably well organized. That was a thought I’d keep in mind, something else I would have to ask about. There was some shouting down there, too, and flaring torches began to converge on the area at the foot of the goat track.
Then there echoed up to me a weird, gurgled cry: a cry of fear, protestation—relief? A haunting, sobbing shriek cut off at highest pitch by the dull boom of a shot fired, and a moment later by a blast that was the twin of the first. From twin barrels, no doubt.
When I got down, Julie was still out of it, for which I was glad. They’d poured gasoline over Dimitrios’s body and set fire to it. Fires were burning everywhere: the chalets, taverna, gardens. Cleansing flames leaping. Figures moved in the smoke and against a yellow roaring background, searching, burning. And I sat in the back of Nichos’s taxi, cradling Julie’s head. Mercifully, she remained unconscious right through it.
Even with the windows rolled up, I could smell something of the smoke, and something that wasn’t smoke ...
~ * ~
In Makelos town, Julie began to stir. I asked for her to be sedated, kept down for the night. Then, when she was sleeping soundly and safely in a room at the mayor’s house, I began asking questions. I was furious at the beginning, growing more furious as I started to get the answers.
I couldn’t be sorry for the people of Makelos, though I did feel something for Elli, Dimitrios’s wife. She’d run to Nichos, told him what was happening. And he’d alerted the townspeople. Elli had been a sort of prisoner at the taverna for the past ten days or so, after her husband had “gone funny.” Then, when she’d started to notice things, he’d told her to keep quiet and carry on as normal, or she’d be the loser. And he meant she’d lose all the way. She reckoned he’d got the parasites off the goats, accidentally, and she was probably right, for the goats had been the first to die. Her explanation was likely because the goats used to go up there sometimes, to the cave under the mountain. And that was where the things bred, in that cave and in the well it contained, which now and then overflowed, and found its way to the sea.
But Elli, poor peasant that she was, on her way to alert Nichos, she’d seen her husband kill George’s wife and push her over the cliffs into the sea. Then she’d hid herself off the road until he’d turned his three-wheeler round and started back toward the taverna.
As for the corpse under the tarpaulin: that was Dimitrios’s grandfather, who along with his grandson had been a survivor of the first outbreak. He’d been lucky that time, not so lucky this time.
And the tick t
hings? They were... a disease, but they could never be a plague. The men from Athens had taken some of them away with them that first time. But away from their well, away from the little shaded valley and from Makelos, they’d quickly died. This was their place, and they could exist nowhere else. Thank God!
Last time the chemicals hadn’t killed them off, obviously, or maybe a handful of eggs had survived to hatch out when the poisons had dissolved away. For they were survivors, these creatures, the last of their species, and when they went, their secret would go with them. But a disease? I believe so, yes.
Like the common cold, or rabies, or any other disease, but far worse because they’re visible, apparent. The common cold makes you sneeze, so that the disease is propagated, and hydrophobia, which makes its victims claw and bite, gets passed on in their saliva. The secret of the tick-things was much the same sort of thing: they made their hosts pass them on. It was the way their intelligent human hosts did it that made them so much more terrible.
