by Brian Lumley
And at that she was the first to know the truth about her adopted brother, without even knowing she knew it. For, a child herself, she recognized a child’s fancy when she saw one, knew also that Johnny was simply a cruel and hateful boy, and that what she’d imagined just couldn’t be.
But Moggit, poor Moggit! Finally it got through to Carol that it was indeed her battered, half-eviscerated cat which Johnny was slowly hanging. And she could bear it no longer.
‘MoggHW she screamed at the top of her voice. And: ‘Johnny, I hate you — oh, how I hate you!’
She stood up, stumbled and regained her balance, flew at him clutching the jagged half of a brick. Johnny finally saw her and his red-blotched face rapidly turned pale. He snatched up his penknife — not to use on her but with an entirely different, perhaps even worse purpose in mind — and went to slice through a length of tough kite-string which held down Moggit’s branch. Strands parted but the string didn’t; in a sudden rage Johnny jerked the string this way and that, and Moggit was lifted and whirled like a rag, his hoarse cat cries cut off as the wire bit into his rubbed-raw throat.
Then Johnny gave a gasp of triumph as his knife cut through the string, and Moggit was jerked aloft, choking and spitting for a second or two as the noose tightened to finish the job. But Johnny was so intent on the murder of the cat that Carol was on him. Blindly, whirling her arms, she came at him with the sharp nails of one hand and the half-brick grasped tight in the other. He avoided her raking nails, but a sharp, broken corner of the brick struck him on the forehead and knocked him down. In a moment he was sitting up, shaking his head, looking around for his knife. And his eyes blazed as he glared at his sister and threatened, ‘First Moggit, and now you!’
He got unsteadily to his feet, his forehead grazed and bleeding, then spotted his penknife and pounced on it. And in that same moment Carol knew she was in deadly danger. Johnny couldn’t let her tell her parents what she had seen, what he had done. And there was only one way he could be sure to stop her.
With a backward glance that took in the whole scene one last time — poor Moggit hanged and bobbing with the motion of the elder branch, the hedgehog finally exhausted, gasping its life out where it lay, and the dead, mutilated birds strung up in a row — she turned away and fled for home. And bursting through the tunnel of undergrowth out of the ruins, she knew that Johnny was right behind her.
And he would have been; except he knew that if she got home first, she would bring someone to see. And he mustn’t let anyone see.
Quickly he cut down Moggit and the birds, and yanked the hedgehog’s stake from the ground. Panting from the furious pace of his exertions, and from his fury in general, he tossed the lot into a deep, stagnant well which he’d discovered on the site, whose battened cover had long since rotted away in one corner. He hated to see his dead and dying things go down into the dark like that, making splashes in the deep, black, unseen water below. Wasted, all of them, and so much ‘life’ still left in them! It was all Carol’s fault. Yes, and there’d be a lot more to blame her for if she got home first.
He set out after her, following her wailing and the wild, zig-zag, trail she left through the long grass.
A half-mile across rough, open countryside is a long way when you’re a heartbroken child with your eyes full of tears. Carol’s heart hammered in her breast and her breath was ragged and panting; but to drive her on there was always that picture burning on her mind’s eye, of Moggit dangling and jerking in the wire noose, with his guts hanging out like a small bag of crushed fruits when her mother made jam in the kitchen. And to drive her even faster was Johnny’s voice crying after her: ‘Caaarol! Carol — wait for me!’
She did no such thing; the garden wall was just ahead, at the end of the hedgerow; behind her, panting — and yet growling too, like some savage dog — Johnny was catching up. His groping hand missed her ankle by inches as she half-climbed, half-fell over the wall. But on the garden side she just lay there, too terrified, tearful, too exhausted to go on.
And Johnny jumping down after her, his eyes mad and glaring, small fists tightening and slackening where he held them to his sides. She looked toward the house but it was hidden behind fruit trees and the misted dome of the pool. Would her parents be up yet? She didn’t even have the wind for yelling.
Johnny snarled as he bunched her hair in a strong fist and commenced dragging her towards the pool. ‘Swimming!’ he said, the word bursting from his lips like a bubble of slime. ‘You’re going swimming, Carol. You’re going to like it, I know. And so am I. Especially afterwards!’
For the last week or so, David Prescott had also taken to getting up early. Alice didn’t complain or ask why, because he was always so quiet and considerate and invariably brought her a cup of coffee. It must be the summer, the light mornings, the old ‘early bird’ syndrome. But in fact it was the mail.
Out this way the mail deliveries were always early, the very crack of dawn, and David was expecting a letter. From the orphanage. Not that it would contain anything of any significance — he was sure it wouldn’t — but still he’d like to get to it before Alice. If she saw it first… well, she’d only say he was paranoid. About Johnny. And certainly it would look as though he was, else why would he write to the orphanage about him?
The thing was, David was desperate that things should work out all right; he really did want to love the poor kid. But at the same time he’d always been more receptive of mood than Alice — more aware of the aura of people, especially kids — and he knew that Johnny’s aura just wasn’t right. If it was something out of his past (but what past? He was just a child), something the orphanage would know about, then David believed that he and his wife should be told. For he suspected Alice was right to complain about the attitude of the orphanage; they had seemed too eager to wash their hands of Johnny, or rather: ‘To place him in the care of a normal, loving family, where he can grow into a healthy person. Healthy in mind, as well as in body…’
That’s what the orphanage director had said the day they went to pick up their new son, and the words had always stuck in David’s memory: ‘Healthy in mind, as well as in body.’
Something wrong with Johnny’s mind? Something a little sick? Or a lot sick? For that was the nature of the aura which David sometimes felt washing out from the boy: a sick one, and clammy as an old man on his deathbed. Johnny felt sick as death. But not his death.
And this morning, sure enough, the letter was there. David tore it open and read it, and for a little while the words made no sense. Budgerigars in the kids’ rooms, and Johnny stealing, killing and collecting them? A collection of dead things: mice, beetles, the budgies, even a kitten?
A dead kitten under his bed, crawling with maggots, and Johnny twisting its legs until they came off in his hands? That was how the orphanage people had found out about it, when the other kids came screaming.
But a kitten?
Moggit…?
Screaming?
And David could hear the horrified screams of those kids from here. Except it wasn’t those kids but one of his own — no, his own — Carol, from the bottom of the garden!
What…?
And Alice’s sleepy, mumbling voice from upstairs, calling down, ‘Where’s the coffee? The kids are up early.’
And another scream from the garden, cut off gurglingly at its zenith.
David had ever been the one to leap to conclusions, often incorrectly. He did so now, and this time was right.
Down the garden path with his dressing-gown flapping, yelling for Carol, hoarsely, like crazy. But no answer. And a small blurred figure inside the polythene dome, kneeling at the side of the pool. David burst in; it was Johnny kneeling there; he looked as if he were trying to drag Carol out of the water. And she was floating there, face-down, arms limply outstretched, crucified on the blue, gently lapping water.
Johnny had been playing in the fields; he’d heard Carol’s screams and seen a man — dirty, bearded, dressed in
rags — climbing the wall out of the garden. The man ran away across the fields and Johnny went to see what he’d been doing. Carol was in the pool and he’d tried to drag her out.
He told the story to David, to Alice, the police, anyone who wanted to hear it. And most of them believed him; even David half-believed him, though he didn’t want him near any more. And Alice probably believed him, though that would be hard to say for she wasn’t much good for anything from that time forward.
The police found a camp site in the ruins of the old farm and brought up a lot of rubbish from the well. Someone, person or persons, must have been living rough there, stealing from gardens and properties (David’s pigeons) in order to eat. It could be gypsies (the hedgehog), or maybe a tramp. Hard to say. Chances were they’d get him or them eventually.
But they never did get anyone.
And Johnny went back to the orphanage…
Harry slept on and for a little while longer experienced Johnny Pound’s dreams. Of course, he saw Pound’s past only from the necromancer’s own point of view, which if anything was worse than the whole picture and more than sufficient to guarantee he had the right man. But eventually Pound’s excesses became too much — his dreaming memories of his own evil deeds a lurid litany to his inhumanity — by which time Harry’s hatred of him had grown into a rage.
Johnny Found had lived all his young life a monster and murderer and so far had got away with it, but until recently his step-sister Carol had remained his single human victim. Between times he’d made do and played his unthinkable ‘games’ with creatures dead of causes other than murder.
But as men and monsters alike mature, so their tastes also mature, and Johnny was no exception. Except… what grotesque form does maturity take in something rotten from the start?
Once, for entirely unthinkable reasons which even Harry Keogh couldn’t bear to contemplate, Found had taken a job in a morgue; only to be fired when his boss became suspicious. It was his dream about another job he’d had, however, this time in a slaughterhouse, which did the trick and, like the last straw, broke the Necroscope’s back.
That was when Harry had drawn back his shuddering telepathic probe, pulled out of Johnny’s mind and let the man get on with his nightmaring. Except of course in Pound’s case the nightmares could barely match up to the reality…
5 … and Fancies
And then the Necroscope had dreamed of Darcy Clarke, which was also a form of nightmare, for in it Darcy was dead and his voice came to Harry as deadspeak.
Even so it didn’t come clearly but was distorted, drifting a thousand echoes coming together from all directions and combining to form a strange, out-of-sync sighing.
I couldn’t believe you would have done that to me, Harry, said Darcy when he’d established his identity. I mean, I knew the moment they killed me — when I saw that they actually could kill me, despite my guardian angel — that you were responsible. It could only have been something you did inside my head when you were in there. You killed off the thing that watched out for me, and so left me vulnerable. But I still can’t believe you would, and I still don’t know why. I thought I knew you, but I didn’t know you a damn!
This is just a dream, Harry answered him then. This is my conscience — while I still have one — giving me trouble because I protected myself at someone else’s expense. This is a nightmare, Darcy, and you’re not really dead. It’s just me blaming myself that I had to interfere inside your head. As for why I did it: to be sure that if you came up against me before I was out of here, then that you would be vulnerable. Because of all the talents in E-Branch, yours is the one that scares me most. It gives you the edge, makes you invincible. I could try to stop you again and again, and fail, but you would only have to pull the trigger once and I’d be a goner. And it wouldn’t be new to you — you could do it-for you’ve done it before.
Darcy’s deadspeak presence was gathering itself now, coming together as an act of sheer will, so that his fragmented voice lost its echoing sigh and took on authority as he said: It’s no dream, Harry. I’m dead as can be. And even though I’ve come to you while you’re asleep, still you should be able to see that. But if you doubt me, why not ask your thousands of friends, the Great Majority? The teeming dead will tell you I don’t lie. I’m one of them now.
A cop-out! Harry answered, smiling and shaking his head. I can’t ask the dead anything, because they don’t want to know me any more. Hey, I’m a vampire, remember? I’m not one of you living guys, and I’m not one of those dead ones. I’m somewhere in the middle, Darcy. Undead. Wamphyri!
Harry, said Darcy, bitterly, there’s no need for all this subterfuge. You don’t have to try out your Wamphyri word-games on me. I’m admitting it: you won. I don’t know why you wished me dead, but anyway you got your wish. I am dead! I really am.
Harry tossed and turned in his bed and began to sweat. Sometimes, like any other man, his dreams were just so much junk; or again they might be erotic or esoteric fancies and fantasies; or they could be, well, just dreams. But at other times they were a lot more than that. And this was beginning to feel like one of those times.
OK, he finally said, still unconvinced and wanting desperately to stay that way, so you’re dead. So who killed you? And why?
The Branch, Darcy answered, with a typical deadspeak shrug. Who else? Whatever you did to my mind, the mere fact that you’d been in there gave me mind-smog. You interfered inside my head, cancelled something, took something away from me. And in its place I got your taint. No, I’m not saying you vampirized me, just that you… spoiled me. They could smell you on me — in the heart of my being — and they daren’t take any chances with me. Which was surely the way you planned it…?
Harry thought about it a moment, then said: Darcy, if you really are dead, if this isn’t just my conscience acting up — because you’re right and I did interfere with your mind, which I know was wrong — then I’ll be able to find you when I’m awake. I mean, we’ll be able to talk to each other again, through deadspeak. Right?
He sensed the other’s nod. I’ll be waiting for you, Harry. Except… it isn’t easy. I’m still learning how to get it all together.
Eh? Will you explain?
They burned me and scattered my ashes, Darcy told him. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why…? But it means I have no focal point. I don’t belong in any special place. I’m blowing on the winds, drifting on the tides, flushed away down the city’s sewers.
And suddenly the Necroscope suspected it was true, and he began to toss and churn in his bed that much more violently. It seemed that Darcy picked up his torment, for when he spoke again his words were less harsh, even conciliatory. If I wrong you with accusations, Harry, it’s only because you’ve wronged me.
This has to be a nightmare, Harry gasped. Darcy it has to be! I didn’t mean to harm you. Of all the men I’ve known, you are the one I couldn’t harm! Not under any circumstances. Not because of your talent but because… because you’re you. And so you see, this has to be a bloody awful nightmare.
And now Darcy knew that indeed Harry was just as innocent as ever, and that if anyone — anything — were to blame, then it was the creature inside him, which was rapidly becoming one with him. He would have comforted him then, if there was a way, but he felt himself drifting again, coming apart, and he knew he didn’t have the strength or the know-how to keep it together. He was only recently dead, after all.
I’ll be… around when you’re awake, Harry. Try contacting me then. It will be… easier… if you… come looking… for me…
And with that Harry was alone again. For a while, at least. Gratefully, he relaxed and sank down deep in his bed, and even deeper into sleep. As is the way of dreams, he quickly forgot the last one and prepared to move on to the next –
— Which was when the Necroscope dreamed of someone else. Except that this time he knew for sure it was more than just a dream and that his visitor was or had been more than merely human. For his par
asite responded to this visitor — this other vampire — in typical Wamphyri fashion, prompting Harry to inquire: Who are you, that you dare come creeping into my sleeping thoughts? Answer quickly… there are doors in my mind which would swallow you whole!
Ahhh! came back the answer at once. So it’s true. You won your fight with Janos, but you also lost. I’m so sorry, Harry. So sorry.
And now Harry knew him. Ken Layard! he said. We took your head and burned your body in the mountains over Halmagiu. And you went willingly to your death.
Layard answered with a deadspeak nod. Death was nothing compared to the prospect of being undead, in thrall to Janos Ferenczy. He would have put me down into ashes, too… but only to have me at his beck and call, and bring me up again whenever he had need of my talent! Anyway, and as you said, I went willingly. For I knew it would be harder for me if I tried it the other way. And Bodrogk and his Thracians were quick about it. I didn’t feel a thing.
Harry’s deadspeak thoughts turned sour. But you owe me one, right? The worst one you can give me? Because whichever way you look at it, I was the one who tracked you down. And now they’re about to track me down, and so you’ve come to gloat.
Layard was taken aback. How wrong can you be, Harry? he said. Listen, I know you’ve been getting a hard time from the teeming dead, but you still have a few friends left!
You came in friendship?
I came to say thanks! For Trevor Jordan.
Harry shook his head. I don’t follow you.
To thank you for what you did for him. And to offer my help if there’s anything I can do for you.
The Necroscope began to make sense of it. Trevor was your friend and colleague, right? You and he were one of the best teams — one of the best partnerships — E-Branch ever had.
The best! said Layard. So when I died it was only natural I’d want to keep tabs on him, see how he made out. What I did best in life came even easier in death, and in life I’d been one hell of a locator. Which was pretty fortunate for me, else I’d have had a really dreary time of it. What, me? A vampire? The dead didn’t want to know me, Harry.
