Beneath the Moors and Darker Places [SSC]

by Brian Lumley

  Writhing tendrils of green smoke began to whirl together in one corner of the cellar. I did not see the smoke arrive, nor could I say whence it came—it was just suddenly there! The tendrils quickly became a column, rapidly thickening, spinning faster and faster, forming—a shape!

  Outside in the night freak lightning flashed and thunder rumbled over the city in what I have since been told was the worst storm in years, but I barely heard the thunder or the heavy downpour of rain. All my senses were concentrated on the silently spinning, rapidly coalescing thing in the corner. The cellar had a high ceiling, almost eleven feet, but what was forming seemed to fill that space easily,

  I screamed then, and mercifully fainted. For once again my mind had been busy totalling the facts as I knew them, and I had mentally questioned Pesh-Tlen’s reason for calling up this horror from the depths—or from wherever else it came. Upstairs in my room, unless Julian had been up there and removed it, the answer lay where I had thrown it—Walmsley’s translation! Had not Julian, or Pesh-Tlen, or whatever the thing was, written in that diary: “It will now be necessary to contact my natural form in order to reenter it?”

  My blackout could only have been momentary, for as I regained consciousness for the second time I saw that the thing in the corner had still not completely formed. It had stopped spinning and was now centrally opaque, but its outline was infirm and wavering, like a scene viewed through smoke. The creature that had been Julian was standing to one side of the cellar, arms raised towards the semi-coherent object in the corner, features strained and twitching with hideous expectancy.

  “Look,” it spoke coldly, half turning towards me. “See what I and the Deep Ones have done! Behold, mortal, your brother—Julian Haughtree!”

  For the rest of my days, which I believe will not number many, I will never be able to rid my memory of that sight! While others lie drowning in sleep I will daw desperately at the barrier of consciousness, not daring to close my eyes for fear of that which lingers yet beyond my eyelids. As Pesh-Tlen spoke those words, the thing in the corner finally materialized!

  Imagine a black, glistening, ten-foot heap of twisting, ropey tentacles and gaping mouths.... Imagine the outlines of a slimy, alien face in which, sunk deep in gaping sockets, are the remains of ruptured human eyes.... Imagine shrieking in absolute clutching, leaping fear and horror—and imagine the thing I have here described answering your screams in a madly familiar voice, a voice which you instantly recognize!

  “Phillip! Phillip, where are you? What’s happened? I can’t see ... We came up out of the sea, and then I was whirled away somewhere and I heard your voice.” The horror rocked back and forth. “Don’t let them take me back, Phillip!”

  The voice was that of my brother, all right—but not the old sane Julian I had known! That was when I, too, went mad, but it was a madness with a purpose, if nothing else. When I had previously fainted, the sudden loosening of my body must have completed the work which I had started on the ropes. As I lurched to my feet they fell from me to the floor. The huge, blind monstrosity in the corner had started to lumber in my direction, vaguely twisting its tentacles before it as it came. At the same time the red-eyed demon in Julian’s form was edging carefully toward it, arms eagerly outstretched.

  “Julian,” I screamed, “look out—only by contact can he reenter—and then he intends to kill you, to take you back with him to the deeps.”

  “Back to the deeps? No! No, he can’t! I won’t go!” The lumbering horror with my brother’s mad voice spun blindly around, its flailing tentacles knocking the hybrid sorcerer flying across the floor. I snatched the poker from the fire where it had been replaced and turned threateningly upon the sprawling half-human.

  “Stand still, Julian!” I gibbered over my shoulder at the horror from the sea as the wizard before me leapt to his feet. The lumberer behind me halted. “You, Pesh-Tlen, get back.” There was no plan in my bubbling mind; I only knew I had to keep the two—things— apart. I danced like a boxer, using the glowing poker to ward off the suddenly frantic Pesh-Tlen.

  “But it’s time—it’s time! The contact must be now!” The redeyed thing screeched. “Get out of my way...” Its tones were barely human now. “You can’t stop me ... I must... must... must make strong ... strong contact! I must... bhfg—ngyy fhtlhlh hegm— yeh’hhg narcchhh’yy! You won’t cheat me!”

  A pool of slime, like the trail of a great snail, had quickly spread from the giant shape behind me, and, even as he screamed, Pesh-Tlen suddenly leapt forward straight onto it, his feet skidding on the evil-smelling mess. He completely lost his balance. Arms flailing he fell, face down, sickeningly, onto the rigid red-hot poker in my hand. Four inches of the glowing metal slid, like a warm knife through butter, into one of those awful eyes. There was a hissing sound, almost drowned out by the creature’s single shrill scream of agony, and a small cloud of steam rose mephitically from the thing’s face as it pitched to the floor.

  Instantly the glistening black giant behind me let out a shriek of terror. I spun round, letting the steaming poker fall, to witness that monstrosity from the ocean floor rocking to and fro, tentacles wrapped protectively round its head. After a few seconds it became still, and the rubbery arms fell listlessly away to reveal the multimouthed face with its ruined, rotting eyes.

  “You’ve killed him, I know it,” Julian’s voice said, calmer now. “He is finished and I am finished—already I can feel them recalling me.” Then, voice rising hysterically: “They won’t take me alive!”

  The monstrous form trembled and its outline began to blur. My legs crumpled beneath me in sudden reaction, and I pitched to the floor. Perhaps I passed out again—I don’t know for sure—but when I next looked in its direction the horror had gone. All that remained was the slime and the grotesque corpse.

  ~ * ~

  I do not know where my muscles found the strength to carry my tottering and mazed body out of that house. Sanity did not drive me, I admit that, for I was quite insane. I wanted to stand beneath the stabbing lightning and scream at those awful, rain-blurred stars. I wanted to bound, to float in my madness through eldritch depths of unhallowed black blood. I wanted to cling to the writhing breasts of Yibb-Tstll. Insane—insane, I tell you, I gibbered and moaned, staggering through the thunder-crazed streets until, with a roar and a crash, sanity-invoking lightning smashed me down ...

  You know the rest. I awoke to this world of white sheets: to you, the police psychiatrist, with your soft voice ... Why must you insist that I keep telling my story? Do you honestly think to make me change it? It’s true, I tell you! I admit to killing my brother’s body—but it wasn’t his mind that I burned out! You stand there babbling of awful eye diseases. Julian had no eye disease! D’you really imagine that the other eye, the unburnt one which you found in that body—in my brother’s face—was his? And what of the pool of slime in the cellar and the stink? Are you stupid or something? You’ve asked for a statement, and here it is! Watch, damn you, watch while I scribble it down ... you damn great crimson eye ... always watching me ... who would have thought that the lips of Bugg-Shash could suck like that? Watch, you redness you ... and look out for the Scarlet Feaster! No, don’t take the paper away....

  ~ * ~

  NOTE

  Sir,

  Dr. Stewart was contacted as you suggested, and after seeing Haughtree he gave his expert opinion that the man was madder than his brother ever had been. He also pointed out the possibility that the disease of Julian Haughtree’s eyes had started soon after his partial mental recovery—probably brought on by constantly wearing dark spectacles. After Dr. Stewart left the police ward, Haughtree became very indignant and wrote the above statement.

  Davies, our specialist, examined the body in the cellar himself and is convinced that the younger brother must, indeed, have been suffering from a particularly horrible and unknown ocular disease.

  It is appreciated that there are one or two remarkable coincidences in the wild fancies of both br
others in relation to certain recent factual events—but these are, surely, only coincidences. One such event is the rise of the volcanic island of Surtsey. Haughtree must somehow have heard of Surtsey after being taken under observation. He asked to be allowed to read the following newspaper account, afterward yelling very loudly and repeatedly: “By God! They’ve named it after the wrong mythos!” Thereafter he was put into a straitjacket of the arm-restricting type:

  —BIRTH OF AN ISLAND—

  Yesterday morning, the 16th November, the sun rose on a long, narrow island of tephra, lying in the sea to the north of Scotland at latitude 63°18’ North and longitude 20°36½’ West. Surtsey, which was born on the 15th November, was then 130 feet high and growing all the time. The fantastic “birth” of the island was witnessed by the crew of the fishing vessel Isleifer II, which was lying west of Geirfuglasker, southernmost of the Vestmann Islands. Considerable disturbance of the sea—which hindered clear observation—was noticed, and the phenomena, the result of submarine volcanic activity, involved such aweinspiring sights as columns of smoke reaching to two and a half miles high, fantastic lightning storms, and the hurling of lava-bombs over a wide area of the ocean. Surtsey has been named after the giant Surter, who—in Norse mythology—”Came from the South with Fire to fight the God Freyr at Ragnarok,” which battle preceded the end of the world and the Twilight of the Gods. More details and pictures inside.

  ~ * ~

  Still in the “jacket,” Haughtree finally calmed himself and begged that further interesting items in the paper be read to him. Dr. Davies did the reading, and when he reached the following report Haughtree grew very excited:

  —BEACHES FOULED—

  Garvin Bay, on the extreme North coast, was found this morning to be horribly fouled. For a quarter of a mile deposits of some slimy, black grease were left by the tide along the sands. The stench was so great from these unrecognizable deposits that fishermen were unable to put to sea. Scientific analysis has already shown the stuff to be of an organic base, and it is thought to be some type of oil. Local shipping experts are bewildered, as no known tankers have been in the area for over three months. The tremendous variety of dead and rotting fish also washed up has caused the people of nearby Bel-loch to take strong sanitary precautions. It is hoped that tonight’s tide will clear the affected area ...

  ~ * ~

  At the end of the reading Haughtree said: “Julian said they wouldn’t take him alive.” Then, still encased in the jacket, he somehow got off the bed and flung himself through the third-story window of his room in the police ward. His rush at the window was of such tremendous ferocity and strength that he took the bars and frame with him. It all happened so quickly there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

  Submitted as an appendix to my original report.

  Sgt. J. T. Muir

  23 November 1963

  Glasgow City Police

  <>

  ~ * ~

  BIG

  'C'

  Two thousand thirteen and the exploration of space—by men, not robot spaceships—was well underway. Men had built Moonbase, landed on Mars, were now looking toward Titan, though that was still some way ahead. But then, from a Darkside observatory, Luna II was discovered half a million miles out: a black rock two hundred yards long and eighty through, tumbling dizzily end over end around the Earth, too small to occlude stars for more than a blip, too dark to have been (previously) anything but the tiniest sunspot on the surface of Sol. But interesting anyway “because it was there,” and also and especially because on those rare occasions when it lined itself up with the full moon, that would be when Earth’s lunatics gave full vent. Lunatics of all persuasions, whether they were in madhouses or White Houses, asylums or the army, refuges or radiation shelters, surgeries or silos.

  Men had known for a long time that the moon controlled the tides—and possibly the fluids in men’s brains?—and it was interesting now to note that Luna II appeared to compound the offence. It seemed reasonable to suppose that we had finally discovered the reason for Man’s homicidal tendencies, his immemorial hostility to Man.

  Two thousand fifteen and a joint mission—American, Russian, British—went to take a look: they circled Luna II at a “safe” distance for twelve hours, took pictures, made recordings, measured radiation levels. When they came back, within a month of their return, one of the two Americans (the most outspoken one) went mad, one of the two Russians (the introverted one) set fire to himself, and the two British members remained phlegmatic, naturally.

  One year later in August 2016, an Anglo-French expedition set out to double-check the findings of the first mission: i.e., to see if there were indeed “peculiar radiations” being emitted by Luna II. It was a four-man team; they were all volunteers and wore lead baffles of various thicknesses in their helmets. And afterwards, the ones with the least lead were discovered to be more prone to mental fluctuations. But... the “radiations,” or whatever, couldn’t be measured by any of Man’s instruments. What was required was a special sort of volunteer, someone actually to land on Luna II and dig around a little, and do some work right there on top of—whatever it was.

  Where to land wasn’t a problem: with a rotation period of one minute, Luna II’s equatorial tips were moving about as fast as a man could run, but at its “poles” the planetoid was turning in a very gentle circle. And that’s where Benjamin “Smiler” Williams set down. He had wanted to do the job and was the obvious choice. He was a Brit riding an American rocket paid for by the French and Russians. (Everybody had wanted to be in on it.) And of course he was a hero. And he was dying of cancer.

  Smiler drilled holes in Luna II, set off small explosions in the holes, collected dust and debris and exhaust gasses from the explosions, slid his baffles aside and exposed his brain to whatever, walked around quite a bit and sat down and thought things, and sometimes just sat. And all in all he was there long enough to see the Earth turn one complete circle on her axis, following which he went home. First to Moonbase, finally to Earth. Went home to die—after they’d checked him out, of course.

  But that was six years ago and he still hadn’t died (though God knows we’d tried the best we could to kill him), and now I was on my way to pay him a visit. On my way through him, travelling into him, journeying to his very heart. The heart and mind—the living, thinking organism, the control centre, as it were—deep within the body of what the world now called Big ‘C.’

  July 2024, and Smiler Williams had asked for a visitor. I was it, and as I drove in I went over everything that had led up to this moment. It was as good a way as any to keep from looking at the “landscape” outside the car. This was Florida and it was the middle of the month, but I wasn’t using the air-conditioning and in fact I’d even turned up the heater a little—because it was cool out there. As cool as driving down a country lane in Devon, with the trees arching their green canopy overhead. Except it wasn’t Devon and they weren’t green. And in fact they weren’t even trees. ...

  Those were thoughts I should try to avoid, however, just as I avoided looking at anything except the road unwinding under the wheels of my car, and so I went back again to 2016, when Ben Williams came back from space.

  The specialists in London checked Smiler out—his brain, mostly, for they weren’t really interested in his cancer. That was right through him, (with the possible exception of his grey matter), and there was no hope. Try to cut or laser that out of him and there’d be precious little of the man himself left! But after ten days of tests they’d found nothing, and Smiler was getting restless.

  “Peter,” he said to me, “I’m short on time and these monkeys are wasting what little I’ve got left! Can’t you get me out of here? There are places I want to go, friends I want to say good-bye to.” But if I make that sound sad or melodramatic, forget it. Smiler wasn’t like that. He’d really earned his nickname, that good old boy, because right through everything he’d kept on smiling like it was painted on
his face. Maybe it was his way to keep from crying. Twenty-seven years old just a month ago, and he’d never make twenty-eight. So we’d all reckoned.

  Myself, I’d never made it through training, but Smiler had and we’d kept in touch. But just because I couldn’t go into space didn’t mean I couldn’t help others to do it. I’d worked at NASA, and on the European Space Programme (ESP), even for a while for the Soviets at Baikonur, when detente had been peaking a periodic upsurge back in 2009 and 2010. So I knew my stuff. And I knew the men who were doing it, landing on Mars and what have you, and the heroes like Smiler Williams. So while Smiler was moderately cool towards the others on the space medicine team—the Frogs, Sovs, and even the other Americans—to me he was the same as always. We’d been friends and Smiler had never let down a friend in his life.