The Curse of Loch Ness

by Peter Tremayne

  Tim rose to his feet with a cry of anguish.

  Even as he was galvanised into action by his feelings for Jeannie, the excited figure of Professor Winstanley leapt past him. Recovering from his initial shock, the elderly professor was a mass of uncontrollable excitement.

  ‘My God! My God! It is the monster … the genuine Nessie … not a plesiosaurus, no myth … it is real … genuine … intelligent, an intelligent … oh great God!’

  The thing, whatever it was, had been in the act of laying Jeannie down on the stone slab.

  Now it sprang back, issuing a weird threatening shriek, its forearms waving defensively, relieved of the burden of the girl.

  Maitland and the others had turned in astonishment at the interruption.

  Tim reached out a hand to hold the excited Winstanley back but the little professor was scrambling down into the cave.

  ‘It is fantastic, fantastic!’ he kept repeating. ‘At last, the real … saurian … not a plesiosaurus … not … wait, I mean no harm. No harm.’

  He had reached the cave floor and, while Maitland and the others stood rooted in positions of surprise, Winstanley trotted rapidly towards the beast.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, come back, professor!’ cried Tim, scrambling after him, scratching his hands and tearing his wetsuit on the jagged rocks.

  Telstan moved forward to block Winstanley’s way.

  The little professor, seemingly oblivious of everything except the great beast behind the altar slab, dodged Telstan and moved forward holding up a hand.

  ‘I mean you no harm … ’ he kept muttering. ‘No harm … can you understand?’

  The professor was fumbling in his pouch. The hand emerged clutching a small crucifix.

  ‘Look … the symbol of peace … peace and goodwill … you are intelligent … I can see it. We must communicate. We must learn from each other. This is the symbol of peace.’

  Maitland let out a cry.

  ‘You fool! You don’t know what you’re doing!’

  The malevolent eyes of the creature turned towards the tiny silver object, the white metal seemed to glow with fire, reflecting the light of the candles on its polished surface. The huge body of the beast seemed to tense.

  With a weird shrieking cry, the beast suddenly sprang forward over the stone slab. Its massive tail flicked and caught the little professor against the side of the head, sending him flying off his feet and smashing with a sickening dull thud into the rock wall of the cave. The thing seemed to go berserk, for it followed its victim with a gigantic leap on the crumpled, bloody body … its gaping mouth ripping and tearing in its fury.

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Telstan, his voice tinged with horror. ‘This is not our path … this is not our way. Cuir stad air! Stop it!’

  He ran forward as if making a vain attempt to save the professor from the horrific gnashing teeth.

  The beast was crouching over the mangled remains, its massive tail flickering this way and that. It was this that was Telstan’s undoing. He ran straight into the muscular appendage. It smashed him into the floor where he lay with his head twisted at an odd angle.

  Even before the professor had been struck by the beast some strange power had overtaken Tim. He found his mind had become crystal clear; he was thinking with a clarity and precision that, in retrospect, surprised him. His mind took in the fact of the professor’s terrifying end and Telstan’s intervention but, at the same time, it directed Tim to race to the stone slab on which Jeannie lay, pale and mercifully unconscious of the carnage around her.

  As he reached the girl, the dour-faced housekeeper, Mrs Murdo, seemed to awake from her frozen surprise and made a spring towards him, her hands claw-like, reaching for his face, waving the air like the raking talons of a wild beast.

  Tim side-stepped and smashed his fist hard against her nose.

  She gave a cry and crumpled backwards.

  All around him now was noise and confusion. The cries of Maitland and his followers mingled with the bestial grunts of the creature.

  Tim reached forward and grabbed the unconscious girl in a fireman’s lift and, futile though the action seemed, staggered towards the short stairway which led to the iron door that sealed the cave.

  Even in that situation a part of his mind had time to utter a prayer of thanks that he had kept himself in good physical condition, for it was with little effort that he found himself at the steps, was up them and out of the cave.

  A cacophony of sounds followed closely on his heels.

  He swung round to see Maitland and Garson leading a rush after him. The terrifying beast was still on the far side of the cave crouching over the wreckage of Winstanley and Telstan. The second woman was bending over Mrs Murdo who was struggling to sit up on the floor.

  It was the last picture that registered in Tim’s mind before he unceremoniously dropped his burden and threw his full weight against the iron door.

  To his surprise it moved easily, for it had been kept well-oiled by the owners of Balmacaan Castle.

  Almost in one rapid movement, he swung the great door shut and threw the first bolt home just as Maitland and Carson reached the door and struggled against it.

  The door shuddered. The single bolt squealed in protest as it took their weight. For a terrifying moment Tim thought that the bolt was going to give. But it held.

  He quickly threw home the other bolts — there were four altogether — and secured the door. Thankfully, it had been designed to take a great weight; perhaps in the days when the castle had been built to withstand the storms of war.

  He stood breathing deeply; then he bent down and, using the fireman’s lift again, picked up Jeannie’s inert body.

  Behind him he could hear a terrible snarling sound. A weight crashed against the iron door, making it quiver with the violence of the attack and seeming to cause the very cave walls to shudder. Tim knew that the weight was not caused by Maitland and Carson.

  With a feeling akin to panic, Tim set off hurriedly through a bewildering complex of caves until he found himself at a second iron door, similar to the first.

  Once through its portals, he put Jeannie down again and secured the bolts.

  Tim now found himself in a corridor. He recognised the cell-like rooms which opened onto it as being similar to the ones he and Morag had been imprisoned in. In fact, he had no difficulty in spotting the room that he had shared with Morag, for all the doors were thrown open. A few doors away from his former prison he saw a similar cell in which was a bed upon whose coverlet he saw some of Jeannie’s clothes.

  He halted and gently drew a dress and coat over her naked body.

  She was still unconscious but her pulse was steady and her breathing fairly normal.

  There was no time to check further because there was a crashing noise at the end of the corridor which caused Tim to look up in alarm.

  The second iron door was shuddering as some great weight battered against it.

  Once again Tim scooped Jeannie across his broad shoulder and moved rapidly along the corridor.

  If the creature had strength enough to burst through one iron door, it would certainly burst through a second one.

  Leaving the corridor, Tim found himself confronted by a long flight of stone steps which continued on through a doorway, this time of heavy oak with a small iron grille set in it, and then ended in a series of vaults, many of which had empty wine bottle racks fastened along the walls.

  In the distance Tim could hear the weird shrieking cries of the creature joined now and then by a human wail … the voices of the creature’s unholy servants.

  Tim had entered a part of the cellars that was in total darkness and he cursed himself for having let his torch fall in his mad dash across the cave to rescue Jeannie.

  Balancing the girl’s unconscious body on his shoulder, he fumbled at the waterproof pouch for his matches. Tim had no difficulty in striking one.

  He found himself in a large cellar in the middle of which stood a rather big
piece of machinery which reminded Tim of an outsized dynamo. There were several oil drums stacked around it. Beyond this machine, Tim could see the shadowy outline of a flight of stone steps leading upward a short way to a door. This stood ajar, for through a crack came a small ray of light.

  The match spluttered, burnt his fingers and died.

  He dropped it and struck another one.

  With the match in one hand and Jeannie balanced on one shoulder, Tim walked across the cellar and glanced curiously at the machinery by its flickering light. In iron lettered relief, he read a manufacturer’s name and the word ‘generator’ on the structure of the machine. This was probably the source of the castle’s electricity supply, he reasoned.

  The second match spluttered and died.

  The weird shrieking seemed to be growing closer.

  Tim shuddered, lit another match and moved towards the steps.

  Halfway up he found that the light from the crack in the door was sufficient to light his way up. He threw away the match and hurried upwards. Another moment and he had emerged into the lofty hall of Balmacaan Castle.

  He turned, kicked home the door and bolted it.

  Jeannie started to moan. Tim set her down on a couch and rubbed gently at her hands.

  ‘Jeannie? Jeannie, can you hear me?’

  He was torn between worry for her safety and the urge to place as much distance as possible between their pursuers and themselves.

  ‘Tim?’ Her voice was vague and disorientated. ‘Tim … what’s happening?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now. We have to get out of here. Can you walk?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I’ll try.’

  She rose to her feet swaying slightly.

  Tim gripped her arm.

  Half dragging, half pushing the semiconscious girl, Tim stumbled to the door, opened it, and hurried across the overgrown lawns, blinking in the bright light of the late afternoon. Jeannie was moaning softly at his side. Without pausing, he pushed through the tangle of undergrowth and up through the woods towards the trackway which straddled the majestic curves of Beinn a’ Bhacaidh.

  As they reached the iron gates, which marked the boundary of the Balmacaan Estate, their breath was coming in tortured gasps. Jeannie stumbled and fell several times but Tim ignored her entreaties to be left and hauled her to her feet, pushing onwards.

  At last she measured her length on a grass verge by the pathway and Tim, too exhausted to do anything else, flung himself down by her side.

  He felt curiously safe now. His mind had been fixed on one goal, to escape the dark terrors of the caves and cellars of the castle. In that one fixed purpose, he had identified safety with being above the surface, out of the castle … curiously, it did not occur to him that the creature, Maitland, Carson or the others, would pursue him and Jeannie once they succeeded in getting out of the house.

  A low moan escaped from Jeannie’s lips.

  ‘Jeannie,’ he gasped. ‘Are you all right? Can you hear me?’

  A painful smile reformed her features and she reached out a hand towards him.

  ‘Tim … Oh, Tim … ’

  A series of sobs racked her body.

  Abruptly, from the direction of the house, came the now terrifying sound. The soft whispering sound, rising, rising, rising until it seemed to fill the air all around them. Then it ceased. But before they had time to adjust to the stillness, the whispering sound came again, rising, rising, rising until it seemed impossible that the human ear could stand such a pitch.

  Tim closed his eyes and raised his hands to his ears.

  After a moment, he opened them and, to his amazement, saw Jeannie climbing slowly to her feet.

  Her eyes had taken on a glazed expression.

  She turned and slowly began to walk back towards the house.

  Tim grabbed her by the shoulders.

  ‘Jeannie! Where are you going … ?’

  He swung the girl round but her eyes, strangely bright, seemed to stare right through him.

  ‘Jeannie!’ he cried with the full force of his voice.

  The girl’s pale lips worked as if framing unfamiliar words.

  ‘Is esan … is esan a tha a’ feitheamh … ’

  Tim looked at her in horror.

  ‘What are you saying? What is the matter?’

  ‘Is esan a tha a’ feitheamh … ’ repeated the girl in an insistent tone. Then: ‘He is waiting … I must go back to him. Back … a Bheathaich Mhoir nam mar a agus loch … oh great beast of the seas and loch … I am coming. I … ’

  She began to pull away from Tim but he sprang forward and hurled her to the ground, his mouth working in fury.

  ‘No you don’t,’ he cried, as if to the empty air. ‘You will not have her. You will not!'

  The girl struggled like one possessed. Beneath his grip, she was almost as strong as he was. Tim found himself hard pressed to keep her down.

  The sound came again, wave after wave, violent, hurting … so that Tim found himself crying in agony yet he refused to let the struggling girl go.

  Suddenly there was silence.

  Then a strange roaring sound filled his ears. For a moment he wondered what new menace the sound heralded.

  The girl had ceased her struggles and Tim curiously glanced over his shoulder towards Balmacaan Castle.

  A column of black smoke and flame was rising high above the trees.

  For a moment Tim wondered what it was.

  Realisation dawned upon him suddenly. Balmacaan Castle was on fire.

  It was at this precise moment that the sound of motor car engines came roaring across the mountainside. Within seconds, round the shoulder of the mountain, came two cars. They halted a little way away and the first people to spring out and run up to them were Morag and a tall, sallow-faced man.

  ‘Tim!’ cried Morag, ‘are you okay? Is that Jeannie? Is she all right? Hell! What’s happened? Balmacaan is on fire!’

  Tim just stared back, a dazed look on his face. Somehow he felt detached, as if he were not part of the scene, as if he were looking down on it from some great distance. His mind was no longer co-ordinating with his body.

  Behind Morag and the sallow-faced man came several uniformed police officers who were moving rapidly down the hill towards the burning building. Smoke and flames were now clearly seen through the trees and the crackle and roar of the flames were audible.

  The sallow-faced man moved forward and examined Jeannie, who seemed to have lapsed back into a semiconscious state.

  ‘I’m Simpson Kyle,’ he explained. ‘What happened?’

  Tim found himself wanting to explain, wanting to tell them of the incredible, shocking things that had happened, wanting to talk about the million thoughts which now whirled through his head like a carousel out of control. He wanted to explain the fire. That, he realised, in his now detached manner, was his fault. When he discarded the smouldering matches near the generator one of them must have ignited one of the drums of fuel. The drum must have exploded, acting like some gigantic fire bomb. But nothing came out of his quivering lips but meaningless sobs. He kept trying to form words but his lips would not obey him.

  Simpson Kyle turned to a uniformed inspector.

  ‘Shock, I would say, inspector. It would be better if we removed them to a doctor immediately.’

  ‘Aye, Mr Kyle,’ replied the man. ‘There’s one in Foyers.’

  A young man moved forward. Dimly, Tim recognised him as Winstanley’s young assistant, Dave, who had driven Morag into Inverness.

  ‘I’ll drive them there … ’ he volunteered. ‘I can get them in the back of the MG if Morag, er Miss Ross, can help me.’

  The inspector nodded.

  ‘Very well. We will meet you in Foyers later.’

  He turned to a sergeant who had just come, red-faced and panting, up the hill to join the group.

  ‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘A mass of flames, inspector,’ reported the man. ‘They’ll not be s
aving much of Balmacaan Castle, I’m thinking. Most of the old house seems to have fallen in on itself. What’s left standing is just a sheet of flame.’

  The inspector clicked his tongue.

  ‘Well, the fire engines are on the way but I doubt if they can do much by the time they get here.’

  He turned back to the young man, Dave.

  ‘Get on with you now. You’d best get those two to the doctor. There’ll be plenty of time to find out what happened afterwards.’

  Tim felt himself being led gently to a car and seated next to Jeannie. Then there came a kaleidoscope of visions. Of being with Jeannie in the back of the car; of some kindly faced man bending over him; whispers around him; then of a further journey in the back of what must have been an ambulance; of the smell of antiseptic, of pale green walls and white tiles, of whitewashed corridors and pretty young women in stiff white aprons and head-dresses. And then of sleep; deep, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Two months later, Tim, carrying a large bunch of flowers, was ushered into the antiseptic smelling bedroom of a private sanatorium. While his recovery had been rapid, Jeannie had suffered a severe shock and had been unable to comprehend or to speak. After a week in a general ward at an Inverness hospital, Tim had brought her back to London and eventually secured her a place in a small clinic run by an eminent psychiatrist, Doctor Hugh Strickland, at Netley Heath, near Guildford, in the rolling Surrey countryside.

  Jeannie was sitting up in bed when Tim entered.

  He saw her look of recognition and the happiness on her face. Then, with dismay, he saw the happiness fade to a wistful sadness.

  ‘Jeannie,’ he said, throwing the flowers on a side table, ‘It’s me … Tim.’

  He took both her hands in his and squeezed them.

  She gave a wan smile.

  ‘I know, Tim, I know. I … I’m really pleased to see you.’

  ‘I haven’t been before because … because … ’ He ended the sentence with a shrug. Doctor Strickland had told him it was not advisable until he had finished his primary treatment.

  ‘Strickland seems to have made you look chirpy again,’ pressed on Tim. He had the impression that it was only an iron composure that prevented Jeannie from giving way to the tears that seemed to threaten in her bright eyes.