Necroscope n-1

by Brian Lumley

  ‘But sir — !’ Green started to his feet, his voice already beginning to rise in protest.

  ‘Shut up!’ Hannant told him sharply. ‘And sit down!’ And then — as the bully subsided with a loud huh! ‘Right, what’s next?’ He glanced at the afternoon’s programme under the glass on top of his desk. ‘Oh, yes — stone collecting on the beach. Good! A bit of fresh air might wake you all up. Very well, start packing up. Then you can go — but in an orderly manner!’ (As if they’d take any notice of that!)

  But — before they could commence their metamorphosis into a pencil-clattering, desk-slamming, floor-shaking horde — ‘Wait! You may as well leave your things here. The monitor takes the key and opens up again after you’ve brought your stones back from the beach. When you’ve picked up your things, then he’ll lock up again. Who is the monitor this week?’ ‘Sir!’ Jimmy Collins stuck up his hand. ‘Oh?’ said Hannant, raising thick eyebrows, but not at all surprised really. ‘Going up in the world, are we, Jimmy Collins?’

  ‘Scored the winning goal against Blackhills on Saturday, sir,’ said Jimmy with pride.

  Hannant smiled, if only to himself. Oh, yes, that would do it. Jamieson, the headmaster, was a fool for football — indeed for all sports. A healthy mind needs a healthy body … Still, he was a good head.

  The boys were exiting now, Green elbowing his way through the crush, looking surlier than ever, with Keogh and Collins bringing up the rear; the two of them, for all their differences, inseparable as Siamese twins. And as he’d known they would, they stood at the door waiting. ‘Well?’ Hannant asked.

  ‘Waiting for you, sir,’ said Collins. ‘So I can lock up.’ ‘Oh, is that so?’ Hannant aped the boy’s breeziness. ‘And we’ll just leave all the windows open, will we?’

  As the two came tumbling back into the classroom he grinned, packed his briefcase, did up the top button of his shirt and straightened his tie — and still got out into the corridor before they were through. Then Collins turned the key in the lock and they were off — brushing past him, careful not to touch him, as if fearing they’d catch something — dashing after the others in a clatter of flying feet.

  Maths? Hannant thought, watching them out of sight along the shining corridor, slicing through the square beams of dusty sunlight from the windows. What the hell’s maths? Star Trek on the telly and a stack of brand new Marvel comics in the newsagent’s — and I expect them to study numbers! God! And just wait another year or so, till they start to notice those funny lumps on girls — as if they haven’t already! And again: Maths? Hopeless!

  He grinned, however ruefully. Lord, how he envied them!

  Harden Modern Boys’ was a secondary modern school on England’s north-east coast, catering to the budding minds of the colliery’s young men. That did not mean a great deal: most of the boys would become miners or employees of the Coal Board anyway, like their fathers and older brothers before them. But some, a small percentage, would go on through the medium of examinations to higher education at academic and technical colleges in neighbouring towns.

  Originally a cluster of two-storey Coal Board offices, the school had been given a face-lift some thirty years earlier when the village’s population had suddenly grown to accommodate greatly expanded mining operations. Now, standing behind low walls just a mile from the shore to the east and half that distance from the mine itself to the north, the plain old bricks of the place and the square windows seemed to lend it an air of frowning austerity out of keeping with its prosperous self-help gardens, a cold severity not at all reflected in its staff. No, for all in all they were a good, hard-working bunch. And headmaster Howard Jamieson BA, a staunch survivor of ‘the Old School’, saw to it that they stayed that way.

  The weekly stone-gathering expedition served three purposes. One: it got all the kids out in the fresh air, allowing those teachers with a predilection for nature-rambling a rare chance to turn the minds of their wards towards Nature’s wonders. Two: it provided gratis much of the raw material for garden walls within the grounds of the school, gradually replacing the old fences and trellises, a project which naturally bore the head’s stamp of approval. Three: it meant that once a month three-quarters of the masters could get away from school early, leaving their charges in the care of the dedicated ramblers.

  The idea was this: that all the pupils employ Tuesday’s last period to walk a mile down leafy country lanes to the beach, there to collect up large, flat, rounded stones, of which there were plenty, and to carry them back one per pupil to the school. And as stated, along the way one male teacher (usually the gym-master, who was ex-Army Physical Training Corps) and two of the school’s younger, unattached female teachers would extol the glories of the hedgerows, the wonders of the wild flowers and the countryside in general. None of which was of any real interest to Harry Keogh; but he did like the beach, and anything was better than a classroom on a warm, droning afternoon.

  ‘Here,’ said Jimmy Collins to Harry as they strolled, two abreast, midway in a long line of kids, down through the paths of the dene winding to the sea, ‘you really ought to pay attention to old Hannant, you know. I mean, not about all that “needing qualifications” stuff — that’s up to you — but during lessons generally. He’s not a bad ‘un, old George, but he could be if he decided you were just taking the mickey.’

  Harry shrugged dejectedly. ‘I was daydreaming,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s sort of funny. See, when I daydream like that, it’s like I can’t stop. Only old Hannant shouting — and you giving me a jab — pulled me out of it.’

  Pulled me out… the strong hands reaching down into the water… to pull me out, or push me under?

  Jimmy nodded. ‘I’ve seen you like it before, lots of times. Your face goes sort of funny…’ He looked serious for a moment, then chuckled and gave Harry a playful thump on the shoulder. ‘Not that that’s a big deal — your face is funny all the time!’

  Harry snorted. ‘Listen who’s talking! Me, funny-look ing? I’d play Kirk to your Spock any time! Anyway, what do you mean? I mean, how do I look, you know, funny?’

  ‘Well, you just sit very still, all stary-eyed, scared-looking. But not always. Sometimes you look a bit dreamy, like. Anyway, it’s like old George said: you just don’t seem to be here at all. Actually, you’re very weird! I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? How many friends have you got?’

  ‘I’ve got you,’ Harry feebly protested. He knew what Jimmy meant: he was too deep, too quiet. But not studious, not a swot. If he’d been good at lessons, that would perhaps explain it, but he wasn’t. Oh, he was clever enough (at least he felt he could be clever) if he wanted to concentrate on it. It was just that he found concentration very hard. It was as if sometimes the thoughts he thought weren’t really his at all. Complicated thoughts and daydreams, fancies and phantasms. His mind made up stories for him — whether he wanted it to or not — but stories so detailed they were like memories. The memories of other people. People who weren’t here any more. As if his head was an echo-chamber for minds which had… gone somewhere else?

  ‘Yes, you’ve got me for a friend,’ Jimmy interrupted his train of thought. ‘And who else?’

  Harry shrugged, went on the defensive. ‘There’s Brenda,’ he said. ‘And… and anyway, who needs lot of friends? I don’t. If people want to be friendly they’ll be friendly. If they don’t, well that’s up to them.’

  Jimmy ignored the mention of Brenda Cowell, Harry’s grande passion who lived in the same street. He was into sport, not girls. He’d hang himself from a goal-post before he’d be caught with his arm round a girl in the cinema when the lights went up. ‘You’ve got me.r he said. ‘And that’s it. As for why I like you -1 just dunno.’

  ‘Because we don’t compete,’ said Harry, shrewder than his years. ‘I don’t understand sport, so you enjoy explaining it to me — ‘cos you know I won’t argue. And you don’t understand me being so, well, quiet — ‘

  ‘And weird,’ Jimmy interrupted.

&
nbsp; ‘-And so we get along.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like more friends?’

  Harry sighed. ‘Well, see, it’s like I have friends. Up in my head.’

  ‘Imaginary friends!’ Jimmy scoffed, but not unkindly.

  ‘No, they’re more than that,’ Harry answered. ‘Arid they’re good friends, too. Of course they are… I’m the only friend they’ve got!’

  ‘Huh!’ Jimmy snorted. ‘Oh, you’re weird, all right!’

  Way up at the head of the column, ‘Sergeant’ Graham Lane came out of the woods into bright sunlight, pausing to hasten on the double rank of kids behind him. This was the narrow mouth of the dene, also the mouth of the stream which had cut its gulley through the sea cliffs. To north and south those cliffs now rose, mainly of sandstone but layered with belts of shale and shingle, and banded with rounded stones; and here the stream passed under an old, rickety wooden bridge. Beyond lay a reedy, weedy marsh or lake of brackish water, only ever replenished by high tides or storms. A path skirted the boggy area towards the sandy beach; and beyond that, there lay the grey North Sea, growing greyer every day with debris from the pits. But today it was blue in the bright sunlight, flecked white here and there by the spray of diving gulls where they fished.

  ‘Right!’ Lane called loudly, standing arms akimbo and very much The Man, in his track-suit bottoms and T-shirt on the nearside of the bridge. ‘Off you go, over the bridge, round the lake and on to the beach. Find your stones and bring ‘em back to me — er, no, to Miss Gower — for grading. We’ve a good half hour, so anyone who fancies can have a quick dip as soon as he’s found his stone — if you’ve got your costumes with you. But no nude bathing if you please, remember there are other people on the beach. And stick to the pools left by the sea. You all know what the current’s like just here, you young buggers!’

  They knew, all right: the current was treacherous, especially on an ebb tide. People were drowned up and down this coast every year, strong swimmers too.

  Miss Gower — Religious Instruction and Geography — from her position roughly half-way back along the column, had heard Lane’s gravel-voiced, parade-ground instructions. She gave a little grimace. Oh, she understood well enough why she was to grade the stones: it was to allow Lane and Dorothy Hartley a bit of freedom, so they could have a little ‘ramble’ along the rocks and find themselves a spot for a quick hump! Purely physical, of course, for their minds were totally incompatible.

  Miss Gower tilted her nose and sniffed loudly; and now, as the pace of the kids towards the front began to speed up, she called out: ‘All right, boys — hurry along. And remember this week’s wild-life quest. We need some good razor-shells for the natural history room. Whole ones, still hinged together if you can find them. But please — empty ones! Let’s not carry any rotting molluscs back, shall we?’

  Farther back, along the path under the trees, where the rear was brought up by Miss Hartley and the monitors of her English and History classes, Stanley Green trudged, hands in pockets, his clever but vicious mind dark with thoughts of violence. He had heard Miss Gower’s memo to the kids: no dead shellfish. No, but he’d like to fix it for a dead ‘Speccy’ Keogh! Well, maybe not dead, but severely mauled. It was that dumb kid’s fault he had those maths problems to work out tonight. Dumb shit, sitting there like a zombie, fast asleep with his eyes wide open! Well, Big Stanley would open his eyes for him, sure enough — or close them!

  ‘Hands out of your pockets, Stanley,’ pretty Miss Hartley said from behind him. ‘It’s five months yet to Christmas, not quite cold enough for snow. And why the hunched shoulders? Is something bothering you?’

  ‘No, Miss,’ he mumbled in answer, his head down.

  ‘Try to enjoy, Stanley,’ she told him, a little archly. ‘You’re still very young, but if you keep on taking your spite out on the entire world you’ll get old very, very quickly.’ And to herself she added, like that frustrated bitch, Gertrude Gower…!

  Harry Keogh was not a natural born voyeur, just a curious boy. Last Tuesday down here on the beach he’d stumbled on something, and he hoped to do so again today. That was why, after he delivered up his stone to Miss Gower, he checked that no one was watching him and cut away across the dunes and round towards the other side of the reedy marsh. It was only a little more than a hundred yards, but in half that distance he’d already picked up fresh footprints in the sand. A man’s and a woman’s; and of course he’d seen ‘Sergeant’ and Miss Hartley heading this way, as he’d suspected they might.

  Earlier, Harry had conveniently ‘forgotten’ his bathing briefs; this had left him free to pursue his own interests, for Jimmy had subsequently gone off to swim with the rest of the boys. What Harry was looking for was simple: he wanted pointers. Sitting next to Brenda in the cinema and pressing his knee against hers (or, when she leaned close to him, squeezing her upper arm so that his knuckles touched her small breasts through her coat and jumper) was all very well and even sort of exciting, but it seemed pretty tame when compared with the games teachers Lane and Hartley got up to!

  Finally, coming over a dune and crouching down he located them sitting on a patch of sand within a semicircle of tall reeds — the same spot where he’d seen them last week. Harry backtracked and quickly chose a place at the crest of another dune where he could lie down and peer through a clump of crabgrass. Last week she (Miss Hartley) had been playing with ‘Sergeant’s’ thing, whose size Harry had found extraordinary. Her sweater had been up and ‘Sergeant’ had had one hand up her skirt while the other fondled and tugged at her firm, large-nippled breasts. When he’d come, she had taken a handkerchief and delicately soaked up the glistening semen from his belly and chest. Then she’d kissed him on the tip of his thing — actually kissed him there — and start to put her clothes right while he just lay there like a dead man. Harry had tried hard to imagine Brenda Cowell doing that to him, but the picture just wouldn’t develop in his mind. It was too alien.

  This time it was very different. This time it was going to be what Harry really wanted to see. By the time he got himself settled down on his stomach, ‘Sergeant’ had his track-suit bottoms right off and Miss Hartley’s short white, pleated tennis skirt up around her waist. He was trying to get her knickers off, and his thing — even bigger than last week, if that was at all possible — was jerking about on its own like a puppet on some unseen string.

  From beyond the dunes, far off down the beach, Harry could hear the kids shouting and laughing where they swam and splashed in one of the big tidal pools; the sun burned the back of his neck and ears where he lay perfectly still, his chin in the palms of his hands; sand fleas jumped only inches from his face. But he allowed nothing to distract him; his eyes remained riveted to the sexual activity of the lovers in their reed bower.

  At first she seemed to be fighting ‘Sergeant’, trying to push his hands away. But at the same time she unbuttoned her blouse so that her breasts jutted up naked in the sunlight, their pointed tips unbelievably brown. Harry sensed a sort of panic in her, reflected in his own suddenly pounding blood. It was as if she were hypnotised, with ‘Sergeant’s’ penis a snake where it swayed over her belly — mesmerised into lifted her bottom so that her lover could remove her panties, and into bending her knees and parting her legs. In there, she was dark as night — as if she wore a smaller pair of black knickers under her white ones. Black, yes, and then pink where she put her hands under her thighs to open herself for ‘Sergeant’.

  Harry caught a glimpse of her, pink, white, curving, dark, brown, but that was all. Climbing between her legs, his incredible penis disappearing into her in a moment, ‘Sergeant’ allowed no more. All that was left were feet and legs and the gym teacher’s tight buttocks starting to lunge, shutting off the view. The watching boy gasped, felt himself grown hard inside his pants, rolled on his side to relieve the throbbing of his genitals — and spotted Stanley Green coming over the dunes, scowling, his little pig eyes full of venom!

  On the trail of the
lovers, Harry had found a perfect razor-shell, both valves intact and hinged together. Now he studiously scraped away sand, ‘found’ the shell, slid down the dune holding it carefully in one hand. Aware that his complexion must be bright red, he turned his face away from Green, pretending not to see him until the youth was almost on top of him. After that there was no avoiding it. No avoiding a showdown, either. ‘Hello there, Speccy,’ the bully growled, approaching in a half-crouch, his arms spread wide, defying Harry to run. ‘Fancy finding you here, ‘stead of pissing about with your mate the big football star. What’re we doin’ here then, Speccy? Found a pretty shell for Miss Gower, have we?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Harry muttered, trying to sidestep the other, get round him and away.

  Green moved closer, snatched the double shell out of Harry’s hand. It was a shiny olive colour, old, brittle as a wafer. As he deliberately closed his fist on it, so it crumbled into fragments. ‘There,’ he said, his voice full of an unpleasant satisfaction. ‘You goin’ to tell on me, Speccy?’

  ‘No,’ Harry breathlessly answered, still trying to dodge past, seeing in his mind’s eye ‘Sergeant’s’ backside going up and down, up and down, in the reed hollow not fifteen yards away on the other side of the dune. ‘I don’t tell on people. And I don’t bully, either.’

  ‘Bully? You?’ Green found it funny. ‘You couldn’t bully a fart out of a frog! All you’re good for’s falling asleep in class and acting like a big tart! That and getting people in trouble.’

  ‘You got yourself in trouble!’ Harry protested. ‘Gig gling like that.’

  ‘Giggling?’ Big Stanley caught his arm, pulled him close. ‘Giggling? Girls giggle, Speccy. You callin’ me a girl, then?’

  Harry shook himself loose, put his fists up. Trembling in every limb, he said, ‘Piss off!’

  Green’s mouth fell open. ‘Rude, is it?’ he said. Then he shrugged, half-turned, as if to go, and when Harry dropped his guard turned back and caught him a punch at the side of his mouth.