The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

by Ramsey Campbell

  'Well, I told you something of what I know,' Chesterton said, 'but — well, I hope I won't offend you, but — you must understand certain things pretty thoroughly, to unite your wills with mine, and I don't know whether you'd — What sort of work do you do anyway?'

  'We're at Poole's Builder's Yard in Brichester,' one told him.

  Chesterton was silent for so long that they wondered what had occurred to him. When he looked at them again, there was a new expression in his eyes. 'I suppose I could teach you a little of the Yr-Nhhngr basics — it would need weeks to get you to visualise dimensional projections, but maybe that won't be necessary if I can just give you a copy of the incantation, the correct pronunciation, and give you the lenses for the reversed-angle view of matter if I can make any in time — yes, those plain glass spectacles would do if I put a filter over to progress the colours halfway… But you don't know what the devil I'm running on about. Come on — I'll drive you to my house.'

  When they were driving down the A38, Chesterton broke the silence again: 'I'll be frank — it was really because you work at Poole's that I accepted your aid. Not that I wouldn't be glad of help — it's a strain to use those other parts of the brain with only your own vitality to draw on — but there's so much I have to teach you, and only tonight to do it in; there wouldn't even be tonight, but it's crazy to attack while it's dark. No, I think I can use you more in another way, though perhaps you can help with the chant. So long as I still have the reproduction of that seal in the river… and so long as you can get used to artificial reversal of matter — I always do it without artificial help, because then it doesn't seem so odd.'

  And as he drew up the car in the driveway off Bold Street, he called back: 'Pray it stays near water to accustom itself to surface conditions. If it doesn't — they're parthenogenetic, all of them, and pretty soon there'll be a new race to clear off the earth. Humanity will just cease to exist.'

  IV

  The next day was one of sickly-glowing sunlight and impending winds. Chesterton had copied out the formula in triplicate and given a copy to each of the men, retaining one for himself. Now, in mid-morning, the librarian and one of his helpers were going through the streets of Clotton, gradually approaching the riverside section. On the bank waited the third of the party, like his friend wearing the strange glasses which Chesterton had prepared the night before; his was the crucial part of the plan. The riverbank was otherwise bare — the human corpse and the others having been disposed of.

  Chesterton concentrated on his formula, awaiting the finding of what he knew lurked somewhere among the deserted red-brick houses. Strangely, he felt little fear at the knowledge that the amphibian terror lurked nearby, as though he were an instrument of greater, more elemental forces. At the conclusion of the affair, upon comparing impressions, he found that his two companions had been affected by very similar feelings; further, he discovered that all three had shared a vision — a strange mental apparition of a luminous star-shaped object, eternally rising from an abyss where living darkness crawled.

  Abruptly a gigantic shape flopped out of a side street, giving forth a deafening, half-intelligent croaking at the sight of the two men. It began to retrace its journey as Chesterton's accomplice started to chant the incantation; but Chesterton was already waiting some yards down the side street, and was commencing the formula himself. It gave a gibbering ululation and fled in the direction of the river, where the two followed it, never ceasing their chant. They were slowly driving it towards the riverbank — and what waited there.

  That chase must have resembled a nightmare — the slippery cobbles of the watersoaked street flashing beneath their feet, the antique buildings reeling and toppling on either side, and the flopping colossus always fleeing before them. And so the infamous building on Riverside Alley was passed, and the nightmarish procession burst out on the bank of the river.

  The third member of the party had been staring fixedly at the point at which they emerged, and so saw them immediately. He let in the clutch of the lorry in whose cab he sat, and watched in the rearview mirror while the two manoeuvred the thing into the right position. Perhaps it sensed their purpose; at any rate, there was a hideous period when the being made rushes in every direction. But finally the man in the truck saw that it was in the correct position. They could not aim for the head-organ of the being, for the flesh of the head was strangely opaque, as if the opacity could be controlled at will; but a bullet in the body paralysed it, as Chesterton had deduced it would. Then the lorry-driver moved a control in the cab, and the crucial act was performed.

  Upon the paralysed body of the river-creature poured a stream of fast-hardening concrete. There was a slight convulsive movement below the surface, suppressed as Chesterton recommenced the incantation. Then he snatched an iron bar which had been thoughtfully provided, and as quickly as possible carved a replica of that all-imprisoning seal below the bridge upon the semi-solid concrete surface.

  Afterwards, Chesterton put forward enough money to have the building firm erect a twenty-foot tower over the spot, carved with replicas of the seal on each side — one never knew what agencies might later attempt to resurrect what they had buried. When the Clotton inhabitants began to trickle back, a chance remark by one of the two builders that more than one being could have escaped caused them to tear down the buildings in the riverside quarter, with Chesterton's approval and aid. They found nothing living, although Phipps' homestead yielded enough objects to drive one of the searchers insane and turn many of the others into hopeless drunkards. It was not so much the laboratory, for the objects in there were largely meaningless to most of the seekers — although there was a large and detailed photograph on the wall, presumably the original of that sketch Chesterton had acquired. But the cellar was much worse. The noises which came from beyond that door in the cellar wall were bad enough, and so were the things which could be seen through the reinforced-glass partition in it; some of the men were extremely disturbed by the steps beyond it, going down into pitch-black waters of terrifying depth. But the man who went mad always swore that a huge black head rose out of the ebon water just at the limit of vision, and was followed by a blackly shining tentacle which beckoned him down to unimaginable sights.

  As time passed, the remaining section of Clotton was repopulated, and those who know anything about the period of terror nowadays tend to treat it as an unpleasant occurrence in the past, better not discussed.

  Perhaps it ought not to be so treated. Not so long ago two men were fishing in the Ton for salmon, when they came upon something half-submerged in the water. They dragged it out, and almost immediately afterwards poured kerosene on it and set fire to it. One of them soon after became sufficiently drunk to speak of what they found; but those who heard him have never referred to what they heard.

  There is more concrete evidence to support this theory. I myself was in Clotton not so long ago, and discovered a pit on a patch of waste ground on what used to be Canning Road, near the river. It must have been overlooked by the searchers, for surely they would have spoken of the roughly-cut steps, each carrying a carven five-pointed sign, which led down into abysmal darkness. God knows how far down they go; I clambered down a little way, but was stopped by a sound which echoed down there in the blackness. It must have been made by water — and I did not want to be trapped by water; but just then it seemed to resemble inhuman voices croaking far away in chorus, like frogs worshipping some swamp-buried monster.

  So it is that Clotton people should be wary still near the river and the enigmatic tower, and watch for anything which may crawl out of that opening into some subterranean land of star-born abominations. Otherwise — who knows how soon the earth may return through forgotten cycles to a time when cities were built on the surface by things other than man, and horrors from beyond space walked unrestrained?

  The Insects from Shaggai

  I: The Place Of The Cone

  Perhaps it would be better if I enjoyed myself as best as
possible in the next few hours, but somehow I feel bound to write down some explanation for my friends, even if they will not believe it. After all, I am not really depressed — it is only because I must not be alive after sunset that I will slit my wrists then. Already, certainly, my reader will feel incredulity, but it is quite true that my continued existence might be a danger to the whole human race. But no more — I will tell my story from the beginning.

  When drinking I tend to be boastful and intolerant, so that when I stayed in the hotel in the middle of Brichester I resolved to keep a check on myself; to stay away from the bar, if possible. But one of the residents — a middle-aged teacher who read extensively — had heard of Ronald Shea, and quite liked some of my fantasy stories. So it was that he led me into the bar, with promises that he would tell me all the Severn Valley legends which might form plots for future stories. The first few tales served to get me slightly intoxicated, and then he suddenly started on one which did not sound like the usual witch-story. By the end I was forced to admit that it was at least original.

  'In the woods towards Goatswood,' my informant began, 'the trees get very thick towards the centre. Of course not too many people go down there — there are too many stories about Goatswood itself to attract outsiders — but there's a clearing in the middle of the forest. It's supposed to have been cleared by the Romans for a temple to some god of theirs, I think the Magna Mater, but I wouldn't know about that. Anyway, sometime in the 1600s what must have been a meteor fell in the clearing one night. There were quite a few peculiar happenings earlier that night — arcs of light across the sky, and the moon turned red, according to books I've seen. The fall of this meteorite was heard for miles around, but nobody went to investigate; there were attempts to get together a search-party in Brichester and Camside, but that petered out.

  'Not long after, people began to go there — but not normal people. The local coven made it their meeting-place; on ritual nights they'd consummate the Black Mass there and make blood sacrifices, and before long the country people began to say that the witches didn't even worship Satan any more; they worshipped the meteorite. Of course, the local clergymen said the thing was probably sent from Hell anyway. Nobody could really say they'd seen these rites in the clearing, but a lot of them still said that something came out of the meteor in answer to the witches' prayers.

  'Then someone went down to the clearing, long after Matthew Hopkins had found the coven and had them executed. It was a young man who visited the clearing in daylight on a bet. He didn't come back before dark, and the others began to get worried. He didn't return until after daylight the next morning, and by that time he was completely incoherent — ran screaming into Brichester, and they couldn't get anything out of him.'

  'That's where it ends, I suppose,' I interrupted. 'Somebody sees a nameless horror and can never tell anyone what he saw.'

  'You're wrong there, Mr Shea,' contradicted the teacher. 'This man gradually calmed down, though for a few days he was so quiet that they were afraid he'd been struck dumb. Finally he did calm down enough to answer questions, but a lot was left unexplained. Of course, as you say…

  'Apparently he'd been ploughing through the thickest part of the forest when he heard something following him down the path. Very heavy footsteps, he said — with a sort of metallic sound about them. Well, he turned round, but there was a bend in the path that blocked his view. However, the sun was shining down the path, and it cast a shadow of something which must have been just beyond the turning. Nobody knows exactly what it was; the man only said that while it was almost as tall as a tree, it was no tree — and it was moving towards him. I suppose he would have seen it in a moment, but he didn't wait for that. He ran the other way down the path. He must have run for quite some time, I think, because he ended up in the haunted clearing. Quite the last place he'd have chosen.

  'This is the part that rather interests me. The sun was near to setting, and maybe that gave an added luridness to the scene. Anyway, in this glade in the forest he saw a metal cone standing in the centre. It was made of grey mineral that didn't reflect, and was more than thirty feet high. There was a kind of circular trapdoor on one side, but on the other side were carved reliefs. Presumably he was frightened to go near it, but finally he approached it. Over at one side of the space, there was a long stone with a rectangular hollow scooped out of the top. It was surrounded by human footprints — and there was dried blood in the hollow.

  'Another hiatus, I'm afraid. He never would describe those carvings on the cone, except to say that some represented the thing he had almost seen on the path, and others were of — other things. He didn't look at them long, anyway, but went round the other side to look at the trapdoor. It didn't seem to have any lock or way of opening, and he was studying it. Then a shadow fell across him. He looked up.

  'It was only the sun finally setting, but it did attract his attention away from the trapdoor. When he looked back, it was hanging open. And while he watched, he heard a throbbing noise somewhere above him, in the tip of the cone. He said he thought there was a sort of dry rustling inside, getting closer. Then he saw a shape crawling out of the darkness inside the trapdoor. That's about it.'

  'What do you mean — that's all there is?' I said incredulously.

  'More or less, yes,' the teacher agreed. 'The man became very incoherent after that. All I can learn is that he said it told him about its life and what it wanted. The legend hints something more, actually — speaks of his being dragged off the earth into other universes, but I wouldn't know about that. He's supposed to have learned the history of these beings in the cone, and some of what's passed down in the legend is remarkably unusual. At sunrise the Daytime Guardians — that's what they're called in the story — come out, either to warn people away from the clearing or to drive them in there, I don't know which. These were that species of thing that cast the shadow he saw on the path. On the other hand, after dark the others come out of the cone. There was a lot more told him, but the whole thing's very vague.'

  'Yes, it is vague, isn't it?' I agreed meaningfully. 'Too vague — horrors that are too horrible for description, eh? More likely whoever thought this up didn't have enough imagination to describe them when the time came. No, I'm sorry, I won't be able to use it — I'd have to fill in far too much if I did. The thing isn't even based on fact, obviously; it must be the invention of one of the locals. You can see the inconsistencies — if everybody was so scared of this clearing, why did this man suddenly stand up and go into it? Besides, why's the thing so explicit until it reaches any concrete horror?'

  'Well, Mr Shea,' remarked my informant, 'don't criticise it to me. Tell Sam, there — he's one of the locals who knows about these things; in fact, he told me the legend.' He indicated an old rustic drinking a pint of beer at the bar, who I had noticed watching us all through the conversation. He now rose from the stool and sat at our table.

  'Ah, zur,' remonstrated our new companion, 'you don't want t' sneer at stories as is tole roun' here. 'Im as you was 'earin' about laughed at wot they said t' him. 'E didn't believe in ghosts nor devils, but that was before 'e went t' the woods… An' I can't tell yer more about wot 'e got from the thing int' cone 'cos them as knew kep' quiet about it.'

  "That's not the only one about the clearing in the woods,' interposed the teacher. 'This witch-cult which held their meetings there had their reasons. I've heard they got some definite benefit from their visits — some sort of ecstatic pleasure, like that one gets from taking drugs. It had something to do with what happened to the man when he went in — you know, when he seemed to enter another universe? — but beyond that, I can't tell you anything.

  'There are other tales, but they're still more vague. One traveller who strayed down there one moonlit night saw what looked like a flock of birds rising out of the glade — but he got a second look, and even though these things were the size of large birds, they were something quite different. Then quite a few people have seen lights moving betwe
en the trees and heard a kind of pulsation in the distance. And once they found someone dead on a path through the woods. He was an old man, so it wasn't too surprising that he'd died of heart failure. But it was the way he looked that was peculiar. He was staring in absolute horror at something down the path. Something had crossed the path just ahead of the corpse, and whatever it was, it must have been enough to stop a man's heart. It had broken off branches more than fifteen feet from the ground in passing.'

  We had all been talking so long that I did not realise how much I had drunk. It was certainly with alcoholic courage that I stood up as my two companions stared in amazement. At the door to the staircase I turned, and unthinkingly declared: 'I've got some days to spare here, and I don't intend to see you all terrified by these silly superstitions. I'm going into the woods tomorrow afternoon, and when I find this rock formation you're all so scared of, I'll chip a bit off and bring it back so it can be exhibited on the bar!'

  The next morning brought cloudless skies, and up to midday I was glad that the weather could not be construed an ill omen by the innkeeper or similar persons. But around two o'clock in the afternoon mist began to settle over the district; and by two-thirty the sun had taken on the appearance of a suspended globe of heated metal. I was to leave at three o'clock, for otherwise I would not reach the clearing before dark. I could not back out of my outlined purpose without appearing foolish to those who had heard my boasting; they would certainly think that any argument that the mist would make my progress dangerous was merely an excuse. So I decided to journey a little distance into the forest, then return with the tale that I had been unable to find the clearing.

  When I reached the wood after driving as fast as was safe in my sports car, the sun had become merely a lurid circular glow in the amorphously drifting mist. The moistly peeling trees stretched in vague colonnades into the distance on both sides of a rutted road. However, the teacher had directed me explicitly, and without too much hesitation I entered the forest between two dripping trees.