Straight into another nightmare. I was just coming on to the lake shore from among the trees — but not voluntarily; I was being led. I looked once at the hands gripping my arms, and afterwards stared straight ahead. Yet this wasn't reassuring, either. There was a litle moonlight coming from behind me, and it cast shadows on the ground where I glanced. That intensified my resolution not to look to the side. There were more figures behind me than my captors, but those two were bad enough — abominably thin and tall; and the one on the right had only one hand, but I don't mean the other arm ended at the wrist.
They shoved me forward to where I could look down into the lake. The ferns and water were unusually mobile tonight, but I didn't realise what was making them move until an eye rose above the surface and stared moistly at me. Two others followed it — and, worst of all, none of them was in a face. When the body heaved up behind them I shut my eyes and shrieked for help — to whom I don't know; I had a weird idea that someone was in the house here and could help me. Then I felt a tearing pain in my chest, neutralised by a numbness which spread through my whole body. And I regarded the object I had seen rising from the lake with no horror whatever. And that moment I woke again.
Almost like an echo from my dream, there was still a loud splashing from the lake outside. My nerves must have been on edge, for I could have sworn that there was a faint sound just under the window. I jumped out of bed and shoved the window further open, so I could look out. There was nothing moving in sight — but for a moment I thought I heard something scuttling away along the line of houses. There might even have been a door closing quietly, but I can't be sure of that. Certainly the moonlight was wavering on the lake's surface, as if something had just sunk.
It's all rather queer now I look on it in broad daylight, but just then everything seemed to have an added significance — I almost expected the monstrous shape of my dream to rise from the water and squat before me in the street. I suppose you rather wonder whether I'm going to describe what I saw. You can't imagine how difficult that would be — maybe I'll make it the subject of my next painting. I only got one glimpse, though, even if it was so terribly detailed. It'll be best if I don't lose what inspiration there is by describing it now, anyway.
Yours, Thomas
I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he had interested me; I did not refer to his vision of the haunter of the lake. Instead, I advised him to contact the estate agent and find out the original purpose of the lakeside property. 'Maybe,' I suggested, 'you'll learn of some hideous deed which has left a residue.' I did not add that I hoped he would discover something utterly prosaic, which would destroy the place's unfortunate hold over him and get him away from its morbid atmosphere. I did not expect him to find out anything extraordinary, and so was startled by his reply.
30 October 1960
Last Friday I made a special journey down to Bold Street, and found out quite a bit about my lakeside street. The agent wasn't particularly pleased to see me, and seemed surprised when I told him I hadn't come for my money back. He still was wary of saying much, though — went on a bit about the houses being built 'on the orders of a private group.' It didn't seem as though I'd get much out of him, and then I happened to mention that I was having dreams like the earlier tenants. Before he could think, he blurted out: 'That's going to make some people a bit happier, then.'
'What do you mean by that?' I asked, sensing a mystery.
Well, he hedged a bit, and finally explained: 'It's to do with the "haunting" of your lake. There's a story among the country people — and it extends to them in the suburbs around Mercy Hill, which is nearest your place — that something lives in the lake, and "sends out nightmares" to lure people to it. Even though the nightmares are terrifying, they're said to have a hypnotic effect. Since the place became untenanted, people — children particularly — in the Mercy Hill area have been dreaming, and one or two have been admitted to the Hill hospital. No wonder they have nightmares around there — it used to be the site of a gallows, you know, and the hospital was a prison; only some joker called it "Mercy Hill," and the name stuck. They say the dreams are the work of what's in the lake—it's hungry, and casting its net further out. Of course it's all superstition — God knows what they think it is. Anyway, if you're dreaming, they'd say it won't need to trouble them any more.'
'Well, that's one thing cleared up,' I said, trying to follow up my advantage. 'Now, why were the houses really built? What was this "private group" you're so secretive about?'
'It'll sound crazy to you, no doubt,' he apologised. 'The houses were built around 1790, and renovated or added to several times. They were put up on the instructions of this group of about six or seven people. These people all disappeared around 1860 or 1870, apparently leaving for another town or something — anyway, nobody around here heard of them again. In 1880 or so, since there'd been no word from them, the houses were let again. For many reasons, people never stayed long — you know, the distance from town; and the scenery too, even if that was what got you there. I've heard from earlier workers here that the place even seemed to affect some people's minds. I was only here when the last tenant came in. You heard about the family that was here last, but this was something I didn't tell you. Now look — you said when you first came that you were after ghosts. You sure you want to hear about this?'
'Of course I do — this is what I asked for,' I assured him. How did I know it mightn't inspire a new painting? (Which reminds me, I'm working on a painting from my dream; to be called The Thing In The Lake.)
'Really, it wasn't too much,' he warned me. 'He came in here at nine o'clock — that's when we open, and he told me he'd been waiting outside in the car half the night. Wouldn't tell me why he was pulling out — just threw the keys on the counter and told me to get the house sold again. While I was fixing some things up, though, he was muttering a lot. I couldn't catch it all, but what I did get was pretty peculiar. Lot of stuff about "the spines" and "you lose your will and become part of it" — and he went on a lot about "the city among the weeds." Somebody "had to keep the boxes in the daytime," because of "the green decay." He kept mentioning someone called—Glarky, or something like that — and also he said something about Thomas Lee I didn't catch.'
That name Thomas Lee sounded a bit familiar to me, and I said so. I still don't know where I got it from, though.
'Lee? Why, of course,' he immediately said. 'He was the leader of that group of people who had the houses built — the man who did all the negotiating… And that's really about all the facts I can give you.'
'Facts, yes,' I agreed. 'But what else can you tell me? I suppose the people round here must have their own stories about the place?'
'I could tell you to go and find out for yourself,' he said — I suppose he was entitled to get a bit tired of me, seeing I wasn't buying anything. However, he went on: 'Still, it's lucky for you Friday is such a slack day… Well, they say that the lake was caused by the fall of a meteor. Centuries ago the meteor was wandering through space, and on it there was a city. The beings of the city all died with the passage through space, but something in that city still lived — something that guided the meteor to some sort of landing from its home deep under the surface. God knows what the city would've had to be built of to withstand the descent, if it were true!
'Well, the meteor crater filled with water over the centuries. Some people, they say, had ways of knowing there was something alive in the lake, but they didn't know where it had fallen. One of these was Lee, but he used things nobody else dared to touch to find its whereabouts. He brought these other people down to the lake when he got to know what was in there. They all came from Goatswood — and you know what the superstitious say comes out of the hill behind that town for them to worship… As far as I can make out, Lee and his friends are supposed to have met with more than they expected at the lake. They became servants of what they awoke, and, people say, they're there yet.'
That's all I could get out o
f him. I came back to the house, and I can tell you I viewed it a bit differently from when I left! I bet you didn't expect me to find that out about it, eh? Certainly it's made me more interested in my surroundings — perhaps it'll inspire me.
Yours, Thomas
I confess that I did not write a long reply; I suppose because my plan to break the lake's hold over him had gone awry. It is regrettable that I was so abrupt, for the letter which reached me on the 8th was his last.
6 November 1960
…Have you seen Joe around lately? I haven't heard from him since he left here about three weeks ago, and I'm wondering what's happened to him — he used to write as regularly as you. Still, maybe he's too busy.
But that's unimportant, really. So much has been happening down here, and I don't understand all of it yet. Some of it, maybe, doesn't matter at all, but I'm sure now that this place is a focal point of something unexpected.
Working till about 3 a.m. on the 31st, I finished my new painting. I think it's my best yet — never before have I got such a feeling of alienness into my work. I went to bed around 3:30 and didn't wake up till 5 in the afternoon, when it was dark. Something woke me up; a sound from outside the window. Loud noises of any kind are rare around here, and this wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before. A high-pitched throbbing noise — quickening in vibration and rising in pitch till it hit a discord, when it would drop to its original pitch and begin the cycle again. I couldn't see anything, but I got a peculiar idea that it was coming from in the lake. There was an odd rippling on the surface, too, where it reflected the light from the window.
Well, on the 1st I did what I kept saying I'd do (and this is where the interesting part begins) — namely, explore the other houses along the street. I went out about three and decided to try the one directly on the left. Did you realise that the front door must have been ajar when we first came? — oh, no, you didn't get that far along the line. It was, and once I'd managed to get over those rickety steps it was easy to get into the hall. Dust everywhere, wallpaper hanging off in strips, and as far as I could see there was no electric light fitting. I went into the front room — the one looking on to the lake — but could see nothing. The floorboards were bare, cobwebs festooned the fireplace, there was no furniture — the room was almost unlit with the grimy windows. Nothing to see at all.
The next room on the left was almost as bad. I don't know what it was used for — it was so bare nobody could have known. But as I turned to leave, I noticed something protruding from between the floorboards, and, going over, I found it was the page of a book; it looked as if it had been torn out and trodden into the niche. It was dirty and crumpled, and hardly seemed worth looking at, but I picked it up anyway. It was covered with handwriting, beginning in the middle of one sentence and ending in the middle of another. I was going to drop it, but a phrase caught my eye. When I looked closer I realised that this was indeed interesting. I took it back to my house where I could see better, and finally got it smoothed out and clean enough for reading. I might as well copy it out for you — see what you make of it.
sundown and the rise of that from below. They can't come out in the daytime — the Green Decay would appear on them, and that'd be rather unpleasant — but I couldn't walk far enough for them not to catch me. They can call on the tomb-herd under Temphill and get them to turn the road back to the lake. I wish I hadn't got mixed up with this. A normal person coming here might be able to escape the dream-pull, but since I dabbled in the forbidden practices at Brichester University I don't think it's any use trying to resist. At the time I was so proud that I'd solved that allusion by Alhazred to 'the maze of the seven thousand crystal frames' and 'the faces that peer from the fifth-dimensional gulf.' None of the other cult-members who understood my explanation could get past the three thousand three hundred and thirty-third frame, where the dead mouths gape and gulp. I think it was because I passed that point that the dream-pull has so strong a hold on me. But if this is being read it means that there must be new tenants. Please believe me when I say that you are in horrible danger. You must leave now, and get the lake filled in before it gets strong enough to leave this place. By the time you read this I shall be — not dead, but might as well be. I shall be one of the servants of it, and if you look closely enough you might find me in my place among the trees. I wouldn't advise it, though; although they'd get the Green Decay in broad daylight they can come out in the daytime into the almost-darkness between the trees. You'll no doubt want proof; well, in the cellar
That's where it ended. As you can imagine, I wanted nothing better than to go down to that cellar — I presumed it must mean the cellar of the house I'd been exploring. But I felt particularly hungry, and by the time I'd prepared a meal and eaten it, it was pretty dark. I didn't have a flashlight, and it'd have been useless to go into a cellar after dark to look for anything. So I had to wait until the next day.
That night I had a strange dream. It must have been a dream, but it was very realistic. In it I was lying in bed in my room, as though I'd just woken up. Voices were speaking under the window — strange voices, hoarse and sibilant and somehow forced, as if the speakers found it painful to talk. One said: 'Perhaps in the cellar. They will not be needed until the pull is stronger, anyway.' Slowly the answer came, 'His memory is dimming, but the second new one must remedy that.' It might have been the first voice or another which replied, 'Daylight is too near, but tomorrow night we must go down.' Then I heard deliberate, heavy footsteps receding. In the dream I could not force myself to look and see who had been under the window; and, in a few minutes, the dream ended in uneasy sleep.
The next morning, the second, I visited the house again. The door to the cellar's in the kitchen, like my house, There wasn't much light down there, but some did come in from the garden outside. When I got used to it, I saw a flight of stone steps going down into a large cellar. I saw what I wanted immediately — there wasn't really anything else to see. A small bookcase of the type open at the top and front, full of dusty yellowed books, and with its sides joined by a piece of cord which served as a handle for easier carrying. I picked up the bookcase and went back upstairs. There was one other thing which I thought odd: an archway at the other end of the cellar, beyond which was a steep flight of stairs — but these stairs led down as far as I could see.
When I got back to my house I dusted the books off and examined the spines. They were, I found, different volumes of the same book, eleven of them in all; the book was called The Revelations of Glaaki. I opened Book 1, and found it was an old type of loose-leaf notebook, the pages covered with an archaic handwriting. I began to read — and by the time I looked up from the fifth book it was already dark.
I can't even begin to tell you what I learned. When you come down at Christmas maybe you can read some of it — well, if you start it, you'll be so fascinated you'll have to finish it. I'd better give you briefly the history of the book, and the fantastic my thos of which it tells.
This Revelations of Glaaki has been reprinted elsewhere according to notes, or perhaps I'd better say pirated. This, however, is the only complete edition; the man who managed to copy it down and 'escaped' to get it printed didn't dare to copy it all down for publication. This original handwritten version is completely fragmentary; it's written by the different members of a cult, and where one member leaves off another begins, perhaps on a totally different subject. The cult grew up around 1800, and the members almost certainly were those who ordered the houses built. About 1865 the pirated edition was published, but because it referred frequently to other underground societies they had to be careful where the book was circulated. Most of the copies of the very limited edition found their way into the hands of members of these cults, and nowadays there are very few complete runs of all the nine volumes (as against eleven in the uncut edition) extant.
The cult worships something which lives in the lake, as the agent told me. There's no description of the being; it was made out of some 'living
, iridescent metal,' as far as I can make out, but there are no actual pictures. Occasionally footnotes occur, such as 'cf. picture: Thos. Lee pinxit,' but if there ever was a picture it must have been torn out. There are numerous references to 'the sentient spines,' and the writers go into great detail about this. It's to do with the initiation of a novice into the cult of Glaaki, and explains, in its own superstitious way, the legends of the 'witch's mark.'
You've heard of the witch's mark — the place on the body of a witch that wouldn't bleed when cut? Matthew Hopkins and his kind were always trying to find the mark, but not always successfully. Of course they often got hold of innocent people who'd never heard of Glaaki, and then they had to resort to other means to prove they were witches. But those in the cult certainly were supposed to have the real witches' marks. It was the long, thin spines which are supposed to cover the body of their god Glaaki. In the initiation ceremony the novice was held (sometimes willing, sometimes not) on the lake shore while Glaaki rose from the depths. It would drive one of its spines into the chest of the victim, and when a fluid had been injected into the body the spine detached itself from the body of Glaaki. If the victim had been able to snap the spine before the fluid entered his body he would at least have died a human being, but of course his captors didn't allow that. As it was, a network spread right through the body from the point of the spine, which then fell away where it entered the body, leaving an area which would never bleed if something were jabbed into it. Through the emission of impulses, perhaps magnetic, from the brain of Glaaki, the man was kept alive while he was controlled almost completely by the being. He acquired all its memories; he became also a part of it, although he was capable of performing minor individual actions, such as writing the Revelations, when Glaaki was not emitting specific impulses. After about sixty years of this half-life this 'Green Decay' would set in if the body was exposed to too-intense light.
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants Page 12
