The room was flooded with the saffron glow of early sunlight. Anthea opened the window a little, peering out with caution. The village was quiet and she could neither see nor hear any sound of life. Now was the time to be gone.
She wrote a cheque to cover her night’s lodging and clipped it to the bedspread with a safety-pin. Stealthily, Anthea drew the bolts and unlocked the door. She listened for a moment but The Maypole was still. Taking up her shoes in one hand and her overnight bag in the other, she left the room and crept downstairs.
As she descended, imagination took over again. The pub door would be locked by an ancient iron key which was kept beneath the landlord’s pillow while he slept. She would not be able to escape the place . . .
She need not have worried. The door was fastened by a simple Yale lock. Anthea left the premises and pulled the door shut behind her.
They were waiting for her at the first corner. There were four of them: Melissa Taybourne, Lewis, the rector and the publican. “Why, Anthea,” said the woman. “Don’t tell me that you meant to leave us without witnessing our May celebrations?”
Shocked, Anthea lost power of movement and her case slipped from her hand. Jack Lewis stepped forward to pick it up. “I’ll look after this for you, Miss Moore.”
Anthea stared at the four. The men wore flowing white robes while Melissa Taybourne, hair loose and flowing, was clearly naked beneath her flimsy green gown. But it was the scintillation of early sunlight on the sickle at Melissa’s belt which caught and held the eye rather than her lovely form.
“The maypole’s not very far away, Anthea,” Melissa said. “Just a short walk. I’m sure that if you’re not feeling well these gentlemen will lend you support.”
Reverend Luckhurst took Anthea’s left arm in a firm grip. “It will be a pleasure, Miss Moore,” he said. Reg Feltham, with a friendly nod, grasped Anthea’s other arm.
“Shall we go?” asked Melissa Taybourne.
Anthea stumbled along with them, any will to resist drained from her. She became aware of a noise from somewhere ahead. It sounded like singing and clapping.
She had her first glimpse of the maypole at a distance and her mind tried to tell her that it was all right, that everything was normal after all. The singing came from a crowd of villagers while others were dancing around the maypole in threes, each middle dancer holding the ribbon which spiralled around the tall shaft. It was just a simple village tradition.
Then as they drew near, Anthea knew that it was not all right. There was something truly strange about the dancers, or at least about the ribbon holders.
The flanking pair of each trio wore the long white robes but the middle dancers, men and women, were naked. And the ribbons were wrong. They were not gay strips of multi-coloured bunting but thick and greasy-looking, aberrant purple-grey coils.
And then Anthea saw that the naked dancers’ chests and bellies were spattered with what seemed to be red paint, and seconds later she knew that it was not paint and that they were not holding the ribbons but that the ribbons protruded from their lower bodies and were growing longer as they stumbled about the maypole.
“You’re all insane,” Anthea whispered.
Melissa Taybourne smiled and shook her head. “What is insane about propitiating the old gods of the land as our ancestors did?” She waved an elegant hand at the dancers. “These are all volunteers. Thomas Comstock – you saw him in the church, Anthea – gave his blood for the fertility of the land but he has left his seed in many wombs. The ceremony of the maypole is to ensure the fertility of that seed.”
“And you were sent to us for a purpose, Miss Moore,” said Jack Lewis. “From time to time it is only good and proper that an outsider be brought into our rites. Fresh blood, you know, can only be beneficial to the community.”
“We thought that you, Anthea, of all people would understand this,” said the rector.
Anthea wanted to scream but she could only whimper. With firm gentleness her escort led her to the maypole. They cut away her clothing until she was quite naked, after which Melissa Taybourne went to work with the sickle.
Then Anthea was able to scream.
TERRY LAMSLEY WAS BORN in the south of England but lived in the north for most of his life. He currently resides in Amsterdam, Holland.
His first collection of supernatural stories, Under the Crust, was initially published in a small paperback edition in 1993. Originally intended to only appeal to the tourist market in Lamsley’s home town of Buxton in Derbyshire (the volume’s six tales are all set in or around the area), its reputation quickly grew, helped when stories from the book were included in two of the annual “Year’s Best” horror anthologies.
The book was subsequently nominated for no less than three prestigious World Fantasy Awards, with the story reprinted here eventually winning the award for Best Novella. Ramsey Campbell accepted it on the author’s behalf, and Lamsley’s reputation as a writer of supernatural fiction was assured.
In 1997, Canada’s Ash-Tree Press reissued Under the Crust as a handsome hardcover, limited to just five hundred copies and now as sought-after as the long out-of-print first edition. A year earlier, Ash-Tree had published a second, equally remarkable collection of Lamsley’s short stories, Conference With the Dead: Tales of Supernatural Terror, and it was followed in 2000 by a third collection, Dark Matters.
More recently, he has had stories in By Moonlight Only, Don’t Turn Out the Light and Taverns of the Dead, and a new novella appears in Fourbodings from PS Publishing.
“Dove Holes is a real place,” reveals Lamsley. “People living there, not having much else to do a lot of the time, were in the habit of packing their families in the car, at weekends and holidays, to have a day out rummaging about on the large Council tip on the edge of the village. Rumour had it that rich people from Buxton sometimes dumped valuable antiques there.
“To get into the main part of the tip you had to have some bona fide waste material of your own to deposit, though a lot of people brought out a lot more rubbish than they took in. Or so I was told. Whatever the truth of this, I have seen long queues of cars lined up at the entrance on sunny days. The Victory Quarry was much as I described it, at the time of writing.”
MAURICE BEGAN TO FEEL ill as he came off the Chapel-en-le-Frith by-pass and drove up the A6 to Dove Holes. His palms were damp, and his hands slithered on the steering wheel. He was trying to grip too hard to compensate for a feeling he had that if he didn’t do so, his hands would start to tremble. Also, he was having trouble with his vision. The edges of things were hazy, and patches of blue sky that showed through the gaps in the high, blousy clouds, looked far too bright, like neon light shining off painted metal. He wanted to stop, but was caught in a line of lorries, and there was nowhere to pull off the road that he could remember. He wiped his hands on his shirt. They became sticky again at once. There was a droning sound somewhere. He wasn’t sure if it was coming from the car engine or inside his skull.
He blinked and shook his head in consternation. He had been feeling uneasy all day, all week even, and there was plenty in his life to feel uneasy about, but he had thought he was fairly fit. Now, it seemed, his body was going to let him down, and play host to some sickness, on top of everything else. He slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand in disgust, wound down the side window a couple of inches, and leaned forward tensely against his seat-belt.
As he drove through the tight, dusty village of Dove Holes he started to experience a sensation of more general disorientation. He saw a narrow turning forking to his left and, on impulse, took it much too fast. The unfamiliar road curved and dipped between two low stone walls and, hardly slowing at all, he rocketed along it for a few hundred yards, feeling almost helpless, as though the car had taken possession of him. He made an effort of concentration, to gain control of the vehicle, but a square, dark shape sprang up to the right of him, as though it had pounced out of the earth, and plunged towards him. He swung the car to
the left to avoid whatever it was – it seemed to be a huge black, windowless van – and rode wildly up and along a low, steep, grassy bank. He sensed, rather than saw, the other driver staring down at him. The car scraped against a wall and he had a vague impression of stones tumbling away into the field beyond. The car pulled up sharp at last, its front end pointing up to the sky.
Maurice glanced back to see what had happened to the other vehicle, but it had vanished. Could anything that size, travelling that fast, not have gone off the road?
Then he recalled that the van, or whatever it was, had made no attempt to avoid him. It had taken no evasive action in the seconds it had been visible, as though the driver had not even seen him! Thoughts of insurance bleeped on and off in his mind as he freed his seat-belt buckle, opened the door, and stumbled out onto the road.
There was a strong, gusting wind blowing. He gulped air desperately through his half-open mouth, feeling its cold shock on his lungs, and cursed the world in general.
“Food poisoning!” he thought. The meal earlier on, at the reception. Something – the chicken? the pork pies? – had tasted strange, but he had eaten it anyway, in his hunger. The contents of his stomach flipped over painfully, causing him to double up over the car bonnet.
He forced himself upright and went to inspect the damage. One of the front lights was smashed, the left wing dented, and there were scratches, some deep, along that side. He’d lost a lot of paint. Still, it could have been worse. The wall he had hit some dozens of yards back must have been ready to collapse, or the car would have been in a very bad way.
He sat down on the grass bank and waited for his heart to stop racing. His head felt clearer, but things still didn’t look quite right; the world was still hazy and slightly out of kilter.
Next to him the car clicked and sighed as the engine cooled. After a while he glanced underneath to check that nothing was leaking, got back inside, and carefully backed onto the tarmac. He continued along the little back road at about ten miles an hour until a further spasm in his stomach made him shut his eyes in agony, and he had to stop again.
He got out, slammed the door behind him, and looked around.
He was near the top of a hill. Open countryside lay spread around him on all sides. Ahead of him a row of scraggy, dark-leafed trees stretched to the right towards acres of torn-up fields and pyramids of raw earth; a scene of tortured ugliness. In front of them a deeply scarred path of churned mud led to a set of old diggings, called the Victory Quarry, that had partly been turned into a tip by the Borough Council. A multitude of large skips, painted drab brown, sprawled away at all angles beyond the end of the line of trees; a porta-cabin guarded the entrance at the other side. A skimpy gate of wire grill on an iron frame gaped wide to give access to dust carts and private vehicles arriving from time to time with cargoes of every kind of rubbish.
He wandered down the path, thinking he would take advantage of the shelter of the trees to relieve his bladder.
It was not easy going. The mud was scored with the tyre-marks of huge machines, which had to be stepped in and out of with care. The rain of the previous weeks had sunk deep, turning the mangled soil oleaginous, but the mix of sunshine and strong wind of the last three days had formed a crust overall that looked solid, but gave way under his feet, precipitating him awkwardly into the mire below. His light town shoes became heavily caked with clumps of dirt, like thick black paste, and his progress was marked by an uneven sequence of gross squelching sounds that complemented the sensations he was experiencing in his belly.
He grabbed at a half-broken branch and pulled himself along it into a space between two trees. He noticed that their trunks on the pathward side had been hacked and wounded by passing vehicles. Great scabs of bark were missing, revealing the plants’ fibrous flesh. Crosses, in faded orange paint, had been daubed on the trees, presumably to indicate that they were to be preserved. Stumps of others, less fortunate, remained here and there, like the broken pillars on tombs.
Immediately at the rear of the trees, shrubs and flowers grew in the shaded dimness. He stepped a little way in among them, relieved himself, and stopped to wipe the mud from his shoes with a clump of grass.
Above him, something moved heavily among the branches. For moments there was silence, then the bird, or whatever it was, shifted clumsily again. It made a sudden, rattling, cackling sound that made him start. “Like the noise a toy machine gun would make if it laughed!” he thought, and wondered at his own wild simile. But it was reasonably accurate. There was something taunting and mechanical in the creature’s call that unnerved him in his weakened, jittery state. He looked up in the direction of the sound, but the sun was shining directly through the leaves above him, punching blinding slivers of light through an otherwise featureless silhouette. It was impossible to distinguish anything in particular.
There was movement above again. A shower of twigs descended around him, and something else fell, that hit the ground by his feet. After the briefest hesitation, when he felt a stab of regret that he had ever stepped in among the trees, he bent down and picked it up. It was a purple-brown, egg-shaped object, a little more than three inches long. Surprisingly heavy, and icy cold, it looked more like some kind of fruit, but not, he thought, edible. There was something distinctly unappetising about it. It looked old; dry; preserved.
After rolling it on his palm, Maurice went back onto the path again to get a better look at it.
Both ends were quite smooth, with no indication that they had ever been joined to any plant.
“Not a seed,” he thought. “And not an egg; far too heavy and too hard. Anyway, an egg would have smashed on its fall from the tree.” He pressed harder and harder, and it seemed to give a bit. He closed both hands over it, to obtain more pressure, and gripped them together.
The thing burst and his hands slammed shut on what was left.
He felt something moving in his two-handed fist. He opened his hands and saw what seemed to be a myriad of tiny, dark creatures running out onto his fingers and up his wrists. He held his hands up to his eyes. He was not sure if what he could see was a multitude of tiny entities moving together, as though with one mind, or a single creature made up of almost microscopic sections. Both his hands were covered, as though by thin gloves. He became aware of a slightly painful sensation in the affected areas, and brushed his hands together. After a few moments of vigorous washing motions the “gloves”, and the pain, began to subside. Whatever had come out of the egg turned to dust that blew away in the wind as it fell.
A mottled, bruise-like stain remained to mark where the contents of the object had spread. He tried rubbing his hands in the grass, but without effect. The stain seemed indelible.
His skin itched. His hands and wrists looked horrible, as though his skin was diseased. Rubbing them fretfully against each other, he peered up into the trees again.
He saw a branch sway down, as though something was walking along it.
He picked a large stone out of the mud and threw it at where he judged the source of the movement to be.
There was a commotion among the leaves and the harsh, cackling sound recommenced with a vengeance. Nearby, all along the line of trees, other, presumably similar creatures, took up the call. Their combined din became a terrible cacophony. Large sections of all the trees began to heave agitatedly. In his almost-hysterical state of confusion Maurice thought he could see thin arms waving and gesticulating among the branches.
He turned and ran, but in the wrong direction, away from his car. He realized his mistake almost at once, but dared not stop.
Once, he glanced to the left. Behind the trees, in among the shrubs and bushes, spidery shapes seemed to be scuttling up out from between the roots buried there. He got the impression that they were moving along parallel to him. Their movements were slow, but so were his, hampered as he was by the deep tyre tracks and the clinging mud.
He reached the porta-cabin. A shuttered window was open on the side. He
ran to the far end, where he could see the edge of the lowest of a set of wooden steps protruding. The door above the steps was open, held back against the wind with a twist of wire. He collapsed on his knees on the steps and looked into the cabin. A young skinhead with a tattooed scalp, in overalls and a black donkey-jacket, sat at an improvized desk, stirring the contents of a mug with one hand and clutching a coverless paperback in the other. The young man regarded him inquisitively over the book, which he lowered a couple of inches.
Maurice got awkwardly up off the steps, turned, and looked back into the trees. He realized the scolding sounds had stopped. The trees swayed gently, normally, in the wind. As far as he could see, nothing moved among them that should not. The mud lane leading to the road was empty.
“What have you got?” a voice asked from inside the cabin. It was a tired, old man’s voice.
He turned and looked at the skinhead, who shrugged, and gestured back over his shoulder.
Halfway into the cabin, on a pile of filthy mattresses, lay an elderly, whiskery man, also in overalls. He was on his side, with his head propped in his hand.
“Is it household? Garden? That sort of thing?” the old man demanded.
“I’m sorry . . . ?” said Maurice, uncomprehendingly.
“Yer rubbish,” said the young man irritably. “What is it?” He sneered at the muddy, frightened man in front of him, who could only press his hand against his brow and shake his head.
“Bloody Hell!” the skinhead said, “what we got here?” and held the tattered book up to his face in a contemptuous, dismissive gesture.
The old man turned and sat up. “You got any rubbish to deposit at this tip, or haven’t you?” he asked.
“Oh, I see what you mean! No, I haven’t.”
“Then why are you here? What can we do for you? This is Council land, you know. Private.”
“Well, to tell the truth, my car had a bump on the road back there. Nothing serious. I’m a bit shaken. Thought I’d get some fresh air to clear my head. Is that okay?”
The Mammoth Book of Terror Page 21
