The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos

by John Glasby

  In Bude, shortly before midnight, I stumbled into Carrington’s room, more dead than alive, babbling a strange and almost incoherent tale. Somehow, with brandy, he managed to pull me round, got something out of me which sent him, ashen-faced, to the telephone.

  A small party of men left Bude a little before two o’clock in the morning with the storm abating quickly, made their way out along a narrow path over the rocks and around the headland to Faxted Manor. Carrington had taken care to tell the authorities very little of what I had blurted out to him.

  Perhaps it was just as well that he did, for there are things hidden just beyond the fringe of human knowledge and experience far best forgotten, even if by some they can never be ignored. The men returned a little after dawn the next day, strangely subdued. They asked questions, firmly put in a kindly tone, went away only partly satisfied by what Carrington and I had agreed to tell them.

  Whether it was the action of all that tremendous mass of rock falling into the sea, or whether there are deeper reasons, it was difficult to say, but for days afterwards, the sea was a raging turmoil near that spot, and the small fishing vessels which normally sailed those waters kept well clear of the area. There was, too, an unwholesome smell, which persisted in the region for most of the winter, but by which time I had returned to London, knowing that there could be neither peace nor rest for me in Devon.

  The letter I received from Carrington three weeks after my return to Chelsea told me little I had not already guessed, but there was one strange passage in it which struck a responsive of cord of fear in my mind, which is perhaps one of the reasons why the doctors fear I shall never fully recover from my experience.

  “There is nothing now recognisable of the place which was known as Faxted Manor since the entire cliff collapsed into the sea at that point. The general opinion is that the action of the salt water on porous rock, riddled with underground passages and vaults, was sufficient to cause the entire structure to disintegrate. Be that as it may, I feel somehow oddly certain that those sub-human creatures you saw did not die. Someday they will inevitably rise again, if not here in Devon, then at some other place, evil and indestructible, ready to seek out and destroy all who know their terrible secret.”

  DUST

  It is fortunately seldom that one experiences such a moment of pure, unadulterated terror as befell me in the autumn of 1936, following a series of inexplicable incidents which, even now, I cannot possibly explain. At the end of June in that year I had relinquished my post as lecturer in mythology and ancient history at Cambridge, and accepted the offer of my uncle, James Oliver, to live with him in the large, rambling house on the outskirts of Wisterton, a picturesque fishing village on the Northumberland coast, some fifteen miles from Newcastle. For almost six years I had been working sporadically on my book dealing with the legends of this part of the country, but of late my academic duties had interfered more and more with it, and when the opportunity of devoting all my time to it had arisen, I had seized it willingly and gratefully.

  The thought of actually living in that region of age-old myth and legend had an exhilarating effect on my mind, and I experienced a curious sense of excitement as my train rumbled north from York through wild, untouched countryside into deeply-forested places of which I had often read and dreamed, but never visited. This was a primitive part of England where old things were still remembered, and the green, domed hills, which nestled low on the skyline, hinted of half-forgotten mysteries which had existed there from the very beginning of time. The old tales of Northumberland had their roots deep in misted antiquity, and in spite of the speed of the train, it seemed that time had been turned back several centuries as I spied the tiny hamlets set on the low hillsides, clusters of houses gleaming faintly in the late afternoon sunlight.

  An increasing and unexplainable atmosphere of elusive alienness seemed to pervade the square, cultivated fields and narrow, winding lanes, half-hidden by tall, thick hedgerows and walls of flint as the train continued further north. The wilderness grew more apparent until it intruded upon my thoughts, giving me the unshakeable feeling that I was an interloper here, that this was a territory I would never be able to understand nor become a part of. Deep gorges and ravines were cut through the dark hills where the sunlight never seemed to penetrate, and here and there I caught a glimpse of glinting water as a stream rushed down from the heights to vanish into inconceivable depths.

  Certainly there was a strange beauty about the scenery I saw from the carriage window, but it was as though an underlying malignancy existed there, just beneath the surface, waiting to engulf those who tried to probe too deeply. For a little while, I began to doubt the wisdom of my move, but even as the thought crossed my mind, I told myself that this was surely the kind of atmosphere that was essential for me if I was to complete my book. Where else could I find the necessary inspiration if not in the very heart of legend-haunted Northumberland?

  I already knew something of the reputation of this part of the country, had spent long hours among musty tomes, searching through ancient parchments, many written in archaic English, some even in the age-old runes of the early centuries. There were, too, other, more tangible remains of this haunted past; the circles of stone pillars which existed on the dark hilltops, lost, drowned towns beneath the sea where, whenever the tides were right, millennia-old bells could be heard ringing beneath the swelling waves. The gigantic black hound with the red, glaring eyes which had been reported at various spots in the county, frightening lonely travellers after dark and in more recent times, that terrible affair at Cornforth Abbey, now a fire-blackened ruin. To most people, these old myths were considered ridiculous, gross distortions of still earlier tales, handed down by word-of-mouth at glowing firesides whenever the winds howled off the moors and the blizzards swept over the bleak domed hills. But the deeper I had delved into them, the more I had become convinced that behind all of these wild fantasies there lay a germ of truth which, for the most part, lay hidden so far back in time that it might never be revealed. There were old gods here long before the Romans or the invading Danes stepped upon the wild shores, and the people in those days worshipped strange beings who have no modern counterparts, but who, according to the more superstitious folk, have not died, but still exist in deep caverns and in undersea caves well below the low-water mark.

  The local train I took from Newcastle arrived in Wisterton a little after six o’clock, and as I walked out of the tiny station into the street, I found several cars drawn up against the curb along with a handful of taxis. Nowhere was there any sign of my uncle. Hesitating for only a moment, I was on the point of heading for one of the waiting taxis when a tall, thin-faced man approached me and enquired whether I was Ernest Oliver. After being assured that I was, he explained that my uncle had been detained on urgent business, and had asked him to meet me and drive me out to the small village of East Wisterton, which was apparently some five miles from Wisterton. It was, he indicated, a long enough journey, and the cost of taking a taxi would indeed be prohibitive.

  As we drove out of the town, taking the road along the rugged coast, he explained that he was a business acquaintance of my uncle, and that he had already heard a lot about me, even to the point of knowing why I had relinquished my post at the university to come to this desolate spot on the coast. After a long, somewhat tiring train journey, I found it distinctly refreshing to be able to sit back and relax and listen to the other as he described several of the landmarks which showed themselves clearly on the skyline to the west. The nearness of the strangely domed hills, topped by thick copses, now intruded more pronouncedly on my consciousness, and I realised that I had not been mistaken in my belief that here were strange, primal, and time-touched things, incredible and alien, which in spite of the late afternoon sunlight brought a little shiver to my body.

  All that I had learned of this county welled up inside me as I stared out of the window of the car, striving to read something into the signs I saw all about me. He
re and there, narrow lanes branched off the main road and vanished in leafy mystery on either side, while deep green labyrinths loomed on top of us at every bend in the road. We passed few cars on the way and after fifteen minutes or so, rounding a steep bend, we came within sight of the sea once more, far below us, while in the distance, the sunlight touched the white, spectral finger of a lighthouse standing on a rocky headland thrusting out into the sea.

  But as we began the breathtaking descent towards East Wisterton, a tiny cluster of whitewashed houses about a mile distant, I noticed something that attracted my attention oddly, although I could not define the reason for it. Less than a quarter of a mile from the village there stood a two-storey house, which seemed unusually large and elegant for its situation. Even from that distance I could see that it was no longer occupied. There was a general air of stagnation and decay about it that was unmistakable.

  Several of the windows appeared to be broken, for they did not reflect the sunlight as most of the others did, and there was a tantalising air of familiarity about it, which made me feel distinctly uneasy. I knew I had never seen it before, either in real life or in a picture, nor had I heard my uncle speak of it in any of his lectures or on the few occasions when we had met in Cambridge. Yet the feeling that I knew it intimately persisted during the rest of the drive to the village.

  My guide dropped me off in front of my uncle’s house but made no attempt to alight himself, saying that he still had some urgent business to do in the village, and that if my uncle had not yet arrived home, I would be sure to find the door open. I watched as he drove on into the village and then made my way slowly along the carefully-tended path to the house. As the other had said, the front door opened to my touch and I went inside, setting down my two suitcases after receiving no answer to my call.

  When my uncle arrived twenty minutes later, I was shocked and surprised at the haggardness of his expression. There were deep purple circles under his eyes and he looked as though he had not slept for several nights. In response to my enquiries, he would say little more than that there had been certain odd occurrences in the village over the past few months, and in his role of the local doctor he had been helping the police with their investigations. It was with a trace of genuine dread and concern that I tried to question him further, for it was utterly out of character for him to take things so seriously, but he refused to go into more detail until we had eaten.

  We ate the meal in silence, an uneasy silence which began to eat at my nerves, and when we eventually settled down in the easy chairs in front of the fire in the parlour, smoking our pipes, I waited for him to explain the situation with a growing sense of alarm. When he spoke, it was evident he was more overwrought than I had expected.

  “To begin with, Ernest, I have a confession to make to you. This dreadful affair has been going on now for more than six months, and my main reason for asking you to come and stay with me was not so much to provide you with a place of comparative solitude where you could finish your book in peace and quiet as to provide me with both moral and intellectual support in this hideous matter. Things are pretty bad, and I think the climax is near in spite of everything we have been able to do. You have some kind of experience of these nightmare happenings on an indirect, if not direct, level and most of all you will not be inclined to scoff at my ideas, nor are you so steeped in superstition as to be mortally afraid as the rest of the folk are hereabouts. But I must begin at the very beginning. No doubt you noticed the old Carter place on your way here, about a quarter of a mile or so outside the village. It’s been empty now for more than five years, just an empty shell of a place since Henry Carter died, but even before we found him stiff and cold at the foot of the stairs there had been a lot of unwholesome talk about the place.”

  “What kind of talk?” I asked.

  My uncle shrugged, plainly ill at ease. “The usual sort. Strange blue lights in the windows at night, terrible sounds whenever the moon was full, and a frightful odour about the place. It only needs someone to begin a rumour such as that and the place becomes haunted, the home of ghosts and untold horrors even when there is, in all probability, quite a logical and scientific explanation for the happenings. You will probably call what I am going to tell you raving at first, Ernest, but in time, if you decide to stay, you will appreciate that your knowledge is on a totally different plane to that which exists here. Anyway, once Carter was dead, the horror came to East Wisterton with a vengeance. No one from the village would dare to go anywhere near that house, especially after dark. Those of us who had hoped that these idiotic myths concerning the place would die a natural death were doomed to disappointment. If anything, they got worse, much worse. The most disturbing thing had begun some time ago, the complete disappearance of at least six people in as many months. All of these people came from outside the area and you can well imagine, a house such as that, with its evil and malodorous reputation, is of a kind to powerfully attract the morbidly curious. There’s no direct proof that any of these people did visit this place or that it had any direct connection with their disappearance, but village gossip as it is, we naturally had to be sure. We’ve searched the place from cellar to attic without finding a trace whatsoever of them; yet it is an undeniable fact that they have vanished off the face of the Earth.”

  “Maybe they did go there, but the general atmosphere was such that they left without giving any indication of their intentions,” I suggested.

  He shook his head emphatically. “We naturally probed that possibility thoroughly. On two occasions, anxious relatives came to enquire about them, but without any conclusive results. As a doctor, there was little I could do in an official capacity. There were no bodies on which to conduct a post-mortem, nothing definite at all—until two days ago.”

  Pausing at this point, my uncle sucked meditatively on his pipe as if reluctant to continue with his narrative, then slowly and concisely related a story that both frightened and disturbed me, all the more because I had had a vague inkling of it ever since my first sight of this county from the speeding train.

  It appeared that two days before, a little after midnight, he had been called urgently to the hospital some three miles inland where an attempted suicide had been brought in suffering from acute shock, together with multiple bruising and abrasions. On arrival, he had examined the patient, and was shocked to discover that it was a close neighbour of his—a certain Hedley Trelawney—and although his bodily injuries were of a relatively minor nature, it was his mental condition which had given rise to much alarm.

  From the local police sergeant, he had learned that two fishermen, making their way along the narrow cliff road, not far from the old Carter house, had been startled to hear hideous screaming coming from the deserted grounds of the place ,and a few moments later had spotted a dark figure, arms waving madly, race over the cliffs and throw itself off the edge into what would have been a three-hundred-foot drop onto the needle-shaped rocks below. Hurrying to the scene, they had peered over the edge, fully expecting to see the smashed body lying on the floor below, but as luck would have it, an outjutting branch had caught the man’s coat and held him less than twenty feet down the sheer wall of the cliff.

  Evidently something unutterably horrible had sent the man running from that accursed place, and neither man had any wish to remain in the vicinity, but when no further horror manifested itself, they had plucked up sufficient courage to rescue the unfortunate wretch, clambering precariously over the ledge to where he hung suspended on that slender branch, which was all that lay between him and a mangled death below. Working desperately, they had finally succeeded in getting him to the top, where he had screamed and struggled furiously so that it had taken all of their combined strength to subdue him and carry him to the nearest cottage, where they had then driven him to the hospital, recognising this as a case which my uncle would not be able to handle alone.

  Although Trelawney had been given a powerful sedative on admittance, he still appeared to
be partially conscious, and it was his rambling mutterings that had frightened two of the nurses and prompted the hospital doctor to call my uncle in the hope that he might be able to throw some light on the matter. As far as he had been able to make out from the almost unintelligible mouthings, the words that Trelawney kept repeating over and over again were:

  “Knew he weren’t dead: none of that accursed family ever did really die. Grey dust...everywhere! A thousand different shapes...spinning...the vortex...all dust, grey and blue-crimson. Carter must have found out the way to call it up...fed it on the others. God! All that dust...spinning....”

  Trelawney was still under restraint and continual observation at the hospital, and the doctors there were doubtful if his mind would ever be right again. There seemed no doubt that he had seen something in that house, something so fearful that his mind had snapped under the terrible mental strain. My uncle would have liked to have questioned him further, for he felt certain now that there were things which he ought to know; but it had become increasingly obvious that it would be a very long time, if ever, before Trelawney would speak sensibly and coherently again.

  My first impulse was to suggest that these had been nothing more than the ravings of delirium, but I knew that this must already have occurred to my uncle, who was in a far better position to judge than I was, so I did not put my initial thoughts into words but sat silent, shivering a little spite of the warmth of fire in the wide hearth. What my uncle had now revealed to me hinted at darker, more malignant, forces existing here than I had ever read or dreamed of, although in some of the forbidden volumes I had perused there had been the passages which had hinted at monstrous things, not of Earth, which had at one time inhabited this planet, and which might still do so, though now hidden behind myth and legend following the encroachment of civilisation and scientific discovery.