THE MOORSTONE SICKNESS
BERNARD TAYLOR
With a new introduction by
MARK MORRIS
VALANCOURT BOOKS
Dedication: This is for Rick Ferreira
The Moorstone Sickness by Bernard Taylor
Originally published in Great Britain by Judy Piatkus in 1982
First Valancourt Books edition 2015
Reprinted from the 1982 St. Martin’s Press edition
Copyright © 1982 by Bernard Taylor
Introduction © 2015 by Mark Morris
Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia
http://www.valancourtbooks.com
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and/or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher.
Cover by M. S. Corley
Set in Dante MT 10.5/12.6
INTRODUCTION
There’s just something about 1980s horror fiction.
Maybe it’s because it was the decade in which I first began writing seriously, with a view to getting published, that I love it so much. Or maybe it’s because it combines the traditional sensibilities of horror from an earlier period—often rural, often occult-based, often steeped in ancient lore—with a new, raw, exhilarating penchant for lurid imagery and shock tactics: the bucolic meets the brash, the ghostly meets the ghastly. It’s probably partly (or mostly) my own perception, but at the time the horror I was reading in the ’80s seemed to me less like a natural progression and more like a seismic shift, a leap into a brave new world.
Having said that, it would be naïve of me to claim that the only thing that exists between, say, Dennis Wheatley’s stodgy black magic potboilers on the one hand and Clive Barker’s startlingly graphic tales on the other is a dark, howling chasm. Even if we concentrate solely on British horror fiction, there is plenty of material to bridge the gap. We have the Pan and Fontana books of horror and ghost stories, which combined older, oft-reprinted tales from the likes of Ambrose Bierce and Algernon Blackwood with newer, more lurid offerings from young writers like David Case and Mary Danby. We have a plethora of strange, unsettling stories by Robert Aickman and a young Ramsey Campbell, which appeared in anthologies and collections throughout the ’70s. And, of course, in 1974 we have James Herbert’s startlingly gruesome The Rats, followed in fairly quick succession by his equally successful follow-ups The Fog and The Survivor.
And then, of course, we have Bernard Taylor.
A former illustrator, teacher and successful actor, Taylor wrote his first horror novel The Godsend in 1975. However it was his second book, Sweetheart, Sweetheart, which first grabbed my attention in the late ’80s. Championed by Charles L. Grant (to whom, incidentally, I made my first professional story sale) in Horror: 100 Best Books, edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (Xanadu Publications Ltd 1988), Sweetheart, Sweetheart is an effective, compelling supernatural novel about sexual obsession with a shockingly downbeat ending. Having enjoyed that, and being a sucker for British horror stories featuring paganism and ancient magic connected with standing stones, I then snapped up The Moorstone Sickness in preference to Taylor’s other books on the basis of Steve Crisp’s cover painting on the Grafton Books paperback edition, which depicts a gathering of lamp-bearing villagers around a huge, mist-shrouded stone, while a skull-like moon leers in the background.
As with Sweetheart, Sweetheart, the main protagonists of The Moorstone Sickness are a young couple, Hal and Rowan Graham, leaving the hustle and bustle of the big city to take up residence in an idyllic country village, a quiet place where everyone is friendly, everyone knows everyone else, and nothing bad ever happens.
Sinister, right?
Many horror stories of this period take as their premise the unearthing of the worm at the heart of the rosy red apple (Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home and Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives being a couple of examples that spring immediately to mind), and The Moorstone Sickness is no exception. As readers, of course, we know from the outset that the apple is rotten, but the fun lies not so much in trying to work out exactly what is going on (in The Moorstone Sickness the full horror of what is happening becomes obvious fairly quickly), but in watching the worm’s gradual and inevitable emergence, and in wondering what, as a result, will happen to the story’s protagonists, who for the most part remain blissfully unaware of the oncoming danger.
To maintain the tension it is important that readers care about the fate of the story’s potential victims, and Taylor achieves this by making his characters engaging, believable and sympathetic. As a reader I found myself exhorting Hal and Rowan Graham to get out of Moorstone before it was too late, and it was their refusal and/or inability to do so that kept me feverishly turning the pages, right up until the . . .
Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?
One other thing I like about Bernard Taylor’s work, and which I feel I ought to highlight before allowing you to become entwined in Moorstone’s dark spell, is the way he tells his stories. He has a clear, concise, straightforward writing style, which is both eminently readable and oddly nostalgic. There is an old-fashioned British restraint and elegance about his story telling, which puts me in mind of John Wyndham, another writer whose work I adore—in particular his novels The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos and, of course, Day of the Triffids. But the difference between Taylor and Wyndham is that there is a nastiness (in the best possible sense) to Taylor’s work, which would never be found in Wyndham. If anything, this is Wyndham by way of the 1980 TV series Hammer House of Horror or Brian Clemens’ seminal (to me, at least) mid-’70s series Thriller.
One other thing before I close. I haven’t yet read all of Bernard Taylor’s work, but he’s such an entertaining and natural storyteller that I fully intend to. Last year I picked up a first edition hardback copy of his 1980 novel The Reaping, and when I next feel the urge to indulge myself in a bit of 1980s horror—as I often do—I’ll pick it up secure in the knowledge that, if nothing else, I’ll be in for a damn good time.
Because that’s what Bernard Taylor does.
He delivers.
Mark Morris
December 2014
Mark Morris has written over twenty-five novels, among which are Toady, Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. His recently published work includes the official movie tie-in novelisation of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, a novella entitled It Sustains (Earthling Publications), which was nominated for a 2013 Shirley Jackson Award, and three new novels: Zombie Apocalypse! Horror Hospital (Constable & Robinson), The Black (PS Publishing) and The Wolves of London, book one of the Obsidian Heart trilogy (Titan Books).
1
Hal glanced briefly at Rowan in the seat beside him to see whether she too was aware of their nearness to the village. She was. Ten minutes ago her eyes had been closed; secured by her seat belt she had slept, knees bent sideways, heavy dark hair falling unchecked across her cheek. Now she was sitting upright, blue eyes bright and looking eagerly ahead. He could guess at her emotions, the thoughts that were going through her mind. Some of her own excitement had communicated itself to him. They would soon be there. . . . They were starting new lives, the two of them. New. It was all going to be new. And better.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked her, and she turned to smile at him. ‘Fine, just fine . . .’
He nodded, looked at his watch. Just coming up to
two o’clock. They had overtaken the removal van somewhere south of Reading, ages ago. London now was far, far behind. Far too, now, seemed Exeter, where they had stopped briefly for coffee and a sandwich, afterwards travelling along the eastern edge of Dartmoor, and then striking west, driving deeper into the moor’s heart. In the village of Dartmeet they had crossed over the river and turned south. And now there was nothing to see but the moor, stretching out on either side of them in endless stretches of green rolling hills and rambling woodland where the trees stood poised for spring. It was hard to believe that in England’s narrow, overpopulated confines such space, such peace and quiet, could still be found.
Behind him in the back seat the older woman was silent.
‘So what do you think of it, Mrs Prescot?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I think it’s beautiful,’ her soft cockney voice came in his ear, ‘—just beautiful.’
Adjusting his view he glanced at her reflection in the driving mirror above his head. She sat gazing from the window. Her brown hat had gone slightly askew, and her grey hair— which had also been carefully put in place at the beginning of the journey—was similarly, now, in need of attention.
‘You’re probably about ready to stretch your legs a bit, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m fine, Mr Graham,’ she answered. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’
The way continued on, becoming more winding with every mile.
He had grown so accustomed to finding the road almost deserted that the figure coming suddenly into view around a bend gave him a terrifying start.
She was walking in the middle of the road. Rowan screamed and covered her face while he violently swung the wheel, hearing as he did so the hedgerow’s trailing brambles lash the car’s offside wing. ‘Idiot!’ he blurted out. ‘What the bloody hell’s she playing at!’
When the car was on a straight course again a few seconds later he looked into the driving mirror. The woman had gone from his sight now, hidden by the curve of the hedge. After only a moment’s hesitation he braked and pulled the car over to the side.
‘My God,’ Rowan said, ‘but that was close. That stupid woman!’ She looked as if she were about to cry.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He was unbuckling his seat belt.
She nodded. ‘It was just—such a shock. I didn’t see how you were going to avoid her.’ She breathed a deep sigh of relief, put one hand to her heart and gave a forced-looking smile. ‘I shall be okay now.’ Then, as he started to get out of the car, she asked: ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’d—I’d just like to make sure that she’s all right . . .’
Rowan shrugged, then nodded. ‘Fine—and while you’re at it tell her she almost gave us heart attacks.’
Slamming the door behind him he moved back along the road in the direction from which they had come. It wasn’t only the near-miss that had disturbed him—though that had been bad enough—it had been the sight of the woman herself. For one thing, there had been something about her expression, added to which she had appeared to be totally oblivious of the car’s presence and any possible danger from it. Those things apart, though, there was something else. He was sure that he knew her face.
When he turned the bend in the road he found she was nowhere in sight. He came to a stop, looking about him. The air was so still; only the sound of birdsong broke the quiet. He began to feel foolish. What was he doing wandering along a country road in pursuit of some old woman? Because he had recognized her? Because there had been something disturbing about her appearance? Well, even so, it was none of his business. Forget it; go back to the car . . .
Then, just as he was about to turn he saw something lying in the road. A shoe. Her shoe, it must be. He stooped and picked it up. A plain little shoe in brown leather, looking to his untutored eye somewhat old-fashioned in pattern. He placed it on the grass at the side and moved forward again.
To his left a few yards further on he came to a gap in the hedge. Peering through he saw the woman walking away across the open ground. She had taken off her coat, he saw, and now it hung from her right hand, trailing carelessly over the grass.
For a moment he just stood there, then, stepping through the hedge, he called out to her:
‘Excuse me—’
He waited, but she kept going, merely faltering in her stride and half turning her head for a second. He called again.
‘Excuse me . . . Wait . . . just a minute . . .’
At his second call she came to halt, turning and facing in his direction. Then she was moving away again and continuing on, climbing the slope that cut off his view of the landscape immediately beyond. He noticed that both her feet were bare.
As she disappeared from his sight on the other side of the slope he went hurrying in pursuit of her once more. Reaching the top of the incline he saw that she had come to a stop some little distance away from him. There just beyond her bare feet he saw the gaping space of a wide pit, a chalkpit. She was standing with her back to him, looking out over the drop. She said, without turning, ‘Please—’ her voice was flat, ‘—don’t come any closer.’
He couldn’t think of anything to say. Then at last, trying to sound casual, he said:
‘I thought I recognized you—going past you in the car. I thought I recognized your face.’
She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were as dull and flat as her voice had been. He knew, though, that he hadn’t been mistaken. ‘Don’t you remember?’ he said.
‘You? No, I don’t remember you.’
‘Yes, a few weeks ago. We met by the Moorstone post office. We talked for a minute or two. Don’t you remember?’
This time she answered with only a little shake of her head. She looked to be in her late sixties. She seemed thinner than in his memory of her. Her hair, too, was different. Then she had worn it tight to her head. Now it hung loose and uncombed and straggling to her unbuttoned collar. She had let fall the coat, he saw; it lay between them on the grass. Moving forward a couple of steps he picked it up and held it out to her.
‘Your coat,’ he said, ‘why don’t you put it on . . . ?’
Another shake of the head. ‘No. No, thank you.’ She paused and added, ‘I don’t like it. And it’s not mine, anyway.’
He let this pass. ‘I didn’t expect to see you out here, so far from the village,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ She barely murmured it, at the same time giving a little shrug as if to say what did it matter anyway? Apart from her unkempt and rather wild appearance he could see misery in her face. And something else—bewilderment? ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘—what are you doing here?’
‘Minding my own business.’
A little taken aback he hesitated, forced a smile and then said awkwardly:
‘My name is Hal. Hal Graham.’
She inclined her head slightly at this. ‘Hello, Hal Graham,’ she said. She paused briefly, then went on; ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry.’ Turning slightly away from him she gazed out over the moorland hills. ‘I came here before on several occasions—to paint and sketch. I painted this chalkpit. And those trees there . . .’ She pointed off to the right where a line of silver birches rose up on the skyline. ‘I painted those too, in different lights, different moods . . .’
Silence again.
‘Come back with me,’ he said. ‘My car is just down the road. Let me take you back home.’
‘Oh, that would take too long. My home is a long way from here.’ Her sudden little smile was all sadness.
Puzzled, he said: ‘Come with me. We’ll go back to the village.’
‘No, not there.’
Helpless, impotent in the face of her cool, reasonable manner, he shook his head and looked at her pleadingly. ‘Please . . .’
‘It isn’t fair,’ she said, ‘to you, I mean—having this happen. It’s not fair. I’m sorry.’ Standing shoeless on the edge of the pit she looked like a lost, aging child.
‘Come back with me,’ he said
. ‘We can talk. We can relax.’ He took a step towards her, then a step further, another and another. She looked down at his moving feet, and he came to a halt again, only a few yards away from her and very afraid.
‘It won’t do any good,’ she said.
‘Yes. I can help you. I want to help you.’
‘It’s too late. Go on back to your car. I’m sorry about all this.’
Slowly, slowly, he reached out his hand, at the same time taking another slow step towards her. For a second she shrank from him and his heart pounded as in his mind’s eye he saw her body going over the edge. But then the next moment his hand had touched hers. Gently he held it. There were tears on her cheek. She looked at him imploringly and he could feel his tight throat growing even more constricted, feel his own tears streaming from his eyes.
‘Oh, don’t cry,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t.’
‘Then please—’ he fought to control himself, ‘—please don’t—’
Slowly she allowed him to draw her closer towards him. She was moving further and further away from the edge. Then, with her hand in his he was turning, leading her away and up the gentle incline. When they were at the top she stopped and he turned to look at her. Withdrawing her hand from his she said,
‘You think I’m off my head, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you must think that. I’m not, though.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Come with me. Your friends—they’ll be anxious about you.’
She didn’t move, and there was a look in her eyes he couldn’t fathom.
‘Please . . .’ His voice trailed off. Moments went by and neither stirred nor spoke. All the while she seemed to be studying him. Then at last she gave a slow nod and, as if reaching a decision, said:
‘All right—I’ll come with you. But you’ve got to let me talk to you. You must listen to me.’
‘Of course.’ Gently he took the coat in both hands and held it out to her. ‘Here—why don’t you put this on?’
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