Haggopian and Other Stories

by Brian Lumley

  The Hungarian landlord had the door open wide for Harry almost before he could begin hammering upon it—was bowled to one side as the frantic, gasping, bulge-eyed figure rushed in and up the stairs—but he had seen enough, and he crossed himself as Harry disappeared into the inn’s upper darkness.

  “Mein Gott!” he croaked, crossing himself again, and yet again. “The Herr has been in that place!”

  • • •

  Despite her pills, Julia had not slept well. Now, emerging from unremembered, uneasy dreams, temples throbbing in the grip of a terrific headache, she pondered the problem of her awakening. A glance at the luminous dial of her wristwatch told her that the time was ten after two in the morning.

  Now what had startled her awake? The slamming of a door somewhere? Someone sobbing? Someone crying out to her for help? She seemed to remember all of these things.

  She patted the bed beside her with a lethargic gesture. Harry was not there. She briefly considered this, also the fact that his side of the bed seemed undisturbed. Then something moved palely in the darkness at the foot of the bed.

  Julia sucked in air, reached out and quickly snapped on the bedside lamp. Harry lay naked, silently writhing on the floor, face down, his hands beneath him.

  “Harry!” she cried, getting out of bed and going to him. With a bit of a struggle she turned him on to his side, and he immediately rolled over on his back.

  She gave a little shriek and jerked instinctively away from him, revulsion twisting her features. Harry’s eyes were screwed shut now, his lips straining back from his teeth in unendurable agony. His hands held something to his heaving chest, something black and crumbly. Even as Julia watched, horrified, his eyes wrenched open and his face went slack. Then Harry’s hands fell away from his chest; in one of them, the disintegrating black thing seemed burned into the flesh of his palm and fingers. It was unmistakably a small mummified hand!

  Julia began to crawl backwards away from him across the floor; as she did so something came from behind, moving sinuously where it brushed against her. Seeing it, she scuttled faster, her mouth working silently as she came up against the wall of the room.

  The—creature—went to Harry, snatched the shrivelled hand from him, turned away…then, as if on an afterthought, turned back. It arched against him for a moment, and, with the short feelers around its mouth writhing greedily, quickly sank its sharp teeth into the flesh of his leg. In the next instant the thing was gone, but Julia didn’t see where it went.

  Unable to tear her eyes away from Harry, she saw the veins in his leg where he had been bitten turn a deep, dark blue and stand out, throbbing beneath his marble skin. Carried by the now sluggish pulsing of his blood, the creature’s venom spread through him. But…poison? No, it was much more, much worse, than poison. For as the writhing veins came bursting through his skin, Harry began to melt. It went on for some little time, until what was left was the merest travesty of a man: a sticky, tarry thing of molten flesh and smoking black bones.

  Then, ignoring the insistent hammering now sounding at the door, Julia drew breath into her starving lungs—drew breath until she thought her chest must burst—and finally expelled it all in one vast eternal scream…

  The Hymn

  One of my most recent stories, “The Hymn” was written in July/August 2003, specifically for a new “pulp”, H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror. So here we are as I write this, two years or more later, and the No. 3 issue—allegedly a”Lumley issue”—still hasn’t appeared. History repeats! Presumably it will have appeared, at least by the time you read “The Hymn” in this current collection.*

  *I received my copies 1st November 2006.

  There were six of us—eight, if I include the two men in the cell. Not a cell as in a prison, more a large partitioned room or apartment—or rather a closed, controlled environment with all the necessary life-support systems; also a fail-safe which could be brought into play to cancel the said life-supports in the unlikely event that such action became imperative.

  The cell’s walls, floors and ceilings were of welded five-inch thick carbon steel plates, buttressed on the outside; the inlet and outlet conduits, as few as possible, had bores of no more than two inches; the entire structure—its adjuncts and supporting complex—was subterranean in a mountainous region, thus making use of a nuclear shelter left over from a war that had never come to pass. There had been lesser wars, certainly, but not the BIG ONE that we had all been afraid of back in the early ’60s.

  Actually, it was during the aftermath of one of those so-called “lesser” wars (as if there ever was any such thing) that the events leading to my current position as director and coordinator of T.M.I. or “The Mythos Investigation” had taken place—but to speak of that now would be to jump the gun as it were, and anyway it will come up later, wherefore it better serves my purpose to proceed with my description of the subterrene facility, also to explain something of my fellow observers, and then to let the principal participants in the experiment, our human guinea pigs in the cell, tell the story in their own words.

  So, there was myself: a Foundation Member (I’m afraid I can say no more on that subject), also one other Foundation Member, an elderly colleague; there were two men from military intelligence, both high-ranking, inferior only to the highest governmental authorities; there was a female psychiatric specialist, and finally a technician, a man who—having been responsible for the design and construction of the cell, its adjuncts and surroundings—was completely familiar with its workings. He knew how to run the place, and just as importantly how to shut it down. As for myself and my elderly colleague: we were there by virtue of our alleged expertise in certain matters of grotesque myth and legend.

  With regard to the names and physical descriptions of the team: I deem these particulars unnecessary; at this late date I see no reason to compromise anyone. And details of the precise location of our sub-sierran venue are likewise out of the question, since I have no doubt it remains a much guarded secret to this day.

  And so back to the cell:

  The cell had no windows…it wasn’t required that the men inside should be able to look out. That would be a distraction, and they certainly wouldn’t want to see us looking in. We were, of course, “looking in”, though not through windows as such; for even one-way viewports would not have allowed total visual access. But recessed into the interior walls, ceilings and various fittings were tiny closed-circuit cameras each with an exterior screen. Audio was similarly available, indeed absolutely necessary.

  The cell was equipped with small bedrooms, bathrooms, cooking facilities, and a large refrigerator containing enough food and drink for several weeks. Lighting was of course artificial; it could be switched off in the bedrooms, so that our subjects might sleep. But even there we were not to be excluded: bedroom cameras could be switched to infrared. It was of the utmost importance that we should be able to see them—and perhaps even listen to them—when they slept.

  As to their names: while I am certain that their real names may be found in Foundation archives, where I have no doubt they are kept secure, I shall nevertheless provide them with pseudonyms…. Letters such as this one may not be as safe as Foundation records. They were Jason and James. On the other hand, I will give them at least something of physical descriptions, if only to enhance the reader’s mental picture of them during the discoursive passages to follow.

  They were of a height, perhaps five-nine or ten; also of an age, say thirty-two, with Jason the elder by five or six months. Jason was a redhead, outspoken, careless in both dress and attitude, often flippant but never insulting. Lanky and jaunty if a little lopsided in his gait, he had green eyes, a long straight nose and gaunt cheeks. James was quite Jason’s opposite. Admitting to a sedentary lifestyle, he had wisps of thinning, prematurely grey hair on a bulbous skull, sharp, permanently narrow and penetrating blue eyes, a small mouth and receding chin, all set on a burly, powerful if under-utilized frame. In short, and if in the n
ear future he did not take up some form of exercise, he could expect to go to seed. Also, where Jason was invariably plain speaking James frequently tended to more elaborate prose, perhaps to affect a semblance of personal mystery, an esoteric éclat or occult ambiance.

  And why not? Since by his own admittance James was “psychically endowed”, for which reason he’d become one of our guinea pigs of course. As for Jason: at first he had seemed bewildered by the whole thing. But he had been unemployed, and we had made him an irresistible offer.

  Their induction had come following various checks and controls. First: they were just two out of two and a half thousand applicants who answered our ad in national broadsheets. Second: after discarding the sad, mistaken, lying, wannabe, and lunatic two thousand four hundred, the finalists had undergone an exhaustive series of parapsychological tests, which further narrowed the field. Both James and Jason had passed with flying colours, once again to the latter’s apparent astonishment. Third: during Zener Card testing at a government establishment, they had been brought into close proximity with an “alien artefact”; this had been caused to occur while they slept in a dormitory unaware of what was happening and under close, covert observation. Both of them had experienced troubling dreams, indeed nightmares.

  (Additional to my description of the cell: the “alien artefact” mentioned in the preceeding paragraph was fixed centrally in a strengthened glass sphere upon a marble pedestal in the living area, where its influence if any would be unavoidable by the two men.)

  Oh, and one other factor conducive to their recruitment: they were both readers of other-worldly romances, with a penchant for the macabre; and so they were acquainted with the speculative fiction facet of matters which the Foundation had been attempting to fathom for several decades. In short, their minds would not be closed to themes, theories, and suggestions which narrower, more orthodox intellects might find unacceptable and immediately refute: they were “familiar” with notions of parallel dimensions, UFOs, alien encounters, and et cetera.

  Enough: I have set the scene as clearly as possible within certain limits. So now let James and Jason speak for themselves.

  One last point. While the following conversations are accurate (as covertly recorded by myself) I’ve excised and replaced certain names and references as a further security measure. For as elsewhere stated correspondence such as this—intended only for the eyes of my former Foundation colleagues—may not be as safe as their archive records.

  NOTE: for easy recognition, all such altered sections will be parenthesized…

  Jason, yawning: “What time do you have?”

  James, showing great disinterest: “Does it really matter? After all, we’re not going anywhere.”

  Jason: “I like to be regular in my habits and I’m feeling a bit hungry, so I suspect it’s time to eat.”

  James: “You could regulate your habits by wearing a watch—but since I know you’ll only ask again, and since I’m already bored by this meaningless conversation…it’s six-forty. And before you ask, that’s p.m.”

  Jason, grinning: “Thank you. Most gracious of you. And it seems I was right: time to eat.”

  James: “I’m not hungry.”

  Jason: “Then don’t eat. Me, I’m frying up mushrooms with a few slices of liver and bacon.”

  James, suddenly restless: “Then perhaps I will eat, after all.”

  Jason, going to the fridge: “I’ll be sure to set out equal, fresh portions for you…unless you want me to cook them for you?”

  James, sighing: “Would that be such an inconvenience?”

  Jason: “No more than glancing at your watch occasionally, no.”

  James, changing the subject, staring fixedly at the artefact in its glass sphere, where its pedestal rose through the centre of the circular table at which he was seated: “Did you dream last night?”

  Jason, frowning, and squirting a mist of olive oil into a frying pan: “Three nights, three dreams, yes.”

  James: “The same dream?”

  Jason, perhaps slightly troubled: “The very same: But very vague… More a set of sensations than a dream proper. Nothing clearly visual, nothing spoken out loud. Mental whispers, or—I don’t know—instinctive knowledge? Well, if you know what I mean.”

  James: “Interesting. And of course I know what you mean! Do you think you’re more sensitive to this stuff than I am? I have been living with the knowledge of the truth of all this for…for longer than I care to think. Oh, yes. And I was dreaming my dreams long before they sat me in front of this thing.” He indicated the artefact, enlarged and distorted by the glass of its globe.

  Jason, with perhaps a hint of amusement or gentle sarcasm in his voice: “You have always known you were, er, psychic?”

  James: “My parapsychological or ESP skills are different from yours—each to his own mentality—but yes, I have always known. I feel things from afar, and in my dreams they are made manifest. Even though I am not given to understand everything, still I see what is now…unlike you who sees what will be.”

  Jason, nodding, turning slivers of liver and bacon slices in his pan: “Or so I’ve lately discovered—but I didn’t know, not for sure. Or maybe I did, but tried to avoid it—because it worried me.”

  James, with a snort: “Being able to see the future worried you? You were too dim to find a use for a skill like that? You scored 78 per cent on the Zener test, yet you were too poor to afford a wristwatch? And if you were ‘trying to avoid it’, why on earth did you answer the ad in the first place?”

  Jason: “Because I was too poor to afford a wristwatch—or anything else for that matter! We weren’t all born with silver spoons in our mouths, you know! Anyway, why do I annoy you? Is there that about me which reminds you of something intolerably nasty that you stepped in at one time or another? Or could it be some kind of jealousy, because my skills are apparent while yours are—let’s face it—more or less, er, obscure?”

  James, straightening up, narrowing his eyes more yet: “My skills may be obscure, as you put it, but our sponsors saw fit to choose me no less than you. In fact, I have always been…chosen. From the very first moment I read of (Cxxxxxx) and the others of the pantheon I knew that they were real; and that one day—when my stars were in the ascendant—I would communicate with them.”

  Jason, not quite sneering, but with a cynical twist to his mouth: “Why can’t you say what you mean?”

  James, sharply: “I beg your pardon?”

  Jason: “Don’t you mean, ‘when the stars are right’?”

  James, with a cold sidelong glance at Jason: “Interpret my words as you will—and (Axxxxxxx’s) if you dare! But he wasn’t such a madman, that old Arab. Or if he was, it was what he half knew but could not fathom that made him that way.” And, after a brief pause: “Doesn’t it concern you that you could be a millionaire instead of a pauper?”

  Jason, returning to the table with two plates of sizzling food: “Are you talking about gambling again? How I could have beaten the bookies, cleaned up at roulette, broken the bank at Monte Carlo? But you know what they say about practice, how it makes perfect?… Maybe I didn’t want to perfect what I might have suspected I could do. Perhaps I didn’t want to see things—certain things—any clearer. It could even be that some of the futures I had seen were too clear by half.”

  The pair, lapsing into silence while they eat. But after a while James asking: “What is it you saw that frightened you so? Myself, I have no fear with regard to the Mythos. I might possibly fear my own imaginings, which are not real, but I cannot fear what is real—and imminent! What is real exists, and what exists will find ways to impinge and may not be avoided. Wherefore what use to fear it?”

  Jason, around his last mouthful of food: “But exactly! Que sera, sera! Ah, but would you really want to know the day, hour, and minute of your own death? And can’t you see how knowing it you would try to avoid it?—to no avail. Que sera, sera!”

  James, his eyes fully open, staring
now: “You saw your own death?”

  Jason, thoughtfully: “Not my death, no—but my brother’s, and my mother’s. Enough to put me off.”

  James: “Interesting. Can you tell me about it?”

  Jason: “Not now. Some other time, maybe. But now I’m tired. A glass of white wine might help me sleep…hopefully not to dream.”

  James: “But that is why we are here! Surely you’ve divined that much?”

  Jason: “Of course. But still I get paid, whether I dream or not. And I prefer not.”

  To which there is no answer…

  • • •

  Jason tosses, turns, and sweats in his sleep. He cries out, but feebly, on several occasions. The wine has not helped.

  James is similarly affected. But he isn’t so much nightmaring as experiencing; which is to say that while Jason is trying to escape from whatever pursues or threatens, James accepts it. His claim that he does not fear the Mythos (the effects wrought by the artefact) appear to be borne out. Our psychiatric specialist is at least of that opinion: that unlike Jason, James has been having—or perhaps receiving?—dreams such as this for a long time, even as long as he claims, and has become inured.

  But he is voluble.

  He speaks of a (Shining Txxxxxxxxxxxx): an odd geometrical figure, and of a “prehistoric city, Mnar”—not the ruins in the Deer Park at Benares. He spouts of “the outer spheres” and “star-spawn”, and “the lenses of light”, before his subconscious ramblings become unintelligible gibberings—a mush and a mumble, defying reproduction by normal human vocal chords, and proving equally difficult to represent, even as writing. Then, after a period of lying perfectly still in an attitude of rapt attention, as if he were listening to something or someone, he states quite clearly, “I shall be your vessel, your gate, your embodiment. And through you I shall visit the farthest places: that roiling lake where the puffed (Sxxxxxxxx) spawn, the spiralling Towers of (Txxxxxxx), the dark light-years twirling like leaves blown in a storm. But…this ‘great