The ghouls

by Haining, Peter, comp

  They say the mental influences are very bad, too; numbers went queer in the years after Nahum's taking, and always they lacked the power to get away. Then the stronger-minded folk all left the region, and only the foreigners tried to live in the crumbling old homesteads. They could not stay, though; and one sometimes wonders what insight beyond ours their wild, weird stories of whispered magic have given them. Their dreams at night, they protest, are very horrible in that grotesque country; and surely the very look of the dark realm is enough to stir a morbid fancy. No traveller has ever escaped a sense of strangeness in those deep ravines, and artists shiver as they paint thick woods whose mystery is as much of the spirit as of the eye. I myself am curious about the sensation I derived from my one lone walk before Ammi told me his tale. When twilight came I had vaguely wished some clouds would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept into my soul.

  Do not ask me for my opinion. I do not know—that is all. There was no one but Ammi to question; for Arkham people will not talk about the strange days, and all three professors who saw the aerolite and its coloured globule are dead. There were other globules—depend upon that. One must have fed itself and escaped, and probably there was another which was too late. No doubt it is still down the well—I know there was something wrong with the sunlight I saw above the miasmal brink. The rustics say the blight creeps an inch a year, so perhaps there is a kind of growth or nourishment even now. But whatever daemon hatching is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly spread. Is it fastened to the roots of those trees that claw the air? One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move as they ought not to do at night.

  What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the things Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed the laws that are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our

  astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

  I doubt very much if Ammi consciously lied to me, and I do not think his tale was all a freak of madness as the townsfolk had forewarned. Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, and something terrible—though I know not in what proportion—still remains. I shall be glad to see the water come. Meanwhile I hope nothing will happen to Ammi. He saw so much of the thing—and its influence was so insidious. Why has he never been able to move away? How clearly he recalled those dying words of Nahum's—"can't git away— draws ye—ye know summ'at's comin' but tain't no use—" Ammi is such a good old man—when the reservoir gang gets to work I must write the chief engineer to keep a sharp watch on him. I would hate to think of him as the grey, twisted, brittle monstrosity which persists more and more in troubling my sleep.

  THE SKULL

  ROBERT BLOCH

  (Paramount: 1966)

  Eager to cash in on the success of Hammer and American-International, new film companies "blossomed on either side of the Atlantic. The quality of their productions varied enormously. In England a pace-making team headed by Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky concentrated on real talent, using writers like Robert Bloch (who, strangely, had had little screen work since the enormous success of Psycho) and stars such as Peter Gushing and Christopher Lee.

  An early and highly successful combination of this triumverate was The Skull, based on a short story, The Skull of the Marquis de Sade, by Bloch himself. The tale concerned a skull, reputedly that of the infamous French nobleman and apparently still imbued with his evil power. It presented Cushing at his controlled and sardonic best and Lee demonstrating that he could be very much at home in horror without the use of his Frankenstein make-up or Dracula teeth.

  The film was also a success for Robert Bloch and happily brought him back to work in the genre to which he had given one of the most terrifying of all pictures. Space alone prevents me from including more of his superb stories, which have since provided the basis for excellent horror films.

  CHRISTOPHER MAITLAND sat back in his chair before the fireplace and fondled the binding of an old book. His thin face, modelled by the flickering firelight, bore a characteristic expression of scholarly preoccupation.

  Maitland's intellectual curiosity was focused on the volume in his hands. Briefly, he was wondering if the human skin binding this book came from a man, a woman or a child.

  He had been assured by the bookseller that this tome was bound in a

  portion of the skin of a woman, but Maitland, much as he desired to believe this, was by nature sceptical. Booksellers who deal in such cu-riosa are not overly reputable, as a rule, and Christopher Maitland's years of dealing with such people had done much to destroy his faith in their veracity.

  Still, he hoped the story was true. It was nice to have a book bound in a woman's skin. It was nice to have a crux ansata fashioned from a thighbone; a collection of Dyack heads; a shrivelled Hand of Glory stolen from a graveyard in Mainz. Maitland owned all of these items, and many more. For he was a collector of the unusual.

  Maidand held the book up to the light and sought to distinguish pore-formation beneath the tanned surface of the binding. Women had finer pores than men, didn't they?

  "Beg pardon, sir."

  Maidand turned as Hume entered. "What is it?" he asked.

  "That person is here again."

  "Person?"

  "Mr. Marco."

  "Oh?" Maitland rose, ignoring the butler's almost grotesque expression of distaste. He suppressed a chuckle. Poor Hume didn't like Marco, or any of the raffish gentry who supplied Maidand with items for his collection. Hume didn't care for the collection itself, either—Maitland vividly remembered the old servant's squeamish trembling as he dusted off the case containing the mummy of the priest of Horus decapitated for sorcery.

  "Marco, eh? Wonder what's up?" Maidand mused. "Well—better show him in."

  Hume turned and left with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. As for Maitland, his eagerness mounted. He ran his hand along the reticulated back of a jadeite tao-tieh and licked his lips with very much the same expression as adorned the face of the Chinese image of gluttony.

  Old Marco was here. That meant something pretty special in the way of acquisitions. Perhaps Marco wasn't exactly the kind of chap one invited to the Club—but he had his uses. Where he laid hands on some of the things he offered for sale Maidand didn't know; he didn't much care. That was Marco's affair. The rarity of his offerings was what interested Christopher Maitland. If one wanted a book bound in human skin, old Marco was just the chap to get hold of it—if he had to do a bit of flaying and binding himself. Great character, old Marco!

  "Mr. Marco, sir."

  Hume withdrew, a sedate shadow, and Maitland waved his visitor forward.

  Mr. Marco oozed into the room. The little man was fat, greasily so; his flesh lumped like the tallow coagulating about the guttering stump of a candle. His waxen pallor accentuated the simile. All that seemed needed was a wick to sprout from the bald ball of fat that served as Mr. Marco's head.

  The fat man stared up at Maitland's lean face with what was meant to be an ingratiating smile. The smile oozed, too, and contributed to the aura of uncleanliness which seemed to surround Marco.

  But Maitland was not conscious of these matters. His attention was focused on the curious bundle Marco carried under one arm—the large package, wrapped in prosaic butcher's paper which somehow contributed to its fascination for him.

  Marco shifted the package gingerly as he removed his shoddy grey ulster. He did not ask permission to divest himself of the coat, nor did he wait for an invitation to be seated.

  The fat little man merely made himself com
fortable in one of the chairs before the fire, reached for Maitland's open cigar case, helped himself to a stogie, and lit it. The large round package bobbed up and down on his lap as his rotund stomach heaved convulsively.

  Maitland stared at the package. Marco stared at Maitland. Maitland broke first.

  "Well?" he asked.

  The greasy smile expanded. Marco inhaled rapidly, then opened his mouth to emit a puff of smoke and a reply.

  "I am sorry to come unannounced, Mr. Maitland. I hope I'm not intruding?" '

  "Never mind that," Maitland snapped. "What's in the package, Marco?"

  Marco's smile expanded. "Something choice," he whispered. "Something tasty."

  Maitland bent over the chair, his head out-thrust to throw a vulpine shadow on the wall.

  "What's in the package?" he repeated.

  "You're my favourite client, Mr. Maitland. You know I never come to you unless I have something really rare. Well, I have that, sir. I have that. You'd be surprised what this butcher's paper hides, although it's rather appropriate. Yes, appropriate it is!"

  "Stop that infernal gabbling, man! What is in the package?"

  Marco lifted the bundle from his lap. He turned it over gingerly, yet deliberately.

  "Doesn't seem to be much," he purred. "Round. Heavy enough. Might be a medicine ball, eh? Or a beehive. I say, it could even be a head of cabbage. Yes, one might mistake it for a head of common cabbage. But it isn't. Oh no, it isn't. Intriguing problem, eh?"

  If it was the little man's intention to goad Maitland into a fit of apoplexy, he almost succeeded.

  "Open it up, damn you!" he shouted.

  Marco shrugged, smiled, and scrabbled at the taped edges of the paper. Christopher Maidand was no longer the perfect gentleman, the perfect host. He was a collector, stripped of all pretences—quivering eagerness incarnate. He hovered over Marco's shoulder as the butcher's paper came away in the fat man's pudgy fingers.

  "Now!" Maitland breathed.

  The paper fell to the floor. Resting in Marco's lap was a large, glittering silver ball of—tinfoil.

  Marco began to strip the tinfoil away, unravelling it in silvery strands. Maidand gasped as he saw what emerged from the wrappings.

  It was a human skull.

  Maitland saw the horrid hemisphere gleaming ivory-white in the firelight—then, as Marco shifted it, he saw the empty eye sockets and the gaping nasal aperture that would never know human breath. Maitland noted the even structure of the teeth, adherent to a well-formed jaw. Despite his instinctive repulsion, he was surprisingly observant.

  It appeared to him that the skull was unusually small and delicate, remarkably well preserved despite a yellow tinge hinting of age. But Christopher Maitland was most impressed by one undeniable peculiarity. The skull was different, indeed.

  This skull did not grin!

  Through some peculiar formation or malformation of cheekbone in juxtaposition of jaws, the death's-head did not simulate a smile. The classic mockery of mirth attributed to all skulls was absent here.

  The skull had a sober, serious look about it.

  Maitland blinked and uttered a self-conscious cough. What was he doing, entertaining these idiotic fancies about a skull? It was ordinary enough. What was old Marco's game in bringing him such a silly object with so much solemn preamble?

  Yes, what was Marco's game?

  The little fat man held the skull up before the firelight, turning it from time to time with an impressive display of pride.

  His smirk of self-satisfaction contrasted oddly with the sobriety set indelibly upon the skull's bony visage.

  Maitland's puzzlement found expression at last. "What are you so smug about?" he demanded. "You bring me the skull of a woman or an adolescent youth—'

  Marco's chuckle cut across his remark. "Exactly what the phrenologists said!" he wheezed.

  "Damn the phrenologists, man! Tell me about this skull, if there's anything to tell."

  Marco ignored him. He turned the skull over in his fat hands, with a gloating expression which repelled Maitland.

  "It may be small, but it's a beauty, isn't it?" the little man mused. "So delicately formed, and look—there's almost the illusion of a patina upon the surface."

  "I'm not a paleontologist," Maitland snapped. "Nor a grave robber, either. You'd think we were Burke and Hare! Be reasonable, Marco —why should I want an ordinary skull?"

  "Please, Mr. Maitland! What do you take me for? Do you think I would presume to insult your intelligence by bringing you an ordinary skull? Do you imagine I would ask a thousand pounds for the skull of a nobody?"

  Maitland stepped back.

  "A thousand pounds?" he shouted. "A thousand pounds for that?"

  "And cheap at the price," Marco assured him. "You'll pay it gladly when you know the story."

  "I wouldn't pay such a price for the skull of Napoleon," Maitland assured him. "Or Shakespeare, for that matter."

  "You'll find that the owner of this skull tickles your fancy a bit more," Marco assured him.

  "Enough of this. Let's have it, man!"

  Marco faced him, one pudgy forefinger tapping the osseous brow of the death's-head.

  "You see before you," he murmured, "the skull of Donatien Alphonce Francois, the Marquis de Sade."

  Giles de Retz was a monster. Torquemada's inquisitors exercised the diabolic ingenuity of the fiends they professed to exorcise. But it re-

  mained for the Marquis de Sade to epitomize the living lust for pain. His name symbolizes cruelty incarnate—the savagery men call "sadism".

  Maitland knew de Sade's weird history, and mentally reviewed it.

  The Count, or Marquis, de Sade was born in 1740, of distinguished Provencal lineage. He was a handsome youth when he joined his cavalry regiment in the Seven Years' War—a pale, delicate, blue-eyed man, whose foppish diffidence cloaked an evil perversity.

  At the age of twenty-three he was imprisoned for a year as the result of a barbaric crime. Indeed, twenty-seven years of his subsequent life he spent in incarceration for his deeds—deeds which even today are only hinted at. His flagellations, his administration of outer drugs and his tortures of women have served to make his name infamous.

  But de Sade was no common libertine with a primitive urge towards the infliction of suffering. He was, rather, the "philosopher of pain" —a keen scholar, a man of exquisite taste and breeding. He was wonderfully well-read, a disciplined thinker, a remarkable psychologist —and a sadist.

  How the mighty Marquis would have squirmed had he envisioned the petty perversions which today bear his name! The tormenting of animals by ignorant peasants, the beating of children by hysteric attendants in institutions, the infliction of senseless cruelties by maniacs upon others or by others upon maniacs—all these matters are classified as "sadistic" today. And yet none of them are manifestations of de Sade's unnatural philosophy.

  De Sade's concept of cruelty had in it nothing of concealment or deceit. He practised his beliefs openly and wrote explicidy of such matters during his years in prison. For he was the Apostle of Pain, and his gospel was made known to all men in Justine, Juliette, Aline et Val-cour, the curious La Philosophie dans le Boudoir and the utterly abominable Les 120 Journees.

  And de Sade practised what he preached. He was a lover of many women—a jealous lover, willing to share the embraces of his mistresses with but one rival. That rival was Death, and it is said that all women who knew de Sade's caresses came to prefer those of his rival, in the end.

  Perhaps the tortures of the French Revolution were indirectly inspired by the philosophy of the Marquis—a philosophy that gained circulation throughout France following the publication of his notorious tomes.

  When the guillotine arose in the public squares of the cities, de

  Sade emerged from his long series of imprisonments and walked abroad among men maddened at the sight of blood and suffering.

  He was a grey, gentle litde ghost—short, bald, mild-mannered and
soft-spoken. He raised his voice only to save his aristocratic relatives from the knife. His public life was exemplary during these latter years.

  But men still whispered of his private life. His interest in sorcery was rumoured. It is said that to de Sade the shedding of blood was a sacrifice. And sacrifices made to certain beings bring black boons. The screams of pain-maddened women are as prayer to the creatures of the Pit

  The Marquis was cunning. Years of confinement for his "offences against society" had made him wary. He moved quite cautiously and took full advantage of the troubled times to conduct quiet and unostentatious burial services whenever he terminated an amour.

  Caution did not suffice, in the end. An ill-chosen diatribe directed against Napoleon served as an excuse for the authorities. There were no civil charges; no farcical trial was perpetrated.

  De Sade was simply shut up in Charenton as a common lunatic. The men who knew his crimes were too shocked to publicize them— and yet there was a satanic grandeur about the Marquis which somehow precluded destroying him outright. One does not think of assassinating Satan. But Satan chained—

  Satan, chained, languished. A sick, half-blind old man who tore the petals from roses in a last gesture of demoniac destructiveness, the Marquis spent his declining days forgotten by all men. They preferred to forget, preferred to think him mad.

  In 1814, he died. His books were banned, his memory desecrated, his deeds denied. But his name lived on—lives on as an eternal symbol of innate evil. . . .

  Such was de Sade, as Christopher Maitland knew him. And as a collector of curiosa, the thought of possessing the veritable skull of the fabulous Marquis intrigued him.

  He glanced up from revery, glanced at the unsmiling skull and the grinning Marco.