Brian Lumley - Titus Crow 1 - The Burrowers Beneath

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THE BURROWERS BENEATH BY BRIAN LUMLEY

The Nethermost Caverns

(From the Files of Titus Crow)

Blowne House

Leonard's-Walk Heath

London

18th May 196-

Ref: - 53/196-G. K. Lapham & Co. Head Office, GKL Cuttings 117 Martin Hudd St

Nottingham, Notts.

Dear Mr Lapham,

Please alter my order as it stands to cover only the most outstanding cases,

on which your continued cooperation would be appreciated as ever. This action

not to be misconstrued as being all but a cancellation of my custom, on the

contrary, but for the time being I would rather you concentrate your efforts

on my behalf to full coverage of one special line. I require all cuttings, one

copy of each, from all forty-three dailies normally covered, of current

occurrences involving earthquakes, tremors, subsidences, and like phenomena

(and backdated to cover the last three years where at all possible), to

continue until further notice. Thank you for your prompt attention.

Yrs faithfully, T. Crow

Blowne House 19th May

Ref: - 55/196-

Edgar Harvey, Esq.

Harvey, Johnson & Harvey, Solicitors

164-7 Mylor Rd

Radcar, Yorks.

Dear Mr Harvey,

I am given to understand that you are the literary agent of Paul Wendy-Smith,

the young writer of tales of romantic and/or macabre fiction, and that

following his mysterious disappearance in 1933 you became executor to the

estate. I was only a very young man at that time, but I seem to remember that

because of certain special circumstances publication of the writer's last

story (showing, I believe, strange connections with the disappearance of both

the author and his uncle, the explorer-archaeologist Sir Amery Wendy-Smith)

was held in abeyance. My query is simply this: has the work since seen

publication, and if so where may I obtain a copy?

I am, sir, hopefully

expectant of an early

answer, Yrs sincerely,

T. Crow

Blowne House

Harvey, Johnson & Harvey Mylor Rd Radcar, Yorks. 22nd May

Dear Mr Crow, Regarding your inquiry (your reference 55/196- of 19th

May), you are correct, I was executor to the estate of Paul Wendy-Smith - and

yes, there was a tale held in abeyance for a number of years until the

Wendy-Smiths were both officially pronounced 'missing or dead' in 1937. The

story, despite being a very slight piece, has seen publication more recently

in an excellently presented and major macabre collection. I enclose proofs of

the story, and, should you require the book itself, the publisher's card.

Hoping that this covers your inquiry to your complete satisfaction, I am, Sir,

Yours sincerely, Edgar Harvey

Blowne House 25th May

Ref: - 58/196-Features Reporter Coalville Recorder 11 Leatham St Coalville,

Leics.

My dear Mr Plant,

Having all my life been interested in seismological phenomena, I was

profoundly interested in your article in the issue of the Recorder for 18th

May. I know your coverage was as complete as any man-in-the-street could

possibly wish, but wonder if perhaps you could help me in my own rather more

specialized inquiry? Tremors of the type you described so well are

particularly interesting to me, but there are further details for which, if it

is at all possible you can supply them, I would be extremely grateful.

Calculations I have made suggest (however

inaccurately) that the Coalville shocks were of a linear rather than a general

nature; that is, that they occurred on a line almost directly south to north

and in that chronological order - the most southerly occurring first. This, at

least, is my guess, and I would be grateful if you could corroborate, or (as

no doubt the case will be) deny my suspicion; to which end I enclose a

stamped, addressed envelope.

Sincerely and appreciatively

Yrs, I am, sir,

Titus Crow

Blowne House 25th May

Ref: - 57/196-Raymond Bentham, Esq. 3 Easton Crescent Alston, Cumberland

My dear sir,

Having read a cutting from a copy of the Northern Daily Mail for 18th May, I

would like to say how vastly interested I was in that article which contained

certain parts of your report on the condition of the west sections of Harden

Mine's old workings, and feel it a great pity that Sir David Betteridge,

scientific adviser to the Northeast Coal-Board, has chosen to look at your

report in so unenlightened and frivolous a manner.

To me, while admittedly knowing little of yourself or your job, it would seem

rather irresponsible on the part of so large and well-founded an industrial

board to employ for twenty years an Inspector of Mines without, during that

time, discovering that his 'faculties are not all that they should be!'

Now, I am not a young man myself, indeed at sixty-three years of age I am far

and away your senior, but I have complete faith in my faculties - and, since

reading certain of the things in your report which I can (in a rather peculiar

way) corroborate, I am also sure that you were quite correct in the

observations you made in the complex of the discontinued Harden workings. Just

how I can be so sure must, unfortunately, remain my secret - like most men I

am averse to derision, a point I am sure you will appreciate - but I hope to

offer you at least some proof of my sincerity in writing this letter.

Thus, to reassure you beyond any doubt that I am not simply 'pulling your

leg', or in any way trying to add my own sarcastic comment to what has already

been made of your report, I return your attention to the following:

Other than mentioning briefly certain outlines which you say you found etched

in the walls of those new and inexplicable tunnels which you discovered down

there cut (or rather 'burned', as you had it) through the rock a mile below

the surface, you seem reluctant to describe in detail the content or actual

forms of those outlines. Might I suggest that this is because you did not wish

to be further ridiculed, which you feared might well be the case should you

actually describe the etchings? And might I further tell you what you saw on

those unknown tunnel walls; that those oddly dimensioned designs depicted

living creatures of sorts - like elongated octopuses or squids but without

recognizable heads or eyes - tentacled worms in fact but of gigantic size?

Dare I lay my cards on the table yet more fully and mention the noises you say

you heard down there in the depths of the Earth; sounds which were not in any

way the normal stress noises of a pit, even given that the mine in question

had not been worked for five years and was in poor repair? You said chanting,

Mr Bentham, but quickly

retracted your statement when a certain reporter became unnecessarily

facetious. Nonetheless, I take you at your original word: you said chanting,

and I am sure you meant what you said! How do I know? Again, I am not at

liberty to disclose my sources; however, I would be obliged for your reaction

to the following:

Ce'haiie ep-ngh fl'hur G'harne fhtagn,

Ce'haiie fhtagn ngh Shudde-M'ell.

Hai G'harne orr'e ep fl'hur,

Shudde-M'ell ican-icanicas fl'hur orr'e G'harne.

Restricted as I am at this time regarding further illuminating my interest in

the case, or even explaining the origin of my knowledge of it, but still in

the hope of an early answer and perhaps a more detailed account of what you

encountered underground, I am, Sir,

Yrs sincerely, Titus Crow

Coalville Recorder Coalville, Leics. 28th May

Blowne House

Dear Mr Crow,

In answer to your 58/1%-, of the 25th:

The tremors that shook Coalville, Leics., on the afternoon of the 17th, were,

as you correctly deduced, of a linear nature. (And yes, they did occur south

heading north; have in fact continued, or so I believe, farther up-country.)

As you are no doubt aware, Coalville is central in an area of expanding mining

operations, and doubtless the collapse of old diggings was responsible, in

this area

at least, for the peculiar shocks. They lasted from 4:30 until 8:00 p.m., but

were not particularly severe - though, I am told, they had a very bad effect

on certain inmates of the local Thornelee Sanatorium.

There were, too, other slight surface subsidences, not nearly so bad, almost a

year ago. At about that time also, five miners were lost in the collapse of a

very narrow and unproductive seam which they were working. The twin brother of

one of these men was in a different part of the mine at the time, and much

sensational publicity was given his subsequent condition. I did not cover his

case, though it was done up pretty distastefully in a hack contemporary of the

Recorder under the heading: 'Siamese Mining Horror!' Apparently the living

twin went stark staring mad at the very instant his brother and the other four

men were killed!

You should be interested in a series of articles which I am at present

planning for the Recorder, 'A History of the Midlands Pits', to be published

later this year, and I would be pleased to send you the various chapters as

they appear if you so desire.

Yours faithfully, William Plant

Alston, Cumberland 28th May

Blowne House Dear Mr Crow,

I got your letter yesterday afternoon, and not being much of a writing man,

I'm not sure how to answer it, or even if I can find the right words.

First off, let me say you are quite right about the pictures on the tunnel

walls - and also about the chanting. How you could know about these things I

can't possibly

imagine! So far as I know, I'm the only one to have been down that shaft since

they closed the pit, and I'm damned if I can think of any other spot on or

under the earth where you might have heard sounds like those I heard, or seen

drawings the like of them on the tunnel walls. But you obviously have! Those

crazy words you wrote down were just like what I heard . . .

Of course, I should have gone down there with a mate, but my No. 2 was off

sick at the time and I thought it was going to be just another routine job.

Well, as you know, it wasn't!

The reason they asked me to go down and check the old pit out was twofold -

I'd worked the seams, all of them, as a youngster and knew my way about, and

of course (to hell with what Betteridge says) I am an Experienced inspector -

but mainly someone had to do the job to see if the empty seams could be

propped up or filled in. I imagine that the many subsidences and cave-ins

round Ilden and Blackhill have been giving the Coal-Board a bit of a headache

of late.

Anyhow, you asked for a more detailed account of what I came up against

underground, and I'll try to tell it as it happened. But can I take it that

everything I say will be in confidence? See, I have a good pension coming from

the Coal-Board in a few years' time, and naturally they don't much care for

adverse stuff in the press, particularly stuff to worry local landowners and

builders. People don't buy property that's not safe, or ground that's liable

to subsidence! And since I've already had one ticking off as it is, well, I

don't want to jeopardize my pension, that's all...

I think what really annoyed the bosses was when I went on about those tunnels

I found down there - not old, timbered seams, mind you, but tunnels - round

and pretty smoothly finished and certainly artificial. And not just

one, as they said in the Mail, but half a dozen! A proper maze, it was. Yes, I

said those tunnel walls were burned rather than cut, and so they were. At

least, that's how they looked, as though they'd somehow been coated on the

inside with lava and then allowed to cool!

But there I go running ahead of myself. Better start at the beginning . . .

I went down the main shaft at Harden, using the old emergency lift-cage which

they hadn't yet dismantled. There was a gang of lads at the top just in case

the old machinery should go on the blink. I wasn't a bit worried, you

understand; it's been my job for a long time now and I know all the dangers

and what to look for.

I took a budgie down with me in a little cage. I could hang the cage up to the

roof timbers while I looked about. There are some of the old-fashioned methods

you still can't beat, I reckon. The old-timers used canaries - I took a

budgie. That was so I'd know if there was any firedamp down there (methane to

you). A heavy gas knocks a bird out in a wink, which lets you know it's time

to get out! I wore protective gear and high boots in case of water -Harden's

not all that far from the sea, and it's one of the deepest pits in the

country. Funny thing, but I expected water, yet as it happened I was quite

wrong; it was dry as a bone down there. I had a modern lamp on my helmet with

a good, powerful beam, and I carried a map of the galleries and seams -

standard procedure but hardly necessary in my case.

Well, anyway, I got down the shaft all right and gave the old handset at the

bottom a twirl to let the boys on top know that everything was well, and then

I set out along the horizontal connecting-shaft to the west-side galleries and

coal-seams. Now, you have to understand, Mr Crow, that the main passages are

often pretty big things. Some of them are almost as' large as any single

tube-tunnel in London. I mention this to show that I wasn't shut in, like, or

suffering from claustrophobia or anything like that, and it wasn't as if I

hadn't been down a pit before - but there was, well, something!

It's hard for me to explain on paper like this, but - oh, I don't know - I had

this feeling that - it was as if - well, did you ever play hide-and-seek as a

child and go into a room where someone was hiding? You can't see him, it's

dark, and he's quiet as a mouse, but you know he's in there all the same!

That's what it was like down there in that deserted mine. And yet it was truly

deserted - at that time anyway . . .

Well, I shook this feeling off and went on until I reached the west-side

network. This is almost two horizontal miles from the main shaft. Along the

way I had seen evidence of deterioration in the timbers, but not enough to

explain away the subsidences on the surface. So far as I could see, there had

been no actual cave-ins. The place did stink, though, like nothing I'd ever

smelled before, but it wasn't any sort of gas to affect the budgie or me. Just

a very unpleasant smell. Right at the end of the connecting-shaft, at a spot

almost directly under Blackhill, I came across the first of the new tunnels.

It entered into the shaft from the side away from the sea, and frankly it

stopped me dead! I mean, what would you have made of it?

It was a hole, horizontal and with hard, regular walls, but it was cut through

solid rock and not coal! Now, I like to keep slap-up-to-date on mining

methods, but I was pretty sure right from the start that this tunnel wasn't

dug using any system or machinery I knew of. And yet it seemed I must have

missed something somewhere. The thing wasn't shown on my map, though, so in

the end I told myself that some new machinery must have been tested down there

before they'd closed the mine. I was

damned annoyed, I'll tell you - nobody had told me to expect this!

The mouth of the tunnel was about eight feet in diameter, and although the

roof wasn't propped up or timbered in any way the bore looked safe-as-houses,

solid somehow. I decided to go on down it to see how far it went. It was all

of half a mile long, that shaft, Mr Crow; none of it timbered, straight as a

die, and the neatest bit of tunnelling work I've seen underground in

twenty-five years. Every two hundred yards or so similar tunnels would come in

from the sides at right angles, and at three of these junctions there had been

heavy falls of rock. This warned me to be careful. Obviously these holes

weren't as solid as they looked!

I don't know where the thought came from, but suddenly I found myself thinking

of giant moles! I once saw one of these sensational film things about just

such animals. Possibly that's where the idea sprang from in my mind. Anyway,

I'd no sooner had this thought than I came to a spot where yet another tunnel

joined the main one - but this one came down at an angle from above!

There was a hole opening into the ceiling, with the edges rounded off and

smoothed in some way I don't understand, as if by heat like I said before.

Well, I went dead slow from then on, but soon I came out of the tunnel into a

big cave. At least, I took it to be a cave, but when I looked closer at the

walls I saw that it wasn't! It was simply a junction of a dozen or so of the

tunnels. Pillars like stalagmites held up the ceiling. This was where I saw

the carvings, those pictures of octopus-things etched in the walls, and I

don't think I need add how much that put the wind up me!

I didn't hang about there much longer (apart from anything else the stench was

terrible), but long enough to check that the place was all of fifty feet

across and that

the walls were coated or smoothed over with that same sort of lava-stuff. The

floor was flat enough but crumbly, almost earthy, and right in the middle of

the place I found four great cave-pearls. At least, I think they're

cave-pearls. They're about four inches across, these things, very hard, heavy,

and glossy. Don't ask me how they got down there, I don't know, and I can't

see how they might have been formed naturally, like other cave-pearls I

remember seeing when I was a kid. Anyway, I put them into a bag I carried and

then went back the way I'd come to the terminal of the west-side workings. By

then I'd been down there about an hour and a half.

I didn't get far into the actual coal-seams. The first half dozen were down.

They had collapsed. But I soon enough found out what had brought them down! In

and out of the old workings, lacing them like holes in Gorgonzola, those

damned smooth-lined tunnels came and went, literally honeycombing the coal and

rock alike! Then, in one of the few remaining old seams that still stood and

where some poor-grade coal still remained, I came across yet another funny

thing. A tunnel, one of the new ones, had been cut right along the original

seam, and I noticed that here the walls weren't of that lava substance but a

pitchy, hard tar, exactly the kind of deposit you find bubbling out of hot

coal in the coke-ovens, only set as hard as rock . . . !

That was it. I'd had enough, and I set off back towards the main shaft and the

lift-cage. It was then I thought I heard the chanting. Thought? - like hell I

thought - I did hear it; and it was just as you wrote it down! It was distant,

seeming to come from a very long way away, like listening to the sea in a

shell or hearing a tune you remember in your head . . . But I knew I should

never have been hearing things like that down there at all, and I took off for

the lift-cage as fast as I could go.

Well, I'll keep the rest of it short, Mr Crow. I've probably said too much

already as it is, and I just hope to God that you're not one of those reporter

fellows. Still, I wanted to get it off my chest, so what the hell care I?

I finally arrived at the shaft bottom, by which time the chanting had died

away, and I gave the lads on top a tinkle on the old handset to haul me up. At

the top I made out my report, but not as fully as I've done here, and then I

went home ... I kept the cave-pearls, as mementos if you like, and said

nothing about them in my report. I don't see what good they'd be to anyone,

anyway. Still, it does seem a bit like stealing. I mean, whatever the things

really are - well, they're not mine, are they? I might just send them off

anonymously to the museum at Sunderland or Radcar. I suppose the museum people

will know what they are ...

The next morning the reporters came around from the Daily Mail. They'd heard I

had a bit of a story to tell and pumped me for all I was worth. I had the idea

they were laughing at me, though, so I didn't tell them a deal. They must have

gone to see old Betteridge when finally they left me - and, well, you know the

rest.

And that's it, Mr Crow. If there's something else you'd like to know just drop

me another line. Myself, I'd be interested to learn how you come to know so

much about it all, and why you want to know more . . .

Yrs sincerely, R. Bentham

Maybe you heard how they were planning to send two more inspectors down to do

the job I'd 'messed up'? Well, they couldn't. Just a few days ago the whole

lot fell in! The road between Harden and Blackhill sank ten feet in places,

and a couple of brick barns were brought down

at Castle-Ilden. There's had to be work done on the walls of the Red Cow Inn

in Harden, too, and there have been slight tremors all over the area ever

since. Like I said, the mine was rotten with those tunnels down there. I'm

only surprised (and thankful!) it held up so long. Oh, and one other thing. I

think that the smell I mentioned must, after all, have been produced by a gas

of some sort. Certainly my head's been fuzzy ever since. Weak as a kitten,

I've been, and damned if I don't keep hearing that awful, droning, chanting

sound! All my imagination, of course, for you can take it from me that old

Betteridge wasn't even partly right in what he said about me ...

R.B.

Blowne House 30th May

To: Raymond Bentham, Esq.

Dear Mr Bentham,

I thank you for your prompt reply to my queries of the 25th, and would be

obliged if you would give similar keen attention to this further letter. I

must of necessity make my note brief (I have many important things to do), but

I beg you to have the utmost faith in my directions, strange as they may seem

to you, and to carry them out without delay!

You have seen, Mr Bentham, how accurately I described the pictures on the

walls of that great unnatural cave in the earth, and how I was able to

duplicate on paper the weird chant you heard underground. My dearest wish now

is that you remember these previous deductions of mine, and believe me when I

tell you that you have placed yourself in extreme and hideous danger in

removing the cave-pearls from the Harden tunnel-complex!

In fact, it is my sincere belief that you are constantly increasing the peril

every moment you keep those things! I ask you to send them to me; I might know

what to do with them. I repeat, Mr Bentham, do not delay but send me the

cave-pearls at once; or, should you decide against it, then for God's sake at

least remove them from your house and person! A good suggestion would be for

you to drop them back into the shaft at the mine, if that is at all possible;

but whichever method you choose in getting rid of them, do it with dispatch!

They may rightly be regarded as being infinitely more dangerous than ten times

their own weight in nitroglycerin!

Yrs v. truly, Titus Crow

To: Mr Henri-Laurent de Marigny

Blowne House 5 p.m., 30th May

Dear Henri,

I've tried to get you on the telephone twice today, only to discover at this

late hour that you're in Paris at a sale of antiques! Your housekeeper tells

me she doesn't know when you'll be back. I hope it's soon. I may very well

need your help! This note will be waiting for you when you get back. Waste no

time, de Marigny, but get round here as soon as you're able!

Titus

Marvels Strange and Terrific

(From the Notebooks of Henri-Laurent de Marigny)

I had known this strange and inexplicable feeling for weeks - a deep-rooted

mental apprehension, an uneasiness of psyche - and the cumulative effect of

this near-indefinable atmosphere of hovering hysteria upon my system, the

sheer tautness of my usually sound nerves, was horrible and soul-destroying. I

could not for my life fathom whence these brooding fears of things unknown

sprang, or even guess at the source of the hideous oppressiveness of air which

seemed to hang in tangible heaviness over all my waking and sleeping moments

alike, but the combination of the two had been more than sufficient to drive

me from London to seek refuge on the Continent.

Ostensibly I had gone to Paris to seek out certain Eastern antiques at the

House du Fouche, but when I discovered that my flight to that ancestral city

had gained me no respite from my sickening, doom-fraught mood of depression,

then I was at a complete loss as to what to do with myself.

In the end, after a stay of only four days, having made one or two small

purchases - simply, I suppose, to justify my journey - I determined to return

to England.

From the moment my plane touched down in London I felt somehow that I had been

drawn back from France, and I considered this peculiar prescience proven when,

upon arriving at my home, I found Titus Crow's summons waiting for me. His

letter had lain on a table in my study, placed there by my housekeeper, for

two days; and yet, cryptic as that note was, its message lifted my spirit

instantly from the constant gloom it had known for so many weeks, and sent me

flying to Blowne House.

It was midafternoon when I reached Crow's sprawling bungalow retreat on the

outskirts of the city, and when the leonine occultist opened his door to me I

was frankly astonished at the alterations which had taken place in his

countenance over the three months since last I had seen him. He was more than

tired, that was plain, and his face was drawn and grey. Lines of concentration

and worry had etched themselves deep in his high forehead; his broad shoulders

were slumped atop his tall, usually energetic frame; his whole aspect betrayed

the extensive and sleepless studies to which he must needs have lent himself,

making his first words almost unnecessary:

'De Marigny, you got my note! Thank goodness for that! If ever a second head

was needed it's now. I've just about knocked myself out with the thing, driven

myself to distraction. A clear mind, a fresh approach - By God, it's good to

see you!'

Crow ushered me inside, led the way to his study, and there indicated that I

should take a seat. Instead I simply stood gazing unbelievingly about the

room. My host poured me a customary welcoming glass of brandy before flopping

wearily into a chair behind his great desk.

Now, I have said that I gazed unbelievingly about the study: well, let it be

understood that Titus Crow's study (incorporating as it does his magnificent

occult library), while yet being the apple of his eye, is more often than not

the scene of at least a minimal activity, when my friend involves himself

within those strange spheres of research which are his speciality; and let it

be further understood that I was quite used to seeing the place in less than

completely tidy order - but never before had I seen anything like the apparent

chaos which reigned in that room on this occasion!

Maps, charts, and atlases lay open and in places overlapping, littering the

floor wall to shelved wall, so that I had to step on certain of them to reach

a chair; various files, many of them fastened open at marked or paper-clipped

places, stood at one end of the cluttered desk and also upon a small

occasional table; numbered newspaper cuttings were everywhere, many of them

discoloured and plainly faded with age, others very recent; a great notebook,

its pages covered top to bottom with careless or hurried scrawlings, lay open

at my feet, and rare and commonplace tomes alike on various obscure or little

known semi-mythological, anthropological, and archaeological themes were

stacked willy-nilly in one corner of the room at the foot of Crow's great

four-handed grandfather clock. The whole was a scene of total disorder, and

one that whetted my curiosity to a point where my first astonished outburst

sprang as naturally to my lips as might any commonplace inquiry in less

bizarre surroundings:

'Titus! What on earth . . . ? You look as though you haven't had a wink of

sleep in a week - and the state of this place!' Again I stared about the room,

at the apparent disruption of all previous normality.

'Oh, I've been getting my sleep, de Marigny,' Crow answered unconvincingly,

'though admittedly not so much as ordinarily. No, this tiredness of mine is as

much a mental as a physical fatigue, I fear. But for heaven's sake, what a

puzzle, and one that must be solved!' He swirled his brandy in its glass, the

tired action belying his momentarily energetic and forceful mode of

expression.

'You know,' I said, satisfied for the moment to let Crow enlighten me in his

own time and way, 'I rather fancied someone could use a bit of help, even

before I got your note, I mean. I don't know what's been going on, I haven't

the faintest inkling what this "puzzle" of yours is, but do you know? Why,

this is the first time in weeks that

I've felt at all like tackling anything! I've been under some sort of black

cloud, a peculiar mood of despair and strange ennui, and then along came your

note.'

Crow looked at me with his head on one side and ruefully smiled. 'Oh? Then I'm

sorry, de Marigny, for unless I'm very much mistaken your "peculiar mood of

despair" is due to repeat itself in very short order!' His smile disappeared

almost immediately. 'But this is nothing frivolous I've got myself into,

Henri, no indeed.'

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his tall chair and leaned

forward over the desk. 'De Marigny, if I'm correct in what I suspect, then at

this very moment the world is faced with an unthinkable, an unbelievable

horror. But I believe in it ... and there were others before me who believed!'

'Were others, Titus?' I caught something of the extra weight he had placed on

the word. 'Are you alone, then, in this belief of yours?'

'Yes, at least I think I am. Those others I mentioned are ... no more! I'll

try to explain.'

My gaunt-looking friend sat back then and visibly relaxed. He closed his eyes

for a second and I knew that he pondered the best way to tell his story. After

a few moments, in a quiet and controlled tone of voice, he commenced:

'De Marigny, I'm glad we're two of a kind; I'm damned if I know whom I might

confide in if we weren't so close. There are others who share this love of

ours, this fascination for forbidden things, to be sure, but none I know so

well as you, and no one with whom I've shared experiences such as we have

known and trembled at together. There's been this thread between us ever since

you first arrived in London as a boy, straight off the boat from America. Why!

We're even tied by that clock there, once owned by your father!' He indicated

the weird, four-

handed, strangely ticking monstrosity in the corner. 'Yes, it's as well we're

two of a kind, for how could I explain to a stranger the fantastic things I

must somehow explain? And even if I could do so without finding myself put

away in a padded cell, who would give the thing credit? Even you, my friend,

may find it beyond belief.'

'Oh, come now, Titus,' I felt obliged to cut in. 'You couldn't wish for any

more inexplicable a thing than that case of the Viking's Stone you dragged me

in on! And how about the Mirror of Nitocris, which I've told you of before?

What a threat and a horror there! No, it's unfair to doubt a man's loyalty in

these things before you've tried it, my friend.'

'I don't doubt your loyalty, Henri - on the contrary -but even so, this thing

I've come up against is ... fantastic! There's more than simply the occult

involved -if the occult is involved at all - there's myth and legend, dream

and fancy, hideous fear and terrifying, well, survivals!'

'Survivals?'

'Yes, I think so; but you'll have to let me tell it in my own way. No more

interruptions, now. You can question me all you want when I'm done. Agreed?'

I grudgingly nodded my head.

'Survivals, I said, yes,' he then continued. 'Residua of dark and nameless

epochs and uncounted cycles of time and existence. Look here; you see this

fossil?' He reached into a drawer in his desk and held up an ammonite from the

beaches of the Northeast.

"The living creature that this once was dwelt in a warm sea side by side with

man's earliest forebears. It was here even before the most antediluvian Adam

walked, or crawled, on dry land! But millions of years before that, possibly a

forebear of this very fossil itself, Muenstero-ceras, an early ammonite,

existed in the seas of the lower

Carboniferous. Now to get back to survivals, Muenstero-ceras had a more mobile

and much more highly developed contemporary in those predawn oceans, a fish

called Coelacanthus - and yet a live coelacanth, its species thought to have

been extinct since early Triassic times, was netted off Madagascar in 1938!

Then again, though I don't refer specifically to these sorts of things, we

have the Loch Ness monster and the alleged giant saurians of Lake Tasek Bera

in Malaya - though why such creatures shouldn't exist in a world capable of

supporting the very real Komodo dragons is beyond me, even if they are thought

by many to be pure myth - and even the Yeti and the West German

Wald-Schrecken. And there are lesser, absolutely genuine forms, too, plenty of

them, come down the ages unaltered by evolution to the present day.

'Now, such as these, real and unreal, are what you might call "survivals", de

Marigny, and yet Coelacanthus, "Nessie", and all the others are geologic

infants in comparison with the things I envisage!'

Here Crow made a pause, getting up to wearily cross the book- and

paper-littered floor to pour me another drink, before returning to his desk

and continuing his narrative:

'I became aware of these survivals, initially at least, through the medium of

dreams; and now I consider that those dreams of mine have been given

substance. I've known for a good many years that I'm a highly psychic man; you

are of course aware of this as you yourself have similar, though lesser,

powers.' (This, from Titus Crow, a statement of high praise!) 'It's only

recently, however, that I've come to recognize the fact that these walking

"senses" of mine are still at work - more efficiently, in fact - when I'm

asleep. Now, de Marigny, unlike that long-vanished friend of your late

father's, Randolph Carter, I have never been a great dreamer; and usually

my dreams, irregular as they are, are very vague, fragmentary, and the result

of late meals and even later hours. Some, though, have been . . . different!

'Well, although this recognition of the extension of my psychic powers even

into dreams has come late, I do have a good memory, and fortunately - or

perhaps unfortunately, depending how it works out - my memory is supplemented

by the fact that as long as I can remember I have faithfully recorded all the

dreams I've known of any unusual or vivid content; don't ask me why! Recording

things is a trait of occultists, I'm told. But whatever the reason I seem to

have written down almost everything of any importance that ever happened to

me. And dreams have always fascinated me.' He waved his hand, indicating the

clutter on the floor.

'Beneath some of those maps there, you'll find books by Freud, Schrach, Jung,

and half a dozen others. Now, the thing that has lately impressed me is this:

that all my more outre dreams, over a period of some thirty years or more,

have occurred simultaneous in time with more serious and far-reaching

happenings in the waking world!

'Let me give you some examples.' He sorted out an old, slim diary from a dozen

or so at one end of his desktop, opening it to a well-turned page.

'In November and December, 1935, I had a recurrent nightmare centring about

any number of hideous things. There were winged, faceless bat-things that

carried me nightly over fantastic needle-tipped peaks on unending trips

towards some strange dimension which I never quite reached. There were weird,

ethereal chantings which I've since recognized in the Cthaat Aquadingen and

which I believe to be part of the Necronomicon; terribly deadly stuff, de

Marigny! There was a hellish place beyond an alien jungle, a great scabrous

circle of rotting earth, in the centre of which a ... a Thing turned endlessly

in a bilious

green cloak, a cloak alive with a monstrous life all its own. There was

madness, utter insanity in the very air! I still haven't deciphered many of

the coded sections in the Cthaat Aquadingen - and by God I don't intend to! -

but those chants I heard in my dreams are delineated there, and heaven knows

what they might have been designed to call up!'

'And in the waking world?' I felt bound to ask it, even remembering that I was

supposed to bide my time. 'What was going on in the real world throughout this

period of strange dreams?'

'Well,' he slowly answered, 'it culminated in certain monstrous occurrences on

New Year's Eve at Oakdeene Sanatorium near Glasgow. In fact, five of the

inmates died that night in their cells; and a male nurse, too, on a lonely

road quite near the sanatorium. The latter was apparently attacked by a beast

of some sort. . . torn and horribly chewed! Apart from these deaths, all of

them quite inexplicable, one other nurse went mad; and, perhaps most amazing

of all, yet five more inmates, previously "hopeless" cases, were later

released as perfectly responsible citizens! You can read up on the case from

my cuttings-file for that period if you wish . . .

'Now, I'll agree that from what I've told you these occurrences seem to have

damn all to do with my dreams; nevertheless, after New Year's Eve, I wasn't

bothered again by those dreams!

'And that's not all, for I've checked, and rumour has it that prior to the

hellish happenings that night the worst inmates of Oakdeene gave themselves

over to some form of mad chanting. And I think I can hazard a guess as to what

that chanting was, if not what it was for.

'Anyhow, let's get on.

'Over the next thirty years or so,' Crow continued after closing the first

book and taking up a more recent diary,

'I had my share of lesser nightmares - no more than two dozen in all, all of

them of course recorded - one of which especially stays in my mind; we'll get

on to it in detail in a minute. But in late 1963, commencing on the tenth of

November, my sleep was once more savagely invaded, this time by dreams of a

vast underwater fortress peopled by things the like of which I never want to

see again, in or out of dreams!

'Well, these creatures in their citadel at the bottom of the sea, they were -

I don't know - ropy horrors out of the most terrible myths of pre-antiquity,

beings without parallel except in the Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth Cycle. Most of

them were preoccupied with some obscure magical - or rather scientific -

preparations, assisted in their submarine industry by indescribable

blasphemies more heaps of mobile sludge than organic creatures . . . hideously

reminiscent of the Shoggoths in the Necronomicon, again from the Cthulhu Cycle

of myth.

'These Shoggoth-things - I came to think of them as "Sea-Shoggoths" - were

obviously subservient to their ropy masters, and yet a number of them stood

guard over one certain member of the former beings. I had the mad impression

that this . . . this Odd-Thing-Out, as it were -which was, even in its

absolute alienage, obviously demented - consisted in fact of a human mind

trapped in the body of one of these sea-dwellers!

'Again, during the period through which I experienced these dreams, there were

occurrences of peculiarly hideous aspect in the real, waking world. There were

awful uprisings in lunatic asylums all over the country, cult gatherings in

the Midlands and Northeast, terrible suicides among many members of the "arty

set", all coming to a head in the end when Surtsey rose from the sea off the

Vestmann Islands on the Atlantic Ridge.

'You know, of course, de Marigny, the basic theme of

the Cthulhu Cycle of myth; that at a time yet to come Lord Cthulhu will rise

from his slimy seat at Deep R'lyeh in the sea to reclaim his dry-land

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THEBURROWERSBENEATHBYBRIANLUMLEYTheNethermostCaverns(FromtheFilesofTitusCrow)BlowneHouseLeonard's-WalkHeathLondon18thMay196-Ref:-53/196-G.K.Lapham&Co.HeadOffice,GKLCuttings117MartinHuddStNottingham,Notts.DearMrLapham,Pleasealtermyorderasitstandstocoveronlythemostoutstandingcases,onwhichyourcontinued...

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Brian Lumley - Titus Crow 1 - The Burrowers Beneath

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