Lumley, Brian - A Coven Of Vampires

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A Coven Of Vampires

By Brian Lumley

Also by Brian Lumley in New English Library paperback

House of Doors Volume II

The Second Wish and Other Exhalations

Dagon's Bell and Other Discords

The Compleat Crow

and of course . . . Necroscope: The Lost Years Volumes I & II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

'What Dark God?', Nameless Places ed. Gerald W. Page,

Arkham House, 1975.

'Back Row', Terror Australia, Autumn 1988. The Strange Years', Fantasy Tales, No. 9, Spring 1982.

'Kiss of the Lamia', Weirdbook, No. 20, Spring 1985. 'Recognition', Weirdbook, No. 15, 1981. The

Thief Immortal', Weirdbook, No. 25, 1990. 'Necros', The Second Book of After Midnight Stories, ed.

Amy Myers, Wm. Kimber, 1986. The Thing from the Blasted Heath,' The Caller of the

Black, Arkham House, 1971. 'Uzzi', Fear, September/October 1988. 'Haggopian', The Magazine of

Fantasy and Science Fiction,

June 1973. The Picknickers', Final Shadows, ed. Charles L. Grant,

Doubleday, 1991. 'Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler', Weirdbook, No. 11,

March 1977. The House of the Temple', Weird Tales, Vol. 48, No. 3, Fall

1981.

CONTENTS

What Dark God?

Back Row

The Strange Years

Kiss of the Lamia

Recognition

The Thief Immortal

Necros

The Thing from the Blasted Heath

Uzzi

Haggopian

The Picnickers

Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler!

The House of the Temple

FOREWORD

I've been hooked (or should that be impaled?) on vampires ever since I was a kid. But don't ask me

to be exact, because when I was a kid was a long time ago. It was probably those old books my

father used to keep on a high shelf he knew I couldn't reach . . . without the aid of stepladders.

The stepladders would come out whenever Mom and Dad would make one of their rare excursions out

into the world, maybe to the Picturehouse or the Ritz or the Empress, to see the latest big

picture - the latest 'movie', to you American cousins. It would be something with Betty Grable,

maybe, or Dick Haymes.

But ah, those books! Do you remember all those big, heavy, black-bound books? Fifty Great

Mysteries! Fifty Great Tales of Terror and the Imagination! Fifty This and Fifty That. Perhaps

those weren't the precise titles - it's hard to remember now - but I'll never forget the weight

and the looks, and the smell, of those books; they were musty even then. The black bat embossed

into the binding cloth; the claw-like hand drawing back the curtains, and the sinister figure

beyond the curtains. And the interior illustrations. The horrid interior illustrations! The naked

black girl wrapped in a carnivorous tree's tendrils, being hoisted to her doom like a cocooned

fly. That one stuck in my boy's mind for a long time; it's still there, in fact, just as fresh

(and as monstrous) as ever.

All those books, and some of them must have contained vampire stories, I'm sure . . .

I had a library ticket when I was eight, and I think I was maybe halfway through Bram Stoker's

Dracula before 'they' even noticed. But that was okay . . . Dracula was a classic after all. Then

my big brother, Harry -just about to be drafted for National Service - started to read it, and he

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asked the Old Folks: 'Do you really think he should be reading this? Won't it give him

nightmares?' Thanks a bunch, big brother! After that I had to read it chapter by chapter in the

library.

Before I was sixteen, I was out of school and had a job as an apprentice machinist. That meant a

bus ride into town every workday, and there was a newsagent opposite where I got off the bus. It

must have been the early to mid-50s, and one morning I saw this garish magazine cover glaring at

me through the window of the shop. Weird Tales, And the 's' looked like it was about to fall off

the end of the title.

Those British edition WT were - wow! - a whole shilling each in those days. That was good money.

In pristine condition they'd easily fetch two hundred times that amount now. That is really good

money! But just looking at the cover of that first of many issues (my first issue, anyway) was

like seeing one of those ancient mariner maps with the legend 'Here be Monsters,' stamped over

uncharted waters. And in WT's terms, 'Here be Vampires,' too! Oh, yes, those magazines were

definitely my blood group. And I used to suck 'em bone dry.

1958. The year I was drafted. And that was a horror story in its own right . . . well, until I got

to like it. And I liked it so much I signed on for twenty-two years. But that's not the only

reason I remember '58. Not a bit of it, for it's also the year they released Dracula on film again

- only this time with Christopher Lee as the bloodthirsty Count. Now tell me, isn't that scene

where he strides past the castle's battlements with his cloak belling behind him just one of your

favourites? It's one of mine, be sure!

But whoa - I've missed something! And a very important something at that. Do you remember EC? No,

of course you don't, 'cos you were a little kid then and your big brother would probably have told

on you. Tales From the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror, and . . . God, there was a whole gaggle of

them! Not only EC but other publishers, too. Frankenstein, Black Magic - man, I remember those

titles! And they were called 'comics' . . .?

You know, I'm frequently accused of using too many exclamation marks. But honestly, how could I

write this without them? I need exclamation marks to make my point. Which is that EC was Vampire

Wonderland to me. Was there ever an issue without a vampire story? Well, maybe, but I can't

remember one. (Or maybe I just don't want to.)

Even worse, I can't remember where or when I first read Richard Matheson's / Am Legend, but I do

know I've read it half a dozen times since. It probably delayed my attempts to write my own

vampire novels by, oh, twenty years . . . Because it was that damned good! But that wasn't a bad

thing (in a couple of decades I'd learned a lot, not only about authorship but about the world).

And if I was going to do it at all, I knew it would have to be wide-screen.

And eventually I did do it, let all of that stuff I'd once soaked up so avidly leak back out of

me, and even occasionally splatter. The Necroscope novels and Vampire World Trilogy are the end

results.

Between times, though, I had worked up to it in a host of shorter stories that explored the

vampire myth and came at it from many diverse angles, some of them so far removed from the

original that even I didn't realize what I was really writing until the stories were finished.

A host of them? Well, a coven of them, in fact. Thirteen tales that dance widdershins around the

central concept, and occasionally rock 'n' roll with it, too. Stories that are

more or less traditional, some less so, and others straight out of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

So there you go. I 'blame' this collection on EC Comics, Weird Tales, Christopher Lee, Richard

Matheson, et al, whose stories in this sub-genre really bit me. To all of them and to others long

forgotten I offer my thanks. They all have a stake in this collection . . .

Brian Lumley Devon, England, February 1997.

WHAT DARK GOD?

'. . . Summanus - whatever power he may be ..."

Ovid's Fasti

The Tuscan Rituals! Now where had I heard of such a book or books before? Certainly very rare . .

. Copy in the British Museum? Perhaps! Then what on earth were these fellows doing with a copy?

And such a strange bunch of blokes at that.

Only a few minutes earlier I had boarded the train at Bengham. It was quite crowded for a night

train and the boozy, garrulous, and vociferous 'Jock' who had boarded it directly in front of me

had been much upset by the fact that all the compartments seemed to be fully occupied.

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'Och, they bleddy British trains,' he had drunkenly grumbled, 'either a'wiz emp'y or a'wiz fool.

No orgyniza-tion whatsayever - ye no agree, ye sassenach?' He had elbowed me in the ribs as we

swayed together down the dim corridor.

'Er, yes,' I had answered. 'Quite so!'

Neither of us carried cases and as we stumbled along, searching for vacant seats in the gloomy

compartments. Jock suddenly stopped short.

'Noo what in hell's this - will ye look here? A compartment wi' the bleddy blinds doon. Prob'ly a

young laddie an' lassie in there wi' six emp'y seats. Privacy be damned. Ah'm no standin' oot here

while there's a seat in there . . .'

The door had proved to be locked - on the inside - but that had not deterred the 'bonnie Scot' for

a moment. He had banged insistently upon the wooden frame of the door until it was carefully,

tentatively opened a few inches: then he had stuck his foot in the gap and put his shoulder to the

frame, forcing the door fully open.

'No, no . . .' The scrawny, pale, pin-stripe jacketed man who stood blocking the entrance

protested. 'You can't come in - this compartment is reserved . . .'

'Is that so, noo? Well, if ye'll kindly show me the reserved notice,' Jock had paused to tap

significantly upon the naked glass of the door with a belligerent fingernail, 'Ah'll bother ye no

more - meanwhile, though, if ye'll hold ye're blether, Ah'd appreciate a bleddy seat . . .'

'No, no . . .' The scrawny man had started to protest again, only to be quickly cut off by a terse

command from behind him:

'Let them In...'

I shook my head and pinched my nose, blowing heavily and puffing out my cheeks to clear my ears.

For the voice from within the dimly-lit compartment had sounded hollow, unnatural. Possibly the

train had started to pass through a tunnel, an occurrence which never fails to give me trouble

with my ears. I glanced out of the exterior corridor window and saw immediately that I was wrong;

far off on the dark horizon I could see the red glare of coke-oven fires. Anyway, whatever the

effect had been which had given that voice its momentarily peculiar - resonance? - it had

obviously passed, for Jock's voice sounded perfectly normal as he said: 'Noo tha's better; excuse

a body, will ye?' He shouldered the dubious looking man in the doorway to one side and slid

clumsily into a seat alongside a second stranger. As I joined them in the compartment, sliding the

door shut behind me, I saw that there were four strangers in all, six people including Jock and

myself; we just made comfortable use of the eight seats which faced inwards in two sets of four.

I have always been a comparatively shy person so it was only the vaguest of perfunctory glances

which I gave to each of the three new faces before I settled back and took out the pocket-book I

had picked up earlier in the day in London.

Those merest of glances, however, were quite sufficient to put me off my book and to tell me that

the three friends of the pin-stripe jacketed man appeared the very strangest of traveling

companions - especially the extremely tall and thin member of the three, sitting stiffly in his

seat beside Jock. The other two answered to approximately the same description as Pin-Stripe - as

I was beginning mentally to tag him - except that one of them wore a thin moustache; but that

fourth one, the tall one, was something else again.

Within the brief duration of the glance I had given him I had seen that, remarkable though the

rest of his features were, his mouth appeared decidedly odd - almost as if it had been painted

onto his face - the merest thin red line, without a trace of puckering or any other depression to

show that there was a hole there at all. His ears were thick and blunt and his eyebrows were bushy

over the most penetrating eyes it has ever been my unhappy lot to find staring at me. Possibly

that was the reason I had glanced so quickly away; the fact that when I had looked at him I had

found him staring at me - and his face had been totally devoid of any expression whatsoever.

Fairies? The nasty thought had flashed through my mind unbidden; none the less, that would explain

why the door had been locked.

Suddenly Pin-Stripe - seated next to me and directly opposite Funny-Mouth - gave a start, and, as

I glanced up from my book, I saw that the two of them were staring directly into each other's

eyes.

'Tell them . . .' Funny-Mouth said, though I was sure his strange lips had not moved a fraction,

and again his voice had seemed distorted, as though his words passed through weirdly angled

corridors before reaching my ears.

'It's, er - almost midnight,' informed Pin-Stripe, grinning sickly first at Jock and then at me.

'Aye,' said Jock sarcastically, 'happens every nicht aboot this time . . . Ye're very observant .

. .'

'Yes,' said Pin-Stripe, choosing to ignore the jibe, 'as you say - but the point I wish to make is

that we three, er, that is, we four,' he corrected himself, indicating his companions with a nod

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of his head, 'are members of a little-known, er, religious sect. We have a ceremony to perform and

would appreciate it if you two gentlemen would remain quiet during the proceedings . . .' I heard

him out and nodded my head in understanding and agreement - I am a tolerant person - but Jock was

of a different mind.

'Sect?' he said sharply. 'Ceremony?' He shook his head in disgust. 'Well; Ah'm a member o' the

Church o' Scotland and Ah'll tell ye noo - Ah'll hae no truck wi' bleddy heathen ceremonies . . .'

Funny-Mouth had been sitting ram-rod straight, saying not a word, doing nothing, but now he turned

to look at Jock, his eyes narrowing to mere slits; above them, his eyebrows meeting in a black

frown of disapproval.

'Er, perhaps it would be better,' said Pin-Stripe hastily, leaning across the narrow aisle towards

Funny-Mouth as he noticed the change in that person's attitude, 'if they, er, went to sleep . . .

This preposterous statement or question, which caused Jock to peer at its author in blank

amazement and me to wonder what on earth he was babbling about, was directed at Funny-Mouth who,

without taking his eyes off Jock's outraged face, nodded in agreement.

I do not know what happened then - it was as if I had been suddenly unplugged - I was asleep, yet

not asleep - in a trance-like condition full of strange impressions and mind-pictures - abounding

in unpleasant and realistic sensations, with dimly-recollected snatches of previously absorbed

information floating up to the surface of my conscious mind, correlating themselves with the

strange people in the railway compartment with me . . .

And in that dream-like state my brain was still very active; possibly fully active. All my senses

were still working; I could hear the clatter of the wheels and smell the acrid tang of burnt

tobacco from the compartment's ash-trays. I saw Moustache produce a folding table from the rack

above his head - saw him open it and set it up in the aisle, between Funny-Mouth and himself on

their side and Pin-Stripe and his companion on my side - saw the designs upon it, designs

suggestive of the more exotic work of Chandler Davies, and wondered at their purpose. My head must

have fallen back until it rested in the corner of the gently rocking compartment, for I saw all

these things without having to move my eyes; indeed, I doubt very much if I could have moved my

eyes and do not remember making any attempt to do so.

I saw that book - a queerly bound volume bearing its title, The Tuscan Rituals, in archaic, burnt-

in lettering on its thick spine - produced by Pin-Stripe and opened reverently to lie on that

ritualistic table, displayed so that all but Funny-Mouth, Jock, and I could make out its

characters. But Funny-Mouth did not seem in the least bit interested in the proceedings. He gave

me the impression that he had seen it all before, many times . . .

Knowing I was dreaming - or was I? - I pondered that title, The Tuscan Rituals. Now where had I

heard of such a book or books before? The feel of it echoed back into my subconscious, telling me

I recognized that title - but in what connection?

I could see Jock, too, on the fixed border of my sphere of vision, lying with his head lolling

towards Funny-Mouth -in a trance similar to my own, I imagined - eyes staring at the drawn blinds

on the compartment windows. I saw the lips of Pin-Stripe, out of the corner of my right eye, and

those of Moustache, moving in almost perfect rhythm and imagined those of Other - as I had named

the fourth who was completely out of my periphery of vision - doing the same, and heard the low

and intricate liturgy which they were chanting in unison.

Liturgy? Tuscan rituals? Now what dark 'God' was this they worshipped? . . . And what had made

that thought spring to my dreaming or hypnotized mind? And what was Moustache doing now?

He had a bag and was taking things from it, laying them delicately on the ceremonial table. Three

items in all; in one corner of the table, that nearest Funny-Mouth. Round cakes of wheat-bread in

the shape of wheels with ribbed spokes. Now who had written about offerings of round cakes of- . .

. ?

Festus? Yes, Festus - but, again, in what connection?

Then I heard it. A name: chanted by the three worshippers, but not by Funny-Mouth who still sat

aloofly upright.

'Summanus, Summanus, Summanus . . .' they chanted; and suddenly, it all clicked into place.

Summanus! Of whom Martianus Capella had written as being The Lord of Hell... I remembered now. It

was Pliny who, in his Natural History, mentioned the dreaded Tuscan Rituals, 'books containing the

Liturgy of Summanus . . .' Of course; Summanus - Monarch of Night - The Terror that Walketh in

Darkness; Summanus, whose worshippers were so few and whose cult was surrounded with such mystery,

fear, and secrecy that according to St Augustine even the most curious enquirer could discover no

particular of it.

So Funny-Mouth, who stood so aloof to the ceremony in which the others were participating, must be

a priest of the cult.

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Though my eyes were fixed - my centre of vision being a picture, one of three, on the compartment

wall just above Moustache's head - I could still clearly see Funny-Mouth's face and, as a blur to

the left of my periphery, that of Jock.

The liturgy had come to an end with the calling of the 'God's' name and the offering of bread. For

the first time Funny-Mouth seemed to be taking an interest. He turned his head to look at the

table and just as I was certain that he was going to reach out and take the bread-cakes the train

lurched and Jock slid sideways in his seat, his face coming into clearer perspective as it came to

rest about half-way down Funny-Mouth's upper right arm. Funny-Mouth's head snapped round in a blur

of hate. Hate, livid and pure, shone from those cold eyes, was reflected by the bristling eyebrows

and tightening features; only the strange, painted-on mouth remained sterile of emotion. But he

made no effort to move Jock's head.

It was not until later that I found out what happened then. Mercifully my eyes could not take in

the whole of the compartment - or what was happening in it. I only knew that Jock's face, little

more than an outline with darker, shaded areas defining the eyes, nose, and mouth at the lower rim

of my fixed 'picture,' became suddenly contorted; twisted somehow, as though by some great emotion

or pain. He said nothing, unable to break out of that damnable trance, but his eyes bulged

horribly and his features writhed. If only I could have taken my eyes off him, or closed them

even, to shut out the picture of his face writhing and Funny-Mouth staring at him so terribly.

Then I noticed the change in Funny-Mouth. He had been a chalky-grey colour before; we all had, in

the weak glow from the alternatively brightening and dimming compartment ceiling light. Now he

seemed to be flushed; pinkish waves of unnatural colour were suffusing his outré features and his

red-slit mouth was fading into the deepening blush of his face. It almost looked as though . . .

My God! He did not have a mouth. With that unnatural reddening of his features the painted slit

had vanished completely; his face was blank beneath the eyes and nose.

What a God-awful dream. I knew it must be a dream now - it had to be a dream - such things do not

happen in real life. Dimly I was aware of Moustache putting the bread-cakes away and folding the

queer table. I could feel the rhythm of the train slowing down. We must be coming into Grenloe.

Jock's face was absolutely convulsed now. A white, twitching, jerking, bulge-eyed blur of hideous

motion which grew paler as quickly as that of Funny-Mouth - if that name applied now - reddened.

Suddenly Jock's face stopped its jerking. His mouth lolled open and his eyes slowly closed. He

slid out of my circle of vision towards the floor.

The train was moving much slower and the wheels were clacking over those groups of criss-crossing

rails which always warn one that a train is approaching a station or depot. Funny-Mouth had turned

his monstrous, nightmare face towards me. He leaned across the aisle, closing the distance between

us. I mentally screamed, physically incapable of the act, and strained with every fibre of my

being to break from the trance which I suddenly knew beyond any doubting was not a dream and never

had been . . .

The train ground to a shuddering halt with a wheeze of steam and a squeal of brakes. Outside in

the night the station-master was yelling instructions to a porter on the unseen platform. As the

train stopped Funny-Mouth was jerked momentarily back, away from me, and before he could bring his

face close to mine again Moustache was speaking to him.

There's no time, Master - this is our stop. . .' Funny-Mouth hovered over me a moment longer,

seemingly undecided, then he pulled away. The others filed past him out into the corridor while he

stood, tall and eerie, just within the doorway. Then he lifted his right hand and snapped his

fingers.

I could move. I blinked my eyes rapidly and shook myself, sitting up straight, feeling the pain of

the cramp between my shoulder-blades.

'I say . . .' I began.

'Quiet' ordered that echoing voice from unknown spaces - and of course, his painted, false mouth

never moved. I was right; I had been hypnotized, not dreaming at all. That false mouth - Walker in

Darkness - Monarch of Night - Lord of Hell - the Liturgy to Summanus . . .

I opened my mouth in amazement and horror, but before I could utter more than one word -

'Summanus'- something happened.

His waist-coal slid to one side near the bottom and a long, white, tapering tentacle with a blood-

red tip slid into view. That tip hovered, snake-like, for a moment over my petrified face - and

then struck. As if someone had taken a razor to it, my face opened up and the blood began to gush.

I fell to my knees in shock, too terrified even to yell out, automatically reaching for my

handkerchief; and when next I coweringly looked up, Funny-Mouth had gone.

Instead of seeing him - It -I found myself staring, from where I kneeled dabbing uselessly at my

face, into the slack features of the sleeping Jock.

Sleeping?

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I began to scream. Even as the train started to pull out of the station I was screaming. When no

one answered my cries, I managed to pull the communication-cord. Then, until they came to find out

what was wrong, 1 went right on screaming. Not because of my face - because of Jock . . .

A jagged, bloody, two-inch hole led clean through his jacket and shirt and into his left side -

the side which had been closest to . . . to that thing-and there was not a drop of blood in his

whole, limp body. He simply lay there - half on, half off the seat - victim of 'a bleddy heathen

ceremony' -substituted for the bread-cakes simply because the train had chosen an inopportune

moment to lurch - a sacrifice to Summanus . . .

BACK ROW

I'll tell it exactly the way it happened.

They were showing a love story at the Odeon, a classic from years dead and all but forgotten. The

first time I'd seen this picture had been with my wife - would you believe, thirty years ago? The

picture had outlasted her, if not our love. Maybe that's why I wanted to see it again.

I picked a rainy Wednesday afternoon. No kids hooting and gibbering in the back rows, maybe a pair

or two of lovers in the double seats back there, snuggling up to each other and blissfully,

deliciously secure and secretive in the dark. I'd been young myself, once. But what with this

ancient film and the middle of the week, and the miserable weather, the old Odeon should be just

about empty; maybe a few dodderers like myself, down at the front where their eyes wouldn't feel

the strain.

But not me, I'd be up in the gods, in the next but back row. Along with my memories, my eyes

seemed to be the only things that hadn't faded on me.

I was there waiting for the doors to open, my collar turned up, a fifty-pence piece ready in my

hand. That's one mercy: we oldies can get in cheap. Cheap? Hah! I remember when it was thruppence!

And these two kids in front of me, why, they'd be paying maybe two pounds each! For a bit of

privacy, if you can call it that, in a mouldy old flea-trap like the Odeon.

Behind me a handful of people had gathered: Darby and Joans, some of them, but mainly singles.

Most of them were pensioners like myself, out chasing memories of their own, I

supposed. And we all stood there waiting for the doors to open.

I had to look somewhere, and so I looked ahead of me, at these two kids. Well, I didn't actually

look at them -I mean you don't, do you? I looked around them, over them, through them, the way you

do. But something of them stuck to my mind - not very much, I'm afraid.

The lad would be eighteen, maybe nineteen, and the girl a couple of years younger. I didn't fix

her face clearly, mind you, but she was what they call a looker: all pink and glowing, and a bit

giggly, with a mass of shiny black hair under the hood of her bright red plastic rain-mac. White

teeth and a stub of a nose, and eyes that sparkled when she smiled. A right Little Red Riding-

Hood! And all of it in little more than sixty-two or -three inches; but then again they say nice

things come in small packages. Damned if I could see what she saw in him! But she clung to him so

close it was like he'd hypnotized her. And you know, I had to have a little smile to myself?

Jealousy, at my age!

About the lad: he was pale, gangly - or 'gawky' as we'd say in my neck of the woods - hollow-

cheeked; he looked like someone had been neglecting him. A good feed would fix him up no end. But

it probably wouldn't fix the fishy, unblinking stare that came through those thick-lensed

spectacles of his. He wore a black mac a bit small for him, which made his wrists stick out like

pipe-stems. A matched couple? Hardly, but they do say that opposites attract . . .

Anyway, before I could look at them more closely, if I'd wanted to, we went in.

The Odeon's a dowdy place. It always has been. Twenty years ago it was dowdy, since when it's well

past the point of no return. The glitter's gone, I'm afraid and no putting it back. But I'll say

one thing for it: they've never called bingo

there. When telly came in and the cinemas slumped, the old Odeon continued to show films; somehow

it came through it, but not without its share of scars.

These days . . . well, you could plaster and paint all you liked, and you still wouldn't cover up

all the wrinkles. It would be like an old woman putting on her war-paint: she'd still come out

mutton dressed as lamb. But that's the old Odeon: even with the lights up full, the place seems so

dim as to be almost misty. Misty, yes, with that clinging miasma of old places. Not haunted, no,

but old and creaking and about ready to be pulled down. Or maybe my eyes weren't so good after

all, or perhaps there's a layer of dust on the light-bulbs in the high ceiling . . .

I went upstairs (taking it easy, you know, and leaning on my stick a bit) and headed for my usual

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seat near the back. And sure enough the young 'uns were right there ahead of me, not in my row but

the one behind, at the very back -all very quiet and coy, they were - where they'd chosen one of

the double seats. But I hadn't noticed them buying sweets or popcorn at the kiosk in the shabby

foyer, so maybe they'd stay that way right through the show: nice and quiet.

Other patrons came upstairs, all heading for the front where there was a little more leg-room and

they could lean on the mahogany balcony and look down on the screen. When the lights started to go

down in that slow way of theirs, there couldn't have been more than two dozen people in all up

there, and most of them in the front two rows. Me and the kids, we had the back entirely to

ourselves. It was a poor showing even for a Wednesday; maybe there'd be more people in the cheap

seats downstairs.

In the old days this was the part I'd liked the best: the lights dimming, organ music (but only

recorded, even in my time), and the curtains on stage slowly swishing open to

reveal a dull, pearly, vacant screen. Then there'd be The Queen and the curtains would close again

while the lights died completely. Followed by a supporting film, a cartoon, the trailers, and

finally the feature film. Oh, yes - and between the cartoon and the main show there'd be an

intermission, when the ice-cream ladies would come down the aisles with their trays. And at the

end, The Queen again. Funny thing, but I can't go back as far as The King. I mean, I can, but my

memory can't or won't! And even remembering what I can, I'm not sure I have it exactly right.

That's what getting old does to you. Anyway, the whole thing from going in to coming out would

last two and a half to maybe three whole hours! That was value.

Nowadays . . . you get the trailer, local advertisements, the feature film - and that's it. Or if

you're lucky there might be a short supporting picture. And here's me saying I was surprised at

the poor turnout.

Well, the trailers weren't much, and the local ads were totally colourless and not even up to date

- Paul's Unisex Hairdressing Salon had shut down months ago! Then the briefest of brief intervals

when the lights came half-way up; and suddenly it dawned on me that I hadn't heard a peep out of

the young couple behind me in the back row. Well, maybe the very faintest whisper or giggle or

two. Certainly nothing to complain about.

The seats were stepped down in tiers from the back to the balcony, so that my row of seats was

maybe six inches lower than theirs. I sneaked a backward glance and my eyes trapped just a

snapshot of the two sitting there very close, wasting half their seat, the girl crammed in one

corner with the pale lad's black-clad arm thrown lightly round her red-clad shoulders. And his

fish-eyes behind their thick lenses, swivelling to meet mine, expressionless but probably wishing

I'd go away. Then it was dark again and the titles rolling, and me

settling down to enjoy this old picture, along with one or two old-fashioned memories.

That was when it started; the carrying-on in the back row. Of course I had seen it coming: when

I'd glanced back at them, those kids had still been wearing their rain-macs. You don't have to be

a dirty old man to see through that old ploy. It's amazing what can go on - or come off- under a

rain-mac.

Very soon buttons would slowly be giving way, one by one, to trembly, groping fingers under the

shiny plastic; garments would be loosened, warm, naked flesh cautiously exposed - but not to view.

No usherette's torch beam would find them out, and certainly not the prying eyes of some old

duffer in the row in front. Indeed, the fact that I was there probably added to their excitement.

It amused me to think of myself as a prop in their loveplay, a spanner in their wet works, whom

they must somehow deceive even knowing that I wasn't deceived.

And all the time this sick-looking excuse for a youth pretending the exploratory hand had nothing

to do with him, and the girl pretending to be completely unaware of its creeping advance toward

her nipples. And they'd only be its first objective. All of this assuming, of course, that they

were just beginners. Oh, yes - it's a funny business, love in the back row of a cinema.

First there was the heavy breathing. Ah, but there's heavy breathing and there's heavy breathing!

And the moaning, very low at first but gradually becoming more than audible. I quickly changed my

mind, restructured the scenario I'd devised for them. They weren't new to it, these two; by now

all the buttons would be loose, and just about everything else for that matter! No exploratory

work here. This was old ground, gone over many, many times before, together or with others; no

prelude but a full-blown orchestration, which would gradually build to a crescendo.

Would they actually do it, I wondered? Right there in the back row? Fifteen minutes ago I'd seen

myself as some sort of obstacle they'd have to overcome; now I was thinking they didn't give a

damn about me, didn't care that I was there at all. I might as well not exist for these two, not

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here, not tonight. They had the darkness and each other - what the hell was the presence of one

old man, who was probably deaf anyway?

A knee had found its way up onto the curved collar of my seat back; I felt its gentle pressure,

then its vibration starting up like a mild electric current, building to a throb that came right

through the wood and the padding to my shoulders. A knee-trembler, we'd called it in my day, when

the body's passion is too great to be contained. And all the time the moaning increasing in pitch,

until it rose just a little above the whirring of the projector where it aimed its white,

flickering curtain of beams at the screen to form the moving pictures.

It dawned on me that I was a voyeur. Without even looking at them 1 was party to their every

action. But an unwilling party . . . wasn't I? I had come here to watch a film, not to be caught

up in the animal excitement of lusting lovers. And yet I was caught up in it!

They'd aroused me - me, an old man. With their panting and moaning and slobbering. I was sweating

with their sweat and shaking with their vibrations; and all I could do was sit there, stricken and

trembling like a man immobilized as by the touch of some strange female's hand in his most private

place; yes, actually feeling as if some unknown woman had taken the seat next to mine and started

to fondle me! That's how engrossed I had become with what was happening behind me, there in the

back row.

Suddenly I was startled to realize that we were into the last reel. My God! - but what had

happened here? Where

had my film and my memories gone? A little bit of nostalgia was all I had wanted. And I'd missed

it all, everything, because of them.

Them . . .

Why, I could even smell them now! Musty, sweet, sweaty, sexual, biological! I could smell sex! And

a mouth gobbling away at flesh only inches from my ears! And a frantic gasping coming faster and

faster, bringing pictures of some half-exhausted dog steaming away on a bitch!

Lovers? Animal excitement? They were animals! Young animals - and right now they were feasting on

each other like . . . like vampires! Oh, I suppose you could call it petting, kissing,

'canoodling' - but it wasn't the kind I used to do. Not the kind me and my lass had indulged in,

all those years ago. Kissing? I could hear them sucking at each other, foaming away like hard acid

eating into soft wood. And suddenly I was angry.

Angry with myself, with them, with everything. The film had only fifteen minutes to run and

everything felt . . . ruined. Well, now I'd ruin it for them. For him, anyway. You won't come, you

young bugger! I thought. You've denied me my pleasure, and now I'll deny you yours.

Abruptly I turned the top half of my body, my head, and spat out: 'Now listen, you two-'

They were like one person, fused together, almost prone on their long seat. The hoods of their

macs were up and crushed together, and I swear that I saw steam - the smoke of their sex -

escaping from the darkness where their faces were locked like tightly-clasped hands. The

slobbering stopped on the instant, and a moment later ... I heard a growl!

No, a snarl! A warning not to interfere.

Oh, pale and sickly he might have seemed, but he was young and I was old. His bones would bend

where mine would break like twigs. I could feel his contempt like a

physical thing; I had been feeling it for the last ninety minutes. Of course, for who else but a

contemptuous lout would have dared all of this with me sitting there right in front of him? And

the girl was just as bad if not worse!

'I... I... I'm disgusted!' I mumbled. And then I quickly turned my face back to the screen, and

watched the rest of the film through a wash of hot, shameful tears.

Just before the lights went up I thought I heard them leave. At least I heard light footsteps

treading the carpet along the back row, receding. Of course it could be the girl, on her own,

going to 'tidy herself up' in the Ladies. And because he might still be there behind me, sneering

at me, I didn't look to see.

Then the film was over, and as the people down front began filing out, still I sat there. Because

I could still feel someone behind me, hot and salty. Because it might be him and he'd look at me,

fishy-eyed and threatening, through those steamed-up glasses of his.

Eventually I had to make a move. Maybe they'd both gone after all and I was just an old coward. I

stood up, glanced into the back row, and saw-

God! What had he done to her?

The rain mac was open top to bottom. She - what was left of her - was slumped down inside it.

There was very little flesh on her face, just raw red. Breasts had gone, right down to steaming

ribs. The belly was open, eviscerated, a laid back gash that opened right down to the spread

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thighs. There were no innards, no sexual parts left at all down there. If I hadn't seen her

before, I couldn't even have said it was a girl at all.

These were my thoughts before I noticed the true colour of the mac. I had only thought it was red

at first glance, because my mind hadn't been able to accept so much red that wasn't plastic. And I

saw his specs, crushed and broken on the blackened, blood-soaked baize of the double seat . . .

That's my statement, Sergeant, and there's nothing else I can tell you - except that there's

something terrible loose in this town that eats living guts and looks like a pretty girl.

THE STRANGE YEARS

He lay face-down on the beach at the foot of a small dune, his face turned to one side, the summer

sun beating down upon him. The clump of beach-grass at the top of the dune bent its spikes in a

stiff breeze, but down here all was calm, with not even a seagull's cry to break in upon the

lulling hush, hush of waves from far down the beach.

It would be nice, he thought, to run down the beach and splash in the sea, and come back dripping

salt water and tasting it on his lips, and for the very briefest of moments be a small boy again

in a world with a future. But the sun beat down from a blue sky and his limbs were leaden, and a

great drowsiness was upon him.

Then ... a disturbance. Blown on the breeze to climb the far side of the dune, flapping like a

bird with broken wings, a slim book - a child's exercise book, with tables of weights and measures

on the back - flopped down exhausted in the sand before his eyes. Disinterested, he found strength

to push it away; but as his fingers touched it so its cover blew open to reveal pages written in a

neat if shaky adult longhand.

He had nothing else to do, and so began to read . . .

•When did it begin? Where? How? Why?

The Martians we might have expected (they've been frightening us long enough with their tales of

invasion from outer space) and certainly there have been enough threats from our Comrades across

the water. But this?'

'Any ordinary sort of plague, we would survive. We always have in the past. And as for war:

Christ! - when has there not been a war going on somewhere? They've irradiated us in Japan,

defoliated us in Vietnam, smothered us in DDT wherever we were arable and poured poison into us

where we once flowed sweet and clean - and we always bounced right back.

'Fire and flood - even nuclear fire and festering effluent -have not appreciably stopped us. For

"They" read "We", Man, and for "Us" read "the World", this Earth which once was ours. Yes, there

have been strange years, but never a one as strange as this.

'A penance? The ultimate penance? Or has Old Ma Nature finally decided to give us a hand? Perhaps

she's stood off, watching us try our damnedest for so damned long to exterminate ourselves, and

now She's sick to death of the whole damned scene. "OK," She says, "have it your own way." And She

gives the nod to Her Brother, the Old Boy with the scythe. And He sighs and steps forward, and-

'And it is a plague of sorts; and certainly it is DOOM; and a fire that rages across the world and

devours all... Or will that come later? The cleansing flame from which Life's bright phoenix shall

rise again? There will always be the sea. And how many ages this time before something gets left

by the tide, grows lungs, jumps up on its feet and walks . . . and reaches for a club?

' When did it begin?

T remember an Irish stoker who came into a bar dirty and drunk. His sleeves were rolled up and he

scratched at hairy arms. I thought it was the heat. "Hot? Damned right, sur," he said, "an' hotter

by far down below - an' lousy!" He unrolled a newspaper on the bar and vigorously brushed at his

matted forearm. Things fell on to the newsprint and moved, slowly. He popped them with a

cigarette. "Crabs, sur!" he cried. "An' Christ - they suck like crazy!" '

'When?'

'There have always been strange years - plague years, drought years, war and wonder years - so

it's difficult to pin it down. But the last twenty years . . . they have been strange. When,

exactly! Who can say? But let's give it a shot. Let's start with the '70s - say, '76? - the

drought.

'There was so little water in the Thames that they said the river was running backwards. The

militants blamed the Soviets. New laws were introduced to conserve water. People were taken to

court for watering flowers. Some idiot calculated that a pound of excreta could be satisfactorily

washed away with six pints of water, and people put bricks in their WC cisterns. Someone else said

you could bathe comfortably in four inches of water, and if you didn't use soap the resultant mud

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could be thrown on the garden. The thing snowballed into a national campaign to "Save It!" - and

in October the skies were still cloudless, the earth parched, and imported rainmakers danced and

pounded their tom-toms at Stonehenge. Forest and heath fires were daily occurrences and reservoirs

became dustbowls. Sun-worshippers drank Coke and turned very brown . . .

'And finally it rained, and it rained, and it rained. Widespread flooding, rivers bursting their

banks, gardens (deprived all summer) inundated and washed away. Millions of tons of water, and not

a pound of excreta to be disposed of. A strange year, '76. And just about every year since, come

to think.

'77, and stories leak out of the Ukraine of fifty thousand square miles turned brown and utterly

barren in the space of a single week. Since then the spread has been very slow, but it hasn't

stopped. The Russians blamed "us" and we accused "them" of testing a secret weapon.

"79 and '80, and oil tankers sinking or grounding themselves left, right and centre. Miles-long

oil slicks and chemicals jettisoned at sea, and whales washed up on the beaches, and Greenpeace,

and the Japanese slaughtering

dolphins. Another drought, this time in Australia, and a plague of mice to boot. Some Aussie

commenting that "The poor 'roos are dying in their thousands - and a few aboes, too . . ." And

great green swarms of aphids and the skies bright with ladybirds.

'Lots of plagues, in fact. We were being warned, you see?

'And '84! Ah - 1984! Good old George!

'He was wrong, of course, for it wasn't Big Brother at all. It was Big Sister - Ma Nature Herself.

And in 1984 She really started to go off the rails. '84 was half of India eaten by locusts and all

of Africa down with a mutant strain of beriberi. '84 was the year of the poisoned potatoes and

sinistral periwinkles, the year it rained frogs over wide areas of France, the year the cane-pest

shot sugar beet right up to the top of the crops.

'And not only Ma Nature but Technology, too, came unstuck in '84. The Lake District chemically

polluted -permanently; nuclear power stations at Loch Torr on one side of the Atlantic and Long

Island on the other melting down almost simultaneously; the Americans bringing back a "bug" from

Mars (see, even a real Martian invasion); oil discovered in the Mediterranean, and new fast-

drilling techniques cracking the ocean floor and allowing it to leak and leak and leak - and even

Red Adair shaking his head in dismay. How do you plug a leak two hundred fathoms deep and a mile

long? And that jewel of oceans turning black, and Cyprus a great white tombstone in a lake of

pitch. "Aphrodite Rising From The High-Grade."

'Then '85 and '86; and they were strange, too, because they were so damned quiet! The lull before

the storm, so to speak. And then-'

'Then it was '87, '88 and '89. The American space-bug leaping to Australia and New Zealand and

giving both places a monstrous malaise. No one doing any work for six months; cattle and sheep

dead in their millions; entire cities

and towns burning down because nobody bothered to call out the fire services, or they didn't

bother to come . . . And all the world's beaches strewn with countless myriads of great dead

octopuses, a new species (or a mutant strain) with three rows of suckers to each tentacle; and

their stink utterly unbearable as they rotted. A plague of great, fat seagulls. All the major

volcanoes erupting in unison. Meteoric debris making massive holes in the ionosphere. A new,

killer-cancer caused by sunburn. The common cold cured! - and uncommon leprosy spreading like

wildfire through the Western World.

'And finally-

'Well, that was "When?". It was also, I fancy, "Where?" and "How?". As to "Why" - I give a mental

shrug. I'm tired, probably hungry. I have some sort of lethargy - the spacebug, I suppose - and I

reckon it won't be long now. I had hoped that getting this down on paper might keep me active,

mentally if not physically. But . . .

' Why?

'Well, I think I've answered that one, too.

'Ma Nature strikes back. Get rid of the human vermin. They're lousing up your planet! And maybe

that's what gave Her the idea. If fire and flood and disease and disaster and war couldn't do the

trick, well, what else could She do? They advise you to fight fire with fire, so why not vermin

with vermin?

'They appeared almost overnight, five times larger than their immediate progenitors and growing

bigger with each successive hatching; and unlike the new octopus they didn't die; and their

incubation period down to less than a week. The superlice. All Man's little body parasites, all of

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