Ramsey Campbell - The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

It was about a month later that he first wrote. His letter contained nothing extraordinary, yet as I look back on it I can see in almost everything intimations of things to come.

Thomas Cartwright,

Lakeside Terrace,

c/o Bold St Post Office,

Brichester, Glos.

3 October 1960

Dear Alan:

(Notice the address — the postman doesn't come anywhere near here, and I've got to go up to Bold Street every week and collect on a poste restante basis.)

Well, I've settled in here. It's very comfortable, except it's a bit inconvenient having the toilet on the third floor; I may have that altered one day — the place has been altered so much that more won't make any difference. My studio's upstairs, too, but I sleep downstairs as usual. I decided to move the table out to the back room, and between us we managed to get the bed into the front room, facing on to the lake.

After Joe left I went for a walk round. Took a glance into the other houses — you've no idea how inviting mine looks with all the lights on in the middle of those deserted shacks! I can't imagine anyone coming to live in them again. One of these days I really must go in and see what I can find — perhaps the rats which everyone took for 'ghosts.'

But about this business of haunting, something just struck me. Was what that family said they saw the first hint of the supernatural round here — because if it was, why are the other houses so dilapidated? It's all very well saying that they're so far away from everything, but they've been altered right and left, as you saw. Certainly at one time they were frequently inhabited, so why did people stop coming? Must tackle the estate agent about this.

When I'd finished peering round the houses, I felt like a walk. I found what looked like a path through the woods behind the house, so I followed it. I won't try that again in a hurry! — there was practically no light in there, the trees just went on into the distance as far as I could see, and if I'd gone much farther in I'd certainly have been lost. You could picture it — stumbling on and on into the dark, nothing to see except trees, closing in on every side… And to think those people brought a kid here!

Just finished my new painting. It shows these houses, with the lake in the foreground, and the bloated body of a drowned man at the edge of the water— Relentless Plague , I think. I hope they like it.

Yours, Thomas

P.S. Been having nightmares lately. Can never remember what they're about, but I always wake up sweating.

I wrote back an inconsequential reply. I deplored the macabre nature of his latest work — as I had always done — although, as I said, 'no doubt it will be appreciated for its technique.' I offered to buy anything he might be unable to get in Brichester, and made a few uninspired observations on life in Hoddesdon. Also, I think, I remarked: 'So you're having nightmares? Remember that the business with the last owners began with their boy having dreams.'

Cartwright replied:

10 October 1960

You don't know how lucky you are, having a post-box almost on your doorstep! My nearest one's nearly four miles away, and I get out there only on my way to Brichester, on Mondays and Saturdays — which means I have to write letters on Monday morning (as I'm doing now) or Sunday, and collect the replies on Saturday up at Bold Street.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to write to you about. I've gone and left some sketches in a cupboard in the studio of the Elizabeth Street house, and I was wondering if you could drop round there and perhaps drive up with them. If you can't, maybe you could call on Joe Bulger and get him to bring them up here. I'm sorry to be such a hell of a nuisance, but I can't do one of my paintings without them.

Yours, Thomas

My job was again very demanding, and I replied that I could not possibly leave town for some weeks. I could not very well refuse to contact Bulger, and on Wednesday evening on my way home from work I detoured to his house. Luckily, he had not left for his weekly cinema jaunt, and he invited me in, offering me a drink. I would have stayed longer, but my job was consuming even spare time, so I said:

'This isn't really a social call. I'm afraid I'm passing you a job which was detailed to me. You see, Cartwright wanted me to collect some drawings from his London studio in a cupboard, but my job's getting in the way — you know what it can be like. So if you could do it for me, and take a train down there with them..?'

Bulger looked a little reluctant, but he only said: 'All right — I'll try and save your face. I hope he doesn't want them in a desperate hurry — I'll be able to get them to him within the week.'

I got up to leave. At the door I remarked: 'Better you than me. You may have a bit of trouble in Elizabeth Street, because someone new's already moved in there.'

'You didn't tell me that before,' he protested. 'No, it's all right, I'll still go — even though I don't much like the idea of going to that lake.'

'How do you mean?' I asked. 'Something you don't like down there?'

Bulger shrugged. 'Nothing I could put my finger on, but I certainly wouldn't like to live down there alone. There's something about those trees growing so close, and that black water — as if there were things watching, and waiting … but you must think me crazy. There is one point, though — why were those houses built so far from everywhere? By that lake, too — I mean, it's hardly the first place you'd think of if you were going to build a row of houses. Who'd be likely to live there?'

As I drove back to Hoddesdon I thought about this. Nobody except someone seeking morbid inspiration, such as Cartwright, would live in such a place — and surely such people were not numerous. I planned to mention this to him in my next letter; perhaps he would discover something thus of why the houses had become untenanted. But as it happened, I was forestalled, as I discovered from his letter of the following Sunday.

16 October 1960

Well, Joe's come and gone. He couldn't get into my studio at first — the new people thought he made it all up so he could get in and steal the silver! Anyway, the Walkers next door knew him, so he finally got my sketches.

He was wondering why these houses were built in the first place. I don't know either — it never struck me before, but now I come to think about it I must find out sometime. Maybe I'll ask that estate agent about it next time I'm up Bold Street way. This may tell me why the places got so dilapidated, too. I get the idea that a band of murderers (or highwaymen, perhaps) could have operated from here, living off the passers-by; sort of L'Auberge Rouge stuff.

Joe left this afternoon… Sorry for the break, but actually I just broke off writing because I thought I heard a noise outside. Of course it must have been a mistake. Nobody could possibly be out there at this time (11 p.m.) — Joe left about seven hours back — but I could have sworn that somebody was yelling in the distance a few minutes ago; there was a sort of high-pitched throbbing, too, like an engine of some sort. I even thought that there was something white — well, a few white objects — moving on the other side of the lake; but of course it's too dark to see anything so far off. Certainly a lot of splashing began in the water about the same time, and it's only just dying down as I write this.

I'd still like you to come down for a few days. Christmas is getting near — maybe..?

Yours, Thomas

I was rather disturbed that he should imagine sounds in such a lonely area, and said as much. Although I, like Bulger, did not relish the idea of going to that half-lit woodland lake, I thought it might be best for me to visit Cartwright when I could, if only so he could talk to me and forget his pocket of desolation. There was less work for me now at the Inland Revenue, but it would be some weeks before I could visit him. Perhaps Bulger's call had lessened his introspection a little, though from his latest imaginings it did not seem so. I told him of my proposed stay with him when I wrote that Thursday.