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

Victoria Road was completely deserted, and the houses were lightless. He opened the front door, returned to drag the casket into the house, and dropped it in the living-room. He got a hammer from the kitchen and began to prise the nails out of the lid, until it was free. He lifted it and looked in.

An atrocious stench rose from the box. In the dream Owen felt no horror at the grey thing which stared up at him, but when a strange hypnosis rose from his mind, nausea started to bubble. Then he heard a movement in the coffin, and a rotting hand appeared over the edge. He screamed when the corpse rose and turned its head stiffly to look at him with yellow eyes. The peeling lips shifted, and a faint painful croaking moved the throat.

For a moment it held this position. Then the lower jaw dropped from the face with a sickening tearing of flesh, the head twisted at a greater angle and ripped from the neck to thud into the coffin. The headless object tottered for a moment, then it, too, collapsed into a black tangle already beginning to liquefy. The hypnosis was suddenly on Owen again, and he merely picked up the lid and began to nail it into place.

It did not take so long to fill in the grave, and he soon drove back to no. 7 and returned to his bedroom. At this point the dream ended, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning Owen awoke, sleepily swung his legs over the side, and stared at them in bewilderment. He turned toward a full-length mirror — and saw that he was fully dressed, down to his shoes, which were caked with earth. He knew that he had undressed the night before, but refused to accept the explanation his mind offered. Instinctively he went down to examine the car, stopping when he saw the vaguely rectangular six-foot depression on the back seat.

There was only one thing to do, and so Owen drove along the route of last night’s dream. He tried not to think that no dream could so point routes in an area he had never frequented, but could not avoid noticing that the graveyard was where he had dreamed it. He entered through the gateway and approached along the tombstone alleys. He found the stone easily enough; and though an inscription was roughly chipped" —Gladys Shorrock — died 1924: God grant she stay dead ”—no weeds grew on the grave, and the earth had been freshly dug.

Some hours later, Dr Nash arrived at no. 7 in answer to Owen’s telephone call, and listened to his story.

"I don’t quite know what you’ve done,” the doctor told him. "If I could look through these books… No, you read a paper or something. This isn’t the sort of thing you should read in your— condition.”

After a search of one nine-volume book, Dr Nash looked up. "I think I’ve got it,” he said. "But you won’t find it very pleasant — nor, perhaps, very credible.”

"Well, get it over with,” suggested Owen.

"It’s like this, then: since you entered that locked room, the— soul, spirit, life-force, whatever you like— of the witch has been co-existing in your body .”

"What?” exclaimed Owen, not quite incredulous. "But that can’t be! I–I don’t feel any different!”

"It’s the only thing that explains both these 'dreams’ and that pentacle. I think this influence is relatively dormant in the daytime, but at night it’s more potent, and seems to be using you actively. Now it must be finding you a bad host — after all, your decisions oppose it — and now it’s looking for another body. Gladys Shorrock wants to return — she tried to resurrect her own body first, but it was too far gone—”

"But how in hell can it be true? Nobody could know how to do this!”

"Gladys Shorrock was a witch, remember,” remarked Dr Nash. "She knew of a lot of things we can’t even imagine. I’ve been through these books of hers, you know, and read of some of the places she visited. She went to the lake in the woods some miles from here, and watched — from a distance — what happens at Goats-wood… There were other places, too — like the island of the white stone beyond Severnford which nobody visits; and she knew the secret of the evil clergyman at Severnford — that’s where she got the knowledge to make this — return.”

"And if this were true, what would this life-force do now?” "Well, it can’t use its own body, and doesn’t seem to find you very accommodating, so obviously it’ll have to find another body.” "But then what can we — what should we do?”

"I had thought of smashing that pentagram, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. The Revelations —that book I had there— doesn’t say what would happen, and it might harm you, as any great shock would. But it’ll probably send you out again, so I’d better take my car back — I don’t think there’s anywhere nearby that could harbor a body.”

"Oh, no, you don’t,” contradicted Owen. "I want to be able to get away from here quickly if I have to. Unless, of course, you stay with me — but you can’t do that every night.”

"I’m afraid I can’t even do it tonight,” said the doctor. "I have to go to Camside tonight — nobody else can go, and I certainly won’t get back before nine o’clock. Tell you what, though — as soon as I get back I’ll phone, and if you don’t answer I’ll come round at once. Hell, look at the time — I’ve got to go now. See you later, perhaps, and until then I’d advise you to drink as much black coffee as you can hold.”

Owen stood at the window, watching Dr Nash turn the corner, and repressing an urge to call him back. Suddenly the street lamps awoke, and he realized how near was the night.

He entered the kitchen and brewed a cup of black coffee. He returned to the living-room, sat down and reached for the cup on a nearby table. His hand slipped, the cup smashed on the floor, but he was all at once too weary to pick it up, and could only fall back in the chair, his eyes closing.

Soon he rose, started the car and drove away up the Hill. He reached a large building which he guessed was the hospital, and turned right. After that the road led him deeper into the country, through tree-colonnades and between green-white hills under a pallid half-moon. Then, instinctively, he pulled up the car between a dark wood and a hill. Taking a torch from the glove compartment, he began to climb the hill.

He reached a crudely rectangular entrance about halfway up, the interior in darkness. He glanced without revulsion at the gargoyle horror carved over the doorway, switched on the torch and started along the passage. He went along that passage for some time, noticing that the passage did not turn in its slight descent, but merely dwindled beyond his sight; and that the roughly chiseled marks on the walls pointed upward, as if carved from below.

Eventually he reached an alcove in the wall, and saw that in it lay a tightly fastened circular chest. He moved the chest, and innumerable long-legged spiders scurried out of a nest behind it, running over his hands into the darkness beyond. The chest was not three feet in diameter, but heavier than it appeared; yet he lifted it easily and soon carried it along the passage, down the hill and onto the back seat of the car, then driving back to Victoria Road.

Under the pale moon, he lifted the wooden chest and hurried with it into the living-room. He began to turn the strangely-hinged lever on the lid in a way that was somehow obvious to him; but the exertion he had undergone had taken its toll, and he let it snap back into place, exhausted.

At that moment the telephone rang, and he awoke.

So it was a dream! Then his eyes cleared, and he found himself standing in the living room near the telephone — close to a circular wooden chest.

For the moment he could only lunge for the telephone which had suddenly become his one hold on sanity, though something briefly tried to restrain him, and grab up the receiver.