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

'Train won't be along fer quarter of an 'our yet,' said the stationmaster, and went back into his office.

Leakey sat on an unpainted seat and stared over the wooden railing at the street a few yards below. Occasionally a passer-by would glance up, but most merely strolled past without seeing him. It struck Leakey that they were preoccupied; with what he could not know, but everybody who went by had an expectant air.

He grew tired of watching after a few minutes, and looked away over the roofs — to where something towered at the centre of town, between the station and a large hill, bare of trees, which rose behind the town. Leakey could not make it out, for the sunlight reflected dazzlingly from it; but it was shaped rather like a flagpole, with a round object atop it.

Still watching, he was vaguely aware of the stationmaster answering his office telephone, listening and then coming towards him.

"Fraid there won't be a train t'Exham t'day,' the man said behind him. 'Tree's fell an' blocked the line.'

Disappointed, Leakey did not look forward to a sojourn in Goatswood. 'What time's the next one back to Brichester, then?'

'Oh, there's only one t'day, an' that went about 'alf an 'our ago.'

Leakey did not recall passing a train on the opposite line, but at that moment he could only think of being stranded. 'But then — what am I going to do?'

'Only one thing y' can do — Stay at an 'otel in town fer the night.'

To give himself time to think, Leakey left the station and went for a meal at the Station Cafe opposite. The meal — sausage, egg and chips, all over-raw — was barely palatable, but he would not have enjoyed a better meal. The faces of the other customers were too grotesque, and he felt under the bulky suits and long dresses might lie the most revolting deformities. More, for the first time he was served by a waiter wearing gloves — and by what he could make out of the hands under them Leakey thought they were deservingly worn.

At the cash desk, he asked for directions to a hotel where he could spend the night.

'We've only one good hotel in town,' the cashier replied. 'That's in Central Place. No, you wouldn't know where that is; well, it's a square with an island in the middle, and a p — Anyway, you go along Blakedon Street—'

Leakey followed the cashier's directions and approached the town centre. He saw offices, department stores, public houses, cinemas, parked cars, all the attributes of any town centre; but he felt something unusual here — perhaps merely a strengthening of that expectancy he had remarked at the station.

Eventually he reached a large square, read the street sign and saw the neon Central Hotel at the other side. But his attention was immediately drawn to the metal pylon, fifty feet high, which rose from the centre of the square. At the top he saw a large convex lens surrounded by an arrangement of mirrors, and all hinged on a pivot attached to the ground by taut ropes.

Leakey stared at the object for so long that he caught someone watching him. He turned to the watcher and remarked: 'I'm curious because I'm from out of town — do you happen to know what that thing is?'

But the other merely peered at him wordlessly until Leakey glanced away in embarrassment; then hurried away. Baffled, Leakey made for the nearby hotel.

Once inside he felt relieved. The reception desk, the large foyer, the wide red-carpeted staircase, all seemed welcoming. He crossed to the reception desk and rang the bell.

'A room for the night?' repeated the middle-aged man who answered it. 'Yes, we do have one or two — I'm afraid they look out on the square, so you may be a bit troubled by noise. Twenty-seven and six bed and breakfast, is that all right?'

'Yes, that's fine,' Leakey replied, signing the book. He followed the manager upstairs.

On the landing, he asked: 'What's that thing in the square outside?'

'What? — oh, that? Just a local relic. You'll probably find out about it tonight.'

He opened a door marked no.7 and ushered Leakey into a thick-carpeted room furnished with a bed, dressing-table, bedside table with a framed photograph in the middle, and two wardrobes. Leakey entered and turned to ask the meaning of his remark, but the manager was already heading for the stairs. Shrugging, he went to the window and watched the crowd below. Strange, he thought — he had brought no luggage, yet the manager had not asked him to pay in advance.

He heard a train whistle, and idly looked towards the pillar of smoke. Then he threw up the window as he realised — the train had just left the station, and was speeding towards Brichesterl

He ran for the door, but in his hurry knocked the table to the floor, and he delayed to right it. His foot crunched on glass. It was the framed photograph, the glass smashed but the picture intact. He picked it up, turned it upright, and recoiled.

The thing in the picture was standing in a doorway. He could not believe it was alive — that pillar of white flesh supported on many-jointed bony legs tipped with great circular pads could never move about, let alone think. It had no arms, merely three spines which dug into the ground. But the head was worst — formed of thick coils of white jelly, covered with grey watery eyes, and at the centre was a huge toothed beak. And the thing that most troubled Leakey was none of these details, but only the idea that he had recently seen the doorway; not open as in the picture, but closed.

He threw open the bedroom door and thudded downstairs. The manager was standing by the reception desk, talking to a younger man behind it.

"There's a picture in my room! Did you put it there?' Leakey demanded.

'Why, no,' answered the manager. 'What sort of picture is this? I'd better have a look.'

He examined the photograph. 'This is peculiar, I must admit, but I didn't put it there. I wonder what it's supposed to be… Well, if it's getting on your nerves, I'll take it away.'

'No — no, don't do that,' Leakey told him. 'I'd like to examine it a bit more closely.'

When the manager had left, Leakey crossed again to the window. Looking out, he had the odd feeling that the crowd below were not passing through the square; more milling about to give that impression, but really awaiting something — and watching covertly. He noticed suddenly that all of them avoided the road opposite his window; a road which he saw was unusually wide and bordered by obviously disused buildings. Raising his gaze, Leakey discovered that the road connected the square to the large bare hill behind the town. There was a trail of faint marks on that road, but he could not make out any shape.

He looked towards the hill again, and saw the railway stretching into the distance. Then he remembered, and turned angrily to leave for the station.

At that moment the door slammed and a key turned in the lock.

Leakey threw his weight against the door, but he could hear at the same time something heavy being shoved against it from the outside. Nobody answered his irate shouts, and he ran for the window. Looking down he saw the wall below was smooth, devoid of handholds, and escape upward was just as difficult. He drew back at the thought of jumping to the street, and wondered frantically how he could escape. What lunatic had imprisoned him, and why? But the people of Goatswood were surely not all lunatics — perhaps he could attract the attention of someone in the street.

'Do you know how Goatswood got its name?' said a voice behind him.

Leakey whirled. Nobody was in the room with him.

'Did you ever hear of the Goat of Mendes?' continued the voice slowly, he realised, from beyond the door. 'Do you know what used to appear at the witches' sabbaths? Do you know about the Land of the Goat in the Pyrenees, or the Great God Pan? What about the Protean God? And the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young? '