Graham Masterton - Death Trance

I turned around. Jane was standing at the top of the stairs, her bare feet floating just a few inches above the second tread. She was still dressed in her white funeral robes, which silently fluttered as if they were being blown by an updraught. She was smiling at me, but there was something about her face which was even more skeletal than ever.

I turned away. I was determined not to look, not to listen. But Jane whispered, 'Don't forget me, John. Whatever you do, don't forget me.'

For a moment or two, I stood where I was, wondering whether I ought to speak to her: whether I ought to encourage her, or reassure her that I was going to save her, or whether I ought to tell her to go back to hell. But it probably wasn't her at all. It was probably nothing more than another of Mictantecutli 's evil apparitions; and there was no point in speaking to that.

I went out, closed the door behind me, and locked it. Then I walked away from Quaker Lane Cottage with as much determination as I could; promising myself that I wouldn't go back there until Mictantecutli had been raised from the harbour, and fulfilled for me its side of-the bargain we had made.

But I couldn't resist one last look at the blind and shuttered face of the house that had once been our home, Jane's and mine. It looked so derelict and abandoned, as if the malevolence that now infested it had begun to rot the very structure of the roof-beams, the very substance of the plaster and the brick. I turned on the car engine, engaged drive, and drove off down Quaker Lane, my wheels bouncing in the pot-holes and ruts.

I was only halfway down the lane when I saw Keith Reed, beating at the bushes along the left-hand side of the lane with a walking-cane. I drew up beside him, and put down my window.

'Keith? How are you doing?'

Keith glanced at me, and carried on thrashing at the bushes. 'I thought you wasn't speaking to me,' he said, crossly.

'I forgave you,' I told him. 'Did you lose something?'

'Lose something? Haven't you heard?'

'Heard what? I've been in and out of Granitehead like a monkey on a stick.'

Keith came over to the car, and leaned on the roof. He looked as tired and as anxious as I did, and his nose was running. I passed him a Kleenex from the glove-box, and he noisily blew. Then he said, 'We lost George.'

'You lost George? What do you mean, you lost George?'

'Just that. We lost him. He went out yesterday afternoon; said he was off to see his brother Wilf. Well, that's crazy, of course, because Wilf is dead. But we ain't seen George since then, and everybody's out searching for him.'

I sat behind the wheel of my car, and thoughtfully bit my lip. So Mictantecutli had claimed George Markham as well. I knew it. And although I wasn't going to tell Keith as much, because I didn't want to discourage him from searching, I knew in my heart of hearts that George was already dead, in the same way that Mrs Edgar Simons was dead, and Charlie Manzi, too.

‘I’ll keep my eyes open,' I said. ‘I’m going over to Tewksbury for a while, but I'll be back.'

'Okay,' said Keith; and as I drove away he went back across to the hedgerow, and carried on beating at the branches in his attempt to find his old stud-poker partner, dead or alive. I felt deeply depressed as I reached the highway, and turned south on to West Shore Drive. The power of the demon was hanging over Granitehead like an Atlantic thunderstorm; dark and threatening, a power so great that it could make the dead come to life and the sky turn black.

It was dark by the time I reached Tewksbury, and drew up outside the wrought-iron gates of old man Evelith's house. I rang the bell and waited for Quamus to open up for me, watched as before by the ever-attentive Doberman Pinscher. If I've ever seen a dog with a relish for human flesh, that dog was it. I could hear its claws clicking on the shingle driveway in carnivorous impatience.

As it was, it was Enid Lynch who called the dog off and came to open the gates for me. She was wearing an ankle-length satin dressing-gown in electric blue, with a white boa collar. Her hair was pinned back and fastened with diamante combs. She looked like Jean Harlow in Dinner At Eight. The only trouble was, I didn't feel very much like Wallace Beery.

'You decided to take Mr Evelith up on his offer?' she said, lifting one of her thinly-plucked eyebrows, and locking the gates behind me.

'Are you surprised?'

'I'm not sure. I would have thought you were the kind of man who would have preferred to stay at a Howard Johnson's.'

I followed her up the steps to the front door. 'I'm not sure whether I ought to take that as a compliment or not.'

She showed me upstairs to my suite of rooms. There was a large drawing-room, furnished with comfortable but stuffy old sofas and chairs, and carpeted in dark brown. On the walls were oil paintings of the Dracut County forests and the Miskatonic River; and next to the fireplace there were shelves packed with leather-bound books on geology and physics. There was a decent-sized bedroom, with a brass bed, and a huge gilt-framed mirror on the wall; and next to the bedroom there was an old-fashioned bathroom, with a shower that had obviously been dripping steadily for years, judging by the green stain on the tiles.

'I will tell Mr Evelith that you have arrived when he has finished his afternoon sleep.'

'It's evening already. Does he usually sleep this long?'

'It depends on his dreams. Sometimes he will fall asleep during the afternoon, and not wake up until early the following morning. He says he does as much work in dreams as he does when he is awake.'

'I see,' I said, setting down my suitcase.

Enid said, 'You may call me if there is anything that you need.'

'I'm fine for the moment. There's just one thing, though: a friend of mine is visiting me later this evening. Miss Gilly McCormick. I hope that's going to be all right.'

'Perfectly. Quamus will let her in.'

'Quamus isn't here right now?'

Enid stared at me oddly, as if the question wasn't even worth a reply. I snapped open the latches of my case, and tried to look as if I was engrossed in taking out my slippers. Enid said, 'We usually eat at nine o'clock. You like beef?'

'Certainly. That'll be marvelous.'

'Good. In the meantime, please make yourself at home. Mr Evelith said you were to have free access to the library.'

'Thank you. I'll, uh… see you later.'

I unpacked my shirts and my underwear and put them away in the deep sour-smelling drawers of the bureau in my bedroom. Then I wandered around my rooms, picking up books and statuettes, and peering out of the windows. My drawing-room had a view of the back garden, which was almost a forest in itself. It was too dark to see it properly, but I could make out the distant shapes of hundred-foot pines, and, closer to the house, a huge Os-age orange. There was no television in the room, and I made a mental note to myself to bring in a portable set tomorrow.;

Just as the clock on my mantelpiece chimed eight-thirty, ' and I was sitting with my feet up on one of the sofas trying to get myself engrossed in Stresses In The Mohorovicic Discontinuity, my door opened and old man Evelith walked in. He was fully dressed for dinner in a tuxedo and black tie, and his thinning gray hair was combed back with what smelled like lavender oil. He came up to me, and shook my hand, and then sat down next to me, smiling rather distantly, and turned over the cover of my book with his long chalk-nailed finger, to see what it was I was reading. 'Mmh,' he said. 'Do you know anything at all about Moho?'

'Moho?'

'Geological slang. If you did know anything about Moho, you'd know what it was. Still, I suppose we all have to start our studies somewhere. You could have picked a better place. That book Understanding Geology is probably more up your street.'