Haggopian and Other Stories (10 page)

“Ep ep fl’hur G’harne,

G’harne fhtagn Shudde-M’ell hyas Negg’h.

While chanting these incredible mouthings Sir Amery’s feet had started to pump up and down in a grotesque parody of running. Suddenly he screamed anew and with startling abruptness leapt past me and ran full tilt into the wall. The shock knocked him off his feet and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

I was worried that my meagre ministrations might not be adequate, but to my immense relief he regained consciousness a few minutes later. Shakily he assured me that he was “all right, just shook up a bit!” and, supported by my arm, he retired to his room.

That night I found it impossible to close my eyes so I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat outside my uncle’s room to be on hand if he were disturbed in his sleep. He passed a quiet night, however, and paradoxically enough, in the morning, he seemed to have got the thing out of his system and was positively improved.

Modern doctors have known for a long time that in certain mental conditions a cure may be obtained by inciting the patient to
re-live
the events which caused his illness. Perhaps my uncle’s outburst of the previous night had served the same purpose, or at least, so I thought, for by that time I had worked out new ideas on his abnormal behaviour. I reasoned that if he had been having recurrent nightmares and had been in the middle of one on that fateful night of the earthquake, when his friends and colleagues were killed, it was only natural that his mind should temporarily become somewhat unhinged upon waking and discovering the carnage. And if my theory were correct, it also explained his seismic obsessions…

IV

A week later came another grim reminder of Sir Amery’s condition. He had seemed so much improved, though he still occasionally rambled in his sleep, and had gone out into the garden “to do a bit of trimming.” It was well into September and quite chill, but the sun was shining and he spent the entire morning working with a rake and hedge clippers. We were doing for ourselves and I was just thinking about preparing the mid-day meal when a singular thing happened. I distinctly felt the ground
move
fractionally under my feet and heard a low rumble. I was sitting in the living room when it happened and the next moment the door to the garden burst open and my uncle rushed in. His face was deathly white and his eyes bulged horribly as he fled past me to his rooms. I was so stunned by his wild appearance that I had barely moved from my chair by the time he shakily came back into the room. His hands trembled as he lowered himself into an easy chair.

“It was the
ground
…I thought for a minute that the ground…” He was mumbling, more to himself than to me, and visibly trembling from head to toe as the after-effect of the shock hit him. Then he saw the concern on my face and tried to calm himself. “The ground. I was sure I felt a tremor—but I was mistaken. It must be this place. All that open space…I fear I’ll really have to make an effort and get away from here. There’s altogether too much soil and not enough cement! Cement surroundings are the thing…”

I had had it on the tip of my tongue to say that I too had felt the shock but upon learning that he believed himself mistaken I kept quiet. I did not wish to needlessly add to his already considerable disorders.

That night, after Sir Amery had retired, I went through into his study—a room which, though he had never said so, I knew he considered inviolate—to have a look at the seismograph. Before I looked at the machine, however, I saw the
notes
spread out on the table beside it. A glance was sufficient to tell me that the sheets of white foolscap were covered by fragmentary jottings in my uncle’s heavy handwriting and when I looked closer I was sickened to discover that they were a rambling jumble of seemingly disassociated—yet apparently
linked
—occurrences connected in some way with his weird delusions. These notes have since been delivered permanently into my possession and are as reproduced here:

HADRIAN’S WALL.

AD 122–128. Limestone Bank. (Gn’yah of the
Fragments
)???
Earth tremors
interrupted the diggings and that is why cut, basalt blocks were left in the uncompleted ditch with wedge holes ready for splitting

W’nyal-Shash
(MITHRAS).

Romans had their own deities
but it wasn’t Mithras
that the disciples of Commodus, the Blood Maniac, sacrificed to at Limestone Bank! And that was the same area where, fifty years earlier, a great block of stone was unearthed and discovered to be covered with
inscriptions
and
engraven pictures
! Silvanus the centurion defaced it and buried it again. A skeleton, positively identified as Silvanus’s by the signet ring on one of its fingers, has been lately found
beneath the ground (deep)
where once stood a Vicus Tavern at Housesteads Fort—but we don’t know
how
he vanished! Nor were Commodus’s followers any too careful. According to Caracalla they also vanished overnight—
during an earthquake
!

AVEBURY.

(Neolithic
A’byy
of the
Fragments
and
Pnakotic Mss???
) Reference Stukeley’s book,
A Temple to the British Druids
, incredible…Druids, indeed… But Stukeley nearly had it when he said Snake Worship!
Worms, more like it!

COUNCIL OF NANTES.

(9th century) The council didn’t know what they were doing when they said: “Let the
stones
also which, deceived by the derision of the
demons
, they worship amid ruins and in wooded places, where they both make their vows and bestow their
offerings
, be
dug up
from the very foundations, and let them be cast into such places as never will their devotees be able to find them again…” I’ve read that paragraph so many times that it’s become imprinted upon my mind!
God only knows what happened to the poor devils who tried to carry out the Council’s orders…

DESTRUCTION OF GREAT STONES.

In the 13th and 14th centuries the Church also attempted the removal of certain stones from Avebury because of local superstitions which caused the country folk to take part in
heathen worship
and
witchcraft
around them! In fact some of the stones
were
destroyed—by fire and douching—”because of the
devices
upon them.”

INCIDENT.

1920–25. Why was a big effort made to bury one of the great stones? An
earth-tremor
caused the stone to slip, trapping a workman.
No effort appears to have been made to free him
… The “accident” happened at dusk and two other men
died of fright
!
Why did other diggers flee the scene? And what was the titanic
thing
which one of them saw wriggling away
into the ground
? Allegedly the thing left monstrous
smell
behind it…
By their SMELL shall ye know them
… Was it a member of another nest of the timeless ghouls?

THE OBELISK.

Why was Stukeley’s huge obelisk broken up? The pieces were buried in the early 18th century but in 1833 Henry Browne found burnt
sacrifices
at the site… And nearby, at Silbury Hill…
My God! That devil-mound!
There are some things, even amidst these horrors, which don’t bear thinking of—and while I’ve still got my sanity Silbury Hill better remain one of them!

AMERICA: INNSMOUTH.

1928. What actually happened and why did the Federal government drop depth charges off Devil Reef in the Atlantic coast just out of Innsmouth? Why were half Innsmouth’s citizens banished? What was their connection with Polynesia and what also lies buried in the lands
beneath the sea
?

WIND WALKER.

(Death-Walker, Ithaqua, Wendigo etc….) yet
another
horror—though of a different
type
!
And such
evidence
!
Alleged
human sacrifices
in Manitoba. Unbelievable circumstances surrounding
Norris Case
! Spencer of Quebec University literally
affirmed
the validity of the case…And at…

But that is as far as the notes go and when I first read them I was glad that such was the case. It was quickly becoming all too apparent that my uncle was far from well and still not quite right in his mind. Of course, there was always the chance that he had written those notes
before
his seeming improvement, in which case his plight was not necessarily as bad as it appeared.

Having put the notes back exactly as I found them I turned my attention to the seismograph. The line on the graph was straight and true and when I dismantled the spool and checked the chart I saw that it had followed that almost unnaturally unbroken smoothness for the last twelve days. As I have said, that machine and my uncle’s condition were directly related and this proof of the quietness of the earth was undoubtedly the reason for his comparative well-being of late. But here was yet another oddity…  Frankly I was astonished at my findings for I was certain I had felt a tremor—indeed I had
heard
a low rumble—and it seemed impossible that both Sir Amery and myself should suffer the same, simultaneous sensory illusion. I rewound the spool and then, as I turned to leave the room, I noticed that which my uncle had missed. It was a small brass screw lying on the floor. Once more I unwound the spool and saw the counter-sunk hole which I
had
noticed before but which had not made an impression of any importance upon my mind. Now I guessed that it was meant to house that screw. I am nothing where mechanics are concerned and could not tell what part that small integer played in the workings of the machine; nevertheless I replaced it and again set the instrument in order. I stood then, for a moment, to ensure that everything was working correctly and for a few seconds noticed nothing abnormal. It was my ears which first warned of the change. There had been a low, clockwork hum and a steady, sharp scraping noise before. The hum was still attendant but in place of the scraping sound was a jerky scratching which drew my fascinated eyes to the stylus.

That small screw had evidently made all the difference in the world. No wonder the shock we had felt in the afternoon, which had so disturbed my uncle, had gone unrecorded. The instrument had not been working correctly
then—but now it was… Now it could be plainly seen that every few minutes the ground was being shaken by tremors which, though they were not so severe as to be felt, were certainly strong enough to cause the stylus to wildly zigzag over the surface of the revolving graph paper…

• • •

I felt in a far more shaken state than the ground when I finally retired that night. Yet I could not really decide the cause of my nervousness. Just why should I feel so apprehensive about my discovery? True, I knew the effect of the now—correctly?—working machine upon my uncle would probably be unpleasant and might even cause another of his “outbursts” but was that knowledge all that unsettled me? On reflection I could see no reason whatever why any particular area of the country should receive more than its usual quota of earth-tremors. Eventually I concluded that the machine was either faulty or far too sensitive and went to sleep assuring myself that the strong shock we had felt had been merely coincidental to my uncle’s condition. Still, I noticed before I dozed off that the very air itself seemed charged with a strange tension and the slight breeze which had wafted the late leaves during the day had gone completely, leaving in its passing an absolute quiet in which, during my slumbers, I fancied all night that the ground trembled beneath my bed…

V

The next morning I was up early. I was short of writing materials and had decided to catch the lone morning bus into Radcar. I left before Sir Amery was awake and during the journey I thought back on the events of the previous day and decided to do a little research while I was in the town. In Radcar I had a bite to eat and then I called at the offices of the
Radcar Recorder
where a Mr. McKinnen, a sub-editor, was particularly helpful. He spent some time on the office telephones making extensive enquiries on my behalf. Eventually I was told that for the better part of a year there had been no tremors of any importance in England, a point I would obviously have argued had not further information been forthcoming. I learned that there
had
been some
minor shocks
and that these had occurred at places as far as Goole, a few miles away (that one within the last twenty-four hours) and at Tenterden near Dover. There had also been a very minor tremor at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. I thanked Mr. McKinnen profusely for his help and would have left then—but, as an afterthought, he asked me if I would be interested in checking through the paper’s international files. I gratefully accepted and was left on my own to study a great pile of interesting translations. Of course, most of it was useless to me but it did not take me long to sort out what I was after. At first I had difficulty believing the evidence of my own eyes. I read that in August there had been ’quakes in Aisne of such severity that one or two houses had collapsed and a number of people had been injured. These shocks had been likened to those of a few weeks earlier at Agen in that they seemed to be caused more by some
settling of the ground
than by an actual tremor. In early July there had also been shocks in Calahorra, Chinchon and Ronda in Spain. The trail went as straight as the flight of an arrow and lay across—
or rather under
—the Straits of Gibralter to Xauen in Spanish Morocco, where an entire street of houses had collapses. Farther yet, to… But I had had enough. I dared look no more; I did not wish to know—not even remotely—the whereabouts of dead G’harne…