The Mammoth Book of Terror (25 page)

“Stephen!”

Her tone snapped him from his reverie.

“Sorry.” He found the wine and drank from the bottle ignoring the cups as he did the portraits. “I was thinking about something.”

“Tell me about it.”

“This is a vacation, darling, so why not enjoy it?” Rising, he moved to stand behind her, his hands dropping to her shoulders, moving lower in an intimate caress. “Two
people,” he whispered. “Lost in the hills. An old deserted house. The storm. A perfect setting for them to perform the act of love that confirms their union. Please, darling, I need
you.”

“Are you crazy!” Twisting in his arms she glared her distaste. “You want to use me? Here? Not on your life!”

Once she hadn’t been so particular. His hands cradled softness as thunder blasted the air with force enough to shake the window.

“See, my darling? The gods are with me. They demand we perform the ancient rite.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’ve had a drink,” he admitted. “But that has nothing to do with it. I want to make love to you. Here and now.” His fingers closed with sudden, hurtful strength.
“Damn it, woman, you’re my wife!”

“Don’t be an animal.” She rose, breaking his grasp as she stepped aside. “You think I’d do that? On the floor? Before them?” She gestured at the portraits,
her painted nails looking as if tipped with flame. “Look at them! Degenerates! Filthy lechers! Scum!”

“They’re only paint and canvas. If you want I’ll turn them to face the wall.”

“Won’t that spoil your fun?” She glared her anger. “Is that what you really want? To have others watch while you kiss and grope and slobber? You disgust me! Get out! You
drunken pervert! Get away from me! Leave me alone!”

He went with the wine, weaving down the stairs and into the hall, the gloom, the watchful eyes of painted faces. To a window where he stared into darkness, his features reflected in the pane. To
a spot on the floor where he sat and leaned his back against a wall. To finish the wine. To close his eyes. To sleep. To dream.

The house became alive with whispering susurrations. Figures moved, stepped from their frames, followed the steps of an elaborate saraband. All were men. No women. This house belonged to men and
he felt a part of it. Felt he had returned to something he had once known. A companionship that embraced him with its comfort. The storm murmured in the distance, walking the sky on feet of
lightning, talking in the voice of thunder. He stirred in his sleep as the dream turned into nightmare.

The figures became ghosts, which merged into him, sinking into his body as if he were a sponge absorbing their souls. They became him and became a host to them all. Together they roved through
the house and, as they roved, hunger came to join them.

A blast and the house shook to the dying fury of the storm and abruptly he was in a small, familiar room. One flanked by painted faces, the litter of a picnic spread before them. He wasn’t
alone.

Before him, facing him, a naked figure with a cleft chin and heavy jowls stooped and lifted things high into the air their juices dappling his face and head with carmine smears. Scraps that had
been torn from something lying on the floor, which had once been round and smooth with velvet skin and nails the colour of flame. Something that was now red all over.

Diane, her stomach ripped open, intestines spread in greasy ribbons. The proud breasts missing from the wall of her chest. Flesh torn from her buttocks, back, the soft flesh of her thighs.
Delicacies to feed a degenerated appetite. All illuminated by the guttering flame of a wick set in bowl of rancid, human fat. Light which shone on the prominent teeth of the ghoul as it feasted on
the body of the dead.

Stephen cried out and lunged forward and saw the creature vanished with the breaking of the bowl to leave only darkness and the crystalline shatter of the window it had broken. The mirror of the
night.

BRIAN MOONEY
’
S
FIRST PROFESSIONAL
sale was to
The London Mystery Selection
in 1971. Since
then, his fiction has been published in such anthologies and magazines as
The Pan Book
of Horror Stories, Dark Voices, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The
Mammoth Book of
Frankenstein, Final Shadows, Dark Horizons
and
Fiesta.

His adventures of the psychic detective Reuben Calloway have appeared in
Dark Detectives, Shadows Over Innsmouth, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu
Mythos #2
and
Kadath
, and the author is currently working on a new tale featuring the character.

“The idea for ‘Maypole’ came to me during a rail journey,” recalls the author, “and was just one of those odd chains of thought which lead to inspiration. The train
passed a field where a solitary tall post or stake had been driven into the ground. Several children were chasing each other around this post and it occurred to me that they had a ready-made
Maypole for May Day.

“This led me to remember something I had once read about the possible origin of the Maypole and in turn, the wonderful ‘What if . . .?’ question popped into my mind. I pulled
out a large notebook I had in my case and by the time I reached my destination, I had roughed out the opening section of the story.”

When the men arrived, one of them gave a sharp rap on the front door of the tied cottage and they entered unbidden. Comstock had prepared himself in the ordained fashion and he awaited them in
his cramped living room.

The mantel above the open fireplace was littered with tacky souvenirs and a wall-mounted pendulum clock ticked away the minutes of Comstock’s life. A battered Welsh dresser, its shelves
crammed with paperback Westerns, stood against one wall, while at the opposite was a folded dining-table with two ill-matched chairs. A greasy black leather sofa faced the television and the floor
was covered with a threadbare carpet. Amidst this mundane clutter, the men’s garb was incongruous and anachronistic.

The three newcomers were clothed in ankle-length white gowns, secured at the waist with silken cords, and their brows were adorned with circlets of some silvery metal.

In contrast, Thomas Comstock wore a coarse shift, several pieces of sacking loosely sewn together with light thread, which reached no further than his knees. His thick, reddish hair was crowned
with a wreath woven from young oak leaves.

The men nodded to each other but there was silence between them. All the visitors pressed Comstock’s hand and the biggest man patted him gently on the shoulder before indicating that they
should go. Comstock was careful to turn off the light before he left the cottage.

The air was sweet and mild after several days of warm weather but Comstock was unable to suppress a slight shiver. The giant saw and once more gave him a reassuring pat.

About half-a-mile distant, across the flat landscape, the angular shapes of village dwellings were silhouetted against a star-bright sky, the chunky tower of an ancient church looming above all
the others. There was a lazy breeze and Comstock thought that he could hear the creaking of the old sign at the pub. In the east, a rising full moon was shedding its mellow light over fields and
hedgerows.

They moved with slow but purposeful steps towards the moon, the limping man and his disfigured companion flanking Comstock, each lightly clasping one of his elbows.

The more than seventy-eight-inch bulk of the giant trod closely behind them. All knew that Comstock would not flee but each man was deeply imbued with a sense of occasion. More than that,
though. They were not merely an escort: they were also there to impart, by their presence and touch, some of their strength to Comstock. At times such as this, even the most stalwart man needed the
strength of his friends.

When at last they reached the appointed place – a large and freshly-ploughed field – a small crowd of some thirty to forty people awaited them. Many held fiery torches and all but
one wore long white robes. The exception was a woman lightly gowned in floating, pale-green chiffon which did little to conceal her slim body. A garland of wild flowers rested upon her cascade of
ash-blonde hair and from a fine gold cord about her waist was suspended a sickle, its curved blade gleaming. As Comstock’s escort faded back into the crowd, the green-clad woman and two
handmaidens advanced to greet him.

The woman took both of Comstock’s hands in hers, and he gazed at her with uncritical adoration, thinking as always how very beautiful she was.

“Welcome to this place, Thomas,” she said. “Do you come here of your own free will?”

“I come most willingly, Mother Priestess,” the man replied, rural burr contrasting strongly with her educated tones.

“Then hail and farewell, Thomas.” She moved closer, kissed him on the mouth, then seized and ripped his garment, tearing away the flimsy threads and leaving him naked. In the pallid
moonlight and the light shed by the flickering torches, his muscular torso and limbs spoke of peasant vitality and his erection appeared to be enormous.

The handmaidens began to caress Comstock’s body with light, butterfly strokes and the priestess gently clasped the rigid penis. Her fingers were long and elegant, her manipulations soft
and skilled. Thomas Comstock’s face was a graven mask of fierce pride.

The woman’s movements were languid at first, then became more urgent as the man’s breathing quickened. Suddenly he ejaculated, semen spurting silver in the moon’s glow. The
surrounding men and women echoed Thomas Comstock’s cry of ecstasy as if they too had climaxed. The priestess genuflected, tenderly cupping his testicles and the still engorged and throbbing
phallus in her left hand. Then with a swift upward stroke of the sickle she scythed Thomas Comstock’s genitals from his body!

A single shriek of anguish was torn from the man’s throat to be almost drowned by the shout of exultation which burst forth from the onlookers.

For several seconds, or for a thousand years, Comstock just stood there, gouts of blood spilling in a grisly second orgasm, spilling onto the seed he had shed and soaking with it into the soil.
Then, despite his agony, he began to run about the field, splashing his blood until his run became a stagger and his stagger a series of stumbles. He fell to his knees with head bowed, as if to
watch his own life flood out.

The priestess ran to Comstock, to kneel and cradle his head against her breasts, a living and pagan Pieta. He raised a tortured face to her and his voice was just a whisper. “Was I
worthy?”

Love shone from her eyes and her kiss was light upon his cheek. “The most worthy of all, Thomas,” she assured him.

He smiled a tired smile and nodded his thanks. Then he held his head back, exposing his throat for the final merciful stroke of the sickle.

Several men came and lifted his body with reverence, bearing it face down about the field so that as much as possible of the rich earth was sanctified by his precious blood.

Anthea had been sceptical when a friend, the principal of a sixth-form college, had approached her with the idea of conducting a class once or twice a week.

“Modern teenagers won’t be interested in folklore,” she had said.

“Don’t be cynical,” her friend had replied. “Give it a try and be surprised.”

So she had given it a try and had been happily surprised. Her students were aged between sixteen and eighteen, all of them studying subjects such as literature, history and religious studies.
They seemed to enjoy Anthea’s class although she was unsure whether it was because of the subject or because of the fund of often-bloody anecdotes she could tell them or because they were
proud of being taught by a genuine published writer.

“Listen carefully,” she said. “Beltane, Lughnassadh, Samhain and Imbloc.” They goggled at her and at the alien-sounding words. She snatched up a piece of chalk and
printed the four words on the blackboard. “Those were the four great festivals of the Celtic year. You may not know much about the Celts but you’ve almost certainly heard of their
priests, the Druids. Take a note of those names, discover what you can about them and we’ll discuss your findings at the next session. See if you can link them to any of the Christian
festivals or folk celebrations. If you look at the right sources, you’ll probably discover that by our standards the Druids were not nice people.”