Haggopian and Other Stories

The Kiss of Bugg-Shash

In 1972 in the UK, Sphere Books had published an anthology titled New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural, Vol 2, which contained among others a story called “Demoniacal” by David Sutton. This story seemed to me so very much a Mythos-story that I obtained David’s permission to write a sequel. The sequel was/is the following story. Both tales would later (1978) appear in tandem in a pamphlet from Jon M. Harvey’s small press (Spectre Press), under the title Cthulhu 3. I believe they’ve subsequently seen print in The Crypt of Cthulhu, edited by Robert M. Price, and likewise in Price’s Fedogan & Bremer anthology, The New Lovecraft Circle, 1995.

I

You let it out?” Thomas Millwright incredulously repeated Ray Nuttall’s obliquely offered admission. Alan Bart, Nuttall’s somewhat younger companion, nodded in eager if apprehensive agreement, shivering despite the warmth of the Londoner’s city flat.

“Yes, we did, sir,” he blurted. “But not intentionally, you must understand that. God, never that and certainly not if we’d known what we were doing, but—”

“Christ, Alan, but you’re gibbering!” Nuttall’s disgusted exclamation cut Bart off in mid-sentence, his weak eyes peering nervously about the flat and giving the lie to his cool controlled tone of voice. “I’m sure Mr. Millwright understands everything we’ve told him. There’s really no need to go on so.”

Alan Bart’s cynical-seeming friend had pulled himself together somewhat. He had accepted the horror of the thing far more readily than the younger man, since that series of events which three nights earlier had culminated when the two, albeit unwittingly, had indeed called up a demon, or demonic device, from nameless nether-gulfs into the world of men.

“Oh yes, I understand perfectly what you’ve told me,” answered the saturnine, dark-eyed occult scholar, “though I must admit to finding some difficulty in believing that—”

“That a couple of rank amateurs, bungling about with a rather weird and esoteric gramophone record and an evocation from some old eccentric’s book of spells, could actually conjure such a being?” Nuttall finished it for him.

“In a nutshell, yes…exactly.” The occultist made no bones of it. “Mind you, I can readily enough understand how you might have convinced yourselves that it was so. Self-hypnosis is the basis of many so-called cases of demonic possession.”

“We thought you might say something like that,” Nuttall told him, “but we can prove our story very easily.” His voice was suddenly trembling; he plainly fought to maintain a grip on himself. “However, it’s not a pleasant experience…”

“It’s horrible, horrible!” The younger man, Bart, jumped up. His normally sallow features were suddenly many shades lighter. “Don’t make us prove it, Mr. Millwright! Not that again, God, not that!” his voice began to rise hysterically.

“You needn’t stay for it, Alan,” Nuttall took pity on the weaker man. “I can stand it on my own, I think, and anyway it will only be for a second. And I won’t really be alone, as Mr. Millwright will be with me.”

Millwright frowned and rose to his feet from the couch where he had been reclining. His face plainly showed his interest. “Just what would this ‘proof’ of yours consist of?”

“We would simply turn off the lights for a moment,” Nuttall answered, reaching his hand out to the light switch on the wall.

“Wait!” Bart screamed, grabbing his companion’s arm. “Wait,” he gulped, his eyes wide and fearful. He turned to the occultist: “Is there a light in your bathroom?”

“Of course,” Millwright answered, frowning again. He showed Bart to the bathroom door and watched bemused as the young man tremblingly entered. He noticed how Bart made sure that the light in the small room was on before he went in. Then he heard the catch go home on the inside of the door.

Suddenly Millwright began to believe. These two night visitors, with their arsenal of pocket torches and their patently psychotic fear of darkness, were not really pulling his leg. But most probably it was as he had diagnosed; the odds were all in favour of self-hypnosis. They had desired so badly that their experiment should work and they had probably been in such a state of self-induced hysteria at the time, through the music and their esoteric chantings, that they actually believed they had called up a demon from hell.

On the other hand…well, Millwright was not inexperienced in the darker mysteries. Black Magic, practised with a degree of discretion, and the various carefully edited works he had written in the same vein, had made life very easy for him for the past fifteen years. Now, though, he had to see for himself—or, at least, experience—this “proof” that these young men had offered him. Such proof would not be pleasant, the man called Nuttall had warned him. Well, very few magical or necromantic experiences were pleasant; but of course, Nuttall would hardly be willing to demonstrate the thing—whatever it was—if it were really dangerous…

They had not explained exactly what they believed they had released from its nether habitation, but possibly they did not know: They had told him, however, that they knew he was an “expert” in this sort of thing, which was why they had approached him for his help.

And now…there was one easy way to find out what the truth of the matter really was. Millwright returned to his study and into the presence of the olive-skinned man called Nuttall. He saw that his visitor was sweating in anticipation, though he still maintained the vestiges of self-assurance.

“All right, Mr. Nuttall,” Millwright said, closing the study door behind him. “Let’s have your demonstration.”

Nuttall’s Adam’s apple was visibly bobbing. “I have to stay right here,” he muttered, “beside the light switch, so that I can switch it on again. And you’ll need to hold my hand, I think, to really—appreciate—the thing. Are you ready?”

Despite his few remaining doubts regards the veracity of their story, the occultist nevertheless felt a thrill of unseen energies, weird forces, building in the air. He almost called a halt to the experiment there and then. Later, he wished that he had….

Instead, he nodded his readiness and, at that, Nuttall switched off the light.

In the brightly lit bathroom, huddled fearfully in one corner with his face screwed up in dread expectation, Alan Bart heard Millwright’s high-pitched scream and, seconds later, his sobbing accusations and vicious swearing. He knew then that Ray had “demonstrated”. Weak-kneed, he let himself out of the bathroom and made his way unsteadily back to the occultist’s study.

There he found what he knew he would find: the horror which he himself had experienced twice already. The two men, his friend Nuttall and the still steadily swearing, bulge-eyed occultist, were hastily removing their outer garments. All the while, they were frenziedly wiping at their faces, shaking their arms and hands and kicking their legs in a concerted effort to be rid of the viscous, clear jelly that covered them head to toe in shiny, gluey envelopes. This was the snail-trail, the residue of the Black One—the Filler of Space—He Who Comes in the Dark!—that creature or power of outer dimensions which only the purity of the light might disperse!

• • •

Nuttall sat wrapped in a towel, pale, drawn and shivering beside the warmth of a gas fire whose glowing logs looked so very nearly real. He and the occultist had showered to cleanse themselves of the obnoxious, slimy coverings and now Millwright sat, listening, while Bart explained the most intricate details of what had gone on before.

Bart narrated how he and Nuttall had stumbled across the means of drawing the horror of the jelly-substance through the fabric of alien dimensions to their own world; how they had discovered that light held this creature of darkness, this fly-the-light, at bay; and how thereafter, whenever they found themselves in darkness, the thing that lived and chittered in darkness would return to try to drown them in its exuded essence. At this mention, all eyes flickered towards that thick liquid which even now slimed the floor in stinking, drying puddles, that juice which not one of the three could as yet bring himself to touch or clear away.

“And you actually have a copy of Mad Berkley’s Book?” The shaken occultist asked, the silver tassels of his oriental dressing-gown moving to the shudders of his body.

“Yes, it belonged to Ray’s grandfather,” Bart agreed. “We’ve brought it with us.” He crossed the room to where his coat hung and tremulously removed from a large inner pocket a leather-bound volume in iron clasps. He handed the book to the occultist who opened it, studied its contents for a few moments, then snapped it decisively shut.

“Oh yes, that’s Mad Berkley’s Book all right. And, indeed, it’s in better condition than my own copy. Old Berkley’s believed to have combined all the worst elements of a score of esoteric volumes in this work—the Necronomicon, the Cthaat Aquadingen, the German Unaussprechlichen Kulten—and, by God, I can readily enough believe it now! I myself have never used the book. I knew that a lot of the stuff Old Berkley put down on paper was damnably dangerous, of course, but this! This is a monstrous evil!”

He paused for a moment, his hands shaking terribly; then his eyes hardened as he turned them upon Nuttall by the gas fire. “You bloody fool! You’ve damned me with the same hideous curse! Didn’t you realise that once I had experienced that—thing—that I, too, would be subject to such visitations?”

Nuttall looked up, a shadow of his previous cynical control returning to drawn, haggard features. “I guessed it might be so, yes,” he admitted, then hastily went on; “but don’t you see it had to be this way? How else could I be sure you’d help us? Now that you’re in the same boat, you have to help. If you can…exorcise…this horror, then we’ll all be safe. At least you have an incentive…now!”

“Why, you damned young—” Millwright rose in a fury, but Bart caught at his sleeve.

“What use to fight about it, Mr. Millwright? Don’t you see that there’s no time for that? Sooner or later, unless we find…well…an antidote, one by one, accidentally, we’ll all be caught in the dark. When that happens…then…” Bart’s voice trailed ominously away as he left the sentence unfinished.

“But I don’t know of any ‘antidote’ as you put it,” the occultist rounded on him, his voice harsh.

“Then we’d better start looking for one right away,” Ray Nuttall snapped, the situation finally getting the better of his nerves. “Surely you have some idea of what the thing is? I mean, you’re the expert, after all. Are there no other occultists we can consult?”

“I know of three or four others in England of more than ordinary power, yes,” Millwright answered, pondering their problem. Then he shook his head. “No use to contact them, however. They wouldn’t help me. I might as well admit it right now—my reputation in occult circles is not good. I’ve used what I know of the dark powers to my own ends far too often for the liking of certain lily-livered contemporaries, I’m afraid. There are so-called ‘ethics’ even in matters such as these. The only men I know who might have helped—though even that is doubtful—have also fallen foul of some evil, I fear.

“You’ve heard of Titus Crow and Henri-Laurent de Marigny? Yes? Well, they disappeared together some months ago, when Crow’s home was destroyed in a freak lightening storm. That rules them out. No, if I’m to beat this thing, then I’m to do it on my own…but you two will help me. Now, we’ve much to do. There’ll be no sleep for us tonight. Personally, I doubt if I shall ever sleep again!”

II

With all the lights of the flat ablaze, midnight found the three in various attitudes of uneasy study. Millwright had heard their story through once more in all its detail before deciding on a definite course of action. At the mention of the newspaper article that quoted Millwright and had sparked off Nuttall’s interest in the progressive group, Fried Spiders, the occultist admitted that his only interest at the time had been in gaining publicity for his recent book on occult themes. In fact, he had never so much as heard the LP in question.

Millwright concluded that the two accidentally hit upon the perfect atmosphere and setting, leading up to the conjuration. Doubtless the soft drugs Nuttall had access to had helped bring about a proper connection with outside spheres, had contributed in forming a link, as it were, with alien dimensions. When the group had finished their few lines of intoned invocation, Nuttall had taken up the chant to its conclusion… And then came the Black One! Never guessing that any such visitation might actually occur, Nuttall had failed to take the traditional precaution of prisoning the horror in a pentagram.

And it was a horror! A thing with invisible, evil eyes that saw in the dark, with mouths and lips that sucked and slobbered. They had driven it off simply by switching on the light. If they had not…then soon they would have drowned in its hideous residual slime, the juices it exuded from alien agglutinous pores.

Having driven the thing off, they had thought that they were rid of it. However, later that night, after cleaning up, when Bart sought to leave Nuttall’s place to return home, out in the dark the thing had come to him again. He had barely been able to make it back to Nuttall’s door and the sanctuary of the blessed light within.

Now, unseen, the Black One waited for the summons of its beloved darkness, when it could return again with its sucking mouths to drown its liberators in loathsome slime. And now, too, it waited for Millwright…

The occultist was only too well aware of the horror of living with this nightmare—of never knowing when the lights might fail; the constant fear of accidentally knocking oneself unconscious and waking at night in a darkened room, or perhaps not waking at all! Now, at the midnight hour, tired as he was, he patiently turned the leaves of a great and anciently esoteric textbook, hopeful of finding some clue as to the nature of the thing his visitors had called up from the darker spheres.

Nuttall and Bart were similarly employed, albeit with lesser works of reference. Only the dry rustles of flipped pages, the occasional muttered curse as a promising stream of research went dry and the ticking of Millwright’s wall-clock disturbed the silence. Their task seemed impossible; and yet by morning, through sheer diligence and hard work—engendered of a dreadful fear—they had learned much of the horror that even now stalked the dark places and awaited them hungrily. Though what they had discovered had only served to increase their terror.

This creature, being or power, had been known in the predawn world to the earliest Black Magicians and Necromancers. Records had come down even from predeluge Atlantis of “The Night Thing”— “The Black One”—”The Filler of Space”— “Bugg-Shash the Terrible”—a demon whom Eibon of Mhu Thulan himself had written of as being:

One of the darkest Beings of the Netherworld, whose Trail is as that of a monstrous Snail, who hails from the blackest Pits of the most remote Spheres. Cousin to Yibb-Tstll, Bugg-Shash, too is a Drowner; His lips do suck and lick; His Kiss is the slimy Kiss of the hideous Death. He wakes the very Dead to His Command, and encased in the horror of His Essence even the worm-ravaged Lich hastens to His Bidding…

This from that tome so carefully scrutinized and guarded from the view of his two assistants by Millwright.

And from Feery’s Notes On The Cthaat Aquadingen—though Millwright had warned that Feery’s reconstructions and translations were often at fault or fanciful in their treatment of the original works—Bart had culled the following cryptic information:

Lest any brash or inexperienced Wizard be tempted to call forth one of ye Drowners—be it Yibb-Tstll or Bugg-Shash—this Warning shall guide him & inform him of his Folly. For ye Drowners are of a like treacherous & require even ye most delicate Handling & minutest Attention to thaumaturgic Detail. Yibb-Tstll may only be controlled by use of ye Soul-searing Barrier of Naach-Tith, & Bugg-Shash may only be contained in ye Pentagram of Power. Too, ye Drowners must be sent early about ye Business of them, which is Death, lest they find ways to turn upon ye Caller. Call NOT upon Bug-Shash for ye sake of mere idle curiosity; for ye Great Black One, neither Him nor His Cousin, will return of His own Accord to His Place, but will seek out by any Means a Victim, being often that same Wizard which uttered ye Calling. Of ye two is Bugg-Shash most treacherous & vilely cunning, for should no Sacrifice or Victim be prepared for His Coming, He will not go back without He takes His Caller with Him, must needs He stay an hundred Years to accomplish His Purpose…

Nuttall supplied the smallest contribution towards their knowledge of the horror lurking in the darkness. This fragment was from a heavy, handwritten tome whose title had been carefully removed from its spine by burning with a hot iron—and it was a fragment. Of the Filler of Space, the book related only this:

Bugg-Shash is unbearable! His lips suck; He knows not defeat but brings down His victim at the last; aye, even though He follows that victim unto Death and beyond to achieve His purpose. And there was a riddle known to my forefathers:

What evil wakes that should lie dead,

Swathed in horror toe to head?

“That’s from the Necronomicon!” Millwright cried when, towards dawn, Nuttall found this piece and read it aloud in the brightly lit study. “It is Alhazred!” The occultist snatched the book from the other’s hands to pore eagerly over the page—then threw it down in disgust.

“Only that,” he grumbled, “nothing more. But it’s a clue! This book is simply a hodge-podge of occult lore and legend, but perhaps the Mad Arab’s Necronomicon—in which I’m sure those lines have their origin—perhaps that book contains more on the same subject. It’s certainly worth a try. Fortunately, the blacker side of my reputation has not yet reached the authorities at the British Museum. They recognise me as an ‘authority’ in my own right—as a genuine scholar. Through them, I have access to archives forbidden to most others. I admit that these scraps we’ve found worry me…horribly! But we must remember that every magical conjuration has its dangers. So far in this business I have—well, I’ve escaped justice, so to speak. Yes, and I hope to do so again.

“If there is a way to…deflect…this horror, then I now believe I stand every chance of finding it, though that may take some time. This clue is the one I needed.” He tapped the book with a fingernail. “If not…at least we know what we’re up against. Personally, well, you will never find my home wanting for a gross of candles; I will always have a store of dry batteries and electric light bulbs; I will always carry on my person at least one cigarette lighter and a metal box of fresh, dry matches. Bugg-Shash will not find me unprepared when darkness falls…”

• • •

Through the morning, Bart and Nuttall slept and, even though daylight streamed in across Millwright’s balcony and through his windows, still the electric lights burned while candles sank down slowly on their wicks. In mid-afternoon, when the occultist returned in cautious triumph, the two were up and about.

“I have it,” he said, closing the door of the sumptuous flat behind him. “At least, I think so. It is the Third Sathlatta. There was more on Bugg-Shash in the Necronomicon, and that in turn led me to the Cthaat Aquadingen,” he shuddered. “It is a counterspell to be invoked—as with many of the Sathlattae—at midnight. Tonight we’ll free ourselves of Bugg-Shash forever…unless…” As he finished the occultist frowned. Despite his words, there was uncertainty in his tone.

“Yes?” Nuttall prompted him. “Unless what? Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” Millwright shook his head angrily, tiredly. “It’s just that…again I’ve come across this peculiar warning!”

“What warning is that?” Bart worriedly asked, his face twitching nervously.

“Oh, there are definite warnings, of sorts,” Millwright answered, “but they’re never clearly stated. Confound that damned Arab! It seems he never once wrote a word without that he wrapped it in a riddle!” He collapsed into a chair.

“Go on,” prompted Nuttall, “explain. How does this ‘counterspell’ of yours work…and what are these ‘warnings’ that you’re so worried about?”

“As to your first question: I don’t believe there’s any need to explain more than I’ve done already. But to enlighten you, albeit briefly; the Sathlattae consist of working spells and counterspells. The third Sathlatta is of the latter order. As to what I’m frightened of, well…”

“Yes?” Nuttall impatiently prompted him again.

“As applicable to our present situation,” Millwright finally went on, “—in this predicament we’re in—the third Sathlatta is…incomplete!”

“You mean it won’t work?” Bart demanded, his eyes wide and fearful.

“Oh, yes, it’ll work all right. But—”

“For God’s sake!” Nuttall cried, his usually disciplined nerves stretched now to the breaking point, evidence of which shoved clearly in his high, quavering voice. “Get on, man!”

“How do I explain something which I can’t readily understand myself?” Millwright snarled, rounding on the frightened man. “And you’d better not start shouting at me, my friend. Why, but for your meddling, none of us would be in this position…and remember that, without my help, you’re stuck with it forever!”

At that, Nuttall s face went very white and he began a stuttered apology. The occultist cut him short. “Forget it. I’ll tell you why I’m worried. To put it simply, the third Sathlatta carries a clause!”

“A clause?” Bart repeated the word wonderingly, plainly failing to understand.

“To quote Alhazred,” Millwright ignored him,”the counterspell’s protection lasts ‘only unto death’!”

For a moment there was silence; then Bart gave a short, strained laugh. “Only unto death? Why, who could ask fairer than that? I really don’t see—”

“And one other-thing,” the occultist continued. “The third Sathlatta is not irrevocable. Its action may be reversed simply by uttering the Sathlatta itself in reverse order.”

Millwright’s guests stared at him for a few moments without speaking; then Nuttall said: “Does anyone else know of our…problem?”

“Not unless you’ve told someone else,” the occultist answered, a deep frown creasing his forehead. “Have you?”

“No,” Nuttall answered, “we haven’t…but you see what I mean, don’t you? What is there to worry about, if it’s all as simple as you say? We, certainly, will never mess about with this sort of thing again…and who else is there to know what’s happened? Even if someone was aware that we’d conjured up a devil, it’s unlikely he’d know how to reverse this process of yours. It’s doubtful anyone would even want or dare to, isn’t it?”

Millwright considered it and gradually his manner became more relaxed. “Yes, you’re right, of course,” he answered. “It’s just that I don’t like complications in these things. You see, I know something of the Old Adepts. They didn’t issue the sort of warnings I’ve seen here for nothing. This

Bugg-Shash—whatever he is—must be the very worst order of demons. Everything about him is…demoniacal!”

III

That same evening, from copious notes copied in the rare books department of the British Museum, Millwright set up all the paraphernalia of his task. He cleared the floor of his study. Then, in what appeared to Nuttall and Bart completely random positions—which were, in fact, carefully measured, if in utterly alien tables—upon the naked floor, he placed candles, censers and curious copper bowls. When he was satisfied with the arrangement of these implements, leaving the centre of the floor clear, he chalked on the remaining surrounding floor-space strange and disturbing magical symbols in a similarly confusing and apparently illogical over-all design. Central to all these preparatory devices, he drew a plain white circle and, as the midnight hour approached, he invited his guests to enter with him into this protective ring.

During the final preparations the candles had been lit. The contents of the censers and bowls, too, now sent up to the ceiling thinly wavering columns of coloured smoke and incense. Moreover, the purely electrical lights of the room had been switched off—very much to the almost hysterical Bart’s dislike—so that only the candles gave a genuine, if flickering, light while the powders and herbs in their bowls and censers merely glowed a dull red.

As the first stroke of midnight sounded from the clock on the wall, Millwright drew from his pocket a carefully folded sheet of paper. In a voice dead of emotion—devoid, almost, of all human inflection—he read the words so carefully copied earlier that day from a near-forgotten tome in the dimmer reaches of the British Museum.

It is doubtful whether Bart or Nuttall could ever have recalled the jumble of alien vowels, syllables and discordants that rolled in seemingly chaotic disorder off Millwright’s tongue in that dimly lit room. Certainly, it would have been impossible for any mere mortal, unversed in those arts with which Millwright had made himself familiar, to repeat that hideously jarring, incredible sequence of sounds. To utter the thing backwards, then—“in reverse order,” as Millwright had had it—must plainly be out of the question. This thought, if not the uppermost in their minds, undoubtedly occurred to the two initiates as the occultist came to the end of his performance and the echoes of his hellish liturgy died away…but, within the space of seconds, this and all other thoughts were driven from their minds by sheer terror!

Even Millwright believed, at first, that he had made some terrible mistake, for now there fell upon the three men in the chalked circle a tangible weight of horror and impending doom! Bart screamed and would have fled the circle and the room at once—doubtless to his death—but the occultist grabbed him and held him firmly.

Slowly but surely, the candles dimmed as their flames inexplicably lowered. Then, one by one, they began to flicker out, apparently self-extinguished. Bart’s struggles and screaming became such that Nuttall, too, had to hold on to him to prevent his rushing from the circle. Suddenly, there came to the ears of the three—as if from a thousand miles away—the merest whisper at first, a susurration, as heard in a sounding shell. The rustling chitterings of what could only be…a presence!

Bart promptly fainted. Millwright and Nuttall lowered him to the floor and crouched beside his unconscious form, still holding him tightly in their terror, staring into the surrounding shadows. The hideously evil chitterings, madly musical in an indefinable alien manner, grew louder. And then…something slimy and wet moved gelatinously in the darker shadows of the room’s corners!

“Millwright!” Nuttall’s voice cracked on that one exclamation. The word had been an almost inarticulate utterance, such as a child might make, crying out for its mother in the middle of a particularly frightening nightmare.

“Stay still! And be quiet!” Millwright commanded, his own voice no less cracked and high-pitched.

Only two candles burned now, so low and dim that they merely pushed back the immediate shadows. As the occultist reached out a tremulous hand to draw one of these into the circle…so the other blinked out, leaving only a spiral of grey smoke hanging in the near-complete darkness.

At this, the abominable chittering grew louder still. It surrounded the circle completely now and, for the first time, the two conscious men clearly saw that which the single, tiny remaining flame held at bay. Creeping up on all sides, to the very line of the chalked circle, the Thing came; a glistening, shuddering wall of jelly-like ooze in which many mouths gaped and just as many eyes monstrously ogled! This was Bugg-Shash the Drowner, The Black One, The Filler of Space. Indeed, the bulk of this…Being?…did seem to fill the entire study! All bar the blessed sanctuary of the circle.

The eyes were…beyond words, but worse still were those mouths. Sucking and whistling with thickly viscous lips, the mouths glistened and slobbered and, from out of those gluttonous orifices poured the lunatic chitterings of alien song—the Song of Bugg-Shash—as His substance towered up and leaned inwards to form a slimy ceiling over their very heads!

Nuttall closed his eyes and began to pray out loud, while Millwright simply moaned and groaned in his terror, unable to voice prayers to a God he had long forsaken; but though it seemed that all was lost, the Third Sathlatta had not failed them. Even as the ceiling of jelly began an apparently inexorable descent, so the remaining candle flared up and, at that, the bulk of Bugg-Shash broke and ran like water through a shattered dam. The wall and ceiling of quivering protoplasm with its loathsome eyes and mouths seemed to waver and shrink before Millwright’s eyes as the awful Black One drew back to the darker shadows.

Then, miraculously, the many extinct candles flared up, returning to life one by one and no less mysteriously than they had snuffed themselves out. The occultist knew then that what he had seen had merely been an immaterial visitation, a vision of what might have been, but for the power of the Third Sathlatta.

Simultaneously with Bart’s return to consciousness, Millwright shouted: “We’ve won!”

As Nuttall ventured to open incredulous eyes the occultist stepped out of the circle, crossed to the light switch and flooded the room with light. The thing he and Nuttall had witnessed must indeed have been merely a vision—a demon-inspired hallucination—for no sign of the horror remained. The floor, the walls and bookshelves, the pushed-aside furniture, all were clean and dry, free of the horrid Essence of Bugg-Shash. No single trace of His visit showed in any part of the room; no single crack or crevice of the pine floor knew the morbid loathsomeness of His snail-trail slime…

IV

“Ray!” Alan Bart cried, shouldering his way through the long-haired, tassel-jacketed patrons of The Windsor’s smokeroom. Nuttall saw him, waved him in the direction of a table and ordered another drink. With a glass in each hand he then made his way from the bar, through the crush of regulars, to where Bart now sat with his back to the wall, his fist wrapped tightly around an evening newspaper.

Over a week had passed since their terrifying experience at the London flat of Thomas Millwright. Since then, they had started to grow back into their old creeds and customs. Although they still did not quite trust the dark, they had long since proved for themselves the efficacy of Millwright’s Third Sathlatta. Ever the cynic, and despite the fact that he still trembled in dark places, Nuttall now insisted upon taking long walks along lone country lanes of an evening, usually ending up at The Windsor before closing time. Thus Bart had known where to find him.

“What’s up?” Nuttall questioned as he took a seat beside the younger man. He noted with a slight tremor of alarm the drawn, worried texture of his friend’s face.

“Millwright’s dead!” Bart abruptly blurted, without preamble. “He’s dead—a traffic accident—run down by a lorry not far from his flat. He was identified in the mortuary. It’s all in the paper.” He spread the newspaper before Nuttall who hardly glanced at it.

If the olive-skinned man was shocked, it did not show; his weak eyes had widened slightly at Bart’s disclosure, nothing more. He let the news sink in, then shrugged his shoulders.

Bart was completely taken aback by his friend’s negative attitude. “We did know him!” he protested.

“Briefly,” Nuttall acknowledged; and then, to Bart’s amazement, he smiled. “That’s a relief,” he muttered.

Bart drew away from him. “What? Did I hear you say—”

“It’s a relief, yes,” Nuttall snapped. “Don’t you see? He was the only one we knew who could ever have brought that…thing…down on us again. And now he’s gone.”

For a while they sat in silence, tasting their drinks, allowing the human noises of the crowded room to close in and impinge upon their beings. Then Bart said: “Ray, do you suppose that…?”

“Hmm?” Nuttall looked at him. “Do I suppose what, Alan?”

“Oh, nothing really. I was just thinking about what Millwright told us; about the protection of that spell of his lasting ‘only unto death’!”

“Oh?” Nuttall answered. “Well, if I were you, I shouldn’t bother. It’s something I don’t intend to find out about for a long time.”

“And there’s something else bothering me,” Bart admitted, not really listening to Nuttall’s perfunctory answer. “It’s something I can’t quite pin down—part of what we discovered that night at Millwright’s place, when we were going through all those old books. Damned if I can remember what it is, though!”

“Then forget it!” Nuttall grinned. “And while you’re at it, how about a drink? It’s your round.”

• • •

Against his better instincts, but not wanting Nuttall to see how desperately he feared the darkness still, Bart allowed himself to be talked into walking home. Nuttall lived in a flat in one of the rather more “flash” areas of the city, but walking they would have to pass Bart’s place first. Bart did not mind the dark so much—he said—so long as he was not alone.

Low, scudding clouds obscured the stars as they walked and a chill autumn wind blew discarded wrappers, the occasional leaf and loose, eerily-flapping sheets of evening “racing specials” against their legs.

Nuttall’s flat was city-side of a suburban estate, while Bart’s place lay more on the outskirts of the city proper. The whole area, though, was still quite new, so that soon the distances between welcome lamp-posts increased; there was no need for a lot of light way out here. With the resultant closing-in of darkness, Bart shuddered and pressed closer to his apparently fearless friend. He did not know it, but Nuttall was deep in worried thought. Bart’s words in the smokeroom of The Windsor had brought niggling doubts flooding to the forefront of his consciousness; he could quite clearly recall all that they had uncovered at Millwright’s home—including that which Bart had forgotten…

At the city end of Bart’s road, almost half-way to Nuttall’s flat and within half a mile of Bart’s door, they saw a man atop a ladder attending to an apparently malfunctioning street lamp. The light flickered, flared, then died as they approached the lamp-post and the base of the ladder.

“These people,” Bart asserted with a little shudder, “are the grafters. Out here all hours of the night—just to make sure that we have…light.”

Without a breath of warning, simultaneous with Bart’s shivery uttering of the word “light”, the great bowl of the street lamp crashed down from above to shatter into a million glass fragments at their feet.

“My God!” Nuttall shouted up at the black silhouette clambering unsteadily down the ladder. “Take it easy, old chap. You bloody near dropped that thing right on our heads!”

The two men stopped in the dark street to steady the precarious-looking ladder and, as they did so, a splattering of liquid droplets fell from above, striking their hands and upturned faces. In the darkness they could not see those liquid droplets…but they could feel the clinging sliminess of them! Frozen in spontaneous horror, they stared at each other through the shrouding night as the figure on the ladder stepped down between them.

Bart’s pocket torch cut a jerky swath of light across Nuttall’s frozen features until it played upon the face of the man from the ladder. That face—stickily wet and hideously vacant, dripping nightmare slime as it was—was nevertheless the face of Millwright!

Millwright, the pawn of the Black One, fled from the mortuary—where Bugg-Shash had found his body in the dark—to accomplish that Being’s purpose, the purpose He must pursue before He could return to His own hellish dimension!

Only blind instinct, the instinct of self-preservation, had caused Bart to reach for his torch; but the sight revealed by its beam had completely unnerved him. His torch fell from uselessly twitching fingers, clattering on the pavement, and the dead man’s heel came down upon it with shattering force. Again the darkness closed in.

Then the slimy figure between the two men moved and they felt fingers like bands of iron enclosing their wrists. The zombie that was Millwright exerted fantastic strength to hold them—or rather, Bugg-Shash exerted His strength through the occultist’s corpse—as dead lips opened to utter the ghastly, soul-destroying strains of the reversed Third Sathlatta!

In the near-distant darkness faint, delighted chitterings commenced; and the weird trio thrashed about across the road, to and fro in a leaping, twisting, screaming tug-o’-war of death as, at last, the thing that Bart had forgotten came back to his collapsing, nightmare-blasted mind:

He wakes the very Dead to His Command, and encased in the horror of his Essence even the worm-ravaged Lich hastens to His bidding…

• • •

The hellish dance lasted, as did the screaming, until they felt the lips of Bugg-Shash and his monstrous kisses…