Brian Lumley - The Taint and other novellas

Praise for Brian Lumley

Lumley excels at depicting heroes larger than life and horrors worse than death.

Publishers Weekly

The new novel stands alone. Necroscope fans will find themselves reading as fast as Lumley can type.

Kirkus Reviews on Necroscope: Invaders

Since reading Lumleys Necroscope series I know that vampires do exist!

H. R. Giger

a worthwhile addition to the series. Id recommend it to Necroscope fans certainly, and new readers as well.

Dark Animus on Necroscope: The Touch

Brian Lumley is one of contemporary horror fictions more important authors.

Fantasy Book Critic

Brian Lumley takes occult legend and writings and makes them fascinatingly real without losing any of the sense of danger.

SF Site

THE TAINT

AND OTHER NOVELLAS

BRIAN LUMLEY

First published 2007 by Subterranean Press

This edition published 2008 by Solaris

an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

Riverside House, Osney Mead,

Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN: 978-1-78618-139-8

Copyright 2008 Brian Lumley

The Horror at Oakdeene, from the collection of the same name, Arkham House, 1977.

Born of the Winds, from F&SF No. 295, December, 1975.

The Fairground Horror, from The Disciples of Cthulhu, DAW Books, 1975.

The Taint, from Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth, Fedogan & Bremer, 2005.

Rising With Surtsey, from Dark Things, Arkham House, 1971.

Lord of the Worms, from Weirdbook No. 17, 1983.

The House of the Temple, from Kadath No. 3, 1980.

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

This book is a work of fiction. Names. characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Other Books by Brian Lumley

THE NECROSCOPE SERIES

Necroscope

Necroscope II: Wamphyri!

Necroscope III: The Source

Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

Necroscope V: Deadspawn

Vampire World 1: Blood Brothers

Vampire World 2: The Last Aerie

Vampire World 3: Bloodwars

Necroscope: The Lost Years

Necroscope: Resurgence

E-Branch 1: Invaders

E-Branch 2: Defilers

E-Branch 3: Avengers

Necroscope: The Touch

THE TITUS CROW SERIES

Titus Crow, Volume One: The Burrowers Beneath & Transition of Titus Crow

Titus Crow, Volume Two: The Clock of Dreams & Spawn of the Winds

Titus Crow, Volume Three: In the Moons of Borea & Elysia

THE PSYCHOMECH TRILOGY

Psychomech

Psychosphere

Psychamok

OTHER NOVELS

Demogorgon

The House of Doors

Maze of Worlds

Khai of Khem

The House of Cthulhu

Tarra Khash: Hrossak!

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Beneath the Moors and Darker Places

Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi

The Whisperer and Other Voices

Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes!

The Taint and Other Novellas

Haggopian and Other Stories

Necroscope: The Lost Years: Harry and the Pirates

Necroscope: The Lost Years: The Touch

THE DREAMLAND SERIES

Hero of Dreams

Ship of Dreams

Mad Moon of Dreams

Iced on Aran

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE CTHULHU MYTHOS.

Just three words, yet somehow fascinating in themselves. Just imagine someone stumbling across them for the first time; better still, try to remember when you first came across them in a book of macabre fiction. For even if you had never heard of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or his biggest fan and publisher August Derleth, or Arkham House, Weird Tales , or indeed any of the original Lovecraft Circle or later imitators, or literary disciples, of HPL, still in all likelihood you were struck by those wordsif only because they caused you to wonder, The Cthulhu Mythos? Now what the hell is that!?

And how might one describe or explain to such a newcomer to weird fictionfor you could hardly be anything other than a newcomerthe pronunciation of that dreaded Name central to this unheard of mythology, Cthulhu? (What, in all seriousness, you should be informed that one whistles or burbles it?)

No, I am not going to try to offer a detailed explanation of the Cthulhu Mythos in this brief introduction; many and various authorities have already done that in as many articles and books, and its likely you would not have bought this volume if you didnt already know at least something of H. P. Lovecrafts literary legacy. But if after reading these novellas the Mythos is still a mystery to youwhich I most sincerely hope is not the casethen I would refer you to the master himself: to H. P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth (of course), and to Colin Wilson, Ramsey Campbell, and a veritable host of other writers, including many Arkham House authors and even Stephen King (the latter in his notable story, Crouch End.) For at one time or another theyve all had a go at the Cthulhu Mythosas, I might add, have many dozens and perhaps even hundreds of others, most frequently amateurs whose outpourings of Mythos dross still havent managed to remove all of the gloss and mystique from the original concept.

Ah, but what was or is this concept? Well, actually, its not only a horror theme but very much a Science Fictional sort of thing, toowhich states, but in a great many more words:

That this Earth and its neighbouring dimensions conceal centuried (aeonian?) prisoned, slumbering or hibernating alien creatures of vast evil (or total indifference?) whose telepathic dreams infest the minds of certain artistic, sensitive, and often mentally fragile human beings, to the extent that they are caused to meddle with seals real and metaphysical that confine these Great Old Ones in their various forgotten (drowned, buried, or extradimensional) tombs or houses.

As for Cthulhu: no better description of Him can be discovered than in HPLs own The Call of Cthulhu, and any horror fan who hasnt yet discovered Him should do so now, at once!

Myself, I came across the Mythos when I was just thirteen or fourteen in a story by Robert Bloch of Psycho fame, (though Psycho was only one of that superb writers achievements). The short story was called Notebook Found in a Deserted House. And from then on, for the next seven or eight years, I would keep stumbling across various hints in the weird fiction I was reading that suggested an interconnected thread or threads; a very intricate literary theme, like a web woven from oddly similar stories by a handful of disparate authors. This was, of course, the very fabric or skein of the Cthulhu Mythos, though at that time I failed to make a solid connection. (Another connection I failed to make, which was pointed out to me by Donald A. Wollheim of DAW Books fame, was that I was born on the 2nd December 1937, just nine months after Lovecrafts death. Wollheim found the chronology or synchronicity interesting; I find it entirely coincidental.)

But then, as a young soldier taken in the draft and based in Germanyupon finding an entire book by Lovecraft, entitled Cry Horror! (the British title of a volume originally published by Arkham House in the USA)suddenly all of these vague hints and allusions coalesced in my mind into this single, remarkable literary concept, this fictional phenomenon called The Cthulhu Mythos! But

I wasnt yet an author in my own write, and it would be some time, several years in fact, before I was seduced onto the strands of that web myself