To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin

….Each time I saw him, I gained a momentary glimpse of a roaring blackness that wore his face like a mask.

"Notes of a Mad Copyist"

To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin

[2019, Hippocampus Press]

Pastiche and emulation occur in every genre. In horror it is often the province of the adolescent tyro and the amateur. Who wouldn't want to create a new Jamesian ghost story, or make a new Conan Doyle-soaked adventure?

Matt Cardin strikes me on first reading to be deeply inspired and fed by the work of Thomas Ligotti. His prose is clear and his theological preoccupations are refreshing. Some tales strike the reader as perfunctory, but the further one goes in the book, the more ambitious and more interesting the tales become.

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An Abhorrence to All Flesh (1999)

This tale begins with elements that made me afraid it was just another sub-Ligotti pastiche: a man discovers he has just spooned a clot of maggots down his throat from a bowl of leftovers; later, the skin on his hands feels strange. (Oh, brother.)

     But at that point, in a dinner party scene, Cardin sets his hook:

....I knew of Fillmore, of course. It was a nonentity of a little town situated just thirty miles east of Terence. But how had I never heard of the Temple of Jehovah—a cult so geographically near and tantalizingly bizarre?

    "Who was the mysterious Middle Eastern man, the one who spoke to your grandfather?" This unexpected question came unexpectedly from Mr. Snyder, who was listening to everything from the recesses of his great chair and watching us all with bloodshot eyes. I suspected his wine was going right to his head. He couldn't have had more than a couple of glasses, but I would have bet money he was more thoroughly inebriated than he had been in many a year.

    "I'm not sure of that," Barbara said, smiling at him. "Grandfather never even mentioned his name. He was a member of some old church, an ancient Christian group located in Jerusalem. Or was it somewhere in Egypt?" She frowned slightly as her mind worked to dredge up the long-buried memory. "I really don't know. Isn't that odd?" She turned to Jim, but he shrugged and offered no help.

    "Actually, the fabled theological interloper was from Cairo. Old Cairo. He was a member of an ancient sub-cult within the Coptic church that believed itself to be the inheritor of the one true Christian faith." It took me a moment to realize these words were issuing from the mouth of my friend Darby. I stared at him dumbly, thunderstruck, but my own amazement must have been minuscule next to Barbara's.

    "How do you know that?" she gasped. Darby offered her another charmer of a smile, and a look of comprehension crossed her face. "Your uncle?"

    "Yes, my dear. My uncle's acquaintance extended not only to your grandfather, but to his Egyptian friend as well. In fact, my uncle was even present for the famous conversation that eventually proved to be the genesis of your church."

    Barbara's eyes were all but glowing with excitement, but I simply couldn't keep out of the conversation at that point.

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Notes of a Mad Copyist (1999)

A flaccid and lackluster attempt at personifying spiritual collapse and nihilism. A monk copying scripture discovers his hand is writing something else.

....I could not say precisely what this new thing was, but it was certainly not the Word of God. Nowhere in the Deposit of Faith, either oral or written, could one find teachings of such a horrific and subversive cast. I read through the pages with a sense of mounting wonder and terror as I began to gain a powerful impression of imminent doom from certain words that appeared repeatedly in a patterned regularity whose scheme I could not divine. They spoke of "darkness" and "disorder," "dispersion" and "depletion," and of "the great deep, the watery waste of oblivion" that "laps hungrily at the shore of creation." The world as I knew it—the world of life, light, and order, where God, man, and nature stood in fixed and unalterable relation to each other—was framed by those words into a loathsome perspective of weariness, worthlessness, and wasted effort.

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The Basement Theater (2000)

Beautifully written short story, but it smacks most of a five finger exercise for a creative writing class. 

....I have in my mind's eye a vision of the playwright emerging at last from his concealment behind the wood-and-cardboard flat to stoop down and gaze firsthand upon my interpretation of the role he has written for me. Whether I shall get a glimpse of his face is unclear, but even if I do, this much is certain: the only thing that I will ever truly know is my own ignorance.

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If It Had Eyes (2002)

A brief, willfully acroamatic poem in prose.

...Has the fog ever really known itself? Has it been able to pierce the wall of its own gloom, to glimpse its own hidden heart? No, it has not. The fog, I now know, is blind. The horror of my current entombment is the horror the fog has always inhabited within the space of its own awareness. It knows nothing of the people and the things, the cities and the civilizations, that it embraces, that it has always embraced, since before human memory. It is completely blind, and equally so to its own self as to the world it enwraps in ancient sheets of funereal white in a perpetual cycle of nocturnal death and sunlit rebirth.

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Judas of the Infinite (2002)

A rhetorical exercise attempting to capture the contradictions of nihilism via ipseity.

....I finally had to admit the truth of my deepest fear: that I was the harbinger of a doom worse than Hell. This void inside me could not be Satan, because it was more ancient than even that ancient serpent. I had become host to a faceless face behind all worlds, a nothing at the center of everything, a chaos from which the cosmos has been snatched for a brief instant. I realized that I was beyond salvation or damnation. I saw beyond them both, beyond Heaven and Hell, beyond all opposites and created things into a realm of absolute negation. And this meant that even God could not save me, because the Void was older and bigger than he was.

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Teeth (2002)

A more robust story than those preceding it, dramatizing the protagonist's intellectual collapse and misanthropic renunciation after exploring a student's notebook. Well executed, but strangely uninvolving, as was the case with the preceding stories.

.... Of all the things I might or might not have expected to find, an elaborate sacred drawing was surely among the last. And yet that was exactly what I found. Rendered in the same blue ink that Marco had used to record his thoughts and quotes was an incredibly intricate visual pattern composed of abstract shapes, shadings, and forms. Its design was dense and complex, but what made it truly striking was its lushness and vividness, which made it seem three-dimensional. At the same time, it was reminiscent of a Zen painting with its distinct dependence on space and absence to contextualize and comment on form and presence. Most amazingly, its elements were arranged according to some alternative philosophy of design that flouted and exploded common artistic principles of harmony, emphasis, opposition, and so on. Each line led the eye to one or more angles that refracted attention like a prism dividing light. Each shape held its position and significance in relation to a hundred different elements, each of which was in turn embedded in its own peculiar nest of visual meanings and unstated implications. The overall effect was of a bold, bristling infinity.

    In a word, I was dazzled. I knew the creation of mandalas to serve as objects of sacred contemplation had been developed into an exquisite art form in religious traditions both Eastern and Western, but the one I was seeing now was even more breathtaking than the ones I had encountered in my studies of Buddhism, Hinduism, and medieval Christianity. I had not known that in addition to his other prodigious gifts, Marco was an artist of genius. But there was no mistaking it. The mandala had been rendered by his pen, in his notebook.

    I went to raise my head so that I could rave to him about the wonderfulness of the drawing and my awe at his secret talent. But then, with a sudden, startling sense of the impossible, I found that I could not do it. My neck was locked in place and my eyes were magnetized to the center of the picture. I blinked, or rather tried to, and found that I was likewise prevented from doing that. I was still aware of the room, still aware of the floor and bed beneath me and the walls around me, and of Marco seated across from me. But I could only attend to them with my peripheral vision. It was as if an invisible anchor had been hurled out from the page and lodged in my eyeballs, fastening them to the image and throwing me into an increasingly panicked state of immobility. I simply could not look away from the mandala, which filled my vision and began to horrify me with what I now perceived as its obscene infinitude.

    And then it started moving. Right before my disbelieving eyes, the shapes began to stir on the page with a creeping motion like the slow boiling of liquids in an alchemist's laboratory. Every hidden implication and mini-universe of meaning in the individual elements took on countless additional connotations as the whole structure shuddered to life. The picture's three-dimensional appearance became literal as the page's center dropped away into a recess of infinite depth. I no longer sat in a room beholding a picture; the picture had become the whole of my consciousness, and it encompassed me, and I stared through it into a chasm of measureless meaning whose very vastness was a horror.

    Then, in an instant, all motion stopped. A dark spot no bigger than a pinhead formed at the mandala's center and began to grow, as if approaching from an impossible distance. Ringed layers of shape and form fell away as this darkness accelerated its all-consuming approach. It resolved and clarified, and now wicked barbs and slivers were visible in its fabric, needled in endless rows of concentric rings like ivory spikes planted in rotten flesh. They churned and fluttered and twitched with a spasmodic motion, and in the tiny corner of my mind that I could still claim as my own I realized I was staring into a nightmare abyss of endless teeth, a fanged and insatiable cosmic gullet that endlessly devoured, devoured, devoured all things in an eternal feast of annihilation.

    All had been a prelude to this. My whole life, my very conception and progress through the stages of human existence, had been preordained to lead me to this dreadful moment. I felt the attention of a massive and malevolent intelligence turned upon me, and as I began to pitch forward into the pit, and as the first of trillions of teeth began to sink into my mind, I knew with absolute, horrified certainty that this nightmare abyss was also staring into me.

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The Stars Shine Without Me (2002)

Ligotti and William Browning Spencer territory: Work as a corporation as hellscape. Meh.

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Desert Places (2006) 

A man is reunited with a former lover, and recounts his experiences since she chose another friend over him:

....With growing amazement at my own willingness to open up to her like this, I began to tell her of my life without her: of how only a few weeks after I had fled from her and Paul, I had become involved with an activist group devoted to fighting the destruction of the Brazilian rain forest. The story sounded alien and ridiculous to me as I related it, almost as if I were talking about another person. Prior to encountering that activist group I had been the farthest thing from a "joiner." Despite the lip service that my self-conscious spiritual hipness had led me to pay to ecological issues, I had never done a single thing to back that up in concrete action. Nor had I imagined how frighteningly simple such hypocrisy would be to change. A chance encounter in a new city with a man handing out pamphlets on a street corner, an impulsive trip to the address listed on the cover, and one short screening session later, and I found myself seated on a Boeing 757—I, who had never left the continental United States—headed for Brazil to join the protest. Even at the time, I knew that my impulsiveness was mostly driven by my escapist fantasy. I just wanted to flee my past and forget that my two best friends, who were also the two most spiritual people I had ever known, had betrayed me for each other.

    The memory of this part enhanced the pain of telling the story to Lisa. It also made it all the more delicious. I began to revel in recalling minute details of sight and sound, taste and smell, image and emotion. I told her of my first impressions of South America when I got off the plane in São Paulo: of the stifling heat and humidity, the moist ripe smell of earth and jungle, and the way the horrendous humidity acted like a lens to focus the sunlight and roast one's flesh. I told her of the protest that fizzled after just a few days, the tiny band of friends I made, and the eventual disillusionment I felt when I realized that nothing we did made a difference for the rain forest, nor for my personal pain.

    Lisa asked no questions while I talked. She appeared mesmerized by my account, and maybe it was her enraptured expression that lulled me so much that when I arrived at the part of my story I had never meant to tell—the part about the revelation or vision I received one night while sleeping in the open air under a mosquito net—I just kept going, as if my words had cast a spell over both of us.

    The fact was, after living for several weeks with the constant assault of the jungle noises droning in my ears—all the unidentified swishings and scrapings and screechings—I stopped noticing them. The pungent smells of earth and bark likewise faded from my awareness, until I became as oblivious to them as I was to the stink of my own body in the tropical heat.

    But on that single special night, three months into my stay, with no warning or prelude, the jungle suddenly became vivid again. I awoke from a deep sleep into a state of extreme disorientation. With a tinge of panic, I realized that I had utterly lost my bearings. Where was I? Why was I lying in a tent under a net with a cacophony of tropical night buzzing all around me? I lay there in mounting terror with the jungle saturating my senses until my ears actually began to tingle with all the secretive murmurings. My nose stung with the sweat of tree bark and jungle beasts. My tongue stiffened with the tang of mold and grass. My skin inhaled the moist rotten heat of hidden decay.

    And I was sickened by the florid life all around me. For no cause that I could discern—and I tried long and hard afterward to divine a reason for it—I was suddenly horrified by the organic eruption that was the rain forest. The sole idea that I recalled from reading Sartre in college came to mind at once: de trop, "too much." The jungle was too much. It was too ripe, too juicy, too pungent, too sharp, too alive. That was the crux of the matter: it was the principle of life itself, bursting and blooming all around me, that was a horror.

    After that, nothing could be the same. My acquaintances in the activist group, who liked to call themselves my friends but who in truth knew nothing about me, were shocked when I quit them without explanation and left the jungle to return to São Paulo. I flew back to the States and tried to reboot my life again, but this proved impossible when I discovered that the midnight vision from Brazil had accompanied me. Leaving the original scene of its onset merely brought the new perception home to inhere in the things that were more familiar to me, as I quickly understood when the oaks, elms, cedars, and walnut trees bristling from the Ozark hills began to inspire the same reaction as the rain forest. I couldn't stop thinking about the root systems of those trees, all twined and knotted like diseased fingers digging into the loamy earth. Nor could I stop thinking about the rodents and birds nesting in those trees, and the snakes and insects toiling in secrecy beneath the matted forest floors, and below even that, the worms and grubs tilling the soil, consigning the whole pungent mass of it back to a primal black organic mash.

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Blackbrain Dwarf (2010)

A nice bit of domestic ghoulishness.

....He sat at the kitchen table while Linda poured some sort of whole-grain, prepackaged breakfast substance into a plastic bowl. "What's wrong, honey?" she asked, setting the bowl before him and taking a seat at the opposite chair.

    "Nothing," he said. A single spoonful told him the cereal was stale and the milk had tipped over into the pungent no-man's-land between liquid and solid. But he sucked on the mushy mass anyway, savoring it with a grimace, and found he couldn't tell whether the staleness and sourness resided in the food or on his tongue. And still the tingling buffer from the bathroom, like a buzzing wall of bees, remained interposed between him and the external world.

    "You're not still worried about your meeting, are you?" Linda reached out and tousled his dark hair. "You've worked on it all week. If anything, you're overprepared. Don't worry. You'll do fine."

    "Sure," he said. "Right. Like I said, nothing's wrong." She went to rinse the dishes while saying something about getting together with Steve for dinner that night. He ignored her chatter and watched her body closely from behind. She was wrapped in a blue terrycloth bathrobe, the fuzzy fabric pulled tight against her rump. The memory of her naked body arose unbidden from some black well of the past, from the mental ruins of another lifetime when he had actually craved the sight of her white skin and soft-rounded curves. Hot shadows rustled at the edges of his eyes and brain. His stomach lurched and squirted a jet of sourness up into his throat.

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Nightmares, Imported and Domestic (2006)

A strange story of doubling, and of the woes in a marriage, spreading out into horrific phenomenology. A very well-executed tale.

....What had happened was that Susan had asked Brian to unload a pickup bed full of potted flowers. He had backed the vehicle up to the front porch like the dutiful dream-husband he was, and had lowered the tailgate and climbed into the bed to unstack the dull plastic pots with their colorless floral occupants.

    (Lafcadio, watching from a nonlocalized point some distance away while simultaneously identifying with his dream-self, had thought the grayish blooms most distasteful.)

    It happened on the first jump. Brian realized it would be much easier to hop down than to squat and climb, so he steadied the pot in his hands and stepped off the edge of the tailgate, intending to drop lightly onto the balls of his feet. Susan's scream burst out with an impossible loudness and hung in the air with a ringing reverberation that could only happen in a dream. He hadn't noticed the hook projecting from the porch ceiling, right near the edge under which he had opened the tailgate. It was meant for hanging a plant on, obviously. Susan must have mounted it there without telling him. The gray-silver point extended an absurd length past the overhang, maybe three inches or more, and was located precisely at eye-level from his standing position in the pickup bed.

    The curved end was vicious-looking, almost medieval. It caught him in the top rim of his right eye socket, and his weight did the rest. He fell forward, the point gouged into the bone of his skull, his legs left the tailgate, and then he was lodged there, hooked like a great flailing fish. The plastic pot hit the lawn without breaking, although potting soil sprayed everywhere, and the colorless bloom was crushed. His body went out of control then, legs kicking and spasming as if he were trying to pedal up Mount Everest, hands and fingers slapping and clawing at the smooth vinyl siding of the eave in a vain attempt to lift himself up. While all this went on, his throat opened up and spouted a veritably Pentecostal string of gibberish that seemed to have something to do with screaming for help.

    Then Susan was grabbing his legs. She was grunting and lifting him up, heaving, thrusting, while her impossibly loud and long scream still hung in the air. At last she succeeded. The hook ripped free, dragging a few bone splinters with it, and he dropped to the truck, slammed into the open tailgate with the small of his back, and hit the lawn still writhing.

    That was when the blood began to spurt from his eye in candy-red finger-paint gouts. The pain was a knot of acid searing its way inward from his eye to his brain. Susan was pawing at him in panic, weeping, asking him what to do. And in the midst of it all, rather absurdly, he vomited.

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The Devil and One Lump (2010)

An engaging story about an author who gets a visit from the devil. Cleverly articulated.

....He gave me a pointed look. "I'm here about your books." Then he waited for my response.

    In my brilliance, I came up with, "What?"

    "Let's not mince words, Evan." He assumed a shrewd expression. "Horror novels are one thing, but religious horror novels—or horrific religious novels, if you prefer—are quite another. The books you write have produced the unfortunate result of crossing certain wires, as it were, and thereby producing certain, shall we say, problematic effects amongst a wide swath of readers. The purpose of my visit this morning is to set you on a different course."

    "You . . . I . . ." My eloquence continued to astound.

    "The problem," he said, "is that you have taken the entire Christian cosmology and, more importantly, the characteristic emotional tenor of those who consider themselves Christians, and you have turned these on their head. You have created protagonists whose very search for salvation produces a backfire effect that damns them to a worse hell than they had ever imagined. You have speculated that the Bible contains a hidden subtext that runs between the actual printed lines and undermines the surface message at every turn. You have written of a narcissistic demiurge who is so enraptured by the beauty of his own creation that he represses the memory of his birth from a monstrous prior reality, so that when he is forcibly reawakened to this memory, he suffers a psychological breakdown that generates cataclysmic consequences both for himself and for the cosmos he created. In these ways and many others, you've launched a subversive assault on the deepest philosophical and theological foundations of the enemy camp."

    He actually said "the enemy camp." Was he referring to God? To Christians? Did this fact, and also the smell and the voice and the Dante-esque shape that still sizzled on my retinas, indicate the man's true identity? Was this truly the type of story that I had stepped into? A "Devil in the morning" rehash?

    As I wondered these things with my jaw hanging down, he concluded: "You might reasonably think that I would approve of your efforts. But you would be mistaken. God, to put it bluntly, does not need depth therapy. He can't handle it—precisely as you have intuited in your books. And I'm here to make sure that your future creative efforts are focused in a different and, shall we say, more fruitful direction."

    Despite or because of my astonishment, my blood began to boil again. The guy was talking about my books. My books, those hated relics from the former life I had lost. And he was speaking as if I were somehow still responsible for them. The heat of my rising fury began to clear away some of the remaining fog in my brain, and I let this irate clarity shape my words.

    "Even though this is all a dream, I'm still not going to sit here and listen to such accusations. Let's get this straight right now: I do not write those goddamned books, I wrote those goddamned books. And now it's hands off, once and for all. So don't you dare come here to my house and interrupt my coffee and sit in my chair and accuse me of . . . of whatever it is you're accusing me of. Because you're talking to an ex-author who doesn't give a damn about those books."

    "Of all the delicious sins in this sinfully delicious universe," he said, "there's none more delicious or endearing than self-deception. Especially of the willful kind, which you're demonstrating with aplomb at the moment. Bravo, Evan!" He sized me up, smiled with that handsome mouth, and nodded. "Go ahead. Tell me what you want to tell me. Share the whole sad story of your private woe, which, as I strangely regret to inform you, really hasn't been all that private."

    I felt as if I were coming unglued. Literally. My brain reeled and my heart wanted to hammer a hole in my sternum. "The . . . the books . . ." He nodded again with obvious approval, encouraging me to share and tell.

    And just like that, the logjam in my mouth and heart and brain broke wide. "My books almost killed me! Do you think I wanted to become the king of mid-list horror? Hell, no! All I ever wanted was to spend my life writing about religion and beauty and truth and spirit and mystical awakening. That's what I loved since I was a kid! When those novels about God's psychosis and all that crap came flooding out instead, I was more horrified than any of my readers. I was absolutely mortified at the metaphysical sewage spewing from my pen."

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The God of Foulness (2002)

A journalist is assigned to cover an increasingly widespread cult worshipping and not treating their loathsome ailments.

....The media had dubbed them the "Sick Seekers" and given them enough coverage to lead some commentators to call them the story of the century. The Sick Seekers came from all walks of life and boasted all manner of physical and mental disorders, and their defining characteristic was that they viewed any kind of sickness as evidence of a special spiritual grace. At least, this was the best guess the commentators could come up with, since the Sick Seekers were notoriously close-mouthed to outsiders about the particulars of their beliefs and practices....

    

     ".....But Bobby," I said, "I don't understand them. Yes, I've studied up on them, but for the life of me I can't figure out why anybody would choose to live with terminal intestinal cancer, let alone celebrate it." I was thinking of a story I had watched just the night before on a weekly television news magazine. A man in Montana had refused to submit to having a large part of his colon removed, and had said things that indicated a link to the Sick and Saved movement. His wife had gone crying to the newspapers. "What am I supposed to do? How do I even find any of these people?"

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Chimeras & Grotesqueries (2010)

....I continued to read the scraps of newspaper that came my way, and I found they had come to sound unhinged in a manner formerly reserved for the tabloids, as their pages were now filled with tales of impossible occurrences. In a hastily published pamphlet that circulated by hand and word of mouth throughout the city's populace, and that was roundly denounced by religious and civil authorities, a putative and anonymous scholar who specialized in what he or she described as "an occult branch of philosophical theology" suggested that all these disruptions confirmed his or her thesis that "the godhead is insane, and the supernatural is its insanity."

    Over time, the scale of the events grew greater, surpassing their former status as mere news of the bizarre to reach heights of grotesquery and hallucinatory horror that led otherwise sober commentators to speculate in all seriousness that something had come unraveled at the heart of things.

    A woman entering a clothing shop on a busy avenue was killed when the plate glass window above the door suddenly came loose from its frame and fell upon her with unnatural force like a guillotine, hitting the crown of her skull broadwise and cleaving her head cleanly in half before exploding on the floor in a cascade of crystalline fragments. Her face thus remained untouched, and when she fell to the floor, her eyes remained open, rolling wildly in their sockets with an expression of panic while her lips worked silently. Compounding the astonishment and horror of onlookers were the half-dozen clumps of pulsating feathers that came spilling out of the woman's split cranium. These landed on the polished tile floor and whipped instantly into motion, unfurling to reveal themselves as enormous black birds that someone described as misshapen crows. They took flight and dashed madly about the interior of the store in a squawking hurricane of oily wings, crashing into light fixtures, knocking over clothing racks, and wounding a number of the store's patrons with slashes and gouges from jagged beaks and black talons, and then, as if possessed by a single, demonic mind, they shot through the open front door and out into the street. A dozen witnesses saw the screeching black shapes flap high into the air and then out of sight past the edge of a skyscraper.

    In another part of the city, a young woman was attacked in her apartment by her four-year-old daughter. Two college students who lived in the adjacent unit came running in response to the screams and found the girl buried neck-deep inside her mother's torso, which was split open like a fish. She told the police later that she had been trying to "get back inside mama's belly." One of the students told a journalist that when he and his roommate arrived, the girl pulled her head out of the bloody vertical wound and turned to gaze at them with "black, burning eyes."

    As I walked silently through the city streets and byways in my ever-widening and constantly evolving circuit, and as I sat propped against the wall of my alley in pursuit of my demiurgic work of monstrous creation, my thoughts kept circling round to the inner state of those who had witnessed and participated in such prodigies. Again and again, I returned to meditate on the sense of unreality that must have overtaken them. Dwelling upon this for endless hours, I would frequently experience an inner upwelling of giddiness, like the onset of cosmic vertigo, which would, if I happened to be standing at the time, oblige me to reach out to steady myself against a wall or lamppost. My eyesight would flicker and grow dim, as if my surroundings were lit only by the glow of a guttering candle, and I would hear the faint sound of a muted, hollow roar, like the shrieking of some vast metallic gate swinging open. If this came over me while I sat in my alley pursuing my calling, I would stare curiously at the little unfinished creature in my hands, and at the others strewn about the alley floor. And all the repressed knowledge of my nature, of my origin and reason for being, would tremble at the far edge of consciousness.

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Prometheus Possessed (2012)

A dystopian tale of the far future.

....Subject discovered inside the Temple by a Peace Enforcer making final sector sweep to verify full evacuation before building demolition. PE transmitted a request for assistance but was cut off from further communication by unknown interference. Additional PEs arrived to find subject emerging from Temple, walking backward. All reported cognitive, emotional, and multisensory perceptual anomalies accompanying subject's presence and movements. Apprehension of subject successfully accomplished, but arresting PEs suffered unspecified injuries. Cleanup Team dispatched for assistance. Sector sweep located original PE inside Temple suffering severe multiphase trauma. PE later expired at hospital.

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The New Pauline Corpus (2010)

A curious addition to the Lovecraft mythos via theology.

....Our antithesis, our dilemma in the form of a sacred riddle, is simply this: What has Christ to do with Cthulhu?

    It comes with a corollary: What has Jerusalem to do with R'lyeh?

     In these letters I intend to present you with the rudiments of a viable theological recalibration that will explore the avenues opened up by these shocking juxtapositions, and that, in doing so, will safeguard the possibility of our salvation, albeit in a much modified and, as I fear we shall be unable to keep from feeling it, far less agreeable form.

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A Cherished Place at the Center of His Plans (2019)

A confident weird atelier tale, reminiscent of the early work of Robert W. Chambers.

....Spread out in a fantastic array across the length and breadth of the basement was a collection of mysterious figures draped in sheets of white linen. The figures were obviously human or humanlike statues. The telltale outlines 

of heads and arms were enough to make this plain. His astonishment was magnified when he looked at the gypsum walls on the right and left and saw that they, too, were hung with sheets, and that these sheets concealed what could only be paintings. A hundred or more of them lined the walls on either side. The whole space seemed to be held under a hush, like a church sanctuary.

    "In here," Anthony said, shutting the stairwell door behind them, "I keep my most treasured collection. It is a room that I have devoted entirely to the power of art in all its forms. I believe art has the power to transform the world, to give us all a sense of widened perception and heightened consciousness. Don't you agree, Mr. Thornton?" His voice echoed with a dull reverberation against the cold concrete of the walls and floor. Without waiting for an answer, he led Thornton through the graveyard of shrouded forms. "I have hung your works in the back, where I put all my most recent purchases. Would you like to see?"

    Thornton followed closely behind him. He was careful not to touch anything, for fear that he would disturb some deliberate arrangement whose logic he could not perceive. Pale shapes loomed on either side like mute guardians of some obscure secret. He fancied he could feel the pressure of restrained visionary power billowing outward from beneath the sheets, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he and his host left the shapes behind and came to the far wall.

    Anthony turned to the right and pointed, and Thornton saw that they were facing an alcove in the corner where his paintings, the ones from last night's gallery encounter, had been hung. Unlike the others in the room, they were uncovered, and the familiar sight of his own work sparked a welcome sense of security. Their arrangement, however, was unusual, for Anthony had hung them next to each other in semi-interlocking fashion like the pieces of a puzzle, resulting in a kind of horizontal arc that resembled a letter "C."

    Anthony waited a moment and then spoke. "I think you see what I'm needing, don't you?" He pointed to the empty space within the arc. "One piece is lacking. When it is finished and placed with the others, the series will be complete." He slipped his hands into his pockets and offered Thornton another of those lopsided grins. Thornton noticed that his voice was losing its mealy sound. Down here, surrounded by his secret, sheeted gallery, Anthony had begun to speak in an increasingly commanding baritone, rich and resonant.

    "You must paint this final piece for me, Mr. Thornton," Anthony said. "Or at least, I hope you will. Despite appearances, I'm not an arrogant aristocrat who issues orders simply because I think I can buy people and manipulate them to my will. I'm seeking a true collaboration between the two of us, one in which the environment and financial backing that I can provide will enable you to create a masterpiece—the final painting in this important series."

    He paused, and Thornton knew a response was required. He licked his lips before speaking. "Thank you for all this, Mr. Anthony, including the good words about my work. And my apologies, but I feel I need to remind you that I didn't paint those works deliberately as a series. I mean, look." He pointed to each painting in turn. "Time Enough for a Scream is over a year old. The next three I painted over the course of last winter. I only finished The Hatchlings recently. They're not a series, they're individual works. I created each one without thinking of the others. I wouldn't know where to start painting something to finish 'the series,' because there isn't any series to begin with."

    "Strange, then," said Anthony, "that I knew how to line them up in chronological order. Wouldn't you say?" He waited for Thornton to see it, and when he did . . . by God, Anthony was right. Starting with the top point of the arc, the paintings were hung in the order of their creation. A moment earlier, when Thornton had pointed to each and recounted this order, he had not noticed that he was simply tracing the arc Anthony had created.

    As he looked more closely, the artist began to recognize a distinct thematic consistency to the paintings' arrangement. For all the world, it was as if Anthony truly had found an implicit coherence that connected this recent string of work—an internal thematic logic that had been hidden from their very creator.

    "Now, perhaps, you can see," Anthony said, smiling in a way that was not at all lopsided, "why and how I have come to be known as a nurturer of new talent."

    Thornton smiled, nodded, blinked—and, in the nanosecond of darkness behind his closed lids, saw a cowled face staring at him with yellow glowing eyes.

Jay

5 April 2020

Was Count Magnus a Space Vampire?

The UK writer Colin Wilson (1931-2013) is an acquired taste, one that I acquired in high school in the early 1980s. In addition to Marxism, I was strongly attracted to existentialism, and a coverless paperback of Wilson's The Philosopher's Stone (1969) fell into my hands in 1983. (It was the edition with the Joyce Carol Oates introduction.)

Wilson's braiding of the popular arts with an idiosyncratic form of petty bourgeois egotism perfectly suited my adolescent temperament, as did the fiction of authors like Poe and Lovecraft.

I did not get to Wilson's other fiction until I found second-hand paperback copies in hole-in-the-wall used bookstores of Marion and Delaware, Ohio. In the summer of 1985 I read The Mind Parasites (1967), reread The Philosopher's Stone, and  The Space Vampires. The Space Vampires was the easiest book to find, since a Warner paperback tie-in to the film Lifeforce was widely distributed that summer. (I saw the film, as well, and thoroughly enjoyed what critic Thomas Kent Miller rightly calls its Quatermassian elements.)

Today I reread The Space Vampires, and realized that after 35 years I recalled none of it. 

The work is brief, and the style is remarkably similar to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie. The reader senses the existence of an undergirding framework supporting an economical facade; scene-setting and character-drawing are near the level of stage direction. Dialogue between characters carries the burden of narrative plotting. This is not intended as negative criticism. A reader doesn't choose a novel called The Space Vampires (or Murder on the Orient Express, for that matter) expecting he is going to tap a Great Book.

One remarkable aspect of The Space Vampires is Wilson's use of the M.R. James character Count Magnus.

With real amusement I read this in the author's Acknowledgments:

....This book also owes much to the stimulus of discussions with Dan Farson — on vampirism in general, and on his great-uncle, Bram Stoker, in particular. I must also express my warmest thanks to Count Olof de la Gardie, both for his hospitality at Raback, and for allowing me to inspect family papers relating to his ancestor Count Magnus.

(Evidently Wilson had better fortune in his researches than James' poor Mr. Wraxall.)

In the novel itself, the two main protagonists make a kind of pilgrimage to Count Magnus' estate near Karlsborg, Sweden.  Astronaut Commander Carlsen and Dr. Hans Fallada, author of A Primer of Sexual Criminology and head of London's Psychosexual Institute (which sounds like something out of one of the early Cronenberg films) have gone there to consult the world's leading authority on spirit vampirism, Ernst von Geijerstam.

They have come to the right man.

....Carlsen said: "Do you think Count Magnus was a vampire — in your sense?"

The Count smiled. "Surely there is only one sense?" He led them up the worn stone steps, into the hall. "But the answer to your question is yes. And now, would you prefer to see your rooms? Or would you prefer a drink first?"

Fallada said decisively: "A drink."

Geijerstam plays the Van Helsing, Fallada a kind of Freudian Quatermass or Duke De Richleau. Carlsen is the oddly passive man of action.

"Good. Then come into the library."

Through the far window of the library, they could see the sun dipping over the mountains. A log fire burned in the enormous grate; the firelight was reflected on copper fire-irons and on the polished leather binding of books. The German girl, Annaleise, wheeled the drink trolley onto the rug. With her plump figure and rosy cheeks, she made Carlsen think of a waitress in a beer garden. She poured Swedish schnaps into the glasses.

Geijerstam said: "I drink to you, gentlemen. It is a great honour to have two such distinguished guests."

The girls also drank. Carlsen said: "If I'm not being too inquisitive, may I ask what your attractive pupils study?"

The Count smiled. "Why not ask them?"

Louise Curel, a slender, dark-eyed girl, said: "We learn to heal the sick."

Carlsen raised his glass. "I'm sure you'll make charming nurses."

The girl shook her head. "No, we don't study to be nurses."

"Doctors?"

"That is closer to it."

The Count said: "Do you feel tired?"

Surprised by the change of subject, Carlsen said: "Not at all."

"Not even slightly tired by your journey?"

"Oh, just a little."

Geijerstam smiled at the girls. "Would you like to demonstrate?"

They looked at Carlsen and nodded.

"You see," Geijerstam said, "this is perhaps the quickest way to answer your question and to introduce you to my work. Would you mind standing up, please?"

Carlsen stood on the rug. Selma Bengtsson began to unzip his jacket. Geijerstam said: "Close your eyes for a moment, and observe your sensations — particularly your sense of fatigue."

Carlsen closed his eyes; he could see the dancing flames through the eyelids. He observed a sense of muscular fatigue, combined with a feeling of relaxation.

"They are going to place their hands on you and give you energy. Relax and allow yourself to absorb it. You will not feel anything."

Louise Curel said: "Would you mind removing your tie and opening your shirt?"

When the shirt was unbuttoned, they pulled it back so his shoulders were bare. The Swedish girl said: "Close your eyes."

He stood there, swaying slightly, and felt them place their fingertips against his skin. He could feel Louise's breath against his face. It was an exciting, slightly erotic sensation.

They stood there for perhaps five minutes. He experienced a sensation of bubbling delight, as if he wanted to laugh. The Count said: "It could be done even more quickly if they used their lips. This is the reason that kissing gives pleasure, incidentally. It is an exchange of male and female energy. How do you feel?"

"Very pleasant."

"Good. I think that should be enough." The girls helped to rebutton the shirt and replace the tie.

Fallada said: "How do you feel?"

As Carlsen hesitated, Geijerstam said: "He will not know for at least five minutes." He asked Miss Bengtsson: "How was it?"

"I think he was more tired than he realised."

Carlsen asked: "Why do you say that?"

"You took more energy than I expected." She looked at the others, who nodded.

He asked: "So you feel tired?"

"A little. But don't forget that there are three of us, so we don't give much. And we take energy from you."

"You take it?"

"Yes. We take some of your male energy, and give you our female energy in return." She turned to the Count. "You can explain it better."

Geijerstam was refilling the glasses. He said: "You could call it benevolent vampirism. You see, when you're tired, it doesn't necessarily mean you have no energy. You may have enormous vital reserves, but there is no stimulus to make them appear. When the girls give you female energy, it releases your vital reserves, exactly like a sexual stimulus. For a moment you feel just as tired as before — perhaps more so. Then your vital energies begin to flow, and you feel much better."

Fallada said: "A kind of instantaneous cross-fertilisation?"

"Precisely." He asked Carlsen: "How do you feel now?"

"Marvellous, thank you." It was a pleasant, glowing sensation, and he was inclined to wonder how far it was due to the schnaps and the magical beauty of the sunset on the lake.

"Close your eyes for a moment. Do you still notice any tiredness?"

"None whatever."

Geijerstam said to Fallada: "If we took his lambda reading, you would find it had increased."

Fallada said: "I'd like to do full tests."

"Of course. Nothing could be easier. I have already done them, and I will show you my results."

"Did you ever publish them?"

"I wrote an article for it about ten years ago in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, but Professor Schacht of Göttingen attacked it so bitterly that I decided to wait until people are ready to listen."

Carlsen asked: "How did you make the discovery?"

"I first came to suspect it when I was a student, more than seventy years ago. My professor was Heinz Gudermann, who was married to an exceptionally lovely young girl. He had enormous vitality, and he often used to say he owed it to his wife. And then I read a paper that pointed out that many men have retained their vitality into old age when they were married to young women: I remember it mentioned the great cellist Casals, the guitarist Segovia and the philosopher Bertrand Russell. But the author of the paper insisted that this was purely psychological, and even then I was inclined to doubt this. Fifteen years later, when I discovered the principle of vampirism, I began to suspect that it was due to a transfer of sexual energy. I persuaded a young couple to take lambda readings before they went to bed on their honeymoon night, and then again the next day. This showed a definite increase in the energy of the life field. Next, I persuaded another couple to take readings before and after lovemaking. And the first thing I observed was that the renewal curve was similar to the curve of a hungry man eating food. Only it was much steeper. This seemed to confirm my point: that both lovers had eaten a kind of food — vital energy. And yet they were both renewed. How could this be, unless there were two kinds of energy, male and female? You see, lovemaking is a symbiotic relation, like a bee taking honey from a flower and fertilising the flower. But in those days I was more interested in the negative principles of vampirism — people like Gilles de Rais and Count Magnus. When I was in my seventies, I had a serious illness, and my nurse was a pretty peasant girl. I noticed that when she had rested her hands on me, I felt much better, but she was tired. Then it struck me that if several girls did it at the same time, it would be easier for them all. It worked. And now every day I take a little energy from my three assistants, and they take a little of mine. They keep me young."

Fallada was shaking his head incredulously. "That's really astonishing. Could it be used in general medical practice?"

"It has been used. You have an example here, in this house — Gustav, the footman who carried in your bags. He is from Lycksele, a small town not far from here. He was once an excellent carpenter; then a series of bereavements made him depressed and suicidal. After his third suicide attempt, he was confined in a mental home and became completely schizophrenic. Now, schizophrenia is a kind of vicious circle. The energies are low, so everything looks meaningless and futile. And because everything seems futile, you become even more depressed and exhausted. Now, at that time I had seven young girls here for the whole summer. We brought Gustav back here — to remove him from the old environment — and began intensive treatment. This was basically the thing the Commander has just experienced. In the first few hours, the girls became very tired, but he improved noticeably. After a few sessions, he stopped taking so much energy from them. He began to manufacture his own again. Within a week he was a different man. He begged me to remain here, so I employed him, and he married the gardener's daughter. He is now perfectly normal."

Fallada said slowly: "If all that is true, it is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard. Can anyone give this energy?"

"Yes. It takes a little practice — it is easier for women than for men. But I believe anyone can do it."

Carlsen said: "And what if the patient becomes dependent on these energy transfusions, like a drug?"

The Count shook his head. "That happens only in rare cases, when the patient has a criminal temperament."

Fallada looked at him with deep interest. "Criminal?"

"Yes. It is basically a kind of… spoiltness. Do you understand the word? Healthy people enjoy being independent. They don't like feeling reliant on others. Of course, when we are very tired or ill, we need help — as I did. But some people are more self-pitying than others. They need much more help before ihey are willing to make the effort to help themselves. And there are so many people who are so full of resentment and self-pity that they never reach this point. The more help they get, the more they want."

"And you would describe that as the criminal temperament?"

"Yes. Because the real criminal has the same attitude. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he is poor and frustrated… I am thinking of Jarlsberg, the Uppsala rapist, at whose trial I gave evidence. He once told me that when he choked and raped a girl, he was taking something that she owed to him. After a while, such a man begins to acquire a taste for this mixture of resentment and violence. He may commit his first rape because he is tormented by sexual frustration. But after his tenth, he no longer wants sex, but only rape, the sense of violating another human being. If you like, he enjoys the sense of breaking the law, of doing wrong. Burglars sometimes commit wanton destruction for the same reason."

Carlsen said: "You believe the vampire is the criminal type?"

"Indeed. That is the ultimate form of rape." A clock in the hall struck the hour. Carlsen glanced at his watch; it was seven. The girls all stood up. Selma Bengtsson said: "I hope you will excuse us. We must get ready for dinner."

"Of course, my dear." The Count made a brief formal bow from the waist. When the door had closed behind the girls, he said: "Please be seated." He remained standing until they had sat down. "In fact, I suggested to the young ladies that they might leave us alone half an hour before dinner." He smiled at them. "Unless I am mistaken, you believe that the aliens from the Stranger are vampires?"

Both stared at him with astonishment. Fallada said: "How the devil did you know that?"

"A simple inference. It can hardly be coincidence that you bring the famous Commander Carlsen as your research assistant. We have all followed his adventures with fascination. And you tell me you want to ask my opinion about vampires. It would be strange if there was no logical connection between these circumstances."

Fallada laughed. "God, for a moment you had me worried."

Geijerstam said: "But these aliens are dead, are they not?"

"No. We don't think so." He took out his cigar case. "Olof, would you like to explain?" It was the first time he had used Carlsen's Christian name; it established what they had both come to feel: that they were friends as well as allies and colleagues.

Without unnecessary detail, Carlsen described his visit to the Space Research building, the death of Seth Adams, and his own encounter with the girl. At first, Geijerstam listened quietly, his hands folded in his lap. He began to nod with increasing excitement. Finally, unable to contain himself, he began to pace up and down the room, shaking his head. "Yes, yes! That is what I have always believed. I knew it was possible."

Carlsen was glad of the interruption; he was again experiencing the strange inner reluctance to describe what had happened when he was alone with the girl.

Fallada asked Geijerstam: "Have you ever encountered this kind of vampirism before?"

"Never as strong as this. Yet it was obvious that it must exist somewhere — I say so in my book. In fact, I believe it has existed on the earth in the past. The legend of the vampire is not just a fairy story. But please go on. What happened to the girl?"

"She somehow walked out of the building, in spite of all the guards and the electronic alarm systems. An hour later, the other two aliens were found to be dead."

"And the girl?"

"She was found dead ten hours later — raped and strangled."

Geijerstam said incredulously: "Dead?"

"Yes."

"No! That is impossible!"

Fallada glanced at Carlsen. "Why?"

Geijerstam threw up his hands, searching for words. "Because — how can I say it? — because vampires can take care of themselves. That sounds absurd, perhaps… but again and again in my career as a criminologist I have noticed the same thing. People who get murdered are of a definite type. And vampires do not belong to that type. You must have noticed this yourself?"

"In that case, how do you explain her death?"

"You are quite sure that it was her body?"

"Absolutely."

Geijerstam was silent for several moments. Then he said: "There are two possible explanations. It is possible that this was a kind of accident."

"What kind?"

"You could call it a mistake. Sometimes, a vampire is so greedy for energy that the life force flows the wrong way — back to the victim instead of from him. You could compare it to a glutton swallowing food the wrong way."

"And the other possibility?"

"Ah, that is one I have never encountered. The Greeks and the Armenians insist that the vampire can abandon its body voluntarily, to create an impression of death."

"Do you think that possible?"

"I… I believe that a vampire could exist for a short time outside a living body."

"Why only for a short time?"

"Briefly — because it would require immense energy and concentration to maintain individuality outside a living body. Among occultists, there is a technique known as astral projection, which is in many ways similar."

Fallada leaned forward. "Do you think a vampire could take over someone else's body?"

Geijerstam frowned, staring at the carpet. He said finally: "It may be possible. We know that people can be possessed by evil spirits — I have actually dealt with three such cases. And of course, possession would be the logical conclusion of vampirism, which is a desire to possess and absorb. Yet I have never heard of such a case."

Carlsen said with sudden excitement: "These cases of possession by evil spirits — did they destroy the persons they possessed?"

"In one case, he became permanently insane. The other two were cured by exorcism."

Carlsen turned to Fallada. "Could that be the explanation of what happened to Clapperton? If one of these things possessed him without actually killing him, he'd be aware of what was taking place, even if he couldn't resist it. They'd have to destroy him finally. He'd know too much about them."

The Count asked: "Who is this man?" Fallada summarised the story of the girl found on the railway line, of Clapperton's disappearance and suicide. Geijerstam listened carefully without interrupting. He said: "I would guess that the Commander is right. This man Clapperton was possessed by one of these creatures. He may have committed suicide to escape."

Fallada said: "Or was driven to it."

None of them spoke for a moment, staring into the collapsing logs of the fire. Geijerstam said: "Well, I will do what I can to help you. I can tell you all I know of vampires. But I am not sure whether this would be of any use in this case."

Fallada said: "The more we know of these things, the better. We're working against time. Suppose the other aliens on the Stranger managed to get back to earth?"

Geijerstam shook his head. "That is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because it is a characteristic of vampires that they must be invited. They cannot take the initiative."

Fallada asked with a note of incredulity: "But why?"

"I am not certain. But it seems to be so."

He was interrupted by the sound of a gong from the hall. None of them moved. When the noise ceased, they heard the voices of the girls on the stairs. Carlsen said: "But it's possible they may be invited. The Prime Minister of England wants to get the Stranger back to earth. He thinks it may be of historical value."

"Does he not know what you have told me?"

"Yes. But he's pig-headed. He probably thinks that if we don't do it, the Russians or the Arabs might step in and take all the credit."

"You must stop him."

"He's given us a few months. In that time, we have to try to locate the other three aliens. Any idea where we might begin?"

Geijerstam thought for several moments, his eyes half closed. He sighed and shook his head.

"Offhand, no. Fallada and Carlsen stared at one another gloomily. "But let us talk about it. There must be a way. I will do what I can. Now let us go and eat."

The dining room was smaller than the library, but the great oak table could easily have seated forty guests. Two of its panelled walls were covered with tapestries, each about twelve feet square. A crystal chandelier, suspended from the central beam of the ceiling, was reflected in two immense mirrors, one above the fireplace and one in the opposite wall.

The girls were already seated. The manservant was pouring Moselle into the tall, green-tinted glasses.

Geijerstam pointed to the central tapestry. "That is our famous vampire, Count Magnus de la Gardie."

The portrait was of a powerfully built man in military dress, with a metal breastplate. The eyes stared down with the expression of a man used to command. Under the heavy moustache, the thin lips were tightly closed.

Miss Bengtsson said: "Your English ghost writer M. R. James has a story about Magnus. We have it here in Swedish."

"Is it accurate?"

Geijerstam said: "Remarkably accurate. James came to this house — we have his signature in the visitor's book."

Carlsen asked: "What did Magnus do?"

"Basically, he was a sadist. There was a peasants' revolt in Västergötland in 1690, and the king appointed Magnus to deal with it. Magnus repressed it so bloodily that even the courtiers were shocked. They say he executed more than four thousand people — half the population of the southern province. The king — Charles the Eleventh — was angry because it meant that he lost taxes. So Magnus was banished from court in disgrace. According to the legend, it was then that he decided to make the Black Pilgrimage to Chorazin. Chorazin was a village in Hungary where the inhabitants were all supposed to be in league with the devil. We have a manuscript in Magnus's handwriting, and it actually says: 'He who wishes to drink the blood of his enemies and obtain faithful servants should voyage to the town of Chorazin and pay homage to the Prince of the Air.' "

Fallada said: "That probably explains the vampire legend — the phrase about drinking the blood of his enemies."

"That is impossible. To begin with, the manuscript is in Latin, and it was found among various alchemical works in the North Tower. I doubt whether anyone read it for half a century after his death. Secondly, he is referred to in a manuscript in the Royal Library as a vampire."

"Did he make the Black Pilgrimage?"

"We do not know, but it is almost certain."

Fallada said: "And you think that turned him into a vampire?"

"Ah, that is a difficult question. Magnus was a sadist already, and he was in a position of power. I believe that such men easily develop into vampires — energy vampires. They derive pleasure from causing terror and drinking the vitality of their victims. So he was probably a kind of vampire before he made the Black Pilgrimage. But when he decided to make the Black Pilgrimage, he made a deliberate choice of evil. From then on, it was no longer a matter of wicked impulses, but of conscious, deliberately planned cruelty."

"But what did he do ?"

"Tortured peasants, burned down houses. They say he had two poachers skinned alive."

"Which makes it sound as if he was a sadistic psychopath rather than a vampire."

"I agree. It was after his death that he became known as a vampire. I have an eighteenth-century account book, written by a steward, that says 'The labourers insist on being home before dark, since Count Magnus was seen in the churchyard.' They say he left his mausoleum on nights of the full moon."

"And is there any evidence of vampirism after his death?"

"Some. The records of the church in Stensel mention the burial of a poacher who was found on the island with his face eaten away. His family paid for three masses to 'rescue his soul from the evil one.' Then there was the wife of a coach maker in Storavan who was burnt as a witch; she claimed that Count Magnus was her lover and had taught her to drink the blood of children."

They had finished the first course; Fallada, who had been sitting with his back to the tapestry, now stood up to look at it more closely. After staring up at it for several minutes, he said: "To be honest, I find it difficult to take the idea seriously. I accept what you say about energy vampires, because my own experiments lead me to the same conclusion. But all this is legend, and I find it hard to take it seriously."

Geijerstam said: "You should not underestimate legends."

"In other words, there's no smoke without fire?"

"I think so. How do you explain the great vampire epidemic that swept across Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century? Ten years earlier, vampires were almost unknown. And then, quite suddenly, you begin to get stories of creatures who come back from the dead and drink human blood. In 1730, there was a kind of plague of vampirism from Greece to the Baltic Sea — hundreds of reports. The first book on vampirism was not written until ten years later, so you cannot lay the blame on imaginative writers."

"But it could have been a kind of collective hysteria."

"Indeed, it could. But what started the hysteria?" The arrival of the main course interrupted the conversation. There were small circular steaks of elk and reindeer, with fennel sauce and sour cream. They drank a heavy red Bulgarian wine, served cold. For the remainder of the meal, the conversation remained general. The girls were evidently bored with the talk of vampires; they wanted Carlsen to describe the finding of the derelict.

Geijerstam interrupted only once; it was when Carlsen was speaking of the glass column, with its squidlike creatures.

"Do you have any theory about what they were?"

"None. Unless they were some kind of food."

Miss Freytag said: "I hate octopuses." She said it with such intensity that they all looked at her.

Fallada said: "Have you ever encountered one?"

Her face coloured. "No." Carlsen wondered why Geijerstam was smiling.

They drank coffee in the library. The heat of the fire made Carlsen yawn. The Count said: "Would you like to go to your room now?"

Carlsen shook his head, smiling with embarrassment. "No. Your excellent food has made me sleepy. But I want to hear more about Count Magnus."

"Would you care to see his laboratory?"

Selma Bengtsson said: "At this time of night?"

Geijerstam said mildly: "My dear, this is the time when the alchemists did most of their work."

Carlsen said: "Yes, I'd like to see it."

"In that case, you will need your overcoat. It is cold up there." He turned to the girls. "Would anyone else care to come?"

All three shook their heads. Selma Bengtsson said: "I can't even stand the place by daylight."

Fallada said: "Do you think the Count's activities might interest me?"

"I am sure of it."

Geijerstam opened a drawer and took out a large key. "We have to go outside the house. There used to be an entrance on the other side of the hall, but the previous owner had it bricked up."

He led them out of the front door. It was a clear moonlit night; the moon made a silver path along the water. Carlsen felt revived by the cold air. Geijerstam led them along the gravel path, towards the northern wing.

Fallada asked: "Why did he brick it up? Was he afraid of ghosts?"

"Not of ghosts, I think — although I never knew him. The house had been empty for fifty years before I moved in." He inserted the key in the lock of the massive door, then turned the handle. Carlsen expected a creak of rusty hinges, but it opened silently. The air inside smelt musty and was unexpectedly cold. Carlsen knotted his scarf around his throat and turned up the overcoat collar. On their left, the door that should have led into the house had been bolted to its frame with angle irons.

Fallada said: "Was this built at the same time as the rest of the house?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I notice that the stairs are unworn."

"I have often wondered about that. I think that perhaps no one uses them."

As in the main part of the house, the walls were panelled with pinewood. Geijerstam led the way up three flights of stairs, halting on each landing to point out the pictures. "These are by Gonzales Coques, the Spanish painter. As a young man, Count Magnus was a diplomatic envoy in Antwerp, where Coques worked for the Governor of the Netherlands. He commissioned these portraits of great alchemists. This is Albertus Magnus. This is Cornelius Agrippa. And this is Basil Valentinus, who was a Benedictine monk as well as an alchemist. Do you notice anything about these portraits?"

Carlsen stared hard but finally shook his head. "The painter has given each of them a noble bearing."

Fallada nodded. "They look like saints."

"Magnus was in his twenties when these were painted. I think they reveal that he possessed high ideals. And yet a mere ten years later, he was slaughtering the peasants of Västergötland and preparing to sell his soul to the devil."

"Why?"

The Count shrugged. "I think I know why, but it would take a long time to explain." He led the way up the final flight. From the stained-glass window in the alcove, they could see the expanse of moonlit water.

The door that faced them on the top landing was covered with heavy iron bands and metal studs. Its right edge showed signs of having been forced; the wood was splintered, and there were the marks of hatchets.

Geijerstam said: "I imagine this room was sealed after Magnus's death, and the key was probably thrown away. Someone of a later generation broke it open." He pushed the door, and it swung open.

The room inside was bigger than they had expected. It had a strange and disagreeable odour, in which Carlsen seemed to be able to detect incense. There was another element that he found harder to place: a sickly smell. Suddenly, it came to him: the smell of a mortuary when a corpse is being dissected.

Geijerstam pressed the light switch, but nothing happened.

"It's strange. Electric light bulbs never last very long in this room."

Carlsen said: "You think the Count dislikes them?"

"Or there is something wrong with the wiring." Geijerstam struck a match and lit two oil lamps on the bench. They could now see that the main furniture of the room was a furnace of brick, and a tentlike erection. When Carlsen touched this he found it to be made of black silk, the heaviest he had ever seen.

Geijerstam said: "That is a kind of darkroom. Certain alchemical operations have to be performed in total darkness."

On the shelves there were heavy glass bottles and containers of various shapes and sizes. There was a small stuffed alligator and a creature with a bird's head, a cat's body and the tail of a lizard. Carlsen peered at this closely, but was unable to see the joins. In the corner stood a tall, clumsy metal apparatus with many pipes leading away from it, and a heavy clay lid.

Geijerstam took down a leather-bound volume whose hinges were worn through, and opened it on the bench. "This is the Count's alchemical diary. He seems to have had the makings of a true scientist. All these early experiments are attempts to make a liquid called Alkahest, which is supposed to reduce all matter to its primitive state. That was the first step in alchemy. When he'd obtained his primitive matter, his next task was to seal it in a vessel and put it in the athanor — that is, the furnace in the corner there. Magnus spent almost a year trying to make Alkahest from human blood and urine." He turned over the pages. The handwriting was angular, spiky and untidy, but the drawings in the text — of chemical apparatus and various plants — showed enormous care and precision.

Geijerstam closed the book. "On January 10, 1683, he became convinced that he had finally made Alkahest from baby's urine and cream of tartar. This next volume begins two months later, because he needed spring dew for his primal matter. He also spent two hundred gold florins on cobra's venom from Egypt."

Fallada said with disgust: "No wonder he went crazy."

"Oh, no. He has never sounded more sane. He claims that he had saved the life of his bailiff's wife in childbirth, and cured his shepherd of gout, with a mixture of Alkahest and oil of sulphur. He says: 'My shepherd climbed to the top of the tree beyond the fish pond.' But now, look at this" — he turned to the end of the second folio — "what do you notice?"

Carlsen shook his head. "Nothing — except that the writing gets worse."

"Precisely. He is in despair. A handwriting expert once told me that it is the writing of a man on the point of suicide. Look: ' Or n'est il fleur, homme, femme, beauté, que la mort ŕ sa fin ne le chace.' There is no flower, man, woman, beauty, that death does not chase to his end. He is obsessed by death."

Fallada asked: "Why does he write in French?"

"He was French. The Swedish court was full of Frenchmen in the seventeenth century. But now look" — he took down another folio, this one bound in black leather — "he writes the date in code, but I have worked out the code: May 1691, the month after his expulsion from the court. "He who wishes to drink the blood of his enemies and obtain faithful servants should voyage to the town of Chorazin and there do homage to the Prince of the Air." And then the next entry is in November of 1691 — six months later. And look at the handwriting."

Carlsen said: "Surely it isn't the same person?" The writing had taken on an altogether different character: neater, smaller, yet more purposeful.

"But it is. We have other documents signed by him in the same handwriting: Magnus of Skane — that is where he was born. But the handwriting changes." He turned several pages: Carlsen recognised the headlong, untidy scrawl of the earlier volumes. "My handwriting expert said it was a clear case of dual personality. He still performs experiments in alchemy — but now he disguises many of the ingredients in code. But this is what I wanted to show you…" He turned to the end of the volume. In the middle of an empty page, there was a drawing of an octopus. Carlsen and Fallada bent over to look more closely. This drawing lacked the anatomical precision of earlier sketches of plants. The lines were blurred.

Fallada said: "This is inexact. Look, he shows only one row of suckers here. And he gives it a kind of face — more like a human face." He looked up at Carlsen. "Did these creatures in the Stranger look anything like that?"

Carlsen shook his head. "No. They certainly had no faces."

Geijerstam closed the book with a slam and replaced it on the shelf. "Come. I have one more thing to show you." He blew out the oil lamps, and led them back out onto the landing. Carlsen was relieved to be out of the room. The smell was beginning to make him feel sick. When they stepped out of the front door, he breathed in the cold night air deeply.

Geijerstam turned to the left and led them along the path, then across the lawn by the fish pond. The moonlight made the grass look grey. "Where are we going?"

"To the mausoleum."

It was dark among the trees; then the path emerged suddenly at the door of the chapel. It was built entirely of timbers and skaped like an inverted V. At close quarters, it was larger than when seen from the air.

Geijerstam turned the heavy metal ring, and the door opened outwards. He switched on the light. The inside was unexpectedly attractive. The ceiling was painted with cherubs and angels, and there were three circular brass chandeliers. The organ was small and painted in red, yellow and blue, with silver pipes. The pulpit resembled the gingerbread house of fairy stories, with a painted roof and a number of dolls that were obviously intended to represent saints.

Geijerstam led them down the northern aisle, past the pulpit, to a wooden door with an arched top. It was unlocked, and the room beyond it smelt of cold stone.

Geijerstam opened a wooden chest and took out an electric lead, with a light bulb at one end. He plugged this into a socket outside the door. "There is no electric light in the mausoleum. When the chapel was electrified — at the beginning of this century — the workmen refused to go in."

The bulb illuminated an octagonal room with a domed ceiling. There were a number of stone tombs and sarcophagi around the walls. In the centre of the room were three copper sarcophagi. Two of them had crucifixes on the lids; the third had the effigy of a man in military regalia.

"That is the tomb of Count Magnus." He pointed to the face of the effigy. This seems to be based on a death mask — notice the wound across the forehead. But look, this is the interesting part." He held the bulb so they could see the scenes engraved on the side of the sarcophagus. Some were military. Another showed a city with church spires. But the end plaque, nearest the feet, showed a black octopus with a human face, dragging a man towards a hole in a rock. The man's face was not visible, but he was wearing armour.

Geijerstam said: "No one has ever been able to understand this scene. Octopuses were almost unknown in Europe at that time." They stood there, looking at it in silence. The cold in the mausoleum was intense. Carlsen thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets and hunched his head into his collar. This was not the bracing cold he had experienced outside; there was something suffocating about it.

Fallada said: "Very strange." His voice lacked expression. "I can't say I like this place much."

"Why?"

"It seems rather airless."

Geijerstam looked curiously at Carlsen. "How do you feel?"

Carlsen started to say, "Fine," from force of habit, then checked himself, sensing a motive behind the question. He said: "Slightly sick."

"Please describe it."

"Describe feeling sick?"

"Please."

"Well… I've got a sort of tingling in my fingertips, and your face is slightly blurred. No, everything is slightly blurred."

Geijerstam smiled and turned to Fallada. "And you?"

Fallada was obviously mystified. "I feel perfectly well. Perhaps Carlsen drank too much wine."

"No. That is not the reason. I am also experiencing what he described. It always happens in here, particularly at the time of the full moon."

Fallada said, with only the faintest touch of sarcasm: "More ghosts and bogies?"

Geijerstam shook his head. "No. I believe the Count's spirit is at rest."

"What, then?"

"Let us go outside. I am beginning to find this oppressive." He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Carlsen was glad to follow him. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the feeling of nausea vanished. In the electric light, the colours of the organ looked gay and festive. His eyes no longer seemed blurred.

Geijerstam sat down in the front pew. "I believe that what we just experienced in there is not what is usually called a ghost. It is a purely physical effect, like feeling dizzy when you smell chloroform. However, it is not chemical, but electrical."

Fallada said with astonishment: "Electrical?"

"Oh, I don't mean that it can be measured with a lambda meter — although I wouldn't discount the possibility either. I mean that I believe it is a kind of recording — like a tape recording."

"And what is the tape?"

'Some kind of field — like a magnetic field. It is due to the water that surrounds us." He turned to Fallada. "Even you felt it to some degree, although you are less sensitive than Commander Carlsen. It was the same in Magnus's laboratory. But there it is fainter, because it is above the lake."

Fallada shook his head. "Have you any proof of this?"

"Not scientific proof. But more than half the people who go into the mausoleum at the time of the full moon notice it. Some have even fainted." He asked Carlsen: "Did you notice that it stopped quite suddenly as we crossed the threshold? These fields always have sharply defined areas. I have even pinpointed where it stops — precisely seven inches beyond the door."

Fallada said: "There must be some way of measuring it — if it's an electrical field."

"I am sure there is, but I am a psychologist, not a physicist." He stood up. "Shall we go back to the house?"

Carlsen said: "I still don't really understand… Why should there be an unpleasant atmosphere? What happened?"

The Count switched off the lights and closed the door carefully. "I can tell you what happened in the laboratory. It is all there, in the records. Magnus practised black magic. And some of the things he did are too horrible to mention."

They walked through the trees in silence. Fallada asked: "And the church?"

"Precisely. The mausoleum. Why should there be an atmosphere in there, when Magnus was already dead when he was laid there?" Carlsen felt the hair on his neck standing. "An unscientific question, perhaps, but worth asking."

Fallada said: "It could have been the fear of the people who went into the mausoleum."

"Yes, indeed — if anyone went in there. But for more than a century after Magnus's death, it remained locked and double-bolted. This chapel ceased to be used because everyone was so afraid of disturbing his spirit."

None of them spoke until they were back in the house. The library lights had been switched off, but the fire illuminated the room. Selma Bengtsson was sitting on the settee.

"The others have gone to bed. I waited up to find out what happened."

Carlsen sat beside her. "Nothing happened. But I felt something."

Geijerstam said: "I think we all deserve a little brandy. Yes?"

She asked Fallada: "Did you feel anything?"

"I… don't know. I agree that it is an oppressive place —"

The Count interrupted him. "But you do not believe in vampires?"

"Not in that kind — the kind that come back to life after they've been buried." He sniffed his brandy. "Vampires are one thing. Ghosts are another."

Geijerstam nodded. "I see your point. As it happens, I also believe in ghosts. But I do not think we are now talking about a ghost."

"Well, a man who rises from the dead… it's the same thing."

Geijerstam said: "Are you sure?" He sank into the armchair. Fallada waited. "There is an interesting phrase in the Count's journal: 'He who would drink the blood of his enemies and obtain faithful servants …' What servants?"

Carlsen said: "Demons?"

"Possibly. But there is no mention of demons or devils in any of the records. All we know is that when the Count came back from his Black Pilgrimage, he was a changed man… and his handwriting had also changed. You saw it yourself. Now, I have encountered five cases of multiple personality — the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. And in some of them, the handwriting changed as they changed personality. Yet it was always basically the same handwriting — it merely changed a few characteristics, becoming stronger or weaker. In this case, there is the handwriting of a completely different person."

Carlsen leaned forward. "In other words, Magnus was possessed by something?"

"I.think the evidence points in that direction." He smiled at Fallada. "If, of course, you believe that a disembodied entity could invade someone else's body."

Carlsen said: "And then there's the octopus…" None of them spoke for several minutes; the only sound in the room was the burning of the logs.

Fallada said finally: "I wish I could see where this was leading us."

The clock in the hall struck the hour. Carlsen emptied his brandy glass. Geijerstam said: "Perhaps we should all sleep on it. We have talked enough for one day. And I think Commander Carlsen is tired."

❖

Count Magnus is also near in the denouement of The Space Vampires.

At the conclusion of Chapter 3 we leave the world of London in the year 2080. A good Van Vogtian, Wilson sling-shots us ahead to year 2145 and an excerpt from Mathematicians and Monsters: The Autobiography of a Scientist by Siegfried Buchbinder.

Buchbinder is a schoolboy when he first meets Carlsen; the astronaut is a visitor at the home of Buchbinder's parents.

Wilson then slingshots us ahead to Buchbinder's final glimpse of the great man.

….I saw him only once more — in his coffin. I arrived in Stockholm the day after his death was announced, and immediately hired a private plane to take me to Storavan. His third wife, Violetta, received me kindly, but told me it would be impossible to invite me to stay. But she allowed me to join them at dinner — Carlsen's family seemed to be enormous — and then conducted me into the mausoleum behind the chapel. This was an octagonal room containing a number of stone sarcophagi. These, apparently, were the tombs of von Geijerstam's ancestors. [Editor's note: Buchbinder is mistaken; the tombs are those of the de la Gardie family.] Von Geijerstam's body was not among them; his last request had been that it should be sunk, in a granite coffin, in the middle of the lake. In the centre of the room stood four copper sarcophagi. Mrs Carlsen told me that one of these contained the ashes of Queen Christina's lover, Count Magnus. Next to this, on a stone platform, stood the sarcophagus of Olof Carlsen. The lid had been pulled down to reveal his face. I was amazed to see that he looked no older than when I had last seen him. If anything, he looked younger. I placed my hand on the sunburned forehead. It was cold and had the slackness of death; yet the mouth looked firm, as if he were pretending to be asleep. He looked so lifelike that I overcame my misgivings and asked Mrs Carlsen if the doctor had performed a lambda test. She said he had, and that it indicated a total cessation of all normal metabolic change.

Mrs Carlsen — a Catholic — knelt to pray. I also knelt, as a mark of respect, feeling awkward and somehow dishonest. The stone slabs were cold, and after a few minutes, I began to experience the discomfort that I used to feel in our local Episcopalian church as a child. Mrs Carlsen seemed so absorbed that I was ashamed to move. I rested one hand on the stone platform and leaned forward so that I could see Carlsen's face. And then, as I stared at the profile, I felt a strange calm that seemed to spread over my body like the effect of a drug. At the same time, I experienced an absurd sense of joy that brought tears to my eyes. I cannot explain the sensation; I can only record it. I was certain that the place contained some supernatural influence, an influence for good. The sense of peace was so profound that it seemed to me that time had ceased to flow. All discomfort vanished, although I remained kneeling for more than half an hour.

As Mrs Carlsen locked the door of the chapel, I said: "I find it hard to believe that he is dead."

She said nothing, but I thought she looked at me strangely.

At the climax in Chapter Three, and in the Buchbinder coda, Wilson comes close to suggesting that Carlsen is a Hidden Monarch. In this Carlsen, whom we meet in Chapter One as an explorer and a leader of other explorers, is the opposite of his space vampire opponents and of terrestrial vampire Count Magnus. It's a fascinating contrast to find in a science fiction novel.

Jay

5 March 2020

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