Cthulhu Lives!: An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft (6 page)

HOBSTONE
by G. K. Lomax

Only a student of architecture would have noticed it, and possibly only then on a clear crisp spring morning, after a night of revelry and inebriation.

James Belmont leant heavily on the wall at the mouth of the alleyway. Opposite, across Harstow Road, stood the house that for the time being he called home. He smiled triumphantly, and steeled himself for the last stretch. It was shortly after dawn, and he’d partied all night – an important rite of passage for a young man living out of reach of parental disapproval for the first time.

The details of the party were already beginning to blur, but he was sure it had been good. He’d had a respectable amount to drink, he knew that. There had been a couple of drags on a joint that was being passed round too, a new experience, not that he’d admitted it. Then had come the dancing – energetic, uninhibited, exhilarating and prolonged – during which he had finally summoned up the nerve to make a move on Mel. To his astonishment and delight, Mel had proved equally energetic and uninhibited, only coming up for air to ask what had taken him so long. There were limits to what James was prepared to do in front of witnesses, but
some
clothing had been dispensed with. It seemed that Mel was every bit as interested as he was.

Then they’d been roped into a drinking game involving tequila slammers, after which things were a bit of a blank. The one thing he
was
sure of was that Mel had given him her number, and had made her expectations perfectly clear. He fished his phone out of his pocket and grinned inanely at it. Yes, that was Mel’s number, right enough.

The phone informed him that it was 5:49 am. He glanced at his watch, which seemed to agree. Wow. He couldn’t remember ever seeing 5:49 am before. All he had left to do was make it across the road, open the door, and crash for a few hours.

He took a few deep breaths. The journey back from Paul’s place had been difficult. It was only a couple of miles, which he usually regarded as no distance at all. But the rules of the drinking game had been complex, and he’d fallen foul of them fairly regularly. Consequently, he’d consumed enough tequila to turn his walk home into a series of misadventures. London’s maze of small, twisting streets had taken their toll. He was pretty sure he’d have sore, bruised shins when he was sober enough to feel them.

The street was quiet and empty, as befitted a Saturday morning before six, but it was surprisingly bright. Normally, Harstow Road was dull and shadowy. Apparently, when the sun shone directly down the street, it made everything look, well, if not exactly cheerful, then at least less grim. The fact that this happened when most of the residents were oblivious to it was just one of life’s little ironies.

James gazed at his house, interested to see it at its best. Its age was hard to determine. Probably Victorian, aimed at the new and prosperous middle-class that had emerged during the nineteenth century. It was a largish but otherwise undistinguished mid-terrace affair, in need of attention. He shared it with four other students. The paint was cracked and peeling, the window-frames pitted, the brickwork in need of re-pointing, and the guttering busy sprouting vegetation. Nevertheless, he looked at it fondly, and wondered how many people had called it home since it had first been built.

Home was a powerful word. It was why he wanted to be an architect, though he realised that this made him unusual. Most of his classmates dreamed of being the next Foster or Rogers or Le Corbusier, names associated with buildings people talked about. Vanity projects. He wanted to design for ordinary people, build houses that people lived in and turned into homes. There was satisfaction in that. Some architect had designed the house in which he now lived, had sat at his drawing-board and had placed the front door just here, the windows just there...

The windows just there?

He pulled himself away from the wall and stood upright. He looked again, and realised that he felt unpleasantly sober. His window was wrong. Well, not
wrong
, exactly. He struggled for a moment to decide what exactly he’d seen that bothered him.

His room was on the ground floor, facing the street, to the right of the door as he was looking at it. That was his window, and
that
was the point where his house ended and the one next door began. But his room wasn’t that large. Which meant – he was sure of it – that his room was smaller on the inside that it ought to be when judged from the outside.

James frowned. A reverse Tardis. A house
could
be made to seem smaller on the inside, he knew, through sloppy design, but to do it for real...
Better make sure.
Perhaps the hit of dope had slammed shut the doors of perception, rather than opening them.

He crossed the street and stood level with the window. Then, placing heel to toe, he paced out the distance from there to the boundary of the house. Eleven, twelve, thirteen of his size nines. He measured again, just to be sure. Definitely thirteen.

Now for the inside.
He let himself in, and collided with Ron’s bike. The guy insisted on bringing it inside, despite the marks it left on the threadbare carpet. James cursed, fought free of the infernal thing, and entered his own room.

It was long and thin – badly proportioned, to his architect’s eye. The landlord had left a bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, and a small sink. To this, James had added a laptop, a printer, a guitar, two posters of impossible buildings by Escher (which tickled his sense of irony), a backpack, a pair of rollerblades, a collection of empty wine-bottles, a pile of textbooks, and a small Egyptian-style figurine of a cat, once his grandmother’s, that he’d formed an attachment to as a small boy.

Brushing past everything, he walked over to the window. From there, he carefully measured paces to the wall – seven, eight, nine... and a half. No doubt about it. Either that wall was three feet too thick, or it was false, and concealed who knew what.

He felt a rising tide of excitement, but with it came the exhaustion that his discovery had temporarily banished. Further exploration could wait. He aimed himself at his bed, and fell forward.

♦

James woke to a thick head and an insistent bladder. Taking care of the latter problem via the sink, he made his way groggily to the kitchen in search of a cup of tea.

“Holy shit, look at you.” Ralph was sitting at the table, demolishing a bacon sandwich.

There were periods when Ralph seemed to subsist entirely on bacon sandwiches and Irn Bru – a combination which unnerved James at the best of times. Slightly to his surprise however, his stomach felt fine. His teeth seemed to have acquired a fur coat though, and the unshaded light-bulb hanging from the ceiling hurt his eyes. He put the kettle on.

Ralph watched him. “Good party?”

“Unh.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Score?”

“Unh.”

“I’ll take that as a no. What time did you get back?”

“What time is it now?” James was not surprised by the croakiness of his voice.

“It speaks! It’s twenty past six on a delightful Saturday afternoon. Arsenal won two-nil, and all’s right with the world.”

“Fuck Arsenal.”

“Well, we can’t all appreciate greatness. I take it you were mugged on the way home?”

“Huh?”

“Have you looked at your trousers recently?”

James looked down. He had a moment of panic, fearing that he might have soiled himself or something embarrassing, but Ralph was referring to a tear in the left knee of his jeans, crusted with dried blood.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I think I walked into a bollard.” Now that he’d noticed it, his knee started to hurt quite badly. “Got any plasters?”

“No.”

The kettle boiled. James looked around for the least-dirty mug and made himself some tea. Two sugars.
The finest restorative known to man.
He took a sip.

“Anyone else around?”

“Ron’s in his room. With Dave. Call of Duty, I think. Sam’s away for the weekend, which you’d remember if your brain wasn’t so frazzled.”

James drank some more tea. Twelve hours sleep and he still felt this awful? “Anyone call?”

“What am I, your secretary? Check your phone. Though since you’ve got no life, I doubt it will be brimming with messages.”

“Fuck you. And fuck Arsenal. Again.”

“Ah, a wit. Or half of one, anyway.” Ralph finished his sandwich, licked his fingers, and stood up. “Right. I’m off out. That stuck-up cow from Surrey who thinks she can sing has somehow persuaded the powers that be to let her gig the Union. I want to grab a seat in the front row so I can make helpful suggestions. See ya. If you find yourself at a loose end this evening, might I suggest the washing-up?” He left without waiting for an answer. A moment later, the front door slammed.

James went back to his room. He ran the taps into his sink for a while to restore a vestige of hygiene, then cleaned his teeth. It was surprising how much more human he felt afterwards. He finished his tea, then peeled off his jeans and checked his knee.
Reckon I’ll live
. He dabbed at it with a damp towel until he’d removed the dried blood. Then, feeling oddly resourceful, he improvised a bandage using an old sock and sellotape.

After pulling on some fresh jeans, he turned his attention to his wall. He manhandled the chest of drawers away from it, and cleared a space on the sickly orange carpet. He started to tap the wall with his knuckles, listening intently. Working his way methodically from one side to the other, he detected no sign of hollow space. The wallpaper, old and peeling, called to him. He grabbed a loose corner and pulled. More paper underneath, which he picked at half-heartedly. It would come off easily enough if he soaked it and scraped it. The landlord probably wouldn’t be too delighted but, given the overall standard of décor, he’d probably never notice. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he had to do a spot of papering. James rarely got the chance to work with his hands, but when he did he usually enjoyed it, and did a reasonable job. The only problem was that he didn’t have a scraper. There was a Homebase half an hour’s walk away. He was wondering whether it would still be open on a Saturday evening when his phone rang.

It was Mel, wanting to know why he hadn’t responded to her messages.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was unconscious.” It seemed the easiest answer.

“Serves you right after all that tequila. What are you doing tonight?”

James shrugged at his bedroom. “Haven’t decided yet.”

“Are you playing hard to get?”

“Sorry?”

“Jesus, some people really
do
have to have it spelled out for them, don’t they? My place, half an hour. Night in. Pizza and DVD. Bring a bottle of wine. Chardonnay. Bring your toothbrush as well. Do I need to draw you a picture?”

“God, no!”

“Good.” Mel hung up.

He looked at the intriguing wall, and then examined his priorities. He changed his socks, pulled on a cleanish shirt, pocketed his toothbrush, and set off for Mel’s.

♦

James returned to the question of the false wall on Sunday afternoon. After an incredible night at Mel’s, he’d somehow remembered to pick up a scraper and a plastic washing-up bowl at Homebase. Ralph was in the hallway when he came in.

“Is that so you
can
do the washing-up?”

“No.” Without further explanation, he filled the bowl with water and took it to his room. Using a discarded tea-towel as a sponge, he set to work. Soak, scrape. Soak, scrape.

There appeared to be four layers of paper. The bottom one was at least fifty years old. Possibly even antique. He scraped it off anyway. He wasn’t quite sure what he hoped to achieve, but he wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, and this was a logical first step.

He’d been working away for an hour or so when a large section of the paper peeled away at once. With it came a cascade of plaster which seemed to have decayed into powder. James froze. His first thought was that the landlord would have a fit. Then he noticed something else. Under the plaster was some sort of stone. Carved into this was a strange design, roughly elliptical, about eighteen inches across at its widest point. It was entirely geometrical, formed of a dozen or so lines, some straight and some curved, branching and intersecting without logic or symmetry. For no apparent reason, it looked oddly forbidding.

There was a knock at his door. James started, and was seized with a sudden desire to keep his discovery secret. Fortunately, his chest of drawers would screen it from anyone standing in his doorway.

“Piss off if you support Arsenal,” he called.

Ralph took this as an invitation, as intended, and stuck his head round the door. He stared. “You’re stripping wallpaper.”

“I know.”

“OK –
why
are you stripping wallpaper?”

“So I can paint this wall. Then, while I watch it dry, I’ll get an insight into what you feel when you watch Arsenal.”

“Please yourself.” Ralph withdrew.

A little later there was another knock.

“Piss off if Ralph sent you.”

The door opened. “Ralph said you were redecorating.” Dave’s voice.

James didn’t turn round.
He used his body as an extra barrier between his visitors and his wall.

“We were wondering if you needed psychiatric help.” That was Ron.

James turned his head. “Is Sam back yet?”

“No. Why?”

“Because if he is, invite him in for a gawp too. Get it over with.” He sighed, and relented. “If you must know, this wallpaper is driving me crazy. I never could stand this shade of green. Then the other day I spotted some mould, and decided that one of us would have to go.”

“Wilde, James?” asked Dave. “I’m impressed.” He didn’t sound it.

“You can re-decorate my room next, if you like,” said Ron. “I hate my wallpaper, too.”