Read The House of Doors - 01 Online
Authors: Brian Lumley
The House of Doors - 01 (16 page)
I
n fact it didn’t take that long. First they took a rock each, straining and grunting them to the edge of the crack and letting them fall where Gill had prescribed. The next boulder fragment in line was too big for one man on his own, however, so between them they wrestled it to the rim, where they paused for breath before standing it up on its heavier end and toppling it down. And watching it fall, they shouted their appreciation when sheer good fortune caused it to jam halfway down, where the walls bottlenecked a little.
n fact it didn’t take that long. First they took a rock each, straining and grunting them to the edge of the crack and letting them fall where Gill had prescribed. The next boulder fragment in line was too big for one man on his own, however, so between them they wrestled it to the rim, where they paused for breath before standing it up on its heavier end and toppling it down. And watching it fall, they shouted their appreciation when sheer good fortune caused it to jam halfway down, where the walls bottlenecked a little.
As the hunter put down its pincer claws and tested them on the wedged boulder, so Gill and Turnbull backed off. They saw the carapace straining upwards as clouds of talc erupted from points all around its perimeter. Strangely jointed legs scraped and clattered, and the stinger pushed itself down into the talc on the far side of the crack like the snout of a mechanized jack.
As more talc billowed and became a churning cloud, the men backed off farther yet. But in a little while the dust began to settle, and the hunter dragged itself out from the flurries. Its movements were very slow now, and to starboard it trailed a pair of crippled legs.
A little distance from the riven bed of the river, the thing came to a standstill and shook itself. White dust drifted from its flanks like powdered snow, leaving its surface all blue- and black-gleaming chitin, white bone and yellow ivory. In a strange way (and if it wasn’t so monstrous) the thing might even seem beautiful.
“A … a machine?” Turnbull obviously couldn’t quite believe it. “It shook itself like … like a dog!”
“I don’t blame you for doubting it,” Gill told him, “but take my word for it anyway.”
The hunter lowered its carapace to earth on its good left side, lifted up its right on half a dozen stiffened legs. The two useless ones dangled twitching from damaged sockets. Turnbull looked from the monster to Gill, who seemed to be waiting for something. “Well? Time’s wasting”
Gill held up a hand. “I’d like to watch this,” he said. “It could be important.”
It was. Gobs of the grey liquid came spurting and sputtering from the sockets and displaced joints of the damaged limbs, and at the same time Gill jerked stiffly upright as he sensed something happening. Turnbull looked at him and asked, “What is it?”
Again Gill held up a hand. Then he reached slowly into his jacket pocket and brought out the cylinder weapon. He looked at it, weighed it, rubbed it in his hands like it was a lucky stone. He turned his gaze on the hunter, then back to the cylinder in his hand. And a strange light came into his eyes.
“Spencer?” Turnbull was anxious.
Gill nodded towards the hunter. “That thing’s drawing power from somewhere. It’s fuelling itself. And some of the energy is leaking off—being leeched, maybe—by this!” He held the cylinder up, held it out towards the hunter.
Turnbull licked his lips, shook his head. “I don’t understand. But, you know, I think I can feel something, too!”
“They’re charging themselves,” Gill said, “like rechargeable batteries.”
Through all of this the hunting thing had stood there in its lop-sided pose, frozen like stone, with its crippled legs dangling. For a few seconds more Gill held out the cylinder towards it, then slowly drew back his arm. “That’s it,” he said. “All charged up.”
Turnbull made no answer, continued to observe the hunter.
For long moments the thing remained static in its jacked-up mode. Then, suddenly, more gobs of the thick grey liquid were ejaculated from its torn sockets. They flowed outwards over the crippled legs, sheathing them in goo. But in a little while, like nets drawn in, the sheaths of living liquid retracted, drawing the damaged hard parts back up under the carapace and into the body and sealing them in position again in their sockets. Then the goo itself was withdrawn and some of it, where it covered the raw joints, hardened rapidly into a flexible leathery plastic. The entire process had taken perhaps twenty seconds.
Turnbull gulped. “Now if only my car could do that!” he said.
But Gill only said, “Time to go.”
They turned and hurried as best they could for the far bank. Looking back as they climbed to the withered, mineral-streaked plain, they saw the hunter lower its carapace into a mobility stance and commence trundling after them. Or if not “after them”, at least in their general direction. All of its legs appeared to be working, those on the right perhaps a little stiffly, lacking something in coordination. Even so, it was still something to see.
“Just how fast can that thing move?” Turnbull asked nervously. “I’ve got this awful feeling I’ve just helped reactivate Frankenstein’s monster!”
“Pretty fast,” said Gill, “but not as fast as us. Not over short distances, anyway. We sprint pretty well, but it has stamina. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about it—it isn’t interested in us.”
He turned his face to the powdery plain where its grasses grew more lush towards the final belt of forest. If nothing else delayed them, another hour should see them approaching the mansion, the House of Doors. It was an “if” Gill couldn’t be certain about. Only time would tell, and right now there was little enough of that to waste. An image of Angela’s bloodied blouse kept filling the mirror of his mind. “Let’s go,” he said … .
The House of Doors was like some strange, square, squat mastaba, a modern step-pyramid constructed of precise, white stone blocks. Three-tiered, its base was perhaps sixty by sixty feet, twelve high, balustraded at the top with stark square pillars supporting a square rail. It had doors, too, plenty of them: huge numbered slabs of flush-fitting marble, with no hinges or other mechanisms apparent except for the square stone door knockers. And there were no windows.
The second tier was stepped back maybe seven or eight feet on all sides, making it forty-five by forty-five; likewise the third and topmost tier, a featureless plateau of white stone some thirty-seven feet square. In its entirety the structure might well have been designed by some geometrical purist. It was like a giant wedding cake, even to the detail of a bride—but there the similarity ended. For she didn’t stand atop the cake but protected its bottom tier against the advances of Smart Alec Haggie, the would-be bridegroom.
There she stood in the slowly fading light—scratched and dishevelled, wild-eyed and primitive in ski pants reduced almost to tight-fitting Bermuda shorts, a flimsy bra, and (mercifully) sensible shoes—silently challenging him to try, just
try,
to climb up to her. And while Haggie taunted in his fashion from below, so Angela thought back on some of the details of their nightmare flight from the thing on the ledge under the waterfall … .
try,
to climb up to her. And while Haggie taunted in his fashion from below, so Angela thought back on some of the details of their nightmare flight from the thing on the ledge under the waterfall … .
She remembered very little of their scramble down from that place; only that before finding
a wide, overgrown, descending fault in the cliff, there had been too many times when she’d believed she must surely fall. Indeed, it was a miracle she hadn’t fallen—but not, as she’d later discovered, a blessing.
Then they’d been at the bottom, and Haggie half-crazy with terror where he rushed here and there in the gloom; one minute peering at the unknown forest ahead, and the next looking back and up at the escarpment, fearing at any moment to see their pursuer descending towards him. But eventually dawn had started to come, staining the eastern horizon a pale silver with its flush, and the howling of the things in the forest had tailed off, so that at last Haggie was satisfied they could proceed.
She’d held back then, asking about Gill and the others. Shouldn’t they hide and wait for them? But he’d told her they would be lucky if they still lived; by now the crab-lobster-scorpion might well have taken them; that no one could hide from it because it would always sniff them out. If Gill and the others had somehow survived, they’d surely meet up with them again at the House of Doors. Indeed, he’d promised they would wait for them there.
And fearing to be left on her own, with the hunting thing coming down from the escarpment to sniff her out, Angela had let him lead her on into the forest.
They had gone painfully slowly at first, hardly daring to breathe, every nerve jumping and senses straining to their limits. She had held his hand and he hers—an entirely mutual, almost involuntary thing—and she’d felt his trembling. That, too, had been mutual, but she’d fancied he was the more afraid. Perhaps knowing something of this place, having been here before, he knew enough to
make
him more afraid. She’d thought of asking him, but in the event held her tongue. Maybe it was better that she didn’t know.
make
him more afraid. She’d thought of asking him, but in the event held her tongue. Maybe it was better that she didn’t know.
Full dawn had come as they left the first belt of misted forest and crossed a strip of heath; and as the light waxed, so Haggie’s fears had seemed to wane. He had lived through yet another night with his miserable body and soul still intact, and could now appreciate the advantages of his new situation. So that soon he began to talk to her, to make plans for them. But for
them
—the two of them—with never a word or thought for the others. At that Angela had known that Haggie didn’t intend to reunite with Gill and the rest, but she’d made no comment for fear of angering him. That had been a mistake, for he’d seen her silence as encouragement. When his talk had turned more intimate, however, and his piggy eyes commenced to devour her in the full dawn light, finally she’d spurned him.
them
—the two of them—with never a word or thought for the others. At that Angela had known that Haggie didn’t intend to reunite with Gill and the rest, but she’d made no comment for fear of angering him. That had been a mistake, for he’d seen her silence as encouragement. When his talk had turned more intimate, however, and his piggy eyes commenced to devour her in the full dawn light, finally she’d spurned him.
It was something he’d said—something about “women, like men, all seeming much the same from the waist down”—that stung her into rebuke; that and his statement that she would soon get used to him, once she saw what he had for her. He’d been “saving it all up, because in a dump like this there was nowhere to spend it.” It was the sort of thing her husband had used to say to her when he was drunk, and caused her to remember the things he’d used to do to her.
Then, breathlessly, she’d asked Haggie if he thought she was a bitch in heat, that he could talk to her like that—which of course had been the wrong thing to say to someone like him in a place like this. “In heat?” he’d answered. “Well, you look pretty hot stuff to me … .” And straight out with it: “But if that’s how you like it—doggie-fashion—that’s okay by me.”
What she might have said to him then—whether or not she’d have gone for him tooth and nail in her extremity of fear and loathing—would never be known, for that was when they’d reentered the forest and she’d stumbled into the web.
At any other time she couldn’t have failed to see that patterned mesh of glistening fibers strung between the trees, but her blood was up and she’d been blinded by anger. In a moment she’d found herself held fast, spread-eagled on the web; and then she’d heard that vibrant, rhythmic,
sentient
rattling—and seen the devil’s own worst nightmare falling on her out of the treetops! It had been about as big as Angela herself; not exactly a spider or a wood louse, but something in between and much worse than both.
sentient
rattling—and seen the devil’s own worst nightmare falling on her out of the treetops! It had been about as big as Angela herself; not exactly a spider or a wood louse, but something in between and much worse than both.
Her horror had given her strength; somehow she’d torn herself free; and give Haggie his due, he had tried to fend the spider thing off with a branch torn from a thorn tree. But the monster had stabbed at her even as she got loose from its web, and one of its chitin-covered forelimbs had pierced her blouse and torn her shoulder. The blouse, hooked up on the limb’s hairy barbs, had been ripped from her cringing body and yanked aloft even as she staggered to safety.
When they reached a brighter patch of forest, Haggie wanted to look at her wound but she said no. Tearing her ski pants from the knees down, she’d somehow fashioned a bandage and even a scrap of a halter to cover her breasts; but Haggie had only laughed, insisting that modesty in this place was for fools. Why should she want to hide what was going to be his anyway? But … it was up to her. She could do it the hard way or the easy way, take her pick. The easy way would be to do as she was told—
everything
she was told—and he’d take it easy on her. And the other way? Sooner or later, if she chose that route, she’d come crawling to him. And then there’d be no terms but his.
everything
she was told—and he’d take it easy on her. And the other way? Sooner or later, if she chose that route, she’d come crawling to him. And then there’d be no terms but his.
The gash in her shoulder had been an agony, but still she had her pride. Defiantly she had told him that she’d wait right here, for Gill and the others. She believed they still lived—they had to! She was bluffing, of course, fòr she didn’t dare wait there in the forest. She had to make it to the mansion—and Haggie knew it. It had prompted him to play a cruel game with her.
“Suit yourself,” he’d said, and sneered at her then. “Wait for them if you want to. See if they’re alive and if they can help you. Gill was a dying man anyway, couldn’t you see that? But if they don’t come, or if you miss them, then you’re finished. It’s up to you: stay here and I’m done with you, I go on alone. Or come on with me to the mansion. If you do come with me, then you’re mine. It’s the three F’s, Angie doll. If I feed you and fend for you, then it seems only right that I take care of the third F, too—when and how and as often as I like!” And with one last contemptuous grin he’d left her.
With tears of frustration streaming from her eyes, crying out her bitter detestation of him, she had stood her ground—for a little while. But life was dear, and now that she was alone the forest seemed even more sullen, silent, alien. And indeed she knew that it was all of those things. She’d caught up with him at last as he entered the final belt of forest, which must have been something over two hours ago … .
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