The Taint and Other Novellas by Brian Lumley Read Free Book Online

in the scabrous clearing: Yibb-Tstll, huge and potent, turning inexorably, almost stupidly about His own axis, with His cloak billowing monstrously as the night-gaunts beneath its folds flapped and clung in blind horror to the black and writhing multiple breasts.
    This time, as soon as Spellman drifted (his dream-motion was as eerie as the drift of weeds in some outré Sargasso morass) into the crumble-earthed clearing, the vast obscenity at its center stopped Its turning, and as he wafted closer he saw Its eyes full upon him….
    The utter horror of the occurrence which followed as he drew closer to the loathsome Ancient One shocked Martin Spellman from his sleep, and if anything its simplicity only went toward heightening that horror. The wonder was that Spellman had been able to recognize the— writhings —of those hellish features for what they were!
    “It smiled— the Thing smiled at me!” he screamed, sitting bolt upright and flinging the bedclothes from him. For a long moment he simply sat, staring about wide-eyed in the darkness of his room; then, limbs trembling and with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he got up and shakily brewed coffee.
    Two hours later, at about 4:00 A.M., with dawn still some way off, he managed with some trepidation to get back to sleep. For the remainder of the night his slumbers were mercifully undisturbed….
    • • •
    When Martin Spellman awoke on the morning of New Year’s Day, 1936, he had no time to pause in consideration of the occurrences of the previous night; he had slept late, was on duty soon, and the time was flying by. Spellman was not to know it but that day was to be the most eventful since his arrival at Oakdeene—and at the end of the day….
    At ten-thirty in the morning he managed to find a way to get down to the basement ward, and once there in Hell he went straight to Larner’s cell. Through the barred spy-hole he saw that his mission was useless. Larner, frothing at the mouth, was flinging himself in a silent fit from wall to padded wall, his eyes bulging and his teeth bared through the foam of his madness in gnashing frenzy. The student left the ward and found the nurse whose duty it was to attend the lower wards. He made Larner’s silent raging known and then returned to his duties.
    Toward the end of the lunch-break, after missing Spellman at the dinner table, Harold Moody found the young nurse prowling worriedly back and forth across the restricted but private floor of his room. Spellman would say nothing of what was on his mind. In fact, he did not himself know what was bothering him, except that he had feelings of an impending—something. Feelings which were somehow relieved a little when Moody delivered his news that Alan Barstowe had quit his job at the sanatorium. No one, it transpired, knew for sure why the squat nurse was throwing up his job; but apparently there had been rumors about his nerves for some time. Moody stated that in his opinion the place and the inmates must have been “getting on top” of the man….
    • • •
    Later, after finishing duty for the day, Spellman—still inordinately pleased at the news of Barstowe’s imminent departure, feeling more himself and easier in his mind by the minute—ate a quick meal before returning to his room and getting out his manuscripts. By nine in the evening, however, discovering that with the encroachment of the dark outside his queasy uneasiness had returned at the expense of his concentration, he put away his book and simply lay on his bed for a while. He spent some time in trying to detect unusual sounds from Hell, finding himself no happier to discover that all seemed very quiet down there. A few minutes later, catching himself beginning to nod, he got up and smoked a cigarette. He did not want to sleep; his aim was to stay awake until midnight, to see if the inhabitants of the basement ward would get up to any more Larner-inspired tricks.
    By ten a powerful desire had taken