Ancient Images by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online Page B

for and clapped a hand over his mouth, and watched her cross the road, his dark keen eyes smiling ruefully. "It isn't every day you hear that kind of overture before a movie," he said.
        "True enough."
        He pushed his lower lip forward in a rueful grin, then looked more solemn. "Listen, today's movie isn't the one I was expecting, may not be the kind you go for. Maybe we can go for coffee or a walk and come back here in time to meet your quarry."
        He was talking like someone rushing to finish a tongue twister. "What kind of film is it?" she said.
        "Some kind of horror comedy. Gross, therefore funny, supposedly. Not Graham's kind of movie at all."
        "We disagreed sometimes. I may like it more than he did, and I want to be sure of catching your colleague."
        "No colleague of mine, let me tell you. Okay, I'll brave the movie if you will. You can hide your face on my shoulder if you need to," he said, and added, "I mean, don't feel you have to," so hastily that she was immediately fond of him and at her ease with him.
        He led her around the square to a film distributor's offices. On the way to the basement he said, "Did you happen to bring Graham's notebook?"
        "Damn, I knew there was something. My cats were acting up this morning. I don't know what's got into them."
        "I can tell you about some of the guys in the notebook. Harry Manners was a character actor, must be in his seventies. Leslie Tomlinson will be even older. He was a stuntman before there was sound. I should have asked you to read out all the names when you phoned me," he said as they stepped into the auditorium.
        Not only the floor but the walls and the dozens of seats were carpeted in dark red. About twenty people, most of them men, lounged here and there on the seats. A few turned from chatting to greet Roger. "Presumably we can start now," someone on the front row grumbled-an old man with a sharp veinous nose, protruding eyes, large ears that reminded Sandy of the handles of a jug. Roger followed her into the second row and nodded at the man's back. "Len Stilwell of the Daily Friend," he mouthed.
        As soon as the film began, Stilwell stooped forward and fumbled in his lap while peering up at the screen, at an actress with enormous breasts. Sandy thought he was adjusting his penis until she realized he was scribbling notes. A vampire with hair slicked back like Lugosi's sank his teeth into the woman's left breast, which deflated with a hiss that sounded disapproving. A man guffawed, then two more, while Roger showed Sandy his gritted teeth.
        If there was an audience for the film, Sandy wouldn't like to live next door to them. She laughed when a vampire left his false teeth in his victim's neck, but even that made her feel as if something she was nostalgic for were being spoiled.
        A tottery doctor called Alzheimer kept missing the vampires' hearts with his stakes, hammering squelchily though he was blinded by squirts of blood, and she sensed Roger's embarrassment on her behalf. When the film tried to convince her that eye-gouging was comic she looked away and patted Roger's arm to cheer him up. "The End" dripped off the screen at last. "That's a relief," she said.
        Stilwell turned and looked down his nose at her. "Just another bloody horror film."
        "Is that what you'll write?"
        She meant it conversationally, but he seemed insulted. "Who are you, may I ask? Where are you from?"
        "I'm Sandy Allan from Metropolitan, and this is Roger Stone, who's written a shelf of books about cinema."
        "Well, a few," Roger said. " Shower Scenes, you might know."
        Stilwell raised his nose further. "Wasn't Hitler at the Movies: Portrait of a Clown by you? Some would say that was in decidedly bad taste."
        "Maybe, but not mine. Think about the way the movies have portrayed him."
        "I just write consumer reports, I've no time for