Ancient Images Read online

  Ramsey Campbell

  Ancient Images

  ***

  Ramsey Campbell, acclaimed as one of the world's great novelists of horror and the occult, achieves new heights in his masterly Ancient Images.

  "Britain's answer to Stephen King and then some," says the Dallas Morning News of this extraordinary writer, whose powerful, disturbing novels illuminate everyday reality in frightening and unforgettable ways.

  In Ancient Images, Campbell focuses his nightmarish vision on a long-forgotten 1930ness Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi film, Tower of Fear. For reasons blurred by history, powerful forces suppressed the film and destroyed the prints. Nobody now living had seen the finished film until film researcher Graham Nolan's two-year search unearthed the sole surviving print.

  Graham invites colleague Sandy Allan, a film editor at London's Metropolitan Television, to view Tower of Fear, but before the screening, the film disappears and the cycle of death begins.

  This is a novel rich in images-of the land, of the bread of life, of blood. We watch in terror as Sandy gradually uncovers the shocking truth of the psychic violence that a family inflicts on itself and others. And we are drawn ever forward with Sandy as she perceives the inexorable power of a thirsty earth, a thirst that must be quenched. Rejecting her last chance to retreat, Sandy must overcome a terrible evil if she is to survive to tell her story.

  Disturbing, menacing, Ancient Images is a finely crafted, superbly literate work that places Ramsey Campbell in a class by himself. His insights into the occult are deeply felt and make a lasting impression with a seer's vision into the secrets of the unknown, Ancient Images is the best yet from one of the most gifted authors of our time.

  ***

  From Publishers Weekly

  British horror writer Campbell here focuses on one of his most intriguing inventions, a horror film supposedly starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, made in England in 1938 and immediately suppressed. When film editor Sandy Allen decides to track down a print of the film, her detective work leads her to Redfield, a rural community known for the delicious wheat that grows on its rich soil, fertilized by blood from an ancient massacre and, it turns out, in need of a fresh infusion every 50 years to maintain its fecundity. During her search, Sandy is shadowed by bizarre creatures that sometimes look like dogs and sometimes like scarecrows. After Sandy finally pins down the connection between the film and Redfield, the creatures come out of the shadows and reveal themselves. Campbell's novels tend to be dense and less accessible than his short stories, but this narrative seems more relaxed and simplified-perhaps his most readable effort since his debut in The Doll Who Ate His Mother.

  ***

  From Library Journal

  A colleague's violent death and its apparent cause-a stolen copy of an old, never-released Karloff/Lugosi film-set film editor Sandy Allan on the trail of the film's origins and history. Mystery surrounds the movie, and as Sandy learns of the tragedies which haunted its production, she finds herself threatened by an ancient force protecting secrets deeper than the suppression of a 50-year-old movie. Interestingly, in this novel centered on a horror movie supposedly judged too disturbing to be shown in theaters, author Campbell makes it clear that his own view of the genre does not include the splatter films and paperbacks of the 1980's horror market. His brand of fear derives from atmosphere, suggestion, and his trademark fever-dream world, where litter scuttles across deserted sidewalks and toadstools gleam like eyes. Campbell is renowned among fans and writers alike as the master of a skewed and exquisitely terrifying style, and this latest novel will only add to his reputation.

  ***

  P. (scaning & OCR) & P. (formating & proofing) edition.

  ***

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I should begin by thanking Forry Ackerman, whose Famous Msters magazine acquainted me with Karloff and Lugosi before I saw any of their films. Decades later, Dennis Etchison helped me add to my knowledge of them. In the writing of the book my wife Jenny was more important than ever; Edward A. Novak III, Susanne Kirk, Harriet McDougal, Ann Suster, and Tom Doherty also made helpful suggestions.

  ***

  At last the pain became unbearable, but not for long. Through the haze that wavered about her she thought she saw the fields and the spectators dancing in celebration of her pain. She was surrounded by folk she'd known all her life, oldsters who had bounced her on their knees when she was little and people of her own age she had played with then, but now their faces were evilly gleeful as the gargoyles on the chapel beyond them. They were jeering at her and holding their children up to see, sitting children on their shoulders so that they were set almost as high as she was. Her streaming eyes blinked at the faces bunched below her. As she tried to see her husband she was praying that he would come and cut her down before the pain grew worse.

  She couldn't see him, and she couldn't cry out to him. Someone had driven a gag into her mouth, so deep that the rusty taste of it was choking her. She couldn't even pray aloud to God to numb her awareness of her bruised tongue that was swollen between her back teeth. Then her senses that were struggling to flee what had been done to her returned, and she remembered that there was no gag, remembered why it couldn't be her tongue that felt like a mouthful of coals whose fire was eating its way through her skull.

  For an instant her mind shrank beyond the reach of her plight, and she remembered everything. Her husband wouldn't save her, even if she were able to call out his name instead of emitting the bovine moan that sounded nothing like her voice. He was dead, and she had seen the devil that had killed him. Everyone below her, relishing her fate, believed that she was being put to death for murdering him, but one man knew better-knew enough to have her tongue torn out while making it appear that he was simply applying the law.

  The haze rippled around her, the gloating faces seemed to swim up toward her through the thickening murk, and again she realized what her mind was desperate to flee. It wasn't just a haze of pain, it was the heat of the flames that were climbing her body. She made the sound again, louder, and flung herself wildly about. The crowd roared to drown her cries or to encourage her to put on more of a show. Then, as if God had answered the prayer she couldn't voice, her struggles or the fire snapped her bonds, and she was toppling forward. Her hair burst into flames. As she crawled writhing out of the fire, she thought she felt her blood start to boil.

  She didn't get far. Hands seized her and dragged her back to the stake. She felt her life draining out of her charred legs into the earth. Hands bound her more securely and lifted her to cast her into the heart of the fire. In the moment before her brain burned, she saw the man who had judged her, gazing down impassively from his tower. The face of the devil that had killed her husband had been a ghastly caricature of the face of the man on the tower.

  ***

  Sandy was on her way to lunch when she met Graham Nolan in the corridor. His gray mane gleamed as he strode toward her through the sunlight above London, his blue eyes sparkled, his long cheeks and full lips were ruddy with glee. "Whatever it is must be good to bring you here on your day off," she said.

  "What the world's been waiting for." He gave her a fatherly hug, and she felt as if he was both expressing his delight and hugging it to him. "You've time for a drink, haven't you? Come and help me celebrate."

  "I was going to have a roll in the park," she fed him.

  "If I were younger and swung that way…" he sighed, and ducked as she mimed a punch. "A stroll and then a drink, will that do you? Toby's collecting me when he's finished shopping. You wouldn't send me off to toast myself."

  "We're beginning to sound like a bread commercial. I think you're right, we'd better take a break."

  The lift lowered them five stories to the
lobby of Metropolitan Television, where the green carpet felt like turf underfoot. Beyond the revolving doors, taxis loaded with August tourists inched along Bayswater Road. Graham shaded his eyes as he followed her out beneath the taut blue sky, and kept his hand there while he ushered her across to Hyde Park.

  A man whose scalp was red from shaving had attracted most of the tourists at Speaker's Corner and was ranting about someone who ought to be dumped on an island: if they couldn't survive, too bad. Graham made for the nearest park shelter and smiled apologetically at Sandy. "Not much of a stroll, I grant you."

  "You can owe me one," she said, and sat beside him on the bench, "since you can't wait to tell me what you've tracked down."

  "Guess."

  "All the scenes Orson Welles shot that were cut after the sneak preview."

  "Ah, if only. I begin to doubt we'll see those in my lifetime. Maybe my heaven's going to be the complete Ambersons, double-billed with Greed on the biggest screen my brain can cope with." He blinked rapidly at the park, nannies wheeling prams, pigeons nodding to crumbs on the paths. "I know you've indulged me already, but would you mind if we were to go inside now? I feel in need of a roof over my head."

  They dodged across Marble Arch, where the black flock of taxis wheeled away into Edgware Road and Oxford Street and Park Lane, and almost lost each other in the crowd before they reached the pub. Though he was mopping his forehead with one of his oversized handkerchiefs, Graham chose a table furthest from the door. Sandy perched on a seat wedged into the corner and stretched out her long legs, drawing admiring glances from several businessmen munching rolls. "You haven't found the film your American friend was sure was lost forever," she said.

  "Tower of Fear. I have indeed, and I wanted you and him to be the first to know. In fact I was wondering if you'd both care for a preview this evening."

  "Was there ever one?"

  "Not even in the States, though my copy came from a bank vault over there, from a collector who seemed to prefer watching his investment grow to watching the films themselves, bless him. Mind you, I've my suspicions that one of my informants had a copy salted away too." He sat back as if he'd just finished an excellent meal, and raised his gin and tonic. "May all my quests be as successful, and my next prize not take two years to hunt down."

  "Was it worth two years?"

  "My dear," he chided her, knowing she was teasing him. "A feature film with Karloff and Lugosi that no one living will admit to having seen? It would have had to be several times worse than the worst of the junk that's made these days to disappoint me, but let me tell you this: I watched half an hour of it before bedtime, and I had to make myself put out the light."

  "What, just because of- was-"

  "An old film? An old master, I'd say Giles Spence was, and it's tragic that it was the last film he directed. He knows how to make you look over your shoulder, I promise you, and I think you'd be professionally impressed by the editing. I'd love to watch the film with someone who appreciates it."

  "Doesn't Toby?"

  "He's sweet, but you know how he is for living in the present. I hope he won't feel outnumbered if Roger joins us, the American you mentioned. You met him at my last entertainment, you'll recall."

  "We exchanged a few words."

  "Oh, wary, wary. I wouldn't dare to arrange a match for the hermit of Muswell Hill," Graham said, pretending to shrink back in case she hit him. "Seriously, shall you be able to come tonight?"

  He sounded so anxious that she took pity on him. "I'll look after you."

  He glanced behind him, presumably for Toby, but there was no sign of Toby among the crowd silhouetted against the dazzle from outside. Above the bar the one o'clock news had been interrupted by commercials. Aproned women with sheaves in their hands danced through a field of wheat to the strains of Vaughan Williams, and a maternal voice murmured "Staff o' Life-simply English" as the words appeared on the screen. Now here was the news footage Sandy had edited, the line of constables blocking a road into Surrey, the wandering convoy which the media had christened Enoch's Army fuming at the roadblock, the leader burying his fingers in his beard which was massive as his head while a policeman gestured him and his followers onward to yet another county, children staring out of vehicles at children jeering "Hippies" at them from a school at the edge of the road. "Scapegoats, you mean," Graham muttered.

  "I hope people can see that's what they are."

  "All you can do is try and show the truth," Graham said, and jumped as someone loomed at him out of the crowd.

  It was only Toby. He stroked Graham's head in passing, and leaned against the wall beside Sandy, wriggling his broad shoulders to work out tension. In his plump face, made paler by the bristling shock of ginger hair, his blue eyes were wide with frustration. "Thank you, Dionysos, for this oasis in the jungle," he said, elevating his glass.

  "Trouble with the natives?" Graham suggested.

  "Not with us at all. Hitler youths on their way to a bierkeller almost shoved me under a bus, and two gnomes in Bermuda shorts sneaked in front of me for the last of the pasta in Old Compton Street. 'Look, Martha, it's like we get at home. Thank the Lord for some honest to God food instead of all this foreign garbage.' They ought to have been thanking the Lord for my concern for international relations."

  "Never mind, love. Sandy'll be joining us tonight, by the way."

  "It'll be a sorry buffet, I warn you-whatever I concoct from the little I managed to save from the locust hordes."

  "The two of you are enough of a feast," Sandy declared, raising her voice to drown out a man at the bar who was telling a joke about gays and AIDS. She thought he might be unaware of the periphery of his audience until he and his cronies stared at Graham and Toby and burst out laughing.

  "I think we may adjourn to our place," Graham said, "lest my mood be spoiled."

  "Just as you like," Toby said, his mouth stiff, blood flaring high on his cheeks. Sandy could tell that he wanted to confront the speaker on Graham's behalf. She ushered her friends past the bar, where the men turned their thick necks toward them. The joker's eyes met hers in the mirror between the inverted bottles. His face was a mask made of beef. When he smirked she said, "You must feel very inadequate."

  "Queers and women's libbers, I can do without the lot of them," he told a crony out of the corner of his mouth.

  "Then you'll have to take yourself in hand," Sandy laughed.

  He understood more quickly than she would have expected, and wheeled bull-like on the stool, lowering his head as if he were stepping into a ring. She didn't even need to imagine him in drag in order to render him absurd. She shook her head reprovingly and urged her friends out of the pub. "You make sure our Graham enjoys his triumph," she told Toby, patting his angry cheeks.

  "We'll enjoy it more for sharing it with you," he said, and took Graham's hand as they crossed over to the park.

  ***

  Sandy lingered outside Metropolitan as they strode rapidly past Speaker's Corner. The man with the raw scalp was still ranting, but only the sound of traffic appeared to emerge from his mouth. A tramp or a tangle of litter stirred behind a bench as Graham and Toby reached the nearest entrance to the car park that extended under the whole of Hyde Park. As Graham stepped out of the sunlight he glanced back sharply, but she didn't think he was looking at her. She was squinting in case she could see what he'd seen when Lezli came out of Metropolitan to find her. "Help," Lezli said.

  At first Sandy thought Lezli was editing an old musical, brushing her green hair behind her ear whenever she stooped to the bench. Astaire was dancing on the moviola screen, and it wasn't until Cagney joined him that she realized this was something new. It was The Light Fantastic, a television film where the players in an end-of-the-pier show found themselves fading into monochrome and dancing with the best of Hollywood. "Only their rhythm's wrong, and the film's already over budget, and the dancers have gone to America themselves now," Lezli wailed.

  "Any chance of using some o
ther vintage clips?"

  "It took us months to clear these. I did tell the producer he should try, and he used words I didn't know existed. The worst of it is these aren't the clips we thought we'd be using, the ones the dancers were told to match."

  The point of the film was that the ghosts of Cagney and Astaire allowed the dancers to forget their bickering and their failures and realize their ambitions for a night, if only in fantasy, but now it looked as if the encounter turned them into clowns. Sandy examined the outtakes, which proved to be useless. She ran the completed scenes again, and then she hugged Lezli. "Couldn't see for looking," she said, and separated the main routine into three segments. "Now how do we get them all to dance in the same tempo?"

  Lezli peered and brushed her hair back and saw it. "Slow our people down."

  "That's what I thought. Let's see." She watched Lezli run the tape back and forth, trying to match tempi, until the dancers joined the ghosts, not imitating them so much as interpolating syncopated variations in a slight slow motion that seemed magical. The producer of the film came storming in to find Lezli, then clapped his hand over his mouth. "Light and fantastic. Thanks, Sandy. I thought we were up cripple creek."

  "Thank Lezli, she's the one who put the idea into words. Soon I'll be coming to her for advice," Sandy said and went to the vending machine for a coffee, feeling even happier than she would have if she'd edited the film herself.

  She enjoyed the urgency of editing news footage, but equally she enjoyed helping shape fictions, improving the timing, discovering new meanings through juxtapositions, tuning the pace. She'd learned these skills in Liverpool; she'd spent her first two years out of school working with children at the Blackie, a deconsecrated church with a rainbow in place of a cross, helping them make videos about their own fears. She'd moved to London to attend film school, she'd lived with a fellow student for almost a year and had nursed him through a nervous breakdown before they'd split up. She'd been a member of a collective that had made a film confronting rapists with their victims, and the film had been shown at Edinburgh and Cannes. When a second film that would have let people who had been abused as children confront their seducers had failed to attract finance, Sandy had gone for the job of assistant editor at Metropolitan. Later she'd learned that Graham had put in a good word for her, having seen the collective's film in Edinburgh and admired the editing. He'd introduced himself once she had begun work at the station, and they had taken an immediate liking to each other. He'd steered her toward jobs he'd thought would stretch her talents; he'd supported her when, infrequently, she'd thought a task was too much for her, and had been the first to applaud when she solved it; he'd given her the confidence when she needed it and asked for nothing but her friendship in return. In less than a year she was promoted and managed to land Lezli, with whom she'd worked in the collective, her old job. Now, two years later, she was twenty-eight, and sometimes felt as if she was able to shape her life as deftly as she shaped films.