The Dark Gateway: A Novel of Horror. John Burke

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ saw. Like a blurred projection on a cinema screen—the spasmodic cinema in the village hall—stained and spotted by shifting snowflakes, was an incredibly coloured sky, throwing up into unnatural relief the hulking shape of the castle. It was utterly beyond comprehension that such a red, unholy light should have sprung so quickly into the heavy sky…and yet more unbelievable, she thought, suddenly understanding that this was a world akin to her dream world, only much worse, more unbelievable that the castle should be so large and complete. Complete: that was the monstrous impossibility! Where she should have seen a cluster of jagged stones, she was looking at a massive building that might have been a reconstruction of the castle as it once was.

      “No,” she said, as though the denial would drive the vision away. “No, no—”

      There was schoolboyish pride in Jonathan’s voice as he said: “I’ve shown you something you didn’t expect, haven’t I?”

      She did not answer, not trusting her voice. The place was evil. Not the frightening way it had been shown to her, not even the grimness of those disproportionately massive towers and turrets convinced her of this, but a sense—an inner, compulsive assurance—affirmed that the whole edifice was alive with a foul life. There was something ghastly lurking behind the long, narrow slits in the towers; something perverted and gross that peered over the battlements…an invisible but undeniable movement, like a great heaving and jostling that would soon break open the walls like a chicken forcing its way out of its egg.…

      “This is what once existed,” said Jonathan at her ear. “I knew I could bring it back like that. It proves I’m right. What existed once,” and he nudged her elbow with excitement, “will exist again.”

      Nora took a frightened, desperate step towards the window in the hope that the vision would fade. It did not fade. The lurid red glow continued to dance behind the menacing pile. Hoarsely she said:

      “There’s a fire somewhere.”

      “Fire,” admitted Jonathan, “of a sort.”

      “But the castle? It couldn’t be. What…how did you—”

      “There is an old word for it,” he said. “The Celts call it glamourie. I have shown you a vision. That’s only one of my powers.”

      The rasping, cocksure little voice was incongruous. It did not accord with that terrifying picture in the window-frame. But the vision was real enough, and somehow or other Jonathan had created it.

      Nora wanted to move away. She did not know how long she would have been compelled to stand there had not the kitchen door opened, admitting a flood of light into the passage. The glow in the sky was quenched at once, and all she saw in the glass was the pale reflection of herself and Jonathan, and the inexorable snowflakes falling slantingly towards them.

      Denis came out. “Come for Frank’s coat,” he said, as though it was necessary to apologise for having intruded on them. He slipped his friend’s coat from a hook in the passage wall, and turned away. Nora followed him into the kitchen, and heard her mother give a startled gasp.

      “What’s the matter, girl?”

      “You look as though you’d seen a ghost,” Denis said. “Was old Jonathan telling you some weird tales out there?”

      Nora did not reply as sharply as she would normally have done. It was too much of a pleasure to be back in the kitchen, with the lamp hanging from the ceiling, its circle of light holding back darkness and the powers of evil.

      “What is it?” asked Denis with an unusually solicitous note in his voice. “If that little squirt—”

      “It was nothing to do with him,” Nora forced herself to say, unable to attempt any description of the truth. Already, thinking how insane it would sound to anyone else, she was beginning to doubt whether it had not been an hallucination.

      Frank, with his coat on, made his farewells, looking at Nora for a long moment as she stood beneath the lamp, her hair like crimson against the unnatural pallor of her face. He said: “I don’t suppose I’ll see you all again until the weather has taken a turn for the better. I hope you manage all right.”

      “Goodnight,” they said.

      He opened the door, and half-closed his eyes.

      “Strewth!” said Denis.

      The sound of the wind had been fairly subdued, but there was great force behind the snow that struck at Frank’s face. It rustled and whispered, confiding to him that he was going to have difficulty in reaching home.

      “You’d better not go,” said Denis.

      “I’ve got to go sometime, old man.” He peered forward, trying to discern definite shapes in the shifting, crisscross patterns. “There’s someone coming.”

      “Visitors—at this time?” said Denis, closing the door behind him and standing on the step in order to block the light and see better.

      They heard a faint cry

      Denis answered it, and the vague figure that at first had seemed only a figment of their imagination came stumbling towards them.

      “I never thought…ugh…be able to make it.”

      Denis took one arm and Frank supported the other. They opened the door and led the newcomer inside. He was breathing painfully, as though he had come a long way, exhausted by the effort of continually forcing his reluctant legs through the piled drifts. His hair was set hard with frosty whiteness, forced over his head like a glittering, tight-fitting cap.

      Mrs. Morris got up at once, concern showing in her face. She asked no questions, but took the man’s heavy coat and gave him a towel. He slumped into a chair.

      Mr. Morris stirred, and his paper slipped over the edge of his knee, but he did not awaken.

      Jonathan appeared in the passage doorway, a book in his hand. He did not seem annoyed by the arrival of yet another visitor, as one might have expected. In fact Nora, glancing at him, saw that this time he was smiling with deep approval.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “A full house we are having,” said Mrs. Morris, without annoyance.

      The newcomer had been made comfortable and given a drink of hot rum— “Not up to the old naval rum ration, eh, Frankie boy?” said Denis—and was now seated in the semicircle. Mr. Morris had heaved himself painfully up from his slumbers and gone outside to make a tour of the outhouses, but he was not away for long.

      “Piling up,” he said briefly on his return. “Have to dig for the milk tomorrow.”

      He slumped back into his chair, fumbled for his pipe, and began to stuff tobacco in with blue, cold fingers.

      Frank said: “I’m terribly sorry I didn’t start out sooner. I’ll be an awful nuisance—”

      “No nuisance at all,” said Mrs. Morris. “I hope your mother and father aren’t worryin’ about you. Still, they know you’re here. A dreadful night, that is what it is—no night for anyone to be out.”

      Automatically they turned to the stranger, whose first breathless, СКАЧАТЬ