The Whisperer and Other Voices

The Whisperer and Other Stories contains a complete short novel, The Return of the Deep Ones, as well as eight more weighty slices from the dark imagination of Brian Lumley. Here are several of Lumley's best H. P. Lovecraft-inspired tales, including "The Statement of Henry Worthy." Also included are "The Luststone" and "The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave," proving that Lumley can make one laugh even while the hairs on the back of their neck are slowly coming to attention. . . .

Rapport

“Lumley is obviously very bright, articulate, and in possession of an incredibly wild imagination.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Whisperer and Other VoicesBy Brian LumleyTor BooksCopyright © 2003 Brian LumleyAll right reserved.ISBN: 0312878028Chapter OneSNARKER'S SON`All right, all right!' Sergeant Scott noisily submitted. `So you're lost.You're staying with your dad here in the city at a hotel?you wentsightseeing and you got separated?I accept all that. But look, son, we'vehad lost kids in here before, often, and they didn't try on all this sillystuff about names and spellings and all!'    Sergeant Scott had known?had been instinctively `aware' all day?thatthis was going to be one of those shifts. Right up until ten minutesago his intuition had seemed for once to have let him down. But now ...    `It's true,' the pallid, red-eyed nine-year-old insisted, hysteria in hisvoice. `It's all true, everything I've said. This town looks like Mondon?butit's not! And ... and before I came in here I passed a store calledWoolworths?but it should have been "Wolwords"!'    `All right, let's not start that again.' The policeman put up quietinghands. `Now: you say you came down with your father from ... fromSunderpool? That's in England?'    `No, I've told you,' the kid started to cry again. `It's "Eenland!" Wecame down on holiday from Sunderpool by longcar, and?'    `Longcar?' Sergeant Scott cut in, frowning. `Is that some place onthe north-east coast?'    `No, it's not a place! A longcar is ... well, a longcar! Like a buzz butlonger, and it goes on the longcar lanes. You know ...?' The boy lookedas puzzled as Sergeant Scott, to say nothing of accusing.    `No, I don't know? The policeman shook his head, trying to controlhis frown. `A "buzz"?' Scott could feel the first twinges of one of hisbilious headaches coming on, and so decided to change the subject.    `What does your father do, son? He's a science-fiction writer, eh??And you're next in a long line?'    `Dad's a snarker,' the answer came quite spontaneously, withoutany visible attempt at deceit or even flippancy. In any case, the boy wasobviously far too worried to be flippant. A `nut,' Scott decided?butnevertheless a nut in trouble.    Now the kid had an inquisitive look on his face. `What's sciencefiction?' he asked.    `Science fiction,' the big sergeant answered with feeling, `is that partof a policeman's lot called "desk-duty"?when crazy lost kids walk intothe station in tears to mess up said policeman's life!'    His answer set the youngster off worse than before.    Sighing, Scott passed his handkerchief across the desk and stoodup. He called out to a constable in an adjacent room:    `Hey, Bob, come and look after the desk until Sergeant Healey getsin, will you? He's due on duty in the next ten minutes or so. I'll takethe kid and see if I can find his father. If I can't?well, I'll bring the boyback here and the job can go through the usual channels.'    `All right, Sergeant, I'll watch the shop,' the constable agreed as hecame into the duty-room and took his place at the desk. `I've beenlistening to your conversation! Right rum `un that,' he grinned, noddingtowards the tearful boy. `What an imagination!'    Imagination, yes. And yet Scott was not quite sure. There was`something in the air,' a feeling of impending?strangeness?hard todefine.    `Come on, son,' he said, shaking off his mood. `Let's go.'    He took the boy's hand. `Let's see if we can find your dad. He'sprobably rushing about right now wondering what's become of you.'He shook his head in feigned defeat and said: `I don't know?ten o'clockat night, just going off duty?and you have to walk in on me!'    `Ten o'clock?already?' The boy looked up into Scott's face witheyes wider and more frightened than ever. `Then we only have half anhour!'    `Eh?' the policeman frowned again as they passed out into the Londonstreet (or was it `Mondon,' Scott wondered with a mental grin).`Half an hour? What happens at half past ten, son? Do you turn into apumpkin or something?' His humour was lost on his small charge.    `I mean the lights!' the boy answered, in what Scott took to beexasperation. `That's when the lights go out. At half past ten they putthe lights out.'    `They do?' the sergeant had given up trying to penetrate the boy'sfertile but decidedly warped imagination. `Why's that, I wonder?' (Letthe kid ramble on; it was better than tears at any rate.)    `Don't you know anything?' the youngster seemed half-astonished,half-unbelieving, almost as if he thought Scott was pulling his leg.    `No,' the sergeant returned, `I'm just a stupid copper! But comeon?where did you give your father the slip? You said you passed Woolworthsgetting to the police station. Well, Woolworths is down this way,near the tube.' He looked at the boy sharply in mistaken understanding.`You didn't get lost on the tube, did you? Lots of kids do when it's busy.'    `The Tube?' Scott sensed that the youngster spoke the words incapitals?and yet it was only a whisper. He had to hold on tight as theboy strained away from him in something akin to horror. `No one goesdown in the Tube any more, except?' He shuddered.    `Yes?' Scott pressed, interested in this particular part of the boy'sfantasy despite himself and the need, now, to have done with whatwould normally be a routine job. `Except who?'    `Not who,' the boy told him, clutching his hand tighter. `Not who,but?'    `But?' again, patiently, Scott prompted him.    `Not who but what!'    `Well, go on,' said the sergeant, sighing, leading the way down thequiet, half-deserted street towards Woolworths. `What, er, goes downin the tube?'    `Why, Tubers, of course!' Again there was astonishment in theyoungster's voice, amazement at Scott's obvious deficiency in generalknowledge. `Aren't you Mondoners thick!' It was a statement of fact,not a question.    `Right,' said Scott, not bothering to pursue the matter further, seeingthe pointlessness of questioning an idiot. `We've passed Woolworths?nowwhere?'    `Over there, I think, down that street. Yes!?that's where I lost myfather?down there!'    `Come on,' Scott said, leading the boy across the road, empty nowof all but the occasional car, down into the entrance of the indicatedstreet. In fact it was little more than an alley, dirty and unlighted. `Whaton earth were you doing down here in the first place?'    `We weren't down here,' the youngster answered with a logic thatmade the sergeant's head slain. `We were in a bright street, with lots oflights. Then I felt a funny buzzing feeling, and ... and then I was here!I got frightened and ran.'    At that moment, their footsteps echoing hollowly on the cobbles ofthe alley, the sergeant felt a weird vibration that began in his feet andtravelled up his body to his head, causing a burst of bright, painfullybilious stars to flash across his vision?and simultaneous with this peculiarsensation the two turned a corner to emerge with startling abruptnessinto a much brighter side street.    `That was the buzzing I told you about,' the boy stated unnecessarily.    Scott was not listening. He was looking behind him for the brokenelectric cable he felt sure must be lying there just inside the alley (thesensation must surely have been caused by a mild electric shock), buthe couldn't see one. Nor could he see anything else that might haveexplained that tingling, nerve-rasping sensation he had known. For thatmatter, where was the entrance (or exit) from which he and the boyhad just this second emerged?    Where was the alley?    `Dad? the kid yelled, suddenly tugging himself free to go racing offdown the street.    Scott stood and watched, his head starting to throb and the streetlights flaring garishly before his eyes. At the boy's cry a lone man hadturned, started to run, and now Scott saw him sweep the lad up in hisarms and wildly hug him, intense and obvious relief showing in his face.    The policeman forgot the problem of the vanishing alley and walkedup to them, hands behind his back in the approved fashion, smilingbenignly. `Cute lad you've got there, sir?but I should curb his imaginationif I were you. Why, he's been telling me a story fit to?'    Then the benign smile slid from his face. `Here!' he cried, his jawdropping in astonishment.    But despite his exclamation, Scott was nevertheless left standing onhis own. For without a word of thanks both man and boy had madeoff down the street, hands linked, running as if the devil himself wasafter them!    `Here!' the policeman called again, louder. `Hold on a bit?'    For a moment the pair stopped and turned, then the man glancedat his watch (reminding Scott curiously of the White Rabbit in Alice inWonderland) before picking up the boy again and holding him close.`Get off the street? he yelled back at Scott as he once more started torun. `Get off the streets, man.' His white face glanced back and up atthe street lights as he ran, and Scott saw absolute fear shining in hiseyes. `It'll soon be half past ten!'    The policeman was still in the same position, his jaw, hanging slack,some seconds later when the figure of the unknown man, again huggingthe boy to him, vanished round a distant corner. Then he shrugged hisshoulders and tried to pull himself together, setting his helmet morefirmly on his aching head.    `Well I'll be?' He grinned nervously through the throb of his headache.`Snarker's son, indeed!'    Alone, now, Scott's feeling of impending?something?returned,and he noticed suddenly just how deserted the street was. He had neverknown London so quiet before. Why, there wasn't a single soul in sight!    And a funny thing, but here he was, only a stone's throw from hisstation, where he'd worked for the last fifteen years of his life, and yet?damnedif he could recognise the street! Well, he knew he'd broughtthe boy down a dark, cobbled alley from the right, and so ...    He took the first street on the right, walking quickly down it untilhe hit another street he knew somewhat better?    ?Or did he? Yes, yes, of course he did. The street was deserted now, quite empty, but just over there was good old ...Good old Wolwords!    Lights blazed and burst into multicoloured sparks before Scott'sbilious eyes. His mind spun wildly. He grabbed hold of a lamp-post tosteady himself and tried to think the thing out properly.    It must be a new building, that place?yes, that had to be the answer.He'd been doing a lot of desk-duties lately, after all. It was quitepossible, what with new techniques and the speed of modern building,that the store had been put up in just a few weeks.    The place didn't look any too new, though ...    Scott's condition rapidly grew worse?understandably in the circumstances,he believed?but there was a tube station, nearby. He decidedto take a train home. He usually walked the mile or so to his flat,the exercise did him good; but tonight he would take a train, give himselfa rest.    He went dizzily down one flight of steps, barely noticing the absenceof posters and the unkempt, dirty condition of the underground. Then,as he turned a corner, he came face-to-face with a strange legend, drippingin red paint on the tiled wall: ROT THE TUBERS!    Deep creases furrowed the sergeant's forehead as he walked on, hisfootsteps ringing hollowly in the grimy, empty corridors, but his headachejust wouldn't let him think clearly.    Tubers, indeed! What the hell?Tubers ...?    Down another flight of steps he went, to the deserted ticket booths,where he paused to stare in disbelief at the naked walls of the place andthe dirt- and refuse-littered floor. For the first time he really saw thecondition of the place. What had happened here? Where was everyone?    From beyond the turnstiles he heard the rumble of a distant trainand the spell lifted a little. He hurried forward then, past the emptybooths and through the unguarded turnstiles, dizzily down one moreflight of concrete steps, under an arch and out on to an empty platform.Not even a drunk or a tramp shared the place with him. The neonsflared hideously, and he put out a hand against the naked wall for support.    Again, through the blinding flashes of light in his head, he noticedthe absence of posters: the employment agencies, the pretty girls inlingerie, the film and play adverts, spectacular films and avant-gardeproductions?where in hell were they all?    Then, as for the first time he truly felt upon his spine the chill fingersof a slithering horror, there came the rumble and blast of air that announcedthe imminent arrival of a train?and he smelled the rushingreek of that which most certainly was not a train!    Even as he staggered to and fro on the unkempt platform, reelingunder the fetid blast that engulfed him, the Tuber rushed from out itsblack hole?a Thing of crimson viscosity and rhythmically flickeringcilia.    Sergeant Scott gave a wild shriek as a rushing feeler swept him fromthe platform and into the soft, hurtling plasticity of the thing?anothershriek as he was whisked away into the deep tunnel and down into thebowels of the earth. And seconds later the minute hand of the clockabove the empty, shuddering platform clicked down into the verticalposition.    Ten-thirty?and all over Mondon, indeed throughout the lengthand breadth of Eenland, the lights went out.Continues...Excerpted from The Whisperer and Other Voicesby Brian Lumley Copyright © 2003 by Brian Lumley. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

About the Author

Brian Lumley is a Grand Master of Horror and a winner of the British Fantasy Award. His many novels, including Necroscope, have been published in more than thirteen countries around the world. He lives in England with his wife, Barbara Ann.

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