Whispers in the Night Read online

  Table of Contents

  Frontispiece

  OUT OF THE FOG: Recollection (by Stephen Jones)

  BETTER DEAD

  READER, I BURIED HIM!

  ONE FOR THE POT

  WISH YOU WERE HERE

  IN A DARKLING WOOD

  THE GRASS

  RIDING THE CHARIOT

  FINAL DESTINATION

  THE OBELISK

  OUT THERE

  THE SUMMERHOUSE

  About the Author

  OUT OF THE FOG: Recollection

  by Stephen Jones

  I first met Basil Copper more than twenty years ago. Neither of us really remembers much about the encounter, which is probably a blessing.

  I had almost certainly already read his story “The Spider” in Herbert van Thai’s The Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories (1964) while still a teenager, and I had admired Rod Serling’s adaptation of his story “Camera Obscura” on TV’s Night Gallery in the early 1970s; but at the time we first met I knew him best for his classic tale “Amber Print,” which I had discovered in Peter Haining’s anthology Dr. Caligari’s Black Book (1968).

  It was 1977, and I was attending Fantasycon 3 in Birmingham, England. Basil was the Guest of Honour that year and, according to the programme booklet that I have before me (for which, incidentally, I contributed the cover illustration), he gave an hour-long lecture on the Saturday afternoon. I know I was there (I used to attend all the programme items at conventions in those days—I was keen), but over two decades later the only memory of the entire weekend that I can recall is being in the same room party as Basil on the Saturday night, surrounded by crates of beer and a well-known book dealer dancing around with a pair of ladies knickers on his head!

  I believe it was more than a decade before Basil was sufficiently recovered from the ordeal to attend another fantasy convention.

  In the meantime I had become a big fan of his work. My shelf of Basil’s books now included his two excellent collections for Arkham House, From Evil’s Pillow (1973) and And Afterward, the Dark (1977), and the novels Necropolis (1980) and The House of the Wolf (1983). I had also managed to pick up a copy of his earlier novel, The Curse of the Fleers (1976), and our mutual friend at Arkham House, James Turner, had sent me some of Basil’s Solar Pons collections as they were published in paperback by Pinnacle Books during the late 1970s.

  I was going to say that our next meeting was under more sober circumstances, but that is not entirely true. It was in 1988, at the lunchtime opening of a new crime and mystery bookstore in London’s West End. In the course of admiring the new shop fittings and drinking the indifferent white wine usually served at these occasions, we got to talking, and I think Basil was genuinely surprised to meet someone who was such a fan of his work and who could quote title and publication date from memory. Whatever the reason, when the party started to wind down, I suggested we move on to a small all-day drinking club I happened to know in Soho. Basil readily agreed. Over several hours—and many, many pints of strong bitter (me) and glasses of chablis (Basil)—we talked about the art of writing and bemoaned the state of the horror field (some things never change), and when we finally reeled out into the dark night to make our bleary journeys back to our homes, a lasting friendship had been forged over fine alcohol and good conversation.

  In the decade since then we have met up on numerous occasions— often at conventions and gatherings on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes sharing the same panel discussions, and I had the honour of interviewing him in depth about his fascinating life and career at Fantasycon XX in 1996. I have been his guest, and that of his beautiful French wife Annie, at their charming home in Kent. As an editor, I have been proud to work with Basil on many anthologies and non-fiction books, and I have even managed to fill several more of those gaps in my Basil Copper shelf as the years have passed.

  I was therefore delighted when, in 1991, Fedogan and Bremer began its successful association with Basil by publishing his long-awaited novel The Black Death. They have followed it with two revised and corrected editions of his Solar Pons stories, with more to follow shortly, and now this original collection of mostly new novellas and short stories, beautifully illustrated by the incomparable Stephen Fabian (who, incidentally, also illustrated three of Basil’s Arkham House books back in the late 1970s and early ’80s).

  Of the eleven tales included in Whispers in the Night, only three have previously appeared before—and those in anthologies compiled by Richard Dalby, Peter Haining and myself. The oldest story in the book is “The Grass,” which was written in the early 1940s when the author was an apprentice journalist, aged around sixteen or seventeen. He worked on it in the newspaper office late at night as German bombers droned overhead and explosions sounded all around him. About the horror that overwhelms a pair of opportunists seeking a treasure of lost diamonds, the manuscript was put away and forgotten for years before being rediscovered by Basil. It only needed a slight polishing before it was ready to see publication, more than half a century after it was first written.

  The remaining stories are more contemporary works and their themes range from Gothic horror and dark fantasy to science fiction and murder mystery. Here you will discover a film buff’s obsession with Bride of Frankenstein, parasitic vampire creatures planning world domination, a serial killer with an unusual modus operandi, a series of messages from a long-dead relative, ritual sacrifices performed by a Satanic cult, an 18th century chariot that casts a strange spell over an artist, a man haunted by a dream from the past, a curiously-shaped volume found in an old bookshop, the crew of a futuristic outpost forced to confront their greatest enemy, and a child’s ingenious revenge for the murder of her mother.

  It is an eclectic selection which ably conveys the range and power of Basil’s skills as a writer. In fact, it is probably true to say that the author’s work has never been more popular than it is today. With new stories regularly appearing in bestselling anthologies around the world, and Fedogan & Bremer’s commitment to publishing his books in handsome and collectable hardcovers, Basil is now justly revered by his peers and his many fans as a master of the Mysterious and the Macabre, which just so happens to be the subtitle of this present volume.

  With the passing of years, my memory of our first meeting may now be growing a little hazy, but to any new readers who are just discovering his work for the first time with this collection, I can guarantee that like me, you will find Basil Copper’s fiction distinctly unforgettable!

  —Stephen Jones,

  London, England

  April, 1998

  BETTER DEAD

  1

  “Better dead!” said Robert exultantly as Boris pulled the lever.

  The whole laboratory and watchtower exploded in dust and flames.

  “Great!” said Robert, getting up to turn down the sound on the projector as the Universal end titles started coming up.

  Joyce, who had just poked her head in at her husband’s specially built brick projection room, yawned, glancing at the hundreds of metal film cans that lined the interior of the thirty-foot-long auditorium, the metal shelving reflecting back the screen images in tiny flickering points of light. Normally Robert had the curtains drawn across his archive treasures but for some reason he had not bothered this evening. The room lights went on as the last foot of black trailer went through the machine.

  “You must have seen Bride of Frankenstein a hundred times by now,” Joyce said wearily.

  Robert’s eyes glowed.

  “And I expect to see it another hundred times before the year’s out. The classics never stale.”

  Joyce shook her head.

  “Tea’s ready. Is there any chance of you cutting the lawn tonight?”


  Robert gave her an expression of mock regret.

  “Doubtful. I have two more film parcels to open yet.”

  “I’ve had enough of the dead alive,” his wife said, a steely undertone coming into her voice. “Film collecting will be the death of you.”

  Robert chuckled, his eyes vacantly fixed on two huge cardboard cartons on the bench near his canvas viewing chair.

  “What a way to go!”

  The outer door slamming cut off any further remarks he might have made and with a slightly crestfallen expression he switched off the mains electricity and made his way back to the house. The couple ate their tea in silence, Joyce’s eyes fixed smoulderingly on his face. An attractive, dark-haired woman of thirty-six, she had to rein back the resentment within her at her husband’s extravagant collecting habits, while she was forced to hold on to a boring secretarial job in order to help pay the bills. Robert crumbled a piece of toast into his tea and ate it with satisfaction. “I think Night of the Living Dead just turned up,” he said at length. “We were looking forward to that one.”

  “You mean you were,” his wife said pointedly.

  She got up to clear her plate, the set of her shoulders indicating extreme displeasure.

  She paused by the buffet, delicately cutting a slice of the cream gateau that they had started at lunch-time.

  “I shan’t be back until late this evening. I have a committee meeting and then I have some more typing to finish off at the office.”

  “Don’t forget your key,” said Robert absently, his mind still fixed on the parcels in his projection room at the bottom of the garden. He gazed fondly to where the roof showed through the top of the rose trellis outside the French windows. “I may be running stuff down there.” Joyce’s eyes glinted with suppressed anger as she stood with the cake knife in one slim, well manicured hand.

  “Do you want any of this?”

  Robert shook his head.

  “Just another cup of tea, if you’d be so kind.”

  There was an oppressive silence in the room as Joyce bent to pour, accentuated as the faint hum of a motor mower came faintly on the summer breeze.

  “Incidentally,” she said sourly. “Karloff never said, ‘Better dead!’ Even after all those viewings you can’t remember the dialogue properly.”

  “Oh,” said Robert.

  He gave his wife a twisted smile. For the first time she realised how ugly and worn he was looking, even in his early forties.

  “Well,” he said eventually, with an air of quiet triumph. “If he didn’t say it, he should have!”

  Joyce turned her face away so that he should not see the expression on it. She put the teapot down on the metal stand with barely suppressed fury.

  She left the room without saying goodbye. The phone rang as she was crossing the hall. She turned quickly, made sure the dining room door was firmly closed.

  “Hullo, darling!”

  The voice was unmistakable. She changed colour, put her hand quickly over the receiver.

  “How many times have I told you, Conrad. Don’t ring here!”

  “Why, is he home?”

  She smiled tautly at the alarm in the other’s voice.

  “Don’t worry; he’s having tea in the dining room. See you tonight as arranged.”

  She put the phone down quickly as Robert’s footsteps sounded over the parquet. She was putting on her light raincoat in front of the mirror when he opened the door.

  “Just the office,” she said, answering his unspoken question.

  She smiled maliciously.

  “Hope you’re not too disappointed. It wasn’t one of your film dealer friends.”

  She went out quickly, slamming the front door before he had time to reply.

  2

  Light exploded, splitting the darkness with dazzling incandescence. Joyce, nude, got out of bed, revelling in the fact that the dark, strongly-built young man next to her was admiring her sinuous curves, softly explored by the bedside lamp. But she ignored the imploring look in his eyes, dressing quickly with the ease born of long practice in the dangerous game they were playing. She glanced at her wrist watch, noted it had only just turned ten p.m. There was plenty of time then.

  “When will I see you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Soon, obviously. But we can’t keep this pace up, Conrad. We’re meeting too frequently.”

  “Nowhere near frequently enough for me!”

  He rolled over quickly, reaching for her, as she sat cross-legged, one stocking half drawn on, but she skipped out of reach, laughing and sat down on the bedside stool to finish dressing. He lay and watched her with the concentration she had often noticed; even when sated with sex men were never satisfied. As soon as the woman had dressed the mystery was there again, waiting to be revealed at the next encounter. She could not really understand the fascination, though she appreciated it in Conrad’s case. She had never owned a man like him; the affair had begun two years earlier and he was a person of integrity, held to her by so many bonds of unswerving loyalty.

  She deftly made up her mouth in the mirror, the ratchets of her mind clicking over hopelessly, as they had ever since the affair had begun. If there were only some way out that would make three people happy. If only Robert would find someone else. But that was not within his nature. He was so absorbed in his film collecting that he hardly noticed she was there; that being so, he would hardly turn his attention to another woman. And if he did not appreciate her attractions—and Conrad certainly did—things could go on as they were for ever if she and Conrad did not make some attempt to solve the problem.

  “I can’t understand him,” Conrad said, as though he could read her mind.

  “Who?”

  Naturally, turning back from the mirror, she knew what he meant.

  The dark-haired man in the bed shrugged impatiently.

  “Your husband, of course. With all that under his roof he just doesn’t seem interested.”

  Joyce smiled bitterly.

  “You should be grateful, darling. People hardly ever value what they possess.”

  Conrad gave her a twisted smile in return.

  “Until they’ve lost it...”

  The sentence seemed to hang heavily in the scented air of the bedroom.

  Joyce bent swiftly and kissed him gently on the brow.

  “We’ll see in due course,” she said in a low voice. “We have to be patient.”

  “I thought we had been. For two long years.”

  Joyce did not answer, her emotions suddenly overcoming her. She turned to the mirror, only the faint trembling of her fingers as she put on the lightweight raincoat betraying her inmost feelings.

  “I’ll ring you,” she said through tight lips. “Please don’t ring the house again. It’s too dangerous.”

  He did not answer and she went out without a backward glance, letting herself out the back door into the secluded garden. It was a bright, starry night and she leaned against the wall, drinking in the fresh air until she had recovered herself. She drove home slowly, her mind still turning over useless prospects. It was still only a quarter to eleven when she got in. Lights burned in the dining room and the French windows were open to the lawn.

  From the projection room at the end of the garden came the faint, tinny music. The Night of the Living Dead was under way. She sat down at the end of the dining room table, her emotions overcoming her. Slowly her head fell forward and she put her hands up to her face as she rested her elbows on the cold oak surface. Salt tears trickled through her fingers as the raucous music went on.

  3

  “It’s alive! It’s alive!”

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the other end of the dining room. Joyce shrank inwardly. The guests round the long table wore blank faces. Only Robert and his friend John at the head were laughing inanely.

  “For God’s sake, Robert,” said Joyce irritably. “Can’t you leave it alone for even a few hours?”

  The
nearest guests looked startled at the vehemence of her tones and John and Robert resembled figures congealed in a photo-flash picture. Joyce forced a smile, aware that she had made a social gaffe. John’s wife was sitting next to her and she turned toward Isabel.

  “I’m sorry about that, but this film collecting business is getting on my nerves.”

  The guests relaxed then, exchanging knowing smiles among themselves, and Joyce was inwardly gratified to see that both John and Robert wore chastened looks.

  Isabel nodded, fixing her husband with a warning glance.

  “Don’t I know it, dear. John and I have no conversation at all nowadays unless it’s about films.”

  She paused.

  “Or, it’s ‘Pass the salt!’”

  “We must split them up when we have coffee,” Joyce said.

  Isabel sighed.

  “I’ve tried before,” she said resignedly. “There’s no stopping them once they get on that topic.”

  Joyce stabbed her silver fork into the remains of her dessert with an almost savage gesture.

  “They’re hardly ever off it.”

  The two women laughed uneasily and then Joyce was in command of herself again. A few minutes later, when she had ushered the last of the guests into the drawing room and she and Isabel had returned to the kitchen to make the coffee, they were silent, as though both were absorbed with weighty thoughts that they did not like to impart to the other.

  That night, long after the guests had departed, Joyce was washing up in the kitchen, when she heard the back door slam. Robert had, of course, gone off with John somewhere, as soon as he could decently excuse himself. Now he had come in and, despite the lateness of the hour, had gone out to his projection room. A few minutes later, as she finished drying the glasses she could hear raucous music coming from the end of the garden. The nearest house to theirs was quite a long way off, so Robert had not bothered to completely sound-proof his private cinema.

  Joyce paused; a sudden thought had come in to her mind. Robert’s acquisitions had risen to an alarming total in the past few months. Alarming in the sense that his “hobby,” if it could be called that, must be costing him a great deal. Costing them a great deal, she suddenly realised. She stood, her lips pursed, her flat stomach against the draining board, the last glass poised in her hand. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror opposite. She looked absurdly like Joan Crawford in one of her Warner Brothers melodramas, she felt. Then she angrily dismissed the thought. She was catching Robert’s disease. She crossed the kitchen and took the last trayful of clean glasses back into the dining room.