The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

and saw a face staring in at me.

'It was the face of a corpse; what was worse, it was the face of Joe Bulger.'

We had reached the last stretch of road towards the lake before he continued. 'He didn't look at me; his eyes were fixed on something at the other side of the room. All that was over there was that bookcase containing the eleven volumes of the Revelations of Glaaki. I jumped up and ran over to the window, but he began to move away with that horrible deliberate tread. I'd seen enough, though. His shirt had been torn open, and on his chest was a livid red mark, with a network of lines radiating from it. Then he moved off between the trees.'

I stopped the car at the beginning of the lakeside pavement. As I approached the house, he was still muttering behind me: 'They'd taken him to Glaaki — that must have been all the splashing that night. But that was at eleven o'clock and Joe left about four. My God, what were they doing to him in the other seven hours?'

I stood back to let him open the front door; he had even found a padlock somewhere and augmented the lock's strength with it. As we entered the front room I noticed the canvas-covered painting in one corner. I began to lift the canvas off, but Cartwright stopped me. 'Not yet — that's part of the other. I want to show you something else when you see that.'

He went over to the bookcase which stood on the floor opposite the window, and took out the last book. 'When — Joe — had gone, I finally had a look at these books. I had a good idea of what he'd been looking at, but I wanted to make sure. Somehow I knocked the lot down. No damage, luckily, except to the eleventh book; but that one had fallen so that the cover had been torn off. As I was trying to fit it together again, I noticed the back cover was bulging outward a lot. When I looked closer, this is what I found.'

He passed me the volume he had selected. Opening the cover, I saw that the back had been slit open; a sort of pocket existed, and inside it I found a folded sheet of canvas and a piece of cardboard.

'Don't look at those for the moment,' ordered Cart-wright. 'Remember I painted The Thing In The Lake from my nightmare? This is it. Now, go ahead and compare it with those two.'

By the time I had unfolded the canvas, he had uncovered the painting. The piece of canvas was also a painting, while the card was a photograph. The background of each was different; Cartwright's depicted the lake as surrounded by a black pavement in the middle of a desolate plain, the painting I held — inscribed 'Thos. Lee pinxit'—possessed a background of half-fluid demons and many-legged horrors, while the photograph simply showed the lake as it was now. But the focus of each was the same totally alien figure, and the one that disturbed me most was the photograph.

The centre of each picture was, it was obvious, the being known as Glaaki. From an oval body protruded countless thin, pointed spines of multicoloured metal; at the more rounded end of the oval a circular, thick-lipped mouth formed the centre of a spongy face, from which rose three yellow eyes on thin stalks. Around the underside of the body were many white pyramids, presumably used for locomotion. The diameter of the body must have been about ten feet at its least width.

Not only the coincidence of the pictures, but also the total abnormality of the creature, disturbed me. However, I tried to sound unconvinced as I remarked, 'Look, you said yourself that the other business was only a dream. As for the rest — what does it amount to, anyway? A few nightmares and the documents of a superstitious cult whose beliefs happen to coincide with your dreams. The photograph's very realistic, of course, but these days you can do almost anything with special photography.'

'You still think it's my imagination?' he inquired. 'Of course you don't explain why anyone would go to the trouble of faking a photograph like that and then leave it here. Besides, remember I did that painting from my dream before I saw those. It's Glaaki sending his image from the lake.'

I was still searching for an answer when Cartwright looked at his watch. 'Good God, it's after four o'clock! We'd better get going if we want to leave before dark. You go and start the car while I get the bookcases. I don't think they'll touch my pictures, except the latest one, and I'll bring that one with me. Tomorrow, maybe, we can come back from Brichester and get them.'

As I climbed into the driving seat I saw Cartwright struggling across the pavement with the bookcase-handle over one arm and the picture held in front of him. He slid into the back seat as I turned the ignition key.

There was no sound from the engine.

Cartwright ran and threw up the bonnet. Then he turned to stare at me, his face pale. 'Now will you bloody well believe!' he screamed. 'I suppose it's my imagination that wrecked your engine!'

I got out to look at the mass of torn wires. He did not notice whether I was listening as he continued:

'They've been at it — but how? It's not dark yet out here, and they can't come by daylight — but they must have done it—' This seemed to worry him more than the engine's actually been wrecked. Then he slumped against the car. 'My God, of course — Joe only just joined them, and the Green Decay doesn't affect them for sixty years or so. He can come out in the light — he can follow me — he is part of Glaaki now, so he won't spare me —'

'What do we do now?' I interrupted. 'According to you it's insane to start walking so close to nightfall, so —'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'We must barricade ourselves in. The upper floors aren't so important, but every window and door on the ground floor must be blocked. If you think I'm crazy, humour me for your own sake.'

Once inside, we managed to block the front-room window by upturning the bed. The back-room window was fortified with a wardrobe. When we had moved this into the room from the front, Cartwright left me to position it while he went out the back door. 'There's a hatchet lying around out here,' he explained. 'Best to have it in here — it may be useful as a weapon, and otherwise they'll get hold of it.' He brought it in and stood it by the hall table.

He helped me to barricade the back door, which opened out of the kitchen; but when we had shoved the kitchen cabinet against it, he told me to take a rest. 'Go ahead, make some coffee,' he suggested. 'As for me — there's a few minutes of daylight left, and I want to take a look in the lake to see what's down there. I'll take the hatchet in case… Joe comes. Anyway, they can't move very fast — their limbs soon become half-rigid.' I began to ask what protection I would have, but he had already gone.

He was so long away that I was beginning to worry, when I heard him knocking at the back door. I called, 'You've a short memory — go round the front,' but when no answering footsteps came I began to pull the cabinet out of position. At that moment a shout came from behind me: 'What are you doing?'

I had the kettle ready to throw when I turned and saw Cartwright. As calmly as I could, I said: 'Somebody is knocking at the back door.'

'It's them,' he yelled, and smashed the cabinet back into place. 'Quick — maybe it's only Joe, but it may be dark enough for the others to come out. Got to block the front door, anyway — what the hell is there?' The hall was bare of all furniture except a small table. 'Have to get the wardrobe out of my bedroom.'

As we entered a number of noises began. Far off came a sliding sound from several directions. A muffled discordant throbbing was also audible, water was splashing nearby, and round the side of the house someone was slowly approaching. I ran to the crevice between window and upturned bed and looked out. It was already quite dark, but I could see the water rippling alarmingly at the shore near the window.

'Help me, for God's sake!' called Cartwright.

As I turned from the window I glimpsed something moving outside. Perhaps I only imagined that glistening shape which heaved out of the water, with long stalks twisting above it; but certainly that throbbing was much nearer, and a creaking, slithering object was moving across the pavement.

I rushed over and helped shove the wardrobe towards the door. 'There's something living out there!' I gasped.

Cartwright looked half-relieved, half-disgusted. 'It's the thing from the picture,' he said breathlessly. 'I saw it before, when I went outside. You've got to look into the lake at a certain angle, otherwise you can't see anything. Down on the bottom, among the weeds — stagnant water, everything dead, except… There's a city down there, all black spiralling steeples and walls at obtuse angles with the streets. Dead things lying on the streets — they died with the journey through space — they're horrible, hard, shiny, all red and covered with bunches of trumpet-shaped things… And right at the centre of the city is a transparent trapdoor. Glaaki's under there, pulsing and staring up —