Under a Watchful Eye(61)

It was time to close the conversation. Seb slipped his unread book inside his rucksack. ‘As I say, best to send an email.’

‘There’ll be a lot of people there. We’re a big group. There was a lot of excitement when we learned that you were a local writer. Perfect, we thought. And so close. Why not ask him to come a bit closer?’

‘Local?’ As strange as the baffling figure was, Seb wondered if he were being paranoid. He’d never seen her before, or knew of any local reader groups, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. ‘I’ll take a look at my diary. Anyway, must get on.’ Seb stood up.

‘He’ll be there,’ she said, and suppressed a giggle.

‘Who?’

‘And him.’ The woman gazed beatifically into the distance. Seb followed her eyes to the far side of the docks. And within the distant panorama of holidaymakers spread out before the pubs, gift shops, restaurants and slowly moving traffic on Quay Street, his eyes located an utterly motionless figure, dressed in black.

Across that airy gulf, spiked with masts and busy with wheeling gulls, he was being watched by that distant smudge of face, a bone-white face. The shoulders of the figure were slumped as if the man was in a deep despair.

Within the projected gaze came a flood of sadness, accompanied by fear. And Seb knew that he was looking at a distant apparition of Ewan, though one much worsened by recent tragedy.

‘Who?’ Seb’s voice came out of his panic.

The cooling of the air and the dimming of the sunlight was sudden. The sounds of the harbour vanished as if his ears had suddenly been crammed with the foam plugs that he used on trains and planes. A shadow filled his eyes. The world around him became far less distinct, as if it had been engulfed by a pall of unnatural dusk, or cast into shadow by a strange occultation of the sun. But at the corner of his vision, the light suggested a painful and blinding contrast. Seb clutched at the railings.

‘You’ll receive a warm welcome. This is a wonderful opportunity.’

Struggling to catch his breath, Seb closed his eyes, then blinked and peered again to Quay Street.

The lone figure was gone from where it had stood so forlorn and abject.

Near gasping for breath, Seb slumped at the railing and let the remainder of the spell pass.

When he looked about himself the woman in the yellow raincoat was already on King Street and moving away in the direction of Berry Head. He could see the top of her messy head as it passed between the flowers and gaps in the hedgerow. The last he heard from her was a muted giggle, as if she was sharing a joke with someone who walked beside her.





16


A Dark, Slowly Flowing Flood


Hello Mr Logan

Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been away, but it’s not every day a renowned horror writer writes to me about my book! I’m amazed you’ve even heard of Theophanic Mutations. I was in two minds whether to reply to the email because I assumed it must be fake. I checked your website and saw that this email address matches the one on your contact page.

What’s equally surprising is that you have SPR files. You’ll know from my book that I was only able to track down three people who had an involvement with the organization, and who actually knew Hazzard, and they all attested to the fastidious record-keeping that went on at Hunter’s Tor Hall, and also confirmed the presence of a large archive. But where the ‘library’ eventually went to is a mystery.

Your revelation has come over a decade too late, though! I did my best with what little information I could find at the time I was researching the book, but it was scant. Unfortunately, all three of my contacts have since passed away (they were elderly when I interviewed them).

If I’m honest, there was never a great deal of interest from publishers for the material, which is why I went with an indie press. Even though the SPR was new ground, I never found enough to justify an entire book dedicated to the organization. That’s why the SPR only forms one third of Mutations. My efforts to publicize the book were not helped either by Hazzard’s collections being out of print. But I still wish I’d had access to your files!

I assume you’ve been out to their old HQ? It’s in Devon. Your website says that’s where you live. Am I right in thinking that you’re researching a new book and thinking about basing something on them? I’d like to read that. But for verisimilitude, you’d have to make it very weird indeed.

If our paths ever cross, I’d like to see those files, and also learn how you came into possession of them.

Best

Mark Fry





The message had been sent earlier in the day, but while so shaken after the encounter on King Street, Seb had not checked his messages until the early evening.

And it was not over. Ewan’s passing had not called time on his unwitting and unwilling association with whatever his old housemate had been involved in. Even worse, he was being pursued again. He must have been followed to that bench on King Street, and that odd creature probably knew where he lived too.

So was she and Ewan part of the degenerate dregs of whatever Hazzard had started in the sixties?

Hazzard was long gone, but if a relic of the SPR still existed, it would also explain Ewan’s possession of their official files.

Seb feared there might be more of them too, and perhaps watching the house. Do they even need to be physically present?