The Shorecliff Horror and Other Stories Read online

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  Heavy though the toll of these dark days was on me, they pressed yet more harshly upon Lovecraft. As the storms continued and his agitation grew, so he seemed to be steadily withering under the challenge of keeping up his obscure vigil. He grew increasingly drawn in the face, his usually sharp, intelligent eyes becoming dim and grey. Even though the temperature in the house was dropping by the day, his coat was moulting from him, leaving great clumps of hair behind him wherever he sat. All that time it seemed that he was steadily, gradually shrinking from within. At first I put it down to the traumas of the conditions we were living under, to his increasing asceticism and continued refusal of food and drink. Eventually, however, on a particular day when his movements were slow and painful and his spirit seemed to dip alarmingly, it became clear there was more to it than that, that there was a sickness inside him, eating away at him from the inside and that this was the true cause of his deterioration.

  I didn’t know quite what to do with this knowledge. My friend was ill and fading away before my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it. We two were trapped together inside the prison that Shorecliff had become for us, pinned in the house by the fierce gale raging outside. Even if we had wanted to leave, to flee to a nearby town to find a vet for Lovecraft and a safe place to recover, we couldn’t have. The road into Shorecliff was flooded and impassable by car and the telephone lines into the house had been blown down days ago. There was nothing to do in the face of this conundrum but sit and wait for the weather to break again, to hope that the storms would pass and that Lovecraft’s ailments would pass with them.

  Except the storms showed no signs of lifting. If anything they grew in ferocity, reaching new heights of rage and violence. That night brought in a new hurricane yet more vicious than any we had experienced to date. The air around Shorecliff boiled furiously, large pieces of debris were torn from the fields around us and hurtled through the sky, tumbling into and colliding with the house. Eventually our defences could no longer hold out against this onslaught and I awoke from a fitful sleep to a great crash as one of the giant birch trees that lined the garden was pulled from its mooring and came ripping down through our roof and windows.

  It was a terrible blow. The entire upper half of the building that I’d worked so hard to restore through all those months was at one single stroke reduced right back to the pile of uninhabitable rubble it had been in when I’d first arrived. Worse than that, the tree had fallen through the roof right on top of my own bedroom, the place where I slept and kept all my most treasured belongings. The last keepsakes from my pre-Shorecliff existence that I’d never had the strength to part with had been stored safely in those rooms and were now being blown clear across the North Sea and out of sight. Those cruel winds had opened up our house almost as easily as if it were a paper box. Looking at the gaping hole they’d ripped in our home it felt as though they’d torn just such a hole in me too. It was only by sheer chance that I myself was not killed stone dead during that crash. Ever since the escalation of Lovecraft’s illness, I had abandoned that room as a sleeping quarter and taken to spending the nights down in the drawing room along with my eccentric little cat who refused, weak and ailing though he was, to move away from his guard duties at the window. Even in the depths of his infirmity, it seemed, Lovecraft was destined to protect me from danger.

  This turn of events seemed to hit Lovecraft particularly hard again. When I returned to the drawing room after assessing the damage upstairs he had, for the first time in days, stopped his pacing patrol and was instead curled up in a tight ball, his back to the room, his nose pressed against the window pane. When I approached and he turned to look at me there was an air of defeat about him, as though now that the walls of our shelter had been breached, whatever plan it was he’d been working to had failed and all was lost. He seemed suddenly more withered and tiny than ever, his breathing laboured and his movements uncertain. At that moment I knew that which I had not allowed myself to recognise up till then, that my friend was losing his battle against the sickness inside him and that it was very likely he might not see out this night.

  It was a little after midnight when the tree came down through our roof and I pledged then to stay close to Lovecraft for the rest of the night, to watch over him just as he had seemed to watch over me all these months and to do whatever I could to ease his discomfort. I brought him blankets to keep him warm, more food and fresh water, all of which he accepted, willingly and uncharacteristically, as far as he could.

  We sat together, he and I, for hours that night with the storm raging outside, each moment hearing the sound of new crashing and tearing as the wind continued to dismantle the building around us. All that time I talked to him. I told him about the life I had before I came to Shorecliff. I told him about the house I’d lived in, the girl I’d loved and married and about the child we’d had together. I told him about the accident that had killed them both and taken them away from me forever and about how I’d never forgiven myself for not being able to prevent it. I told him all the reasons why I’d fled from the city and how I’d come to find refuge and solace and a new start to life here at Shorecliff with its ramshackle old house and its peculiar, so peculiar little cat. Throughout all of this he stared up at me, his eyes, old and grey though they looked now, still retaining that spark of intelligence, that beseeching quality that had marked him out from the very beginning. Even now, towards the very end of his life I was sure he was trying to tell me something, trying to get some message through to me, something I needed to know but never would, something he understood about the world that no-one else would ever now know about.

  I wanted to stay with him all night. I promised I’d stay all night to talk to him and comfort him, but in the end, I couldn’t. At some point during that long, strange night my body gave out on me and despite the storm raging around us and despite all my promises, I somehow fell asleep. It was a ridiculous and a selfish thing to do and I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for it, but it was not a thing I had any control over. I’d slept so little over the week leading up to that night that at some point it was bound to happen. My eyes drooped, my defences broke and I fell, tumbling, into a deep, sound and restful sleep.

  That night I had a series of wild and vivid dreams. I dreamt images of a clarity and reality far greater than any I’d ever seen before or have seen since. I dreamt I saw Lovecraft - not the withered, sick creature he was now, but strong and agile again – creeping stealthily out onto the great lawn in front of the house. Hunched in a hunting pose, he stepped cautiously forward, as if stalking some prey, ready to make his strike.

 

  I dreamt I saw a giant wave, far taller and more powerful than any that had previously hit this coast, crash up against the cliffs. I saw sea water engulf the entire house, washing us all away to sea with it. I saw myself tumbling in the surf, gasping for breath. I saw Lovecraft alongside me, furiously grasping for a safe hold on the shore.

  I dreamt I saw Lovecraft out on the lawn again, his fur scarred and scratched as if he’d been in a vicious fight, hissing and spitting ferociously at some creature that shifted about in the darkness, almost imperceptible, just out of sight at the edge of my vision.

  Finally, I dreamt I saw Lovecraft staring back at the house, drenched to the skin by the heavy rain that continued to fall. It was daylight now and he seemed to be telling me not to follow him, not to come after him, his large, bright eyes somehow transmitting their warning to me before he turned and walked slowly away from the house and towards the cliffs.