The final tales degenerated into pure studies of claustrophobia, panic, shock and fear, but all leading to a terror that was mindless in the narrators.
Much of the horror came from the characters accepting their inevitable confinement within the ‘greylands’. They were witnesses, near-passive observers, not active entities in control of their destinies. The end.
But there was tension and suspense, though it never arose from a character’s resistance to such a ghastly fate, but through their full acknowledgement of the dreadful eventuality before it occurred.
In the stories ‘Broken Night’, ‘Flight from Malignant Forms’, ‘Second Death’ and ‘Incertitude’ the astral doubles had even watched their earthly remains buried and cremated, then crawled around gravesides and the dark places where their ashes had been sprinkled, unaware of how long they had been keeping vigil beside a door that had closed forever. Eventually, they forgot who they had once been. The spiritual entropy was the most terrifying thing of all for the reader to grasp.
The tales were often master classes of apprehension, but few would have been as affected by Hazzard’s literary output as Seb had been. You had to be a participant in the subject matter for the writing to achieve its full effect.
There were a few lines in ‘Flight from Malignant Forms’ that Seb doubted he would ever forget: ‘In the greylands we found others in different form. They wept in our faces or clawed us from out of the mist. If they are angels or the souls of the departed, then none should be hasty for the dark.’
Hazzard must have wondered if he were shouting down a well when he wrote the books.
Even with Mark Fry in the room, Seb was still fighting a need to collapse onto the bed. Tiredness and the nauseous dregs of his hangover had made him too weak to do much beside remaining prostrate all day. His hands were shaking again.
He knew how uncomfortable he was making his visitor. Perhaps Mark thought him an alcoholic or mentally ill, and perhaps he was both of those things.
‘I have to go there,’ Seb said quietly.
Mark never spoke and was probably suppressing a mad giggle. Seb wouldn’t blame him.
‘I need to take the files back. Find out what they want.’
‘Sorry?’ Mark ventured.
Seb faced the floor as if in defeat. ‘They were here. Last night. They followed me here. They can follow me anywhere. In the stories . . . There’s a connection between the stories and me.’ Seb pointed at the two volumes of stories. ‘I am the image that they focus upon. He knows about me. He knows.’
‘Who, sorry?’
‘Mark . . . There’s a lot that I haven’t told you about why I am here. Why I am not at my best right now.’
‘The blackmail?’
Seb nodded. ‘Yes. But you wouldn’t believe me.’
‘I’d like to hear it, all the same.’
Seb laughed humourlessly. ‘Oh, you’d get a kick out of it. It’d be weird enough for you, all right. It’d be cool.’
Seb then paused to wonder about his reputation. Mark was a writer. Would Mark find the temptation too great to resist going online to mention their meeting in social media, to write an article about his visit?
Seb Logan has lost the plot. His unhealthy obsession with a minor horror writer, astral projector and leader of the nefarious SPR cult led to the author’s unravelling in a hotel room in Manchester.
How could he think of his reputation at a time like this?
Seb felt guilty for thinking so badly of the man who had been nothing but friendly and helpful, particularly given the sudden and odd appearance he’d made in Mark’s life. ‘I’m sorry, Mark. I’m going through . . . a lot right now. And I’m not sure what to do.’
‘I’ll keep confidential, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Mark sat down upon the chair drawn out from the table. ‘It hasn’t escaped me that you’re under a lot of strain, Seb. I thought it might have been about your writing, but I am guessing this is something personal that I have no right to ask about.’
‘Neither, really. It’s not what you think. I wish it was. I’ve never experienced anything like this. It’s just not normal, or logical. It shouldn’t be happening, but it is. And it started when Ewan appeared . . . I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t say any more.’
Mark fidgeted. ‘I’m a good listener, Seb. And maybe I can help. You never know. Try me.’