text:
Weird Tales/Volume 30/Issue 2/The Terrible Parchment

The Terrible Parchment by Manly Wade Wellman

(To the memory of H. P. Lovecraft, with all admiration)

Here's your Weird Tales" smiled my wife, entering the apartment.

"Thanks, Gwen," I said, rising and taking the magazine she held out. "But surely it's not the first of the month."

"Not for two days yet," Gwen assured me. "But just as I came to the front door, a funny old man bobbed up with an armful of magazines — advance copies, I guess. He stuck a copy of WT. right under my nose. I gave him a quarter and — oop!"

I had opened the magazine and a page fluttered to the floor. We both stooped for it, both seized it, and we both let go-Gwen gasped and I whistled. For that fallen page had a clammy, wet feel to it. Dank is the word, I think. Still stoop- ing, we grimaced at each other. Then I conquered my momentary disgust, picked up the page, and held it to the light of my desk lamp.

"It's not paper," Gwen said at once.

No more it was, and what could it be doing in Weird Tales'! Though it looked weird enough. It was a rectangle of tawny, limp parchment, grained on the upper side with scales, like the skin of some unfamiliar reptile. I turned it over. The other surface was smoother, with pore-like markings and lines of faint, rusty scribbling.

"Arabic," I pronounced. "Let's phone for Kline to come over. He reads the stuff."

"There's a Greek word," Gwen said. Her pink-tipped finger touched the string of capitals at the upper edge:

ΝΕΚΡΟΝΟΜΙΚΟΝ

"Necronomicon," she spelled out. "P would be rho in Greek. Sounds woogey."

"That's the name of H. P. Lovecraft's book," I told her.

"Book? Oh, yes, he's always mentioning it in his stories."

"And lots of WT. authors — Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Bloch and so on — have put it into their stories," I added.

"But Lovecraft imagined the thing, didn't he?"

I laid the parchment on the desk, for my fingers still rebelled at its strange dankness. "Lovecraft describes it as the work of a mad Arab wizard, Abdul Alhazred, and it's supposed to contain secrets of powerful evils that existed before the modern world. It's become legendary."

Gwen stared at it, but did not touch it. "Is it some sort of Valentine or April Fool's joke, stuck in to thrill the sub- scribers? If so, it's cleverly made. Looks a million years old."

We pored over the rusty scrawl of Arabic, our heads close together. If it was a fake, there was every appearance of dimmed old age about the ink.

"Kline must have a look at it," I said again. "He may know what it's doing in Weird Tales."

Gwen studied the last line of characters.

"That part isn't faked," she said suddenly. She paused a moment, translating in her mind. "It says, 'Chant out the spell and give me life again."' She straightened. "Let's play some cribbage."

We both felt relief as we turned away. Light as had been our talk, we had been daunted by a sense of prodding mystery. I got out the board and the cards and we began to play on the dining table.

Ten minutes later, I turned suddenly, as if a noise had come to my mind's ear. The parchment was no longer on the desk.

"It's blown off on the floor," said Gwen.

I rose and picked it up. It felt even more unpleasant than before, and this time it seemed to wriggle in my hand. Perhaps a draft had stirred it. Dropping it back on the desk, I weighted it with an ash tray and went back to the game.

Gwen beat me soundly, adding to her household money thereby. I taunted her with suggestions of a girlhood misspent at gaming-tables, then turned idly toward the desk. I swore, or so Gwen insists, and jumped over to seize it.

"This is getting ridiculous," said Gwen, fumbling nervously with the cards.

I studied the thing again. "You said the last line was in Latin," I remarked.

"It is in Latin."

"No, in English." I read it aloud. "Chant out the spell and give me life again." And the next to the last line was in English, too, I realized. It also was written with fresh ink, in a bold hand:

Many minds and many wishes give substance to the worship of Cthulhu.

Gwen looked over my shoulder. "You're right, dear, 'Many minds and . . . ' — what does Cthulhu mean? Anything to do with the chthonian gods — the underground rulers the Greeks served?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," I said, and it sounded even drier than I had intended. "Cthulhu's a name that Lovecraft and Smith and the others used in their yarns. A god of old time, and a rank bad one at that."

Gwen shuddered, and turned the shudder into a toss of her shoulders. "Maybe the many minds and wishes gave substance to this page of the Necronomicon."

"Nonsense, the Necronomicon's only Lovecraft's imagination."

"Didn't you say it had become a legend?" she reminded, utterly serious. "What's the next step after that?"

"What you suggest," I said, trying to be gaily scornful, "is that so many people have thought and talked about it that they've actually given it substance."

"Something like that," she admitted. Then, more brightly: "Oh, it'll turn out to be a joke or something else anticlimactic."

"Right," I agreed. "After all, we're not living in a weird tale."

"If we were, that would explain things." She warmed to the idea. "It was turning deliberately into language we could read. When we hesitated over the Latin — "

"It accommodatingly turned into English," I finished.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy."

"Trite but true. Still, my name's not Horatio, and it's bedtime. Let's not dream any philosophies that'll turn into nightmares." Once more I picked up that clammy parchment. "I'm putting this under stoppage."

Opening the dictionary on the stand beside my desk, I laid the parchment inside and closed the heavy book on it. "There it stays until we get Kline here tomorrow. And now to bed."

To bed we went, but not to sleep. Gwen squirmed and muttered, and I was weary in every portion of my body except the eyelids. We got up once for sandwiches and milk, and again for aspirin. A third time we lay down and I, at least, dozed off.

I started awake to the pressure of Gwen's fingers on my shoulder. Then I heard what she had heard, a faint, stealthy rustle.

I reached for the light chord above the bed. The room sprang into radiance, and through the open door I could see the living room. I sat up in bed, staring.

Something hung down from between the leaves of the dictionary by the desk, something that moved. Something that would be rectangular if laid flat, but which now seemed to flow from its narrow prison like a trickle of fluid filth.

"It's going to come here for us," breathed Gwen, almost inaudibly.

The parchment worked free and dropped to the floor with a fleshy slap, as though it had soft weight. It began to move across the rug toward the bedroom door. Toward us.

Perhaps I might describe painstakingly how it looked as it moved, how it humped up in the middle and laid its corners to the floor like feet. But how can I convey the horrid nastiness of it, how visualize for you the sense of wicked power that it gave off in waves almost palpable? You might get an idea by draping a sheet of brown paper over a creeping turtle. . . no, that sounds ludicrous. There was nothing funny in the way that parchment moved, not an atom of humor.

Gwen crouched, all doubled up and panicky, against the headboard. Her helpless terror nerved me. Somehow, I got out and stood on the floor. I must have looked unheroic with my rumpled hair and my blue pajamas and my bare feet, but I was ready to fight.

Fight what? And how?

It came hunching over the door sill like a very flat and loathly worm. I saw the writing on it, not rusty-faint but black and heavy Snatching a water glass from the bedside table, I hurled it. The foul thing crumpled suddenly sidewise. The glass splintered on the floor where it had been. The parchment came humping, creeping toward my bare toes.

"Smash it," wailed Gwen. She must have been ready to faint.

Against a chair leaned her little parasol, with a silken tassel at its handle and a ferrule of imitation amber. I seized it and made a stab at the invader. The point thrust the center of it against the floor, pinning it there for a moment. Then I saw in what manner it had changed.

At the top ΝΕΚΡΟΝΟΜΙΚΟΝ still stood in aged ink, but the Arabic writing was transformed into English, large and gold and black as jet. Stooping to pin it, I read at a glance the first line.

A thousand times since I have yearned to speak that line aloud, to write it down, to do something to ease my mind of it. But I must not, now or ever.

Who shaped so dreadful a thought? Abdul Alhazred is a figment of Lovecrafr's imagination. And Lovecraft is human; he could never have dreamed those words that lie on my mind like links of a red-hot iron chain. And they were but the start of the writing. What could it have been like in full?

I dare not surmise. But suddenly I knew this for truth, as I tried to crush the parchment beneath the inadequate parasol — the formless evil of centuries had taken form. An author had fancied the book; others had given it being by their own mental images. The legend had become a fearsome peg on which terror, creeping over the borderland from its forbidden realm, could hang itself, grow tangible, solid, potent.

"Gwen," I called, "hide your eyes. Don't look. Don't read."

"What?" Her pale face moved close as she leaned across the bed.

"Don't read!" I yelled at her.

The parchment squirmed from under the tip of the parasol. It reached my foot, it was climbing my leg.

Would it scale my body drape itself upon my face, force its unspeakable message into my mind? Because then I'd have to speak.

The burden would be too great. My lips would open to ease the torture. "Chant out the spell ..." and the world would be crushed under the fearsome feet of Cthulhu and his brother-horrors. What sins and woes would run loose? And it would be I, I who spoke the words to release them.

Dizzy and faint, I ripped the thing from my leg. It clung, as though with tendrils or suckers, but I dragged it free and dashed it into a metal waste basket, among crumpled bits of paper. It tried to flop out again. I snatched my cigarette lighter from the bedside table. It worked; it burst into flames and I flung it into the basket.

The mass of paper kindled into fire and smoke. Up from it rose a faint, throbbing squeak, to be felt rather than heard, like a far-off voice of a bat. Deeper into the little furnace I jabbed the outcast messenger of destruction. It crinkled and thrashed in the flames, but it did not burn.

Gwen was jabbering into the telephone.

"Father O'Neal!" she cried. "Come quick, with holy water."

Then she hung up and turned to me. "He'll be here in two minutes." Her voice quavered. "But what if the holy water doesn't work?"

It did work. At the first spatter, the parchment and its gospel of wickedness vanished in a fluff of ashes. I pray my thankfulness for that, every day I live. But what if the holy water hadn't worked?


text:
Weird Tales/Volume 30/Issue 3/Psychopompos

Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme

By H. P. Lovecraft

I am He who howls in the night;

I am He who moans in the snow;

I am He who hath never seen light;

I am He who mounts from below.

My car is the car of Death;

My wings are the wings of dread;

My breath is the north wind’s breath;

My prey are the cold and the dead.

In old Auvergne, when schools were poor and few,

And peasants fancy’d what they scarcely knew,

When lords and gentry shunn’d their Monarch’s throne

For solitary castles of their own,

There dwelt a man of rank, whose fortress stood

In the hush’d twilight of a hoary wood.

De Blois his name; his lineage high and vast,

A proud memorial of an honour’d past;

But curious swains would whisper now and then

That Sieur De Blois was not as other men.

In person dark and lean, with glossy hair,

And gleaming teeth that he would often bare,

With piercing eye, and stealthy roving glance,

And tongue that clipt the soft, sweet speech of France;

The Sieur was little lov’d and seldom seen,

So close he kept within his own demesne.

The castle servants, few, discreet, and old,

Full many a tale of strangeness might have told;

But bow’d with years, they rarely left the door

Wherein their sires and grandsires serv’d before.

Thus gossip rose, as gossip rises best,

When mystery imparts a keener zest;

Seclusion oft the poison tongue attracts,

And scandal prospers on a dearth of facts.

’Twas said, the Sieur had more than once been spy’d

Alone at midnight by the river’s side,

With aspect so uncouth, and gaze so strange,

That rustics cross’d themselves to see the change;

Yet none, when press’d, could clearly say or know

Just what it was, or why they trembled so.

De Blois, as rumour whisper’d, fear’d to pray,

Nor us’d his chapel on the Sabbath day;

Howe’er this may have been, ’twas known at least

His household had no chaplain, monk, or priest.

But if the Master liv’d in dubious fame,

Twice fear’d and hated was his noble Dame;

As dark as he, in features wild and proud,

And with a weird supernal grace endow’d,

The haughty mistress scorn’d the rural train

Who sought to learn her source, but sought in vain.

Old women call’d her eyes too bright by half,

And nervous children shiver’d at her laugh;

Richard, the dwarf (whose word had little weight),

Vow’d she was like a serpent in her gait,

Whilst ancient Pierre (the aged often err)

Laid all her husband’s mystery to her.

Still more absurd were those odd mutter’d things

That calumny to curious list’ners brings;

Those subtle slanders, told with downcast face,

And muffled voice—those tales no man may trace;

Tales that the faith of old wives can command,

Tho’ always heard at sixth or seventh hand.

Thus village legend darkly would imply

That Dame De Blois possess’d an evil eye;

Or going further, furtively suggest

A lurking spark of sorcery in her breast;

Old Mère Allard (herself half witch) once said

The lady’s glance work’d strangely on the dead.

So liv’d the pair, like many another two

That shun the crowd, and shrink from public view.

They scorn’d the doubts by ev’ry peasant shewn,

And ask’d but one thing—to be let alone!

’Twas Candlemas, the dreariest time of year,

With fall long gone, and spring too far to cheer,

When little Jean, the bailiff’s son and heir,

Fell sick and threw the doctors in despair.

A child so stout and strong that few would think

An hour might carry him to death’s dark brink,

Yet pale he lay, tho’ hidden was the cause,

And Galens search’d in vain thro’ Nature’s laws.

But stricken sadness could not quite suppress

The roving thought, or wrinkled grandam’s guess:

Tho’ spoke by stealth, ’twas known to half a score

That Dame De Blois rode by the day before;

She had (they said) with glances weird and wild

Paus’d by the gate to view the prattling child,

Nor did they like the smile which seem’d to trace

New lines of evil on her proud, dark face.

These things they whisper’d, when the mother’s cry

Told of the end—the gentle soul gone by;

In genuine grief the kindly watcher wept,

Whilst the lov’d babe with saints and angels slept.

The village priest his simple rites went thro’,

And good Michel nail’d up the box of yew;

Around the corpse the holy candles burn’d,

The mourners sighed, the parents dumbly yearn’d.

Then one by one each sought his humble bed,

And left the lonely mother with her dead.

Late in the night it was, when o’er the vale

The storm-king swept with pandemoniac gale;

Deep pil’d the cruel snow, yet strange to tell,

The lightning sputter’d while the white flakes fell;

A hideous presence seem’d abroad to steal,

And terror sounded in the thunder’s peal.

Within the house of grief the tapers glow’d

Whilst the poor mother bow’d beneath her load;

Her salty eyes too tired now to weep,

Too pain’d to see, too sad to close in sleep.

The clock struck three, above the tempest heard,

When something near the lifeless infant stirr’d;

Some slipp’ry thing, that flopp’d in awkward way,

And climb’d the table where the coffin lay;

With scaly convolutions strove to find

The cold, still clay that death had left behind.

The nodding mother hears—starts broad awake—

Empower’d to reason, yet too stunn’d to shake;

The pois’nous thing she sees, and nimbly foils

The ghoulish purpose of the quiv’ring coils:

With ready axe the serpent’s head she cleaves,

And thrills with savage triumph whilst she grieves.

The injur’d reptile hissing glides from sight,

And hides its cloven carcass in the night.

The weeks slipp’d by, and gossip’s tongue began

To call the Sieur De Blois an alter’d man;

With curious mien he oft would pace along

The village street, and eye the gaping throng.

Yet whilst he shew’d himself as ne’er before,

His wild-eyed lady was observ’d no more.

In course of time, ’twas scarce thought odd or ill

That he his ears with village lore should fill;

Nor was the town with special rumour rife

When he sought out the bailiff and his wife:

Their tale of sorrow, with its ghastly end,

Was told, indeed, by ev’ry wond’ring friend.

The Sieur heard all, and low’ring rode away,

Nor was he seen again for many a day.

When vernal sunshine shed its cheering glow,

And genial zephyrs blew away the snow,

To frighten’d swains a horror was reveal’d

In the damp herbage of a melting field.

There (half preserv’d by winter’s frigid bed)

Lay the dark Dame De Blois, untimely dead;

By some assassin’s stroke most foully slain,

Her shapely brow and temples cleft in twain.

Reluctant hands the dismal burden bore

To the stone arches of the husband’s door,

Where silent serfs the ghastly thing receiv’d,

Trembling with fright, but less amaz’d than griev’d;

The Sieur his dame beheld with blazing eyes,

And shook with anger, more than with surprise.

(At least ’tis thus the stupid peasants told

Their wide-mouth’d wives when they the tale unroll’d.)

The village wonder’d why De Blois had kept

His spouse’s loss unmention’d and unwept,

Nor were there lacking sland’rous tongues to claim

That the dark master was himself to blame.

But village talk could scarcely hope to solve

A crime so deep, and thus the months revolve:

The rural train repeat the gruesome tale,

And gape and marvel more than they bewail.

Swift flew the sun, and winter once again

With icy talons gripp’d the frigid plain.

December brought its store of Christmas cheer,

And grateful peasants hail’d the op’ning year;

But by the hearth as Candlemas drew nigh,

The whisp’ring ancients spoke of things gone by.

Few had forgot the dark demoniac lore

Of things that came the Candlemas before,

And many a crone intently eyed the house

Where dwelt the sadden’d bailiff and his spouse.

At last the day arriv’d, the sky o’erspread

With dark’ning messengers and clouds of lead;

Each neighb’ring grove Aeolian warnings sigh’d,

And thick’ning terrors broadcast seem’d to bide.

The good folk, tho’ they knew not why, would run

Swift past the bailiff’s door, the scene to shun;

Within the house the grieving couple wept,

And mourn’d the child who now forever slept.

On rush’d the dusk in doubly hideous form,

Borne on the pinions of the gath’ring storm;

Unusual murmurs fill’d the rainless wind,

The rising river lash’d the troubled shore;

Black thro’ the night the awful storm-god prowl’d,

And froze the list’ners’ life-blood as he howl’d;

Gigantic trees like supple rushes sway’d,

Whilst for his home the trembling cotter pray’d.

Now falls a sudden lull amidst the gale;

With less’ning force the circling currents wail;

Far down the stream that laves the neighb’ring mead

Burst a new ululation, wildly key’d;

The peasant train a frantic mien assume,

And huddle closer in the spectral gloom:

To each strain’d ear the truth too well is known,

For that dread sound can come from wolves alone!

The rustics close attend, when ere they think,

A lupine army swarms the river’s brink;

From out the waters leap a howling train

That rend the air, and scatter o’er the plain:

With flaming orbs the frothing creatures fly,

And chant with hellish voice their hungry cry.

First of the pack a mighty monster leaps

With fearless tread, and martial order keeps;

Th’ attendant wolves his yelping tones obey,

And form in columns for the coming fray:

No frighten’d swain they harm, but silent bound

With a fix’d purpose o’er the frozen ground.

Straight course the monsters thro’ the village street,

Unholy vigour in their flying feet;

Thro’ half-shut blinds the shelter’d peasants peer,

And wax in wonder as they lose in fear.

Th’ excited pack at last their goal perceive,

And the vex’d air with deaf’ning clamour cleave;

The churls, astonish’d, watch th’ unnatural herd

Flock round a cottage at the leader’s word:

Quick spreads the fearsome fact, by rumour blown,

That the doom’d cottage is the bailiff’s own!

Round and around the howling daemons glide,

Whilst the fierce leader scales the vine-clad side;

The frantic wind its horrid wail renews,

And mutters madly thro’ the lifeless yews.

In the frail house the bailiff calmly waits

The rav’ning horde, and trusts th’ impartial Fates,

But the wan wife revives with curious mien

Another monster and an older scene;

Amidst th’ increasing wind that rocks the walls,

The dame to him the serpent’s deed recalls:

Then as a nameless thought fills both their minds,

The bare-fang’d leader crashes thro’ the blinds.

Across the room, with murd’rous fury rife,

Leaps the mad wolf, and seizes on the wife;

With strange intent he drags his shrieking prey

Close to the spot where once the coffin lay.

Wilder and wilder roars the mounting gale

That sweeps the hills and hurtles thro’ the vale;

The ill-made cottage shakes, the pack without

Dance with new fury in demoniac rout.

Quick as his thought, the valiant bailiff stands

Above the wolf, a weapon in his hands;

The ready axe that serv’d a year before,

Now serves as well to slay one monster more.

The creature drops inert, with shatter’d head,

Full on the floor, and silent as the dead;

The rescu’d wife recalls the dire alarms,

And faints from terror in her husband’s arms.

But as he holds her, all the cottage quakes,

And with full force the titan tempest breaks:

Down crash the walls, and o’er their shrinking forms

Burst the mad revels of the storm of storms.

Th’ encircling wolves advance with ghastly pace,

Hunger and murder in each gleaming face,

But as they close, from out the hideous night

Flashes a bolt of unexpected light:

The vivid scene to ev’ry eye appears,

And peasants shiver with returning fears.

Above the wreck the scatheless chimney stays,

Its outline glimm’ring in the fitful rays,

Whilst o’er the hearth still hangs the household shrine,

The Saviour’s image and the Cross divine!

Round the blest spot a lambent radiance glows,

And shields the cotters from their stealthy foes:

Each monstrous creature marks the wondrous glare,

Drops, fades, and vanishes in empty air!

The village train with startled eyes adore,

And count their beads in rev’rence o’er and o’er.

Now fades the light, and dies the raging blast,

The hour of dread and reign of horror past.

Pallid and bruis’d, from out his toppled walls

The panting bailiff with his good wife crawls:

Kind hands attend them, whilst o’er all the town

A strange sweet peace of spirit settles down.

Wonder and fear are still’d in soothing sleep,

As thro’ the breaking clouds the moon rays peep.

Here paus’d the prattling grandam in her speech,

Confus’d with age, the tale half out of reach;

The list’ning guest, impatient for a clue,

Fears ’tis not one tale, but a blend of two;

He fain would know how far’d the widow’d lord

Whose eerie ways th’ initial theme afford,

And marvels that the crone so quick should slight

His fate, to babble of the wolf-wrack’d night.

The old wife, press’d, for greater clearness strives,

Nods wisely, and her scatter’d wits revives;

Yet strangely lingers on her latter tale

Of wolf and bailiff, miracle and gale.

When (quoth the crone) the dawn’s bright radiance bath’d

Th’ eventful scene, so late in terror swath’d,

The chatt’ring churls that sought the ruin’d cot

Found a new marvel in the gruesome spot.

From fallen walls a trail of gory red,

As of the stricken wolf, erratic led;

O’er road and mead the new-dript crimson wound,

Till lost amidst the neighb’ring swampy ground:

With wonder unappeas’d the peasants burn’d,

For what the quicksand takes is ne’er return’d.

Once more the grandam, with a knowing eye,

Stops in her tale, to watch a hawk soar by;

The weary list’ner, baffled, seeks anew

For some plain statement, or enlight’ning clue.

Th’ indulgent crone attends the puzzled plea,

Yet strangely mutters o’er the mystery.

The Sieur? Ah, yes—that morning all in vain

His shaking servants scour’d the frozen plain;

No man had seen him since he rode away

In silence on the dark preceding day.

His horse, wild-eyed with some unusual fright,

Came wand’ring from the river-bank that night.

His hunting-hound, that mourn’d with piteous woe,

Howl’d by the quicksand swamp, his grief to shew.

The village folk thought much, but utter’d less;

The servants’ search wore out in emptiness:

For Sieur De Blois (the old wife’s tale is o’er)

Was lost to mortal sight for evermore.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text: Weird Tales/Volume 29/Issue 2/Song of the Necromancer


text:
Internal Security Act, 1982/1996-11-15

as amended by

Internal Security Amendment Act, No. 55 of 1986

Proclamation No. R. 21 of 1990

Internal Security and Intimidation Amendment Act, No. 138 of 1991

Criminal Law Amendment Act, No. 4 of 1992

Criminal Law Amendment Act, No. 126 of 1992

Regulation of Gatherings Act, No. 205 of 1993

Abolition of Restrictions on Free Political Activity Act, No. 206 of 1993

Safety Matters Rationalisation Act, No, 90 of 1996

E IT ENACTED by the State President and the House of Assembly of the Republic of South Africa, as follows:―

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

1. In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates— [Definition of “authorized officer” deleted by s. 1 (a) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definition of “board of review” deleted by s. 1 (b) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definition of “Commissioner” deleted by item 1 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[Definition of “communism” deleted by s. 1 (c) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definitions of “Director” and “document” deleted by item 1 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

“gathering” means, for the purposes of—

sections 20 (ii), 46 (1) (b) and (3) (b) and 48 (1) (b), any gathering, concourse or procession of any number of persons; any other provision of this Act, a gathering, concourse or procession of any number of persons having a common purpose, whether such purpose is lawful or unlawful;

[Definition of “Inspector of Detainees” deleted by s. 1 (d) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definitions of “liquidator”, “Minister”, “office-bearer”, “officer”, “organization”, “periodical publication”, “place”, “police”, “police officer” and “publication” deleted by item 1 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[Definition of “public body” deleted by s. 1 (h) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definition of “public office” deleted by s. 1 (i) of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[Definitions of “this Act”, “unlawful organization” and “violence” deleted by item 1 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 2 repealed by item 2 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 4 repealed by item 2 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 10 repealed by item 2 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 12–14 repealed by item 2 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

CHAPTER 5

46. [Sub-s. (1) and (2) repealed by Schedule 3 to Act No. 205 of 1993.]

(3) The Minister may, if he deems it necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the State or for the maintenance of the public peace or in order to prevent the causing, encouraging or fomenting of feelings of hostility between different population groups or parts of population groups of the Republic, prohibit in a manner determined in subsection (2) (a)—

any gathering in any area; or

any particular gathering or any gathering of a particular nature, class or kind at a particular place or in a particular area or wheresoever in the Republic,

during any period or on any day or during specified times or periods within any period, except in those cases determined in the prohibition in question by the Minister or which the Minister or a magistrate acting in pursuance of the Minister’s general or special instructions may at any time expressly authorize.

(4) Any notice issued by the Minister under subsection (3) may at any time be withdrawn or amended by him by like notice. [Sub-s. (4) added by s. 17 of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[S. 47–49 repealed by Schedule 3 to Act No. 205 of 1993.]

[S. 50 repealed by item 2 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 51 repealed by Schedule 3 to Act No. 205 of 1993.]

[S. 53 repealed by Schedule 3 to Act No. 205 of 1993.]

CHAPTER 6

54. (1) Any person who with intent to—

overthrow or endanger the State authority in the Republic;

achieve, bring about or promote any constitutional, political, industrial, social or economic aim or change in the Republic;

induce the Government of the Republic to do or to abstain from doing any act or to adopt or to abandon a particular standpoint,

[Para. (d) deleted by s. 9 (a) of Act No. 126 of 1992.]

in the Republic or elsewhere—

commits an act of violence or threatens or attempts to do so;

performs any act which is aimed at causing, bringing about, promoting or contributing towards such act or threat of violence, or attempts, consents or takes any steps to perform such act;

conspires with any other person to commit, bring about or perform any act or threat referred to in paragraph (i) or act referred to in paragraph (ii), or to aid in the commission, bringing about or performance thereof; or

incites, instigates, commands, aids, advises, encourages or procures any other person to commit, bring about or perform such act or threat,

shall be guilty of the offence of terrorism and liable on conviction to the penalties provided for by law for the offence of treason.

[S. (2) deleted by s. 4 of Act No. 206 of 1993.]

(3) Any person who with intent to—

endanger the safety, health or interests of the public at any place in the Republic;

destroy, pollute or contaminate any water supply in the Republic which is intended for public use;

interrupt, impede or endanger at any place in the Republic the manufacture, storage, generation, distribution, rendering or supply of fuel, petroleum products, energy, light, power or water, or of sanitary, medical, health, educational, police, fire-fighting, ambulance, postal or telecommunication services or radio or television transmitting, broadcasting or receiving services or any other public service;

endanger, damage, destroy, render useless or unserviceable or put out of action at any place in the Republic any installation for the rendering or supply of any service referred to in paragraph (c), any prohibited place or any public building;

cripple, prejudice or interrupt at any place in the Republic any industry or undertaking or industries or undertakings generally or the production, supply or distribution of commodities or foodstuffs; or

impede or endanger at any place in the Republic the free movement of any traffic on land, at sea or in the air,

in the Republic or elsewhere—

commits any act;

attempts to commit such act;

conspires with any other person to commit such act or to bring about the commission thereof or to aid in the commission or the bringing about of the commission thereof; or

incites, instigates, commands. aids, advises, encourages or procures any other person to commit such act,

shall be guilty of the offence of sabotage and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period not exceeding twenty years.

(4) Any person who has reason to suspect that any other person intends to commit or has committed any offence referred to in subsection (1), (2) or (3) and any person who is aware of the presence at any place of any other person who is so suspected of intending to commit or having committed such an offence, and who—

harbours or conceals that other person;

directly or indirectly renders any assistance to that other person; or

fails to report or cause to be reported to any member of the police such presence of that other person at any place,

as the case may be, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to the penalty to which the person whom he so harboured or concealed or to whom he so rendered assistance or whose presence he so failed to report or to cause to be reported would have been liable on conviction of the offence which the last-mentioned person intended to commit or committed, as the case may be.

(5) No person shall be convicted of an offence in terms of subsection (1), (2) or (3) committed at any place outside the Republic, if such person proves that he is not a South African citizen and has not at any time before or after the commencement of this Act been resident in the Republic and that he has not at any time after 27 June 1962 entered or been in the Republic in contravention of any law.

(6) If the evidence in any prosecution for an offence in terms of subsection (1) does not prove that offence but does prove an offence in terms of subsection (2), (3) or (4), the accused may be found guilty of the offence so proved. [Sub-s. (6) amended by item 3 (a) of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

(7) For the purposes of subsection (1) (ii), and without derogating from the generality of the meaning of the word “act”, the undergoing of specific training or the possession of any substance or thing shall be deemed also to constitute the performance of an act.

(8) For the purposes of this section— [Definition of “Government of the Republic” deleted by item 3 (b) of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

“prohibited place” means a prohibited place as defined in section 1 (1) of the Protection of Information Act, 1982 (Act No. 84 of 1982);

“public building” means any building which or part of which is occupied by the State, any institution or body instituted by or under any law and to which local or other government functions have been assigned. [Definition of “public building” substituted by item 3 (c) of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.] [Sub-s. (8) amended by s. 20 of Act No. 138 of 1991.]

[S. 56 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 57 repealed by Schedule 3 to Act No. 205 of 1993.]

[S. 62–63 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 65–69 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[S. 73 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[Schedule 1 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

[Schedule 4 repealed by item 4 of Schedule 1 to Act No. 90 of 1996.]

title: Internal Security Act, 1982/1996-11-15


text:
The Graveyard Rats

Old Masson, the caretaker of one of Salem's oldest and most neglected cemeteries, had a feud with the rats. Generations ago they had come up from the wharves and settled in the graveyard, a colony of abnormally large rats, and when Masson had taken charge after the inexplicable disappearance of the former caretaker, he decided that they must go. At first he set traps for them and put poisoned food by their burrows, and later he tried to shoot them, but it did no good. The rats stayed, multiplying and overrunning the graveyard with their ravenous hordes.

They were large, even for the mus decumanus, which sometimes measures fifteen inches in length, exclusive of the naked pink and grey tail. Masson had caught glimpses of some as large as good-sized cats, and when, once or twice, the grave-diggers had uncovered their burrows, the malodorous tunnels were large enough to enable a man to crawl into them on his hands and knees. The ships that had come generations ago from distant ports to the rotting Salem wharves had brought strange cargoes.

Masson wondered sometimes at the extraordinary size of these burrows. He recalled certain vaguely disturbing legends he had heard since coming to ancient, witch-haunted Salem—tales of a moribund, inhuman life that was said to exist in forgotten burrows in the earth. The old days, when Cotton Mather had hunted down the evil cults that worshipped Hecate and the dark Magna Mater in frightful orgies, had passed; but dark gabled houses still leaned perilously towards each other over narrow cobbled streets, and blasphemous secrets and mysteries were said to be hidden in subterranean cellars and caverns, where forgotten pagan rites were still celebrated in defiance of law and sanity. Wagging their grey heads wisely, the elders declared that there were worse things than rats and maggots crawling in the unhallowed earth of the ancient Salem cemeteries.

And then, too, there was this curious dread of the rats. Masson disliked and respected the ferocious little rodents, for he knew the danger that lurked in their flashing, needle-sharp fangs; but he could not understand the inexplicable horror which the oldsters held for deserted, rat-infested houses. He had heard vague rumours of ghoulish beings that dwelt far underground, and that had the power of commanding the rats, marshalling them like horrible armies. The rats, the old men whispered, were messengers between this world and the grim and ancient caverns far below Salem. Bodies had been stolen from graves for nocturnal subterranean feasts, they said. The myth of the Pied Piper is a fable that hides a blasphemous horror, and the black pits of Avernus have brought forth hell-spawned monstrosities that never venture into the light of day.

Masson paid little attention to these tales. He did not fraternise with his neighbours, and, in fact, did all he could to hide the existence of the rats from intruders. Investigation, he realised, would undoubtedly mean the opening of many graves. And while some of the gnawed, empty coffins could be attributed to the activities of the rats, Masson might find it difficult to explain the mutilated bodies that lay in some of the coffins.

The purest gold is used in filling teeth, and this gold is not removed when a man is buried. Clothing, of course, is another matter; for usually the undertaker provides a plain broadcloth suit that is cheap and easily recognisable. But gold is another matter; and sometimes, too, there were medical students and less reputable doctors who were in need of cadavers, and not overscrupulous as to where these were obtained.

So far Masson had successfully managed to discourage investigation. He had fiercely denied the existence of the rats, even though they sometimes robbed him of his prey. Masson did not care what happened to the bodies after he had performed his gruesome thefts, but the rats inevitably dragged away the whole cadaver through the hole they gnawed in the coffin.

The size of these burrows occasionally worried Masson. Then, too, there was the curious circumstance of the coffins always being gnawed open at the end, never at the side or top. It was almost as though the rats were working under the direction of some impossibly intelligent leader.

Now he stood in an open grave and threw a last sprinkling of wet earth on the heap beside the pit. It was raining, a slow, cold drizzle that for weeks had been descending from soggy black clouds. The graveyard was a slough of yellow, sucking mud, from which the rain-washed tombstones stood up in irregular battalions. The rats had retreated to their burrows, and Masson had not seen one for days. But his gaunt, unshaved face was set in frowning lines; the coffin on which he was standing was a wooden one.

The body had been buried several days earlier, but Masson had not dared to disinter it before. A relative of the dead man had been coming to the grave at intervals, even in the drenching rain. But he would hardly come at this late hour, no matter how much grief he might be suffering, Masson thought, grinning wryly. He straightened and laid the shovel aside.

From the hill on which the ancient graveyard lay he could see the lights of Salem flickering dimly through the downpour. He drew a flashlight from his pocket. He would need light now. Taking up the spade, he bent and examined the fastenings of the coffin.

Abruptly he stiffened. Beneath his feet he sensed an unquiet stirring and scratching, as though something were moving within the coffin. For a moment a pang of superstitious fear shot through Masson, and then rage replaced it as he realised the significance of the sound. The rats had forestalled him again!

In a paroxysm of anger Masson wrenched at the fastenings of the coffin. He got the sharp edge of the shovel under the lid and pried it up until he could finish the job with his hands. Then he sent the flashlight's cold beam darting down into the coffin.

Rain spattered against the white satin lining; the coffin was empty. Masson saw a flicker of movement at the head of the case, and darted the light in that direction.

The end of the sarcophagus had been gnawed through, and a gaping hole led into darkness. A black shoe, limp and dragging, was disappearing as Masson watched, and abruptly he realised that the rats had forestalled him by only a few minutes. He fell on his hands and knees and made a hasty clutch at the shoe, and the flashlight incontinently fell into the coffin and went out. The shoe was tugged from his grasp, he heard a sharp, excited squealing, and then he had the flashlight again and was darting its light into the burrow.

It was a large one. It had to be, or the corpse could not have been dragged along it. Masson wondered at the size of the rats that could carry away a man's body, but the thought of the loaded revolver in his pocket fortified him. Probably if the corpse had been an ordinary one Masson would have left the rats with their spoils rather than venture into the narrow burrow, but he remembered an especially fine set of cufflinks he had observed, as well as a stickpin that was undoubtedly a genuine pearl. With scarcely a pause he clipped the flashlight to his belt and crept into the burrow.

It was a tight fit, but he managed to squeeze himself along. Ahead of him in the flashlight's glow he could see the shoes dragging along the wet earth of the bottom of the tunnel. He crept along the burrows as rapidly as he could, occasionally barely able to squeeze his lean body through the narrow walls.

The air was overpowering with its musty stench of carrion. If he could not reach the corpse in a minute, Masson decided, he would turn back. Belated fears were beginning to crawl, maggot-like, within his mind, but greed urged him on. He crawled forward, several times passing the mouths of adjoining tunnels. The walls of the burrow were damp and slimy, and twice lumps of dirt dropped behind him. The second time he paused and screwed his head around to look back. He could see nothing, of course, until he had unhooked the flashlight from his belt and reversed it.

Several clods lay on the ground behind him, and the danger of his position suddenly became real and terrifying. With thoughts of a cave-in making his pulse race, he decided to abandon the pursuit, even though he had now almost overtaken the corpse and the invisible things that pulled it. But he had overlooked one thing: the burrow was too narrow to allow him to turn.

Panic touched him briefly, but he remembered a side tunnel he had just passed, and backed awkwardly along the tunnel until he came to it. He thrust his legs into it, backing until he found himself able to turn. Then he hurriedly began to retrace his way, although his knees were bruised and painful.

Agonising pain shot through his leg. He felt sharp teeth sink into his flesh, and kicked out frantically. There was a shrill squealing and the scurry of many feet. Flashing the light behind him, Masson caught his breath in a sob of fear as he saw a dozen great rats watching him intently, their slitted eyes glittering in the light. They were great misshapen things, as large as cats, and behind them he caught a glimpse of a dark shape that stirred and moved swiftly aside into the shadow; and he shuddered at the unbelievable size of the thing.

The light had held them for a moment, but they were edging closer, their teeth dull orange in the pale light. Masson tugged at his pistol, managed to extricate it from his pocket, and aimed carefully. It was an awkward position, and he tried to press his feet into the soggy sides of the burrow so that he should not inadvertently send a bullet into one of them.

The rolling thunder of the shot deafened him, for a time, and the clouds of smoke set him coughing. When he could hear again and the smoke had cleared, he saw that the rats were gone. He put the pistol back and began to creep swiftly along the tunnel, and then with a scurry and a rush they were upon him again.

They swarmed over his legs, biting and squealing insanely, and Masson shrieked horribly as he snatched for his gun. He fired without aiming, and only luck saved him from blowing a foot off. This time the rats did not retreat so far, but Masson was crawling as swiftly as he could along the burrow, ready to fire again at the first sound of another attack.

There was a patter of feet and he sent the light stabbing behind him. A great grey rat paused and watched him. Its long ragged whiskers twitched, and its scabrous, naked tail was moving slowly from side to side. Masson shouted and the rat retreated.

He crawled on, pausing briefly, the black gap of a side tunnel at his elbow, as he made out a shapeless huddle on the damp clay a few yards ahead. For a second he thought it was a mass of earth that had been dislodged from the roof, and then he recognised it as a human body.

It was a brown and shrivelled mummy, and with a dreadful unbelieving shock Masson realised that it was moving.

It was crawling towards him, and in the pale glow of the flashlight the man saw a frightful gargoyle face thrust into his own. It was the passionless, death's-head skull of a long-dead corpse, instinct with hellish life; and the glazed eyes swollen and bulbous betrayed the thing's blindness. It made a faint groaning sound as it crawled towards Masson, stretching its ragged and granulated lips in a grin of dreadful hunger. And Masson was frozen with abysmal fear and loathing.

Just before the Horror touched him, Masson flung himself frantically into the burrow at his side. He heard a scrambling noise at his heels, and the thing groaned dully as it came after him. Masson, glancing over his shoulder, screamed and propelled himself desperately through the narrow burrow. He crawled along awkwardly, sharp stones cutting his hands and knees. Dirt showered into his eyes, but he dared not pause even for a moment. He scrambled on, gasping, cursing, and praying hysterically.

Squealing triumphantly, the rats came at him, horrible hunger in their eyes. Masson almost succumbed to their vicious teeth before he succeeded in beating them off. The passage was narrowing, and in a frenzy of terror he kicked and screamed and fired until the hammer clicked on an empty shell. But he had driven them off.

He found himself crawling under a great stone, embedded in the roof, that dug cruelly into his back. It moved a little as his weight struck it, and an idea flashed into Masson's fright-crazed mind: If he could bring down the stone so that it blocked the tunnel!

The earth was wet and soggy from the rains, and he hunched himself half upright and dug away at the dirt around the stone. The rats were coming closer. He saw their eyes glowing in the reflection of the flashlight's beam. Still he clawed frantically at the earth. The stone was giving. He tugged at it and it rocked in its foundation.

A rat was approaching—the monster he had already glimpsed. Grey and leprous and hideous it crept forward with its orange teeth bared, and in its wake came the blind dead thing, groaning as it crawled. Masson gave a last frantic tug at the stone. He felt it slide downwards, and then he went scrambling along the tunnel.

Behind him the stone crashed down, and he heard a sudden frightful shriek of agony. Clods showered upon his legs. A heavy weight fell on his feet and he dragged them free with difficulty. The entire tunnel was collapsing!

Gasping with fear, Masson threw himself forward as the soggy earth collapsed at his heels. The tunnel narrowed until he could barely use his hands and legs to propel himself; he wriggled forward like an eel and suddenly felt satin tearing beneath his clawing fingers, and then his head crashed against something that barred his path. He moved his legs, discovering that they were not pinned under the collapsed earth. He was lying flat on his stomach, and when he tried to raise himself he found that the roof was only a few inches from his back. Panic shot through him.

When the blind horror had blocked his path, he had flung himself desperately into a side tunnel, a tunnel that had no outlet. He was in a coffin, an empty coffin into which he had crept through the hole the rats had gnawed in its end!

He tried to turn on his back and found that he could not. The lid of the coffin pinned him down inexorably. Then he braced himself and strained at the coffin lid. It was immovable, and even if he could escape from the sarcophagus, how could he claw his way up through five feet of hard-packed earth?

He found himself gasping. It was dreadfully fetid, unbearably hot. In a paroxysm of terror he ripped and clawed at the satin until it was shredded. He made a futile attempt to dig with his feet at the earth from the collapsed burrow that blocked his retreat. If he were only able to reverse his position he might be able to claw his way through to air … air ...

White-hot agony lanced through his breast, throbbed in his eyeballs. His head seemed to be swelling, growing larger and larger; and suddenly he heard the exultant squealing of the rats. He began to scream insanely but could not drown them out. For a moment he thrashed about hysterically within his narrow prison, and then he was quiet, gasping for air. His eyelids closed, his blackened tongue protruded, and he sank down into the blackness of death with the mad squealing of the rats dinning in his ears.

title: The Graveyard Rats