Ramsey Campbell was born in Liverpool, where he still lives with his wife, Jenny. His first book, a collection of stories entitled The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, was published by August Derleth’s legendary Arkham House imprint in 1964. He has published numerous novels, collections and anthologies ever since.
The author recently celebrated fifty years in horror with the publication from PS Publishing of his novel, Think Yourself Lucky, along with a volume of all the author’s correspondence with Derleth, edited by S. T. Joshi. His most current novel is Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach.
As one of the world’s most respected authors of horror fiction, Ramsey Campbell has won multiple World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Awards and Bram Stoker Awards, and is a recipient of the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the Howie Award of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival for Lifetime Achievement and the International Horror Guild’s Living Legend Award. He is also President of the Society of Fantastic Films.
About the story that follows, the author explains: “‘A New Life’ was one of the last of my EC Comics–inspired pieces. It was written in 1976, the year when much of my energy was devoted to writing novels based on classic Universal horror films. These were published under the house name of Carl Dreadstone—my original suggestion had been Carl Thunstone, but Manly Wade Wellman understandably thought people might assume that pseudonym was his—though in England, to add to the confusion, some were credited instead to E. K. Leyton. I was hoping to reissue my Dreadstone books as an omnibus, but alas, this is not to be. I can at least take this opportunity to make it clear that I wrote only The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolfman and Dracula’s Daughter. The other novels are nothing to do with me, and by now even Piers Dudgeon, the editor who commissioned the series, can’t recall who wrote one of them, though The Werewolf of London and The Creature from the Black Lagoon were the work of Walter Harris.”
Already he was blind again. But he was sure that someone had been peering at him. The glimpse was vague as the memory of a dream: the bright quivering outline of a head, which had had darkness for a face. Perhaps it had been a dream which had wakened him.
Darkness lay on his eyes, thick as soil, heavy as sleep. It seemed eager to soothe his mind into drifting. He fought the shapeless flowing of his thoughts. He was near to panic, for he had no idea where he was.
He tried to calm himself. He must analyze his sensations, surely that would help him understand. But he found he could scarcely think. In the darkness, whose depth he had no means of gauging, his mind seemed to dissolve. He felt as though its edges were crumbling, as though nothingness were eating toward its core. He cried out wordlessly.
At least he had a body, then. He hadn’t been able to feel it, and had dreaded that—the echo of his cry was hollow, but quickly muffled by walls quite close to him. The cry hadn’t sounded at all like his voice.
If it wasn’t his voice, then whose—he quashed that thought. His self-control was firmer now that some sense of his body had returned. He could feel his limbs, though faintly. They felt very weak; he couldn’t move them. Clearly he hadn’t yet recovered from his ordeal.
Yes, his ordeal. He was beginning to remember: being swept away and sucked down by the river, which had closed over his face with a hectic roar; the enormous weight of water that had thrust him down, into depths where his breath had burst out with a muffled agonized gurgling. After that, darkness—perhaps the darkness that surrounded him now. Had the river carried him here?
That was absurd. Someone must have rescued him and brought him here. But what place was it? Why would a rescuer leave him alone in total darkness, even when he cried out?
He controlled his gathering panic. He must be philosophical—after all, that was his vocation. Ah, he remembered that too; it comforted him. Perhaps, as he lay waiting for his strength, he could reflect on his beliefs. They would sustain him. But a twinge of fear convinced him that it might be wise to avoid such thoughts here. He subsided nervously, feeling as though the core of him were exposed and vulnerable. Chill sweat pricked his forehead in the close dark.
He must resign himself to his situation, until he knew more. He must be still, and await his strength. Sensation trickled slowly into his limbs. They seemed to form gradually about him: as though he were being reborn into a body. His mind flinched from that thought. For a moment, panic was very near.
He concentrated on sensation. His limbs felt enlarged, and cold as stone. As yet he couldn’t tell whether these feelings were distorted by sickness. The threat of distortion troubled him; it meant he could be sure of nothing. It oppressed him, like the blinding darkness. He felt as though his brain and his nerves were drifting exposed in a void. Was he really blind?
How could near-drowning have blinded him? But while he scoffed at the idea, the darkness pressed close as a mask. What dark in the world could be so total? He remembered the face he had seemed to glimpse. That proved he could see—except that it was dim as a ghost of the mind, and perhaps had never been more than that.
The idea of being blind as well as enfeebled, in this unknown place, terrified him. With lips that seemed gigantically swollen, he cried out again, to bring the watcher back—if there had been one.
He heard his echoes blunder, dull and misshapen, against stone. Suddenly he was awash with panic. He struggled within his unresponsive body, as though he could snatch back the cry. He shouldn’t have drawn attention to himself, he shouldn’t have let the watcher know he was alive and helpless. All the fears which he had been trying to avoid insisted that his mind knew where he was.
For a while he could hear only the rapid unsteady labouring of his heart. It seemed to become confused with its own echo, to imprison him with a clutter of muffled thudding. Then he realized that some of the uneven sounds were approaching. Very slowly, someone was shuffling irregularly toward him through the dark.
He squeezed his eyelids tight, and tried to keep absolutely still. He had lain so in his childhood, when the night had surrounded him with demons come to carry him to Hell. That memory appalled him. As he tried to ignore it, it clung to his mind. But he had no time to ponder it, for the footsteps had dragged to a halt close to him.
Something scraped harshly, and light splashed over him. The light was orange; it flickered, plucking at his eyelids. He felt as though the torch, whose sputtering he could hear, were thrust close to his eyes; he could almost feel its heat snatching eagerly at him. He shrank within himself, bathed in fear. He tried to hold his eyes still amid the flickering. At last the light withdrew a little, and metal scraped the dark into place again. The watcher shuffled away, dwindling.
Blinded once more, he lay in his cell. From the echoing stone, and the scrape of the spy-hole, he knew that was where he was. How could he have been imprisoned for trying to save a girl from drowning? Or had the authorities taken the chance to arrest him for his unchristian beliefs, which the University’s theologians and his old parish priest had condemned? He tried to outshout his thoughts: no, his situation here had nothing to do with his beliefs, nothing at all.
His mind wasn’t hushed so easily. It was as though fragments of thought that had remained from before his ordeal were settling together, clarifying themselves. Soon he would remember everything: far too much. Because he could almost remember it now, he realized that he didn’t know his name. His panic seemed to sweep him deeper into darkness, where there was no sound, and no time. It felt like the beginning of eternity.
Perhaps it was. Before he could understand that thought, and give way entirely to terror, he made himself try to move. He must at least escape his helplessness. It might be possible to overpower the watcher. Surely it might be.
He strained. His limbs felt too large, and separate from him—as though bloated and stiffened by drowning. Of course that wasn’t why they felt unfamiliar. The reason was— He struggled to reach his body with his mind, more to distract himself than in any real hope. His thoughts waited patiently for recognition.
At last, with a sigh that shuddered out of him as though he were relinquishing his life, he slumped helpless. At once his thoughts rushed forward. His body was beyond his control because he was dead.
The thought was terrible because it explained so much. It crushed him, as though the darkness had become stone. His blindness had robbed his mind of all defenses. If he tried to think, his philosophy led him straight to his fears. He was a child alone in the dark.
The image of the river was too vivid to be false. He’d been walking by the Danube when the girl had fallen in. He and another man had plunged in, to rescue her. The other man had reached her. But nobody had saved him; a hidden current had dragged him away and down, down, far too deep to have survived. The memory dragged him down now, into the relentless darkness.
As he walked, he’d been preparing the next day’s lecture. Pythagoras, Plato, Kant. Could that have anything to do with his plight? No, he told himself. Of course not. Nothing. But he dreaded finding out where he was.
That was contemptible. He would know sooner or later, he couldn’t change that; he must resign himself. If only he didn’t feel so helpless! Perhaps, if he began very gradually, he could gain control of his body; if he could move just one limb—
He made himself aware of his limbs. They felt swollen, but not painful. A chill had gathered on them, from the surrounding stone. His back felt like a slab; his mind must be confusing it with the stone on which he lay.
He concentrated on his right arm. It felt distant, cut off from him by enormous darkness. He grew aware of the fingers. He tried to feel their separateness, but they were pressed together like a single lump of flesh, in a kind of mitten. They were bound, as was his entire body. Panicking, he strained to raise his hand. But it lay inert as meat on a butcher’s slab.
Again he was a child in the dark, but more alone: even time had deserted him. He remembered lying in the darkness of his childhood, praying never to lose his beliefs, because if you died unbelieving you were doomed to eternal torment. His worst and vaguest terror had always been that the torment would be appropriate to the victim.
He fought against the current of his terror. How could he give up without trying all his limbs? His mind groped about, as though in a cluttered dark room; he was surrounded by jumbled dead flesh, his own. At last his awareness grasped his left arm.
It lay parcelled in its bindings, resting lifeless on the stone. That was how a mummy’s arm must feel. Somewhere in there were nerves and muscles, buried in the meat: dead and unresponsive. He forced his mind to reach out. He was panting. His teeth scraped together, with a creak of bone that filled his skull.
He must reach out, just a little further. He could do it. Just one finger. But his mind was diffused by the darkness; it felt as though it were floating shapelessly in the meat. His thought of ancient history had stimulated it into babbling Pythagoras, Plato, Kant, von Herder, Goethe. All of them had believed— His mind writhed, trying to dislodge the thoughts. His violent frustration clenched his fist within its bindings.
For a moment he thought he’d imagined it. But his fingers were still moving, eager to be free of their mitten. He managed to subdue his gasp of triumph before it could reach the walls. He rested, then he raised his arm. It groped upward in the dark, brushing the chill wall beside him. Soon he would unwrap himself, and then— His arm rose a few inches, then shuddered and fell, jarring all its nerves.
He was still weak, he mustn’t expect too much, must give it time. It took several tries to convince him that he couldn’t raise his arm higher, nor move any other part of his body. His arm refused to bend, to reach his bindings; it refused to recognize him. His mind was a stagnant pool in a lump of unrecognizable flesh. He could no longer doubt that he knew where he was.
They had devised their torments well: allowing him the illusion of triumph, the better to destroy all hope. Now came the torment of waiting helplessly, like a condemned man—except that the sufferings to which he was condemned would be eternal.
His childhood fears had told the truth. He should never have thought beyond them. For questioning his childhood faith, for believing that he would be reincarnated—the belief to which he had clung at the moment of his death, in the river—he had been condemned appropriately. To be reborn in an unfamiliar body, for unending torture: this was his hell.
They might keep him waiting for an eternity: that would be only a fraction of the time he had to suffer. They wanted his mind to fill with the tortures they were preparing, so that he could suffer them more fully. It did so. His helpless flesh could not even writhe. But he was sure they would make it feel.
His head throbbed with his pulse, as though all its flesh were pumping. Blood deafened his ears, like a close sea. Again it was a while before he could be sure that there were other sounds. The shuffling had returned, together with another set of footsteps, lighter and more purposeful. They were coming for him.
He sucked in his breath. He must stay absolutely still; they were waiting for him to betray himself. His teeth clenched, his lips trembled. Beyond the door, blurred sounds muttered. Though they resembled human voices, he was sure not all the distortions could be caused by the door. They must be discussing him. He tried to calm his face.
Metal slid, scraping. The torch peered in. Light danced on his eyelids, challenging him not to twitch. His breath swelled, harsh as stone in his lungs. At last a voice muttered, and the metal cut off the light. At once his breath roared out, appallingly loud.
Surely they couldn’t have heard him, surely the sound of the spy-hole had muffled—But keys were scrabbling at the lock. His eyelids shook, his face worked uncontrollably; his treacherous mouth drooled. The door squealed open, and figures were standing silently close to him.
He must keep still. Eventually they would go away. He’d rest then, and try to free himself. But his face felt like a huge unfamiliar mask. It grimaced independent of his will. As it did so, one of the watchers hissed in triumph.
He had betrayed himself. There was no longer any reason to pretend, and his imaginings were worse than anything he might see. But when his eyes twitched open he groaned in terror. Beside the flames a stooped figure was peering down at him. One of its heads was covered with cloth.
The second figure must be a demon too, although it looked human: a thin young man with troubled eyes. His face stooped close, relentlessly staring. Then he stood up, shaking his head sadly.
That was surely not a demon’s reaction. As the young man gestured the light closer, the man on the slab saw that the torchbearer had only one head after all, and a hunched back. The light showed that the bindings of his limbs were bandages.
They had rescued him, after all! His fears and his paralysis were only symptoms of his sickness! He raised his arm, until it fell back feebly. The young man glanced at it, but continued to test the other limbs, shaking his head. The man on the slab tried to speak to him. But the sound that poured from his lips contained no syllables, no shape at all.
“Useless. Stupid. A failure,” the young man muttered, almost to himself. “To think that I had that mind in my hands. How could I have reduced it to this?”
The shuffling man asked him what should be done. The young man told him indifferently, dismally, not even glancing at the victim he condemned. They went out, locking the darkness behind them.
Long after their footsteps had faded the man lay on the slab, straining to move his arm an extra inch, trying to pronounce three syllables, to prove his intelligence when someone returned. Just three syllables, the name he had heard the hunched man call his master: Frank-en-stein.