The Face That Must Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

reads coldly, but I can’t justify rewriting to protect my own image, though perhaps that is just my trying to display how honest I think I am.
    My mother was cremated, and I took the ashes to the family grave in Huddersfield one weekend, only to find that there was nobody to tell me where the grave (which I’d seen once, twenty years before) was. I set out to look for it, but found after an hour that I’d examined perhaps a tenth of the headstones. I gave up then, planning to come back on a weekday when someone would be in attendance, and wandered aimlessly through the graveyard until suddenly I halted, turned, and found myself looking straight at the family headstone. I had walked to it by the shortest possible route. I should like to think that my mother had managed at last to take me where she wanted to be.

    Ramsey Campbell
    Merseyside, England
    (1982)

    * * *

    I Am It And It Is I

    There can’t have been much stuff in that cake. Or else it must have been all seeds. I must have had the best of it last night.
    I don’t want to think about last night. Maybe I should listen to some sounds.
    So why shouldn’t I think about last night? I’m not going to be stoned on this stuff. There were some nice sounds going, and I was listening to them, and that must have been when everyone went out for a walk. Sylvia went to crash with Den and Heather. She’ll be back. It was just a temporary thing. I wish I could remember exactly what happened. She wanted to turn the sounds down, that’s right, because the gays upstairs were banging on the floor, and we had an argument. I forget what I said. I know I told her to fuck off, and she went out crying with Den and Heather. They’re not on the phone, or I could tell her I’m sorry. I mean, I am, but it was weird because at the time I felt bad about it yet something told me I had to be on my own for a while. Weird.
    I can’t suss why I’m not stoned now. It’s nearly two hours since I ate that cake. It was the last piece, right enough, and I know it was full of seeds because we didn’t spread them out properly. But last night, I mean, wow, that was cake. Den had brought along some Debussy. I said shit when I saw it, but they were really some sounds when he put it on. That’s right, I had my eyes shut, and I was sailing down out of space through the clouds into this ruined temple, and just as the sounds were really freaking out there was light, brighter and brighter. Had Sylvia gone by then? No, she couldn’t have, because Den didn’t leave the sounds. I can’t remember.
    But that was good dope. A friend of Den’s was growing it in Sefton Park, right in the middle of all those streets. I mean, all those straights in the streets never knew, that was the incredible part. Just beautiful. And he was making it to Amsterdam, so he sold his plot. Plot of pot. Wow, must remember that. He sold it, half to Den and half to me. Last night was the first crop. Said he scored the seeds in some little village with a ruined temple in the background. It sounds like William Burroughs, I know, he said.
    It sounds like William Burroughs, I know he said.
    My God, I’m slowing down. It’s coming on.
    Right. I’m going to listen to some sounds. See if it’s as fantastic as last night.
    This room’s too purple. Look at those velvet curtains. It’s like your spit thickens when you’re sick, they’re thickening the sunlight. So are those cars in Lodge Lane. Grinding away and throbbing and rattling — they’re interfering with the sunlight. No, they can’t be. Who said that? Come on, come out wherever you are.
    I’m going to hear some sounds.
    Look where the records are. I’ll never get over there. It’ll be a miracle if I can stand up. Jesus, look at that! My purple shadow! It’s turning to look at me! You’re turning to look at yourself, you mean. Who’s saying these things?
    Oh Christ, there’s Sylvia. I just flashed her. In the doorway with tears running down her face. Trembling