His adventures of the psychic detective Reuben Calloway have appeared in Dark Detectives, Shadows Over Innsmouth, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos #2 and Kadath, and the author is currently working on a new tale featuring the character.
“The idea for ‘Maypole’ came to me during a rail journey,” recalls the author, “and was just one of those odd chains of thought which lead to inspiration. The train passed a field where a solitary tall post or stake had been driven into the ground. Several children were chasing each other around this post and it occurred to me that they had a ready-made Maypole for May Day.
“This led me to remember something I had once read about the possible origin of the Maypole and in turn, the wonderful ‘What if . . .?’ question popped into my mind. I pulled out a large notebook I had in my case and by the time I reached my destination, I had roughed out the opening section of the story.”
DEATH’S EMISSARIES CAME FOR Thomas Comstock a few minutes before midnight on a fine spring evening. The limping man was there, as was the man with the blemished face. The two were overshadowed by their companion, the giant. The three were expected and Comstock received them with joy in his heart.
When the men arrived, one of them gave a sharp rap on the front door of the tied cottage and they entered unbidden. Comstock had prepared himself in the ordained fashion and he awaited them in his cramped living room.
The mantel above the open fireplace was littered with tacky souvenirs and a wall-mounted pendulum clock ticked away the minutes of Comstock’s life. A battered Welsh dresser, its shelves crammed with paperback Westerns, stood against one wall, while at the opposite was a folded dining-table with two ill-matched chairs. A greasy black leather sofa faced the television and the floor was covered with a threadbare carpet. Amidst this mundane clutter, the men’s garb was incongruous and anachronistic.
The three newcomers were clothed in ankle-length white gowns, secured at the waist with silken cords, and their brows were adorned with circlets of some silvery metal.
In contrast, Thomas Comstock wore a coarse shift, several pieces of sacking loosely sewn together with light thread, which reached no further than his knees. His thick, reddish hair was crowned with a wreath woven from young oak leaves.
The men nodded to each other but there was silence between them. All the visitors pressed Comstock’s hand and the biggest man patted him gently on the shoulder before indicating that they should go. Comstock was careful to turn off the light before he left the cottage.
The air was sweet and mild after several days of warm weather but Comstock was unable to suppress a slight shiver. The giant saw and once more gave him a reassuring pat.
About half-a-mile distant, across the flat landscape, the angular shapes of village dwellings were silhouetted against a star-bright sky, the chunky tower of an ancient church looming above all the others. There was a lazy breeze and Comstock thought that he could hear the creaking of the old sign at the pub. In the east, a rising full moon was shedding its mellow light over fields and hedgerows.
They moved with slow but purposeful steps towards the moon, the limping man and his disfigured companion flanking Comstock, each lightly clasping one of his elbows.
The more than seventy-eight-inch bulk of the giant trod closely behind them. All knew that Comstock would not flee but each man was deeply imbued with a sense of occasion. More than that, though. They were not merely an escort: they were also there to impart, by their presence and touch, some of their strength to Comstock. At times such as this, even the most stalwart man needed the strength of his friends.
When at last they reached the appointed place – a large and freshly-ploughed field – a small crowd of some thirty to forty people awaited them. Many held fiery torches and all but one wore long white robes. The exception was a woman lightly gowned in floating, pale-green chiffon which did little to conceal her slim body. A garland of wild flowers rested upon her cascade of ash-blonde hair and from a fine gold cord about her waist was suspended a sickle, its curved blade gleaming. As Comstock’s escort faded back into the crowd, the green-clad woman and two handmaidens advanced to greet him.
The woman took both of Comstock’s hands in hers, and he gazed at her with uncritical adoration, thinking as always how very beautiful she was.
“Welcome to this place, Thomas,” she said. “Do you come here of your own free will?”
“I come most willingly, Mother Priestess,” the man replied, rural burr contrasting strongly with her educated tones.
“Then hail and farewell, Thomas.” She moved closer, kissed him on the mouth, then seized and ripped his garment, tearing away the flimsy threads and leaving him naked. In the pallid moonlight and the light shed by the flickering torches, his muscular torso and limbs spoke of peasant vitality and his erection appeared to be enormous.
The handmaidens began to caress Comstock’s body with light, butterfly strokes and the priestess gently clasped the rigid penis. Her fingers were long and elegant, her manipulations soft and skilled. Thomas Comstock’s face was a graven mask of fierce pride.
The woman’s movements were languid at first, then became more urgent as the man’s breathing quickened. Suddenly he ejaculated, semen spurting silver in the moon’s glow. The surrounding men and women echoed Thomas Comstock’s cry of ecstasy as if they too had climaxed. The priestess genuflected, tenderly cupping his testicles and the still engorged and throbbing phallus in her left hand. Then with a swift upward stroke of the sickle she scythed Thomas Comstock’s genitals from his body!
A single shriek of anguish was torn from the man’s throat to be almost drowned by the shout of exultation which burst forth from the onlookers.
For several seconds, or for a thousand years, Comstock just stood there, gouts of blood spilling in a grisly second orgasm, spilling onto the seed he had shed and soaking with it into the soil. Then, despite his agony, he began to run about the field, splashing his blood until his run became a stagger and his stagger a series of stumbles. He fell to his knees with head bowed, as if to watch his own life flood out.
The priestess ran to Comstock, to kneel and cradle his head against her breasts, a living and pagan Pieta. He raised a tortured face to her and his voice was just a whisper. “Was I worthy?”
Love shone from her eyes and her kiss was light upon his cheek. “The most worthy of all, Thomas,” she assured him.
He smiled a tired smile and nodded his thanks. Then he held his head back, exposing his throat for the final merciful stroke of the sickle.
Several men came and lifted his body with reverence, bearing it face down about the field so that as much as possible of the rich earth was sanctified by his precious blood.
Anthea Moore took a surreptitious glance at her wristwatch. About ten minutes to go. Too late to start something completely fresh but she could give them a minor research project. The question was, what? Well, May Day was coming up – something to do with that, perhaps? She turned back to the twenty-odd teenagers who made up her folklore and mythology class.
Anthea had been sceptical when a friend, the principal of a sixth-form college, had approached her with the idea of conducting a class once or twice a week.
“Modern teenagers won’t be interested in folklore,” she had said.
“Don’t be cynical,” her friend had replied. “Give it a try and be surprised.”
So she had given it a try and had been happily surprised. Her students were aged between sixteen and eighteen, all of them studying subjects such as literature, history and religious studies. They seemed to enjoy Anthea’s class although she was unsure whether it was because of the subject or because of the fund of often-bloody anecdotes she could tell them or because they were proud of being taught by a genuine published writer.