The Night Spiders (The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library #25)

By John Lymington

The night the madness came, the professor was in his laboratory, as usual. He told me, calmly and deliberately, that a number of men from outer space had started landing just over to the south. “Of course,” he said, “they’re not quite the sort of creatures we’re used to; they’re still in the fourth dimension ...”
Then I could see them, too; giant, transparent, spider-like creatures moving about and winding what looked like cocoons ...
The Night Spiders and twenty-seven more stories to chill the blood, raise the hair and take the breath away ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Mar 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798201822286

John Lymington

John Richard Newton Chance was born in Streatham Hill, London, in 1911, the son of Dick Chance, a managing editor at the Amalgamated Press. He studied to become a civil engineer, and then took up quantity surveying, but gave it up at 21 to become a full-time writer. He wrote for his father's titles, including "Dane, the Dog Detective" for Illustrated Chips, and a number of stories for the Sexton Blake Library and The Thriller Library.He went on to write over 150 science fiction, mystery and children's books and numerous short stories under various names, including John Lymington, John Drummond, David C. Newton, Jonathan Chance and Desmond Reid. Including 20+ SF potboilers, adding that he "made a steady income by delivering thrillers to Robert Hale (the UK publisher) at a chapter a week".His novel Night of the Big Heat was adapted to television in 1960 and to film, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, in 1967.

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The night the madness came, the professor was in his laboratory, as usual. He told me, calmly and deliberately, that a number of men from outer space had started landing just over to the south. Of course, he said, they’re not quite the sort of creatures we’re used to; they’re still in the fourth dimension …

Then I could see them, too; giant, transparent, spider-like creatures moving about and winding what looked like cocoons …

The Night Spiders and twenty-seven more stories to chill the blood, raise the hair and take the breath away …

THE NIGHT SPIDERS

By John Lymington

First published by Corgi Books in 1964

©1964, 2024 by John Newton Chance

First Electronic Edition: March 2024

Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate

Series Editor: David Whitehead

Text © Piccadilly Publishing

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The Night Spiders

THE MANOR WAS a big old house and stood in a very large private park. It was unusual in that it had an observatory like a monstrous helmet with a slot in it for the telescope, set out in the park a quarter of a mile from the house.

The observatory was the reason why old Professor Lockerton bought the place. It was a relief to me, for we had been handling the manor for a long time and it had begun to seem that it would never sell.

Anyhow, the old stargazer took it and retired to its vastness with an aged housekeeper, who was deaf.

A telescope was installed in the observatory, and everything started to get thoroughly out of hand.

At his request I used to go every month on my way home and collect the mortgage payment. He had asked me to do this in case he forgot.

It seemed to me that he used the visits as an excuse to chatter about a lot of heavenly subjects that were far beyond me. But he had such a soft, charming, absent-minded manner that I used to listen quite wrapt.

The night the madness came I called as usual, driving in through the park gates and turning not towards the house but towards the observatory.

It was late January, and the grass was glassy with frost. The sky was like black velvet scattered with brilliants. It was the third week of a very long cold spell and I remember it vividly.

Lockerton was in the observatory, as usual, and more than usually pleased to see me. His mildness was changed by a kind of boyish excitement.

The place, as ever, was an awful sight. The floor was a mess of papers, books, dust, and decay. The two chairs and his desk seemed like rafts on a sea of rubbish.

Even the monstrous, gun-like barrel of the telescope seemed dull and half rusted in the gloomy light.

Of course he used very little light inside the observatory; it was like a darkroom with a blue lamp instead of red.

Do you know, he said, taking my arm, a most interesting thing has been happening in my park. Most interesting!

In your park? I asked, wondering if a complaint might be coming.

Yes, he said, nodding pleasantly. A number of men from Outer Space have started landing just over there to the south.

He pointed at the curved wall of the observatory. I can’t remember what I said. It must have been something pretty inane, and the wonder to me is that I managed to say anything. What would you have done? Sympathised? Called a doctor?

Of course, he went on, they are not quite the sort of creatures we are used to. Apart from anything else, they are of course still in the fourth dimension. Like ghosts.

Oh—like ghosts? I said, becoming a little scared of his mildness. You mean that ghosts have been landing in the park?

No, no, not ghosts, he corrected me. "These are real beings, but they travel on the Time Belt, you understand. Which means of course that they can cover the millions of miles between one planet and another in the twinkling of an eye.

But to do so, naturally they have to transform themselves into a shape which is not solid as we understand the term.

He went on for some little while about this, until I asked: If they’re not solid, how have you been able to see them?

Most fortunately, he said, the edge of the lens of my telescope has performed an optical trick. By a certain angle of light it has split the Time Belt and has thus enabled me to see these creatures moving in the park.

Something in his manner made me serious for the moment.

What do they do, these things out there? I asked.

They are using this Earth as an intermediate point on a much longer journey, he said. They have landed and are rearranging their equipment ready for the next stage of the trip.

I watched him, gentle, kind, mild as a baby, and I must confess that he looked so little like a madman that I began to feel a kind of eight-legged icy something crawling up my spine.

He got up suddenly.

I am hoping that by some means I may be able to join them, he said. It’s a matter really of hitting on the exact moment of Time so as to be able to step into the fourth dimension.

And vanish? I asked suddenly.

Well, yes. Vanish from human eye, that is. He chuckled. Now, I want you to see these beings for yourself, because, you understand, if I am successful in my quest, I may suddenly—er—appear to disappear.

He set the telescope for me, depressing the great barrel till it was actually pointing in a horizontal line. It appeared that he had had the instrument altered to do that.

Now, he said. You look.

I put my eye to the lens and looked.

At first the shock was terrific; but then I thought that the whole affair was like being stuffed with a ghost story before you entered the haunted gallery. I tried to be sensible about what I saw.

Against the shadows of the park there appeared to be a number of giant, transparent, spider-like creatures moving about and winding what looked like cocoons—you know the way spiders wrap up the flies they catch.

Then, of course, I saw what was the solution to the mystery.

There must be some spiders working away somewhere near the glass, and the lens was just picking them up.

You’ll never know the relief I felt at realising this simple explanation; but naturally I played along with the old professor and pretended I believed his story.

It was next day I was telling a friend about this eerie piece of simple-mindedness, and as I went on Jack began to stare at me rather oddly.

Spiders? he said. Working outside? In this weather? After three weeks’ solid frost? You must be crazy, old boy!

When I fully realised what he meant, I began to feel crazy.

I went back to the manor at five o’clock. I saw only the deaf housekeeper. She gave me a note.

I have worked out the Time figure, it read. I have given the bank a standing order for the mortgage in case I do not return for some years.

We searched everywhere for him, but no one had seen him go, and there was no trace of his going. He has not returned yet. And we did find spiders on the brick ledge where the telescope caught the optical trick.

Only they had been dead many months.

Battle of Wills

THE REVEREND JULIAN Mulcaster was our vicar. The rectory he lived in was close to the inn I had in that village. He was a vague, shock-headed old man whose sole interest had become a vast manuscript which he called, A Critical Study.

I never knew what it was a study of, because when talking he could never keep to the subject. But for this work he let everything else go.

When he died, his monumental work unfinished, it was decided that the rectory should be sold. The heirs and assigns of the Reverend Mr. Mulcaster looked at the great manuscript, and then put it on the bonfire in the garden.

Even I felt this was somewhat summary, but it was soon forgotten.

Bill Gregg was a farmer. He had grown from farm boy to own a number of farms in the district. He was shrewd, hard, knew everything about his job, and bent to nobody.

His skill at bargaining was backed by a refusal to deal in anything but cash.

If I offers en cash, he told me, they takes less.

Gregg bought the rectory as befitted his growing status in the affairs of the county.

After he moved in he called into the pub quite often, when times were quiet. He used to talk a lot, but always about pigs and grain, muck and silage, so you could almost get the whiff of the farmyard from his talk.

I likes talking to an educated feller, he said to me.

Of course, a good deal of his talk was about how much below the odds he had paid for this bull, that ram, this tractor, that bailer.

How do you like the house? I asked him.

Ah, ’tis nice, he said, shifting in his seat. Comfortable.

Now one thing about Gregg was that he would never admit he had made a bad deal.

The only thing that I did notice was that when he talked about the house I had the feeling that he was uneasy.

When other men asked him, I heard him say: Aye, ’tis good enough, and leave it at that.

My suspicions came to a head when he invited me up to have a look over it.

His wife lived there with him, and in the back part of the house the bailiff and his wife lived. The bailiff’s wife did for the Greggs.

He took me into his office, which had been old Mulcaster’s study. There were tables and chairs and a rolltop desk and bills and invoices, calendars, gumboots, a couple of guns.

Are you a superstitious man? he asked. Do you believe in things?

What things? I asked.

He hesitated, then pointed to a chair by the fireplace.

Sometimes I has a kip in that chair over there, and it seems as if he talks to me, the old feller does.

Mulcaster? I said.

He nodded, watching me as if not sure whether to trust me or not.

Is this only when you sleep? I asked.

Yes.

Well, it could be just the feeling that the old man lived here all those years. You get the feeling that he’s still about. I’ve had that.

He said no more about it that day.

About a week afterwards Gregg came in when we were empty.

"You said about this feeling with the old