The Face of the Lion

By John Blackburn

A remote area of the Scottish Highlands has been cordoned off and is being guarded by an army of I.R.A. mercenaries and ex-Nazi thugs. Local rumour has it that eccentric laird James Fraser Clyde is looking for buried treasure, but the British government fears he might be building an atomic bomb in an attempt to win Scottish independence. Yet the truth may be something far worse: a mysterious contagion is turning the locals into deformed, grunting creatures, with a single-minded urge to kill and spread their infection. Sir Marcus Levin, the Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist, must find a way to halt the epidemic before it gets out of hand and destroys the world. But what is causing it? Who started it, and why? And can it be stopped?

First published in 1976, John Blackburn’s horror thriller The Face of the Lion capitalized on the popularity of apocalyptic zombie tales in the wake of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). This edition includes a new introduction by Greg Gbur, which situates Blackburn’s novel within the tradition of zombie literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valancourt Books
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781939140432

Book preview

Books.

One

‘ English greed and Scottish shame . . . Charlie’s spirit burns again . . . ’ Mary Alison sang loudly and tunefully while she free-wheeled down the lane with Buster, the family’s cross-bred sheepdog, gambolling in front of her bicycle. ‘ Jaimie will relieve our pain, and we shall be free. ’

If Mary’s father had caught her singing that particular ballad he’d have taken his strap to her without hesita­tion. A patriotic Scot, Colin Alison, but a man of peace and a kirk elder who abominated racial hatred and thoroughly distrusted the song’s hero.

‘ . . . and we shall be free. ’ To hell with Dad, Mary thought, repeating the line. Dad couldn’t hear her and she was going to see Grandma. Dear, wise old Gran who believed in the laird’s crusade and had often shaken the hand of the great man himself. The hand of Sir James Alistair Fraser Clyde, who could trace his descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie, Scotland’s last true king. Jaimie Clyde, the Smilin’ Boy, who hated the money-grubbing English and was going to release the country from their yoke.

Such a lovely country, too. Mary looked at the vistas spread out around her. To the right lay the Atlantic, with two tugs bobbing on the swell; the Cana and the Galtee Girl, searching for the wreck of an Armada treasure gal­leon which had foundered off Nevern Head. Up to the present the boats had found nothing, but they would in time. Everything Jaimie Clyde did was bound to suc­ceed: only last week a coffin containing the body of the Spanish captain had been recovered from a marsh called the Field of Ugliness. That proved the wreck existed, and soon the tugs would raise the treasure and the people would be rich.

And there was another source of wealth in the area. Mary looked at the hills dominating the peninsula: gentle, heather-covered slopes rising to the scree shoots, scree solidifying into precipices, and towering above them all the vast, jagged ridges of Ben Sagur. The Hol­low Mountain, as it had been nicknamed since the min­ing operations started – the biggest mountain in the neighbourhood. A mountain that contained enormous deposits of gold.

‘God bless and keep you, Sir James Clyde.’ At thirteen, Mary was already an impassioned disciple of the laird and she muttered the prayer fervently. Clyde and his men were up in those hills now, carrying out military exercises to prepare themselves in case there was inter­ference from the authorities, and Mary’s heart was with their leader. The laird was her hero. A demi-god who laughed at danger, and though the politicians in Edin­burgh and London disapproved of his plans, what did the Smilin’ Boy care? No one would dare to lay a finger on him. Gran had said that even the Prime Minister was frightened of Jaimie Clyde – and what harm did Jaimie do? He did nothing but good. The miners and the tug-boat crews had been out of work before the schemes started and the foreigners he’d brought in were decent, respectable folk. Why should they be interfered with?

Such a lovely country; such a lovely day. The down­ward slope ended where the lane crossed a stream and from then on the route to Gran’s cottage ran uphill. The air was warm, the water beneath the bridge was tempting and Buster, who had already taken a dip, was shaking himself dry on the bank.

A lovely day – just the day for a bathe. Mary started to brake and then she recalled a quotation from a history book. ‘What a lovely day to die on.’ That was what Marie Antoinette, the French queen, had said when they took her to the guillotine. There was no time to go swimming; Gran was sick and she needed the medicine.

‘Only a mild touch of flu, but she’d better have an antibiotic,’ Dr Mackenzie had told Mary’s mother. ‘Have the lass collect this prescription from the chemist and get it over to her as soon as possible.’ That was the reason for Mary’s visit, so she resisted the tempting water and pedalled on.

Her grandmother’s house stood on the lower slopes of Ben Sagur and was far away from any other building. A single-storeyed, whitewashed cottage surrounded by tiny, stone-walled fields. The lane leading to it steepened sharply towards the end of the journey and Mary was panting before she finally dismounted and pushed the bicycle up the last few hundred yards. But the smoke rising from the chimney was like a flag raised in welcome and the thought of seeing dear old Gran made her shrug aside exhaustion. She felt waves of happiness come over her as she reached the garden gate and leaned the cycle against a wall. She took a tube of tablets from its saddle­bag and paused.

‘Go on, Buster. What’s the matter with you, boy?’ She frowned in surprise, because the dog usually bounded to the door and barked for admission. But now he was hanging back with tail drooping and hackles up, and Mary’s happiness turned to anxiety. Did animals some­times sense disaster? Did Buster’s behaviour mean that Gran was really ill – that her life was in danger?

Of course not. Buster was a fool and a mild touch of flu was what Dr Mackenzie had said. Surely people – even old people – didn’t die of that? Mary reassured herself as she ran to the front door which was never locked, just as Gran’s fire was never allowed to go out. She opened the door with a shout of greeting and then stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding and her breath coming in gasps.

‘Gran – Gran – for the love of God, Gran.’ Her grand­mother might be old, but she was a meticulous house­keeper. ‘A place for everything and everything in its place,’ was one of her favourite maxims, and whenever Mary had visited the cottage it had been in apple-pie order. Not on this visit, however, and she stared in horror at the ruin confronting her.

The living-room was a shambles. The big, bow-fronted cabinet, which was Gran’s pride and joy, lay face down on the floor with broken glass and crockery littered around it. The covers of the chairs and the horsehair sofa had been slashed. A bowl of waxed fruits, another of Gran’s treasures, was broken and its contents strewn on the hearth-rug. Long-preserved apples and oranges and pears gleamed in the sunlight which sparkled through the window-panes.

Worst of all in Mary’s eyes was the fate of Reddie and Rusty, the two stuffed squirrels she had played with when she was a baby. Somebody had tossed them into the fire and the little bodies were smouldering on the peat.

‘Who did this, Gran? Where are you, Gran?’ The bed­room door had been torn from its hinges and Mary saw more evidence of vandalism. The bed and the dressing-table and the washstand were overturned, and a plaster crucifix had been pulled from the wall and trampled into fragments.

Who was responsible? Burglars? Gipsies? Maniacs? Or bloody English tourists? Several possible culprits flickered through Mary’s dazed mind, but the last seemed the most feasible. Drunken louts who called themselves hill-walkers and enjoyed destroying things. Not so long ago, a gang of them had camped on Farmer Angus’s land without permission and set fire to a barn when he ordered them off. Hooligans who’d think it was funny to persecute an old, sick woman.

Certainly not burglars. Thieves don’t destroy valuable possessions; they steal them. And not gipsies or tourists either. Since the Angus business Jaimie Clyde had for­bidden strangers to camp in the area. A maniac must have ransacked the house – a madman who might have killed Gran too. Mary Alison was only a young, fright­ened child; she couldn’t imagine any other solution, but she was soon to discover one.

‘Oh, Gran. Where are you, Gran?’ she whimpered, and then broke off abruptly, realizing she was not alone. The kitchen door was closed and from behind it came a sound. A grunting, guzzling, slobbering sound which re­minded her of pigs jostling around a swill tub. A sound that made her forget about Gran and think of her own safety, though she couldn’t run away. Tears were blind­ing her, her feet seemed to be nailed to the floorboards, the pills dropped from her hand.

Outside in the garden the dog whined twice and then bolted off down the hill. Inside the cottage the sound increased. The kitchen door opened.

Two

‘Infuriating for you, Jock, most annoying. So let’s have another round on the house.’ Michael Mileham, pro­prietor of the Red Deer Hotel at Frasermuir, sometimes remarked that he lived by his nose, which was long and thin and curved like a hawk’s beak. The implication was that he used the organ to test the quality of his food and drink, but that was only partly true. The Red Deer was a small establishment and Mickey Mileham had a more absorbing interest. He was a smeller of news.

‘A large Teacher’s for Mr Andrews, lass, and a couple of jars for Jock and Alec. No, on second thoughts, noth­ing for me.’ Mileham laid a hand over his empty glass and grinned at the three men seated beside him at the table. Sergeant Andrews of the local police, Jock Stuart, a farmer, and a traveller in animal-feeds named Alec Richardson. ‘I have a date with his lordship’s grouse this afternoon and must keep my wits about