Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes: The Labyrinth

They were lost. Rosemary knew it and said so in forcible language. Brian also was well aware of their predicament but was unwilling to admit it.

"One cannot be lost in England," he stated. "We're bound to strike a main road if we walk in a straight line."

"But suppose we wander in a circle?" Rosemary asked, look-ing fearfully round at the Dartmoor landscape, "and finish up in a bog?"

"If we use our eyes there's no reason why bogs should bother us. Come on and stop moaning."

"We should never have left that track," Rosemary insisted. "Suppose we get caught out here when night falls?"

"Don't be daft," he snapped, "it's only mid-day. We'll be in Princetown long before nightfall."

"You hope." She refused to be convinced. "I'm hungry."

"So am I." They were walking up a steep incline. "But I don't keep on about it."

"I'm not keeping on. I'm hungry and I said so. Do you think we'll find a main road soon?" ^

"Over the next rise," he promised. "There's always a main road over the next rise."

But he was wrong. When they crested the next rise and looked down, there was only a narrow track which terminated at a tumbledown gate set in a low stone wall. Beyond, like an island girdled by a yellow lake, was a lawn-besieged house. It was built of grey stone and seemed to have been thrown up by the moors; a great, crouching monster that glared out across the countryside with multiple glass eyes. It had a strange look. The chimney stacks might have been jagged splinters of rock that had acquired a rough cylindrical shape after centuries of wind and rain. But the really odd aspect was that the sun appeared to ignore the house. It had baked the lawn to a pale yellow, cracked the paint on an adjacent summerhouse, but in some inexplicable way, it seemed to disavow the existence of the great, towering mass.

Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes: The Ghouls

The doorbell rang. A nasty long shrill ring that suggested an impatient caller or a faulty bell-button. Mr Goldsmith did not receive many visitors. He muttered angrily, removed the saucepan of baked beans from the gas ring, then trudged slowly from the tiny kitchen across the even smaller hall and opened the front door. The bell continued to ring.

A tall, lean man faced him. One rigid finger seemed glued to the bell-button. The gaunt face had an unwholesome greenish tinge. The black, strangely dull eyes stared into Mr Goldsmith's own and the mouth opened.

"Oosed o love hore…"

The shrill clatter of the doorbell mingled with the hoarse gibberish and Mr Goldsmith experienced a blend of fear and anger. He shouted at the unwelcome intruder.

"Stop ringing the bell."

"Oosed o love hore…" the stranger repeated.

"Stop ringing the bloody bell." Mr Goldsmith reached round the door frame and pulled the dirt-grimed hand away. It fell limply down to its owner's side, where it swung slowly back and forth, four fingers clenched, the fifth - the index finger - rigid, as though still seeking a bell-button to push. In the silence that followed, Mr Goldsmith cleared his throat.

"Now, what is it you want?"

"Oosed o love hore." The stranger said again unintelligibly, then pushed by Mr Goldsmith and entered the flat.