FRIGHT FEST #2: Veils of Fear - Vivian Meik

The "Creeps" series of books published by Phillip Allan during the 1930s are legendary books among supernatural fiction collectors, all are highly elusive and consequently exorbitantly priced if one is lucky to come across one in the antiquarian book trade. Comprised of short story anthologies by lesser known pulp magazine writers, sporting one word titles like Nightmares, Shudders and Terrors to name a few, they were compiled mostly by Charles Birkin who included his own work under the pseudonym Charles Lloyd in nearly every volume. A select few supernatural novels published by Philip Allan have also come to be included in the "Creeps" series as they were published contemporaneously with the short story collections.  Three novels by Vivian Meik have been deemed to be part of this series among them Veils of Fear (1934), a sequel of sorts to his first novel (actually a series of linked short stories) Devils' Drums.

Meik's second novel like Devils' Drums features Colonel Geoffrey Aylett and Father Jan Vaneken who have done battle with other worldly forces having teamed together in Africa where they learned the superstitions and primitive rituals of the local people.  In Veils of Fear reporter Neil Martyn is sent to Aylett to capture a story that will increase circulation in his struggling newspaper.  When Martyn reports back to his editor he is told the story cannot be published because it is too fantastic to be believed as fact. Martyn then produces a photograph of the subject of the story, an Indian mystic called Ashraf Daiye, and the sinister visage within the photograph begins to animate. The photograph shivers and shudders and the face seems to bulge out of the film as if the subject was trying to escape from a photographic prison.  Martyn's editor succumbs to a fatal hypnotic force and within minutes is dead.

The reporter feels compelled to return to Aylett and demands an explanation.  Soon he finds himself recruited in a international adventure that will take him from England to India to remote regions of Java and Bali. Accompanying him are a trio of occult detectives of sorts -- Aylett, his wife Joan, and the Dutch priest Vaneken. Together all four try to break through the three veils that separate this world from a demonic world controlled by a superhuman force personified as an evil Portuguese mage.

The novel is an odd mix of macabre incidents incorporating a vividly macabre imagination and intellectual lectures on everything from religion to the history of prehistoric weapons.  The supernatural incidents of course are the highlights of the novel and consist of weird manifestations, inter-dimensional travel, astral projection, and terrifying encounters with powerful mind controlling entities both human and non-human.  All of these adventures culminate in a climax of horribly tortuous murder, dismemberment and cannibalism. Meik uses his knowledge (gathered from his many world travels) of Indian, Tibetan and South Pacific Island cults that practice black magic rites to give the novel a verisimilitude not often found in similar supernatural works of this era.

Detail from a Balinese folk painting
showing mythic figures

I did find some comparisons with the work of Sax Rohmer whose fascination with the sinister Orient of pre- and post-WW1 eras turns up repeatedly in his supernatural fiction. Many of Rohmer's villains are powerful sorcerers whose greatest talent is the ability to control human minds, a recurrent motif in Veils of Fear.

Also worth mentioning are similarities to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos tales populated with fastastical non-human beings from the Elder World and other dimensions that invade our reality with the intent to replace mankind with their own presence.  In one sequence an amorphous non-human thing attacks the quartet of adventurers drawn to some spilled blood but bizarrely ends up caught in mosquito netting and miraculously is trapped within its mesh.  Previous to this scene Father Vaneken had delivered a lecture of the superiority of nets as one of the finest inventions of weaponry and entrapment.  It beggars belief, but is done with such conviction it is almost convincing.

Father Vaneken, the most skilled in doing battle with these forces and creatures, has one final weapon at his disposal which he saves for their ultimate battle with Da Souza, the superhuman demonic force.  Ironically, it is a simple sliver of wood with which he managed to capture the spirit of Khalil Pasha, an evil dwarf who turns out to be one the guardians of the veils.  It is the source of the wood that gives the sliver its power over all the entities they encounter.  For the sliver has come from the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified. 

Vivian Meik, circa 1940s

Thus, the novel reminds us of the perennial battle between the forces of good and evil. In fact, at one point Father Vaneken says: "But listen we are not interested in [generic immorality].  That is a symptom -- we seek the cause. Greater than this immorality--mostly drink-sodden animalism grossly misapplied--is the real evil. [...] Intrinsic evil as opposed to inherent good." Also we are reminded that sacrifices must be made in these life or death battles. Someone pays the ultimate price, of course.  Because someone must always pay.

Veils of Fear is a notoriously scarce book though remarkably there are currently three copies for sale from various online bookselling sites. None of them come with the ultra rare dust jacket shown at the top of this post.  I owned a copy of this book (with a fully intact DJ) for over two decades and finally read it three days ago.  Then I sold it over this past weekend and was amazed that the individual paid the full asking price without making an offer for a lower priced deal. I have a feeling it may soon be reprinted based on the information I culled about the purchaser.  There's hope for fans of long lost supernatural fiction. Soon you all may be able to read this unique and thoroughly nightmarish work.