"Haggopian"

by Brian Lumley
originally published The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1973

Jeremy Belton, scientific journalist, has a scoop!  An exclusive interview with the mysterious, reclusive Armenian marine biologist, Richard Haggopian.  Haggopian - independently wealthy, author of several important and best-selling works on marine life, a recluse who lives on the island of Keltnos in the Aegean Sea.  And he never gives interviews.  Until now.

Belton travels to the island, and his experience is a strange one.  Haggopian is - um - ugly - always keeps his shades on, has no hair, has distinctly oily skin, as if he were covered in lotion.  He offers Belton some fine beer, while himself knocking back some weird concoction.  And he has a strange tale to tell.

It seems Haggopian is doing this interview because he's about to check out - sail his ship out into the middle of the ocean and let nature take her course.  But suicide?  No ... a little more confusing than that.

It seems some years back, Haggopian came across an unusually large and hitherto unknown species of hagfish.  He took it back as a specimen, of course.  Then he found it had strange, hypnotic powers.  The power to attract him into the tank with it, where it would rasp and suck his blood.  Haggopian became addicted to the experience, like a vampire's victim.  He would return night after night.  Finally, his wife and assistant caught him in the act.  The wife threw herself over the side of a ship.  The assistant killed the hagfish.

But Haggopian was not out of the woods.  A new organ began to grow from his abdomen - a kind of hagfish organ growing out of him.  Haggopian is going to join the Deep Ones....

What shall I say about "Haggopian"?  It's certainly one of Lumley's weirdest stories.  And sickest.  Don't get me wrong - sick can be funny and this is a prime example of Lumley-sick - I mean, the guy gets off (Lumley's description of Haggopian's nocturnal encounters with the giant hagfish are decidedly sensual) on having a hagfish suck his blood!  And the wife commits suicide over it (the only thing missing is her shouting "another woman I would have understood!").  Have you ever seen a hagfish?  They are surely one of the grosser things on God's green earth, and I suspect if I found my bedmate getting their jollies off with one, I would certainly file for divorce pronto.  I mean, I'm an open-minded guy and all - but c'mon!

The fact that he now has a phallic hagfish-organ sticking out of him is both hilarious and disgusting in the extreme.  What it has to do with the Deep Ones I don't know, but I can imagine Lumley chuckling the whole time he wrote this.