The Lurker at the Threshold : A Horror Mystery by Brandon Berntson (books under 200 pages .txt) 📗

close the cage doors.  He pressed the button for the first floor.  The elevator started to move.  It stopped when he made it to the first floor.  The doors opened.  A security guard was standing in the lobby.

“Hello,” the man said.

He looked familiar.  The hairs on the back of Macky’s neck stood up.  He looked at the nametag:

Wilbur.

“Hello,” Macky said.  “Could you tell me how to find Mr. Capshaw?  He wasn’t in his office.  I’m a private investigator.”  He pulled out his identification and showed him.  “Devlin Macky.  He’s doing some research for me.  I was just wondering how he was coming along.”

“I haven’t seen him today.”

“His office door was open.  Doesn’t he usually leave it locked?”

The man frowned.  “I would think so.  I’ll double-check.”

Macky nodded.  “I guess it’s against company policy to give out his address?”

“I’m afraid so,” the man said.  “If you were the police or could prove you were working for them, I could give it to you.  But I could lose my job.”

“What if I told you it was a matter of life and death?”

The man smiled.  It made the hairs on the back of Macky’s neck stand up.

“If I put my job on the line, the answer is still no.  You should probably leave well enough alone, anyway.  Much of this doesn’t concern you.”

Macky stared at the man for a long time.  A smell was coming off him he was starting to grow familiar with: a tarry sort of stickiness.  He wasn’t too fond of the look in the man’s eyes either.

“I understand perfectly,” Macky said.  “I’ll let myself out.”

The man nodded and smiled.

“Have a nice day,” Macky told him.

—

He stepped outside.  The wind was blowing, a cool October day.  He put the collar of his trench coat up.  He went to the nearest phone booth, stepped inside, and grabbed the telephone directory.  He opened it and looked under the letter C.  He found it and saw the address.  117 Asherton Place.  Apt 14C.

Macky memorized the number, stepped out of the phone booth, and got in the car.  There was that smell again, even outside.

Macky put the car in gear and drove to Capshaw’s apartment.

—

“Mr. Capshaw?” Macky said, knocking on the door.  “It’s Devlin Macky.  Are you in there?”

There was no answer.  He put his ear to the door.

Nothing.

“Mr. Capshaw?”

He pulled the lock-picking set out of his inside pocket.  He inserted two of the tools into the lock.  He wiggled some, pulled another, heard a click, and turned the knob.  The door opened easily.  Macky stepped inside.

“Mr. Capshaw?  Are you in here?  Sorry to barge in.  Just making sure all is well.  Hello!”

The place was much like the man’s office: books, artifacts, trinkets, and history.  It smelled the same: coffee, cigars, some sort of oil polish, and leather.  Something else all museum curator’s had: the smell of the past.

A lamp was on in the room to his right.  He stopped to listen.  Someone was muttering under his breath and scribbling at the same time.

Another smell was here, too, that faint aroma he’d first noticed in the alleyway: tarry stickiness.

“Mr. Capshaw?”

He turned into the room where the lamp was.  Capshaw was hunched over a small desk, scribbling.  His profile was in view.  His tongue was clenched between his teeth, eyes alight.  They weren’t blue; they were black.  He looked disheveled, face glossy with sweat.  This wasn’t the benign and friendly Creighton Capshaw Macky had come to know.

“Creighton?”

The man didn’t respond.  He continued to scribble.

“Creighton!  It’s me.  Devlin Macky.  You didn’t show up for work today, naughty boy.  I was worried someone might’ve broken into your office and taken the book.  I don’t see it anywhere.  Are you okay?”

It was dark inside with the curtains drawn—only the single lamp.  He stepped in and looked closer at what Capshaw was scribbling.  Pages were stacked beside him.  His eyes widened.  He could see the handwriting.  It wasn’t Capshaw’s.  There were drawings, faces, symbols, the same ones he’d seen at Rhode Island Books.

It took him a second before he realized what was happening.  The Necronomicon was an unfinished work.  It would never be a finished work, because the knowledge of the black earth had no end.  Capshaw was under the Mad Arab’s spell.

“Dear God,” Macky said, widening his eyes.

The blasphemous thing was still being written . . .

He looked around.  Capshaw hadn’t noticed him.  Maybe that was a good thing.

He grabbed a mug on the table and started banging it on the desk.  “Hey!  Yo!  Don’t give into that chump, curator boy!  What gives?  Ahhhhhhhhhhh!  Wake up, you old woolen socks, man!”

He banged on the desk some more, the walls, yelling and carrying on.  Capshaw continued to scribble.

A dark, shadowy shape was in the room, and it took a step back.

Macky looked toward the kitchen and moved toward it.  He grabbed a pitcher from the cupboard, filled it with ice, and let the water run cold before putting the pitcher under.

He walked into the study.  Capshaw was on a mission, feverish, hunched over the pages, sweat pouring down his ashen gray cheeks.  The figure took note of him and his eyes blazed.

Capshaw chuckled.

“Forgive me,” Macky said.  “And may God help me, despite what I believe.”

He grabbed the back of Creighton’s collar and pulled it back.  He dumped ice water on the man’s head, spilling the rest of it down his back.

“YYYEEEOOOOWWWWW!!!” Capshaw screamed, and stood bolt upright.  For a second, Macky thought he heard the wail of a demon, the figure behind him wailing in the darkness.

Capshaw was out of the chair, lifting his shirt, trying to get the ice cubes out.

“Oh, cold!  So cold.  Freezing cold!”

He held his arms out and shivered uncontrollably.  He was jogging in