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

is okay.  For now.  I think it’s a risk we have to take.”

“I can’t.  You go.  I’ll stay here.  I’ll find Millie while you collect your friend.”

“Macky, I need you to trust me.  These portals are legends.  They’re stories playing themselves out.  They won’t finish until the Thirteenth Gate is opened.”

“You want me to leave her here?  I can’t.  Here, you take the keys.  Go track down your friend.”

“Dev, it’s what the Mad Arab wants.  He wants you distracted.  He doesn’t want you to do what needs to be done.  That’s our advantage. We need knowledge.  We need to get the better of him.  This is how we do it.”

“You’re asking quite a lot, you know that?”

“Yog-Sothoth wants you to stay here.  He wants you preoccupied.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Is it?  I don’t think separating, Dev, is a good idea.  Trust me, please.”

“I can’t.”

“Macky.  I know someone who can help us.  I know someone who is more familiar with what’s happening here.  Who knows more about these things.  He knows what it is, what it means.  He can help us.”

“No.  You take the coupe.  I’ll stay here. I have to look for Millie.”

“Dev, are you really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

“Confess something that’s very embarrassing?”

Macky frowned.  “What’s that?”

Capshaw blushed bright red. He coughed into his hand.

“Come on,” Macky said. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Well, no, for an aging old man, it’s pretty normal.  It’s why I take the bus to work, a cab.”

“You mean—?”

“Right.  I don’t know how to drive.”

Chapter 10

“We have a long way to go,” Capshaw said.  “Unfortunately.  It’s not so close.”

Macky, behind the wheel of the coupe, turned and looked at Creighton.  “Where are we going exactly?”

“On the outskirts of Innsport.  Head northwest.  You’ll want to take Highway One-seventeen.”

“We’re going toward Arkham?”

“We’re going to Arkham.”

Macky turned and looked at Capshaw again.  He pulled the car over and put it in park.  “You can’t be serious?  Look . . . I don’t have fond memories of Arkham.  If it’s all the same to you, you go ahead.  There’s plenty of daylight left.  You can see the road just fine.  It’s the perfect day for learning how to drive.”

“I’m aware of what happened in Arkham last spring and that you were a part of it, Dev.  But you have to trust me on this.  For Millie’s sake.”

Macky let out a sigh.  “For Millie,” he said, as if to himself.

“Right.”

“If she wouldn’t keep getting into these hair-brained schemes—”

“Schemes that happen to coincide with your own rash behavior.”

“My motives were completely pure.  It was a gift!”

Capshaw raised his eyebrows.

“Do me a favor, will you?” Macky said.  “Check in the glove-box and see if there’s some hooch in there.  If this is going to turn into a monster-filled adventure of mayhem, I want to get us off on the right foot.”

Capshaw leaned forward, opened the glove-box, and looked inside.  “No hooch.”

“So much for divine intervention.”

“I wouldn’t let you drink anyway, Dev.  Maybe just a snort, but you shouldn’t be drinking and driving.”

Macky looked at the curator and raised his eyebrows.  “You sound like Millie.”

“I knew I liked her for a reason,” Capshaw said.  “Come on.  We’re wasting time.”

—

He couldn’t help feeling anxious about Millie.  His palms were sweating.  He wished he could have a drink to quiet his nerves.  If she were in any danger (which seemed a stupid thing to say with her apartment turning into another world), he wanted to get back as fast as possible.  Shub-Niggurath, the tomb legions, Eric Moorland, the headless trio—it was too fresh in his mind.  It seemed a long way to go while portals and doorways were opening around Innsport.

He’d been curious about what had taken place since the growth serum had mixed with the reanimation serum.  Lot 29, a serum that made things already alive bigger, had mixed with Herbert West’s reanimation serum, burying the sanitarium in a sea of new life.  Anything could’ve happened in the months he and Millie had been away.

“I’m worried about you and the Mad Arab, boss,” Macky said.  “If he can influence you so easily, what’s to prevent him from doing so again?”

“I’ve thought about, Dev, and I have a theory.”

The day was moving by quickly.  It was early afternoon.  The drone of the coupe was the only sound.  Beyond, Highway 117 seemed too dark, quiet, and lonely.

“What’s that?” Macky asked.

“Everything lies in the book.  I think there are pieces of him in the book, if that makes any sense.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Whoever comes into contact with the thing acts as a catalyst in some way.  People are gates themselves, susceptible to the forces that lie within The Necronomicon. I think it plays on hopes and dreams.  You wanted to give Millie a gift.  I wanted to be a part of something rare and valuable.  But I’m also hopeful that, now that it’s out of sight, hopefully its influence is as well.”

“That seems like a stretch, but here’s to hoping.  It was gone before I found you.”

“Maybe you helped break the spell in some way.  Maybe he works better one on one.  Or maybe he needed to get it to someone else.  Maybe you helped break the spell, and he realized he’d have to try somewhere else, with someone else.”

“I like the charming company explanation better.”

“It does make one feel good about oneself, doesn’t it?” Capshaw said.

“That means another gate is being opened because someone else probably has it. Who is he using?”

“Anybody.  The next person he sees.”

“This is crazy,”

“I agree.”

“So, we talk to your friend,” Macky said, “then go back, find Millie, and find the book.”

“Precisely,” Capshaw said.

“And gates are being opened, and giant hounds are roaming the