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

“Who?” Macky asked.  “The name of who?”

“Nothing,” Armitage said.  “Never-mind.  I’ll tell you later.”

“We should get back to the museum,” Capshaw said.

—

The hound bayed when they stepped outside.

“There’s more than one,” Macky said.  The hackles on the back of his neck stood up.

“Now what?” Armitage said.

“Dev, are you looking at this?” Millie asked.

Things were moving through the air. The wind was blowing.  The glowing orbs of Yog-Sothoth appeared at random.  The city of Innsport was changing.

“Look,” Armitage said, and pointed.

A tear in the night sky was visible, a bluish fabric letting in things from the other side of the cosmos.  Stars and fire, streams of foggy light, stars embedded in a gossamer strand that looked like the souls of ghosts.  Monsters and other creatures jumped from it to the sidewalk.  Behind the tear, something so massive and colossal took up the space, it was impossible to see it in its entirety.  Macky knew what it was.  Yog-Sothoth, the Lurker at the Threshold. The Keeper of the Gate was waiting to enter.

“It’s the Mythos itself,” Armitage said.  “It’s coming through on its own. The gates are opening.”

“Holy heaven,” Macky said.  “How are we supposed to stop this?”

“The museum!” Mr. Capshaw said.

Mr. Kalabraise barked.

—

They piled into the coupe and headed back to the museum.  Macky noticed several things at once.  The fog was rolling in.  Something was happening in the sky that defied logic.  The hound continued its ceaseless baying.  It was starting to unnerve him.  Wind blew, autumn leaves tumbling down the streets.  In the sky, under the foggy moon, something pieced itself together—the very matter of Yog-Sothoth coming from various, random orbs scattered throughout the city.

“Unto the earth, and all that is in me, being fed, I will offer my power.  Be my offspring.”

The sound was something like a deep, resonating wind, barely noticeable, yet voiced through the portal.  Could The Necronomicon be responsible for all this?  It didn’t seem likely.

They drove down the road.  Capshaw and Armitage were in the backseat, Millie (still wearing her chiton and gold leaflet) and Mr. Kalabraise in front.  Macky pulled to a stop in front of the museum.  They climbed out, slamming the doors.  Erratic clouds of black wings spotted the moon.

Capshaw dug into his pockets for his keys.  He got the doors unlocked, and they hurried inside.

“I don’t see anyone,” Armitage said, looking around.

Mr. Kalabraise ranted off a series of barks.  Millie put her down.  The dog ran off toward the east hallway, and everyone followed.  She rounded a corner, slid on the polished floor, nails clicking on the marble, and bumped into the wall.  She was back on her paws and heading down the hall in seconds.  At the first door she came to, she stood barking and pawing.  Archives was written on a small black plaque.  Capshaw got there first and opened it with his keys.  The others followed.

Mr. Kalabraise trotted down the steps and stopped on the bottom floor.  It was dark in the room.  Capshaw looked for a chord and pulled it. The room brightened by a single bulb on the ceiling.

“Do you hear that?” Armitage said.  “It sounds like digging.”

They hurried to another door at the end of the passage.  Capshaw opened this one, too.  Much like Millie’s apartment, they were transported to another world.  A mound of earth filled the space.  A giant hole led into an abyss of darkness, a ladder propped against the hole.  Someone was down there.  They could hear the grunting and digging.

Another figure stood in the corner in the shadows, a tall lanky character with dim, white eyes.

“Mike, is that you?”  Capshaw asked.  He was on his hands and knees, shouting into the excavation.  “Mike, please!  Talk to me!  Where’s The Necronomicon?”

The digging continued.  There was no reply. Macky saw the figure in the shadows.  He was about to say something when he realized what was going on.  They were reliving another Lovecraftian Mythos.

They weren’t in the museum.  They were outside in a quiet night in a graveyard . . . except for the digging.  The moon was obscured by a thin layer of clouds.  The fog was thin and vapory above the headstones.  A lantern stood crooked on a mound of dirt, shedding a faint glow.

Macky approached the hole in the ground.  A large metal plate with handles on the top had been set to one side.  It was more than a grave.  It was a pit.  The air coming out of it was bone-chillingly cold.

“Mike!  Please, answer me!” Capshaw said.

The figure moved, and Macky studied him once more.  What had once been a corner of the museum archives was now a graveyard under the shadow of the moon.  There was Mike (supposedly) in the pit, and the figure standing a ways off by a large tombstone.

“Dev, are you all right?” Millie asked.

“Mike?” Capshaw asked.  “Speak up, man!”

The figure in the shadow of the tombstone stared at Macky.  The flash of some subterranean glow flashed behind his eyes.

“Where’s The Necronomicon?” Macky asked.

The figure smiled.  Or did it?

“Dev?” Millie asked, again.  She put a hand on his arm.  She turned to where he was looking but couldn’t anything.

The sound of digging continued from the pit.  It was faint, farther away.

The figure in the shadows put his hands up and shook its distorted head.

“Mike!” Capshaw yelled.  He was about to catapult himself into the hole.

Mike responded from below:

“Don’t come down here, Creighton!  Whatever you do!  My God, it’s hideous!  It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen!”  There was a pause.  Then: “Run!  Run!  Creighton, for God’s sake!  Seal up the hole before it’s too late!  Seal it up!  Don’t waste any time!  Dear God, man!  Put the lid back in place!  And don’t come down!  Don’t come down,