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

“Mike, we’re coming down!” Capshaw cried.  “Everything’s going to be all right!”  He moved into the hole before Armitage grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

“You heard him,” the doctor said.  His face was rigid, jaw set.

Capshaw fought him, tried to get loose. “Are you mad?  He’s down there!  We have to save him!  Something’s down there with him!”

“Whatever it is, it’s too late,” Armitage said.  He wouldn’t let go.

“Mike, please!” Capshaw cried, trying to get free.  There were tears in the old man’s eyes.   “Come up!  Get out of there!  Please, for God’s sake!”

No sound from below.  Except . . . yes.  Macky heard something.  It was getting louder, moving down the passage toward the opening where the ladder was.

“Mike!” Capshaw wailed.  “Miiiiike?”

“Fool!” the thing from below said, deep intonation like the voice at the gate.  The voice of a demon.

“Mike?” Capshaw said.  “Mike?  Is that you?  What happened?”

The man was weeping, but not like before.  This was grief and horror.

“Fool!” the voice sounded from below.  It moved closer to the opening.  “Mike is dead!”

Chapter 13

From below, in the cavern under the grave, the faceless, nameless horror inched closer.

Mr. Kalabraise stood at the edge of the excavation, looking down, and barked.

“Help me with this thing,” Macky said.  He, Capshaw, and Armitage grabbed the metal plate.  They grunted, sweated, and lifted it into place over the grooves. After securing it, they turned the handles, locking it in place.

Macky looked and noticed the figure he’d seen had disappeared.

Mr. Kalabraise stopped barking.  The others stood in the dark with the lantern light, the moon illuminating the cemetery.  The clouds drifted back.  The walls of the museum materialized.  The door was visible.  They were back in the museum.

They turned and headed upstairs, down the hallway, and back outside.

“The Necronomicon is opening portals all over,” Capshaw said.  “Mike must’ve investigated after I left and found the book.”

“With a little help from the Mad Arab,” Macky said.

—

“Let’s get back to the office,” he told the others.  “I want to make sure Duke and Newt are okay.  What time is it?”

Armitage looked at his watch.  He widened his eyes.  “Good Lord, it’s after midnight already.  How did that happen?”

Macky frowned.  “Maybe it’s the portals.  The time we spent there.  It’s longer than it seems.  Maybe that’s why the portals are opening so quickly.”

Capshaw was wide-eyed, visibly shaken.  He had no words.  Armitage put a hand on his shoulder.

“Mike is . . .” the curator said.

Armitage nodded.  “It’s going to be all right.”

Capshaw didn’t look like anything was ever going to be all right again.

“I don’t want to be alone, Dev,” Millie said.  “And neither does Mr. Kalabraise.”

“I’m not sure I want anybody out of my sight for the rest of the night,” he said.

—

The sky was a teeming, churning miasma of clouds and stars.  Layers of space beyond gave another series of dimensions to a warped reality of sky.  Rips in the atmosphere appeared at random, pulling back to reveal a deeper, darker, colder layer of space.  Things Macky had no name for: cyclones of bats, shadowy tornadoes rose into the air, making formations that blotted the sky.  The baying of the hound continued.  Portals opened and closed.  Macky thought he saw a giant leg disappear around the edge of a building, something that belonged to a massive spider.

“Is anyone else getting thirsty?”  Macky asked.  “All this running around and monsters and things going bump in the night.”

Millie raised her eyebrows.

Armitage and Capshaw were in the backseat, trying to read, despite the lack of light.  Capshaw seemed more his old self after some gentle words from Armitage.

“No, thanks,” Armitage said.

“None for me, Dev,” Capshaw said.

Mr.  Kalabraise barked.

“Sounds like a yes to me,” Macky said.

“It was a protest,” Millie told him.

“Aren’t you edgy?” Macky said.

“You can have some when we save the city,” Millie said.  “We have too much to do.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“Would it matter?”

“Guess not,” he said.

—

They took the stairs to Macky’s office.  Capshaw and Armitage brought up the rear, both with a book Armitage had brought from the university.  Capshaw had a pencil, making notes in the margins of the one he was reading.  Armitage adjusted his glasses, using his index finger to keep his place.

Macky got to the door and opened it.  He stepped inside, Capshaw and Armitage following.

“Why do feel like I should’ve seen this coming,” Macky said, stopping with his hand on the doorknob.

Like Millie’s apartment, the Archive Room in the Museum, and now Macky’s office, the place had changed.  The office was still there—the desk, chair, coat rack, but the orbs had grown, piling behind Macky’s desk.  It looked like a nest.

The room had turned into a patchwork of several realities.  Landscapes, dreamscapes, and scenes looked familiar.  Part of Macky’s desk and the floor were here.  Eddies moved in the air, circular formations of stars, glowing orbs that were part of Yog-Sothoth, even though he was on the other side of space.  Maybe when the 13th Gate opened, he would have complete access.  Macky could make out the slice of a desert, the moon above the dunes.  Another place like ancient Egypt was visible, the home of the Mad Arab.  The other was the farm he’d seen earlier.  Cows in pastures, the man in coveralls with a pitchfork.

“Can several portals be opened in the same place?” he asked.

“I’m not sure there’s a law that limits them,” Armitage said.

The farmhouse, the land beyond was glowing with light. Someone had added to the structure, an extension to the left-wing.  The swirling taking place in the office was a mix of the same tarry stickiness.

“Yog-Sothoth is the gate!”